Duty Arising from Baptism

All baptized persons are members of the Church. Their duty, therefore, to acknowledge Christ before the world rests on yet clearer grounds. It is true, we do not ascribe a regenerating grace to their baptism; but we must not go to the other extreme of making this precious ordinance a nullity. Those who have been baptized stand in a relation to the Church different from that of the world at large. They have been designated as disciples or learners, and, where the parental obligations have been’ discharged, have been trained in religiou3 knowledge. Such children of the Church should often consider the privileges and benefits sealed by this ordinance. They should be humbled for their sins, and for falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism and its engagements. They Bhoiild feel bound to the faith and practice signified by their symbolical separation from the world. Children born within the pale of the visible Church, and dedicated to God in baptism, are to be taught to read, and repeat the Catechism, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles’ Creed, to abhor sin, to fear God, to pray, and to obey the Lord Jesus. And when they arrive at years of discretion, it behooves every one of them to consider the duty of ratifying the vows made in their name, by a personal avowal of allegiance to Christ. The case of such is therefore widely different from that of the world without.