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                                                                      	had brought up our children to Christ, and in a set form
                                                                      of mocking words had asked his blessing upon them, that
                                                                      it would have been bestowed?
                                                                      We have no record of an insincere petition made to
	But he speaks to us of  Insincere petitions;  and he tells           Christ (x)  But in all petitions which he quoted, he taught
          	to us that those who offered them "Had their reward"       the petitioner that it was the faith in which the peti-
That reward was the Honour in the eyes of men which they              tion was made, which (I speak rev[c]erently) permitted
denied:  and, "Greater damnation."                                    him to grant it.  To suppose that a petition offered with-
Such I believe to be the efficacy of the Baptismal prayers            out faith would have been granted, is to make Christ’s
uttered without faith.                                                repeated words meaningless.
                                                                      But isit in accordance with God’s dealings that the
                                                                      Child should thus be made a sufferer for the parents’ sin?
                                                                      
                                                                      	It seems to me futile to put this question - or to
                                                                      answer it.  If the parent did not bring the child to be
	Whether it render it so or not most therefore be de[i]c[s]ided       baptised at all, would the entire omission be any more
on abstract grounds;  we must our decision b[e]e influenced           the fault of the child than the unbelief of the parent
by any doubt or denial of what is again and again scrip-              in the act of bringing it:  But the Child, according to
turally asserted and practically manifest that the sin of             the maintenance of Baptismal Regeneration, would suffer
the parent is visited on the child.                                   for the sin of Omission.  Therefore why not for the Sin
                                                                      of Inf[n]idelity;  if that sin rendhes the act in the sight
                                                                      of God the same as an Omission x. 
                                                                      The question is therefore whether the formal bringing the
                                                                      Child to Christ and formally asking for his blessing would
                                                                      have procured it that blessing, and whether the sub-
                                                                      sequently instituted Rite of Baptism be one to which that
                                                                      blessing is thereafter formally attached, or only condition
                                                                      ally attached to its faithful performance.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]