Genesis 17:9-14 And God said to Abraham, You shall keep my covenant therefore, you, and your seed after you in their generations.… Mark how this renewal of the covenant turns upon the consecration of children. Hitherto we have to do with grown-up people, but now we are brought face to face with little ones. We have hardly had a child at all as yet in this long history. One wonders what notice God will take of young life; will He say, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me," or will He shut them out of His view until they become great men? Is a child beneath God's notice? Listen to the covenant: "He that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you." What an oversight on the part of the Lord not to observe that a child eight days old could not understand what it was about! What a waste of piety to baptize an infant of days when it cannot understand what you are doing to it! It cries, poor thing; therefore, how ridiculous to baptize it! It plucks the preacher's gown, or chuckles and coos in the preacher's arms; therefore, how absurd to admit it into the covenant! For myself, let me say that when I baptize a child I baptize life — human life — life redeemed by the Son of God. The infant is something more than an infant, it is humanity; it is an heir of Christ's immortality. If there be anyone who can laugh at an infant and mock its weakness, they have no right to baptize and consecrate it, and give so mean a thing to God. God Himself baptizes only the great trees; does He ever baptize a daisy? He enriches Lebanon and Bashan with rain, but did He ever hang the dew of the morning upon the shrinking rose? Account for it as you please, God did appoint circumcision for the child eight days old! Christian baptism is founded upon this very covenant. Abraham was ninety-and-nine years old when he was circumcised; Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old; and then came the infant men-children. So in heathen countries the man is baptized, and the woman, and the child of days. We plead Divine precedent. Whatever objections stand against baptism stand against circumcision, and, therefore, stand against God. The child does not understand the alphabet, do not teach it; the child does not understand language, do not teach it; the child does not understand the Lord's Prayer, do not teach it. You say the child will understand by and by; exactly so; that answer is good; and by and by the child will understand that it was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, three persons in one God. Beautiful, too, is Christian baptism when regarded as the expansion of the idea of circumcision. It well befits a tenderer law; circumcision was severe; baptism is gentle: circumcision was limited to men-children; baptism is administered to all: circumcision was established in one tribe, or family, or line of descent; baptism is the universal rite — "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." So we go from law to grace; from Moses to the Lamb; from the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, to the quiet and holy Zion. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. |
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