Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1875-07-01

Your CHILDREN. Two questions in refer,
ence to this passage deserve consideration
First, what is the promise? Second, who are
meant by children? Mr.. Barnes says that
the promise is the promise of the Holy Spirit
alluded to by Peter just before, and that
children here may mean posterity. But
think that his Interpretation is incorrect
Peter in bis next address in Acts iii. %, says
eye are the children ofthe prophets and Of the
covenant which God made with our fathers
saying unto Abraham: In thy seed shall all
the kindreds of the earth be blessed" As
the covenant here meant that made with
Abraham and his seed, so have no doubt
the promise mentioned is that of God to
Abraham to be God to him and his seed
after him. The word children here doubtless
means the infant offspring the Jews had then
and those they might have afterwards Those
who deny that Peter refers to infants, make
the meaning to be this: The promise is toyou
if you believe, and to your children if they
believe. That is, not because they are your
children, or sustain any more relation to you
than the children of pagans; but if they be-
come believers, then the promise will be for
them as for you. Peter does not say the pro-
mise is or will be to your children when they
become adults, but is now, both to parents
and children. And notice that Peter con.
meets baptism with the promise just as crcum.
cision was before. The believer was circum.
cised in token Of the covenant and the pro.
mise. And as the same covenant and pro.
mise included the child, therefore it was cir.
cumcised in token of that fact.
When, therefore, Peter says: "Repent
and be baptized" and the believing Jew asks
why, the answer is: because the promise is to
YOU and your children. If you believe, you
have the promise that God will be your God ;
and must be baptized. If you believe, the
promise is also to your child, and it must be
baptized. A Jew who had been accustomed
to the circumcision of infants as token of
their being members of the Church of God
would not suppose Peter meant only adults
when he referred to the promise.
The argument for infant baptism derived
from this text is that the Jews were accus'
toned to consider children bound up in the
same covenant with their parents, and the
language of Peter here is only an inspired
transfer and reassertion of the Jewish family
IDEAS Christian Luteligencer.
THE RELIGION WE WANT.-We want a
religion that bears heavily, not only on the
"exceeding sinfulness Of sin, " but on the ex-
ceeding rascality of lying and stealing; re-
ligion that banishes small measures from the
counters, pebbles from the cotton-bags, clay
from the paper, sand from the sugar, chick.
ory from the coffee, alum from the bread, and
water from the milk cans. The religion that
is to save the world will not put all the big
Strawberries at the top and all the little ones
at the bottom. 1t will not make one half a
pair of shoes of good leather, so that the first
shall rebound to the makers credit and the
second to his cash. 1t will not put Jouvin's
stamp on Jenkins kid gloves; nor make
Paris bonnets in the back room of Boston
milliner shop; nor let piece of velvet that
processes to measure twelve yards, come to an
untimely end in the tenth. 1t does not put
bricks at FIVE dollars thousand into chin.
neys it contracts to build with seven-dollar
MATERIAL nor smuggle white pine into floors
that bave paid for hard pine; nor leave
yawning cracks in closets where boards
ought to join. The religion that is going to
sanctify the world, pays its debts. 1t does
not consider that forty cents returned from
one hundred cents given. is according to the
gospel, though it may be according to the
law. 1t looks on a man who has failed in
trade, and who continues to live in luxury, as
thief.-The Christian.