mbers of the
church." Except discipline, it is obvious that everything in the way of
watchfulness may be done for them as children of the church, which it
would be proper, or even possible to do, if they were counted as
members.

_Mr. R._ I am aware of the analogy which many, who plead for the term
members, seek to carry out between the Old and the New Testament church,
making children members of the Christian church, because the church in
ancient days included the children. But it seems to me that there is
the same difference, now and formerly, between the relation of children
to the church, that there is between the relation of the whole religious
community, now and formerly, to the church of God. Formerly, all the
members of the religious community were, by their association under the
same belief and worship, members of the church. To make the case with us
parallel, our whole Christian community ought to be members of the
church. No examination or discrimination should be used; to belong to
the Christian community should constitute church-membership.

But this, we know, is not the case. God chooses now to make up his
visible church not as formerly, but of those who give credible evidence
of regeneration. They who worship with us, but do not profess to be
Christians, are hopeful subjects of effort and prayer, whom we expect to
receive hereafter to the visible church, on profession of their faith.

As the Christian church is constituted differently from the Jewish
church, in this respect, discrimination and separation taking place
between the members of a Christian congregation, have we not analogical
reason to infer that it may also be thus with regard to children?--who
once, indeed, were members of the church of God, but, under the
dispensation of the Spirit, they fall, with other unconverted members of
the congregation, out of membership in the church.

_Mr. C._ And yet, Br. R., the fall is not far, nor hurtful. They are
entitled to all the privileges, and they enjoy, or should enjoy, all the
care and effort, which they would have under a different name. Only they
do not come to the Lord's Supper, as a matter of course, as they did to
the Passover.

_Mr. S._ Suppose that the legislature should incorporate a fish-market,
and cede to the proprietors fifteen square miles of the sea, within
which they should have the privilege of taking fish. All the fish,
within those fifteen miles of salt water, might be said to