he prophet Jeremiah it is written: (Jer. i. 5)
"_Before thou earnest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee._" Of
John the Baptist it is written: (Luke i. 15) "_He shall be filled with
the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb_". To Timothy, Paul says:
"_From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to
make thee wise unto salvation_," and in speaking of Timothy's faith
Paul says, that faith "_dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy
mother Eunice_." Psalms lxxi. 5-6: "_Thou art my trust from my youth.
By thee have I been holden up from the womb._"

It is therefore possible for God, not only to give His Grace to a
child, but to keep that child in His Grace all its days. To dispute
this is, simply, to dispute the record that God gave.

Lest some one should still say, however, that the examples above
noted are isolated and exceptional, we note further, that the tenor of
the whole Word is in harmony with this idea. Nowhere in the whole
Bible is it even intimated that it is God's desire or plan that
children must remain outside of the covenant of Grace, and have no
part or lot in the benefits of Christ's redeeming work until they come
to years of discretion and can choose for themselves. This modern idea
is utterly foreign and contradictory to all we know of God, of His
scheme of redemption, and of His dealings with His people, either in
the old or new dispensation. He ordained that infants at eight days
old should be brought into His covenant. He recognized infant children
as partakers of the blessings of His covenant. "_Out of the mouth of
babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise_;" "_Suffer them to come
unto Me_." Everywhere it is taken for granted that the children who
have received either the Old or New Testament sacrament of initiation
are His. Nowhere are parents exhorted to use their endeavors to have
such children converted, as though they had never been touched by
divine Grace. But everywhere they are exhorted to keep them in that
relation to their Lord, into which His own ordinance has brought them.
Gen. xviii. 19, "_I know that he will command his household after him,
and that they shall keep the way of the Lord_." Psalm lxxviii. 6, 7,
"_That the generation to come might know them, even the children which
should be born, which should arise and declare them to their children,
that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of
God, but keep His commandment