←1828
←1828
Luke 12.47, 48. Thus P. Henry ‘in dealing with his children about their spiritual state, took hold of them very much by the handle of their infant baptism; and frequently inculcated upon them, that they were born in God’s house, and were in good time dedicated and given up to him, and therefore were obliged to be his servants.’ Life, p. 83. Compare Psalm cxvi. 16. Thus his son bears his personal testimony to the value of this ordinance. ‘I cannot help but take occasion’ (he said) ‘to express my gratitude to God for my infant baptism; not only, as it was an early admission into the visible body of Christ; but as it furnished my pious parents with a good argument (and as I trust, through grace was a prevailing argument) for an early dedication of myself to God in my childhood. If God has wrought any good work upon my soul, I desire with humble thankfulness to acknowledge the moral influence of my infant baptism upon it.’ Treatise on Baptism, p. 118. ‘As to the real influence of baptism,—he adds, however, in another place—‘when the children grow up, we are sure that their baptismal regeneration, without something else, will not bring them to heaven: and yet it may be urged in praying to God to give them grace, and in persuading them to submit to it. Matthew Henry on Baptism, pp. 130, 131.