"He that _believeth_ and is baptized shall be saved, and he that _believeth_ not, shall be damned," Matt.xvi.16.And Philip said to the eunuch, "If thou _believest_ with all thy heart, thou mayest be baptized," Acts viii.37.

"_Repent_ and be baptized," Acts ii.

38; viii.

62; xviii.8.Hence if baptism required previous faith and repentance, or conversion in adults, and if, when they were destitute of this faith or conversion, they were damned, notwithstanding their baptism; it follows that baptism was not, and is not, a converting ordinance in adults, and does not necessarily effect or secure their regeneration.
Now that baptism cannot accomplish more in infants than in adults, is self-evident; hence if it is not a converting ordinance in adults, it cannot be in infants.
The effects of baptism on _infants are nowhere specified in Scripture;_ hence we must suppose them to be same as in adults, so far as children are naturally capable of them.

Of _regeneration_, in the proper sense of the term, infants are incapable; for it consists in a radical change in our religious views of the divine character, law, &c.; a change in our religious feelings, and in our religions purposes and habits of action; of none of which are children capable.
Again, as regeneration does not destroy but merely restrains the natural depravity, or innate, sinful dispositions of the Christian, (for these still remain in him after conversion,) it must consist mainly in a change, of that _increased predisposition to sin arising from action, of that preponderance of _sinful habits_ formed by voluntary indulgence of our natural depravity, after we have reached years of moral agency.