They discuss the question, What shall be done with baptized children, who, on arriving at years of understanding, refuse to enter into covenant with God?
Church censures are asserted by some to be proper in such cases, even to excommunication, or interference in some judicial way by the church.

So long as I believe in regeneration by the Holy Spirit, I cannot feel that baptized children, as such, are, in any sense whatever, in which the term is generally received among men, _members_ of the church of Christ; while, in another and most important sense, they do belong to the church, hold a relation to it, and are a part of it.

Strictly speaking, and in the highest spiritual sense, they are not even "the lambs of Christ's flock;" for lambs have the nature of sheep; but the children of believers are, by nature, children of wrath, even as others.

And yet, in another sense, they hold a most important relation to the flock of Christ, as no other children do.

In its most important sense, they are not to the church even what they are to the state; they have no place whatever in the invisible church,--the church which is saved,--till they are born again.