God seems to love these federal headships, as we call them.

Abraham did not receive circumcision being a Jew, but, as the apostle says, "as a seal of the righteousness which is by faith, which he had while he was yet uncircumcised." We have Scripture for that, Mr.
Kelly.

And "the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after," did not disannul that covenant "that was confirmed before of God in Christ." How can you call circumcision a Jewish ordinance, when the Bible so explicitly denies it to be of Jewish origin?
_Mr.K._ O, I do not understand this Abrahamic covenant.

I take the New Testament for my guide.
_Mr.M._ You think well of the book of Psalms, I presume, as a help to prayer and pious feelings?
_Mr.K._ Yes; but in all matters of faith and practice, the New Testament, like the doings of the latest session of the legislature, is the rule for New Testament believers.

You might as well have tried to govern the ancient Jews with the New Testament, as enforce the laws of the Old Testament on us.
_Mr.M._ Is the privilege of having God stand in a special relation to my child an Old Testament ordinance, in the same sense with ceremonial observances?
_Mr.K._ Not exactly that, but it is a superstition to baptize children, now that circumcision is done away, and believers' baptism is enjoined.
_Mr.M._ Believers' baptism is enjoined, but children's baptism is not therefore prohibited.
_Mr.K._ But where is it enacted?
_Mr.M._ If the original form of dedicating children is essential, why is not the original form of the Sabbath essential, the very day which was first appointed?
How dare we change a day which God himself ordained from the beginning, until he makes the change as peremptory as the institution itself?
Have we any right to infer, in such an important matter?
Where is the express, divine command,--not precedent, example, usage, but where is the enactment,--making the first day of the week the Christian Sabbath?
_Mr.K._ So long as we may keep the thing, observing one day in seven, it makes no difference which day we keep, if we can all agree on one and the same day.