<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]I still don't understand how Baptists regard children. Inside the covenant or outside? Part of the visible church or "gonna-be" Christians?</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>As a baptist, I would say that my child is outside the covenant. That is, if we understand that the covenant that is relevant to us as believers is the New Covenant. The New Covenant is only for those whose hearts have been changed by the work of the spirit and who have been justified by the death of Christ on the cross. <br>Unless you are prepared to either say that baptised infants have some efficacious work done in their heart, or hold to some rigid continuity between the Old and New Testaments, that allows you to view baptised infants who grow up to reject Christ as being able to be removed from the NC, how else would you understand the place of children in relation to the New Covenant?<br><br>Fred

"Ah, sitting - the great leveler of men. From the mightest of pharaohs to the lowest of peasants, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" M. Burns