Baptism
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“Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth, and the former shall not be<br />
remembered, nor come into mind. For as the days of a tree are the days of my<br />
people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not<br />
labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed<br />
of the Lord, and their offspring with them.” Isaiah 65: 17. 22, 23.<br />
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The fact which is often forgotton to our peril is, that family is the unit of the<br />
Kingdom of God and not individual. God actually thinks in terms of the<br />
mankind as a whole. Children are born citizens of the state in which their<br />
parents resided at the time of their birth. In virtue of their birth they are<br />
plenary citizens, bound by all the duties, and entitled to all the privileges of<br />
that relation, whenever they become capable of exercising them. From these<br />
duties they cannot be liberated. Of these privileges they cannot be deprived.<br />
When God selected Israel as a Kingdom of God , He told them Exo 19:5 Now<br />
therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye<br />
shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:<br />
Exo 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation..<br />
Peter uses the same words when referring to the new election. 1Peter 2:9 But<br />
ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar<br />
people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out<br />
of darkness into his marvellous light. The two kingdoms are identical. They<br />
are kingdoms and not a conglomeration of adult believing individuals.<br />
Somehow in the modern mind this aspect got lost.<br />
"And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou<br />
and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant which ye<br />
shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee: every man-child<br />
among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your<br />
foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And be<br />
that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in<br />
your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any<br />
stranger which is not of thy seed," Gen. 17 :9-12.<br />
In the old dispensation, then, children, all children that were born in the<br />
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