The covenants may have been made in Holland,
as Professor Park said, but the covenant that em-
braces Abraham and his seed was true before the
dikes of Holland were bmlt. Baptism made the
child a member of the church, and Christian train-
ing was expected to fulfill and perfect the relation
so far as it could under the limitations of the
theology.^

These were stringent and perplexing enough;

' The relation of baptized children to the chnrch has never
been clearly defined by the Congregational churches of New
England. The system, as embracing a theology and an ecclesi-
astical order, is at war with itself. The Cambridge Platform
in 1648, under the still fresh reaction from the state church, al-
lowed none to be members of the Church but such as gave evi-
dence of spiritually renewed character. But as baptism was a
requisite to citizenship in most of the colonies, it was found that
the State was limiting its citizens beyond the bounds of safety.
