B.: Well, if baptism really did replace circumcision — which is administrable only to males — would you please tell me why you Presbyterians also baptize little girls as well as little boys, even though it was only the little boys that were circumcised in former times?
P.: It should be remembered that even circumcision was instituted only as a sign of purification from sin,33 and that sin origin-ally polluted the human race, not only through the federal transgression of Adam as the male head of the entire human race but circumstantially through the disobedience of woman.34 As a result of sin, woman was subjected to mans rule, and in this — on account of her leading role in bringing about the fall — she for-feited any right she may otherwise have had to the sign of circumcision which foreshadowed the atoning death of Christ,35 and which in later times was given only to faithful males and their male infants as the sign of faith.36
