It is admitted, readily, that a child at baptism does not understand the nature of the ordinance of which it is the subject, but that is no reason why it should not derive benefit thereby. It does not know the texture of the clothes that cover it, and yet those clothes keep it warm. It does not understand the nature of its mother’s milk, and yet that milk sustains its life. The children that were brought to Jesus that He might touch them (Mark 10:13-16) did not understand the ceremony that was gone through on that occasion, and yet we cannot but believe that Christ’s blessing did them good.

Thomas Witherow, I Will Build My Church: Selected Writings on Church Polity, Baptism, and the Sabbath, edited by Jonathan Gibson, 180.