Believers and their Children

[Chris C]

Westminster Federalists like to point out to 1689 Federalists that their position [that the NC consists of believers only, and therefore the sign ought to be given to believers only] is untenable, because we can't truly know who is saved. We all know why that's not a good argument (i.e., our fallibility doesn't negate the fact that the nature of the covenant is what it is, and we can only do our best as fallible creatures to act in accordance with the rule of worship and obedience of the NC). But aside from that, would it be a good counterargument to point out they have the same "problem"? That is, on their view, the sign is to be given to believers and their children... but how can be "know" that the parents are true believers in order to properly baptize their child/children? Thoughts?

 

[brandonadams]

It just depends on who you're talking to. Usually they just mean those who profess faith.

WCF 25.2. The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children; and is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

 

[Chris C]

It just depends on who you're talking to. Usually they just mean those who profess faith.

That's what I figured. I was looking at WCF 28:4 where it says, "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized." At first glance it appears that only infants of believers are to be baptized, but I guess the first part "profess faith" would qualify the second part "believing parents." And I guess 25:2 makes that more clear.

Well then, I guess disregard. Ha.

 

[brandonadams]

A couple of additional comments.

1. Technically, we don't argue from the nature of the New Covenant (only regenerate) to the subjects of baptism. Rather, we argue from the positive law of Scripture regarding baptism (that it is for those who profess faith). Our argument about the New Covenant consisting only of the regenerate is applicable in response to the paedobaptist claim that all those in the covenant are to be baptized, and all who profess, along with their children, are in the New Covenant. To that we say "No, that's incorrect."

2. You can also point them to various reformed paedobaptists who point out the ordinances are for believers (not just professors), though because we are fallible, the ordinances may be lawfully administered to professors.

Ursinus on Who Ought to Come

Witsius: Baptism Belongs Only to the Elect

 

[Chris C]

That's true, we don't say, "We are only to baptize those who are regenerate." But you'd agree that there's a sense in which we do think only those who are regenerate should be baptized though right? i.e., de facto vs de jure...

Oh okay, so my observation wasn't completely useless; it'd be applicable to certain paedobaptists. That's good to know.

 

[Chris C]

And I'm not trying to convolute what we're saying. I'm just pointing out the nuances, I guess. There's a sense in which only regenerate should be baptized, because baptism is the sign of the NC, and the NC consists (de jure) of believers.

And there's another sense in which professing believers (who may not be regenerate) should be baptized, because we can't see into hearts.

 

[brandonadams]

But you'd agree that there's a sense in which we do think only those who are regenerate should be baptized though right? i.e., de facto vs de jure...

Yes. But per the links above, so do they.

VI. In the meantime, let it be observed that if we take the strictest view of baptism, it is in its true nature and in the judgment of God suited only to the elect, because it is always agreeable to truth. For since baptism is a sign and seal of that covenant in which God has made over to his covenanted people the benefits of saving grace and whatever has a sure connection with eternal life, it follows that those who neither have nor ever will have any right to the benefits of the covenant, in like manner have no right before God’s tribunal to the seal of the covenant. The ministers of religion, indeed, who, in regard to individuals, must be guided by the judgment of charity, cannot distinguish elect from non-elect, and thus they do not sin although they should occasionally sprinkle with the baptismal water those whom in strictness they ought not. To such persons, however, baptism conveys nothing that is truly good—no grace, no salvation does it signify and seal any more than a piece of wax impressed, perhaps, with beautiful characters and appended to fair paper on which nothing is written or to be written, or, if you please, appended to paper all over stained with foul blots so that nothing good can be written on it. The whole efficacy of baptism therefore—the whole of its saving use—is to be sought for in elect infants. Robert Abbot, Bishop of Salisbury, writing against Richard Thomson, chap. 7, finely remarks: “Even as the sacraments are the seals of grace, so do they exert their spiritual efficacy in those only who are the children of the promise and the heirs of grace.”
ON THE EFFICACY AND UTILITY OF BAPTISMIN THE CASE OF ELECT INFANTS WHOSE PARENTSARE UNDER THE COVENANT (131)

See also Who Should Be Baptized – Professors or Believers?

 

[brandonadams]

Rutherford too

Peter clearly insinuates that all who have received the Holy Ghost are to be baptized, Acts 8:47, as Philip, Acts 8:37, and that if the eunuch believed, he might be baptized. So that faith, to speak properly, does give us right to the seals; and to speak accurately, a visible profession of faith does not give a man right to the seals of grace, but only it does notify and declare to the Church that the man has right to the seals because he believes, and that the Church may lawfully give to him the seals, and that profession is a condition required in the right receivers of the seals in an ecclesiastical way

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A57969.0001.001/1:6.11?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline Penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker (1658)
ch. 16, ‘Of the Principal & Prime Subject of All the Privileges of Special Note Bestowed in the Mediator Christ upon the Church’, pp. 77-81
“…it becometh not Mr. Hooker with Arminians and Socinians to impeach the wisdom of the Holy One, because He appoints the giving of the seals, baptism to Judas and to Magus, who have no right, true and real in foro Dei [in the court of God], in the Decree of God, and in his holy intention, as I spake [on] pp. 248, 249, to the seals, and the grace sealed; nor to the engraven Law, and God’s teaching of the heart, and to perseverance; ..
Again, God giveth a right to the seals to hypocrites; that is, he commandeth the Church to give the seals to Magus, whether such really or hypocritically believe; this is a right not properly inherent in visible members, for their profession, yea, or their supposed conversion:
1. Because all saving and real right to ordinances is relative to election to glory, and flows from the merit of Christ’s death; but visible professors, as such, of whose society Magus and Judas are, have not any saving and real right, as chosen and redeemed in Christ, by grant of our [Congregationalist] Brethren.
2. A right flowing only from an external profession, and from composed hypocrisy in Magus, is no true right; a lie cannot give a true right: I offend that Mr. Hooker so anxiously contends for a charter to such bastards as Magus.
3. It is a favor to hear the Gospel and partake of the seals; and jus activum, ‘an active right’ the Church and ministers have to call and admit to the seals all who profess as Magus, that the elect in the visible Church may be converted, but it is not a right proprie dictum ne quidem Ecclesiasticum [properly said with certainty to the Church], that they have who are such hypocrites as Judas and Magus; for the command and revealed Will of God most unproperly is said to give Magus a right to the seals: Except [for] Mr. Hooker, never [a] divine so spake; the command reveals the right, but gives none.
As also the right of visible professors is jus passivum, and a conditional and passive right; for Magus and Judas have no right to be visible members, or to partake of the seals, yea or to profess the Covenant and Name of God, Ps. 50:16, but upon condition of faith: for God cannot command sin and an hypocritical profession: yea, He forbids [their] treading in his courts, Isa. 1:12-13, except they repent and believe, vv. 16, 17; therefore Magus sins in professing, and in being baptized: he remaining rotten. But the Church sins not, but does the command of Christ in calling, inviting all that profess, whether they be really, or in the judgement of charity, converts or no.
Which distinction not being observed, our [congregationalist] Brethren and Mr. Hooker mistake the nature of an ecclesiastical right; for the Lord in the command gives to all visible professors, such as Peter, who really believe, both the ecclesiastic and external right to the seals which He decreed to give them, and the same internal and real right which they have by faith, and no other than according to his eternal decree, they have given them in time by real believing.
But for hypocrites, as Magus, they have no right ecclesiastic to the seals, but a sort of active and permissive right, by which they claim room in the visible Church, and the seals from the Church. Therefore taking the Church-visible as only visible, as contra-distinguished from the invisible and really believing: and as visibility is common to both Peter and Magus, and their external profession obvious to the eye of man, so the visible Church hath no right that is true and real to the seals.
So I retort the Argument upon Mr. Hooker: True real believers, as Peter, and hypocrites, as Magus, have either one and the same Church-right to membership and seals, or another, and diverse. The same right they cannot have:
1. Because the right of truly and really believing ones, is according to the decree of election, such as the Lord ordained to be purchased to them by the merits of Christ, and also according to the Lord’s revealed Will. He who believes hath right to eat of the Tree of Life, and to membership and seals: But this right Magus and hypocrites have not, for they have no part in Christ.
2. The right that believers, as Peter and John, have, is by fulfilling of the condition. He who believes, and loves to be reformed, hath right to the Covenant, promises, to perseverance, to the anointing that teacheth all things. These are promised and decreed to them, Jer. 31:33-34 & 32:38-40; Isa. 54:10-11 & 59:20-21; compared with Acts 13:47-48; Jn. 6:44-46 & 6:37 & 10:26-27; and to them only, not to Magus and to reprobates.
3. Magus, and such like wooden and tree-legs, might claim the same life, living membership, lively and vital operations, and to have the anointing, and to be kept through faith unto salvation by the power of God, 1 Pet. 1:4 and to have the fear of God put in their hearts, that they should not depart from God, as Jer. 31:39-40, if they have the same right to membership and the seals in their substance and grace signified with sound believers. And this is most absurd.”

 

[Chris C]

Yea, I read the articles after I posted that, and noticed I'm just saying the same thing they are lol