A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian EcclesiasticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
2. But suppose it were otherwise, yet either the children of true
believers have the true condition of right to the special blessings of
the covenant, or they have not the condition of any at all. For there
can no more be required of an infant, as to any special blessings of
the covenant, than that he be the child of believing parents, and by
them dedicated to God. Either this condition entitleth them to all the
covenant promises which the adult believer is entitled to, (as far as
their natures are capable,) or it entitleth them to none at all; nor
are they to be baptized; for God hath in Scripture instituted but one
baptism, (to profess one faith,) and that one is ever for the
remission of sins:[277] "He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved," Mark xvi. 16.
3. Or if all the rest were granted you, yet it would follow that all
infants in the world, even of true believers, are left out of God's
covenant of grace, that is, the covenant or promise of pardon and
life; and are only taken into the covenant of church privileges. And
so, 1. You will make two covenants, (which you denied,) and not only
two sorts of benefits of one covenant. 2. And two species of baptism;
while all infants in the world are only under a covenant of outward
privileges, and have no baptism, but the seal of that covenant, while
believers have the covenant, promise, and seal of pardon and life.
2. And this is my second reason; because then we have no promise or
certainty, or ground of faith, for the pardon and salvation of any
individual infants in the world. And so parents are left to little
comfort for their children. And if there be no promise there is no
faith of it, nor any baptism to seal it; and so we still make
antipædobaptism unavoidable. For who dare set God's seal to such as
have no promise? or pretend to invest any in a near and saving
relation to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (which is the very
nature of baptism,) when God hath given no such commission?
_Object._ Yes: baptism and the covenant of special promises are for
all the elect, though we know not who they are.
_Answ._ 1. I deny not God's eternal, antecedent election; but I deny
that the Scripture ever mentioneth his pardoning or glorifying any,
upon the account of election only, without certain spiritual
conditions, which may be given as the reason of the difference in
judgment. God may freely give the gospel to whom he will, and also
faith or the first grace by the gospel, without any previous condition
in man, but according to his free election only: but he giveth pardon
and heaven as a rector by his equal laws and judgment; and always
rendereth a reason of the difference, from the qualifications of man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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