We have decided, in accordance with the Word of God, that despite the howls of Servetus and the new Anabaptists, infants must be baptized together with adults, for the following reasons:
1. The matter of the sacrament, the covenant itself, righteousness, life, entry to the church, and regeneration pertain also to the infants of the elect from God’s covenant; therefore the sign must also be given to them. “I will be your God and the God of your seed. My Spirit will not depart from you and My words from your seed” (Gen. 17:7; 22; Isa. 59:21).
2. Christ called little children to Himself (Zeyrim and Nearim, ta brephe kai paidia) (Mark 9; 10:13; Luke 18:15), i.e., infants and little boys, and reproved the apostles for prohibiting them. Christ took them in His arms and blessed them and said that they believed in Him (Matt. 18:3–6; Mark 9:36–37; 10:14–15). But if they had not been infants and children at the breast, He would not have taken them in His arms. Therefore infants must be baptized. The followers of Servetus prattle impiously that infant dogs do not believe, do not hear, do not learn, are not regenerated, and are not sanctified. Since they listen, learn, believe, and are pleasing to God from the Father, in the merit of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit in the hidden school, therefore they believe, because no one is pleasing to Him without faith (Heb. 11:6; Rom. 10, 14; Matt. 18–19).
3. Infants were circumcised by the command of God (Gen. 17:12), but baptism has replaced circumcision, as the apostle compares the two (Rom. 2, 4, 6; Col. 2–3), and they are seals and symbols of the same thing, i.e., regeneration and entry into the church (Col. 2–3; Deut. 10). Therefore infants must be baptized because the verdict on similar things is in agreement.
4. There is a universal commandment to go out into the world and teach and baptize all; he that believes will be saved. Adults are taught directly and externally by ministers of the church, but infants are taught indirectly—externally by those who offer them to the church, internally by the Holy Spirit, that through the power of the Holy Spirit, they may believe. Moreover believe they do, as is written in Matthew 18 and 19, Mark 9 and 10, and Luke 5 and 18. The apostle Paul baptized the whole of Stephen’s household. All Judea went out to John, and among them there were infants, as the story teaches (1 Cor. 1; Matt. 1; Luke 3; John 1–2). Therefore all are accepted who come for baptism making the confession of the catholic and apostolic creed, i.e., who confirm that they accept the religion, faith, and doctrine and approve those things which are contained in the Apostles’ Creed. As may be shown from Hebrews 5 and 6 and Galatians 6, the Creed has served in the church from the beginning as a symbol and token, a mark and sign. Further arguments and proof can be seen in the Hungarian booklet published in August of this year 1567 on the Trinity, in which the ingenious contrivances and arguments of Servetus are refuted (Debrecen Synod, ch. 69).
James T. Dennison Jr. ed., Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation: 1523–1693, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008–14), 131–33.
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