We hold, also, that although we are baptized only once, yet the gain that it symbolizes to us reaches over our whole lives and to our death, so that we have a lasting witness that Jesus Christ will always be our justification and sanctification. Nevertheless, although it is a sacrament of faith and penitence, yet as God receives little children into the Church with their fathers, we say, upon the authority of Jesus Christ, that the children of believing parents should be baptized. Read more»
French Confession (1559) art. 35
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Mike Brown
Mike Brown is pastor of Chiesa Riformata Filadelfia, Milan, Italy. Prior to serving in Italy he was pastor of Christ Reformed Church, Santee, CA. He is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California, a veteran of the United States Army, and author of Christ and the Condition: The Covenant Theology of Samuel Petto (1624–1711) (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012) and co-author (with Zach Keele) of Sacred Bond : Covenant Theology Explored (Grandville, MI: Reformation Fellowship, 2017).
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You mean that under the Abrahamic Covenant, God didn’t receive male infants until they were 8 days old?
John,
That’s not what any of the Reformed churches said. Please read it again more slowly. The Reformed churches receive the children of believers into membership outwardly because they have already been received into membership by God. Baptism is a recognition of what God has already done. We’re not Baptists. We don’t try to guess whether the child is a believer before we admit him to the visible church. We obey God’s command to admit believers and their children and trust his promise that he will be a God not only to believing parents but also to their children (Gen 17:7; Acts 2:39) and that the Lord will, in his time, bring our children to full possession of all the benefits of the covenant of grace.
Dr Clark, are there resources that deal with the Baptist claim that infant baptism is a byproduct of Sacralism?