The children of believing parents, at least their next and immediate seed, even of us Gentiles now under the Gospel, are included by God within the covenant of Grace, as well as Abraham’s or David’s seed within that covenant of theirs. Thomas . . . Continue reading →
HeidelQuotes
Calvin: The Abrahamic Covenant And The New Covenant Are Substantially Identical
Both can be explained in one word. The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so much like ours in substance and reality that the two are actually one and the same. Yet they differ in the mode of dispensation. But because . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Children Are Included In The New Covenant Because It Is Abrahamic
Yet Scripture opens to us a still surer knowledge of the truth. Indeed, it is most evident that the covenant which the Lord once made with Abraham [cf. Gen. 17:14] is no less in force today for Christians than it was of . . . Continue reading →
Zanchi: We Agree With The Ancient Church That Children Are Included In The New Covenant
We believe, with the whole ancient Church, that not only adults who have declared that they repent of their sins and believe in Christ, but also their little children, must be admitted to the sacrament of baptism, since the covenant also concerns . . . Continue reading →
Vermigli: The Reformed Accept The Children Of Believers As Members Of The Church
We do not exclude the children of believers from the church, but accept them as members, with the hope that they are partakers of divine election and have the grace and Spirit of Christ, even as they are the seed of saints. . . . Continue reading →
Turretin: Christ Included Children Into New Covenant
Because to infants belongs the kingdom of heaven according to the declaration of Christ: “Little children were brought unto Christ, that he should put his hands on them and pray” (Mt. 19:13*). Since the disciples would repel them, Christ said, “Suffer little . . . Continue reading →
Vos On Perserverance
If someone Reformed is asked on what his perseverance in the state of grace rests, then he will not answer, “On something in me, on the power and the capacity for withstanding of the new life that I possess,” but, “Solely on . . . Continue reading →
The “New Christian Right” Mirrors YRR?
We are now1 supposed to call the Online, Sometimes-Somewhat-Reformed Christian Nationalists and their assorted adjacencies the “New Christian Right” rather than the opprobrious but apt denominator “Woke Right.” Well, that’s fine—movements have the risky right to attempt rebranding. Remember “New Coke”? Nomenclature aside, we’ve noticed . . . Continue reading →
Bavinck: We Baptize Infants On The Basis Of The Covenant
Not regeneration, faith, or repentance, much less our assumptions pertaining to them, but only the covenant of grace gave people, both adults and children, the right to baptism. Continue reading →
Warfield: Covenant Theology Is Fundamental To Reformed Theology
The architectonic principle of the Westminster Confession is supplied by the schematization of the Federal theology, which had obtained by this time in Britain, as on the Continent, a dominant position as the most commodious mode of presenting the corpus of Reformed doctrine (so . . . Continue reading →
Francis’ Playbook For Church Growth Should Not Be Ours
Unless Pope Francis has been praying to Martin Luther for five weeks before his release from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, an extension for his reform movement is unlikely to raise cheers from the faithful. To be sure, if he wants to host more . . . Continue reading →
Where Are All The Women?
We are very reliably informed that a recent visitor to a PCA church circled all the names of the church’s officers in the printed worship bulletin and wrote, “Where are all the women?” on the page, which he or she duly folded and dropped in . . . Continue reading →
Parents, Spend Your Tuition Dollars Wisely
Davidson College officials have launched an investigation into a student, Cynthia Huang, the president of Davidson College’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. In two separate incidents, Huang spoke out against Palestinian and transgender claims. In a disciplinary letter, Mak Tompkins, Davidson’s . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun Contra Final Salvation Through Works
If he knows not the difference between the law and the gospel, he will be apt, especially in the affair of justification, to confound the one with the other. The consequence will be that in his painful experience, bondage will be mixed . . . Continue reading →
Confessions Give Us Roots
Not only are Christian confessions consistent with Scripture and church history, they are practically conducive to positive societal engagement. Historic confessions help ground our evangelistic method in the larger scope of church history, essentially protecting us against inventing some new doctrine, or . . . Continue reading →
Don’t Leave It In The Vault
As is especially evident in today’s context, it’s one thing to adopt a confession and quite another to be confessional’ to think, witness, live, and worship consistently with our profession. A confession can be a historical document that we leave in the . . . Continue reading →
Owen: To Deny Baptism To The Children Of Believers Is To Deny Christ’s Faithfulness
To deny that the children of believing, professing parents…have the same right and interest with their parents in the covenant, is plainly to deny the fidelity of Christ in the discharge of his office. John Owen | The Works of John Owen, . . . Continue reading →
Luther On God Pleasing Despair
I remember that Staupitz used to say: “More than a thousand times I have vowed to God that I would improve, but I have never performed what I have vowed. Hereafter I shall not make such vows, because I know perfectly well . . . Continue reading →
Warfield: God Placed The Children Of Believers In The Church
But now, having run through these various arguments, to what conclusion do we come? Are they sufficient to set aside our reasoned conviction, derived from some such argument as Dr. Hodge’s, that infants are to be baptized? A thousand times no. So . . . Continue reading →
Colquhoun: The Law And The Gospel Both Promise Eternal Life
The law, as it has a promise of life, is very unlike the gospel. The former promises eternal life to a man on condition of his own perfect obedience and of the obedience of no other, whereas the latter promises it on . . . Continue reading →