The Children of Believers and the Sign of the Covenant
Who belongs in the visible covenant, and what is the sign?
Settled clearly
Background
Reformed paedobaptism rested on the continuity of the covenant: the children of believers, included in Abraham's covenant by circumcision (Gen. 17), are included in the same covenant of grace under the New Testament administration and receive its sign (baptism). Particular Baptists, gathering in London in the 1640s and publishing their First London Confession in 1644, denied this continuity: only professing believers and their profession-marked baptism belong to the visible covenant. The Anabaptists more broadly were a long-standing Reformed target. But Antinomians and some radical Independents also pressed credobaptist arguments.
The Assembly’s handling
The Assembly affirmed paedobaptism without significant internal dissent — even the Independent Dissenting Brethren held it. WCF XXV.2 includes 'all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children' in the visible church. XXVIII.4 makes baptism the sign that '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.' The 1644 First London Confession (Particular Baptist) is rejected implicitly by the Standards' adoption of the covenantal-continuity argument.
Parties
The paedobaptist consensus (Presbyterian + Independent)
The covenant of grace, one in substance through both testaments, includes the children of believers and gives them its sign. Baptism replaces circumcision as the covenant sign (Col. 2:11-12).
- Edmund Calamy the Elder (1600–1666)
- Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600–1661)
- Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680)
- Philip Nye (1595–1672)
- William Bridge (1600–1671)
- Anthony Tuckney (1599–1670)
The credobaptist alternative (rejected; outside the Assembly)
Only those who profess faith are members of the visible covenant and receive its sign. The covenant under the New Testament administration is differently structured from the Abrahamic, with believer-baptism the proper sign. Articulated in the First London Confession (1644) and later the 1689 Second London Confession.
Confessional language
WCF XXVIII.4: '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.'
Ontology placement
This crux bears on the following attribute of the Westminster ontology. The Westminster baseline value is marked WCF.
III · Covenant · Children of Believers
Legacy
The 1689 Particular Baptist Second London Confession — which adopted the rest of the Westminster Confession nearly verbatim — rewrote chapter XXVIII on baptism along credobaptist lines, providing the most thorough Reformed credobaptist confessional statement. The Halfway Covenant (1657, 1662) in New England extended visible covenant membership to baptised non-communicants' children — an innovation Westminster's drafters would have found puzzling. The Edwards-Stoddard dispute over the Lord's Supper (1748-50) turned partly on whether the Halfway Covenant was a legitimate development of WCF XXV.2.