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according to the confession of our Churches, the seed of the covenant must, in virtue of the
promise of God, be presumed to be regenerated and sanctified in Christ, until, as they grow up,
the contrary appears from their life or doctrine; that it is, however, less correct to say that
baptism is administered to the children of believers on the ground of their presumptive
regeneration, since the ground of baptism is the command and the promise of God; and that
further the judgment of charity, with which the Church presumes the seed of the covenant to
be regenerated, by no means intends to say that therefore each child is really regenerated,
since the Word of God teaches that they are not all Israel that are of Israel, and it is said of
Isaac: in him shall thy seed be called (Rom. 9:6,7), so that in preaching it is always necessary to
insist on serious self-examination, since only those who shall have believed and have been
baptized will be saved.”[Acts of Synod, 1908, pp. 82 f.]
(3) Objection to the view that children are baptized on the ground of their covenant
relationship.
It has been said that, if children are baptized on the ground that they are born in
the covenant and are therefore heirs of the promise, they are baptized on another ground than
adults, since these are baptized on the ground of their faith or their profession of faith. But this
is hardly correct, as Calvin already pointed out in his day. The great Reformer answered this
objection effectively. The following is a translation of what Kramer says respecting Calvin’s
position on this point: “Calvin finds occasion here in connection with infant baptism, now that
he has taken the standpoint of the covenant, to draw the line farther. Up to this point he has
not called attention to the fact that adults too are baptized according to the rule of the
covenant. And therefore it might seem that there was a difference between the baptism of
adults and that of children. The adults to be baptized on the ground of their faith, infants, on
the ground of the covenant of God. No, the Reformer declares, the only rule according to
which, and the legal ground on which, the Church may administer baptism, is the covenant. This
is true in the case of adults as well as in the case of children. That the former must first make a
confession of faith and conversion, is due to the fact that they are outside of the covenant. In
order to be admitted into the communion of the covenant, they must first learn the
requirements of the covenant, and then faith and conversion open the way to the
covenant.”[Het Verband van Doop en Wedergeboorte, pp. 122 f.] The very same opinion is
expressed by Bavinck.[Geref. Dogm, IV. p. 581.] This means that, after adults find entrance into
the covenant by faith and conversion, they receive the sacrament of baptism on the ground of
this covenant relationship. Baptism is also for them a sign and seal of the covenant.
d. Infant baptism as a means of grace.
Baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. It
does not signify one thing and seal another, but sets the seal of God on that which it signifies.
According to our confessional standards and our Form for the administration of baptism, it
signifies the washing away of our sins, and this is but a brief expression for the removal of the