CHAPTER XVI.05

XV. See, now, the importance and the estimate to be formed of the promise given to the posterity of Abraham. Therefore, though we have no doubt that the distinction of the heirs of the kingdom from those who have no share in it, is the free act of the sovereign election of God, yet, at the same time, we perceive that he has been pleased to display his mercy in a peculiar manner on the seed of Abraham, and to testify and seal it by circumcision. The same reason is applicable to the Christian Church. For as Paul, in that passage, argues that the children of the Jews were sanctified by their parents, so, in another place,

[1179]

he teaches that the children of Christians derive the same sanctification from their parents; whence it is inferred, that they who, on the contrary, are condemned as impure, are deservedly separated from others. Now, who can doubt the falsehood of the consequence attempted to be established, that the infants who were circumcised in former ages, only prefigured those who are infants in a spiritual sense, being regenerated by the word of God? Paul does not reason in this manner, when he says, “that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers;”

[1180]

as if he had said, Since the covenant made with Abraham relates to his seed, Jesus Christ, in order to execute and discharge the promise once pledged by the Father, came to save the people of the Jews. We see how, even after the resurrection of Christ, Paul understands that the promise of the covenant is to be fulfilled, not only in an allegorical sense, but, according to the literal import of the words, to the natural seed of Abraham. To the same effect is the declaration of Peter to the Jews, “The promise is unto you and to your children,”

[1181]

and the appellation under which he addresses them, “Ye are the children of the covenant,”

[1182]

and if children, then heirs. A similar sentiment is conveyed in another passage of the apostle, which we have already quoted, where he represents the circumcision performed on infants as a testimony of the communion which they have with Christ.

[1183]

And, on the contrary principle, what will become of that promise, by which the Lord, in the second precept of his law, declares to his servants, that he will be merciful to their seed, even to a thousand generations?

[1184]

Shall we here have recourse to allegories? That would be a frivolous evasion. Shall we say that this promise is cancelled? That would be subversive of the law, which, on the contrary, Christ came to establish, as a rule, for a holy life. It ought to be admitted, therefore, beyond all controversy, that God is so kind and liberal to his servants, as, for their sakes, to appoint even the children who shall descend from them to be enrolled among his people.

XVI. The other differences which they endeavour to establish between baptism and circumcision, are not only ridiculous, and destitute of every appearance of reason, but are even repugnant to each other. For after they have affirmed that baptism belongs to the first day of the spiritual conflict, but circumcision to the eighth, when the mortification is already completed,—immediately forgetting this, they change their story, and call circumcision a sign of the mortification of the flesh, and baptism a symbol of a burial, to which none are to be consigned but those who are already dead. Where can we find another instance of such levity of self-contradiction? For, according to the first proposition, baptism ought to precede circumcision; according to the second, it ought to follow it. Yet it is not a new thing for the minds of men to run into such inconsistencies, when they prefer their own dreams to the unerring word of God. We say, therefore, that the first of these differences is a mere dream. If they wished to allegorize on the eighth day, yet there was no propriety in this manner of doing it. It would have been much better to follow the ancients, and refer the number of the day either to the resurrection of Christ, which took place on the eighth day, and on which we know that newness of life depends; or to the whole course of the present life, which ought to be a course of progressive mortification, till, at the termination of life, the mortification also should be completed. It is probable, however, that God deferred circumcision to the eighth day on account of the tenderness of young infants, whose lives might be endangered by the performance of that rite immediately on their birth. Nor is there much more solidity in the second position, that, after being dead, we are buried by baptism; since the Scripture expressly teaches, that “we are buried by baptism into death,”

[1185]

in order to our entrance on a course of mortification, and continuance in it from that time forward! Nor is there any more propriety in the objection, that, if it be necessary to conform baptism to circumcision, women ought not to be baptized. For if it be evident, that the sign of circumcision testified the sanctification of the seed of Israel, there can be no doubt that it was given equally for the sanctification of males and females. And though only the males were circumcised, they alone being capable of it, the females were in a certain sense partakers of their circumcision. Dismissing such follies, therefore, let us never forget the similarity of baptism and circumcision, between which we discover a complete agreement in the internal mystery, the promises, the use, and the efficacy.