CHAPTER XVI.06

XVII. They consider themselves as advancing a most powerful argument for excluding infants from baptism, when they allege, that by reason of their age they are not yet capable of understanding the mystery signified in it; that is, spiritual regeneration, which cannot take place in early infancy. Therefore they conclude, they are to be considered in no other view than as children of Adam, till they have attained an age which admits of a second birth. But all these things are uniformly contradicted by the truth of God. For if they must be left among the children of Adam, they are left in death; for in Adam we can only die. On the contrary, Christ commands them to be brought to him. Why? Because he is life. To give them life, therefore, he makes them partakers of himself; while these men, by driving them away from him, adjudge them to death. For if they pretend that infants do not perish, even though they are considered as children of Adam, their error is abundantly refuted by the testimony of Scripture. For when it pronounces that “in Adam all die,”

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it follows that there remains no hope of life but in Christ. In order to become heirs of life, therefore, it is necessary for us to be partakers of him. So, when it is said, in other places, that we are “by nature the children of wrath,”

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and “conceived in sin,”

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with which condemnation is always connected, it follows, that we must depart from our own nature, to have any admission to the kingdom of God. And what can be more explicit than this declaration, “that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God?”

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Let every thing of our own, therefore, be destroyed, which will not be effected without regeneration, and then we shall see this possession of the kingdom. Lastly, if Christ speaks the truth, when he declares himself to be “life,”

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it is necessary for us to be ingrafted into him, that we may be rescued from the bondage of death. But how, it is inquired, are infants regenerated, who have no knowledge either of good or evil? We reply, that the work of God is not yet without existence, because it is not observed or understood by us. Now, it is certain that some infants are saved; and that they are previously regenerated by the Lord, is beyond all doubt. For if they are born in a state of corruption, it is necessary for them to be purified before they are admitted into the kingdom of God, into which “there shall in no wise enter any thing that defileth.”

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If they are born sinners, as both David and Paul affirm, either they must remain unacceptable and hateful to God, or it is necessary for them to be justified. And what do we require more, when the Judge himself declares that there is no entrance into the heavenly life, except for those who are born again?

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And, to silence all objectors, by sanctifying John the Baptist in his mother’s womb, he exhibited an example of what he was able to do for others. Nor can they gain any advantage by their frivolous evasion, that this was only a single case, which does not justify the conclusion that the Lord generally acts in this manner with infants. For we use no such argument. We only mean to show, that they unjustly confine the power of God within those narrow limits to which it does not suffer itself to be restricted. Their other subterfuge is equally weak. They allege that, according to the usage of the Scripture, the phrase from the womb denotes from childhood. But it is easy to see that, in the declaration of the angel to Zacharias, it was used in a different sense, and that John was to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before he was born.

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Let us not attempt, therefore, to impose laws upon God, whose power has sustained no diminution, but who is able to sanctify whom he pleases, as he sanctified this child.

XVIII. And for this reason, Christ was sanctified from his earliest infancy, that he might sanctify in himself all his elect, of every age, without any difference. For as, in order to obliterate the guilt of the transgression which had been perpetrated in our flesh, he assumed to himself that very flesh, that he might perform a perfect obedience in it, on our account, and in our stead, so he was conceived of the Holy Spirit, that, having the whole body which he assumed, fully endued with the sanctity of the Spirit, he might communicate the same to us. If Christ exhibits a perfect exemplar of all the graces which God bestows upon his children, he will also furnish us with a proof, that the age of infancy is not altogether incompatible with sanctification. But, however this may be, we consider it as clear, beyond all controversy, that not one of the elect is called out of the present life, without having been previously regenerated and sanctified by the Spirit of God. Their objection, that the Holy Spirit, in the Scriptures, acknowledges no regeneration, except from “the incorruptible seed,” that is, “the word of God,”

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is a misinterpretation of that passage of Peter, which merely comprehends believers who had been taught by the preaching of the gospel. To such persons, indeed, we grant that the word of the Lord is the only seed of spiritual regeneration; but we deny that it ought to be concluded from this, that infants cannot be regenerated by the power of God, which is as easy to him as it is wonderful and mysterious to us. Besides, it would not be safe to affirm, that the Lord cannot reveal himself in any way so as to make himself known to them.

XIX. But our opponents say, “Faith cometh by hearing,”

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of which they have not yet acquired the use, and they cannot be capable of knowing God; for Moses declares them to “have no knowledge between good and evil.”

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But they do not consider, that when the apostle makes hearing the source of faith, he only describes the ordinary economy and dispensation of the Lord, which he generally observes in the calling of his people; but does not prescribe a perpetual rule for him, precluding his employment of any other method; which he has certainly employed in the calling of many, to whom he has given the true knowledge of himself in an internal manner, by the illumination of his Spirit, without the intervention of any preaching. But as they think it would be such a great absurdity for any knowledge of God to be given to infants, to whom Moses denies the knowledge of good and evil, I would beg them to inform me, what danger can result from our affirming that they already receive some portion of that grace, of which they will ere long enjoy the full abundance. For if the plenitude of life consists in the perfect knowledge of God,—when some of them, whom death removes from the present state in their earliest infancy, pass into eternal life, they are certainly admitted to the immediate contemplation of the presence of God. As the Lord, therefore, will illuminate them with the full splendour of his countenance in heaven, why may he not also, if such be his pleasure, irradiate them with some faint rays of it in the present life; especially if he does not deliver them from all ignorance before he liberates them from the prison of the body? Not that I would hastily affirm them to be endued with the same faith which we experience in ourselves, or at all to possess a similar knowledge of faith, which I would prefer leaving in suspense; my design is only to check their foolish arrogance, who presumptuously assert or deny whatever they please.