Infant Baptism and Salvation in the Calvinistic System by Charles P. Krauth

Author:Charles P. Krauth
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Primedia eLaunch
Published: 2011-11-17T21:44:59+00:00

§ 30. CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IN ITS BEARING ON INFANT SALVATION.

Calvinism holds that out of the invisible Church there is no salvation whatever, and that out of the visible Church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

MARTYR.[110]—"It is necessary that they (children) belong unto Christ and the Church, seeing, out of it, there is no salvation."

URSINUS.[111]—"It is required, of necessity, that in this life they (the elect) be brought unto the Church, though it be sometimes even at the very point of death." 11 No man can be saved out of the Church. Whomsoever God hath chosen and elected to the end, which is eternal life, them hath He chosen to the means; which is the inward and outward calling."

VOSSIUS.[112]—"Nor do we exclude the children of unbelievers alone, but the children of those who are open heretics: to whom Baptism should be refused even though it be asked by the parents."

WESTMINSTER CONFESSION X. 4.—"Others not elected . . cannot be saved: much less can men not professing the Christian religion be saved in any other way whatever . . and to assert . . . that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested." Larger Catechism, Q. 60: "They who, having never heard the Gospel, know not Jesus Christ aud believe not in Him, cannot be saved. Christ is the Saviour only of His body, the Church." Q. 61: "They only (are saved) who are true members of the Church invisible."

WESTMINSTER CONFESSION XXV. 1.—"The . . church . . invisible consists of the whole number of the elect." (Do. ii.)—"The visible Church . . is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation."

These principles in their connections,

1. Clearly exclude the entire heathen, Mohammedan and Jewish world from salvation. It is a Calvinistic article of faith that men not professing the Christian faith cannot be saved.

2. Connecting with this the doctrine that as is the state of the parents so is the presumed state of the children individually, and the certain state of the children as a class, it follows that the moral presumption is that each child of the non-Christian world is lost, and the moral certainty is that they are lost as a class. It is certain that not one of them is of the visible church, "out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation," and there is no evidence, no reason even, for hope that a single one of them is of the Church invisible.

3. This looks gloomy enough, but there is still another dark point. "The visible Church . . consists of all those that profess the true religion (Westminster Confession XXVI. i.) “The True Religion," what is that? Strictly construed, Calvinism—which claims—and must for consistency's sake claim to be "the true religion." Confessions are meant to define "the true religion," in the sense in which those who make and adhere to them define "the true religion."

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