Mr. S. It is evident, nevertheless, that Hopkins goes further than he, and requires that those who, at years of full responsibility, refuse to own the covenant, shall be cut off. Modern writers on this subject, while insisting on the church-membership of children, draw back from this position, and are more in harmony with what, it seems to me, may be said to be the general sense of the churches on this subject. I feel glad, when reading such passages as those from Hopkins, that we have liberty of opinion, and are not compelled to swear by the words of any master. I bow to such a divine as Dr. Hopkins, but he fails to satisfy me that he is right in these views of church-discipline for children.
Mr. R., who was the oldest man of the company, now returned to the discussion, and said: "It is clear that one cannot be dispossessed of that which he never possessed, except as in the case of a minor, who may have his claim to a future possession wrested from him. Of what is a child of the covenant, allowing him to be, while a child, a member of the church,—of what is he in possession? Not of full communion, not of access to the Lord's table, not of the right to a voice in the call and settlement of a pastor, nor in any other church act. From what, then, is he turned out by being cut off? He has never arrived at anything from which he can be separated, except the covenant of God with him through his parents, and its attendant privileges of watch and care. If, then, we excommunicate an unconverted child, we can only declare the covenant of God with him, henceforth, to be null and void,—an assumption from which, probably, Christian parents and ministers would shrink. The same long-suffering God, who bears and forbears with ourselves, we shall be disposed to feel, is the God of this recreant child, and no good man would dare to pronounce the child to be separated from the mercies of 'the God of patience and hope.' One who, being in a church, breaks a covenant to which he assented, may be a just subject for discipline, even to excommunication; but, all the promises of God to the child being wholly free, conditioned, at first, upon his parents' relation to God, all the disability which the child seems capable of receiving, is, that the promises made to him he must fail, by his own fault, to receive. Who will declare even his prospect of their fulfilment to be terminated at any given time? Much more, who will undertake to divest him of things which he never had? The church-membership, from which you profess to expel him, does not yet exist in his case; he has not reached it. All the church-membership of which, if any, he has been possessed, is, his hopeful relation to God and his people through a parent. To excommunicate a child from this would be a strange procedure."
Mr. A. That is the strongest thing which I have heard on that side. I must confess (said he, rising and leaning against one of the maples) that I am a little staggered.
But Mr. B. came to reinforce his faltering brother.
"Here," said he, "is the Cambridge Platform. You will all be willing to hear from that source."
"Let us hear," said two or three voices.
Mr. B. read as follows:
"The like trial (examination) is to be required from such members of the church as were born in the same, or received their membership, and were baptized in their infancy or minority, by virtue of the covenant of their parents, when, being grown up unto years of discretion, they shall desire to be made partakers of the Lord's Supper; unto which, because holy things must not be given to the unworthy, therefore it is requisite that these, as well as others, should come to their trial and examination, and manifest their faith and repentance by an open profession thereof before they are received to the Lord's Supper, and otherwise not to be admitted thereunto. Yet those church-members that were so born, or received in their childhood, before they are capable of being made partakers of full communion, have many privileges which others, not church-members, have not; they are in covenant with God, have the seal thereof upon them, namely, baptism; and so, if not regenerated, yet are in a more hopeful way of attaining regenerating grace, and all the spiritual blessings both of the covenant and seal; they are also under church-watch, and consequently subject to the reprehensions, admonitions, and censures thereof, for their healing and amendment, as need shall require."[9]
Mr. R. Now, please, Br. B., what does all that prove?
Mr. B. Why, it proves that, in the judgment of the Cambridge Platform, the children of church-members are members of the churches.