Quest. XXXIV. Whether an unbaptized person who yet maketh a public profession of christianity, be a member of the visible church? And so of the infants of believers unbaptized.
Answ. 1. Such persons have a certain imperfect, irregular kind of profession, and so of membership; their visibility or visible christianity is not such as Christ hath appointed. As those that are married, but not by legal celebration, and as those that in cases of necessity are ministers without ordination; so are such christians as Constantine and many of old without baptism.
2. Such persons ordinarily are not to be admitted to the rights and communion of the visible church, because we must know Christ's sheep by his own mark; but yet they are so far visible christians, as that we may be persuaded nevertheless of their salvation. As to visible communion, they have but a remote and incomplete jus ad rem, and no jus ad re, or legal investiture and possession.
3. The same is the case of unbaptized infants of believers, because they are not of the church merely as they are their natural seed; but because it is supposed that a person himself devoted to God, doth also devote his children to God: therefore not nature only, but this supposition arising from the true nature of his own dedication to God, is the reason why believers' children have their right to baptism: therefore till he hath actually devoted them to God in baptism, they are not legally members of the visible church, but only in fieri and imperfectly, as is said. Of which more anon.
Quest. XXXV. Is it certain by the word of God that all infants baptized, and dying before actual sin, are undoubtedly saved; or what infants may we say so of?
Answ. I. 1. We must distinguish between certainty objective and subjective; or plainlier, the reality or truth of the thing, and the certain apprehension of it.[274]
2. And this certainty of apprehension, sometimes signifieth only the truth of that apprehension, when a man indeed is not deceived, or more usually that clearness of apprehension joined with truth, which fully quieteth the mind and excludeth doubting.
3. We must distinguish of infants as baptized lawfully upon just title, or unlawfully without title.
4. And also of title before God, which maketh a lawful claim and reception at his bar; and title before the church, which maketh only the administration lawful before God, and the reception lawful only in foro ecclesia, or externo.
5. The word baptism signifieth either the external part only, consisting in the words and outward action, or the internal covenanting of the heart also.