3. If there be no promise made to the seed of the faithful more than to others, they have no right more than others to baptism or salvation. But if there be a promise made to them as the seed of believers, then are they as such within that promise, that is, performers of its conditions by their parents, and have right to the benefit.
4. If the heart consent or faith of the adult, do put themselves into a state of salvation, before their baptism, then it doth so by their children; but, &c.—
5. But this right to salvation in parents and children upon heart consent before baptism, is only before God. For the church taketh no cognizance of secret heart transactions; but a man then only consenteth in the judgment of the church, when he openly professeth it, and desireth to signify it by being baptized.
6. And even before God, there is a necessitas præcepti obliging us to open baptism after heart consent; and he that heartily consenteth, cannot refuse God's way of uttering it, unless either through ignorance he know it not to be his duty, (for himself and his child,) or through want of ability or opportunity cannot have it. So that while a man is unbaptized, somewhat is wanting to the completeness of his right to the benefits of the covenant, viz. A reception of investiture and possession in God's appointed way; though it be not such a want, as shall frustrate the salvation of those that did truly consent in heart.
7. I take it therefore for certain, that the children of true believers consent to the covenant by their parents, and are as certainly saved if they die before baptism, as after; though those that despise baptism, when they know it to be a duty, cannot be thought indeed to believe or consent for their children or themselves.
Quest. XXXVIII. Is infants' title to baptism and the covenant benefits given them by God in his promise, upon any proper moral condition, or only upon the condition of their natural relation, that they be the seed of the faithful?
Answ. That which is called a mere natural condition is properly in law sense no condition at all; nor doth make a contract or promise to be called conditional in a moral sense. But it is matters of morality, and not of physics only, that we are treating of; and therefore we must take the terms in a moral sense. For a physical condition is either past, or present, or future, or not future; if it be past or present, the proposition may indeed be hypothetical, but it is no such conditional promise as we are speaking of; for instance, if you say, If thou wast born in such a city, or if thy name be John, I will give thee so much. These are the words of an uncertain promiser; but the promise is already either equivalent to an absolute gift, or null. So if the physical condition be de futuro, e. g. If thou be alive to-morrow, I will give thee this or that; or if the sun shine to-morrow, &c. This indeed suspendeth the gift or event; but not upon any moral being which is in the power of the receiver, but upon a natural contingency or uncertainty. And God hath no such conditional covenants or promises to be sealed by baptism. He saith not, If thou be the child of such or such a man, thou shalt be saved, as his natural offspring only. If the papists that accuse us for holding that the mere natural progeny of believers are saved as such, did well understand our doctrine, they would perceive that in this we differ not from the understanding sort among them, or at least, that their accusations run upon a mistake.
I told you before that there are three things distinctly to be considered in the title of infants to baptism and salvation. 1. By what right the parent covenanteth for his child. 2. What right the child hath to baptism. 3. What right he hath to the benefits of the covenant sealed and delivered in baptism?
To the first, two things concur to the title of the parent to covenant in the name of his child. One is his natural interest in him; the child being his own is at his disposal. The other is God's gracious will and consent that it shall be so; that the parent's will shall be as the child's for his good, till he come at age to have a will of his own.
To the second, the child's right to baptism is not merely his natural or his birth relation from such parents, but it is in two degrees, as followeth: 1. He hath a virtual right, on condition of his parent's faith: the reason is, because that a believer's consent and self-dedication to God doth virtually contain in it a dedication with himself of all that is his: and it is a contradiction to say that a man truly dedicateth himself to God, and not all that he hath, and that he truly consenteth to the covenant for himself and not for his child, if he understand that God will accept it. 2. His actual title condition is his parent's (or owner's) actual consent to enter him into God's covenant, and his actual mental dedication of his child to God, which is his title before God, and the profession of it is his title before the church. So that it is not a mere physical but a moral title condition, which an infant hath to baptism, that is, his parent's consent to dedicate him to God.