The Assembly’s discussions of baptism occurred in connection with both the Confession and the Directory for the Publick Worship of God… Much debate concerned practical administrative matters. However, the theological meat had to do with baptism’s efficacy and how it relates to elect infants. This point has been lost for most modern Christians. Conservative Protestants have distanced themselves from the remotest connection with the Roman Catholic doctrine of baptism and, since the nineteenth century, from High Church Anglican sacramentalism too. In doing so, they have left themselves with a truncated sacramental theology in which the signs have been reduced to symbols. The classic Reformed sacramental theology has been largely lost. 325
In the next session, S259 TU 16.7.44, the divines debated the proposed words “they are Christians & holy” in relation to infants presented for baptism. A lengthy dispute pertained to what Paul had in mind [in 1 Cor 7:14]… Thomas Goodwin claimed that the holiness in view is such that if they die they will be saved. [And Goodwin was exactly right – MH] He was uncertain whether they have the holiness of election or regeneration, but he thought they have the Holy Ghost. In short, Goodwin thought that those baptized are to be regarded as really holy, rather than simply federally holy. 329
The Directory eventually concluded that the children of believers are Christians and federally holy before baptism, and therefore they are to be baptized. Goodwin’s argument for the real holiness of the infants aroused great concern. It appears either to mean that all infants would certainly be saved, or to undermine election and reprobation. In the end, the exegesis of the passage was left unresolved. 331
Much discussion centered on the relationship between baptism and regeneration. This is a connection that conservative Protestants tend to deny or ignore, but was a commonplace in the classic Reformed period. On the one hand, Westminster did not share the Roman Catholic belief that the sacraments are efficacious ex opera operato (by the fact of being performed), but neither did they sympathize at all with the Anabaptist view that they were merely symbolic. In the debates on the Directory for the Publick Worship of God, in S260 F 19.7.44, the Assembly considered the proposed words “joyne the inward baptisme with the outward baptisme.” Except for Gataker, there was consistent agreement on the connection between baptism and regeneration. 331
Wright notes that the word “exhibit” was stronger in meaning than it is in modern English, being closer to “convey.” In earlier debates (see S302 F 11.10.44), Dr. Smith had averred “that baptism saves sacramentally is noe such incongruous speech.” Wright agrees that “the Westminster divines viewed baptism as the instrument and occasion of regeneration by the Spirit, of the remission of sins, of ingrafting into Christ (cf. 28:1). The Confession teaches baptismal regeneration.” While the Catechisms speak only of baptism as a “sign and seal,” the Directory’s model prayer goes much further. Wright calls this the Confession’s “vigorous primary affirmation.” In it, the minister declares of the children baptized that “they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized.” This is accompanied by prayer that the Lord “would receive the infant now baptized, and solemnly entered into the household of faith, into his fatherly tuition and defence, and remember him with the favour that he sheweth to his people,” and that he would “make his baptism effectual to him.” D. F. Wright, “Baptism at the Westminster Assembly” in The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century: Essays in Remembrance of 350th Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly. Vol 1. Fearn: Mentor 2003 332-33
Before the Assembly convened, two prominent Westminster divines wrote important treatises on baptism, addressing the connection between baptism and regeneration in detail. Cornelius Burgess, in his Baptismall regeneration of elect infants (1629) cites [long list of fathers]… He refers to the Second Helvetic Confession, the Scots Confession, the French Confession, the Belgic Confession, and the Heidelberg Catechism. Burgess’s argument is that regeneration is twofold. There is an infusion of grace by the Holy Spirit at the baptism of elect persons, including elect infants, while actual regeneration, which produces faith, occurs at effectual calling. 333-34
For both Burgess and Featley, all elect persons are regenerate in the initial sense at baptism and in the actual sense at effectual calling. On the other hand, nonelect persons are not regenerate in the initial sense at baptism, nor are they in the actual sense either. However, since we do not know who the elect are, we are by the judgment of charity to judge that all who are baptized are regenerate at baptism in the initial sense. 334
The Reformed confessions are clear on the connection between baptism and regeneration. While they consistently oppose the Roman Catholic doctrine of ex opere operato, which asserts that the sacraments are efficacious by the fact of their use, they are equally severe on those who would reduce baptism and the Lord’s Supper to mere symbols. 334
The Tetrapolitan Confession, drawn up by Martin Bucer in 1530, asserts that baptism “is the washing of regeneration, that it washes away sins and saves us.” The First Helvetic Confession of 1536, composed by a committee consisting of Bullinger, Grynaeus, Myconius, Jud, and Menander, assisted by Bucer and Capito, maintained that the sacraments are efficacious; they are not empty signs, but consist of the sign and the substance. “For in baptism the water is the sign, but the substance and spiritual thing is rebirth and admission into the people of God.” All sanctifying power is to be ascribed to God alone. Baptism “is a bath of regeneration which the Lord offers and presents to his elect with a visible sign through the ministry of the Church.” Both of these early Reformed statements clearly allude to Titus 3:5. 334
The Belgic Confession (1561) points in article 33 to the sacraments as “visible signs and seals of an inward and invisible thing, by means whereof God worketh in us by the power of the Holy Ghost… the signs are not in vain or insignificant, so as to deceive us.” … Article 34, on baptism, states that the sacrament “signifies that as water washes away the filth of the body… so the blood of Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost, internally sprinkles the soul, cleanses it from its sins, and regenerates us from children of wrath unto children of God. Therefore the ministers administer the sacrament, that which is visible, but our Lord gives what is signified by the sacrament, namely, gifts and invisible grace; washing, cleansing, and purging our souls of all filth and unrighteousness; renewing our hearts and filling them with all comfort; giving unto us a true assurance of his fatherly goodness; putting on us the new man, and putting off the old man with all his deeds. Neither does baptism avail us only at the time of baptism but also through the whole course of our lives. 336 [Cochrane, Reformed Confessions, 213-214]
The Scots Confession, composed by John Knox in 1560, in article 21, asserts that the sacraments are instituted to “seill in their hearts the assurance of his promise, and of that most blessed conjunction, union, and societie, quhilk the elect have with their head Christ Jesus. And this we utterlie damne the vanitie of thay that affirme Sacramentes to be nothing ellis bot naked and baire signes. No, wee assuredlie believe that be Baptisme we ar ingrafted in Christ Jesus, to be make partakers of his justice, be quhilk our sinnes ar covered and remitted.” 336 [Schaff, Creeds, 3:467-70]
The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1563, 1571), in article 25, “Of the Sacraments,” maintains that they are not only badges and tokens of Christian men’s profession, but “certain sure witnesses and effectuall signes of grace and Gods good wyll towards vs, by the which he doth worke invisiblie in vs, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirme our faith in hym.”… Thus baptism, says article 27, is “a signe of regeneration or newe byrth, whereby as by an instrument, they that receaue baptisme rightly, are grafted into the Church: the promises of the forgeuenesse of sinne, and of our adoption to be the sonnes of God, by the holy ghost, are visibly signed and sealed: faith is confyrmed: and grace increased by virtue of prayer vnto God.” 336-37
The Second Helvetic Confession (1562, 1566), drawn up by Bullinger and the most widely accepted of all Reformed symbols, discusses baptism in chapter 30. Inwardly we are regenerated, purified, and renewed by God through the Holy Spirit; outwardly we receive the assurance of the greatest gifts in the water, by which also those gifts are represented, and, as it were, set before our eyes to behold. [Cochrane, Reformed Confessions, 282. No quotations marks in Letham’s paragraph.] 337
A later work, demonstrative of mainstream Reformed opinion shortly after the Synod of Dort, is the Leiden Synopsis, composed by four leading Dutch theologians in support of the Canons of Dort, and first published in 1625. Here, citing Titus 3:5, baptism is said to seal remission of sins and regeneration. There is a connection between the outward sign and the washing away of sins (Rev. 1:5; 1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:27; Titus 3:5), a sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified… This is a relative conjunction – the signum and the res – and it is set before the eyes on condition of faith (sub conditione fidei). Christ by his Spirit unites us with himself; no creature is capable of this. Thus God appeals both to our ears and to our eyes. The Synopsis rejects Rome’s doctrine of ex opera operato, and also that of the Lutherans – the ubiquitarians – who tie regeneration to baptism. On the other hand, it opposed those who distinguish between adult and infant baptism, granting that adult baptism is a sign and a seal of regeneration, but thinking that infant baptism is an instrument of regeneration just begun. … This distinction is nowhere found in Scripture, since baptism is of one kind. 337
In summary, the Reformed confessions teach a conjunction between the sign (baptism in water in the name of the Trinity) and the reality (the grace given in Christ, regeneration, cleansing from sin, and so on). From this, it is legitimate for the one to be described in terms of the other; this is found in Scripture itself in such expressions as “baptism saves” (1 Peter 3:21). The divines repeatedly refer to baptism as “the laver of regeneration.”… The reality is distinct from the sign, yet the sign cannot be detached from the reality, for the two go together. As the Belgic Confession puts it, “The ministers dispense the sacrament… the Lord gives what is signified. 338-9
On the question whether the parents of an infant to be baptized should be required to make a profession of faith, the debate was spread over four sessions – S300 W 9.10.44 through S303 M 14.10.44 – and the Assembly was evenly divided for and against… The Assembly voted 28-16 to include a parental affirmation of faith by affirming answers to creedal questions, but Parliament deleted the sections in early 1645. 343
However, baptism is more than an admission into the visible church. It is also a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. It is a sign because it is a sacrament, and so points to what is signified. It seals because it is a mark of ownership, for Christ as taken the one baptized as his own. The covenant of grace, of which baptism is a sign and seal, consists of ingrafting into Christ; the one baptized is a member of Christ and thus of his body, the church. This ingrafting into Christ includes regeneration, remission of sins, and sanctification. Thus, at the very start, in WCF 28.1 (and also in LC 165), baptism is brought directly into connection with the whole of salvation, from regeneration to sanctification. It signifies these things and it seals them. It is more than admission to the visible church. It is certainly more than a symbolic representation. 344
WCF 28.5, in opposition to Rome, denies the necessity of baptism for salvation. However, as Moore argues, the first clause – “Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance” – was probably directed against antipaedobaptists who fail to present their infant children for baptism. There are no complimentary references in the minutes to antipaedobaptists. They are uniformly described as “Anabaptists” and invariably linked with antinomians. 345-46 [Jonathan D. Moore, The WCF and the Sin of Neglecting Baptism, WTJ 69, 2007: 63-86]
This latter point [Rome’s ex opera operato] is challenged more directly in WCF 28.6. Baptism is efficacious for salvation, the Confession insists. However, this needs qualification. It is not to be understood in a temporal sense, as if at the moment of baptism the person baptized is regenerated and saved; there is no such temporal connection. Baptism is efficacious in uniting a person with Christ, regenerating and sanctifying him “in [God’s] appointed time.” Moreover, baptism is not efficacious for everyone who receives it. It is not automatic. It is effective for God’s elect, “to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto.” Since the Holy Spirit makes baptism efficacious as a means of grace, it is beyond the power of the church or its ministry to do this, nor does it happen automatically. It is in this same section [28.6] that the heart of the Assembly’s view of baptism appears most clearly. Allowing for the above caveats, “the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost.” It is not the case that baptism simply offers or demonstrates the grace of God, which is then received by the one baptized. Nor is it merely the fact that baptism is a visible demonstration of the gospel, setting forth washing from sins, death, and resurrection to newness of life. It is, of course, both of these things. However, it is something more. In baptism, the promised grace – regeneration, remission of sins, sanctification, and above all union with Christ – is conferred by the Holy Spirit. We have seen how this differs from the doctrine of the Church of Rome. Union with Christ, regeneration, cleansing from sin, and sanctification of the elect people of God is achieved through baptism by the Holy Spirit “in God’s own time.” This is not by any power of the sacrament itself; the Holy Spirit confers grace; the efficacy is entirely his. Moreover, the Spirit can work as and how he pleases, so baptism is not absolutely indispensable for salvation. However, anomalous situations aside, God’s promises of grace in Christ are dispensed by the Holy Spirit through baptism, as long as we bear in mind the divines caveat that this is so in inseparable conjunction with the Word. The connection is neither automatic nor temporal, but theological. [Footnote: This is not the theology of baptism commonly held today in conservative Protestant circles, or even in many Reformed and Presbyterian churches. Yet so integral to Reformed theology is its sacramentalism that claims to being Reformed must be challenged that lack this vital element.] 346-7
