One reason I have a son named “Nevin” is that Jennifer ruled out Zacharias Ursinus. Every time I re-read him, I get wistful. His lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism (of which he is the author) are incomparable. William Goode claims that Ursinus thought the elect baptized infants were regenerated at baptism. I can see where Goode gets that idea, but I’m sure it is wrong (at least defining “regeneration” in the way Goode, as an good Evangelical anti-tractarian would define the term). Ursinus insists that the sacraments are not absolutely necessary. I don’t see any way that is compatible with Goode’s view. Plainly, while Ursinus affirms strongly that grace is conferred in baptism, he doesn’t think the children of believers are normally in any danger.
Just as plainly, Ursinus believes the children of Christian are Christians.
That is old news for all Reformed readers, of course. What is interesting is that Ursinus provides interesting information for those who want to claim that any such Christian status of uncomprehending infants is rulled out by the Westminster Confession of Faith:
The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened (Chapter 14, paragraph 1).
This is interpreted in a way to clash with Calvin’s claim that baptism is inextricably involved in the ministry of the Word for baptized believers:
I know it is a common belief that forgiveness, which at our first regeneration we receive by baptism alone, is after baptism procured by means of penitence and the keys (see chap. 19 sec. 17). But those who entertain this fiction err from not considering that the power of the keys, of which they speak, so depends on baptism, that it ought not on any account to be separated from it. The sinner receives forgiveness by the ministry of the Church; in other words, not without the preaching of the gospel. And of what nature is this preaching? That we are washed from our sins by the blood of Christ. And what is the sign and evidence of that washing if it be not baptism? We see, then, that that forgiveness has reference to baptism. This error had its origin in the fictitious sacrament of penance, on which I have already touched. What remains will be said at the proper place. There is no wonder if men who, from the grossness of their minds, are excessively attached to external things, have here also betrayed the defect, not contented with the pure institution of God, they have introduced new helps devised by themselves, as if baptism were not itself a sacrament of penance. But if repentance is recommended during the whole of life, the power of baptism ought to have the same extent. Wherefore, there can be no doubt that all the godly may, during the whole course of their lives, whenever they are vexed by a consciousness of their sins, recall the remembrance of their baptism, that they may thereby assure themselves of that sole and perpetual ablution which we have in the blood of Christ (John Calvin, Institutes, IV, 15, 4).
This basic position was still considered orthodox and Reformed as late as the time of Francis Turretin:
Does baptism… take away past and present sins only and leave future sins to repentances? Or does it extend itself to sins committed not only before but also after baptism? The former we deny; the latter we affirm against the Romanists.…II… [T]he Romansists teach… “The virtue of baptism does not reach to future sins, but the sacrament of penitence is necessary for their expiation.” Thus, the Council of Trent expresses it: “If anyone shall say that all the sins which are committed after baptism are either dismissed or made venial by the recollection of faith of the received baptism alone, let him be anathema (session 7, Canon 10, Schroeder, p. 54)….
XII. …However, we maintain that by baptism is sealed to us the remission not only of past and present, but also of future sins; still so that penitence (not a sacramental work and what they invent, but that which is commanded in the gospel) and especially saving faith is not excluded, but is coordinated with baptism as a divinely constituted means of our salvation (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 3).
What is interesting about Ursinus is that he makes statements that sound very much like the statement produced from the Westminster Confession of Faith:
The Holy Ghost ordinarily produces faith … in us by the ecclesiastical ministry, which consists of two parts, the word and the sacraments. The Holy Ghost works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel; and cherishes, confirms, and seals it by the use of the sacraments (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 340).Faith is begun and confirmed by the word; by the sacraments it is only confirmed, as in the supper. The word teaches and confirms without the sacraments, but the sacaments not without the word. Adults are not saved without a knowledge of the word; but men may be regenerated and saved without the use of the sacraments, if this omission be not accompanied with any contempt. The word is preached to unbelievers and wicked men; the church should admit none to the sacraments, but such as will have us to regard as members of his kingdom (p. 356; emphasis added)
I’m not going to bother producing the copious quotations of Ursinus explicitly saying that the infants of Christians are those to be regarded as members of God’s kingdom and are not to be considered “unbelievers and wicked.” The requirement that they be converted by some event in which they understand the preaching of the Word is foreign to Ursinus’ way of thinking. They are to be nurtured by Word and Sacrament as believers. Adults are the ones who must be brought to conscious faith through the word, infants can be raised in it.
Thus, A. A. Hodge, a rather famous Westminsterian, wrote:
When the child is taught and trained under the regimen of his baptism–-taught from the first to recognize himself as a child of God, with all its privileges and duties; trained to think, feel, and act as a child of God, to exercise filial love, to render filial obedience–-the benefit to the child directly is obvious and immeasurable. He has invaluable birthright privileges, and corresponding obligations and responsibilities (A. A. Hodge, “The Sacraments:Baptism,” in Evangelical Theology: Lectures on Doctrine [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1990], 337, emphasis added).
I am sure that other views were meant to be encompassed by the Westminster Assembly, but there is certainly no reason or method by which Ursinus’ position can be ruled out of court. Consider the Larger Catechism as it applies to someone who was baptized as an infant:
The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body
Notice, pardon is a possession that has already been sealed to you in baptism. You are supposed to grow into assurance of it.
After the Assembly had come and gone, Francis Turretin, the Reformed theologian of the seventeenth century, carefully distinguished the Reformed view of infant faith from Lutheran and Anabaptist claims. Anabaptists denied any faith to infants so that they could justify their refusal to baptize them. Lutherans affirmed (rightly) that covenant infants were believers, but made no distinction between that sort of faith that is in infants and that which is possible for those who have matured cognitively and been taught verbally. In Turretin’s terminology, while infants do not possess “actual faith,” they do possess “seminal or radical and habitual faith” (Institutes, 15.14.2, vol 2, p. 583). Actual faith would include a profession of knowledge, intellectual acts, or hearing and meditating upon the word (15.14.3, vol 2, p. 584). Thus, Turretin understands Hebrews 11.6 to refer to actual faith and writes:
When the apostle says, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God,” he speaks of adults, various example of whom he in the same place commemorates and whom alone the proposed description of faith suits (Hebrews 11.1). Now it is different with infants who please God on account of the satisfaction of Christ bestowed upon them and imputed by God to obtain the remission of their sins, even if they themselves do not apprehend it and cannot apprehend it by a defect of age (15.14.7, vol 2, p. 585).
Nevertheless, while Christian infants don’t have or need adult faith in order to be saved, there is some change inaugurated in elect children within the covenant which grows and flowers over time—one which involves the beginning of faith at an infant level: “Although infants do not have actual faith, the seed or root of faith cannot be denied to them, which is ingenerated in them from early age and in its own time goes forth in act (human instrumentation being applied from without and a greater efficacy of the Holy Spirit within)” (15.14.13, vol 2, p. 586). Like Zacharias Ursinus, Turrettin did not believe that infants had to be called by the Word in the same way as adult converts. However, “seminal” and infant’s faith might be, it was sufficient for justification.