I notice here that Wikipedia claims that one of Augustine’s teachings against Pelagius was as follows:

Children dying without baptism are excluded from both the Kingdom of heaven and eternal life.

Why did Augustine think this was true?

If you think the answer is obvious, bear in mind that even though Augustine knew and taught that baptism was a means of grace and ordinarily the way in which a person received the forgiveness of sins and all other blessings of the New Covenant, he did not think that a believer who was barred from baptism was therefore damned.

While Christians in the early centuries saw baptism as the ordinary means of grace they also knew that believers would not be separated from Christ just because providence (often a violent death as a martyr) separated them from baptism.

Believers would be saved. Period.

They said many things about baptism to those who were holding back (and thus really holding back a credible confession of faith), but I don’t think they would ever apply these things to a known sincere believer who was prevented from being baptized.

So why make babies a special case?

If believers can be “baptized by desire” (i.e. count as baptized because they wanted to be baptized), then why can’t infants be considered baptized on the desire of the Christian parent(s)?

It makes no sense. It actually puts a higher standard on babies than adults. And it implicitly denies that our little ones are believers even from the womb, in plain contradiction to the Scriptures. As I have written:

I have sung many hymns about adult conversion from unbelief yet I’m not aware of one Psalm which speaks of that subject. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever sung a hymn that called for me to put myself in the place of one who was regenerated in the womb. That is a sad state of affairs. These Psalms were sung in Israel’s public worship of God. They were means of discipling Israel and forming their outlook and expectations. Our hymns do the same but in the wrong direction.

The idea that their relationship began from the womb was not some sort of fantastic exception, but the general expectation.

And why shouldn’t all Christians possess the expectation that their children are believers? After all, that is what God has promised us. God promised “to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen 17.7). The “lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children” (Psa 103.17).

Read the rest, including samples from the Psalms at: Mark Horne » Blog Archive » Dare we believe our children are converted? 1.

The only out I can give Augustine is that there were plenty many Christian parents married to a pagan spouse. They would have felt pressure to not baptize their children. But any pastor would have been worried about a child growing up in such a mixed household without the support of a Christian identity. Baptism would have told the child that he was not outside the covenant, but had privileges and responsibilities to appreciate and uphold. It would have added the threat of what happens to those who fall away over and above what happens to pagans in general.

But I still think that treating infants differently than older professing believers was a mistake. And I can’t help but wonder if it didn’t bear fruit in the rise of anabaptism more than a millennium later.

If the child cannot understand what a parent is saying, is it rational for the parent to speak to him or her? Baptist parents as well as others speak to their infants, and do not expect the child to understand or to talk back for many months. They see nothing irrational in this. They speak to their children, that is, they employ symbols, not because they think the infant understands all that is being said or because they expect an immediate response. They speak to their children so that the child will learn to understand and talk back. So too, we baptize babies not because they can fully understand what is happening to them, nor because we expect them to undergo some kind of immediate moral transformation. We baptize them, and consistently remind them of their baptism and its implications, so that they will come to understanding and mature faith.

via Talking to Babies and Infant Baptism | Resurrectio et Vita.

We affirm that Adam was in a covenant of life with the triune God in the Garden of Eden, in which arrangement Adam was required to obey God completely, from the heart. We hold further that all such obedience, had it occurred, would have been rendered from a heart of faith alone, in a spirit of loving trust. Adam was created to progress from immature glory to mature glory, but that glorification too would have been a gift of grace, received by faith alone.

via Federal-Vision.com | © 2009 Elavno Media.

Some false accusers and twisted logicians are accusing the above statement of heresy because perfect obedience, allegedly, cannot be “faith alone.”

But the issue is one of instrumentality. Neither Adam’s nor a present-day believer’s faith is alone in the person of the believer. The question is trust. Was Adam to trust in the merit of his good works or trust in the kindness of God (who made a promise out of mere grace) and the faithfulness of God (who can thus be trusted to keep his promise)?

He obviously had no merit before God, other than the nominal meaning of “merit” as simply fulfilling the conditions of the promise. This definition would apply to believers as well who are justified by faith as required by the covenant of grace. If we take a substantial definition of merit, then Adam had none. Adam was no more supposed to trust in his own works then we are supposed to trust in our own faith.

In any case, faith alone is not incompatible with a life of good works. So for example, we read in the Westminster Confession, “Of Saving Faith”

By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

Obviously, there are differences here. Adam (nor Eve) had to trust in a mediator, in his person and work, as the ground of their standing before God, as we do (and as the Joint FV statement robustly affirms!). But the narrow point here is that there is no contradiction between “faith alone” and a behavioral requirement. According to the Westminster Confession we are not only justified but sanctified by faith alone in Christ alone. But what is sanctification?

the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

So this is both a behavioral requirement and a condition for final salvation (“without which no man shall see the Lord”).

Maybe anti-calvinists out there will want to attack on this point, but for faithful Presbyterians there is no contradiction between required obedience and rendering such obedience by faith alone.

We read in Ezekiel 9:

Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his waist. And the Lord said to him, “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the house.