The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

a Christian. It necessarily follows then that the sanctification being neither
moral, nor ecclesiastical, is GENERIC, and that this generic character has
a limitation in the nature of the question and of the case. The question
was: Do the children belong to Christendom or Heathendom? The one
parent is Christian, the other Pagan. Where is the generic relation of the
child, or offspring, whether infant or adult, of these parents? The reply of
the Apostle is: That God decides mercifully, what could not be decided
logically, and gives the children the benefit of His goodness in considering
them as generically related to the better system, not to the worse.
The unbelieving father is, so far as this question is concerned,
constructively in Christendom, so that his child is no more a Pagan child
than if both parents were Christians. On the other side, the child is so far
constructively in Christendom as if both parents were Christians. The
unbelieving father is so far a Christian that his child is a member of
Christendom, not of Pagandom. The child is so far holy that it is now one
of the children of Christendom, not one of the children of Pagandom.
Within the great world there is the generic aggregate of persons belonging
to the world of Pagandom, and to the world of Christendom. The world of
Christendom is generically holy, that is, as Christendom, it is separate
generically from Pagandom. But within the world of Christendom there is
a further separation. The Church is sanctified, or holy, as separate from the
nominally Christian world; this is an ecclesiastical holiness. But within this
Church there is yet a further separation of genuine Christians from merely
nominal ones, and this HOLINESS is MORAL. The answer of the
Apostle is, not that the children (adult as well as infant) are MORALLY
holy, nor that they are ECCLESIASTICALLY holy, but that they are
GENERICALLY holy,--in a word, that they are just as little of Pagandom,
just as much children of Christendom, as if both parents were Christians.
All children who have either both parents, or but one parent, Christian,
alike belong, not to Christian saints, nor to the invisible church, not to the
Christian body in the visible church, nor to the Christian family, in a word,
they belong not to the Christian species, but simply to the Christian genus