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

none of them are specifically mentioned in the baptismal commission; in
other words, there is a generic express command to baptize infants on the
one hand, and there is no specific express command on the other either as
regards sex or age.
d. Infant membership, sealed by a sacramental rite, was established
under the Old Testament. If it had been designed to abolish infant
membership under the New Dispensation, it would have been necessary to
do it in so many words. The question fairly put, then, is not, "Where is
infant Baptism enjoined in the New Testament?" but, "Where is it
forbidden?"
e. Infant Baptism was practised by the Jews in New Testament times.
Lightfoot, the greatest of the old rabbinical scholars, says, in his Harmony
on John: 362 "The baptizing of infants was a thing as commonly known and
as commonly used before John's coming, and at the time of his coming,
and subsequently, as anything holy that was used among the Jews, and
they were as familiarly acquainted with infant Baptism as they were with
infant circumcision." And this he proves by abundant citations from the
Talmud and the old rabbinical writers. It is inconceivable, therefore, that in
such a state of things the Apostles should not have forbidden infant
Baptism, if it were not meant that it should be administered.
f. The argument, a fortiori: If in the Old Testament, comparatively
restricted as its range was, infants were embraced in the covenant, much
more in the New Testament, broader and more gracious than the Old as it
is, would they be embraced. But infants are embraced in the Old, much
more than in the New.
g. That is as really Scriptural which is by just and necessary
consequence deduced from Scripture, as that which is stated in it in so
many words. When the Bible says: "There is but one God," it means just
as much that the gods of the heathen are false, as if it were said in so many
words. 2. It is urged that a covenant requires Consciousness and intelligence
on the part of those whom it embraces; but infants can have no
consciousness of a covenant, therefore they cannot be embraced in one.
362 Opera, 1686. Vol. I. p. 390.