Which is entirely irrelevant to the point.
The Sign of Baptism is NOT a sacrament intended for an atomistic, individual “celebration of one’s self”, any more than was circumcision. It is the sacrament by which the Church declares that it is staking its Covenantal Claim upon a soul whom the Church has Biblical reason to believe has been “set apart” unto God.
And if the sheep belong to our King, so do the lambs.
If you were baptized as an infant, then you are Christian because your parents decided for you. I find it rather humorous that so many Arminians are perfectly happy to hate and oppose predestination by God but rally quickly to defend the principle of predestination by parents via infant baptism.
What is difficult (if not “humorous”), rather, is imagining that Almighty God, who instituted the Covenant of the Family, did not from all Eternity providentially foreordain to include the advantages of Covenantal familial relations in His predestined plan to efficaciously draw His Elect unto Himself.
“How shall they hear, without a preacher?” And what better Preacher could God have predestined to be the earthly instrument of an Elect child’s salvation, than a Christian Father’s example, or a Christian Mother’s love?
Ah, but Scripture declares that Almighty God has included the advantages of Covenantal familial relations in His predestined plan to efficaciously draw His Elect unto Himself.. His Predestination is not only Direct and Individual unto the salvation of Elect adults, but also Providential and Covenantal unto the Salvation of Elect children.
Acts 2: 39 -- For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call.
It's laughable, comparable to getting your child a membership card for the Republican Party when he's a month old and then saying he's a Republican. Or pretending that your child is a supporter of the Social Security system because you get her a S.S. card.
Or perhaps, no more “laughable” than treating a child of the Republic as a Citizen unless and until they prove themselves a traitor to the Republic. Wisdom enshrined in our own Constitution.
The Covenant is Visible and One.
Complete pish-posh. Refuted amply above.
Those who engage in it are those who doubt God's justice and mercy if a child should die as an infant. I have no such problem and do not doubt God, whatever He intends for those who die before they reach an age of responsibility.
Infant Baptism is not properly administered on grounds of fear of death, but rather upon grounds of hope of life. While the Lord is pleased to call away some infants from life at an early age, this is not the Covenantal basis for the administration of Baptism to infant children of believers – for the vast majority of Calvinists have always taken it upon faith that the Lord is pleased to irresistibly apply His grace to all those whom He calls away from life in infancy, whether baptized or not.
Rather, the Baptism of the children of believers is grounded upon the expectation that they will live, not die, and grow in Faith as children of the Covenant.
Moreover, the practice of baby sprinklin' prevents adults in Roman churches and in others from being baptized as believers, the only examples of baptism in the New Testament.
Assumes the conclusion: that only “believer’s Baptism” is valid.
Amply refuted above.
The bible teaches that we are of one faith and one baptism. The New Testament demonstrates only the baptism of adults. Therefore, the one baptism of Jesus' disciples is the only valid one possible and refers to believers only.
Again, merely assumes the anabaptistic conclusion.
But in fact, the One Baptism of Christians is COVENANTAL Baptism.
And this Promise is to us -- and to our Children.
The Belgic Confession, in Article XXVII, states, "We believe and profess one catholic or universal Church...This Church has been from the beginning of the world, and will be to the end thereof..." It has not, however, always had the same form. In the Garden of Eden God identified and separated the church (then consisting of two) using the essential elements, Word and Sacrament, Promise and Token, which would be present throughout the church's history, in some form or another. Our first parents were created to understand themselves and all things else in terms of a word. They had received the defining Word of God; they had heard the anti-word of the serpent. Choosing the devil's definitions, they had broken covenant with their Creator and entered into league with the destroyer, becoming co-pretenders with him to the throne.
God was not about to forsake His purposes, or to quickly formulate a "Plan B." He graciously and forcefully took back Adam and Eve-He redeemed them-by placing hostility between them and their new master (the Antithesis), by promising in their hearing the incarnation of the conquering, suffering Messiah (the Protevangelium, first proclamation of the Gospel), and by clothing them with God-provided coverings (the "Sacrament"), indicating in the clearest terms that their fig leaves (their instinctive effort at self-atonement/covering) were wholly inadequate and unacceptable. It is God who saves. Calvinism did not originate in Geneva; it is found in Eden. God's people, the covenant line, would henceforth be the people redeemed by Him to live, once again, in terms of His Word. -- Steve Schlissel, Messianic Jewish Presbyter, Messiah’s Congregation, NYC.