Christian Children (Psalm 78:4-8), a sermon on the baptism of Lucas Hall, by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. How We View Our Children
II. Our Calling Towards Them
The sermon at the baptism of Lucas Joshua Hall
Thomas Watson: "If you would have honour from your children, set them a good example. It makes children despise their parents, when parents live in contradiction to their own precepts; when they bid their children be sober, and yet they themselves get drunk; or bid their children fear God, and are themselves loose in their lives. A father is a mirror which the child often dresses himself by; let the mirror be clear and not spotted. Let it not be said to you by your son, if I have done evil, I have learned it of you."
Thomas Watson: "Though an infant understand not the meaning of baptism it may partake of the blessing of baptism. The little children that Christ took in His arms, understood not Christ's meaning, but they had Christ's blessing. 'And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them' (Mark 10:16)."
David J. Engelsma in his pamphlet "The Covenant of God & Children of Believers" (cprf.co.uk/pamphlets/covenantofgodandchildrenofbelievers.htm):
The children of believers are included in the covenant as children, that is, already at conception and birth. They receive forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus, the Holy Spirit of sanctification, and church membership—as children. They are called to love, fear, and obey God—as children. For they have God as their God, and are His people—as children. Therefore, they have full right to baptism. Parents must present them for baptism. And the church that would maintain the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ must see to it. This is an important feature of the central doctrine of the covenant. It is important to the children. Are they God's children or the devil's? It is important to the parents. We love our children and regard our rearing of our children as one of the most important tasks in our lives. May we regard them as children of God? Or are we compelled to regard them as Satan's "little vipers," as must all those who deny that children are included in the covenant and as did certain Calvinistic theologians, e.g., Jonathan Edwards. Inclusion of the children in the covenant is important to the church. The church asks, "Are they members of the church or do they stand outside?" Does the church have a calling to them too, to feed and protect them as lambs of the flock of Christ, or are they nothing but heathens, little heathens to be sure, but heathens nevertheless, like all other ungodly people, whom the church at the most should evangelise?
But above all, the place of the children in the covenant is important to God. He said at the beginning of the history of the covenant with Abraham, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations ... to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee" (Gen. 17:7). He inspired the apostle, on the very day that the covenant became new, to proclaim as gospel, "the promise is unto you, and to your children ... even as many as the Lord our God shall call" (Acts 2:39). Rebuking His unfaithful wife, Judah, in Ezekiel 16:20-21, God exclaims, like an aggrieved Husband and Father, "Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children ...?" In Malachi 2:15,God condemns the divorcing that was prevalent in Judah,
because divorce jeopardizes the "godly seed." (And still today the unchangeable God hates divorce in the covenant community because it is destructive of the children who, as covenant children, are His children.) How important our children's inclusion in the covenant is to God is shown in the New Testament (Covenant) by Christ's command, "Suffer little children [i.e., infants] to come unto me ... for of such [i.e., infants of believers] is the kingdom of God [made up]" (Luke 18:15ff.). It is shown also by the careful provision God makes for the children, as members of the congregation, in Ephesians 6:1-4: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord ... and, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Here the Reformed faith—Calvinism—parts company with all Baptists. Every Baptist seriously errs regarding a vital truth of the central covenant-doctrine in Scripture. Every Baptist holds that the children of believers are lost heathens outside the church, no different from the children of unbelievers. The advertisement that a local Baptist church
placed in the paper concerning the superior holiness of the children in their congregation—their obedience to authority and their freedom from drunkenness and fornication, etc. was deceptive advertising. There are no children in that church. Every Baptist church denies membership to all children. Only sheep belong to the Baptist fold, no lambs.