So would Calvin be stating that the children of saved parents would also themselves be viewed as being saved now, saved as in How baptists define that term?Hi Stephen,
I was surprised to hear that Marcel endorsed presumptive regeneration, so I had another look and I am sure that is not correct and he clearly distances himself from that view. Here are some relevant sections from page 199 onwards:
"The covenant, together with its promises, constitutes the objective and legal basis of infant baptism. Infant baptism is the sign, seal, and pledge of all that these promises imply. As Calvin says in his work on The True method of reforming the church, : “The children of believers are holy from the time of their birth, because before coming into the world they are adopted into the covenant of eternal life; and there is absolutely no other reason for receiving them into the church except that already beforehand they belong to the body of Christ.”
H. Bavinck, the celebrated dogmatician, expresses himself as follows: "This covenant was the solid, biblical, and objective foundation upon which all the Reformers unanimously and without exception rested the legitimacy of infant baptism. They had no other deeper and more solid foundation" ....
While recognizing that children of believers are baptized because they are in the covenant and are, as such, heirs of the promises implying a right to justification and to the regenerating and sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit, a certain number of Reformed theologians have attempted to add one of the effects of the covenant of grace to the foundation of infant baptism, namely, presumptive regeneration. They have considered that presumptive regeneration could be the ultimate ground of baptism, more so even than the covenant. It must be acknowledged that this attempt has failed. Presumptive regeneration cannot be regarded naturally as the legal ground of infant baptism, for this cannot be anything other than the promises of God contained in the covenant. The ground of baptism must be something objective. One cannot baptize on the basis of a presumption. To the question: "Why can you presume the regeneration of the children of believers?" one can only reply: "Because they are born of believing parents"; or, in other words, because they are born into the covenant. Besides, Scripture and experience afford proof that not all the children born into the covenant are regenerated to salvation.
It is obvious that to refuse to consider this presumptive regeneration as the foundation of baptism is not at all the same as saying that it is impossible or unjustifiable to assume that the little children of believers are regenerate .... In accordance with the indications of the Word of God, we do not wish in any way to restrict the divine liberty which acts in sovereign independence when and as it wills, and which is never confined to means. The promise of the regeneration of the children of the covenant is sufficient for us. It is not for us to define whether this regeneration in view of salvation is found in the elect children before or at the moment of baptism, or sometimes even years afterwards.
The ground of infant baptism is that "the Lord receives amongst His people the children of those to whom He has shown Himself as Savior, and that for the sake of the fathers he accepts their offspring .... The present truth which we must consider at baptism, when it is granted to little children, is that it testifies to their salvation by sealing and confirming the covenant of God upon them" (Institutes IV.xvi.15, 21) .... Calvin and his successors, together with practically all the modern Reformed dogmaticians, affirm very clearly that it is the covenant that is the ground of the baptism of both adults and children."
I think Marcel makes his position clear.