davenporter
Puritan Board Freshman
How would you evaluate the following baptismal position?
Cornelius Burges, a member of the Westminster Assembly, held to a form of baptismal regeneration explained in his book "Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants" (1629). Here is his position put concisely:
1. Initial regeneration in elect infants ordinarily begins in baptism.
2. This "initial regeneration" is a "seed" of grace that will necessarily ripen and produce "a further seed in due time and season". There is a continuity between infant baptism of elect infants and adult conversion.
3. Only God's preordination of elect infants unto grace and glory makes the sacrament "effectual upon them, and not upon others".
(explanation based on the work of E. Brooks Holifield in The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, pp. 84-85)
Cornelius Burges, a member of the Westminster Assembly, held to a form of baptismal regeneration explained in his book "Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants" (1629). Here is his position put concisely:
1. Initial regeneration in elect infants ordinarily begins in baptism.
2. This "initial regeneration" is a "seed" of grace that will necessarily ripen and produce "a further seed in due time and season". There is a continuity between infant baptism of elect infants and adult conversion.
3. Only God's preordination of elect infants unto grace and glory makes the sacrament "effectual upon them, and not upon others".
(explanation based on the work of E. Brooks Holifield in The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, pp. 84-85)