The difficulty on this subject is that baptism from its very nature involves a profession of faith; it is the way in which by the ordinance of Christ, He is to be confessed before men; but infants are incapable of making such confession; therefore they axe not the proper subjects of baptism. Or, to state the matter in another form: the sacraments belong to the members of the Church; but the Church is the company of believers; infants cannot exercise faith, therefore they are not members of the Church, and consequently ought not to be baptized.
In order to justify the baptism of infants, we must attain and authenticate such an idea of the Church as that it shall include the children of believing parents. The word Church is used in Scripture and in common life, in many different senses, (1.) It means the whole body of the elect, as in Ephesians v. 25, and when the Church is said to be the body, or the bride of Christ, to be filled by his Spirit, etc. (2.) It means any number of believers collectively considered; or the whole number of believers residing in any one place, or district, or throughout the world. In this sense we use the word when we pray God to bless his Church universal, or his Church in any particular place. (3.) It is used as a collective term for the body of professed believers in any one place; as when we speak of the Church of Jerusalem, of Ephesus, or of Corinth. (4.) It is used of any number of professed believers bound together by a common standard of doctrine and discipline; as the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Lutheran Church, and the Reformed Church. And (5.) It is used for all the professors of the true religion throughout the world, considered as united in the adoption of the same general creed and in common subjection to Christ.
It is evident that no one definition of the Church can include all the senses in which the word is legitimately used; and, therefore, that we may affirm of the Church in one sense of the word, what must be denied of it in a different sense; and the same person may be said to be, or not to be a member of the Church according to the meaning attached to the word. In the present discussion, by the Church is meant what is called the visible Church; that is, the whole body of those who profess the true religion, or, any number of such professors united for the purpose of the public worship of Christ, and for the exercise of mutual watch and care. With regard to infant baptism the following propositions may be maintained.
First Proposition. The Visible Church is a Divine Institution.
Concerning the Church in this sense, it is clearly taught in Scripture, that it is the will of God that such a Church should exist on earth. This no Christian denies. God has imposed duties upon his people which render it necessary for them thus to associate in a visible organized body. They are to unite in him worship; in teaching and propagating his truth; in testifying for God in all ages and in all parts of the world. He has prescribed the conditions of membership in this body, and taught who are to be excluded from its communion. He has appointed officers, specified their qualifications, their prerogatives, and the mode of their appointment. He has enacted laws for its government. Its rise, progress, and consummation are traced in history and prophecy, from the beginning to the end of the Bible. This is the kingdom of God of which our Lord discourses in so many of his parables, and which it is predicted is ultimately to include all the nations of the earth.
Second Proposition. The Visible Church does not consist exclusively of the Regenerate.
It is no less clearly revealed that it is not the purpose of God that the visible Church on earth should consist exclusively of true believers. This is plain, (1.) Because the attainment of such a result in any society or government administered by men is an impossibility. It would require that the officers of the Church or the Church itself should have the power to read the heart, and be infallible in judgments of character. (2.) The conditions which, under both dispensations, He has prescribed for admission into this visible society of his professed worshippers, are such as men not truly regenerated may possess. Those qualifications, as we have seen, are competent knowledge, and a credible profession of faith and obedience. (3.) Our Lord expressly forbids the attempt being made. He compares his external kingdom, or visible Church, to a field in which tares and wheat grow together. He charged his disciples not to undertake to separate them, because they could not, in all cases, distinguish the one from the other. Both were to be allowed to grow together until the harvest. (4.) Christ, to whom all hearts are known, admitted Judas to the number of his most favoured disciples, and even made him an Apostle. (5.) All attempts to make a Church consisting exclusively of the regenerate, have failed. So far as known, no such Church has ever existed on the face of the earth. This of itself is proof that its existence did not enter into the purpose of God.