Judging covenant children at the Westminster Assembly

Lane and the ‘very learned’ D. Wilson have debated an issue that is quite complex – the status of covenant children. This was a debate at the Westminster Assembly. Reading the minutes can be hard and frustrating simply because there were no tape-recorders there to pick up the tone, exact words used, and, to use R C Sproul’s phrase, ‘righteous indignation [clapping]‘. Here’s a little of the debate on the status of cov. children. I’m reading through the baptism debates and those, too, are interesting.

At the Westminster Assembly a debate broke out over 1 Cor 7:14, ‘they are holy’. Goodwin recognizes the distinction between federal and real holiness. Goodwin thinks that the holiness spoken of here in 1 Cor. 7:14 ‘is such a holyness as if they dy they should be saved.’ The comments by Lightfoot miss a few lines in Goodwin’s contention, but Goodwin then remarks: ‘Whether a holyness of election or regeneration I know not, but I thinke it is they have the Holy Ghost.’

Goodwin, after responding to Seaman’s argument that this destroys the ground for baptizing infants, argues that he does not ‘affirme that they are actually saved, but we are to judge them soe.’

Marshall responds that it is a great mistake to say that the holiness in 1 Cor 7:14 will save them if they should die in infancy. While a judgment of charity is reasonable, that is not the ground to admit them to the sacrament according to Marshall. Moreover, he argues that we are not to judge all infants as saved; rather, ‘in the generall’, we are to believe that ‘the Infants of believing parents are federally holy.’

Rutherford joins the debate and makes clear the distinction between real and federal holiness; they are not the same. Rutherford then goes on to say, ‘The Lord hath election and reprobation amongst Infants noe lesse than those of age, as Augustine of Jacob and Esau.’

Goodwin responds:

Ther is a mere mistake to the thing as I state it. I doe not take away election and reprobation. I believe many infants that are baptized and batptized warrantable. But the question is not of the reality in the events, but what I am to judge of them. If you take it of all that they are holy and saved, my judgment knowes the contrary, but when you come to perticulars, I judge soe of this child and that child. It is an indefinite proposition, ‘I am thy God and the God of thy seed,’ not a universall proposition. That which you call federall holyness and that which I call reall, doe both coincidere in this.

Marshall responds by saying that we are not to judge whether they possess a real holiness, but to believe that they are holy with the holiness spoken of; that is, a federal holiness.

Goodwin responds: To me the holyness in 1 Cor 7:14 is the same with that “I will be thy God and the God of thy seed.” If you make it any other holyness, then baptisme is a seale of some other holyness than the holyness of salvation.”

Further, Goodwin argues that our judgment is not an infallible judgment, but it is a judgment that answers the promise.

Vines argues that the holiness in v. 14 must be in every covenant child because the text says so. If it is real holiness, then ‘ther must be a traducing of holyness from the parents, and soe they shall be borne regenerate and really holy.’

All agree, however, that federal holiness is the ground of baptism. But Gillespie seems to ask whether there be any distinction between federal and real holiness. Hoyle responds quoting Psalm 50 as proof of the distinction.

Goodwin, apparently feeling the heat, makes it clear that the holiness of children is not by way of traduction, ‘but by way of designation’. For, ‘if the children are by a warrant from the apostle accounted holy soe as to be brought into the bosome of the church, then the unbeliever must needs be sanctifyed to the believers bed. Holyness and uncleannesse in the OT refers to the judgment that was passed upon them, and so it is a universall proposition.’

Calamy thinks that there is something very dangerous in what Goodwin is suggesting. Goodwin thinks the promises should mean something so as not to be stripped of their nature (i.e. promises).

All from Vol. 2, Reforming the Reformation, 205-208.