“You are Christian Children!” J.W. Alexander on the Practical Implications of Infant Baptism

“All baptized persons are members of the Church. Their duty, therefore, to acknowledge Christ before the world rests on clearer grounds. It is true, we do not ascribe a regenerating grace to their baptism; but we must not go to the other extreme of making this precious ordinance a nullity. Those who have been baptized stand in a relation to the Church different from that of the world at large. They have been designated disciples or learners, and, where the parental obligations have been discharged, have been trained in religious knowledge. Such children of the Church should often consider the privileges and benefits sealed by this ordinance. They should be humbled for their sins, and for falling short of and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism and its engagements. They should feel bound to the faith and practice signified by their symbolical separation from the world. Children born within the pale of the visible Church, and dedicated to God in baptism, are to be taught to read, and repeat the Catechism, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles’ Creed, to abhor sin, to fear God, to pray, and to obey the Lord Jesus. And when they arrive at years of discretion, it behooves every one of them to consider the duty of ratifying the vows made in their name, by a personal avowal of allegiance to Christ. The cause of such is therefore widely different from that of the world without.”-J.W. Alexander, The Young Communicant

“But O how we neglect that ordinance! Treating children in the Church, just as if they were out of it. Ought we not daily to say (in its spirit) to our children, “You are Christian children, you are Christ´s, you ought to think and feel and act as such! And on this plan carried out, might we not expect more early fruit of the grace than by keeping them always looking forward to a point of time at which they shall have new hearts and join the church? I am distressed with long harbored misgivings on this point.” (Forty Years´ Familiar Letters, Volume 2, Page 25.)

Observe that Alexander (son of Archibald Alexander, principal founder of Princeton Seminary and its first professor) states that “all baptized members are members of the church.” This means, for Alexander, that baptized covenant children are not to be presumed unregenerate until they experience conversion at a later time in life. Rather, baptized infants are Christians, “disciples or learners,” and because of this, ought to be taught the Catechism, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles Creed. They are to fear God, pray to God, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. When they come to years of maturity, they ought to ratify the vows made in their name.

For Alexander, the ordinary means of a child’s salvation is not an extraordinary conversion experienced later on in life. Rather, they are to be raised as Christians since only a Christian can pray to God, abhor sin, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. Elsewhere, Alexander expresses his belief in the presumed salvation of our covenant children in a letter he wrote, lamenting the neglect of infant baptism and its practical implications (see the second quotation). Here Alexander, undoubtedly responding to the neglect of infant baptism and covenant nurture among Presbyterians and other evangelicals influenced by the growing influence of 19th century revivalism with its conversionist conception of individual salvation, argues that parents ought to tell their covenant children that they are Christians and therefore ought to think and act as such. One practical implication of such an approach is that we will, by God’s grace, see early spiritual fruit in the lives of our children. Suspending the judgment of charity and encouraging our children to look forward to a conversion experience later on in their lives has the opposite effect- it’s more likely that this approach will stunt spiritual growth in our children and prevent the Christian fruit that is more likely to emerge when we train our children, from their earliest years, as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Here is yet another example of how the Old Princeton tradition, in contrast to both 18th and 19th century revivalism, stood with the Reformers in urging both believing parents and the church to disciple their covenant children from their earliest years as Christians, as those whom we regard, by faith, as members of the church and heirs of the covenant promises in their most comprehensive sense.