The Relation of Infants to Church, Baptism and Gospel in Seventeenth Century Baptist Theology

Abstract

"IT is not always sufficiently recognized that when a group of Separatists broke away from the practice of infant-baptism in the early 17th century, they abandoned a sacrament that hitherto had furnished answers to certain far-reaching questions. Involved was not only an understanding of the nature of baptism itself but also the nature of the church and the meaning of the Gospel. The baptismal debate raised both soteriological and ecclesiological problems"