Tills idea of the familj^ bearing so plainly in the Old Testament the mark of divine origin and approv- al, appears also in the New Testament, and, in the transitional fulfilment of the Old Testament in the religion of Christ, it passed into Christianity and the Christian Cliurcli also. It appears at first, of course, because John the Baptist and Christ and his apostles were Jews, and w r • circumcised in accordance with the old Jewish idea and custom. In the very persons of Christ and his apostles themselves this idea was illustrated in their families, and as they grew up It would naturally become a part of the S3'stem of opin- ions which would bo formed liy their Jewish educa- tion. After the baptism of Jesus, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him, and after the day of Pentecost, when the apostles were under the full en- lightenment of the Holy Ghost, we do not find this idea rejected explicitly as an unauthorized tradition of the elders, but implied in their actions and utter- ances, though it had been perverted. As evidence of this, Paedobaptist writers refer to the following in- cidents and utterances : In Matt, xix, 1-15, the evan- gelist has brought together two incidents touching family relations in the kingdom of heaven, as Christ viewed theui. One relates to husband and wife, the other to children. In Christ's blessing little children, and saying, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven," the chief idea present, especially in Mark and Luke, is its illustration of the true Christian disposition. But, at the same time, in the bringing of the children to him by tlie mothers, the chief idea on their part is that of some pecnliiir good coming to tlieir children by persons of saintly character or of high ecclesias- tical position putting their hands upon tiiem and bless- ing tliem. So thougiit they of Jesus. In his act and in iiis words tliere is a response on his part to this be- lief of theirs, and in this response there is a recogni- tion, strongly apparent in JIatthew, of a peculiar jiosi- tion of chihlren as such in the kingdom of licaven. Calvin well remarks, " Tam parvuli, quam eoruni similes." It is a manifestation, on the part of those bringing them, of the long-prevalent idea of children as a jiart of the theocracy, and Christ recognises it in his kingdom of heaven. Its bearing upon infant bap-
tism lies chiefly in the fact that in this symbolical ac- tion of Christ we have a recognition of a principle that is also the basis of baptism. Says Meyer, in his Cum- mentary upon JIatthew, "this blessing is a justifica- tion of infant baptism." The language of Jesus re- garding Zacchajus contains the same conception of the family as a whole participating in salvation through its head: "This day is salvation come to this house (o?/c(;j, ''the famil}' of this house," Meyer), forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham." Similar also is his language in his directions to his disciples (Matt, x, 12-15): "And if the house be worth3', let jour peace come upon it" (comp. Lange, ad loc). This peculiar theocratic and religious relationship of children, or of posterity in general, if this be assumed as the true sense, suggests doubtless Peter's expression (Acts ii, 39), ' ' For the promise is unto you and to your children. " Again he says, in rehearsing the words of the angel to Cornelius (Acts xi, 14): "Who shall tell thee words whereijj^ thou and all thj' house shall be saved." In the same way Paul and Silas saj' to the jailer : " Be- lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts xvi, 31). Later than this, in the time of Paul's epistles, when the Church was more fuUv organized, most commentators are of opinion that this peculiar relationship of children to Christ and to the Church is contained in Paul's language in his epistles. Thus in Ejih. vi, 1, when he says, " Children, obey j'our parents in the Lord," as Alford saj's, "he regards both parents and children as in the Lord" — that is, as being within the sphere of that pe- culiar fellowship with Christ which this so frequent phrase signifies. This at least is certainly implied, while most commentators think that the reference here is really to baptized children, and that the apostle re- gards them as belonging to the Church. So Braune and Kiddle in Lange, Hofmann, Stier, Schaff, and oth- ers. Meyer rejects anj- reference to baptism, but con- siders the passage to contain this peculiar relationship of Christian parents and their children: "The chil- dren of Christians, even without baptism, were i'lyioi (see 1 Cor. vii, 14 ; Acts xvi, 1.5) through their vital fellowship with their Christian parents" {Com. iib. Epk.). In 1 Cor. vii, 14, this idea is verj' plainlj' ex- pressed. There Paul says that the children of parents of which onlj' one is a believer are hoh' and not un- clean— that is, they " are not outside of the theocratic fellowship and divine covenant; they do not belong to the unholy /cnir/ioe" (Meyer). They are ilyioi, holy — that is, not subjectively sanctified, but conse- crated, standing within the fellowship and covenant of the Christian body, just as children under the old Jewish religion were within the fellowship and cov- enant of the divinely constituted Jewish body. This results from the union which exists by l)irth and in the family life Itetween the children and their Chris- tian parents. They are thus included in the fellow- ship of the Church in a certain real sense, and that without any personal holiness or faith on tiieir part. The manner in which the apostle uses this in his ar- gument shows that it was the established, univer- sally acknowledged view among them at the time. It is, in fact, the conception and relation which existed under the Jewish ecimomy continued in the New-Tes- tament Church. Wiiile touching upon this passage, we may notice its value as evidence of the actual practice of infant baptism at the time. Meyer, Kling, and some other modern German writers find in it ev- idence more or less strong against such practice in the apostolic Church. It is said by jMeyer that "if the baptism of children had lieen in existence, Paul would not have argued as he did, because then the ayi6-i]g of the children of believers would have had another ground" — that is, baptism itself, instead of their descent and fellowship in the family. But to tliis it is re- plied that it reverses the relation between the rite and the (lyioTijc, or holiness. The Jewish child was cir-