_Answ._ This case hath no difficulty. 1. A believer as such, is a member of Christ and the church invisible, but not of the visible church, till he be an orderly professor of that belief. And this profession is not left to every man's will how it shall be made, but Christ hath prescribed and instituted a certain way and manner of profession, which shall be the only ordinary symbol or badge, by which the church shall know visible members; and that is baptism. Indeed when baptism cannot be had, an open profession without it may serve; for sacraments are made for man, and not man for sacraments. But when it may be had, it is Christ's appointed symbol, _tessera_, and church door. And till a person be baptized, he is but irregularly and initially a professor; as an embryo in the womb is a man; or as a covenant before the writing, sealing, and delivering is initially a covenant; or as persons privately contracted without solemn matrimony are married; or as a man is a minister upon election and trial before ordination: he hath only, in all these cases, the beginning of a title, which is not complete; nor at all sufficient _in foro ecclesiæ_, to make a man visibly and legally a married man, a minister, and so here a christian. For Christ hath chosen his own visible badge, by which his church members must be known.
2. And the same is to be said of the infant title of the children of believers; they have but an initial right before baptism, and not the badge of visible christians. For there are three distinct gradations to make up their visible Christianity. 1. Because they are their own, (and as it were parts of themselves,) therefore believers have power and obligation to dedicate their children in covenant with God. 2. Because every believer is himself dedicated to God, with all that is his own, (according to his capacity,) therefore a believer's child is supposed to be virtually (not actually) dedicated to God in his own dedication or covenant, as soon as his child hath a being. 3. Being thus virtually and implicitly first dedicated, he is after actually and regularly dedicated in baptism, and sacramentally receiveth the badge of the church; and this maketh him a visible member or christian, to which the two first were but introductory, as conception is to human nativity.
_Object._ But the seed of believers as such are in the covenant; and therefore church members.
_Answ._ The word covenant here is ambiguous; either it signifieth God's law of grace, or prescribed terms for salvation, with his immediate offer of the benefits to accepters, called the single covenant of God; or it signifieth this with man's consent, called the mutual covenant, where both parties covenant. In the former sense, the covenant only offereth church membership, but maketh no man a church member, till consent. It is but God's conditional promise, "If thou believe thou shalt be saved," &c. If thou give up thyself and children to me, I will be your God, and you shall be my people. But it is only the mutual covenant that maketh a christian or church member.
_Object._ The promise is to us and our children as ours.
_Answ._ That is, that you and your children dedicated to God, shall be received into covenant; but not otherwise. Believing is not only bare assenting, but consenting to the covenant, and delivering up yourselves to Christ; and if you do not consent that your child shall be in the covenant, and deliver him to God also, you cannot expect acceptance of him, against your wills; nor indeed are you to be taken for true believers yourselves, if you dedicate not yourselves to him, and all that are in your power.
_Object._ This offer or conditional covenant belongeth also to infidels.
_Answ._ The offer is to them, but they accept it not. But every believer accepteth it for himself, and his, or devoteth to God himself and his children when he shall have them; and by that virtual dedication or consent, his children are virtually in the mutual covenant; and actually upon actual consent and dedication.
_Object._ But it is profession, and not baptism, that makes a visible member.
_Answ._ That is answered before: it is profession by baptism; for baptism is that peculiar act of profession, which God hath chosen to this use, when a person is absolutely devoted, resigned, and engaged to God in a solemn sacrament, this is our regular initiating profession; and it is but an irregular embryo of a profession, which goeth before baptism ordinarily.
_Prop. 3._ The time of infant membership, in which we stand in covenant by our parents' consent, cannot be determined by duration, but by the insufficiency of reason, through immaturity of age, (or continuing idiots,) to choose for oneself.
_Prop. 4._ It is not necessary that the doctrine of the Lord's supper be taught catechumens before baptism; nor was it usual with the ancients so to do (though it may very well be done.)