# Elect Infants



## JML (Feb 12, 2014)

What did the composers of the confessions deem an infant? Is this all children? What age range did they have in mind?


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## Hamalas (Feb 12, 2014)

Which confession are you referring to?


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## JML (Feb 12, 2014)

Hamalas said:


> Which confession are you referring to?



Westminster and London Baptist are what I had in mind. The board confessions.


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## reaganmarsh (Feb 12, 2014)

John Lanier said:


> What did the composers of the confessions deem an infant? Is this all children? What age range did they have in mind?



Excellent question.


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## KMK (Feb 12, 2014)

> WSC Q. 95. To whom is Baptism to be administered?
> 
> A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they *profess* their faith in Christ, and obedience to him;[195] *but the infants* of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized.



Infants are set in opposition to those who are able to profess their faith in Christ. I think their definition would include even adult children who do not possess the cognitive ability to make a profession.


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## Sensus Divinitas (Feb 12, 2014)

The 1768 edition of the Samuel Johnson dictionary defines infant as "A child from the birth to the end of the seventh year." Though, that doesn't mean that's what the Westminster Divines meant by it, of course.


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## Wayne (Feb 13, 2014)

> I think their definition would include even adult children who do not possess the cognitive ability to make a profession.



As borne out by WCF 10.3, "elect infants and others uncapable."


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## Edward (Feb 13, 2014)

Ex Lege Dei said:


> The 1768 edition of the Samuel Johnson dictionary defines infant as "A child from the birth to the end of the seventh year."



It's my understanding that that concept is drawn from Roman law. So it should have been a definition known at the time of Westminster. On whether that is the intended definition, I'll have to yield to the historians amongst us.


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## JML (Feb 13, 2014)

KMK said:


> Infants are set in opposition to those who are able to profess their faith in Christ. I think their definition would include even adult children who do not possess the cognitive ability to make a profession.



So if I am understanding, defining an "infant" would be a mental thing more than an age thing. An "infant" would be a person lacking the mental capacity to make a profession or denial. Is this kind of what you are saying here?


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 13, 2014)

The only place I found the LBC mentions "infants" (outside an appendix on the Baptist opposition to infant-baptism) is in 10:3, respecting effectual calling.

The language of the para.s are virtually identical in either WCF 10:3 or LBC 10:3. Some separation or distinction is established between the classes of "infants" and "other elect persons" in WCF. The LBC drops the term "other" when describing "persons who are incapable of being outwardly called." A suggestion arises, that this minor elision reflects the flattening and homogenizing tendencies of Baptist ecclesiology, which works against categorization or classification. Infants, in the LBC, are thus mentioned as the commonest instance of one general portion of the elect.

I do not imagine that the originators of either WCF or LBC were especially interested in fixing legal or developmental limits to the age of infants, to _define_ the infant in the eyes of the church. Certainly the LBC would not make that criterion significant. Such a mark would not be required, in order to make sense of the Confessional article.

One might think that for a WCF adherent, other mentions of "infant" (particularly in light of baptismal practice) could require some definition. However, since we (I am in that tradition) draw our definitions from Scripture in such cases, we would be hard pressed to go beyond the indefinite picture presented by the Word. Being "of age" in Scripture could be as situation-variable as it is in our modern secular society (i.e., one age for voting, another for driving, another for drinking, another for marriage, etc.). The days of the Bible cover great epochs of time. Proselytes unto Israel brought their sons and servants into the covenant with them by circumcision, unless those persons were capable of making competent judgments on their own.


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## jwithnell (Feb 13, 2014)

John, may I ask the context for your question? Is there a particular issue you had in mind?


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## Scott1 (Feb 13, 2014)

As the Westminster Shorter Catechism was written for children, it would seem the plain meaning of infant was intended to be that of children under about 2 years of age. Physical age, not so much of capacity. 

It doesn't seem the ability of God to elect has anything to do with intellectual capacity.



> Oxford English dictionary (American)
> 
> late Middle English: from Old French enfant, from Latin infant- 'unable to speak', from in- 'not' + fant- 'speaking' (from the verb fari).



The middle English definition being ability to speak, not comprehend the complex. The former would generally be in the 2 year age range.


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## JML (Feb 13, 2014)

jwithnell said:


> John, may I ask the context for your question? Is there a particular issue you had in mind?



No particular issue. I have just always wondered about those statements in the confessions.


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## JML (Feb 13, 2014)

Scott1 said:


> As the Westminster Shorter Catechism was written for children, it would seem the plain meaning of infant was intended to be that of children under about 2 years of age. Physical age, not so much of capacity.
> 
> It doesn't seem the ability of God to elect has anything to do with intellectual capacity.
> 
> ...



Very interesting. Thanks for the Latin.


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