Finalizing an Understanding on Baptism

[DNM300]

Do Presbyterians hold that the priest atones and intercedes for all members of the covenant and only them? Does Jesus intercede in heaven entirely successfully?

@Semper Fidelis has written a lot on the board about this issue

 

[paranymph]

However, when I began to realize the importance and advocating for psalms in worship, I began getting funny looks and halfhearted placating with slight resistance. No one could argue against my reasoning, they were just resistant. They’ve thrown one a month into the “worship set” (terminology I’m not a massive fan of) but that’s it. That coupled with a very absent sabbatarian view, which PB convinced me of, told me I may should reconsider my position, having learned the principle of good and necessary consequences.

Although you may already be on your way to paedobaptism, there are plenty of Reformed Baptist/2LCF churches that both sing Psalms (most not exclusively though) and take the Sabbath seriously.

 

[HollandReformed]

Although you may already be on your way to paedobaptism, there are plenty of Reformed Baptist/2LCF churches that both sing Psalms (most not exclusively though) and take the Sabbath seriously.

Thank you for your response, paranymph!

Unfortunately, our area is a famine of reformed churches of any kind. Most conservative churches are IFB or some kind of bapticostal mashup. My church is the only established 1689 church while the nearest established Presbyterian churches are 45 minutes to an hour away.

That being said, I do understand that. The baptists here convince me of that. So, no intention of disrespect, to any 1689 baptists, nor to my elders who are not convictionally sabbatarian in a strict traditional sense. Let every man be convinced by his own conscience. They are very godly men and have blessed me immensely.

Actually, what caused my dilemma was essentially what I see as contradiction in formulating the confession. Malone argued that the 1689 was more internally consistent and faithful by not using good and necessary consequences to formulate important doctrine. The difficulty I have with this is that I find this untrue. The doctrine of the Lord’s Day as the Sabbath is, as of necessity, arrived at upon the grounds of good and necessary consequences by way of the everlasting establishment of the 7th commandment in the Decalogue. The continuation of the Covenant as delivered unto Abraham, likewise an everlasting Covenant, into the renewed Covenant as delivered by Peter, being delivered the same way, is ultimately the product of a consistent practice of exegesis. In what way are both of these everlasting? The 7th day is renewed in the 1st and Circumcision as a sign and seal is renewed in baptism, if the logic follows, which we agree upon, but the disagreement is upon what is done with children, wherein the Covenant from Adam to Acts the delivery seems to have been delivered in the same way: including children.

If the argument is that we have to start from the New Testament and cannot utilize the prior specifics of the prior administrations of the Covenant, then we have to do the same with the Lord’s Day, and the 1689 falls apart—that is by my estimation. I submit I may be seeing erroneously, and this is predicated one what is at this time, in the Founder’s circles, the champion Baptist argument by Malone. To come to the Reformed Baptist position almost feels like in a sense you have to hold to faint elements of dispensational theology in disconnecting circumcision from baptism as a sign and seal, (I’m not making the charge that RBs are dispensationalists), while holding a fully Covenantal union of the Lord’s Day with the principle of the sabbath rest.

If you see an error in this line of thinking, let me know. For me, it’s pretty crippling to hold as a confessional Baptist, as that is how I came to the understanding of the Lord’s Day as the Christian Sabbath—that is, good and necessary consequences.
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Well... I'm a 69 year old lady who travels over 100 miles down to Opelika, AL on the Lord's day, as does another family with young children, and two other people (laboring in prayer, of course, for a church plant in our area). Not just for the singing of Psalms; but for the preaching, and great love we have among us, and so much more. We live in such irregular times for the church; and so some choose to do irregular things for the kingdom's sake.

I appreciate and respect that. My main issue with that is that, should I do that, for one I have two, going on 3 children (probably this week) under 4, who are particularly challenging in a 20 minute drive. I’m also living between two houses an hour away from each other, while working on my Master’s and working. If I had to drive a hundred miles on the Lord’s Day, not on would I lose the opportunity to rest, I’d be exhausting my poor wife, and wouldn’t be able to participate in the life of the Church. While it’s certainly understandable, it goes against my personal convictions and probably my personal capacity at this time :/