Throw The Baptist Dog A Bone

Many of the solid authors, bloggers and audio that I frequent are dear Presbyterian brothers.  I so appreciate their ministry and learn much from them, but some, more than others, play the "Anabaptist" card.  They alienate Baptists from a seat at the "Reformed Table".  Some pretensiously proclaim that Baptists can't be truly reformed.

I am guilty as charged!  When first invited to a Reformed Baptist church a dozen years ago, my reply to my wife was, "What?  'Reformed-Baptist' is an oxymoron, you can't be covenantal and be a Baptist!"  Well, I readily admitted my ignorance and now wear the oxymoronic cap atop my greying/balding head.

It was so refreshing to read Jeremy Walker's article on Reformation21.  He explained the perspective of the framers of the 1689 BC, was that they were persuaded from the scriptures that the Reformation was not complete at Geneva, Dordrecht, or even Westminster, but that it should continue with the eradication of the State-church and the Roman popish practice of sprinkling infants. He had this wonderful quote from Benjamin Keach's Light Broke Forth In Whales, Expelling Darkness (London 1696) that I just had to share:

I look upon Infant-Baptism to be one of the chief Pillars of the Romish Church, and of all National Churches and Constitutions in the European World; this is that Christendom that is so cried up, and the way of making and continuing the pretended Christian-Name; in the Anti-christian Church, and World, all are made Christian in their Infant-Baptism: And thus the inhabitants of the Earth are cheated, and deluded with a Shadow and empty Name that signifies nothing; and certain I am, until Christendom (as it is called) is Unchristianed of this pretended Rite, or Christendom, there will never be a thorough Reformation:  I mean until they see that Christianity, or Christian-Name, which they received at their Infant-Baptism, signifies nothing, but throw it away as an Human Innovation, and labour after true Regeneration, or a likeness to Christ, and so believe and are baptized upon the profession of their Faith, according as in the Apostolical Primitive Church: 'Tis Infant-Baptism that tends to uphold all National Churches, and deceives poor People who think there were hereby made Christians. (234)