Believers and Their Seed

by Herman Hoeksema

Children in the Covenant

£12.00 + £1.20 (P&P) = £13.20

159 Pages

Hardback

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DESCRIPTION

Believers and Their Seed is not a book designed to prove infant baptism over against the baptist position. It is a book for those already convicted of the truth that "The baptism of young children is … to be retained in the church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ" (Article 24 of the Thirty-Nine Articles). Herman Hoeksema grounds infant baptism in the covenant of grace with believers and their seed which in turn is rooted in the covenant life of the Triune God, "a life of the most intimate communion of love and friendship, resting in the unity of God’s Being and living through the personal distinction[s]" of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (p. 61).

As well as grounding infant baptism in God’s covenant, Hoeksema draws out the relationship between infant baptism and election and the doctrines of grace. Thus he opposes a "conditional" covenant (chs. 1-2) and baptismal regeneration (chs. 3-4) and deals with the difficult pastoral issue of covenant children who die in infancy (ch. 11).

Believers and Their Seed has helped a lot of people understand infant baptism more deeply and been of great comfort to believing parents. The proper understanding of the covenant also helps to preserve Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican and Congregational churches from the incursion of baptistic thinking (pp. 4-5) and the modern practice of infant "dedication" services. For those less familiar with some of the controversies between paedobaptists (chs. 1-4), it may be best to read the positive treatment of God’s covenant and infant baptism first (chs. 5-11).

Click here to read a review in the Standard Bearer.

Click here to read this book in Dutch.

Click to read chapter 5 and chapter 6 in Italian.