Chapter 58 [XXX.]—In What Respect the Pelagians Regarded Baptism as Necessary for Infants.

Let us now examine more carefully, so far as the Lord enables us, that very chapter of the Gospel where He says, “Except a man be born again,—of water and the Spirit,— he shall not enter into the kingdom of God.”206    John iii. 3, 5. If it were not for the authority which this sentence has with them, they would not be of opinion that infants ought to be baptized at all. This is their comment on the passage: “Because He does not say, ‘Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not have salvation or eternal life,’ but He merely said, ‘he shall not enter into the kingdom of God,’ therefore infants are to be baptized, in order that they may be with Christ in the kingdom of God, where they will not be unless they are baptized. Should infants die, however, even without baptism, they will have salvation and eternal life, seeing that they are bound with no fetter of sin.” Now in such a statement as this, the first thing that strikes one is, that they never explain where the justice is of separating from the kingdom of God that “image of God” which has no sin. Next, we ought to see whether the Lord Jesus, the one only good Teacher, has not in this very passage of the Gospel intimated, and indeed shown us, that it only comes to pass through the remission of their sins that baptized persons reach the kingdom of God; although to persons of a right understanding, the words, as they stand in the passage, ought to be sufficiently explicit: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God;”207    John iii. 3. and: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”208    John iii. 5. For why should he be born again, unless to be renewed? From what is he to be renewed, if not from some old condition? From what old condition, but that in which “our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed?”209    Rom. vi. 6. Or whence comes it to pass that “the image of God” enters not into the kingdom of God, unless it be that the impediment of sin prevents it? However, let us (as we said before) see, as earnestly and diligently as we are able, what is the entire context of this passage of the Gospel, on the point in question.

CAPUT XXX.

58. Baptismum ad quid infantibus necessarium voluerint Pelagiani. Jam nunc scrutemur diligentius, quantum adjuvat Dominus, etiam ipsum Evangelii capitulum ubi ait, Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et spiritu, non intrabit in regnum Dei. Qua isti sententia nisi moverentur, omnino parvulos nec baptizandos esse censerent. Sed quia non ait, inquiunt, «Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et spiritu,» non habebit salutem vel vitam aeternam; tantummodo autem dixit, «non intrabit in regnum Dei:» ad hoc parvuli baptizandi sunt, ut sint etiam cum Christo in regno Dei, ubi non erunt si baptizati non fuerint: quamvis et sine Baptismo si parvuli moriantur, salutem vitamque aeternam habituri sint, quoniam nullo peccati vinculo obstricti sunt. Haec dicentes, primo nunquam explicant isti, qua justitia nullum peccatum habens imago Dei separetur a regno Dei. Deinde videamus utrum Dominus Jesus, unus et solus magister bonus, in hac ipsa evangelica lectione non significaverit et ostenderit nonnisi per remissionem peccatorum fieri, ut ad regnum Dei perveniant baptizati: 0143 quamvis recte intelligentibus sufficere debuerit, quod dictum est, Nisi quis natus fuerit denuo, non potest videre regnum Dei; et, Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et spiritu, non potest introire in regnum Dei. Cur enim nascatur denuo, nisi renovandus? unde renovandus, nisi a vetustate? qua vetustate, nisi in qua vetus homo noster simul crucifixus est cum illo, ut evacuetur corpus peccati (Rom. VI, 6)? Aut unde imago Dei non intrat in regnum Dei, nisi impedimento prohibente peccati? Verumtamen, ut proposuimus, totam ipsam circumstantiam evangelicae lectionis ad rem de qua agitur pertinentem, intente quantum possumus diligenterque videamus.