Presumptive Regeneration, or, the Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants

by Cornelius Burges

For of baptism in particular, he thus speaks,[207] “Baptism is our regeneration or new birth, by which we are born anew in Christ, and are made the sons of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, it is the sacrament of the remission of sins, and of that washing which we have in the blood of Christ.” And a little after, among other places of Holy Scripture by him alleged, for proof hereof, he brings that of our Savior in John 3, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God;” and then adds, “for this cause are infants baptized, because they are born in sin, and cannot become spiritual, but by this new birth of the water and the Spirit. They are heirs of the promise; the covenant of God’s favor is made unto them.”