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Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace
We looked previously at how important covenant theology is to the Reformed arguments for paedobaptism. Within the Reformed argumentation for paedobaptism, there is no more essential doctrine than the covenant of grace. On this point Booth, a Reformed paedobaptist, notes, “There are also other evidences in the pages of Scripture that support the truth of infant baptism. Nevertheless, the foundation of the argument consists of the unified covenant of grace evident in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”[1] There are many reasons the covenant of grace is essential to the Reformed position on paedobaptism. Primarily, it provides the theological connection between circumcision and baptism, so that “baptism and circumcision have essentially the same meaning.”[2] Additionally, it provides a framework to see the continuity in the people of God, and God’s dealing corporately with households in the New Testament.[3] It should be noted that, historically, many credobaptists (people who…