74. Are infants also to be baptized?

Yes, for since they, as well as their parents belong to the covenant and people of God,1) and through the blood of Christ 2) both redemption from sin and the Holy Ghost, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to their parents, 3) they are also by Baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian Church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers,4) as was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, 5) in place of which in the New Testament Baptism is appointed.6)

1) And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

2) But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

3) And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. Luke 1:14,15.

I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly. Ps. 22:10.

For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. Acts 2:39.

4) Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?

5) And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul should be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. Gen. 17:14.

6) In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. Col. 2:11-13.

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