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Wes said:
Why would any Christian parent who is in a right relationship with the Lord and His Church want to exclude their child from this external mark of inclusion in the covenant community of believers?


Wes

According to Dr. Lee, Calvin would not have dying children baptized. For Calvin, emergency baptism is based on a incorrect understanding of purpose of baptism. Children already have the spark of faith under the covenant so baptism is unnecessary. In any case, baptism must be done lawfully (i.e., by an ordained minister) and especially not by women.

The Second Helvetic Confession appears to echo this.

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The Minister of Baptism. We teach that baptism should not be administered in the Church by women or midwives. For Paul deprived women of ecclesiastical duties, and baptism has to do with these.

Anabaptists. We condemn the Anabaptists, who deny that newborn infants of the faithful are to be baptized. For according to evangelical teaching, of such is the Kingdom of God, and they are in the covenant of God. Why, then, should the sign of God's covenant not be given to them? Why should those who belong to God and are in his Church not be initiated by holy baptism? We condemn also the Anabaptists in the rest of their peculiar doctrines which they hold contrary to the Word of God. We therefore are not Anabaptists and have nothing in common with them.

Although appearing to favor infant baptism, the SHC could also be interpreted as saying emergency baptism is unnecessary since newborn infants are already under the covenant and their baptism is merely a sign of what has already occurred. So infant baptism can be safely be neglected on legalistic grounds.

The Westminister Confession seems to be out of sync with the SHC, ". . .it is a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance. . ." So, emergency baptism is defended by the WCF as a means of obeying God's command to baptize covenant infants.

Whereas, WCF presents emergency infant baptism as a matter of obeying God's law; the SHC appears to imply that, under certain circumstances, emergency infant baptism is actually disobeying God's law (e.g., a midwife baptizing a dying infant).

Am I correct or am I misunderstanding Calvin and misreading these Reform confessions?