David J. Engelsma > Quotes

“The evangelism of Billy Graham is revered, so that if one dares to call the message of Graham the doctrine of Pelagius out of hell, as the Canons of Dordt do indeed call it, he is likely to be stoned as a blasphemer in the streets of Reformed Jerusalem. (3rd edn, p. 63)”
― David J. Engelsma, Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel: An Examination of the Well-Meant Gospel Offer

“Suppose that the parents are true believers. Suppose, moreover, that they take seriously their church’s teaching (as they should!) that all children are unsaved until converted in later life. What follows from this for the parents’ dealings with their children? They must not allow the children to participate in the parents’ prayers. As unregenerate, the children cannot pray. Besides, the prayer of the unrighteous is abomination to God (Prov. 28:9). Parents cannot allow the children to recite with them the Lord’s Prayer or even to think themselves included when the parents pray this prayer. For God is not the Father of these children in Christ. The children must sit by with their eyes open and their hands unfolded. Father and mother cannot call the little children to honor and obey them in obedience to the fifth commandment. For the children neither love God, nor their neighbor for God’s sake. As unsaved, they cannot obey the fifth commandment. The parents must tell them this. Order in the home is purely a matter of external behavior motivated either by natural love or by fear of the rod.”
― David J. Engelsma, The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers: Sovereign Grace in the Covenant

“Every Baptist holds that the children of believers are lost heathens outside the church, no different from the children of unbelievers. The advertisement that a local Baptist church placed in the paper concerning the superior holiness of the children in their congregation—their obedience to authority and their freedom from drunkenness and fornication, etc.—was deceptive advertising. There are no children in that church. Every Baptist church denies membership to all children. Only sheep belong to the Baptist fold, no lambs.”
― David J. Engelsma, The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers: Sovereign Grace in the Covenant

“This is the meaning of the covenant promise, “I will be the God of your children.” The covenant promise does not mean, “I will be the God of your infant children some day, when they grow up, on the condition they believe or have a conversion experience.” But the promise means: “I will be the God of your infant children, now, in their infancy, because of my own grace in Jesus Christ and, therefore, some day those who grow up will believe and be converted.”
― David J. Engelsma, The Covenant of God and the Children of Believers: Sovereign Grace in the Covenant