8.
Another objection often raised by the opponents of infant baptism is that we
have the same historical evidence for infant communion as we have for infant
baptism. It is asserted that the evidence of infant communion in the history of
the early church invalidates the historical testimony we find in favor of
infant baptism.
In
answering this objection, I will freely grant that the practice of
administering communion to children, and sometimes even to infants, has been
practiced in various parts of the Christian church from a very early period. It
is still practiced to this day in some circles.
Its
history run briefly as follows: About the middle of the 3rd century
we encounter it in the practice of some of the African churches. They had
misconstrued Christ's words, “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood, you have no life in you.” They erroneously held that a
participation in the Lord's Supper was essential to salvation. But it is a
great injustice to the cause of infant baptism to represent it as resting on no
better ground than infant communion. There are three notable differences
between the two.
A.
Infant baptism has solid and decisive scriptural support. Infant communion does
not.
B.
The historical testimony to infant communion is greatly inferior to that which
we possess in favor of infant baptism.
There
is no historical record of anyone practicing infant communion before the time
of Cyprian. On the other hand, we find Justin Martyr referring to people in his
day who were baptized as infants during the apostolic era.
C. Infant communion
does not possess anything like the general and universal acceptance infant
baptism has had throughout church history.
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