The Half-Way Covenant and Religious Scrupulosity

URING the i630s most New England churches restricted membership to visible saints who could give convincing relations of spiritual regeneration. Only God's elect could partake of the Lord's Supper and offer their children for baptism. What, however, was the status of baptized children? Were they also members of the church? Could they participate in the Lord's Supper? Could they offer their own children for baptism?1 To these increasingly urgent questions the Cambridge Platform of i648 provided partial answers. Baptized children of communicants should come to their tryall and examination, and manifest their faith and repentance by an open profession therof, before they are received to the Lords supper, and otherwise to be admitted there unto.2 Communion was thus restricted without exception to those who could testify to their regeneration. The Synod of i662 further defined the status of children. When grown up they came personally under the watch, discipline and of their parents' church, but they were not therefore to be admitted to full Communion, meerly because they are and continue members, without such further qualifications, as the Word of God requireth therunto. In its fifth proposition the Synod set forth what was later called the half-way covenant: Church-members who were admitted in minority, understanding the Doctrine of Faith, and pub/icily professing their assent thereto; scandalous in life, and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church, wherin they give up themselves and their children to the Lord, and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in the Church, their children are to be Bacptised.3

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