The Palatinate Delegation at the Synod of Dordt on the Baptism of Slave Children

Translated from Early Sessions of the Synod of Dordt (V&R, 2018), pgs. 133-34.

[Authors: Abraham Scultetus; Paul Tossanus; Johann Heinrich Alting]

Regarding the baptism of children of Gentiles, the Palatine church holds the opinion that the Swiss brethren professed the day before yesterday, namely that neither infants nor older children of Gentiles, by whomever they are received, should be admitted to baptism unless both have grown up and been instructed. Indeed, the Savior explicitly ordered the Apostles going to the Gentiles to teach them first before baptizing them. And the children of Gentiles are not in covenant with God, but are impure from both parents, and even more impure in [Dutch East] India, because their parents worship the Devil. Their situation is entirely different from that of the home-born slaves and foreigners in Abraham’s household, since they and Abraham professed the faith of Abraham their master and invoked Abraham’s God. For these reasons, when twenty years ago an Ethiopian boy and a Tartar youth were sent to the most serene Elector Palatine Frederick IV of blessed memory, and were received by him into the court service, both first had to learn the German language. Then both were instructed in piety and ordered to hear sermons. Nor were they baptized before they themselves had requested baptism and had given an account of their faith both privately and publicly.

Palatinate Theologians delegated to the Synod.