[John]
Murray [in his book, Christian Baptism] fails to recognize that New
Testament sacraments must be expressly commanded and explicitly instituted by
Christ according to the regulative principle of worship.
The
Westminster of Faith 1:6 teaches that things may be “deduced from
Scripture” by “good and necessary consequence” when trying to determine “the
whole counsel of God.” however, that which is “expressly set down in Scripture”
is specifically distinguished by the Westminster divines from good and
necessary consequence. They are not the same things. The former is instituted revelation;
the latter is human deduction from instituted revelation. . . . For the sake of
clarity, the reader should understand that it is a valid hermeneutical method to
draw inferences from Scripture. Drawing good and necessary inference is
required tot draw up confessions, to do systematic theology, and to engage in
pastoral applications to people. Yet no one would claim that all deductions or
inferences are equally clear, good, necessary, and authoritative. There is such
a thing as “poor and unnecessary inference.” In fact, using poor and unnecessary
inferences is a primary strategy of the cults; i.e., the baptism for the dead.
How does one distinguish between the two? One must distinguish between
inferences that are possibly plausible and those that are consequentially
necessary. The Scriptural basis for any inference must be very good and clearly
necessary, conforming to standard rules of hermeneutics to be authoritative.
Even if the case for paedobaptism were potentially plausible, it still is unwise
to form a doctrine of an instituted sacrament by inference alone when never
mentioned or expressly set down in Scripture. Inference, even if one concludes
it good and necessary, cannot be used to invent sacraments or subjects of sacraments,
as do the Roman Catholics.
Further,
there is a warning on the Westminster Confession against adding to
Scripture by the traditions of men, even if those traditions are asserted to be
deduced from Scripture, as did the Pharisees in their erroneous deductions (see
Matthew 15:1-10). They often followed the “string-of-pearls” method of stringing
Scriptures together out of context to invent new laws by inference.
To
summarize, there is a limit to the practice of good and necessary consequences
in its application. The limitation of this: Inference cannot contradict
other instituted Scripture or sound hermeneutical principles that govern one’s
deductions from Scripture. For sacraments in particular, under the
regulative principle of worship, good and necessary consequence cannot be used
to institute any sacrament or the subjects of sacraments. . . . An example of
this error is Andrew Sandlin’s extreme, unqualified statement that good and
necessary consequence, which can be based upon erroneous inferences, always is
as binding as Scripture itself. The binding power of good and necessary
consequence totally depends upon the hermeneutical validity of the inferences
that cold be neither “good” nor “necessary.” He says:
The
most frequent and obvious objection to the Reformed view of infant baptism is
that no obvious, explicit references to it is found in the Scriptures. . . .
But hose who hold the Reformed faith do not agree that infant baptism should be
rejected on the grounds that it is not taught obviously and explicitly in
the Holy Scriptures, for they do not hold that a doctrine or practice need
be expressed in obvious, explicit terms to be valid. Supporting as they do
the assertion of the Westminster Confession that those teachings which “by
good and necessary consequence” can be deducted from Scripture are as binding
as those taught plainly and explicitly (chapter 1, section 6), they deduce
from the relation between circumcision and baptism, from the covenantal
character of the gospel and the Christian faith, and from statements regarding
household salvation and baptism, the practice of paedobaptism [emphasis mine].
(Andrew Sandlin, “A Support for Reformed Paedobaptism (with a Reformed Baptist
Reply by Fred Pugh)” Tms [photocopy], position paper [Painesville, OH: the
Church of the WORD, 1996], 8)
In
this statement, Sandlin unqualifiedly asserts something that the WCF 1:6
does not say, that things deduced from Scripture “are as binding as those
taught plainly and explicitly.” He does not distinguish the actual necessary
consequences that are contained in the fabric of Scripture from his own possibly
erroneous conclusions as to what those are. What he concludes to be good and
necessary may possibly be noting more than erroneous deductions. If erroneous
deductions are regarded as binding as Scripture, they then become erroneous
additions to revelation. Thus, such an absolute unqualified statement by
Sandlin takes a decisive step toward the Roman Catholic position that theological
inference and church tradition are as authoritative as Scripture itself, even
regarding the institution of a sacrament never mentioned in the Scripture! This
position undermines sola Scriptura. . . . Good and necessary consequence
can be valid only when deducted from written revelation and not contrary to other
written revelation; in other words, the analogy of faith. Never can it be used
to violate standard hermeneutical principles or the regulative principle of worship,
because the correct interpretations of Scripture never contradicts itself. Scripture
must interpret Scripture by sound hermeneutic principles. Even if one could
infer infant baptism as a plausible consequence of certain Scripture teachings,
as pearls strung on a string, it would still contradict that the Scripture
positively institutes, instructs, and provides as examples concerning the
subjects of baptism which is expressly set down in Scripture. Good and
necessary inference is not a valid hermeneutic when defining the subjects of a
sacrament supposedly instituted by Christ (WCF 21:5). (Fred A. Malone, The
Baptism of Disciples Alone: A Covenantal Argument for Credobaptism Versus Paedobaptism
[rev ed.; Cape Coral, Fla.: Founders
Press, 2008], 19-20, 21, italics in original, comments in square brackets added
for clarification)
