How The Half-way Covenant
Relates to the
Heresy of Decisional Regeneration

The practice of "Owning The Covenant" began when the American Puritan church leaders agreed to the Half-way Covenant.

The American Pilgrims and Puritans (Congregational Churches) when they came to the New World agreed that only supernaturally regenerate (born again) individuals should be admitted as full members, which qualified them to be partake of the Lord's Supper, voting rights, and the baptism of their babies. Regeneration was understood to be a supernatural change of character and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not the rational faith acceptance of Scripture facts accepted as de facto regeneration so common today (the heresy of decisional regenertion).

This was, after all, the reason the Pilgrims and Puritans were persecuted by the Church of England. They did not believe salvation was assured if one made a "confession of faith" at the conclusion of Church of England catechism. They also did not believe supernatural regeneration and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was likely to happen by using the "means of grace" available in the established church. They saw the Church of England as a daughter harlot of the harlot Romish church, so they felt called to "come out from among them" (2 Corinthians 6:17). THIS WAS WHY THEY WERE PERSECUTED AS DISSENTERS.

This was the reason Pilgrims and Puritans escaped England and went to Holland where they would not be persecuted. It was From Holland that many came to the New World to establish a City of God.

But when the first generation Pilgrims and Puritans were dying off, many of their childen showed no signs of regeneration. this was seen as a crisis, because these children would not be able to baptize their children, and likely they would not continue to support the church. Hence the need of the Halfway Covenant, and the mechanism of Halfway membership, the practice of "Owning The Covenant". For an exhaustive explanation of the pernitious effect of the utilization of Owning the Covenant, please read A Discourse on Acts 2:42, in which the Practice of Owning the Covenant is Particularly Examined by Cyprian Strong (1744-1811).

Only these church members that had experienced supernatural regeneration were allowed to present their children for baptism. Within a few years, however, the elders faced an unforeseen corollary to the question of baptism. What was the status of a child whose parents had been baptized in infancy but had never experienced supernatural regeneration upon attaining adulthood? Did the children of baptized but unregenerate parents retain a right to baptism? Nearly all of the ministers assembled at the Cambridge Synods of 1646-1649 agreed on the need to extend baptism to this group, but a minority of dissenters prevented the elders from adding the provision to the Cambridge Platform (1649) of church government.