Bertha and Her Baptism Part 14

_Mr. R._ It shows that the Cambridge Platform calls them members; but it gives us no proof that they are properly called members. A great deal in that extract, I undertake to say, will command the cordial a.s.sent of all who practise infant baptism, if we except the use of the term members.

It shows that, as to coming into the company of true believers, and being one of them, the only way is through repentance and faith,--a way common to the unbaptized. The only advantage, but one which is exceedingly great and precious on the part of the believer's children, being, that they "have many privileges," and "are in a more hopeful way of attaining regenerating grace." But the term membership does not express their relation to the church before they are converted.

_Mr. B._ (After a pause.) I do not know but you are right.

Mr. C., the remaining advocate of the sermon, said, "Let me refresh your memories with the famous case quoted in Morton's New England Memorial. He says:

"'The two ministers there (Salem, 1629), being seriously studious of reformation, they considered the state of their children, together with their parents, concerning which letters did pa.s.s between Mr. Higginson (of Salem) and Mr. Brewster, the reverend elder of the church of Plymouth; and they did agree in their judgments, namely, concerning the church-membership of the children with their parents, and that baptism was a seal of their membership; only, when they were adult, they being not scandalous, they were to be examined by the church officers, and upon their approbation of their fitness, and upon the children's public and personally owning of the covenant, they were to be received unto the Lord's Supper. Accordingly, Mr. Higginson's eldest son, being about fifteen years of age, was owned to have been received a member together with his parents, and being privately examined by the pastor, Mr.

Skelton (the other minister of Salem), about his knowledge in the principles of religion, he did present him before the church when the Lord's Supper was to be administered, and, the child then publicly and personally owning the covenant of the G.o.d of his father, he was admitted unto the Lord's Supper, it being there professedly owned, according to 1 Cor. 7:14, that the children of the church are holy unto the Lord, as well as their parents.'"

Mr. R. stood up, and, with an animated look and manner, but with a very pleasant voice, said:

"What, now, my good brother, did these good ministers do, with this youth, more or less than we all do for the children of our pastoral charge?

"Of what practical use was his so-called infant 'church-membership,' in addition to his being, as we all hold, a child of the covenant?"

They made no reply for a little while, till at last Mr. A. said:

"Well, Br. R., what names would you subst.i.tute for _members_ and _membership_?"

_Mr. R._ "THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH;" for you have it in the last sentence of the extract which you read from Morton;--the true, the most appropriate, and, in every respect, the best name for those who are so ambiguously called _members_.

_Mr. B._ There is great beauty and sweetness in that name, I confess,--"the children of the church," "the church's children."

_Mr. R._ A father never, except for concealment, says, "a member of my family," when "a child" is meant. The term _members_, besides being equivocal, and requiring explanation, is not so good as "children of the church," an expression which includes and covers all that any would claim for "infant church-members."

_Mr. C._ I confess, I like Br. R.'s views and proposition. If, by calling the offspring of believers, "the children of the church," we, by implication, abridged any of their privileges, or if, by calling them church-members, we believed that they acquired rights and privileges not otherwise appertaining to them, we ought to prefer the words member and membership; but it is not so. No one of the writers cited,--and the proofs we all know could be extended by quoting from other authors,--claims the right of a child to full communion, except upon evidence, in his "trial and examination," that he is regenerate. Indeed, the only use to which the terms member and membership seem to be applied, is, in furnishing some ground for urging the discipline and excommunication of the child. This, though urged by some, is urged in vain.

_Mr. R._ Other terms, in connection with members and membership, have been proposed, such as members in minority, members in suspension, future members; but all in vain. The children of believers are certainly the children of the church, and such I devoutly hope and pray they may come to be called.

_Mr. A._ Seeing that the use of the term _member_ keeps before our minds a theoretical, hard necessity, from which every one shrinks, I think I will alter my sermon so far as to dismiss the term, and, with it, all sense of inconsistency in neglected obligations as to disciplining these young "members."

"Well, Br. A.," said Mr. B., "I will join you in submission."

"So will I," said Mr. C. "How good it is to be convinced, and to give up one's own will; is it not?"

"It ought to be," said Mr. A., "to those whose great business it is to preach submission. But I think we did not differ at first, except as to the use of terms."

_Mr. T._ I wish to make a confession. Though I have always been of Br.

R.'s opinion, I have felt it to be invidious, and, for several reasons, disagreeable, to call a meeting of "the children of the church,"--making a distinction between them and the other children of my pastoral charge.

Am I correct in such views and feelings?

"Come, Mr. Chairman," said Mr. A., "we have not paid you sufficient deference, I fear; for we have hardly kept order, in addressing one another, and not through you. Now, please to speak for us, and tell us what you think of Br. T.'s difficulty."

_Mr. C._ I have sinned with you, as to keeping order, if there has been any transgression; but I have been so much interested and instructed, that I forgot my preeminence over you. But to Br. T., I would say, There is a church; and it means something, and something of infinite importance. All our labors have this for their end, to make men qualified for worthy church-membership, on earth, and in heaven,--the conditions of admission here and there, as we hold, being essentially the same. This church, which we thus build up, has children, call them what we may, the objects of G.o.d's peculiar love. On that topic I need not dwell. We ought to pay some marks of special regard to these children, for G.o.d has done so. As to its being invidious, it is not more invidious than to address our congregations as partly Christians, and partly unconverted; or to invite the unconverted to meetings especially designed for them. Meetings of the children of my church, called by me, and addressed by me, never fail to make very deep impressions upon the young, upon their parents, upon other children, and upon the parents of those children. Another form of effecting the same desirable ends, is, to call meetings of parents in the church, and their children, and to address the parents and the children in sight and hearing of each other.

In doing so, if there are any parents in the church who are withholding their children from baptism, we have the best of opportunities to conciliate their feelings to the ordinance of baptism. We all know how little is effected in our minds by abstract reasoning upon any subject, where the feelings are deeply concerned; close argument, invincible logic, absolute demonstrations, and all measures seemingly intended to coerce the will, excite resistance, and confirm us in our prejudices.

But open to a parent, who has doubts on the subject, its inestimable benefits to all concerned, and he will be more disposed to see the grounds for it, and the abundant proofs of its divine authority, which the atmosphere of pure reason had not sufficient power of refraction to make him apprehend.

_Mr. S._ I thank the chairman heartily for those remarks. May I add a leaf from my observation? I have noticed that in such meetings of parents, in the church, and their children, good influences sometimes reach those who are pursuing the mistaken course of withholding their children from baptism, under the plea that they can consecrate their children to G.o.d as well without baptism, as with it. They need to learn the spiritual power which G.o.d has vested in the sacraments of his own appointment, and to be disabused of the notion that the baptism of a child is, from beginning to end, merely a human act, of which G.o.d is only a spectator;--they need to feel that baptism is something conferred upon a child by G.o.d; and not merely a sign, but a seal.

"Yes," said Mr. R., "it is an ordinance of G.o.d, and the neglect of it is not merely a failure to obtain blessings, but a disregard of a divine ordinance; not merely the withholding a sign of allegiance, but the loss of a seal,--the government seal, not ours, which G.o.d would affix to the intercourse between himself and our souls. If we, pastors, feel this deeply, and so perceive the design of G.o.d in bestowing baptism upon the children of his people, we shall convey to the hearts and minds of doubting Christian parents, persuasive influences, which will succeed where arguments and appeals, based on mere proofs and obligations, have failed."

_Mr. A._ It is gratifying, now, to think that these things, and others like them, may be done without calling the children "members of the church." Except discipline, it is obvious that everything in the way of watchfulness may be done for them as children of the church, which it would be proper, or even possible to do, if they were counted as members.

_Mr. R._ I am aware of the a.n.a.logy which many, who plead for the term members, seek to carry out between the Old and the New Testament church, making children members of the Christian church, because the church in ancient days included the children. But it seems to me that there is the same difference, now and formerly, between the relation of children to the church, that there is between the relation of the whole religious community, now and formerly, to the church of G.o.d. Formerly, all the members of the religious community were, by their a.s.sociation under the same belief and worship, members of the church. To make the case with us parallel, our whole Christian community ought to be members of the church. No examination or discrimination should be used; to belong to the Christian community should const.i.tute church-membership.

But this, we know, is not the case. G.o.d chooses now to make up his visible church not as formerly, but of those who give credible evidence of regeneration. They who worship with us, but do not profess to be Christians, are hopeful subjects of effort and prayer, whom we expect to receive hereafter to the visible church, on profession of their faith.

As the Christian church is const.i.tuted differently from the Jewish church, in this respect, discrimination and separation taking place between the members of a Christian congregation, have we not a.n.a.logical reason to infer that it may also be thus with regard to children?--who once, indeed, were members of the church of G.o.d, but, under the dispensation of the Spirit, they fall, with other unconverted members of the congregation, out of membership in the church.

_Mr. C._ And yet, Br. R., the fall is not far, nor hurtful. They are ent.i.tled to all the privileges, and they enjoy, or should enjoy, all the care and effort, which they would have under a different name. Only they do not come to the Lord's Supper, as a matter of course, as they did to the Pa.s.sover.

_Mr. S._ Suppose that the legislature should incorporate a fish-market, and cede to the proprietors fifteen square miles of the sea, within which they should have the privilege of taking fish. All the fish, within those fifteen miles of salt water, might be said to _belong_ to the market; yet every one of them must be taken by hook and line ere his belonging to the market is of any practicable value. So the children of the church may be said to belong to the church, and are to const.i.tute her chief resource. Rivers, and other distant or neighboring waters, would also send fish to that market, even if they were "far off;" but it is from the bay at her doors that the market would derive her princ.i.p.al supplies. I do not see that children are members of the church, any further than those fishes belong to that market. Go there when you will, you see the stalls filled from those adjacent waters; supplies are continually coming in; they are, in a sense, secured to the market by a covenant; yet every fish is caught and handled, before he has anything like membership in that market, as really as though he swam and were caught in Baffin's Bay;--only he is now far more likely to be caught, and, in a sense, he already belongs to the market by the seal of the state.

Mr. A., the reader of the sermon, not having much ideality, but much plain good sense, yet taking everything literally at first, and from his own honesty supposing that all figures of speech are to be cashed, as it were, for what they purport on their face, immediately challenged his brother to carry out the ill.u.s.tration. He asked him whether the constant pa.s.sage, in and out, of fishes from and beyond the ceded fifteen miles, allowed of any resemblance, in the migratory creatures, to the children of the church, who are born and remain in the limits of the church, and are designated, individually, by virtue of their parentage.

Mr. S. replied, that he did not mean to make a comparison to satisfy all the points of the case, and he hoped that the brethren would take it with due allowance.

Mr. T. said that he had thought of this ill.u.s.tration: "All the young male children of the Levites might be said to be members of the priesthood. They certainly 'belonged' to the priesthood. But no one of them could officiate till he had complied with certain conditions, nor if he was the subject of certain disabilities. He believed that the children of G.o.d's people have, by the grace of G.o.d, as really a presumptive relation, by future membership, to the church of Christ, as an infant Levite boy had to sacred offices; prayer, with the child, as well as for it, and faithful training, with a spiritual use of G.o.d's appointed ordinances, const.i.tute, he was persuaded, as good reason to hope that the child of a true believer will become a Christian, and that, too, early in life, as that the young son of Levi would minister in the levitical office."

"O," said Mr. B., "how many cases there are which seem to disprove that. You will be obliged to reflect severely on some good people as parents, if you take so strong ground."

_Mr. T._ I do not despair of a child whose parents, or parent, has really covenanted with G.o.d for him, even though the child be long a wanderer from the fold.

But it is the same now with Abraham's spiritual seed as it was with his natural posterity,--neglect on the part of parents may work a forfeiture of the covenant promises; failure in family government, above all things, may frustrate every good influence which would otherwise have had a powerful effect in the conversion of the child. The sons of Eli were not well governed; Esau was evidently of an undisciplined spirit.

With regard to the children of several good men, in the Bible, it may be inferred, that the public engagements of the fathers hindered them from bestowing needful attention upon their sons. The only thing derogatory to the prophet Samuel, of which we are informed, is, that his sons were vile. With regard to certain cases of mournful wickedness, on the part of the children of eminently good men, it will be found that some of these men, occupying, perhaps, important stations of a public nature, such as the Christian ministry, were so engrossed in their public duties as not to give sufficient time and attention to their own families; which is a great shame and folly in any father of a family. In vain do we plead the covenant promises, if we neglect covenant duties. Grace is not hereditary in any sense that compromises our free agency; its subjects are born "not of blood;" there are many of the children of the kingdom who will be cast out into outer darkness, but among them, we may venture to say, will not be found those whose parents diligently sought their moral and religious culture in the exercise of a strict, judicious, affectionate, prayerful, watch and care, praying with them in secret, which, it seems to me, is, perhaps, the most powerful of all the means which a parent can use to influence the moral and religious character of a child.

"Is it not a mournful inconsistency," said Mr. R., "for us to be laboring and spending our strength and lives for the conversion and salvation of others, and not be equally zealous for the souls of the children whom G.o.d has given us?"

_Mr. C._ Our habits of seclusion and study may operate to make us reserved, moody, and so repulsive, to our own children. We ought to be interested in their every-day affairs, and watch for opportunities to form their opinions, on moral as well as religious subjects, and be as kind and a.s.siduous to them, certainly, as we endeavor to be to other children.

What more could these good men have said, with regard to the subject, had they concluded to adopt the terms "member" and "membership," to express the relation of children to the church? They were not conscious of omitting or diminishing one privilege or blessing to which the children of the church are ent.i.tled; everything which the most strenuous advocates of "infant church-membership," so called, mention as accruing to them, they claimed in their behalf. Did infant church-membership admit to the Lord's Supper, as it did to the pa.s.sover, the children would now, with propriety, be said to be "members of the church." But, inasmuch as, under the Christian dispensation, they cannot come to the sacrament which distinguishes between the regenerate and the unregenerate, without a change of heart, they, and all those who are a.s.sociated with the church in general acts of worship, and in Christian privileges, but are not converted persons, are, alike, under the Christian system, removed from outward membership--only, that the children of the church have privileges and promises which go far to increase the probability of their future church-membership, and directly to prepare them for that sacred relation.

"THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH," then, is the sufficient name by which it seems desirable that the children of believers should be designated.

And, instead of using the term "church-membership," applied to them, we shall include everything which is properly theirs, we shall lose nothing, we shall prevent great misunderstanding, and liability to perversion, by subst.i.tuting the "Relation of Baptized Children to the Church," whenever we wish to express the peculiar and most precious connection which they hold, in the arrangements of divine grace, with the covenant people of G.o.d.

Chapter Tenth.

MATERNAL a.s.sOCIATIONS.

The mother, in her office, holds the key Of the soul; and she it is who stamps the coin Of character, and makes the being, who would be a savage But for her gentle cares, a Christian man.

--Then, crown her Queen o' the world.

OLD PLAY.