Bertha and Her Baptism Part 9

This is his answer:

"Is there any other case besides that of baptism, where we would take families at hazard, and deny the existence of young children in them?

"Take eight families in a street, or eight pews containing families in a place of worship; they will afford more than one young child."

_Mr. M._ How does he make out eight cases of household baptism by the apostles?

_Dr. D._ Let us examine his list:

1. Cornelius.

2. Lydia.

3. The jailer at Philippi. "Thus the church at Philippi, just organized by the apostles, and consisting of but few members, offers two instances of household baptism."

4. Crispus. "Compare Acts 18: 8, and 1 Cor. 1:14--16, by which it appears that this Crispus was baptized by Paul separately from his family, which was not baptized by Paul. Yet Crispus 'believed on the Lord with all his house.' If his house believed, it was baptized. It was, then, a baptized household. But if we believe that the family of Crispus was baptized because we find it registered as believing, then we must admit the same of all other families which we find marked as Christians, though they be not expressly marked as baptized." He is not proving, here, you notice, that there were children in any of these households; he thinks he proves that elsewhere, by the doctrine of chances. He is now showing the grounds for supposing that certain "households" were baptized. He applies his argument respecting Crispus to

5. Aristobulus's household.

6. Onesiphorus's household.

7. Narcissus's household.

8. Stephanas's household. This household was baptized by Paul separately from its head, who was not baptized by Paul; this case being just the reverse of that of Crispus.

"Eight Christian families, and therefore baptized." Now comes the question of probability as to there being children in those households not capable of faith.

Begin anywhere, in any congregation, on the Sabbath, and count eight pews, the proprietors and occupants of which are the heads of families; and the chance of there being no minor children in them is almost too small to be appreciated. Should we read, in a secular paper, that a foreign missionary had baptized eight households in a pagan village, the general belief would be that it was a missionary of some Paedobaptist denomination, and that children were baptized in those families.

I must read to you (said Dr. D.) something on the other side of this argument. I found the following, not long since, in a deservedly popular and useful Dictionary and Repository, written and signed by a gentleman of excellent character and standing. He says:

"Infant baptism was probably introduced about the commencement of the third century, in connection with other corruptions, which even then began to prepare the way for Popery. A superst.i.tious idea, respecting the necessity of baptism to salvation, led to the baptism of sick persons, and, finally, to the baptism of infants. Sponsors, holy water, anointing with oil, the sign of the cross, and a mult.i.tude of similar ceremonies, equally unauthorized by the Scriptures, were soon introduced. The church lost her simplicity and purity, her ministers became ambitious, and the darkness gradually deepened to the long and dismal night of papal despotism."

"Probably introduced about the commencement of the third century, in connection with other corruptions." Recall what I read to you from Origen, born A.D. 185; from Tertullian, who flourished within one hundred years after the apostles; from Cyprian and the Council of Carthage; from Augustine and his antagonist, Pelagius, who expressly said that he had never heard of any one, not even the most impious heretic, denying baptism to infants.

In contrast with such a pa.s.sage as the one just read to you, I am reminded of the host of writers, on our side of the question, who, almost all of them, make such candid and full concessions, that they furnish their brethren of the opposite side with many of their arguments against us. I remember reading a book of "Paedobaptist Concessions,"

containing a formidable array of points yielded by our writers, so that a common reader might ask, What have you left as the ground of your belief and practice? But the thought which arose in my mind was, Notwithstanding all these concessions, they who make them are among the firmest believers in baptism by sprinkling, and in infant baptism. That cause must be affluent in proofs, and deeply rooted in the scriptural convictions of men, which can afford to make such concessions to its antagonists. These refuse facts, which we afford to others for so large a part of their foundation, show how broad and sufficient ours must be.

The quotation which I read to you, speaks of Popish tendencies as having already begun. This is true; and more may be added. In the second epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul tells us that the mystery of iniquity was already at work. On the subject of religious days and festivals, the first Christians very soon began to be superst.i.tious, incorporating heathen festival days into Christian observances, under the plea of redeeming and sanctifying them, with some such feelings and reasoning as that with which people, now, would transfer secular music to sanctuaries, saying that the enemy ought not to have all the best music.

It is true that this sensuous, and, afterward called, Romish, tendency, corrupted everything. The pure stream of apostolic doctrine and practice was like the Moselle, which you saw from the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, pursuing its unmingled course distinctly for some distance in the turbid Rhine, till at last it yields to the general current. Infant baptism, as we learn from ecclesiastical authorities with one consent, proceeded from the apostles; yet soon it began to be practised with many superst.i.tious absurdities; and, moreover, immersion, making such powerful appeals to the senses, suited the taste of the age far better than sprinkling, so that not only did it become the common mode, but the subjects were completely undressed, without any distinction, to denote the putting off the old man and the putting on of the new, and the putting away of the filth of the flesh.[5] Public sentiment finally abolished this practice. After a considerable time affusion, or sprinkling, returned, and became the prevailing mode, without any special enactment, or any formal renunciation of the late mode. The Eastern church, however, retained immersion, while the Greek and Armenian branches use both immersion and sprinkling for the adult and child. But the sick and dying were always baptized by sprinkling, which is sufficient to prove that sprinkling was regarded as equally valid with immersion. It is natural to say that it was superst.i.tious to baptize the sick and dying, by sprinkling, if we hold that only immersion is valid baptism. The sick and dying cannot be immersed; now, is it superst.i.tion for a sick person, giving credible evidence of piety, to be admitted into the Christian church, and receive the Lord's Supper?

In order to do this properly, the subject must be baptized; hence, we derive one powerful argument that sprinkling is valid baptism. Our Lord would never have made the modes of his sacraments so austerely rigid, that the thousands of sick and feeble persons, ministers in poor health, climate, seasons of the year, times of persecution and imprisonment, and all the stress of circ.u.mstances to which Christians may be subjected, should be utterly disregarded, and one inconvenient, and sometimes dangerous, form, of applying water, be insisted on, inflexibly, as essential to the introductory Christian rite. If the early Christians baptized the sick by sprinkling, they of course supposed that it was valid baptism. If it was valid at all, and in any case, of course it was Christian baptism, even if other modes were most commonly used.

[Footnote 5: See "Coleman's Ancient Christianity," chap, xix., sec. 12.

He refers to Ambrose, Ser. 20. Chrysostom, Hom. 6. Epistle to Col., &c., &c.]

_Mr. M._ I suppose, then, that you would not object to administer baptism in any other mode of applying water than sprinkling, or pouring.

_Dr. D._ One mode was, I believe, practised at first; and the New Testament teaches me that this was affusion. The application of water in any way, by an authorized administrator, to a proper subject, in the name of the Trinity, may be valid baptism; but I prefer the New Testament mode, as I understand it, and am happy to allow others the same liberty of judgment which I enjoy. It would be an extreme case which would lead me to administer the ordinance in any other way than by affusion.

But, said Mr. D., you began by inquiring respecting the practice of infant baptism in the early ages. I presume that your mind is settled with regard to the connection of the practice with G.o.d's everlasting covenant with believers and their offspring. I lately read a statement of this point, which pleased me much, in the writings of the famous Rev.

Thomas Shepard, the early pastor of the church in Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts. He says:

"There is the same inward cause moving G.o.d to take in the children of believing parents into the church and covenant, now, to be of the number of his people, as there was for taking the Jews and their children. For the only reason why the Lord took in the children of the Jews with themselves evidently was his love to the parents. 'Because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed.' So that I do from hence believe, that either G.o.d's love is, in these days of his Gospel, less unto his people and servants than in the days of the Old Testament,--or, if it be as great, that then the same love respects the seed of his people now as then it did. And, therefore, if then because he loved them he chose their seed to be of his church, so in these days because he loveth us he chooseth our seed to be of his church also."

Though the t.i.tle of the treatise from which I read is called the Church-Membership of Children, to which expression I have very great objections, and feel that it has done harm, yet this good man held the doctrine of infant church-membership in a sense which is free from all reproach of making people members of the church otherwise than by regeneration. His belief on this point comes out under the following ill.u.s.tration:

"These children may not be the sons of G.o.d and his people really and savingly, but G.o.d will honor them outwardly with his name and privileges, just as one that adopts a youngster tells the father that if the child carry himself well toward him, when he is grown up to years he shall possess the inheritance itself; but yet in the meanwhile he shall have this favor, to be called his son, and be of the family and household, and so be reckoned among the number of his sons."

One of the chief reasons which brought this excellent man to New England, was that he could not in Old England enjoy the ordinance of infant baptism in its purity. Let me read the following, addressed by him to his little son, who afterward became pastor of the church in Lynn, Ma.s.sachusetts, and was a burning and shining light. His words will show you that he had no superst.i.tious notion about the church-membership of children, though he represented the common belief at that day, and that he did not count baptism in infancy a saving ordinance; yet you will see how he uses it to plead with his son to be reconciled to G.o.d.

He writes:

"And thus, after about eleven weekes sayle from Old England, we came to New England sh.o.r.e, where the mother fell sick of consumption, and you my child was put to nurse to one goodwife Hopkins, who was very tender of thee; and after we had been here diverse weekes, on the seventh of February, or thereabout, G.o.d gave thee the ordinance of baptism, whereby G.o.d is become thy G.o.d, and is beforehand with thee, that whenever you shall return to G.o.d he will undoubtedly receive thee; and this is a most high and happy privilege; and therefore blesse G.o.d for it. And now, after this had been done, thy deare mother dyed in the Lord, departing out of this world into another, who did lose her life by being careful to preserve thine; for in the ship thou wert so feeble and froward, both in the day and night, that hereby shee lost her strength, and at last her life. Shee hath made also many a prayer and shed many a tear in secret for thee; and this hath bin oft her request, that if the Lord did not intend to glorify himselfe by thee, that he would cut thee off by death rather than to live to dishonor him by sin; and therefore know it that if you shalt turn rebell agaynst G.o.d, and forsake G.o.d and care not for the knowledge of him, nor to beleeve in his Son, the Lord will make all these mercys woes, and all thy mother's prayers, teares, and death, to be a swift witness agaynst thee at the great day."

The practice of infant baptism, and a belief in what is called the church-membership of children, surely had no injurious effect upon a parent who could speak thus to his child. Yet Shepard took as high ground as any with regard to this subject. He derived appeals from baptism to his child, which were both encouraging and admonitory in the highest degree.

O, said Dr. D., what a people the descendants of Abraham might have been forever, had they kept that covenant of which circ.u.mcision was the seal.

Had they remembered only this, and had they adhered to it, "I will be a G.o.d to thee and to thy seed after thee," and had they been a covenant-keeping people, their peace, as G.o.d says to them, would have been as a river; an endless, inexhaustible tide of prosperity and blessedness.

And now, if Christian parents will but lay hold on that covenant as they may, that Abrahamic covenant, still in force for them who are Christ's, and so Abraham's, seed, and heirs according to the promise, we should soon see, in family religion, in the early conversion of children, and in their large Christian culture, those promises of G.o.d fulfilled which have respect to the great increase, chiefly by this means, of his church in the latter days. This is one thing which makes me love and prize infant baptism so much; its being an expression and exponent of parental love, faithfulness, and zeal, in those with whom it is preceded and followed by the entire consecration of their children to G.o.d, their feelings and conduct toward them agreeing with the covenant made for them with G.o.d.

But, in saying this, let me guard you against the erroneous notion that infant baptism is primarily a parent's covenant, an expression of his feelings toward G.o.d. No, it is G.o.d's covenant, an expression of his feelings toward the children of believers. That is the chief thing which gives it value. For, it is not because parents love their children, that G.o.d commands that they be offered in baptism; but because G.o.d loves them, and has promised to be a G.o.d to them, as he is to their parents.

People, however, sometimes treat the ordinance as though it were their act toward G.o.d, and not primarily his act toward them. They, therefore, are liable to use it with far less effect than if they were receiving in it, and by it, G.o.d's own transaction with them and the little child.

_Mr. M._ In thinking of Pagan and Mohammedan nations, lately, at the Concert of Prayer for Foreign Missions, I was struck with this thought, how error has been transmitted from father to child, and what an awful power for evil lies in transmitted family influence, when it is corrupted. This led me to think whether G.o.d did not have this in mind when, in establishing his church in Abraham, he connected children with parents in his covenant, and gave a sign and seal to be affixed to their children as a constant admonition to parental faithfulness. All his former dealings with the world seem to have failed, because of its great wickedness,--fire, plagues, good examples, great riches, and power conferred upon the good; and then he added, as a special means, the family const.i.tution, and by it he secured a seed to serve him to an extent sufficient to keep the world from extinction, and to be the repository and source of divine knowledge. I began to think that, if we would keep religion from dying out, we must fall in with G.o.d's great plan; for Satan makes use of it, and holds generation after generation in bondage by means of the family const.i.tution. So I set myself at work to find out ways by which we might promote family religion; and I could find no better plan than the old one, of promoting scriptural and spiritual views of the dedication of children. Then I thought how much discredit has been cast upon that ordinance, which is intended to be the great sign and declaration of parental piety and faithfulness; and that family religion had, proportionably, declined, with the indifference of Christians to this powerful means of promoting the eminent zeal and efforts of parents in behalf of their children's spiritual good. Youths of fifteen to twenty-one years of age are, in a large proportion, the causes of prevailing wickedness,--Sabbath-breaking, profaneness, and other things. They need just what the ordinance of baptism, properly observed and fully carried out by covenanting parents, would do for them. But, in being present at the formation of new churches, I have mourned to see that, instead of declaring infant baptism to be the duty of believers, as was formerly done in our older churches, a compromise with modern lax views is made, by merely permitting infant baptism, saying, in the confession of faith, that, "Baptism is the privilege only of believers and their children."

But the idea of getting up a zeal in favor of infant baptism, or a public sentiment in the churches which should enforce it as a duty, seemed to me unprofitable; but it occurred to me, whether something could not be done to interest Christian parents in the subject, by showing them the infinite privilege of having G.o.d for their G.o.d, and the G.o.d of their seed, and then the naturalness and propriety of using an ordinance to express and to a.s.sist it. People need instruction on the subject; instruction which will commend itself to their Christian feelings. We cannot legislate them into a spiritual observance of the Lord's Supper, much less of baptism.

_Dr. D._ No; and I trust that our denominations who practise infant baptism, will never urge it otherwise than in connection with parental piety, and as a helper of parental obligations.

_Mr. M._ But ought we not to stir ourselves up with regard to parental duties? and, if so, must we not necessarily insist on the dedication of children to G.o.d, and upon baptism as the acceptable way of signifying it, and the powerful means of helping us to perform our duties?

_Dr. D._ Surely we ought; and in doing it we have the satisfaction to know that we are laboring for something more than to establish a mode of applying an ordinance. In urging the baptism of children, if we do it not for the sake of the ordinance, but for the things which it signifies and promotes, we advance the cause of piety in the parents.

_Mr. M._ Would that some one would blow a trumpet in the churches on this subject. I do feel that if parents would appreciate the influence of such a state of heart as would lead them to offer their children to G.o.d in baptism, as an expression of their previous and subsequent views and feelings toward their children, we should see a new state of things in the rising generation. How striking it is that the Old Testament closes with such a pa.s.sage as that last verse of Malachi. It is the promontory of the Old Testament, looking across the coming ages, yearning toward the new dispensation, and, as it were, making signals, concerning the forerunner of that new era, with those words: "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." May we not conclude that this is G.o.d's most acceptable way of effecting the revival of religion from one period to another?

_Dr. D._ I have no doubt of it.

_Mr. M._ I spoke to our good Deacon Goodenow about it, lately; but he said he had a great horror of a controversy about baptism, and he was afraid that, to say much upon this subject, would involve us in one. I told him that I would not be for reflecting upon other denominations; that my motto, with regard to them and us, is, "Live, and let live." I would only appeal to our own people, and encourage them to take up the subject afresh, in a spiritual manner; that is, to dwell upon the privilege and duty of being in covenant relations, with our children, to G.o.d, baptism being the ordinance of ratification, and its memorial.

_Dr. D._ Your reference to controversy about baptism makes me think of one which I listened to in a rail-road station, last winter, while waiting in a snow-storm, several hours, for the cars. Two students of divinity, as I took them to be, were discussing their respective tenets with regard to baptism. I was reading a book, but could not help hearing what they said. One was decrying infant baptism as a "rag of Popery,"

"the last relic of Rome in Protestantism," "a device of Satan to fill up the church with unconverted members," and much more to that effect.

His friend, in reply, undertook to give his impressions of immersion. He spoke of India-rubber bathing-dresses;--a tank in which he saw two or three men and as many women, one of them a young lady, immersed, to his apparent disgust;--of Elder some one breaking the ice at some cape on New Year's Sabbath, and immersing several carriages full of females, who went back dripping wet, to the carriages, and rode an eighth of a mile to the vestry;--of several females immersed, in a southern State, going into a creek with white garments, and with white fillets about their heads, and coming out yellow; and he asked his fellow whether infant baptism could be any worse than such things.

_Mr. M._ What did his friend say?

_Dr. D._ O, it was the common talk on both sides, painful and revolting.

I could not help saying to them, as the cars were coming up, and we were parting, "But, if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another."