LECTURE II. CHURCH OF ENGLAND'S REASONS FOR INFANT CHRISTIAN BAPTISM; AND GENERAL VIEWS RESPECTING BAPTISM, AS MINISTERED ΤΟ INFANTS, AND ITS PROPER MODE OF MINISTRATION. IT was stated in my former Lecture that our Reformed Church's ordinance of Confirmation was based on the view expressed in its 27th Article, to the effect that the baptism of young children, in professedly Christian communities, is most agreeable with the institution of Christ, and its consequent general injunction of such baptism; confirmation at a riper age being then, evidently, a proper sequel to the baptismal rite. How distinctly its confirmation rite was framed originally by our reforming fathers as a sequel and complement, in due time, to infant baptism, In the earlier editions of our appears from this. Prayer Book, in 1549, 1552, 1559, there was no service at all for the baptism of adults, though one was added afterwards; but only services for public and private infant baptism; and then, after a preliminary catechism, drawn up for the preparation of such as might, in due time, be confirmation candidates, the service for confirmation. Hence the desirableness of confirmation candidates understanding the reasons (convincing reasons, as it seems to me) for our Church's injunction of infant baptism, as the rule in this Christian country; in order to their better appreciating its wisdom, and its object, in the appointment of the confirmation rite. The rather is this desirable, as the question of infant baptism is one on which a different judgment has been formed, and acted on, by one respectable Protestant community; viz., the sect called Baptists. This, then, will be my chief subject in the present Lecture. Now, in that ever memorable command of the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples, by which the Christian baptismal rite was first instituted,-" Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," nothing was directly said, either as to the restriction of the rite to adults, or its non-restriction; the exclusion of infants, or nonexclusion. But, in proof of there being no intended exclusion of them, let me observe, Ist, On the argument which arises out of the analogy between baptism in the Christian Church and circumcision in the Jewish; seeing that circumcision was the rite by which the Jews were of old brought within the pale of the then visible Church of God, just as baptism is that by which, accordantly with Jesus Christ's own appointment, men are brought within the pale of the Christian Church now. And at what age, then, was circumcision, by God's command, administered of old? Within eight days after birth, we read, every Jewish man-child was to be circumcised. Now it is on all hands admitted that Christianity is in its spirit and rules far less exclusive, far more comprehensive, than Judaism. The very rites, ordinances, and laws of the Mosaic religion seemed intended to shut out other nations, and to confine it within the narrow limits of Palestine. On the other hand, with regard to the Christian religion, though, during Jesus Christ's own lifetime, He spoke of Himself as sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet, after his death and resurrection, the charge just cited by me as given to his disciples was assuredly expressed in a most comprehensive spirit ;-" Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Would it, then, be in accordance with this comprehensive spirit of the new dispensation, as compared with that of the old, were the infant children of parents, when themselves within the pale of God's visible Church, excluded from membership by the Christian, though admitted of old by the Jewish religion? 2ndly, When little children, including babes in arms,* were brought to Christ, as we read in that beautiful passage of the Gospel which is so appositely cited in our baptismal service, though the disciples wished to send them away, as if unfit for presentation to Him on account of their want of intelligence, we know how He reproved his disciples, and welcomed the children. "Suffer," said He, "little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. And He took them up in his arms, put his hands on them, and blessed them." Would it be consistent with such words, and such treatment of them, had it been his purpose that little children should be interdicted from admission within the pale of his visible Church? 3rdly, Although we do not find any direct injunction of infant baptism by Christ or his Apostles, and the baptisms recorded in the Book of the Acts are almost exclusively those of adults, yet this constitutes no valid objection to our view; being quite accounted for by the fact that it was to the adults of the Jewish and heathen population that the Apostles were charged to preach the Gospel, as their first great work. There are, however, three passages in the history of the Apostles' early ministry which seem to imply that, after the heads of a family had become Christians, it was their rule to admit the young ones of the family to a Christian baptism also. First, in Acts xvi. 15 we read that "Lydia was baptized, and her household:" secondly, in Acts xvi. 33, that, after the jailer at Philippi had been *Luke xviii. 15; Вpeon. σε all converted and baptized, there were also baptized his, straightway:" thirdly, in 1 Cor. i. 16, that St. Paul baptized" the household of Stephanas." Now, if there had been recorded the baptism by the Apostle of but one household only, it might have been urged, not without reason, that very probably that one household had no little children belonging to it. But it seems unlikely that out of three households not one should have comprised within it any little children. Nor is this all. For it is further to be remembered that the mention of these three several cases, in which the household of the head of the house were all baptized after his or her conversion, is made quite incidentally, and without any hint of the cases being peculiar. Consequently, we may infer that the Apostles' practice in these cases, after the conversion and baptism of the head of the family, was in nowise contrary to their usual practice. Such are the three several independent reasons inferable from Holy Scripture, in support of our Reformers' judgment as to the propriety of infant baptism.Strongly corroborative of which is the evidence inferable from statements in the writings of sundry early Fathers of the Church:-Christian men, resident in different parts of the Roman world, but all concurring to this effect; and who wrote, some within but a century, others within but a century and a half, from after the death of the longest lived of the Apostles, St. John. * 1. Justin Martyr. This man, a Syrian Greek Father, writing about A. D. 150, and consequently only some fifty years after the death of St. John, in a passage strongly to the point, speaks of "many Christians then living, both men and women, of sixty and seventy years of age, who had been made disciples from childhood." + Now the expression "made disciples," here used, is the *The examples are selected from Bingham, B. xi. 4. 5—13. + Justin, Apol. ii. Πολλοι τινες, και πολλαι, ἑξηκοντούται και ἑβδομηκοντούται, οἱ εκ παιδων εμαθητευθησαν τῷ Χριστῷ. same in the Greek that was used by Christ in his farewell charge to the Apostles, "Go and teach (or disciple, μаoηтevσαTE,) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." So that the discipling implied the baptizing. And, since their childhood, fifty or sixty years before, must necessarily have fallen within St. John's lifetime, we may conclude that we have here recorded examples of persons who had been baptized in childhood during the apostolic times; and, consequently, under apostolic sanction. 2. Irenæus, long time Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, but of Asiatic Greek parentage, and who had in his youth been instructed by Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, thus writes, about twenty-five years after Justin Martyr: "Christ came to save all by Himself: that is, all who by Him are regenerate to God; alike infants, little ones, children, youths, and old people." Here, you see, he specifically speaks of infants as some of those whom Christ died to save, and who were regenerate to God; the latter an expression at that time never used with reference to any but such as had been baptized. 3. Tertullian, a Latin African Father, who wrote about the year A.D. 200, argues on the desirableness, in his own opinion, of deferring baptism to years of discretion thus implying that in his time baptism was ordinarily administered in Christian communities to the children of Christian parents before the years of discretion; in other words, in infancy.+ 66 4. Origen, a Greek Father of Alexandria, who lived about twenty-five years later than Tertullian, as if, one might almost fancy, in answer to him, speaks of infants baptized for the remission of sins:" that is. as he explains himself, the remission of that same birth-sin which is the subject of our Church's 9th Article; and which is there defined as "the fault and Iren. ii. 39;" Omnes qui per eum renascuntur in Deum; infantes, et parvulos, et pueros, et juvenes, et seniores." Origen, in Luc. Hom. xiv. + Tertull. De Bapt. ch. 18. |