Bertha and Her Baptism Part 5

I answered, "Every male child of Abraham's descendants, who should not receive the sign of consecration to G.o.d, was to be cut off from among the people. Proselytes of the covenant and their children were baptized, very early."

_Mr. K._ But where is the command to apply baptism to children?

_Mr. M._ Where, my dear sir, is the command to discontinue that which was enjoined upon the founder of the race of believers for all time? I believe in the perpetuity of Abraham's relation to us as the father of the faithful, as I believe in Adam's relation to us as the representative of the race, and in the Saviour's relation to us as our representative. G.o.d seems to love these federal heads.h.i.+ps, as we call them. Abraham did not receive circ.u.mcision being a Jew, but, as the apostle says, "as a seal of the righteousness which is by faith, which he had while he was yet uncirc.u.mcised." We have Scripture for that, Mr.

Kelly. And "the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after," did not disannul that covenant "that was confirmed before of G.o.d in Christ."

How can you call circ.u.mcision a Jewish ordinance, when the Bible so explicitly denies it to be of Jewish origin?

_Mr. K._ O, I do not understand this Abrahamic covenant. I take the New Testament for my guide.

_Mr. M._ You think well of the book of Psalms, I presume, as a help to prayer and pious feelings?

_Mr. K._ Yes; but in all matters of faith and practice, the New Testament, like the doings of the latest session of the legislature, is the rule for New Testament believers. You might as well have tried to govern the ancient Jews with the New Testament, as enforce the laws of the Old Testament on us.

_Mr. M._ Is the privilege of having G.o.d stand in a special relation to my child an Old Testament ordinance, in the same sense with ceremonial observances?

_Mr. K._ Not exactly that, but it is a superst.i.tion to baptize children, now that circ.u.mcision is done away, and believers' baptism is enjoined.

_Mr. M._ Believers' baptism is enjoined, but children's baptism is not therefore prohibited.

_Mr. K._ But where is it enacted?

_Mr. M._ If the original form of dedicating children is essential, why is not the original form of the Sabbath essential, the very day which was first appointed? How dare we change a day which G.o.d himself ordained from the beginning, until he makes the change as peremptory as the inst.i.tution itself? Have we any right to infer, in such an important matter? Where is the express, divine command,--not precedent, example, usage, but where is the enactment,--making the first day of the week the Christian Sabbath?

_Mr. K._ So long as we may keep the thing, observing one day in seven, it makes no difference which day we keep, if we can all agree on one and the same day. We do not all agree to retain circ.u.mcision in any way.

_Mr. M._ So long as we may retain the thing signified by circ.u.mcision, it makes but little difference what form is used to express it.

_Mr. K._ The apostles, who changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day, knew the mind of Christ.

_Mr. M._ And so the men, who first practised infant baptism, knew the minds of the inspired apostles, and they knew the mind of Christ. But to go a step further back, the only ground for inferring that the Sabbath is rightly changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, is the incidental mention of Christ's meeting his a.s.sembled disciples a few times after his resurrection on the first day. On that slight ground we are all content to rest our present observance of the Sabbath. Now, I say that the mention of the baptism of households eight times, in one form and another, is as good a warrant for infant baptism, as those two or three Sabbath-evening meetings were for the inst.i.tution of the Lord's-day Sabbath.

_Mr. K._ I cannot agree with you, Mr. M., in putting circ.u.mcision on the same level with the Sabbath.

_Mr. M._ I myself see a resemblance in the changes made in the two cases. I have no wish to proselyte you to my views. I have only answered your polite inquiries.

_Mr. K._ O, I know that; we shall be good friends still; but I see no grounds for baptizing children on the faith of their parents.

_Mr. M._ We look at the thing from different points of view. I see it as clearly as I see that the church of G.o.d is essentially the same in all ages, with its variety of forms. This matter of children's baptism is with me a spiritual thing, and is independent of dispensations. You know that a river may have, in one district of the earth through which it flows, one name, and in another district another name, while it is the same river. Now, the divine recognition of believers' children, as standing in a special covenanted relation with G.o.d, is the headspring of infant dedication by the use of a rite. The object of this recognition is, that He may have a G.o.dly seed. G.o.d does not perpetuate religion directly by natural descent, it is true, but he seeks to promote it by descent from a pious parentage, and he therefore endows that parentage with special privileges and promises. The inclusion of children with their believing parents has been the great means of perpetuating religion in the earth. It is a stream which washed the sh.o.r.es of Judaism under the name of circ.u.mcision; now it washes the sh.o.r.es of the Gentiles under the name of baptism. For the Saviour or the apostles to have reappointed infant dedication, with the use of the cotemporary initiating ordinance, would, to my mind, be as superfluous as for the allied powers to have agreed that the Danube should still run through Austria.

_Mr. K._ Your principle of interpretation, Mr. M., has brought in all the darkness which has covered the earth in the Romish apostacy. There will be no end to human inventions in religion, if this principle prevails.

_Mr. M._ But, my dear sir, there certainly has been an end at the very beginning; for what inventions in Protestant wors.h.i.+p have non-prelatical Paedobaptists made? Surely that practice has not been prolific of superst.i.tions. I often hear this alleged, Mr. K., and we are called Romish and Popish because we baptize infants. But will it not be best for Christian sects to allow each other entire liberty of conscience, and not accuse each other of tendencies to Romanism, when all are zealously Protestant? Here is a piece, which I cut from a newspaper lately, which describes the baptism by immersion of some females and others, one Sabbath in January, the thermometer below zero, a place being cut through the ice for the purpose, and a boy watching with a pole to keep the floating ice from the opening. Shall I call this Romish, superst.i.tious, fanatical? Shall I say, How can we, consistently with such practices among Protestants, say anything about the doctrine of penances? No. I prefer to think that those who do these things are as good Protestants as myself, and I will not impeach their rigid adherence to their belief, by imputing Romish tendencies to their modes of wors.h.i.+p and their ordinances; for no people are further from Romanism in their principles than they (unless it be some of us Paedobaptists, Mrs.

Kelly).

_Mr. K._ Well, there is no quarrelling with you; but let me say that when another sect sees you employing an ordinance which has no warrant in the Bible,--sprinkling water upon people, on proper subjects and improper subjects for baptism, when we know that the word _baptize_ means to _immerse_, and that believers only are properly baptized,--how can we be silent? Would you be silent if Episcopalians should set up Latin prayers, or the confessional; or the Methodists turn their love-feasts into the old Pa.s.sover?

_Mr. M._ We must tolerate the mistakes and errors of those who, in the main, are confessedly good, and are conscientious in what we deem their errors. When the n.o.ble array of great and good men in the Episcopal Low Church, and among the Methodists, fall into such mistakes as you have specified, there will be opportunity for other Christians to express themselves. But you are rather rhetorical in your reasoning, to compare the practice of infant baptism by Owen, and Watts, and Doddridge, and Leighton, and Baxter, and all like them, with Latin prayers and a return to the Pa.s.sover.

_Mr. K._ There is not a case of sprinkling in the New Testament. You are too well-informed to deny this.

_Mr. M._ Mr. K., there is not one instance of baptism, in the New Testament, where there does not appear to me to be an improbability of its having been administered by immersion.

By this time Mrs. K., who had been called away to attend to her child, returned, and hearing my last remark, said, with a significant look at her husband:

"We shall require you to prove that, Mr. M."

"Most willingly," said I. "Do you think, cousin Eunice, that the mult.i.tudes who came to John and the apostles to be baptized, brought changes of raiment with them?"

"No," said she; "and there were no conveniences for making a change of dress in those places, I presume."

_Mr. M._ Were they immersed in the clothes which they had on?

_Mrs. K._ That does not seem probable. Some of them, at least, had valuable garments, we may suppose, and few, if any, would wish to have their apparel wet through, or to keep it on them, if wet.

_Mr. M._ They were not immersed without clothing, of course, promiscuously, and, therefore, I believe that they were all baptized by sprinkling or pouring, their loose upper garments allowing them to step into the water, or very near it; and John, standing there (and the apostles, also, when they administered baptism), and laying on the water with his hand, or, which is not impossible, with the long-accustomed bunches of hyssop. The Episcopal mode of administering the Lord's Supper, enables me to conceive how baptism by sprinkling could be administered rapidly. As six or more people are kneeling, the Episcopal minister gives each his portion of the bread, and repeats the formula, not to each one, but once only while his hand is pa.s.sing over the six.

So, I imagine, John repeated whatever form he had (and the apostles theirs) to companies, while, in rapid succession, he applied the water to them. It is impossible to account for the performance of such incredible labor as John must have undergone, unless we adopt some such supposition as this, or confess that John's baptism was, throughout, a miracle. But "the people said, John did no miracle." If the apostles sprinkled three thousand in this way, by companies, in one day, as they could easily have done, we can see how the same day there could be "added unto them about three thousand souls," even if "added" meant being baptized. That the apostles had a.s.sistance in administering baptism at this early period, is not probable. They had not yet proposed to have helpers in taking care of the poor, much less to share with them the first administration of Christian baptism. If any church were to require me to believe, before admitting me to the Lord's table, that the apostles immersed three thousand people at the day of Pentecost, after nine o'clock in the morning, in the midst of necessary labors, and at that driest season of the year, or in tanks, I could no more believe it than I could confess that the earth is flat.

_Mrs. K._ But "John was baptizing in Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there."

_Mr. M._ "Much water," in those countries, was on a smaller scale than in North America. They would have needed all the lake-sh.o.r.e or river banks that could be found, to witness the baptisms, and to pa.s.s in and out of, or to and from, the water, conveniently, while John stood to receive them in or near the water. A fountain or small body of water would not have accommodated those mult.i.tudes; not because the water would not suffice, for a small running stream would be enough, and would have afforded "much water;" but think what inconvenience there would have been in baptizing a crowd around a small stream. Baptism by immersion, among us, though a few gallons of water only are needed, is more conveniently done where there is "much water;" because the spectators can spread themselves along the banks, and then there is no confusion. The most convenient and rapid way of baptizing mult.i.tudes by sprinkling would be, for the administrator to stand in the water, and let the people pa.s.s by him. Besides, those mult.i.tudes who came to John's baptism needed "much water" for themselves and their beasts.

_Mrs. K._ But the Saviour went down into the water, and came up out of the water.

_Mr. M._ So did John, in the same sense; and so did "both Philip and the Eunuch;" but John and Philip did not, therefore, go under the water. But Mr. Kelly will tell you that _down in_ to, and _up out_ of, might as well have been translated to and from, in the case of the Eunuch. If you insist that going down into the water involves immersion, it follows that Philip went under the water with the Eunuch, and there baptized him.

_Mr. K._ We shall set those matters right in that new version of the Bible which you were complaining of the last time I saw you. Down into, and up out of, are required by the word baptize, which means immerse.

_Mr. M._ No, my dear sir, not always, even in the New Testament. The word had come, even in the Saviour's time, to signify purification, or consecration, irrespective of the mode. The Pharisees, in coming from the market-places, except they wash, eat not. The word is baptize. But they did not bathe at such times; they "baptized" themselves by was.h.i.+ng their bodies. We read of the baptism of beds, which was merely was.h.i.+ng them. The Israelites were baptized unto Moses. There the word means, simply, inaugurated, or set apart, with no reference to the mode; for, they were not immersed, but bedewed, if wet at all; they were not buried in that cloud, for the other cloud that led them was in sight; they were not buried in the sea, which was a wall to them on either hand.

There is a good ill.u.s.tration, it seems to me, of the change in words from their literal meaning, in the pa.s.sage where Christ is called the "first-born of every creature." He was not _born first_, before all men, but he has the "preeminence" over all creatures, as the first-born had among the children. Here is an ill.u.s.tration, from the New Testament, of the way in which _baptism_ may cease to denote any mode, and refer only to an act of consecration.

As to that new version of the Bible, Coleridge says, that the state ought to be, to all religious denominations, like a good portrait, which looks benignantly on all in the room. So the Bible now seems to look kindly upon all Christian sects; and, for one, I love to have it so.

But, some of you, good brethren, who are in favor of this new version to suit your particular views, are trying to alter the eyes of the portrait so that they shall look only on you, and to your part of the room. We think that you ought to be satisfied with the present kind look which you get from them. There is one comfort--you will make a new picture to please yourselves, and we shall keep the old portrait.

"Please do not be too severe on my husband for that mistake of his,"

said Mrs. K.; "I think that he is getting better of it, in a measure."

_Mr. K._ I will make you a present of the book when it arrives, and, perhaps, you will agree with me. But I am surprised to hear you say that you do not believe the Saviour to have been immersed by John.

_Mr. M._ It was not Christian baptism, at any rate, if he were; for the names of the Trinity are essential to Christian baptism, and those names had not been thus applied.

Besides, John could not have plunged and lifted those thousands without superhuman strength and endurance, which we know he did not possess. The same reasoning applies, in the baptism of the three thousand at the day of Pentecost, both as respects what I have said of raiment, and the time and strength of the apostles.

The baptism of the Eunuch was, to my mind, most probably by sprinkling, making no change of raiment necessary. "See, here is water,"--a spring, or stream, by the road-side, quite as likely (and, travellers now say, more probably) as a pond. Yes, sir, Philip went down into the water just as much as the Eunuch did, if we follow the Greek literally. I think that _down_ refers to the chariot, the act of leaving it to go to the water. But the English version, as it now stands, makes strongly for your view of the case in the mind of the common reader.

Saul of Tarsus was baptized after having been struck blind, and while he was in a state of extreme exhaustion from excitement, without food; for, during three days, "he did neither eat nor drink." He was baptized before he ate; for, we read, "And he arose and was baptized; and, when he had received meat, he was strengthened." It does not seem to me probable that they would have put him into a river, or tank, before giving him food. But it seems to me natural and suitable for Ananias to draw nigh, and impress the trembling man with the mild and gentle sign of Christianity, the rite giving a soothing and cheering efficacy to the words of adoption, and in no way disturbing him in body or mind. I have always regarded the baptism of Saul as a strong presumptive proof with regard to baptism by affusion.

So with the midnight scene of baptism in the prison at Philippi. The preparation of one or more large vessels, to immerse the household, is not congruous with the circ.u.mstances narrated, as I read them. But the quiet and convenient act of baptism by sprinkling, falls in harmoniously with the other parts of the transaction. For my part, I have always wondered how any one can fail to see that there are so many improbabilities of immersion in every case of baptism, in the New Testament, as to counteract any weight which the word baptize carries with it, more especially since the word and its derivatives are employed, in the New Testament, in cases where the mode of using the water is evidently not intended.