Bertha and Her Baptism

N >> Nehemiah Adams >> Bertha and Her Baptism

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[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 God'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,
Massachusetts. He says:

"There is the same inward cause moving God 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 God'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 title 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
illustration:

"These children may not be the sons of God and his people really and
savingly, but God 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, Massachusetts, and was a burning and shining light. His words will
show you that he had no superstitious 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 God.
He writes:

"And thus, after about eleven weekes sayle from Old England, we came to
New England shore, 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, God gave thee the ordinance of baptism, whereby
God is become thy God, and is beforehand with thee, that whenever you
shall return to God he will undoubtedly receive thee; and this is a most
high and happy privilege; and therefore blesse God 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 God, and forsake God 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 circumcision was the seal.
Had they remembered only this, and had they adhered to it, "I will be a
God to thee and to thy seed after thee," and had they been a
covenant-keeping people, their peace, as God 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 God 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 God, their
feelings and conduct toward them agreeing with the covenant made for
them with God.

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 God. No, it is God'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
God commands that they be offered in baptism; but because God loves
them, and has promised to be a God to them, as he is to their parents.
People, however, sometimes treat the ordinance as though it were their
act toward God, 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, God'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 God 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 constitution, 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 God's great
plan; for Satan makes use of it, and holds generation after generation
in bondage by means of the family constitution. 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 God for their God, and the
God of their seed, and then the naturalness and propriety of using an
ordinance to express and to assist 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 God, 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
God 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 passage 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 God'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
God, 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."

_Mr. M._ They probably left each other as little convinced of the
opposite opinions, respectively, as when they began.

_Dr. D._ More confirmed and set against each other's views, I have no
question. There has been far too much of this. Ridicule and sarcasm are
Satan's favorite weapons. Good people ought not to use them against each
other, whatever be the temptation. Perhaps, as human nature chooses
variety, and we are differently affected by different presentations of
truth, men must be divided into sects; but intolerance, bigotry,
exclusiveness, in us or in others, cannot stand before the spirit of the
age. We may work better, divided into denominations, forbearing with one
another, and loving one another in Christ, and for his sake.

_Mr. M._ Are you often called upon by persons who are troubled on the
subject of baptism?

_Dr. D._ I do not spend much time in discussing the mode. When a young
person is troubled on the subject, I am always careful, first of all, to
find out whether there is any secret bias, for any reason, toward
another denomination; in which case, I pause at once; for you might
argue forever in vain. There is iron on board the ship, which controls
the needle in the compass. I always make it easy and pleasant for such
to follow their evident inclination and wishes.

_Mr. M._ Are they generally ready to go?

_Dr. D._ No, they say they do not like strict communion; but I cannot
help them. I will not be a sectarian, even for infant baptism.

_Mr. M._ Are you in favor of admitting people to our church who do not
believe in infant baptism?

_Dr. D._ Young people, who say that their minds are not made up on the
subject, or those who have not had their attention directed to it,
cannot be required to signify their cordial assent to it; but it is
enough if they are not opposed. In the case of parents who steadfastly
decline to practise infant baptism, after waiting a proper time to
instruct them, I advise them to join another denomination more in
accordance with their views. We do better to be apart, and it is no
reflection upon either side to say this. A Paedobaptist church ought to
maintain its principles by requiring assent to its standard of faith;
yet, where there is no church of a different denomination, within
convenient distance, I surely would not exclude a child of God from the
Lord's Supper for differences of opinion and practice about baptism. I
would admit, by special vote, to occasional, or even to stated
communion, in such a case.

_Mr. M._ Do you ever re-baptize?

_Dr. D._ Where a person was baptized with water, in the name of the
Trinity, by an authorized person, of any denomination, I would not
re-baptize. The alleged heterodox or immoral character of the
administrator, at the time of baptism, does not invalidate it;
otherwise, one might be baptized many times, and, the administrators
proving unworthy, the subject could never get baptized. Christ would
never let his ordinances depend thus upon uncertainties. Let a person
but recognize his baptism, if performed in infancy, by entering publicly
into covenant with God, and that will be sufficient. I endeavor to show
people how wrong it is to lay undue stress on the ordinance, forgetting
whether they have that which is signified by it, and which alone gives
it value.

_Mr. M._ True, sir, but it has its importance, and stress is to be laid
upon the due observance of it.

_Dr. D._ I mean that where I find the conditions of valid baptism
complied with, I try to turn away the thoughts from any superstitious or
ceremonial dependence upon the sacramental act. You remember the answer
in the catechism to the question, "How do the sacraments become
effectual means of salvation?"

_Mr. M._ How I used to say that, at my mother's knee, with my hands
folded behind me, to keep them still: "The sacraments become effectual
means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth
administer them, but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of
his spirit in them that by faith receive them."

_Dr. D._ I was thinking, the other day, and not for the first time, by
any means, what a noble man was Paul. He was unwilling that people
should call themselves after him, as their leader, and therefore he was
glad to leave the act of baptizing to his associates. Some, however,
infer from this that he disparages baptism. "Christ sent me not to
baptize, but to preach the gospel." Baptism, in its place, has its
importance, and so has preaching; but whether he should be the baptizer,
or delegate the administration to Silas, or Mark, was not of so much
consequence as that he should preach. How he put things in their right
places, according to their proportions, exalting the great, vital
things, sinking others to their subordinate, though useful, spheres, and
becoming all things to all men to save them. With his contempt of
formalism, I hardly know of a greater trial of patience than he must
have had in consenting to circumcise Timothy. He there shut the
window-shutters, and lighted an exhausted lamp, for a time, though he
knew the sun was up, to gratify some who had not opened their eyes to
the morning. How far from a contentious, ambitious spirit, was he, even
with his intense convictions. There are many good people, in all
communions, who are longing for the time when all the old walls of
separation between true Christians will have as many gates in them, at
least, as heaven has,--on the east three gates, on the north three
gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. But I
rejoice even in our liberty, if we choose to exercise it, of separation,
without molestation, though we lose much good to ourselves, and much
influence, and, in times of general religious interest, it leads to
early discussions about modes and forms. How many times have I seen a
growing attention to religion in a community checked by debates and
discussions as to ordinances.

_Mr. M._ If more pains were taken to instruct our own people as to the
oneness of the ancient and the Christian church, and to show them how
the consecration of children is a part of religion, as reestablished by
the Most High, it seems to me great good would follow.

_Dr. D._ If you will draw out your thoughts on the subject, and let me
see them, we may prepare something which may be useful. You view the
subject on the popular, practical side. Let us see what the results are
to which you have come.

Having agreed to make the effort at my leisure, I may report hereafter
as to my success. And now I will ask my reader's attention to an
interesting letter, which, on my return home, I found awaiting me.

Chapter Seventh.

TERMS OF COMMUNION.

Him first to love, great right and reason is,
Who first to us our life and being gave;
And after, when we fared had amisse,
Us wretches from the second death did save;
And last, the food of life, which now we have,
Even He himselfe, in his dear sacrament,
To feede our hungry soules, unto us lent.

Then next to love our brethren, that were made
Of that selfe mould, and that self maker's hand,
That we;[6] and to the same againe shall fade
Where they shall have like heritage of land,[7]
However here on higher steps we stand;
Which also were with selfe-same price redeemed
That we;--however of us light esteemed.

SPENSER.--"_An Hymne of Heavenly Love._"

----PRAIRIE,----, 185-.

MY DEAR BROTHER: Here we are, at our journey's end. We have had a most
romantic journey, arriving in health, though wayworn, much of our ride
having been in wagons. My wife says, Give my love to brother, and tell
him of the scene at "the hill Mizar." Your letter, which we found
awaiting us, made her think that you would be deeply interested in the
story. This, by and by.

[Footnote 6: As we.]

[Footnote 7: The grave.]

As we were leaving C., one morning, in the great mail-wagon, a man and
his wife, with an infant in her arms, took seats with us, bound far
beyond our own home. The parents had been delayed by the birth of the
child during the journey from New York. They proved to be truly
excellent people, and they made our journey with them very agreeable.

The father, Mr. Blair, had been greatly tried during his stay at the
hotel where his wife was sick. There was only one church in the village.
The administration of the Lord's Supper occurring while he was there, he
went to avail himself of a stranger's privilege at the table of Christ.
He found, however, that the ordinance was not to be administered till
the afternoon, and, moreover, the hymn-book, and some things in the
sermon, disclosed to him that the church was one which closed its doors
against communicants who had not been baptized by immersion, on
profession of their faith.

He was strongly inclined to partake of the ordinance, without saying
anything respecting his baptism. But, on the whole, he concluded that it
would be respectful to intimate his situation to one of the church,
peradventure they had a rule favorable to such a case as his, or, at
least, had agreed to shut their eyes, and ask no questions, in such
circumstances.

He, therefore, introduced himself to a venerable man, who, he inferred,
was a deacon. He frankly told him who he was, and that he wished to
partake of the Lord's Supper.

The good man said to him, "I am sorry that you said anything about it;
but, so long as you have, I don't see how I can consistently encourage
your partaking of the ordinance."

_Stranger._ On what ground, sir?

_Deacon._ Why, we do not hold you to have been baptized.

_Stranger._ I was baptized in infancy, by believing parents, and have
been a professing Christian fifteen years.

_Deacon._ That is not believers' baptism, as we view it. The Lord's
Supper, in our communion, is for baptized persons only. We hold to no
baptism but by immersion.

_Stranger._ I certainly would not intrude, and I will not ask you to act
inconsistently with your principles. But I am a wayfaring man. I have
not had the opportunity to partake of the Lord's Supper for several
months. The life and health of my wife have been remarkably preserved in
this village. Here is the birthplace of my first-born, a place never to
be forgotten by us. I wish to make a Bethel of it. I wish to come to my
Saviour's table with my thanksgivings, and pay him my vows, which my
lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble. I
rejoiced when I heard that this was your sacramental Sabbath.

_Deacon._ Your church would not admit an unbaptized person to the Lord's
table, however much he might plead for admission.

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