Chapter XXVII: Introduction (10)

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“That will not take us long. Our test is the ninth and the last. It says that, No apostate Church can be a Church of Christ. Not that a true Church may not, in process of time, by change of members, change of officers, and change of laws, cease to be a true Church, and thus become apostate; but that after she _has_ thus apostatized, she is no Church of Christ, even though she may still retain the same name and the same external forms that she had at first. Christ’s _institution_, called the Church, is to be permanent and perpetual. But as many an individual _example_ of that institution has died out and ceased to be, so many a one has gone out from Christ’s jurisdiction, and associated with his enemies. But when it _has_ done so it is not a Church of Christ: when it has done so. It has no authority in his kingdom; when it has done so, its members are no longer members of Christ’s Church; its ordinances are no longer Christian ordinances, its ministry is no longer the Christian ministry. _All its official acts are null and void._ It cannot therefore be the medium of baptism to members or ordination to ministers. This is self-evident. It is a thing of necessity, unless you admit the absurdity that an organization which is _not_ a Church of Christ, and to which Christ has given _no_ authority, is yet competent to perform, in a legal and valid manner, those acts which he has intrusted exclusively to his Church.

“I trust our friends here will _notice_ this point; I dwell upon it because it is of vast importance.”

“How so, Mr. Courtney? I do not discover any thing so _very_ important in it,” said Theodosia; “but I suppose it in my stupidity that prevents me from seeing it.”

“I will tell you. The Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and, I believe, all those denominations who are called _Protestants_, believe and teach that the Church of Rome, so far from being a true Church of Christ, is that _Antichrist_ which was foretold by the apostles. They have the best of reasons for this faith. There is no doubt that they are in this entirely correct. And yet, while they thus believe and teach, they cannot deny the fact that _they all received their baptism and their ordination_ from the Church of Rome. Now, if Rome were never a Church of Christ, they could not even pretend that it had any right to baptize or ordain, any more than the Mormon society at Nauvoo had. Baptism and ordination conferred by them, and received through them, would have been no more _Christian_ baptism than if it had been received from the followers of Mohammed in Mecca. They therefore say that Rome _was once_ a true Church, but that she has _apostatized_ and become what she is. As she was once a Church, she could receive and transmit true Christian baptism and valid ordination. Now, our position is, that from the day she became _apostate_ she _ceased to be a Church of Christ. She was no more a Church of his than if she never had been one._ She had no more authority to act as the administrator of the laws of his kingdom than if she had never possessed that authority. Her baptism, after that, was no more Christian baptism than the washing of the heathen in the pagan temples of their idol gods was Christian baptism. The ordination of a minister by her authority and for her service, was no more Christian ordination than the consecration of a priest of Jupiter was Christian ordination; for she was no more a Christian Church, and had no more authority to act in the capacity of a Christian Church than any other company of those who hated holiness and persecuted the true disciples of the Lord.

“This surely will not admit of doubt; it needs no argument. If any one will dispute this, it is hardly worth while to reason with him. Christ gave the authority to administer his ordinances and execute his laws to his Church as the executive of _his_ kingdom. Now, when any assembly _ceases_ to be HIS Church, it has no longer his commission. All its rights are forfeited. It cannot carry them out of the kingdom; it cannot exercise them as Christ’s executive, when itself no longer belongs to Christ. A provincial government that has revolted against its king, thrown off its allegiance, instituted new officers, made new laws, received other subjects, and directed all its powers, physical and mental, to the destruction of the faithful subjects of their former king, are surely not legal administrators of the ordinances of his kingdom. They may still _claim_ to act by his authority; they may still employ his _name_ to give apparent sanction to their work; they may deny that they are rebels; they may declare that the king has _no other faithful subjects but themselves_, and gives authority to none but them. Yet all this will not legalize their acts. Their acts will no more possess the actual sanction of the king than if they had been done in their own name, or in the name of some foreign potentate, whose authority they had never pretended to recognize. The _faithful subjects_ of the king can no more recognize their acts as legal than if they had never made any part of the kingdom. Now, suppose a subject of a foreign power should be _naturalized_, and so entitled to all the rights of citizenship in this revolted province, and should thence pass over to some province which had continued faithful to the king; would that _naturalization_ given by this revolted province entitle him to citizenship in the _real_ kingdom? He has come among the rebels; he has been received by the rebels; he has been naturalized by the rebels; and he is on this account entitled to citizenship among the rebels. But now, when he comes among the faithful, he must be naturalized by the faithful. They cannot recognize the authority of the rebels to admit citizens to _their_ kingdom. If he become a citizen there, he must be naturalized there, and by the legal and undisputed authority of their king.

“So, when a subject of Satan comes to an apostate, a revolted Church, and is received by them, baptized by them, and thus made one of them, and entitled to all the privileges of Church-membership among them, he does not by this act become a member of Christ’s kingdom. This baptism does not make him a member of any true Church of Christ. And if he should desire to leave the rebels and unite with a true and faithful Church, that Church could not recognize as legal, or receive as valid, the baptism of the apostates. _And if she should receive him as a member, without baptizing him_, she would by that act acknowledge that _his previous baptism had been legal and valid_; and, consequently, that the revolted and apostate Church was, at the time of conferring it, just as much a true Church of Christ, and just as _truly authorized_ _by Christ_ to receive members and administer his ordinance, es she is herself.

“So also in regard to ordination. Suppose, in the revolted province, some one who had been received and naturalized and made a citizen among the rebels, should be by them chosen to office, by them duly initiated and commissioned as an _officer_ to exercise among them the authority belonging to his station; and he should choose, afterward, to go over among the faithful subjects of the king, and claim that he was entitled to exercise the authority of his office _there_, in the real kingdom, what would the faithful subjects of the king be bound to do? Must they recognize his authority? must they submit to his rule? If they do so, they admit that the acts of the rebels are as legal and valid as their own acts, done by order of the king. They could do no such thing. If they received him as a _citizen_, they must first _naturalize_ him again; for his naturalization by the rebels is nothing to them; (it did not make him a member of the kingdom, but only of a community of rebels.) Then, if they desired his services as an _officer_ they would elect him as such, and commission him as such. And until he had been thus chosen and commissioned, he could surely be no more an officer among them, and they could no more recognize any official act of his, than as though the rebels had never dreamed of giving him a commission in their revolted government.

“So, when an apostate, a revolted _Church_, has first, by their unauthorized baptism, made one a member of their apostate communion, and then appointed him to office, and commissioned him as a minister to exercise his proper functions in their rebel assemblies, this does not make him a minister of any true Church of Christ. This does not empower him to exercise the office of a minister, or make any of his ministerial acts legal and valid, within Christ’s visible kingdom. Christ has intrusted the selecting and commissioning of his ministers to _his_ Churches, and not to Churches which hate his people and his cause, and employ all their powers to injure and destroy them. If this man is to perform any official act within the true kingdom of Christ, he must first be _ordained_ by _legal_ authority within the kingdom; and every official act which he shall take upon him to perform, without such legal ordination, is illegal and invalid; it is null and void, as though it never had been done.

“This is surely all very plain; and I cannot conceive how any man of common sense, who will take five minutes to think about it, can ever venture to doubt or dispute it.”

“Certainly, I see all that,” said Theodosia; “but I do not yet quite apprehend the vast importance which you seem to attach to it. I do not yet perceive the tremendous consequences which are to follow from these self-evident truths.”

“These consequences,” replied Mr. Courtney, “_are SO tremendous_, and they follow _so necessarily_ and _indisputably_ from the premises which we have laid down, that, when they _are_ seen and felt, the mind almost instinctively rejects the premises; though, when seen without the consequences, it cannot help admitting their truth, and, even after the consequences are fully realized, can find no _logical_ means of setting them aside.

“As one who stands and gazes at the desolation in the path of the avalanche, which rushed but yesterday over some beauteous, and luxuriant, and densely-populated valley, can hardly realize what he beholds; but exclaims, even while he sees it all, ‘_This cannot be_. Surely this is not the place which yesterday was thronging with busy life and studded with peaceful dwellings, in which were beating a thousand human hearts, with all their joys and sorrows, hopes and fears; and now thus desolate; now thus dead. And yet it _must_ be so. This _is_ the place; and there is now the ponderous mass which made this fearful ruin!’ So he who can be brought to look this subject fairly and fully in the face; who will bring his mind and hold it to the point until he sees and realizes the premises we have laid down, and the conclusion that _must_, of logical necessity, follow, is apt to feel as though the mind were stunned and stupefied with the result. And though he cannot show any flaw in the argument, or offer any reason why he should think it false, he yet exclaims, ‘_It surely cannot be true._’

“The consequence which I have spoken of is this: An apostate Church, _after it has become apostate_, is not a Church of Christ. Her baptism is not valid Christian baptism. Her ministers are not legal Christian ministers. Her acts, _as a Church_, are, one and all, utterly null and void. Now, it is admitted by Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Lutherans and Methodists, that _the Church of Rome IS THUS APOSTATE_, and that she WAS thus apostate _before the Reformation_. If so, she had before that time become incapable of conferring baptism or ordination. Her baptism was not Christian baptism, and her ministers had no authority as the ministers of Christ. And yet the _only_ baptism and the _only_ ordination which any of these denominations have, they received _from the Church of Rome_. It follows, therefore, if an apostate Church cannot confer valid Christian baptism; nay, if the baptism of _Antichrist_ is not valid Christian baptism, the founders and first members of these Churches were not baptized; and if the _ordination of Antichrist_ could not create a Christian minister, their ministers had never been ordained. And now, if baptism is a necessary prerequisite to Church membership, so that an assembly, even of good people, cannot be a true, visible Church of Christ, unless its members have been baptized,—not into Mohammedanism, by the authority of the false prophet; not into Mormonism, by the authority of Joe Smith; not into Roman Catholicism, by the authority of the Pope; but into a _genuine Christianity_, by the authority of Jesus,—then they could not, until they _had been baptized_, have become _true_ Churches of Christ. And unless _genuine_ and valid baptism can be conferred by those who have themselves not been baptized, and unless true and valid ordination can be conferred by those who have themselves neither been baptized nor ordained, then they have _never_ received baptism, and have _never_ had a legal ministry; and, consequently, _never have been_, ARE NOT NOW, and NEVER CAN BE, true Churches and true ministers of Christ, until they shall have been baptized into a real Church of baptized believers.

“They _admit_ that baptism is an essential prerequisite to Church-membership.

“They _admit_ that no one can give true Christian baptism who has not been himself baptized.

“They _admit_ that baptism conferred by Mohammedans or Mormons, by a Temperance Society, or a lodge of Odd-Fellows or Freemasons, would not be Christian baptism; but that, to be such, it must be given by _a true Church of Christ_.

“They _admit_ that they received their baptism from _Rome_.

“And they _admit_—nay, they contend and _prove_, that Rome, so far from being a true Church of Christ, was _Antichrist_ himself—the man of sin—the son of perdition—the apocalyptic beast—the dragon that made war upon the saints, and that drove the true Church into the wilderness, and that _wore out the saints_ with cruel and incessant persecutions.

“They admit all this, and they therefore _must admit_ that they have never had true baptism, and are not true Churches of Jesus Christ.

“They may stand and stare at the ghastly array of their admissions, and at the overwhelming ruin in which these admissions bury up all their claims to be regarded as true Churches. But they cannot deny that they have made these admissions. They cannot help making them again. They _must_ admit these things, or deny what is as open and plain as the day to every thinking mind. They _dare not_ dispute the premises, and they _cannot_ resist the consequence. They may lift up their hands and stupidly exclaim, ‘This cannot be so;’ but IT IS SO, nevertheless. They may say it is unchristian and uncharitable thus to _unchurch_ almost the whole of Christendom. We do not do it; it is the _logic of the case_ that does the work. Neither we nor _they_ themselves can deny the conclusion, if these admissions are once made. They may go back, if they choose, and _retract_ these admissions. They may take them one by one, and see if they _can_, see if they _dare_, as conscientious adherents to the simple truth, retract a single one of then.

“Let them try it. Let them begin with the last. Will they deny that Rome is Antichrist? We will prove it to them by arguments from the principal defenders of each of the denominations. We will prove it from Luther, from Calvin, from Baxter, from Doddridge, from Scott, from Benson, from Adam Clarke, from Wesley, from Chalmers. Or, if they do not like their own authorities, we will prove it by a comparison of the _historical facts_ with the Scripture predictions. Nay, further, if they deny that Rome is Antichrist; if they contend that Rome is, as she claims to be, the true Church of Christ, then it will _follow, just as certainly_ as before, that _THEY are NOT_ true Churches, though on different grounds. If Rome be the _true_ Church, then they who went out from Rome were _heretics_ and _schismatics_, and they legally are _exscinded_ and _excluded_ from the Church. For Rome, by the authority that was in her as Christ’s executive, has cut them off and consigned them to perdition. So, whichever horn of the dilemma they may take, they cannot go behind the last of these admissions. If Rome _was_ the true Church; if Rome _was_ authorized to exercise the authority of the kingdom of Christ; if Rome was that body to which Christ had committed the ordinances and laws of his kingdom for preservation and execution, then the act of Rome, by which they were cut off, was a _legal_ act; and they were _cast out_ of the Church, and, of course, had no more authority to baptize, and preach, and found Churches, than a deposed and excluded minister would have now.

“If you say that they _withdrew_, and were not cut off, it does not help the case at all; for, on the supposition that Rome _was_ the true Church, they, in that case, went out from the true Church of Christ, and of course no longer made a part of it, and had no authority in it. But the first reformers _did not_ withdraw. They remained in the Church as long as they could. They had no thought of forming a _new_ Church, but only of reforming the old. They, as members of the Church of Rome, _protested_ against her faith and practices. And for this they were excluded, anathematized, and persecuted, by that apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical hierarchy. But Protestants will not, they cannot, they dare not, in the face of their own denunciations of Rome as an apostate Church, and as Antichrist, recall what they have said, and fraternize with her as a true Church of Christ. _And if they DO, it will not affect our argument; for WE HAVE PROVED HER FALSE_, though they may count her true. We have tried her by the Word of God, and found that she has not one single mark of a _true_ Church of Christ. And yet, if she had every _mark but one_, she would not be a true Church of Christ. If, therefore, she ever was a true Church, she has become _apostate_. If she is apostate now, she _has been_ so ever since she possessed the same peculiarities upon which we have rejected her claims; and this was, to say the least, long before the Reformation. The _only_ ground on which a consistent Protestant can stand and claim that those who received their baptism and their ordination in Rome, and yet, on coming out of her, were true Church-members, with valid baptism and legal ordination, is this: they may contend that when these members were received and baptized, and when these ministers were ordained, the Church of Rome was a _true Church of Christ_; but, in the interval which elapsed between their baptism and ordination and their final withdrawal or expulsion, she had become the apostate seat of sin and abode of every unclean and hateful bird. But this they did not pretend at the time. No one will venture to pretend it now. Bad as Rome was at the time of Luther, she was not as bad as she had been. Her pope and cardinals, bishops and priests, vile as they were, were decent men, in comparison with the monsters of vice, and cruelty, and profligacy, which filled her sacred (!) offices in the tenth and eleventh centuries. She was just then only selling for money the privilege to sin; but she had long been accustomed to sell for money the right to grant such privileges. She was then only burning now and then a heretic; but she had long before been used to murder them by thousands.

“The apostasy was not only begun, but matured, hundreds of years before Luther was born. It was not then a thing of yesterday. Luther was born under an apostate Church; he was baptized into an apostate Church, and made a priest of an apostate Church; and his companions were all of them baptized into an apostate Church, if they were baptized at all. The _only_ baptism and the _only_ ordination that he or any of them received, was that of a Church that had _not one single mark or feature_ of the Church of Christ; and, consequently, their baptism and ordination was no better than if they had received it in a Mohammedan mosque, or a Mormon temple, or a Freemason’s lodge. And since they could not give what they had not received, the so-called Churches which they set up have never had, and have not now, and never can have, the ordinances of a Church of Christ, until they receive them from a true and legal Church.

“But we need not forestall the results of our coming examination of their several claims. We have now done with that of the Church of Rome. We have first ‘_searched the Scriptures_,’ and found what were there laid down as the peculiar characteristics of a true Church of Christ. We have tried to find if Rome possessed these characteristics, and discovered that she has not _one_.”

“I have,” said Mr. Percy, “busied myself, as we have gone along, in making a sort of picture, or diagram, of this Church. As we had nine marks, I divided this blank page into nine equal spaces, and writing the marks in the margin, determined, if she was found to possess any one of them, to leave a white space for it; if not, to make it black. And here you see it all black, in every space, from the top to the bottom.”

“It is a good conception,” said the Doctor; “and I hope you will give us a similar diagram of every Church whose claims may come before us. But we are tired now; let us adjourn; and when we meet to-morrow, take up the Church of England.”

DIAGRAM OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

SEVENTH DAY’S TRAVEL.

“You will recollect,” said the Doctor, at the commence men of the conversation this morning, “that there was one point suggested by your remarks yesterday, concerning which I desired some further information; not so much because I had any doubt of the correctness of your statements, as because I desire to know upon what sort of evidence you made assertions so very different from those I have been accustomed to hear.”

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Courtney; “I remember it perfectly. You have all your life been taught, as all Pedobaptists are, by preachers, and books, and pamphlets, and papers, that the baptism of babes dates from the time of Christ. And I asserted that it was introduced at a much later period. I do not love to make assertions without giving the proof, and am very glad that you are disposed to hear the testimony. I will make it as concise as possible, and it will be as convincing as you can possibly desire. I will set your mind at rest on this point at once and for ever.

“And I say, in the _first_ place, if the baptism of babes was _not_ practiced by Christ and the apostles, it _must_ have been introduced afterwards. This is self-evident. But now, we have carefully examined the record of the sayings and doings of Christ and the apostles, from Matthew to Revelation; and though we have found the baptism of many thousands of men and women expressly mentioned, we have not discovered any account of, or any allusion to, the baptism of one solitary babe. We must therefore, if the record be not incomplete on this most important point of Christian faith and practice, admit that _no infant was baptized_. At any rate, we must so decide, unless those who say that infant baptism was then practiced will show at least one plain, undoubted fact on which to base their assertion. But such a fact the most intelligent and candid Pedobaptists do not so much as pretend to have. They say, with their learned and zealous advocate, Professor Stuart, ‘Commands, or plain and certain examples, in the New Testament relative to it I do not find.’

“No one ever investigated this subject with more laborious scrutiny then Dr. Wall, the author of the ‘History of Infant Baptism;’ yet he is forced to acknowledge that, ‘Among all the persons that are recorded as having been baptized by the apostles, there is no express mention of any infant.’

“So Luther says, expressly, ‘It cannot be proved by the Sacred Scriptures that infant baptism was instituted by Christ, or begun by the first Christians after the apostles.’

“So the learned Erasmus, in his note on Romans v. 14: ‘Paul does not seem to treat about infants. It was not yet the custom for infants to be baptized.’

“So the Magdeburg Centuriators: ‘Concerning the baptism of infants, there are no examples of which we read in the first century.’

“Bishop Burnet expressly declares, ‘There is no express precept or rule given in the New Testament for the baptism of infants.’

“I might extend this catalogue indefinitely; but I need not do so. I will only add the testimony of the learned Limbroch, given in his System of Divinity: ‘There is no express command for it in Scripture. Nay, all those passages wherein baptism is commanded, do immediately relate to adult persons, since they are ordered to be instructed, and faith is prerequisite as a necessary qualification, which [things] are peculiar to the adult. There is no instance can be produced from whence it may indisputably be inferred that any child was baptized by the apostles. The necessity of Pedobaptism was never asserted by any council before that of Carthage, held in the year 418. We own that there is no precept nor undoubted instance in Scripture of infant baptism.’

“Now, since we have searched for it in the Record, and could not find it; and since these and others of the most learned, most industrious, and most zealous advocates of infant baptism admit that they have searched for it and cannot find it, it seems to me that we are fully justified in concluding _that it is not there_.”

“But, Mr. Courtney, you say these men were themselves baptizers of infants. They were pious, conscientious men How _could_ they practice and commend that which had no Scripture authority?”

“That is a hard question, sir. If they were still alive, I would like to ask it of themselves. I suppose most of them, did they venture to speak out truly the real ground of their faith and practice, would give it somewhat in the language of Mr. Walker, in his modest plea for infant baptism: ‘Where authority from the Scriptures fail, there _the custom of the Church_ is to be held as law. It doth not follow that our Saviour gave no precept for the baptizing of infants because no such precept is particularly expressed in the Scriptures; for our Saviour spake many things to his disciples concerning the kingdom of God, both before his passion and after his resurrection, which are not written in the Scriptures. And who can say but that among those many unwritten sayings of his, there might be an express precept for infant baptism?’”

“Certainly,” exclaimed Theodosia. “Who can say? And who can say that there was not among those unwritten sayings of his a complete description of purgatory? Who can say that there were not express directions concerning the consecration of monks and nuns? Who can say that all the mummery of Popery was not detailed in those unwritten conversations?”

“It seems very evident to me,” said Dr. Thinkwell, “that if He did give them such an express precept, they were very disobedient to his requirement; for of all the thousands whom they actually baptized, we do not read that they ever baptized a single infant; and never in a single instance so much as intimated to those whom they received and organized into Churches, that it was their duty and their privilege to bring their infants in with them. If he gave them such a precept, I can only say, they must have forgotten all about it, and the Holy Spirit failed to bring it to their remembrance, as Jesus promised he should do concerning the things which he had told them.”

“We have nothing at all to do,” said Mr. Courtney, “with traditions on this or any other point of faith or practice. The custom of the Churches, except so for as that custom is recorded in the Book, is nothing to us; and yet I will show that the custom of the Churches was _not_ to baptize infants for several generations after the apostles. I say, first, infant baptism was not commanded by Christ, or practiced by the apostles. It did not exist up to the time when the canon of Scripture was completed. This I take for granted from the simple fact, that neither we, nor its most diligent and capable and zealous advocates have been able to discover any trace of it in the Book.

“I will now prove to you that it did not exist in the century next after the apostles. What sort of testimony do you require! Will you have the statements of ecclesiastical historians? Wallafridus Strabo, a Catholic ecclesiastical historian of the ninth century, says, ‘It should be observed, that in the primitive times, the grace of baptism was usually given to those only who were arrived at such maturity of body and mind that they could understand what were the benefits of baptism; what was to be confessed and believed; and, finally, what was to be observed by those who are regenerated in Christ.’

“In fact, there is a canon of a Roman Catholic council, held at Paris in the year eight hundred and twenty-nine, which says the same thing: ‘In the beginning of the Holy Church of God, no one was admitted to baptism unless he had before been instructed in the sacrament of faith and of baptism, which is proved by the words of St. Paul, Rom. vi. 3, 4.’

“Salmasius, an eminent French Roman Catholic, says, ‘In the first two centuries no one was baptized except, being instructed in the faith, and acquainted with the doctrine of Christ, he was able to profess himself a believer, because of those words, “He that believeth and is baptized.” Thence the order of catechumens in the Church. Then also it was the constant custom to give the Lord’s Supper to those catechumens immediately after their baptism.’

“Ludovicus Vives declares, ‘No one in former times was admitted to the sacred baptistery except he was of age, understood what the mystical water meant, desired to be washed in it, and expressed that desire more than once, of which practice we have yet a faint resemblance in our baptism of infants; for an infant of only a day or two old is yet asked [in the Lutheran Church] whether he will be baptized; and this question is asked three times: in whose name the sponsors answer, He does desire it.’

“Curcellæus says, ‘The baptism of infants in the first two centuries after Christ was altogether unknown; but in the third and fourth was allowed by some few. In the fifth and the following ages it was generally received. The custom of baptizing infants did not begin before the third age after Christ was born. In the former ages no trace of it appears. It was introduced without the command of Christ: and therefore,’ he says in another place, ‘this rite is observed by us as an _ancient_ custom, but not as an apostolical tradition.’

“To the same effect speak many of the most learned Europeans who have, with every possible facility for such investigations, made the customs of the ancient Church their study.

“Thus the Magdeburg Centuriators concerning the first century say, ‘In this age they baptized only the adult or aged, whether Jews or Gentiles; and as to the manner of baptizing, it was by dipping or plunging in the water, into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.’ Of the second century they say, ‘It doth not appear from any approved authors that there was any mutation or change in respect to baptism from the first century.’ Of the third they say, ‘As to the rite of baptism in the Churches of Asia, we have no testimony of any alteration; but concerning the African Churches, there were great corruptions, in opinion at least, if not in practice;’ and instance the introduction of the baptism of infants, which was opposed by Tertullian.

“Dr. Mosheim says of the first century, ‘No _persons_ were admitted to baptism but such as had been previously instructed into the principal points of Christianity, and had also given satisfactory proofs of pious dispositions and upright intentions.’ And of the second century, ‘The persons to be baptized, after they had repeated the creed confessed, and renounced their sins, particularly the Devil and his pompous allurements, were immersed under water, and received into Christ’s kingdom by a solemn invocation.’

“These authorities are none of them Baptists. They every one belong to Churches which consist of those baptized in infancy. They all have every motive to find infant baptism in the first Churches if they can. They none of them have any conceivable interest in advancing Baptist sentiments; and one would think the united testimony of such men, upon a question of ecclesiastical history, would be decisive. I would say, if I were talking on any other subject, that he who would, without a careful personal examination of the evidences, venture to assert, in opposition to all this, that infant baptism existed in the first two centuries, was either a liar or a fool. But I know the force of religious prejudice, and will not use such language. I will, on the contrary, suppose that even you and these good friends around me are not yet convinced I have given you the simple declarations of very learned and eminent men (themselves Pedobaptists) who before making those declarations had gone back into the musty records of antiquity, and made a careful and laborious search for the real facts. After such examination they expressly depose that the first and second centuries knew nothing of infant baptism. I can for my own part see no reason why any man should ask for further witnesses; but we have others, and I will bring them in, and they shall testify.

“There are witnesses which show that even to a much later day than this, infant baptism was the exception, and not, as now in Pedobaptist Churches, the general rule—I mean the baptistries. The Christians continued to baptize in streams, and pools, and baths until the middle of the third century. Justin Martyr says, the candidates ‘Were brought to a place where there was water.’ And Tertullian says, ‘It made no difference whether it were the sea, or a pool, or a lake, a river or a bath.’ But about the middle of the third century, shortly after infant baptism began to be rather proposed than practiced, the Churches began to build special places for baptism, especially in the towns and cities. These baptisteries were outside the churches, and consisted of a large pool enclosed in a building, and covered by a cupola, or dome. Now, the _most ancient_ of these baptisteries were arranged at great cost for the immersion of adults. The pools were large enough and deep enough to swim in, and by the ancients were sometimes called swimming places. It was not until after the fifth century that the _font_ was found in the place of the _pool_, and not until the fourteenth that the basin took the place of the font. Now these, though silent, are most convincing witnesses. The first baptisteries were contrived and fitted for the immersion of adults. The fonts, reduced in size, first to the standard of youths, and then to that of babes, show the gradual incoming of the immersion of infants; and the substitution of the basin shows the introduction of sprinkling.

“But, not to dwell on this, I wish to call your attention to another and a most conclusive fact. It is this: _All the ancient formularies of the baptismal service are arranged for adults_; or, at least, for those who could understand and answer the questions for themselves, In the earliest liturgies and rituals there is no provision made for infants. They are no more recognized as the proper subjects of baptism than are the worshippers of Jupiter.”

“I do not see how you can prove that,” said the Doctor, “unless you can give us the rituals to examine for ourselves, or show us the testimony of some competent and credible witness who has examined them.”

“It is in my power to do both at the same time. I have in my trunk a work, recently published in London, which brings to light much that was not known before, and clears away the rubbish which defaced and concealed much that was partly understood concerning the faith and practice of the first Churches. No one, who will follow the learned author through all the various paths by which he has come to his final conclusions, will be disposed to doubt that he has at length discovered and brought to view the real picture of the ancient Church. I will get it, and show you what was the practice of that Church concerning baptism. The author, who is the learned Chevalier Bunsen, is not a Baptist. He has no object in advancing Baptist sentiments. He is a Pedobaptist scholar, who, by vast labor and research, has endeavored to discover beneath the rubbish which false learning had heaped upon it, the beautiful form of the apostolical Church. Not, indeed, as it existed in the apostles’ days; not as it was before it had been at all corrupted by false doctrine or unauthorized practices; but as it was from the second to the fifth century. This book is called ‘Hippolytus And His Age.’ It is based upon the discovery of a long-lost manuscript of that ancient bishop, who lived and wrote in the third century. But besides this manuscript, Bunsen, the translator of it, has brought together, from many and various sources, the most reliable and authentic accounts of the age when Hippolytus lived.”

Mr. Courtney went to his state-room for the book, and presently returned with the third volume, containing what purports to be the “Church and House Book of the Ancient Christians.”

“We will not have time,” said he, “to read this book to-day. I will merely call your attention to the fact recorded on the fifth page, that those who would be baptized must first be brought to the minister to _be instructed_. On the eighth page, we learn that the course of instruction ordinarily continued _three years_, though this depended on their course of life. After this they were examined, the correctness of their lives duly certified by those who had brought them for instruction; and after fasting, bathing, exorcism, etc., they were divested of their clothing and immersed in water. (Pp. 18–22.) Then, after baptism, they go up out of the water, are anointed with oil, signed with the sign of the cross, clothed in white garments, and so return to the Church, where the Lord’s Supper is at once administered to them.

“We see, therefore, that all these fooleries of exorcism, unction, and chrism, together with the sign of the cross, which have no scriptural authority, had come into use _long before_ infant baptism; and if the usage of the ancient Church can establish any thing not commanded in Scripture, these things stand on better ground than it does. But, although they had so far departed from the simplicity of the gospel as to introduce this senseless mummery, they had not yet learned to make one a Christian without his own consent. And Mr. Bunsen, on page 179, makes a very plain summing up of the whole matter. I will read it to you: ‘The Church adhered rigidly to the principle as constituting the true import of the baptism ordained by Christ, that no one can be a member of the communion of saints but by his own free act and deed, his own solemn vow, made in the presence of the Church. It was with this understanding that the candidate for baptism was immersed in water and admitted as a brother upon his confession of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It understood baptism, therefore, in the exact sense the First Epistle of St. Peter, iii. 21, not as being a mere bodily purification, but as a vow made to God, with a good conscience, through faith in Jesus Christ. This vow was preceded by a confession of faith, made in the face of the Church, in which the catechumen expressed that faith in Christ, and in the sufficiency of the salvation offered by him. It was a vow to live for the time to come to God, and for his neighbor—not to the world and for self; a vow of faith in his becoming a child of God, through the communion with his only-begotten Son in the Holy Ghost; a vow of the most solemn kind, for life and for death. The keeping of this pledge was the condition of continuance in the Church. Its infringement entailed repentance or excommunication. All Church discipline was based upon this voluntary pledge, and the responsibility thereby self-imposed. How could such a vow be received without examination? How could such examination be passed without instruction and observation?

“‘As a general rule, the ancient Church fixed three years as the period for this preparation; supposing the candidate, whether a heathen or a Jew, to be competent to receive it. With Christian children the condition was the same, except that the term of probation was curtailed according to circumstances. _Pedobaptism, in the more modern sense, meaning thereby baptism of new-born infants, with the vicarious promises of parents or other sponsors, WAS UTTERLY UNKNOWN TO THE EARLY CHURCH,_ not only down to the end of the second, but indeed to the middle of the third century. We shall show, in a subsequent page, how this practice originated in the baptism of children of a more advanced age.’”

Mr. Courtney then turned to page 186, and read,

“‘THE EXAMINATION.—In the third and last year of the preparation, the catechumens were called _competentes_, or candidates, as they had been called hearers in the second. Before they were set apart from the rest, in immediate preparation for their baptism, an _examination_ was made as to their life and conduct during the period of probation.… It is unnecessary to say that this examination was a _public_ one. The _congregation_ [the ekklesia] was, and continued to be, the supreme judge.… If the candidates passed this ordeal, they were first bathed and pronounced personally clean. They fasted on Friday, and met together solemnly on Saturday. Thereupon they were commanded to pray. They knelt down and received the bishop’s blessing, who exorcised every unclean spirit.… The bishop breathed upon each of them, as the Lord did upon his disciples, and then _sealed_ them (as the text-book expresses) on the forehead, ears, and lips—doubtless with the sign of the cross. At the dawn of Sunday, the baptismal font was filled, accompanied by a blessing, which corresponds exactly with the prayers [which they] used in consecrating the elements used for the Lord’s Supper. The deacons assisted the men, and the deaconesses the women, to take off their ornaments and put on the baptismal dress. They were then presented to one of the presbyters, who called solemnly on each of them to renounce Satan and all his services and all his works.… After this solemn renunciation he was anointed by the presbyter with the oil of exorcism.… The deacon and deaconess accompanied the neophytes into the water, and made each of them, in turn, repeat after them a confession of faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or respond to it with the words, I believe.… The confession was three times repeated, being uttered before each of the three immersions.… After that followed the true baptismal unction with the precious oil, the so-called chrisma.… The ceremony concluded with the Christian kiss.… After this, the baptized persons were clothed in white and conducted into the church.’ When, after repeating the Lord’s prayer in the name of the whole congregation, to show that each one was now a priest, ‘They partook of the Lord’s Supper, in which milk and honey were set before them, as well as bread and wine, doubtless as symbols of their being, as it were, newly born.’

“Now, what I say,” continued Mr. Courtney, “is this: however far all this may be from the practice of Christ and the apostles, it is utterly inconsistent with the idea that those who were the subjects of baptism could be little infants or any way incapable of witnessing a good profession. And if we read in this age or the next of the baptism of _children_, we may be sure that they are not _little babes_, but such as could be instructed, could believe and make profession of their faith.”

“But Bunsen promised to tell us, if I heard you rightly,” said Theodosia, “how it was that children at a later day came to be received. Can you find us that place?”

“It follows directly what we have been looking at. Here, on the 191st page, is the beginning of what he says on this point: ‘Baptism is indeed called a new birth—_regeneration_. But in what sense? Was it a sort of magical conversion of the curse into a blessing, effected now in the case of the infants by the act of sprinkling? Was it a forgiving of sins not intended to be brought back to the recollection of the parents or the sponsors who were present, but to be applied to the infant itself?

“‘The ancient Church knew no more than do the Gospels and the apostles of such superstition, which contains less spirituality than many of the _lustrations_ of the old world, and not much more than the _taurobolia_ and _criobolia_, mysteries of the last stages of heathenism, purporting to purify the neophyte by the blood of victims. On the contrary, she bears authentic testimony in all her ordinances against this corruption and misunderstanding, as in other cases the origin was innocent; and I think that we are at this moment better able than either the defenders or the opponents of infant baptism have hitherto been, to tell how it originated. A passage in our Alexandrian Church-book gives the true explanation of the assertion of Origen, himself an Alexandrian, that the baptism of children was an apostolic tradition. And it removes the origin of infant baptism from Tertullian and Hippolytus to the end of our present period; _Cyprian_ being the _first_ Father who, _impelled by a fanatical enthusiasm, and assisted by a bad interpretation of the Old Testament, established it as a principle_.… The difference between the ante-Nicene and the later Church was essentially this: the later Church, with the exception of converts, only baptized new-born infants, and she did so on principle. The _ancient_ Church, as a general rule, baptized adults, and only after they had gone through the course of instruction; and as the exception, only Christian children who had not yet arrived at years of maturity, _but never infants_.… Cyprian, and some other African bishops, his contemporaries, at the close of the third century were the first who viewed baptism in the light of a washing away of the universal sinfulness of human nature, and connected this idea with that ordinance of the Old Testament, circumcision.’ And he goes on to show, that it was on this ground that it was applied to babes, to wash away their hereditary or original sin. Hence the doctrine of baptismal regeneration.

“Now, not only Bunsen, but all these writers whom I have quoted as authorities, are, if not opponents of the Baptists, all members of Pedobaptist Churches, and have every inducement to make the best showing that they can for the practice of their own communion. They are therefore most unexceptionable witnesses so far as they may be suspected of any secret bias to one side or the other of this controversy. They are certainly _competent_ to testify, having made the customs of the ancient Church their special study; and they testify most unmistakably that what I said was true; namely, that baptism which Christ commanded to be given only to the believing penitent, that is, to him who gave evidence of a renewal of his nature by the obedience of faith, was first given to the youth upon the repetition of a form of words which they had _learned_ as catechumens; and at length to those who could not say the words, but whose parents or others answered for them; and now, as we have often seen, it is given to little crying babes who do not know their right hand from their left. We have seen _when_ infant baptism was introduced, _why_ it was introduced, and _how_ it was introduced;[7] and I trust you are ready now to go on with our investigation of the claims of the English or Episcopal Church.”

“I am quite ready,” said the Doctor. “I shall not be troubled any more with doubts about the time of the introduction of infant baptism. I used to think that Dr. Barlow, an eminent Episcopalian, and Professor in the University at Oxford, England, spoke very strangely for one who belonged to a Pedobaptist Church; but I see now, that as a diligent student of antiquity, and a candid man, he could not have spoken otherwise.”

“What did he say, sir?” asked Theodosia.

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Theodosia ErnestChapter XXVII: Introduction (10)

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