Baptism as taught in the Bible and the Prayer Book

by Edward Hoare

II. As to the gift itself, therefore, there is complete agreement. The great subject of discussion, however, is the connexion. By some it is thought invariable, at least in the case of infants; i.e., it is maintained that every baptized infant is there and then, ipso facto, regenerate. Our present object is to shew that such a theory is at variance with the teaching of the Church, for that the inward gift, though assumed upon profession, is explicitly taught to be separable from the outward sign.

1. The spiritual gift is assumed to have been received whenever the outward sacrament has been administered. The whole of our services are constructed upon this principle. We are all baptized upon a profession of our faith, and all meet in the house of God in the character of baptized believers; the Church, therefore, as a public body, is bound to assume our profession real. This it does in all its services; so that there is not a single prayer throughout the Liturgy which is not drawn up on the principle of assumption. Upon this principle persons are supposed at their burial to have been believers, as they are assumed in their confessions to be repentant, and at their baptism to be regenerate. Indeed it may be laid down as a general rule that whenever there is anything personal in the bearing of a passage, the person affected is always assumed to be in fact what he is in profession.

This principle of assumption appears as plainly in the Catechism as the Liturgy. There is a great distinction to be observed between the language of the Articles and the Catechism. The Articles teach truth abstractedly—the Catechism in its personal application to the individual who employs the words. In the Catechism, therefore, grace is always assumed. The child is assumed to be a true believer and to be living in the constant habit of thankful prayer, as for example in the words, “I heartily thank our heavenly Father, that He hath called me to this state of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Saviour: And I pray unto God to give me His grace that I may continue in the same unto my life’s end.”

Upon the same principle he is assumed in the second answer to have been made in baptism “a member of Christ,” &c. The fourth answer is manifestly drawn up on the principle of assumption; it declares what ought to be, and assumes that it is, the child’s character. The second answer must, in common consistency, mean the same; and it would be just as reasonable to maintain that the Church teaches the invariable prayerfulness of every child who repeats the Catechism, as the invariable regeneration of even child received into its fold by baptism.

Now this principle of assumption is exactly that which we discover in the addresses of the Apostle. Thus far, therefore, there is agreement between the Bible and the Prayer Book.

2. As a matter of doctrine, the Prayer Book teaches, like the Bible, that the spiritual gift is not invariably given in connexion with the outward sign.

Upon such a subject our chief reference should obviously be to the Articles. They correspond to the doctrinal teaching of the Scriptures, the Liturgy to the devotional and hortatory addresses. In the Articles alone there is no personal application, and, therefore, they alone are free from the principle of assumption. As we have before remarked, they deal with abstract truth; and contain a scheme of theology carefully drawn up for the security of the Church. To them, therefore, we are bound in common sense to refer for all dogmatical assertions as to the doctrinal principles of our Church.

Now it is quite impossible for any language to be simpler and clearer than that of the Articles.

Of both sacraments it is said, Art. 25, “In such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome effect and operation; for they that receive them unworthily purchase to themselves damnation, as St. Paul saith.” And of Baptism, Art. 27, “It is a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church.”

The doctrine of these passages exactly corresponds with that of Scripture. They deny in the plainest possible language the invariability of the connexion; they define the two sacraments by the same conditions; they make not the most distant allusion to any sacramental peculiarity in baptism; but assert of both with the most positive distinctness, that in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome effect and operation.