Bertha and Her Baptism

by Nehemiah Adams

Begin anywhere, in any congregation, on the Sabbath, and count eight pews, the proprietors and occupants of which are the heads of families; and the chance of there being no minor children in them is almost too small to be appreciated. Should we read, in a secular paper, that a foreign missionary had baptized eight households in a pagan village, the general belief would be that it was a missionary of some Pædobaptist denomination, and that children were baptized in those families.

I must read to you (said Dr. D.) something on the other side of this argument. I found the following, not long since, in a deservedly popular and useful Dictionary and Repository, written and signed by a gentleman of excellent character and standing. He says:

"Infant baptism was probably introduced about the commencement of the third century, in connection with other corruptions, which even then began to prepare the way for Popery. A superstitious idea, respecting the necessity of baptism to salvation, led to the baptism of sick persons, and, finally, to the baptism of infants. Sponsors, holy water, anointing with oil, the sign of the cross, and a multitude of similar ceremonies, equally unauthorized by the Scriptures, were soon introduced. The church lost her simplicity and purity, her ministers became ambitious, and the darkness gradually deepened to the long and dismal night of papal despotism."

"Probably introduced about the commencement of the third century, in connection with other corruptions." Recall what I read to you from Origen, born a.d. 185; from Tertullian, who flourished within one hundred years after the apostles; from Cyprian and the Council of Carthage; from Augustine and his antagonist, Pelagius, who expressly said that he had never heard of any one, not even the most impious heretic, denying baptism to infants.

In contrast with such a passage as the one just read to you, I am reminded of the host of writers, on our side of the question, who, almost all of them, make such candid and full concessions, that they furnish their brethren of the opposite side with many of their arguments against us. I remember reading a book of "Pædobaptist Concessions," containing a formidable array of points yielded by our writers, so that a common reader might ask, What have you left as the ground of your belief and practice? But the thought which arose in my mind was, Notwithstanding all these concessions, they who make them are among the firmest believers in baptism by sprinkling, and in infant baptism. That cause must be affluent in proofs, and deeply rooted in the scriptural convictions of men, which can afford to make such concessions to its antagonists. These refuse facts, which we afford to others for so large a part of their foundation, show how broad and sufficient ours must be.

The quotation which I read to you, speaks of Popish tendencies as having already begun. This is true; and more may be added. In the second epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul tells us that the mystery of iniquity was already at work. On the subject of religious days and festivals, the first Christians very soon began to be superstitious, incorporating heathen festival days into Christian observances, under the plea of redeeming and sanctifying them, with some such feelings and reasoning as that with which people, now, would transfer secular music to sanctuaries, saying that the enemy ought not to have all the best music. It is true that this sensuous, and, afterward called, Romish, tendency, corrupted everything. The pure stream of apostolic doctrine and practice was like the Moselle, which you saw from the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, pursuing its unmingled course distinctly for some distance in the turbid Rhine, till at last it yields to the general current. Infant baptism, as we learn from ecclesiastical authorities with one consent, proceeded from the apostles; yet soon it began to be practised with many superstitious absurdities; and, moreover, immersion, making such powerful appeals to the senses, suited the taste of the age far better than sprinkling, so that not only did it become the common mode, but the subjects were completely undressed, without any distinction, to denote the putting off the old man and the putting on of the new, and the putting away of the filth of the flesh.[5] Public sentiment finally abolished this practice. After a considerable time affusion, or sprinkling, returned, and became the prevailing mode, without any special enactment, or any formal renunciation of the late mode. The Eastern church, however, retained immersion, while the Greek and Armenian branches use both immersion and sprinkling for the adult and child. But the sick and dying were always baptized by sprinkling, which is sufficient to prove that sprinkling was regarded as equally valid with immersion. It is natural to say that it was superstitious to baptize the sick and dying, by sprinkling, if we hold that only immersion is valid baptism. The sick and dying cannot be immersed; now, is it superstition for a sick person, giving credible evidence of piety, to be admitted into the Christian church, and receive the Lord's Supper? In order to do this properly, the subject must be baptized; hence, we derive one powerful argument that sprinkling is valid baptism. Our Lord would never have made the modes of his sacraments so austerely rigid, that the thousands of sick and feeble persons, ministers in poor health, climate, seasons of the year, times of persecution and imprisonment, and all the stress of circumstances to which Christians may be subjected, should be utterly disregarded, and one inconvenient, and sometimes dangerous, form, of applying water, be insisted on, inflexibly, as essential to the introductory Christian rite. If the early Christians baptized the sick by sprinkling, they of course supposed that it was valid baptism. If it was valid at all, and in any case, of course it was Christian baptism, even if other modes were most commonly used.

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."