A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

by Richard Baxter

Answ. How can you prove that the authority that made or imposed the liturgy, meant any other thing? And other individuals are not the masters of your sense. Yea, and if the imposers had meant ill, in a thing that may be done well, you may discharge your conscience by doing it well, and making a sufficient profession of your better sense.

2. And then it will be no sinful addition to God's ordinance, to determine of a lawful circumstance, which he hath left to human prudence: as to choose a meet deputy, witness, or sponsor, who promiseth nothing but what is meet.

Quest. XL. On whose account or right is it that the infant hath title to baptism and its benefits? Is it on the parents', ancestors', sponsors', the church's, the minister's, the magistrate's, or his own?

Answ. The titles are very various that are pretended; let us examine them all.

I. I cannot think that a magistrate's command to baptize an infant, giveth him right, 1. Because there is no proof of the validity of such a title. 2. Because the magistrate can command no such thing if it be against God's word, as this is, which would level the case of the seed of heathens and believers. And I know but few of that opinion.

II. I do not think that the minister as such giveth title to the infant: for, 1. He is no proprietor. 2. He can show no such power or grant from God. 3. He must baptize none but those that antecedently have right. 4. Else he also might level all, and take in heathen's children with believers'. 5. Nor is this pretended to by many, that I know of.

III. I cannot think that it is a particular church that must give this right, or perform the condition of it. For, 1. Baptism (as is aforesaid) as such, doth only make a christian, and a member of the universal church, and not of any particular church. And, 2. The church is not the proprietor of the child. 3. No Scripture commission can be showed for such a power. Where hath God said, All that any particular church will receive, shall have right to baptism? 4. By what act must the church give this right? If by baptizing him; the question is of his antecedent right. If by willing that he be baptized; (1.) If they will that one be baptized that hath no right to it, their will is sinful, and therefore unfit to give him right. (2.) And the baptizing minister hath more power than a thousand or ten thousand private men, to judge who is to be baptized. 5. Else a church might save all heathen children that they can but baptize, and so level infidels' and christians' seed. 6. It is not the church in general, but some one person, that must educate the child: therefore the church cannot so much as promise for its education: the church hath nothing to do with those that are without, but only with her own; and heathen's children are not her own, nor exposed to her occupation.

IV. I believe not that it is the universal church that giveth the infant title to baptism: for, 1. He that giveth title to the covenant and baptism, doth it as a performer of the moral condition of that title. But God hath no where made the church's faith to be the condition of baptism or salvation, either to infidels or their seed. 2. Because the universal church is a body that cannot be consulted with to give their vote and consent: nor have they any deputies to do it by. For there is no universal, visible governor: and if you will pretend every priest to be commissioned to act and judge in the name of the universal church, you will want proof, and that is before confuted. 3. If all have right that the universal church offereth up to God, or any minister or bishop be counted its deputy or agent to that end, it is in the power of that minister (as is said) to level all, and to baptize and save all; which is contrary to the word of God.

V. I believe that godfathers as such, being no adopters or proprietors, are not the performers of the condition of salvation for the infant, nor give him right to be baptized. 1. Because he is not their own, and therefore their will or act cannot go for his; because there is no word of God for it that all shall be baptized or saved that any christians will be sponsors for. God's church blessings are not tied to such inventions, that were not in being when God's laws were made. Where there is no promise or word, there is no faith. 3. No sponsors are so much as lawful (as is showed before) who are not owners or their deputies, or mere secondary subservient parties, who suppose the principal covenanting party. 4. And as to the infant's salvation, the sponsors may (too oft) be ignorant infidels and hypocrites themselves, that have no true faith for themselves; and therefore not enough to save another. 5. And it were strange if God should make no promise to a wicked parent for his own child, and yet should promise to save by baptism all that some wicked and hypocrite godfathers will offer him. And that thus the seed of heathens and christians should be levelled, and yet an ignorant, bold undertaker to carry away the privilege of saving persons from them both. All this is but men's unproved imaginations. He that never commandeth godfathers, but forbiddeth the usurping sort, and only alloweth human prudence to use the lawful sort, did never put the souls of all children, christians and heathens, into their hands (any more than into the hands of the priest that baptizeth them).

VI. I do not find that remote ancestors that are dead, or that are not proprietors of the children, are the performers of the condition by which they have right to baptism or salvation. 1. Because God hath put that power and work in the hands of others, even the parents, which they cannot nullify. 2. Because the promise of mercy to thousands is on supposition that the successors make no intercision. 3. Else the threatenings to the seed of the wicked would signify nothing, nor would any in the world be excluded from right, but all be levelled; because Noah was the common father of mankind: and if you lay it on dead ancestors, you have no rule where to stop till you come to Noah.