Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Leighton.

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching.—It will suffice for our present purpose, if by these[147] words we direct the attention to the origin, or at least first Scriptural record, of Baptism, and to the combinement of Preaching therewith; their aspect each to the other, and their concurrence to one excellent end: the Word unfolding the Sacrament, and the Sacrament sealing the Word; the Word as a Light, informing and clearing the sense of the Seal; and this again, as a Seal, confirming and ratifying the truth of the Word; as you see some significant seals, or engraven signets, have a word about them expressing their sense.

But truly the word is a light and the sacraments have in them of the same light illuminating them. This sacrament of Baptism, the ancients do particularly express by light. Yet are they both nothing but darkness to us, till the same light shine in our hearts; for till then we are nothing but darkness ourselves, and therefore the most luminous things are so to us. Noonday is as midnight to a blind man. And we see these ordinances, the word and the sacrament, without profit or comfort for the most part, because we have not of that Divine Light within us. And we have it not, because we ask it not.

Comment.

Or an Aid to Reflection in the forming of a sound Judgment respecting the purport and purpose of the Baptismal Rite, and a just appreciation of its value and importance.

A born and bred Baptist, and paternally descended from the old orthodox Non-conformists, and both in his own and in his father's right a very dear friend of mine, had married a member of the National Church. In consequence of an anxious wish expressed by his lady for the baptism of their first child, he solicited me to put him in possession of my Views respecting this controversy; though principally as to the degree of importance which I attached to it. For as to the point itself, his natural prepossession in favour of the persuasion in which he was born, had been confirmed by a conscientious examination of the arguments on both sides. As the Comment on the preceding Aphorism, or rather as an expansion of its subject matter, I will give the substance of the conversation: and amply shall I have been remunerated, should it be read with the interest and satisfaction with which it was heard. More particularly, should any of my readers find themselves under the same or similar circumstances.

Our discussion is rendered shorter and more easy by our perfect agreement in certain preliminary points. We both disclaim alike every attempt to explain any thing into Scripture, and every attempt to explain any thing out of Scripture. Or if we regard either with a livelier aversion, it is the latter, as being the more fashionable and prevalent. I mean the practice of both high and low Grotian Divines to explain away positive assertions of Scripture on the pretext, that the literal sense is not agreeable to reason, that is, their particular reason. And inasmuch as (in the only right sense of the word), there is no such thing as a particular reason, they must, and in fact they do, mean, that the literal sense is not accordant to their understanding, that is, to the notions which their understandings have been taught and accustomed to form in their school of philosophy. Thus a Platonist who should become a Christian, would at once, even in texts susceptible of a different interpretation, recognize, because he would expect to find, several doctrines which the disciple of the Epicurean or mechanic school will not receive on the most positive declarations of the Divine Word. And as we agree in the opinion, that the Minimi-fidian party[148] err grievously in the latter point, so I must concede to you, that too many Pædo-baptists (assertors of Infant Baptism) have erred, though less grossly, in the former. I have, I confess, no eye for these smoke-like wreaths of inference, this ever widening spiral ergo from the narrow aperture of perhaps a single text; or rather an interpretation forced into it by construing an idiomatic phrase in an artless narrative with the same absoluteness, as if it had formed part of a mathematical problem. I start back from these inverted Pyramids, where the apex is the base. If I should inform any one that I had called at a friend's house, but had found nobody at home, the family having all gone to the play; and if he on the strength of this information, should take occasion to asperse my friend's wife for unmotherly conduct in taking an infant, six months old, to a crowded theatre; would you allow him to press on the words "nobody" and "all" the family, in justification of the slander? Would you not tell him, that the words were to be interpreted by the nature of the subject, the purpose of the speaker, and their ordinary acceptation; and that he must, or might have known, that infants of that age would not be admitted into the theatre? Exactly so, with regard to the words, he and all his household. Had Baptism of infants at that early period of the Gospel been a known practice, or had this been previously demonstrated,—then indeed the argument, that in all probability there were one or more infants or young children in so large a family, would be no otherwise objectionable than as being superfluous, and a sort of anticlimax in logic. But if the words are cited as the proof, it would be a clear petitio principii, though there had been nothing else against it. But when we turn back to the Scriptures preceding the narrative, and find repentance and belief demanded as the terms and indispensable conditions of Baptism—then the case above imagined applies in its full force. Equally vain is the pretended analogy from Circumcision, which was no Sacrament at all; but the means and mark of national distinction. In the first instance it was, doubtless, a privilege or mark of superior rank conferred on the descendants of Abraham. In the Patriarchal times this rite was confined (the first governments being Theocracies) to the priesthood, who were set apart to that office from their birth. At a later period this token of the premier class was extended to Kings. And thus, when it was re-ordained by Moses for the whole Jewish nation, it was at the same time said—Ye are all Priests and Kings; ye are a consecrated People. In addition to this, or rather in aid of this, Circumcision was intended to distinguish the Jews by some indelible sign: and it was no less necessary, that Jewish children should be recognizable as Jews, than Jewish adults—not to mention the greater safety of the rite in infancy. Nor was it ever pretended that any Grace was conferred with it, or that the rite was significant of any inward or spiritual operation. In short, an unprejudiced and competent reader need only peruse the first thirty-three paragraphs of the eighteenth section of Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying; and then compare with these the remainder of the Section added by him after the Restoration: those, namely, in which he attempts to overthrow his own arguments. I had almost said, affects: for such is the feebleness, and so palpable the sophistry of his answers, that I find it difficult to imagine, that Taylor himself could have been satisfied with them. The only plausible arguments apply with equal force to Baptist and Pædo-baptist; and would prove, if they proved any thing, that both were wrong, and the Quakers only in the right.

Now, in the first place, it is obvious, that nothing conclusive can be drawn from the silence of the New Testament respecting a practice, which, if we suppose it already in use, must yet, from the character of the first converts, have been of comparatively rare occurrence; and which from the predominant, and more concerning, objects and functions of the Apostolic writers (1 Corinth. i. 17.) was not likely to have been mentioned otherwise than incidentally, and very probably therefore might not have occurred to them to mention at all. But, secondly, admitting that the practice was introduced at a later period than that in which the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles were composed: I should yet be fully satisfied, that the Church exercised herein a sound[149] discretion. On either supposition, therefore, it is never without regret that I see a divine of our Church attempting to erect forts on a position so evidently commanded by the strong-hold of his antagonists. I dread the use which the Socinians may make of their example, and the Papists of their failure. Let me not, however, deceive you. (The reader understands, that I suppose myself conversing with a Baptist.) I am of opinion, that the divines on your side are chargeable with a far more grievous mistake, that of giving a carnal and Judaizing interpretation to the various Gospel texts in which the terms, baptism and baptize, occur, contrary to the express and earnest admonitions of the Apostle Paul. And this I say, without in the least retracting my former concession, that the texts appealed to, as commanding or authorizing Infant Baptism, are all without exception made to bear a sense neither contained nor deducible: and likewise that (historically considered) there exists no sufficient positive evidence, that the Baptism of infants was instituted by the Apostles in the practice of the Apostolic age.[150]

Lastly, we both coincide in the full conviction, that it is neither the outward ceremony of Baptism, under any form or circumstances, nor any other ceremony, but such a faith in Christ as tends to produce a conformity to his holy doctrines and example in heart and life, and which faith is itself a declared mean and condition of our partaking of his spiritual body, and of being clothed upon with his righteousness,—that properly makes us Christians, and can alone be enjoined as an Article of Faith necessary to Salvation, so that the denial thereof may be denounced as a damnable heresy. In the strictest sense of essential, this alone is the essential in Christianity, that the same spirit should be growing in us which was in the fulness of all perfection in Christ Jesus. Whatever else is named essential is such because, and only as far as, it is instrumental to this, or evidently implied herein. If the Baptists hold the visible rite to be indispensable to salvation, with what terror must they not regard every disease that befalls their children between youth and infancy! But if they are saved by the faith of the parent, then the outward rite is not essential to salvation, otherwise than as the omission should arise from a spirit of disobedience: and in this case it is the cause, not the effect, the wilful and unbaptized heart, not the unbaptizing hand, that perils it. And surely it looks very like an inconsistency to admit the vicarious faith of the parents and the therein implied promise, that the child shall be Christianly bred up, and as much as in them lies prepared for the communion of saints—to admit this, as safe and sufficient in their own instance, and yet to denounce the same belief and practice as hazardous and unavailing in the Church—the same, I say, essentially, and only differing from their own by the presence of two or three Christian friends as additional securities, and by the promise being expressed!