The publications which have occasioned these reflections, whose titles are placed at the head of this article, appear to us to present more than ordinary claims to public consideration. The perspicuity of their style, the force of their arguments, and especially the thoroughly Christian temper which pervades them throughout, cannot fail, if they be read, to secure commendation, even where they fail to convince. We can easily suppose it possible to find persons who may affect to despise what is thus, with every circumstance adapted to excite respect, urged upon their attention; but that any well-constituted mind, whatever be its ultimate conclusion on the subject, can treat these pamphlets with indifference, as though that to which they relate were unimportant, or that they were defective in truth and candour, is what we are extremely unwilling to believe. At the same time, we most frankly acknowledge that, owing to certain inconveniences, and, perhaps, even consequences, which we conceive might arise, in some instances at least, from a thorough and an impartial investigation of the evidence adduced by these respective and respectable writers in support of their principles, we are not altogether without apprehension, that by something approaching to a profound silence in certain quarters, or it may be by something even more beneath the dignity of Christian criticism, the powerful, though eminently temperate, appeals of these luminous pages may obtain a perusal far less extensive than is consistent either with the interests of truth, or the merits of its advocates.
Deprecating such a result of these distinguished efforts, we enter upon a more particular notice of the first of these publications. The author designates himself “a member of the Church of England;” and his design is “to prove that it is inconsistent with the principles of the New Testament” to baptize unconscious infants. The work is divided into ten sections, prefaced by a most respectful but spirit-stirring letter “to the Editor of the Christian Observer.” From this admirable appeal we extract as follows:—
“This work is the result of many reflections, excited at different times, through a long series of years, by the reading of many articles and discussions in the Christian Observer. The practice of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism, I apprehend, must appear to almost all reflecting persons, at some times, to be of a very dubious character; and if it shall appear that the fair tendency of those parts of your work which I refer to, is to render it still more so, then I am persuaded that you will allow that the publication is, without impropriety, thus offered to your notice.”
He adds:—
“The question respecting the propriety of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism must, I conceive, before long, become a subject of grave discussion within the church. Then the real importance of the question will become manifest, and it will be found necessary that it should be more comprehensively considered in all its bearings, than it has hitherto been. With regard to the question, as it stands between the church and the Antipædobaptist party, excepting the question—whether it is the duty of Christian governors to promote Christianity—this, respecting infant baptism, is of more real importance than all others in dispute between the church and orthodox dissenters.
“The reading of the papers in an early volume of your work, on Dr. Taylor’s Key to the Apostolical Writings, first excited the reflections which led to my determination to offer, for the consideration of the Christian public, some thoughts on the subject of infant baptism.”
Again, in this introductory letter, we read:—
“Never before, in any way, were so large a number of persons, so competent to the task, brought together for its consideration. In your volumes, men of the deepest piety, of fine talents, and with minds every way prepared for the consideration of the subject, have laboured to produce the scriptural elucidation of the baptismal grace. I am persuaded that I should not exaggerate, if I were to say that if all the divines in Christendom had been assembled at the commencement of the present century, and had held as many sessions as the council of Trent, for the purpose of settling this question, the controversy would not have been so happily conducted as it has been in your pages, nor pursued to a more satisfactory result. But what is the result? Notwithstanding that nothing is so manifest as the effects of the operation of divine grace, for wheresoever it does operate the effects are ‘known and read of all men,’ yet in answer to the inquiry, ‘What are the nature and consequences of the grace communicated by the Holy Spirit in baptism?’ the Christian Observer, with all its voices united, declares, ‘We cannot tell.’ This issue of the matter is virtually avowed by yourself incidentally in a short sentence in the number for October, 1833, where you say, ‘The Church of England certainly assumes far more than the nudum signum, though it does not go to the length of the opus operatum.’ Within these boundaries, then, it is admitted that the proper place of rest is not yet discovered.”
And yet once more:
“I now, Sir, with great humility, beg to submit that the church has made its utmost efforts in this inquiry—that every thing respecting it has been concentrated in your volumes; that the best Christian talents have been bestowed upon it in vain, up to the conclusion of the first third part of the nineteenth century, and to the commencement of the fourth century of the Reformation, and that, therefore, it is a fair conclusion that further inquiry is quite hopeless, the imagined baptismal grace for unconscious infants being manifestly an undiscoverable, non-existent thing. I wish here to add, that a reference to obvious facts leads inevitably to the same conclusion. In the all-wise providence of the great Head of the church, the matter has been brought to the test of experiment, which has been going on upon a sufficiently large scale for more than two centuries in this country. Two Christian parties have conscientiously refrained from having their children baptized; so that, if the baptizing of infants were accompanied with any measure of the Holy Spirit’s influence, the effects would have been rendered quite evident by the contrast. But what do facts declare! What spiritual advantages do baptized children discover themselves to be possessed of which unbaptized children do not possess, in cases where all other things are equal! Surely all fair Christian observers of the dispensations of the King of grace in his church, must be constrained to allow that the advantages are undiscernible, and therefore can have no existence.”