In the rubrics of her liturgy, (see Office for Ministration of Public Baptism,) the Church prescribes, that baptism be administered only on Sundays and holy days, except in cases of necessity. She requires sponsors for infants; for every male child two godfathers and one godmother; and for every female two godmothers and one godfather. We find this provision made by a constitution of Edmond, archbishop of Canterbury, A. D. 1236; and in a synod held at Worcester, A. D. 1240. By the 29th canon of our Church, no parent is to be admitted to answer as godfather to his own child.—Bp. Gibson’s Codex, vol. i. p. 439.
The form of administering baptism is too well known to require a particular account to be given of it. We shall only observe some of the more material differences between the form, as it stood in the first liturgy of King Edward, and that in our Common Prayer Book at present. First, in that of King Edward, we meet with a form of exorcism, founded upon the like practice of the primitive Church, which our reformers left out, when they took a review of the liturgy in the 5th and 6th of that king. It is as follows.
“Then let the priest, looking upon the children, say;
“I command thee, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou come out, and depart from these infants, whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath vouchsafed to call to his holy baptism, to be made members of his body, and of his holy congregation. Therefore, thou cursed spirit, remember thy sentence, remember thy judgment, remember the day to be at hand, wherein thou shalt burn in fire everlasting, prepared for thee and thy angels. And presume not hereafter to exercise any tyranny towards these infants, whom Christ hath bought with his precious blood, and by this his holy baptism calleth to be of his flock.”
The form of consecrating the water did not make a part of the office in King Edward’s liturgy, as it does in the present, because the water in the font was changed and consecrated but once a month. The form likewise itself was something different from that we now use, and was introduced with a short prayer, that “Jesus Christ, upon whom (when he was baptized) the Holy Ghost came down in the likeness of a dove, would send down the same Holy Spirit, to sanctify the fountain of baptism; which prayer was afterwards left out, at the second review.
By King Edward’s First Book, the minister is to “dip the child in the water thrice; first dipping the right side; secondly the left; the third time dipping the face toward the font.” This trine immersion was a very ancient practice in the Christian Church, and used in honour of the Holy Trinity: though some later writers say, it was done to represent the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, together with his three days’ continuance in the grave. Afterwards, the Arians making an ill use of it, by persuading the people that it was used to denote that the three persons in the Trinity were three distinct substances, the orthodox left it off, and used only one single immersion.—Tertull. adv. Prax. c. 26. Greg. Nyss. de Bapt. Christi. Cyril, Catech. Mystag.
By the first Common Prayer of King Edward, after the child was baptized, the godfathers and godmothers were to lay their hands upon it, and the minister was to put on him the white vestment commonly called the Chrysome, and to say: “Take this white vesture, as a token of the innocency which, by God’s grace, in this holy sacrament of baptism, is given unto thee; and for a sign, whereby thou art admonished, so long as thou livest, to give thyself to innocence of living, that, after this transitory life, thou mayest be partaker of the life everlasting. Amen.” As soon as he had pronounced these words, he was to anoint the infant on the head, saying, “Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath regenerated thee by water and the Holy Ghost, and hath given unto thee remission of all thy sins; vouchsafe to anoint thee with the unction of his Holy Spirit, and bring thee to the inheritance of everlasting life. Amen.” This was manifestly done in imitation of the practice of the primitive Church.
The custom of sprinkling children, instead of dipping them in the font, which at first was allowed in case of the weakness or sickness of the infant, has so far prevailed, that immersion is at length almost excluded. What principally tended to confirm the practice of affusion or sprinkling, was, that several of our English divines, flying into Germany and Switzerland, during the bloody reign of Queen Mary, and returning home when Queen Elizabeth came to the crown, brought back with them a great zeal for the Protestant Churches beyond sea where they had been sheltered and received; and, having observed that at Geneva (Calvin, Instit. lib. iv. c. 15) and some other places baptism was administered by sprinkling, they thought they could not do the Church of England a greater piece of service than by introducing a practice dictated by so great an oracle as Calvin. This, together with the coldness of our northern climate, was what contributed to banish entirely the practice of dipping infants in the font.
Lay-baptism we find to have been permitted by both the Common Prayer Books of King Edward, and that of Queen Elizabeth, when an infant is in immediate danger of death, and a lawful minister cannot be had. This was founded upon the mistaken notion of the impossibility of salvation without the sacrament of baptism; but afterwards, when they came to have clearer notions of the sacraments, it was unanimously resolved in a convocation, held in the year 1575, that even private baptism, in a case of necessity, was only to be administered by a lawful minister.—Bp. Gibson’s Codex, tit. xviii. vol. i. ch. 9, p. 446.
It remains to be observed, that, by a provincial constitution, made in the year 1236, (26th of Hen. III.,) neither the water, nor the vessel containing it, which have been made use of in private baptism, are afterwards to be applied to common uses: but, out of reverence to the sacrament, the water is to be poured into the fire, or else carried into the church and put into the font; and the vessel to be burnt, or else appropriated to some use in the church. But no provision is made for the disposition of the water used in the font at church. In the Greek Church, particular care is taken that it be not thrown into the street like common water, but poured into a hollow place under the altar, (called θαλασσίδιον or χωνεῖον,) where it is soaked into the earth, or finds a passage.—Broughton. Bp. Gibson’s Codex, tit. xviii. c. 2, vol. i. p. 435. Dr. Smith’s Account of the Gr. Church.