01.011. The Evil of Infant Sprinkling
The Evil of Infant Sprinkling.
"Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."-- Matthew 5:19.
"It is highly necessary that we remind ourselves, how great presumption it is to make light of any institutions of divine appointment; that our obligations to obey all God’s commands whatever are absolute and indispensable; and that commands merely positive, admitted to be from him, lay us under a moral obligation to obey them, an obligation moral in the strictest and most proper sense."--BISHOP Butler, in The Analogy of Religion.
There are to be found many people who confess that in apostolic days believers were immersed, but who acquiesce in the change to the sprinkling of water upon infants. After all, what does it matter? There are some who look upon the discussion regarding baptism as a dispute concerning such a little thing that it makes no difference whichever way it is decided. Convenience, taste, custom, seem to settle it one way or another: why should not each way be equally good? We wish therefore to make a brief statement of some reasons why we cannot agree that infant baptism or sprinkling is as good as the immersion of a penitent believer.
There is the question of divine warrant to be considered. Ministers of all Pedobaptists churches repeat over infants, "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Not one of them can show any authority from Father, Son or Holy Spirit. Love of truth and reverence for God’s name should keep us from using the Divine name without warrant. Shall we do what God asks in the way he asks? Infant baptism v. believers’ baptism, sprinkling v. immersion, is another way of saying disobedience v. obedience. Is obedience to God not an important enough thing for us to insist upon? Were we to allow that baptism is a little thing, still would not love to Christ make us regard that little thing he asks? Read the text at the head of this article, and see the Saviour’s opinion about obedience to little commands.
Infant sprinkling tends to destroy the unity of the Spirit. See Ephesians 4:5; there is "one baptism." We have quoted the admissions of many Pedobaptists that infant baptism and sprinkling were not found in apostolic days. If the "one baptism" is for Paul necessary to "the unity of the Spirit," and if Christian Union is necessary for the conversion of the world, than it is a serious thing to put something else in place of the baptism for which we have explicit Scriptural authority.
There is often serious harm done to the subject of infant baptism. We frequently hear it said: "Well, at least it can do the child no harm." Is this so? What happens in the case of many "baptized" in infancy who grow up in a manifestly unconverted state? "Thousands grow up with the belief that in infancy they were made Christians--they speak of ’Our Saviour’ and go now and then to church. That they are not Christians never enters their heads. Tell them so, and they indignantly ask whether you think them Jews or Pagans. Were they not born in a Christian land? and were they not made children of God in holy baptism? But for this delusion they might be brought to discern their true condition; and such discernment would lead in many instances to deep concern and true conversion."
It is sad to think how sprinkling of water on unconscious infants for baptism has obscured the symbolism of the ordinance. He who reads Romans 6:3-4 should learn that immersion is not a purely arbitrary requirement. Our Lord Jesus died, was buried, and rose again: Paul lets us know that these are the great facts of the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), the ground of our hope. Every time a penitent believer is baptized, the great facts are in act confessed. The believer has died to sin, is buried with Christ, and rises from the watery grave to walk in a new life. Conybeare and Howson, the well-known Church of England writers, say: "Baptism was (unless in exceptional cases) administered by immersion, the convert being plunged beneath the surface of the water to represent his death to the life of sin, and then raised from this momentary burial to represent his resurrection to the life of righteousness. It must be a subject of regret that the general discontinuance of this original form of baptism (though perhaps necessary in our northern climates) has rendered obscure to popular apprehension some very important passages of Scripture."
We altogether disagree with the parenthetical words in the above; but the writers’ remarks are otherwise noteworthy.
It would be well for all to do just what God would have them do, and to trust the Divine Wisdom, which will lay upon us no unreasonable command. God wishes us to become "obedient from the heart to that form of teaching" delivered by him (Romans 6:17).
"Thy will is good and just, Shall I Thy will withstand?
If Jesus bids me lick the dust, I bow at His command."
It may he added that we believe that the commission as recorded in Mark 16:15-16 may rightly be used in conjunction with Matthew 28:19-20 as showing the need of preaching, belief, baptism, and subsequent teaching, in the order named. The Methodist tract, Should Only Believers be Baptized? states our view exactly when it says of Mark 16:16, "This does not apply to infants at all." The terms of the commission applied to those to whom the message was preached. We refrain here from pressing the use of Mark 16, because our Pedobaptists friends, however frequent their references to and use of Mark 16:9-20 on noncontroversial occasions, always object to its quotation regarding baptism, on the ground that the passage "is not in the oldest copies of Mark’s Gospel." We have a sufficient number of Scriptures for our position without stopping to argue the genuineness of this passage. The above holds good whether John 3:5 alludes to baptism or not. If "born of water" refers to baptism, as we believe, and as A. Plummer in his article on Baptism in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary declares was universally believed till the days of Calvin, then we see that baptism is initiatory into the kingdom which, in so far as it is manifest on earth in an organized form, is the church. Mr. Madsen believes "all children, by virtue of the Universal Atonement of Christ, are members of the Kingdom of God, and are entitled to be received into the visible Church of Christ by baptism.