02.3. CHAPTER 3. BAPTISTS HOLD THAT, ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURAL ORDER, PERSONS MUST COME ...
CHAPTER 3. BAPTISTS HOLD THAT, ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURAL ORDER, PERSONS MUST COME FIRST TO CHRIST AND THEN TO THE CHURCH AND ITS ORDINANCES.
TN the foregoing pages we have seen who are subjects of baptism and what is the baptismal act. The act must not be performed until there are subjects to receive it, and the subjects must first have come to Christ. This Baptist principle is not always made so distinctly prominent as the two principles already discussed; and probably the reason is that it is supposed to be involved in them. It is, however, entitled to separate consideration, though this chapter need not be so long as either of the preceding ones.
Baptists are distinguished from all other religious denominations by their belief that no one is eligible to a church relation who has not first been brought into a personal, spiritual relation to Christ by faith in his name. In this belief we see such a divergence of views between Baptists and others as makes compromise and harmony impossible. The question is broad arid deep, embracing the New Testament doctrine of a spiritual church. If Pedobaptists are right in their conception of a church, Baptists are wrong; if Baptists are right, Pedobaptists are wrong. The antagonism between them is not incidental or accidental, but essential and inevitable. It may be said it need not be said in any offensive sense that the antagonism involves a war of extermination. That is to say, if the Pedobaptist view of a church and its ordinances should be so carried into effect as to attain, universal prevalence, the Baptist view would be banished from the earth; if the Baptist view of a church and its ordinances should universally prevail, the Pedobaptist view, must become obsolete. The two views are destructive of each other. But it is time to notice the scriptural order announced at the head of this chapter.
SECTION I. The doctrine of baptismal regeneration reverses this order.
Incredible as it may appear, there are multitudes who believe in baptismal regeneration. Possibly, Roman Catholics would prefer saying that they believe in baptismal salvation. They regard baptism as essential to the salvation of infants. They are baptized that they may be introduced into the church, out of which it is believed that there is no salvation. The doctrine of Romanists is that “infants receive in baptism spiritual grace;” which, of course, means that they are made the subjects of grace and salvation. This reception of “spiritual grace” is independent of personal faith in Christ, for unconscious infants cannot exercise faith. This is virtually admitted in the provision of sponsors in the administration of baptism to infants. Godfathers and godmothers, by a sort of pious fiction, personate the infants and promise for them; or rather the infants themselves are represented, in utter disregard of truth and of fact, as promising to renounce the devil and all his works. All this is an inversion of the scriptural order, which requires a personal coming to Christ, and through him to the church and its ordinances. The Romish plan is for persons, whether infants or adults, to be brought, by means of baptismal salvation, into the church, and thus to Christ. The Lutheran view of baptism does not differ materially from the Romish dogma. In the Augsburg Confession, drawn up by Melanchthon in 1530, and recognized as the “Creed of the German Reformers,” the “grace of God” is said to be “offered through baptism.” The Baptists styled “Anabaptists” are condemned because they affirm that “children are saved without baptism.” The doctrine that baptism is “necessary and effectual to salvation” Dr. Hodge being judge has been “softened down” by Lutheran theologians; so that they now say that “baptism is ordinarily necessary.” Dr. Krauth, in his learned volume The Conservative Reformation and its Theology (p. 431), expresses himself thus: “On God’s part it [baptism] is not so necessary that he may not, in an extraordinary case, reach, in an extraordinary way, what baptism is his ordinary way of accomplishing. Food is ordinarily necessary to human life; so that the father who voluntarily withholds food from his child is at heart its murderer. Yet food is not so absolutely necessary to human life that God may not sustain life without it.” The “softening down,” according to this extract, is not very great. The position assumed is that salvation without baptism is “an extraordinary case” so much so as to be miraculous, for the illustration given teaches that God may sustain human life without food which, of course, would be nothing less than a miracle. It cannot be denied, then, that Lutherans believe that baptism is ordinarily necessary to salvation, and that salvation without it is exceptional and abnormal. It follows, according to this view, that infants are introduced into the “church” and put into a saved state without first coming to Christ. The Protestant Episcopal Church holds the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. This is evident, from what the minister, after baptizing an infant, is required to say namely, “We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy church.”
It will be observed that it is taken for granted that regeneration has taken place, and that it has been effected by the Holy Spirit: “It hath pleased thee to regenerate.” The same doctrine of baptismal regeneration is recognized in the Catechism, in which the child (before “confirmation”) gives his or her name. Then the question is asked, “Who gave you this name?” The answer is, “My sponsors in baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” It would be difficult to conceive how baptism can do more than is here attributed to it. All the possibilities of present and eternal salvation are involved in the expressions “a member of Christ,” “the child of God,” and “an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” That it may be seen that I do no injustice to the teachings of the “Book of Common Prayer” I quote from a prominent Episcopal minister, Dr. Richard Newton, rector of the church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia. In a letter published in the Life of Bishop Cummins (p. 354) Dr. Newton says: “And after all that can be said of the different theories that may be forced on the words ‘regenerate’ etc., in our service for infant baptism, the natural, legitimate construction to put upon it the construction which any honest jury of twelve men with no theory to maintain on the subject would put upon it is that it does teach the horrible dogma that spiritual regeneration is inseparably connected with the use of baptism.” This testimony is very strong, but its truth is equal to its strength. It furnishes cause for deep regret that millions among Romanists, Lutherans, and Episcopalians ascribe to baptism a saving efficacy, and hold what Dr. Newton terms a “horrible dogma.” This “dogma” is at war with the distinctive principle of Baptists that persons must come first to Christ, and then to the church and its ordinances. The scriptural order is reversed by all the advocates of baptismal regeneration.
SECTION II. The practice of infant baptism reverses this order. The evils of infant baptism are not confined to the theory of baptismal regeneration. They develop themselves most appallingly in connection with this theory; but they are to be seen wherever and for whatever purpose infant baptism is practised. It is itself a great evil, and great evils result from it. The following language of the late godly Dr. J. Newton Brown, though strong, is not too strong: “Infant baptism is an error from beginning to end; corrupt in theory and corrupting in practice; born in superstition, cradled in fear, nursed in ignorance, supported by fraud, and spread by force; doomed to die in the light of historical investigation, and its very memory to be loathed in all future ages by a disabused church. In the realms of despotism it has shed the blood of martyrs in torrents; that blood cries against it to heaven, and a long-suffering God will yet be the terrible avenger.” [Note: Essay prefixed to Memorials of Baptist Martyrs, p. 13.] In a note Dr. Brown says: “In no boastful spirit, but in the spirit of a martyr before God stung by the solemn conviction of duty after thirty-five years of earnest and impartial investigation on this subject to speak out ‘ the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth [Note: Essay prefixed to Memorials of Baptist Martyrs, p. 13.] we nail these THESES to the door of every Pedobaptist church in Christendom and challenge all the Christian scholarship of the age not to ignore, evade, or deny them, but to face the inevitable trial, summon the witnesses, sift the evidence, and, if it can, disprove all or any one of them. And may God help the right!”
“While Presbyterians and Methodists generally disavow all sympathy with the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, they are decided in their espousal and advocacy of infant baptism. It is strange that the spirituality of the Christian Dispensation does not lead them to give up the practice. It is pre-eminently a spiritual economy. How Jesus exalts spiritual relations above those which are natural, we clearly see in Mark 3:35 : “For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” Paul said, “We know no man after the flesh;” but infant baptism is a recognition of the relations of the flesh. Infants, it is claimed, are proper subjects of baptism because they are descended from believing parents. This view is earnestly defended by Presbyterians, who insist that at least one of the parents of the infant to be baptized must be a believer. But the relation between parents and baptized infants is natural, whereas all the relations which the gospel recognizes are spiritual. Parents must first believe in Christ, in order to be brought into a spiritual relation with him; but their faith does not create a spiritual relation to their children. There can be no such relation until the children believe. All believers are spiritually related to one another, and the reason is that they are all in spiritual union with Christ. The relation to him is supreme, and out of it spring all subordinate spiritual relations. But Pedobaptists, in the practice of infant baptism, proceed on the supposition that the existence of a natural relation between them and their children entitles the latter to a Christian ordinance. The supposition is entirely gratuitous, and in positive conflict with the spirituality of the Christian economy. There is between parents and children no relation, whether natural or spiritual, that gives children the right to church-membership. This is plain as to the natural relation. It is equally so as to the spiritual relation, in view of the fact that it is union with Christ by faith which is a prerequisite to baptism and church membership. Hence, believing children possess this prerequisite though their parents are dead. It is their relation to Christ that decides the matter. The reference here is, of course, to children who have reached accountable years. As to unconscious infants, it is one of the strangest of strange things that they can be thought eligible to baptism and church-membership. This view is held, and can be held, by those only who reverse one of the distinctive principles of Baptists, claimed by them to be a distinctive principle of the New Testament namely, That persons must come first to Christ, and then to the church and its ordinances. Christ’s positive and gracious command is, “Come unto me.” He says, “He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he .that believeth on me shall never thirst.” He complains of the Jews: “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” It is manifest from these forms of expression that “coming to Christ” is a matter of supreme importance. It has an essential connection with the salvation of the soul. Coming to Christ is believing on him, and faith creates spiritual union with him: “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The gospel permits nothing to come between Christ and sinners. Their first business is to receive him. They do this by an act of personal faith. He is a personal Saviour, and the act of faith is a personal act. There is no act more intensely personal not even the act of dying. There is no such thing as believing in Christ by proxy, but everyone must believe for himself, even as everyone must die for himself. Now, it is those only who have come to Christ by believing on him that have anything to do with the church and its ordinances. A New Testament church is a spiritual brotherhood the members of which are the subjects of spiritual life, and the ordinances of the gospel are designed for spiritual persons. The opposite view is fraught with evil, for it changes the order which Christ has established. It permits persons to come to the church and its ordinances before they come to Christ. Baptists regard this as disastrous heresy, and utter their earnest protest against it. They have stood alone in the centuries past, and they stand alone now, in advocacy of the great principle, CHRIST FIRST, THEN THE CHURCH AND ITS ORDINANCES.