01.12. Additional Notes: Note E. Vote of the Westminster Assembly.

(Note E.) Vote of the Westminster Assembly respecting Baptism.

It has been sometimes ignorantly, and most erroneously asserted, that the Westminster Assembly of divines, in putting to vote, whether baptism should be performed by sprinkling or immersion, carried it in favor of sprinkling, by a majority of one only. This is wholly incorrect. The facts were these. When the committee who had been charged with preparing a “Directory for the worship of God," brought in their report, they had spoken of the mode of baptism thus: "IT is lawful and sufficient to sprinkle the children. To this Dr. Lightfoot, among others, objected; not because he doubted of the entire sufficiency of sprinkling; for he decidedly preferred sprinkling to immersion; but because he thought there was an impropriety in pronouncing that mode lawful only, when no one present had any doubts of its being so, and when almost all preferred it. Others seemed to think, that by saying nothing about dipping, that mode was meant to be excluded, as not a lawful mode. This they did not wish to pronounce. When, therefore, the clause, as originally reported, was put to vote, there were twenty-five votes in favor of it, and twenty -four against it. After this vote, a motion was made and carried, that it be recommitted. The next day, when the committee reported, and when some of the members still seemed unwilling to exclude all mention of dipping, Dr. Lightfoot remarked, that to say that pouring or sprinkling was lawful, would be “all one as saying, that it was lawful to use bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper." He, therefore, moved that the clause in the "Directory" respecting the mode of baptism, be expressed thus:

"Then the minister is to demand the name of the child, which being told him, he is to say (calling the child by his name) —

"I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

"As he pronounceth these words, he is to baptize the child with water, which, for the manner of doing it, is not only lawful but sufficient, and most expedient to be, by pouring or sprinkling of the water on the face of the child, without adding any other ceremony." This was carried. See Lightfoot’s Life, prefixed to the first volume of his Works, (folio edition,) p. 4; compared with Neal’s History of the Puritans, Vol. 11. p. 106, 107, compared with the Appendix, No. II. (quarto edition,) where the “Directory," as finally passed, is given at full length.

We do not learn, precisely, either from Lightfoot’s biographer, (who was no other than the indefatigable Strype,) or from Neal, by what vote the clause, as moved by Lightfoot, was finally adopted; but Neal expressly tells us, that “the Directory passed the Assembly with great unanimity.” From this statement, it is evident, that the question which was carried in the Assembly, by a majority of one, was, not whether affusion or sprinkling was a lawful mode of baptism; but whether all mention of dipping, as one of the lawful modes should be omitted. This, in an early stage of the discussion, was carried, by a majority of one in the affirmative. But it would seem that the clause, as finally adopted, which certainly was far more decisive in favor of sprinkling or affusion, was passed “with great unanimity.” At any rate, nothing can be more evident, than that the clause as it originally stood, being carried by one vote only, and afterwards, when recommitted, and so altered as to be much stronger in favor of sprinkling, and then adopted without difficulty, the common statement of this matter by our Baptist brethren is an entire misrepresentation.