Bertha and Her Baptism Part 4

Much can be done by these simple expedients to promote a quiet and pleasant attendance upon the delightful rite. I like the practice, in your church, of chanting low some appropriate words of Scripture before and after the baptism.

I am constrained to say, though with diffidence, that I fear some of my good brethren give erroneous impressions by what they say of the church-members.h.i.+p of children. They push it to extremes. They discuss the question, What shall be done with baptized children, who, on arriving at years of understanding, refuse to enter into covenant with G.o.d? Church censures are a.s.serted by some to be proper in such cases, even to excommunication, or interference in some judicial way by the church. So long as I believe in regeneration by the Holy Spirit, I cannot feel that baptized children, as such, are, in any sense whatever, in which the term is generally received among men, _members_ of the church of Christ; while, in another and most important sense, they do belong to the church, hold a relation to it, and are a part of it. Strictly speaking, and in the highest spiritual sense, they are not even "the lambs of Christ's flock;" for lambs have the nature of sheep; but the children of believers are, by nature, children of wrath, even as others. And yet, in another sense, they hold a most important relation to the flock of Christ, as no other children do. In its most important sense, they are not to the church even what they are to the state; they have no place whatever in the invisible church,--the church which is saved,--till they are born again. If children are regenerated by the act of baptism, of course it is otherwise; but, not believing this, I am clear that the baptized child of a believer differs from any other unregenerate child, who is not baptized, only in this: that G.o.d looks upon it with peculiar interest and love, and that it is surrounded with special and peculiar privileges, opportunities, promises, and hopes, with regard to its being brought to repentance and saving faith in Christ; and by baptism it is initiated into special relations.h.i.+p to the people of G.o.d. The church also has special duties with regard to it.

Some of my brethren give great occasion to those who resist children's baptism, to argue against it as Romish in its nature and effect, by not discriminating clearly in using the words members and members.h.i.+p in connection with children. Read almost any modern book against infant baptism, and you will find that its main force is directed against the practice as a "church and state" inst.i.tution, and as making persons members of the church by means of sacraments. Let us who are really free from such imputation, a.s.sert the truly spiritual nature and object of this ordinance. I wish to see it divested of all that does not belong to it, made eminently spiritual, expressed in terms which cannot easily be misunderstood, and appealing to the natural affections, the understandings, the consciences, of spiritual men and women, as, in its sober and legitimate use, G.o.d's great appointment, from the call of Abraham to the millennium, for the increase and perpetuity of his church.[2]

[Footnote 2: This subject is discussed by itself, and more at large, in another part of this book.]

You are aware that the great question, which has made most of the trouble in the Christian church from the beginning, relates to the meaning and use of sacraments and ordinances, or what we call Symbolism.

The tendency of the human mind, even in Paul's day, as indicated by him, with other things belonging to it, under the name of "the mystery of iniquity, which doth even now work," was, to increase the number of sacraments and ordinances, and make them bear an essential part in the work of regeneration. The right to multiply or extend them, and the claim that they possess a saving efficacy, characterizes one great division of the professed Christian church, while those who are called Protestants and the Reformed, regard them chiefly as signs; though of these, some seem to have much of that appetency after undue reliance on forms which Paul seeks to correct in the Epistle to the Galatians, while others go to an opposite extreme, and undervalue the two divinely-appointed sacraments, which they think have no efficiency as used by the Spirit of G.o.d, but only as signs used by us to represent something.

Between these divisions of the Christian church lies the battle-ground of great ecclesiastical controversies from the beginning, as the Netherlands were, for a long time, the battle-field of Europe.

Archbishop Leighton seems to strike the balance between formalism and sacramental grace in ordinances, as well as any writer, in commenting on these words of Peter, "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us." He says:

"Thus, then, we have a true account of the power of this, and so of other, sacraments, and a discovery of the error of two extremes. (1.) Of those who ascribe too much to them, as if they wrought by a natural, inherent virtue, and carried grace in them inseparably. (2.) Of those who ascribe too little to them, making them only signs and badges of our profession. Signs they are, but more than signs merely representing; they are means exhibiting, and seals confirming, grace to the faithful.

But the working of faith and the conveying Christ into the soul, to be received by faith, is not a thing put into them to do of themselves, but still in the supreme hand that appointed them; and he indeed both causes the souls of his own to receive these his seals with faith, and makes them effectual to confirm that faith which receives them so. They are then, in a word, neither empty signs to them who believe, nor effectual causes of grace to them that believe not."

Let me make the distinction very clear to your mind, for it is of great practical importance. The "mystery of iniquity" in Paul's time, and since his day, did not, and does not, consist in making too much of G.o.d's ordinances in their purity and proper use. That cannot be done, any more than you can intelligently love the Bible too much, or the Sabbath. But, to pervert them, or to make additions to them, or to rely upon them wholly, is Romanism. But can men make too much of having a seal on a deed? Is the deed good for anything without the seal? Can they make too much of having three witnesses to their wills? Those three witnesses, instead of two, make an otherwise worthless writing, a man's last will and testament. Thus, a true sign, ordinance, or seal, among men, has inherent efficacy of some sort. Shall we deny it to the ordinances and seals of Heaven? He who lays claim to the covenant, but rejects the seal, deceives himself. They must go together.

But will you not think me older even than I claim to be, because I am so garrulous? I have many things to say, but will not say them with pen and ink, hoping to see you shortly. Farewell, my dear daughter, to you and your beloved husband, with abundant kisses for your little namesake, who, I pray, may be spared to you, if G.o.d has any work for her to do on earth. Dedicate her sincerely and entirely, beforehand, to G.o.d, and then in his house, with baptism, before the a.s.sembled brethren in Christ; and let your subsequent treatment of her be a repet.i.tion of the whole.

Baptizing a child, with right views and feelings, leads to much prayer for it. Renew the consecration of your child daily, in little, sudden acts of prayer, as well as in more deliberate offices of devotion. Thus surround it with an atmosphere of faith and consecration, not forgetting the public transaction in which you covenanted with G.o.d, before many witnesses, for the child, and He, my dear daughter, with you, in its behalf. For, a covenant implies two parties; and G.o.d is one, and you are the other; and Jesus is the mediator, who said of children, "Of such is the kingdom of G.o.d." "He that came down from heaven," had seen, in heaven, how largely that world is peopled with them. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Peace be with you. All send love.

Your affectionate Father.

Chapter Third.

BERTHA'S BAPTISM.--CHANTING AT BAPTISMS.--PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BAPTISMS.--WEEK-DAY BAPTISMS.--A DAUGHTER'S LOVE.--BAPTISM OF A DEAF-MUTE INFANT.--FIDELITY OF A BAPTIZED CHILD.--SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM.--THE MODE.--IMPROBABILITY OF IMMERSION, IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.--ON BEING BURIED IN BAPTISM.--NEW VERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES.--OUR DIVISION INTO SECTS.--A MOTHER'S PLEA FOR INFANT BAPTISM.

Where is it mothers learn their love?

In every church a fountain springs, O'er which th' eternal Dove Hovers on softest wings.

O, happy arms, where cradled lies, And ready for the Lord's embrace, That precious sacrifice, The darling of his grace!

KEBLE.

We took Bertha to church when she was two months old. The minister, being fond of music, had, for some time, requested the choir to chant select pa.s.sages of Scripture at baptisms.

So, as we came up the aisle with the child, the choir breathed out those words, "And I will establish my covenant between thee and me, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant; to be a G.o.d unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of G.o.d." "And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." And, as we turned away from the font, they added, "So shall he sprinkle many nations." "The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children." "But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments, to do them."

How I loved that choir, and the congregation! for, many a face did I see bathed in tears, and others beaming with smiles and love, as, with respectful, half-turned looks, they seemed to give us their blessing.

"Do you not think, more than ever," I said, to the beloved grandmother of my child, after church, as we watched the little sleeper in her cradle, "that people lose very much in having their children baptized at home?"

"It makes a different thing of it," she replied. "I felt that all the congregation loved Bertha and you. How many prayers you obtained for her and for yourselves, which you would have missed by a private baptism!"

"Besides," I remarked, "'G.o.d loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.' I think that for that reason, and on the same principle, namely, that he is more honored, he regards our public dedication of children with more favor than a private baptism, except, of course, where sickness makes the public service impossible. But it is some trouble to mothers, and no doubt many shrink from it."

"The trouble is more in antic.i.p.ation than reality," she replied. "That pastor's room, where they stay till the introductory services are over, makes it more convenient and agreeable. But all the trouble, even if it were far greater, is nothing compared with the satisfaction of having taken your offering and come into His courts. You have paid your vows unto the Lord, in the presence of all his people. You will remember those prayers, those words of Scripture which were chanted, and your feelings as you took the child into your arms to be presented to G.o.d, and as you heard those adorable names p.r.o.nounced upon her and then received her back into your arms, as it were, from the hands of G.o.d."

"What do you think," said I, "of the practice of having children baptized in the church on a week-day? It enables the parents to attend meeting on the Sabbath with more composure than when they bring their children on the Sabbath."

"But O," said she, "what is that, compared with the privilege of bringing the child before the whole church of G.o.d, in his house, on the Lord's day, and so identifying its baptism with the most solemn acts of public wors.h.i.+p? I do not like those week-day baptisms. Where they have the communion lecture in the afternoon of a week-day, there may be reasons of convenience for bringing the children for baptism then, rather than on the Sabbath; but there is a great loss of enjoyment, and also of impressiveness, in the ordinance, in doing so, I think. I was at a place, several years ago, when fourteen children were baptized on a Wednesday afternoon, in the church. I went to see it, but it was not solemn at all. I could not help thinking what an impressive and useful sight that would have been on the Sabbath, before all the people, and how much more good, probably, it would have done the parents, even if they had given up half the Sabbath in going and returning with the children."

"If people," said I, "thought more of the spiritual meaning and privileges of baptism, and viewed it as they do in times of sickness and death, they would think less of inconveniences and discomforts, and see that the ordinance is something more than giving a child a name."

Some time after this, I called upon a cousin of ours, a young married lady of our congregation, who, within a year, had come to us from another place, she having been married to an educated, intelligent member of another congregation, and who, from his great love for her, had come with her to our place of wors.h.i.+p from another denomination, this having been made a condition of their marriage. For she felt that she could not be debarred the privilege of sitting at the Lord's table with her mother, three sisters, and brother, as she would be if she united herself with her friend's church. The idea of going to any table of Christ on earth where they could not come, thus seeming to disfranchise her whole family whom Christ had gathered into his fold, and some of them into heaven, did violence to her feelings. At one time, it seemed likely that the engagement of marriage would be terminated, on this ground alone. Some one of the gentleman's persuasion, who thought that she "ought to follow Christ in ordinances," and "take up her cross"

in this instance, whispered to her that she was, perhaps, in danger of denying Christ, from love to her kindred, and he said to her, "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." This had the opposite effect from that which was intended, for it showed her, in the strongest light, the error of supposing that love to Christ could ever require her to separate from herself, at the table of Christ, such friends of Jesus as the members of her dear Christian home,--a home which had been like that of Bethany to many of the Saviour's friends.

She felt more sure of being actuated by right motives in giving up her marriage, and not withdrawing fellows.h.i.+p from her mother and the family, than she would be in sacrificing that fellows.h.i.+p to gratify a new affection. Her next younger sister was baptized after the father's death. She was a deaf-mute. The mother was a very beautiful woman. She had borne severe trials for her religion with a spirit of patience and Christian propriety which won the love and esteem of the community. She went to the altar of G.o.d, a widow, with the little deaf and dumb child, and presented it for baptism. It was as though the impending calamity of its father's death had shut up some of the senses of the child, and G.o.d had placed it in the mother's hand as a silent memorial to her, for life, of his chastising love. She left her fatherless flock in the family pew, and went with her nursling, not merely to give it to G.o.d, but to receive for it the seal of his covenant, bowing submissively to his inscrutable appointment, and imploring the G.o.d of Abraham to be still her G.o.d, and the G.o.d of this her seed. That scene had not failed to make deep impressions upon the other children; and now it was proposed to one of them that she should, by connecting herself in marriage, disavow her mother's right to cling, in those hours of anguish, to that asylum of the fatherless, infant baptism,--that very present help in trouble, the covenant of G.o.d with believers and their offspring. The little child, moreover, had become a Christian, and had sat with her sister, side by side, at the communion-table, for several years. "Forbid it," she prayed with herself, "that I should go where I cannot be allowed to follow Christ till I have separated this dear one from my side."

She once wrote a letter on the subject to the gentleman, which he showed, after their marriage, to some of his friends. There will be no impropriety in its appearing here. It ran thus:

"MY DEAR MR. E.: Though I am not willing to deny that Roger Williams was, as you say, raised up to ill.u.s.trate some important principles, and to help on the general cause of truth, I must say that he strikes me as a very unreasonable man in much of his behavior. Our puritan fathers did not come to this wilderness with French, atheistic, idolatrous love for a G.o.ddess of liberty. They came here, it is true, for liberty of conscience and freedom to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d. With a great sum they purchased this freedom. But infidels could as well claim to be absolved by the laws from all recognition of G.o.d, under the plea of liberty, as Mr. Williams and his friends could make his demands for toleration. To insist that our fathers, in their circ.u.mstances, should have opened their doors wide to every doctrine, and to the denial of everything professed by them, is unreasonable. They came here with an intense love for certain truths and practices, which persecution had only served to make exceedingly precious to them. To have proclaimed at once universal toleration of every wind of doctrine, would have proved them libertines in religion. Because they did not so, reproach is cast upon them by some, who seem to me to be free-thinkers on the subject of religious liberty. If other men wished to found a community with doctrines and practices adverse to those of the New England fathers, the land was wide, and it would have been the part of good manners in Mr. Williams to have gone into the wilderness at once, to subdue it and to fight the savages, all for love and zeal for his own tenets, instead of poaching upon the hard-earned soil of those who had laid down their all for what they deemed to be the truth. It seems to me unphilosophical in some of our historians to reflect, as they do, upon our forefathers for not being so totally indifferent to what they deemed error, as to allow it free course.

Their strict, and, if you please, rigid ways, were the necessary defences of their principles, which were just taking root here.

They did right in pa.s.sing stringent laws to protect them; and religious liberty was no more violated in doing so than is the liberty of our town's people here, who, by the law of the State protecting game, cannot take fish, or kill birds, during certain seasons.

"Besides, I never saw any proof that Mr. Williams was himself the great apostle of toleration. I remember reading to father, during his sickness, some remarks of the late John Quincy Adams, in which he vindicates the New England fathers for banis.h.i.+ng Roger Williams as a 'nuisance.'[3] Mr. Adams surely cannot be accused of bigotry, nor of being an enemy to the cause of freedom; and his remarks seemed to me more just than the eulogies, by historians and orators, of Mr. Williams. Father once showed me an old book of Mr.

Williams's, which we have now, called 'George Fox digg'd out of his Burrowes,' in which Mr. W. inveighs against the Quakers for their want of 'civil respect,' and for using 'thee' and 'thou,' in addressing magistrates and others. He says, on the two hundredth page, 'I have therefore publickly declared myself, that a due and moderate restraint and punis.h.i.+ng of these incivilities (though pretending conscience) is as far from persecution, properly so called, as that it is a duty and command of G.o.d unto all mankinde, first in families, and thence unto all mankinde societies.'--It is also a matter of history that the colony settled by Mr. Williams refused their franchise to Roman Catholics, though even then the Roman Catholics of Maryland were tolerating people of his own faith, and Quakers also. Mr. Williams always seemed to me like one of our pious, zealous 'come-outers.' He even forsook his own denomination in three months after he had been baptized, and for forty years denied the validity of their sacraments, and the scripturalness of their churches and ministry. Such a man would even at this day be excommunicated by every society, unless it were some a.s.sociation for the encouragement of radical notions of liberty. I no more see in him the impersonation of religious freedom, than in some other good people who go or stay where they are not wanted. I am not disposed to deny that you and your friends, with their principles, of which you, erroneously, I think, claim Mr. Williams as the great exponent, 'have a mission,' as you say, to perform; but I do not feel called upon to join in it. Some of your writers seem to me--shall I say it?--a little too sure of having just the right pattern and patent-right in ordinances, and somewhat too complacent in not being liked by other denominations, and perhaps a little disposed to look for persecution. Now I was pleased with a remark of Matthew Henry's, on Mark 10:28, that 'It is not the suffering, but the cause, that makes the martyr.' But we were brought up under different a.s.sociations, and cannot see just alike in all things. I cannot, however, contradict, by any step which my feelings would incline me to take, the Christian citizens.h.i.+p of those who are dear to Christ, and are so precious to me. As much as I love you, I think you should feel perfectly free to leave me in my happy home, if you cannot allow me to retain my fidelity to my own conscientious convictions of truth, and to the sacred rights of those whom nature and grace have conspired to make inseparable from my own Christian hopes and joys."

[Footnote 3: "Can we blame the founders of the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony for banis.h.i.+ng him from their jurisdiction? In the annals of religious persecution is there to be found a martyr more gently dealt with by those against whom he began the war of intolerance; whose authority he persisted, even after professions of penitence and submission, in defying, till deserted even by the wife of his bosom; and whose utmost severity of punishment upon him was only an order for his removal as a nuisance from among them?"--_Discourse before Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc._, 1843, pp. 25-30.--[ED.]]

The gentleman agreed to allow her the largest liberty, and they were married. He knew that she had a mind and heart that were more precious than rubies, and that the heart of a husband could safely trust in her.

The sequel will show, however, how good it is to be matched as well as mated, and, in the conjugal relation, to be "perfectly joined together in the same judgment."

The object of my call, that evening, was to rejoice with her, and to be the bearer of some congratulations at the recovery of their infant, whose death had been expected for some time. The child was now perfectly restored.

As I stood in the entry, not having rung the door-bell, and was hanging up my hat and coat, some one in the parlor said:

"What good can it do the child or us to sprinkle a little water on its head?"

"Good-evening, Mr. M.," said the husband, as I went in. I was interrupted in my expression of a fear that I had intruded upon their conversation, by their a.s.surances to the contrary. "I am glad you came in," said Mr. Kelly, "for perhaps you can help us. You heard, I suppose, what I was saying as you came in. If I am not mistaken, Mr. M., you yourself are not very strenuous about infant baptism, for I have heard of your making inquiries on the subject."

"Not only have all my doubts been removed," said I, "but the baptism of my child has been the source of the richest instruction and comfort."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Mrs. K.

"But," said Mr. K., "you do not, of course, derive your warrant for it from the word of G.o.d. That is our only guide, you know. There is no more authority in the Bible for baptizing children than there is for praying to saints. You are probably aware that the practice originated in the third century of the Christian era."

_Mr. M._ It originated with a man by the name of Abraham, I believe, sir, two or three thousand years before Christ.

_Mr. K._ O, then, you go to Judaism for it!

_Mr. M._ Judaism comes to me with it, and hands it over to me. There was something good in Judaism, we all think. Judaism was not a Mormonism, as certain ways of speaking of it not unfrequently would make us think it to have been; it was not an exploded folly, but the form which the church of G.o.d bore for two thousand years. But it began before Judaism; it is older than Moses. Judaism received it from Abraham. It is like a great river rising in a desert place, and seeming to lose itself in a lake, but flowing out again into another lake, and thence to the sea. So Judaism was only a great lake, which took and seemingly held this river of baptism for a time, but its current went on and flowed into another lake, the Christian dispensation. But you cannot say that a river which makes a chain of lakes, rises, for that reason, in the first lake. No, its head spring, in this case, was antecedent to the lake.

_Mr. K._ Did Abraham or the Jews baptize children, Mr. M.?