Nature and Design of Baptism
Rev William MacIntyre
The nature and design of baptism have been already incidentally indicated to a considerable extent. But partly to meet a rationalistic objection brought by our opponents against infant baptism, and partly to exhibit the practical bearing of the paedobaptist doctrine and to enforce the obligations that attach to the corresponding practice, we shall now add a few remarks under this head.
The objection which we seek to repel is conveyed in such questions as these, what good does baptism do to infants? What are they the better for it? Do not baptised infants grow up in sin the same as unbaptised infants? We have heard similar questions asked with respect to other ordinances, as, for example, what are those who partake of the Lord’s Supper better than we who do not partake of it? What are many of those who go to church better than we do who do not go to it? Are they more upright in their dealings or more humane, more just or more generous? Such questions are an appeal from revelation to reason. Revelation prescribes the observances against which they are directed, and this prescription, they imply, is very well, but, still, are the prescribed observances sufficiently recommended to reason? Thus, we are fully justified in describing the objection conveyed in such questions as rationalistic; and our opponents in urging it act the part of rationalists.
But, if the appeal is to be made to reason, let it be made fairly; and, that it may be fairly made, the point submitted must be, not what effects actually attend the observance of the ordinance against the claims of which the appeal is directed, but what are the effects to the production of which, from the nature and design of the ordinance, the observance of it is fitted to conduce, and with which, it may be warrantably expected, the due observance of it will be attended. It may be true, and so far as it is true it is much to be deplored, that in multitudes of instances infant baptism is attended with no beneficial results, the subjects of it being as much neglected and growing up as ungodly as any unbaptised infants. But this fact in no way affects the claims of infant baptism; for its claims, as already stated, are determined, not by the actual results in given cases and in certain circumstances, but by the results to the production of which it is fitted to conduce. From these the actual results may be entirely different, such actual results being due to influences extraneous to the ordinance and antagonistic to its design.
What, then, is the legitimate influence of infant baptism on the spiritual interests of the subjects of it? This is the point to be decided in an appeal from revelation to reason with respect to the claims of infant baptism.
We have already seen that baptism signifies and represents spiritual blessings, union to Christ and participation in the benefits of his death; and, when applied to infants, it signifies and represents such blessings as capable of application to infants, and as tendered to them through their parents or tendered to their parents for them. Will any one say that, as regards design and tendency, it is no advantage to infants that God deals thus with their parents on their behalf, that he calls upon their parents, affords them encouragement, and lays them under obligation, to desire and expect for them, and to desire and expect for them, while they are yet infants and incapable of acting for themselves in this momentous matter, all the blessings of that well ordered and sure covenant of which baptism is the token? Beautiful and beneficent arrangement? How like God, and how grateful to the heart of the pious parent! We seem to hear in it the Saviour’s words, uttered by him anew, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Yes, suffer them to come to the loving compassionate Saviour. Let the Church suffer them to come to him by admitting them to baptism; let their parents suffer them to come to him by bringing them to be baptised; let both suffer them to come by pleading on their behalf earnestly and in faith the glorious promise to which baptism is attached (Acts 2:39, Gen. 16:7-10), “travailing in birth until Christ be formed in them,” (Gal. 4:19), and by discharging towards them their respective but concurrent obligations. If parents and the church proceed thus, we shall have fewer impugners of infant baptism, and such as may still impugn it will not venture to represent it as useless.
In this ordinance God says to parents, “I will be a God unto your children.” He thus calls upon them and imposes upon them a solemn obligation to lay hold on this promise on behalf of their children, and, clinging to it, pleading it, and expecting the fulfilment of it, to use with diligence and perseverance all the means of obtaining the fulfilment of it which he has prescribed. And, if parents respond aright to this call and discharge this obligation, shall they do so in vain? Will not God, in that case, fulfil his promise, and be indeed a God unto their children? To infants, to whom, while they are yet infants, or subsequently, such a blessing flows from baptism, is baptism useless? But at present we are concerned with the design of baptism and not with the actual result of the administration of it; and, inasmuch as God, by means of baptism, deals with parents on behalf of their children in the manner we have indicated, this ordinance, it is evident has the most advantageous bearing on the eternal interests of the infants to whom it is applied.
And God deals in like manner with the church on behalf of infants, and lays it under a similar obligation, when he directs it to administer baptism to them. He requires of it that it give to them the full benefit of its solicitude, its prayers, and its ministrations, desiring and expecting for them the fulfillment of the great promise “that he will be a God unto them.” Thus, again, baptism has the most advantageous bearing on the eternal interests of the infants to whom it is applied.
