OR AN INQUIRY INTO THE CONDITION OF CHILDREN IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
BY CAESAR MALAN, DOCTOR IN THEOLOGY.
“For me and my house, we shall serve Jehovah.”—JOSHUA xxiv. 15.
(Translated for the first time from the French.)
(Continued from page 353.)
CHAPTER II.—ABSOLUTE SOVEREIGNTY IS THE CHARACTERISTIC OF EVERY COVENANT OF WHICH GOD IS THE AUTHOR.
“WE learned with much joy, even as we wrote to you, the happy news of the birth of your first-born,” said the father of the family to Samuel when he was alone with his friend, “and we have on account of it praised the Lord, whose holy name was entreated for and put upon the child.”
Samuel blushed, and it was not without some embarrassment that he gave answer that his child had not been baptised.
The father of the family.—”Is it possible, my friend? And yet there are more than three months since the child was born. . . . Can you possibly have had the unhappiness of having become a Baptist?”
Samuel.—”The unhappiness, do you say?”
The father of the family.—”Certainly, and even the great unhappiness; for that, without doubt, is an unhappiness that has the effect of drawing one away from the Word and grace of Jehovah, should it be done only in ignorance.”
Samuel.—”But I don’t think, I assure you, that I am ignorant in this matter of the will of God. I believe, on the contrary, that it is because I follow that will that I have discarded for my child a baptism which does not yet belong to it.”
The father of the family.—”Dear Samuel, I did not know of this change in your faith, and I am afflicted on account of it. But tell me—are you as sure of that which you advance as I am of the contrary? For, to be brief, it must be, my friend, that one of the two of us is in formal opposition to the will of the Lord—a will which isn’t double, and which does not surely leave one of the ordinances of the Church to the mercy of the opinion of men. Now, as for me, I am as certain of having followed the holy will of my God in calling back, with the sign of baptism, the great name of Jehovah upon my children, as I am that I have Jehovah for my own God.”
Samuel.—”I can understand that, being so persuaded, you should feel scandalised at my conduct.”
The father of the family.—”Scandalised! Not at all, dear friend, but I feel afflicted on your account, and it grieves me that you have fallen into this error.”
Samuel.—”But, well-beloved brother, am I in error when I do that which I believe to be according to truth and according to the very Word of God? Is not my conscience sincere in this?”
The father of the family.—”Sincere? I do not doubt it. But is it clear? And are you under no misapprehension concerning that which that Word says, when you place the babe that was born to you outside the promise which came to you, even to you, his father, and by that also outside the Church of Christ, to whom you belong? Where have you seen that God tells you thus to deprive your seed of the privileges and blessings which the Lord appoints them.”
Samuel.—”May God preserve me from doing anything of the kind! But surely I wasn’t guilty of any such thing when I repudiated for my infant child . . . a ceremony, the meaning or the existence of which it was ignorant of?”
The father of the family.—”Don’t you, dear Samuel, call that, which is an appointment of God, a ceremony.”
Samuel.—”Be you sure, my good friend, that I don’t thus speak of water baptism but only with reference to an infant. It is in effect, as to him, no more than a ceremony, since the infant is in no way capable of deriving any advantage from it.”
The father of the family.—”Capable, have you said? Ah, my friend, when it is the sovereign Majesty that works, who, I pray you, is capable of His grace except only as being one who is the object of His work?”
Samuel.—”But yet it is necessary, isn’t it, that that one be in harmony with the operation of that grace towards him? Now what, in this respect, is a little babe capable of?”
The father of the family.—”But the sovereignty of power or of grace, when it works, does not require of the person that it visits either a wishing or a feeling going before. The supreme authority suffices of itself, and that which it works is powerful, in virtue of that same thing which has wrought it.”
Samuel.—”Is that a sure principle, my friend?”
The father of the family.—”Judge you thereof yourself by the following anecdote. In one of the isles of America a planter who feared God resolved to give freedom to the children of a family of slaves who lived on his grounds in a village a considerable distance from his dwelling. He sent off on this account a messenger, ordering him to announce to the said family their freedom, and to place on the neck of every one of the children a blue collar, which should be at once the sign of their liberty for themselves, and, for the other planters, an appeal to their humanity. The messenger was able to arrive at the village only when it was rather late at night. He presented himself; he explained to the parents the happy nature of his mission; and they, in turn, pointed him to their four children, one of whom was but a tender suckling, and all of whom were in bed, and in deep sleep as they lay on their straw mats. ‘Don’t waken the dear little creatures,’ said the messenger, who was a sensible as well as pious man. ‘The freedom which I brought them is theirs although they are yet ignorant of it, and the collar which they will henceforth carry will each day recall their freedom to their mind, although they don’t know that my master has bestowed it upon them.’ And saying this he passed on, and gently put the collar on the neck of each, not missing even the tender suckling, and after having, for a few moments, looked with love on those four children, who had fallen asleep in a state of slavery and who behoved to awaken in a state of irrevocable freedom, he invoked the blessing of the Lord Jesus upon them, and forthwith departed, that he might carry to his master the expression of the parents’ thankfulness and of his own joy.”
Samuel.—”That is a touching narrative, dear friend. What a solemn as well as affecting scene it must have been!”
The father of the family.—”Nevertheless you see, Samuel, that the little children did not feel nor will nor even know that which a benefactor—their master—had wrought for them, and nevertheless, notwithstanding their total ignorance, the benefit of what was wrought was not less a reality, and the collar which they became possessors of without knowing it, did not need to be less the sure sign of their freedom, and the visible and potent mark which separated them from other children which were yet slaves.”
Samuel.—”I quite understand you. You are drawing my attention (are you not?) to the fact that these children were capable of receiving the benefit, seeing that that favour stood altogether in the good pleasure of their master.”
The father of the family.—”And was not the fact altogether so? And if the good pleasure and authority of a man sufficed to bring a benefit to those who were incapable of either knowing or understanding it, how much more, without doubt, will the sovereign pleasure and infinite power of Jehovah suffice to cause that the grace, or whatsoever dispensation it be which He has destined for them, should come upon His own creatures?”
Samuel.—”I understand what you mean, and possibly, in fact, I may not fully have realised the potency which belongs to the appointment of Jehovah.”
The father of the family.—“You have not, my brother; for take the case of one of the ordinances of the Lord among the Israelites. Circumcision, without doubt, signified something. It was assuredly from God and not from man; the seal of a covenant on the part of God with certain families of this world. And this seal was put on new-born babes, and yet these babes were quite incapable of knowing the existence of this covenant.”
Samuel.—“I understand you. Circumcision, you tell me, was not, through this ignorance, rendered invalid.”
The father of the family.—“Without doubt; for it was an ordinance which owed its validity to the supreme authority of God, who thus rendered it valid.”
Samuel.—“And do you think the child thus entered into the covenant of God?”
The father of the family.—“It was in covenant even before it received this sign, and circumcision only indicated the fact and sealed the child. For do you call to memory the terms in which Moses (according to Deuteronomy xxix. 10-15) spake unto the children of Israel concerning this covenant of the Lord. ‘Ye stand this day, all of you, before Jehovah, your God; your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy sojourner that is in the midst of thy camps, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; that thou mayest enter into the covenant of Jehovah thy God, and into His oath, which Jehovah thy God maketh with thee this day, and that he may establish thee this day unto himself for a people, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he spake unto thee, and as he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that standeth here with us this day before Jehovah our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day.’ It was, then, partly in respect of children not yet born that the covenant was not only contracted but the execution of the oath added. Where, in that case, was the capability, if I may use that word?”
Samuel.—“I acknowledge that it was only in the sovereignty of the divine appointment, and I perceive that I spoke too slightly of baptism, and certainly the point that should be inquired into is not as to what benefit this ordinance might be to an infant, but whether or not the Lord hath ordained it for infants.”
The father of the family.—“That, my brother, is the true state of the question, and it must rest on this principle—that in the kingdom of grace the creature neither chooses nor accepts but only receives all, because that all is ordained sovereignly on the part of Him ‘who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will.’”
(To be continued.)