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 181.)
CHAPTER X.—BAPTISM WITH WATER DOES NOT BELONG TO THE CHILDREN OF PARENTS WHO ARE UNBELIEVERS.
The father of the family.—“So then, Samuel, you acknowledge that in the church infants ought to be baptised?”
Samuel.—“I scarcely see how I can do otherwise, without slighting the sovereignty of God in respect of this appointment, or without failing in appreciation of what you have pointed out to have been the position of the children of believers from the beginning of the world, first in the families of the patriarchs, then under the shadow of the law, and finally under the Gospel economy? . . . And yet for all the evidence that I now possess, my spirit is not thoroughly satisfied that you are right. I cannot shut my eyes to the abuse to which the practice lends itself, to the snare which it spreads for the multitudes who call themselves Christian, and who nevertheless are far removed from being genuinely converted, and even from the desire of being baptised with the Spirit. And in that connection I might even go the length of saying that I think it possible that my own resolution not to baptise my child had been taken in the hope that it might serve as a salutary and much-needed warning both to the child itself, and to other precious souls besides.”
The father of the family.—“How strangely you reason, dear Samuel! What a confusion of ideas and doctrines there is found in those few words of yours! How have you so forgotten the first principles of the Gospel? Truly, good friend, I marvel (Gal. i. 6) that such darkness still obscures your vision.”
Samuel.—“Well, at the least, dear brother, I am not able to recognise it as obscurity; but if you can so teach me, please do so, for truly my only desire is to know what in fact God has said or commanded.”
The father of the family.—“Well, to begin with, how can you, as a disciple of the Bible, advance the principle that the abuse to which people put the ordinances of God is a reason for putting those ordinances utterly aside? In this way circumcision ought to have been postponed among the Jews until men came of age; if not, because of the abuse to which the people put it, abolished altogether; or, to put it at the lowest, believers would have had something like reason for wishing that their children had not been circumcised, in order that through their uncircumcision they might be for a salutary warning to themselves and to others!”
Samuel.—”I confess that I have spoken in a carnal sense, and only in keeping with what man sees. You are quite right: the abuse of an ordinance of God, of which man may be guilty, can never be a reason for blaming the ordinance itself.”
The father of the family.—”Certainly not; for suppose you apply the principle, which you advanced, to the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. It surely is a blessing, a source of great comfort, and of reviving of life to the believing Church of Jesus, and yet to what abuses is it subjected in the world that is named Christian! How many ignorant, carnal, and superstitious people are there who perceive nothing but the external ceremony, or who change it into a ground of justification, or who imagine that they belong to Christ because they partake of it! And what abuses are they also, who administer this Sacrament, guilty of, who, understanding neither its nature nor purpose, prostitute it before a profane and impious world, and so by this Sacrament lay a net for the deceived multitude! Will you say that therefore the Sacrament of the Supper ought to be done away with? Will you not rather say that it is the duty of believers to keep to what the Lord has prescribed?”
Samuel.—”Of course that is all that any one can demand in the matter of baptism, to wit, that believers should do just as the Lord commanded.”
The father of the family.—”But, my brother, you will surely allow that it is one thing to bring an institution back to its primitive form, and another thing to say that it is necessary to abolish the institution because it has been abused.”
Samuel.—”Yes, certainly, I will grant you that. But the question remains as to how baptism may be brought back to the primitive form.”
The father of the family.—”Truly, my friend, the work is not an easy one. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are two pearls which the unbelief of our evil days gives over without scruple to hearts that are unclean, to men who despise them and trample them under their feet, and who by and by attack the very Church that has given them those privileges. Surely then it is desirable that these two jewels which properly belong to the spouse of Christ should be taken out of the hands of those enemies, so that, in keeping with the Lord’s will, they should serve to adorn the Church for her Husband!”
Samuel.—”Yes, but how can it be done? For to begin with, baptism with water has for so long a time been given to every infant that was born in a country bearing the Christian name, that it is hard to see how one could put a stop to this confusion, this adultery of the Church of Jesus with the enemies of Jesus? How can you here strike a true mean?”
The father of the family.—“The way to strike a mean is to return to the Lord’s institution, and that such as it was when first established. Certain it is that from the time of Seth not every infant born into the world had the name of Jehovah called upon it, for the impious Cainites, who despised such a thing, took good care not to invoke His name on any of their race. Just so, it was not called upon the posterity of Ham, on whom fell the Lord’s curse; and, as we come down the history of nations, according to the discipline which belonged to the law of Moses, we find that to be called by this great name was not the privilege of a family whose father, on account of his impiety, was cut off from the people of Israel, and from the covenant of the Most High.
“Why, then, should this discrimination, which prevailed when truth was as yet but ‘as a lamp shining in a dark place,’ not be observed or acted upon when we are now living under the clearer light of the Gospel? Why should not unbelievers in our day be far removed from the privileges and rights of the covenant, as was the case in ancient times in respect of the impious, the profane, and the contemners of the word of the Most High?”
Samuel.—“You don’t think that baptism belongs to every child that is born in a nation calling itself Christian?”
The father of the family.—“My belief is that the seal of the covenant of Promise belongs to the children whose parents are under the Promise, but I can’t see, either in any part of God’s word, or in any example drawn from the practice of the pure Church, that the seal ought to be placed, in the name of Jehovah, on the seed of those who are in rebellion against Jehovah. And I am so far from thinking that the mere birth of a child in a country or under a government that calls itself Christian is a scriptural reason for baptising that child in the name of the Lord, that, on the contrary, I consider that practice to be the work of the great adversary, who, by this confusion, holds the world in a fatal delusion, and mingles the sons of God, and the daughters of men, bringing about marriages whence were born of old men renowned for pride and impiety” (Genesis vi. 1, 5).
Samuel.—“But is not that just what I had been saying, and for which I was blamed by you?”
The father of the family.—“Oh, no, not at all, my dear friend. “What you say is this: We will baptise only adult believers, because if we baptise infant children, then all the people will be baptised and the result will be that the Church and the world will be confused and mingled together. “What I say is this: We will baptise little children, for God has so ordained, seeing they are holy; but we will baptise only according to the ordinance of God. Now, these two propositions are not alike.”
Samuel.—“I see now what you mean. But it remains that I ask you what you mean by baptising infant children according to the ordinance of God?”
The father of the family.—“It is to put the name of Jehovah on the infant children of those who themselves call upon the name of Jehovah. It is to baptise the families of believers, and of these only.”
Samuel.—“Ah, my friend, now that word of yours does bring a light into my mind! That way of looking at the matter is quite new to me, and a way of which I did not hitherto think. Now please expound to me your entire thoughts in this connection.”
The father of the family.—“That which caused the corruption of the old world was the mingling of the children of God with the children of the ungodly. This mingling prevails in our day, and it has brought about that which people call national churches, that is to say, associations of cosmo-Christians (which means part world and part Christian), where the Bible with its teachings and its laws are indeed found, but where the ordinances of divine worship, placed under the tutelage or will of worldly powers, are forcibly turned aside from their original intention, and thus, in the hands of an unbelieving authority, they become either a sign of an agreement among divers peoples, or a useful means for holding in and governing a nation.
Dr. Malan was in favour of the national recognition of religion.—J. R. M.
“This state of things, I admit, may be modified if the government itself has submitted itself to the Lord Jesus; but, certainly, whenever that rare state of things does not occur, and the leaders of the nation are but children of the world, then the ordinances of God are prostituted to the world, and the spouse of Christ, having been carried into captivity, appears only in soiled garments, its crown away. Then the Lord’s Supper, that holy institution which the Saviour meant for His dear Church, is given as common feeding to the dogs and swine of a generation, the most perverse; and baptism, by a necessary consequence, is administered to the families of parents who make a mock of Jesus, and of His cross and blood, people who go the length of even saying that death puts an end to men’s existence.”
Samuel.—“What a picture! And yet how true to fact! But once more I ask what remedy is there for that confusion if infants are to be baptised?”
(To be continued.)
FOR the slaying of Christ and the contempt of the Gospel the land shall be divided. Learn, Scotland (for I may not stay to amplify the doctrine), learn to make much use of Christ. Are ye not more obliged to God than His beloved people the Jews were—the Lord’s first bride, the wife of His youth? The sorest stroke that ever a land gets is a stroke for rejecting Christ and the Gospel.—Samuel Rutherford.