by Rev. W. MacLean, M.A., Gisborne
The above Westminster Standard publication was issued four years ago. Part One — The Scripturalness of Infant Baptism contains XVII Sections, Section XVII — Concluding Remarks is from Dr A. A. Hodge’s “Outlines of Theology”. “The practice of infant baptism.” Dr Hodge states, “is an institution which exists as a fact, and prevails throughout the universal Church, with the exception of the modern Baptists, whose origin can be definitely traced to the Anabaptists of Germany, about A.D. 1537. Such an institution must either have been handed down from the Apostles, or have had a definite commencement as a novelty, which must have been signalised by opposition and controversy. As a fact, however, we find it noticed in the very earliest records as a universal custom, and an apostolic tradition.”
The writings of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Origen, Cyprian and Augustine quoted in Section I prove this. “Our argument is,”
writes Dr Hodge, “that infant baptism has prevailed (a) from the apostolic age, (b) in all sections of the ancient Church, (c) uninterrupted to the present time, (d) in every one of the great historical Churches of the Reformation, while its impugners date since the Reformation.
Section VIII. Baptism a Sign and Seal of the Covenant of Grace. “As baptism is an ordinance of the visible Church, it is also a sign and seal of the external administration of the covenant of grace. There is the internal administration of the covenant. The internal administration has respect to true believers, who join themselves to the Lord, by a free and hearty consent which entitles them to the saving benefits of the Covenant. In this internal administration The Spirit is the Seal — Eph. 1.13. (Treatise on Baptism, by Matthew Henry).
Baptism as a sign and seal of the external administration of the Covenant belongs to all who are members of the visible Church — ‘all who profess the true religion with their children’, provided their profession is not contradicted by ignorance or wickedness.
“When I say that baptism is a seal of the Covenant of grace, I mean,” writes Matthew Henry, “(1) That God doth, in and by that ordinance, assure us He is willing to be to us a God’, according to the tenor of the Covenant. A sense of our meanness as creatures, especially of our vileness as sinners, might make us despair of the honour and happiness of such an interest and relation; this ordinance therefore is appointed, not only to convince us that He is reconcilable, but to convey to us the benefits of reconciliation upon gospel terms. This is the covenant, ‘to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee’ — Gen. 17.7, and in token thereof (verse 10) ‘you shall be circumcised’. And forasmuch as our defilements by sin are the greatest discouragements, the instituted seal is a significant sign of our cleansing from these defilements. (2) That God doth, in and by that ordinance, engage us to be to Him a people: ‘I will be their God, and they shall be My people’.
“Baptism, we have found, is an ordinance of Christ’s mediatorial kingdom; therefore all who pertain to that kingdom are to be baptised. It is the Magna Charta, which every subject may claim the benefit of, and plead interest in, unless by any forfeiture, he deprived himself of the privilege of it. It belongs not to the internal but external administration of the kingdom; it is an ordinance of the visible Church and pertains therefore to those who are visible members of the Church” (Matthew Henry).
Baptism is not a seal on faith, as the Baptists hold, but on the covenant of grace, the blessings of which are set forth and freely offered in this ordinance. “What does God seal?” asks Williams.
(Baptism Vol I, pp. 181-182). “His own gracious proclamation, exhibited to the subject. The voice of God’s heralds is to this purpose: ‘Now then we are ambassadors for Christ’, publishing to a lost world, the most merciful terms of reconciliation; and if any suspect the truth of our message, or the faithfulness of our divine Author, behold both ratified by His own SEAL.”
Section XIV — Differences in the Two Sacraments as Sealing Ordinances. It was at one time the almost universal practice on the Continent, in Scotland, England, Ireland, the Colonies and America to act upon the principle that every baptised person not excommunicated being himself a member of the visible Church has a right to have his child regarded and treated as such also. This is the view held and defended by Dr Kennedy of Dingwall in ch. IV of “The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire“, as against the view which was rapidly gaining ground in the South of Scotland where latitudinarianism in doctrine and practice had thrown open the Table of the Lord to almost all and sundry and denied baptism to parents unless they became communicants. “The Ross-shire fathers held,” writes Dr Kennedy, “that the two sacraments were in general seals of the covenant of grace, and that as such they were equally valid. But they also held with Maastricht that they did not specially seal the same measure of privilege. They held that the qualifications for baptism and full communion are not identical, that many may properly be admitted to the former, who are not prepared for the latter.” The arguments advanced by Dr Kennedy and Maastricht are convincing that it is a great evil to make the Church consist only of communicants and to cast out into the world without any of that watch and care which God intended for them, all those together with their children who do not see their way clear to come to the Lord’s Table.
Dr Kennedy states that four most desirable results were secured by the mode of dispensing sealing ordinances, practised by the Fathers in North, — the mode, too, which at one time was almost universal as already noted. These four results go far. Dr Kennedy says “to prove that this mode was according to the mind, and was crowned with the blessing of the Lord“. (No. 2) . . . It marked and preserved a distinction, so far as this can be legitimately done, between the approved followers of Christ and all others. This distinction as an ecclesiastical one, is quite blotted out, when both sacraments are administered on the same footing, . . . (4) It always reminded the ministers of the danger of indiscriminate preaching . . . . When a minister has always a congregation of communicants before him, he is easily led to address from the pulpit, as it ought to be fitting he should, when standing at the head of the Table of the Lord.”
“The Ross-shire fathers had no difficulty in regarding the Sacra-
ment of the Supper, as intended by the Lord, specially to seal something other and higher than that which is specially sealed by baptism. They called it, with Maastricht, ‘sacramentum nutritionis’, as being intended to be an occasional feast to believers during all their wilderness journey. They beheld in the symbols of Christ’s body and blood the clearest and closest manifestation of the glory of the Lord, and in the exercise of those who partake of them the nearest approach to the Lord that can be on the earth. They regarded the guests at the table as having the most conspicuous connection with the cause and glory of Christ. They saw the Church pointing the eye of the world to a communion table, to inform them whom she accredited as the true people of God. On all these accounts they felt that they were specially called to guard the passage to the table of the Lord, and to subject to the closest scrutiny all who would approach it. And surely they were right . . . .”
Maastricht, from whose writings Dr Kennedy approvingly quotes, was a Dutch theologian of the 17th century. Mosheim in his “Ecclesiastical History” speaks of Maastricht as being held in the highest reputation for erudition and soundness in the faith, while Principal Cunningham describes his system of theology as eminently distinguished for its ability, clearness and accuracy.
Part II — The Scripturalness of Sprinkling in Baptism contains XII Sections. I The Significance of Baptism. II Baptism Not a Burial. III Baptism of the Holy Ghost. IV The Meaning of the Greek Word “Baptizo”. V The Biblical Mode of Baptism. VI A Definite Distinction of Terms. VII I Cor. X, 1, 2, and I Peter III, 20, 21 Proofs Against Immersion. VIII The Baptism of John — Was it by Immersion or by Sprinkling? IX The Baptism of Christ in Jordan. X The Confession of a Convert from Baptism in Water to Baptism with Water. XI “Half-Truths”. XII The Westminster Assembly’s Unanimity on the Mode.
W.M.
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