by Rev. Wm. MacLean, M.A., Gisborne
The term believers’ baptism is generally taken to imply that only persons in possession of saving faith have a right to the sacrament of baptism, and that only infants of such parents (either one or both) have a right to receive the privilege of baptism for their children. Parents, according to this view, who do not profess the hope of having saving faith, are to be denied baptism for their children. In this case, therefore, it is members of the invisible Church, upon their own profession, and not members of the visible Church, who are to be baptised. “The visible Church” as the Westminster Confession of Faith states, “consists of all throughout the world that profess the true religion and their children.” “The invisible Church” on the other hand, “consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be, gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” (Ch. 25).
The early Church and all the Reformers without exception, held that the visible Church under both the Old and the New Testament dispensations were one and the same. In the light of that continuity they believed in infant baptism, that as infants were formerly admitted by the sacrament of circumcision into the Old Testament Church, and as no warrant whatsoever could be adduced from the Scriptures to debar them from a privilege they enjoyed for twenty centuries, they admitted them by the sacrament of baptism into the New Testament Church.
“It will not be denied” wrote the late Rev. William MacIntyre of St. George’s, Sydney, “that God had a Church on earth in the time of Abraham, and His visible Church in all ages is composed of those with whom He has outwardly entered into covenant, and whom He has thus brought outwardly into such a relation to Himself that He “is a God unto them.” Now circumcision was the “token” by the application of which Abraham and his seed were outwardly received within the bonds of the covenant which God made with them, that is of the covenant of grace, and thus constituted members of the visible Church as then organised.” (The Token of the Covenant — p. 6).
That it was on the basis of a profession of the true religion Gentiles were admitted through the ordinance of circumcision into the Old Testament Church, is clear from the command given to Abraham in the day in which the Lord gave him circumcision as the seal of the covenant — that all born in his house and all bought with his money which were not of his seed had to be circumcised. In obedience to this command we read, “Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the self-same day as God had said unto him. (Gen. 17.23). Earlier in the Book of Genesis, in chapter 14, was are told that when Abram heard that his nephew Lot had been captured, he armed 318 of his trained servants born in his own house, and set out for the rescue of Lot. If Abram could take 318 of his trained servants, and leave a sufficient number to take care of his flocks, what a large household he must have had! Abram’s 318 trained servants, as Matthew Henry points out, were not only trained to fight, but instructed and catechised in the principles of the true religion. In the Hebrew the word for “trained” means instructed or catechised. It is the same word that is used in the exhortation “train up a child in the way he should go” etc. (Prov. 22.6). It was his servants, therefore, instructed in the principles of the true religion, that Abraham circumcised, and thereby openly admitted them in the visible Church at that time confined to his household. Dr. Gill in his commentary quotes from Maimonides that “if an Israelite receives a grown servant of the heathens, and the servant is not willing to be circumcised, at the end of a whole year seeing he is uncircumcised he is to be sent again to the heathens.” “No man,” comments Dr. Gill “was to be forced to embrace the true religion, or obliged against his will to submit to its ordinances.”
“Baptism is now the solemn admission into the visible Church of Christ. As an ordinance of the visible Church it is also a sign and a seal of the external administration of the covenant of grace. There is the internal administration of the covenant. The internal administration has respect to 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 Holy Spirit is the seal.” (Treatise on Baptism by Matthew Henry).
Baptism as a sign and seal of the external administration of the covenant of grace belongs to all members of the visible church — “all who profess the true religion with their children.” They receive the privilege of baptism on the ground of their professing the true religion, and not on the ground of their professing a hope of regeneration and saving faith which belongs to the internal administration of the covenant.
“Baptism is an ordinance of Christ’s mediatorial kingdom; therefore all who pertain to the kingdom (the visible Church in the world) are to be baptised. It is the Magna Carta, which every subject may claim the benefit of, 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).
Dr. Charles Hodge states that the Churches of the Reformation, the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Churches on the Continent of Europe and also most Protestant Churches, as the Church of England and the Congregational Churches, acted on the principle that every baptised person not excommunicated being a member of the visible church has a right to have his child baptised. “Infants of such as are members of the visible Church are to be baptised.” (Shorter Cat. Q.95). “Such was the general practice of the Presbyterian Church of America” writes Dr. Charles Hodge “until within a comparative recent period of its history.” (Systematic Theology Vol.3, p. 569).
Before making this admission Dr. Hodge sets forth the commonly accepted practice of the above mentioned Churches in Britain, on the Continent and in America, which was founded on the following principle:— (1) That as under the old economy the Temple was one, it had its outer and inner courts, and those who had access to the former were not thereby entitled to the latter; so under the New Testament dispensation the visible Church is one, but it includes two classes of members; baptised professors of the true religion, and those who, giving evidence of regeneration, are admitted to the Lord’s Supper. (2) That the qualifications for baptism and for full communion are not identical. Many may properly be admitted to the former, who are not prepared for the latter. Both Dr. C. Hodge and Dr. A. A. Hodge accepted the new view which their Church, the Presbyterian Church of America, had “within a recent period of its history” adopted, that baptism should only be given to the children of parents professing to have saving faith, and therefore entitled to admission to the Lord’s Table. [Sad to say they also held to the changes made by the Presbyterian Church of America in 1788 in the chapters and sections of the Confession of Faith dealing with the Civil Magistrate, or in other words, the Establishment Principle which maintains the Scriptural view of the universal supremacy of Christ as King of Nations, with the consequent duty of nations as such to honour and serve Him by recognising His Truth and promoting His Cause. Dr Thomas McCrie in his classic “Statement” on the Establishment Principle first published in April 1807, shows that all the Confessions of all Protestant Churches of the Reformation in Britain and on the Continent, held and maintained the Establishment Principle. “The Establishment Principle” said the eminent Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall, is “not only worth living for, but a principle worth dying for.”]
In the last century the idea of “believers’ baptism” made inroads mainly 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. Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall ably opposed and exposed the “believers’ baptism” idea and defended in his book “The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire” the view held not only by the fathers in Ross-shire, but by the worthy fathers in the Church since Reformation times not only in Scotland but also on the Continent. “The Ross-shire fathers held,” wrote 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 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, practiced by the fathers in the 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 of and was crowned with the blessing of the Lord. — 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. — 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 sacrament 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 . . .”
Mastricht from whose writings Dr. Kennedy approvingly quotes, was a Dutch theologian of the 17th century. Mosheim in his “Ecclesiastical History” speaks of Mastricht 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 ability, clearness and accuracy.
A worthy father of the Church, the Rev. Roderick MacLeod of Snizort in the Island of Skye who died in the year 1868, and whose labours were greatly blessed in the conversion of sinners and in the edification of the Lord’s people, embraced for a time the idea of “believers’ baptism.” “During the first three years of my ministry,” he says, “I was a stranger to the Gospel scheme of salvation”. It was after his conversion that he adopted the idea of “believers’ baptism”, but he eventually withdrew from the position he had taken up and agreed that the Church’s views were Scriptural.
Principal Cunningham a contemporary of the Hodges also favoured “believers’ baptism”. Against this view as has already been noted, Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall raised his voice. Dr. Kennedy was one of the most powerful preachers of the gospel in his generation, held by the godly in the highest esteem, and from whose lips they were fed with the finest of the wheat. He was also a faithful and uncompromising witness against the innovations in worship and doctrine — the lamentable vogue of his day, which, he said, would result, as it has done, in the spiritual desolation of Scotland. Dr. Kennedy’s death in 1884 was described by C. H. Spurgeon as “a loss to the Highlands greater than could have befallen by the death of any other hundred men”.
With all due respect to the unquestioned reputation of both Dr. Charles Hodge and Dr A. A. Hodge and Principal Cunningham as renowned theologians, to their piety and scholarship and their invaluable contributions to theology, we, nevertheless, on this point of granting baptism to parents who, if they receive the privilege of baptism for their children must also go forward to the Lord’s Table, prefer to agree with the older divines, believing “the old wine to be better,” that their mode of dispensing sealing ordinances has proved as Dr. Kennedy said, to be the mode that was according to the mind of the Lord and crowned with His blessing.
In this connection we submit the following extracts. The first is from “The Shorter Catechism Explained” by the Rev. James Fisher, assisted by the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine and the Rev. Ralph Erskine, all able and outstanding ministers of the New Testament. This book which runs into 466 pages is a standard work on the Shorter Catechism, and was first published in February, 1753. In their explanation of Question 95 — “To whom is baptism to be administered?” the following is the explanation given by these godly divines as setting forth the common Church view on the subject.
Question — To whom is baptism not to be administered? Answer — Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church.
Q.—Whom do you understand by those that are out of the visible church? A.—All infidels, or such as are Jews or Heathens, and their children.
Q.—May infidels in no event be baptised? A.—Yes. They may, so soon as they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to Him.
Q.—What is it to profess faith in Christ? A.—It is to profess a belief of the whole doctrines of the Christian religion. Acts 8.37.
Q.—What is it to profess obedience to Him? A.—It is to yield an external subjection to all the ordinances and institutions of Christ. Acts.2.46.
Q.—Whom doth such a profession respect? A.—It respects only the adult, or such as are grown up to ripeness of age.
Q.—Have not infants (who can make no such profession) a right to baptism? A.—Yes: the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptised.
Q.—Who are the members of the visible church? A.—They are “all such as profess the true religion and their children”. (Larger Catechism Q.62. Confession of Faith Ch. 25.2).
Q.—What are we to understand by the true religion? A.—We are to understand by it the whole of those doctrines deduced from the Holy Scriptures, which are contained in our Confession of Faith, and Catechisms as agreeable in the main with the confessions of other reformed churches. “Hold fast the form of sound words”. (2 Tim. 1.13).
The second is from the writings of the late Rev. Joseph Irons of Grove Chapel, London, an able minister of the New Testament, and a defender of the scripturalness of infant baptism. “We have been told” wrote Joseph Irons, “that saving faith must precede water baptism; but on what authority such an assertion rests I know not, as I cannot find it in Scripture, for the utmost requisition made by the apostles was an acknowledgement that Jesus was the Messiah, and that related only to adult persons who as Jews or Heathen had denied Him.” (Jazer. p.74).
Footnote. It will be clearly understood, of course, that members of the visible church seeking baptism for their children must satisfy the Kirk Session with respect to their knowledge and practice of the Christian faith.