06 Infant Baptism is an Evil Because it is in Dire

Infant Baptism is an Evil Because it is in Direct Conflict With the Doctrine of Regeneration by the holy Spirit.

Nature of regeneration; its early identity with baptism; Popish doctrine on the subject: true principle restored at the Reformation; again confounded; Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, standard writers; contradictions; evils inflicted. THE relations of infant baptism to the doctrines of justification by faith, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, are in many respects the same. In the preceding chapter we considered the former. We now proceed to examine the latter. This also is a vital topic. It must not be summarily dispatched. It is necessary to both your happiness, and your safety, that you should understand it. You may easily be misled. God forbid that any obstruction should be thrown in the way of your obtaining a full knowledge of all that concerns your everlasting life. Our brethren of all the Protestant denominations 1 teach that we are regenerated by the spirit of God; and they also teach that we are regenerated by baptism ! Both these propositions cannot be true. This is self evident, since they are in direct conflict with each other. By the word of God, we are instructed that, while, on the one hand, regeneration is a spiritual change wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost, baptism, on the other, is merely an outward ordinance of our religion. The one is the work of God; the other is the work of man. Believers only, can be admitted to baptism; every believer is regenerate: consequently none but the regenerate can be lawfully baptized. Regeneration must then, as you perceive, come before baptism. And besides, the supposition that baptism is essential to regeneration, or ever produces it, is absurd. He who is regenerate is “born again,” “born of God,” “born of the Spirit,” “quickened” into new life, has “Christ formed in him the hope of glory,” and is “made a partaker of the divine nature.” The moral image of God, lost by sin, in regeneration is restored to the soul. Is baptism, or any other ordinance, or all the ordinances together, competent to this great work? Why should it be effected in baptism rather than in any other Christian duty? Is it obtained by these, or by any similar acts? Then it is certainly, in part at least, the work of man. But can regeneration be so accomplished? The supposition is at war equally with reason, and the word of God. He only who created us originally, has power to renew, and so to change our nature that we shall be conformed to the character of our Lord Jesus Christ, enabled to love him supremely, to delight in his service, and to overcome all our corrupt propensities, and dispositions. Regeneration is one thing, and baptism is another and wholly different thing; nor are they, in any sense, dependent the one upon the other. How profoundly to be deprecated the fact that they should be confounded, and that, by any class of men, the latter should be substituted for the former! This deplorable evil, to all who truly love our Lord Jesus Christ, and have any just conceptions of the gospel, is matter of the deepest regret. Regeneration is essential to salvation. “Except a man be born again he can in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” “Ye must be born again.” But he who has mistaken baptism for the new birth is never regenerated. How then can he be saved?

Dangerous, however, and fearfully fatal, as is this insidious error, it nevertheless arose in the church at a very early period. Its appearance was simultaneous with the perversion of the doctrine of justification by faith. It was a result, evidently, of a misconception of the design of baptism.

According to the apostles, baptism is one of the witnesses of God, for our Lord Jesus Christ, (the other two being the Spirit, and the blood, that is, the sacred supper,) and it bears testimony to the amazing facts that he died for our sins, and was buried, and rose again for our justification. In receiving baptism we express our faith in the primary truth that “we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” Had the church adhered unwaveringly to apostolic instruction on this topic, the defection we now deplore never could have occurred. But the fathers became, unhappily, wiser than the apostles, and they determined that it was necessary to have some sacramental emblem of the work not only of God the Son, but also of God the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s supper being commemorative of the sufferings and death of Christ, they thought that sufficient for him, and so removed baptism from its legal place, as a concurring witness, and not only without authority, but expressly against authority, made it a witness, and significant of regeneration. They accordingly defined it, “the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace.” Here the perversion commenced. It was soon established. The work of deterioration then rapidly progressed. Ere long all distinction was forgotten, and the church and her teachers confounded hopelessly, what they called “the sign,” with “the thing signified.” With them baptism was now regeneration, and regeneration was baptism! This delusion fixed itself permanently, and remains to the present hour the strong fortress of Popery. Both by Papists of the West, and Greeks of the East, it is uncompromisingly maintained. The Council of Trent accordingly decreed thus: - “ If any man shall say that baptism is not essential to salvation, let him be accursed. Sin, whether contracted by birth from our first parents, or committed ourselves, is by the admirable virtue of this sacrament, remitted and pardoned. In baptism not only our sins are remitted, but also all the punishments of sins and wickedness are graciously pardoned of God. By virtue of this sacrament we are not only delivered from these evils, but also we are enriched with the best and most excellent endowments. For our souls are filled with divine grace, whereby being made just, and the children of God, we are trained up to be heirs of salvation also. To this is added a most noble train of virtues, which, together with grace, is poured into the soul. By baptism we are joined and knit to Christ as members to the head. By baptism we are signed with a character which can never be blotted out of our soul. Besides the other things we obtain by baptism, it opens to every one of us the gate of heaven, which before through sin was shut.” These facts sufficiently explain the manner in which regeneration and baptism were at first confounded, and the fatal extent of the consequent delusion. Baptism was a panacea which cured every malady. This was the condition of things everywhere prevailing, when the Reformation dawned upon the world. Spiritual religion - except among a few who were denounced as heretics, and hunted down with fire and sword - was lost, and grace, and salvation, were communicated, and obtained, only through sacraments. “Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people. The Reformation poured a flood of light upon the world. It restored the doctrine of justification by faith, as we saw in the last chapter; and it restored also, though much less perfectly, the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. It did both by giving back to the people the Bible, of which for many centuries, priestly jealousy, and priestly domination, had deprived them. The minds of men were recalled to first principles. True penitents turned to God, and obtained as in primitive times, by faith in Christ, assurance of the divine favor, the Spirit bearing witness with their spirit that they were born of God. Luther, and Melancthon, and Calvin, and Zuingle, and Ridley, and Latimer, and their compeers, were themselves doubtless regenerated. In Germany, and England, and France, and even in Spain, men awoke as from a sleep of ages. They shuddered when they beheld the gulf from which they were barely delivered. They commenced the work of reform.

They exposed the abuses of Popery in terms of indignant eloquence. They stated some of the doctrines of Christ with great clearness, but this, it must be confessed, is exhibited with painful obscurity. In none of the German Confessions is it presented with satisfactory distinctness. Nor is it set forth with more plainness in the Thirty-Nine Articles, or in the Articles of Religion of Mr. Wesley. The Calvinists had evidently a better comprehension of the doctrine than the other Protestants. The Westminster Confession thus speaks: - God is pleased “effectually to call [men] by his word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills; and by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good.” I am gratified to say, however, that all these denominations, but especially those portions of them who have preserved their evangelical character, have gradually acquired, as they became better instructed in the word of God, more distinct and full conceptions of the work of the Spirit in regeneration, and especially is this true of the various classes of Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians in our country and in Europe. Apart from infant baptism, they recognize amply the great truth as stated by us, that regeneration is a change of heart, effected exclusively by the Holy Ghost. More than this; they give in their life and character, most gratifying evidence that they are themselves the subjects of this heavenly renovation. Thus happy, in its influence upon the character and destiny of the church and people of God, has been the Reformation. But has any portion of the Protestant Pedobaptist world fully renounced the old Popish dogma which teaches that infants are regenerated. in baptism? Do they believe in the doctrine of regeneration as exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit, and also in the antagonistic and conflicting doctrine of regeneration by baptism? Such inconsistency, it would seem, is almost incredible. Yet when infant baptism is to be administered, or defended, all their evangelical principles are apparently forgotten. This relic of Popery can only be sustained by the dogmas of Popery. Baptism and regeneration are not now esteemed by them as separate and distinct things, but are declared essentially identical. This statement is not hazarded carelessly. It is made after mature thought, and full investigation. I am aware that it is not a light imputation. I shall therefore sustain it by the amplest evidence.

What kind of testimony may be regarded as satisfactory in proof of so grave a proposition? The declarations of Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, and accredited writers, must, of course, be conclusive. To these, therefore, I direct your attention. The Augsburg Confession says: - “Our church likewise teaches that since the fall of Adam, all men who are naturally engendered, are born with a depraved nature, that is, without the fear of God, or confidence towards him, but with sinful propensities; and that this disease, or natural depravity, is really sin, and still condemned, and causes eternal death to those who are not born again by baptism and the Holy Spirit.” 4 The earlier Helvetic, another Lutheran Confession, is still more explicit. Its language is: - “Baptism is, by the institution of the Lord, the law of regeneration. With which holy law, we, on that account, baptize our infants.” The Thirty-Nine Articles embrace in substance the declarations of the Augsburg Confession, and add, “There is no condemnation to them that believe, and are baptized. ” 5 For this reason they also baptize their infants! The Articles of Religion of the Methodist church assert that, baptism is “a sign of regeneration, or the new birth,” and is to be administered to infants. 6 The Westminster Confession says: - “Regeneration,” with various other blessings, is “offered ” in baptism, and that “by the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such, whether of, age, or infants, as that grace belongeth unto according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time.” 7 Other Confessions not yet noticed concur with these. The Belgic Confession says: - “The sacraments are signs, and visible symbols of things internal, and invisible, by which, as by means, God himself works in us by the power of the Holy Ghost.” The Heidelberg Catechism, or Confession, written by Zachary Ursinus, says: - “Christ commanded the external laws of baptism with this promise annexed, that [in it] I am not less certainly washed by his blood and Spirit, from the pollutions of the soul, that is, from all my sins.” The Gallican Confession says: - “God really, that is, truly and efficaciously, does whatever he there [in our baptism in infancy] sacramentally shadows forth, and therefore we annex to the signs the true possession of that thing [regeneration] which is thus offered us.” 8 The same doctrine is maintained in the Bohemian, the Saxon, and all the others.

These are the teachings of the Confessions. Their lessons cannot readily be mistaken. The Catechisms maintain the same doctrine. The Bishops of the English church, in their “Answers to the Ministers of the Savoy Conference,” remark: - “We may say in faith, of every child that is baptized, that it is regenerate by God’s Holy Spirit; and the denial of it tends to Anabaptism, and the contempt of this holy sacrament, as nothing worthy, nor material whether it be administered to children or no.” 9 The present Bishop of Exeter thus states the doctrine of his church: - “The grace of God so certainly attends this ceremony of baptism, that regeneration and baptism are contemporaneous, and the terms are convertible, and may be used interchangeably.” 10 And did not Mr. Wesley express himself in similar terms? He says: - “By baptism we who are by nature the children of wrath, are made the children of God. And this regeneration which our church in so many places ascribes to baptism, is more than barely being admitted into the church, though commonly connected therewith.” “By water then as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated and born again, whence it is called by the apostle, ‘the washing of regeneration.’ In all ages the outward baptism is a means of the inward. Herein we receive a title to and an earnest of the kingdom, that cannot be moved. In the ordinary way, there is no other way of entering into the church, or into heaven.” “If infants are guilty of original sin, then they are proper subjects of baptism, seeing in the ordinary way, they cannot be saved unless this be washed away in baptism.” 11 Mr. Henry, Prof. Hodge, and others of their class, teach, as we saw in the last chapter, doctrines essentially the same. Mr. Ainsworth says: - “Thus to whom God giveth the sign and the seal of righteousness by faith, and of regeneration, they [the infants] have faith and regeneration; for God giveth no lying sign; he sealeth no vain or false covenants.” “If we cannot justly object against God’s work in nature, but do believe that our infants are reasonable creatures, and are born not brute beasts, but men, though actually they can manifest no reason, or understanding more than beasts, then neither can we object to God’s work in grace, but are to believe that our infants are sanctified creatures, and are born believers, not infidels, though actually they can manifest no faith, or sanctification.” 12 But Calvin himself ought to be heard in behalf of his followers. He says: - “We agree that sacraments are not empty figures, but do truly supply whatever they represent; that the efficacy of the Spirit is present in baptism to cleanse and regenerate us. ” 13 With the divines of Zurich, he had however, in this matter, one sad difficulty, which is more than intimated in the Westminster Confession. In “The Argument,” drawn up in 1549, Calvin says: - “We diligently teach that God does not put forth his power without distinction to all who receive the sacraments, but only to the elect.” If then the child is not one of the elect, it is not regenerated in baptism. If it is elect, it is certainly regenerated in baptism. A volume might be filled with similar passages, but further proof is deemed useless. The Catechisms, and standard writers, even more conclusively than the Confessions of Faith, demonstrate, as you must plainly see, all that I have alleged. The fact is now placed beyond question that, whatever they may avow, or maintain at other times, whenever this ordinance is in question they all connect infant baptism and regeneration. With the Lutherans infants are born again by baptism; with Episcopalians baptism and regeneration are contemporaneous, and the terms are convertible; with the Methodists baptism is the means by which their infants are regenerated and born again; and with Presbyterians, since God gives no lying signs, nor seals, infants of believers are believers, and if they are elect infants, they are regenerated, sanctified, adopted, have conferred upon them, in a word, “all the benefits of the death of Christ,” “The denial of this tends,” in the language of the bishops, “to Anabaptism, and the contempt of this holy sacrament as nothing worthy, or material whether it be administered to children, or no.” They all teach, therefore, that we are regenerated exclusively by the Holy Spirit of God; and they also teach that we are regenerated by baptism! These propositions are the opposites of each other. They cannot both be true. But the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit is true. Therefore the doctrine of infant baptism is not true.

I am here again met, however, with the declaration, that the best and most pious of all these classes utterly deny that they believe at all, as charged, in baptismal regeneration. To this disclaimer I have already replied in such terms as I think appropriate. I have said that their positions are irreconcilably at variance. I have myself often heard them assure these same baptized children when grown up, who had been regenerated in their infancy, that they must yet be regenerated or they could not be saved! The attitude in which they are thus placed is most perplexing, and pitiable.

They solemnly declare to the world that they do not believe the very dogmas that in their books they solemnly declare that they do believe!

They repudiate them, adhere to them! In this dilemma they have involved themselves. I lament it sincerely, and trust that they may yet see their inconsistencies, and embrace the whole “truth as it is in Jesus.” In these facts and considerations we have revealed another of the evils of infant baptism. It withdraws the mind from truth, and places it upon a fiction. It seduces men from the reality to the mere forms of religion. It attributes to an ordinance, which since it is despoiled of its form, and applied to unlawful subjects, is no ordinance of Jesus, a work which the Holy Ghost only can do. It is utterly subversive of the fundamental doctrine of the work of regeneration by the Spirit of God. It is a most deplorable evil.