01.006. Family Baptisms
Family Baptisms.
"If, indeed, on other grounds, we were sure that infants were baptized by the apostles, it would be natural to conclude that a household was baptized, its infant members, if there were any, would not be left out. But, in the absence of any such assurance, these cases really prove nothing at all." —J. G. Lambert, in The Sacraments in the New Testament. The argument from household baptisms, or, as some, including Mr. Madsen, prefer to call them, "family baptisms,"--is, despite its manifest weakness, a favorite one with Pedobaptists. That the New Testament records the baptism of some households is certain. That one of these households contained an unbeliever or an infant too young to believe, no one could prove if his salvation depended upon it.
We have good reason for objecting to the way in which our Methodist friends put the matter. Mr. Madsen writes:
"The Baptist theory, with respect to these household baptisms, requires proof that every single member was not only capable of exercising faith, but actually believed, before receiving baptism." At the risk of repetition, we must point out that this is not precisely the case. Baptists and members of Churches of Christ agree in baptizing believers in Christ. When they are challenged as to their warrant for so doing, they point to New Testament command and example (e.g., Acts 2:38; Acts 8:12; Acts 10:47-48; Acts 18:8). Our friends perforce agree that we have Scriptural authority for so baptizing. When Pedobaptists baptize babies, we simply ask that they produce Scriptural warrant for their practice, as we are quite willing to give for ours. The question is, Can they give this authority? it is a poor evasion of the issue to ask us to prove that no member of the households was incapable of believing or did not believe. It is their practice, not ours, which needs justification. Why do they not give one Biblical instance of or one single command for this thing which they do in the name of the Lord? They need to show, what they have ever failed to show, that any baptized household in New Testament days contained an unbeliever or one incapable of belief.
Again, Mr. Madsen writes:
"We, however, follow Apostolic practice, and baptize the convert’s family with him." This is as rich and ingenuous as the comment of Albert Barnes, the Presbyterian divine, that the story of Lydia "affords a strong presumptive proof that this was an instance of household or infant baptism." If household, why infant? Disciples of Christ believe in and practice household baptism. In his pamphlet, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, issued in answer to a Pedobaptists tract specially circulated to counteract the effect of his work in one of his great American missions, Charles Reign Scoville says: "Many whole households have come to Christ during this meeting, and no infants either." The point is not then whether household baptisms are Scriptural, but whether our Pedobaptists friends "follow apostolic practice" when they baptize unconscious infants on the strength of parental faith. If there was such "apostolic practice," why does not Mr. Madsen give us chapter and verse, and end the discussion? We have authority for what we practice; surely we are right in asking similar authority from him. Let him produce the proof, and not try to shift the obligation.
It is sometimes said there are "five family baptisms in the New Testament." In reality, there are only three cases distinctly recorded as instances of household baptisms--the households of Lydia (Acts 16:15), of the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:33), and of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16). Mr. Madsen deals with these three.
CORNELIUS. The case of Cornelius is often referred to, but it is not explicitly stated that this was a family baptism; Lambert, as will be seen from a subsequent quotation, holds the contrary. Acts 11:14, "Who shall speak unto thee words, whereby thou shalt he saved, thou and all thy house," is favorable to the view that all the household of Cornelius was included in the baptism. In any case, since the people baptized with Cornelius are said to be "all here present in the sight of God, to hear all things that have been commanded" (Acts 10:33), and since they spoke with tongues and magnified God (Acts 10:46), they must have been in a very different case from any babies baptized by Mr. Madsen. So, whether we have in Acts 10:1-48 a case of household baptism or not, we certainly have not a case of baby baptism.
CRISPUS. The household of Crispus, it is generally believed, was baptized. No one that I know of disputes it. Mr. Madsen may not have referred to it in his chapter on "Family Baptisms," because it is not specifically stated that the household was baptized; or there may have been other reasons for the silence, such reasons as will naturally suggest themselves to one who, remembering that Mr. Madsen claims to "follow apostolic practice and baptize the convert’s family with him," reads carefully the following Scripture:
"And Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized" (Acts 18:8). This notable passage does not appear in the chapter in which the Methodist champion endeavors to enlighten his people on New Testament family baptisms.
THE JAILER. His story is recorded in Acts 16:23-34. We are told that the jailer "was baptized, he and all his" (Acts 16:33). The question is, Were there any infants here? If not, the Pedobaptists position gets no support from this household. Now, Luke says Paul and Silas "spake the word of the Lord unto him, with all that were in his house" (Acts 16:32), and that the jailer "rejoiced greatly, with all his house, having believed in God" (Acts 16:34). Methodist babies are not wont either to have the word preached to them nor to rejoice greatly at the operation of what our friends call baptism. The preaching and the rejoicing prove that Mr. Madsen does not in this case of household baptism get his authority for infant baptism.
I would like to quote a few sentences from The Question of Baptism. Of verse 34, above referred to, Mr. Madsen writes:
"This whole verse is utterly opposed to their [i. e. ’the Baptists’] contention, for it proves that the jailer brought Paul and Silas from the prison quarter proper, into his own private apartments--his home, in fact; so that the rejoicing was a purely domestic one, and confined to the bosom of his family circle."
How the fact that the rejoicing was a domestic one confined to the jailer’s family circle goes to prove infant baptism and upset the Baptists’ contention is not very clear. An attempted distinction between oikos and oikia will not help here. Will Mr. Madsen try to prove either of the following proposition., That there were infants in the prison quarter proper, but not in the family circle; or, That the infants of the domestic circle could hear the word and rejoice, whereas the prison quarter ones could not? If he cannot prove one of these, then I fancy that even careful Methodist readers of his sentence quoted above will write it down for the nonsense it is.
Again, Mr. Madsen says of Paul’s words: "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house’’:
"Why should the Apostles give to an enquirer after personal salvation such a comprehensive answer, which opened the door of salvation to the man’s family upon his belief, if they had not intended to disciple the family by baptizing them into the Christian Church on the strength of that belief? Had no family issue been involved, the Apostles might just as well have replied: ’Believe and thou and all mankind will be saved.’" That is an extraordinary passage. We are in it told, not merely that the house was baptized because of the jailer’s faith, but that "the door of salvation" was opened "to the man’s family upon his belief." The former view is risky; but the latter is outrageous. Here is a comment of Alford, the great Church of England scholar and divine, whom Mr. Madsen himself quotes on household baptisms:
"And thy house" "does not mean that his faith would save his household,--but that the same way was open to them as to him: ’Believe, and thou shalt be saved: and the same of thy household.’"
John Wesley’s comment on Acts 16:34 is:
"Thou shalt be saved, and thy household—if ye believe. They did so, and were saved."
Meyer, the German commentator, writes:
"For the sake of this requirement of believing, they set forth the gospel to the father of the family and all his household." Who give sense: Alford, Wesley and Meyer or Madsen? Certainly not all four. If his view is not accepted, then Mr. Madsen cannot see why Paul should have said, " Thou and thy house," rather than " Thou and all mankind." I regret his inability to see why, but really the answer is very plain. You see, Paul happened to be in the presence of, not "all mankind," but, as Luke tells us in the very next verse, "all that were in his house." It is natural for a speaker to tell his hearers that they may be saved, and how they may be.
Again, Mr. Madsen quotes a distinguished Presbyterian Professor as referring to Paul’s answer to "the jailer’s selfish cry about himself." The selfishness in the jailer’s cry is as purely a figment of the imagination as are the unconscious infants in the jailer’s house. Is a man selfish because he says, "What must I do to be saved?" Would God that men’s selfishness were often manifested thus, so that they will learn of Christ and obey him as the jailer did. It is a gratuitous insult to the man to call his a selfish cry.
STEPHANAS. In 1 Corinthians 1:16 Paul writes: "I baptized also the household of Stephanas." In this passage there is no reference whatever to the number, sex or age of the household. In the same letter there occurs this verse: "Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have set themselves to minister unto the saints" (1 Corinthians 16:15). We often quote this passage as showing that there were no unconscious infants in the household at the time of the baptism. Mr. Madsen denies that 1 Corinthians 16:15 proves this. He writes:
"But what is, perhaps accidentally; overlooked, is that the baptism of the ’household,’ and the ministry of the ’house,’ of Stephanas did not follow one another in an immediate order. When Paul recalls the baptism of this family, he mentions it at a time so long before he writes of it, that he is quite uncertain in his recollection as to the names of the persons he had then baptized." There is no need for an advocate of believers’ baptism to overlook, accidentally or otherwise, the lack of the "immediate order" referred to. The question is as to the amount of time which elapsed between the baptism and the ministering on the part of the house. I hope that Mr. Madsen "accidentally overlooked" the fact that we are not without the data necessary to judge of the duration of the interval. It is grossly misleading to ignore this data and write of "a time so long before."
Paul tells us that he himself baptized the household of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16), and that the house of Stephanas was "the firstfruits of Achaia" (1 Corinthians 16:15). When did Paul first preach in Achaia? Every Sunday School child ought to know that it was during his second missionary journey. See the record of that tour in Acts 15:36 to Acts 18:22. 1 Corinthians, it is generally agreed, was written within six years of the beginning of the second missionary journey; and it is obvious that Paul did not get to Achaia for a considerable time after beginning his journey. For the tour and the Epistle respectively, the following dates are given: Dummelow, 49-50 and 55 or 56; Conybeare and Howson, 51-54 and 57; Ramsay, 50-53 and 55. Now it hardly needs argument that Methodist babies sprinkled by Mr. Madsen do not set themselves to minister unto the saints within five or six years of their "baptism." So the case of Stephanas will not help his cause. The suggested difference between "household" and "house," I shall notice later.
LYDIA.
Lydia’s is the one instance of a household baptism in which the immediate context itself does not prove that infants were not among the baptized. We agree with Mr. Madsen in his belief that Acts 16:40, which says that Paul and Silas "entered into the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed," does not settle the matter. But we heartily disagree with the ludicrous reason which Mr. Madsen advances for this belief: "Unless the Baptists contend that a Sister is a Brother, in defiance of all proper discriminating terms of sex, Lydia was not present at this farewell gathering" (p. 43). A person who writes thus ought to read the epistle which Paul later wrote to Philippi. In it he addresses his readers generally as "brethren" (Php 1:12; Php 2:1; Php 2:17; Php 4:1, Php 4:8); yet he can send a message to two sisters (Php 4:2). Paul in this did not write in defiance of proper discriminating terms; he did what we all do today.
While the story of Lydia does not of itself explicitly exclude infants, it yet contains no suggestion that infants were either present or baptized. The only folk of Philippi mentioned as being present at the river-side meeting were women (Acts 16:13).
Before any support whatever can accrue to the Pedobaptists position from this woman’s case, four things have to be assumed: (1) That Lydia had her children with her so far away from her home in Asia; (2) That at least one of her children was too young to believe; (3) That Lydia had any children at all; (4) That Lydia was a married woman. No Pedobaptists could give any proof for any one of these assumptions. Let hint try! Yet without such imaginations, the case does not support the Pedobaptists claim. Now, assumption is not a good enough warrant for a church ordinance.
We say that it is only right to interpret Lydia’s case in harmony with the other believing households and with the uniform teaching and example of the New Testament. If infant baptism were elsewhere authorized or recorded, we might assume it here; but this precept and example cannot be produced.
OIKOS AND OIKIA.
These two words are of very frequent occurrence in the New Testament. Both are translated "house" or "household." Frequently our Pedobaptists friends, when they are clearly shown to be unwarranted in seeking to get authority for their practice from the accounts of the "family baptisms" as given in our English versions, hazard the argument that the use of the Greek word oikos rather than of oikia in certain texts tends to prove their case. The person who is utterly ignorant of Greek is apt to be persuaded that there may be something in such an argument. The theory demands that there is a clear and uniform difference in meaning between oikos and oikia; if there is not, then to insist on the distinction in a few stated passages would be manifestly wrong. We hope to show, firstly, that there is no such settled and constant difference; and, secondly, that, if there were, still the Pedobaptists argument lacks cogency. For the sake of the interested reader of English alone, it may be mentioned that in the passage generally cited in connection with household baptisms, oikos occurs in Acts 11:14; Acts 16:15; Acts 16:31; Acts 16:34; Acts 18:8; 1 Corinthians 1:16; and oikia in Acts 16:34 and 1 Corinthians 16:15.
Mr. Tait, Presbyterian minister, whose little book on Christian Baptism has just been issued under the auspices of the Publications Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, uses the argument. He, much more clearly and strongly than Mr. Madsen, puts it as follows: "These instances are instances of the baptism of families, not of households. In the New Testament the word oikos means ’a family’ in the narrower sense of a unity under a common head, and oikia means ’a household’ in the wider sense, including servants and dependents. It is the narrower word, which means ’a family,’ that is invariably used in speaking of the baptism of several persons; and the wider word, meaning ’a household,’ that is used when things are said of the persons composing it, which could not be said of children. Paul tells us that he ’baptized the family of Stephanas,’ but when, in the same letter, he speaks of this good Christian, and those associated with him, as having ’set themselves to minister unto the saints,’ his words are: ’Ye know the household of Stephanas.’ Luke tells us that Paul and Silas said to the Philippian jailor, ’Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy family’; but when he tells us of their ’speaking the word of the Lord unto him,’ he adds, ’with all that were in his household.’ Of Lydia, Luke says: ’And when she was baptized and her family.’ When we speak of ’a man with a family’ we mean a father with children. When Paul and Luke speak of baptizing families, or families being baptized, and carefully distinguish between families and households, it certainly looks as if they meant us to conclude that there were children in these families, and that they were baptized with their parents" (pp. 18, 19).
We call attention to the ingenious way in which Mr. Tait begs the question to be proved by translating oikos by "family" and oikia by "household." He does not try to prove the right to this difference in rendering. Our English translators, both of A.V. and RV, do not thus distinguish, nor has the American Standard Revised Version regarded the alleged difference. Yet all the translators knew something of Greek.
Again, one may ask, How will the distinction help Mr. Tait’s argument? Bannerman--who was honored by the Publications Committee of the Free Church of Scotland as Mr. Tait has been by that of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria--says oikia "means ’household’ in the wide sense, ’an establishment,’ including not only children, but relatives, servants and dependents." Similarly, Mr. Tait speaks of oikia as "the wider word." But if oikia is wider, embracing the children and others also, how can it he maintained that oikia "is used when things are said of the persons composing it, which could not be said of children"? Nobody has dared to say that oikia differs from oikos in that the former excludes the children which may exist in the latter; Messrs. Bannerman, Tait and Madsen treat oikia as the wider, more embracing, term. Let us apply, therefore. "They spake the word of the Lord unto him, with all that were in his house" (oikia; Acts 16:32). Well, whatever children are included in oikos must be included in the wider term, oikia; and this wider "household" as well as narrower "family," then, consisted of folk old enough to hear the word of God.
Once more: In Acts 16:34 we are told the jailer "rejoiced greatly, with all his house (panoikei). The household could not only hear the word, but take such an intelligent interest in it, and be so delighted with obedience to and acceptance by the Lord as, to rejoice greatly.
Mr. Tait’s argument, with its show of precise scholarship, breaks down hopelessly. Mr. Madsen quotes from Grimm’s Wilke’s Lexicon of N.T. Greek as to the meaning of the word oikia. We, as others, cordially accept the meanings as there stated. This lexicon gives the following meanings of oikia: (a) Prop. an inhabited edifice, a dwelling. (b) The inmates of a house, a family. (c) Property, wealth, goods. Of oikos, it says: 1. A house: (a) strictly, an inhabited house. (b) Any building whatever. (c) Any dwelling place. 2. By metonymy, the inmates of a house, all the persons forming cite family, a household. 3. Stock, race, descendants of one. Cremer’s Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek gives the following meanings of oikos: (1) a dwelling; (2) a household or family; (3) household concerns. Bagster’s Analytical Greek Lexicon is in harmony with the above. Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon is in accord, and fails to harmonize with the alleged distinction so necessary to our opponent’s argument.
Mr. Madsen, however, thinks he can get some help from oikia. He writes:
"A second illustration from John 4:49-53, is submitted. In John 4:49, a nobleman appeared to Jesus: ’Sir, come down ere my child die.’ The force of this appeal as an example of an argument lives in the exact wording of it: ’Come down ere my little child die.’ Then in John 4:53, when the healing deed had taken place, it is reported of the nobleman: ’And himself believed and his whole house (oikia).’ As Dr. Rentoul points out--’Every believing household was baptized.’ Thus in John 4:49-53, we have ’a clear and interesting proof that in the household--whether the term oikia or oikos be used, the little child was an integral member, and took the status of its parent’s faith." The Question of Baptism, p. 46. The unsophisticated reader may want to know what the cure of the child of the nobleman has to do with the subjects of baptism: the " little child" in question was healed, not baptized. Yet such a person will on second thoughts appreciate the subtlety of this Pedobaptists argument. Its point is that a "believing household" may include a child which is not old enough to believe personally, but which takes "the status of its parent’s faith"; for it is plainly stated, "Himself believed with his whole house," and yet there was a "little child." So, the argument implies, even if the baptized households were believing households, that fact would not exclude infants from them. To most people it will be a sufficient reply that John says the whole house believed; and, therefore, the child, however little, was old enough to believe. Our friends, however, apparently hold that this is excluded by the term "little child" (John 4:49, paidion, diminutive of the pais of John 4:51). But does paidion prove that a person so called was too young to believe? John, who records this story, evidently did not think so, for he represents Jesus as applying this word to the disciples who went fishing: "Children [paidia], have ye aught to eat?" (John 21:5). If one object that this is an accommodated use of the word, we can refer him to Mark 5:39, " The child [paidion] is not dead, but sleepeth." Of what age was this paidion? Mark says she "rose up, and walked, for she was twelve years old" (Mark 5:42). Now, if a person of twelve years of age is called in the New Testament. paidion, by what right does Mr. Madsen, or anyone else, seek to suggest that the nobleman’s ’little child" was of such a tender age that he could not believe, but must take the status of his parent’s faith ? Are Pedobaptists who use this argument ignorant, or are they seeking to impose on other people’s ignorance? The word paidion does not of itself suggest inability to believe, and John distinctly says the nobleman’s whole house did believe. I agree with John rather than with Mr. Madsen. It would be no trouble at all to us if the household of Lydia, the jailer, or Stephanas, contained children of the age of the "little child" of Mark 5:39. We have baptized children of such an age, on confession of their faith in Christ. It is a far cry from this to the baptism of "the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms." In The Question of Baptism, again we read:
"Thayer, Grimm’s American translator, ’holds that in Attic Greek, oikos means one’s household establishment, regarded as an entire property; but oikia means the dwelling with its inhabitants. In the N.T. he thinks the words are used with discrimination, and yet in some passages ’it would seem that no distinction can be insisted on.’ The passages he gives of this kind will not help the Baptist advocates" (p. 46).
Even in this passage, it is acknowledged that there is no uniformly maintained distinction in meaning between oikia and oikos. If so, who is to judge in any one case as to whether the distinction is implied? The admission of Thayer at once prevents any Pedobaptists from taking a short-cut to his conclusion from the use of the one word rather than of the other in any verse of Scripture. But Thayer’s passages are said not to he such as would help the advocate of believer’s baptism! Would it not be well to give Thayer’s verses?
Thayer writes as follows:
"In Attic (and esp. legal) usage, oikos denotes one’s household establishment, one’s entire property, oikia, the dwelling itself; and in prose oikos is not used in the sense of oikia. In the sense of family, oikos and oikia are alike employed.. .. In the N.T., although the words appear at times to be used with same discrimination (e.g., Luke 10:5-7; Acts 16:31-32; Acts 16:34; cf. John 14:2), yet other pass[ages] seem to show that no distinction can be insisted upon: e.g, Matthew 9:23; Mark 5:38; Luke 7:36-37; Acts 10:17; Acts 10:22; Acts 10:32; Acts 17:5; Acts 19:16; Acts 21:8; Acts 11:11-13; Acts 16:15; 1 Corinthians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 16:15." The impression which this definite quotation from Thayer makes on the reader is not precisely similar to that made by the summary of Thayer given in The Question of Baptism. It will be noted that Thayer includes 1 Corinthians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 16:15 in his list of passages which "seem to show that no distinction can be insisted upon:" Now the inclusion of these directly contradicts the use which Mr. Tait has made of these very Scriptures (see extract above). So, despite the assertion that Thayer’s passages will not help us, it is evident that Thayer assists to this extent, that he declares against the use which the chosen representative of Victorian Presbyterians has made of the words oikia and oikos in 1 Corinthians.
PEDOBAPTIST ADMISSIONS.
We have by an independent examination shown that there is no cogent argument in favor of infant baptism to be drawn front the New Testament accounts of the baptism of households. It is interesting to find candid Pedobaptists themselves admitting the weakness of their brothers’ argument. We do not quote the following to prove our position, for it needs no further proof. Yet the reader may reflect that the argument advanced by Mr. Madsen must be weak indeed to be so summarily rejected by such an array of scholarly Pedobaptists.
"The attempt is frequently made to found at least an inferential proof upon the fact that we read in the New Testament of the baptisms of certain ’households.’ The argument is one which possesses very little weight. And it would possess little weight even though we knew, which we do not, that there were infants in any of the three households that are spoken of as receiving baptism. If, indeed, on other grounds we were sure that infants were baptized by the apostles, it would be natural to conclude that when a household was baptized, its infant members, if there were any, would not be left out. But, in the absence of any such assurance, these cases really prove nothing at all. They still leave us face to face with the preliminary inquiry, Whom did the apostles regard as the proper subjects of the ordinance? In two out of the three cases just referred to, the weakness of the argument is brought home to us by other expressions that are used with reference to those very same family groups. The verse which reports the baptism of the Philippian jailer and his house is immediately preceded by another which tells that Paul and Silas ’spake the word of the Lord unto him, with all that were in his house’ (Acts 16:32). In 1 Corinthians, again, Paul informs us that he baptized the household of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16); but in the same Epistle he describes that household as having ’set themselves to minister unto the saints’ (1 Corinthians 16:15). These expressions, of course, do not prove that there were no infants in the houses referred to. But they do prove that when certain things are attributed to a household collectively, the language must be read with this limitation, that only those members of the house are meant to be included to whom those things properly apply. The baptism of a household, therefore, it must be said again, proves nothing, so long as we do not know whether the apostles regarded infants as proper subjects of the administration."--J. C. Lambert, in The Sacraments in the New Testament.
" There is no trace of it [Infant Baptism] in the New Testament. Every discussion of the subject presumes persons old enough to have faith and repentance, and no case of baptism is recorded except of such persons, for the whole ’households’ mentioned would in that age mean dependents and slaves, as naturally as they suggest children to the English reader." " This is the usual sense of oikos in N.T., when it is not a building."--H. M. Gwatkin, Dixie Professor of History in the University of Cambridge, in Early Church History to A.D. 313.
Meyer, the German commentator, says of Lydia:
"Of what members her family consisted, cannot be determined. This passage and Acts 16:33, with Acts 18:8 and 1 Corinthians 1:16, are appealed to in order to prove infant baptism in the apostolic age, or at least to make it probable." He refers to Bengel’s word, "Who can believe that in so many families there was no infant?"
Amongst other remarks, Meyer gives the following as being against the attempted proof:
"(1) If, in the Jewish and Gentile families which were converted to Christ, there were children, then baptism is to be assumed in those cases, when they were so far advanced that they could and did confess their faith on Jesus as the Messiah; for this was the universal, absolutely necessary qualification for the reception of baptism. (2) If, on the other hand, there were children still incapable of confessing, baptism could not he administered to those to whom that, which was the necessary presupposition of baptism for Christian sanctification, was still wanting.. .. Therefore (4) the baptism of the children of Christians, of which no trace is found in the N.T., is not to be held as an apostolic ordinance, as, indeed, it encountered early and long resistance; but it is an institution of the church, which gradually arose in post-apostolic times in connection with the development of ecclesiastical life and of doctrinal teaching."--Commentary on Acts.
H. E. Plumptre, the well-known Church of England commentator, wrote of Lydia:
"The statement that ’her household’ were baptized has often been urged as evidence that infant baptism was the practice of the apostolic age. It must be admitted however, that this is to read a great deal between the lines, and the utmost that can be said is that the language of the writer does not exclude infants. The practice itself rests on firmer grounds than a precarious induction from a few ambiguous passages. (See Matthew 19:13-15). In this instance, moreover, there is no evidence that she had children, or even that she was married. The ’household’ may well have consisted of female slaves and freed-women whom she employed, and who made up herfamilia.’--On Acts 16:15. The same writer had this comment on the jailer: "What has been said above (see Note on Acts 16:15) as to the bearing of these narratives on the question of infant baptism applies here also, with the additional fact that those who are said to have been baptized are obviously identical with those whom St. Paul addressed (the word ’all’ is used in each verse), and must, therefore, have been of an age to receive instruction together with the gaoler himself."--On Acts 16:33.
Prof. J. Rawson Lumby, in his commentary on Acts in The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, writes of Lydia’s household: "Of a like baptizing of a household see below (Acts 16:33), and also cp. 11:14. We are not justified in concluding from these passages that infants were baptized. ’Household’ might mean slaves and freed- women."--On Acts 16:15.
"We cannot infer the existence of infant baptism from the instance of the baptism of whole families, for the passage in 1 Corinthians 16:15 shows the fallacy of such a conclusion, as from that it appears that the whole family of Stephanas, who were baptized by Paul consisted of adults."--Neander in History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles.
It frequently happens that an unworthy attempt is made to magnify the weight of the argument from household baptisms. It is sometimes allowed that infants cannot be got in any one of the households whose baptism is recorded; but the Pedobaptists apologist nevertheless says that it would be strange if in the number of households there was no infant. For instance, John Wesley begins his note on Acts 16:15 with a translation of the words of Bengel: "Who can believe, that in so many families there was no infant?" Mr. Madsen quotes Knowling who in The Expositor’s Greek Testament refers to Bengel’s familiar query. This attempt to make capital out of a number of cases, no one of which by itself gives the slightest support to the desired conclusion, may therefore be noticed here. We simply point out, then, that if there were an infant in all the households together, there must have been an infant in a certain one of them. Will our friends please point out one, or give the passage which implies one?
J. C. Lambert (a Pedobaptists, and therefore quoted here) gives this crushing reply to those who try, as Mr. Madsen does, to argue from the number of cases while yet they cannot get an infant in any one case: "This argument, it must be said, is constantly presented in an altogether exaggerated form. Language is used which implies that the baptism of a household is an incident of frequent occurrence. Dr. Schaff, for example, says ’The presence of children in some of those households is far more probable than their absence in all’ (Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1. 209). And even Bengel writes, ’Quis credat in tot familiis nullum fuisse infantem?’ [Who can believe that in so many families there was no infant?]. But the use of a word like ’tot’ [so many] and even the balancing of ’some’ of those households over-against ’all,’ is decidedly misleading, since, in point of fact, there are only three households of whose baptism we read, the households, namely, of Lydia (Acts 16:15), of the Philippian jailor (Acts 16:33), and of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 16:1-24). It is not the family of Cornelius to whom the rite is said to have been administered, but a mixed company that included his kinsmen and near friends"--The Sacraments in the New Testament. Coming from an advocate of infant baptism, this is interesting.
PLUMMER ON HOUSEHOLD BAPTISMS.
Mr. Madsen returns more than once to his argument from family baptisms. In two later chapters, 7 and 8, he refers again to Prof. Plummer’s treatment of the subject. On p. 71 he writes:
"Prof, Plummer, in the article on Baptism, already referred to in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, observes that instances, ’Especially those of the converts on the Day of Pentecost, of Cornelius and his friends, and of the Philippian jailer and his household, all tend to show that no great amount of instruction or preparation was at first required. But somewhat later. .. after the Church had had larger experience of unreal converts, much more care was taken to secure definite knowledge and hearty acceptance of the truths of the Gospel. This primitive freedom in admitting converts to baptism is in itself an argument in favor of infant baptism, although no baptism of an infant is expressly mentioned."--(Italics are chiefly Mr. Madsen’s.) The reader should notice that Plummer’s argument here is not that those instances were instances of infant baptism. All the cases alluded to in above extract were cited by Plummer in the immediately preceding paragraph to show that "the recipients of Christian baptism were required to repent and believe." Plummer proceeds to say, and truly, that, while belief and repentance were prerequisites to baptism in the apostolic days, there were not then found the probation and prolonged catechetical instruction of a later date. We may accept all this, and absolutely decline to admit the cogency of the "argument in favor of infant baptism." Why--we may ask, without hoping for a very reasonable answer,--why should the fact that there is in the simple apostolic requirements of faith and repentance a "freedom" compared with a probation and catechumenate, lead us to reject what Plummer acknowledges to have been the primitive requirements? Because the post-apostolic church added to the Biblical requirements, shall we dispense with the Lord’s conditions? The reasoning is not very conclusive! We prefer to follow Plummer in the safe position that "the recipients of Christian baptism were required to believe and repent" (for he can give chapter and verse far this), rather than to accept his amazing transition from a "primitive freedom" to a dispensing with the Lord’s conditions.
Again, Mr. Madsen cites Plummer in connection with the objection to infant baptism made on the ground that infants cannot believe:
"Prof. Plummer disposes of the objection in the following summary:--’Whole households were sometimes baptized, as those of Lydia, Crispus, the jailer, and Stephanas; and it is probable that there were children in at least some of these. There may also have been children among the three thousand baptized at Pentecost. According to the ideas then prevalent, the head of the family represented and summed up the family. In some respects the paterfamilias had absolute control of the members of his household. And it would have seemed an unnatural thing that the father should make a complete change in his religious condition, and that his children should be excluded front it. Moreover, the analogy of circumcision would lead Jewish converts to have their children baptized. Had there been this marked difference between the two rites, that children were admitted to the Jewish covenant, but not to the Christian--the difference would probably have been pointed out, all the more so, because Christianity was the more comprehensive religion of the two. There are, therefore, prima facie grounds for believing that from the first infants were baptized.’ Prof. Plummer goes on to strengthen the case by citing the words of Jesus concerning the little ones and his general attitude of benevolence towards them. This view, as presented by Prof. Plummer, appears to be all the more appealing, inasmuch as he weighs and appraises the Baptist argument, anti concedes a prima facie case for baptism in the case of adults, upon repentance and faith."--Zfte Question of Baptism, pp. 75. 76.
We give this long quotation, for Mr. Madsen esteems it so highly that he says it "disposes" of his opponents’ argument. It disposes of it in the way the priest and the Levite disposed of the man who fell among robbers,--by passing by on the other side. Has Plummer proven or attempted to prove that there was an infant in one of the households baptized? No. Has he proven that infants were among the three thousand baptized at Pentecost? No; and he could not do so; for Luke says:
"They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:41-42).
There may have been "children" here, but certainly not "infants," else they were the most remarkable infants that ever were on this earth, and the recipients of such church privileges as no Methodist or Anglican babies now receive. No; Plummer did not prove nor did he attempt to prove. Look back to the quotation from him, and see the prominence of "probable," "may" and "probably." When Plummer wished to show that recipients of baptism in apostolic days believed and repented, he gave the Scripture texts, and did not need to fall back on those overworked servants of the Pedobaptists cause, the blessed words "may" and "probable." We do not need to say that "probably" Methodists believe in and practice what they call infant baptism; we have their precept and practice. We are not prophets; but we can assure Mr. Madsen that the argument of those who stand by New Testament teaching and example will not be disposed of by "probably."
Plummer, we are told, strengthens. his case by referring to Christ’s "general attitude of benevolence" towards infants. Nobody denies Jesus’ benevolence towards them. Pedobaptists do not insist on this benevolence more than we do.
Rather, we emphasize it more; for we do not think that the baptized infant has any precedence in this respect over the unbaptized one. The Lord has "benevolence towards" them all alike. But how does "benevolence" prove "baptism"? Will Plummer or Madsen hazard the suggestion that on the occasion in question Christ’s benevolence towards infants was manifested in his baptism of them? Neither has dared to say so.
We think, then, that Plummer has not quite disposed of our position. Nor do we for a moment believe that he himself would say so. For it is after this alleged disposal, indeed in the very next paragraph to that quoted from by Mr. Madsen, that Plummer has the following striking admissions: "Not only is there no mention of the baptism of infants, but there is no text from which such baptism can be securely inferred."
"It is probable that all that is said in Scripture about baptism refers to the baptism of adults." This is a strange disposal of our position!