01.10. Additional Notes: Note C. Sponsors in Baptism.
(Note C.) Sponsors in Baptism.
It is well known that the Presbyterian church differs from the Episcopal in regard to the subject announced at the head of this note. We differ in two respects. First, in not requiring or encouraging the appearance of any other sponsors, in the baptism of children, than the parents, when they are living and qualified to present themselves in this character: and, secondly, in not requiring, or even admitting any sponsors at all in cases of adult baptism. My object in the remarks which I am about to make on this subject, is, not to impugn either the principles or practice of our Episcopal brethren; but simply to state, for the instruction of the members of our own church, why we cannot think or act with them in relation to this matter.
It is curious to observe the several steps by which the use of sponsors, as now established in the Romish and some Protestant churches, reached its present form. Within the first five or six hundred years after Christ, there is no evidence that children were ever presented for baptism by any other persons than their parents, provided those parents were living, and were professing Christians. When some persons, in the time of Augustine, who flourished toward the close of the fourth, and beginning of the fifth century, contended that it was not lawful, in any case, for any excepting their natural parents to offer children in baptism; that learned and pious Father opposed them, and gave it as his opinion, that, in extraordinary cases, as, for example, when the parents were dead; when they were not professing Christians; when they cruelly forsook and exposed their offspring; and when masters had young slaves committed to their charge; in these cases, (and the pious Father mentions no others,) he maintains that any professing Christians, who should be willing to undertake the benevolent charge, might, with propriety, take these children, offer them in baptism, and become responsible for their Christian education. This, every one will perceive, is in strict conformity with the principles maintained in the foregoing essay, and with the doctrine and habits of the Presbyterian church. The learned Bingham, an Episcopal divine of great learning, seems to have taken unwearied pains, in his “Ecclesiastical Antiquities," to collect every scrap of testimony within his reach, in favor of the early origin of sponsors. But he utterly fails of producing even plausible evidence to that amount; and at length candidly acknowledges that in the early ages, parents were, in all ordinary cases, the presenters and sureties for their own children; and that children were presented by others only in extraordinary cases, such as those already alluded to. It is true, indeed, that some writers, more sanguine than discriminating, have quoted Dionysius, Tertullian, and Cyril of Alexandria, as affording countenance to the use of sponsors in early times. Not one of those writers, however, has written a sentence which favors the use of any other sponsors than parents, when they were in life, and of a proper character to offer their children for the sacramental seal in question. Even Dionysius, whose language has, at first view, some appearance of favoring such sponsors; yet, when carefully examined, will be found to speak only of sponsors who undertook to train up in the Christian religion some of the children of Pagans, who were delivered, for this purpose, into the hands of these benevolent sureties, by their unbelieving parents. But this, surely, is not inconsistent with what has been said. And, after all, the writings of this very Dionysius are given up by the learned Wall, and by the still more learned and illustrious Archbishop Usher, as a “gross and impudent forgery," unworthy of the least credit.
It was not until the council of Mentz, in the ninth century, that the church of Rome forbade the appearance of parents as sponsors for their own children, and required that this service be surrendered to other hands.
Mention is made, by Cyril, in the fifth century, and by Fulgentius in the sixths of sponsors in some peculiar cases of adult baptism. When adults, about to be baptized, were dumb, or under the power of delirium, through disease, and of course unable to speak for themselves, or to make the usual profession; in such cases it was customary for some friend or friends to answer for them, and to bear testimony to their good character, and to the fact of their having before expressed a desire to be baptized. For this, there was, undoubtedly, some reason; and the same thing might, with propriety, in conceivable circumstances be done now. From this, however, there was a transition soon made to the use of sponsors in all cases of adult baptism. This latter, however, was upon a different principle from the former. When adults had the gifts of speech and reason, and were able to answer for themselves, the sponsors provided for such never answered or professed for them. This was invariably done by the adult himself. Their only business, as it would appear, was to be a kind of curators or guardians of the spiritual life of the persons baptized. This office was generally fulfillled, in each church, by the deacons, when adult males were baptized; and by the deaconesses, when females came forward to receive this ordinance.
Among the pious Waldenses and Albigenses, in the middle ages, no other sponsors than parents seem to have been in common use. In one of their catechisms, as preserved by Perrin, and Morland, they ask, “By whom ought children to be presented in baptism?" Answer, “By their parents, or by any others who may be inspired with this charity;" which is evidently intended to mean, as other documents respecting them show, that where the parents were dead, or absent, or could not act, other pious professors of religion might take their places.
According to one of the canons of the church of England, “parents are not to be urged to he present when their children are baptized, nor to be permitted to stand as sponsors for their own children." In the Protestant Episcopal church in this country, parents “may be admitted as sponsors if it be desired." But in both countries it is required that there be sponsors for all adults, as well as for infants. The baptismal service of the Methodist church in the United States, for infants, does not recognise the use of any sponsors at all, excepting the parents, or whatever other “friends" may present them.
It is plain, then, that the early history of the church, as well as the Word of God, abundantly sustains the doctrine and practice of the Presbyterian church in this matter. We maintain, that as the right of the children of believers to baptism, flows from the membership and faith of their parents according to the flesh; so those parents, if living, are the only proper persons to present them for the reception of this covenant seal. If, however, their proper parents, on any account, cannot do this, they may, upon our principles, with propriety, be presented by any professed believers, who, quoad hoc, adopt them as their children, and are willing to engage, as parents, to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
If, indeed, nothing else were contended for in this case, than that, when believing parents have pious and peculiar friends who are willing to unite with them in engagements to educate their children in the true religion, such friends might be permitted to stand with them; there might not be so much to condemn. Even then the solemn question might be asked; “Who hath required this at your hands?" But when the system is, to set aside parents; to require that others take their places, and make engagements which they alone, for the most part, are qualified to make; and when, in pursuance of this system, thousands are daily making engagements which they never think of fulfillling, and in most cases, notoriously have it not in their power to fulfill, and, indeed, feel no special obligation to fulfill; we are constrained to regard it as a human invention, having no warrant whatever, either, from the Word of God or primitive usage; and as adapted, on a variety of accounts, to generate evil, much evil, rather than good.