HAVING been able to find no good in infant baptism, nor in infant sprinkling, (for I must always consider them as distinct things,) I now proceed to inquire, Is there any evil in it? In answering this question, I desire to be guided by three things only--Scripture, reason, and fact: neither by passion nor by prejudice; nor, I trust, will the fear of the frown of any mortal ever deter me from declaring the truth on this, or any other topic on which I am fairly called to express my sentiments. I answer the question now proposed, with the utmost coolness and deliberation; and feel no hesitation in declaring that infant sprinkling is a manifold evil. This I shall instance in a few respects:--

      1st. It is "will-worship." By the term will-worship, I understand worship founded upon the will of man, and not on the will of God. "In vain do they worship me," saith Christ, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." The preceding pages show that the rite of infant sprinkling is as much a tradition of men as the scrutiny, the exsufflation by which devils are expelled, the insufflation by which the Spirit of God is communicated, the consecration of the wafer, the chrismal unction, the lighted taper, and the milk and honey, which are but seven of the twenty-two appendages to infant sprinkling, made by the church of Rome. Now, as all will-worship is a disparagement of the worship appointed of God, it is, consequently, a reflection upon his wisdom, and obnoxious to his displeasure. It is as contrary to his revealed will as the presenting of "strange fire" upon his altar was in the days of Nadab and Abihu. And, indeed, every religious practice which is not founded upon an explicit revelation of the will of Heaven, is will-worship. The [405] language of it is this, "Thou shouldst have appointed this, and we are supplying a defect in thy wisdom or goodness." Such is the spirit of every innovation in divine worship.

      2d. It has carnalized and secularized the church more than any other innovation since the first defection from Christianity. The actual tendency of infant sprinkling is to open the gates of the church as wide as the gates of the world, and to receive into its bosom all that is born of woman. That this may appear as obvious as the light of the sun, the reader has only to reflect that if the Pedobaptist system prevailed so that all the fathers and mothers in any country, or in all countries, were determined to have their infant offspring "initiated into the church" as soon as born, by the rite of sprinkling, then, in that country, or in all countries so acting, the discrimination between the world and the church would be lost; its gates would be as capacious as those of the world, and, without the necessity of a spiritual renovation, every member of the human family, in that region or country, would have a place in the church. About one hundred years ago, the whole kingdom of Scotland, with the exception of, say, two or three thousand individuals, was one great Pedobaptist society. In those days, the church engrossed all that were born, and initiated them into it. Of course, all the enormities committed in the realm were committed by members of the church; so that none of the apostolic admonitions, in which the difference between the church and the world is pointed out, would apply to them.

      In the year 1300, and for several centuries before, all the citizens of Germany, France, Spain, England, and, indeed, the whole Western Roman Empire, with the exception of a few Baptists, were initiated into what was then called the Church, as soon as the parents could have the rite performed. In those days, and whilst those principles prevailed, the church was secularized, the church and state completely amalgamated, and all the follies and vices of childhood, manhood, and old age were engrafted upon the stalk of Christianity. In those days, Pedobaptist principles triumphed, and there never was a period in which the church was so completely and universally carnalized and secularized. Let it not be said that this was owing more to other traditions than to infant baptism or sprinkling; for, when we grant that there were many other innovations and traditions besides this, we must insist that this contributed more [406] than they all to introduce that awfully corrupt system, called the Man of Sin--to nurture, to mature, and to perfect it. It introduced all, good and bad, into the church; and as bad men invented errors and propagated heresies in the church, we have only to ask how they got in, and then the true cause of the enormous mass of error of those days appears. It is a fact, evident from church history, that the prevalence of corruption in the church bore pace with the prevalence of infant baptism, and the triumphant days of the one were the triumphant days of the other.

      The description we have of the church, in the Scriptures, leads us to consider all the members of it as a "peculiar people"--as born from above--as being all taught of God. Hence we read, "A willing people, in the day of thy power, will come to thee." "All thy children shall be taught of God, and great shall be the peace of thy children." "Every one that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." "To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Power or privilege to become the sons of God was given to such only as were born of God. How unlike this to the practice of Pedobaptists, who endeavour to crowd all into the church which are born, not of God, but of the will of the flesh, and the will of man!

      Again, when we read the descriptions given of the churches of the saints in the Epistles, they will not apply to a church that admits all the infants, born of the members, to membership. The majority of any such church must be of a character essentially dissimilar to the following descriptions of the church of Jesus Christ. 1 Cor. vi. 11: "Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 2 Thess. ii. 13: "Brethren beloved of the Lord, God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." 1 Peter ii. 5: "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." 9th verse: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which, in time [407] past, were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but have now obtained mercy." These, and a hundred other addresses to the Christian church, are totally inapplicable to any Pedobaptist church, composed of a great many members incapable of distinguishing their right hand from the left. When the question is proposed, What has rendered the Pedobaptist churches unworthy to be addressed in this way? the answer is, Because they have received so many members, very many, that were merely children of the flesh; nay, the nine-tenths of all Pedobaptist churches became members by natural birth; and, as the children of the flesh, were constituted members. Infant sprinkling has, then, carnalized and secularized the church; and, hence, all Pedobaptist sects have become national churches when they had it in their power; for their views of the church are carnalized as well as the members: hence papacy is the established religion of Italy, Spain, France, &c.; Episcopacy of England and Ireland; and Presbyterianism of Scotland. In the United States, the principles of civil polity being better understood than in any other country in the world, not any form of religion has obtained the exclusive patronage of the state; and may it continue so, till all sects shall be abolished, and all the children of God, united in faith, and hope, and love, shall know no bond of union but Christ--when party names, party love, and party zeal shall all be buried in one common grave, to rise no more for ever!

      The second evil I have specified, being sufficiently stated and established, I proceed to mention a third evil resulting from, and inseparably connected with, infant sprinkling, viz.:--

      3d. Infant sprinkling imposes a religion upon the subjects of it before they are aware of it, and thus deprives them of exercising the liberty of conscience in choosing that which they have examined, and in refusing that which they disapprove. It is despotism of the worst kind, to impose upon the conscience. It is the most despotic act in the life of the greatest despot, to impose a religion upon his new-born infant before it is aware; and, as soon as it can reason, to tell it that it vowed so and so in baptism, and that it would be a sin of the deepest dye if it should not, as soon as possible, attend to the things it had vowed. This is to fetter the exercise of reason, to rivet on the conscience a superstition of the worst kind, and, as fir as the parent can, for ever deprive it of any thing worthy to be called [408] liberty of conscience. Hence it is, that all Pedobaptist sects increase more by natural generation than by any other means. Very few are added to Romanists, Episcopalians, Seceders, &c., in any other way than by ordinary generation.

      There is nothing more congenial to civil liberty than to enjoy an unrestrained, unembargoed liberty of exercising the conscience freely upon all subjects respecting religion. Hence it is that the Baptist denomination, in all ages and in all countries, has been, as a body, the constant asserters of the rights of man and of liberty of conscience. They have often been persecuted by Pedobaptists; but they never politically persecuted, though they have had it in their power.

      If the conscience becomes once enslaved by any undue or early imposition upon it, it is impossible, or next to impossible, ever to assume or enjoy any thing like that noble independence of hind which our Saviour taught in these words, "Call no man Master or Father upon earth; for one is your Father in heaven; and all ye are brethren." This was in a conscientious point of view. The dearest liberty on earth is liberty of conscience; and this lost, all other liberty is but a name--"a charm that lulls to sleep." It is an awful encroachment to encroach on the liberty of conscience; and how awful to encroach upon, yea, deprive an infant of its liberty, before it can appreciate the greatness of the blessing, or calculate the magnitude of the loss. Could Pedobaptists but reflect on the cruelty of their practice, and observe what an engine of despotism it is in the hands of some of those sects they despise, how would they blush and for ever abandon the tradition! Can they suppose it is the Spirit of God that adds one million annually to the church of Rome? Or that it is the Spirit of God that adds a hundred thousand annually to the church of England? Or can they believe that it is the same Spirit that adds a hundred thousand to the different grades of Presbyterians in the same space of time?--seeing they are all aided by natural generation and infant sprinkling! No; if they think as rational beings, they cannot think so. It is this rite, and the vows they are taught to consider themselves under thereby, that is the powerful cause of such extensive additions. Infant sprinkling is, then, an enthralling, despotic, and cruel rite, destructive of liberty of conscience and injurious to civil liberty. This will be farther manifest from the following item:-- [409]

      4th. Infant sprinkling has uniformly inspired a persecuting spirit. This is a heavy charge, and requires to be well supported. I do not, however, mean to say that every Pedobaptist has a persecuting spirit; or that every such church is necessarily a persecuting church. No; for I know many honourable exceptions; but I mean to say that infant sprinkling has, as a system, inspired all the parties that have embraced, it with a persecuting spirit at one time or other, and they have manifested it as far as the civil authority supported them. Nor do I mean to go back to tell of the persecutions of the church of Rome in old times, which everybody knows: nor of the persecutions of countries far remote; but I will support the fact with documents more striking, because more modern, and because more within our country. I shall begin with my own State--the good old State of Virginia.

      Anno Domini 1659, 1662, and 1663, several acts of the Assembly of this State made it penal in parents to refuse to have their children baptized; and prohibited the Quakers from assembling; and made it penal for any master of a ship to bring a Quaker into the State. By the laws passed about this time, every person was compelled to go to church every Sunday, under the penalty of fifty pounds of tobacco. But Quakers and non-conformists were liable to the penalties of the 23d Elizabeth, which was £20 sterling for every month's absence; and, moreover, for every twelve months' absence, to give security for their good behaviour. Quakers were farther liable to a fine of two hundred pounds of tobacco for each one found at one of their meetings; and in case of insolvency of any of them, those who were able, to pay for the insolvents.¹ The persecution of the Baptists in Virginia did not extend so far as in some other States--at least, I can find no documents to authorize me to say that it extended farther than fines, imprisonments, and the unguarded use of the tongue. James Ireland, a Baptist, was imprisoned in Culpepper jail, and treated very ill in other respects, for his tenets. A Mr. Thomas also, an active and useful minister, was much persecuted. The object of the above laws and persecution was to protect the Episcopal church, the salary of whose minister was first settled at sixteen thousand [410] pounds of tobacco, in the year 1696, to be levied by the vestry on the tithables of the parish, and so continued to the Revolution.

      So late as the year 1768, John Waller, Lewis Craig, James Childs, and others, were seized by the sheriff and hauled before three magistrates, who stood in the meeting-house yard, and who bound them in the penalty of one thousand pounds to appear at court two days after. At court, they were arraigned as disturbers of the peace. On their trial, they were vehemently accused by a lawyer, who said to the court, "May it please your worships, these men are great disturbers of the peace; they cannot meet a man on the road, but they must ram a text of Scripture down his throat." As they were moving through the streets of Fredericksburg, they sang the hymn, "Broad is the road that leads to death." Waller and his companions continued in jail forty-three days, and were discharged without any conditions. While in prison, they continually preached through the grates; and, although the mob prevented the people from hearing as much as possible, yet many heard to their permanent advantage. After their discharge, they preached as before. Sometimes their enemies rode into the water to mock them baptizing; and often mocked them when preaching, by playing cards and drinking spirits while they were preaching. "Two noted sons of Belial, who were notorious for these practices, named Kemp and Davis, both died soon after, ravingly distracted, each accusing the other for having led him into these crimes."

      "In Goochland county, these persecutions raged vehemently. On the 10th of August, 1771, while a Mr. Webster was preaching from these words, 'Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works, a magistrate pushed up, and drew back his club to knock him down. Some person caught the club and prevented mischief. Being backed by two sheriffs, he seized Messrs. Webber, Waller, Greenwood, and Ware. They were committed to prison. They were retained thirty days in close confinement and fed on bread and water. As they preached through the grates and made many converts, they were glad to let them go on their giving bond for good behaviour. A thousand false reports from the pulpit and the press, misrepresenting the doctrines and practices of these holy men, were among the means employed to keep up this fiery trial. [411] But the Revolution took the power out of the hands of their persecutors, and their cause triumphed." This is a small specimen of the Pedobaptist persecution of the Baptists in Virginia, which will suffice my purpose in the mean time.--(See Benedict's History of the Baptists, vol. 2, pp. 63-73.) I shall now quote a few facts from history in support of this item, to show that not only the Pedobaptists of the Episcopacy, but those of other Protestant sects, manifested the same spirit. In the good State of Massachusetts, (which I select not as the only State in which persecution raged, but as eminent for the exercise of this zeal;) the Baptists suffered much for many years. In this State, in the year 1644, we are informed by Mr. Hubbard, that a poor man, by the name of Painter, suddenly became a Baptist; and having a child born, would not suffer his wife to carry it to be baptized. He was complained of to the court, and was enjoined by it to suffer his child to be baptized. He had the impudence to tell them that infant baptism was an antichristian ordinance: for which he was tied up and whipped!

      About this time, a law was passed for the suppression of the Baptists. After a long preamble, in which the Baptists were accused of two great crimes--the one, for denying that the civil magistrate could lawfully inspect or punish men for any breach of the laws in the first table of the law; the other, for saying that infants should not be baptized; it concludes with these words: "It is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptism of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordinance of the magistracy, or their lawful right to make war, or to punish the outward breaches of the first table, and shall appear to the court wilfully and obstinately to continue therein, after due time and means of conviction, every such person shall be sentenced to banishment." Of this act, Mr. Hubbard, their own historian, says, "But with what success, it is hard to say, all men being naturally inclined to pity them that suffer; and the clergy, doubtless, had a hand in framing this shameful act, as they, at this time, were the secretaries and counsellors of the legislature."

      About this time, the Westminster Divines sat in London. A book written by one of the Baptist ministers was dedicated to [412] the Westminster Divines. Soon after the news reached England of the law to banish the Baptists, Mr. Tombes sent a copy of this work to the ministers of New England, and, with it, an epistle dated from the Temple in London, May 25, 1645, "hoping thereby to put them upon a more exact study of that controversy, and to allay their vehemency against the Baptists." "But the Westminster Assembly," says Backus, "were more ready to learn severity from this country, than these were to learn lenity from any."

      All letters and remonstrances proved ineffectual with the New-England divines. They held fast their integrity; and in 1651 the Baptists were unmercifully whipped, and, not long after, the Quakers were murderously hung.²

      The non causa pro causa, or the assigning of a false cause for a true one, is a form of sophistry into which our best educated theologians not unfrequently fall. We have a very striking illustration of a refined species of this sophism in the following extracts from a very interesting writer and tourist, George B. Cheever, D.D., an author of deserved reputation. He gives to a second cause what is really due to the first. The union of Church and State with him appears to be the entire cause of religious persecution. But who pleads far and institutes the union of Church and State? In other words, what is the cause of this union? Pedobaptism!--I affirm, PEDOBAPTISM. The Pedobaptists, one and all, unite the Church and the State. They would, if they could, bring the whole world into the church by the sheer force of natural birth, without a second birth. Hence, so far as their influence goes, the Church and State are united. In Roman Catholic countries it is all Church and no State. The Jewish commonwealth is their beau ideal of a Christian Church State. The whole nation sealed as soon as born with the seal of God's covenant. Hence, every Pedobaptist church has persecuted in the ratio of its power. The formal union of Church and State is but the natural operation of infant baptism. Whatever, then, we now cite from Dr. Cheever as the fruit of a Church and State institution, is to be ascribed, not to this effect, but to its cause--Pedobaptism. With this in mind, we shall now read a few extracts from the doctor, taken from his Wanderings of a Pilgrim in the Shadow of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau Alp:-- [413]

      "The history of Geneva is singular, as containing within itself a demonstration that, under every form, both of truth and error, the State and Church united are intolerant. The State oppresses the Church--the Church, in her turn, tempted by the State, oppresses those who differ from her, and so the work goes on. At first it was the State and Romanism--the fruit, intolerance; the next, it was the State and Unitarianism--the fruit, intolerance; next, it was the State and Calvinism--the fruit, intolerance; in the Canton de Vaud, it is the State and democratic infidelity--the fruit, intolerance. The demonstration is such that no man can resist its power. Inoculate the Church, so to speak, with the State, and the same plague invariably follows; no constitution, not the most heavenly, is proof against the virus.

      "John Knox, escaping from the caste of St. Andrews in Scotland, and compelled to flee the kingdom for his life, found security in Geneva, because there his religion was the religion of the State. If it had not been, he would merely have gone out from one fire for another fire to devour him. Servetus, escaping in like manner from a Roman Catholic prison in France, where he would otherwise have been burned in person, as he was in effigy, fled also to Geneva; but his religion not being the religion of the State, the evangelical republic burned him. And thus the grand error of the Reformers in the union of Church and State occasioned what perhaps is the darkest crime that stains the annals of Reformation. The burning of Servetus in Roman Catholic fires would have added but an imperceptible shade to the blackness of darkness in a system which invariably has been one of intolerance and cruelty. But the man was permitted by Divine Providence to escape, and come to Geneva to be burned alive there, by a State allied to a system of faith and mercy, to show to all the world that even that system cannot be trusted with human power, that the State, in connection with the Church, though it be the purest church in the world, will bring forth intolerance and murder. The union is adulterous, the progeny is sinful works, even though the mother be the imbodied profession of justification by faith. God's mercy becomes changed into man's cruelty. So in the brightest spot of piety then on the face of the earth, amidst the out-shining glory of the great doctrine of the gospel, justification by faith, God permitted the smoke and the cry of torture by fire to go up to heaven, to teach the nations that even purity of doctrine, if enforced by the State, will produce the bitterest fruits of a corrupt gospel and an infidel apostasy; that is the lesson read in the smoke of the funeral pyre of Servetus, as it rolls up black against the stars of heaven, that the union of Church and State, even of a pure church in a free State, is the destruction of religious liberty.

      "It was this pestiferous evil that at one time banished from [414] the Genevese State its greatest benefactor, Calvin himself: the working of the same poison excludes now from the pulpit of the State some of the brightest ornaments of the ministry of modern times--such men as Malan, D'Aubigne, and Gaussen. It is true that it is the corruption of doctrine and hatred of Divine truth that have produced this last step; but it could not have been taken had the Church of Christ in Geneva been, as she should be, independent of the State. Such measures as these are, however, compelling the Church of Christ to assume an independent attitude, which, under the influence of past habit and example, she would not have taken. Thus it is that God brings light of darkness and good out of evil.

      "These are the views of great men in Switzerland--Vinet and Burnier, D'Aubigne and Gaussen; and in this movement it may be hoped that the evangelical church in Geneva will yet take the foremost place in all Europe. But as yet, says Merle D'Aubigne, 'we are small and weak. Placed by the hands of God in the centre of Europe, surrounded with Popish darkness, we have much to do, and we are weak. We have worked in Geneva; and we maintain there the evangelical truth on one side against Unitarian Rationalism, and on the other side against Papistical Despotism. The importance of the Christian doctrine is beginning to be again felt in Geneva. Our canton is becoming a mixed one, and we are assailed by many Roman Catholics coming to our country to establish themselves there.' Nevertheless, our hope is strong in the interposition of God by his good Spirit, which will yet take the elements of evil and change their very nature into good.

      "Dr. Gaussen, the able coadjutor of D'Aubigne, and author of the admirable work on Inspiration, entitled Theopneustia, was pastor of the parish of Santigny, in the canton of Geneva, in the year 1815. It was about this time that he likewise became a Christian, and preached the way of salvation through faith in Christ crucified. In his teachings among his flock, Dr. Gaussen, becoming dissatisfied with the Catechism imposed for instruction by the national church, principally because it had no acknowledgment of the great fundamental truths of the gospel, laid it aside, and proceeded to teach the children and candidates for communion in his own way. For this he was brought before the "Venerable Company of Pastors," and finally was by them censured, and suspended for a year of his right to sit in the Company.

      "But Dr. Gaussen and his friends, D'Aubigne and others, nothing terrified by their adversaries, proceeded still farther. They framed the Evangelical Society of Geneva, took measures for the preaching of the gospel in the city, and established, though in weakness and fear and in much trembling, yet in reliance upon God, the Evangelical Theological Seminary. [415] Finding that all efforts and threatenings to prevent or stay their career was in vain, the Venerable Company proceeded, in 1831, to reject Mr. Gaussen from the functions of pastor of Santigny, and to interdict Messrs. Gaussen, Galland, and Merle from all the functions of the pulpit in the churches and chapels of the canton. What a spectacle was this! It recalls to mind the action of the Genevese republic three hundred years before, in the banishment of Calvin and Farel from the city. The result has been happy in the highest degree. Forced out of the national church, these men have been made to feel what at first it is so difficult to be convinced of, that the church of Christ belongs to Christ, and not to any nation. They see that there is a new transfiguration, a new approximating step of glory for the reformed church in Europe, in which she shall become free in Christ--shall assume her true catholicity, her supremacy, her independence; becoming for ever and everywhere a church in the spirit, the truth, and the liberty of Christ.

      "In Geneva the church is in subjection. The people cannot choose their pastors; their pastors are compelled to receive every man to Christian communion as an indiscriminate right of citizenship. At a certain age, every young man comes into the church by law,³ no matter how depraved and declares in the most solemn manner that he believes, from the bottom of his heart, the dogmas in which his pastor has instructed him; that he will still hold to them, and renounce the world and its pomps. For entering the army, for becoming an apprentice, for obtaining any employ, the young man must take the communicant's oath. Have you been to the communion? is the test question first and implacable. Hence, if a pastor should refuse the communion to a young libertine, the candidate and the whole family would regard it as the highest insult and injustice, debarring the young man from rights sacred to him as a citizen, shutting indeed the door of all civil advancement against him. To say nothing of piety, how can even morality itself be preserved in a church in such degrading subjection to the civil power?

      "The constitution of Geneva is such, that by its provisions there is no liberty of instruction or congregation but only by authority of the Council of State. The ninth and tenth articles provide that liberty of instruction shall be guarantied to all Genevese, only under the reserve of dispositions prescribed by the laws for the interest of public order and good manners; and also that no corporation or congregation can be established without the authority of the Council of State. It is easy to see that with such a constitution of Church and State, the Romanists have every thing made easy to their hand in Geneva, and only [416] need a civil majority, when, by appointing their own Council of State, they can put every heretical congregation to the torture, and forbid, by law, any school or assembly of instruction or worship other than pleases them, under whatever severity of penalty they may choose to impose. No wonder that the cry of every Christian patriot in Geneva should be, Separate Church and State! Separate Church and State! May God help them in their struggle after liberty!"

      So, then, whether in connection with Orthodoxy or Heterodoxy, Papalism, Protestantism, High Church, or Low Church, Trinitarianism or Unitarianism, Pedobaptism becomes Church and State, and, as such, persecutes to confiscation of goods, banishment, and death.

[CBAC 405-417]