REINHARD [A.D.1753–1812] “A solemn washing, instituted by Christ, by which novices are initiated into the Christian republic, and receive a right to the eternal salvation that can be hoped for only through Christ."1 In the "Articles of Smalcald "[A.D.1536-37], LUTHER says (329 [2 s.]):a "We do not believe, with the Dominicans, who, unmindful of the word and institution of God, say that God has conferred upon the water, and endued it with a spiritual power, which washes away sin by the water. Nor do we agree with the Franciscans, who teach that sin is washed away in baptism by the assistance of the divine will, and that this ablution takes place only by the will of God, and not in the least by the word and the water." MELANCTHON says [1531], in the "Apology of the Confession of Augsburg (of which Winer remarks, "With regard to its intrinsic worth, this work no doubt occupies the first place among the symbols in the Lutheran church"), (156 [52] Hut.):3 “a. Christ commanded to baptize all nations, therefore, also, infants. b. The kingdom of Christ exists only by the word and sacraments (John iii. 3). Therefore it is not possible for infants to be introduced into the kingdom of Christ, except through means of baptism. c. The promise of salvation belongs even to little children (Matt. xviii. 14; xix. 14; Mark x. 13. d. God himself has borne witness that he approves of the baptism of children, inasmuch as, through all the ages in which he has gathered the church out of the human race through the use of that sacrament with children, he has imparted the Holy Spirit to the baptized, and bestowed at length upon very many, eternal salvation. e. Baptism has taken the place of circumcision (Col. ii. 12)." DR. KRAUTH' presents the doctrines of the evangelical Lutherans in the 1 "Solennis lotio a Christo instituta, per quam tirones reipublicae Christianae initiantur, ac sperandae per Christum sempiternae salutis jus accipiunt." * p. 316. "Non sentimus cum Dominicanis, qui verbi et institutionis Dei obliti dicunt, Deum spiritualem virtutem aquae contulisse et indidisse, quae peccatum per aquam abluat. Non etiam facimus cum Franciscanis, qui docent, Baptismo ablui peccatum ex assistentia divinae voluntatis, et hanc ablutionem fieri tantum per Dei voluntatem, et minime per verbum et aquam.” 3 p. 316. "a) Christus baptizari jussit omnes gentes, ergo et infantes. b) Regnum Christi tantum cum verbo et sacramento existit. John iii. 3. Ergo infantes quoque regno Christi ut inscrantur, non nisi mediante Baptismo fieri potest. c) Promissio salutis pertinet etiam ad parvulos, Matt. xviii. 14; xix. 14; Mark x. 13. d) Deus ipse testatum fecit, se probare Baptismum parvulorum dum hactenus tot saeculis Ecclesiam, isto sacramenti usu infantibus collato, ex genere humano collegit, Spiritum sanctum iisdem baptizatis impertivit, ac tandem aeternum plurimos salvos fecit. e) Baptismus successit in locum circumcisionis, Col. ii. 12." 4 Baptism. The Doctrine set forth in Holy Scripture, and taught in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. By Charles P. Krauth, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Philadelphia (Gettysburgh, 1866), p. 43 sqq. following propositions, sustained by numerous quotations and arguments, for which we have not room. In his view, the Second Article of the Augsburg Confession teaches that (1) "When the new birth takes place, it is invariably wrought by the Holy Spirit." (2) But it has "baptism as an ordinary means." (3) "Baptism is the only ordinary means of universal application." "The Confession does not teach that the outward part of baptism regenerates those who receive it." "The necessity of the outward part of baptism is not the absolute one of the Holy Spirit, who himself works regeneration, but the ordinary necessity of the precept and of the means. Baptism is not always followed by regeneration. Regeneration [is] not always preceded by baptism." "By Christian baptism our church understands not mere water (Cat. Min. 361. 2), but the whole divine institution (Cat. Maj. 491. 38-40) resting on the command of the Saviour, Matt. xxviii. 19 (Cat. Min. 361. 2), in which he comprehends, and with which he offers the promise Mark xv. 15 (Cat. Min 362. 8), and which is, therefore, ordinarily necessary to salvation (Aug. Conf. ii. 2; ix. i. 3), in which institution water (whether by immersion, Cat. Maj. 495. 65, sprinkling or pouring, Cat. Maj. 492. 45), applied by a minister of the gospel (Aug. Conf. v. 1 and xiv.), in the name of the Trinity (Cat. Min. 361. 4), to adults or infants (Aug. Conf. ix. 2), is not merely the sign of our profession, or of our actual recognition as Christians, but is rather a sign and testimony of the will of God toward us (A.C. xiii. 1), offering us his grace (A.C. ix.), and not ex opere operato (A.C. xiii. 3), but in those only who rightly use it, that is, who believe from the heart the promises which are offered and shown (A. C. xiii. 2; Cat. Maj. 490. 33) is one of the instruments whereby the Holy Ghost is given (A. C. v. 2), who excites and confirms faith, whereby we are justified before God (A. C. iv., v. 3), so that they who thus receive or use it are in God's favor (A. C. ix. 2), have remission of their sins (Nic. Creed 9). are born again (A. C. ii. 2), and are released from condemnation and eternal death (A. C. ii. 2; Cat. Min. 361. 6), so long as they are in a state of faith, and bring forth holy works (Aug. Conf. xiii. 1, 6; Cat. Min. 362. 11–14); while, on the other hand, where there is no faith, a bare and fruitless sign, so far as benefit to the soul is concerned, alone remains (Cat. Maj. 496. 73), and they who do not use their baptism aright, and are acting against conscience, letting sin reign in them, and thus lose the Holy Spirit, are in condemnation from which they cannot escape, except by true conversion (A. C. xiii.), a renewal of the understanding, will, and heart (Cat. Maj. 496. 68, 69; Form. Conc. 605. 70)."4 IV. DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. The [High Church] Episcopalian view of baptismal regeneration is thus stated by BLUNT: "In the case of infants there can be no doubt that grace 1 Ibid. 47. p. pp. 62, 63 Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology. Edited by Rev. J. H. Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. (London, 1871), Article " Baptism," p. 78 note. 2 p. 48. 8 p. 53. 4 is always sacramentally given in baptizing; they cannot put any bar or hinderance to the infusion of grace, like an adult, by impenitence, nor was original sin ever regarded as per se excluding from the grace of regeneration. St. Augustine always either states or assumes, that all baptized children are regenerate (De baptismo, lib. iv. c. 24, 25: De praedestinatione Sanct.sec. 29), a truth probably first denied by Calvin. (See Institutes, lib. iv. c. 15, sec. 10)." DR. PUSEY states it thus: "The view, then, here held of baptism, following the ancient church and our own, is that we be ingrafted into Christ, and thereby receive a principle of life, afterwards to be developed and enlarged by the fuller influxes of his grace; so that neither is baptism looked upon as an infusion of grace distinct from the incorporation into Christ, nor is that incorporation conceived of as separate from its attendant blessings." Again, after having defended the translation of avwbev (in John iii. 3) by "from above" instead of "again,” he says, "No change of heart, then, or of the affections, no repentance, however radical, no faith, no life, no love, come up to the idea of this "birth from above"; it takes them all in, and comprehends them all, but itself is more than all; it is not only the creation of a new heart, new affections, new desires, and, as it were, a new birth, but is an actual birth from above or from God, a gift coming down from God, and given to faith through baptism; yet not the work of faith, but the operation of "water and the Holy Spirit"; the Holy Spirit giving us a new life, in the fountain opened by him, and we being born therein of him, even as our blessed and incarnate Lord was, according to the flesh, born of him in the virgin's womb. Faith and repentance are the conditions on which God gives it; water, sanctified by our Lord's baptism, the womb of our new birth; love, good works, increasing faith, renovated affections, heavenly aspirations, conquest over the flesh, its fruits in those who persevere; but it itself is the gift of God, a gift incomprehensible, and not to be confounded with or restrained to any of its fruits (as a change of heart, or conversion), but illimitable and incomprehensible, as that great mystery from which it flows, the incarnation of our Redeemer, the ever-blessed Son of God." In reply to the question: "Do all the promises and descriptions of baptism apply to infant baptism?" he says: "Certainly, unless they did in effect, infant baptism were wrong. In the one [adults] the healing antidote is infused when the poison has spread through the whole frame, and through the whole frame arrests; in the other [infants] it is imparted ere yet the latent poison has begun to work." Again, speaking of confirmation as a part of baptism, he says, "While we bear in mind the continued gifts of his goodness, in the life which he upholds, the fatness of the olivetree which he imparts, the membership of the family which he continues, ... ... 1 Tracts for the Times, No. 67 (4th ed., London, 1836), p. 24. still there is eminently one date from which all these present blessings are derived, differing from them in so far as it is one, the sun-rising, the engrafting, the adoption, the birth; one act, transitory as an act, although abiding in its effects. Now this is precisely the mode of speaking which Scripture uses in making mention of our Christian privileges.... It speaks of the gifts as having been conferred in the past, though they are continued on to the present to such as have not forfeited them." He had said before, "Our life in Christ is, throughout, represented as commencing, when we are by baptism made members of Christ and children of God. That life may through our negligence afterwards decay, or be choked, or smothered, or well-nigh extinguished, and by God's mercy again be renewed and refreshed; but a commencement of life in Christ, after baptism, a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness, at any other period than at that one first introduction into God's covenant, is as little consonant with the general representations of holy Scripture, as a commencement of physical life long after our natural birth is with the order of his providence." HOOKER thus: " 3 Baptism is a sacrament which God hath instituted in his church, to the end that they which receive the same might be incorporated into Christ, and so, through his most precious merit, obtain as well that saving grace of impartation which taketh away all former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue of the Holy Ghost, which giveth to the powers of the soul the first disposition towards future newness of life." CURTEIS thus: "The word 'regeneration' is a technical expression.... The regeneration of an individual in the waters of baptism is, ... in short, nothing less than a second birth, not now into the world, but into the family and household of Jesus Christ; there to be educated, there to come under - at once and by right, as sons - all the healthful, elevating influences of his family, and there to grow up by slow and (it may be) sadly interrupted degrees to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.'" Wesley is quoted by Curteis thus: "It is certain that our church supposes that all who are baptized in their infancy are at the same time 'born again,' and it is allowed that the whole office for the baptism of infants proceeds upon this supposition." MOZLEY represents well the Calvinistic element in the church of England. His work on Baptismal Regeneration is of great value in many ways, 8 Hooker, quoted by Pusey. Ibid. p. 24. Eccl. Pol. b. v., c. lx. § 2. 4 Bampton Lectures, 1871. Dissent in its Relation to the Church of England. By Geo. H. Curteis, M.A. (London, 1872), p. 235. • The Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. By J. B. Mozley, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. (London, 1856). and not the least in his defence of some of the fundamental principles of interpretation. He maintains that the word regeneration expresses, both in the Bible, and in the writings of the Fathers, and in the symbols of the church of England, not merely a capacity for goodness, as the high churchmen maintain, but a state of actual goodness, and that it is applied to all baptized persons by way of concession, or as a charitable hypothesis, as when the prayer-book speaks of "our religious and gracious queen." He ably maintains that this form of high hypothesis is of frequent occurrence in language, and is as allowable, certainly, as for the high church party to explain away the meaning of regeneration till it signifies nothing but a "germ" or "capacity for goodness. He would depart from the strict letter of the prayer-book in his general conception of the phrase, while retaining the proper high meaning of regeneration. They would depart from the letter in their explanation of the word "regenerate." The most favorable view of the other party is given in the words of Wilberforce : "When this work (regeneration) is wrought in individual men, what is effected is not the complete and instant change of their whole nature, but the infusion of that divine seed of a higher humanity by which their spiritual progress is commenced. Such a gift does not exclude the action of man's own responsibility. It is but to place men in a higher state of trial by the infusion of a principle above nature. The new seed must have time to overcome the old principle of corruption; its existence must be recognized, its growth encouraged. Those who deny regeneration in baptism are ready in common to admit that the children of Christian parents are placed by birth in a state of higher Christian privilege than others.... Does not experience prove that principles lie dormant in the mind which it requires fitting occasions to call forth? Does not this happen perpetually in respect to natural endowments, the capacity for art, the faculties of judgment? And why, then, may not the same thing be expected in the case of a higher nature which is supernaturally engrafted on the ancient stock of their kind." Upon this Mozley remarks : "This is a description of regeneration as a new and mysterious spiritual capacity simply, and not as actual goodness." And to such a low conception he all along objects. V. PRESBYTERIAN VIEW. The theory and practice of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches are too well known to need extended notice here, and we have already presented them as fully as our limits will allow. It is enough to say, that 1 See Cap. iii. Also, Pref. p. xxxi sqq. 2 Wilberforce's Doctrine of Holy Baptism, pp. 27-33. 8 Mozley, Introd. p. xxv. See preceeding Number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, pp. 284-294; also, below, p. 568. |