Nehemiah Adams

“ Few things are more interesting than the sight of a young couple, with their first-born child, standing before God. A world of thought and feeling passes through their minds in those hallowed moments. Not much more than a year had gone since they stood before God to take the vows of marriage from those same lips, perhaps, which now lead their devotions, and bless them out of the house of the Lord. ”

“ Happy the children who have them for helpers of their faith and piety. Let us all, as church-members, be sponsors, at least by prayers and a kind interest for it, to every child of a Christian brother or sister, when we witness its baptism. Suppose a church-member, after witnessing the baptism of an infant, its parents, perhaps, entire strangers, goes to his place of private prayer, and, moved with disinterested love toward those parents and the child, supplicates the blessing of God upon them. Could Christian love be more pure than this, or prayer more pleasing to God? ”

“ Bringing children to church, and baptizing them, unless the parents are themselves in covenant with God, is as wrong as it was for those earthly-minded Corinthians, whom Paul rebukes, to eat the Lord's Supper. They made a feast, or a meal, of the supper; and some use baptism just to give a child a name,—to "christen" it, as they say,—in mere compliance with a custom. But the abuse of a thing is no valid argument against it. The last supper is the subject of far more perversion; it gives occasion to a vast amount of superstition and folly. ”

“ Grace is not hereditary in any sense that compromises our free agency; its subjects are born "not of blood;" there are many of the children of the kingdom who will be cast out into outer darkness, but among them, we may venture to say, will not be found those whose parents diligently sought their moral and religious culture in the exercise of a strict, judicious, affectionate, prayerful, watch and care, praying with them in secret, which, it seems to me, is, perhaps, the most powerful of all the means which a parent can use to influence the moral and religious character of a child. ”

“ K. Well, there is no quarrelling with you; but let me say that when another sect sees you employing an ordinance which has no warrant in the Bible,—sprinkling water upon people, on proper subjects and improper subjects for baptism, when we know that the word baptize means to immerse, and that believers only are properly baptized,—how can we be silent? Would you be silent if Episcopalians should set up Latin prayers, or the confessional; or the Methodists turn their love-feasts into the old Passover? ”

“ I explained this, in as simple language as I could, to my excellent friends, and told them, "If God's covenant, which circumcision sealed, were Mosaic, and therefore national, Jewish, we should presume that it ceased with the Jewish nation; or, if it continued, that it was restricted to their posterity. But why should God bestow his inestimable blessing on the father of the faithful, and take it away from the faithful themselves? We love our children, as Abraham did his. It is as important to us that God should be the God of our seed, as it was to Abraham. ”

“ If, then, we excommunicate an unconverted child, we can only declare the covenant of God with him, henceforth, to be null and void,—an assumption from which, probably, Christian parents and ministers would shrink. The same long-suffering God, who bears and forbears with ourselves, we shall be disposed to feel, is the God of this recreant child, and no good man would dare to pronounce the child to be separated from the mercies of 'the God of patience and hope.' One who, being in a church, breaks a covenant to which he assented, may be a just subject for discipline, even to excommunication ”

“ If we must be buried in water, when we are baptized, then no one is risen with Christ who has not been immersed. You thus disfranchise four fifths, to say the least, of God's elect. No, my dear sir, being buried with Christ in baptism does not mean immersion. People in the frozen ocean, the sick and dying, who are sprinkled with water in the name of the Christian's God, are "buried with Christ in baptism into death;" ”

“ Baptizing a child, with right views and feelings, leads to much prayer for it. Renew the consecration of your child daily, in little, sudden acts of prayer, as well as in more deliberate offices of devotion. Thus surround it with an atmosphere of faith and consecration, not forgetting the public transaction in which you covenanted with God, before many witnesses, for the child, and He, my dear daughter, with you, in its behalf. For, a covenant implies two parties; and God is one, and you are the other; and Jesus is the mediator, who said of children, "Of such is the kingdom of God." ”

“ The little child is an offering which gathers about itself more of rich joy and [Pg 132] gratitude, recollection, present bliss, and anticipation, than any gift of God; it is itself an ordinance, a little rite, a sign and seal of covenants and love to which earth has no parallel. The light of nature almost teaches us the propriety of infant dedication, in the use of the prevailing religious rite. The only wise God manifested his goodness and wisdom, in establishing his covenant with the children of those who love him, as really as in creating a companion for Adam. ”

“ I was born and brought up in that Communion, and never thought much of the subject of baptism till I hoped that I began to love God, here in my sick-room. If baptism is so important as our ministers tell us it is, in their preaching and by their practice,—for you know how important they deem it, in times of religious attention, to have people baptized in our way,—I cannot see why it is not important to me. If it is man's ordinance, and merely for an effect on others, very well ”

“ The inclusion of children with their believing parents has been the great means of perpetuating religion in the earth. It is a stream which washed the shores of Judaism under the name of circumcision; now it washes the shores of the Gentiles under the name of baptism. For the Saviour or the apostles to have reäppointed infant dedication, with the use of the cotemporary initiating ordinance, would, to my mind, be as superfluous as for the allied powers to have agreed that the Danube should still run through Austria. ”

“ I remember reading a book of "Pædobaptist Concessions," containing a formidable array of points yielded by our writers, so that a common reader might ask, What have you left as the ground of your belief and practice? But the thought which arose in my mind was, Notwithstanding all these concessions, they who make them are among the firmest believers in baptism by sprinkling, and in infant baptism. That cause must be affluent in proofs, and deeply rooted in the scriptural convictions of men, which can afford to make such concessions to its antagonists. ”

“ People cannot give full evidence that they are Christians unless they make a public profession of religion. They cannot properly remember Jesus without partaking of his body and blood. Depend upon it, my dear friends, God sets great value on ordinances, and our observance of them. God has given us two sacraments, and he who dispenses with them because he undervalues them, or undertakes to say that they are not necessary to him, or to any in this age of the world, is in peril. The only danger from forms and ordinances is when they are of human origin. ”

“ In the case of a converted husband or wife, while one companion remained a heathen, the children were, nevertheless, counted "holy," because the Gospel leaned to the side of mercy, and gave the children the benefit of the believing parent's faith, instead of attainting them through the heathen parent. So, when a child is baptized in error, he shall not suffer, nor even lose anything, if he will accept the covenant with its seal. No one can justly reply to all this, that, therefore, every one even though not of the church, may offer his child for baptism. ”

“ What loving-kindness it must appear to them, that God gave them the ordinance of baptism, and became their God! How it will stand out before their minds as a principal illustration of being saved by grace!"
"And then, again," said Mr. Blair, "think of the millions of children in heaven who were not baptized,—saved, the most of them, from heathen and pagan lands. How 'the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.' Baptism is not an austere law. There is nothing austere or rigid, in any sense, connected with it ”

“ We can add nothing, we take nothing away from an express, divine command; but, as the first disciples were left to infer that a Sabbath was as necessary after Christ brought in the new creation as before, and adjusted it to the celebration of the Saviour's rising from the dead, so we infer that God's covenant with believing parents for their children is as desirable now as ever; that all the original reasons for it now exist; and, therefore, we take the initiating ordinance of religion now, as the church in former ages did, and apply it to the children. All church-members did it before Christ ”

“ Mr. K. Yes; but in all matters of faith and practice, the New Testament, like the doings of the latest session of the legislature, is the rule for New Testament believers. You might as well have tried to govern the ancient Jews with the New Testament, as enforce the laws of the Old Testament on us.
Mr. M. Is the privilege of having God stand in a special relation to my child an Old Testament ordinance, in the same sense with ceremonial observances?
Mr. K. Not exactly that, but it is a superstition to baptize children, now that circumcision is done away, and believers' baptism is enjoined. ”

“ Should every Christian who witnesses the baptism of a child, afterward pray for that immortal soul in [Pg 66] secret, with special petitions, what an increased privilege and blessing it would be esteemed to offer a child in baptism, and in God's house, before a witnessing church, rather than at home! I hope, my dear daughter, that you and Percival, as private Christians, will do good to your own souls, and to the souls of baptized children, and to their parents, by making it one of your private rules to pray in secret, on the Sabbath, for every child whose baptism you witness. ”

“ Every descendant of Adam is an example under that law. Thus it was for nineteen generations,—from Adam to Abraham.
When, therefore, God reëstablished his church at the call of Abraham, it was no new thing to connect parents and their children in covenant promises and blessings. It had its origin in the very nature of man. Abraham, and the covenant made with him for all believers and their children, are, indeed, a striking illustration of a principle recognized and applied by the Most High; but the principle itself is older than Abraham,—it is coëval with the moral constitution of man. ”

“ Some of my brethren give great occasion to those who resist children's baptism, to argue against it as Romish in its nature and effect, by not discriminating clearly in using the words members and membership in connection with children. Read almost any modern book against infant baptism, and you will find that its main force is directed against the practice as a "church and state" institution, and as making persons members of the church by means of sacraments. Let us who are really free from such imputation, assert the truly spiritual nature and object of this ordinance. ”

“ To take people from sleep, ordinarily, and immerse them in water, would be a singular act; much more when they are weak and faint, as the jailer's family must have been, from fear and excitement. In my own case, I could not be immersed, even at home; it would probably cost me my life. Sprinkling came to me as so sweetly harmonious, in that scene of the jailer's baptism, that I believed it to be the apostolic mode of baptizing, and I told Mr. D. that I should imitate the jailer; and that I should send for a minister who could imitate Paul and Silas. ”

“ Why may I not be a Christian by myself? We know what we say, in reply to such questions. We are aware how much the public act helps the private feelings and conduct, besides being required by our feelings when they are deep and strong. I thought of this illustration: In the wakeful moments of the night, upon a lonely bed, one feels a special nearness to God. He can think of God, as he lies upon his pillow, both with prayer and meditation; but suppose that he rises from his bed and kneels at the bedside, and, with oral prayer, prevents the night-watches, and cries? ”

“ But the day of types and symbols was succeeded by another era, in which the church of God comes forth with the glory of God risen upon her, and all the nebulous matter of types and ceremonies is gathered together into two permanent sacraments; for human nature was not beyond the need and help of outward signs. Now, in the earlier of the two ages of the church, the child was recognized by a rite of the church; the child, with that rite inscribed on him, was the sign-bearer of the church's perpetuity. ”

“ You are to give him away, to be disposed of by the Most High. You are to be, for Him, what the mother of Moses was for Pharaoh's daughter—nurses to your own child. This dear child lay helpless and exposed, with all of us, to destruction; the Redeemer passed that way ”

“ To make the case with us parallel, our whole Christian community ought to be members of the church. No examination or discrimination should be used; to belong to the Christian community should constitute church-membership.
But this, we know, is not the case. God chooses now to make up his visible church not as formerly, but of those who give credible evidence of regeneration. They who worship with us, but do not profess to be Christians, are hopeful subjects of effort and prayer, whom we expect to receive hereafter to the visible church, on profession of their faith. ”

“ They need just what the ordinance of baptism, properly observed and fully carried out by covenanting parents, would do for them. But, in being present at the formation of new churches, I have mourned to see that, instead of declaring infant baptism to be the duty of believers, as was formerly done in our older churches, a compromise with modern lax views is made, by merely permitting infant baptism, saying, in the confession of faith, that, "Baptism is the privilege only of believers and their children." ”

“ So long as I believe in regeneration by the Holy Spirit, I cannot feel that baptized children, as such, are, in any sense [Pg 69] whatever, in which the term is generally received among men, members of the church of Christ; while, in another and most important sense, they do belong to the church, hold a relation to it, and are a part of it. Strictly speaking, and in the highest spiritual sense, they are not even "the lambs of Christ's flock;" for lambs have the nature of sheep; but the children of believers are, by nature, children of wrath, even as others. ”

“ Much can be done by these simple expedients to promote a quiet and pleasant attendance upon the delightful rite. I like the practice, in your church, of chanting low some appropriate words of Scripture before and after the baptism.
I am constrained to say, though with diffidence, that I fear some of my good brethren give erroneous impressions by what they say of the church-membership of children. They push it to extremes. They discuss the question, What shall be done with baptized children, who, on arriving at years of understanding, refuse to enter into covenant with God? ”

“ I will not be a sectarian, even for infant baptism.
Mr. M. Are you in favor of admitting people to our church who do not believe in infant baptism?
Dr. D. Young people, who say that their minds are not made up on the subject, or those who have not had their attention directed to it, cannot be required to signify their cordial assent to it; but it is enough if they are not opposed. In the case of parents who steadfastly decline to practise infant baptism, after waiting a proper time to instruct them, I advise them to join another denomination more in accordance with their views. ”

“ There is a divine side to sacraments, as there is a divine side in conversion. While we are active in regeneration, there is a work of God wrought in us, distinct from our faith and repent [Pg 59] ance, yet inseparable from it. So, while sacraments are vows on our part to God, they are, primarily, gifts, pledges, seals, on his part to us. Therefore, when one says, "I can bring up my children, I can be a Christian, without the use of sacraments," it is a proper reply, "But can God do his part toward your children, and toward you, without them?" ”

“ They could not circumcise them; but their teachers, being spiritually-minded men, knew that circumcision was a seal of faith, not merely of nationality, and must not the converts have required some sign and symbol still for their children? Now they had long been used to the baptism of proselytes and their children; so that baptizing their own children, as a substitute for circumcising them, could not have been a violent change with those whom Peter's vision of the sheet had taught that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs. ”