Church of the Firstborn

“ It is not the virtue of our fathers, nor the faith of any other, that can give us the true holiness which we have by virtue of our new-birth. Yet even through the common faith and Spirit of God's Church, (a thing which no quality of parents can prejudice) I say, through the faith of the Church of God, undertaking the motherly care of our souls, so far forth we may be and are in our infancy sanctified, as to be thereby made sufficiently capable of Baptism, and to be interested in the rites of our new-birth for their piety's sake that offer us thereunto. ”

“ Christian parents who desired to present their offspring to the Lord, having been invited, came forward and stood before the altar with their little ones in their arms. Six bright-eyed, innocent babes were, on the faith of their believing parents, consecrated to God in the Christian ordinance of infant baptism. It was a most beautiful, pleasing and impressive service.
After singing, "Take my life and let it be, Consecrated, Lord, to Thee," the pastor invited all children, calling them by name, who were ten years of age and had been baptized in the church when infants, to come forward. ”

“ But if it is not a means of grace to infants, does not the baptizing them plainly tend to nullify a gospel ordinance, depriving both them and the church of its benefits?
14. Has not the practice of infant baptism, in all ages of the church, been a pernicious source of delusion? And is there any way of avoiding its injurious influence on the world, and regaining the benefit of the ordinance to the church, but by following up the principles of the New Testament, and abandoning the practice of infant baptism? ”

“ From the year 400 to 1150, no society of men, in all that period of seven hundred and fifty years, ever pretended to say it was unlawful to baptize infants: and still nearer the time of our Saviour there appears to have been scarcely any one who advised the delay of infant baptism. Irenæus, who lived in the second century, and was well acquainted with Polycarp, who was John’s disciple, declares expressly, that the church learned from the Apostles to baptize children. Origen, in the third century, affirms, that the custom of baptizing infants was received from Christ and his Apostles. ”

“ Peter protested. "Nobody but a priest could christen a child."
"I can christen the child as well as a priest," said Mrs. O'Brien; "you take a child to the priest to be christened, when it's easy and convenient, but when there's no priest near, and the child is sick and seems likely to die before one can come, anybody can christen it; and that christening stands, and it never has to be christened after. That's the law of the Church. Bring me the water. I never saw a child that seemed more likely to die than this one, if it's a child at all." ”

“ Some say that the Confession means by ‘elect infants,’ just what the Methodists do in their form of baptism. But after all, the Presbyterian Church is the only one probably whose doctrine does consistently save infants. We declare they are saved by election. If not, tell me how they can be saved? They cannot repent and believe as adults do. ”

“ Higher consecration would crown the home, better wisdom would guide the strength of father, and holier love fill the soul of mother, from their communion with the kingdom that claims parent and child for its own. The Christ-child should be remembered in the Christian Church. When remembered truly, he will save childhood from Herod’s hands. ”

“ In the Old World I have seen venerable men, strong men, and women kneeling together at the shrine of Mary pouring out their sufferings into the mother heart of the Virgin and rising refreshed and solaced. What Catholicism has done for its church, Protestantism must do for Christianity everywhere, by revealing the mother-life and the mother-spirit of divine nature. In the lesson of life there is not only a father but a mother-love. ”

“ The women of Christian countries generally nurse their children about one year; though many exceed that time. Among the Catholics and Lutherans, the ceremony of baptism is usually performed privately at the house of the minister, soon after the birth of the child, because they are in haste to administer a rite which they deem necessary for salvation; but other Protestant sects have their children baptized in church, after divine service. ”

“ The spiritual regeneration effected by Baptism is somewhat like carnal birth, in this respect, that as the child while in the mother's womb receives nourishment not independently, but through the nourishment of its mother, so also children before the use of reason, being as it were in the womb of their mother the Church, receive salvation not by their own act, but by the act of the Church. ”

“ So the admitting of infants to the first initiating sacrament of the Old Testament, circumcision, because they with their parents' were accounted within the covenant of grace by God, Gen. xvii., is a rule for us now to admit infants to the first initiating sacrament of the New Testament, baptism, because infants are federally holy, and within the covenant with their believing parents now, as well as then, Rom. ”

“ The sacrament of baptism is necessary to infants, who of course are unconscious recipients of it, as they are unconscious of the sin in which they are born. This stain which they inherit, but do not incur by any act of their own, is washed away by the sacrament ordained by Christ, which admits them into the society of the church at the same time that their birth admits them to human society, its privileges as well as its trials. ”

“ Now, seeing that they admit the necessity of baptizing infants,—finding themselves unable to contravene that authority of the universal Church, which has been unquestionably handed down by the Lord and His apostles,—they cannot avoid the further concession, that infants require the same benefits of the Mediator, in order that, being washed by the sacrament and charity of the faithful, and thereby incorporated into the body of Christ, which is the Church, they may be reconciled to God, and so live in Him, and be saved, and delivered, and redeemed, and enlightened. ”

“ The Romish Church allows midwives, in cases of danger, to baptize a child before it is come entirely out of its mother’s womb: where it is to be observed, that some part of the body of the child must appear before it can be baptized, and that it is baptized on the part which first appears: if it be the head it is not necessary to rebaptize the child; but if only a foot or hand appears, it is necessary to repeat baptism. ”

“ The Church, very early in the history of the Christian era, became the avowed protector of the parentless children and it soon became a custom to confide infants to the Church when mothers felt that they were unable to raise their offspring.288 The gain made by the Church by this step was immeasurable, for however much those opposed to Christianity might argue, the onward march was irresistible when religion rested itself on the mother instinct and, without accusation or attempted retribution, willingly assumed the ties that maternity was obliged to forego. ”

“ And yet, in another sense, they hold a most important relation to the flock of Christ, as no other children do. In its most important sense, they are not to the church even what they are to the state; they have no place whatever in the invisible church,—the church which is saved,—till they are born again. If children are regenerated by the act of baptism, of course it is otherwise ”

“ And since infants are all alike incapable of opposing the Divine benefits, and the wilfulness which they might hereafter show, has no place there, and God in His Word has given us no ground for making any distinction between them, we must conclude, as the whole Antient Church did, that the benefits of Holy Baptism are by virtue of the Sacrament itself, and of the Divine Institution, imparted to all infants. ”

“ As soon as convenient after the birth of a child, or after receiving a child by adoption, the parents, with other members of the family, should come to the church to be welcomed by the congregation and to give thanks to Almighty God. ”

“ It must be at once admitted that the New Testament contains no clear proof that infants were baptized in the days of the apostles. (Christian Baptism, page 28.)
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Albert Taylor Bledsoe, of whom it has been truthfully said, “He was one of the most candid and trustworthy writers that the Methodist Church has produced,” says:
It is an article of our faith, that “the baptism of young children (infants) is in any wise to be retained in the church, as one most agreeable to the institution of Christ.” ”

“ He does not wait (as the Baptists teach) until he is old enough to make a free choice of second birth, but as soon as he is born into the world ("within seven or fourteen days," the Prayer Book orders) he is reborn into the Church. Grace does not let nature get ten to twenty years' start, but gives the soul a fair chance from the very first: and so, and only so, is a God of love "justified in His saying, and clear when He is judged".
Adoption.
But there is a second word. The Baptismal Thanksgiving calls the Baptized "God's own child by Adoption". ”

“ The only thing on which our Church insists in the case of a child as absolutely necessary, is the new birth. Ordinarily this is effected, by the Holy Spirit, through baptism, as the means of Grace. When the means, however, cannot be applied, the Spirit of God can effect this new birth in some other way. He is not bound to means. And from what we have learned above of the will of God, toward these little ones, we have every reason to believe that He does so reach and change every infant that dies unbaptized. ”

“ Before the rite the infant's forehead is anointed with oil in the church, and it is completely anointed in the baptistery before being plunged into the font. Every infant has two god-parents, who act as sponsors at its subsequent marriage. These persons by undertaking this office are placed in a relationship of affinity close enough to be a bar to marriage. After the baptism the child is confirmed in the nave with oil and the imposition of the priest's hands, and after being very tightly bound up in its swaddling clothes is handed to the god-parents. ”

“ CHAPTER VI. HOME INFLUENCE AND TRAINING IN THEIR RELATION TO THE KEEPING OF THE BAPTISMAL COVENANT.
According to the last chapter, it is indeed a high and holy ideal that every Christian parent should set before him in regard to his children. Every child that God gives to a Christian parent is to be so treated that, from the hour of its baptism, it is to be a son or daughter of God. It is to be so fostered and nurtured and trained that, from its earliest self-consciousness, it is to grow day by day in knowledge and in Grace. ”

“ I have heard old people in many places say of sickly infants, “Ah, there will be a change when he has been taken to church! Children never thrive till they have been christened.” Another informs me that about five years ago an instance came under his notice of the healing power supposed to be wrought by baptism as regards the body. The infant child of a chimney-sweeper at Thorne, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was in a very weak state of health, and appeared to be pining away. A neighbour looked in, and inquired if the child had been baptized. ”

“ The Holy Fathers notice how Sacred Scripture uses "mother" not only to refer to the woman who by the disposition of divine Providence bears children to life, but also to that great mother of the human lineage, of God's people on earth, that is the holy Church. So as to save and transmit to all generations the treasure of divine Truth, the eternal Word made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not found an academy, he did not choose a philosophical school, he did not trust a group of wise men: he founded the holy Mother Church, he established a mother who would rear and educate children ”

“ There are those belonging to what is called the Mother Church who say give them the care and training of children at from three to seven years old, and they could so ground them in their faith, that they for ever afterwards, would remain good Catholics. The secret of their great success is no doubt in their strict observance of outward ordinances and ceremonies. ”

“ No child can be saved unless it be first reached by renewing Grace. If ever an infant did die, or should die, in that state in which it was born, unchanged by divine Grace, that infant is lost. There are, there can be, no unregenerate souls in heaven. Where there is no infant regeneration, there can be no infant salvation. ”

“ That most delightful Lutheran theologian, Luthardt, says: "Infant baptism is a comfort beyond any other, but it is also a responsibility beyond any other." Again: "As Christians we know that God has bestowed upon our children not only natural, but spiritual gifts. For our children have been baptized and received by baptism into the Covenant of Grace. To preserve them in this baptismal Grace, to develop in them the life of God's spirit, this is one side of Christian education. To contend against sin in the child is the other." ”

“ Yet there is a growing disposition to find in infant baptism the guarantee of hereditary church membership. Washington Gladden, What is Left? 252-254—“Solidarity of the generations finds expression in infant baptism. Families ought to be Christian and not individuals only. In the Society of Friends every one born of parents belonging to the Society is a birthright member. Children of Christian parents are heirs of the kingdom. The State recognizes that our children are organically connected with it. When parents are members of the State, children are not aliens. ”