and effect of old age; and therefore it is certain he did sanctify all the periods of it: and why should he be an infant, but that infants should receive the crown of their age, the purification of their stained nature, the sanctification of their persons, and the saving of their souls by their infant Lord and elder Brother? 32. "Omnis enim anima eousque in Adam censetur, donec in Christo recenseatur; tamdiu immunda, quamdiu recenseatur:" Every soul is accounted in Adam, till it be new accounted in Christ; and so long as it is accounted in Adam, so long it is unclean; and we know, "no unclean thing can enter into heaven :" and therefore our Lord hath defined it, Unless ye be born of water and the Spirit, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;" that is, ye cannot be holy. It was the argument of Tertullian; which the rather is to be received, because he was one less favourable to the custom of the Church in his time, of baptizing infants, which custom he noted and acknowledged, and hath also, in the preceding discourse, fairly proved. And indeed, (that St. Cypriand may superadd his symbol,) "God, who is no accepter of persons, will also be no accepter of ages. For if to the greatest delinquents, sinning long before against God, remission of sins be given, when afterwards they believe, and from baptism and from grace no man is forbidden; how much more ought not an infant be forbidden, who, being new born, hath sinned nothing, save only that being in the flesh, born of Adam, in his first birth he hath contracted the contagion of an old death? who therefore comes the easier to obtain remission of sins, because to him are forgiven not his own, but the sins of another man. None ought to be driven from baptism and the grace of God, who is merciful, and gentle, and pious unto all; and therefore much less infants, who more deserve our aid, and more need the Divine mercy, because, in the first beginning of their birth, crying and weeping, they can do nothing but call for mercy and relief." "For this reason it was,' saith Origen, "that they to whom the secrets of the Divine mysteries were committed, did baptize their infants, because there was born with them the impurities of sin," which did b Tertullian. a S. Cyprian, ep. ad Fidum. c Lib. de Anima, c. 39 et 42. e Origen, lib. v. ad Rom. c. 6. need material ablution, as a sacrament of spiritual purification. For that it may appear that our sins have a proper analogy to this sacrament, the body itself is called "the body of sin; and therefore the washing of the body is not ineffectual towards the great work of pardon and abolition. Indeed, after this ablution there remains concupiscence, or the material part of our misery and sin: for Christ, by his death, only took away that which, when he did die for us, he bare in his own body upon the tree. Now Christ only bare the punishment of our sin, and therefore we shall not die for it: but the material part of the sin Christ bare not; sin could not come so near him; it might make him sick and die, but not disordered and stained. He was pure from original and actual sins; and therefore that remains in the body, though the guilt and punishment be taken off, and changed into advantages and grace; and the actual are relieved by the Spirit of grace descending afterwards upon the Church, and sent by our Lord to the same purpose. 33. But it is not rationally to be answered what St. Ambrose says, "Quia omnis peccato obnoxia, ideo omnis ætas sacramento idonea : " for it were strange that sin and misery should seize upon the innocent and most unconsenting persons; and that they only should be left without a sacrament and an instrument of expiation. And although they cannot consent to the present susception, yet neither do they refuse; and yet they consent as much to the grace of the sacrament as to the prevarication of Adam; and because they suffer under this, it were but reason they should be relieved by that. And it were better," as Gregory Nazianzen affirms," that they should be consigned and sanctified without their own knowledge, than to die without their being sanctified;" for so it happened to the circumcised babes of Israel and if the conspersion and washing the door-posts with the blood of a lamb did sacramentally preserve all the first-born of Goshen, it cannot be thought impossible or unreasonable, that the want of understanding in children should hinder them from the blessing of a sacrament, and from being redeemed and 66 f S. Ambros. de Abraham. Patriar. lib. ii. c. 11. 8 Greg. Νaz. Κρεῖσσον γὰρ ἀναισθήτως ἀγιασθῆναι, ἢ ἀπελθεῖν ἀσφράγιστα καὶ arizora. Orat. xl. in S. Bapt. washed with the blood of the Holy Lamb, " who was slain for all from the beginning of the world." 34. After all this, it is not inconsiderable that we say the Church hath great power and authority about the sacraments; which is observable in many instances. She appointed what persons she pleased, and in equal power made an unequal dispensation and ministry. The apostles first dispensed all things, and then they left off exterior ministries to attend to "the word of God and prayer:" and St. Paul accounted it no part of his office to baptize, when he had been separated by imposition of hands at Antioch to the work of preaching and greater ministries; and accounted that act of the Church the act of Christ, saying, "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." They used various forms in the ministration of baptism: sometimes baptizing" in the name of Christ," sometimes expressly invocating the holy and everblessed Trinity; one while, "I baptise thee," as in the Latin Church, but in the Greek, "Let the servant of Christ be baptised." And in all ecclesiastical ministries, the Church invented the forms, and in most things hath often changed them, as in absolution, excommunication. And sometimes they baptized people under their profession of repentance, and then taught them; as it happened to the gaoler and all his family; in whose case there was no explicit faith aforehand in the mysteries of religion, so far as appears; and yet he, and not only he, but all his house, were baptized at that hour of the night when the earthquake was terrible, and the fear was pregnant upon them; and this upon their master's account, as it is likely but others were baptized in the conditions of a previous faith, and a new-begun repentance." They baptized in rivers or in lavatories, by dipping or by sprinkling for so we find that St. Laurence did, as he went to martyrdom; and so the Church did sometimes to clinics; and so it is highly convenient to be done in northern countries; according to the prophecy of Isaiah," So shall he sprinkle many nations," according as the typical expiations among the Jews were usually by sprinkling. And it is fairly relative to the mystery, to the "sprinkling with the blood of Christ," . h Non ut delinquere desinant, sed quia desierunt, as Tertul. phraseth it. and the watering of the furrows of our souls with the dew of heaven, to make them to bring forth fruit unto the Spirit and unto holiness.' The Church sometimes dipped the catechumen three times, sometimes but once." Some churches use fire in their baptisms; so do the Ethiopians; and the custom was ancient in some places. And so in the other sacrament: sometimes they stood, and sometimes kneeled; and sometimes received it in the mouth, and sometimes in the hand; one while in leavened, another while in unleavened bread; sometimes the wine and water were mingled, sometimes they were pure; and they admitted some persons to it sometimes, which at other times they rejected; sometimes the consecration was made by one form, sometimes by another: and, to conclude, sometimes it was given to infants, sometimes not. And she had power so to do; for in all things, where there was not a commandment of Christ expressed or implied in the nature and in the end of the institution, the Church had power to alter the particulars as was most expedient, or conducing to edification. And although the after-ages of the Church, which refused to communicate infants, have found some little things against the lawfulness, and those ages that used it found out some pretences for its necessity; yet both the one and the other had liberty to follow their own necessities, so in all things they followed Christ. Certainly there is infinitely more reason why infants may be communicated, than why they may not be baptized. And, that this discourse may revert to its first intention, although there is no record extant of any church in the world, which, from the apostles' days inclusively to this very day, ever refused to baptise their children; yet if they had upon any present reason, they might also change their practice, when the reason should be changed; and therefore, if there were nothing else in it, yet the universal practice of all churches, in all ages, is abundantly sufficient to determine us, and to legitimate the practice, since Christ hath not forbidden it. It is a sufficient confutation to disagreeing people to use the words of St. Paul, "We have no such 1 Aqua refectionis, et baptismi lavacrum, quo anima sterilis ariditate peccati ad bonos fructus inferendos divinis muneribus irrigatur. - Cassiodor. m. xxiii. ps. 2. τ Ενιοι τὰ ὦτα τῶν σφραγισαμένων κατεσημήναντο, dixit Heracleon apud Clem. custom, nor the churches of God," to suffer children to be strangers from the covenant of promise, till they shall enter into it as Jews or Turks may enter; that is, by choice and disputation. But although this alone, to modest and obedient, that is, to Christian spirits, be sufficient; yet this is more than the question did need: it can stand upon its proper foundation. "Quicunque parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat, anathema esto." He that refuseth to baptize his infants, shall be in danger of the council." THE PRAYER. O holy and eternal Jesus, who, in thine own person, wert pleased to sanctify the waters of baptism, and, by thy institution and commandment, didst make them effectual to excellent purposes of grace and remedy; be pleased to verify the holy effects of baptism to me and all thy servants, whose names are dedicated to thee in an early and timely presentation, and enable us with thy grace to verify all our promises, by which we were bound then, when thou didst first make us thy own portion and relatives in the consummation of a holy covenant. O be pleased to pardon all those indecencies and unhandsome interruptions of that state of favour, in which thou didst plant us by thy grace, and admit us by the gates of baptism: and let that Spirit, which moved upon those holy waters, never be absent from us, but call upon us, and invite us, by a perpetual argument and daily solicitations and inducements to holiness; that we may never return to the filthiness of sin, but, by the answer of a good conscience, may please thee, and glorify thy name, and do honour to thy religion and institution in this world, and may receive the blessings and the rewards. of it in the world to come, being presented to thee pure and spotless in the day of thy power, when thou shalt lead thy church to a kingdom and endless glories. Amen. Conc. Milevit. can. 2. |