Although our appeal is to Scripture, our Pœdo-Baptist friends must really not suppose that the testimony of the Church is all in their favour, for certainly for two or three centuries if not more, the baptism of infant children was not the general practise of the Christian church.
- It was opposed by Tertullian at the latter end of the second century or the beginning of the third; and at a far later date than this, we find baptism administered to persons of mature years. ... But we find that several of the most eminent and pious fathers of the Church were not baptized until they had arrived at maturity and were thoroughly Christian men.
- In the fourth century flourished Gregory of Nazianzum, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine; these eminent men, who were afterwards such great theologians, were all them the sons of Christian parents, at least of Christian mothers, and yet not one of them was baptized until mature age, and until each of them had strong religious convictions; in fact, none of them were baptized until they were truly converted to Jesus Christ. The case of Gregory peculiarly in point. Gregory of Nanzianzum, was the son of a Christian bishop; his pious mother Nonna, dedicated him to God from his very birth end yet when was he baptized? When he was thirty years old!
- The instance of Agustine is, perhaps, still more remarkable. Agustine was the object of his pious mother’s deepest solicitude; his conversion was the thing nearest and dearest to her heart, and yet she did not have him baptized. When he was a grown up lad. he was attacked with a very dangerous illness, and expressed a strong desire for baptism, and yet the ordinance was deferred, and the great Augustine was not baptized until he was a man thirty-two years old and was fully imbued with the knowledge and spirit of the gospel of Christ. Now mark you, I do not say that these cases prove that there was no such thing as infant baptism in the fourth century, and it is for no such purpose I adduce them; but they do prove this, that Christian mothers, such as Nonna and Monica, and Anthusa, Christian women of the very highest intelligence and piety, did not in that age deem it necessary that their infant children should be baptized, but left the matter to be one of personal profession when their children should have a faith to profess.
But still we would appeal to the Scriptures, and when we come to consult God’s Word, strange as it may appear, there is not one passage from the beginning to the end which indicates the baptism of any but professed believers in Christ. It is true that households were baptized, and it is said that there might have infant children in those households. It is a sufficient answer to this to say, that there might not have been any infants in those households. As to the Phillipian jailer, we read that “he believed in God with all his house;” as to the house of Stephanas, we read “they had addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints:” and, as to Lydia, there is not the slightest evidence that she was either a wife or mother. And in fact, so far as historical narrative is concerned, there is not a single incident in Scripture that leads us to suppose that any but professed believers in Christ were baptized. It would have been very strange if such an incident had turned up anywhere, seeing that our Lord’s commission runs in this order; “Go ye, teach all nations, baptizing them; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” And we read that Peter says, “Repent and be baptized every one of you;” and again, he says, “Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” Does it not appear that he would have anticipated an objection and would have allowed an objection if there had been no evidence of conversion to God? And Paul says, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Is not this the work of an intelligent and believing man?
Or to come to our text, Paul says that we are “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also we are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.” The meaning of this passage seems to be this:—We are buried and risen with Christ through the faith of the operation of God, through faith in God’s operation, God’s work, energy, and power, as manifested in the resurrection of Christ from the dead; that is to say, those persons evidently were baptized, buried, and raised with Christ through their faith in the fact that God’s energy or power had raised Jesus Christ from the dead; the fact of Christ’s resurrection is evidently attached to baptism here. And the apostle Peter says, “Baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ;” that is to say, those persons who have been baptized are persons who have the answer of a good conscience towards God through Christ’s resurrection; through faith in Christ’s resurrection they now have the consciousness of the forgiveness of sins; and so faith in the resurrection of Christ, is represented as an essential and indeed the chief element of Christian baptism.
Brown, H. S. (1861). Christian Baptism. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 7, pp. 268–269). London: Passmore & Alabaster.
Comments