578 APPENDIX TO PART III

“Whether children should be baptized or not?” Above all do not argue that because children are baptized, therefore Baptism can only mean this, or that. You are not told distinctly in the Bible that children ought to be baptized, but you are told very distinctly what Baptism is, and does. Receive, therefore, from the Bible, as you would from any other book, what you are told distinctly before what you are told obscurely, and what you are told directly before what you are told by implication. Treat the question of Infant Baptism separately; determine first what baptism is, and then whether it should be given to children, but do not assume the fitness of a practice which rests for a great part of its justification on the mere opinion and custom of the Church, and, on the strength of it, weaken or dispute the meaning of the words of the Bible. Take the words of the Bible as they are written, and by them judge the practice of the Church.

§ 10. Again, do not tacitly admit the thought that there may be two kinds of Baptism-one for infants, another for adults. I have not seen this thought definitely expressed, but I have traced it in many persons’ minds. I only ask that you will not admit it tacitly. Write it out, and express it clearly. You perhaps think that the modern baptism of Infants is a totally different thing from the serious Baptism of St. Paul or Cornelius; or you think that infant baptism is only semi-baptism, and is completed in Confirmation. Whichever of these views you entertain, state it distinctly, and consider what will follow from it: in the first case, that the Baptism should be repeated at mature age; in the second, that the Grace of Baptism may perhaps be withheld by God till the time of Confirmation. Consider these points separately, but do not confuse either of them with the plain question, What is this grace of perfect baptism, received at its proper time?

§ 11. With these precautions, let us in order examine the views stated above (page 577). I am not going to assert any of them. I shall only endeavour to put such questions to you as may help you in defining them, and in applying Scripture to test them.

(I.) That a certain degree of Grace is given at Baptism, but a degree not amounting to entire conversion.

Here we at once find the argument respecting baptism complicated by one respecting the nature of Conversion; and the fact is that in all disputes of the kind, every approach to an understanding on the one head has always been prevented by misunderstanding on the other. The two questions cannot be settled at once, and yet they are so closely connected that it is difficult to reason out either of them without a side reference to the influence which its decision is likely to have upon the other. The High Churchman will not think out the meaning of Conversion, lest its explanation should interfere with his notion of the efficacy of Baptism; the Evangelical Churchman explains away every text respecting Baptism, which appears likely to diminish the importance he has been accustomed to attach to the idea of Conversion. Let us get rid of this chameleon fashion of looking at this thing with one eye up and another down. Let us take up the Evangelical word and idea of Conversion candidly, and see how far either of them may be defined.

§ 12. Many experienced Christians look back to this period, and some even to the moment, when they first became servants of Christ. Doubtless, whether remembered or not, there has been such a moment for all Christians

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