A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

IV. I believe not that it is the universal church that giveth the infant title to baptism: for, 1. He that giveth title to the covenant and baptism, doth it as a performer of the moral condition of that title. But God hath no where made the church's faith to be the condition of baptism or salvation, either to infidels or their seed. 2. Because the universal church is a body that cannot be consulted with to give their vote and consent: nor have they any deputies to do it by. For there is no universal, visible governor: and if you will pretend every priest to be commissioned to act and judge in the name of the universal church, you will want proof, and that is before confuted. 3. If all have right that the universal church offereth up to God, or any minister or bishop be counted its deputy or agent to that end, it is in the power of that minister (as is said) to level all, and to baptize and save all; which is contrary to the word of God.

V. I believe that godfathers as such, being no adopters or proprietors, are not the performers of the condition of salvation for the infant, nor give him right to be baptized. 1. Because he is not their own, and therefore their will or act cannot go for his; because there is no word of God for it that all shall be baptized or saved that any christians will be sponsors for. God's church blessings are not tied to such inventions, that were not in being when God's laws were made. Where there is no promise or word, there is no faith. 3. No sponsors are so much as lawful (as is showed before) who are not owners or their deputies, or mere secondary subservient parties, who suppose the principal covenanting party. 4. And as to the infant's salvation, the sponsors may (too oft) be ignorant infidels and hypocrites themselves, that have no true faith for themselves; and therefore not enough to save another. 5. And it were strange if God should make no promise to a wicked parent for his own child, and yet should promise to save by baptism all that some wicked and hypocrite godfathers will offer him. And that thus the seed of heathens and christians should be levelled, and yet an ignorant, bold undertaker to carry away the privilege of saving persons from them both. All this is but men's unproved imaginations. He that never commandeth godfathers, but forbiddeth the usurping sort, and only alloweth human prudence to use the lawful sort, did never put the souls of all children, christians and heathens, into their hands (any more than into the hands of the priest that baptizeth them).

VI. I do not find that remote ancestors that are dead, or that are not proprietors of the children, are the performers of the condition by which they have right to baptism or salvation. 1. Because God hath put that power and work in the hands of others, even the parents, which they cannot nullify. 2. Because the promise of mercy to thousands is on supposition that the successors make no intercision. 3. Else the threatenings to the seed of the wicked would signify nothing, nor would any in the world be excluded from right, but all be levelled; because Noah was the common father of mankind: and if you lay it on dead ancestors, you have no rule where to stop till you come to Noah.

VII. I conclude therefore that it is, clearly, the immediate parents, (both or one,) and probably any true domestic owner of the child, who hath the power to choose or refuse for him, and so to enter him into covenant with God, and so by consent to perform the conditions of his right. For, 1. Abundance of promises are made to the faithful and their seed, of which I have spoken at large in my book "Of Infant Baptism." And besides the punishment of Adam's sin, there is scarce a parent infamous for sin in Scripture, but his posterity falleth under the punishment, as for a secondary, original sin or guilt. As the case of Cain, Ham, the Sodomites, the Amalekites, the Jews, Achan, Gehazi, &c. show. And 1 Cor. vii. 14, it is expressly said, "Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy" (of the sense of which I have spoke as aforecited).

Object. But if owners may serve, one may buy multitudes, and a king or lord of slaves, whose own the people are, may cause them all to be baptized and saved.

Answ. 1. Remember that I say, that the christian parent's right is clear, but I take the other as more dark; for it is principally grounded on Abraham and the Israelites circumcising their children born to them in the house or bought with money: and how far the parity of reason here will reach is hard to know. All that I say is, that I will not deny it, because favores sunt ampliandi. 2. If such a prince be a hypocrite, and not a sincere christian himself, his faith or consent cannot save others, that cannot save himself. 3. It is such a propriety as is conjunct with a divine concession only that giveth this power of consenting for an infant: now we find clear proof of God's concession to natural parents, and probable proof of his concession of it to domestic owners, but no further that I know of.280 For, (1.) It is an act of God's love to the child for the parent's sake; and therefore to such children as we are supposed to have a special nearness to, and love for. (2.) And it is a consent and covenanting which he calls for, which obligeth the promiser to consequent pious education, which is a domestic act. (3.) They are comprised in the name of parents, which those that adopt them and educate them may be called. (4.) And the infants are their children, not their slaves. But now, if the emperor of Muscovy, Indostan, &c. had the propriety in all his people as slaves, this would not imitate paternal interest and love, but tyranny, nor could he be their domestic educater. Therefore I must limit it to a pro-parent, or domestic, educating proprietor.

Quest. XLI. Are they really baptized who are baptized according to the English liturgy and canons, where the parent seemeth excluded, and those to consent for the infant who have no power to do it?

Answ. I find some puzzled with this doubt, Whether all our infants' baptism be not a mere nullity: for, say they, the outward washing without covenanting with God, is no more baptism, than the body or corpse is a man. The covenant is the chief essential part of baptism. And he that was never entered into covenant with God was never baptized. But infants according to the liturgy, are not entered into covenant with God, which they would prove thus: they that neither ever covenanted by themselves, or by any authorized person for them, were never entered into covenant with God (for that is no act of theirs which is done by a stranger that hath no power to do it); but, &c. – That they did it not themselves is undeniable: that they did it not by any person empowered by God to do it for them they prove, 1. Because godfathers are the persons by whom the infant is said to promise; but godfathers have no power from God, (1.) Not by nature. (2.) Not by Scripture. 2. Because the parents are not only not included as covenanters, but positively excluded, (1.) In that the whole office of covenanting for the child from first to last is laid on others. (2.) In that the twenty-ninth canon saith, "No parent shall be urged to be present; nor admitted to answer as godfather for his own child: " by which the parent that hath the power is excluded: therefore our children are all unbaptized.

To all this I answer, 1. That the parent's consent is supposed, though he be absent. 2. That the parent is not required to be absent, but only not to be urged to be present; but he may if he will. 3. That the reason of that canon seems to be their jealousy, lest any would exclude godfathers. 4. While the church hath no where declared what person the sponsors bear, nor any further what they are to do, than to speak the covenanting words, and promise to see to the pious education of the child, the parents may agree that the godfathers shall do all this as their deputies, primarily, and in their steads, and secondarily as friends that promise their assistance. 5. While parents really consent, it is not their silence that nullifieth the covenant. 6. All parents are supposed and required to be themselves the choosers of the sponsors or sureties, and also to give notice to the minister beforehand: by which it appeareth that their consent is presupposed. And though my own judgment be, that they should be the principal covenanters for the child expressly, yet the want of that expressness, will not make us unbaptized persons.

Quest. XLII. But the great question is, How the Holy Ghost is given to infants in baptism? And whether all the children of true christians have inward sanctifying grace? or whether they can be said to be justified, and to be in a state of salvation, that are not inherently sanctified? And whether any fall from this infant state of salvation?

Answ. Of all these great difficulties I have said what I know, in my "Appendix to Infant Baptism," to Mr. Bradford and Dr. Ward, and of Bishop Davenant's judgment. And I confess that my judgment agreeth more in this with Davenant's than any others, saving that he doth not so much appropriate the benefits of baptism to the children of sincere believers as I do. And though by a letter in pleading Davenant's cause, I was the occasion of good Mr. Gataker's printing of his answer to him, yet I am still most inclined to his judgment; not that all the baptized, but that all the baptized seed of true christians, are pardoned, justified, adopted, and have a title to the Spirit and salvation.

But the difficulties in this case are so great, as drive away most who do not equally perceive the greater inconveniences which we must choose, if this opinion be forsaken: that is, that all infants must be taken to be out of the covenant of God, and to have no promise of salvation. Whereas surely the law of grace as well as the covenant of works included all the seed in their capacity.

1. To the first of these questions, I answer, 1. As all true believers, so all their infants do receive initially by the promise, and by way of obsignation and sacramental investiture in baptism, a jus relationis, a right of peculiar relation to all the three persons in the blessed Trinity: as to God, as their reconciled, adopting Father; and to Jesus Christ, as their Redeemer and actual Head and Justifier; so also to the Holy Ghost, as their Regenerator and Sanctifier.281 This right and relation adhereth to them, and is given them in order to future actual operation and communion: as a marriage covenant giveth the relation and right to one another, in order to the subsequent communion and duties of a married life; and as he that sweareth allegiance to a king, or is listed into an army, or is entered into a school, receiveth the right and relation, and is so correlated, as obligeth to the mutual subsequent offices of each, and giveth right to many particular benefits. By this right and relation, God is his own God and Father; Christ is his own Head and Saviour; and the Holy Spirit is his own Sanctifier, without asserting what operations are already wrought on his soul, but only to what future ends and uses these relations are. Now as these rights and relations are given immediately, so those benefits which are relative, and the infant immediately capable of them, are presently given by way of communion: he hath presently the pardon of original sin, by virtue of the sacrifice, merit, and intercession of Christ. He hath a state of adoption, and right to divine protection, provision, and church communion according to his natural capacity, and right to everlasting life.

2. It must be carefully noted, that the relative union between Christ the Mediator and the baptized persons, is that which in baptism is first given in order of nature, and that the rest do flow from this. The covenant and baptism deliver the covenanter, 1. From divine displicency by reconciliation with the Father: 2. From legal penalties by justification by the Son: 3. From sin itself by the operations of the Holy Ghost. But it is Christ as our Mediator-Head, that is first given us in relative union; and then, 1. The Father loveth us with complacency as in the Son, and for the sake of his first Beloved. 2. And the Spirit which is given us in relation is first the Spirit of Christ our Head, and not first inherent in us; so that by union with our Head, that Spirit is next united to us, both relatively, and as radically inherent in the human nature of our Lord, to whom we are united.282 As the nerves and animal spirits which are to operate in all the body, are radically only in the head, from whence they flow into and operate on the members as there is need (though there may be obstructions); so the Spirit dwelleth in the human nature of our Head, and there it can never be lost; and it is not necessary that it dwell in us by way of radication, but by way of influence and operation.

These things are distinctly and clearly understood but by very few; and we are all much in the dark about them. But I think, (however doctrinally we may speak better,) that most christians are habituated to this perilous misapprehension, (which is partly against Christianity itself,) that the Spirit floweth immediately from the divine nature of the Father and the Son (as to the authoritative or potestative conveyance) unto our souls. And we forget that it is first given to Christ in his glorified humanity as our Head, and radicated in Him; and that it is the office of this glorified Head, to send or communicate to all his members from himself, that Spirit which must operate in them as they have need.

This is plain in many texts of Scripture. Rom. viii. 32, "He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?" (when he giveth him particularly to us).

1 John v. 11, 12, "And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son; he that hath the Son hath the life, and he that hath not the Son hath not the life."

Rom. viii. 9, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his."

Eph. i. 22, 23, "And gave him to be the Head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."

John xv. 26, "The Advocate or Comforter whom I will send unto you from the Father," &c.

John xvi. 7, "If I depart, I will send him unto you."

John xiv. 26, "The Comforter, whom the Father will send in my name."

Gal. iv. 6, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father."

Gal. ii. 20, "I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." (I know that is true of his living in us objectively and finally, but that seemeth not to be all.)

Col. iii. 3, 4, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." I know that in verse 3, by life is meant felicity or glory; but not only; as appeareth by verse 4, where Christ is called our life.

Matt. xxviii. 18, "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth." ver. 20, "I am with you always." John xiii. 3, "The Father hath given all things into his hands."

John xvii. 2, 3, "Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him; and this is life eternal, to know thee," &c.

John v. 21, "The Son quickeneth whom he will: " ver. 26, "For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself."

John vi. 27, "Labour for that meat which endureth to everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed." Ver. 33, "He giveth life unto the world." Ver. 54-57, "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life – dwelleth in me and I in him – my flesh is meat indeed – As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Ver. 63, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing."

John vii. 39, "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe in him should receive." John iii. 34, "God giveth not the Spirit to him by measure."

1 Cor. vi. 17, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit."

2 Cor. iii. 17, "The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Phil. i. 19, "Through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ."

John xv. 4, 5, "Abide in me and I in you: as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me (or, out of me, or, severed from me) ye can do nothing."

I will add no more: all this is proof enough that the Spirit is not given radically or immediately from God to any believer, but to Christ, and so derivatively from him to us. Not that the divine nature in the third person is subject to the human nature in Christ; but that God hath made it the office of our Mediator's glorified humanity, to be the cistern that shall first receive the waters of life, and convey them by the pipes of his appointed means to all the offices of his house: or to be the head of the animal spirits, and by nerves to convey them to all the members.

3. We are much in the dark concerning the degree of infants' glory; and therefore we can as little know, what degree of grace is necessary to prepare them for their glory.

4. It is certain that infants before they are glorified, shall have all that grace that is prerequisite to their preparation and fruition.

5. No sanctified person on earth is in an immediate capacity for glory; because their sin and imperfection must be done away, which is done at the dissolution of soul and body. The very accession of the soul to God doth perfect it.

6. Infants have no actual faith, or hope, or love to God to exercise; and therefore need not the influence of the Spirit of Christ to exercise them.

7. We are all so very much in the dark, as to the clear and distinct apprehension of the true nature of original inherent pravity or sin, that we must needs be as much ignorant of the true nature of that inherent sanctity or righteousness, which is its contrary or cure. Learned Illiricus thought it was a substance, which he hath in his "Clavis" pleaded for at large. Others call it a habit; others a nature or natural inclination, and a privation of a natural inclination to God. Others call it an indisposition of the mind and will to holy truth and goodness, and an ill disposition of them to error and evil. Others call it only the inordinate lust of the sensitive faculties, with a debility of reason and will to resist it. And whilst the nature of the soul itself and its faculties, are so much unknown to itself, the nature of original pravity and righteousness must needs be very much unknown.

8. Though an infant be a distinct natural person from his parents, yet is he not actually a distinct person morally, as being not a moral agent, and so not capable of moral actions good or evil. Therefore his parents' will goeth for his.

9. His first acceptance into the complacential love of God, (as distinct from his love of benevolence,) is not for any inherent holiness in himself; but, (1.) As the child of a believing parent who hath dedicated him to Christ; and, (2.) As a member of Christ, in whom he is well pleased.

10. Therefore God can complacentially as well as benevolently love an infant in Christ, who only believeth and repenteth by the parents, and not by himself, and is not yet supposed to have the Spirit of sanctification.

11. For the Spirit of sanctification is not the presupposed condition of his acceptance into covenant with God, but a gift of the covenant of God itself, following both the condition on our part, and our right to be covenanters, or to God's promise upon that condition.

12. So the adult themselves have the operation of the Spirit by which they believe and repent, by which they come to have their right to God's part in the covenant of baptism (for this is antecedent to their baptism); but they have not the gift of the Spirit, which is called in Scripture the "Spirit of sanctification, and of power, love, and a sound mind," and is the benefit given by the covenant of baptism, till afterward; because they must be in that covenant before it can be made good to them.283 And their faith or consent is their infant's right also, antecedent to the covenant gift.

13. There is therefore some notable difference between that work of the Spirit by which we first repent and believe, and so have our title to the promise of the Spirit, and that gift of the Spirit which is promised to believers; which is not only the Spirit of miracles, given in the first times, but some notable degree of love to our reconciled Father, suitable to the grace and gospel of redemption and reconciliation, and is called the "Spirit of Christ," and the "Spirit of adoption,"284 which the apostles themselves seem not to have received till Christ's ascension. And this seemeth to be not only different from the gifts of the Spirit common to hypocrites and the unbelievers, but also from the special gift of the Spirit which maketh men believers. So that Mr. Tho. Hooker saith trulier than once I understood, that vocation is a special grace of the Spirit, distinct from common grace on the one side, and from sanctification on the other side. Whether it be the same degree of the Spirit which the faithful had before Christ's incarnation, which causeth men first to believe distinct from the higher following degree, I leave to inquiry; but the certainest distinction is from the different effects.

14. Though an infant cannot be either disposed to a holy life, or fit for glory immediately, without an inward holiness of his own, yet by what is said it seemeth plain, that merely on the account of the condition performed by the parent, and of his union relatively with Christ thereupon, and his title to God's promise on these grounds, he may be said to be in a state of salvation; that is, to have the pardon of his original sin, deliverance from hell, (in right,) adoption, and a right to the needful operations of the Holy Ghost, as given to him in Christ, who is the first receiver of the Spirit.

15. But when and in what sort and degree Christ giveth the actual operations of the Spirit to all covenanted infants, it is wonderfully hard for us to know. But this much seemeth clear, 1. That Christ may when he please work on the soul of an infant to change its disposition, before it come to the use of reason. 2. That Christ and his Spirit as in covenant with infants, are ready to give all necessary assistance to infants for their inherent sanctification, in the use of those means, and on those further conditions, on which we must wait for it and expect it.285 For the Holy Ghost is not so engaged to us in our covenant or baptism, as to be obliged presently to give us all the grace that we want; but only to give it us on certain further conditions, and in the use of certain means. But because this leads me up to another question, I will suspend the rest of the answer to this till that be handled. Only I must answer this objection.

Object. It is contrary to the holy nature of God, complacentially to love an unsanctified infant, that is yet in his original corruption unchanged, and he justifieth none relatively from the guilt of sin, whom he doth not at once inherently sanctify.

Answ. 1. God's complacential love respecteth every one as he is; for it is goodness only that he so loveth. Therefore he so loveth not those that either actually or habitually love not him, under any false supposition that they do love him when they do not. His love therefore to the adult and infants differeth as the objects differ. But there is this lovely in such infants; 1. That they are the children of believing, sanctified parents; 2. That they are by his covenant relatively united to Christ, and so are lovely as his members; 3. That they are pardoned all their original sin; 4. That they are set in the way to actual love and holiness; being thus dedicated to God.

2. All imperfect saints are sinners; and all sinners are as such abhorred of God, whose pure eyes cannot behold iniquity. As then it will stand with his purity to accept and love the adult upon their first believing, before their further sanctification, and notwithstanding the remnant of their sins, so may it do also to accept their infants through Christ upon their dedication.