LETTER XIII. BAPTISM AND CHRISTIAN NURTURE. COME now to suggest another reason why we should cleave steadfastly to positive teaching touching the grace of Baptism, viz.: That to surrender the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration is to abandon our whole doctrine of Christian nurture. The Church's theory on this subject, if we take her words in their natural sense, is consistent with itself, and easy to be comprehended. "It has pleased God," she says, "to regenerate this child with His Holy Spirit, to receive him for His own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into His holy Church." She affirms that he is now "dead unto sin and living unto righteousness, and buried with Christ in his death ;" and next she prays that "he may crucify the old man and utterly abolish the whole body of sin, and that, as he is made partaker of the death of God's Son, he may also be partaker of His resurrection." The child is justified; she would have him. maintain that state of justification. The child has now a share in all the influences and appliances needed for sanctification. She prays that he may so avail himself of them as to become personally holy. She does not so much as intimate that the child will despise his birthright, but encourages parents and sponsors to believe that if they will "take care," the child will, at an early age, be ready with his own mouth, and with an intelligent consent, to accept the service of God as his voluntary choice. When the child is old enough to learn, the minister must teach him that he was by nature a child of wrath; but that in his baptism he died unto sin and received a new birth unto righteousness; he was made "a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." The Pastor must instruct his lamb that salvation has come to him. The Lord has added him, as one saved, to the Church. He is in a state of salvation: if he continue in that state unto his life's end, all will be well. But then, he cannot continue in that state without the help of God. He must lead a life of devotion, calling at all times, by diligent prayer, for that special grace without which he cannot serve God. He comes to Confirmation in order that he may receive strength to run his course. He is there taught that his religious life must be one of progress of daily increase in God's Holy Spirit, more and more. He is directed to the Holy Communion as his spiritual food and sustenance, and taught that this food preserves, in body and soul, unto everlasting life, those only who are in the habitual exercise of repentance, faith, and charity. According to this theory the spiritual growth may be, and ought to be, as gradual and progressive as the physical and intellectual growth. There is a vast difference between the child-saint and the manly Christian, but not so vast but that the one shades gradually into the other without any revolutionary process. And, oh! how wide a gulf separates this theory from that which teaches that personal religion begins with conversion in mature age! Why should not my child be a saint after its baby-fashion? Let me endeavor to put in words a thought that has sometimes afforded parents much pleasure. Some of our pleasantest hours are spent in playing with babies. We enjoy their imperfect words, their amusing mistakes, their awkward experiments in the ways of life. All at once we bethink us of an idiot-lad, who has just about the same degree of intelligence as our babe, and utters about as many words expressive of his wants. Now, I ask, why is it that the imperfect jargon, and the ready laughter, and the admiration for a bead or a toy, in the latter, cause us actual pain, so that we would rather avoid his presence, while, in the other, we find pleasure, and would not have him other than the ignoramus that he is? Clearly, because immaturity is not deficiency. Were the babe, like the idiot, deficient in those germs which, in due time, develop into manly intellect and character, our sorrow would be great. But as we note the sparkle of his eyes, the outreach of his feeble members, the workings of his little conscience when he meets a look of reproach, we see that it is well. We would not have him a man if we could. If the bud be perfect, the flower will bloom in due season. Now, some people seem to look upon their children as so many spiritual unfortunates. They endeavor in his childhood to keep the little one from the fire and water into which the Evil One might cast him; and they hope that, by and by, in some revival season, the devil may be cast out by a miracle of grace, and his religious life may begin. In the present there is no true life in him. Thus "the precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!" Not thus would the Church have us regard our baptized little ones. This child, she says, is not dead to God. It has been born again It has the spiritual life, not of a man indeed, but of a babe. That life may be extinguished by neglect, or smothered by the growth of evil passions, or die for lack of culture. But it may and it ought to develop, steadily and uniformly, blade, and ear, and full corn in the ear, into mature saintly character. Allow me to illustrate the practical working of this principle. In holding occasional missionary services in a secluded village, I was kindly entertained on several occasions by a Presbyterian elder and his wife, who had no church of their own near by. They had an interesting daughter just approaching womanhood. I was attracted by her demeanor, and said to her father that she must be quite a comfort to him. He acquiesced in this, and spoke of her in terms of commendation |