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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
The following is offered as a contribution towards the clarification of a matter of first-class theological importance which is undergoing vigorous and widespread debate at the present day. A certain answer to the problem involved is finally given; but the author is not so naïve as to suppose that no other answers have been and are being given, or to believe that the answer here proposed has been rendered entirely secure against all criticism. All that matters in a theme of such importance is that, by free and frank discussion of the issues involved, the Christian Church may ultimately come to a common mind. It certainly cannot to-day afford the luxury of widely divergent views at so fundamental a point.
Page 164 note 1 This affirmation admits of greater precision. If Christ's death and resurrection is regarded as a regarded as a general Baptism (“for the sins of the whole world”), the baptismal act admits the individual to participation in it. Its benefits are then made available for him and applied to him, just as at the conclusion of a successful war the victor country may admit individual members of a conquered people to participation in the fruits of a victory to which they have not contributed and which indeed they may have resisted.
Page 165 note 1 A full discussion of reformed doctrine concerning the exact benefits afforded by Holy Baptism has to reckon very seriously with such passages as the following: Confessio Scoticana, Art. 21: “by Baptism we are engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of his justice, by which our sins are covered and remitted”; “Knox's Liturgy” in the Address and Exhortation after the initial question: “the justice of Jesus Christ is made ours by Baptism”, and reference is made to “that pureness and perfection, wherewith we are clad in Baptism”; Calvin's Catéchisme de l'Eglise de Genève 1542, where Baptism “as an entry into the Church of God” is said to have a double significance: “Car le Seigneur nous y represente la remission de noz pechez (Eph. 5.26 and 27), et puis nostre regeneration, ou renouvellement spirituel (Rom. 6.4)”, this being no mere representation but “c'est tellement figure, que la verité est conioincte avec” (323, 324, 328); Heidelberg Catechism where Q.73 is formulated: “Warumb nennet denn der heilige Geist den Tauff das bad der widergeburt und die abwaschung der sünden?”; Craig's Catechism which in the section on Baptism declares that the signification of Baptism is “remission of our sins and regeneration” denned as “mortification and newness of life”, and that of this the Sacrament is no “bare figure” but (repeating Calvin) “hath the verity joined to it”; Westminster Confession of Faith, chap. 28, sect. 6, where “by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost”; Larger Catechism which, answering Q. 167 concerning the improvement of Baptism, mentions the “privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby”; Westminster Directory for the Publick Worship of God, in which in prayer before the act of Baptism God is besought to “join the inward baptism of his spirit with the outward baptism of water, and make this baptism to the infant a seal of adoption, remission of sin, regeneration, and eternal life, and all other promises of the covenant of grace”.
Page 166 note 1 A very elementary point should perhaps be noted here. Objection may not be taken to “baptismal regeneration” on the ground that there is no need for regeneration at all. And yet those who protest against it are often found to have this as a concealed premise in their argument. The real difficulty in “baptismal regeneration” of course concerns the place of faith. But once again those who protest against it should at least observe that the need for faith can be so formulated as to preclude all but adult Baptism.
Page 169 note 1 So Fr. Leenhardt, quoted by Cullmann, O., op. cit., p. 26Google Scholar, note 19, says “le baptême est le sacrement par lequel l'Église se recrute”. Dr Manson is in fact reminding us of what the Directory might have saved us from forgetting, that in Baptism God “daily bringeth some into the bosom of his Church … for the continuance and increase of his Church” (from the prayer of thanksgiving following Baptism).
Page 170 note 1 If A. Benoît (“Le Problème du péclobaptisme,” in Revue d'H. et de Phil, relig., 1948–1949, 2, pp. 139 f.)Google Scholar is right, the difference is not after all quite fundamental. Neither birth within a Christian family, nor even professed adult faith, can be a guarantee of subsequent faith; they can only be “une indication de sa probabilité”.
Page 170 note 2 In what follows the position in Scotland is specially in mind; but the hope may perhaps be expressed that the situation in England and elsewhere is similar enough to make what is said mutatis mutandis applicable.
Page 171 note 1 “The Schedule” presented to the Convocations of Canterbury and York, Press and Publications Board of the Church Assembly, 1949.
Page 173 note 1 How essentially similar is the problem which Baptism presents to the different Churches may be judged from the following quotation taken from Baptism To-day (p. 32): “We should all agree that Baptism is an essential qualification for all sponsors. … But we are not agreed as to what more should be demanded.”
Page 174 note 1 These three possibilities were all raised and reviewed in an Edinburgh Presbytery Committee set up to consider the meaning of the phrase.
Page 176 note 1 This, I take it, applies also to communions in which sponsors alone, and not parents, take promises at Baptism. “To make a profession of faith in the recipient's name” (Sheehan, M., Catholic Doctrine, p. 147Google Scholar) is no doubt a vicarious act, but the faith itself is not, I fancy, necessarily regarded as vicarious.