Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Infant Baptism by Samuel Miller. Scriptural and Reasonable by Samuel Miller. Samuel Miller, a contemporary of Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, offers here an excellent treatise on the scriptural basis of infant baptism, and skillfully responds to the many objections that have been raised against its practice.
This work also takes an historical look at the doctrines of modern Baptist theology and traces their roots back to the Anabaptists of the Samuel Miller, a contemporary of Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, offers here an excellent treatise on the scriptural basis of infant baptism, and skillfully responds to the many objections that have been raised against its practice.
This work also takes an historical look at the doctrines of modern Baptist theology and traces their roots back to the Anabaptists of the Sixteenth Century. Paperback , pages. Published by Crown Rights Book Company first published To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
To ask other readers questions about Infant Baptism , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Mar 04, Zack rated it it was amazing. As always, Miller is a blast to read. May 10, Andy rated it it was amazing. This book is based on two sermons preached by Miller in the 's. He expanded the material into 4 sermons for publication. The first two sermons deal with the Scriptural basis for infant baptism: This is a very good piece because Miller takes up nearly a dozen objections. Usually only 4 or 5 objections are raised.
The second 2 sermons deal with the mode of baptism, and again, are outstanding. Michial rated it it was amazing Aug 20, Caleb rated it it was amazing Nov 09, Ryan Jankowski rated it really liked it Dec 07, Trinnica rated it did not like it Feb 21, Jeremiah Whiteman rated it it was amazing Mar 25, Claude rated it it was amazing Oct 23, Barbara Ann rated it it was amazing Jun 16, Danny rated it it was amazing Apr 13, Nov 11, Sean McGowan rated it really liked it Shelves: But nothing can be more evident than that this view of the subject is entirely erroneous.
The perpetuity of the Abrahamic covenant, and, of consequence, the identity of the church under both dispensations, is so plainly taught in scripture, and follows so unavoidably from the radical scriptural principles concerning the church of God, that it is indeed wonderful how any believer in the Bible can call in question the fact.
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Everything essential to ecclesiastical identity is evidently found here. The same divine Head, the same precious covenant, the same great spiritual design, the same atoning blood, the same sanctifying Spirit, in which we rejoice, as the life and the glory of the New Testament church, we know, from the testimony of scripture, were also the life and the glory of the church before the coming of the Messiah.
The truth is, the inspired apostle, in writing to the Galatians, formally compares the covenanted people of God, under the Old Testament economy, to an heir under age. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: And, of the patriarchs generally, we are assured that they saw gospel promises afar off, and embraced them.
But what places the identity of the church, under both dispensations, in the clearest and strongest light, is that memorable and decisive passage, in the 11th chapter of the epistle to the Romans, in which the church of God is held forth to us under the emblem of an olive tree.
Infant Baptism: Scriptural and Reasonable – by Rev. Samuel Miller | A Puritan's Mind
Under the same figure had the Lord designated the church by the pen of Jeremiah the prophet. But concerning this olive tree, on account of the sin of the people in forsaking the Lord, the prophet declares: For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches.
But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say, then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted, contrary to nature into a good olive tree: That the apostle is here speaking of the Old Testament church, under the figure of a good olive tree, cannot be doubted, and is, indeed, acknowledged by all; by our Baptist brethren as well as others.
Now the inspired apostle says concerning this olive tree, that the natural branches, that is the Jews, were broken off because of unbelief. But what was the consequence of this excision? Was the tree destroyed? The apostle teaches directly the contrary. Can anything be more pointedly descriptive of identity than this?
But this is not all. The apostle apprises us that the Jews are to be brought back from their rebellion and wanderings and to be incorporated with the Christian church. And how is this restoration described? Having seen that the infant seed of the professing people of God were members of the church under the Old Testament economy; and having seen also that the church under that dispensation and the present is the same; we are evidently prepared to take another step, and to infer, that if infants were once members, and if the church remains the same, they undoubtedly are still members, unless some positive divine enactment excluding them can be found.
As it was a positive divine enactment which brought them in, and gave them a place in the church, so it is evident that a divine enactment as direct and positive, repealing their old privilege, and excluding them from the covenanted family, must be found, or they are still in the church. But can such an act of repeal and exclusion, I ask, be produced? It never has been, and it never can be.
The introduction of infants into the church by divine appointment, is undoubted. The identity of the church, under both dispensations, is undoubted. And we find no hint in the New Testament of the high privileges granted to the infant seed of believers being withdrawn. Only concede that it has not been formally withdrawn, and it remains of course. The advocates of infant baptism are not bound to produce from the New Testament an express warrant for the membership of the children of believers.
The warrant was given most expressly and formally, two thousand years before the New Testament was written; and having never been revoked remains firmly and indisputably in force. It is deeply to be lamented that our Baptist brethren cannot be prevailed upon to recognize the length and breadth, and bearing of this great ecclesiastical fact.
Our next step is to show that baptism has come in the room of circumcision, and therefore, that the former is rightfully and properly applied to the same subjects as the latter. When we say this, we mean, not merely that circumcision is laid aside in the church of Christ, and that baptism has been brought in, but that baptism occupies the same place, as the appointed initiatory ordinance in the church, and that, as a moral emblem, it means the same thing.
The meaning and design of circumcision was chiefly spiritual. So it is with baptism. Circumcision was a token of visible membership in the family of God, and of covenant obligation to him. Circumcision was the ordinance which marked, or publicly ratified, entrance into that visible family. Circumcision was an emblem of moral cleansing and purity. It refers to the remission of sins by the blood of Christ, and regeneration by his Spirit; and teaches us that we are by nature guilty and depraved, and stand in need of the pardoning and sanctifying grace of God by a crucified Redeemer.
Surely, then, there is the best foundation for asserting that baptism has come in the place of circumcision. The latter, as all grant, has been discontinued; and now baptism occupies the same place, means the same thing, seals the same covenant, and is a pledge of the same spiritual blessings. Who can doubt, then, that there is the utmost propriety, upon principle, in applying it to the same infant subjects?
Yet, though baptism manifestly comes in the place of circumcision, there are points in regard to which the former differs materially from the latter. And it differs precisely as to those points in regard to which the New Testament economy differs from the Old, in being more enlarged, and less ceremonial. Baptism is not ceremonially restricted to the eighth day, but may be administered at any time and place. Again, it is a strong argument in favour of infant baptism, that we find the principle of family baptism again and again adopted in the apostolic age.
Now, though we are not certain that there were young children in any of these families, it is highly probable there were. At any rate, the great principle of family baptism of receiving all the younger members of households on the faith of their domestic head, seems to be plainly and decisively established. This furnishes ground on which the advocate of infant baptism may stand with unwavering confidence. And here let me ask, was it ever known that a case of family baptism occurred under the direction of a Baptist minister?
Was it ever known to be recorded, or to have happened, that when, under the influence of Baptist ministrations, the parents of large families were hopefully converted, they were baptized, they and all theirs straightway? There is no risk in asserting that such a case was never heard of. Evidently, because our Baptist brethren do not act in this matter upon the principles laid down in the New Testament, and which regulated the primitive Christians.
Another consideration possesses much weight here. We cannot imagine that the privileges and the sign of infant membership, to which all the first Christians had been so long accustomed, could have been abruptly withdrawn, without wounding the hearts of parents, and producing in them feelings of revolt and complaint against the new economy. Yet we find no hint of this recorded in the history of the apostolic age. Upon our principles, this entire silence presents no difficulty.
The old principle and practice of infant membership, so long consecrated by time, and so dear to all the feelings of parental affection, went on as before. The identity of the church under the new dispensation with that of the old, being well understood, the early Christians needed no new warrant for the inclusion of their infant seed in the covenanted family.
As the privilege had not been revoked, it, of course, continued.
A new and formal enactment in favour of the privilege would have been altogether superfluous, not to say out of place; especially as it was well understood, from the whole aspect of the new economy, that, instead of withdrawing or narrowing the privileges, its whole character was that it rather multiplied and extended them. Nay, that this whole retrograde change passed with so little feeling of interest, that it was never so much as mentioned or hinted at in any of the epistles to the churches.
But can this supposition be for a moment admitted?
Infant Baptism: Scriptural and Reasonable - by Rev. Samuel Miller
We may conclude, then, that the acknowledged silence of the New Testament as to any retraction of the old privileges, or any complaint of its recall, is so far from warranting a conclusion unfavourable to the church membership of infants, that it furnishes a weighty argument of an import directly the reverse. Although the New Testament does not contain any specific texts, which, in so many words, declare that the infant seed of believers are members of the church in virtue of their birth; yet it abounds in passages which cannot reasonably be explained but in harmony with this doctrine.
The following are a specimen of the passages to which I refer. The prophet Isaiah, though not a New Testament writer, speaks much, and in the most interesting manner, of the New Testament times. For as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. This form of expression, of course, precludes the construction which some have been disposed to put on the passage, in order to evade its force: Most manifestly, we are to understand by it, the visible church, or the visible kingdom of Christ, as distinguished both from the world, and the old economy.
Let any one impartially examine the evangelists throughout, and he will find this to be the general import of the phrase in question. If this be the meaning, then our Saviour asserts, in the most direct and pointed terms, the reality and the divine warrant of infant church membership. But even if the kingdom of glory be intended, still our argument is not weakened, but rather fortified. For if the kingdom of glory belongs to the infant seed of believers, much more have they a title to the privileges of the church on earth. Another passage of scripture strongly speaks the same language.
I refer to the declaration which we find in the sermon of the apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost. The apostle is here evidently speaking of the promise of God to his covenant people; that promise in which he engages to be their God, and to constitute them his covenanted family. Now this promise, he declared to those whom he addressed, extended to their children as well as to themselves, and, of course, gave those children a covenant right to the privileges of the family.
But if they have a covenant title to a place in this family, we need no formal argument to show that they are entitled to the outward token and seal of that family. I shall adduce only one more passage of scripture, at present, in support of the doctrine for which I contend. I refer to that remarkable, and, as it appears to me, conclusive declaration of the apostle Paul, concerning children, which is found in the seventh chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, in reply to a query addressed to him by the members of that church respecting the Christian law of marriage: No one who intelligently reads the Bible, or who has eyes to see what daily passes around him, can possibly put such a construction on the passage.
Neither can it be understood to mean, as some have strangely imagined, that where one of the parents is a believer, the children are legitimate: The advocates of this construction may be challenged to produce a single example of such an application of the term. And as to the suggestion of piety in one party being necessary to render a marriage covenant valid, nothing can be more absurd.
Were the marriages of the heathen in the days of Paul all illicit connections? Are the matrimonial contracts which take place every day, among us, where neither of the parties are pious, all illegitimate and invalid? Surely it is not easy to conceive of a subterfuge more completely preposterous, or more adapted to discredit a cause which finds it necessary to resort to such aid. While in some cases they express that which is internally and spiritually conformed to the divine image; in others, they quite as plainly designate something set apart to a holy or sacred use; that is, separated from a common or profane, to a holy purpose.
And what their meaning is, in any particular case, must be gathered from the scope of the passage. It appears that among the Corinthians, to whom the apostle wrote, there were many cases of professing Christians being united by the marriage tie with pagans; the former, perhaps, being converted after marriage; or being so unwise, as, after conversion, deliberately to form this unequal and unhappy connection.
What was to be deemed of such marriages, seems to have been the grave question submitted to this inspired teacher. For it assumes the principle, that when both parents are reputed believers, their children belong to the church of God as a matter of course. The whole difficulty proposed by the Corinthians to Paul, grows out of this principle.
Had he taught, or they understood, that no children, be their parents believers or unbelievers, are to be accounted members of the church, the difficulty could not have existed. For if the faith of both parents could not confer upon the child the privilege of membership, the faith of only one of them certainly could not. The point was decided. It would have been mere impertinence to tease the apostle with queries which carried their own answers along with them. But on the supposition that when both parents were members, their children were also members; the difficulty is very natural and serious.
I believe in Christ myself; but my husband, my wife, believes not. What is to become of my children? Are they to be admitted with myself? Or are they to be cast off with my partner? It is enough that they are yours. The infidelity of your partner shall never frustrate their interest in the covenant of your God. They are holy because you are so. And it lets us know that one of the reasons, if not the chief reason of the doubt, whether a married person should continue, after conversion, in the conjugal society of an infidel partner, arose from a fear lest such continuance should exclude the children from the church of God.
Otherwise, it is hard to comprehend why the apostle should dissuade them from separating by such an argument as he has employed in the text. And it is utterly inconceivable how such a doubt could have entered their minds, had not the membership of infants, born of believing parents, been undisputed, and esteemed a high privilege, so high a privilege, that the apprehension of losing it, made conscientious parents at a stand whether they ought not rather to break the ties of wedlock, by withdrawing from an unbelieving husband or wife. Thus the origin of this difficulty, on the one hand, and the solution of it, on the other, concur in establishing our doctrine, that by the appointment of God himself, the infants of believing parents are born members of his church.
Finally, the history of the Christian church, from the apostolic age, furnishes an argument of irresistible force in favour of the divine authority of infant baptism. I can assure you, my friends, with the utmost candour and confidence, after much careful inquiry on the subject, that, for more than fifteen hundred years after the birth of Christ, there was not a single society of professing Christians on earth, who opposed infant baptism on anything like the grounds which distinguish our modern Baptist brethren. This, I am aware, will be regarded as an untenable position by some of the ardent friends of the Baptist cause; but nothing can be more certain than that it is even so.
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Of this a short induction of particulars will afford conclusive evidence. Tertullian, about two hundred years after the birth of Christ, is the first man of whom we read in ecclesiastical history, as speaking a word against infant baptism; and he, while he recognizes the existence and prevalence of the practice, and expressly recommends that infants be baptized, if they are not likely to survive the period of infancy; yet advises that, where there is a prospect of their living, baptism be delayed until a late period in life.
But what was the reason of this advice? The moment we look at the reason, we see that it avails nothing to the cause in support of which it is sometimes produced. Tertullian adopted the superstitious idea, that baptism was accompanied with the remission of all past sins; and that sins committed after baptism were peculiarly dangerous. He, therefore, advised that not merely infants, but young men and young women and even young widows and widowers should postpone their baptism until the period of youthful appetite and passion should have passed.
In short, he advised that, in all cases in which death was not likely to intervene, baptism be postponed, until the subjects of it should have arrived at a period of life, when they would be no longer in danger of being led astray by youthful lusts. And thus, for more than a century after the age of Tertullian, we find some of the most conspicuous converts to the Christian faith, postponing baptism till the close of life. Constantine the Great, we are told, though a professing Christian for many years before, was not baptized till after the commencement of his last illness.
The same fact is recorded of a number of other distinguished converts to Christianity, about and after that time. But, surely, advice and facts of this kind make nothing in favour of the system of our Baptist brethren. Indeed, taken altogether, their historical bearing is strongly in favour of our system.
The next persons that we hear of as calling in question the propriety of infant baptism, were the small body of people in France, about twelve hundred years after Christ, who followed a certain Peter de Bruis, and formed an inconsiderable section of the people known in ecclesiastical history under the general name of the Waldenses. This body maintained that infants ought not to be baptized, because they were incapable of salvation. They taught that none could be saved but those who wrought out their salvation by a long course of self-denial and labour.
But surely our Baptist brethren cannot be willing to consider these people as their predecessors, or to adopt their creed. As far as I have been able to discover, they were absolutely unknown in the whole Christian world, before that time. But we have something more than mere negative testimony on this subject.
To say nothing of earlier intimations, wholly irreconcilable with any other practice than that of infant baptism, Origen, a Greek father of the third century, and decidedly the most learned man of his day, speaks in the most unequivocal terms of the baptism of infants, as the general practice of the church in his time, and as having been received from the apostles. His testimony is as follows: Or, when have they sinned? Or, can there be any reason for the laver in their case, unless it be according to the sense which we have mentioned above: The testimony of Cyprian, a Latin father of the third century, contemporary with Origen, is no less decisive.
It is as follows. In the year after Christ, there was a council of sixty-six bishops or pastors held at Carthage, in which Cyprian presided. To this council, Fidus, a country pastor, presented the following question, which he wished them, by their united wisdom, to solve: The question, it will be observed, was not whether infants ought to be baptized?