And yet with the plainest teachings of the gospel before them, is it not
strange that there are so many virulent enemies to infant baptism? Their
rejection of it seems to rest mainly upon the untenable position that
baptism has meaning and force only when it is the fruit of an antecedent,
self-conscious faith on the part of the subject, and that it is but the
outward demonstration of a separate and prior participation of some inward
grace. As infants have not a self-conscious faith, it is believed,
therefore, that they are not, of course, fit subjects of baptism.
There is a cunning sophistry in all this. It goes upon the supposition that
faith necessarily demands the prior development of self-consciousness. It
assumes that faith is bound to a particular age, and can be exercised only
after the full and complete development of the logical consciousness, and
is dependent upon it; it also assumes that this faith must necessarily be
exercised by the subject of Christian baptism.
Now this is all mere assumption. There is no scripture for it. In all this,
the distinction is not made between faith in its first bud, and faith in
its ripe fruit. The first may exist in the unconscious infant, just as
undeveloped reason exists there; because natural powers do not generate
supernatural faith. Faith is the gift of God; and its existence does not
depend upon any particular stage of mental development.
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