The enemies of
infant baptism can see nothing in baptism. They can see no objective force
in that holy sacrament; but regard it as something merely external,
extraneous, unproductive,--a mere unmeaning form in which a prior faith is
pleased to express itself, as the conclusion of a work already
accomplished. The great error here lies just in this, that they mistake it
as an act of faith, whereas it is an act of Christ. They think it is the
formal rite through which they elect and receive Christ; whereas it is the
sacrament in which Christ elects and receives them.
If, in church worship, man placed himself in a relation to God, without God
placing Himself in a relation to man, then we might reject infant baptism.
But this is not so. God, in baptism, places Himself in a relation to the
subject, receives the subject until it become a part of the organism of
grace in its subjective and objective force, and is recognized as a member
of the church of Christ. Now the falsity of the position assumed by the
enemies of infant baptism lies just here, that only the subjective side of
baptism is held up, while its objective, sacramental character is left
altogether out of view. It reverses the relative positions of faith and
baptism, making the former to take the place of the latter, and holding
that any one dissociated with the church, can receive and exercise a true
living faith, which overthrows the very idea of the church itself.
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