A Short Account of the Rise and Progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America/Of Infant Baptism
OF
INFANT BAPTISM.
OF
INFANT BAPTISM.
In conclusion of our views we deem it expedient to say something on the subject of Infant Baptism. And there being a council called, at an early age, by some of the veterans of the cross, to consider certain business relating to the church, the subject of Infant Baptism was also introduced; we will, therefore, give the following extract, viz.
"We learn from what Cyprian writes to Fidus, as to the case of infants, of whom you said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that the ancient law of circumcision should be so far repeated that they should not be baptized till the eighth day. We were all of different opinion. The mercy and grace of God we all judged, should be denied to none; for if the Lord says in his Gospel, The Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but, to save them, how ought we to do our utmost, as far as in us lies, that no soul be lost. Spiritual circumcision should not be impeded by that which is carnal—if even the foullest offenders, when they afterwards believe, remission of sins be granted, and none is prohibited from baptism and grace, how much more should an infant be admitted, who, just born, hath not sinned at all, except that being carnally born according to Adam, he hath contracted the contagion of ancient death in his first birth, who approaches to remission of sins more easily, because not his own actual guilt, but that of another is remitted.
"Here, in an assembly of sixty-six Pastors, men of approved fidelity and gravity, who had stood the fiery trials of some of the severest persecutions ever known, and who had testified their love to the Lord Jesus Christ; who appear not to have been wanting in any of the essential characteristics of Godliness, a question is brought, not whether infants should be baptized at all, none contradicted this, but whether it is right to baptize them immediately or on the eighth day; to a man, they all determined to baptize them immediately." This transaction passed in the year 253. See Rev. Jesse Townsend's abridged Church History of Milner, page 131.