LXIV. Now the fault which they find with us concerning interrogatories is, our moving of these questions unto infants which cannot answer them, and the answering of them by others as in their names.
The Anabaptist hath many pretences to scorn at the baptism of children, first because the Scriptures, he saith, do no where give commandment to baptize infants; secondly, for that as there is no commandment so neither any manifest example shewing it to have been done either by Christ or his Apostles; thirdly, inasmuch as the word preached and the sacraments must go together, they which are not capable of the one are no fit receivers of the other; last of all, sith the order of baptism continued from the first beginning hath in it those things which are unfit to be applied unto sucking children, it followeth in their conceit that the baptism of such is no baptism but plain mockery.
They with whom we contend are no enemies to the baptism of infants; it is not their desire that the church should hazard so many souls by letting them run on till they come to ripeness of understanding, that so they may be converted and then baptized as infidels heretofore have been; they bear not towards God so unthankful minds as not to acknowledge it even amongst the greatest of his endless mercies, that by making us his own possession so soon, many advantages which Satan otherwise might take are prevented, and (which should be esteemed a part of no small happiness) the first thing whereof we have occasion to take notice is, how much hath been done already to our great good, though altogether without our knowledge; the baptism of infants they esteem as an ordinance which Christ hath instituted even in special love and favour to his own people; they deny not the practice thereof accordingly to have been kept as derived from the hands and continued from the days of the Apostles themselves unto this present. Only it pleaseth them not that to infants there should be interrogatories proposed in baptism1. This they condemn as foolish, toyish, and profane mockery.
But are they able to shew that ever the Church of Christ had any public form of baptism without interrogatories; or that the Church did ever use at the solemn baptism of infants to omit those questions as needless in this case? Boniface a bishop in St. Augustine’s time knowing that the Church did universally use this custom of baptizing infants with interrogatories, was desirous to learn from St. Augustine the true cause and reason thereof2. “If,” saith he, “I should set before thee a young infant, and should ask of thee whether that infant when he cometh unto riper age will be honest and just or no, thou wouldst answer (I know) that to tell in these things what shall come to pass is not in the power of a mortal man. If I should ask what good or evil such an infant thinketh, thine answer hereunto must needs be again with the like uncertainty. If thou neither canst promise for the time to come nor for the present pronounce any thing in this case, how is it that when such are brought unto baptism, their parents there undertake what the child shall afterwards do, yea they are not doubtful to say it doth that which is impossible to be done by infants? at the least there is no man precisely able to affirm it done. Vouchsafe me hereunto some short answer, such as not only may press me with the bare authority of custom but also instruct me in the cause thereof.”
Touching which difficulty, whether it may truly be said for infants at the time of their baptism that they do believe, the effect of St. Augustine’s answer is yea, but with this distinction3, a present actual habit of faith there is not in them; there is delivered unto them that sacrament, a part of the due celebration whereof consisteth in answering to the articles of faith, because the habit of faith which afterwards doth come with years, is but a farther building up of the same edifice, the first foundation whereof was laid by the sacrament of baptism. For that which there we professed without any understanding, when we afterwards come to acknowledge, do we any thing else but only bring unto ripeness the very seed that was sown before? We are then believers, because then we begin to be that which process of time doth make perfect. And till we come to actual belief, the very sacrament of faith is a shield as strong as after this the faith of the sacrament against all contrary infernal powers. Which whosoever doth think impossible, is undoubtedly farther off from Christian belief though he be baptized than are these innocents, which at their baptism albeit they have no conceit or cogitation of faith, are notwithstanding pure and free from all opposite cogitations, whereas the other is not free. If therefore without any fear or scruple we may account them and term them believers only for their outward profession’s sake, which inwardly are farther from faith than infants, why not infants much more at the time of their solemn initiation by baptism the sacrament of faith, whereunto they not only conceive nothing opposite, but have also that grace4 given them which is the first and most effectual cause out of which our belief groweth?