| Show BAN lady cook rit es of the ot of baptizing baptising Bap In infants faits 4 i y u questionable doctrines maia made matters of 0 f worship and faith impossible to imagine au an innocent Inno cint bida babe a monster of turpitude PART 1 I it was a simple everyday every avery day cir cic cum that set bet us ui thinking tied and bi 6 cime came responsible for pur our settlor down the heading ad aa above we had been invited to the ch christening rist of a dear little baby bab the th e child of a near relative and as it lay ili in smiling smiling innocence in the arrn arra of the clergyman we could not 1101 help feeling how angelic angelia is liall lw althy hy rosy infancy how bow pure and sweet the first budding of we thought of that mother dwellen dwelling amidst the hills of judea in in the long on centuries ago linzing with quiet rapture upon her babe ua bo wrapped in swaddling swaddle ng clothes and lying in a manger manger she who was the type of sacred maternity as ah tie he wai wag the type of purest in f faucy a L cy and worthiest manhood they two the mother of suffering ring and the man of grief since their day innumerable millions or of mothers haye have implored her aid in the be l and od all tha have bowed down abild wor war shipped him film who while alive was wag despised and rejected of men wi with th all this we could iee i ee no valid reason why any virtuous and healthy english Engli sli matron should not ba as worthy of reverence as the syrian pea peanut a n t mother of the prince of peace nor why any proper manchild man nian child might not also become a christ and any wo manchild man pian child a holy virgin virg in these things lie wholly in contrasts and comparisons and are brou wrought out by breed and environment the hi highbred high h bred and fearless soldier ignatius who was wag ever in the thickest of the fight having been stricken down by a cannonball cannon ball confined to a hospital and left to his reflections atter afterwards wards put aside his armor and became the most enthusiastic and most fearless of religious reformers an ascetic and a saint the first general of the society of jesus and renowned for his self denial and if his great contemporary Y cajetan before whom luther was tried at augsburg Aug iburg burg hid had not been bred a would doubtlessly doubtless Iv have been as 13 distinguished in war as he was wag in theology C our contemplation on these topics however received a rude check from the ceremony in hand for we found that we were confronted with a system of dubious and archaic speculations which were to be reverently accepted wholly and im loub tingly 6 we were viere amazed to dip discover cover that very questionable doctrines such as no sane person nowa daa das s could possibly beheye beli eyo were wera made matters of worship and faith so that it was impossible for any intelligent listener to join in the ceremony with truthful lips and a clear conscience all theste these however we might have endured as relics of past times but v e were shocked to lind find that the little hero of the occasion so far from bein beier as we thought stainless as aa the unspotted banow enow was a concentration cfall of all the vices a child of the devil arid and po hessed by a devil filled with all manner of moral disease and spiritual uncleanness his happy mother also was no ilter ater than she should have been ind and gods own pieces of procreation was wag evidently a vicious one for under it every one who comes into being is ie boru born in sin and conceived in iniquity and from this pleasant arrangement there is no escape now could we bear to think that thai our innocent looking little relative was such a in monster onster of turpitude and his amiable mother one who had grossly conducted mis herself of course churbe we admired the cleverness which discovered all this and the talents which had bad been dirt eted to such baich a revelation of iniquity evidently there were very amiable people about in the olden times men whose penetration was deeper than that of the roentgen rays Never nevertheless theles there was a certain staginess about the whole affair which made it appear as unreal in meaning as any african fetish betish ceremony we are told the he matabele are neither so intelligent tell igent nor so civilized as we but anyhow their witch doctors are able to concoct a better thing than ibis his in unmasking the folly tile the s and the blasphemy of his ceremony we shall not dot ask mr readers to rely upon our un up ported testimony but bat shall give ive the proofs from the lips and oens of some of the great authorities of lit the church itself origen said to the baptized sed believer thou descend edest into be ae water dead in sin thou ascend 4 t quickened in righteousness t gregory said he that saith I IDS ins are not quite forgiven in bap i ism ism may as well say the E egyptians agypt ns were vere not truly dead in tile the aed rea pea st augustine wrote a a hole chapter to prove that by ns ne price of the blood of christ in i i children were washed reed and saved from original sin p pi opa gated from the first parents it seeing deeina 0 therefore children do not begin to be of the sheep of brist but only by baptism truly othey r they do not that they will perish origen also said ly y the sacrament of baptism the n th of our nativity is laid aside he ne aie little cayren bap ased eed ll 11 ala aad we once beard the ilie i icar car of a sussex parish in preaching ing say 1 I tell you my brethren there are children in hell not a suan 1011 long and so great great is the ro regenerative generative efficacy of baptism foat st augustine said that in tile baptismal washing not only us ne pardon of such sins as were ommittee but of such puch as shall be afterwards committed commiL ted is granted to such as believe in christ the doctrine of original sin however mon monstrous sirous in itself e is hieny the cause of infant baptism too whole is borrowed from the nore jore ancient worship of mithra including deluding the great feature of nf marking 13 I 1 the forehead with the sign of 1 ne cross this was the dis distine inet tj ti e and uni universal verEal mark of a P phal hal w worshipper wor shipper and was in indelibly e ible ored upon the flesh lia il ars witness that the primitive C kristians were wont to wear out heir foreheads with the sign of the cross a a practice which had introduced custom had bad confirmed and which tile the present generation received upon the credit of that which went be lore them speaking of the devil he said ile he bap some as his faithful believers he promises them forgiveness ivaness gi i veness of their sins alter after baptism and so initiates them to and there he ail signs ns his soldiers on inear foreheads and in the sanie same way st cyprian asserted that the orellead of a christian is sanctified aith ith the sign of god constantine the great adopted it by buaer tia natural tural direction as ais banner with the motto by this s sign th thou ou overcome 1 bus before a catechumen IV was as baptised baptized sed ho was as bound to undergo tile ceremony of exorcism the bevil had to be cast out before lie he become regenerated and commence a soldier of christ the i turgy up to the fifth of king edward the sixth contains the following then let the priest looking upon the children say 1 I COO command thee unclean spirit in the name of the father of the sou son and ol ell the hol holy y ghost that thou come out an and d dehait from the these thee e infants whom oui lord jesus christ hath bath vouchsafed to call to his holy baptism to be mado made members of his body and of his holy congregation therefore thou cursed spirit remember thy sentence remember thy judgment remember the day to be at hand wherein thou burn in fire everlasting prepared for thee and thy angels and eresuma bot hereafter to exercise any tyranny towards these infants whom christ hath bought with his hia precious blood and by this his holy baptism calleta to be of his flock martin bacer persuaded the reformers to omit this as fit only for demonia cs but those to be ba hap bap tided had in lieu lien ot of this his exorcism to stand with their backs to the east the symbol of light ligat and face the west the symbol of darkness and the evil one and stretching 0 out their hands bands in defiance of him were to say 1 I renounce the devil and all his works powers poi ers and service let our readers go carefully through the Mini ministration stratin of baptism for infants to be used in church and compare it with wilh what we have written aritte n and see what they think of it we ve have not space to go through it line for I 1 line ine but it will well repay perusal the obscene ceremonies of paganism deprived it is 13 true of much of their grossness have found a homestead in the church and our ears are daiev polluted by the suggestions which underlie them how holy long will the fancies of eunuchs and the mystical immorality of asiatic and african mon s of the dark ages reg regulate the alib conduct and opinions op inious of this country the english church from time lime to time has watered down her doctrines and ceremonies to meet to some extent the demands of rationalism and common sense she no longer pretends to I 1 cast out devils to speak in unknown tongues to heal the sick by unction or to perform miracles yet elie eho still claims other powers equally as wonderful and equally absurd we e protest against these cretens pre pretensions tens ons as so eu binany insults to com common in on reason as in jaries to to public pubic and private morality as aa frauds upon the credulity of the ignorant and simple and as unworthy of our time and place and we trust the day is not far distant when all fraudulent ceremonies and especially those attended by cain gain will receive as they deserve the condemnation of every honest arid and enlightened citizen |
