_THE FIRSTFRUITS OF PENTECOST._
"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and
said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what
shall we do? And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission
of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that
are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto
Him."--ACTS ii. 37-39.
The sermon of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost and the sermon of our
Lord present a striking contrast. Our Lord's sermons were of various
kinds; they were at times consoling, yet full of instruction and
direction. Such, for instance, was the Sermon on the Mount. At other
times His discourses were stern, and full of sharp reproof. Such was
His teaching in His parting addresses to the Jews delivered in the
temple, recorded in the synoptic Gospels. Yet they apparently failed,
for the time at least, in producing any great practical results. In
fact, His temple discourses served only to irritate His foes, and
arouse their hostility.
St. Peter delivered a sermon on the day of Pentecost which was quite
as stern and quite as calculated to irritate, and yet that discourse
was crowned with results exceeding those ever achieved by our Lord,
though His discourses far surpassed St. Peter's in literary skill, in
spiritual meaning, in eternal significance and value. Whence came
this fact? It simply happened in fulfilment of Christ's own prophecy
recorded by St. John, where He predicts that His Apostles shall
achieve greater works than He had achieved, "because I go unto the
Father" (John xiv. 12). The departure of Christ into the true Holy of
Holies opened the channel of communication between the eternal Father
and the waiting Church; the Spirit was poured out through Christ as
the channel, and the result was conviction and conversion; leading the
people to cry out, in response to St. Peter's simple statement of
facts, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
I. One of the first qualifications absolutely necessary, if a man is
to write history tellingly and sympathetically, is a historical
imagination. Unless a man can, from a multitude of separate and often
independent details, reconstruct the past, realize it vividly for
himself, and then depict it with life and force to his readers, he
will utterly fail as a historian. The same historical imagination is
needed, too, if we wish to realize the full force of the circumstances
we are considering. It is hard even for those who do possess such an
imagination to throw themselves back into all the circumstances and
surroundings of the Apostles at Pentecost; but when we succeed in
doing so, then all these circumstances can only be explained on the
supposition--the orthodox and catholic supposition--that there must
have happened a supernatural occurrence, and that there must have been
granted a supernatural power and blessing on the day of Pentecost.
The courage of St. Peter when preaching his sermon is, as we have
already noticed, a proof of the descent of the Spirit. The
resurrection of his Master had doubtless inspired him with all the
power of a new idea. But St. Peter's history, both before the day of
Pentecost and after it, amply proved that mere intellectual conviction
could be united with grievous moral cowardice. We cannot doubt, for
instance, that St. Peter was intellectually convinced of the justice
of the Gentile claims, and their right to a full equality with the
Jews, when St. Paul felt compelled to withstand him at Antioch. Yet he
was possessed with no such spiritual enthusiasm on the question as
that which moved St. Paul, or else he never would have fallen into
such lamentable hypocrisy as he displayed on that occasion. The gift
of the Spirit was needed by St. Peter before an intellectual
conviction could be transformed into an overwhelming spiritual
movement, which swept every obstacle from its path. Again, the conduct
of the people is a proof of the descent of the Spirit. St. Peter
assails their actions, charges upon them the murder of the Messiah,
and proclaims the triumph of Christ over all their machinations. Yet
they listen quietly, respectfully, without opposition, as mobs do not
usually listen to speeches running counter to their prejudices. Some
wondrous phenomena, such as the gift of tongues, combined with
divinely persuasive eloquence, flinging the ægis of their protection
over the preacher's defenceless person, must have so struck the minds
of these fanatical Jews as to keep them quiet while St. Peter spoke.
But the result of St. Peter's speech was the chiefest evidence that
something extraordinary must have happened at Jerusalem in the
earliest days of the Church's history. Secular history tells us, as
well as the sacred narrative, that Christianity rose again from what
seemed its grave at the very spot where, and at the very moment when,
the crucifixion had apparently extinguished it for ever.
The evidence of the historian Tacitus is conclusive upon this point.
He lived and flourished all through the time when St. Paul's ministry
was most active. He was born about the year 50, and had every
opportunity of becoming acquainted with the facts concerning the
execution of Christ and the rise of Christianity, as they were
doubtless laid up in the imperial archives at Rome. His testimony,
written at a period when, as some maintain, neither the Acts of the
Apostles nor the Gospels of the New Testament were in existence,
exactly tallies with the account given by our sacred books. In his
_Annals_, book xv., chap. 44, he writes concerning Christianity:
"Christus, from whom the name of Christian has its origin, suffered
the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one
of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous
superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out in Judæa."
So that the Pagan historian, who knew nothing about Christianity save
what official pagan documents or popular report told him, agrees with
the Scriptures that Christianity was checked for a moment by the death
of its founder, and then gained its earliest and most glorious triumph
on the very scene of its apparent defeat where--and this is a very
important part of the argument--previously the most marvellous wisdom
and the most striking signs and wonders had utterly failed to gain any
large measure of success. Whence, then, can we explain this fact, or
how account for this conscience-stricken cry, "Men and brethren, what
shall we do?" unless we assume, what the narrative of our text
declares, that the Holy Ghost, in all His convincing and converting
power, had been poured out from on high?
And surely our own personal experience daily corroborates this view.
There may be intellectual conviction and controversial triumph without
any spiritual enthusiasm. Sermons may be clever, powerful, convincing,
and yet, unless the Spirit's power be sought, and an unction from on
high be vouchsafed, no spiritual harvest can be expected. St. Peter's
sermon, if viewed from a human standpoint, could no more have been
expected to succeed than the Master's. The one new element, however,
which now entered into the combination, explains the difference. The
Spirit was now given, and men therefore hearkened to the servant where
they had turned a deaf ear to the Master. It is a lesson much needed
for our generation, especially in the case of the young, and of our
Sunday-school system. The religious instruction of youth is much more
carefully looked after than it used to be. Primers, handbooks,
elementary commentaries, catechists' manuals, are published in
profusion, and many think that provided a Sunday or day school
distinguishes itself in the examination list, which is now the one
great educational test, religious knowledge has been secured. The
contrast between St. Peter's success and our Lord's failure warns us
that there is a vast difference between religious life and religious
knowledge. The most irreligious people, the most bitter opponents of
Christianity, have been produced by schools and systems where
religious knowledge was literally crammed down the throats of the
children in a hard, mechanical, unloving style. But let there be no
mistake. I do not object to organised religious instruction. I think,
in fact, that a vast amount of Sunday-school teaching is utterly
worthless for want of such organization. Our Sunday-school system
will, in fact, be thoroughly inefficient, if not useless, as a system,
till every Sunday-school has its teachers' meeting, presided over by
a competent instructor, who will carefully teach the teachers
themselves in a well-ordered, systematic course. But after all this
has been done, we must still remember that Christianity is something
more than a system of doctrine, or a Divine scheme of philosophy,
which can be worked up like Aristotle's _Ethics_ or Mill's _Logic_.
Christianity is a Divine power, a power which must be sought in faith,
in humiliation, and in prayer; and till the Holy Ghost be duly
honoured, and His presence be humbly sought, the finest system and the
most elaborate organizations will be found devoid of any fruitful life
and vigour.
II. There are many other points of interest in this passage; let us
take them one by one as they offer themselves. The people, seized by
conviction and in acute pain of conscience, cried out, "What shall we
do?" St. Peter replied, "Repent, and be baptized." Repent is the
Apostle's first rule,--contrasting very strongly with some modern
systems which have been devised on a plan very different from that of
our Lord and of His Apostles. The preaching of the New Testament is
ever the same. John the Baptist came, and his teaching was briefly
summed up thus, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
John was removed, and Christ came. The lamp ceased to shine, and then
the true Light stood revealed; but the teaching was the same, and the
Messiah still proclaims, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand." The system of teaching to which I refer parries the force of
our Lord's example, as well as of the Baptist's words, by saying, that
was the old dispensation. Till Christ died, the new covenant did not
come into force, and therefore Christ taught in His public ministry
merely as a Jew, speaking on Jewish grounds to Jews. But let us see
whether such an explanation, which makes void our Lord's personal
teachings and commands, is tenable. A reference to this passage
sufficiently settles this point. The Master departs and the Spirit is
outpoured, and still the apostolic and inspired teaching is just the
same. The cry of the multitude, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
produces, from the illuminated Apostle, the same response, "Repent,"
coupled with a new requirement, "Be baptized, every one of you, for
the remission of sins." And the same message has ever since continued
to be the basis of all real spiritual work. Simon Magus is found by
St. Peter with his mind intellectually convinced, but with his
affections untouched and his heart spiritually dead. To Simon Magus
Peter delivers the same message, "Repent of this thy wickedness, and
pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee."
John Wesley was one of the greatest evangelists that ever lived and
worked for God. During the whole sixty years of his continuous
labours, from the time when he taught his pupils in Oxford College and
the prisoners in Oxford jail down to the last sermon that he preached,
his ministry and teaching were modelled upon that of the New
Testament,--it was ever a preaching of repentance. He counted it
utterly useless and hopeless to preach the comforts of the gospel
before he had made men feel and wince beneath the terrors of the law
and the sense of offended justice. Modern times have seen, however, a
strange perversion of the gospel method, and some have taught that
repentance was not to be urged or even mentioned to Christian
congregations.
This is one of the leading points which the Plymouth Brethren
specially press in the course of their destructive and guerilla-like
assaults upon the communions of reformed Christendom. The apostolic
doctrine of repentance finds no place in their scheme; while again
their teaching on this subject, or something very like it, is often
reproduced, all unconsciously it may be, by the conductors of those
mission services so common throughout the country. It is as hard now
to preserve a just balance in teaching, as it was in the days of St.
Paul and St. James. It is no easy matter so to preach repentance as
not to discourage the truly humble soul; so to proclaim God's
forgiving love as not to encourage presumption and carelessness.
I have said, indeed, that the doctrine of the Plymouth body on this
point is a modern one. It is modern, indeed, when compared with the
genuine teaching of the New Testament; but still it is, in fact,
ancient, for it dates back to the Antinomians, who, two hundred and
fifty years ago, created a great sensation among the Puritan divines.
A brief historical narrative will prove this. The sermons of Dr.
Tobias Crisp and Fisher's _Marrow of Modern Divinity_ are books whose
very titles are now forgotten, and yet the diligent student will there
find all those ideas about repentance, justification, and assurance
which are now produced as marvellous new truths, though reprobated two
centuries ago as earnestly by Churchmen, like Bull, Beveridge, and
Stillingfleet, as by Howe, and Baxter, and Williams among the
Nonconformists and Puritans. The denial of the necessity for Christian
repentance was based, by the logical Antinomians of the olden time,
upon the theory that Christ bore in His own person the literal sins of
the elect; so that an elect person has nothing whatsoever to do with
his sins save assure himself, by an act of faith, that his sins were
forgiven and rendered completely non-existent eighteen hundred years
ago. The formula which they delight in and I have heard used, even by
Churchmen, is this: "Believe that you are saved, and then you are
saved." The result of this teaching in every age, wherever it has
appeared, is not far to seek. The main stress of all Christian effort
is devoted not to the attainment of likeness to Christ, or that
pursuit of holiness without which the beatific vision of God is
impossible. The great point urged by this party in every age is the
supreme importance of assurance which they identify with saving
faith.[67] Therefore it is that they discourage, aye, and go farther,
utterly reject, all teaching of repentance. The words of one of those
old writers puts the matter in its simplest form. In the reign of
James II. and William III. there arose a great controversy in London
touching this very point. Dr. Williams, the founder of the well-known
library in Grafton Street, London, was the leader on one side, while
the sermons of Tobias Crisp were the rallying-point on the other.
Williams and Baxter maintained the importance of repentance and the
absolute necessity of good works for salvation. On the opposite side,
the views and doctrines which we have seen pressed in modern times
were explicitly stated, but with far more fearlessness and logical
power than are ever now used. Here are a few of the propositions which
Dr. Williams felt himself bound to refute. I shall give them at some
length, that my readers may see how ancient is this heresy. "The elect
are discharged from all their sins by the act of God laying their sins
upon Christ on the cross, and consequently that the elect upon the
death of Christ ceased to be sinners, and ever since sins committed by
them are none of their sins, they are the sins of Christ." Again, the
Antinomians taught, in language often still reproduced, "Men have
nothing to do in order to salvation, nor is sanctification a jot the
way of any person to heaven. Nor can the duties and graces of the
elect, nor even faith itself, do them the least good, or prevent the
least evil; while, on the other hand, the grossest sins which the
elect commit cannot do them the least harm, nor ought they to fear the
least hurt from their own sins." While again, coming still closer to
the point on which we have been insisting, they declared, according to
Dr. Williams, that "the covenant of grace hath no condition to be
performed on man's part, even though in the strength of Christ.
Neither is faith itself the condition of this covenant, but all the
saving benefits of this covenant actually and really belong to the
elect before they are born, yea, and even against their will;" while
as to the nature of faith, they taught "that saving faith is nothing
else but our persuasion or absolute concluding within ourselves that
our sins are pardoned, and that Christ is ours." Hence they derived a
dogma of their own, directly and plainly contradictory of the teaching
of the New Testament on the subject of repentance, "that Christ is
offered to blasphemers, murderers, and the worst of sinners, that
they, remaining ignorant, unconvinced, and resolved in their purpose
to continue such, may be assured they have a full interest in Christ;
and this by only concluding in their own minds that Christ is theirs."
It is plain to any one fully acquainted with modern religious thought,
that all the special doctrines of Plymouthism concerning
justification, repentance, and faith, are involved in the statements
which Dr. Williams set himself to refute, and which he does refute
most ably, in works long since consigned to the oblivion of our great
libraries, though well worthy of careful study amid the troubles of
the present age.[68] Assurance, a present knowledge of a present
salvation, present peace, these are the only topics pressed upon the
unconverted. If the multitude at Jerusalem had asked the same question
from our modern teachers which they asked from the Apostles, "Men and
brethren, what shall we do?" the reply would have been, "Do you know
you are saved? If not, believe that you are saved, believe that Jesus
died for you." But not one of them would have given the apostolic
reply, "Repent, and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost," because the doctrine of repentance and the value and use
of the sacrament of baptism find no place in this new-fangled scheme.
[67] This point has been admirably discussed by Dr. Salmon in his
sermon on "Present Salvation" in his volume of sermons styled _The
Reign of Law_, pp. 295-99.
[68] This controversy between the Antinomian party and the London
Nonconformists of the orthodox sort is now almost unknown, and yet
it created great excitement in religious circles, conformist and
nonconformist, in the time of William III. Bishop Stillingfleet of
Worcester, the aged Baxter, and many of the leading divines,
joined in it. The echoes of it will be found resounding in the
more modern controversy between John Wesley and Fletcher on the
one side, and Rowland Hill and Lady Huntingdon on the other, about
the year 1770. A brief account of Dr. Daniel Williams will be
found in Schaft's edition of Herzog's _Cyclopædia_; see also
Calamy's _Life_ i., 323.
III. "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of your sins." These words form the basis of
a well-known clause in the Nicene Creed, which says, "I acknowledge
one baptism for the remission of sins." They suggest in addition some
very important discussions. The position which baptism occupies in
apostolic teaching is worthy of careful notice. It is pressed upon
the multitude as a present duty, and as the result there were three
thousand persons baptized in that one day. It was just the same with
Cornelius the centurion, and with the Philippian jailer whom St. Paul
converted. Baptism did not then succeed a long course of preparatory
training and instruction, as now is the case in the mission field.
When men in apostolic times received the rudiments of the faith, the
sacrament of baptism was administered, as being the channel or door of
admission into Christ's Church; and then, being once admitted into
God's house, it was firmly believed that the soul's life would grow
and develop at a vastly accelerated rate. A grave question here
suggests itself, whether baptism of converts from paganism is not
often too long delayed? The Apostles evidently regarded the Church as
an hospital where the wounds of the soul were to be healed, as a
Divine school where the ignorance of the soul was to be dissipated,
and therefore at once admitted the converts to the sacrament upon the
profession of their rudimentary faith. The Church soon reversed this
process, and demanded an amount of spiritual knowledge and a
development of spiritual life as the conditions of baptism, which
should have been looked for as the result of admission within her
sacred ranks, forgetful of that great missionary law laid down by the
Master Himself, which places baptism first and teaching afterwards,
"Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost:
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."
We freely admit that there may have been a quickened spiritual
vitality, a stronger spiritual life, in the case of the earliest
converts, enabling them in the course of a few hours to attain a
spiritual level which demanded a more prolonged effort on the part of
the later disciples. When we come to the times of the later apostolic
age, and inquire from such a book as the lately-discovered _Teaching
of the Twelve Apostles_, what the practice of the Church was then, we
see that experience had taught a more regular, a less hasty course of
action.[69] The law of baptism in the _Didache_, as the _Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles_ is usually called, runs thus: "Now concerning
baptism, thus baptize ye; having first uttered all these things,
baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, in running water. But if thou hast not running water, baptize
in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if
thou hast neither, pour water upon the head thrice, into the name of
the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the
baptizer and the baptized fast, and whatever others can; but the
baptized thou shalt command to fast for one or two days before."
[69] As some readers may not know what the work called the
_Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ is, let me explain its history
in a few words. Early Christian writers, from the year A.D. 200,
speak of a work called the _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ in
the highest terms. It was evidently, as known by them, a manual
used in the catechetical instruction of the young. This manual was
known to all the early ages, but disappeared from the view of the
Western Church during the middle ages. Nearly twenty years ago it
was discovered in Constantinople by the learned Greek Bishop
Bryennios, and published by him about ten years ago. It is
assigned by some critics to the concluding years of the first
century. A convenient and cheap edition of it will be found in the
second volume of the Apostolic Fathers in Griffith and Farran's
"Ancient and Modern Library." It is called the _Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles_, or else the _Didache_, using a Greek title,
which has the advantage of being shorter.
From these words it is plain that the immediate baptism of converts
had ceased probably with the first organization of the Church. A
pause was instituted between the first conviction of the truth and the
complete initiation which baptism involved, but not such a period of
delay as the months and even years over which the preparation for
baptism was subsequently spread. This delay of baptism sprang out of a
mistaken view of this Divine sacrament. Men came to look on it as a
charm, whereby not merely admission was obtained to the Divine society
which our Lord had founded, but also as bringing with it a complete
purgation from the sins of a careless life. Men postponed it,
therefore, to the very last, so that all sins might be swept away at
once. The Emperor Constantine was a good example of this mischievous
extreme. He was a man who took a kind of interest in theological
matters. Like our own King James I., he considered it his duty to
settle the religious affairs of his empire, even as his predecessors
had done in the days of paganism. He presided over Church councils,
dictated Church formularies, and exercised the same control in the
Church as in the State, being all the time unbaptized. He was scarce
aught but a pagan too in disposition and temper. He retained pagan
symbols, titles, and observances, and imbrued his hands, Herod-like,
in the blood of his own family. Yet he delayed his baptism to the very
last, under the notion that then there could be thus effected at one
stroke the complete removal of the accumulated sins of a lifetime.
IV. The comparison of the passage just quoted from the _Teaching of
the Apostles_ with the words of my text suggests other topics. The
Plymouth Brethren, at least in some of their numerous ramifications,
and other sects, have grounded upon the words, "be baptized, every one
of you, in the name of Jesus Christ," a tenet that baptism should not
be conferred in the name of the Trinity, but in that of Jesus alone.
It is indeed admitted that while our Lord commanded the use of the
historic baptismal formula in the concluding words of St. Matthew's
Gospel, the formula itself is never expressly mentioned in the Acts of
the Apostles. Not merely on the day of Pentecost, but on several other
occasions, Christian baptism is described as if the Trinitarian
formula was unknown. In the tenth chapter Cornelius and his household
are described as "baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." In the
nineteenth chapter St. Paul converts a number of the Baptist's
disciples to a fuller and richer faith in Christ. They were at once
"baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus." But a reference to the
newly-discovered _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ explains the
difficulty, offering an interesting example of the manner in which
modern discoveries have helped to illustrate and confirm the Acts of
the Apostles. In the _Didache_, as in the Acts, the expression
"baptism in the name of the Lord" is used. The _Didache_ lays down
with respect to the communion, "Let no one eat or drink of your
Eucharist except those baptized into the name of the Lord." Yet this
does not exclude the time-honoured formula of Christendom. The same
apostolic manual lays down the rule, a little before this prohibition
which we have just quoted, "Baptize into the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and then in the tenth chapter
describes baptism thus administered in the threefold name, as baptism
in the name of the Lord; and thus it was doubtless in the case of the
Acts. For the sake of brevity St. Luke speaks of Christian baptism as
baptism in the name of Christ, never dreaming at the same time that
this was exclusive of the divinely appointed formula, as certain
moderns have taught. The Acts of the Apostles, and the _Didache_ prove
their primitive character, and show that they deduce their origin from
the same early epoch, because they both describe Christian baptism as
performed in the name of Christ; and yet this fact does not exclude,
according to either, the use of the threefold Name. It is evident
that, whether in the Acts or in the _Didache_, baptism in the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost was regarded as baptism especially in
the name of Jesus Christ, because while the Father and the Spirit were
known to the Jews, the one new element introduced was that of the name
of Jesus, whom God had made both Lord and Christ. Baptism in the
Triune Name was emphatically baptism in the name of the Lord. This
passage, when compared with the _Didache_, sheds light on another
point. The mode wherein baptism should be administered has been a
point often discussed. Some have maintained the absolutely binding and
universal character of immersion; others have stood at the opposite
extreme, and upheld the method of sprinkling. The Church of England,
in union with the ancient Church, has laid down no hard-and-fast rule
on the subject. She recognises immersion as the normal idea in a warm
Eastern climate, but she allows pouring (not sprinkling) of water to
be substituted for immersion, which has, as a matter of fact, taken
the place in the Western Church of the more regular and ancient
immersion.[70] The construction of the ancient Churches, with their
baptisteries surrounded with curtains, and the female assistants for
the service of their own sex, amply proves that in the ancient Church,
as to this day in the Eastern Church, baptism was ordinarily
administered by immersion. The Church proved its Eastern origin by the
mode wherein its initial sacrament was at first applied. But it also
showed its power of adaptation to Western nations by allowing the
alternative of pouring water when she dealt with the needs of a colder
climate. Yet from the beginning the Church cannot have made the
validity of her sacraments depend upon the quantity of water that was
used. Take the cases reported in the Acts of the Apostles, or the
rules prescribed in the apostolic manual, the _Didache_. In the latter
it is expressly said that pouring with water shall suffice if a larger
quantity is not at hand. On the day of Pentecost it was clearly
impossible to immerse three thousand persons in the city of Jerusalem.
The Ethiopian eunuch baptized by St. Philip in the wilderness could
not have been immersed. He came to a stream trickling along, scarce
sufficient to lave his feet, or perhaps rather to a well in the
desert; the water was deep down, and reached only, as in the case of
Jacob's well, by a rope or chain. Even if the water could have been
reached, common sense, not to speak of any higher motive, would have
forbidden the pollution of an element so needful for human life. The
baptism of the eunuch must have been by pouring or affusion, as must
also have been the case with the Philippian jailer. The difficulties
of the case are forgotten when people insist that immersion must
necessarily have been the universal rule in ancient times.[71] Men and
women were baptized separately, deaconesses officiating in the case
of the women. When immersion was used the men descended naked, or
almost so, into the baptistery, which was often a building quite
separate and distinct from the church, with elaborate arrangements for
changing garments.[72] The Church, in the days of earliest freedom and
purity, left her children free in those points of minor detail,
refusing to hamper herself or limit her usefulness by a restriction
which would have equally barred entrance to her fold in the burning
deserts or in the ice-bound regions of the frozen north, where baptism
by immersion would have been equally impossible.
[70] The method of sprinkling is completely unknown to the Church
ancient or modern, and should be absolutely rejected, as tending
to a disuse of the element of water at all.
[71] The case of Perpetua and Felicitas, and the other famous
martyrs of Carthage in the beginning of the third century, proves
that pouring with water must have sufficed for baptism in a Church
so intensely conservative as the Church of North Africa.
Tertullian in his writings often reproves its members for the
superstitious extremes to which they pushed their conservative
feelings, imitating every ancient Christian custom, rational or
irrational. Felicitas and her friends were baptized in prison,
where they were thrust into a noisome dungeon. How could they have
been immersed in such a place? This case is good evidence for the
practice of the second century as well.
[72] See the articles on Baptism and Baptistery in Smith and
Cheetham's _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, vol. i.
Again, the extent of the baptismal commission is indicated in this
passage. "Make disciples of all the nations by baptism" are the words
of our Lord. "Be baptized, every one of you, for the promise is to you
and to your children, and to all that are afar off," is St. Peter's
application of this passage. St. Peter's language admits of various
interpretations. Like much of Scripture, the speaker, when uttering
these words, meant probably one thing, while the words themselves mean
something much wider, more catholic and universal. When Peter spake
thus he proclaimed the world-wide character of Christianity, just as
when he quoted the prophet Joel's language he declared the mission of
the Comforter in its most catholic aspect, embracing Gentiles as well
as Jews. "I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh." But St. Peter
never thought of the full scope of his words. He meant, doubtless,
that the promise of pardon, and acceptance, and citizenship in the
heavenly kingdom was to those Jews that were present in Jerusalem, and
to their children, and to all of the Jews of the dispersion scattered
afar off amid the Gentiles. Had Peter thought otherwise, had he
perceived the wider meaning of his words, he would have had no
hesitation about the reception of the Gentiles, and the baptism of
Cornelius would not have demanded a fresh revelation.
We often, indeed, invest the Apostles and the writers of Holy
Scripture with an intellectual grasp of a supernatural kind, which
prevents us recognising that growth in Divine knowledge which found
place in them, as it found place in the Divine Master Himself. We
silently vote them infallible on every topic, because the Spirit's
presence was abundantly vouchsafed. The inspiration they enjoyed
guided their language, and led them to use words which, while
expressing their own sentiments, admitted a deeper meaning and
embraced a wider scope than the speaker intended. It was just the same
with the Apostles' words as with their conduct in other respects. The
presence and inspiration of the Spirit did not make them sinless, did
not destroy human infirmities. It did not destroy St. Peter's moral
cowardice, or St. Paul's hot temper, or St. Barnabas's family
partiality and nepotism; and neither did that presence illumine at
once St. Peter's natural prejudices and intellectual backwardness,
which led him long to restrain the mercies and lovingkindness of the
Lord to His ancient people, though here on the day of Pentecost we
find him using language which plainly included the Gentiles as well as
the Jews within the covenant of grace. A farther question concerning
the language of St. Peter here arises. Do not his words indicate that
children were fit subjects for baptism? Do they not justify the
practice of infant baptism? I honestly confess that, apart from the
known practice of the Jews, St. Peter's language would not necessarily
mean so much. But then when we take the known practice of the Jews
into consideration; when we remember that St. Peter was speaking to a
congregation composed of Jews of the dispersion, accustomed, in their
own missionary work among the heathen, to baptize children as well as
adults, we must admit that, in the absence of any prohibition to the
contrary, the effect of the words of St. Peter upon his hearers must
have been this; they would have acted when Christians as they had
already done as Jews, and baptized proselytes of every age and
condition on their admission to the Christian fold. (See Lightfoot,
_Hor. Heb._, St. Matt. iii. 6.)
V. Such was St. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. The results of
it in the unity of doctrine and discipline and the community of goods
will come before us in subsequent chapters. One thought stands out
prominent as we survey this second chapter. Here in very deed we find
an ample fulfilment of our Lord's promise to St. Peter which has been
so completely misused and misunderstood, "I will give unto thee the
keys of the kingdom of heaven;" a passage which has been made one of
the scriptural foundations of the monstrous claims of the See of Rome
to an absolute supremacy alike over the Christian Church and over the
individual conscience. In this respect, however, Scripture is its own
best interpreter. Just reflect how it is in this matter. Christ first
of all defines, in the celebrated series of parables related in the
thirteenth of St. Matthew, what the kingdom of heaven is. It is the
kingdom He had come to reveal, the society He was establishing, the
Church and dispensation of which He is the Head and Chief. To St.
Peter he gave the keys, or power of opening the doors, of this
kingdom; and this office St. Peter duly executed. He opened the door
of the kingdom of heaven to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and to
the Gentiles by the conversion and baptism of Cornelius. St. Peter
himself recognised on one occasion the special Providence which
watched over him in this matter. He points out, in his speech to the
brethren gathered at the first council held at Jerusalem, that "a good
while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles
should hear the word of the gospel;" a passage which seems a
reminiscence of the earlier promise of Christ, which Peter must have
so well remembered, and a humble recognition of the glorious
fulfilment which that promise had received at the Divine hand.[73] The
promise was a purely personal one peculiar to St. Peter, as purely
personal as the revelation made to him on the housetop at Joppa, and
as such received a complete fulfilment in the Church's infant days.
But Rome's vaulting ambition would not be content with the fulfilment
which satisfied St. Peter himself, and on this text has been built up
a series of claims which, culminating in the celebrated traffic in
indulgences, precipitated the great revolution involved in the German
Reformation.
[73] See Dr. John Lightfoot's _Horæ Hebraicæ_, St. Matt. xvi. 19.