The doctrine of the Church in regard to baptism has afforded less dispute
than almost any other down to the very times in which we live. It was
fully recognized by Irenæus, and appears scattered up and down in various
parts of his writings.
He asserts in direct terms that baptism is our new birth to God(392), and
ascribes to infants a share in that new birth equally with grown
persons(393). There is no room for any equivocal meaning in these
passages. It is not merely that he speaks, as a thing of course, of
infants being baptized, (which, by the plain force of words, he manifestly
does,) but he directly ascribes to them also the new birth, which he
asserts to be baptism. This testimony in favour of infant baptism and
infant regeneration is very valuable from one who lived so near the
apostolical times.
The necessity of the laver of regeneration he states to arise from the
original corruption of man(394), whom he asserts to be and to remain
carnal, until he receives the Spirit of God(395). The water of baptism is
therefore a type of the Holy Spirit(396); and in baptism our bodies
receive the union with God to eternal life, which our souls at the same
time receive by the Spirit(397). In receiving the Holy Spirit, therefore,
the soul of man receives that which it had not by nature since the fall;
it becomes a living soul; for the Spirit of God is the life of the
soul(398). This Spirit he elsewhere calls the Spirit of remission of
sins(399), and declares that we are quickened by it. In connexion with
what he says of our flesh being united to God in baptism, we may take what
he elsewhere says, that our flesh is a member of Christ(400).
If we inquire for his opinion of the actual spiritual state of the
Christian body, we shall find him declaring that those only are the
children of God who do the will of God(401); that some remain thus in the
love of God, even from the time of their baptism; others fall away, and
cease to be his children; and of those who fall, some by repentance
recover their relation to Him, and remain thenceforward in his love(402).
There is one passage(403) in which he appears at first sight to deny
forgiveness to those who sin since the coming of Christ, and thence to
give some countenance to the idea that wilful sin of Christians cannot be
forgiven. What he really does say is simply this; that whereas the
ancients who sinned before the coming of Christ did, when they had the
Gospel preached to them in the regions below, and believed, receive
remission of sins, there is no such hope awaiting those who now commit
sin. If they die in sin, there is no further sacrifice remaining for them
to be preached to them in the regions of the dead.
We can scarcely avoid remarking the strict correspondence between the
doctrine of Irenæus upon this subject and that contained in the
formularies of the Church of England, particularly in the Baptismal
Service and the 16th and 27th Articles. And it is the more valuable,
because it does not appear _directly_ in the form of a precise statement,
but indirectly, as in the Scriptures themselves; showing that it pervaded
the whole practical system with which his mind was imbued. The difficulty
in the Scriptures unquestionably is, that regeneration is no where in so
many words affirmed respecting infants, and that there is language, as in
St. John’s first epistle, appearing to restrict it to persons capable of
actual obedience. Now in Irenæus we find that omission supplied, and yet
he uses without scruple the same kind of language as St. John; showing
that in the system he inherited, and that by an interval of only one
descent from St. John himself, the two things which, with our prejudices,
are apt to appear inconsistent, were parts of one and the same doctrine.