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 THE HOLINESS OF BAPTIZED INFANTS, 
 
 A SEEMON 
 
 J 
 
 PREACHED IN THE 
 
 iirisji Ctinrrli nf Jtlnrrljnrb iMin^, 
 
 On Sunday, April 28th, 1850, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. BARTHOLOMEW, A. M. 
 
 ARCHDEACON OF BAKS3TAPLE, AND HECTOE OF MOBCHABD BISIKT 
 
 SIXTH EDrrioN. 
 
 EXETER: 
 
 HENRY J. WALLIS, HIGH STREET. 
 
 LONDON: MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET fit NEW BONE STREET. 
 
 Frice 3<i., or, 2\s.2>er 100.
 
 The time at which this Sermon was published, 
 perhaps the tone in which it is written, (which 
 may be traced to that fulness of the heart out 
 of which the mouth spcaketh,) and the distin- 
 guishing notice taken of it by the Bishop of 
 Exeter in his "Letter to the Churchwardens of 
 Brampford Speke," may very naturally lead to 
 the conclusion, that it was written with an ex- 
 press view to the Controversy, which has of 
 necessity occupied the thoughts of all to whom 
 God's Truth is dear. 
 
 Glad am I, and thankful, to be permitted to 
 bear my testimony, in any way, and under any 
 circumstances, to the Truth which has been so 
 called in question ; but the Sermon will not be 
 read, perhaps, with less interest, if it shall be 
 known, that it was written in the simple dis- 
 charge of ministerial and parochial Duty. The 
 immediate motive and object in writing it was 
 to speak the word of consolation to Parents, who
 
 suddenly, and without even an hour's warning, 
 were bereaved of the infant Child, whom they 
 had first given to God in Baptism. 
 
 I venture to add here the Inscription on that 
 Infant's Tomb, as briefly conveying the Doctrine 
 which the Sermon is meant at greater length to 
 affirm. 
 
 HERE RESTETH A BELOVED INFANT, 
 ***** 
 
 BAPTIZED NO^^:MBER 4, 1849 ; 
 
 CALLED HENCE 
 
 TO THE INHERITANCE OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD 
 
 IN CHRIST JESUS, 
 
 APRIL 24, 1850. 
 
 J. B. 
 
 Morcttard, September \2th, 1850. 

 
 SERMON. 
 
 St. Mark X. 14. 
 
 " SlTFEE THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME, AND 
 
 rOEBID THEM NOT, FOR OF SUCH IS THE 
 
 KINGDOM OF GOD." 
 
 There are few passages in Scripture with which 
 we are more familiar than with the words in the 
 Text. They meet the ear as often as the Baptis- 
 mal Service is read ; and, because they are there 
 read, we gladly connect them with the thought that 
 Christ is ever calling our children, — ever calling to 
 us to bring them to Him, that the sin of Adam, 
 which is born with them, may be washed away in 
 the Holy Rite ordained by Him, and of which He 
 spake, before yet it was ordained, saying, " Except 
 a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can- 
 not enter into the Kingdom of God." 
 
 In every house, by turns, this gladness makes 
 itself felt. The mother forgets her pain and tra- 
 vail, in the thought that she has brought her infant 
 to Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism. She gave 
 him life with the stain of sin ; Christ gives him 
 life, and washes away the stain and the sin ; the 
 Church of God receives another soul within its 
 courts ; the Church that is invisible is increased 
 by a visible addition to the number of God's child-
 
 reu ; and many of us (too many) have no thought 
 of all this — no thought of this connection between 
 earth and heaven — no thought of saints in heaven, 
 who are one through Christ with saints on earth 
 — no thought that a poor little weakly, puny, 
 crying infant can be, by Baptism, in more close 
 communion with God than they are, who, looking 
 on its helplessness, think of it only as helpless, and 
 never look upon it as holy ; and yet of this there 
 can be no doubt. The children brought unto 
 Christ, and so baptized, although no doubt the 
 infection of sin abides in them, yet are they in 
 Christ, holy, pure, fit for the presence of God, and 
 for His indwelling, fit to be received among His 
 holiest saints and servants in heaven ; and we, in 
 the mean time, are actual sinners in His sight; 
 some without repentance, some without faith, some 
 without love ; all standing in need of grace, all 
 unworthy of His goodness; some, we hope, brought 
 near to Christ, strong in f\\ith, sincere in penitence, 
 vet most assuredly knowing that, were it not for 
 the mercy of God, and the merits of Christ, they, 
 even for their own sins, would be without hope, 
 and would perish everlastingly. 
 
 You see my object, brethren, in calling your 
 attention to that which the world and the men of 
 the world do not see. I direct your attention to 
 the holy and living infant, whose Life and Holi- 
 ness is given by the Power and Grace of God. 
 " That which is born of the flesh is flesh," but in 
 Baptism we see one *' born of the Spirit." It is 
 thought of, and treated ordinarily, as a living body.
 
 The nurse, the mother, the friends, speak of its 
 health or its weakness, of its beauty and its come- 
 liness ; but that which is of most importance, and 
 is scarcely thought of by the generality, is, that it 
 is a living soul — living by tlie mercy of God, 
 through the pitying love of Christ, by the grace of 
 the Holy Spirit — living, where too many around 
 it are dead in unrepented sin — holy, where too 
 many of those that look on it are unholy — one 
 with Christ, where too many have parted from and 
 forsaken Him — often creatinnj a lau2;h amonfi^st the 
 thouojhtless and the f]^odless, if in its bodilv weak- 
 ness it shall cry whilst l)eing baptized, but an 
 object of reverential regard and love to the angels, 
 who see in it not the mortal body, but the immor- 
 tal soul, — who see it radiant with Grace in the 
 beauty of Holiness and Innocence, the beloved of 
 the Father, the saved of the Son, the workmanship 
 of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 My brethren, you will not be surprised, if, with 
 thoughts such as these springing up within me, 
 I have looked with pity and wonder on those 
 who, in their thoughtlessness or their ignorance, 
 take no part in the solemn service, but sit on, 
 as if they had nothing to do with the infant, 
 as if the infant had nothing to do with Christ. 
 I think I have said enough this day to show you 
 that there is not upon earth for the faithful and 
 believing heart, a more wonderful, soul-stirring 
 spectacle than the Baptism of a little child ; that 
 there is nothing so holy in all the things of earth, 
 as such infant received by Christ according to His
 
 Word, and visited by the Holy Spirit, and made, 
 in Baptism, " a LIcmbcr of Cln-ist, a Child of God, 
 and an Inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 There is something beyond all measure attractive 
 in the thought, that, as we look upon it, we 
 are enabled to say, " Of such is the Kingdom of 
 God." We have in no other way such sight of 
 God's Kingdom presented to us, — in no place — 
 in no person grown up to man's estate — can there 
 be seen the work of the Spirit in the same un- 
 sullied, unstained purity ; and yet there are those 
 who would deprive u& of such blessed sight, such 
 happy, undoubting faith ; there are those who 
 would leave us in uncertainty about this hirth 
 by Baptism. May God guide them to the truth, 
 by the light of His Holy Spirit ! May God for- 
 give their want of faith ! May God preserve all 
 parents from such deadly error, from the sorrow 
 Avhich may one day be theirs, if such doubts are 
 sown, and take root, and spring up in their hearts, 
 to the quenching of faith and truth. 
 
 Blessed are they that believe ! But, my brethren, 
 except we receive the truth in such faith as shall 
 carry us in our own practice — in our own lives — 
 more near to Christ, we shall lose a very large 
 portion of the advantage and the blessing, which 
 is thus freely granted to us all. Wicked parents 
 will not sec all I have been describing ; worldly 
 parents will have no reverence for the operation 
 of the Holy Ghost, no sense of the blessedness of 
 God's love and mercy in so pardoning sin, and 
 so bestowing grace ; and we have a proof of our
 
 own indifterence to the things of God, in the com- 
 paratively little interest which we take in the 
 ministration of that Holy Sacrament, by which 
 spiritual life is imparted, and sin pardoned, and 
 the assurance given that God is our Father, and 
 we His children, and that, if permitted to live in 
 the body, our prayers will be accepted, and our 
 spiritual wants supplied, and our faith increased ; 
 we ourselves coming boldly to the Throne of grace, 
 that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help 
 in time of need. 
 
 Our indifference and blindness to the things 
 which belong unto our peace, grow on us in a 
 most wonderful manner, and such blindness is 
 practically unbelief ; too often the keener our 
 eyesight may be in mere things of the world, 
 tlie greater is our blindness in things pertaining 
 to God. If I were to enter some houses, and say 
 to the father or mother of a child, which God has 
 given them, "Let me see that very holy thing 
 which Christ has washed clean from sin by water 
 and the Holy Spirit," some parents might won- 
 der what I could mean ; some might laugh ; some 
 might think me in jest, or out of my senses; while 
 some few would have the tear glistening in the 
 eve, and would look on their child as the Vir^fin 
 looked on her blessed Infant ; and though they 
 would know that, if their child were permitted to 
 live, it would sin, aild that it came into the world 
 stained with sin, being unlike in both these respects 
 to the Holy Child Jesus, — yet they would know 
 that in its present state it was a child of God by
 
 6 
 
 Grace (the Grace given in Baptism,) and holy, and 
 innocent ; and the father's look and mother's kiss 
 would be given as to a being that stood higher 
 in God's love than themselves, because pure from 
 sin ; they would know that it was fit and ready to 
 be called hence, and to be taken in the arms of the 
 Redeemer, and to be placed in Abraham's bosom, 
 and to serve God to all eternity without fear, "in 
 holiness and righteousness before him," through 
 the mercy — the tender mercy — "whereby the day- 
 spring from on high hath visited us." 
 
 I say there are some few parents (few where 
 there should be many) whose eyes are open after 
 this manner, to see the things which belong to 
 God and their peace : — to such, a baptized child 
 in their house speaks continually of the presence 
 of God — of the indwelling of God in the child 
 of man, made His child by Grace, and accep- 
 table and accepted through the blood and merits 
 of Christ. Their faith tells them so to believe 
 the words of the Lord Jesus, — "Except a man 
 be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
 enter into the kingdom of God ;" their faith tells 
 them so to believe in the efficacy of the Sacrament 
 of Baptism, — in the " outward visible sign of an 
 inward spiritual grace given unto us " in the Sac- 
 rament ordained by Christ Himself. Those who 
 think not thus are, in this respect, unbelievers. 
 Those who, believing in the mere word, have their 
 children baptized, and who, denying the spirit of 
 that word, look for another birth, as if the child 
 were not born again in Baptism, are without faith
 
 in that which the Church holds to be an essential 
 part of Christian faith, and deny the truth of 
 Christ's saying, and the power exercised by the 
 Spirit in the ordinance of Baptism : — with them 
 the poor infant is still a mere thing of flesh and 
 blood, — helpless — bringing care and anxiety by its 
 bodily weakness, — and not that precious thing 
 which has been purchased at a costly price — even 
 the blood of Christ; not that holy thing which 
 angels would desire to look upon, and protect with 
 outspread wings ; not that part and portion of 
 Clu'ist which the presence and indwelling of the 
 Father and the Son would testify ; not that work 
 of the Spirit in wliom God is well pleased, as the 
 voice from Heaven said, when the Spirit descended 
 on the Saviour, and He rose out of the waters 
 of Jordan, the eternal Dove descending on Him in 
 the sight of John the Baptist. 
 
 But the Baptism of John in every other instance 
 was with water only ; and from the day that he 
 baptized Jesus his power and influence decreased, 
 and passed to Him who baptized with water and 
 the Holy Ghost : and He hath taught us what to 
 believe ; He sent forth His disciples to do what 
 we do, — that is, to preach, and teach, and to bap- 
 tize : and when He was no more upon the earth. 
 His holy servant Peter baptized in one day three 
 thousand persons ; and he called them to that holy 
 rite, saying, " the promise is to you and to your 
 children ;" and St. Paul after him gave his testi- 
 mony, and said, " as many of you as have been 
 baptized into Christ, have put on Christ ;" and
 
 8 
 
 from that time until now it has been the custom 
 and faith of the Church — a custom growing out 
 i)£ the faith — to baptize all children : and again I 
 repeat, those parents who have a baptized infant in 
 their houses, have a holy thing perpetually before 
 them, — a mortal body, but a living soul, — a body 
 into which sin hath not entered through the evil 
 will ; in which the stain of Adam's sin has been 
 washed away ; and their only cause of sorrow is 
 the thought that, if permitted to live, it will not, 
 by reason of the corrupt nature which remains 
 even in the regenerate, be always thus holy ; and 
 this thought will work in them the anxious care, 
 that they should use all diligence to keep it as 
 long as possible unpolluted by sin, and so to bring 
 it up in the faith and fear of God, as that it shall 
 fear to offend, and repent when it has offended, 
 and pray for grace to withstand temptation, and, 
 in the power of the Spirit, to bring forth fruit 
 unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. 
 
 This must be the wish, the desire, the prayer 
 of Christian parents as they sit by the cradle of 
 their infants, and bless God silently in their hearts. 
 Nature — that law of God, which, without special 
 revelation, commands that the parent shall love the 
 child to which it gives birth — nature makes us 
 desire that, though it will not always remain 
 sinless, the infant may yet be permitted to live ; 
 we hope the sin may not be great, may not be 
 without repentance, may not be without pardon, 
 and that grace may be given — grace increased — 
 and the child be renewed by the Spirit, and the
 
 grown up man, or woman, be a true and faithful 
 follower of the Lord Jesus. But • our wishes and 
 prayers are not always answered. If we could see 
 into the future, if we could know tlie secret things 
 of God, we should see His mercy, and pitying 
 love ; we should know, perhaps, that where any 
 special child is taken away in its infancy, the object 
 is to save it from sorrow, or from sin, or from pain, 
 such as would rend a parent's heart asunder only to 
 think of. So the innocent, and the pure, and the holy, 
 which are part of ourselves as it were, (and remem- 
 ber, the holiest part,) are sometimes taken from us. 
 God wills not that they should be stained and 
 polluted with sin. Christ will have His own ad- 
 mitted to see Him face to face ; the natural body 
 is not a sufficiently rich case for such precious 
 gem; and He wills that it should return to the 
 dust from whence it came, and that the living soul, 
 whose life is derived from Himself, should rise, as 
 He rose, with a glorified body, to be above the 
 thinjjs of the earth, and among the thinc^s which 
 are above, where He sitteth at the right hand of 
 God. A great blow this to the law of nature, to 
 the love commanded and implanted by God in the 
 hearts of parents, towards those who are part and 
 parcel of themselves ; but let those parents, (if 
 indeed they believe as Christian parents shoukl 
 believe,) look on the dying or dead infant in the 
 faith that Christ, by Baptism, has washed it clean 
 from sin, has imparted the Holy Spirit, has made 
 it a child of God, a part of Himself, a work of 
 Grace. Who has the greatest part in that child ?
 
 10 
 
 The first parents — they which out of flesh begat 
 flesh? or lie, who by His Spirit gave it a new 
 birth, and made it Spirit? And if they, who by Bap- 
 tism are born again and made children of God by 
 adoption, are called shortly and speedily to the 
 Inheritance which is their birthright, shall the 
 parents grieve because their children are thought 
 worthy of such blessedness ? must they not rather 
 fling themselves upon their faith, and say, "The 
 Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken, blessed be 
 His Holy Name." Shall they not, as they sit in 
 silence, and mourn for the loss, acknowledge that 
 Christ speaks at the death of the child the very 
 words they heard at his Baptismal Birth, and says, 
 " Suffer the little children to come unto me, and for- 
 bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." 
 I say, Christ speaks thus to believing parents, and 
 the short natural sorrow will soon be turned into 
 joy ; the heaviness may endure for the night, their 
 joy will come in the morning. It was a miracle of 
 mercy, such as Christ works, such as John Bap- 
 tist was not permitted to work, when our children 
 were made by Baptism children of God ; when 
 the unclean by nature were made clean by Grace, 
 by the washing of Regeneration and Renewing of 
 the Holy Ghost. If any parents have such treasure 
 taken from them, let them think, with tears of joy, 
 that in the race that is set before them, their child 
 has received the prize sooner than themselves ; let 
 them think that it is a very blessed privilege to 
 walk the earth as the living and mortal parents of 
 a living and for ever blessed and immortal soul ;
 
 11 
 
 that there is another link binding them to Heaven 
 and its King, another motive for living unto Christ, 
 another warning to turn away from Avorldliness 
 and wickedness, another source of joy and thank- 
 fulness, as they lie waking in the stillness of night, 
 and, as time goes on, wonder that they did not 
 sooner rejoice, that they did not sooner wipe away 
 their natural tears, did not sooner open their eyes 
 to the selfishness of human sorrow. How could 
 they ever have wished, even for a moment, will be 
 then their tliought, to stay the Lord's hand, or to 
 retain in this miserable and sinful world the infant 
 whom God was willing to receive into the glory 
 and happiness of His Presence. 
 
 ^ly brethren, there are none of you who, being 
 parents, are not more or less interested in what 
 God has permitted me to say to you this day. 
 
 Keep the Faith as taught by the Church — " ONE 
 Baptism for the Ke3IISSion of 8ixs" — believe 
 not those who, leaving the Church, deny the Faith. 
 Think that your children are by Baptism made 
 holy ; watch over tliem, watch over yourselves, lest 
 the corrupt nature in them should rebel early 
 through your neglect or bad example, and in- 
 nocence and holiness be exchanged, sooner than 
 you imagine possible, for sin and guilt. But if 
 your children shall have been, or shall be taken 
 from you, before yet their innocence shall have 
 been exchanged for sin, bear yourselves as those 
 who have given birth in your own bodies to 
 children of God ; and whilst you believe that they 
 were made His children in Baptism, and that He
 
 12 
 
 has tiikeii them to be where He is, pray that you 
 may be so penitent fur your sins, so sustained by 
 His grace, so strengthened by increased and in- 
 creasing laith, as that you may look forward with 
 assured hope to being written among the Spirits 
 of just men made perfect, through Jesus the 
 Mediator, the Redeemer, the First and the Last, 
 who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive 
 for evermore. Amen. 
 
 W. C. Pollard, Printer, North Street, Exeter.

 
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