HKB
been an Apostolic usage, or specially intended in any part of the New Testament: though deducible generally from many passages, and in perfect accordance with the spirit of the whole.
A mighty wrestler in the cause of Spiritual Religion and Gospel morality, in whom more than in any other contemporary I seem to see the spirit of Luther revived, expressed to me his doubts whether we have a right to deny that an infant is capable of a spiritual influence. To such a man I could not feel justified in returning an answer ex tempore, or without having first submitted my convictions to a fresh revisal. I owe him, however, a deliberate answer; and take this opportunity of discharging the debt.
The objection supposes and assumes the very point which is denied, or at least disputed--namely, that Infant Baptism is specially injoined in the Scriptures. If an express passage to this purport had existed in the New Testament--the other passages, which evidently imply a spiritual operation under the condition of a preceding spiritual act on the part of the person baptized, remaining as now--then indeed, as the only way of removing the apparent contradiction, it might be allowable to call on the Anti-pædobaptist to prove the negative--namely, that an infant a week old is not a subject capable or susceptible of spiritual agency. And, vice versa, should it be made known to us, that infants are not without reflection and self-consciousness--then, doubtless, we should be entitled to infer that they were capable of a spiritual operation, and consequently of that which is signified in the baptismal rite administered to adults. But what does this prove for those, who (as D. D. Mant and D'Oyly) not only cannot show, but who do not themselves profess to believe, the self-consciousness of a new-born babe, but who rest the defence of Infant Baptism on the assertion, that God was pleased to affix the performance of this rite to his offer of Salvation, as the indispensable, though arbitrary, condition of the infant's salvability?--As Kings in former ages, when they conferred lands in perpetuity, would sometimes, as the condition of the tenure, exact from the beneficiary a hawk, or some trifling ceremony, as the putting on or off of their sandals, or whatever else royal caprice or the whim of the moment might suggest. But you, honoured IRVING, are as little disposed, as myself, to favour such doctrine!
Friend, pure of heart and fervent! we have learnt A different lore! We may not thus profane The Idea and Name of Him whose absolute Will Is Reason--Truth Supreme!--Essential Order![153]
[153] For a further opinion upon Edward Irving see note at pp. 153-4 of the 1839 edition of Coleridge's 'Church and State.'--ED.
[154] Here the editor of the 1843 edition was able to give two pages of additional matter by the author, tending, as Coleridge said, to the "clearing up" of "the chapter on Baptism," and the proving "the substantial accordance of my scheme with that of our Church." The addition is from Coleridge's MS. Note-books, and bears date May 8, 1828.--ED.
[155] This note appeared in the early editions only. The "supplementary volume" was never published, though the "Essay on Faith," at p. 425, v. 4, of Coleridge's "Remains" (1838), and "Notes on the Book of Common Prayer" (p. 5, v. 3, the same), may be the parts here mentioned as written to appear in it. We republish these two fragments at the end of the present volume, pp. 341 and 350.--ED.
CONCLUSION.