The Mystery of Baptism in the Anglican Tradition. Kenneth Stevenson

      Fifthly, the efficacy of baptism. Perkins asks various questions. One, ‘Does baptism forgive all sins and the whole of the life of a man?’ Against tradition, which requires penance for certain sins, Perkins insists that ‘the covenant of grace is everlasting . . . therefore baptism is not to be tied to any time’. Two, ‘Does baptism abolish original sin?’ Against the Catholic view, which insists that it does, Perkins observes that ‘though actual guilt be taken away, yet potential guilt remaineth, namely as aptness in original sin, to make men guilty’.²⁰ This comes near the modern view that original sin is a ‘bias to the bad’. Three, ‘How does baptism confer grace?’ It does so like a king’s letter that saves the life of a malefactor; or the outward washing is a token and pledge of the inward. ‘He that useth the sign aright, shall receive the thing signified.’ And he goes on: ‘it is not an instrument having the grace of God tied unto it, or shut up in it; but an instrument to which grace is present by assistance in the right use thereof . . . a moral and not a physical instrument.’ Here is the outward and the inward again doing creative battle in the sacramental sphere. Perkins’ heart seems to be on the side of faithful reception of the sacrament rather than what the sacrament does in itself. Hooker, as we shall see, insists that the sacraments are both moral and physical, in order to safeguard their centrality, and to prevent them becoming optional, or, worse still, visual aids. Four, ‘Does baptism imprint a character or mark in the soul?’ Again, it is almost as if Perkins wants to go further than he can: ‘Baptism is a means to see this mark in us; because it is the laver of regeneration.’²¹ For him it cannot therefore have an indelible character. Five, ‘Is it necessary to be baptized?’ In view of what he said in A Golden Chain, that sacraments are a prop to faith, the answer must surely be a mild ‘no’. It is ‘necessary in part’. ‘The want of baptism . . . does not condemn . . . The children of believing parents are born holy.’ And yet, in discussing John 3:5: ‘baptism makes men visible members of the Church; and regeneration by the spirit makes them true and lively members!’²²

      Sixthly, the circumstances of baptism. Only ministers should baptize, because ‘private teaching and ministerial teaching are distinctive in kind’. The intention is there to baptize and even if the minister is not a preacher, it is still a true baptism. The efficacy of the sacrament depends not on the will of man but on the will of God. As far as the persons being baptized are concerned, ‘men of years that join themselves to the true Church are to be baptized, yet before their baptism, they are to make confession of their faith, and to promise amendment of life.²³ Further, ‘infants of believing parents are likewise to be baptised . . . and are in the covenant of grace. They are the children of God because in their conception and birth God begins to manifest his election. Infants do have faith, and parents have faith on their behalf, a position to which I rather incline.’ Baptism must only be administered once, in the public assembly of the congregation, and ‘the whole congregation is to make profit by the enarration of the institution of baptism.’

      This leads him on to his seventh and final section, on the use of baptism. ‘Our baptism must put us in mind, that we are admitted and received into the family of God.’ At this point Perkins propounds a powerful baptismal spirituality. To contemplate one’s own baptism means looking at the life that is past, in examination and confession and deprecation, towards the life that is to come, in the purpose of not sinning, and in endeavour to perform a new obedience to Christ, and it is ‘a storehouse of all comfort in the time of our need’. Perhaps most powerfully of all he states, ‘if a man would be a student of divinity, let him learn and practise his baptism . . . The best commentary to a man’s own self is his own baptism.’²⁴

      He then relates the gift of being adopted sons of God to putting on the garment, putting on Christ, as in the verse which provoked this whole discussion (Gal. 3:27). We are made one with Christ by the gift of Christ to us, by Christ’s gift to himself of his giving of his ‘spirit’ to make us conformable to himself in holiness and newness of life. Putting on Christ makes us aware of the nakedness of creation and the nakedness of our hearts.²⁵ To uncover our nakedness at the same time brings out our shame and our need to be clothed by Christ himself. But the trouble is, as he notes, many of us have worn this garment very loosely. And he ends, ‘though we be clothed with Christ in baptism, yet we must further desire to be clothed upon.’ In other words, there is more and more yet to know and experience in the Christian life.

      Finally, we must take a brief look at Perkins’ Problem of the Forged Catholicism.²⁶ This consists of a discussion of Roman Catholic beliefs and practices to which Perkins takes exception. He devotes a few pages to confirmation, which he simply identifies with the use of chrism. He shows an historical perspective which reads almost like a twentieth-century tract. He knows that oil was used in the ancient world in bathing and that is how it was introduced into the baptism rite. Oil was commonly used, Perkins knew, as an extra ceremony at baptism, but he did not regard it as a separate sacrament, as did Roman Catholics. He looks back to the Early Fathers who ‘did not hold their Chrism and imposition of hands to give grace by the work wrought’. The imposition of hands is no more than a prayer over the person and it was performed by the bishop because the bishop was the normal president of the liturgy. Finally, ‘of the form of confirmation we find nothing in scripture: and if we betake ourselves to tradition we shall find great ambiguity and variety hereof in the Fathers’. His Reformation priorities enabled him to see through Catholic practice, with the benefit of a better knowledge of antiquity.

      Clearly, Perkins has no use for confirmation! Even if he did, it would become a spanner in the works of the outward/inward view of baptism that he propounds so comprehensively in A Golden Chain and the Commentary on Galatians. Confirmation is nothing but the confirmation of the believers as they grow up in the Christian faith and mature in holiness and newness of life. Perkins’ approach to baptism, moreover, is strongly pastoral and linked to the dying and rising of Christ (Rom. 6:3 ff.). If there is a weak New Testament ingredient, it is the Holy Spirit. In taking such a line, Perkins follows Luther and Calvin, and English Puritans such as Cartwright and many others. As we shall see, the necessity of confirmation was considerably debated.

      What are we to make of Perkins’ theology of baptism? Were he alive today, he would probably be saying exactly the same things. Baptism is an external rite which is about inward renewal. For the conscious believer, profession of faith must be made at the font, but the believing parents of infants can make that profession on behalf of their children. The rite is stripped down in its essentials to the water: going in, staying there, and arising from it. There is no blessing of the water, nor signing with the cross. The celebration must be before the public assembly, who will profit by it, as they witness the baptism of new Christians and are confronted by their own baptism. Confirmation by the Bishop is not necessary. Receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is confirmation in itself for the conscious believer.

      The strength of this position lies in its attention to faithful reception. But its weakness is to be seen in that ambiguous relationship between sacrament and human experience that we saw both in A Golden Chain and in the Commentary in Galatians. Perkins is sure that sacraments are necessary. But because baptism is a sacrament of growth, and he allows it to children, and human beings are sinful and fall away, he cannot quite bring himself to say that it actually does something objective. This is the dilemma of a sacramental theology which starts with human experience and draws the tradition exclusively into that orbit.

      In his Art of Prophesying (1592),²⁷ Perkins shows yet again his love for simplicity and clarity, and his suspicion of contrived complexity. ‘Artis etiam celare artem: it is also a point of art to conceal art.’²⁸ One of his rare gifts was to make complex things seem simple, clear, and related.

      Liturgically, we can only guess at Perkins’ preferred or actual practice. He would have dispensed with godparents, and their promises, as well as the sign of the cross and the blessing of the water. He would have simplified the rite in other respects and he would have ensured a fully public rite, with a proper sermon, and a liturgy suitably adapted for those of ‘riper years’. He would also have admitted to communion on the basis of growing faith, and no more. All these changes would serve to stress faithful reception and appropriation of the sacraments