It also appears that when the apostles baptized it was always in the
name of Jesus Christ alone. The Acts of the Apostles do not mention any
one baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--whence it
may be concluded that the author of the Acts of the Apostles knew
nothing of Matthew's gospel, in which it is said: "Go and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost." The Christian religion had not yet received its
form. Even the Symbol, which was called the Symbol of the Apostles, was
not made until after their time, of this no one has any doubt. In Paul's
Epistle to the Corinthians we find a very singular custom which was then
introduced--that of baptizing the dead, but the rising Church soon
reserved baptism for the living alone; at first none were baptized but
adults, and the ceremony was often deferred until the age of fifty, or
the last sickness, that the individual might carry with him into the
other world the unimpaired virtue of a baptism recently performed.
Now, all children are baptized: none but the Anabaptists reserve this
ceremony for the mature age; they plunge their whole bodies into the
water. The Quakers, who compose a very numerous society in England and
in America, do not use baptism: the reason is that Jesus Christ did not
baptize any of His disciples, and their aim is to be Christians only as
His disciples were--which occasions a very wide difference between them
and other communions.
_Addition to the Article "Baptism" by Abbé Nicaise._
The Emperor Julian, the philosopher, in his immortal "Satire on the
Cæsars," puts these words into the mouth of Constantius, son of
Constantine: "Whosoever feels himself guilty of rape, murder, plunder,
sacrilege, and every most abominable crime, so soon as I have washed him
with this water, he shall be clean and pure."
It was, indeed, this fatal doctrine that occasioned the Christian
emperors, and the great men of the empire, to defer their baptism until
death. They thought they had found the secret of living criminal and
dying virtuous.
How strange an idea--that a pot of water should wash away every crime!
Now, all children are baptized because an idea no less absurd supposes
them all criminal; they are all saved until they have the use of reason
and the power to become guilty! Cut their throats, then, as quickly as
possible, to insure their entrance into paradise. This is so just a
consequence that there was once a devout sect that went about poisoning
and killing all newly-baptized infants. These devout persons reasoned
with perfect correctness, saying: "We do these little innocents the
greatest possible good; we prevent them from being wicked and unhappy in
this life and we give them life eternal."
BARUCH, OR BARAK, AND DEBORAH;
AND, INCIDENTALLY, ON CHARIOTS OF WAR.