HOLY BAPTISM.
(To THE EDITOR Or THE “srscrIxos.") SIR,—There is hardly any part of our Prayer Book more in need of revision than the Baptismal Service. Every day children are baptized in our Church, not into it, for every child is already a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven, and baptism is but an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and does not convey it. The young children Jesus blessed, declaring that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven, were, of course, unbaptized, and the idea taught by the Catechism that they were born in sin and the children of wrath, and are hereby made children of grace, is little short of blasphemy. "Born in sin " is the taunt of the Pharisee to the blind man (St. John ix:), and a reflection on his parents and on the holy state of matrimony; "children of wrath" is a phrase, however inter- preted, taken from the Epistle to the Ephesians, and denoting unconverted Gentiles. The appointment of sponsors is too often a formality, and its abolition might well lead to a clearer recognition by parents of their own responsibility. Let us blot out every semblance of hypocrisy from the Church of God. Our Lord denounced " woe " on none but the hypocrites who falsely declared themselves God-accredited guides to the nation of Israel.—I am, Sir, &e., SENEX.
Previous page
