The document under consideration was published in 1647 at a time when the Anabaptists had formed and emerged in Europe as part of what Wikipedia calls “Radical Reformation.” Actually, they were not any more radical than Martin Luther (1519) or John Calvin (1536); they just did not stop reforming where those leaders did. Having begun to question the practices of the corrupt Roman Catholic Church, they additionally challenged the practice of sprinkling of infants. Having found no authority for the practice in the New Testament, they began baptizing adults upon their confession of faith—even those who had once been sprinkled as infants.
Such a teaching did not sit well with those who still taught and practiced infant baptism. They despised those who taught otherwise and even gave them a name which stuck—Anabaptists. According to Wikipedia, the Greek ana means “over again,” and baptismos refers to “baptism.” Thus, their enemies referred to them as Anabaptists because they baptized people over again. Technically, this designation is false because, since sprinkling is not baptism, they were never baptized in the first place. In this regard, Wikipedia quotes Balthasar Hubmaier as saying:
I have never taught Anabaptism. …But the right baptism of Christ, which is preceded by teaching and oral confession of faith, I teach, and say that infant baptism is a robbery of the right baptism of Christ…
It does not take much imagination to understand why those who taught sprinkling became so hostile toward the Anabaptists, since their teaching on baptism implied that those who were sprinkled were not saved, a practice which both Catholics and Protestants, such as Luther and Calvin, taught. Many who had been sprinkled as infants chose to be immersed, but the leaders had a vested interest in their traditions.
To accept immersion for adults would have been to admit that Protestants had been teaching incorrectly for more than a century and that Catholics had the wrong teaching for a thousand years. In effect it would have condemned all recent ancestors, including parents—something they could not bring themselves to admit or, perhaps, even think about. Therefore, most spiritual “leaders” branded the Anabaptists as heretics and persecuted them.
No doctrine should be evaluated in such a manner. With this approach truth will never be discerned. The question must always be, “What does the Bible teach?” Our lives must be evaluated to see if they are in harmony with the Scriptures. No one has the right to say, “Here is what we believe; now how do we prove that the Bible agrees with us?” That is what the Catholic Church attempted to do with Martin Luther. They could not prove that some of his reforms were wrong; they approached it on the basis of, “The Catholic Church knows more than you do.” Luther believed in letting the Scriptures speak when he challenged the Catholic Church, but he and others were quick to brand as heretics those who disagreed with them—even though an appeal to the Scriptures was made.
The question, therefore, is not, “For how many centuries has sprinkling been practiced?” The correct approach is to ask, “Was sprinkling used in the first century?” In other words, “Is it found in the pages of the New Testament?” If it is, then it would be wrong to criticize it, but if it is not, there can be no valid defense for what God never authorized in the first place. However, the opponents of the Anabaptists did not use this method. The book published in 1647 was designed to ridicule and shame Anabaptists. The best thing it did was to try to make a case from the Scriptures for sprinkling and against immersion. The reader can judge for himself how successful these efforts were. Nowadays, few would make such a serious attempt.
The Title
Apparently, in 1647, people liked putting long titles on the cover of a book. This one reads thus:
The Dippers Dipt.
O R,
The Anabaptists Duck’d and Plung’d over
Head and Ears, at a Disputation in Southwark.
These are not all of the contents; the Title page also included several other things discussed in the 256-page book. The last sentence at the close of the book (before FINIS) says:
So let all the factious and seditious enemies of the Church and state perish : but upon the Head of King Charles let the Crowne flourish. Amen.
The author of this book is Daniel Featly, D.D. He did not get his wish concerning King Charles, who was executed two years later in 1649. Oliver Cromwell led England for the next nine years as England became a Commonwealth (briefly). Upon Cromwell’s death in 1658, England returned to its former system and made king the son of the last monarch to rule; he was called Charles II.
The title of the volume is written as a boast; it implies that all of the arguments of those who taught immersion had been answered thoroughly by Dr. D. Featly, whom some might say is arguing a proposition that is easily D. Feated. The bias of Featly is seen as early as the second page, where he says:
Now of all the heritiques and Schismatiques the Anabaptists in three regards ought to be most carefully looked unto, and severely punished, if not utterly exterminated and banished out of the Church and Kingdome [their English and grammar varied somewhat from what we use more than 350 years later, GWS].
If that sounds like a harsh statement, it nevertheless expressed the feelings of many spiritual leaders in England, and it explains the religious intolerance of the day. Because of attitudes like Featly’s and the government of England to back it up, it is no wonder that Puritans and Separatists desired to come to a new country on a new continent (for Europeans) where they could be free to practice religion according to the Bible.
Featly alleges in his foreword that the Papists and the Anabaptists are “most dangerous and pestilent enemies.” How interesting that Catholicism, which had been shown to be so far afield in so many areas, was considered to be on a par with the Anabaptists. In other words, the Church of England was not just a little miffed over the insistence upon immersion; they were livid with rage. It is seldom productive to engage in a study of the Scriptures in such an emotional state.
The Southwark Discussion
After eleven pages of introductory comments, the table of contents is next, followed by 25 pages of the Southwark discussion, which occurred in 1642 between D. Featly and “a company of Anabaptists.” They came to dispute with him but not merely for contention’s sake. A Scotsman explained:
We hold that the Baptisme of Infants cannot be proved lawfull by the testimony of Scruiptures, or by Apostolicall tradition ; if you can prove the same either way, we shall willingly submit unto you (1).
Certainly, that is a reasonable request and the proper attitude to display. Featly could not help but begin with an insult. Rather than commending them for seeking the truth, he reminded them that Anabaptism…is an heresie long since condemned both by the Greeke and Latine Church…” (1). This is the ad populum fallacy of argumentation. Although it is true that Anabaptism had been pronounced a heresy, it is not the case that it had been proven to be one. Also, it is totally irrelevant, so far as the question is concerned.
Featly then said there were two ways to argue: 1) by Authority, and 2) by Reason (1). What did he mean in using the phrase by Authority? Probably, no one today would even come close to guessing what he meant. He says that anyone wanting to dispute in Divinity “must be able to produce the Scriptures in the Originall Languages.” What?! Is this a way of saying, “Only Doctors of Divinity are qualified to discuss the Scriptures”?
He continues: “For no Translation is simply Authenticall, or the undoubted word of God” (1). Really? Well, that would include the Bishop’s Bible of 1568, which had been authorized by the Church of England and the one authorized more recently by King James in 1604, published in 1611. Having been authorized by the King of England and worked on by men holding Doctors of Divinity, one would think Featly would accept some translations as valid. But, no, he insists that there must be errors in translation and that they must go by what is in the original languages.
What he may not have known (even with a D.D.) was that many of the early manuscripts, such as Vaticanus had not been made available to the King James translators, and Sinaiticus, which had not yet been discovered, show variations. Furthermore, we have no original texts of either the Old or New Testaments (which actually were infallible). They are all copies, which record differences. None of these, however, changes a single Bible teaching.
It is not likely that anyone would be so foolish as to make this argument today, considering the 5,000 manuscripts (including fragments) we possess. Besides we now have a number of credible translations of God’s Word. His first point is invalid.
Regarding the use of reason, Featly tells the group they are not qualified to discuss anything with him unless they can use a syllogism. He judges them to be out of their element (2). But before he gets around to the topic they came to discuss, he asks them what their view on the Trinity is, his purpose being to show them that they are not qualified to be teachers (3).
Another discussion occurred concerning the visible church, which is interesting but not related primarily to the original question (3-9). Finally, the reasons for baptizing infants are given; all of these shall receive appropriate consideration. The first argument that sup-posedly proves infant baptism is the one based on circumcision. Before looking at what Featly claims, it would be productive to look at what Paul actually wrote. Sometimes, Paul drew parallels between the old covenant and the new. Speaking, then, of Christ, here is what Paul said in Colossians 2:11-13:
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
Obviously, what Paul is saying is that a person who possesses sins (so that he could be described as dead in his trespasses) has them removed by Jesus when he is baptized. (Scriptures that would relate to what Paul is saying here would include Romans 6:3-11, Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16, and Revelation 1:5.) Notice that such a description cannot apply to infants. A child cannot be loaded with sins of the flesh. He craves milk but knows nothing of alcohol, drugs, or sexual sins of the flesh, such as lasciviousness, fornication, or adultery. Furthermore, an infant cannot have faith in the working of God, period, let alone understand the process of salvation pictured here. None of these facts disturb Featly, who argues thus:
There is as good ground, reason, or warrant for the baptizing of children now, as there was of old for circumcising them. But the children under the Old Testament were to be circumcised, many plain places there are where that was commanded.
Ergo, now by the same warrant they are to be baptized (9).
The reader will see immediately that Featly has not proved his case. The obvious answer to such an attempt is to say, “Yes, God did command males to be baptized both in the Patriarchal Age, beginning with Abraham, and under the Law of Moses. Failure to do so would result in that individual being cut off from the nation of Israel (Gen. 17:14). But where is a command with similar force to be found in the New Testament for baptizing infants? Featly does not provide a Scripture but merely says that what “circumcision was in the old law to the Jewes, that is baptisme now to us, the Sacrament of entrance into the Church” (10).
Only a confused mind could draw such a parallel. In the first place, Abraham and his seed had a special agreement with God that no other peoples or nations did. Each male would be circumcised on the eighth day (Lev. 12:3). At this time, before the babe could understand God’s commands, he was made part of the nation of Israel. Israel was a nation. The church is the spiritual body of Christ. The two are not parallel as regards entrance into the kingdom, and Jeremiah calls attention to a great difference between the two. As he describes the new covenant, he specifically says it will not be according to the old (Jer. 31:31-32). How will it be different?
“No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34).
Under the Law of Moses, a child could grow up and not know the Lord, depending on his parents. He was an Israelite but then had to be taught the ways of the Lord. That does not happen in the New Testament. One must be taught about God first and then become a Christian. In the Old, one was part of an earthly, physical kingdom first and then taught; in the New, one is taught first and, when obedience is forthcoming, he is baptized and becomes part of the spiritual kingdom.
Rather than appeal to a Scripture initially, Featly cites “Saint Augustine and all the Divines” (10) as though their authority were greater than that of the New Testament. When he does produce a Scripture, it is Romans 4:11, which states that Abraham received circumcision as
a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who believe, that righteousness might be imputed to them also.
Certainly, this verse does not establish his case, since righteousness is imputed to those who believe, which infants have no ability to do—particularly on the eighth day. Featly acknowledges that the children cannot have actual faith or make a profession of it (10), but then says that baptism remains a seal for them under the covenant of grace.
This conclusion would be fine—if anything in the New Testament implied it was the case, but the Scriptures teach the exact opposite. Knowledge must come first; it must precede salvation, and in every instance of New Testament conversion this is the pattern.
(To be continued)