What Makes Infant Baptism Efficacious [Commentary on Browne: Article XXVII (2)]

If “the new birth of the Spirit is closely coupled with new birth by water,” as Browne argues, then a question that follows is how this new birth of the Spirit is applied to infants. The difficulty, as it is often presented, is that whereas “in the case of adults, faith and repentance are necessary prerequisites,” infants are usually thought to be incapable of exercising faith or repentance, making them unfit subjects for baptism.

At least three different answers to this problem have recurred throughout Christian history. Some have suggested that infants actually can have faith, an idea that is commonly associated with Luther and Lutheranism,^[1] although Calvin affirms it as well in the 1536 edition of his Institutes.^[2] It has been disputed whether by “faith” Luther and his followers mean active faith, or merely the habit of faith, that is, the “seed [or] root”^[3] of faith.^[4] In any case, Browne rejects this notion: “Active faith in [infants] is not possible; nor is it even to be desired.”^[5] The Prayer Book Catechism assumes as much in one of its questions: “Why then are Infants baptized, when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform [repentance or faith]?”^[6]

Another possibility is that the faith of the infant’s sponsors, or the faith of the congregation as a whole, is imputed to the child. This theory is at least as old as Augustine and has been advocated by a variety of Christian thinkers, including a number of Anglican authors.^[7] But this, too, is dismissed by Browne:

The theory that the faith of parents or of sponsors is necessary to give effect to baptism in infants, is not to be maintained for an instant. This were to cross the whole principle of evangelical mercy. It would be to make the child’s salvation hinge on its parent’s faithfulness. It would make God’s grace contingent, not even on the merits of the recipient, but actually on the merits of the recipient’s friends. Sponsors, after all, are probably of human institution, and therefore cannot affect a divine ordinance. And this theory does sadly derogate from the grace of God, which acts ever freely and spontaneously; and grievously magnifies the office of human faith, which is humbly to receive mercy, not arrogantly to deserve it.^[8]

The third response, and the one offered by Browne, is to hold that faith and repentance are not in fact universally required for baptism to be efficacious. They are necessary in the case of adults, but not for infants:

A third objection [to baptismal regeneration] is, that all the promises of God are to faith; that it is by faith we embrace Christ, and through faith receive the Spirit of God; that therefore to make baptism the means of receiving grace, is to put it in the place of faith. It is undoubtedly true that an adult should not come to baptism without faith; and that, if he comes in an unbelieving spirit, he cannot expect to find grace in the Sacrament. But the objection, to the extent to which it has been urged, would magnify the office of faith beyond all reason, and utterly beside the teaching of Scripture. It cannot be that faith is requisite before any grace can be given; for it is quite certain, that there can be no faith unless grace has first been given to generate faith. Otherwise we are inevitably Pelagians.^[9]

Browne cites Luther’s Large Catechism in support of this contention: “He denies that, in the case of infants, there is any need of faith. God’s work is not rendered ineffectual, because they have no power to believe.” A relevant excerpt of the Large Catechism reads as follows:

We are not so much concerned to know whether the person baptized believes or not; for on that account Baptism does not become invalid; but everything depends upon the Word and command of God. This now is perhaps somewhat acute, but it rests entirely upon what I have said, that Baptism is nothing else than water and the Word of God in and with each other, that is, when the Word is added to the water, Baptism is valid, even though faith be wanting. For my faith does not make Baptism, but receives it.^[10]

Although Browne is correct to say Luther denies the necessity of faith to make infant baptism efficacious, note that in maintaining this position Luther does not deny that infants can have faith, as Browne might seem to imply. Rather, Luther maintains faith is not necessary even as he affirms that infants can have faith: “Even though infants did not believe, which, however, is not the case, yet their baptism as now shown would be valid.”^[11] Calvin can be cited as denying the necessity of faith for infant baptism as well, although Browne does not mention this.^[12]

The reason Browne gives for saying faith is not necessary to make infant baptism efficacious is that infants, by their nature, and unlike adults, are incapable of imposing the obstacles of unbelief and impenitence that would render baptism ineffective:

The very thing which makes them meet for pardon, is their helpless sinfulness. This is their very plea for mercy; and cannot therefore be the bar opposed to it. If they were not sinful, they would need neither pardon nor grace. Active hostility and wilful obstinacy they cannot exhibit. And God’s mercy in Christ extends to the pardon of all sinners, who do not wilfully reject it. Hence the Church has ever held, that there is nothing in the character of infants (whose sinfulness is inevitable, and not wilfully contracted) which can offer an insuperable obstacle to receiving the grace of remission of sin, or the aid of the Spirit of God.^[13]

It has been objected that this understanding of baptism is identical to that of “the Romanists, who maintained that baptism conferred grace upon all to whom it was given, even ex opere operato, that is, from the performance of the act; in case there was no direct obstacle opposed to its reception by the party baptized. So it was laid down in the Council of Trent.”^[14] It is true that the Council anathematizes those who say that the sacraments “do not confer…grace on those who do not place an obstacle thereunto.”^[15] The comparison is misleading, however—the underlying critique of an ex opere operato understanding of the sacraments is that grace is conferred irrespective of the spiritual state of the recipient. But as we have already seen, Browne unequivocally states that while infants impose no obstacle to baptismal grace, they are all too capable of rejecting it once they come of age (assuming they ever yielded to it in the first place). As for adults, they must come to baptism with faith and repentance from the outset, lest their baptism be of no effect. Thus there is no danger here of reducing baptism to a mechanical process that cannot fail to deliver those who receive it to an ultimate state of eternal blessedness.

In sum, while the Prayer Book rules out the idea that infants are capable of faith or repentance, the other two theories for the grounds of infant baptism discussed here remain viable. Browne’s dismissal of the idea of imputed faith and his reason for it are both clear, but there is nevertheless ample precedent for it in both the larger Christian tradition and the Anglican tradition in particular. Readers may therefore draw their own conclusions on the matter.

Notes

1. See, e.g., Thomas Rogers, The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England, ed. J. J. S. Perowne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1854), 281; John W. Riggs, Baptism in the Reformed Tradition: A Historical and Practical Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 28; and J. V. Fesko, Word, Water, and Spirit: A Reformed Perspective on Baptism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 51. ↑
2. See Fesko, Word, Water, and Spirit, 91, and Lyle D. Bierma, Font of Pardon and New Life: John Calvin and the Efficacy of Baptism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 147. ↑
3. Richard Field, Of the Church, vol. IV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1852), 438. ↑
4. See Robert Isaac Wilberforce, The Doctrine of Holy Baptism (London: John Murray, 1849), 73–75; Field, Of the Church, 437–38; Edward Arthur Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, ed. Philip E. Hughes (London: James Clarke & Co., 1960), 471; and G. W. Bromiley, Baptism and the Anglican Reformers (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2023), 113. ↑
5. See also Christopher Bethell, A General View of the Doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism (London: Francis & John Rivington, 1845), xxv, xxxii, 18; Edgar C. S. Gibson, The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 2^nd ed. (London: Methuen and Co., 1898), 631–32; E. Tyrrell Green, The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Age of the Reformation, 2^nd ed. (London: Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co., 1912), 214; E. J. Bicknell, A Theological Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 2^nd ed. (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1925), 474 ↑
6. Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1928), 581. See also Wilberforce, Doctrine of Holy Baptism, 106. ↑
7. See William Goode, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of Infants, 2^nd ed. (London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1850), 13; J. B. Mozley, The Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration (London: John Murray, 1856), 127–28; A. P. Forbes, An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 2^nd ed. (Oxford and London: James Parker and Co., 1871), 494; Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 472; Jonathan D. Trigg, Baptism in the Theology of Martin Luther (New York: Brill, 1994), 102–103; Riggs, Baptism, 28; Fesko, Word, Water, and Spirit, 51, 64; and Bromiley, Baptism, 113–14. ↑
8. See also Wilberforce, Holy Baptism, 106, 109–110. ↑
9. See also Bethell, Baptism, xxv; Fesko, Word, Water, and Spirit, 120, 360; and Francis J. Hall, Anglican Dogmatics: Francis J. Hall’s Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2, ed. John A. Porter, Bk. IX, The Sacraments (Nashotah, WI: Nashotah House Press, 2021), 435. ↑
10. Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, “Of Infant Baptism,” sec. 52–53, https://bookofconcord.org/large-catechism/holy-baptism/#lc-iv-0052. See also Trigg, Baptism, 102, and Riggs, Baptism, 28–29. ↑
11. Luther, Large Catechism, “Of Infant Baptism,” sec. 55, https://bookofconcord.org/large-catechism/holy-baptism/#lc-iv-0055. ↑
12. See John Calvin, Catechism of the Church of Geneva, cited in T. P. Boultbee, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1871), 247–48, and Bierma, Font of Pardon, 155. ↑
13. See also Bethell, Baptism, 18; Boultbee, Exposition, 230; Bicknell, Introduction, 474; M. F. Sadler, The Second Adam and the New Birth (Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004), 168–69; Fesko, Word, Water, and Spirit, 360; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, 435n2. ↑
14. Goode, Baptism, 4. ↑
15. J. Waterworth, ed. and trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Œcumenical Council of Trent (London: C. Dolman, 1848), Seventh Session, “On the Sacraments in General,” Canon VI, 55. ↑