The Error of Infant Baptism
By Editor
In answer to the question, "Has it ever been a doctrine of the Presbyterian Church that unbaptized infants were lost?" a correspondent of the Interior says: "It has never been. On the contrary, Presbyterians have protested always against the doctrine." Well, then, we should like to know why they baptize infants. It is very certain that adults are baptized in order that they may be saved; for whatever carping there may be about baptism as a saving ordinance, we have the declaration, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned;" also the command, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." See also 1 Peter 3:21, 22. The command is imperative for all who believe to be baptized; there is no exception made. To say that men who neglect baptism stand an equal chance of being saved with those who are baptized, would be to deny the necessity of that ordinance. And so when Pedobaptists admit, what they cannot deny, that infants who are not "baptized" will be saved as well as those who undergo the ceremony, they admit that the ceremony is entirely unnecessary, and if unnecessary, it is wrong. The so-called baptism of infants, which is in reality no baptism at all in any sense of the word, is a gross perversion of a sacred ordinance, and a mockery which has about it none of the elements of solemnity.