750 THE REFOEMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
5. The Sacraments. ^
Servetus admitted only two sacraments, therein agreeing with the Protestants, but held original views on both.
(a) As to the sacrament of Baptism, he taught, with the Catholic Church, baptismal regeneration, but rejected, with the Anabaptists, infant baptism.
Baptism is a saving ordinance by which we receive the remission of sins, are made Christians, and enter the kingdom of heaven as priests and kings, through the power of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies the water .^ It is the death of the old man and the birth of the new man. By baptism we put on Christ and live a new life in him.^
But baptism must be preceded by the preaching of the gospel, the illumination of the Spirit, and repentance, which, according to the preaching of John the Baptist and of Christ, is the necessary condition of entering the kingdom of God. Therefore, Servetus infers, no one is a fit subject for baptism before he has reached manhood. By the law of Moses priests were not anointed before the thirtieth year (Num. 4 : 3). Joseph was thirty years old when he was raised from the prison to the throne (Gen. 41:46). According to the rabbinical tradition Adam was born or created in his thirtieth year. Christ was baptized in the Jordan when he was thirty years (Luke 3 : 21-23), and that is the model of all true Christian baptism.* He was circumcised in infancy, but the carnal circumcision is the type of the spiritual circumcision
1 De Circitmcisione vera, cum reliquis Christi et Antichristi mysteriis, in Best. 411 sqq., and De Baptismi efficacia, 483 sqq.
2 " Baptismo vere adest spiritus. . . . Per operationem spiritus hahet baptlsmus earn efficaciam, ut vere dicamus, baptismum nos salvare, ad Tit. 3 et I. Pet. 3. Per solam enim Jidem sine baptismo 7ion complentur orania salutis Christi mi/steria. Baptismus nos salvat et lavat, sicut panis coence corpore Christi nos cibat, interna mysterio." Rest. 497.
3 Rest. 484 sq.
* " Mysterium magnum est. Triginta annorum Christus baptismum accepit, exemplum nobis dans, ac nos ita docens, ante earn cetatem Hon esse quern satis aptum ad mysteria repni ccelorum " (p. 412),
§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 751
of the heart, not of water baptism.^ Circumcision was adapted to real infants who have not yet committed actual transgression; baptism is intended for spiritual infants — that is, for responsible persons who have a childlike spirit and begin a new life.
(ft) Servetus rejected Infant Baptism as irreconcilable with these views, and as absurd. He called it a doctrine of the devil, an invention of popery, and a total subversion of Christianity .2 He saw in it the second root of all the corruptions of the Church, as the dogma of the Trinity was the first root.
By his passionate opposition to infant baptism he gave as much offence to Catholics and Protestants as by his opposition to the dogma of the Trinity. But while on this point he went further than the most fanatical Anabaptists, he did not belong to their society, and rejected the revolutionary opinions concerning obedience to government, and holding civil and military offices.
Children are unfit to perform the office of priests which is given to us in baptism. They have no faith, they cannot repent, and cannot enter into a covenant. Moreover, they do not need the bath of regeneration for the remission of sins, as they have not yet committed actual transgression.
But children are not lost if they die without baptism. Adam's sin is remitted to all by the merits of Christ. They are excluded from the Church on earth ; they must die and go to Sheol ; but Christ will raise them up on the resurrection day and save them in heaven. The Scripture does not
^ " Circumcisio ilia carnalis fuit typus secundce circumcisionis spiritualis, quae per Christum Jit, Roma. 2. et Colossen. 2." Best. 411.
2 " Pcedobaptismum esse dico detestandam ahominationem, spiritus sancti extinctionem, ecclesice Dei desolationem, tutius professionis Christiana: con/usionem, innovationis, per Christum facta, abolitionem, ac totius ejus regni conculcationem." Rest. 576. ToUin (III. 136) is certainly mistaken when he asserts that Servet's view of infant baptism was an exotic plant, foreign to his system. It is inseparable from it, and one of his fundamental doctrines.