'An ordinary means commanded by God': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and private Baptism

The ministers shall often admonish the people, that they defer not the baptizing of infants any longer than the next Lord's day after the child be born, unless upon a great and reasonable cause, declared to the minister, and by him approved, the same be postponed.  As also, they shall warn them, that without great cause, they procure not their children to be baptized at home in their houses. But when great need shall compel them to baptize in private houses - in which case the minister shall not refuse to do it, upon the knowledge of the great need, and being timely required thereto - the baptism shall be ministered after the same form, as it should have been in the congregation - and the minister shall the next Lord's day after any such private baptism, declare in the church, that the infant was baptized, and therefore ought to be received as one of the true flock of Christ's fold.

Amidst the provisions of the Articles of Perth was that, when necessity required it, ministers could administer the Sacrament of Baptism in private homes. Dying infants, therefore, were not to be denied the Sacrament.

In his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth, David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) defended the provision as giving expression to a wise via media between excessive claims for this Sacrament and its neglect:

Cases of necessitie are not subiect to ordinarie rules: Therfore the Acts made at Perth concerning necessary and extraordinarie cases, alters not the laudable order hitherto obserued [that Baptism should be ministered in the congregation]. As it is an errour, to esteeme Baptisme absolutely necessary, that is, a middest without which there is no saluation: so it is as great an errour not to thinke it necessary, as an ordinary meane, whereby the Grace of God is communicate, and without the which, if it may be had, and be either contemned or neglected, there is no certainty that God will conferre his grace. 

The provision of the Articles of Perth, of course, makes no claim in any way that Baptism was "absolutely necessary". We also certainly know that this was not view of King James. Isaac Casaubon, a court divine for James VI/I, made abundantly clear, in his 1612 Answer to Cardinal Perron, that James had no time for Augustine's excessive claims for Baptism:

Wherefore the words of S. Augustine, which do precisely exclude the not baptised from eternal life, if they be understood of the ordinary way thither, and the only way that Christ hath taught us, his Majesty hath nothing to object against that opinion: but if it be simply denied that almighty God can save those which die unbaptised, his Majesty, and the Church of England abhorring the cruelty of that opinion, doe affirm that S. Augustine was an unnatural and hard father unto infants. 

And, as Casaubon noted, this was also the teaching of the Church of England. Just, however, as excessive claims should not be made for the Sacrament of Baptism, so it must not be neglected. Again, Casaubon:

Undoubtedly his Majesty thinketh, that both these extremes are with the like care to be eschewed: lest if we embrace this rigid sentence, we abbreviate the power of God, and offer wrong to his infinite goodness: or, whilst, as some do, we reckon baptism amongst such things, the having, or foregoing whereof is not much material, we should seeme to make light of so precious a Sacrament and holy ordinance of God. 

This being so, and with holy Scripture offering examples of administering Baptism apart from the congregation (e.g. the Ethiopian eunuch and the Philippian jailer and his household), Lindsay defended the freedom of churches to exercise prudent judgement in administering the Sacrament outside the congregation. This, he said, would demonstrate that Baptism is not be neglected as 'the ordinary means of salvation':

Therefore to astrict the ministration of Baptisme to a humane order, touching time and place, which by the Word of God may be lawfully vsed at other times, and in other places, is great temeritie, importing to the Childe, no small danger of the losse of grace, and bringing vpon the Parent and Pastor the guilt of his bloud for contemning, at lest neglecting the ordinary meane of saluation.

While a claim for the absolute necessity of Baptism was erroneous, Lindsay insists that equally erroneous was a denial of the necessity of Baptism as the 'ordinary means of salvation'. In other words, the Sacrament should not be denied when the health of the infant requires its urgent administration in a private home:

The opinion of absolute necessitie, ratione medij, that is, of a middest, without which the Infant cannot be saued, is not to be allowed, yet the opinion of necessitie, ratione praecepti, that is, of an ordinarie meane commaunded by God, to bee vsed, when and where it may be had, is sound. And in that opinion the people ought to be confirmed, and admonished (as it is in the act) Not to deferre the Baptisme of their Infants, nor neglect it: But to perswade the people, that it is not necessarie, as an ordinarie meane, is as great an errour as any yee alledge hath sprung of the opinion of absolute necessitie. These errours ought to be remoued, not by refusing Baptisme when it is required, which is a disobedience, no lesse dangerous then the errours are, but by the wholsome doctrine of the Word, which is the onely powerfull meane to abolish all errours in Religion.

A good claim can be made that of all the Articles of Perth, this is the one that James particularly insisted upon. Casaubon illustrates the extent of James' anger with those Scottish ministers who refused to baptise infants in cases of necessity:

But his excellent Majesty doth so highly esteem of this Sacrament, that when some Ministers in Scotland, pretending I know not what ordinances of new discipline, refused, upon the desire of the parents, to baptise infants ready to die, he compelled them to this duty with fear of punishment, threatening no less than death if they disobeyed. 

Jeremy Taylor would later (in Unum Necessarium, 1655) also refer to what seems to be the same incident, with some additional colour in James' reported remarks:

I remember that I have heard that K. James reproving a Scottish Minister, who refus'd to give private Baptism to a dying Infant; being ask'd by the Minister, if he thought the Child should be damn'd for want of Baptism, answered, 'No, but I think you may be damn'd for refusing it': and he said well. 

If we wanted to suggest how the Jacobean Church of Scotland - without the violent interruption of the 1630s, as an imprudent Charles clashed with radical Covenanter agitators - could have put down roots in Scottish society which would have secured its long-term future, it is likely that this provision of the Articles of Perth could have had particular significance. In an age of high levels of infant mortality, such pastoral provision could have had deep resonance. Indeed, we could envisage how observance of the feast of our Lord, administering holy Communion to the sick and dying, and episcopal Confirmation could in similar ways have contributed to enduring popular support for the Jacobean Church of Scotland in a peaceful kingdom. It is, then, another example of the wisdom of James VI/I - and a sad reminder of what could have been.

(The first picture is of a late 17th century drawing of Brechin, Lindsay's See.)