Jeremy Taylor Week: Unum Necessarium (V) "from his goodness, nothing but goodness is to be expected"

It is strange to me that Men should desire to believe that their pretty Babes which are strangled at the gates of the Womb, or die before Baptism, should, for ought they know, die eternally and be damned, and that themselves should consent to it.

So said Taylor in Unum Necessarium, stating a significant pastoral implication of his teaching on Original Sin. That his critics would regard as heterodox the assurance his teaching gave to the parents of infants who died before Baptism struck Taylor as perverse:

If I had told them evil things of God and hard measures, and evil portions to their Children, they might have complained; but to complain because I say God is just to all, and merciful and just to Infants, to fret and be peevish because I tell them that nothing but good things are to be expected from our good God, is a thing that may well be wondered at.

No less perverse was the notion that God would damn unbaptised infants for Adam's sin:

To condemn Infants to hell for the fault of another, is to deal worse with them, than God did to the very Devils, who did not perish but for an act of their own most perfect choice.

This, he states, is "St. Augustin's harsh and fierce opinion".  Nor does the criticism of Augustine on this matter stop there.  He, Taylor declares, "speaks some things of marriage, which if they were true, then marriage were highly to be refused, as being the Increaser of sin rather than of children".  A radical Augustinian view of Original Sin and its generation, therefore, turns to darkness the good gifts of marriage and children.  

Against this, Taylor invokes the goodness of God:

That because God is true, and just, and wise, and good, and merciful, it is not to be supposed that he will snatch Infants from their Mothers' breasts, and throw them into the everlasting flames of Hell for the sin of Adam, that is, as to them, for their mere natural state of which himself was Author and Creator: that is, he will not damn them for being good. For God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good: and therefore so is that state of descent from Adam. God is the Author of it, and therefore it cannot be ill. It cannot be contrary to God, because it is his work.

As shown in Wednesday's post, death was a consequence of Adam's sin, but not a punishment of Adam's descendants for a supposed share in his sin:

But to those who sinned not at all, as Infants and Innocents, it was meerly a condition of their nature and no more a punishment, than to be a child is. It was a punishment of Adam's sin; because by his sin human Nature became disrob’d of their preternatural immortality, and therefore upon that account they die; but as it related to the persons it was not a punishment, not an evil inflicted for their sin, or any guiltiness of their own properly so called.

Again it is the goodness of God to which Taylor turns in order to ground the assurance of infants dying before Baptism:

I only know that he is a gracious Father, and from his goodness, nothing but goodness is to be expected; and that is, since neither Scripture, nor any Father, till above Saint Augustine's time, did teach the poor Babes could die, not only once for Adam's sin, but twice and for ever, I can never think that I do my duty to GOD, if I think or speak any thing of him that seems so unjust, or so much against his goodness.

This does not, of course, undermine the practice of infant Baptism, for by this Sacrament we are initiated into newness of life, the Body of Christ, the forgiveness of sins necessary for this earthly life precisely because by Adam's sin we have been excluded from the Tree of Life and the life everlasting:

the great necessity for the baptising of Infants, that they being admitted to supernatural promises and assistances, may be lifted up to a state above their nature ... Then the Power of the Keys is exercised, and the gates of the Kingdom are opened, then we enter into the Covenant of mercy and pardon, and promise faith and perpetual obedience to the laws of Jesus.

And so Taylor confidently states of the Prayer Book rite of Baptism, "there is not a word in the Rubricks or Prayers, but may very perfectly conſiſt with the Doctrine I deliver".

To conclude today's post and this year's Jeremy Taylor week, it is appropriate to consider how Taylor, in his view of infants dying before Baptism, turns to the Gospel account of Our Lord blessing the children:

All which to my sense seems to declare, that if Men would give themselves freedom of judgment, and speak what they think most reasonable, they would speak honour of God's mercy, and not impose such fierce and unintelligible things concerning his justice and goodness, since our blessed Saviour, concerning Infants, and those only who are like Infants, affirms, that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The same passage from the Gospels is invoked by Parker in his critique of the Westminster Confession on Original Sin: "doth not our Saviour declare the state of children both to be innocent and blessed". Mindful that Saint Mark's account of the blessing of the children was read in the Prayer Book's Publick Baptism of Infants - and would therefore have been regularly heard in parish churches - relating the alternative to the radical Augustinian notion of Original Sin, and its consequences for unbaptised children in an age of high infant mortality, was symbolically and pastorally powerful.

Which brings me to the closing point: the widespread depiction of this event from the Gospels in stained glass windows in Anglican churches. It can be found in very many Irish Anglican parish churches. Indeed, it is the case in the parish in which I serve, in the east window. When we see such a depiction in stained glass, we can recall and give thanks for Unum Necessarium and Taylor's wise account of Original Sin.  We can recollect that we are called to follow the commandments of God, walking from henceforth in his holy ways, with the innocence of little children. That there is a duty of serious and meaningful repentance when we act contrary to our calling. And we can rejoice that from God's goodness, "nothing but goodness is to be expected".