Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

GENEALOGICAL. NOTKS OF BAKN8TABLE FAMILIES. 181
the lamb in reproving the faults of his brethren, and the children
of his church.
Creeds and confessions of faith he rejected. The Bible was
his creed. All others he considered traps or snares, to catch men,
bind their consciences, make them nominal, not true members of
the church of Christ. The Athanasian creed received by the reformed
churches as the foundation of the doctrines taught in the
scripture, he did not hold to be binding on his conscience. That
creed, approved and sanctioned by synolds and councils of
learned divines, was the handiwork of a fallible man, and as such
was not to be received as a binding authority.
Justification by faith was the foundation on which he built
his religious system. Being an independent thinker, and a plain,
practicable man, he took a common sense view of religious truth,
and adapted his system to the nature and wants of men. The
doctrine of salvation by faith and election as taught, and as illustrated
by him in his discipline, few will condemn as heretical.
Faith he considered the germ which produced the spiritual man,
the christian. It had a higher mission than the salvation of the
individual, its influence saved others. In his essay on Baptism
he teaches that by the faith of the men who brought the sick of
the palsy to Christ, "the man sick of the palsy was healed." In
his argument in favor of infant baptism, his main reliance is on
the efficacy of faith. He says, "The faith of the parents induce
them to carry" their infants to Christ's ordinance, confessing original
sin, believing God is their God, and the God of their seed,
showing the need their infants have of Christ, and so leading the
infant in the house of God to grow up in his courts, at the soles
of Christ's feet." At the commencement of his essay he also
teaches that baptism by water is only symbolic, that "they only
put on Christ who are baptized by spirit," the infant being incapable
of acting for itself, and incapable of being baptized into the
Holy Spirit, yet by the baptism by water, becomes a participant
in the faith of the parent, the promise being, "to them and their
seed," and that infants are of the Kingdom, thro' the good pleasure
of the father.
The practice in Mr. Lothrop's church was to baptize the children
on the Sabbath next following their birth. I have noted instances
that children born on the morning of the Sabbath were
carried two miles the same day, and at the most inclement season
of the year, to be baptized. In recording the deaths of children
it was also his practice to note the fact, if they died unbaptized.
I infer from these facts that he had not entirely discarded the
popular theology of his times. He certainly believed and taught
that infants that had received the ordinance of baptism were
saved ; but it is not certain that he held that the unbaptized infant
in all cases was saved. The logical inference to be drawn