TRAVERS. 321 A. May not a person, being a layman, administer the communion to himself ? T. He cannot: nor could that be deemed a sacrament, because he is no minister. They who administer this ordi- nance according to its nature, and agreeable to the will of God, must have the authority and commission of God so to do; otherwise they are not within the promise of God, and there can be no sacrament. Archbishop of York. I disallow of private baptism altogether, and have forbidden the use of it in all my diocese. I have spoken to the queen about it, and I will not suffer it. A. Calvin held that baptismwas necessary, and reproved the anabaptists for deferring it so long. T. Calvin did not otherwise account baptism necessary than it might not be omitted through neglect or contempt. He never acknowledged any other necessity, nor did any of the reformed churches abroad. S. Circumcision was the same to the Jews as baptism is to us, which, by the appointment of God, was not to be per- formed till the child was eight days old ; and if that sacra- ment was so necessary as some suppose, the child was all this time in great danger. If the want of the sacrament of baptism expose the child to endless misery, it were better to have it administered as soon as the child is born. A. As to the doctrine charged upon the necessity of private baptism, it is so guarded in the articles, as will sufficiently clear the church of England of those errors. T. The doctrine in the articles is good and holy ; but the necessity of baptism, as laid down in the Prayer Book, is so great, that in a private place, by a private person, yea, by a woman, in a settled and peaceable state of the church, itmay be administered, when, at the birth of the child, there is not so much time as to repeat the Lord's prayer, lest the child should be dead ; nor, in some cases, hardly so much time as even to pour the water upon it, and to repeat those words, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, &c. To reconcile all this with the doctrines of scripture, appears impossible. S. The interrogatories proposed in baptism, and another person's saying for the child, I believe, being a thing which the child cannot do, is extremely repugnant to scripture. A. Augustin says, " The child may be said to believe, because it receives the sacrament of faith." VOL. II.
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