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Taking all things into the account and in the order of their dates, with a full knowledge of the circumstances of the case, we shall find this record Bunyan’s second public protest against infant baptism, which he pronounced an infirmity of the weak. In his controversy with his strict communion brethren, they charged him with indulging Baptists, in disobedience to the requirements of truth, when he communed with those who had never been baptized upon their faith in Christ. To this he replied: ‘But what acts of disobedience do we indulge in? "In the sin of infant baptism?" We indulge them not, but being commanded to bear with the infirmities of the weak, suffer it; it being in our eyes such, but in theirs, they say, a duty, till God persuade them.’ [Works, i, p. 450]

It matters not at this point whether, when Bunyan went with Gifford into the river Ouse, he was immersed or not, though Mr. Brown, judging by what Banyan writes, ‘though I go under that name myself’ (‘Anabaptist’), says, ‘I should say he was immersed.’ This much, however, is clear, that whatever was done to Bunyan in the Ouse, he did there publicly repudiate his own infant baptism.

Mr. Brown tells us (page 36) that he finds John Bunyan’s name ‘in the list of nineteen christenings at Elstow Church in the following form: "1628. John the sonne of Thomas Bounionn, Junr. the 30th of Novemb."’ But as Bunyan could not go under the name of ‘Anabaptist’ on that christening, it follows that when he went with Gifford into the river he deliberately repudiated the infant baptism which his father had imposed upon him in 1628, in the discharge of what he regarded as his parental ‘duty,’ as a member of the Church of England. It remains to be seen. whether or not, a year after this repudiation, be fell into what he calls the weakness of infant baptism, and which he said was such in his eyes, by taking his own daughter to that same Church of England to christen her, in ‘duty, till God persuaded’ him otherwise. This, of course, would imply that he recalled his protest against his own infant baptism made a year earlier, and in turn repudiated his believer’s baptism, after he had solemnly taken it upon himself as an ‘Anabaptist.’ This conduct would show any thing but that he had no strong feeling on the question of baptism, for with his very tender conscience he must have had terrible feelings on the subject, if he backed and filled in that way. No; this entry evinces the deepest feeling on the question of infant baptism and is his second public protest against its practice, the first being in himself by his own baptism as a believer, the second in his beloved daughter and her simple birth record.

The difference between these two entries, the baptismal record of Mary and the birth record of Elizabeth, shows that between the years 1650 and 1654 a well-defined change had taken place in their father’s mind on the subject of christening. Had he chosen he could have had Elizabeth christened and her christening entered in the same form as that of Mary. but he chose not to do that; and limiting the record to her birth, it simply says that Elizabeth was ‘borne’ on the 14th day of April, 1654. The following facts throw a flood of light upon this record, as they prove, that in 1645 Parliament put the recording of births into the hands of the clergy, that in 1653 this registration was taken out of their hands, and that under William and Mary it was restored to them again, and all this for the best of reasons.

1. In 1645 Parliament had banished the use of the Prayer-book in every place of worship in England and Wales, and had substituted a form of worship called the Directory. This law required all Prayer-books to be given up, and fined any who used one in any place of worship, church or chapel, £5 for the first offense, £10 for the second, ‘and for the third offense one whole year’s imprisonment without bail or mainprise.’ It had also enacted, that ‘There shall be provided at the charge of every parish or chapelry in the realm of England and dominion of Wales, a fair register book of vellum, to be kept by the minister and officers of the church, and that the names of all children baptized, and of their parents and of the time of their birth and baptizing, shall be written and set down by the minister therein.’

This act provided for the registration of both births and baptisms, and was careful not to confound the two as one. [Act. 1645, chap. 57. Acts and Ordinances of Parliament, 1640-56]

2. Down to A.D. 1653, the year in which Bunyan united with Grifford’s Church, Quakers, Baptists and all who rejected infant baptism, were subjected to every sort of annoyance for neglecting to go to the recording clergy as thus required, to have their children christened and a record of their birth and baptism made in the ‘book of vellum’ at the parish church, the Church of England. The same was true also of their marriages and burials.

3. Having in view their relief, not only in the matter of baptism, but also in that of marriages and burials, Cromwell’s short Parliament took this whole matter out of the hands of the clergy, making marriage a purely secular act, stripping birth, marriage and burial of subjection to all ecclesiastical usages, and put the entire keeping of the parish records into secular hands for civil purposes alone. Of course, Baptists, Quakers and all other such subjects loyal to the civil power were delighted to be freed from ecclesiastical contempt in this way, and to comply with a mere civil provision, which in no way conflicted with their convictions of right; and they cheerfully complied with a law which simply required them to record the birth of their children as in duty to the State.

4. It is of this Act that Gobbet speaks in his Parliamentary History, under date of August 25th, 1653. He writes: ‘Great part of this month had been taken up in canvassing a bill concerning marriages and the registering thereof, and also of births and burials. This day it passed the house on this question, and was ordered to be printed and published. This extraordinary Act entirely took marriages out of the hands of the clergy, and put them into those of the Justices of the Peace.’ [Vol. iii, (1642-1660), p. 1414]

The writer has carefully examined this Act and would copy it entire, but as it covers many folios it is too long. It is found in the ‘Acts and Ordinances of Parliament, examined by the original record and printed by special order of Parliament, by Henry Hills and John Field, printers to his Highness the Lord Protector, 1658; by Henry Scobell, the clerk of Parliament.’

For some reason, the Acts of the Commonwealth are not printed with the continuous laws of the realm, but are put in this special collection by themselves, and at the risk of a little tediousness, as this book is very scarce, a brief analysis of the Act may here be given. It directs ‘how marriages shall be solemnized and registered, as also a register for births and burials,’ but says nothing of baptisms.

It was extended to Ireland ‘from and after December 1st, 1653.’ It specially provides for the election of a Registrar by popular suffrage in the parish thus:

1. ‘The Inhabitants and Householders of every Parish chargeable to the relief of the poor, or the greater part of them present, shall on or before the 22d day of September, 1653, make choice of some able and honest person (such as shall be sworn and approved by one Justice of the Peace in that Parish, Division or County, and so signified under his hand in the said Register-book), to have the keeping of said book, who shall therein fully enter in writing all such Publications, Marriages, Births of children and Burials of all sorts of persons, and the names of every of them, and the days of the month and year of Publications, Marriages, Births and Burials. And the Register in each Parish shall attend the said Justice of the Peace to subscribe the entry of each such Marriage; and the person so selected, approved and sworn, shall be called the Parish-Register and shall continue three years in such place of Register.’

II. This Act further provides, that ‘All Register-books for Marriages, Births and Burials shall be delivered into the hands of the respective Registers appointed by this Act to be kept as Records.’ Thus the clergy were not only stripped of the recorder’s office, but the old books of register made previous to 1653 were taken out of their custody and put into secular hands: ‘Any law, statute, custom or usage to the contrary notwithstanding,’ as the Act states.

III. The use of the Prayer-book and all religious services at marriages and burials was done away with, and as the Act knew nothing of christenings, of course, the registration of births called for no provision against such services. The parties to be married were to choose whether the Register should publish their intended marriage three Sundays in the church or chapel, or in the market-place next to the said church or chapel, on three market-days in the three several weeks next following.’ On the day of marriage, in the presence of the Justice, the man was to take the woman by the hand and distinctly pronounce the following words: ‘I, A.B., do here in the presence of God, the searcher of all hearts, take thee, C.D, for my wedded wife. I do, also, in the presence of God and before these witnesses, promise to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband.’ When the woman had gone through the same form, the Justice declared them husband and wife. The Act then strips the clergy of all power to marry in these sweeping words:

‘From and after such consent so expressed and such declaration made, the same, as to the form of marriage, shall be good and effectual in law. And no other marriage whatever within the Commonwealth of England, after the twenty-ninth of September, shall be held or accounted a marriage according to the laws of England.’

IV. The Act made a number of curious minor provisions which may be named, simply for the gratification of the reader, such as these:

The ‘fee for Publications and certificates thereof 1s.; for marriages 1s.’ ‘From those who live upon alms nothing shall be taken.’ The Justice ‘in case of dumb persons may dispense with pronouncing the words; and with joining hands in case of persons that have no hands.’ After the 29th of Sep. 1653, the age of a man to consent to marriage shall be sixteen years, and the age of the woman fourteen years.’ All disputes as to the lawfulness of marriage were referred to Justices at the Quarter Sessions.

Under the well-settled rule in law, that the legislative intent can best be readied by examining all Acts on the same subject-matter and weighing them together, these Acts have been here presented, and so we cannot miss the intent of this particular Act of 1653. As the Act of 1645 had expressly put registration of births and baptisms into the hands of the clergy, and the Act of 1653 had put the registration of births into secular hands and said nothing about records for baptism or christening, taking all public registration out of clerical hands, the entry of baptisms was legally dropped from the public records, under the provisions of the last Act. That this was both the intention and practice under that law is more clearly seen in the further fact, that Acts VI and VII under William and Mary restored registration to the clergy, and made special provision for the record of christenings by those in Holy Orders. This legislation was known as ‘An Act for granting his Majesty certain rates and duties upon Marriages, Births and Burials, and upon Batchelors and Widowers, for the term of five years, for carrying on the war against France with vigor.’ This Act once more made it the duty of those in Holy Orders: ‘Deans, Parsons, Deacons, Vicars, Curates,’ to keep ‘a true and exact register in writing of all and every person or persons married, buried, christened or born in their respective parishes or precincts.’

These Acts taken together show how thoroughly discriminating and secularizing the Act of August 25th, 1653, was intended to be, and what a radical change it made both in the public practices and their records. Of course, it aroused the wrath of the State clergy to the hottest indignation. They treated it with every form of contempt which they could devise. When the Directory had pushed the Prayer-book out of use, many hundreds of them, some say thousands, either resigned their livings or were ejected for setting the law at defiance. It absolutely forbade them to use the Prayer-book for the burial of the dead, as well as in their churches. It enjoined that,

‘When any person departed this life, let the dead body upon the day of burial be decently attended from the house to the place appointed for public burial, and then interred without any ceremony. . . . For that praying, reading and singing, both in going to and at the grave, have been grossly abused, and are no more beneficial to the dead and have proved hurtful to the living; therefore, let all such things be laid aside.’

Surely, this was all that the clerical flesh and blood of that day could bear. But now, to follow up that revolution with another, which eight years later not only took marriage entirely out of their hands, but denied them the right to record the births which honored those secular marriages, was unendurable to them. If any body wanted them to christen their infants, the law did not forbid their doing so, in the exercise of their religious rights. But the law would not have their christenings entered on the public records as acts of any civil interest or concern. Then, the way in which their former prerogatives were taken from them, was more exasperating still. The new Registrars were to be selected by the popular vote of their own parishioners, over whom they had so unconscionably domineered, and that without regard to the religion of either candidate or voter. Besides, his record of the marriages entered was to be purely secular and to be attested before a Justice of the Peace and not by a priest. And, worse than all, in the eyes of the priest, this Act of August 25th, 1653, left all who rejected the superstition of christening at liberty to enjoy the full rights of Englishmen by recording the ‘birth’ of their children, and of securing to them all the legal advantages which such a civil entry secured in property rights and courts of justice, without compromising their principles by a. forced submission to infant baptism. Their children could now prove their lineage and derive all the political rights which such entry entitled them to while they lived, and when they died they could be buried decently in ground either ‘consecrated’ or unconsecrated without anyhow consulting the whimsical dictations of an arrogant priesthood. Such a state of things would suit Bunyan’s ideas of liberty exactly.

Such a right had never been enjoyed by dissenting Englishmen before, and Cobbet well characterizes the Act as ‘extraordinary.’ Its passage was stubbornly resisted as a bold innovation; and he says that it held Parliament to discussion for a great part of the entire month, which ‘canvassing’ must have stirred the feeling of the entire realm. Especially must all Baptists and Quakers have been interested, as it took their marriages and burials out of the hands of an oppressive and offensive clergy, and left them at liberty to record the ‘birth’ of their children and to stop there, as far as christening was concerned; so that they now stood before the law on an equality with their neighbors, free from all ecclesiastical proscription because they refused to have their children baptized. With this legal shield thrown over his head, we can easily understand why honest John Bunyan, who spoke so freely in his writings against infant baptism, as we shall see, felt it his duty as an English freeman to obey the law by entering the birth of his babe on the public records, when English law at last stepped forth sacredly to guard the rights of his conscience while discharging his duty as a citizen. Thus the entry of his child’s birth without any entry of her christening stands to the end of time on the Elstow parish Register with the force of his public protest against the superstition of infant baptism enforced by the State. Then was Elizabeth Bunyan christened as a matter of fact? Certainly not. Mr. Brown quotes the entry in the Elstow parish Register and concedes that it certifies only to her birth. He also refers to the law of 1653 in the following words:

‘It will be pointed out, perhaps, that the register notes that Elizabeth Bunyan was born on the 14th day of April, and says nothing about her baptism. But it must be remembered that the previous year an Act of Parliament had been passed requiring the date of birth to be inserted in the register instead of that of baptism.’

It is a matter of some surprise that the learned biographer has cited this Act in support of his theory. According to his idea, the object of Parliament in passing it was merely to change the form of words to be entered on the register. Upon analysis it is apparent that his claim must be that, although the record says born, she was in reality christened on that day, and that the fact was misstated in order that the law might be technically complied with. The improbability of this supposition is clear from its simple statement, and it, moreover, betrays an entire misconception of the purpose of the statute. It was not enacted simply to alter the verbal formulary used in the records, but to entirely secularize the department of vital statistics, and to allow marriages and births to be publicly recorded, though the clergy had not solemnized the nuptials or christened the children or buried the dead.

Mr. Brown in furtherance of his argument proceeds as follows:

‘To show further that this Act of 1653 sufficiently accounts for the form of entry in 1654, it may be mentioned that in the Transcript Register from Elstow parish that year the name of Elizabeth Bunyan occurs in a list of twenty-three children, all returned under the head of "Christenings," and that the word " borne" and not "baptized" is used in every case.’

Of course, the writer, on this side of the Atlantic, not being able to inspect and compare these documents must rely on an inspection and comparison made by others. Hence he requested a gentleman of known accuracy in the employ of Her Majesty’s government to examine both the original and the transcript registers. He writes July 29th, 1886:

‘In the Parish Register at Elstow for April 14th, 1654, I find Elizabeth Bunyan recorded as "borne" without any mention of her christening. In all the entries down to the year 1662 each child is so entered. After 1662 the word "Christened" is substituted and the word "borne" drops out. The Register is without headings, only the year and day of the month are entered, then the entries follow to the end of the year, when the same process is repeated. In the archives of the Archdeanery at Bedford, I find the Transcript Registers, and they give Elizabeth Bunyan, daughter of John, as "christened" April 14th, 1654. This stands along with 23 others, total 24. From that date the word "borne" does not occur again. Then as to the headings: as I said, the Elstow Register is without headings, and this order is continued in the Transcripts, which for the whole ten years are not only without headings but without signatures. I had omitted to count the number of entries at Elstow for 1653-54, and was obliged to write the vicar for the information which he kindly supplied in the enclosed letter:

‘"Bedford, July 26th, 1886: Dear Sir: You ask how many were entered on the Register as "borne" during the years 1653 and 1654. In the former year only six were entered as born and in the latter twenty-four. The discrepancy between the original Register and the Transcript is curious. The Canons of 1604 ordered that copies of the Register should be sent annually to the Registry of the Diocese. I suspect this was discontinued during the Commonwealth, and that copies were not made again until after the time of the Restoration, when christenings were inserted and not births. Yours faithfully. James Copner."’

The discrepancy referred to by Mr. Copner (whose own valuable work of Bunyan is elsewhere cited in these pages) is simply that of the use of ‘borne’ in the original and ‘christened’ in the transcript. Otherwise it appears that the documents correspond. The investigation reduces itself to the inquiry, which shall be believed, the original register which says that Elizabeth was born on April 14th, 1654, or the transcript which states that she was christened on that day? It is to the last degree improbable that she was both born and christened on the same day, and therefore both records cannot be true. Born in her father’s house on the 14th of April, even if he had wished her christened, she could not be taken to the parish church on the day of her birth. But if she was christened on the 14th of April and born at some other time, then the original entry is made a piece of confusion. It was never the custom of the English, or even of the Romish Church, to christen children on the very day of their birth, unless it was feared that the child would die immediately after coming into the world, and so its body was sprinkled to save its soul. Furthermore, it is not claimed that these transcript registers were independent records of facts outside of those contained in the originals. The transcripts were annual copies of the Parish Register sent up on parchment to the Archdeacon by the vicar or rector of the parish in compliance with the canons of 1603. They gave the names of all persons married, baptized, or buried the previous year copied from the Register, and forwarded each Easter. This was to provide for the existence of a duplicate copy in case the parish register should be lost. The transcripts, therefore, always purported to be exact copies of the originals and, in case of discrepancy, the originals would of course govern. We are thus brought to the question, which is entitled to credence: a public record kept and prepared under direction of the law of the land, with prescribed formalities by a duly elected civil officer, or the inconsistent statement contained in an extra-official document, without date or signature, which purports to be a copy of the original and is not a true copy thereof ? Here again the mere statement of the proposition makes only one answer possible. It is a trite rule of the law that, for the purpose of evidence, a copy is not allowable in the presence of the original, and it is not easy to see why Mr. Brown should have brought in a professed copy with the original, especially as the original says one thing and the so-called copy another. In a letter dated May 21st, 1886, he says:

‘This Transcript for 1654 is at Bedford in the Archives of the Archdeanery along with those from all the parishes of Bedfordshire. Those for the Commonweath Period were sent up for the whole ten years at once [1650-1660] after the Restoration by the vicar, Christopher Hall, and are complete.’

It is difficult to imagine any motive for the continuation of the custom of sending an annual transcript during the Commonwealth. The whole department of public records was taken out of the hands of the clergy and made secular, and they could have no reason for adding purely secular records to their canonical archives.

But with the Restoration the Church was re-established, and the civil function of the priests as registrars restored. Then in the nature of things a new motive would arise--the desire to obliterate as far as possible all traces of the interregnum, and to have the ancient order of things go on apparently as if it had not been interrupted. This statement of Mr. Brown is fortified by the fact that these transcripts are not signed, or in any other manner formally authenticated. All that seems to have been done was to make copies of the Parish Registers, carefully substituting, however, the word ‘christened’ for ‘born’ in every case, and file them at the Archdeanery to fill the hiatus in the ecclesiastical records. The ecclesiastical motive for this substitution is apparent, but the civil record must stand unquestioned.

More than enough has been said to dismiss the entry in this transcript register from further consideration, but fortunately Mr. Brown has furnished us with a unique entry which throws additional light upon the general subject and the temper of the clergy in regard to this Act. Nothing better illustrates the peevish resentment of the priests to the Act of August, 1653, than the following note, taken from the Register of Maid’s Moreton Parish, in Buckinghamshire:

‘A.D. 1653. Now came in force a goodly Act made by the Usurper Cromwell’s little Parliament, who ordered not the baptism, but the birth of children, to be recorded in the Parish Register. And though the baptism of some be not expressed here, yet these are to certify all whom it may concern, and that on the word of a priest, that there is no person hereafter mentioned by the then Register of the parish, but was duly and orderly baptized!’

The animus of the man who boldly foisted this extra-judicial note of interpretation into this Register, is evinced on its face. The legally appointed Register did not write it in 1653; it was smuggled in at a much later date, and for a purpose. It speaks of him as ‘the then’ Register of the parish, and of Cromwell as the ‘Usurper,’ forms of expression which the lawful Registrar of 1653 could not have used. The writer of this note understood the Act of 1653 to make a broad distinction between birth and baptism, and says that it ‘ordered not the baptism but the birth of children, to be recorded in the Parish Register,’ and this distinction the interpolator of the note did not relish. Hence the record at Maid’s Moreton expressed just what the Act honestly required: the record of the birth of the children and not of their baptism. He says that the baptism of ‘some’ was not expressed in the record. And why? Simply because the law did not allow the word baptism in the Register. But as he dared not to alter the record itself, and yet wanted to spite the memory of the ‘Usurper,’ he must needs bring outside testimony to corrupt the sense of the document. However, he could find no one in Maid’s Moreton to serve as his witness but a priest, who was sadly disgruntled because marriage, the registration in parish records, and the right to force christening on all babes, whether their parents wanted it or not, had been taken from him. So, without giving his name or permitting his cross-examination, he is called in to give his ‘word.’ Contrary to the letter and spirit of the Act of 1653, a gloss must be introduced into an official register, and the ‘word of a priest’ must certify that at Maid’s Moreton the ‘Usurper’ had been cheated, and that, in exact harmony with the priestly wishes of the witness, and to his great delectation these particular children had been ‘duly and orderly baptized,’ law or no law. This absurd note awakens the suspicion that it might possibly have been written by the ‘priest’ himself. Yet it serves to show with what accuracy all the provisions of the Act had been enforced, and that, for this reason, the ‘priest’ wanted to take off the sharp edge of the record itself.