There are some interesting questions that arise in connection with baptisms. To demonstrate the freer atmosphere that prevailed in America, consider this note that the pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Philadelphia added to a baptism that he had performed: "The father being a Presbyterian held the child in his own hands taking the vow all upon himself, but no objection was made to the form and ceremony of The Church of England."
There were questions of payment to the pastor who performed a baptism. In the earliest part of the eighteenth century, when the supply of ministers in the rural regions was very scarce, it was customary to pay the minister a fee for performing the baptism. Several itinerant men depended heavily on these fees. When Rev. Muhlenberg arrived in America, he declared there would be no charge for baptizing children. To him, payment sounded as if the sacraments of the church were being sold, which did not appeal to him. He declared there were other ways to support the pastor.
The Coetus 1 of the Reformed Church established fees for marriages and preaching sermons, but there was to be no charge for baptisms. In spite of the high principles, the ministers usually accepted money for performing baptisms. Muhlenberg entered these amounts in his book as "for salary."
Another way of skirting around the prohibition on fees for baptisms was to say that the baptism was free but it would cost to have the baptism recorded. The going rate was seven shillings and six pence, or about three days wages.
Muhlenberg would take no money from poor parents. Frederick Weiser has noted that the pastors took fees for recording the baptism, but not for the rite itself; however, most pastors would record the baptism even if a fee was not paid. It is possible that some baptisms went unrecorded because the parents could not afford a recording fee.
In many cases, the baptism took place away from the church and this raises the question whether the baptismal register plus the pen and ink were carried around to the point of need. Or did the minister remember the information until he was back at the church? And did he remember to record it, and was his memory up to the task? A preferred method was to have the parents appear at the pastor's home ahead of time and supply the information.
With so few ministers and so many babies, it was sometimes hectic. Rev. Muhlenberg recorded that on a visit to New Jersey he gave communion and baptized ". . . twenty-two infants . . . and the twenty-two children were crying so loudly that the noise was wretched. After I had baptized them all and dismissed them, the mothers hurried with them out into the open air."
Under conditions such as this, the error rate in recording the baptisms must have been high.
1 The Coetus was a national church body of the Dutch Reformed Church, composed of a minister and elder from each church. Its function was to consider ecclesiastical matters, which lay beyond the sphere of individual churches, and which formerly had been dealt with by the Classis of Amsterdam. For consideration of local questions, the Coetus was divided into local bodies, called "circles". (In Latin, "Coetus" literally means "group", or "a coming together", or "a joining".)
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