The Protestant Episcopal Church was perhaps more similar to the Catholic Church in their views on baptism than the Lutheran Church. When one considers how the Episcopal Church was formed, namely from the Anglican Church in England, this is not surprising. The Church of England was a political reform, not an ecclesiastical reform. A second stage of reform in the Episcopal Church, again political, occurred at the time of the American Revolution.
In Pennsylvania, Rev. Henry Muhlenberg described the Anglicans as his nearest and best friends. We know that in Virginia the Rev. Klug had no difficulty in cooperating closely with the Anglicans and, in fact, performed ministerial acts for them. His son, Samuel, became an Anglican priest.
Both churches believed baptism provided salvation. As the Anglican Book of Common Prayer notes, the necessity of Holy Baptism to salvation is so urgent, and the blessing conferred by it so great, infants should be brought to the font as soon as possible. The Anglicans preferred public baptisms in which the whole congregation participated, but they would perform a private baptism. After 1661, they would allow adult baptisms for those people who could answer for themselves.
For infants, sponsors were present. Initially the Anglicans used the same three sponsors as the Catholics, with two of the same sex and one of the opposite sex. After 1661, the number was reduced to two. The Anglicans continued the Catholic practice of not accepting parents as sponsors until 1865. Emergency baptism was acceptable and, if the child was in danger, the preliminary prayers were to be omitted and the Trinitarian formula was to be said at once. If any minister refused to baptize a dying child, of any faith, the minister could be suspended from his duties. Conditional baptism was retained by the Anglicans, but its use was to be minimized. No one desiring baptism for himself or an infant was to be refused.
The Anglicans retained the idea that confirmation was a requirement for communion. Because confirmation required a bishop and there were no Anglican bishops in America, generations of Anglican followers were in limbo. Do not expect to find any confirmation records from before 1787 in America.
Baptismal information was prescribed by law. According to a 1603 Act of Parliament, each parish priest was to have a parchment book wherein the day and year of every christening were to be written. In addition to the dates, the names of the infants and the parents were to be recorded. Few of these pre-Revolutionary records exist and the registers were victims of the war. Most of the Anglican priests left America during the war and probably took their books with them. These priests had a problem with their oath to support to the King of England. The Protestant Episcopal Church in America was established in 1787 to be independent of the Church of England.
(03 Jul 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.