190 Dimensions of Baptism
appears among eight short biblical passages of which one or more 'may be
read'. This authorized (but not prescribed) service directs that Mt. 28.18-
20 and Acts 2.38-39 shall first be read. This differential use of biblical
lections marks a change from the 1940 Book of Common Order, whose rite
for infant baptism provided only Mk 10.13-14,16, followed immediately
by 'It is the duty of those who present their children for holy Baptism...'
The prayer just before the baptism itself picked up the Gospel reading: 'O
Blessed Saviour, who didst take little children into Thine arms and bless
them; take this child... '^8 The prominence of Christ's action and words in
this tradition goes back to the Church Service Society's 1867 Eucholog-
ion: or Book of Prayers, the earliest attempt at a modern service-book for
the Church of Scotland. Mark 10.13-16 is read almost at the very begin-
ning of the service, followed by 'Let us not doubt.. .that the same loving
Saviour.. .will now receive and bless this little one'.^9 This emphasis was
taken to excess in the United Free Church's Book of Common Order in
1928, immediately before union with the Church of Scotland. The minis-
ter's opening address stated, 'The sanction of the ordinance is to be found
in the words of our Lord, who spake, saying, "Suffer..."', namely Mk
10.14-16.^10
Although the influential continental Reformed orders of the sixteenthcentury all provided for the reading of this Gospel passage—Strasbourg
(from the mid-1520s), Geneva (1542) and Zurich (from 1523)^11 —it was
not set down in the more didactic, less liturgical 'Ordoure of Baptisme'
which in 1564 the Scottish Church received from John Knox's Genevan
usage. It is present only in summary form in a lengthy exposition of the
- Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: St Andrew
Press, 1994), pp. 83-84; Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland (London:
Oxford University Press, 1940), pp. 90,92. The shorter-lived 1979 Book never gained
the acceptance of 1940. Its baptismal service differed little from the 1940 Book in pro-
viding for our Synoptic reading and in also picking it up later in a prayer: 'remember-
ing the welcome and the blessing that your Son gave to the little children...', The Book
of Common Order (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 1979), pp. 47, 52. The Reformed
Book of Common Order produced by the National Church Association (1977), less
fashionable liturgically, was ahead of the competition in omitting the blessing of the
children altogether. - Euchologion: or Book of Prayers (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons,
1867), p. 13. - Book of Common Order (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), p. 40.
- Fisher, Reformation Period, pp. 31,36,40,115,127,131. They vary in which
Gospel's text they prescribe.