I. Opinion of Others and Rejection of It

167. It is said that they are not to be baptized, because either they would be returned to the parents and their baptism would be to the reproach of the Christian faith since they would afterwards be nourished by their parents in their parents’ error; or they would not be returned, and then an injury would be done to them, because parents have right over them while they are children.

168. But this reason, though perhaps it might be conclusive about some private person (because a private person could not rightly take children from such parents and baptize them), does not however seem conclusive about a prince, to whom, in rule of the republic, such parents are subject. For the Lord has greater right of lordship over a child than the parents do; for in the case of ordered powers universally, a lower power is not binding in things that are against a superior power, as Augustine teaches, On the Words of the Lord, sermon 62 ch.8 n.13 (and it is in Lombard’s text, Sent. II d.44 ch.2 n.2), “If a power commands that which you ought not do, surely despise here that power, fearing a higher Power;” and he gives an example about a procurator, and a proconsul, and an emperor. Therefore, he who has to rule a republic should compel everyone to be more subject to the superior lord than to the inferior one - indeed to be subject to the superior with contempt of the inferior when the inferior in such lordship resists the superior. Just as, if an emperor should decree that someone must obey the proconsul, to the contempt of the precept of the procurator, that is, of one inferior to the proconsul if he were contradict the proconsul - so too, if there were ordered lordships under the same lord, namely that someone were servant of Titius and Titius of Peter, the emperor should compel the servant rather to serve Peter (because Peter is superior to Titius) than to serve Titius if Titius wanted to use the servant against the lordship of Peter. Therefore, the prince should most of all be zealous for keeping the lordship of the supreme Lord, namely God.

169. And consequently the prince not only may but also should take children from the lordship of parents who want to educate them against the cult of God, who is the supreme and most honorable Lord; and he should attach them to the divine cult.