resolved that any man serving a church as minister can be dealt
with and disciplined by any church, no matter what his relations
may be in church membership, or ecclesiastical affiliations. If
the church choosing him will not call a council, then any church
can call one for that purpose”; see New Englander, July,
1883:461‐491. This latter course, however, presupposes that the
steps of fraternal labor and admonition, provided for in our next
section on the Relation of Local Churches to one another, have
been taken, and have been insufficient to induce proper action on
the part of the church to which such minister belongs.
The authority of a Presbyterian church is limited to the bounds of
its own denomination. It cannot ordain ministers for Baptist
churches, any more than it can ordain them for Methodist churches
or for Episcopal churches. When a Presbyterian minister becomes a
Baptist, his motives for making the change and the conformity of
his views to the New Testament standard need to be scrutinized by
Baptists, before they can admit him to their Christian and church
fellowship; in other words, he needs to be ordained by a Baptist
church. Ordination is no more a discourtesy to the other
denomination than Baptism is. Those who oppose reördination in
such cases virtually hold to the Romish view of the sacredness of
orders.
The Watchman, April 17, 1902—“The Christian ministry is not a
priestly class which the laity is bound to support. If the
minister cannot find a church ready to support him, there is
nothing to prevent his entering another calling. Only ten per
cent. of the men who start in independent business avoid failure,
and a much smaller proportion achieve substantial success. They
are not failures, for they do useful and valuable work. But they
do not secure the prizes. It is not wonderful that the proportion
of ministers securing prominent pulpits is small. Many men fail in
the ministry. There is no sacred character imparted by ordination.
They should go into some other avocation. ‘Once a minister, always
a minister’ is a piece of Popery that Protestant churches should
get rid of.” See essay on Councils of Ordination, their Powers and
Duties, by A. H. Strong, in Philosophy and Religion, 259‐268;
Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 114; Dexter,
Congregationalism, 136, 145, 146, 150, 151. _Per contra_, see
Fish, Ecclesiology, 365‐399; Presb. Rev., 1886:89‐126.
3. Discipline of the Church.
A. Kinds of discipline.—Discipline is of two sorts, according as offences
are private or public. (_a_) Private offences are to be dealt with
according to the rule in Mat. 5:23, 24; 18:15‐17.
_Mat. 5:23, 24_—“_If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against
thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first
be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy
gift_”—here is provision for self‐discipline on the part of each
offender; _18:15‐17_—“_And if thy brother sin against thee, go,
show him his fault between thee and him alone: if he hear thee,
thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with
thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three
every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell
it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let
him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican_”—here is, first,
private discipline, one of another; and then, only as a last
resort, discipline by the church. Westcott and Hort, however omit
the εἰς σέ—“_against thee_”—in _Mat. 18:15_, and so make each
Christian responsible for bringing to repentance every brother
whose sin he becomes cognizant of. This would abolish the
distinction between private and public offences.
When a brother wrongs me, I am not to speak of the offence to
others, nor to write to him a letter, but to go to him. If the
brother is already penitent, he will start from his house to see
me at the same time that I start from my house to see him, and we
will meet just half way between the two. There would be little
appeal to the church, and little cherishing of ancient grudges, if
Christ’s disciples would observe his simple rules. These rules
impose a duty upon both the offending and the offended party. When
a brother brings a personal matter before the church, he should
always be asked whether he has obeyed Christ’s command to labor
privately with the offender. If he has not, he should be bidden to
keep silence.
(_b_) Public offences are to be dealt with according to the rule in 1 Cor.
5:3‐5, 13, and 2 Thess. 3:6.
_1 Cor. 5:3‐5, 13_—“_For I verily, being absent in body but
present in spirit, have already as though I were present judged
him that hath so wrought this thing, in the name of the Lord
Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power
of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day
of the Lord Jesus.... Put away the wicked man from among
yourselves._”
Notice here that Paul gave the incestuous person no opportunity to
repent, confess, or avert sentence. The church can have no valid
evidence of repentance immediately upon discovery and arraignment.
At such a time the natural conscience always reacts in remorse and
self‐accusation, but whether the sin is hated because of its
inherent wickedness, or only because of its unfortunate
consequences, cannot be known at once. Only fruits meet for
repentance can prove repentance real. But such fruits take time,
And the church has no time to wait. Its good repute in the
community, and its influence over its own members, are at stake.
These therefore demand the instant exclusion of the wrong‐doer, as
evidence that the church clears its skirts from all complicity
with the wrong. In the case of gross public offences, labor with
the offender is to come, not before, but after, his
excommunication; _cf._ _2 Cor. 2:6‐8_—“_Sufficient to such a one
is this punishment which was inflicted by the many;... forgive him
and comfort him;... confirm your love toward him._”
The church is not a Mutual Insurance Company, whose object is to
protect and shield its individual members. It is a society whose
end is to represent Christ in the world, and to establish his
truth and righteousness. Christ commits his honor to its keeping.
The offender who is only anxious to escape judgment, and who
pleads to be forgiven without delay, often shows that he cares
nothing for the cause of Christ which he has injured, but that he
has at heart only his own selfish comfort and reputation. The
truly penitent man will rather beg the church to exclude him, in
order that it may free itself from the charge of harboring
iniquity. He will accept exclusion with humility, will love the
church that excludes him, will continue to attend its worship,
will in due time seek and receive restoration. There is always a
way back into the church for those who repent. But the Scriptural
method of ensuring repentance is the method of immediate
exclusion.
In _2 Cor. 2:6‐8_—“_inflicted by the many_” might at first sight
seem to imply that, although the offender was excommunicated, it
was only by a majority vote, some members of the church
dissenting. Some interpreters think he had not been excommunicated
at all, but that only ordinary association with him had ceased.
But, if Paul’s command in the first epistle to “_put away the
wicked man from among yourselves_” (_1 Cor. 5:13_) had been thus
disobeyed, the apostle would certainly have mentioned and rebuked
the disobedience. On the contrary he praises them that they had
done as he had advised. The action of the church at Corinth was
blessed by God to the quickening of conscience and the
purification of life. In many a modern church the exclusion of
unworthy members has in like manner given to Christians a new
sense of their responsibility, while at the same time it has
convinced worldly people that the church was in thorough earnest.
The decisions of the church, indeed, when guided by the Holy
Spirit, are nothing less than an anticipation of the judgments of
the last day; see _Mat. 18:18_—“_What things soever ye shall bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven._” In _John 8:7_, Jesus
recognizes the sin and urges repentance, while he challenges the
right of the mob to execute judgment, and does away with the
traditional stoning. His gracious treatment of the sinning woman
gave no hint as to the proper treatment of her case by the regular
synagogue authorities.
_2 Thess. 3:6_—“_Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother
that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which they
received of us._” The mere “dropping” of names from the list of
members seems altogether contrary to the spirit of the N. T.
polity. That recognizes only three methods of exit from the local
church: (1) exclusion; (2) dismission; (3) death. To provide for
the case of members whose residence has long been unknown, it is
well for the church to have a standing rule that all members
residing at a distance shall report each year by letter or by
contribution, and, in case of failure to report for two successive
years, shall be subject to discipline. The action of the church,
in such cases, should take the form of an adoption of preamble and
resolution: “_Whereas_ A. B. has been absent from the church for
more than two years, and has failed to comply with the standing
rule requiring a yearly report or contribution, therefore,
_Resolved_, that the church withdraw from A. B. the hand of
fellowship.”
In _all_ cases of exclusion, the resolution may uniformly read as
above; the preamble may indefinitely vary, and should always cite
the exact nature of the offence. In this way, neglect of the
church or breach of covenant obligations may be distinguished from
offences against common morality, so that exclusion upon the
former ground shall not be mistaken for exclusion upon the latter.
As the persons excluded are not commonly present at the meeting of
the church when they are excluded, a written copy of the preamble
and resolution, signed by the Clerk of the Church, should always
be immediately sent to them.
B. Relation of the pastor to discipline.—(_a_) He has no original
authority; (_b_) but is the organ of the church, and (_c_) superintendent
of its labors for its own purification and for the reclamation of
offenders; and therefore (_d_) may best do the work of discipline, not
directly, by constituting himself a special policeman or detective, but
indirectly, by securing proper labor on the part of the deacons or
brethren of the church.
The pastor should regard himself as a judge, rather than as a
prosecuting attorney. He should press upon the officers of his
church their duty to investigate cases of immorality and to deal
with them. But if he himself makes charges, he loses dignity, and
puts it out of his power to help the offender. It is not well for
him to be, or to have the reputation of being, a ferreter‐out of
misdemeanors among his church members. It is best for him in
general to serve only as presiding officer in cases of discipline,
instead of being a partisan or a counsel for the prosecution. For
this reason it is well for him to secure the appointment by his
church of a Prudential Committee, or Committee on Discipline,
whose duty it shall be at a fixed time each year to look over the
list of members, initiate labor in the case of delinquents, and,
after the proper steps have been taken, present proper preambles
and resolutions in cases where the church needs to take action.
This regular yearly process renders discipline easy; whereas the
neglect of it for several successive years results in an
accumulation of cases, in each of which the person exposed to
discipline has friends, and these are tempted to obstruct the
church’s dealing with others from fear that the taking up of any
other case may lead to the taking up of that one in which they are
most nearly interested. The church which pays no regular attention
to its discipline is like the farmer who milked his cow only once
a year, in order to avoid too great a drain; or like the small boy
who did not see how any one could bear to comb his hair every
day,—he combed his own only once in six weeks, and then it nearly
killed him.
As the Prudential Committee, or Committee on Discipline, is simply
the church itself preparing its own business, the church may well
require all complaints to be made to it through the committee. In
this way it may be made certain that the preliminary steps of
labor have been taken, and the disquieting of the church by
premature charges may be avoided. Where the committee, after
proper representations made to it, fails to do its duty, the
individual member may appeal directly to the assembled church; and
the difference between the New Testament order and that of a
hierarchy is this, that according to the former all final action
and responsibility is taken by the church itself in its collective
capacity, whereas on the latter the minister, the session, or the
bishop, so far as the individual church is concerned, determines
the result. See Savage, Church Discipline, Formative and
Corrective; Dagg, Church Order, 268‐274. On church discipline in
cases of remarriage after divorce, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy
and Religion, 431‐442.
IV. Relation of Local Churches to one another.
1. The general nature of this relation is that of fellowship between
equals.
Notice here:
(_a_) The absolute equality of the churches.—No church or council of
churches, no association or convention or society, can relieve any single
church of its direct responsibility to Christ, or assume control of its
action.
(_b_) The fraternal fellowship and coöperation of the churches.—No church
can properly ignore, or disregard, the existence or work of other churches
around it. Every other church is presumptively possessed of the Spirit, in
equal measure with itself. There must therefore be sympathy and mutual
furtherance of each other’s welfare among churches, as among individual
Christians. Upon this principle are based letters of dismission,
recognition of the pastors of other churches, and all associational
unions, or unions for common Christian work.
H. O. Rowlands, in Bap. Quar. Rev., Oct. 1891:669‐677, urges the
giving up of special Councils, and the turning of the Association
into a Permanent Council, not to take original cognizance of what
cases it pleases, but to consider and judge such questions as may
be referred to it by the individual churches. It could then revise
and rescind its action, whereas the present Council when once
adjourned can never be called together again. This method would
prevent the packing of a Council, and the Council when once
constituted would have greater influence. We feel slow to sanction
such a plan, not only for the reason that it seems destitute of
New Testament authority and example, but because it tends toward a
Presbyterian form of church government. All permanent bodies of
this sort gradually arrogate to themselves power; indirectly if
not directly they can assume original jurisdiction; their
decisions have altogether too great influence, if they go further
than personal persuasion. The independence of the individual
church is a primary element of polity which must not be sacrificed
or endangered for the mere sake of inter‐ecclesiastical harmony.
Permanent Councils of any sort are of doubtful validity. They need
to be kept under constant watch and criticism, lest they undermine
our Baptist church government, a fundamental principle of which is
that there is no authority on earth above that of the local
church.
2. This fellowship involves the duty of special consultation with regard
to matters affecting the common interest.
(_a_) The duty of seeking advice.—Since the order and good repute of each
is valuable to all the others, cases of grave importance and difficulty in
internal discipline, as well as the question of ordaining members to the
ministry, should be submitted to a council of churches called for the
purpose.
(_b_) The duty of taking advice.—For the same reason, each church should
show readiness to receive admonition from others. So long as this is in
the nature of friendly reminder that the church is guilty of defects from
the doctrine or practice enjoined by Christ, the mutual acceptance of
whose commands is the basis of all church fellowship, no church can justly
refuse to have such defects pointed out, or to consider the Scripturalness
of its own proceeding. Such admonition or advice, however, whether coming
from a single church or from a council of churches, is not itself of
binding authority. It is simply in the nature of moral suasion. The church
receiving it has still to compare it with Christ’s laws. The ultimate
decision rests entirely with the church so advised or asking advice.
Churches should observe comity, and should not draw away one
another’s members. Ministers should bring churches together, and
should teach their members the larger unity of the whole church of
God. The pastor should not confine his interest to his own church
or even to his own Association. The State Convention, the
Education Society, the National Anniversaries, should all claim
his attention and that of his people. He should welcome new
laborers and helpers, instead of regarding the ministry as a close
corporation whose numbers are to be kept forever small. E. G.
Robinson: “The spirit of sectarianism is devilish. It raises the
church above Christ. Christ did not say: ‘Blessed is the man who
accepts the Westminster Confession or the Thirty‐Nine Articles.’
There is not the least shadow of churchism in Christ. Churchism is
a revamped and whitewashed Judaism. It keeps up the middle wall of
partition which Christ has broken down.”
Dr. P. H. Mell, in his Manual of Parliamentary Practice, calls
Church Councils “Committees of Help.” President James C. Welling
held that “We Baptists are not true to our democratic polity in
the conduct of our collective evangelical operations. In these
matters we are simply a bureaucracy, tempered by individual
munificence.” A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 149, 150,
remarks on _Mat. 18:19_—“_If two of you shall
agree_”—συμφωνήσωσιν, from which our word “symphony” comes: “If
two shall ‘accord,’ or ‘symphonize’ in what they ask, they have
the promise of being heard. But, as in tuning an organ, all the
notes must be keyed to the standard pitch, else harmony were
impossible, so in prayer. It is not enough that two disciples
agree with each other,—they must agree with a Third—the righteous
and holy Lord, before they can agree in intercession. There may be
agreement which is in most sinful conflict with the divine will:
‘_How is it that ye have agreed together_’—συνεφωνήθη—the same
word—‘_to try the Spirit of the Lord?_’ says Peter (_Acts 5:9_).
Here is mutual accord, but guilty discord with the Holy Spirit.”
3. This fellowship may be broken by manifest departures from the faith or
practice of the Scriptures, on the part of any church.
In such case, duty to Christ requires the churches, whose labors to
reclaim a sister church from error have proved unavailing, to withdraw
their fellowship from it, until such time as the erring church shall
return to the path of duty. In this regard, the law which applies to
individuals applies to churches, and the polity of the New Testament is
congregational rather than independent.
Independence is qualified by interdependence. While each church
is, in the last resort thrown upon its own responsibility in
ascertaining doctrine and duty, it is to acknowledge the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in other churches as well as in
itself, and the value of the public opinion of the churches as an
indication of the mind of the Spirit. The church in Antioch asked
advice of the church in Jerusalem, although Paul himself was at
Antioch. Although no church or union of churches has rightful
jurisdiction over the single local body, yet the Council, when
rightly called and constituted, has the power of moral influence.
Its decision is an index to truth, which only the gravest reasons
will justify the church in ignoring or refusing to follow.
Dexter, Congregationalism, 695—“Barrowism gave all power into the
hands of the elders, and it would have no Councils.
Congregationalism is Brownism. It has two foci: Independence and
Interdependence.” Charles S. Scott, on Baptist Polity and the
Pastorate, in Bap. Quar. Rev., July, 1890:291‐297—“The difference
between the polity of Baptist and of Congregational churches is in
the relative authority of the Ecclesiastical Council.
Congregationalism is Councilism. Not only the ordination and first
settlement of the minister must be with the advice and consent of
a Council, but every subsequent unsettlement and settlement.”
Baptist churches have regarded this dependence upon Councils after
the minister’s ordination as extreme and unwarranted.
The fact that the church has always the right, for just cause, of
going behind the decision of the Council, and of determining for
itself whether it will ratify or reject that decision, shows
conclusively that the church has parted with no particle of its
original independence or authority. Yet, though the Council is
simply a counsellor—an organ and helper of the church,—the neglect
of its advice may involve such ecclesiastical or moral wrong as to
justify the churches represented in it, as well as other churches,
in withdrawing, from the church that called it, their
denominational fellowship. The relation of churches to one another
is analogous to the relation of private Christians to one another.
No meddlesome spirit is to be allowed; but in matters of grave
moment, a church, as well as an individual, may be justified in
giving advice unasked.
Lightfoot, in his new edition of Clemens Romanus, shows that the
Epistle, instead of emanating from Clement as Bishop of Rome, is a
letter of the church at Rome to the Corinthians, urging them to
peace. No pope and no bishop existed, but the whole church
congregationally addressed its counsels to its sister body of
believers at Corinth. Congregationalism, in A. D. 95, considered
it a duty to labor with a sister church that had in its judgment
gone astray, or that was in danger of going astray. The only
primacy was the primacy of the church, not of the bishop; and this
primacy was a primacy of goodness, backed up by metropolitan
advantages. All this fraternal fellowship follows from the
fundamental conception of the local church as the concrete
embodiment of the universal church. Park: “Congregationalism
recognizes a voluntary coöperation and communion of the churches,
which Independency does not do. Independent churches ordain and
depose pastors without asking advice from other churches.”
In accordance with this general principle, in a case of serious
disagreement between different portions of the same church, the
council called to advise should be, if possible, a mutual, not an
_ex parte_, council; see Dexter, Congregationalism, 2, 3, 61‐64.
It is a more general application of the same principle, to say
that the pastor should not shut himself in to his own church, but
should cultivate friendly relations with other pastors and with
other churches, should be present and active at the meetings of
Associations and State Conventions, and at the Anniversaries of
the National Societies of the denomination. His example of
friendly interest in the welfare of others will affect his church.
The strong should be taught to help the weak, after the example of
Paul in raising contributions for the poor churches of Judea.
The principle of church independence is not only consistent with,
but it absolutely requires under Christ, all manner of Christian
coöperation with other churches; and Social and Mission Unions to
unify the work of the denomination, to secure the starting of new
enterprises, to prevent one church from trenching upon the
territory or appropriating the members of another, are only
natural outgrowths of the principle. President Wayland’s remark,
“He who is displeased with everybody and everything gives the best
evidence that his own temper is defective and that he is a bad
associate,” applies to churches as well as to individuals. Each
church is to remember that, though it is honored by the indwelling
of the Lord, it constitutes only a part of that great body of
which Christ is the head.
See Davidson, Eccl. Polity of the N. T.; Ladd, Principles of
Church Polity; and on the general subject of the Church, Hodge,
Essays, 201; Flint, Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, 53‐82; Hooker,
Ecclesiastical Polity; The Church,—a collection of essays by
Luthardt, Kahnis, _etc._; Hiscox, Baptist Church Directory;
Ripley, Church Polity; Harvey, The Church; Crowell, Church
Members’ Manual; R. W. Dale, Manual of Congregational Principles;
Lightfoot, Com. on Philippians, excursus on the Christian
Ministry; Ross, The Church‐Kingdom—Lectures on Congregationalism;
Dexter, Congregationalism, 681‐716, as seen in its Literature;
Allison, Baptist Councils in America. For a denial that there is
any real apostolic authority for modern church polity, see O. J.
Thatcher, Sketch of the History of the Apostolic Church.
Chapter II. The Ordinances Of The Church.
By the ordinances, we mean those outward rites which Christ has appointed
to be administered in his church as visible signs of the saving truth of
the gospel. They are signs, in that they vividly express this truth and
confirm it to the believer.
In contrast with this characteristically Protestant view, the Romanist
regards the ordinances as actually conferring grace and producing
holiness. Instead of being the external manifestation of a preceding union
with Christ, they are the physical means of constituting and maintaining
this union. With the Romanist, in this particular, sacramentalists of
every name substantially agree. The Papal Church holds to seven sacraments
or ordinances:—ordination, confirmation, matrimony, extreme unction,
penance, baptism, and the eucharist. The ordinances prescribed in the N.
T., however, are two and only two, viz.:—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
It will be well to distinguish from one another the three words:
symbol, rite, and ordinance. 1. A _symbol_ is the sign, or visible
representation, of an invisible truth or idea; as for example, the
lion is the symbol of strength and courage, the lamb is the symbol
of gentleness, the olive branch of peace, the sceptre of dominion,
the wedding ring of marriage, and the flag of country. Symbols may
teach great lessons; as Jesus’ cursing the barren fig tree taught
the doom of unfruitful Judaism, and Jesus’ washing of the
disciples’ feet taught his own coming down from heaven to purify
and save, and the humble service required of his followers. 2. A
_rite_ is a symbol which is employed with regularity and sacred
intent. Symbols became rites when thus used. Examples of
authorized rites in the Christian Church are the laying on of
hands in ordination, and the giving of the right hand of
fellowship. 3. An _ordinance_ is a symbolic rite which sets forth
the central truths of the Christian faith, and which is of
universal and perpetual obligation. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
are rites which have become ordinances by the specific command of
Christ and by their inner relation to the essential truths of his
kingdom. No ordinance is a sacrament in the Romanist sense of
conferring grace; but, as the _sacramentum_ was the oath taken by
the Roman soldier to obey his commander even unto death, so
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are sacraments, in the sense of vows
of allegiance to Christ our Master.
President H. G. Weston has recorded his objections to the
observance of the so‐called “Christian Year,” in words that we
quote, as showing the danger attending the Romanist multiplication
of ordinances. “1. The ‘Christian Year’ is not Christian. It makes
everything of actions, and nothing of relations. Make a day holy
that God has not made holy, and you thereby make all other days
unholy. 2. It limits the Christian’s view of Christ to the scenes
and events of his earthly life. Salvation comes through spiritual
relations to a living Lord. The ‘Christian Year’ makes Christ only
a memory, and not a living, present, personal power. Life, not
death, is the typical word of the N. T. Paul craved, not a
knowledge of the fact of the resurrection, but of the power of it.
The New Testament records busy themselves most of all with what
Christ is doing now. 3. The appointments of the ‘Christian Year’
are not in accord with the N. T. These appointments lack the
reality of spiritual life, and are contrary to the essential
spirit of Christianity.” We may add that where the “Christian
Year” is most generally and rigidly observed, there popular
religion is most formal and destitute of spiritual power.
I. Baptism.
Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water, in token of his
previous entrance into the communion of Christ’s death and
resurrection,—or, in other words, in token of his regeneration through
union with Christ.
1. Baptism an Ordinance of Christ.
A. Proof that Christ instituted an external rite called baptism.
(_a_) From the words of the great commission; (_b_) from the injunctions
of the apostles; (_c_) from the fact that the members of the New Testament
churches were baptized believers; (_d_) from the universal practice of
such a rite in Christian churches of subsequent times.
(_a_) _Mat. 28:19_—“_Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit_”; _Mark 16:16_—“_He that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved_”—we hold, with Westcott and Hort, that
_Mark 16:9‐20_ is of canonical authority, though probably not
written by Mark himself. (_b_) _Acts 2:38_—“_And Peter said unto
them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins_”; (_c_) _Rom.
6:3‐5_—“_Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried
therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we
also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united
with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the
likeness of his resurrection_”; _Col. 2:11, 12_—“_in whom ye were
also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the
putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of
Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were
also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who
raised him from the dead._” (_d_) The only marked exceptions to
the universal requisition of baptism are found in the Society of
Friends, and in the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army does not
regard the ordinance as having any more permanent obligation than
feet‐washing. General Booth: “We teach our soldiers that every
time they break bread, they are to remember the broken body of the
Lord, and every time they wash the body, they are to remind
themselves of the cleansing power of the blood of Christ and of
the indwelling Spirit.” The Society of Friends regard Christ’s
commands as fulfilled, not by any outward baptism of water, but
only by the inward baptism of the Spirit.
B. This external rite intended by Christ to be of universal and perpetual
obligation.
(_a_) Christ recognized John the Baptist’s commission to baptize as
derived immediately from heaven.
_Mat. 21:25_—“_The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or
from men?_”—here Jesus clearly intimates that John’s commission to
baptize was derived directly from God; _cf._ _John 1:25_—the
delegates sent to the Baptist by the Sanhedrin ask him: “_Why then
baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah,
neither the prophet?_” thus indicating that John’s baptism, either
in its form or its application, was a new ordinance that required
special divine authorization.
Broadus in his American Com. on _Mat. 3:6_, claims that John’s
baptism was no modification of an existing rite. Proselyte baptism
is not mentioned in the Mishna (A. D. 200); the first distinct
account of it is in the Babylonian Talmud (Gemara) written in the
fifth century; it was not adopted from the Christians, but was one
of the Jewish purifications which came to be regarded, after the
destruction of the Temple, as a peculiar initiatory rite. There is
no mention of it, as a Jewish rite, in the O. T., N. T.,
Apocrypha, Philo, or Josephus.
For the view that proselyte‐baptism did not exist among the Jews
before the time of John, see Schneckenburger, Ueber das Alter der
jüdischen Proselytentaufe; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:338‐355;
Toy, In Baptist Quarterly, 1872:301‐332. Dr. Toy, however, in a
private note to the author (1884), says: “I am disposed now to
regard the Christian rite as borrowed from the Jewish, contrary to
my view in 1872.” So holds Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus,
2:742‐744—“We have positive testimony that the baptism of
proselytes existed in the times of Hillel and Shammai. For,
whereas the school of Shammai is said to have allowed a proselyte
who was circumcised on the eve of the Passover, to partake, after
baptism, of the Passover, the school of Hillel forbade it. This
controversy must be regarded as proving that at that time
[previous to Christ] the baptism of proselytes was customary.”
Porter, on Proselyte Baptism, Hastings’ Bible Dict., 4:132—“If
circumcision was the decisive step in the case of all male
converts, there seems no longer room for serious question that a
bath of purification must have followed, even though early mention
of such proselyte baptism is not found. The law (_Lev. 11‐15_;
_Num. 19_) prescribed such baths in all cases of impurity, and one
who came with the deep impurity of a heathen life behind him could
not have entered the Jewish community without such cleansing.”
Plummer, on Baptism, Hastings’ Bible Dict., 1:239—“What is wanted
is direct evidence that, before John the Baptist made so
remarkable a use of the rite, it was the custom to make all
proselytes submit to baptism; and such evidence is not
forthcoming. Nevertheless the fact is not really doubtful. It is
not credible that the baptizing of proselytes was instituted and
made essential for their admission to Judaism at a period
subsequent to the institution of Christian baptism; and the
supposition that it was borrowed from the rite enjoined by Christ
is monstrous.”
Although the O. T. and the Apocrypha, Josephus and Philo, are
silent with regard to proselyte baptism, it is certain that it
existed among the Jews in the early Christian centuries; and it is
almost equally certain that the Jews could not have adopted it
from the Christians. It is probable, therefore, that the baptism
of John was an application to Jews of an immersion which, before
that time, was administered to proselytes from among the Gentiles;
and that it was this adaptation of the rite to a new class of
subjects and with a new meaning, which excited the inquiry and
criticism of the Sanhedrin. We must remember, however, that the
Lord’s Supper was likewise an adaptation of certain portions of
the old Passover service to a new use and meaning. See also Kitto,
Bib. Cyclop., 3:593.
(_b_) In his own submission to John’s baptism, Christ gave testimony to
the binding obligation of the ordinance (Mat. 3:13‐17). John’s baptism was
essentially Christian baptism (Acts 19:4), although the full significance
of it was not understood until after Jesus’ death and resurrection (Mat.
20:17‐23; Luke 12:50; Rom. 6:3‐6).
_Mat. 3:13‐17_—“_Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness_”; _Acts 19:4_—“_John baptized with the baptism
of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on
him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus_”; _Mat. 20:18,
19, 22_—“_the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests
and scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall
deliver him unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to
crucify.... Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to
drink?_” _Luke 12:50_—“_But I have a baptism to be baptized with;
and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!_” _Rom. 6:3,
4_—“_Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with
him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised
from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might
walk is newness of life._”
Robert Hall, Works, 1:367‐399, denies that John’s baptism was
Christian baptism, and holds that there is not sufficient evidence
that all the apostles were baptized. The fact that John’s baptism
was a baptism of faith in the coming Messiah, as well as a baptism
of repentance for past and present sin, refutes this theory. The
only difference between John’s baptism, and the baptism of our
time, is that John baptized upon profession of faith in a Savior
yet to come; baptism is now administered upon profession of faith
in a Savior who has actually and already come. On John’s baptism
as presupposing faith in those who received it, see treatment of
the Subjects of Baptism, page 950.
(_c_) In continuing the practice of baptism through his disciples (John
4:1, 2), and in enjoining it upon them as part of a work which was to last
to the end of the world (Mat. 28:19, 20), Christ manifestly adopted and
appointed baptism as the invariable law of his church.
_John 4:1, 2_—“_When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees
had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than
John (although Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples)_”;
_Mat. 28:19, 20_—“_Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world._”
(_d_) The analogy of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper also leads to the
conclusion that baptism is to be observed as an authoritative memorial of
Christ and his truth, until his second coming.
_1 Cor. 11:26_—“_For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the
cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come._” Baptism, like
the Lord’s Supper, is a teaching ordinance, and the two ordinances
together furnish an indispensable witness to Christ’s death and
resurrection.
(_e_) There is no intimation whatever that the command of baptism is
limited, or to be limited, in its application,—that it has been or ever is
to be repealed; and, until some evidence of such limitation or repeal is
produced, the statute must be regarded as universally binding.
On the proof that baptism is an ordinance of Christ, see Pepper,
in Madison Avenue Lectures, 85‐114; Dagg, Church Order, 9‐21.
2. The Mode of Baptism.
This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following
considerations:
A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.
We show this:
(_a_) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to
immerse, appears:
First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when
they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek
version of the Old Testament.
Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon: “βαπτίζω, to dip in or under
water; Lat. _immergere_.” Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the
Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to
dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and
Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb
meanings not recognized by the Greeks.” Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:
“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to
submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα,
immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by
Christ.” Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:
“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the
more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I
never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I
never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as
meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often
asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly
plain answer.”
In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p.
86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its
full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The
figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see
also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154‐157. No one
of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two
latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings,
Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was
commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”;
Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from the _Didache_
that from a very early date “a triple pouring was admitted where a
sufficiency of water could not be had,” agrees that “such a method
[as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul’s
words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (_Rom.
6:3‐5_).”
Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1‐64, has
examples “drawn from writers in almost every department of
literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers,
critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on
medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost
every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations,
fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of
various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian,
belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages.
In all, the word has retained its ground‐meaning without change.
From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a
period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found
in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in
which it signifies to make a partial application of water by
affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the
literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”
See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57,
note.
Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism,
maintains that βάπτω alone means “to dip,” and that βαπτίζω never
means “to dip,” but only “to put within,” giving no intimation
that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale,
by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in
Bap. Review, 1879:141‐163. “Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when
he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by
the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine
jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have
βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale’s theory would call for βάπτω. The
truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the
same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and
invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr.
Dale’s three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without
influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man
drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last
is a figment of Dr. Dale’s imagination. It would allow me to say
that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand
result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means
immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not
baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers
that this is baptism.” For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford,
Studies on Baptism.
Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either
requires or allows the meaning “immerse.”
_Mat. 3:6, 11_—“_I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ...
he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire_”; _cf._ _2
Kings 5:14_—“_Then went he_ [Naaman] _down, and dipped himself_
ἐβαπτίσατο _seven times in the Jordan_”; _Mark 1:5, 9_—“_they were
baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins....
Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into
the Jordan_”; _7:4_—“_and when they come from the market‐place,
except they bathe_ [lit.: ‘_baptize_’] _themselves, they eat not:
and many other things there are, which they have received to hold,
washings_ [lit.: ‘_baptizings_’] _of cups, and pots, and brasen
vessels_”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read
ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how
subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have
changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how
ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. On _Mat.
15:2_ (and the parallel passage _Mark 7:4_), see Broadus, Com. on
Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian
touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river
and dips himself from it.
Meyer, Com. _in loco_—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood
of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion,
which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means;
here, according to the context, to take a bath.” The Revised
Version omits the words “and couches,” although Maimonides speaks
of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in
Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of
the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else
than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip
himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still
in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip
it part by part, it is pure.” Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible,
1126.
_Luke 11:38_—“_And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he
had not first bathed_ [lit.: ‘_baptized_’] _himself before
dinner_”; _cf._ _Ecclesiasticus 31:25_—“_He that washeth himself
after the touching of a dead body_” (βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);
_Judith 12:7_—“_washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water
by the camp_”; _Lev. 22:4‐6_—“_Whoso toucheth anything that is
unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh
in water._” _Acts 2:41_—“_They then that received his word were
baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three
thousand souls._” Although the water supply of Jerusalem is
naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns,
and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though
thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of
water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern
Jerusalem: King’s Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19;
Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so‐called), 360 x 130 x 75;
Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see
Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323‐348, and Samson, Water‐supply
of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty
in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of
Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a
single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3,
1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators
in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten
miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the
time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than
two men at the same time.
_Acts 16:33_—“_And he took them the same hour of the night, and
washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his,
immediately_”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices
in the East, whether public or private, provided with tank and
fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek, _sub voce_—“βαπτίζω,
immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.” Grimm’s ed. of
Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by
immersing or submerging (_Mark 7:4_, also Naaman and Judith); 3.
Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes, _etc._” In
the N. T. rite, he says it denotes “an immersion in water,
intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who
wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah’s reign.”
Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however,
from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their
demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text;
and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not
regarded by either party”—_i. e._, by either Baptists or
Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the
Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1. _Baptizein_ undoubtedly signifies
immersion (_eintauchen_). 2. No proof can be found that it
signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient
Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a ‘sacred sense’ is
out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which
suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to
the word _baptizein_ any other sense than _eintauchen_ =
_untertauchen_ (immerse, submerge).” See Com. of Meyer, and
Cunningham, Croall lectures.
Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with
“water” as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is “to
immerse.” Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.
(_b_) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:
First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the
person passes in the act of being baptized).
_Mark 1:9, marg._—“_And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came
from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan._”
Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8; _cf._ Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33; _cf._
Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but
as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.
_Mark 1:5, 8_—“_they were baptized of him in the river Jordan,
confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall
baptize you in the Holy Spirit_”—here see Meyer’s Com. on _Mat.
3:11_—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse),
not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the
sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.” Those
who pray for a “baptism of the Holy Spirit” pray for such a
pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them
to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see
C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305‐311. Plumptre: “The baptism
with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would
be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit,
which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”
A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became
the Spirit’s baptistery. His presence ‘_filled all the house where
they were sitting_’ (_Acts 2:2_).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit
was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete
came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow
that every believer has received this baptism. God’s gift is one
thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our
relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is
exactly parallel in this respect. ‘God so loved the world, that he
_gave_ his only begotten Son’ (_John 3:16_). ‘But as many as
_received_ him, to them gave he the right to become children of
God, even to them that believe on his name’ (_John 1:12_). We are
required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that
we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners.... ‘_He breathed
on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye_’—take ye, actively—‘_the
Holy Spirit_’ (_John 20:22_).”
(_c_) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance
(Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38,
39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).
_Mark 1:10_—“_coming up out of the water_”; _John 3:23_—“_And John
also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much
water there_”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof.
W. A. Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit.
and Exegesis, Dec. 1883. _Acts 8:38, 39_—“_and they both went down
into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.
And when they came up out of the water...._” In the case of Philip
and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27,
1892, says: “The baptism was apparently by immersion.” The Editor
adds that “practically scholars are agreed that the primitive
meaning of the word ’baptize’ was to immerse.”
(_d_) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.
_Mark 10:38_—“_Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?_”—here the cup
is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane; _cf._ _Luke
22:42_—“_Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me_”;
and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the
grave that was to follow; _cf._ _Luke 12:50_—“_I have a baptism to
be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be
accomplished!_” Death presented itself to the Savior’s mind as a
baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.
_Rom. 6:4_—“_We were buried therefore with him through baptism
into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of
life_”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say,
on this passage, that “it cannot be understood without remembering
that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.” On _Luke
12:49, marg._—“_I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would
I that it were already kindled!_”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus,
2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and
movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws
everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it
falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the
baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?
_1 Cor. 10:1, 2_—“_our fathers were all under the cloud, and all
passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the
cloud and in the sea_”; _Col. 2:12_—“_having been buried with him
in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him_”; _Heb.
10:22_—“_having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and
having our body washed_ [λελουμένοι] _with pure water_”—here
Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that “λούω implies always,
not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.” _1 Pet
3:20, 21_—“_saved through water: which also after a true likeness
doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth
of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward
God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ_”—as the ark whose
sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of
believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good
conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism
symbolizes. “In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were
used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was
sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all,
and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete
ablution had been previously administered” (Wm. Ashmore).
(_e_) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early
church.
Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion
(forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of
baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered
with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when
he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be
sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing
to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”
Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now
generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by
immersion.” Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church,
570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is
compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point
to the Baptists.” Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says: “The baptism of
Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the
N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling,
as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and
Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural
exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have
driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”
Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on
Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as
“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the
universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the
Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as
positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in
practice.” The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879,
says that “the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside
the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and
has altered the very meaning of the word.” Neander, Church Hist.,
1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in conformity
with the original institution and the original import of the
symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into
the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It
was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any
exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but
many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not
fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”
Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,
_i. e._, the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring
water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of
Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good
reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the
ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure
from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is
that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19,
1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from
the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that
baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for
Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and
the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by
aspersion is not certain. The ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’
however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times,
people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in
place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might
render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was
also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the
outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.” This seems
to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon
after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than
immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who
introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of
necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29‐57, and
other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in
Bib. Repos., 1883:355‐363.
The “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” section 7, reads as
follows: “Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living
water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then
in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head
thrice.” Here it is evident that “baptize” means only “immerse,”
but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr.
A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that “The Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles” may possibly belong to the second half of the
second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It
does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view
seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute
lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper,
that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a
substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and
prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.
Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains
that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it
was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice
and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long,
in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of
Blunt’s Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the
“Salisbury Use” was the accepted mode, and this provided for the
child’s trine immersion. “The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to
the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place
of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has
never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster
Assembly said ’sprinkle or pour,’ thus annulling what Christ
commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533.
If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused
that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the
more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of
the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or
rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and
preservers of Christian baptism.”
(_f_) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.
DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church,
writes; “βαπτίζω signifies literally and always ‘to plunge.’
Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say ‘baptism
by aspersion’ is as if one should say ‘immersion by aspersion,’ or
any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain
that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere
ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant
on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.
The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is
well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in
Hastings’ Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines
baptism as “a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant
symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure
life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future
he desires.” As regards the “mode of baptism,” he remarks: “That
the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred
(_a_) from the meaning of _baptizo_, which is the intensive or
frequentative form of _bapto_, ‘I dip,’ and denotes to _immerse_
or _submerge_—the point is, that ‘dip’ or ‘immerse’ is the
primary, ‘wash’ the secondary meaning of _bapto_ or _baptizo_.
(_b_) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down
regarding the baptism of proselytes: ‘As soon as he grows whole of
the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being
placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and
in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges
himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all
things’ (Lightfoot’s Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his
old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this
cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would
have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was
required in proselyte baptism that ‘every person baptized must dip
his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And
wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is
mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole
body.’ (_c_) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by
John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood
of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement
of _John 3:23_ that he was baptizing in Enon ‘because there was
much water there.’ (_d_) That this form was continued in the
Christian Church appears from the expression _Loutron
palingenesias_ (bath of regeneration, _Titus 3:5_), and from the
use made by St. Paul in _Romans 6_ of the symbolism. This is well
put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).” The author quotes Bingham to
the effect that “total immersion under water” was the universal
practice during the early Christian centuries “except in some
particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as
in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of
water.” Dr. Dods continues: “This statement exactly reflects the
ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the ’_Didache_’” (Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles).
The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found
in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage
of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word “baptize” to be
“immerse,” but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning.
The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.
As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are
coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion,
we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of
Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of
Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a “font‐grave,” in which a
believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the
Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the
newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.
Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord’s
Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental
significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water
the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ,
baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and
renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical
body of Christ, that ’new creation.’ As for Paul the baptism of
adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course
presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith
realizes the decisive resolution of giving one’s self up actually
as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is
not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in
faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the
whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it
typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the
carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.” For the view
that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall,
Mode of Baptism. _Per contra_, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly,
April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85;
Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent
and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.
B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of
Christ.
This is plain:
(_a_) From the nature of the church. Notice:
First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ
is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a
legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which
originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the
local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches
any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the
opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ,
and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.
_Mat. 5:19_—“_Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall
be called great in the kingdom of heaven_”; _cf._ _2 Sam.
6:7_—“_And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God
smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of
God._” Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a
truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And
therefore frame the law unto my will.” As at the Reformation
believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we
should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its
meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to
administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus’
command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.
(_b_) From the nature of God’s command:
First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law,
of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is
not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the
wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the
church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance
to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily
difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only
adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the
ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they
become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right
to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change
vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however,
is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special
discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.
Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea
that there could be any constitutional way of violating the
Constitution. F. L. Anderson: “In human governments we change the
constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine
government we change the will of the people to conform to the
Constitution.” For advocacy of the church’s right to modify the
form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works,
1:333‐348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer,
several purposes which at its first institution were blended in
respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of
circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church
hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be
authorized to choose and determine to which of the several
purposes the ceremony should be attached.” Baptism, for example,
at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of
Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is
assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now
necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church,
she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.
We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is
ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to
separate the two is to pervert the ordinance, and to make it teach
the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by
outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley
(on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as
he does, with approval, that the change in the method of
administering the ordinance shows “how the spirit that lives and
moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”
We cannot with him call this spirit “the free spirit of
Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of
disobedience and unbelief. “Baptists are therefore pledged to
prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall
return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles” (G. M.
Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234‐245.
_Objections_: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that,
when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will
to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward
obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.
2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when
it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have
no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has
commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered
with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even
the body. “Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do
no harm.” The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the
universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that
country.
3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent
exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than
in fashionable sea‐bathing. The argument is valid only against a
careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion
itself.
4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to
Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which
symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with
him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in
submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of
obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as
Christ enjoined.
5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who
submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to
human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly
sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass.
This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the
error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false
system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of
Christ’s commands. It is, in great part, the position of its
advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives
to this false system its power for evil.
3. The Symbolism of Baptism.
Baptism symbolizes the previous entrance of the believer into the
communion of Christ’s death and resurrection,—or, in other words,
regeneration through union with Christ.
A. Expansion of this statement as to the symbolism of baptism.
Baptism, more particularly, is a symbol:
(_a_) Of the death and resurrection of Christ.
_Rom. 6:3_—“_Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?_” _cf._ _Mat
3:13_—“_Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to
be baptized of him_”; _Mark 10:38_—“_Are ye able to drink the cup
that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am
baptized with?_”; _Luke 12:50_—“_But I have a baptism to be
baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!_”
_Col. 2:12_—“_buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also
raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised
him from the dead._” For the meaning of these passages, see note
on the baptism of Jesus, under B. (_a_), pages 942, 943.
Denney, in Expositor’s Greek Testament, on _Rom. 6:3‐5_—“The
argumentative requirements of the passage ... demand the idea of
an actual union to, or incorporation in Christ.... We were buried
with him [in the act of immersion] through that baptism into his
death.... If the baptism, _which is a similitude of Christ’s
death_, has had a reality answering to its obvious import, so that
we have really died in it as Christ died, then we shall have a
corresponding experience of resurrection. Baptism, inasmuch as one
emerges from the water after being immersed, is a similitude of
resurrection as well as of death.”
(_b_) Of the purpose of that death and resurrection,—namely, to atone for
sin, and to deliver sinners from its penalty and power.
_Rom. 6:4_—“_We were buried therefore with him through baptism
into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of
life_”; _cf._ _7, 10, 11_—“_for he that hath died is justified
from sin.... For the death that he died, he died unto sin once:
but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye
also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ
Jesus_”; _2 Cor. 5:14_—“_we thus judge, that one died for all,
therefore all died._” Baptism is therefore a confession of
evangelical faith both as to sin, and as to the deity and
atonement of Christ. No one is properly a Baptist who does not
acknowledge these truths which baptism signifies.
T. W. Chambers, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:113‐118,
objects that this view of the symbolism of baptism is based on two
texts, _Rom. 6:4_ and _Col. 2:12_, which are illustrative and not
explanatory, while the great majority of passages make baptism
only an act of purification. Yet Dr. Chambers concedes: “It is to
be admitted that nearly all modern critical expositors (Meyer,
Godet, Alford, Conybeare, Lightfoot, Beet) consider that there is
a reference here [in _Rom. 6:4_] to the act of baptism, which, as
the Bishop of Durham says, ‘is the grave of the old man and the
birth of the new—an image of the believer’s participation both in
the death and in the resurrection of Christ.... As he sinks
beneath the baptismal waters, the believer buries there all his
corrupt affections and past sins; as he emerges thence, he rises
regenerate, quickened to new hopes and a new life.’ ”
(_c_) Of the accomplishment of that purpose in the person baptized,—who
thus professes his death to sin and resurrection to spiritual life.
_Gal. 3:27_—“_For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did
put on Christ_”; _1 Pet. 3:21_—“_which_ [water] _also after a true
likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of
the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience
toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ_”; _cf._
_Gal. 2:19, 20_—“_For I through the law died unto the law, that I
might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is
no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life
which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is
in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me_”;
_Col. 3:3_—“_For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in
God._”
C. H. M.: “A truly baptized person is one who has passed from the
old world into the new.... The water rolls over his person,
signifying that his place in nature is ignored, that his old
nature is entirely set aside, in short, that he is a dead man,
that the flesh with all that pertained thereto—its sins and its
liabilities—is buried in the grave of Christ and can never come
into God’s sight again.... When the believer rises up from the
water, expression is given to the truth that he comes up as the
possessor of a new life, even the resurrection life of Christ, to
which divine righteousness inseparably attaches.”
(_d_) Of the method in which that purpose is accomplished,—by union with
Christ, receiving him and giving one’s self to him by faith.
_Rom. 6:5_—“_For if we have become united_ [σύμφυτοι] _with him in
the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection_”—σύμφυτοι, or συμπεφυκώς, is used of the man and the
horse as grown together in the Centaur, by Lucian, Dial. Mort.,
16:4, and by Xenophon, Cyrop., 4:3:18. _Col. 2:12_—“_having been
buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him
through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the
dead._” Dr. N. S. Burton: “The oneness of the believer and Christ
is expressed by the fact that the one act of immersion sets forth
the death and resurrection of both Christ and the believer.” As
the voluntary element in faith has two parts, a giving and a
taking, so baptism illustrates both. Submergence = surrender to
Christ; emergence = reception of Christ; see page 839, (_b_).
“_Putting on Christ_” (_Gal. 3:27_) is the burying of the old life
and the rising to a new. _Cf._ the active and the passive
obedience of Christ (pages 749, 770), the two elements of
justification (pages 854‐859), the two aspects of formal worship
(page 23), the two divisions of the Lord’s Prayer.
William Ashmore holds that incorporation into Christ is the root
idea of baptism, union with Christ’s death and resurrection being
only a part of it. We are “_baptized into Christ_” (_Rom. 6:3_),
as the Israelites were “_baptized into Moses_” (_1 Cor. 10:2_). As
baptism symbolizes the incorporation of the believer into Christ,
so the Lord’s Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ into
the believer. We go down into the water, but the bread goes down
into us. We are “_in Christ_,” and Christ is “_in us_.” The
candidate does not baptize himself, but puts himself wholly into
the hands of the administrator. This seems symbolic of his
committing himself entirely to Christ, of whom the administrator
is the representative. Similarly in the Lord’s Supper, it is
Christ who through his representative distributes the emblems of
his death and life.
E. G. Robinson regarded baptism as implying: 1. death to sin; 2.
resurrection to new life in Christ; 3. entire surrender of
ourselves to the authority of the triune God. Baptism “_into the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit_” (_Mat
28:19_) cannot imply supreme allegiance to the Father, and only
subordinate allegiance to the Son. Baptism therefore is an
assumption of supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ. N. E. Wood, in
The Watchman, Dec. 3, 1896, 15—“Calvinism has its five points; but
Baptists have also their own five points: the Trinity, the
Atonement, Regeneration, Baptism, and an inspired Bible. All other
doctrines gather round these.”
(_e_) Of the consequent union of all believers in Christ.
_Eph. 4:5_—“_one Lord, one faith, one baptism_”; _1 Cor.
12:13_—“_For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to
drink of one Spirit_”; _cf._ _10:3, 4_—“_and did all eat the same
spiritual food; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for
they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock
was Christ._”
In _Eph. 4:5_, it is noticeable that, not the Lord’s Supper, but
baptism, is referred to as the symbol of Christian unity. A. H.
Strong, Cleveland Sermon, 1904—“Our fathers lived in a day when
simple faith was subject to serious disabilities. The
establishments frowned upon dissent and visited it with pains and
penalties. It is no wonder that believers in the New Testament
doctrine and polity felt that they must come out from what they
regarded as an apostate church. They could have no sympathy with
those who held back the truth in unrighteousness and persecuted
the saints of God. But our doctrine has leavened all Christendom.
Scholarship is on the side of immersion. Infant baptism is on the
decline. The churches that once opposed us now compliment us on
our stedfastness in the faith and on our missionary zeal. There is
a growing spirituality in these churches, which prompts them to
extend to us hands of fellowship. And there is a growing sense
among us that the kingdom of Christ is wider than our own
membership, and that loyalty to our Lord requires us to recognize
his presence and blessing even in bodies which we do not regard as
organized in complete accordance with the New Testament model.
Faith in the larger Christ is bringing us out from our
denominational isolation into an inspiring recognition of our
oneness with the universal church of God throughout the world.”
(_f_) Of the death and resurrection of the body,—which will complete the
work of Christ in us, and which Christ’s death and resurrection assure to
all his members.
_1 Cor. 15:12, 22_—“_Now if Christ is preached that he hath been
raised from the dead, how say some among you that there is no
resurrection of the dead?... For as in Adam all die, so also in
Christ shall all be made alive._” In the Scripture passages quoted
above, we add to the argument from the meaning of the word βαπτίζω
the argument from the meaning of the ordinance. Luther wrote, in
his Babylonish Captivity of the Church, section 103 (English
translation in Wace and Buchheim, First Principles of the
Reformation, 192): “Baptism is a sign both of death and
resurrection. Being moved by this reason, I would have those that
are baptized to be altogether dipped into the water, as the word
means and the mystery signifies.” See Calvin on _Acts 8:38_;
Conybeare and Howson on _Rom. 6:4_; Boardman, in Madison Avenue
Lectures, 115‐135.
B. Inferences from the passages referred to.
(_a_) The central truth set forth by baptism is the death and resurrection
of Christ,—and our own death and resurrection only as connected with that.
The baptism of Jesus in Jordan, equally with the subsequent
baptism of his followers, was a symbol of his death. It was his
death which he had in mind, when he said: “_Are ye able to drink
the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am
baptized with?_” (_Mark 10:38_); “_But I have a baptism to be
baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!_”
(_Luke 12:50_). The being immersed and overwhelmed in waters is a
frequent metaphor in all languages to express the rush of
successive troubles; compare _Ps. 69:2_—“_I am come into deep
waters, where the floods overflow me_”; _42:7_—“_All thy waves and
thy billows are gone over me_”; _124:4, 5_—“_Then the waters had
overwhelmed us, The stream had gone over our soul; Then the proud
waters had gone over our soul._”
So the suffering, death, and burial, which were before our Lord,
presented themselves to his mind as a baptism, because the very
idea of baptism was that of a complete submersion under the floods
of waters. Death was not to be poured upon Christ,—it was no mere
sprinkling of suffering which he was to endure, but a sinking into
the mighty waters, and a being overwhelmed by them. It was the
giving of himself to this, which he symbolized by his baptism in
Jordan. That act was not arbitrary, or formal, or ritual. It was a
public consecration, a consecration to death, to death for the
sins of the world. It expressed the essential nature and meaning
of his earthly work: the baptism of water at the beginning of his
ministry consciously and designedly prefigured the baptism of
death with which that ministry was to close.
Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism of repentance, the rite that
belonged only to sinners, can be explained only upon the ground
that he was “_made to be sin on our behalf_” (_2 Cor. 5:21_). He
had taken our nature upon him, without its hereditary corruption
indeed, but with all its hereditary guilt, that he might redeem
that nature and reunite it to God. As one with humanity, he had in
his unconscious childhood submitted to the rites of circumcision,
purification, and legal redemption (_Luke 2:21‐24_; _cf._ _Ex.
13:2, 13_; see Lange, Alford, Webster and Wilkinson on _Luke
2:24_)—all of them rites appointed for sinners. “_Made in the
likeness of men_” (_Phil. 2:7_), “_the likeness of sinful flesh_”
(_Rom. 8:3_), he was “_to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself_” (_Heb. 9:26_).
In his baptism, therefore, he could say, “_Thus it becometh us to
fulfil all righteousness_” (_Mat. 3:15_) because only through the
final baptism of suffering and death, which this baptism in water
foreshadowed, could he “_make an end of sins_” and “_bring in
everlasting righteousness_” (_Dan. 9:24_) to the condemned and
ruined world. He could not be “_the Lord our Righteousness_”
(_Jer. 23:6_) except by first suffering the death due to the
nature he had assumed, thereby delivering it from its guilt and
perfecting it forever. All this was indicated in that act by which
he was first “_made manifest to Israel_” (_John 1:31_). In his
baptism in Jordan, he was buried in the likeness of his coming
death, and raised in the likeness of his coming resurrection. _1
John 5:6_—“_This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus
Christ; not in the water only, but in the water and in the blood_”
= in the baptism of water at the beginning of his ministry, and in
the baptism of blood with which that ministry was to close.
As that baptism pointed forward to Jesus’ death, so our baptism
points backward to the same, as the centre and substance of his
redeeming work, the one death by which we live. We who are
“_baptized into Christ_” are “_baptized into his death_” (_Rom.
6:3_), that is, into spiritual communion and participation in that
death which he died for our salvation; in short, in baptism we
declare in symbol that his death has become ours. On the Baptism
of Jesus, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 226‐237.
(_b_) The correlative truth of the believer’s death and resurrection, set
forth in baptism, implies, first,—confession of sin and humiliation on
account of it, as deserving of death; secondly,—declaration of Christ’s
death for sin, and of the believer’s acceptance of Christ’s
substitutionary work; thirdly,—acknowledgment that the soul has become
partaker of Christ’s life, and now lives only in and for him.
A false mode of administering the ordinance has so obscured the
meaning of baptism that it has to multitudes lost all reference to
the death of Christ, and the Lord’s Supper is assumed to be the
only ordinance which is intended to remind us of the atoning
sacrifice to which we owe our salvation. For evidence of this, see
the remarks of President Woolsey in the Sunday School Times:
“Baptism it [the Christian religion] could share in with the
doctrine of John the Baptist, and if a similar rite had existed
under the Jewish law, it would have been regarded as appropriate
to a religion which inculcated renunciation of sin and purity of
heart and life. But [in the Lord’s Supper] we go beyond the
province of baptism to the very _penetrale_ of the gospel, to the
efficacy and meaning of Christ’s death.”
Baptism should be a public act. We cannot afford to relegate it to
a corner, or to celebrate it in private, as some professedly
Baptist churches of England are said to do. Like marriage, the
essence of it is the joining of ourselves to another before the
world. In baptism we merge ourselves in Christ, before God and
angels and men. The Mohammedan stands five times a day, and prays
with his face toward Mecca, caring not who sees him. _Luke
12:8_—“_Every one who shall confess me before men, him shall the
Son of man also confess before the angels of God._”
(_c_) Baptism symbolizes purification, but purification in a peculiar and
divine way,—namely, through the death of Christ and the entrance of the
soul into communion with that death. The radical defect of sprinkling or
pouring as a mode of administering the ordinance, is that it does not
point to Christ’s death as the procuring cause of our purification.
It is a grievous thing to say by symbol, as those do say who
practice sprinkling in place of immersion, that a man may
regenerate himself, or, if not this, yet that his regeneration may
take place without connection with Christ’s death. Edward
Beecher’s chief argument against Baptist views is drawn from _John
3:22‐25_—“_a questioning on the part of John’s disciples with a
Jew about purifying._” Purification is made to be the essential
meaning of baptism, and the conclusion is drawn that any form
expressive of purification will answer the design of the
ordinance. But if Christ’s death is the procuring cause of our
purification, we may expect it to be symbolized in the ordinance
which declares that purification; if Christ’s death is the central
fact of Christianity, we may expect it to be symbolized in the
initiatory rite of Christianity.
(_d_) In baptism we show forth the Lord’s death as the original source of
holiness and life in our souls, just as in the Lord’s Supper we show forth
the Lord’s death as the source of all nourishment and strength after this
life of holiness has been once begun. As the Lord’s Supper symbolizes the
sanctifying power of Jesus’ death, so baptism symbolizes its regenerating
power.
The truth of Christ’s death and resurrection is a precious jewel,
and it is given us in these outward ordinances as in a casket. Let
us care for the casket lest we lose the gem. As a scarlet thread
runs through every rope and cord of the British navy, testifying
that it is the property of the Crown, so through every doctrine
and ordinance of Christianity runs the red line of Jesus’ blood.
It is their common reference to the death of Christ that binds the
two ordinances together.
(_e_) There are two reasons, therefore, why nothing but immersion will
satisfy the design of the ordinance: first,—because nothing else can
symbolize the radical nature of the change effected in regeneration—a
change from spiritual death to spiritual life; secondly,—because nothing
else can set forth the fact that this change is due to the entrance of the
soul into communion with the death and resurrection of Christ.
Christian truth is an organism. Part is bound to part, and all
together constitute one vitalized whole. To give up any single
portion of that truth is like maiming the human body. Life may
remain, but one manifestation of life has ceased. The whole body
of Christian truth has lost its symmetry and a part of its power
to save.
Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:212—“In the Eleusinian mysteries,
the act of reception was represented as a regeneration, and the
hierophant appointed to the temple service had to take a
sacramental bath, out of which he proceeded as a ‘new man’ with a
new name, which signifies that, as they were wont to say, ‘the
first one was forgotten,’—that is, the old man was put off at the
same time with the old name. The parallel of this Eleusinian rite
with the thoughts which Paul has written about Baptism in the
Epistle to the Romans, and therefore from Corinth, is so striking
that a connection between the two may well be conjectured; and all
the more that even in the case of the Lord’s Supper, Paul has
brought in the comparison with the heathen festivals, in order to
give a basis for his mystical theory.”
(_f_) To substitute for baptism anything which excludes all symbolic
reference to the death of Christ, is to destroy the ordinance, just as
substituting for the broken bread and poured out wine of the communion
some form of administration which leaves out all reference to the death of
Christ would be to destroy the Lord’s Supper, and to celebrate an
ordinance of human invention.
Baptism, like the Fourth of July, the Passover, the Lord’s Supper,
is a historical monument. It witnesses to the world that Jesus
died and rose again. In celebrating it, we show forth the Lord’s
death as truly as in the celebration of the Supper. But it is more
than a historical monument. It is also a pictorial expression of
doctrine. Into it are woven all the essential truths of the
Christian scheme. It tells of the nature and penalty of sin, of
human nature delivered from sin in the person of a crucified and
risen Savior, of salvation secured for each human soul that is
united to Christ, of obedience to Christ as the way to life and
glory. Thus baptism stands from age to age as a witness for God—a
witness both to the facts and to the doctrine of Christianity. To
change the form of administering the ordinance is therefore to
strike a blow at Christianity and at Christ, and to defraud the
world of a part of God’s means of salvation. See Ebrard’s view of
Baptism, in Baptist Quarterly, 1869:257, and in Olshausen’s Com.
on N. T., 1:270, and 3:594. Also Lightfoot, Com. on _Colossians
2:20_, and _3:1_.
Ebrard: “Baptism = Death.” So Sanday, Com. on _Rom. 6_—“Immersion
= Death; Submersion = Burial (the ratification of death);
Emergence = Resurrection (the ratification of life).” William
Ashmore: “Solomon’s Temple had two monumental pillars: _Jachin_,
‘he shall establish,’ and _Boaz_, ‘in it is strength.’ In
Zechariah’s vision were two olive trees on either side of the
golden candlestick. In like manner, Christ has left two monumental
witnesses to testify concerning himself—Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper.” The lady in the street car, who had inadvertently stuck
her parasol into a man’s eye, very naturally begged his pardon.
But he replied: “It is of no consequence, madame; I have still one
eye left.” Our friends who sprinkle or pour put out one eye of the
gospel witness, break down one appointed monument of Christ’s
saving truth,—shall we be content to say that we have still one
ordinance left? At the Rappahannock one of the Federal regiments,
just because its standard was shot away, was mistaken by our own
men for a regiment of Confederates, and was subjected to a
murderous enfilading fire that decimated its ranks. Baptism and
the Lord’s Supper are the two flags of Christ’s army,—we cannot
afford to lose either one of them.
4. The Subjects of Baptism.
The proper subjects of baptism are those only who give credible evidence
that they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit,—or, in other words,
have entered by faith into the communion of Christ’s death and
resurrection.
A. Proof that only persons giving evidence of being regenerated are proper
subjects of baptism.
(_a_) From the command and example of Christ and his apostles, which show:
First, that those only are to be baptized who have previously been made
disciples.
_Mat. 28:19_—“_Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit_”; _Acts 2:41_—“_They then that received
his word were baptized._”
Secondly, that those only are to be baptized who have previously repented
and believed.
_Mat. 3:2, 3, 6_—“_Repent ye ... make ye ready the way of the Lord
... and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing
their sins_”; _Acts 2:37, 38_—“_Now when they heard this, they
were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of
the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said unto
them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you_”; _8:12_—“_But
when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the
kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized,
both men and women_”; _18:8_—“_And Crispus, the ruler of the
synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of
the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized_”;
_19:4_—“_John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto
the people that they should believe on him that should come after
him, that is, on Jesus._”
(_b_) From the nature of the church—as a company of regenerate persons.
_John 3:5_—“_Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God_”; _Rom. 6:13_—“_neither present
your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but
present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your
members as instruments of righteousness unto God._”
(_c_) From the symbolism of the ordinance,—as declaring a previous
spiritual change in him who submits to it.
_Acts 10:47_—“_Can any man forbid the water, that these should not
be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?_”
_Rom. 6:2‐5_—“_We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live
therein? Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried
therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we
also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united
with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the
likeness of his resurrection_”; _Gal. 3:26, 27_—“_For ye are all
sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as
were baptized into Christ did put on Christ._”
As marriage should never be solemnized except between persons who
are already joined in heart and with whom the outward ceremony is
only the sign of an existing love, so baptism should never be
administered except in the case of those who are already joined to
Christ and who signify in the ordinance their union with him in
his death and resurrection. See Dean Stanley on Baptism, 24—“In
the apostolic age and in the three centuries which followed, it is
evident that, as a general rule, those who came to baptism came in
full age, of their own deliberate choice. The liturgical service
of baptism was framed for full‐grown converts, and is only by
considerable adaptation applied to the case of infants”; Wayland,
Principles and Practices of Baptists, 93; Robins, in Madison
Avenue Lectures, 136‐159.
B. Inferences from the fact that only persons giving evidence of being
regenerate are proper subjects of baptism.
(_a_) Since only those who give credible evidence of regeneration are
proper subjects of baptism, baptism cannot be the means of regeneration.
It is the appointed sign, but is never the condition, of the forgiveness
of sins.
Passages like Mat. 3:11; Mark 1:4; 16:16; John 3:5; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Eph.
5:26; Titus 3:5; and Heb. 10:22, are to be explained as particular
instances “of the general fact that, in Scripture language, a single part
of a complex action, and even that part of it which is most obvious to the
senses, is often mentioned for the whole of it, and thus, in this case,
the whole of the solemn transaction is designated by the external symbol.”
In other words, the entire change, internal and external, spiritual and
ritual, is referred to in language belonging strictly only to the outward
aspect of it. So the other ordinance is referred to by simply naming the
visible “breaking of bread,” and the whole transaction of the ordination
of ministers is termed the “imposition of hands” (_cf._ Acts 2:42; 1 Tim.
4:14).
_Mat. 3:11_—“_I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance_”;
_Mark 1:4_—“_the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins_”;
_16:16_—“_He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved_”;
_John 3:5_—“_Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God_”—here Nicodemus, who was familiar
with John’s baptism, and with the refusal of the Sanhedrin to
recognize its claims, is told that the baptism of water, which he
suspects may be obligatory, is indeed necessary to that complete
change by which one enters outwardly, as well as inwardly, into
the kingdom of God; but he is taught also, that to “_be born of
water_” is worthless unless it is the accompaniment and sign of a
new birth of “_the Spirit_”; and therefore, in the further
statements of Christ, baptism is not alluded to; see _verses 6,
8_—“_that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ... so is every
one that is born of the Spirit._”
_Acts 2:38_—“_Repent ye, and be baptized ... unto the remission of
your sins_”—on this passage see Hackett: “The phrase ‘in order to
the forgiveness of sins’ we connect naturally with both the
preceding verbs (‘_repent_’ and ‘_be baptized_’). The clause
states the motive or object which should induce them to repent and
be baptized. It enforces the entire exhortation, not one part to
the exclusion of the other”—_i. e._, they were to repent for the
remission of sins, quite as much as they were to be baptized for
the remission of sins. _Acts 22:16_—“_arise, and be baptized, and
wash away thy sins, calling on his name_”; _Eph. 5:26_—“_that he
might sanctify it_ [the church], _having cleansed it by the
washing of water with the word_”; _Tit. 3:5_—“_according __ to his
mercy he saved as, through the washing of regeneration_ [baptism]
_and renewing of the Holy Spirit_ [the new birth]”; _Heb.
10:22_—“_having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience_
[regeneration]: _and having our body washed with pure water_
[baptism]”; _cf._ _Acts 2:42_—“_the breaking of bread_”; _1 Tim.
4:14_—“_the laying on of the hands of the presbytery._”
Dr. A. C. Kendrick: “Considering how inseparable they were in the
Christian profession—believe and be baptized, and how imperative
and absolute was the requisition upon the believer to testify his
allegiance by baptism, it could not be deemed singular that the
two should be thus united, as it were, in one complex
conception.... We have no more right to assume that the birth from
water involves the birth from the Spirit and thus do away with the
one, than to assume that the birth from the Spirit involves the
birth from water, and thus do away with the other. We have got to
have them both, each in its distinctness, in order to fulfil the
conditions of membership in the kingdom of God.” Without baptism,
faith is like the works of a clock that has no dial or hands by
which one can tell the time; or like the political belief of a man
who refuses to go to the polls and vote. Without baptism,
discipleship is ineffective and incomplete. The inward
change—regeneration by the Spirit—may have occurred, but the
outward change—Christian profession—is yet lacking.
Campbellism, however, holds that instead of regeneration preceding
baptism and expressing itself in baptism, it is completed only in
baptism, so that baptism is a means of regeneration. Alexander
Campbell: “I am bold to affirm that every one of them, who in the
belief of what the apostle spoke was immersed, did, in the very
instant in which he was put under water, receive the forgiveness
of his sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.” But Peter commanded
that men should be baptized because they had already received the
Holy Spirit: _Acts 10:47_—“_Can any man forbid the water, that
these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as
well as we?_” Baptists baptize Christians; Disciples baptize
sinners, and in baptism think to make them Christians. With this
form of sacramentalism, Baptists are necessarily less in sympathy
than with pedobaptism or with sprinkling. The view of the
Disciples confines the divine efficiency to the word (see
quotation from Campbell on page 821). It was anticipated by Claude
Pajon, the Reformed theologian, in 1673: see Dorner, Gesch. prot.
Theologie, 448‐450. That this was not the doctrine of John the
Baptist would appear from Josephus, Ant., 18:5:2, who in speaking
of John’s baptism says: “Baptism appears acceptable to God, not in
order that those who were baptized might get free from certain
sins, but in order that the body might be sanctified, because the
soul beforehand had already been purified through righteousness.”
Disciples acknowledge no formal creed, and they differ so greatly
among themselves that we append the following statements of their
founder and of later representatives. Alexander Campbell,
Christianity Restored, 138 (in The Christian Baptist, 5:100): “In
and by the act of immersion, as soon as our bodies are put under
water, at that very instant our former or old sins are washed
away.... Immersion and regeneration are Bible names for the same
act.... It is not our faith in God’s promise of remission, but our
going down into the water, that obtains the remission of sins.” W.
E. Garrison, Alexander Campbell’s Theology, 247‐299—“Baptism, like
naturalization, is the formal oath of allegiance by which an alien
becomes a citizen. In neither case does the form in itself effect
any magical change in the subject’s disposition. In both cases a
change of opinion and of affections is presupposed, and the form
is the culmination of a process.... It is as easy for God to
forgive our sins in the act of immersion as in any other way.” All
work of the Spirit is through the word, only through sensible
means, emotions being no criterion. God is transcendent; all
authority is external, enforced only by appeal to happiness—a
thoroughly utilitarian system.
Isaac Erret is perhaps the most able of recent Disciples. In his
tract entitled “Our Position,” published by the Christian
Publishing Company, St. Louis, he says: “As to the _design_ of
baptism, we part company with Baptists, and find ourselves more at
home on the other side of the house; yet we cannot say that our
position is just the same with that of any of them. Baptists say
they baptize believers _because they are forgiven_, and they
insist that they shall have the evidence of pardon before they are
baptized. But the language used in the Scriptures declaring what
baptism is for, is so plain and unequivocal that the great
majority of Protestants as well as the Roman Catholics admit it in
their creeds to be, in some sense, for the remission of sins. The
latter, however, and many of the former, attach to it the idea of
regeneration, and insist that in baptism regeneration by the Holy
Spirit is actually conferred. Even the Westminster Confession
squints strongly in this direction, albeit its professed adherents
of the present time attempt to explain away its meaning. We are as
far from this ritualistic extreme as from the anti‐ritualism into
which the Baptists have been driven. With us, regeneration must be
so far accomplished before baptism that the subject is changed in
heart, and in faith and penitence must have yielded up his heart
to Christ—otherwise baptism is nothing but an empty form. But
_forgiveness_ is something distinct from _regeneration_.
Forgiveness is an act of the Sovereign—not a change of the
sinner’s heart; and while it is extended in view of the sinner’s
faith and repentance, it needs to be offered in a sensible and
tangible form, such that the sinner can seize it and appropriate
it with unmistakable definiteness. In baptism he _appropriates
God’s promise of forgiveness_, relying on the divine testimonies:
‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved’; ‘Repent and be
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the
remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit.’ He thus lays hold of the promise of Christ and
appropriates it as his own. He does not _merit_ it, nor _procure_
it, nor _earn_ it, in being baptized; but he _appropriates_ what
the mercy of God has provided and offered in the gospel. We
therefore teach all who are baptized that, if they bring to their
baptism a heart that renounces sin and implicitly trusts the power
of Christ to save, they should rely on the Savior’s own
promise—’He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.’”
All these utterances agree in making forgiveness chronologically
distinct from regeneration, as the concluding point is distinct
from the whole. Regeneration is not entirely the work of God,—it
must be completed by man. It is not wholly a change of heart, it
is also a change in outward action. We see in this system of
thought the beginnings of sacramentalism, and we regard it as
containing the same germs of error which are more fully developed
in pedobaptist doctrine. Shakespeare represents this view in Henry
V, 1:2—“What you speak is in your conscience washed As pure as sin
with baptism”; Othello, 2:3—Desdemona could “Win the Moor—were’t
to renounce his baptism—All seals and symbols of redeemed sin.”
Dr. G. W. Lasher, in the Journal and Messenger, holds that _Mat.
3:11_—“_I indeed baptize you in water unto (εἰς) repentance_”—does
not imply that baptism effects the repentance; the baptism was
_because_ of the repentance, for John refused to baptize those who
did not give evidence of repentance before baptism. _Mat.
10:42_—“_whosoever shall give ... a cup of cold water only, in
(εἰς) the name of a disciple_”—the cup of cold water does not put
one into the name of a disciple, or make him a disciple. _Mat.
12:41_—“_The men of Nineveh ... repented at (εἰς) the preaching of
Jonah_” = because of. Dr. Lasher argues that, in all these cases,
the meaning of εἰς is “in respect to,” “with reference to.” So he
would translate _Acts 2:38_—“_Repent ye, and be baptized ... with
respect to, in reference to, the remission of sins._” This is also
the view of Meyer. He maintains that βαπτίζειν εἰς always means
“_baptize with reference to_” (_cf._ _Mat. 28:19; 1 Cor. 10:12;
Gal. 3:27; Acts 2:38; 8:16; 19:5_). We are brought through
baptism, he would say, into fellowship with his death, so that we
have a share ethically in his death, through the cessation of our
life to sin.
The better parallel, however, in our judgment, is found in _Rom.
10:10_—“_with the heart man believeth unto (εἰς) righteousness;
and with the mouth confession is made unto (εἰς)
salvation,_”—where evidently salvation is the end _to_ which works
the whole change and process, including both faith and confession.
So Broadus makes John’s “_baptism unto repentance_” mean baptism
in order to repentance, repentance including both the purpose of
the heart and the outward expression of it, or baptism in order to
complete and thorough repentance. Expositor’s Greek Testament, on
_Acts 2:38_—“_unto the remission of your sins_”: “εἰς, _unto_,
signifying the aim.” For the High Church view, see Sadler, Church
Doctrine, 41‐124. On F. W. Robertson’s view of Baptismal
Regeneration, see Gordon, in Bap. Quar., 1869:405. On the whole
matter of baptism for the remission of sins, see Gates, Baptists
and Disciples (advocating the Disciple view); Willmarth, in Bap.
Quar., 1877:1‐26 (verging toward the Disciple view); and _per
contra_, Adkins, Disciples and Baptists, booklet pub. by Am. Bap.
Pub. Society (the best brief statement of the Baptist position);
Bap. Quar., 1877:476‐489; 1872:214; Jacob, Eccl. Pol. of N. T.,
255, 256.
(_b_) As the profession of a spiritual change already wrought, baptism is
primarily the act, not of the administrator, but of the person baptized.
Upon the person newly regenerate the command of Christ first terminates;
only upon his giving evidence of the change within him does it become the
duty of the church to see that he has opportunity to follow Christ in
baptism. Since baptism is primarily the act of the convert, no lack of
qualification on the part of the administrator invalidates the baptism, so
long as the proper outward act is performed, with intent on the part of
the person baptized to express the fact of a preceding spiritual renewal
(Acts 2:37, 38).
_Acts 2:37, 38_—“_Brethren, what shall we do?... Repent ye and be
baptized._” If baptism be primarily the act of the administrator
or of the church, then invalidity in the administrator or the
church renders the ordinance itself invalid. But if baptism be
primarily the act of the person baptized—an act which it is the
church’s business simply to scrutinize and further, then nothing
but the absence of immersion, or of an intent to profess faith in
Christ, can invalidate the ordinance. It is the erroneous view
that baptism is the act of the administrator which causes the
anxiety of High Church Baptists to deduce their Baptist lineage
from regularly baptized ministers all the way back to John the
Baptist, and which induces many modern endeavors of pedobaptists
to prove that the earliest Baptists of England and the Continent
did not immerse. All these solicitudes are unnecessary. We have no
need to prove a Baptist apostolic succession. If we can derive our
doctrine and practice from the New Testament, it is all we
require.
The Council of Trent was right in its Canon: “If any one saith
that the baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, with the
intention of doing what the church doeth, is not true baptism, let
him be anathema.” Dr. Norman Fox: “It is no more important who
baptizes a man than who leads him to Christ.” John Spilsbury,
first pastor of the church of Particular Baptists, holding to a
limited atonement, in London, was newly baptized in 1633, on the
ground that “baptizedness is not essential to the administrator,”
and he repudiated the demand for apostolic succession, as leading
logically to the “popedom of Rome.” In 1641, immersion followed,
though two or three years before this, or in March, 1639, Roger
Williams was baptized by Ezekiel Holliman in Rhode Island.
Williams afterwards doubted its validity, thus clinging still to
the notion of apostolic succession.
(_c_) As intrusted with the administration of the ordinances, however, the
church is, on its part, to require of all candidates for baptism credible
evidence of regeneration.
This follows from the nature of the church and its duty to maintain its
own existence as an institution of Christ. The church which cannot
restrict admission into its membership to such as are like itself in
character and aims must soon cease to be a church by becoming
indistinguishable from the world. The duty of the church to gain credible
evidence of regeneration in the case of every person admitted into the
body involves its right to require of candidates, in addition to a
profession of faith with the lips, some satisfactory proof that this
profession is accompanied by change in the conduct. The kind and amount of
evidence which would have justified the reception of a candidate in times
of persecution may not now constitute a sufficient proof of change of
heart.
If an Odd Fellows’ Lodge, in order to preserve its distinct
existence, must have its own rules for admission to membership,
much more is this true of the church. The church may make its own
regulations with a view to secure credible evidence of
regeneration. Yet it is bound to demand of the candidate no more
than reasonable proof of his repentance and faith. Since the
church is to be convinced of the candidate’s fitness before it
votes to receive him to its membership, it is generally best that
the experience of the candidate should be related before the
church. Yet in extreme cases, as of sickness, the church may hear
this relation of experience through certain appointed
representatives.
Baptism is sometimes figuratively described as “the door into the
church.” The phrase is unfortunate, since if by the church is
meant the spiritual kingdom of God, then Christ is its only door;
if the local body of believers is meant, then the faith of the
candidate, the credible evidence of regeneration which he gives,
the vote of the church itself, are all, equally with baptism, the
door through which he enters. The door, in this sense, is a double
door, one part of which is his confession of faith, and the other
his baptism.
(_d_) As the outward expression of the inward change by which the believer
enters into the kingdom of God, baptism is the first, in point of time, of
all outward duties.
Regeneration and baptism, although not holding to each other the relation
of effect and cause, are both regarded in the New Testament as essential
to the restoration of man’s right relations to God and to his people. They
properly constitute parts of one whole, and are not to be unnecessarily
separated. Baptism should follow regeneration with the least possible
delay, after the candidate and the church have gained evidence that a
spiritual change has been accomplished within him. No other duty and no
other ordinance can properly precede it.
Neither the pastor nor the church should encourage the convert to
wait for others’ company before being baptized. We should aim
continually to deepen the sense of individual responsibility to
Christ, and of personal duty to obey his command of baptism just
so soon as a proper opportunity is afforded. That participation in
the Lord’s Supper cannot properly precede Baptism, will be shown
hereafter.
(_e_) Since regeneration is a work accomplished once for all, the baptism
which symbolizes this regeneration is not to be repeated.
Even where the persuasion exists, on the part of the candidate, that at
the time of baptism he was mistaken in thinking himself regenerated, the
ordinance is not to be administered again, so long as it has once been
submitted to, with honest intent, as a profession of faith in Christ. We
argue this from the absence of any reference to second baptisms in the New
Testament, and from the grave practical difficulties attending the
opposite view. In Acts 19:1‐5, we have an instance, not of rebaptism, but
of the baptism for the first time of certain persons who had been wrongly
taught with regard to the nature of John the Baptist’s doctrine, and so
had ignorantly submitted to an outward rite which had in it no reference
to Jesus Christ and expressed no faith in him as a Savior. This was not
John’s baptism, nor was it in any sense true baptism. For this reason Paul
commanded them to be “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
In the respect of not being repeated, Baptism is unlike the Lord’s
Supper, which symbolizes the continuous sustaining power of
Christ’s death, while baptism symbolizes its power to begin a new
life within the soul. In _Acts 19:1‐5_, Paul instructs the new
disciples that the real baptism of John, to which they erroneously
supposed they had submitted, was not only a baptism of repentance,
but a baptism of faith in the coming Savior. “_And when they heard
this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus_”—as they
had not been before. Here there was no rebaptism, for the mere
outward submersion in water to which they had previously
submitted, with no thought of professing faith in Christ, was no
baptism at all—whether Johannine or Christian. See Brooks, in
Baptist Quarterly, April, 1867, art.: Rebaptism.
Whenever it is clear, as in many cases of Campbellite immersion,
that the candidate has gone down into the water, not with intent
to profess a previously existing faith, but in order to be
regenerated, baptism is still to be administered if the person
subsequently believes on Christ. But wherever it appears that
there was intent to profess an already existing faith and
regeneration, there should be no repetition of the immersion, even
though the ordinance has been administered by the Campbellites.
To rebaptize whenever a Christian’s faith and joy are rekindled so
that he begins to doubt the reality of his early experiences,
would, in the case of many fickle believers, require many
repetitions of the ordinance. The presumption is that, when the
profession of faith was made by baptism, there was an actual faith
which needed to be professed, and therefore that the baptism,
though followed by much unbelief and many wanderings, was a valid
one. Rebaptism, in the case of unstable Christians, tends to bring
reproach upon the ordinance itself.
(_f_) So long as the mode and the subjects are such as Christ has
enjoined, mere accessories are matters of individual judgment.
The use of natural rather than of artificial baptisteries is not to be
elevated into an essential. The formula of baptism prescribed by Christ is
“into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
_Mat. 28:19_—“_baptizing them into the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit_”; _cf._ _Acts 8:16_—“_they had
been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus_”; _Rom. 6:3_—“_Or
are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?_” _Gal. 3:27_—“_For as many of you
as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ._” Baptism is
immersion into God, into the presence, communion, life of the
Trinity; see Com. of Clark, and of Lange, on _Mat. 28:19_; also C.
E. Smith, in Bap. Rev., 1881:305‐311. President Wayland and the
Revised Version read, “_into the name_.” _Per contra_, see Meyer
(transl., 1:281, note) on _Rom. 6:3;_ _cf._ _Mat. 10:41; 18:20_;
in all which passages, as well as in _Mat. 28:19_, he claims that
εἰς τὸ ὄνομα signifies “with reference to the name.” In _Acts
2:38_, and _10:48_, we have “_in the name_.” For the latter
translation of _Mat. 28:19_, see Conant, Notes on Mat., 171. On
the whole subject of this section, see Dagg, Church Order, 13‐73;
Ingham, Subjects of Baptism.
C. Infant Baptism.
This we reject and reprehend, for the following reasons:
(a) Infant baptism is without warrant, either express or implied, in the
Scripture.
First,—there is no express command that infants should be baptized.
Secondly,—there is no clear example of the baptism of infants.
Thirdly,—the passages held to imply infant baptism contain, when fairly
interpreted, no reference to such a practice. In Mat. 19:14, none would
have “forbidden,” if Jesus and his disciples had been in the habit of
baptizing infants. From Acts 16:15, _cf._ 40, and Acts 16:33, _cf._ 34,
Neander says that we cannot infer infant baptism. For 1 Cor. 16:15 shows
that the whole family of Stephanas, baptized by Paul, were adults (1 Cor.
1:16). It is impossible to suppose a whole heathen household baptized upon
the faith of its head. As to 1 Cor. 7:14, Jacobi calls this text “a sure
testimony against infant baptism, since Paul would certainly have referred
to the baptism of children as a proof of their holiness, if infant baptism
had been practised.” Moreover, this passage would in that case equally
teach the baptism of the unconverted husband of a believing wife. It
plainly proves that the children of Christian parents were no more
baptized and had no closer connection with the Christian church, than the
unbelieving partners of Christians.
_Mat. 19:14_—“_Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to
come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven_”; _Acts
16:15_—“_And when she_ [Lydia] _was baptized, and her household_”;
_cf._ _40_—“_And they went out of the prison, and entered into the
house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brethren, they
comforted them, and departed._” _Acts 16:33_—The jailor “_was
baptized, he and all his, immediately_”; _cf._ _34_—“_And he
brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and
rejoiced greatly, with all his house, having believed in God_”; _1
Cor. 16:15_—“_ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the
firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have set themselves to
minister unto the saints_”; _1:16_—“_And I baptized also the
household of Stephanas_”; _7:14_—“_For the unbelieving husband is
sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in
the brother: else were your children unclean; but now are they
holy_”—here the sanctity or holiness attributed to unbelieving
members of the household is evidently that of external connection
and privilege, like that of the O. T. Israel.
Broadus, Am. Com., on _Mat. 19:14_—“No Greek Commentator mentions
infant baptism in connection with this passage, though they all
practised that rite.” Schleiermacher, Glaubenslehre, 2:383—“All
the traces of infant baptism which it has been desired to find in
the New Testament must first be put into it.” Pfleiderer,
Grundriss, 184‐187—“Infant baptism cannot be proved from the N.
T., and according to _1 Cor. 7:14_ it is antecedently improbable;
yet it was the logical consequence of the command, _Mat. 28:19_
_sq._, in which the church consciousness of the 2d century
prophetically expressed Christ’s appointment that it should be the
universal church of the nations.... Infant baptism represents one
side of the Biblical sacrament, the side of the divine grace; but
it needs to have the other side, appropriation of that grace by
personal freedom, added in confirmation.”
Dr. A. S. Crapsey, formerly an Episcopal rector in Rochester, made
the following statement in the introduction to a sermon in defence
of infant baptism: “Now in support of this custom of the church,
we can bring no express command of the word of God, no certain
warrant of holy Scripture, nor can we be at all sure that this
usage prevailed during the apostolic age. From a few obscure hints
we may conjecture that it did, but it is only conjecture after
all. It is true St. Paul baptized the household of Stephanas, of
Lydia, and of the jailor at Philippi, and in these households
there may have been little children; but we do not know that there
were, and these inferences form but a poor foundation upon which
to base any doctrine. Better say at once, and boldly, that infant
baptism is not expressly taught in holy Scripture. Not only is the
word of God silent on this subject, but those who have studied the
subject tell us that Christian writers of the very first age say
nothing about it. It is by no means sure that this custom obtained
in the church earlier than in the middle of the second or the
beginning of the third century.” Dr. C. M. Mead, in a private
letter, dated May 27, 1895—“Though a Congregationalist, I cannot
find any Scriptural authorization of pedobaptism, and I admit also
that immersion seems to have been the prevalent, if not the
universal, form of baptism at the first.”
A review of the passages held by pedobaptists to support their
views leads us to the conclusion expressed in the North British
Review, Aug. 1852:211, that infant baptism is utterly unknown to
Scripture. Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 270‐275—“Infant baptism
is not mentioned in the N. T. No instance of it is recorded there;
no allusion is made to its effects; no directions are given for
its administration.... It is not an apostolic ordinance.” See also
Neander’s view, in Kitto, Bib. Cyclop., art.: Baptism; Kendrick,
in Christian Rev., April, 1863; Curtis, Progress of Baptist
Principles, 96; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists,
125; Cunningham, lect. on Baptism, in Croall Lectures for 1886.
(b) Infant baptism is expressly contradicted.
First,—by the Scriptural prerequisites of faith and repentance, as signs
of regeneration. In the great commission, Matthew speaks of baptizing
disciples, and Mark of baptizing believers; but infants are neither of
these. Secondly,—by the Scriptural symbolism of the ordinance. As we
should not bury a person before his death, so we should not symbolically
bury a person by baptism until he has in spirit died to sin. Thirdly,—by
the Scriptural constitution of the church. The church is a company of
persons whose union with one another presupposes and expresses a previous
conscious and voluntary union of each with Jesus Christ. But of this
conscious and voluntary union with Christ infants are not capable.
Fourthly,—by the Scriptural prerequisites for participation in the Lord’s
Supper. Participation in the Lord’s Supper is the right only of those who
can discern the Lord’s body (1 Cor. 11:29). No reason can be assigned for
restricting to intelligent communicants the ordinance of the Supper, which
would not equally restrict to intelligent believers the ordinance of
Baptism.
Infant baptism has accordingly led in the Greek church to infant
communion. This course seems logically consistent. If baptism is
administered to unconscious babes, they should participate in the
Lord’s Supper also. But if confirmation or any intelligent
profession of faith is thought necessary before communion, why
should not such confirmation or profession be thought necessary
before baptism? On Jonathan Edwards and the Halfway Covenant, see
New Englander, Sept. 1884:601‐614; G. L. Walker, Aspects of
Religious Life of New England, 61‐82; Dexter, Congregationalism,
487, note—“It has been often intimated that President Edwards
opposed and destroyed the Halfway Covenant. He did oppose
Stoddardism, or the doctrine that the Lord’s Supper is a
converting ordinance, and that unconverted men, because they are
such, should be encouraged to partake of it.” The tendency of his
system was adverse to it; but, for all that appears in his
published writings, he could have approved and administered that
form of the Halfway Covenant then current among the churches. John
Fiske says of Jonathan Edwards’s preaching: “The prominence he
gave to spiritual conversion, or what was called ‘change of
heart,’ brought about the overthrow of the doctrine of the Halfway
Covenant. It also weakened the logical basis of infant baptism,
and led to the winning of hosts of converts by the Baptists.”
Other pedobaptist bodies than the Greek Church save part of the
truth, at the expense of consistency, by denying participation in
the Lord’s Supper to those baptized in infancy until they have
reached years of understanding and have made a public profession
of faith. Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, at the International
Congregational Council of Boston, September, 1899, urged that the
children of believers are already church members, and that as such
they are entitled, not only to baptism, but also to the Lord’s
Supper—“an assertion that started much thought”! Baptists may well
commend Congregationalists to the teaching of their own Increase
Mather, The Order of the Gospel (1700), 11—“The Congregational
Church discipline is not suited for a worldly interest or for a
formal generation of professors. It will stand or fall as
godliness in the power of it does prevail, or otherwise.... If the
begun Apostacy should proceed as fast the next thirty years as it
has done these last, surely it will come that in New England
(except the gospel itself depart with the order of it) that the
most conscientious people therein will think themselves concerned
_to gather churches out of churches_.”
How much of Judaistic externalism may linger among nominal
Christians is shown by the fact that in the Armenian Church animal
sacrifices survived, or were permitted to converted heathen
priests, in order they might not lose their livelihood. These
sacrifices continued in other regions of Christendom, particularly
in the Greek church, and Pope Gregory the Great permitted them;
see Conybeare, in Am. Jour. Theology, Jan. 1893:62‐90. In The Key
of Truth, a manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia, whose date
in its present form is between the seventh and the ninth
centuries, we have the Adoptianist view of Christ’s person, and of
the subjects and the mode of baptism: “Thus also the Lord, having
learned from the Father, proceeded to teach us to perform baptism
and all other commandments at the age of full growth and at no
other time.... For some have broken and destroyed the holy and
precious canons which by the Father Almighty were delivered to our
Lord Jesus Christ, and have trodden them underfoot with their
devilish teaching, ... baptizing those who are irrational, and
communicating the unbelieving.”
Minority is legally divided into three septennates: 1. From the
first to the seventh year, the age of complete irresponsibility,
in which the child cannot commit a crime; 2. from the seventh to
the fourteenth year, the age of partial responsibility, in which
intelligent consciousness of the consequences of actions is not
assumed to exist, but may be proved in individual instances; 3.
from the fourteenth to the twenty‐first year, the age of
discretion, in which the person is responsible for criminal
action, may choose a guardian, make a will, marry with consent of
parents, make business contracts not wholly void, but is not yet
permitted fully to assume the free man’s position in the State.
The church however is not bound by these hard and fast rules.
Wherever it has evidence of conversion and of Christian character,
it may admit to baptism and church membership, even at a very
tender age.
(c) The rise of infant baptism in the history of the church.
The rise of infant baptism in the history of the church is due to
sacramental conceptions of Christianity, so that all arguments in its
favor from the writings of the first three centuries are equally arguments
for baptismal regeneration.
Neander’s view may be found in Kitto, Cyclopædia, 1:287—“Infant
baptism was established neither by Christ nor by his apostles.
Even in later times Tertullian opposed it, the North African
church holding to the old practice.” The newly discovered Teaching
of the Apostles, which Bryennios puts at 140‐160 A.D., and
Lightfoot at 80‐110 A. D., seems to know nothing of infant
baptism.
Professor A. H. Newman, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1884—“Infant baptism
has always gone hand in hand with State churches. It is difficult
to conceive how an ecclesiastical establishment could be
maintained without infant baptism or its equivalent. We should
think, if the facts did not show us so plainly the contrary, that
the doctrine of justification by faith alone would displace infant
baptism. But no. The _establishment_ must be maintained. The
rejection of infant baptism implies insistence upon a baptism of
believers. Only the baptized are properly members of the church.
Even adults would not all receive baptism on professed faith,
unless they were actually compelled to do so. Infant baptism must
therefore be retained as the necessary concomitant of a State
church.
“But what becomes of the justification by faith? Baptism, if it
symbolizes anything, symbolizes regeneration. It would be
ridiculous to make the symbol to forerun the fact by a series of
years. Luther saw the difficulty; but he was sufficient for the
emergency. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘justification is by faith alone. No
outward rite, apart from faith, has any efficacy.’ Why, it was
against _opera operata_ that he was laying out all his strength.
Yet baptism is the symbol of regeneration, and baptism must be
administered to infants, or the State church falls. With an
audacity truly sublime, the great reformer declares that infants
are regenerated in connection with baptism, and that they are
_simultaneously justified by personal faith_. An infant eight days
old believe? ‘Prove the contrary if you can!’ triumphantly
ejaculates Luther, and his point is gained. If this kind of
personal faith is said to justify infants, is it wonderful that
those of maturer years learned to take a somewhat superficial view
of the faith that justifies?”
Yet Luther had written: “Whatever is without the word of God is by
that very fact against God”; see his Briefe, ed. DeWette, II:292;
J. G. Walch, De Fide in Utero. There was great discordance between
Luther as reformer, and Luther as conservative churchman. His
Catholicism, only half overcome, broke into all his views of
faith. In his early years, he stood for reason and Scripture; in
his later years he fought reason and Scripture in the supposed
interest of the church.
_Mat. 18:10_—“_See that ye despise not one of these little
ones_”—which refers not to little children but to childlike
believers, Luther adduces as a proof of infant baptism, holding
that the child is said to believe—“_little ones that believe on
me_” (_verse 6_)—because it has been circumcised and received into
the number of the elect. “And so, through baptism, children become
believers. How else could the children of Turks and Jews be
distinguished from those of Christians?” Does this involve the
notion that infants dying unbaptized are lost? To find the very
apostle of justification by faith saying that a little child
becomes a _believer_ by being baptized, is humiliating and
disheartening (so Broadus. Com. on Matthew, page 384, note).
Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:342‐345, quotes from Lang as
follows: “By mistaking and casting down the Protestant spirit
which put forth its demands on the time in Carlstadt, Zwingle, and
others, Luther made Protestantism lose its salt; he inflicted
wounds upon it from which it has not yet recovered to‐day; and the
ecclesiastical struggle of the present is just a struggle of
spiritual freedom against Lutherism.” E. G. Robinson: “Infant
baptism is a rag of Romanism. Since regeneration is always through
the truth, baptismal regeneration is an absurdity.” See Christian
Review, Jan. 1851; Neander, Church History, 1:311, 313; Coleman,
Christian Antiquities, 258‐260; Arnold, in Bap. Quarterly,
1869:32; Hovey, in Bap. Quarterly, 1871:75.
(d) The reasoning by which it is supported is unscriptural, unsound, and
dangerous in its tendency.
First,—in assuming the power of the church to modify or abrogate a command
of Christ. This has been sufficiently answered above. Secondly,—in
maintaining that infant baptism takes the place of circumcision under the
Abrahamic covenant. To this we reply that the view contradicts the New
Testament idea of the church, by making it a hereditary body, in which
fleshly birth, and not the new birth, qualifies for membership. “As the
national Israel typified the spiritual Israel, so the circumcision which
immediately followed, not preceded, natural birth, bids us baptize
children, not before, but after spiritual birth.” Thirdly,—in declaring
that baptism belongs to the infant because of an organic connection of the
child with the parent, which permits the latter to stand for the former
and to make profession of faith for it,—faith already existing germinally
in the child by virtue of this organic union, and certain for the same
reason to be developed as the child grows to maturity. “A law of organic
connection as regards character subsisting between the parent and the
child,—such a connection as induces the conviction that the character of
the one is actually included in the character of the other, as the seed is
formed in the capsule.” We object to this view that it unwarrantably
confounds the personality of the child with that of the parent;
practically ignores the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s regenerating
influences in the case of children of Christian parents; and presumes in
such children a gracious state which facts conclusively show not to exist.
What takes the place of circumcision is not baptism but
regeneration. Paul defeated the attempt to fasten circumcision on
the church, when he refused to have that rite performed on Titus.
But later Judaizers succeeded in perpetuating circumcision under
the form of infant baptism, and afterward of infant sprinkling
(McGarvey, Com. on Acts). E. G. Robinson: “Circumcision is not a
type of baptism: 1. It is purely a gratuitous assumption that it
is so. There is not a word in Scripture to authorize it; 2.
Circumcision was a national, a theocratic, and not a personal,
religious rite; 3. If circumcision be a type, why did Paul
circumcise Timothy? Why did he not explain, on an occasion so
naturally calling for it, that circumcision was replaced by
baptism?”
On the theory that baptism takes the place of circumcision, see
Pepper, Baptist Quarterly, April, 1857; Palmer, in Baptist
Quarterly, 1871:314. The Christian Church is either a natural,
_hereditary_ body, or it was merely _typified_ by the Jewish
people. In the former case, baptism belongs to all children of
Christian parents, and the church is indistinguishable from the
world. In the latter case, it belongs only to spiritual
descendants, and therefore only to true believers. “That Jewish
Christians, who of course had been circumcised, were also
baptized, and that a large number of them insisted that Gentiles
who had been baptized should also be circumcised, shows
conclusively that baptism did not take the place of
circumcision.... The notion that the family is the unit of society
is a relic of barbarism. This appears in the Roman law, which was
good for property but not for persons. It left none but a servile
station to wife or son, thus degrading society at the fountain of
family life. To gain freedom, the Roman wife had to accept a form
of marriage which opened the way for unlimited liberty of
divorce.”
Hereditary church‐membership is of the same piece with hereditary
priesthood, and both are relics of Judaism. J. J. Murphy, Nat.
Selection and Spir. Freedom, 81—“The institution of hereditary
priesthood, which was so deeply rooted in the religions of
antiquity and was adopted into Judaism, has found no place in
Christianity; there is not, I believe, any church whatever calling
itself by the name of Christ, in which the ministry is
hereditary.” Yet there is a growing disposition to find in infant
baptism the guarantee of hereditary church membership. Washington
Gladden, What is Left? 252‐254—“Solidarity of the generations
finds expression in infant baptism. Families ought to be Christian
and not individuals only. In the Society of Friends every one born
of parents belonging to the Society is a birthright member.
Children of Christian parents are heirs of the kingdom. The State
recognizes that our children are organically connected with it.
When parents are members of the State, children are not aliens.
They are not called to perform duties of citizenship until a
certain age, but the rights and privileges of citizenship are
theirs from the moment of their birth. The State is the mother of
her children; shall the church be less motherly than the State?...
Baptism does not make the child God’s child; it simply recognizes
and declares the fact.”
Another illustration of what we regard as a radically false view
is found in the sermon of Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac, at the
consecration of Bishop Nicholson in Philadelphia: “Baptism is not
like a function in the natural order, like the coronation of a
king, an acknowledgment of what the child already is. The child,
truly God’s loved offspring by way of creation, is in baptism
translated into the new creation and incorporated into the
Incarnate One, and made his child.” Yet, as the great majority of
the inmates of our prisons and the denizens of the slums have
received this “baptism,” it appears that this “loved offspring”
very early lost its “new creation” and got “translated” in the
wrong direction. We regard infant baptism as only an ancient
example of the effort to bring in the kingdom of God by externals,
the protest against which brought Jesus to the cross. Our modern
methods of salvation by sociology and education and legislation
are under the same indictment, as crucifying the Son of God afresh
and putting him to open shame.
Prof. Moses Stuart urged that the form of baptism was immaterial,
but that the temper of heart was the thing of moment. Francis
Wayland, then a student of his, asked: “If such is the case, with
what propriety can baptism be administered to those who cannot be
supposed to exercise any temper of heart at all, and with whom the
form must be everything?”—The third theory of organic connection
of the child with its parents is elaborated by Bushnell, in his
Christian Nurture, 90‐223. _Per contra_, see Bunsen, Hippolytus
and his Times, 179, 211; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles,
262. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh was not godly; and it would be rash
to say that all the drunkard’s children are presumptively
drunkards.
(e) The lack of agreement among pedobaptists.
The lack of agreement among pedobaptists as to the warrant for infant
baptism and as to the relation of baptized infants to the church, together
with the manifest decline of the practice itself, are arguments against
it.
The propriety of infant baptism is variously argued, says Dr. Bushnell,
upon the ground of “natural innocence, inherited depravity, and federal
holiness; because of the infant’s own character, the parent’s piety, and
the church’s faith; for the reason that the child is an heir of salvation
already, and in order to make it such.... No settled opinion on infant
baptism and on Christian nurture has ever been attained to.”
Quot homines, tot sententiæ. The belated traveler in a
thunderstorm prayed for a little more light and less noise.
Bushnell, Christian Nurture, 9‐89, denies original sin, denies
that hereditary connection can make a child guilty. But he seems
to teach transmitted righteousness, or that hereditary connection
can make a child holy. He disparages “sensible experiences” and
calls them “explosive conversions.” But because we do not know the
time of conversion, shall we say that there never was a time when
the child experienced God’s grace? See Bib. Sac., 1872:665.
Bushnell said: “I don’t know what right we have to say that a
child can’t be born again before he is born the first time.” Did
not John the Baptist preach Christ before he was born? (_Luke
1:15, 41, 44_). The answer to Bushnell is simply this, that
regeneration is through the truth, and an unborn child cannot know
the truth. To disjoin regeneration from the truth, is to make it a
matter of external manipulation in which the soul is merely
passive and the whole process irrational. There is a secret work
of God in the soul, but it is always accompanied by an awakening
of the soul to perceive the truth and to accept Christ.
Are baptized infants members of the Presbyterian Church? We answer
by citing the following standards: 1. The Confession of Faith,
25:2—“The visible church ... consists of all those throughout the
world, that profess the true religion, together with their
children.” 2. The Larger Catechism, 62—“The visible church is a
society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world
do profess the true religion, and of their children.” 166—“Baptism
is not to be administered to any that are not of the visible
church ... till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience
to him: but infants descending from parents either both or but one
of them professing faith in Christ and obedience to him are in
that respect within the covenant and are to be baptized.” 3. The
Shorter Catechism, 96—“Baptism is not to be administered to any
that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith
in Christ and obedience to him: but the infants of such as are
members of the visible church are to be baptized.” 4. Form of
Government, 3—“A particular church consists of a number of
professing Christians, with their offspring.” 5. Directory for
Worship, 1—“Children born within the pale of the visible church
and dedicated to God in baptism are under the inspection and
government of the church.... When they come to years of
discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady,
and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, they
ought to be informed it is their duty and their privilege to come
to the Lord’s Supper.”
The Maplewood Congregational Church of Malden, Mass., enrolls as
members all children baptized by the church. The relation
continues until they indicate a desire either to continue it or to
dissolve it. The list of such members is kept distinct from that
of the adults, but they are considered as members under the care
of the church. Dr. W. G. T. Shedd: “The infant of a believer is
born into the church as the infant of a citizen is born into the
State. A baptized child in adult years may renounce his baptism,
become an infidel, and join the synagogue of Satan, but until he
does this, he must be regarded as a member of the church of
Christ.”
On the Decline of Infant Baptism, see Vedder, in Baptist Review,
April, 1882:173‐189, who shows that in fifty years past the
proportion of infant baptisms to communicants in general has
decreased from one in seven to one in eleven; among the Reformed,
from one in twelve to one in twenty; among the Presbyterians, from
one in fifteen to one in thirty‐three; among the Methodists, from
one in twenty‐two to one in twenty‐nine; among the
Congregationalists, from one in fifty to one in seventy‐seven.
(f) The evil effects of infant baptism.
First,—in forestalling the voluntary act of the child baptized, and thus
practically preventing his personal obedience to Christ’s commands.
The person baptized in infancy has never performed any act with
intent to obey Christ’s command to be baptized, never has put
forth a single volition looking toward obedience to that command;
see Wilkinson, The Baptist Principle, 40‐46. Every man has the
right to choose his own wife. So every man has the right to choose
his own Savior.
Secondly,—in inducing superstitious confidence in an outward rite as
possessed of regenerating efficacy.
French parents still regard infants before baptism as only animals
(Stanley). The haste with which the minister is summoned to
baptize the dying child shows that superstition still lingers in
many an otherwise evangelical family in our own country. The
English Prayerbook declares that in baptism the infant is “made a
child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” Even the
Westminster Assembly’s Catechism, 28:6, holds that grace is
actually conferred in baptism, though the efficacy of it is
delayed till riper years. Mercersburg Review: “The objective
medium or instrumental cause of regeneration is baptism. Men are
not regenerated outside the church and then brought into it for
preservation, but they are regenerated by being incorporated with
or engrafted into the church through the sacrament of baptism.”
Catholic Review: “Unbaptized, these little ones go into darkness;
but baptized, they rejoice in the presence of God forever.”
Dr. Beebe of Hamilton went after a minister to baptize his sick
child, but before he returned the child died. Reflection made him
a Baptist, and the Editor of The Examiner. Baptists unhesitatingly
permit converts to die unbaptized, showing plainly that they do
not regard baptism as essential to salvation. Baptism no more
makes one a Christian, than putting a crown on one’s head makes
him a king. Zwingle held to a symbolic interpretation of the
Lord’s Supper, but he clung to the sacramental conception of
Baptism. E. H. Johnson, Uses and Abuses of Ordinances, 33, claims
that, while baptism is not a justifying or regenerating ordinance,
it is a sanctifying ordinance,—sanctifying, in the sense of
setting apart. Yes, we reply, but only as church going and prayer
are sanctifying; the efficacy is not in the outward act but in the
spirit which accompanies it. To make it signify more is to admit
the sacramental principle.
In the Roman Catholic Church the baptism of bells and of rosaries
shows how infant baptism has induced the belief that grace can be
communicated to irrational and even material things. In Mexico
people bring caged birds, cats, rabbits, donkeys, and pigs, for
baptism. The priest kneels before the altar in prayer, reads a few
words in Latin, then sprinkles the creature with holy water. The
sprinkling is supposed to drive out any evil spirit that may have
vexed the bird or beast. In Key West, Florida, a town of 22,000
inhabitants, infant baptism has a stronger hold than anywhere else
at the South. Baptist parents had sometimes gone to the Methodist
preachers to have their children baptized. To prevent this, the
Baptist pastors established the custom of laying their hands upon
the heads of infants in the congregation, and “blessing” them, _i.
e._, asking God’s blessing to rest upon them. But this custom came
to be confounded with christening, and was called such. Now the
Baptist pastors are having a hard struggle to explain and limit
the custom which they themselves have introduced. Perverse human
nature will take advantage of even the slightest additions to N.
T. prescriptions, and will bring out of the germs of false
doctrine a fearful harvest of evil. Obsta principiis—“Resist
beginnings.”
Thirdly,—in obscuring and corrupting Christian truth with regard to the
sufficiency of Scripture, the connection of the ordinances, and the
inconsistency of an impenitent life with church‐membership.
Infant baptism in England is followed by confirmation, as a matter
of course, whether there has been any conscious abandonment of sin
or not. In Germany, a man is always understood to be a Christian
unless he expressly states to the contrary—in fact, he feels
insulted if his Christianity is questioned. At the funerals even
of infidels and debauchees the pall used may be inscribed with the
words: “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.” Confidence in
one’s Christianity and hopes of heaven based only on the fact of
baptism in infancy, are a great obstacle to evangelical preaching
and to the progress of true religion.
Wordsworth, The Excursion, 596, 602 (book 5)—“At the baptismal
font. And when the pure And consecrating element hath cleansed The
original stain, the child is thus received Into the second ark,
Christ’s church, with trust That he, from wrath redeemed therein
shall float Over the billows of this troublesome world To the fair
land of everlasting life.... The holy rite That lovingly consigns
the babe to the arms Of Jesus and his everlasting care.” Infant
baptism arose in the superstitious belief that there lay in the
water itself a magical efficacy for the washing away of sin, and
that apart from baptism there could be no salvation. This was and
still remains the Roman Catholic position. Father Doyle, in Anno
Domini, 2:182—“Baptism regenerates. By means of it the child is
born again into the newness of the supernatural life.” Theodore
Parker was baptized, but not till he was four years old, when his
“Oh, don’t!”—in which his biographers have found prophetic
intimation of his mature dislike for all conventional forms—was
clearly the small boy’s dislike of water on his face; see
Chadwick, Theodore Parker, 6, 7. “How do you know, my dear, that
you have been christened?” “Please, mum, ’cos I’ve got the marks
on my arm now, mum!”
Fourthly,—in destroying the church as a spiritual body, by merging it in
the nation and the world.
Ladd, Principles of Church Polity: “Unitarianism entered the
Congregational churches of New England through the breach in one
of their own avowed and most important tenets, namely, that of a
regenerate church‐membership. Formalism, indifferentism, neglect
of moral reforms, and, as both cause and results of these, an
abundance of unrenewed men and women, were the causes of their
seeming disasters in that sad epoch.” But we would add, that the
serious and alarming decline of religion which culminated in the
Unitarian movement in New England had its origin in infant
baptism. This introduced into the Church a multitude of
unregenerate persons and permitted them to determine its doctrinal
position.
W. B. Matteson: “No one practice of the church has done so much to
lower the tone of its life and to debase its standards. The first
New England churches were established by godly and regenerated
men. They received into their churches, through infant baptism,
children presumptively, but alas not actually, regenerated. The
result is well known—swift, startling, seemingly irresistible
decline. ‘The body of the rising generation,’ writes Increase
Mother, ‘is a poor perishing, inconverted, and, except the Lord
pour out his Spirit, an undone generation.’ The ‘Halfway Covenant’
was at once a token of preceding, and a cause of further, decline.
If God had not indeed poured out his Spirit in the great awakening
under Edwards, New England might well, as some feared, ‘be lost
even to New England and buried in its own ruins.’ It was the new
emphasis on personal religion—an emphasis which the Baptists of
that day largely contributed—that gave to the New England churches
a larger life and a larger usefulness. Infant baptism has never
since held quite the same place in the polity of those churches.
It has very generally declined. But it is still far from extinct,
even among evangelical Protestants. The work of Baptists is not
yet done. Baptists have always stood, but they need still to
stand, for a believing and regenerated church‐membership.”
Fifthly,—in putting into the place of Christ’s command a commandment of
men, and so admitting the essential principle of all heresy, schism, and
false religion.
There is therefore no logical halting‐place between the Baptist
and the Romanist positions. The Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes
of New York, said well to a Presbyterian minister: “We have no
controversy with you. Our controversy is with the Baptists.” Lange
of Jena: “Would the Protestant church fulfil and attain to its
final destiny, the baptism of infants must of necessity be
abolished.” The English Judge asked the witness what his religious
belief was. Reply: “I haven’t any.” “Where do you attend church?”
“Nowhere.” “Put him down as belonging to the Church of England.”
The small child was asked where her mother was. Reply: “She has
gone to a Christian and devil meeting.” The child meant a
Christian Endeavor meeting. Some systems of doctrine and ritual,
however, answer her description, for they are a mixture of
paganism and Christianity. The greatest work favoring the doctrine
which we here condemn is Wall’s History of Infant Baptism. For the
Baptist side of the controversy see Arnold, in Madison Avenue
Lectures, 160‐182; Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 274,
275; Dagg, Church Order, 144‐202.
II. The Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper is that outward rite in which the assembled church eats
bread broken and drinks wine poured forth by its appointed representative,
in token of its constant dependence on the once crucified, now risen
Savior, as source of its spiritual life; or, in other words, in token of
that abiding communion of Christ’s death and resurrection through which
the life begun in regeneration is sustained and perfected.
Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, 31, 33, says that the
Scripture nowhere speaks of the wine as “poured forth”; and in _1
Cor. 11:24_—“_my body which is broken for you,_” the Revised
Version omits the word “_broken_”; while on the other hand the
Gospel according to John (_19:36_) calls especial attention to the
fact that Christ’s body was _not_ broken. We reply that Jesus, in
giving his disciples the cup, did speak of his blood as “_poured
out_” (_Mark 14:24_); and it was not the body, but “_a bone of
him_,” which was not to be broken. Many ancient manuscripts add
the word “_broken_” in _1 Cor. 11:24_. On the Lord’s Supper in
general, see Weston, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 183‐195; Dagg,
Church Order, 203‐214.
1. The Lord’s Supper an ordinance instituted by Christ.
(_a_) Christ appointed an outward rite to be observed by his disciples in
remembrance of his death. It was to be observed after his death; only
after his death could it completely fulfil its purpose as a feast of
commemoration.
_Luke 22:19_—“_And be took bread, and when he had given thanks, he
brake it, and gave to them, saying, This is my body which is given
for you: this do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like manner
after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood,
even that which is poured out for you_”; _1 Cor. 11:23‐25_—“_For I
received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that
the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread;
and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my
body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. In like
manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new
covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in
remembrance of me._” Observe that this communion was Christian
communion before Christ’s death, just as John’s baptism was
Christian baptism before Christ’s death.
(_b_) From the apostolic injunction with regard to its celebration in the
church until Christ’s second coming, we infer that it was the original
intention of our Lord to institute a rite of perpetual and universal
obligation.
_1 Cor. 11:26_—“_For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the
cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come_”; _cf._ _Mat.
26:29_—“_But I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of this
fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in
my Father’s kingdom_”; _Mark 14:25_—“_Verily I say unto you, I
will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I
drink it new in the kingdom of God._” As the paschal supper
continued until Christ came the first time in the flesh, so the
Lord’s Supper is to continue until he comes the second time with
all the power and glory of God.
(_c_) The uniform practice of the N. T. churches, and the celebration of
such a rite in subsequent ages by almost all churches professing to be
Christian, is best explained upon the supposition that the Lord’s Supper
is an ordinance established by Christ himself.
_Acts 2:42_—“_And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’
teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the
prayers_”; _46_—“_And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one
accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their
food with gladness and singleness of heart_”—on the words here
translated “_at home_” (κατ᾽ οἶκον), but meaning, as Jacob
maintains, “from one worship‐room to another,” see page 961. _Acts
20:7_—“_And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered
together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them_”; _1 Cor.
10:16_—“_The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion
of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a
communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, who art many, are
one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread._”
2. The Mode of administering the Lord’s Supper.
(_a_) The elements are bread and wine.
Although the bread which Jesus broke at the institution of the
ordinance was doubtless the unleavened bread of the Passover,
there is nothing in the symbolism of the Lord’s Supper which
necessitates the Romanist use of the wafer. Although the wine
which Jesus poured out was doubtless the ordinary fermented juice
of the grape, there is nothing in the symbolism of the ordinance
which forbids the use of unfermented juice of the grape,—obedience
to the command “_This do in remembrance of me_” (_Luke 22:19_)
requires only that we should use the “_fruit of the vine_” (_Mat.
26:29_).
Huguenots and Roman Catholics, among Parkman’s Pioneers of France
in the New World, disputed whether the sacramental bread could be
made of the meal of Indian corn. But it is only as food, that the
bread is symbolic. Dried fish is used in Greenland. The bread only
symbolizes Christ’s life and the wine only symbolizes his death.
Any food or drink may do the same. It therefore seems a very
conscientious but unnecessary literalism, when Adoniram Judson
(Life by his Son, 352) writes from Burma: “No wine to be procured
in this place, on which account we are unable to meet with the
other churches this day in partaking of the Lord’s Supper.” For
proof that Bible wines, like all other wines, are fermented, see
Presb. Rev., 1881:80‐114; 1882:78‐108, 394‐399, 586; Hovey, in
Bap. Quar. Rev., April, 1887:152‐180. _Per contra_, see Samson,
Bible Wines. On the Scripture Law of Temperance, see Presb. Rev.,
1882:287‐324.
(_b_) The communion is of both kinds,—that is, communicants are to partake
both of the bread and of the wine.
The Roman Catholic Church withholds the wine from the laity,
although it considers the whole Christ to be present under each of
the forms. Christ, however, says: “_Drink ye all of it_” (_Mat.
26:27_). To withhold the wine from any believer is disobedience to
Christ, and is too easily understood as teaching that the laity
have only a portion of the benefits of Christ’s death. Calvin: “As
to the bread, he simply said ‘_Take, eat_.’ Why does he expressly
bid them _all_ drink? And why does Mark explicitly say that ‘_they
all drank of it_’ (_Mark 14:23_)?” Bengel: Does not this suggest
that, if communion in “one kind alone were sufficient, it is the
cup which should be used? The Scripture thus speaks, foreseeing
what Rome would do.” See Expositor’s Greek Testament on _1 Cor.
11:27_. In the Greek Church the bread and wine are mingled and are
administered to communicants, not to infants only but also to
adults, with a spoon.
(_c_) The partaking of these elements is of a festal nature.
The Passover was festal in its nature. Gloom and sadness are
foreign to the spirit of the Lord’s Supper. The wine is the symbol
of the death of Christ, but of that death by which we live. It
reminds us that he drank the cup of suffering in order that we
might drink the wine of joy. As the bread is broken to sustain our
physical life, so Christ’s body was broken by thorns and nails and
spear to nourish our spiritual life.
_1 Cor. 11:29_—“_For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and
drinketh judgment onto himself, if he discern not the body._” Here
the Authorized Version wrongly had “damnation” instead of
“_judgment_.” Not eternal condemnation, but penal judgment in
general, is meant. He who partakes “_in an unworthy manner_”
(_verse 27_), _i. e._, in hypocrisy, or merely to satisfy bodily
appetites, and not discerning the body of Christ of which the
bread is the symbol (_verse 29_), draws down upon him God’s
judicial sentence. Of this judgment, the frequent sickness and
death in the church at Corinth was a token. See _verses 30‐34_,
and Meyer’s Com.; also Gould, in Am. Com. on _1 Cor.
11:27_—“_unworthily_”—“This is not to be understood as referring
to the unworthiness of the person himself to partake, but to the
unworthy manner of partaking.... The failure to recognize
practically the symbolism of the elements, and hence the treatment
of the Supper as a common meal, is just what the apostle has
pointed out as the fault of the Corinthians, and it is what he
characterizes as an unworthy eating and drinking.” The Christian
therefore should not be deterred from participation in the Lord’s
Supper by any feeling of his personal unworthiness, so long as he
trusts Christ and aims to obey him, for “All the fitness he
requireth Is to feel our need of him.”
(_d_) The communion is a festival of commemoration,—not simply bringing
Christ to our remembrance, but making proclamation of his death to the
world.
_1 Cor. 11:24, 26_—“_this do in remembrance of me.... For as often
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s
death till he come._” As the Passover commemorated the deliverance
of Israel from Egypt, and as the Fourth of July commemorates our
birth as a nation, so the Lord’s Supper commemorates the birth of
the church in Christ’s death and resurrection. As a mother might
bid her children meet over her grave and commemorate her, so
Christ bids his people meet and remember him. But subjective
remembrance is not its only aim. It is public proclamation also.
Whether it brings perceptible blessing to us or not, it is to be
observed as a means of confessing Christ, testifying our faith,
and publishing the fact of his death to others.
(_e_) It is to be celebrated by the assembled church. It is not a solitary
observance on the part of individuals. No “showing forth” is possible
except in company.
_Acts 20:7_—“_gathered together to break bread_”; _1 Cor. 11:18,
20, 22, 33, 34_—“_when ye come together in the church ... assemble
yourselves together ... have ye not houses to eat and to drink in?
or despise ye the church of God, and put them to shame that have
not? ... when ye come together to eat.... If any man is hungry,
let him eat at home; that your coming together be not unto
judgment._”