Christian baptism

“ The Church of England (Article xxvii.) defines baptism to be, “not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened; but it is also a sign of regeneration, or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church: the promises of the forgiveness of sin, of our adoption to be the sons of God, by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed, faith is confirmed, and grace increased, by virtue of prayer to God.” ”

“ THAT baptism is essential to individual salvation is a tenet of most Christian churches. But baptism is enjoined as an indispensable requisite to remission of sins, and as the one and only gate of admission to the Church of Jesus Christ or the Kingdom of God. Faith in God and genuine repentance are prerequisites to effective baptism. In all consistency and justice, therefore, baptism can be required of those only who are capable of exercising faith and of rendering repentance.
The undeveloped mind of a babe is incapable of conceiving sin, of experiencing faith, or of comprehending repentance. ”

“ And indeed the word baptism is taken but equivocally or analogically at most, when it is taken for the mere external administration and action: for God doth not institute worship ordinances for bodily motion only; when he speaketh to man, and requireth worship of man, he speaketh to him as to a man, and requireth human actions from him, even the work of the soul, and not the words of a parrot, or the motion of a puppet. Therefore the word baptism in the first and proper signification, doth take in the inward actions of the heart, as well as the outward professions and actions. ”

“ Said Jesus to Nicodemus,—“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.”—John iii, 5. Dr. Pusey asserts that “The Christian church uniformly for fifteen centuries interpreted these words of baptism; on the ground of this text alone, they urged the necessity of baptism; upon it they identified regeneration with baptism.” If the position thus maintained by the churches of Rome and the east for so many centuries be the truth, it presents the Savior, the apostles and evangelists, and the Scriptures written by them, in a most extraordinary light. ”

“ The recognition that the baptism of adults was the only baptism known to the apostles would clear every difficulty on this point out of the way of the Low Churchmen. It is natural that the sacred writers should assume that men who, at great worldly sacrifice, not free from risk of life, came forward to profess the Christian faith by a solemn initiatory rite, possessed the frame of mind which that fact implied—that they were honestly changed and renewed beings. ”

“ In the beginning of the eleventh century, the celebrated Anselm is introduced, who declares that baptism is the “fulfilling of all righteousness;” that the baptism of Christ is a “washing of water in the word;” that every one, in his day, was baptized in the name and the faith of God; that believers were then baptized upon, or in the name of Christ; that the adults had first to be instructed in the Christian doctrine; that after baptism one must not again lay the foundation of repentance from dead works, Heb. ”

“ The distinction between passively listening to our teaching, and accepting it as God's Word and acting upon it, seems to be clearly felt. I speak strongly and habitually about the necessity of baptism. "He that believeth, and is baptized" &c. Independently of the doctrinal truth about baptism, the call to the heathen man to take some step, to enter into some engagement, to ally himself with a body of Christian believers by some distinct act of his own, needing careful preparation, &c., has a meaning and a value incalculably great. ”

“ But as the monk's gown alone does not make the monk, so infant baptism makes nobody a Christian. If they say children are baptised on the faith of their parents or godfathers, no such baptism is found in the Bible. Christ says, he who himself believes and is baptised. ”

“ They must be persons dead to sin, and alive to God; born again, through the operation of the Spirit. 2. Baptism. Buried with Christ in baptism on a profession of faith in Him. No person, however good, and however manifestly regenerate, is prepared without baptism, according to the [p. 113] Divine order, to receive the Supper. Without baptism he cannot enter the fellowship of the church, where the Supper alone is to be enjoyed. 3. An orderly walk is necessary. An upright and consistent Christian walk, and godly conversation among the saints, and before the world. ”

“ For as there is one God, one Christ, and one Comforter, and one death of the Lord in the body, so let that baptism which is unto Him be but one. But those that receive polluted baptism from the ungodly will become partners in their opinions. ”

“ But baptism is for the remission of sins. "What!" says one, "baptism is a saving ordinance!" Certainly it is saving in its nature, in connexion with the balance of the Gospel of salvation. The people are to be saved if they embrace the Gospel, and to be damned if they do not. If I escape damnation by obedience to the Gospel, and baptism is a part of it, I would ask if that is not a portion of the scheme by which I escape—a part of the scheme by which I am saved? It is certainly so. ”

“ If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth; but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John I; 5-7) .
Baptism was instituted for the remission of sins by divine command. It is therefore essential. It is a sign of cleansing, purification, death to sin, burial from the world and resurrection to a new life in Christ Jesus. For, baptism means immersion. The sprinkling or pouring of water on the body is not baptism. ”

“ I vow to God, my creator, that I have such firm faith in the holy sacrament of baptism that never again, for any danger, encounter, or assault that the devil may make against me, will I make the sign of the Cross, but solely by the memory of the sacrament of baptism I will drive him behind me ”

“ It is not that baptism is such a great thing, or that it can be purchased with silver and gold, that it washes away sins, but because the Almighty has instituted it as His own ordinance; and if you will comply therewith, He promises you a remission of sins. If you are buried with Christ in baptism it proves he was buried. ”

“ Who can forbear to speak of what everybody sees? And thus we recognize baptism in the Scriptures as a command of the Lord, and a certain clear practice of the apostles. Moreover, we also clearly see, what cause baptism has, why it is administered, what benefits it brings, to what people it is adapted, and what other name it has in the Scriptures. It is, in the first place, a grave of sin, an entering into the church of God, a putting on of Christ, a fleeing from the wrath of God, a washing of regeneration, and the seal of a good conscience toward God. ”

“ We not only admit, but strenuously affirm, that the sacraments have an important intrinsic influence. The Platform thus describes it: "Baptism in adults is a means of making a profession of previous faith, or of being received into the visible church, as well as a pledge and condition of obtaining those blessings purchased by Christ, and offered to all who repent, believe in him and profess his name by baptism," p. ”

“ There is no statement to the effect that he was or was not baptized; but his understanding of the gospel is shown by his request: for in that is implied a knowledge of the resurrection, ascension and return of Christ into His kingdom who will be bold enough to affirm that such a degree of intelligence in the gospel had not yielded obedience in baptism? The blessing of being in the kingdom with Christ is predicated upon baptism based upon belief of the Truth; and since our Lord promised the thief he should be with him in paradise, or the kingdom, it follows that baptism had been submitted to. ”

“ They should seek and pray daily to be more and more “sanctified and cleansed with the washing of water by the word,” that they may be “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Thus baptism, if used as the Scripture uses it, would be of great practical influence. And when this is the case, it may be productive of much comfort; for, like the bow in the cloud, it is a token of God’s Covenant to save and not destroy. ”

“ A clergyman has no right to complain that his parishioners become Baptists, if he never instructs them about infant baptism. I begin by laying it down as a point almost undisputed, that all grown-up converts at missionary stations among the heathen ought to be baptized. As soon as they embrace the Gospel and make a credible profession of repentance and faith in Christ, they ought at once to receive baptism. ”

“ Aside from this statement and the revelations that God has given in these days, there is nothing that definitely instructs the world on the subject of how baptism shall be administered. Jesus came to the disciples after his resurrection and said to them, "Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Of course, for some two or three hundred years we have the custom of the Saints as an interpretation of the manner of baptism, and that is, they were immersed ”

“ As a condition of the admission of any individual into the community proof had to be given of repentance and faith, and as an authenticating seal on the one side of the entrance being granted, and on the other side of the obligation being undertaken, baptism was administered, which now, as infant baptism was denounced as an invention of the devil, was understood simply of adult baptism, for the most part administered in the usual way by sprinkling. ”

“ I love to notice, when several persons join our church, how few of them receive baptism, showing that their baptism in childhood has been followed by conversion. The fewness of adult baptisms, with us, compared with cases of infant baptism, is a good sign. They will be fewer and fewer, in proportion as our parents make and keep covenant with God for their children. ”

“ And we learn that the baptism is holy in itself, because it is of God; and whether it be given or whether it be received by men of such like character, it cannot be polluted by any perversity of theirs, either within, or yet outside the Church. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When it is said, in Canon 21, that the Paulianists and Photinians shall be rebaptized, it establishes, that, according to the Holy Scriptures, not every baptism is a genuine or true baptism, and that consequently there is but one baptism which can in truth be called genuine, namely, that baptism which is administered by the true church, and upon the true faith. ”

“ Baptism is an act of man's, a symbol of his repentance and dying to sin and rising to a new life in Christ, a profession of his faith, an act of obedience to his Lord. It teaches nothing as to the relation of infants to the love of Jesus or to salvation. It does not follow that because that love is most sure and precious, baptism must needs be a sign of it. ”

“ Baptism is appropriate for penitent believers, not for innocent infants, because it is the “washing of regeneration,” designed to cleanse, not from inherited original sin, but from the guilt of actual personal sins. Yet it is not a magical “water salvation,” though he was often accused of teaching that. “The blood of Christ really cleanses us who believe.... The water of baptism formally washes away our sins.” ”