Baptismal register

“ They may be true converts, and have the spiritual qualifications, but they are destitute of the ceremonial qualification—baptism. The “buried in baptism” comes before the “breaking of bread.”
2. They do not accept the invitation of Pedobaptist churches to eat at the Lord’s Table with them, for the same reason; they are not baptized Christians. And while the appreciate their Christian fellowship, they could not accept their church fellowship, and sit at the Lord’s Table with them, without accepting their sprinkling and indorsing their baptismal errors. ”

“ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." (See Acts 19:1-6.)
In the Church today a repetition of the baptismal rite on an individual is allowable under certain specific conditions. Thus, if one, having entered the Church by baptism, withdraws from it, or is excommunicated therefrom, and afterward repents and desires to regain his standing in the Church, he can do so only through baptism. However, such is a repetition of the initiatory ordinance as previously administered. ”

“ They knew, of course, something of the many kinds of baptism practiced by the various sects of the day, but if the religions on the earth at that time were not accepted of the Lord as Joseph had been told, none of the ministers would have a right to baptize; besides, the passage in the Book of Mormon said that baptism was for the remission of sins. The preachers did not teach it this way, though they could read that it was taught in the same manner by the apostles in Christ's time. ”

“ If the Bible had given us the two ordinances, baptism and communion, and had said nothing at all about the order in which they were to be observed and we were left free to choose their order, then we would not be able to speak so positively; but when we find in the Bible that baptism is always put immediately after believing, and that the Lord's Supper is never put in this order, then I think it is clear that baptism is expected always to come first. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Since the Reformation there have been various Protestant sects called Baptists, holding that baptism should be administered only by immersion, and to those who can make a personal profession of faith. The Montanists in Africa baptized even the dead, and in Roman Catholic countries the practice of baptizing church bells—a custom of tenth-century origin—continues to this day. Being an initiatory rite, baptism is only administered once to the same person. The Roman and Greek Catholics consecrate the water of baptism, but Protestants do not. ”

“ The enrolment of births is, no doubt, quite improper. But the entering of dissenting baptisms in the parish register (mentioned by D. X.) would not, I think, be equally open to reprobation; inasmuch as the registering has always been of baptisms in the parish, and not merely in the church. Hence, if dissenting baptism be, as no doubt it is, a valid title to burial by the clergyman, he might, not unreasonably, be disposed to keep a list of such irregular administrations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While they have justly and irrefragably maintained that nothing can be Christian baptism which has not at once the form and the meaning ordained by Christ, we have been weakly disposed to imagine ourselves patterns of charity, in admitting the validity of immersion, while denying it to be the form or to have the meaning which Christ ordained. As if such an ordinance, from the great Head of the Church, could have in it any thing indifferent, or subject to our discretion, whether in doctrine or mode! ”

“ No I have already proved that we could not be baptized, and baptism is one of the first essential ordinances to become citizens of the kingdom of God. I have also shown that we can not legally partake of the sacrament, because it requires a divinely authorized person to administer it. We can not have hands laid upon us for the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, because that requires God's ministers to administer it, and the Lord would not pour out the Holy Ghost through an unauthorized minister. ”

“ You say a person can't be converted without baptism. If an unbaptized person should come to your communion table claiming to be converted, would you not have to deny his conversion because he had not been baptized? [Pg 110] You say you do not require baptism before communion, and yet when you require conversion before communion you thereby require baptism before communion, because you say there can be no conversion without baptism. In other words, you must hold that an unbaptized person cannot come to your table. ”

“ And so, when he is converted either to Catholic unity, or to a mode of living worthy of so great a sacrament, he begins to have not another and a lawful baptism, but that same baptism in a lawful manner. Nor does the remission of irrevocable sins follow on baptism, unless a man not only have lawful baptism, but have it lawfully; and yet it does not follow that if a man have it not lawfully, so that his sins are either not remitted, or, being remitted, are brought on him again, therefore the sacrament of baptism should be in the baptized person either bad or null and void. ”

“ Therefore the ordinance of baptism was ordained by the Lord from the beginning of the world down until the days of Christ, and from the days of Christ down to the end, that in the dispensation of the Gospel, when the plan of salvation should be administered to the human family, they should look after the fathers—their ancestors ”

“ Luther says: “It cannot be proved by the sacred Scriptures that infant baptism was instituted by Christ, or begun by the [p. 131] first Christians after the Apostles.” Vanity of Inf. Bap., Part II., p. 8.
Neander says: “Baptism was administered at first only to adults, as men were accustomed to conceive of baptism and faith as strictly connected. We have all reason for not deriving infant baptism from Apostolic institution.” Ch. Hist., Vol. I., p. 311; Plant. and Train., Vol. I., p. 222.
Professor Lange says: “All attempts to make out infant baptism from the New Testament fail. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We uphold one baptism, because we claim for the Catholic Church alone what is her own. But those who say that heretics baptize truly and lawfully are themselves the men who make, not two, but many baptisms ”

“ Indeed it has been already often shown how it is possible that men should have one baptism in common who have not one Church, as it is possible that in the body of the Church herself those who are sanctified by their righteousness, and those who are polluted through their covetousness, may not have the same one Spirit, and yet have the same one baptism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The baptism administered by the Lord Jesus is never known nor alluded to in the Scriptures under any other form than that of affusion. It is the antitype of the ritual sprinklings of the Old Testament, the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the sprinkling of Israel and the nations, the outpouring of the Spirit upon them; and its fulfillment is in the New Testament invariably spoken of in the same style. To symbolize this, John’s baptism must have been by affusion. ”

“ Why, I thought you considered baptism so important that a person could not be saved unless he was baptized; and now you say baptism is not necessary for the communion. That seems contradictory. I should think if baptism is essential to salvation it surely would be essential to taking the communion. Do you think a person ought to take the communion who has not been converted? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus the character of baptism denotes that the person who has it is consecrated to God as a Christian, is a member of the Church of Christ, and entitled to all the other sacraments of the Church, as helps to enable him to serve God in that quality. The character of confirmation denotes that the person who has it was dedicated to the service of God as His soldier, and engaged for ever to serve Him in that quality, which the grace of that sacrament enables him to do. ”

“ I wonder that, while all acknowledge that there is one baptism, all do not understand the unity of the same baptism. For the Church and heresy are two distinct things. If heretics have baptism, we have it not; but if we have it, heretics cannot have it. But there is no doubt that the Church alone possesses the baptism of Christ, since it alone possesses both the favour and the truth of Christ. ”

“ BAPTISM We would express our continued conviction that our Lord appointed no outward rite or ceremony for observance in His church. We accept every command of our Lord in what we believe to be its genuine import, as absolutely conclusive. The question of the use of outward ordinances is with us a question, not as to the authority of Christ, but as to his real meaning. We reverently believe that, as there is one Lord and one faith, so there is, under the Christian dispensation, but one baptism, (Eph 4:4,5) even that whereby all believers are baptized in the one Spirit into the one body. ”

“ The Unitarians are the modern Socinians already alluded to. They are opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity; and, consequently, to the Trinitarians. The Baptists not only reject infant baptism, but hold that the adult subject should be baptized after the manner in which Christ was baptized by St. John. On this account the original Baptists, who arose about 1521, received the name of Anabaptists, because, having been already baptized during infancy, they of necessity went through the ceremony a second time on arriving at full age. The prefix ana is Greek, signifying twice. ”

“ It is now known that many infants die without baptism because the parish churches have no fonts, and divers abbeys have licence and custom that everyone of certain parishes should baptise in their monasteries, and yet they cannot come conveniently by night, or at other times to the font there. ”

“ Our church believes that a person must first be baptized."
"You mean," said Dorothy, "that your church and the Baptists believe alike on the communion question?"
"Not exactly. We both believe that baptism must come before the communion, but we differ as to what constitutes baptism."
"Does the Bible teach that a person must be baptized before he can commune?"
"The Bible teaches that all who believed were immediately baptized. That always seemed to be the first thing they did." ”

“ In the seventeenth article of the Methodist Episcopal Church, it is declared that "baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are distinguished from others that are not baptized, but it is also a sign of regeneration, or the new birth. The baptism of children is to be retained in the Church." ”

“ Baptism is an ordinance on which we may confidently expect the highest blessings, when it is rightly used. It is unreasonable to suppose that the Lord Jesus, the Great Head of the Church, would solemnly appoint an ordinance which was to be as useless to the soul as a mere human enrolment or an act of civil registration. The sacrament we are considering is not a mere man-made appointment, but an institution appointed by the King of kings. When faith and prayer accompany baptism, and a diligent use of Scriptural means follows it, we are justified in looking for much spiritual blessing. ”