B. The duties belonging to these offices…

B. The duties belonging to these offices

(a) The pastor, bishop, or elder is:

First,—a spiritual teacher, in public and private;

Acts 20:20, 21, 35—“how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.... In all things I gave you an example, that so laboring ye ought to help the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive”; 1 Thess. 5:12—“But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you”; Heb. 13:7, 17—“Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.... Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account.”

Here we should remember that the pastor’s private work of religious conversation and prayer is equally important with his public ministrations; in this respect he is to be an example to his flock, and they are to learn from him the art of winning the unconverted and of caring for those who are already saved. A Jewish Rabbi once said: “God could not be every where,—therefore he made mothers.” We may substitute, for the word ’mothers,’ the word ’pastors.’ Bishop Ken is said to have made a vow every morning, as he rose, that he would not be married that day. His own lines best express his mind: “A virgin priest the altar best attends; our Lord that state commands not, but commends.”

Secondly,—administrator of the ordinances;

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”; 1 Cor. 1:16, 17—“_And __ I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel._” Here it is evident that, although the pastor administers the ordinances, this is not his main work, nor is the church absolutely dependent upon him in the matter. He is not set, like an O. T. priest, to minister at the altar, but to preach the gospel. In an emergency any other member appointed by the church may administer them with equal propriety, the church always determining who are fit subjects of the ordinances, and constituting him their organ in administering them. Any other view is based on sacramental notions, and on ideas of apostolic succession. All Christians are “priests unto ... God” (Rev. 1:6). “This universal priesthood is a priesthood, not of expiation, but of worship, and is bound to no ritual, or order of times and places” (P. S. Moxom).

Thirdly,—superintendent of the discipline, as well as presiding officer at the meetings, of the church.

Superintendent of discipline: 1 Tim. 5:17—“Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching”; 3:5—“if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” Presiding officer at meetings of the church: 1 Cor. 12:28—“governments”—here κυβερνήσεις, or “governments,” indicating the duties of the pastor, are the counterpart of ἀντιλήψεις, or “helps,” which designate the duties of the deacons; 1 Pet. 5:2, 3—“Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.”

In the old Congregational churches of New England, an authority was accorded to the pastor which exceeded the New Testament standard. “Dr. Bellamy could break in upon a festival which he deemed improper, and order the members of his parish to their homes.” The congregation rose as the minister entered the church, and stood uncovered as he passed out of the porch. We must not hope or desire to restore the New England régime. The pastor is to take responsibility, to put himself forward when there is need, but he is to rule only by moral suasion, and that only by guiding, teaching, and carrying into effect the rules imposed by Christ and the decisions of the church in accordance with those rules.

Dexter, Congregationalism, 115, 155, 157—“The Governor of New York suggests to the Legislature such and such enactments, and then executes such laws as they please to pass. He is chief ruler of the State, while the Legislature adopts or rejects what he proposes.” So the pastor’s functions are not legislative, but executive. Christ is the only lawgiver. In fulfilling this office, the manner and spirit of the pastor’s work are of as great importance as are correctness of judgment and faithfulness to Christ’s law. “The young man who cannot distinguish the wolves from the dogs should not think of becoming a shepherd.” Gregory Nazianzen: “Either teach none, or let your life teach too.” See Harvey, The Pastor; Wayland, Apostolic Ministry; Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 99; Samson, in Madison Avenue Lectures, 261‐288.

(b) The deacon is helper to the pastor and the church, in both spiritual and temporal things.

First,—relieving the pastor of external labors, informing him of the condition and wants of the church, and forming a bond of union between pastor and people.

Acts 6:1‐6—“Now in these days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a murmuring of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. And the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not fit that we should forsake the word of God, and serve tables. Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will continue stedfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus a proselyte of Antioch; whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them”; cf. 8‐20—where Stephen shows power in disputation; Rom. 12:7—“or ministry διακονίαν, let us give ourselves to our ministry”; 1 Cor. 12:28—“helps”—here ἀντιλήψεις, “helps,” indicating the duties of deacons, are the counterpart of κυβερνήσεις, “governments,” which designate the duties of the pastor; Phil. 1:1—“bishops and deacons.”

Dr. E. G. Robinson did not regard the election of the seven, in Acts 6:1‐4, as marking the origin of the diaconate, though he thought the diaconate grew out of this election. The Autobiography of C. H. Spurgeon, 3:22, gives an account of the election of “elders” at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. These “elders” were to attend to the spiritual affairs of the church, as the deacons were to attend to the temporal affairs. These “elders” were chosen year by year, while the office of deacon was permanent.

Secondly,—helping the church, by relieving the poor and sick and ministering in an informal way to the church’s spiritual needs, and by performing certain external duties connected with the service of the sanctuary.

Since deacons are to be helpers, it is not necessary in all cases that they should be old or rich; in fact, it is better that among the number of deacons the various differences in station, age, wealth, and opinion in the church should be represented. The qualifications for the diaconate mentioned in Acts 6:1‐4 and 1 Tim. 3:8‐13, are, in substance: wisdom, sympathy, and spirituality. There are advantages in electing deacons, not for life, but for a term of years. While there is no New Testament prescription in this matter, and each church may exercise its option, service for a term of years, with re‐election where the office has been well discharged, would at least seem favored by 1 Tim. 3:10—“Let these also first be proved; then let them serve as deacons, if they be blameless”; 13—“For they that have served well as deacons gain to themselves a good standing, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Acts 5:6, remarks that those who carried out and buried Ananias are called οἱ νεώτεροι—“the young men”—and in the case of Sapphira they were οἱ νεανίσκοι—meaning the same thing. “Upon the natural distinction between πρεσβύτεροι and νεώτεροι—elders and young men—it may well have been that official duties in the church were afterward based.” Dr. Leonard Bacon thought that the apostles included the whole membership in the “we,” when they said: “It is not fit that we should forsake the word of God, and serve tables.” The deacons, on this interpretation, were chosen to help the whole church in temporal matters.

In Rom. 16:1, 2, we have apparent mention of a deaconess—“I commend unto you Phœbe our sister, who is a servant [marg.: ‘deaconess’] of the church that is at Cenchreæ ... for she herself also hath been a helper of many, and of mine own self.” See also 1 Tim. 3:11—“Women in like manner must be grave, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things”—here Ellicott and Alford claim that the word “women” refers, not to deacons’ wives, as our Auth. Vers. had it, but to deaconesses. Dexter, Congregationalism, 69, 132, maintains that the office of deaconess, though it once existed, has passed away, as belonging to a time when men could not, without suspicion, minister to women.

This view that there are temporary offices in the church does not, however, commend itself to us. It is more correct to say that there is yet doubt whether there was such an office as deaconess, even in the early church. Each church has a right in this matter to interpret Scripture for itself, and to act accordingly. An article in the Bap. Quar., 1869:40, denies the existence of any diaconal rank or office, for male or female. Fish, in his Ecclesiology, holds that Stephen was a deacon, but an elder also, and preached as elder, not as deacon,—Acts 6:1‐4 being called the institution, not of the diaconate, but of the Christian ministry. The use of the phrase διακονεῖν τραπέζαις, and the distinction between the diaconate and the pastorate subsequently made in the Epistles, seem to refute this interpretation. On the fitness of women for the ministry of religion, see F. P. Cobbe, Peak of Darien, 199‐262; F. E. Willard, Women in the Pulpit; B. T. Roberts, Ordaining Women. On the general subject, see Howell, The Deaconship; Williams, The Deaconship; Robinson, N. T. Lexicon, ἀντιλήψις. On the Claims of the Christian Ministry, and on Education for the Ministry, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 269‐318, and Christ in Creation, 314‐331.

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C. Ordination of officers

(a) What is ordination?

Ordination is the setting apart of a person divinely called to a work of special ministration in the church. It does not involve the communication of power,—it is simply a recognition of powers previously conferred by God, and a consequent formal authorization, on the part of the church, to exercise the gifts already bestowed. This recognition and authorization should not only be expressed by the vote in which the candidate is approved by the church or the council which represents it, but should also be accompanied by a special service of admonition, prayer, and the laying‐ on of hands (Acts 6:5, 6; 13:2, 3; 14:23; 1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22).

Licensure simply commends a man to the churches as fitted to preach. Ordination recognizes him as set apart to the work of preaching and administering ordinances, in some particular church or in some designated field of labor, as representative of the church.

Of his call to the ministry, the candidate himself is to be first persuaded (1 Cor. 9:16; 1 Tim. 1:12); but, secondly, the church must be persuaded also, before he can have authority to minister among them (1 Tim. 3:2‐7; 4:14; Titus 1:6‐9).

The word “ordain” has come to have a technical signification not found in the New Testament. There it means simply to choose, appoint, set apart. In 1 Tim. 2:7—“whereunto I was appointed [ἐτέθην] a preacher and an apostle ... a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth”—it apparently denotes ordination of God. In the following passages we read of an ordination by the church: Acts 6:5, 6—“And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen ... and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus ... whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them”—the ordination of deacons; 13:2, 3—“And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away”; 14:23—“And when they had appointed for them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed”; 1 Tim. 4:14—“Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery”; 5:22—“Lay hands hastily on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins.”

Cambridge Platform, 1648, chapter 9—“Ordination is nothing else but the solemn putting of a man into his place and office in the church whereunto he had right before by election, being like the installing of a Magistrate in the Commonwealth.” Ordination confers no authority—it only recognizes authority already conferred by God. Since it is only recognition, it can be repeated as often as a man changes his denominational relations. Leonard Bacon: “The action of a Council has no more authority than the reason on which it is based. The church calling the Council is a competent court of appeal from any decision of the Council.”

Since ordination is simply choosing, appointing, setting apart, it seems plain that in the case of deacons, who sustain official relations only to the church that constitutes them, ordination requires no consultation with other churches. But in the ordination of a pastor, there are three natural stages: (1) the call of the church; (2) the decision of a council (the council being virtually only the church advised by its brethren); (3) the publication of this decision by a public service of prayer and the laying‐on of hands. The prior call to be pastor may be said, in the case of a man yet unordained, to be given by the church conditionally, and in anticipation of a ratification of its action by the subsequent judgment of the council. In a well‐instructed church, the calling of a council is a regular method of appeal from the church unadvised to the church advised by its brethren; and the vote of the council approving the candidate is only the essential completing of an ordination, of which the vote of the church calling the candidate to the pastorate was the preliminary stage.

This setting apart by the church, with the advice and assistance of the council, is all that is necessarily implied in the New Testament words which are translated “ordain”; and such ordination, by simple vote of church and council, could not be counted invalid. But it would be irregular. New Testament precedent makes certain accompaniments not only appropriate, but obligatory. A formal publication of the decree of the council, by laying‐on of hands, in connection with prayer, is the last of the duties of this advisory body, which serves as the organ and assistant of the church. The laying‐on of hands is appointed to be the regular accompaniment of ordination, as baptism is appointed to be the regular accompaniment of regeneration; while yet the laying‐on of hands is no more the substance of ordination, than baptism is the substance of regeneration.

The imposition of hands is the natural symbol of the communication, not of grace, but of authority. It does not make a man a minister of the gospel, any more than coronation makes Victoria a queen. What it does signify and publish, is formal recognition and authorization. Viewed in this light, there not only can be no objection to the imposition of hands upon the ground that it favors sacramentalism, but insistence upon it is the bounden duty of every council of ordination.

Mr. Spurgeon was never ordained. He began and ended his remarkable ministry as a lay preacher. He revolted from the sacramentalism of the Church of England, which seemed to hold that in the imposition of hands in ordination divine grace trickled down through a bishop’s finger ends, and he felt moved to protest against it. In our judgment it would have been better to follow New Testament precedent, and at the same time to instruct the churches as to the real meaning of the laying‐on of hands. The Lord’s Supper had in a similar manner been interpreted as a physical communication of grace, but Mr. Spurgeon still continued to observe the Lord’s Supper. His gifts enabled him to carry his people with him, when a man of smaller powers might by peculiar views have ruined his ministry. He was thankful that he was pastor of a large church, because he felt that he had not enough talent to be pastor of a small one. He said that when he wished to make a peculiar impression on his people he put himself into his cannon and fired himself at them. He refused the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and said that “D. D.” often meant “Doubly Destitute.” Dr. P. S. Henson suggests that the letters mean only “Fiddle Dee Dee.” For Spurgeon’s views on ordination, see his Autobiography, 1:355 sq.

John Wesley’s three tests of a call to preach: “Inquire of applicants,” he says, “1. Do they know God as a pardoning God? Have they the love of God abiding in them? Do they desire and see nothing but God? And are they holy, in all manner of conversation? 2. Have they gifts, as well as grace, for the work? Have they a clear sound understanding? Have they a right judgment in the things of God? Have they a just conception of salvation by faith? And has God given them any degree of utterance? Do they speak justly, readily, clearly? 3. Have they fruit? Are any truly convinced of sin, and converted to God, by their preaching?” The second of these qualifications seems to have been in the mind of the little girl who said that the bishop, in laying hands on the candidate, was feeling of his head to see whether he had brains enough to preach. There is some need of the preaching of a “trial sermon” by the candidate, as proof to the Council that he has the gifts requisite for a successful ministry. In this respect the Presbyteries of Scotland are in advance of us.

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(b) Who are to ordain?

Ordination is the act of the church, not the act of a privileged class in the church, as the eldership has sometimes wrongly been regarded, nor yet the act of other churches, assembled by their representatives in council. No ecclesiastical authority higher than that of the local church is recognized in the New Testament. This authority, however, has its limits; and since the church has no authority outside of its own body, the candidate for ordination should be a member of the ordaining church.

Since each church is bound to recognize the presence of the Spirit in other rightly constituted churches, and its own decisions, in like manner, are to be recognized by others, it is desirable in ordination, as in all important steps affecting other churches, that advice be taken before the candidate is inducted into office, and that other churches be called to sit with it in council, and if thought best, assist in setting the candidate apart for the ministry.

Hands were laid on Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, not by their ecclesiastical superiors, as High Church doctrine would require, but by their equals or inferiors, as simple representatives of the church. Ordination was nothing more than the recognition of a divine appointment and the commending to God’s care and blessing of those so appointed. The council of ordination is only the church advised by its brethren, or a committee with power, to act for the church after deliberation.

The council of ordination is not to be composed simply of ministers who have been themselves ordained. As the whole church is to preserve the ordinances and to maintain sound doctrine, and as the unordained church member is often a more sagacious judge of a candidate’s Christian experience than his own pastor would be, there seems no warrant, either in Scripture or in reason, for the exclusion of lay delegates from ordaining councils. It was not merely the apostles and elders, but the whole church at Jerusalem, that passed upon the matters submitted to them at the council, and others than ministers appear to have been delegates. The theory that only ministers can ordain has in it the beginnings of a hierarchy. To make the ministry a close corporation is to recognize the principle of apostolic succession, to deny the validity of all our past ordinations, and to sell to an ecclesiastical caste the liberties of the church of God. Very great importance attaches to decorum and settled usage in matters of ordination. To secure these, the following suggestions are made with regard to

I. PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS to be attended to by the candidate: 1. His letter of dismission should be received and acted upon by the church before the Council convenes. Since the church has no jurisdiction outside of its own membership, the candidate should be a member of the church which proposes to ordain him. 2. The church should vote to call the Council. 3. It should invite all the churches of its Association. 4. It should send printed invitations, asking written responses. 5. Should have printed copies of an Order of Procedure, subject to adoption by the Council. 6. The candidate may select one or two persons to officiate at the public service, subject to approval of the Council. 7. The clerk of the church should be instructed to be present with the records of the church and the minutes of the Association, so that he may call to order and ask responses from delegates. 8. Ushers should be appointed to ensure reserved seats for the Council. 9. Another room should be provided for the private session of the Council. 10. The choir should be instructed that one anthem, one hymn, and one doxology will suffice for the public service. 11. Entertainment of the delegates should be provided for. 12. A member of the church should be chosen to present the candidate to the Council. 13. The church should be urged on the previous Sunday to attend the examination of the candidate as well as the public service.

II. THE CANDIDATE AT THE COUNCIL: 1. His demeanor should be that of an applicant. Since he asks the favorable judgment of his brethren, a modest bearing and great patience in answering their questions, are becoming to his position. 2. Let him stand during his narration, and during questions, unless for reasons of ill health or fatigue he is specially excused. 3. It will be well to divide his narration into 15 minutes for his Christian experience, 10 minutes for his call to the ministry, and 35 minutes for his views of doctrine. 4. A viva voce statement of all these three is greatly preferable to an elaborate written account. 5. In the relation of his views of doctrine: (a) the more fully he states them, the less need there will be for questioning; (b) his statement should be positive, not negative—not what he does not believe, but what he does believe; (c) he is not required to tell the reasons for his belief, unless he is specially questioned with regard to these; (d) he should elaborate the later and practical, not the earlier and theoretical, portions of his theological system; (e) he may well conclude each point of his statement with a single text of Scripture proof.

III. THE DUTY OF THE COUNCIL: 1. It should not proceed to examine the candidate until proper credentials have been presented. 2. It should in every case give to the candidate a searching examination, in order that this may not seem invidious in other cases. 3. Its vote of approval should read: “We do now set apart,” and “We will hold a public service expressive of this fact.” 4. Strict decorum should be observed in every stage of the proceedings, remembering that the Council is acting for Christ the great head of the church and is transacting business for eternity. 5. The Council should do no other business than that for which the church has summoned it, and when that business is done, the Council should adjourn sine die.

It is always to be remembered, however, that the power to ordain rests with the church, and that the church may proceed without a Council, or even against the decision of the Council. Such ordination, of course, would give authority only within the bounds of the individual church. Where no immediate exception is taken to the decision of the Council, that decision is to be regarded as virtually the decision of the church by which it was called. The same rule applies to a Council’s decision to depose from the ministry. In the absence of immediate protest from the church, the decision of the Council is rightly taken as virtually the decision of the church.

In so far as ordination is an act performed by the local church with the advice and assistance of other rightly constituted churches, it is justly regarded as giving formal permission to exercise gifts and administer ordinances within the bounds of such churches. Ordination is not, therefore, to be repeated upon the transfer of the minister’s pastoral relation from one church to another. In every case, however, where a minister from a body of Christians not Scripturally constituted assumes the pastoral relation in a rightly organized church, there is peculiar propriety, not only in the examination, by a Council, of his Christian experience, call to the ministry, and views of doctrine, but also in that act of formal recognition and authorization which is called ordination.

The Council should be numerous and impartially constituted. The church calling the Council should be represented in it by a fair number of delegates. Neither the church, nor the Council, should permit a prejudgment of the case by the previous announcement of an ordination service. While the examination of the candidate should be public, all danger that the Council be unduly influenced by pressure from without should be obviated by its conducting its deliberations, and arriving at its decision, in private session. We subjoin the form of a letter missive, calling a Council of ordination; an order of procedure after the Council has assembled; and a programme of exercises for the public service.

LETTER MISSIVE.—The —— church of —— to the —— church of ——: Dear Brethren: By vote of this church, you are requested to send your pastor and two delegates to meet with us in accordance with the following resolutions, passed by us on the —— ——, 19—: Whereas, brother ——, a member of this church, has offered himself to the work of the gospel ministry, and has been chosen by us as our pastor, therefore, Resolved, 1. That such neighboring churches, in fellowship with us, as shall be herein designated, be requested to send their pastor and two delegates each, to meet and counsel with this church, at — o’clock —. M., on ——, 19——, and if, after examination, he be approved, that brother —— be set apart, by vote of the Council, to the gospel ministry, and that a public service be held, expressive of this fact. Resolved, 2. That the Council, if it do so ordain, be requested to appoint two of its number to act with the candidate, in arranging the public services. Resolved, 3. That printed letters of invitation, embodying these resolutions, and signed by the clerk of this church, be sent to the following churches, —— —— —— —— ——, and that these churches be requested to furnish to their delegates an officially signed certificate of their appointment, to be presented at the organization of the Council. Resolved, 4. That Rev. ——, and brethren —— ——, be also invited by the clerk of the church to be present as members of the Council. Resolved, 5. That brethren ——, ——, and ——, be appointed as our delegates, to represent this church in the deliberations of the Council; and that brother —— be requested to present the candidate to the Council, with an expression of the high respect and warm attachment with which we have welcomed him and his labors among us. In behalf of the church, —— ——, Clerk. ——, 19—.

ORDER OF PROCEDURE.—1. Reading, by the clerk of the church, of the letter‐missive, followed by a call, in their order, upon all churches and individuals invited, to present responses and names in writing; each delegate, as he presents his credentials, taking his seat in a portion of the house reserved for the Council. 2. Announcement, by the clerk of the church, that a Council has convened, and call for the nomination of a moderator,—the motion to be put by the clerk,—after which the moderator takes the chair. 3. Organization completed by election of a clerk of the Council, the offering of prayer, and an invitation to visiting brethren to sit with the Council, but not to vote. 4. Reading, on behalf of the church, by its clerk, of the records of the church concerning the call extended to the candidate, and his acceptance, together with documentary evidence of his licensure, of his present church membership, and of his standing in other respects, if coming from another denomination. 5. Vote, by the Council, that the proceedings of the church, and the standing of the candidate, warrant an examination of his claim to ordination. 6. Introduction of the candidate to the Council, by some representative of the church, with an expression of the church’s feeling respecting him and his labors. 7. Vote to hear his Christian experience. Narration on the part of the candidate, followed by questions as to any features of it still needing elucidation. 8. Vote to hear the candidate’s reasons for believing himself called to the ministry. Narration and questions. 9. Vote to hear the candidate’s views of Christian doctrine. Narration and questions. 10. Vote to conclude the public examination, and to withdraw for private session. 11. In private session, after prayer, the Council determines, by three separate votes, in order to secure separate consideration of each question, whether it is satisfied with the candidate’s Christian experience, call to the ministry, and views of Christian doctrine. 12. Vote that the candidate be hereby set apart to the gospel ministry, and that a public service be held, expressive of this fact; that for this purpose, a committee of two be appointed, to act with the candidate, in arranging such service of ordination, and to report before adjournment. 13. Reading of minutes, by clerk of Council, and correction of them, to prepare for presentation at the ordination service, and for preservation in the archives of the church. 14. Vote to give the candidate a certificate of ordination, signed by the moderator and clerk of the Council, and to publish an account of the proceedings in the journals of the denomination. 15. Adjourn to meet at the service of ordination.

PROGRAMME OF PUBLIC SERVICE (two hours in length).—1. Voluntary—five minutes. 2. Anthem—five. 3. Reading minutes of the Council, by the clerk of the Council—ten. 4. Prayer of invocation—five. 5. Reading of Scripture—five. 6. Sermon—twenty‐ five. 7. Prayer of ordination, with laying‐on of hands—fifteen. 8. Hymn—ten. 9. Right hand of fellowship—five. 10. Charge to the candidate—fifteen. 11. Charge to the church—fifteen. 12. Doxology—five. 13. Benediction by the newly ordained pastor.

The tenor of the N. T. would seem to indicate that deacons should be ordained with prayer and the laying‐on of hands, though not by council or public service. Evangelists, missionaries, ministers serving as secretaries of benevolent societies, should also be ordained, since they are organs of the church, set apart for special religious work on behalf of the churches. The same rule applies to those who are set to be teachers of the teachers, the professors of theological seminaries. Philip, baptizing the eunuch, is to be regarded as an organ of the church at Jerusalem. Both home missionaries and foreign missionaries are evangelists; and both, as organs of the home churches to which they belong, are not under obligation to take letters of dismission to the churches they gather. George Adam Smith, in his Life of Henry Drummond, 265, says that Drummond was ordained to his professorship by the laying‐on of the hands of the Presbytery: “The rite is the same in the case whether of a minister or of a professor, for the church of Scotland recognizes no difference between her teachers and her pastors, but lays them under the same vows, and ordains them all as ministers of Christ’s gospel and of his sacraments.”

Rome teaches that ordination is a sacrament, and “once a priest, always a priest,” but only when Rome confers the ordination. It is going a great deal further than Rome to maintain the indelibility of all orders—at least, of all orders conferred by an evangelical church. At Dover in England, a medical gentleman declined to pay his doctor’s bill upon the ground that it was not the custom of his calling to pay one another for their services. It appeared however that he was a retired practitioner, and upon that ground he lost his case. Ordination, like vaccination, may run out. Retirement from the office of public teacher should work a forfeiture of the official character. The authorization granted by the Council was based upon a previous recognition of a divine call. When by reason of permanent withdrawal from the ministry, and devotion to wholly secular pursuits, there remains no longer any divine call to be recognized, all authority and standing as a Christian minister should cease also. We therefore repudiate the doctrine of the “indelibility of sacred orders,” and the corresponding maxim: “Once ordained, always ordained”; although we do not, with the Cambridge Platform, confine the ministerial function to the pastoral relation. That Platform held that “the pastoral relation ceasing, the ministerial function ceases, and the pastor becomes a layman again, to be restored to the ministry only by a second ordination, called installation. This theory of the ministry proved so inadequate, that it was held scarcely more than a single generation. It was rejected by the Congregational churches of England ten years after it was formulated in New England.”

“The National Council of Congregational Churches, in 1880, 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

2. The Mode of Baptism

This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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(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.

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(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.

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(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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 191‐194, claims that in Acts 2:46—“breaking bread at home”—where we have οἶκος, not οἶκία, οἶκος is not a private house, but a “worship‐room,” and that the phrase should be translated “breaking bread from one worship‐room to another,” or “in various worship‐rooms.” This meaning seems very apt in Acts 5:42—“And every day, in the temple and at home [rather, ‘in various worship‐rooms’], they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ”; 8:3—“But Saul laid waste the church, entering into every house [rather, ‘every worship‐room’] and dragging men and women committed them to prison”; Rom. 16:5—“salute the church that is in their house [rather, ‘in their worship‐room’]”; Titus 1:11—“men who overthrow whole houses [rather, ‘whole worship‐rooms’], teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” Per contra, however, see 1 Cor. 11:34—“let him eat at home,” where οἶκος is contrasted with the place of meeting; so also 1 Cor. 14:35 and Acts 20:20, where οἶκος seems to mean a private house.

The celebration of the Lord’s Supper in each family by itself is not recognized in the New Testament. Stanley, in Nineteenth Century, May, 1878, tells us that as infant communion is forbidden in the Western Church, and evening communion is forbidden by the Roman Church, so solitary communion is forbidden by the English Church, and death‐bed communion by the Scottish Church. E. G. Robinson: “No single individual in the New Testament ever celebrates the Lord’s Supper by himself.” Mrs. Browning recognized the essentially social nature of the ordinance, when she said that truth was like the bread at the Sacrament—to be passed on. In this the Supper gives us a type of the proper treatment of all the goods of life, both temporal and spiritual.

Dr. Norman Fox, Christ in the Daily Meal, claims that the Lord’s Supper is no more an exclusively church ordinance than is singing or prayer; that the command to observe it was addressed, not to an organized church, but only to individuals; that every meal in the home was to be a Lord’s Supper, because Christ was remembered in it. But we reply that Paul’s letter with regard to the abuses of the Lord’s Supper was addressed, not to individuals, but to “the church of God which is at Corinth.” (1 Cor. 1:2). Paul reproves the Corinthians because in the Lord’s Supper each ate without thought of others: “What, 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?” (11:22). Each member having appeased his hunger at home, the members of the church “come together to eat” (11:30), as the spiritual body of Christ. All this shows that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper was not an appendage to every ordinary meal.

In Acts 20:7—“upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them”—the natural inference is that the Lord’s Supper was a sacred rite, observed apart from any ordinary meal, and accompanied by religious instruction. Dr. Fox would go back of these later observances to the original command of our Lord. He would eliminate all that we do not find in Mark, the earliest gospel. But this would deprive us of the Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the Prodigal Son, and the discourses of the fourth gospel. McGiffert gives A. D. 52, as the date of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and this ante‐dates Mark’s gospel by at least thirteen years. Paul’s account of the Lord’s Supper at Corinth is therefore an earlier authority than Mark.

(f) The responsibility of seeing that the ordinance is properly administered rests with the church as a body; and the pastor is, in this matter, the proper representative and organ of the church. In cases of extreme exigency, however, as where the church has no pastor and no ordained minister can be secured, it is competent for the church to appoint one from its own number to administer the ordinance.

1 Cor. 11:2, 23—“Now I praise you that ye remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I delivered them to you.... 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.” Here the responsibility of administering the Lord’s Supper is laid upon the body of believers.

(g) The frequency with which the Lord’s Supper is to be administered is not indicated either by the N. T. precept or by uniform N. T. example. We have instances both of its daily and of its weekly observance. With respect to this, as well as with respect to the accessories of the ordinance, the church is to exercise a sound discretion.

Acts 2:46—“And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home [or perhaps, ‘in various worship‐rooms’]”; 20:7—“And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread.” In 1878, thirty‐nine churches of the Establishment in London held daily communion; in two churches it was held twice each day. A few churches of the Baptist faith in England and America celebrate the Lord’s Supper on each Lord’s day. Carlstadt would celebrate the Lord’s Supper only in companies of twelve, and held also that every bishop must marry. Reclining on couches, and meeting in the evening, are not commanded; and both, by their inconvenience, might in modern times counteract the design of the ordinance.

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3. The Symbolism of the Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s Supper sets forth, in general, the death of Christ as the sustaining power of the believer’s life.

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A. Expansion of this statement

(a) It symbolizes the death of Christ for our sins.

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. Mark 14:24—“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many”—the blood upon which the covenant between God and Christ, and so between God and us who are one with Christ, from eternity past was based. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the covenant which ensures our salvation, and of the atonement upon which the covenant was based; cf. Heb. 13:20—“blood of an eternal covenant.”

Alex. McLaren: “The suggestion of a violent death, implied in the doubling of the symbols, by which the body is separated from that of the blood, and still further implied in the breaking of the bread, is made prominent in the words in reference to the cup. It symbolizes the blood of Jesus which is ‘shed.’ That shed blood is covenant blood. By it the New Covenant, of which Jeremiah had prophesied, one article of which was, ‘Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more,’ is sealed and ratified, not for Israel only but for an indefinite ‘many,’ which is really equivalent to all. Could words more plainly declare that Christ’s death was a sacrifice? Can we understand it, according to his own interpretation of it, unless we see in his words here a reference to his previous words (Mat. 20:28) and recognize that in shedding his blood ‘for many,’ he ‘gave his life a ransom for many’? The Lord’s Supper is the standing witness, voiced by Jesus himself, that he regarded his death as the very centre of his work, and that he regarded it not merely as a martyrdom, but as a sacrifice by which he put away sins forever. Those who reject that view of that death are sorely puzzled what to make of the Lord’s Supper.”

(b) It symbolizes our personal appropriation of the benefits of that death.

1 Cor. 11:24—“This is my body, which is for you”; cf. 1 Cor. 5:7—“Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”; or R. V.—“our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ”; here it is evident not only that the showing forth of the Lord’s death is the primary meaning of the ordinance, but that our partaking of the benefits of that death is as clearly taught as the Israelites’ deliverance was symbolized in the paschal supper.

(c) It symbolizes the method of this appropriation, through union with Christ himself.

1 Cor. 10:16—“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of [marg.: ‘participation in’] the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of [marg.: ‘participation in’] the body of Christ?” Here “is it not a participation” = “does it not symbolize the participation?” So Mat. 26:26—“this is my body” = “this symbolizes my body.”

(d) It symbolizes the continuous dependence of the believer for all spiritual life upon the once crucified, now living, Savior, to whom he is thus united.

Cf. John 6:53—“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves”—here is a statement, not with regard to the Lord’s Supper, but with regard to spiritual union with Christ, which the Lord’s Supper only symbolizes; see page 965, (a). Like Baptism, the Lord’s Supper presupposes and implies evangelical faith, especially faith in the Deity of Christ; not that all who partake of it realize its full meaning, but that this participation logically implies the five great truths of Christ’s preëxistence, his supernatural birth, his vicarious atonement, his literal resurrection, and his living presence with his followers. Because Ralph Waldo Emerson perceived that the Lord’s Supper implied Christ’s omnipresence and deity, he would no longer celebrate it, and so broke with his church and with the ministry.

(e) It symbolizes the sanctification of the Christian through a spiritual reproduction in him of the death and resurrection of the Lord.

Rom. 8:10—“And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness”; Phil. 3:10—“that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.” The bread of life nourishes; but it transforms me, not I it.

(f) It symbolizes the consequent union of Christians in Christ, their head.

1 Cor. 10:17—“seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread.” The Roman Catholic says that bread is the unity of many kernels, the wine the unity of many berries, and all are changed into the body of Christ. We can adopt the former part of the statement, without taking the latter. By being united to Christ, we become united to one another; and the Lord’s Supper, as it symbolizes our common partaking of Christ, symbolizes also the consequent oneness of all in whom Christ dwells. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, IX—“As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, and being gathered together became one, so may thy church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.”

(g) It symbolizes the coming joy and perfection of the kingdom of God.

Luke 22:18—“for I say unto you, I shall not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come”; 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”; 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.”

Like Baptism, which points forward to the resurrection, the Lord’s Supper is anticipatory also. It brings before us, not simply death, but life; not simply past sacrifice, but future glory. It points forward to the great festival, “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9). Dorner: “Then Christ will keep the Supper anew with us, and the hours of highest solemnity in this life are but a weak foretaste of the powers of the world to come.” See Madison Avenue Lectures, 176‐216; The Lord’s Supper, a Clerical Symposium, by Pressensé, Luthardt, and English Divines.

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B. Inferences from this statement

(a) The connection between the Lord’s Supper and Baptism consists in this, that they both and equally are symbols of the death of Christ. In Baptism, we show forth the death of Christ as the procuring cause of our new birth into the kingdom of God. In the Lord’s Supper, we show forth the death of Christ as the sustaining power of our spiritual life after it has once begun. In the one, we honor the sanctifying power of the death of Christ, as in the other we honor its regenerating power. Thus both are parts of one whole,—setting before us Christ’s death for men in its two great purposes and results.

If baptism symbolized purification only, there would be no point of connection between the two ordinances. Their common reference to the death of Christ binds the two together.

(b) The Lord’s Supper is to be often repeated,—as symbolizing Christ’s constant nourishment of the soul, whose new birth was signified in Baptism.

Yet too frequent repetition may induce superstitious confidence in the value of communion as a mere outward form.

(c) The Lord’s Supper, like Baptism, is the symbol of a previous state of grace. It has in itself no regenerating and no sanctifying power, but is the symbol by which the relation of the believer to Christ, his sanctifier, is vividly expressed and strongly confirmed.

We derive more help from the Lord’s Supper than from private prayer, simply because it is an external rite, impressing the sense as well as the intellect, celebrated in company with other believers whose faith and devotion help our own, and bringing before us the profoundest truths of Christianity—the death of Christ, and our union with Christ in that death.

(d) The blessing received from participation is therefore dependent upon, and proportioned to, the faith of the communicant.

In observing the Lord’s Supper, we need to discern the body of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:29)—that is, to recognize the spiritual meaning of the ordinance, and the presence of Christ, who through his deputed representatives gives to us the emblems, and who nourishes and quickens our souls as these material things nourish and quicken the body. The faith which thus discerns Christ is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

(e) The Lord’s Supper expresses primarily the fellowship of the believer, not with his brethren, but with Christ, his Lord.

The Lord’s Supper, like Baptism, symbolizes fellowship with the brethren only as consequent upon, and incidental to, fellowship with Christ. Just as we are all baptized “into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13) only by being “baptized into Christ” (Rom. 6:3), so we commune with other believers in the Lord’s Supper, only as we commune with Christ. Christ’s words: “this do in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24), bid us think, not of our brethren, but of the Lord. Baptism is not a test of personal worthiness. Nor is the Lord’s Supper a test of personal worthiness, either our own or that of others. It is not primarily an expression of Christian fellowship. Nowhere in the New Testament is it called a communion of Christians with one another. But it is called a communion of the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16)—or, in other words, a participation in him. Hence there is not a single cup, but many: “divide it among yourselves” (Luke 22:17). Here is warrant for the individual communion‐cup. Most churches use more than one cup: if more than one, why not many?

1 Cor. 11:26—“as often as ye eat ... ye proclaim the Lord’s death”—the Lord’s Supper is a teaching ordinance, and is to be observed, not simply for the good that comes to the communicant and to his brethren, but for the sake of the witness which it gives to the world that the Christ who died for its sins now lives for its salvation. A. H. Ballard, in The Standard, Aug. 18, 1900, on 1 Cor. 11:29—“eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body”—“He who eats and drinks, and does not discern that he is redeemed by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, eats and drinks a double condemnation, because he does not discern the redemption which is symbolized by the things which he eats and drinks. To turn his thought away from that sacrificial body to the company of disciples assembled is a grievous error—the error of all those who exalt the idea of fellowship or communion in the celebration of the ordinance.”

The offence of a Christian brother, therefore, even if committed against myself, should not prevent me from remembering Christ and communing with the Savior. I could not commune at all, if I had to vouch for the Christian character of all who sat with me. This does not excuse the church from effort to purge its membership from unworthy participants; it simply declares that the church’s failure to do this does not absolve any single member of it from his obligation to observe the Lord’s Supper. See Jacob, Eccl. Polity of N. T., 285.

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