Proposition 12

But even the reformed creeds—Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist—substantially affirm the same views of immersion, though apparently hesitant to carry them out in faith and practice.

This proposition will be supported by an excerpt from the creed of each of these denominations.

Episcopalian

The clergy are instructed, before proceeding to baptize, to say the following prayer.56

"Almighty and everlasting God, who by your great mercy saved Noah and his family in the Ark from perishing by water; and also safely led the children of Israel, your people, through the Red Sea; symbolizing thereby the holy baptism; and by the baptism of your well-beloved Son Jesus Christ in the river Jordan, sanctified the element of water, in the mystical washing away of sin; we beseech you, for your infinite mercies, to mercifully look upon these your servants; wash them and sanctify them with the Holy Spirit; so that they, being delivered from your wrath, may be received into the Ark of Christ's Church; and being steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in love, may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally they may come to the land of everlasting life; there to reign with you, world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

After reading a part of the discourse with Nicodemus, they are instructed to make the following exhortation.57

"Beloved, you hear in this gospel the explicit words of our Savior Christ, that unless a person is born of water and the Spirit, they cannot enter the Kingdom of God. From this you may perceive the great necessity of this sacrament, where it may be had. Likewise, immediately before his ascension into heaven (as we read in the last chapter of St. Mark's Gospel), he gave command to his disciples, saying, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned. This also shows us the great benefit we receive from it. For this reason, St. Peter the Apostle, when upon his first preaching of the gospel many were deeply moved and said to him and the other Apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?' replied and said to them, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and your children, and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.' And with many other words he urged them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.' For, as the same Apostle testifies elsewhere, baptism now saves us—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Do not doubt, therefore, but earnestly believe, that he will favorably receive these present persons, truly repenting and coming to him by faith; that he will grant them forgiveness of their sins, and bestow upon them the Holy Spirit; then he will give them the blessings of eternal life, and make them partakers of his everlasting kingdom."

This, I need not add, is in accordance with the views expressed in this essay. What a pity that the Episcopal Church does not believe and practice her own creed!

Presbyterian

The Presbyterian Confession, on Baptism, chap. 28: sec. 1, declares that —

"Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the person baptized into the visible church; but also to be to them a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of their being grafted into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of their dedication to God, through Jesus Christ, to live in newness of life: which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world."

"A sign and seal of remission of sins!!" This is much closer to the truth than this church seems to realize. However, she cannot believe her own creed; for she does not believe that baptism is a sign and seal of remission of sins, nor of regeneration in her own understanding of it, to her baptized or sprinkled infants, but if she paid any regard to the Scriptures, she could not say less than she has said. It is no wonder that many sectarians cannot be persuaded to think that the Scriptures mean what they say: for they are so accustomed to saying what they do not mean, that they cannot believe God means what he says.

Methodist

The Methodist Creed says —

"Dearly beloved, since all people are conceived and born in sin (and that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God but live in sin, committing many actual transgressions), and our Savior Christ says, 'No one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born again of water and the Holy Spirit,' I urge you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that by his generous goodness he will grant to these persons what by nature they cannot have; that they may be baptized with water and the Holy Spirit, and received into Christ's holy church, and made living members of the same."

Then it is ordained that the minister say or repeat the following prayer: —

"Almighty and immortal God, the help of all who need, the helper of all who flee to you for aid, the life of those who believe, and the resurrection of the dead: We call upon you for these persons; that they, coming to your holy baptism, may receive forgiveness of their sins, by spiritual regeneration. Receive them, O Lord, as you have promised by your well-beloved Son, saying, 'Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.' So give to us who ask; let us who seek find; open the gate to us who knock; that these persons may enjoy the everlasting blessing of the heavenly washing, and may come to the eternal kingdom which you have promised by Christ our Lord. Amen." — Dis. p. 105.

Thus the Methodist Creed and Church are nearly as scriptural as the church from which they originated. She prays for those to be baptized, that in baptism they may receive the remission of sins! Does she believe what she says?

Baptist

Chapter XXX. Section 1.—

"Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, to be to the person baptized a sign of their fellowship with him in his death and resurrection; of their being grafted into him; of remission of sins, and of their dedication to God, through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life."

The Baptist follows the Presbyterian church as slavishly as the Methodist church follows the English hierarchy. But she affirms her faith that immersion is a sign of remission. A sign of the past, the present, or the future! A sign accompanying!

The Confession of Bohemia.

"We believe that whatever is signified and witnessed outwardly by baptism, all that the Lord God performs inwardly. That is, he washes away sin, regenerates a person, and bestows salvation upon them; for the bestowing of these excellent gifts was holy baptism given and granted to the church."

The Confession of Augsburg.

"Concerning baptism, they teach that it is necessary for salvation, as a ceremony ordained by Christ; also, by baptism the grace of God is offered."

The Confession of Saxony.

"I baptize you — that is, I testify that by this dipping your sins are washed away, and that you are now received by the true God."

The Confession of Wittenberg.

"We believe and confess that baptism is that sea, into the depths of which, as the Prophet says, God casts all our sins."

The Confession of Helvetia.

"To be baptized in the name of Christ is to be enrolled, entered, and received into the covenant and family, and so into the inheritance of the sons of God; that is to say, to be called the sons of God, to be cleansed from the filthiness of sins, and to be endowed with the manifold grace of God, to lead a new and innocent life."

The Confession of Svealand.

"As for baptism, we confess that it is the font of regeneration, washes away sins, and saves us. But all these things we understand as St. Peter interprets them. 1 Peter 3:21."

Westminster Assembly.

"Before baptism the minister is to use some words of instruction — showing that it is instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ; that it is a seal of the covenant of grace, of our grafting into Christ, and of our union with him, of remission of sins, regeneration, and eternal life."

The Roman Catholic and the Greek churches say, "We believe in one baptism for the remission of sins."

Calvin makes remission the principal thing in baptism.58

"Baptism," he says, "resembles a legal document properly attested, by which he assures us that all our sins are canceled, erased, and obliterated, so that they will never appear in his sight, or come into his remembrance, or be imputed to us. For he commands all who believe to be baptized for the remission of their sins. Therefore, those who have imagined that baptism is nothing more than a mark or sign by which we profess our religion before men, as soldiers wear the insignia of their sovereign as a mark of their profession, have not considered what the principal thing in baptism is; which is that we ought to receive it with this promise — 'He who believes and is baptized will be saved.'"

"The ancient Christian church, from the earliest times after the apostolic age, generally seemed to believe that baptism is absolutely necessary for all who would be saved by the grace of Jesus Christ."59

"Most of the early Christians concluded that baptism was no less necessary for salvation than faith or repentance itself."60

John Wesley, in his commentary on the New Testament (p. 350), speaks more plainly than earlier the Methodist Discipline or the Regular Baptist Confession. His words are: — "Baptism, administered to genuine penitents, is both a means and a seal of pardon. Nor did God ordinarily in the early church grant this (pardon) to anyone except through this means."

This is almost, if not entirely, as much as we have said about the forgiveness of sins through immersion.

May we not say that we have fully supported this last proposition to the fullest extent of its terms?

With the testimony of John Wesley, the last of the reformers, I close my list of human witnesses for the meaning of Christian immersion. This list could be greatly expanded; for, indeed, I have been quite disappointed looking back into creeds, councils, commentators, and reformers, both ancient and modern. I begin to fear that I will be suspected of coming to the conclusions I have presented by relying on human writings, creeds, and reformers. My fears are not that we, who advocate for reformation, may appear to have nothing original to offer in this reformation; that we are merely gleaners in fields cultivated by other minds. It is not for this reason that our fears are stirred, because the reformation we advocate is not characterized by new and original ideas or human inventions, but by a return to the original ideas and institutions established in the New Institution. But we fear that some might suspect the views offered to be human inventions or traditions because we have found so much support for them in the works of the most ancient and renowned Christian writers, and the creeds of ancient and modern reformers. We can assure our readers, however, that we have been led to these conclusions from the simple reading, the unbiased and impartial examination, of the New Testament alone. And, we may add, that we are as astonished as any reader of this essay can be to find such a cloud of witnesses to the truth and importance of the views presented.

The propositions now proven and illustrated must convince all that there is some connection between immersion and the forgiveness of sins. What the connection is may be disputed by some; but that such a connection exists, none can dispute who acknowledge the New Testament as a divine communication to humanity. With John Wesley, we say it is "to the believing the means and seal of pardon for all previous offenses;" and we not only say we think so, but we preach it as such and practice it as such. Those who think of any other connection would do well to try to form clear ideas of what they mean, for we are certain there is no meaning in any other connection. To make it a commemorative sign of past remission is an outrage against all rules of interpretation and a complete anomaly in all of God's revelation. To make it, prospectively, the sign of a future remission is subject to the same objections. Nothing remains but to consider it for what it truly is — the accompanying sign of an accompanying remission; the sign and the seal, or the means and the seal, of remission then granted through the water, connected with the blood of Jesus, by divine appointment, and through our faith in it.

We have heard some objections, and we can imagine others that may be raised against immersion for the remission of sins. Objections can be made to any person, doctrine, belief, or practice, natural, moral, political, or religious, that has ever existed. But despite all the objections made to everything, there are thousands of matters and things we hold to be facts and truths beyond doubt. Among these certain and sure things, not to be shaken, is the Christian institution.