UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN

In common with many others, I have abstained from writing anything on the subject of baptism, it being a matter on which all amongst us are not agreed, not that I have any doubt on the matter in my own mind. The subject is left in a sense obscure in Scripture, and we have little to guide us but the practice of the apostles. Paul does not add anything in the matter; he says, Christ sent me not to baptise but to preach glad tidings. The twelve were commissioned to baptise, and Paul took it up for them. I think this is enough to prove that the institution is not connected with the truth of Christ’s body, but the house of God, in other words, with christian fellowship. Baptism appears to me to be an expression of God’s mind as to our position on earth, identified with Christ’s death: and in that way dissociated from Jew and gentile, and introduced into that which is owned of God as the fruit of that death, God’s house. Now this had application to the children as well as the parents, for they are owned of God as under the Lord — are said to be not unclean but holy and are to be suffered to come to Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is of such. If things are as they should be, we bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, rather than think of their being unconverted, and we commonly accord them the warmth and advantage of our fellowship.

^[p. 217] If we do not I think it is only right that we should by baptism formally identify them with Christ’s death, and in our training of them seek to maintain consistency with it. I hope these remarks may help you in the consideration of the subject.