The Subjects of Baptism

Beloved brother -,
I have not been able since my last letter to continue the examination of your translations with the care required to do it properly, but I have only put it off just for the present. I was obliged to answer an attack directed against the views of the brethren in a pamphlet printed at Geneva, and to occupy myself with other writing, which was pressing and had accumulated because of the local work and the general work for this country....
As to the Baptist sect, I see, beloved brother, that God has guided you in your views and actions. This question has caused agitation (by means of someone who has labored at it) in a department in France where the work of brethren has been blessed. But by being firm, and leaving to every one full liberty of conscience, it has passed away, and God has granted full peace to the brethren, and the storm has passed by without doing harm. I do not wonder at people being in doubt in the state of confusion in which the church is, so that I have no difficulty in respecting the consciences of brethren who believe that they ought to be baptized. If their conscience tells them that they have not been baptized, they do well to get baptized, if they do it peaceably. I say peaceably, because it is no longer the confession of Christianity, but an act which seeks to repair a fault of negligence. But if one makes it a sect, it is a very great evil: baptism becomes the center of union instead of Christ.
Baptism in order to receive the Holy Ghost is a miserable falsehood, for they receive Him no more than others do, but, on the contrary, are deceived by the enemy. I have seen this in South Germany and England and elsewhere. It is nothing but a miserable fallacy; facts are there to prove it. If people say they have received Him by this means the proofs are there to show what it is worth. Now the Holy Spirit has never been received by the baptism of water. Samaria and Cornelius prove this. Finally the 120 had received Him without having been baptized. I do not deny that in general people were baptized before receiving Him, and that this was the rule because baptism was the public confession of Christianity. I am perfectly certain that the reasonings of the Baptists are false in principle and denaturalize Christianity. But if a brother felt [thus] in his conscience, I would leave him the most perfect liberty in this respect. Let him be fully persuaded in his heart. By so acting, avoiding a sectarian spirit, leaving the conscience entirely free, and seeking unity in Christ, and asking of God the peace whereto we are called, you will be kept, I hope, and will get without loss over a trying moment. I will write to you more at length, beloved brother, what I think on the baptism of infants, but I care much more for the peace of the church than for any opinion about that. I have never tried to persuade anybody. I believe that everyone must act according to his own conscience.
I believe that the children of believers are relatively holy, and that this passage (1 Cor. 7:14) has precisely that bearing, but I respect the ordinance, and those who think they have not been partakers of it do well to be baptized. I deny entirely that this is a matter of obedience, and those who treat it so, upset, without being aware of it, Christianity in its very first principles.
God be with you, dear brother, and with all our beloved brethren, and help you to get over this, to you, trying moment, and keep you from a bad sectarian spirit and from false and proud pretensions, which I consider to be something very different from respect for scruples of conscience. The doctrine of the remission of sins and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by baptism comes, I doubt not, from the enemy.
As to the conscience, I would leave it perfectly free on that point.
When they say that one cannot preach the gospel, that is nothing but nonsense, because God has blessed the gospel preached by all kinds of persons who hold the foundations of Christ without troubling themselves about the pretensions of, and others of the same kind.
I write in haste.
Your most affectionate brother.
London, April 28th, 1852.
The Subjects of Baptism
I have no doubt at all, that a person, who never has been baptized, ought to be, before they break bread. If a person be inside without one's being aware of it, or even were dying, or only waiting the possibility of doing it, one might bear and wait, but it is clear that in scripture they came in externally by baptism. I have baptized a great many Quakers' and Baptists' children who never had been, and when I found un-baptized persons breaking bread, spoken with them, though then waiting till they saw clear. But it is not order. I look at it as the orderly entrance among Christians -the company God has upon earth. I think from scripture the children of those within have the privilege to be brought in; "Of such is the kingdom of heaven:" and they are holy, not unclean as the children of a Jew who married a Gentile. The being a member of the body is through the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But precepts are given to children, and they are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Having been once thus admitted, they cannot be admitted over again. But I never seek to persuade any one of children's baptism. The only commission to baptize was to the twelve to baptize Gentiles (not Jews), and it went from resurrection not ascension; they were (to) disciple nations and baptize them. This they afterward left to Paul, who tells us he was not sent to baptize; though clearly it was not abrogated.
I do not add any argument against baptist views. Its being obedience is given up by all who have really looked into scripture. The Lord's supper is the sign of the unity of the body, and that is the bond we own; but it is quite clear from scripture, that when people become Christians they were admitted by baptism amongst the rest: but it has nothing to do with the unity of the body, but admission by a form which expresses Christ's death as their way in. When thus admitted, they are in once for all, and cannot be admitted again. Hence, even Baptists, if they found a person, baptized by them, unconverted, who afterward believed, they would not baptize them again; and they are right in my judgment. If a person breaking bread was found never to have been baptized at all, I should merely rectify, an irregularity as quietly as possible. It is as men speak, the cart before the horse. We have a case here of a young person just brought to the Lord, and it is quite understood she was to be baptized first.
April, 1871.
The Subjects of Baptism
I am somewhat surprised that - should be so far back on these subjects. But I can only touch on what is important in it. Thank God it has never injured fellowship amongst us a moment. Those of baptist views were-a few of them, really only one I think-excited for a moment, not (as thinks) by some retaining tradition, but by a very great many who had had baptist views giving them up, and when there were families, having their children baptized. I had last week two letters from such to get their children baptized. This those seeing otherwise, cannot understand. The great and mischievous mistake which baptists make is not seeing that there is a place of blessing set up by God, besides the fact of individual conversion. "What advantage then hath the Jew?... much every way: chiefly that unto them were committed the oracles of God." They were not converted, the apostle is proving them all under sin, and as to the Jews just by reason of this. Then they say that was of Jews. No doubt: but thi,i the apostle transfers to the christian body. The Israelites he says, warning Christians (1 Cor. 10), "were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink, but with many of them God was not well pleased."... That is, there is a sacramental introduction into the place of blessing which does not secure a person. The apostle goes on to warn them of the like thing happening to them. I am not using this to prove that infants are to be baptized, but that there is (the ignorance of which is the spring of all baptists' thoughts, namely) something set up by God on earth where He has set His promises, His blessings - now His Spirit. "Ye are God's building," says he. But if a man build in wood, hay, stubble, his work will be burned: that is, what was set up according to God on earth may be spoiled when entrusted to the responsibility of man, but it did not cease to be God's building. Again, Rom. 11 is the direct assertion that the Gentiles were graft into the tree of promise, where the root and fatness of the olive tree were, and were to take heed lest they also should be cut off, if they did not continue in God's goodness. That could not be if it were real conversion; here they are brought in where the blessing was, and yet are cut off for unfaithfulness. Judgment begins at the house of God.
The tares are the devil's sowing by false doctrines: that does not apply to a child. The Lord received children entirely differently; "of such is the kingdom of heaven," "their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Again - calls them heathen, the word of God calls the children of a christian parent holy; that is the opposite to heathen. If a Jew married a heathen the Jew who was holy profaned himself, and the children had no title to be received as holy. Grace reigns now, and if one party be converted this one sanctifies the unbeliever, and the children are holy, and have a right to the privileges of the place of God set up in blessing, as in the Jewish case he had not. The child is not sanctified, but holy in contrast with unclean; that is, in scriptural phraseology, has right to come in.
God does not recognize individuals unconverted as such, save as to responsibility and judgment, as to which He does fully recognize them. But is quite wrong when she says that God recognizes no third class. He does recognize as the church (Christ does) what He spues out of His mouth in judgment. He does recognize as His servant him whom He cuts asunder and appoints a portion with the unbelievers. "Blessed is that servant... But and if that servant say in his heart,.. " and he is judged as such, and by much more terrible judgment because he has been in that place. All this I refer to, to show that a state of things, and a relationship with God, is positively contemplated and taught in scripture, and on which judgment depends, which is not founded on personal conversion: not merely responsibility because of what they knew, but which is called church but spued out of Christ's mouth, or servant yet has a portion with hypocrites and unbelievers, yet the Lord is "the Lord of that servant." We get plain directions in 2 Timothy what to do in this case: turn away, purge ourselves, etc., when the corruption and evil have taken the term there designated. But it does not cease to be God's building because wood, hay, and stubble are built in; the Holy Ghost is there which makes it God's building. Scripture, therefore, does speak of a third class; that is, of persons in relationship with God and responsible according to that relationship and cut off, rejected, judged, but whom the Lord judges as "Lord of that servant," and individually even cut off from the olive tree into which it had been grafted.
Besides, children of God and children of the devil are not called so till manifested. Take a person unconverted, afterward brought to the Lord: I do not call him chaff, he is not burned with unquenchable fire; dead and lost he is, but not chaff: that is manifested in judgment, may be before. This seems to me precipitate. Further - would have them presented to God and sanctified, that is flesh (chaff) presented to God and sanctified. Nothing can be more totally unscriptural. When a parent comes to me, to the church or assembly in principle, to do this, as they naturally would as - feels; I say I cannot receive what is born of the flesh but by death, the death of Christ, and I baptize them to His death: - presents them, sanctifies them without it. As to putting on Christ, - does not believe what she says. Does she mean that a believer when baptized really and actually puts on Christ, as to life and being in Him? In contrast with becoming or being a Jew or Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond, free, he puts on none of these things. A circumcised Gentile puts on Judaism in his profession and place, a baptized person puts on Christ. If not, every baptized person would be saved, and those not would be lost. But - does not believe that by baptism they put on Christ thus. It applies professedly and explicitly to every baptized person absolutely, without any condition or limitation, and so I take it.
These views then to me are in every respect unscriptural, nor did I ever find a Baptist who could stand on scripture. They are conscientious, and if they think they are not baptized at all, of course they ought to be so; I have no quarrel with them. Paul was not sent to baptize - the Twelve were to baptize the Gentiles - but baptism was accepted by Paul as already instituted. But he had no mission for it; whereas a special revelation was given to him of the Lord's supper, though both were alike instituted by the Lord. The commission of the Twelve was never that we know fulfilled.. It was to disciple the nations and baptize them. The commission was on and from earth, not from heaven. Luke's was from heaven, beginning with Jerusalem. Mark makes it necessary to salvation, because it was professedly becoming a Christian; and I have so used it with a Jew who said he believed but would not be baptized, it would kill his mother. I cite it to show the force of the passage. The cases of Philip and Cornelius prove conclusively that it was not obedience, but admission into christian privileges and position. I am now in the midst of a great baptized profession in which 2 Timothy tell me how to act. I may add, it is not a testimony to privileges already conferred, but the act of admission to them. I am baptized to His death, not because I have died. I wash away my sins, not because my sins are washed away. I put on Christ, and am not baptized because I have put Him on. That is, it is the formal entrance into the privileges, not a witness that I have received them. I see no trace in scripture of its being a testimony to others, though every faithful confession of Christ turns to a testimony. Most of the ground - takes is given up by those who maintain baptist views among brethren as untenable before scripture. I have never sought to convince or influence any one, and have no intention to do so. If they are content to follow their conscience I have nothing to say. But I am sure if scripture be right their views are wrong. If there be any light which I have not got which would lead me to it, that is another thing; but I am sure they have false views of the whole matter according to scripture. The root I conceive to be, making it all individual and obedience (which is absurd, for a man cannot baptize himself), and not seeing that there is a place of blessing, and ground established by God on earth, which is not individual conversion, but is responsibility - branches grafted in but broken off.
Yours very truly.