HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS. BY JOSEPH BELCHER, D.D., PASTOR OF THE MOUNT TABOR BAPTIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. As the Baptists claim to have by far the largest number of adherents in the United States, it cannot be unimportant to become acquainted with their PRINCIPLES, HISTORY, and PRESENT STATE. No denomination of Christians has been more constant in its attachment to religious freedom, and conflict for it; none exposed to so hot and incessant persecutions; nor any which has more entirely resembled the ancient Israelites in Egypt, who, the more they were oppressed, the more they grew. The name of BAPTISTS originated not with the parties so called, but with their opponents. Formerly they were called Ana-baptists, or Re-baptizers, which they rejected as involving what they deemed a misrepresentation; because, in their view, none are baptized but the parties mentioned in the scriptural law relating to the subject, and to whom it is administered in the only prescribed mode. As, however, the main differences between the members of this body and their fellow Christians centre in the ordinance of Bap. tism, it may be important briefly to state their views, and the foundations on which they rest. The general PRINCIPLES on which they construct their arguments have been thus stated: 2d. Baptism is a positive institution, and therefore we must have some plain precept, or example, to direct us; both with respect to the persons who are to be baptized, and the manner in which the ordinance must be administered. 3d. If we proceed in this ordinance, or in any other, without authority from Scripture, God will reject our services with, "Who hath required this at your hands?" "In vain do ye worship me; teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." 4th. Baptism is an ordinance peculiar to the Gospel dispensation; and therefore the rule of our duty must be sought in the New Testament, and not in the Old. 5th. The law which enjoins Baptism may be found in Matt. xxviii. 19, 20. It enjoins a duty, durable as the unchanging dispensation to which it belongs to charge the command with obscurity is a daring impeachment of Divine Wisdom and Love-to suppose the Apostles did not understand it is highly absurd; they certainly must understand it right, and their practice must be the best comment upon it. 6th. If by searching sacred history we can learn how the Apostles attended to Baptism, we are bound to follow their example; nor can any circumstances whatever justify us in departing from the Dilaw. 1st. Professors of religion, in general, consider baptism as a duty; and that it ought to be attended to in some way or vine other. In addition to these principles, we may transcribe the following statement from an English writer :— "It is a distinguishing tenet with them, to admit of nothing as an article of faith, or of duty, in the worship of God, which is not sanctioned by apostolic precept, or approved example; and conceiving that the New Testament furnishes neither the one nor the other for administering the ordinance of baptism to infants, or for the substitution of sprinkling and pouring for dipping, they regard these practices in the light of mere human inventions, and disclaim them. "They contend that, since baptism is not a duty of itself, but is made so by the positive institution of Christ, Matt. xxviii. 19, Mark xvi. 15, 16,—and, like all similar duties, has no foundation, with regard to us, but the will of the Institutor,-it can have no other rule; and that, if we depart from his directions, we do not observe his institution, but change it into an institution of our own. For this reason, the Baptists appeal exclusively, on the subject of baptism, to the will of Christ, as made known by express precepts or approved examples in his word." In reference to the mode of baptism, the Baptists maintain that it is dipping, or immersion; that the Greek word used by the inspired writers, of which the words baptize and baptism are an anglicised form, means immersion; and consequently that the command to baptize is a command to immerse, and can be fulfilled in no other way than by immersion. In proof of this they appeal to the use of the term throughout the whole scope of Greek literature, and are sustained by the testimony of almost all who have been celebrated for their knowledge of that tongue. Among the modern Greeks, the term has the same meaning. The Baptists also appeal to the circumstances attending its administration as recorded in the New Testament. They remark that persons were "baptized in Jordan," Matt. iii. 6: Mark i. 9: "in the river Jordan," Mark i. 5; that baptize cannot therefore mean to pour, because to pour applies to the element, not to the persm; and in that case the water would be said to be poured upon the person, not the person poured in or into the water; nor can it mean to sprinkle, for it is evidently needless to place a person in a river to sprinkle a little water upon him, nor is it ever done by those who maintain that sprinkling is baptism. The Baptists also remark that Jesus, after having been baptized, "went up straightway out of the water," Matt. iii. 16; that "both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water;' that the latter was baptized while there, and that they both came 66 up out of the water," Acts viii. 38, 39; circumstances which plainly show that to baptize is to dip under water; they also refer to the expression, "buried with Christ by baptism," as implying that in baptism persons were "buried" in the water; and that when the gift of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Acts i. 5, is called a baptism, and our Lord says, of his last agony, "I have a baptism to be baptized with," Luke xii. 20; there is an evident allusion to the fulness of that gift, and the depth of those sufferings, both of which find an emblem in immersion, but none in the use of a little water, as in pouring or sprinkling. But as it regards the mode of baptism, this body of Christians contend that they are not distinguished from the vast mass of the Christian world. They appeal to the testimonies of eminent divines, not of their own body, and to the practices of the Catholic, the old English Episcopal church, and to the Greek and Armenian churches of the present day. The following may be regarded as a specimen of such predobaptist evidence on the subject: "They (the primitive Christians) led them into the water, and with no other garments but what might serve to cover nature, they at first laid them down in the water as a man might be laid in a grave, and then they said these words, 'I baptize or wash thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' Then they raised them up again, and clean garments were put on them: from whence came the phrases of being baptized into Christ's death; of being buried with him by baptism into death; of our being risen with Christ, and of our putting on the Lord Jesus Christ; of putting off the old man and putting on the new.-Rom. vi. 3-5; Col. ii. 12, iii. 1-10; Rom. xiii. 14."-Bishop Burnet, Ex. xxxix. Art., p. 374. "To baptize signifies to plunge, 66 It would be exceedingly easy to add to these statements multitudes of similar testimonies; such as that of Beza.-"Christ commanded us to be baptized, by which word it is certain, immersion is signified ;"—or, Vitringa." The act of baptizing is the immersion of believers in water; this expresses the force of the word; thus also it was performed by Christ and his apostles ;"—or, Salmasius." Baptism is immersion, and was administered in ancient times according to the force and meaning of the word ;"—or, Archbishop Tillotson." Anciently, those who were baptized were immersed and buried in the water, to represent their death to sin, and then did rise up again out of the water, to signify their entrance upon a new life, and to these customs the apostle alludes, Romans vi. 2-6;❞—or, as is granted by all the world."-Bishop | Philip might take up a little water in hist Bossuet. "The word baptize signifies to hand to pour on the eunuch." "Mary immerse, and the rite of immersion was Welsh, aged eleven days, was baptized, observed by the ancient church; and from according to the first church, and the rule these words it may be inferred, that bap- of the Church of England, by immersion.” tism was administered by plunging the Wesley. Journal of the time he passed whole body under water."-Calvin. Obs. in Georgia. on John iii, 23. "The custom of the ancient churches was not sprinkling, but immersion."-Bishop Taylor. Duct. dubit. B. iii. "The person baptized went down into the water, and was, as it were, buried under it."-Bishop Pearce. Note on 1 Cor. xv. 29. "We grant that baptism, then, (in the primitive times,) was by washing the whole body. Though we have thought it lawful to disuse the manner of dipping, and to use less water, yet we presume not to change the use and signification of it."-Baxter. On Matt. iii. 6. The same writer says, “Therefore, in our baptism, we are dipped under water, as signifying we are dead and buried to sin."-On Rom. vi. 4. It being so expressly declared here (Rom. vi. 4, and Col. ii. 12) that we are buried with Christ in baptism, by being buried under water, and the argument to oblige us to a conformity to his death by dying to sin being taken hence, and this immersion being religiously observed BY ALL CHRISTIANS FOR THIRTEEN CENTURIES, and approved by our church, and the change of it into sprinkling, even without any allowance from the Author of the institution, or any license from any council of the church, being that which the Romanist still urgeth to justify his refusal of the cup to the laity, it were to be wished that this custom might again be of general use."-Whitby. Note on Rom. vi. 4. "In England, of late years, I ever thought the parson baptized his own fingers, rather than the child."-Selden. "It is certain, that in the words of Rom. vi. 3, 4, there is an allusion to the manner of baptism, which was by immersion."-Whitefield. Eighteen sermons. "Buried with him in baptism.' It seems the part of candor to confess that here is an allusion to the manner of baptizing by immersion, as most usual in those early times."—Doddridge. The same excellent writer, noticing the case of Philip and the eunuch, says, "It would be very unnatural to suppose, that they went down into the water, merely that Dr. Campbell.-"The word baptize, both in sacred writers and classical, signifies to dip, to plunge, to immerse." But perhaps nothing of this kind of testimony can exceed that of the very eminent DR. WALL, on whom the University of Oxford conferred the degree of D. D. for his "HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM ;" he thus writes: "This (immersion) is so plain and clear, by an infinite number of passages, that as one cannot but pity the weak endeavors of such Predobaptists as would maintain the negative of it, so also we ought to disown, and show a dislike of the profane scoffs which some people give to the English Baptists merely for their use of dipping. ""Tis one thing to maintain that that circumstance is not absolutely necessary to the essence of baptism; and another to go about to represent it as ridiculous and foolish, or as shameful and indecent, when it was, in all probability, the way by which our blessed Saviour, and for certain was the most usual and ordinary way by which |