CI Bk. 
 
 THE ETHEL CARR PEACOCK 
 MEMORIAL COLLECTION 
 
 Matris amori monumentum 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 DURHAM, N. C. 
 1903 
 
 Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Dred Peacock 
 
 \ 
 
A S E K M O N : 
 
 SHOWING THAT 
 
 IN THE UNITY OF FAITH IS THE UNITY OF 
 THE CHURCH; 
 
 AND THAT 
 
 BAPTISM IS NOT AN ORDINANCE, BUT A RITE; 
 
 NO ONE MODE OF BAPTISM CAN PROPERLY BE MADE A TERM 
 EITHER OF CHURCH -MEMBERSHIP OR OF 
 CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 8/ 
 
 BY THE REV. LOVICK PIERCE, D.D., 
 
 OF THE SOUTH GEORGIA CONFERENCE. 
 
 Nasrfjbtlle, Cemt.: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY A. H. BEDFORD, AGENT, FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 1869. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following discourse was first delivered before th e 
 Kentucky Annual Conference of the M. E. Church, South, in 
 Frankfort, in September, 1868 ; afterward in Broadway 
 Methodist Church, in Louisville, Ky., at the request of Dr. 
 Liun, the pastor. Its publication being earnestly asked for, 
 both by the Conference and the congregation, I could not 
 well refuse. I had neither notes nor manuscript of it at that 
 time, but judging that it was my general view and course of 
 argument that was sought after, I have reproduced them in a 
 somewhat enlarged form. The argument will be found in 
 accord with the objects set forth in my general title. I have 
 used the words, "Justified by faith alone," exegetically, not 
 literally. I have sought to give no offense ; and although I 
 combat with opinions and cherished usage in a sister Church, 
 I am in Christian unity with that Church in my heart. 
 
 My object is to show that no religious value can be put into 
 any service on account of mere mode or manner, and that, 
 consequently, immersion can be of no more religious value 
 than sprinkling or pouring. If, therefore, any one reviews 
 this discourse, taking exceptions, his exceptions must be to 
 the soundness of its theology, or of its philosophy, or else 
 his exceptions will be regarded as hypercritical by 
 
 THE AUTHOK. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sermonshowingtha610pier 
 
SERMON 
 
 " For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many 
 of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither 
 Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; 
 for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abra- 
 ham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. iii. 26-29. 
 
 An analysis of this text, such as it seems both to invite and 
 to demand, I purposely avoid, because it would break into my 
 conception of a fair exegesis. 
 
 My first postulate is, that the unity of the faith implies and 
 teaches the unity of the Church. 
 
 The term Church must be disabused of its popular idea, in 
 order to a just conception of its unity. There are sects which 
 believe absolutely that they are the Church as far as divine 
 legitimacy goes — the "elect lady" Church. These all look 
 to the absorption of all other Christian communities into their 
 organization, because theirs is the Church This is their idea 
 of unity ; but in the text, the real idea of it is found in the 
 actual relations of the membership to God. They are the 
 children of God, not through denominational alliance, but 
 by faith in Christ Jesus ; and the true Church — the body of 
 Christ — is made up of God's real children. Christ is the 
 Head ; all true believers constitute his spiritual household — 
 his body. Hence the sin of schism. All usages, therefore, 
 which divide true believers into legitimate and illegitimate 
 members of Christ's body on account of outward forms, so as 
 to admit to, or exclude from, the communion of saints in the 
 Lord's-supper, entail the guilt of schism upon those who adopt 
 and defend them. 
 
 The Church of Christ has, with great fitness, been called 
 "the Catholic" — that is, the universal Church. The General 
 
6 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 Epistles of the New Testament were written upon this prin- 
 ciple, and belonged equally to every Church — everywhere. 
 Moreover, the Church of Christ is fc> be considered the gene- 
 ral Church, because, while some claim to be of Israel who are 
 not of Israel, yet some true believers are to be found in all the 
 evangelical organizations of the world, and the true bond of kin- 
 dred affiliation is justification by faith alone. None who enter 
 into the visible Church with a faith that merely recognizes 
 Christ as chiefest among the saving agencies of the soul, while 
 they willfully supplement his merit by exalting some ideal of 
 their own into a ground of Church-fellowship and sacramental 
 communion, can, or do, belong to the body of true' believers. 
 The work of the whole corps of ministerial and official build- 
 ers, provided by divine appointment for the benefit of the 
 Church, as detailed in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, was to 
 find its complement in bringing the saints "in the unity of 
 the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to the measure 
 of the stature of the fullness of Christ." The real oneness of 
 faith was a prominent conception of St. Paul's. One Lord, 
 one faith, one baptism, were utterances settling at once the 
 chief questions likely to disturb the peace of the infant Church. 
 This the apostle did by asserting these three central ideas, or 
 facts. For one Lord there could be but one faith, and for one 
 Lord with one faith there could be but one baptism. This, of 
 course, was the Christian baptism, whatever we may hereafter 
 determine that to be, only adding now, that one baptism does 
 not mean one mode of baptism. Eor the present, I confine 
 myself to the individuality and specialty of faith. 
 
 St. Paul was set by divine commission for the defense of 
 the gospel. The points which he did mainly defend are wor- 
 thy to be noted, for these constitute the sum of the gospel. 
 These points were, first, that the Christ he preached, was the 
 Christ promised and prophesied of in the Scriptures of the 
 Old Testament. Paul did not preach Christ as a bold dog- 
 matist, but as an expounder of prophecy. Thus at Thessa- 
 lonica he reasoned out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging 
 that it was foretold that Christ should suffer and die, just as 
 the Christ he preached had done. In his Epistle to the 
 
Sermon on Gal. iii. 26-29. 
 
 7 
 
 Hebrews, lie draws out of Jewish types and symbols the gos- 
 pel which they only veiled, so as to show that they were 
 shadows of things to come, and of which Christ was the body. 
 He therefore declares that in Christ dwelt the fullness of 
 the Godhead bodily — that is, really, and not as the symbolic 
 images of the tabernacle and the temple had shadowed them 
 forth, and that he was the brightness of the Father's glory, and 
 the express image of his person. Paul knew no gospel but 
 that in which Christ was the substance and the sum. 
 
 His second point in the defense of the gospel consisted in 
 the explanation of the Abrahamic covenant as of perpetual 
 force in its original gospel disclosure of the imputation of 
 faith for righteousness. On this foundation he argued, that 
 as a confirmed covenant could not be altered so as afterward 
 to have more or less in it, and that the Abrahamic covenant 
 was confirmed of God in Christ four hundred and thirty 
 years before there was any ceremonial worship established, 
 and that it never was a ceremonial service, but remains over, 
 with all of its evangelical principles, promises, and blessings, 
 to the Church so long as the Church keeps covenant with God 
 through Christ. It was upon the promises made to Abraham 
 and his seed — which seed was Christ — that Paul was sent as a 
 special apostle unto the Gentiles; and his being set for the 
 defense of the gospel, refers chiefly to the fact that his mission, 
 both to Jews and to Gentiles, was to unfold the Abrahamic 
 covenant in its doctrines and promises, and especially the cul- 
 mination of it in the calling of the Gentiles through him. 
 Hence the terms of the covenant and the doctrine of justifi- 
 cation by faith are declared to be the preaching of the gospel 
 to Abraham by the Lord himself. (See Gal. iii. 8.) 
 
 St Paul's third point in his defense of the gospel is clearly 
 set forth in Eom. iii. 27, 28, where he teaches, that as justifi- 
 cation is by the law of faith, and not by the law of works, 
 therefore it is without the deeds of the law — that is, independ- 
 ent of any thing deriving its religious value from its legal 
 exactness. Here let all immersionists pause and ponder Paul's 
 special emphatic assertion of this fact : the independence of 
 faith upon all works of religious merit. In this light, the 
 
8 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 silly conception of God's taking any more pleasure in baptism 
 by immersion than in baptism by affusion, if the motives of 
 the different subjects were equally pure, is supremely absurd. 
 The same rebuke may be administered to all High-church 
 notions — the efficacy of sacraments after priestly consecration 
 — the imposition of episcopal hands in an official line, on the 
 assumption of a succession from the apostles, conveying grace, 
 and giving validity to ministerial acts, irrespective of the inner 
 life and character of the persons ordained — regeneration by 
 baptism, because it is canonically administered — and all the 
 sequences of their pretentious theory ought to stand abashed 
 and dumb before the apostle's grand doctrine of justification 
 by faith alone, without aid from any outward forms or legal 
 issues. The glory of Christianity was to be recognized by 
 the breaking down of the middle walls of partition between 
 the members of Christ's mystical body, and all were to have 
 access through Christ by one Spirit unto the Father. If, how- 
 ever, the high selfish dogmas of either of these Churches are 
 true, we are just as much under legal necessities now, in order 
 to Church-unity and fellowship, as if some of the old ecclesias- 
 tical Jewish laws had been incorporated by divine proclama- 
 tion into the Christian economy. But the doctrine of salva- 
 tion by grace through faith proceeds upon the ground that 
 grace cannot save us only through faith, and thus disposes 
 for ever of the boastful conceits of Antinomian minds about 
 sovereign grace. There is no sovereign grace only in reference 
 to those whose salvation is of sovereign mercy, as in the case 
 of infants. But where obedience is a debt, salvation must be 
 obtained through faith working by love. In Kom. xi. 5, 6, we 
 have this special definition of this great matter. Paul, show- 
 ing that in the darkest days the Church had ever seen, God 
 had still a remnant of believers left according to the election 
 of grace, thus illustrates it: "And if by grace, then is it no 
 more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it 
 be by works, then it is no more of grace, otherwise work is 
 no more work." Herein the apostle declares that, in human 
 salvation, the ground of it must either be in the merit of 
 works, which would render grace useless, or else of grace, 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 9 
 
 which renders the merit of works a hopeless reliance. The 
 combination of the two in the salvation of a fallen sinner, is 
 an absurd conception. Nor does any thing we are commanded 
 to do change the ground of our salvation in the least, for we 
 are not now commanded to do any thing on the basis of law, 
 but all we do is to be the obedience of faith — faith working 
 by love, and without which we cannot please God. But the 
 obligation to do a thing in the obedience of faith, cuts us off 
 from doing any thing acceptably as a legal formality. Hence 
 the blight and bane of every species of ritualism which 
 teaches that the acceptableness of any service depends upon a 
 mode prescribed by a divine law. Now, no religious duty can 
 be safely performed under looseness of faith at this point. 
 For example, take a full believer in immersion as a divine 
 ordinance. He cannot receive immersion as the obedience of 
 faith, because he embraces it in its mode as a legal require- 
 ment, and cannot escape from the baneful evil of trusting in 
 his legal ordinance instead of the obedience of faith. ]STow, 
 the obedience of faith has no attachment to the legal observ- 
 ance of any thing ; and if the mode of baptism is a legal 
 requirement, it is not of faith by which the just shall 
 live, because the law is not of faith, but goes upon the 
 basis of legal compensation. I fearlessly assert that no 
 man can be immersed, receiving baptism by immersion as 
 an ordained mode, without resting his faith in a danger- 
 ous degree upon the merit of modal baptism ; for unless 
 its divine value is in its modal, which is its legal, merit, then 
 every considerate immersionist must confess that immersion 
 is of no more religious value than pouring. I repeat, that St. 
 Paul's particularity on this point, is proof enough that he 
 could not allow of any thing as of sufficient importance to be 
 incorporated with faith. The simplicity of faith was its essen- 
 tial quality. This he farther illustrates by his repeated nega- 
 tions, saying, " Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision 
 is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments" — by 
 which he doubtless means, that the keeping of the command- 
 ments is something. John says, "This is the love of God, 
 that we keep his commandments." The keeping of the com- 
 
10 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 mandments, therefore, is of the same importance that the 
 love of God is, because they are only evangelically kept when 
 the love of God is the sole motive. Again, "For in Christ 
 Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircum- 
 cision, but faith that worketh by love." It is in Christ Jesus 
 that neither of the before-mentioned states is of any avail, 
 really conveying the idea, that unless Christ could furnish the 
 means of salvation without these outward auxiliaries, he could 
 not, as a 'divine Saviour, with them, because he must either 
 save by his own merit and power, or else conjointly, by an 
 efficacy which he had put in them by an ordinance of legal 
 life, and thus make himself dependent on outside formalities. 
 But the very moment you admit that Christ can, out of his 
 own fullness, make his children meet for the kingdom of 
 heaven, you negative all religious value in every religious act, 
 so far as relates to its letter. In this case, as in the other, it 
 is admitted that faith working by love is something, yet noth- 
 ing of intrinsic value so as to constitute a consideration for 
 pardon, but of conditional value, because it is only by faith 
 that the ungodly can be justified, and that faith must be 
 abstracted from all grounds of approval but Christ crucified ; 
 and we must subtract from it with great exactness every idea 
 of God's complacency toward us on account of any outward 
 form. 
 
 Paul continues his negative and affirmative propositions still 
 farther, adding yet another phrase of the real in his affirma- 
 tive : " For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any 
 thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature " — that is, really 
 a new creation ; a change in regard to which, even circum- 
 cision, venerable though it was, could contribute nothing, nor 
 the want of it in any way hinder its accomplishment. All 
 this, because the bestowment of every heavenly grace is shut 
 up to faith alone. When faith came, meaning the object of 
 faith — Christ himself, and the dispensation of faith as of old 
 ordained — then hoary-headed types and shadows fled away, 
 and the grand secret of the atonement — that believers were 
 complete in Christ — became the theme of inspired apostles. 
 If Christ had not been the complement of the Father's eternal 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 counsels, the all in all, through simple faith in him as the aton- 
 ing Lamb of God, the evidence that he had to supplement his 
 insufficiency with sacramental ordinances would have irresist- 
 ibly weakened faith, because common sense itself assures us, 
 that if there could be efficiency enough in the atoning blood 
 of Christ to make us complete in him by simple faith, it would 
 be most to the glory of the Godhead, and far safer for his 
 believing people. For this reason there is no sacramental 
 efficacy lodged anywhere in any form or ceremony. To 
 believe on Jesus Christ as the Son of God spans every gulf, 
 scales every mountain, and vanquishes all Satan's troops of 
 doubt and unbelief, enables us to lay hold upon the hope set 
 before us, and makes us feel that we are complete in him, 
 needing no other merit save the merit of Christ's death. But 
 a word now on this "new creation," or this being "created 
 anew in Christ Jesus." These terms mean all they imply — 
 that is, that spiritual regeneration, by the power of the Holy 
 Ghost, is more than any conceivable amendment of human 
 life by mere moral reformation. It is the actual installation 
 of a spiritual personality ; the passing away of old things, and 
 the becoming new of all things. It is an entire change of all 
 the affections of the heart — a substituting of the carnal appe- 
 tites by those which are spiritual. The subjects of this 
 change become spiritually-minded, and always remain so, 
 unless they relapse into carnal indulgences. In that event, 
 there is a reversal of the laws of this spiritual economy. Two 
 antagonistic appetites cannot reign in a voluntary agent at the 
 same time, and the one that does rule fixes the moral charac- 
 ter of the agent. So God's word plainly declares. (See Rom. 
 vi. 16.) Patent, however, as all this reasoning is, it needs the 
 relief of careful explanation. This new creation does not make 
 any change in the mere animal organism of humanity. 
 All its implanted natural appetites, its social and domestic 
 affections, remain intact in as far as they were divinely given, 
 and require, and even demand, gratification according to the 
 provision made for them by the Creator who ordained the laws 
 of life. Such allowances as are thus provided for, may be 
 indulged in perfect agreement with the spiritual-mindedness 
 
12 
 
 Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 involved in the conception of this new creature. All of it, 
 and all that is in it, is this : that this person walks not after 
 the flesh, but after the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus having made him free from the law of sin and 
 death, he is a new creature, because he has put off the old man, 
 with his deeds, (a total abolition of carnal policies,) and has 
 put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteous- 
 ness and true holiness, or, critically, the truth of holiness. I 
 will give the following simple ideal illustration of this new-man 
 state. Consider humanity as it is, a complex moral machine, 
 possessed of original laws of life, which, although necessary 
 to the objects of the Maker's will, could be run by depraved 
 lusts so long as volition accorded, but could be just as effi- 
 ciently worked by a directly opposite motive-power. Now, 
 this new motive-power, in active, constant application, makes 
 the new man. The carnal affections are not merely substi- 
 tuted by the spiritual, but they are destroyed by regenerating 
 grace, so that the impelling power draws all its'supplies from 
 spiritual sources. The authority for this illustration may be 
 found in Rom. vi. 13-20. 
 
 But I will return once more to Paul's negative and affirma- 
 tive argument. This is the strength of his defense. On this 
 basis he farther declares : " For he is not a Jew, which is one 
 outwardly ; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in 
 the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and cir- 
 cumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the let- 
 ter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." To make these 
 negations divinely true, it must be remembered that the title, 
 "Jew," is a mystical title, so that natural descent from Abra- 
 ham did not constitute a sacred Jew. Indeed, this distinction 
 was essential to the spiritual import of the Abrahamic cove- 
 nant. Take this from it, and it would sink to a mere national 
 affair. But if he who wore the name was a Jew inwardly, 
 then was he a child of Abraham by faith. Abraham's spir- 
 itual seed alone constituted the children of the covenant. 
 Circumcision, also, was of mystical import. Its sacred sacra- 
 mental meaning was not found in its outward fleshly sign, but 
 in the heart and spirit, drawing its praise from God, and not 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi 26-29. 
 
 13 
 
 from man. It is worthy of special notice, that the praise of 
 forms is always of man, and not of God. 
 
 But the above is the translation of Paul's declaration into 
 terms suited to Jewish conceptious. Let us put the text into 
 terms suited to Christian conceptions. If divinely true in 
 reference to Judaism, they are no less true in reference to 
 Christianity. For he is not a Christian who is one outwardly, 
 (meaning outward only,) neither is baptism that which is out- 
 ward in the flesh, (only bodily.) But he is a Christian who is 
 one inwardly, and baptism is that of the heart, in the spirit, 
 and not in the letter, whose praise is not of man, but of God 
 — of God, because it recognizes him as a Spirit, and offers to 
 him only spiritual sacrifices and worship. Here I submit the 
 following difficulty : No one who believes that baptism depends 
 on the "letter" of immersion, can ever receive the baptism 
 that is not of the letter, but of the Spirit, and his praise 
 of it must come of men, as it is a party question, and 
 cannot come of God, because it exalts the literal above the 
 spiritual, and subordinates the unity of the faith to the tradi- 
 tions of the elders. In the text itself, we have these startling 
 negations : that after we are made the children of God by 
 faith in Christ Jesus, and have been baptized into Christ, 
 there is no more Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female, 
 because we are all one by faith in Christ Jesus. These words 
 will come in for explanation hereafter. 
 
 At this point I propose, in an argument somewhat elaborate, 
 to give my views of the institution of Christian baptism as 
 set forth in the text : " For as many of you as have been bap- 
 tized into Christ, have put on Christ." That these words 
 attach to baptism some conventional importance, all must 
 admit. This importance, however, I shall not at present 
 attempt to show. But as the subject of baptism, in my opin- 
 ion, has been needlessly complicated with various errors, I 
 shall try in this discussion to disabuse the public mind. My 
 views of truth and duty will compel me to enter a caveat 
 against some popular and long-cherished ideas. 
 
 I begin with excepting to Dr. Adam Clarke's admission, in 
 his note on Bom. vi. 4 : " Therefore we are buried with him 
 
14 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 by baptism into death." Dr. C. very unwisely allows that the 
 word buried might allude to an ancient mode of immersion. 
 Of course ancient must apply to a time anterior to Paul's day. 
 As there had been no religious acts of this kind performed to 
 which he would have referred in this connection, except those 
 which arose under the ceremonial ablutions of the Jewish 
 Church, I venture to say, there was not one of all these ablu- 
 tions that had any kindred similitude to any thing like what 
 the believers in immersion call immersion. It may be that 
 the emblematic washing of proselytes, from heathenism to 
 Judaism, might have required the washing of the whole body ; 
 but, if it did, it was a washing, not a mere ivelting, and cannot 
 lend the slightest aid in support of immersion-baptism. This 
 idea was not in it then, and cannot be deduced from it now. 
 Before dismissing this long misused text, I will endeavor to 
 place it in its proper category. "Buried by baptism into 
 death" never had any more reference to any mode of baptism, 
 as modal, than it had to political economy, simply because 
 modality had nothing more to do with the object of his argu- 
 ment than political economy. It was entirely of the instru- 
 mental end of baptism that Paul argued in this case, and of 
 course any mode of baptism would have suited his purpose — 
 one as well as another. It is illogical to conclude any specific 
 mode of baptism from its instrumental use. The instrumental 
 end of baptism, of course, determined the sacramental U3e of it. 
 The end aimed at in baptism, in the apostolic use of it, was 
 an open espousal of the whole doctrine and faith of Christ — 
 Christ crucified for us. In this was included the necessity of 
 his death, as well as the fact of it. Hence arose the propriety 
 of the idea, that as many as had been baptized into Christ 
 had put on Christ. It was a sacrament of espousal. They 
 were identified, assimilated. In the same sense and spirit, 
 the apostle here, speaking of the baptism of believers gene- 
 rally, says, "Buried with him by baptism into death," most 
 especially into his death, the necessity of it, the design and 
 end of it, the assurance that our " old man " (that is, our orig- 
 inal sin) was crucified with him, that the body of (our) sin 
 might be destroyed. Every thing we needed, we have gained 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 15 
 
 in Christ crucified — deliverance from this body of death. 
 Our burial is not in baptism, but it is by baptism into death — 
 that is, really into the acceptance of Christ crucified — dead, 
 buried, risen — because be was delivered for our offenses, and 
 raised again for our justification. 0 what a pity that the 
 avenues of faith in the Church should have been clogged with 
 such mummeries as immersion, a mere modality, being of 
 divine appointment and divine delight ! How much wiser 
 and safer it would have been if, instead of the glorification of 
 a modal idea of baptism on which God looks with compla- 
 cency, just such as they feel who magnify it, all believers had 
 been taught to believe that baptism was not a mere mode, 
 but a religious ceremonial rite, in the use of which every true 
 believer is understood to put on Christ, who is to be followed 
 as our model. In this way all would have come to believe 
 that the virtue of faith is alone in its simplicity, unmixed 
 with other ingredients, and without distinction of objects. 
 It is not worth while for enthusiastic immersionists to deny 
 that they do believe in some saving virtue in immersion, as 
 well as in Christ. This they sometimes resent, when it is 
 alleged on our part as an objection to their views. But the 
 fact is self-evident on their own showing. The moment they 
 agree that there is no saving virtue in immersion, they place 
 immersion exactly where Paul placed circumcision, when he 
 said that in Christ Jesus it was nothing. In other relations it 
 might be something, but in Christ Jesus it was nothing. So, 
 also, immersion is nothing "in Christ Jesus," unless there is 
 saving virtue in it, as immersion on which Christ himself is 
 dependent for a perfect household of faith. If our immersion 
 friends intend to vindicate themselves from the charge of bap- 
 tismal idolatry, in the homage they pay to immersion, they 
 must admit that Christ can have as genuine an household of 
 faith without baptism by immersion as with it ; or they are 
 left to the dreadful alternative of supplementing the defi- 
 ciency in Christ by the virtue of immersion in baptism. 
 Unless they put the virtue in the mode, and keep it there, 
 their whole economy concerning Church-membership, fellow- 
 ship, and communion, is a vainglorious assumption. Simple 
 
16 
 
 Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 faith in Christ makes us all one, while faith compounded with 
 immersion, as eking out the merit of Christ himself, will 
 divide the children of God into partisan sects. A quarrel 
 with, and a repudiation of, believers, on the ground of an 
 outward form, is Phariseeism in sad mistake. It is due to 
 myself, and the perplexed question of baptism, to say, I am 
 no bigot. I only contend that there is no saving efficacy in 
 any outward form of baptism. All of its value is in its instru- 
 mental use and end. God can be served in all that is right 
 in principle, irrespective of form. He cannot be served in 
 any thing that is wrong in principle or purpose, no matter 
 how imposing the form or how plausible its defense. " Hay 
 and stubble'' maybe used for building upon the foundation 
 laid for the Church, but all such material will be burned up 
 in the day that declares God's judgment. Let the divine 
 goodness be praised, that such unwary souls may be saved ; 
 yet it is only "as by fire." The hay and the stubble will 
 perish. I therefore take the ground that when our concep- 
 tion of religious acts is wrong, our religious faith and broth- 
 erly affection are wrong. Immersionists are all grievously 
 wrong, because they judge others "in meats and drinks" — that 
 is, in outward and immaterial things. Now, if they say 
 immersion is not an immaterial thing, then they accept the 
 alternative and say there cannot be an acceptable brotherhood 
 in the Church of Christ without immersion, and arrogate to 
 themselves the right of keeping the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven, in as far as the right to " eat his flesh and drink his 
 blood " is concerned. But the assumption does not stop here. 
 If they are divinely right in their practice of close commun- 
 ion, it follows, as a sequence, that no Church but an immer- 
 sion Church has any divine right to have any sacrament. If 
 they were to admit that we have a divine right to administer 
 the Lord's-supper, and then refuse, on a Church-platform, to 
 commune with us, it would place them in a terrible predica- 
 ment. The two things are inseparable. The right to admin- 
 ister includes the right to commune. If they have a divine 
 right to exclude us from the Lord's-supper among them, on 
 account of immersion, it is because immersion settles all 
 
Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 17 
 
 questions on the right of sacramental rights, both within and 
 without. 
 
 Our next field of investigation is, baptism as it is connected 
 with John's baptism ; and, among other things, to consider 
 Christ's baptism in itself — in itself, because it was neither 
 John's baptism nor Christian baptism. Of John's baptism, I 
 will only say that I do not suppose any enlightened immer- 
 sionist now would rest his immersion for one moment on any 
 issue depending on John's baptism, either as to mode or as to 
 origin, unless he should on the futile notion that Christ was 
 baptized by John as an example to his children to follow him 
 in going down into the water and coming up out of the water. 
 Well do I remember when this bauble was tossed up in tri- 
 umph by every advocate of immersion. But intelligent Bap- 
 tists would be ashamed to defend immersion now by such 
 dreamy dogmas as this. They know John's baptism, as 
 John's baptism, was nullified by St, Paul, Acts xix. They 
 know, also, from John's own confession, that he was to 
 decrease — that is, to subside — and with his subsidence was to 
 subside every thing which had its origin in the mission of a 
 heraldic preacher. But if there still should be a remnant of 
 these old Johnites unwise enough to live on this milk of relig- 
 ious ignorance, they are objects of pity, and not of ridicule. 
 The intelligent advocates of immersion defend it now from 
 what they affirm to be the only sense of one or two Greek 
 words. Their work of defense will be duly attended to in 
 another division. At present, I must finish my review of 
 John's baptism. It was an intermediate baptism — neither 
 altogether Jewish nor at all Christian. It was baptism unto 
 repentance, summoning the subjects of it to believe on him 
 who was to come. Let this sentence be specially heeded, for 
 it shows, as I have intimated, that John's preaching and 
 John's baptism were both heraldic. lie came to prepare the 
 way of the Lord, and to make his paths straight, by removing 
 out of the way every impediment to his ministry. This was, in 
 part, what Christ meant when, in justification of John's baptiz- 
 ing him, he said, " Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh 
 us to fulfill all righteousness," even the legal righteousness of 
 2 
 
18 
 
 Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 the divine order. I understand the words, "For thus it 
 becometh us," as special, meaning that this "fulfilling of all 
 righteousness," in our case, is emphatically between us — I 
 must be ceremonially washed, and you must officially wash 
 me. Wherefore John yielded to Christ's request and suffered 
 him — that is, he yielded ,to it as utterly irregular, having in 
 it no sort of relevancy to the nature and objects of John's 
 baptism. It evidently looked to Christ's entrance upon his 
 ministry, and especially his High-priesthood over the house of 
 God. And as he did not minister after the order of Aaron, 
 but after the order of Melchisedek, his legal consecration 
 would of course be irregular. Its manner he chose, but its 
 legal necessity he openly asserted. And now as to the point 
 alluded to before, namely, the order of Christ's baptism. I 
 deny that it was either John's baptism or the Christian bap- 
 tism that Christ received, although it was legitimately called 
 baptism. John's baptism was unto repentance, with the spe- 
 cial injunction on all its subjects to believe on one that was to 
 come. Both of these conditions were wholly inapplicable to 
 Christ. The Christian baptism was designed to be the out- 
 ward rite of initiation into Christ, through faith in him, and 
 could be performed as the Christian baptism only when cere- 
 monially done with water in the name of the Holy Trinity — 
 all of which, as the doctrine of faith, was impossible to Christ. 
 If, therefore, Christ did not receive John's baptism, and could 
 not have received the Christian baptism, then the idea that he 
 was baptized in Jordan as an example to his followers, is 
 supremely ridiculous. But, as I intend to be candid and fair 
 in this argument, I will here say that there has been a time 
 in my day when this idea of example was carried so far as to 
 believe that Christ's baptism by John was an example of 
 present intent, even to the encouragement of sinners to 
 submit to John's baptism unto repentance, while the truth in 
 the divine history is that John never baptized another subject 
 after he baptized Christ. How could he, when he had seen 
 and believed that this illustrious personage was the Son of 
 God ? (See John i. 33, 34.) He had baptized into the faith of 
 one to come, one of whom he was only the messenger. (See 
 
Sermon on Gal UL 26-29. 19 
 
 Malachi iii. 1.) He could not, after this, call on his disciples 
 to believe on one to come, for he had seen and believed that 
 the promised Messiah had already come, and with this event 
 John's dispensation ended. He had no farther commission. 
 Bat the Scriptures never leave us in darkness on points mate- 
 rial to truth. Accordingly, Luke tells us, chap. iii. 21, 22, 
 "Now when all the people were baptized, (meaning, of course, 
 all John baptized,) it came to pass, that Jesus also being bap- 
 tized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost 
 descended in bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice 
 came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son ; in 
 thee I am well pleased." This glorious inauguration of 
 Christ was the displacement of John, with all the functions 
 of his dispensation. In a word, his right as a baptizes* was 
 dependent on the official relation in which he stood to Christ 
 by divine appointment. Hence he tells us, in John i. 31, that 
 it was for the making of Christ manifest to Israel that he 
 came baptizing with water, which really means that the cere- 
 monial consecration of Christ by water to the office and work 
 of his ministry, was the legal reason and the necessary reason 
 of his baptizing at all. See the proof: To fulfill all righteous- 
 ness, even legal righteousness, in reference to a divinely-con- 
 stituted ministry and priesthood, could not be set aside. The 
 spirit of a divine order must be maintained. The priests of 
 that valuable institution, the Jewish Church, were washed with 
 water and anointed with pure oil, prefiguring the unction of 
 the Holy Spirit. These were the types of the high-priest of 
 our profession, Christ Jesus. Agreeably, he was now ceremo- 
 nially washed with water, according to the divine order of 
 consecration, and anointed by the Holy Ghost. All this is 
 made clear by John's declaration, that he that sent him had 
 told him that on whomsoever he should see the Holy Ghost 
 descend and abide upon him, the same is he which baptizeth 
 with the Holy Ghost. And he saw and believed. All these 
 things are written to show us that John's commission to bap- 
 tize was to run on until the Holy Ghost should come on some 
 one baptized by him, and abide on him as a part of him, and 
 thus to know him as the Messiah and then to cease from his 
 
20 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 ministry. This lie most quietly did, for next clay we find him 
 proclaiming Christ as the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
 sin of the world; and, turning over his disciples to Christ, he 
 
 decreased. 
 
 My third division on the baptismal question will be the con- 
 sideration of its moral signification. By baptismal, I mean 
 any sacred ceremonial use of water appointed by God as a 
 religious service. "The divers washings" mentioned by 
 Mark, chap, vii., it is likely did not fall within this circle, as 
 many of them were observed in obedience to the traditions 
 of the elders. " The doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of 
 hands," mentioned in Heb. vi. 2, as some of the principles of 
 the doctrine of Christ, all of which were to be left as children 
 leave the alphabet in their onward movement in learning, 
 must refer to those introductory means of grace, including 
 some measures, only represented now, by what Episcopalians 
 call confirmation — a practice which, in my opinion, under and in 
 a better category of religious faith and life, ought to have 
 been preserved in all the Churches where infant baptism was 
 retained as a divine right. There should be some imposing 
 ceremony whereby these children might be brought into a 
 sacred voluntary relation to the Church — not as a thing of 
 course and of law, but as a religious induction. As to the 
 "baptisms" alluded to in the quoted text, they were evidently 
 of Jewish origin. And Jewish converts, like all other con- 
 verts, might be disposed to take up with initiatory rites and 
 parade these mere elementary principles of religion in place 
 of a religious life — the very thing that all formalists do. 
 To prevent this, and in remedy of its evil effects, every 
 Church-member is directed under divine command to con- 
 sider all these first-principle elements in a legitimate Church- 
 membership as having done all they were retained to do, and 
 the religious novitiate must leave them behind. It will not 
 do for a Church-member to take along with him any of these 
 introductory formalities as a part of his religious furniture; 
 for if he does, he cannot go on to perfection. The condition 
 of gaining perfection is leaving the first principles of religion, 
 with merely introductory forms, as dead letters. This is what 
 
Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 21 
 
 no immersionist who rests for divine acceptance on immersion 
 can do. He cannot leave it behind or out of his fair relation 
 to God, so long as he believes his immersion to be viewed 
 by the Almighty as he views it himself. And the very 
 moment he allows that God may not look upon it as he docs, 
 it becomes a mere circumstance. It is nothing. 
 
 But the point in the argument is this : if the latitude St. 
 Paul allows himself here, as authorized by any original word 
 from which we derive our baptism idea, justifies the plural 
 word "baptisms" then, to my mind, it is exceedingly strange 
 that so many wise and good men constantly affirm that "dip 
 or immerse" is the only idea that can be legitimately derived 
 from the original. If this be true, Paul could not have used 
 the word baptisms in his sense of the thing ; for if nothing 
 but dip or immerse can be contained in the original, then 
 indeed would baptism be a mode of action having no plural 
 form, and an apostle would not have used a term so utterly 
 senseless. The conclusion, therefore, is that there was more 
 than one mode of using water as a religious rite which carried 
 along with it the idea of baptism. What, then, was the 
 moral signification of all these rites ? It was moral purity, 
 and purity is a state that is secured by purification. The 
 water-pots filled with water at the marriagp in Cana of Gal- 
 ilee, were after the manner of the purifying of the Jews. 
 This allusion is evidently to some of the religious rites which 
 they used as emblematic of moral purity, and to which I 
 believe St. Paul alludes when he speaks of the doctrine of 
 baptisms. The word doctrine is never used in a religious sense 
 only when it refers to something to be believed, or to some 
 rule of life. Now, in going on to perfection, all these outward 
 forms of a religious life had to be discounted down to nothing. 
 The two material agents which could be recognized as puri- 
 fiers, in the figurative view of baptism, were water and fire. 
 Hence when all men were musing whether John was the 
 Christ or not, John answered them, saying: " I indeed bap- 
 tize with water, but there cometh after me one mightier 
 than I, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire." 
 Now, then, if what Jesus does for his disciples, "in the wash- 
 
22 
 
 Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 ing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost," is 
 properly called baptism, (and who doubts it?) then immersion 
 is not the divine idea of baptism, for in this affusion of the 
 Spirit it was not even a possibility. This baptism of fire was 
 no doubt alluded to in Malachi, 3d chap., where Christ is 
 called the messenger of the covenant, whose coming was to 
 inaugurate a stricter economy of spiritual discipline. John 
 gives the same account of him in Matt. lii. 11, 12, where, in 
 addition to his baptism of fire, he sets him forth with his fan 
 in his hand to thoroughly purge his floor — that is, his Church. 
 Purity by purification is everywhere kept up as the end 
 aimed at in all Christ's offices. As a Saviour, he is like a 
 " refiner's fire and like fullers' soap," "and he shall sit as a 
 refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of 
 Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer 
 unto the Lord an offering: in righteousness." Thus we see 
 that while water may cleanse or purify the flesh or clothing 
 from accidental .impurity, it requires fire to purify metals from 
 their native dross. Hence, in John's prophetic announce- 
 ment of Christ as a baptizer, he exalts him above himself and 
 all others who baptized with water, showing that, while none 
 of them could go any farther in baptizing than the sacra- 
 mental sign of moral purity, Christ could and would effectu- 
 ate moral purity itself by a baptism with the Holy Ghost and 
 with fire. And let it be especially remembered that it is 
 within both agencies, and not in either. But purity, as the 
 idea and end of baptism, is all the time its evident teaching. 
 The periodic culmination of this descriptive prophecy of Mal- 
 achi, and its application to Christ, took place on the day of 
 Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the wait- 
 ing disciples, and sat upon their heads in the likeness of cloven 
 tongues of fire. This was a baptism with the Holy Ghost 
 and with fire. But this purification idea, as signified in these 
 ceremonial baptisms, is farther alluded to by Paul in Heb. x. 
 22, where we are invited to come to Jesus, having our hearts 
 sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed 
 with pure water. Here nothing is meant but the moral 
 purity signified by these sacred ceremonies. The thing 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 23 
 
 signified in their use constituted their whole divine value. 
 In themselves they had none. 
 
 We come finally to consider this idea as we find it in Christ's 
 washing the disciples' feet. This remarkable transaction has 
 no doubt arrested the attention of every thoughtful reader. 
 It was sudden, and without precedent. Indeed, so far as the 
 Master's act was concerned, it was doubtless unprecedented. 
 Hence Christ, in his inculcation of the spirit of this service on 
 his disciples, said, "If I then, your Lord and Master, have 
 washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet, 
 for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have 
 done to you." Not wash each other's feet as a religious ordi- 
 nance, but as I have done — that is, in the way of condescend- 
 ing to men of low estate. Lowliness, in the sense in which 
 Christ exemplified it, is divine greatness. We must never be 
 above any office of kindness which brotherly love may sug- 
 gest as needful. But there is some ground to believe that 
 this example did lead to some practice in the Apostolic Church 
 which was reckoned as a Christian duty ; otherwise the apos- 
 tle would hardly have said, in his enumeration of the Chris- 
 tian virtues, of a widow about to be received into the class 
 of Church-beneficiaries, "If she have washed the saints' 
 feet." (See 1 Tim. v. 10.) It may be, however, that this 
 washing of the saints' feet .may refer to nursings in Church- 
 infirmaries, the very places where such Christian widows 
 would most likely be found. Be this as it may, one thing is 
 certain, for Christ so explained himself: the washing was 
 designed as a significant emblem of moral purity, Christ 
 knowing what would grow out of it. After supper, without 
 hint of his purpose, he made ready and began to wash the 
 disciples' feet. When he came to Peter, "Peter saith unto 
 him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet ? Jesus answered and said 
 unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt 
 know hereafter " — alluding, no doubt, to the fearful disclosure 
 of the treachery of Judas. Hence he made the predicate of 
 this act impurity, in the college of disciples. In reply to 
 Peter's modest objection, Christ said, "If I wash thee not, 
 thou hast no part in me" — urging the present necessity in 
 
24 
 
 Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 favor of the general issue, that none but Christ can cleanse 
 and keep us clean. Whereupon Peter cried out and said, 
 Wash me, but not my feet alone — my hands and my head." 
 To this prayer of the agitated disciple, Christ replied, " He 
 that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean 
 every whit; and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who 
 should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean" 
 — alluding to them especially as a body. (See John xiii. 10, 
 11.) Resuming, after a practical episode, the character and 
 conduct of Judas Iscariot, as in verse 18th, he declared 
 that in this the prophetic scriptures were fulfilled, because 
 Judas, who had eaten bread with him even sacramentally, had 
 lifted up his heel against him. Much of this transaction, if 
 not all of it, was in the way of a significant ceremonial to 
 assure his disciples of his divine prescience of this fearful 
 defection, and that absolute uprightness in them was the ulti- 
 mate design of his washing their feet. The grand reason of 
 his officiating himself, was conveyed in his words to Peter : 
 "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me." I must do it 
 myself. 
 
 This feet-washing was a sign of the inward purity demanded 
 of them — his disciples. Spiritual cleanness was the moral 
 meaning of the ceremony. Satan had entered into the heart 
 of Judas ; his treachery had been detected and disclosed ; he 
 stood forth identified as a traitor in the family of Christ. And 
 as human nature always does when its darkest secrets are 
 penetrated, he determined to revenge himself by the prompt 
 betrayal of his Master. He proceeded to consummate his fell 
 purpose, not by offering to turn State' s-evidence, for he had 
 no ground to stand upon but by sale. The Jews did not pro- 
 pose to bribe Judas, but he went and offered to betray Christ 
 for thirty pieces of silver. (In a brief digression from my main 
 point, I beg to say, that the many scriptures in the Psalms and 
 in the prophets fulfilled — literally fulfilled — ought to satisfy 
 every man that the Scriptures came not in old time by the 
 will of man, but that holy men wrote them as they were moved 
 by the Holy Ghost.) With this unclean spirit among them, 
 and knowing the sore trial of faith which awaited them, Christ, 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 25 
 
 in this emblematic act of cleansing, designed to impress the 
 necessity of personal integrity, especially the idea of spiritual 
 purity. Judas, by indulging his inward evil emotions and appe- 
 tites, had become morally denied. To this the Master alluded 
 in a most telling manner, when, in his final answer to Peter's 
 refusal and to Peter's enlarged request, he said, " He that is 
 washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every 
 whit, and ye are clean, but not all." These words refer to 
 the disciples as a body, and as a body they were clean, with 
 one exception. The washing being applied to the feet, became 
 doubly impressive, because it taught at once a lesson of spir- 
 itual cleanness and of Christian lowliness of mind. In this 
 last sense, the Master set his disciples an example, that they 
 should not get above one another. It was, however, an exam- 
 ple of lowliness, not an ordinance for feet-washing. But it is 
 as a baptismal emblem of spiritual cleanness that we are 
 bound to consider it in the course of this argument. The Bible- 
 word "clean" has lost its divine meaning in our familiar use 
 of it. It is the synonym of purity — heart -purity. David 
 prayed for the creation of a clean heart within him. He said, 
 u The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever." And Christ 
 said to his disciples, "Now ye are clean through the word 
 which I have spoken unto you." When Christ said, " He that 
 is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every 
 whit," his meaning is, that in an emblematical use of water 
 as the sign of spiritual cleansing, the partial application of it 
 is as significant as the total application could be. It is there- 
 fore needless to wash your hands and your head : you need 
 nothing in this instance, and for my purpose, " save to wash 
 your feet." The philosophy of all this is, there is no efficacy in 
 the sign, but the value is in the thing signified. It is therefore 
 a question even of orthodox importance, whether, in perform- 
 ing baptism, it is not safer to teach all the subjects of it that 
 as baptism cannot be more than an outward sign of an inward 
 grace, or at best a seal of the righteousness of faith which is 
 independent of all reckoned value in outward forms, it is 
 better to use only as much water as is indispensable to the 
 sign. Let me illustrate my position by the following suppos- 
 
26 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 able case : A candidate for baptism comes to me, and I pour 
 water into a basin, and make ready, if you please, to wash or 
 baptize* his forehead or face. But he says, "ISTot my face 
 alone, but my whole body." But I, knowing my object bet- 
 ter than he does, say to him, He that is washed, or baptized, 
 needeth not save to wash, or baptize, his face, but is clean 
 every whit — that is, has received all the benefit that an out- 
 ward sign can impart, which is to recognize and teach an 
 inward grace, both as to its necessity and value, and that this 
 is obtained only "by the washing of regeneration," or being 
 cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. But he 
 insists his whole body must be washed, or baptized. To this 
 I object, and say, I do not refuse to immerse you because 
 immersion cannot be reduced to my conception of baptism, 
 for I think it can ; but I do and will object, until I am satisfied 
 that your reason for preferring immersion is free from heresy. 
 Why do you wish to be immersed ? Are you sure that it is not 
 the mere abundance of water that allures your faith ? Allow 
 me to ask you, if you would as soon rely on a gill of water in 
 baptism as on an ocean of it, in as far as the water ceremo- 
 nially used in baptism can be trusted in anyhow? If you 
 would not, my dear sir, however unwittingly on your part it 
 may be done, still it is unmistakably true that you believe 
 there is efficacy in the mode of baptism, and I cannot indorse 
 any theory of baptism that leans on manner for acceptance 
 with God. That saying of Christ, " The flesh profiteth noth- 
 ing," covers the whole ground. Christ cannot put essential 
 value into an outward form, without deducting it from him- 
 self. If immersion is invested with any such importance as 
 exclusive immersionists claim for it, then, unpleasant as the 
 conclusion is, I can see no other reason for your insisting on 
 immersion, only that Christ has by decree spliced himself with 
 immersion so as to be incompetent to organize a finished 
 Church on earth without it. This I do not believe, and I 
 must hold your application in abeyance until you can assure 
 me that you have no faith in your mode of baptism as mode, 
 and that you believe God would as graciously receive you into 
 his favor, as a believer in Christ, after baptism by pouring as 
 
Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 27 
 
 after baptism by immersion. Take time to weigh my reason- 
 ing well. It is a great misfortune, my brother, to enter into 
 religious relations estimating your price in the sight of God 
 on protested paper. This applicant thinks we ask too much 
 when we demand of him to renounce all confidence in his 
 immersion idea as of essential worth in his Christian record. 
 He will not say that immersion is essential to salvation, but 
 he does say that obedience is essential ; and as, in his theory, 
 believers are commanded to be baptized, and nothing but 
 immersion is baptism, in order to fulfill the law of obedience 
 he must be immersed. This, then, is the logic of his faith. 
 Christ did not make immersion, as a mode of baptism, essen- 
 tial to salvation, but he did make obedience to his commands 
 essential, and therefore he commanded his believing children 
 to be immersed by commanding them to be baptized. This is 
 the lamest argument — the veriest dodge — ever invented by a 
 hard-pressed reasoner. If it was the best I could do in defense 
 of my faith, I would surrender it. 
 
 "We come next to consider those passages of Scripture which, 
 by a very rude interpretation, might seem to favor the notion 
 of coeffect along with the Holy Spirit in the regeneration of 
 the human soul. "We notice, first, our Lord's words to Nico- 
 demus, (John iii. 5,) "Verily, verily, I say nnto thee, except 
 a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of God." This text does not mean that 
 water-baptism, whether considered as sacramental or as a 
 divine ceremonial, has any thing to do with the being born of 
 God. Nothing outward, as an efficient agent in the new 
 birth, is anywhere intimated in the Bible. Those persons 
 who quote the above text in support of baptismal regenera- 
 tion, or of regeneration as coincident with baptism, confirm 
 me in the opinion that, in relation to certain doctrinal dog- 
 mas, there is a good deal of religious lunacy — not mere obsti- 
 nacy, but absolute lunacy. The more absurd the opinion, the 
 more intensely do they cling to it. These compound texts 
 are easily adjusted to the specified economy of grace, if left 
 just as found. They simply set forth what is required liter- 
 ally in Christian life, and what is indispensable as a prere- 
 
28 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 quisite to entering into the kingdom. Now, then, baptism is 
 appointed— is a divine institution. Eegeneration is a decree 
 — an absolute necessity. God himself cannot get on without 
 it, sustain moral government, and save sinners. Hence, in 
 verses 3 and 7, Christ expressly taught the necessity of the 
 new birth without the remotest allusion to baptism as con- 
 joined with the Spirit in the work of regeneration. Indeed, 
 Christ not only declares the necessity of the new birth, but 
 explains its nature : " That which is born of the Spirit, is 
 Spirit" — or spiritual. There is no divinity in baptism, and it 
 has neither spiritual life or power to impart ; and can have 
 none, unless God could divide his essential spiritual person- 
 age with the water, so as that neither might regenerate as a 
 separate agent ; but when acting together, might. Even this 
 view would only minify the Spirit in order to magnify the 
 water. Who can believe that God would deify the water of 
 baptism, so as to make its use indispensable to regeneration ? 
 The work is his, and his glory he will not give to another, 
 much less to a thing. The fifth verse is therefore to be regarded 
 as a mixed declaration, in which baptism is enjoined as a duty 
 of divine obligation, while the meetness for the kingdom of 
 heaven is the result of spiritual regeneration. 
 
 There can be no fair exegesis of a text only, when points of 
 doctrine and of faith, material to salvation, are left exactly as 
 settled in God's word. The point we make is settled thus : 
 "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that jus- 
 tifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." 
 He is treated by the Almighty, for Christ's sake, as if he were 
 righteous. Upon the authority of this text, I affirm, that if 
 any one bring in his baptism on account of its mode, or its 
 sacramental efficacy, as a condition of his regeneration, he is 
 not a scriptural believer. It is through the blood of Christ 
 alone that we have " redemption, even the forgiveness of 
 sins." 
 
 Next, we will consider those records which refer to the bap- 
 tism of St. Paul — (Acts ix. 18, xxii. 16.) First, let me say a 
 word to those who affirm that a certain Greek term means exactly 
 what they want it to mean — no more, no less. Does not the 
 
Sermon on Gal Hi. 26-29. 29 
 
 Greek word in the first text which refers to the attitude of 
 Paul in his baptism, justify me more fully in saying, lie stood 
 up and was baptized, or even, Standing straight up, he was 
 baptized, than their hobby-word for immersion justifies them 
 in their interpretation ? If it does, then Paul was not 
 immersed, and if he was not immersed, immersion was not 
 an apostolic mode of baptism. The first text is in Luke's 
 narrative of Paul's conversion, "Arose and was baptized." 
 The second is, perhaps, more emphatic. Ananias said unto 
 Saul, "And now, why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized, 
 and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." 
 Ananias had announced to him his divine call to the ministry, 
 but he must not enter upon it without baptism. The Scrip- 
 tures never encourage us to ignore any thing which belongs 
 in order to the institution of the Church. Nothing can be 
 omitted which has been ordained in the constitution of 
 Christ's Church, without damage to the Church, and corrup- 
 tion to the work of faith. Paul's miraculous conversion, and 
 his hurried entrance upon his apostolic ministry, was not 
 marred by any irregularity. His baptism was divinely 
 ordered. The language employed in the account by Luke, 
 and then by himself, indicates decidedly that he was baptized, 
 then and there, in the very room where Ananias laid his hands 
 upon him, and said, "Brother Saul, receive thy sight." The 
 probabilities are all against his immersion. So also of the 
 three thousand on the day of Pentecost, of Lydia and her 
 household, and of the jailer and his house. But if it is 
 allowed that any emergency could render baptism by pouring 
 valid, then immersion is not indispensable to baptism. And if 
 immersion, by divine decree, is indispensable, then no exi- 
 gence of necessity will justify another mode. That the par- 
 ties referred to were not immersed, is fairly inferable from 
 the natural simplicity of the narrations. That they were 
 immersed, is an improbability — an arbitrary assumption — and 
 to affirm it, is a bold dogmatic defiance of all the laws of 
 natural interpretation. However, it is not my object to argue 
 for or against any mode of baptism, but to maintain that there 
 is no saving efficacy in any mode. 
 
80 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29, 
 
 If any one demurs, and quotes upon me the words, "And 
 wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord," I 
 will only say, they were used figuratively, as I will show from 
 another passage of Scripture. Paul lays it down as a settled 
 doctrine in the economy of salvation, that if works have any 
 place, then grace has none. Salvation must, in its causative 
 origin, he either all of works, or else all of grace. But sal- 
 vation is "by grace through faith." This is a specified fact. 
 Now, baptism belongs to works, and cannot give out grace, 
 and cannot, either in part or in whole, wash away sins, save 
 in a figurative sense. It is typical, and if you make it efficient, 
 it ceases to be a figure, and becomes a saviour direct. Work 
 becomes grace, which is absurd. I repeat, the whole religious 
 value of the sacraments is in their signification. In this sense 
 Christ is to be understood when he said, Except we eat his 
 flesh and drink his blood, w T e have no life in us. He only 
 meant our realization by faith in him of the thing signified in 
 the supper. If we should rest our faith on the sacrament, we 
 fail to discern his body. Now, in baptism, the thing signified 
 is the washing of regeneration. If, therefore, any one should 
 look to baptism to supply the grace it signifies, his faith is a 
 heresy, and his religion vain. 
 
 We come next to speak of baptism as it is coupled with the 
 salvation of Noah and his family in the ark, by water. (See 
 1 Peter iii. 19, 20, 21.) We have to deal only with the last 
 verse : " The like figure whereunto, even baptism doth also now 
 save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the 
 answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection 
 of Jesus Christ." Now, leave out the parenthetic words, 
 which were evidently put in to prevent an erroneous construc- 
 tion as to the saving power of baptism, and then the text will 
 read thus : The like figure whereunto, even baptism doth also 
 now save us, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The salvation 
 of Noah and his family was by water, the buoyant power of 
 which bore up the ark, and floated it safely above the deluge. 
 But the salvation of water-baptism is only figurative, not real, 
 as if by water, because baptism derives its efficacy not from 
 the water, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To this fact 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 81 
 
 Paul refers, as the full and final proof that Christ was God 
 manifested in the flesh, and the confirmatory seal of the atone- 
 ment. The resurrection assures our faith. Baptism has noth- 
 ing to do, either by inherent or imparted virtue, in " the put- 
 ting away of the filth of the flesh." Its ultimatum, in the way 
 of achievement, is " the answer of a good conscience toward 
 God ; " and this cannot be had only in the acceptance of Christ 
 as "the way, the truth, and the life," and the sealing of this 
 faith by being baptized into Christ. It is evident that the 
 importance of baptism is derived entirely from its representa- 
 tive design. Hence John resolved all the spiritual essence of 
 it into the baptism of the Church with the Holy Ghost and 
 with fire, as the end of prophecy and promise. Indeed, bap- 
 tism, as a divine rite, was instituted to symbolize the baptism 
 of the Holy Ghost, and was constituted the ceremony by 
 which Church-members should take upon themselves all the 
 obligations of faith — whereby we are figuratively saved by 
 water. It has no agency in the regeneration of the soul, but 
 is of value in the gospel order of Church-organization ; so 
 much so, that the answer of a good conscience toward God 
 cannot be had without conforming to this order of divine 
 appointment. 
 
 The foregoing arguments and illustrations constitute a pro- 
 tracted preface to the sermon preached in Frankfort and in 
 Louisville, Ky., and at both places was requested for publica- 
 tion. For the work of reproduction I have no memoranda, 
 and must rely upon the sameness of my mental perceptions. 
 Those who heard my extemporaneous discourses will recog- 
 nize this as a fair duplicate, and will see the propriety of my 
 long exordium. 
 
 The analysis of the text is as follows : First, all of God's 
 children are such by faith in Christ Jesus. No other agency 
 is recognized in this endearing relation. 
 
 Secondly, these children are all initiated into Christ's family 
 by baptism. Let it be noted, that their introduction into the 
 relation of children of God was by faith in Christ Jesus, and, 
 as the terms in the text imply, before their baptism; so that 
 
32 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 baptism had nothing to do with the internal change, whereby 
 they became the children of God. This was by faith alone. 
 As with Abraham, whose faith was counted to him for right- 
 eousness, while yet in uncircumcision, so still God magnifies 
 the righteousness of faith while we are yet unbaptized. Thus 
 against the vagaries of baptismal regeneration, or of regene- 
 ration as coincident with immersion, as held by Campbellites, 
 God has sought to guard the Church. But being by profes- 
 sion baptized into Christ, and so visibly and practically put- 
 ting on Christ, is in the order of divine appointment, and 
 must not be ignored. 
 
 Thirdly, this "putting on Christ" refers especially to all 
 the obligations imposed on believers in their baptism. They 
 then and there pledge themselves to the open and unreserved 
 dedication of their whole after-life to Christ. They promise 
 to imitate him — going about to do good in spirit, to be meek 
 and lowly, forgiving as Christ hath forgiven them. They 
 engage to be clothed with him, so as fully and fairly to repre- 
 sent him. Pastors and Churches should see to it, that no one 
 comes into their communion unless in baptism he enters thus 
 fully into Christ Jesus. 
 
 Fourthly, all claims to preeminence, founded on blood, or 
 condition, or sex, as to divine rights in the way of Christian 
 authority or brotherhood, is arrogant assumption, because in 
 God's house, as believers, we are all one by faith in Christ 
 Jesus, to set up any claim of divine preference, irrespective of 
 faith or additional to it, is to make a schism in the body of 
 Christ. 
 
 I enter now upon the long-mooted question of Christian 
 baptism, hoping to disentangle it from the errors which have 
 been thrown around it either by igqorance or education. One 
 source of error, perhaps the chief one, has been the misplace- 
 ment of it as to its order. It has been quoted, preached, and 
 believed to be an u ordinance ," and of course a legal necessity 
 in some way, and, as a legal requisition, it was natural that 
 mode should become the bone of contention. There was 
 more of imposing show in immersion than in any other mode, 
 and, besides, its over-zealous advocates invested it with an 
 
Sermon on Gal. ML 26-29. 
 
 33 
 
 attractive glory by making it an imaginary emblem of Christ's 
 burial and resurrection. So, also, by teaching the false but 
 winning idea of Christ's immersion in the Jordan as an 
 example to be literally followed by all his disciples, until 
 many of the superstitious minds, both of white and colored 
 subjects, came up from immersion as well satisfied with their 
 act, because of its exact filling of the fond conceit of being 
 emblematically buried and raised up with Christ, as a fash- 
 ionable woman would be with her costume after ascer- 
 taining that every plait and fold was precisely as fashion 
 ordered it. For many long years, the most fearful apprehen- 
 sions have occupied my mind concerning a certain class of 
 our common population in reference to this mode of baptism — 
 not because of the mode, but because of its illusions. I have 
 been always satisfied that a people as fond of allurement and 
 as susceptible of superstition as many of this class are, are 
 always in danger of fatal delusion, when attracted to immer- 
 sion, by having paraded before them the pretension or cir- 
 cumstance either of its form or its ideas. Allow me to ask 
 the friends and ministers of immersion if they have not been 
 inwardly premonished that many of these illiterate children 
 of earth felt, when coming up out of the water, a spirit of 
 self-adulation, which said, " See here, Lord ; see I have fol- 
 lowed thee in my baptism ; I have done as thou hast com- 
 manded me to do" — thinking of nothing else all the time but 
 mode. This state of mind cannot be harmless. It contains 
 the leaven of Pharisaic righteousness. I do not enter my 
 protest against immersion abstractly considered, but against 
 it as a legal ordinance. But it is upon this ground alone, as 
 I understand immersionists, that they hold, use, and preach 
 it; yea, enforce it as a divine command. They make it a 
 sine qua non in all the rights and relations of Church-mem- 
 bership and of Christian communion and fellowship. All 
 this, not because baptism is a Christian rite not to be ignored, 
 but because it is an absolute legal ordinance demanding 
 immersion as the only mode for which the law of baptism 
 can discharge its subjects as obedient to the letter. There is 
 not an immersionist in all the land, holding these views, who 
 3 
 
34 
 
 Sermon on Gal. UL 26-29. 
 
 is not a legalist, as far as baptism is concerned, as really as 
 any elder iu the Jewish Church was, when he tithed his mint 
 and rue in honor of his law. There is no dodging the issue. 
 If baptism is an ordinance, it is of necessity a legal mode ; if 
 a legal mode, no righteousness but legal righteousness can fill 
 its requirements : faith has no part in it. The law is not of 
 faith. The law inquires not what we believe, but what we 
 do. Its economy is life, as due to legal obedience. Let 
 immersionists remember that, if they are immersed to fulfill 
 a legal mode, they cannot bring their baptism into the obedi- 
 ence of faith at all ; they are all baptized upon a law-basis. 
 Unless immersion is prescribed as a mode required by law, 
 there is no value in the mode. But if immersion, as a mode, 
 is demanded by law, then every subject of it is obliged to 
 claim the benefit of legal righteousness, or count his baptism 
 out. It cannot claim under grace, and yet rule as law. 
 
 Out of the aforesaid misconception have arisen all the com- 
 plaints urged against the translators of our present authorized 
 version. To remedy their supposed errors, a large and 
 respectable body among Protestant Christians have commit- 
 ted what I regard the greatest blunder of their sect — the 
 change of the authorized version into a denominational ver- 
 sion. Say what they may, the verdict of all considerate 
 minds is that the new version is a sectarian Bible. The old 
 version did not teach immersion as an absolute requirement, 
 but simply to baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus, while 
 they, single-handed, against all Protestant Christendom, 
 affirmed that baptism meant immersion, and that therefore 
 there was no baptism without immersion. Assuming that 
 the translators were dishonest and sought to suppress the 
 truth, they determined to make the Bible teach immersion in 
 terms, by translating into English the Greek word which 
 King James's translators only transferred, or, if it is preferred, 
 anglicized. The translators were right, because as a ritual 
 term it could not be translated without losing its ritual sense, 
 which was its only original idea. There was no term into 
 which it could have been translated without changing it into 
 a legal ordinance, the very idea which the genius of the gospel 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 85 
 
 was laboring to eliminate. It must have been rendered either 
 sprinkle, or pour, or immerse, either of which, if understood 
 as a prescribed mode divinely appointed because divinely pre- 
 ferred, would involve the very same difficulty, namely, 
 attaching religious value to mere mode. This is utterly 
 impossible with God, just as much so as giving value to the 
 place where devotion is performed without regard to the 
 animus or spirit of the worshiper. Mode, as mode in bap- 
 tism, must be a matter of as perfect indifference with God as 
 would have been the question whether the worshiper was 
 in Jerusalem or Samaria, when worshiping God as a Spirit, 
 in spirit and truth. Alas for the Churches which look for 
 divine acceptance on the vain conceit of God's love of forms, 
 as forms ! It is true in all cases, that the letter kills while the 
 spirit alone gives life. If baptism were shut up to actual 
 modality, in any one of the three modes of administering it, 
 in spite of all warning, the ordained mode would become the 
 ideal of acceptable service. Indeed, the idea of God's esti- 
 mating mode in baptism high enough to secure it by an ordi- 
 nance, would excuse the most extravagant devotion to it. 
 And this would be a provision for spiritual idolatry. 
 
 I take the ground openly that baptism is not an ordinance, 
 but a rite, and that it cannot be both. If it is an ordinance, 
 it is not a rite ; if it is a rite, it is not an ordinance. The two 
 things cannot be the same thing. An ordinance is a rule of 
 action, authoritatively prescribed. A rile is a religious service, 
 ceremonially performed. Baptism, in every common-sense 
 view of it, partakes only of this quality. How unmeaning it 
 would all be if, when a convert is about to be baptized, we 
 lose sight of its gracious signification in the barren conceit of 
 a legal exaction! Bat let baptism be confined to a law of 
 definite modality, and this issue is inevitable. I am not piling 
 up arguments against immersion. Sprinkling water with 
 hyssop, or pouring it out of a silver cup, if done as immer- 
 sion is claimed to be done, in answer to a specific law of 
 mode, would be as utterly graceless and as entirely legal in 
 one way as in the other. I am contending against all modes 
 as containing any religious value on account of form, and if 
 
36 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 an immersionist will grant this point, his preference of immer- 
 sion will be extinguished. 
 
 False premises always lead to false and uafair conclusions. 
 So in this case : immersionists, starting from a wrong stand- 
 point, have very naturally run into wrong views concerning 
 Christian communion. They assume, on the ground of their 
 faith in immersion as a divine ordinance, that this mode of 
 baptism can alone legitimize Church - membership. In a 
 word, they believe there is no regular Gospel Church but 
 their own ; hence they maintain close communion. Let me 
 kindly inquire of these brethren whether they do really 
 believe what they practically assert, namely, that Christ does 
 not and cannot have upon the earth a people scripturally 
 worthy to u eat his flesh and drink his blood" sacramentally, 
 unless they receive their fitness through immersion? If so, 
 do they not perceive that in this ordinance Christ has so dis- 
 abled himself as to make him dependent on this contingency 
 for a sacramental membership in his mystical body? And 
 does not such a conclusion startle men and angels ? But if 
 immersionists admit that Christ can have children by faith in 
 him worthy to. partake of his body and blood, without immer- 
 sion, then immersion, as a mode, is null and void. Baptism, 
 as a simple Christian ritual, remains intact. My readers must 
 not forget my position, that baptism is not an ordinance set 
 to guard a mode, but is a divine rite, by which we attest our 
 faith in Christ — a religious service ceremonially performed 
 with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost. I prefer sprinkling or pouring; but any mode, rightly 
 performed and rightly received, meets the design and fulfills 
 the end of the rite. Here let me say, I seriously doubt 
 whether any one, resolving baptism into a legal mode, can be 
 consistently baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity. If 
 baptism is received upon a law-basis at all, it can only claim 
 upon the ground of legal obedience; for the law is not of 
 faith. Baptism, as a simple Christian ritual alone, can be 
 done in the names of the ever-glorious Godhead. It is herein 
 and hereby that as many believers as are baptized, are bap- 
 tized into Christ and put on Christ. 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 37 
 
 The defenders of this venerable dogma — ordained immersion 
 — surely never thought how nearly they approach the mael- 
 strom of justification by baptism, and that defection from Christ 
 into which the Galatian Church was falling by an over-appre- 
 ciation of circumcision. Thus, revolting from the economy 
 of justification by faith alone, they unwittingly look for justi- 
 fication by works, and, as a sequence, must fall from grace. 
 To one of my esteemed brethren, a Baptist minister of high 
 grade, an inquirer said, "Do you believe baptism essential to 
 salvation?" He answered, "No; but obedience is, and we 
 are commanded to be baptized" — that is, immersed, as he held 
 immersion alone to be baptism. Now see his reasoning, 
 stripped of its specious drapery : immersion is not essential to 
 salvation, but obedience is, and the law of obedience cannot 
 be fulfilled without being immersed. But for the grace of 
 charity, I would pronounce this answer disingenuous. Yet 
 he was a good man, and his difficulty was that, after all he 
 had said about the divine ordinance of baptism, and its divine 
 rank in the line of Christian service, it was the best he could 
 do, without openly maintaining a downright heresy. It is a 
 safe maxim that "what is overdone is undone." Such is the 
 result in this case. So much is said of and about immersion 
 as to involve the question of salvation itself. To declare 
 immersion essential to salvation, is rather more than immer- 
 sionists can venture ; but to admit that God can get along in 
 his economy of salvation, so utterly independent of it as to 
 put it where faith in Christ puts circumcision, among the 
 negations, and count it as "nothing," is what no enthusiastic 
 immersionist will allow. If any one doubts this, let him test 
 it. Herein lies the startling error of Alexander Campbell, 
 the apostle of the Campbellite Baptists. The overestimated 
 value of immersion overspread the whole Baptist Church. 
 They claimed for it a divine affection, and unwisely gave it a 
 rank in the Church which brought it right up alongside of 
 Campbell's exaggerated idea. I am fully persuaded that the 
 Campbellite error would never have been born if it had not 
 been for the overestimated importance of immersion ; and 
 this importance would never have been dreamed of, if it had 
 
38 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 not been for the false conception that baptism was a modal 
 ordinance instead of a simple Christian rite. It is impossible 
 to shut up the Deity to any specified mannerism, in the per- 
 formance of an outward religious act, without resolving relig- 
 ion into the zealous observance of that mannerism. In 
 nothing has this truth been more fully verified than in immer- 
 sion. Proofs multiply all the time, satisfactory to my mind, 
 that Baptist preachers themselves are not aware how much they 
 rely upon immersion as a ground of high recommendation to 
 the preference of God for them and their people on this 
 account. Else, why such language as this : " I love you as a 
 Christian brother, and it would do me so much good to lead 
 you down into the water and baptize you !" If God can con- 
 vert and sprinkle me from an evil conscience without immer- 
 sion, why be troubled about me? But if he cannot, then 
 declare immersion essential to salvation, and be done with all 
 equivocal answers. 
 
 My object in this discourse is fairness and truth. I must, 
 therefore, say that the regular Baptists, as far as I know, 
 never did believe either in baptismal regeneration or regene- 
 ration as the coincidence or sequence of baptism. It is, how- 
 ever, needful to notice how exactly alike the causative agen- 
 cies in these errors are. The notion of baptismal regenera- 
 tion grew out of the mythical idea of apostolic succession. 
 The apostles, being the appointees of Christ and immediate 
 graduates of the Pentecostal commencement, wrought miracles 
 in Christ's name, and were honored, during this momentous 
 period of Church-history, with being the medium of convey- 
 ing the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands — thus visibly 
 setting forth the fact- that the Church was to be established 
 and transmitted by authority of a divine commission, and not 
 by a canon of episcopal lineage. All worth supposed to be 
 derived from " succession " is mere arrogance. Nothing that 
 belongs to or can enter into the essential living elements of 
 an apostolic ministry could, by any possibility, have been 
 committed to the issue of an uninterrupted line of transmis- 
 sion by imposition of hands from Peter or Paul down to us. 
 If there cannot be as regular and as divine a ministry raised 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 39 
 
 up without this as by it and through it, then has the great 
 Head of the Chureh deemed it safer to intrust the perpetua- 
 tion of his ministry to the chances of apostolic succession 
 than to hold the authority in his own hands ; it being certain 
 that he did establish the safest way, this alone being worthy 
 of his wisdom and goodness. If, however, this dogma of 
 High-churchism is true, then Christ, knowing the Church and 
 her ministry would be safer in these prelatical hands than in 
 his own, did divest himself of the authority to perpetuate 
 them, in order to invest these successors with the right and 
 power. If Christ did so invest them, then their Church is 
 "the Church," and if not, not. 
 
 This fond dream of "succession" very naturally gave birth 
 to another fancy no less unreal and delusive — the doctrine of 
 priestly efficacy. The idea is, that the Holy Ghost is conveyed 
 through this line by material contact in episcopal ordination, 
 and in the sacraments by priestly consecration. Hence the 
 vain conceit of baptismal regeneration. They could not con- 
 ceive of any regeneration following my baptismal service, nor 
 doubt it in any one of their own priests — even though he 
 might have spent the night before in sensuality — because, as 
 he was in the line, his efficacious touch must insure the work. 
 
 The likeness between these High-churchmen and exclusive 
 immersionists lies in this, that both vaunt the principle of 
 successional prestige. The latter derive the antiquity and the 
 sacred value of immersion from John the Baptist, by assuming 
 that Christ sanctified it in his personal baptism, perpetuated it in 
 his baptismal commission, and carried it out in the hands of his 
 apostles. That they believe as absolutely in the virtue of suc- 
 cessional merit in their way as Episcopalians do in theirs, is 
 evident from the fact that they do not believe any one can be 
 immersed into the Church according to the will of God unless 
 he is immersed by a regular Baptist minister. We Method- 
 ists immerse a good many, but they are excluded from a Bap- 
 tist communion as rigidly as the rest of us. This proves that 
 they do not believe in immersion simply because it is immer- 
 sion, but must superadd this successional integrity. The line 
 from its origin must be continuous in the hands of its only 
 
40 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 legitimate trustees. Lineage is something as well as mode ; if 
 not, my Baptist brethren would argue that immersion at my 
 hands would be as divinely valid as at their own. Thus we 
 see how exactly alike these dogmatisms are. 
 
 All excess of value levied on outward forms of religion 
 leads to the loss of its spiritual unity and of Christian fellow- 
 ship. The worst feature after all, perhaps, is the fact, that 
 this assumed preference of God for them over other forms of 
 worship, if it does not actually invest them with meritorious 
 worth, certainly gathers about them such a halo of interest as 
 to beguile unwary souls, and betray them into fatal heresy. 
 It will be seen, in a few years, that ritualistic fanatics will all 
 land in Romanism as their genial home, and stark-naked rit- 
 ualism will be the bond of their religious fraternity. It was 
 under the attraction of this social element, aggregating all 
 who were like-minded, which banded the Campbellites into 
 an independent association of Baptists. Their views of immer- 
 sion took on a form and style of appreciation which startled 
 the original immersionists, and led to the necessity of organ- 
 izing a new immersion sect — both sects clinging to the idea of 
 a divine preference of immersion, and believing in common 
 that no Gospel Church could be created without immersion as 
 an ordinance of modal baptism — esteeming obedience essen- 
 tial to salvation, and immersion demanded by obedience. 
 This view of baptism has made it no marvel to me that a 
 man as enthusiastic in his temperament, and as visionary in 
 his zeal, as Mr. Campbell evidently was, should have fallen 
 into his unfortunate heresy. What was his theory ? Was it 
 not this ? — that there was no outward separate Spirit working 
 regeneration in us by spiritual power or influence, independent 
 of all outward agencies, but that the Spirit was contained in 
 the letter, and that his efficiency in saving us turned upon our 
 obedience to the letter of God's word, affirming, at the same 
 time, that we are commanded to be baptized as the initial 
 step in religion, (which is to be understood always as only a 
 command to be immersed,) and as a sequence of immersion, 
 when all is obediently submitted to, regeneration takes place 
 — not as the effect of spiritual agency, but as an accompani- 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi 26-29. 
 
 41 
 
 ment of baptism, which is immersion — the Spirit lying dor- 
 mant in the letter, like the germ of life in a grain of corn, 
 until it is evoked from its inactive state by outward appli- 
 ances. But let it be always kept before the mind that the 
 Spirit never responds with this rich reward only in immer- 
 sion, and that therefore its response is the evidence of God's 
 high regard for immersion, for the ground of this approval is 
 the merit of mode on its own account. I defy any man to 
 justify Mr. Campbell's scheme. 
 
 There is no sense in which baptism can minister any aid in 
 the act of regeneration, unless it be by the merit of works. 
 The doctrine is, therefore, the doctrine of meritorious work. 
 There is no conceivable way in which submission to the com- 
 mand to be baptized can facilitate regeneration, except on the 
 ground of legal obedience, and on this because of the merit 
 of such obedience. There is no pardon, no regeneration, of 
 sinful souls on account of merited mercy. The scriptures of 
 the New Testament have been special and definite in their 
 denial of merit to works, stating, in most express terms, that 
 salvation is by grace through faith, and not at all of works. 
 If the Campbellites believe at all that we are justified by faith, 
 their faith must be in the merit of baptism as a deed of relig- 
 ious service, else their justification cannot be by faith at all, 
 for faith must rest on the ground of merit. But the claim of 
 true faith rests upon merit outside of any personal deeds. 
 While merited mercy rests upon equitable deserts, I can 
 hardly believe that they would assume that the merit of 
 immersion is so great as to substitute the merit of Christ by 
 its sufficiency. If it is not sufficient of itself, it cannot even 
 supplement it. Either it is sufficient to carry the cause on 
 its own account, or it is insufficient to carry on part of it; 
 and the teachers of its sufficiency are false teachers, and the 
 converts to it are deluded heretics. 
 
 St. Paul says that in Christ dwells the fullness of the God- 
 head bodily, and that believers are complete in him — the pos- 
 session of Christ is the complement of religion. This cannot 
 be true if any thing, besides simple faith in him is a divine 
 necessity. Now, if immersion is a condition of regeneration 
 
42 
 
 Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 or of Christian unity, then we are not complete in him on his 
 own account, but by reason of an outward observance made 
 indispensable by his own ordination. Whatever is made 
 indispensable to completenesss in Christ, by his ordination of 
 it to that end, must be as much an object of faith as he is him- 
 self. Admit this as true, and then it is not true that believ- 
 ers are justified by faith alone without the deeds of the 
 law — because the scheme itself makes a deed of the law neces- 
 sary to our justification. In this dilemma all exclusive immer- 
 sionists are involved. Among the regular Baptists it is an 
 embarrassing error, leading them to do things from which 
 their Christian sympathies revolt. This sympathy itself is 
 proof that the simple law of brotherly love is improperly vio- 
 lated. Among the Campbellites it is a specious heresy, 
 prompting them to pledge regeneration to sinners, in whom 
 there is neither a broken heart nor a contrite spirit as manifest 
 signs of evangelical repentance, if they will submit to immer- 
 sion as its unfailing condition. 
 
 This error is the more glaring in its folly, from the fact that 
 no one ever operates regeneration with the sacrament of the 
 Lord's-supper. It seems to me, if regeneration could have 
 been made the sequence of either, this sacrament ought to 
 have had the preference, because it is the communion of the 
 body and blood of Jesus, and more is said of its sacred impor- 
 tance than of the importance of baptism. This fact bears 
 equally hard upon both divisions of the Baptists, as they both 
 hold that immersion alone is baptism. And it is not to bap- 
 tism as a sacrament — the sealing rite of faith in Christ — that 
 either party clings with such pertinacious obstinacy, but to 
 immersion as an ordained mode — showing that their faith is 
 not in it, as a gospel ritual, but as a modal ordinance, in which 
 God himself stickles for mode as an exaction of formal obe- 
 dience, and will accept of nothing else. Consequently every 
 enthusiastic immersionist is compelled, either directly or indi- 
 rectly, to glorify his literal obedience. Herein is enveloped 
 the virus of Pharisaic separateness. This idea of divine com- 
 placency in outward excellences is not a mere infirmity, but a 
 Pharisaical conceit of a better showing than other professors 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 43 
 
 of religion. This fancy is characteristic of all people who 
 become insane about any outward form of religious service 
 which is held on to as of divine origin and order, or as dis- 
 tinctive of denominational glory. In this the Baptists, in my 
 opinion, have been very unfortunate. The denominational 
 title seems as if chosen to declare themselves the only bap- 
 tizers, (while all others are mere pretenders,) and the keepers 
 and defenders of baptism after the Lord's ideal of it. I have 
 long been sorry at my heart on account of the idolatrous hom- 
 age paid to a form — a mere idea — by my Baptist brethren. I 
 never hear them speak of the number of converts at any of 
 their revivals, but only of the number baptized — thus furnish- 
 ing prima facie evidence that baptism held too high a rank in 
 the scale of their reckoning. Close communion is another 
 proof of this evil. In all their intercourse, the enlightened 
 and liberal-minded among them are as cordial in their 
 brotherly spirit as any other Christian people. But when it 
 comes to eating and drinking sacramentally at the Lord's 
 table, believers who have not been immersed are ruled off 
 with as much stiffness as any other class of non-professing 
 men. All this is the worship of their mode of baptism. This 
 is so sacred, in its relation to Church-existence, as to demand 
 for Christ's sake the excommunication of all invaders of the 
 true tabernacle — which is now the Baptist Church — because 
 immersion is the only door of entrance into Christ's Church, 
 and they are its only guard. All others, if they recognize 
 immersion at all, commonize it. We reverence it as an altar of 
 most special sacrifice, where God smells the sweetest odor of 
 Christian incense. It is the Holy of holies in our Church ; 
 for while we require a good general Christian character as 
 requisite to Christian communion, yet we make immersion, at 
 the hands of an orderly Baptist minister, the wedding-garment 
 at our sacramental feast. No one can be recognized by us as 
 a legitimate Church-member but an orderly Baptist. There 
 is no door of lawful entrance into Christ's Church but immer- 
 sion, which cannot be divinely administered except by a regular 
 Baptist minister. At this point I hear some kind-hearted Bap- 
 tist cry. out and say, "Hold on, my dear old brother ; you over- 
 
44 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 charge us ! My heart is larger than this limit." This I do not 
 deny, or doubt, when your hearts are natural. Your heart is 
 better than your creed. But you are in an iron cage as a Bap- 
 tist, and until you burst its rigid ribs by the overflowings of a 
 Christian charity too strong for these iron-clad notions, you 
 must fight off your Christian sympathies as at war with the 
 sacramental efficacy of immersion. We all baptize with water 
 in the name of the triune God. But you say ours is no bap- 
 tism — immersion alone is baptism. Now, if this be so, do you 
 not see that all the virtue that is in baptism is ascribed to its 
 mode, and that Christ, by this arrangement, has made his 
 spiritual household depend upon an outward act ? Surely this 
 cannot be so. If it is, then Christ himself is dependent on 
 immersion for a Christian Church. "Will any one say, right 
 out, that immersion is indispensable to a divine fitness for the 
 Lord's-supper ? Yet every Baptist Church, by the rule of 
 close communion, does say this very thing. Suppose Christ 
 had made immersion, by positive law, a prerequisite to Chris- 
 tian communion, would he not thereby have invested immer- 
 sion with a grace-communicating power, or else made the 
 right to commune depend on an act of legal obedience ? Cer- 
 tainly. Yet what he did not — indeed, could not — do, his mis- 
 taken friends have done for him. The odium of this ungra- 
 cious, ugly-looking act, our Baptist brethren have entailed 
 upon themselves, by setting themselves apart for the defense 
 of a dogmatic notion. There are thousands of them at this 
 day who feel the pinching of this old shoe upon their feet — 
 now " shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." But 
 they cannot open the door of their Church as wide as the 
 affections of their hearts without admitting that immersion is 
 nothing but immersion, and that the only indispensable requi- 
 site for Christian communion in the Church below, or in heaven 
 above, is "a new creation," which no sensible Christian will 
 say is suspended on being immersed in baptism. 
 
 There is no cure for this hateful bigotry but in adopting the 
 following principles of Christian philosophy : First, not to 
 make any thing a term of cpmmunion that is not also a term 
 of salvation. Second, to acknowledge that whosoever is good 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 45 
 
 enough for Christ, is also good enough for Christ's Church. 
 Let my Baptist brethren do this, and another close-communion 
 service will never blot their Christian fame. I am happy to 
 see that the English Baptists are wiping out this stain from 
 their honorable record — with such men as Spurgeon in the 
 front rank of these noble reformers. Away with all schis- 
 matic bigotry growing out of spiritless formalities ! To cher- 
 ish them, is like the incubation of a serpent's egg. If any 
 thing is hatched, it will be of the serpentine breed. Let the 
 egg be crushed. 
 
 I repeat here, it is not surprising that Mr. Campbell should 
 have added to the already extravagant views of immersion, 
 the still greater one of regeneration as an accompanying grace. 
 An outward rite, invested with such divine value as to be a 
 term of communion at the Lord's table, could be easily run 
 out into a term of salvation. This was all Mr. Campbell did, 
 but was enough to change an error into mischievous hetero- 
 doxy. The erroneous appreciation of immersion common to 
 all Baptists, was raised by him and his deluded followers to 
 the rank of an ordained medium of regeneration. With its 
 old devotees, it did not amount necessarily to more than "the 
 hay and stubble" which is worked into the building of a church 
 by enthusiastic worshipers of outward forms, even when the 
 building is professedly upon a solid foundation. These 
 improper materials may be burned out, and such unfortunate 
 souls be saved, yet so as by fire. But in the hands of its new 
 friends — the Reformers, as they love to call themselves — it is 
 more than hay and stubble : it is a fatal heresy, just as sure 
 as it is a false doctrine ; and it is a false doctrine, just as sure 
 as our justification is by faith in Christ Jesus. I should like 
 to know exactly how the "Reformers" work their way out of 
 this difficulty. I see how they are entrapped, but do not see 
 how they can escape. Perhaps in here is the reason why they 
 use the word regeneration rather than the word justification. 
 It is nowhere said we are regenerated by faith alone ; but it 
 is said in terms and in sense everywhere, when this was the 
 theme, that we are justified by faith ; and that we might not 
 fall into the fatal error of ritualistic efficacy, it is said substan- 
 
46 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 tially, and signified often, that we are " justified by faith 
 alone;" and to make us understand what " by faith alone M 
 means, it is added, " without the deeds of the law." Now, 
 then, even admitting immersion to be required by absolute 
 law— which I deny, but suppose it to be so — how can a Camp- 
 bellite believer have the infidel hardihood to associate re^en- 
 eration with his immersion ? In so doing, does he not— must 
 he not — bring in the deeds of the law? He complies, in his 
 baptism, with a legal deed, and ascribes his regeneration to 
 the efficacy of his baptism in some way, so that it comes in as 
 a great favor, issuing from a provisional government. But if 
 this be so at all in any way, to any extent, so that baptism 
 counts among the reasons God regards in a sinner's regenera- 
 tion, then it is for ever false that we are justified by faith 
 alone without the deeds of the law. St. Paul says the Church 
 was once kept Under the law— the law of sacrifices and sym- 
 bols, shut up in them until faith came— that is, till Christ 
 came— after which we were to be no longer under law in any 
 of its former uses. We were all in this special sense to become 
 the children of Abraham, having our faith counted to us for 
 righteousness, as free from any saving virtue in baptism as 
 his was from any in circumcision, he being at the time in 
 uncircumcision. To this divine economy the Campbell ite 
 idea of religion is in fearful antagonism. I care not how they 
 may seek to escape from the dilemma, with their views of 
 regeneration, they must eliminate what Paul teaches as faith 
 in religion, or else confess that their faith, is directly in bap- 
 tism as containing in it by divine arrangement the grace of 
 spiritual regeneration. Baptism must regenerate by its own 
 merit as an ordained agent, or else it has no part in the work. 
 The dictum of the Bible has settled this, as a fact no longer 
 debatable, that human salvation is either all of works, or else 
 all of grace. A condition that could not be provided for 
 except by the meritorious death of God's only begotten Son, 
 sent to be a propitiation for our sins, can never admit into 
 the reason of our finding acceptance at the throne of grace 
 any value derived from outward forms. The moment God 
 should admit such a reason for reconciliation into the scheme 
 
Sermon on Gal Hi 26-29. 
 
 47 
 
 of salvation, he would frustrate his own grace. For it is con- 
 fessedly true, that if righteousness come by the law, or even 
 if it could have come by the law, Christ died in vain. The 
 necessity of Christ's death in order to reconciliation with God, 
 settles the question for ever, that faith in Christ— faith alone 
 in Christ— is the only possible way in which a sinner can find 
 the grace of regeneration. " That which is born of the Spirit, 
 is Spirit"— is spiritual— wholly spiritual. But if baptism has 
 any part in regeneration, it is not Spirit— it is not wholly 
 spiritual. Baptism cannot, by any possibility, be incorporated 
 into what our Saviour meant by Spirit, when he so signifi- 
 cantly used the words quoted in connection with the new 
 birth, as preached to Nicodemus. Baptismal regeneration is 
 utterly irreconcilable with the Scripture doctrine of a new 
 creation. New creatures in Christ Jesus are not made by 
 immersion in water, nor by the laying on of the hands of a so- 
 called priesthood, boasting of apostolic virtue conveyed along 
 a line of successional descent. These canonical gentlemen 
 will do well to remember, that, judging them by their own 
 pretentious claims, if they are not in an unbroken line of suc- 
 cession from the apostles, they are nowhere. I will risk my 
 judgment, that there is not a bishop of the Protestant Episco- 
 pal Church that would sue for an estate where the evidence 
 on which his recovery of it depended was as uncertain and 
 presumptuous in itself as is the evidence of an uninterrupted 
 line of prelates from Paul or Peter down to him. But what 
 could not, under the rules of evidence, get before an enlight- 
 ened court, is pompously claimed as certain, and on this vain- 
 glorious pretense they contrive to keep their doctrine of sacra- 
 mental efficacy in countenance. Akin to this delusive folly is 
 Mr. Campbell's dream, that the mighty change effected by the 
 Spirit of God, and described as a new creation, actually trans- 
 pires while passing through immersion. Whatever the origi- 
 nal friends of immersion may deny, these " Reformers" must 
 acknowledge one of two alternatives:. Either the Holy Ghost 
 can, and does, regenerate souls apart from baptism, thus 
 demonstrating that baptism has nothing to do with it, or that 
 regeneration in the order of God takes place always, and only 
 
48 Sermon on Gal Hi. 26-29. 
 
 in connection, with legitimate immersion — I say legitimate, 
 because I do not suppose they believe that regeneration fol- 
 lows upon a mere dipping as assuredly as a universal wetting 
 does. A Campbellite must have some reason for promising 
 regeneration to sinners in their baptism, besides simple 
 immersion. This by itself is too bold. What their asso- 
 ciated idea is, I am not absolutely advised. I assume 
 as certain that there is some precedent measure — some 
 mental preparation — some ideal — to be recognized, because, 
 without any, they would stand in a supremely ridicu- 
 lous attitude before all Christendom besides. If I am not 
 mistaken in their theory, it promises regeneration to all who 
 rightly come to immersion as a divinely-appointed ordeal in 
 the economy of salvation. Some of them talk so unguard- 
 edly as to justify the popular inference, that if sinners will just 
 come along and receive immersion at their hands, they pledge 
 regeneration as a certainty. Even this does not surprise me. 
 It is one of the evidences of a false theory of religion that its 
 ardent admirers run it into extravagances which outrage all 
 propriety. Simple truth never damages itself by any startling 
 dogmatisms. The tendency of every form of ritualism is to 
 extremes, and the ruling idea is sure to crop out somewhere 
 in its adventurous speculations. By this philosophy it is easy 
 to track the mistake of Mr. Campbell to its origin. His start- 
 ing-point is, that regeneration followed upon immersion, 
 because God had ordained immersion as the only lawful way 
 of embracing and professing the Christian religion. As to 
 an ordained mode of baptism, all Baptists stood upon the same 
 platform. The good old brotherhood satisfied their estimate 
 of its value by making it a term of Church-membership, and 
 also of Christian communion. They never made it a term of 
 salvation — a fact which ought long ago to have suggested to 
 them the idea of an overestimation in what they really claimed 
 for it. It is sound in theology to say that any thing that can 
 be done without in the salvation of sinners, without interrup- 
 tion to the law of God's own righteousness, must be without 
 essential value in the Church of Christ. The elder Baptists 
 made immersion a term of membership and communion in 
 
Sermon on Gal. id. 26-29. 
 
 49 
 
 the Church : Mr. Campbell makes it a term of salvation, by 
 assuming that compliance with an ordained mode of baptism 
 is the only lawful way of embracing and professing Chris- 
 tianity. This he could not do by declaring immersion essen- 
 tial to salvation, simply as immersion. But this he did do, 
 by representing regeneration as a certain issuance of baptism, 
 because baptism (that is, immersion) was the divine ordinance 
 by which Christianity was to be professed. The regular Bap- 
 tists, before Mr. Campbell's day, held and practiced upon the 
 apostolic plan as to the relation of regeneration and of bap- 
 tism. They held to a divine change, a real conversion, ante- 
 cedent to baptism — a relation of one to the other as clear as 
 practice could make it. But as if blind to the authority of 
 apostolic practice in the inauguration of the Christian Church, 
 where baptism by water is commonly spoken of as following 
 upon the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and where the regular 
 order was carried out always immediately after, Mr. Campbell 
 seems determined to place the two in such relations as to 
 make regeneration appear as superinduced — brought about — 
 by baptism ; whereby he degrades the Spirit to give impor- 
 tance to immersion. Water-baptism is regarded by the Church 
 generally as an outward sign of an inward grace — an emblem 
 of spiritual purification. Mr. Campbell has so deranged this 
 order as to make the inner grace only correlative evidence of 
 the necessity and sacred value of the outward act. All must 
 see if this ideal of regeneration in immersion be true, then 
 the Holy Spirit is subordinate to the agency of water-baptism. 
 There is no escape from the conclusion, revolting as it is to 
 sound sense and godly reverence. I lay it down as incontro- 
 vertible, that whatsoever in the economy of salvation is indis- 
 pensable in working out its grand result, is its most essential 
 element, because the absence of this at any stage of the pro- 
 ceeding is fatal. Therefore, if regeneration only takes place 
 in immersion, of course immersion is the most important step 
 in the case. Mr. Campbell, as I understand it, teaches that 
 regeneration never takes place only in immersion, and never 
 fails to take place in concert with it. This is the theory, 
 and, as I have said, makes immersion the " one thing neecl- 
 4 
 
50 
 
 Sermon oft Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 ful." Now, if regeneration is not superinduced by immersion 
 as an ordained agency, then regeneration and immersion have 
 no more relation of order to each other, as cause and effect, 
 than regeneration has with a shower of rain. If regenera- 
 tion can take place independent of baptism, then baptism is not 
 a subsidiary agent, and the Campbellites must confess either 
 that the Holy Ghost is subordinate to immersion, and cannot 
 convert a sinner without it, or otherwise that immersion is a 
 dead letter — an inert form — having no part or place in the 
 work of spiritual regeneration. So, then, the whole scheme 
 of the Campbellites is a delusion — an icjnis-fatuus. 
 
 From the report of a Mormon missionary a few days since, 
 as told to me, I learned he said that the u Mormons were 
 Baptists," (meaning, I suppose, that they immersed in baptiz- 
 ing,) and "held that regeneration and baptism always came 
 off together." Farther he said, " They did not hold that this 
 regeneration fitted for heaven, but that it was an initial step, 
 after which one of their twelve apostles laid hands ceremo- 
 nially on the heads of these novitiates, and conferred upon 
 them the gift of the Holy Ghost. These deceivers profess to be 
 out and out a second edition of the original Christian Church, 
 claiming to do all things by the hands of their twelve apostles 
 which were done by the original twelve. He said, too, that 
 they would have a missionary in every State. This Mormon 
 heresy seeks to curry favor with the world by putting on the 
 " liquid" garment of the good old Baptists, and offers to 
 insure by promising regeneration as a premium upon immer- 
 sion. In the ecclesiastical market, regeneration is an article 
 that will always sell if the price is not too high. If, by any 
 device, the purchasers can be persuaded even to hope that the 
 thing offered will do, the least cost will be the highest recom- 
 mendation. No man was ever better qualified to inaugurate 
 one of these economical errors in religion than Alexander 
 Campbell, and no one ever did a thing of the kind more effect- 
 ually. Of pure morals, of princely intellect, a zealot by 
 nature, he transfused himself into his converts, and claiming 
 to know that he was right, they became his most enthusiastic 
 supporters. My convictions of truth constrain me to say, 
 
Sermon on Gal in. 26-29. 
 
 51 
 
 that I regard his theory of religion, as at most and at best, a 
 plausible error — shallow, misleading, and delusive. Nothing 
 is availing in religion but a " new creation." The very term 
 is argumentative, and settles the whole question. 2sone but 
 God can create. Salvation is not through modes, but by the 
 Spirit of God "working in us to will and to do." 
 
 "We come now to the conclusion of this long discourse, and 
 prefer to wind up with a summary of the doctrines and prin- 
 ciples which have been argued and defended, "For ye are all 
 the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." God has no 
 children here but by faith in Christ, therefore all that believe 
 according to this rule are the children of God — " For as many 
 of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." 
 Here the divine order that those who are to be made Church- 
 members must first become the children of God by faith in 
 Christ Jesus. This is the ground of their right to Christian 
 baptism. It is evident to me that while nothing but faith in 
 Christ entitles us to Christian baptism, so nothing but Chris- 
 tian baptism entitles us to Church-membership. Hence, when 
 baptized into Christ according to this rule, we do in a most 
 befitting sense "put on Christ," this being the design and end 
 of baptism. 0 what an obligation is this ! How the Church 
 would shine with the mellow light of holiness if the promised 
 fidelity to Christ were always practically remembered ! Bap- 
 tism is the Christian oath of allegiance when we engage at 
 this altar of consecration to put on Christ. An organic visi- 
 ble Church cannot exist without this. Conversion itself, no 
 matter how clear, cannot bring any one within the visible 
 Church, or entitle to any of its peculiar rights. It is by bap- 
 tism, rightly administered and rightly accepted, that Church- 
 enfranchisement is first gained and afterward maintained. 
 The hour a Church-member becomes knowingly derelict to 
 the obligations assumed when he solemnly, ceremonially 
 puts on Christ, he forfeits his Christian franchise, and throws 
 off his Christian allegiance. And if the Church, having 
 knowledge thereof, suffers these apostate members to remain 
 within the sacred city of God, she makes herself a partaker 
 
52 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 of their sins. When discipline is given up, the Church is 
 given up. It is not election that makes the President, but 
 his oath of office. In this, and through this, he puts on the 
 government, becomes its distinct representative, and is a prac- 
 tical traitor every time he is unfaithful to one of its known 
 obligations. So with us after we solemnly put on Christ in 
 baptism. We are bound to be like him, to do like him, to 
 represent him fully. As we have received him, so we are to 
 walk in him. 
 
 It is in the unity of the faith that we find the true exegesis 
 of the negations in the text, " There is neither Greek nor 
 Jew, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
 female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Herein — that is, 
 in the special unity of genuine faith — all but Christ appre- 
 hended by faith is lost sight of by every real convert. Like 
 Paul, they desire to be found in Christ without any of 
 their own righteousness, being so much better clad in 
 the righteousness of faith. In Christ there is nothing 
 but Christ, therefore we can carry nothing with us into 
 Christ. It is only by this law of faith that Christ can be all 
 in all. The Jew may be a Jew still — physically considered. 
 According to the politics of men, he may be proud of his 
 national blood, but as a sinner justified by faith alone, he 
 says and feels it to be divinely true, " My blood did me no 
 good — gave me no preference with God." I am born again, 
 but it is not [ c of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
 the will of man, but of God." It is by virtue of a scheme 
 which God alone could inaugurate, and at the instance of his 
 own self-moved will, that I am justified— justified by faith 
 alone. At the cross I laid down my Abrahamic blood, 
 counted out my circumcision, feeling that circumcision is 
 nothing, and that I must not plead or trust in any thing that 
 does not enter into the meritorious ground and reason of a 
 sinner's pardon, and that here nothing could enter but " Christ 
 crucified." He paid all my debt: I paid none — had nothing 
 to pay with. The condition of my release was to feel the 
 enormity of my debt, the absoluteness of my poverty, and to 
 accept of pardon as a gracious gift. Such is the peculiar 
 
Sermon on Gal Hi. 2G-29. 
 
 53 
 
 tenor and spirit of this economy, that it could not be built 
 upon any basis but free, unmerited grace. To let any thing 
 into it as subsidiary, would have frustrated the grace of God, 
 and proved that merit enough could have been breathed into 
 works to have rendered pardon just on their account. And if 
 merit enough to justify pardon on account of works could not 
 be imparted, none can be imparted. 
 
 Here, too, the Greek lays down his philosophy, renounces 
 his thirty thousand gods, and worships the unknown God 
 whom Paul preached to his countrymen on Mars' Hill — Christ 
 Jesus, God over all, blessed for ever. Here the bondman 
 from his humble position is exalted to citizenship in the house- 
 hold of faith, and invested with the freedom the truth alone 
 can give; here also the proud freeman is brought low, laying 
 all his honors at Jesus's feet ; and here the man and his wife 
 are made one in Christ, not by marriage, but by faith. It is 
 the doctrine of justification by faith alone which strikes this 
 level, and makes all of God's children one in Christ Jesus. 
 How unchristian-like it is for professors of religion to be 
 saying, "I am of Paul, or of Cephas, or even of Christ," in 
 any self-honoring sense ! We are none of us any thing, except 
 what we are in Christ by simple faith : I say simple faith, 
 for if we bring in with it a mode of baptism or the pride of 
 " succession" as giving us any thing like rank in the house of 
 God, our faith is not simple, but complex. An atom of this 
 sort cherished in the heart is a dead fly in the pot of ointment, 
 and its odor is spoiled. If we can be made the children of 
 God only by faith, by that same faith alone can we remain the 
 children of God. We cannot incorporate with it any other 
 term of Christian fellowship without perverting it. I will 
 here ask my Baptist brethren if they included their estimate 
 of immersion among the causative reasons of their acceptance 
 with God through Christ in the hour of their justification ? 
 If not, it cannot, since that be made a term of communion. 
 If neither you nor Christ found it needful to regard immer- 
 sion as included in the plan of salvation, and for reasons 
 essential to the plan, it never can be legitimately warped in 
 as a term of communion. It ought to be, and must be, given 
 
54 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 up. If I am a child of God by faith, without immersion, you 
 have no right to disinherit me. All of us who are justified 
 by faith are made one in Christ, and cannot be divinely 
 divided at the communion-table. 
 
 I wish to be distinctly understood, and I now declare, that 
 I do not in any sense denounce immersion as a valid mode of 
 baptism. I hold that any mode is valid where water is used 
 in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and 
 the administrator and the subject properly understand and 
 rightly appreciate the nature, design, and end of this Chris- 
 tian rite. But I capitally doubt whether baptism is ever prop- 
 erly administered to adults when it is simply done as a matter 
 of course in the order of time. It is both misused and abused, 
 unless the recipient is made to feel its true design, and its 
 moral obligations. Our present disciplinary rule is well 
 adapted to these ends, if our pastors will fully do their duty. 
 My observation is, there is too much hurry and too little 
 preparation for baptism. My advice is, take time, exam- 
 ine closely, and never baptize another convert into the 
 Church until, like David, they swear to keep all God's right- 
 eous judgments. Make them feel that every willful 
 departure from this engagement is spiritual perjury. Do 
 this, and the ruinous amalgamation of the Church with 
 the world will cease — it will never cease any other way. 
 A loose manner of receiving members will fill the Church 
 with those pestilent offenders, who, if they were put on trial 
 for their irregularities or violations of a sacred contract, would 
 tell you they never promised not to do these things. And 
 while there would be some hypocrisy in the plea, there would 
 be too much truth in it to be creditable to the proper door- 
 keepers of the house of God. Let us, brethren, adopt a 
 method of preparing candidates for admission in the Church 
 whereby we may know that they fully comprehend the obli- 
 gations their baptism imposes. Then Methodism will bud 
 afresh, bearing sweet blossoms and rich fruits. 
 
 My position is, that baptism is not an ordinance, for then it 
 would be a mode, and compliance would place modality in 
 baptism in the same category with repentance. Repentance 
 
Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 55 
 
 is a moral necessity. The merit of Christ's death cannot be 
 appropriated without it. Just so it would be with a prescribed 
 mode of baptism. By divine law, the observance of it would 
 be a moral necessity, and to conceive of the merit of Christ as 
 beiug appropriated for the salvation of a sinner while failing 
 or refusing to comply, is too revolting even for consideration. 
 Let me inquire of immersionists generally, and of the Camp- 
 bellites especially, whether any one among them believes that 
 a penitent sinner, simply determining that he would not be 
 immersed while reverently intending to be baptized into 
 Christ, when converted, would in any way at all impede his 
 justification by faith? If they answer, as I suppose they will, 
 we do not believe sucb intention would, or should, hinder his 
 free justification through Jesus Christ, then this question is 
 fully settled. Any thing that has not moral virtue enough in 
 it to make a sentimental rejection of it a bar to divine favor, 
 is not, as a thing, of divine ordination. My readers will see 
 that I hold to baptism as a divine institution, and to the 
 observance of it as a Christian rite. Now, here is the pinch 
 of my closing argument : I believe that every considerate 
 Baptist in the land will admit that the utter rejection of 
 immersion, and indeed of all modality in baptism, as modal- 
 ity, while simple ritual-baptism was kept up in honor of 
 Christ's institution, would not infract a single principle in 
 baptism material to its design. And in its design lies all its 
 religious value. 
 
 My second position is, that the unity of the faith proves the 
 unity of the Church. By the unity of the Church, I do not 
 mean the absorption of all into one. This would be the mere 
 triumph of some one form of Churchism over the true idea 
 of unity. There is a striking likeness between the two theo- 
 ries, requiring the absorption of all other Church-organiza- 
 tions into their own in order to be in the Church at all. On 
 one side we place the Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians : 
 each of these claim to be " the Church," by virtue of apostolic 
 succession. On the other side we place the immersionists: 
 these claim to be "the Church," because nothing but immer- 
 sion is baptism, and they are the true, unadulterated immer- 
 
56 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 sion Church. These parties cannot both be right. This fact 
 makes it morally certain that both are wrong. The grounds 
 upon which each claims the distinction of genuineness are 
 extraneous to every thing intrinsic to the true Church, accord- 
 ing to all the delineations given by the apostles. As for 
 instance, it is said, " The kingdom of God is not meat and 
 drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
 The kingdom of God is the Church of God. To this institu- 
 tion, as Christ set it up, " meats and drinks" (by which all 
 outward things are meant) are extraneous to it. They are 
 foreign from the composition of the spiritual Church of 
 Christ, are not intrinsic, cannot be. When the true Church 
 is sought for, the first thing to be done is to lop off all these 
 extraneous things, or, in other words, go beyond the line of 
 meats and drinks into the spiritual chamber of the soul, and 
 see if you can find there peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, 
 and if found therein, the true Church is found. These spirit- 
 ual ones make up the true Church of Christ. These right- 
 eous, peaceful, joyful believers are the members of Christ's 
 body, whether found in one Church, as now made up, or in 
 all. Doubtless in all there is a remnant according to the elec- 
 tion of grace. But I cannot dismiss this subject just here. 
 There is a Church among us in which are more "meats and 
 drinks," and these more pompously served up than elsewhere, 
 bat in it is less of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost than in any other Protestant Church. I speak of these 
 intrinsic evidences of the kingdom of God as Paul under- 
 stood and applied them ; which, I believe, was in the sense of 
 an outspoken joy — a religion which told of its glorious origin 
 in songs and words of suitable praise. But the Episcopalians 
 feel and express disgust at all emotional rapture, all religious 
 excitement. I verily believe that the ministers of this sect 
 have more faith in, and a decided preference for, a member- 
 ship that would scrupulously attend to their ritualistic worship 
 in Church-seasons, and, in their turn, play cards and dance, 
 over one that would denounce these pleasures and occasion- 
 ally overflow with joy in the Holy Ghost. Why is this ? 
 Because the extraneous has been overrated, and the intrinsic 
 
Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 67 
 
 undervalued. They cannot be safely bundled together, 
 Paul's negative principle must be applied. That which can- 
 not impart grace must be nothingized. But here is a Church 
 anxious for Church-unity, yet sees no possible way to bring 
 it about but by the absorption of all others into herself, and 
 this, in her complacency, she considers a necessity — not a 
 compromise. A necessity, because there is no other apostolic 
 Church but herself; and if she were swallowed up in the 
 immersion Church, claiming the same exclusive rights, but 
 on a different line, it would be really Church - extinction. 
 Theirs is the only boat in the heavenly line that is running 
 under the apostolic charter, and we are kindly informed that 
 we had better dissolve and come aboard of this old Church 
 craft. But I solemnly demur, till she shows her papers signed 
 by the Holy Ghost, as aforetime. I know no other divine 
 succession. This, by the grace of Gocl, we Methodists have 
 in common with other Churches who hold by Christ the 
 Head. The unity of the Church can only be in the oneness 
 and the sameness of faith and Christian experience. The 
 saints who are perfected by the harmonious labors of Christ's 
 appointed ministers — Paul to plant and Apollos to water — all 
 come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the 
 Son of God unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
 Christ. Now will any ritualist or any immersionist say this 
 status in religion cannot be reached except through their 
 fancied mediums? I hope not. But if this state can be 
 reached without passing through either of their glorified 
 ordeals, then neither of them can enter into the reasons for 
 Christian fellowship. As they cannot bring in any thing 
 saving, the absence of them cannot justify any discount on 
 Christian character ; yet every Episcopalian thinks that I am 
 not as well qualified to consecrate the elements for a sacra- 
 ment as I would have been if I had been inducted into my 
 office by one of their bishops. This is equivalent to the 
 opinion that Christ cannot have a regular ministry upon the 
 earth, unless it is set in order by the imposition of Episcopal 
 hands. Shocking to relate — immodest, not to say impious, to 
 claim. And every immersionist that says I am not worthy to 
 
58 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 commune with him because I was not immersed, virtually 
 declares that his own worthiness to commune is derived from 
 immersion, for he rejects me on this footing alone. To all 
 these selfish, exclusive views I am opposed on the ground of 
 Christian charity. If, with all these canonized notions, -these 
 brethren are compelled to believe that a large part of all the 
 souls redeemed from earth and sin, and now in glory, reached 
 their heavenly home from folds outside of their particular 
 pastures, then it is passing strange that either persists in dis- 
 uniting the Church of Christ on these outside and immaterial 
 issues — immaterial, because any Christian organization in 
 which the cardinal doctrines of Christianity are taught, 
 embraced, believed, and followed, can, will, and does furnish 
 as many souls meet for the kingdom of heaven, without the 
 claim of succession or the charm of immersion, as it could 
 with either or both of these appended. Will any one among 
 them deny this ? If so, let him declare it, and I will vouch 
 for his being ever afterward under the ban of public opinion 
 as a senseless bigot. If, then, in spite of sectarian preferences 
 and prejudices, they are constrained to believe that heaven is 
 daily filling up with the spirits of just men made perfect, who 
 were neither born nor nourished in their particular inclosures, 
 let all agree and declare that souls fit for heaven are fit for fel- 
 lowship anywhere and everywhere where Christians commune. 
 This charity will abolish close communion. 
 
 As to the Episcopalians, the bar to free communion arises 
 from their vain conceit of priestly efficacy transmitted through 
 apostolic succession. Hence, they believe that when I and 
 others out of their line consecrate the sacramental elements, 
 they remain as they were, and we eat mere bread and drink 
 mere wine; but when they officiate, the communicants do vir- 
 tually eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood. They are not 
 close-communionists, I believe, so far as the laity is concerned; 
 but unless the elements are consecrated by their priesthood, they 
 are without sacramental value for anybody. To thinking, 
 reasoning men, I say this sacramentalism is barefaced heresy. 
 It is both remarkable and significant that this divisive spirit 
 as to the Lord's-supper should have made its appearance 
 
Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 59 
 
 only in two branches of the Church accredited as orthodox. 
 These are the Protestant Episcopalian and the regular Baptist 
 Churches. In each of them, as I understand causation, the 
 divisive agency is perfectly similar, and in each runs directly 
 into what we call " sacramentalism." We mean by it some 
 specialty wherein or whereby efficacy is obtained. Episcopa- 
 lians derive it from their apostolic lineage. The Baptists find 
 it in the doctrine that immersion, in its mode, is a divine 
 ordinance. The assumption that God has chosen immersion 
 out of all the possible ways of using water in baptism, and 
 that Christ sanctified it by being immersed himself, couples 
 itself naturally and logically with the belief that some sacra- 
 mental efficacy is conveyed or confirmed by immersion ; or, 
 at any rate, that the regular agents and subjects of it are 
 invested thereby with peculiar exclusive rights and privileges. 
 Unless they take this ground, their rejection of other Chris- 
 tians from the Lord's table is an arbitrary illegality. 
 
 We come now to remark upon the spirit of free commun- 
 ion, its moral beauty and perfect harmony with the genius 
 of our holy religion. See Paul's lively description of the true 
 Church: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, 
 and all the members of that one body, being many, are one 
 body, so also is Christ; for by one Spirit are we all baptized 
 into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we 
 be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one t 
 Spirit; for the body is not one member, but many." We 
 may be baptized into several branches of the Church, denom- 
 inationally considered, but in the order of God we cannot be 
 baptized into but one Church — the general Church which 
 constitutes the mystical body of Christ. How strange that 
 any one Church on earth should assume virtually to expel 
 from the general Church all the members thereof who differ 
 from them as to how water should be applied to believers in 
 their baptism ! To bar any one from the Lord's-supper who 
 claims to be a believer and a member of Christ's body, 
 because he is not a Baptist, is to declare that there is no 
 other divinely-acknowledged Church but their own ; or admit- 
 ting him to be a member of Christ's general Church, and 
 
60 
 
 Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 refuse him the communion because he has not been immersed, 
 is to be guilty of schism in the body of Christ. Either 
 alternative is a sad one. The whole dilemma comes of invest- 
 ing immersion with the vain conceit of special divine com- 
 placency. Strong figurative expressions, referring to baptism, 
 do frequently occur in the lew Testament, and they com- 
 mend it to our attention as an institution of moral force and 
 meaning, chiefly, however, as an open formal espousal of 
 Christ. To prevent just such evils as have been forced upon 
 it, and to rescue it from all possible connection with sacra- 
 mental efficacy, Peter tells us that we are "figuratively saved 
 by baptism" — not really, as if there were any virtue in baptism 
 — but by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, faith in which we 
 thereby profess. No moral change is effected in us by bap- 
 tism, either directly or indirectly, not even the putting away 
 of the filth of the flesh. It is simply the answer of a good 
 conscience toward God. The true convert glories in his bap- 
 tism because he is baptized into Christ, who was once deliv- 
 ered unto death for his sins, but by his inherent divinity was 
 raised again for his justification. The common belief in the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ as the great confirmatory seal of 
 gospel doctrine, should be a common bond of unity, fraternity, 
 and fellowship among all the people of God. Names, and 
 questions, and modes, should all be merged and lost in the 
 tie which unites in the faith and hope of a common salvation. 
 
 If, in this long argument, I have said a word to aggrieve 
 any child of God, it is from my infirmity, and not from my 
 heart. " Grace, mercy, and peace be upon all them who love 
 the Lord Jesus in sincerity." It is true, in my comments 
 upon what I think absurd in doctrine, I may have impigned 
 upon some morbid sensibility, but even this was not prompted 
 by unkind feeling. My strongest remarks, perhaps, lie against 
 the close-communion error of my dear Baptist brethren. I 
 say what I mean— my dear Baptist brethren. If I did not 
 love them, I should not wish to commune with them, nor 
 have them commune with me. I do long to see free Chris- 
 tian communion among us. It is not worth while to spend 
 breath about it, there is no heart-cheering union between us, 
 
Sermon on Gal. in. 26-29. 
 
 61 
 
 and never can be until, with open hearts, we commune 
 together. I do not ask the Baptists to give up immersion as 
 their chosen mode of baptism, but to reduce their estimate 
 of it to the level of Paul's negation, when he said " Circum- 
 cision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing." Come, 
 brethren, we are one in Christ Jesus. We never can be one 
 in immersion; and if we could, it might be in immersion only. 
 If we are one in Christ, and will quit disputing about out- 
 ward things and lovingly celebrate our Saviour's dying love 
 together, we soon shall love one another as Christ loved us. 
 Before I die, I hope to see all these old stumbling-blocks 
 taken out of the way, and all the Churches of Christ drink- 
 ing in the genial spirit of the apostle in his salutation to the 
 Corinthian brethren, " Unto the Church of God which is at 
 Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to 
 be saints with all that in every place call upon the name of 
 Jesus Christ our Lord — both theirs and ours — grace be unto 
 you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 The great apostle, set by divine commission for the defense 
 of the gospel, said, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." 
 This comprehensive description of the Christian scheme is 
 full and conclusive. One Lord : the Jehovah of the Jewish 
 Church and the Christ of the Christian Church, " both theirs 
 and ours." One faith : all true believers realize the great idea 
 of one faith, and this one faith is well called the faith of God, 
 because it rests upon him as he rests upon himself, satisfied 
 that all is sure in good time. One baptism: the Christian 
 baptism, of course, all Jewish baptisms having ended in the 
 ceremonial priestly washing of Christ. But one baptism can- 
 not mean one mode of baptism, for baptism, in its evangelical 
 import, cannot exist in mode. Its material essence must exist 
 in its gospel design. And perhaps, after all, the baptism of 
 the Holy Ghost — the thing typified by water-baptism — is the 
 "one baptism" of the apostle. But a truce to all arguments 
 and explanatory comments. Surely my brethren of every 
 name will join with me to crown Jesus our Saviour Lord of 
 all. On earth he is our only hope, in heaven he will be the 
 
62 
 
 Sermon on Gal. Hi. 26-29. 
 
 center of all attraction. In his vision of the everlasting city 
 of God, John says, "And I saw no temple therein, for the 
 Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 
 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to 
 shine in it, for the glory of the Lord did lighten it, and the 
 Lamb is the light thereof." Surely in heaven we shall all be 
 one : there shall be neither Methodist nor Presbyterian, 
 neither Baptist nor Episcopalian. Made one in Christ on 
 earth by faith in him, by faith in him at the expense of all 
 denominational plumage, the epitaph upon the tomb of each 
 will be, "A sinner saved by grace," and in heaven, harping 
 upon the harps of God. But one stanza shall be sung by all, 
 " Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his 
 own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and 
 his Father, to him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever. 
 Amen." 0 then let us come together here and now in the 
 sweet fellowship of Christ! Let us keep the unity of the 
 spirit in the bond of peace, and, in the loving companionship 
 of earth, realize a growing meetness for the final communion 
 of saints in heaven ! Amen and amen. 
 
Date Due 
 
 Novl7'3C 
 
 SEP 
 
 - 
 
 L. B. Cat. No. 1 137 
 
Borrowed froa Peacock Col. 
 
 975.61 N873 P , 2 r , 
 
 I-" e en a 
 
 1T T C. ?a.rrp hlets 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 ISSUED TO 
 
 975.61 N873 P P7018 
 
 fx <p 
 
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