In submitting to our readers the following correspondence upon the subject of baptism a few words of explanation may be in place. In the July number of this magazine a paper was published, entitled, " Has Water Baptism a place in Christianity?" It was with the exception and desire that the discussion there begun would awaken an interest in many minds in the subject. We purposely refrained from taking up any but the primary questions relating to baptism, examining the Scriptures to see whether it had any place in the economy of fully developed Christianity. It may surprise many to learn that there should be any necessity for such inquiry, but such there is. We trust that some who have been tempted to discard water baptism have seen their error, as pointed out from Scripture, and have returned to the "one baptism" which is ever connected with the "one faith."

But it was our desire to see the subject taken further, and we were glad to give place, in the August number, to the paper "Shall I disciple my little children?" This paper treated the question of household baptism, and brought directly before us the fact of our responsibility in regard to our families. As was expected, and desired, exception was taken to much in both papers, but we are grateful at least for the awakening.

Controversy is not our object, but the ascertainment of the truth is. Let us not fear scriptural discussion, even where we may not be of absolutely one mind. Let it be understood that this is no question of fellowship in the Assembly. Thank God, we hold enough in common to enable us to meet together about the Person of our adorable Lord, while not all of the same mind upon this subject. But let not this make us indifferent to the question. In any event we have a responsibility, connected with which we owe loyal and willing obedience. May the Lord grant that we know His way, and walk in it. We have the word of God; we have the Holy Spirit; -why should it be impossible to reach that oneness of mind, which must be His mind?

We now give the correspondence, taking the privilege of making such comments as may seem to be called for. We need hardly add that the effort is made to give the full meaning of the writer, omitting only personal allusions, or what has been alluded to by others.

Dear Brother:-By reading the paper " Has water baptism a place in Christianity," my soul was much blessed. I am thankful for the stand you take as to the truth once delivered to the saints. I have felt much grieved that brethren have forsaken the true ground as to baptism, and, as you say in your paper, even neglected it entirely. We are living in the latter days when men shall depart from the truth. And of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

I find that laboring brethren press household baptism so much. Paul preached Christ and Him crucified; that was his first and last theme, and the other followed of itself, namely baptism. Why is there so much lukewarm-ness amongst God’s children? They are more occupied with doctrines of men than Christ. My beloved brother, keep Christ before the people and we will have happy saints and real Christians, such as know that they are born again, that they are dead with Christ and also buried with Him by baptism and raised with Him to walk in newness of life.

Remarks.-The spirit of our brother is evident. He sees and deplores the tendency to carelessness and looseness in the Lord’s things. We have failed, however, to notice what he observes,-the tendency to press household or any form of baptism. On the contrary we fear there has been an unintentional avoidance of the question for fear, perhaps, of seeming controversy. Now we believe that neglect is one of the great dangers. Let it not be called pressing a subject unduly when the Lord’s servants seek to lay before saints the teaching of Scripture and their responsibilities as to it. Let us indeed preach Christ, and live Christ, and surely we will desire to know His will in all things.

Dear Brother:-I had thought several times to write you a word approving your plain scriptural position in regard to baptism, as given fn the July " Help and Food." I never could understand why brethren, who are so scriptural about most things, differed so greatly as to this, to me, plain Scripture teaching. I have been asked the question:"Do you believe baptism essential to salvation?" Now I do not answer such a question categorically. It is not a scriptural question. " Is it a command of the Lord?" Yes, I answer at once. And further it is a command of the risen Lord, giving it place on this side of His death, in this dispensation. And the command is not given to the believer to be baptized, but to the preacher of the gospel to baptize the believer, and it is the preacher who is the disobedient one rather than the believer. But the question is, being a command of the risen Lord, What is the consequence to him who disobeys or ignores it? Knowing now, as we do, that it represents death, His death, and our death with Him, as also our raising up together with Him, its importance, must, at least, be conceded, and the question is:What do we lose, what does the believing sinner lose, because the preacher does not obey His Lord in baptizing him? It is very evident to me why the command was given to the preacher to baptize, and not to the believing sinner to be baptized. We bury dead persons, and dead men cannot obey commands. But I ask again, what, if anything, does the believing sinner lose, through the disobedience of the preacher, teacher, or evangelist who refuses to bury him with His Lord, into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as commanded in the great commission? An act done under the solemn command of the risen Lord, could not be a mere formality, but must in some way connect the recipient with the divine blessing. That it shows the utter worthless-ness of the flesh, to be excised, cut off with a circumcision not hand made, and buried away, and a new man and a new life to take its, place in resurrection, is plainly shown in Paul’s teaching, and Peter’s also. But is there no connection between baptism and this result? Is the one attained without the other? Could you and I in teaching brethren, enforce our separation from the world, because of our death to it, as shown in our baptism by the teaching of Scripture, and leave it out? Did not Paul enforce his teaching as to our relation to the world, as being dead to it, as not living in it, and our confession of this in the act of baptism? Rotherham’s literal translation of Col. 2:11-13, makes all this wonderfully forcible. "In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not hand-made, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Christ, being jointly-buried with him in [your] immersion, in which ye were also jointly-raised through the faith of the inward-working of God who raised Him from the dead; and you, being dead by the offences and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he jointly made you alive together with Him, in favor forgiving us all the offences." Is this all true, and leave out that which signifies it all? Baptism surely stands at the threshold of Christian faith and life, and sets forth our relation to the world, as dead and buried to it, and our new relation to Christ as raised up together with Him, and thus united to Him in resurrection-life by faith. Must not the blessing of God, " the inward-working of God " to bring out that which by Him is typified, attend an act that puts the believer under the protecting power of the triune God, and the only place where that ineffable Name is given in the Holy Scripture? Do we get rid of the flesh, the old man, without burying it? Yours in the love of the truth.

Remarks.-We do not see how anyone fully accepting the doctrines of grace could for a moment hesitate to answer in the most categorical way the question, Is baptism essential to salvation? To confound the two would be Romanism, would degrade the precious death of Christ into equality with a symbol of that death. We would fain believe that our correspondent does not mean this. But he evidently does attach the reception of full identification with the risen Christ to baptism. Is there any thing in Scripture to warrant such a thought? His quotation from Col. 2:12, 13 teaches the exact opposite;-we are raised through faith of the operation (or energy, Gk.) of God who raised Him from the dead. It is faith in the God of resurrection which gives us a share in the blessings of forgiveness, and of all that is connected with the risen Lord. The reception of baptism prior to the gift of the Holy Spirit has been frequently explained. Jews who had up to then rejected Christ, owned in this act Him as Lord, and thereupon received the Spirit. The reverse was true in the case of Cornelius, a Gentile. He received the Holy Spirit and was then baptized. So also in the teaching in the epistles. The reception of the Spirit is connected with faith, not baptism (Eph. 1:13). He would be a bold man to argue from this that faith included baptism which therefore had been administered.

But why should there be any difficulty? Grace is God’s, responsibility is man’s. "Why single out one act of obedience and make all the untold blessings of Christianity depend upon it? One who is disobedient is always a loser, but surely not a loser of what comes with a risen Christ. We would affectionately commend this to our brother, assured that in confounding grace and responsibility he is unconsciously in grave error.

Dear Brother:-While like yourself deploring the neglect of baptism, there are a few things in your July article which I must beg you and your readers to hear a few words on.

You say, p. 181,"In allusion to the fact that baptism was the act of making disciples." John 4:i says," Jesus made and baptized . . . disciples." When two verbs come together thus, if the one verb denotes an action and the other how that action was performed, the verb which denotes how comes first. He poured oil on him and anointed him. You cannot say He anointed him and poured oil on him, unless the anointing and the pouring were two different actions. So, if the baptizing was the making of disciples, it would not be "made and baptized," but "baptized and made." The fact that it is "made and baptized," the fact that "baptized" comes after, not before, " made," proves that they were made disciples first and then baptized. That baptizing is discipling is contrary to plain fact. Many a baptized person, even when the child of a believer, never becomes a disciple, a learner. But water can not make a learner. This is a fact.

It is remarkable to see you restating an argument which the former editor of Help and Food has given up. You say that in Eph. 4:4-6 there are three spheres. If there are three spheres in Eph. 4:4-6, why not in i Cor. 12:4-6? The passages are similar. Nobody holds otherwise than that in i Cor. 12:4-6, we have the Spirit, the Son, and the Father, each in His own distinct relation to one and the same sphere. The Ephesian passage is quite parallel. You call Ephesians "the great epistle of the One Body," yet you say that in chap. 4:4-6 there are two other spheres besides, i Cor. 12:4-6 shows that you are mistaken. It is the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father, each in His own relation to the one sphere, in both passages. Ephesians does not treat of the kingdom, nor of nature; but only of the assembly. If verses 5 and 6 are true of the assembly, as they surely are, what reason is there for applying them to other spheres?

You say, (p. 183) "Many who; accept household baptism do not obey God in having their children baptized." Thus you teach that child-baptism is obedience to God. There is no mention of child-baptism in Scripture. It rests on inference. Can we be blamed for considering it a mistaken inference when we see what baptism symbolizes?-washing away of sins. An infant has no sins to wash away. The putting on of Christ:-this can only be done by one capable of understanding what he is doing. Claim of a good conscience:-an infant cannot claim any kind of conscience. Burial with Christ:-an infant can be buried, but not" with Christ," which plainly implies intelligence; and Scripture does not separate resurrection from burial. Rom. 6:implies and Col. 2:asserts their inseparableness. You say Col. ii, ii, 12, "should doubtless be rendered ‘in whom.’" Forgive my objecting. The rule for deciding the antecedent to a relative is:-" The antecedent to a relative is the preceding noun, unless there be a clear reason to the contrary." Of course, you suppose there is here a reason to the contrary, but there is not. J. N. D. never saw one. With him baptism is resurrection (Letters, vol. 2:pp. 58, 330, 335). That baptism is resurrection appears from its being a putting on (Gal. 3:27) as well as a putting off. Putting on is only in resurrection (2 Cor. 5:2-4) and an infant can neither put off nor put on.

Remarks.-Our brother surely agrees with us that baptism is the badge of discipleship. We most certainly disclaim the thought of sundering baptism and teaching. The passage he quotes when taken in its connection explains itself. As to his use of John 4:i, it is his, not ours. We might add, however, that there is an explanatory use of a second verb. Thus, he made-that is baptized, disciples. But we never thought of excluding the "teaching" from John 4:1:

With regard to the three spheres in Eph. 4:; it is not because of the name of each person of the blessed Trinity that we speak of three circles or spheres, as our brother surely knows, but of the words connected with the name of each Person. "There is one Body and one Spirit . . . one Hope!" Who can for a moment question that none but believers, true children of God are here alluded to?
"One Lord, one faith, one baptism." Is it not possible that profession might come in here? Profession could not come into the one body.

" One God and one Father of all," surely reaches on to the truth of "God all in all." The similarity to i Cor. 12:is but external, and cannot therefore be used as by our brother. A simple comparison of the two passages will show this.

We do not question that the passages alluded to in the last paragraphs refer primarily to the baptism of believers. This was natural and necessary for those just brought into the pale of Christianity, but to say that the passages cannot be applied to the households of saints is assertion without proof.

-:Is it quite ingenuous to write:-"It is not the purpose of this paper to enter into the discussion of any of these questions," one of which questions is, " Who are the proper subjects?" and then to write:"The first is the sphere of the Church, of pure grace; the second is the sphere of the Kingdom, of responsibility. There is a third sphere, that of creation, One God and Father of all who is over all, and through all, and in [us] all?" For this interpretation of the passage in Eph. 4:is caused and necessitated by the desire to prove infants to be the " proper subjects," and is peculiar to those who hold "household baptism" so called. The article does therefore, indirectly, enter upon the question of who are the proper subjects; in fact it is quite impossible to discuss the doctrine of baptism without deciding, by the doctrine and teaching of the epistles, who are the proper subjects. Is not, in fact, the effort to apply baptism to infants, the cause of all the confusion about it, as the saints perceive that the doctrine contradicts the application. A paper therefore that avoids the question of the proper subject, fails to clear up the confusion. Scripture shows that the true Church is both the body of Christ and the house of God. Some have assumed that the bouse of God embraced false professors who are not in the body, and from that deduced the doctrine of infant baptism into the house. Others have refused this, but as they held infant baptism, a place for them must be found, and so they found it in the " Kingdom," which is substituted for the " house." The first teaching made the house include all the false material and identified the house with the Kingdom in the present dispensation. The second refused false material in the house and put it into the Kingdom; both justify infant baptism on the plea of false material having a place in one or both! A shaky foundation surely for it to rest on.

The fact is, the " house " of God and the " Kingdom of God " are identical in the present dispensation. The Kingdom will go on in the next dispensation, but the " house" will be on high. In neither the house nor the Kingdom does God own anything but what is real. The "house" is the habitation of God the Spirit. That is what constitutes it the house of God. God builds it and He does not build in false material. Man may build falsely but God owns it not. So the Kingdom; it is composed of those born of God, for it is formed by sowing the good seed. The rest is rejected from the beginning and in due time judged. Never owned by the King. But the sole foundation for baptismal efficacy for the entrance of infants is that the Lord owns and gives a place to false material in the Kingdom. If Matt. 13:says nothing of baptism being efficacious to put into it, but ascribes it to the reception of the " word of the Kingdom" into the heart, how dangerous is the doctrine that substitutes the ordinance of baptism for the word, and makes baptism precede the word instead of follow it! According to God, entrance into the Kingdom is by new birth, Matt. 13:proves this beyond controversy; and entrance into the house is by the Spirit. The persons who compose both are identical in this dispensation; while the false material in the house is the false material of Matt. 13:They are identical both in respect of the good and the bad. But the Lord did not own the bad as His, nor introduced by His authority, and linked the interests of the disciples with the treasure, the pearl, (the Church) and the good fish.

The interpretation forced upon Eph. 4:by the exigencies of the case, is strangely false for intelligent brethren to propound. Let us look at it as found in " Help and Food" for July 1898, for they are not all alike, at any rate in detail, and it is when we come to look narrowly into them that we are astonished and grieved at what we find.

"The first is the sphere of the Church, of pure grace." But is the "sphere" of "pure grace" limited to the Church? Is that not just what is going out to the whole world? Matt. 28:19 would seem to say so. One would rather take it that the Church is the sphere of our responsibilities, while even there we are not under law but grace, thank God.

"The second is the sphere of the Kingdom, of responsibility." And yet this is the "sphere" into which an infant is baptized! What are the "responsibilities" then of a baptized infant? Some teach that an infant is brought by baptism into the " sphere " of grace, not responsibility, in order to be saved; not baptized because it is saved. It is true the Kingdom and the Church alike are the " sphere " of our responsibility, (if I must use the word "sphere," of which there is no need.) In both I must maintain the one faith and confess the one Lord, and I begin to do this by the one baptism. Can an infant do this? the doctrine necessitates the absurd question. Then the baptism of an infant is not the "one baptism" of Eph. 4:and is therefore outside Scripture.

"There is a third sphere, that of creation:One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in [us] all."

Would it be believed that the precious revelation from the Lord Himself, "I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God,"-the revelation of a relationship which it is one of the special objects of this epistle to unfold, should be, by the necessities of this theory, perverted to apply to all born of Adam-creation! And this is a part of the unity of the Spirit, which is wider even than the profession of Christianity, and must include the children of the heathen etc.! Truly there is something to say after all for the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man!

But, thank God, we can turn back to Scripture and there all is plain and simple. The unity of the Spirit, composed of seven parts, in threefold relationship to the Trinity, (compare Matt. 28:19) embraces only those who are born of God the Father and are baptized by the Spirit into the one body, and who therefore can truly own the one Lord and the one faith in the one baptism. No other baptism than this is the one baptism of Eph. 4:Infant baptism is therefore but a superstition.
Water baptism has to do with the Kingdom. But our business is not with the spurious in the Kingdom; they are left to the day when He will purge out of His Kingdom all that offend and do iniquity. He made no place in His Kingdom for them, an enemy did it. Our business, I repeat, is with the treasure, the pearl, and the fish.

Scripture never teaches that baptism "effects" anything; then the baptism of infants is utterly meaningless. The confusion of which your paper complains is caused by this very teaching about infant baptism being efficacious to put into the Kingdom. It is the confession of those who enter, not the means of entering. It is not therefore one of the keys of the Kingdom,-a visionary idea. The keys are simply symbols of authority, and why should there be only two?

Remarks.-With regard to the first point made by our correspondent, we must leave the question of ingenuousness for settlement by our readers, remarking simply that the interpretation of Eph. 4:is not necessary for the support of either household or believers’ baptism. That interpretation must be tested simply by Scripture. If "one Lord, one faith, one baptism " does not refer to the Kingdom as distinct from the Church, then we have, in the body of Christ, the possibility of mere profession. We say possibility, for whether Kingdom or Church, no one contends for the necessity of mere profession. Does not every Christian shrink from the thought-of there being mere professors in the Church? And yet the faith of Christianity may be avowed, sealed by baptism, and " Lord, Lord " be said, without heart acquaintance with Christ. Where are such people? Certainly not in the Church. But with equal certainty are they in the Kingdom, the place of profession, and we add again, of responsibility, though grace be unknown.

As to the distinction between house and kingdom, it seems clear, where it is referred to, as formed by the Holy Spirit and indwelt by Him, that it is an aspect of the Church. As being the place of administration, taken up by man, as in 2 Tim. 2:, the house possesses some features in common with the Kingdom. To say that the presence of false material is the ground for the plea for infant baptism, is a thorough mistake. No one pleads for it on such grounds. It is to be feared that only too many who have professed conversion and been baptized in mature years, go to swell the numbers of those in the Kingdom but not in the Church. In fact it is not from the children that the ranks of profession are so largely swelled. No baptized child, who is scripturally taught, could for one moment indulge in false security because of that baptism.

As our brother suggests, the Kingdom has to do with earth and earthly responsibilities. Let that fact be remembered, and we have the justification of the baptism of the children of believers. Are not our children in circumstances far different from those of unbelieving households? Do they not enjoy privileges of light and truth, of being brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Nay, is not the sad failure so noticeable in many households, where the heads of the family are Christian, due to lack of living faith to count upon God for the children, and to act accordingly? This want of faith may be present as well where baptism has been administered as where it has not. But to that, and not to baptism, must the failure be attributed, from the standpoint of human responsibility. It was while men slept that the tares were sown, and may not the slumber of Christians as to the immortal interests of their children explain the fact that so many of them grow up unsaved? Hence it is useless to use as an argument against household baptism that it introduces mere profession into the Kingdom. Let sleeping parents awake and we shall see. Oh for a divine awakening among us all, a living faith to take hold upon God.

The way to see eye to eye upon this subject is to get before God. Amid the cries to Him, the trembling for the salvation of the little ones, and the faithful bringing up, we believe there would be little room for argument upon this theme. Parents would see that their children had a place in God’s thoughts, that "thou and thy house" had a special and tender meaning, and in the anticipation of God’s faithful performance of His promises, they would enroll their little ones under the Lord’s leadership and name His name upon them. Baptism would fittingly express this relation, even as in other connections circumcision did.

With regard to the error of the " Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," we see no danger in the interpretation of " one God and Father of all etc." He is that of " every family in heaven and earth." He will be manifested as such in the millennial and eternal ages, and as Creator, he is the Father of Spirits. There is no connection between this and that teaching based upon a denial of redemption and the atoning work of Christ.

My Dear Brother:-I am glad to find while reading the last number of Help and Food, August, that you have opened its pages again to the discussion of household baptism; and I am especially thankful for the article from your own pen, as to the importance and Scripture authority for baptism as a Christian responsibility.

I am also thankful for this article from F. A., on the subject, and that he thoroughly believes in burial-not sprinkling-as the baptism of Scripture,-as all of our brethren do. But I am especially sorry that some who really believe this, as to the doctrinal and theoretical part, are still willing to go on in disobedience as unbaptized believers, simply because they have been told that they were christened, or sprinkled in infancy. Therefore they cannot say before God, that they have been buried with Christ in baptism. And for two very potent reasons they cannot say it.

First, it was done when they were unconscious of any such thing being done; so that they are dependent on human testimony as to the past.

Second, it was sprinkling; which in Scripture is always symbolic of the application of the Word, never of burial, by which it was done:so that they can only say that, on the ground of two or three witnesses, they have been christened or sprinkled.

And to say, that they have faith to believe that they have been baptized is simply superstition, not faith at all. For " superstition is the subjection of the mind of man, in the things of God, to that for subjection to which, there is no warrant in divine testimony" (J. N. D.). To say that on the ground of two or three witnesses, I was sprinkled when I was an infant in my mother’s arms; is no warrant in divine testimony, hence is not and cannot be the ground for faith.

What then is it? A relic of the superstitions of Roman ism, which has come down to us through the perversion of a very important truth, in the apostasy of the Church in the third century, as every one knows who has ever read church history. In my judgment, F. A.’s argument (by inference) is one of the most convincing ever produced in favor of household baptism, and it would carry me back to that position again, but for one point, which he does not bring out. This, I hope, I may be allowed to give to your readers and to my brethren, as God has given me to see it, and which led me to give up household baptism;-for, once I was happy in baptizing children little and large; when the faith of the parents was united in it. So that you will understand that I once stood where our brother F. A. stands, though I did not get it out of the twenty-eighth of Matthew. Let me tell you how it was that I was brought to give up household baptism.

I was laboring in the gospel where there were a number of Christians interested and getting blessing, and some were exercised on the subject of baptism. They requested me to take up the subject. I waited on the Lord as to how I should take it up, for I had never lectured nor preached on the subject; and my mind was directed to the sixth of Romans and the second of Colossians.

In my meditations I was led to see, as never before, that baptism was the "burial of the old man," and in order to be valid must be an act of faith, on the part of the one baptized, not on the faith of others. Under the law things were done by proxy. The priest acted for the people:so that people who brought offerings, were accepted in the value of a sacrifice offered by a priest. But faith entered into the holiest, in Abraham’s day, without law or priest, but still in the value of a sacrifice, not yet offered but looking forward:we entered into the holiest in the value of the same sacrifice, without law or priest, looking back to the Cross. Grace supersedes both law and priest; but there is no en-trance into the holiest but for individual faith; and it is only the individual who has by faith entered into the holiest, who can in the reckoning of faith, "bury the old man," when faith has reckoned him dead. Now let us read from Rom. 6:3:"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ, were baptized unto His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death:that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."

This is the language of faith. How can I put my child in here? Just so in Colossians. The apostle is writing to those whose individual faith had, in "the obedience of faith," taken this portion. " And ye are complete in Him which is the Head of all principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Buried with Him in baptism wherein ye also are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised Him from the dead."

How can I put my child into this? I fully concur also in this, that baptism does not bring the one baptized into anything, neither the Kingdom, nor the house, nor yet covenant relationship. But to faith it is the witness, or sign of subjection to Christ, and the receiving of a testimony which puts one in the place of death; and I believe also brings him into the place of a resurrection life:thus emphasizing, or rather, exemplifying what the blessed Lord Himself gives us in John 5:24-" is passed from death unto life."

This too is clearly seen in what the Lord Jesus says of John the Baptist in Luke 7:29, 30:"And all the people that heard Him, and the publicans justified God being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him." We have been told that John preached the gospel of the Kingdom, and that John’s baptism brought them into the Kingdom. What then did Christian baptism bring them into? For they were baptized again, as we see from the nineteenth of Acts. And if baptism formed any part, or was in any sense preparatory to the entrance into the Kingdom, Why was it repeated? And if as our brother F. A. puts it; the great commission comes down to us, and we disciple and baptize our children in infancy, when they come to years, and have in the intelligence of faith come to the knowledge of salvation, they must be baptized again, according to Acts 19:5.

Now this is not an argument by inference, but from the simplest and plainest teaching of the Word. For Paul found disciples at Antioch who had believed – doubtless quickened souls-and had been baptized, but had never heard a full gospel, and when he gives them the proper word for an intelligent faith, they were baptized again, and received the Holy Ghost. Does this come clown to us also? This settles the question, that an intelligent faith should accompany, or precede a valid baptism. Does it not? How then can I accept brother F. A.’s inferential argument from Matt. 28:19, 20? May the blessed Lord give us to bow to His word.

Remarks.-All who have weighed Scripture would surely agree that immersion is clearly taught, but largely by inference, of which brethren seem so afraid. Our brother, however, in our judgment, in insisting upon the immersion of those who have already been baptized by sprinkling, unwittingly detracts from the honor of the blessed Lord. The emphasis is never put upon the mode of baptism, but upon the Name in which the person is baptized. See all through Acts, particularly in the 19th chapter referred to. Here, in the only recorded case of the baptism, the subjects had already been immersed. They were baptized the second time in the name of the Lord Jesus. Hence if a person has been once sprinkled in the name of the Lord Jesus, or of the Trinity-the full revelation of the Godhead brought out through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus-to immerse him would be to ignore the value of the precious name already put upon him.

As to testimony of others, it does not bear upon the subject. Scripture warrants the reception of the testimony of two or three witnesses.

We have already spoken of the remainder of his argument from Colossians. As the apostle was writing, of course, to believers, it was natural that he would refer to what baptism meant, into the truth of which his words would lead them. Would it be impossible for children to look back, after their conversion, and see the significance of that which had been done for them years before?