Sermon on the Seven Pillars of the Baptists

if all baptized into one body.” “ One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” No two, three, or more kinds of baptism. We take the baptism introduced by John, ratified by Jesus, practiced by the first churches; a burial in water and a rising from the water; a type of death to sin and resurrection to newness of life; a beautiful, appealing, idea-uttering rite—grand symbol, holding statute rank in every church—the truth-arched door through which all members come. We have found no law or permission to change the ordinance. All the baptized are admitted to the Lord’s Supper and all other church privileges. If we should admit infant - sprinkling to be baptism, we should invite such infants to the Lord’s Supper. But we hold baptism as did the first churches. It is like the oath of allegiance, by the acceptance of which we are duly and legally mustered into the visible ranks and service of Jesus Christ, buried to the world, rising to Christian soldiership. Thus the Baptists have always held this ordinance as one of the pillars of Christian truth—monumental of the origin of Christianity, and bearing in symbol, like an engraved pillar, great ideas of our spiritual birth and our relation to Christ. Persons must be born of the Spirit before they are baptized, and must be baptized before they enter a church. No baptismal regeneration. Thus we endeavor to guard the doctrine of grace, the purity of God’s house, and the holiness of the Christian republic. In this order of faith and practice, we always have been, and still are, a singular people. 6. Sixth Pillar. Note it. Wo law in a church that is not plainly deducible from the New Testament. “In that He hath said a new covenant, He hath made the first old.” The old covenant, used in the world’s early age,

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