ADMINISTRATORS OF IMMERSION.
“By grace are ye saved through the faith.” —PAUL.
We who believe that ‘the testimony of God’ is truthfully expounded in this paper, and who desire that its voice shall not be silenced for want of adequate support, return brother Hatfield sincere thanks on its behalf for the encouragement his list affords. I trust that all, both in Britain and America, whose eyes have been opened by our humble endeavours, will follow his example; and thus, not only evince their own gratitude for benefit gratuitously conferred, but show their devotion to the truth they have confessed, in yielding to it their best services for its diffusion, and ascendancy in the world. The first thing is to enable the Herald ‘to stand;’ the next, to run to and fro to the ends of the earth ‘preaching the kingdom of God.’ ‘Understandest thou what thou readest?’ said Philip to Candace’s treasurer, whom he beheld reading in the prophets. ‘HOW CAN I, EXCEPT SOME MAN SHOULD GUIDE ME?’ This inability of the Ethiopian is the almost universal condition of the public mind at the present crisis. ‘Moses and the prophets, &c.,’ are in their hands, but even if they read them, they understand not what they read; and though abounding with teachers, they have none to guide them to the saving comprehension of the purpose and promises of Jehovah therein revealed. Shall no effort be made to supply them with an interpreter? Shall Christ’s sheep among them, if any there be in this cloudy and dark day, hear no voice of warning, or invitation to the coming kingdom and glory? Shall the still small voice of truth be overpowered by the senseless noises of surrounding chaos? We trust not. The believers of ‘the gospel of the kingdom’ say that the Herald is an intelligent, faithful, and fearless preacher of this glorious truth; the enemy, of course, denies it: but then, we have not now to do with Satan. We expect nothing else from him. It is to believers we speak, when we say, res non verba quoeso—deeds, not mere words, I pray.
Mr. Hatfield is doubtless right. “It is,” as he says, “the faith we who are immersed possessed that justifies.” “By faith are ye justified,” says Paul. It is desirable to have an unexceptionable administrator if possible; but if this cannot be obtained, the next best thing to be done is to get the least objectionable we can. Better be immersed by an unimmersed believer, or by one who turns out to be a Judas or a hypocrite, than not to be immersed at all. The great thing is to believe the gospel of the kingdom before immersion, that when our belief of the truth may be “counted to us for righteousness.” It is the subject’s pre-immersional faith in the gospel preached by Peter and Paul, that constitutes immersion “the obedience of faith”—Romans 16: 26, not the administrator’s. If the subject be without that faith, his immersion is not the “obedience of the truth” which purifies the soul—1 Peter 1: 22, though the administrator himself may “believe all things.” If then, the purity of the administrator compensates not for the imperfection of the subject’s faith, it is not to be supposed that the soundness of the latter can be made of none effect by the administrator’s short coming. Have an immersed believer of the gospel of the kingdom to baptise you, if you can; if he is not to be obtained, have an unimmersed believer of the same truth to do it: if you can get neither of these, request an immersed professor of good standing, who reveres the bible as the only book of God among men, and admits the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship, to do it after such a formula as this: As a believer of the gospel, I immerse you in water at your request, that in the act you may be immersed into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Jesus hath enjoined upon all believers of the truth. In these words the administrator appears in his real littleness, that is, simply as the dipper, or burier of the dead to sin—the faith, the act, and the name, are everything; but as you value the “great salvation” promised, see that you yourself believe “the things of the kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ” before you apply for immersion; for it is only your faith in these can make your immersion anything else but “ a form of godliness without the power.”
Immersion is the uniting act by which a believer in the Kingdom and Name is married to that name. None but such a believer can, in the nature of things, be so united; for the act is only made uniting where faith in the gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus is found in the subject. Immersion once made uniting by the “one faith” must not be repeated. It is only the spuriousness of the subject’s previous faith, that is, of his faith at the time of his immersion, that makes its repetition necessary; and when repeated, it is equally powerless for union, if he be still ignorant or faithless of the kingdom of God. See to it then, that you be “in the faith,” having a faith that works by love and purifies the heart: no administrator, however excellent, is a substitute for this.
From what has been said, Mr. Hatfield will see that I do not regard his immersion, and that of his friends, as vitiated by the administrator’s want of faith in the restoration of Israel previous to his immersion. He believed the truth when he immersed his friends. His former denial of Israel’s restoration vitiates his own baptism, not theirs; for he that denies that, denies the kingdom of God, for without their restoration there is no kingdom, because they are “the children of the kingdom,” being its subjects in their land. But more of this anon. Let our friends in Birmingham be content. Having obeyed the truth in good faith, they will doubtless “inherit the kingdom,” and “enter into the joy of the Lord,” if they continue to walk worthy of the high exaltation set before them in the gospel, and devote themselves energetically to the truth they have believed.
EDITOR.
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