amniotic fluid? dunno.
...
Herescope: Nephilim Eschatology
this article [FROM AMONG A COLLECTION INCLUDES FINNEY] - argues against "baptismal regeneration"; argues against full immersion instead of sprinkling; and against infant baptism says (scroll down about 1/2):
III. The Import of Baptism. We have naturally and necessarily anticipated this part of our discussion in occasional sentences. It was unavoidable. We will now discuss it at sufficient length.
1. Baptism is initiatory. The Church of Christ is an institution. As such it must have some mode of admitting members. While all true gospel Churches insist that people must be regenerated to be fit subjects for church-membership, yet we cannot accurately judge of the state of the heart. So there must be some visible act, of admission. We have no other but baptism which is of Divine appointment. It has been regarded as the initiatory rite from the earliest ages of Christianity. To deny it is to affirm that Christianity has no such ordinance. So our Lord connected it with the great commission to disciple all nations. As men were baptized in the name of Christ, they were united to his church.
2. It is a mode of profession. Jesus asks us to confess or profess Him before men. Baptism is a confession of our faith in the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for what each promises to do for us. It is looked upon by the world as an open avowal of Jesus as our Savior and Lord. The heathen all so understand it, when one of their number steps out from among them and accepts Christian baptism. They look upon him as lost to their fellowship and idolatry forever.
3. Baptism is a sign. It represents visibly to our view all the provisions of the Atonement for the cleansing of the soul from sin. It is a recognition of the cleansing efficacy of the blood of Christ, and the regenerating and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.
Baptists contend that baptism always means immersion, and always is a type of death and resurrection. So argues Campbell, Carson, Ripley, Hinton and others. But neither Scripture nor Church History bears them out in this. Over and over again, it is a sign of our Spiritual purification by the Holy Spirit. "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon their offspring" (Isa. 44: 3). The first clause is explained by the second. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. . . . I will put my Spirit within you . . . and I will save you from all your uncleannesses" (Ezek. 36: 25-29). "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" (Joel 2: 28). This is called in Acts the "Baptism with the Holy Ghost." The fulfillment of Matt. 3: 11 and Acts 1: 5. Baptism in its true mode of sprinkling or pouring is eminently the sign of the pouring out of the Spirit, the descending of the Spirit, and the falling of the Spirit upon men, "cleansing their hearts by faith."
4. Baptism is a seal. It is the seal of a covenant between us and God. On God's part it is a visible assurance appointed by Himself, that He will be faithful to His covenant engagements. He has condescended to bind Himself by a perpetual ceremony that He will do all that He can wisely do for our salvation, or the salvation of those whom we bring to Him in the rite of baptism. But it is our seal also. It is the seal of our covenant to trust in God, and walk with Him with a holy heart, and do what we can to secure our own salvation, and the salvation of the children, whom we have thus given to God. We "set to our seal that God is true," and we pledge ourselves to believe in God for salvation, and live for Him, and.keep His commandments, and forever put away sin.
Dr. Fairfield observes: "There has been a substantial oneness of the church from the beginning. There has been but one plan of salvation, but one way of pardon, but one system of truth, from Abraham down. Under the old dispensation there were two ordinances. Circumcision and the Passover. Under the new dispensation there are two, baptism and the Lord's Supper. The two great doctrines of both dispensations are the same. Justification, and sanctification, forgiveness and holiness, pardon and purity.. . . The Lord's Supper shows forth the Lord's death till the end of time, and commemorates our deliverance by the blood of sprinkling. Both speak of pardon.
Circumcision symbolized purity, the putting away of the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Many passages so represent: "Circumcise, therefore the foreskin of your heart": "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter" (see also Cal. 2: 9-11). Now, if baptism under the New Testament Dispensation, is also ceremonial cleansing, the unity is complete; but if it is burial, and not purification, the unity is broken. This is a strongly presumptive argument showing that baptism means cleansing and not immersion. The unity is not broken, by such a rite and such an interpretation" (pp. 146-148).
Even the Fathers of the Church prove our position that sprinkling was a proper mode of baptism, and that it symbolized spiritual cleansing, and not the death and resurrection of Christ.
1. Justin Martyr,--born while the Apostle John was yet alive, says: "We make known baptism which he proclaimed, which is alone able to cleanse those who repent. For what is the benefit of that cleansing (baptism) which makes bright the flesh and the body only? (Fairfield on Baptism, p. 212).
2. Hippolytus, about the year 200, after quoting Isa. 1: 16-19, "Wash you make you clean," etc.: "Thou sawest beloved, how the prophet foretold the cleansing of the holy baptism." . . . Certainly this preacher understood baptism to mean cleansing, not burial (p 212).
3. Cyprian, about A. D. 250, in answer to a question that had been proposed to him as to the validity of baptism performed without immersion during sickness, says: "The divine favors are so maimed or weakened, because these sick people have nothing but an affusion or sprinkling; Ezekiel says: 'Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.' And let not such, if they recover of their sickness, think it needful that they should be baptized again. For in baptism the pollution of sin is not washed away as the pollution of the body is washed away, in an external physical bath; far otherwise is the heart of the believer washed."
The whole discussion proves that he thought baptism signified cleansing, and not burial, and that sprinkling was baptism. No Baptist would write such a letter today, for it would give away his whole position.
4. Athanasius, about A. D. 328, wrote: "It is proper to know that in like manner with baptism, the fountain of tears cleanses man. Wherefore many who have defiled the holy baptism by offences have been cleansed by tears and dedared just. . . . Three baptisms, purgative of all sin whatever, God has bestowed on the nature of men. I mean that of water, and again that by the witness of one's own blood; and thirdly, that by tears, in which also the harlot was cleansed." (Question LXXII.) A plainer case to prove that the word means "cleansings" and not "immersions," it would be difficult to conceive. Is a martyr immersed in his own blood, or a harlot in her own tears? They might so be sprinkled, but never immersed. And the passage proves that the author looked upon baptism as a type of cleansing, and not of burial.
5. Constantine the Great was sprinkled in A. D. 337.
6. Chrysostom, about A. D. 350, speaking of Christ's cup and baptism, says: "Here calling His cross and death, a cup and a baptism: a cup because He drank it with pleasure; a baptism because by it He cleansed the world."
The same writer, in his discourse on St. Lucian, the Martyr, says: "Wonder not if I call the martyrdom a baptism. For here also the Spirit hovers over with great fulness, and there is a taking away of sins, and a cleansing of the soul, wonderful and strange; and as the baptized are cleansed by water, so are the martyrs by their own blood." Here is "cleansing" but no thought of burial, and sprinkling, but no thought of immersion, and it is "baptism."
7. Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, A. D. 412, wrote: "For we have been baptized, not with mere water; but neither with the ashes of a heifer, have we been sprinkled for the cleansing of the flesh alone, as says the blessed Paul; but with the Holy Spirit, and a fire that is divine, destroying the filth of the vileness in us." Again we have sprinkling as baptism, and cleansing, but no burial. In no one of these writings of the early Fathers is baptism regarded as an emblem of burial, and resurrection; and nowhere is immersion represented as the essential form of it. "It seems to me," says Dr. Fairfield, "that an appeal to the Fathers of the first ten centuries, subsequent to the Apostolic Age, is against the Baptist Theory and not in favor of it" (pp. 2 12-229).
And what shall be said of the Campbellite theory that immersion is necessary to salvation? It is a monstrous perversion of truth. Dr. Godbey says: "In debating with me, Elder Briney argued, that when God converted a man, still he was not pardoned till he was immersed for the remission of his sins. You see this is a full endorsement of popery, elevating the Pope or the preacher above God. For after God has converted the man, He must still go to hell, unless the preacher immerses him. So Jesus doesn't save him in conversion, but the preacher saves him in immersion! . . . A man would a thousand times better never receive water-baptism than to receive it as a saving ordinance; for in that case, it becomes a rival of Jesus. You worship everything to which you impute salvation. If you look to baptism as a saving ordinance in any sense, you deify it and become an idolater. If you go to the water imbued with this heresy, that God has promised to remit your sins in water baptism, you come away unpardoned, and so remain until you abandon the water-God, and take Jesus. The only condition on which Jesus will save, is to abandon everything, i. e., the water, the preacher, and everything else, and take Him alone and trust Him to save you" (Baptism, pp. 48, 49).
A few months ago a Congregational Deacon told us this incident, which well illustrates the fanaticism of the Campbellite, or Christian or Disciple preachers on this subject: "I was recently riding on the train to Oklahoma City, and sat behind two Campbellite preachers, one a young man just beginning his ministry, and the other a prominent evangelist of that denomination. Said the younger: "I was asked the other day this question. Suppose a person was being immersed, and he went all under but his nose, would he be saved? 'Well,' said the evangelist, 'what answer did you give?' 'I had never heard it put in that way, said the youth, but I answered, 'no.' 'You were right, you were right,' said the elder, 'a man would never be saved, with such a baptism!'" Could anything be a more stupid or a more harmful perversion of the Gospel? We dare to live in the serene faith that the infinite Christ and the omnipotent Holy Spirit are quite able to get a penitent and believing man to heaven, with his nose out of water, all the way. What about the thief on the cross?
IV. The Subjects of Baptism. It still remains for us to consider who are the proper subjects of Baptism. This has been a great source of controversy. We affirm without any hesitation that believers in Christ and the infant children of believing parents, are the proper subjects of baptism. We have already shown that as soon as adults or youth savingly believe, they should on the first opportunity confess Christ in baptism. But the following objections are vigorously urged against infant baptism.
(1) That infant baptism has no express warrant in the word of God. This statement may be questioned. But if it were admitted, to draw this conclusion is to assume the principle that whatever is not expressly enjoined in the Word of God ought not to be done. If so, then females ought not to be admitted to the Lord's supper, for there is no express warrant for female communion. In the same way we ought riot to keep the First Day of the week as a holy Sabbath, for there is no express command to do it. And the same possibly might be said of family prayer. The objection tries to prove too much, and proves nothing.
(2) That infants cannot believe, and therefore should not be baptized. Faith is indeed the proper condition of adult baptism. When Abraham was circumcised, it was "a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had" previously exercised; but when Isaac was to be circumcised, no faith was required of him because he was incapable of it. It is so with baptism. Faith is only required of those capable of exercising it, while their infant children become proper subjects of the ordinance because of the faith of their parents. The objection is, therefore, worthless. But in addition, it proves too much against the salvation of infants, as against their baptism. They cannot believe, and people must believe to be saved, therefore infants will be damned!! Again the argument proves too much, and proves nothing!
(3) Infants should not be bound by this ordinance because they cannot consent to the covenant of which it is the seal. But parents have a right to bind their children by covenants and do it continually. Every time a man deeds a property, he binds himself, his heirs, and assigns forever.
But sacred history also refutes the objections. Moses said: "Ye stand this day all of you, before the Lord your God; your Captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; that thou shouldst enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into His oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day" (Deut. 29: 10-12). Here the parents made a covenant which included their "little ones," and bound them to the Lord. The obligations of religion do not depend on our voluntary, consent, but on the essential nature of our being.
(4) It is often objected, and with a sneer, "what good does it do to baptize a baby?" We may answer solemnly, with another question: "What good did it do for little Isaac and every other Jewish child to be circumcised, by the command of God?" We would reverently suggest that we can never know how much more God can wisely do for the salvation of those children who have been given to Him by parents in a solemn covenant than He can do for others not given to Him. The infinite, covenant-keeping God is quite able to bring special blessings to such children. Of all objections to infant baptism, this contemptuous one is the most flimsy, and the most common. Suppose we cannot see how it does the children any good, our ignorance is not the measure of our duty, when it comes to the appointments of God, and the dedication of our children to Him in this solemn rite. We are not obliged to believe in baptismal regeneration, nor to fear the damnation of unbaptized infants, in order to feel the importance of infant baptism.
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i wonder if anyone else sees questions raised by some of these assertions - questions that undermine the theses?
