The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1895-04-18
Queer Break for a Presbyterian.

queer brodk lOr Ai0s"JsoAi'
The following extracts from sermon
by Rev. John Robertson, Presbyterian
minister, of GLASGOW, Scotland, read by
Rev, Currin on Sunday, April 7, show
changes of mind on this great sub
ject.
Oh. like other Presbyterian ministers,
God forgive me for leading my flock
round the pool of baptism. But "the
water is in the way, the star OF truth
has to be followed, and the straight
guiding is into the crystal baptistry.
"What doth hinder me to be baptized Z"
Doyou say baby sprinkling ? Traditional
custom =? Never! I am not to lead you
astray anymore. "Bnt obtained mercy
because did it ignorantly in unbelief."
Through ignorance I did it." The
darkness of night was SO dense, but the
star of Gods truth has risen on the
horizon clear and bright. and by it l
must 20. As am to deliver my soul at
the judgment seat of Christ, 1 say this
is the way. This converted man took
it, Let me take it. Do you take it?
Infant sprinkling like spoiled vaccina-
ton, it didn't take with ms! We have
an unconverted past. How could it take?
This baby sprinkling is sinful addition
to and reversal of the Word OF God.
have now come to confession by be-
LEVERS baptism, immersion. I did not
invent it, but it is there. You may like
it or dislike it, baby sprinkling is
simple addendum to the word of God,
and as such, inheriting the curse of the
nineteenth verse of the 22d of Revela.
tions, on all such human or diabolical
addenda, is an internal lie. By this
DEVILS door of baby sprinkling the great
heresy of the Church, the er opere operate
delusion, the Roman and Anglican semi.
Roman error of errors.
Baptismal regeneration stalked in to
tread it's grim march of death over the
graves of the multitudes of souls it has
slain and damned forever! Baby.sprink.
ling is historically as we'll as scripturally
false. Dean Stanley, just before his
death, wrote an essay on baptism for
the Nineteenth Century, and in it he says:
Baptism by immersion had, no doubt,
the sanction of the apostles and their
Master, but speaking generally, the
Christian civilized world has decided
against it," This he styles-this church
history expert-"a striking example OF
the triumph of common sense and con.
venience over the bondage of form and
CUSTOM" The baby sprinkling minister
of the Church of England goes on to say,
for like every honest and capable church
historian he has to say it: "The substi.
tuition of sprinkling for immersion is a
greater change even than that which
the Roman Catholic Church has made
in administering the Sacrament OF the
Lords Supper in the bread without the
wine. For that was change which did
not affect the thing signifed, whereas
the change from immersion to sprink.
ling has set aside the larger part OF the
apostolic language regarding baptism,
and must to many at the time have
seemed the greatest and most dangerous
innovation"
While admitting that this change cal
tered the whole meaning of the Word,"
for all Greek New Testament scholars
are agreed on this, as our own DR.. Chal.
mers said, "The original meaning of the
word baptism is immersion" - Dean
Stanley glories in the change! He says
it shows show the spirit which lives and
moves in human society can override
even the most sacred ordinances" tits
blasphemy.