Omaha daily bee., 1897-03-03
WHY He fs n BaDtist.

OMAHA, March Ito the Editor of The
Bee: Canon Whitmarsh in a sermon re-
ported in The Bee informs the public why
he is not a Baptist" His statement of
reasons is dignifieu and generally clear. The
canon has not forgotten his Baptist training
when he lays down as his first position that
every one should join that church which is
nearest to the apostolic church in theory
and practice"
His second statement, which declares that
baptism is "a channel of forgiveness to the
true penitent,' - is not expressed in the Ian
guage of the apostles. Baptism is never
called a channel of anything in the New
Testament. Here the canon departs from
his first position, which requires a church to
be just like 'the apostolic church in theory
and practice" He does not allow the Lord
or His apostles to define baptism, but he
introduces a word wholly foreign to their
mode of thinking and speaking. The Lord
made and baptized disciples;" that is He
made them first and then baptized them.
He accepted them and then baptized. In
the last commission the Lord has the same
idea of the place of baptism where he says:
He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved" He is to believe first, and as a
believer he is to be baptized. Now a be-
lever is already forgiven, for with the heart
man believeth into righteousness" believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved" Baptism cannot be a channel of
forgiveness because a believer is already
forgiven. If there Is any "channel of for
giveness," it is simply faith in the Savior.
The third statement of the canon is just
as foreign to the ideas of Christ and the
apostles as the second, for he says that the
ftoly Spirit Is impaired In baptism" The
apostles received the Holy Spirit long after
their baptism, as Cornelius sometime before
his baptism. IL was the hands of the
apostles that impaired the Holy Spirit to the
Samaritan believers.
The fourth statement of the canon Is like
wise utterly foreign to the ideas of Christ
and the apostles. Nowhere In the New
Testament is baptism mentioned in the same
passage with infants. Nowhere in that
book are we told that baptism takes the
ments for infant baptism, but they cannot
be found in the book, As Schleiermacher
said: ANY argument for infant baptism
must be put into the New Testament be.
fore it can be found there"
The canon's first position Is a good one, but
he departs from II in his fifth statement, as
he did in the other three. After admitting
"the original meaning of the Greek
word from which baptism comes to be i'm
mersion," he flies to a secondary meaning.
He claims that "the whole question of mode
hangs on the time when this secondary mean
ing was attached to the word" The canon
Is too good a scholar to dare to say that
water applied as a religious rite" was a
meaning of the Greek word in the time of
the apostles. Yet If he does not dare to
say this he Is bound to return to the Baptist
fold, for he says that 1.-THE whole question
of mode hangs on the time when this sec
ondary meaning was attached to the word 4"
and he further says that every one must
Join that church which is nearest to the
apostolic church in theory and practice"
w. w. EVERTS,
Pastor Beth Eden Baptist Church.