Newport daily independent., 1902-06-07
SERMON ON BAPTISM
 BY REV. L. H. RICHARDSON
Reviewed by Rev. 0. c. Cline.
CONTINUED FROM JUNE 6.)
II. WHAT EPIscoPALIANs SAY ON THE
 'tMoDE OF BAPTISM"

l II. WHAT EPISCOPALIANS SAY ON THE
 ''MoDE OF BAPTISM"
 | It is doubtless understood by the readers of my review of MT. R. that my purpose is to permit those who are advocates of "sprinkling" to re- ply to his arguments. have also the desire to furnish those who care to know the overwhelming evidence from those who now favor sprinkling that tsprinkling" is a substitute for baptism and not definition. That the church has the right to change the ''formn of an ordinance is the contention of Catholics and Episco- palians, and that, having the right to change, the Catholic church has done so in substituting ''sprinkling" and "pouring" for baptism. For this reason the Catholic church has changed the Lords Supper The af- terthought of trying to show that tsprinkling'' and pouring" are meanings of the word baptize, is the only recourse of those Pedobaptists who are unwilling to give the Gath olic church the credit for changing the ''form" of baptism. Both hon. esty and scholarship compel all who have been 'ssprinkled'' for baptism to admit that the 'ssubstitute" for bap- tism introduced by the Catholic church has been practiced upon them in babyhood when they were unable to chose or later when the choice was made in choosing church. To prove that "sprinkling" is of popish origin I submit the following from two great Episcopalians.
 1. DR. WALL says, "Sprinkling, for the common use of baptizing, was really introduced Gin France first, and then in the other popish countries) in times of popery; and that accor- dingly all those countries in which the usurped power of the Pope is or has been owned, have lafs off dipping of children in the font; but all other countries in the world which have regarded his authority do still use it; and that basins, except that in case of necessity, were never used by papist or any other christians whatsoever till by themselves" Wallis History of Baptism p. 583.
 2. DEAN STANLEY, on Baptism, says, "We now pass to the changes in the form itself. For the first thirteen centuries the almost universal Pfac- tice of baptism was that of which we read in the New Testament, and which is the very meaning of the word baptize: that those who were baptized were plunged, submerged, immersed into the water. That prac- tice is still, as we have seen, con- tinued in Eastern Churches"
 I pause in this quotation to ask how it is, that MT. R sees nothing but "sprinkling" in the New Testament when Dean Stanley sees immersion only? Is it not because MT. R. is one of the parties referred to in the text, "They that are unlearned and un- stable wrest as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction"
 MT. Stanley continues, ESince the beginning of the 17th century the practice of immersion has become ex- ceedingly rare. With the few excep- tions just mentioned, the whole of the Western Churches have now substi- tuted for the ancient bath the eere- mony of letting fall few drops of water on the face. .'-Institutes pp. IS 19.
 8. BLOOMFIELD on Baptism of Jesus says, ''He underwent the rite of bap- tism by being plunged into the water" Notes Vol. 1, p. 15S.
 On Rom. 6:3, he says, "We have been thus buried in the waters of bap- tism. This is plain allusion to the ancient custom of baptism by immer- sion.
 4. CoNYBEARE AND HoWsoN on Rom 6:3 say, "This passage cannot be understood unless it be borne in mind that the primitive form of baptism was by immersion. ."-Vol. ?, p. 169
 5. BISHOP CoLENso on the same says, "Holy baptism is the outward, visible sign of water in which in those days, one was immersed, or as it were