052. OUR BAPTIST ADVANTAGE IN AMERICA1
OUR BAPTIST ADVANTAGE IN AMERICA1
It is well to encourage one another in God. We have undertaken a great enterprise, comparable only to the conquest of the world by the apostles. We have set out to subdue this country to the Baptist Faith. It is desirable to count the cost, and see whether with ten thousand we are able to meet those who come against us with twenty thousand. I propose, therefore, to consider Our Baptist Advantage In America. Let us look at some of its elements, and then at the responsibility which it lays upon us.
First: It is our Baptist advantage that we rest our doctrine of the ordinances solely on New Testament prescription and example. Believing that Scripture is the supreme authority in matters of religious belief and practice, we go directly to the Scriptures and ask only what the Scriptures teach. Other denominations of Christians err, as we think, in recognizing other sources of doctrine in addition to this one infallible standard. The practice of the church or the decisions of church councils are regarded as binding also. But we care nothing for the Fathers; we trust only the grandfathers—the apostles themselves. The written word, what saith it? It is a plain word, designed for common people; the wayfaring man may read even while he runs; he does not need commentaries or explanations in order to understand its essential teachings. It is a great advantage that our best campaign document is the Bible—the most widely circulated book in the world; in fact, all we have to do, and all we desire to do, is to get people to read and follow the Bible. There is our rock and our defense, and the rock stands foursquare ’gainst all the winds that blow. Scholarship examines that rock, but only reveals more and more clearly how impregnable it is.
Lest these should seem unwarranted assertions, I quote some utterances from men of other Faiths than our own, men of the highest rank in exegesis and in history, men who speak of what has been to them the study of a lifetime. Dr. Philip Schaff, of the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, declares:— "Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists." "The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the New Testament, are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholics and Protestants, English and German." Professor George P. Fisher, of the Yale Divinity School, thus expresses himself: "Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion." The latest and most brilliant investigator of early church history is Professor Harnack of Berlin. He tells us that "BapHzein undoubtedly signifies immersion. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the New Testament and in the most ancient Christian literature." No one can doubt the impartiality of the late Dean Stanley. Dean Stanley speaks of immersion as "the primitive, apostolical, and till the 13th century the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the eastern churches, and which is still in our own church [the Church of England] as positively enjoined in theory, as it is universally neglected in practice." "The change from immersion to sprinkling," he says, "has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word."