The Book of Religions / Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical Sketches

by John Hayward

“This denomination claims an immediate descent from the apostles, and asserts that the constitution of their churches is from the authority of Jesus Christ himself, and his immediate successors. Many others, indeed, deduce their origin as a sect from much later times, and affirm that they first sprang up in Germany in the sixteenth century. This denomination of Christians is distinguished from others by their opinions respecting the mode and subjects of baptism. Instead of administering the ordinance by sprinkling or pouring water, they maintain that it ought to be administered only by immersion: such, they insist, is the meaning of the Greek word baptizo, to wash or dip, so that a command to baptize is a command to immerse. They also defend their practice from the phrase buried with him in baptism, from the first administrators' repairing to rivers, and the practice of the primitive church, after the apostles.

“With regard to the subjects of baptism, this denomination alleges that it ought not to be administered to children or [pg 188] infants at all, nor to adults in general; but to those only who profess repentance for sin and faith in Christ. Our Savior's commission to his apostles, by which Christian baptism was instituted, is to go and teach all nations, baptizing them, &c., that is, not to baptize all they meet with, but first to examine and instruct them, and whoever will receive instruction, to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This construction of the passage is confirmed by another passage—‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.’ To such persons, and to such only, this denomination says, baptism was administered by the apostles and the immediate disciples of Christ; for those who were baptized in primitive times are described as repenting of their sins, and believing in Christ. (See Acts 2:38, 8:37, and other passages of Scripture.)

“They further insist that all positive institutions depend entirely upon the will and declaration of the institutor; and that, therefore, reasoning by analogy from previous abrogated rites is to be rejected, and the express commands of Christ respecting the mode and subjects of baptism ought to be our only rule.

“They observe that the meaning of the word baptizo signifies immersion or dipping only; that John baptized in Jordan; that he chose a place where there was much water; that Jesus came up out of the water; that Philip and the eunuch went down both into the water; that the terms washing, purifying, burying in baptism, so often mentioned in Scripture, allude to this mode; that immersion only was the practice of the apostles and the first Christians; and that it was only laid aside from the love of novelty, and the coldness of our climate. These positions, they think, are so clear from Scripture, and the history of the church, that they stand in need of but little argument to support them.”

There are some interesting facts connected with the history [pg 189] of the Baptists in America. In 1631, the Rev. Roger Williams, who had been a clergyman of the church of England, but, disliking its formalities, seceded, and ranged himself with the Nonconformists, fled to America from the persecutions which then raged in England. The great principles of civil and religious liberty were not then understood in the western world, and, as Mr. Williams was a man of intrepid firmness in advocating those principles, we are not surprised at the excitement and opposition which his doctrines awakened. He settled first in Salem, New England, the magistracy of which condemned his opinions, and subsequently sentenced him to banishment. Under that cruel act of legislation, he was driven from his family, in the midst of winter, to seek for refuge among the wild Indians. After great sufferings, having conciliated the Indians, he commenced the formation of a colony, to which he gave the name of Providence, situate in Rhode Island, a name which it still bears.

Thus he became the founder of a new order of things. Several of his friends afterwards joined him, and in that infant settlement he sustained the twofold character of minister and lawgiver. He formed a constitution on the broad principle of civil and religious liberty, and thus became the first ruler that recognized equal rights. Nearly a century and a half after that, when the Americans achieved their independence, thirteen of the states united in forming a government for themselves, and adopted that principle; thus America became, what the little colony of Providence had been before, a refuge for the persecuted for conscience sake. It has been well observed that the millions in both hemispheres who are now rejoicing in the triumph of liberal principles, should unite in erecting a monument to perpetuate the memory of Roger Williams, the first governor who held liberty of conscience, as well as of person, to be the birthright of man.

In the year 1639, Mr. Williams formed the first Baptist [pg 190] church in America, at Providence. Throughout succeeding years, few changes, comparatively, were experienced in the movements of the Baptist denomination on this vast continent. Baptist churches multiplied exceedingly, until they assumed a leading attitude among the religious communities of America. They have amply provided for an efficient and learned ministry, and the extraordinary revivals with which they have been frequently favored, invest them with a moral strength and glory which cannot be contemplated but with astonishment and admiration.

Anabaptists.

Those who maintain that baptism ought always to be performed by immersion. The word is compounded of ana “new,” and baptistes, “a Baptist,” signifying that those who have been baptized in their infancy, ought to be baptized anew. It is a word which has been indiscriminately applied to Christians of very different principles and practices. The English and Dutch Baptists do not consider the word as at all applicable to their sect, because those persons whom they baptize they consider as never having been baptized before, although they have undergone what they term the ceremony of sprinkling in their infancy.