John:—I do not. It is contrary to the teaching of Christ and His Apostles. There was but one form of baptism known to them, that was baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. On one occasion when people applied to me for baptism, I had to take them to Aenon, near to Salim, "because there was much water there." (John 3: 23.) Had I considered sprinkling just as acceptable to God as immersion, I would not have taken the people to Aenon to be baptized.
The World:—You baptized Jesus Christ?
John:—I did.
The World:—When Christ applied to you for baptism what did you say?
John:—I said, "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" Then Jesus said to me, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." (Matt. 3: 14, 15.)
The World:—You say that Christ requested you to baptize Him in order that He might fulfill all righteousness?
John:—He did. And if the Son of God, being holy, had need to be baptized with water that He might fulfill all righteousness, how much more need have mortal men, they being unholy, to be baptized? According to the words of the Savior a man cannot fulfill all righteousness if he fails to comply with the ordinance of baptism. I told the Pharisees and lawyers that they had rejected the counsel of God against themselves by not being baptized. (Luke 7: 30.) And as it was in those days, so it is today—all those who slight this command of the Lord, and refuse to be baptized by immersion for the remission of their sins, will, like the Pharisees and lawyers, reject the counsel of God against themselves.
The World:—The witness is excused. (To the Latter-day Saints.) When was the method of baptism changed?
Latter-day Saints:—In the third century after Christ, in the case of a man named Novatian. Gahan, a Catholic historian, writing of him, says: "Having embraced the faith, he continued a catechumen, till, falling dangerously ill, and his life being despaired of, he was baptized in bed, not by immersion, which was then the usual method, but by infusion, or pouring on of water."
The World:—Who is your next witness?