Does Baptism have to be by immersion?

Moriah, you never ented this thread until now? Hmmmm, wonder why? I caught you in a lie on the other thread, presented questions you could not answer and so I guess it is "pay back" time for you huh? Let us both drop our discussion with each other because it is rather pointless.

 

Did you know that Dr. Robert Ashcraft has responded to Leon McBeth's position on the origin of English Baptists in his 776 page book entitled "Contending for the Faith, An Updated History of the Baptists."

Moreover, no one, not even Leon McBeth has attempted to make a rebuttal of John T. Christians books on this subject "Did they Dip" and "Baptist History Vindicated." Christian's book "A History of the Baptists" still stands untouched as far as any comphrehensive critique.

 

"The 'new breed' of Baptist historians produced such later writerss as Robert G. Torbet, Robert A. Baker, Morgan W. Patterson and H. Leon McBeth. These men and their Baptist histories dominate most Baptists seminaries today.

However, the original researches of John T. Christian, W.A. Jarrell, G. H. Orchard and others provide sufficient data to show the inaccuracies of the 'new breed' of church historians" - Dr. Robert Ashcraft, Contending For the Faith, An Updated History of the Baptists, p. 16

 

You are deceitful. For I have not done what you accuse me.

It is hard for me not to stand up for what is right. You malign what people say, among other things, and more seriously, you malign the Way.

 

All you started with was J.T. Christian, and that's all you've still got. He has no credibility, successionism/Landmarkism has no credibility. All of this bull has been disproved by credible Baptist historians. Those are the facts, no matter how you try to spin it.

 

You wouldn't know the facts if they bit you in the rear. The truth is not in you.

You can take your self-righteous, legalistic, pharisaical slandering and go jump in the lake, for all I care. You think if you call someone a liar, hypocrite, unsaved over and over again that it becomes the truth. You are delusional.

 

You are doing exactly what you are accusing me of doing. I put down the record for all to see and they can go back and see if I told the truth or not.

 

In other words you are calling me a liar. I gave Christian the credit for the one or two I may have quoted from his work. However, all the others were directly from primary sources that I researched myself from the microfilm library at the University of Tennessee in 1980.

How do you expect anyone to believe anything you say when you simply chose to lie! You are lying and willfully lying because I have told you now three different times that the rest of the quotes are from my own research and yet you keep repeating this lie. No wonder I accuse you of lying because that is exactly what you are doing.

 

Moving on,

The Scriptures restrict Christian baptism to immersion only. The term prove this. The availability but avoidance of epicheo and rantizo for this ordinance proves this. The typology proves it. The contextual evidence proves it. The complete silence of pouring (epicheo) or sprinkling (rantizo) as descriptions of this Christian ordinance proves this.

Baptism does not save anyone. However, baptism was not designed to save anyone. It was designed to be a "figure" and the purpose of a figure is found in the correct FORM being expressed. It is the expressed FORM that conveys the truth the "figure" is designed to express.

Therefore, any other "FORM" DISfigures and prevents the designed truth from being expressed. Since, baptism is a "FIGURE" of the gospel then it is quite serious to DISfigure the form as that perverts also the truth it is designed to express - it perverts the gospel.

 

The following quotations are taken from my own copies I personally researched at the University of Tennessee in 1980 where I researched the microfilm files of the Bodleian Library:

A. "I shall now in the last place show you, how long the ordinance of baptism was, and is to continue; where I shall also show, the contiuance of Churches, and other ordinances of Christ, which is, till Christ come again the second time." - Edward Drapes, Gospel Glory, p. 118

I have a full photocopy of this book in my personal library. Note that this book was written in the very year that ithe 1641 theory claims immersion was reinstituted and yet Drapes speaks of the ordinance of baptism in that very year as nothing new.

B. "Because the Church and Her ordinances have not been lost.....Cessaton of the Church and Ordinances is a policy of Satan" - James Garner, A Treatise on Baptism - 1645

Garner makes this statement only four years after the supposed 19th century invention of the theory that immersion was begun among Baptists in 1641.

C. "This venomous Serpent (vere solifuga) flying from, and shinning the light of God's Word, is the Anabaptist, who in these later times first showed his shinning head, and speckled skin, and thust out his sting near the place of my residence, FOR MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS." - Dr. Feately, The Dippers Dipt. Or, The Anabaptists Ducked and Plunged over Head and Ears, at a Disputation in Southwark, London, 1645

Featley dates the practice of immersion in 1645 (note his title) according to his own personal eye witness at least back to 1625. This alone destroys 1641theory. However, his own personal observation does not mean they originated just prior to 1625 either. C.H. Spurgeon prior to his conversion said that he didn't even know Baptists existed in England and that was at least 200 years after Featley wrote this. Remember, there was no telecommunications and people were limited to their own immediate travels.


NONE OF THESE QUOTES WERE TAKEN FROM ANY BAPTIST HISTORIAN BUT DIRECTLY FROM THE MICOFILM COPIES OF PRIMARY SOURCES.

 

I am holding in my own hands a photocopy of Samuel Richardson's response to Dr. Feately's book entitled "Some Brief Considerations on Doctor Featley's book" written in 1645 in London.

I have pointed out that Roman Catholics made false charges and perverted what Baptists beleived and provided a revisionist history. Richardson lists the following false charges that Feately (Church of England) had ascribed to the Baptists (he called Anabaptists) in his day and published them and don't they sound familiar to the same false charges published by Catholics of ancient Anabaptists and I quote:

"But the doctor charges us in his book, with many things......

That no malefactor ought to be put to death

That it is lawful to have more wives than one at once,

That a man may put away his wife if she differ from him in point or religion,

That we go naked, and not be ashamed,

That we hold it lawful to slay wicked Magistrates,

That no Christian may go to law, but right himself by violent means,

That we maintain pretended Revelations,

That Chirst took not flesh of virgin Mary,

That there is no original sin,

That men have free will in spiritual actions,

That election is for foreseen faith and repentance,

That God gives all men sufficient grace to be saved,

That a man hath a free will of himself to accept or refuse grace, That Christ died indifferently alike for all.

That a true believer may fall away from grace totally and finally,

And that we hold Libertarianism & Familism, and such like stuff which we utterly abhore and detest.......But I am sure all this poison (which he charges upon us) is drawn out of the impure fountain of divers Heretics, in which he labors to drown us in; and I wonder how his conscience would permit him to heave so many untruths into the Press......"

What is interesting is that Richardson says that Dr. Featley aligned English Anabaptists with the Donatists, Novations and mainland 16th century Anabaptists.

 

Another error of the 1641 theory is that Particular Baptists in England began with John Spilsbury's church in London. Henry Knollys in a very rare writing (a copy which I have) explain that the churches in London originated from men ordained and sent from churches in the country side of England. The Title of his booklet is very long and reads:

"A MODERATE ANSWER UNTO DR. BASTWICK'S BOOK CALLED, Independence not God's Ordinance, Wherein, Is declared the manner how some churches i thsi city were gathered, and upon what terms their members were admitted; That so both the Doctor and the Reader may judge, how near some believers who walk together in the Fellowship of the gospel, do come in their practice to these apostolic Rules which are propounded by the Doctor as God's Method in gathering Churches And admitting members" - By Hanserd Knolly's, Printed and published according to order imprimatur, Ja; Cranford LONDON PRINTED IANE COE. 1645"

As you can see this book was written just four years after the supposed 19th century imaginative theory that immersion was begun in 1641 by Baptists in England.

Also you can tell by the lengthy title that Knollys is going to precisely tell how those particular churches in London were constituted. Here is what he says,

"I shall now take liberty to declare, what I know by mine own experience to be the practice of somce Churches of God in the City. That so both the Doctor and the reader may judge how near the Saints, who walk together in the Fellowship of the gospel, do come in their practice, to these Apostolic rules and practice propounded by the Doctor as God's method in gathering Churches, and admitting members. I say, that I KNOW BY MINE OWN EXPERIENCE (having walked with them) that they were thus gathered; viz.

Some godly and learned men of approved gifts and abilities for the Ministry, BEING DRIVEN OUT OF THE COUNTRIES, where they lived by the persecution of the Prelates, came to sojourn in this great City, and preached the Word of God both publicly, and from house to house, and daily in the Temples and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ; and some of them have dwelt in their own hired houses, and received all that came in unto them, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things, which concern the Lord Jesus Christ. And when many sinners were converted b their preaching of the Gospel, some of them that believed, consorted with them, and of professors a great many, and of the chief women not a few. And the condition with those Preachers both publicly and privately propounded to the people, unto whom they preached, upon which they were admitted into the Church was Faith, Repentance and Baptism and none other."


Take note they were both learned and of approved gifts and abilities previous to coming to the city and it is for that reason they were driven out of the country side - WHERE THEY LIVED - due to persecution.

There are at least three churdhes in the country side that date their own origin back to the fourteenth and fifteenth century:

1. Hill Clift Church - 1357
2. Church at Olchon - 1419
3. Church in the Hop Garden - 1481

 

From a Primitive Baptist website, on Edward Drapes: "Edward Drapes was a ministering brother who walked with the Particular Baptist Church meeting in the Glasshouse or Glazer’s Hall in London. This church came into being from the Richard Blount mission to bring adult immersion back into England from the Collegians in Holland. Blount and his friends were not aware of any who then, 1640, practiced immersion of adult believers in England."

The second of your sources is Robert Garner, not James Garner. He is a successionist, a discredited and false position.

As for Featley, he is simply wrong, since it is an established fact that the Mennonites poured. Featly had an agenda; I'll let you figure it out.

You are proved wrong once again. McBeth and other credible Baptist historians have proven how original Baptists in England baptized at the beginning. Successionism is a fable, so it has to manufacture supposed evidence to contradict the truth. The quote I gave you about Edward Drapes is very telling.

 

You are the only liar and slanderer here.

 

I have stated my position on immersion as the scriptural, apostolic form of baptism. But that is not what we are debating here.

 

I notice you use Particular Baptists as your sources, such as Hanserd Knollys, who nevertheless says nothing about the original General Baptists or their mode of baptism. You never go to those original Baptists, the General Baptists, who were influenced by the Mennonite practice of baptizing by pouring.

Once again, I choose to believe credible Baptist historians such as McBeth.

Oh, and this from an article on Thomas Helwys: "Helwys and twelve Baptist émigrés returned to England to speak out against religious persecution.They founded the first Baptist congregation on English soil in Spitalfields, east end of London."

 

Look, if you want to hold that the original Baptists in England practiced immersion from the beginning, it doesn't matter to me, even though I know it's false. I realize you have to hold that to maintain your successionist views. I don't care about that, either.

I have stated my views on immersion, but I would not exclude a person from my church who had not been immersed. Since God would accept into heaven anyone who has come to faith, regardless of baptism mode, or without any water baptism, I would accept the same into my church. Making a ritual into a stumbling block or a cause of disfellowship is just wrong and against the spirit of Jesus and His teachings.

 

Michael Wrenn is simply amazing in these posts.

You immediately discredit John T. Christian because of what he believed about Baptist origins. Who cares if his books were published by the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board and his 1925 History of the Baptists was the official Southern Baptist History book of its day. What does it matter that he made nearly a dozen trips to Europe studying primary sources. It's not important that when he died he had the largest Baptist library in the world. Who cares that the New Orleans Baptist Seminary library is named in his honor. He was just a backwoods ignore hick. Amazing!!!

Then when primary sources from the 1640's are given (such as Garner and Featley) you immediately discredit them even though they were eye-witnesses to these events. By the way, there are many, many more primary sources that say the same things as these two.

You continually fall back on Leon McBeth. Well I've read McBeth through numerous times and had the book as a textbook in both college and seminary Baptist history classes. It has good (very readable) and bad (very bias against fundamentalism, conservationism, etc.) points. But McBeth is far from an expert on Baptist origins.

There is still much to be discovered and discussed about Baptist beginnings in the 1600's. I have talked with many of the "so-called expert" Baptist historians today and they tend to just fall back on what McBeth or Torbet said without taking the time to study the issues for themselves.

If you want to read a real expert on this subject, check out Ron Pound and his Particular Baptist Library. He has read every single Particular and General work from the 1600's and has numerous writings on the subject.

 

I made those quotations from my own research, my own copies which I have in my own hand and you still say I am lying, and that I am quoting Christian? Utterly amazing how low you will stoop to defend your nonsense.

Utterly low, because:

1. You have no way of confirming your charge
2. You are not in my library
3. You have no way of denying I have actual photocopies
4. You quote others who confirm my source materials as authentic

What beats all, is that you are actually not only calling me a liar but charging me with quoting Christian without giving him credit.

You do exactly what Featley did toward the Baptists of his day - heap false charges upon them.

 

I had the copy on my lap and I was trying to type it while looking at the computer key board and back at the copy and typed "James" instead of "Robert" I guess becase I always watch Maverick.

You admit what few others will admit. That Robert Garner was indeed a succcessionist as was Daniel King and many others in his day long before James R. Graves.

That admission causes your kind of historians grave problems. How does one take a successionist position just four years after the supposed restoration of immersion as baptism????????

To simply dismiss his testimony, an eye witness testimony, living in 1641 because you don't agree with his position is rather funny!

:laugh:Featley was a Church of England minister who hated Anabaptists/Baptists - that was his agenda!:laugh: You are actually saying that his OWN PERSONAL EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY that he personally observed those he hated immersing by his house is a lie??? :laugh: What evidence do you have for that amazing denial???????

As for Edward Drapes - he also was a successionist as my quote proves. Tell me, how can a successionist on church and baptism writing in the very year 1641 when your historians say immersion was restored, have the gall to defend successionism????????:laugh:

John T. Christian did more original research on English Baptist History and their original source material than any man living then or today and your research pales into insignificance compared to his as well as that of your historians.