You have given the true reasons for not re baptising: if it is initiatory, and reception into the house or public professing assembly on earth, you cannot introduce him if he has been.

• If this has been bonā fide done, done with this object, hence called christening, it is done; and a second service cannot be this, but only on the ground of being declaratory and obedience, which you yourself reject, as indeed baptising brethren themselves do generally now, and which are clearly unscriptural.

• The only question then is, are the children of believers entitled to be so received? Now the rejecting them as infants was clearly not God's way of old, nor Christ's mind. It is the question, are they entitled to be received into the habitation of God by the Spirit, or are they to be left in the world of which Satan is prince?

• Now in Matthew the general character of infants in God's sight is clearly stated: their angels behold the face of His Father. It is not His will that one should perish, and that referred to His saving like a lost sheep.

• This clearly refers to infants as such, not those who have as Christians a character like them it would be poverty itself as to them; He had the child in His arms

• It is said this is not baptism. Clearly not. But it is not merely or at all Jewish, "of such is the kingdom of heaven". Now the kingdom of heaven was not then set up; now it is, and such belong to it. They are of it, and ought to be admitted to its privileges.

• I know no administrative entrance to it on earth but baptism. It was the prescribed order down on earth. But when I come to 1 Corinthians 7: 14, I think I get the question specifically decided. It is directly the subject.

• If a Jew married a Gentile he was profaned – not profane, a profane thing cannot be profaned – and was to send away his wife and children – see Ezra and Nehemiah: was it so under grace?

• No, the converse; the unbeliever was sanctified – opposite to profaned, not holy – and the children were holy, to be received, not cut off. Hence the word is "unclean," the force of which as precluding approach to the house of Jehovah in Israel is well known.

• There is a place where God sets His blessings besides individual conversion, I mean down here. Thus Romans 11 and the sacramental place on earth – 1 Corinthians 10 – answers to this in Judaism;
  • hence, as you recognise, special judgment on it, and it is called the house of God, though spoiled with false doctrine in man's hand, still judged as God's house and temple, though wood and hay and stubble be in it.

• Without this indeed there could not be apostasy. Hence the Lord, and the faith – not personal, but the "one faith" – and baptism are associated. In the baptism of a child there is plain testimony to the need of Christ's death for its admission.

• I trust you will not press ——'s conscience the least. Should you even feel bound to do it, leave her quite at liberty not even to be present if she is not free, or a mere looker on if she wish to be it. Your own conscience God will direct. Take it quietly for yourself and for her.

• I trust and pray, nor do I doubt His goodness, that the gracious Lord will be with her in her hour of need, and may He give her to rest as a child in His arms, and trust His gracious care …

The brethren here are getting on very happily, freshly and unitedly. I am not uneasy about ——: uphill work is good work.

[1873]

*** I regret the occupation of minds with baptism, and pressing it [i.e. 'believer's baptism'] on others as is done. It is not Christ nor the church, but ordinances; and I judge it is a very great evil, always injuring the person who is so occupied.

• The person who spoke to you probably had been baptised as a child, and only meant that he had not been immersed as an adult. The ground they take, I am more than ever assured from scripture, is wholly false.

As to christening, it is the word which most truly expresses what baptism is being made, as to outward position, a Christian. This, which your baptism as an infant did, no present immersion could possibly do.

• There would be no public introduction to Christendom of a man born of Adam no becoming a Christian by profession

• There would be what they call obedience, which is in the teeth of scripture, and the reputation of what they call 'seeing baptism', or adopting Baptist views, which are every way false and that is all.

• To a scriptural judgment you cannot be baptised now, because you have been for I affirm, according to scripture, baptism is just christening that is, the introduction into Christianity, and nothing else. Every other view of it is unscriptural and false.

• I fear much the falsifying the position and testimony of brethren by the way some press it. It is simply confounding the house and the public profession with the unity of the body of Christ.

• The public body exists, corrupted, no doubt, but exists, and to form it again by baptism is all false; it exists by baptism:
  • and we are called to maintain the unity of the body, of which the Lord's supper is the sign – not baptism; to follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

• A testimony by baptism I should consider a false testimony, and should take no part in.

• If a person never had been baptised, it is irregular, and should be remedied, and if a person falsely fancies he has not, I respect his conscience;
  • but his making a point of it tends always to disunion, not unity; and if this testimony were practically founded on it, I should leave it as a false one.

• Still, I have never meddled, nor should, with those who think they have not been and ought to be baptised, nor make their ignorance a reason for troubling them, as they trouble others by what I am perfectly satisfied is only ignorance.

• I am as satisfied as that I am sitting here writing, that all their views of baptism are utterly false and unscriptural.
  • I repeat, the only true sense of baptism is what is expressed in the word christening.

• The great point now is maintaining the unity of the body separate from evil; with this, baptism has nothing to do. It is either public Christendom or christening which we have, or the badge of a sect.

What we have to look for is not subjection to ordinances but spiritual mindedness – not sinking, as you say, into the quiet possession of mighty truths without the power of them – and unity of those who love the Lord.

• Baptism so called, helps neither, but the contrary … I only add, that your baptism, though in the midst of confusion, was bonā fide, the same as your child's.

• I was exercised in the same way; but I felt I was introduced, and meant to be introduced in good faith, into the church as a public profession in the world, and this is what baptism is – I was christened.

• The state of individuals in their souls has nothing to do with it. It is not communion in the unity of the body, which is by the Holy Ghost.

• I admit the same confusion in mere expression of the service, not of the baptism, that there is among Baptists; but
  • the name christening just shews the justness of the appreciation of the rite and the true purpose of those concerned in it.

• In this the Establishment is right; the Baptists, according to scripture, clearly wrong.

The Lord bless you and your home. Seek, dear brother, that not the freshness of a soul just out of prison, but the deep and living power of a soul in constancy of communion with God, may be found in you, and pray for me and fellow saints that it may be so. The Lord is working remarkably here; not now, in adding outwardly, but what I think more of, giving His word power in souls.

*** The first thing I must do is to set the principle of baptism on its right grounds.

• It is not obedience: obedience to an ordinance is unchristian ground altogether. Baptists have gone so far as to allege the Lord's words, "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness".

• It is inconceivable that Christians should speak so fulfilling righteousness by ordinances! It is Galatian doctrine – a denial of the first principles of truth for a sinner.

• Further, if John's baptism had been submitted to, it is nothing as regards Christian baptism. The twelve at Ephesus – Acts 19 – were baptised as Christians after that.

• But more particularly, a command there was to baptise, not to be baptised; but this was not even to baptise believers, but to disciple the nations, baptising them – a commission which supposes Jerusalem and the Jews received – a commission which Paul declares was not given to him, who was appointed minister of the church.

• Not only so, but when we read how it was administered, we find the directest evidence that it was not a matter of obedience but of according a privilege entrance into the professed external assembly of God on the earth.

• "What does hinder me to be baptised?" says the officer of Candace, a question which precludes the thought of obedience, and speaks of an admission which he counted a privilege: so with Cornelius –
  • "Can any forbid water that these should not be baptised, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?"

• Hence, the first Christians gathered by the Lord during His life on earth – the disciples – who were baptised with the Holy Ghost, were never baptised: they were sent to baptise, and did.

• Paul was baptised, because he was received like any other. Thus the testimony is complete from holy scripture as to its character.

Next comes the question, Into what were they received? Not into the unity of the body, for then the twelve would not have been in it, nor is there ever a hint in scripture of baptism being into the unity of the body.

• It is a symbol of death and resurrection – for which reason John Baptist's baptism was nothing for Christianity as such – the admission into the assembly gathered on the earth to the name of Christ;
  • people were baptised to – never into – something as to Moses – not into Moses – it is the same word:

  • so to Christ – not into Christ – and to His death – not into, here, either –

• and thus were individuals held figuratively to be on the professed ground of resurrection;

• but this was not the unity of the body that was a real and essential thing, and came by another kind of baptism.
  • "For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body," not by water.

• The ordinance that symbolises this is the Lord's supper, not baptism: for we are all one body, inasmuch as
  • "we are all partakers of that one loaf".

• The baptism of the Spirit, not baptism by water, is that by which we are baptised into the unity of the body.

Further, it is alleged that these ordinances are signs of the state of him who partakes of them not of an object of his faith. This is entirely contrary to scripture.

• We are baptised to Christ's death and raised in baptism not baptised because we are dead and risen.

• It is objective: what is represented in baptism? I am figuratively buried into death and rise again, not as a witness that I am. The principle is false and mischievous.
  • "Arise and be baptised, and wash away thy sins," not because faith has washed away.

• It is the outward public sign of that whereto Christ's death and resurrection are available, a witness of that not that the person has availed himself of them that may or may not be true.

• To receive of the Lord's supper, I do not go because I have remembered Christ's death, or have fed upon Him, but to remember Him there.

No one can read the statements of scripture and not see these statements of the Baptists are wholly contradicted by those of scripture.

• It remains, then, to inquire, who may be outwardly received into the public assembly of God on earth by men; God alone Himself in Christ being He who unites to the body.

• Now, when I turn to scripture, I find, when children were brought to Jesus – Matthew 19: 14 – that His reply to His objecting disciples is,
  • "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven".

• Now, I am told that this was merely the gracious kindness of Jesus then, and does not refer to our receiving them now, or merely to personal gracious reception now.

• The answer is evident. The kingdom of heaven was not set up then, but only at hand. It is not, "I will build my church", but "the kingdom of heaven", the keys of which – not of the church – were committed to Peter – and see the consequence.

• In Matthew 18 – and all these chapters from 16, the Lord is shewing the principles of what was coming in after His departure – we read,
  • "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost".

• Mark that ground on which it is laid; was it only when He was on earth?

• Then note the parable – verses 12-13.
  • "Even so it is not the will of my Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish".

• But we may not receive them.

• Though the Lord does not give the sign of this privilege by the death and resurrection of Christ – though He lays that privilege on the ground of His coming to save the lost – He tells me,
  • "And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me".

• How can I receive a sinner, and the little child is a sinner, in Christ's name but on the ground of death and resurrection?

• A Baptist tells me I am to receive him to God as a heathen without the death and resurrection of Christ because they have perverted the sense of baptism. I receive him on the ground,
  • "The Son of man is come to save that which was lost".

• The kingdom of heaven being of such, am I not to receive him on it in Christ's name or if in His name, not by death and resurrection into the kingdom of heaven?

• But more, I am positively assured they are holy when one parent is a Christian – not intrinsically, it is the outward reception on earth which is before us – and the passage applies directly to the point in question.

• If a Jew married a heathen he had profaned himself, the wife was profaned, and so the children and wife were to be put away that was law.

• Grace came, one parent was counted a believer, the other not: were they to separate as the Jews ought to have done? No! The unbelieving was sanctified as the Jew was profaned not holy more than the Jew was profane and the children were holy just as the Jew's children were profane.

• What was the consequence for the Jew's child? He could not be received into the outward privileges of Judaism by circumcision he was profane; the child of the Christian could it was holy.

• It was thus a definite decision on the point not upsetting the very nature of Christianity, by giving a commandment contained in ordinances as Baptists would and do, but giving directions as to the principles on which we are to act.

I am told that an immense system of evil is built up by it [i.e. the baptism of the children of christian parents].

• In the first place, if the sanctity of the Lord's supper had been maintained, which is the unity of the body, and the place of discipline, this would not have been so; but, as far as the principle goes, the great house is contemplated in scripture, and does not cease till He judges it.

• It is His house in which the vessels to honour are. It is not the body, but it will be judged as His house, responsible as such.

• I receive, then, the children of a christian parent, all, if born bonā fide and brought into the house where the Holy Spirit dwells, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

• I receive them because Christ received them, and said that the kingdom of heaven, to be set up after His death, was of such, because they are holy.
  • The precept, "Obey your parents in the Lord",

• could not be given them without. If it receive them within, baptism is appointed by the Lord for it: it is not the Lord's body; but they cannot be received but on the ground of Christ's death and resurrection. The Father, I know, does receive as such.

*** I confess I would rather treat on any other subject than this of baptism.

• The great evil of their system is, that they occupy themselves with ordinances instead of with the Lord, and one is obliged to do the same when speaking of it.

• The subject has been discussed in all its bearings amongst the brethren assembled here, among whom there were brethren who had allowed themselves to be baptised, and who had left the Baptists; and no doubt the falsity of their system has been made very evident, even for those who, in my opinion, do not see clearly.

• I can only touch on the main points. The first is, that the Baptists' system places Christendom outside the responsibility of Christianity as not forming part thereof:
  • they consider them only as Gentiles who have not been received through baptism, though those who form Christendom are according to them, not a part of the christian system, of which the true Christians form a part.

• This is of great importance, because thereby the position of Christendom, and the house, involving responsibility, are destroyed.

• In a great house there are vessels to honour and dishonour: they are both in the same great house. To this it will be replied, Am I then not called upon to leave it?

• It is impossible, for one has been received into it by baptism, and through the christian belief. I am not called to leave it, but to separate from the vessels of dishonour.

• From this point of view, Baptists entirely falsify the position of the Christians in the latter days; moreover, their principle makes baptism the bond of the unity of the body, and through this they are Baptists – that makes them Baptists – but this very principle is quite false, and contrary to scripture.

• The act of baptism is not the reception into the body of Christ; one may have been baptised a thousand times, and yet not be of this body. It – baptism – is not even the symbol of it.

• That which makes us members of the body of Christ is the baptism of the Holy Ghost: we are, through one Spirit, all baptised into one body.

• Of the body, the Lord's supper is the symbol, and the participation of it the outward confession of unity: for as it is one bread, so we, being many, are one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread – loaf.

• Baptism is the sign of death and resurrection – or, rather, in the participation of it – he, therefore, who rests the oneness of the body on baptism, or intends through baptism to lead into the body of Christ, is quite wrong, and this is an important point.

Then, again, they take obedience as a basis, and subject us to an ordinance as duty of obedience.

• The principle of being required to obey an ordinance Christianity rejects, because it makes an act of the outer man a condition for entering into the enjoyment of the privileges of grace …

• Baptism is a privilege granted, which admits into the number of the faithful and into the great house.

• According to the Baptists' principle the apostles ought not to have partaken of the Lord's supper, for they had not been baptised; nor could they have been, for there was no one to baptise them.

• That would evidently be an absurdity, but according to the Baptists' system, such an inference would be necessary.

• Again, they pretend the sacraments to be signs and seals of things received – a principle which is false. I do not partake of the Lord's supper as a sign that I have eaten Christ, but I eat Him there – I drink there His blood in the sign.

• Moreover, the word is very precise – one is buried into death through baptism; so that their doctrine in reference to these precepts is quite false.

Lastly – and this is the worst – there is the way in which they occupy souls with a legal prescription of obedience, and engage their attention with an ordinance, instead of occupying them with Christ, which gives the soul a false direction as regards its whole state.

• It [i.e the 'baptist' system] then – without knowing it – accepts a principle which breaks down Christianity in its foundation, like him who keeps days, but in a more serious case, because they make the oneness of the body to depend on it.

• Paul was not sent to baptise. I, for my part, feel convinced that the commission to the twelve was "to make disciples of all nations," not a body of elect converts.

• Now, since this has been done – be it right or wrong – and they have been baptised, they – the Baptists – will not acknowledge it, and commence to re baptise, or, rather, encourage Christians to do so, because they despise what was done.

• The difficulty now lies in this, that the Baptists who are sunk into subjection to ordinances necessarily conceal from themselves the ways of God often, no doubt, dear children of God, to whom I, with my whole heart, allow liberty of conscience, as to him who only wants to eat herbs;
  • but really to make ignorance and conformity to law the condition of the oneness of the body is a little too strong!

In the condition in which the church is, I easily yield to it, and one can only hope to protect souls through the details and precise statements of the word of God, leaving the conscience perfectly free;

• but a religious union in the so called body of Christ – of the Baptists – which would exclude the apostles is a little too absurd!

Dear Brother – I must repeat what I said to you, that I have not the most distant wish to persuade any one on the subject of baptism.

• I believe it is a rite established at the beginning; but I was not sent to baptise, nor was Paul – 1 Corinthians 1: 17. It was not abrogated.

• The circumstances of my own baptism, though done bonā fide, and in the main with right intentions, were not such as I should wish, but I do not think it can be repeated.

• And while Paul gets a special revelation as to the Lord's supper – 1 Corinthians 11: 23, 26 – though already long instituted and in use – he being the minister of the church and the teacher of the unity of the body – he is not sent to baptise, which was the introduction into the outer circle of public position as a Christian.

• What is special to brethren, so called – for the foundation of salvation, even if made clearer, must in itself be the same everywhere, where it is true – is the presence of the Holy Ghost forming the unity of the body down here, and gathering saints into this unity out of the great baptised mass.

• If any such have never been baptised, I apprehend they ought to be, as Quakers, grown up Baptists children, etc.

What I see in baptism is admission into the professing body or house. It has nothing to do with the body of Christ; hence, if one had received the Holy Ghost, as Cornelius, he had to be professedly introduced. Acts 10: 46, 48.

• God not only converts souls, giving eternal life, but has established a dwelling place consequent on redemption, where His blessings are.

• So with Israel. He came and dwelt there. Exodus 29: 45, 46. So "what advantage hath the Jews? Much every way". He had the law and the covenants and the promises, and even Christ, as concerning the flesh.

• Not that all were Israel which were of Israel, but these blessings were distinctively theirs – Romans 9: 1-6 – not amongst the heathen.

• So now, the Holy Ghost and all other christian blessings are found within the christian calling not amongst heathens, not amongst Jews, not amongst Mahometans. The gospel may be carried to them, but christian blessings are not among them as such; they are among Christians: the basis of the truth is there.

• The state of things may be awfully corrupted, and is so, but till God judges it – like Judaism – it remains the place where His blessings are found.

• Baptism is the formal admission into this – it is christening. The person is received outwardly into the habitation of God, as set up in this world. Ephesians 2: 22; 1 Timothy 3: 15.

It is the act of the baptiser, not of the baptised. The latter cannot do it for himself, he is outside, and cannot receive himself in.

• So it is written, "He commanded them to be baptised in the name of the Lord", Acts 10: 48.

• Hence there is no trace of the one hundred and twenty being baptised at all. Where was the place they were to be received into? or who was to do it? They were made the place, and in this case the body too, by the descent of the Holy Ghost. Acts 2: 1-4.

• It is not obedience; first, like the hundred and twenty, man could not obey; he cannot baptise himself: but more, Peter says,
  • "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptised, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?",

• and commanded them to be baptised. It was a privilege conferred. Who could refuse to receive them, seeing God had put this seal upon them
  • So with the Ethiopian "here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptised?"

• You are aware probably that the verse following – that is, Acts 8: 37 – is not genuine, and has been foisted in, though long ago, by those who thought confession of faith needed. No such confession, or examination if it was with all the heart, was ever made in the apostolic times.

• The Lord did take care it should be pure at first added such as should be saved – Acts 2: 47 – sealing them with the Holy Ghost.

• Nor is baptism the sign of what we have received. People are baptised to something, not because of their having it to – not into – Christ's death, to Moses, to John's baptism, buried to death, to – it is the same word – the remission of sins.
  • Hence it is always, "Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins", Acts 22: 16 – not because the sins have been: to Christ's death, not because they have died:

  • "The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us … by the resurrection of Jesus Christ", 1 Peter 3: 21.

• Hence, when one entered believingly, he got the blessing, as far as forgiveness went, administratively here below, and was thereupon sealed by the Holy Ghost. Acts 2.

• It is not a testimony to others – though it may turn to such – as the case of the Ethiopian shews, nor is it ever spoken of as such.

When I come to the history, it is very peculiar, as if God had meant to make us feel we were in the last days in a corrupt Christendom, not founding it.

• The only commission to baptise is to go and discipline the Gentiles – the command from Galilee with the remnant, not from the ascended Christ – baptising them, etc.

• There was no command to baptise the Jews nor known believers. I do not doubt they were baptised, and accept it as an apostolic fact. But this commission was never carried out.

• In Galatians 2, Paul having been expressly called and sent to the Gentiles – verse 7 – "to whom now I send thee", Acts 26: 17, the apostles at Jerusalem agree that he should take up this mission, and they go to the Jews, and so it was.

• They had stayed at Jerusalem when the assembly was scattered – Matthew 10: 23 – whether rightly I do not say, only God took care that unity should be preserved by Cornelius, and Acts 15.

The subject of baptism is death, as Romans 6 shews – that is, Christ's death and partially resurrection in Colossians 2 perhaps, but other words are added there.

• The person enters into the Christian circle – analogous to Israel – by it – see 1 Corinthians 10 – where the sacramental position is carefully distinguished from personal safety.

As regards children, my object is not to argue, but to shew the nature of baptism.

• I believe that 1 Corinthians 7: 14 especially authorises it, not to speak of Mark 10: 14 – compare Matthew 18 and Ephesians 6: 1.

• The boundaries of the assembly of God and the world have been so broken down and both intermingled, that the fact of the Holy Ghost being in the assembly – not in the individual here – and Satan in the world is eclipsed by the state of things; but it was not so at the beginning, and the word of God abides.

• The question as to children is not are they converted, but are they to be left in the devil's dominion, or brought where the Holy Ghost dwells, to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

• But assuming it to be done bonā fide, done according to the "one faith," I should leave every person to his own conscience.

• It is sometimes argued, Why not give them the Lord's supper too? The answer is simple, It is the sign of the unity of the body, and it is by one Spirit we are baptised into that. 1 Corinthians 12: 13.

• The Lord's supper gives the sign of that unity, as spoken of in Ephesians 4: 4, as baptism of outward position in Ephesians 4: 5.

The root of the question as to baptism is, Is it the act of the baptised individually, or reception into the public assembly?

• On this point scripture leaves no doubt on my mind. And, is there – besides individual conversion – a place or system which God has set up on earth where He dwells, and where His blessings are placed which He set up right at first, and has been utterly corrupted

• but which has to be owned in its responsibility and character until God judges it just as the Lord called the temple His Father's house, though it had been made a den of thieves? Matthew 21: 12, 13.

With love in the Lord, I am,
Affectionately yours in Him, James Taylor.