A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of FriendsClarkson, Thomas
Religion
A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends
Clarkson, Thomas
Society of Friends
He then shows what this baptism is, and calls it the answer of a good
conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, he
states it to be the baptism of Christ, which is by the Spirit. For he
maintains, that he only is truly baptized, whose conscience is made
clear by the resurrection of Christ in his heart. But who can make the
answer of such a conscience, except the Holy Spirit shall have first
purified the floor of the heart; except the spiritual fan of Christ
shall have first separated the wheat from the chaff, and except his
spiritual fire shall have consumed the latter?
St. Paul makes a similar declaration: "For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ, have put on Christ."[156] But no man, the Quakers
say, merely by being dipped under water, can put on Christ, that is, his
life, his nature, his disposition, his love, meekness, and temperance,
and all those virtues which should characterise a Christian.
[Footnote 156: Galat 3. 27.]
To the same purport are those other words by the same Apostle:[157] "Know
ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ, were
baptized into his death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of
life." And again--[158] "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are
risen with him, through the faith of the co-operation of God, who hath
raised him from the dead." By these passages the Apostle Paul testifies
that he alone is truly baptized, who first dies unto sin, and is raised
up afterwards from sin unto righteousness, or who is raised up into life
with Christ, or who so feels the inward resurrection and glory of Christ
in his soul, that he walks in newness of life.
[Footnote 157: Rom. 6.3.4]
[Footnote 158: Colos. 2.12]
The Quakers show again, that the baptism of John could not have been
included in the great commission, because the object of John's baptism
had been completed even before the preaching of Jesus Christ.
The great object of John's baptism, was to make Jesus known to the Jews.
John himself declared this to be the object of it. [159] "But that he
should be made manifest unto Israel, _therefore_ am I come baptizing
with water." This object he accomplished two ways; first, by telling all
whom he baptized that Jesus was coming, and these were the Israel of
that time; for he is reported to have baptized all Jerusalem, which was
the metropolis, and all Judea, and all the country round about Jordan.
Secondly, by pointing him out personally.[160] This he did to Andrew, so
that Andrew left John and followed Jesus. Andrew, again, made him known
to Simon, and these to Philip, and Philip to Nathaniel; so that by means
of John, an assurance was given that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ.
[Footnote 159: John 1.31.]
[Footnote 160: John 1.40.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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