Chapter VIII. The Ordinances Of The New Testament. In the preceding chapter we considered the church of the New Testament. The Lord Jesus built his church and instituted some ordinances, which he commands the church to faithfully keep. The keeping of the commandments of God is proof that we love him: “For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:3. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” John 14:21. “If a man love me he will keep my words.” Ver. 23. “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings.” Ver. 24. We may profess great attainments in the divine life and wonderful devotion to God, but the proof is obedience to his commands. We have learned of people who have become so holy that they were raised above or passed beyond a great portion of the Bible and are not required to keep it. We have heard of but few things so ridiculously foolish. The better and more holy we become, certainly the more of the Word of God we will practise in our life; and who on earth can live a more perfect Christian life than he who lives in obedience to every word of the Bible? When one gets in possession of something that exempts him from obedience to the Scriptures he gets in possession of some very mysterious thing. The only way to heaven is by the commandments of the Bible. “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life and enter in through the gates into the city.” We will consider some ordinances and ceremonies which belong to the church of God as recorded in the New Testament so plainly that a wayfaring man though a fool need not err therein. Baptism. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” John 1:6. In the thirty-third verse this same John declares that God sent him to baptize with water. Of the books written on this subject there is scarcely an end. The controversy is very great, and so often very ridiculous. Lexicographers have defined and analyzed the word baptize in its different forms. Liddell and Scott, Robertson, Parkhurst, Scapula, Stokins, Calvin, Luther, Campbell, Gill, Stuart, Vitringa, Brenner, Paulus, and many others of great erudition have defined the word, and to sum them all up we find the primary meaning is “to dip, to immerse, to plunge in water.” Many of the English translators of the New Testament always render _baptizo_, immerse or dip, as “John the immerser,” or “John the dipper.” This brief reference to the expositions of the learned must suffice for this work. It is with pleasure we resort to the plain and simple teachings of the Scriptures. Baptism A New Testament Ordinance.