diculously 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.

All Jerusalem, and Judea, and the region about Jordan, were baptized of
John in Jordan. Mat. 3:5, 6. Jesus baptized by proxy. John 4:1, 2. He
commissioned his ministry to preach baptism unto all the world. "Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Mat. 28:19. "Go ye into
all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved." Mark 16:15, 16. Those who have undertaken
the dangerous and Christ uncommissioned task of freeing Christians from
the obligations of this ordinance, hold high aloft the following texts:
Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14, 15; Col. 2:20. Sin