An essay on the remission of sins / by A. Campbell.

  • Alexander Campbell
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the remission of sins / by A. Campbell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/72 page 40
    so much importance to immersion in giving the commission to convert the world—“He that believes, and is immersed, shall be saved.” But, while viewing the water and the blood as made to unite their powers, as certainly as Jesus came by water and blood, we ought to consider another testimony given to this gracious combination of powers, by Paul the Apostle: “ Being sprinkled in heart from an evil conscience, and being washed in body with clean water.’'* The application of water, the cleansing element, to the body, is made in this gracious institution to reach the conscience, as did the blood of sprinkling under the law. Some ask. How can water, which penetrates not the skin, reach the conscience ? They boast of such an objection as exhibiting great intellect and good sense; but little do they think, that in so talking, they laugh at, and mock the whole divine economy under the old and new institutions : for, I ask, did not the sacrifices and Jewish purifications some way reach the conscience of that people ! ! If they did not, it was all mere frivolity throughout. And can eating bread, and drinking wine, vot influence, nor aflect, the soul! And cannot the breath of one man pierce the heart of another, and so move his blood as to make his head a fountain of tears! He who thus objects to water, and the import of immersion, objects to the whole remedial institution as taught by Moses and by Christ, and insults the wisdom and goodness of God in the whole scheme of salvation. And he who objects to water because it can only take away the filth of the flesh, ought rather to object to blood because it rather besmears and pollutes than cleanses the body, and cannot touch the soul. But all such reasoners arc foolish talkers. To submit to God’s institution is our wisdom and our hap¬ piness. The experience of the myriads who were immersed for the remission of their sins, detailed in the Christian Scriptures, to say nothing of those immersed in our times, is worth more than volumes of arguments from the lips and pens of those who can only regard and venerate the tradi¬ tions of their fathers ; because it is presumed their fathers were wiser, and more able to judge correctly than their sons. But as it is not our object to quote, and expatiate upon all the sacred testimonies, direct and allusive to immersion for the remission of sins, we shall close the proof and illus- * tration of this proposition with an incidental allusion to the * Hebrews x. 22.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3