Baptism:
Preacher of Church Ordinance?
First Treatise

Having been asked by the author to write an introduction to the following treatise, I do now humbly and prayerfully undertake this great task. May God be gracious to me.

There is some degree of heaviness of heart now felt, for many dear brethren who are well loved by the author, and by myself are either directly or indirectly involved in what I believe is a grave error concerning the matter of the authority to baptize. And it seems to me that the fearful times in which we live are accelerating many of God's dear children into error upon error.

The author has dealt with the subject matter in a manner that I have perceived as being in the highest human expression of love and compassion for brethren, while at the same time showing an earnestness for holding God's precious provisions for the well-being of His blood bought saints before us. He seems to me to be seeking to magnify God and to maintain before us all His blessed and unchanging order of things.

Being enabled to see my own inabilities to some feeble degree, I readily concede there is always the tendency for saved sinners to plunge into the deep distresses of error. This is not admitted easily, nor will it take anyone by surprise. I am sure that those of you who know me will confess that I fail often, and many times very grievously. May God forgive me, and all of you who have this propensity to err.

My purpose, therefore, is not to take anyone to task, nor to chastise. Rather, it is to exhort, and to lift up those who may be beset with this particular evil. My purpose is to ask all brethren everywhere to consider carefully what the author has presented, and in light of Scripture, judge the work accordingly. Having thus judged, may we be given grace to ask for grace to come back to the Old Landmarks, and walk therein.

I concur that Scripture clearly and unmistakably declares that authority has been assigned to the Lord's New Testament churches, and that it is only assumed to have been given to the ordained among the ministry of those churches. The authority to baptize cannot be delegated, nor can the responsibility to do so be abdicated. The commission that the Head of the churches gave requires that this ordinance be kept and practiced in all its purity. Neither can this authority be usurped.

Please consider the Scriptural teaching on this awesome responsibility, and come back dear brethren. I beg you, heed this plea and come back. Come back!

"Christ built His church, committed to it the ordinances, and since that day the authority to baptize and to administer the Lord's Supper resides in the church that Jesus built, not in any priest or preacher on the face of the earth, but in the church." William Manlius Nevins, Alien Baptism and the Baptists, pg. 33.