Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. THE ORDINANCES OF THE CHURCH. By the ordinances, we mean those outward rites which Christ has appointed to be administered in his church as visible signs of the saying truth of the gospel. They are signs, in that they vividly express this truth and confirm it to the believer. In contrast with this characteristically Protestant view, the Romanist regards the ordinances as actually conferring grace and producing holiness. Instead of being the external manifestation of a preceding union with Christ, they are the physical means of constituting and maintaining this union. With the Romanist, in this particular, sacramentalists of every name substantially agree. The Papal Church holds to seven sacraments or ordinances: --ordination, confirmation, matrimony, extreme unction, penance, baptism, and the encharist. The ordinances prescribed in the N. T., however, are two and only two, viz.: --Baptism and the Lord's Supper. L Baptism. Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water, in token of his previous entrance into the communion of Christ's death and resurrection, -- or, in other words, in token of his regeneration through union with Christ. 1. Baptism an Ordinance of Christ. A. Proof that Christ instituted an external rite called baptism. (a) Prom the words of the great commission; (b) from the injunctions of the apostles; (c ) from the fact that the members of the New Testament churches were baptized believers; ( d ) from the universal practice of such a rite in Christian churches of subsequent times. B. This external rite intended by Christ to be of universal and perpetual obligation. (a) Christ recognized John the Baptist's commission to baptize as derived immediately from heaven. (b) In his own submission to John's
