The Original 1883 (First Edition) of
The Ecclesial Guide

7. -- The Administration of Baptism.

Those who think the efficacy of baptism depends upon the administrator have been troubled by the question "Who has authority to baptise?" There is no real ground for doubt on this point. Believers in the nineteenth century have just the same "authority" in the matter of baptism as believers in the first. The lapse of time has not invalidated the appointment of Christ for the salvation of men. Baptism as an act of obedience performed in an apostle's presence had no more acceptability before God than the same act performed miles and years away. The act is to God, and not to men. It matters little by whose actual hands assistance is rendered in the act of baptism.

"Jesus made and baptised more disciples than John" (Jno. iv. 1), yet he did not himself perform the baptism. A parenthesis is added to state this: "Jesus himself baptised not, but his disciples." Jesus baptising, then, literally meant his disciples doing it at his command. To with the apostles. Paul made light of the personal participation by an apostle in the act of baptism. He says: "Christ sent me not to baptise, but to preach the gospel" (1 Cor. i. 17). He also says: "I thank God that I baptised none of you but Crispus and Gaius." In the house of Cornelius, Peter "commanded them to be baptised in the name of the Lord;" but this is no evidence that Peter officiated. If it was done at his command, that was enough.

Anyone can bury a dead man; but only the constituted authority can give the order. Anybody can do the hanging of a murder if the law issue the warrant. A Scriptural baptism is the burial of the dead (Rom. vi. 4), such as have become so to sin by the power of the truth, and such as recognize their death-state in Adam. It has been commanded, centuries ago, by the apostles, that all such should be buried in baptism. It does not matter who performs the mechanical part. If it is done in obedience to the apostolic command, it is an apostolic act. The "authority" arises more from the state of the baptised than the state of the baptiser. The notion that a personal "authority" is necessary to give validity to it, is a relic of the apostacy. Philip, not an apostle, baptised the eunuch (Acts viii. 38.) The three thousand who were baptised on the day of Pentecost, could not have been baptised by the apostles, but must have had numerous assistants. The apostles have assistants in the nineteenth century as well as in the first. The lapse of time does not affect the principle.