Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Of the Necessity of Baptism to Salvation.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XII.—Of the Necessity of Baptism to
Salvation.
When, however, the prescript is laid down that
“without baptism, salvation is attainable by none” (chiefly on the ground of
that declaration of the Lord, who says, “Unless one be born of
water, he hath not life”8658
), there arise
immediately scrupulous, nay rather audacious, doubts on the part of
some, “how, in accordance with that prescript, salvation is
attainable by the apostles, whom—Paul excepted—we do not
find baptized in the Lord? Nay, since Paul is the only one of them who
has put on the garment of Christ’s baptism,8659
either the peril of all the others who lack
the water of Christ is prejudged, that the prescript may be maintained,
or else the prescript is rescinded if salvation has been ordained even
for the unbaptized.” I have heard—the Lord is my
witness—doubts of that kind: that none may imagine me so
abandoned as to excogitate, unprovoked, in the licence of my pen, ideas
which would inspire others with scruple.
And now, as far as I shall be able, I will reply
to them who affirm “that the apostles were unbaptized.” For
if they had undergone the human baptism of John, and were longing for
that of the Lord, then since the Lord Himself had defined
baptism to be one;8660
(saying to Peter,
who was desirous8661
| 8661 “Volenti,”
which Oehler notes as a suggestion of Fr. Junius, is adopted here in
preference to Oehler’s “nolenti.” | of being thoroughly
bathed, “He who hath once bathed hath no necessity to wash
a second time;”8662
which, of course,
He would not have said at all to one not baptized;) even here we
have a conspicuous8663
| 8663 Exerta. Comp. c.
xviii. sub init.; ad Ux. ii. c. i. sub
fin. | proof against those
who, in order to destroy the sacrament of water, deprive the apostles
even of John’s baptism. Can it seem credible that “the way
of the Lord,” that is, the baptism of John, had not then been
“prepared” in those persons who were being destined to
open the way of the Lord throughout the whole world? The Lord
Himself, though no “repentance” was due from Him,
was baptized: was baptism not necessary for sinners? As
for the fact, then, that “others were not
baptized”—they, however, were not companions of Christ, but
enemies of the faith, doctors of the law and Pharisees. From which fact
is gathered an additional suggestion, that, since the opposers
of the Lord refused to be baptized, they who followed the
Lord were baptized, and were not like-minded with their own
rivals: especially when, if there were any one to whom they clave, the
Lord had exalted John above him (by the testimony) saying, “Among
them who are born of women there is none greater than John the
Baptist.”8664
Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly
“that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their
little ship, were sprinkled and covered with the waves: that
Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the
sea.”8665
It is, however, as
I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of
the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of
religion. But that little ship did present a figure of the Church, in
that she is disquieted “in the sea,” that is, in the
world,8666
“by the
waves,” that is, by persecutions and temptations; the Lord,
through patience, sleeping as it were, until, roused in their last
extremities by the prayers of the saints, He checks the world,8667
and restores tranquillity to His
own.
Now, whether they were baptized in any manner
whatever, or whether they continued unbathed8668
to
the end—so that even that saying of the Lord touching the
“one bath”8669
does, under the
person of Peter, merely regard us—still, to determine
concerning the salvation of the apostles is audacious enough, because
on them the prerogative even of first choice,8670
| 8670 i.e. of being the
first to be chosen. | and thereafter of undivided intimacy, might
be able to confer the compendious grace of baptism, seeing they (I
think) followed Him who was wont to promise salvation to every
believer. “Thy faith,” He would say, “hath saved
thee;”8671
and, “Thy
sins shall be remitted thee,”8672
| 8672
“Remittentur” is Oehler’s reading;
“remittuntur” others read; but the Greek is in perfect
tense. See Mark ii.
5. | on thy
believing, of course, albeit thou be not yet baptized. If
that8673
was wanting to the apostles, I know not in
the faith of what things it was, that, roused by one word of the Lord,
one left the toll-booth behind for ever;8674
another deserted father and ship, and the craft by which he
gained his living;8675
a third, who
disdained his father’s obsequies,8676
fulfilled, before he heard it, that highest precept of the Lord,
“He who prefers father or mother to me, is not worthy of
me.”8677
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
