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p277 [J A Von Poseck (M. Rossier?)] [To the same.] [From the French.] BELOVED BROTHER, - I have not been able since my last letter to continue the examination of your translations with the care required to do it properly, but I have only put it off just for the present I was obliged to answer an attack directed against the views of the brethren in a pamphlet printed at Geneva, and to occupy myself with other writing, which was pressing and had accumulated because of the local work and the general work for this country. . . .

As to the Baptist sect, I see, beloved brother, that God has guided you in your views and actions. This question has caused agitation (by means of some one who has laboured at it) in a department in France where the work of brethren has been blessed. But by being firm, and leaving to every one full liberty of conscience, it has passed away, and God has granted full peace to the brethren, and the storm has passed by without doing harm. I do not wonder at people being in doubt in the state of confusion in which the church is, so that I have no difficulty in respecting the consciences of brethren who believe that they ought to be baptised. If their conscience tells them that they have not been baptised, they do well to get baptised, if they do it peaceably. I say peaceably, because it is no longer the confession of Christianity, but an act which seeks to repair a fault of negligence. But if one makes it a sect, it is a very great evil: baptism becomes the centre of union instead of Christ.

Baptism in order to receive the Holy Ghost is a miserable falsehood, for they receive Him no more than others do, but, on the contrary, are deceived by the enemy. I have seen this in South Germany and England and elsewhere. It is nothing but a miserable fallacy; facts are there to prove it If people say they have received Him by this means the proofs are there to shew what it is worth. Now the Holy Spirit has never been received by the baptism of water. Samaria and Cornelius prove this. Finally the 120 had received Him without having been baptised. I do not deny that in general people were baptised before receiving Him, and that this was the rule because baptism was the public confession of Christianity. I am perfectly certain that the reasonings of the Baptists are false in principle and denaturalise Christianity. But If a brother felt [thus] in his conscience, I would leave him the most; perfect liberty in this respect. Let him be fully persuaded in his heart. By so acting, avoiding a sectarian spirit, leaving the conscience entirely free, and seeking unity in Christ, and asking of God the peace whereto we are called, you will be kept, I hope, and will get without loss over a trying moment. I will write to you more at length, beloved brother, what I think on the baptism of infants, but I care much more for the peace of the church than for any opinion about that. I have never tried to persuade anybody I believe that every one must act according to his own conscience.

I believe that the children of believers are relatively holy and that this passage (1 Cor. 7:14) has precisely that bearing but I respect the ordinance, and those who think they have not been partakers of it do well to be baptised. I deny entirely that this is a matter of obedience, and those who treat it so upset, without being aware of it, Christianity in its very first principles.

God be with you, dear brother, and with all our beloved brethren, and help you to get over this, to you, trying moment and keep you from a bad sectarian spirit and from false and proud pretensions, which I consider to be something very different from respect for scruples of conscience. The doctrine of the remission of sins and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by baptism comes, I doubt not, from the enemy.

As to the conscience, I would leave it perfectly free on that point.

When they say that one cannot preach the gospel, that is nothing but nonsense, because God has blessed the gospel preached by all kinds of persons who hold the foundations of Christ without troubling themselves about the pretensions of -, and others of the same kind.

I write in haste.

Your most affectionate brother

London, April 28th, 1852.

[53212F]

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