Chapter 3.—For, so long as they escaped detection, they could not bestow faith on any whom they baptized, but only guilt, if it be true that whosoever receives faith from one that is faithless receives not faith, but guilt. Let them therefore be baptized by the good, that they may be enabled to receive not guilt, but faith.
4. But how, again, shall they have any certainty about the good who are to give them faith, if what we look to is the conscience of the giver, which is unseen by the eyes of the proposed recipient? Therefore, according to their judgment, the salvation of the spirit is made uncertain, so long as in opposition to the holy Scriptures, which say, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man,"1922
and, "
Cursed be the man that trusteth in man,"
1923
they remove the
hope of those who are to be
baptized from the
Lord their
God, and
persuade them that it should be placed in man; the practical result of which is, that their
salvation becomes not merely uncertain, but actually null and
void. For "
salvation belongeth unto the
Lord,"
1924
and "
vain is the help of man."
1925
Therefore, whosoever places his
trust in man, even in one whom he knows to be just and
innocent, is accursed. Whence also the
Apostle Paul finds fault with those who said they were of Paul saying, "Was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?"
1926
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
