Bertha and Her Baptism, page 99 by Nehemiah Adams
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Mr. M. Do you ever re-baptize?
Dr. D. Where a person was baptized with water, in the name of the Trinity, by an authorized person, of any denomination, I would not re-baptize. The alleged heterodox or immoral character of the administrator, at the time of baptism, does not invalidate it; otherwise, one might be baptized many times, and, the administrators proving unworthy, the subject could never get baptized. Christ would never let his ordinances depend thus upon uncertainties. Let a person but recognize his baptism, if performed in infancy, by entering publicly into covenant with God, and that will be sufficient. I endeavor to show people how wrong it is to lay undue stress on the ordinance, forgetting whether they have that which is signified by it, and which alone gives it value.
Mr. M. True, sir, but it has its importance, and stress is to be laid upon the due observance of it.
Dr. D. I mean that where I find the conditions of valid baptism complied with, I try to turn away the thoughts from any superstitious or ceremonial dependence upon the sacramental act. You remember the answer in the catechism to the question, "How do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation?"
Mr. M. How I used to say that, at my mother's knee, with my hands folded behind me, to keep them still: "The sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them, but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his spirit in them that by faith receive them."
Dr. D. I was thinking, the other day, and not for the first time, by any means, what a noble man was Paul. He was unwilling that people should call themselves after him, as their leader, and therefore he was glad to leave the act of baptizing to his associates. Some, however, infer from this that he disparages baptism. "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Baptism, in its place, has its impor