DEBATE ON BAPTISM, AND THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN WHICH THE PLACE OF BAPTISM IN THE GOSPEL ECONOMY, ITS DESIGN, AND THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CONVERSION ARE CONSIDERED. CONDUCTED BY J. B. MOODY (Baptist), Nashville, Tenn. AND J, A. HARDING (Disciple), Winchester, Ky. PRINTED FOR THE DEBATERS. PREFACE. __________ The following pages contain a fair and impartial report of the "Nashville Debate," which was conducted by the undersigned in the Central Baptist Church, Nashville, Tenn., on the following propositions, viz: 1. Remission of sins with like blessings of salvation is received before baptism. 2. Baptism to the penitent believer is for (in order to) the pardon of his past sins. 3. The Scriptures teach that man is so depraved in mind and heart that he is unable without a direct enabling power of the Holy Spirit to obey the Gospel of the Sou of God. The debate began May 27, 1889, and was continued for sixteen nights. Elders Geo. A. Lofton and David Lipscomb presided as moderators. J. B. MOODY, J. A. HARDING. J. B. Moody's First Speech. _______________ PROPOSITION: _______________ Remission of sins, with like blessings of salvation, is received before baptism. Mr. President, Gentlemen-moderators, Ladies and Gentlemen: The favorable circumstances of this occasion forcibly remind me of my great debt of gratitude for that grace by which I have been disposed, and that providence through which I have been enabled to meet you on this occasion, to begin my seventh discussion of this subject. I have had the pleasure of discussing it with such noted representatives of the opposition as Mr. Briney, Mr. Lipscomb, Dr. Brents, and now, for the fourth time, with my present distinguished opponent. I am not weary of the subject, nor with the discussion of it. Indeed, I rejoice at every remembrance and every prospect of opportunity to discuss a question of such vital interest. I present you a diagram showing the issue involved in this discussion. The arrangement represents my opponent's views, the incorrectness and full explanation of which will appear as I proceed with my argument. DIAGRAM. Hearing, Believing, Conviction, Love, Repentance, Confession. BAPTIZECEIS. Salvation, Remission, Justification, Sanctification, Regeneration, Reconciliation, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Cleansed, Purified, Purged, Washed, Adopted, Accepted, Sealed, Grafted, Quickened, New Creation, from Death to Life, from Darkness to Light, Circumcised, Mercy, Grace, Peace, Joy, Disciples, Children, Heirs. The order is significant only before baptism. The others are supposed to be in or beyond the water. Mourning, Prayer, Contrition, Agony, Thirst, Labor and Heavy Laden we know not where to place. If it were a matter of mere order, the issue would not deserve the loss of our time nor the tax on your patience. If my opponent and the people he represents obtain remission of sins, with like 6 FIRST PROPOSITION. blessings of salvation, either in the water or after baptism, instead of debating I would be ready to congratulate most cordially, and with the warmest Christian affection and fellowship, both him and them. Or if he thought that we and the rest of the Christian world endorsing our views received these blessings before baptism, that he would be ready to extend the same Christian fraternity. It is not a question of mere order, chronological or theological, but it is believed honestly by both sides that the order of these things by the other side makes their existence impossible. So that the order is not only important but vital. He denies that these things exist, or can exist, before baptism, and hence all unimmersed persons since the day of Christ are lost. On the other hand, I deny the validity of any baptism administered by Catholic, Protestant, or Baptist, where the subject did not possess these as prerequisites to baptism. My friend's order makes repentance impossible, and without repentance there can be no faith of the heart; and confession with the mouth where there is no preceding faith of the heart unto righteousness is unscriptural and unacceptable to God; and all these being wanting the baptism is no-baptism, and we can but deny the existence of the other blessings in such cases. The question for the audience to decide is, will I or he make good, by Scripture arguments, the position we have honestly and consistently assumed? So much for Order. Now a word about Relation. If you inquire what relation remission of sins with like blessings of salvation sustains to baptism, I answer, no relation at all. These things being before baptism are independent of it, and complete without it, just as much so now as before the institution of baptism, unless my opponent can prove that baptism was instituted to procure these things, a thing which I promise he will never do. If you ask me what relation the substance sustains to the shadow, I answer, no relation at all. The substance is before the shadow, and independent of the shadow, just as much a substance without a shadow as with one; as much a substance in the night as in the day, under a cloud as under a burning sky. But if you ask me what relation the shadow sustains to the substance, that is another question, requiring another answer. The shadow sustains a relation to the substance, for it can't exist without it, and exists only to reflect it. The substance can and does exist, without the shadow, but the shadow can't exist without the substance. If you ask again what relation the Lord's death sustains J. B. MOODY'S FIRST SPEECH. 7 to the Lord's Supper, I answer, none at all. The Lord's death would have been as complete and efficacious without the supper as with it. This, however, is not denying that the supper sustains a relation to the Lord's death, for it does. There could be no Lord's Supper, as we have it, if there had been no Lord's death. So while the supper sustains a relation to the death, the death was riot related to the supper. In the same way, while salvation and its like blessings sustain no relation to baptism, yet baptism sustains a relation to these. As the substance is necessary to the shadow, so these are necessary to baptism. Baptism sustains the same relation to them that the Lord's Supper sustains to the Lord's death, or the shadow to the substance. Baptism is a figure, a likeness, a shadow, a symbol, an emblem, a type, a form, and as such it sustains these relations to the true. It can't be both shadow and substance, both likeness and original, both type and antitype, both emblem and the thing emblematized, both symbol and the thing symbolized. It can't be both a real resurrection from the dead and a typical one. It can't be both the real death and resurrection of Christ and the likeness of it. If it emblematizes a death to sin and a resurrection to a newness of life, it is only an emblem, and can't be the thing itself; if it saves" us in a figure, and cannot save us in reality; if it really washes away sin, then it does it in no other sense, and if it does this symbolically, it does it not really. And now a word about order and relation. When I say that these things are before baptism, always and necessarily, and when I further say that they sustain no relation at all to baptism, then I hope I will be spared the charge of believing that they sustain the highest relation, namely, that of cause and effect; and when I acknowledge that baptism sustains a relation to them, I don't believe, and never did, that it is the relation of effect to cause. These things are before it, yet they are not the causes of it. There is a cause, but it is to be sought elsewhere than in the like blessings of salvation. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The order is a chronological and theological necessity. There must be a birth of the flesh before there can be a birth of the Spirit. Here is invariable order, and some sort of relation, yet not the relation of cause and effect. A man is not born of the Spirit because he is born of the flesh, for if so the effect would always follow, yet born of the flesh necessarily precedes. Conviction, repentance, faith, confes- 8 FIRST PROPOSITION, sion, necessarily precede baptism, yet we are not baptized because of conviction, repentance, faith, or confession. So while remission of sins, with like blessings of salvation, necessarily precedes baptism, yet these are not the causes of it, and hence we are not baptized because of any of these things. All of these, and more, may contribute to the occasion, to the requirement, yet they do not constitute the cause. The cause is to be found alone in the sovereign authority and explicit command of our Lord, while grace, effectually working in us all these qualities and qualifications, furnishes the occasion by bringing us into a state of experimental knowledge and of loving obedience. Obedience is the spontaneous fruit of the good tree. "If ye love me, ye will keep my words." Here is cause and effect. Love out of a pure heart, a heart that God has purified by faith, or a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience is the producing cause, and this answers by having the body washed in pure water.