(Extract of a sermon by Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, delivered on Sabbath morning, June 5th, 1864)
“And he said unto them; Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature
He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”—Mark xvi: 15, 16.
I find that the great error which we have to contend with throughout England (and it is growing more and more) is one in direct opposition to my text, well known to you as the doctrine of baptismal regeneration.
We will confront this dogma with the assertion, that Baptism without faith saves no one. The text says, “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved“; but whether a man be baptised or not, it asserts that “He that believeth not shall be damned“; so that baptism does not save the unbeliever.
I am not aware that any Protestant Church in England teaches the doctrine of baptismal regeneration except one, and that happens to be the corporation which with none too much humility calls itself THE Church of England.
But you will say “Why do you cry out against it“? I cry out against it because I believe that baptism does not save the soul, and that the preaching of it has a wrong and evil influence upon men.
Now, what can be the influence of such preaching as this upon our beloved land? What but the worst of ills? If I loved her not; but loved myself most, I might be silent here, but I cannot and dare not; as having soon to render an account before my God whose servant I hope I am, I must free myself from this evil as well as from every other, or else on my head may be the doom of souls.
Here let me bring in another point. It is a most fearful fact, that in no age since the Reformation has Popery made such fearful strides in England as during the last few years. I had comfortably believed that Popery was only feeding itself upon foreign subscriptions, upon a few titled perverts, and imported monks and nuns. I dreamed that its progress was not real. In fact, I have often smiled at the alarm of many of my brethren at the progress of Popery. But, my friends, we have been mistaken, grievously mistaken. This great city is now covered with a network of monks, and priests and sisters of mercy, and the conversions made are not by two’s and three’s, but by scores, till England is being regarded as the most hopeful spot for Romish missionary enterprise in the whole world. I covet not their money, I despise their sophistries, but I marvel at the way in which they gain their funds for the erection of their ecclesiastical buildings. It is really an alarming matter to see so many of our countrymen going off to that superstition which as a nation we once rejected, and which it was supposed we should never again receive. Popery is making advances as you would never believe, though a spectator should tell it to you. And to what is it to be ascribed? I say, with every ground of probability, that there is no marvel that Popery should increase when you have two things to make it grow: first of all, the falsehood of those who profess a faith which they do not believe, which is quite contrary to the honesty of the Romanist, who does through evil report and good report hold his faith; and then you have, secondly, this form of error known as Baptismal Regeneration, commonly called Puseyism, which is not only Puseyism but Church of Englandism, because it is in the Prayer Book, as plainly as words can express it—you have this baptismal regeneration preparing stepping stones to make it easy for men to go to Rome. In one of our courts of legislature but last Tuesday, the Lord Chief Justice showed his superstition, by speaking of “the risk of the calamity of children dying unbaptised.” To believe in the sacredness of anything but of God and his own word, is to idolise, whether it is to believe in the sacredness of the men, the priests, the bricks and mortar, or the fine linen, or what not, which you may use in the worship of God. I see this coming up everywhere a belief in ceremony, a vesting in ceremony, a veneration for altars, fonts, and churches—a veneration so profound that we must not venture upon a remark, or straightway of sinners we are chief. Here is the essence and soul of Popery, peeping up under the guard of a decent respect for sacred things. It is impossible but that the Church of Rome must spread, when we who are the watchdogs of the fold are silent, and others are gently and smoothly turfing the road, and making it as soft and smooth as possible, that converts may travel down to the nethermost hell of Popery. We want John Knox back again. Do not talk to me of mild and gentle men, of soft manners and squeamish words, we want the fiery Knox and even though his vehemence should “ding our pulpits into blads,” it were well if he did but rouse our hearts to action. We want Luther to tell men the truth unmistakably, in homely phrase. The velvet has got into our ministers’ mouths of late, but we must unrobe ourselves of soft raiment, and truth must be spoken, and nothing but truth; for of all lies which have dragged millions down to hell, I look upon this as being one of the most atrocious—that in a Protestant Church there should be found those who swear that baptism saves the soul. Call a man a Baptist, or a Presbyterian, or a churchman, that is nothing to me—if he says that Baptism saves the soul, out upon him, out upon him, he states what God never taught, what the Bible never laid down, and what ought never to be maintained by men who profess that the Bible, the whole Bible, is the religion of Protestants.
I have spoken thus much, and there will be some who will say bitterly. Very well, be it so. Physic is often bitter, but it shall work well, and the physician is not bitter, because his medicine is so; or if he be accounted so, it will not matter, so long as the patient is cured, at all events, it is no business of the patient whether the physician is bitter or not, his business is with his own soul’s health. There is the truth, and I have told you, if there should be one among you, or if there should be one among the readers of this sermon when it is printed, who is resting upon Baptism, or resting upon ceremonies of any sort, I do beseech you, shake off this venomous faith into the fire as Paul did the viper which fastened on his hand. I pray you do not rest on baptism. You must have a new heart and a right spirit, and baptism cannot give you these. You must turn from your sins and follow after Christ; you must have such a faith as shall make your life holy, and your speech devout, or else you have not the faith of God’s elect, and into God’s kingdom you shall never come. I pray you never rest upon this wretched and rotten foundation, this deceitful invention of Antichrist. O, may God save you from it, and bring you to seek the true rock of refuge for weary souls, etc., etc.