It was very generally known that Mr Gilpin was greatly attached to the practice of infant baptism. For several years after his secession from the Establishment (C. of E.) his mind was much exercised upon the whole subject of baptism. During this period he continued to administer the rite to infants, fearing to alter his course without light and direction upon his path. For this he
earnestly sought, through much trial, until unbelief well-nigh prevailed, and he was beginning to think he should never find it; when one day, as he was lifting up his heart in prayer, he was surprised by a sensible light from the Lord, with an impression stamped upon his heart to the effect that he should abide in the same path, and that the blessing of God would certainly attend him in it. This was followed by the application of Gen. ix, 14-16, and other passages of scripture; and from this time, to the end of his life, he became more and more confirmed, in very tenderly and faithfully following the guidance he had found, by the sweetness and power of the Lord’s presence, of which he was often conscious while administering the rite of baptism to infants. He was made to behold the sign when so administered (to use his own words) in a very lovely light, as being a perpetual seal of the faithfulness of God to His covenant. Also as being a sign of grace between the Lord and His church, as the rainbow was made a sign of His covenant with the earth. “It shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud . . . and the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant.” “The graciousness of these words” (he further proceeds) impressed me greatly; but especially these, “I will look upon it”; for they seemed to set forth the same consolation with these, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” I also observed that the rainbow in the cloud, though a sign that the flood shall never return, had no strength to restrain it; so water baptism, though a sign of grace, has no power to regenerate the soul.” In simply following the direction thus given him, he found the blessing promised; and in the use of the sign of infant baptism he was enabled to keep his eyes fixed by faith upon it as a token of the sovereign power of God to regenerate the souls of men; the Lord also shone upon the same, and confirmed by it both his own faith and that of his hearers. He frequently during the course of his last illness, spoke of the sweetness and power of the Lord’s presence with which he had been visited at these seasons, exclaiming, “Lord, I thank Thee for enabling me wholly to follow Thy word to me.” Indeed, the blessing he had so found seemed brought forth before his eyes in the same sacred manner in which his ministry was.
(From “Memorials of the Life and Ministry of Bernard Gilpin, M.A., formerly Rector of St. Andrew’s, Hertford, and afterwards for 33 years minister of Port Vale Chapel. Died 10th January, 1871, aged 67).—W.M.