W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

unkindly and misrepresent me. God has not restricted us in this matter, but given us glorious and perfect liberty.
If you have a conviction for it, do not hesitate to go at once and receive it. I have known multitudes of people
immersed by men whom I'm satisfied did not know God. They denounced and mocked experimental religion,
which no Christian can do, and exhorted the people to come and receive immersion at their hands for the
remission of their sins.
If you desire immersion, go at once and receive it at the hands of some man whom God has saved and called to
preach the Gospel.
To be candid before God and the world, I have but one objection to immersion, and that I feel it my duty to tell
you. In my observation I am convinced that it trends to hydrolatry, which is perhaps the most seductive form of
idolatry incidental to the Church of God, e. g., the Campbellites and Mormons, who are downright hydrolaters,
positively preach the essentiality of water baptism for the salvation of the soul; they are uncompromising
immersionists.
Baptism is not an institution of the Gospel dispensation, as many think, but of the Mosaic, and practiced by
Moses himself, when with his own hands he baptized all the people, (three millions) at the tabernacle door, Heb.
9:10-19. Of course there is a vast difference between the Mosaic and the Christian dispensations. The former
was literally inundated with ceremonies, millions of birds and beasts bleeding on their altars, symbolic of the
blessed Christ dying on the cross, and multitudinous watery ablutions (baptismos) typifying the mighty works of
the Holy Ghost. The latter has nothing but the simple ceremonies of the water baptism and the Eucharist.
Millions of Jews were baptized thousands of times during their lives, as they had to receive it every time they
contracted ceremonial defilement before they were allowed even to enter the holy campus, much less go into the
holy temple. All churches in by-gone ages have gradually grieved the Holy Spirit and drifted away into idolatry
in some form or other.
The American Church has not only gone largely into hydrolatry, ecclesiolatry, eucharolatry, pyrolatry,
hemerolatry, I. e., day worship, e. g., Seventh-Day Adventism; but some of them have actually gone into pagan
idolatry, I. e., Buddhism. I am personally acquainted with a Methodist preacher and his members who have gone
into it and are preaching it. At San Diego, Cal., they have built a splendid temple and dedicated it to Buddha,
and are preparing to build one in Los Angeles.
Our only anchorage competent to prevent this fearful drifting is in Jesus, taking Him for everything, and
contenting ourselves with what He gives us. When you lose sight of everything but God alone, and sink away
into Him, then He gives you His own liberty, which is freedom to do everything good and nothing bad. I can
frankly confess that I can see nothing wrong in receiving water baptism as often as you desire and in the way
you prefer.
Of course my Biblical exegesis on this subject, as well as all others, can make no compromise with what God
has revealed. While after a long life of constant study, with all the benefits of a classical education, reading the
Word in the inspired original with readiness and dispensing with all translations; in the providence of God,
visiting the Holy Land three times and investigating everything to my utmost ability; I am perfectly satisfied
that the Bible baptisms were all effusions in both dispensations; yet I have no controversy with my immersion
brethren. During my entire ministerial life I have faithfully immersed all who made application to me and
invariably advised all who had convictions for it to go ahead and receive it. It is certainly perfectly innocent, if
any one is stickleristic either for effusion or immersion. Oh, how frequently when I have put them down in the
river have I seen the rolling billows pour down upon them.
The only criticism you can offer immersion is simply that of superfluity; which is certainly an objection. This is
the glorious felicity of full salvation. It gives us the wonderful, perfect freedom of God Himself, who is free to
do everything good and nothing bad. Besides, it fills us with perfect love so that we love God's dear children
who differ from us quite as dearly as those who agree with us.
In this wonderful salvation, while we must make no compromise on essentials, but must heroically contend for
the faith once delivered to the saints, sparing nothing where life and salvation are involved; yet in all
nonessential ecclesiastical matters we have boundless liberty. This probationary life is a constant battle against