Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

from their rejecting infant baptism. (See proof farther on of their rejecting
infant baptism.)
(2.) The Waldenses were Baptists in that they practiced only immersion. To all
who are familiar with church history it is well known there was no affusion till
the middle of the third century, and that from that time to the Reformation
immersion was the rule and affusion allowed only in cases of sickness —
called: “clinic baptism.” Thus the Prayer Book of 1549 says: “If the child be
weak it shall suffice to pour upon it.” While: “clinic baptism” was practiced by
the Romish church it was never sanctioned by any council until sanctioned by
the council of Ravenna, A.D. 1311. We have seen that that the Waldenses
affiliated with the Hussies; and Erasmus wrote of them:
“The Hussites renounced all rites and ceremonies of the Catholic church; they
ridicule our doctrine and practices in both the sacraments; they deny orders
(the hierarchy) and elect officers from among the laity; they receive no other
rule than the Bible; they admit none into their communion until they are
dipped in water, or baptized; and they reckon one another without distinction
or rank to be called brothers and sisters.” f349
Living in an age in which immersion was the universal law and the custom,
and in which affusion was only allowed for sick infants, and in, possibly, a
very few cases for sick adults, and then to save from hell, and practicing only
believer’s baptism, rejecting, as we will see, water salvation, that the
Waldenses were Baptists as to the action of baptism is the inevitable
conclusion. Hence, Armitage says: “They believed and practiced immersion
only.” f350 Mezeray says: “In the twelfth century they (Waldenses) plunged the
candidate in the sacred font.” f351
(3.) The Waldenses were Baptists as to the design of baptism. In their
Confession of A.D. 1120, just quoted, the Waldenses say:
“We consider the sacraments as signs of holy things, or as the visible emblems
of invisible blessings. We regard it as proper and ever necessary that believers
use these symbols or visible forms when it can be done. Notwithstanding, we
maintain that believers may be saved without these signs, when they have
neither place nor opportunity of observing them.” f352
In their Confession of 1544, they say:
“We believe that in the ordinance of baptism the water is the visible and
external sign, which represents to us that which by virtue of God’s invisible
operations is within us, namely, the renovation of our minds and the
mortification of our members through the faith of Jesus Christ. And by this
ordinance we are received into the congregation of God’s people, previously
professing and declaring our faith and change of life.” f353