An Essay on the Mode and Design of Christian Baptism: in Which the Scriptures Are Carefully Examined, and Made the Only Book of Appeal for Positive Proof

An Essay On The Mode And Design Of Christian Baptism: In Which The Scriptures Are Carefully Examined, And Made The Only Book Of Appeal For Positive Proof by Leonard Fletcher Parker. This volume is a polemical treatise arguing that Christian baptism cannot be tied to a single universal mode of administration. Parker contends that Scripture furnishes multiple ways of applying baptism, including pouring (affusion) and sprinkling, and that immersion is not the exclusive biblical method. The work surveys key New Testament instances of baptism—John in Jordan and Esdrine-like settings, the jailer at Philippi, the Ethiopian eunuch, Saul, Lydia, Cornelius, and others—repeatedly insisting that terms related to baptism are often used in ways that do not imply full submersion under water. It critiques the supremacy of immersion advocated by Campbell and other paedobaptist critics, arguing instead for the primacy of scriptural meaning, the differentiation between baptism by the Spirit and water baptism, and the distinction between remission of sins and the outward act of baptism. Throughout, Parker treats baptism as a symbol and instrument of faith, not a magical means of salvation, and he defends justification by faith against flows of baptismal regeneration. The result is a meticulous, learned defence of affusion and sprinkling as valid biblical modes in contrast to exclusive immersion.