HKB
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Often appears with: religious persecution and toleration · equity, mercy, and pardon · death-bed baptism · church authority · ceremony as ordinance
Usually: argument (1) · curiosity (1)
“But it is no reason why the Church should forget, that the perpetuation of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing, and that a ceremony to be perpetuated is to be perpetuated as a ceremony.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inqui · insight
He replies that ceremonies can be scriptural yet still misunderstood, defending the Church’s right to adapt rites to curb superstition, then describes late or death-bed baptism meant to cleanse all sin.
latter--the Water of Repentance, reformation in *conduct*; and the Spirit that which purifies the inmost *principle* of action, as fire purges the metal substantially and not cleansing the surface only! But in this instance, it will be said, the ceremony, the outward and visible sign, is a Scripture ordinance. I will not reply, that the Romish priest says the same of the anointing of the sick with oil and the imposi…