Morning Star

Bro. Burr :-For the information of some of the Free-will Baptist preachers and members in this country, I wish you to state over your own signature, as an organ of the denomination, in unequivocal language, whether it is admissible, according to the established rules of the F. W. Baptist denomination, to receive persons into full church membership who have not been and will not be baptized by immersion, only prohibiting them from voting against immersion.

L. H.

Answer. It is not the general practice of our churches to receive persons to membership who have not been baptized by immersion. One or two churches within the limits of our knowledge have received persons to their membership who had not been thus baptized, but it is a practice which does not meet the approval of the denomination, as will be seen by the following resolution passed by the General Conference held at Topsham, Me. in Oct. 1841 :

"Question I. 'Is it considered proper by this Conference for a church or ministering brother to deviate, in church building, from what we, as a denomination, have ever held as fundamentally requisite by the Scriptures, so as to admit unbaptized individuals to church-fellowship; or that Christian experience be the only test of membership.'

Answer. Resolved, that whereas we consider baptism a positive institution, the observance of which the church is bound to maintain, we cannot approve the practice of admitting unbaptized persons to church membership, to the disregard of that ordinance."