--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1845 to 1846. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 6 number: 21 published: 1846-01-15 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“Water Baptism,” *Times and Seasons* 6, no. 21 (January 15, 1846): 1095." printed_title: WATER BAPTISM. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1846-01-15_6_21 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v6n21.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1846-01-15_6_21 start_page: 1095 end_page: 1095 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1846 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1846-01-15_6_21 publication_year: 1846 --- # Water Baptism Water baptism is necessary and serves in the gospel for salvation to mankind because it is an ordinance of birth and regeneration. St. Jno. 3:5, Tit. 3:5 "Born of water," regeneration by washing; otherwise man cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Mankind were by the fall alienated from the kingdom and glory of God, and subjected to another kingdom and influence of things.-Hence the Lord God sent him forth; "he drove out the man": Gen. 3:24. In this subjection we are naturally aliens from God, and bondmen [bondsmen] to death and the power thereof; and should ever remain as such if the same power and influences only, that were brought by the fall should forever continue. But baptism serves to relieve man from this alienation and bondage, for it is a portion of the gospel or law of grace and exaltation, brought in according to the plan of redemption, through the atonement made by the shedding of blood. To the mind not understanding the effects of the fall, or Adam's eating the forbidden fruit, it is impossible to conceive the direct reason of the necessity of water baptism as an ordinance of salvation. The 6th verse of the 5th chapter of 1st John, gives some clue to it: "This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood." Also Gen. 9:4. "Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof." The life of man is not as it was before the fall. It was then susceptible of eternal duration, and that because it was governed and controlled by spiritual influence and power. It is now susceptible of temporal duration only, because it is sustained by temporal, or corruptible influences; for the power of this life consists in water and blood. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost bear record in heaven, & are one in purpose. "The spirit, and the water, and the blood have witness in the earth," and agree in one purpose. By the testimony of the spirit we understand what is the truth. Through the shedding of blood, or, the atonement, we have the privilege of the truth; and in the ordinance of water baptism, as a principle of truth, we become the adopted children of God; water baptism as an ordinance of regeneration, because that in the fall, or, in eating the forbidden fruit, water gained a controlling influence over the body temporally; the shedding of blood, as a sacrifice for sin, because that in the fall blood became the principle of life in man temporally; and the testimony of the spirit to witness of the truth, because that under the influence of blood and water in the body, the mind is clogged, stiffened, and darkened, and the body incapacitated to endure the presence of God. Hence the dispensation of his spirit is given that we may be led in the right way; and the shedding of blood required, for we must be restored to the spiritual life; and birth by water granted as the beginning of our exaltation to the presence and glory of God through the gospel. As the fall left us, so the gospel, or law of grace finds us; and we are no better for the favor of God in this thing, if we do not use it, than as though it had not been given. But it is given, and we have the hope of exaltation to happiness, glory, and power in eternal life, and that too by the exercise of the principle and power of things we find ourselves in actual possession of. By the alienation came in us water for both good and evil, and now by water cometh for us the adoption. See the analogy, and above all see the mercy and goodness of God, which together extend through and exist in relation to not only water baptism, but every principle and ordinance of salvation to mankind. V. H. BRUCE. City of Joseph, Dec. 26 1845. An important case is before the Supreme Court at Washington, in which a fund of about five hundred thousand dollars, deposited in various moneyed institutions in Philadelphia, is involved. The correspondent of the Baltimore Patriot says that it has been litigated since the year 1824, in England and this country, and is a contest for the large fortune of Mr. Apsden, who died about twenty-five years ago in London.-Mo. Rep.