The truth will always come out, and sometimes it bursts forth in the most unlikely places. In divine providence one such place was in the life of Edmund B. Fairfield. Fairfield , who lived in the last century, was a well respected Baptist minister and scholar who was commissioned by a denominational publishing house to write a work on the subject of baptism. He accepted the task and determined to make a complete and fresh survey of the matter and of all the scriptures and the arguments involved, so that his work would be an unassailable classic, a standard work on the subject for years to come. And as he was well-set in his views, he thought that this objective was quite achievable.
However, much to his own amazement, under the steady onslaught of careful exposition of the scriptures, and a thorough study of the literature on the subject, slowly but inexorably one after another of the bastions of his "Baptist" logic fell. And finally, being an honest man, and with no further pretense of a scriptural defense of his former views, he surrendered to the claims of truth. Fairfield had come to realize that "...there is no immersion in the scriptures"!
However, in God's providence this did not put an end to his career as an author. Although his integrity compelled him to resign his commission, he now picked up his pen to a new purpose. In response to a sincere inquiry from a former colleague in the ministry, he had an opportunity to discharge his conscience and to vindicate his new beliefs and his new ecclesiastical connections. He wrote a series of letters detailing the mental and spiritual odyssey that had led him to finally declare that immersion is not scripture baptism.
This friend of Fairfield's was also a friend of the truth and was also converted to the new understanding of the scriptural mode of baptism, as many more have been over the years. For by God's grace these once private letters were published as Fairfield's "Letters on Baptism". And they have now been reprinted by the American Presbyterian Press to make them once more available for the instruction and the edification of the Lord's people.
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