Antibaptists

Antibaptists (from ἀντί, against, and βαπτίζω, to baptize), those who oppose baptism. Of this description there are two sorts:

1. Those who oppose it altogether, as the Friends, usually called Quakers, who have from the beginning rejected it as an ordinance, declaring it to be superseded by the baptism of the Spirit, under whose peculiar administration Christians live, and whose influences can be and are received (as they maintain) without any sacramental medium for their conveyance. But though these are Antilaptists essentially, they are not so technically.

2. The class of persons to whom that name properly belongs are those who deny the necessity of baptism to any except new converts. "Baptism," they tell us, "is a proselyting ordinance, to be applied only to those who come over to Christianity from other religions, and not to their descendants, whether infant or adult." This they infer from the words of the commission, and from the practice of the apostles and first Christians. It has been stated that there are in Ireland several growing societies of Antibaptists. SEE BAPTISM.