John Clifford and open church membership: the ecclesiology behind the policy.

Baptists have traditionally waved high the banner of soul liberty. Soul liberty allows individuals to decide for themselves what they believe on matters of doctrine--irrespective of church or priestly tenets. Historically, soul liberty has been evident in a majority of Baptist doctrines and political positions. In this regard, John Clifford was very Baptist. Born in Sawley, Derbyshire in 1836, Clifford eventually studied at many colleges and universities. His whole life, he never tired of academic pursuits. He also never tired of church work. Clifford ministered at the Praed Street and Westbourne Park Church in London from 1858 to 1915. (1) During that time he also involved himself in broader ecumenical pursuits. In 1891, he oversaw the merger between General and Particular Baptists and from 1898-99, he served as president of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches. Perhaps it was his scholarly as well as his ecumenical endeavors that made Clifford such a champion of the individual conscience and soul liberty.

Specifically, Clifford called for an extremely high degree of soul liberty in the field of ecclesiology. In fact, he wanted more freedom of conscience in ecclesiology than the majority of Baptists ever desired. Traditionally, in Baptist life as in most church life, the roads of church membership and baptism intersected in the field of ecclesiology. Clifford called for a change. He argued that the baptismal road had been built in the wrong field; baptism was not closely related to ecclesiology and church membership. Rather, baptism was an issue of personal discipleship--an act of obedience to be worked out between the believer and God. Clifford therefore urged Baptists to follow a policy of open membership, a policy he instituted in his own church. For Clifford, a confession of faith in Christ was the only prerequisite needed for church membership.

Of course, there were other factors that directed Clifford to a policy of open membership. One could argue that open membership was the next logical step in a system of evolving Baptist doctrines based on freedom. Furthermore, the era in which Clifford lived certainly affected him. He ministered during a time when most matters of religion were being challenged by nonconformists and scientists alike. Yet, Clifford's doctrine of the church was also a primary force behind the open membership policy. This essay will focus specifically on that doctrine, especially scrutinizing the theologies of baptism and the Lord's Supper--even though in Clifford's opinion baptism is not formally linked to ecclesiology. However, to understand Clifford's ecclesiology, one must first grapple with his Christology.

Clifford made Christology the cornerstone of his theology. He weighed every aspect of his belief system against his Christology. Thus, when Clifford attempted to define the church, he turned first to the words of Christ. He concluded from those words that the church was a visible society built by Christ. Those individuals who claimed Christ as Lord served as the building materials.

Clifford found no teaching in the words of Christ or in the words of Christ's early disciples to indicate that baptism should be required for church membership. For him, privilege not prerequisite, defined baptism. The church had no New Testament authority to force baptism on anyone wanting to become a member of the church. Clifford argued that in every New Testament example, those who had believed in Christ went joyfully in obedience to Christ to the baptismal waters. Moreover, Clifford said that the joy and the act of obedience were the result of the salvation each baptismal candidate already possessed. Salvation did not depend on baptism.

Nor did salvation depend on partaking the Lord's Supper--as a sacramental theologian might conclude. For Clifford, the Supper was an extreme act of love and communion, not a ceremony designed to impart grace to believers. Thus, Clifford preached that the Lord's Supper, like baptism, was a voluntary personal act of obedience to God. That act symbolized perfect love and unity for the church. By brothers and sisters "breaking bread together," they might grow in love and unity.

Obviously, many factors influenced Clifford's doctrine of the church. Yet, no factor shaped his ecclesiology more than his Christology and nothing molded his ecclesiastical practice of open-membership more than his views of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Clifford's Christocentric Ecclesiology

When John Clifford left home as a young man to begin his theological studies, his mother uttered a sentence to him that he never forgot. "John," she said, "find out the teaching of Jesus; make sure of that, and then stick to it, no matter what may happen." (2) Clifford obeyed his mother, writing in one of his own works, "Christianity is Christ." (3) Christ was for Clifford "the centre of intellectual repose" as well as "the guide and inspiration" for his life. (4) Clifford viewed the "mind of Christ" as the final authority on all spiritual questions. (5) In A New Testament Church in Its Relation to the Needs and Tendencies of the Age, Clifford articulated the base for his Christocentric ecclesiology.

   Our text-book is His [Christ's] revelation, and His verdicts are our final
   appeal. We derive our doctrine from His lips and our laws of Church-life
   and ordinances from His teaching and example, as we owe our life to His
   gift. (6)

For our purposes, the significant portion of that statement lies in the latter half. Clifford clearly stated that the "laws of Church-life and ordinances" come directly from Christ's "teaching and example." Baptism and the Lord's Supper were the only two acts that Clifford called ordinances. Thus, Clifford based his ecclesiology and his theology of baptism and the Lord's Supper solely on his Christology.

When Clifford formed his definition of the church, he first investigated what Christ said about the church. He noted in The Relation of Baptism to Church Membership that Christ said only four things about the church:

1. "I will build it."

2. Its base is the "rock" or truth in Peter's confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16)." The church is a society of people who have had the same revelation and made the same confession as Peter.

3. The church is formed wherever two or more are gathered in recognition of that lordship (Matt. 18:20).

4. The church constitutes an organisation of brotherly love and self-sacrifice, not external policy or outward rituals. (7)

To explain the last statement, Clifford pointed out that Jesus often spoke of "the kingdom of heaven" but rarely spoke of "the church." The former, he argued was "an inward and spiritual experience"; the latter was "an organisable society." (8) Clifford believed that "the kingdom" was invisible while "the church" was visible. It was possible to point to churches in areas such as Ephesus and Galatia, but "the kingdom" was not defined in terms of human bodies or geographical regions.

Building on the "teaching and example" of Christ, Clifford took the liberty to describe in his own works what he thought the church should be and do. Above all, the church was an institution characterized by internal brotherly love and called to offer external sacrificial love. (9) He believed that Christ "sought to be the Head of a great religious society, whose animating spirit is universal love, and whose goal is universal helpfulness." (10) People belonged to either the world or the church. The world was self-seeking and thus full of sin and anguish. The church should epitomize Christ's example of self-sacrifice and thus offer hope to the world. Clifford argued that through the church, God meant to save the world from its agonizing state. The church would bring to the world a verbal message of salvation as well as a visual example of self-sacrifice and salvation. (11)

In addition, the church was a spiritual community that helped individuals to reach their spiritual potential. Clifford held that people needed communities to excel at any endeavor. He said that the church was like a school where people go to learn from one another. People could be better educated in a community of scholars than by individual study. So it was with the church. People Could only reach their spiritual best when they had fellowship with other Christians. (12) Moreover, that fellowship should not be limited to one denomination. Clifford looked beyond his small Baptist world and engaged in discussion and activity with other Christian groups. We witness his focus on broad ecclesiastical unity through his presidency of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches and through his ecumenical comments. The public and parishioners alike often heard Clifford make statements like:

   Though we rejoice that we are Baptists and General Baptists, yet we rejoice
   far more in our fellowship with the holy Church throughout the world. We
   are Christians. We take our best and foremost name from Christ, a name we
   are glad to add, that unites us with good of all ages, and of all churches,
   and of all lands, with all who have sought, and with all who will seek, the
   best in character, and the purest in service: and we hope to promote by
   this labour the real welfare of that vast and far reaching spiritual
   community, the Universal Church. (13)

Clifford consistently worked before, during, and after his tenure as president of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches for unity within the church.

This commitment was based on his Christocentric views. To Clifford, the church was foremost a group of people who confessed Christ as Lord, loved one another, and loved the lost people of the world. It was a visible society of "saints," not a set of doctrines. A person needed to ascribe only to the doctrine "Christ is Lord," to be a part of the church.

As can be seen from the following quote, Clifford's Christocentric approach to ecclesiology led him to a broad definition of the church. That broad definition led him to open views on baptism and the Lord's Supper. Those views, in turn, led him to a policy of open church membership. Describing the New Testament church, Clifford wrote:

   The Church of Jesus is not a miscellaneous gathering of professors of
   theology industriously grinding catechisms ... but a company of brothers
   breathing the same life.... Personal discipleship to Christ, the evidence
   of faith in, and loyalty to Him is the prime condition of Church
   membership.... All our ideas of Church ordinances, order and service, root
   themselves in this cardinal fact of individual discipleship. The Church is
   itself a spiritual family. New Testament baptism is in our judgment wholly
   a personal act of fealty to Christ, consciously and intelligently rendered
   by one who desires and intends to do His will. The Lord's Supper
   commemorates His love, and attests and strengthens our own. (14)

Obviously, Clifford was highly anti-sacramental. He described baptism as a "personal act" and the Lord's Supper as a "commemorative" act. He did not put any stock in the other five sacraments, and these two he called "ordinances." He disagreed heartily with the Roman Catholic tradition that described the sacraments as "miracles and mysteries, efficacious for the creation and maintenance of the spiritual life." (15) Yet, he also took issue with the Quakers when they said that there should be no outward sacrament or ordinance. Clifford argued that baptism and the Lord's Supper were not necessary for salvation but were still commanded by Christ and beneficial to the believer. Specifically he said that they were divine in origin, "obligatory in perpetuity, monumental in significance, and spiritually quickening through faith and love." (16) That definition of baptism and the Supper stood in stark contrast to the definitions of both the Catholics and the Quakers. However, Clifford still had ecumenical relations with these two groups and considered them a part of the church. Only the confession that "Christ is Lord" and not any doctrinal tenet should dictate who is a part of the body of Christ.

Clifford believed the central message of Christianity was that all people have direct and instant access to God through Jesus Christ. To him, that message was spiritual not ritualistic. In fact, he held that the Christian message was destructive to the ritualistic and sacramental. (17) He feared that the bread and wine and the baptismal waters could become spiritual barriers when used as commanding instruments by the church rather than as joyous exercises. The bread and wine and the baptismal waters were "material" that could be substituted in people's mind for our spiritual relationship with a spiritual God. (18) Clifford contended that the benefits derived from baptism and the Lord's Supper depend on the participant, not the administrator. They depend on the attitude, not the acts. (19) It was his views on baptism and the Lord's Supper, born out of a Christocentric ecclesiology, that allowed him to have a policy of open church membership. These views allowed him to write in the constitution to his church:

1. The Church is Congregational or Independent in its policy; recognizes Jesus Christ as its supreme authority; and takes the principles of the New Testament communities as the expression of His will concerning the basis and conditions of united Christian life. Membership is therefore open to all who are members of `His Body,' i.e. to all who confess faith in Christ, strive to learn and obey His law, not only in their individual life, but in and by association for mutual help, common worship, and beneficent work.

(2.) The Church teaches that Baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is the privilege of each believer in the Saviour. Every applicant for membership is urged to consider the Lord's will on this subject, but the rule followed is `Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind,' and act according to his judgement of the Master's teaching. The whole question is left to the individual conscience. The obligation to be baptized springs out of the relation of the believer to the Church." (20)

Clifford never laid out his view of the relationship of ecclesiology to baptism and baptism to open membership more clearly or succinctly than he did in that statement. It leads us into the extended discussion of our next topic: baptism.

Clifford's View of Baptism (21)

Baptism was no more limited to John the Baptist than circumcision was limited to Jews. Various pagan religions used baptism in their religious ceremonies and even ancient Jews immersed proselytes. (22) Yet, according to Clifford, John's baptism had a new meaning and purpose. It was symbolic of the act of repentance. Furthermore, Jesus said that John's baptism was from heaven and not from humans (Matt. 11:29-33). (23)

John saw-the entire nation of Israel as thoroughly corrupt. Even the religious leaders, the seemingly best of the nation "were a viperous brood, sucking the life out of the people, only to gorge their hypocritical selfishness and fatten their hidden vices." (24) Repentance was the only cure for Israel's spiritual disease. A devout inward change had to take place. Baptism stood as the outward symbol of that change. Baptism, not circumcision, genealogy, or public worship, indicated the condition of one's heart and attitude.

Although repentance formed the body and substance of John's baptism, it was also a baptism of faith and hope. John told those he baptized to believe in the one who would come after him--i.e. Jesus. Clifford interpreted those words by John to mean that water baptism was a "loose badge of discipleship" that would be replaced by Christ's permanent baptism of the spirit. (25) When Christ underwent John's baptism, however, He transformed it into something more meaningful. Christ's touch glorified it, filled it with new light and meaning, made it the originating point of Christian baptism, and converted the transitional into the perpetual--the symbol of repentance into- that of conquest and victory. (26)

Taking what he inferred as the meaning of early Christian baptism, Clifford concluded that in no way should it be a condition for church membership. Speaking of Jesus' baptism and the baptisms of those whom His disciples baptized, Clifford said:

   Take these baptismal acts singly and together, give them their utmost value
   as evidence, and what do they teach? This, first, that at the dawning of
   the Saviour's ministry, discipleship to Him was notified by immersion: that
   the act was an avowal of personal devotion, of fellowship with His hopes
   and aims, and subjection to His teaching; and was wholly an affair between
   the New Teacher and His new pupil.... No fair expositor can show from these
   acts that baptism is indispensable in order to be initiated into a church
   state.(27)

In the same essay, Clifford dealt with Jesus' words to Nicodemus: "a man must be born of water and spirit or he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." (28) Clifford argued that statement applied specifically to Nicodemus and no one else. He said Nicodemus had to be baptized as a statement of his faith; if he did not have the faith to be baptized, he did not have the faith to be saved. (20)

Clifford did grant that some people might argue that Jesus' words applied to everyone, not just Nicodemus. Assuming that situation to be true, Clifford interpreted the words in the severest sense and concluded that they might mean a person could not have salvation without baptism. Still, he quickly added that in no way did Jesus' words apply to the visible society of the church. (30) So apparently, though Clifford might have conceded that baptism was necessary for salvation, he would not have agreed that Jesus' teaching or example implied that it was necessary for church membership.

But what of the teaching and example of the early New Testament church? In Baptism, the Christian's Privilege, Clifford analyzed the first ten years of the church. In the decade-old church, He found more freedom in Christianity and baptism than during all other times of church history. He argued that the infant church modeled the purest and most unpolluted example of baptism as Christ intended. (31) Clifford summarized his findings in six points:

(1.) Baptism was, for the early church, the privilege of all believers and the sign of their acceptance of pardon through Jesus Christ.

(2.) Baptism always followed repentance and faith. Peter and the other apostles never baptized anyone until the people first had instruction and then repented and placed faith in Christ. Likewise, Philip, in Acts 8:12-25, did not baptize the people until after they believed.

(3.) Any believer could administer baptism. Philip was a deacon, not an apostle, and he baptized the eunuch (Acts 8:38). Furthermore, the `lowly' Ananias likely administered Paul's baptism (Acts 9:18).

(4.) A distinction existed between baptism in water and the baptism of the spirit. The disciples' baptized in water those people who had been baptized in the Spirit.

(5.) Baptism and pardon were not linked.

(6.) Baptism is a privilege of believers--a right given to them by Christ to be enjoyed following the experience of God's pardon. (32)

Clifford examined all the baptismal examples of Peter, Philip, Ananias, and everyone else in the Book of Acts. (33) He found no reference to church admission or membership anywhere. He admitted that baptism held significant importance in the early church; it was the "second word" of the apostles teaching as they engaged in their first public work on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41). The "first word" was, of course, repent and have faith. Moreover, the apostles continued to preach baptism as the "second word" of their teaching throughout the early days of the church. (34)

Clifford observed that when the Lord Jesus appeared to Saul on the Damascus Road, his immediate reaction to salvation was joyfully to desire baptism (Acts 9:1-18). (35) Baptism was desired, not forced by an apostle. This example meant to Clifford that the desire of baptism demonstrated salvation, but in no way was it conditional to salvation. He argued that sanctification of any sort was not necessary for salvation: be it baptism, the Lord's Supper, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, or studying God's Word. (36) Clifford said that people could enter heaven without ever doing one good deed. Yet he admonished them that "if that is the miserable spirit in which you seek God's salvation ... you run a fearful and awful risk of not get ting it." (37) lie noted that the people at Pentecost, Saul of Tarsus, Cornelius and Lydia were all delighted to obey Christ's baptismal command. Such Christians illustrated that baptism was not a woeful duty but a joyous occasion. Thus, in answering the question, "Is it obligatory for all believers in Christ to be baptized?" Clifford said:

   We cannot find in Our judgment or conscience to enforce it as an absolutely
   indispensable condition to church communion, however seemly and beautiful
   it is as an act of matriculation or initiation into the fellowship of
   saints; but we hold with increasing tenacity that a cheerful and
   intelligent acceptance of New Testament baptism is positively necessary,
   not to salvation, but to a full discharge of the believer's duty towards
   his accepted King. (38)

So even though Clifford believed Christ's teaching and example mandated that baptism be "a permanent and authoritative institution of Christianity," it was not necessary for salvation. (39)

That conclusion led to Clifford's policy of open church membership. Though baptism was, for Clifford, an indispensable Christian rite, it had no bearing upon church fellowship. If it were so vital to church admission, certainly Christ would have told the early disciples. (40) Clifford's viewpoint was that no words of Christ authorized the church to declare baptism as a mandatory duty of everyone who repented and believed the gospel. (41) The London pastor saw himself as an opponent of the universal church's historic tradition. He recalled that since the second century a majority of churches had equated baptism with entrance into the church body and those churches have also held that baptism should be administered in infancy. Clifford continued in his argument, reminding Baptists that they had historically challenged the second premise of that statement. He then pleaded with them to stand against the first. (42) Ultimately, Clifford was optimistic that his view of baptism and policy of open membership would dominate the church.

   I feel that our conception of baptism is altering and that stronger
   emphasis is being everywhere given to the relation of baptism to the
   believing soul and Christ, rather than its relation to Church order. We
   feel it to be one form of expressing the loyalty of the soul to Christ. As
   this conception grows, `close membership' is bound to disappear, and `open
   membership,' with distinct Baptist teaching ... will go far toward bringing
   the members of Congregational and Baptist churches together.'" (43)

Clifford revealed in this statement that his policy of open membership was actually part of his broad ecclesiastical view. He indicated that not only was open membership biblical, but it would also be a tool with which to begin to unify the universal church once again. Clifford also viewed the Lord's Supper as such a tool and that view undoubtedly affected his policy of open membership.

Clifford's View of the Lord's Supper

Clifford argued that the usefulness of both the Lord's Supper and baptism could only be measured by experience. Just as only those people who used a telegraph wire could fully appreciate its value, so only those people who were baptized and partook of the Supper could understand how joyous the ordinances were to the Christian life. (44) Baptism mainly benefited the individual as it edified and gave courage to live a faithful Christian life. (45) The Lord's Supper, however, benefited the entire church body. Clifford stated that it:

   aids faith in, and intensifies love to the Lord Jesus; brightens hope in
   His present work and in its final issues; develops the fellowship of saints
   by securing a distinct recognition of the oneness of believers; and as it
   has aided, in measureless degrees, in the abolition of slavery, so it is
   still foe of all caste and cliqueism in the life of the Church of the
   Redeemer. (46)

The Supper was, in Clifford's opinion, a unifying celebration that had as its central message, the demolition of all walls between fellow believers. For Clifford, the Lord's Supper epitomized everything the church should be--an institution of love. He affirmed that Christ's command to "love one another as I have loved you" was given in conjunction with the Supper (John 13). (47) To Clifford, the theme of that command and the theme of the Supper were identical. He believed that the Supper, as a symbol of Christ's great self-sacrifice, called the church to sacrifice for one another and for the people of the world. Of course self-sacrifice was against every worldly tendency and, therefore, the church would truly become Christ's body: pure, loving and self-sacrificial. In essence, Clifford's Christology once again took hold. Because he saw the Lord's Supper as an extreme act of love and communion for Christ, it became so for him.

He also perceived the Supper as an extreme act of love and communion for the early church. Clifford believed that as the early church had accurately portrayed Christ's intentions in baptism, so it had in the Lord's Supper.

   The Lord's Supper is for them [the early church] the consecration of all
   life; the festival of souls in love with a departed Friend and Leader; the
   beginning of a new era of social fellowship and spiritual progress. (48)

Through the Supper, the early church once again had communion with an intimate companion--a Companion who though knowing death knocked at the door said, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you." (49) Jesus wanted to be with His friends, and they wanted to be with Him. Yet, self-sacrifice called and as a way to remember that sacrifice, Christ gave them the Lord's Supper. Clifford commented that the Supper was "a means of promoting the special grace of brotherly love," not only for the disciples at the first meal, but for all disciples throughout the life of the church. (50)

Christ told the disciples to do it again, wanting all believers to commune together in remembrance. That remembrance was part of an intense joyful occasion that worked against the human nature's desires of selfishness and worked for unification of the body. (51) To Clifford, the Supper was a service of thanksgiving--not condemnation--of joy and gladness--not fear and sadness--of faith, hope and love. (52) He equated it in importance with the gifts of the Spirit and the Word. (53) Clifford made that profound and bold assertion because he viewed all three--the Supper, the Spirit, and the Word--as comforting agents, given by Christ, for his beloved friends. Together the three gifts provided direction for the infant church.

Such a perception of the Lord's Supper was but a piece of Clifford's puzzle of ecclesiology. What made that piece and all other pieces cling together was a Christology that portrayed Christ as the "Great Unifier." Clifford saw in all of Christ's words and actions a call for disciples to love each other and love the people of the world. That self-sacrificial love would conquer all boundaries and bring all people together in harmony. Open membership was for Clifford, a first step toward removing boundaries and promoting unification.

Conclusion

Clifford did not see any other choice but open membership. In his eyes, a Christocentric ecclesiology mandated that baptismal theology plus the theology of the Lord's Supper equalled a policy of open membership. This equation was as basic and irrefutable to him as the equation "two plus two equals four."

John Clifford believed Christ was the center of the church. Christians had to derive their ecclesiology from the teaching and the example of Christ. Christ taught and exemplified, partly through baptism and the Lord's Supper, that the church was to be an institution of love and self-sacrifice. The love and self-sacrifice of the church would unify people under the lordship of Christ. The unification of those people in Christ should in no way be limited to only those who were baptized or who ate the Lord's Supper.

No teaching of Christ or the early church set forth baptism as a condition of church membership. To. the early church, baptism was a privilege of the believer, joyfully sought out after the salvation experience. Furthermore, they viewed the Lord's Supper as an extreme act of love and self-sacrifice. It was to be eaten in a spirit of communal love, eaten as a service of remembrance and communion. The only condition either ordinance mandated for church membership was a confession. To be a church member, a person had to confess that "Jesus Christ is Lord"--nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps Clifford's position was best summed up by the 1869 constitution of Down's Chapel, London.

   Membership of the Church is open to all who confess faith in Christ. We
   desire to have the Church as open as the Kingdom of God, and its gate
   neither broader nor narrower than that by which men enter into Life. All
   who are members of Christ's body are welcome to our fellowship,
   irrespective of opinion on matters wherein we are all learners, and none
   master or lords. We seek not uniformity but unity--the unity of faith in
   Christ--and trust the love of God to keep us in unity of spirit and bonds
   of peace.... The question of Baptism is left entirely to individual
   judgment and conscience. The immersion of believers is the only ordinance
   taught or practised as baptism, but we make no difference in the manner of
   cordiality of our reception of Christ's disciples. The rule observed
   is--Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, and do according to
   his own understanding of Christ's will." (54)

Endnotes

Jack McClelland is associate minster, First Baptist Church, Middlesboro, Kentucky. He is a 1997 graduate of Carson-Newman College. In 1997, he was selected to participate in Carson-Newman's Oxford Studies Program. He conducted research for the article while studying under professor Jane Shaw of Regent's Park College, Oxford, England.

(1.) Robert Torbet, A History of Baptists (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1950), 117.

(2.) A. C. Underwood, A History of the English Baptists (London: Kingsgate Press, 1947), 228.

(3.) John Clifford, Christianity in the Victorian Era (n.p., n.d.), 2.

(4.) Underwood, quoting John Clifford, 228.

(5.) John Clifford, The Relation of Baptism to Church Membership (London: Marlborough and Co., n.d.), 1.

(6.) John Clifford, A New Testament Church in Its Relation to the Needs and Tendencies of the Age: Memorial Stonelaying at Westbourne Park (London: Yates and Alexander, 1876), 4.

(7.) Clifford, Relation of Baptism, 7.

(8.) Ibid., 6.

(9.) John Clifford, The Church of Christ: An Address at the Dedication of Westbourne Park Chapel (London: Marlborough and Co., 1877), 11.

(10.) John Clifford, The True Use of the Lord's Supper (London: Marlborough and Co., n.d.), 5.

(11.) Clifford, Church of Christ, 4.

(12.) Ibid., 7.

(13.) Charles T. Bateman, John Clifford (London: S. W. Partridge and Co., 1902), 133.

(14.) Clifford, New Testament Church, 8.

(15.) John Clifford, The Ordinances of Jesus and the Sacraments of the Church (n.p., n.d.), 4.

(16.) Ibid., 5.

(17.) Ibid.

(18.) Ibid., 8.

(19) John Clifford, What's 'the Use of Baptism? (London: Marlborough and Co., n.d.), 11.

(20.) Sir James Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, C. H. Life, Letters and Reminiscences (London: Cassell and Co., 1924), 45.

(21.) Infant v. believer's baptism and immersion v. other modes of baptism will not be an issue for this essay. Though they are inextricably linked to baptismal theology, their merits or demerits are much too broad an issue for this study. Suffice it to say that Clifford held to believer's baptism by immersion.

(22.) Johannes Weiss, Earliest Christianity: A History of the Period A.D. 30-150, vol. 2 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), 631.

(23.) John Clifford, The Place of Baptism in the Life and Teaching of Jesus (London: Marlborough and Co., n.d.), 4.

(24.) Ibid., 5.

(25.) Ibid., 6.

(26.) Ibid., 9.

(27). Ibid.

(28.) John 3:5.

(29.) Clifford, Relation of Baptism, 10.

(30.) Ibid.

(31.) John Clifford, Baptism the Christian's Privilege (London: Marlborough and Co., n.d.), 14.

(32.) Ibid., 15.

(33.) Clifford, Relation of Baptism, 14-17.

(34.) Clifford, Christian's Privilege, 8.

(35.) Ibid., 12.

(36.) John Clifford, Need I Be Baptized? (London: Marlborough and Co., n.d.), 1.

(37.) Ibid.

(38.) Clifford, Place of Baptism, 12.

(39.) Ibid.

(40.) Clifford, Relation of Baptism, 12.

(41.) Ibid.

(42.) Ibid., 22.

(43.) Bateman, John Clifford, 133.

(44.) Clifford, Use of Baptism, 4.

(45.) Ibid., 9.

(46.) Ibid., 4.

(47.) Clifford, Lord's Supper, 6.

(48.) Clifford, Ordinances, 2.

(49.) Luke 22:15.

(50.) Clifford, Lord's Supper, 4.

(51.) Ibid., 5.

(52.) Ibid., 15.

(53.) Ibid., 9.

(54.) E. A. Payne, Fellowship of the Believers (London: The Carey Kingsgate Press, 1944), 81-82.