“Without me,” said our Lord to his disciples, “ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5). But when He had endued them with the Spirit, they ministered the Spirit (Gal 3:5), as well as the doctrines of Christianity. For true gospel ministry is not that of words only, but of words with power. Therefore the true minister of the gospel always baptizeth, more or less, in his ministry, according to the measure of divine influence upon him; who without it would be only as salt without saver. However he might be furnished with scholastic argument and human eloquence. These may entertain the head, and move the passions, which is not the business of an inspired minister; but to subject them, and to instruct, and quicken the soul into an inward sense of the effective power and virtue of divine life. “My speech, and my preaching,” said Paul, though a learned person, “was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit, and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:4-5).
Joseph Phipps, True Christian Baptism and Communion, (1870), p.14
