Here is a quick test for people who claim that ordinances such as baptism are merely symbolic and do not effect salvation; which godless heretic said the following?
The Sacraments ordained by Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather certain sure witnesses and effectual or powerful signs of grace and God’s good will towards us, by which he doth work invisibly in us, and not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in him . . . Baptism is not only an outward sign of our profession, and a note of difference, whereby Christians are discerned from such as are no Christians; but much more a Sacrament of our admission into the Church, sealing unto us our new birth (and consequently our justification and sanctification) by the communion which we have with Jesus Christ.[1]
Well, obviously a modern Evangelical Protestant did not write such words. However, who authored these? A Latter-day Saint? Roman Catholic? Eastern Orthodox? Nope. Such comes from a historical Protestant creed, viz. sections 85 and 89 of The Irish Articles of Faith (1615), attributed to Bishop Ussher.
Not only is much of modern Evangelical theologies a far cry from biblical theology, it is also a far departure, too, from the expressions of Protestantism one finds in the early history of the Reformation.
[1] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (3 vols.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reprint by Baker Books, 2007), 3:541, 542.
