The following is from Daniel Sylvester Tuttle. It is interesting to note that he acknowledges Latter-day Saints do hold to baptismal regeneration; he also would accept the validity of Latter-day Saint baptism, though allowing (conditional?) rebaptism if requested by a candidate:
(c) Sacramental Grace. Baptism, with them,
is for the remission of sin. This is so unqualifiedly true that if one has
fallen into disobedience or apostasy, upon his repentance and reformation there
is no hesitancy in rebaptizing him. Baptism is by immersion, and children are not
competent to receive it until eight years old. Infants, however, may be taken
in the arms of elders and blessed. The form of baptism promulgated by Joseph
Smith is this: " The person who is called of God and has authority from
Jesus Christ to baptize, shall go down into the water with the person who has
presented him or herself for baptism, and shall say, calling him or her by name,
'Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' Then shall he immerse him
or her in the water, and come forth again out of the water."
In the first years of our own work in Utah we ignored Mormon
baptism. Any one and every one coming to us from them we baptized. We assumed
that Mormonism was so gross a heresy as to vitiate the validity of the sacrament.
But later a lady presented herself for confirmation, an estimable married lady
in whose excellence of character we had full confidence. Her parents were earnest,
faithful Mormons, and under them she had been baptized in her girlhood. She
declined to be confirmed unless we would recognize her baptism. She was unwilling
to cast any stigma upon the religion of her parents, whom she still loved. I
asked for a month in which to consider the question. I studied it and wrote to
older bishops and theologians for their opinions and their advice. Then I came
to the conclusion that as Christian baptism is the Saviour's appointed
sacrament, so He may be in a certain sense regarded as the real baptizer (St. Augustine
somewhere puts it this way), and that the sacrament is valid where there are
these three things present: (1) Water applied to the person of the recipient.
(2) The scriptural formula recited. (3) Seriousness of intent to obey a divine
ordinance. Thereafter we recognized Mormon baptism, though hypothetically baptizing
any convert if he or she desired. The lady spoken of was confirmed. (Daniel
Sylvester Tuttle, Reminiscences
of a Missionary Bishop [New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1906], 337-38)
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