The 1st "Baptist"? - Cyprian

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/133/what-does-it-mean-to-be-born-of-water

In John 3:5, Jesus tells Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom one must be "born of water and the Spirit". How is this phrase understood? Is it a single construct (i.e. one birth of both water and Spirit)? Or are two births in view (one of water and one of Spirit)? And what does it mean to be born of water?

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Please forgive my lateness in entering the fray, but I have thought for years that since Nicodemus raised the question of natural, physical birth, Jesus was correcting him by saying, in effect, "No, Nicodemus, you must be born both naturally and spiritually." The bursting of the amniotic sac of a mother just prior to childbirth is the birth of "water." We often say of this event, "Her water broke!" Notice in v.6 Jesus reinforces this interpretation when He says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," thus linking water with flesh. The flesh-birth is from below; the spiritual, from above. –  rhetorician Jun 27 '13 at 1:02

 

Cyprian- an "early 'Christian'" or rather the Continuing Mystery Babylon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptismal_regeneration

One of the earliest of the Church Fathers to enunciate clearly and unambiguously the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ("the idea that salvation happens at and by water baptism duly administered") was Cyprian (c. 200 – 258): "While he attributed all the saving energy to the grace of God, he considered the 'laver of saving water' the instrument of God that makes a person 'born again', receiving a new life and putting off what he had previously been. The 'water of new birth' animated him to new life by the Spirit of holiness working through it."[6] 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprian

In the early days of his conversion he wrote an Epistola ad Donatum de gratia Dei and the Testimoniorum Libri III that adhere closely to the models of Tertullian, who influenced his style and thinking. Cyprian described his own baptism in the following words:

When I was still lying in darkness and gloomy night, I used to regard it as extremely difficult and demanding to do what God's mercy was suggesting to me... I myself was held in bonds by the innumerable errors of my previous life, from which I did not believe I could possibly be delivered, so I was disposed to acquiesce in my clinging vices and to indulge my sins.... 

But after that, by the help of the water of new birth, the stain of my former life was washed away, and a light from above, serene and pure, was infused into my reconciled heart... a second birth restored me to a new man. Then, in a wondrous manner every doubt began to fade.... I clearly understood that what had first lived within me, enslaved by the vices of the flesh, was earthly and that what, instead, the Holy Spirit had wrought within me was divine and heavenly.

— Cyprian, Ad Donatum, 3-4

http://control-avles-blogs.blogspot.com/2014/06/anabaptist-bread-with-catholic-leaven.html

Benjamin Franklin on Reincarnation

Reincarnation/re-embodiment was suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church and largely edited out of the sacred text largely not over the issue of salvation via Jesus Christ, but rather the lie of eternal damnation for a lack of personal infallibility regarding religious doctrines in order to have people blindly follow the Roman Catholic Church.   Alas too many Protestants fall for this, not only denying reincarnation or re-embodiment, but accepting this Romish doctrine the eternal damnation over a lack of such personal infallibility.  I have heard this sort of cryto Romanism from a fellow Christian classmate at Hillsdale College who later transferred to a 'Baptist Bible College" refer to people he knew who would be so damned over some theological issue or another, even though such persons had received Jesus Christ as their Messiah!

The doctrine of eternal damnation for a lack of personal infallibility goes directly against that of salavation for accepting Jesus Christ as Messiah.

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http://parsec-santa.com/words/BenjaminFranklin.html

B. FRANKLIN

Dr. Franklin, a scientist of international renown, also believed in Reincarnation, of which he wrote:

"When I see nothing annihilated (in the works of God) and not a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls, or believe that He will suffer the daily waste of millions of minds ready made that now exist, and put Himself to the continual trouble of making new ones. Thus, finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist; and, with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine, hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected."

At the age of twenty-two, having already be- come a Walk-in, he wrote his own epitaph, which Carl Van Doren has called "the most famous of American epitaphs."

The Body of B. Franklin, Printer, Like the Cover of an Old Book, Its Contents Torn Out And Stripped of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies Here Food for Worms, But the Work shall not be Lost, For it Will as He Believed Appear Once More In a New and more Elegant Edition Revised and Corrected By the Author.

And at the seasoned age of seventy-four, taking a long look into the as-yet-unturned pages of history, Ben Franklin wrote to Joseph Priestley, the Discoverer of oxygen, as follows:

"It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of old age, and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. 0 that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement, that men would cease to be wolves to one another, and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity."