stylistic:style_transfer, quality:corruption, structural:summarization
Methodism

The Methodist Articles of Religion, with regard to baptism, teach:

Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The Baptism of young children is to be retained in the Church.

While baptism imparts grace, Methodists teach that a personal acceptance of Jesus Christ (the first work of grace) is essential to one's salvation; during the second work of grace, entire sanctification, a believer is purified of original sin and made holy. As such, in the Methodist tradition, Baptism with the Holy Spirit has referred to the second work of grace, entire sanctification (Christian perfection).

In the Methodist Churches, baptism is a sacrament of initiation into the visible Church. Wesleyan covenant theology further teaches that baptism is a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace:

Of this great new-covenant blessing, baptism was therefore eminently the sign; and it represented "the pouring out " of the Spirit, "the descending " of the Spirit, the "falling" of the Spirit "upon men", by the mode in which it was administered, the pouring of water from above upon the subjects baptized. As a seal, also, or confirming sign, baptism answers to circumcision.

Methodists recognize three modes of baptism as being valid—"immersion, sprinkling, or pouring" in the name of the Holy Trinity.