Part VII.
INTRODUCTORY.

Section XLVI.—State of the Question.

Before entering upon an examination of the New Testament, it will be well to notice distinctly what, at this stage of our inquiry, is the precise state of the question to which our attention is directed. In a word, two rites present themselves, each claiming to be the true and legitimate ordinance which Christ commanded to be dispensed to all nations.

On the one hand is the ritual sprinkling of water. In this rite, we have an ordinance instituted at Sinai by divine command, with specific directions as to the mode of observance, and abundant exemplification in the history of Israel and the writings of the Old Testament,—an ordinance by which the tribes of Israel and the Gentile children of Midian were both alike received and sealed unto the covenant of God,—its rites replete with the richest gospel meaning, as expounded by poets and prophets, and constituting in connection with the Lord’s supper, a clear and symmetrical representation of the whole plan of grace. In this ordinance, the sprinkling of water for the ritual purging of sin, is a lucid symbol of the very baptizing office which is now fulfilled from the throne of heaven by Him whom John fore-announced as the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost. That the doctrine which the New Testament identifies with Christian baptism was symbolized by the ordinance, in its Old Testament form, can not be successfully questioned; nor that there was a beautiful symmetry, congruity and significance in each several part and feature of the observance. It thus stands forth, luminous with most precious gospel truth. Appointed of God at Sinai, as the most fitting form under which to figure the first act of His grace, in the bestowal of salvation on sinners,—honored as the rite by which the church was at the beginning consecrated to her exalted office, as God’s witness and herald to the nations,—it comes to the New Testament church, hoary and venerable with a history of fifteen centuries,—embalmed and hallowed by commemoration in the poetic strains of the psalmist and the brightest visions of the prophets, and fragrant from association with the profoundest and most precious experiences of God’s people, in all those centuries, and with every beam of hope for a better life beyond, which shone into their stricken hearts, in the times of bereavement and mourning. It comes, its image indelibly stamped on the face of God’s word, and its conceptions therein transmitted to blend with the clearer visions of hope revealed to the gospel church, by Him, in whom life and immortality are brought to light.

On the other hand is that form of observance in which the person of the subject is immersed in water, as a symbol of the burial of the Lord Jesus. For this rite, no higher antiquity is claimed, by its advocates, than that involved in its supposed institution by the Lord Jesus, after his resurrection. It has no precedent in the Levitical ritual, nor place among the figures employed by the Old Testament writers. The prophets did not foreshadow it in their imagery, nor the psalmist in his strains. All other rites of divine authority, are distinctly described, both as to office and form. But, of the rite of immersion, there is neither description nor explanation anywhere in the Scriptures. Its evidence stands wholly in definitions, contrary to the unanimous testimony of lexicographers, unsustained by any broad inductions from the facts and analogy of Scripture, and at variance with the conclusions which such induction demands.

And when we examine the relations and details of the rite, we find incongruity and contradiction conspicuously displayed. If the rite be regarded as a typical seal of the covenant of grace, as are all sacraments, it follows that the administrator represents the Lord Jesus, administering the true baptism, the real seal of that covenant. But, if baptism is by immersion, to represent the burial of the body of the Lord Jesus, we are reduced to the alternative that the office of the administrator means nothing, in which case we have a burial with no one to perform it;—or, that he represents Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus; by whom the body of Jesus was laid in the sepulcher.

Again, in the Scriptures everywhere, and especially, and in the most express terms, by the Lord Jesus himself (John iv, 14; vii, 37-39), living water is recognized as the divinely appointed symbol of the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of quickening and life. How beautifully and richly appropriate to this purpose it is, we have seen. But, according to the immersion theory, the dipping of the person in this element,—that is, mersion in water of life, represents the consigning of the body of Jesus to the grave, the den of corruption and death!

Besides, the supposed resemblance of this rite to the burial of Christ’s body is a transparent misconception. It results from the transfer to Palestine of ideas derived from the wholly different western method of interment. In the sense required by immersion, Jesus never was “buried.” The sepulcher of Joseph, in which his body was laid was not a grave, but a spacious above-ground chamber. Such were its dimensions that, at one time, on the morning of the resurrection, there were present in it “Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and other women,” at least five or six persons, and with them the two angels before whom they fell prostrate. (Luke xxiv, 1-10.) To this day, the hillsides around Jerusalem and throughout Palestine are pierced with innumerable such chambers, excavated horizontally in the rock, and frequently used as dwellings by the present inhabitants. Such was the sepulcher of Jesus,—an artificial chamber with a perpendicular door, so that Peter and John and the women could by stooping walk into it.—John xx, 5-8. The entombing of Jesus was no more a burial, in the sense required by the immersion theory, than was the laying of the body of Dorcas in an upper chamber. (Acts ix, 37.) The supposed similitude of immersion in water is a figment of the imagination, in entire disregard of the real facts.

But, even should we allow the ordinance to be a true and fitting symbol of the burial of Christ, it remains void of all spiritual significance. Study it as we may, it teaches nothing,—it means nothing. In all other sacraments the plan of salvation, in one or other of its grand features, is lucidly represented. The Lord’s supper is the acknowledged symbol of Christ’s atonement and death, and of the manner in which he imparts to his people the benefits of that death,—while they by faith feed upon his broken body. According to the immersion theory, baptism represents and shows forth the burial of the dead body of Jesus, contradistinguished from his death, as symbolized in the Lord’s supper. But that burial is a thing wholly unimportant and insignificant, in itself, whether viewed as to the fact or the mode. No emphasis is ever in the Scriptures put upon either, nor spiritual meaning attributed to them. Thus, if we admit immersion to a place among the ordinances, it must remain a mere form, shedding no ray of divine light,—an opaque spot among the luminaries in the instructive constellation of Scripture rites. The result moreover of accepting this ordinance is, to strip the New Testament church of all sacramental knowledge of the power and glory of Christ’s triumphant sceptre. In Levitical baptism, the Old Testament church had a most beautiful pledge of his triumph over death and a symbol of his grace shed down from the throne of his glory. But, upon the immersion theory, all this is utterly ignored in the New Testament ritual, and all attention directed to the humiliation, sufferings and death,—one sacrament setting forth his death, and the other his burial; whilst both are left void of meaning; since the intent of the abasement can only be found in his exaltation, and the baptizing office exercised from his throne. We are to believe that at the very moment when his exaltation became a glorious reality, and his baptizing office an active function, and when these facts had become the very crown and sum of the gospel thereupon sent forth to the world, all trace of them was obliterated from the sacramental system, to the marring of its symmetry and the utter destruction of its completeness and adequacy as a symbolical gospel.

Moreover, it is the office of the rite of baptism, to seal admission to the benefits of the covenant, in the bosom of the visible church. Appropriate to this office, the Old Testament rite was a symbol of that renewing and cleansing which the Lord Jesus by his Spirit gives, in the bestowal upon his people of the benefits of the better covenant, and the fellowship of the invisible church. The same import is attributed to baptism throughout the New Testament. But in the rite of immersion, as symbolizing the burial of the Lord Jesus, not only is this meaning excluded, but the ordinance has no conceivable congruity to the office which it fills. Dr. Carson attempts to evade this difficulty by the assumption that there are two distinct emblems in baptism,—one, of purification by washing; another of death, burial and resurrection, by immersion.^[66] Then, we are to understand that in baptism, the administrator represents at once, the men by whom the body of Jesus was laid in the sepulchre, and the Lord Jesus himself, dispensing the baptism of his Spirit! The water symbolizes both the grave which is the abode of death and corruption, and the Holy Spirit of life! And the immersion of the person of the baptized represents at one and the same time, the placing of the body in the grave, and the bestowal of his Spirit by Jesus, for quickening and sanctifying his people! Manifestly, the two sets of ideas thus brought together, as involved and represented in the one form, are wholly irreconcilable. They are not merely incongruous, but mutually destructive. To assert water, in one and the same act, to signify the Spirit of life, and the corruption of the grave; or an immersion to symbolize, at once, the burial of the dead body, and the quickening of dead souls, is to deny it to have any meaning at all. The rite may be labelled with these incongruous ideas. But they can not be made to cohere in it. The theory ignores and contradicts the true nature of the rites of God’s appointment; which are not mere mnemonical tokens, but representative figures, ordained as testimonies, which convey intelligible expression of their meaning by their forms; and are therefore constructed upon fixed and invariable principles, and characterized by definiteness and unity of meaning.

Are these difficulties evaded by falling back to the position of the first Baptist confession,—that baptism “being a sign, must answer the thing signified, which is, the interest the saints have in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ; and that as certainly as the body is buried under the water and risen again, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints be raised by the power of Christ, in the day of the resurrection?” This is, to abandon the very citadel of the cause, which consists in the position that the form and meaning of the ordinance are to be determined by a strict interpretation of the classic meaning of the word baptizo. That word never means “burial and resurrection,”—the immersion and raising up of the subject. It sometimes means a submersion; that, and nothing more. This is now distinctly admitted by the ablest representatives of the immersion theory, as we shall see abundantly evinced before we close.

Such are some of the considerations that present themselves, as, at this point in our inquiry, we view the two diverse rites which assume the name of Christian baptism. Their claims are now to be judged, by a comparison of the New Testament evidence, with what has been already concentrated from the law, the prophets, and the Psalms;—writings all of them equally authoritative and divine.

Section XLVII.—Accounts of them in the Gospels.

The fact has been referred to already that at the great passover, in the days of Hezekiah, to which the remnant of the ten tribes were invited by the king, “a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written,” not being “cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary;” that, thereupon, a plague was sent among them; but at the intercession of the king, the Lord healed the people. (2 Chron. xxx, 17-20.) In the law, it appears that, at the entreaty of certain persons, who, at the regular time of the passover, were defiled by a dead body, provision was made for a second passover, to be kept a month later, by such as, by reason of defilement, or absence at a great distance, could not keep it at the appointed time. (Num. ix, 6-11.) These facts illustrate the statement of John respecting a certain occasion when the “passover was nigh at hand; and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.”—John xi, 55. The self-washings could all be performed by the people at home. But, in the later period of Jewish history, the ashes were kept at Jerusalem, and the sprinkling of the unclean usually performed there by the priests alone. Hence, the coming of these Jews to Jerusalem for purifying before the feast. It is thus evident that at all the annual feasts, the preparatory purifying of the people must have been a very conspicuous feature of the occasion, a fact of no little significance, as bearing upon the observances in the Eleusinian mysteries, already referred to.

We have shown the name of baptism to have been used to designate both the Levitical rite of sprinkling with the water of separation and the ritual purifyings invented by the scribes. With the growth of ritualistic zeal, the occasions for the latter observances were multiplied. The earliest allusion to them, in the life of our Savior, appears in connection with his first miracle, wrought in Cana of Galilee at the marriage feast. “There were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.”—John ii, 6. That this provision for the purposes of ritual purifying upon such an occasion was absolutely necessary, in obedience to the traditions of the scribes, will presently appear.

The next occasion on which these rites come into notice, is recorded by Luke. In the course of our Lord’s second tour through Galilee, after having preached the gospel to a vast concourse, “a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first baptized (ebaptisthe), before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and behold all things are clean unto you.”—Luke xi, 37-41.

The next incident is mentioned very briefly by Matthew (xv, 1-9), and more fully in Mark. The apprehensions of the rulers at Jerusalem seem to have been aroused by reports of Christ’s ministry, and the excitement caused by it among the people of Galilee. And as they had formerly sent messengers to challenge John, so, now, scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem were on the watch to find occasion against Jesus. And “when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the market, except they baptize (ean me baptisontai), they eat not, and many other things there be which they have received to hold, as the baptisms (baptismous), of cups and pots, brazen vessels and tables” (or “beds.” So the margin and the Greek.)—Mark vii, 1-4.

These are the only places in which the ritual purifyings of the Pharisees are so mentioned as to shed light upon the subject of our inquiry. In them, we trace three distinct observances. These are enumerated by Mark, who represents them as common to “the Pharisees and all the Jews.” They are, (1) Washing the hands, before meals; (2) Baptism, after coming from the markets; (3) The baptisms of utensils and furniture.

Section XLVIII.—Washing the Hands before Meals.

It appears to have been a custom, enjoined by tradition and observed by all the Jews, always to wash the hands ritually before eating. The origin and meaning of the tradition may probably be inferred from a few Scriptural facts. (1.) Flesh was used for sacrifice, before it was given to man for food. Compare Gen. i, 29; iv, 4; viii, 20; ix, 3. It was thus transferred from the altar to the table. (2.) One essential idea in the Levitical system as to sacrifice, was communion of Israel with God at his table. Of this, the passover was but one among many illustrations which the books of Moses contain. (Deut. xii, 17, 18, 27, etc.) (3.) Hence, all eating of flesh was treated as sacrificial in its nature, and, therefore, the prohibition of blood—a prohibition perpetuated in the church by the apostles. (Gen. ix, 4; Lev. xvii, 3-14; Deut. xii, 20-27; Acts xv, 20, 29.^[67]) If, to these facts be added the rule which required the priests to wash themselves before entering upon their official duties, one of which was the eating of the sacrificial flesh in the holy place, and the words of the Psalmist,—“I will wash mine hands in innocency, so will I compass thine altar, O Lord” (Psa. xxvi, 6), we will have the probable foundation of the ritualistic structure.

As to the mode of these washings, the rules given in the ritual law are very significant. But two cases in which the washing of the hands was required are there found. One of these is the washing of the hands of the elders in expiation of a concealed murder. (Deut. xxi, 3-9.) Here the circumstances render it certain that the water was poured on the hands. The other is mentioned in Lev. xv, 11, where the English, “rinsed,” represents the Hebrew, shataph, to dash, or pour on with violence. If the Jews imitated the Levical rites they did not immerse their hands. Mark throws but little light upon the mode of the Pharisaic washing. In the expression, “except they wash their hands oft,” the last word of the original (pugme,—“oft”), probably had a technical meaning, by which the mode was designated. But if such was the case, that meaning has been lost. By some writers, it is interpreted, “to the elbows,”“to the elbows,” “to the wrist,” “with closed fist,” etc. But all this is mere conjecture, as is the opinion of Dr. Lightfoot, that it denoted a certain form of the affusion of water upon the hands.

The account of the marriage feast affords ground for surer deductions. There were set six water pots of stone, holding two or three firkins apiece. Whatever were the rites referred to by Mark, under the two designations of “washing the hands,” and “baptism,” it was necessary that sufficient water should be provided for all occasions of both kinds which were likely to occur, in the large concourse of wedding guests, of whom Christ and the apostles were but a small proportion. For, whilst the guests, generally, were expected, of course, to make use of the ordinary rite, by washing their hands, there might be numbers who had incurred such exposure as to require the appointed baptism. What, then, are the indications as to the nature of the rites thus provided for?

The capacity of the water-pots, according to the most probable estimate, was not more than ten gallons each. The highest supposition sets them at about eighteen. They were, therefore, altogether too small to have been used as bath-tubs, for the immersion of the guests. The possibility, therefore, of such a necessity, did not enter into the calculations of those who provided for the occasion. Were the waterpots, then, used for immersing the hands? The customs of the east, then and to this day,—the fact that Jesus and his disciples evidently appear as but a small proportion of the guests,—and the quantity of wine miraculously made by Jesus for their supply, unite to certify that the great body of the community of Cana was present at the feast. The first suggestion, therefore, that presents itself is, that the supposed process must soon have rendered the water disgusting, from its use in the manner supposed, by a succession of persons. Another and conclusive fact is the use made by our Savior of these waterpots. The feast had been some time in progress, so that the guests had “well drunk,” before the exhausting of the wine. All had been purified, and the pots, appropriated to that use, stood with the remaining water, as thus left. When, Jesus said to the servants,—“Fill the waterpots with water,” “they filled them to the brim,” and immediately carried the wine to the governor of the feast. The servants were ignorant of the purpose of Jesus, and, as the narrative shows, simply did as they were directed. There was no emptying of foul water. There was no cleansing of the waterpots. There is no consciousness, manifested in the narrative, of occasion for it. Nor was there time. It was in the midst of the feast; and the wine was already exhausted, although the ruler of the feast and the guests were unaware of it. (V. 9.) The account of the transaction was written by John, an eye-witness, for the information of cotemporaries who were familiar with the rites of purifying, whatever they were. And had they been performed in the water, in any way, an explanation was necessary, or the inference became inevitable that the vessels were used just as they stood. In these circumstances, is it to be imagined that the waterpots already contained the washings of the guests; or even that they were emptied of these and then appropriated as recepticles of the wine, which was immediately served to the very persons who had just washed in them? Clearly, the facts compel the conclusion that “the purifyings of the Jews,” here provided for were not done in the waterpots, but with water taken from them, and poured or sprinkled on the guests.

This conclusion is confirmed by the explicit testimony of the rabbins. Rabbi Akiva was a doctor of the law of the most eminent reputation, his disciples being numbered by thousands. He was president of the sanhedrim, less than one hundred years after the death of Christ. Being made prisoner by the Romans, upon the suppression of the insurrection of Bar Kokeba, of which he was an active promoter, he was thrown into prison awaiting execution. When food was brought to him, the jailer thinking the supply of water too liberal, poured the greater part on the ground. The rabbi although famishing of thirst, directed what remained to be poured upon his hands, saying, “It is better to die with thirst than to transgress the traditions of the elders.”

Another point in Mark’s statement is, that, “When they come from the market, except they baptize, they eat not.” Here, it would seem that Mark means something different and more important than the ordinary washing of the hands, to which he has just before referred. It is an additional statement, of other rites employed on special occasions. The word, agora, which is translated “the market,” has a much more extensive signification than the English word. Its primary meaning is, a concourse, an assembly, of any kind. And while it was used among others, to designate the assemblies for traffic, and hence the places of such assemblies, it is not, in the text, to be understood in that limited sense; but as comprehensive of all promiscuous assemblages of the people, in which a person was liable unwittingly to come in contact with the unclean. It was upon occasion of our Savior’s coming from such an assembly, that the Pharisee of whom Luke informs us was surprised that he had not first baptized before dinner. He had been preaching in the midst of a multitude “gathered thick together” (Luke xi, 29), when he received and accepted the invitation to dine. He had thus been exposed to a contact which the Pharisees would have carefully avoided, as liable to involve them, unaware, in the extremest defilement, and to render necessary special rites of purifying. This was undoubtedly the cause of the surprise of the Pharisee at the conduct of Jesus.

As to the mode of the baptism here referred to, the gospels are silent. In favor of the supposition that it was immersion, there is nothing whatever in the Scriptures. It rests wholly upon the assumption that that is the meaning of baptizo. The circumstances all very strongly favor the conclusion, that as the major defilements of the Mosaic law were all purged by sprinkling, so this, the major defilement of Pharisaic tradition was cleansed in a kindred way. Among the indications in favor of this conclusion are, the fact that the provision made for purifying at the marriage feast excludes the idea of immersion;—the entire silence of the Scriptures as to any facilities for that purpose;—the incongruity of the supposition to the circumstances of Jesus, in the act of sitting down at the Pharisee’s table;—the absence from the narrative of any allusion to means provided by the Pharisee for the performance, in that mode, of a rite by him so highly esteemed, and for which special provision was necessary;—and the improbability of such a form gaining prevalence among “the Pharisees and all the Jews,” involving, of necessity, both expense and labor, to an intolerable extent. If, on the contrary, as we may reasonably suppose, the house of the Pharisee was provided with appliances, “after the manner of the purifying of the Jews,” they would consist of water pots set at the door, as at the marriage feast, out of which the guests, as they entered, could take water for pouring on their hands, or baptizing their persons by sprinkling, without inconvenience or delay.

We have formerly seen that the self-washings of the Mosaic law,—in which alone its advocates have ever pretended that immersion may be found in the Old Testament,—were of continual recurrence in every family. We find in the time of Christ the rites supplemented by those now in question, which were of even more frequent occasion. If they were performed by self-washing, by affusion, or by sprinkling, such provision of vessels as thus indicated was all-sufficient. But if they were immersions of the person, the almost daily necessities of every family would have required not only an extraordinary supply of water, but a capacious bath tub in every house. Without such a vessel and supply, at home, immersion of the person, with the frequency required, was not merely improbable; it was impossible. But such arrangements would have involved an amount of expense and of labor which no people could endure.

If we open the Scriptures to inquire what is their testimony on this point, on which, if the system of immersion was in operation, some hints could not fail to appear, we find that the one only statement or allusion is contained in the account of the six water pots at the marriage feast. They were set “after the manner of the purifying of the Jews.” This expression, alike in itself, and in the attendant circumstances, as already considered, is exclusive of the supposition that any purifying rite was observed among the Jews, for which the water pots were not a sufficient provision. In short, all the evidence concurs to determine that “the purifying of the Jews,” however performed, was not by immersion of the person.

Section L.—A Various Reading.

There is a various reading, in the Greek manuscripts, which is full of meaning with reference to our present inquiry. Whilst many manuscripts, including the Alexandrian, which is referred to the fifth century, read baptisontai,—“except they baptize they eat not,” (Mark vii, 4); the two oldest and of the highest authority, the codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, both dating from the fourth century, and with them numbers of a later date, read, rantisontai, “except they sprinkle they eat not.” The presumption is very strong in favor of rantisontai being the true reading. Its bearing on the logical connection of Mark’s statement is worthy of note. According to it, he describes three classes of rites. He specifies, first, self-washings of the hands, as always used before dinner; second, certain sprinklings, resorted to upon supposition of more serious defilements; and third, baptisms of pots and cups, etc., the modes of purifying, for which, prescribed in the law, were various. The relation of these purifyings to those appointed by Moses is apparent. They coincide with the self-washings, the sprinklings, and the purifying of things prescribed by him. The various readings here involve considerations of great importance. As before stated, rantisontai is the reading of the two oldest and most highly esteemed manuscripts, dating back to within about two hundred and fifty years of the death of the apostle John. These manuscripts are recognized by critical scholars as being so far independent of each other that their various readings indicate the gradual divergence which would progress from copy to copy through several generations of manuscripts; so that the reading on which they unite must have originated, if not with the evangelist, at least very soon after the first publication of his gospel. On the other hand, the reading, baptisontai, first found in the Alexandrian codex, of the fifth century, appears in the great majority of extant manuscripts. We may confidently conclude that there must have been earlier copies of high authority in which this reading was found. It thus appears that at a time but little if any removed from the age of the apostles, these two readings existed side by side in the received copies of the gospel.

This fact is the more significant in view of the jealous care with which the purity of the New Testament text was guarded. So long as the last of the apostles survived, his inspired authority was an available resort on all questions of controversy, arising in the churches. (2 Cor. xi, 28; 3 John 9, 10.) During this period, the importance of an absolutely pure text of the writings of the apostles and evangelists was not fully appreciated. The work of transcription was left to the zeal of private individuals, who were often wanting in the necessary qualifications; whilst there was no system of responsible revision. It was probably during this period, closing about fifty years after the death of the apostle John, that the most important variations and errors crept in. About that time, the importance of a pure text, as an authoritative standard of appeal on questions of controversy, began to be felt; and, thereafter, great vigilance was exercised by the officers of the church in securing correct copies. The transcriptions were made from the best and most accurate manuscripts. And when a copy was made, it appears to have been subjected to a critical revision, after having been first collated usually by the scribe himself, with the copy from which it was taken, for the purpose of correcting any clerical errors, that might have occurred in the transcription. The manuscript was then handed over to “the corrector,” whose business it was to revise the text by a comparison with other available manuscripts. In this office the services of the most learned and able men in the church were employed; and it was not until sanctioned by such revision that a manuscript was accepted as an authentic copy. Beside the process here described, the ancient manuscripts abound in changes made by subsequent critics. The codex Sinaiticus exhibits alterations “by at least ten different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every page, others occasional or limited to separate portions of the manuscript, many of them being cotemporaneous with the first writer; far the greater part belonging to the sixth or seventh century, a few being as recent as the twelfth.”^[68]

In view of the diligence of the criticism thus systematically exercised, the fact is very remarkable that the two readings, baptisontai, and rantisontai should have been transmitted side by side, and traceable back nearly to the apostolic age. And it is further remarkable, that no one of the ten successive critics whose revisions are traceable on the codex Sinaiticus has corrected the place in question so as to read baptisontai, although it is certain that reading did extensively prevail. Nor is the variation alluded to in the writings of the fathers. It is immaterial to the present argument which is the true reading. If it was rantisontai, the language of Mark explains the meaning of Luke. What the Pharisee expected was that Jesus should have baptized himself by sprinkling. And, whichever is the true reading, this fact is patent that at an age so early as to be undistinguishable from that of the apostles and evangelists, so intimate was the relation between sprinkling and baptism that the one word was inadvertently substituted for the other, in transcription; and the alteration received by the ablest men in the church, without question or protest, then or afterward, or the betrayal even of a consciousness of change; despite the watchfulness of a criticism systematic in its exercise and jealous for the purity of the text. If the primitive church understood baptism to mean immersion, if the rite was administered in that, as the only Scriptural mode, the occurrence of the case here presented would have been plainly impossible. It could only happen where the two words were identified as designating the same rite. How easily the words might be confounded will appear by a comparison of them as written in the primitive Greek, known as uncials, or capital letters:—

Were the first and third letters dimly written, or blurred, the one word might readily be taken for the other.

Section LI.—Baptisms of Utensils and Furniture.

Another point in Mark’s statement is the baptisms of cups and pots, brasen vessels and tables. It is unnecessary to insist upon the argument which is deducible from the practical impossibility of the immersion of these things; nor to notice the theories which have been devised to overcome the difficulties which it interposes to the Baptist mode. The reader who has followed the course of this history will recognize, in the Levitical ordinances respecting the purifyings of things, the source whence was derived the hint of these supererogatory rites. And a comparison of the various Mosaic regulations on the subject will satisfy the candid reader that the list here given is not designed to be exhaustive, but an exemplification merely of the observances in question. This is further evident from the fact that the enumeration, as made by the Lord Jesus (v. 8), was of pots and cups, only; which Mark in his subsequent account amplifies by the other additional examples. Respecting them, the ritual of Moses provided modes of purifying varied both with respect to the nature of the things to be cleansed, and the character of the defilements; as we have formerly seen. We may well suppose that the scribes did not fail to imitate every form of the legal purifyings, in their additions to the law of God. It is not only possible, but very probable that some of these inventions were in the form of immersion. For, as we have formerly seen, that was one of the forms appointed in the law, for the purifying of things. But the evangelist speaks, not of one, but of various rites; which he designates by the plural and generic name of (baptismous),—baptisms. The word thus selected is the very same which is used by Paul as the comprehensive designation of the purifying rites of the Mosaic law,—the “divers baptisms,” imposed at Sinai. The conclusion is therefore irresistible, that whilst Paul used thethe word in a generic sense, as comprehending the various forms of legal purification, among which the immersion of person is not to be found, Mark uses it in a like generic sense as comprehensive of the various forms for the purifying of things, among which immersion may have been one, although, if such was the fact, the proof is yet to be produced.

The result of our examination is, that among the Pharisaic rites, no trace of the immersion of the person is to be found.

Section LII.—The History of John’s Mission.

The account of John’s ministry in the evangelists, is invariably introduced by an appeal to the prophecies which foretold his coming and office. A remarkable passage from Malachi is alluded to by the angel Gabriel, in announcing to Zacharias the birth of the forerunner (Luke i, 17), and by Mark in his introduction to the gospel. (Mark i, 2). A prophecy of Isaiah is cited in all the gospels; as is also John’s own account of his commission and office. It will be convenient for the purposes of the present discussion to bring these passages together. Says the Lord by Malachi, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in; behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap; and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers.... Remember ye the law of Moses my servant which I commanded unto him in Horeb, for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth” (the land of Israel) “with a curse.”—Mal. iii, 1-5; iv, 4-6.

The citation from Isaiah (xl, 3-5), together with John’s exposition of it, is thus given by Luke. “John came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees; every tree, therefore, which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.... I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire; whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.”—Luke iii, 3-17. In John’s gospel, some additional points are given. “John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me; for he was before me. And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven, like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not, but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of God.”—John i, 29-34.

The title by which, in the prophecy of Malachi, the Lord Jesus is designated,—“the Messenger of the covenant,” carries us back to the scene at Sinai, when the covenant was made and sealed. In the close of the prophecy, our attention is expressly directed to that occasion. “Remember the law of Moses, which I commanded unto him in Horeb, for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.” The intimations thus given lead us up to the originating occasion of John’s testimony.

Immediately after the coming of Israel to Sinai, among the communications which expounded the covenant, preparatory to its sealing, the Lord said to them, “Behold I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice. Provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my name is in him.”—Ex. xxiii, 20, 21. This Angel is by the Lord elsewhere called “My Presence” (Compare Ex. xiv, 19; xxxii, 34; xxxiii, 2, 14, 15), and by Isaiah, “the Angel of His presence.”—Isa. lxiii, 9. He is thus announced to Israel as sent to be God’s servant in the fulfilling of the Sinai covenant, and is hence by the prophet called “the Messenger of the covenant.”

Another line of facts leads in the same direction. When, at the mount, Israel was overwhelmed with the terror of the great fire and of God’s audible voice, and entreated Moses, “Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us lest we die” (Ex. xx, 19; Deut. v, 22-27), their proposal thus to accept Moses as Mediator between them and God was graciously approved. “They have well said, all that they have spoken.”—Deut. v, 28. Moses was accepted in that office, and Israel dismissed from the assembly at the mount. (Ib. 28-31.) But, afterward, Moses revealed to them how much more richly their abasement and prayer had been answered than they had asked or imagined. “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in His mouth; and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him.”—Deut. xviii, 15-18. Compare John xiv, 31; xvii, 8, 14.

We are thus brought to the relation which Moses and the Sinai covenant, sustained to the Lord Jesus, and that better covenant of which he is the Mediator. (Heb. viiiHeb. viii, 6.) The covenant of Sinai as formally accepted by Israel and ratified through the mediation of Moses, was of unspeakable moment, as being the installation of the visible church. But it was, at the same time, an outward type, a manifestation and announcement of the covenant of grace made with the invisible church. Of the one, Moses was the Mediator;—of the other, the Lord Jesus. The one is founded upon the public professions and promises of Moses and the assembly of Israel (Ex. xxxiv, 27);—the other on the engagement of the Lord Jesus to fulfill all righteousness. The former was graven on tables of stone; the latter is written in the fleshly tables of the hearts of Christ’s people. (Jer. xxxi, 33; 2 Cor. iii, 3; Heb. viii, 10.) The former was sealed with the blood which was partly sprinkled on the Sinai altar, and partly mingled with water and sprinkled on Israel; the latter, with the blood of sprinkling of Jesus Christ offered in the holy place in heaven, and the baptism of the Spirit which, through the merits of that blood, he gives his people.

We can now see the bearing of certain memorable words uttered by the Lord Jesus. When Moses sealed the covenant, he sprinkled the book and the people with the sacrificial blood and water, saying, “Behold, the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” At the table, the night of the betrayal, the Lord Jesus took the cup, and having given thanks, gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins.”—Matt. xxvi, 28. He thus signified the typical nature of the transaction in the wilderness, as relating to him, and announced himself about to fulfill all that it foreshadowed. Particularly did his language, by appropriating that of the Sinai baptism, recognize both it and the supper as symbols and seals of the remission of sins, of which his own blood bestows the reality.

To the same relation between the Sinai transactions and Christ’s office and work, Peter bears witness. A few days after Pentecost, upon occasion of the healing of the impotent man, he reminded the wondering assembly of the promise made by Moses to the fathers.—“A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me.... Yea and all the prophets, from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.”—Acts iii, 22-24.

Section LIII.—Israel at the Time of John’s Coming.

When John came, the Jews had been for four hundred years without a prophet, or any sensible token of God’s presence among them. The captivity and return from Babylon and subsequent circumstances in their history had effectually and finally cured the inveterate tendency to idolatry, which had characterized them from the days of the Egyptian bondage. But this change did not bring with it an awakening of true spiritual devotion to the service of God. Instead thereof an intense zeal of self-righteousness was cherished, under the two forms of a fanatical pride in the blood of Abraham, and an ardent devotion to the external forms and rites of religion, to tithes and offerings, to fastings and purifyings,—to “righteousnesses of the flesh,”—whilst the spirituality and power of the divine law were obscured and set aside by the glosses and interpretations of the elders. Such was the religion of the scribes, who “sat in Moses’ seat,” as the instructors of the people. The great mass of the nation, led by these blind guides, were with them hastening to destruction; while the few who still sought after the God of their fathers were as sheep without a shepherd. In the meantime, Jerusalem and Judea had been the prey alternately of the Ptolemies of Egypt, the SeleucidÆ of Syria, and factions among themselves. After the successful revolt of the Maccabees, a brief time of peace and prosperity was enjoyed under the sceptre of that family. But the rivalry and seditions of its members brought in the Romans, under whose patronage the Herodian family, of Edomite origin, had come into power.

During the progress of these events, the whole land had been polluted with crimes and atrocities of every kind, and of the deepest dye. The high priesthood was habitually subject to barter and sale, one possessor of the office giving place to another in rapid succession, as the respective aspirants were able to purchase the office from the kings of Syria, or of Judea, or to seize it by violence or the favor of the rabble.rabble. The temple itself had been desecrated by being formally set apart to the worship of Jupiter Olympius. And as though that was not enough, it had been yet more horribly defiled by fratricidal blood; an aspirant for the high priesthood having secured and held the office by the murder of his own brother, in the very precincts of the temple. The entire social system was rotten, and the nation was fast ripening for the developments about to be witnessed, in the denial and crucifixion of the Son of God, the rejection of the gospel, and the crimes which precipitated society into a chaos of anarchy and a reign of terror, ending in the destruction of the temple, the desolation of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the nation to this day.

Thus, when John began his ministry, the land of Israel, the city, the temple, and the nation were lying under the burden of the unexpiated and unrepented crimes of many centuries. (Matt. xxiii, 29-36.) The covenant was forfeited and trampled under foot, and the land and the people were, in every sense, moral and ritual, utterly unclean. At the beginning of the declension, the prophet Haggai had been sent to the priests with a lesson out of the law.—“Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord: and so is every work of their hands, and that which they offer there is unclean.”—Hag. ii, 11-14. After the cotemporaneous ministries of Haggai and Zechariah, the Spirit of prophecy was withdrawn for about one hundred years. Then suddenly, a trumpet note from Malachi broke the silence, with a brief and startling call.—“If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yea I have cursed them already.... From the days of your fathers, ye are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.—Mal. ii, 2; iii, 7. But they did not return. Thereupon, God their King withdrew from all communication with them as a people, for four centuries following.

Such was the situation of that people at the coming of John. They had the oracles of God, his ordinances, and his temple; of which Haggai had said,—“I will shake all nations; and the Desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.”—Hag. ii, 7. But all this was as a piece of holy flesh in the skirt of a garment. It did not purify the nation, while their uncleanness defiled these and all their hallowed things.

Section LIV.—The Nature and End of John’s Baptism.

Whilst Israel was thus apostate and excommunicate from God, the Messenger of his covenant was about to appear, in that character the aspect of which, as toward the rebellious and unbelieving, had been especially emphasized in the prophecies above cited; and the exercise of which resulted in the desolation of the land, and the dispersion of the nation a byword and a hissing in all lands. “Beware of him and obey his voice. Provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my Name is in him.”—Ex. xxiii, 21. “Who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth?”—Mal. iii, 2. So, John announced him.—“Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”—Matt. iii, 12. His coming was, to Israel, the great crisis in their history. Therefore the mission of John. Said the angel to Zacharias, “He shall go before Him in the Spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”—Luke i, 17.

When the ten tribes had forsaken the worship of God on mount Zion, abandoned his covenant, and devoted themselves to the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, Elijah was sent to them as the vindicator of the forsaken covenant, and messenger of grace, of warning and of judgment. His first work was to demonstrate the sovereignty and Godhead of Jehovah, and the imbecility of their false gods, by the famine of three years and six months, and by the fire from heaven consuming both sacrifice and altar on Carmel. He then executed judgment upon the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth, the seducers of Israel, eight hundred and fifty in number. On this occasion, Israel professed to recognize and do homage to the God of their fathers. But Elijah saw too clearly, that it was a conviction without root in their hearts and affections. When therefore he received Jezebel’s message of vengeance, his faith failed, and he fled to the wilderness, where he was fed by an angel and led forty days and forty nights “to Horeb the mount of God,” the spot where the covenant was made and sealed with the twelve tribes. (1 Kings xix, 8, 9.) “And he came thither unto a cave and lodged there; and behold the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, What dost thou here, Elijah?” The interview held at that place exhibits the prophet as the ordained champion and avenger of the covenant. To the foregoing question twice proposed, he twice responds,—“I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars; and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I, only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away.”—vs. 10, 14. Thereupon, he was commissioned to anoint Hazael, king over Syria; and Jehu king of Israel, and Elisha to be prophet in his stead;—“And it shall come to pass that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have left seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”—vs. 15-18.

The office thus fulfilled by Elijah, as a messenger of grace, calling Israel back to the allegiance of the abandoned covenant; and of wrath, announcing and inflicting its penalty upon the transgressors, is the key to the closing words of the book of Malachi.—“Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord;” the day, to wit, of the coming of “the Messenger of the covenant;” “and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.”—Mal. iv, 4-6. The same characteristics of John’s ministry were the occasion of the statement of the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, before cited, “He shall go before Him, in the Spirit and power of Elias.” In the points here noticed, we have the explanation of the scene of the transfiguration, in which Moses, the mediator of the Sinai covenant, Elijah its vindicator against apostate Israel,—and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, talked together “of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem,” on behalf of the true Israel, and in fulfillment of the terms of the new covenant, typified in that of Sinai. (Luke ix, 31.)

The same office, of warning and testimony on behalf of the forsaken covenant, which Elijah exercised toward the ten tribes, John fulfilled to the Jews. To understand the full force and significance of his mission, the fact must be distinctly appreciated that Christ’s humiliation and sufferings, however momentous in themselves, and however transcendently important to us, were a mere transient incident in the work undertaken by him. His coming into the world was a coming to the throne, to which the cross was a mere stepping stone,—a means to his exaltation, and to the achievements of his sceptre, in purging the Father’s floor. In those achievements, justice and judgment are as conspicuous as grace; and if the latter witnessed a first signal and glorious display in the scenes of Pentecost, the former was as signally illustrated in the destruction and desolation of the city and land that rejected their King. It was with a view to the crisis thus created in the history of Israel by the coming of Christ, that John was sent as his forerunner and herald. John did not ignore that abasement of Christ which was the antecedent condition and means of his exaltation and glory. But his distinctive theme, the subject which filled his heart and inspired his tongue, was the throne, the kingdom, the power and justice. Of it he was the official herald, and from it his preaching and baptism took their form and significance. His commission was threefold; (1) To announce the kingdom of heaven at hand, and herald the coming of the King, the Messenger of the covenant, the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost and with fire; (2) To identify and point him out in the person of Jesus; (3) To prepare the way before him. In fulfillment of the first and second of these functions, John preached the coming of “One Mightier than I,” who should baptize Israel with the Holy Ghost and with fire. He pointed out and announced the Lord Jesus as that coming One,—“the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,”—“the Son of God.” And by connecting this testimony with his proclamation and baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, he anticipated the preaching of the apostles, and summed and published the gospel of atonement and remission through the blood of Christ. By this preaching and by the seal of baptism to those who received his testimony he fulfilled the third function above mentioned, and “made ready a people prepared for the Lord.”—Luke i, 17.

There were two termini to which John’s baptism sustained peculiar and intimate relations, and from which his ministry derived all its significance. The first was that “day of the assembly” at Sinai, when Israel entered into the covenant by which she took God as her King and received the baptismal seal sprinkled by the hand of Moses. It was the office of John to announce the personal coming of the King of Israel; to warn them of the penalty of the violated covenant; announce the remission of sins and restoration of the covenant, to those who should repent and return to their allegiance; and to certify this by the renewal of the broken seal.

The second terminus to which John’s baptism looked was that day when the covenant King of Israel should appear in person, assume his throne, and enter on the functions announced by John, under the figures of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and the baptism of fire. Of the former, so conspicuous in the prophecies, the baptism of Israel by Moses, and that now administered by John, were alike typical. The grace of the Holy Spirit, administered by the enthroned Baptizer, was the end and fulfillment of both.

Section LV.—The Extent of John’s Baptism.

The public ministry of John commenced about six months before the baptism of Jesus, and was terminated by his imprisonment soon after that event. (Mark i, 14; Luke iii, 20, 21.) At first, his preaching was peripatetic. “He came into all the country about Jordan, preaching.”—Luke iii, 3. But as his fame extended and the throng of his hearers increased, he took his station at Bethabara (or, Bethany, as the critical editions read), on the eastern side of the Jordan, and afterward at “Enon, near to Salim,” where he seems to have been, when arrested by Herod. During the brief period of his ministry, there “went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.”—Matt. iii, 5, 6. The facts as to the extent of John’s ministry and baptism, are stated in terms equally strong by Mark and Luke. (Mark i, 5; Luke iii, 21.) Of these statements, we are asked to believe that they are extravagant hyperbole,—that they only mean that there were some present from every place in the regions specified. As “if I should say that in the political convention of 1840, all Tennessee was gathered at Nashville to hear Henry Clay, I would not mean that every man, woman, and child in the State was there; but only that there were some from every part. Just so, Matthew says Jerusalem came,—that a great many people from Jerusalem and Judea and the country round about Jordan came. That is to say, the country as well as the city was fully represented in the crowd. Besides, John did not baptize all who came. He positively refused the Pharisees and Sadducees, who composed a great part of the Jewish nation.”^[69] This explanation forgets that the language in question is not the exaggerated statement of excited and partisan newsmongers; but sober history dictated by the Spirit of God, and reported to us by “two or three witnesses,” in concurrent language. As to the assertion concerning the Pharisees, every thoughtful reader of the gospels knows that in comparison with the whole body of the people, they were very few. In all their conspiracies against Jesus they were constantly embarrassed by fear of “the people.”

Of the vastness of the multitude who were baptized by John we have not only the express testimony of the evangelists, but certain incidents related by them remarkably confirm it. The first is, that Herod was restrained, for some time, from the murder of John, by fear of the people, “because they counted him as a prophet.”—Matt. xiv, 5. Another is, the use made of the same popular sentiment, by the Lord Jesus. A few days before his betrayal and death, upon occasion of his second purging of the temple, the rulers came to him demanding by what authority he did these things. Jesus answered, “I will also ask you one thing; and answer me: The baptism of John, Was it from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then believed ye him not? But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet. And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was.”—Luke xx, 3-7; Matt. xxi, 24; Mark xi, 29. Such and so strong and universal was the conviction of the people, that John’s commission was from God, that neither Herod nor the whole united body of the priests, scribes and elders,—the great council of the nation,—dared to antagonize it. This, too, was three years after the close of John’s ministry.

It may be said that no intimation is here given that the people spoken of had been baptized of John. But, in the first place, the evangelists had already expressly stated the universal fact, in their distinct account of his ministry, and did not, therefore, need to repeat it; and, in the second, the issue involved in his ministry was too vital and sharply defined to allow any to profess, even, to recognize his divine authority, and yet neglect his baptism. But there is yet further testimony on the point.

Jesus had been preaching about two years, when John from his prison sent two of his disciples to ask,—“Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? On this occasion Jesus uttered a testimony concerning John, of which it is said that, “all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves; being not baptized of him.”—Luke vii, 29, 30. This occurred in Galilee, which district was not included in any of the statements of the evangelists, respecting the attendance on John’s ministry. He does not seem ever to have preached in Galilee. And yet, from that comparatively distant region, the people had so flocked to his baptism, that two years afterwardafterward the evangelist could state that all the people had been baptized of him, the lawyers and Pharisees excepted, and find in this the explanation of the universal acceptance of Christ’s testimony. The exception here greatly strengthens the former clause of the statement, and establishes the fact of the universal reception of John’s baptism by the common people.

In fact, this conclusion is involved in the very nature of the circumstances of Israel. However viewed, the ministry of John created a most momentous crisis in the history of God’s dealings with that people. John came to them, the fore-announced,—the last,—the greatest, of all the prophets. He came on the loftiest mission that had ever been entrusted to man,—to act as the immediate personal messenger and herald of the coming King. He came to Israel, excommunicate from God, to call them individually, and as a people, to repent and return to the fold of God’s longsuffering mercy; and to seal the offered grace, by baptizing those who professed to obey his call. The alternative which his ministry set before them was plain and imperative. To absent themselves, or to attend on his preaching without receiving his baptism, would have been an open act of treason to the coming King, an express and aggravated rejection of his authority and of this extraordinary and final overture of grace to the nation. John’s ministry thus compelled a decision by which a broad and public line was drawn among the people. On the one side, were those who professed to repent and return to the forsaken covenant and God of their fathers, and to own the authority of the promised King of Israel; and whose profession was sealed by the reception of John’s baptism;—on the other, those who, in rejecting John’s testimony and turning their backs upon his baptism, repudiated the coming King and spurned his overture of mercy. Of the significance and importance of all this, the evangelists were fully aware. To suppose them in such circumstances to have indulged in a loose and exaggerated style of statement, asserting that Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan were baptized, when, in fact, not one in a hundred of the people received the rite, would be a contradiction of the divine testimony, which nothing but ignorance and lack of consideration can excuse or palliate. It is further to be considered that every class of the people, and both men and women resorted to John’s baptism, the lawyers or scribes, that is, the Pharisees and Sadducees, only excepted. (Matt. xxi, 31, 32; Luke vii, 29; xx, 6.)

5. His rejection of the Pharisees is adduced as proof that “though great multitudes came to John and followed Christ, yet comparatively few brought forth fruit to justify their baptism.”^[70] But how is it supposed that John could know any thing, ordinarily, as to the fruits manifested by those who sought his baptism? It is perfectly evident that,—as at Sinai, on the day of Pentecost, and on every other occasion that is on record in the ministry of the apostles,—so, in the case of John’s hearers,—a good profession was the sole ordinary condition of baptism. Is it asked,—How, then, came John to refuse the Pharisees? That he did, in fact, refuse them, is an assumption, without proof or probability. He warned them; and that is all we are told of the matter. As to the occasion of such warning,—the ruling sin of that sect was self-righteousness. The pride of it found expression in unmistakable tokens. Says Jesus, “All their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments.”—Matt, xxiii, 5. The phylacteries were parchments on which portions of the law were written. They were folded in the form of a cube, and bound to the forehead or the arm, with ribbands. The borders were fringes and ribbands of blue, which God directed Israel to wear on the skirts of their garments, as a memorial of their covenant relations to him. (Num. xv, 38, 39.) These the scribes and Pharisees made broad, so as to be seen of men. The first step therefore toward a true repentance, on their part, would have been a putting off of these badges of self-righteousness. And their being worn by any of John’s hearers was to him an instant and evident token of vain glory and self-righteousness unabased; whilst putting them off would have been a manifest fruit and evidence of repentance.

The facts, therefore, as set forth in the gospels, clearly indicate that the ministry of John was attended by an apparent revival of religion, but little short of that which occurred at Sinai, when the covenant was first made. And although, like the tribes in the wilderness, many of those who received John’s baptism failed to profit, for lack of true repentance and faith,—many brought forth fruit out of good and honest hearts. Of such, the college of the apostles was formed; and of such, no doubt, largely consisted the firstfruits of the gospel, in Judea and Galilee,—as we see repeated traces of it in the ministry of Paul, among the far off Gentiles. (Acts xiii, 24, 25; xviii, 25; xix, 3.)

Section LVI.—John did not Immerse.

As to the mode of John’s baptism, there are several circumstances which interpose insuperable objections to the supposition that it was by immersion.

1. That form would have been utterly incongruous to John’s office as the herald of the covenant. No rational account can be given of the origin and meaning of such a rite, in that connection. The Levitical law was, in all its ordinances, a testimony to the covenant; and of it John was a minister. But in that law there was but one administered baptism, and that by sprinkling, whilst there were no immersions of persons, whatever. It therefore furnishes no trace of the origin of the supposed form. On the other hand, it certainly did not originate with John. Baptism,—the rite which he administered, was in his day, no novelty among the Jews. The only remaining supposition, if we assume John to have immersed his disciples, is, that it may have been borrowed from the inventions of the scribes. But, in the first place, there is not a trace of evidence nor of probability that such a rite was then included in the ritual of the scribes;—and in the second, it is preposterous to suppose that, in such circumstances and on such a mission, John would have turned his back on the ordinances of God’s law, by which for fifteen centuries the covenant had been sealed, and chosen for the characteristic and seal of his ministry one of those inventions by means of which that law was made void and God’s people led astray. (Mark vii, 6, 8, 13.) This too, when he in the most open and decisive manner set himself in opposition to the inventors of those rites, whom he denounced as a generation of vipers!

2. The meaning of the rite, in supposed connection with John’s ministry, is as inexplicable as its origin. Neither the law nor the Old Testament Scriptures anywhere give a clue to it. John in his ministry is equally silent. Or, rather, his statements are altogether incongruous to the supposed form.—“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”—Matt. iii, 11, 12. Thus, John, announced the Lord Jesus, not in his character of humiliation and death; but in his exaltation and royalty, as he appeared at Sinai, the covenant King of Israel,—as he is now, the enthroned Baptizer, dispensing his Spirit and grace to his people, and pouring out the fire of his justice on his and his Father’s enemies. In such circumstances, and in connection with such a preaching, what meaning could the disciples of John have discovered in the rite of immersion? Respecting it, they ask no questions, and John makes no explanation. If it be supposed to have meant the burial of Christ, this much at least is certain, that the resemblance was not so close as to have been self-evident to the people. And even though understood by them in that sense, it would have been so far aside from the immediate intent and end of John’s ministry, and so defective in its testimony, since it knows nothing of the resurrection, that it would have been calculated to distract and perplex his hearers, rather than to serve the object of his preaching. But John was explicit as to the meaning of his baptism. Whatever its form, it meant—not the burial of the Lord Jesus, but the baptism of the Spirit by him dispensed. “I baptize you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”

3. The great discomfort, and the gross indecency which are inevitably involved in the supposition that John immersed his followers are decisive against it. Neither had John a water-proof suit in which to officiate, nor were his auditors supplied with “immersion robes,” nor change of garments, so needful, now, to obviate the discomfort and danger of the dripping attire. But this, even, is a less consideration than the indecent exposure which the supposed rite would have involved. The garments of the Jews were of two patterns. That next the person was in the form of a sleeveless shirt, descending to the knees. A second garment was of the same shape, but usually of more costly materials, which reached to the ankles. Over all were thrown one or two shawls or blankets, large enough to enwrap the entire person. Beside sandals, which were not ordinarily worn, except by those in easy circumstances,—these were the only articles of apparel. Those of the women were of nearly the same shape; the distinction of sex appearing mainly in the materials and ornaments. When at rest, the garments were left free. But in preparing for labor or for travel, they were drawn up to the knees, and fastened with a girdle at the loins, thus leaving the lower limbs unencumbered. That, with such clothing indecent exposure must have been a constant incident to the extemporaneous and hasty immersions which the Baptist theory requires, is manifest; and the weight of the consideration needs no enforcing.

4. The number resorting to John was such as to preclude the possibility of their having been immersed. When Israel came out of Egypt, they were “about six hundred thousand on foot, that were men, beside children; and a mixed multitude went up also with them.”—Ex. xii, 37, 38. When about to enter the promised land, the census was six hundred and one thousand, seven hundred and thirty men, from twenty years old and upward, beside the Levites, who numbered twenty-three thousand males from a month old. (Num. xxvi, 51, 62.) Upon this basis, the whole number of the people was between three and four millions. In the days of David, in the enumeration from which the tribes of Levi and Benjamin were omitted, the number of fighting men was one million five hundred and seventy thousand. If we make a proportional addition for the omitted tribes, it gives a total of one million, eight hundred and fifty-five thousand seven hundred and fifty-four. These would represent a population of seven or eight millions. From two independent statements occurring in Josephus, it appears that the population, just before the destruction of the nation, was at least as much as four million souls.^[71] If we suppose John to have stood in the water three hours a day, during the six months of his ministry, and to have administered the rite at the rate of one per minute, during the entire time, the total results of such miraculous labors and endurance, would have been about thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty persons baptized, that is, one in every one hundred and twenty-two of the people. Without the intervention of miracle—and John did no miracle—even this was utterly impossible. And yet, how entirely it falls short of the statements of the evangelists, upon any candid interpretation of them, is evident.

That the theory of immersion is encumbered with difficulties of the most serious nature must be evident to every candid reader.

Section LVII.—John Baptized by Sprinkling with unmingled Water.

We are now to consider an important feature in the history of this rite, which has not yet been brought into distinct notice. It has appeared how thoroughly the sprinkled baptisms of the Levitical system are identified in their meaning and office with the prophecies concerning the sprinkling of Israel and the nations, and the outpouring of the Spirit, in the days of the Messiah. The point of present interest concerning those prophecies is, that in all the expressions referred to, the figure is that of water alone,—the sacrificial elements never being alluded to in that connection. A coincident fact appears, with relation to John’s ministry. In his own announcement he uses language which seems to be emphatic and exclusive,—“I indeed baptize you with water.”—Matt. iii, 11; Mark i, 8; Luke iii, 16; John i, 26. So, Jesus says,—“John truly baptized with water.”—Acts i, 5. And Peter refers to it in the same terms. (Ib. xi, 16.) This form of expression constantly used, and the antithesis always stated, between his baptism and that of the Holy Spirit, to be administered by the Lord Jesus, render it certain that John baptized with water alone, without any sacrificial elements. A careful examination of the prophecies above referred to and a consideration of the subject matter of John’s preaching, may furnish the explanation of these facts. The Mosaic ritual was constructed with a view to a very full and systematic exposition of the gospel, in the symmetry of its parts and proportions. In the baptisms of that ritual, therefore, provision was made for showing forth, not only the power and grace of the Lord Jesus in the bestowal of the Spirit, but, also, the virtue of his blood, which was the procuring cause of the Spirit’s grace. But that blood is the token of humiliation and sufferings. On the contrary, the theme of the prophecies here referred to is, the exaltation and glory of Christ’s throne, and the conquests of his saving scepter, after the days of humiliation and sorrow shall have been forever ended. This was the distinctive meaning of the water of the Sinai baptisms, and by the figure of the sprinkling or pouring of bare water, the prophets represent the same thing.

So, when John came in the spirit and power of Elias, he did not, indeed, ignore the office of Christ as the atoning Lamb of God. But his distinctive commission, and the controlling function of his ministry was to herald the coming of their covenant King, in his exaltation and power to an apostate and rebellious nation—to warn them of the office which he would fill, and the judgment which he would execute, who should baptize them, not with the Holy Ghost only, but with fire also. As appropriate, therefore, to this, his office and message, he dispensed a baptism of water alone, which spake of authority, power, and royal grace, and omitted that element which signified humiliation and death.

Whilst the rite was thus modified—its nature and significance remained the same. As already indicated, the quantity of ashes used in dispensing the Levitical baptism was so small as to be wholly inappreciable to the senses. The instruction therein conveyed was dependent upon the association of ideas, and not upon the quantity of the elements used. The bestowal of the Spirit by the Lord Jesus, of necessity, presupposes the sacrifice of himself as the condition and price of his exaltation and power, by which the Spirit is sent and salvation bestowed. What the Levitical blood and ashes of sprinkling expressed the baptism of John implied. The two rites thus conveyed the same instruction, and filled the same office. They were essentially one and the same baptism. The latter form anticipated the immediate sending forth of the gospel to the Gentiles, divested of the sacrificial system and the burdens of the ritual law. That they were the same in mode will not be questioned by any who have candidly traced the foregoing line of investigation. With an enumeration of some of the points therein involved, we will close this branch of our subject.

1. Hitherto the Baptist argument has been entrenched in the definition of baptizo. After the same example we now plant ourselves on the ascertained meaning and use of the word, as illustrated in the foregoing pages. We have found it to be the accepted designation for the administered rites of Levitical purifying, which, in all their circumstantial variations, were performed always by sprinkling. The rite dispensed by John was an administered baptism. It was, therefore, administered after the example of the Levitical system, by sprinkling.

2. John was the herald and champion of the covenant, and the messenger of the Lord Jesus as its surety and king. His commission, as announced by Malachi, was, in God’s name, to admonish Israel to “Remember the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments;”—Mal. iv, 4.—“The law of Moses,”—that covenant law by the acceptance of which Israel became the people of God. His ministry derived all its significance from the terms of that covenant, and from the office of its Surety, in purging his floor with the baptisms of the Holy Ghost and of fire. This was the whole theme of his ministry, as it was the whole substance of the prophetic terms of his commission. To seal such a testimony, no rite could have been so appropriate as the perpetuated and familiar form of the Sinai baptism, the original seal of the same covenant, by which its scope and intent were so luminously set forth.

3. John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, in the name of Him whom God was about to exalt “to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”—Acts v, 31. In the Levitical baptism the administrator represented the Lord Jesus in this very function of his grace, and the sprinkled water represented the Holy Spirit shed by him upon his people, by whom that repentance is wrought, and remission conveyed. It was the “purification for sin,” the symbol of remission. It was thus a visible representation to his hearers of the very things which John was commissioned to utter in their ears.

4. At the time of John’s coming, all the thoughts and conceptions of Israel on the subjects involved in his ministry, except as perverted by the traditions of the scribes, had been molded by the Mosaic ritual respecting the purifying of the unclean, and by the testimonies of the prophets, uttered in the language of that ritual. John was sent, not to ignore or obliterate the impress thus made by the instructions and discipline of fifteen centuries, but to confirm and build upon it, to reiterate and seal the same testimonies. To this end, no other rite was appropriate or congruous, but the old familiar baptism by sprinkling, the interpretation of which was so abundant in the prophets, and the meaning of which was known to all Israel.

5. The baptism administered by the Lord Jesus is never known nor alluded to in the Scriptures under any other form than that of affusion. It is the antitype of the ritual sprinklings of the Old Testament, the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the sprinkling of Israel and the nations, the outpouring of the Spirit upon them; and its fulfillment is in the New Testament invariably spoken of in the same style. To symbolize this, John’s baptism must have been by affusion.

6. In the use of this rite, all the difficulties which embarrass the hypothesis of immersion disappear. As, at Sinai, all Israel were baptized at once, so, under John’s preaching the number to be baptized would involve no embarrassment, exposure, or exhaustion. As many as were assembled at one time could be baptized in one group, with the hyssop bush. Thus, no excessive fatigue was involved; no time was consumed in mere manual labor; no danger to the health, nor liability to indecent exposure was incurred. The meaning of the rite was familiar to all, and in its use congruity and symmetry were maintained in every part and relation of John’s ministry.

The view thus presented is not inconsistent with the supposition that many of John’s disciples may have received the rite while standing in the waters of the Jordan. The law requiring the use of running water, the propriety of the one river of Palestine as a type of the river of the heavenly Canaan, and the necessities of the multitudes who waited on his ministry, united in bringing him to the river. And the rite would be performed by the baptist dipping a hyssop-bush into the stream, and therewith sprinkling those who presented themselves around him. That, in these circumstances many of the people would enter the water is beyond question. The suggestion is to be considered in the light of eastern habits and modes of dress. The people were clothed in loose garments, with no covering to the feet except sandals worn by a few. Coming, the most of them, from a distance on the rocky roads of that country,—the feet sore and lacerated, and the climate hot,—no impulse would have been more natural or more congruous to custom, than to step into the water, for the sake of its refreshing coolness. A curious illustration of this occurs in the PhÆdrus of Plato. He describes Socrates walking in the environs of Athens accompanied by PhÆdrus:—

Socrates. “Here; let us turn aside to the Illyssus, and, where you prefer, we can recline in quiet.”

PhÆdrus. “For the occasion, as it seems, I happen to be barefoot, while you are always so. Thus it will be quite convenient for us, wetting our feet in the shallow stream, to walk not without enjoyment, especially at this season of the year and of the day.”^[72]

It is altogether supposable that Philip and the eunuch stepped thus into the water, as the most convenient way of access to it; and it is equally possible that such may have been the case with many of John’s disciples, and that Jesus himself may have been thus baptized. Nor is this a mere fanciful conjecture. Among the remains of Christian art which have been transmitted to us from the third and fourth centuries of our era, there are several representations of the baptism of our Savior, some of them in bronze bas-relief, and some in Mosaic. In them all, John pours water on the head of Jesus. In several, Jesus stands in the Jordan, and John from the bank administers the rite. In others, both are on dry ground. In no instance does John appear in the water. At the date of these representations, immersion is supposed to have been almost universally prevalent in the church. They, therefore, the more forcibly demonstrate the strength and prevalence of the tradition which still survived, representing John to have baptized in the Jordan, by affusion. In them the idea of immersion is doubly excluded,—by the direct representation of the water poured upon the head of Jesus; and by the fact that the invariable position of John, out of the water, renders immersion physically impossible, as administered by him.

Section LVIII.—The Meaning of his Baptism by John.

“Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee; and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him.”—Matt. iii, 13-15.

Several theories have been advanced, and much discussion had as to the nature and intent of the baptism of Jesus by John. Archbishop Thomson,^[73] supposes it to have been, (1.) That the sacrament by which all were hereafter to be admitted into His kingdom might not want his example to justify its use. (2.) That John might have an assurance that his course as the herald of Christ was now completed by his appearance. (3.) That some token might be given that he was indeed the anointed of God. Dr. Dale thinks that it was a public and official announcement of his entrance upon the work of fulfilling all righteousness. He strenuously denies that Jesus was baptized with the baptism of John. “It is one thing to be baptized by John and quite another to receive the ‘baptism of John.’ The ‘baptism of John’ was for sinners, demanding ‘repentance,’ ‘fruits meet for repentance,’ and promising ‘the remission of sins.’ But the Lord Jesus Christ was not a sinner, could not repent of sin, could not bring forth fruit meet for repentance on account of sin, could not receive the remission of sin. Therefore, the reception of the ‘baptism of John’ by Jesus is impossible, untrue, and absurd.” But this baptism was his inauguration into the office of fulfilling all righteousness. “No one could share in such an inauguration with a fitness comparable with that of the great Forerunner. And to this fitness of relationship, reference is had in the words—‘Thus it becometh us.’ ‘Thus,’ by baptism, ‘us,’ administered by thee, my Forerunner, to me the Coming One proclaimed by thee; ‘now,’ entering upon my covenant work, which I now declare and am ready to begin,—‘to fulfill all righteousness.’ Can there be, in view of the persons, the time, and the circumstances, any other satisfactory interpretation of these great words?”^[74]

According to another theory, it is held that as the consecration of Aaron was by baptism, anointing, and sacrifice, so all these were realized in the priestly consecration of Jesus. First, He was baptized by John. Then, the heavens were opened unto Him, and the Spirit of God descended upon Him, and He was thus “anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.” The sacrifice was not till the end of His earthly ministry, when he offered up Himself.

This latter is perhaps the most commonly received theory on the subject. And yet, a more perplexing and unsatisfactory exposition could hardly be devised. According to it Christ’s consecration to the priesthood was a confused imitation of that of Aaron, was partly ritual without meaning, and partly real, and took place, part of it in the beginning of his public ministry, and part at its close, so that until his very death his priesthood was inchoate and incomplete. Upon this explanation, the baptism of Jesus was a mere unmeaning form, in supposed imitation of something in the consecration of Aaron. But Aaron and his consecration and priesthood were, in every part and aspect of them, figures of the true,—of the realities which are in Christ. Aaron’s anointing is admitted to have been a symbol of the real anointing of the Holy Spirit, shed upon Jesus. The sacrifices offered at the consecration of Aaron, although by this theory misconceived, are so far correctly spoken of as that their fulfillment was had in Christ’s one offering of himself. What then could be meant by Aaron’s so called baptism, if its antitype is to be found in the ritual baptism of the Lord Jesus? One rite representing and setting forth another, which is nothing but a defective imitation of the first!

In fact, the washing of Aaron by Moses was not a sacramental baptism at all—a rite, that is, by which blessings of grace are represented and sealed to the recipient. It was as we have already explained a symbolical act setting forth the endowment of the Lord Jesus by the Father with a sinless humanity.

It is not, however, to this washing of Aaron, that reference is usually made by the exponents of this theory. It is said that the priests entered upon their official duties at thirty years of age, and were then set apart by baptism, and that hence Jesus, when “he began to be about thirty years of age,” came to be baptized, and enter upon his official work; and reference is made to Num. iv, 3; viii, 7. But the places thus referred to are directions respecting the Levites, the priest’s servants, and not concerning the priests at all. Moreover, twenty-five years was the ordinary age of entrance upon the Levitical service. (Num. viii, 24.) The age of thirty seems to have been prescribed with reference to the special labor and responsibility incident to the carrying of the tabernacle and its furniture from place to place, during the sojourn in the wilderness. (See the whole of Num. iv.) Upon such slender foundations are theories built. The law set no limitation to the ages of the priests. The rabbins say that they could not enter on the office until twenty years old. But Aristobulus the son of Alexander was high priest when less than seventeen years old.^[75] On the other hand, while the definition as to the Levites was, “from thirty years old and upward even until fifty years old,”—Eli was high priest when he died at ninety-eight. (1 Sam. iv, 15.)

Christ’s baptism was not his inauguration to the priesthood. His priesthood was neither Aaronic nor earthly. For “if he were on earth, He should not be a priest; seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law; who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things.”—Heb. viii, 4, 5. If any part of the ceremonial of Aaron’s investiture was a rule of conformity to Jesus, the whole of it was equally so. But he was made a priest, “not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.”—Heb. vii, 16, 17. Christ’s consecration to the priesthood and exercise of its functions belong to that “true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.”—Heb. viii, 2. He was not installed by human hands. “For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity. But the word of the oath which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated forevermore.”—Heb. vii, 28.

Dr. Dale understands the Lord Jesus in the above place to mean,—Thus it becomes us, by a united and public act, to announce “my entering upon my covenant work which I now declare, and am ready to begin, ‘to fulfill all righteousness.’” But, in the first place, that was not the time of Jesus’ entering on the work of fulfilling righteousness. Had it been so, it was too late. He was “made of a woman, made under the law.”—Gal. iv, 4, 5. From the hour of his birth, he was fulfilling righteousness,—in the obedience of his childhood, as truly as in the sufferings of the cross. The work on which he entered, after his baptism and anointing by the Spirit, was his prophetic office, in which he announced and offered himself to Israel as her promised King and Savior. So he himself testified in the synagogue in Nazareth. (Luke iv, 18-20.) But this office will not fit into the above exposition. Moreover, it would seem that if any words can express the idea of a thing done as a duty of righteousness those of Jesus do so. Dr. Dale says,—“It can not be claimed that the Lord Jesus was under obligation to undergo this baptism as a part of ‘all righteousness;’ (1) Because there is no righteousness in it; (2) Because what there is in it is just what he did not come to do. He did not come to repent for sinners, nor to exercise faith for sinners.” The latter argument has the fatal fault that it proves too much. Upon the same ground the Lord Jesus should not have been circumcised or purified with his mother. He should not have kept the passover, nor any of the Levitical feasts and ordinances. All these implied and required in others a state of heart and mind and exercises of repentance and faith which were foreign to the holy nature of the Lord Jesus.

But is it so that there was no righteousness to be accomplished by Jesus in complying with John’s baptism? The answer depends wholly upon the response to be made to the question which Jesus proposed to the Pharisees,—“The baptism of John, was it from heaven; or, of men?” If from heaven, it came with the sanction of the first clause of the Sinai covenant,—“If ye will obey;” and was entitled to obedience from every soul. John’s baptism,—Is it necessary to say it?—washed away no sin. Like all ritual baptisms, of the Old Testament and the New, alike, it affected the ritual and outward status, alone, of the party, as toward the church, and the ordinances. Moreover, his ministry was not addressed to the ungodly only. But, if there were any of the people still looking and praying for the Consolation of Israel, they, as much as others, were called upon, as being defiled by the contact of the unclean nation, to receive this baptismal seal of the covenant renewed, and their acceptance in it with God. Pre-eminently was it true of the Lord Jesus, that he was defiled by contact with the sinful nation. To ritual uncleanness, he was as liable as any man, and became thereby subject to the same obligation of ritual purifying, by which others were bound. Jesus, therefore, as a true Israelite, came to John’s baptism, as being an ordinance of divine authority; and in his answer to John indicates the fact that his omission of the duty thus resting on him as “made under the law,” would have derogated from his perfect righteousness.

Nor is this all. John was the herald of Jesus in his distinctive character as “the Angel of the covenant,”—the Mediator of that “better covenant” which was enclosed in the outward form of that of Sinai. (2 Cor. iii, 3-6.) In that better covenant, and Christ as its Surety, all the transactions relating to the Sinai covenant had their significance and end; as they were also the end of John’s ministry. The repentance which he preached was a call to apostate Israel to return from transgression to the obedience required by the covenant, and his baptism was a seal to its promises, upon that indispensable condition of obedience. In coming to John’s baptism, therefore, Jesus formally and publicly came under the bond of the covenant for obedience, and thus presented himself to Israel as her Surety therein. The baptism which he received from John sealed to him its promises on condition of his obedience, and the descending Spirit and the voice from heaven announced the Father’s approval and acceptance of him as Surety for his people, the true Israel of God. It was with a view to this office of Christ as the Messenger and Surety of the covenant, and to his own relation as the herald of Christ in that capacity, that John says, “That he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water;”—John i, 31—that he should be made manifest to Israel, as her covenant Surety and King; as the Lamb of God and King of Israel.

The distinction drawn between “the baptism of John” and “baptism by John,” overlooks the profounder aspects of the subject here indicated. It is true that John’s baptism addressed to sinners a call to repentance, and announced remission, on that condition. But this special form of its message, is no more than the call to obedience, in terms adapted to the particular case of transgressors. And the significance and propriety of the baptism depended upon its own essential meaning as heretofore unfolded. In the Levitical institutions, the ordinary form of the rite had its primary relation, as we have seen, to a ritual uncleanness by contact with the dead, which symbolized the judicial defilement of the Lord Jesus by contact, through birth of a woman, with our dead nature, and his consequent death under the curse. The baptism symbolized the resurrection of Christ, and of his people with him, in the renewing of their souls, and the final quickening and rising of their bodies. Both of these are identified by Paul with the resurrection of Christ. (Eph. ii, 5; and i, 19-ii, 10; Rom. vi, 2-5; viii, 11, etc.) It is by virtue of union with him, by the baptism of his Spirit, bestowed upon and dwelling in us, that we are enabled to “know the power of his resurrection” (Phil. iii, 10), by our own death to sin and life to holiness. This was the signification of John’s baptism. To the Lord Jesus it was a symbol and pledge of his own triumph over the exhausted power of the curse, in his resurrection; and of the deliverance of his people, in him, from the bondage of sin and death, by his Spirit bestowed and dwelling in them. Through this they receive repentance and remission of sins. The same meaning precisely was signified and sealed to the people by their believing reception of the same rite.

Thus, on the one hand, Jesus, as being the Son of man, one of the family of Israel, was as much bound to come to the baptism which, by the authority of God, John dispensed, as he was to obey or observe any part of the law, ritual or moral; as much as was any true son of Israel. On the other hand, by coming and receiving that baptism, he announced himself, the Surety of the covenant which it sealed, and was so certified and accepted by John, by the descending Spirit and by the Father’s voice.

Section LIX.—The Anointing of the Lord Jesus.

The Scriptures inform us of three distinct bestowals of the Spirit, upon the Lord Jesus, by the Father. The first, was that whereby he was begotten through the Holy Ghost, and his humanity so invested with the Spirits influences, as to be born and live in perfect holiness, so that he was designated by the angel, “that holy thing.”—Luke i, 35. The second was the anointing bestowed at the time of his baptism by John. And the third was that endowment of the Spirit, which was conferred on him, at his ascension to the throne. The intimate relation of his anointing to his baptism by John, and the close analogy which is traceable between baptism and anointing, bring the latter within the purview of the present inquiry.

Immediately after his baptism, as he was praying, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved son: in thee I am well pleased.”—Luke iii, 21, 22. The Baptist adds some facts:—“I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not. But he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God.”—John i, 32-34. This anointing of the Lord Jesus with the Holy Spirit fulfilled a three-fold purpose.

1. It was a manifestation to Israel of the long-expected Messiah,—a confirmation from heaven of John’s testimonies respecting him, and a designation of him, the coming One, as being Jesus of Nazareth. From the whole account given in the first chapter of John, it seems evident that the Baptist and his disciples had distinctly in mind the language of the second Psalm, which determined the form of their conclusions, deduced from the scene at the baptizing. “Why do the heathen rage ... against the Lord, and against his Anointed?... Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” The glorious personage here announced is, thus designated by three titles,—as the Lord’s Anointed, his King, and his Son. It was as herald of this King that John came preaching, the kingdom of heaven. And when, with his own eyes he saw the anointing Spirit descend upon Jesus, he identified the Anointed with the Son. He saw and bare record “that this is the Son of God.” So, John’s disciple Andrew says to his brother Peter, “We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ,”—the Anointed. Not only so, but, at the same time and by the same token, John recognized in Jesus “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!” Thus fully, by this anointing, was Jesus certified to Israel; and therein the chief intent of John’s ministry was accomplished.

2. The anointing was an attestation and seal to him of the Father’s favor, in view of the spotless righteousness of his character as already proved in the life which he had lived, as a private person, the carpenter of Nazareth. Of his earlier youth, it is said that he “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”—Luke ii, 52. And now, in the fulness of his manhood, in connection with his anointing, a voice from heaven testifies, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”—Matt. iii, 17. To this, the Psalmist refers his anointing. “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”—Psa. xlv, 6, 7. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. viii, 10), said Nehemiah to Israel; and in the joy of his Father’s favor, testified in the anointing, Jesus fulfilled his ministry to the close.

3. It was his endowment for the prophetic office, as he himself testified in the synagogue of Nazareth. “He found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.... And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.”—Luke iv, 18-21. From the same source he derived the miraculous powers, which attested his word. (Matt. xii, 28.) “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.”—Acts x, 38. Of the relation of his anointing to the fulfillment of his priestly office, in view of which John called him “the Lamb of God,” Paul says that he “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God.”—Heb. ix, 14. His anointing was not his consecration to the priesthood, but his endowment with grace, by which he was qualified to perform that priesthood, to prepare and offer an unspotted, sufficient and acceptable sacrifice on the altar of justice. And, having completed that work, by the same Spirit was he raised from the dead. (1 Pet. iii, 18; Rom. viii, 11.)

Such and so signal was the meaning and intent of that fact from which Jesus derived the name of, the Christ. Its close relation in many respects to the doctrine of baptism, is apparent. As to the question of mode, a few points may here be noted.

1. In it the Holy Spirit was given to the Lord Jesus, as an indwelling fountain of all gifts for his ministry.

2. It came by a descent from the opened heavens.

3. It was in the form of a dove,—beautiful symbol of the kindness of God, and the “meekness and gentleness,” the “grace and truth” of the Lord Jesus!

4. It abode on him.

5. As the result, he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke iv, 1), brought under his active control and guidance, and endowed with his extraordinary gifts, for the fulfillment of his ministry.

6. The symbol which by divine appointment represented it was the pouring of oil upon the head and person. (Lev. viii, 12, 30; 1 Sam. x, 1; xvi, 1, 13; 1 Kings i, 34, 39; xix, 16; 2 Kings ix, 6.)

Section LX.—“The Baptism that I am Baptized with.”

It was his resurrection from the dead. We have seen that the Mosaic baptism was a symbol and seal of the imparting of life to the dead. We have seen it so referred to by Paul in his argument in proof of the resurrection. The fact has been pointed out that the Lord Jesus in receiving the baptism of John, not only fulfilled the law of righteousness as a faithful Israelite, but received, therein, a symbol and seal of his own resurrection and triumph over death and the curse, under which he was already held. Twice, in the course of his ministry as reported by the evangelists, did Jesus refer to his resurrection under this figure of baptism. Matthew thus records one of these occasions, “Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him.... And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give (all’ hois etoimastai), save to those for whom it is prepared of my Father.”—Matt. xx, 20-23. Luke records a similar expression. “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay; but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.”—Luke xii, 49-53. Of these expressions, expositors have proposed two interpretations. According to one, the cup and the baptism are equivalent figures meaning the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus. Hence, Baptist expositors would explain it as an immersion in sorrow; but they do not show by what example or argument the word “baptism” can be made, thus, of itself, to signify such an immersion. A conclusive objection lies against this interpretation. In both the gospels the distinction between the cup and the baptism is carefully preserved, in Christ’s original question, and in his rejoinder. “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” “Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.” It can not be admitted that a second clause, so particular and detailed in statement, and so carefully repeated in the rejoinder, is a mere blank, adding nothing to the meaning already expressed. But it is agreed that the figure of the cup indicates all that suffering by which the Lord Jesus made atonement for our sins.

The other interpretation proposed is but a modified form of that here given. It discriminates between the cup and the baptism, by interpreting the latter of Christ’s sufferings viewed as “consecrating sufferings—sufferings by which he was to be separated unto God’s service as a royal priest.” “That the reader may understand how Christ could use such language in the sense which we give it, let him consider such passages of Scripture as these: ‘Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen.’—Rev. i, 5, 6. ‘And Jesus said unto them, verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’”—Matt. xix, 28.^[76]

The Scriptures cited by this respected author do certainly prove that the royalty and priesthood of the saints in heaven are the purchase of Christ’s blood and the gifts of his love. But they do not even hint at the idea, much less prove it, in support of which they seem to be cited; to wit, that the sufferings and death of Christ were his consecration to the priesthood. On the contrary, they are in harmony with all the Scriptures, which testify that those sufferings were an offering for our sins, made by a priest already consecrated. “For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.”—Heb. viii, 3. Here, it appears that, inasmuch as he was a priest, he must have an offering; the very reverse of the theory that his offering was in order to his consecration to the priesthood. This man who by the word of the oath, was consecrated a priest forevermore, needed not, like those priests to enter often into the holy place with blood. “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world,” the original date of his priesthood. “But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”—Heb. ix, 26. Of Christ’s sufferings, in their atoning character, the Scriptures are full and explicit. And, of them, the cup is the undoubted symbol. But of “consecrating sufferings,” and especially, of such contradistinguished from the others, as here supposed, we fail to find a trace. Is it asserted that although they are the same sufferings, yet are they viewed in a different light? Still the distinction is without warrant in the Scriptures. But, even conceding that point, can it be imagined that the Lord Jesus, in the circumstances of the case as relating to James and John, would pause upon and emphasize that distinction, by separate definitions, requiring distinct consideration and answer, by them, when at last the sufferings in question were one and the same? Nothing but an absolute necessity could justify such an interpretation.

In order to a right solution of the question here considered, let us ascertain what were the facts and conditions necessarily present in the mind of the Lord Jesus, in making his answer to James and John.

1. Their application immediately followed, and was no doubt suggested by a statement made by our Lord, in reply to a question from Peter. Upon occasion of the sorrowful turning away of the young ruler, Peter said to Jesus, “Behold we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”—Matt. xix, 27, 28. Here are several indications of the time of enthronement. (1.) It is the time “when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory.” This phrase, “the throne of his glory,” is not used in the Scriptures to designate the invisible throne of majesty and power in the heavens, now occupied by the Son of man; but that revelation to men of his glory, of which he said to his disciples, “the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels.”—Matt. xvi, 27. To this time he expressly refers that throne. “When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.”—Matt. xxv, 31. So Paul declares that the Lord Jesus “shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;” and in view of his own finished course, exults in the fact that, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”—2 Tim. iv, 1, 8. (2.) It is the time of the judgment. The apostles shall sit with him, judging the tribes of Israel. (3.) It is the period of “the regeneration.” Some expositors, indeed, refer this word to the preceding clause, which they read, “Ye which, in the regeneration, have followed me.” According to this reading, the regeneration means, the introduction of the gospel, as being the beginning of a new life to the world. But others understand, by it, the resurrection of the saints which precedes the final judgment of the world. According to this, which I take to be the true interpretation, the resurrection is called the regeneration, because, in it, the quickening power of the Holy Spirit, first experienced, in the renewing of the souls of believers, and in making their bodies his temples, will then take full possession of the whole man, quickening and transforming our vile bodies into the likeness of Christ’s glorious body, and reuniting soul and body in glory. In like manner, and at the same time, the work of “restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts iii, 21), will be accomplished. Beginning, as it does in the spiritual world, in the preaching and triumphs of the gospel, it will be consummate in the regeneration of the physical system, in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth. That the thrones promised to the apostles could only be possessed after the resurrection, is evident from the fact that, physical death being an element of the curse, the blessedness of the saints may, indeed, be unspeakable, even in a disembodied state; but there can be no properly royal triumph, so long as the bodies are in the bonds of corruption and the grave.

2. While the time of the kingdom of the saints is thus clearly defined, there are also certain conditions precedent, revealed with equal clearness and emphasis. “Ye which have followed me,” says Jesus. Elsewhere he explains more fully. “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”—Matt. x, 38, 39. The following must be a bearing of the cross, with the life in the hand. A pertinent illustration appears in the life of the apostle Paul. He thus states the motives and policy which governed his course.—“I have suffered the loss of all things, ... that I may win Christ, and be found in him; ... that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”—Phil. iii, 8-11. Paul’s meaning in the phrase to “know the power of his resurrection,” elsewhere appears. He prays for his readers, that they “may know,”—that is, may realize by a blessed experience,—“what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.... And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, ... together with Christ, ... and hath raised us up together.”—Eph. i, 16-20; ii, 1, 5, 6. In another place, Paul, in view of his finished course and assured reward raises the triumphant shout,—“I have fought a good fight! I have finished my course! I have kept the faith!faith! Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge, shall give me at that day;”—the day, to wit, of “his appearing and kingdom.”—2 Tim. iv, 1, 7, 8.

It thus appears that the time of the kingdom is the resurrection;—and that the condition of its possession is not physical sufferings and death, which are common to all men; but a conformity to Christ’s sufferings and death, by being, in him, crucified and dead to the world. With this condition is inseparably identified the possession of a part in the resurrection and life of Christ. “If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”—Rom. vi, 8. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”—Gal. ii, 20. We can be dead with Christ, dead to sin and the world, only by being alive to God.

Not only is the resurrection of the saints the time of their kingdom, but worthiness of part in the resurrection is stated with emphasis, as the final and conclusive condition precedent to the throne. “They,” says Jesus, “which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead.”—Luke xx, 35. “If, by any means,” says Paul, “I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” Herein is the propriety of the form of the question put by Jesus to the two brethren:—“Can ye ... be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” That is, “Are ye ready to endure and to do all that will be required of those who would be counted worthy of that world, and of the resurrection of the dead?”

3. The same word (palingenesia) regeneration, which Jesus employs, is used by Paul, who describes God’s mercy as saving us, “by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Savior.”—Titus iii, 5, 6. It is the very grace, therefore, of which, under the Old Testament as well as the New, baptism with water was the appointed symbol and seal. And particularly was it true of the sprinkling of the water of separation, that it symbolized the resurrection of the Lord Jesus on the third day, and of his people on the seventh, the day of the Lord. Add to these considerations the fact that from the time of his tour in the region of CÆsarea Philippi, where he was transfigured, Jesus had been earnestly endeavoring to impress on the reluctant minds of the apostles the fact that “he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third day.”—Matt. xvi, 21. We have already seen that Jesus and the apostles distinctly recognized and referred to the third day’s baptism with the sprinkled water of separation as being a prophecy the fulfillment of which required his rising from the dead on the third day. “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me.... Thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.”—Luke xxiv, 44-46. In the law of Moses, concerning the water of separation, and there only is the third day thus defined.^[77]

The points suggested in these considerations are intimately and inseparably related to the matter involved in the petition of James and John. They are constantly so treated by the Lord Jesus himself, in his personal teachings, and by his Spirit in the writers of the New Testament. And yet, we are to suppose that, in his response to the brethren, Jesus absolutely ignored all this, which he had, just before, emphasized in his reply to Peter; and that he directed their attention solely to the sufferings which he was to endure, and in which they were to share! The alternative is, that on the contrary he referred to baptism, in the meaning in which unquestionably it was used throughout the Old Testament, as a type and figure of the resurrection, and thus, by that single word, suggested all that was involved in the vastly important considerations above mentioned, as connected with the subject.—“Ye know not what ye ask. Ye neither appreciate the true nature of the honors which ye seek, nor the time and circumstances of their enjoyment, nor consider the conditions precedent. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of,—the cup of the crucifixion of the flesh and the world; and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, doing and enduring all that is involved in attaining to the resurrection of the dead? For it is not till the resurrection that the thrones which you seek can be possessed; and only by those who are found worthy of that world and of the resurrection.”

That such was the meaning of our Savior would seem to be certain. This is confirmed by the words already cited from Luke xii, 49-53. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.” The matter present to the mind of Jesus, as the occasion of this utterance, was that discrimination which he was to exercise and separation which he was to make, in purging his floor and dividing between the wheat and the chaff, bringing division into families and dissolving the closest and tenderest ties. It is of this that he says, “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled?” That is, Why should I wish to restrain it? “But I have a baptism; ... and how am I straitened!” He thus indicates a straitening of the full exercise of that function which he has just described. The cause of it is an unaccomplished baptism. What then were the facts out of which this language is to be explained? (1.) Christ was under judicial condemnation for us from his birth, under the curse and sentence of death. (2.) While in that condition, a servant to the law and the curse, he could not fully exercise the prerogatives proper to his royalty. (3.) Especially must his office as personally the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost and with fire,—as the dispenser of grace to his people and wrath to his enemies,—be in abeyance, till his resurrection and assumption of the throne. Thus, he was from the beginning straitened and looking forward to his resurrection as the time and means of his enlargement. And, hence his saying,—“I have a baptism.” That baptism was the bestowal upon him, by the Father, of the Spirit of life, raising him from the dead to the throne, whence he now dispenses grace and judgment to the world.

The phrases, “the kingdom,” “the kingdom of heaven,” etc., have primary reference to that throne and kingdom to which the Lord Jesus was exalted, when he rose from the dead, and was set at the Father’s right hand. It is that militant kingdom of the Son of man, the establishment of which Daniel saw in vision; the law of which is, “conquering and to conquer” (Rev. vi, 2); and the history of which is that “he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.”—1 Cor. xv, 25. The phrase is sometimes used to express the efficiency of Christ’s saving sceptre in the hearts of believers, as when Jesus says,—“The kingdom of God is within you.”—Luke xvii, 21. It is applied to the visible church, as being that society which by public covenant and profession owns Christ as her King and his Word as her supreme law. So, it is used to designate the millennial dispensation, when “the Lord shall be King over all the earth,” when “there shall be one Lord, and his name one.”—Zech. xiv, 9. Its duration is by Paul said to be, until “he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.” “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father.”—1 Cor. xv, 24-28. Of this end and change of administration Jesus says, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”—Matt. xiii, 43. Of it, he teaches us to pray,—“Thy kingdom come.”

Thus, in all the variety of connection in which it occurs, the phrase in question derives its propriety and significance from that dominion with which man was endowed in his creation, that royalty which is enjoyed in the throne and sceptre of the Son of man,—its authority that of God the Father,—its extent the whole universe of God,—its object the manifestation of the glory of the divine perfections, and the rectifying of the disorders introduced by Satan,—and its end, that work accomplished and the sceptre resigned to the Father, “that God may be all in all.”

His coronation and kingdom were the consummation of triumph for the Seed of the woman; toward which, from the beginning, the Spirit of prophecy ever pointed and hastened with ardent desire. Its realization begun with the ascension and the day of Pentecost,—its full meaning of grace, of wrath and of glory, will only then be fully realized in fruition, in that day when the mighty angel shall, with uplifted hand, proclaim the end of the mystery with the end of time. Of its significance, I will now attempt an indication.

Sin is, in its very existence, an insult to the holiness and sovereignty of God. Its unclean and evil aspect is a disgust and abomination in his sight, and a pollution and deformity on the fair face of his creation. In its first beginning by Satan, it was an immediate assault upon the very throne in heaven. Its introduction into the world was a Satanic device to mock God’s proclaimed purpose of favor to man, and to insult His love by rendering its object unworthy of His regard, and loathsome to His holiness. At the creation of man, God had said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”—Gen. i, 26. In the eighth Psalm, this decree is anew rehearsed. (Psa. viii, 4-8.) Again, in the epistle to the Hebrews, Paul transcribes it from the Psalmist, and expounds it. “For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak. But one,” that is, the Psalmist, “in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.”—Heb. ii, 5-8. From this language of the Psalmist, Paul proceeds to argue the extent of the dominion thus given to man. He insists, (1) that the decree is unlimited. “In that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him;” (2) that man does not now have such dominion. “Now, we see not yet all things put under him;” (3) that the decree is already fulfilled in the throne which Christ now fills. “But we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor;” (4) that to that same glory the Father is now “bringing many sons,” the brethren of Christ and co-heirs with him of the kingdom. Vs. 10.

In another place, Paul completes the view, in this direction. “For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under him.”—1 Cor. xv, 25-27. It is a legal and common sense rule of interpretation, as to deeds of grant or conveyance, that an exception on one point proves the intention of the grant to be otherwise unlimited. So it is here. The apostle, in excepting God the Father from the grant of dominion to the Son of man, leaves all else in the universe under his subjection. It thus appears that, in the decree of man’s creation, a dominion was assigned him which in the purpose of God comprehended all the power which Jesus, the Son of man, now exercises, over the whole creation of God.

How far this extent of the purpose of God was understood by Satan, we are not informed. But it is evident from the whole tenor of the Scriptures that the fulfillment of this decree was the subject on which the serpent joined issue with God, in the seduction of our first parents, and his policy toward our race. The issue thus on trial since the foundation of the world is this: Shall God fulfill his announced purpose, by exalting man to the promised throne? Shall he, thereby, vindicate his own wisdom, sovereignty, truth, and grace, and reveal and glorify all his perfections? Or, shall Satan triumph over God and man, thwarting God’s decree, through man’s ruin and bondage? Shall he succeed in the impious attempt to array the very attributes of God against each other, so that his justice and holiness shall forbid the performance of the purpose which his sovereign love determined and his wisdom and truth proclaimed? This has been the problem of the ages: This, the question which has roused intensest interest in all heaven’s hosts, “Which things the angels desire to look into.”—1 Pet. i, 12. This is the key to the fact, that, amid the scenes of human sin and ruin which fill the pages of God’s word, the doctrine of the kingdom gradually dominates amid the gloom, looming up into proportions of grandeur which overshadow earth and heaven. “I beheld,” says Daniel, “till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit; whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.... I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”—Dan. vii, 9-14.

At length, the fullness of time drew nigh when the mystery of the ages should be disclosed, and the promised kingdom given to the Son of man. John came, the herald of its advent, crying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”—Matt. iii, 2. Soon, Jesus himself went forth uttering the same announcement, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”—Ib. iv, 17, 23. And lest his voice should fail to reach every ear, he shortly sent the twelve, and then the seventy, to fill the land with the cry. “As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”—Ib. x, 7; Luke x, 9.

But before the kingdom could be established, before the Son of man might assume the crown, there was a work for him to do. That crown might not be a gift of God’s arbitrary grace—a mere assertion of purpose unchanged. It must be a reward of manifest and glorious merit. Nay, not even so is it to be a gratuitous endowment; but as a trophy won by battle and conquest is it to be received and worn. The Seed of the woman—the Son of man—must give proof, in presence of all intelligences, both holy and apostate, of his worthiness of that favor which God, from the beginning, so openly bestowed. He must display the mystery of a man walking in the flesh among men, in the glory of a spotless and untarnished righteousness, amid the reign of abounding sin. He must be seen—this glorious man—taking upon his mighty shoulders the vast incubus of the curse, with which Satan’s malicious fraud had burdened the world, and bearing it away to a land not inhabited. He must meet the great enemy himself, whose impious challenge has raised the issue of the fitness of God’s choice, and man’s competence to reign—the enemy who, in insolent contempt of God’s purpose, has chosen this earth as the seat of his own empire, and here usurped dominion over man. He must subdue Satan, break his scepter and lead him captive in the train of his triumph, before he may claim and assume the kingdom and the glory.

Satan saw, with dread the coming of the champion, and proposed a compromise.—“Behold the kingdoms of the world and their glory! Do homage to me, and all shall be thine!”—Matt. iv, 8, 9. It needs not to trace the manner of the triumphs of the carpenter’s son, ending in the resurrection from the guarded sepulcher, and ascension to the throne in heaven. As the time of the kingdom came to be immediately at hand, he entered Jerusalem, amid the exultant Hosannas of his followers, proclaiming him the King of Israel. He was betrayed and brought to the council. And when the high-priest adjured him whether he was the Son of God, his answer, whilst attesting that blessed fact, held up to equal prominence his royalty as the Son of man.—“Thou hast said; nevertheless, I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man, sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.”—Matt. xxvi, 63, 64. And so, they crucified him, with the accusation written in letters of Hebrew and Greek and Latin,—“The King of the Jews.”

He had already foretold his apostles that they should live to see his kingdom established with power. On the morning of his resurrection, he said to Mary, “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.”—John xx, 17. The word, “I ascend” (properly, “I am ascending”), indicates his immediate ascension and reception of the throne, on the very day of the resurrection. And it is worthy of notice that John who relates this does not mention that subsequent public ascension which was made in the presence of the apostles, as Christ’s official witnesses. He had already recorded the essential fact. Between these two events, the first and the final ascension, on the occasion of one of his appearances to his disciples, he expressly told them that he was now already in possession of the throne. He “came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”—Matt. xxviii, 17, 18. On the day of Pentecost, Peter testified of the supreme authority now vested in Him. “Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified, both lord and Christ.”—Acts ii, 36. Paul more fully states the extent of his dominion. God “raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”—Eph. i, 20-23.

Section LXII.—Christ is enthroned as the Baptizer.

The announcement of the coming of the Lord Jesus as King was made to the Jews, in a very striking and impressive manner. Clothed in sackcloth of hair and subsisting on locusts and wild honey, John came in the wilderness of Judea, crying to an apostate people,—“Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.... He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire; whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”—Matt. iii, 2-12. The baptizing office of Christ, as thus set forth, was the objective point toward which the Old Testament baptisms directed the faith and hopes of Israel; and the theme, as we have seen, of some of the most exultant strains of prophecy. And to it, the baptism of the Christian church ever looks up and testifies.

The intent of Christ’s enthronement is here stated to be that he may “thoroughly purge his floor.” So Jesus himself explains the parable of the tares. “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.”—Matt. xiii, 41, 42. The dimensions of his kingdom, to be thus purged, we have seen to be coextensive with the universe of God; over which Paul declares that “he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.”—1 Cor. xv, 25. The same apostle further states that “it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell; and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”—Col. i, 19, 20.

In the execution of a work so vast and so momentous, the baptist states two means to be employed,—the baptism of the Holy Ghost; and the baptism of fire. By the one, Jesus gathers his wheat into the garner; by the other, he will burn up the chaff. We will first consider the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

In the blessed Triune Godhead there is one nature, one mind, and purpose, and will; so that all concur, equally, and freely in the eternal origination of the divine plan, and in every step of its administrative fulfillment. Yet is there an essential and native order of precedence and operation clearly traceable in the Scriptures. In this order, the Father is the first, of whom the Son is begotten, and from whom the Spirit proceeds. So, in the executive administration of the sacred scheme, there is an order of precedence in the manifestation of the Godhead, revealed with equal clearness. In it, the Son was sent by the Father to humble himself under the law, in the form of a servant; and he so performed the Father’s will as to be designated by him “my righteous servant.”—Isa. liii, 11. In it, the Father put the anointing Spirit upon the incarnate Son. (Isa. xlii, 1; Matt. xii, 18.) And, by the Spirit thus given, was he directed in his entire ministry, until he, “through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God,” a sacrifice for sin. (Heb. ix, 14.)

But, upon the enthronement of the Lord Jesus as God’s great Baptizer, there was a change in this order of administration. With the sceptre and kingdom of the Father, the dispensing of the Spirit was given to the Son of man. In this endowment, two great ends were accomplished. (1.) As the third Person of the Godhead is essentially the spiritus, or breath, of the Father (2 Sam. xxii, 16; Job iv, 9; xxxii, 8; xxxiii, 4; Matt. x, 20), “which proceedeth from the Father” (John xv, 26), so now, being given to the Lord Jesus, and mediatorially subject to and sent forth by him, as his Spirit, our Savior is thus constituted a likeness and revelation of the Father, in that respect also; as he is, in being robed with the Father’s glory, sitting on his throne, and swaying his sceptre. This was signified by the Lord Jesus, when he came to the disciples after his resurrection, and breathed on them, saying, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”—John xx, 22. Thus, “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”—Col. ii, 9. (2.) This investiture with the Spirit, was an essential qualification, without which it was impossible that the Lord Jesus should have fulfilled the work assigned him, of purging the Father’s floor and gathering the wheat into his garner. Among the Persons of the Godhead, it is the office of the Spirit to be the author and source of life, by whom only, therefore, dead souls are quickened and dead bodies raised to life. Hence, Jesus, in announcing his prerogative respecting these things, attributes it to the gift of the Spirit of life conferred on him by the Father. “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.... For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them: even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.... Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.”—John v, 19-27.

In his last discourse with his disciples, the night of the betrayal, Jesus was very explicit on this subject. Fully to appreciate his statements on that occasion, it is necessary to keep in view the general features of the divine economy which were about to culminate in Christ’s exaltation. Inasmuch as Satan, in his insolent scorn of the human race, sought, through its weakness and ruin to cast contempt upon God, and to involve his government in chaos,chaos, God in the mystery of his glorious love, saw fit, in honor of the human race, to place his government upon the shoulders of the child of that very woman whose weakness Satan betrayed, and to appoint him to redeem her and her seed from the usurper’s power, and avenge her wrong upon the betrayer’s head; and ordained him, because he is the Son of man, to rectify all the evil that Satan has done,—to baptize this earth and yonder heavens from the defilement and dishonor that he has wrought, through sin, and to “reconcile all things to the Father, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.” It is manifest that in the fulfillment of such a plan, the Son of man must take actual possession of the scepter, before full entrance can be made upon its manifested execution. It is further to be remembered that the entire discourse in question was addressed to the apostles, with distinct reference to their commission and qualification to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. The statements and promises therein contained do not, therefore, have immediate respect to the ordinary graces of the Spirit, in the hearers of the word, but to his comforting, enlightening and directing influences in the apostle-witnesses.

“I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth.... These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.... When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.... It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have many things to say unto you, but ye can not bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, that he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you.”—John xiv, 16, 17, 25, 26; xv, 26; xvi, 7-15.

In these passages, there is a very remarkable order of progress in the statements concerning the mission of the Spirit. “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter.” “The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name.” “The Comforter whom I will send unto you from the Father.” “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart I will send him unto you.” As the Spirit essentially proceeds from the Father, so, primarily, in the manifestation of the Godhead, he is sent forth by the Father, and in all his work of grace to man, is sent through the mediation of the Son. Hence the form of the first statement:—“I will pray the Father, and he shall give.” In the next passage, he indicates that whilst, in the concurrence of the Godhead, the Father is the primary source of the Spirit, the mission spoken of, is in the name, and for the purposes of the Son, namely,—to remind the apostles of his words, and interpret them to their understandings and hearts. “Whom the Father will send in my name,”—that is, to do my commission,—to utter my words. In the next clause he assumes to himself and asserts the prerogative conferred on him, and says,—“When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father.” And since the mission thus promised was to be a testimony on his own behalf, he goes on to mark that the testimony of the Spirit is that of the Father, also, since essentially and eternally, he proceedeth from and is the Spirit of the Father. “Even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me; and ye also shall bear witness because ye have been with me from the beginning.” Compare John v, 36; Heb. ii, 4.

Next, since the triumphs of the gospel were reserved to honor the scepter of the Son of man, Jesus declares that he must ascend to heaven and assume that scepter, before the apostles could receive the gifts which would qualify them for spreading those triumphs.—“If I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you, but, if I depart, I will send him unto you.” He declares the Spirit’s offices, toward the world and toward them, whom he “the Spirit of truth” should “guide into all truth;” and emphasizes the fact that in fulfilling these offices, he will act strictly as an interpreter. Christ is the Word of God; and the Spirit sent by him, “shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.”—“He shall glorify me; for he shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you.” And lest the unlimited purport of this declaration should not be fully appreciated, he adds, “All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you.” As essentially the Father’s, but given to the Son;—such is the aspect in which the Spirit shall reveal them to the glory of the Son.

Such were the testimonies with reference to which Jesus, after his resurrection, commanded his apostles to “wait for the promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”—Acts i, 4, 5. Of it, on the day of Pentecost, Peter said, “Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.”—Acts ii, 33. What the promise was, Peter, here distinctly indicates. It was fulfilled in giving the Holy Spirit to the Lord Jesus, that he might of his royal prerogative shed down that Spirit upon his people.

The relation thus existing between the enthroned Mediator and the Holy Spirit, was very remarkably intimated by Jesus the night after the resurrection. He came to the assembled disciples with the salutation,—“Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”—John xx, 21, 22. Thus by anticipation, he interpreted the gift of Pentecost, as an imparting to them of the Holy Spirit, which was now given to and dwelt in him, as his Spirit, the breath of his life.

Dr. Dale, in his invaluable treatises has overlooked the distinction here pointed out, between the endowment of the Spirit which Jesus enjoyed in the performance of his earthly ministry, and that which belongs to him as Baptizer on the throne. Discussing John i, 33,—which he translates,—“This is he that baptizeth by the Holy Ghost,” he says, “He upon whom the Holy Ghost descended and on whom he remained, ‘without measure’ was thus qualified for his amazing work, and qualified to be [‘o baptizon en Pneumati Agio] the Baptizer who was himself in the Holy Ghost, and being in the Holy Ghost was thereby invested with power to baptize by the Holy Ghost.—The Lord Jesus Christ—‘o baptizon en Pneumati Agio,—is ‘the Divine baptizer, being in the Holy Ghost.’... The passage is to be understood as announcing the peculiar character of the Lord Jesus Christ as baptizer. This is done by exhibiting him in a two-fold aspect: 1. As being personally en Pneumati Agio. 2. As a consequence of being en Pneumati Agio, being invested with the power of baptizing by the Holy Ghost.”^[78]—In another place he says,—“The original author of this baptism is the Lord Jesus Christ; the executive Agent is the Holy Ghost; the giver of the Holy Ghost is the Father.... Does not the Dative and en announce the Agent in whom the power to baptize resides?”^[79]

1. The anointing of the Lord Jesus at his baptism did not qualify him as Baptizer. Else, neither He nor the apostles need have waited “for the promise of the Father,” which was fulfilled at the ascension, and demonstrated on Pentecost. (See Acts i, 4; ii, 33.)

2. As the water is the immediate efficient cause of the cleansing, in washing, so the Spirit is the immediate efficient cause of the grace wrought in the spiritual baptism. But to describe him as the executive Agent of that baptism, is the same error which should represent the water in that capacity, in ritual baptism.

3. Jesus was “in the Spirit,” that is under the pervasive influence and control of the Spirit, during his entire earthly life. But it was precisely herein that he filled the character of being God’s “righteous servant.”—Isa. liii, 11. It was characteristic of his humiliation, to be thus subordinate. But upon his exaltation, the order was reversed. It is no longer Christ in the Spirit, fulfilling the service and work appointed him. But it is the Spirit in Christ, subject to his control, speaking his words and doing according to the will of Jesus, the Lord. And Jesus does not baptize by the Holy Ghost doing it for Him, but “with the Holy Ghost,” as his Spirit and instrument; as he so clearly intimated, when he breathed upon his disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”

Section LXIII.—Note, on the Procession of the Holy Spirit.

In the year 325, the council of Nice condemned the heresies of Arius concerning the Son, and formulated the orthodox doctrine on the subject in what is known as the Nicene creed. In 381, the council of Constantinople, being assembled on account of the errors of Macedonius, concerning the Spirit, inserted into the Nicene creed a statement of doctrine concerning the Third Person, in which occurred the phrase, “which proceedeth from the Father.” About the year, 434, the council of Ephesus, being the third general council, as the before mentioned were the first and second, determined that no further addition should be made to this creed. Disregarding this decree, and without the sanction of any general council, the western or Latin church, about the end of the sixth century, silently interpolated the formula of Constantinople, so as to make it read,—“which proceedeth from the Father and the Son.” The resulting controversies became one cause of the division between the Latin and Greek churches. At the reformation, the Protestant churches generally, without discussion, accepted the Romish doctrine on the subject, and incorporated it into their doctrinal formularies.

In the foregoing discussion this theory is ignored, in favor of the primitive doctrine; for the following reasons:

1. The point in question is the essential and eternal procession of the Spirit. If there is one Scripture, referred to by any writer, or contained in the sacred volume, which even seems to describe such procession from the Son, it has not been my privilege to meet with it, in the course of a careful and long continued inquiry. The texts usually cited are, all of them, statements explicitly referring to the voluntary and temporal mission of the Spirit, coming into the world; and not to his essential procession, which is involuntary and eternal. They are John xv, 26; xvi, 7: Gal. iv, 6. “When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father.”—“If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Will any one pretend that these passages refer to the eternal procession?

2. The language in which Jesus speaks of this procession as being from the Father seems designed to be adequate and exhaustive. “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”—John xv, 26. That the Father, specifically, is the one essential and peculiar source of the Spirit, is here doubly asserted, by the phrase, “whom I will send unto you from the Father;” and by the further expository statement, “which proceedeth from the Father.” Should James and John unite in writing a book, any one who in speaking of James should say that he wrote it, would be justly chargeable with carelessness of statement. But if the book itself and its authorship and origin are the subject of discussion, it could not be said, with any regard to truth and accuracy that “This book was written by James.” And, if the subject of the book were the life of John, and the statement were made that “This book was written by James, and gives the story of John’s life,” the omission, which previously might perhaps be accounted an inadvertence, assumes a character of falsehood and deceit. This, it seems to me, is a just parallel to the case which is made by the insertion of the filioque clause, making the procession to be from the Father and the Son. In the place in question, Jesus is speaking expressly of the Spirit, whom he describes with reference to his qualification to be a witness, on behalf of the Son. Had the whole thought of the passage been concerning the Father, and in describing him Jesus had said, “From him proceedeth the Spirit,” the declaration would seem scarcely reconcilable with a coincident procession from the Son. But when the Spirit, himself, and his qualification to be a witness on behalf of the Son, is the distinct subject of discourse,—the statement that “He proceedeth from the Father, and will testify of me,” utterly excludes a like procession from the Son. This conclusion is strengthened by the remarkable language on the same subject, uttered by the Lord Jesus upon another occasion. “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.... The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.”—John v, 31-36. Peter declares that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good.”—Acts x, 38. Jesus here expressly certifies that the testimony thus by the Spirit given to his ministry was distinctively the Father’s testimony and not that of the Son,—a statement wholly irreconcilable with the supposition that the Spirit of witness who was the efficient author of those miracles proceeded alike from the Son and the Father.

3. The phrase,—“which proceedeth from the Father,”—is explanatory of the language immediately preceding. “When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father.” But why “from the Father,” since it is Christ that sends Him? Why not “from the Father and the Son?” Jesus gives the reason,—“Which proceedeth from the Father.” Either this indicates something peculiar and exclusive, or words are without meaning.

4. There is undoubtedly a voluntary and temporal bestowal of the Spirit by the Father upon the incarnate Son, a bestowal in virtue of which, he, as the Spirit of the Son, is by the Mediator breathed or shed upon his people. But if the doctrine in question is true, the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, sustains essentially and eternally the very same identical relation to each, and it would be just as impossible that he should be given by the Father to the Son, as on the contrary, by the Son to the Father. The fact that he is given to the Son shows conclusively that his relation to the Father is not only primary, but peculiar, a fact which is the express contradictory of the theory in question. In fact, by that theory the voluntary, temporal, and mediatorial mission of the Spirit, by the Son as incarnate, is necessarily and inextricably confounded with the eternal procession, which is essential and involuntary, the Scripture testimony on the subject is distorted and set at naught, and the whole subject involved in perplexity and confusion. These considerations, and especially the fact that there is not even a plausible pretense of Scriptural authority for the doctrine, lead me to its rejection.

Section LXIV.—The Baptism of Fire.

Christ’s baptizing office is not all of grace. “He shall baptize you,” says John, “with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” John thus, in harmony with the Old Testament writers, from Moses to Malachi, sets forth two distinct functions to be exercised by the coming One; the one, of grace, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and the other, of justice and wrath, the baptism of fire. As this interpretation of John’s language is denied, and the two baptisms interpreted as signifying essentially one and the same thing, it is necessary to consider with some care the evidence on the subject.

1. John, as the context shows, is addressing himself in terms of earnest admonition to the Pharisees and Sadducees, and to the Jews, as infected with their leaven. (Compare Matt. iii, 7, and Luke iii, 7.) He warns them of the discrimination which the Lord Jesus was about to use, in the purging of his floor. He begins with the expostulation, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” He proceeds to indicate that the time then current was one of threatening portent. “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees.” The safety of the righteous he leaves to silent implication; but emphasizes the doom of the wicked,—“Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” He then modifies the figure, with reference to his own baptizing office. “I indeed baptize you with water.... But he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire;” and lest there should be any doubt, as to his meaning, he completes the sentence with an expository detail,—“whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” It is certainly very improbable that in a Scripture so closely knit together and consecutive, so pervaded with one spirit and intent, the baptist should have used the word, fire, at the beginning and end, as a vivid figure of the judicial wrath of Christ, and in the middle, change it, without notice or explanation, into a figure of his grace; and this, too, when the first and third clauses present every appearance of being parallel to, and expository of the second. The supposition that the baptism of fire, means an exercise of grace is, in fact, irreconcilable with the purpose of John’s whole announcement, and renders the passage contradictory to the context, and false to John’s mission and Christ’s office and work. This is the only clause in the connection in which John states in direct terms, to the Pharisees and Sadducees whom he is addressing, the office of Christ, as toward them distinctively. And if, while proclaiming in general terms, His judicial and executive functions, consuming the evil trees and burning up the chaff, he is to be understood as saying,—“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with his gracious influences,” the only justifiable conclusion would be that those self-righteous sectaries were the favorites of heaven, and had no reason to fear that day that should burn as an oven.

2. It is a mistake to suppose the figure of fire to be, in the Scriptures, arbitrary and variable in its signification. On the contrary, while constantly resorted to, as a figure of speech, and as a symbol, both real and ritual, it stands out with a meaning, fixed and invariable,—a meaning which springs out of its essential nature and its familiar phenomena and effects, and is incorporated in the language and institutions of the Word, by express divine sanctions. The two most conspicuous phenomena of fire are its consuming power, and the torture which its contact inflicts upon sentient beings. Hence, with constant reference to the final fiery day, it is everywhere employed as the appointed symbol of the divine wrath, arrayed against sin. In this character, it appears in such real symbols as the flaming sword of the cherubim, at Eden’s gate,—the fire of God which was rained down upon the cities of the plain, thus “set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7), and the fire in which God descended on Mount Sinai. In the same sense was the ritual use of fire which continually burned on the altars of the Old Testament, from the beginning of man’s history, to the desolation of Jerusalem. Thus, as conspicuous as were the temple, and the altar, and incorporated in the very heart of the ritual system, was this symbol of God’s avenging wrath, the fierceness of fire. As a figure of speech, it is constantly used to express the inflicted wrath of God. And, in fact, it is never employed in any sense incongruous to this. It is true, that processes which are dependent on the use of fire are sometimes employed as symbols of the manner in which the divine grace is exercised. Says Malachi,—“He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap; and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.”—Mal. iii, 2, 3. But, even here, the fire is not the Spirit, but the inflictions which the Savior employs and which by the Spirit he sanctifies to his people. Of this we have the divine certificate. “I have refined thee; but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.”—Isa. xlviii, 10. But, while the figure is thus used, and while it is further true, that phenomena of fire, such as light, and heat, are used as figures of particular graces, it may with confidence be asserted that fire, itself, is never employed to represent the Spirit or his fruits.

3. It is impossible, here to examine all of the multitude of passages in which the figure occurs. It will be sufficient to notice those which are most commonly appealed to in proof of such use as is here denied. On the words of John, Dr. Addison Alexander thus remarks:—“With fire,—not the fire of divine wrath, as in verse 10; but the powerful and purifying influences of the Spirit; so described elsewhere. (See Isa. iv, 4; lxiv, 2; Jer. v, 14; Mal. iii, 2; Acts ii, 3.)^[80] Other writers add Isa. vi, 6; Zech. xiii, 9; 1 Cor. iii, 13, 15. These are the most pertinent passages referred to, in support of the exegesis given by Dr. Alexander. How entirely perfunctory and really inapposite these references are, appears in the fact that of the places cited by Dr. Alexander two occur in the prophecy of Isaiah, and one in the Acts of the Apostles, on which books the church is enriched with commentaries from the pen of that distinguished divine; and that in those commentaries he, in every instance, ignores and excludes the interpretation implied in his above-cited references. Thus; Isa. iv, 4,—“the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning,” he explains as “the judgment and burning of the Holy Spirit, with a twofold allusion to the purifying and destroying energy of fire; or rather, to its purifying by destroying; purging the whole by the destruction of a part, and thereby manifesting the divine justice^[81] as an active principle.” In Isa. lxiv, 2, the figure of the ebullition of water, represents the agitation of the ungodly nations in the presence of God’s justice, delivering and avenging Israel; and so it is expounded by Alexander. “O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence; as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence.” In Isa. vi, 6, the cherub takes a coal of fire from off the altar, and applies it to the lips of the prophet, saying, “Lo! this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” It would seem evident, that, by the coal from off the altar, is meant the atoning merits of the Lord Jesus, of whose sufferings the fire of the altar was the appointed symbol. Or, if the language be interpreted of the golden altar of incense, the fire of which was kindled from the altar of burnt offering, the meaning is the sweet savor of Christ’s intercession grounded on the merit of his sufferings. By no legitimate exegesis can it be made to mean, the Spirit of God. Jer. v, 14 needs only to be recited. “Behold I will make my words in thy mouth, fire, and this people, wood; and it shall devour them.” The destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and the captivity of the land, in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, sufficiently expound this language. Remarks already made are sufficient as to the next citation:—Zech. xiii, 9. “I will bring the third part through the fire and will refine them, as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried.” With this, the interpretation of Mal. iii, 2, is identical. The reference to Acts ii, 3, looks to the “cloven tongues like as of fire,” of the day of Pentecost. But, we shall presently see that not burning but brightness,—illumination as of a lamp was the phenomenon of that day. Says the Psalmist, “The entrance of thy word giveth light.” The day of Pentecost was, to the nations, the entrance of God’s word,—the beginning of the gospel; and its appropriate symbols were tongues of light and voices of praise in many languages. As little pertinent is the next passage: 1 Cor. iii, 13-15.—“Every man’s work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it; because it [the day], shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is.... If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by (dia, through) fire;”—that is,—“so as passing through the fire, with a bare escape.” That fire here means the judicial and punitive agencies of the last great day, in the discovery and punishment of sin, is clear.

Such are the most pertinent Scriptures to which I find reference made, to prove that, by fire, John meant, the Holy Spirit, or his gracious influences. That they wholly fail to establish the point, is evident; and a further independent examination induces the conviction that no others more pertinent are to be found.

4. A comparison of the four evangelists on the language of the baptist strongly confirms the interpretation here maintained. Mark and John, in giving account of the baptist’s preaching, direct attention more particularly to the gospel aspect of his mission; as he was the herald of the atoning Lamb of God. Neither of them, therefore, mentions his impressive warnings to the Pharisees and Sadducees, respecting the trees cast into the fire and the threshing floor purged by burning. And, while they both record the testimony of John concerning Jesus, as he that should baptize with the Holy Ghost, they are both silent as to the baptism of fire. (Mark i, 8; John i, 33.) But Matthew and Luke enter more into the sterner aspects of John’s office, as coming in the spirit and power of Elias, to announce judgment as well as mercy. They both, therefore, report his words of warning to a generation of vipers, words which the others omit. They both tell of the axe laid to the roots of the trees, and the threshing floor purged with fire; and both of them interpose between these passages the announcement of the two baptisms, “with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” The omissions of Mark and John, and the harmony of Matthew and Luke show that the baptism of fire belonged to the judicial and avenging aspect of Christ’s mission, as emphasized by the latter evangelists, but only lightly touched by the others.

5. The inseparable relation of these two functions of Christ’s office as the enthroned Son of man is certified in all the Scriptures. It is prominent in those which had immediate relation to the coming of John, and the purposes of his ministry. We have seen this, as to the first announcement made of the Angel of the covenant, to Israel at Sinai. On the one hand, he was described as the Guide and Deliverer, who should bring them into the promised land. On the other, they were warned to “Beware of him.... Provoke him not; for he will not pardon.”—Ex. xxiii, 20, 21. In the second Psalm, the terrors of the Son are almost exclusively signalized, in warning to the rebellious nations. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, O ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” Especially does Malachi emphasize Christ’s two contrasted functions. A careful examination of the third and fourth chapters of that prophecy, particularly the latter, will satisfy the intelligent reader that not only do they contain John’s commission, as the forerunner of Christ, but give the keynote and substance of his preaching. He is there announced as the Lord’s herald, to go before the face of the Messenger of the covenant, who is described as coming to execute two opposite but inseparable functions. On the one hand, he is to be the refiner and purifier of the sons of Levi; on the other, a swift witness and avenger against the wicked. (Mal. iii, 2-5.) Particularly did John have in his mind the fourth chapter, the first verses of which are thus given in the admirable translation of Dr. T. V. Moore. “For behold! the day comes! burning like a furnace! and all the proud, and all the doers of evil are chaff! and the day that comes burns them, saith Jehovah of hosts, who will not leave them root nor branch. And then shall rise on you the sun of righteousness, and healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth and leap as calves of the stall. And ye shall trample down the ungodly; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in the day which I make, saith Jehovah of hosts.”^[82] The “stubble” of Malachi and the “chaff” of John refer to the same thing. The threshing floor was a spot in the field which was beaten hard and smooth. The grain was threshed by the treading of cattle, or by dragging over it “a sharp threshing instrument with teeth.” The process of winnowing with the fan separated the grain into one heap, and the broken straw or “stubble” and “chaff” into another. To clear the floor, the latter were burned. From this custom was derived the vividness and beauty of the prophet’s imagery. He represents the wicked as thus separated and consumed, and the righteous, like calves let forth from the stalls in the brightness of the morning, skipping over the fields where the threshing floor lay, and thus treading among and trampling under foot the ashes of the wicked. Compare Rev. vi, 10; xi, 18; xv, 3, 4. It was with a view to the portentous character of the day thus described, that Malachi announces the commission of John to preach repentance to Israel. “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of that great and dreadful day of the Lord.” From the prophecy, which sets forth in such vivid colors, the tremendous issues depending on his ministry, John derived the imagery of his own warning, which is, in fact, a running paraphrase of Malachi.

“Behold,” says Malachi, “the day cometh.” “It is now immediately at hand,” says John. “It shall burn as an oven,” says the prophet, “and all the proud and all that do wickedly ... the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” John responds: “The axe is laid at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” Says Malachi, “All the proud and all that do wickedly shall be chaff, and the day that cometh shall burn them up.” John repeats and develops the figure. “Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Thus thoroughly are the thought and language of John imbued with the conceptions and imagery of the prophet, concerning “that great and dreadful day of the Lord,” the description of which derives all its vividness and terror from the manifest and accepted meaning of fire, as an intense figure of God’s consuming wrath. In the presence of these facts, the supposition is at once incredible and revolting that, into the very midst of the prophet’s tremendous portraiture of that fiery day, with the awe and dread of which he had so successfully striven to fill the imaginations and the hearts of his hearers,—John should have injected, abruptly, and without the shadow of explanation or reason, a phrase, in which the same figure is employed in a sense wholly foreign to that in which it is used by Malachi,—foreign to its ordinary meaning in the Scriptures, and to the whole spirit and tenor of the connection alike of the prophet, and of the baptist.

The words of John are, in themselves incapable of being forced into coincidence of meaning. “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Here are two distinct affirmations connected by the copulative, “and.” The latter, uttered through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, purports, upon the face of it, to be additional to the former. And the more critically it is examined, the more thoroughly it will be found to vindicate that character. It can not be a mere repetition. It can not be explained as interpreting the first clause. What then does it mean, but to announce a baptism of fire, in addition to the baptism of the Holy Ghost?—a baptism of justice and wrath, as well as one of renewing and grace?

Appeal is sometimes made to phraseology employed by the Lord Jesus, in his interview with Nicodemus, as being similar in construction.—“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.”—John iii, 5. But the resemblance disappears, upon a moment’s examination. With Nicodemus, our Savior first employs the ritual figure of water, which was or should have been familiar to the Jewish ruler. But then, to avoid the possibility of mistake on a point so vital, he explains himself literally by naming the Holy Spirit, of whom water was the symbol. But, in the words of the baptist, the Spirit is first named, in literal terms, which neither needed explanation, nor could be made clearer by it. But the second clause is a supposed explanation of that which needs none; an explanation less intelligible than the words to be explained,—an illustration by a figure, used in a sense directly the reverse of its familiar meaning in the Scriptures, the meaning in which it is used in the same immediate connection, both before and after the clause in question,—an illustration, therefore, at once obscure and embarrassing, shedding no ray of light upon the subject, but involving it in darkness, and turning to weakness, not to say, platitude, the stern energy of the baptist’s warning cry. “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with his gracious influences.”

Whilst the interpretation in question is without precedent or authority in the Scriptures, the arguments in its behalf are of no appreciable force. First, it is said to be “harsh” to understand the baptism of fire to mean Christ’s judicial administration as toward the wicked. As I must confess myself unable to understand the meaning and force of this argument, if argument it be, I leave it without note or comment. Another plea assumes the form of assertion that “the idea of baptism does not admit of any reference to punishment.”^[83]

It may be allowed that baptizo would not admit of such interpretation, if found alone and disconnected from any modifying or explanatory word or expression. But, that, in such connection and with such modifying words and statements as occur in the text of John, it can not be so interpreted, is by no means self-evident, and is supported by no sufficient or probable argument. The fact has already been indicated that the Hellenistic use of the word was predicated upon its employment among the Greeks to express a condition changed by a pervasive and controlling influence. It remains to be proved that the Jews had entirely forgotten this, which was to them the radical meaning of the word; so that, in their vocabulary, it could never have been used in that sense. In fact, however, a remarkable proof remains to us that the reverse of this is the truth. Says Isaiah, the prophet,—“My heart panted; fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.—Isa. xxi, 4. Alexander, with the later Germans, understands this as a personification of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, on that night when the handwriting on the wall proclaimed his judgment and doom. This, however, is unessential to the present purpose. Whether the prophet spoke of himself or of some other man, the fact of present interest is, that in the Septuagint Greek, the phrase, “Fearfulness affrighted me,” is rendered, “My iniquity baptizes me.” By this language, the Jewish translators express the agonies of remorse seizing and controlling the speaker, and turning the pleasure of the night into fear. Thus he was baptized, by sudden terrors by which he was controlled and brought into a new state of anguish and despair. So will the judgment of the final day seize upon the wicked and control and bring them into a like new condition by the baptism of fire.

Moreover, the connection in which John uses the expression in question, is such as to constitute abundant ground for the vindication of his language, even though baptism were restricted to the sense of purification. The purpose of Christ’s mission, as set forth by John, was, to “thoroughly purge his floor;” by “his floor,” meaning, primarily the people and land of Israel; but, in its ultimate intent, the world and the universe. In order to accomplish this object, not only must the wheat be garnered, but the chaff must be burned. And, as washing with water is none the less a purifying, because it does not cleanse or transform the filthiness, itself, but only removes it,—so, none the less is the baptism of fire a baptism, because it does not cleanse, but punishes the wicked. In so doing, it will purge the race, and cleanse the world, which it inhabits. That the baptism with the Holy Ghost is a real baptism, and that to it in the strictest and most peculiar sense the word belongs, can not be denied. But in that baptism we see the separating of the righteous and the wicked. It is as much the exclusion of the latter as it is the reception of the former. If the one is taken, it means, separation; it means that the other is left. Neither in conception nor in realization, is it possible to separate these two things, nor to eliminate the rejection and punishment of the wicked from that function by which the righteous are called and saved. By both alike, and by the one as much as the other, is the commission of the great Baptizer fulfilled and his floor purged.

Not without a significant bearing upon the present question is the language in which the Lord Jesus himself speaks of the discrimination which he is to exercise and the judgments which he is to inflict in the exercise of his royal authority. “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled?... Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay, but rather division.”—Luke xii, 49, 51. That fire, here, is no symbol of grace, is manifest; as it is, also, that the theme of Malachi and John is the subject of these words of Jesus. Nor is the fact to be forgotten that, in the Levitical system, fire was distinctly recognized, along with water, as a purifying element. See Num. xxxi, 10; and compare Isa. xlviii, 10, and Mal. iii, 2, 3.

From all this it is evident that the baptism of fire is the exercise by the Lord Jesus of his judicial function, in the separation and punishment of the wicked.

Whilst it may be admitted that no absolute conclusion concerning ritual baptism, is to be deduced from the facts set forth in the Scriptures, as to the manner of this baptism, yet are they not unworthy of consideration as one element in the mass of evidence. (1.) The diluvial purgation of the world, in the days of Noah, was by means of rain. “The fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened; and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”—Gen. vii, 11, 12. (2.) Sodom and Gomorrah suffered a destruction, typical in its intent, and “are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”—Jude 7, and 2 Pet. ii, 6. Its manner is thus recorded. “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”—Gen. xix, 24. (3.) The final destruction of the wicked is predicted under the same form. “Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.”—Psa. xi, 6. (4.) More than thirty times the figure of outpouring is used in the Scriptures to indicate the infliction of God’s wrath. It is a pouring out, of wrath, of indignation, of vengeance, of anger and fury. Thus, in the Revelation, the seven last plagues are inflicted by the outpouring of cups or bowls (phialas) of wrath from heaven upon the earth. (Rev. xvi.) (5.) The final destruction of Gog and Magog, is described as being by fire which “came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.”—Rev. xx, 9.

The analogy of all these facts and expressions with those concerning the baptism of the Spirit, as designed to indicate the exaltation of the Son of Man, and point to his throne as the source of the indignation poured out, is apparent. On the other hand, the fact is to be observed, that the eternal state of those wicked is represented under the figure of dwelling in the lake of fire,—a figure which corresponds with the primary classic meaning of baptizo, in that there is no resurrection.

Section LXV.—The Baptism of Pentecost.

Before his crucifixion, Jesus had assured his disciples that they should see the kingdom of God come with power. After his resurrection, in visits manifestly preternatural, “he was seen of them forty days, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God; and being assembled together with them, he commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.”—Acts i, 3, 4. He moreover told them, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”—Ib. 8. For ten days after his public ascension they awaited the promised baptism. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”—Acts i, 1-4. They were inspired with divine courage, zeal, and power, and in presence of those who had cried, “Away with him!” and of the rulers, who had condemned him to the cross, proclaimed the kingdom and glory of the man of Nazareth. And, on that day, three thousand, a few days afterward, five thousand, and daily multitudes of believers added to the church, were the trophies of the power of Christ’s baptizing scepter,—the firstfruits and pledge of the baptism of his Spirit which still continues to pour from on high its floods of salvation upon the world.

Such was our Savior’s entrance on his office, as the royal Baptizer,—such the first administration of his baptism of grace. There are four things concerning it which demand attention. These are,—the manner in which the baptism was dispensed,—the new spirit then given to the church,—the accompanying signs,—and, the baptism of repentance, which then and thenceforth accompanied the preaching of the gospel.

In all the expressions and statements concerning the baptism of Pentecost, there is a prominence given to the manner of it which can not be casual, nor devoid of special significance. The attendant phenomena are described as “a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind,” which “filled all the place where they were sitting.” “Cloven tongues, like as of fire, sat upon each of them.” “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” The facts are by Peter described as a fulfillment of the prophecy,—“I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.”—vs. 17. He further tells the assembly, that Jesus “shed forth this which ye now see and hear.”—vs. 33. Of the similar scene in the house of Cornelius, it is stated that “the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word,” and that “on the Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.”—Acts x, 44, 45. Peter also, in giving account of this scene to the church at Jerusalem, stated, with reference to these facts, that as he began to speak, “the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how he said, ... Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.”—Acts xi, 15, 16.

After the same conception is the language of Paul.—“According to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.—Tit. iii, 5, 6. “Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God (ekkechutai en) is poured out on our hearts (dia) through the Holy Ghost given us.”—Rom. v, 5. In these places, the words, “shed,” and, “poured,” which are interchangeably used in the translation, represent one in the original.

The first point, here, is the manner in which the phenomena of the occasion were introduced. “Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” That this was designed to be a significant sign, would seem certain in the presence of all the other significant features of the occasion. And its meaning is not obscure. From the Greek verb, pneo, to blow, are derived two nouns, pneuma and pnoe. These words are nearly identical in meaning, except that pneuma is by the sacred writers appropriated to designate the Holy Spirit. It, and the Hebrew ruagh, which is appropriated in a like manner, both mean, primarily, the air, the wind; and hence, the breath, the soul of man, a spirit, the Spirit of God. In all these significations, they are found, the one in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament, and the other in the Greek of the Septuagint version. We have seen how largely the figure of water is used as a symbol of the Spirit. Its chief propriety as thus employed appears in its effects upon the earth and the creatures, penetrating and fertilizing the soil, washing away defilement, and refreshing the thirsty; while as rain from heaven, it traces the descent of the Spirit from the throne of God. In wind, or air in motion, or the breath, we have another symbol, familiar in the Scriptures, and equally interesting and significant. Its peculiar fitness consists in its relation to its source, as representing the Third Person as the Spiritus or breath, “which proceedeth from the Father;” and in its nature, as essential to sustain life in the animate creation. Says the Psalmist, “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (to pneumati, by the Spirit) of his mouth.”—Ps. xxxiii, 6. The word, pnoe, is that which designates the “rushing, mighty wind” of Pentecost. It is used in the Septuagint in the sense of wind, stormy or violent wind, the breath, the soul, the spirit. Its relation to pneuma may be seen in such places as follow.—“He that giveth breath (pnoe) to the people upon it and spirit (pneuma) to them that walk therein.”—Isa. xlii, 5. “The spirit (pneuma) should fail before me, and the souls (pnoen) which I have made.”—Ibid. lvii, 16. “At the blast (pnoes) of the breath (pneumatos) of His nostrils.”—2 Sam. xxii, 16. “All the time my breath (pnoes) is in me, and the Spirit (pneuma) of God is in my nostrils.”—Job xxvii, 3. “The Spirit (pneuma) of God hath made me, and the breath (pnoe) of the Almighty hath given me life.”—Job. xxxiii, 4. In the New Testament, we have the words of Jesus to Nicodemus,—“The wind bloweth (pneuma pnei, the Spirit breatheth), where it listeth.”—John iii, 8. And in this same book of the Acts, is the testimony of Paul to the Athenians that—“He giveth to all, life and breath (pnoen), and all things.”—Acts xvii, 25. Significant to the same purpose is the word, theo-pneustos (God breathed), which describes the Scriptures as the dictate of the Spirit in the prophets. (2 Tim. iii, 16.) Turning now to another word,—says Dr. Alexander, “The word (pheromene) translated rushing, is a passive participle, meaning borne, or carried, and is properly descriptive of involuntary motion, caused by a superior power; an idea not suggested by the active participles, rushing, driving, or the like; which seem to make the wind itself the operative agent.”^[84] Compare 1 Peter i, 13,—“The grace that is to be brought (pheromenen) unto you;” and 2 Peter i, 21.—“Holy men spake as they (pheromenoi) were moved by the Holy Ghost.” With these notes, let us compare that action of Jesus, in which he breathed on his disciples, and said to them, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”—John xx, 22. This we must understand as designed by him for an interpretation of Pentecost. It can mean nothing else. For not till then was the Spirit to be given.

The same figure is fully developed in the prophecy of Ezekiel (xxxvii, 1-14), of the valley of dry bones. “There were very many in the open valley; and lo, they were very dry.” At the divine command, Ezekiel prophesied to them,—“O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.... And as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind.... Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them and they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” The vision is interpreted to the prophet. “These bones are the whole house of Israel.... Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live.” Ezek. xxxvii, 1-14. Throughout this passage, the words, “wind,” “breath” and “Spirit,” are in the original the same (Hebrew, ruagh, Greek, pneuma), and the word, “breathe,”—“Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,”—is the same that describes the action of the Lord Jesus, just referred to. If now, in the light of these illustrations, we return to the account of the Pentecostal scene, we read that “suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of an outbreathed, mighty breath, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.... And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Thus was signified the Spirit of Christ, as the breath of His life, by Him breathed into His disciples. So distinctly and profoundly was this idea impressed on the mind of the primitive church, that it became the occasion of one of the unwarranted forms which were at an early age added to the Scriptural rite of baptism. After the interrogation and immediately before the baptism, there was an exorcism, with an insufflation or breathing in the face of the person baptized; which Augustine calls a most ancient tradition of the church.^[85] It was meant to signify the expelling of the evil spirit, and the breathing in of the good Spirit of God.

In the outbreathing of Pentecost we have the only phenomenon of the day, that was expressive of the actual performance of the baptism by the Lord Jesus. It was the specific symbol of the manner of it. Comparing it with the various other statements above quoted, it appears that of that baptism, the element was the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; the administrator was Jesus seated on the throne of glory; the manner of it was an outbreathing from him; its coming was by descent,—a shedding down from the height of his throne to his disciples in Jerusalem; in its reception, it was a falling upon them; and the result was that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, as the breath of their lives. For, in the symbol as described, they were surrounded as it were with an atmosphere of the Spirit. “It filled all the house where they were sitting;” so that they could breathe no other breath.

In this account, the chief interest centers on the source of the outpouring. And, in fact, the very purpose of the forms of expression used and of the sensible phenomena which they describe was to direct the attention of all, upward to that source. To the same effect, was the whole argument of Peter’s discourse to the multitude. Each position in it, has this as the end.—“Ye men of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth ye know, for him ye crucified. Him God raised from the dead and exalted to his own right hand, and gave the Spirit in all fullness to him. That Spirit hath he shed down upon us, as ye now see and hear, and thus is shown his exaltation and power. Therefore let all the house of Israel know, assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ,—both sovereign over all and that Anointed One who was promised to David, and heralded by all the prophets, as he that should sit on David’s conquering throne.”

We have seen how Paul labors to exalt our imaginations to some proportionate conceptions of the unapproachable height of the throne of Christ’s glory. And now, in our times, from the day of Pentecost unto the end, it is signalized in the exercise by him of that highest prerogative of God, the sending forth of the infinite Spirit. It is shed down by him from yonder height to this low earth,—down to us worms in the abyss where we lay, strown in the upas valley of death, to breathe life into the dead and give salvation to the lost. And to signalize that height of his exaltation, the depth of his condescension, and the measureless immensity of his matchless love, the Baptism of Pentecost was given, its miracles were wrought, and its myriad trophies of salvation gathered. All these point upward and cry,—“Behold! on high! Far above all powers and dominions, Jesus fills the throne! Thence he breathes forth the Spirit of God! Thence he sheds down salvation!”

Section LXVII.—The New Spirit Imparted on Pentecost.

The previous announcements which heralded the baptism of Pentecost, and all the attendant facts and statements unite to indicate that in the very nature of the gift then conferred there was something essentially new and different from any previous endowments bestowed on the church,—something by which peculiar honor was reflected on the baptizing office of the Lord Jesus, upon this its first assumption and exercise. It is a question to be considered,—What were the new characteristics of grace now first imparted to the church?

The Holy Spirit was no novelty, now first bestowed. At the coming of Christ, the Jews were familiar with the doctrine of the personality and offices of the Third Person of the Godhead. Of this the evidence is conclusive,—in the story of John’s birth,—in the theme and style of John’s preaching,—in the facts stated as to the birth, anointing, and ministry of Christ,—in His manner of reference to the subject in his teaching,—and especially in his warning as to the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is only explicable upon the supposition that the doctrine of the Spirit was familiar to the Jews. The knowledge thus evinced had its source in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. So full are they on the subject that there is scarcely an aspect in which it appears in the New Testament which has not its counterpart in the Old. In them his agency is distinctly and fully recognized, both in the inspiration of the prophets, and in the gifts and graces which have been common to God’s people in all ages. See for example, Psa. li, 11-13; cxliii, 10; Isa. lxiii, 10, etc. The graces which Paul testifies to be the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. v, 22; Eph. v, 9), and which are in the above cited places, by the Old Testament writers referred to the same source, were abundantly displayed in the saints of the former dispensation, insomuch that Paul holds them up as ensamples to us. (Heb. xi and xii, 1.) The Psalms, which gave expression and nourishment to their graces, are never exhausted by the profoundest attainments of Christian experience. And with all the lamentable facts of unfaithfulness and apostasy which darken the pages of Israel’s history, there were periods of fidelity, in which the church shone in the beauty of holiness, fair and comely in the eyes of God. In fact, with all the disposition which we sometimes realize to dwell on the unbelief and apostasies of the twelve tribes, and lamentable as they were, it is certain that the New Testament church is in no condition to boast herself against Israel. If we survey the nominally Christian church, in its various sections—the communions of Rome and of the east, and of the various Protestant churches in Europe and America—a just judgment will pronounce them, on the whole, scarcely less unfaithful and surely more inexcusable than was Israel. Assuredly, there is no such difference in our favor as to indicate the absence of the Spirit from the latter, and his peculiar presence with the former.

In what then did the peculiarity of the day of Pentecost consist? To this question, Peter in his discourse on the occasion, gave an explicit answer. “This is that which is spoken by the prophet Joel:—And it shall come to pass, in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.”—Acts ii, 16, 17. In this citation of prophecy, and in the discourse which followed, Peter defined the peculiarities of the occasion as consisting in three things: First, that the outpouring of that day was made by the Lord Jesus in person. Second, that the miraculous phenomena attending it were designed to attest the fact that He, being risen from the dead and exalted to God’s right hand, was endowed with supreme and universal authority. Third, that the gifts of salvation by him dispensed were adapted and designed not for Israel only but for “all flesh,”—for the world. Thus was implied a change in the whole aspect of grace, in the hearts of God’s people.

We have formerly seen that God’s entrance into covenant with Israel, at Sinai, implied a temporary withdrawal of his overtures from the nations,—“suffering them to walk in their own ways,” (Acts xiv, 16), but with a distinct assertion of a reserved right, inserted in the covenant itself,—“For, all the earth is mine.” So long as God “winked at” the wickedness of the Gentiles, the church had neither commission nor call to labor for their salvation, nor impulse of grace to look for it. The doors of salvation and of the church were held open to all, and the word and ordinances maintained in Zion were an invitation to the world to enter freely. But, beyond that Israel was not called to go. On the contrary, she was discouraged from all active or intimate contact or intercourse with the apostate nations. Her primary and paramount office and obligation it was to keep her own self pure, and to preserve and transmit the oracles and ordinances of God faithfully, until the time of the Messiah. In the meantime, since the operations and graces of the Spirit can not but be in harmony with the will and purpose of God, his influences in the hearts of Israel, corresponded with the purpose thus indicated concerning the nations. For, grace is nothing but harmony of affections and will with the character and will of God. Grace, in Israel, was therefore without disseminating zeal or power, as toward the Gentiles. It contained no impulse to seek their salvation. But, knowing them as apostate and enemies to God and to his people, and as the objects of his indignation and wrath, it concurred in that indignation, and at times gave expression to it, in forms which offend a shallow and unsanctified criticism. Yet are they no more incongruous to the active enjoyment and exercise of the profoundest and most abundant measure of the Spirit’s graces, than is the absence in heaven’s blest inhabitants of zeal for the welfare of Satan, and their adoring approval of God’s justice in his doom. All this was rather confirmed than modified by the fact that the Spirit of prophecy constantly indicated that a day was coming when all the ends of the earth should see and share in the salvation of God. The more distinctly it was revealed as the purpose of God for the future, the more clearly was it seen to be not of the present.

But, now, the time had come. The Son of man, the Prince Messiah, to whom was reserved the ingathering of the Gentiles (Gen. xlix, 10), had assumed the scepter and received the Spirit of life for the nations. The sanctifying grace of that Spirit must be essentially the same in all ages and times. But there was now a change in its aspect to the Gentiles, coincident with the change of the divine attitude toward them. Instead of the old passive sentiment concerning the world’s ruin,—instead of the former ardor of indignation against its ungodliness,—the apostles and the church were now inspired with a divine pity and beneficent love,—with an active and aggressive zeal for the conversion of men. While the enclosed water of the laver at the tabernacle was the symbol of the Spirit’s influences, under the former dispensation, the increasing river of Ezekiel’s vision is their representative in the New Testament times. Flowing forth out of Zion, with a widening and deepening current, it pours its living waters into the dead sea of our apostate humanity, to the healing of the waters. This difference in the nature of the Spirit’s influences, now, and of old, is beautifully exhibited in two figures employed by our Savior, the distinctive features of which should not be overlooked because of the points of analogy. Speaking to the woman of Samaria of the personal blessings which the Spirit bestows, he tells her,—“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”—John iv, 14. A well, within; living, active, but confined. But, at Jerusalem, at the festival of the pouring of water, which anticipated the giving of salvation to the Gentiles,—“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”—John vii, 37, 38. “Out of his belly shall flow.” Here is grace, not enclosed and restricted in its sphere, but outflowing and aggressive, disseminating itself without stint or limit. Hence the explanation which the evangelist adds:—“This spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.”—Ib. vs. 39. Hence, also, the selection made by Peter, in explanation of the Pentecostal scene. Among the prophecies, there are many in which the outpouring of the Spirit is spoken of. But of them all the apostle selected that which, in the briefest and completest manner, indicates the breaking down of the wall of partition. “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.” This he afterward explains. “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”—vs. 39.

But there was another point, equally important, in the endowments bestowed on that memorable day. Heretofore, not only had commission to the Gentiles been withheld from the church, but gratuitous labors by her in that behalf would have been necessarily futile, for lack of power accompanying the word. But, said Jesus to the apostles, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”—Acts i, 8. What was the nature of the power thus given, Paul tells the church of Corinth. “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”—“And my speech and my preaching were 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.”—2 Cor. iv, 6, 7; 1 Cor. ii, 4, 5. This illuminating, convincing, and converting power of the Spirit of God attending the word, remains the perpetual endowment and authentication of the Christian ministry. In addition to the zeal and power thus conferred, the apostles were by this baptism invested with those gifts of courage, wisdom, inspiration, and miracles, which had been promised by the Savior, and were requisite to qualify them for their special office and to attest their ministry. (Mark xvi, 17, 18; Luke xxi, 15-19; John xiv, 26; xvi, 13-15.)

Such was the change wrought by the baptism of Pentecost; such the new gifts by it conferred. With the coming of God’s set time of mercy to the world, it awakened in the hearts of his people a zeal for souls of every class and nation. And it imparted to the word of the gospel a demonstration and power of converting grace, correspondent to the breadth of the new commission, and to the saving purposes of our blessed God, toward an apostate race. In proportion as we, in these latter days, have part in the baptism and Spirit of Pentecost, will we share in the same ardor of zeal for the spread of the gospel and the conquest of the nations to the banner of Christ.

Section LXVIII.—The Tongues like as of Fire.

Jesus had foretold his disciples that miraculous signs and wonders should accompany and attest the word of the gospel published by them (Mark xvi, 17, 18), and the subsequent history gives abundant illustration of the fulfillment of this promise, in the healing of the sick, raising the dead and other miracles of power. But the only signs mentioned on the day of Pentecost are the “rushing mighty wind,” the “cloven tongues like as of fire,” and the gift of “other tongues.” The first of these has been already considered. We will now inquire into the “tongues like as of fire.” “There appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire; and it sat upon each of them.” Says Alexander, “Cloven should rather be, distributed, so that one sat on each of them. (Vulg. linguÆ dispertitÆ.) The common version, which implies that each tongue was divided into two or more, is at variance with the usage of the Greek verb (diamerizomenai), which sometimes denotes moral separation or estrangement (Luke xi, 17, 18; xii, 52, 53), but never, physical division. Its usual sense of distribution, or allotment, may be seen by a comparison of Matt, xxvii, 35; Mark xv, 24; Luke xxii, 17; xxiii, 34; and Acts ii, 45.”^[86] “There appeared unto them distributed tongues like as of fire, and one sat on each of them.” Such is the literal meaning of the evangelist. These tongues “appeared,” “like as of fire.” Not burning, but brightness or illumination was their characteristic. They had thus the appearance of burning lamps, and seem evidently to have been symbols of that divine illumination which through the ministry of the gospel was about to be given to the Gentiles. In the tabernacle and temple stood the seven branched golden candlestick, with its seven lamps, which were by the priests daily replenished with oil, and kept burning continually. In the opening of the vision of the Apocalypse, John saw seven golden candlesticks, or lampstands, in the midst of which was one like the Son of man, in whose right hand were seven stars. These stars were the burning lamps of the lampstands. (Compare Rev. i, 12, 13, 16, 20; iii, 1; and iv, 5.) They were explained to him. The candlesticks were the seven churches of Asia, and the stars were the angels of the seven churches. There has been some question among expositors, as to the form of church government contemplated in this vision. But the most are agreed that, whatever was the form, the angels were the ministry, conceived as lamps of light upborne by the churches. By this interpretation, we are led to the same understanding as to the golden candlestick in the tabernacle and temple, since the scenery of the Revelation is a recognized transcript from the temple, which was a pattern of the heavenly things. The seven lamps shining as stars in the darkness of the sanctuary, through the continual supply of oil ministered by the priests, were a beautiful type of the ministry and ordinances of the church of God, shining amid the moral darkness of the world, through the gifts and graces of the Spirit poured upon them by Jesus, the great high Priest. The day of Pentecost had been predicted of old, as the time of the shedding of light upon the Gentiles by the awakened church. “Arise, shine; for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold the darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”—Isa. lx, 1-3. By Zacharias, at the birth of John, and by Simeon, at the presentation of Jesus in the temple, He had been described in this character,—“The dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace.”—Luke i, 78, 79. Says Simeon, “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people,—a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”—Ib. ii, 30-32. John, in the beginning of his gospel speaks in the same manner,—“In him was life and the life was the Light of men, and the Light shineth in darkness.”—John i, 4, 5. Jesus had described the ministry of John, under this figure. “He was a burning and a shining light.”—John v, 35. He had distinctly foretold his disciples that they were ordained to be the light of the Gentiles. “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill can not be hid. Neither do men light a candle (luchnon, a lamp), and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”—Matt. v, 14-16. And now, upon them waiting and expectant, He sheds down the oil of the Spirit’s grace, kindles a light upon every brow, and inspires them to utter God’s praises in the tongues of every land; thus, to them signifying that the time was come to “Arise and shine,” and to others announcing that the Light of the Gentiles had risen upon the world.

Section LXIX.—The Gift of Other Tongues.

The nature of this gift, and all the circumstances attending it unite in investing it with a character of peculiar impressiveness, significance and propriety among the miracles which attested the gospel. Devotional in its nature, and exercised in celebrating “the wonderful works of God,” it was an indication of the reception and enjoyment by those on whom it fell of a large measure of the sanctifying graces of the Spirit. The report of it, spreading over Jerusalem, was the attraction which assembled together that vast company, of whom three thousand were converted that day. The prophetic nature of the sign demonstrated the identity of the occasion with that predicted by Joel. And the significance of the scene,—God’s praises uttered in many languages,—as the anticipation of a world-wide acceptance of the gospel,—brings this sign into intimate accord with the new spirit of missionary zeal, and the tongues as of fire, which were the other principal phenomena of the day. It exhibited, in a figure, all the tribes and tongues of men, till then immersed in idolatry and darkness, uniting with sudden harmony in a glad burst of praise to God for the wonderful works of his grace.

The conspicuous position occupied by this gift amid the scenes of Pentecost and the relation which it sustained to the outpouring of the Spirit, as being the most observable gift thereby bestowed, occasioned a manner of expression on the subject in the book of the Acts, which has led to some misconception and error. It consists in the use of the name of the Holy Spirit, and of phrases respecting his falling on the disciples, being received by them, etc., when the subject spoken of is, not his renewing and invisible graces, but the sensible phenomena which attested the preaching of the apostles. Thus, Peter, on the day of Pentecost, having assured the multitude that what they saw and heard was the fulfillment of the promise, “I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy,” and explained that Jesus having received of the Father the promised Spirit, had shed forth this “which ye now see and hear;” exhorted his hearers to repent and be baptized, “and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost. For the promise (by Joel), is to you and to your children (‘your sons and your daughters’), and to all that are afar off (‘all flesh’).” Here, the assurance of receiving the Holy Ghost, upon condition of repentance and baptism, as well as the quotation from Joel, shows that Peter did not speak of the renewing gift of the Spirit; which precedes and gives repentance, but of the miraculous gifts which followed, and which they saw and heard.

Again, upon the mission of Peter and John to Samaria, it is stated that they prayed for the Samaritans, “that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet he was fallen upon none of them; only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.”—Acts viii, 14-17. Here, no distinct mention is made of miraculous endowments. But the manner in which the gift was imparted, the fact that they were already believers, and especially the proposal of Simon magus, on the occasion, show that it was miraculous gifts that were conferred. The sorcerer would have offered no money for the invisible renewing and sanctifying graces of the Spirit. “Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given.” And what he saw was what he sought to purchase. These perceptible and miraculous signs were therefore the things intended in the expressions used, as to the receiving of the Holy Ghost, and his falling upon the disciples.

The same manner of expression is seen in the account of Paul’s interview with certain disciples of John at Ephesus. (Acts xix, 1-7.) Paul asked them, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost, since ye believed?” So reads the common version. But it should be,—“(Elabete, pisteusantes), Did ye, upon believing receive the Holy Ghost?” The question had reference to the time of their first reception of the gospel. The apostle predicates his question upon the assumption that these men were believers; and he elsewhere testifies that faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It is thus evident, as the sequel also shows, that it was not the ordinary graces of the Spirit of which Paul inquired, but his extraordinary gifts. Such being the purport of his question, the answer is to be interpreted in accordance with it. “They said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” That is, We have not heard of the miraculous gifts. “And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said unto him, Unto John’s baptism.” So intimately was Christian baptism related to the baptism and miracles of Pentecost, that Paul could not imagine any one to have received the former, and yet remain ignorant of the latter. To suppose, as do some, that these disciples of John meant to declare themselves ignorant of the existence of the Third Person of the Godhead, is little short of a contradiction in terms, in view of the essential place which was given to the Spirit in John’s teachings,—even were we to ignore the Old Testament testimonies, of which John’s disciples can not have been ignorant. What they meant, is manifest from the whole tenor of the narrative. In the result, the Holy Ghost was bestowed on them by the laying on of Paul’s hands, “and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.” That was the subject of Paul’s inquiry,—the subject on which they were ignorant. And the form of expression is another example of the style of language which we have seen running through the pages of the Acts on the subject.

In striking coincidence with the relation of this sign, as representing the dissemination of the gospel to the nations of the Gentiles was the order of its manifestation. The command of Jesus was that the gospel should be preached “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” Precisely this was the order of manifestation of the gift of tongues. First, it was given to the disciples assembled in Jerusalem and representing all Judea, on the day of Pentecost. Then Philip having preached in Samaria, to the conversion of many, Peter and John were sent thither; and by the laying on of their hands, the gift was conferred upon the Samaritans. (Acts viii, 12-17.) Afterward, Peter was called to the house of the Gentile, Cornelius, and upon his preaching, “the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word,” and they spake with tongues and magnified God. (Acts x, 44-47.) Beside these, there is but one other account, in which the manner of the gift is indicated. It is the case already mentioned, of the disciples of John in Ephesus. Respecting this sign, the following points are to be noticed.

1. As to its nature, it came under the general designation of prophecy, being an inspired utterance of the praises of God (Luke i, 67, 68), in which in the beginning at least, all the assembly, men and women united. (Acts i, 14; ii, 1, 4, 11; 1 Cor. xi, 5.) As such, Peter declared it to be a fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel. “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.... And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.”—vs. 17, 18. In this exercise, while the hearts and affections of the speakers were edified by the Spirit, in connection with the utterances thus inspired, their understandings did not ordinarily apprehend the meaning. (1 Cor. xiv, 2, 4, 13, 14, 18, 19, 28. Compare Rom. viii, 26, 27.) It was in “another tongue” than that which was native to the speaker, and usually to him an “unknown tongue.”

2. It was not, therefore, designed to facilitate the labors of the apostles, by enabling them to preach in foreign languages; and there is no reason to believe that it was ever so used. The Scriptures are silent on the subject, and the traditions of the primitive church to that effect are worthless. Its design seems to have been two-fold,—the edifying of those upon whom the gift was bestowed;—and, for a sign to the hearers. (1 Cor. xiv, 22.) Of what it was a sign, intimation has been, already, given. It was a token that henceforth the Spirit of all grace would be bestowed as freely, and work as effectually, in the hearts of Gentiles, as of the Jews; and that God’s praises thus inspired would be equally acceptable to him in every tongue and from every people.

3. Being intended as a sign of the ingathering of the Gentiles, it seems at first, and until the minds of the disciples had become fully imbued with that idea, to have been very abundantly bestowed, and especially at Jerusalem, the centre whence the healing waters, were to flow. In fact, its value as a great public sign depended materially upon the abundance of the gift, whereby, as on the first occasion, it presented a figure of all nations uniting in the worship of the true God and our Savior. But as the idea became familiar to the mind of the church, and the churches of the Gentiles multiplied, this gift seems to have fallen gradually into a subordinate place, among the many with which the church was endowed. (1 Cor. xii, 1-10.) The occasion of its importance as a public sign having passed away, its chief value now consisted in the spiritual edification which was ministered to the possessors themselves, in its exercise (Ib. xiv); and it gradually disappeared from the church.

4. As the apostles were the official witnesses, appointed by the Lord Jesus to testify of his resurrection and exaltation to the baptizing throne, this sign was at first given in immediate connection with, and confirmation of, their personal testimony. It was also, with a like intimate relation to their witnessing office, conferred by the laying on of their hands, upon disciples who had been gathered in by the ministry of others. Apart from the personal presence and ministry of the apostles, in one or other of these forms, there is no Scriptural intimation, nor reason to believe, that it was ever bestowed.

Section LXX.—The Baptism of Repentance for the Remission of Sins.

We have yet to contemplate the chief and crowning glory of Pentecost. The endowments conferred on the apostles, and the new spirit infused into the church, were but subsidiary means; glorious indeed; but only as they ministered to a more glorious end. The signs and wonders of the day were but an index hand which pointed away from themselves, and directed all interest and attention to that end. It appears, in the baptism of repentance, then first administered by the ascended Savior from his throne; the first fruits of which were the three thousand converts of that day, and the harvest of which still coming in, will only then be complete, when all his redeemed shall have been gathered from every nation and kindred and people and tongue.

The baptism of John is called “the baptism of repentance.”—Acts xix, 4. But it was so, only as the rock in the wilderness was Christ; only as the bread and cup of the supper are the body and blood of the Lord. “The baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins” which he preached (Mark i, 4), was not his own. He preached “saying that they should believe on him that should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.”—Acts xix, 4. He confessed his own weakness, and the emptiness and futility of his own baptism, which was only a symbol, calling men to repentance, but without power to confer it. “I, indeed baptize you with water, unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”—Matt. iii, 11. Jesus, after his resurrection, told his disciples,—“Thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name, among all nations.”—Luke xxiv, 46, 47. A few days after the baptism of Pentecost had been received, Peter, in the presence of the rulers of Israel, testified.—“Him hath God exalted with his right hand; a Prince and Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and the forgiveness of sins.” Acts v, 31. “The forgiveness of sins,” here, is the same in the original, as “the remission of sins,” in the other places, and especially in the statement concerning John’s preaching. This identity of language is undoubtedly designed to indicate identity of subject. The baptism which John preached,—that of which his own was the figure,—was the true baptism of repentance and remission, which Jesus was enthroned to dispense,—the baptism which, on the day of Pentecost, he bestowed, by the outpouring of the Spirit, whose office it is to work repentance and to seal remission. The doctrine concerning this baptism, may be thus briefly summed. By it, as given by the Lord Jesus, the Spirit is breathed into the subjects of grace, entering them as a Spirit of life. This is regeneration, the immediate effect of which is a new nature formed after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness. The indwelling Spirit and the new nature, inspired by him, lust against the flesh and loathe sin; and by consequence induce a true repentance and turning from it, and a pursuit after holiness. At the same time, the Spirit with which they are baptized, being in Christ as the head and source of life to all the body, and in them as members, unites them to Him by such a tie,—the tie of the one infinite Spirit common to both; so that they are, with him, one body, and therefore, in him, partake in the merits of his righteousness, and in it are justified.

In that last discourse of our Savior, to which we have already so fully referred,—that discourse which was an immediate anticipation and prophecy of Pentecost,—this subject is presented in a form of great interest and prominence. In fact, the thoughtful reader will find that entire discourse to center upon the two correlative ideas of the unity of the Persons in the Godhead, and the unity of believers, in Christ. Moreover, these two doctrines are presented as sustaining the most intimate relation to each other. In answer to Philip’s request, “Lord show us the Father,” Jesus emphasizes with reiteration his own unity with the Father, and exhorts the disciples, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me.” Then, having promised to secure for them the presence and illumination of the Comforter, he says, “Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more, but ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also. At that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me and I in you.”—John xiv, 8-11, 19, 20. This he illustrates by a parable. “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me (severed from me) ye can do nothing.”—Ib. xv, 1-8. In the wonderful prayer which closed that discourse, Jesus recurs to this theme, in language which from any other lips would have seemed profane, so closely does he identify us with the glory of the Godhead. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one; as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.”—Ib. xvii, 20-23. The “glory” which the Father gave the Son and Jesus gives his people, “that they may be one,” is the Holy Spirit, who is called “the Spirit of glory and of God,” who rests on his people (1 Peter iv, 14), and “the glory of the Father,” by whom Christ was raised from the dead. (Rom. vi, 4. Compare viii, 11; and 1 Peter iii, 18.)

Such is the relation which by the baptism of the Spirit is established between Christ and the Father and believers. Touching the manner and process of it, the following are the most important points.

1. Each Person of the Godhead severally co-operates in this work of grace. The Father is its Author and source, by whom the Son was commissioned for its execution and the Spirit given him to that end. Hence, this gift of the Spirit to the people of God, whilst made through the Son, is constantly referred to the Father, as being primarily and essentially his gift. The Son, having purchased salvation through the blood of his cross, is commissioned as sovereign administrator, to dispense it to the redeemed,—“to give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him.”—John xvii, 2. In fulfilling this office, he, as the Father’s representative and likeness, “can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” And as the Father, having life in himself, has given to the Son to have life in himself, and to quicken whom he will (John v, 19-30), he bestows his salvation and quickens his people, by shedding on them that Spirit of life which the Father shed on him. The Spirit, thus given, dwells in the believer in his own proper character, as being the efficient cause of life and holiness.

2. All is postulated upon the fact that the Spirit, as given to and dwelling in all fullness in the Lord Jesus, is the principle and spirit of his life; by which he was born of the virgin; by which he lived in holiness, and offered himself a spotless victim to justice; by which he was quickened and rose from the dead, and which, as his Spirit, the breath of his nostrils, he now breathes into whom he will.

3. In baptizing his people, he imparts to them the same Spirit which is thus in him, to be in them the Spirit of life, making their bodies his temples and instruments (1 Cor. vi, 19; Rom. vi, 13); and their souls the subjects of his pervasive and transforming power. (Rom. viii, 4, 5.)

4. In this baptism, the Holy Spirit is not sent as an outside messenger or agent,—a third party coming from Jesus to the objects of his grace. To impress us with the height of his throne and the exaltation of his majesty, he says, “I will send him unto you.” But, in the same discourse, he also says, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me and I in you;” and moreover promises, that “If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.”—John xiv, 20, 23. The Father and the Son are just as nigh the believer as is the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to attest their presence and interpret their communications to the soul. Since the Spirit is “the Spirit of Christ,”—is given to him and remains in him in all fullness, it follows, that only in him, can any one receive or enjoy the indwelling and graces of the Spirit. Hence, the style in which, in the narrative of Pentecost, the baptism is spoken of, not as the sending of a person, but the shedding down of an element. “He hath shed forth this.”^[87] Hence the manner in which, in Peter’s quotation from Joel, it is repeatedly said, “I will pour out of my Spirit.”—Acts ii, 17, 18. And hence the interpretation which Jesus, by anticipation, gave to the Pentecostal baptism; when he breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost;” and the sign of the outbreathed mighty breath. Hence Paul’s testimony,—“Your life is hid with Christ in God;” and his declaration as to himself,—“I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Christ and his people breathe one Spirit and live one life. Baptized by that one Spirit into one body, and all made to drink of that one Spirit, they are thus one with him, “members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones.”—Eph. v, 30. This union is only less close and intimate than that of the Father and the Son. (John xvii, 21.) On it depends the whole process of justification and grace.

Section LXXI.—Paul’s Doctrine of this Baptism.

Paul, in one brief sentence gives a comprehensive view of the manner and results of this Baptism. “After that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Savior; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life.”—Titus iii, 4-7.

Here, an amendment is proposed, in the fifth verse, so as to read,—“the laver (loutrou) of regeneration. Bishop Ellicott declares this rendering to be “indisputable.”^[88] Other expositors favor it, and the Committees of revision of the New Testament have honored it by inserting the word, in the margin of the Revised Version, here, and in Eph. v, 26. A rendering thus importunate and intrusive, necessitates a critical examination. The first point to be noticed is that the word, laver, is ambiguous; and in the sense which is assumed in its insertion in the text, is without warrant in the Greek language or customs. “We know very little of the baths of the Athenians during the republican period; for the account of Lucian, in his Hippias, relates to baths constructed after the Roman model. On ancient vases, on which persons are represented bathing, we never find any thing corresponding to a modern bath, in which persons can stand or sit; but there is always a round or oval basin (louter or louterion), resting on a stand, by the side of which those who are bathing are represented standing undressed and washing themselves, as seen in the following wood-cut, taken from Sir. W. Hamilton’s vases.”^[89] The vessels used by the Greeks in bathing were, (1) the asaminthos, in which, sometimes, the bather sat, while the water was poured over him, as we have seen in the bath of Ulysses; (2) the louter, the laver, a vessel neither in size nor proportions adapted to the purposes of immersion, nor ever so employed, but designed and used as a containing vessel for the water; (3) the pitcher or dipper (arutaina), with which water was taken from the laver, and poured over the bather. There was no bath tub, nor provision of any kind for immersion. The mode of bathing appears in the story, in Theophrastus, of one who entered the bathroom (balaneion), and not being promptly waited on, dipping the ladle, (arutaina), poured it over his own person, and declared himself bathed, “no thanks to you.”^[90]

The word loutron was used, (1) for the water of the bath. In AthenÆus, the question is asked, why hot springs (therma loutra), appearing out of the ground, are by all declared sacred to Hercules, if warm bathing was an unmanly luxury, as some asserted.^[91] To the same point, in Aristophanes, the question occurs,—“Where did you ever see cold Heracleian baths (loutra)?”^[92] In Sophocles, Œdipus directs his daughters “to bring a bath (loutra) of running waters.”^[93] Homer represents the curly headed Hecameda heating a warm bath (loetra).^[94] And Euripides describes Antigone pleading to be allowed “to pour waters (loutra) over the corpse” of Polynices;^[95] that is, to bathe it for burial. In this use of the word, together with the mode of bathing by the pouring of successive dippers, or waters, over the person, is explained the fact that the word is very rarely found in the singular number, and in Homer, the oldest of the classics, never; although in its plural form (loetra, contract, loutra), it frequently occurs in his poems. This fact is very strongly against the supposition that the word contained any allusion to the bathing vessel, which would demand the singular number.

The word designated (2.) the washing which was accomplished by the water. In the comedies of Aristophanes, the women in revolt, warn the men who threaten to assail them,—“If you happen to have soap, we will give you a bath (loutron);” which they do, by dashing buckets of water over them. Thereupon, the men run to the police, complaining,—“Do you not know what a washing (loutron) these have washed us, just now, and that in our clothes, and without soap?”^[96] The idiomatic expression here (“to wash a washing”), indicates how very close is the relation between the verb louo, to wash, and its derivative, loutron, a washing. The one expresses the action, or doing; the other, the thing done. The same idiom presents itself in Antigone’s account of the obsequies of her slain brother Polynices. “Washing it a pure washing (lousantes agnon loutron),” they gathered leaves, and burned “the poor remains.”^[97]

As bathing was performed by the outpouring of water on the person, the word was thence used (3.) to designate libations, performed by a like outpouring of water, in honor of gods or heroes. Thus, Agamemnon having been murdered at the instigation of his wife Clytemnestra, Orestes pours (loutra) libations at his father’s tomb;^[98] and Electra dissuades her sister Chrysothemis from fulfilling her mother’s commission, to offer (loutra)(loutra) libations at the same place, as a means of averting coming vengeance.^[99]

The word designates (4.) a bathing place. Plutarch describes Alexander as speaking of “having washed off the sweat of battle (loutro) with the bath of Darius.”^[100] In such passages, the controlling idea is not a supposed bathing vessel, but the cleansing water of the bath; as is here indicated by the form of the participle “(apolousamenoi), having washed off;” and by the instrumental dative “(loutro), with the bath;” which show that, whatever the construction of the bathing place of Darius, the Greek mode was present in the mind of Alexander. The idea of loutron is further illustrated by its compounds. At Athens, before a marriage, the bride was bathed with water brought from the fountain of Callirhoe, by a young girl, who was hence called (he loutrophoros), “the bath-water carrier.” So, the fee for the privilege of the bath, was, epiloutron,—for the bath.

The voice of the classics is clearly against the rendering in question. The fact that the Greeks are entirely silent as to a washing by immersion, or any vessel for the purpose,—the distinct name of louter given to the only vessel that contained water,—the bathing performed by pouring,—the use of loutron to express such bathing, and to designate the water itself, where there was no vessel, and libations, in which there was water poured out, but no laver, nor bathing,—the primitive and peculiar employment of the word in the plural number,—and the derivatives formed from it, all inure to the one conclusion. At least, in classic Greek, loutron does not mean, a laver, but water for washing, and the washing accomplished by it; and that, with intimate reference to its affusion on the person.

Nor does the Hellenistic Greek utter a different testimony. In the Song of Songs, it is said,—“Thy teeth are like a flock, shorn, which came up from the washing (apo tou loutrou).” So reads the Septuagint. From Ecclesiasticus (above, p. 169) we have the proverb, “He that is baptized from the dead, and again toucheth the dead, what availeth his washing (loutro)?” Here, cleansing by the sprinkled water of separation is called loutron, a washing. So Philo (above, p. 175) describes the purifying rites, the washings (loutra) and the sprinklings, of the Jews. Josephus says of the two springs of MachÆrus, near the Dead Sea, the one hot, and the other cold, that “when mingled together they make a most pleasant bath (loutron).”^[101] And Paul, himself, writes that Christ gave himself for the church, “that he might cleanse it, purifying it with the washing (to loutro) of water.” Here the new version must either make nonsense of the passage, or do violence to the Greek. Either it must read, “purifying it with the laver,” that is, with the bath tub, not the washing; or, “in the laver,” a rendering forbidden by the instrumental dative (to loutro.)

On the other hand, in more than a dozen places,—wherever the lavers of the tabernacle and the temple are mentioned, the Septuagint is louter,—the same word, in the same sense in which it was used by the Greeks to designate the containing vessel. In a word, neither in the classics, nor in Hellenistic Greek, is loutron ever found in the sense of a laver, or bathing vessel. Or, if it is so used, the Lexicons ignore it; Stephanus, in his great Thesaurus, knows nothing of it; and the advocates of that rendering do not adduce it. And were such example found, it would be wholly insignificant as to the interpretation of Paul, in presence of all these facts.

If now, we ask for the evidence in favor of the new version, the answer presents two points,—first, that certain versions of the New Testament,—the Vulgate, Claromontanus, Syriac, and Gothic,—have so translated loutron; and second, that in accordance with Greek usage, the termination, on (loutron), justifies the assumption that the word designates an instrumental object. As to the first consideration,—it may be asserted with confidence that we are as fully possessed of the means of determining the question as were the unknown authors of those versions; and the growing prevalence at that time, of a ritualistic spirit in the church, and the consequent introduction of the form of immersion, sufficiently account for the rendering, apart from any critical considerations. Respecting the termination, on, the number of examples in which it is found in words that designate instrumental objects is too few to establish a rule. But were it accepted as decisive, the whole weight of its authority is against, instead of being in favor of the proposed amendment. A laver, and especially a Greek laver, is no instrument of bathing. Perhaps the arutaina, the dipper, might be so called. But the water and the washing, each are instrumental causes of the cleansing, the salvation; of which, in the text, the apostle says,—“he saved us (dia loutro) by means of the washing.” Nor do the classics ignore this relation. Plato (above, p. 181) asks concerning “the washings (loutra) and sprinklings,”—“Are they not effectual to one end, to render a man pure, both as to body and soul?”

In the text, loutron means, the washing, but with intimate reference to the water as the means,—a sense which we have just seen illustrated from the classics. Strictly, the regeneration is the washing, of which the water is the instrument. The figure thus used, the apostle immediately explains. “The washing of regeneration, even the renewing of the Holy Ghost.” As water is the instrument of washing, so the Spirit shed down by Jesus Christ is the instrument of that spiritual work which is indicated alike by the two identical words, regeneration, and renewing. Paul then proceeds with the pronoun “which,”—equally appropriate, in the construction of the original, to the water (loutrou), or to the Holy Spirit, as its antecedent; and, in fact, referring to both, as identified in one,—“which water, even the Spirit, he shed on us abundantly (dia) by the hand of Jesus Christ.” Orestes speaks of himself and companions “(cheontes loutra) pouring water” of libation at the tomb. So Paul speaks of “(loutrou hon execheen) the water of cleansing which He shed forth on us.” In the latter case, the prefix, ex, emphasizes the source of the outpouring, but otherwise the conception and action of the two passages is the same. By the hand of his Son, God the Father from on high sheds his Spirit, and baptizes us with his renewing power. Thereby united to the Lord Jesus, we are thus invested with his righteousness, and so, says the text, “are justified by his grace.” And since by the same union we share his relation as Son;—“if sons, then heirs,” “according to the hope of eternal life.”

This baptism of the Spirit is the theme of frequent discussion in Paul’s writings. He particularly dwells on it as being the instrumental cause of that intimate unity which exists in the body of Christ, and of equality in privilege among all the members, Jews and Gentiles. “As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many are one body, so also is Christ. For, by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink one Spirit.... Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”—1 Cor. xii, 12-14, 27. Here, the figure of baptism is followed up by the expression, “have been all made to drink one Spirit;”—literally, “have been all watered with one Spirit.” The preposition, (eis) “into one Spirit,” is rejected by the critical editors as spurious; and the verb (potizo) means, to apply water, either externally or internally,—to water, to cause to drink. Compare in the same epistle, 1 Cor. iii, 2, “I have fed you (epotisa) with milk;” and 6-8,—“Apollos watered (epotisen).”

The same point is set forth in another epistle—“Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit; even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ.... That we henceforth be no more children, ... but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love.”—Eph. iv, 3-16.

That the “one baptism” here spoken of is that wherein, “by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body,” is manifest from the connection and the analogy of the other passages here presented above and below. To suppose it to be water baptism, would be to make the apostle exclude that spiritual and real baptism of which water baptism is the shadow, and to which, in all his writings, he constantly gives so much importance as the means of the union which he here discusses.

In another place, the apostle represents this baptism as merging all other relations in the one tie of identity with Christ. “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”—Gal. iii, 27-29. Here, again, it is clear that the baptism spoken of is that of the Spirit. The oneness with Christ, thus complete by this baptism, Paul uses as a powerful argument of the duty of his people to be dead to the world that crucified him, dead to sin and all the works of the old man, and alive only to God. (Rom. vi, 3-6; Col. ii, 9-11.) These passages will receive special consideration hereafter.

The unity of conception which pervades these Scriptures is manifest, and makes it evident that they all contemplate one and the same baptism, that in which by one Spirit all Christ’s people are baptized into one body, the spiritual body of Christ.

Touching the nature of this baptism, the following are the chief particulars:

1. The entrance of the Spirit shed down by Jesus is regeneration, or the new birth. It is the imparting of new life to the soul,—the introduction of a principle of grace, “the new man,” which, like its source, the eternal Spirit, is immortal and supreme wherever it exists; and which, sustained and nourished by the indwelling Spirit, will grow and expand until it gains full and exclusive possession of all the faculties and powers, making the soul its seat, the body its temple, and the members its instruments.

2. Coincident with this is the death of the old man, the destruction of the controlling principle and power of evil in the soul. Hitherto, it reigned supreme. But now, slain; and, cast out, it remains, a “body of death” in the members; offensive in its corruption, and by its loathsomeness acting as a stimulus to the opposing principle of grace. (Rom. vii, 24.)

3. The result is, that whereas, formerly, the sinful affections “did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death,” “now, being made free from sin and become servants to God,” his people have “their fruit unto holiness.”—Rom. vii, 5; vi, 22.

4. The Spirit thus given is not a transient influence; but is within the believer, a well of living water, springing up unto everlasting life;—a well, from which it is his privilege at all times to drink of that one Spirit. Thereby, “to every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ;” so that we “grow up into him in all things which is the Head, even Christ.”—Eph. iv, 7, 15. Thus grace is nourished, in preparation for glory.

5. While such are the effects of this baptism on the spiritual condition of the redeemed, equally important are its influences on their external relations. The first is their justification. United to the Lord Jesus, as members of his body, the consequence is that their sins are laid to the charge of their Head, and satisfaction for them credited to the blood of his cross. On the other hand, his righteousness is recognized as theirs, and in it they stand, not only pardoned, but justified; approved, and entitled to the inheritance of glory. They are “accepted in the Beloved; in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.”—Eph. i, 6, 7.

6. Another result is their reception to the relation and privileges of children of God. Born of the Spirit,—born of God, they are thus by inheritance children. Members of Christ,—the first-born, the eternal Son,—they share in his relation, and are in him sons; and if sons then heirs;—heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.

7. The final result is the resurrection unto glory. “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”—Rom. viii, 11.

Such is the one baptism, of which all ritual baptisms are mere shadowy symbols,—the baptism which Paul proclaims,—“One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. iv, 5), a baptism, one and alone from its very nature, as dispensed by the one only Mediator, in the bestowal of that one Spirit, which belongs to and is therefore imparted by him alone. Thus have we the perfect antitype of the baptisms of the Old Testament,—the administrator, Jesus the great High Priest; the element, that living water, the Holy Spirit; the mode, his outpouring upon us from heaven; the effect, washing to the corrupt,—life to the dead. By this means, does our Baptizer bestow on his people all grace for the present time, and the resurrection and glory in the end.

Section LXXII.—Noah Saved by Water.

Beside the places before cited, one remains to be noticed. It is 1 Peter iii, 17-22. There are some various readings in the MSS., although none that materially affect the interpretation. Adopting what seem the best, the passage is as follows:—“It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ, also, once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death as to the flesh, but quickened as to the Spirit. By which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, formerly disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, in which few, that is, eight, souls were saved by water. You also now antitype baptism saves (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but [conformity to] the demand of a good conscience toward God); by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected to him.”

Both Peter and those to whom his epistles were addressed, were familiar with Paul’s writings. (2 Peter iii, 15, 16.) In the passage here cited, the preacher of the day of Pentecost speaks of that Spirit baptism the beginning of which he had then witnessed, in a style which constantly reminds us of the language and manner of Paul, on the same subject. If Peter speaks of Christ as having been “quickened by the Spirit,” or rather “quickened as to the spirit,”spirit,” Paul tells us that thus he became, “a quickening spirit.”—1 Cor. xv, 45. If Peter states that “antitype baptism now saves us,” the baptism, that is, of the Spirit, of which water baptism is the type,—Paul says that “He saves us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ.”—Tit. iii, 5. Peter represents this baptism as saving us “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead;” and Paul, to the same effect, testifies that “even when we were dead in sins God hath quickened us together with him and hath raised us up together” (Eph. ii, 1, 4-6); and that we are “buried with him in the baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead.”—Col. ii, 12. To the account which, on the day of Pentecost, Peter gave of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus to God’s right hand, he here adds,—“angels and authorities and powers being subject to him,”—language in which we recognize the style of Paul’s repeated descants on the same theme. (Eph. i, 20, 21; Col. i, 16; ii, 10.) As Peter’s language is so thoroughly imbued with the style of thought and expression of Paul, we need not hesitate to interpret the passage by the doctrine of the great apostle of the Gentiles.

The design of Peter is, to encourage the people of God in the endurance of injustice and persecution for righteousness sake. His first argument is the example of Christ, who suffered patiently the just for the unjust, “being put to death as to the flesh,” that is, “as to his natural life,” “but quickened as to the Spirit,” inasmuch as his death was to him the exhausting of the curse under which he died, and was, therefore, the release of the Spirit of life which was in him, from all restraint upon his quickening energies, by which, therefore, he rose from the dead. Thus, the very sufferings of his death were his door of entrance into life. Unexpressed, but latent in the apostles’ argument is the fact which, on the same subject, he states, in his second epistle, that “the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation” (2 Peter iii, 15), that having so pitied the ungodly as to die for them, praying for his enemies on the very cross, he now spares the persecutors of his people, if possibly they may repent (2 Peter iii, 9), and that, in the end, “the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations” (or persecutions), “and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.”—Ib. ii, 9. This, he illustrates by the case of Noah and the old world. The question as to “the spirits in prison” (Vs. 19), does not belong to the present inquiry. The point of interest is the eight souls “saved by water.”—Vs. 20. To understand this, it is necessary to keep it distinctly in mind that the point to which the apostle’s argument is directed is,—the righteous suffering persecution, and the persecutors spared. He assumes what can not but have been the fact, that during the one hundred and twenty years of the building of the ark, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter ii, 5), was exposed to bitter persecution. If we consider that “the earth was filled with violence” (Gen. vi, 11-13), that Noah’s preaching could not but be exceedingly offensive to those whose wickedness he reproved, and that his holy life, as “he walked with God,” and his building of the ark, by which he “condemned the world” (Heb. xi, 7), combined to intensify the hostility, it must be evident that nothing but the almighty protection under which he was sheltered could have saved him and all his from speedy destruction. It also seems to be implied by the language here, and by the connection in which Peter elsewhere introduces the same matter (2 Peter ii, 5-9), that when the flood came, the enmity and hatred had reached a crisis; so that the call to enter the ark was like the bringing of Lot out of Sodom, a rescue from present destruction by the wicked. Thus, the very waters which purged the world by sweeping away the ungodly, were the salvation of the eight persons, who shut up in the ark, were upborne upon their bosom. They were “saved by water,” while, as it rose, the world ready to perish would, in mad and impotent despair, have wreaked a blind vengeance upon the prophet and his family, for the terrible judgment of God; like Ahab with Elijah, in the days of the famine. But “the Lord shut him in” (Gen. vii, 16), and the waters bore them up, safe amid their perishing enemies.

Peter next points out that analogous to this is the salvation of Christ’s people,—that as the waters of the deluge were the destruction of the old world, but life to the new, to Noah, and his house,—so the baptism of the Spirit is death to the old man, but life to the new, through union with the Lord Jesus and participation in his life. “You also, now, antitype baptism saves, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh” (that is, as stated immediately after, he that hath become “partaker of Christ’s sufferings”), “hath ceased from sin.”—Ch. iv, 1, 13. Here we recognize perfect identity of thought and argument with what has already appeared in Paul’s writings. “So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death. Therefore, we are buried with him by the baptism into his death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”—Rom. vi, 3, 4.

The conclusion of Peter’s argument is found, a little farther on,—“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”—1 Peter iv, 12, 13. So Paul says, “If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”—Rom. viii, 17. It is evident that the two great apostles are perfectly united in their testimony concerning this baptism and its relations to the plan of salvation.

In the foregoing exegesis, I have regarded both forms of the pronoun in the beginning of the twenty-first verse, as alike spurious; at the same time that the language of that verse is understood as containing a reflex allusion to Noah and his family “saved by water.” The phrase “antitype baptism” does not, it is true, necessitate the previous mention of a type baptism. But it certainly does invite us to look for, and expect such mention, an expectation confirmed by the presence of the particles, “also, now.” “You, also, now, antitype baptism saves.” Here seems to to be an allusion to something in the past, corresponding to the antitype baptism of the present. And when we find the immediately preceding mention of the salvation by water of Noah and his family, we can not be mistaken in recognizing this as the type to which, in the phrase “antitype baptism,” Peter refers. The salvation, therefore, of Noah by the waters of the deluge was a baptism. Dr. Dale asserts the ark and not the water, to have been the instrument of the salvation, and quotes examples to justify the translation of dia hudatos, by “through the water,” as a medium and not an instrument. But (1.) it is, of course, true that this is one meaning of dia. (2.) One of his examples, “faith tried by fire” (1 Peter i, 7), shows that it may also express instrumental relations. (3.) More pertinent would have been a citation of the parallel clause which immediately follows the phrase in question. As Noah is stated to have been saved “by water” (dia hudatos), in the typical baptism, so “antitype baptism saves us by the resurrection (dia anastaseos), of Jesus Christ.” The parallel, here, between type and antitype, requires that in both clauses, the preposition should be understood in the same sense; and, as in the antitype, dia certainly points out the resurrection of Christ, as being the instrument or means of our salvation, so in the type, must we understand it to designate the waters of the flood as the means of Noah’s deliverance.

Section LXXIII.—Christ’s Baptizing Administration.

Thus Jesus fills the throne in the heavens, and possesses all power and prerogative for accomplishing the purposes of the Godhead, concerning the human race—the redeemed and the lost; concerning Satan and his angels, and the whole universe of God, moral and physical, as inseparably connected with the moral history and destinies of these. And thus, in every aspect of his work, as it progresses, from the day of Pentecost to the final consummation and glory, he is in the exercise of that office wherein he was announced by his herald John, as he that should baptize with the Holy Ghost, and with fire,—that office of the gracious aspects of which as toward his people, the baptism of water has been, for all ages, the symbol and seal. For, on Pentecost, Jesus only began to fulfill the prophecy and promise,—“I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh.” Not even yet is the breadth of its meaning accomplished. He will continue to breathe his Spirit into his people, till all are gathered in. So, of them, individually, the purifying, although assured by the first baptism which they respectively receive, is brought to fruition only through the daily breathings of Christ’s life in them, the influences of his Spirit quickening them continually; as the leper was not cleansed by one affusion, but was sprinkled seven times. And while the idea of baptism has special reference to the first act of grace in bestowing the Spirit, it views that act as comprehensive of the whole process of grace, which is potentially involved in, and secured by it.

It is not for us to know the times and seasons “which the Father hath put in his own power.”—Acts i, 7. But, respecting some things of vital interest as to the order and issue of coming events, in the history of Christ’s baptizing office, we do know by the testimony of God.

1. Whatever, to our limited and carnal apprehensions, may be the mysteries of the past history of the gospel in the world, there has been no lack of power in the baptizing scepter of Christ, nor mistake in its exercise. The Baptizer is that Son of man in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and who is the personal Wisdom of God, and the Power of God. His blood paid the price of salvation. His arm overcame and his heel crushed the serpent, during the days of his humiliation in the flesh. And now, enthroned in power, he doeth in his wisdom according to his pleasure. If the heathen of old could say, “The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine,” well may we confide in our King, that he need not make haste, in the fulfillment of his purposes. “Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”—2 Pet. iii, 8. Four thousand years rolled by, before the promise made to the fallen woman in the garden was fulfilled, in the virgin birth of the babe of Bethlehem. And now, “the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak and not lie; though the promise tarry wait for it; because it will surely come; it will not tarry.”—Hab. ii, 3.

It does not fall in with the purposes of the present discussion to enter into the prophetic question, as to the time and manner of the future developments and glory of the Redeemer’s kingdom. Respecting it, one thing is certain. The past has been a time of the hiding of his power; but the light of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will yet cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. The Branch of Jesse “shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest shall be glorious.”—Isa. xi, 10.Isa. xi, 10.

2. Every soul to whom the grace of God has come, from the day of Pentecost to this hour, has received it from the immediate hand of Jesus, baptizing him with the Holy Ghost. And so it will be to the end. Thus, each one so redeemed is a new proof and pledge that Jesus fills the throne,—that Satan and all the powers of darkness are under his feet; and that the hearts of men are in his hands, to give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him.

3. When the end shall come, and the mystery of God shall be finished, it will appear that in every aspect of the issues joined with Satan, triumph and glory crown the head of the Son of man. Nor will it be the mere force of physical omnipotence crushing the feebler powers of Satan. But the glory of perfect righteousness, of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and fear of the Lord, in the Head and leader of the salvation,—a perfection, not merely of moral excellence but of all gifts and endowments, tried and proved, first, in the form of a servant under the law, in obedience and sufferings, amid the temptations of the world and the flesh, the wiles of the devil, and the inflictions of God,—a perfection then shown upon the throne of glory, in administering with perfect wisdom and perfect skill the vast and various affairs of God’s boundless empire, thwarting and turning to confusion the plots and policies of Satan and his angels, rectifying the disorders wrought by the enemy, and vindicating God’s glory impeached through man.

It will be a moral triumph revealed in each one of the redeemed, once a prostrate slave of Satan and sin, baptized and quickened, and aroused to struggle for liberty, and made more than conqueror, in the conflict, through the grace and Spirit of Christ, over Satan and all his powers without, and indwelling sin and corruption,—each one scarred with the wounds of battle, but all—the crushed serpent writhing beneath their feet,—wearing the white robes of triumph and waving the palms of victory;—all clothed in the righteousness of One, and each grown to the stature of Christ, in the perfection of holiness and beauty, after the image of God.

It will be the moral triumph of the whole ransomed host, by one Spirit baptized into one body, her garments of wrought gold and needle-work, received and revealed, spotless and complete in all divine perfections,—the bride of the Lamb, the glory of her husband, as he is the image and glory of God. (1 Cor. xi, 7.) In them shall the principalities and powers in the heavenly places behold and study and admire the reflected likeness of the unapproachable glory of the infinite Invisible.

It will be the triumph involved in all this revelation of glory and blessedness in contrast with the spectacle of Satan and his followers and work, exposed before all intelligences, in shame and everlasting contempt;—his achievements seen in discord and darkness, in sin and suffering and sorrow, in lamentation and woe, in the loss to him and to his of all the divine perfections in which they were created, and in distortion, deformity and discord, possessing and pervading them all; his confident wisdom and power turned to imbecile folly, and his conspiracies and wiles made the occasions and means of fulfilling God’s plan which he opposed, and crowning the Son of man with glory.

The true dignity and significance of the rite of baptism can only then be adequately realized when we appreciate this comprehensive extent and grandeur of the baptizing office of Christ, signified by it. In the fulfillment of that office he now orders all things; and its exercise must be continuous to the end. The Great Baptizer must breathe the Spirit of life into all that mighty multitude, out of every generation and race, whom the Father has given Him. He must send fire upon the earth, and divide between his people and his enemies, and vindicate the Father’s sovereignty and grace in all his dealings with the wicked. He must, at last, by the quickening virtue of the baptism of His Spirit, raise up his saints,—their bodies glorious as his own glorious body, and their souls perfect in holiness,—and place them on the throne of judgment with himself; judge and cast the wicked out of his kingdom; confirm the holy angels in rectitude and blessedness, and cast Satan,—thwarted, defeated and bound in chains of darkness,—into the gulf of fire,—him and his angels and followers. He must purge the earth and heavens with fire, from the defilement which Satan and sin have wrought, and out of them create and adorn the new heavens and the new earth, the abode of righteousness, the home of the holy and the blessed,—where the many sons shall dwell with God and the Lamb. He must make all things new.

Then may the triumphant Son of man proclaim his work accomplished, and his office ended. Then may he,—not now from the cross, but from the throne,—cry, “It is finished!” “The former things are passed away, and behold I have made all things new.” Sin and the curse are abolished;—tears, and death, and sorrow, and crying, and pain are no more; and in life and immortality the earth-born sons of God possess the glory.

“It is done!” The floor is purged; the garner filled; and the chaff burned. The baptism is accomplished. Then shall the Son, his commission fulfilled, deliver up the kingdom to God even the Father, and shall himself also be subject to Him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. xv, 24, 28.)

Section LXXIV.—Argument from the Real to Ritual Baptism.

Thus is Jesus revealed in characters of unspeakable grandeur, as the true and only Baptizer,—his the real baptism, of which all others are mere shadows. His baptizing office is the very end of his exaltation, the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of his throne and scepter. As the cross of Christ is the symbol of the whole doctrine of his humiliation, sorrow and death, so his baptizing scepter represents the whole doctrine of his exaltation his kingdom and glory. And, as the sacrament of the supper shows forth his abasement and atonement for sin; so, that of baptism proclaims the glory and power of his exaltation, and the riches of salvation and grace which he sheds on his people from on high. The ritual ordinance therefore if true to its office, must be true to the similitude of the real baptism,—must represent and proclaim those very things which are realized in the office and work of the great Baptizer. But what has the real baptism to do with the humiliation of Christ, in any of its aspects? And, especially, what has it to do with the burial of his dead body? With the throne of his power, the prerogatives of his scepter, the grace, the grandeur and the glory of his achievements to the end, its relations are intimate and from them inseparable. But with humiliation and shame, with death and the grave, it holds no relations but those of boundless distance and infinite contrast.

Here then, at the culminating point in the history of baptism and the plan of God’s grace, as identified with it, the divergence of the immersion theory from the statements, conceptions and principles of the Scriptures on the subject interposes between them a widening and deepening gulf, broad, profound and impassable. Whilst the Scriptural rite points exultingly upward to Christ’s high throne, and calls us to lift up our heads and admire and adore the height of his majesty and the grace and grandeur of his baptizing work,—the immersion theory constrains its votaries, with bowed heads and stooping forms, to grope among the graves, in the vain endeavor to trace some fanciful resemblance between the rite which they espouse and the form and manner of the burial of the dead,—a burial, too, which, as thus imagined, the crucified One never received!

The doctrine of the real baptism is thus utterly incongruous to that of immersion. Equally irreconcilable with that form are all the phenomena and expressions used in connection with the administering of Christ’s baptism. The sound from heaven as of an outbreathed mighty breath poured down, and filling all the place, was the only phenomenon of Pentecost indicative of form or mode. And its mode was affusion, or outpouring, and descent from above. The language in which the transaction is everywhere described and referred to is equally specific and invariable. It was a shedding down—a pouring down—a falling upon—a filling of the disciples;—a style of expression used, not on the occasion, only, but in every subsequent allusion to the subject. So, the prophecyprophecy cited by Peter is an express definition of this as the mode. “I will pour out of my Spirit.” But, more than this, it identifies the outpouring of Pentecost with all those Old Testament prophecies, in which the gift of the Spirit is spoken of in terms of pouring and sprinkling. All these, again, as we have formerly seen, are intimately associated with the baptisms of the Levitical system. Those baptisms represented in ritual form the things which the prophets set forth in analogous figures. If Christian baptism departs from the Old Testament mode, it to the same degree departs from the form in which the grace of Pentecost is uniformly predicted, represented, described, and referred to.

The attempt is made to evade the force of these facts by the assertion that the “sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind,” “filled all the place where they were sitting;” and that the disciples were immersed in it. But (1.) the immersion thus imagined is, an inversion of the Baptist theory. The result of an admitted affusion, it is an application of the element to the person, and by a sustained analogy, on Baptist principles, would require that the grave should have been brought and put about the body of Jesus, and that, in water baptism, the element should be poured over the subject, until he is covered, although drowning would be the inevitable result. (2.) There is, in fact, no analogy, except in the jingle of words, between an immersion in water, which is immediately and inevitably fatal to life, and an immersion in the vital air, which is the very breath of life, the withdrawal of which is fatal. (3.) If Christian baptism sustains any real relation at all to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which Christ administers—as it assuredly does—it is that of type to antitype—of a similitude to the reality. Both the form and the meaning of the rite must be derived from the nature of the reality, of which it is the symbol. If then the immersion of the disciples in the wind or breath of Pentecost is the antitype symbolized in the outward form of baptism, the ordinance means, not the burial of Christ’s dead body, but the imparting of his Spirit of life to his people. Thus the Baptist theory of the form and meaning of the ordinance is exploded, since the two ideas can not stand together. They are mutually destructive and the incongruity is fatal to the whole scheme, which can not stand without an immersion on Pentecost; and can not endure the crucial test of the only immersion which they can pretend to discover there.

The alternative is inexorable. If that which Christ dispenses is the normal, the antitype, baptism, then by it the ritual baptisms of both economies are to be interpreted; and their signification is to be found, not in the sepulchre, but on the throne—in the Spirit thence poured out, and the life and salvation thence dispensed;—and the form of the ordinance must needs correspond to its meaning. If, on the other hand, immersion in water is the normal baptism, and the burial of the body of Jesus, its meaning, then the baptism of Pentecost with all its phenomena and doctrine is to be struck from the record, as no baptism at all. If that which Christ dispenses is baptism, immersion is not.

Section LXXV.—Baptizo and the Resurrection.

The argument in proof that the disciples of John and of Christ were immersed comprehends four essential propositions. (1) That baptizo means, to dip, to plunge, to immerse, to submerge,—one or other of these, and nothing else; (2) That the prepositions, eis, en, ek, and apo, as used in the New Testament, in connection with baptizo, require and enforce that meaning; (3) That the resort of John to the Jordan, and to Enon, “because there was much water there,” is conclusive to the same effect; (4) That Paul, in saying that we are “buried with Christ in baptism,” refers to the form of immersion; (5) It is, moreover, held that the account of the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch shows it to have been by immersion. The last point will be considered further on.

As to baptizo, enough has already appeared to render it certain that the definition heretofore insisted on by Baptists is untenable, and that the word, in itself, determines nothing as to form. It was formerly maintained as unquestionable, that bapto and baptizo are strictly equivalent; and that the meaning is, “to dip, and nothing but dip.” This assumption may now be considered obsolete. It is definitely abandoned by the ablest representatives of immersion. Dr. Conant having been appointed thereto by the American (Baptist) Bible Union entered into an elaborate investigation of “The Meaning and Use of Baptizo.” In a treatise published under that title, he thus states the result. “The word, immerse, as well as its synonyms, immerge, etc., expresses the full import of the Greek word, baptizein. The idea of emersion is not included in it. It means simply to put into or under water; without determining whether the object immersed sinks to the bottom, or floats in the liquid, or is immediately taken out. This is determined, not by the word, itself, but by the design of the act, in each particular case. A living being, put under water without intending to drown him, is of course to be immediately withdrawn from it; and this is to be understood, whenever the word is used with reference to such a case. But the Greek word is also used where a living being is put under the water for the purpose of drowning, and of course is left to perish in the immersing element.”^[102] It is of the primary meaning of the word that Dr. Conant here speaks. As we have already seen, he also recognizes a secondary meaning, the importance of which he entirely ignores. As to the former, the admission here transcribed is conclusive, although obscured by ambiguous and impertinent explanations. No verb can “determine” any thing subsequent to the completion of its own proper action. The healed paralytic, “departed to his own house.” “Paul arose and was baptized.” “John came baptizing.” He that should explain that “departed” does not of necessity imply that he never returned, that Paul may have sat down again; and that for all the meaning of “came” John may afterward have gone away, would be held guilty of puerile trifling. Of course, baptizo determines nothing but its own action. The explanation of Dr. C. that the word does not determine whether the object sinks to the bottom or is immediately taken out, is not trifling, because open to a more serious charge. It is a diligent, although undoubtedly unconscious obscuring ofof the subject, induced by the instinctive recoil of the author’s own mind from the picture drawn by his definition. He is therefore impelled to retire it into the background and veil its nakedness in the drapery of explanations, by which he is as much confounded as are his readers,—explanations wholly impertinent to the question in hand, which is the meaning of baptizo. That word, in its primary classic sense, as here defined, expresses a definite and completed act. When by one continuous process a person or thing is put into the water and withdrawn, it is not a baptizing, in the classic meaning, but a bapting, a dipping. It is true the word does not determine “whether the object immersed sinks to the bottom or floats in the liquid, or is immediately taken out,” provided that by “immediately,” is not to be understood, instantaneously,—provided that by the baptism, the object is deposited in the water and left there. The emersion, if it take place at all, must be a distinct and subsequent act, and can not be performed as a part of the baptizing. This, Dr. Kendrick, professor of Greek in the Rochester University, and a member of the American Committee of Revision on the New Testament, in his review of Dr. Dale, most emphatically concedes, with italics and emphasis none the less significant because of the intense irritation which breathes in his article. “Granting that bapto, always engages to take its subject from the water (which we do not believe), and that baptizo never does (which we readily admit), we have Mr. Dale’s reluctant concession that it interposes no obstacle to his coming out.” Baptizo “lays its subject under the water; it does not hold him there a single moment. Its whole function is fulfilled with the act of submersion. It offers no shadow of an obstacle to his instant emergence from his watery entombment. We have the utmost confidence in the kindly purpose of baptizo, and of Him who has made its liquid grave the external portal to his kingdom. Neither it nor He intends to drown us. We let baptizo take us into the water, and can trust to men’s instinctive love of life, their common sense, their power of volition and normal muscular action, to bring them safely out.” “The law of God in revelation sends the Baptist down into the waters of immersion; when it is accomplished, the equally imperative law of God in nature brings him safely out.” “As between the two [baptizo and bapto], baptizo is the appropriate word, partly from its greater length, weight and dignity of form, and still more from its distinctive import. It is not a dipping that our Lord instituted, but an immersion. He did not command to put people into the water and take them out again; but to put them under the water, to submerge them, to bury them, symbolically, in the grave of their buried Redeemer; like him indeed, not to remain there, but with him to arise to newness of life. This arising, though essential to the completeness of the transaction, could not be included in the designation of the rite, any more than the rising of the Redeemer could be included in the words denoting his crucifixion and burial.” “We repeat with emphasis, for the consideration of our Baptist brethren; Christian baptism is no mere literal and senseless ‘dipping,’ assuring the frightened candidate of a safe exit from the water; it is a symbolical immersion, in which the believer goes, in a sublime and solemn trust, into a figurative burial, dying to sin for a life with Christ; and just as far as Mr. Dale’s distinction holds good (which even thus far he has not established), baptizo, and not bapto is the only suitable designation of the baptismal ordinance. The early Israelites were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They emerged indeed, and were intended to emerge at last. But it was in their wondrous march, through that long and fearful night, with the double wall of water rolled up on each side, and the column of fiery cloud stretching its enshrouding folds above them,—it was in this, and not in the closing emersion that they were baptized into their allegiance to their great Lawgiver and Leader.”^[103]

Of the baptism of Israel, we shall take notice hereafter. In these passages, it is evident that the distinguished professor 1869, pp. 142, 143. is as much disturbed at the apparition of his own raising as is Dr. Conant. At first he seems determined to face it squarely, and calls upon his Baptist brethren to look and see that it is nothing dangerous. But suddenly, he crosses himself, and starts back in a hurried talk of the resurrection of Christ and the rising of his people to newness of life; all of which is very true and precious, but, has no more to do with the question in hand, himself being witness, than has the doctrine of original sin. The question is, the meaning of baptizo, and the professor admits that it has no part in the resurrection. The very perplexing position in which he found himself, is some apology for the confusion of ideas and the incongruities which appear in his statements. He is discussing the relative merits of the two words bapto and baptizo. The former, in its primary and ordinary meaning, he can but acknowledge, engages both to put its subject into the water and take him out again; while baptizo only puts him in. The latter, says the professor, was chosen because of this its distinctive import, because the command was, not “to put the people into the water and take them out again; but to put them under the water,—to submerge them.” But before he is done, we are told that the coming out, “though essential to the completeness of the transaction could not be included in the designation of the rite.” Does “the transaction,” here mean the life saving operation which he confides to the “instinctive love of life, common sense,” etc? Or, are we correct in supposing it to mean that baptismal rite which he is discussing? And if the latter be the design, how is the statement to be reconciled with the reason just before given for the employment of baptizo, because it does not take the subject out of the water, while bapto does? Waiving this difficulty, the question occurs,—Why the rising “could not be included in the designation of the rite,” seeing bapto was ready to add that very idea to the meaning of baptizo? The question is anticipated by the professor, and the answer given. It is because the latter word has “greater length, weight, and dignity of form!” The meaning of the words was a secondary consideration! Bapto has but two syllables, while baptizo has three. It has the advantage, therefore, in a greater length, and a buzzing zeta, to add to its “weight and dignity of form!” Or, perhaps, the superior “weight” of the one word over the other consists in the fact that while bapto accurately expresses the hasty resurrection which the instinct of life and other influences specified so happily, though not invariably, connect with the administration of the rite, baptizo maintains a dignified silence on that part of the subject. But the professor drifts back again to his first position. He insists that the baptism of Israel into Moses was received in their “wondrous march” enclosed between the walls of water, and enshrouded in the cloud, “and not in the closing emersion.” And yet, even here, his protest that bapto itself would not have given absolute assurance of exit, looks like a disposition to weaken the force of “the distinctive import” of baptizo.

However these “dark sayings of the wise” are to be interpreted, the facts remain, that, confessedly, the word chosen by the Savior to designate the rite of baptism does not include in it the idea of emersion, typical of resurrection,—that it was chosen in preference to a kindred word which does distinctly express that idea,—and that the best reasons suggested by Baptist scholarship for this remarkable fact are, that burial and not resurrection was the doctrine symbolized; and that baptizo sounds best! Such are the results of the elaborate researches of the scholarly Conant, confirmed by the eminent learning of Kendrick, divines than whom the Baptist churches have had none more zealous or more competent. Essentially the same is the definition reached through the exhaustive studies of our own departed Dale.

Thus, according to the Baptist rendering of the gospel commission, we are to go into all the world and submerge every creature,—a command which neither contains nor implies authority in any one to neutralize it by a systematic rescue of its subjects from the “liquid grave.” A result of the most serious import to our Baptist brethren follows from these facts. The definition, to dip, for the sake of which they have so long separated themselves, in translating the Scriptures into the languages of the heathen, is demonstrably and confessedly false, and the result is a corrupting of the word of God.

The force of these facts against the very foundations of the immersion fabric is utterly destructive. But the matter does not rest even here. Dr. Conant recognizes in baptizo a second meaning. The word does not even limit itself to “submerge and nothing but submerge.” It also “expressed the coming into a new state of life or experience, in which one was, as it were enclosed or swallowed up, so that temporarily or permanently he belonged wholly to it.”^[104] Thus, the man who is brought under the control of a passion of anger, fear, or love, or who is overcome with wine or sleep, was by the Greeks said to be baptized with these things. So, in the Scriptures, he who is under such control that he is “led of the Spirit,” is said to be “baptized with the Spirit.” This meaning of baptizo no candid scholar can deny; and in it we have already seen abundant relief from all the perplexities of the immersion theory. Respecting it, however, a caution is necessary. A mere momentary impulse or influence by which one is seized, but, instantly, released, is not a baptism, in the classic sense. The word expressed a control which not only seizes but holds its object. It brings him “into a new state of life or experience.” This use of the word flows from the primary meaning, to submerge, as expressive not of comprehensive control, only, but of continuance. Nothing analogous to a momentary dipping was known to the Greeks as a baptism.

In the common English version of the New Testament, the translations which occur in connection with baptism are such as to show an evident bias on the part of the translators in favor of immersion. In fact they were, all of them, immersionists, if not by personal conviction, then, by constraint of law. They were members, and with a few exceptions clergymen of the church of England, by law established. That church had originallyoriginally incorporated among its ordinances, baptism by trine immersion. By the parliamentary revision during the reign of Edward VI, the book of prayer was so altered as to require but one immersion. The rubric for baptism was and is to this day in these words:—“Then the priest shall take the child in his hands, and ask the name; and naming the child, shall dip it in the water, so it be discreetly and warily done, saying, ‘N., I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’ And, if the child be weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon it, saying the aforesaid words.”^[105]

As to the bearing of the prepositions on the present argument, a brief illustration may make it clear to the English reader. In the following citations, the words in italics answer to the Greek prepositions under which respectively they are cited.

1. En. “And were all baptized of him (en) in Jordan.”—Matt. iii, 6. “John did baptize in the wilderness.”—Mark i, 4. “John was baptizing in Enon.”—John iii, 23. “These things were done in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.”—John i, 28. “The tower in Siloam.”—Luke xiii, 4. “Elias is come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed.”—Matt. xvii, 12. “Turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.”—Luke i, 17. “Lest they trample them with their feet.”—Matt. vii, 6. “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.”—John xvii, 17. “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”—Matt. xxvi, 52. “There is none other name ... by which we must be saved.”—Acts iv, 12. “He will judge the world ... by that man whom he hath ordained.”—Ib. xvii, 31. “Now revealed by the Spirit”—Eph. iii, 5. “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”—Phil. ii, 10. From these illustrations two deductions are manifest (1.) En does not always mean in. It may mean with or by, instrumentally. “With the sword.” “The name by which,” etc. It may mean by a mediate agent. “Revealed by the Spirit.” “He will judge the world by that man.” It may mean at, by, or in, locally. “In Enon.” “At Siloam.” It may be used in a yet more general signification, as, “At the name.” Other meanings might be stated, but these are sufficient (2.) If, by reason of the phrase “in Jordan,” we must understand that John immersed his disciples into the Jordan, it of necessity follows that he also immersed them “into Enon,” and “into the wilderness.” In short, the expression indicates that the Jordan was the place at which the baptizing was done:—this, and this only. Why it was done there, we shall presently see.

2. Eis. “Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized of John (eis) in Jordan.”—Mark i, 9. “They went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him.”—Acts viii, 38. These passages mutually illustrate each other and show that the going into the water was not the baptizing. “He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.”—Mat. ii, 23. “He cometh to a city of Samaria,” but he remained outside, at the well, while the apostles went “into the city,” whence the Samaritans “went out of the city and came to him.”—John iv, 5, 8, 28, 30. “He loved them to the end.”—Ib. xiii, 1. “I speak to the world.” Ib. viii, 26. “If thy brother trespass against thee.”—Matt, xviii, 15. “Therefore” (Literally, to this) “came I forth.”—Mark i, 38. “What are they among so many.”—John vi, 9. “The Son which is in (on) the bosom of the Father.”—John i, 18. “He went up into (to, or, on,) a mountain.”—Matt., v, 1. “Depart unto the other side.”—Ib. viii, 18. “Fell down at his feet.”—Ib. xviii, 29. Eis is even used in express contrast with entrance into. “The other disciple did outrun Peter, and first (elthen eis) came to the sepulchre, ... yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and (eis-elthen eis) entered into the sepulchre.”—John xx, 4-6. This illustrates a usage concerning eis. When entrance into is to be expressed by the mere force of the word, it must be doubled. See Matt. vi, 6; x, 5, 12; Luke ix, 34, etc. The same remark applies to ek, in the sense of out of. But neither of these words is ever used in duplicated form, with reference to baptism. It is evident that the word of itself determines no more as to the mode of the baptism of Jesus than does en. The ordinary office of eis is to point to the terminus of a preceding verb of motion. When it is said that Jesus came and dwelt (eis) in a city called Nazareth, en would have been the proper preposition to express the in-dwelling; but eis is preferred because the city was the terminus of the coming “He came (eis) to a city.” So Mark above uses the same word, not because of its appropriateness to the baptizing, which is always elsewhere expressed by en, but because the Jordan was the terminus (eis) to which he came from Galilee.

3. Ek. “And when they were come up (ek) out of the water.”—Acts viii, 39. In his gospel, Luke the author of this account thus uses the preposition. “Saved from our enemies.”—Luke i, 71. “Every tree is known by its own fruit, for of thorns men do not gather figs; nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes.”—Ib. vi, 44. “He cometh from the wedding.”—Ib. xii, 36. “All these have I kept from my youth up.”—Ib. xviii, 21. So far as this word determines, Philip and the eunuch may have come up from the water, without having been in it, at all.

4. Apo. “Jesus when he was baptized, went up straightway (apo) out of the water.”—Matt. iii, 16. Apo never means, “out of,” as here translated; but, “from,” “away from.” “When Jesus was come down from the mountain.”—Matt. viii, 1. “From whom do kings take tribute?”—Ib. xvii, 25. “Cast them from thee.”—Ib. xviii, 8. “Beginning from the last unto the first.”—Ib. xx, 8.

From these illustrations, which might be multiplied indefinitely, it is evident that the prepositions will not bear the stress put upon them by the Baptist argument. Not only are they, in themselves, insufficient to constitute a reliable basis for the conclusions sought; but the statements to which they belong have respect, not to the mode of the baptism, but to the places of it. They are defined by the phrases, “in Jordan,”—“in Enon,”—“in Bethabara.” Recent Baptist writers have had the courage to follow their principles to the result of translating John’s words,—“I immerse you in water, but he shall immerse you in the Holy Ghost and in fire,”—a rendering from which the better taste, if not the better scholarship, of the translators of King James’s version revolted. The thorough consideration already given in these pages to the baptism of the Spirit justifies an imperative denial of the correctness of this translation. If any thing in the Bible is clear, it is that the baptism administered by the Lord Jesus is not an immersion, but an outpouring.

On the question of the prepositions in this connection, light is shed by an expression of the apostle Paul. “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, ... and have been all made to drink one Spirit.”—1 Cor. xii, 13. Of this passage we have already indicated that “into,” as found in the last clause, in the common version (“to drink into one Spirit”), is spurious, and that potizo (“made to drink”), properly signifies, to apply water or other fluid, whether externally or internally, to water, to cause to drink. In this passage, we have both the prepositions, en and eis, each dependent on the one verb, baptizo, but each having its own distinctive subject. “Baptized (en), in one Spirit (eis), into one body.” Into which of these media does the immersion take place? Shall we follow the Baptist interpretation of the words of John, “He shall immerse you in the Holy Ghost?” But in the first place, we have seen that this is false to the real manner of the baptism in question; which consists in a shedding down of the Spirit. In the second, how then, in harmony with Baptist principles, are we to understand the other clause of the passage,—“Immersed in one Spirit, into one body?“ Are there here two immersions by one act? the one subject put at one and the same time into two different media? Moreover, the language with which the apostle closes the passage, while it is in perfect accord with the true mode of the baptism of the Spirit, is altogether incongruous to the Baptist interpretation. If we are baptized with or by the Spirit, shed upon us, we may consistently be said to drink (or, to be watered with) the Spirit. For, the earth and its vegetation drink the rain that falls upon them. But if we must be immersed in the Spirit, Paul’s language implies that in order that men be caused to drink they are to be immersed in the water. “Immersed in one Spirit, and all made to drink one Spirit.”

But the phrase, en heni Pneumati, does not mean “in one Spirit.” As we have seen, the preposition may and often does mean “with,” or “by,” the Spirit, as the agent or instrument. Especially by Paul, the writer of the passage in question, is the phrase so used,—“Through Him we both have access (en heni Pneumati), by one Spirit unto the Father.”—Eph. ii, 18. Here is the very phrase in question. Through the Lord Jesus, the Mediator, by his Spirit as the instrument, who, being sent by him helpeth our infirmities, in prayer (Rom. viii, 26), we have access to the Father’s presence. Again,—“On whom,” as the chief corner stone, “we are builded together, for an habitation of God (en Pneumati), by the Spirit,” who is the efficient builder of the spiritual temple. Again, the apostle tells of the mystery which is “now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets (en Pneumati), by the Spirit” (Eph. iii, 5), and exhorts us, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled (en) with the Spirit” (Ib. v, 18), and to “pray with all prayer and supplication (en) by the Spirit.”—Ib. vi, 18. So in the text,—“With, or, by one Spirit,” the instrument and agent of grace shed on us abundantly by Jesus Christ “are we all baptized”—brought into a new state of incorporation “into one body,” which he pervades and controls as the Spirit of life. Into it we are not immersed; but, united by his common in-dwelling power, are made daily “to drink of that one Spirit,” which is in us, “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”—John iv, 14.

It is not necessary to the present purpose to dwell further on the signification and bearing of the prepositions. The moment baptizo ceases to mean, to dip, and nothing else, the prepositions lose all determining force upon the questions at issue. If John’s disciples were dipped or submerged in Jordan all is plain, and discussion is at an end. But if John baptized in Jordan, the question still remains,—How did he baptize? This is very clearly illustrated by the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, if we accept the immersion rendering of the prepositions. “They went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch.” They have now reached the place, in the water, if you will. But the baptism is yet to be performed.—“And he baptized him.” But how did he do it? The baptism is now ended; but both are still in position “in the water;” out of which they are then stated to have come. (Acts viii, 38, 39.)

Appeal is made to the fact that John baptized “in Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there.”—John iii, 23. Enon (Aenon), is the plural form, a word which means a spring or fountain. In a few places it is translated, a well of water. But it signifies a flowing spring. The name, therefore, means, The Springs near to Salim. All attempts to trace a town or city of that name have failed; and the whole manner of John’s ministry and statements of the evangelists indicate him to have selected a retired spot, rather than a town or city, as the place of his preaching and baptism.

The phrase, “much water,” is not a correct translation of the original (polla hudata), which means, many waters,—that is, many springs, or streams. The phrase occurs nine times in the Greek of the Old Testament, and four times in the New, beside the place in question. It is never used in the sense of unity,—“much water,”—but invariably expresses the conception of plurality. In several places, it designates the waves of the sea in a tumult. Thus, Psa. xciii, 3, 4,—“The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters; yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” See, also, 2 Sam. xxii, 17; Psa. xviii, 16; xxix, 3; Isa. xvii, 12, 13; Ezek. xliii, 2; Rev. i, 15; xiv, 2; xix, 6. In these places the noise of many waters, is the sound of the waves, as they toss in the fury of a storm, or thunder upon the shore. Again, it is used to designate many streams, and even the rivulets which for the purposes of irrigation were carried through vineyards and gardens. Thus, “Thy mother was as a vine, and as a shoot planted by a stream, by waters; the fruit of which, and its sprouts were from many waters.”—Ezek. xix, 10. See, also, Num. xxiv, 7, and Jer. li, 13. In the last of these passages, Babylon is described as dwelling “upon many waters,” meaning, not the Euphrates, only; but the four rivers, Euphrates, Tigris, Chaboras and Ulai, and the many canals of irrigation, vestiges of which continue to this day, to which Babylonia was indebted for its fertility, and the city for its wealth and power. Compare Psalm cxxxvii, 1, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion.” In the text of John, the phrase coincides with the name of Enon, to indicate that the peculiarity of the place was a number of flowing springs. The bearing of these upon the question as to the mode of John’s Baptism is inappreciable; as, for the purposes of immersion, he did not need more than one.

But, we recur to the challenge, so confidently urged. If John did not immerse, why his resort to the Jordan, and to the “much water” of Enon? We reply by another question. Why did the Lord Jesus concentrate his ministry upon the shore of the Sea of Galilee? Why did he, after the close of his labors in that part of the land, take up his abode at that very “place where John at first baptized?”—John x, 40. A comparison of the evangelists shows that, as did John (Luke iii, 3), so Jesus began his ministry by journeying through the country and villages preaching the gospel. But, as his fame spread abroad and the concourse of his hearers increased, he was accustomed to resort to the shores of the Sea of Galilee and the slopes of the mountains which enclose it on the west. A comparison of the evangelists shows the sermon on the mount to have been uttered from one of those mountains. (Matt. v, 1; Mark iii, 7-13.) In the brief narrative of Mark, that sea is six times spoken of as the scene of his labors; and these are evidently mere illustrations of the habit of his ministry. Thus, the first such mention states that “he went forth again by the sea side, and all the multitude resorted unto him and he taught them.”—Mark ii, 13, and see iii, 7; iv, 1; v, 21; vi, 31-33; vii, 31; viii, 10. Here, he fed the five thousand men, beside women and children, with five barley loaves and two small fishes; and here, the four thousand, with seven barley loaves and a few small fishes. Afterward, when his ministry in Galilee was finished and he would preach in Judea, he found himself beset, before his time, by the machinations of the scribes and rulers. He therefore withdrew beyond Jordan, to “the place where John at first baptized, and there he abode, and many resorted to him, ... and many believed on him there.”—John x, 39-42, and Mark x, 1. It is evident that the facts here referred to were not casual nor fortuitous. They constitute one of the most prominent features of the story of our Lord’s ministry. It is also manifest that these and the facts concerning the places of John’s ministry belong to the same category; so that no explanation can be sufficient which does not account for all alike.

The Baptist theory is not thus adequate. They will not pretend that it was to immerse his disciples, that Jesus resorted to the lake and to Bethabara. We may, therefore, conclude that the explanation of John’s places of baptism is to be sought upon some other principle. A candid consideration of the circumstances will discover it; and customs peculiar to this country may confirm the solution. The assemblies that attended on the ministry of John and of Jesus were essentially similar to our camp-meetings, with the only difference, that the simpler habits of the people of Judea and Galilee rendered any preparation of tents or booths unnecessary. On one occasion we casually learn that the people remained together three days (Mark viii, 2); and the circumstances indicate that generally they were “protracted meetings.” For example, at one time, Mark states that “Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea; and a great multitude from Galilee, followed him, and from Judea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and from beyond Jordan, and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him.”—Mark iii, 7, 8. Luke in one place speaks of “an innumerable multitude of people (ton muriadon tou ochlou, the tens of thousands of the throng) insomuch that they trode one upon another.”—Luke xii, 1. See, also, the descriptions of John’s audiences. In choosing the place for a camp-meeting, three things are recognized as of the first necessity. These are, retirement, accessibility, and abundance of water. Why these are essential, needs no explanation. As to the last, food may be brought from a distance; but if abundance of water, for the supply of man and beast, is not found on the spot, its use for such a purpose is manifestly and utterly impracticable.

The argument applies with double force to the thirsty climate of Judea. As heretofore stated, there are very few running streams in the land. The requisite supplies for the people in the towns and villages in which the population was concentrated were obtained from wells. There is scarcely a single perennial stream flowing from the west into the Jordan, in its whole course from the sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. Its affluents are “mere winter torrents, rushing and foaming during the continuance of rain, and quickly drying up after the commencement of summer. For fully half the year, these ‘rivers,’ or ‘brooks,’ are often dry lanes of hot white or gray stones; or, tiny rills, working their way through heaps of parched boulders.”^[106] In a word, the banks of the Jordan, the shores of the sea of Tiberias, and some such exceptional spots as The Springs near Salim, presented the only sites in Palestine in which the three requisites above indicated were to be found united. Suppose the multitudes that were gathered to our Savior’s ministry,—four and five thousand men, beside women, children and cattle; and those of John’s preaching were, without doubt, as numerous,—to have been assembled with an improvident forgetfulness of the prime necessity of water! The alternative would have been a vast amount of suffering and the dispersion of the assembly, or miraculous interposition. But this does not meet the case of John’s congregations; for “John did no miracle.”

It is plain that we need no immersion theory, to account for the places chosen by John and Jesus for fulfilling their ministry. The necessities of their numerous audiences were decisive, and were in harmony with the requirement of the law that the sprinkled water of purifying should be living or running water.

Section LXXVIII.—“Buried with him by Baptism into Death.”

The principal remaining Baptist argument is derived from two expressions of the apostle Paul which are supposed to show by implication that baptism was administered by immersion. These are;—Rom. vi, 4,—“Buried with him by baptism into death;” and Col. ii, 12,—“Buried with him in baptism.” In our common English version as here quoted, there is a repeated neglect of the definite article, where it occurs in the original, which obscures the meaning. This defect being rectified, the first passage reads thus:—Rom. vi, 1-11. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead by sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by the baptism into the death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man (sunestaurothe) was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For (ho apothanon) he that died is freed (dedikoiatai, is justified) from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.... For in that he died (te hamartia) by sin he died once: but in that he liveth he liveth (to theo) by God” (that is, “by the power of God.”—2 Cor. xiii, 4.) “Likewise“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed by sin, but alive by the power of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In the present state of our argument, it might seem almost needless to discuss this passage. But this and the parallel text sustain relations to the subject, which clothe them with an importance in the discussion, such as attaches to no other Scriptures whatever. In them is contained and exhausted the entire evidence in behalf of the assumption that the form of baptism represents the burial of the Lord Jesus. Confessedly, that supposition, if not established by these two phrases of Paul, is without warrant anywhere in the Bible. But to prove the interpretation of the rite, they must of necessity, first, establish its very existence, which as yet is more than problematical. That they are not likely to prove adequate to the task thus laid upon them, will be apparent to the reader upon a moment’s consideration. It is evident, and admitted by all, that the immediate subject of discussion in them is the baptism of the Spirit, and not ritual baptism, in any form. If the latter is referred to, at all, it is by mere allusion. That, this is true, as to the text to the Romans, is indicated alike by the form of expression, “baptized into Jesus Christ,” and by the phenomena and results which are attributed to that baptism. It will hereafter appear that the two phrases, “baptized into Jesus Christ,” and “baptized into the name of Christ,” are those by which, in the Scriptures, the real baptism, and the ritual, are discriminated from each other. The one unites to the very body of Christ, the true, invisible church. The other unites to the name of Christ, and to that visible body which is named with his name. That it is of spiritual phenomena, and not of ritual forms, that Paul speaks, is moreover evident, from the purpose and tenor of his argument. His object is to repel the suggestion that free grace gives liberty to sin. His fundamental point in reply to this is, that God’s people “are dead by sin,” in such a sense that it is impossible they should “live any longer therein.” To prove this, is the whole intent of his argument. First, in designating the subjects of his statements, he uses phraseology which emphasizes the difference between a mere outward relation to Christ and the church, and that which is established by the baptism of the spirit. “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ.” It is those who are truly one with Christ by a real spiritual union, and only those, whom he describes, and of whom he predicates what follows.

“Baptized into Jesus Christ.” This is the one only baptism of the passage, the effects and consequences of which the apostle proceeds to set forth. Or, are we here to recognize three baptisms,—into Jesus Christ,—into his death,—and into his burial? The first effect of the baptism into Christ Paul indicates by the phrase, “baptized into his death.” In the baptism into Christ, “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” the body of Christ, “and are all made to drink one Spirit.” But it was by that Spirit that he offered himself without spot to God, and “died by sin,” it being the meritorious cause of his death; and that Spirit being in us by virtue of the baptism, will cause the same hatred of sin, and induce in us a sense of its demerit and condemnation, so that we can no longer live in it. Such is the meaning of the apostle’s expression, “baptized into his death,”—so united by the baptism into Christ, that as he died for sin to destroy it in us, so we will be dead to it in the same hatred and zeal for its destruction, inspired by the same Spirit. To intensify this conception, the apostle pursues the figure yet farther.—“Therefore, we are buried with him.”—How? By immersion in water? or, By any thing of which such immersion is a symbol? No. But (dia) through, or, by means of the baptism just spoken of; “the baptism into the death” of Christ. That the expression can not possibly mean any ritual form of baptism is certain every way. The illative, “Therefore,” forbids it. It shows the burial to be, not a physical phenomenon, real or ritual, but a consequence which, by virtue of the relation of cause and effect, logically results from something which either precedes or follows. But the boundaries in both directions are the same.—“Baptized into his death. Therefore buried with him, by the baptism into the death.” The baptism into Christ, by which we are baptized into his death, is thus the instrumental cause of the burial; a fact which utterly excludes any form of ritual baptism from the purview of the passage. But what is here meant by being buried with him? In order to an answer, it will be necessary to ascertain precisely who it is that dies and is buried with Christ. The answer comes promptly. “We are buried.” True; but the words are to be taken in the light of the apostle’s own interpretation. It is not we, in the entirety of our persons, but our old man, of which this is said. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”—Vs. 6. It is, to signify the utterness of this death and destruction of the old man,—its obliteration out of our lives, so that we can not “live any longer therein,” nor “serve sin,” that the apostle represents it as buried, and hidden away in a resurrectionless grave. The old man buried, so that the new man may unimpeded “walk in newness of life.” In this doctrine and these words of the apostle, we have the very baptism which Dr. Conant admits to be expressed, “by analogy,” by the word baptizo;—“the coming into a new state of life or experience.” Into the conception of the passage, when critically appreciated, it is impossible to introduce the idea of immersion, in any congruous or intelligible relation.

The apostle illustrates his subject with another figure, which has been sometimes pressed into the service of immersion. “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” It has been assumed that the planting of a tree is here associated with immersion in water (“buried by baptism”), as representing the burial of the dead. Thus, “the likeness of his death,” which was by crucifixion, is confounded with the form of burial of the dead. This is recognized by Dr. Carson, whose exposition of the figure is essentially correct. Of sumphutoi (“planted together”) he says,—“It might, I think, be applied to express the growing together of the graft and the tree; but this would be the effect or consequence of grafting, and not the operation itself. It denotes, in short, the closest union, with respect to things indiscriminately. There is no need, then, to bring either planting or grafting into the passage; and as neither of them resembles a resurrection, they should be rejected. When we translate the passage,—‘For, if we have become one with him,’ or, ‘have been joined with him, in the likeness of his death,’—we not only suit the connexion, to both death and resurrection, but we take the word sumphutoi, in its most common acceptation.”^[107] This witness is true. The phrase has no reference to the form of ritual baptism, but to the intimacy of the union which that of the Spirit establishes. The two expressions,—“Baptized into his death,” and “Coplanted with him in the likeness of his death,” are coincident, meaning essentially the same thing. It is, however, a fundamental defect in Carson’s conception, that while he earnestly insists on the closeness of the union, by which Christ and his people are one, he fails to recognize the essential fact that it is effected by the baptism of the Spirit. In his conception and vocabulary, it is a “constituted union.” A ray of light entering his mind on this point would have transfigured his whole system.

But what means our being joined with Christ in the likeness of his death? Here and elsewhere, Paul explains abundantly. “He died by sin,” our sin, as being the meritorious cause of his death. “He was crucified through weakness,”—the weakness of his humiliation, under the law and the curse. (2 Cor. xiii, 4.) He died by the cross, the agonies of which he voluntarily assumed. And he lives again, by the power of God who raised him from the dead. So we also, if truly baptized into him, “are weak (en auto) in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward us.”—2 Cor. xiii, 4. We are weak in him, in a realizing sense imparted by his Spirit in us, of the desert and condemnation of sin, and of its prevailing power, which renders our emancipation from it a crucifixion of the flesh, the agonies of which we voluntarily incur. And we live with him, in the present life of the new man after his image, created by the baptism of his Spirit in us, as we shall finally live with him in the life of glory. Thus we are joined with him in the likeness of his death, and also of his resurrection.

From this analysis, it is evident that the assumption of allusion to a supposed ritual burial is wholly unnecessary to the exegesis of the passage. In fact, the supposition of such allusion is altogether incongruous and confusing to the argument of the place. (1.) The real baptism and its effects are the alone subjects of the discussion; and any exegesis which ignores this must lead to error. (2.) The burial of which the apostle speaks is spiritual, as well as is the baptism. The two are in no sense identical; but the one is, by the apostle distinctly and sharply discriminated from the other. The baptism is the primary cause, of which the burial is one, and but one, of the results. The baptism is the shedding upon us of the Holy Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The burial is the putting away, and obliterating of the old man out of our lives. It follows, that in any parallel figurative or ritual system, each one of these spiritual realities must have its own analogue, as distinctly defined and discriminated, each from the other, as are the realities which they are designed to represent. And, in fact, such is the figurative system of the Scriptures, which represent the one by the figure of the outpouring of water, and the other by the burial of the dead. To interpret, therefore, a ritual baptism as symbolic of the spiritual burial, is as incongruous to the Scriptural conception, as would be the employment of the burial of the dead to represent the outpouring upon us of the Spirit of life. And to understand the apostle, by the expression, “buried by the baptism” to mean directly the spiritual phenomenon which the phrase designates, and at the same time to convey an allusion to a ritual baptism as being a symbol of the burial, is an absurdity which does violence to the whole conception, to the destruction of its propriety and significance. For, not only are the two thus sharply discriminated by Paul, but he attributes to each its own relations and predicates, and assigns to each its own place in the scheme of grace and in the argument which he states. To neglect, therefore, the distinction, and confound them together, as is done by the Baptist interpretation, destroys the whole logical force and sequence of the argument, and dissolves the connection between the premises and the conclusions.

Moreover, were it even allowable, as it is not, thus to confound things that differ, there still remains a point of difficulty in the way of the immersion exegesis which, for its removal, demands something more than the mere assumption which has heretofore been put in the place of proof. The apostle speaks, not of immersion, but of burial. “Buried with him.” That the two ideas are not identical does not need to be proved. Nor is the difference so slight that the one would readily suggest itself as a figure of the other. But in order to sustain the Baptist conclusions which depend on this language, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the rites of sepulture with which the writers of the Scriptures were familiar, and in conformity to which the body of Jesus was entombed, bore a resemblance to immersion in water, so close and manifest, that the one was a recognized symbol of the other. But there is certainly no such resemblance as to justify the gratuitous assumption that such a figure was employed; and of its actual use, the Scriptures contain not a trace.

Is it still insisted that, nevertheless, there is an allusion to the rite of immersion? Such an allusion must be supposed to shed light or beauty upon the presentation of the spiritual theme of the passage; or, it is an arbitrary impertinence. Let us then view the suggestion squarely, in the light of the realized observance, thus forced into critical notice. The theme of the apostle is the calm majesty and power of the Savior’s three days’ rest in the sepulcher, and of the silent and unseen mystery of his rising on the third day; and the tranquil energy of the same mighty power in the believer (Eph. i, 19, 20; ii, 1), by which he is quickened and raised up to the life of holiness. The figure which is intruded, to illuminate and adorn this conception, calls up before us the apprehension and haste of the ritual observance, and the agitation, the gasping and sputter of the dripping subjects of the rite, as they struggle up out of the “watery grave.” Is it possible to conceive that master of rhetoric, the apostle Paul, to have called up these, the essential and inseparable features of the rite of immersion, as a means of shedding light or beauty on his exalted theme?

Section LXXIX.—“Buried with Him in Baptism.”

Col. ii, 9-13.—“In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. In whom, also, ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (suntaphentes auto en to baptismati), having been buried with him by the baptism, wherein also ye were raised up with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, did he quicken together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” Here, in the phrase,—“the body of the sins of the flesh,” which is the reading of the common version, the critical editors unite in rejecting (hamartion) “of the sins,” which was undoubtedly a gloss inserted from the margin, in careless transcription.

It is evident that the doctrine and argument of the passage just examined from the epistle to the Romans, and this to the Colossians are essentially the same. In the former, Paul shows that the child of God can not live in sin;—in the latter that he ought to walk in Christ. The controlling motive of the apostle’s argument, here, is, to free his readers from the bondage of ritual ordinances and human devices of religion. He begins with the admonition,—“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”—vs. 8. To this, he again recurs as the conclusion of his argument.—“Therefore, if ye be dead with Christ, from the rudiments of the world, why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances, ... after the commandments and doctrines of men?”—vs. 20, 21. It is with a view to these things that the exhortation is written,—“As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so, walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith,” as contrasted with these traditions of men. Thus, as in the parallel plea to the Romans, so here, the determining idea is union with the Lord Jesus,—that spiritual union of which the baptism of the Spirit is the efficient and only cause. The dignity and glory conferred by it are emphasized by the declaration that “in Him dwelleth all, (pleroma) the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” In the person of Jesus, the Son is incarnate; the Father’s glory and power invest him, and the Spirit is his and dwells in him. “And ye are (pepleromenoi) made full in him.” “Made full in him” by virtue of that mutual relation which Jesus describes;—“You in me, and I in you.”—John xiv, 20. Thus, made full, with all the graces of his indwelling Spirit, and so needing no recourse to the rudiments of the world. With this fullness of grace, the apostle then contrasts the coincident emptying of the old man. “In whom ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” Circumcision signified the cutting off and destruction of the corrupt nature derived by generation, the old man, through the blood and sufferings of the promised Seed of Abraham. This operation is here called “the circumcision of Christ,” as it is that spiritual reality of which ritual circumcision was the type. The apostle holds it up to view, as the substance, in contrast with the emptiness of the ritual shadow, against dependence on which he dissuades his Colossian readers. This circumcision of Christ he proceeds to explain farther. “Putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, (suntaphentes auto) having been buried with him in the baptism.” In the conception and argument of the apostle, emphasis rests on the definite article, which here, and in the parallel place, already examined, is ignored in the common English version, and in the Revised version. Paul’s aim in this place is to hold up the spiritual realities of the gospel in contrast with the emptiness of ritual forms. He coordinates “the baptism” with “the circumcision of Christ,” in producing the spiritual phenomena of which he is speaking. Or, rather, he postulates the baptism as the ultimate cause of the circumcision and its results. That, by the phrase, “the baptism,” he designates the same thing as in Romans vi, 4, is evident, as it is also that as in that place, so here, the baptism is not the burial, but is related to it, as the cause to the effect.—“Buried with him by the baptism.” How the baptism effects the burial, has been shown in that place. The distinction between the two, which is there so strongly marked, is in this passage equally clear and important; and the consequences there traced are here as legitimate and pertinent. The supposition of an allusion to immersion in water, in either place, is utterly groundless, and in both alike incongruous and destructive to the apostle’s conception and argument. Certainly, this place no more than the other necessitates recourse to the supposed rite of immersion, in order to a rational interpretation. And it is equally certain that at the touch of a discriminating exegesis the supposed allusion to such a rite vanishes utterly away.

Section LXXX.—End of the Baptist Argument.

The Baptist position rests on two assumptions. The first is, that baptizo means, to dip, to immerse, to submerge,—one or other of these, as the different advocates of the cause may select,—and nothing else. The second is, that on account of its resemblance to the laying of the body of Jesus in the sepulchre, the rite of dipping, immersion, or submersion in water was appointed as a symbol of his entombing. The first of these assumptions is essential to vindicate the mode in question, and the second to establish its typical significance. If baptizo does not mean as defined, or if that is not the only meaning, the whole immersion fabric falls to the ground. And if the second proposition is not established, the rite becomes an unmeaning absurdity.—On these vital points, the following are the results of the evidence thus far developed in these pages.

1. While the Scriptures everywhere, in the Old Testament and the New, are full of the doctrine of the baptism of the Spirit,—while the divers baptisms of the Mosaic ritual were unquestionably typical of it, and the prophecies abound in references to it under the figure of affusion—the sprinkling of water, and the outpouring of rain,—the rite of immersion does not pretend to any better evidence than is found in a definition of baptizo, which is now admitted to be erroneous, and a few expressions in the New Testament which are at best of questionable interpretation. Aside from these, it is foreign and uncongenial to the whole tenor of conception and language of the New Testament as well as of the Old.

2. Not to insist on the special conclusions of Dale,—the admissions of Dr. Conant, confirmed by the authority of Prof. Kendrick, prove that the word does not mean, to dip, to put in the water and take out again; but to put under the water, to submerge. The rite, then, consists in submerging the subjects. In that action the baptism is completed. There is therefore in it no symbol nor suggestion of the resurrection.

3. The elaborate researches of Dr. Dale, and the results established by the investigations of this volume, are confirmed by the distinct admission of Dr. Conant, that the primary is not the only meaning of the word. It not only means, to submerge, but also, “the coming into a new state of life or experience.” Thus, the citadel of the immersion position is definitely abandoned. The word is not limited to one meaning. The mere fact, therefore, that it occurs, in any given place, decides nothing as to the form of action expressed by it; since the question always arises,—In what sense is the word here used? a question which, in every instance, must be decided by evidence outside the word. Until so decided, any inference from the word is mere assumption.

4. To re-establish the crumbling structure of immersion, the prepositions avail nothing; since they are as congruous to the supposition that the rite was performed by affusion.

5. The many waters of Enon prove nothing to the purpose; since abundance of water was necessary to John’s congregations, had he made no ritual use of it whatever.

6. Equally futile is appeal to Paul’s “buried by the baptism,” as the imagined allusion is unnecessary to the interpretation, incongruous to the argument, and destructive of the distinctions which the apostle draws, and the conclusions which he deduces.

7. As to the remaining argument, from the baptism of the eunuch, we shall see hereafter, that while the facts recorded decide nothing, they create a presumption which distinctly indicates affusion.

Thus, the rite in question,—foreign to the whole style of the Old Testament, its ritual and prophecies, and equally so to the language and doctrines of the New,—is left without a vestige of evidence, anywhere, whether as to mode or meaning, even in those particular words and passages which have been the reliance of its advocates.

Section LXXXI.—The Doctrine is Contrary to the Whole Tenor of the Gospel.

Paul was yet in the meridian of his strength, and the most active period of his ministry, when he wrote to the Thessalonians that “the mystery of iniquity doth already work,”—the mystery out of which was to be developed “that Wicked, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.”—2 Thes. ii, 7, 8. There is nothing more remarkable, nor more humiliating, in the history of the church than the rapid defection from the simplicity of the gospel which is apparent in the early remains of patristic literature. The transition from the apostles and evangelists in the New Testament, to the writings of the fathers, is like that from the splendor of the noonday sun to the deepening twilight of the evening. It was the precursor of “the black and dark night,” by which the gospel was obscured for so many ages, and which still enshrouds the churches of Rome and the East in a mantle of gloom. Of this defection, the all-powerful cause was a false and mischievous interpretation of the Scriptures concerning the relation of the covenant of Sinai to the new covenant. They were interpreted as teaching that the visible church and its ordinances under the New Testament economy, was the antitype of the Levitical church and institutions,—that the rites and ceremonies of the latter were the shadow, of which the ordinances of the Christian church are the substance. Hence the Christian ministry became a priesthood, ministering better sacrifices and more effectual purifyings than those of the Mosaic ritual; for in their hands and by virtue of their consecrating prayers, the Lord’s supper became a propitiatory sacrifice of the very body and blood of the Lord Jesus, and baptism administered by them became a spiritual regeneration,—a purging of the conscience,—the true baptism foreshadowed by the “type baptism” of the Old Testament. Thus, Didymus Alexandrinus, having quoted Ezek. xxxvi, 22,—“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your sins;” and Psa. li, 7,—“Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow;” says,—“For the sprinkling with hyssop was Judaic purification; which is continued by them to the present time; but ‘whiter than snow,’ denotes Christian illumination, which is baptism. And Peter, that he may show in his first epistle, that if baptism, which was formerly, in shadow (en skia) saved, much more that which was in reality (en aletheia) immortalizes and deifies us, wrote thus;—‘Antitype baptism now saves us.’”^[108] So Ambrose, as already quoted, says of the Psalmist,—“He asks to be cleansed by hyssop, according to the law. He desires to be washed, according to the gospel. He who would be cleansed by typical baptism was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb, by means of a bunch of hyssop.” Of the doctrine of baptism, as thus conceived, Tertullian says,—“All waters in virtue of the pristine privilege of their origin,^[109] do, after invocation of God accomplish sanctification; for the Spirit immediately comes from heaven and rests upon the waters, sanctifying them by his own power; and they being thus sanctified, therewith acquire the power of sanctifying.”^[110] Derived from this is the modern doctrine of baptismal regeneration, according to which, it is only in and through the baptism of water that the renewing grace of the Spirit is imparted to men.

It is manifest that if this doctrine be true, baptism is the “one thing needful;” and the church of Rome, and ritualists everywhere are right in the unanimity with which they reduce the preaching of the word to a secondary place, and count the progress of the gospel by the numbers who have been subjected to the life-giving rite. If it be true, then water baptism should be the theme of the New Testament; and the apostles and Christian ministry must have been commissioned and sent forth, not to preach the gospel; but to baptize. What says the Word of God on these points?

1. As to the gospel commission, and the instructions connected therewith, we have accounts from each of the four evangelists. John confines himself almost entirely to those, of such supreme interest, which Jesus uttered at the table, the night of the betrayal. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record the essential facts which occurred after the resurrection. The first thing that presents itself in examining these accounts is, that of baptism, as connected with the last instructions given the apostles, neither Luke nor John say one word. Thus, if the doctrine in question be true, these two evangelists are guilty of leaving out of their record the very heart and essence of the whole matter. This is the more remarkable, if we consider the character of the writers who are thus chargeable. Did we forget the Spirit which guided their pens, it is yet impossible to imagine that Luke, “the beloved physician,” disciple, and companion of Paul, can have been unaware of the just proportion to be preserved in his narrative; so as to ignore a matter important as this. Or, John, the kinsman of Jesus, the beloved disciple, who in the privilege of a perfect confidence and love, lay on his bosom, and who received from the cross the legacy of the stricken mother,—John was not ignorant of the mind of his Master, on a subject like this, upon which depend the whole results of the work of redemption. The silence of these writers was not inadvertent, and it is fatal to the theory in question. What they do not report can have no place among the essentials of the plan of salvation. It still, however, remains to account for their silence respecting the ritual ordinance of baptism; which, apart from the unwarranted theory in question, all agree to be of divine authority. To this point we will return hereafter.

If, now, we turn to the other evangelists, the record of Matthew is as follows: Matt. xxviii, 16-20. “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them (eis to honoma), into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo! I am with you alway even unto the end of the world.” Here, it can not be pretended that there is any thing to countenance the idea of baptismal regeneration. The administering of the rite is enjoined on the apostles. But no hint is given of its being necessary to salvation; and no such stress is laid upon it as to imply such necessity.

Mark records the language of Jesus on another occasion. Mark xvi, 14-16,—“He appeared to the eleven, as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall he damned.” Here, is no more of baptismal regeneration than we have found in Matthew. Emphasis is, indeed, given to baptism, by the connection in which it is introduced. But at the very point on which all depends the evidence gives way. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not—shall be damned.” Thus explicitly Jesus utters sentence of perdition against unbelief. But he as explicitly omits baptism from mention on that side of the alternative, and thus expressly limits the condemning sentence to unbelief. Either this language is designed to represent baptism as important but not essential; or, it is a snare which must take men at unawares, and involve them in danger of destruction from ignorance of the necessity of the rite. Here then is no baptismal regeneration. The same inference follows from the silence of the other evangelists on this point. The eleven were all present and heard these words. If they were meant to imply baptismal regeneration, they were of the very highest moment. They could not, therefore, be ignored, but must have been the very center and controlling principle of all their writings and teachings. And yet, the other gospels ignore them; and the epistles are equally silent. It is, therefore, certain that the apostles did not understand the expressions, in the supposed sense. The true principle of harmony for the interpretation of all these facts will be presented in another place.

2. If now we examine the position of the great apostle of the Gentiles, we shall find him give place by subjection to this doctrine,—no, not for an hour. His is an independent testimony; for he was not with the eleven under the personal ministry of Christ. It is also fuller than any other; running through his thirteen epistles. First, we find that it was not his habit to baptize the converts of his own ministry; and that, upon principle. He says to the Corinthians,—“I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius; lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas. Besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me, not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.”—1 Cor. i, 14-17. He moreover states the reason of his special devotion thus to the preaching of the gospel,—because “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”—v. 21. Here be it observed, the apostle speaks of preaching, not abstractly considered, but in immediate contrast with baptism. He does not baptize; but preaches, because preaching is the means which God has chosen for the salvation of men through faith. Thus, baptism is, in the plainest terms denied the place assigned it by the theory in question. But the evidence is even more direct and conclusive. To these same Corinthians whom Paul thus reminded that he had not baptized them, he addressed a second epistle, in which he distinctly asserts that through his personal ministry the Spirit of God had been given them and new life wrought within them. “Ye are our epistle written in your hearts,^[111] known and read of all men; forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart.” He goes on to assert his ministry to be “of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth; but the spirit giveth life.”—2 Cor. iii, 2, 3, 6. It needs no words, here, to show that thus the apostle overturns the very foundations of the theory of baptismal regeneration. Paul did not baptize the Corinthians. But he ministered to them the Holy Spirit of life and grace,—the true baptism of which he speaks so largely in his epistles.

It is not necessary to go farther in tracing the doctrine of Paul on the subject. He is everywhere consistent with himself as thus presented. It is however worthy of express notice that in his three epistles to Timothy and Titus, in which he sets forth the qualifications and duties of “the man of God,” he does not once name or allude to the ordinance of baptism. Had the apostle believed the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, it is not possible that he could have been thus silent. But what need is there of thus inferring the sentiments of Paul? His favorite doctrine, excludes and condemns this theory as an intrusive heresy. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”—Rom. v, 1. “By grace ye are saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”—Eph. ii, 8. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?... This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?”—Gal. iii, 1, 2. How is it that by no accident does he ever say,—“by the hearing of faith, and by baptism?” It is almost needless to add that the other apostles in their writings are in perfect accord with Paul. In fact, ritual or water baptism is not once named in their epistles. The word, itself, occurs in them all only once,—in the statement of Peter respecting “antitype baptism,” which has been already examined. If the apostles and evangelists are true witnesses as to the mind of Christ, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is contrary to his teachings and subversive of the gospel.

This heresy is to be regarded with peculiar detestation and abhorrence because of the disparagement which it does to the sovereignty and glory of Christ’s baptizing scepter. In any and every form of it, it divides the work of grace between Christ and the human administrators of the empty sign. It subordinates and limits the sovereign exercise of his saving power to the discretion of their wisdom and will, to the measure of their fidelity and ardor of their zeal. Whom they baptize,—upon them his grace may be bestowed, and upon them only.

We shall not examine in detail all the Scriptures which are appealed to in support of this theory. There are two which are the chief reliance of its advocates, an examination of which will be sufficient. If not in them, the doctrine is not to be found in the Bible. They are, John iii, 5, and Eph. v, 25-27.

Section LXXXII.—“Born of Water and of the Spirit.”

Said Jesus to Nicodemus,—“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.”—John iii, 5. Dr. Pusey asserts that “The Christian church uniformly for fifteen centuries interpreted these words of baptism; on the ground of this text alone, they urged the necessity of baptism; upon it they identified regeneration with baptism.” If the position thus maintained by the churches of Rome and the east for so many centuries be the truth, it presents the Savior, the apostles and evangelists, and the Scriptures written by them, in a most extraordinary light. In the very beginning of his ministry, in a private interview with the Jewish ruler, Jesus imparts to him this doctrine, on which confessedly the salvation of every man depends. But, from that hour, neither he nor his apostles ever name it. In his public instructions to the people,—in his private interviews with his disciples,—in those particular and assiduous teachings by which, as his own ministry drew to a close, he put them in possession of his whole mind concerning their ministry and the world’s salvation (John xv, 15), he is persistently and entirely silent on this vital point. “Still,” says Dr. Pusey, “the truth in holy Scripture is not less God’s truth, because contained in one passage only.” The principle is sound; but its application here is a mere begging of the question. That question is, What mean these words? And the above axiom is no more true, and much less pertinent to the present occasion than is the rule of interpretation laid down by Paul. “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.”—Rom. xii, 6. An interpretation which takes a passage out of all congruous relation to the rest of the Scriptures, and overturns the very foundations of the faith therein set forth, is false. And such is the interpretation in question. The circumstances and connection indicate the true meaning of the passage.

That Nicodemus, although perhaps lacking in courage, was an honest inquirer after the truth, is evinced by the circumstances of this interview and by his subsequent history. He came by night, for fear of the Jews. He came not to cavil but to be taught, as appears alike from his own language and the manner of Christ’s dealing with him. John had been for some time causing the land to ring with his warning cry; and men’s hearts were in expectation because of it and his baptism. After this interview of Nicodemus with Jesus, we incidentally learn that in connection with Christ’s preaching his disciples also baptized. And their baptism was assuredly of the same intent as that of John,—to prefigure the office of the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost. We may, therefore, conclude that their baptism was from the beginning associated with Christ’s ministry. Of these facts, a man of the rank and intelligence of Nicodemus, and in his state of mind, could not be ignorant. He therefore comes for instruction as to the way of salvation. At the beginning of the interview, he places himself definitely at the feet of Jesus, as a disciple to be taught of him. “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.” To an application thus so precisely in accord with Christ’s own testimonies as to himself and his miracles (John v, 36; x, 25; xiv, 10, 11), he responds by entering directly upon the question which was agitating the ruler’s heart,—that great question,—How to be saved? “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God,”—that kingdom of which the cry then was, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The figure of the new birth was strange to Nicodemus; for, while the doctrine of renewing by the Holy Spirit is familiar to the Old Testament writers,—the figure of a new birth is not found in them. He therefore asks,—“How can a man be born when he is old” Here evidently the ruler views the matter as of practical and present interest to him personally. “How can I, Nicodemus, at my age, be born again?” The purpose of Jesus, in using this new illustration was thus accomplished. Old truths in new forms often develop a power which otherwise they lack. Jesus therefore, now answers, by a figure, familiar to his hearer, in the Old Testament Scriptures, and in the baptisms of John and of Christ’s disciples, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.”

From this view of the connection and circumstances, it is evident that the passage is to be interpreted in the light of the Old Testament, and of the baptisms administered at the time of this interview, several years before the ascension and day of Pentecost; and not by any thing peculiar to the time subsequent to that event. But it is an essential feature of the theory of baptismal regeneration, that it holds the New Testament church to have this eminent advantage over that of the Old Testament, that the grace of regeneration is peculiar to the former, and to the ordinance of baptism as administered subsequent to the ascension of Christ. But the words of Christ to Nicodemus were no abstract setting forth of phenomena of grace to be enjoyed by the church in a coming time, but an explanation of the way in which the ruler must be saved, then and there, under the old economy. Viewing it in this light the following are the facts essential to the exposition of the passage.

1. The figure of metaphor was especially congenial to the Hebrew mind. To its abundant use, the Scriptures are largely indebted for the energy and clearness with which the profoundest thoughts are there presented. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”—Ps. xc, 1. “Moab is my wash pot.”—Ps. lx, 8. “In the hand of the Lord, there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same; but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them.”—Ps. lxxv, 8. “Unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”—Mal. iv, 2. Who would imagine the necessity of pausing to explain that these expressions are not to be understood literally?

2. Among these metaphors, no one was more familiar to the Jews than that of water, signifying the Holy Spirit. “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring.”—Isa. xliv, 3. This figure has been already illustrated abundantly in these pages. It is only here important to emphasize the fact that upon it the whole significance of John’s and the Old Testament baptisms depended,—which were, at that precise time, so earnestly pressed upon the attention of the Jews.

3. This very figure was repeatedly used by our Saviour in the course of his ministry. To the woman of Samaria he says, “thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.... Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”—John iv, 10, 14. Again, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”—Ib. vii, 37, 38. It is, moreover, to be remarked that both of these places occur in the same gospel of John in which is found the interview with Nicodemus. Nor is it without significant bearing on the present point, that in the Revelation, by the pen of this same writer, the metaphor of water is conspicuous, in this same sense. “The Lamb ... shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.”—Rev. vii, 17. The Lord Jesus says,—“I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely;”—Ib. xxi, 6. John sees the “pure river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb;”—Ib. xxii, 1. And the volume of revelation closes with the invitation,—”Let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life, freely.”—Ib. 17.

4. The Greek conjunction, kai, (“and,”) does not always express addition; but sometimes indicates an expository relation between two members of a sentence, and is equivalent to, even, to wit, namely. Thus,—“For blasphemy, even because that thou being a man makest thyself God.”—John x, 33. “Hath made us kings and priests unto God, even his Father.”—Rev. i, 6. “A golden cup, full of abominations, even the filthiness of her fornications.”—Ib. xvii, 4. “But ourselves, even we ourselves, groan.”—Rom. viii, 23. “God, even our Father.”—Phil. iv, 20. Three of these examples being from the writings of John again illustrate his style. It is evident that the phrase in question may be translated thus;—“Except a man be born of water, even of the Spirit.” In fact, such must have been the sense in which it was understood by Nicodemus. (1.) The phrase is professedly explanatory. It is in reply to the perplexity of Nicodemus, at the primary statement of Jesus,—“Except a man be born again,”—an expression the meaning of which is abundantly illustrated, in all parts of the New Testament. (2.) The explanatory clause thus introduced, having performed its office, immediately drops out of the discourse, which subsequently dwells upon the new birth of the Spirit alone. “Except a man be born of water, even of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The wind bloweth where it listeth, ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” It is impossible to account for the manner in which, after the one explanatory phrase, the water is thus ignored and excluded, upon any other supposition than that by which it is viewed as an interpretation of the previous expression, a metaphor for the Spirit. (3.) The fact that in the circumstances, it was impossible for the ruler to have understood the language in question as referring to a water baptism, which, upon the theory of baptismal regeneration, was not to be administered until after the day of Pentecost; and that he was therefore shut up to regard it as a metaphor, rendered explanation necessary, if that theory is true. The absence of any explanation makes it certain that such was not the meaning of Jesus.

5. The author of this narrative had, already, in the beginning of his gospel given an account of the manner of regeneration, which must be accepted as governing the whole of his subsequent record on the subject. “As many as received Him to them gave He power to become” (exousian genesthai, “gave He the prerogative of being”) “the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”—John i, 12, 13. Here, it is not sufficient to say that baptismal regeneration is ignored. It is absolutely excluded. The born of God are described in terms both exclusive and inclusive, by the phrase, “As many as received him, ... that believed on his name.” These, all of these, and none but these, were born of God. The addition of baptism makes this no more sure; nor does its absence affect the result. As many as receive Christ,—As many as believe on his name, to them it is given to be the sons of God.

It is evident that the record of the interview with Nicodemus, all of which may be read in two or three minutes, is a mere abstract of leading points of our Savior’s discourse. The intent of the words in question may be thus expressed. “You do not understand how a man can be born again. But you are familiar with the rite of baptism, and you are acquainted with the Scriptures of the prophets, and the interpretation which they give to that rite as a symbol of the renewing work of the Holy Spirit. It is that of which I speak. Except a man be born of water, even of the Holy Spirit, who is the true water of life, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.”

Section LXXXIII.—“The Washing of Water by the Word.”

To the Ephesians, Paul thus writes. Eph. v, 25-27. “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” It is asserted that here baptism with water, and its effects are described. The “washing of water” is the baptism, “the word,” is the formula of the ordinance and unblemished holiness, the effect. But

1. The subject of Paul’s discussion is the relation of husband and wife, and the reference to the church is incidental, and by reason of the analogy of the subjects. The conception which runs through and controls the passage is that of a bridal, and each particular of the language is suggested by this conception. Thus, in the phrase, “a glorious church,” rather “a church gloriously adorned” (compare Luke vii, 25, “gorgeously apparelled,”) the apostle seems to have had in his mind (Psa. xlv, 3),—“The king’s daughter is all glorious, within; her clothing is of wrought gold.” So, the washing of water is expressly stated to be in order to his presenting her to himself “not having spot or wrinkle.” The immediate reference, therefore, of the language is to the washing and decking of the bride, before marriage; and the original of the whole conception is to be found in Ezekiel xvi, 9-14. “Then washed I thee with water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badger’s skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets on thy hands and a chain on thy neck.” It will hardly be pretended that in this language of the prophet, the washing with water implies any mixture of the natural element with that process of grace which is there described. And that the prophet and the apostle refer to the same thing is manifest. There is no direct allusion in the passage to ritual baptism. The water is the familiar metaphor of the Spirit, and the washing is the expression for his renewing and sanctifying influences on the soul.

2. The assertion that (rema) “the word,” here means the formula of baptism, is an assumption, wholly indefensible. In the first place, there is no formula of baptism ordained by Jesus, or recognized or used by the sacred writers. Of this, the evidence will hereafter appear. Moreover, in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of Paul, the word in question, rema, is invariably used in the sense of the testimonies,—the doctrines,—the word of God,—the gospel. Thus, the angel said to the apostles,—“Go, stand and speak in the temple, to the people, all (ta remata) the words of this life.”—Acts v, 20. Peter tells the house of Cornelius,—“That word (rema) ye know ... how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power,” etc.—Ib. x, 37, 38. Paul, in this very same epistle, tells the Ephesians (vi, 17) that “the sword of the Spirit” “is the word (rema) of God.” And Peter declares that “the word (rema) of the Lord endureth forever; and this is the word (rema) which by the gospel is preached unto you.”—1 Peter i, 25. No word in the Scriptures is of a more unequivocal meaning than this.

3. The interpretation of rema as meaning the baptismal formula, is a recognition of the unquestionable fact that “the word” is made by the apostle the instrumental cause of the sanctifying. Literally translated the passage reads,—“That he might sanctify it,—having purified it by the washing of water,—by the word.” Thus, the word is the instrument of the sanctifying, and the parenthetic clause states the figure by which the analogy of the bride is sustained. The sanctifying and the purifying are the same spiritual phenomenon, the one phrase being conformed to the idea of the church, the other to that of the bride. And, whether the common English version be accepted, or the construction of the original be literally followed, as above, the result remains the same, that “the word” is distinctly stated to be the instrument of the process described by the two words, “sanctify” and “cleanse.” In what sense the word is sanctifying, let Jesus testify. “The words (ta remata) that I speak unto you” (literally, “that I have spoken unto you,” that is, in his preceding discourse), “they are spirit, and they are life.”—John vi, 63. “Now ye are clean, through (tou logou) the word that I have spoken unto you.”you.”—Ib. xv, 3. “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word (logos) is truth.... And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth.”—Ib. xvii, 17, 19. “Chosen unto salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”—2 Thes. ii, 13. The word is the means and the Spirit the efficient author of grace.

In the entrance of the church upon her new commission, her constitution was unchanged. But the ordinances of testimony with which she was entrusted received an essential modification. The nature and the manner of this were alike remarkable; and as the subject has not received the attention due to its importance, it requires here the more careful consideration. In the course thereof, it will appear that the Hebrew Christian church remained with its institutions all unaltered, as they were received from Moses, and the ceremonial law in full authority and operation, down to the close of the New Testament canon. But the Gentile element, which was by the preaching of the gospel gathered in and incorporated with the church, was, by express statute, exempted from the obligation of that law.

1. The Lord Jesus was “a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers; and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.”—Rom. xv, 8, 9. He lived and died in the full communion of the church of Israel, in so far as his own action or will was concerned; although he was in the end excommunicated and betrayed by the rulers of that church. He assured his disciples that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill. (Matt. v, 17.) Neither by example nor by precept did he set aside or abrogate it; but, on the contrary, having himself obeyed every precept and observed every ordinance, he left it, at his ascension, in full and unimpaired authority.

2. The apostles and the church over which they presided in Jerusalem were not only zealous in their observance of the law; but were not altogether exempt from the influence of some of the most obnoxious of the traditions of the elders. Of this, the case of Peter’s visit to the house of Cornelius presents a signal illustration. To prepare him to listen to the message from the Roman centurion, a miraculous vision was shown him. And, when the disciples in Jerusalem heard of the matter, they accused him, for having gone in to men uncircumcised and eaten with them. And yet there was not a syllable in the laws of Moses to justify such extreme reserve. It was wholly based upon the traditions of the elders. So powerful and prevalent was the sentiment among Jewish Christians, on this subject, that it subsequently became the occasion of a very singular dereliction on the part of Peter. Says Paul,—“When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew, and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.”—Gal. ii, 11-13. Respecting this it is not enough to say that Peter and the Judaizers were all wrong. True. But such a state of things could not have existed, had the church or the apostles understood the law of Moses to be, in any manner, abrogated or set aside.

3. The calling and decree of the council of Jerusalem are very important facts, as bearing on this subject. The occasion of the council was the attempt of Judaizing teachers to impose circumcision and the ritual law upon the Gentile converts. (Acts xv, 1-5.) Hereupon, “the apostles and elders came together to consider of this matter.”—v. 6. Here, at once, it is impossible that such a question could have arisen, had the abrogation of the Mosaic law been a fact known to the church in Jerusalem; and assuredly in that case, there would have been no room for the apostles and elders to “consider” such a question, the very raising of which would have been the erection of a standard of open rebellion against Christ. The discussions and decree of the council were equally conclusive. No doubt was suggested, in any quarter as to the continued authority of the law. No one hinted at the idea of its repeal. The discussion turned entirely on the privilege of the Gentiles to be specially exempt from its requirements. The evidence of such exemption was found in the fact that God had, in a special manner, shown his acceptance of them, outside the law. Upon this point, the whole issue turned; and the proof respecting it was formally given by Peter, in a rehearsal of the facts concerning the house of Cornelius (vs. 7, 8); and by Paul and Barnabas, in an account of “the miracles and wonders which God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.”—vs. 12. Moreover, the conclusion reached (vs. 14-19), and the decree issued, had express relation, to the Gentiles, only, and not to the whole body of the church. In a word, it was a decree recognizing and proclaiming the exemption of the Gentiles from the obligation of the existing law.—“The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles, in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia. Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us, have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment.... It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which, if ye keep yourselves ye shall do well. Fare ye well.”—vs. 23-29. Such is the only rule or decree found in the New Testament, respecting the ritual law. It exempts the Gentiles from its obligations; but otherwise leaves it in unimpaired authority.

4. With this view, the whole subsequent history of the apostolic church agrees. Paul was the great apostle of the Gentiles. He was prompt and decided in asserting and vindicating their liberty from the obligations of the law; but was himself conscientious in the observance of all its requirements, and fully recognized their obligation upon himself and his brethren of Israel. These facts were brought into question, and publicly established in the most signal manner. When he came to Jerusalem after his third missionary tour, in an interview with James and the elders of the church, they said to him “Thou seest, brother, how many thousands (muriades, how many tens of thousands,) of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law. And they are informed of thee that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come together; for they will hear that thou art come. Do, therefore, this that we say to thee. We have four men which have a vow on them. Them take and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things whereof they have been informed concerning thee are nothing, but that thou thyself also walkest orderly and keepest the law. As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.”—Acts xxi, 20-25. To this suggestion Paul agreed, and was in the temple in fulfillment of it, awaiting the time when “an offering should be offered for every one of them,” when a tumult was raised by the unbelieving Jews, and his imprisonment took place, which resulted in his being sent, in chains, to Cesarea, and to Rome. (Acts xxi, 26, 27.)

Respecting this matter, the first point to be noticed is the fact that the myriads of Jewish Christians were unanimous.—They “were all zealous of the law.” The imagination of Conybeare and Howson and others that the proceeding was the work of a Judaizing faction and was consented to for the sake of peace, is not only without warrant in the record, but is in contradiction to its whole tenor, and spirit. In fact the entire conception of the first named writers on the subject is characterized by a strained and perverse ingenuity, rather than by the simplicity of a sound criticism. And yet they have to admit that the law continued in unimpaired authority over all Jewish believers. Why then labor to stigmatize the church in Jerusalem or an imaginary faction therein for being zealous in its maintenance?

The purpose and intent of this transaction as expressly avowed by James and the elders was to draw a broad line of distinction between Jews and Gentiles in relation to the law. In their very suggestion to Paul, they refer to the former council and decree.—“As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing.” Thus, avowedly, the course proposed was designed to interpret that decree, and to limit its purview to the Gentiles. It was, moreover, a transaction taking place in circumstances which imparted to it the very highest moment. It was in Jerusalem, the center whence Jesus had commanded his apostles that the gospel should go forth. They were to preach in all the world, “beginning at Jerusalem.” There, consequently the first labors of the twelve were expended; there, some of them were almost always found; and to that church the Gentile churches looked as the fountain of their faith and authoritative exponent to them of the will of Christ. Such had been the prophetic anticipation long before respecting this very time.—“Out of Zion shall go forth the law; and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”—Isa. ii, 3. Already had that church sent forth the law concerning the relation of the Gentiles to the Mosaic institutions. And now the question to be decided was equally important, and the action proposed, although different in form, was equally responsible and decisive. A decree of confirmation of the law, which had stood unimpeached for fifteen centuries would have been inappropriate and calculated rather to awaken doubts than to strengthen conviction. The course proposed and adopted was more appropriate and effective. Paul was the great apostle of the Gentiles, the recognized and world-renowned champion, not only of the freedom of the Gentiles, but of the liberty of the gospel, the liberty of all Christ’s people. The spectacle, therefore, of this great apostle, performing Levitical rites of purifying and publicly appearing at the temple, in order to the offering of sacrifices, in completion of a Nazarite vow, would constitute a most decisive demonstration and announcement of the continued obligation of the law, over all Israel. It was not a case, therefore, in which a privilege might be waived for the sake of peace. Submission to these proposals, if they were unwarranted, would have been treason, at once to Christ and to the liberties of the apostle’s own people. How likely it was that Paul, having already vindicated with firmness and success the freedom of the Gentiles from the bondage of the law, should have conspired to betray the liberties of his own beloved Israel, on the very same point, in the interest of a time-serving policy, may be judged from his whole history and writings. The alternative presented by the facts is of itself conclusive. Either the law remained in unimpaired authority, over Israel,—or, Paul and James, the elders, and all the myriads of believing Jews, were united, without dissent or exception, in a conspiracy to repudiate the authority of the Lord Jesus, and re-establish a law repealed by him.

5. The action of Paul upon this occasion was not an instance of mere occasional conformity, but was expressly designed by the apostle as a testimony to the Jews that he did not repudiate the law, but “walked orderly and kept it.” And an examination of his manner of life and ministry will show that this testimony was true,—that he was constant and conscientious in his own observance of the law, and recognition of its authority. Wherever he went, his first recourse was to the worshiping assemblies of the Jews, to which he joined himself as one of them, withdrawing only when rejected from their company. (Acts xvii, 2; xix, 8, 9, etc.) One incident in the story of his ministry affords us a glimpse into the inner chamber of his sentiments and the spirit of his personal life, as toward the law. On his second missionary tour, leaving Corinth, he sailed into Syria, “and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow.”—Acts xviii, 18. Some expositors have explained this vow as taken by Aquila and not by Paul. Olshausen, who, however, rejects this theory, says that “those learned men who deny the reference of the words to Paul, suppose that the statement can not be applied to him, because it would have been inconsistent with his principles regarding the abrogation of the ceremonial law of Moses, to have taken upon him a vow.” Conybeare and Howson, who hesitate between the two views, say that “the difficulty lies not so much in supposing that Paul took a Jewish vow (see Acts xxi, 26) as in supposing that he made himself conspicuous for Jewish peculiarities while he was forming a mixed church at Corinth.” But all admit that the Greek in this place points as distinctly to Paul as does the common English version. We already know enough, certainly, to caution us against forcing an interpretation, on the ground that the ceremonial law was abrogated. We have seen the apostle take upon him such a vow, in the most public and demonstrative manner. And, as to the difficulty made by Conybeare and Howson, it is founded in a palpable mistake of the facts. The vow may have been made in Corinth. Of that we know nothing. But the shaving of his head, to which alone the suggestion as to “making himself conspicuous” could apply, took place in Cenchrea, after leaving Corinth and when in the act of sailing for Syria. So that the facts as recorded look rather to the avoidance of notoriety than seeking it. So far as the record indicates, the vow being connected with Paul’s own private religious life, was only known to his personal attendants, in connection with the fact of his shaving his head, and the diligence with which he sought to reach Jerusalem in time for the feast. (Vs. 21, 22.) This was no doubt connected with the fulfillment of his vow, which of necessity required offerings at the temple. It thus appears that not only did the apostle maintain an outward and formal observance of the law; but that his private devotional life and experience took its form from the ordinances of that law, and found expression in them; a fact utterly irreconcilable, as was his whole life and teachings, with the assumption that he looked upon them as being abrogated or obsolete.

On this and other occasions, there are intimations that as often as was consistent with the duties of his ministry, he was accustomed to resort to Jerusalem, in observance of the annual feasts, and for the purpose of making offerings at the temple. “I came,” says he to Felix, “to bring alms to my nation, and offerings. Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple.”—Acts xxiv, 17, 18; comp. xx, 16.

Another important fact appears in the record. With a significant discrimination, Paul circumcised Timothy the son of a Jewess; although, his father being a Greek, he might have claimed exemption as a Gentile (Acts xvi, 1-3); “But, neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek was compelled to be circumcised; and that because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to whom we gave place, by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”—Gal. ii, 3-5. Thus, in Timothy and Titus, Paul’s favorite disciples and constant attendants and helpers in his later ministry, he carried with him exemplars and representatives of the opposite relations to the law, which he recognized in the Jews and the Gentiles.

Moreover during his imprisonment, in reply to the charge of being a contemner of the law, the apostle repeatedlyrepeatedly and unqualifiedly asserted that he had been constant and faithful in observance of it. In the presence of the council of Israel, he announced himself a Pharisee. Of the same thing he writes to the Philippians, that he had “no confidence in the flesh, Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless.”—Phil. iii, 3-6. It is true that the description here given by the apostle has especial reference to the past time of his unconverted zeal. But it is also true, that his introductory comparison with others, as to grounds of self-righteous confidence, is in the present tense, and indicates a conscious fidelity to the law down to the time of his writing. When accused before Festus, “he answered for himself,—Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against CÆsar, have I offended any thing at all.”—Acts xxv, 8. And when at last he was taken to Rome, he there called the chief of the Jews together, and said to them, “Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.”—Acts xxviii, 17.

Is it asked, how all this is to be reconciled with the doctrine of the epistle to the Galatians, and other testimonies of Paul respecting circumcision and the law? I answer,—Paul nowhere utters a syllable in disapproval of the observance of the law by the Jews, as a rule of life. What he assails is, a trusting in it, for themselves, or imposing it on others, as a rule of righteousness unto salvation. While he proclaimed salvation by grace, through faith alone, without the works of the law, moral or ritual, he with perfect consistency not only himself kept the law, but enjoined it on his brethren after the flesh. His principle of action in this respect, he states explicitly, “Is any man called, being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free use it rather.”—1 Cor. vii, 18-21. Thus distinctly does Paul recognize circumcision as still being, to the Jews, a commandment of God; as exemption from it was to the Gentiles. And it need scarcely be said, that circumcision here stands for the whole law. It is to be considered, moreover, that this language of Paul is not a mere recognition of circumcision as still existing by the providence of God; but it is an express and unreserved re-enforcement of the law, by his whole authority, as an apostle of Jesus Christ,—a re-enforcement broad and unlimited as to time or circumstances as was the law itself. This unlimited character of the apostle’s decree, is emphasized and strengthened by the exception which he appends to the general form of his enunciation;—“Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called.” Lest any should interpret this rule as designed to apply to cases outside the theme in hand, he adds,—“Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.” So far from moderating or weakening the force of the apostle’s previous language, this adds greatly to it; showing as it does, that the question of exceptions and limitations was present to his mind. Then was the time, if ever, for him to have intimated the doing away of the ritual law; or, at least, to so guard his language as to harmonize it with its ultimate abrogation, had such been the purpose of God. The fact, therefore, that neither here nor elsewhere does he allude to such a purpose, but on the contrary gives the above unreserved injunction as a permanent part of the written word of God, leaves us but one alternative,—to reject the authority of Paul, as an inspired apostle, or to recognize circumcision and the law as being, to the Jew, the commandment of God, unrepealed.

If, we further examine the epistles, we shall find that while they all are unanimous in repudiating the righteousness of the law; they do not, anywhere assert or imply its repeal, as toward Israel. It will moreover be found that any inference as to the abrogation of the law, which may be deduced from the doctrine of grace, as taught by all the apostles, applies as directly to the moral as to the ritual code; both of which are by them commonly comprehended together under the designation of, “the law.” Upon their principles, reliance on a righteousness of works is just as much to be reprobated in the one form as in the other; and the doctrine of salvation by grace is as consistent with the continued obligation and observance of the ritual, as, of the moral law.

6. It is no slight argument in proof of the view here presented, that it alone exhibits the apostolic history as consistent and harmonious, based upon definite and inflexible principles, unanimously recognized and obeyed by the apostles and elders. That such must have been the case, is involved in the manner in which the apostles were appointed to preside over the transition period in the history of the church, and the Spirit given for their guidance therein. Many writers have assumed without the trouble of proof, that the ritual law could not any longer possess legitimate authority—that the coming of Christ, and his one offering of himself, of necessity, superseded and set it aside. They are, at once, involved in the necessity of treating the whole history of the apostolic church as one of compromising policies and timeserving expedients. We are told of the extreme Judaism of James, the more moderate conservatism of Peter, and the free evangelical spirit of Paul. Their principles and parties are represented as maintaining a continual struggle, and the various facts of the history are explained as the prevalence of one or the other set of opinions, or the result of compromise. On the contrary, there is not a trace of the least diversity of sentiment on these questions between the parties named, or any of the apostles or leaders of the church. Some “false brethren, unawares brought in” (Gal. ii, 4), attempted to create division; but only developed harmony. The decree of the council of Jerusalem was no compromise, but the expression of unanimous sentiments (‘omothumadon, “with one heart,”—Acts xv, 25), and was, moreover, dictated by the Holy Spirit. “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.” The so-called partisans of James, the Judaizing zealots, who troubled Paul’s ministry, were expressly repudiated in that decree, which was moved in the council by Peter and James, and apparently drafted by the hand of the latter.^[112] The reason why the labors of James and Peter were mainly confined to the circumcision in Judea, while Paul preached among the far off Gentiles, was precisely the same in both cases,—the will of Christ. Says Paul,—“When they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter; (for He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles;) and when James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.”—Gal. ii, 7-9. No. The blood-bought church of Christ, was not left, at this critical time, to the mercies of the passions and prejudices, the narrowness and factions of fallible men. It was under the direction of the Lord Jesus, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The prayer “that they all may be one,” was not unheard, nor unanswered of the Father; and the promise that the Spirit should guide them into all truth was fulfilled.

From this careful survey, it appears, that the New Testament contains no evidence of the abrogation or passing away of the ceremonial law,—that its unimpaired authority over Israel was fully and universally acknowledged and asserted by the apostles and the churches over which they presided; while the exemption of the Gentiles from its requirements was recognized as exceptional, and secured by formal consultation and decree;—that this condition of things continued unchanged to the close of the New Testament canon;—and that as a necessary consequence, that law never has been repealed, to this day. As once before, during the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, Israel was providentially precluded from its observance, so at present, it is one of the most afflictive features of the divine dealings with them, that the law, which they idolized and so grievously perverted, still binds them; while the destruction of the temple, the disorganization of the nation and the obliterating of the priesthood renders its fulfillment by them impossible.

The exemption of the Gentile Christian church from the authority of the ceremonial law must be accounted for upon some principle which will harmonize with all the facts. The common theory assumes it to be of the very nature of a type to perish and be abrogated by its realization in the antitype. Thus, it is supposed, that the sacrificial system of necessity expired with its fulfillment by Christ’s one offering of himself. But, as we have seen, the law was not in fact abrogated, but continues in unimpaired authority over Israel. Why, then, are the Gentiles exempt from its obligations?

The reason was briefly intimated by Peter. “Why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear;”—literally, “neither (ischusamen) were strong to bear.”—Acts xv, 10. This verb means, to be strong, and is sometimes used with a negative particle, as here, to indicate a labor of great difficulty, not amounting to an impracticability. Thus, in John xxi, 6, it is said of the net of fishes,—“They were not able” (were not strong) “to draw it, for the multitude of fishes.” And yet, immediately after, when their force had been reduced by Peter casting himself into the sea and swimming to land, they came “dragging the net with fishes,” and Peter himself drew it to land. (vs. 8, 11.) The ritual law was a burdensome, although not impossible institution, for Israel, when dwelling in their own land. But, as a system of worship for a world-religion, it was unsuitable. Essential to it was the one temple, altar and priest, at Jerusalem, typical of the one sanctuary and service in heaven. Hither must all males repair statedly, three times a year, and both men and women upon many special occasions beside, of a personal nature. To a population of four or five millions, dwelling in the narrow limits of Palestine,—a territory the extreme dimensions of which were about 100 miles by 150,—this was possible, although burdensome. But, to the distant millions of the world’s inhabitants, manifestly it would have been utterly impracticable.

Moreover, to the race at large, the ceremonial law had already fulfilled its most important and essential offices. Undoubtedly, it could still have been used by the grace of God, as it had been for ages before, as a mode for the effectual transmission and dissemination of the gospel testimony, kept in unimpaired purity by the agency of unchanging forms. Nor is the fact to be everlooked, or lightly regarded, that representations to the eye and the physical senses have a peculiar power over the affections and the heart, a power often greater and more influential than any appeal to the intellect through the organs of hearing. Had such been the will of God, the ritual system was certainly susceptible of being made a powerful auxiliary to the dissemination of the gospel, by its relation to these principles of man’s nature.

But, when the gospel was given to the Gentiles, the system of elementary ideas which were embodied and exhibited in the Mosaic ceremonial possessed a world-wide diffusion. The art of writing had been developed and disseminated. The Old Testament Scriptures were already written and widely distributed, and the gospels and epistles were soon to follow. Thus the cardinal importance of the ritual ordinances as a mode for the recording and perpetuation of the gospel was obsolete,—replaced by means more appropriate to a religion now destined for the world. And the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” which now accompanies the preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles, is abundant compensation for the ritual system, as an appeal to the affections, through the senses.

It is thus apparent that the discrimination, in the beginning made between Jew and Gentile respecting the ceremonial law,—its obligation on the one, and the exemption of the other,—was neither arbitrary nor unmeaning, but alike reasonable and susceptible of full and beautiful realization in practice. It implied the continuance of Israel as a priest-kingdom among the nations, maintaining at Jerusalem, as a standard of faith to the world, that system of rites which so beautifully, so clearly and impressively set forth the gospel to the eyes and senses of men; whilst, the world over, the same gospel should have been published, by the written and printed word, by the living voice, and by the simple ritual of Gentile Christianity, practicable everywhere. But such was not the purpose of God. At the beginning, our first parents by sin forfeited the Eden which might have been theirs. So, Israel forfeited her offered privilege. Jerusalem was destroyed, and the gospel and the church were given to the Gentiles,—“until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved.”—Rom. xi, 25, 26.

Section LXXXVI.—The Christian Passover.

To the church among the Gentiles, two simple ordinances remain, an inheritance from the ancient church,—a memorial and link of connection and identity between the two; and a continuous sealing of the same covenant, transmitted from the one to the other. That the Supper is thus derived from the paschal feast, can not be denied. As early as Jacob’s prophecy of Shiloh, “the blood of the grape” was appropriated as a type of Christ’s sufferings. (Gen. xlix, 9-12.) Afterward, in the Levitical system, a meat or bread offering made of fine flour mixed with oil, and a drink offering of wine, were made essential parts of all sacrificial offerings. (See Num. xv, and xviii.) Of the festival offerings, to which the passover belonged, a part only was offered upon the altar; the rest being appropriated to the worshippers. They thus enjoyed communion with God, at his table; and hence the proverbial description of “wine which cheereth God and man.”—Judg. ix, 13. Thus, in the passover and all the Levitical sacrifices, two distinct elements were typical of Christ’s sufferings; but in wholly different aspects. The blood signified the satisfaction demanded by justice; and it was, therefore, utterly prohibited that men should eat of it. (Lev. xvii, 10-14.) It was poured upon the altar. But the wine expressed the virtue of that satisfaction, imparted to believers and received by them, to their spiritual nourishment. Thus, the wine of the supper is not a substitute for the blood of sacrifice, but is a distinct and co-ordinate type, transmitted from the passover, and other sacrificial rites, and unchanged in its meaning. The unleavened bread always symbolized the Bread of life that came down from heaven; and the cup always represented the blood of the new covenant.

That the passover was from the beginning a type of the atonement of the Lord Jesus, is certain. (1.) The ordinance was a feast upon a sacrifice. From the foundation of the world, sacrifice signified one thing,—the satisfaction to be made to justice by the Lord Jesus. Such being the case, the feast of Israel upon the pascal lamb could have but one meaning. That meaning was set forth by Jesus, who having been announced by John as the Lamb of God, himself says, “If any man eat of this bread (artou, “of this food”), he shall live forever, and the food that I will give, is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”—John vi, 51. (2.) The deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, was an exercise of the same redeeming function, which is displayed in the salvation of men; and was a type of that salvation. Hence the preface to the ten commandments.—“I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. xx, 2); which the Westminster catechism explains that “because God is the Lord and our God and Redeemer, therefore, we are bound to keep all his commandments.” (3.) Jesus himself at the very time when he eliminated the Lord’s supper out of the passover, declared the latter to be a type of his sufferings and death. “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”—Luke xxii, 15, 16.

How plainly the Lord’s supper was an epitome and perpetuation of the passover, will be understood, by reference to the manner of observance of the latter in the time of Christ. It was required of those who partook of the feast, that they should not sit, but recline at the table, as expressing liberty and rest. When they were thus disposed, wine was distributed, and after thanks given by the presiding person, each one drank a cup. The master then explained the nature and occasion of the feast, and distributed a second cup.cup. He then brake the unleavened bread, gave thanks, and gave it to the company, with the bitter herbs and other provisions that were on the table, and afterward the flesh of the lamb. When all had eaten and the supper was ended, he that presided took another cup of wine, and, after blessing God, all drank of it. This was called “the cup of blessing,” because of the blessing on it, which ended the feast. Thus the order of the feast was, (1) Thanksgiving; (2) A cup of wine; (3) The commemorative discourse; (4) A second cup; (5) A second thanksgiving; (6) The broken bread; (7) The flesh of the lamb; (8) The closing blessing; (9) The cup of blessing. So, at the beginning of the supper, Jesus took the cup, and gave thanks and said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.” After discourse, and washing the disciples’ feet, “he took bread, and gave thanks and brake it and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me. Likewise, also, the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.”—Luke xxii, 17-20.

The Lord’s supper was not, therefore, a distinct ordinance, instituted after the passover was ended, by the use of remaining elements. But it was a perpetuation of the passover, itself, by appropriating and interpreting portions of the elements, from time to time, during the progress of the feast; the bread being that which was broken and eaten before the paschal flesh, and the wine that which closed the feast; which was known to the Jews and described in the Talmud, as the cup of blessing, and which is designated by that name by the apostle Paul, in speaking of the Lord’s supper. (1 Cor. x, 16.) The particular number and order of the cups of wine and of the thanksgivings were regulations of the scribes, promotive of order and propriety in the observance; but not included in the divine requirements of the institution, and therefore not essential to it. This fact being taken into account, it will appear that the paschal feast remains to us entire, except only the sacrificial flesh of the lamb. Of it Paul says, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”—1 Cor. v, 7, 8.

Section LXXXVII.—The Hebrew Christian Church.

We proceed to trace the order and process of the development of the Christian church, as it took place under the Sinai constitution, with the ordinances modified as we have seen. The synagogue system had grown up long before the time of Christ. In it provision was made for fulfilling those injunctions of the law which insisted so much on instruction and study in the word of God, and which set apart the Sabbaths as days of holy convocation. (Lev. xxiii, 3, etc.) In the organization of these societies, respect was undoubtedly had, at first, to the ties of consanguinity; so that the members of a given cluster of families, living in the same vicinity and originally descended from one head, were constituted a synagogue, under the direction and government of those who by the right of primogeniture were the family elders. But, in the time of Christ, the whole system of the distribution and inheritance of the land, and of the family organization, as appointed by the law of Moses, had been broken up by the repeated captivities, the dispersion of the ten tribes, and the vicissitudes of war and peace. The synagogue system was therefore more artificial in its structure, and more characterized by the voluntary principle. Indications of voluntary association and elective affinity are plainly seen in the names of the synagogues members of which were active in the persecution of Stephen.—“The synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians.”—Acts vi, 9. It is indeed evident that in the general circumstances of the Jews at that time, in Judea and elsewhere, the worshiping assemblies must usually have been the products of voluntary association, more or less influenced by congeniality of sentiments among the members. Pharisees and Sadducees severally would seek the worshiping assemblies in which their respective views were favored. Those of the same foreign nationality would naturally gravitate toward each other. And, in general, congeniality, from whatever cause, would be potential in these associations.

The existence, at this time, in the bosom of the Jewish church of the two sects, or parties, of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, was a very important fact in preparing the way for the gospel. These parties are, in the original Greek, designated by the generic word, hairesis, which is commonly translated, “sect,” as “the sect of the Sadducees” (Acts v, 17), “the sect of the Pharisees” (Ib. xv, 5), “the sect of the Nazarenes,” (Ib. xxiv, 5). In one place, it is, “the way which they call heresy.”—Ib. xxiv, 14. Neither of these words, however, is a happy rendering of the original; which has nothing of the idea of doctrinal error, now attached to the word, heresy; and nothing of the odium involved in the designation of “sects;” nor, of the denominational separations which are expressed by it. The word, as used in Luke’s history signifies, a party, or rather, a society having a distinctive organization more or less complete, for certain special purposes; but continuing in the enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the Jewish church and the temple worship. Such was the position at once assumed, by the apostles and the converts of their ministry. They were organized in separate synagogues. They observed the first day of the week, as a day of assembling for worship and the breaking of bread. They received their converts by the familiar rite of baptism. But they were all zealous of the law, and faithful, therefore, even above others in the observance of its requirements. Thus, despite all the odium which Pharisees and Sadducees might seek to cast upon them, it was impossible to impeach them of apostasy from Judaism, or unfaithfulness to Moses. Hence, the result recorded by Luke. “They, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart; praising God, and having favor with all the people.”—Acts ii, 46, 47.

Such was the aspect of things in Jerusalem and Judea for a quarter of a century; from the first dissemination of the gospel to the times of anarchy which preceded the desolation of the land. In the bosom of the Jewish church, beside the great body of the people, were the three societies just mentioned. The Sadducees were comparatively few in number, but influential, by reason of their social position and wealth, the party being composed almost exclusively of the priests and aristocracy. The Pharisees were more numerous, and in greater favor with the people; for, while the Sadducees were chargeable with lax opinions, the Pharisees were “the straitest sect of the Jews’ religion,” including all those who hoped to secure the favor of God through the righteousness of the law. Beside these was “the sect of the Nazarenes,” far greater in numbers than either of the others; and, at first, more in favor with the mass of the people,—a favor which they seem to have retained till the growing corruption and disorder which heralded the catastrophe of the nation, rendered them odious, alike by the contrast of their lives with the prevailing licentiousness, and by the rebukes and warnings which they could not fail to utter.

Whilst the number of the Christians, as compared with the whole nation was, no doubt, small, the mistake is to be avoided of regarding it as insignificant. A comparison of the various statements on the subject will lead to the conclusion that the company of the believers must have been so large as to constitute one of the most conspicuous features in the aspect of the nation. On the day of Pentecost “there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”—Acts ii, 41. A few days afterward, “many of them which heard the word believed, and the number of the men was about five thousand.”—Ib. iv, 4. Soon after, it is again recorded that “the people magnified them. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.”—Ib. v, 13, 14. Again, it is stated that the high-priest demanded of the apostles,—“Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? And behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your teaching (didaches), and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.”—Ib. v, 28. Such was the progress of the gospel that these rulers were alarmed lest they should be called by the people to account for the death of Jesus. Soon, again, we read that “the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.”—Ib. vi, 7. Immediately after this Stephen was martyred, and “there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.”—Ib. viii, 1. By the dispersed believers, the gospel was carried through the land and to the Gentiles. (Ib. xi, 19.) And in Jerusalem itself the word of the Lord was not bound. The persecution, in its active form, soon ceased, and when the converted Saul retired from Jerusalem to Tarsus, we read that “then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied.”—Ib. ix, 31. Such was the new growth of the church in Jerusalem that when Paul made his last visit to that city, James could say to him,—“Thou seest, brother, how many (muriades) ten thousands of Jews there are which believe.”—Ib. xxi, 20. To the inference which naturally follows from these representations, the objection has been raised, that there is no accounting for such numbers, in the after history. Alexander suggests, that many were false professors, who “afterward apostatized or separated from the church, as Ebionites, or Judaizing heretics.”^[113] So dark a view, however, is not required by the facts. Doubtless there were some defections. But there is no reason to suppose them to have been of the extent here implied. The circumstances in which they united with the persecuted followers of the man of Nazareth, were not such as to present attractions to false professors. The patristic tradition that none of the Christians perished in the siege of Jerusalem, they having all retired to Pella, whilst it may possibly be true, concerning those who lived in Jerusalem, is by no means probable. And so far from Jesus having taught the disciples to expect such a result, the reverse is the case. That the churches of believers which had been flourishing for a quarter of a century in Judea, Galilee and Samaria must have suffered greatly, from the disorders and anarchy which preceded the final catastrophe, is certain, and of it Jesus expressly forewarned them.—“Ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. But there shall not an hair of your head perish” (even though ye be put to death). “In your patience possess ye your souls. And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.”—Luke xxi, 16-20. See, also, Matt. xxiv, 9-13; Mark xiii, 9-13. As to what afterward became of the Christians of Judea,—in view of the scanty remaining records of the time, and of the manner in which they were identified with their brethren of Israel as being none the less Jews because they were Christians,—it is not surprising that we can not distinctly trace their subsequent history. One fact, however, is patent on the face of the scanty record, and is sufficient to satisfy all the demands of the occasion. It is, that as the Christian churches, at a later period, emerge into the light of history they everywhere bear the broad and indelible impress of Hebrew Christian influences.

The subsequent history of the Hebrew church in Jerusalem itself very signally confirms the view here presented. As soon as the city began to be repeopled, a church was re-established, under the presidency, as Eusebius reports, of Simeon the son of Cleopas. Of his successors, that historian says,—“We have not ascertained, in any way, that the times of the bishops of Jerusalem have been regularly preserved on record. For tradition says that they all lived but a very short time. So much, however, have I learned from writers, that down to the invasion of the Jews under Adrian there were fifteen successions of bishops in that church, all which, they declare to have been Hebrews from the first, and received the knowledge of Christ pure and unadulterated, so that in the estimation of those who were able to judge, they were well approved and worthy of the episcopal office. For, at that time, the whole church under them consisted of believing Hebrews who continued from the time of the apostles until the siege that then took place.” The historian gives a list of the succession of fifteen bishops. “These are all the bishops of Jerusalem that filled up the time from the apostles until the above mentioned date,—all being of the circumcision.”^[114] The list ends with the name of Judah, who perished by the sword of the impostor, Simon, surnamed Bar Kokeba, “the Son of the Star.” This adventurer, originally a robber chieftain, had announced himself as the expected Messiah of Israel. The Jews, groaning under the oppressions of the Romans, rushed to arms and rallied to his standard, to the number of more than 200,000 men. He would brook no neutrality. The Gentiles of Palestine had to choose between his service and the sword. His demands, repelled by the Hebrew Christians, brought on them his exterminating vengeance, and Judah, the last of the Hebrew succession of the bishops of Jerusalem, perished, with a multitude of his church, under the swords of the Jews.^[115] Thus closed in blood the history of the Hebrew church in Jerusalem, in the year 132. As for Simon,—after successfully defying for two years, the whole power of Rome, he and his forces were finally cooped up in the town of Bethar, which was taken by storm. The impostor perished, with a multitude of his followers, and the remnant glutted the slave markets of the world. “The numbers of persons who perished by sword, flame, and hunger, have been stated as high as 700,000, by others, 580,000. As to Judaism and the Jewish people, the land might be said, for some time, to be a solitude. The native inhabitants who had escaped the butchery of the war were expatriated either by banishment or flight, or sold into bondage. No Jew was now permitted to come within sight of Jerusalem, and Gentile colonists were sent to take possession of the soil. Jerusalem in fact became a Gentile city.”^[116]

Says Mosheim,—“When the emperor (Adrian) had wholly destroyed Jerusalem, a second time, and had enacted severe laws against the Jews, the greater part of the Christians living in Palestine, that they might not be confounded with Jews as they had been, laid aside the Mosaic ceremonies, and chose one Mark who was a foreigner and not a Jew, for their bishop. This procedure was very offensive to those among them whose attachment to the Mosaic rites was too strong to be eradicated. They therefore separated from their brethren, and formed a distinct society, in Perea, a part of Palestine, and in the neighboring regions; and among them the Mosaic law retained all its dignity unimpaired.”^[117] These Jewish Christians, known as Nazarenes, are traceable for several centuries, orthodox in their faith and embraced in the fellowship of the Catholic church, but strict in the observance of circumcision and the law of Moses, as far as practicable in the circumstances of the Jews.

Section LXXXVIII.—The Gentiles Graffed in.

While such as we have described was the constitution of the church in Jerusalem and Judea, in the days of the apostles, it elsewhere presented a different aspect. At Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome and other places, Jews and Gentiles were associated together in the churches. Where such was the case, the Jewish members, like their brethren in Judea, maintained the ordinances of both the Levitical and Christian liturgies. They kept sacred alike the Jewish Sabbath and the Lord’s day. They were circumcised, and observed all the requirements of the law of Moses, and maintained all the services of the synagogue system. At the same time, they on the Lord’s day, united with their believing Gentile brethren, in observing the ordinances of the gospel church, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper.

On the other hand, the Gentile members of these churches were uncircumcised and free from the bondage of the ritual law. They kept holy the Lord’s day only; on which they united with their Jewish brethren in the ordinances of Christian worship and religion. At the same time these Gentile converts were more or less in the habit of frequenting the synagogue services, to hear the reading of the Scriptures and join in the worship of the God of Israel. In these services their position was similar to that held by the class of persons who were known as “devout persons,” or “proselytes of the gate.” In fact, it was usually from these that the first Gentile converts to Christ were gathered. The strong tendency, which the circumstances were calculated to induce in them, to embrace the entire system of Judaism as it was maintained by their Jewish Christian brethren, elicited from Paul those expostulations which have been misunderstood as implying the absolute abrogation of the law. His earnestness therein was induced by the fact, that the voluntary assumption of the yoke of the ritual law, by those upon whom God had not laid it, was a manifest apostasy from the doctrine of grace,—an attempt to fulfill a righteousness of works.

Of the mixed state of these churches, the first epistle to the Corinthians presents constant illustrations. In it, Paul indulges in a frequency of allusion to Old Testament facts which presupposes his readers to be familiar with the sacred books of the Jews. In one place, he addresses them as being of the stock of Israel, “Brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”—Ch. x, 1-11. On the other hand, the apostle alludes to disorders and offenses, in the church, which were evidently committed by the Gentile members (vi, 9-11; xi, 20-22), and moreover, says expressly,—“Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.”—xii, 2. He also, as we have already seen, gives express instructions for continuing the distinction between Jew and Gentile, in the church. “Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised.uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised.”—vii, 18.

But there was yet another class of churches, which may be exemplified in Lystra, Derbe, and Galatia,—churches where there were no Jews, or in which their number was so small as to constitute an unappreciable element. In them, the Christian Sabbath and ordinances were alone observed, the assemblies and services on the Lord’s day being precisely the same in their nature and manner as those maintained where Jews and Gentiles were united.

Of all these churches, whether of Jewish, mixed, or Gentile elements, the local constitution and form of government was the same; being that of the synagogue. This the circumstances rendered inevitable; and to it all the statements and intimations of the Scriptures testify. In fact, in the epistle of James they are expressly designated by that name.—“If there come unto your synagogue, (sunagogen) a man with a gold ring.”—Ja. ii, 2. It is true the epistle is inscribed, “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”—Ib. i, 1. But it is to the Christians of those scattered tribes, that he addresses himself. With them Gentile believers were always to be found united; and no one will pretend that there were two forms of organization; one for the Jews, and another for the Gentiles. These churches were self-governed, so far as internal order and discipline were concerned. But with relation to the fundamental laws of their existence and rule of their faith they were in a state of recognized and entire dependence on the church in Jerusalem. This relation was indicated and expressed in a very peculiar and conclusive manner. The vital question concerning the relation of the Gentiles to the law of Moses arose in the church in Antioch, in which there were not only certain prophets (Acts xiii, 1, 2), but Paul the great apostle of the Gentiles. Naturally, we should have expected such a question to be brought to an immediate decision, by prophetic revelation, or by the authority of the apostle, confirmed by signs following. And, in fact, there was an immediate divine interposition. But it was an interposition by which the question was remanded to Jerusalem to be decided there. Paul says to the Galatians,—“I went up to Jerusalem, with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. And I went up (kata apokalupsin) in accordance with a revelation.”—Gal. ii, 1, 2. Again, when he came to Jerusalem, there were present John, the beloved of Jesus, and Peter, the chief of the apostles; beside James, the brother of the Lord and head of the church in Jerusalem. (Ib. ii, 9.) But not by either or all of them was the question decided, but referred to the council of the church, and, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, was there determined by deliberative consultation and vote; and the decree was drawn up and sent forth in the name of “the apostles, and elders and brethren.”—Acts xv, 22, 23, 25. The relation of that council to the Jerusalem eldership and church is indicated by the manner in which at a later date those elders referred to it, in conference with Paul. “As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded.”—Acts xxi, 25, 18. Upon Paul’s return to Antioch, and resumption of his missionary labors, after the council, he and his attendants, “as they went through the cities, delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem.”—Ib. xvi, 4. It would thus appear beyond question, that this business was so ordered by the Head of the church, as to demonstrate the fact of the organic dependence of the Gentile churches everywhere,—not upon the authority of the apostles, as such, but upon the ancient church of Israel, in the councils of which the apostles sat as elders, with the elders. (1 Peter v, 1.) It was an indication to the Gentile churches that their privilege was that of partakers with Israel in her spiritual things. (Rom. xv, 27.) Believing Israel was thus presented, as not only the source whence the gospel flowed to the Gentiles, but as ordained to be to them the authorized exponent of that gospel. The principle here involved, is appealed to by Paul, when in repressing the arrogant assumptions of some in the Corinthian church, he demands of them,—“What! came the word of God out from you? or, came it unto you, only?”—1 Cor. xiv, 36. In this relation of the Jewish church to those of the Gentiles, there was a fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah (ii, 3) reechoed by Micah:—“In the last days ... many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”—Micah iv, 1, 2.

Thus, while the great body of Israel after the flesh rejected the Angel of the covenant, who was promised at Sinai to their fathers (Ex. xxiii, 20), and in so doing forfeited and were cut off from its fold, their believing brethren remained in full possession of its rights, and privileges; and the Gentiles, receiving Christ, became with them partakers therein, according to the proviso which from the beginning reserved room for them;—“For all the earth is mine.”—Ex. xix, 5.

It was at a time when the condition of things here described, in Judea and among the Gentiles had attained to its completest realization, that Paul addressed the Romans in a figure which is in beautiful accord with the literal facts; as they had been already realized. “If some of the branches be broken off, and thou being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree,—boast not against the branches. But, if thou boast, thou bearest not the root; but the root, thee. Thou wilt say, then,... The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well: because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.... And they also if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree.”—Rom. xi, 17-24.

The Christian church is not a new institution, nor its constitution a new organic law. But it is, in the strictest and most absolute sense, lineally and organically one with that of Israel, founded and perpetuated upon the covenant of Sinai.

But two of the evangelists, Matthew and Mark, mention baptism in connection with the last instructions of Jesus; and of these, Mark introduces it in an incidental way, as though it had been a matter already understood. (Matt, xxviii, 19, 20; Mark xvi, 15, 16.) The reason was that the apostles were not then first commissioned to baptize. On this point, Calvin speaking with reference to the arguments of the Anabaptists says, “It is a mistake worse than childish to consider that commission as the original institution of baptism,—which Christ had commanded his apostles to administer, from the commencement of his preaching. They have no reason to contend, therefore, that the law and rule of baptism ought to be derived from those two passages, as if they contained the first institution of it.”^[118] Upon this, Dr. Dale says,—“Calvin is right in dating Christian ritual baptism from the ministry and authority of Christ, and not from that of John, even if they were entirely identical, which they are not. The baptism of John is Christian baptism, as far as it goes; but it is Christian baptism undeveloped in the blood shedding of an atoning Redeemer, in which shedding of blood, ‘for the remission of sins,’ ritual baptism has its exclusive ground.” Again, speaking of the words of Peter, on the day of Pentecost,—“Repent and be baptized,”—he asks,—“What was this baptism? Was it a Jewish baptism, a ceremonial cleansing of the body, merely? Was it John’s baptism, a spiritual baptism (baptisma metanoias) in which no Holy Ghost was yet ‘poured out,’ no crucified Redeemer was yet revealed? Was it Christian baptism, the baptism of Christ, the crucified, the Risen, the Ascended, the Pourer out of the Holy Ghost?”^[119] In these passages we have a statement of differentia upon which the lamented author insists earnestly, as distinguishing the baptisms named, from each other. As to the Jewish baptisms,—those which were appointed by the divine law, they were, as we have seen, spiritual in the same sense precisely as were the baptisms of John and of Christ; and the latter were and are “a ceremonial cleansing of the body, merely,” in the same sense as were the baptisms of the Jews. To this day, “the letter,” or outward form of Christian baptism is a ceremonial cleansing of those who are ritually unclean. No otherwise could it show forth “the spirit” of the ordinance, which is the real purging, by the Spirit, of those who are spiritually defiled. From the beginning to the present day, the ritual baptisms always signified the very same spiritual truths. And they were all alike devoid of any spiritual power in themselves.

But let us trace the line of connection between them. Very early in the ministry of Jesus, before the imprisonment of John, while the latter was baptizing in Enon, “Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea; and there he tarried with them and baptized.” But “when the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples), he left Judea, and departed again into Galilee.”—John iii, 22; iv, 1-3. Here, be it observed, (1.) that John was the intelligent, faithful and inspired forerunner and herald of the Lord Jesus. The gospel which he preached was that which the Spirit of Christ gave him, and the baptism which he administered set forth that gospel in ritual figure. His preaching was summed in one word. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (2.) The Lord Jesus preached the very same word, and gave it to the apostles and the seventy to proclaim, when he sent them abroad through the land. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (3.) There is not an intimation in the Scriptures, nor suggestion to justify the idea, of the least difference in the form and nature of the baptisms at this stage of the history, administered by them respectively. Certainly if there were differences, they must have been characterized by a minuteness and subtlety, fit rather to exercise the ingenuity of hair-splitting schoolmen, than to instruct the common people of Judea; who, upon the supposition of diversity, were called to choose between the rival baptisms. John’s baptism was at first into the name of “the coming One,” “the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Of that baptism his was proclaimed to be a symbol. When Jesus came, John at once identified him as the coming One, and thenceforth his baptism was into the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I do not mean that John made use of those phrases. To this point we shall come presently. But “John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him; that is, on Christ Jesus.”—Acts xix, 4. The rite which he dispensed sealed upon the recipients their profession of repentance and faith in Jesus, the Son of God, the atoning Lamb, the King Baptizer. In a report of one of his discourses, which occupies seven verses of the gospel of John, each of these titles and the things implied in them is brought out with perfect distinctness. (John i, 29-36.) That John was ignorant of the precise form of crucifixion, as that in which atonement was to be made, is possible; although even there the facts do not warrant the confidence of Dr. Dale’s assertions. But that he was not ignorant of Christ’s atoning office, his own words distinctly testify. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”—John i, 29. (4.) The whole manner of the narrative from which we learn the fact that Christ’s disciples baptized, indicates the identity of the ordinance as administered by them with that of John. The fact is not mentioned for its own sake, but as introductory and explanatory of the testimony of John respecting Jesus. (John iii, 22-30.) In fact, we have no information whatever of the nature and meaning of Christ’s baptism, as thus originated, except in its justly assumed identity with that of John. This, the language of John’s interlocutors implies (Ib. 26), and upon the basis of this assumption the whole narrative rests. This remark applies also to the subsequent statement,—that “the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John; though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples.”—John iv, 1, 2. Here the one word, “baptized,” without qualification or differentiating phrase, is applied to both Christ’s disciples and John, and plainly identifies the rite administered by them as one and the same. That such was the case can not be successfully questioned.

And now, what have we, in the ordinance thus dispensed by the disciples under the eye, and as a seal to the preaching, of Christ, but Christian baptism? True, the disciples were ignorant at that time, of the doctrine of the cross, which in fact they refused to believe, till their Master was crucified before their eyes. But while the baptism was administered by their hands, it was in Christ’s immediate presence, by his authority, and as a seal to the gospel which he preached. How then could their ignorance and hardness, or that of John, if he be so impeached, change the nature of the rite which by Christ’s authority they both administered? And, especially, how could this be, when in fact that baptism, while it presupposed Christ’s atoning sufferings, yet had no immediate relation to them, but to his kingdom and glory,—the theme of John’s preaching,—the one thing in Christ’s instructions which the apostles gladly received?

To what extent this baptizing function of the apostles continued in exercise during the subsequent ministry of Christ, we are not informed. But, the manner in which, first and last, the subject is treated by the evangelists implies that it never was in abeyance. Hence, in his final interviews with them, Jesus does not speak of the ordinance as a novelty, nor as a rite to be reintroduced; but alludes to it as to a familiar subject. In fact, his only recorded references to it, have in view, not the ordinance, in itself considered, but its bestowal on the Gentiles. “Go ye, disciple all nations, baptizing them.”—Matt. xxviii, 19. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.”—Mark xvi, 15, 16. By this decree, the ordinance, which, as we have seen, was already divested of its sacrificial elements, was released from its peculiar and restricted relation to the Jewish people. Heretofore, only the circumcised could be admitted to baptism; and the rite, when administered to them, was received as a certificate of title to the privileges of the covenant, in connection with the Mosaic ritual and the temple service. But, by this decree of Christ, it was appropriated to the use of the Gentiles, also; as certifying to them a part in the same covenant, relieved of the encumbrance of the ritual law. That its administration to the converts of Christ’s ministry is not mentioned, presents no just occasion of surprise, in view of the familiarity of the ordinance and the emphasis already given to it in connection with John’s ministry. That Christ’s disciples baptized at all is only known to us by the incidental mention in the last of the evangelists.

The facts here developed are of immense importance in their bearing upon our present inquiry. The Lord Jesus did not institute baptism, at any time. He recognized it as an ordinance of God given to Israel ages before,—accepted it personally from the hands of John,—immediately appointed his disciples to administer it to the Jews in conjunction with John, and then, after his resurrection and assumption of the sceptre, commanded them to dispense it to the Gentiles also.—“All power is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them.”

The rebaptism of the twelve disciples of John, by Paul at Ephesus (Acts xix, 1-7), may be thought inconsistent with the assertion of the identity of the baptisms of John and of the Christian church. But when the facts are considered in their true relations, they will appear in perfect harmony with all that have been heretofore adduced, and entirely consistent with the conclusions thence derived. John was the herald of Christ. His preaching and baptism had neither significance nor value, except as they directed the attention and faith of his disciples to the coming of Christ and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which He should administer. To the great mass of those who received his baptism, no profit resulted, because it was not followed up by a waiting for Christ’s coming, and a devotion to him when he was revealed. It effected no actual separation of such disciples from the unbelieving mass of the nation. When, therefore, the crisis came and the Saviour was crucified, they sustained no relation of identity with him and his cause; but were an undistinguishable part of the nation, whose rulers betrayed and crucified Him. The baptism which they had received was no magical rite, leaving an indelible impress on the recipients; but a rational ordinance, designed to mark and seal a separation and consecration unto Christ. Precisely here, was the point of Paul’s testimony to these men.—“John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” Where this intent of John’s baptism did not follow,—where no separation unto Christ was actually effected, the parties remained unclean, with the unclean nation. In them was fulfilled the proverb of the son of Sirach.—“He that is baptized from the dead, and again toucheth the dead, what availeth his washing?”—Ecclus. xxxi, 30. Such was the case with any of the converts of Pentecost, who had been John’s disciples. And such evidently were the Ephesian disciples. They were believers in the Messiah of prophecy, as heralded by John. But their faith was weak and supineness prevalent. They had not followed up the line of John’s testimony, with the zeal of a living consecration. The baptism which they had received had effected no separation unto Christ. When, therefore, under the ministry of Paul, they were prepared to begin a new life, their consecration was sealed by a new administration of the same baptism.^[120]

That this is a just view of the case in question farther appears from the manner in which it is presented in immediate connection and contrast with that of Apollos, whose story closes the eighteenth chapter of the Acts, as that of the twelve opens the nineteenth. Of him it is stated that he was “an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue; whom, when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.”—Acts xviii, 24-26. The silence, here, on the subject of baptism, and the emphasis given to its statement immediately after, in the case of the twelve, is pregnant. For, all occurred in the same city of Ephesus, where Apollos was instructed and preaching just before Paul’s coming, and the baptism of the twelve.

Note.—How can we consistently restore excommunicated persons without rebaptism? Is not the prevalent practice a relic of the opus operatum heresy? “If any one assert that in the three sacraments, baptism, confirmation, and orders, there is not a mark imprinted on the soul,—that is a certain spiritual and indelible token, whence, it may not be repeated,—let him be anathema.”—Council of Trent, Sess. vii. Canon 9. Is this the faith which we hold?

Section XC.—“Baptizing them into the Name.”

“And Jesus came and spake unto them and said, All power is given unto me, in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and (matheteusate) disciple all nations, baptizing them (eis) into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoeverwhatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world.”—Matt. xxviii, 18-20.

Here are two things to be considered:—(1) The phrase, “into the name;” (2) “The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

1. “Into the name.” The phrase, “in the name,” as found in the common English version, represents three distinct forms of expression, in the original, which are essentially different in their meaning, and should, therefore, be carefully discriminated. They are “(en) in the name;” “(epi) for the name,” and “(eis) into the name.” The essential idea expressed by the first of these is, representative union, as a person who speaks or acts “in the name” of another, identifies himself with that other. Thus,—“Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name.”—John xiv, 13, 14, 26; xv, 16, etc. “Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.”—1 Cor. vi, 11. “Giving thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus.”—Eph. v, 20. “Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”—Col. iii, 17. Hence the use of the expression, as signifying, “by the authority of.” Thus, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.”—John v, 43. “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”—Acts iii, 6. “I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her.”—Ib. xvi, 18. There is but one passage in which this form of expression is used in connection with baptizo. Acts x, 48,—“He commanded them to be baptized, in the name of the Lord.” The analogy of the phrase elsewhere, would require us to understand it here as meaning, “by the authority of the Lord.” The codex Sinaiticus reads,—“He commanded them (en to ‘onomati Ju Xu baptisthenai), in the name of Jesus Christ to be baptized.” Cyril of Jerusalem quotes the passage in the same order.^[121] Not only does the form of the phrase in itself call for this rendering, but the connection is equally clear, in the same direction. The case was the baptism of the house of Cornelius. Peter demands,—“Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost, as well as we?” The point at issue was the admission of the Gentile world to a part in the salvation of Christ. Peter had on the day of Pentecost testified that it was the Lord Jesus by whom the Holy Ghost had been poured out. He had been admonished by Jesus in a vision that the Gentiles were not to be excluded from the blessings of the gospel. He now calls the attention of his six Jewish companions (Acts xi, 12), to the fact that the house of Cornelius was baptized by the Lord Jesus himself, with the same Spirit which had been poured upon the Jews on Pentecost; and with an emphatic pause, challenges objection. There being none, the apostle, then, in the name and by the authority of Christ, proclaims the doors of salvation thrown open to the world. He “in the name of the Lord Jesus, commanded them to be baptized;” and afterward vindicated the action by the demand, “What was I, that I should withstand God.”—Acts xi, 17.

Epi, in this connection, has the general meaning of, because of,—on account of,—with reference to,—for; and the phrase as thus constructed means, “for the sake of.” Thus, “Whoso shall receive one such little child (epi ‘onomati mou), for my name’s sake.”—Matt. xviii, 5; Mark ix, 37. “They called him Zacharias (epi), for the sake of his father’s name.”—Luke i, 59. “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached (epi) for his name’s sake.”—Luke xxiv, 47. “That they speak henceforth to no man (epi) for the sake of the name.”—Acts iv, 17. From these illustrations, it will be seen that in connection with baptism, the rendering, of epi,—“in the name,”—altogether misses the idea of the sacred writer. It occurs but once. On the day of Pentecost, Peter, in reply to the cry,—“What shall we do?” answered,—“Repent and be baptized every one of you (epi), for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ (eis), unto the remission of sins.”—Acts ii, 38. Jesus had said, “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved.” Peter, therefore, tells the multitude, “Repent and be baptized. Do this, in honor of the Lord Jesus; and unto the remission of sins; since repentance, and obedience shown by receiving baptism, are pledges of remission.”

In the text of Matthew, which stands at the head of this section, the word is, eis,—“Baptizing them (eis), into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” This is the preposition ordinarily used with relation to baptism, both real and ritual. In connection with the baptism of the Spirit, its signification is so fully explained and illustrated as to admit of no doubt or question. They that are “baptized (eis) into Christ” (Gal. iii, 27; Rom. vi, 3), are united to him,—“by one Spirit baptized (eis) into one body,” “the body of Christ.”—1 Cor. xii, 13, 27. Those who are “baptized (eis) into his death,” are thereby “dead with him.”—Rom. vi, 3, 8. So, it is said of the children of Israel that they were “baptized (eis) into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea,” as the passage of the Red Sea, the destruction of the Egyptians and the deliverance of Israel by the hand of Moses released them finally and forever from the Egyptian yoke, and united them to Moses in subordination to his mediatorial authority. “They believed the Lord and his servant Moses.”—Ex. xiv, 31. This is viewed by the apostle as a figure of the work of grace by which the people of Christ are released from Satan’s bondage and brought under his saving scepter; and he, therefore, uses the same form of expression, “Baptized into Christ,” “Baptized into Moses.”

The style in which the real baptism is thus spoken of is a key to the meaning of the Lord Jesus, in his language concerning the ritual ordinance. The visible church is the representative and type of that invisible body of Christ, the members of which are incorporated therein by the baptism of the Spirit. Baptism with water is a symbol, merely, of that spiritual grace. The recipient may be truly united to the Lord Jesus. But such union is not produced by the ritual ordinance. The effect can ascend no higher than the cause. A symbolic baptism can accomplish no more than a symbolic union, a union in outward semblance and name. Its ground is profession of the name of Christ, and the characteristic designation of those who have received it is,—that they “have named the name of Christ”—(2 Tim. ii, 19), that is, they have professed to take hold of his covenant, and have thereupon had his name named upon them. They are Christ’s. If, therefore, baptism “into Christ,” by the Spirit, means spiritual union with Christ, and with his invisible body, then, manifestly, baptism with water “into the name of Christ,” can mean nothing else but ritual identification with his name, and with that visible body which is known by his name, and embraced by profession in the bonds of his covenant. To effect such union is all that Christ’s ministers can do. It is what they are commissioned to do. The rest remains with the Great Baptizer himself. Intimately related to this subject is that remarkable word of God which instructed Aaron and his sons to bless Israel with that threefold benediction which is believed to refer to the doctrine of the glorious Trinity. “The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace,”—and then adds,—“And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”—Num. vi, 23-27.

The form of expression used by the Lord Jesus,—“baptizing them into the name,” is a perpetual rebuke of every doctrine or pretense which would attribute to the rite, in itself, any higher or other efficacy than that of changing the outward and professed relation of the baptized to Christ and the Godhead. The view here presented is further involved in the relation between baptism and discipleship, intimated in the words of Jesus,—“Disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name.” Christ came as the revealer of the Godhead, the Prophet of Israel, as well as her royal Priest. The preaching of the gospel is the fulfillment of his prophetic function, and those whether Jews or Gentiles, who accept it are to be enrolled as disciples of Christ, by being baptized into the name or profession of the faith of the triune Godhead, as revealed by him, in the gospel. It will thus be seen that the translation invariably given to the phrase in question, in our common English version, entirely fails of exhibiting a true idea of the meaning of the original. See Matt, xxviii, 19; Acts viii, 16; xix, 5; 1 Cor. i, 13, 15. Baptizing “in the name,” can only mean, dispensing the rite by the authority of the Persons named. The command is, to “baptize into the name.”

2. “The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” In other places, baptism is said to be “into the name of the Lord Jesus.”—Acts ii, 38; viii, 16; xix, 5. Nor are the other Persons of the Godhead ever mentioned in such connection with the real baptism. That is always described as being into Jesus Christ. Rom. vi, 3; 1 Cor. xii, 13, 27; Gal. iii, 27. How is this diversity of expression to be explained? It is abundantly plain, as respects the real baptism. In it, each Person is signally present, in appropriate relation. In it, Christ, the Royal Administrator, by whom the Spirit is poured out, is also the Head into which by that one Spirit all are baptized as members. The Spirit appears as the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the Renewer and Sanctifier. And as to the Father, “Ye are all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”—Gal. iii, 26, 27. “As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name.”—Joh.Joh. i, 12. In a word, thus is fulfilled the petition of Jesus. “As thou Father art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.... I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.”—John xvii, 21, 23. By the real baptism, therefore, the believer is united to each Person of the Godhead,—a fact, nevertheless, expressed by baptism into one, Jesus Christ.

The same principle governs the forms of expression used with reference to ritual baptism. Jesus Christ is the Word of God, and can not be truly apprehended except in that relation. “No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him.”—John i, 18. He came to make known the Father. He returned to impart the Spirit. And, as he was thus apprehended by the apostles, a baptism into his name was a baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit. It only ceases to be so, when Jesus ceases to be appreciated as him in whom “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”—Col. ii, 9.

It is an illustration of the essential deficiency of the theory of immersion that it has no explanation for the diversity of expression here considered.

In the great commission, as recorded by Mark, Jesus said to his disciples, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.”—Mark xvi, 15, 16. Dr. Dale denies that ritual baptism is here referred to.—“We accept the real baptism by the Holy Spirit as the sole baptism directly contemplated by the passage; in general, because it meets in the most absolute and unlimited manner, as a condition of salvation, the obvious requirement on the face of the passage, having the same breadth with belief, and universally present in every case of salvation.”^[122] To this view the objections are obvious and conclusive. (1.) The clause which the author has emphasized with Italics, is inaccurate. The baptism with the Holy Ghost is not “a condition of salvation;” but is the very salvation itself. It is the casket in which are bestowed repentance, faith, remission of sins, justification, adoption, sanctification, the resurrection and eternal life. (2.) The interpretation would not only make this baptism a condition of salvation, but puts it in the position of a co-ordinate but secondary condition with faith.—“He that believeth and is baptized.” Whereas faith, as just remarked, is one of the immediate phenomena of this baptism. (3.) The text as thus explained represents the Lord Jesus as commissioning his ministers to offer salvation to sinners upon conditions one of which is to be performed by them; but the other belongs to his own peculiar prerogative, to which, in no circumstances, can they assume an efficient relation. It interprets the message to be preached thus: “Whoever believeth shall be saved; provided I, Jesus, shall see fit to baptize him!”

The text is a statement to the apostles, and through them to the ministry in all ages, of their duties and the results of their labors. With baptism as a ritual ordinance of the gospel they had been familiar from the beginning of John’s ministry, and of Christ’s in coincidence with it. They had been fully instructed, as to the baptism of the Spirit, which Christ was about to dispense, and which they were to await; and as to the typical relation to it which the ritual ordinance sustained. They are now commanded to go forth and preach that gospel; not, as heretofore, to Israel, only, but to every creature, in all the world; and whereas, until now, none could be baptized,—none could receive the token of the covenant, except those who were, by circumcision, identified with Israel after the flesh,—he indicates the removal of that restriction,—“Go teach all nations, baptizing them.” Baptizing them with water, which, only, they could administer; and in token of that profession of faith, of which only they could take cognizance. It is in view of these things, that the declaration is made, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” The repetition shows that the emphasis of the passage rests on believing. “You are to preach, and baptize those who profess to believe. But let all, both preachers and hearers, beware of trusting in the baptismal shadow. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved. But he that believeth not,—his baptism will not avail,—He shall be damned.” Assuredly, had the Lord Jesus been stating conditions of salvation, as concerning baptism, he knew how to set it on both sides of the alternative.

Section XCII.—The Formula of Baptism.

It is proper and necessary that such words be used in the administration of Baptism, as shall give an intelligent announcement of the nature and intent of the ordinance. For this purpose nothing can be more appropriate than the formula in universal use, in all the churches. But the question arises whether the words thus employed were given to be uttered as a formula necessary to the rite.

1. There is nothing whatever in the language of the Lord Jesus, on the subject, to give countenance to the suggestion in question. “Go ye, and disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” We have already seen that “baptizing into the name” means, not the utterance in the baptism of any words or formula; but instruction and consecration to the faith and service of the Triune God, identified with the baptismal rite and signified by it. But if such be the meaning of our Savior’s words, it excludes the idea in question. “Baptizing them into the name,” then, means something very different from “uttering the name.” In fact, the more carefully the language in question is examined, in itself, in its immediate connection, and in its relation to the general scope of the gospel and its history, the more evident will it appear that it was not words that were present to the mind of Jesus, or by him put into the mouths of his ministry, but the great doctrine of baptism, in which the whole gospel is summed,—that doctrine which was heralded by the baptist, and expounded by the Lord Jesus in his discourse and prayer at the supper. One who should teach that the Holy Spirit is not a coequal Person of the Godhead, or that the Lord Jesus is not the eternal and coequal Son, might administer the rite, in the use of the formula. Yet would it not be baptism in the intent of Jesus as here set forth.

2. The silence of all of the evangelists except Matthew as to the words in question, is wholly inconsistent with the supposition that they were given as a formula. The importance of the rite is of common agreement. And resting as it does as an obligation on every soul that hears the gospel, it is the first and foremost of all the practical duties of those who receive it. If, therefore, the formula was now given as an element in the administration of the ordinance, it is of the first and universal moment. How then is it possible for three of the evangelists to have ignored it, in their several versions of the gospel. Evidently they attached to it no such significance as obtains with those who hold it as of the essence of baptism.

3. The fact that it is not once used or alluded to, in the whole subsequent history and epistles, is conclusive. Those records are a testimony;—as much by silence, often, as by utterance. But, on this subject, they are not silent. On the day of Pentecost, Peter calls upon the inquirers to be baptized “(epi) for the name’s sake of Jesus Christ.”—Acts ii, 38. The Samaritans and the twelve disciples of John at Ephesus were baptized “into the name of the Lord Jesus.”—Acts viii, 16; xix, 5. And Paul distinctly implies that the Corinthians were baptized into the same name. “Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or, were ye baptized into the name of Paul?”—1 Cor. i, 13. How these facts are consistent with obedience to Christ’s command we have already seen. The only interpretation which will harmonize the record is deduced from that doctrine of baptism which has been unfolded in these pages. He that is spiritually baptized into Jesus Christ, thereby receives the Spirit and is united in Christ to the Father. He is baptized into the Three.

Here, the doctrine of immersion is radically defective. The form may be administered with the utterance of the names of the Trinity. But its doctrine contains no testimony to the Triune, nor recognition of any Person of the Godhead. It relates altogether to the humanity of Christ, whose burial it represents.

Section XCIII.—The Administration on Pentecost.

On the day of Pentecost, in reply to the cry of the repentant multitude,—“What shall we do?” Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you (epi to ‘onomati), for the name’s sake of Jesus Christ (eis) unto the remission of sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.... Then, they that gladly received his word were baptized; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”—Acts ii, 37-41. Dr. Dale denies this baptism to have been ritual, and demands,—“Was there a visible Christian church in existence at Pentecost? Was there any one competent to organize a Christian church before Pentecost? Did not the divine Head of the church himself furnish the materials for a church organization, officers, and members, ‘that day?’ Was there a Christian organization effected, as well as a tri-millenary baptism administered ‘that day?’ Were they organized and then baptized, or baptized and then organized?”^[123] These questions, coming with the authority of the learned writer, are entitled to respectful consideration. And although they have, in effect, been answered, already, a few words will here be added, in direct response. The Jewish church, as organized, according to the law of Moses, under the ministry of the elders, was the Christian church, on the day of Pentecost. But as that church had become largely corrupt and apostate, and its rulers had betrayed and crucified the Lord Jesus, her King, a separation had become necessary, and the preaching and baptism of the apostles was the means appointed by Him for eliminating the apostate elements. The one hundred and twenty who remained together in Jerusalem after the ascension were but a small part of believing Israel, even then; for the Lord Jesus was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, after his resurrection. (1 Cor. xv, 6.) But they, or the apostles alone, or one of them, would have been abundantly sufficient as a center for gathering the believing from among the apostate. They stood precisely as did Moses in the midst of the congregation of Israel, at the time of the apostasy of the golden calf, saying,—“Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.”—Ex. xxxii, 26. Hence the style in which the historian of the Acts writes of the converts of Pentecost. “Then they that gladly received his word, were baptized; and the same day there were added about three thousand souls.”—Acts ii, 41. They are not said to have been “added to the church;” for they were the church, obeying the call of her Head,—“Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.”—2 Cor. vi, 17. They are, therefore, said to have been “added (to them),”—that is, to the apostles; or more literally “associated together,”—joined in one body. By that act, they stood forth, the church of Jerusalem, divested of the unbelieving elements. Accordingly, we read, immediately after, that “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”—Vs. 47. For all the purposes of the occasion, on the day of Pentecost, there was no farther organization necessary than that which existed in the sanhedrim of the apostles, men inspired of the Holy Ghost, and endowed by the Lord Jesus with authority for presiding over his church in this transition period of her history.

The baptism of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost has been already illustrated fully. That there was also a ritual baptism, with water, I venture to regard as equally certain. (1.) We have just seen that the apostolic commission contained a command to baptize the disciples. Peter, therefore, in inviting his hearers to repent and be baptized, was simply following the literal terms of his instructions. And had he omitted baptism,—that ritual baptism which alone the apostles could administer—he would have been acting in direct violation of his commission. (2.) In his exhortation, the baptism is secondary to repentance. This is the proper order of ritual baptism, which is predicated on profession of repentance. But it is the reverse as to the real baptism, which precedes repentance and is its cause. (3.) The language used in describing the result of the exhortation is conclusive.—“Then they that gladly received his word were baptized.” The glad reception of the word is stated as the antecedent ground of receiving the baptism; the reverse, again, of the order in real baptism. (4.) In the case of Cornelius and his house, Peter based their baptizing with water upon the fact that the spiritual phenomena were identical with those of the day of Pentecost. “The Holy Ghost fell on them as on us at the beginning.”—“Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost, as well as we?”—Acts x, 47; xi, 15. This argument would have been wholly inappropriate had there been no water baptism on Pentecost.

But Dr. Dale urges another objection.—“While the reception of these thousands that day into the church by dipping into water, is improbable to absurdity, for reasons both moral and physical, their reception by any ritual form whatever, is, for moral considerations mainly, not without embarrassment. These thousands were all personally strangers to the apostles, mostly from foreign lands, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Cretes, Arabians, etc. An hour before, they were mockers of the work of the Holy Ghost, and declared the apostles to be drunk. Now, is there moral fitness in the reception of such men into the church, by a rite without any personal intercourse, to learn their moral condition? But the passage states that the baptism was grounded in the ‘glad reception of the word’ preached. If the baptism was the work of the apostles, then this knowledge must also be the knowledge of the apostles; and if so, then it must have been obtained, either by divine illumination, or by personal intercourse touching repentance and faith, the knowledge of Christ and the duty of baptism; then, how could the addition of three thousand be made ‘that day?’”^[124] The theory that, the baptism here in question was spiritual and not ritual, is, here, self-condemned, by the statement which truly represents it to have been “grounded in the glad reception of the word preached.” That word was, “Repent and be baptized.” Its glad reception, therefore is equivalent to the exercise of repentance, which is the immediate fruit of the spiritual baptism, and therefore of necessity follows, but can not precede it. The baptism, therefore, which was “grounded in the glad reception of the word,” can have been no other than ritual baptism. The fundamental fallacy of the argument lies in the assumption, which we have before noticed, that the Pentecostal transactions were incident to the organizing of a new church; instead of being, as we have shown, the separating of the existing church from the corrupt and ungodly elements which had taken possession of it.

It is asserted respecting the three thousand that, “an hour before, they were mockers of the work of the Holy Spirit.” A kindred statement is frequently heard, in illustration of the fickleness of the multitude,—that those who yesterday filled the air with shouts of “Hosanna!” to-day cry, “Away with him.” Both representations are erroneous, and tend to obscure the true state of the case. In the Pentecostal scene, there were “some” mockers, and possibly, nay, probably some of these were made trophies of grace that day. But to represent the assembly as characteristically of that class, involves an utter misconception of the case as expressly stated by the sacred historian. He represents them as “Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.”—Acts ii, 5. It was they, who came thronging to the assembly of the apostles. It was characteristically they who gladly received the word and were baptized. Nor is the language of Peter to them incongruous to this view. “Him ye have taken, and by wicked hands, have crucified and slain.”—v. 23. Their rulers had done it, and the whole people were responsible and polluted with the crime of his blood, until they purged themselves, by separation and baptism. So, the multitude who cried, “Hosanna!” were “the multitude of the disciples,” from Galilee. (Luke xix, 37; compare Ib. xxii, 59.) For fear of the people, the conspirators seized Jesus by betrayal, by night; and the cry against him was uttered, at the instigation of the rulers and priests, by their retainers and dependents. (Mark xv, 11.) “It was early,” when they brought Jesus before Pilate. (John xviii, 28.) And it is probable that the sentence was already passed and Jesus in the hands of the executioners, before the Galileans who were accustomed, at the feasts, to encamp on Olivet, had any knowledge of the fearful tragedy of that day. These facts are all of importance, in order to a just conception of the real nature of the separation which began in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and ultimately extended throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and to all parts of the world, where a synagogue of the Jews was to be found. We do no service to the truth, by underestimating the number of those who in that day, were waiting for the consolation of Israel, and “gladly received the word” of the rising of the Sun of righteousness, in the person of the Lord Jesus.

From the foregoing considerations, we conclude it to be certain that the three thousand converts of the day of Pentecost were baptized with water. The order of occurrences, as it appears from the record was this: The preaching of Peter was accompanied with the promised power, the baptism of the Spirit being bestowed upon his hearers, by the Lord Jesus. By that baptism was given to them repentance and remission of sins. (Acts v, 31.) Upon their correspondent profession, they were baptized with water; and thereupon, they received the gifts of tongues and of prophecy, in fulfillment of the promise of Christ (Mark xvi, 17), and in accordance with the assurance given them by Peter;—“Repent and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you and to your children,”—the promise, to wit, which he had before quoted from Joel, in explanation of the Pentecostal signs.

Section XCIV.—Symbolic Meaning of this Baptism.

The rite of immersion is inseparably identified with the theory that ritual baptism is designed to symbolize the burial of the Lord Jesus. By the advocates of this theory, the baptism administered to the converts of Pentecost is held to have been the original of the institution. By all, that baptism must be recognized as a most conspicuous and normal exemplification of the rite. We are perfectly willing to stake the whole issue upon the question of the symbolic meaning of the ordinance, as determined by the Scriptural statements concerning that baptism.

It has been shown that the Old Testament baptisms symbolized the gift from on high of the Spirit of life from God. We have seen that John administered his baptism as an announcement and symbol of that which the coming One should dispense,—the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We have heard the Lord Jesus appropriate to himself the testimonies of John, and promise their fulfillment, in terms by which the baptism to be administered by him was distinctly identified as the antitype of that of John. “John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.”—Acts i, 5. We have seen the promise fulfilled, and heard the testimony of Peter, that therein was accomplished the prophecy of Joel,—a prophecy in which and the kindred language of the other prophets, the baptisms of the Old Testament were so clearly interpreted. We have seen that his baptizing office was the great end of Christ’s exaltation, and the consummate function of his scepter,—that by which he begins, carries on, and accomplishes the salvation and the glory of his people; and that this, his exaltation and saving power, were, on the day of Pentecost, preached as the express ground of the call to repent and be baptized, for his name’s sake. In view of these facts, how is it possible, by argument or by sophistry, to avoid the conclusion that the ritual baptism to which Peter’s hearers were thus called, was designed to signify that real baptism with which it was thus so closely identified? But the evidence is more specific.

1. The sum and substance of the preaching of John and of Jesus was the same, and reported by the evangelists in the same words:—“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

2. In both cases, this preaching was accompanied with a ritual baptism, which was as identical as was the preaching. Else, have we a house divided against itself,—the one doctrine, attested by two rival rites, which, under one and the same name, competed for acceptance with the Jews!

3. Of this baptism, Paul says, that “John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him which should come after, that is on Christ Jesus.”—Acts xix, 4. Of it, Mark and Luke state that “John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”—Mark i, 4; Luke iii, 3. And John himself declares,—“I indeed baptize you with water, unto repentance: but He ... shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”—Matt, iii, 11. It thus appears that this baptism was identified with a doctrine the cardinal elements of which are (1) repentance, and (2) faith in the Lord Jesus; as the conditions precedent; and (3) the remission of sins, as the result. These were what the ordinance meant. From them it took its name,—“The baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”

4. On the day of Pentecost, this, precisely, was the preaching and baptism of Peter. “Repent, and be baptized every one of you, for the name’s sake of Jesus Christ, unto the remission of sins.”—Acts ii, 38.

5. Peter had already proclaimed that the Lord Jesus, “being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”—Ib. 33. A few days afterward, he explained more precisely to the rulers, the significance of this great fact.—“Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give to Israel repentance and (aphesin hamartion) remission of sins.”—Ib. v, 31.

From these things it irrefragably follows, (1) that whereas, Christ’s baptizing office is fulfilled by shedding down his Spirit upon his people, the baptisms of John and the disciples prior to the day of Pentecost, as well as that administered by Peter and the twelve on that day, were all proclaimed symbols of this the great reality; (2) that, while the intent and end of Christ’s baptism is, through the bestowal of the Spirit, to give repentance, faith, and the remission of sins—the other baptisms and conspicuously, that of the apostles on Pentecost, were designed to signify and bear witness to that very thing. Not only are these conclusions manifest and incontrovertible; but by them and the facts on which they rest the idea of the burial of Christ, as included in the symbolism of baptism, is not merely ignored, but utterly excluded, as incongruous and unmeaning, in that connection.

This impregnable conclusion is further fortified by the fact already shown, that in this meaning of the rite and in it only can be reconciled the two forms of expression, “Baptizing into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;” and,—“into the name of the Lord Jesus.” Baptism shows forth the Triune Godhead united in the salvation of man, and uniting the saved with that blessed Godhead.

Section XCV.—The Mode of the ritual Baptism on Pentecost.

As to the mode of the baptism of that day the evidence is not doubtful. The assembled throng were “Jews, devout men out of every nation,”—men whose cherished faith and hopes all centered on Moses and the covenant made and sealed with their fathers at Sinai. The baptismal seal of that covenant, perpetuated in the sprinkled water of separation, was familiar to them everywhere. They were conversant with the prophecies which assured them that in the latter days God would “sprinkle clean water upon them,”—that the Messiah would “sprinkle many nations,” and “pour out of his Spirit upon all flesh.” They are now told by the apostles that these prophecies are announcements of the baptizing office of the Lord Jesus,—that he, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, had, in the exercise of his baptizing office, shed forth this, which they saw and heard. And, in response to their penitent cry, they are required to be “baptized for the name’s sake of the Lord Jesus.” Is it possible to avoid the conclusion that the baptism thus propounded was the sprinkled baptism which was familiar to them all? Or, are we to accept the opposite assumption? Then must Peter have explained to the multitude.—“Our fathers, at Sinai, were sealed to the covenant with the sprinkled blood and water. In all generations of our race, the same seal has been familiar, in the same office; as it is, this day, to you. The prophets have explained the affusion of water as being a symbol of the official work of the Messiah. In that office and work, the reality of the Sinai rite is to-day fulfilled. And now, ye are to be baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus; but with another baptism,—a baptism dislocated from all relation to the past,—a baptism severed from all analogy, even, or association of ideas with that of the Spirit, which is this day dispensed by the Lord Jesus. He baptizes by outpouring; but ye must be dipped. He baptizes by a pouring out of the Spirit, of which, in the prophecies, and in the baptisms of our fathers, living water was the constant symbol; but to you, dipped in that living water, it is to become the symbol of the sepulchre of Joseph, in which the body of Jesus was laid. His baptism gives repentance and remission of sins; and the baptism to be received by you might seem to mean this very thing; for it is conditioned upon repentance and is ‘unto remission.’ But it means not that; but the burial of the dead body of Jesus.”

And now, where shall the water be found, for the immersion of these thousands? And by what miracle shall the rite be performed, “decently and in order,” within the hours of that day? For, not only is the record specific, which limits the time,—but the supposition of a delay implies the encumbrance of after time, of which each day had its own duties and labors, its own converts and baptisms. It is demonstrably possible for the twelve apostles to have baptized the entire multitude by sprinkling in the ordinary manner in which we administer the rite within four or five hours. But such was not, as I conceive, the manner of the administration. No mere rite could without disparagement endure such repetition for hour after hour. The reiteration must obscure and obliterate the spiritual significance of the rite. The attention of the witnesses would become exhausted and diverted, and the monotony of the form would inevitably become a weariness and an offense. By such a manner of observance, the very intent of the ordinance would be lost, and this as much in one form, as in another.

But we are not reduced to the necessity of encountering these obvious embarrassments. We have seen the millions of Israel baptized by Moses, in the hours of one morning, they receiving the rite either collectively in one body, or by tribe-families or tribes. It is very probable that this was the manner in which the rite was ordinarily administered by John to the throngs that attended on his ministry, and by the disciples of Christ, when he “made and baptized more disciples than John.” The Jews were familiar with the use of the hyssop bush as appointed in the law, for administering the rite. There was nothing in the nature of the ordinance, nor in the circumstances of the occasion, to render inappropriate or improbable a resort to that mode. On the contrary, every consideration, of convenience, of dignity, propriety and edification, united to commend it as the most suitable way, the water being sprinkled with a hyssop bush, and the recipients of the rite presenting themselves in companies of suitable size, by scores or by hundreds. Thus was set forth by a joint baptism the doctrine of Paul. “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.”—1 Cor. xii, 13.

Such is the conclusion to which the analogy of the Scriptures points. Such, I doubt not, was the form of administration that day. For the present purpose, however, this much is clear and sufficient,—that the record of Pentecost contains nothing incongruous to the previous history and doctrine of baptism,—that on the contrary, the Spirit-baptism of that day and all the circumstances, concur to the same conclusion which the foregoing history indicates. “Not immersion; but affusion”—is the unambiguous voice of Pentecost.

Section XCVI.—Other Cases Illustrating the Mode.

The next case that illustrates the mode, is the baptism of the eunuch. “As they went on their way, they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?... And he commanded the chariot to stand still; and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water.”—Acts viii, 36-39. To what has been said already concerning this passage, one or two points only need be added. Dr. Dale has pointed out the fact that the verb (katebesan), “they went down,” has primary reference to the chariot, out of which they descended. He refers to the Septuagint of Judges iv, 15, “And Sisera (katebe) stepped down from his chariot;” and to Matt. xiv, 29,—“Peter (katabas) stepping down from the boat walked on the water, to go to Jesus.” The essential point, however, is that the descent was not the baptism,—that, with the style of clothing, then as now, worn in the east, nothing would have been more natural and convenient than that they should have stepped into the water, as the most convenient way of access, even though the baptism was to be performed by sprinkling or pouring. “The place” (perioche, the section), which the eunuch was reading, begins with Isa. lii, 13, and includes the whole of liii. It is a continuous prophecy of the Messiah, under the designation of God’s servant. In the fifty-third chapter, down to the eleventh verse the pronoun “he” is used to designate the subject of the account. It refers back to lii, 13, to which we must look for the theme of the prophecy. “Behold my servant shall deal prudently.” When, therefore, the eunuch read liii, 7, 8,—“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,” and asked, “Of whom speaketh the prophet this?” Philip must of necessity have turned back to the beginning of the section, for the answer. In so doing, he finds this among the first things said of the person described:—“As many were astonied at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men, ... so shall he sprinkle many nations.”—lii, 14, 15. This prophecy, thus coinciding with that of Joel, which was the text of Peter’s Pentecostal discourse, could not be overlooked by Philip, in his instructions to the eunuch. The latter, although himself a Jew, was identified with a Gentile nation. He was chamberlain, or treasurer, to Candace, the queen of Meroe, in upper Egypt.^[125] The prophecy, therefore, “So shall he sprinkle many nations,” could not fail to arrest his attention and elicit the story of Pentecost, as the beginning of redemption to the Gentiles. That, with Christ’s baptizing office brought thus into view, his ordinance concerning ritual baptism should be announced, was not only a necessary result of the circumstances, but was an essential part of that office which Philip was to perform. “Disciple all nations, baptizing them.” In favor of the hypothesis that the eunuch was immersed, there is nothing but the fact that they went down to, or into the water. On behalf of his being sprinkled, is the explicit testimony of the prophet as to the manner of the real baptism, of which the ritual ordinance is the symbol.

2. The baptism of the apostle Paul next presents itself. Of it we have two brief accounts which are mutually supplementary. (Acts ix, 10-20; xxii, 12-16.) After his vision of Jesus, on the way, he had lain for three days in the house of Judas, in Damascus, blind, fasting and prostrate. To him Ananias was sent and said to him—“And now, why tarriest thou?” Why liest thou thus prostrate and desponding? “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”—Acts xxii, 16. Literally “(Anastas, baptisai, kai apolusai), Rising, be baptized, and let thy sins be washed away, calling upon the name of the Lord.” Says Alexander, “Be baptized, is not a passive, as in ii, 38, but the middle voice of the same verb, strictly meaning, ‘baptize thyself,’ or, rather, ‘cause thyself to be baptized,’ or suffer (some one) to baptize thee. The form of the next verb [apolusai] is the same, but can not be so easily expressed in English; as it has a noun dependent on it. This peculiarity of form is only so far of importance as it shows that Paul was to wash away his sins in the same sense that he was to baptize himself; i. e. by consenting to receive both from another. As his body was to be baptized by man; so, his sins were to be washed away by God. The identity, or even the inseparable union, of the two effects, is so far from being here affirmed, that they are rather held apart, as things connected by the natural relation of type and antitype, yet perfectly distinguishable in themselves, and easily separable in experience.”^[126] The exhortation, “Let thy sins be washed away,” is intimately dependent upon the next clause,—“calling upon the name of the Lord.”—Calling not as a mere reverential invocation; nor as a mere profession or act of faith. But “calling on him to purge away thy sins with the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; and accepting the baptism of water as the symbol and pledge of the other.”

In the parallel account, it is stated that “he received sight forthwith (kai anastas, ebaptisthe) and rising up, was baptized.”—Acts ix, 18. Thus, in both of these accounts, the same form of expression is used as to the manner of the baptism,—a form which indicates that the administration was immediate, upon his rising from his couch. “Rising up, be baptized.” “And he, rising up, was baptized.” In the original, the force of the expressions is even stronger, to the same effect. The circumstances coincide with this interpretation. The prostration, resulting from the vision by the way, from the blindness, and the three days in which he was “without sight, and neither did eat nor drink” (Acts ix, 9), must have been very great; and it was not until after his baptism that “he received meat and was strengthened.”—Ib. 19. There is no intimation of leaving the place. There is no word of such preparation as an immersion would require. But the whole case stands in the expression twice employed, from which but one meaning can be deduced,—that he was baptized immediately, in his chamber, as he rose from his couch, and stood before Ananias. Whatever the mode, it can not have been immersion.

It has been asserted that Paul’s baptism was not ritual but spiritual. The supposition is encumbered with the same difficulties which attend the like idea respecting the baptism of Pentecost. The occasion of Ananias being sent to him was the fact attested by the Lord Jesus,—“Behold he prayeth.”—Prayer so attested lacked neither repentance nor faith. He had, therefore, already received the baptism of the Spirit,—that is his renewing grace; although not his miraculous gifts. Moreover, the baptism which he received in his chamber was something to which the ministry of Ananias was requisite, and for which his rising from his couch was preparatory. None of these things harmonize with the idea that it was the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Nor was it implied in the language of Ananias,—“That thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”—Acts ix, 17. With this is to be compared the previous statement concerning him, made in vision by Jesus to Ananias, “He hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming and putting his hand upon him, that he might receive his sight.”—Ib. 12. It was through the laying on of the hands of Ananias that Paul’s sight was restored and the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred upon him. Such was the ordinary manner, as we have already seen, of the imparting of those gifts; which was undoubtedly the nature of the present endowment of Saul of Tarsus.

3. The baptism of the house of Cornelius is equally unfavorable to the idea of immersion. (Acts x, 44-48.) The words of Peter admit of but one construction. “Can any man forbid (to udor) the water; that these should not be baptized.”—Acts x, 47. We have already pointed out that this language means that the water, as an instrument, was to be brought to the place, in order to the baptism. Moreover, the baptism of this company, thus, with water, was by Peter expressly predicated upon the fact that they had been already baptized with the Holy Ghost, by his outpouring upon them. “The Holy Ghost fell upon all them which heard.” “On the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” “Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?”—Acts x, 44, 45, 47. And lest there should be any possible doubt about the meaning of all this, Peter explains himself to the church in Jerusalem,—“Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.”—Ib. xi, 16. Here again the facts are decisive in favor of affusion.

4. The Philippian jailer and his family are the only remaining instance in which illustrative circumstances are recorded. (Acts xvi, 25-34.) As bearing upon the mode, these are, that at midnight, in the jail, upon his professed repentance and faith, the jailer was baptized, “he and all his straightway.”—Acts xvi, 33. This too was before he had taken Paul and Silas out of the jail proper, into his own apartments. The impossibility of the rite, administered in such circumstances, having been immersion, would seem evident. Nor is it admissible, as proposed by Baptist writers, to suppose that the jailer and his family with the prisoners went out to the river and were there immersed. The suggestion is not only contradicted by the record, which describes the baptism as having been (parachrema) “straightway,” with neither time nor action intervening. But it would have been an act of official dereliction, involving peril to the jailer’s life, and rendering the message of Paul to the magistrates, the next day, an impudent pretence. They sent the sergeants to the jailer, saying, “Let these men go.” “But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison. And now do they thrust us out privily? Nay, verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out.”—Ib. 37. Is this the language of men who had already stolen out of the prison, by night?

We have thus passed in review every instance of Christian baptism mentioned in the New Testament, in which any particulars are given. The only other cases named are the Samaritans (Acts viii, 12, 13, 15), Lydia (Ib. xvi, 15), the Corinthians (Ib. xviii, 8; 1 Cor. i, 14-17), and the twelve disciples of John at Ephesus (Acts xix, 1-5). Of them we are only informed that they were baptized. As to the cases which we have examined it is certainly remarkable and significant that with the exception of the eunuch, they each present physical difficulties in the way of immersion, serious if not insurmountable; and that in the excepted case, the utmost that can be said is, that nothing appears to render immersion physically impossible; while the connection of the occasion points distinctly to a sprinkled baptism.

The cumulative argument arising out of these baptisms is overwhelming. They can not have been by immersion.

Section XCVII.—“Baptized into Moses.”

The baptism of Israel into Moses, is pertinent here, as illustrating the apostolic style of conception and language on the subject. “All our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized (eis) into Moses, (en) by the cloud and (en) by the sea.”—1 Cor. x, 1, 2.

We have already seen the typical relation which Moses and Israel, and the covenant with them sustained to the Lord Jesus and the true Israel, and the better covenant, as expounded by Paul to the Hebrews. The language here cited from the same apostle derives its form from the same conception. Israel in the bondage of Egypt,—Moses sent to them as a deliverer,—the passage out of the land of bondage, through the Red Sea,—the destruction of Pharaoh in the sea and the cutting off thus of Israel from all dependence or subjection to him,—their consequent faith in Moses and submission to his authority,—the covenant made with them through him as Mediator,—their nourishment in the wilderness on the bread of heaven, and the water from the Rock,—and their final passage through the Jordan and entrance into the promised land,—are the elements of a typical system the antitypes of which are to be sought, not in the visible church and its ritual ordinances, but in Christ and his body, the invisible church, and the spiritual and heavenly realities which it enjoys. According to this conception, the “baptism into Moses” finds its antitype in the baptism into Christ, by which his people are emancipated from the bondage of Satan and brought under the yoke of Christ. And as that baptism is instrumentally accomplished by the Spirit, whereby they all are baptized into one body of which Christ is the Head, so the baptism of Israel was instrumentally effected “by the cloud and by the sea;” they being by the cloud protected from the Egyptians and directed through the receding sea; while “the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians, through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels,” and the returning sea swallowed them up.—Ex. xiv, 23-28. Here was an immersion. But it was of the Egyptians. Here was a baptism,—of the children of Israel,—into Moses,—not into water,—not into cloud, or sea or both together. There were not two baptisms, but one, and in order to make it an immersion “in the cloud and in the sea,” the baptism “into Moses” must be obliterated. The Baptist figment which we have seen stated by Dr. Kendrick, of the “double wall of water rolled up on each side, and the column of fiery cloud stretching its enshrouding folds above them,” is not merely an idle imagination. But it is an imagination in direct and palpable contradiction to the record of Moses. The Israelites were indeed under the cloud. But it was before they entered the sea, and not during their march through it. “The Angel of God which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them; but it gave light by night to these; so that the one came not near the other all the night. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea ... and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea.”—Ex. xiv, 19-22. Thus, before the sea was divided, Israel were “under the cloud,” as it passed back from their front, to become an intercepting barrier between them and the pursuing host. But, during the march through the sea, the cloud was between the two hosts, and not “enshrouding” Israel above. Thus, as by the touch of Ithuriel’s spear, the figment of immersion vanishes in the presence of the word of truth, and in its stead appear the ransomed tribes marching upon the sands between walls of water, miles apart, the open heavens above them and the cloud moving as a protecting curtain, in their rear. The attempt to find immersion here, is futile.

That the preposition, en, is rightly here translated, by, as indicating the instrumental cause, in the baptism, is illustrated by an example a little farther on in the same epistle. “By one Spirit, are we all baptized into one body.”—1 Cor. xii, 13. Here, Christ is the Baptizer, the Spirit is the instrument, and union with Christ and his body the result. So, of Israel, Jehovah was the Baptizer, the cloud and the sea were the instruments, and union with Moses the result. Just before, they had been in a state of open mutiny. (Ex. xiv, 11, 12.) But now, says the record, “the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore. And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord and his servant Moses.”—Ib. 30, 31. Their changed state of mind was attested by the song of their triumph which rang out over the unconscious and now peaceful waters. “Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”—Ib. xv, 1-21. Thus have we a signal example of such a change of state or experience as even Dr. Conant admits to have been designated by the word, baptizo. From under the power and fear of Pharaoh, they came into the trust and obedience of Moses. They were “baptized into Moses.” The only intimation of instrumental mode in this baptism, to be found in the Scriptures, occurs in the Psalmist’s vivid description of the scene. “The clouds poured out water, the skies sent out a sound, thine arrows also went abroad.”—Ps. lxxvii, 17.

At this stage of our inquiry, we note the following points which have important bearings upon the relation of the children to the church. (1.) We have seen that, in the establishing of the covenant with Abraham,—the promises of which were blessings to the natural offspring of the patriarch, and through them, salvation to the world,—its seal was set upon all the males of his household,—through whom the descent was to be counted,—at the age of eight days. (2.) We have seen that in the Sinai covenant, by which in fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, the church was constituted in the family of Israel, the same fundamental principles of family unity and parental headship were recognized and incorporated in the constitution of the church; and that in accordance therewith, the children and bondservants, both male and female, were included in its terms, with the family head; endowed with all its rights and privileges; bound under its responsibilities; and sealed with its baptismal seal. (3.) We have seen that it was into this church, as thus constituted and existing, and without change in its constitutional principles, or form of organization, that through the ministry of the apostles, the Gentiles were graffed; thus fulfilling the promise to Abraham, that in his seed should all families of the earth be blessed; a promise fulfilled not only in salvation accomplished through the promised Seed of Abraham, but in the reception thus of the Gentiles into the bosom of the church of Israel.

It now remains to be ascertained whether there is any thing in the principles of the gospel, as set forth in the New Testament, in the practical rules therein recorded, or in the facts of its history, to require or justify the extruding of the children from the place and privileges hitherto enjoyed;—whether there is any thing to lead us to the conclusion that the coming of Christ has straitened the grace of God, and withdrawn from the babes of us Gentiles that privilege of acceptance which was enjoyed by the little ones of Israel, from the day of the covenant at Sinai.

1. As the place of the children was originally conferred and secured by express statute and repeated enactments of confirmation, we have a right to expect the abrogation of the privileges thus established to be accomplished in terms as specific and imperative as were the laws by which they were conferred. But no one has ever pretended to produce such a statute of abrogation. Confessedly the New Testament is absolutely silent as to such an act,—a silence fatal to the theories which deny a place to the babes in the family of God.

2. The facts and principles set forth in the New Testament supply no argument for the exclusion of the children. First, is that touching incident which is recorded with more or less fullness in each of the synoptical gospels. In reply to the question who of the apostles should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus, being in a house in Capernaum,—probably in the house of one of them, several of whom lived there,—he “called a little child unto him and set him in the midst of them,”—“and (enagkalisamenos) having folded it in his arms, he said unto them,” “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.”—Matt. xviii, 1-5; Mark ix, 36; Luke ix, 46-48. With this is to be connected that kindred fact which occurred a few days afterward, and is also recorded in each of the three synoptical gospels. “Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.”—Matt. xix, 13-15. Mark and Luke add that he said, “Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And (enagkalisamenos) folding them in his arms, he put his hands upon them, and blessed them.”—Mark x, 13-16; Luke xviii, 15-17. Of these little children, Luke tells us that they were (brephe) babes. That these incidents in the life of our Savior were of special significance is indicated by the fact that they are both given by each of the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. As to their meaning,—(1.) These children all were, at the time, actual members of that visible kingdom of God the church of Israel, in the bosom of which Jesus himself lived and died. (2.) That church was the type and representative of the invisible church and kingdom. (3.) Of all members of the visible church, Jesus selects the little child of the first incident and the babes of the second, as the fittest types or representatives of the temper and spirit which will have admittance and honor in the heavenly kingdom. (4.) He was much displeased, that his disciples should attempt to prevent their being brought, in their unconsciousness and helplessness, into his personal presence, for recognition and a blessing from him. (5.) Both the child in the house, and the babes brought to him, he folded in his arms, and upon the latter he laid his hands and blessed them. He was the great Shepherd, as himself testifies,—“I am the good Shepherd.”—John x, 11. Of him the prophet wrote,—“He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.”—Isa. xl, 11. And we ask,—Can any one venture to deny that, by these acts, so distinctly referring to the prophecy, Jesus designed to recognize and claim the babes as lambs of his fold? As before remarked, these babes were undeniably members of the church, at the time of these occurrences. If the Lord Jesus designed to leave them in undisturbed possession of the rights and privileges heretofore enjoyed, with his benediction added thereto, all this is clear and intelligible. But, if they were to be deprived and excluded, how are these things to be reconciled?

Another incident, in circumstances even more significantsignificant, presents itself. After his resurrection, Jesus met with his disciples at the Sea of Galilee. “When they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.”—John xxi, 15. Peter was present in the house in Capernaum, when Jesus took the child in his arms. Nay, it is not improbable that it was Peter’s house, and Peter’s child. He was present when the babes were brought for blessing, and saw and heard all that then occurred. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews,—the chief apostle of the circumcision. When he received this charge from the Master, in which were commended to his love and care, first, the lambs, and afterward the sheep; and when he pondered this charge and legacy, in the light of the fifteen centuries during which the place of the children had been unquestioned and unquestionable, and in remembrance of those demonstrative facts which he had seen and heard,—would he understand it as implying a command to purge and renovate the fold, by the exclusion of the lambs? And when, a few days after, or, possibly on this very same occasion, he as the apostle through whom the doors of the gospel were to be opened to the Gentiles, with the rest, received that great command,—“Go disciple all nations, baptizing them,”—are we to conceive it possible that he understood it to mean that he must be very tender of the Jewish lambs, bringing them into the fold and school of Christ, but must drive out the children of the Gentiles as unclean?

3. Under the ministry of the apostles, the Gentiles were called and graffed into the church of Israel. In the church, thus constituted as already shown, some congregations were composed of Jews alone, some, of Gentiles, and some, of the two classes associated together; but in them all Jewish influences were pervasive and paramount. Now, is it to be imagined that without a word of command from Christ or the apostles, the Jewish believers would unanimously, gratuitously, and in silence, surrender the place of their children in the church, just at the moment when the privileges thereto incident had become so much more manifest, by the coming of Christ, and the brightness, by his rising, shed upon the gospel day? And even if such a thing could be imagined possible, what else would it have been but a wicked apostasy and rejection of the grace given them? But, that no such apostasy did take place, is assuredly testified by the silence of the record, and by all the circumstances. That, in the churches of the circumcision, and among Jewish believers everywhere, the children occupied their old status is beyond controversy or question. Of this, their circumcision is of itself conclusive proof. And as, from the days of Abraham, that rite certified them seed of the patriarch and heirs of the promises,—and at Sinai they were introduced, by baptism, into the pale of the church and the privileges of that covenant,—so their continued enjoyment alike of the privileges and the seals must stand forever certain, till some prophet shall arise to tell us when, and how, and for what cause, they were divested of rights once bestowed by Him whose “gifts and callings are without repentance.”

And if, by a special clause in the very covenant of Sinai itself, grace to the Gentiles was reserved, in harmony with abundant grace to Israel, the baptism of Israel’s babes into the fold of that covenant, that day, was a foretokening and pledge of the same grace to the children of the Gentiles, when the times of the Gentiles shall have come. They are not the seed of Abraham, and therefore receive not the seal of his covenant in their flesh. But baptism is theirs,—the seal of the Sinai covenant, in which, now, the rights of the Gentiles are equal. “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.”—Rom. x, 12.

Section XCIX.—“Else were your Children unclean but now are they Holy.”

We have the express testimony of inspiration, to the children’s right within the pale of the church. Says Paul to the Corinthians,—“The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.”—1 Cor. vii, 14. The significance of this declaration, as concerning the children, depends upon the meaning of the words, unclean (akathartoi), and holy (hagioi.)(hagioi.) Both of them come into the New Testament, from the Septuagint version of the Old. In the Greek of that version, the word (akathartos) does not appear in the books of Moses until we come to the laws of ritual uncleanness and purifying, which have been so largely discussed in these pages. Then, beginning with the fifth chapter of Leviticus, it occurs in that book in about eighty-seven places, in all of which it designates the ritually unclean; being applied alike to things and persons. In Numbers and Deuteronomy, it appears about thirty times, in the same sense. In the entire Old Testament, the word is used about one hundred and forty times; and with the exception of half a dozen passages in which it indicates the moral offensiveness of sin, it is invariably employed in one and the same sense,—to designate persons and things that by virtue of ritual defilements were excluded from the pale of the covenant and the sanctuary. If we add to this the related noun (akatharsia) the force of these considerations is greatly increased. It, in like manner, first occurs in Leviticus, as the designation of the uncleannesses which were described by the adjective (akathartos), unclean. It occurs about fifty times, and with a few exceptions in which it describes the vileness of sin, is constantly used in the ritual sense.

The other word (hagios) holy, has a history and meaning, equally clear and well defined. It has primary reference to the sum of the divine perfections, in view of which God is designated, the holy One. Thence, it is transferred to designate those moral attributes in men which are after the likeness of God’s holiness; as, in the admonition which is often repeated in the books of Moses, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” Again, it is used to denote the relation sustained to God by things devoted to his use or service. Thus, the tabernacle and all its parts and furniture were holy. In this sense, the word was used in the covenant with Israel. “Ye shall be unto me a holy nation (ethnos hagion.”)—Ex. xix, 6. The acceptance of this covenant, and the seal of baptism by which it was confirmed established Israel as “holy” unto the Lord. Prior to that covenant the word had never been applied to men. But from that transaction forward Israel was recognized in that character. Thus, alluding to the covenant, Moses says to them,—“Thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”—Deut. vii, 6. Upon this title and the covenant ground of it, Moses insists with great emphasis, recurring to the theme again and again. (See Deut. xiv, 2, 21; xxvi, 19; xxviii, 9.) It is in view of this covenant provision that the distinctive appellation of Israel in the prophets is, “the holy people;” and to the same source is to be referred the familiar designation of “saints,” that is, holy ones, which is constantly employed, especially in the Psalms. Thus, the Lord says in Ps. 1, 5,—“Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” Here, not only is the title used, but the ground of it is stated. It is that public profession and covenant of which sacrifice was essential as a seal, and incorporated as such in the baptismal rite.

Such is the testimony of the Old Testament, respecting these words. The church of Corinth was composed largely of Jews, who as we have seen still maintained the ordinances of the synagogue after as well as before their conversion to Christ. In those assemblies, James declares that “Moses of old time hath in every city, them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day.”—Acts xv, 21. The Corinthian disciples, therefore, never attended those services without hearing the words in question used; and used in this continual sense of ritual uncleanness and ritual purity.

In the New Testament, the words in question are employed in strict accordance with the Old Testament usage. But as the ritual law here sinks into comparative obscurity, akathartos, more frequently means the loathsomeness of sin. Of the twenty-eight places in which it is found, it in twenty, describes “unclean spirits,” or demons. But when the question arises of the right of the Gentiles to a part with Israel, in the covenant and the church, the ritual meaning of the word, again comes forward. Peter in his vision pleads that he had “never eaten any thing common, or unclean.”—Acts x, 14. The lesson which that vision taught him was, that he “should not call any man common or unclean.”—Ib. 28. And he afterward said of the house of Cornelius that God “put no difference between us and them, (katharisas) cleansing their hearts by faith.”—Ib. xv, 9. Except the place in question, in which the relation of the children to the church is in view, and that of Peter, concerning the like relation of believing Gentiles, the word is invariably used in the New Testament to designate that moral character of which ritual uncleanness was the figure.

So, too, as to (hagioi) “holy,” or “saints”—it is the peculiar and distinctive appellation in the New Testament, as in the Old, for those whom we would call “members of the church.” In the Acts of the Apostles, some half a dozen times, the title of “disciples,” is used; once, Peter employs the name of “Christian” (1 Pet. iv, 16); and Paul once speaks of “the believers.” (1 Tim. iv, 12.) But, with these exceptions, the appellation universally used is (hagioi) “saints.” It thus occurs about fifty-six times, of which forty are in the epistles of Paul, the author of the passage in question. In fact, this is the designation which he uniformly employs in this very epistle and his second to the same church to designate the members of the church. “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust and not before the saints?”—1 Cor. vi, 1. “As in all the churches of the saints.” (Ib. xiv, 33.) “Paul ... unto the church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia.”—2 Cor. i, 1. The source of this title, moreover, as derived from the Sinai covenant, is indicated by Peter, who quotes the terms of that covenant and applies them to the New Testament church. “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (ethnos hagion), a peculiar people.”—1 Peter ii, 9. As in the Old Testament, so in the New, the word, hagios, invariably means, either, that holiness which is essential in God, and which, in his creatures is a bond of consecration to him; or, the characteristic of persons and things separated by a peculiar dedication and appropriation to his use and service.

The alternative to which the facts reduce us, is this:—that Paul, master as he was of the Mosaic system and of the language in which it is recorded,—in his reference to the children, used the words, akathartoi, and, hagioi, in their familiar ritual signification; or that he meant to deceive his readers. For, that the heirs of the covenant were in fact a holy people to God, was an express and fundamental specification in the covenant. And that the children were comprehended in this provision was no more questionable than was the existence of the covenant itself. Whatever therefore the meaning of Paul, his readers could not possibly understand his language in any but one way:—“Else were your children excluded from the pale of the covenant; but now are they embraced in it.”

The attempt is made to evade the overwhelming force of the facts, on this point, by a most extraordinary interpretation. It is asserted that Paul means,—“Else were your children illegitimate, but now are they legitimate.” The doctrine thus attributed to the apostle, is in the first place, false and abominable in morals. It is an assertion that no child is legitimate, unless one or other of its parents be a Christian. In the second place, it is an interpretation false to the whole testimony of the Scriptures as to the meaning of the words. In all the multitude of places in which they are to be found, there is not one to give the slightest color of sanction to it. It is nothing less than a desperate and unscrupulous attempt to silence the voice of God’s testimony because it is in terms of grace to our children.

Paul’s language is, in fact, an application to the children, of the same general principle of divine grace, which governed him in the circumcision of Timothy. The Hebrew blood of Timothy’s mother was held to entitle him to part in the Abrahamic covenant, although his father was a Greek. So, Paul pronounces the children of believers, Gentiles and Jews, to be clean, as comprehended in the Sinai covenant, and the gospel church, even though one parent should be an unbeliever.

It is only to be farther considered, that as those only who are baptized of the Spirit are spiritually clean, so the Scriptures know nothing of ritual cleanness, except by baptism with water; and that the command, “Go, disciple all nations, baptizing them,” makes the baptizing co-extensive with the discipleship,—that is, with admission to the school of Christ, and pale of the covenant.

Section C.—Household Baptisms.

We have seen the grace of God expressed toward the children of his people, under the Mosaic economy, by their being embraced with their parents in the terms of the covenant. We have seen their admission thereto announced and confirmed by the seal of baptism. We have seen no token of the withdrawal of that grace by the Lord Jesus when in person on earth. We have heard, on the contrary, his confirmation of it in terms as strong as language can furnish. We have seen that same covenant, its terms unchanged, and its seal the same, thrown open, through the ministry of the apostles, to the Gentiles, and heard the testimony of the apostle, that our children are not unclean,—offensive to God, but holy,—acceptable before him. We now proceed to consider the facts and principles involved in the household baptisms, which are described in the New Testament. First, however, it is proper to make an important correction in the aspect in which the subject is commonly viewed and discussed. The principle which the Scriptures set forth and establish is not that of the baptism and membership of infants, as such. The fundamental element of the visible church, as conceived and set forth, in Scripture, is not the individual, but the family. As God planted the earth in families, so in the covenant with Abraham he laid down the family society as the foundation stone, on which, at Sinai, the church was builded; and hence the organization of the church of Israel upon the family principle, and its government by the eldership, the representatives of its families. Under this constitution, the infants, were of course included. But the designation and discussion of the subject, under their name, as if it were a question of infant baptism and infant membership, distinctively, does injustice to the subject, as it leaves out of sight and practically excludes the fundamental principle involved. That principle is, parental headship, and the consequent grace of God bestowed on the families of his people,—their children and bond servants,—as identified in and represented by them.

1. The first case of household baptism mentioned is that of Lydia,—“whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there.”—Acts xvi, 14, 15. Here, the essential facts are, (1.) that the house of Lydia were by the inspired historian, recognized in no other capacity than as being (oikos autes) her house. Their number, their names, their ages, their distinctive relation to her, whether as children or servants, their several or joint sentiments toward the gospel,—on all these points he is silent. The one single fact to which he directs our attention is Lydia’s property in them. (2.) Of Lydia alone it is said that the Lord opened her heart; and upon this fact exclusively is predicated her baptism and that of her house. Should any surmise that her house also believed, we do not object, provided the surmise is not to be made an essential part of the record. If it be insisted that they believed and therefore were baptized, we reply that had such been the conception of the sacred writer, it would have been as easy, and far more important for him to have stated their faith, as he has recorded their baptism. The supposition that they did in fact believe, only renders his silence on that point the more significant. (3.) These facts occurred in the ministry of that same Paul whom we have just seen to testify that the children of believers are holy. In a word Luke states the fact of the baptism, and the ground of it. Lydia believed, and she was baptized and her house. Because of her faith, to her and to her house the old, the everlasting, covenant was fulfilled,—“to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee.”

2. The baptism, which soon followed, of the jailer and his house is equally explicit on this point. He said to Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and (egalliasato panoiki, pepisteukos to Theo,) rejoiced with his house, he believing in God.”—Acts xvi, 30-34. Here, again, we have a construction which remarkably ignores the question whether his house, as well as he, believed. It may he assumed that they were all of an age to hear and understand the gospel. It may be assumed that they, so understanding, believed also. But it may not be assumed that such knowledge and faith were the ground of their baptism, because the sacred writer puts it upon a different ground. It was as identified with him—as belonging to him, that they were included in the rite. “He was baptized,—he and all his.” Thus their relation to him is the defining term. “He and all that were his.”—He and none but his; and they because they were his. Such is the force of the expression as it stands. In the same direction looks the closing expression. “He rejoiced with all his house,—he believing.” That his house did not believe we neither assert nor deny. The point of importance is, that their faith is no element of the case, as stated on the record, upon which was grounded their baptism. The alternative is clear and inevitable. Either he, only, of all his house did in fact believe; or, if his household shared in his faith, the remarkable manner in which, in the narrative, they are associated with him in his baptism and joy, but omitted from the statement which describes him alone, as believing, was an express and designed intimation that his personal faith was the controlling element in the case, according to the terms of the everlasting covenant,—“to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee,” and the assurance given him by Paul,—“Believe, ... and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” He was recognized and dealt with as the head of his house, precisely as was Abraham.

3. Paul declares that he “baptized (ton Stephana oikon) the house of Stephanas.”—1 Cor. i, 16. Here, again, there is no discrimination of individuals. The characteristic upon which he predicates the baptism is the relation which he indicates. It was the house of Stephanas, as such, whom he baptized.

Respecting these cases, it may be admitted that if taken separately, they would constitute no conclusive evidence to the present purpose. But such is not their position. They stand as one element in a series of facts and principles which together present a cumulative argument conclusive and unanswerable. These begin with the Abrahamic covenant and the family principle there established. They includeinclude the Sinai constitution, in which the same principle was ineffaceably engraved. They comprehend the opening of the doors of the church thereon founded, to the Gentile world, with this principle unimpaired. They reveal the love of Christ to the babes, in the history and instructions of his personal ministry, and in his parting commission to Peter. They hold up the testimony of Paul, that the babes of believers are “saints.” It is in the presence of these great facts, inscribed in letters of light upon the records of fifteen hundred years; and in the absence of any thing whatever to contravene their testimonies, or to set aside the conclusions thence following, that the household baptisms in question are to be considered. The children and household were once unquestionably embraced in God’s covenant with his church. “Everlasting,” was by His finger written on the face of that covenant. (Gen. xvii, 7.) In its terms, as announced at Sinai, place for the Gentiles was expressly reserved; and upon their ultimate admission, no trace of change, in these respects, appears in the record. On the contrary, in the cases just examined, we have the most conclusive evidence, in view of the foregoing facts, that the position of the family has not been changed by the coming of Christ, and the giving of the gospel to the Gentiles. It still continues a unit under the parental head; and the same grace which blessed the seed of Abraham because of his faith,—the same which, at Sinai, embraced the children with their parents, in the covenant and the fold, still extends those privileges to the children of Gentiles who believe. They are holy.