this, and, as some of them say, proves this. They ignore the difference between Western and Eastern customs and climate, or they do gross injustice to this. Because they know not the provision and facilities that in certain cases existed for immersion, they jump to the conclusion, after inventing or magnifying difficulties, that baptism in some instances was, or might be, and now is, sprinkling. Others, under the warping influence of prepossession, appear to be deluded by the Scriptures not mentioning the mode of immersion. Attaching to baptism, without authority, the idea of immersion, pouring, and sprinkling, they conclude without foundation that they may immerse, pour, or sprinkle, or, as they confusedly and confoundingly say, may baptize by immersion, pouring, or sprinkling. If to baptize signifies to immerse, what can be more unreasonable than to expect that Divine truth would absurdly speak of immersing by immersion? And does it not involve a manifest contradiction of terms to talk of immersing by pouring or sprinkling? But so immersed in prepossession are many, as almost to demand some such absurdity before they will believe sprinkling to be unlawful. Many maintain with Lightfoot that the essence of the ordinance is not affected by the use of little instead of much water. We doubt not the conscientiousness of these or of the others, but we think that their statements are variously and altogether delusive. In regard to the last, we should say that the Scriptures give no directions respecting the amount of water in which the ordinance is to be performed, but that they enjoin immersion. Let the immersion take place in the sea, in a river, or in a baptistery, the command of the Saviour in regard to the action of baptism is obeyed. But if pouring a little water on the head, or sprinkling a little on the face, is the action performed, we maintain that the command of Christ is not obeyed. If our views are correct, and if the admissions of many of those who in practice are our opponents are truthful, there is nothing wrong, there is nothing uncharitable in Dr. Carson's assertion:

"Without immersion it is not the ordinance at all: it may be a very solemn ceremony, but it is a ceremony of human invention. It may be believed by the Lord's people to be an ordinance of Christ; but this does not make it an ordinance of Christ." "However sincere we may believe our opponents to be, still we cannot believe that a person is immersed when he is sprinkled." "He may be truly washed in the blood of Christ, when, out of ignorance of the will of his Master, he is sprinkled instead of being immersed." "I have no objection to admit that persons mistaken about the mode and subjects of baptism, may be among the most eminent and most useful of the servants of God; but to admit that any one is baptized who is not immersed, is self-contradiction. Immersion is the very thing enjoined in the ordinance. The design of both the administrator and the receiver of any rite can have no effect whatever on the meaning of this word, and cannot at all change into an ordinance of Christ what is not an ordinance of Christ; neither can the use of the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, convert sprinkling into baptism" (pp. 242-244).

Others who practise sprinkling or pouring, believe in the church's authority to say what is valid and what is not valid in regard to an ordinance of Christ. Our present aim is less to convince the last class of their error, than to convince the others, who, as we think, delude themselves with the idea that baptizo means secondly, thirdly, or sometimes, somewhere, what we believe that it means nowhere; and who, as is natural to all, are reluctant to abandon a cherished custom, and to adopt

in place of it that which on more accounts than one is less agreeable to flesh and blood. Thus the acknowledged primary import is practically laid aside. Some who have become Baptists have candidly acknowledged how prepossessions blinded them when Pædobaptists, and what difficulties from within and from without they experienced, before they rendered practical obedience to Christ's command on baptism. To a supposed secondary import of the word there is a natural clinging, from custom and from a disinclination to take a self-denying and humbling course. We do not mean that our opponents, if the veil were removed from their minds, would not in this deny self, or that they do not for Christ's sake deny themselves unspeakably more than what is involved in simple immersion. Nevertheless, this self-denial, through the blinding influence of prepossessions not seen to be necessary, is stubbornly resisted. If baptizo could be proved to have somewhere what we maintain that it has nowhere, the secondary meaning of to pour or to sprinkle, it would not follow, as a matter of course, that the sacred writers had used the word in its secondary, and not in its primary sense. Those who adopted the secondary sense would be bound to prove that the sacred writers had used the word in that sense. It is a rule admitted by the ablest writers, that every word should be taken in its primary, obvious, and ordinary meaning, unless there be something in the connexion, or in the nature of things, which requires it to be taken otherwise. We shall, however, shortly endeavour to show that in the sacred writings, as in the classics already adduced, baptizo possesses the alone sense of to immerse. This part we shall conclude with the testimony of the Friends, frequently called Quakers. As they entirely reject water baptism, they may be considered as impartial spectators of our controversy respecting the action included in baptism.

R. BARCLAY.“Baptizo signifies immergo; that is, to plunge and dip in; and that was the proper use of water baptism among the Jews, and also by John and the primitive Christians who used it. Whereas our adversaries, for the most part, only sprinkle a little water on the forehead, which doth not at all answer to the word baptism."-Apol., prop. xii., § 10. (See these and others in Booth's Pado. Ex.)

J. GRATTON.—"John did baptize into water; and it was a baptism, a real dipping, or plunging into water, and so a real baptism was John's."-Life of John Gratton, p. 231.

W. DELL, speaking of baptism, calls it "the plunging of a man in cold water."Select Works, p. 389.

T. ELLWOOD.-"They (that is, the apostles at the feast of Pentecost) were now baptized with the Holy Ghost indeed; and that in the strict and proper sense of the word baptize; which signifies to dip, plunge, or put under."-Sa. His. of the N. T., part ii., p. 307.

J. PHIPPS.-The baptism of the Holy Spirit is "effected by spiritual immersion. . . . The practice of sprinkling infants under the name of baptism, hath neither precept nor precedent in the New Testament."-Diss, on Bap, and Com., pp. 25, 30. W. PENN. "I cannot see why the bishop should assume the power of unchristianing us for not practising of that which he himself practises so unscripturally, and that according to the sentiments of a considerable part of Christendom; having not one text of Scripture to prove that sprinkling in the face was the water baptism, in the first times."-Def. of Gos. Truths, pp, 82, 83.

G. WHITEHEAD.-"Baptizo is to baptize, to plunge under water, to overwhelm. Wherefore I would not have these men offended at the word rhantism, it being as much English as the word baptism. And also baptismous is translated washing; that is, of cups, pots, brazen vessels, and tables (Mark vii. 4). Now, if washing

here should be taken in the common sense, clearly people use not to do it only by sprinkling some drops of water upon them, but by washing them clean; so that rhantism can be neither baptism, nor washing, in a true and proper sense."-Truth Pre., c. ix., p. 116.

A. PURVER.-"Baptized is but a Greek word used in English, and signifying plunged."-Note on 1 Cor. xv. 29.

T. LAWSON. "The ceremony of John's ministration, according to Divine institution, was by dipping, plunging, or overwhelming their bodies in water; as Scapula and Stephens, two great masters in the Greek tongue, testify; as also Grotius, Pasor, Vossius, Minceus, Leigh, Casaubon, Bucer, Bullinger, Zanchy, Spanhemius, Rogers, Taylor, Hammond, Calvin, Piscator, Aquinas, Scotus. . . It is as proper to call sprinkling rhantism, as to call dipping baptism. This linguists cannot be ignorant of, that dipping and sprinkling are expressed by several words, both in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It is very evident, if sprinkling had been of Divine institution, the Greeks had their rhantismos; but as dipping was the institution, they used baptismos; so maintained the purity and propriety of the language. . . . To sprinkle young or old, and call it baptism, is very incongruous; yea, as improper as to call a horse a cow; for baptism signifies dipping."-Bap., pp. 117-119.

SECTION VIII.

ON EVIDENCE FROM THE FIGURATIVE USE OF BAPTIZE AND BAPTISM.

Dr. REID. "All figurative ways of using words, or phrases, suppose a natural and literal meaning."-In Tes. of Em. Pœ., p. 5.

Dr. CARSON.-"It is strange if the words of the Spirit are like an oracle of Delphi, that can be interpreted in two opposite senses." "A scientific philologist will first settle the literal meaning of a word, and then understand the figure in conformity to this."—Do., p. 5.

IF the import of baptizo, when used literally, is to immerse, its figurative use will be found in accordance with this signification. We do not maintain that the figurative use of a term is to determine its literal import. There may occasionally be a figurative use of most words in a manner which does not elucidate their literal import; but if all the instances in which a word is used figuratively accord with a certain meaning which all attach to the word when used literally, and are utterly incongruous with another and different meaning, the figurative use of the word is as strongly corroborative of the one import as it is condemnatory of the other. For instance, in the English language the word plunging is used for the prancing of a horse, and the word dipping for taking a slight and cursory view of a subject; but were any one, from so exceptional a use of the words, to maintain that the words to plunge and to dip do not mean to immerse, every one acquainted with the English language would know the fallacy of the inference. It would be similar if, because a person weeping excessively through grief is said to be "drowned in tears," and a person violently perspiring is said to be "bathed in perspiration," any one should say that drowning and bathing mean less than immersion. We know not, however, a single instance of the figurative use of baptizo which is not in accordance with its acknowledged, literal, obvious, and ordinary meaning, and, as we think, with its only meaning. If our evidence that baptism is immersion rested entirely on the figurative use of the word, the conclusion might be viewed with feelings of suspicion, because from the very nature of

baptism as an institution of the Christian church, a positive, plain, authoritative precept or an indubitable example would seem to be requisite to enforce its observance. Such a precept and example being proved, however, to exist, a figurative allusion may be taken as corroborative of our interpretation of its import.

"It must be considered that as every metaphor or simile has some truth upon which it is constructed, that primary idea or fact must be invariably regarded. There is in every case such an original idea, and it is in that idea the two subjects of comparison meet, and from some acknowledged correspondence with them both, the propriety of the figure is evinced. Hence, in reasoning upon a metaphor, we may in reality be reasoning upon a simple truth, which is its basis, and is consequently capable of sustaining our statements."-Dr. Cox, On Bap., pp. 54, 55.

Instead of repeating adduced instances of the occurrence of this word when used metaphorically, we shall refer our readers to previous quotations from Orpheus, Pindar, and Plato; from the Septuagint on Isaiah xxi. 4; from Diodorus Siculus on subjects being overwhelmed with taxes; from Philo in its application to drunkenness; from Josephus and Plutarch in its application to the plunging of a city into ruin; and to quotations from others. We shall now notice the figurative use or application of the words baptizo and baptisma only in Holy Writ; nor shall we say all that might be said on these portions of Scripture, as they must again be considered in replying to objections.

1. These words occur in relation to the sufferings of Christ. Our Saviour said: "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished" (Luke xii. 50). See also Matt. xx. 22, 23; Mark x. 38, 39. The supposition that Christ's sufferings are denominated a sprinkling, is as much opposed to the character of His sufferings as the words sprinkle and sprinkling are to the real import of the Greek verb and noun used by the inspired writer. The remark applies with the same appropriateness, only in an inferior degree, to the sufferings through which the apostles passed in their way to heavenly glory.

2. We read of the baptism of the Spirit. John the Baptist predicted respecting Christ: "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost," or rather, "in the Holy Ghost." To this our Saviour alluded after His resurrection, when He said: "For John truly baptized with (in) water, but ye shall be baptized with (in) the Holy Ghost not many days hence.' The fulfilment of this is thus recorded: "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 ii. 1-4). That they were literally sprinkled with the Spirit, or immersed in the Spirit, or that the Spirit was literally poured on them, is not maintained by ourselves, or by our opponents generally. Such expressions are all literally inapplicable to the Divine nature. But we believe that something sensible and visible transpired, by which was represented the presence of the

Divine Spirit, and by which the declaration of John is justified and may be understood: "He shall baptize you (with) in the Holy Ghost and fire." The record will be best understood by considering along with verses 1-4, that part of the apostle Peter's speech which testifies to a fulfilment of the prophecy in Joel in the events of that day. He says: "But this is that which was 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 and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit," &c. (vers. 16-18.) Again, at ver. 33, he says of Jesus: "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth (poured out) this which ye now see and hear." It is maintained by ourselves that the pouring out of the Spirit is clearly taught in the latter verses, and that the "obvious" import of the former part of the chapter is that the house where the apostles were sitting was filled with the Spirit, and that, the house being filled with the Spirit, there must necessarily have been an immersion in the Spirit, and that the designation of this as baptism (with) in the Holy Ghost, is a corroboration of immersion as the meaning of baptism. We are aware that objections are made by our opponents to this view of the passage. These objections we may afterwards notice, and endeavour further to confirm our position. We do not forget that the apostles received the Spirit, and that their souls were, as it were, permeated by His gracious influences. Cornelius and they that were with him had also a baptism in the Holy Ghost.

3. The apostle Paul figuratively applies the word baptism in his Epistles to the Roman and Colossian believers. We speak thus, because it may be maintained that the word "buried," rather than the word baptism, is used figuratively. In Col. ii. 12, we read: "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." In Rom. vi. 4, we read: "Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into 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." And in the preceding verse we read: "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?" From the fact of an inspired apostle having declared that Christians were "buried" "by baptism" and "in baptism," we maintain that there is some likeness in the Christian being baptized, to a person that is buried; otherwise the expression "buried" is irrelevant and unwarrantable. That this is a just and necessary inference from the apostle's words, we maintain. Then, supposing baptism to be immersion, we have the fact of resemblance and a justification of the apostolic metaphor: but, supposing baptism to be sprinkling, there is, as we think, neither one nor the other. On this we shall not amplify, as it will be necessary again to refer to this.

4. The word baptize is used in application to the children of Israel when passing through the Red Sea. The apostle says: "Moreover, 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