Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

signify a person overwhelmed with calamities, as it were with a flood of waters." "The same figure is employed by profane writers."-Anal. Theol., on Matt. xx. 22. Dr. MACBRIDE.-"He inquired if they could drink of His cup, and undergo the sufferings in which He was about to be baptized or immersed?"-Lec. on the Diat., on Matt. xx. 20-28.

Archb. SUMNER.-"Here our Lord intimates the purpose for which He had taken upon Him our nature; and foresees the hour when the deep waters of anguish should go even over His soul." "Ye shall be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; ye shall be plunged in earthly sorrow of the same nature as mine."-Expos. Lec., on Luke xii. 49-59; on Matt. xx. 17-34.

Bp. HINDS.-"They asked for posts of honour; and it was in vain that our Saviour, by allusion to the cup which His Father had given him to drink, and the baptism or immersion," &c.—Catechist's Manual, p. 153.

Bp. MANN.-"To drink of a cup signifies to suffer affliction, and to be baptized is here used for being plunged into deep distress."-Four Gospels, on Matt. xx. 22. NEANDER."His sufferings He betokens by a baptism which He must undergo, perhaps in view of the multitude of afflictions that were to overwhelm Him. To immerse himself in sufferings."-Life of Christ, p. 347.

OLSHAUSEN."The figurative expression baptisma refers to baptism by fire, and involves at once the idea of a painful going down (a dying in that which is old), and also of a joyful coming up (a resurrection in that which is new), as Rom. vi. 3 shows."-Com., on Matt. xx. 22.

ANNOTATED PAR. BIBLE.-"The being immersed and overwhelmed with waters is a frequent metaphor, in all languages, to express the rush of successive troubles." -On Mark x. 38. Exd. from Watson.

R. MIMPRISS.-"To be baptized with the baptism, &c. This metaphorical sense of the word baptism is derived from the figurative expressions of the Old Testament, in which afflictions are represented under the notion of great waters passing over and ready to overwhelm a person.' "In the Psalms, trials, afflictions, and humiliations, are frequently represented by overwhelming waters."-Treas. Har., p. 659.

Dr. D. DAVIDSON.-"Baptism is used in this place figuratively to express the overwhelming afflictions which our Lord endured; by which He seemed to allude to various prophecies respecting himself, where He is represented as overwhelmed in mighty waters (Psalm lxix. 14, 15)."-Com., on Matt. xx. 22, 23.

BARNES."Are you able to be plunged deep in afflictions, to have sorrows cover you like water, and to be sunk beneath calamities as floods, in the work of religion? Afflictions are often expressed by being sunk in the floods, and plunged in the deep waters" (Com., on Matt. xx. 22). On 1 Cor. xv. 29, he says: "That the word is thus used to denote a deep sinking into calamities, there can be no doubt."

Dr. STIER." The cup points to something that is to be inwardly tasted or experienced; while the baptism denotes the same thing as also overpowering us from without. As the cup points back more to the assigning will of the Father, so there lies in the baptism a hint pointing forward to the not remaining under the water, the coming forth, and rising again," &c.-On Matt. xx. 22, 23. Dr. J. J. OWEN.-"To be baptized, &c., i.e., to be overwhelmed with the sufferings which are to come upon me."-Com., on Matt. and Mark; on Matt. xx. 22. Dr. H. MELVILLE. – There is peculiar fitness in His describing His agony and death as a baptism with which He should be baptized. A change was to take place; and for the bringing about of that change, immersion in a deep ocean of trouble was actually indispensable. ... He must descend into darkness, that the waves and the storms might go over Him. . . It was needful that He should be covered by them: . . . the emerging and immersion followed so closely one on the other, that you cannot better describe the great work than by saying of our Lord that He had a baptism to be baptized with.'. He was plunged in the raging

...

waters, and then quickly withdrawn."-On Luke xii. 50.

Dr. E. ROBINSON.-"Can ye endure to be overwhelmed with sufferings like those which I must endure?"-Lex. Art. Bap.

ALFORD.-"The symbolic nature of baptism is here to be borne in mind: the burial in the water of the old man, and the resurrection of the new man. Gr. Tes., on Luke xii. 50.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

BLOOMFIELD.-"I have to undergo a baptism of suffering; that is, as it is else

[ocr errors]

where said, 'to suffer many things.' In baptism the whole body was immersed under water; and in reference to this our Lord calls His sufferings a baptism, because He was about to be wholly immersed in sorrows. "The image may be thus unfolded: I must be immersed in dire calamities" (On Luke xii. 50; Gr. Tes.; and Crit. Dig.). Again: "Bapt. baptisth., expressing the being utterly overwhelmed by affliction, is one frequent in the classic writers."-Gr. Tes., on Matt.

xx. 22.

Dr. J. BROWN.-"The baptism or submersion that our Lord speaks of, refers to His sufferings." "When we consider the nature, the number, the variety, the severity, the early commencement, the close succession, the strange complication, the long continuance of His sufferings, we may well say He was plunged into an abyss of sufferings. He came into deep waters, where the floods overflowed Him" (Disc. and Say. of Christ, vol. i., pp. 418, 419). See a similar representation of Christ's immersion in suffering (vol. ii., pp. 210, 211).

Dr. D. BROWN, in his Commentary on the Gospels, just issued, who generally shirks all remarks on the import of baptism, as if consciously incompetent to object to immersion, and utterly ashamed of all the objections adduced by his brethren, is not prevented by all his caution from saying: "And be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? (Compare, for the language, Psalm xlii. 7.)” We read in Psalm xlii. 7: "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

Such a use of the words baptizo and baptisma by our adorable Lord, teaches, as we think, not simply that baptism might mean immersion, but that certainly and necessarily this was its import. To conceive of sprinkling as the import of baptism is to conceive of what caricatures the most painful sufferings, the most awful event recorded in the annals of history, and recorded, too, by the pen of inspiration. The eminence of the Pædobaptist writers that have been quoted, needs not be asserted. The diplomatic honours of many,-the insertion being not needed for the sake of distinguishing them,-are here and in other instances, after the example of others, omitted without disrespect. We are aware that the opinions which have now been given on the sufferings of Christ and His apostles being termed an immersion, are but the opinions of uninspired men. So in regard to other citations. Of their propriety and force the reader is allowed and desired to judge. They are, however, not only a denial of any truth in the assertion that the learned world has pronounced in favour of sprinkling as the proper import of baptism, or as the original practice, but, as concessions of Pædobaptist and learned men, according, as we think, with the only correct interpretation of which God's Word is capable, they confirm our position that baptism is immersion.

§ 3.-FUTILITY OF OBJECTIONS FROM THE BAPTISM OF THE SPIRIT. AUTHOR OF "PRE-ADAMITE MAN."-"Truth cannot contradict truth" (p. 39). "It is, I own, a difficult thing to throw the mind open to new views, however much they may commend themselves to reason" (p. 13).

Dr. CARSON."When the profane historian narrates what is thought improbable, his veracity is questioned, but his words are not tampered with. When the Holy Spirit employs words whose meanings are not relished, critics do not say that He lies, but they say what is equal to this, that His words mean what they cannot mean" (In Tes. of Em. Pa., p. 8). [This strong expression is occasioned by witnessing the violence done to some words and phrases of Holy Writ.]

Dr. JENKINS-"No meaning may ever be attached to an original word that is inconsistent with, and does not include, its primary signification."-In S. Davis, on Bap., p. 7.

Bp. PORTEUS.-"It is a rule established by the best and most judicious interpreters, that in explaining the sacred writings we ought never, without the most apparent and indispensable necessity, to allow ourselves the liberty of departing from the plain, obvious, and literal meaning of the words."-Lec. on St. Matt., pp. 94, 95.

Dr. L. WOODS.-"A little reflection will convince you that the metaphorical language of Scripture does not imply a strict analogy between those things from which the metaphors are

taken, and those they are designed to illustrate. There is indeed some analogy; otherwise the metaphors would be forced and unintelligible. But the analogy is one which relates, not to metaphysical, but to moral and practical truth; and it is always to be limited by the drift of the discourse, and by what is otherwise known of the nature of the subject. In short, the analogy on which the propriety and utility of metaphorical language depend, is one which common sense easily discovers, and is competent to restrict within its proper limits."-Works, vol. i., p. 80.

Dr. W. L. ALEXANDER."The sacred writers. appear to have observed in the preparation of their works the ordinary rules and usages, both grammatical and rhetorical, of literary composition."-Cong. Lec., p. 48.

R. PENGILLY.-"Whether that in which a person is said to be immersed rises so as to cover him, or is poured upon him to the same extent, or he is put into it, the sense of immersion is the same in each case. So it is with the term baptism. The sense of covering is never absent from the use of the word."-Scrip. Guide to Bap., pp. 124, 125. 12th Edition.

Dr. J. PARKER.-"We must criticise, expose, refute, smite, love, pity, pray, all in turn, and occasionally all at once." "The moral atmosphere will be all the brighter after the lightnings and thunders have done their work."-Ch. Ques., pp. 232, 233.

WE read in Holy Writ of the baptism of the Spirit, or of being baptized (en) in the Holy Ghost. The reader will shortly perceive that this is regarded as one of the strongholds of sprinkling; yea, as an impregnable fortress, because of the unwavering conviction of many of our Pædobaptist brethren that this baptism of the Spirit was pouring! The premise and the conclusion are worthy of each other. That we may not be accused of doing injustice to our opponents, it is necessary to quote some of their assertions.

The Rev. C. Jerram (Vicar of Chobham, Surrey) says: "The 'baptism of the Spirit' is represented as 'pouring out the Spirit,' particularly in that memorable prophecy in Zechariah (xii. 10), 'I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced,' &c. Let this prediction be compared with its accomplishment on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand were pricked to the heart,' and were baptized 'with water and the Spirit;' and it will not be thought a very violent inference that the baptism of the three thousand was performed by pouring on of water, and that to this custom the prophecy has a reference. But the passage which is most remarkable is that which records the fulfilment of our Lord's promise to His disciples, 'Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost' (Acts i. 5). This Divine Spirit, we find, did actually descend, or was poured out on the apostles, and sat upon them as 'cloven tongues, like as of fire' (Acts ii. 3). And what makes the allusion still more striking is, that the same event which our Lord has here called the 'baptism of the Spirit,' in the same chapter is represented as the accomplishment of an ancient prophecy of Joel, which says, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,' &c. (v. 17): so that baptism is here plainly identified with the pouring out of the Spirit; and seems to have a direct reference to the pouring out of water in that ceremony" (Conv. on Inf. Bap., pp. 139, 140). Whether this is a specimen of Pædobaptist reasoning on the baptism of the Spirit we shall leave it with every reader conversant with the same to determine. first assumption is, that the prophecy in Zech. xii. 10 is a prophecy of "the baptism of the Spirit:" a designation which it does not to our knowledge bear in any part of Holy Writ. Secondly, it is stated that the three thousand pricked to the heart on the day of Pentecost, "were baptized with water and the Spirit," although the Word of God does not anywhere assert this. Assuredly they were not with those of whom we read in the first verse, who "were all with one accord in one place."

The

With greater approximation to truth, Dean Alford, on Acts i. 5, says: "As John's mission was accomplished in baptizing with water, so now the great end of his own mission, the baptism with the Holy Ghost, was on the point of being accomplished. Calvin remarks that He speaks of the Pentecostal effusion as being the baptism with the Holy Ghost." Thirdly, from these chimeras of Mr. J., he infers that the baptism (the immersion) of the three thousand was a pouring. Fourthly, he comes to what is truly the baptism of the Spirit, and because the Spirit is said to have been poured out, and it is said that "there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them," it is inferred that this baptism was pouring, no notice being taken of the expression on which we may subsequently enlarge; "it filled all the house where they were sitting." Fifthly, this supposed evidence of pouring as baptism is claimed in what follows in favour of sprinkling as valid baptism.

On the baptism of the Spirit, Dr. E. Williams says: "I scruple not to assert it, there is no object whatever in all the New Testament so frequently and so explicitly signified by baptism as these Divine influences" (Antipa., vol. i., p. 196). That Divine and purifying influences are by the Scriptures supposed to be experienced by the baptized, and that baptism represents purification, we do not deny; but the distinction of these from the baptism of the Spirit we maintain, and desire any reader to examine the New Testament on this subject, and also ascertain the frequency with which water baptism is mentioned, compared with that of the baptism of the Spirit. The idea that the baptism of the Spirit is the regeneration of the soul is a common fallacy with Pædobaptists, expressed as strongly as if a voice from heaven had distinctly declared it. In Hewitson's Memoirs, Mr. Gonsalves is quoted as saying that if a person "has not been baptized with the Spirit of Christ, he will sink to hell" (p. 287). Mr. Wesley, on Acts i. 5, has: "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. And so are all true believers to the end of the world." Prof. Godwin says: "The Spirit is that by which the Saviour produces a certain change in the minds of His disciples. To effect this change is to baptize them by the Spirit" (Chr. Bap., p. 127). So a host of others. The idea is as truthful as that the apostles knew that Christ "was to be purified for His great work" (Do., p. 147). If the baptism of the Spirit is regeneration, then the apostles on the day of Pentecost had a second regeneration, or they had not before been renewed. If they had before been renewed, and if Acts iv. 31 records another baptism of the Spirit, then for the third time they were regenerated; and if Peter shared with Cornelius in the baptism of the Spirit, he would on such a supposition be born again for the fourth time. Is being born again, and again, and again, what is meant in the repeated prayers now offered by Pædobaptists for the baptism of the Spirit? Dr. Kitto more properly asserts on Cornelius's baptism of the Spirit: "It is clear, at all events, that nothing like this had occurred since the great Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit. Many had, since then, received the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, but none in this manner" (Dai. Bi. Illus., vol. viii., p. 206). "Such gifts had been bestowed after baptism, and upon the imposition of the apostles' hands. But here it was direct, and signal, and even before baptism; as distinct and plenary as on the

[ocr errors]

day of Pentecost" (Do.). But Dr. W. further says: "If in baptism there is an expressive emblem of the descending influences of the Spirit, pouring must be the mode of administration, for that is the Scriptural term most commonly and properly used for the communication of Divine influences" (p. 197). Notice here a begging of the question and a confounding of things which differ. We deny that baptism is emblematic "of the descending influences of the Spirit." There is also an arguing from the communications of the Spirit as if all these might be termed, or in Holy Writ were designated, a baptism of the Spirit. So, we have remarked, do the Pædobaptists generally. Mr. Arthur does once make a distinction between a reception of the Spirit and the baptism of fire: "He breathed upon them, and said, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' With that word, doubtless, both peace and power were given; yet it was not the baptism of fire" (Tongue of Fire, p. 6). Also he says (p. 153) that "the visible flame" is not "among the permanent benefits resulting from Pentecost." "It appears to stand related to the Christian dispensation as the fires of Sinai did to the Mosaic." It might also be ascertained by him or by any other, that "we never again find any mention in the course of the apostolic history" of a baptism of the Spirit after Peter's explanation of what transpired when he was addressing Cornelius and them that were with him (Acts xi. 15, 16). Dr. W. having given this (unscriptural) designation to all the communications of the Spirit, there is, at times, a reasoning from this as if the Spirit could literally be poured out. Finally, the fallacy in favour of pouring is treated as an argument in proof of sprinkling. Hence, Mr. Booth thus replies to the last quotation from Dr. W., who had also admitted immersion to be baptism, and had argued in favour of sprinkling: "But where then is the lawfulness of sprinkling and of immersion, for which Dr. W. contends? Where the propriety of all his reasoning against the idea of baptism being a specific term? Why insult the authority of our Divine Lawgiver by varying the mode according to circumstances,' and by 'referring the mode to the private judgment of the person or persons concerned?' If pouring MUST be the mode, it must; for there is, on this principle, no other that can be justified. Thus his argument confutes his hypothesis' (vol. iii., p. 212).

[ocr errors]

Another champion of sprinkling says: "Now, if this pouring out was not one of the modes of baptism, how does Christ and His apostles uniformly call it by that name?" (A. Pirie, on Bap., p. 41.) In which part of God's Word can baptizing be substituted for pouring, or for pouring out? or pouring, or pouring out be substituted for baptizing? In the baptism of the Spirit there was a pouring and also an immersion. Dr. Carson says: "Rain falls to moisten the earth. The moistening of the earth is not the falling of the rain; the falling is a previous process. ... Just so with the pouring and the baptism of the Spirit" (p. 113).

Whether our Methodist brother, Mr. S., or our Independent brother, Dr. H., is the more confident, if not bombastic, on the baptism of the Spirit as favouring pouring and sprinkling, and opposing immersion, we do not know. Mr. Stacey, immediately after mentioning the baptism of the Spirit, appropriately says that "to the operations of Divine influence mode cannot with literal exactness be applied;" and then he reasons on

« AnteriorContinuar »