that the person was baptized in water, to say that he was baptized in the river implies that the water was in the river; to say that he was baptized in the wilderness, implies that the water was in the wilderness. Hence Dr. Wordsworth, on Mark i. 5, says: "In the river Jordan. St. Matt. says in the Jordan" (Gr. Tes.). And in no place is it said that the water was sprinkled, or poured, or baptized upon them; but we learn that they were baptized (immersed) in the water, that the action took place in the element. There is but one exception to this, which is perfectly consistent with immersion, but diametrically opposed to sprinkling or pouring,-where we are told in Mark i. 9 that Jesus was baptized by John into the Jordan; unless it be also an exception where hudati occurs in the three passages without a preposition, just noticed, and where the antithetical part of the sentence in which en is expressed, and the occurrence of en with hudati in the records of the same by the other evangelists, and of the dative in other parts of Luke's writings where en is certainly the understood preposition, may be considered to favour in as the rendering in these three passages. "From historical connections, or parallel occurrences in which a regimen exists, we may learn the appropriate sense" (Prof. Wilson, on Bap., p. 213). See renderings of baptizo and of prepositions given in parallel columns, pp. 116-122, where, as counterfeit coins can be detected by their bulk or their weight, counterfeit words may be detected even by the merely English reader, common sense, honestly used, being the only requisite; for, if even to the prepositions a literal and correct rendering be given, the usurping counterfeits for immerse in all their worthlessness may be immediately detected and displaced.

The proof which has been adduced that in is the meaning of en will show the impropriety with which nigh to has received the commendation of one Pædobaptist, after he has told us that in the New Testament this preposition has no less than sixteen meanings according to Parkhurst, of which-nigh to is the eleventh. We are not, however, edified by being desired to read, instead of the common translation: "Nigh to the beginning was the Word" (John i. 1). Jonah was three days and three nights nigh to the whale's belly. Lazarus "had lain nigh to the grave four days" (John xi. 17). We are not told by this divine that Noah and his family were saved nigh to the ark, that the Egyptians were drowned nigh to the Red Sea, and that Paul at Damascus was let down by the wall nigh to a basket. As long as the inspired writings continue to be the law of the Lord, the words of Blackstone, in reference to human law, will continue to deserve regard from every interpreter of the Oracles of God: "The words of a law are generally to be understood in their usual or most known signification, not so much regarding the propriety of grammar, as their general and popular use" (Com., vol. i., § 2). And how far the language of Dr. Williams, when reasoning against Socinian sentiments and Socinian logic, applies to our Pædobaptist friends in their unnecessary departure from the generic or primary meaning of every preposition found in connection with baptism when the element is mentioned in Holy Writ, we will leave them to judge for themselves. When animadverting on the misapplication of learning to the affairs of religion, and on that supercilious contempt with which some Socinians

have treated the humble followers of Christ, he says: Yes, if he lives by faith, his religion is irrational; and if he submits his understanding implicitly to the plain decisions of revelation, rejecting novel, far-fetched criticisms, he is an incorrigible bigot." Let the reader know that all lexicons, all interpreters, and all critics, give in as the primary meaning of en. Hence this is the word in the original, where we read, "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matt. vi. 9); "They perished in the waters (Matt. viii. 32); "He was in the world" (John i. 10), &c. Instead of reading that they were all baptized of John in the river Jordan, the preposition at has been recommended as a preferable rendering, and by Prof. Godwin has been adopted, although he teaches elsewhere that by or with is the import of en joined with hudati (pp. 39, 40).

But what is the information communicated by such a sentence to any one who knows how many miles was the length of the Jordan? Besides, how palpably incongruous to say, He shall baptize you at the Holy Ghost and at fire! It is our opinion that the sacred writers could not have used stronger or more explicit language to describe immersion in water as the baptism of John, and as Christian baptism, than by using the words and phrases which they have selected. We do not conceive that our own missionaries speak more explicitly when they report the baptisms which they administer in a tank, in the Ganges, or other places. In the Jordan, we regard as an expression perfectly parallel to our expression, In the Thames; in the Mersey, &c.

After all, we have not yet noticed two opposite objections to the most explicit assertion of John's baptizing in the river Jordan. The two objections we are about to notice so expressly contradict each other, that we are reminded immediately of Lindley Murray's rule, that two negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative. Some have ventured to suppose that during a great part of the year the Jordan did not contain water enough to immerse the human body. But Mr. Thorn, without referring to the different size of the Jordan at different seasons of the year, informs us, first, that "water, about three feet deep, pure and quiet, is best adapted for immersing grown-up people; and that were it much deeper or shallower, or foul, or much agitated, it would be unfit for such a purpose, rendering immersion exceedingly troublesome, if not impossible." He proceeds to say that "the baptizing spot has been visited and minutely examined by many intelligent and credible travellers, who tell us that here 'the river Jordan is of considerable width, the water turbulent, the bottom rocky, the edges of the bank abrupt, and the depth about six or seven feet close to the shore,'" &c. He thus concludes: "Judging, then, from the places chosen, and the fonts constructed for immersion, by our opponents, and, indeed, from the nature of the case (unless men and women in John's time were twice as tall as at the present day!), I contend that dipping persons in the Jordan was altogether impracticable; and unhesitatingly conclude that they were only affused or sprinkled with the water of it" (p. 10).*

* Dr. KITTO.-"Both the breadth and depth of this river vary so greatly in different parts of its course, that no general inference is to be deduced. . . Dr. Shaw took its average breadth at thirty yards, and its depth at nine feet."-Pic. His. of Pal., vol. ii., pp. clxxii-clxxiv.

Dr. W. M. THOMSON.-"Travellers have differed widely in their descriptions of the

Thus are imaginary difficulties converted into impracticabilities; and though the supposition is in opposition to the express assertion of God's Word, it is unhesitatingly concluded that the baptized were only affused or sprinkled with the water of the Jordan. Thus is error of all kinds built upon suppositions, but truth upon facts. Thus is the express declaration of Holy Writ that John baptized in Jordan, in the river Jordan, flatly contradicted by men that love God, but whose prepossessions have conjured up imaginary difficulties supposed to involve impracticability of immersion. Let the reader judge how far it resembles-only out-doing -the logic of Dr. Halley in favour of pouring or sprinkling, which is wholly based on the difficulties in the way of immersion. It is, however, due to Dr. H., however inconsistent with the rendering of en by with, for which, before hudati, he pleads, to state his disapproval of with before Jordan. He 66 says: En, with the name of a river, must, I think, be rendered in. John was baptizing (I must repudiate the version, with the Jordan, or with its water) in the Jordan, . . . in the stream" (p. 326). But in reply to the opposing objections to John's baptizing in Jordan we will quote first from Mr. Robinson, the Baptist historian, and then from the Pædobaptist, Dr. Kitto, and from some others.

ROBINSON." The river Jordan, far from wanting water, was subject to two sorts of floods, one periodical, at harvest-time, in which it resembled the Nile in Egypt, with which some supposed it had a subterraneous communication. When

this flood came down, the river rose many feet, and overflowed the lower banks, so that the lions that lay in the thickets there were roused, and fled. To this Jeremiah alludes, Behold the King of Babylon shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan. The other swellings of Jordan were casual, and resembled those of all rivers in uneven countries."

66

'John, setting out from the place of his birth, Hebron, a city in the hilly part of the tribe of Judah, two and twenty miles from Jerusalem, travelling northward, and leaving Tekoah, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem on the left, went toward Bethoglah, Eugedi, Gilgal, and Jericho, taking his road through the wilderness of Judah, near the banks of the lake Asphaltites, and crying (or preaching) to the inhabitants of the towns, arrived at that part of the wilderness which was bounded on the east by the river Jordan, which met him, as it were, running alongside full south, and hereabouts fixed his first baptismal station. The word wilderness did not signify

Jordan, principally from two causes-visiting it at different seasons of the year, at different places. When and where I saw it, the width might have been twenty yards, and its depth ten feet."- The Land and the Book, p. 616.

H. MARTINEAU.-"The depth varies much in different years, as well as in different seasons of every year."-Eas. Life, pp. 419, 420.

Dr. PAXTON."The Jordan has a considerable depth of water. Chateaubriand makes it six or seven feet deep close at the shore, and about fifty paces in breadth, a considerable distance from its entrance into the Dead Sea. According to the computation of Volney, it is hardly sixty paces wide at the mouth. The breadth of the channel varies very much at different points. Irby and Mangles found by measurement that at the ford of Beisan it is 140 feet broad. . . . The water of the river at the time of Maundrell's visit was very turbid. It no longer, indeed, rolls down into the Dead Sea, so majestic a stream as in the days of Joshua, yet its ordinary depth is still about ten or twelve feet."-Illus. of Scrip., vol. i., pp. 373–377.

Dr. BREWER, in his Guide to Scripture History, states that the average depth of the Jordan is nine feet.

Dr. E. ROBINSON says: "The Jordan, as we saw it here, is less broad, less deep, and less rapid than where we have come upon it near the Dead Sea" (Bib. Res., vol. ii., p. 414). Also, of this river, "altogether impracticable" for immersion, "unless men and women in John's time were twice as tall as at the present day," Dr. R. says: "We now stood upon its shores, and had bathed in its waters, and felt ourselves surrounded by hallowed associations."-Vol. i., p. 543.

in Judea an uninhabited country, but woody, grazing lands, in distinction from arable fields, which were champaign or open, and vineyards, olive yards, orchards, and gardens, which were enclosed. There were in the time of Joshua six cities with their villages in this wilderness, and the inhabitants of those parts were graziers and sheep-masters.

"All the evangelists affirm John baptized in Jordan. Mark, who says he baptized in Jordan, says also he baptized in the wilderness. Of course he baptized in that part of the river which bounded the lands of Benjamin and Judah on the east, about four or five miles above the mouth where it discharged itself into the lake Asphaltites, and where the woodlands of Judah abutted on those of Benjamin. The river here was about seven miles east of Jericho, and about twenty-five or six east of Jerusalem. Hereabouts the Israelites passed over Jordan; and about halfa-mile from the river the remains of a convent, dedicated to John the Baptist, are yet to be seen; for the Syrian monks availed themselves of the zeal of early pilgrims, who aspired at the honour of being baptized where they supposed John had baptized Jesus. The Greeks have imagined a place three or four miles distant; others have supposed it higher up the stream northward, toward Galilee; and others, again, the passage right over against Jericho; but some ford a little nearer the mouth, somewhere about the lines that parted the lands of Benjamin and Judah, seems best to agree with the account given by the evangelists, and it exactly agrees with the ancient geography; for the line that parted the two tribes ran through a place called Bethbarah, in the wilderness of Judah, or the house at the ford next the woodlands." Thus Robinson, on the Jordan, and on the locality of John's baptism (pp. 9-12).

The Pictorial Sunday Book, edited by Dr. Kitto, says, on the locality of John's baptism: "The true site of this event is, however, probably not known. The Catholics place the site about seven miles from the Dead Sea, the Greeks not more than four. Both points are two of the most beautiful places on the river, and there seems little difference in the appearance of the stream or its banks." The editor then quotes an interesting account by the Rev. C. B. Elliott, of a visit in 1837, when a cavalcade of five thousand Greek and Oriental pilgrims were journeying thither to perform their annual ablutions "in the place where John was baptizing." "When they reached the spot, instantly a rush was made, and the pilgrims, young and old, rich and poor, sick and sound, men, women, and children, PLUNGED INTO the stream. . . . Here and there the father of a family might be seen, now religiously forcing the head of a little girl under water. . . . Others resigned themselves composedly to the priests, who, standing like the Baptist in the river," &c. Does this comport with the waters of the Jordan being unto its banks so deep as to render baptism in Jordan so certainly impracticable, that we may unhesitatingly conclude with Mr. Thorn? Or has Mr. T. had an express revelation respecting the precise spot where John baptized, and respecting the impracticability of immersion there at that time? If the Jordan was too deep to baptize in, what must be said of the far greater rivers of Europe and America, and of the sea itself, in which baptisms often have taken place? We have read, "Where a Porson would fail, a Thorn would triumph."

Dr. Cumming, speaking of John as immersing in the Jordan, says: "I doubt if the Jordan, at Jerusalem, is really so very deep, except in times of flood, as would be sufficient" (Sab. Eve. Rea, on N.T., on Matt. iii., p. 19). The Jordan at Jerusalem! Who ever heard of this before! As to the sufficient depth of the Jordan for immersion, what we have quoted from Pædobaptist travellers and writers should be sufficiently

confounding to Dr. C. and Mr. Thorn. The doctor with equal force refers to "the ancient pictures of the early masters" (p. 19); and with these before his eyes can say, "( My idea of baptism is, that we should approach as near to the outward usage as circumstances will admit" (p. 20). But on immersion he says: "To say the least of it, if it be not a penance, it is not convenient" (p. 20). What an austere Master is the blessed Jesus, who has commanded His disciples for once to be immersed into the name of the Triune God! Madame Ida Pfeiffer, in her Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy, says, on the arrival at the Jordan: "The moment our Arab companions reached the bank, they flung themselves, heated as they were, into the river. Most of the gentlemen followed their example, but less precipitately" (p. 139).

Dean Stanley, from whose interesting volume, entitled Sinai and Palestine, we have previously extracted, does not appear to have imagined the least difficulty in the way of immersion from the supposed place where John administered his Divinely-enjoined ordinance. Hence he says: "If from the general scene we turn to the special locality, the reason of John's selection is at once explained. He came 'baptizing,' that is, signifying to those who came to him, as he plunged them under the rapid torrent, the forgiveness and forsaking of their former sins," &c. &c.

"On the banks of the rushing stream the multitudes gathered," "Then began that sacred rite which has since spread throughout the world, through the vast baptisteries of the southern and Oriental churches, gradually dwindling to the little fonts of the north and west; plunges beneath the water diminishing to the few drops," &c.

2. In regard to the preposition eis. It is maintained by the Baptists that the meaning of eis is into. Thus it is maintained, that as baptizein en means to immerse in, so baptizein eis means to immerse into. The reasoning of our opponents we maintain to be, and we doubt not through the influence of aforementioned prepossessions, as erroneous, inconsistent, and contradictory as the same has been proved to be on the preposition en. One Pædobaptist mentions that "Parkhurst gives no less than eighteen different meanings for this preposition." Among these, at is mentioned under the fifth and fourteenth meanings of the word; towards, under the sixth meaning, and near to, is not given amongst all the eighteen; yet it is asserted "that eis very often signifies at, near to, towards." And certain passages are referred to where it is rendered to, unto, towards, and at. It is rendered towards in Matt. ii. 21, although we know not why it should not be rendered into. And that it has the sense of into in most of the other passages referred to, where it is rendered to, towards, and unto, is maintained by ourselves, although the expression would sometimes be uncouth with such a rendering. This, however, does not disprove the reality of such an import, as each language has its own idioms. That "at, near to, and towards," can be said to be THE meaning of eis is, as we believe, no more correct than it would be to say that Daniel was cast near to, but not into the lion's den; that the mariners cast Jonah towards and near to, but not into the sea; that Christ and the apostles went towards and near to, but not into Jerusalem; that the righteous shall go near to and towards, but not into beaven; and that the wicked shall be cast towards or near to, but not