of baptism is sufficient proof that somewhere water sufficient for immer sion was found. This rejection of the river as determining or implying anything, although perfectly correct, comes with a bad grace from our opponents, who make in other instances so much of imagined scarcity of water. But in this place, where there was a river, the grand proof, in "the judgment of candid and unbiassed reason," that baptism is pouring or sprinkling, is that "a sense of propriety and a knowledge of Asiatic delicacy" would never have suggested immersion; that the immersion of this matron by a man "in a place of public resort, and with no other preparation than what was accidental to a casual visit to the river side," is not conceivable; and that "a greater improbability cannot well be imagined" than "such a trial of feminine delicacy" (pp. 221, 222).

Dr. Halley has given the same ideas in many of the same words. Our friends occasionally assume, as Dr. H. in his Appendix is candid enough to acknowledge, from what "could now be done with decency and propriety in Manchester;" and thus they make void God's Word, and pervert the facts of inspired record. The difference between Eastern and Western customs is sometimes overlooked and sometimes noticed. Nothing is said of the difference in latitude and climate between Philippi and Manchester, Halifax, London, or Sheffield; and of the rapidity with which heat would, at Philippi, absorb water from the person or the clothing, as compared with the slowness of this operation in England. It might be also that Asiatic ladies were as little accustomed to bathing as one of the practised ablutions, and as little prepared for it as are the people of England, or of the United States of America. It might be that they wore the same kind of clothing at Philippi and Thyatira (with the exception of head-dresses) as at Manchester and New York; and were just as unprepared for an ablution, although the very spot is believed to have been selected from the convenience for this afforded

by its contiguity to a river. If the mention of a river proves nothing, does the omission of everything relative to the preparedness or unpreparedness of Lydia and her household for immersion, prove anything? What more is needed than the fact of baptism? We otherwise learn what baptism is. To pervert facts recorded, by inferences from what is not recorded, is most deplorable.

Also they who admit that the word for baptism in God's Word means an encompassing of the object, reflect on the Divine author of baptism when they speak of immersion as inconsistent with a sense of propriety and a knowledge of delicacy. Dr. H. says that Lydia "no doubt observed her devotions, veiled and covered like a woman of Thyatira." And to him "it seems impracticable to have immersed a woman in an Asiatic head-dress, as it was shameful to baptize her with her head uncovered;" her immersion is therefore "incredible under the circumstances." According to this reasoning, if the imagined head-dress would not allow of pouring, but only of sprinkling, baptizo here means neither to immerse nor to pour, but only to sprinkle. What will become of any fact recorded in sacred or profane history, if the meaning of words is tested in such a crucible! If some writers on baptism had told us that they wished to excite in their hearers a disgust of immersion, we could have believed them. The Rev. Jacob Stanley expatiates on the indelicacy of a female

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undressing and dressing herself in such a public situation; just as if immersion was an impracticability without indelicate exposure; and from this unfounded hypothesis concludes that baptism is not immersion. We emphatically deny the necessity of this supposition, upon which our most moderate opponents apparently love frequently to dwell. Dr. H. supposes that Lydia would "divest herself of at least a part of her dress." Dr. Carson replies to an opponent in these words: "With respect to Acts xvi. 15, I certainly can have no objection to the opinion of the writer, that Lydia was baptized in the place where Paul preached: the sooner the better. As to her dress, and anything that is not matter of Divine prescription, I leave to the discretion of those concerned on the occasion. I shall neither be the master of the ceremonies myself, nor allow my opponent to undertake that service" (p. 359).

Without saying how near Lydia was to her own house, or to any other house, although remembering the record that when she was baptized she besought Paul and his companions to come into her house and abide there, and that when they went out of prison they entered into the house of Lydia,- -we adduce the fact recorded by Mr. Buckingham, that when travelling in the East he frequently plunged overhead in his clothes, and found himself greatly refreshed by it, although he suffered his clothes even to dry upon him. Our conviction is that nothing in this passage warrants a doubt that baptizo has any other meaning than to immerse. This meaning is given to the word as its primary import, even by the most ignorant and violent, as well as the most learned of the opponents of immersion. It is admitted by the most candid and enlightened to be the certain and invariable meaning of the word unto the time of Christ. It is allowed by others to have been the only meaning for hundreds of years afterwards. It is proved to have been regarded as the meaning of the word, and to have been the practice of the universal church, for more than the first two hundred years of the Christian era. Lydia's conversion takes place by the river side, the proseuche, or place of prayer, being frequently for the convenience of purification by the side of a river, or fountain, or lake, or the sea. Bathing was one of the purifications required by the Divine law. It was also in that latitude, and especially at certain seasons, a pleasant and refreshing practice; and, instead of being inconvenient or impracticable, was perfectly convenient, from the difference betwixt Eastern costume and our own, and from the different heat of the climate in drying persons and clothes. We, nevertheless, do not believe with one of our learned opponents that immersion, as the Divine ordinance, was sometimes practised because more convenient than pouring or sprinkling, but rather invariably because "it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt. iii. 15).

Were we to follow the course pursued by our opponents in their assertions respecting the import of baptizo, instead of believing that persons slept on the roof of the house in Judea and in the East, we might conclude that the word rendered roof signifies attic or chamber; or that the word rendered sleep means also to walk, and that instead of sleeping they took exercise, and this, too, to obtain warmth.

The patent facts connected with the case of Lydia induce the Hon. and Rev. B. W. Noel to say: "With respect to the baptism of Lydia

and her household in the little river Gaggitas, near Philippi (Acts xvi. 15), the advocates of immersion are as much entitled to consider that it took place in summer as their opponents to believe that it was in winter. On the former supposition the wet clothes would be a slight inconvenience in latitude 41°, more than ten degrees south of London, and with a sun as burning as that of Naples; and as soon as they had ceased to drip upon the sunny bank, the dry and flowing robes in which they would envelop themselves would effectually conceal all traces of their immersion from strangers on their road back to the city” (p. 102). He then dwells on the readiness with which it may be presumed that Lydia, whose heart the Lord had opened, would bear profane ridicule, on the supposition that this to some extent necessarily followed; on the necessity of taking up our cross in order to our being Christians; and on the self-denial by which all God's people have been distinguished. These remarks on the baptism of Lydia are made in condescension and kindness to our Pædobaptist brethren, if they are at all open to conviction; but not in forgetfulness of the fact that the burden of proof that immersion did not take place rests upon themselves. Also, on the supposed indelicacy of immersion more will subsequently be recorded.

§ 18.-FUTILITY OF OBJECTIONS TO THE IMMERSION OF THE JAILOR AND ALL HIS. Dr. HALLEY."The allusions to baptism which are not so distinctly expressed, must be interpreted in accordance with those whose meaning can be clearly ascertained (p. 192).

Ir is maintained by our opponents that against immersion, "the baptism of the jailor and his family strengthens the argument by an additional example." Dr. Halley does not speak expressly on this baptism; but our readers will shortly deem it amply sufficient that we quote from Mr. Thorn and Mr. Stacey on this last instance "of Christian baptism, the circumstances of which are more or less noticed in the New Testament," what will be lengthened and stringent enough, as we opine, for any of our Pædobaptist friends. Mr. Thorn says: "The case of the jailor is equally on our side. To suppose that he took his wife and children out of bed at midnight, and had them plunged into cold water, or that he led them in the dark to a neighbouring river, as some sage Baptists imagine, is too difficult of belief, without better evidence than has yet been afforded us. Neither have we any ground for supposing that this prison contained a cistern or tank adapted or available for such an immersion; nor are our 'positive-proof' brethren to plead the existence and use of it without adducing good evidence in support of their assertions" (p. 20). Here, as usual, this presumptive writer, like Mr. Stacey and others, throws the burden of proof, which belongs to himself, on his opponents. The admission of Dr. Halley is, that "whoever assigns to a disputed word a secondary sense, or any variation of usage, is bound to the proof of it. Can anything be more reasonable?" (p. 343). If the Baptists had simply proved that the primary and usual meaning of baptizo is to immerse, it would have devolved on their opponents to prove in every instance in opposition to immerse that it has not this meaning, but another. We think that we have proved more than that to immerse is its primary and usual meaning. According to all reason

we have a right to say that the jailor and all his were immersed, until it is proved that this was not the case. It is in glaring opposition to the canons of interpretation that we are called upon to prove the existence of a cistern, &c., in the prison at Philippi, by those who should prove that there existed no means of immersion in the prison or the city; or, at least, that immersion did not take place. If Mr. Thorn, who admits and denies the meaning of immersion, is an exception to the rest with respect to the burden of proof, our remarks apply in all their force to Mr. Stacey and every other Pædobaptist writer whom on this subject we have read.

But where does Mr. T. learn that the jailor called up his wife and children out of bed? What is this but a figment of the imagination through the fright of immersion? The Word of God mentions not wife or children, or calling out of bed. If this had been the case, we are not to suppose that beds, and dressing, &c., were the same at Philippi as they are at Winchester. In opposition to what inveterate and blinding prejudice has led to suppose as existing and taking place, the inspired record mentions an earthquake and some of its results; an alarmed jailor intending to destroy himself; the kind interposition of Paul; the jailor's calling for a light; bringing out Paul and Silas; anxiously inquiring the way of salvation; and receiving instruction in regard to this momentous matter. Then it is recorded, "And they spake unto him the Word of the Lord, AND TO ALL THAT WERE IN HIS HOUSE." This is in accordance with the commission, "Go ye, therefore, disciple all nations;" "Preach the Gospel to every creature.' The next things recorded are, “And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway." It is then immediately added, in evidence of the discipleship of the jailor and all his, and in opposition to infant or indiscriminate baptizing: "And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God WITH ALL HIS HOUSE." How awfully caricatured by Mr. T. is this inspired and interesting record! And were not this and other passages misrepresented by others, we should have paid less regard to many of Mr. T.'s assertions. Brief as is this history in the records of inspiration, a change of place is thrice intimated. First, the jailor "brought out" of prison Paul and Silas. They then "spake unto him the Word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." Secondly, "He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway." Thirdly, he then "brought them into his house," &c. From this we infer that the baptism did not take place in "his house." Whether they went to the river Gaggitas,* on which the city was situated, or whether the immersion was administered in a convenient place in connection with the prison, or whether it was administered elsewhere, we are under no obligation to prove. The fact of its transpiring, not the place of its administration, is what the Scripture records. Having proved what baptism is, we should not deem ourselves guilty of assumption, even if the facts with which we are acquainted

The river, say Conybeare and Howson, was not the Strymon, as say Meyer, De Wette, and Baumgarten, but the Gaggitas.

respecting Eastern prisons and Eastern customs had not come to our knowledge. The assertions of Mr. T., and of our Wesleyan Methodist brother whom we are about to notice, may excite the less surprise if we state that the Rev. Wm. Lindsay, D.D., has spoken, and in re-editing Dr. Kitto's Cyclopædia, has again spoken, of "the language used by St. Paul at Philippi, when he commanded water to be brought into the room,-language which, it is said, cannot be understood of such a quantity of water as would be required to immerse in succession a whole household." (Art. Bap.) The learned doctor italicizes "brought." If the optics of our Pædobaptist brethren enable them thus to read God's Word, at differing from them we do not wonder, for verily we cannot go and do likewise.

Mr. Stacey, who in the beginning of his argumentation in favour of pouring and sprinkling informs us that his whole argument aspires to little more than a plea for liberty to sprinkle, to pour, or to immerse, observes on this "additional example," that "it requires a logic of keen analysis, or an imagination of singular fertility, to discover in the history the slightest trace of evidence that the jailor and his family were immersed." "Even imagination requires some material out of which to fashion its theories, and a love for truth demands that its flights shall be restricted within the range of at least apparent probability. But in the account of the jailor's baptism there is not a single circumstance which can be refined and elaborated into a proof that he and his children were immersed. All the evidence inclines and carries us forward to an opposite conclusion" (pp. 224, 225). He tells us "there is no retirement to another place spoken of," as if the evidence of a change of place which we have adduced had no existence; "no delay indicated," as if the cause of immersion required delay; "no preliminary arrangement suggested, no outward preparation of any kind supposed," as if the fact of immersion required that the sacred writer should record what portion of their clothing they cast off, if any, before their immersion, and where they laid it. What can be more preposterous than such demands? We are informed that "the two circumstances" of the jailor washing the stripes of the apostles, and the apostles baptizing the jailor, "are told in the same breath," just as if time and distance by this were annihilated. What is the inference from similar phraseology in vers. 15 and 40? When Lydia was baptized, she said, Come into my house, and abide. Was her house certainly at the river, or in the river? It is said respecting Paul and Silas, " And they went out of the prison and entered into the house of Lydia." Did Lydia's house consequently and certainly adjoin the prison? Yea, the mild, chaste, and intelligent Mr. S. says: "Adjournment to a river side can be suggested only on the principle that no difficulties can weigh against the antecedent certainty of immersion. On the same principle it is not impossible to call up the vision of a tank or cistern in the prison-yard, and used for the general purposes of the inmates; and to picture the jailor and his household plunged into it, one after another, and then returning dripping and shivering to the house, from which they had so lately issued in consternation and affright. But seriously to propose either hypothesis is, if not to trifle with the Word of God, yet to abuse our reason by giving us possibility for testimony,