respect they are much wiser than their brethren the Russians, who dip them into rivers in the coldest winter."-Travels, p. 394.

VENEMA.- "In pronouncing the baptismal form of words, the Greeks use the third person, saying: 'Let the servant of Christ be baptized, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit;' and immerse the whole man in water."-His. Eccle., tom. vi., p. 660.

DEYLINGIUS.- "The Greeks retain the rite of immersion to this day: as Jeremiah, the Patriarch of Constantinople, declares."-De Prudent. Pastoral, pars iii., c. iii., § 26.

BUDDEUS.-"That the Greeks defend immersion is manifest, and has been frequently observed by learned men; which Ludolphus informs us is the practice of the Ethiopians."-Theol. Dogmat., b. v., c. i., § 5.

WITSIUS.That immersion may be practised in cold countries, without any great danger of health and life, the Muscovites prove by their own example, who entirely immerse their infants three times in water, not believing that baptism can be otherwise rightly administered. Nor do they ever use warm water, except for those that are weak or sickly."-Econ. Fad., b. iv., c. xvi., § 13.

SCHUBERT."It is the opinion of the Greeks that the true baptism of Christ is administered, not by the application of water in any way, but by immersion, or by hiding the person to be baptized under water."-Instit. Theol. Polem., pars ii., c. iii., § 12.

RUSSIAN CATECHISM.-"This they [the Greek church in Russia] hold to be a point necessary, that no part of the child be undipped in the water. -In Booth,

on Bap., vol. ii., p. 414.

SIR PAUL RICAUT.-"The modern Greek church defines baptism to be, a cleansing, or taking away of original sin, by thrice dipping or plunging into the water; the priest saying at every dipping, 'In the name of the Father, amen; and of the Son, amen; and of the Holy Ghost, amen.' This thrice dipping, or plunging into the water, this church holds to be as necessary to the form of baptism, as water to the matter."-Pres. State of the Gr. Ch., p. 163.

ENCY. BRITT.-"Baptism is performed among them by plunging the whole body of the child thrice into water."-Art. Greece.

MILLAR." In baptism they [the Muscovites] dip their children in cold water." -Prop. of Chri., vol. ii., c. vi.

ALEXANDER DE STOURDZA, Russian State-Councillor, in a work published at Stutgart in 1816, says: "The church of the West has, then, departed from the example of Jesus Christ; she has obliterated the whole sublimity of the exterior sign;-in short, she commits an abuse of words and of ideas in practising baptism by aspersion, this very term being in itself a derisive contradiction. The verb BAPTIZO, immergo, has in fact but one sole acceptation. It signifies, literally and always, to plunge. Baptism and immersion are, therefore, identical; and to say, baptism by aspersion, is as if one should say, immersion by aspersion, or any other absurdity of the same nature."-In Dr. Conant, on Bap., pp. 150, 151.

THE BISHOP OF THE CYCLADES, in 1837 published at Athens a book entitled, The Orthodox Doctrine. Speaking of sprinkling, he says: "Where has the Pope taken the practice from? Where has the Western church seen it adopted, that she declares it to be right? Has she learned it from the baptism of the Lord? Let Jordan bear witness, and first proclaim the immersions and the emersions. From the words of our Lord? Hear them aright. Disciple the nations; then baptize

* It is asserted by a recent writer that affusion is sometimes practised. But if a Maronite, a German, or one of another nation, says what means I dip, whilst practising pouring, it proves simply his departure from the rule and the previous practice; as repairing to a river in order to pouring or sprinkling would be confirmatory of another and more ancient practice having been superseded by this pouring or sprinkling; just as the formula in the Prayer Book of the Anglican church is corroborative both of believers' baptism and of immersion as baptism, as more ancient than infant sprinkling. Nor is sprinkling or pouring, whilst saying I immerse thee, more absurd, as we think, than the answering and promising by deputy as enjoined and practised in the Anglican church. The assertion of Dr. Wall that some writers "say that the Muscovites themselves do in case of the weakness of the child baptize by affusion" (v. ii., p. 378), does not assuredly destroy the corroborative evidence from the Greek church that baptism is immersion.

them. He says not, then anoint them, or sprinkle them; but He plainly commissions His apostles to baptize. The word baptizo explained, means a veritable dipping, and, in fact, a perfect dipping. An object is baptized when it is completely concealed. This is the proper explanation of the word baptizo. Did the Pope, then, learn it from the apostles, or from the word and the expression, or from the church in the splendour of her antiquity? Nowhere did such a practice prevail; nowhere can a Scriptural passage be found to afford shelter to the opinions of the Western church."-In Bap. Mag., 1849.

Prof. STUART.—“The mode of baptism by immersion, the Oriental church has always continued to preserve, even down to the present time."

How different are the preceding records from the impressions which the statements of many Pædobaptists are adapted to produce! How contrary are they to the idea that immersion is a recent innovation, adopted by a small number; and that sprinkling is of the highest antiquity, although a few dissent from the practice! How painful that ecclesiastical testimony through the blinding influence of prepossessions should by many distinguished for piety and learning be so untruthfully represented! Dr. Farrar, with the appearance of candour, says: "I readily admit baptizing by immersion has been practised as far back as the fourth and third centuries, and perhaps earlier" (Dr. Pye Smith's Outlines, p. 668). Been practised!-perhaps earlier! We are quite aware that numbers do not prove truthfulness, so that if the full seventy millions who practise immersion were doubled and trebled we could not depend on such a fact as proof that our practice is Scriptural: but we approve only of words and phrases which are adapted to make impressions in accordance with facts, and not with ignorance and error.

Respecting the practice of the Greeks, it has been said by a Baptist: "Greatly as the Greeks were divided in speculative opinions, and numerous as the congregations were which dissented from the established church, it is remarkable, and may serve to confirm the meaning of the word baptism, that there is not the shadow of a dispute in all their history in favour of sprinkling. Because they were Greeks they all thought that to baptize was to baptize, that is, that to dip was to dip."

Whether John the Baptist and the apostles of our Lord baptized by pouring on water, or by bathing in water, is to be determined chiefly by ascertaining the precise meaning of the word baptizo. A linguist can examine the Greek lexicons and some of the instances in which the word occurs in Greek writers; but an illiterate man is more dependent on the testimony of others. To the latter it cannot be deemed irrelevant or unimportant, and by some it will assuredly be deemed sufficient, to observe that the word is confessedly Greek, that native Greeks must understand their own language better than foreigners, that they have always understood the word baptism to signify immersion, and that from their first embracing of Christianity to this day they have practised immersion. This is an authority for the meaning of the word baptize more than equal to that of European lexicographers; so that a man who is obliged to trust human testimony, and who immerses because the Greeks immerse, understands the Greek word exactly as the Greeks themselves understand it.-See Robinson's His. of Bap., pp. 5, &c.

SECTION VI.

ON EVIDENCE FROM JEWISH PROSELYTE BAPTISM.

Dr T. H. SKINNER.-"All creeds, systems, theories, . . . are to be tried by the Bible."-In Dr. Burns's Cy., vol. i., p. 318.

H. CRAIK." The questions between the several bodies of Protestants relate to the meaning of the word of God. The question among true Protestants is not-Shall Scripture be allowed to decide our differences? but rather, What deliverance do these Scriptures give? what is the decision they announce? The day is come when ancient traditions, time-honoured observances, venerated creeds, accredited doctrines, must all be upheld or rejected, just in so far as they are found to be in accordance, or otherwise, with the one standard from which there is no appeal."-On the He. Lang., p. 60.

It is reasoned by advocates of infant sprinkling that the Jews were in the habit of receiving proselytes, both adults and infants, by baptism as well as circumcision. It is maintained that Christ and His apostles were acquainted with this practice, and that when Christ commanded the apostles to disciple all nations, baptizing them, &c., He must have intended, and been understood to intend, that baptism to which they had been accustomed the baptism of infants as well as adults. This argument, to be of the least force, must necessarily be sustained by evidence that the Jews in the time of Christ, or also in a preceding age, were accustomed to admit proselytes by baptism. It does not seem unimportant, also, that the evidence of this,-if a correct understanding of the Saviour's commission, and of apostolic practice, is at all dependent on this,—should be in the Bible itself. We learn, however, from the Scriptures, of no baptism to which the disciples of Jesus or the Jews had been accustomed but that of John the Baptist, and that of Jesus, administered by His disciples. And, did it accord with our present aim, we might immediately endeavour to substantiate the idea that the commission of our Lord, like every part of the New Testament, gives its sanction only to the baptism of professing believers.

We admit the existence of proselyte baptism in the early part of the Christian era, and we maintain that as this baptism was immersion, it is a confirmation of our position that baptism is immersion. Prof. Wilson sees a "strong presumption" in favour of the existence of baptism before the time of John the Baptist "to be strikingly corroborated" in the fact that "no one appears to have sought information respecting the meaning of the rite; no one proposed the question, What is baptism?" Suppose that some one, knowing the English language, should seriously inquire, What is sprinkling? what is immersion? Do we read of any inquiry in apostolic times, What is the Lord's Supper? Shall we deem the lack of such a query very "embarrassing to those who deny" the previous existence of the Lord's Supper? (pp. 200, 201.) Dr. W. argues at length in favour of the existence of proselyte baptism before the time of John. Proselyte baptism had an existence-whether from heaven or from hell it originated-hundreds of years before we have a single record respecting it! It is first noticed, as Dr. W. admits, in a Jewish Talmud of the third century! There is "full and indisputable testimony to proselyte baptism" in the Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud, "a compilation of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries;" and there is one passage which is believed to have a "direct bearing" on this in the Mishna of the Jerusalem Talmud, composed "about the year of our Lord 220" (pp. 189, 190). (!)

Mr. Stacey says: "There were 'divers baptisms' among the Jews, and one of these was an ablution with water, by which proselytes from heathenism were admitted to the profession and privileges of Judaism. The direct evidence for this is, it is true, derived chiefly from Jewish ecclesiastical literature" (p. 143). In the next page he maintains that "the rite, it may fairly be presumed, was not unknown at the commencement of the Christian era. But if otherwise, the simple fact alone that the observance is recognised as already established at the beginning of the third century," &c. He believes in its existence in the time of our Saviour, but admits that we do not read of it as an established practice till the third century. He imagines evidence in favour of the existence of this rabbinical and traditional observance "in the obvious familiarity of the Jews with baptism as an initiatory ceremony, at the commencement of John's ministry," as if, without the existence of proselyte baptism, it would be a difficult or impossible thing for John at the commencement of his ministry to make the people understand that his baptism was an initiatory rite. He sees "corroborative evidence" that the Jews were acquainted with the admission of heathen proselytes to Judaism by baptism "in the question proposed by the priests and Levites to. John the Baptist: 'Why baptizest thou, then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?'" (John i. 25.) And "the proof," says he, "is still further strengthened by the appeal of our Lord to Nicodemus, when he professed himself unable to understand His discourse. He had said to him: 'Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God'"! On this passage it is reasoned as if Nicodemus could have known nothing of "baptism, the birth by water," from the baptism of John, but only from Jewish proselyte baptism! And as if it was not perfectly natural, and consistent with the idea of John's practising as the Redeemer's forerunner a new and Divine institution, that the Jews should present the inquiry, "Why baptizest thou, then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?" In our estimation, this inquiry is so consonant with our views as to be confirmatory of our sentiments. The question implies that nothing exactly like John's baptism was previously in existence, and that the Divinely-appointed administrator of this rite, peculiar in its character and attendant circumstances, must be a special and extraordinary character. If not, where are your credentials for introducing and practising your ceremony? And might it not have been positively asserted to Christ that John's baptism was not from heaven, but of men, if it was simply the continuance of a human and rabbinical invention? And might not the rabbis now charge us with having copied from them our initiatory Christian rite? (See Olshausen, p. 2.) Further, if John's baptism could not be understood without the Jewish proselyte baptism, how came the Jewish baptism to be understood? Did God grant a special revelation to those who instituted it, and supernatural illumination to those on whom was enforced this rabbinical observance ?

Dr. Halley is more modest than Mr. S., although he does not overlook the conversation of our Lord with Nicodemus. He admits that learned Predobaptists "either deny or doubt that the baptism of proselytes was prevalent in the time of our Lord." He says: "It would be uncandid

G

not to state that several scholars of great name, as Dr. Owen, Carpzovius, Lardner, Doddridge, Van Dale, in his history of Jewish and Christian baptisms; Ernesti, Paulus, De Wette, Stuart, and others, either deny or doubt that the baptism of proselytes was prevalent in the time of our Lord." Then he mentions other learned men who "maintain that such baptisms were observed and sanctioned at an earlier period, and this," says he, "we believe is the prevalent opinion of theologians" (p. 105). He also says: "It is only dishonest evasion to identify the baptism of proselytes with the divers baptisms, the legal ablutions of the Jews. That this baptism was the emblem of purification we allow; but then, as is most manifest, it was purification from the uncleanness of heathenism, not from the defilements of the law" (pp. 109, 110).

...

Elsewhere he says: "I feel bound in candour to admit that the Jewish baptism of proselytes was by immersion. Of this there can be no reasonable doubt whatever; for that proselytes were baptized in a confluence of waters sufficient to cover the whole body, we learn from the Talmuds and from Maimonides" (p. 309). We might express our regret that the Jordan and non of Holy Writ exert not a greater influence over some who yield to the force of evidence in a Talmud and a Jewish writer. We do not refer to these writings, or to traditions emphatically condemned by our Saviour, in support of a theological sentiment, but simply in confirmation of the meaning of a Greek word. Dr. Jahn says: Their immersion was not only a symbol of their having been purified from the corruption of idolatry, but it also signified that as they had been buried in the water, they now arose new men, regenerated—the new-born sons of Abraham" (Heb. Com., c. i., § 324). Archb. Sumner says: "He was baptized, immersed in water; . . . his immersion in water was an emblem of the purification which he required" (Exp. Lec., on John iii. 1-5). Mr. Thorn, in his volume on Infant Baptism, untruly teaches that the "leading opponents" of Pædobaptism "fully agree" in regarding proselyte baptism as the precursor of Christian baptism, and "yet no direct mention is made of it for at least a hundred years after the death of the last apostle" (pp. 183, 456). Speaking of "Mr. Noel and his brethren," he says: "The simple reader will probably be surprised to learn that this chief, if not sole argument for dipping proselytes in baptism, is not based on any part of God's Word; and that Robinson, Noel, nor any one else, ever cites a plain and positive command or example of Scripture to prove their point, the whole being based chiefly on the dogmas, if not the inventions, of the Hebrew rabbis, or on inferences the premises of which are most uncertain" (p. 469). We think the above to be glaringly false in regard to the Baptists, even in respect to Mr. Noel, who wrote on coming out from the Pædobaptists without having read what any Baptist had written on this ordinance. Baptists may refer to proselyte baptism as confirmatory of immersion, whether it originated before or after apostolic times; but they distinctly maintain that, as the word chosen by the Divine Spirit means to immerse, every command to baptize is a command to immerse, and every example in God's Word is an example of immersion. This same brother who thus misrepresents his "opponents" on the exaltation of rabbinical trumpery, yet says: "The practice and prevalence of Jewish and