I n - 1 /f^-4%^ / LTBRA.RY OF THE Theological Seminary PRINCETON, N. J. Case, ^QCL Di lioo/c. N*. SLyU /fid ^ «%f««W« ^5 \\ wttt's • # ♦ * J # /; *• '♦ • ' * K 9 REMARKS A LETTER OF MR. DAVID JONES ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR ON OCCASION OF HIS SERMON ON CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. TO WHICH IS ADDED A REVIEW Mr. Robinson's History of Baptism BY JOHN P. CAMPBELL, PHILADELPHIA: PRINTED BV^ DENNIS HEARTT T812. PREFACE, As little things sometimes lead to consider- able events, so it is hoped that Mr. Jones' late work, containing a review of my sermon on Christian Baptism, and an examination of Mr. Edward's pamphlet, a work which must be thought, I conceive, by every competent and un- prejudiced judge, a little thing, too little to de- serve formal notice, may nevertheless have its uses. Its appearance before the public with confi- dent, and to persons little informed, with impo- singpretensions, and especially its high estima- tion and currency with many oi* the advocates of immersion, make some reply necessary; and in this eventitma} be considered as giving occasion to the introduction of new and important mat- ter on the points in controversy, and thus be- coming greatly useful to the interests of Chris- tian baptism. But what most deserves our no- tice concerning this production on the score of consequential or indirect utility, is, tliat it af- fords a fair occasion for coming into contact with the Baptist historian, Mr. Robinson, and, by a i-eview of his work, for laying before the public a variety of facts vastly important to the solution of the question relative to tlit practice of the Christian church, as to bapj, tism, in the first ages of its existence. In th& review of Mr. Robinson's history 1 have aim- ed at reducing the facts wliich bear upon the question to as short a compass as possible, and thus presenting the religious world with an abstract of historical evidence as it respects both the subjects and the mode of baptism, for the Hrst four centuries, which shall be ac- cessible to every reader. Such an abstract, it is presumed, is greatly needed, in as much as Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism is not only a rare book but too voluminous for general circulation. That the work may be satisfactory to the learned, as well as useful to the common reader, I have in all instances added the origi- nal passages from the Fathers, except in a few quotations where the length of the passage, or other important reasons, seemed to forbid it. In the execution of the work now proposed to the public, I have examined most of the original authorities for myself, and having made the quotations directly, know them to be correct. Indeed, in no instance have I cited a single passage from the early Christian writers but such as are cited either from the original itself, or such authority as has been always admitted by the more learned and respectable Baptist authors. When I had my conviction first settled on the subject of baptism it was on the ground of scriptural evidence alone; because at that time I neither knew nor sought any other. Indeed, the evidence from liistory had, on the one hand, been so partially stated, and on the otlier, so violently spurned as sottish tradition, that it seemed to hold out to the inquisitive and anx- ious mind little more than a dubious and per- haps a deceitful light. I had, therefore, aban- doned almost entirely that species of evidence; but for some time past I have spent my hours of leisure in examining the report of the fa- thers respecting baptism, and the result of my researches has been a fall conviction that the whole light of antiquity is favourable to the practice of baptizing infants, and not materially opposed to our views of the mode of baptism: — that the Paidobaptist writers, such as Baxter, Craddock and Wall, have faithfully i*eported the testimony of the Fathers: — and that the re- presentations of the Baptist writers, generally speaking, were far, very far from being strictly, much less impartially just. Never did my mind feel more entirely and exultingly the triumph of evidence than when I read Mr. Hobinson's History of Baptism, and saw that after all his painful and elaborate research into antiquity he was unable to find any thing solid to oppose to the facts so luminously and so cogently stated on the other side. It will perhaps be said that Mr. Robinson's work is but little known, and that any suchreview of it is unimportant. Butalthough the bookbein few hands, yet there is reason to believe that no small number of the Baptist preachers have had access to it, and are employed in giving diftusive cii'culation to the aiithoi*'s imposiag representations; and at any rate Mr. Jones has endeavoured to do the same thing, or at least to give celebrity to the w ork, by his late pub- lication, which is industriously circulated in our country. I may add also that Mr. Robinson, as an historian, has been made instrumental in bringing over the western IVew-Lights to im- mersion, and has. lent bis illuminations to the Shakers, who, iinding the inlidel spirit and dis- torted representations apparent in his works, and particularly in his Ecclesiastical Research- es, entirely to their taste, have quoted him as an authority of great moment in their blasphe- mous testimony. A corrective, therefore, was imperiously required, and in the following Re- view it has been humbly attempted. REMARKS ON MR. JONES' LETTER Mr. Jones' Review of my sermon on Christian Baptism has some claim upon my attention; not indeed upon the footing of intrinsic merit, but on the ground of public expectation, which always seems to invoke a defence, even where the assault is feeble and harm- less. It might be deemed indecorous did I pass over in en- tire silence the author's polite reproof of my total igno- ranee of antiquity, and my consequent temerity in pub- lishing a work *' so contrary to the sentiments of learn- ed men and truth;" or it might be thought a violation of the laws of gratitude no less than of decorum did I forget his kind pity for my weakness in writing on a sub- ject with which I was so little acquainted, or his very charitable apology for my aberrations from truth when he says I have been " led astray by authors not fully informed on the subject;" and yet I must honesdy confess myself but little prepared to appreciate either the gentleman's superior information or those soft emo- tions of pity and charity which thrill his benevolent bosom! I shall be allowed, I presume, to ask who are those leai-ned men whose sentiments I have so flagrantly out- laged by my sermon? Mr. Jones mentions none but 8 Dr. Gill, and him only in reference to Jewish proselyte baptism. He thinks had I read that author's disserta- tion on the subject my sermon had never appeared. I cannot tell how it may affect him to know it, but I will now inform him that I was no stranger to Dr. Gill previous to its publication, and yet my sermon did appear. I did not then, nor do I now think, that any thing- which has been opposed to the existence of Jewish proselyte baptism before the time of Christ by Gill, Gale, Benson, Booth and Robinson, can at all invalidate the enlightened induction of facts and solid inferences of Lightfoot, Selden, Hammond, Wall, and other distinguished writers on the opposite side. Much less do they invalidate the testimonies of the Christian Fathers and the Jewish writers themselves, who, it may be justly presumed, were infinitely better ac- quainted with the history and customs of the ancient Jews than any modern writer can possibly be. The author touches the same subject once or twice after- wards, but does little more than eulogize Dr. Gill's pamphlet, which he says no man ever presumed to answer, and which he recommends to the people of Kentucky for republication as an unanswerable pro- duction*. As to the circumstance of its never hav- ing been answered there is but little cause of tri- umph; because a production may be too frivolous to deserve an answer, or it may have failed so entirely in accomplishing its object, as to render a reply to it su- perfluous. This last is precisely the fact with respect to Dr. Gill, who m that very treatise has failed to over- throw the stubborn facts and luminous arguments of Mr. Wall and others. Indeed a public decision has been given in favour of Mr. Wall, as well as the doctrine he advocates, by a bench of critics distinguished for literary eminence. When such men as Abemethy, Bonnycastle, Crowe, Dickson, Tooke, Wood, Hincks, * Review, page 11, 15, with their illustrious associates in review, have giveu it as their deliberate judgment that " Mr. Wall has made it highly probable^ to say the least, from many- testimonies of the Jewish writers, who, without a dis- senting voice, allow the fact, that the practice of Jew- ish baptism obtained before, and at, as well as after, our Saviour's time;" and moreover proceed to evince the fact by forcible arguments of their own, it must be deemed a matter of trivial importance whether or not Dr. Gill has been directly answered.^ And with respect to the reprinting of the unanswerable pamphlet in Kentucky I v/ill pledge myself, whenever it shall be done, to produce, if heaven permit, something in op- position quite as unanswerable as itself. To every im- partial inquirer the Jewish testimonies must have great weight, and especially when it is considered tliat the practice which is reported to have had so ancient a date in their history, did still exist among them. Add to this the testimony of the Christian Fathers, as Irenasus, Tertullian, Clemens of Alexandria, Ori- gen, Cyprian, Basil, and Gregory Nazianzen, ail of whom give testimony to the same fact. Surely these men, and the ancient Jewish writers, are much more entitled to credit than are Dr. Gill and a few other modern authors. But Mr. Jones, as if distrusting the lights of Dr. Gill, cai-ries the appeal to " the law and to the testimo- ny," and this he is very sure contains nothing like a hint of any such custom. Maimonides says baptism was in the desert before the giving of the law, and quotes Exodus xix. 10. in proof of it; considering the word sanctify as bearing the same signification with baptize. And indeed Dr. Hammond lends his autho- rity to the same interpretation, in his note on 1 Cor. vii. 14. where he observes that the Hebrew word ti'lp, commonly interpreted to sanctify, signified to wash. And nothing is better known than that dy.^ * See Recs' Cvclopedi?, Art, Bapiism. P. 10 <)i}'(cS'^ the corresponding word in Gi'eek, often denotes to cleanse\ to purify by religious washi?ig, to conse- crate, and the like. In this sense the New Testa- ment writers use it frequently; and Gregory Nazian- zen with the Greek fathers, make use of it to express baptism.-^ In the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel's pro- phecy there is a very distinct allusion, not only to bap- tism, but even to the baptism of infants. " I sware un- to thee and entered into covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine; then washed I thee with water, yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee and annointed thee with oil." See v. 1 — 9. The accession of God's ancient people to his covenant, and their visible relation to himself after their deliverance from a state of nature, was by washing with water, or baptism, just as the new born infant was washed with water after the birth. John 'i. 2^. can have no other allusion than to the baptism of pro- selytes, though Mr. Jones has been pleased to call the comment made upon it in my sermon a fancy of my orvn, and foreign to truth. The priests and Levites express no surprise at John's baptizing on any other account than that of his not being " the Christ, nor Elias, nor a prophet.'''' ■\ Had he been either the one ov the other of these tliree it would have been deemed tiatisfactory by this deputation; but upon John's deny- ing that he was either, they instantly remon- strated against the impropriety of his baptizing and collecting followers. *' TFhy baptizest thou then?^\ The question carries a clear implication that baptism- was not a new thing in their nation, and that a prophet jTgu(r«Te by the English \\'0\'& proselyte,'''' says the learned gentleman, " is an unwarranted translation, which none can approve of who are acquainted with the Greek language." ibid. Ah, indeed! How then came Dr. Doddridge to adopt this very translation? "Go forth, therefore, and proselyte all nations."* Was he not acquainted with Greek? So it would seem from tlie assertion of Mr. Jones, who unquestionably merits, if ever mortal did, the description once given of a cer- tain polemic hero, " Learned he was, and could take note, Transcribe, collect^ translate and quote." I am referred by the learned gentleman to his refuta- tion of Mr. Edwards to see " the subject Jiiili/ and fairly discussed!" — Upon turning to that part of his work I find it replete with criticism which is designed to prove that the word ^(xS-j^tsuw means to teach, p. 16G. Rethinks Acts xiv. 15. a fine instance of the interpre- tation which he adopts — " When they had preached the gospel to that city ^\\(S: taught many.'''' But if the rendering of Parkhurst and Doddridge, who translate the word to make disciples, be allowed, the text will afford a luminous proof that the word in question means some thing more* than to teach — thus, " And having preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned again to Lystra."/o/272iv. 1. is . an instance no less unfortunate for the learned gentle- man's meaning; " the Pharisees had heard that Jesus 7nade and baptized more disciples than John." This is just the very sense we contend for in Matt, xxviii, 19, y.uBijTaig utoico is the best possible exposition of the meaning of ^uaS-jjTsuw, both which mean to make disci- ples; and serves to show that our translation of the * Doddridge's translation of the New Testament. INIatt. xxviii. 19. text in question is correct, thus *' Go and make disci- ples of all nations^ baptizing them^ &c. and just so our translators have rendered this very word in the preced- ing chapter; Matt, xxvii. 57. *' Who also himself (ifjiccB-y^Tiva-i rco Ir^c-oZ) Was JcsUs' disciplc." The author now takes a bold position, and chal- lenges the world to produce one passage in the Neiu Testament where the ruord disciple is used in reference to a person not previously taught, p. 167. One fact is worth a thousand criticisms; and in Acts xv. 10. he will find the word disciples applied to persons that could not have been previously taught. " Now, there- fore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." The fact which gave occasion to this spirited remonstrance of Peter was, that certain persons from Judea went to Antioch and toid the brethren that unless they should be circumcised after the manner of Moses they could not be saved. This occasioned a hot controversy among the Christians, and ^vas referred for decision to a council of the apostles and brethren at Jerusalem. In that council, and on the subject of cir- cumcision, Peter was then speaking when he called it an intolerable yoke. Now, to whom, in Antioch, would the Judaizing teachers have applied circumcision? To all those that had believed the gospel and professed the religion of Jesus Christ, with their children, even to babes of eight days old; for all these, after the manner of Moses, were required to be circumcised. To all these^ then, to infants as well as to adults, the term dis- ciples is positively applied; and this plain fact puts aside the Baptist idea that a disciple is necessarily one who has been actually taught. Infants, therefore, no less than adults, may be disciples in the scripture sense of the word; and being such, there is a positive command for baptizing them, " Go and make disciples, baptizing them, i. e. disciples;" which statute, taken in connec- tion with the fore considered fact, docs, according to 14 hws of sound interpretation, amount to a positive pre- cept for infant baptism. Though it be quite sufficient to settle our faith and practice, as Christians, that God has determined certain evangehcal institutions with- out inquiring into their fitness or utiUty; yet I may be allowed to ask, even on the ground of propriety, why may not infants be taken into the school of Christ? Who will venture to deny that the great Teacher can have access to their tender minds even before they are capable of regular instruction? " Who will undertake to limit the prophetical office of Christ, and say that his spirit can have no access to the soul of an infant? At any rate, infants soon become capable of instruction, and whose disciples should they be but Christ's? who has said, ' suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' " The learned gentleman then proceeds to prove, from ecclesiastical history, that in primitive times there were scliools in which the candidates for baptism were care- fully instructed in the principles of the Christian religion before they were allowed to be baptized, p. 168. From Robinson's History of Baptism he presses us with a number of instances of persons, who, though the chil- dren of Christians, and even of bishops, were retained in the catechumen state for a greater or less time be- fore they received baptism; such as Gregory Nazian- zen, Nectarius, Chrysostom, Basil, and Constantine. With respect to the probationary state in order to bap- tism, I readily admit the fact of its having obtained for a considerable time in the Christian church; yetlmustbc allowed to remark, that however useful such an institu- tion might have originally been, there cannot remain a doubt that it was at the time to which this gentleman refers, and indeed long before it, a distinguished part of that monstrous system of corruption and supersti- tion, which ultimately overwhelmed the church of Christ. These catechumens, of whom Mr. ^.Robinson •And his admirer Mr. Jones makes so much, were ini- id tiated into the catechumen state by the sign of the cross and the imposition of hands, were divided into several orders, were exercised with fasting and confes- sion, went veiled some days before baptism, and pas- sed through several other probationary steps still more- absurd and unscriptural, before they were consum mated by baptism. Such is the worthy institution to which we are re- ferred for proof that the ancients knew nothing of making disciples otherwise than by instruction. Now should the catechumen system be allowed to have been infinitely better than it really was, what has it to do in support of the cause of baptism, when they, as a society, catechize no body, either for baptism or any thing else? Or if they did, still their conduct would stand in direct opposition to plain scriptural fact, as all the baptisms of the New Testament were instantane- ously performed upon the proseiytism of the persons who were thus added to the church. The primiti\c method was, agreeably to the divine commission, first 10 disciple and baptize^ and then to instruct. Some of the fatliers and these gentlemen invert this order; first instruct in order to disciple^ and then baptize. Whom we should follow none can be at a loss to determine. It is not denied that preaching the gospel involves in- struction to a certain degree, but then that is not the: regular and systematic instruction for which Mr. Jones seems to contend. When Baptist writers thus recur to the history of the Fathers, or other persons of ancient times, who re ceived baptism after passing a course of regular in- struction and at an advanced period of life, the world ought to know that the matter of fact has not been fairly and fully reported. In those ages the causes operathig a delay of baptism were various, and candoui* required that they should have been stated by our op- ponents. There was at that time a glowing and highly su- perstitious veneration for baptismal water, whicli it was 16 conceived, was so sanctified by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon it, and the incorporation of his energy with its substance as to be endued with the power of washing away all past sins and of generating in the soul a new and spii'itual life — in a word, that it possessed the power of saving the soul* — Hence some deferred their baptism to the very last hour of life, that they might, after having given unrestrained indulgence to their lusts, wash away all their sins and die saints. Some thought that sins committed after baptism (as the ordinance could be performed upon them but once) would be danming, or nearly so; and of course put off baptism, except in cases of necessity, until the habits of virtue should be confirmed, and sufficient security against the danger of relapse into sin attained. Tertullian, who was in- deed a man of talents and learning but of an austere and whimsical cast of mind, patronized this idea with great ardour in reference to persons, both children and adults, whose religious instruction was not particularly provided for in the church. Some delayed baptism till their thirtieth year, in imitation of the Saviour who was not baptized till that age — while others carried the matter of imitating .Christ so far as to defer their baptism till they could make it practicable to be bap- tized at Jordan. On this pretence, and not to receive thorough instruction as Mr. Jones erroneously states, it was that Constantine delayed his baptism until death * Tertullian, Ambrose, and others of the Fathers, speak of the water with a degree of rapturous extravagance. Thus Tertullian, FceHx sacramentum aqus nostrse, quin ablutis delictis pristinae csecitatis, in vitam eternam liberamur — Supervenit enini statim Spiritus de caslis, et aquis superest, sanctificanns eas de semeiipso, et ila sanctificatas vim sanctificandi combibunt — Primus liquor quod viveret edidit, ne mirum sit in baptismo, si aqux animare move- Tunt. De baplismo cap. i. iii. iv. Ambrose says, O aqua quae sacra- mentum Christi esse meruisti: quae lavas omnia, nee lavaris! — Tu nomen prophetis et apostolis, tu nomen Salvaturi dedisti, illi nobis c(Kli,iUi salmundi,illa fons vitJc est. Ambros. in Lucam. IJb. 10, cup. X- ': 17 became inevitable, and was baptized of course by siDrinkling-.* — And lastly, a number put off their bap- tism until an opportunity might offer for being baptiz- ed by the hands of some favourite bishop.f But, after all, the facts relative to the baptism of such persons are not fairly represented by either Mr. Robinson or his eulogist, Mr. Jones. Concisely stated they are these — The father of Theodosius I. was not a baptized Christian himself when his sonwas born, and of course it was not wonderful that Theodosius should not have been baptized in infancy. There is not the shadow of proof that Basil was baptized in adult age; but, on the contrary, there is evidence to induce a l^e- lief that he was baptized in infancy; and one fact is well known, namely, that he was both the advocate and practiser of infant baptism. With respect to Nectari- us, there is no proof whatever that he was bom of Christian parents; nor is it known who or what they were. The parents of Chrysostom were, in all proba- bility, heathens at the time of Kis birth: his father died soon after he was born, and his mother was baptized after himself; consequently his baptism at adult age has as little to do in this controversy as that of the eunuch or Cornelius. The delay of baptism in the case of Gregory Nazianzen is easily accounted for, without supposing that it was not tUe custom to baptize infants in that period; for this had been before, as well as it was at his own time, the prevailing practice of the church. The true reason was, that in some parts of the church, and as appears from Gregory's writings, some * Speravit enirn, se nancisci po«se occasionem, ut in Jordane (in quo baptizatus erat Christus) baptismum susciperet. Spirituali ex- inde laetitia perfusus in lecto splendidissimo decumbens. Deo gra- tias hisce verbis egit: Jam me vitam eternam sortitum liquet, jam nie divinam consecutuni lucem certum est. Kromayeri Ecclesia in Politia, p. 142. Vide Esebius De Vita Constantini, lib. 4. c, 62. t The reader will find all these different notions agitated in the nfe of Constantine by Esusebius, Augustine's confession, and in tlve wtiiirrgs of Tertiiirraji, Gregorv NsBsiaozen, Basil, Sec. C 18 Christianswere, contrary to personalcoiiviction, in theha-, bit of neglecting and delaying the baptism of their chil- dren. Itis thus seenthat the adult baptisms, of wliich Mt. Robinson and Mr. Jones make so much, are not in point and have not in reality the least possible bearing on the question.* But the Fathers, says Mr. Jones, render fxa^i^n^ju to signify teaching, which implies that they believed the doctrine of previous instruction. And what if they did? Corrupt practices- in religion always generate corrupt interpretations. The translation which they gave of Matt, xxviii. 19. no less than others, grew out of their superstitious views respecting baptism and the anti- scriptural system of a catechetical series of instruction, in order to the reception of baptism by candidates. Without derogating, therefore, from the -honours of this /ioari/ interpretatio?i, I must be permitted to pro- nounce it erroneous, even though it has been sanction- ed by the names of Gale and Robinson. The word juotS-jjTsuft), then, when governing an accusative, does not, nor can signify to teach, but to disciple, or to pro- selyte. This translation is not the offspring of necessi- ty — the child of private criticism, brought forward to serve a turn; but one that has obtained the sanction of the ablest biblical critics, and has passed into eveiy recent version of the scriptures. f From this view of the subject it will be perceived tJiat the translation adopted in my sermon, namely, Go, disciple or proselyte all nations, is no novel or up- * If the reader wishes to see Messrs. Robinson and Jones amply- refuted, let him consult Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism, Pt. 2. ch. 3. t The word |K«^sTei;i7-«Te. Matt, xxviii. 19. is thus rendered by the following very learned and judicious critics; <-'■ Proftrlyte" Dodd- i-idere — " Make disciples" Paikhurst and Wakefield — " Convert,'" Pvle and Campbell — " Disci/ile" Guise and Scott — " Make disci- pits in all nativns,'* Wynne. Sec Dr. Campbell's note on this text< \9 start thing — nor yet a matter at war with Greek, as Mr. Jones would suggest. It will be remarked ako that the Baptist writers, Gale, Robinson and the rest, act with strange inconsistence when they appeal to the testimony of the Fathers relative to immersion, instruction prtvious to baptism and the meaning of the above word; and yet when we avail ourselves of such testimony, not for opinion, but respecting a mere matter of fact, namely, the baptism of infants^ we are spurned for our weak- ness and credulity — and the Fathers — O yes, the Fa- thers are most illiberally reviled as a set of arrant fools, fanatics, and tyrants. Such censure is as illiberal as it is dangerous, since the testimony of the Fathers is the very base on which the authenticity of scripture rests. Many of their reasonings, I readily confess, were weak and their criticisms puerile; yet as witnesses of matters of fact, such as the customs and opinicuis prevalent in the church in their day, their integrity cannot be ques- tigned without manifest danger. It has been matter of rank offence, it seems, that I have brought so little in,cense to the shrine of the bap- tizing John — I called him a Jewish prophet. — This Vvas my sin! Mr. Jones remonstrates — " You say 'John was really nothing else but a Jewish prophet' — Pray sir who told you so?" p. 7. Malachi for one told me so, who calls him (ch. iv. 4.) " Elijah the Prophet," meaning, as an inspired interpreter has expounded it., that he should appear " in the spirit and po^^ er of Eli- as," should resemble Elias in the turn and manner of his life, and be the same to the Jews in his day th^vt Elias had been in his, a bold, active reformer and a prophet. Zacheus told me so, Luke i. 76. " TIidu, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest." Jesus Clirist told me so when he called him " a Pro- phet^ yea and more than a prophet?'' Matt. xi. 9. He was a prophet, and preeminently such, on account of his proximity to the gospel dispensation and the near relation he bore to the Saviour as his precursor aixJ 20 messenger: yet when the blaze of evangelical day is to form the ground of comparison, we see him who tow- ered above the prophets dwindle before the humblest minister of the new dispensation — " he thatis least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." And he was a Jexvish prophet, because the whole legal economy was in full force, not only during, but subsequent to his ministry, and he with all his followers was subject to its institutions. See my sermon on Christian Baptism., 2d Ed. Proofs and, Illustrations, No. 1 and 2. Waving things of minor consequence, let us at- tend to Mr. Jones as a translator. " I render sv i^cfxi in ■water^^'' says Mr, Jones, " because that preposition must mean in when it is used to point out a place." p. 8. You render sv JJ'ciiT* in water! — Dr. Gill, whose judgment has infinitely more weight, had done so be« fore you and you had only to copy him. The transla- tion however, be it whose it may, is incapable of de- fence. The preposition is far from possessing any pow- er to designate the place where the transaction, namel}-, John's baptizing, took place; because that transaction happened in many places, and still it was gv J. of baptizing. 24 For this was baptism by pouring or affusion, and of course on the principles of baptists, 720 baptism — Immer- sion of the whole body, and nothing else will pass with them for a real and proper baptism. Mr. Jones endeavours to prove that the legal dispen- sation ended when John began his ministry. Luke xvi. 16. " The law and theprophetswere until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it." p. 8. But how does this text prove the point for which it is adduced? The law and the prophets xvere untilJohn. This, Mr. Jones thinks, will prove that the law or legal dispensation ended when John wassentto baptize; and if it does, will it not, by a like necessity of inference, prove also that the prophets ended too when John was sent to baptize? The last inference is mani- festly absurd, and the first, resting on the same evi- dence, must be equally so. Fact also and plain scrip- ture show its falsehood, and since John and his fol- lowers obeyed the law, and Christ with his disciples was subject to the law in all its requirements down to the time of his sufferings — nay more, that he positively enjoined it on others to conform to its demands. See Matt, xxiii. 2, 3. Mark i. 44. Luke v. 14. " The law and the prophets were until John" — This observation is precisely similar to one recorded by Matthew, " for the prophets and the law prophesied until John." the meaning of which is that the prophets and the law were the lights given for the illumination of the world till John rose to minister a clearer light and give fuller information on points already touched by ' the prophets and the law; yet John was without any authority to supercede or annul either the one or the other. " Since that the kingdom of heaven is preach- ed and every man passeth into it" — that is, since the period of John's commencing his ministry, the king- dom of Christ is preached with increased light and energy and the happy consequence has been thUt 25 greater attention is paid to the ministers of religion and better success attends their message. To make the rise of the evangehcal dispensation synchronize with the baptism of John grossly contra- dicts the general impression of scripture fact. For if the gospel dispensation was set up when John began to baptize, it may be asked how came John himself to preach just the contrary, saying " the kingdom of heaven is at hand?" or how did it happen that Jesus Christ delivered the very same message? or why did it come to pass that the Saviour commissioned his own disciples to preach " The kingdom of heaven is at hand?" and the seventy to proclaim just that much and no more — " The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you?" In a word, this violent position gives the lie to the whole series of the evangelical story. Mr. Jones is quite shocked at my assertions respect- ing the baptism of Christ, and thinks they cr<° such as demofistrate my irreverence for the Son of God. p. 11. But what does the gentleman oppose to the idea of Christ's baptism by John being done in obedience to law and for his consecration to office? Nothing, surely, remarkable either for its intelligence or strength. He says it was not John but God that consecrated Jesus a priest. But where is his proof that John did not con- secrate Jesus? He offers none — I assert that both God and John consecrated the blessed Saviour — John wash- ed him with water as Moses did Aaron, and the great God anointed him., immediately afterwards, -with the Holy Ghost andxvithpoxver^ saying, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Comp. Matt. iii. 13 — 17. Mark i. 10, 11. Acts x. 38. Heb. v. 1—5. See this subject more largely treated in my Sermon, 2d Ed. p, 7, 8. and Proofs and Illustrations No. 2, * As to Mark. i. 1. " Thebeginnint^of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God" is simply the title prefixed to the book, express sing only the subject in it, and has no bearing whatever on the rjuestion. D 26 Mr. Jones attempts here, as he often does, to operate on the, popularity of my strmon by treating this opi- nion as a whim of my own, and too extravagant to be either asserted or believed by any one else. These in- sinuations recoil upon himself and demonstrate how little he has read, as several authors of eminence have explained Matt. iii. 15. " Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness^^'' in the same manner that I have done. See Jenning's Jewish Antiquities, vol. i. 204. Cowles' Sermons on Infant Baptism, p. 71. The learned gentleman, after endeavouring to prop the falling notion of John's baptism and the Christian bap- tism being the same and again referring me to his pam- phlet for ^full investigation of the subjcct^YQYnonsXr^iQS thus: " Why do you call John's baptism that ofrepent- anceV p. 14, 15. I do so because John spoke of it m the same style — " I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance;" — because St. Luke in his gospel ex- pressly calls it THE BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE;"' ■—and because St. Paul has more than once pronounced it '* the baptism of repentance." Matt. iii. 11. Luke iii. 3. Acts xiii. 24 and 19. Here, sir, is a threefold cord, which mocks your feeble attempt4o break it. In vain do you persuade the world tliat Jesus received John's baptism. It w^as a baptism leading to and symbolizing repentance; an outward pu- rification by water indicative of that moral preparation of soul and of life necessaiy to the Jews on the approach of the kingdom of Christ. Now this being the fact, let the candid inqun^er after truth ask himself whe- ther he can believe it possible that Jesus " who did no sin," underwent such a baptism! What, the spotless Saviour received a baptism requiring repentance! What, baptized unto repentance when without sin! Impossible, absurd! Mr. Jones, who can publish it to the world that Jesus was really the subject of John's baptism, speaks but awkwardly to me about irrever- ence for the Sou of Gody unblushing ignorance and act- 27 ing unbecoming the ministerial character, when a fact like this would reflect deep dishonour on the Son of God and tear up by the very roots the religion he has founded in the earth. No, the baptism of Jesus was THE BAPTISM OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, uot of repent- ance. He was made under the law, not under the min- istry of John, erroneously said to be the commence- ment of the gospel dispensation. He came to fulfil the law — to fulfil all righteousness. It was God's law, not that of men; and Christ's obedience put honour upon it. If any thing can exceed the absurdity of the doc- trine thus refuted, it is that of confounding John's baptism with the Christian baptism. Never were two things more remarkably discriminated, in doctrine and fact, than are these in the New Testament: and yet we see people plead for their identity as ardently, as perti- naciously as if the controversy involved some cardinal point of Christianity. But no wonder; it is the life's- blood of their system for which they contend. — They are to be pardoned. In reference to these subjects Mr. Jones does me the honour of considering me as an original. They are my own, he remarks; they are worthy of me: no man ever presumed to say so before."^ This sorry irony is designed to reproach these doc- trines as being the whimsies of an obscure individual and therefore unworthy of general estimation and credit. Buried in the forests of the Great Valley of the Missi- sippi, and remote from the scene of illumination, I can originate nothing. These things have their use; and no doubt with a certain sort of readers will be thought wonderful. But before they celebrate a triumph, let me inform them and the sapient Mr. Jones, that I am so far from inventing these doctrines that I leaimed them about sixteen years ago by reading the worksof Matthew, Luke, and Paul, with other inspired writers. Yes, from " See papre 9. IC. 1 L ^8 them I took these very obnoxious and irreverent doc- trines, as they are called, and that too at a time when tny soul hung with anxious solicitude on the question, what is Christian baptism? Some years after this I found that many authors, of great eminence for learn- ing and piety, had received the same views of the sub- ject I had done, as I successively became acquainted with the writings of Jennings, Whitby, Clarke, Henry, Pyle, Scott, Cowley, Miller, Pirie, and several others. More than this, 1 have recently observed that most of the Fathers, as Tertullian, Origen, and Basil, had very clearly distinguished the Christian baptism from the baptism of John!— These facts are worthy of notice, as they form a correct scale for estimating the precise ratio of Mr. Jones' information, as well as furnish me with an honourable relief from the condemnation of be- ing an originaL The learned gentleman thinks there is a capital er- ror among us in discussing the mode of baptism; name- ly, ^wt/i^^y^w/^ of lexicographers and the translation of the Holy Scriptures, p. 15. As to the first branch of the charge, 1 remark, that lexicographers are but men, and may be wrong; consequently they are not to be implicitly followed. That many of them, regard- ing rather Jewish customs and the practice of the church after she had corrupted the mode of baptism as well as other rites than either the use of the word in scripture or the Greek idiom, have improperly trans- lated the word (ixTrri^u) as meaning exclusively to d/p, plunge^ or immerse, we believe and sa}-; nay more than this, we prove by positive examples and facts. But do all lexicographers and critics give this exclusive inter- pretation? So Mr. Jones with his usual candor \\ould insinuate; but this in reality is not the fact. Many wri- ters of great literary eminence have decided differently; that the \vord does not necessarily mean to immerse, but to wash, and even to sprinkle. Such are Casaubon, Craddock, Leigh, Pool, Van 2.9 Mastricht, Grotius, Guise, Brown, Scott, and Schleus- ner, with a number more, justly celebrated for biblical erudition. With these authors we entirely agree; and can therefore with truth declare, that Mr. Jones does not state the fact when he says, we find flaiit with lexi- cographers, and that writers of this discription are on the side of immersion. It is not denied, however, that we differ from some lexicographers and critics in explaining this word and others of the same connection. For some reason, and most probably from the fact cf immersion's having formerly been the most popular mode of baptizing in the church of England, a num. ber of writers, distingushed for literature in that estab- lishment, have decided that the meaning of the word (iocTrn^co is to dip, or plunge. Of thi^ sort are Burnet, Keach, Whitby, and others. These authors have been copied by some late wri- ters, such as Campbell and M'Night, without due ex • amination. Thus, for instance, Dr. Campbell asserts ■' the word /3«7rT4^w, both in sacred authors and in classical, signifies to dip, to plunge, to itninerse;* and was rendered in Tertuliian, the Latin Fathers, tingere, the term used for dying cloth, which was by immer- sion." And in another place he remarks: " The He- brew *7nD perfectly corresponds to the Greek ^xtttu and3*7rTi^w, which are synonimous, and is always ren- dered by one or other of them in the Septuagint."^ That Dr. Campbell was mistaken will be manifest from the subjoined examination of the sense in which these words are used in the original Scriptures and the Septuagint. The Hebrew bUD is found, as I believe, in the following texts only; Gen. xxxvii. 31. Exod, xii. 22. Lev. iv. 6, 17. ix. 9. xiv. C, 16, 51. Numb. xix. 18. Deut. xxxiii. 24. Josh. iii. 15. Ruth ii. 14'. * See Camphell's Notes on Mat^ iii. 1 1. and Marli vii. 4. , 1 Sam. xiv. 27. 2 Kings v. 14. viii. 15. Job. ix. 31. Ezek. xxiii. 15. Now this Hebrew word in the very first of the fore- going texts, contrary to what Dr. Campbell asserts, is not m the Septuagint rendered either by ^xtttco or ^otTTTj^w, but by |UoAuv«, a word which does not common- ly, much less necessarily, signify to plunge, or dip, but tp smear, to pollute, or defile. See Kev. lii. 4. xiv. 4. And this is evidently the rendering here: — " And (tS^D* £|Uo Auvatv) they smeared or died the coat with the blood." Not only the word of the original, but the cir- cumstances of the fact, show dipping to have been impracticable; for few, I apprehend, will believe it probable or even possible that Joseph's many coloured coat could have been plunged into or dipped all over in a kid's blood spilt on the ground in the field. In all the other passages the Hebrew word is translated by ^atTTTw in the Septuagint, except 2 Kings v. 14. where the word 0«7rT«^« is used. Let us see in what sense the words are employed by the sacred writers in some of the rest. In Exod. xii. 22. Lev. iv. 6, 17 — ix. 9. and Numb. xix. .18. it w^as divinely required that a hyssop branch should be dipped in the blood or waters of purification, and that the priest's finger should be dipped m the blood of the victim; yet no person can thuik that either the hyssop branch or the priest's finger was plunged all over in the water or blood. An- other ceremonial statute was that '■'■Xht priest should take some of/ and pour it into the palm of his own left hand, and dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left liand," dec. Lev. xiv. 15 — 17. Here again the entire immersion of the priest's finger was impossible. Lev. xiv. 6, 51. "As fcr the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water." Here also entire clipping 'wiis in the very nature of 31 things, utterly impracticable; as all must believe that the whole mass of blood belonging to one bird, could it have been drawn out and collected in a suitable ves- sel, would have been quite insufficient for the entire immersion of its fellow bird, much more so for the cedar wood, the scarlet and the hyssop. Josh. iii. 15. " And the feet of the priests that bare the ark (iS^Di e/SoiCp^jc-av) were dipped in the brim of the water." In this passage we are not to understand that the feet of the priests were entirely covered with water; for in reference to the same fact it is distinctly stated, in the thirteenth verse of the same chapter, that the soles of their feet only were wet with the waters of Jordan. In Ezek. xxiii. 15. the deep stained tiaras of the ima- ges of the Chaldeans />ow7*?raz/c^o/? the ivallwith Vermil- lion are described by the words Heb. D^bllD LXX Tra^at/S'Jt^Tflt, rendered in our translation '■'■ dyed attire:''' an instance which positively precludes the very idea of dipping; for these deep coloured turbans were thrown on the wall with a pencil or brush. The signification of the word '^HD , then, as suggested by the previous collation of passages, signifies to smear, to tinge, or wet with some liquid: and this isthe very sense put upon it by the Vulgate, Pagninus, Tremelius, Bux- torf,and Tromius; and constitutes the primary and most proper signification of /3a^7rTiy; which does not originally and primitively signifiy to immerse, but comes to take that as a secondary meaning from the circumstance of materials being sometimes dipped when they are dyed- In Psalms Ixviii. 23. " Thatthy foot (LXX ^a<^^) may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies." The Hebrew word corresponding with ^ct,7rrco is VnO, which signi- fies to strike, wound, or imbue deeply; and one circum- stance involved in the description, namely, that the tongues of the dogs were to be imbued with the blood of the fallen, as well as the foot of the victorious war- rior, shows very clearly that entire immersion is not the idea contained in the passage, as in doing this h part of the tongue only could have been dipped. This word occurs twice more in the Septuagint; namely, in Dan. iv. 35. and v. 21. where it is said of Nebuchadnezzar, V his body (s/Bacpv?) was wet with the due of heaven." The corresponding Chaldaic word in these passages is )^2^, which always denotes to paint, to tinge, to wet, to moisten, to imbue, but never to dip, or to plunge. Thus it is rendered by Buxtorf, Parkhurst, and others. And besides the circumstances of the fact show that though the body of this monarch was wet entirely with the falling dew, yet it was done not by dipping but by a gentle and even gradual affusion. It is in the same sense tliat the New Testaihent wri- ters use the word ^oc-rrrw. I will only produce a single instance, though several ~ others are equally accessible to every person at all acquainted with biblical learning. It is Rev. xix. 13. when l,u«Tiov ^z&xy.ivov aif^un signi- fies, " a vesture stained or sprinkled with blood," and so it ought to have been rendered. This is the translation of Schleusner, Festis tincta sanguine, and of Montanus, Vestimentum tinctum san- guine — " a vesture stained with blood." The Vulgate or Jerome's transUition, renders this passage thus, Et vestitus erat veste aspersa sanguine; " and he Avas clothed in a ^armtnt sprinkled with blood.'''' The correctness of this translation will be obvious to every person, who will compare the prediction, of which this is a part, with that in Isaiali (Ixiii. 1 — 5.) which relates to the same fact in prophetic history, namely, the sanguinary and tremendous slaughter of Antichrist and his army in the vale of Megiddo by the avenging Redeemer, who is there represented as saying, " their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I will stain all my raiment '♦^"- — Indeed th<' * %:e Fabcr's Ge;i.'Con. View of Prophecies, p. 15"— 15,". 35 circumstances thrown into the description show entife immersion not to be the idea, in as much as the person, who treads a wine-press never dips entirely and at once the vesture he wears, but gradually and even par- tially stains it with the blood of the grape. In most, if not all the other passages of the New Testament where (^ccTTTca occurs, it retains its primitive sense, to stain^ to steeps or to imbue.* It is not denied that the word does mean also to dip^ or immerse; but then it is to be un- derstood that this is its secondary, not its primary meaning, acquired from the circumstance of dipping things in order to dye them. The word /3«7rT<^iVo|W5' Itt) rr,? TTviy'^g tou v^ccrog) " and baptized at a well of water in or by the camp."t The practice * With the texts above cited let the reader consult John ii. 6. iii. 23. with Matt. xv. 2, 20. Mark vii. 4. and Luke xi. 38. Eph. v, 2 5. Lev, XV, 12. in the Greek scriptures, with Schleusner, Park- hurst, and Hammond on the word, and he will see that nx^x^t'C^ea is used as the synonimc pf ^osTTi^s^, and means Imfstize and Jmufi/. t Judith, xii. 7. The preposition ivt, as will be explained more fully afterwards, is properly rendered af — It is entirely gratuitous to suppose that Juilith dipped herself all over in a spring or well in 35 of washing the hands before praying was not only common among the Jews, as Clemens of Alexandria informs us, but so superstitiously admired, that it was often observed in the night and even in bed. It was a washing of this sort, as Lomier justly remarks, which that intrepid female practised in the fact of her midnight baptism and prayer. Under the Levitical law, when a person had touched a dead body, the rule in common cases was this; " He shall purify hiinself with, it (the water of seperation;) and on the seventh day he shall be clean." But failing to observe this rule, the penalty was, " that soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of separa- tion was not sprinkled upon him." Numb. xix. li — 13. Now this purification by sprinkling is, in Eccle- siasticus, chap, xxxiv. v. 25., railed a baptism (o 3«7r- t/^ousvo? atto viK^oZ) '■'■He that baptizeth himself after touching a dead body, if hetouchitagainwhatavaileth(Tw AouT^to) the baptism.'''^ The word is thus rendered by Pagninus (ci^/z/^z/^) " purified," and the act described by [ablutio) " ablution," a pliraseology denoting a spe- cies of washing in which there is no dipping. In the New Testament it is frequently used in the same sense, and indeed seldom in any other. It is al- most always taken to denote purification; as when it is applied to John's baptism and the baptism of the Spirit and of fire as prefigured by it. In proof of this compare Matt. iii. 5, John ii. 6. and iii. 23 — 26. That the baptism of John is the purifying alluded to in the last passages here cited has been advocated by some writers of great eminence, particularly Schleus- ner. In explaining the word Ktof he says, " Sense 3. Baptism: John iii, 25. -m^i xot^oc^KTfxov. Let it be remarked the inquiry was, whether Christ could the night and in or near the camp. Indeed, that she baptized by immersion is very improbable, no less from the circumstance ac- companying the fact, than from the usages of the Jews. Yide Lomieri De Vet. Gent. Syntag. c. 16. et aliis. 36 baptize by his oa\ii authority, and wl^ther the baptism iilstituted by him were more excellent than the bap- tism of John, Comp. v. 23. and 26."* And Dr. Camp- bell, at the expense of JRis^tm^n views, remarks in his note on the same passage " About purification -m^i y-ocS-oi^KT/xov: that is as appears from the sequel about baptisms and other legal ablutions." These washings or baptisms of purification were various, and often performed otherwise than by im- mersion, as will be manifest by comparing the sub- joined passages. 1 Kings iii. 1 1. John ii. 6. Luke xi. 38, 39. and by recollecting the clear expression of the history of oriental usages, so obviously in favour of this idea.* Some passages in which (docTrn^o) occurs have already been explained; others will be treated in their proper place, and consequently need not be re- marked on here. After going into a patient and, as I would hope, a can- did examination of all the passages in the Greek scrip- tures where this word is to be found, as well as into the use of words which are often employed as synoni- mous, and at the same time availing myself of all the lights of history and philological reading within my power, I come to this conclusion, that it is never but once in the New Testament used in its primitive sense to tinge^ stain, or imbue, that it never occurs in its se- condary sense, to dp, or plunge all over in water, and that when it is introduced by the inspired writers or their Greek translators it is always in a sacred sense,- describing either the external application of water in token of inward purity, or the shedding down of the Holy Spirit upon the soul in order to its regeneration * Ko6^«g<(rjtto< — 3. Baptism. John iii. 25. Trfg* KtiB-x^to-ftov. Scil. An Christus. jute suo baptizare possit, et an baptismus ab eo insti- tus, preslantior sit Johannis baplismo, Coll. v. 23 et 26. Schleus- ner. Lex. Gr. Lat. in N. Test. * See this subject treated more at large in my Sermon on Christian Baptism, 2d. Ed. p. 57 — 63.— Proofs and Illustrations No. J. III. IV. V. and sanctification. It is pleasing to find this result of ni}- inquiries supported by that incomparable biblical critic, Schleusner, who thus expounds the word " BAP- TIZE — is. Properly to immerse and dye^ to dip into -watery " In this sense, indeed, it is never used in the New Testament, but it is so used with some fre- quency in Greek authors." — •' As it is not unfrequent to immerse and dip something in order to wash it; Sense 2. the word signifies to purify, to M^ash general- ly, to cleanse with water. Thus it is used in the New Testament, Mark vii. 4. %ck,i cctxo otyo^cx^g gav |3«7rT<(^ovT(X« (in quibusdam. Cod. '^xvrt^ovTai) ovk io-^-ioa-on, " and from the markets they do not eat, unless they baptize^'' (in some copies sprinkle) — that is, and such things as have been bought in the market they do not eat, unless they shall have been first washed and purified. Luke xi. 38. ot« ou tt^qtov i^A-JV-via-^n sr^-o Tov (X^jVou, " that Jesus had not washed himself before dinner." From the discussion thus made it must appear, I conceive, that Dr. Campbell had never thoroughly ex- amined in what sense this word is used in the sacred w-ritings; and consequently when he asserts that " /3a7r- Tiifgiv, both in sacred authors and in classical, signifies to dip, to plunge, to immerse, and was rendered by I'er- tullian, the oldest of the Latin Fathers, by tingere, a word used for dying cloth, which was by immersion," there is really no truth in the assei'tion. The word seldom, and perhaps never, signifies to dip in scripture. Tertullian, indeed, translates it by tingere; but then this word does not mean to immerse only, for that Fa- ther, as we have seen in the quotation made above, and as will abundantly appear in the proposed Review, frequently uses the word to describe baptism by sprinkling. Dr. Campbell is not less palpably mistaken when he declares that ^^tttw and ^a-Ttn^^ca are synonimous, and that they are the words which are used by the Septu- agint^to translate the corresponding word 'jJD- In their primary sense to thige, to stam, to imbue, I indeed believe them to be synonimous; but it will be found, I presume, that there is a clearly marked di-stinction as to their application in scripture.* For there it never happens, one or two instances excepted, that ^xxnl^ui is used in its original sense; but is taken uniformly to express some religious application of water or the in- ternal benefits represented by that symbol: whereas /BaTTTw is invariably used in its original sense, and ne- \er to express any religious washing or purification. If Dr. Campbell, a man of great critical acumen and unquestionable merit as a philological scholar, was thus palpably mistaken in his exposition of the meaning of these Avords, I ask whether it should be deemed strange that others equally distinguished should be mistaken also; and whether it be not indispensable that \\^ should examine for ourselves, and not take upon trust the mere dixit of any man? In explaining this word lexicographers are not agreed among themselves, and this being the case I for one am resolved not to trust them as infallible guides. There is a very commonly prevailing fallacy on this subject, namely,- that those critics who say the words in controversy mean to immerse and nothing else, are in judgment entirely accordant with the Bap- tist authors. But this is not true: all these critics, to a man, believe that dipping a part of the body is a bap- tism: the Baptist writers, on the contrary, do univer- sally contend that nothing can be a baptism short of dipping the whole body wider water. In proof of this assertion I appeal not only to the writings of both par- * That T have correctly stated the primary meanins:^ of the word Bnvru will appear by consulting some of the ablest critics and lex- icoj^raphers, as well as from the examples above collated. The Lexicon in the Antwei-p Polyglot renders tiie word thus, ti?ig-o,lavo, coloro^iminergo. Trbmius, lini^^o, inrrgo. Lex. Or. Lat. Conslo- nini tingo, bvo, coloro, immergo. I have not allowed mysrlf to travel out of the limits of scripture in these inquiries; but had I done so, the very same i-esulisin fixing the sense of the words would have taken place. 29 ties, bat to this particular fact, that in expounding- Mark vii. 4. Whitby, Campbell, Parkhurst and others on the same side, say that the baptism there spoken of Avas clipping the hands only; while Dr. Gill and all the Baptist authors strenuously insist that it was the im- mersion of the -whole body. After all the parade of cri- ticism made by Baptists on this question then, they and the critics are not agi'eed, but directly and posi- tively opposed. This general remark, also, is obviously suggested by the detailed view which has just i^cen given of the scriptural use of these words; that if Baptists contend for the primary sense of the word ^^ttt/^w, to dip or to plunge is not that meaning, but to stam, colour or dye: consequently the argument taken fi-om the original signification cannot answer the purpose for which it is employed. The plea of primary meaning, therefore, can be no longer useful to the Baptist hypothesis; yet I am dis- posed to think there is some truth in the idea. The fact of washing persons in the name of the Trinity is not only symbolical of moral cleansing by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but alsoin a figurative sense refers to the original \dit^.o^ staining or marking; in as much as they who receive baptism, the initiating or designating rite of Christianity, are marked out with a new tincture or colour, or in other words, take a wtw impression or character. Such is the allusion Rev. vii. 3. and xiv, 1. where the servarits of God are said to be sealed and to have his name ivritten in their foreheads. And it was in this view that the Latin Fathers were so fond of using the word tingo to describe baptism, and of call- ing the baptized Tincti, and sometimes still more plainly Sigillo Christi s?gnati, *' marked with the seal of Christ." This sense is admitted by Mr. Robinson when he says, John's baptizing persons "conferred a character, a moral hue, as dyers by dipping in a vat set a tincture or colour. Hence John is called, bv earlv 40 Latins, Johannea T'mctor^ the exact Latin of hx»f^ I 3«TT*r):<, John the Baptist.''' Hist, of Baptism, p. 6- I allow the interpretation of baptism conferring a mo- ral hue; but I deny, and I am supported in doing so by the foregoing induction, that dipping is at all necessary to the idea of staining or marking, and that Johannes Tinctor Is the exact Latin of kit»vjv) at Jordan." Acts viii. 38. " And they both descended, (?/? tw ■o^w^) to the water both Philip and the-eunuch, andhe baptized him." But because itis said, verse 36. "They came(£7rj'Tj t^m^) to a certain water ^^'' Mr. Jones remarks, "you see here that Philip and the eunuch came to (sTr*) a certain water, but this word did not bring them into it." p. 131. Very true, nor does this point hi the description even bring them within reach of the water, because they were yet in the chariot, and most probably on the bank of the water, what ever it was, whether spring, or pit, or brook; and consequently they had still to descend to the water. What is more common with bothancient andmo- dern writers than to make mention of coming to and even upon water^ when nothing more is meant than approaching near to it or coming upon its bank; and this is precisely the idea oonveyed in this passage — They came near to the water but had yet to descend »3 to it. Thus Jud. vii. 1. " Pitched (LXX, in) beside the wellofHarod." Acts iii. 10. '^ Sat for alms (stt*) at the beautiful gate." Johnxxi. 1. " Jesus showed himself {t7ri)at the sea of Tiberius." See also John vi. 16, 21. Mr. Jones makes a feeble eftbrt to prove that the preposition cctto signifies out of in Mark i. 9. " And straitway coming out of the water;" but in doing so he violates the grand argument of Baptists in favour of immersion, namely, that we are to expound the words according to their primary meaning. It is not for me to say whether the rule be a good or a bad one; it be- longs to the Baptists, and with them should be decisive. I have only to say, then, that from is the primary mean- ing of <*7ro,and translate the text inquestionaccordingly, and straitway coming {oiTro)J}-o?n the water."* My op- ponents are compelled to receive this translation, and in doing so to yield also the rendering we contend for in reference to the other prepositions; for if arro be ren- dered ^/ro7;2, then €x, in the parallel passages must mean the same thing; and «*? and sjc, as conjoined with them, in the same description, cannot express more than at or to. In reference to £k the learned gentleman remarks, '' Parkhurst gives one rule which will determine the dispute: he says, ** governing a genitive, it denotes mo- tion from a place, out of"* ibid 136. Dr. Parkhurst says this: " Ex 1, governing a genitive 1. It denotes motion from a place, out of from^ Mat. ii. 15. viii. 28. xxviii. 2. Mark i. 29. et al." This is but another instance of our author's great care in quoting, as he leaves out * Every Lexicographer of eminence gives frojn as the first meaning of ^^r*; thus Parkhurst "Atto governing a genitive I. From, see Matt. i. 17,24. iii. 7. 13. viii. 1, 11. Mark vii. 4. Acts xvi. 33." See also Schleusner, Constantine, Lex. app. Antwerp. Poly- glot, &c. Thus, too, the vi^ord is rendered. Acts xiii. 13, John xxi. 8. xiii. 3. Luke iv. 1. xvi. 21. xxiv. 2, 9. Mark vii. 28. Matt, xxviii. 8, Acts ix. 8. and in many other places. 64> - Jrom, which Parkhurst has given as a pi-imary mean- ing, along with out of; both, however, denoting motion from a place. Confining the gentleman to his own rule, which requires him to receive the primary meaning, I have translated Acts viii. 39. in conformity to it, *' and when they had ascended from the water." But it will be expected that I should say something about Enon. Concernmg this place the learned Ziud ac- curate Mr. Jones observes, " Mr. Robinson says, Enon was a large fountain called the Dove's Eye. And to corroborate his sentiments he quotes the Syriac, Persic, Arabic and iEthiopic versions, which all render it a fountain." ibid. 139. It is truly an unfortunate circum- stance for our author that Mr. Robinson says no such thing; for he seems entirely at a loss to determine whether Enon was a natural spring, an artificial reservoir, or a cavernous temple of the sun. But Mr. Robinson shall sp^ak for himself. " Salim was at least fifty miles north, up the river Jordan, from the place where John had begun to bap- tize. iEnon, near it, was either a natural spring, an arti- ficial reservoir, or a cavernous temple of the sun, pre- pared by the Canaaniites, the ancient idolatrous inhabi- tants of the land. The eastern versions, that is the Syriac, Ethiopic, Persic, and Arabic, of the gospel of John, as well as the Hebrew and Chaldean Ain-yon or Gnain-yon, suggest these opnions, and it isdifiicult to say which is the precise meaning of the Evangelist's word iEnon; and it is not certain whether the plain meaning be, John was baptizing at the Dove-spring near Salim, or John M^as baptizing at the Sun-fountain near Salim."* Whatever we are to think of Mr. Ro- binson's attempt to understand the Evangelist, we must at least admire his candour in yielding the point as to the meaning of en ainon which he translates, " at the Dove-spring or at the Sun-fountain." * Robinson's Hist, of Baptism, p. 15, 55 From the various instances which I have given of Mr. Jones' ya/y^ steps ^ as an author, let the reader ask himself whether such a man ought to be trusted. But to proceed, the much -water of this passage is a circumstance descriptive of the natural advantages of the place, and not the reason why John selected that for the purpose of baptizing. On this account it took the appellation Ainon, says Schleusner, because W)f no less than ]^jr denotes figuratively a fountain. John was baptizing at Enon near Salim, so denominated from its ttoaaoc vSocrct,^ much water^ or from its being well watered. That John did not select Enon on ac- count of the size or depth of its waters is evident from this circumstance, that had he been anxious to get deep water for immersion his purpose could have been an- swered much better at Jordan, which was distant but a little way from Enon.* Mr. Jones seems quite fretted at our calling circumci- sion the seal of the covenant, and thinks that Rom. iv. 11." He 7'eceived the sign of c'lrcumc'islon^ a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet heijig uncir- cumcised,'''' is not sufficient authority for speaking after this manner. Let. p. 22. And what if it is not? it would not therefore follow that we have no such authority. This text, however, does prove incontestibly that cir- cumcision was, not what Mr. Jones dares to call it, a mark of" national distinction,''^ but, the seal of the righteousness of Abraham'' s justifying faith. And this, let me say, implies no less than that circumcision was the seal of the covenant. The faith of this patriarch had an object, and that object was none other than God's ^AVa^'^nAcnon. Nornenindeclinabileurbis, sitae prop. Jordanera in fiiiibus tribus Manasse ubi ea tribui Issachar est tiniiima juxta Salim septein miliaribus a scythiopoli distantis. Hie bapt.zavit Johannes, Job. iii. 23. quod ibi multce erant aquae unde etiam nomen suum accepit J| r>' at \y metaphorice tbntem notat, &c. Schleusner, " Indeed the name does imply the same :'.s a place of springs." Dr. Well's Hist. Geog. of the Old and New Test. Vol. ?. p. 162. . 5'6 Covenant or promise of mercy through a crucified Re- deemer; none other than the all meritorious ransom— the all sufficient righteousness of the Son of God; for nothing else ever justified one of the fallen sons of Adam. Now the sign of circumcision was the seal of this very ?-ighteous?iess., which is really the simie thing as saying it is the seal of the covenant, in as much as the justifying righteousness apprehended by Abraham's faith cannot be detached from the gra- cious covenant made with the patriarch, and so ex- plicitly referred to, nay quoted by St. Paul, in this very chapter.* So that this text fully supports us in calling circumcision the seal of the cor\^enant, whatever Mr. Jones may think of it, and puts down the strange dis- tinction which that gentleman takes, with respect to cir- cumcision's being not the seal of the righteousness of Abraham's faith, but the sign of national distinction, to his posterity. For how, I ask, could that rite be a seal of the righteousness of Abraham's faith, and yet be- come, by a single transformation, a mark of political discrimination to his seed? where did he get the strange figment of a politico- spiritual rite? He that can di'eam thus, must be far gone in a certain species of mental aberration which I do not like to name. Tribus anticyris caput insanahile. The gentleman, however, is compelled to allow that circumcision " is called a token of the covenant." p. 23. Yes sir, it is so called. Gen. xvii, 11. and means the same thing as seal ox rite of confirmation, to the cove- nant of Jehovah. It is thus that Dr. Clarke expounds the word " m^^ 7 leoth for a sign of spiritual things: for dam animi lenitas t Moiheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 252. w Thus it is seen, that the name of this Father is en- polled with lustre on the page of history. Even the ' hand of the infidel Gibbon binds a wreath of honour round his venerable brow. To be praised by the pen of Lardner is praise indeed; a writer who was distin- guished for his candour, patience of research, love of truth, and coolness of judgment. Erasmus and Mo- sheim are immortalizing advocates, and who would not wish to be praised, I niay safely ask, by the cele- brated Roffens? But what are we to think of Mr. Ro- binson, who, with a spirit more fell than infidelity it- self possesses, has made a laboured and insidious at- tempt to traduce the character of the far-famed Au- gustin? Yes, sure enough, what are we to think? A Christian minister, and yet less just, less candid than an infidel — a Christian minister, and yet " an accuser of the bretliren!" So long as the light and verity of history guard the fame of Augustin against detraction, so long they will continue to reflect infamy upon his defamer, whether a Petit, a Voltaire, or a Robinson. It is easy to see the real design of our historian in pouring calumny upon the memory of this Father. Augustin had opposed the Manicheans whom Mr. Ro- binson has taken into fellowship with British Unitarian Baptists; he had waged incessant war with the Pela- gians and Donatists, whom our leai-ned historian takes the liberty to say were Anabaptists, and in whose reli- gious tenets he saw an approximation to his own creed; he had borne repeated and solemn testimonies to the practice of infant baptism, as something univer- sally observed in the church, and as being of apostolical origin. These were crimes never to be forgiven; and the only way left for destroying the force of Augustin's testimony, was to assail his reputation by detraction, and thus to reduce, if possible, his high estimation in the woi;ld, and blast for ever his well earned farne. This is ail Mi*. Robinson could hope to do, and \tt M 90 attempts nothing more. But the fame of Augustin, like a bulwark, impregnable and resistless on all points, mocks the feebleness of his assaults, and lifts its towering head for immortality. See then the strength of the ground we occupy in this controversy! Augustin's testimony in favour of the custom of baptizing infants cannot be impeached^ cannot be destroyed. It presents the stability, the prominence, the majesty of the promontory, which de- fies alike the surge that beats on its base and the tempest that bursts on its summit; it cannot be shaken. Out of the numerous and very clear attestations borne by this Father to the practice of baptizing in- fants, I will select a few only, and those such as have itot been already published in my sermon on baptism. Augustinus De baptismo contra Donatistas Lib. 4. prope ad finem. Sicut autem in latrone, quia per necessitatem bap- tismus defuit, perfecta salus est; quia per pietatem spiritualiter aff uit: sic etcum ipso praesto est, si per ne- cessitatem desit quod latroni affuit, perficitur salus. Quod traditum tenet universitas ecclesise cum parvuli infantes baptizantur; qui certe nondum possunt corde credere ad justitiam, et ore confiteri ad salutem, quod latro potuit: quinetiam flendo et vagiendo cum in eis mysterium celebratur; ipsis mysticis vocibus obstrc- punt. Et taraen nuUlis Christianorum dixerit eos ina- niter baptizari. Et si quisquam in hac re divinam authoritatem quccrat quanquam quod universa tenet Ecclesia, nee Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate Apostolica traditum rectissime creditur: tamen veraciter conjicerepossumus quidvaleat inpar- vulis baptismi sacramentum ex circumcisione carnis cjuam prior populus accepit. ," And as the thief, who by necessity went without baptism, was sayed, because by his piety he had it spiritually: so where baptism is had, though the party 91 by necessity go without that (faith) which the thief Iiad, yet he is saved. Which the whole body of the church holds as delivered to them in the case of little infants baptized^ who certainly cannot yet believe with the heart to righteousness, or confess with the mouth tinto salvation, as the thief could; nay, by their crying and noise, while the sacrament is administering, they disturb the holy mysteries; and yet no Christian man will say they are baptized to no purpose. And if any one do ask for divine authority in this matter, though that which the -whole church practises, and which has not been instituted by councils, but xvas ever in use, is very reasonably believed to be no other than a thing deliver- ed{or ordered) by the authority of the apostles; yet we may besides take a true estimate, how much the sacra- ment of baptism does avail infants, by the circumcision which God's former people received." DE LIBERO AKBRITRIO, LIB. 3. C. 23. Quo loco etiam illud perscrutari homines .solent, sa- cramentum Baptismi Christi quid parvulis prosit; cum CO accepto plerunque moriuntur priusquam ex eo quidquam cognoscere potuerunt. *' On which head men are wont to ask this question also; what good the sacrament of Christ's baptism does to infants? whereas after they have recei^'ed it, they often die before ^hey are able to understand any thing of it. DE GENESI AD LITERAM, LIB. 10. C. 23. Consuetudo tamen matris ecclesiae in baptizandis parvulis nequaquam spernenda est, ncque ullo modo superflua deputanda, nee omnino credenda nisi Aposto- lica esset traditio. " But the custom of our mother, the church, in baptizing infants must not be disregarded, nor be ac- counted needless, nor believed to be other than a tradi- tion (or order) of the apostles." 9.2 Sect. 5. Miscellaneous Matters- It is really curious to observe with what facility this^ UTiter marches ou to his point, in the way of conjec- ture, suggestion and assumption. " It should seem," says he, "that the baptism of children was first practised by a small obscure sect of Gnostics called Cainites, Cai- anites, orGaianites," P. 247, 248. It should seem! — yes, but ^\^e want proof that such was the fact, and it was the historian's misfortune to have none. To conceal this defect, he amuses his reader by tracing the rise and diffusion of Gnosticism. He remarks that it rose cut of the oriental philosophy^ that St. Paul consid- ered it at Corinth as the serpent in Paradise^ 2 Cor. ;xi. 2, 3, 4, and that the Gnostics were the heretical teachers mentioned by St. John, i Ep. ii. 18, 19. That St. Paul had Gnosticism in his eye when he wrote the forementioned passage is as far from being ascertained, as that he considered it the serpent in paradise. The first errors at Corinth were an accommodation of the gospel to the Grecian philosophy and Judaism. St. John had various sorts of heretics, as well as Gnostics, in view, when he wrote his epistle, as the Docetee, Ce- rinthians, &c. But what has the history of the origin and evolution of Gnosticism to do in this controversy? In doing so, however, he makes (and most probably in mx- itation of Dr. Priestley's worthy example) another asser- tion which is very far from being coincident with fact: it is, that the Gnostics, " during the two first centuries, were the only heretics." Every person acquainted with the New Testament and the history of early opinions in the Christian world, knows the fact to be otherwise. Du- ring the apostolic age there were several sects; the Docetas or phantasiastae, who denied the humanity of Christ; the Cerinthians and Ebionites, who rejected the doctrine of his divinity, but admitted his humanity; and the Nicolaitans, or Gnostics, who affirmed that no- thing but the mere knowledge of God and Christ was necessary to salvati07i; for against these heresies ha\it^ 93 Sit. John and other apostles expressly written. Beside these, there were the Marcionites, Encratites, Carpocra- tians, Valentians, and various other sects, which appear- ed in the two first centuries,* as in the year 176, or 177, Ireiioeus, in his treatise against heretics^ book 1. gives them, contrary to what Mr. llobinson asserts, a distinct classification. Tertullian, who wrote but a few years later, does the same thing; for while he writes against several branches of the Gnostic sect, he attacks other sectaries, who had no connection whatever with Gnos- tics. The Nazarenes also were a sect entirely and originally distinguished from the Ebionites and others now mentioned, in as much as their opinions were or- thodox with respect to the trinity and other important doctrines. This has been amply evinced in Dr. Jamie- son's triumphant reply to Dr. Priestley's History of Early Opinions. f The author's bold assertion was ii:iade and defended probably with a view to shield his * Should it be said that these sects originated from the Gnos- tics, I shall have no difficulty in admitting the fact: but still I may remark, that though they had one common origin, they were nevertheless distinct sects, difl'ering not so much in doctrine as in discipline and manners. Thus the Marcionites, Encratites and other sects were remarkable for an austere rigid manner of life, while the Carpocratians and others were very dissolute. They all denied Christ's divinity, and almost every distinguishing doctrine of Christianity. t The western Socinian Baptists, New-lights, Halcyonists, Sha- kers, Sec. are weak enough to think Dr. Priestley has triumphed in the controversy which he so ardently waged against the doc- trines of grace: but let them read Dr. Jamieson's Vindication of the Doctrine of Scripture and of The Primitive Faith concerning The Deity of Christ, in reply to Dr. Priestley's History of Early Opinions, and they will sigh if not blush for their champion ^nd their cause. This very luminous and elaborate work perfectly paralyzed the gaftcous doctor; for though it was the very thing he had explicitly challenged, and though he Uved several years after its pubUcation, yet he never dared to fulfil his pledge to the public by answering it. In a calm and undisturbed retreat upon the Susquehanna, he wrote and published several considera- ble works, but nothing like an answer to Dr. Jamieson's virKljca- tion. 94 brother Manicheans and other sects from the imputation of h'^resy; and thus, Uke Dr. Priestley, to render the idea popular, or at least plausible, that the Socinian creed was the one adopted by Christians generally in the two first centuries. But as Dr. Jamieson has pro- ven in the work referred to, that both the statement and the inference are false; proving beyond the power of cavil, that there were other heretics besides the Gnostics, and that the doctrines of Christians through- out the whole world, in primitive times^ were evan- gelical, in opposition to Socinianism. He again remarks, " The Caianites seem to be of the Egyptian, not of the Asian class of Gnostics: but the first book in defence of the efficacy of bap- tism, and against the baptism of little ones, is direct- ed agamst both Caianites of Egypt and Quintillianists of Greece." In proof of this statement he refers to Tertuliian's Book De Baptismo, c, 1.; but, as it should seem, rather unfortunately for the historian, there is not the shadow of evidence there, or any where else, that this book was written against either the Caianites of Egypt or the Quintillianists of Greece. This book on baptism was written to arrest the progress of a heresy which had been founded by Quintilla, a female heresiarch and preacher who had sprung up among, or emerged from the Caianites, and, as Tertullian says, had seduced a great number of persons into the be- lief of her doctrines. As to the insinuation of the au- thor, that she either introduced the baptism of little ones, or at least contemplated the measure, there" is not the semblance of truth in it. On the contrary, it is certain that one of the most prominent dogmas of this extravagant and fanatical woman was, that exter- nal baptism was wholly minecessary^ and that faith alone was sufficient for salvation,* Neither is it * It is indeed true, that Tertullian, speaking of the practice of a female's teaching and baptizin'j;, has these words, c. 17. Petulant liu cmicm mulicrum r/ux ufsurpavit doccrc, uti(]ue non etiam ttv .95 Q-ue that this book was written against the baptism of little ones, as Mr. Robinson groundlessly asserts. We have already seen that TertuUian opposed only the hasty baptism of orphans, or the children of slaves or poor pagans, where sponsors became necessary and that in ordinary cases he approved of, and reason- ed from the practice of baptizing infants as a fact gene- rally prevalent in the Christian world. But indeed it is quite unnecessary to attempt a refutation of the author's assertions; for after all his conjectures, guesses and specious displays of histori- cal fact, he is weak enough to acknowledge he knows nothing about the matter. Mark his words! " It is im- possible to say any thing upon the baptism of children among the Gnostics, when and where it originated, guendijus sibi fiariet, nisi, si quae Jiova bestia avenerit simitis pris- tine: ut quemadmodum ilia baptismum auferebat, ita aliqua per se eum comferat. But the only sentence here which can refer to Quintilla, Junius readsthus: Si noim (nimirum,mulier) besticsx^ene- Ttt similis pristi7io 7rcc(Tiv IcpgTov oi^oia? Ka^^^xvuv. " We also, who by him have had access to God, have not received this <:arnal circumcision, but the spiritual circumcision, which Enoch and those like him observed. And we have received by baptism by the mercy of God, because we were sinners: and IT IS ENJOINED TO ALL PERSONS TO RECEIVE IT IN THE SAME WAY," namely, in baptism. And in another work we meet with this question; " JVhy^ if circumcision be a good thing, we do not use it as well as the Jews did?'''' which he thus answers; " IFe are circumcised by baptism with Chrisfs circumcision,^'' These short extracts will make it obvious that when Justin wrote, which was about forty years after the apostolic age, there were considerable numbers of per- sons, both men and women, who had been made disci- * Justin M. Apol. I'fvulgo 2da.) prope ab initio. Dialog, curn Try phone et Quest, ad orthodox. 99 pies in infancy sixty and seventy years before that time, that is, as far back in the apostolic age as the year seventy or eighty of the Christian era, and consequently must have been baptized, for to none other than disciples was baptism ever given; that it was the opinipn of Jus- tin as well as the Christians of that-age, that the spiri- tual circu7ncision, which was identified with baptism, succeeded the circumcision of the flesh, and that it was enjoined to all per sons ^ and consequently to infants as well as to adults, to receive the spiritual circumcision or baptism, in as much as all, both old and young, were de- filed with original sin,* and could be saved no other way than by that spiritual circumcision which was re- ceived by baptism; and that as the Jews received the former circumcision, which applied equally to infants and adults, so Christians at that period were circumcis- ed by baptism with Chrisfs circumcision, and of course their infant children must have shared also in this spiritual circumcision or baptism. These mferences * iThat Justin Martyr believed in the doctrine of original sin, he himself has declared, when, speaking of the undertaking of the Saviour, he says, " He did this for mankind which by Adam was fallen under death, and under the guile of the serpent, beside the particular cause which each man has of sinning." Dial, cum Try- phone. And as to the manner of man's deliverance from the sin of his nature, he says explicitly that it was by baptism. " Then they are brought by us to some place where there is water, and they are regenerated according to this rite of regeneration by which we ourselves were regenerated; for then they are washed with water in the name of the Father and Lord of all things, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. For Christ says " unless you be regenerated, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven" and every body knows it is impossible for those that are once generated (or born) to enter again into their mother's womb." Just. Apolo. 1st (Vulgo 2da.) ad Antoninum Pium. From a comparison of these two passages I am allowed to infer, that it was clearly impossible that Justin should not have believed in m- fiint as well as adult regeneration or bafitism, if he believed at all, as we know he did, in the salvation of infants. These and some of the succeeding testimonies are taken from Mr. Wail's Hist'orv of Infant Baptism. 100 are fair, and, as I think, unavoidable. Tlic objection which is opposed by Baptist writers to the first men- tioned fact, namely, that i^ira^iim does often signify more than mere infancy, and consequently that the persons mentioned by Justin might have been such children when they were made disciples as could be taught and believe for themselves, has really no weight, because the word, in its first and most com- mon meaning, signifies infants, and of course ought t© be so understood, unless sufficient reason appear from Justin's use of it to induce us to reject such meaning and adopt a less common or figurative signification: and with Baptists, who stickle for primary meanings, this reason should^be omnipotent. About the year 1 76, and most probably as early as 1G7, Iren8eus, who had been bred in Asia under the instruction of Polycarp the disciple of St. John, but was then bishop of Lyons in France, delivers a very convincing testimony to the practice of baptizing in- fants. Irenaeus adversus Hereses, lib. 2. c. 39. Omnes enim venit per semet ipsum salvare; omnes inquam qui per eum renascuntur in Deum, infantes, et parvulos, et pueros, et juvenes, et seniores. " He (Christ) came to save all persons by himself; all, I say, who are regenerated unto Gody (baptized) in- JantSy and little onesy and children, and youths, and el- der persons. The phrase regenerated to God was in the language of this Father, and all other writers of that age, descrip- tive of the fact of having been baptized. In no other sense did they ever use it. Thus Irenaeus always uses the words: as for instance, Adv. Hereses, lib. 3. c. 19. Ft iterum, potestatem regenerationis in Deum deman- dans discipulis, dicebat eos: Euntes docete omnes gtntes baptizantes eos in nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti — " And again Christ confiding to his disciples the authority of regenerating unto God, said 101 unto them, Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.^^ About forty years before the time of Irenaeus, we see Justin Martyr more than once use the word regenerate for baptize: thus, ETrgiTc* ^yovrai v(p' )jjw«y ivOflt ucTft)^ f5"<, Koti T^OTTov dvxvyiWYiffiug OV KOtl t^fJktl? OiVTo) OiViyivvtjB'yifXiv, dvccyivvuvrxi. Ett' ovof/'Oi.ro? yoc^ tow Tlocr^og T«v oA«y ii C^tcirorov 0€ow, >^ tou 2a»T»j^of jJjwwv I)j(rov X^jfou, X«* rivgUjlAOtTO? OtJ^/oW TO €V TW UdTotTI To't£ AoWT^OV TTO/OUVTOtl. Apol. prima (vulgo 2da) ad Antoninum Pium . " Then they are brought by us to some place where there is water; and they are regenerated according to this rite of regeneration, by which we ourselves were regenerated; for then they are washed with water in the name of God the Father and Lord of all things, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit." And he soon afterwards uses it in the same sense. See my Sermon on Baptism. In the passages already quoted from Tertullian, the reader will recollect that the word nascor (to be born) is often used by that Father for to be baptized; but in one instance he uses the very word renascor {to be regenerated) which is the one here employed by Irenaeus to describe being baptized. This writer very frequently speaks of martyrdom as a baptism, calling it lavacrum sanguinis, the baptism of blood, and always uses the very same plirases to describe it which he does in describing the baptism of water: and in his Scorpiacum ad Gnosticos, c. 15, he thus speaks of St. Paul's martyrdom or baptism of blood: Tunc Paulus civitatis Romanse consequitur nativitatem, quum illic martyrii renascitur generositate. " Then Paul obtains regeneration (baptism) at the city of Rome, when there he is regenerated (baptized) by a glorious martyrdom." We have already seen Cyprian describe baptism by the phrase renati et signo Christi signati, " regenerated and marked with the sign of Christ." i. e. baptized and marked with the name of 102 Christ according to Rev. vii. 2, 3. and xiv. 1. Indeed the Fathers always apply the word in that sense, and cite John iii. 5. to prove the propriety of the applica- tion, as might be shown in various instances from Clemens Alexandrinus, Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, and Austin. And besides, Irenseus testifies to the bap- tism of infants by treating of spiritual circumcision as succeeding to the circumcision of the flesh, and call- ing it the circumcision of Christ, or baptism. We have already reviewed at large the testimony of Tertullian and of Origen, and need not therefore re- peat it here, as it is in the recollection of the reader, or can easily be recalled. Let us now apply the foremen- tioned facts to the case before us, and form our esti- mate. Justin Martyr, once a Heathen philosopher, and respectable for his talents and erudition, is converted to the faith of Christianity thirty years after the apos- tles; had seen and been conversant with many Chris- tians of the apostolic age, and consequently must have been adequately informed respecting the usages of the primitive church, delivered about forty years after the apostles an unembarrassed testimony in favour of infant baptism. Irenaeus, born according to Dodwell in the year 97 after Christ, and consequently within the apos- tolic age, educated in Asia by Polycarp, St. John's disciple, and a man of genius, learning and research, and the contemporary of Justin Martyr; and after his becoming bishop of Lyons, about sixty-seven years after the apostles, gives the world clear and satisfactory attestations to the fact of baptizing infants. Tertullian, the contemporary of Irenasus, but younger, and living to the year 120^ a man of sublime genius, and flowing eloquence, and literary distinction, at first a Heathen philosopher, and afterwards a Christian minister and presbyter at Carthage, asserts, in the clearest and most satisfactory manner, the generally prevailing custom of baptizing infants. about 100 years after the apostles-— and then Origen, whom Dr. Lardner eulogizes as " a bright light of the church and one of those rare person- ages that have done honour to human nature,'''' the con- temporary of Tertullian, eminent for his talents and literary acquirements, and one who was bred at Al- exandria in Egypt, travelled through Italy, Greece, Cappadocia, and Arabia, and spent the greater part of his life in Syria and Palestine, and who of course was abundantly qualified for saying what the usages of the church universal were, has, about a hundred and ten years after the apostles, given many explicit testimo- nies in favour of infant baptism. It is therefore a con- clusion confirmed by a regular and incorrupt series of historical facts, that infant baptism had an existence in the Catholic church, from the times of the apostles down to the period of Cyprian, whose testimony is full in proof that infant baptism was the prevailing custom of the Catholic church in his day. He was born in 185, and died :254, and consequently was con- temporary, not only with Tertullian, but also with Cyprian. Before Origen it is probable I should have mentioned the author of the Apostolical Constitutions, who bears a very explicit testimony to infant baptism, as the standing custom of his time, in these words: *' Baptize your 'infanJts, and bring them up in tlie nur- ture and admonition of the Lord; for he says, suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not." This work is supposed to have been written in the close of the second or in the beginning of the third century, and indeed there is internal evidence to make it certain that it must have been written before the age of Origen. Exceptions, I know, have been taken to the genuineness and date of this book; but it is now and always has been received as authority by the best and most learned wTiters. How far the opinion of Dr. Jamieson, who quotes it in his controversy with Dr. Priestley, may have weight with Baptist readers, I can- not tell; but I well l^now that the opinion of Grotius, 104 which is in favour of its genuineness, ought to be para- mount evidence with our Baptist brethren.* Thus we see the certain and widely extended ex- istence of infant baptism before and at the time of Cyprian, and that too from the very age of the apos- tles, by a train of historical evidence which can- not be questioned without implicating the identity of the Holy Scriptures now used with those in the hands of the apostles; for it is by those very witnesses that we ascertain ou^s to be the same scriptures which were used in the apostolical age, and from that down to the period of the council at Carthage. Oiu* author alleges, however, "there can be no hazard in affirming that towards the close of the fourth century it was first brought into public by Gregory Nazianzen." But upon what evidence does this asser- tion of the learned historian rest? — On a passage from Gregory Nazianzen's fortieth oration, I presume, for it is all he condescends to quote; which passage Piedo- baptists usually cite for a very different purpose, and cannot prove the first introduction of infant baptism be- fore the public. JVo dariger hi affirming! What! when the Apologies of Justin Martyr, the books of Irenaeus, the writings of Tertullian and the Apostolic Constitutions had long ere this been before the world? — When the Homilies and Comments of the famous Origen had given publicity to the practice as early as 220 — When our learned historian, who at one time would induce a belief that the baptism of infants originated in i¥frica in the district of Fidus, at another that it was practised by a small obscure sect of Gnostics called Caianites, and then declared that it was impossible to say any thing about it, ^vhen and where it originated, or by what means, or when it found its way into the Catholic church, goes on to say, that there is no ha- * See Dr. Jamieson's Vindication, vol. ii. p. 230. Grotius in Matt. xix. where the above passage from the Apostolical Constitu- lions is quoted!. 105 ZAtd in affirming that towards the close of the fourth century it was first brought into public by Gregory Nazianzen. No hazard, indeed, when the volumi- nous and learned works of Origcn were known to the whole Christian world! — When Cyprian's popular and animating writings had, as early as 157, bestowed no- toriety and celebrity on the practice, and which had been admired and read every where in the Catholic church! But beside the evidence already adduced to expose the hazard and folly of such affirmation, I will now bring forward other evidence still more convincing. Ambrose had asserted the propriety of infant baptism, and even introduced the fact as the basis of argument in the controversies of the day, some considerable time before the close of the fourth century. Speaking of the Pelagian hypothesis, which, among other things, set forth this, that the injury done by Adam to his poste- rity was exemplo^ nan transitu^ rather from example, than by derivation of evil, does on the admission of such principle infer that it would involve evacuatio baptis- matis parvulorum " the nullity of the baptism of in- fants." In his L. 2. de Abraham, patriarcha, c. 11. he has these words: *' For a very good reason does the law command the males to be circumcised in the begin, ning of infancy, even the bond slave born in the house; because as circumcision is from infancy, so is the dis- ease. No time ought to be void of the remedy, be. cause none is void of guilt, &,c." and a little after he adds, " Neither a proselyte that is old, nor an infant born in the house, is excepted; because every age is obnoxious to sin, and therefore every age is proper for the sacrament." This he applies to spiritual circum- cision andbaptism^ and then subjoins, " both the home born and the foreigner, the just and the sinful, must be circumcised by the forgiveness of sin, so as not to practise sin any more: for no person comes to \\\j^ O 106 kingdom of heaven but by the sacrament of baptism." He afterwards closes the paragraph with these words: Nisi enim quis renatus fuerit ex aquaet Spiritu sancto, non potest introire in regniim Dei. Utique niilhim excipit: non infantem non aUqua pcerventum necessi- tate. Habeant tamen illam opertam poenarum immuni- tatem, nescio an habeant regni honorem. " For unless a person be born again of xuater^ and of the Holy Spi- rit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. You see he excepts no persons, not an infant, not one that is hindered by any unavoidable accident. But suppose that such have that freedom from punishment, \vhich is not clear, yet I question whether they shall have the honour of the kingdom." And about the periodatwhich,or,at most soon after the period which Mr. Robinson fixes for its public intro- duction, what a blaze of evidence bursts on the scene of inquir}'^, when we open the writings of Chrysostom, Augustin and Jerome, as well as the concessions of their opponents, namely, Pelagius, Celestius, the Do- natists and others! The reader will allow the following examples not only to establish the fact of infant bap- tism as being generally- known and as generally practis- ed at the very period which our author considers the epoch of its public introduction; but also to throw back the illumination of this period upon the preceding ages. First, then, Chrysostom, who died in 407, and conse- quently must have flourished and written in the close of the fourth century. In his homily to the Neophyti, we find these observations: " JFe baptize childreri^ although they have no sin;" that is actual sin, as Augustin proves in opposition to the Pelagians. Again, in his 40th Homily on Genesis, he observes, " Circumcision was to be given on the eighth day; but baptism hath no determinate time, but it is lawful that one in infancy, or one in middle age, or one in old age do receive it." These passages, with several others equally pointed, imply that the custom was commonly observed. 107 ^ The testimony of Aiigustin has already been laid before the readers and need not be repeated. Jerome, who died in 420, and mustj as he lived to a great age, ha\'e flourished in his vigor about the very time Mr. Robinson says Gregory delivered his famous oration on baptism, abundantly testifies to the same fact. Passing over most of the citations which might be made from this father, I will proceed to present the reader with one or two which, from the circumstances giving them birth, become authorities of great mo- ment. In his Homilia in Evangel. Matt, having quo- ted John vi. 58. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you," he re- marks. Quod testimonium contra Pelagii blasphemias evidentissimum atque validissimum est, qui asserere arrepta impietate presumit, non propter vitam, sed prop- ter regnum coelorum Baptismum parvulos conferren- dum, " which is a most clear and potent testimony against the blasphemies of Pelagius, who with daring impiety presumes to assert, that baptism is to be con- ferred upon infants, not for salvation, but for the king- dom of heaven." In his Dialogues written to expose Pelagianism, where the name Critobulus represents a Pelagian^ and Atticus a person belonging to the Catholic church, we find the following passage: " Crito. Tell me, I beseech you, and free me from all doubt; for what reason are infants baptized? u Atticus. That in baptism their sins may be for- given. "Crito. What sin have they incurred? Is any one loosed that never was bound? u Atticus, having offered arguments and proof to establish the point in question, goes on to answer, " x\U persons are held obnoxious, either by their own, or by their forefather Adam's sin. He that is an infant is in baptism loosed from the bond of his forefather; he that is of age to understand, is by the blood of Christ freed 108 both from his own bond, and also that which is derived from another. And that you may not think that I un- 'derstand this in a heretical [or heterodox] sense; the blessed Martyr Cyprian (whom you pretend to have imitated in collecting into order some places of scrip- ture) in the epistle which he writes to bishop Fidus, about the baptizing of infants, says thus: " If, then, the greatest offenders, and they that have grievously sinned against God before, have, when they afterwards come to believe, forgiveness of their sins, and no person is kept off" from baptism and grace; how much less reason is there to refuse an infant, who, being newly born, has no sin, save that, being descended from Adam, ac- cording to the flesh, he has from his very birth con- tracted the contagion of the death anciently threaten- ed," &c.* *' That holy and accomplished person, bishop Au- gustin, wrote some time ago to Marcellinus (who was afterwards, though innocent, put to death by the heretics on pretence that he had a hand in Heraclius's usurpa- tion) two books concerning the baptism of infants, against your heresy by which you would maintain that infants are baptized, not for Xh^forgivetiess of sins, but for the kingdom of heaven^ according to that which is UTitten in the gospel. Except a person be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.'''' — '' This one thing I will say, that this discourse may at last have an end; either you must set forth a new creed^ and after the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, baptize infants unto the king- dom of heaven; or else, if you acknowledge one bap- tism for infants and for grown persons, you must own that infants are to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins." These extracts make a few things unquestionably manifest, namely, that the letter of Cyprian is to bfj; * He ^oes on to recite verbatim the whole of the epistle to the. ciul, us it is given page 83. '• 109 considered not only as genuine, but as expressing the general sense of the orthodox or Catholic church res- pecting original sin and the baptism of infants, both at the time of its being addressed to Fidus, and after- wards down to the time of Jerome; that the Pelagians, as well as the orthodox, baptized infants, though they differed with respect to the design or object of such baptism; the first contending that it was their passport into the kingdom of heaven, the last, that it was for their personal regeneration and the remission of sins; and that both parties believed iii one baptism only for adults and infants. These facts are asserted by both Jerome and Au- gustin and confessed by their opponents, Celesti- us and Pelagius, as will appear in the subjoined do- cuments. In the council held at Carthage A. D. 412. Celes- tius stood his trial for heresy. From theacts of that coun- cil, as cited by Augustin, lib. de peccato originali, c. 3, 4. let me take this extract: " AuRELius, the bishop, said, ' Let the rest of the charge be read;'' and there was read, ' That mfants when they are born are in the same state that Adam 7vas in before his transgression.^ "AuRELius, the bishop, said, Did you ever teach so, Celestius, that infants when they are bom are in the same state, ^ &c. "Celestius said, 'Let him explain how he means; Before his transgression,'' &c. "AuRELius, the bishop, said, ^JFhether the state of infants noxv to be baptized be such as Adam''s was be- fore his transgression; or whether they do derive the guilt of transgression from the same sinful origin from whence they are born? This is what the Deacon Pauli- nus would hear from you.'' " Paulinus, the deacon, said, ' Whether he has taught that or not, let him deny.'' '' Celest.ics said, ' J told you before concerning 110 the derivation of sin, that I have heard several in the Catholic church deny it; (he had just before named Ruitinus as one who denied it) aiid some I have heard affirm it. It is a matter of question [or contro^Trsy] not of heresy. As for infants, i always said, THAT THEY STAND IN NEED OF BAPTISM, AND THAT THEY OUGHT TO BE BAPTIZED." Pelagius, in his creed, which he addressed with a letter to Innocent, has this article: Baptismum unum tenemus, quod iisdem sacramen- ti verbis in infantibcs quibus etiam in majoribus asserimus esse celebrandum. " We hold one baptism, Mdiich we say ought to be administered with the same sacramental words to infants as it is to elder persons." Apud Angustin. Operis imperfecti. lib. 4. c. 8'. In the letter referred to above as cited by Augustin De peccato originali, c, 17, 18. and reported by Mr. Wall in connection, Pelagius thus expresses himself: " Men slander me as if / denied the sacramejit of baptism to infants, or did promise the kingdom of heaven to some persons without the redemption of Christ, which is a thing that I never heard, no not eve?i any xvicked heretic say. For who is there so ig- norant of that which is read m the gospel, as (I need not say to affirm this, but) in any heedless way, to say such a thing, or even have such a thought? In a word, who can be so impious as to hinder infants from being baptiz- ed, and born again in Christ, and so make them miss of the king-dom of heaven? since our Saviour has said that none ca?i enter into the kingdom of heaven that is not born again of water and the Holy Spi?'it. Who is then so inipious as to refuse to an infant of -whatsoever age the common redemption of mankinds and to hin- der him that is born to an uncertain life from being born again to an everlasting and certain one?" Ceiestius, also, in the libellus FiDEior draught of faith, which he presented to Zozimus, strongly avows infant baptisin in these worcj's: Ill Infantes autem debere baptizari in remissioncni peccatorum secundum regulum universalis ecclesias, et secundum Evangelii sententiam confitemur; quiaDomi - nus statuit regnum caelorum non nisi baptizatis posse conferri; quod quia vires naturae non habent, conferre necesse est per gratiae libertatem. In remissionem autem 'peccatorum baptizandos infantes non idcirco diximus ut peccatum ex traduce firmare videamur, quod longe catholico sensu alienum est. " We own that infants ought, according to the RULE OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURC H, and according to the sentence of the gospel, to be baptized for the for- giveness of sins, because our I^ord has determined that the kingdom of heaven cannot be conferred upon any but baptiezd persons; which, because it is a thing that nature cannot give, it is needful to give it by the liber- ty of grace. But when we say that infants are to be bap- tized for forgiveness of sins, we do not say it with such intent as that we would seem to confirm the opinion of sin being by derivation, which is a thing far from the Cathohc sense." Aug. De peccato original!, c. 5. Mr. Robinson ventures to say, p. 208. " The most probable opinion is, that Pelagians did deny the bap- tism, but not the salvation of infants;" and elsewhere he affects to consider them as anabaptists and oppo- sers of infant baptism. The evidence already introduced shows sufficiently indeed, the falsehood of such asser- tions; yet it may not be amiss to add something more. Augustininhis treatise on the guilt and remission of sins and the baptism of infants, book 6. says, " I do not remember that I ever heard any other thing from any christians that received the Old or New Testament, non solum in catholica ecclesia, veriim etiam in qualibet haeresi vel schismate constitutis, neither from such as were of the Cadiolic church, nor from such as belonged to any sect or schism — I do not remember that I ever read otherwise in any writer that I could ever find, treat- ingof these matters, that followed the canonical scripture 112 or did mean, or did pretend to do so. Frofii whence it is that this trouble is started up upon us I know not; but a little while ago, when I was there at Carthage, I just curso- rily heard some transient discourse of some people that were talking, that infants are not baptized for that rea- son that they may receive remission of sins, but that they may be sanctified in Christ.^'' This citation, as well as others which precede it, shows very clearly that even to deny baptism for the remission of sins to infants was a new doctrine every where among Christians who re- ceived the scriptures, both within and without the Ca- tholic church; and that even when this novel doctrine was started by the Pelagians, they still believed that in- fants should be baptized in order to sanctification in Cbxist. Augustin, in the same work, lib. 1. de pec. merit, ef remis. c. 26. says, Parvulos baptizandos esse Pelagiani concedunt, qui contra authoritatem universae ecclesie prescripti nibus adversus Hereticos^ lib. cap, 40, are not precisely, nor even justly stated. The first is as follows: "But, truly, nations utterly destitute of the knowledge of spiritual things, confer authority upon their idols by a similar agency, but deceive themselves by inefficient waters. For, indeed, the candidates are initiated into the mysteries of a certain Isis and Mithras by baptism; and farther, they put honour upon their deities themselves by washings done also on them.* Besides, while they every where expiate the villas, houses, temples, and whole cities by the sprinkling of water carried round about them, they never fail being baptized for the Appollonarian and Pelusian games. And this they presume is to effect their personal rege- neration and the remission of their perjuries. Also among the ancients every one who had stained himself * That is, they lustrate or baptize the images of their gods; thus, as Ovid, Fast. 4, and Lucan. Pharsai. 1. declare, the lavation or baptism of Cybele, mother of gods, was celebrated in the river Almo, vi Kal. April. Vide Ix)mieri De lust. Vet. Gent. Syntag. 0.26. 119 with murder expiated himself with purifying water. If therefore they flatter themselves with mere natural water, as presenting a fit material for the desired fact of moral cleansing; how much more truly do waters pro- duce that effect by the authority of God, from whom the entire nature of these waters has been derived? If by religion they apprehend virtue to be infused into water, what religion can be more powerful in effecting this than that of the living God? — which fact, being acknowledged, we here recognize the care of the devil xo imitate the things of God, when he also institutes a baptism for his followers."* In the other passage, Tertullian speaks very much after tlie same manner; observing that, with a view to subvert truth, the devil, in the mysteries of idols, apes the things done in the celebration of the divine sacraments. " He also," says this Father, " baptizes certain persons as being his be- lieving faithful ones; engages to them in baptism the remission of their sins; and after this manner he does to this very time initiate candidates into the mysteries of Mithras," &c. After proceeding in the detail of other particulars of resemblance between the idolatrous rites and those deemed by him divinely instituted, he sket- ches rapidly and elegantly the institutions of Numa, and then asks " whether the devil has not obviously * Sed enim nationes extranet ab omni intellectu spiritalium po-- testatem eadem efficacia idolis suis subministrant, sed viduis aquis sibi mentiuntur. Nam et sacris quibusdam per lavacrum initiantur, Isidis alicujus, aut Mithrje, ipsos etiam Deos suos lavationibus efterrunt. Ceterum villas, domos, templa, totasque urbes asper- gine circutnlats aquae expiant passim, certe ludis Apollinaribus et Pelusiis tinguuntur. Idque se in regenerationem et impunitatem perjuriorum suorum agere prxsumunt. Item penes veteres quis- quis se homocidio infecerat, purgatrice aqua se expiabat. Igitur si de sola naturae aqua, quod propria materia sit adlegendi auspicii emundationis, blandiuntur, quanto id verius aquae praestabunt per Dei auctoritatem, a quo oranis natura earum constituta est? Si religione aquam medicari putant, quae potior religio quam Dei vivi? quo agnito hie quoque studium diaboli recognoscimus res Dei emulantis, cum et ipeo. baptismum in suis cxcrcet. Tertull. de Baptismo liber cap. 5. 1^0 imitated tlie austerity of the Jewish law?" And this done, conckides that it is probable in the whole dispo- sition of the idolatrous worship, the devil designed to imitate the things observed in the administration of the divine sacraments.* Thus Tertullian — and really, after examining him with some care, I am unable to see in him any thing like teaching that satan inspired the ancient Pagans to administer a mock baptism in order to render inef- fectual that baptism -which he foresaw Jesus would institute! Indeed the historian shocks me! Be- hold this son of Socinus, whose theory degrades the Blessed Jesus to a mere man, confer upon satan the di- vine atiribute of prescience! For when his infernal ma- jesty instituted the initiatory and expiatory baptisms of the Egyptian Isis and the Persian Mithras, of Apollo at Butum, andof Bubastis at Pelusium (which fact took place some centuries before Christ) he foresaw, it seems, what that baptism would be which Jesus would institute. And then the invention of this mock bap- tism among Pagans was, our author informs us, at the inspiration of the devil; which is an additional homage to the divine powers of the prince of Erebus! Yet how was it a mock baptism, if its prototype was given by the inspiration of his satanic majesty? — The devil's baptism, according to the implication here, was the original, and Chrisfs — I tremble to proceed — was the mock baptism! Tell me, reader, was it strange this man loved the * Sed quxrilur a quo intellectus interpretetur, eorum quas ad hsereses faciant? a diabolo, scilicet, cujus sunt partes interveriendi veritalem qui ipsas quoque res sacramentorum divinorum, in ido- lorum mysteriis emulatur. Tinguit et ipse quosdam utique creden- tes et fideles suos: expiationem delictorum de lavacro repromittit, et sic adhuc iniiiat Mithi-x, Sec. nonne manifeste diabolus morosita- tem illam Judaicx le|:^is imitatus est? Qui ergo ipsas res de quibus sacramenta Christi administrantur, tarn emulanter affectavit expri- tnere in negotiis idolatiiae, &:c, Tertul. De prxscvipt. adv. Heret Lib. c. 40,'' 121 Manicheans? But no; it is shocking as it is false, though Mr. Robinson or an Apion, or an infidel Paine, preach it, that Christ and his apostles, or even the Jews, were the miserable copyists of the order and con- stitution of Gentile worship. This detestible hypo- thesis has received an everlasting check from the learned and eloquent pens of Josephus, Spencer, Wit- sius, Basnage, Lomeier, Bryant, and Maurice, who have put it b-^yond all reasonable doubt that the whole heathen world, the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Bramins, derived originally their sacred usages, and baptism as well as others, from the same source with the Hebrews. This is the very doctrine expressed by TertuUian in the forecited passages, where he alleges that the rehgious customs, and particularly the bap- tism of the Gentiles, were imitations of those they saw practised among Jcavs and Christians. Justin Martyr delivers the same opinion in his first apology for Christians, where he says, " The daemons had learned that very baptism from the prophets; in as much as they have it so arranged that they who go to the tem- ples should sprinkle themselves before they can offer them sweet odours and libations, or also that they wash themselves all over in water ere they approach the shrines. And since the priests command the vota- ries to enter stripped of their sandals on account of the sacredness of the place, these Genii do in fact imitate that which they know to have happened to Moses."* And Clemens Alexandrinus, in a passage which I will quote presently for another purpose, speaking of the Gentile washings before praying and sacrificing, says, " And truly this may be the very image of the bap- * K«< TO Xovrpov d» tSts UKtvi9.^Hv itti rx npx iv^x t^pvylxty UzpyiTi. At yxp to VTroXveo-^xi mijSxtvevrxi toT? iipoTi, xut nroli avToTf rSi B-pri plications of water to the body w^anted the form of re- ligion to constitute them proper baptisms; which fact leaves this obvious inference, that, in his estimation, if these applications had been religiously made they would have been truly valid baptisms. Let it also be borne in memory, that this Father, in speaking of the initiatory baptisms of the Pagans, which consisted of both sprink- lings and immersions, uses the words by which the Christian baptism is frequently expressed, viz. *' tinguo'' and " lavacrum,^'' and that he classes the washing of ima- ges, which was performed either by affusion or immer- sion, nay the sprinkling of houses and temples, with the other baptisms of Pagan antiquity: all which facts prove that he considered any religious application of water a baptism; and moreover, that in the second century the words by which the Christian baptism is expressed were applied in the precise sense which ^ve no^v contend they should be. I will also wait to lay before the reader a passage from Clement Alexandrinus, who was so entirely con- 132 temporary \vith Tertullian that tliey both died in the same }^ear, 220. Speaking of the washing of the hands and the feet among the Pagans before praying and sa- crificing, he says, " Thus, they say, it behoves them, having been washed, to approach the sacrifices and prayers with purity and neatness; and this, indeed, should happen on account of the symbol itself, which requires the worshipper to be externally ornate and pure. For, indeed, purity is the prerequisite for relish- ing holy things. And this, indeed, it would seem, is tlie image of baptism rvfuch from Moses has been hand- ed doxvn by the poets after this manner, Penelope ' In waters washed and clad in vestments pure' goes forth to prayer, but Telemachus ' Laving his hands in the grey sea to Pallas prayed.' And this custom was so scrupulously pursued by the Jews that they would often be so baptized in bed.''^^ Here washing the hands before praying and sacrific- ing is expressly, and by its appropriate Greek name, called a baptism; and what is still more remarkable, nay important in this controversy, we are told the Jews were in the habit of being thus baptized in bed, that is, washing their hands before they prayed. So that Cle- ment Alexandrinus not only understood that a partial Vi^ashing could be a baptism, but also that washing a part of the body is the baptism of the person. The Jews were often baptized in bed! How deci- sive is this citation against the interpretation of the words BocTTTi^o} and BoiTTTio-^w* by Baptist writers, against * Clemens Alex. lib. 4. strom. ravTvi toi M>^<^v/i*ivovi ) Kxi n imcov rov /ixsriic^uxTOi s'oj eiv xxi it Ik Muw TiMi TTx^xoe^of^'iVYi ro7i iirXirjTXii uo-zrui '\l "h'v^^i'ixi^'im KxSx^x y^^ot '//xxT i^ovcrx it -rrcveXcTTTi Itti rnv Ivy^nv i^x^r»i TviX'i/^xx,9( Si ificf TeuT» lovidiMv ai kxi to TroWccKig tTri xoirn /3x7rTiC^t76».i, 133 tlieir exposition of Mark vii. 4 and 8. and against their unfounded assertions that the ancient Fathers always used the words baptize and baptism to denote the im- mersion of the whole body. I cannot proceed farther in this review without first noticingan important concession of Tertullian respecting the mode of baptism most commonly practised in his day, namely, trine immersion. In his book De corona Militis, cap. 3. he defends the practice of wearing the military crown on the principle of custom, which he contends must have emanated from tradition. In enume- rating various usages then existing in the church, which were not to be vindicated by scripture but on the prin- ciple thus assumed, he begins with baptism as then most commonly administered.*' " That I may, there- fore, begin with baptism: When about to proceed to water, we then, and indeed somewhat sooner in the church beneath the hand of the bishop [or president], call heaven and earth to witness that we renounce the devil, his pomp and angels. Then xve are dipped three times^ ajisxvering something more thaii our Lord has * Denique ut a baptismate ingrediar, Aquam adituri, ibidem sed et aliquanto prius in Ecclesia sub aniisiitis manu coniestamur nos renunciai^ diabolo, et pompic et angilis ejus. Dehinc ter mergitamur, am\5lius aliquid respondentes, quam Dominusinin ev- angelio determinavit. Inde suscepti, lacds et mellis concordiam praegustamus. Exque ea die, lavacio quolidiano per totam hebdo- madam abstinemus. Eucharisiii'e sacramentum et in tempore vic- tus, el omnibus mandatum a Domino, etiam antelucanis ccetibus, nee de aliorum manu quam prxsidentium sumimus. Oblationes pro defunctis, pro nataliuis, annua die facimus. Die Dominico je- junium nefas ducimus, vel de geniculis adorare. Eadem immuni- tate a die Paschae in Pentecosten usque gaudemus. Calicis am Panis etiam nostri, aliquid decuti in terram anxie patimur. Ad om- nem progressuni, atque promotum, ad omnem aditum, et exitum, adveslitum, etcalceatuin, adlavacra, admensas, ad lumind, ad cubi- lia, ad sedilia quacunque nos conversatio exercet, frontem crucis signaculo terimus. Harum et aliarum ejusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostulas scripturarum, nullam invenies: traditio iibi prsetendetur auctrix, nonsuetudo confirmatrix et fides obseivatrix. TertuUiani De Corona Militis Liber cap. iii. iv. j34 determined ifi the gospel. Then having been taken up out of the water we partake of a mixture of milk and honey. And from that day abstain through a whole week from the daily bath. The sacrament of the eu- charist, which our Lord celebrated at meal time, and ordered all to take, we receive in assemblies before day, and never but from the pastors [or presiding bi- shops]. We give oblations every year Jbr, that is in commemoration of^ the dead on the day of their mar- tyrdom. We deem it unlawful either to observe a fast or to pray in the posture of kneeling on the Lord's day. The same festive immunity we assume from Easter to Pentecost. We are deeply wounded if any of our bread or wine fall to the ground. At every undertaking or entrance upon business, at every coming in or going out, at dressing and putting on our sandals, at going into baths, at table, at the lighting of candles, at going to bed, at taking our seats, and whatever business oc- cupies our attention, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross. If you demand the scriptural law authorizing these and other such like usages, you will iind none. Tradition will be presented as t\\t founder y custom the confirmer, and faith as the observer of them all." From this document it is safely inferrible, that though the practice of baptizing in the mode of three dippings was the most common one at Carthage, in the time of Tertullian, yet that there was not then set up even the slightest pretence to any thing like scriptural authority for the practice of immer- sion, or any other part of the existing order of bap- tism; as the goi?ig to the water, renouncing the devil under the imposed hands of the bishop, taking the milk and honey, and the abstaining from the daily bath for a week; all these being considered as standing upon the same ground with taking the eucharist before day^ oblations for the dead, and marking the forehead with the sign of the cross. Supposed tradition, is the only 135 authcwity assigned for the practice of dipping by a man of as much eloquence and learning as Tertullian.* Such is the worthy origin of immersion, such the mighty proof ^ by which we are to be persuaded that this was the primitive mode of baptizing! Ascending a little farther from the apostolic age it will be found that, though partial baptism by affusion still holds its gi'ound as to validity in general estimation, still at Rome it is thrown into the back ground and even some objections begin to be opposed to it. In the year 25lNovatian was chosen bishop by a party of the clergy and people of Rome, in opposition to Cornelius who had been previously elected by the majority and was already ordained bishop of that church. Cornelius, in his letter to Fabius bishop of Antioch, offers a plea in favour of his own ordination that his competitor, Novatian, was incapable of holy orders by the exist- ing canon law, and consequently that his election and ordination to the office of bishop, being illegal, ought not to be sustained, and states as a reason " that all the clergy, and a great many of the laity, were against his being ordained presbyter, because it was not law- ful (they said,) for any one that had been baptized in his bed in time of sickness [tov h nhiv^ Sioi voo-ov Tre- ^<;^u6€i/Toc] as he had been, to be admitted to any office of the clergy."* The language used here as * I have said, " supfiosed tradition" for Tertullian does not even pretend there was a real or apostolical tradition for the observance of these superstitious usages: but from firevailing practice infers tradition as in the matter of the military crown, concerning which he remarks, hanc si nulla scriptura determinavit^ certe consuetjidt coTToboravit qiix sine dubio de traditione mana-uit. This is not like the solemn appeals made by the fathers to an actually existing tradition or order from the apostles to baptize infants as a matter of universal credit. * See Wall's history of Infant Baptism, pt. ii. ch. ix. § 2. Per- sons baptized in sickness being deemed not eligible to the ministe- rial office, was not because their baptism was thought invalid, but for another reason, which is stated in a canon of the council of Neoc?esarea, which sat about eighty years afterthis time: thus,"H<' 13b' well as that which occurs in another part of the letter of Cornelius, Iv uvr^ rji kKiv*! ^ iicuro TTi^iX^^ik-—^ " Perfused or sprinkled in the bed where he lay" — shows very clearly that the mode of applying the water in Novatian's baptism was pouring or sprinkling, and that the water could not have been applied to but a small part of the body. This baptism, though evi- dently subjected to some disadvantages and embar- rassments, was nevertheless considered valid; and as to its date, though it is not very certain when it happen- ed, yet it is plain that it must have been prior, by a number of years, to the competition for the bishopric at Rome. Mr. Wall places it at a. d. 220. In the year 230 Basilides, according to Eusebius, lib. G. c. 5. was baptized in prison, and consequently, on account of the extreme rigour with which prisoners were then kept, must have been baptized in the mode of affusion. Origen, who was born a. d. 185 and died 254, speaks of both modes as being indifferently used'by the church in his time, and does not even hint at the existence of any thing like an objection to the mode of baptizing by affusion.* But soon after this period serious scruples were ex- pressed relative to this mode of baptizing; for in 255 a person named Magnus writes to Cyprian proposing that is baptized when he is sick ought not to be made a priest (for his coming to faith is not voluntary, but from necessity) unless iiis diligence and faith do afterwai'd prove commendable, or the scarci- ty of men fit for the office do require it." * Origines lib. 2. dc principiis: Salutaris, inquit baptismus non aliternisi excellentissimx omni trinitatis autoritate, id est, Patri et filii et Spiritus sancti cognominatione completur. Mersionem sen abliUionem illam seqiiebatur unctio et manus iniposido, Sec. Quin et in carcere baptizare recens converses, receptum fuisse videuu". ettestatur exemplum de Basilide curnifice, qui inter sup- plicia Povvtamixnae, Alexandrinx puellae nobilis, qus sub Severo martyrio perfuncia est, conversus, ac christianum se max confes- sus, in carccrem abreptus, ibique a fratribus baptizatus est: refert Euisebiuslib. 6. capite quinto. Hist. Eccles. Magdthurgens. Cent III. cap. vi. 131 the question directly, whether persons - who had been baptized on a sick bed ought to be baptized again sliould they happen to recover. Cyprian answers, " You inquire, dear son, what I think of such as ob- tain THE GRACE iu time of their sickness and infirm- ity, whether they are to be accounted lawful Christians: because they are not washed all over with the water of salvation; hut have only some of it poured on them. In which matter I would use so much modesty and humility as not to prescribe so positively but that every one should have the freedom of his own thought, and do as he thinks best. I do according to the best of my mean capacity judge thus; that the divine favours are not maimed or weakened, so as that any thing less than the whole of them is conveyed, where the benefit of them is received with a full and complete faith both of the giver and receiver. For the contagion of sin is not in the sacrament of salvation, washed off, by the same measures that the dust of the skin and of the body is washed off in an ordinary and secular bath, so as that there should be any necessity of soap and other helps, and a large pool or fish pond by which the body is washed or cleansed. It is in another way that the breast of a believer is washed; after another fashion that the mind of a man is cleansed by faith. In the sacraments of salvation, when necessity compels, the shortest ways of transacting divine matters do, by God's gracious dispensation, confer the whole benefit. And no man need therefore think otherwise, because these sick people when they receive the grace of our Lord have nothing but an affusion or sprinkling; when as the holy scripture by the prophet Ezekial says, " / will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall he clean. ''^^ " Also it is said, That soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of aspersion has not been sprinkled upon him." Again, The Lord said * Ezek. xxxvi. 25. 13S unto Moses, Take the Levites and cleanse them; sprinkle water of purifying upon them. And again, The water of aspersion is purification.* From whence it appears that sprinkling is sufficient^ instead of im- mersion; and whensoever it is done, if there be a sound faith, it is perfect and complete. If any one think that they obtain no benefit, as having only an affusion of the water of salvation, do not let him mistake so far, as that the parties, if they recover of their sickness, should be baptized again. And if they must not be baptized again, that have already been sanctified with the baptism of the church, why should they have cause of scandal given them concerning their religion and the pardon of our Lord? What! shall we think that they have granted to them the grace of our Lord, but in a weaker or less measure of tlie Divine and Holy Spirit: so as to be accountedChristians, but yet not an equal state with others? No: the Holy Spirit, is not given by several measures, but is wholly poured upon them that believe," &c. He afterwards, in the course of his argument, asks, *' Can any one think it reasonable that so much honour should be showed to the heretics, that such as come from them should never be asked whether they had a rvashing all over or onlt/ an affusion oj^ water; and yet among us any should detract from the truth and anti- quity of faith? "t An instance of partial washing or affusion is re- lated in the acts of St. Lawrence, who suffered martyr- dom about the same time with Cyprian, namely, 258. It is of this nature: One of the soldiers who Avere ap- pointed to be his executioners, having become a con- vert to Christianity, " brought a pitcher of water for Laxurence to baptize him with.'''' These acts in their present form ai'e far from being incorrupt, containing, as it is allowed, many interpola- tions and fabulous statements. This concession, how- * Numb. viii. 6, 7. t Cypiiani. Epist. 9. 116 ever, does not affect the credibility of the fact just re- lated, because, says Mr. Wail, '* This passage seems to be genuine, because it is cited by Walafridus Strabo (De rebus Ecclesiast. c. 26.) who lived before those times in which most of the lioman forgeries were add- ed to the histories of their saints."* In the fifth century, immersion or sprinkling is men- tioned as matter of indifference by Gennadius of Mar- seilles. Having stated the following opinion, " We be- lieve the way of salvation to be open only to baptized persons; we believe that no catechuman, though he die in his good works, has eternal life" — he subjoins, " except the case of martyrdom, in which all the sa- craments of baptism are completed." To explain this exception he observes, " The person to be baptized owns his faith before the priest: and when the interroga- tories are put to him, makes his answer. The same does a martyr before the Heathen judge: he also owns his faith, and when the question is put to him, makes answer. The one after his confession is either wetted ■with the water, or else plunged into it: and the other is either wetted with his own blood, or else is plunged [or overwhelmed] injire.^'''\ In 1255 Thomas Aquinas speaks thus: "Baptism may be given not only by immersion, but also by affu- sion of water or sprinkling with it. But it is the saier way to baptize by immersion, because that is the most common custom."! At the same period, as reported by Mr. Wall, Bonaventure, says that, " the way of affusion xuas probably used by the apostles, and was in his time used in the churches of France afid so?ne others; but he says the way of dipping into the water is the more common, and the fitter, and the safer. "^ * Hist. In. Bapt. pt. 2. chap, ix .§ 2. Walafridus Strabo floarish- ed about the middle of the 9tli century. t De Eccl. dogmatibus. c. 74. as cited by Mr, Wall, Hist. Inf. Bapt. pt. 2.ch. 9. §2. i 3 qu. 66. art. 7. cited by Wall ubi ut supra. § Hist. In. Bap. ubi ut supra. 140 The synod of Anglers, 1275, while they pronounce either dipping K)r pouring indifferent and censure some ignorant priests for using but a single immersion or affusion in the act of baptizing, declare, that it was the general practice of the church at that time to dip or pour on water three times. In a council held at Ravenna, a. d. 1311, either mode of baptizing was declared to be lawful; and in 1380 the famous reformer, Wicklifle, declares a similar judgment. " Nor is it material," says he, " they be dipped once or thrice, or -water he poured on their heads, but it must be done according to the custom of the place where one dwells." The synod of Langres in 1404, mention the mode of pouring and none other. " Let the priest," say they, " make three pourings or sprink- lings of water on the infanfs head.'''' In 1536 the Dutvh baptized infants by pouring and the English by immersion, as it is stated by Erasmus in a marginal note on the 76th Epistle of Cyprian, where he remarks Perfunduntur apud nos, merguntur apud .4nglos. " With us (in Holland) they have the water poured on them; in England they are dipped." In the synod of Aix in 1585, either mode is spoken of as indifferent; " Pouring or dippings as the use of the church isy'^ and it is there ordered that the " pouring of the water be not done with the hand, but with a ladle or vessel kept in the font for that purpose."* The very important details and documents thus pre- sented to the reader will permit the introduction of some general remarks and inferences. 1. It is an obvious deduction from the foregoing facts, that difficulties, embarrassments, and objections against pouring or sprinkling, appear to have gained ground, in most countries, from the time of Tertul- lian and Origen down to that of Wickliffe the famous rector of Lutterworth. Immersion appears to have been the most revered as well as the most commonly * See Mr. Wall's Kist. Inf. Bap. ubi ut supra. 141 ])ractised mode of baptizing for many centuries; affu- sion or sprinkling in baptism is, for the most parr, con- fined to jails and the beds of the sick or dying. Almost the only exception to this remark was the practice of the churches in France, and perhaps that of the churches of Holland might also be considered as one. The French churches, though they appear to have to- lerated immersion, have from the most ancient period to which we can recur in their history, always retained the primitive mode. Mr. Wail, who Vv-as partial to dipping, though he contends for the other as being en- tirely sufficient, remarks that" Gennadius of Marseilles is the first author that speaks of it" (the mode of -bap- tism) *' as indifferent;" but in this that very accurate and learned historian was evidently mistaken. For, be- sides the fact of Jew's baptism, both Tertullian and Origen not only never object to baptism in the mode of affusion, but possitively declare, as has been already stated, the divine benejit to be secure to those who re- ceive baptism in either mode. The earliest objections, or rather scruples, to pouring or sprinkling any where to be met with on the page of history, may be dated somewhere about the middle of the third century. So that Gennadius speaks of baptism entirely in the style of the second and the beginning of the third century, when he calls it a wetting of the body like the sprink- ling of the martyr's blood, or a being plunged as the martyr was when immersed in flame. Indeed it would be easy to produce passages from Tertullian and Origeu precisely similar, were it necessary after w^hat has been already introduced to the notice of the reader. But I am happy to find myself supported in stating tliis fact by the learned Kromayer, professor of theo- logy in the academy of Leipsic, in his Ecclesia in Po- litia; who asserts that during the second century the convert to Christianity " received baptism either in the 142 mode of immersion, or sprinkling of water; both of which modes obtained at that period."* Gennadius and his countrymen had escaped, in some good degree, the rage for dippings which had been gradually gaining ground and extending its claims to precedence; for more than two centuries it had almost every where else proscribed baptism by affusion, except in cases of necessity. In France and some other places, this same mode had been observed, time immemorial; through the whole progression of ecclesiastical affairs it always maintained an equality with immersion, and ultimately was permitted to plead its claims to truth and primitive character so powerfully as to receive the approbation and adoption of a considerable proportion of the western church. The fact of pouring or sprinkling water on baptized persons being a thing so well known in the churches of France and some others, forcibly struck the mind of Bonaventure and induced him to think it was the mode of baptism observed by the apostles. Indeed no conclusion can be more just than this. For, to say no- thing of the powerful scriptural pleas by which affu- sion or sprinkling is supported, nor yet to plead the judgment of the bishop and church of Alexandria which goes far to prove that sprinkling was the custo- mary mode in the beginning of the second century, the very manner in which immersion obtained footing should lead every person to consider it as a suspicious visitant, if not an intruder. The very first glimpse we get of the thing is in company with various other super- stitious usages; such as fastings, kneelings, watchings, impositions of hands, andspecial renunciations of the de- vil before baptism; set times for administering that ordin- * Si quis adultus vel ex Judaismo, vel Ethnicisnio ad christian- ismum accessisset, prius in doctrina Christiana erudiebatur, et tunc praemissisjejuniis,et prccibuseius,qui;i)aptizanduserat,baptismunfi vel immei'sione, vel aspersione aquae (uterque enim ritus tunc obtine bat) accipiebat. Kromayeri Pol. in Eccles — Stat. Eccl. sub cent. ii. p. 90. 143 ance, as at Easter and Whitsuntide; and after it, the tasting the milk and honey, abstinence from the daily bath; and all those grouped with a tribe of kindred ceremonies, such as the military crown, oblations for the dead, and the sign of the cross. At first she is com- plaisant and polite to her rival, baptism by affusion^ but at length the last is, in most places, driven out of doors altogether, and packed off a begging for an ambiguous standing, a precarious refuge in hospitals, prisons and houses of mourning. And is not this the usual progress of every usurper? First equality only is claimed, next precedence, and last of all domination. Add to this the facilities which existed for the introduction of immersion. The Jews were passionately and superstitiously addicted to dip- ping; the people in those southern countries were in the habit of going into the baths daily, wherever it was practicable; and, above all, immersion fell in exactly with that superstitious veneration for the waters of bap- tism which is so very remarkable in TertuUian and most of the Fathers. The early and powerful operations of Jewish habits is well known to every person who has read the New Testament, and every one knows and acknowledges the excessive and per- tinacious fondness of Jews for dipping for some time before as well as after the Christian era. The person must be dipped; yes, dipped all over; if so much as a finger were undipped the immersion was incomplete and the person remained unclean. Was it strange^ then, that such persons, embracing Christianity, should easily drop into the practice of immersion? No caicu- tion can be more rational! But there is a well known fact which very much strengthens this inference. That Jewish dipping was the rage of early times appears from this, that a number of sectaries seem to have been impelled by it to more than Pharasaic extrava- gance. Not to mention the Nazarenes and some other secta 144 lies who were sufficiently attached to immersion, I will notice only the Ebionites and Sampsseans or Elce- saites. Epiphaniiis says concerning the former, " The Ebionites revere ivater as a God. They constantly wash (baptize) themselves in water, in winter as well as in summer, for the sake of purification, in the same man- ner as the Samaritans."* And concerning the latter the same author remarks, " They have a great venera- tion for water. For they almost account it a God, as- serting that it is the source of life." f This was push- ing the passion for water to its proper extent, to be sure; and sliows the melancholy length to which the human mind may be driven by laying too much stress upon an outward rite. Though the Christian Fathers, and with them the Catholic church, may not be charge- able with so blasphemous a deification of water, yet it must be allowed that even ^6"?/ pushed their veneration for water sufficiently far; when they conceived that the baptismal ^\■aters had something divine in them; that the Holy Ghost., as they believed, descending upon them like a dove., and comrnunicating to them a Jieavenly in- jiuence thus regenerated and saved the soul. Now, when it is considered that the primitive Christians were much addicted to bathing in common life; that many of those had strong predilections for Jewish customs, and others were easily overcome b}' the infiuence of intercourse and example, and, above all, that thc)^ very soon l^egan to entertain a fond and highly extravagant reverence for water, it will not be surprising that immersion was generally introduced, or that by the time of Tertullian the practice should have become almost universally prevalent in the Catholic church, or that it should so long and so generally have T£ KCH p/fi^»V!>5, m «yv<«rjtt£V Or,itt^ CCTTfl^ Ct S«/*«gi(T««. OpCl^. VOi. J. p. 53. cued by Dr. Jamieson Vind. vol, ii. b. v. seel. iii. fii itvcn r/iv tortis ix Tet-Ti>'. lloer. 58. p. 461. as cited by Di'. .Tarme- son. jImcI. 145 held a decided superiority over the opposite mode of baptism. In one word, while the primitive mode would seem to have been that of affusion, the mode of baptizing by- plunging the whole body under water has no well de- fined examples to support it in the history of the church in the first ages, unless it should be those of Jews, Nazarenes, Ebionites and Sampsaeans; and in modern times comparatively few; for some of the Anabaptists have all along, and do even now, contend for sprinkling. 2. The foregoing facts make another inference equal- ly clear, that the practice of immersion has not been so generally observed in the church as has been sup- posed. Throughout the whole kingdom of France, most probably in Holland and in some other places re- ferred to, but not particularly named by Bonaventure, affusion or sprinkling was quite as much used as im- mersion, if not more so. It appears, also, from the passage produced out of Cyprian's letter to Magnus, that several sects of Christians, not in communion with the Catholic church, were in the habit of baptizing by pouring or sprinkling. When it is said, therefore, by Baptist writers, and others who J have a predilection for baptizing by immersion, that the whole Christian church, for thirteen hundred years, understood baptism to be immersion and practised in conformity to that opinion, the position is not true, and conse- quently the argument which is built upon it, namely, that immersion must therefore have been the primitive mode of baptizing, falls to the ground. All Christians, whose practice has been attended to in this controversy, did not practise immersion; but many of them prac- tised just the contrarv, or deemed it quite immaterial what mode was practised. Even some sects of the Anti- pedobaptists, it is well known, advocate sprinkling, and the Greek church, of whose immersion Baptists speak so confidently, did not always dip the whole body, but a part of it only, and they, as well as other churches T 146 where immersion was the prevailing practice, admitted baptism by pouring or sprinkhng as a vaUd mode of baptizing, though allowed only in cases of necessity. This appears from the detailed view of their doctrines and religious rites which was penned by an archbishop of their own and published afterwards by Kromayer. They dipped infants up to the breast only in water when they baptized them, and considered 0<*7rT«^g