V.

bulls, and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling SECT. the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, &c. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people, according to the law, he took the blood of calves, and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people. Moreover, he sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.' If the Apostle understood his own meaning, then, it is manifest that in speaking of divers baptisms,' he had a principal reference to the application of blood and of water by sprinkling."

But unhappily for Dr. M., the term used in every instance he alludes to is rantizo, NOT baptizo. Now if baptizo means a ceremonial cleansing by sprinkling, why was not that word used? Dr. M. knows there were immersions and there were sprinklings in the Jewish ceremonies, and that rantizo is never applied to immersions, nor baptizo to sprinklings.

SECTION V.

METAPHORICAL USE OF BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

cal use.

ALTHOUGH, as it has been previously observed, the Metaphorifigurative use of any term can never define its literal meaning; yet it may be well to show, even if it were otherwise, how utterly hopeless is the task of gathering aid in favour of sprinkling even from this source.-' -There are several cases in the New Testament in which the term

is used figuratively. First, that of our Lord's reference

I.

CHAP. to his sufferings, in his conversation with the two disciples who sought a promise of a seat next his person in Baptism of his glorious kingdom;. " Are ye able to be baptized with sufferings. Matt. xx. 22. the baptism that I am baptized with?" asks our Lord; Mark x. 38, and the same expression occurs Luke xii. 50, “I have a

39.

John i. 26. 1 Cor. xii. 13.

baptism to be baptized with, and how am 1 straitened till it be accomplished." No lover of Jesus can bear to think of his being sprinkled with a few drops of suffering! All who know his history, perceive that he was immersed in suffering, but sustained by divine power, did not sink in the deep sea of trouble. The term overwhelmed, it is true, is equally applicable; and as a figurative meaning of baptism I have no objection to admit its propriety.

Baptism of The second case is the declaration of the forerunner of the Spirit. Matt. iii. 11. our Lord, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost Mark i. 8. and with fire." The passage in which Paul says, "Baptized by one spirit into one body," is presumed by Campbell and others to have the same reference: that of the miraculous influences of the Holy Spirit, communicated at the day of pentecost, and on other seasons. The abounding and overwhelming character of these influences is evidently the idea of John, and which we find fully to accord with the actual fact. Under this very prediction Acts i. 4, 5. of John, enforced upon their attention by our Saviour,

they assembled themselves together, waiting for the penActs ii. 3, 4. tecostal day, when "there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost;"-the baptism of the Holy Ghost. If we may speak with strict propriety of the overwhelming

a "I have indeed a most dreadful baptism to be baptized with, and know that I shall shortly be bathed, as it were, in blood, and plunged in the most overwhelming distress."-Doddridge, on Luke xii. 50.

influence of a torrent of eloquence, of how much more overwhelming a character was this wondrous communication of the gift of tongues! and what term could be more appropriate than that of baptism? If a figurative expression must be further dissected to search after sprinkling or pouring, the idea is clearly, not that each apostle was filled by an individual pouring; but that like the "sound," as of a mighty wind, which "filled the room," so was the room filled with the Spirit; so that all the disciples were immersed in it, as we are constantly immersed in the air which we breathe.b

SECT.

V.

unto Moses.

The last instance, one which has been quite a favour- Baptized ite with the advocates of sprinkling is, Paul's allusion to the passage of the Red Sea: "all baptized unto Moses 1 Cor. x. 2. in the cloud and in the sea." Macknight says, in his note on this text: "Because the Israelites, being hid from the Egyptians under the cloud, and by passing through the Red Sea, were made to declare their belief in the Lord, and in his servant Moses,' Exod. xiv. 31, the Apostle very properly represents them as baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea."-All the efforts podobaptists have made have not been able to draw rain from this cloud. The noble column which was a cloud of fire by night, and of shade by day, rode triumphantly in the heavens, for other and higher purposes than that of affording a last hope to the advocates of sprinkling. It was the separating effect of the cloud, and the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, which divided Israel from the Egyptians, and designated

b Cyril of Jerusalem makes baptism an emblem of the Holy Ghost's effusion upon the Apostles; "for as he that goes down into the water and is baptized, and surrounded on all sides by the water, so the Apostles were baptized all over by the Spirit; the water sur. rounds the body externally, but the Spirit incomprehensibly baptizes the interior soul."-Chrys. Hom. xi. 1 Cor. p. 681.

I.

CHAP. them before all nations as God's chosen people, in its analogy to baptism, which, in like manner, separates the church from the world, and designates it as God's spiritual Israel, that the Apostle, in the early part of this chapter, seeks to enforce; and then, at the sixteenth verse, takes up the other ordinance, the Lord's Supper, for the same high object. It is the moral effect, therefore, rather than the physical act of baptism, that is here referred to and instead of affording the least pretence for sprinkling infants, it proves satisfactorily that, being as yet no part of the spiritual Israel, it is a grievous perversion of the ordinance to administer baptism to them even by immersion.

SECTION VI.

Other terms employed.

MEANING OF BAPTIZO CONTRASTED WITH OTHER TERMS
RELATING TO THE USE OF WATER.

It would be some slight argument in proof that baptizo might be considered as a term open to variety of meaning, if a more specific term had been in use, and yet had not been employed; but the reverse is the fact. There is a term in Greek that refers to washing, whether by dipping or any other mode, but that term is louo, NOT baptizo: had it been the design of Christ to leave the mode as a matter of indifference, louo would surely have been employed. Even that term, however, would not have justified sprinkling.

For the satisfaction of all desirous to be assured of the

"These things, which we have stated respecting mortification and ablution, were adumbrated in the people of Israel, whom, on this account, the Apostle declares to have been baptized in the cloud and the sca.'"-Calvin's Institutes, vol. ii. p. 427.

·

true meaning of baptizo, the other Greek words relating SECT.

to the use of water are now presented.

1. Louo, to wash the person of an individual.

2. Pluno, to scour or wash his clothes.

VI.

λουο.

πλυνο.

νιπτω.

3. Nipto, to rinse his hands, face, or feet.

4. Ekkeo, to pour upon him water or oil, as they did xx. when they anointed their priests, &c.

5. Ballo, (among other meanings,) to pour out rapidly, Baraw. as water from a ewer or pitcher.

6. Breko, to wet, moisten, rain, cause to send rain. βρεχω. 7. Rantizo, to sprinkle water, &c.

ραντίζω.

The first of these words, louo, occurs in John xiii. 10, λouw. in contrast with nipto, “He that is washed needeth not oμevos. save to wash his feet." The second time it is used in vinodav. the New Testament, is respecting the washing the corpse of Dorcas; the third in happy contrast to baptizo-" and he took them that same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized." If the hour. jailer was washed by Paul as he had washed the stripes εβαπτίσθη. of Paul, we should have found the same word used in both cases. The same contrast is seen in the passage, "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." Acts xxii. "Arise, and be washed, and wash away thy sins!" say podobaptists; "Arise, and be purified, and wash away thy sins!" says Mr. Beecher. An absurd tautology

exists in the case of either of these mistranslations. "Arise, and be immersed, and wash away thy sins," is the only sense the passage can bear, in accordance with the first principles of the use of language. Louo also occurs in contrast with rantizo, Heb. x. 22, "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience;" "bodies washed with pure water:" in 2 Pet. ii. 22, "the sow that was washed;" and in Rev. i. 5, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood."

16.