How does this translate the word in question? Only and always by, which corresponds (in point of form) to the Hebrew, the Chaldee 72, and the same word in the Arabic. This is a very remarkable circumstance; for the Syriac has a word,, like the Chaldee and the corresponding Hebrew, which means to plunge, dip, immerse, etc. See in Mich. Syr. Lex. sub voce. Why should it employ the words then (i. e. 12), in order to render pantis? In the Old Testament it is employed in the like sense, only in Num. 31:34. Elsewhere, the Hebrew is rendered . There is no analogy of kindred languages to support the sense in question of the Syriacas. The Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, all agree in assigning to the same word the sense of the Lat. stare, perstare, fulcire, roborare. It is hardly credible, that the Syriac word could vary so much from all these languages, as properly to mean, immerse, dip, etc.

We come almost necessarily to the conclusion, then, inasmuch as the Syriac has an appropriate word which signifies to dip, plunge, immerse (2), and yet it is never employed in the Peshito, that the translator did not deem it important to designate any particular mode of baptism, but only to designate the rite by a term which evidently appears to mean, confirm, establish, etc. Baptism, then, in the language of the Peshito, is the rite of confirmation simply, while the manner of this is apparently left without being at all expressed.

We now come, after these philological and historical investigations, to our main question.

§9. Importance of the Mode of Baptism.

V. Is any particular mode of applying water in Baptism, essential to the performance of this rite?

The advocates of immersion in the Oriental church, and elsewhere, sometimes make the appeal to the sixty millions of Christians, who, as they affirin, preserve this apostolic usage. But if an appeal to numbers be argument, what shall we say to one hundred and fifty millions, who practise sprinkling or affusion? Even the Roman Catholic church, jealous as she is of

ancient usages, and tenacious of that which the ancient fathers practised, retains immersion, as we have seen, only in the churches of Milan, and inhibits it elsewhere.

What do these facts shew? They prove, at least, a general conviction in the minds of Christians, that immersion is not essential, nor even important. I need not make the appeal to multitudes of writers, Catholic and Protestant, who have often and fully expressed this view of the subject. Calvin, Instit. IV. c. 15. 19, says: "It is of no consequence at all (minimum refert), whether the person baptized is totally immersed, or whether he is merely sprinkled by an affusion of water. This should be a matter of choice to the churches in different regions; although the word baptize signifies to immerse, and the rite of immersion was practised by the ancient church."

To this opinion I do most fully and heartily subscribe; not because it is Calvin's, nor because the great majority of Christians have adopted it. I have other, and I trust better, reasons than either of these; and it is proper that I should now give them.

1. The rite in question is merely external. I do not deny, that the grace of the Spirit may be given, when baptism is performed; but I feel myself authorized to say, that the rite itself does not sanctify; nor does the administration of it secure the sanctifying influences of the Spirit of God. The appeal in proof of this, is to the millions of cases in which baptism has been administered to persons, who have shewn themselves to be utterly destitute of sanctifying grace, by the whole tenor, from first to last, of their lives and conversation. It is not then the opus operatum, the rite itself as administered by any Christian minister, which sanctifies, or can sanctify, any individual. All that can with truth be said here, is, that this rite, like any other matter which concerns religious ordinances, may be used to a good purpose, or abused to a bad one.

Whenever an enlightened Christian wishes to make the inquiry, what is essential to his religion, should he not instinctively open his Bible at John iv, and there read thus: "Believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall worship the Father, neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem. . . . The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. GOD IS A SPIRIT, and they that worship him must worship him IN SPIRIT AND IN truth.

Here is the very foundation-principle of all Christian and all acceptable worship. God, who is himself a Spirit, requires the homage of our spirits. All else is nothing while this is withheld; and when this is given, all else is circumstance, not essence.

I need not stop to prove positions so plain and certain as these. But I may ask, Can the mode of baptism, which in itself is only an external rite, enter into the essentials of piety or true religion? The mere mode of an external rite essential to the Christian religion! Does not the question answer itself to every mind, that has not gone over into some degree of Pharisaic superstition?

2. But you will say, perhaps, that if the rite is to be performed at all, it must be performed in the manner which the New Testament enjoins. This leads me to my second remark, viz. That no injunction is any where given in the New Testament, respecting the manner in which this rite shall be performed.

If there be such a passage let it be produced, This cannot be done. But it will doubtless be said, that the manner of the rite is involved in the word itself which is used to designate it; and that therefore this is as much a matter of command as the rite itself.'

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To this I answer, that it would prove a great deal too much. may illustrate this by a case, which is of a parallel nature, and has respect to a rite of equal importance; I mean the Lord's Supper. The original institution of this rite took place at the last passover which Jesus and his disciples celebrated in Jerusalem. They were assembled in an upper room; Luke 22: 12. They reclined upon the usual sofa or triclinium, on which the ancients reposed at their meals; John 13: 23, 25. It was night when they kept the feast, John 13: 30. They kept it with unleavened bread, for no other was found in the houses of the Jews, at the feast of the passover; Ex. 12: 19. The wine which they drank, was that of Palestine, probably red wine. It was kept in leathern bottles, it was served in peculiar vessels. The bread was made in a certain particular fashion. The clothes of the guests were of a certain form. In a word, all the circumstances of the occasion were, in some respect or other, different from those which now accompany the administration of the Lord's Supper. Yet Jesus gave command respecting this ordinance in the following manner: THIS DO, in remembrance of me; Luke 22: 19, 20. 1 Cor. 11: 24, 25. VOL. III. No. 10.

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I ask now all the advocates for the literal sense of Barrisw, who urge upon the churches the original mode of this rite, why they do not urge upon them in the same manner, and for the same reason, the literal doing of what Christ commanded, as to the sacrament? Is that ordinance, which is a symbol of the blood of Jesus shed for the remission of sins-of that blood which taketh away 'sin and without which there is no salvation— is that ordinance of less significance and importance than the rite of baptism? This cannot be pretended. Why then do you not plead for its celebration by night; and this too in a reclining posture, in an upper chamber, with unleavened bread, with the dress, furniture, and attendance that originally were exhibited? You regard not one of all these circumstances; not even a single one. How then do you obey the command of Jesus, THIS DO in remembrance of me? According to the tenor of your own exegesis, you do not obey it; you cannot, while you do not literally imitate all these particulars.

But you say: I obey the substantial part of the command, viz. to partake of bread and wine, in grateful remembrance of the death of Christ; and this is all which the nature of the case seems to require. The symbol in question is really and truly exhibited, when I celebrate the Lord's supper in such a way that an appropriate meaning is really and truly given to it. The circumstances of place, time, position of the guests at the table, dress, furniture of the table and room, and other like things, are merely of a local and accidental nature. They cannot make an essential part of the symbolic representation; for this consists merely in using such elements of nourishment and refreshment for the body, as will significantly and appropriately symbolize the nourishment which he receives, who spiritually "eats the flesh and drinks the blood of the Son of man."

I accede to the correctness of this answer. It conveys a sentiment which seems spontaneously to commend itself to any one, who has enlightened and spiritual views of the Christian dispensation. I can go even beyond the tenor of this answer, and say, that in my apprehension, the sacrament would be really and truly observed, if those elements of nourishment for the body, which are the common and principal ones in any place, should be made use of in lieu of bread and wine, in case these could not be easily procured. The whole symbolic instruction conveyed by the ordinance of the Lord's supper is this: What food and drink, represented by the more important articles of

the samé, are to the body for its nourishment and support and comfort, that a crucified Saviour is to the soul, for its life and preservation and comfort. Could not the inhabitants of a country, then, to whom it might not be possible to procure wheatbread and wine when it was proper to celebrate the Lord's supper-might they not employ other aliments, which would symbolize the death of Christ, and the benefits of that death to the believer, with the like significancy? How can we doubt this, without adopting a principle, which must necessarily, if we are consistent with ourselves, make us the literal imitators of every thing, even of dress, furniture, etc. which existed in the apostolic ages.

Look at the case of Iceland, during that year in which the island remained, for the whole summer, enclosed in the floating ice that had been driven there from the polar sea, and no access from abroad to the island was possible, nor any egress from it. Might not the inhabitants of the island, reduced to live upon fish and water, have celebrated the Lord's Supper acceptably upon these elements? Would it not have been as monitory and significant to them, as bread and wine, and as acceptable to him who instituted the feast? The man who doubts this, must believe in the mysterious and miraculous virtue of the sacrament as an opus operatum. With such an one it is not my present purpose to contend. Christians, as I must think, have reason to bless God, that principles such as that man cherishes, are fast vanishing away before the spreading light of the Sun of Righteousness.

Let us return to the rite of baptism. What is it that it signifies? Purification is the answer; and this is the only scriptural and consistent answer that we can give. So Paul seems to teach us: "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water [baptism] by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish;" Eph. 5: 25-27. "According to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost," i. e. we are saved by that regeneration or sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God, of which the washing with water is an emblem or symbol; for evidently the language of Paul is borrowed from this. So again in Heb. 10: 22, "Let us draw near [to God] with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with