purification as an effect of fire, and not to a process of envelopment or immersion. He speaks of him who needs this baptism as coming to the fire, and of the fire as trying him, and finding wood, hay and stubble, and consuming them. This is purification. It is not immersion. In accordance with this, Basil says in another place, De Spirit, Sanct., Cap. 15, that this trial by fire at the judg. ment spoken of by Paul, in I. Cor. 3: 16, and just referred to by Origen, is the baptism of fire, to toũ пvgòs fázτioμa.

We will now call the attention of the learned Professor to a class of facts well adapted still more thoroughly to test his doctrine, that, to avoid an absurdity we must confine the sense of Barrigo to the process denoted by its primitive usage, and not use it to denote the effect purification.-§ 65, p. 200. Origen Homil, 2 on Jer., speaks of the happiness of the man who preserves the baptism of the Holy Spirit, δ τηρήσας το βάπτισμα του πνεύματος αγίου. In Homil. 7, on Judges, he says that few are so happy as to preserve it unspotted to the end of life. Is it necessary for us to say that the process denoted by the primitive sense of Bantico is not of a nature to be preserved at all? How can a man preserve a process of immersion, or of overwhelming, or of envelopment? If he does not desire to be drowned in his baptism, it must of necessity be temporary. Did any sane man ever try to keep himself in a process of perpetual immersion from and after the hour of his baptism until death, taking pains to keep the water clean so as to preserve his immersion unspotted?

Is it not plain that there is no way to avoid the absurdity of such an idea, but to assign to Bartoua the sense purification, an effect which we can consistently speak of as preserved, and preserved unspotted to the end of life?-The cases quoted from Origen are not solitary instances. It were easy to multiply them. The idea of preserving baptism unspotted till the close of life pervaded all patristic antiquity.

In order still further to test the Professor's doctrine that we are to confine Bartl to a process, and to exclude the idea of the effects of that process, we would ask his attention to a passage from the author of the Opus Imperfectum on Matthew, formerly and extensively regarded as a Latin translation of a work of Chrysostom. The Romish church, Popes, and authors of theological summaries, quote it as Chrysostom's. Manhusius regards it as Chrysostom's, but needing correction. Baronius, Tillemont,

Erasmus, and Montfaucon do not regard it as the work of Chrysostom. There is, however, internal evidence that it is a translation from some Greek author-particularly the use of the Latin in as a translation of the Greek ev, even in cases where & is equivalent to Sia or the Latin per. The work was written after Theodosius the Great, between the years 400 and 600.

He describes a baptism by fire, different in idea from that of Origen and of Basil, §. 61, p. 189. By fire he understands the

severe trials of life, the fire of the furnace of affliction. By this fire he says that the servants of God are baptized, and the servants of the devil are not baptized. He gives the reasons of this statement. In the case of a child of God," in fornacem tentationis missus, depositis peccatis sanctificatur," "being placed in the furnace of affliction, he renounces his sins and is sanctified." The proof that the servants of the Devil "non baptizantur in igne," "are not baptized by fire," is this, " Quia non potest fieri ut depositis sordibus emundetur qui totus est sordidus." "Because he who is totally impure cannot thus lay aside his sins and be purified." Is it not plain to a demonstration that this argument proves that in one case the effect purification takes place; in the other, it does not? Is it not equally plain, that if this proves that baptism takes place in one case and not in the other, that baptism and purification mean the same thing?

Still more clearly does this appear by the illustration which he uses. He compares a child of the devil to a brick or tile made of clay, and applies to him the Latin proverb, "laborem perdit qui laterem lavat," he loses his labor who washes a brick, thus, "Begin to wash a brick in water; will it ever be made clean? No: but by stirring up the clay it is rendered more polluted." And as the result of the whole, he thus sums up the matter, " for he is purified (mundatur) in whom is something good by which he can be purified."

Let us put this in the form of a syllogism.

Major. He only is purified by the fire of trials in whom is something good, by which he may be purified.

Minor. In the children of the devil there is nothing good, but they are all polluted.

Conclusion. Therefore, the children of the devil, are not and cannot be baptized by the fire of trials.

Now, it is never right to ascribe to a man of common sense, a gross blunder in logic, if his words admit of a sense consistent with sound reasoning. Assign to baptize the sense to purify, and the reasoning is sound, and the only way in which Prof. Wilson can escape that sense is by inexcusably stultifying the author upon whose words we are commenting.

There is a similar case in Ambrose (§. 53, p. 167), in which he declares that the washings of the heathen are not baptisms, because they do not really purify the soul, but rather pollute it. "Lavacra sunt, baptismata esse non possunt." "They are washings, baptisms they cannot be." But why can they not be baptisms? Listen to his reason: "caro lavatur, non culpa diluitur, immo in illo lavacro contrahitur." "The flesh indeed is washed, but sin is not washed away, nay, in that washing sin is contracted." Let the Professor, if he can, show that here the word baptism denotes merely a process, without reference to its effects. Ambrose could not more effectually refute that doctrine. He tells us in these

words where purification is, there is baptism, where it is not, there baptism cannot be, for the mere external process of applying water to the body is not a baptism. This assertion of Ambrose, as we have remarked, has especial reference to the purification of the mind. In the highest sense, no man is baptized till his mind is purified from sin, let him go through whatever external cleansing he may. But when he is purified from sin, then he is truly baptized. Here, then, Ambrose pointedly removes the idea of an external process from the word, and limits it solely to an internal effect, that is purification.

66

The coincidence of these views with the passage of Justin on which we have commented, is too obvious to need remark. Be baptized," says that father, "as to your mind, from anger, and from covetousness, from envy, and from hatred, and, lo, your body is pure." External processes are of no avail till the mind is bap tized from sin, but if the mind is baptized from sin the body is pure. Here, too, all external processes are excluded and the mind is fixed on purification as the exclusive sense of βαπτίζω.

For the present, we will suspend this process of commenting on evidence, not because our store is at all exhausted, but still farther to test the Professor's own theory of the meaning of Banties.

Let us, then, consider the practical effects of his theory. If the command is not to purify, but to encompass with water, or to envelop in water, then, after all, the Baptists can well demand of the Professor, what better mode of fulfilling this command can be found than immersion? They may well say, "suppose that we give up the absolute necessity of dipping to baptism, and only insist on encompassing the baptized person with water, or enveloping him in water. Would you gain anything by trying to overwhelm him with water, or to pour water over him properly located in a vessel, till he is encompassed with and under it? Is not our mode of enveloping in all respects the most decorous and the most convenient?

Sure we are, that to such an argument the learned Professor could make no logical reply.

In classic usage, that which is said to be baptized is always all enveloped in the baptizing fluid, unless some part is excepted. If soldiers are described as baptized not totally, but partially, it is said that they were baptized to their waist, or to their breast, &c. So far, then, as they were baptized they were entirely enveloped in water. For proof of this we refer to the Professor's own examples. Nor is this all. The word implies that all parts that are baptized are simultaneously in a state of envelopment. When soldiers are said to be baptized up to their breast, it does not mean that water is poured first on one side of the body and then on the other, and then behind, and then before; but all parts, so long as they are baptized, are simultaneously surrounded by the fluid. Hence, even if a man were to be sprinkled on all parts of his body

in succession by water, or blood, or ashes, still, he would not be baptized in the classic sense of the word. In a shower-bath, he might be, for a time, encompassed with water, but even then he would not be under water, in Dr. Gale's sense, and if he was, this would be no improvement on the Baptist mode of baptizing.

To sum up all in few words, if the Professor's theory is true, the common mode of sprinkling is no baptism at all, and there is no mode of baptizing so good as that of the Baptists.

The learned Professor seems to be aware that he is liable to an assault from this quarter. Indeed, he tells us that Baptists urge strongly that even if the mode of immersion cannot always be made out in Bantico, yet it confessedly indicates a far more copious application of water than consists with sprinkling. In view of this, he says, if Baptists are prepared to make a transition from mode to the quantity of the baptizing element, we are not without hope that the quaestio vexata between us and them, will reach a speedy and felicitous adjustment. That it would, on Prof. Wilson's ground, reach a speedy adjustment does not seem to us at all improbable, for there is but one reasonable result on that ground, viz., that all shall adopt the Baptist mode of encompassing or enveloping with water. For the question does not refer merely to the quantity of water, but to the thing commanded, which is, by the Professor's own statement, to encompass the baptized object with the baptizing element. But though such an adjustment might be "speedy," we should by no means regard it as "felicitous" and we very much doubt whether the Professor himself would so regard it.

Thus far we have said nothing of the "questionable analogies, and theological ingenuity," which Prof. W. opposes to "philological acumen." We have been content to test our argument and his acumen, on his own chosen ground.

But we are far from admitting that the great analogy on which a main part of our argument rests, is at all questionable. The Professor has, indeed, carefully avoided all use of it, but in so doing he has fatally obscured that fundamentally important subject, the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But there is not time, at present, to consider this momentous theme, and with it, the true relations of theology to this great argument.

But as it is our purpose soon to make some remarks on the work of Dr. Halley, to which Prof. Wilson so often refers as his guide, we shall reserve a full consideration of these parts of the subject till that time. We will conclude by remarking, that although we regret that the Professor should give the influence of his name against us to those who rely more on names than on arguments, still it is a consolation that he has never assailed our opinions with any arguments at all, but that on the few points wherein he differs from us, he has assailed and overthrown his own opinions with arguments of the most unanswerable kind. He is, in fact, entirely

on our side, though not apparently aware of it; and as it is hard to maintain opposing positions, or to advocate both sides of the question, we trust that he will soon free his views from those few errors by which a treatise, otherwise very able, is rendered so contradictory and self-destructive.

ARTICLE III.

OUR AGE-ITS PROGRESS, PROSPECTS, AND DEMANDS.

BY REV. ROBERT BAIRD, D. D., New York.

THE Age in which we live is emphatically one of PROGRESS. Throughout the civilized world there has been a marked advance; not equally in all directions; not equally in any direction; but still in all a real, decided, palpable advance. Let us consider some of those subjects in which this Progress is most marked; or rather, in which the interests of humanity are most deeply involved:-beginning with those things that most concern the material interests of mankind.

1. Observe the progress which is seen in the development of the resources of Nature. What an advance is making in agriculture; in the modes of increasing the fertility of soils; in the application of the principles of chemistry to the accomplishment of this end; as well as in the great improvements that have been effected in all the implements of husbandry. What changes are occurring in this respect; changes which are diminishing the labor, increasing the leisure, and consequently improving the opportunities of the farmer! What progress in augmenting the means of sustaining human existence, and the capacity of our earth to support an immense population. Who can tell how great that capacity will prove, when all the resources of the earth shall have been fully developed by the aid of science combined with art? What man can venture to assert that he sees the limits which the almighty Creator has fixed, saying: "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther?"

If those political economists who are so much troubled at the thought that this globe is in danger of being overstocked with inhabitants, and who see, or think they see, nothing but wide-spread famine and wretchedness in reserve for them, could but obtain a prophetic glance at the immense progress which the world is eviIdently destined to make in this respect, perhaps their gloomy forebodings would give place to checrful hope and sustaining confidence; or at any rate, they would find the fulfilment of their apprehensions postponed to a period beyond the reach of human foresight.

2. Nor is this advance less worthy of observation, in respect to its development of the means by which human existence is rendered comfortable. How wonderful has been the increase of man