Mr. M. again spoke :-Mr. C. has told you that the carnal ordinances meant sprinklings: this comes with a good grace from one who says so much about the plainness of Scripture. This you will evidently see is a mere retreat from the force of my remarks on the different baptisms. He cannot, I fearlessly affirm produce one instance where sprinkling is called a carnal commandment or ordinance; and if he cannot, how much is his assertion worth! Until this is done we shall consider the diverse baptisms inclusive of sprinklings, and that baptismos denotes sprinkling as well as dipping.

But we do not found our argument for sprinkling on this passage alone, we are able to prove that submersion is not essential to baptism, from various ap plications of the word baptizo: and recollect, if we can only produce one instance of the application of this word where it necessarily signifies any thing else than to dip or to immerse, the point for which we contend is gained.

That bapto the word from which baptizo is derived, and consequently of stronger import than its deriva tive signifies to wet, either by affusion or sprinkling, appears from the application of it to the case of Nebu chadnezzar being wet with the dew. Thus the Seventy use the word twice, Dan iv. 33, "His body was wet (ebaphe) with the dew of heaven. The dews in eastern regions were very profuse, yet they fell gently to the ground and wet the earth, and the things upon it, by a very gradual affusion, not by dipping; thus the monarch's body was baptized.

for refuge in the diverse baptisms or immersions. Dr. Ralston, indeed, defeats himself, for he says, p. 94, that "the baptisms prescribed by the Levitical ritual are referred to," and "that although some of these washings required the immersion of the whole body, yet others of them prescribed only the sprinkling of water on the persons to be washed, whether priests or people." It is conceded that some of them required immersion of the whole body; now this, from a jealous advocate of infant sprinkling, shows that the en dence is very strong for immersion in those Jewish baptisms, and we have proved that in none of them called baptisms was sprink ing used. The sprinklings and baptions of the Jews are voo distinguished by the apostle.

That the word baptizo must sometimes signify aspersions is proven from 1 Cor. x. 2, "Our fathers" says Paul, were all baptized unto Moses in the

cloud and in the sea." There was no immersion in the case, if we except the Egyptians who were over“. whelmed in the depths of the sea; for the Israelites walked in the sea as on dry land; and could only be sprinkled with the spray that might in the moving of the waters, be dashed upon them. They are however said to have been baptized on the occasion, and we are sure it was not by immersion, but by either affusion or sprinkling.*

*As we have added some notes at the bottom of the page to enforce our remarks, we shall add a few to aid mr. M. from his friend J. P. Campbell, of whose performance he boasted as unanswerable, p. 65, “In Rev. xix. 13. The Messiah is represented, after treading the symbolical vintage, and being wet with the slaughter of his enemics, as clothed in a vesture dipped in blood." Isaiah sublimely describes the same event. "I have trodden the wine press alone, and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." Compare these prophecies, and you will see that St. John has copied Isaiah, and that both predictions relate to the same event in prophetic history, the immense carnage of the anti-christian armies in the plain of Megiddo. The circumstances thrown into the description make it manifest that the passage in St. John, Bebammenon en haimate, should have been rendered sprinkled or stained with blood; since it is a palpable violation of every thing like truth or fact to suppose that the treader of the wine press should have dipped himself or his garment in the blood of the vintage." Hear the same critic on Revelations again, p. 64, "The sealing, therefore, of the servants of God in their forehead at this juncture, can imply no less than that many converts should be baptizThe same thing is implied in another prophecy of St. John. "And I beheld, and lo! a lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with him 144,000, having his Father's name written in their foreheads." Rev. xiv. 1. Here the allusion holds not only with respect to the seal or mark of God in the forehead, but to the very formula of Christian baptism which is performed in the name of God. What was the mark of the beast on the foreheads of his votaries, but the sign of the cross and a corrupt baptism? And this being set in contrast with God's seal and written name in the foreheads of his true worshippers, nothing else can be intended by the latter, but the true unadulterated tapism of Christ. Thus definitely we see is the seal of baptism fixed by inspiration, and even the mode itself intimated, because plunging persons in water cannot be so properly

ed."

It is alt ther absurd to argue that because the prim y signification of any word may be so and so, that it never signifies any thing else. "To see the weakness and fallacy of any such attempt to decide the question before us, you have only to remark its operation in a case precisely similar. The words phago and esthio, pino and pis, are used by the New Testament writers to express the acts of eating and drinking in the sacrament of the supper, and beside this, supper among the ancients was the principal meal. Now a stickler for the primitive meaning of the words and the duty, as he apprehends, indicated by it, might say-"the original and native signification of these words is to eat and to drink as much as would be proper at a common temperate meal, and they are so used in many passages of the New Testament, as in Matt. vi. 31. xi. 19. “Take no thought, saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink,' "The Son of man came eating and drinking." Now as the sacred writers employ these words to describe my acts at the table of the Lord, I contend that I should eat as much bread and drink as much wine in the holy supper as I should do in taking a common temperate meal. And I take the liberty to say, that those persons who take a small bit of bread and sip a little wine have not supped at all in remembrance of Christ, and are guilty of insulting mockery in the celebration of that holy ordinance." You would reject such an argument as a pitiful conceit; yet who will affirm that it is not just as good as that of the Bap tists in support of immersion, with this difference, however in its favor, that the person contending for the more bread and the more wine, can produce many clear examples from the New Testament to establish called the scaling of God in the forebead."-Ser. on Baptism, pub. 1811, at Lexington, Ky.--Dr. Ralston, p. 100, "Because the pre mary meaning of the word is washing by immersion in some Greek writings, they have thence drawn the conclusion that it should be so understood when denoting the initiating ordinance into the church. without reflecting that it is not used in a literal but figurativ

cense,"

the primitive signification of the words expressive of such eating and drinking in the supper; which is what the Baptists cannot do with respect to the primitive meaning of baptizo."

"There is yet another method of determining the question, as to the mode of baptism, greatly superior to that of rummaging lexicographers and grammarians; and that is by attending to the manner in which the sacred writers use the word baptizo, when they describe the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, which are as much facts as the baptism of wa

ter.

one must answer,

66

John had foretold that Christ should" baptize with. the Holy Ghost and with fire;" and on the day of Pentecost the prediction was gloriously fulfilled, Acts ii. The conceit of Mr. Booth that the words, "it filled all the house," necessarily imply that the disciples were immersed, is worthy of himself; ad might for me, take an endless repose in the vaunting pages of that knight-errant of anabaptism did I not see it revived by others in our day. You say "they were immersed"-I ask, immersed in what? Every a sound from heaven." Be it so; the disciples were immersed in sound, and so was the house and every thing in it, as well as they. But this was not the baptism predicted by John or narrated by Luke. The pearance of lambent flame, the visible form assumed by the Holy Ghost, which "sat upon each disciple, was the baptism of fire; the invisible influence of the spirit which was "shed forth" upon, and filled them all, was the laptism of the Holy Ghost: but neither the one nor the other was the citcumambient sound that filled the house; which was a mere circumstance, not essential either to the prediction or the fact.

Luminous forms like fire "appeared and sat upon each of them."-This was a literal baptism, and baptism by affusion. "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost--This baptism, though invisible, was real, pad though as to the mode of its application, perfect

and

ly inconceivable to us mortals, yet the terms in wich it is spoken of, are descriptive of affusion, not dhir ping. It is expressed here and elsewhere by the phras es pouring out, shedding forth, falling upon, coming upon; Acts x. 44. 35-xix. 6. It is, therefore, undeniable, that all these different expressions, pouring upon, falling upon, and the like, are in the style of scripture, a true and proper baptism in the mode of affusion." [I have given mr. M.'s argument here in the words of his friend J. P. Campbell from whom he seemed to have taken it; at any rate it precisely expresses his sentiments as noted down.]

From the application of the word baptizo and ba times in the scriptures, you see, my friends, that it is not used to signify submersion, but washing, in whatever manner performed. Even a partial washing is sometimes spoken of, as all that is necessary to a complete washing, “Thou shalt never wash my feet," said Peter to the Lord. If I wash thee not" said the Lord to Peter, “ thou hast no port with me. Iter exclaims, "Lord! not my feet only, buty hands and my head. Peter desired a complete w shiny, meta partial washing. He supposed that in order to complete washing he should be all washed. His v ter corrected this error by assuring him that a part washing was all that was necessary, "he that washed, needeth not, save to w wh his feet, bit clean every whit." Hence we learn, that to tha small part of the person, as the face or feet, 14, in a religious sense, to wash the whole man. And this proves the error of those grammarians, who affirm that lou always signifies to wash the whole body. is applied once to the stripes inflicted on the apost Acts xvi. 53, and once to the eyes, Bong, v. 12. that it does not necessarily signify the washing of whole person.

I rejoined :-You remember, my friends, that I r posed to my opponent that I would agree to to' ang unnsla.on of the serij es ever mode to