brethren on my left shall turn their arms against each other.* These shall demonstrate that those have made the Bible speak falsehood; those shall demonstrate that these have disguised and corrupted the word of God. Neither can resist the assault of the other; each scheme is certainly and totally destroyed. And when the battle is fought, in which I have nothing to do but to stand still and wait the issue-when the battle is fought, till each party is so beaten that he can fight no longer; I would take them by the hand, and say, Brethren, abandon the ground on which you must mutually destroy each other, or else fight on for ever. Do you not see that each is

Professor Eaton, of Hamilton Baptist Institute, in his speech before the Baptist Bible Society, at their anniversary in 1840 [See Report of said Society, p. 74], says, "The translation" of the Baptist Missionaries "is so undeniably correct," that its incorrectness could not be "pretended," "without committing the objector's character for scholarship and candor." "Who are they, sir," said he, 'who cavil upon the plain meaning of the original word whose translation is so offensive? Are they the Porsons, and the Campbells, and the Greenfields, and such like ?" No, sir,"-" But the cavillers, sir, are men who, whatever may be their standing in other respects, have no reputation as linguists and philologists to lose. There really can be no rational doubt in the mind of any sound and candid Greek scholar, about the evident meaning of the words in question. I venture to say, at the risk of the little reputation for Greek scholarship which I possess, that there are no words of plainer import in the Bible. The profane tampering which has been applied to these words," &c. &c.

I shall not dispute here, that all this may be very modest and catholic. It is at least such matter as the American and Foreign Bible Society are willing to append to their report and publish to the world. But I should like to see which side Professor Eaton would take amid these combatants; and in what plight he would stand when the battle is over, take which side he would.

defenceless in his own position; and irresistible when he attacks that of the other? Between you both the truth comes out clear; that baptism is not necessarily immersion; and that while you endeavor to make it so, you are on the one hand compelled to make the Bible speak falsehood, and on the other, to alter and corrupt the word of God.

And what shall they do? Shall they make peace on the only rational ground? Or shall one yield his judgment to the other, and vote that one opinion to be infallible? Or, for the sake of saving the Baptist cause, shall they strike hands and be made friends: agreeing, on the one party, to allow the Bible to speak falsehood, provided it may only speak immersion; and agreeing, on the other party, provided immersion may be retained, to admit the word of God to be altered, and disguised, and corrupted, by "an ingenious conceit, without any authority from the practice of the language" in which the New Testament was written?

I would respectfully ask our Baptist brethren to look into this matter. I would respectfully call their attention

the necessity laid upon them in their present position, of falling upon one of the three points of the alternative, which here presents itself to them. With their present disagreement, in which a part of them side with Carson and Judd, and a part with Campbell and Woolsey, it is impossible for them to give a faithful translation, on the Baptist principle, without entering into a compromise, which shall either make the Bible speak falsehood, or else alter and pervert the sacred diction of the word of God. I would respectfully suggest to the brethren of each of these two parties, the necessity of looking into these

foreign translations; and of taking heed, lest in their zeal to maintain immersion, they unconsciously fall into such a compromise as this. It surely becomes them to whom "is committed the sole guardianship of pure and faithful translations of the oracles of God, into the languages of the earth," to be careful and uncompromising here.

TIZING.

SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF BAPTISM.

For giving a definition to "baptize" which shall refer to the intent and the import, and omit all reference to the mode a definition which shall express the substance of baptism with no reference to the circumstance, we have the soundest warrant and the most explicit example in the word of God. Thus: Jesus, with his disciples, was baptizing in Judea; John in Enon (John iii 22-26). A question arose between some of John's disciples and the Jews "about PURIFYING." To settle it, they come and refer it to John under the shape of a question about BAPTheir minds fastened on the substance, not on the circumstance. Their idea of baptism was not the modern Baptist idea. Baptism, with them, was not an immersing but a purifying. Their question is about baptizing; but it is not about dipping, or sprinkling, or pouring, or immersing, but about PURIFYING: and they state the question to John as a question about baptizing. In their view the words "baptize" and "purify" are so far synonymous, that in a debate about purifying they may use either the word purify or the word baptize. But with them the word purify could not be synonymous with immerse for their common purifications of persons were either in the general mode of washing, or in the

particular mode of sprinkling,-never necessarily in the mode of immersing.

So again in Mark vii. 4, there is a talk about BAPTIZING; and whatever was done, Mr. Woolsey justly maintains was done by the use of the "water-pots." But John ii. 6 speaks of these water-pots as set “after the manner of the PURIFYING of the Jews. Here, too, baptism is not an immersion in fact; much less in the idea. The idea of baptism here is not a mere mode of applying water— certainly not the mode of immersion,—but a Purifying.

So again in Luke xi. 38, 39, upon the Pharisee's wondering that Jesus had not been baptized before dinner, our Lord took occasion to say to him, “Ye Pharisees make clean (in the original, PURIFY) the outside.” Here neither the Saviour nor the Pharisee considered the essence of the baptism as lying in the mode, but in the intent and in the effect. Baptism, in their view, was a washing or purifying.

So again in the Apocrypha, Judith xii. 7, it is said that Judith went out into the valley of Bethulia and washed (Sept. baptized herself) in the camp (ε-ñ-i îns ïïns) at (not in) a fountain of water in the camp. The context shows that the object of this baptizing was to remove a ceremonial uncleanness. "She without doubt strictly obeyed the law, and did what the law intended that she should do. But the law in such cases simply commanded washing (Lev. xv."). The narrator does not intend to signify that she went beyond the law, but that she observed it and in his view wash is synonymous with baptize in denoting a religious ordinance-a ceremonial purification.

So in Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 25, the words baptize and

wash are used interchangeably as purely synonymous:"He that baptizeth himself after the touching of a dead body, what availeth his washing?" The allusion is to Numbers xix. 11, &c., where the law simply required washing, or purifying. The essential thing in that purifying was performed by sprinkling; and of him who should fail in this, it was said, "because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him."

If we therefore follow the Scripture pattern, or the pattern of the Greek of the Apocrypha, in fixing the prcper idea of the word " baptize" as used to denote the sacred use of water in a religious ordinance, we shall entirely omit all reference to mode, and fix our thoughts upon intent and the effect of baptism; the substance and not the shadow. Baptism will not be a dipping, or an immersing, or a pouring, or a sprinkling, but a WASHING, a

PURIFYING.

the

The word being thus used in the New Testament, to denote a ritual washing or purifying (which it never signified in classic Greek); being used moreover where the MODE of purifying was either sprinkling or pouring; and being, still further, so used that to make it read immerse would make the Bible speak what confessedly is not true; I think we have clearly,—and established beyond the possibility of a successful denial,-a generic and peculiar New Testament use of the word; in which use baptize primarily denotes a ritual purifying by some manner of application of water, which is called "the wASHING of water" and secondarily it denotes an inward purifying by the Holy Ghost, called "the wASHING of regeneration."

These things being so, how idle it is for our Baptist