process is, by the same figure, used for the whole. Thus, in Acts xx. 7, to break bread designates the Lord's Supper in both acts, the breaking and the pouring-a part designating the whole, but the verb to break does not thereby come to signify to pour: the synecdoche does not in either case change the meaning of the word. Besides, in this passage, the word loutron, "bathing," itself suggests an immersion rather than a sprinkling.

III. THE NEW TESTAMENT USAGE.

Baptizo, in the New Testament, is always used with the fundamental idea of immersion, either literal or figurative. Of this we present the following distinct lines of proof:

First: The classic and Septuagint usage, already examined, requires this sense in the New Testament, unless plain indications show a departure from it.

The primary meaning of the word and its ordinary meaning elsewhere being confessedly "immersion," the presumption clearly is that such is its import in the New Testament. The burden of proof rests on him who affirms a different import. It will be observed also that the argument for another meaning is a labored attempt to make out from alleged exceptional uses that in the New Testament the word has not its natural and ordinary sense, and this against the whole current of philological and historical evidence. And if this were made out, it would show that, while the Greek language had in common use separate and definite words to express sprinkling and pouring, the Holy Spirit, neglecting these, strangely selected a word everywhere else signifying “immersion," to express these other and very different actsa conclusion which must surely need the most weighty proofs, since it seems an impeachment of the divine wisdom.

Second: The lexicons of the New Testament, both earlier and later, almost without exception, restrict the meaning of baptizo to "immersion."

It seems needless to quote the testimony of the earlier lexicographers and scholars, such as Scapula, Schleusner, Bretschneider, Passow, and the long array of other names. distinguished in New Testament literature; for Professor Stuart, of Andover, in his work above quoted, affirms that "all lexicographers and critics of any note are agreed that baptizo means to dip, plunge, or immerse in any liquid." In this view have concurred not only all the Reformers— Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin-but also the most eminent scholars since the Reformation alike on the Continent and in England. Of the most recent lexicographers, Cremer, in his Biblico-Theological Lexicon of the New Testament Greek, recently translated, defines baptizo, "to immerse, submerge," and speaks of "the peculiar New Testament and Christian use of the word" as an "immersion, submersion for a religious purpose." He gives no other literal sense. Wilke's Lexicon of the New Testament Greek, edited by Grimm and lately issued in Germany, defines baptizo: 1. "To immerse repeatedly, to submerge; 2. To wash or bathe by immersing or submerging; 3. To overwhelm." He affirms that baptism, in the New Testament, is “an immersion in water." Professor Sophocles, of Harvard University, a native Greek, in his Lexicon of the Greek of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, B. c. 140 to A. D. 1000, defines it in the same way, as signifying, 1. To dip, immerse, sink, with figurative uses derived from this; 2. Middle, to perform ablution, to bathe; 3. To plunge a knife; 4. To baptize; and he insists that "there is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the New Testament put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks." The most eminent biblical scholars of the

recent period, as Fritsche, Lange, and Meyer in Germany, and Conybeare and Howson, Alford, Lightfoot, Ellicott, and Plumptre of the Anglican Church, are in full accord with these latest utterances in New Testament lexicography. Third: The construction in which baptizo is found implies the sense of immersion.

It is construed with the word expressing the element of baptism as follows: 1. Once with eis, Mark i. 9: "into the Jordan." 2. Thirteen times with en, in, followed by a word denoting either water or the Holy Spirit. 3. Three times with the dative without a preposition, that case being here used, according to its common signification, to denote the sphere in which the action took place. Other examples of the verb construed with prepositions occur, but these are all in which the construction involves the element of baptism, and in which, therefore, the form of the act would be indicated; and, while in all these the construction suggests the idea of an immersion, in most of them that idea is absolutely required.

Fourth: The passages usually adduced as admitting a different sense do, in fact, require the sense of immersion.

Mark vii. 3, 4: "The Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash (nipsōntai) their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the market, except they wash (baptisōntai), they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing (baptismous) of cups, and pots, and brazen vessels, and of tables (klinōn)." Here the inconvenience of the acts referred to is supposed to forbid an immersion. But observe: 1. The marked contrast evidently intended between nipsōntai, "wash their hands" (v. 3), and baptisōntai, "wash" (v. 4), implies that the act expressed by the latter was far more onerous and difficult than that expressed in the

former. The progress in the thought, as conceived by De Wette and Meyer, is this: "(a) Before every meal the washing of hands; but (b) after the return from the market, where there was so much danger of coming in contact with unclean men, the bath was used as a washing of the whole body." 2. It is not affirmed that these customs were required by the law, but they are adduced as instances of the superstitious, absurd excess to which the Pharisees went in ceremonial purifications. Sprinkling would certainly have been a much less obvious excess, and would hardly have called for so special a notice. It is the great inconvenience to which they put themselves which the passage specially emphasizes. 3. The law did require ablution of the entire person for ceremonial uncleanness (Lev. xi. 32; xv.), and that the traditionalists among the Jews actually required immersion in the cases here mentioned is attested by men of the highest authority in Jewish learning. Thus, Maimonides, the learned Hebrew theologian and expounder of their traditional law in the twelfth century, says: "If the Pharisees touched but the garments of the common people, they were defiled and needed immersion, and were obliged to it. Hence, when they walked the streets, they walked on the sides of the way, that they might not be defiled by touching the common people."* Grotius, one of the most profound students of rabbinic literature, comments on this passage: "They cleansed themselves very carefully by not only washing their hands, but even by washing their body." 4. The word klinōn, here rendered "tables," in the margin "couches," is not found in the oldest manuscripts, the Sinaitic and the Vatican, as also in others of high authority; and it is therefore omitted from the latest text of Tischendorf as in all probability not a part * See Dr. Gill in loco.

of the inspired word. But if its genuineness be supposed, the alleged improbability of an immersion is purely imaginary. For, (1.) The kline is not necessarily to be understood of a raised couch-frame; it commonly consisted then, as it does now, of a mere rug or cushion, which was spread down to recline on when eating. The same word is used to designate the bed on which the paralytic was brought to Christ, and which, when he was healed, the man carried back to his house (Matt. ix. 6). It was evidently nothing but the common rug on which Orientals recline either in eating or sleeping. But if a raised frame be supposed, the kline would naturally designate, not the frame, but the rug that covered it, which alone would become unclean by contact, and which was easily removed and washed. (2.) The Jews' traditional law, or Mishna, contains some precepts which indicate that even the frames of the couches were required to be immersed by their superstitions. Maimonides says: Their canon runs thus: A bed that is wholly defiled, if he dips it part by part, it is pure." Again: "If he dips the bed in it (the pool of water), although its feet are plunged into the thick clay (at the bottom of the pool), it is clean." Here, it is plain, even the frame was immersed, and was probably taken apart for the purpose. Dr. Gill, who was distinguished for his rabbinic learning, in commenting on this passage, has collected a large body of evidence from the Mishna of the absurd superstitious observances which the evangelist here condemns. Meyer says: "The expression in Mark vii. 4 is not to be understood of the washing of the hands, but of an immersion, which the word always means in the classics and in the New Testament—that is, according to the context, the taking of a bath." Thus also De Wette and others.

Luke xi. 37, 38: "And as he spoke, a certain Pharisee