SECTION 111. Question is, which of these two baptisms is included in the great commission given by Jesus to his apostles, of baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost-Quakers deny it to be that of John, because contrary to the ideas of St. Peter and St. Paul-because the object of John's baptism had been completed—because it was a type under the law, and such types were to cease. Ir appears then that there are two baptisms recorded in Scripture, the one the baptism of John, the other that of Christ; that these are distinct from one another, and that the one does not include the other, except he who baptizes with water can baptize at the same time with the Holy Ghost. Now St. Paul speaks only of one * baptism as effectual; and St. Peter must mean the same, when he speaks of the baptism that saveth. The question therefore is, which of the two baptisms, that have been men VOL. II. Ephes. iv. 5. 2 A tioned, tioned, is the one effectual or saving bap tism; or which of these it is that Jesus Christ included in his great commission to the Apostles, when he commanded them to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Quakers say, that the baptism included in this commission was not the baptism of John. In the first place, St. Peter says it was not, in these words, "which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water, whose antitype †, Baptism, doth now also save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The apostle states here concerning the baptism that is effectual and saving; first, that it is not the putting away of the filth * 1 Peter iii. 20, 21. Antitype is the proper translation, and not "the like figure whereunto.” of of the flesh, which is effected by water. He carefully puts those upon their guard, to whom he writes, lest they should consider John's baptism, or that of water, to be the saving one to which he alludes; for, having made a beautiful comparison between an outward salvation, in an outward ark, by the outward water, with this inward salvation, by inward and spiritual water, in the inward ark of the testament, he is fearful that his reader should connect these images, and fancy that water had any thing to do with this baptism. Hence he puts his caution in a parenthesis, thus guarding his meaning in an extraordinary manner. He then shows what this baptism is, and calls it "the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." In fact, he states it to be the baptism of Christ, which is by the Spirit; for he maintains, that he only is truly baptized, whose conscience is made clear by the resurrection of Christ in his heart. But who can make the answer of such a conscience, except the holy Spirit shall have first purified the floor of the heart; except the spiritual fan of Christ shall have first separated 2 A 2 rated the wheat from the chaff; and except his spiritual fire shall have consumed the latter? St. Paul makes a similar declaration: "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ *." But no man, the Quakers say, merely by being dipped under water, can put on Christ; that is, his life, his nature, and disposition, his love, meekness, and temperance, and all those virtues which should characterize a Christian. To the same purport are those other words by the same apostle: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of lifet." And again, "buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the co-operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead t." By these passages the apostle Paul testifies, that he * Gal. iii. 27. † Rom. vi. 3, 4. Coloss. ii. 12. alone alone is truly baptized who first dies unto sin, and is raised up afterwards from sin unto righteousness; or who is raised up into life with Christ; or who so feels the inward resurrection and glory of Christ in his soul, that he walks in newness of life. The Quakers show, again, that the baptism of John could not have been included in the great commission, because the object of John's baptism had been completed even before the preaching of Jesus Christ. water The great object of John's baptism was to make Jesus known to the Jews. John himself declared this to be the object of it: "But that he should be made manifest unto Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with *" This object he accomplished in two ways: First, by telling all whom he baptized, that Jesus was coming; and these were the Israel of that time; for he is reported to have baptized all Jerusalem, which was the metropolis, and all Judea, and all the country round about Jordan. Secondly, by pointing him out personally †. This he did to Andrew; so that Andrew left John * John i. 31. + John i. 40. and |