2. The Mode of Baptism.This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.We show this:(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.[pg 939]B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ.This is plain:(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.(b) From the nature of God's command:First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
2. The Mode of Baptism.This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.We show this:(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.[pg 939]B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ.This is plain:(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.(b) From the nature of God's command:First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
2. The Mode of Baptism.This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.We show this:(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.[pg 939]B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ.This is plain:(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.(b) From the nature of God's command:First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
2. The Mode of Baptism.This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.We show this:(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.[pg 939]B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ.This is plain:(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.(b) From the nature of God's command:First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
2. The Mode of Baptism.This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.We show this:(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.[pg 939]B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ.This is plain:(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.(b) From the nature of God's command:First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
2. The Mode of Baptism.This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.We show this:(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.[pg 939]B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ.This is plain:(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.(b) From the nature of God's command:First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
This is immersion, and immersion only. This appears from the following considerations:
A. The command to baptize is a command to immerse.We show this:(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.
We show this:
(a) From the meaning of the original word βαπτίζω. That this is to immerse, appears:
First,—from the usage of Greek writers—including the church Fathers, when they do not speak of the Christian rite, and the authors of the Greek version of the Old Testament.
Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.[pg 934]Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.
Liddell and Scott, Greek Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, to dip in or under water; Lat.immergere.”Sophocles, Lexicon of Greek Usage in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 140 B. C. to 1000 A. D.—“βαπτίζω, to dip, to immerse, to sink ... There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the N. T. put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks.”Thayer, N. T. Lexicon:“βαπτίζω, literally to dip, to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge, ... metaphorically, to overwhelm.... βάπτισμα, immersion, submersion ... a rite of sacred immersion commanded by Christ.”Prof. Goodwin of Harvard University, Feb. 13, 1895, says:“The classical meaning of βαπτίζω, which seldom occurs, and of the more common βάπτω, is dip (literally or metaphorically), and I never heard of its having any other meaning anywhere. Certainly I never saw a lexicon which gives either sprinkle or pour, as meanings of either. I must be allowed to ask why I am so often asked this question, which seems to me to have but one perfectly plain answer.”
In the International Critical Commentary, see Plummer on Luke, p. 86—“It is only when baptism is administered by immersion that its full significance is seen”; Abbott on Colossians, p. 251—“The figure was naturally suggested by the immersion in baptism”; see also Gould on Mark, p. 127; Sanday on Romans, p. 154-157. No one of these four Commentaries was written by a Baptist. The two latest English Bible Dictionaries agree upon this point. Hastings, Bib. Dict., art.: Baptism, p. 243 a—“The mode of using was commonly immersion. The symbolism of the ordinance required this”; Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, 1:473, while arguing from theDidachethat from a very early date“a triple pouring was admitted where a sufficiency of water could not be had,”agrees that“such a method [as immersion] is presupposed as the ideal, at any rate, in Paul's words about death, burial and resurrection in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5).”
Conant, Appendix to Bible Union Version of Matthew, 1-64, has examples“drawn from writers in almost every department of literature and science; from poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, critics, historians, geographers; from writers on husbandry, on medicine, on natural history, on grammar, on theology; from almost every form and style of composition, romances, epistles, orations, fables, odes, epigrams, sermons, narratives: from writers of various nations and religions, Pagan, Jew, and Christian, belonging to many countries and through a long succession of ages. In all, the word has retained its ground-meaning without change. From the earliest age of Greek literature down to its close, a period of nearly two thousand years, not an example has been found in which the word has any other meaning. There is no instance in which it signifies to make a partial application of water by affusion or sprinkling, or to cleanse, to purify, apart from the literal act of immersion as the means of cleansing or purifying.”See Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1833:313; Broadus on Immersion, 57, note.
Dale, in his Classic, Judaic, Christic, and Patristic Baptism, maintains that βάπτω alone means“to dip,”and that βαπτίζω never means“to dip,”but only“to put within,”giving no intimation that the object is to be taken out again. But see Review of Dale, by A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, 1869:129, and by Harvey, in Bap. Review, 1879:141-163.“Plutarch used the word βαπτίζω, when he describes the soldiers of Alexander on a riotous march as by the roadside dipping (lit.: baptizing) with cups from huge wine jars and mixing bowls, and drinking to one another. Here we have βαπτίζω used where Dr. Dale's theory would call for βάπτω. The truth is that βαπτίζω, the stronger word, came to be used in the same sense with the weaker; and the attempt to prove a broad and invariable difference of meaning between them breaks down. Of Dr. Dale's three meanings of βαπτίζω—(1) intusposition without influence (stone in water), (2) intusposition with influence (man drowned in water), (3) influence without intusposition,—the last is a figment of Dr. Dale's imagination. It would allow me to say that when I burned a piece of paper, I baptized it. The grand result is this: Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse, Dr. Dale ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. Because Christ speaks of drinking a cup, Dr. Dale infers that this is baptism.”For a complete reply to Dale, see Ford, Studies on Baptism.
Secondly,—every passage where the word occurs in the New Testament either requires or allows the meaning“immerse.”
Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.
Mat. 3:6, 11—“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance ... he shall baptize you in the holy Spirit and in fire”;cf.2 Kings 5:14—“Then went he[Naaman]down, and dipped himselfἐβαπτίσατοseven times in the Jordan”;Mark 1:5, 9—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan”;7:4—“and when they come from the market-place, except they bathe[lit.:‘baptize’]themselves, they eat not: and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings[lit.:‘baptizings’]of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels”—in this verse, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, read ῥαντίσωνται, instead of βαπτίσωνται; but it is easy to see how subsequent ignorance of Pharisaic scrupulousness might have changed βαπτίσωνται into ῥαντίσωνται; but not easy to see how ῥαντίσωνται should have been changed into βαπτίσωνται. OnMat. 15:2(and the parallel passageMark 7:4), see Broadus, Com. on Mat., pages 332, 333. Herodotus, 2:47, says that if any Egyptian touches a swine in passing, with his clothes, he goes to the river and dips himself from it.
Meyer, Com.in loco—“ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται is not to be understood of washing the hands (Lightfoot, Wetstein), but of immersion, which the word in classic Greek and in the N. T. everywhere means; here, according to the context, to take a bath.”The Revised Version omits the words“and couches,”although Maimonides speaks of a Jewish immersion of couches; see quotation from Maimonides in Ingham, Handbook of Baptism, 373—“Whenever in the law washing of the flesh or of the clothes is mentioned, it means nothing else than the dipping of the whole body in a laver; for if any man dip himself all over except the tip of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.... A bed that is wholly defiled, if a man dip it part by part, it is pure.”Watson, in Annotated Par. Bible, 1126.
Luke 11:38—“And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed[lit.:‘baptized’]himself before dinner”;cf.Ecclesiasticus 31:25—“He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body”(βαπτιζόμενος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ);Judith 12:7—“washed herself ἐβαπτίζετο in a fountain of water by the camp”;Lev. 22:4-6—“Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead ... unclean until the even ... bathe his flesh in water.”Acts 2:41—“They then that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.”Although the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally poor, the artificial provision of aqueducts, cisterns, and tanks, made water abundant. During the siege of Titus, though thousands died of famine, we read of no suffering from lack of water. The following are the dimensions of pools in modern Jerusalem: King's Pool, 15 feet x 16 x 3; Siloam, 53 x 18 x 19; Hezekiah, 240 x 140 x 10; Bethesda (so-called), 360 x 130 x 75; Upper Gihon, 316 x 218 x 19; Lower Gihon, 592 x 260 x 18; see Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1:323-348, and Samson, Water-supply of Jerusalem, pub. by Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. There was no difficulty in baptizing three thousand in one day; for, in the time of Chrysostom, when all candidates of the year were baptized in a single day, three thousand were once baptized; and, on July 3, 1878, 2222 Telugu Christians were baptized by two administrators in nine hours. These Telugu baptisms took place at Velumpilly, ten miles north of Ongole. The same two men did not baptize all the time. There were six men engaged in baptizing, but never more than two men at the same time.
Acts 16:33—“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately”—the prison was doubtless, as are most large edifices in the East, whether[pg 935]public or private, provided with tank and fountain. See Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek,sub voce—“βαπτίζω, immersion or submersion for a religious purpose.”Grimm's ed. of Wilke—“βαπτίζω, 1. Immerse, submerge; 2. Wash or bathe, by immersing or submerging (Mark 7:4, also Naaman and Judith); 3. Figuratively, to overwhelm, as with debts, misfortunes,etc.”In the N. T. rite, he says it denotes“an immersion in water, intended as a sign of sins washed away, and received by those who wished to be admitted to the benefits of Messiah's reign.”
Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, 337—“The Baptists are, however, from the Protestant point of view, unassailable, since for their demand of baptism by submersion they have the clear Bible text; and the authority of the church and of her testimony is not regarded by either party”—i. e., by either Baptists or Protestants, generally. Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, writes in the Independent, Feb. 19, 1885—“1.Baptizeinundoubtedly signifies immersion (eintauchen). 2. No proof can be found that it signifies anything else in the N. T. and in the most ancient Christian literature. The suggestion regarding a‘sacred sense’is out of the question. 3. There is no passage in the N. T. which suggests the supposition that any New Testament author attached to the wordbaptizeinany other sense thaneintauchen=untertauchen(immerse, submerge).”See Com. of Meyer, and Cunningham, Croall lectures.
Thirdly,—the absence of any use of the word in the passive voice with“water”as its subject confirms our conclusion that its meaning is“to immerse.”Water is never said to be baptized upon a man.
(b) From the use of the verb βαπτίζω with prepositions:
First,—with εἰς (Mark 1:9—where Ἰορδάνην is the element into which the person passes in the act of being baptized).
Mark 1:9, marg.—“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John into the Jordan.”
Secondly,—with ἐν (Mark 1:5, 8;cf.Mat. 3:11. John 1:26, 31, 33;cf.Acts 2:2, 4). In these texts, ἐν is to be taken, not instrumentally, but as indicating the element in which the immersion takes place.
Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”
Mark 1:5, 8—“they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.... I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”—here see Meyer's Com. onMat. 3:11—“ἐν is in accordance with the meaning of βαπτίζω (immerse), not to be understood instrumentally, but on the contrary, in the sense of the element in which the immersion takes place.”Those who pray for a“baptism of the Holy Spirit”pray for such a pouring out of the Spirit as shall fill the place and permit them to be flooded or immersed in his abundant presence and power; see C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire, 1881:305-311. Plumptre:“The baptism with the Holy Ghost would imply that the souls thus baptized would be plunged, as it were, in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of light and holiness and wisdom.”
A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 67—“The upper room became the Spirit's baptistery. His presence‘filled all the house where they were sitting’(Acts 2:2).... Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the day of Pentecost, when the Paraclete came in person to make his abode in the church. It does not follow that every believer has received this baptism. God's gift is one thing,—our appropriation of that gift is quite another thing. Our relation to the second and to the third persons of the Godhead is exactly parallel in this respect.‘God so loved the world, that hegavehis only begotten Son’(John 3:16).‘But as many asreceivedhim, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name’(John 1:12). We are required to appropriate the Spirit as sons, in the same way that we are required to appropriate Christ as sinners....‘He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye’—take ye, actively—‘the Holy Spirit’(John 20:22).”
(c) From circumstances attending the administration of the ordinance (Mark 1:10—ἀναβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος; John 3:23—ὕδατα πολλά; Acts 8:38, 39—κατέβησαν εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος).
Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”
Mark 1:10—“coming up out of the water”;John 3:23—“And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there”—a sufficient depth of water for baptizing; see Prof. W. A.[pg 936]Stevens, on Ænon near to Salim, in Journ. Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exegesis, Dec. 1883.Acts 8:38, 39—“and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water....”In the case of Philip and the eunuch, President Timothy Dwight, in S. S. Times, Aug. 27, 1892, says:“The baptism was apparently by immersion.”The Editor adds that“practically scholars are agreed that the primitive meaning of the word 'baptize' was to immerse.”
(d) From figurative allusions to the ordinance.
Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).
Mark 10:38—“Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”—here the cup is the cup of suffering in Gethsemane;cf.Luke 22:42—“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me”; and the baptism is the baptism of death on Calvary, and of the grave that was to follow;cf.Luke 12:50—“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”Death presented itself to the Savior's mind as a baptism, because it was a sinking under the floods of suffering.Rom. 6:4—“We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life”—Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, say, on this passage, that“it cannot be understood without remembering that the primitive method of baptism was by immersion.”OnLuke 12:49, marg.—“I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how would I that it were already kindled!”—see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225—“He knew that he was called to bring a new energy and movement into the world, which mightily seizes and draws everything towards it, as a hurled firebrand, which whereever it falls kindles a flame which expands into a vast sea of fire”—the baptism of fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit?
1 Cor. 10:1, 2—“our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”;Col. 2:12—“having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him”;Heb. 10:22—“having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed[λελουμένοι]with pure water”—here Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 216, 217, says that“λούω implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole.”1 Pet 3:20, 21—“saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”—as the ark whose sides were immersed in water saved Noah, so the immersion of believers typically saves them; that is, the answer of a good conscience, the turning of the soul to God, which baptism symbolizes.“In the ritual of Moses and Aaron, three things were used: oil, blood, and water. The oil was poured, the blood was sprinkled, the water was used for complete ablution first of all, and subsequently for partial ablution to those to whom complete ablution had been previously administered”(Wm. Ashmore).
(e) From the testimony of church history as to the practice of the early church.
Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”
Tertullian, De Baptismo, chap. 12—“Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship they were sprinkled and covered with the waves; that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. It is however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion.”Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, 565—“Baptism, it is now generally agreed among scholars, was commonly administered by immersion.”Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 570—“Respecting the form of baptism, the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists.”Elsewhere Dr. Schaff says:“The baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the illustrations of baptism used in the N. T., are all in favor of immersion, rather than of sprinkling, as is freely admitted by the best exegetes, Catholic and Protestant, English and German. Nothing can be gained by unnatural exegesis. The persistency and aggressiveness of Baptists have driven pedobaptists to opposite extremes.”
Dean Stanley, in his address at Eton College, March, 1879, on Historical Aspects of American Churches, speaks of immersion as“the primitive, apostolical, and, till the 13th century, the universal, mode of baptism, which is still retained throughout the Eastern churches, and which is still in our own church as positively enjoined in theory as it is universally neglected in practice.”The same writer, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879, says that“the change from immersion to sprinkling has set aside the larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and has altered the very meaning of the word.”Neander, Church Hist., 1:310—“In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in[pg 937]conformity with the original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.... It was only with the sick, where exigency required it, that any exception was made. Then it was administered by sprinkling; but many superstitious persons imagined such sprinkling to be not fully valid, and stigmatized those thus baptized as clinics.”
Until recently, there has been no evidence that clinic baptism,i. e., the baptism of a sick or dying person in bed by pouring water copiously around him, was practised earlier than the time of Novatian, in the third century; and in these cases there is good reason to believe that a regenerating efficacy was ascribed to the ordinance. We are now, however, compelled to recognize a departure from N. T. precedent somewhat further back. Important testimony is that of Prof. Harnack, of Giessen, in the Independent of Feb. 19, 1885—“Up to the present moment we possess no certain proof from the period of the second century, in favor of the fact that baptism by aspersion was then even facultatively administered; for Tertullian (De Pœnit., 6, and De Baptismo, 12) is uncertain; and the age of those pictures upon which is represented a baptism by aspersion is not certain. The‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’however, has now instructed us that already, in very early times, people in the church took no offence when aspersion was put in place of immersion, when any kind of outward circumstances might render immersion impossible or impracticable.... But the rule was also certainly maintained that immersion was obligatory if the outward conditions of such a performance were at hand.”This seems to show that, while the corruption of the N. T. rite began soon after the death of the apostles, baptism by any other form than immersion was even then a rare exception, which those who introduced the change sought to justify upon the plea of necessity. See Schaff, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 29-57, and other testimony in Coleman, Christian Antiquities, 275; Stuart, in Bib. Repos., 1883:355-363.
The“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,”section 7, reads as follows:“Baptize ... in living water. And if thou have no living water, baptize in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have neither, pour water upon the head thrice.”Here it is evident that“baptize”means only“immerse,”but if water be scarce pouring may be substituted for baptism. Dr. A. H. Newman, Antipedobaptism, 5, says that“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”may possibly belong to the second half of the second century, but in its present form is probably much later. It does not explicitly teach baptismal regeneration, but this view seems to be implied in the requirement, in case of an absolute lack of a sufficiency of water of any kind for baptism proper, that pouring water on the head three times be resorted to as a substitute. Catechetical instruction, repentance, fasting, and prayer, must precede the baptismal rite.
Dexter, in his True Story of John Smyth and Sebaptism, maintains that immersion was a new thing in England in 1641. But if so, it was new, as Congregationalism was new—a newly restored practice and ordinance of apostolic times. For reply to Dexter, see Long, in Bap. Rev., Jan. 1883:12, 13, who tells us, on the authority of Blunt's Ann. Book of Com. Prayer, that from 1085 to 1549, the“Salisbury Use”was the accepted mode, and this provided for the child's trine immersion.“The Prayerbook of Edward VI succeeded to the Salisbury Use in 1549; but in this too immersion has the place of honor—affusion is only for the weak. The English church has never sanctioned sprinkling (Blunt, 226). In 1664, the Westminster Assembly said 'sprinkle or pour,' thus annulling what Christ commanded 1600 years before. Queen Elizabeth was immersed in 1533. If in 1641 immersion had been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder and regarded it as a novelty, then the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world, with no partners, or rivals, or abettors, or sympathizers, as the restorers and preservers of Christian baptism.”
(f) From the doctrine and practice of the Greek church.
DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.[pg 938]The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).
DeStourdza, the greatest modern theologian of the Greek church, writes;“βαπτίζω signifies literally and always‘to plunge.’Baptism and immersion are therefore identical, and to say‘baptism by aspersion’is as if one should say‘immersion by aspersion,’or any other absurdity of the same nature. The Greek church maintain that the Latin church, instead of a βαπτισμός, practice a mere ῥαντισμός,—instead of baptism, a mere sprinkling”—quoted in Conant on Mat., appendix, 99. See also Broadus on Immersion, 18.
The evidence that immersion is the original mode of baptism is well summed up by Dr. Marcus Dods, in his article on Baptism in Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Apostles. Dr. Dods defines baptism as“a rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his birth to a future he desires.”As regards the“mode of baptism,”he remarks:“That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning ofbaptizo, which is the intensive or frequentative form ofbapto,‘I dip,’and denotes toimmerseorsubmerge—the point is, that‘dip’or‘immerse’is the primary,‘wash’the secondary meaning ofbaptoorbaptizo. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes:‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law, which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things’(Lightfoot's Horæ Hebraicæ). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’(c) That immersion was the mode of baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighborhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labors; and from the statement ofJohn 3:23that he was baptizing in Enon‘because there was much water there.’(d) That this form was continued in the Christian Church appears from the expressionLoutron palingenesias(bath of regeneration,Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul inRomans 6of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiquities xi.2).”The author quotes Bingham to the effect that“total immersion under water”was the universal practice during the early Christian centuries“except in some particular cases of exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of a clinic baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.”Dr. Dods continues:“This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the 'Didache'”(Teaching of the Twelve Apostles).
The prevailing usage of any word determines the sense it bears, when found in a command of Christ. We have seen, not only that the prevailing usage of the Greek language determines the meaning of the word“baptize”to be“immerse,”but that this is its fundamental, constant, and only meaning. The original command to baptize is therefore a command to immerse.
As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.
As evidence that quite diverse sections of the Christian world are coming to recognize the original form of baptism to be immersion, we may cite the fact that a memorial to the late Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been erected in the parish church of Lambeth, and that it is in the shape of a“font-grave,”in which a believer can be buried with Christ in baptism; and also that the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has had a baptistery constructed in the newly renovated Westminster Congregational Church in London.
Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 2:211—“As in the case of the Lord's Supper, so did Baptism also first receive its sacramental significance through Paul. As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. Yet the outward act is not on that account a mere semblance of what is already present in faith, but according to the mysticism common to Paul with the whole ancient world, the symbolical act effectuates what it typifies, and therefore in this case the mortification of the carnal man and the animation of the spiritual man.”For the view that sprinkling or pouring constitutes valid baptism, see Hall, Mode of Baptism.Per contra, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, April, 1875; Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptists, 85; Carson, Noel, Judson, and Pengilly, on Baptism; especially recent and valuable is Burrage, Act of Baptism.
B. No church has the right to modify or dispense with this command of Christ.This is plain:(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.(b) From the nature of God's command:First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
This is plain:
(a) From the nature of the church. Notice:
First,—that, besides the local church, no other visible church of Christ is known to the New Testament. Secondly,—that the local church is not a legislative, but is simply an executive, body. Only the authority which originally imposed its laws can amend or abrogate them. Thirdly,—that the local church cannot delegate to any organization or council of churches any power which it does not itself rightfully possess. Fourthly,—that the opposite principle puts the church above the Scriptures and above Christ, and would sanction all the usurpations of Rome.
Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.
Mat. 5:19—“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”;cf.2 Sam. 6:7—“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.”Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, 2:4—“Faith, I have been a truant in the law, And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.”As at the Reformation believers rejoiced to restore communion in both kinds, so we should rejoice to restore baptism as to its subjects and as to its meaning. To administer it to a wailing and resisting infant, or to administer it in any other form than that prescribed by Jesus' command and example, is to desecrate and destroy the ordinance.
(b) From the nature of God's command:
First,—as forming a part, not only of the law, but of the fundamental law, of the church of Christ. The power claimed for a church to change it is not only legislative but constitutional. Secondly,—as expressing the wisdom of the Lawgiver. Power to change the command can be claimed for the church, only on the ground that Christ has failed to adapt the ordinance to changing circumstances, and has made obedience to it unnecessarily difficult and humiliating. Thirdly,—as providing in immersion the only adequate symbol of those saving truths of the gospel which both of the ordinances have it for their office to set forth, and without which they become empty ceremonies and forms. In other words, the church has no right to change the method of administering the ordinance, because such a change vacates the ordinance of its essential meaning. As this argument, however, is of such vital importance, we present it more fully in a special discussion of the Symbolism of Baptism.
Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.
Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas, ridiculed the idea that there could be any constitutional way of violating the Constitution. F. L. Anderson:“In human governments we change the constitution to conform to the will of the people; in the divine government we change the will of the people to conform to the Constitution.”For advocacy of the church's right to modify the form of an ordinance, see Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, in Works, 1:333-348—“Where a ceremony answered, and was intended to answer, several purposes which at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterward, by change of circumstances, were necessarily disunited, then either the church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.”Baptism, for example, at the first symbolized not only entrance into the church of Christ, but personal faith in him as Savior and Lord. It is assumed that entrance into the church and personal faith are now necessarily disunited. Since baptism is in charge of the church, she can attach baptism to the former, and not to the latter.
We of course deny that the separation of baptism from faith is ever necessary. We maintain, on the contrary, that thus to separate the two is to pervert the ordinance,[pg 940]and to make it teach the doctrine of hereditary church membership and salvation by outward manipulation apart from faith. We say with Dean Stanley (on Baptism, in the Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1879), though not, as he does, with approval, that the change in the method of administering the ordinance shows“how the spirit that lives and moves in human society can override the most sacred ordinances.”We cannot with him call this spirit“the free spirit of Christianity,”—we regard it rather as an evil spirit of disobedience and unbelief.“Baptists are therefore pledged to prosecute the work of the Reformation until the church shall return to the simple forms it possessed under the apostles”(G. M. Stone). See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 234-245.
Objections: 1. Immersion is often impracticable.—We reply that, when really impracticable, it is no longer a duty. Where the will to obey is present, but providential circumstances render outward obedience impossible, Christ takes the will for the deed.
2. It is often dangerous to health and life.—We reply that, when it is really dangerous, it is no longer a duty. But then, we have no warrant for substituting another act for that which Christ has commanded. Duty demands simple delay until it can be administered with safety. It must be remembered that ardent feeling nerves even the body.“Brethren, if your hearts be warm, Ice and snow can do no harm.”The cold climate of Russia does not prevent the universal practice of immersion by the Greek church of that country.
3. It is indecent.—We reply, that there is need of care to prevent exposure, but that with this care there is no indecency, more than in fashionable sea-bathing. The argument is valid only against a careless administration of the ordinance, not against immersion itself.
4. It is inconvenient.—We reply that, in a matter of obedience to Christ, we are not to consult convenience. The ordinance which symbolizes his sacrificial death, and our spiritual death with him, may naturally involve something of inconvenience, but joy in submitting to that inconvenience will be a test of the spirit of obedience. When the act is performed, it should be performed as Christ enjoined.
5. Other methods of administration have been blessed to those who submitted to them.—We reply that God has often condescended to human ignorance, and has given his Spirit to those who honestly sought to serve him, even by erroneous forms, such as the Mass. This, however, is not to be taken as a divine sanction of the error, much less as a warrant for the perpetuation of a false system on the part of those who know that it is a violation of Christ's commands. It is, in great part, the position of its advocates, as representatives of Christ and his church, that gives to this false system its power for evil.