An exposition of the law of baptism

Front matter

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Index

I. Principles of interpretation. 7

II. Scriptural Modes of Baptism 46

III. Dissertations upon particular points, touching

THE interpretation OF THE WORD BaPTIZE :

1. Classic Greek and the Greek of the New

Testament 100

2. Mr. Judd on Mark vii. 4 106

3. Dr. Campbell on Mark vii. 4, and Luke xi. 38. 107

4. Prof. Ripley on Mark vii. 4, and Luke xi. 38. 110

5. Baptist Missionary Translations 116

6. Scriptural Idea of Baptism 121

7. Translating the word Baptize 126

8. Transferring words from one language to

another 132

9. Martin Luther's Version 136

10. The Peshito-Syriac Version 139

11. Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Versions 142

12. The Vulgate , 144

IV. Scriptural authority for Infant Baptism 149

V. Objections answered. The utility of Infant

Baptism vindicated , 199

THE

LAW OP BAPTISM.

I. Mode Of Baptism

THE PRINCIPLES OF IXTERPRETATION.

Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. — MATiHE-rr, xx^iii. 19.

The disciples of Christ are to be baptized. So all evangelical Christians agree ; and such is the law of Christ. But while there is an entire aQ:reement with regard to the authority of the law, there has arisen a difference of opinion concerning its interpretation. All the leading denominations of Protestant Christendom, save one (and it is to Protestant Christendom, if anywhere on earth, that we are to look for intelligent views of doctrine and of order, and for evangelical obedience), all the leading denominations of Protestant Christendom, save one, maintain that the mode of baptism is not essential ; and for this opinion they go, not to the decrees of the Pope, nor to the traditions of the Papal Church, as we have been slanderously reported, but to the Word of God. Upon the most careful examination, and in making the best and most scrupulous application of the acknowledged rules of interpretation that we are able, 'we tind that sprinkling and pouring are Scriptural modes of baptism. Many think further (and I profess myself of this number), that these are the only modes for which we have any clear Scriptural example, or even clear Scriptural authority, if anything is to depend upon the mode. But we think nothing depends on the mode : — that the command to Baptize refers to the thing done, rather than to the mode of doing it: viz., to a ritual purifying by some manner of application of luafer ; and in which the mode of the application is a matter of entire indifference ; provided it be done decently and reverently, as becomes an ordinance of God. Hence, we regard immersion as valid baptism ; and never refuse to administer it in that mode, when the candidate for baptism cannot be satisfied in conscience with any other.

But while we believe these things, another large denomination of Christians deem it essential to baptism, that the ichole body be immersed ; and so essential, that they refuse to be united in church membership, or to partake, even occasionally, of the Lord's Supper in company with others who hold the same Gospel truth and order; who are of acknowledged piety ; who, according to their best understanding, and with the full conviction of their conscience, have been baptized ; who differ from themselves only in not having been wholly under water in the manner of their baptism ; and who, were they to be convinced that immersion is essential to baptism, would as soon throw their bodies into the iBre as refuse to be immersed. Their fault is not wilful disobedience ; it is not neglect ; it is not any want of candor or diligence in examining the question concerning the mode of baptism ; it is solely this : instead of subjecting their judgment and conscience in this matter to the authority of their Baptist brethren, they have presumed to follow their own judgment and their own conscience, as enlightened by a careful study of the word of God.

''To the law and to the testimony.*' That word shall judge us in the last day, and by that will we be determined now.

In our investigation of the mode or Baptism, I shall first remark concerning the principles of inferp7^etation to be applied or admitted in determining this question.

Then I shall, upon the basis of these principles, institute three inquiries :

1. What would the immediate disciples of Christ understand from the simple face of the command, ''Baptize?"

2. Is there satisfactory evidence that they always administered the ordinance of baptism by immersion?

3. On the supposition that our Lord was baptized in a given mode, and that the apostles always practiced that mode ; is there evidence that they considered that one mode essential ?

The preliminary remarks concerning the principles of interpretation y together with an application of those principles to the method of arguing employed by our Baptist brethren, will occupy this first discourse. I shall be obliged to take up subjects foreign from the common field of sermonizing ; and such as are rather scholastic, and not very interesting to a mixed assembly. I shall be obliged to tax your patience somewhat ; but I will make the matter as clear and as interesting as I can, and discuss no topic which you will not perceive to have a weighty bearing upon the argument before we get through.

There cannot be much Gospel in such a discussion as this ; as the whole genius of the Gospel is averse to disputations about the mere modes of rites and ordinances. I will try, however, to discuss the matter in the spirit of the Gospel ; and will endeavor to bring in as much of the Gospel of salvation as a disputation about the mere ceremony of an ordinance will admit. I proceed

1. TO THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION TO BE APPLIED OR ADMITTED IN DETERMINING THIS CASE.

Sir William Blackstone, in his '^ Commentaries on the Laws of England/' cites the following example for the purpose of illustrating one of the principles on which laws are to be interpreted.*

''A law of Edward III. forbids all ecclesiastical persons to purchase provisions at Rome.'' JNTow the word '^provisions''^ commonly means '^ victuals ^''^ '' things to eat ;^^ and at first sight the law of Edward III. seems to forbid the purchasing of victuals — meat, grain, eatables — at Rome.

Suppose now, on a debate concerning the import of this law, one should say, ''The law is express: it says, 'provisions,' and provisions are 'victuals.'" Granted : such is the common acceptation of the word. Suppose he should urge it, and bring a hundred dictionaries, in all of which the first and most common meaning of the word "provisions" should be "victuals." Suppose, when I question whether the law meant victuals, and endeavor to give my reasons, he should lift up his hand toward the sun, and cry, " It is as plain as the sun in the heavens, and the man who does not see it is not worth arguing with : all the dictionaries say so : it has been conceded a thousand times that 'provisions' means 'victuals,'" Suppose he should go further: suppose he should hunt up the word "provisions " as used in all the classic English authors from the days of Chaucer and Spenser, and show in ten thousand instances that the word provisions

* Blackstone, Introduction, || 2, 3.

means victuals ; and that, even in its figurative uses, it still refers to something to swpport and nourish: e. g. as when Mrs. Isabella Graham selected a multitude of texts of Scripture calculated to give her comfort in death, she called them ''Provisions for passing over Jordan." ''Here," says the stickler for victuals, " here I take my stand. If I have not settled the meaning of the word ' provisions,^ nothing can be settled." And so he stretches the law to his dictionaries and classics. Provision shall mean victuals ; and all further reasoning is barred away from any concern in settling the question.

You have here, if I mistake not, and as I think I shall be able to show, the substance of the Baptist principles of arguing concerning the question at issue.

But no, says Blackstone ; see first for lohat reason the law was made. Search out the meaning of the word "provisions," with reference to what was intended to be forbidden by that law.

" The law," says Blackstone, "might seem to prohibit the buying of grain and other victuals ; but when we consider that the statute was made to repress the usurpations of the Papal See, and that the nominations to benefices by the Pope were called provisions, we shall see that the restraint is intended to be laid on such provisions only."

The w^ord "provisions" in this law of Edward III. does not mean grain or victuals, or stores of any kind ; but " nominations to ecclesiastical benefices by the Pope ;" and for this law people may purchase as much meat and grain ard other victuals at Rome as they please. The decision of Blackstone carries all common sense with it. Away go the hundred dictionaries and the ten thousand quotations from the classics. No matter how many times it might have been " conceded '' that the word provisions commonly means something to eat. Blackstone himself makes the same concession, and still maintains his interpretation of the law.

JSTo matter then, though a hundred dictionaries of classic Greek, and ten thousand quotations from classic Greek writers, should give immerse as the common and universal meaning of the word JBaptizo. These classic Greek writers lived in another and distant country, and from three hundred to eight hundred years before Christ. They were heathen. They had never used the word with reference to a religious ritual, any more than they had used other words of their language to express the Christian ideas of Holiness, Sin, Faith, Repentance, Justification, Salvation, Angel, and Church. These words, carried into a country where the true God was knovrn, and applied to ideas of the true religion, immediately assumed a meaning which they had never expressed in the land of classic Greek. The Greek language was not introduced into Judea till after the conquest of that country by Alexander, more than three hundred years before Christ. The Hebrew continued to be spoken with the Greek; 2

14 LAW OP BAPTISM.

and it is even contended, with no small force of argument, that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ; as Paul (Acts xxi. 40) stood on the stairs of the castle, and spake to the people ''in the Hebrew tongue.^^ When Christ came, the word Baptizo and rituals called ''Baptisms'' had been in common and every day use among the Jews for about three hundred years. Thus (Heb. ix. 10) the Jewish ritual service is said to have "stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings.''^ — (Sta^dpot^ BaTitiaixoi^ — divers baptisms.) Mark vii. 4. speaks of the (Ba^T'tor-

fiov^ Tio-trjpicov, xai ^satuiv^ xal ;c^'K^bcoVy xav x'kivutv) " baptisms of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables " (or of couches). The same passage says of the Jews, that when they come from the market, {circo ayopa^ — from places of public concourse,) "except they baptize themselves^ (f^^i BaTttiacovrav,) they eat not." Accordingly, (Luke xi. 38,) when Jesus sat down to meat in the Pharisee's house, the Pharisee marvelled "that he had not first washed before dinner," — (6Vc oi; Tiputov £j3a7iifia6r^ — that he had not first been baptized before dinner.) The custom of baptizing themselves was so common as to make it a matter of wonder that Jesus should once sit down to dinner without being baptized. We have only to ascertain what that custom was, to ascertain what they understood by the word baptize. We cannot settle that question by any amount of quotations from classic Greek writers. We must allow Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and Paul, to testify concerning the use of the word in their country and their day, and by themselves, just as we must allow the heathen Greeks to testify concerning its meaning when used bv themselves. Where the New Testament use differs from that of the classic Greek, it is to be adopted as the true one, so far as this question is concerned, even though the heathen Greeks should be unanimous and uniform in giving another meaning to the word, in their country and in their day. The word is so common in the iSTew Testament and in the Septuagint; it is used with reference to rituals, whose mode is so well defined as to render its meaning absolutely certain: and I think I shall be able to show with absolute certainty that that meaning is not truly given by the w^ord immerse. It is altogether idle — and I think I shall be able to show that it leads to utter error and falsehood — for one to pretend to ''fix the meaning of the word " from the classic Greek, and to determine beforehand, on such a basis, that the New Testament writers must use the word in that sense. The Bible is God's own word, and surely the Holy Ghost must be a competent and credible witness, with regard to the meaning with which the Holy Ghost uses the word baptize.

Let me give an illustration or two of the effect of arguing the Xew Testament meaning from the original and from the classic use of a word.

Some years since I met with a man who was liberally educated, a thorough scholar, an able lawyer, and possessed of splendid natural abilities, but skeptical in his views of religion.

With this man I undertook to reason of the necessity of being born of the Holy Ghost. Now, the word in the Greek Testament for Ghost, or spirit, is Pneuma (rtj^fu^a), which originally, and in the classic Greek, most commonly meant wind. This man would have me argue by book. He turned me to the Greek Testament (John iii. 5). '' See here," says he, ^4t reads, and you know it reads, ' Yerily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of wind, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' What right," said he, ''have you to change the original classic meaning of ^Pneuma^ (Tivsv^cx), ^wiiid,^ here, any more than you have of 'Hudatos- (v8atos)j ' water P And see further," said he, ''there is the same word in the 8th verse — letter for letter — and there you do not say, the 'Spirit bloweth where it listeth ;' you say, ' the wind bloweth where it listeth.'

He was right in the original and ordinary classic use of the word. And if I had argued on the principles on which (I shall show) our Baptist brethren have argued, I should have been obliged to allow, that the renewing by the " Spirit of God," or even the personal existence of such a Spirit, is not taught or referred to in this passage.

With all due respect for our Baptist brethren, I humbly conceive that, in this matter, they have

PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. IT

, fallen into an egregious error in their attempted corrections of our common translation.

To the Bibles and Testaments issued by their society, they prefix a glossary, containing, among others, the following words, thus :

'^Meaning of the wo7^ds used in this translation.^'' AyysTtoj, Angel, Messenger.

Ba^tT'tfw, Baptize, Immerse.

BaTtT'tor^oj, Baptism, Immersion.

'P.xx'kr^aia, Church, Congregation."

It is maintained that these words, and some others, are improperly, if not dishonestly, left untranslated in the received English version, and that the words which are given in the third column ought to be substituted for the words adopted in our translation. Thus: where we read ''Church," we ought to read '' Congregation ;" where we read ''Angel" in our version, we ought to read "Messenger;" where we read " Baptize," we ought to read " Immerse ;" and where we read " Baptism," we ought to read " Immersion."

Now it appears to me that this is falling into a worse error than that of the unbelieving scholar concerning the word Fneuma, or Spirit. Thus, " Angel " is a word of Greek original adopted into the English language, and used in our translation.*

"" Nothing is more common tlian such adoption of words from the Greek. The process is going on to this day ; particularly our terms of science and of art are almost wholly adopted (and compounded) from the Greek. Strike all such 2*

Our Baptist brethren insist that this adoption is wrong : that the word ought to be translated by the word ''Messenger.''

It is certainly true that, in the classic Greek, the word Angel (ayyexoi) means Messenger ; and means nothing like the idea which we attribute to it: viz., of a spiritual being of an order superior to man and inferior to God. The Greeks even had another word to signify such a spiritual being, '' Demon " (6ai/xiov), and Angelas (ayyfXo^) meant nothing but " messenger.^^ But mark how the classic Greek was modified when adapted to Jewish ideas. The Jews used the word *' Demon " (Sat^w>) to express only an evil spirit; & fallen angel; and " angeV^ they appropriated to the good spirits. And to translate the word in all cases as the Baptist Bible Society would teach us, instead of adopting it into English, would make the most arrant nonsense.

For example : take Acts xxiii. 8, and translate it according to the instructions and on the principles of the Baptist Bible Society.

In our common version the passage reads thus :

adopted words from our language, and scarcely could two people, even in the ordinary walks of life, hold a conversation for a single hour.

"Licuit SEMPERQUE LICEBIT

*' For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit : but the Pharisees confess both.'' The word resurrection here falls under the same rule, if you take its meaning from the classic Greek. The Greeks had no such idea as that of the resurrection of the body ; and of course no word for it, but their avm'taai^ (anastasis) was a simple " rising up.'' In our translation the passage reads thus: '" For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." According to the principles on which our translation is branded as inadequate and unfaithful, we must read it thus: For the Sadducees say there is no rising up, neither messenger nor wind." But did they ever say so ? Did they ever deny the existence of such a thing as a messenger, or of such a thing as wind ?

According to the glossary prefixed to the Bible by the Baptist Bible Society, we must expunge the word angel from our Bibles, and substitute the word messenger. Thus, John v. 4, must be read, ^^ For a messenger went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water." In Acts xi. 13, we must read, "' And showed us how he had seen a messenger in his house :" Acts xii. 15, '' Then said they, it is his" (Peter's) messenger:''^ Matt. iv. 11, '' Then the devil leaveth him, and behold messengers came and ministered to him :" Matt, xviii. 10, '' Their messengers do always behold the face of my Father in Heaven :" 1 Cor. vi. 3, '' Know ye not,

20 LAW or BAPTISM.

that we shall judge messengers V Heb. i. 4, ''Being made so much better than the messengers .*'' Heb. ii. 16, " He took not on him the nature of messengers:^^ and Heb. xiii. 2, " For some have entertained messengers unawares." I confess that there is quite as good reason for making Angel read messenger, as there is for making Baptize read immerse."

The word Church, too, must express no more than the heathen idea of a town-meeting, or assembly. But clearly the 'New Testament ecclesia does mean something which it never could mean in classic Greek. Thus, in 1 Cor. xii. 28, "And God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles," &c. ; it is not a simple assembly, or congregation, that is intended ; so, Eph. i. 22, " And gave him to be head over all things to the Church,'^'' it is no congregation that is intended, but the universal policy of Christ's people, in all lands, at all time, on earth and in Heaven. Perhaps we should not have had either Church or Angel proscribed from the Bible, had it not been essential to find some company for the poor banished word Baptize.

The same reason existed for converting the Greek Baptizo into the English Baptize, as for converting Angelos into Angel, There was no word in English which would fill up the idea. If baptism was to be performed by sprinkling, it would not do to translate Baptizo by the word sprinkle, because all sprinkling is not baptism. If baptism were exclusively by immersion, still the word immerse would not express the whole or the essential idea ; and all immersion is not baptism. The word Baptize in the New Testament refers less to the manner of the application of water, than to the design and import of the application ; it is a sacred application : a ritual application : denoting a ritual purifying, and referring to an important and essential truth for its signification. The [N'ew Testament use of the word involved a reference to these ideas, just as the word Baptize does now ; and neither of the words, sprinkle, pour, immerse, has the essential quality of referring to these ideas. Thus: if I go and throw myself off from one of the wharves at high tide, I am immersed beyond question ; but am I baptized ? Our young men and boys immerse themselves many times every summer ; but are they baptized ? I think all would deem it improper to say so. The fundamental idea of baptism is wanting.

It would therefore be an inadequate and improper translation to substitute the word immerse for the word baptize, in every place in the jSTew Testament.; as much as it would to make that substitution which should make the Sadducees deny the existence of such a thing as a ''messenger," or ''wind." The translators of our Bible, as intelligent and honest men, could not translate "Baptizo^^ by '^Immerse^^ on this ground alone : and I shall show that they could not on another : as in the New Testament the word denotes often an application of water (or of something else), by sprinkling or by pouring. It is used often where the idea of immersion is entirely excluded.

Indeed, if any fault is to be found with the word Baptize, as though it were a Greek word, instead of a translation, precisely the same objection applies to the words '^Immerse^^ and "Immersion.''^ These are as purely Latin, as " Baptize" is Greek : and we might with the same propriety turn round and say, Why do you not translate those Latin words ? Do you mean to ''keep people in ignorance," and ''promote a union of Church and State," by talking to the people, like the Pope, in Latin?

To my mind, the noise that is made about the non-translation of the word Baptize, is utterly without foundation. To adopt the principles on which the noise is made, and carry them out, would lead to gross absurdity. To say that people would never have made any question about the mode of baptism if the word had only been translated immerse, is only to say that if the word had been improperly translated, the people would have been misled. There is no reason in the world, that I know of, for thinking that our translators were either ignorant or dishonest in this matter. Had they not turned Baptizo into an English word, they must have expressed it by a circumlocution that would have amounted to a gloss, rather than a translation, or they must have coined a new word for the purpose.

Besides, while so large a part of the learned world fully believe that Baptism in the New Testament often signified an application of water which was performed by sprinkling or by pouring ; how could we have a Bible in which all denominations may agree, if we insist upon translating the word Baptize either by " immerse, ^^ by ^^pouVj^^ or by '' sprinkle ?" Were there no other reason, this would be sufficient for adopting the original word, instead of translating it by either.

And yet, our Baptist brethren have broken off from the national Bible Society, for the very reason that it will not be thus instrumental in putting forth to the world a sectarian Bible ! They have a denominational Bible Society, entitled the "American and Foreign Bible Society, ^^ which issues its foreign translations on the principle of substituting the word immerse for baptize : and by their notes at the beginning of the New Testament they have, in effect, done the same for the English translation : with how little reason, I have shown.

I say not this out of disrespect or fault-finding. The right of conscience and of private judgment is theirs. Most freely, with no disturbance or complaint on our part, let them enjoy it. I only aim to point out what I consider the error of the principle. Whether I have succeeded, you will judge. We impeach not their integrity in the least. Would that our integrity in this matter, and our rights of conscience and of private judgment, might be equally respected. But it is with no less grief than astonishment, that I read in the papers the last month, the following "He solution^ ^ of the '' American and

Foreign Bible Society," at their anniversary on the 28th of April of the present year.*

^^ Resolved J that by the fact, that the nations of the earth must now look to the Baptist denomination ALONE FOR FAITHFUL TRANSLATIONS OF THE

WORD OF God, a responsibility is imposed upon them, demanding for its full discharge, an unwonted degree of union, of devotion, and of strenuous and persevering effort throughout the entire body. "

That our Baptist brethren mean to be faithful in translating the w^ord of God, we doubt not. But are we to believe that all the missionaries of Protestant Christendom throughout the world, save ''the Baptist denomination alone, '^ have given to the poor heathen unfaithful translations of the w^ord of God ? Can no ''faithful translation" come from any denomination on earth save one?f Are the ^'nations

^ A.D. 1840. It was moved by Prof. Eaton, of Hamilton Institute, and seconded by Rev. Mr. Malcom.

f In the report of the American and Foreign Bible Society, for 1840 (p. 39), the translations made by all other denominations are stigmatized as ''Versions in which the real meanings of . . . words, are purposely kept out of sight," ... so that "Baptists cannot circulate faithful versions . . . unless they print them at their own expense." They ask (p. 49), "Shall we look on unconcernedly while unfaithful versions (as we hold them) are circulated?" They assert (p. 45), "It is known that the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the American Bible Society, have virtually combined to OBSCURE at least a part of Divine Revelation ;" and of the earth," according to the tenor of this resolution, dependent on ''the Baptist denomination alone'' for this ?

that ''these societies . . . continue to circulate versions of the Bible, unfaithful, at least so far as the subject of baptism is concerned ; and that they are by this means propagating their peculiar sentiments under the auspices, and at the expense of the millions of all denominations who contribute to their funds ; and who are thus made the unconscious instruments of diffusing the opinions of a part'y, instead of the uncorrupted word of Jehovah. ^^

This last paragraph is not less remarkable for its deliberate charge of dishonesty upon all other denominations than for its singular admission of that, which if it be a fact — it seems to me — is fatal to the immersion scheme. The allegation is, that to transfer bapiizo into baptize, instead of rendering it by the ^Y ord Immerse, is ^^ to propagate the peculiar sentiments'' of Pedobaptists. _That is, the word baptizois so used in the New Testament, as almost without fail to lead those who learn its meaning from the Bible alone to conclude that it does not, in the Bible, mean immersion ; and if you leave people to learn its meaning from the context for them-^ selves, you ''propagate the peculiar sentiments" of Pedobaptists among them! Nay, the same effect will be produced when such a Bible is given by Baptist hands, and accompanied by Baptist instructions ! If Baptists circulate such aversion, they "are thus made the unconscious instruments of diffusing the opinions'' of the ^' party" — of Pedobaptists !

I believe it. It is even so. But the conclusion is (and the

objection of our Baptist brethren unwittingly adopts this

very conclusion as its basis), that the word baptizo, as it is

used in the New Testament, does not mean immerse ; and

Having remarked so far upon the principles of interpretation, I come now to make an application of those principles to the mode of arguing adopted bj our Baptist brethren.

It was first attempted to prove that Baptize means exclusively to immerse, from the etymology of the word. Baptize is truly a derivative from Bapto: and the primitive meaning of Bapto is to ''dip/' or to ''immerse.'' It was contended that it always means to immerse. This was long urged and most strenuously insisted on as the foundation of the Baptist argument — that Bapto means nothing but to dip or immerse.