Imatges de pàgina
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CHAP.

I.

νιπτω.

Matt. vi. 17,

and xv. 2.

Pluno occurs Rev. vii. 14, "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

way

Nipto. "Wash thy face." "Wash their hands." "He went his and washed, and came seeing:" the same Mark vii. 3. term used in all cases where "wash" occurs in the John ix. 7. narrative of the remarkable cure alluded to. In contrast with ballo, "He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash his disciples' feet;" and the same verb is used wherever "wash" occurs through the passage. The last time this word occurs is 1 Tim. v. 10, "If she have washed the saints' feet."

βαλλω.

νιπτω.

εκχέω.

Matt. ix. 17. :
Mark ii. 22.

33.

Ekkeo occurs in the parable respecting "putting wine into new bottles;" where Christ "poured out the John ii. 15. changers' money, and overthrew the tables ;” « I will Acts ii. 17, pour out my spirit upon all flesh;" "and hath shed Acts xxii. forth this which ye now see and hear;" "when the blood of the martyr Stephen was shed;" "swift to Tit. iii. 6. shed blood;" "the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly;" and, finally, in the sixteenth chapter of the Revelation, in all the verses relating to the "pouring out of the vials of wrath."

20.

Rom. iii. 15.

βρεχε. Luke vii. 37, 38.

Breko is the term rendered wash in the following passage: "And behold a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster-box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment."

Now there is such a manifest analogy between the dropping of tears, and the method now adopted in the consecration of babes, that I cannot but think if such had been the design of the Great Legislator instead of immersion, that this term would have been employed,

VI.

instead of one doomed for ever to signify to immerse. SECT. Then Dr. Morrison could, without any danger to his fame either moral or literary, have instructed the Chinese respecting "the wetting ceremony," and the Seneca Indians might have still been permitted to enjoy their translation (where the word has been rendered sprinkle,”) unaltered.c

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Rantizo is used in Hebrews with reference to the pavia. sprinkling the unclean; "sprinkled both the book and Heb. xii. 24. the people;" "he sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry."

Rantizmos, "the blood of sprinkling;” sprinkling of 1 Pet. i. 2. the blood of Jesus Christ."

the investi

gation.

I have been thus minute that it might be apparent and Result of undeniable that wherever in the New Testament the idea of washing, without the mode of dipping being specified is conveyed, louo or nipto are employed; wherever pouring is referred to, ekkeo or ballo are found; baptizo NEVER; wherever sprinkling is referred to, rantizo or breko are employed; baptizo NEVER.-Is it, therefore, too much to ask that, seeing baptizo is never found in the New Testament applied to sprinkling or pouring, but always to immersion, in future those who pour or sprinkle will cease to falsify the word baptizo, and speak of ran

b Dr. M. it is understood thus ventured to translate the word baptizo in his Chinese version of the Scriptures.

c I am aware that Athanasius speaks of the "baptism of tears;" but it is a figurative expression, tantamount to "overwhelmed with sorrows;" and it was an idea of the Fathers, that overwhelming distress from persecutions, which they metaphorically termed "a baptism of tears," would save without literal baptism; as also martyrdom, which, therefore, they called the " baptism of blood." It was what they deemed the saving effect of baptism, not its mode that they referred to in these metaphorical expressions.

I.

CHAP. tizing, or any other word that approximates in some slight degree the process; rather than be so absurd as to use a word the most remote that possibly could be found in the Greek language.

An inquiry.

d

We close this section by an inquiry.-If the great Head of the Church had designed to use a term prescribing immersion as specifically as possible, does the

"Now if baptism does indeed mean immerse, as all admit, it must (to say the very least), be doubtful whether it can also mean to sprinkle or pour. Immerse, sprinkle, and pour, are three distinct ideas, expressed by different words in all languages. No man in his right mind would think of immersing an object, and saying he sprinkled it; or of sprinkling an object, and saying he immersed it. This remark is as applicable to the Greek as to the English. Indeed it is well known that the Greek excels in the precision and fidelity with which it expresses different ideas, and even different shades of the same idea, by different words.

"While I filled the Professorship of Ancient Languages in the University of Georgia, I had occasion to compile a table of passages where the words dip, pour, sprinkle, and wash, in their various modifications occur in the English Bible, with the corresponding term used in the Greek of the New Testament, and the Septuagint. Dip I found in twenty-one passages. In all of these except one, bapto or baptizo is found in the Greek. The one exception is in Gen. xxxvii. 31, where Joseph's brethren took his coat and dipped-emolunan, (smeared or daubed,) it in the blood of a kid. Mark the great accuracy of the Greek here—the idea is that of smearing or daubing, and the Septuagint so expresses it.

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'Sprinkle, in some of its forms, I found in twenty-seven passages. In not a single instance is BAPTO or BAPTIZO used in the Greek.

"Pour I found in no less than one hundred and nineteen instances, but in not even one of them did I meet with BAPTO or BapTIZO in the Greek.

"I found wash in thirty-two cases, where reference was had not to the whole person, but to a part, as the eyes, the face, the hands, the feet. In none of these was BAPTO or BAPTIZO found, but NIPTO invariably."-President Shannon, of the College of Louisiana. Christian Preacher, vol. iii. p. 158.

VII.

Greek language afford a word equally as specific as SECT. baptizo? In other words; Has not our Saviour employed that very word which was employed by all the writers of the Greek language, when for any purpose they directed immersion? So far as I am aware, this question has never been answered in the negative.

SECTION VII.

ANCIENT AND MODERN TRANSLATIONS OF THE NEW

TESTAMENT.

THE fact that almost every version of the Bible exist- Versions. ing, ancient and modern, previous to 1820, has invariably either not translated the word at all, or else rendered it by a term equivalent to dip is interesting and worthy of attention.

The Old Syriac, or Peshito, is acknowledged to be Old Syriac. the most ancient version extant. It was translated as early as the beginning of the second century, where Syriac and Greek were both perfectly understood; and in the very country where many of the Apostles spent most of their lives. This version uniformly renders baptizo by amad, which all authorities agree in its ordinary meaning to be identical with immerse.a

The same is true of the Ethiopic or Abyssinian; the Ethiopian. Amharic, the Armenian, both ancient and modern; the Amharic. Coptic, the Arabic, the Persian, the Turkish versions, Coptic, &c.

a For observations on Prof. Stuart's attempt to raise a doubt on this point, see Judd's Reply to Stuart, p. 164. To the Appendix to that work I am indebted for much of the information contained in this section.

Armenian.

CHAP. translated at different periods from the third to the seventeenth centuries.

I.

Latin. Gothic.

German.

German

Swiss. Saxon. Belgian. Swedish. Welsh. Sclavonic.

Of the western versions, the Latin transfers the Greek baptizo. The Gothic, made from the Greek in the middle of the fourth century, renders baptizo in all cases by daupyan, to dip; the German, (Luther's and all other translations,) use the word taufen. That this word means dip, the testimony of Luther, (which may be found at length in Section IX.), is sufficient to prove; and Dr. Knapp, Professor of Theology at the University of Halle, affirms the same; while in another place he observes, "It would have been better to have adhered generally to the ancient practice, as even Luther and Calvin allowed."b

The German-Swiss uses taufen; Lower Saxon the same; Belgian, doopen; Danish, dobe, a form of daupyan; Swedish, dopa; Welsh, bedyddoio; all meaning to dip.

The Sclavonic, or old Russian, has krestit, "to cross;" because the form of crossing the child is used in baptism; in England, baptism and christening, among the members of the national church, are synonymous. "Were crossed by him in Jordan," &c., is about as absurd as 66 were sprinkled by him in Jordan;" not quite, however, because the Russian means that John crossed and immersed both; but the modern pœdobap. tist means that they went up to their middle in water to be sprinkled.c

Knapp's Theology, translated by L. Woods, vol. ii. p. 510, 517. When the writer was a child, having been taught that the Bible was all true, and deeming the pictures in the Bible a by no means unimportant part of the book, he for some time was firm in this same faith; for such was the pictorial representation of John baptizing Jesus: and, without breach of candour, it may be appre

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