treme ridiculousness of these assertions, if the subject were not too serious for ridicule. But assertions of this kind have a moral as well as an intellectual character, in the sight of God. Can any one believe that Mr. Carson had ever made the investigations necessary to qualify him to make such assertions? And is this the way in which he is wont to make statements on subjects so momentous? An extended circle of minds rely on him for information on topics beyond their reach. Over them his opinions and unlimited assertions have a sway almost absolute. And is this the way in which he uses his intellectual powers, and repays their confidence? I hesitate not to say, that he could not more totally mislead all who rely upon him. Instead of that iron uniformity of use which he claims, there are few words which have in the Fathers a usage more diversified and various. I have hitherto aimed simply at one point, to prove that it has the usage that I claim. To exhibit all the Patristic uses of the word I have not attempted. And yet perhaps the time has come in which it ought to be done, for it will give a more elevated point of vision from which to survey the whole subject, and to study its symmetry and proportions. After adducing, therefore, some further evidence on the main point, I shall attempt to give a general view of the Patristic uses of the word.

§ 61. Additional facts.

Compare, then, with Mr. Carson's contemptuous denial of my position, and his unlimited and overbearing assertions, the following passage rom Ambrose, a Father who was not only a student of the works of Basil, but drew the materials of many of his own works from them. Apol. David, § 59, "Per hyssopi fasciculum adspergebatur agni sanguine, qui mundari volebat typico baptismate." "He who desired to be purified with a typical baptism was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb by means of a bunch of hyssop." Compare this now with the passages from Ambrose, Cyril, and others, in § 53, and who does not see with absolute and intuitive certainty that baptism has the sense of sacrificial purification? Sprinkling with blood was a typical purification, but certainly it was not a typical immersion.

Indeed, so far did the Fathers carry the idea of sacrificial purification, that they gave the name baptism to cases in which the expiated person was not touched by the purifying fluid. All that they required was, that it should be so sprinkled or otherwise used, that expiation should be actually made; whenever

this was done in any way, they regarded the person as baptized, i. e. purified, or expiated, or absolved.

Hence when the blood of the Paschal Lamb was sprinkled on the posts of the door, they regarded all in the house as baptized, i. e. purified or expiated by blood. So both Theodoret and Ambrose regard the purging with hyssop in Ps. 51: 7. In the Septuagint it is, Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop. They both applied it to baptizing, i. e. purifying by the blood of a lamb. Hence also one, who wrote in the name of Chrysostom, speaks of the thief on the cross as baptized, because expiation was made for him by the water and blood that came out of the side of Christ. He also intimates in the same passage, that if there had been a shower of rain it would have been sufficient to baptize the thief, but as there was not, he was baptized by the issuing of water and blood from the side of Christ. All this is perfectly plain the moment we assign to Barrio the sacrificial sense to purify. For the actual making of an expiation justified the application of the word to the person expiated, and also by metonymy to that by which it was made. And hence Origen states in general terms that Christ calls the shedding of his blood a baptism. Hence also, as we have seen, the water and the blood that issued from his side were called baptisms. See § 52. p. 93 Jan. 1843; also §§ 25, 26, Jan. 1841. Compare now Mr. Carson's positive and contemptuous assertions with all these facts, and what shall we say? It is not the province of the human mind to create facts in history or philosophy, but simply to discover and advance them. But Mr. Carson proceeds as if it were his province, by intense assertions, to create them. But after all his assertions, they stand calmly and simply just as they did before. I find in the Fathers no evidence at all of the existence of rail-roads and steam-coaches, but abundant evidence that Bantico means to purify.

Let me now add some further evidence on the subject of moral purification. Repentance, sorrow for sin, the trials of God's providence, and the truth, all purify the mind from sin. They do not make expiation or atonement, but they purify in a moral sense. Accordingly in the usage of the Fathers all these things are said to baptize. One writing in the name of Chrysostom enumerates five kinds of baptism. Of these I shall notice the baptism by the truth, and the baptism by fire. By fire he understands the trials of life by which God purifies his children, calling and choosing them in the furnace of affliction. In proof

of this he refers to Is. 4: 4, "The Lord shall purge by the spirit of burning ;" and Ps. 66: 10, "Thou, O God, hast proved us, thou hast tried us as gold and silver is tried." "For," says he, " as gold or silver is purified in the furnace, by consuming the dross, so a man, placed in the furnace of affliction, is sanctified by the removal of his sins." To be thus purified, i. e. baptized, by fire, he regards as a peculiar privilege of the sons of God." But the servants of the devil are not baptized by fire. Wherefore? Because he who is wholly polluted cannot so lay aside his filth as to be made clean. Begin to wash a brick in water, does it ever become clean? No; but by stirring up the clay it becomes more polluted. For he is made pure in whom is something good, by means of which he can be made pure." Now all this argument is powerless to prove that the servants of the devil cannot be immersed in fire. That can be done whether they are purified or not. The argument proves only that the servants of Satan are not purified by the fire of trial, because they are all dross, there is in them no gold to be purified. But the sons of God are purified by the fire of trial, because in them there is gold, and the fire of trial consumes the dross and leaves the gold more pure. Baptism by the truth he illustrates by a reference to John 15: 3, "Now are ye clean (xavagoi) through the word that I have spoken unto you." Faith purifies, it does not immerse.

Anastasius, Bib. Pat. Vol. IX. 1030, says that he "should dare to call mourning, with reference to God, another baptism." In Op. Isaia Abbatis, Bib. Vet. Pat. And. Gallandii, Vol. VII. p. 292, it is said, "Affliction with humility and silence is a baptism, for John was clothed in camel's hair, and had a leathern girdle around his loins, and lived in the desert, which is a sign of affliction and penitence, which purifies a man.” In all these cases the idea of immersion is out of the question. The fire of trials, the truth, sorrow for sins as against God, affliction with humility and patience, all purify a man, but they do not immerse him. Hence in all these cases, the idea of immersion is absolutely and unquestionably excluded from the word baptism. No meaning but purification is possible.

I have before me six lists of different kinds of baptism, by six different Fathers, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Maximus, Isidore Hispalensis, and John of Damascus. The one passing under the name of Athanasius is probably not his, but is a decisive proof of the usus loquendi of the age, and it reappears enlarged in the works of John of Damascus. From it

I take the following passage: ἐβαπτίσθη ̓Ιωαννης τὴν χεῖρα ἐπιθεῖς ἐπὶ τὴν θεῖαν τοῦ δεσπότου κορυφὴν, καὶ τῷ ἰδιῷ αἱματι. John was baptized by placing his hand on the divine head of his master and by his own blood.

The Fathers held that Christ, by touching the waters, purified them and gave them a purifying power.

So also they held that by touching John he purified him, and this purification by touch he expressed by Bantico. Surely all idea of immersion is excluded here. Indeed he expresses the same idea by ayato, in another part of the passage. Christ was baptized that he might purify (ayıάy) the baptizer. John was also clearly regarded by the Fathers as purified by his own blood, not immersed in it.

From these lists we also learn that the eternal punishment of the wicked is a baptism, because it will purge the holy universe from sin. The flood was a baptism, for two reasons; it purified the world from sinners and sin; and it also purified and saved those in the ark. But the wicked who were immersed by the flood were not baptized. So also the whole process of legal purification under the law, including the washing of the clothes as well as that of the body, was called a baptism. Viewing it as a complex whole, it was proper to call it a purification, but not an immersion. So too the washing of the disciples' feet by Christ is regarded by another Father as a baptism; and by still another, the anointing of the blind man's eyes with clay and spittle, and his washing in the pool of Siloam, because the spittle of Christ purifies as well as the washing in the pool.

What now shall we say to all these things? If Mr. Carson had asserted that the Mississippi ran from the Gulf of Mexico with an impetuous current towards the cold regions of the north, and there descended by one vast cataract towards the centre of the globe, and had charged all with presumptuous temerity who dared to call in question the truth of his assertions, he could not be more utterly at war with the facts of the case than he is in his assertions as to the Patristic use of βαπτίζω.

§ 62. Other errors of Mr. Carson.

It was with reference to assertions such as these that I remarked, Jan. 1843, p. 77, that Mr. Carson had made assertions that I knew not how to explain if he had ever read the Greek Fathers.

Indeed Mr. Carson has elsewhere made assertions as to other words with the same inexplicable disregard of facts. On pp. 22,

23, he thus speaks: "Mr. Beecher's criticism on the word (πɛqıxλv¬άσ0αı) here (Tobit 6 : 2) employed for washing, is entirely false." I translated it to wash all around. He proceeds, "The simple word signifies to deluge, to overwhelm, to inundate, to flow over any thing." "Mr. Beecher criticises from imagination, not from knowledge of the language. Has he justified his criticism by a single example?" He then remarks with great taste and refinement, "The word does not signify that the young man in bathing splashed about like a duck, or rubbed himself like a collier, but that he threw himself into the river, that the stream might flow over him." Again, "There is no friction nor hand-washing in this word. It performs its purpose by running over either gently or with violence." So much learned minuteness and such bold charges of inaccuracy on me would lead an incautious reader to suppose that Mr. Carson must have first made sure his facts before daring thus to commit himself before the learned world. Indeed, when I first read his remarks it produced a temporary impression that I must be wrong, or he would not dare to make such assertions. But the moment I looked at facts the illusion vanished. It is indeed true that zlúš∞ has in some cases the meaning that he assigns to it. But it is not true that it has not the meaning that I assign to it. The facts are these: 1. It is applied by Euripides to washing the body with sea water, where vizzo is applied to the same operation which Mr. Carson admits denotes hand-washing.

2. It is applied to the washing of children, by Aristotle-rò παιδίον ὕδατι περικλύζειν—to wash the child all around with

water.

3. In Geoponica 17, 22, it is applied to washing an ulcer by a fluid, éλxos xhúÇew ovgo. Here is no deluging, overwhelming, or inundation.

4. Epiphanius applies it to the purifications of the Jews, x2vLóuevo ovog, where deluging or overflowing is out of the question.

5. By Pollux it is applied to the washing of clothes, and also of cups, and is given as a synonyme of nλvre, and gúzzɛw and καθαίρειν and their compounds with διά, ἀπὸ and ἐκ. What can be more decisive?

6. It is applied to the washing of head, hands and body, after an unlucky dream.

7. It is used by Plutarch to denote the washing off blood from armor, αἷμα τῶν ὅπλων ἔτι θερμὸν ἀποκλύζεται. Plut. 7. 283. 11.