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practise of language as well as the practise of the New Testament." Parturiunt montes! Mr. Carson is about to touch the subject with the hand of a master-and to settle the question!

Let us look at his results. He proves abundantly that lov can be applied to bathing, which I never denied. Does he prove that it cannot be applied to sprinkling? Not at all. He asserts it, but nowhere proves it. I assert the contrary, and this is my proof: Porphyry asserts, in libel. de antro Nympharum, that it was customary for married women to purify maidens by sprinkling or affusion, before marriages, with water taken from fountains and living springs. Photius tells us that the water used for this purpose at Athens, was brought in a pitcher from certain fountains which he specifies, by the oldest male boy of the family. Here bathing is excluded, and yet the water thus used is called λουτρον, οι λουτρα νυμφικά, and Zonaras defines λοῦτρα thus, τά εἰς λύσιν ἀγόντα τῆς ἀκαθαρσίας. Those things which produce the removal of impurity, that is, means of purification. The boy who brought the water was called Lovroógpopos. Again, Basil applies the term 2ovrgov to a clinic baptism by sprinkling or affusion. The prætor Ariantheus, converted by his wife, was also baptized by her on his dying bed. Of this Basil says, letter 386-He washed away all the stains of his soul at the close of his life by the washing of regeneration Lovzoo nakiyyevéolas. There was no bathing nor immersion; but sprinkling or affusion.

Again, in Corpus Hist. Byzant., Nicephoras Gregoras, Lib. 24, p. 573, Venice, 1729, uses λovrpov to denote the complex rite of purification, including unction and the influence of the Holy Spirit. Since it is customary with men to wash themselves with water and to anoint themselves with oil, God has joined to the oil and the water the grace of his Spirit, and made them (i. e. oil, water and spirit,) the cleansing of regeneration, λούτρον παλιγγενέσιας—anointing with oil is a part of the process of purification-it is no part of bathing, and here 20vzgor must be taken in the most generic sense given to it by Photius, that is, a system of means of purification or a process of purification.

Mr. Carson hints that the 2ovrnges in the temples might be for bathing the hands, and the vines for washing them! p. 73. Here is the force of theory with a witness. Let us then listen to Julius Pollux, Leg. 46, Lib. 10, Cap. 10. The

caption is, concerning vessels used in washing hands and face, περὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ νιπτέσθαι σκευων.

It is necessary, he proceeds, for one arising from sleep to wash his face τὸ πρόσωπον ἀπονιπτέσθαιhere is no bathing as yet. Let a boy, he proceeds, bring an ewer or pitcher, and pour out fresh water, κατὰ λέβητος ἡ λουτήριου τίνος, in a vessel or wash-basin. He justifies himself in using Lovrýgior in this sense by quoting a line from Anaxilas, in which he says, in baths rois Bakavetois there are no wash-basins, λovrýgia, i. e. vessels for washing hands and face. Can Louw mean to bathe by its own force, when λovrýgiov is thus used to denote a vessel in which to wash (vinter) hands and face, and not only so, but is placed in pointed antithesis to bathing vessels? for in baths surely there are vessels for bathing, though there are none for face and hand-washing. Pollux also gives loving, (the word quoted by me from the Fathers), as a synonyme of Lovrigior to denote a wash-basin, for washing hands and face. All idea of face and hand bathing is therefore excluded.

Mr. Carson says, p. 67, that "lovo, like our word bathe, applies to animal bodies only-we do not speak of bathing cloth."

Nevertheless Origen applies louzoor to wood, and Gregory Nazianzen applies love to clothes and to a couch--and Eupolis, see Pollux, applies άλovoía (i. e. want of washing) to a cloak. Surely these are not animal bodies.

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Again, Mr. Carson says, p. 67, in order to justify the application of vízzo to the whole body it must be all successively washed-as vinto involves friction or hand-washing. yet Euripides applies it to bathing a whole herd of oxen in the sea, where friction, hand-washing, etc., are all out of the question. Strabo too applies it to the bathing of Diana in a river, where there was no probability of hand-washing.

Perhaps I have said enough to illustrate the nature of "the learned remarks of his own," which Mr. Carson has added, and his mode of " touching the subject with the hand of a master." I could add much more, did my room permit, and the patience of my readers allow. I will not complete the quotation with which I began, by adding "Nascitur ridiculus mus," but only state that I see no reason either to add to or take from my statement, after all of Mr. Carson's effort to settle the subject.

Mr. Carson says, I added no learned observations of my own. I answer, the case seemed to me too plain to need any. Nothing

is easier than to make a useless parade of learning. But it is of no use to waste time by needless citations to prove points which no one denies, and at the same time to deny points without proof, on which the whole question hangs.

I conclude then by saying, that loto of its own force denotes to wash, or to purify; that in fact it is more generally used to denote a washing or purifying of the whole body, whether by sprinkling, affusion, or immersion-but that it is also applied to washing hands, face, and feet-also to wood, clothes, couches, cloaks, etc., though but rarely in this last sense.

Ninto applies generally to washing of hands, face, and feet, also sometimes, but more rarely, to bathing the whole body, in the case of both men and animals. It is also often used by the Fathers, with its compounds, to denote the cleansing of the mind from sin, excluding the idea of hand-washing. Sometimes also it is applied to the washing of cups, vessels, (oxɛun) and tables.

Ivo is generally applied to clothes-but also to the body and all its parts, also to cups, metals, and various animal substances. Proof of all these statements is at hand and could be produced if needed. But I think that the case is clear enough as it is.

Mr. Carson's principles and general assertions, as to the Fathers, have passed under review: let us now briefly notice his application of them to the details of my argument. I shall now consider the manner in which he has assailed the Biblical argument.

§ 67. Mr. Carson's attack on the Biblical argument.

The Biblical argument is contained in §§ 8-18. The course of the argument is this: (1.) In John 3: 25, the expression, a dispute concerning purifying (καθαρισμού), proves that καθαρισ pòs and Barrioμos are synonymous, when applied to the rite of baptism. (2.) This view explains the expectation that the Messiah would baptize, for it was foretold that he should purify, but not that he should immerse. (3.) In the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the subject, the agent, the means, and the effect, demand the idea to purify, and exclude the idea to immerse, for the subject is the spirit of man, the agent the divine spirit, the means spiritual, and the effect purity; and in such relations the idea to immerse is absurd; purify is the only reasonable sense. (4). The end of baptism is to indicate sacrificial purification,

i. e. the remission of sins. We should naturally expect to find this idea in its name, and we do find it so used as clearly to indicate that it has the sense xavagiouòs, i. e. sacrificial purification or remission of sins. (5.) In the expression, divers baptisms, in Heb. 9: 10, the word Barrioμo is obviously taken in a generic sense to denote Mosaic purifications of any kind. (6.) The baptism of couches in Mark 7: 4, 8, and the baptism expected of Christ, in Luke 11: 38, were obviously purifications merely, and not immersions. (7.) In speaking of the nightly baptism of Judith (Jud. 12: 7) in the camp of Holofernes, no doubt a mere purification is spoken of without respect to mode, and not an immersion. (8.) In referring to a baptism from a dead body (Sirach 31: 25) no doubt the word is used in the generic sense to denote purification. (9.) The account of purification from sin in the baptism of Paul (Acts 26: 16), and Peter's effort to guard the mind against the idea of mere external purification, and to direct the mind to the purging of the conscience by the atonement, show that purification was the usual religious sense of the word. (10.) In that part of the Greek language in which alone we ought to look for decisive evidence on this subject, there is no opposing evidence to be found; hence the case is decided in favor of the sense to purify, and against the sense to immerse.

In weighing the force of this argument it is necessary to remember, that whatever the practice was in fact, even if it was immersion, it does not in any sense disprove this argument as to the meaning of the word; but only shows that under a command to purify, they did in fact purify by immersion. But I do not at all concede that in the Apostolic days it was cus tomary to baptize by immersion. The fact I am persuaded was directly the reverse. But I mention this consideration, that no illogical imaginations or associations of ideas may entangle the mind or break the force of the argument.

Let it also be borne in mind that the argument is strictly cumulative, and that its force is to be tested by the coherence and accumulated force of its parts.

How, then, does Mr. Carson attempt to answer it? First, by attempting to break it up into disconnected fragments; then, in each fragment trying to prove that the highest possible evidence of my position is not given; that the sense immerse is possible; and then bringing in what he calls the testimony of the word βαπτίζω.

The illogical nature of this whole process I have fully shown. I have also, by evidence most unanswerable, shown that the word Banzio does not in these cases testify as he alleges, but that it testifies directly against him, and most fully and decidedly in my favor. Hence,

1. On the ground on which I first put the argument, i. e. the principles of moral and cumulative evidence, it remains unanswered and with unbroken force.

2. On Mr. Carson's own ground it remains unanswered and with unbroken force. I add,

3. That the truth of every main point in the argument can be sustained by direct philological evidence from the Fathers, and that to any required degree of strength.

To illustrate this last assertion, let us consider the leading points of the argument.

1. Mr. Carson assails my argument from John 3: 25. He denies that the "question" spoken of had any reference to baptism at all. On the other hand Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa; Cyril of Alexandria, and Theophylact, expressly testify that the question concerning purification, was simply and only a question concerning baptism. Nor is this all; Theophylact expressly gives βάπτισμα as an equivalent of καθαρισμός. For, after stating the subject of the question just as I do, he proceeds to say of the disciples of John and the Jews, (ninoárτες δὲ περὶ καθαρισμοῦ ἤτοι βαπτίσματος προσιᾶσι τῷ αὐτῶν didάozako," disputing concerning purification, that is, baptism, they came to their master." Nor are these words equivalent merely as names of the same rite, as Mr. Carson suggests, but they are equivalent in idea, as I have elsewhere often and fully shown. Hence purification is not a mere name of the rite like "illumination," "anointing," " the gift," "grace," "the seal," etc. It is the meaning of the word baptism; and baptism is purification and not immersion.

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2. Again, Mr. Carson treats with very great contempt the second point, that this view explains, by a reference to Old Testament prophecies, the expectation that the Messiah would baptize. This I illustrated by a reference to Malachi. He thinks the argument so contemptible that it deserves no attention." "It requires more than the patience of Job to be able to mention such an argument without expressing strong feeling." "This argument manifests such a want of discrimination, and confusion of things which differ, that the mind on which it

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