introduce into the world of rhetoric and taste the iron rules of rigid demonstration. I insist that, in the interpretation of language, the mind shall be left open to the full power of all the influences that conspired to form that language. For example, in the exquisite passage quoted from Proclus, to translate Banrico immerse, to a sensitive mind, alive to the beauties of style, would be worse than ten thousand discords in music. I refuse to be haunted by the ghost of an absurd canon of evidence through all the regions of poetry and eloquence, and compelled to reject all probable evidence of secondary senses, however striking, till I can succeed in hunting up one case of the impossibility of the primary sense. Whether I could find one such case or not, I did insist, and still do, that the laws of moral and cumulative evidence shall have their rightful sway, and that language shall not be tortured, wrested, and tormented for party purposes, and under the guise of zeal for the glory of God, and with charges of childish sophistry, or of unitarian or papal reasoning, or even of blasphemy, and giving the lie to the Holy Ghost, merely because I duly regard rational probabilities in deciding the sense of words. As to the passages from Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Gregory Naz., in which I assign to βάπτισμος the sacrificial sense καθαρισμός, I have fully vindicated that sense in my remarks on the baptism of blood, in §§ 25, 26, Jan. 1841, and in the present article; and to these remarks I refer the reader.

Let us now consider what Mr. Carson, with his usual urbanity, calls my original nonsense. Concerning this, he says, "He gives us eight lines of philosophy. I will give a premium to any one, who will produce me a greater quantity of absurdity in the same compass, under the appearance of wisdom. The only merit this nonsense can claim, is that it is original nonsense. With all due deference to Mr. Carson's award of the palm of originality to me, I am obliged to resign it to Basil, Clemens Alexandrinus, Jerome and others of the Fathers; for what I stated as philosophically probable, I find by their writings that they had seen long before me as a matter of fact. My eight lines of original nonsense are these: "In a case where analogical senses exist, one external and material, and the other spiritual, it is natural that they should run into each other, and terms applied to one, be applied to the other. Thus if Banrico means to purify, then there is natural purification and spiritual purification, or regeneration, and there would be a tendency to use avayevváo to SECOND SERIES, VOL. IX. NO. II.

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denote the latter idea, and also to transfer it to the external rite. And at first it would be so done as merely to be the name of the rite and not to denote its actual efficacy."-Hear now Basil: "Since, then, the Lord has connected both baptisms, namely that from water to repentance, and that from the Spirit to regeneration, are there not three significations of baptism, purification from filth, regeneration (ávayévrnois) by the Spirit, and trial, i. e. purgation by the fire of judgment. Here now the senses are analogical. Purification by water is external and material, purification by the Spirit is internal and spiritual, that is, it is regeneration. Hence also Búziouos runs into that sense, i. e. regeneration is one of its meanings: so Basil expressly testifies. Again, this name regeneration was transferred to denote the external rite, and yet so transferred as to be merely the name of the rite and not to denote its actual efficacy. Of this the mere fact that it was applied to Christ, is proof enough. That he had no sin, and needed no spiritual purification, they all with one voice affirm, and yet they fully speak of him as regenerated. What sense is here possible but the sense baptize? Clemens Alexand., speaking of the baptism of Christ, says, σήμερον ἀναγεννηθείς ὁ Χριστὸς, Christ, being regenerated to-day, etc., and in the context interchanges that mode of expression with Banricóueros-so Jerome says of Christ that he was born of a virgin-and born again, (renatus) of a virgin—i. e. John the Baptist. All then that I stated is true. Banziouòs, i. e. purification, has analogical senses, one external and material, the other internal and spiritual. Spiritual purification is regeneration. This became a sense of the word baptism. It was also applied to the external rite to denote its name, but not its efficacy. The view that I advocate explains all this. It led me to expect it; and facts are as I expected to find them. Hence to Basil and to the Fathers I must resign the palm of originality. I cannot, however, give them the premium for more nonsense than mine. Their nonsense and mine seem in quantity exactly to coincide. Mr. Carson's a priori reasonings against my views, are therefore merely reasonings against notorious matters of fact. This is as I expected. His principles are at war with facts, and to what else can they lead him? If then his reasoning is good, what has he proved? Simply that the actual facts of language, and the actual operations of the human mind are nonsense. All this may be; and this state of things may call loudly for reform. Let not Mr. Carson

then be discouraged. It merely opens to him a new field of reform. Let him follow his high vocation, and having reformed philology, commentary, rhetoric and logic, let him next reform the human mind itself, and human languages, the offspring of that mind. Then he will have all things to his liking. Then, and not till then, will his favorite principles have full scope. What kind of languages he will form it is not for me to say. I enter not a sphere so high. They may be the tongues of angels: certainly they will not be the tongues of men. As for me, I am willing to take facts as I find them, even at the hazard of being charged with nonsense, for so doing. I leave the tongues of angels to Mr. Carson. I am contented to study the tongues of men.

§ 69. Result.

The conclusion of the whole matter then is this. The testimony of the Fathers, according to Mr. Carson, is absolute and decisive, for they must have known the apostolic usage of the word; to say otherwise is virtually to say that the Scriptures are no revelation. But the testimony of the Fathers is as full against his positions and in favor of mine, as is in the nature of things possible; and, therefore, the question is decided in my favor, and that not by the opinions of modern critics, but by men from whose opinion there is no appeal.

But before closing the argument, I desire to repeat what I have often said before, that I appeal to the Fathers simply as witnesses to the meaning of words. Many of their opinions which I have stated, as for example, those on baptismal regeneration, holy water, etc., are clearly false. But this does not at all invalidate or weaken their testimony as to the use of words, or hide the great fact which blazes through their pages like the sun in mid heaven, that they habitually used ßantico to denote purification of every kind. So that with the proposition, which I laid down at the opening of this discussion, I bring it to a close. § 3, p. 46. Jan. 1840.

"The word Barrio, as a religious term, means neither dip nor sprinkle, immerse nor pour, nor any other external action in applying a fluid to the body, or the body to a fluid, nor any action that is limited to one mode of performance. But as a. religious term it means, at all times, to purify or cleanse,—words of a meaning so general, as not to be confined to any mode or agent, or means or object, whether material or spiritual, but to

leave the widest scope for the question as to the mode. So that in this usage it is in every respect a perfect synonyme of the word καθαρίζω.”

This proposition I at first derived solely from an examination of the New Testament usage, and I here repeat it as a true view of the import of the language of that supreme law of the Christian church. And I value the appeal to the Fathers simply as helping us, by their testimony to the usus loquendi, to reach a true interpretation of the word of God. Such then, as I have just stated, is the religious usage of the New Testament, and if so, all attempts to enforce on the church obedience to a command to immerse, is a manifest invasion of the great principles of religious liberty. IT IS TEACHING for doctrineS THE COM

MANDMENTS OF MEN.

$70. Conclusion.

With four remarks I will close.

1. The present position of the Baptist denomination towards the rest of their fellow-Christians on earth, is exceedingly dishonorable to God, injurious to themselves, and injurious to the highest interests of the whole Christian community.

2. There is no higher duty at this time resting on the church than that of bringing this long-protracted and exceedingly injurious controversy to a close.

3. It can be brought to a close.

4. The responsibility of terminating it rests mainly, if not entirely, on the learned scholars and leading minds of the Christian world.

The truth of these propositions must be so obvious to every thinking mind, that I might almost leave them without remark. But to guard against all misunderstanding, I would remark by way of more full illustration,

1. That to have real Christians, who are alike in all fundamentals, divided in communion and action by a mere question of form, is, and must be, at all times, dishonorable and painful to God-for in practice it treats non-essentials as more important than essentials, and arrays holy men against holy men, to weaken each other's power, and injure each other's character and usefulness. And what more could even the devil himself desire?

It is injurious to the Baptists, for it has injured them. Among them are eminently pious men, but a bad system has ensnared

and betrayed them. How else can we account for it that they should have dared solemnly and formally to arrogate to themselves that they are DIVINELY AND PECULIARLY SET for the defence of THE GOSPEL, and that the heathen world must look to them alone for an unveiled view of the glories of THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Has it then come to this? Take away immersion, and is the gospel shorne of all its glories? Yea, is the gospel itself annihilated? Is immersion the gospel? What more can the most bigoted defender of baptismal regeneration and sacramental sanctification say than all this? But do our pious Baptist brethren mean all this? No! a thousand times, no. They know and feel, as well as we, that immersion is not the gospel. These facts only show, what all experience has shown, the danger of holding a system which makes a mere form of so much moment in practice as to outweigh holiness of heart and of life. In spite of all reasoning and professions to the contrary, it will as a general fact concentrate on itself a disproportioned, an unhealthy interest, narrow the range of Christian feeling, chill it and check its expansion, and distort and derange the intellectual perceptions of the mind. Men of uncom mon native nobleness of character, as Robert Hall, or men of great piety may hold these tendencies of the system in check. But multitudes will not. Taught to regard themselves as distinguished from the rest of the Christian world by a form, the spirit of formalism will have scope. The pernicious idea of divine favoritism, on the ground of forms, will grow up, and this will breed arrogance, censoriousness, exclusion, and the spirit of proselyting in its highest degree. Nor do I speak of tendencies merely, these tendencies are embodied in public official results. How else can we account for it that even evangelical Baptists, not Campbellites, or Mormons, but even evangelical Baptists, have dared to arrogate to themselves a peculiar divine appointment to defend and promulgate the gospel of Christ, and have dared to charge two leading Christian Bible Societies, the American, and British and Foreign, as "virtually COMBINING TO OBSCURE a part at least of divine revelation," and to say, that in the translations of other denominations "the real meaning of words is PURPOSELY kept out of sight." Is it no injury to pious men to be so ensnared and deluded by a false systein as to say and do such things as these? These are not the promptings of their Christian hearts, for that they have