etc., things altogether foreign to the scope of the passage, as διαφοροι βαπτισμοι, that were unable to make perfect the worshipper? No man who had not a theory to support could bring himself to do such violence to all the laws of interpretation in a case so plain.

6. To conclude,—to give βαπτισμοι the sense καθαρισμοι, fits the word to include all the kinds of purification spoken of in the context. For, as we have seen, xa0apigo has an established legal and sacrificial use, in all cases of atonement by blood. And we have also seen Bazzico standing in relations of the same kind. Now in this passage the idea of purification by blood greatly predominates, as may be seen by examining the passages just referred to; and yet the idea of moral purification is also most clearly presented to the mind; and no sense but the one assigned gives the word the scope necessary to take in both kinds. But that does, and it thus fully meets all the exigencies of the case. It is a sense fully to the purpose of Paul; it is natural, simple, easy, obvious, and gives a richness and fullness to all his ideas. The idea of immersions is out of the scope and spirit of the passage ;-it is forced and unnatural: it is unfitted for the purposes of Paul, and narrows down his ideas to topics totally foreign to the subject, and has but one solitary advantage-it aids in escaping an unwelcome result.

What evidence is there against all this mass of presumptive reasoning? Does any previous probability, any law of language or of the mind, any thing in the context demand the idea of immersions? Nothing of this kind. All is the other way. The meaning claimed is highly probable, a priori, and the whole scope of the passage tends to establish it. By all laws of sound philology, then, it is here the

sense.

$ 15.

In Mark 7: 4, 8, and in Luke 11: 38, xabago is the natural and obvious sense of βαπτίζω, and καθαρισμος οἱ βαπτισ

μος.

1. This sense fulfils perfectly all the exigencies of the passages. I know indeed that it is said by some, that in Mark there is a rise in the idea from the lesser washing of the hands, which was common before all meals, to the greater

washing implied in the immersion of the body after coming from the market. But on the other hand, there is simply a rise from the specific to the general and indefinite. They always wash their hands before meals, and when they return from market they also purify themselves, (as the nature of the case may require,) before they eat. In the latter case, Bloomfield remarks, it denotes a washing of the body, but not an immersion. The sense, xatapio, also more naturally suggests the reply of Christ in Luke. Now do ye Pharisees make clean, xaoagiere, the outside of the cup, and the platter, etc.—where βαπτίζω seems to suggest καθαριζω. I admit indeed that the object of immersion might suggest the same idea. But such associations of thought are more likely, the more obvious the similarity in the meaning of the words. But, not to rely on this, I remark,

2. Nothing in the context demands the sense, immerse, and powerful reasons forbid it.

All must confess that purification is the only idea involved in the subject of thought. Now it is no more likely that a want of immersion offended the Pharisee, Luke 11: 38, in the case of Christ, than it is that this was the ground of offence in the case of the disciples, Mark 7. It does not appear that Christ had been to the market. Nor is it likely at all that an immersion was expected, as a matter of course, before every meal, even on coming from a crowd. The offence, in the case of the disciples, was that they had not washed their hands. An immersion was not expected of them, though they had been in crowds. Why should it be of Christ?

Rosenmuller, on this passage, well remarks, that the existence of any such custom of regular immersion, before all meals, cannot be proved. And the opinions and statements of Jewish writers, in after ages, are of very little weight. The case narrated in Tobit has, in my mind, more weight, in throwing light on actual opinions, than a host of such more modern writers. It teaches us clearly that, even in cases where it was possible, they attached no peculiar impor tance to the form of immersion, and thought only of a suitable washing. How much more is this likely to be true of a purification, which the Pharisee seemed to expect, as a matter of course, before every meal?

But above all, the immersion of the couches on which they

reclined at meals is out of the question. That this is the meaning of xhvor here, the whole context shows, and all impartial critics allow; and these were large enough for them to recline upon, at their ease. And are we to believe that the Pharisees, and all the Jews, were in the habit of immersing these, just to avoid the inference that ßantigo means to purify? What if remarkable instances of superstition, in particular sects, can be pointed out? Is it likely that a whole nation, all the Jews, ever held to a practice like this? That they should purify them with various and uncommanded rites is altogether probable. But that they should immerse them is totally incredible.

Mr. Carson seems to feel this point keenly, and yet manfully maintains his ground. He says that he will maintain an immersion until its impossibility is proved, and suggests that the couches might be so made as to be taken to pieces for this end! He has proved, he says, the meaning of the word,-the Holy Ghost affirms that the couches were immersed,-and to call this absurd, is to charge the Holy Ghost with uttering an absurdity;—and he is filled with horror at the thought, and warns his opponents to beware of so fearful a crime, and he has a long dissertation on the infidel and Unitarian tendencies of allowing difficulties to shake our faith in the assertions of God. But what is all this to the point? The question is not, Will we believe that the couches were immersed if the Holy Ghost says so?-but this, Has he said so? And what has Mr. Carson proved? Why truly that, in other instances, fanrico means immerse. But does this prove that it means so here? Does it even create a probability that it does? Not at all. The probability, as we have shown, is all the other way. Hence the demand to prove an impossibility of immersion is altogether unreasonable. And it is against his own practice in other cases. Does he not admit that ẞazzo means to dye, or color, when it is applied to the beard and hair? And is it impossible to dip these? Improbable it surely is, but not half so much so as the immersion of couches.

The fact is that the whole reasoning against the sense claimed for Barrio, in these passages, rests on false principles. It assumes a violent improbability of the meaning in question, and resorts to all manner of shifts, to prove the possibility of immersion, as though that were all that the

of

case required, whilst the truth is that no such improbability exists, but one directly the reverse, and the whole scope the passage demands the meaning claimed, that is, to purify. Were it necessary I would remark more in detail on the statements of Prof. Ripley, as to the dipping of hands, and the Jewish rules concerning couches, as quoted by Dr. Gill. It is sufficient to remark that these ideas are the result of the ingenuity of later ages, and the existence of any such rules or practices, in the days of Christ, is totally devoid of proof and even of probability.

§ 16.

In the case so often quoted from Sirach, 31: 25, Barrio requires the sense, καθαρίζω. The passage is this : βαπτιζομε νος απο νεκρου και παλιν απτόμενος αυτόν τι ωφέλησε τῳ λουτρῳ He that is cleansed from a dead body, and again toucheth it, of what profit to him is his cleansing?

αυτου.

Here I remark:

1. The sense, xα0αoito, purify, suits the preposition ɑлo,immerse does not. It is natural to speak of purifying, or cleansing from, but not of immersing from, a dead body.

2. No immersion, in the case of touching a dead body, was enjoined, but simply a washing of the body, so as to leave room for various modes in various circumstances, and it is not likely that this would be spoken of as an immersion.

3. The rite of purification from a dead body was complex, and no import of the word ẞanzio, but the one claimed, is adapted to include the whole. By far the most important part of the rite was the sprinkling of the water, in which had been put the ashes of the heifer. Concerning this it is said, Num. 19: 13, that whosoever shall not purify himself with it, after touching a dead body, "that soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of separation was not sprinkled on him." Of the washing no such thing is said, and Paul, Heb. 9: 13, refers to the sprinkling, as if it included the part of the rite on which the effect mainly, if not entirely, depends. It is the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, that is spoken of as sanctifying to the purification of the flesh,άγιαζει προς την της σαρκος καθαροτητα. Of course the writer could not mean to exclude so essential a part of the rite as

this, nay its very essence. Nor could he call it an immersion. It is a sprinkling. It can purify, but it cannot immerse. But the sense, xalaqiw, can include both the sprinkling and the washing :-for, taken together, they purify, and this is the complex result of the whole rite, and nothing else. If any object, that it is not consistent to apply Lovro to a complex operation, like this, I ask them, how then is it consistent to apply it to the blood of Christ, which is spoken of as the blood of sprinkling? And yet we are spoken of as washed from our sins in his own blood, where Love is used. The truth is that the sense of love is general too, and denotes merely a washing or cleansing, without respect to mode. Besides, an actual washing is a part of the complex rite.

The effort of Prof. Ripley to establish the sense, bathing, from the word Lovroov, is vain. No fact is more notorious than that love, of itself, does not mean to bathe. In this respect it is as unlimited to any mode as 7; so much so that the vessels, in the vestibules of ancient churches, for washing the hands, were called λουτήρες, as well as νιπτηρες. One of the Fathers, as quoted by Suicer, says Lovτnges idaros пɛлληgoμɛvo, stand before the gate of the church, that you may wash your hands (vs), so without the church, sit the poor, that by alms you may wash (7λvvys) the hands of your soul. I do not quote this passage for the sake of its theology, but to show that love and its derivatives mean simply to wash or to cleanse, and not to bathe, any more than the Latin lavo. Circumstances may show that bathing is meant, but the word itself does not.

Mr. Carson says that all reasoning from this passage proceeds on the assumption that the Jews had made no additions to the rite. Not so. It proceeds upon the assumption that they had not omitted its very essence, the sprinkling with the ashes of a heifer, and that they would not call this an immersion, but a purification, as in fact it was; and that as no immersion was enjoined, but simply washing, so the sense, immersion, is not to be assumed without necessity and without proof, and against the whole probability of the case. That the Jews did take the view of this rite that I claim, is plain from the account given of it by Philo. He directs the whole attention to sprinkling and nothing else; vol. 2.