means a veritable dipping (boutuma), and in fact, a perfect dipping. An object is baptized, when it is completely submerged (kruptetai, concealed); this is the proper explanation of the word BAPTIZO. Did the pope then learn it from the apostles? Or from the word and the expression? Or from the church in the splendour of her antiquity? Nowhere did such a practice prevail, nowhere can a scriptural passage be found, to afford a shelter to the opinions of the western church.”—Leslie's Hist. View, p. 32.

"The Nestorians, the Armenians, the Asian Jacobites, inhabiting principally Syria and Mesopotamia, the African. Jacobites, Copts, and Abyssinians, administer baptism by trine immersion; as also do the Georgians. No branch of the nominally Christian church, however corrupt in other respects, has dared to change the law of immersion into sprinkling, except the Roman hierarchy, and those churches which derived sprinkling from that polluted source."―Hinton's Hist. of Bap. pp. 189,

190.

The writings of the early fathers speak only of immersion. HERMAS, a contemporary of the apostles, in his work entitled "Pastor" (Simil. 9, § 16), says: "the water of baptism, into which men go down bound to death, but come up appointed to life."

TERTULLIAN writes: "There is no difference whether baptism takes place in the sea or in a pond, in the river or the fountain, the lake or the bath; nor between those who were baptized in the Jordan by John, and those who were baptized in the Tiber by Peter." Again: "We are immersed three times, fulfilling somewhat more than our Lord has decreed in the gospel."-Tertullian de Bap.

heads in the sacred fountain." St.CHRYSOSTOM: "We, as in a sepulchre, immersing our heads in water, the old man is buried, and sinking down the whole is concealed at once; then, as we emerge, the new man again rises."— Stuart on Baptism, p. 358.

St. BASIL, archbishop of Cæsarea: "How can we be placed in a condition of likeness to his death? By being buried with him in baptism. How are we to go down with him into the grave? By imitating the 'burial' of Christ in baptism; for the bodies of the baptized are in a sense buried in water.”—Robinson's Hist. of Bap. p. 65.

SALMASIUS, professor of History at Leyden, says: "The clinics only, because they were confined to their beds, were baptized in a manner of which they were capable: not in the entire laver, as those who plunge the head under water: but the whole body had water poured upon it. Thus Novatus, when sick, received baptism; being perechutheis, besprinkled, not baptistheis, bap tized."-Apud Witsium, Econ. Fœd. l. iv. c. 16.

The case referred to by Salmasius, is thus narrated by EUSEBIUS: "He fell into a grievous distemper, and it being supposed that he would die immediately, he received baptism, being perichutheis [lit, poured around] with water, on the bed whereon he lay, if that can be termed baptism."-Eccles. Hist. b. vi. c. 43.

ch. iv.

TYNDALE: "The plungynge into the water sygnyfyeth that we dye and are buryed with Chryst, as concernyge the olde lyfe of Synne, which is Adam. And the pullynge out agayn sygnyfyeth that we ryse agayne with Chryste in a newe lyfe."-Obedyence of a Chrysten Man, fol. 76.

CALVIN, who lent his influence to the establishment of pouring or sprinkling, makes the following concession: "The word baptizo signifies to immerse, and the rite of immersion was observed by the ancient church."-Institutes, 1. v. ch. 15, § 2.

LUTHER: "Baptism is a Greek word, and may be translated immersion, as when we immerse something in water, that it may be wholly covered. And although it is almost wholly abolished, for they do not dip the whole children, but only pour a little water on them, they ought nevertheless to be wholly immersed, and then immediately drawn out; for that the etymology of the word seems to demand."—Luth. Op. vol. i. p. 336.

VENEMA: "The word baptizein, to baptize, is nowhere used in the scripture for sprinkling."-Inst. Hist. Eccl. Vet. et Nov. Test. tom. iii. sec. i. § 138.

BRETSCHNEIDER, in his Theology, vol. ii. pp. 673, 681, says: "An entire immersion belongs to the nature of baptism," "This is the meaning of the word."

HAHN, Theol. p. 556: According to apostolic instruction and example, baptism was performed by immersing the whole man."

VON COELLIN, Hist. Theol. Opin. vol. i. p. 459: "Baptism was by immersion; only in cases of the sick by sprinkling. It was held necessary to salvation, except in cases of martyrdom."

NEANDER, vol. i. p. 361: "Only with the sick was there an exception," in regard to immersion.

FRITSCH, Bib. Theology, vol. iii. p. 507: "With infant baptism, still another change, in the outward form of baptism, was introduced, that of sprinkling with water, instead of the former practice of immersion."

"In this country," says the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, art. Baptism, "sprinkling was never used in ordinary cases till after the Reformation."

Dr. WALL, vicar of Shoreham in Kent, a strenuous advocate of pædobaptism, referring to the primitive practice of immersion, says: "This is so plain and clear, by an infinite number of passages, that as one cannot but pity the weak endeavours of such pædobaptists as would maintain the negative of it, so we ought to disown and show a dislike to the profane scoffs which some people give to the English anti-pædobaptists merely for the use of dipping:

when it was, in all probability, the way by which our BLESSED SAVIOURr, and, for certain, was the most usual

'It is,' says Augusti, 'a thing made out,' viz. the ancient practice of immersion. So indeed all the writers, who have thoroughly investigated this subject, conclude. I know of no one usage of ancient times, which seems to be more clearly and certainly made out. I cannot see how it is possible for any candid man, who examines the subject, to deny this."-Stuart on Baptism, p. 359.

SOME testimonials from the first modern pædobaptist scholars on the continent respecting the origin of infant baptism were presented to the readers of the Baptist Magazine last February. A few more, which have been sent to the writer, may perhaps be advantageously included in the same volume. The first, and it is a very valuable one, was sent by J. E. Ryland, Esq., of Northampton; it is from the pen of the great Leibnitz. It is remarkable that our greater or equally great Newton, who was the compeer of Leibnitz, should have borne substantially the same testimony in his celebrated remark, that "the baptists are the only denomination of Christians who have not symbolized with the church of Rome!" Certainly the concurrent opinion of two of the greatest philosophers whom the world ever saw, and great scholars too, is entitled to some consideration, an opinion given, too, in opposition to educational prepossessions. The remainder were kindly forwarded by Mr. E. B. Underhill.

From LEIBNITZ'S SYSTEM OF THEOLOGY, according to the Hanover Manuscript, translated into German (with the Latin text in parallel columns) by

Dr. Räss and Dr. Weiss, with a preface by Mr. Lorenz Doller, formerly professor of Esthetics at Heidelburg. Third enlarged edition, with an introduction by both the translators, with the approbation of the Right Reverend Grand Vicariate. Maintz, 1825:

"We will now speak particularly of the sacraments, and, first, of baptism; but briefly, since the controversies respecting it, up to the present time, are not very numerous or important. It must be confessed, that without the authority of the church, the baptism of children could not be adequately defended. For there is no example in its favour in the sacred scriptures, which appear, besides water, to demand faith also. To attribute faith, however, as some do, to those who cannot yet use their reason, is far too arbitrary and delusive, and quite destitute of probability. For as St. Augustine says, in his letter to Dardanus, ‘If we wish to show in words, that children who are not acquainted with human things, yet comprehend divine things, I fear lest we do injustice to our senses, since we use speech to persuade in a case where the evidence of the truth surpasses all the powers and purposes of speech. Hence it appears to me, that

Dr. CHR. LUDW. COUARD of Berlin, says:

666 "He who believeth and is baptized,' says the Lord, 'shall be saved.' As faith and baptism are constantly so closely connected together, men might reasonably hesitate to baptize infants, inasmuch as faith would with them be impossible. Neither has the Lord himself ordained infant baptism. As little also can we prove strictly and convincingly, that the apostles baptized children, although we know that they baptized whole families, and we might justly suppose that there were children among them."-The Life of Christians during the first three Centuries, p. 202. Cabinet Library, vol. 33.

Clark's

CH. FRIEDR. RÖSSLER, says:— Our first question is, Whether the ancient church in the times of which we speak (the first three centuries), generally baptized children, or deemed it essential to baptize them. I must truly confess, that so far as I have hitherto perused the fathers, no clear and certain proof has come before me, adequate to establish it, prior to Origen, although there are a few passages which render it not without probability."Lehrbegriff der Christlichen Kirche in den drei ersten Jahrhunderten, p. 299.

Dr. J. AUG. STARCK, chaplain to the Court of Hesse, says:―

"It cannot be denied, that no example can be cited from the books of the New Testament that the apostles and disciples of the Lord baptized children and babes; for though, again and again, it is said that the apostles baptized whole households, there is, nevertheless, in this nothing to constrain us to think that little children were baptized; rather, the contrary may with good reason be presumed, if we look back to those places in which assent is given to the preaching of the

VOL. XII. - FOURTH SERIES.

is no corresponding proof for infant baptisin than is that which might be drawn from stronger passages in favour of the participation of little children in the supper of the Lord. Therefore have there been learned men who have esteemed infant baptism, no less than the admission of children to the supper, as an institution which first arose after the times of the apostles."—Geschichte der Tavfe, &c. p. 10.

Dr. LOBEGOTT LANGE, Professor in the University of Jena, says:—

"Would the protestant church fulfil and attain to its final destiny, the baptism of new-born children must of necessity be abolished. It has sunk down to a mere formality, without any religious meaning for the child, and stands in contradiction to the fundamental doctrines of the Reformers, on the advantage and use of the sacraments. It cannot, from any point of view, be justified by the holy scriptures, and owes its origin, as well as its retention by the Reformers, to the antiscriptural and irrational idea, that children, because of original sin, are born under the power of the devil, and exposed to eternal condemnation.”Geschichte de Protestantismus, pp. 34, 35.

"It must now be granted by every unprejudiced reader [Kenner] of holy scripture and Christian antiquity, that the baptism of new-born children was altogether unknown to primitive Christianity.”—Ibid. p. 221.

Dr. J. W. I. HÖFLING, Professor of Practical Theology at Erlangen, says:

"Truly an historical proof of infant baptism cannot be cited from holy scriptures; for although children may have been baptized by the apostles in those passages in which the baptism of entire families is spoken of, there happens to be no mention made of the existence or presence of young children in them." [des Vorhandengewesenseyrs

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