more so when it will appear in the sequel, that this their forlorn post is untenable.

Before we proceed to notice the objections of the author of the Plea to the statements which have been made on the subject of John's baptism, it will be necessary briefly to recapitulate the grounds on which it was affirmed to be essentially distinct from the ordinance now in use. To such as have not perused the former treatise, the discussion would scarcely be intelligible without it; to such as have, it is possible some particulars may be presented in a clearer light.

The attentive reader of the New Testament will not have failed to remark that the rite performed by John is rarely, if ever, introduced without the addition of some explanatory phrase, or epithet, intended apparently to distinguish it from every preceding or subsequent religious observance. Thus it is sometimes denominated the baptism of John, on other occasions baptism in water, and the baptism of repentance, but is never expressed in the absolute form in which the mention of christian baptism invariably occurs. When the twelve disciples at Ephesus were asked into what (i. e. into what profession) they were baptized, they replied, into the baptism of John. Though innumerable persons were baptized by St. Paul, we read of no such expression as the baptism of Paul; on the contrary, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, he expresses a sort of pious horror at the very idea of such a supposition. Whoever considers the

extreme precision which the inspired historians maintain in the choice of the terms employed to represent religious ordinances, will perceive this circumstance to possess considerable weight.

It derives much additional strength, however, from reflecting that John's baptism is not only distinctly characterised in the evangelical narratives, but that he himself contrasts it with a superior one, which he directs his hearers to expect at the hand of the Messiah. "I indeed," said he, "baptize you in water, but there standeth one among you, whose shoe-latchets I am not worthy to unloose; he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire;" referring unquestionably to that redundance of prophetic and miraculous gifts, which were bestowed on the church, after the effusion of the Spirit. We accordingly find that, after his resurrection, our Lord commissioned his apostles to teach and baptize all nations, the execution of which order was usually accompanied by the collation of such gifts on believers, as fully corresponded to those predictions. Though He who is confined to no times or seasons, was pleased in some instances to communicate these preternatural endowments, previously to the act of baptizing, at others not in connexion with that rite; yet that they were its usual and expected concomitants, is evident from the language of St. Paul to the disciples at Ephesus, who, not having heard of such an effusion of the Spirit, were interrogated *See Matt. iii. 11. and John i. 27, 33. Campbell's translation.

in the following terms: "Into what then were ye baptized?"* a question totally irrelevant but upon the supposition that these gifts were the usual appendage or effect of that ordinance. No such consequences followed the rite administered by John; an important disparity, to which he himself repeatedly directed the attention of his followers, as a decisive proof of his personal inferiority to him that was to come, as well as of the ceremony he administered, to that which should usher in the succeeding dispensation. In exact agreement with the genius of eastern phraseology, he suppresses the mention of water on this occasion, choosing rather to characterise an ordinance accompanied with such stupendous ef fects, by its more elevated feature, rather than by one, in which it coincided with his own.

Again, it is universally admitted that christian baptism has invariably been administered in the name of Jesus, and that circumstance is essential to its validity; while it is evident from the solicitude with which our Saviour avoided the avowal of himself as the Messiah, that during his personal ministry his name was not publicly employed as the object of a religious rite. After he had been declared on the mount of transfiguration to be the Son of God, he charged his disciples to tell no man of it, till he was risen from the dead; and when Peter had solemnly avowed his profession of faith in him under the same character, he and his fellow-apostles were strictly enjoined to tell no

* Acts xix. 3.

man that he was the Christ. Nor is there a single example of his publicly acknowledging that fact, until his arraignment before the high priest. But how this is consistent with the practice of baptizing in his name, which must have been equivalent, at least, to a public confession of his being the Messiah, it is difficult to conceive. If we examine the matter more closely, we shall perceive that ceremony to import much more; that it includes an act of adoration and of worship, of which He in whose name we are immersed, is the avowed object. To multiply words with a view to demonstrate the inconsistency of such a procedure with the acknowledged reserve maintained by our Lord on this subject, would be to insult the understanding of my readers; nor, when furnished with certain matter of fact, are we left to form an opinion from previous probabilities. The historian informs us that while John was baptizing, amidst an immense concourse of people from various parts of Judæa, all men were musing in their hearts whether he were the Christ or not, and that the deputation sent from the Sanhedrim to inquire into his character, were disposed to infer, from his introducing a new religious rite, that he pretended himself to be the Messiah. But how is it possible, let me ask, that such a question should arise amongst the people on the hypothesis maintained by our opponents? or how could it enter into their imagination to infer, from his baptizing in the name of Jesus, that

Luke iii. 15.

he himself was, or that he pretended to be, the Messiah? His constant and daily practice must have completely precluded such a suspicion.

If St. Paul's citation of the language of John, in the nineteenth of the Acts, be correct, what he said to the people was this-"That they should believe on him who was to come."* The epithet, à épxóuevos, he who is coming, it is generally admitted, was the usual appellation applied to the Messiah at that period, which, while it expresses the certainty and near approach of the event of his coming, intimates, not less clearly, its futurity. At the time when the son of Zechariah entered on his ministry, nothing could be more accurate than the idea conveyed by that phraseology-the Messiah was not yet manifest to Israel; John was sent before him to announce his speedy appearance; he was as yet coming, not actually come; on which account, the language which the forerunner held was precise and appropriate; it was not a demand of present faith in any known individual, but was limited to a future faith on a certain personage who was about to evince his title to the character he assumed by his personal appearance and miracles. He said to the people that they should believe in him that was to come. Could the same person, let me ask, at the same moment be described by terms expressive of the present, and of the future tense, at once as an existing individual, a person historically known,

*Acts xix. 4.