Essay on the External Act of Baptism Enjoined by Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850. Excerpt: ... SECTION I. MEANING OF THE WORD "BAPTIZE" IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. Let Us first consider the proofs that the word "baptize" has this meaning in the New Testament, for which purpose we will examine, --1. The places where it occurs alone; 2. Those in which it is used with the preposition iv, in; 3. Those in which it is connected with ilg, into; 4. Those in which it is connected with a dative without a preposition. 1. The places in which fiairriZu occurs alone are the following: "John did baptize in the wilderness," Mark, i. 4. "Repent and be baptized, every one of you," Acts, ii. 38. "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized," Acts, ii. 41. "When they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized," Acts, viii. 12. "And the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth binder me to be baptized?" Acts, viii. 36. None of these passages can enable us to determine the sense of the word "baptize," no circumstances being mentioned to guide us to its meaning. We must therefore call in the aid of contemporaneous or preceding Greek authors; and these, happily, fix the meaning with precision. Messrs. Godwin, Halley, and Wilson, in their learned works on baptism recently published, have examined all the principal passages in which the word occurs in any Greek writers; and I have nothing to do on this point but to avail myself of their labours. When Alexander marched his army along a narrow passage at the foot of Mount Climax in Lycia, the sea having covered the path, we are informed by Strabo (lib. xiv. p. 982), that "the troops were in the waters a whole day being baptized (or immersed) up to the middle."1 Pindar, referring to the impotence of slanderers, whose calumnies, though they might for ...