OUR sixth argument shall consist of a few testimonies from some of our most eminent English lexicographers, encyclopedias, and reviews, of the Pedobaptist school.

      Richardson, the most learned of English lexicographers, interprets the word baptizo and its family thus: "To dip, or merge [149] frequently, to sink, to plunge, to immerge." He concludes his long list of quotations with a few lines from Cowper--

      Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, says, "To baptize is to christen, to administer the sacrament of baptism to one. Baptism, an external ablution of the body, with a certain form of words." This surely is popular and ecclesiastic enough. But, as quoted by Boswell, he says--

      "Dr. Johnson argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the church of Rome. As to giving the bread only to the laity, he said, "They may think that, in what is merely ritual, deviations from the primitive mode may be admitted on the ground of convenience; and I think they are as well warranted to make this alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in the room of the ancient baptism."¹

      The Monthly Reviewers of England say--

      "We acknowledge there are many authorities to support it [immersion] among the ancients. The word baptize doth certainly signify immersion, absolute and total immersion, in Josephus and other Greek writers.  *   *   *   The examples produced, however, do not exactly serve the cause of those who think that a few drops of water sprinkled on the forehead of a child, constitutes the essence of baptism. In the Septuagint, it is said that Nebuchadnezzar was baptized with the dew of heaven; and in a poem attributed to Homer, called The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, it is said that a certain lake was baptized with the blood of a wounded combatant--(Ebapteto a? aimati limne porpureo.) A question has arisen, in what sense the word baptise can be used in this passage. Doth it signify immersion, properly so called? Certainly not: neither can it signify a partial sprinkling. A body wholly surrounded with a mist; wholly made humid with dew; or a piece of water so tinged with and discolored by blood, that if it had been a solid body and dipped into it, it could not have received a more sanguine appearance, is a very different thing from that partial application which in modern times is supposed sufficient to constitute full and explicit baptism. The accommodation of the word baptism to the instances we have referred to is not unnatural; though highly metaphorical; and may be resolved into a trope [150] or figure of speech, in which, though the primary idea is maintained, yet the mode of expression is altered; and the word itself is to be understood rather allusively than really; rather relatively than absolutely. If a body had been baptized or immersed, it could not have been more wet than Nebuchadnezzar's; if a lake had been dipped in blood, it could not have put on a more bloody appearance.

      "Hitherto the Antipedobaptists [or Baptists] seem to have had the best of the argument on the mode of administering the ordinance. The most explicit authorities are on their side. Their opponents have chiefly availed themselves of inference, analogy, and doubtful construction."²

      It is due to our opponents, that when we quote their special pleaders, we ought to give their testimony on both sides.

      Chambers' Cyclopedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: London, 1786. "Baptism, in Theology; formed from the Greek baptizo, of bapto--I dip or plunge, a rite or ceremony by which persona are initiated into the profession of the Christian religion.

      "The practice of the Western Church is to sprinkle the water on the head or face of the person to be baptized, except in the Church of Milan, in whose ritual it is ordered that the head of the infant be plunged three times into the water; the minister at the same time pronouncing the words 'I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the holy Ghost'--importing that by this ceremony the person baptized is received among the professors of that religion, which God, the Father of all, revealed to mankind by the ministry of his Son, and confirmed by the miracles of his Spirit. A triple immersion was first used, and continued for a long time: this was to signify either the three days that our Saviour lay in the grave, or the three persons in the Trinity. But it was afterwards laid aside, because the Arians used it: it was thought proper to plunge but once. Some are of the opinion, that sprinkling in baptism was begun in cold countries. It was introduced into England about the beginning of the ninth century. At the Council of Celchyth, in 816, it was ordered that the priest should not only sprinkle the holy water upon the head of the infant, but likewise plunge it in the bason. There are abundance of ceremonies delivered by ecclesiastical writers, as used in baptism which are now disused; as the giving milk and honey to the baptized, in the East; wine and milk in the West, &c.

      "The opinion of the necessity of baptism in order to salvation, is grounded on these two sayings of our Saviour: 'He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved;' and, 'Except a, man be [151] born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'"

      Brande's Cyclopedia: New York, 1843. "Baptism, (Gr. bapto, I dip.) The rite of initiation into the community of Christians, ordained by Christ himself, when he commissioned his Apostles to go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

      "Baptism was originally administered by immersion, which act is thought by some to be necessary to the sacrament. It is not clear, however, even in the Scripture History, that this ceremony was always adhered to. At present, sprinkling is generally substituted for dipping, at least in northern climates."

      Taylor's Calmet. "Baptism is taken in Scripture for sufferings: 'Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized with?' Mark x. 38. And Luke xii. 50, 'I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?' We find traces of similar phraseology in the Old Testament, (Ps. lxix. 2, 3,) where waters often denote tribulations; and where, to be swallowed up by the waters, to pass through great waters, &c., signifies to be overwhelmed by misfortunes.

      "There is a very sudden turn of metaphor used by the Apostle Paul, in Rom. vi. 3-5. 'Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? therefore we are buried with him by baptism into his death--that we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together [with him] in the likeness of his death, we shall be also planted in the likeness of his resurrection.' Now what has baptism to do with planting? Wherein consists their similarity, so as to justify the resemblance here implied? In 1 Peter iii. 21, we find the Apostle speaking of baptism, figuratively, as 'saving us;' and alluding to Noah, who long lay buried in the ark, as corn long lies buried in the earth. Now, as after having died to his former course of life in being baptized, a convert was considered as rising to a renewed life, so, after having been separated from his former connections, his seed-bed, as it were, after having died in being planted, he was considered as rising to renewed life also."

      Edinburgh Encyc. "In the time of the Apostles the form of baptism was very simple. The person to be baptized was dipped in a river or vessel, with the words which Christ had ordered, and, to express more fully his change of character, generally assumed a new name. The immersion of the whole body was omitted only in the case of the sick, who could not leave their beds. In this case, sprinkling was substituted, which was called clinic baptism. The Greek church, as well as the schismatics in the East, retained the custom of immersing the whole body; but the Western church adopted, in the thirteenth century, the mode [152] of baptism by sprinkling, which has been continued by the Protestants, Baptists only excepted."

      These we deem a fair specimen of this species of testimony. To these many more might be adduced, but without increasing authority. Amongst these Encyclopedias and Dictionaries are the chief standards and originals of the modern. Most of the Dictionaries commonly in use, like Webster and Walker, give no meaning of the terms but that in common use. With them they mean what modern practice says, to christen, to sprinkle, or to immerse. The elder ones, before the controversy became so warm, gave the original and proper meaning of this much and long litigated word.

[CBAC 149-153]