MY eleventh argument in proof of the proposition before us is drawn from the fact--THAT SPRINKLING AND POURING MERE WATER ON ANY PERSON OR THING FOR ANY MORAL, CEREMONIAL, OR RELIGIOUS USE, WAS NEVER DONE BY THE AUTHORITY OF GOD SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN. Let no one be startled at the novelty of the announcement of this fact. I am aware that it has been over-looked in all the books written upon the subject,, and in all the discussions of the question that have ever fallen under my observation. It is, however, on that account no less true--no less important. In truth, if this point be established, it is an end of the controversy among Protestants. If, then, I sustain this fact, I shall, in my humble opinion, have achieved a service to the cause of truth of paramount importance. It will put an end to this everlasting strife about foreign authorities, Greek verbs, nouns, and prepositions. It will decide the wavering--it will strengthen the weak--it will confound opposition--it will silence every demur. Some may, in the first instance, laugh at it; some may affect to disparage it; but I know too much of human nature--of the conscientious--to think that any one at all interested in knowing and doing the Master's will, can ever [171] rest satisfied with himself, so long as he makes light of such a fact as that now before us.

      The law of Moses, the typical dispensations, the ceremonial cleansings, the "diverse washings," as they call them, once divinely instituted, have never yet occupied that place in theological schools, in the systems of public instruction, either in the congregation or in the halls of divinity, that they merit. An intimate knowledge of the five books of Moses will elucidate the Christian religion more fully and more satisfactorily than all the geological libraries in Christendom, in the absence of that knowledge.

      It is, indeed, assumed that Christianity is a sort of continuation of Judaism enlarged and improved, without its bloody rites, but retaining its sprinklings or washings with water as a sort of refined ceremonial--an evangelico-legal purification. I am sorry to see that "holy water" is still popular with more than Roman Catholics, and that the sprinklings of the law have been mistaken for a kind of holy water aspersions and ablutions.

      Mere water, I again assert, was never sprinkled on man, woman, or child by any divine warrant or formulary, under any dispensation of religion, Patriarchal, Jewish, or Christian. Here, then, is the Law and the Testimony. Let an example be produced.

      Blood was sprinkled, and water mingled with blood, or with the ashes of a blood-red heifer, called sometimes clean or pure water, a contraction for "the water of purification," "the water of separation," "the water of cleansing." And strange though it may appear, some commentators have wholly misconceived the phrase clean water, not discriminating between the Gentile and Jewish sense of those terms: yet to confound the true Lord with the "lords many" of Gentilism, is not more warrantable than to confound "clean water" with water free from any foreign admixture. Reference can be had to every passage in the Bible on this subject. I have examined them one by one; and here is the sum of them.

      Water was never poured, in any instance, upon a human being in virtue of any statute, law, or regulation of divine authority, for the purpose of sanctifying purifying, or cleansing him from any kind of legal, ceremonial, or moral pollution--for the sake of healing him or cleansing him from any malady, physical or mental. Water mingled with ashes is commanded [172] to be sprinkled, as a water of separation, or of cleansing persons polluted by any contact with things forbidden or declared unclean. The only passages in the Bible, Old Testament or New, in which this subject is mentioned, are--Num. viii. and 7th: "Sprinkle water of purifying [sin-water in the margin] upon them, [the Levites,] and let them shave all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes and make themselves clean." Again, Num. xix. 13th, 18th, 19th, and 21st verses. The manufacture of this "sin-water," or water of purification--the law of the red heifer without spot, and the preparation of her ashes, and the manner of them, are detailed in this chapter. These four passages are the only passages in the law of Moses that speak of sprinkling water. Allusion to this "clean" or "cleansing water" is found once, and only once in the Prophets--"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you." Ezekiel xxxvi. 25.¹

      In the New Testament, we find the term "sprinkle" only seven times. Heb. ix. 19, 21, "Moses sprinkled both the book and all the people with blood." Heb. x. 22, "Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." In Heb. ix. 12, we have an allusion to the red heifer: "The ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean." Heb. xi. 28 also affords another instance: "Moses kept the sprinkling of blood." And Heb. xii. 24 alludes to the "blood sprinkling." While Peter, in his 1st Epistle, i. 2, alludes to the sprinkling of Christ's blood. So that sprinkling of water receives no countenance whatever from the New Testament.

      We have, indeed, diverse bathings in water alone, though no [173] sprinkling of water alone, in the Law. In Leviticus, chapter xv. verses 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 16, 18, 21, 22, 27. Here are ten diverse bathings in one chapter. The whole flesh is said to be bathed, or the whole person bathed, in order to cleansing.

      Also, Lev. xvi. 26, 28, there are two other bathings in order to cleansing--he that carried off the scape-goat, and he that burned the remains of the offerings of the great day of atonement. In Lev. xvii.15, 16, another bathing of the person and a washing of the clothes for purification. In Num. also, xix. 7, 8, 19, we have three other bathings in order to cleansing. In all, we have sixteen distinct bathings mentioned in order to purification. These washings or bathings are uniformly expressed by louo, and contrasted with pourings and sprinklings. How the bathing was accomplished we are not told, only that it was not done by sprinkling nor pouring. These are therefore called by Paul "diverse baptisms," or baptisms on diverse occasions.

      How any man of the learning of Professor Stuart, and his critical discrimination, could have overlooked the fact that sprinklings are never alluded to in these diverse bathings reported by Moses, but in fact are sometimes placed in antithesis with them, is a singular oversight, attributable, I presume, to his taking for granted that the diverse washings of Paul might cover the whole ground of Jewish ablutions. But this most clearly is not the fact.² [174]

      There yet, indeed, remains another fact of much significance and authority in this discussion, and which still farther explodes the notion of any ablutions being performed by sprinkling even the water of purification alone. It is this, that no one legally [175] polluted, ceremonially unclean, was ever cleansed, even by the water of purifying itself. They had all to be bathed or immersed before they could enter into the congregation or the sanctuary of the Lord.

      On the verity and correctness of these statements much, very much, depends. If they are as reported, and that they assuredly are, where has sprinkling water any authority from the Bible? Has it any countenance from the Law? Has it any from the Prophets? Has it any from the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ? If it have, who will name the passage? There is not one, from Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse. Is this the first time that sprinkling water in the name of the Lord has been driven out of the Bible, without one shadow of countenance from any rite, ceremony, or ordinance, Patriarchal, Jewish, or Christian? That these legal bathings were neither sprinklings nor pourings, is already proved. That they were immersions is very obvious, from one fact: The leprous had always to bathe himself after being sprinkled with the water of separation. Louo is, therefore, always used. Now, when [176] Naaman, the Assyrian leper, came to Elisha to be cleansed, he commanded him to bathe (louo) in Jordan seven times. He uses the same word found in the case of the leper. How this word was understood may be learned from the fact, that he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan. According to all the evidence now before us, and, indeed, from all that is written in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, the following conclusions are ascertained facts:--That upon persons and things blood was sprinkled; on the human person or head oil was poured; but water was never religiously sprinkled or poured; but the washing or immersing in it was the universal--the immutable practice since the world began.

      Blood had primary respect to guilt; therefore, it was sprinkled. Oil had primary respect to the Spirit; therefore, it was poured out. Water had primary respect to cleansing the person from pollution; therefore, immersion or bathing in it was always obligatory on those who sought personal cleansing from legal or any other sort of uncleanness.

      Touching the meaning of the blood-red heifer and her ashes, it is important to know that blood could not be sprinkled only when warm; therefore, neither by itself nor in water was it adapted to aspersion. But, to show that its virtue was not momentary as its heat, and that the atoning efficacy of sacrifice continued long after the death of the victim, the burning of the heifer and the preservation of her ashes for an age was an admirable provision. And, because many are to partake in the efficacy of one sacrifice, the joint distribution of it was beautifully adumbrated by the action of sprinkling. Good reasons can be given for the three actions, sprinkling, pouring, dipping; and for their never being confounded in Holy Writ. The heart is sprinkled, the head anointed, and the body bathed. Infant or adult sprinkling with water is a papal legend, an idle ceremony, without a shadow of evidence in Old Testament or New.³ [177]

[CBAC 171-177]