|
 First
of a series of quotes from Archibald McLean, Scotch Baptist, re.
The Great Commission, publ. 1786. We will give source in next
issue.
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“Baptize
(Baptidzo) is Greek word which our translators have only
anglicized, but never translated, when expressive of this
ordinance. It signifies properly to dip, plunge, or immerse; and
that in distinction from every other mode of washing, as well as
from sprinkling or pouring, which are expressed in the original
by other words. This sense of the word is admitted by all the
Pedobaptists of any note; and no instance has yet been produced,
either from scripture or any ancient Greek writer, where it must
necessarily bear another sense.
Neither
the words, pour nor sprinkle, make sense when substituted in the
place of baptize; for the original expression is always
baptizing in or into a thing. For instance, en or eis, in
or into Jordan; in water, in the Holy Ghost; into the name, into
Moses, into Christ, into his death, (Matt. 3:6,11; 28:19; 1 Cor.
10:2; Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:3)… As, therefore, baptism is always
represented as being performed in or into a thing, it must be
immersion, and not sprinkling or pouring; for persons cannot be
sprinkled or poured into water though they may be dipped or
immersed into it.
The
English reader may be fully satisfied from other circumstances,
that baptism is immersion. Jesus, having been baptized in
Jordan, went up out of the water, which
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shows he had been down into it. After Philip
and the eunuch had already come unto a certain water, we are
told they went both down into the water, that he might baptize
him; and when this was performed, they came up out of the water.
John required a large quantity of water to baptize in, and so we
find his using the river Jordan for that purpose. He also
baptized in Enon near to Salem, for this very reason.... (Matt.
3:16; Acts 8:36-39; Mk. 1 :5; Jn. 3:23). Now there was no need
for much water, or for going down into it, in order to pour or
sprinkle a little of it on the face; but these circumstances
were absolutely necessary in order to dip or immerse the whole
body, which therefore, must have been the action originally
performed, as all the judicious and candid Pedobaptists have
acknowledged.
The
allusion made to baptism as the sign of a burial and
resurrection clearly point as
the manner of
administering it. Believers are said to be baptized into the
death of Christ, to be buried with him by baptism, and therein
also to be risen with him, Now, in what ever sense Christians
are buried and risen with Christ, it cannot be in baptism, if
there is no exhibition of a burial and resurrection in that
ordinance; but if baptism is a burial in, and resurrection from
water, then the sign strikingly corresponds with the thing
signified, and the allusion to it is pertinent and just. Upon
the whole, therefore it is clear, that the action enjoined is
immersion; and that any other action is not merely a different
mode of baptism, but a different thing altogether. It is not
baptizing, and so not Christ’s institution.”
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