BAPTISM.

HEBREWS vi. 2. The doctrine of baptisms.

HISTORY OF THE CEREMONY.

SPRINKLING, or washing the body, with water, as a symbol of internal purity, is so very natural a eeremony, that it could not fail to be among the earliest and most universally adopted of all the significant actions that have been in use among

men.

We find, accordingly, that it was employed on a variety of occasions, not only by the earliest worshippers of the patriarchal and heathen world,—but by the Jews, amidst the other multiplied symbols of their typical institution;—and, indeed, over all those countries which were the first abodes of the human race, and especially where the warmth of the climate points out this action as peculiarly salubrious and pleasant, it still continues, under a

variety of forms, and accompanied by many accessory observances, to be one of the most common and favourite of all the rites by which the religious disposition or moral state of the mind of the worshipper is designated.

This beautiful rite was, accordingly, adopted from the Jews by the Baptist, who made it the symbol of his doctrine of repentance ;-it was, indeed, from his adoption of this ceremony that he received his distinctive appellation;-and no rite, certainly, could have been chosen, more exquisitely appropriate, as the opening ceremony of an institution, the very purpose of which was to call mankind from mere ceremonies and vain services to the cultivation of those graces of the heart and mind, which are truly ornamental in the sight of God; an institution which taught them, that every tree which brought not forth "good fruit" would henceforth be cut down,-and that God required of men, not prostrations and ceremonies, but the offering of a pure heart, and the uplifting of clean hands in his sight. The ministry of the Baptist was hence called " the baptism of repentance;”—that is to say, he called on men to forsake their sins, and to become " renewed in the spirit of

their minds," and as an evidence, on the part of those who came to him, of their willingness to assume this new course of life, he baptized them, -giving them, at the same time, the assurance that they were thus preparing themselves for being the followers of a far greater prophet,—the latchet of whose shoes, indeed, he declared himself" not worthy to loose."

The simple ceremony of washing with water, which constituted the whole rite under its most ancient form, having thus been appropriated by the Baptist, by being associated with his peculiar doctrine of repentance, and of the "coming of the kingdom of God," received a further addition, when it was continued by him whose Forerunner the Baptist had declared himself to be;-for Jesus not only authorized his disciples to follow up the Baptist's mission, by also baptizing, as a sign of repentance, and of expectation of "the coming of the kingdom of heaven;"-but he also enjoined this ceremony to be performed with a prescribed and most significant form of expression ;-and the very last words which he uttered, before he ascended to the glory prepared for him, were these, "Go ye into all the world, and teach all

nations,-baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world."

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The original ceremony, which was simply a washing with water,"-was thus associated by the Baptist with his "doctrine of repentance for the remission of sins," and with the announcement of the advent of the great Teacher who was to bring in the glory of the latter days;—and, lastly, the rite was perfected by Christ, by his having commanded it to be administered "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," -whose operations, in the grand institution of the latter days, were thus signified as being acknowledged by all those who submitted to this initiatory ceremony.

This last consideration, then, is one of very great importance, and ought to be carefully weighed by those who feel any disposition to doubt as to the importance of the distinction of persons mentioned in the form, or of the difference of operations on which the distinction is founded;-for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are thus pointed out as conferring, by their

distinct yet united influence, the appropriate character of that great and final dispensation which Christ came to introduce among men ;-and Jesus is here represented as pointing out the importance of this distinction, and consecrating this united influence in the minds of his followers, by associating the annunciation of it with the very rite by which the disciple is first admitted to the blessings of his faith.

There has been, in all ages of the Christian dispensation, especially in those ages which have been styled philosophic,—and never perhaps more remarkably than at the present time,—a disposition among certain classes of men, to overlook this grand characteristic of our faith, and to reduce it to some simpler, and, as it seems to them, more intellectual form. But Christ surely had a more serious and definite purpose, when he thus commanded his disciples to baptize all men,-not simply in the name of God, but in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;—and no well-disposed mind can weigh this consideration, without feeling that the leading character of the Christian doctrine was thus intended to be pointed out,-and that he who re