A Bible History of Baptism. Baird Samuel John
the latter being named from the white garments in which the newly baptized were robed. The administration was connected with an elaborate system of attendant observances. First, was a course of fastings, genuflections, and prayers, and the imposition of hands upon the candidate. Then, he was divested of all but a single under garment, and facing the west, the realm of darkness, was required, with defiant gesture of the hand, to renounce Satan and all his works. This was followed by an exorcism, the minister breathing upon the candidate, for expelling Satan, and imparting the Holy Spirit; then the making upon him of the sign of the cross; anointing him with oil, once before and once after the baptism; the administration of salt, milk and honey, and three immersions, one at the name of each person of the Trinity. Such was the connection in which baptism by immersion first appears. For its reception, the candidate, of whatever sex, was invariably divested of all clothing, and, after it, was robed in a white garment, emblematic of the spotless purity now attained. The rite of baptism by bare sprinkling, however, still survived. And the question is entitled to a critical attention which it has not yet received, whether, always or generally, the more elaborate rite consisted in a submersion of the candidate. Against this supposition, is the practice of the Abyssinian, Greek, Nestorian and other churches of the east. In them, the candidate, in preparation for the rite, is placed, or we may say, immersed, naked, in a font of water, the quantity of which neither suffices, nor is intended, to cover him. The administrator then performs the baptism, while pronouncing the formula, by thrice pouring water on the candidate, once at the mention of each name of the blessed Godhead.1 To the same effect, is the evidence of numerous remains of Christian art, which have been transmitted to us from the early ages. Among these are several representations of the baptism of the Lord Jesus by John; one, of that of Constantine and his wife, by Eusebius; and others. The baptism of Constantine precisely corresponds with the description above given. The emperor is seated naked in a vessel, which if full would not reach to his waist; and the bishop is in the act of performing the baptism by pouring water upon them. In the representations of the baptism of Jesus, he sometimes appears waist-deep in the Jordan, and sometimes on the land. But in all cases, the rite is performed by the baptist pouring water on his head out of a cup or shell. Such is, in fact, the invariable mode represented in these remains of ancient art.
In this connection the analogy of the forms of religious purifying prevalent throughout the east is worthy of special notice. The Brahmin, before taking his morning’s meal, repairs to the Ganges, carrying with him a brazen vessel. By hundreds, or by thousands, they enter the stream, and while some take up the water in their vessels, and pour it over their persons, others plunge beneath the stream, for the purging away of their sins. Then filling the vessels, they repair to the temple, and pour the water upon the idol, or as a libation, before it. The Parsee, worshiper of the sun, goes, in the morning, to river or sea, and entering until the waves are waist high, with his face toward the east, awaits the rising of the sun, when, using his joined hands as a dipper, he dashes water over his person, and makes obeisance to his god. On the other hand, the Mohammedan, deriving his usage from the earlier Pharisaic ritual, repairs to the mosque, and from the tank in front, without entering it, takes up water in his hands with which to bathe face, feet and hands, before presenting his prayers.
By the corruptions in the Christian church, before exemplified, the key of knowledge was taken away from the people. The instructive meaning of the sacraments was obscured and obliterated, by the idea of their intrinsic efficacy for renewing the heart and atoning for and purging sin. The preaching of the word was disparaged and ultimately set aside; the preachers having become propitiating priests, working regeneration by the baptismal rite, and making atonement by the sacrifice of the mass. The corruption and tyranny of the clergy of the middle ages, and the ignorance, slavery and spiritual darkness which for centuries brooded over the people, were the inevitable results.
The reformation came, through the recovery by Luther of the golden doctrine of justification by faith, which had so long been buried and lost under the accumulated mass of ritualistic error. But even Luther was unable to shake off the fetters of superstition and falsehood in which he had been cradled, and to enjoy the full liberty of the doctrine which he gave to the awakened church. In the dogma of consubstantiation, he transmitted to his followers the very error which had corrupted the church for more than a thousand years. And the result in the churches of his confession has added another to the already abundant evidence of the ever active and irreconcilable antagonism which exists between the theory of sacramental grace, and the doctrine, – criterion of a standing or falling church, – of justification by free grace through faith.
Our space does not admit of a critical tracing of the history of the sacramental question in the churches of the reformation. On the one hand, ritualists of every grade, misled by the erring primitive church, and attributing to the sacraments a saving virtue intrinsic in them, render indeed high but mistaken honor to the sacred rites; but fail to enjoy them in their true intent and office, or to view and honor them in their proper character. On the other hand, our immersionist brethren, misguided respecting the form of baptism, by the same erring example, and thus lost to the true and comprehensive meaning of the ordinance, have failed to apprehend the instruction which it was designed to impart, and to enjoy the abundant edifying which it was adapted to minister; and, instead, have found it a potent agent of separation, and an efficient temptation to the indulgence of a disproportionate zeal on behalf of mere outward rites and forms.
Nor do those who have escaped these errors always seem to appreciate the sacraments, in their true design and character, as ever active and efficient witnesses, testifying to the gospel, through symbols as intelligible and impressive as the most eloquent speech. The beauty and rich significance of the supper have, indeed, been in a measure apprehended, and made available in some just proportion, to the instruction and edifying of God’s people. But baptism has not held the place, in the ministrations of the sanctuary and the mind of the church, which is due to its office and design, to the richness of meaning of its forms, and to the sublime conceptions and the lofty aspirations and hopes which it is so wonderfully adapted to create and cherish. One efficient cause of this, undoubtedly, is, the reaction induced by the aggressive zeal of immersionists, and the exercise of a false charity toward their erroneous sentiments; as though the charity of the gospel, as toward our brethren, consisted in an acceptance of their errors as equivalents to the truths of God. While they have justly and irrefragably maintained that nothing can be Christian baptism which has not at once the form and the meaning ordained by Christ, we have been weakly disposed to imagine ourselves patterns of charity, in admitting the validity of immersion, while denying it to be the form or to have the meaning which Christ ordained. As if such an ordinance, from the great Head of the Church, could have in it any thing indifferent, or subject to our discretion, whether in doctrine or mode! The immediate and inevitable result is, a low estimate of the ordinance itself; indifference alike to its form and meaning, and to the place it was designed to fill, and the offices which it was to perform, in the economy of grace. As a mere door of entrance into the fold of the church, it is administered and received; with too little regard to its beautiful and comprehensive symbolism; and, once performed, it is almost lost sight of in the instructions of the pulpit, and meditations of the people. Should this representation suggest a doubt, let the reader reflect how often, in the ordinary ministrations of the sanctuary, he has heard the significance of baptism dwelt upon, or even alluded to, for illustrating the great truths of the gospel, on any occasion except that of the administration of the rite; and how seldom, even then, the richness of its symbolic import is unfolded, – its relations to Christ’s exaltation and throne, and to all the functions of his scepter; the meaning of the element of water, and of the mode of sprinkling; and the office of the ordinance, as a symbol of the Spirit’s renewing grace, and a prophecy and seal to the doctrine of the resurrection. As the initial seal of the covenant, it is discussed and insisted upon. But of these, its intrinsic and most interesting characteristics, but little is heard. No wonder, therefore, that the privilege of its reception is so little appreciated, and its appropriation by parents on behalf of their children, so often neglected.
The recent researches of Drs. Conant and Dale have exhausted the philological argument as concerning baptizo. The former, representing the American (Baptist) Bible Union, and the latter, from the opposite standpoint, have come to conclusions which, to all the practical purposes of the discussion, are identical and
My authorities are “A voyage to Abyssinia, and travels in the interior of that country, executed under the orders of the British government, in the years 1809 and 1810, etc., by Henry Salt, Esq., F. R. S., etc., London, 1814;” and the personal testimonies of several of our missionaries to the east, who have related to me what they saw.