ow, Miss Theodosia,” said he, “let us begin by examining the witnesses. When we have collected all the testimony, we shall be able to sum up on the case, and you shall bring in the verdict.”
“That is right,” said she, with a smile the first that had illumined her face since she stood by the water. “‘To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.’ Here (may it please the court) is the record,” handing him a well-worn copy of the New Testament.
“Well, how are we to get at the point about which we are at issue? It is agreed, I believe, that Jesus Christ commanded his disciples in all ages, to be baptized.”
“Yes, sir, I so understand it.”
“Then it would seem that our question is a very simple one. It is, whether you and I, and others who, like us, have been sprinkled in their infancy, have ever been baptized? In other words, Is the sprinkling of infants, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the baptism which is required in this book?”
“That is the question,” she replied. “I merely want to know if I was ever baptized. I was sprinkled in the church. That lady, to-day, was immersed into the river. If she was baptized, I was not. That is the point. There is but one baptism. Which is it? the sprinkling or the dipping?”
“Oh, if that is all, we can soon settle the question. Sprinkling and pouring and dipping are all baptism. Baptism is the application of water as a religious ordinance. It don’t matter as to the mode of application. It may be done one way or another, so that it is done with the right design. I see from what your difficulty has arisen. You have misapprehended the nature of the word baptize. You have considered it a specific, rather than a generic term.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Percy, whether I quite comprehend you. My difficulty arose from a conviction that the baptism, which we witnessed to-day, was just such a one as is described in the Scriptures, where they went down into the water and came up out of the water— whereas my baptism had nothing about it that at all resembled the scriptural pattern. Please don’t try to mystify the subject but let us see which was the real baptism.”
“I did not design to mystify the subject, but to bring it into a clearer light. The meaning expressed by some words, is rather a result than an act. If I say to my servant, go down to the office, he may run there, or walk there, or ride there, and he obeys me, equally, whichever he does—so that he gets there, it is all I require of him. Go, then, is a generic or general word, including a possible variety of acts. If I say to him, run down to the office, he does not obey unless he goes in this specified manner. So we call run a specific term. That is very plain, is it not?”
“Certainly, Mr. Percy; I comprehend that.”
“Well, then, I say that baptize is a generic term. Jesus Christ said, baptize all nations. He does not say whether you shall do it by sprinkling, or pouring, or dipping; so that you attain the end proposed, you may do it as you please. If he had said, sprinkle all nations;
that is specific, and his ministers must have sprinkled. If he had said pour upon them with water, that is a specific act, and they must all have poured. If he had said, dip them in water, then they must all have dipped. The word would have required it. But he used the general term baptize, which signifies any application of water as a religious ordinance, and of course it does not matter as to the mode. You may take your choice.”
“But I should, even in that case,” said she, “feel inclined to choose the same mode that He did, and which the early disciples did. There must have been some reason for his preference. But how do you determine that the word baptize is a generic term, as you call it— having three or four different meanings?”
“Simply by reference to the dictionary. Look at Webster. He is good authority; is he not. He defines baptism to be the application of water as a religious ordinance. What more do you want?”
“But, Mr. Percy,” said Edwin, who had been a silent, but very attentive listener, “the Baptist preacher told Mr. Anxious, the other day, that baptize and baptism were not English words at all, but the Greek words baptizo and baptismos, transferred into the English Bible and not translated. He said that King James would not permit the translators to translate all the words, for fear of disturbing the faith and practice of the church of England, and so they just kept the Greek word—but if they had translated it at all, it must have read dip or immerse instead of baptize.”
“Very well, Edwin, but it is not likely that the Baptist preacher is much wiser than Presbyterian preachers, or Methodist preachers, or Episcopal preachers. If dip had been the necessary, or even the common meaning of the word, it is very improbable that it would have remained for this unlearned and obscure sect to have
discovered it. Such statements may do very well to delude their simple followers, but they cannot be expected to impose upon the educated world.”
“But, Mr. Percy, I have looked up the words in my Greek Lexicon, and I find it is just as he said—Baptizo does mean to immerse. Baptismos does mean immersion.
“Oh, as to that, I suppose you got hold of a Baptist Lexicon.”
“Well, here it is; Donegon’s Greek Lexicon You can look for yourself.”
Mr. Percy (who, if he was not a thorough Greek scholar, yet knew enough of the language to read it readily,) glanced at the word where Edwin had marked it, and ran his eye along the cognate words.
“Baptizo—To immerse repeatedly into a liquid, to submerge, to soak thoroughly, to saturate.
“Baptisis or Baptismos, immersion; Baptisma, an object immersed; Baptistes, one who immerses; Baptos, immersed, dyed Bapto to dip, to plunge into water, etc.”
He was astonished. The thought had never occurred to him before, that baptize was not an English, but a Greek word; and that he should look in the Greek Lexicon, rather than Webster’s Dictionary, to ascertain its real meaning, as it occurred in the New Testament. He turned to the title page and preface for some evidence that this was a Baptist Lexicon, but learned that it was published under the supervision of some of the Faculty of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J.; the very headquarters of orthodox Presbyterianism.
Here was a new phase of the subject. He could only promise to look into this point more particularly the next day; when, he said, he would procure several different
Lexicons, by different authors, and compare them with each other.
“In the meantime,” said Theodosia, “there is an idea that strikes my mind very forcibly; and that is, that the Saviour himself has fixed, by his own act, the meaning of the word as he employed it.”
“How so, Miss Theodosia?”
“Just in this way; suppose we admit that it had a dozen meanings before he used it, and that in other books it has a dozen meanings still, yet it is certain that he was baptized. Now, in his baptism a certain act was performed. It may have been sprinkling, pouring, or dipping; but whatever it was, that act was what He meant by baptism. That act was what He commanded. His disciples must so have understood it. He gave (if I may speak so) a Divine sanction to that meaning. And when the word was afterward used in reference to his ordinance, it could never have any other. If he was immersed, then the question is decided; baptism is immersion. If he was sprinkled, baptism is sprinkling. If he was poured upon, baptism is pouring. So we need not trouble ourselves about the Lexicons, but can get all our information from the Testament itself.”
“There is a great deal of force in that suggestion, Miss Theodosia. It is a pity you could not be a lawyer. (And he thought what a partner for a lawyer she would be, and how happy it was for him that he had been able to persuade her to promise to become Mrs. Percy.) But while it is true that we may find all the testimony that we need within the record, yet it is important that we get at the real meaning of the record. And as that was written in Greek, I see no reason why we should not seek in the Greek for its true sense. If baptizo means to dip, and baptismos means a dipping, an immersion, we shall be obliged to rest our cause upon some other
ground. There must, however, be some mistake about this. I will look into it to-morrow.”
“I do not care what the Lexicons say,” rejoined Theodosia, “I want to get my instructions entirely out of the word of God. I don’t wish to go out of the ‘record,’ as you lawyers say.”
“You are right in that; but how are we to learn the meaning of the record? If any document is brought into court, it is a rule of law, founded on common sense, that the words which it contains are to be understood in their most common, every-day sense, according to the usage of the language in which they are written. Now this document, the New Testament, it seems, was written in Greek, and we are in doubt about the meaning of one of the words. We go to the Lexicon, not for any testimony as to the facts of the case, but only to learn the meaning of a very important word used by the witnesses. Matthew and several other witnesses depose that Jesus and others were baptized. If they were present in court, we would ask them what they mean by that word, baptize. We would require them to describe, in other language, the act which was performed —to tell us whether it was a sprinkling, a pouring, or a dipping. But as we cannot bring them personally into court, we must ascertain what they meant in the best way we can; and that is by a careful examination of the words which they used, and the meaning that would have been attached to them at the time they used them, by the people to whom they were addressed. Now as the documents were written in Greek, of course they used words in the common Greek sense. And we must ascertain their meaning just as we would any other Greek word in any other Greek author; and that is by reference to the lexicons or dictionaries of the Greek language.”
“Very well, Mr. Percy; you talk like a judge. But what if you find all the lexicons agree with this? What if they all say that the word means dip, plunge, immerse?”’
“Why then, we must either admit that those who are said to have been baptized, were plunged, dipped, immersed, or deny the correctness of the Lexicons.”
“But if you deny the correctness of the Lexicons in regard to this word, what confidence can we have in them in regard to other words? Brother Edwin is studying Greek, and as often as he comes to a word which he has not met with before, he finds it in the Lexicon, and so learns its meaning; but if the Lexicons are wrong in this word, they may be wrong in all. Is there no appeal from the authority of the Lexicons?”
“Certainly, we may do in Greek as we do every day in English studies; we appeal from Johnson to Webster, and from Webster to Walker, and from Walker to Worcester. If one does not suit us we may go to another.”
“One more question. Are any of these Lexicons Baptist books, made for the purpose of teaching Baptist sentiments? If so, you know they might be doubtful testimony.”
“On the contrary, the Lexicons are made by classical scholars, for the sole purpose of aiding students in the acquisition of the Greek language. I do not suppose any one of them was made with any reference to theological questions, and probably no one of them by a person connected with the Baptist denomination. It is certain most of them were not, and if they all agree in regard to this word, it must be conceded that they did not give it a meaning to suit their personal theological views. There are a number of them in the College library, and I will examine them all to-morrow, and tell you the result.”
Mr. Percy went back to his office studying the new phase of the question presented in the meaning of the word. “If baptizo in the Greek means to dip, in its primary, common, every-day use, then Jesus Christ was dipped. Then every time the record says a person was baptized, it expressly says he was dipped. I wonder if it can possibly be so. If so, why have our wise and talented preachers never discovered it? or, knowing it, can it be possible that they have systematically concealed it?”
Theodosia retired to her chamber, where she spent a few moments in prayer to God for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and then took her Testament and read how they were baptized of John in the river of Jordan. How Jesus, after he was baptized, came up out of the water. How they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him, and when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip. She compared these statements with what she had seen at the river, and did not need any testimony from the Lexicons to satisfy her that John’s baptism and Philip’s baptism was immersion. Why else did they go into the water? Why else was it done in the river? Ministers don’t go into the river to sprinkle their subjects now-a-days. There was no reason for doing it then. Must I then unite with this obscure sect and be immersed? Must I break away from the communion that I love so dearly—from all my friends and relatives? Must I part from my dear old pastor, who was, under God, the means of my conversion —who has so often counselled me, prayed with me and for me, wept over me, and cherished me as though I had been his own child? The very thought was terrible. She threw herself on her bed and wept aloud. Her crying brought her mother to her side. She
kneeled beside the bed, took the poor girl’s hand in both of hers, and bade her try to banish this distressing subject from her thoughts. It was not worth while, she said, for a young girl like her to set up her own opinions, or even to entertain doubts in opposition to her minister and others who had spent their lives in the study of this very thing. As for herself, if her pastor, Mr. Johnson, said any thing was in the Bible, she always took it for granted it was there. He had more time to look into these things than she had. It was his business to do it; and he was better qualified to do it than any of his people. And of course, if sprinkling was not true baptism, he would never have practiced it.
“But, mother,” sobbed the weeping girl, “I must answer to God, and not to pastor Johnson. Much as I love him, I trust I love my Saviour better; and if my pastor says one thing, and Jesus Christ another, Mr. Johnson himself has often told us to obey God rather than man. I have no choice; I must obey my Saviour.”
“Of course you must, my child; but Mr. Johnson knows better what the Saviour commands than you do. He understands all about these questions. And he will assure you that you have been properly baptized. I know that he agrees exactly with Dr. Fisher, who baptized you, as you yourself well remember.”
“I remember that he sprinkled a little water in my face, mother; but if that was baptism which I witnessed to-day, he certainly did not baptize me.”
“Well, my dear, try and compose yourself, and go to sleep; and I will send for our pastor to come and see you to-morrow. It will soon satisfy your mind.”
“I hope he may; and I will try to sleep. Good-night, mother.”