he Rev. Mr. Johnson had been the pastor of a large and wealthy congregation for more than, twenty years. Most of the young people of his charge had grown up under his pastoral supervision, and old and young had been accustomed to regard his word as Gospel truth; and when Miss Ernest ventured to suggest that she had never been baptized, and asked him for the proof, it was probably the first time that one of the “baptized children of his church” had ever expressed in his presence any serious doubt of the full authority of his bare and unsupported word.
After the brief visit at Mrs. Ernest’s which we have recorded, he went to his study and commenced the preparation of a sermon, which he hoped and intended should prevent any others of his congregation from any attempt to investigate this subject for themselves.
He did not propose in this discourse to mention the Baptists by name, or to make any attempt to refute, or even to denounce their opinions or practices. (To do so might direct attention to them, whereas he desired to divert it from them.) But he determined to describe, and denounce as degenerate and vile apostates, all those who, reckless of the obligations which had been placed upon them in early infancy, and all the thousand nameless ties which had, in childhood and youth, bound them to the church in which they had been born, and solemnly dedicated to God in baptism, in whose doctrines they had been instructed by parental lips, and into whose [70]communion they had been received by a public profession of their faith, and who should, after all, be induced by some new coming proselyter to abandon the faith of their fathers, and the communion of their own church, and break off like wandering stars, to be lost in the darkness of anti-Presbyterian errors.
This course, he was confident, would be more effectual in preserving the peace and unity of his church, and the dignity of its pastor, than any attempt to reason about the doctrines of this obscure sect of Baptists, who had so suddenly begun to attract attention in his village. He would overwhelm the doubters and inquirers with such a storm of public indignation, that hereafter no one would dare to doubt; but in the meantime it was necessary, privately, to satisfy such doubts as had already been expressed.
When, therefore, he had arranged the heads of his discourse, he repaired to his book-case, and took down such authorities as would refresh his memory on the subject of baptism—especially in regard to the points of difficulty suggested by Theodosia and Mr. Percy. The examination of these occupied the time till in the night, and was resumed again the next morning.
Very early the next evening, having his mind fully charged with all the “strong reasons” upon which Pedobaptists are accustomed to rest their cause, he called on Mrs. Ernest and her daughter again.
“Well, madam,” said he, “how has our conversation the other evening affected your daughter? I trust she has ceased to be so much distressed about these new notions as she was.”
“Indeed, Mr. Johnson, she gets worse and worse, and I begin to think Mr. Percy is going the same way. I am so sorry Edwin called in that little Baptist schoolmaster. It made my heart burn to hear them talk as [71]they did about the good and pious ministers of our church. It seemed to me they had no more respect for a minister of the Gospel, or even a Doctor of Divinity, than they had for a house carpenter, or a French dancing-master.”
“How so, Mrs Ernest? I am sure your daughter has been too well raised to speak disrespectfully of any minister of the Gospel, or permit another to do it in her presence.”
“That is just what I told her. I said I was ashamed of her, and—”
“But pray tell me, madam, what has happened? What was said that was so improper?”
“Why, only to think that that little impertinent Baptist pedagogue had the impudence to say, sir, here in my house, that our ministers perverted the Scriptures, deluded their hearers, set aside the ordinances of Christ, and substituted others in their place, and I don’t know what all. I was so angry I could hardly see.”
“Is it possible! and your daughter heard all of this?”
“Yes, sir; and the worst of it is, I do fear, sir, she more than half believes it. You can’t think how changed she is, sir! I never knew her to have a particle of self-will before. She was always so gentle and affectionate, and ready to yield every thing to any body; but on this subject she is very stubborn, and declares she won’t believe a single thing but what she can see in the Bible for herself, even though she had it from your own lips, and all the rest of the preachers in our church.
“Oh, sir,” she continued, sobbing (for her maternal feelings had begun to overcome her), “if you don’t do something for her she will be lost to us all! Do try to show her where that sprinkling is in the Bible. If she can see it there, she will believe it.”
Mr. Johnson was fully resolved to make her see the [72]sprinkling, if he could; but was not quite certain as to the place where he would find it; and before he had time to reflect much upon the subject, the young lady came into the parlor.
She seemed for the moment sightly embarrassed, evidently from the conviction that she had been the object of remark, but greeted her pastor cordially and respectfully. It seemed to him, though she was paler than before, that she had grown more beautiful in the last few days. The unusual mental activity, the excitement of a new object of investigation, and the calm, yet firm and solemn determination to learn and to do her whole duty, had imparted to her eye a new and intenser light, and to her countenance a strange, unwonted brightness, as though the spirit, stirred to its inmost depths by these new impulses, and burning with celestial fire, shone through its covering of flesh, and illuminated her face with almost more than mortal radiance.
Could it be possible, he asked himself, that this lovely young creature could speak irreverently of sacred things?
Alas! how much her mother and himself had misapprehended the nature of her feelings. Never in her life had sacred things appeared to her so sacred. It was because those great and good men, whom she had been accustomed from her infancy to look upon with reverence, now seemed to her, themselves, to trifle with sacred things, that she could no longer regard them as she had done. The Word of God; the commandments of Jesus Christ; the ordinances of the Gospel; these were sacred things. Never so fearfully sacred as now. And what could she think of those, who, ministering at the altar of God, perverted and mystified his Word, to hide the truth from those who sought for knowledge? What could she think of those who counted the commandments [73]of Christ, and the ordinances which he had instituted, a “matter of indifferency?” She had, indeed, in some degree, ceased to reverence the (so-called) ministers of Christ, who could be so false to their sacred obligations as to trifle with God’s holy Word, in order to sustain a creed or a custom of their church; but oh! how deep, how ardent, how unutterable was her reverence for the Word itself! How anxious, how agonizing her desire to know what it required her to believe and to perform.
It may be that the pastor had some suspicion of the true state of her mind in this respect, for when he addressed her, it was with an expression of unusual and most respectful consideration. He felt instinctively that she was not now to be rated like a school-girl, or convinced by unsustained assertions.
Indeed, he felt a strange restraint in the presence of the earnest- hearted, strong-minded girl; and was revolving in his mind how he could best introduce the subject which he came to talk of, when she relieved him by introducing it herself.
“You did not have time the other evening,” said she, “to finish your remarks on the subject of baptism. You told me, you will recollect, that there was good and sufficient evidence to show that our Saviour was not baptized in the river at all, and that he was baptized by sprinkling, and, of course, if this was so, sprinkling is the Christian baptism.”
“You state the case a little too strongly, my daughter; I meant to say only that there is no evidence that he was baptized in the river; and that the baptism which he commanded (the baptism of the Gospel dispensation) was performed by sprinkling.”
“Please, Mr. Johnson, don’t try to mystify me. Do you mean to say that the baptism which Christ submitted [74]to, and the baptism which he commanded, were two different things, and that one was immersion, and the other sprinkling?”
“Not exactly, my daughter; I only meant to say they might be different. John’s baptism was not Christian baptism. It was the baptism of repentance, designed to introduce Christianity. It prepared the way for the Gospel, but was itself no part of the Gospel dispensation.”
“And yet, Mr. Johnson, Mark says it was ‘the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.’ But it does not make any difference to me whether it was Christian baptism or not. I simply want to know about the act performed. John did something, which is called baptism. Multitudes came to him, and were baptized by him in the river of Jordan. Jesus also came to him, and was baptized in the river of Jordan. Then Jesus went himself into Judea, and there he tarried and baptized; and at the same time John also was baptizing in Ænon, near Salim; and Jesus baptized more than John baptized. These baptisms were confined to the Jews; but after his death, Jesus told the disciples to go and preach his Gospel to all other nations, and baptize them; and we learn from the Acts that they who gladly received the Word were baptized, both Jews and Gentiles.
“Now, what I want to know is this: when John baptized, he performed a certain act. When Jesus and his disciples baptized, did they not perform the same act? and when he commanded to baptize the Gentiles also, did he not command the same act to be performed, and did not the disciples perform the same act, in obedience to that command? The same word is used, does it not mean the same thing?”
“If it does, my child, it must mean something else [75]besides immersion, for in many of these cases of baptism, immersion was out of the question. In fact, it is very certain that John did not immerse those whom he baptized; though if he had, it would not follow that Christ commanded immersion. John may have done one thing, and Christ may have commanded something else.”
“Very true, Mr. Johnson; he may have done it, but where is the proof that he did? My name might have been Susan, but then I would not have been called Theodosia. If he had meant another act, he would have used a different word.”
“Not if the word might mean either one or the other. You know that we contend that the word baptize means to sprinkle, to pour, to wet, to wash,[1] as truly as it means to dip or to immerse.”
“Well, Mr. Johnson, even supposing it does have all these meanings, the disciples must have understood the Saviour to use it (when speaking in reference to his ordinance) in some one of them, and that one would be fixed by his own example. What he received as baptism from John in Jordan, they would ever after consider to be baptism; and would necessarily suppose he meant that act when he used the word, even though it had a hundred meanings. But if you will pardon me for being so troublesome, I would like to know what proof there is that baptize in the Greek language has all these various meanings? We looked into a Greek Lexicon the other day to find the meaning of the word, and we could not find any thing at all about sprinkling or pouring among the definitions there.”
“You looked in a Greek Lexicon. You can’t read Greek, can you?”
[76]“No, sir; but brother Edwin is studying the language, and he found the word, and I could read the definition.”
“And so you think you and Edwin are competent critics of a disputed point in the Greek language?”
“Oh, no! Mr. Johnson, don’t laugh at me. If you knew how anxious I am to learn the truth, I am sure you would sympathize with me and assist me. We did not think we knew any thing about it, and that is the reason that we went to the Lexicon to learn. It is not Edward’s opinion that I referred to, but that of the learned Prof. Donegan. And Mr. Percy has since examined quite a number of other Greek scholars upon the same subject, and he has not found that any one of them gives sprinkling as one of the meanings of baptize, though all agree in dipping.”
“And so you, and Edwin, and Mr. Percy set yourselves up to teach such men as Dr. Miller and other learned theological writers of our church, the meaning of the Greek language! Don’t you intend presently to write a commentary on the Scriptures? or a book of Practical Divinity? Edited jointly by Miss Ernest and Mr. Percy!”
The young lady looked at her pastor in astonishment. She blushed deeply; tears filled her eyes, and her utterance was choked. She had expected sympathy and assistance; she met with ridicule and rebuke. Poor girl, she did not know how hard it is for one who has long been accustomed to rule other minds, and have his bare assertion received as unquestionable truth, to be called on for proof. If he said baptize meant to sprinkle, what right had she, poor, simple girl, to doubt his word or ask for evidence? Why, even he, a minister of the Gospel, had never asked for proof when Dr. Miller said it. He had always taken it for granted that baptism [77]was sprinkling, or such men as Dr. Miller would not have asserted that it was; nor would the church have enjoined or permitted it.
There was an awkward pause in the conversation, for Theodosia was too deeply mortified and embarrassed to know how to begin again.
Mr. Johnson saw that he had made a deep impression, though he did not feel quite certain of its nature. And he said, very mildly, “My dear child, don’t pretend to be wiser than your teachers. I can solemnly assure you, as a Christian man and a Christian minister, that the word we render baptize does legitimately signify the application of water in any way as well as by immersion, no matter what the Lexicons may say; and if so, sprinkling is as much baptism as dipping. The quantity of water used does not affect the validity of the ordinance.”
To this Theodosia did not reply. She felt that it was useless to ask again for proof; and if she did not feel disposed to trust even her pastor’s solemn declaration in regard to the meaning of baptize, it was because she remembered that Dr. Barnes had proved it to mean “not to sprinkle,” but “to dip;” that Stuart admitted this to be its prevalent and common signification; that the great Dr. Chalmers expressly asserted that its meaning was to dip, and that it was immersion which was practiced in the early churches; that McKnight and other most eminent and learned Pedobaptists all agreed perfectly with the Lexicons in giving immersion as its true meaning, and proving that such was the understanding and practice of the apostolic churches. What Baptists might teach she did not know, for as yet she had not read a Baptist book. She had common sense enough to understand that if there had been any sprinkling or pouring in the Word, such men as Stuart, and Chalmers, and McKnight, would have been sure to find [78]it and parade it before the world as a justification of their practice. Though she was silent, therefore, she was far from being satisfied.
Mr. Johnson, acting on the adage that “silence gives consent,” considered this point as settled; “and now,” he continued, “if this be the case, if the word means to sprinkle or to pour, as well as to immerse, it is evident that John might have dipped, and Christ might have commanded sprinkling, and yet have used the same word which is used to describe John’s baptism. I might rest the case here; but I will go farther, and assert that John’s baptism was not immersion at all.”
“Good evening, Mr. Johnson, I am glad to hear you say that,” said Mr. Percy, who chanced to come in at the moment, and heard this strange assertion. “If we can only establish that position we will throw the Baptists out of court.”
“Nothing is easier done, Mr. Percy,” said the pastor. “It could not have been immersion, in the first place, because immersion was impossible.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Percy, “if immersion was impossible, it could not have been immersion. What was impossible could not have been done.”
“Very well, then, that settles the question, for it was clearly impossible for John to have immersed the thousands and thousands (not to say the millions) that resorted to him for baptism.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Mr. Percy. “In the first place, we must determine just how many there were, and then just how many John was able to dip. Do you know how many there were?”
“Not precisely,” said the pastor, “but there were great multitudes. The Evangelist says, Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, went to him and were baptized. Now the population of Jerusalem [79]itself was a prodigious multitude, and that of all Judea added to it would surely be more than one man could dip in the time of John’s public ministry.”
“But,” said Mr. Percy, “it does not say that all the inhabitants went. It says the places went; by which we are to understand, that some of each place mentioned went. Just as if I should say, that in the great political Convention of 1840, all Tennessee was gathered at Nashville to hear Henry Clay. I would not mean that every man, woman, and child in the State was there, but only that there were some from every part of it. Just so, Matthew says Jerusalem came—that is, a great many people from Jerusalem and Judea, and the country round about Jordan came; that is to say, the country as well as the city was fully represented in the crowd. Besides, John did not baptize all who came. He positively refused the Pharisees and Sadducees, who composed a great part of the Jewish nation. I do not see, therefore, that we have any means of knowing the exact number of the baptized.”
“But it can’t be denied,” said the pastor, “that it was an immense multitude, too many for one man to have immersed.”
“Will you permit me to ask a question?” said Theodosia, timidly (for she had become almost afraid to speak at all, since that suggestion of the pastor about a joint editorship with Mr. Percy in a body of divinity.) “Will you permit me to ask how much longer it would take to immerse them, one at a time, than it would to sprinkle them one at a time, in a decent and reverent way?”
“We do not know,” said the pastor, “that they were sprinkled one at a time. They might have stood in regular ranks along the bank, and John taking a bunch of [80]hyssop might have dipped it in the river and sprinkled them by dozens as he passed along.”
“Or,” suggested Mr. Percy, “he might have provided himself with a large sized syringe or squirt gun, and filling it from the river have turned its stream along the ranks, as I have seen the boys do at school, sprinkling a whole bench of boys before the master could see who did it.”
This was uttered with such a perfectly serious air that the pastor was obliged to receive it as an amendment to his own supposition, though he could not help seeing in what a ridiculous light it placed both the baptizer and his subjects; and surely, there is, in the narrative of the Evangelists, quite as much evidence of the use of the squirt as of the hyssop.
“There is another thought,” said Theodosia, “which it seems to me, will obviate all the difficulty in the way of either a personal dipping or a separate sprinkling of each individual. The Evangelist says that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John—and when the disciples were gathered together after his death, there does not seem to have been a very great multitude. So it is probable, I should think, that though great multitudes came to John, and great multitudes followed Christ, yet comparatively few brought forth fruit to justify their baptism. And besides this, as Jesus is said to have baptized, though he did not do it personally, but by his disciples, so John may have done a portion of his baptizing by his disciples.”
“Spoken like yourself, Miss Theodosia,” said Mr. Percy. “That does indeed obviate all difficulty. The baptism, whatever it was, must have been a personal, individual transaction; and as it would take as long to sprinkle a person, and say over the proper formula of words, as it would to dip him, one is just as possible as [81]the other, and either entirely practicable with the aid of the disciples. Don’t you think so, Mr. Johnson?”
“No, I do not; but let it pass. I have another reason for believing that John did not immerse. It says expressly that he baptized in Bethabara, beyond Jordan— and in the wilderness, as well as at the much waters or many waters of Ænon, and at the river Jordan. Now, as there is no mention made of a river at Bethabara, or of a lake in the wilderness, it is fair to infer that no great quantity of water was required—and, consequently, whatever he may have done in Jordan, he did not immerse in Bethabara or in the wilderness.”
“Why not, Mr. Johnson? I can easily understand that he was baptizing in the wilderness, Bethabara, and Jordan at one and the same time. The Jews (as I have learned in my Sunday-school lessons) called any sparsely settled place a wilderness; and Bethabara was a ford or a ferry-house, on the east bank of the Jordan. If the neighborhood was lonely, it would be said to be in the wilderness; and a baptism performed in the Jordan, at that place, might be said with equal propriety to be performed in the wilderness; in Bethabara, or in Jordan. Just as I might say that a person was baptized in Davidson county, or in the city of Nashville, though the act was performed in the Cumberland river, where it passes the city.”
“Well,” said Mr. Johnson, “I do not insist on this point; and I leave it more readily, as I have an argument that is perfectly unanswerable; and that is, that John says himself that he did not immerse—over and over again he repeated this testimony: ‘I indeed baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’ ‘I am come,’ he says, ‘baptizing with water;’ and again: ‘he that sent me to baptize with water.’ Now, when I [82]want to know how John baptized, I go right up to the reverend man with the hairy garment, and ask him to tell me for himself. ‘Did you baptize by immersion?’ ‘No, sir; I baptize with water, not in water. I was sent to baptize with water, not in water—as he that cometh after me baptizes with the Holy Ghost, not in the Holy Ghost, and with fire, not in fire. So I baptize with water, not in the water. I apply the water to the subject, not the subject to the water.’”
“There does seem to be some force in that,” said Mr. Percy.
“To be sure, there not only seems to be, but there is a world of force in it. It is perfectly unanswerable, sir. I am willing to rest our cause on this one point alone. You can easily understand how one can sprinkle with water, or pour upon with water, but no one would ever speak of immersing with water.”
Theodosia began to think of her pastor as she had done before his visit. He was not, after all, disposed to rest every thing on his bare word. He had the proof, and had produced it, and that, too, just as she desired, from the Book itself. Still there was a difficulty. If John did not immerse, why did he baptize in the river? Why did Jesus, after he was baptized, come up out of the water?
These were insuperable difficulties, but she knew not how to present them without seeming wiser than her teacher.
Mr. Johnson, seemingly satisfied with the victory he had won, was about to take his leave, although it was yet early, promising to call again soon, and show that there was no instance of immersion as baptism recorded in the whole New Testament.
“Not only is it true,” said he, “that John did not immerse, but there is no recognition of immersion as [83]baptism in the Book. Neither before the death of Christ, nor afterward, did the disciples ever dip the baptized person in the water.”
“Please stop a minute longer,” said Mr. Percy. “While we are on John’s baptism, I want to ask a single question. If John did not immerse, why did he baptize in the river? If Jesus was not immersed, how does it happen that he had been in the water? If Philip did not immerse the Ethiopian Eunuch, for what reason did they go down both of them into the water, before the baptism, and come up out of it after it was done? Nobody in these days goes down into the water to baptize unless he is a Baptist.”
“They did not go into the water, then,” replied Mr. Johnson, “any more than we Presbyterians do now. There is no proof that John, or Jesus, or Philip, or the Eunuch, ever went into the water at all.”
“How can that be,” asked Theodosia, “when the Scripture says expressly that they were baptized ‘in the river of Jordan,’ and that Jesus ‘came up out of the water,’ and that both Philip and the Eunuch ‘went down into the water,’ and ‘came up out of the water?’”
“I know it reads so in our version,” said the pastor, “but in the original it reads near or at the river, not in it. And down to the water, not into it, and up from the water, not out of it.”
“Were the translators of our version Baptists?” asked Mr. Percy.
“No, sir. It is well known that they were of the Church of England.”
“Had they any motive to favor the cause of the Baptists?”
“Nome at all, that I can conceive of.”
“How, then, did they come to make such blundering work?” [84]“I cannot tell; but if they had known that the Baptists would make such a handle of these little words ‘in, and out of,’ I have no doubt they would have been more cautious. I hope now, Miss Theodosia, that your mind is relieved. I will try to see you again to-morrow, when we will finish the subject. For the present, I must bid you good-night.”
Theodosia accompanied him to the door, to light him out, and glancing up the street in the opposite direction to that which he took, she discovered Edwin and Mr. Courtney returning from an evening recitation, and could not resist the desire to hear what the teacher might have to say about baptizing with the water at the bank of the river. She accordingly waited till he came by, and invited him in.
“Well, Courtney,” said Mr. Percy, as he entered the parlor, “we have got you in a tight place now.”
“Why? what has happened? Any thing wonderful? You look as though you thought so.”
“Yes, sir. The truth is, Mr. Johnson did have some strong reasons, and he has brought them out on us to-night. He has in fact proved what he said, and what you seemed to think impossible; that John’s baptism was not immersion, and that the Saviour never went into the water at all, but was sprinkled on the bank.”
“Well, how did he make all that out?”
“From the testimony of John himself. John says that he baptized not in but with water. It is easy to conceive of sprinkling with water, but no one ever heard of immersing with water.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, that is the substance of the argument.”
“Is it possible,” said Mr. Courtney, “that a minister of Jesus Christ can take such liberties with the Word of God!”
[85]“What do you mean? Mr. Courtney. Is it not all so?” asked Theodosia, in alarm, for she felt that if her pastor had deceived her, even in this point, she could never trust the word of any one again upon this subject.
“Mr. Percy,” said Mr. Courtney, “can you read Greek? But never mind, Edwin shall set us right.”
“I can read a little, and, when in practice, could do as well as most of our graduates,” said Mr. Percy.
“Well, then, you can judge if I attempt to deceive you. Now, what will you say if you find that John’s assertion, so often repeated, reads in the Greek Testament, in every instance, I baptize you ‘in’ water, never ‘with,’ in a single case? What will you say if you read, not only that Christ was baptized ‘in’ Jordan, but ‘into’ the river of Jordan?”
“Why, I will say that you have gained a victory over all the doubts and difficulties which remained in my mind, and I will be convinced that John immersed, and that Jesus was immersed by him in Jordan.”
“And I,” said Theodosia, “will be convinced that theologians are the strangest people in the world.”
“Say rather, Presbyterian or Pedobaptist theologians, Miss Ernest, for the Baptists do not have to bear up and twist about under such a load of error and inconsistency, and can consequently afford to talk, right out, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They can afford to take the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, with every word translated into plain English, and abide by its decisions. They shun on investigation, avoid no controversy, and have no need to change or keep concealed one single word of the holy record. But let us to our task, for it is growing late. Edwin, have you your Greek Testament here?”
[86]“Yes, sir; and my Lexicon and Grammar.”
“Please bring them in.”
“Edwin, can you tell us what is the primary and ordinary meaning of the Greek preposition ‘en’?”
“It means in, sir; or within, with the idea of rest in a place.” (See Bullion’s Greek Grammar, p. 170.)
“What is the difference between en and eis?”
“Eis signifies motion from without to within. En corresponds to the English preposition in—eis corresponds to the English into.”
“I asked those questions, Mr. Percy, not on your account, but to satisfy Miss Ernest. You are perfectly aware (as every school-boy who has gotten through his Greek Grammar must be) of the correctness of Edwin’s answers.
“Now be kind enough to take the Greek Testament, and find John i. 26—‘I baptize with water.’ How does it read?”
“It reads, ‘baptizo en udati,’ in water, true enough.”
“And so you will find it in every place. See the 31st verse, ‘en’ again; so in the 33d, and every place where this expression, which your pastor so much relies upon, can be found.
“In any other Greek book, any school-boy would, without hesitation, translate it, ‘I immerse you in water.’ ‘I am come immersing in water,’ etc. But now, if you will turn to Mark i. 9, you will find that the preposition is not ‘en,’ but ‘eis.’ So that Jesus is said to have been baptized or dipped, not merely in but (‘eis’) into the river of Jordan.
“Now these two words, en and eis, are the only words by which the Greek language could express, without circumlocution, the idea of going into, or being in a thing or place; and therefore, if neither of them says [87]that the baptism was done in the river, I do not see how it could be said to have been done there.
“Now I grant that, very rarely, en does mean with, and that it sometimes, though very seldom, does mean at, or near; but neither of these is the primary, common, every-day use of the word. En means in, in Greek, as much as in does in English. Eis means into, in Greek, as much as into does in English.”
“But, Mr. Courtney, there must be some foundation for Mr. Johnson’s supposition, that en means with, or it would not have been so translated.”
“Very true, Miss Ernest. En does sometimes (though very rarely) mean with in the sense of the instrument— by which an action is accomplished. But when a man would found an argument on its having that meaning in every particular case, he must first prove that such is or necessity its meaning in that instance. If ‘En udati?’ necessarily meant with water—if that was even its common, primary meaning, as it would be naturally understood in any other book, or in connection with any other subject, then it might form the basis for an argument; but no school-boy would think of any thing else but in water, whenever he would see it; and, consequently, for a classical scholar, like your pastor, to form an argument upon ‘with,’ as the common meaning of ‘en,’ is indicative either of great carelessness, or wilful perversion of the Word of God.
“Here is a fact which will enable you to form some more definite conception of the nature of the case. Some very industrious gentleman has counted the places, and so ascertained that this little preposition ‘en’ occurs no less than two thousand seven hundred and twenty times in the New Testament. In about twenty-five hundred of these places, it is in our version correctly rendered in. In over twenty other places, in would better express [88]the evident meaning of the original. In only about forty places, out of over twenty-seven hundred, does it of necessity mean with, in the sense of the instrument or material with which any thing is done. The chances, therefore, are as twenty-seven hundred to forty, that an argument based on the word ‘with’ (where it stands for the Greek word ‘en’) will lead to a false conclusion, and the chances are as twenty-seven hundred to forty that an argument based on ‘in,’ as the real meaning of the word, will lead to a true conclusion. I baptize you in water, or, if we translate both words, I immerse, or more properly, I dip you in water, is therefore the true reading.”
“But why, Mr. Courtney, should our translators have employed ‘with’ whenever ‘en’ occurs in connection with baptize?”
“Tor the same reason, Miss Ernest, that they refused to translate baptize. They were forbidden by King James to change the ‘Ecclesiastical words.’ They must not teach immersion. But if they had said baptize ‘in’ water, it would have been just as plain that there was no sprinkling or pouring in the ordinance, as though they had translated ‘baptize’ in the New Testament, in the same way that you have seen they did in the Old, in all the places where (according to Mr. Barnes) the word occurs.
“But they did not use ‘with,’ in every case, because that construction would have been, in some instances, such a monstrous perversion, that every one could see it. They did not venture to say that the people were baptized with the river of Jordan, confessing their sins; or that Christ was baptized with the Jordan; or that John was baptizing with the wilderness. Mark i. 4. It was only where the connection did not make the meaning clearly obvious to the unlearned, that they ventured [89]to mystify the ordinance by the substitution of with, in the place of the common and primary meaning of the ‘en.’”
“If I do not forget,” said Mr. Percy, “with, when signifying the instrument by which any thing is done, is in the Greek language, commonly expressed by ‘dia’ construed with the genitive.”
“Yes; but even if John had said ‘dia,’ instead of ‘en,’ the pastor would have had no sufficient basis for his argument; for even ‘dia’ would have been a very slight, and very narrow, and very sandy foundation. It would only have told that it was water, and not oil, or mud, or sand, or any other instrument or material with which the baptism was performed. It would have said nothing at all about the mode of performing the act. If I say that the cloth of which my coat was made was colored with a solution of indigo, I don’t even intimate that the solution was sprinkled on it or poured on it. The cloth was dipped in it. I only mean that it was dipped in indigo, not in logwood, or madder, or any other dye-stuff. If I say that the leather of which my boots are made, was tanned with an infusion of hemlock bark, I don’t deny that it was dipped in the infusion, I only mean that it was hemlock, not black oak, or red oak, or any other kind of material that was used.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Edwin, who all the time had been a most attentive, though a silent listener. “I asked old aunt Chloe, the cook, only this morning, how she would get the feathers off the chicken she was killing for dinner. ‘I will scald it,’ said she, ‘with hot water.’ And I went into the kitchen, and saw her doing it by putting it into the water. And big Joe, the butcher, when he killed our hogs last Christmas, loosened the bristles and hair with hot water, but he did it by immersion, [90]for he dipped them several times into the barrel and then pulled them out and scraped them.”
“That will do, Edwin,” said Mr. Percy, laughing. “I see we must give it up. If you won’t give us any more illustrations, I will promise never to mention ‘with’ again, by way of argument on this subject, as long as I live; and seriously, Mr. Courtney, I feel that I have reason to be ashamed of myself for having been so easily imposed upon by this mere semblance of argument, presented with so much parade, and such an air of confidence, by our pastor, Mr. Johnson. I shall soon begin, like Miss Ernest, to lose confidence in all teachings but those of the Bible, and in all teachers but my own judgment.”
“These, sir, are your only safeguards,” replied Mr. Courtney; “but it is well to remember, that, though God’s word is infallible, our judgment may be biased by our feelings; and when we study the Word, therefore, we should pray for a heart willing to receive, and a will ready to obey all the commandments of our Heavenly Master. The difficulty with many persons is not so much that they cannot understand as they are unwilling to obey. You will, I fear, find it much easier to satisfy your mind that immersion is the only scriptural baptism, than to abandon your church connections, and submit to be baptized according to the commandment of Jesus Christ. But I must bid you good-night. It is time I was at home.”