Alford's brief summing up of the testimony. "It is probable," he says, "that John's baptism in outward form resembled that of proselytes. Some (De Wette, Winer, Paulus, Meyer,*) deny that proselyte baptism was in use before the time of John; but the contrary has been generally supposed, and maintained (by Lightfoot, Shoëttgen, Buxtorf, Wetstein, Bengel). Indeed, the baptism or lustration of a proselyte on admission would follow as a matter of course, by analogy, from the constant legal practice of lustration after all uncleanness ; and it is difficult to imagine a time when it would not be in Besides, it is highly improbable that the Jews should have borrowed the rite from the Christians, or the Jewish hierarchy from John.”

In thus declaring our belief in the historical connection of John's baptism, as respects its form and general significancy, with preceding rites, it is hardly necessary also to declare how far we are from adopting the many unwarranted inferences that have been drawn from the fact. The only inference bearing on the point before us, perhaps the only legitimate inference at all is, that the ceremony, as an emblem of separation and sanctification, as significant of a change of religious ideas and connections, was perfectly familiar to the Jewish mind, when John commenced preaching, in the wilderness of Judea, a baptism unto repentance for the Jews themselves.

It might be shown, we believe, that amongst the Christians speaking the Latin language, the term before us was adopted, by transference, and used from the very first, in its ritual signification. The word, as applied to the Christian ordinance, had with them, as it has with us, a complex meaning. It meant then, as it means now, and as it seems ever and everywhere to have meant when used religiously, immersion and several things besides. Tertullian, for example, when he speaks of the initiaitory rite of the Church, calls it by the comprehensive name of baptism. When he writes a treatise upon the ordinance, it is under the title "De Baptismo." When, however,

*

Alford might have added Olshausen, perhaps, though he expresses himself doubtfully, and limits the expression of his doubt to the question whether lustration was performed on the proselyte by another before the time of John.

he wishes to define the outward act involved in baptism, we find him saying, "In aqua mergimur." That is, he both uses the term baptism in a general way to designate the religious rite, and also puts the point concerning the physical sense of the word, substantially as a Baptist of the present time might do.

We cannot, however, pursue this subject further, as we have already transcended our proper limits. We should be glad to trace the religious use of the word in question through its ancient and mediæval history, till it was at last taken into our language as the universally received designation for the first Christian rite. What we have said is in justification of the position that "immersion" does not express all that is included in the original term, and consequently is not an adequate representative of it. The question, 'what is properly signified by the original word whenever used of the introductory ordinance of the Church?' is to be determined just as we determine what is involved in the word àñóσrolog, or ἐκκλησία. And as it would be inexpedient to render these latter words by "one sent," and "congregation," so it seems to us equally inexpedient and unwise to render the former by “immersion." WE, as Baptists, cannot define the original word for the ordinance to be anything less than the immersion, by a proper administrator, of a person, on the profession of his faith in Christ, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All these elements are included in the term "baptism," and it would be a sad loss to have a term substituted for it that would comprehend only a single item of this complex meaning.

ARTICLE VI.-IMMATERIALITY OF THE SOUL.

In all the studies of philosophy and theology, hardly anything is more important than a correct acquaintance with fundamental principles. Especially in approaching the various questions that present themselves in these vast fields of reflection and investigation, it is important that we correctly apprehend the principles which the questions presuppose, or take for granted, and that our minds be not blinded or biased by any false philosophy, or by any such preconceived opinions as would necessarily hinder us from viewing the subject in its proper light and judging of it justly. So in our courts of law, jurors must have no opinions that will hinder them from hearing the testimony submitted to them, candidly and dispassionately, weighing it impartially, and giving a verdict in fair and just accordance with the law and the evidence. So, also, men that play with dice should be careful that they be not loaded.

The particular subject to which these remarks may be applied, is the recent phase of error called Annihilation or Destruction the destruction of the whole man at death, the complete extinction of consciousness and being in the grave, and the final annihilation of the wicked. For this is a doctrine professedly drawn from the Bible, one that claims to rest for its support on the words of Scripture. But whenever we go to the Scriptures to learn what the doctrine of the soul-its life and its destiny-is, we surely ought not to have our minds preoccupied with any false notion or theory of the nature of the soul, lest we be like persons looking at objects through colored glasses - unable to see the truth in its own clear light, and hindered from receiving those impressions from the words of Scripture which they were originally intended to produce.

Vol. xxvii. 19

In this article it is proposed to consider the question of the immateriality of the soul, and this in a way that might be regarded as preliminary and preparatory to a special inquiry into the scriptural doctrine of the soul and its future destiny. In other words, we wish to pass in review the two different opinions that have been entertained of the nature of the human soul, with the grounds of them, or the main arguments by which they have been supported, and from a somewhat careful, though necessarily brief, examination of their merits, see what views we should carry with us, and what we should not carry with us, into our study of the Scriptures on this subject.

For ages, then, there has been a difference of opinion as to the nature of the human soul. On the one hand it has been regarded as an immaterial substance, simple and uncompounded, distinct from the body, though for the present connected with it, and capable of a separate and independent existence. But, on the other hand, man has been regarded as a being wholly material; all his faculties and powers as growing out of his material or physical organization, the soul being in no sense distinct from the body, or independent of it, but only a part, or a result of its peculiar and superior organism. Those who hold this latter opinion are called Materialists; those who hold the former, Immaterialists.

We proceed now to inquire into these two hypotheses concerning the nature of the soul (they are both properly hypotheses), to develop the principles involved in each, to state the principal arguments on each side, and estimate, according to our ability, their value.

I. First, then, of the Materialists, and their hypothesis of Materialism.

Here the opinion is, that man is simply what we see him to be, a body "fearfully and wonderfully made" indeed, but only a body, made of matter only, in which simple, uniform substance, all his powers, physical and mental alike, inhere ; so that his powers of thought which are denoted by the term soul, the faculties of consciousness, conscience, reason, and will, are not to be referred to the mind as something distinct

from the body, but to the body itself in its peculiar and superior organization. Such as this is a brief and comprehensive statement of the doctrine of Materialism.

The arguments in support of this doctrine or hypothesis, are in substance the following:

1. The power of thought in man is always found in connection with an organized material system; and the fact that thought and body thus uniformly accompany each other, with mutual dependence and reciprocal influences, leads naturally to the conclusion that the power of thought is the result or production of the material organization. The physical and mental powers, as every one knows, generally grow and decay together, so that we have the same reason for supposing that the mental powers are dependent on the body, or that they grow out of it, as we have for supposing that the physical powers, those of locomotion or digestion, are dependent on the body. Also, since different functions belong to different parts of the body, we are led to consider thought as the peculiar function of the brain; at least we have the same reason for regarding it as such, that we have for regarding secretion as the peculiar function of the glands. And in this connection it is especially to be considered that the brain is absolutely essential to all the mental operation, sensation, reflection, volition, reasoning, imagination, consciousness, with all the emotions of hope and fear, love, anger, and every other; the strength of the mental powers is uniformly found to be in proportion to the development of the brain; and whenever it is disordered or destroyed, the powers of thought will be disordered or destroyed. Hence we are led directly and almost necessarily to the conclusion that the mental powers are dependent on the body-spring from it as a result of its organization. And no serious objection can be urged against this conclusion from the unlikeness of thought to the other properties of matter, for it is no more unlike them than some of its acknowledged properties are unlike each other. Extension and figure are entirely unlike each other, and yet they are regarded as properties of one and the same substance, and this for the simple reason that they are uniformly found in