meaning of the word baptize infinitely preferable to that of European lexicographers; fo that a man, who is obliged to truft human teftimony, and who baptizes by immerfion, because the Greeks do, understands a Greek word exactly as the Greeks themselves understand it; and in this cafe the Greeks are unexceptionable guides, and their practice is, in this inftance, fafe ground of action.

The English tranflators did not tranflate the word baptize, and they acted wifely, for there is no one word in the English language, which is an exact counterpart of the Greek word, as the new teftament ufes it, containing the precife ideas of the evangelifts, neither lefs nor more. The difficulty, or rather the excellence of the word is, that it contains two ideas inclufive of the whole doctrine of baptifm. Baptize is a Dyer's word, and fignifies to dip, fo as to colour. Such as render the word dip give one true idea, but the word ftood for two, and one is wanting in this rendering. This defect is in the German teftament, Matt. iii. 1. In thofe days came John der tauffer, John the dipper; and the Dutch, In thofe days came John een dooper, John the dipper. This is the truth, but it is not the whole truth. The Saxon teftament adds another idea, by naming the adminiftrator John Se Fullubtere, John the fuller. The Islandick language tranflates baptism skirn (1), scouring. These convey two ideas, cleansing by washing; but neither do thefe accurately exprefs the two ideas of the Greck baptize; for though repentance in fome cafes accompanies baptism, as it does prayer, yet not in every cafe. Jefus was baptized in Jordan, but he was not cleanfed from any moral or ceremonial turpitude by it, nor was any repentance mixed with his baptifm. Purification by baptifm is an accident, it may be, it may not be, it is not effential to baptifm. The word then conveys two ideas, the one literal, dipping, the other figurative, colouring, a figure however expreffive of a real fact; meaning that John by bathing perfons in the river Jordan conferred a character, a moral hue, as Dyers by dipping in a dying vat fet a tinct or colour; John by baptifm difcriminating the difciples of Chrift from other men, as Dyers by colouring distinguish stuffs. Hence John is called, by early Latins, John tinctor, the exact Latin of Joannes baptiftes, John the Baptift.

Tertullian, the first Latin father, obferves, that baptifm was administered with great fimplicity (2), homo in aqua demiffus, et inter pauca verba tinctus. The mode feems to have been this. The adminiftrator ftanding in the water, and putting his hand on the back part of the head of the candidate,

(1) KRISTNI SAGA. Hafnie 1773. Skirn, baptifm, from fkir, clean, fkire, to cleanse. (2) De Baptifmo, cap. ii. Nihil adeo eft quod obduret mentes hominum, quam fimplicitas divinorum operum quæ in actu videntur, & magnificentia quæ in effectu repromittitur: ut hic quoque quoniam tanta fimplicitate fine pompa, fine apparatu novo aliquo, denique fine fumptu homo in aqua demiffus, & inter pauca verba tinctus, non multo vel nihilo mundior refurgit, eo incredibilis exiftimetur confecutio æternitatis.

ftanding alfo in the water, bowed him forward till he was immersed in the water, pronouncing in the mean time the baptifmal words, by which he characterized him a Chriftian. Every body knows how the Romans understood demiffo capite, demiffo vultu, demiffis oculis, and the

like.

The Syrians, the Armenians, the Perfians, and all Eaftern Chriftians have understood the Greek word baptifin to fignify dipping, and, agreeably to their own verfions, they all, and always adminifter baptifm by immerfion, but Mohammed in the Al-coran has moft fully tranflated the original word. He calls baptifin febgatallah, that is divine dying, or the tinging of God, from febgab dying, and Allah God. A celebrated orientalift fays, Mohamined made ufe of this compound term for baptifm,. becaufe in his time Chriftians adminiftered baptifm as Dyer's tinge, by immerfion, and not as now [in the Weft by afperfion (3). Mohammed every where expreffes great refpect for the rites of Chriftians, and being alked why he fet afide baptifm, he anfwered, because the true divine tinct, which is true baptifin, is faith and grace, which God beftows on true believers. This inward tinct is half the meaning of baptifin, the other half is immerfion in water.

The very learned Dr. John Gale (4), whofe accurate knowledge of Greek was never doubted, hath traced the original word in profane writers, and hath proved that with the Greeks bapto fignified I dip, baptai Dyers, baphia a dye-house, bapfis dying by dipping. Bammata dying drugs, baphikee the art of dying, dibaphos double-dyed, baptifterion a dying vat, &c. Tertullian preferves both the ideas in the few words quoted above, demiffus in aqua is the firft, dipped, and tinctus the other, coloured, or characterized, fo that the fingle word baptifm ftands for both dipping, the mode, and a perfon of real character, the only subject of baptifin. There is a propriety in acknowledging a believer in Chrift a real character by baptifin. It is giving him the name who hath the thing. To this fenfe of the word all circumftances and defcriptions agree, as baptizing in the river Jordan... going down into the water... coming up out of the Mark i. 5. water, buried in baptifin, and the reft, fo that the proper anfwer to the Matt. ii. 16. question, how did John adminifter baptifm, is, By immerfion. Learned men have inquired whether John ufed any fet form of words 38, 39.. in baptizing, and, if he did, what words? Some think he used no form (5). Others think he baptized in the name of the trinity (6); but a pallage in the book of Acts feems to fay, that he baptized in one of the names of

(3) HERBELOT. Bibliot. Orient.

(4) Reflections upon WALL's Hiftory of Infant Baptifm. Let. iii.

(5) BELLARMIN. Probabile eft, joannem nulla verborum formula ufum fuiffe.

(6) DANIEL CHAMIERI Panftratiæ, tom. iv. lib. 5. cap. 13. Dico Joannem baptizandɔ invocaffe trinitatem, nimirum quod hæc effet forma baptifmi.

Jefus

Acts viii.

Rom. vi. 4..

Jefus (7). When Paul went firft to Ephefus (8), he found fome difciples, who had not received, or even heard of the extraordinary gifts of the holy ghoft. The apoftle inquired, into what then were ye baptized? They faid, into John's baptifm. Paul defcribed John's baptifm, and said, John verily baptized with the baptifm of repentance, faying unto the people, that they fhould believe on him which fhould come after him, that is, added Paul, on Chrift Jefus. And when they, the difciples of John, heard John Jay this, they were baptized by John in the name of the Lord Jefus. This paraphraftical reading is given in a few words to exprefs the fuppofed true fenfe of the paffage, and it feems to convey the opinions of thofe divines, who affirm, that there was but one baptifm ... that the Ephefians were not rebaptized... that the baptifm of John was true chriftian baptifm . . . and that he baptized in fome one of the names of Jefus, and most likely in that of Meffiah, or Chrift, or him that was

to come.

D

CHA P. III.

Of the Places where John baptized.

IFFERENT writers for different purposes have represented Palestine as a track of bleak and blafted mountains, always burnt up with exceffive droughts, and from age to age a land of perpetual barrennefs. Some have done this in order to difcredit the writings of Mofes, and others with a design to disprove the baptifm of immersion, as if the country could afford no more water than would fuffice for pouring or fprinkling. This makes it proper to examine the places where John adminiftered baptifm.

That Palestine hath been declining in fertility ever fince the Babylonish captivity is true, that in the time of Jerom, who lived there, it was ill fupplied with water, and fubject to great droughts (1), and that it is now defolate must be allowed; but that it formerly answered the defcriptions

(7) JOAN. EccI Homil. 7. Quæras qua forma fit ufus Joannes in baptizando ? Ea fane quæ dixit. Ego baptizo te in nomine venturi. Act. xix. 4.

(3) ACTS xix. i, &c. BEZA... GILL, &c.

(1) Com. in Amos, cap. iv. In iis enim locis, in quibus nunc degimus, præter parvos fontes, omnes cifternarum aquæ funt : et fi imbres divina ira fufpenderit, majus fitis quam famis periculum eft.

of

of Mofes, and deferved all the commendations he gave it, muft also be granted, if any credit is to be given to the ancient inhabitants of it, to good hiftorians of adjacent countries, or to modern credible travellers (2). It was a good land, a land for cattle, a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that Sprang out of vallies and hills; a land flowing with milk and honey (3). Its prefent condition may eafily be accounted for. It is not now the home of industrious owners, who divided it into manageable family eftates, where every exertion was employed to make it productive; but it is a small inconfiderable part of a vaft defpotical empire, where the state of property, and the spirit of government, ferve rather to depopulate than to improve a country. For ages, the land hath been a prey to fucceffive plunderers, and the owners themfelves defaced it to abate the rage of crufaders for invading it. It hath been damaged too by droughts and earthquakes. The opulent and fruitful island of Cyprus was burnt up and nearly depopulated for want of rain; for, about the time of Conftantine, there was none for fix and thirty years; but this did not make hiftorics of its ancient fertility incredible; and the prefent condition of Paleftine ferves to render refpectable the ancient Jewish prophets, who forefaw, and foretold it.

John, fetting out from the place of his birth, Hebron, a city in the hilly part of the tribe of Judah, two and twenty miles from Jerufalem, travelling northward, and leaving Tekoa, Bethlehem, and Jerufalem, on the left, went toward Bethhoglah, Engedi, Gilgal, and Jericho, taking his road through the wildernefs of Judah, near the banks of the lake Afphaltites, and crying or preaching to the inhabitants of the towns, arrived at that part of the wildernefs which was bounded on the Eaft by the river Jordan, which met him, as it were, running a-long-fide full fouth, and hereabouts fixed his firft baptifmal ftation. The word wildernefs did not fignify in Judea, an uninhabited country, but woody, grazing lands, in diftinction from arable fields, which were champaign or open, and vineyards, olive-yards, orchards, and gardens, which were inclofed. There were, in the time of Jofhua, fix cities with their villages in this wilderness, and the inhabitants of thofe parts were Graziers and Sheep-mafters (4).

(2) JOSEPH. de Bel. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 3....ARISTE AS... STRABO. Lib. xvi. TACITI. Hift. lib. v. SHAW.. ....MAUNDRELL, &c.

(3) DEUT. viii. 7, 8. &c. ...NUMB. xiii. 17, &c. xxxii. 4, &c.

(4) BLAS. UGOLINI Thefaur. Antiquitat. Sacrarum. Vol. i. Venetiis, 1746. RELAND lib. i. cap. lvi. De locis incultis et fylvis Paleftinæ. Solituds Jrde. In folitudine Judæ urbes fex recenfentur. Joh. xv. 61, 62.....Videntur autem partes hujus folitudinis a locis vicinis alia nomina accepiffe, uti mons folitudinis Ziph. 1 Sam. xxiii. 14....Solitudo Maon. 1 Sara. xxiii. 25...Solitudo Thekor, 2 Chrón, xx. 20.....Solitudo Engaddi, 1 Sam.

xxiv. a, &c.

When Balaam, from the top of an adjacent hill, furveyed that part of the country toward which John travelled, he was charmed with the beauty and fertility of the fcene, and he obferved that the fpot was adorned and perfumed like Paradife: the vallies were like gardens fpread forth by the river's fide: and the banks rifing from the waters were ornamented with aromatick timbers and fruit trees (5). The defcription was exact, for that end of the wilderness toward Jericho hung floping down a valley fifteen miles in width, all along which the Jordan, from North to South, rolled its waves; in fome places deep and rapid, overhung with wood growing on banks four or five feet above the water, formerly thickets and lodgments of lions; behind thefe other banks rifing to the height of fifteen feet; in other places broad and fhallow, and in general wider than the Tiber at Rome, and about as wide as the Thames at Windfor (6). Jordan did not receive its name, as many fuppofe, from Yor, the fpring, and Dan, the tribe where it rofe, for it was called Jarden, or Yarden, before the tribes inhabited the land (7). Indeed it was fuppofed to rife at Yor, in Dan, till Philip the tetrarch corrected the errour by cafting ftraw or chaff into the lake Phiala, fifteen miles higher up the country eastward, which, coming up again to view at the old fuppofed fource, proved a fubterranean paffage from the Phiala. A little below Dan, the ftream formed the lake Samachonites, which was about four miles over and feven miles long; thence iffuing out again at the oppofite end it ran fifteen miles further, and formed the lake, or, as it is fometimes called, the sea of Tiberias, which was in the broadest part five miles in width, and in length eighteen; thence at the oppofite end it proceeded forward again, croffed the whole country through the wide valley juft now mentioned, and fell into the lake Afphaltites, where it was loft. Reland derives its name from Yard, which anfwers, fays he, to the low Dutch, Vliet, or Vloet, a river; and it was called the River, by excellence, as the Nile and the Euphrates were, because each was the great and principal river of the country. He He quotes authorities, Arabick and Perfick, to prove that Jordan was called Arden, and the country the land of Arden (8). Father

(5) NUM. xxiv. 6. POLI Synops. in loc.....Sept. Noe wapadaco em molapur... Noe oxnvas μια Ωσει κέδροι παρ υδαία.

(6) DR. RICHARD POCOCKE's Defcription of the Eaft. Vol. ii. part i. London, 1745. Chap. viii. Of the wilderness, the fountain of Elisha, fericho, and Jordan.

(7) JOHAN. QUISTOR PII Nebo. De aquis terræ fan&ta. RELANDI Palaft. Lib. i. cap. xliii. De Jordano.

(8) Nos diceremus de Vliet, vel de Vloet. Ita xal so hic FLUVIUs dictus eft, quia folus in Palæstina nomen fluminis meretur. Et ita plerumque fieri folet in regionibus ubi unus fluvius eft. aut certe unus eximius et ingens, illum non nomine proprio, fed communi FLUVIUM appellari. Ita Bætis: ita Araxes: ita Nethos xupos: Sihon : et forfitan hic ipfe Rhenus a guy:

et Menam in Siam.

D'Herbelot