to unloose the latchet of his shoes; but having first stated the insignificance of his own baptism, and shewn that it had no effect beyond bringing them to repentance, (for he did not style it the water of remission, but of repentance,) he proceeds to the baptism ordained by Christ, which was replete with an ineffable gift."* This eminent father, we perceive, insists on the prodigious inferiority of the ceremony performed by John to the christian sacrament, from its being merely a symbol of repentance, without comprehending the remission of sins, or the donation of the Spirit. The evangelists, Mark and Luke, it is true, affirm that John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, whence we are entitled to infer that the rite which he administered, when accompanied with suitable dispositions, was important in the order of preparation, not that it was accompanied with the immediate or actual collation of that benefit.

Such as repented at his call, stood fair candidates for the blessings of the approaching dispensation, among which, an assurance of pardon, the adoption of children, and the gift of the Spirit, held the most conspicuous place; blessings of which it was the office of John to excite the expectation, but of Christ to bestow. The effusion of the Spirit, indeed, in the multifarious forms of his miraculous and sanctifying operation, may be considered as * Homily xi. on Matthew.

Mark i. 4. Luke iii. 3.

equivalent to them all; and this, we are distinctly told, was not given (save in a very scanty manner) during our Lord's abode upon earth, because he was not yet glorified. Reserved to adorn the triumph of the ascended Saviour, the apostles were commanded to wait at Jerusalem until it was bestowed, which was on the day of Pentecost, when "a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind, filled the place where they were assembled, and cloven tongues of fire sat upon each of them, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost." This was the first example of that baptism of the Spirit, as the author of which, John asserts the immense superiority of the Messiah, not to himself only, but to all preceding prophets. In the subsequent history, we perceive that this gift was, on all ordinary occasions, conferred in connexion with baptism. In this connexion, it is exhibited by St. Peter, in his address on the day of Pentecost: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."

Thus it was also in the case of Saul of Tarsus. Agreeable to our Lord's prediction of the signs which should accompany them that believe, there is reason to suppose a greater or less measure of these supernatural endowments regularly accompanied the imposition of the hands of the apostles on primitive converts, immediately subsequent to their baptism; which affords an easy solution to the surprise Paul appears to have felt, in finding

certain disciples at Ephesus, who, though they had been baptized, were yet unacquainted with these communications. "Into what then," he asks,

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were ye baptized?" and upon being informed "into John's baptism," the difficulty vanished.

Since the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the copious effusion of spiritual influences, in which primitive christians were, so to speak, immersed, was appointed to follow the sacramental use of water, under the christian economy, while the same corporeal action performed by John was a naked ceremony, not accompanied by any such effects, this difference betwixt them is sufficient to account for their being contrasted in scripture, and ought ever to have prevented their being confounded as one and the same institute.

5. The case of the disciples at Ephesus, to which we have just adverted, affords a demonstrative proof of the position for which we are contending; for if John's baptism was the same with our Lord's, upon what principles could St. Paul proceed in administering the latter to such as had already received the former? As I am aware that some have attempted to deny so plain a fact, I shall beg leave to quote the whole passage, which, I am persuaded, will leave no doubt on the mind of an impartial reader:-" It came to pass while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passing through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? but they replied,

We have not even heard that there is an Holy Ghost. He said unto them, Into what then were ye baptized? they said, Into John's baptism. Paul replied, John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him who was to come, that is, on Jesus Christ. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus: and when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied." I am conscious that there are not wanting some who contend that the fifth verse is to be interpreted as the language of St. Paul, affirming that at the command of John, the people were baptized in the name of Jesus. But not to repeat what has already been advanced to shew that this is contrary to fact, (for who, I might ask, were the people, who at his instigation were baptized in that name, or what traces are in the evangelical history of such a practice, during the period of his ministry?) not to insist further on this, it is obvious that this interpretation of the passage contradicts itself: for if John told the people that they were to believe on him who was to come, this was equivalent to declaring that he had not yet manifested himself; while the baptizing in his name as an existing individual, would have been to affirm the contrary. Besides, we must remark, that the persons on whom Paul is asserted

* "When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." Acts xix. 5.

to have laid his hands, were unquestionably the identical persons who are affirmed in the preceding verse to have been baptized; for there is no other antecedent, so that if the meaning of the passage be what some contend for, the sacred historian must be supposed to assert that he laid his hands, not on the twelve disciples at Ephesus, but on John's converts in general, that the Holy Ghost came upon them, and that they spake with tongues and prophesied; which is ineffably absurd.

In

Either this must be supposed, or the words, which in their original structure are most closely combined, must be conceived to consist of two parts, the first relating to John's converts in general, the second to the twelve disciples at Ephesus; and the relative pronoun, expressive of the latter description of persons, instead of being conjoined to the preceding clause, must be referred to an antecedent, removed at the distance of three verses. the whole compass of theological controversy, it would be difficult to assign a stronger instance of the force of prejudice in obscuring a plain matter of fact; nor is it easy to conjecture what could be the temptation to do such violence to the language of scripture, and to every principle of sober criticism, unless it were the horror which certain divines have conceived, against every thing which bore the shadow of countenancing anabaptistical The ancient commentators appear to have felt no such apprehensions, but to have followed,

error.