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appear to have cultivated with success. His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, somtimes obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his decisions; on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral considerations; but the spirit and vigor of his pursuit always gives delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point originally in view. To have great excellences and great faults, magnæ virtutes nec minora vitia, is the poesy,' says our author, of the best natures.' This poesy may be properly applied to Browne; it is vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantic; it is deep, but obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not allure; his tropes are harsh and his combinations uncouth. He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability, which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth, and was considered by every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastic skill, by moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this incroaching licence, began to introduce the Latin idiom; and Browne, though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet poured in a multitude of exotic words; many, indeed, useful and significant, but many superfluous."

Dr. Johnson warmly defends him against the charge of infidelity, which had been carelessly or maliciously brought against him. "He may," he says, " perhaps, in the ardor of his imagination, have hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; but a phrase is not to be opposed to volumes; there is scarcely a writer to be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently testified his belief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them with such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried reverence." And adds, "It is, indeed, somewhat wonderful, that he should be placed without the pale of Christianity, who declares, that he assumes the honorable style of a Christian,' not because it is the religion of his country,' but because, 'having in his riper years and confirmed judgment seen and examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the principles of

grace and the law of his own reason, to embrace no other name but this.'"

One more passage from Dr. Johnson, not without its application at the present time.

"It is observable, that he, who in his earlier years had read all the books against religion, was in the latter part of his life averse from controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer experience commonly repents. There is a time when every man is weary of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and desires to enjoy truth without the labor or hazard of contest. There is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome irruptions of skepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken; 'If there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or at least defer them, till my better settled judgment, and more manly reason, be able to resolve them; for I perceive every man's reason is his best Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those bonds, wherewith the subtilties of error have enchained our more flexible and tender judgments.'

BAPTISM.

THE topics, upon which we would offer a few remarks in the following pages, are, the meaning of the ordinance of Baptism, the mode of administering it, the proper subjects to receive it, and the duties of Christians in regard to it. The discussion of these points may ally itself to higher themes, than a dry criticism upon the meaning of a Greek word, and a strife about the adjuncts of a ceremony. It may connect itself with the right interpretation of many scriptural phrases, with the practices of early Christians, with many instructive lessons, drawn from the strange notions and absurd customs, which a history of the rite brings to view, with the essential spirit of our religion, and with our purest and best feelings in some of the most interesting periods of life.

In entering upon the discussion proposed, the question which meets us at the threshold of our subject is, in what sense did our Saviour use the word baptize, when he directed his disciples to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, &c. Now, as to the derivation and original meaning of the word, all controversy may be spared. Springing from a root which signified, at first, to plunge, the word came, in process of time, to stand for other acts, such as coloring, bathing, dipping, cleansing, and wetting; examples of which are found in classic use, and among the writers of the Old Testament. But there is a question which lies deeper than this. We all know, that through secondary senses and remote analogies, words come to represent ideas which bear but the slightest resemblance to the meaning, which they were, at first, invented to express. Numberless instances will occur to every mind, on a moment's reflection. Take the word subjugate, originally used to denote the act, in a beast of burden, of coming under the yoke; now applied in senses in which the original act is entirely lost sight of. A victorious conqueror subjugates a nation to his power; truth subjugates us to her sway. Take the word anoint, originally used to denote the putting on of ointment to one set apart to a sacred office; but now applied to one consecrated, by any form whatever, or by no form at all, to some high calling. We say of a Fenelon, or a Howard, or a Washington, that they were anointed by God, that is, chosen and qualified by him, for the high services they rendered to their race. Take the word crowned, originally used to denote the act of putting on a kingly covering for the head; but now applied to any one who is elevated by honor or power, by beauty or grace, by our praise, admiration, or love.

We

The inquiry, then, here arises, did the word baptize, in its common use, in the time of our Saviour, stand for other meanings, than the original one of plunging or immersion? see not how any one can possibly deny that it did. The glance we have just given at the history of the word shows, that it was perpetually enlarging its meaning. From at first denoting the act of plunging, it soon came to mean to color, to tinge, to bathe, to wash. Even in the time of Daniel it was used in the general sense of to wet, for in Daniel iv. 33, when we read that Nebuchadnezzar "was wet with the dew of heaven," it reads, in the original," was baptized with the dew of heaven." If we come down now to the time of the Apostles, we

find St. Paul, in 1 Cor. x. 2, speaking of the Israelites "as baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea," at the time of their escape from Pharaoh; although the history of that transaction records, that "the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground," Exodus xiv. 22; and if they were wet at all, it was only by rain from the cloud. We find the word baptize used in the same general sense by the Evangelists. Mark and Luke both inform us of the surprise which many expressed, that Jesus and his disciples eat bread with unwashen hands. Mark vii. 4. Luke xi. 38. But in the original the word is baptize, which is here translated, wash. Now, it is well known, that the oriental manner of washing hands was by pouring water upon them from pots, such as we are told were used at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, "after the manner of the purifying of the Jews." This custom of pouring water is alluded to in 2 Kings iii. 11. The mere pouring of water, then, was called baptism, in the familiar language of Judea, at the time of Christ.

Here, then, we have abundant evidence of the enlarged signification of the word under consideration, and that it stood for other meanings than the original one of immersion. We may see the same truth by another process. If, in the time of Christ, the word baptize invariably meant immersion, we could substitute that word in the New Testament, in the place of the present rendering. But this cannot be done. So many other significations did this word have, that neither plunging, pouring, sprinkling, nor any other word denoting one particular act, is equivalent to it. Let us try the experiment and see. Would these texts be intelligible, if they read as follows: "I have a plunging to be plunged with." "And were all poured into Moses.' "For by one spirit we are all sprinkled into one body." "Know ye not, that as many of you as were immersed into Christ were immersed into his death.” 66 John, indeed, poured unto repentance, but ye shall be poured with the Holy Ghost." "I indeed immerse with water, but one cometh after me who shall immerse with fire." "John preached the immersion of repentance." "To what then were ye immersed ? To John's immersion." These texts teach us how widely the word baptize had departed, in the time of Christ, from the oneness of its original signification

A review of these texts should intimate to us another inquiry. By a careful analysis of all the passages in the New Tes

tament, where the word baptize is used, can we detect an idea common to them all, expressed by that word? If this can be done, we arrive at once at the object of our search,- the meaning which Christ's use of the word would convey to the minds of his disciples. But an examination of every such text must be here passed by, as a work altogether too extended for this occasion. It is enough to say, that it is by no means difficult to see a common idea expressed in all places where the word baptize is used. It may be more difficult to express that idea. A word, which has departed from its original sense, takes many shades of meaning, according to the connexion in which it stands. While it has a common element, there is also connected with it something subtle, which we cannot tie up and label in a definition. I before alluded to the original signification of the word crowned. Who can exactly express all the nice shades of meaning conveyed by our present use of that word? When we say of a mountain, that it is crowned with the clouds; of a man of might, that he is crowned with strength; of the year, that it is crowned with God's goodness; there is a common meaning, which the word has in all these connexions, which no one finds it difficult to understand, though it may not be so easy to express it; and one would certainly fail in doing it, if he insisted upon applying the original, literal sense of the word.

So it is with the word baptize. In the time of Christ it had become appropriated as a religious term. It had an established usage, in a borrowed and secondary meaning, to which the original force of the word would be as unsafe a guide as in the case we have just named. I can think of no better words to define that meaning, than to call it a separation by a purifying rite. This seems to be the idea that is present in every instance, where the word occurs as a religious term in the New Testament, the idea of separation by purification. Go ye into all the world separating by purifying all nations in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. John came preaching the separation of repentance. And were all separated unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. by one spirit we are all separated into one body. I have a separating trial to pass through, and how am I straitened till it be done. Know ye not, that as many of you as were separated by the emblem of purity unto Christ, were separated unto Christ's death? Therefore, by our separation we are, as it

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