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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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present remarks ; But we may here see how one assumption requires another to support it . For , according to what Doctor Jones assumes to be the necessary and universal import of the word " fulfil /' our Lord ' s declaration before his baptism , taking it as it is , without the Doctor ' s gratuitous paraphrase , was in effect , that
c it behoved him to fulfil . ' * i . e . to jtuver it oenoved Jum to tulnl , i . e . to supersede and put an end to , " all righteousness ; " and the Doctor , therefore , seeing that the passage thus interpreted , proved
rather too much , felt obliged to reduce it to the standard of his hypothesis by assuming the qualification already adverted to . That Christ fulfilled baptism , in so far as he personally submitted to it , may be readily admitted ; that he fulfilled it
in any sense incompatible with his subsequently adopting it as an ordinance of his religion , is a position involving the very question in dispute—a question , of historical fact to be determined by a reference to direct evidence , and not by
the couple of hypothetical similes , each prefaced by its characteristic " thus / ' relative to Christ ' s fulfilling the Jewish law , and more particularly the rite of circumcision , with which Dr . Jones , by way of ultima ratio , winds up the argument for his 2 nd position .
The Doctor , however , may perhaps rely upon the qualification by which his position is restricted to the fulfilment of 6 < a rite or ordinance which pointed to the Messiah . " If so , I simply reply , that by thus narrowing his position , he excludes by the terms of the
qualification the very subject of discussion . For any thing , indeed , that is material to the general question , John ' s baptism may have been nothing more than " a lite or ordinance pointing to the Messiah " and , as such , superseded and
determined by the advent of the personage to whom it so pointed : yet that the compliance of Jesus with the rite was , ipso facto , a fulfilment , i . e . an abolition , even of John ' s baptism , is by no means to be taken for trrauted ; for it am > eara to be taken for granted ; for it appears
that John , after baptizing Jesus , still continued to baptize , ( John iv . 1 , ) a circumstance which the Doctor ' s eagerness to account for the disciples of Jesus administering the rite , betrays him somewhat incautiously to admit . But were this otherwise , and the Doctor ' s position , qualified as above , admitted to its full extent , what iuferouce could it lead
to beyond the determination of John ' s baptism ? Or will the Doctor venture to designate Christian baptism as " a lite or ordinance pointing to the Messiah , " within the scope of hi « qualified
position ; or hazard the paradox that the baptism of Jesus by John fulfilled and put an end to Christian baptism before the period at which even its advocates allege it to have had a beginning ? Is it fli > t indeed superfluous to say one word
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more-about this v ^ $ po > vpolepoy theory of fulfilling , and , by a kind of prospective operation , cancelling an ordinance before it was ever instituted ? After all these hypotheses , analogies , and conjectures , the errand ouestion must always turesthe grand question must always
, return upon us—a questiou of historical fact , and to be decided only by an appeal to direct evidence—Did Christ , or did he not , institute baptism in a literal sense and of perpetual and universal obligation ?
r I he alleged impropriety of Christ practising water-baptism , and which the Doctor refers to in his 3 rd position , rests entirely on the assumed previous cancellation of that rite , and must fall with that assumption . The alleged reasons for our Lord ' s tolerating the practice in
his disciples may be ingenious ; they want only one thing—proof . The very passage in John , from which Dr- Jones selects an extract , makes , when taken entire , directly against him . It speaks of Jesus making and baptizing more disciples than John , as a fact , the coming of which to the ears of the Pharisees
induced Jesus to quit Judaea for Galilee . Th £ Doctor may reply that the Evangelist does not himself assert the fact , but merely states what " the Pharisees had heard . To this I should rejoin , Is it
likely that the circumstance of the Pharisees hearing a mere unfounded rumour could constitute a reason by which our Lord would govern his conduct ? To me , indeed , the Evangelist appears to admit the truth of what had been so
heard , with the single qualification that Jesus administered the rite , not personally , but through the agency of his disciples . This may be a conjecture : but a Baptist conjecture is as good as an Antibaptist one . Taking , however , the entire passage , L do not and need not
place much reliance on it . All I insist upon is , that it tuny be interpreted either way , and if not decisive against our theorist , has at least ; no conclusive or material hearing upon the points in dispute . The Doctor concludes this his 3 rd
position by stating a distinction between the grounds of Christian Baptism and the Lord's Supper : but the distinction being a mere assertion , is worth no more than the counter assertion , if I chose to make it , that Christ instituted
both . But we come at length to the Doctor ' s 4 th position ; and here he briugs into battle array that philological learning for which he enjoys so high u . reputation . Would that 1 could speak of the
soundness of his criticism in the present instance ! But it is nothing but my conviction that the Doctor ' s eagerness to support his hypothesis has blinded aud misled his critical accuracy , which could embolden me to enter with him upon such au arena . Our modern Theseus
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1826, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1716/page/3/
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