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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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Yes , niy £# Qd Doctor , to baptize " in a name" ( EN ovtytaiV ) might bear that meaning , and so exclnde the supposition of any literal baptism in water . But the command is to baptize , not in , but " into" or < c nnto the name" ( EI 2 to oyofMt ) : and it is remarkable that the Doctor , by giving the correct rendering
c into the name , ** has precluded himself from any indulgence which a mere English reader , if betrayed by the mistranslation of our common version into such a discovery as the Doctor ' s , might have claimed . It is clear , therefore , that by " the name" is pointed out , not the element or means , but the end or design of
the baptism enjoined : and consequently taking the naked injunction , as recorded by Matthew , and excluding all those other considerations which so unquestionably shew that a literal water-baptism was contemplated , there is , at least ,
nothing on the face of the passage in the slightest degree incompatible with such a literal interpretation : nor would there be any incongruity in supplying the ellipsis of the injunction by the analogy of other corresponding passages , so as to read , baptizing them in water unto the name "—ev vdan eh ; to ovq \ jlol . So totally unconscious indeed does Dr . Jones appear to be of the distinction between the two prepositions , that he actually interchanges their meaning , and ascribes to the one the peculiar force of the other . For he intimates that if literal water-baptism had been intended by Christ , the injunction would have been , * plunging them into water in the name , " & c , as if into { eh ;) could express the element , or in ( ey ) the end of baptism . On the
contrary , the full construction would obviousl y have been , as above , — baptizing them in ( ev ) water unto ( £ *;) the name , " & c . The absurd consequence of exchanging the force of the two prepositions will become apparent to the Doctor himself , when I direct him to an instance occurring , not in mere t ) anslation , but in his own original English . " Analogy , " ci
says the Doctor , is the Ariadne whose thread guides me in the labyrinth of error . " Now , here the Doctor , keeping up his analogy , has palpably mistaken in for into ( ev for eh ;) : since a perusal of his two papers establishes beyond a question , that he Rhould have written" She is the Ariadne whose thread guides me into the labyrinth of error . " Or is this , indeed , a mere typographical blunder ? If the Doctor had not been so wholly iC plunged into" his theory , a reference to the . injunction , as given by Mark , " Go ye into all the world , and preach the gospel to every creature . He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned / ' ( Mark
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xvi , h 6 ,. ) might have afforded . aurT & pM & fr chance of escape from the pe ^ p ^ ti ^ l |^ ap of his discovery . Mark ' s mentianS ^ ; baptism without qualification , c leai£ ^ i > t indicates that he alhaded to baptism ^ i 3 its ordinary literal meaning : -U } $ & fh indeed
, he can be supposed to-: ba $ || pp " sunk" the explanatory circumst ^ # d ^ P ^ f " out of sight , " for some such te * a ^ $€ * zing motive as the Doctor hesitates i < $ t to ascribe to Luke . For Doctor Jones , in a climax of inconsistency , after maintaining the metaphorical nature of the
baptismal injunction to be as clear as day , informs us , at the conclusion of his first paper , that Luke " sinks out of sight the figure of baptism as liable to be misunderstood , " and goes on to state the propriety of Matthew ' s recording it by way of accommodation to the " Jewish converts who practised the ceremony in a literal sense" !
But the Doctor ' s criticism would have been incomplete without a crowning analogy to render assurance doubly sure , and , therefore , after alluding to Christ ' s designating some of his apostles as
cc nshers of men , " we have the following : "As the office of real fishermen is superseded in the one expression , so is the rite of baptism by water superseded in the other . " Sed valeat quantum valeat : let this pass for what it is worth .
Had , however , our Lord ' s injunction been less explicit than it is , any ambiguity would have been annihilated by the circumstance , that the apostles to whom it was addressed acted upon it in its literal meaning . The Doctor ' s theory being lt blowu on the wind , " his attempt to account for what he calls the ' <
temporary continuance" of the practice is all so much labour thrown away . For 1 have a higher opinion of the Doctor ' s logical discernment than to imagine he could suppose that by simply shewing , iii the affirmative , that baptism at one particular time , and under certain circumstances , did actually accomplish a
beneficial end , he established the universal negative position , that the same rite could not at any other time , or under any other circumstances , have any useful operation . Heligious sincerity and obedience are not less necessary or estimable , nor dissimulation and pusiltanU mity less to be guarded against , now than
in the days of the apostles ; and the very circumstance by which the Doctor seeks to account for , not to say infer , the " temporary continuance" of baptism , on the ground of expediency , may , for aught he shews to the contrary , have formed one of the many beneficial purposes contemplated in its original institution . The other circiwnstance adduced
by the Doctor , about John , and ulti *> inately Jesus , becoming the head of the Essenes , may , when established , turn out
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1826, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1716/page/7/
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