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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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Jews for the arrival of their expected Messiah by the divine mission of his forerunner , the same wisdom farther thought proper to authorize this forerunner to signalize the advent of his principal by ah external baptism , subordinate to * and symbolical of that noble baptism which the Messiah himself was to administer . This is
the purport of the account which John gires of his own baptism . " I , indeed , baptize you with water unto repentance , but he who comes after me is mightier than I , whose sandals
I am not worthy to carry : he will baptize you with holy wind and with fire . " Water , wind and fire are figures known to the Jews and other nations as symbols of purification . The first of these elements was the
roost gross and inefficient , as capable only of washing the outside or surface of the character : the other elements were more efficacious , capable of penetrating the interior and purifying the heart . The Baptist intimates that he was not the Messiah
because he baptized with water only : and because the Messiah which was just succeeding him was to baptize with the more refined and powerful elements of wind and fire . As then the Messiah or the Principal superseded his herald ; so his superior office or his baptism by nobler elements superseded the office of John or baptism by water . This is the drift of John ' s own statement . Our Lord ' s words
are more explicit : " Suffer me now , for thus it behoves me to fulfil all righteousness—every righteous institution / ' To fulfil a rite or ordinance which pointed to the Messiah , was to answer the purpose of it by complying with it , and then substituting the reality for the shadow . Thus he
fulfilled the law , having carried its ceremonies , its types and symbols to their ¦ consummation , and then set them aside for ever . Tims , too , he fulfilled the rite of circumcision . Christ was himself circumcised , lie then substituted the circumcision of the heart and cancelled that of the body as Ueing only a symbol pointing to the txue'circvnncmou which , was to follow ifc
hjiAjj qapUsm was expected to usher mthe IVJsssiah , the people went out Ck » John With the "expectation that he was 4 rimself the Ohri&t : This made
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the disciples of Jesus jealous of the forerunher ; and their attentioa being now directed to th £ ir Divine Master as the Messiah , they , begat * in ' op * position to John ,- : to baptize in the name of Jegns * Our Loi # did not
prohibit them for a very wise and ira ~ portant reason soon to be noticed , though it would have been improper rn him to baptize as having already virtually cancelled baptism by Water . Accordingly . we read , than ** though the disciples baptized , Jesus himself
did not baptize . " John iv \ 3 . Thus we see that baptism and the Lord ' s Supper , as ordinances of Christianity , stand upon very different foundations : Christ himself did not practise the one , but personally instituted the other . .
Jt is very unfortunate for Mr . GiU christ that the very text which is the subject of his discourse , and which he supposes to inculcate the perpetual obligation of baptism , contains its abrogation . " Go , make disciples of all nations , baptizing them into the
name of the Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Spirit . " At this time the word ( Zamri ^ a was become exceedingly vague in its signification , the literal being sunk in the metaphorical sense , and that sense always determined by the peculiarity of the
noun annexed to it . Thu 3 to baptize with wind , meant to purify with wind —to baptize with fire , to consume with fire—to baptize with a burden , to load with a burden—to baptize with salty to sprinkle or season—to be baptized with death or sleep , to submit to death , to sink in death wr
in sleep—to be baptized in sin , to wallow in sin . Thus , too , to baptize in a name signifies to assume that name without the ceremony of plunging in water actually accompanying "
it . < c Our fathers were baptized int *> Moses , in the cloud , and the sea . " 1 Cor . x . 2 . They are said to be baptized unto Moses , because they followed Moses under the cloud aud
passed through the sea . Of this description is the above verse . Our Lord compresses the doctrine of the gospel into three heads—an all-perfect and benevolent Beiagy aa the Creator and Governor of the , iwnVpra * under the name of Father < wJbs us
Christ commissioned by :. biOT-to * announce a future state of happiness to
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896 Dt . J . Jones on the Perpetuity of Baptism .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1826, page 396, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2550/page/16/
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