Stephanus is another, and he expressly, in sundry places, assigns "lavo" and "abluo" to be also the sense of it.
Aquinas is for dipping of children, provided it be done three times, in honour of the Trinity; but he maintains pouring or sprinkling to be lawful also, affirming that Laurentius, who lived about the time 250, so practised. But he meddles not with the sense of the word, as being too wise to speak of that which he understood not ; for he knew no Greek.
In Suidas, the great treasury of the Greek tongue, it is rendered by " madefacio, lavo, abluo, purge, mundo,"
The places in the other authors being not quoted, I cannot give an account of what they say. I have searched some of them in every place wherein they mention baptism, and find no one word to the purpose. I must say, and will make it good, that no honest man who understands the Greek tongue can deny the word to signify "to wash," as well as "' to dip."
It must not be denied but that in the primitive times they did use to baptize both grown persons and children oftentimes by dip- ping, but they affirmed it necessary to dip them stark naked, and that three times; but not one ever denied pouring water to be lawful.
The apostle, Rom. vi. 3-5, is dehorting from sin, exhorting to holiness and new obedience, and gives this argument from the ne- cessity of it and our ability for it, — both taken from our initiation into the virtue of the death and life of Christ, expressed in our bap- tism,— that by virtue of the death and burial of Christ we should be dead unto sin, sin being slain thereby, and by virtue of the resurrec-
268 OF DIPPING.
tion of Christ we sliould be quickened unto newness of life ; as Peter declareSj 1 Pet. iii. 21. Our being "buried with him," and our being " planted together in the likeness of his death" and " in the likeness of his resurrection," E-ora.'vi. 4, 5, is the same with "our old man being crucified with him," and the " destroying of the body of sin," verse 6, and our being raised from the dead with him ; which is all that is intended in the place.
There is not one word nor one expression that mentions any re- semblance between dipping under water and the death and burial of Christ, nor one word that mentions a resemblance between our rising out of the water and the resurrection of Christ. Our being "buried with him by baptism into death," verse 4, is our being " planted together in the likeness of his death," verse 5. Our being "planted together in the likeness of his death" is not our being dipped under water, but "the crucifying of the old man," verse 6. Our being "raised up with Christ from the dead" is not our rising from under the water, but our " walking in newness of life," verse 4, by virtue of the resurrection of Christ, 1 Pet. iii. 21.
That baptism is not a sign of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, is clear from hence, because an instituted sign is a sign of gospel grace participated, or to be participated. If dipping be a sign of the burial of Christ, it is not a sign of a gospel grace participated ; for it may be where there is none, nor any exhibited.
For the major : If all gospel ordinances are signs and expressions of the communication of the grace of Christ, then baptism is so; but this is the end of all gospel ordinances, or else they have some other end, or are vain and empty shows.
The same individual sign cannot be instituted to signify things of several natures; but the outward burial of Christ, and a participa- tion of the virtue of Christ's death and burial, are things of a diverse nature, and therefore are not signified by one sign.
That interpretation which would enervate the apostle's argument and design, our comfort and duty, is not to be admitted; but this interpretation, that baptism is mentioned here as the sign of Christ's burial, would enervate the apostle's argument and design, our com- fort and duty: and therefore it is not to be admitted.
The minor is thus proved : The argument and design of the apostle, as was before declared, is to exhort and encourage unto mortification of sin and new obedience, by virtue of power received from the death and life of Christ, whereof a pledge is given us in our baptism. But this is taken away by this interpretation ; for we may be so buried with Christ and planted into the death of Christ by dipping, and yet have no power derived from Christ for the crucifying of sin and for the quickening of us to obedience.
REFLECTIONS
\ ON
A SLANDEROUS LIBEL AGAINST DR OWEN ,•
IN
A LETTER TO SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.
PREFATORY NOTE.
In Tol. XV., p. 446, a reference will be found to a pamphlet entitled " A Letter to a Friend concerning some of Dr Owen's Principles and Practices." It was written against Dr Owen's " Short Catechism," by the Rev. George Vei'non, a rector in Gloucestershire, who had received his education at Oxford University while Owen presided over it. It was full of calumnious charges of blasphemy and perjury. Our author, under the form of a Letter to Sir Thomas Overbury, replies to it in vehement terms,— terms perhaps more vehement than the absurdity of the charges at all re- quired. In those days of slow communication, however, railing accusations, especially coming from one in the position of a rector, were fitted to work considerable mischief; and there was such a lack of all the decencies of controversy in Vernon's lucubrations that he deserved a sharp reprimand. In the hands of Owen, he was but a fly broken on the wheel.