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Observer, June 15, '76.

body before the supper, and he who had thus bathed his whole body needed now to wash his feet only. Instead, then, of louo and nipto being used in the same sense, they are used in striking contrast. Hence Thomas Sheldon Green makes this reference in his definition of the word"Louo, to bathe the body, as distinguished from washing only the extremities." (Jno. xiii. 10).

It was customary for the Jews to bathe the entire body before eating the paschal supper. Bloomfield, in his Greek Testament, says, "Yet there were, as we learn from the Rabbinical writers, two washings at the paschal supper." Also, in comments on verse 10, he says, "The best commentators are agreed that leloumenos denotes the washing of the whole body in a bath, as opposed to niptesthai, which is used of washing part of the body. A guest who had gone through the former needed only, on arrival at the house of his host, to have his fet washed, which, as the Jews wore sandals, might be soiled by the way, or in a hot climate would need washing after the perspiration occasioned by walking. To offer this was a mark of civility and attention. Thus the sense is: As he who has bathed has no need of washing himself, except his feet, but is then quite pure, [so] ye need no other washing."

In quoting authorities I have used English instead of Greek letters, that all may read them. I have also given, for want of space, only so much as bears directly on the question.

There is no word, perhaps, on which authorities are better agreed than in defining louo, to wash the whole body. This was done in the baptism of the Apostolic age; hence nothing but immersion will meet the demands of the case. The language of the text expresses a universal proposition; hence there was no baptism without this washing of the body.

We confidently assert, and challenge successful contradiction, that "baptism by affusion," as preached by Pedobaptists, does not meet the demands of louo, while that of the Apostles did; therefore their "baptism" is not Apostolic. A.

THE PARDON OF SINS AND BAPTISM. AMICABLE DISCUSSION.-LETTER TWELVE.

MR. MCINTOSH charges me (page 137) with garbling and mistating ALL his propositions and arguments. In his last, instead of taking back this untrue charge, he makes an attempt to defend it, referring, however, but to one instance, which one had already been explained and justified. By thus specifying only one exploded instance, while his charge includes all, his in

ability to sustain it is manifest. Let us not, however, attribute intention deliberately to prefer an untrue charge, but charitably count it an outcome of that infirmity of temper which he desires to avoid. Still when the untruth of the charge is pointed out he should, himself, make the "amende honorable," rather than write about others doing so.

I have before explained that his proof texts dropped a leading term of his proposition and that, therefore, if his texts prove anything it is his proposition minus that omitted term. To show the illogical character of his proof I put the proposition of his texts into syllogistic form. I distinguish between his proposition as written at the head of his first letter and that which his proof texts express. To the first, being on

Put

his part only an unproved affirmation, I give only simple denial. In argument I deal only with what appears in his proof texts, no one of which names repentance. True he reminds us that he did put in the words repent, repentance, etc. in! indeed, that is just what he did. He found them not in any one of his texts, and he slips them in, here and there, as mere assertion; just as a clerk who has to account for £100 may write that amount at the bottom of his column when the figures thereof only amount to £90. In this useless way he might have put in repentance on every page; but I have only to do with his proof texts, and not with terms never once found therein which he may please without authority to append. If his proof texts do not name repentance, and mention faith only, then I am correct in representing the argued proposition according to his own limitation in the texts alleged to prove it. Those texts begin with-"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." The others are like unto these, and in no instance name repentance. Moreover he sums them up himself thus-"I think these words of the Lord Jesus ought to have weight with His disciples. We have these truths enunciated as eternal verities, repeated again and again, whosoever, everyone, that believeth in Jesus shall not perish-hath or possesses eternal life, shall not come into condemnation, is passed from death unto life; the belief and the salvation are simultaneous, the same mood and tense employed to describe both; linked inseparably together, co-existent, independent of all conditions" (page 42). Thus in his own summary of the proof texts there is no mention of repentance-the mere act of believing and the salvation" are simultaneous." If this be true he shuts out baptism and confession and repentance. To refute this, his said to be proved proposition, I wrote

Sinners are saved whenever they believe in Jesus.
The rulers believed on Jesus.
Therefore the rulers were saved.

Thus exhibiting, in the first line, the argument of his proof texts, and in the last line the logical conclusions of that argument. But he holds that the rulers were not saved, though they did believe in Jesus, because they did not repent, and thus refutes his argument and evidences his misunderstanding of his proof texts. It should

be remembered that our friend has made no attempt to answer this refutation of the interpretation of his proof texts. He has merely thrown a handful of dust in the eyes of careless readers by crying, "misrepresentation." But an unanswerable argument against his interpretation is stated in the foregoing three lines, and so long as it remains unrefuted all that he has written on his first proposition is a mere waste of words, and as such I leave it. Mr. M. seems to aim at softening down his failure by extolling the power opposed to him. But in the present case there is no room for the exercise of the accredited ability. His first proposition, the only one yet discussed, though certainly dead, is not killed by his opponent, but smothered by its own parent. He has to show how, in view of his proof texts and summary of the import, he can get in repentance without letting in confession and baptism. He makes no attempt, and nothing remains but to give his offspring quiet

burial.

Next we have a sort of forlorn struggle over the analogy between man's ruin by unbelief perfected by disobedience, and his recovery by faith perfected by obedience. Here, having no argument, he substitutes strong assertions-"begging the question," "reasoning in a circle," "the one fatal effect of the whole is that the Scriptures nowhere predicate salvation or life upon the observance of the rite of baptism, but contrarywise upon the act of faith." This last item I take as a very fair instance of "begging the question," because it is the question to be discussed. We shall see presently. In the meantime we may take the assertion as another bolt, fixed by our friend's own hand, to the door which shuts out repentance. Salvation, he repeats, is by the act of faith only. But believing is not confession, neither is it repentance, and our analogy remains undisturbed.

On my refutation of his mistaken claim for identity of preaching, baptism, etc., during the days of the Saviour and now, he again counts my rejection of his interpretation of the words of Jesus as the rejection of the testimony itself. That is precisely what the Pope does. Then he tries the amusing, but fails, telling the story of the borrowed kettle, which, it was alleged,

Observer, June 15, '76.

was never borrowed, was broken when it was lent, and entirely whole when returned. If my statement did remind him of that celebrated transaction, then either he did not read it with common attention or he should not have presumed to enter upon a public discussion. I repeat the passage, not to defend it from the charge of absurdity, but because alone, so long as it remains unanswered, it overturns the bulk of his reasoning:

"We have been told that Jesus pardoned several persons when on earth, saying nothing of baptism, and that, therefore, baptism is not now in order to remission. In effect the answer is-1. The cases do not belong to this dispensation. 2. If they did, Jesus being present could dispense with the ordinance; which would give us no right to do so. 3. That the baptism we are concerned about had then no existence. 4. Our friend has been called upon to prove his assumption that they were not already baptized with the only baptism then instituted. He maintains discreet silence. But till the proof is produced the persons pardoned by the Saviour have no bearing on the case."

Now, what is there illogical here? The cases did not transpire under this dispensation. Had it been otherwise, the Saviour could dis pense with any ceremonial, without implying that it would not be required in His absence. The baptism we are discussing had not been instituted, and, therefore was not then required. Mr. M. cannot prove, and does not attempt to prove, that the persons assured of forgiveness by Him had not been baptized with the only baptism then extant. The reference to the presence of Jesus with those gathered in His name, and to the things written aforetime for instruction, and to His word not passing away, have no more relevancy to the question

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Our friend omits to inform us as to the signification of the keys. given to Peter, upon the supposition that the Gospel, baptism, preaching and dispensation are the same as before the death of the Saviour. The absurdity about shutting up and abrogating the words of Jesus is not mine.

Yes, I assert that John's baptism is not that of this dispensation, and that those baptized by John were called upon to be baptized with the baptism now extant. Mr. M. is aware that if this be so his argument is nowhere, and, therefore, seeks to discredit it. But all Judea and the region round about went out to be baptized by John. Jesus by His disciples baptized even more than John. Few, then, were left unbaptized. On Pentecost, a multitude of Jews came together, and the command to that multitude was, "Repent and be baptized every one of you." There was neither question as to John's baptism nor exemption on the ground of it. Every one of you" was the requirement. The

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Observer, June 15, '76.

twelve men at Ephesus, as Mr. M. admits, were re-baptized. True, he puts it on the ground that they did not believe on the Saviour as already come, but in Him as to come. Were this true, it would not show the baptisms to be one, but make the other way, as it would bring out that John's baptism differed from ours in the faith it required. But the thing is entirely an invention. The men are called " disciples,' which term after Pentecost is never, when not qualified, applied to any save those who believe in the death and resurrection of the Lord. They are also spoken of as having believed, which none since His resurrection are recognised as doing who do not confess a risen Christ.

Our friend has said one very sensible thing--that I have tied half a dozen knots in less time than he requires to undo one of them. Quite true; and if I give him till the end of the year, and all our pages, he will still have the halfdozen all fast tied. But why complain of want of time and space? I do not complain, and he ties as many knots as I do. The reason is, that his slip out so soon as touched, while mine won't yield.

In my last my proposition is introduced, supported by a clearly expressed argument upon the commission. Mr. M. occupies the first part of his letter by exhorting disciples, gives the usual complaint of want of space, and makes no attempt to reply to the argument submitted. It will answer no good purpose for me to write more while he keeps thus behind. In his next, if he dispense with the usual irrelevant matter, he may be able to deal with the Commission and Baptism into the Name. At all events till he does so I need not advance. D. K.

THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT AND MISTAKES THEREIN.-No. IV.

IN the case of the Stanley will, of which I have already spoken, although the rights of none of the parties were effected by the variations in the copies, there was nevertheless a desire to ascertain the exact wording of the original will, and the parties took counsel as to the practicability of this. The means which they could command for this purpose were as follows:

1. About one hundred copies of of the original, all of which were supposed to contain some errors, but some of which were much more accurate and reliable than others.

2. A Latin and a French translation of the original, made by one of the testator's sons, who

was at college when his father died, and who made the translations as an exercise in these languages.

3. A large number of extracts from the will, contained in letters written by interested parties shortly after the will was probated, most of which could be relied on as being correct.

4. Some written accounts of the grandfather's family, and of the different portions of his estate, together with old contracts, deeds, letters, etc.

By the careful use of these materials, the proposed task was accomplished in the following

manner:

:

1. Mr. Stanley found that in a majority of the instances in which his copy differed from some of the others, all the others agreed in condemning his and concluding that it was incomparably more likely that his own was wrong at these points than that all the others were, he did not hesitate to correct his in all these places. Thus, at one single step, he corrected much the greater part of the errors which had crept into his copy.

2. But he found that on some words and expressions the other copies were nearly equally divided, about half agreeing with his and half condemning it. This puzzled him until he noticed that all of the copies which agreed with his on these points were accurately written copies, and had been taken from the record in the clerk's office, while those which were against his were the more carelessly written, and were taken from copies in private hands. As soon as he saw this he decided that the words now in question were written correctly in his copy, and he let them stand.

3. In the next place he found a few variations in which the evidence pro. and con. from the other copies was so nearly balanced that he could not discover any decided preponderance; but in some of these instances the Latin and French translations came to his aid; for it was easy to see, by translating back into English, what words the translator had before him, and this turned the scales of evidence. On looking farther into these translations, he also found that they supported the conclusions which he had formerly drawn from the English copies alone, and this gave him greater confidence in those conclusions.

4. The work of correction was now very far advanced; but a few readings were found over which the evidence from copies was evenly divided, and in which the two translations differed from each other. At this point the extracts from the old letters were brought in, and fortunately they turned the scales in nearly all of the remaining instances.

5. Finally, there was another name, that of the brother of the testator, in which the extracts differed, the translations differed, and all the copies differed; one set having it Joseph, the other, James; but in an old contract between this brother and the testator, the name was found plainly written out, Joseph. It was then concluded that in the will the name had been written with the abbreviation Jo's, which had been mistaken by half the copyists for Ja's. This conclusion was so obviously correct that it was accepted by all parties. As a result of these inquiries, all of the hundred copies were corrected so as to read, word by word and letter by letter, as the original which was written by the grandfather.

This is almost an exact parallel to the case which we have in hand. None of the original manuscripts of the apostles and evangelists have been preserved to the present time. It is but natural that when they were first issued, they were read so eagerly by the disciples, and passed from hand to hand so rapidly and extensively as to be soon worn out. Perhaps no books ever written were read and handled by so many persons and so continuously. Copies of them were also multiplied with great rapidity, and those who had new and elegant copies would not care to preserve the soiled, faded and worn out originals. As a consequence, the latter soon disappeared, and they are not mentioned by any of the subsequent writers whose works have come down to us.

But we have well nigh one thousand manuscript copies of the New Testament, laid up in the libraries of Europe, and written at intervals from the fourth to the fourteenth century of our era. All of these, as we have previously stated, have been compared with each other, word by word and letter by letter, and it has been found, as in the copies of the will above mentioned, that nearly all of these copies unite in condemning many of the readings in the copy from which our English translation was made. Now, it is clear, that where all these copies, or nearly all of them agree on a certain word, there are a thousand chances to one that it is correct. We therefore correct the disagreeing copy accordingly, and feel morally certain that we have restored it to the original reading. In many instances there is this agreement, or a very near approach to it; and where the manuscripts are divided somewhat equally on a given reading, we give preference to those that are older and more accurately written. In this way we arrive at the most unquestionable conclusions in regard to all but a comparatively small number of the various readings.

In the second place, we have many early

Observer, June 15,' 76.

translations of the New Testament into other languages. We have for example, a translation into the Syriac, and parts of one into Latin, both of which were made about the middle of the second century, or within about fifty years after the completion of the New Testament writings. One hundred years later translations were made into the dialects of Egypt, where Christianity prevailed at a very early period; a hundred years later still, witnessed versions into the Ethiopic and Gothic languages, and another into Latin; and after this period many versions were made into many tongues. Now all these translations represent, in their respective tongues, the readings of the Greek copies from which they were translated, and scholars, by translating them back into Greek can determine with entire certainty in most instances, and with a near approach to certainty in nearly all instances, what the wording of the Greek text was. Taken together, they show us the state of the Greek text all through the first four or five centuries, and many readings, the correctness of which cannot be decided by the manuscripts alone, are settled at once when the additional testimony of these translations is considered.

In the third place, out of the general wreck of ancient literature, there have come down to us the writings of many Christian authors, dating all the way from a period previous to the writing of John's Gospel, down to a period this side of which their testimony is of no value in this inquiry. All of these authors, like writers on religious subjects at the present day, make quotations from the New Testament, and these quotations tell us plainly how the passages quoted were worded at the time in which they were made. All such quotations have been carefully culled from these writings, by such authors as Charles Lachmann, a distinguished German critic, who made this his especial task, and by means of them a great many conclusions reached from the other sources of evidence have been confirmed, and some readings settled which other evidences left in doubt.

But after exhausting all these sources of evidence, there still remains a small number of readings, the correctness of which must be determined in some other way. For example, it is said in Stephen's speech, Acts vii. 16, that Abraham bought a certain piece of ground; and in John xix. 14, that Jesus was delivered by Pilate to be crucified at the sixth hour. The above named sources of evidence differ to some extent on these statements, but they do not enable us to decide as to their correctness. We are enabled however, by a parallel passage in Genesis (xxxiii. 19), to know that it was Jacob, not Abraham, who bought the land in question;

Observer, June 15, '76.

HISTORY.

and by a parallel in Mark (xv. 25), supported by EGYPT: ITS POSITION IN RELIGIOUS the facts of the history, that it was the third hour of the day when Jesus was crucified. It is safe, therefore, to conclude in these two and some similar cases, that, although we cannot trace the mistake to its origin, a mistake of the copyists has occurred in each of these places.

By such means as these it is clear to the reader that we are able to determine with positive certainty the original reading of the New Testament manuscripts in regard to almost every word, and the case, number, person, gender, mood and tense of almost every word in the book. Not only so, but we are able to put our fingers on every single word the certainty concerning which is not yet known, so that it can be said of all others but these, they were written precisely thus and so by the original writers. Not only can this be done, but it has been done; and in the corrected Greek texts, published by Tischendorff, Tregelles, Alford and Green, we have this very result in our hands. The work has attained almost to perfection, so that the little which remains to be done will not suffice to make the reputation of another Tischendorff, Tregelles or Griesbach.

It is now apparent to the reader, that while during the first fourteen hundred years of our era, the books of the New Testament were constantly becoming more and more inaccurate as copies were multiplied, by the invention of printing, God providentially arrested this course of deterioration, and during the last three hundred years the mistakes of fourteen centuries have been steadily undergoing detection and correction, until at last they have almost totally disappeared, and the Christian world has to-day a more correct copy of the New Testament than has ever existed since the originals perished. But the height of this glorious consummation is not realized until we take notice, that an account of the perfection with which copies of a book once made correct are multiplied by the heaven-born art of printing, our perfected Greek text will now be transmitted without corruption to all future generations, though the world ould yet stand ten thousand years. The tailers in this mine have dug from its depths almost every gem which it contains, and have set the precious jewels in a crown that shall never fade away. Thanks be to God for the Biblical Critics with which he has blessed us in these later ages, and for the art, precious beyond all price, which guarantees the transmission of a pare Bible to our children's children throughout ll generations. And let all the people say, Amen! J. W. MCGARVEY.

LOOKING down from the Pyramids upon Egypt, it was impossible not to be struck with its unique position in the religious history of the world. From the earliest times down through that long series of ages in which a Divine revelation was being given to the world through the medium of the chosen people, Egypt stands forth in history as the chief antagonistic and unchanging enemy of the Church of God. We except the period when Jacob and his family found a sunny refuge in Goshen; but how few generations elapsed before their house of refuge became their house of bondage, and Israel in the brick-kilns became the most cruelly oppressed and down-trodden of slaves! Egypt, in consequence, became the vast theatre on which the more awful attributes of God were manifested, just as Palestine became the selected scene in which the wonders of His grace should be revealed. Those ten plagues in which the whole nation was punished, and shame put upon their false divinities through the very form of the miraculous judgment, awfully culminating in the death of every first-born in the land, and in the destruction of the proud Pharaoh and his armed charioteers in the Red Sea, were unapproached in their terrific scale of retribution in any of the older nations of the world; and yet this long line of ever darkening and deepening judgments taught the guilty people and their rulers no lesson of repentance. through the centuries of the Jewish Church and the period of the prophetic revelation Egypt appears either as the tempter or as the persecutor of Israel, dividing the guilt, in this respect, with the Babylonian and Assyrian monarchies to the east of the secret land.

All

No burden, therefore, reads more darkly in the books of the prophets than that of Egypt. There is a minuteness of detail, a graphic picturing and intensity of colouring, an adaptation to the characteristic customs of the people and to the characteristic features of Egyptian scenery in such elaborate predictions as those in the 19th chapter of Isaiah, and in certain passages of Ezekiel, that cannot be exceeded. These were spoken and placed on record when Egypt was still in the meridian of her power, and contending with the great monarchies on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris for the supremacy of the nations. And yet they were all fulfilled. With Gibbon and Volney as involuntary witnesses, and modern Egypt looking down upon us from the Pyramids, we behold events corresponding not only to every line, but to every letter, of the inspired oracles. The har

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