“OLD ECCLESIATICAL WORDS”—BAPTISM—ITS TRUE IMPORT.

Forest Hill, Mi., July 17, 1851.

Dear Brother:

            Will you be kind enough to answer me the following question: —It has been said by some of the friends of immersion that King James prevented the translators of the Bible from giving the reader a correct meaning of the word in the original which means immerse in the English language; and that a record of his instructions to them to that effect has been kept. Or, which is equivalent, that an acknowledgement of the fact had been made by some of them, and might be found somewhere, perhaps appended to some of the first copies of the Bible translated by them. Have you ever seen such a thing, or do you believe it to be true? If so will you be good enough to tell me where I can find it?

J. D. B.

REPLY.

            We have seen such a thing, and believe it to be true. The copy of James’ instructions to the translators of the Bible may be found in “Lewis’ History of the English Translations of the Bible.” The third rule read as follows: —“The old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be translated congregation, &c.” In the same work the reader is informed, that the translators in the preface to their translation say, that “they had on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who left the old ecclesiastical words and betook them to others, as when they put washing for baptism, and congregation for church: and on the other hand had shunned the obscurity of the Papists in their azymes, tunike, rational, holocausts, prepuce, pasche, and a number of such like, whereof their late translation was full, and that of purpose to darken the sense; that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet, by the language thereof, it might be kept from being understood.” “In this royal version,” says Matthew Poole according to Lewis, “occur a good many specimens of great learning and skill in the original tongues, and of an acumen and judgment more than common. By others it has been censured as too literal, or following the original Hebrew and Greek too closely and exactly, and leaving too many of the words in the original untranslated, which makes it not so intelligible to a mere English reader. This last was perhaps in some measure owing to the king’s instructions, the third of which was, that the old ecclesiastical words should be kept. However it be, we see many of the words in the original retained, as hosanna, hallelujah, amen, raka, mammon, manna, maranatha, phylactery, &c., for which no reason can be given but that they are left untranslated in the vulgar Latin.” “There were certain words in the scripture,” says Nary, in his preface to the Bible printed in 1719, “which use and custom had in a manner consecrated, as, Sabbath, rabbi, baptise, scandalise, synagogue, &c., which he had every where retained, though they were neither Latin nor English, but Hebrew and Greek, because they are as well understood, even by men of the meanest capacity, as if they had been English.” “In Dr. Wickliffe’s translation of the Bible,” continues he, “we may observe that those words of the original which have since been termed sacred words, were not always thus superstitiously regarded: thus, for instance, Matthew 3: 6, is rendered weren waschen, instead of were baptised, though, for the most part, they are here left untranslated, or are not rendered into English so frequently as they are in the Anglo-Saxonic translation.” From all which it appears, that baptism and baptise were regarded as “old ecclesiastical words,” and therefore fall under the third rule of the king’s instructions, and were therefore not to be translated, but transferred.

            Immersion and immerse, however, do not fully express the meaning of baptism and baptise. A man cannot be aqueously baptised without being immersed; but he may be immersed in water without being baptised in the spiritual or doctrinal signification of the word. One who dyed cloth was a baptist among the Greeks, that is, a dyer, or, one who immersed cloth in a menstrum so as to colour it. This immersion of the cloth was called baptism, and the vessel containing the dye a baptistry, or dying-vat. Dyer, dying, and dying-vat, convey to us the full idea of baptistes, baptisma, and baptisterion; which immerser, immersion, or, bather, bathing, and bath, do not. If we were to see a sign over a man’s door, “John Peter, immerser,” or “immersion done here,” we might conclude that he kept baths and bathed people, or was a water-practitioner, but we should never imagine that he was a dyer, or in the Greek tongue, a baptist. You may immerse without dying; but you cannot dye without immersing. Baptise is emphatically “a dyer’s word;” and hence the utter impossibility of its having any affinity to pouring or sprinkling. Mohammed comprehended the signification of the word, and translated it by the Arabic sebgat, that is dying; so that when speaking of a spiritual or religious dying, he called baptism, sebgat-Allah, the dying of God, or God’s dying.

            And christian baptism is truly God’s dying—it is the dying a believer white in the blood of the Lamb. It is the “washing the blackamore white,” which God only can accomplish. Men by nature and practice are black in mind, heart, and character before him. Who can whiten them but He? Immersion in water can not do it; and yet they cannot be whitened without it. Immersion will not transmute their darkness into light, their hardness and impenitence into childlikeness and meekness, and supersede their diabolism by good works. The Father of lights, however, can do it, and he alone. One man can immerse another; but God in Christ only can dye him. The water is his bath or vat. He puts things into a man’s mind which change his thoughts, and create a new and right disposition within him. These things are summarily expressed by the phrases “the gospel of the kingdom,” “the word of truth,” “the word of the kingdom,” &c. They change the current of his thoughts and actions; and become as it were a mordant to his soul, to fix with the whiteness of snow the purifying efficacy of the living purple, which gives a colour to his faith, when he is washed in the name of Jesus. Though his sins were as scarlet, they become white as snow; though red like crimson, they are as wool—Isaiah 1: 18. Thus a man in the scarlet habiliments of sin is said to have “washed his robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” He is said to have done it, because he yielded himself to the action demanded by the faith, which had grown up within him from the testimony sown in his understanding; but because God manifested in Christ through the truth, is the efficient cause of the phenomena in his case presented, it is written “Jesus Christ hath washed us from our sins in his own blood.” A man might “wash his robes” by ceasing to do evil, and being immersed to join a church; but he could not discharge their scarlet hue—their crimson-red would still remain. He could only “make them white in the blood of the Lamb.” To speak literally. If a vicious man become moral by leaving off his vices, and, professing a sectarian creed, is immersed to join a church, that man is still in his sins of the past, and will certainly be brought to judgment on account of them. God looks at men through their characters. In beholding the character he beholds the man. Men not in Christ look like men clothed in scarlet; so that when their governments are collectively exhibited, they are represented by “ a scarlet coloured beast.” A man’s sins and iniquities give his character the scarlet hue. God sees the colour, but men do not; for their standard of good and evil character is not God’s standard. Hence they call scarlet white, white crimson, evil good, and good evil. We see then a fitness in Cardinals, and priests, wearing scarlet and scarlet badges. The colour is typical of their character. They are unbleached sinners—sinners unwhitened with the dying of God. For a man to “make his robes white in the blood of the Lamb,” he must not only “cease to do evil,” but he must “believe the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ,” and be united to that name in baptism. He is then a member of the Body of Christ, though he may not belong to a visible society professing religion. He is “washed in the name;” and his washing becomes the whitening of his robes or character before God, because of his faith in the blood of Jesus, which cleanses the believer in the kingdom from all his past sins. An unwashed believer of the gospel is still habited in scarlet. He has not on the wedding garment; for this is a robe made white in the blood of the Lamb; and there can be no dying of that sort without immersing the robe in the water of baptism made whitening by the subject’s belief of the truth.

            It is unnecessary to say more upon this point now. There are evils connected with the use of the words immerse, and baptise. The mere English reader is apt to suppose that baptism can be administered under the divers forms of sprinkling, pouring, and immersion; while others are apt to conclude that a man has been baptised because he has been immersed; just as if baptism were nothing more than the ceremony of dipping a man in water in the name of God. Much has been said, and well said, on the subject of baptism, yet have the pros and cons not understood it. It has been truly said that the only proper subject for baptism is a believer of the gospel; but they who have said so have not, and cannot, answer the question, what is the gospel? without the belief of which immersion is no baptism. They have said it is “for the remission of sins;” but they know not upon what principle. Faith is for remission of sins. Not the belief simply of the things hitherto fulfilled in Jesus; but the belief of these, and the things hereafter to be accomplished in him, which they deny—of which multitudes of them have not, and will not hear, though a man declare it unto them. Faith is for repentance also; and repentance is for remission of sins. Therefore to believers of the gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus as its priest and king, the record saith “Repent in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of sins”—“be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of sins.” But how is such a believer to repent in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of sins? By being united to his name. And how is this effected? In one way only, and that is, by immersion into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is then baptised, not for remission alone, but for the resurrection, for the kingdom, for every thing in short God hath promised in the gospel he hath believed. In conclusion, it is impossible to baptise an unbeliever or a misbeliever; you may immerse him, but he is not the subject of God’s dying, or baptism, being destitute of the principle (the childlike belief of the very truth) which can alone convert his scarlet robes like “fine linen clean and white which represents the righteousness of the saints.”

EDITOR.