cation of the promise to "sprinkle all nations") the symbol of the affusion of the Spirit.

3. In-door baptism.

By in-door baptism, we mean those baptisms, the whole narrative of which, places and leaves them in some house. And now we say it is a strong negative evidence against immersion, that not once, in all these instances, is it mentioned either that they went out, or that any preparation or apparatus was provided within. Did the word of itself express immersion, still, in the many cases, we should reasonably expect that some natural explanation would once be dropped, in a book so remarkable for its minute detail of individual transactions, as the Bible, showing how, in difficult circumstances, the immersion was effected. Not once does it occur. The most natural air possible, of the thing being done instanter, and on the spot; if out-doors, out-doors; if in-doors, within. Baths and cisterns, so extensively manufactured in modern times, for ancient use, are mentioned not once in the whole New Testament. Other vessels or "pots," expressly made for the purifications of the Jews by water affusion, there were; but these "pots" contained but two or three firkins, some six or eight gallons, apiece; good proof that, in our Saviour's time, the lustral rites, the "various baptisms," "imposed until the time of reformation," were not by immersion. (1.) Our first argument will consist of an assemblage of

texts.

We have just shown that, in our Saviour's time, the Jews performed the Mosaic baptisms or purifications by water, with "water-pots" containing six or eight gallons; another impossibility of immersion. That these "purifications" were called "various baptisms," not by St. Paul alone, is evident from John iii, 22-27. The facts are, John and Jesus were baptizing; a dispute arose between their disciples about purifying; John's disciples. came and told him that Jesus's baptism was prevailing ; John told them it ought to prevail. Nothing but utter captiousness will deny, here, that baptism is called purifying; for a dispute about purifying is identified as a dispute about baptism. Put baptism in the place of purifying, and a coherent story is produced. Deny this identity, and all coherency is destroyed. But among these baptisms or purifications, "ALL the Jews" performed a baptism

tism is not immersion; we have thence developed the great law of interpretation, which requires its symbol not to be immersion; we have accordingly traced the "various baptisms," "imposed" in the Old Testament, and found them not immersions; we have analyzed hastily the allusions and the narrations of the New Testament, and found in them no immersion; we have turned to pure tradition, and general consent, and found that the former repudiates, and the latter does not exclusively sustain, immersion. Immersion, then, is not baptism; for he is an illogical reasoner, who first declares that immersion is not authorized by Scripture, that it does not express the idea which the divine Mind intended it to symbolize, and then declares that the form is indifferent. If our reasons are sound, our conclusion is inevitable; that affusion alone meets the divine purpose, and fulfils, formally, the divine command. We may indeed admit that the obedient intention may, through the divine condescension, be accepted; so that, notwithstanding the formal defect, God may sanction it as done, and not to be repeated. But it may be most gravely doubted, whether an administrator, who understands the subject, is justifiable in performing immersion. If the candidate has a conscience to be indulged, the minister has a conscience to be maintained. While, however, we thus maintain our own views, we have not, we trust, displayed any illiberality toward the maintainers of other views. We have purposely avoided every sectarian appellation, for advocates of immersion are found, perhaps, in every denomination. May God pour upon us the gentle baptisms of his Holy Spirit. Amen.

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?”. 1 Cor. xv, 55.

CHRISTIANITY is divine. It imbodies the noblest sentiments and the loftiest aspirations of the human heart. While surveying this world of life and death, and consigning to the tomb "lover and friend," we must long for the resurrection and reanimation of their faded forms, the immortality of their spirits, and a blissful and eternal reunion in a more glorious sphere. Of time as well as of space, of the departed as of the living, it can be truly said,""Tis distance lends enchantment to the view;"

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as time but hallows their memory, while it renders our affections more tender and deep. Surely, then, these feelings, natural and deathless, may be gratified in a future life.

Philosophy has oscillated to extremes, now attaching too much relative importance to the corporeal, and now to the spiritual, nature of man; now maintaining that he is a mere physical being, and now contemning his physical nature, to exalt, ostensibly, the spiritual; yet inferring from each view, paradoxical as it may seem, that the body shall not live again, by falsely assuming that our physical nature is of an order too inferior to have a future existence.

While it is plain that the properties of matter and spirit are almost wholly unlike, and that, consequently, their essence is as much dissimilar; and while it is equally plain from those properties that spirit is the superior, it is as plain that matter will for ever exist as that spirit will; and as the physical nature of man is allied to the earth, and his spiritual to heaven, a reunion of both will adapt him to the "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." As science induces us to believe that the material of the heavens and the earth is nearly homogeneous, and made by one Hand for similar beings, it is

highly probable, from the shadowing renovations of vegetation, of days, of seasons, and of years, that the human body, composed of the same materials as the earth and the heavens, shall, at some future period, be renovated with them. This renewal is confirmed by the consideration, that what is true of all other beings, is, in all probability, true of man-that he was made to be, as a whole, mortal or immortal. Hence all the unanswerable arguments that prove the immortality of the soul sustain the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the one stands or falls with the resurrection of the other; and hence also those errorists who deny the resurrection verge to a denial of any future being.

The resurrection was denied by most of the Grecian schools of philosophy, and by the Greeks in general, when our text was written; hence Paul found the Christian converts at Corinth peculiarly liable to be swerved from the faith on this cardinal point. Indeed, some among them had said already, "There is no resurrection of the dead." To refute their error and vindicate a literal resurrection constitute the scope and design of a long chapter, replete with the most masterly demonstrations of this vital subject that are to be found recorded in the whole book of God.

In explaining the text it is necessary to remark, that here, as in other passages, the relation between the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul is represented to be so intimate, that not only is there an easy and natural transition from one to the other, but the denial of the resurrection seems to be regarded as involving a denial of any future existence; for not only did the "Šadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit," but Paul himself would imply as much, were not the resurrection true, in the chapter from which our text is selected, where, to his own interrogation, "What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?" he replies, in the very language of the Epicureans, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

The first clause of our text, “O death, where is thy sting?" obviously refers to the death of the body, but it doubtless looks forward to the scenes which lie beyond the general resurrection, when, as the apostle had just proved,

corporeal death should have terminated for ever-when, in the language of the last clause of the verse preceding, "death is swallowed up in victory." In the last interrogation of the text, "O grave, where is thy victory ?" it appears, from the following considerations, that allusion is had to the destruction of the state and place of departed spirits in which they now exist, and will exist until the resurrection; for the original, here translated grave, is hades, which, both in its primitive signification, and in its usual acceptation among all writers, sacred and profane, means, not the receptacle of the bodies, but that of the souls, of men; and, in accordance with this import, is, in the Scriptures, applied to the soul of Christ as well as to "the rich man," although it is generally applied, in the New Testament, to the state and place of the wicked. Again, hades is to be destroyed at the final judgment, and be succeeded by the lake of fire; for it is written, "Death and hell," hades," and whosoever was not found written in the book of life, were cast into the lake of fire." We adopt, then, the marginal reading, and thus glide easily and naturally from the destruction of death to that of the coeval and coextending hades, and exclaim with the apostle, "Death, where thy sting? Hades, where thy victory ?" We invite attention to two points:

I. DEATH.

II. ITS TERMINATION.

First, then, of death, in its nature, origin, extent, and effects.

Life in organized beings is a principle antagonistic to a tendency in bodies to decomposition, for when it is withdrawn they decay and dissolve. Physical death, then, is the immediate result of the separation of the vital element from its tenement; and life, as it resists the tendencies of the body, must be different from the body, and not a property of it: so that death consists not in the destruction of a property of matter, but in the abstraction of an element itself. This is true of the lower as well as of the higher forms of animated existences.

We need not inquire whether man has an animal life in common with inferior beings, as well as a nobler life allied to angels, although both physiology and Scripture seem to favor the supposition; but simply determine the