size at all. It is bad enough to take such liberties with living men.

Mr. Wesley is the next witness we shall call. Mr. B. has treated him with as little candour as he has the doctor. In his Strictures, p. 15, he attempts to quote Mr. W. on Romans vi, 4, and mutilates the sentence; puts a period where Mr. W. has none, and prefixes to the note these words, "It seems the part of candour to confess," when Mr. W. has no such words in his note. It is a pity that Mr. B. should have lost sight of his own candour in attempting to find that quality in Mr. W.'s Notes.

Mr. Wesley's commentary on a parallel passage in Col. ii, 12, is often quoted by Baptist preachers, to prove that he favoured immersion only. I have heard them do this myself. Although that note is not in Mr. B.'s printed sermon, I will give it to the reader to disabuse his mind of any erroneous impression on that subject. This note, when made to speak in favour of immersion, is quoted thus: "The ancient manner of baptizing by immersion is manifestly alluded to here." This is only part of the sentence used by Mr. Wesley, and one word left out of that. The note, when fairly quoted, proves nothing for the Baptists. Mr. W.'s words are as follows: "The ancient manner of baptizing by immersion is as manifestly alluded to here as the other manner of baptizing by sprinkling or pouring of water is. Heb. x, 22. But no stress is laid upon the age of the bap

tized, or the manner of performing it, in one or the other place," &c. Candid reader, does either of these passages contain the evidence that Mr. Wesley acknowledges immersion as the only mode? "I speak as unto wise men."

Mr. B., Sermon, p. 30, quotes two cases from Mr. Wesley's Journal to prove that he "preferred immersion," neither of which proves any such thing. The first is the case of a child which he baptized at eleven days old, according to the "rule of the Church of England," by immersion; and as Mr. W. happened to mention that the child began to recover from the time of its baptism, Mr. B. infers that by mentioning that circumstance Mr. Wesley intended to recommend immersion. I infer, on the contrary, that he meant to recommend infant baptism.

The other case is the case of Mr. Parker's child, in Georgia, which Mr. W. refused to baptize because its mother refused to let it be dipped, assigning as his reason, that the rubric of his Church required it to be dipped, unless it were weak or unwell.-Wesley's Journal, Feb. and May, 1736. This was three years before Mr. Wesley formed any society; while he was a very young man, and was a priest in the Church of England. He, of course, as a conscientious man, felt himself bound to regard the rubric of his Church. He gives this as his reason, and utters no objection to the child being baptized by sprinkling or pouring, by another person. According to Mr. B.'s own

showing, the grand jury thought Mr. W. justifiable in view of the rubric.

"The

Mr. W. could not be supposed to have understood the subject of baptism then as perfectly as he did when he wrote his treatise on that subject more than twenty years afterward. In that treatise he says, "And as there is no clear proof of dipping in Scripture, so there is very probable proof of the contrary. It is true, we read of being buried with Christ in baptism. But nothing can be inferred from such a figurative expression. Nay, if it held exactly, it would make as much for sprinkling as for plunging; since in burying, the body is not plunged through the substance of the earth, but rather earth is poured or sprinkled upon it."-Works, vol. vi, p. 13. And finally this witness says, greatest scholars, and most proper judges in the matter, testify that the original term translated baptize, means not dipping, but washing or cleansing." Does this prove Mr. B.'s assertion true or false? He says Mr. Wesley "preferred immersion, and he would have restored immersion if he could." I think the reader will see a very great want of fairness in the manner in which the gentleman has treated Mr. Wesley. As I am now on the testimony of Mr. W., it may not be amiss to remark that the attempt which Mr. B. makes, in his sermon, to prove that Mr. W. held baptismal regeneration, and held even worse views than Mr. A. Campbell, I think unworthy a serious notice.

His attempt to throw contempt on the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and others, by attributing to them the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, is one of those stratagems used to mislead the mind of the reader; a part of that finesse which is used for the purpose of proselytism-a tub to decoy the whale, until he can be brought within the reach of the ecclesiastical harpoon-an attempt to prove that he is right by proving that others are wrong.

The next witness I shall call upon in the list of Mr. B.'s witnesses is Professor Stuart. He produces the testimony of the professor to prove immersion as the exclusive mode. Sermon, p. 32. He quotes him thus: "Both of these words (bapto and baptizo) mean to dip, plunge, or immerge into any thing liquid."

The professor says, (Stuart on the Mode of Baptism, pages 29 and 81,) "There is, then, no absolute certainty from usage that the word, (baptizo,) when applied to designate the rite of baptism, means, of course, to immerge or plunge. It may mean washing; possibly (but not probably) it may mean copiously moistening or bedewing; because words coming from the common root (bap) are applied in both these senses, as we have seen above." "No injunction is anywhere given in the New Testament respecting the manner in which this rite shall be performed. If there be such a passage, let it be produced. This cannot be done. But it will doubtless be said, that the manner of the rite is involved in the word itself, which is used to designate it,

and that therefore this is as command as the rite itself.'

much a matter of To this I answer,

that it would prove a great deal too much." Again Professor Stuart says, p. 98, "If you say, The classical use of the word abundantly justifies the construction I put upon it; my reply is, That classical usage can never be very certain in respect to a word in the New Testament. Who does not know that a multitude of Greek words here receive their colouring and particular meanings from the Hebrew, and not from the Greek classics ?" The sentiment of the professor is confirmed by the practice of the apostle Paul, who well understood both the Hebrew and Greek; for in Heb. vi, 2, he speaks of the "doctrine of baptisms," and in ix, 10, of "divers baptisms;" in both of which places he doubtless applies the word to those ceremonial washings or purifications used among the Jews, which, he says in verse 13, by sprinkling the unclean."

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were performed And we remark

here, without fear of successful contradiction, that wherever an administrator and a subject are found under the Jewish regulations, or Old Testament arrangements, the one administering and the other receiving any of those "divers baptisms," the mode was never by immersion. It is true, the Jews washed or bathed themselves and their clothes; but these washings they performed naked, and in private, and never received them from the hands of an administrator. If the reader will refer to Num. xix, 17, 21, he will see the ceremony detailed to which the