835 



BANS. 



BAPTISM. 



886 



surface or tread of the banquette, which is generally about 4 feet wide, 

 should be within 4 feet 3 inches of the crest of the parapet, in order 

 that the men may conveniently use their muskets over it. The tread 

 is reached from the terrepUn of the rampart, or from the ground, if it 

 is only a field work, by steps ; or by the earth being sloped to the rear 

 with a slope of 1 in 2, which men can easily run up, and having dis- 

 charged their pieces, retire down again under cover. In the defence 

 of houses, barricades, &c., the banquette is made up of tables, chairs, 

 or anything which will raise the defenders to a sufficient height to fire 

 through the loop-holes. 



BANS. [BAN; MARBIAGE.] 



BAPTISM (the English form of the Greek word /3airTi<r/j.bs, laptis- 

 mot), a well known rite or ordinance of Christianity ; one of the two 

 sacraments of the English Reformed Church. 



When baptism, as a religious rite, was first practised, is a question 

 on which the opinions of the learned have been divided. It is pretty 

 generally admitted, that if any trace of it is to be discovered in the 

 religious usages of any people before the time of our Saviour, and his 

 forerunner John, it is among the Jews ; and some early Jewish 

 writers, whose testimony on such a subject is worthy of some regard, 

 speak of it as a custom of their nation from very ancient tunes, and as 

 having been always an accompaniment of circumcision, whether of 

 infanta or when a proselyte was made. To this it is replied, that the 

 Hebrew writings which are called the Old Testament, by far the most 

 ancient and authoritative monuments which we possess of the early 

 religious usages of that nation, contain no trace whatever of any rite 

 which resembles the baptism of John and of the founder of Chris- 

 tianity. In their religious code ablutions are undoubtedly prescribed 

 in certain cases, but there is no analogy between those cases and the 

 cases in which the Christian rite of baptism is performed ; yet it is by 

 no means improbable that those ablutions, which were supposed to 

 wash away impurities, might suggest the idea of baptism, with which 

 has always been connected, in some degree, the notion of the washing 

 away of moral impurity. 



We possess, however, the most authentic and satisfactory informa- 

 tion, that in the reign of Tiberius there appeared in the wild country, 

 on the banks of the river Jordan, a prophet whose name was John, who 

 called upon the people of Judsea to adopt stricter rules of life, to expect 

 the immediate coming of the kingdom of heaven, and to repent. Great 

 multitudes attended the preaching of John. Most of those who heard 

 him received him as a prophet sent of God. He required of those who 

 became his disciples that they should be baptised. This was done in 

 the river, and the meaning of the rite seems, in this case, to have been 

 two-fold: 1. Repentance, or renouncing former opinions and practices; 

 and, 2. Proselytism, or the taking John to be their general spiritual or 

 religious guide and authority. On account of his requiring his pro- 

 selytes to submit to this rite, the name of the Baptist was given him. 



The part which John sustains in the history of Christianity is sub- 

 ordinate to that of a more sacred character, and we hear little after- 

 wards of any sect, or community, or church, held together by a common 

 reverence for the name of John, and the individuals of it baptised into 

 that name. Among those who acknowledged John as a divine prophet, 

 and received baptism at his hand, was Jesus of Nazareth, the long- 

 expected Messiah, at whose baptism there was a supernatural appearance 

 in the air, and a voice heard, which declared him to be the " beloved 

 Son of God, in whom he was well pleased." John also bore his 

 testimony that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus founded that great 

 church or community in which so large a portion of the human race 

 are now comprehended, and appointed that admission into this church 

 should be accompanied by the rite of baptism. 



It is remarkable that he did not himself baptise. But while he 

 was himself employed in diffusing that new and sacred truth which he 

 came to communicate, and in the performance of those miracles by 

 which his claim to be a divine teacher was established, his apostles and 

 others of his more eminent disciples did baptise, and many flocked to 

 their baptism. (John iv. 1, 2.) This was done under the eye and 

 with the concurrence of their master, but after his resurrection he 

 gave a more direct sanction to the practice, and in fact established the 

 rite as a perpetual ordinance in his religion, saying to his apostles 

 " Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of 

 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them 

 to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt. 

 xxviii. 19, 20.) 



The apostles acted according to this injunction. The language of 

 Peter on the day of Pentecost to the Jews at Jerusalem was this : 

 " Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus 

 Christ for the remission of sins : " when they that gladly received his 

 word were baptised, to the number of three thousand. (Acts ii. 38, 

 41.) In the eighth chapter of the Acts we have an account of two 

 remarkable baptisms by Philip ; and in the same book are so many 

 accounts of the performance of this rite when there was a profession 

 made of belief in Christ, and there are at the same time so many 

 allusions to the practice hi the apostolic epistles, that there is no room 

 for doubt that it was regarded by the apostles and first Christians as 

 an instituted ordinance o/ the Christian church. The meaning of 

 Christian baptism differed little, if at all, from the baptism of John. 

 It implied repentance and faith in Christ. 



The washing was no inapt symbol of thia change. When formally 



administered by some officer of the Christian Church, and in the presence 

 of a Christian assembly,it was an outward and visible sign that the convert 

 took upon himself the profession of Christianity. It was an intelligible 

 act about which there could afterwards be no dispute. The convert 

 might relapse ; but if he had once been baptised, there was once a time 

 when he had professed himself a Christian, and when he had given a 

 solemn pledge that he put away his Heathen or Jewish opinions and 

 practices, and adopted the principles of the Christian faith. On the 

 other hand, the performance of the rite by an apostle, or by a person 

 commissioned by the apostles, or by any other person who was himself 

 a Christian, and who professed that he was performing the rite as a 

 Christian ordinance, and in obedience to the command of Christ, was 

 an assurance to the person baptised that he was received into the 

 Christian Church, that he was henceforth to be acknowledged by the 

 whole Christian community as one of themselves, and was become 

 entitled to all the blessings and advantages which attend those who are 

 disciples of Jesus Christ. Our parish registers are not of births but of 

 baptisms, and they are the authoritative records of the admission, by 

 this rite, of persons into the Christian Church ; the registry by the 

 registrar is altogether independent of the baptism. 



Different opinions are entertained of the amount of the advantages 

 which ensue on the performance of this rite. Some regard it as not of 

 itself bringing with it any advantages, but as being merely initiatory, 

 and consider that the advantages of a profession of Christianity spring 

 from other sources within the profession itself. Some regard it as in 

 itself an actual washing away of all former sins, and, in the case of 

 infants, of their participation in the guilt of Adam ; and under this 

 impression, we find that, in the early ages of the Church, there were 

 those who deferred submitting to the rite till near the close of their 

 lives, that the guilt of a whole life might thus be washed away. Others 

 have taken their stand on the declaration of the apostle (Acts ii. 38), 

 that those who were baptised should receive the gift of the Holy 

 Ghost, and imagine that there is now some eflusion of the Spirit on the 

 person baptised. Some attribute to this rite what is called an immor- 

 talising efficacy, so that by baptism alone a person becomes entitled to 

 that immortality which Jesus of Nazareth revealed ; and others, again, 

 regard baptism and regeneration as correlative. These opinions have 

 all given occasion to controversies in the Church. 



The manner in which it was performed appears to have been at first 

 by complete immersion, "as a sign of total baptism into the Holy 

 Spirit, being entirely penetrated by his grace," says Neander; who 

 adds, that it was only in cases of sickness that sprinkling was allowed. 

 ('Hist, of the Christ. Eel.,' sect, ix.) John baptised in the Jordan; 

 and in another place (John iii. 23) it is said that he baptised "in 

 ^Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there." The 

 Ethiopian eunuch went down into the water to receive baptism from 

 Philip. The words baptism, and to baptise, are Greek terms, which 

 imply, in their ordinary acceptation, wasliiny, or dipping. The ques- 

 tion, however, is not whether entire immersion were the practice in the 

 primitive church, but whether it was regarded as so essentially a part 

 of the ordinance that there could be no baptism without it; and 

 against that opinion it is argued, that this is nowhere declared in the 

 Christian Scriptures ; that a partial washing is, as a symbol, or an 

 initiatory rite, as efficient as an entire immersion ; that there is no 

 evidence that entire immersion was in all cases demanded by the 

 apostles ; that we can hardly conceive that the three thousand con- 

 verts who were baptised on the day of Pentecost received the rite at 

 Jerusalem by immersion ; that in one of the most remarkable cases of 

 baptism recorded in the New Testament (Acts xvi. 33), the jailer and 

 his family were baptised by St. Paul in the night immediately after 

 they had made the profession of their faith, when it is improbable that 

 the means were at hand for entire immersion ; and that it is not to be 

 supposed that the apostles would have declined to communicate the 

 advantages of Christianity where they perceived faith and repentance, 

 though the party were in circumstances in which it was impossible, or 

 at least extremely inconvenient, to perform the rite in the usual 

 manner ; whence it is inferred that entire immersion is not essential to 

 the ordinance. 



The words which are to be used in the performance of this rite are 

 thought, by most persons, to be prescribed by Jesus Christ himself ; 

 " Baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 

 Holy Ghost." These words have been adopted as the formula by, it is 

 believed, every church ; yet it is remarkable that we do not find these 

 words to have been used as a baptismal formula in any of the baptisms 

 of which we have an account in the book of Acts; and in the account 

 of some of them it is expressly said that the parties were baptised in 

 the name of Jesus. (Acts ii. 38, and xix. 6.) It would seem, from 

 the manner in which St. Paul writes to the Corinthians (1 Ep. L 11-17), 

 as if (there were at that time some danger lest eminent Christians 

 should be ambitious of having baptisms in their own names. 



The opinions of the Christian world have been much divided with 

 respect to the time of life at which it is proper to administer the 

 ordinance. At first it was administered only to adults ; it marked the 

 reception of a new faith. When Christianity addresses herself to the 

 unconverted, the proper time evidently is whenever the faith and 

 repentance necessary are perceived to be complete ; but the question 

 relates to the case of nations which are already Christianised, and it 

 properly assumes this form : Shall the performance of the rite be 



