A Bible History of Baptism

Thus it appears that in all the provisions of the covenant earthly and temporal blessings are not once alluded to. That clause of the Abrahamic covenant which concerned the possession of Canaan was, indeed, referred to at Sinai, and Israel was assured of its fulfillment. (Ex. xxiii, 23.) But it was then, and ever after, spoken of and treated as already and finally settled by the promise made to Abraham. (Ex. vi, 3-8; Deut. vii, 7-9; ix, 5, 6; Psalm cv, 8-11.) Moreover, the bestowal of Canaan was in no sense a secular transaction. Not only as a type of the better country was it designed and calculated to awaken and stimulate heavenly aspirations. (Heb. xi, 8-16.) But, like the fastnesses of the Alps, for centuries the retreat and home of the gospel among the martyr Waldenses, Canaan, planted in the very center of the old world-empires, and upon the mid line of march of the world’s great history, was chosen and prepared of God as a fortress of security entrenched for Israel’s protection, in the midst of the apostate and hostile nations, while tending and nourishing the beacon fire of gospel light which glowed on Mount Zion, and shed its beams afar into the gloom of thick darkness which enshrouded the world. As such, it was assured to Abraham’s seed by the covenant with him and the seal set in their flesh.

Section X. —The Visible Church was thus established

The Sinai covenant gave origin to the visible church of God. By the visible church, I mean that society among men which God has called and taken into covenant and communion with himself, and ordained to be his witness to the world. Two points are essentially involved in the definition. The first is the relation to God established by the terms – “I will take you to me for a people; and I will be to you a God.” The second is the office to which the church is thus called and ordained, to be God’s witness, testifying on his behalf against the world’s apostasy. Such is Peter’s declaration, quoting the terms of the Sinai covenant, and applying them to the New Testament church: “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God.” – 1 Peter ii, 9, 10. This privilege of communion, and this office of testimony were implied and involved in the whole covenant, and all its terms; but especially indicated by that expression, “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” It is the privilege of priests to draw nigh to God, and their office to testify on God’s behalf to men.

The manner and meaning of the designation by which, throughout the Greek Scriptures of the Old Testament and of the New, the body thus constituted is known as the ekklēsia, the church, is worthy of special notice in this connection. The fact of God having met with Israel at Sinai, and communed with them in an audible voice, is referred to by Moses and emphasized as being a signal demonstration of relations established of extraordinary intimacy. “What nation is there so great, which hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God in all things that we call upon him for?.. Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart, all the days of thy life; but teach them thy sons and thy sons’ sons, specially the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children… And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.” – Deut. iv, 7-13. Again, he says: “Ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such a thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it. Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of fire, as thou, hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord thy God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him.” – Ib. iv, 32-35.

The presence of God with Israel, thus impressively manifested, was not casual or transient. The fires and the terrors of Sinai were indeed withdrawn. But the tabernacle of testimony was erected, and the shechinah there revealed for the express purpose of being a testimony to Israel that God was with them dwelling in their midst. Of the services to be there established, he directed Moses that there should be “a continual burnt-offering throughout your generations, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak there unto thee. And there will I meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle” (or rather, as the margin, “Israel”) “shall be sanctified by my glory. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God.” – Ex. xxix, 42-46.

Thus the gathering of Israel at Sinai was not a mere congregation or assembling of the people to each other, but a meeting with God; and this fact is very remarkably indicated in the Septuagint Greek. In the description of the Sinai scene, given in Deut. iv, in that version, the tenth verse stands thus: “The day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb (tē hēmera tēs ekklēsias), in the day of the assembly, when the Lord said to me (Ekklēsiason pros me), Assemble to me the people.” Previous to that occasion the word ekklēsia is not found in the Greek Scriptures. That day was, by Moses, habitually designated “the day of the ekklēsia– the assembly” (Deut. ix, 10; x, 4; xviii, 16), and the reason of the designation is thus, by the Greek translators, stamped upon the face of that version. It was so called because the people on that day met with God, in compliance with the command (Ekklēsiason), “Assemble to me the people.” In accordance with the special meaning to which the word was thus appropriated it is used throughout the Scriptures. In the Old Testament and Apocrypha it occurs nearly one hundred times, and a careful examination fails to discover an instance in which it is used otherwise than to designate Israel in their sacred character as the covenant people of God. In that sense it passed into the New Testament. In one place it is exceptionally used by the town clerk of the Greek city of Ephesus, and by Luke, after him, in its classic meaning, to designate an assembly of the freemen of the city. (Acts xix, 39, 41.) But everywhere else it is employed in the same sense as in the Septuagint. It is thus applied (1) to Israel in the wilderness (Acts vii, 38), and at the temple (Heb. ii, 12); (2) to the religious assemblies of the Jews during the time of Christ’s ministry (Matt. xviii, 17), and ever afterwards, in the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation, to the New Testament Church. According, therefore, to the uniform usage of the Scriptures, the word is appropriated to designate an assembly with God, and, in a secondary sense, the people as related to such an assembly. Such is the designation given to Israel as the people of God by covenant and fellowship, among whom he held the communion of mutual converse, he with them in the words of his testimony and the communications of his grace, and they with him in all things in which they called upon him. (Deut. iv, 7. Compare Matt. xviii, 20; Acts x, 33.) In the assembly of Israel, the church of the apostles finds an origin in no wise unworthy her own lofty character and office. Happy she when with conscious experience she can take to herself the glad words of Israel’s song, “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early… The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” – Psalm xlvi, 4-7.

The following were the essential features of the constitution of the church thus erected:

1. Its fundamental charter was the covenant, embracing the ten commandments, in the reciprocal terms which have been considered in the preceding chapter.

2. The persons with whom these terms were made, and who were comprehended in the society thereupon erected, were all those, whether of Israel or the Gentiles, together with their households, who made credible profession of accepting the covenant, and were thereupon sealed with its baptismal seal. To this point we shall presently return.

3. The radical principle of organization was that of parental headship and family unity. The family is the divine original of all human society, as the parental office is of all human authority. Upon this basis was founded the Abrahamic covenant, and upon it was erected the system of government for Israel. It was administered by the fathers of families, of houses, and of tribes; the first-born son succeeding to his father as head of his house, under the designation of elder. This system was recognized in the first commission of Moses from God, and the elders, or heads of houses, were united with him in his mission to Pharaoh. (Ex. iii, 16, 18; iv, 29.) To them was committed the ordering of the passover on the night of the exodus. (Ib. xii, 21.) At Sinai, before the giving of the covenant, the system was perfected in its details, at the suggestion of Jethro, with the sanction of God. (Ex. xviii, 12-24.) Immediately upon the sealing of the covenant seventy of the elders, who had been previously assembled by the command of God, went up, as already stated, with Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, into the mount, and there celebrated on Israel’s behalf the feast of the covenant. “They saw the God of Israel, and did eat and drink.” – Ex. xxiv, 1, 9-11. Afterward, when the covenant was renewed in the plains of Moab, the relation of the elders thereto, in their official capacity, was expressly stated. “Ye stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God, your captains of your tribes, your elders and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives.” – Deut. xxix, 10.

Such were the essential features of the constitution of the church, as ordained at Sinai. To her, thus organized, were given ordinances of testimony, concerning which a few points only are here necessary. Since she was appointed simply to maintain, in her position in the midst of the nations, the lamp of gospel truth ever shining, until the set time should come for sending it forth through the world, the ordinances of testimony which were intrusted to her were adapted expressly to this office. They were: (1.) The oracles of God, his written word, from time to time imparted through Moses and other holy men, who spake as they were moved of the Holy Ghost. (Rom. iii, 2; 2 Pet. i, 21.) (2.) The holy convocations of the Sabbath days. (Lev. xxiii, 3; 1 Kings iv, 23; Acts xv, 21.) (3.) The priesthood and ritual service. (4.) The sanctuary worship and festivals. (5.) Public professions of faith, occasional and stated. (Deut. xxvi.) (6.) Poetic recitations and psalmody. (Ex. xv, 1-21; Deut. xxxi, xxxii; the book of Psalms.)

It was with a special view to the witnessing office of the church of Israel that the ritual system was constructed. The covenant and the ritual were testimonies to the better covenant and the heavenly realities which belong to it. It is with this view that the word “testimony” is so much used in designating them. Thus the Ten Commandments, the fundamental law of the covenant, were frequently designated “the testimony.” (Ex. xxv, 21.) The tables on which they were written were, in like manner, “the tables of the testimony.” They were kept in “the ark of the testimony,” which was in “the tabernacle of the testimony.” In the same way the whole system of ordinances and laws given to Israel is designated “the testimonies of God.” Of them, and the office of the church concerning them, the Psalmist says: “He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them: even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children; that they might set their hope in God, and not forget his works, but keep his commandments.” – Psalm lxxviii, 5-7.

Respecting the ritual system, there are two propositions which are believed to be demonstrable, but are here presented without argument. The first is, that these rites were not dark forms, veiling rather than disclosing a new revelation; but were inscriptions in luminous characters, setting forth the doctrines of a faith well understood by the patriarchs and fathers from the beginning, and from them transmitted and known to Israel. Second. The ritual forms in which the gospel was clothed in the Levitical system were far more suitable for the purposes of popular instruction and world-wide dissemination than would have been any conceivable exposition of it in writing. The art of writing was in its infancy. A written gospel would have been, even to Israel, a sealed book; how much more to all other people! The history and laws were put in writing and kept at the sanctuary for the direction of the priests and magistrates in the performance of their duties, the administration of justice, and the instruction of Israel. But the gospel, for the people, was clothed in forms which required no interpreter, which meant the same in every language under heaven, and which were calculated, by their appeals to the imagination through the eye and the senses, to stamp themselves indelibly upon the memory and the affections. Thus were they eminently adapted to arrest the attention and impress the minds of strangers, and of the young, for whom especially they were designed. (Ex. xii, 26; xiii, 14; Deut. vi, 20; Josh. iv, 6, 21; 1 Kings viii, 41, 42.)

The fact is of an importance which entitles it to distinct and emphatic mention, that the Aaronic priesthood and the ritual law were no part of the constitution of the church, as it was established by the covenant. They were not in existence when the covenant was made, but were ordinances afterward given to the church, as already existent and organized. They were bestowed as means of fulfilling her witnessing office, means adapted to the times and circumstances of Israel, but subject to be modified, as they were in the temple system, or to be wholly suspended or set aside, without impairing the constitution of the church or the completeness and efficiency of its organization. Not only thus did the covenant precede the ritual law and the priesthood, but when, forty years afterward, the covenant was renewed, and the parties to it were enumerated in detail, the priests were altogether ignored. (Deut. xxix, 10-12.) They were in no wise essential to it.

Section XI. —The Terms of Membership in the Church of Israel

With some slight circumstantial differences, having reference to the difference in the office of the church under the two dispensations, the conditions of membership were essentially the same as propounded at Sinai and as prescribed under the gospel. While the spiritual blessings of the covenant were from the beginning conditioned upon true faith and loving obedience, the privilege of membership in the visible church was at Sinai bestowed upon those, with their households, who made credible profession of these graces, and upon them only. On “the day of the assembly,” all the people professed to take God for their God, and to devote themselves to him as his believing and obedient people. And as on the days of Pentecost, so on this occasion, the profession was accepted, and their admission was sealed with baptism; although doubtless, in both cases, there were false professors included with the true. With certain exceptions, ordained for special reasons (Deut. xxiii, 1-8), the conditions of membership were the same for the Gentile world as for Israel. The law was explicit and most emphatic on this point. “One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance forever in your generations: as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.” – Num. xv, 14-16, and 29; and see ix, 14; xix, 10; Ex. xii, 43-49; Deut. xxxi, 12; Josh. viii, 33, etc.

For eliminating unworthy members, the means provided in the Sinai ordinances were as abundant as those now enjoyed by the church, and would seem to have been as well adapted to the effectual securing of the end proposed. They come under three heads. (1.) Certain offenses were visited with the penalty of death or of utter separation from the communion of Israel. (Ex. xxxi, 14; Num. ix, 13, etc.) (2.) The expenses incident to a faithful performance of the duties required of members of the church of Israel were large and continual. Firstfruits, firstlings, and tithes, trespass offerings, sin offerings, freewill offerings, and other oblations, made up an aggregate which can not have fallen short of one-fifth of all the income of Israel, and probably went far beyond that amount. The law provided none but moral means for enforcing these requirements; and numerous facts in the history of Israel show that by many they were entirely neglected. (Neh. xiii, 10-13; Mal. iii, 8-10.) Those who thus withheld what belonged to the Lord were self-excluded from the fellowship of the covenant society, and were “cut off from the congregation (ekklēsia from the church) of the Lord.” (3.) The irksome and humiliating nature of the regulations concerning uncleanness and purifying were very efficient means of separating between the believing and the profane. As we shall presently see, occasions of uncleanness were of almost daily occurrence, in every house. These required a conscientious watchfulness and assiduity, in guarding against defilement, and in using the appointed rites of purifying, which often involved the interruption and expense of journeys to the sanctuary and offerings there.

The communion of the church of Israel thus consisted of those only, with their families, who added to the obligations of a public profession of faith, a fidelity to all the requirements of the law, its moral precepts, its ritual observances, its tithes and offerings, its rites of purifying and its annual feasts. In a word, the account given of Zacharias and Elizabeth describes the character required, in order to fellowship in the church of Israel: “Righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” – Luke i, 6. Such, and such only, were the clean, to whom the privileges of Israel’s communion belonged. To them they were certified by the seal of baptism.

Section XII. —Circumcision and Baptism

It is commonly assumed that baptism has come into the place and office of circumcision. This I conceive to be a mistaken view, which involves the whole subject in confusion. Circumcision is the distinctive and peculiar seal of the Abrahamic covenant. While it is true, that in that covenant, as relating to the terms of salvation, all believers were accounted as seed of Abraham, and heirs of the promises, it is equally true that, by its terms, peculiar blessings unspeakably great were assured to the seed of the patriarch after the flesh. Not only was Christ to come of his flesh; not only was the church to be for fifteen centuries constituted of his offspring, but Paul moreover testifies, that richer blessings than they have ever yet enjoyed are to be bestowed on Israel and on the Gentiles through Israel, in the coming future: “If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness?.. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” – Rom. xi, 12, 15. This the apostle, futhermore, puts upon the ground that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” – Ib. 29. It was with a view to this relation of the covenant to Abraham’s natural seed, that circumcision was appointed as its seal. Said God: “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.” – Gen. xvii, 7. Hence, by circumcision, the token of the covenant was set in the flesh of the males, through whom the descent is counted. So long, therefore, as the church was, for the divine purposes, restricted to the family of Israel, the rite of circumcision was necessary as a prerequisite condition of admission to its privileges, because it was the seal of incorporation by birth or adoption into that family. But this did not constitute admission into the church. The Sinai covenant had its own baptismal seal. The church consisted, not of Israel, the circumcised; but only of the clean of Israel. Of this, baptism was the token and seal. It hence resulted that when the restriction was removed, and the gospel was given to the Gentiles, emancipated from the yoke of circumcision, baptism remained unchanged in place or office, the original and only seal of actual admission to the fellowship and privileges of the church of God. Of all this we shall see more hereafter.

Part III.

ADMINISTERED BAPTISMS=SPRINKLINGS

Section XIII. —Unclean Seven Days

In the laws of Moses there were two grades of uncleanness defined – uncleanness of seven days, and uncleanness till the even. The former was a symbol of that essential corruption which is in us by nature, to which are essential the redeeming blood of Christ and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, without which no man can see God in peace. Uncleanness till the even symbolized those casual defilements to which God’s renewed people are liable by contact with the evil of the world. The ritual, concerning the uncleanness of seven days, was designed to signalize the light in which man’s apostate nature, and the depravity and sin thence resulting, appear in the sight of a God of ineffable holiness. To this conception the word unclean was designed to give expression, the intense meaning of which is liable to escape the casual reader of the Scriptures. It signified, not the mere external soiling of the living person, but death, corruption, and rottenness within the heart, the fermenting source of pollution poured forth in the outward life. To impress us with a just sense of the exceeding evil of this thing the Spirit employs every variety of figure expressive of deformity and loathsomeness. In the primitive faith, of which the book of Job is a record, it is characterized in language which is a key-note to all the Scriptures on the subject. “Behold he putteth no trust in his saints” (his holy angels); “yea, the heavens are not pure in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water.” – Job xv, 15, 16. Says the Psalmist, “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside; they are all together become filthy.” – Psa. xiv, 3. Here the word “filthy” is in the margin rendered “stinking.” It is the same in the original as in the above place in Job, and means the offensiveness of putrefaction. David, in his penitential Psalm, indicates his sense of this radical evil of his nature. “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin… Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow… Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” – Psa. li, 2-10. Isaiah and other sacred writers represent the same evil by the figures of the vomit and filthiness of a drunken debauch, and by every kind of abominable and loathsome thing. (Isa. xxviii, 8; Prov. xxx, 12.) By the designation, unclean, the moral deformity and offensiveness of Satan and the “unclean spirits,” his angels, are described. And in the accounts of the riches of grace and glory in store for the church, the crowning feature is the exclusion of the unclean. “A highway shall be there, and a way; and it shall be called, The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it.” – Isa. xxxv, 8. The church is called upon for this cause to exult: “Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.” – Ib. lii, 1. And again, John, in the vision of the glory of the new Jerusalem, which crowns and closes his revelation, says of her: “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth” (literally, “any thing unclean”), “neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” – Rev. xxi, 27.

For the purpose of inducing a profound sense of this evil and loathsomeness of sin, as working in the heart, the ordinances respecting the uncleanness of seven days were appointed, each having its own lesson.

1. The birth of a child was the actual propagation, from the parents, of part in the uncleanness of the apostate nature. It was, therefore, attended with natural phenomena, and marked by ritual ordinances which characterized it, and every function connected with it, as unclean and defiling. Emphasis was thus given to the challenge, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” – Job xiv, 4.

2. Running issues of all kinds were appropriated as symbols of the corruption of man’s nature, festering within, and breaking forth in putrescent streams of depravity and sin in the active life. (Ezek. xvi, 6, 9.)

3. Death is “the wages of sin” (Rom. vi, 23), and physical death is a terrible emblem of its loathsome and accursed nature. And as sin and the curse are diffused to Adam’s seed by the very contagion of nature, this, their symbol, was ritually endowed with the same contagious character. He that touched the dead was reckoned no longer among the living but the dead. He was, therefore, cast out from the camp, from his family, the sanctuary, and the privileges of the covenant. To them all he was dead. He was unclean.

Thus, as the loving and bereaved stood by the couch of death, gazed upon the face and form once blooming in health and beauty, and beheld the sightless and sunken eyes, the ghastly features and cadaverous hue – pledges of corruption begun – while the very air of the chamber seemed to breathe the cry, “Unclean!” as they realized the instinctive recoil which love itself must feel from the very touch of the departed, and felt as Abraham, concerning the beloved Sarah, the constraint to “bury his dead out of his sight,” – as, in all this, they knew that these last offices even must be fulfilled at the expense of defilement and exclusion from the privileges of God’s earthly courts and the society of his people, for seven days, they and all Israel received a lesson of divine instruction as to the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the wages of which is death, its loathsomeness in God’s sight, its contagious diffusion and power, and its curse, to which human speech or angel eloquence could have added nothing.

4. No less impressive were the ordinances concerning leprosy. The name designated a class of diseases, some of which would appear to have been altogether miraculous in their origin, and peculiar in their symptoms, while others were attributable to natural causes. The disease was peculiar for the shocking and loathsome appearance of its victim, its poisoning the blood and pervading the whole body, and its incurable and inevitably deadly nature. It was, therefore, employed by God as, at once, an extraordinary punishment of sin, and a most fitting symbol of it, as seated in the heart and nature of man, and pervading and corrupting his whole being. (Num. xii, 10; 2 Kings v, 27; 2 Chr. xxvi, 20.) The leper was accounted as one dead (Num. xii, 12), and, therefore, excluded from his family, from the congregation and ordinances at the sanctuary, and from the very camp of Israel, where the living God walked. (Num. v, 2; xii, 14.) Thus, outcast from the abodes of men and the house of God, “the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean! Unclean! All the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall be his habitation.” – Lev. xiii, 45, 46. How dreadful the figure thus presented to the senses of Israel, of the loathsomeness of sin in God’s sight, and of its ruinous effects upon the sinner! The person offensive with scabs and sores, the rent garments, the uncovered head, the wailing cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” while the exclusion from the house of God, and from the abodes of men, and the covered lip, proclaimed to Israel that the spiritual leper, yet in his sins, brings danger to his fellow-men with his very presence, and is an offense and loathing to God, before the eyes of whose purity he may not venture to come, save through the cleansing blood and Spirit of Christ. Hence, the cry of Isaiah, when he beheld the glory of the Lord: “Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” And hence, the coal of fire from off the altar of atonement, and the seraph’s assurance, “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” – Isa. vi, 5-7.

Thus, every way, under the idea of indwelling defilement, was sin and its source in man’s corrupted nature held up to Israel as loathsome in itself, propagated to the race and infecting all, defiling in its contact, deadly in its indwelling power, and abhorrent to the eyes of God.

Four circumstances in the ritual on these defilements are peculiar and characteristic:

1. The first of these exhibits a broad and fundamental contrast between these defilements and those which continued only till the even. The latter, as already intimated, presented the conception of an outward soiling of the living person. But the uncleanness of seven days exhibited the idea, not of surface defilement of the living, but of the loathsomeness and pollution of the dead and decaying carcass, pouring out its own corruption, and infecting all around with its unclean and abhorrent presence, – a pollution which no extrinsic or surface washing can ever cleanse.

2. The defilement was for seven days. God’s work of creation ended in the rest of the seventh day. That day was hence appropriated as a type of the final rest of Christ and his people upon the completed work of redemption. Hence, the argument of Paul: “For he spake of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God.” – Heb. iv, 4-9. “A rest:” literally, as in the margin, “a keeping of a Sabbath,” or, “a Sabbatism.” But the Sabbath thus reserved for God’s people, coincides with “the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Hence, a seven days’ uncleanness was typical of such a corruption of nature as is essential and, therefore, persistent to the end; and the exclusion of the defiled from the camp and the sanctuary signified the sentence of the judgment of the last day, when those whose natures are unrenewed, and whose sins are unpurged will be excluded from the Sabbath of redemption and from the new Jerusalem, and remain finally under the woe of the second death: “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still… For without are dogs and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” – Rev. xxii, 11, 15.

3. The defilement was contagious. If the unclean for seven days touched a clean person, the latter was thereby defiled until the even. For, such is the inveteracy of this native corruption of the race that God’s people are liable to defilement from every intercourse and contact with the world, – a defilement, however, which they will leave behind them when the day of earthly life is ended. Therefore, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.” – 2 Cor. vi, 17.

4. This seven days’ uncleanness could not be purified without sacrificial rites, and water sprinkled by the hand of one that was clean. For nothing but the atoning merits of Christ’s one offering, and the Spirit of life which he sheds down upon his people, can enter and cleanse our defiled nature, and fit us for admission to the presence of God, or for part in the New Jerusalem. All this will more fully appear as we proceed to notice the rites of purifying appointed for the several kinds of this uncleanness, respectively.

Section XIV. —The Baptism of a healed Leper

The rites appointed for the purifying of a healed leper come under two heads, – those administered by the priest, and those performed by the person himself. When a leper was healed, he was first inspected by the priest, who went forth to him to ascertain that the healing was real, and the disease eradicated. This being ascertained, the priest took two clean birds, and had one of them killed and its blood caught in an earthen vessel, with running water. He then took the remaining bird, alive, with cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop, and dipped all together in the blood and water; “and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.” – Lev. xiv, 7.

The rite which thus ended by the official decree of the priest, “He is clean,” completed the purification, properly so called. The man is now clean. The remaining ordinances were expressive of duties and privileges proper to one who is cleansed and restored to the commonwealth of Israel, and the communion of God’s house. First of these he was required to “wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean.” – Ib., vs. 8. He was now admitted to the camp, but must not yet enter his own tent, nor come to the tabernacle for seven days. On the seventh day he was again required to shave off all his hair, wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh; and “he shall be clean.” – Vs. 9.

Now, on the eighth day, he came to the sanctuary, bringing a sacrifice of a trespass offering, a sin offering, and a burnt offering. The rites attendant upon these offerings completed the ceremonial. Thenceforth, the leper resumed all the privileges of a son of Israel, in his family, in the the congregation, and at the sanctuary.

The general signification of these ordinances is evident. The priest, by whom alone the cleansing rites could be administered, was the official representative of our great high-priest, Christ Jesus. The two birds were with the priest a complex type of him who offered himself without spot to God, who was dead and is alive for evermore, and by the merits of whose blood and the power of whose Spirit remission of sins and the new life of holiness are given to men. The first self-washing symbolized the duty of the redeemed to turn from their old ways and walk in holiness. The continued exclusion, for seven days, from his house and the sanctuary was a testimony that for the present we are pilgrims and strangers, and that only at the end of earth’s trials and purgations can we enter our “house which is from heaven.” The seventh day’s washing indicated the final putting off of all evil in the resurrection; and the offerings of the eighth represented the way whereby, in the regeneration, God’s redeemed people shall have access to his presence and communion with him, through the blood of Jesus.

We are now able to understand why the cleansing of the healed leper was thus separately ordered, and not included in the provision which we shall presently see was made, in common, for all other cases of seven days’ uncleanness. The extraordinary and frequently supernatural character of both the disorder and its cure rendered it proper and necessary to take it out of the category of ordinary uncleannesses, and place it under the immediate jurisdiction of the priests. This was necessary, alike, in order to a judicial determination at first as to the existence of the leprosy, and afterward as to the cure. And the priestly administration of the rites of cleansing was equally important, as constituting an official and authoritative proclamation of the healing and restoration of the leper.

Section XV. —Baptism of those defiled by the Dead

The purification of the leper must have been of rare occurrence. All the facts and indications of the Scriptures tend to the conclusion that, except by miraculous agency, the disease was incurable. The baptism of Israel at Sinai was extraordinary in its nature and circumstances, and could not have been repeated except in circumstances equally remarkable, such as that when, in the plains of Moab, the covenant was renewed with the new generation, which had risen up to take the place of those who perished in the wilderness. (Deut. xxix, 1.) But of that transaction the particulars are not recorded. In the water of separation, provision was made for an ordinary rite, essentially the same, in its nature, mode, and meaning, as the Sinai baptism; and so ordered as to serve as a continual memorial and repetition of it, and reiteration of the promises and instructions therein embodied. This rite was appointed for the cleansing of defilements of daily occurrence, and was maintained through all the after history of Israel, until the time of Christ, and the destruction of Jerusalem. It was known to the Jews by the name of baptism.

In preparation for this rite, a red heifer without blemish was chosen by the priest, and slain without the camp, whence the priest sprinkled the blood toward the door of the tabernacle of the congregation seven times. The entire heifer was then burned, while the priest cast cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet into the burning. The ashes were gathered and laid up in a clean place, without the camp. (Num. xix, 2-10.) They were to be “kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation.” – Ib. 9. By the phrase, “water of separation,” is not meant a water to cause separation, but a remedy for it. They were, as Zechariah expresses it, “for sin and for uncleanness.” – Zech. xiii, 1.

The primary case for which they were provided was that of defilement by the dead. (Num. xix, 17, 18.) Whoever touched a dead body or bone of a man, or a grave, was defiled thereby, as was the tent or house where the body lay, and the furniture and utensils that were in it. For the purifying of these, some of the ashes of the heifer were mingled, in an earthen vessel, with running water. A clean person then took a bush of hyssop, and, dipping it into the water, sprinkled it on the persons or things to be cleansed. This was done on the third day, and repeated on the seventh. “And on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.” – Num. xix, 2-19. Thus, as in the case of the leper, the rites for defilement by the dead were divided into two categories, – those administered by the priest or a clean person acting officially, and those performed by the subject himself. The importance of the distinction thus made between rites administered and those self-performed is worthy of repeated and emphatic notice. The former symbolized Christ’s and the Spirit’s agency; the latter, the active personal obedience and holiness of the believer’s life.

It appears from the rabbins that, at least during the later period of Jewish history, the purifying of persons was, whenever practicable, performed at Jerusalem, by the hand of a priest, and with water drawn from the pool of Siloam, which flowed from the foot of the temple mount. For the purifying of houses and other things, the ashes were sent throughout the land, and the rites performed where the uncleanness was contracted.

Section XVI. —Purifying from Issues

The remaining forms of major uncleanness are those of childbirth, and of issues. (Lev. xii, 2; xv, 13, 19, 20, 25.) The places here referred to in the book of Leviticus contain the only directions as to purifying which specify these cases. Were our attention confined to those chapters, we might imagine that for these defilements there were no purifyings required, except in one single case, a self-washing for men healed of issues. But there are several things which suggest the propriety of looking farther before accepting that conclusion.

1. The instructions given in these places, if taken by themselves are incongruous. Thus, a man cured of an issue was directed to “number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and he shall be clean.” But of a woman it is said: “She shall number to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean.” – Lev. xv, 13, 28. In neither of the cases of female defilement is there mention made of any purifying rites whatever, although the seven days of purifying are specified in each of them. And yet if any one had but touched the bed, or the seat of a woman so defiled, he must “wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh, and be unclean until the even.” – Vs. 19-23. I do not here account as rites of purifying the offerings which in each case the parties, after being cleansed, were required to make at the sanctuary. In those offerings they claimed and exercised the privilege of communion at his table with the God of Israel – the highest privilege of the clean. Admission to it was, therefore, a formal and conclusive attestation to them as already clean.