BAPTISM

(Gr. /3«*rT«,/rf?JB.) The rite of initiation into the community of Christians, ordained by Christ himself, when he commi ioned his apostles to go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is recorded by the Evangelists, that our Saviour himself received baptism from John; and the ceremony which the Baptist performed is allowed generally to have been an imitation of a rite in common practice among the Jews, who appear to have admitted proselytes by circumcision and baptism. Lustration, however, by water, as an initiatory rite, is of great antiquity and general practice, especially in the East; and Christian baptism may be considered as an adaptation of a form which was generally understood to have a symbolical meaning. Accordingly, it has been recognised by all Christian communities as a sacrament, although they have differed in their explanation of its nature and meaning. It is upon this point that the question of the validity of infant baptism principally depends; the words of Scripture in that particular not being allowed on all hands to be decisive, nor ev°n the practice of the early church universally admitted. Those, therefore, who consider baptism to be a symbol oi a covenant thereupon entered into between God and the person bapiized, require the understanding of the person to accompany the act, and reject the notion of sponsors undertaking to promise on the part of infants: the more common notion, however, conceives this sacrament to have in itself a regenerative virtue, by which an infant may be received into participation in the promises made to the church, and be really and truly from that time forth put into the wjiy of salvation. Baptism was originally administered by immersion, which act is thought by some to be nece ary to the sacrament. It is not clear, however, even in the Scripture history, tl»at this ceremony was always adhered to. At present sprinkling is generally substituted for dipping, at least in northern climates. [s. 143]