with
regard to baptism by affusion.

So with the midnight scene of baptism in the prison at Philippi. The
preparation of one or more large vessels, to immerse the household, is
not congruous with the circumstances narrated, as I read them. But the
quiet and convenient act of baptism by sprinkling, falls in harmoniously
with the other parts of the transaction. For my part, I have always
wondered how any one can fail to see that there are so many
improbabilities of immersion in every case of baptism, in the New
Testament, as to counteract any weight which the word baptize carries
with it, more especially since the word and its derivatives are
employed, in the New Testament, in cases where the mode of using the
water is evidently not intended.

_Mr. K._ "Buried with him in baptism." Mr. M., you will confess that
this is an impregnable proof-text. You have never been "buried with him
in baptism."

_Mr. M._ But I am "risen with him," Mr. K. With all humility and tears,
I must say to you, "If any man trusteth to himself that he is Christ's,
let him also think this with himself, that as he is Christ's even so
also we are Christ's." Your application of the passage, just quoted by
you, disproves your interpretation of it. If we must be buried in water,
when we are baptized, then no one is risen with Christ who has not been
immersed. You thus disfranchise four fifths, to say the least, of God's
elect. No, my dear sir, being buried with Christ in baptism does not
mean immersion. People in the frozen ocean, the sick and dying, who are
sprinkled with water in the name of the Christian's God, are "buried
with Christ in baptism into death;" that is, profess to be dead and
buried to sin, as Christ was dead and buried for it. Besides, follow out
the passage, and there is no allusion to the form of baptism, as I can
perceive, but to something else. "Buried with him by baptism into death;
that like as Christ was raised,"--from the water?--yes, if water baptism
be now in the writer's mind; but no,--"like as Christ was raised from
the dead, by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life." The word buried, therefore, in this passage, refers to
the completeness of the Saviour's death for sin (as we say intensively
of a deceased person, he is dead and buried), and of the completeness
of our renunciation of it. We are dead and buried to sin, as Christ was
for it; and we rise to newness of life, when we profess to