dipping for it is a rule with the Jews, that when R: Eliezer. and R. fashun dissent, the decision is according to R. Eliezer, whom they often call Eliezer the Great, and say many extravagant things of him; particularly, that if all the wise of Israel were put into one scale, and Eliezer the son of Hyrcanus, into the other, he would weigh them all down'; yet here the wisemen interpose, aud say, "He that is dipped and not. circumcised, circumcised and not dipped, is no proselyte, until he is both circumcised and dipped; for R. Joshua may learn from the fathers, and R. Elezer from the mothers." And so in thisway they reconciled both; but R. Eliezer continued in the same, sentiments, which he afterwards declared for, and affirms, that a proselyte that is circumcised, and not dipped in by a he is an honourable proselyte; so that according to him, dipping was not necessary to one's being a proselyte; and R. Barzelonita says, of a sort of proselytes which have been taken notice of, he is a proselyte who is circumcised and not dipped. So that the Jews are not agreed among themselves about this point. The manner of receiving a proselyte, and dipping him, when circumcised and healed of his wound, and of the dipping of women also, is related in the same treatise of the BabylonianTalmud; "A stranger, when he comes to be made a proselyte, at this time, they say unto him, What dost thou see, to become a proselyte? dost thou not know that the Israelites at this time are in distress, and in sorrowful circumstances, driven about and scattered, and are reproached, and chastisements come upon them? If he says, I know this, and I am not worthy (to be joined with them) they receive him immediately; and make known unto him some of the light, and some of the heavy commands (the particulars of which follow) if he receives them, they immediately circumcise him; and if there be any thing remains, which hinders circumcision, they return and circumcise him a second time, and when he is healed, they dip him immediately, and two disciples of the wise men stand by him, and make known to him some of the light and some of the heavy commands; then he dips, and goes up, and he is an Israelite. If a woman, the women set her in water up to her neck, and two disciples of the wise men stand, by her without, and make known some of the light and some of the heavy commands.". Maimonides adds, "After that she dips herself before them, and they turn away their faces, and go out, so that they do not see her when she goes up out of the water." Of a woman big with child when she is dipped they have this rule 9, "A stranger pregnant, who is made a proselytess, her child has no need of dipping,, that is, for proselytism, as the Gloss; is because sufficient for it is the dipping of its mother; and a woman that is dipped as unclean, according to the doctors, that is suffie cient to make her a proselytess." Says R. Chiyah Bar Ame, "I'll dip this heathen woman, in the name or on account of a woman;" that is, as the, * Halicot Olam, p. 2o1. * T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 54. 1. Megillah, fol. 16. 2. Kiddushin, fol. 39. 1. Pirke Abot, c. 2. s. 8. T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 71. 1. Chinnuch, P. 17. T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 46. 1, 2. Issure Biak, c. 14. 5. 6.

1 T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 78. 1,

Gloss is, for the dipping of uncleanness, she being a menstruous woman, and not for the dipping of proselytism. Says R. Jóseph, "I'll make it right;" that is, pronounce that she is a perfect proselytess; for though she is not dipped for proselytism, yet being dipped for uncleanness, it serves for proselytism; for a stranger or a heathen is not dipped for uncleanness ".

There are various circumstances observed in the same treatise concerning the dipping of proselytes, as the place where they are dipped; "In a place it is said, 'where a menstruous woman dips, there a proselyte and a freed servant dip;" that is, as the Gloss is, in a quantity of forty seals of water: the time of its being done is also signified; as that they do not dip in the night; and is disputed whether it should be done on the Sabbath-day: three witnesses also were required to be present; and where there are three, he (the proselyte) dips and goes up, and lo, he is an Israelite'. It is said ", " It happened in the house of R. Chiya Bar Rabbi, where were present R. Oschaia Bar Rabbi, and R Oschaia Bar Chiya, that there came a proselyte before him who was circumcised, buf not dipped; he said unto him, Wait here till to-morrow, and we will dip thee. Three things are to be learnt from hence.-1. That three persons are required (at the dipping of a proselyte). 2. That he is not a proselyte unless he is circumcised and dipped.-3. That they do not dip a proselyte in the night ;” to which may be added, 4. That they must be three Rabbins who are promoted, that is, are famous and eminent ones, who are witnesses, as it seems these three were.

There is but one instance in this Talmud, that I have met with, of the dipping of a child, or a minor, made a proselyte; and a male is so called until he is, thirteen years of age age and one day; of such an one it is said", "A proselyte, a little one (a minor) they dip him by the decree of the Sanhedrim;" that is, as the Gloss is, one that has no father, and his mother brings him to the Sanhedrim, to be made a proselyte, and there are three at is dipping; and they are a farther to him, and by their means he is made a proselyte. And in the same place it is observed of a stranger, whose sons and daughters are made proselytes with hin and acquiesce in what their father has done, when they are grown up, they make it void. There is another instance of the dipping of a minor; but not for proselytism, but for eating the Trumah, or the oblation of the fruits of the earth. So a certain one says, "I remember when I was a child, and was carried on my father's shoulders, that they took me from school, and stripped me of my coat, and dipped me, that I might eat of the Trumah in the evening;” but this was not a proselyte, but an Israelite, the son of a priest, who, it seems was not qualified to eat of the oblation without dipping. This was one of their divers baptisms, or dippings.

This now is the whole compass of the evidence from the Talmuds for the rite of admitting proselytes among the Jews by baptism, or dipping. I have not

omitted any thing relating to it in them that has fallen under my observation. As for the quotations usually made from Maimonides, who lived in the twelfth century, in proof of this custom; whatever may be said for him as an industrious and judicious compiler of things; out of the Talmud, which he has expressed in purer language, and digested in better order; he cannot be thought to be of greater and higher authority than those writings from whence he has derived them; for his work is only a stream from the Talmudic fountain. And as for· later writers; as the authors of Lebush, Schulchan Aruch, and others they derive from him. So that the Talmuds appear to be the spring and source of what is said of this custom, and from whence the proof and evidence of it is to be fetched; but whether the reasonings, decisions and determinations therein concern ing it, can be judged a sufficient proof of it, without better testimonies, especially from the scriptures, deserves consideration.

It must not be concealed, that it is pretended there is proof of it from scripture; which I shall attend unto. The proof of the Jewish fathers entering imo covenant by baptism, or dipping, is fetched from Exod. xix. 10. where, two or three days before the giving of the law, the Israelites were ordered to wash their clothes; hence it is said in the Talmudy, to prove that dipping was used at the entrance of the Israelites into covenant, according to which the baptism, or dipping of proselytes, is said to be; "From whence is it (or a proof of it?) From what is written Exod. xix. 10. where there is an obligation to wash clothes, there is an obligation to dip." And again, chap. xxiv. 8. "Moses took it (the blood) and sprinkled it on the people; and there is no sprinkling without dipping." And in another place", "Sprinkling of blood (or sacrifice, it by which also the Israelites, it is said, were admitted into covenant) of it is written, And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, &c. But dipping, from whence is it? From what is written; And Moses took half of the blood and sprinkled it on the people; and there is no sprinkling without dipping." This is the proof, which surely cannot be satis. factory to a judicious mind; dipping is inferred from sprinkling; but though the blood was sprinkled upon the people, they were not dipped into it surely; nor even into water, from what appears; and though dipping and sprinkling are sometimes used together, as in the cleansing of the leper, and in the purifi. cation of one unclean, by the touch of an unclean bone, &c. Lev. xiv. 7. Numb. xix., 19, yet, the one was not the other. From washing of clothes dipping is also inferred, without any reason; for these two, in the above places, and in others, are spoken of as two distinct acts, and are expressed by different words; and yet it is upon this single circumstance the proof depends. Now, as Dr. Owen observes, "This washing of clothes served that single occasion only of shewing reverence of the divine presence, at the peculiar giving of the law; nor did it belong to the stated worship of God; so that the necessity of

a

y T. Bab. Ceritot, fol. 9. 1. ? T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 46. 2. ** Theologoumen. 16 5. Digress. 1. p. 446.

the baptism of bodies, by a stated and solemn rite for ever, should arise from the single washing of garments, and that depending upon a reason, that would never more recur; of the observation of which no mention is made, nor any trace is extant in the whole Old Testament, and which is not confirmed by any divine command, institution, or direction, seems altogether improbable." And he elsewhere says, "From this latter temporary occasional institution (ceremo nial washing at Sinai) such as they (the Jews) hd many granted to them, whilst they were in the wilderness, before the giving of the law, the Rabbins have framed a baptism for those who enter into their synagoue; a fancy too greedily embraced by some christian writers, who would have the holy ordinance of the church's baptism to be derived from thence. But this washing of their clothes, not of their bodies, was temporary, never repeated; neither is their. any thing of any such baptism or washing required in any proselytes, either men or women, where the laws of their admission are strictly set down." And it may be farther observed, that the Talmudists gives this only as a proof of the admission of Israelites into covenant; whereas, the solemn admission of them into it, even of the whole body of them, men, women, and children, and also of the proselytes who were in their camp, as all the Targums and the. Greek version have it, when on the plains of Moab, at Horeb, before their entrance into the land of Canaan, Deut. xxix. 10-12 was not by any of the three things they say the admission was, that is, by circumcision, baptism, and sacrifice; of the two latter not the least hint is given, and the former was not practised whilst the Israelites were in the wilderness, not till Joshua had. introduced them into the land of Canaan. The Jews seems to be conscious 'themselves that the baptism or dipping of proselytes, is no command of God; since at the circumcision of them, in the form of blessing they then use, they: take no notice of it, which runs thus: Blessed art thou, O Lord God, the King of the world, who has sanctitied us by his precepts, and has commandedus to circumcise proselytes, and to fetch out of them the blood of the covenant. for if it was not for the blood of the covenant the heaven and earth would not be established; as it is said, If my covenant with day and night, &c." Jer. xxxiii. 25.

Dr. Lightfoot carries this custom of admitting proselytes by baptism, or dipping, higher than the Jews themselves do. He ascribes the first institution and use of it to Jacob, when he was going to Bethel to worship, after the murder of the Shechemites by his sons; when, the doctor says, he chose into his family and church, some of the Shechemites and other heathens. But some. learned men of the Pædobaptist persuasion, have thought the notion is indetensible, and judged it most prudent to leave it to himself to defend it, or whomsoOn Heb, Vol. 1. Exercitat. 19. p. 272. Maimon. Hilchot Milah, c. 3. s. 4. d Chro nicle of the Old Testament, p. 18, Harmony of the Evangelists, p. 465. Hor. Heb. in Matt. iii. 6.

Certain it is, it has no

when he was about to go ordered his family to put

ever may choose to undertake it; and he himself was in doubt about the first institution of this sort of baptism; for he afterwards says, "We acknowledge that circumcision was of divine institution; but by whom baptism, that was inseparable from it, was instituted, is doubtful." foundation in what Jacob did or ordered to be done, to Bethel, and worship there; previous to which he away the strange gods that were among them, which they had brought with them from Shechem; and he likewise ordered them to be clean, and change their garments; which cleanness, whether to be understood of abstaining from their wives, as some interpret it; or of washing of their bodies, as Aben Ezra, as a purification of them from the pollutions of the slain, as the Targum paraphrases it, and after that Jarchi; and which change of garments, whether understood of the garments of idolaters, which the sons of Jacob had taken and put on, when they stripped them; or of their own garments, defiled with the blood of the slain; or of their meaner and more sordid garments, for more pure and splendid ones. All that can be concluded from hence is, and is by the Jews concluded, that when men come before God, they should come with clean bodies, and with clean garments; as an emblem of the more inward purity of their minds, which is necessary to every religious service and act of devotion, such as Jacob and his family were now about to perform, and which the very heathens themselves had a notion of; Casta placent superis, pura cum veste venitof. But not a word is here of any covenant Jacob and his family entered into, and much less of any proselytes from Shechem and Syria being brought into it with them, by baptism, or dipping, as is pretended.

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I have met with another learned man, who carries up this custom higher still; and asserts, that Jacob did not feign out of his own brain this practice of washing the body, and of change of garments; but took it from the history of Adam, and from his example; and he supposes that Adam, at the solemn making the covenant with him, was washed in water, before he put on the ments given him of God; and that as he was the first who sacrificed, he was the first who was baptized by the command of God; and so baptism was the most ancient of all the sacred rites. But let the history of Adam be carefully read over by any man, and he will never find the least hint of this, nor observe the least shadow of appearance of it; but what is it that the imagination of man will not admit and receive, when once a loose is given to it? Pray, who baptized Adam, if he was baptized? Did God baptize him? Or did an angel baptize him? Or did Eve baptize him? Or did he baptize himself?

Since then this rite or custom of admitting into covenant, whether Israelites

• Pfeiffer. Antiqu. Ebr. c. 1. s. 5. & addit; uti et ejusdem collationem; quam inter bune proselytorum baptismum & sacramentum initiationis christianorum instituit cum magno grano salis accipiendam putamus. Tibullus, 1, 2. eleg. 1. • Rhenferd. Orat. de Antigu. Baptism,, p. 954. ad Calcem Oper. Philolog..