Are these difficulties evaded by falling back to the position of the first Baptist confession,—that baptism “being a sign, must answer the thing signified, which is, the interest the saints have in the death, burial and _resurrection_ of Christ; and that as certainly as the body is buried under the water and risen again, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints be raised by the power of Christ, in the day of the resurrection?” This is, to abandon the very citadel of the cause, which consists in the position that the form and meaning of the ordinance are to be determined by a strict interpretation of the classic meaning of the word _baptizo_. That word _never_ means “burial and resurrection,”—the immersion and _raising up_ of the subject. It _sometimes_ means a submersion; that, and nothing more. This is now distinctly admitted by the ablest representatives of the immersion theory, as we shall see abundantly evinced before we close. Such are some of the considerations that present themselves, as, at this point in our inquiry, we view the two diverse rites which assume the name of Christian baptism. Their claims are now to be judged, by a comparison of the New Testament evidence, with what has been already concentrated from the law, the prophets, and the Psalms;—writings all of them equally authoritative and divine. [Illustration: THE GREEK BATH.—The god, Eros, presides. From Sir. Wm. Hamilton’s vases, in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities; article “_Balneæ_.” ] PART VIII. THE PURIFYINGS OF THE JEWS. SECTION XLVII.—_Accounts of them in the Gospels._