So, when John came in the spirit and power of Elias, he did not, indeed, ignore the office of Christ as the atoning Lamb of God. But his distinctive commission, and the controlling function of his ministry was to herald the coming of their covenant King, in his exaltation and power to an apostate and rebellious nation—to warn them of the office which he would fill, and the judgment which he would execute, who should baptize them, not with the Holy Ghost only, but with fire also. As appropriate, therefore, to this, his office and message, he dispensed a baptism of water alone, which spake of authority, power, and royal grace, and omitted that element which signified humiliation and death. Whilst the rite was thus modified—its nature and significance remained the same. As already indicated, the quantity of ashes used in dispensing the Levitical baptism was so small as to be wholly inappreciable to the senses. The instruction therein conveyed was dependent upon the association of ideas, and not upon the quantity of the elements used. The bestowal of the Spirit by the Lord Jesus, of necessity, presupposes the sacrifice of himself as the condition and price of his exaltation and power, by which the Spirit is sent and salvation bestowed. What the Levitical blood and ashes of sprinkling expressed the baptism of John implied. The two rites thus conveyed the same instruction, and filled the same office. They were essentially one and the same baptism. The latter form anticipated the immediate sending forth of the gospel to the Gentiles, divested of the sacrificial system and the burdens of the ritual law. That they were the same in mode will not be questioned by any who have candidly traced the foregoing line of investigation. With an enumeration of some of the points therein involved, we will close this branch of our subject. 1. Hitherto the Baptist argument has been entrenched in the definition of _baptizo_. After the same example we now plant ourselves on the ascertained meaning and use of the word, as illustrated in the foregoing pages. We have found it to be the accepted designation for the administered rites of Levitical purifying, which, in all their circumstantial variations, were performed always by sprinkling. The rite dispensed by John was an administered baptism. It was, therefore, administered after the example of the Levitical system, by sprinkling.