SECTION IV.—_The Baptism of Israel at Sinai._ The occasion of the first recorded administration of this rite was the reception of Israel into covenant with God at Sinai. For more than two hundred years they had dwelt in Egypt, and for a large part of the time had been bondmen there. The history of their sojourn in the wilderness shows that not only was their manhood debased by the bondage, but their souls had been corrupted by the idolatries of the Egyptians (Josh. xxiv, 14; Ezek. xx, 7), and they had forgotten the covenant and forsaken the God of their fathers. They were apostate, and, in Scriptural language, unclean. But now the fullness of time had come, when the promises made to the fathers must be fulfilled. Leaving the nations to walk after their own ways, God was about to erect to himself a visible throne and kingdom among men, to be a witness for him against the apostasy of the race. He was about to arouse Israel from her debasement and slavery, to establish with her his covenant, and to organize and ordain her his peculiar people—his Church. Proportioned to the importance of such an occasion was the grandeur of the scene and the gravity of the transactions. Of them we have two accounts, one from the pen of Moses (Ex. xx-xxiv), and the other from the Apostle Paul, in exposition of his statement as to the divers baptisms. (Heb. ix, 18-20.) As to these accounts, two or three points of explanation are necessary. (1) The two words, “covenant” and “testament,” represent but one in the originals in these places, of which “covenant” is the literal meaning. (2) Paul mentions _water_ (Heb. ix, 19), of which Moses does not speak. The fact is significant, as the apostle is in the act of illustrating the “divers baptisms,” of which he had just before spoken. (3) The word “oxen,” in our translation (Ex. xxiv, 5), should be “bulls.” Oxen were not lawful for sacrifice. Yearling animals seem to have been preferred. Says Micah, “Shall I come before the Lord with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old?”—Micah vi, 6. Hence Paul indifferently calls them bulls and calves. The goats of which he speaks were no doubt among the burnt-offerings of Moses’s narrative. Both “small and great cattle” seem to have been offered on all great national solemnities.