doctrine and these words of the apostle, we have the very baptism which Dr. Conant admits to be expressed, “by analogy,” by the word _baptizo_;—“_the coming into a new state of life or experience_.” Into the conception of the passage, when critically appreciated, it is impossible to introduce the idea of immersion, in any congruous or intelligible relation. The apostle illustrates his subject with another figure, which has been sometimes pressed into the service of immersion. “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” It has been assumed that the planting of a tree is here associated with immersion in water (“buried by baptism”), as representing the burial of the dead. Thus, “the likeness of his _death_,” which was by crucifixion, is confounded with the form of _burial_ of the dead. This is recognized by Dr. Carson, whose exposition of the figure is essentially correct. Of _sumphutoi_ (“planted together”) he says,—“It might, I think, be applied to express the growing together of the graft and the tree; but this would be the effect or consequence of grafting, and not the operation itself. It denotes, in short, the closest union, with respect to things indiscriminately. There is no need, then, to bring either planting or grafting into the passage; and as neither of them resembles a resurrection, they should be rejected. When we translate the passage,—‘For, if we have become one with him,’ or, ‘have been joined with him, in the likeness of his death,’—we not only suit the connexion, to both death and resurrection, but we take the word _sumphutoi_, in its most common acceptation.”[107] This witness is true. The phrase has no reference to the form of ritual baptism, but to the intimacy of the union which that of the Spirit establishes. The two expressions,—“Baptized into his death,” and “Coplanted with him in the likeness of his death,” are coincident, meaning essentially the same thing. It is, however, a fundamental defect in Carson’s conception, that while he earnestly insists on the closeness of the union, by which Christ and his people are one, he fails to recognize the essential fact that it is effected by the baptism of the Spirit. In his conception and vocabulary, it is a “_constituted_ union.” A ray of light entering his mind on this point would have transfigured his whole system. Footnote 107: Carson on Baptism, p. 251.