the two thus sharply discriminated by Paul, but he attributes to each its own relations and predicates, and assigns to each its own place in the scheme of grace and in the argument which he states. To neglect, therefore, the distinction, and confound them together, as is done by the Baptist interpretation, destroys the whole logical force and sequence of the argument, and dissolves the connection between the premises and the conclusions. Moreover, were it even allowable, as it is not, thus to confound things that differ, there still remains a point of difficulty in the way of the immersion exegesis which, for its removal, demands something more than the mere assumption which has heretofore been put in the place of proof. The apostle speaks, not of immersion, but of burial. “Buried with him.” That the two ideas are not identical does not need to be proved. Nor is the difference so slight that the one would readily suggest itself as a figure of the other. But in order to sustain the Baptist conclusions which depend on this language, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the rites of sepulture with which the writers of the Scriptures were familiar, and in conformity to which the body of Jesus was entombed, bore a resemblance to immersion in water, so close and manifest, that the one was a recognized symbol of the other. But there is certainly no such resemblance as to justify the gratuitous assumption that such a figure was employed; and of its actual use, the Scriptures contain not a trace. Is it still insisted that, nevertheless, there is an allusion to the rite of immersion? Such an allusion must be supposed to shed light or beauty upon the presentation of the spiritual theme of the passage; or, it is an arbitrary impertinence. Let us then view the suggestion squarely, in the light of the realized observance, thus forced into critical notice. The theme of the apostle is the calm majesty and power of the Savior’s three days’ rest in the sepulcher, and of the silent and unseen mystery of his rising on the third day; and the tranquil energy of the same mighty power in the believer (Eph. i, 19, 20; ii, 1), by which he is quickened and raised up to the life of holiness. The figure which is intruded, to illuminate and adorn this conception, calls up before us the apprehension and haste of the ritual observance, and the agitation, the gasping and sputter of the dripping subjects of the rite, as they struggle up out of the “watery grave.” Is it possible to conceive that master of rhetoric, the apostle Paul, to have called up these, the essential and inseparable features of the rite of immersion, as a means of shedding light or beauty on his exalted theme? SECTION LXXIX.—“_Buried with Him in Baptism._”