319 ON DIFFICULTIES IN, SCRIr2'VRF. death ;" Gal. iii. 27. " As many of you as have been baptised into Christ ;" 1 Cor. xii. 13. "By one Spirit we are baptis- ed into onebody," that is, Christ, as in the foregoing verse, but Ican find no ineution of the disciples being baptised into the Holy Ghost. III. Though I am ready to believe from many expressions in the primitive history ofthe church., that the baptizers did usu., ally keep to this form of words, " I baptize thee in; the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ;" yet it is evi+ dent from a long account which Grotius gives us upon this text ; Mat. xxviii. 19. that they used divers forms, that is, they some- times expressed the Father bya periphrasis, " The God of all, or the God of the whole, the God andFather ofthewhole : Some- times the Son was expressed by the Word, or the only begotten Son of God Sometimes the Holy Ghost was expressed by the Spirit who inspired the prophets. I might add, that upon their profession of the christian re- ligion, sometimes it is called the profession of the remission of sins, or the catholic church, or everlasting life, but they :never made a scruple oftheir being rightly baptised into salvation upon any ofthese accounts ; and I am persuaded that had the apostles themselves, or the primitiveçhristians, thought it necessary to salvation, the form of baptismwouldhave been more express in the history of it, and 'been more particularly repeated. .I. think therefore the rule may stand good still, that where a doctrine or a duty is mentioned but in one single place of the scripture, it can- not be of absolute necessity to salvation. I hope the reader will forgive this long digression, and then proceed. On the other hand, where- particular truths or duties are often. repeated in scripture, and very plainly'expressed in several. places, it is hardly possible that they should be subject to these inconveniences. It is not to be supposed that the transcribers of the New Testament should . make the same mistake in every place, where these propositionsare mentioned : that they should drop them out of every chapter ; that the translator should mis construe them in every text ; or that their misconstruction should always seem to make good sense in every context where they stand ; or finally that the hearer or reader should always over- look them when they arefound in so many passages, and so often. occur to his ear or eye: But it is very apparent, and all mena must acknowledge that matters of less moment, and things not necessary, are not mentioned so often : And when they are men- tioned, the scripture sometimes gives no determination or posi-. tive injunctions about them ; nor do the apostles determine the smaller controversies with that plain, exact and positive method of speech; which yoú find their use in the most substantial truths and duties. Ifwe read die xiv. chapter to the Romans, it, must,
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