A Frank Acknowledgment on the Mode of Baptism.
By D. T. BOURDEAU
BEFORE me is a French Catholic translation of the New Testament with notes and the literal commentary “du Père des Carrières” in the text, approved by the archbishop of Quebec, in which I find a very candid acknowledgment on the ancient mode of baptism. In this version Rom. 6: 4, with commentary, reads thus:— “For we have been buried with him in baptism to die to sin, that as Jesus Christ was raised from among the dead by the glory of his Father, to enter into a glorious and immortal life, so we, having emerged out of the waters of baptism, should lead a new and incorruptible life.” The notes on this verse are as follows:— “The death, burial, and resurrection, of Jesus Christ are the principal and model of our death to sin and our resurrection to grace and righteousness. Baptism is to our souls what the cross and sepulchre were to Jesus Christ. . . . The baptismal water in which, according to the ancient usage, the candidate was entirely plunged, is as the tomb in which we are buried, and from which we come forth with a new life, that is to say, the life of grace and righteousness which is given by Jesus Christ.” It is indeed better to acknowledge the truth than to cover it to uphold error.