Note 317:1 — Chapter XXXI
Reading edition
"Among all nations, and from the very earliest period, WATER has been used as a species of religious sacrament. . . . Water was the agent by means of which everything was regenerated or born again. Hence, in all nations, we find the Dove, or Divine Love, operating by means of its agent, water, and all nations using the ceremony of plunging, or, as we call it, baptizing, for the remission of sins, to introduce the candidate to a regeneration, to a new birth unto righteousness." (Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 529.)
"Baptism is a very ancient rite pertaining to heathen religions, whether of Asia, Africa, Europe or America." (Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 416.)
"Baptism, or purification by water, was a ceremony common to all religions of antiquity. It consists in being made clean from some supposed pollution or defilement." (Bell's Pantheon, vol. ii. p. 201.)
"L'usage de ce Baptéme par immersion, qui subsista dans l'Occident jusqu' au 8e ciècle, se maintient encore dans l'Eglise Greque: c'est celui que Jean le Précurseur administra, dans le Jourdain, à Jesus Christ même. Il fut pratiqué chez les Juifs, chez les Grecs, et chez presque tous les peuples, bien des siècles avant l'existence de la religion Chrétienne." (D'Ancarville: Res., vol. i. p. 292.)