Jesus of Nazareth neither Baptised nor Slain. By the Rev.
George Bartle. (Published by the Author.)—Dr. Bartle thinks it likely that the title of his volume will cause "dissatisfaction and uneasiness" in the minds of his friends. After all, however, his thesis, more closely ex. unlined, is not very alarming. As to the second part of it, it expounds a view of our Lord's words," I lay down my life ; no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." The violence which culminated in tho crucifixion did not, thinks the author, (muse death ; that was voluntary. And when St. Peter says of Christ to the Jews, "Whom ye with wicked hands have crucified and Blain," he means that his countrymen wore murderers in intention, though from the nature of things they could not be murderers in fact. The contrary" was be- lieved at the timo, and seems to have boon believed over since. Never since the creation of the world has there been a more pernicious and fatal error." Now that Dr. Bartle has appeared, to dissipate the delusion of eighteen centuries, Christendom will be delivered from its weaknesses and corruptions, and the Millennium will arrive. As to the matter of baptism, Mr. Bartle thinks that our Lord was not baptised—i.e., immersed in the river—but had only his foot and hands washed by the Baptist. The first would have been ap- propriate only to a sinner; the second was a form of consecration. It requires no little ingenuity to get this sense out of the words 'of the Evangelists, especially out of St. Luke's account, which, as Dr. Bartle very properly refers us on all occasions to the original, we may quote : 'Eyinrs 1ilAaa,rarrIva: ggrawrz Trip Xpay as/ •Iertiii 13aa,r1VOIPTOc. The Christian Church has at least made a pardonable mistake in supposing that what was done to the people was done to Christ. Dr. Bartle draws theological inferences from his thesis, defends infant baptism, and states an anti- Roman doctrine of the Eucharist.
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