From the gospel history[51] we learn that at that time ceremonial washings had been greatly multiplied by traditions of the doctors and elders.  The most important and probably one of the oldest of these traditional customs was the baptism of proselytes.

These usages of the Jews will account for the readiness with which all men flocked to the baptism of John the Baptist.[52]

Schuerer in his history of the Jewish people[53] devotes several pages to giving reasons for believing that the Jews baptized proselytes long before the coming of Christ.

Dean Stanley says baptism is inherited from Judaism.[54]

Many other good authorities might be quoted to support the belief that water baptism and other ordinances were greatly multiplied among many Jews during the last few hundred years before Christ.  There are no Scripture writings which cover this period.

Tylor says:  The rites of lustration which hold their places within the pale of Christianity are in well marked connection with Jewish and Gentile ritual.[55]

Baptism by water, the symbol of the initiation of the convert, history traces from the Jewish rite to that of John the Baptist and thence to the Christian ordinance.

As we understand, the Christian ordinance here referred to by Tylor, is traceable through many modifications back to those carnal ordinances, those weak and beggarly elements, which Paul says were imposed until the time of reformation.[56] It has no authority from Christ and is therefore not Christian baptism.

As we read:  Pagans of old baptized the face.  Under the law of Moses the hands were baptized.  John the Baptist baptized the whole body.  Our Saviour baptized the feet.[57] Now Christians complete the cycle and again as of old baptize the face.

Some early Christians deferred water baptism to middle life or old age and many were never so baptized.  Now Christians insist upon infant baptism.

Some early Christian said:  If only one finger remains above water the baptism is not valid.  Now Christians say:  “A few drops of water are as good as a river.”

What shall we say?  Wisdom answers.  Let us hold to what Christ says:  “John indeed baptized with water but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."[58]

We learn from the Brahmins on the Ganges, and the dwellers by the Nile and from explorers all around the world that water baptism was administered as an ancient religious rite among many so called heathen nations when first discovered.

Some we read baptized to appease the wrath of the Gods and to expiate sin.

Some Christians now claim that by water baptism a child of wrath becomes a child of Grace and sins are washed away.

The similarity of these two ideas, one Pagan and the other Christian, suggests a common origin far back in the ages before man learned that God is love and that Jesus likened the Kingdom of Heaven to little children without baptism.[59]