bounden duty of the Church to give this outward efficacy, according to her utmost ability, to all these gifts and ordinances of God; and so the crowning Ordinanee given to the Church, has the most special reference to the world-namely its Evangelization. And the more perfect is the inward efficacy of all Gifts and Ordinances of God-the more completely is the Church fitted and the more earnestly is she inclined, to give outward efficacy to every one of them; and thus complete in her own divine equipment, to address herself, in the power of God and by the authority of God, to the great work of saving the world. It is God who has given her this blessed work to do she may not, without impiety to him, and dishonour to herself and ruin to the world, omit to do it. It is God who has bestowed on her every gift which could fit her for its performance-every ordinance which could aid her in its accomplishment--every promise which could render its achievement certain. And then he has staked her crown, and his own glory, upon her success in the great work; and he calls to her from heaven,-Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world !1

2. The perpetuity of the Church, from generation to generation, depends on the thoroughness with which this work of Evangelization is done by her. If it were to cease altogether, the shortness of human life would cause the almost immediate extinguishment of the Church, If it is done unfaithfully, the proportion of unconverted professors of religion constantly increases -hurrying the Church into formality, deadness, heresy, corruption, apostacy: a fearful course, every step of which is palpable throughout the history of the human race. And yet to do it faithfully, is far beyond any power on earth except that of the Church; and far beyond hers except as the life of God animates all her endeavours. A whole world in utter rebellion against God, is to be subdued a thousand millions of impenitent sinners are to be converted: every form of false religion is to be extirpated the mental darkness of the human race is to be enlightened-its temporal degradation is to be removed. In attempting this toils, and sufferings, and self-denials, and dangers are to be encountered, which no other end would justify. To gain any triumph, and to secure every one as it is gained, to prepare us for the very doing of the work and to maintain the Church 1 John, xvi. 33.

in a posture to do any part of it-the temporal means which are demanded for a thousand necessities, at home and abroad, must never cease to flow into the treasury of the Lord, and in the course of ages must exceed all computation. Wisdom too, apparently more than human, there must be, to direct all the immense forces of every sort, which are organized by God unto this vast end an unwavering pursuit by millions of men, from age to age, of the one immense object, through the same divinely appointed means a consecration which has no limit, and which recurs forever, of the purest, the best, the greatest that adorn the Church, to one part or another of this greatest of all attempts. If there be in this world a class of persons who have an object and a career for which nothing but the grace of God can qualify them—and in the pursuit of which nothing but unqualified devotion to God can sustain them: surely that is the class of persons whose hearts are consumed with the desire and the endeavour to execute this crowning Ordinance of God. No zeal can surpass the zeal they need; no knowledge can exceed the knowledge they require; no patience, no courage, no perseverance, no activity is too great to be exacted of them; no faith is beyond that which their trials demand; and blessed be God, no recompense can equal that which God has in store for them. In the meantime, their hearts are sustained by every consideration drawn from the great duty which God requires of them, and the great honour he has put upon them, and the great reward he has laid up for them-as the hope of their high calling is more and more sealed unto them, and the hour of their entrance upon their eternal rest draws nigher and nigher. Oh! that every follower of Christ was of the same mind with those, who lead the forefront of that glorious array, whose banner has always floated over the hottest of the conflict with every enemy of God! Oh ! that the heart of every soldier of the cross responded, as the watchword of the unconquerable host swells along its ranks--Brethren Advance the banner of the Lord!

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM: ITS NATURE AND DESIGN: SUBJECTS OF IT: MODE OF ADMINISTRATION: APOSTOLIC PRACTICE.

I. 1. Circumcision: its origin and Nature.-2. Its Relation to Christian Baptism.— 3. Mission and Baptism of John.-4. The Baptism of the Apostles, during Christ's personal Ministry.-5. Institution of Christian Baptism, by the Risen Saviour.6. Outpouring of the Spirit with Power; Relation thereof to Christian Baptism. -7. Certainty of these Divine Mysteries: and their Sum.-8. Their relation to the doctrine of God, and of Salvation-II. 1. The relation between Baptism and the blessings of which it is the Seal.-2. All who have title to the Blessings, have title to the Seal.-3. Vindication in eleven propositions, of the Right of the Infant Seed of believers, to Christian Baptism.-4. Effects of the neglect, and of the exercise of this right.--III. 1. Effect of the mode of Baptism on the validity of the Ordinance.-2. Immersion in commemoration of the Burial of Christ, a total perversion of the Sacrament of Baptism.-3. Exposition of the Scriptural Doctrine of Baptism-as related to the death and burial of Christ.-4. Various Scriptural Senses of the term Baptism: Authority of Christ to fix the sense of this term, and the mode of this Sacrament.-5. Proof in five propositions of the mode of administration intended by Christ.-IV. 1. Apostolic Practice: Day of Pentecost, and the Baptism then administered.-2. Evidence afforded by this great example: stated in three propositions.-3. First Gentile Baptism.-4. Evidence afforded by it, stated in three propositions.-5. Doctrine of Baptism deduced from the Apostolic Practice.

1.-1. WHEN Abram was ninety and nine years old the Lord appeared unto him, and under his name, the Almighty God, renewed unto him all his promises and enlarged them, changed his name to Abraham-father of many nations-reduced the whole into the form of an everlasting covenant to be a God unto him and to his seed after him, and instituted the sacrament of circumcision as the perpetual token of the covenant, and the common seal of all its stipulations.' He who entered into this covenant with Abraham declared himself to be Jehovah-and the divine names under which he binds himself, express, in a peculiar manner, his almightiness and his all-sufficiency.* In the sacrament which is the outward token of this covenant, lies the first step in

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the separate organization of the Church of God considered as visible a sacrament which, under three dispensations of the Covenant of Grace, and under two very distinct forms has continued for about four thousand years, to be a sign and a seal of God's grace to his people. Moses simply continued, by a positive enactment, the sacrament of circumcision as he found it established amongst his people;' and engrafted it into the dispensation he was sent to organize out of the descendants of Abraham through Isaac, upon one branch of the great promises sealed by this sacrament. Christ himself plainly tells us that this was the relation of this sacrament to the Levitical dispensation; and therein points out the nature of its relation to the whole Jewish system. It was the token of all the promises of a strictly personal kind, made to Abraham: the token, also, of all the promises made in favour of Ishmael and his posterity, and Esau and his posterity: the token, also, of the far higher promises, both temporal and spiritual, made to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob-who were very specially heirs according to the promise of God. In this respect circumcision was the basis of the Hebrew commonwealth, and of the peculiar system of the Jews in all its aspects. But its fundamental sense and use were to signify and seal divine grace, and to bind and oblige men to the performance of all duties corresponding thereto.3 And therefore, God called it from the beginning a token of the covenant between him and Abraham, and declared two thousand years afterwards, by the mouth of Paul, that Abraham received it as a seal of the righteousness of faith-the great stipulation of the covenant, that Abraham should be heir of the world, not being through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." Wherefore, and in like manner, justification was sealed by it to all believers, of whom Abraham, through this covenant, is the common Father: by which, also, sanctification was signified and sealed

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* The chronology adopted in this, and the former Treatise, is that which is commonly accepted as settled upon the foundation of the labours of Petavius and his successors. This is done, not as assenting to the accuracy of any part of it, preceding the Christian era, but because any discussions on such a topic, in the present state of opinion, and in connection with such labours as I have been attempting, would only perplex my general subject, even if they cleared up the chronology of it before the establishment of the Gospel Church-which was far more than I could expect.

1 Lev., xii. 3.

* Gen., xvii. 11.

2 John, vii. 22.

5 Rom., iv. 11, 12.

3 Deut., x. 16.
• Gal., iii. 7.

unto them, through this sacrament. For God promised to circumcise the hearts of his ancient people, as well as to bring them into the promised land.' And in truth, in the very nature of things, he was not a Jew who was one outwardly, neither was that circumcision which was outward in the flesh; but he was a Jew who was one inwardly, and circumcision was of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter.2

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2. We are not left any room to believe that the particular form of circumcision under which this great and permanent sacrament was first instituted,-under which it endured as the seal of all the promises for two thousand years, and endures still as the token of a portion of them; was intended by God to continue, as the token between God and his Church visible, and a sign and seal of covenanted grace, any longer than the glorious dispensation of the Gospel should be fully manifested on earth. Why, demanded Peter of the Assembly of Apostles and Elders, met to consider this very question-why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples ? My sentence is-said James,-after proving that it had always been the purpose of God to visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name ;-My sentence is that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God. And the whole Assembly, divinely authorized and divinely taught, broke in two the heavy yoke of the ceremonial law, and of circumcision as a token of it. The Apostle Paul, largely proving these things to the Churches of Galatia, told them, that if they persisted in being circumcised, Christ profited them nothing-for they not only rejected his grace thereby, but made themselves debtors to do the whole law. For Christ had expressly commanded, that Baptism with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, should be the form of this sacrament, from the moment of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, on the day of Pentecost. For then the long predicted time would be fully come, for the Church of God to be opened to the long excluded Gentile world,' and for the proclamation of that New Covenant, so long predicted-not according to the covenant under which Israel was brought up out of Egypt, but according to an everlasting covenant, under which all shall know the Lord. We

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1 Deut., xxx. 6.

5 Gal., v. 1–6.

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Rom., ii. 28, 29.

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Acts, xv. 10. 4 Acts, xv. passim. Luke, xxiv. 49; Acts, i. 8.

Jer., xxxi. 31-37.

6 Matt., xxviii. 19;

7 Amos, ix. 11, 12; Acts, xv. 15–17.