We have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; and have thus practically avowed our belief in them. It was at Jordan that the Father bore witness to his well-beloved Son, and that the Holy Spirit descended upon him hither, therefore, in the early ages men were directed to repair, that they might learn the doctrine of the Trinity. If we relinquish this doctrine, we virtually relinquish our baptism. Of this there need not be a more convincing proof than the inclination which has been discovered by those who have renounced the doctrine, to disuse the form of baptizing in the name of the Sacred Three.

We have also professed by our baptism to embrace that great salvation which is accomplished by the united influence of the Sacred Three. We have in effect declared our acquiescence in the freeness of the Father's grace, in the all-sufficient atonement of the Son, and in the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit: for these are the principal things by which, in the New Testament account of the economy of grace, each is distinguished. Nor can we renounce them, without virtually renouncing our baptism.

The immersion of the body in water, which is a purifying element, contains a profession of our faith in Christ, through the shedding of whose blood we are cleansed from all sin. Hence, baptism in the name of Christ is said to be for the remission of sins. Not that there is any such virtue in the element, whatever be the quantity; nor in the ceremony, though of divine appointment: but it contains a sign of the way in which we must be saved. Sin is washed away in baptism in the same sense as Christ's flesh is eaten, and his blood drank, in the Lord's supper: the sign, when rightly used, leads to the thing signified. Remission of sins is ascribed, by Peter, not properly to baptism; but to the name in which the parties were to be baptized. Thus also Saul was directed to WASH AWAY HIS SINS, calling on THE NAME OF THE LORD. Nearly akin to this is the idea conveyed to us in the first epistle of Peter: The long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were SAVED BY WÁTER. The like figure whereunto baptism doth NOW SAVE US (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,

but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The salvation of Noah and his family by the ark was a figure of our salvation by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The ark for a time was surrounded, as it were, with waters from above, and from beneath: but it survived its trial, and those who were in it were at length brought safe to land. Christ, also, for a time sustained the deluge of wrath due to our sins; but survived the trial, rising triumphantly from the dead, and thereby saved us from everlasting death. Of this great transaction baptism is a like figure. It is another sign of the same thing. The resemblance of baptism by immersion, to the death and resurrection of Christ and the suitableness of the one to signify our faith in the other, are manifest. It is thus that baptism does now save us not as putting away the filth of the flesh; (for all the virtue contained in the ordinance itself is the answer of a good conscience toward God,) but as affording a sign of our salvation by the victorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And, as we are taught by our baptism to adhere to the doctrine of God our Saviour, so we are furnished with motives to adorn it by a holy conversation. Thus it is introduced in the epistles to the Romans and Colossians, as a sign of our being dead and buried to the principles and pursuits of the present world; and, by faith in Christ, raised as into a new world. The death of Christ is emphatically mentioned as that into which we are baptized-Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his DEATH? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism INTO DEATH; that like as Christ died, and was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Christ's dying for sin afforded a most powerful motive for our dying to it; and the immersion of the body in baptism, being in the likeness of the former, furnishes an additional motive to the latter.

The leading idea suggested by a death and burial seems to be that of separation from the world. There is no greater line of separation than that which is drawn between the dead and the living. The dead know not any thing; and have no portion in all that is done under the sun. Such is the line which is drawn by the

faith of the operation of God, between the world renewed and the world depraved, of which baptism is the appointed sign. If, after this, we are found among evil-doers, we may well be considered and shunned as a kind of apparitions, which have no proper concerns in the affairs of mortals.

The apostle applied this reasoning against a conformity to abro gated ceremonies. If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? The same reasoning is applicable to other things. If we be dead with Christ, why, as though living, are we subject to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, which are of the world? Why are any of us conformed to this world; and not rather transformed by the renewing of our minds? If we be dead, and our life be hid with Christ in God; why are not our affections set on things above, and not on things on the earth? We cannot but express our concern, that persons professing godliness should be carried away by the course of this world, as many are; meanly imitating the ungodly, whose conduct they' ought rather to reprove. Such imitation, so far as it operates, contains a virtual renunciation of our baptism. The ideas of bar tism and a separation from the world, whether connected by us or not, are strongly associated in the minds of men in general. After this, we cannot unite with them in evil, without drawing upon ourselves their most pointed censures. They may labour to seduce us for the sake of comforting themselves; and while accomplishing their purpose may suppress their private thoughts of us, and even compliment us for our liberality, but if we comply, their pretended esteem will be turned into reproach. Nor ought we to consider this as an evil, but rather as a mercy. God has hereby set a hedge about us, which tends more than a little to preserve us from temptation. If any think otherwise, and feel uneasy that they cannot act like other men, without drawing upon themselves the censures of mankind, it is a dark sign that their hearts are not right in the sight of God.

Nor is this ordinance adapted merely to separate between believers and unbelievers, individually considered : its de sign is also to draw a line of distinction between the kingdom of VOL. VIII.

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Christ, and the kingdom of Satan. Whatever may be said of baptism, as it is now generally understood and practised, and of the personal religion of those who practise it, it was originally appointed to be the boundary of visible Christianity. This is a principle, which, if properly acted upon, would go far to prevent the confounding of the church and the world; and which, consequently, tends more than any thing of the kind to counteract ecclesiastical degeneracy and corruption. Had the Christian church in all ages admitted none to baptism, from whomsoever descended, but those who professed to repent and believe the gospel, it is scarcely conceivable that any others would have been admitted to the Lord's supper: and if so, a stream of corruption which has actually deluged it with antichristianism, would have been diverted at the spring-head. The church might, indeed, haev been corrupted from other causes, but these would have been merely accidental. Hypocrites and formalists might have imposed themselves upon it, as they did in some degree in the apostolic age; but they would have been intruders. Whatever of this kind might have existed, believers could not have been constitutionally yoked together with unbelievers. The carnal descendants of godly people could not have claimed a place in Christ's visible kingdom. The church could not have become national, embracing as its children all who are born in a Christianized country, without any profession of personal religion. Princes and nobles, if worthy, would have been received into its communion as brethren; but not as rulers or patrons: and if unworthy, refused; even though an exposure to persecution had been the consequence. But if persons be admitted to baptism without any profession of personal religion, or upon the profession of others on their behalf, their admission to the Lord's supper will in most cases follow as a matter of course. Indeed it ought to follow for though among evangelical dissenters, these things are separated, yet from the beginning it was not so. Neither scripture nor the practice of the ancient churches affords a single example of a baptized person, unless his conduct was grossly immoral, being ineligible to communion. And if all who are now baptized, be admitted to the supper, the line of separation will be broken; the church will no longer

be a garden enclosed; but an open wilderness, where every beast of prey canrange at pleasure. Thus, indeed, it was foretold it should be. The writer of the Apocalypse, describing the corruptions which should prevail in the visible church during the twelve hundred and sixty years' reign of antichrist, represents it under the form of the outer court of the temple being left out of the measurement as profane, and given to the Gentiles to be trodden under foot, in like manner as the holy place and holy city had been trodden down by the heathen, in the time of Antiochus.

As the principle of believers' baptism, properly acted upon, would prevent the admission of all unconverted characters, except hypocrites and self-deceivers, so it would have its influence in repelling them. The habits of some hypocritical characters, it is true, would render it an easy thing to overleap this boundary; but it is equally true, that to others it would be an effectual bar. There are not a few in the religious world who would like well to be members of a Christian church, especially where the pastor is a man of respectability, provided they could be admitted without drawing upon themselves the laugh of the irreligious. There is reason to believe that many persons of genteel connexions, who wish to be thought religious, and whose consciences approve of believers' baptism, are withheld by this kind of shame from offering themselves to our churches. An ordinance which thus operates, possesses a mark of its pertaining to that kingdom which is not of this world, and into which it is hard for a rich man to enter.

As the leading idea suggested by a death and burial is that of separation from the world, so the principal thing denoted by a resurrection is an entrance into a new state of being. Such is that newness of life, of which the emersion of the body from the waters of baptism is a sign, and to which it furnishes an important motive. The religion of Jesus does not consist in mere negatives, it is not enough that we be dead to the world: we must be alive to God. With real Christians, old things are passed away, and all things are become new. Unless our baptism, therefore, be merely a sign, or an unmeaning ceremony, our hopes, fears, sorrows, joys, companions, principles, and pursuits, are opposite to those of this world. Even a partial return to it is inconsistent with our baptis