observe, that is the very reason why there is hope for us if we believe now. Your being within a step of death does not depend upon your being aware of it, and feeling it. But if any one would so wrest this Scripture to his own destruction, as to think that he may safely defer turning to God until he actually feels death drawing near and stealing over him-if any be so fool-hardy as to presume upon having reason, and time, and self-possession given to him on a bed of sickness, tha the may then repent, and until then will go in sin-may I not address him, as this penitent addressed his fellowsinner, and say, "Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art already under condemnation ?"—Yes, every one who receives not the truth in the love of it is "condemned already" and the only delay of the awful execution of the sentence is the forbearance of God-and are any of you determined to put an end to that and to provoke him to anger? "to-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts," lest he sware in his wrath that you should not enter into his rest. Let us now supplicate God to send forth the Holy Spirit to make the contemplation of this subject profitable to our souls that we may admire the grace and goodness, and power of the Lord Jesus manifested in the hour of his death, and admiring be drawn closer unto him with the cords of love. And, O blessed Jesus, now that thou art exalted far above all the sufferings of earth-now that thou art seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, while we are following thee here through much tribulation,-" Lord, remember us with the favour thou bearest thine own people!" AMEN. Sermons in connexion with the Anniversary Meetings in the Rotunda, by the Rev. A. Boyd, A. Dallas, James Knight, J. Lowe, Fielding Ŏuld, and two Sermons by the Rev. William Cleaver, will appear in consecutive numbers. DUBLIN: Published by the Proprietors, T. R. and R. DUNCKLEY, at the NEW IRISH PULPIT OFFICE, 1, ST. ANDREW-ST.; JOHN ROBERTSON, W. CURRY, JUN. and Co.; R. M. TIMS, W. CARSON, D. R. BLEAKLEY. London, SIMPKIN and MARSHALL; Edinburgh, WHITE and Co.; Cork Tract Repository; Derry, CAMPBELL; and all Booksellers. GEORGE FOLDS, Printer, 1, St. Andrew-st., (Opposite Trinity-St.,) Dublin. THE NEW IRISH PULPIT, No. CIX. OR GOSPEL PREACHER. "We preach Christ crucified— "Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God."-1 Cor. i. 23, 24. SATURDAY, 16TH MAY, 1840. PRICE 4D. BAPTISM AND EDUCATION AFTER BAPTISM. TWO SERMONS PREACHED IN DELGANY CHURCH, DIOCESE OF DUBLIN, BY THE REV. WILLIAM CLEAVER, A.M. Rector. FIRST SERMON. BAPTISM. MARK, X, 13, 14, 15, 16. "And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily, I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." THIS passage you have just heard referred to, my brethren, in the baptismal service, as our encouragement and authority for bringing our children to be baptized. And of all the passages which might have been brought forward for the purpose, there is not one, perhaps, more truly encouraging than this. While we hear the gracious Saviour thus commanding that the children should be brought to him, and see him taking them up in his arms s—just as Peter said, in the VOL. V. case of Cornelius and his company, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we ?" it is for us to ask, in like manner, can any forbid, that these whom the Saviour thus receives, that they should not be baptized as well as any others? But this is not all. By the application of such a passage to baptism, we are at the same time reminded, what we gather from so many other passages, that in I bringing our children to be baptised, it is | therein"-unless, at whatever age we come we come in this receiving spirit-as those who, so far from having anything to recommend them to his favour, are in themselves undone, for ever undone, but for mercy-as those who feel that all is of to the Saviour himself we are bringing them that we bring them, in the language of the baptismal service, to be embraced in the arms of his mercy, to receive from him the blessing of eternal life, and to be made partakers of his ever-grace-that the soul's salvation from the lasting kingdom. first to the last, is the free gift, the mere mercy, the unmerited grace of God. For his blessing, his embrace, the touch of his hand, is not to be thought of as a mere ceremony, or as a human ex-be pression of good-will-As they well knew it was not, who saw him lay his hand upon the blind man of Bethsaida—or who saw him touch the tongue of him who had an impediment in his speech-or who saw him lay his hand upon Peter's wife's mother. Those whom he blesses are blessed indeed. A view of baptism this, to make the heart of the Christian parent leap within him, is it not? And in times such as these especially, oh! can we think of our children with a moment's comfort, but in the hope of their being heirs of a kingdom which cannot be moved?" Let this, the real nature of Christianity, understood by us, our Saviour would say, and little children we shall perceive to be as capable of it as any others as they are of the glory that follows it—that none in truth are capable of it, but such as without any other pretentions than little children can have, come to receive every thing as the free gift, the mere mercy, the unmerited grace of God. And have you never read, must he not have been thinking-Ah! this comes of ignorance or forgetfulness of the Scriptures, "that he was to gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom ?" After this, you will not surely keep the little children from me, as though my grace did not extend to such as them. What! and has sin so far prevailed and abounded, I seem to hear him add, as to derive itself in an inheritance of guilt, and corruption, and death, even to uncon Or is it too much for you to believe, that the Saviour thus receives the children that are brought to him? Hear then what he says, to remove all such doubts, in answer to those who would have kept them from him—“Of such is the king-scious infancy; and shall not my grace, dom of God," he says. It is altogether to misapprehend the nature of his kingdom, He would say, to suppose, that little children are not fit subjects for it as though, in order to become such, we had to bring something of our own with us, which little children were not capable of bringing; as though we not did become possessed of all that Christ came into the world to give us, without money and without price." At whatever age we come to him, we come to receive all from him, as much as the dark air does the light, or the unconscious body the soul. And he adds, therefore, "whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter which has so much more abounded, extend itself to infancy also? Oh! yes; sin, at the very gate of life, meets its conqueror. But even before the Lord Jesus had thus expressed himself with regard to little children, and in these gracious words, and by his outward gesture and deed, thus declared his good-will and favour towards them, mothers, we see, encouraged, as well as they might have been, by the reception which they had seen him give to all who applied to him, whether for themselves or for others, brought their little children also, in the expectation of a like reception for them. They had been present, perhaps, when the ruler of the synagogue fell down at Jesus' kness, and besought him for his little daughter, who lay a-dying, or when he said to the widow of Nain, “ weep not," and gave her such cause to stop her tears; or, when that afflicted father cried out, "Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for he is my only child; and lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out, and it teareth him, that he foameth again, and bruising him, hardly departeth from him. And the Lord rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him to his father." Well might they have been encouraged, I say, by what they saw of his graciousness and tenderness on these and like occasions, to bring their infants also to him, though without any express permission to do so. And can we doubt then, we, who have not only these same instances before us, and such a variety of others like them, recorded in the Gospel, from which to gather assuredly, that "whosoever cometh to him, he will in no wise cast out," but who see also the actual reception which he gives to little children, and hear him commanding that they should be brought to him, and reproving those that would have kept them from him, and declaring that of such is his kingdom, and when it runs through the whole covenant of grace, as so characteristic of itself, that its promises are for us and for our children, can we have a doubt, I say, of their being accepted, if we thus bring them to him? Oh! but is He not ready to put the names of our children in the lease, as well as our own-in the lease of the inheritance to which we are born? What has he taken us into the vessel with him, and would he have those who are so dear to us to be left behind, do you think? Whould this be like him? If the lost son in the parable, when he returned to his father's house, had brought a wife and children with him, can we sup pose that the loving father, while he had his arms about his neck, would havé turned his children out of doors? But we are not left to suppositions. What was said to Lot when he was escaping from Sodom, is said to every parent, who is himself escaping out of this world's pollutions, "Hast thou any here besides? Whomsoever thou hast, bring them out of this place." In a word, and to connect what has been said with baptism itself, when the jailor of Philippi, for instance, was baptized with his house, was it not after it had been said to him, "Thou shalt be saved and thy house?" And may we not then use those words, nothing doubting, which are put into our mouth in the baptismal service, that we are persuaded of the good will of our Heavenly Father towards these infants?": Oh! no-it is not He who forbids them to come to him; but if they be forbidden, it is by those who are most concerned to bring them to him, but who alas! so often fail to bring them. They may bring them to the water– and their children are baptised with water. They may give them into the hands of the minister-but the baptist himself could only say, "I indeed baptise you with water." But let them, in the arms of faith, bring their children to the Saviour, and he will as surely receive them in the arms of his mercy-let them with the eyes of faith see there,* not common water, but the water and blood which flowed out of the most precious side of their crucified Redeemer, and their children shall be sprinkled with that water and blood. But is it to be denied, my brethren, that baptism has been treated, as though it were little more than a mere ceremony and empty form-a custom to be observed as other customs are as the occasion of giving the child its name, perhaps, rather than for any higher purpose-unless it has been thought to act as a charm upon the child? * In the Font. Is it to be denied that parents have continually brought their children to baptism, without any, the least apprehension, of what we are so significantly taught by it, (as we wash our hands or our clothes when they are not clean,) that the child's soul is unclean, and that unless washed in what alone can remove the soul's uncleanness, it can never be admitted where nothing can enter that defileth? Here, then, we have the explanation why it is we see so few traces of baptismal grace-why it is those who are born in sin grow up in sin, grow old in sin.— It is not that there was no grace in baptism for them, no more than it is to be inferred, because we see so few answers to prayer, because so many pray in their manner, and do not receive, that there is therefore no efficacy in prayer, that there are no promises to prayer; or because so many who hear the preaching of the Gospel go away unimpressed by it, that there are no promises to the preaching of have the same explanation, that which is given us in the 3d chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, "For what if some did not believe, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?" Is it not to be denied, that parents have continually brought their children to baptism, as though they attached no meaning to such words as those of the Psalmist, “Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, | the Gospel. But in all these cases we and in sin did my mother conceive me;" or to such as those of the prophet, "The heart"—the heart which we bring into the world with us" is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ;" and as though we had nothing to remind us of the inbred corruption-in the love of mischief in the screaming self-will—in the bursts of passion—in the untruth—in these and other like breakings out of it, which we see even at the earliest age; and as if the Lord had never said, "Except we be born again"—except a second birth pass upon us altogether distinct from that of nature" We cannot see the kingdom of God?" Nay; but has not baptism been regarded in such a light, that in the minds of many, the thought of festivity, rather than of a holy sacrament, has come to be associated with the thought of a christening? Oh! it would seem often, so far from being the solemn act of renouncing the world and the flesh, to be one by which our children were initiated into the service and love of the world, and the indulgence of the flesh?" And could we expect that God should put his seal to the profanation, to the mockery of his sacrament that he should honour those in it who thus dishonour him in it? If we can come to one sacrament unworthily, is it to be supposed that we cannot come unworthily also to the other? Who is it, then, that forbids the little children to come to their Father and their Saviour? And not only in baptism itself, but in after-life also, who is it forbids them? Oh! how often has a Sunday-school teacher to lament that the instructions given in school, so far from being enforced and recommended, are counteracted and defeated, by the example set at home. Is a child sly, deceitful, not to be depended upon?— How often you will find in such a case, that those who have the care of the child, are persons, who would themselves make an appearance before men, rather than single-eyed towards God. I seem to see the Saviour looking on, his heart yearning over those whom he loves so tenderly; and will you not, then, suffer them to come to me? Why will you dress out that child as you are doing, instead of turning its thoughts to the soul's dress? Why lead your child to think, that a place in this world is so much more to be thought of, than a place in my kingdom? And as though he said, What can you expect, when your child sees such tempers indulged, hears the conversation at which it is present, sees you making such provision for the |