and the bond of iniquity, and exhorted to seek forgiveness, by repentance, and prayer to God.

The same principle applies to the form in which Mark gives the apostolic commission. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." And then, to mark faith as the essential, and baptism only as the circumstantial, it is added, "but he that believeth not shall be damned."* The omission of baptism in the repeating, which is usually the emphatic, and confirmatory clause of the proposition, deserves particular notice; and may be considered as an inspired intimation, not only that ritual observances are never to be ranked in importance with vital and essential principles; but also, that there may be cases in which the entire omission of the former, may not endanger an individual's safety. There cannot be deliverance from condemnation without faith, there may be without baptism.

We cannot clear all the points which are presented in this question, without noticing more distinctly, the pretensions which are made to regenerate infants by baptism. That

* Mark xvi. 15, 16.

the "washing of regeneration," referred to in the epistle to Titus, is not the baptism with water at any age of the recipient, and that it does not involve the remotest allusion to the baptism of infants, a quotation of the whole passage in which it stands, will be itself sufficient to demonstrate. "For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."* If we obey the apostolic precept, "In malice be ye children, but in understanding be men," we shall never confound, that which the living God sheds on us through Jesus Christ his Son, with that which the hand of feeble, mortal, sinful man administers to us from the cold and lifeless font; much less, shall we associate with the baptism of unconscious, guileless infants, terms which are employed to describe the grace which was conferred on those, who

*Titus iii. 3-6.

had been living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. If the passage which was delivered in the conversation with Nicodemus, contemplates the case of adults only;and that it cannot refer to infants is obvious from the fact, that none but those who are arrived at years of understanding can become the subjects of that kingdom, which consists in the active intelligent principles of righteousness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost;-then, the pretensions to regenerate infants by baptism have nothing left to support them; and pass away with the mass of darkening shadows, which, through ages of superstition and folly, have been accumulated round the simple lucid institutions of the New Testament. Should it be asked, Do you then leave the souls of those who were born in sin and shapen in iniquity, but who die in infancy, unredeemed, to suffer the consequences of original guilt? We answer: The main position which we are endeavouring to establish in our work, is this, That the blessings of redemption are not made to depend for their application on the interposition and work of an earthly priesthood; but are communicated directly to the soul by Him, who once died for us upon the cross, but now lives for us in heaven; our only, but all-sufficient Priest.

More safely may the souls of those who die in infancy be entrusted to him, and to his work, than they can be to the work of those, who may not be at hand in the time of feeble nature's extremity; and who if they are sent for, may not arrive until the new-fledged spirit has disencumbered itself from its mortal fetters, and has soared to develope its powers, and perform its blissful service in the kingdom of the Redeemer's glory. In the period of his humiliation, he took little children which had not been baptized into his arms, laid his hands upon them, and blessed them; and on that and other occasions declared, that only those who were brought to a corresponding state of docility of mind, susceptibility of impression, and absence of malice and wrath, could enter into the kingdom of God. Whom he received on earth, he will not reject in heaven. Whatever their connexion with the first Adam, who fell and entailed defilement, guilt, and death, on his posterity, may expose them to in a future state of existence; He, the second Adam, the gracious head and brother of our race, will remove by the abundant efficacy of his mediatorial work; he will receive them as the joyful heirs of a celestial inheritance; will joy in them as the reward of his sufferings; as a precious part

of the innumerable progeny, brought into immortal life and blessedness, by the travail of his soul.

We have found, in a quotation from the Apostle Paul, a distinction made between the circumcision which was outward in the flesh, and that which was inward in the heart: we have also noticed evident indications of a corresponding distinction in the case of baptism, the visible application of water by the hand of man, and the invisible communication of the Holy Spirit's grace, from the hand of the exalted Redeemer. The passage in which this distinction is most specifically made, and by which this part of our subject is brought into close connexion with the work of our atoning and interceding Priest, has yet to be adduced. The waters of the deluge once saved the feeble remnant of the righteous, sweeping away in their flood the hosts of the ungodly, by which they were encompassed, and raising them to a new life of security, and separation from the wicked, in the ark into which they had retired. "The like figure," (says Peter)" whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh," (that is, the outward affusion of water upon the flesh)" but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus