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virtue, she calls on them, at a suitable age, to confirm their engagements; admits them to a participation of the body and blood of Christ, as the means of obtaining fresh supplies of grace, and a farther pledge of the love of Christ towards them. Accompanying them through all the changes of this mortal life with her prayers, exhortations, and blessings, the church at length commits their body to the ground, in the hope that they sleep in Jesus, and in full assurance of a glorious resurrection.

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But an objector might reply-Yes, this would be right, were things as they ought to be, and were all the members of the church in reality, what they are by profession. To this he would answer that such never had been, nor ever will be the case, until the promised era shall arrive when great grace shall rest in an abundant measure upon the church; when the Spirit being poured out from on high, it shall become like a watered garden, filled with trees of righteousness, every one the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. The people of God have hitherto, in every age, been mingled with the unholy and profane. This is apparent from primitive history to the present time. Witness the early period when the earthly and sensual among the "sons of God," or his professed people, becoming connected with the descendants of Cain, they were gradually so absorbed in the unholy mass of mankind, that but one family of spiritual worshippers remained. And even in this family, "beloved for the father's sake," and spared when the deluge of almighty wrath swept

from the face of the earth its guilty inhabitants, enclosed with them, in the ark of God's covenant mercy, was an ungodly Ham. And among the professed people of God-the seed of Abraham, "Israelites, to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, the covenants and promises," and who were destined to be a type of the christian church-were vast numbers who challenged, by their unholy conduct, the justly deserved rebuke, "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.'

To the fearful abuse made by the Jews of their special privileges, as the professed worshippers of God, many of our Lord's parables were directed. The wheat and the chaff collected in the same garner; the good fish, and the bad and worthless, drawn. together in the same net; the wise virgins and the foolish walking in company; all represent the mixed and imperfect state of the visible church; and may be applied with equal propriety and force to the professors of religion now, as at the period of our Saviour's ministry. For the same principle is continued through the christian dispensation. There is no constituted earthly tribunal for the religion of the heart. We are to "judge nothing before the time;" and those who are by profession christians, must be considered as such, so long as their conduct is outwardly consistent and moral. But every individual is called upon to prove and examine himself, whether he be in the faith; to remember that "the Lord knoweth them that are his ;"

and that a day fast approaching, of resplendent and revealing light, shall declare them. Then when multitudes, who were numbered among the “children of the kingdom, shall be cast out into outer darkness," the true church, adorned in the perfection of beauty and holiness, shall ascribe one general song of praise to Jehovah, who, in infinite wisdom, ordained that economy of grace, by which they are raised to celestial and eternal glory.

In a letter to a daughter, dated December 7, 1829, my father thus notices the subject:

"MY DEAREST **

;

I hope

"You mention attending the ministry of Mr. * * you also embrace the privilege of communicating in the holy supper of the Lord. This is the ordinance in which he now holds fellowship and communion with his people-the means by which he communicates to them the benefits procured by his body broken and his blood shed for us. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? This cup (said the Saviour at the institution of the sacred ordinance) is the new testament, or covenant of my blood, which is shed for you.' The cup, therefore, received by faith, is a token of the new covenant made with us in Christ, and it confirms to every believer the promises of the covenant, which are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus.' Here, therefore, the true christian is 'joined to the Lord, and of one spirit with him.' He does not indeed rest in the outward and visible sign; but is a partaker of the inward and spiritual grace,—' the body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed (spiritually) taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper, and by which their souls are strengthened and refreshed, as their bodies are by bread and wine.' They discern the Lord's body and blood in the sacrament, and, by faith they know, that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed. We do not, with the papists, affirm that the elements

of bread and wine in the Lord's supper are changed into the actual body and blood of Christ; neither do we, on the other hand, divest the outward signs of that spirit and life in which our blessed Lord has himself enshrined them. I believe, with our church, therefore, that the sacraments are generally necessary to salvation. In fact I am more and more convinced that the Church of England, in its views of the sacraments, as well as in its principles in general, is scripturally correct and right. There are some classes who consider the sacraments only as duties or commands, which are to be performed and obeyed as such; but the scripture continually connects them with spiritual blessings. The Baptists lay a great stress on the mode of administering the ordinance of baptism, or the manner in which the water is to be applied; on which it appears to me no stress at all need be laid, as there is no proof in the scriptures, in any one instance, in what way it was administered, though the arguments are undoubtedly stronger for the application of the water to the person by pouring or by sprinkling, than for the application of the person to the water, by total immersion. But while they are so strenuous

for the mode as to make it absolutely essential to the ordinance, they consider the ordinance itself as nothing more than the fulfilment of a precept enjoined by our Lord. It is indeed a precept: but it is also much more. It is a high privilege-a sacrament-an ordinance connected with all the blessings of the covenant of grace to the elect people of God. The following are the spiritual blessings that 'the scripture, which cannot be broken,' connects with baptism:-1. Remission of Sin, Acts ii. 38; xxii. 16.-2. Salvation through Christ, Mark xvi. 16.—3. Union and Communion with Christ, and with his body the church, 1 Cor. xii. 13; Rom. vi. 3—5. (This text demonstrates the union of the baptized with Christ in his death and burial, with the assured prospect of their future union with him in his resurrection.)-4. Putting on Christ as our spiritual covering, Gal. iii. 27.-5. The communication of the Holy Spirit, Matt. iii. 11, &c. &c.-6. Regeneration, John iii. 5; Titus iii. 5.-7. Sanctification, Eph. v. 26; 1 Pet. iii. 21.-8. Union with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Matt. xxviii. 19. These are the blessings and benefits and privileges which the word of God connects with the ordinance of baptism. If it be asked whether all who are baptized

partake of these blessings, we must reply in the words of the Apostle, "All are not Israel that are of Israel-He is not a Jew that is Nor is every one a true Christian who The church in its present state

one outwardly" only.

has been baptized with water.

is mixed, compared by our Lord to tares and wheat, of which it his prerogative to make the separation. The blessings of baptism, and all other spiritual blessings, are in fact and reality confined to the elect people of God, and our election is to be proved by its fruits and effects. Every person who is baptized, whether infant or adult, is supposed, in the judgment of charity, to be a proper subject of baptism, and therefore in the same judgment they must be supposed to receive the blessings of baptism. The benefits of the sacraments are communicated to those who rightly receive them; and we must not strip these holy ordinances of the spiritual blessings and graces, which Christ himself has attached to them, because there have always been hypocrites, and unbelievers, and profane persons in his church.

"It is his prerogative, and not ours, to determine who have not the blessings. Every true christian has them, and he receives them generally through the sacraments. No one has any ground to expect them in any other way. If the baptized fulfil those vows of God which are upon them, by renouncing the devil, the world, and the flesh; by believing the articles of the christian faith; by trusting in Christ, and obeying the will of God; by walking in his commandments-then have they scriptural evidence that they are in deed and in truth, what in the judgment of charity they are considered--professed christians, baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the elect people of God, and possessing the inward and spiritual grace of baptism-'a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness.' When I was a young man, in the early part of my ministry, I was talking with a friend much wiser than myself, on what I considered at that time to be the errors of the church on baptism and some other subjects. My friend was a fine scholar, a sound theologian, and peculiarly bore the name of a liberal man; but the reply he made was such as I should now make to a person of my own sentiments at that time. 'Be assured, my friend,' said he, the church of England is right in theory; the faults are in the adminis

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