ternal relation even to a sound and orthodox Church, but seek to be "very members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ, which is the blessed company of all (really) faithful people:" and, then, when you have done with Church ordinances on earth, you shall "receive the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls," and "have an (eternal) inheritance among all those that are sanctified."

SERMON XIV.

ON BAPTISM.

ST. JOHN, III. 5.

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

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In pursuing the subject of my last Discourse, the Sacrament of Baptism, as defined in the 27th Article of our Church, I cannot altogether dismiss from my mind the apprehension, painful to a preacher, that may be addressing my hearers on a theme that is not generally interesting. It is impossible for any one, who pays the least attention to what is passing around him, not to perceive that this holy ordinance of our Divine Master has a low place in public estimation. It seems to be regadred more as a rite appointed by the Church than as an institution of God. Some speak of it as a thing which it is well to attend to, without knowing why, only that they

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should feel more satisfied, if their child died, in its having been previously christened. Others, boldly denying its connection with salvation, and declaring their belief that they would go to heaven as surely without Baptism as with it, smile at the credulity of those who conform to it on that ground, and advocate its performance as a pious custom, which, because it is looked upon as a necessary mark of the Christian profession, they would not like to forego. And others again-and they are a numerous class-do entirely secularize the sacred ordinance, going to it in a worldly spirit, and celebrating it afterwards with carnal festivity! These sad prevailing errors in the judgment and practice of the members of our communion-induced, I must say, in no small degree, by a want of proper instruction on the part of their spiritual teachers make it difficult for him who preaches upon Baptism to gain general sympathy. Even those who value the ordinance have a strange idea that the subject cannot be edifying. They look upon it as forming no part of the Gospel: and hence, with no little uncharitableness, they begin to entertain a suspicion of the orthodoxy, or, at least, of the spiritualmindedness of any minister, be he who he may, who departs from the province within which they narrow his Christian labours: and though his desire, in exalting the Sacrament, by an occasional sermon from his place in the pulpit, be to lead to Christ, its author, and to make the soul value His " 'great salvation," yet is he charged, by these hastily judging men, with leaving the doctrine of "Christ crucified"

for a dry and barren theme that can "minister" no

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grace to the hearers." I admit, indeed, that the cold, spiritless manner in which the subject has been often treated, by the divines of a school who have preached up sacraments but not Christ, who have magnified the seal, but hidden from the view of their flocks that precious word of promise spoken to the faithful, wherein alone the virtue of Baptism consists, has given ground for an opinion, too generally entertained by the unthinking portion of the religious community, that the religion of the heart has little to do with that sacrament. But I beseech my Christian Brethren to pause, before they allow themselves to be led away by a popular prejudice into so serious a mistake. I do assure them, with all the conviction I entertain of the false and fatal views given of Baptism by those unsound theologians who have confounded "the sign" with "the thing signified,” that it is impossible to overrate the spiritual blessings that stand connected with that gracious ordinance; and that, although, when wrongly apprehended, it will degenerate into a form, unprofitable, deadening, and destructive, it is, in its true character, in the case of the faithful, the connecting link between the soul and God; the signet of heaven, marking those who receive it as "the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty;" the fountain of rich, divine communications; the porch of eternal glory.

Now, before I proceed to the further benefits of this precious seal of the covenant of grace, I think it well to show you (lest any of you should be in

clined to think otherwise) that our Church does right in admitting Infants to the holy ordinance. It is stated in the Article now before us, "The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ."

The practice, which is here defended against the Anabaptists, with the characteristic moderation of the Anglican Reformers, connot be traced back in its origin to any particular period of the Christian Church, having always existed, the unvarying custom of the same from the earliest times. The ancient Fathers, whose testimony is most valuable as to matters of fact, even when they cannot be safely appealed to as interpreters of Scripture, inform us, in a long chain of indisputable evidence, extending up to the apostolic age, that infants as well as adults were admitted to the privileges of Christian Baptism. They speak of it as a thing the propriety of which had never been questioned, but which the Church had adopted as a matter of course. We find no elaborate treatises written by these Fathers, such as those which modern error has called forth, in vindication of the practice. The opponents of infant-baptism had not then appeared to divide the Church, and to take from it one of its richest possessions. There were questions mooted as to whether children, under certain circumstances, might be baptized, but none of any moment as to the baptism of the children of church-members. Or if, in the course of the first three centuries, one or two Christian writers are found speaking equivo