whole truth of Holy Scripture concerning Baptism and the Lord's Supper; of which having been convinced by God's blessing upon these words of my fathers in the Church, upon consulting the venerable companion of my early studies, Richard Hooker, I found such a masterly treatise upon the whole subject of the Sacraments, that I scrupled not to rank as one of his disciples, and to prefer his exposition infinitely to my own; yet to both, to prefer that sentence of our own Confession which I have placed as the motto of my book. For this reason it is, that I have reprinted those parts of Hooker's treatise which concern the doctrine of the Sacraments.

And now, my dear Wife, as we have been sorely tried of the Lord, by the removal of two such sweet children, let us be full of prayers and fellow-feeling for those who are in like manner tried; and, above all, be diligent in waiting upon those children of Christian Baptism, whom Christ hath committed to my charge, as a bishop and shepherd of His flock. Unto all whom, even as many as by my hands have been admitted into His Church, I do now bestow my fatherly benediction in the Lord. May the Lord make you the mother of many children, to glorify His name for ever and ever. This is the prayer of your loving husband,

EDWARD IRVING.

[This Dedication was prefixed to the volume containing the Homilies on Baptism (published in 1828.) It was intended to publish another volume of Homilies on the Lord's Supper. That intention, however, was never carried out, and the Homilies are now printed for the first time from the author's MSS. The selections from Hooker's Treatise are of course omitted.]

HOMILY I.

THE SIGNIFICATION OF THIS ORDINANCE.

MATT. XXVIII. 19.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

THE symbolical rites of religion differ from its ordinary

observances in this, that there is couched under them a meaning, which expresseth itself in the symbols, and in the words which are appointed to be spoken over them. And the doctrines which are so embodied under a visible form are the most important doctrines; whose greater importance it is that giveth them the title to be recorded in a more expressive and enduring form. For that which liveth in a sensible sign not only speaketh more plainly, but hath also a greater security of life, than that which liveth but in oral or written tradition as we see by the relics of heathen customs, which survive amongst the people even to this day, long after all trace of writing and memory of oral traditions have departed. Therefore the distinguishing characteristics of every dispensation are, for the sake of greater security, enshrined in a substantial form. The covenant with Noah, that no second flood should come up over the earth, but that we should get leave to sow and reap in security, was embodied to the sense in the sign of the rainbow. The covenant with Abraham, that in his seed the ends of the earth should be blessed, was embodied to the sense in the rite of circumcision. And even the leading facts of the Jewish history were secured in a similar manner: their deliverance from Egypt, and the standing order of the priesthood, by the preservation of Aaron's rod that budded; their receiving laws from God upon Sinai, by the preservation of the tables of stone; their divine sus

tenance in the wilderness, by the pot of manna; the presence of Jehovah, by the glorious forms above the mercy-seat; and the communications of Jehovah, by the Urim and Thummim, which the high priest wore upon his breast. All these are deep resources of wisdom for preserving what is most necessary to be preserved; sensible forms for containing spiritual meaning; new securities taken against the power of time, which changeth all things; the statuary of truth, which may endure, though the picturing and writing of it should be effaced.

Of these symbolical rites, two have been left by the Lord Jesus Christ, significant of what He did, and still continueth to do, for the children of men: these are, Baptism and the Lord's Supper: concerning which it is our purpose to discourse; having this day to administer the former, and soon to administer the latter, in the presence of this congregation. Which two symbolical ordinances, we shall shew, manifest, in the simplest and most expressive forms, the substance of what the Saviour hath done and taught unto mankind: so that, if the books of Scripture were lost, and these two sacraments, with the words pronounced over them, preserved, they would be sufficient to suggest to a reflective mind the great ideas of the Christian revelation. And to that great portion of mankind who are unable to read for themselves, they speak, whenever they are set forth in simplicity, the great truths upon which the world's redemption dependeth, and for want of which the world would shrink back into its former darkness and barbarism.

man.

But for this very reason, that these two rites speak to the sense the most deep and mysterious truths of the Christian. faith, they are liable to be abused to the degrading ends of superstition, by the natural sensuality and cunning artifice of For of superstition this is the essential character, that it seeketh the spiritual in the sensible; and transferreth to sensible things, first as emblems, afterwards as realities, the reverence which is due only to things unseen and eternal. Accordingly, the Roman Catholic Church, which out of the most spiritual of all systems of truth hath constructed one of the most perfect and debasing of all superstitions, hath fixed

the whole meaning of the Christian sacraments in the worthless mixture which they consecrate instead of pure water, and in the bread and wine, which they worship as the very body and blood of Christ, the substance of the invisible God. And perceiving the power which they thereby acquired over that ignorance which the Sun of Righteousness came to scatter, (but they have used His coming to deepen it,) they have increased the number of the sacraments to seven; exalting ordinary services, which have no meaning further than what is plainly spoken, into mysterious and allegorical representations of subtle and sublime truth. And, pursuing the same course of bringing the spiritual into subjection to the sensual, they have introduced artificial emblems everywhere: lights and lanterns, to represent the illumination of the Spirit; holy water, to represent the purification of heart which God requireth of His worshippers; the sign of the cross, to denote our trust in the Redeemer of men. And even the facts of the gospel history they have set forth, by holy days, and processions, and mystical celebrations, to take the senses of the multitude. Which, verily, I cannot think of without abhorrence, I cannot speak of without detestation of those who, however well-intentioned, first brought these forms to eclipse the light of the gospel and enthral the souls of the people, and make, out of a spirit-quickening and spirit-sustaining religion, one of the most gross and sensualising superstitions. upon the face of the whole earth.

On the other hand, and in direct opposition to them, the Famulists, and the Society of Friends, and other mystics, perceiving that the chief, and I may almost say single object of our faith, is to quicken the spirit, buried at present in sense and worldliness, and to give to the things unseen and eternal the victory over the things seen and temporal, have discarded the two emblematical ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as not savouring of the spiritual character of Christ's discipline. Wherein they have certainly gone too far in a good direction. For though it be the chief, and perhaps single object of our faith to quicken the spirit, and give it the victory over the sense; to strengthen faith, and give it the mastery of sight; yet in bringing this to pass God hath always revealed.

Himself through the medium of the sense. For what is the incarnation of Christ but a great demonstration of the Godhead to the sense? what His death and resurrection, but a declaration of life and immortality to the sense? So that God useth the sense in order to spoil the sense, as He used mortality in order to spoil mortality. Wherefore, if He saw it expedient, in making Himself known to the understanding and spirit of man, to give to His Son a body, and bring Him under bodily conditions, and so plant the gospel upon the earth, why should it be inconsistent to continue those two emblems, which were left to commemorate, through the sense to the spirit, those things which in that way were first revealed? And hence our Reformers shewed that spirit of wisdom with which they were endowed by nature and by the Spirit from on high, that, while they swept away those impositions which the Church calling itself infallible, at its pleasure, and for its aggrandisement, had added from time to time, as the ignorance of men would bear them, they were careful not to refine or spiritualise upon any of the institutions and establishments of the great Head of the Church, and have left us these two sacraments in the primitive simplicity in which they found them set forth in the Holy Scriptures.

These two holy rites of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, established by the Lord Jesus Christ, and by Him given in charge to His apostles, by His apostles established in the churches which they planted, and ever since continued in the Church, let us now, in devout dependence upon the grace of God, do our endeavour to examine and understand; that, so often as they are dispensed in the midst of us, we may be filled with their spiritual meaning, and praise the Lord our Saviour for having left us such signal manifestations of the great work which He hath wrought for the redemption of a fallen world.

The signs which embody any doctrine, and declare it to the sense of man, should be so well chosen as to speak their own meaning: for, if they needed any ingenuity or demonstration to help us to it, the end of their establishment would fail, which is, to render them independent of the frailty and