nified-the water with the Spirit-the professing Holy Catholic Church, with the spiritual Communion of the saints; and thus confounding circumstantials with essentials, all the mischiefs of delusion follow; and the Christian body, thus feeding on wind instead of wholesome nutriment, is starved, and faints, and decays.

That this is not a speculative mischief merely, is but too evident from the relaxed estimation of this privilege of Baptism, throughout the professing Christian world. Is it not much to be feared, that, in most cases, none of the parties engaged in the rite, seem to expect any spiritual advantages to flow from it? Are they not commonly content with the mere observance? Are they not satisfied that the ceremony should have been performed, without caring for the privileges which the promise imparts to the baptised? Do not Parents usually compliment away all hope of spiritual benefit to the baptised, in selecting for Sponsors, those who are related to them in nature, by the ties of friendship, or those from whose rank or wealth they encourage expectations of temporal aggrandisement for their children? Are not Sponsors usually quite reckless of the spiritual character of "the young Christian?" Is not the Child, as he increases in years and knowledge, educated in complete indifference to his Baptismal privileges and obligations? and does the Church feel any interest in the baptised, as belonging to the

Communion of the saints? Are any of these parties anxious to secure to the Child the most glorious and important privileges of being "a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," by training him up in a constant sense of his obligations to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, effectually to "believe the articles of the Christian faith," and to "keep God's holy will and commandments ;" and heartily to thank his Heavenly Father, that he hath called him to so blessed a state of salvation, and that it should be the object of his fervent prayers that he may have grace to walk in the same all the days of his life? Alas! My Dear Friend, how many of us have either been the victims of this delusion of mistaking the sign for the thing signified, in our education from childhood; or have contributed to the confirmation of the same, by undertaking the office of Sponsors for others, to whom we have paid no attention after the ceremony of Baptism had been performed.

I confess that this prevailing error, in the very outset of our professing Christian course, appears to me to be the fruitful source of both the loose profession, and the fickle attachment to our Established Church, which has been so much and so feelingly lamented. If Baptism be no more than a sign, a sign is no more than a form, and a form is easily satisfied by a mere profession and if it admit us into nothing more

than the name of the Church, without uniting us to the privileges, and sympathies, and spiritual fellowship which form the essential realities of the Communion of saints, how can we hope for attachment to that which is merely nominal, and with which no perception of spiritual blessings is connected. Viewed as Baptism usually is, how can profession be otherwise than loose, and attachment otherwise than fickle. Solid attachment to an object arises from a sense of its loveliness, its excellence, or from our experience of the blessings we derive from it: but where these are not perceived or felt, attachment cannot be otherwise than fickle; it rests on no solid basis, and is the sport of every error that may assail it.

And is not this fundamental error the mighty mischief which is now desolating our Church? all the evils that have ever been ascribed to the doctrines of grace, with all their perversions, and all their misapprehensions, must sink into insignificance, when compared with those which daily and palpably issue from the assertion of "the general efficacy of Baptism in all who partake of the rite." The former evils are generally apparent, not so much in practice, as on the pages of speculative and accusing controversialists; while the latter force themselves on our notice in the experience of every day; for were a due regard paid to Baptismal privileges, and Baptismal duties, by all those who have

solemnly engaged to improve the one, and to discharge the other; and were our lives, as they should be, practically employed in accomplishing our Baptismal vows; i. e. were our Baptism not merely a profession but a reality; is it possible that we could see so much pride, vanity, ambition, covetousness, and worldlymindedness-so much mere morality, and so much awful presumption as we witness in the professing world? It could not surely be. Confidence in the sign is consistent enough with mere profession, and profession may consist with an accommodating similarity to the character of the professors around us : but vital possession of the thing signified, the blessed influence of the Holy Spirit, without which it is no Sacrament to the recipient, must purify the heart, renew the life, and thoroughly furnish the man of God" unto all good works." In the one case there is the genuine answer of a good conscience toward God," a conscientious recognition of Baptismal obligations, and a corresponding holy conversation; in the other there is nothing more than "the putting away of the outward" filth of the flesh "2 ; an ablution which, unless joined with the influence of the Spirit, can never affect the soul. And as Bishop Jewell asserts, "Verily to ascribe felicity or remission of sin, which is the inward work of the

1

1 2 Tim. iii. 17.

2 1 Pet. iii. 21.

Holy Ghost, unto any manner outward action whatsoever, it is a superstitious, a gross, and a Jewish error.'

But if the Sacrament of Baptism is thus rendered vain and effete by mistaking the sign for the thing signified,—the water for the Spirit ; is this all the injury which it has received? Has it not to complain also of the unworthy treatment it has experienced in the house of its friends?

Blessed be God there are those who know and feel that Baptism is not "an outward and visible sign only, but "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," and yet their estimate of the privileges and efficacy of Baptism is low and inoperative: they rather consider it as an introduction into a professing Church, than as accompanied with any real spiritual blessings to the baptised, as admitted into the Communion of the saints. Their faith in the promise issues in no corresponding practice in the education of the Child. They cannot so much be said to "doubt" as to forget that God has received the infant, that he has regenerated him with his Holy Spirit, that he has received him for his own child by adoption, and incorporated him into his holy Church; and that they have given God "hearty thanks" for the same. They do not consider the Child as

1 Jewell's Reply, &c. p. 442.