there no other mode revealed in the New Testament, whereby persons are received into Christ's Church, but by BAPTISM. God hath ordained the sacrament of baptism for engrafting us into Christ's mystical body, and nothing can supersede it. Faith cannot be substituted for it: faith is a pre-requisite to receiving it. But baptism IS AN ACT OF GOD'S OWN HAND planting us into the mystical body of His Son. No act of our faith can plant us there. Hence the error of those who substitute conversion for regeneration, or regard them as synonymous terms; for regeneration is not the procuring cause, but the consequence of fellowship in the body of Christ, into which fellowship baptism engrafts us. With conversion faith has to do. There can be no conversion without faith. But with regeneration faith, save as a pre-requisite, has nothing to do; it is a consequence of our oneness with Christ by baptism, and so is an act of God towards us. Thus, in preaching to the heathen, faith is the message-faith in that shed blood which teacheth us that no man can from henceforth be counted common or unclean. And faith in that shed blood is absolutely necessary to the man coming to the waters of baptism. Without his own faith he could not be brought to these waters, save by constraint, or in mockery, which would be to pollute them. But as a believer, both he and his household, all included under his headship, are sanctified, and may approach and receive the baptism of the Church. Therefore children are necessarily brought to the font of baptism in the faith of their parents, or in the faith of those under whose headship they are. For parents

to withhold them is to proclaim themselves to be without faith, and their children to be heathen, denying that the children of believing parents are clean in the very face of the Apostle's declaration to the contrary.

Two

Baptismal regeneration is no private interpretation of God's word. The Church has said, Amen. She has set her seal to this truth of Scripture, acknowledging no other mode of entrance into the kingdom of God, than by that of baptism. Every child instructed out of the catechism is taught to say, respecting baptism-" Wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." How clearly is this great truth taught in the explanation given of the sacraments, whereof baptism is one: "How many sacraments hath Christ ordained in His Church? only, as generally necessary to salvation-that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord.-What meanest thou by this word sacrament? I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.-How many parts are there in a sacrament? Two; the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace.-What is the outward spiritual sign or form in baptism? Water; wherein the person is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.-What is the inward and spiritual grace? A death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness: for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby

made the children of grace." Now let us turn to the Baptismal Service. It opens with this solemn address-"Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin; and that our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom of God except he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost; I beseech you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of His bounteous mercy He will grant to this child that thing which by nature he cannot have; that he may be baptized with water and the Holy Ghost, and received into Christ's holy Church, and be made a lively member of the same." The child being baptized, the minister exhorteth the congregation to unite in giving thanks to God, in these words "Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers unto Him, that this child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning.". After the Lord's Prayer, the following thanksgiving is offered "We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thy own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church. And humbly we beseech thee to grant, that he, being dead unto sin and living unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ in His death, may crucify the old man, and utterly abolish the whole body of sin; and that as he is made partaker of the death of thy Son, hẹ

may also be partaker of His resurrection; so that, finally, with the residue of thy holy Church, he may be an inheritor of thine everlasting kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord."

We, therefore, not in our own name, but in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Church, solemnly declare, that baptism is that sacrament ordained of God, whereby we are admitted into the family of heaven, and made partakers of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ-reconstituted, and created anew in Him. This is, indeed, contrary to the world-contrary to man's wisdom. And unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven; he lacks discernment of the spiritual things contained therein. Again, unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven; he lacks that clothing, by which alone he is fit to become a subject of that kingdom.

This "new birth," or "new creation," as it is called, implies a new constitution of our being, in which the person so honoured becomes possessed of another and a higher life than that which he previously had; fitting him, after a peculiar manner, "for an habitation of God through the Spirit." So that the whole mystical body of Christ, of which each member forms a part, becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost. And this change is effected through union with the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, in the waters of baptism. "FOR BY ONE SPIRIT WE ARE ALL BAPTIZED INTO ONE BODY." Therefore, in baptism, we are said to be "planted in the likeness of Christ's death"—that is,

through actual union with Christ therein, His death is imputed to us, by which we not only receive the forgiveness of sins, but being dead with Christ, o ur natural and creation standing, under God, is abolished through His death. This is figuratively declared as being "washed from our sins." "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." Moreover, we are also planted in the likeness of His resurrection, and which consists of two parts--the present possession of a risen and new life, with the hope of its perfection in a glorified body at the resurrection of the just. Hence, through this union with Christ in His death, we being thus dead in Him, not only is our sin forgiven, but "the body of this sin :" the body, in which sin has been committed, is dead also; so that in its death "old things pass away," and we receive a new standing in receiving a new life, in which all things become new." And this new life, of which we are made partakers, is the underived life of the Son of God-" the Eternal Life," indwelt by the Holy Ghost. For we are "made partakers of the divine nature," not of the Godhead of the Son, or by way of incarnation, which would be to make us gods, and equal to the Son; but of that eternal life which was in the Son, and which we possess through union with Him; in whose life we live, and of which the water used in the sacrament of baptism is the symbol. Nor are we partakers of the Godhead of the Holy Ghost; but of his indwelling only, separately and distinctly from our nature. Thus, in the death of the body, we are set free from the law of sin and death in our mortal bodies; and in