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"people to the Lord ;" and is to be considered as "an outward seal or token of the covenant of "grace, and of God's receiving his people into "that covenant, and bestowing upon them all its invaluable blessings."

The covenant of grace is that covenant in which the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, through him, engages to bestow upon his people all the blessings of his love, both here and hereafter.

We call baptism a seal of this covenant, as it is a sensible sign and confirmation of it to the heirs of promise, and not because we apprehend it procures a title to the inheritance of the saints. For that title we acknowledge ourselves altogether indebted to the free and abundant mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Nor do we believe, that this or any external ordinance can, of itself, make us meet to be partakers of that inheritance. If Paul referred to baptism in that expression, which he makes use of in his epistle to Titus,* "the washing of regeneration," he calls it so, not as effecting that change itself, but only as an external token or memorial of it. By a like figure of speech our Lord calls the bread broken at his supper his body," when no more could be intended, than that it was a memorial of that body, in which he suffered for us. The term, in both cases, being applied to the sign, which, in the

* Tit. iii. 5.

strictest propriety, was only applicable to that which was signified by it. It seems as if those christian fathers who spoke of baptized persons as regenerate, had mistaken these and other figurative expressions of the New Testament. Yet few sentiments, received by Protestants, appear more dangerous or absurd than this, that baptism is the Christian regeneration. It would be inconsistent with the general tenor of the Gospel, and dishonourable to its Author, to suppose that his genuine disciples are distinguished from the rest of mankind only by the washing of water; and equally incredible that any, either young or old, should be renewed in the spirit of their minds by such an external ceremony: nor, while we have instances around us of baptized infidels and reprobates, have we any reason to believe, that the sanctifying influences of divine grace always accompany the administration of baptism.

§. 2. Considering baptism in the light in which it has been represented, we cannot but think it may as properly be administered to the descendants of professing Christians in all ages, as it was to those in the primitive church, who were the first in the families that were called the disciples of Christ. The Christian regeneration, which is signified by it, does not consist merely in the change of a religious profession. A Jew, a Mahometan, or a Heathen, may be convinced of the divine original of the Old and New Testament,

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and be persuaded to receive Jesus as the true Messiah, and still continue dead in trespasses and sins. Now the scriptures not only require the infidel to believe, but the sinner to turn from his evil ways. Christ said, at one time, "except a "man be born of water and of the spirit," and at another, unless he be converted, and become as "a little child, he cannot enter into the kingdom "of heaven." Paul assures us, that "if any man

be in Christ he is a new creature; has crucified "the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof; "is freed from sin, is dead to it; and alive unto *God, as one of his servants, having his fruit un"to holiness, and the end everlasting life." And as we are often told, that without this renovation of heart and life no one can see the Lord, whatever his religious profession, knowledge, or speculative faith may be, we cannot but think it highly proper that baptism, as a memorial of it, should be continued in the church of Christ. There are few who do not acknowledge the propriety and expediency of public teaching and preaching the Gospel, in all nations and ages; and as our Lord connected baptism with that ordinance in his final instructions to his ministers, and enforced both by the same animating consideration, ("Lo I am with you always, even to the "end of the world!") it seems from thence as if he intended that both should be continued till the end come; until the completion of that age or pe

riod, which commenced at his resurrection, and will end at his second coming. Some have indeed supposed that baptism was adopted by Christ, and practised by his apostles as a temporary accommodation to the genius and customs of the Jews, who had been used to proselyte-baptism, and many other washings, in, and before the time of our Saviour. But if so, they would, most probably, have confined it to Jewish converts. Yet their Lord's command was to baptize all nations; and they accordingly administered this ordinuncc to Gentiles as well as Jews, when they came and professed themselves the followers of Jesus. See Acts x. 44-48. "While Peter yet spake, the "Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the "word, and they of the circumsicion, which be❝lieved,” (i. e. Christian converts from the Jewish church) were astonished, because that on "the Gentiles also was poured out of the gift of "the Holy Ghost: Then answered Peter, Can

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any man forbid water that these should not be "baptized which have received the Holy Ghost "as well as we ?' And he commanded them to be "baptized in the name of the Lord."

This passage may serve likewise to obviate another objection urged against the continuation of baptism in the Christian church, viz. that it is superseded by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The apostle Peter, far from saying that their having received the Holy Ghost, rendered it unnecessary

that they should be baptized with water, expressly urges that as a reason for baptizing them. "Can any man forbid water that these should not "be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost "as well as we?" It ought likewise to be remembered, that if baptism be a token of the evangelical covenant, it may as properly be continued during the subsistence of this covenant as circumcision, when adopted by Moses, and interwoven into his dispensation, was continued till that ritual was superseded by the more plain and spiritual institutions of the Gospel, which declared that Jesus nailed the ceremonies of that law to his

cross.

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§. 3. The apostles were the first persons that our Lord authorized and appointed to administer this ordinance in his church. Their apostolic office as such was peculiar to themselves.-But they were pastors and teachers as well as apostlesappointed to instruct in private, and to administer the ordinances of the Gospel in public. these first ministers of Christ are succeeded by all who are duly qualified for the office of the Christian ministry, and have been regularly introduced into it. And it appears from the history of the church, that such have been used to administer baptism in it, together with all its holy ordinances, ever since it was established to promote that great and gracious design of edifying the body of Christ, for which they are said to have been appointed. Eph. iv. 11, 12.