is shared by the whole, and then thereby make the whole more truly "priests to God to offer spiritual sacrifices." In the same way, if God would baptize humanity, He baptizes a separate Church, in order that that Church may baptize the race. The Church is God's ideal of humanity realized. Lastly, This doctrine of baptism sanctifies materialism. The Romanist was feeling his way to a great fact when he said that there are other things of sacramental efficacy besides these two-Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. The things of earth are pledges and sacraments of things in heav

en.

It is not for nothing that God has selected for His sacraments the commonest of all acts—a meal, and the most abundant of all materials water. Think you that He means to say that only through two channels His Spirit streams into the soul? Or is it not much more in unison with His dealings to say that these two are set apart to signify to us the sacramental character of all nature? Just as a miracle was intended not to reveal God working there, at that death-bed and in that storm, but to call attention to His presence in every death and every storm. Go out at this spring season of the year; see the mighty preparations for life that Nature is making; feel the swelling sense of gratefulness, and the pervasive expanding consciousness of love for all Being; and then say, whether this whole form which we call nature is not the great Sacrament of God, the revelation of His existence, and the channel of His communications to the spirit?

IV.
BAPTISM.

"The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us.”—1 Peter iii. 21.

LAST Sunday we considered the subject of baptism in ref erence to the Romish and modern Calvinistic views. The truth seemed to lie not in a middle course between the two extremes, but in a truth deeper than either of them. For there are various modifications of the Romish view which soften down its repulsive features. There are some who hold that the guilt of original sin is pardoned, but the tendencies of an evil nature remain; others who attribute a milder meaning to "regeneration," understanding by it a change of state instead of a change of nature; others who acknowledge

a certain mysterious benefit imparted by baptism, but decline determining how much grace is given, or what the exact nature of the blessing is; others who acknowledge that it is in certain cases the moment when regeneration takes place, but hold that it is conditional, occurring sometimes, not always, and following upon the condition of what they call "prevenient grace.' We do not touch upon these views. They are simply modifications of the Romish view, and as such, more offensive than the view itself; for they contain that which is most objectionable in it, and special evils of their own besides.

We admitted the merits of the two views. We are grateful to the Romanist for the testimony which he bears to the truth of the extent of Christ's salvation-for the privilege which he gives of calling all the baptized, children of Godfor the protest which his doctrine makes against all party monopoly of God-for the protest against ultra-spiritualism, in acknowledging that material things are the types and channels of the Almighty Presence.

We are grateful to the Calvinist for his strong protest against formalism-for his assertion of the necessity of an inward change for the distinction which he has drawir between being in the state of sons, and having the nature of sons of God.

The error in these two systems, contrary as they are, appeared to us to be identically one and the same-that of pretending to create a fact instead of witnessing to it. The Calvinist maintains that on a certain day and hour, under the ministry of the Word, under the preaching of some one who "proclaims the Gospel," he was born again, and God became his Father; and the Romanist declares that on a certain day, at a certain moment by an earthly clock, by the hands of a priest apostolically ordained, the evil nature was expelled from him, and a new fact in the world was created-he attained the right of calling God his Father.

Now if baptism makes God our Father, baptism is incantation; if faith makes him so, faith rests upon a falsehood.

For the Romanist does no more than the red Indian and the black negro pretend to do-exorcise the devil, and infuse God. The only question then becomes, Which is the true enchanter, and which is the impostor? for the juggler does, by the power of imagination, often cure the sick man; but the mysterious effects of baptism never are visible, and never can be tested in this world.

On the other hand, faith would rest upon a falsehood: for if faith is to give the right of calling God a Father, how can you believe that which is not true the very moment before

belief? God is not your Father. If you believe He is, your belief is false.

The truth which underlies these two views, on which all that is true in them rests, and in which all that is false is absorbed, is the paternity of God. This is the revelation of the Redeemer. This is authoritatively declared by baptism, appropriated personally by faith, but a truth independent both of baptism and faith-which would still be true if there were neither a baptism nor a faith in the world. They are the witnesses of the fact-not the creators of it.

Here, however, two difficulties arise. If this be so, do we not make light of Original Sin? And do we not reduce baptism into a superfluous ceremony?

Before we enter upon these questions, I must vindicate myself from the appearance of presumption. Where the wisest and holiest have held opposite views, it seems immodest to speak with unfaltering certainty and decisive tone. Hesita tion, guarded statements, caution, it would seem, would be far more in place. Now, to speak decidedly, is not, necessarily, to speak presumptuously. There are questions involving great research, and questions relating to truths beyond our ken, where guarded and uncertain tones are only a duty. There are others where the decision has become conviction, a kind of intuition, the result of years of thought, which has been the day to a man's darkness, "the fountain-light of all his seeing," which has interpreted him to himself, made all clear where all was perplexed before, been the key to the rid dle of truths that seemed contradictory, become part of his very being, and for which more than once he has held himself cheerfully prepared to sacrifice all that is commonly held dear. With respect to convictions such as these, of course, the arguments by which they are enforced may be faulty, the illustrations inadequate, the power of making them intelligible very feeble; nay, the views themselves may be wrong; but to pretend to speak with hesitation and uncertainty respecting such convictions would be not modesty, but affectation.

For let us remember in what spirit we are to enter on this inquiry. Not in the spirit of mere cautious orthodoxy, endeavoring to find a safe mean between two extremes-inquiring what is the view held by the sound, and judicious, and respectable men, who were never found guilty of any enthusiasm, and under the shelter of whose opinion we may be secure from the charge of any thing unsound; nor in the spirit of the lawyer, patiently examining documents, weighing evidence, and deciding whether upon sufficient testimony

there is such a thing as "prevenient grace or not; nor, once more, in the spirit of superstition. The superstitious mother of the lower classes baptizes her child in all haste because she believes it has a mystic influence on its health, or because she fancies that it confers the name without which it would not be summoned at the day of judgment. And the superstitious mother of the upper classes baptizes her child too in all haste, because, though she does not precisely know what the mystic effect of baptism is, she thinks it best to be on the safer side, lest her child should die, and its eternity should be decided by the omission. And we go to preach to the heathen while there are men and women in our Christian England so bewildered with systems and sermons, so profoundly in the dark respecting the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, so utterly unable to repose in eternal love and justice, that they must guard their child from Him by a ceremony, and have the shadow of a shade of doubt whether or not, for omission of theirs, that child's Creator and Father may curse its soul for all eternity!

We are to enter upon this question as a real one of life and death-as men who feel in their bosoms sin and death, and who want to determine no theological nicety, but this: Whether we have a right to claim to be sons of God or not? And if so, on what grounds? In virtue of a ceremony, or in virtue of a certain set of feelings? Or in virtue of an eternal fact-the fact of God's paternity?

I reply to two objections.

I. The apparent denial of original sin.

II. The apparent result that baptism is nothing.

It pro

But it

I. The text selected is a strong and distinct one. claims the value of baptism. "Baptism saves us." declares that it can only be said figuratively: "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us.”

Now the first reply I make is, that in truth the Romish view seems to make lighter of original sin than this. Methinks original sin must be a trifling thing if a little water and a few human words can do away with it. A trifling thing if, after it is done away, there is no distinguishable difference between the baptized and unbaptized; if the unbaptized Quaker is just as likely to exhibit the fruits of goodness as the baptized son of the Church of England. We have got out of the land of reality into the domain of figments and speculations. A fictitious guilt is done away with by a fictitious pardon, neither the appearance nor the disappearance being visible.

Original sin is an awful fact. It is not the guilt of an an cestor imputed to an innocent descendant, but it is the tendencies of that ancestor living in his offspring and incurring guilt. Original sin can be forgiven only so far as original sin is removed. It is not Adam's, it is yours; and it must cease to be yours, or else what is "taking away original sin ?"

Now he who would deny original sin must contradict all experience in the transmission of qualities. The very hound transmits his peculiarities learnt by education, and the Spanish horse his paces, taught by art, to his offspring, as a part of their nature. If it were not so in man, there could be no history of man as a species-no tracing out the tendencies of a race or nation-nothing but the unconnected repetitions of isolated individuals and their lives. It is plain that the first man must have exerted on his race an influence quite peculiar that his acts must have biased their acts. And this bias or tendency is what we call original sin.

Now original sin is just this denial of God's paternity, refusing to live as His children, and saying we are not His children. To live as His child is the true life-to live as not His Ichild is the false life. What was the Jews' crime? Was it not this: "He came unto His own, and His own received him not" that they were His own, and in act denied it, preferring to the claim of spiritual relationship, the claim of union by circumcision or hereditary descent? What was the crime of the Gentiles? Was it not this: that "when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful?" For what were they to be thankful? For being His enemies? Were they not His children, His sheep of another fold? Was not the whole falsehood of their life the worship of demons and nothings instead of Him? Did not the parable represent them as the younger son—a wanderer from home, but still a son?

From this state Christ redeemed. He revealed God not as the mechanic of the universe, not the judge, but as the Father, and as the Spirit who is in man, "lighting every man," moving in man his infinite desires and infinite affections. This was the revelation. The reception of that revelation is regeneration. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not; but to as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on His name.' They were His own, yet they wanted power to become His own.

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Draw a distinction, therefore, between being the child of God and realizing it. The fact is one thing; the feeling of the fact, and the life which results from that feeling, is anoth