which "the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed." Art. XXVII. "The promises" are the contents of the instrument, free privileges and blessings conveyed by the indenture, to which in Baptism the baptised sets his seal of affirmation and acceptance. But it is evident that a man may ignorantly set his seal to an indenture; he may neither be apprised of its contents, nor value them; and thus ignorantly and presumptuously set his seal to them. The contents of the instrument then, the rich "promises of forgiveness and adoption," a man may neither know nor value, and yet set his seal to the indenture, while all around are doing the same. It is therefore a gross but a common error, I conceive, to confound the promises with the seal which confirms and accepts them. For surely thousands seem to receive the seal who were never instructed in the contents of the indenture-the free promises of mercy; and never showed any interest about them. This confusion of the Sacrament as the seal, with the promises which the seal confirms, I conceive to be the grand error of the self-called Orthodox School, and of its legitimate matured and consistent accomplishment, the school of Puseyism. It confounds the bare seal with the promises which it confirms: and thus reduces the Sacrament to a mere opus operatum, the mere ceremony of sealing: while the person sealing, may have no faith in the promises; he may neither know nor care

for forgiveness or adoption; he may not feel sufficient interest in his Baptism to inquire once whether it conveyed any privilege at all; and he may grow up in after life, or as an adult he may depart from the font a reckless recipient of a mere sign, a careless inquirer as to any advantage confirmed or conveyed by his seal, utterly ignorant of Christianity as a gift of mercy, and a boon of promise; and utterly indifferent as to any spiritual benefit assured to him by Baptism as the seal of promise. And hence the necessary consequence takes place, ignorant unconcern about consistency of character, privileges without interest to improve them, vows without concern to fulfil them, duties without care to perform them, eternal interests rashly confided to a ceremony, a seal appended to an indenture the contents of which we neither know nor value, the accepted sign of a promise which that sign is a pledge to confer, the means to convey, and the token to assure, but of which the thing signified is disregarded, as a birthright neglected and despised; in a word the seal of a promise, the privileges of which are unappreciated and unacknowledged; and therefore, and on this very account calling for no faith in the divine word. and exercising no confidence in the covenant of a faithful God.

And hence the necessary consequence, a National Church sunk in nominal Christianity, a sign accepted for a thing, a seal confounded with a promise, baptised faces with unbaptised hearts,

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Christianity in profession rather than in substance; Christians signed and sealed for heaven without the life of faith acting out the promise of life in the experience of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost -the solid evidences of real Baptism as stated by our Church and is not this the awful weight that is sinking our Professing Church, under the present inflictions of the wrath of an offended God? "the provoking of his sons and of his daughters" by profession; that after all his promises, and all their privileges as a Reformed Church, they are after all" a very froward generation, CHILDren IN WHOM IS NO FAITH ?" Deut. xxxii. 20.

With the advantage of these necessary preliminary remarks, let us now return to our main question, and proceed with our historical proofs, that the Sacraments are the seals of the promise; and that they were graciously granted to the heirs of salvation by a covenant God, ratifying "at sundry times and in divers manners," his promised mercy to his Church, and the faith of his Church in that promised mercy.

The renewed promise of mercy having been confirmed to "Faithful Abraham, and to his children, and his household after him," Gen. xviii. 19, by "the sign of Circumcision," the first initiatory Sacrament of grace under the Law, a type of that better and richer initiatory Sacrament of Baptism under the Gospel, about four hundred years after God renewed the kind testimony of his grace to his

Church, when under its most afflictive depression, and when on the point of a distinguished temporal deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the type of their spiritual deliverance from the yoke of sin. It was then that he renewed their confidence, and confirmed their faith in his merciful promise by the institution of the Passover. On the fourteenth day of the Month Abib the Paschal Lamb was to be sacrificed, "according to the house of their fathers a lamb for a house, and if the household be too little for the lamb," then in conjunction with his "neighbour next unto his house." "And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passsover. For I will pass over the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast :-and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations: ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever." Exod. xii. While the land of Egypt was the scene of divine vengeance, the blood of the slain lamb was a "token upon the houses" where favoured Israel was, an effectual preservation for him who believe dthe word of God, and thus kept himself from "the sword of the des

troyer." And what memorial of divine mercy could be more effectual to perpetuate a sense of gratitude through succeeding generations, or afford a livelier exhibition to the heart of the faithful Israelite of that promised deliverer, who as the Lamb of God was to take away the sins of the world ? What richer Sacrament could be presented to "the Church in the wilderness" of that promised Saviour who was to come, except that of which it was a plain type and forerunner for fifteen hundred years, that blessed Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord, no longer the Saviour of promise but of complete fulfilment, who has long given effect to the promise by shedding his blood and enjoying the triumph of his sacrifice in glory; and who as the Prophet, Priest, and King of his Church is continually confirming her faith, by the neverfailing "memorial" of the Sacrament of the Supper of his love. That the Passover was truly a Sacrament confirming the faith of the believing Israelite in the promised Saviour, seems evident from the cup of expressive memorial which typified the Saviour to come as it was used by our Lord and his disciples in the last Passover celebrated by them immediately previous to the institution of the Sacrament of the Supper. The simple juxta-position of the two Sacraments as the text lies in the Gospel of St. Luke, will afford a remarkable evidence of their similitude. "And when the hour was come he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them,