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positive cominand and hazard the loss of the crown at the goal--you rob yourselves of present and unspeakable happiness. They who speed their heavenward course may joyfully sing

We purge our mortal dross away-
Refining as we run.

The imagination and the pen of an angel night find ample employment in describing the blessedness of the firm, faithful, diligent Christian. Such an one have I recently seen, and the impression which he made can fade away only with the last traces of memory. He was an aged disciple—had spent the common age of man in adorning a Christian profession, and had measured a score beyond the three-score years and ten. In the full possession of his ripened faculties, and exhibiting the accumulated treasures of holy wisdom, he seemed the patriarch of ancient days. He had ascended the high places of Israel, and was leaning on his staff almost at the end of his pilgrimage, while the rays of the setting sun were shining around his hoary locks, “a crown of glory.” (Prov. 16. 31.) Such are the incipient rewards of a long life of godliness. But what a magnificent spectacle is presented to the eye in a band of established Christians! Theirs is not the progress of “pilgrims feeble and way-worn, struggling up the rude mountains, and shrinking

from the wintry blast.” It is the march of angels :

On they move,
Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill,
Nor straitning vale, nor wood, nor stream divides
Their perfect ranks.

CHAPTER XII.

ON THE MODE OF BAPTISM.

The kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Rom. 14. 17.) These few, but significant words, might appropriately be inscribed on a tablet and suspended by the side of every altar. As they met the eye of the worshipper, they would proclaim a vastly important and much forgotten truth—The duties, employments, and glories of Messiah's kingdom are spiritual: the substance of the law and the prophets is love to God, and good will to man. It was the object of the apostle to divert the attention of his Christian brethren from abrogated ceremonies: but if the kingdom of grace is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, it must be evident that the observance of mere external rites, whether disannulled or required, can bear little proportion in importance to practical godliness. The ceremonies of worship are adapted to the church in the present state, and have varied and decreased as the spiritual nature of religion has been developed by successive revelations. External rites, it should be remembered, have a spiritual meaning and are designed v to produce a spiritual effect. Had the Christian world been zealous to explain and guard against perversion, the true signification of outward ordinances, they would have rendered an important service to pure and undefiled religion. But unhappily for the prosperity of Zion, the attention of her children has been often occupied with names, and forms, and modes, to the ruinous neglect of righteousness, and peace, and holy love. I do not design to intimate that institutions of divine appointment are unimportant. It is my object, in unfolding the truth so briefly expressed by the apostle, to illustrate the essential difference between religion and its symbols—to show that the form bears no comparison with the power of godliness. On the ground of importance, for instance, what comparison can there be between bestowing the external rite of baptism upon all nations, and that exhibition of the gospel which is the wisdom of God and the power of God to every one that believeth? It will be profitable to keep in remembrance these introductory remarks, through the present and succeeding chapter, lest we lose the spirit of religion while examining its outward forms.

I shall consider briefly, the signification of baptism, before I proceed to the mode.*

* It can hardly be necessary to inform the reader that little original information can be expected on a subject which has for years enlisted, on opposite sides, the ablest minds. It was not

*

The word is used in various senses. Sometimes it denotes, like the term faith, a system of doctrines. Thus the dispensation of John is called baptism, probably from the fact that this ordinance occupied a prominent place in his ministry. (Acts 18. 25 : Luke 3. 3.) The Jewish ablutions, or purifyings, are called in the original divers baptisms. (Heb. 9. 10.) Christ uses the word when he speaks of his approaching sufferings. (Luke 12. 50.) It denotes also in some instances, simply the purifying influence of the Spirit. (Acts 22. 16: John 2. 5.) The Jews were baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea. (1 Cor. 10. 2.) This signified a profession of obedience to Moses as their divinely appointed leader, and an acknowledgment of faith in his doctrines. If baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, implies the same, it furnishes incontestable evidence that these Three are the One God. Otherwise we profess equal obedience to God, to one of his own attrimy intention to introduce "the doctrine of baptisms,” but men of sound judgment deemed it expedient. I shall confine my attention chiefly to the Scriptures, and from the limits assigned to this work, must necessarily be concise. A more extended view of the subject can be obtained by consulting some of the following writers : Wall, Worcester, Woods, Pond, Hamilton, and Jerram. The work of this last writer is an interesting little volume in the form of conversations, lately republished. The Scripture Directory, by a Layman, is also valuable in respect to the mode of baptism.

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