nature of this connection will sufficiently appear, from a brief review of the meaning and use of this Holy Sacrament.

I. Baptism, like the other Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, consists not only of an outward visible sign, but also of an inward and spiritual grace. By the one we are admitted, when duly administered, into the visible Church; and by the other, when duly received, we are sealed by the Spirit of adoption and grace, and made inheritours of the kingdom of GOD. It is this Sacrament which, thus duly administered and received, is the appointed method of washing away the original sin in which we are all conceived and born, and of obtaining divine grace to subdue the perverse inclinations of our depraved nature. In a word, it is that regeneration, or second birth, pointed at by our Saviour, when he said to Nicodemus, " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God:" or, as he solemnly explains the expression, "Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of GoD1." This Sacrament (also like the other) though freely offered to all, yet requires certain conditions in those who come to it, as necessary to its due reception. "In such only as worthily receive the same," says the twenty-fifth Article of our Church, "they [i. e. the two Sacraments] have a wholesome effect or ope

Church Catechism.

" John iii. 5.

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ration:" and then, by a just analogy, the Article extends to both Sacraments the sentence pronounced by the Apostle with reference to one, and declares, that "they that receive them unworthily purchase to themselves damnation, as St. Paul saith." These necessary conditions, we learn from the frequent preaching and example of the holy Apostles, are Repentance and Faith.

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Repentance," echoes our scriptural Church in her Catechism," whereby they forsake sin; and Faith, whereby they stedfastly believe the promises of GOD made to them in that Sacrament.' But here an objection arises, which has caused some difficulty even to humble and teachable believers, and is therefore properly noticed by the apt question, "Why then are infants baptized, when, by reason of their tender age, they cannot perform the appointed conditions?" To this the Church replies, "Because they promise them both by their sureties; which promise, when they come to age, themselves are bound to perform '. But what if they be not properly instructed in the nature and obligation of this promise? Is it not plain they will not be able to fulfil it? The command of Christ will not then have been duly obeyed; the example of His Apostles will not have been followed; the requirements of the Church will not have been complied with. And who shall say, that either the institution of Christ, the preaching of His

See Church Catechism.

Apostles, or the Doctrine of His Church, warrant the expectation, in such a case, of the blessings which this holy Sacrament is designed to convey?

Christian instruction then seems to be almost indispensable to the practice of Infant Baptism; and accordingly we take care, before its administration, to require (in addition to the natural obligation of the parents) the solemn promise and vow of two or three Christian friends, that this essential duty shall be performed. So that what the Church, with a wise regard to the nature and intent of this holy Sacramentobserving also the express command of GOD in respect to Circumcision (the sign of the Mosaic covenant as Baptism is of the Christian)following, moreover, so far as can be gathered from the language of Scripture, the example and precept of the inspired Apostles-what the Church does is briefly this: At the desire of the believing parent, and on the plighted faith of the believing sponsor, the infant is "received into the congregation of Christ's flock," and "by our office and ministry solemnly dedicated unto God," in his own appointed Sacrament *. And if herein the charitable intentions of the Church were always duly followed out, what blessed effects might we not expect to result! If parents and sponsors did indeed come, as they profess, with repentant and believing hearts, in the full earnest and faithful desire

See the Office of Publick Baptism.

to obtain spiritual regeneration for the object of their affections, who shall doubt that their prayers, offered though Christ's own ordained Minister, would be received? Who shall venture to think, that He who said, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst '," would be absent on so solemn an occasion? that He, who promised to be with His Apostles and their successours unto the end of the world, would desert them while administering the very Sacrament which he himself ordained, and blessed with that especial promise? that He who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not "," would reject them when thus obediently offered to the arms of his mercy? No, brethren, if there be too much reason to fear that the inward and spiritual grace has not always effectually accompanied the outward sign of Baptism-if the fruits of the Spirit have not been manifest in some who have been brought to the laver of regeneration-if they who were solemnly dedicated to God in their infancy grow up to be the soldiers and servants of the Devil, the world, and the flesh, and the cross that was traced upon their brows in the waters of Baptism serves only, as it were, through their sin, to crucify their Lord afresh, putting Him to an open shame-we may be very sure the fault is not with GoD, nor yet with the Church,

which strove, and prayed, and preached, to have it otherwise. Theirs is the fault,―nay,

theirs is the fearful sin,—who turn this Christian Sacrament into a worldly custom, a superstitious charm, or, it may be, an occasion for unholy revelling :-those faithless and unrepentant parents, who bring their children to to be baptized more for the advantage that may come from the register of their age, than from any true prayerful desire that their names may be written in "the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world :" those careless or prophane sponsors, who, rather than disoblige a friend, will approach the covenant of grace with a lie in their mouths, by undertaking vows of which they neither feel the solemnity nor mean to discharge the obligation:-those, in fine, of every station, who, having the duty and the opportunity, neglect to train up the child in the way that he should go; who show him not the nature of the holy rite to which he has been brought, and teach him not, both by example and by precept, " to lead the rest of his life according to that good beginning"."

II. We proceed to a second consideration, arising out of the view of Infant Baptism as connected with subsequent instruction. It is of the essence of a Sacrament, that there should be an outward sign or ceremony, ordained by

" Office of Baptism.