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Pause here a moment, all ye who have been baptized in the name of Jesus, to contemplate the condescension and grace of your heavenly Father. The Almighty, the Lord of heavenly hosts, the high and lofty one who inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is holy, stoops to say of the degenerate children of men, " I will be unto them “a God, and they shall be unto me a people.”, And he not only enters into the engagement in his written word, but gives a sensible seal and confirmation of it in this holy institution. Examine the comprehensive promise, and you must say, happy indeed are the people that are in "such a case, happy the people whose God is the "Lord." But forget not, I beseech you, the solemn and eternal truth, that "all are not Israel "that are of Israel." He is not a Christian that is one outwardly alone, nor will that baptism save you which is merely outward in the flesh, but he is a Christian that is one inwardly, and that is the salutary washing of regeneration which is of the Spirit, and by which the conscience is thoroughly purged from dead works to serve the living and the true God. You are admitted to many valuable privileges as the children of the kingdom; but know, that those privileges are so many talents of which you must give an account: and your Lord himself has forewarned you, that to whomsoever much is given, of them much will be required. God grant that when many shall come

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from the uttermost ends of the earth to sit down with Christ in his kingdom, you may not be among the children of the kingdom that shall be shut out! To some that will then have to plead, not only that they have been baptized in his name, but that they have even prophesied in that name likewise, he will say, "Depart from me, I never knew you."

CHAP. II.

On Names and Ceremonies in general, and the right of Immersion in particular.

§. 1. IT is well known, that ministers as well as private Christians, who agree in their sentiments concerning the nature and design of baptism in general, and who think it ought to be continued in the church throughout all ages, are of different opinions as to the mode and the time of life in which the ordinance should be administered. Hence some baptize the infant offspring of professing Christians as well as adults who have not been baptized before, and others baptize none till they are capable of making a profession of Christianity themselves: some baptize by sprinkling and pouring of water, and others insist upon the immersion of the whole body as essential to bap

*Matt. vii. 21. 23.

tism. Those who baptize infants are called Pœdobaptists, from one Greek word (a) which signifies a child, and another (Baaliw,) which is to baptize. Such as oppose their principles are called Antipodobaptists, in which term the Greek preposition (7) which signifies against, is prefixed to the other word, to denote their opposition to the practice of baptizing infants. These are often called Baptists, and sometimes Anabaptists, on account of their baptizing those again who were baptized in their infancy, the Greek particle (ava) denoting a repetition.-Whatever reasons there may be for distinguishing Christians who are of different sentiments concerning this ordinance by these different names, certainly no good reason can be assigned for making such distinctions as these the occasions of mutual jealousies, angry quarrels, and uncharitable censures among those, who all profess themselves to be the disciples of one master, members of one universal church, and fellow-heirs of the same heavenly inheritance. It is not, indeed it cannot be expected, that the whole body of Christians, in this imperfect state, should think entirely alike of all the several doctrines and institutions of the Gospel ; yet when we observe the carnal divisions which are occasioned by undue attachments to particular names, we could wish they were all lost in that one ancient and honourable appellation of Christians, by which the disciples were originally dis

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tinguished at Antioch. Happy world, where all the redeemed of the Lord shall see eye to eye, and be all united in one common principle of love to God and Christ and one another! As brethren let us see to it, that we do not fall out by the way. But while we think differently of this and other appointments of our divine Lord, let us offer our sentiments upon each with a modesty becoming fallible men, and urge every argument with that meekness and candor which he uniformly maintained and strongly recommended.

§. 2. It appears to have been our Lord's will that water should be used in baptism, as bread and wine were in the ordinance of his Supper; but we do not find, that our divine Master has absolutely fixed the quantity of these elements, or the modes of administering them, in either of these ordinanees. He often rebuked an intemperate zeal for external forms in general, and cautioned his disciples against an undue dependence upon them; we cannot therefore believe he would encourage it in this particular institution. Both jewish and gentile converts, in the days of the apostles, were fond of introducing a number of their ancient ceremonies into the Christian church. They had been taught a religious regard to them from their infancy, and after having performed them many years as divine rites, they were unwilling entirely to lay them aside. This their zeal for ceremonies, which they had received by tradition from their fathers,

occasioned many warm debates among them, and no little uneasiness to their ministers. Paul refers frequently to these in his epistles, and urges many considerations to take off their attention from modes and forms, as of little moment compared with the principles of the divine life in the soul, and the exercises of it in a well ordered conversation. The passages to this purpose in Paul's epistles are too numerous to be quoted here. But what he says on the distinctions which some of these young converts were eager to make between one day and another, and one kind of meat and another, &c. may, we apprehend, with great justice be applied to the different quantities of water and modes of administering it in the ordinance of baptism. Water commendeth not to God any more in one form or quantity than it does in another.One esteemeth one mode above another in baptism, and another, in this view, esteemeth each alike. Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind; but let not him that washeth with water in this ordinance, by sprinkling or pouring it upon the subject, despise him that administers it by immersion; nor let him that plunges, judge him that sprinkles; for if each does it to the Lord, there is reason to hope that God doth receive him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? T

his own master he standeth or falleth.-See Rom.

chap. xiv. and 1 Cor. chap. viii.

§. 3. After a serious and attentive enquiry into the scripture doctrine of Christian baptism, we