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"do confess the use of baptism to be necessary; that it is "not lawful to omit it by negligence or contempt. We "do not count it free, [or indifferent] and we do not only strictly oblige Christians to the use of it, but do affirm "it to be the ordinary instrument of God to wash and " renew us, and to communicate to us salvation. This "only we except, that God's hand is not so tied to the "instrument, but that it can of itself effect our salvation. "For where there is no possibility of baptism, God's pro"mise is abundantly sufficient. Antidot. ad Synod. Tri“dent. Sess. 7. de Baptismo.

The latter Confession of Helvetia bears, " Baptism was "instituted and consecrated by God,-whereupon bap"tism is called of some a sign of initiation of God's peo"ple, as that whereby the elected are consecrated unto "God. There is but one baptism in the Church of God; "for baptism once received doth continue all a man's life, "and is a perpetual sealing of our adoption to us; for to "be baptized in the name of Christ is to be enrolled, en"tered, and received into the covenant and family, and so "into the inheritance of the sons of God-to be purged "also from the filthiness of sins, and to be endued with "the manifold grace of God," &c. In the former Confession of Helvetia, we read, "Baptism, according to the in"stitution of the Lord, is the font of regeneration, the "which the Lord doth give to his chosen in a visible "sign," &c. The Augustan Confession teaches of baptism, "That it is necessary to salvation as a ceremony institut"ed of Christ; and that the grace of God is offered by "baptism; and that infants are to be baptized" The French Confession acknowledges that baptism is "given us to testify our adoption, because by it we are engrafted "into the body of Christ, that, being washed by his blood, "we may also be renewed unto holiness of life by his spirit." The Dutch Confession bears: "We believe that every "man that desires to attain eternal life ought to be bap"tized with the one baptism, that is, once only. Neither "doth this baptism profit only in that moment when the "water remains upon us, but throughout the whole time "of our life." The Saxon Confession bears," The Son “of God, sitting at the right hand of his Everlasting Fa"ther, is so efficacious in him, as St Paul saith to the Ga"latians, as many as are baptized into Christ have put on

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"Christ. And he affirms the Holy Ghost is given in bap"tism, when he saith in Titus, by the laver of regenera"tion and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. And in John "it is said, except any one be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.— "We teach, therefore, that baptism is necessary, and we "baptize none but once only."

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my

These, taken from the Harmony of the Confessions of the Faith of the Christian and Reformed Churches allowed by public authority, London, 1643, furnish a sufficient specimen of the general doctrine which, from the volume now before me, I might easily extend. But I confine self, as more than sufficient for my purpose, to the (original) General Confession of the Church of Scotland, adopted and sanctioned at Edinburgh, 28th January 1581, and to the Westminster or present Confession of the same Church.

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The first of these consists of twenty-five articles, and formed the Confession of the Church of Scotland from the above date till after the Revolution, when it was Episcopal and when it was Presbyterian. The twenty-first article of the Sacraments, among other things bears: "And thus we utterly damn the vanity of those that affirm Sacra"ments to be nothing else but the naked and bare signs. "No, we assuredly believe, that by baptism we are "engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of "his justice, by which our sins are covered and remit"ted." The Confession of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and which forms the present Confession of the Church of Scotland, Chap. xxviii. of Baptism, says, "Baptism is a sacrament of the "New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for "the solemn admission of the party baptized into the vi"sible church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of "the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up "unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of "life; which sacrament is by Christ's own appointment, "to be continued in his church until the end of the "world." I might easily multiply testimonies from the Harmony of Confessions, from the Sylloge Confessionum sub tempus Reformando Ecclesiæ Editarum, and from several other sources; but these seem more than sufficient to

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prove, that the regeneration taught by certain persons who challenge to themselves exclusively the character of Gospel ministers, to say nothing of the contempt with which they treat baptism,-as if, instead of being a sacred and essential ordinance of Jesus Christ, it were a mere rite or outward work of man upon the body-opposes the current sense of the Church universal. That baptism, not the mere rite or outward ceremony, in Dr Campbell's sense, but the sacred ordinance, as originally instituted, and as now celebrated in conformity with that institution, is cssentially connected with regeneration, and is generally necessary to salvation, is universally agreed in the Church, ancient and modern. In the judgment which I have quoted from Calvin, and in the quotations which I have made from several of the most remarkable Confessions of the Reformed Churches, the essential connection between the ordinance of baptism, the forgiveness of sins, and the gift or grace of regeneration, is as strongly asserted as in the Church of England. The Church of England, in her articles, asserts the truth simply as she receives it from Scripture, and from the current sense of the Church; and, în her offices, she proceeds upon the true principle asserted and acknowledged in her creeds and Confession of Faith, without thinking it necessary to suggest needless subtleties, and to bring forward difficulties which no general creed or confession of faith can solve. The judgment of Calvin, most of the foreign confessions, and that of Westminster, (all of them, probably, following Calvin,) err in this respect. The Westminster Confession, in the chapter which I have quoted, and very evidently, I think, following Calvin, says, "Although it be a great sin to contemn "or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be "regenerated or saved without it, or that all that are baptized are regenerated." Now, I humbly presume that it is a serious error thus to introduce exceptions, and difficulties, and possibilities, which, when they occur, sober casuistry may solve, but for which no previous canon can provide especially is this error serious in enforcing matters of faith, with which, if they are certainly revealed, reason has nothing further to do than to ascertain the evidence of the revelation; and having ascertained it, to assert, without exception, in all general and possible cases,

the practical result or consequences of the matter or matters revealed.

I am as firmly persuaded as Abraham was, (Gen. xviii. 25.) and as any man can be, that the Judge of all the earth shall do right; but in teaching the faith, in applying the ordinances, and in enforcing the obligations of the gospel, which, as truths and duties revealed, and so far as we are concerned with them, are all plain and practical, it is a manifest and a dangerous error to imagine difficulties, and to propose exceptions, in the very outset, and to address these at once to the learned and the ignorant; for these difficulties and exceptions will acquire a predominant effect-will gradually undermine, and, at length, destroy the essential truths to which they are attached. The language of Calvin, of the foreign reformed, and of the two Confessions of the Scottish Church, in reference to baptism, is as strong as the language of the Church of England. The force of truth so far prevails in all, but the difficulties and exceptions with which it is combined, (the effect of a false philosophy, or of an impertinent curiosity,) have, in a great measure, obliterated the essential truth asserted, and baptism has, among too many, fallen into contempt, as a mere rite or ceremony of little or of no importance. Creeds and confessions have fallen into similar neglect and contempt; and those fundamental institutions and ordinances, which have been sanctioned and sanctified in every age of the Church, are thus considered as mere forms of no obligation, while all religious knowledge is supposed to come from the lips of some popular preacher, and all the means of grace to consist in preaching and hearing of

sermons.

The object of my sermon was, without controversy, to recall attention to those fundamentals of our faith and forms, to the acknowledgment of which we are bound by the most solemn obligations. Dr Thomas Jackson, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, one of the most learned and pious men of his age, blesses God for "being "instructed in the Church's catechism by the curate of "the parish, from whose lips, though but a mere gram"mar scholar, &c. (he says) I learned more good lessons "than I did from many popular sermons," &c. Book x. chap. 50. s. 7. Both he and Dr Henry More of Christ's College, Cambridge, repeatedly lament the neglect of our

fundamental forms, and the influence acquired by vain, ignorant, and presumptuous popular preachers: "When

the exercise of their popular eloquence (Dr M. says, "Book x. chap. 14. s. 7.) is nothing but a stage of osten"tation and vain glory to the preacher, and begets nothing "but an unsound blottedness and ventosity of spirit in his "hearers and admirers, they being intoxicated with lus"cious and poisonous opinions, which tend to nothing but "the extinguishing of the love and endeavour after true "righteousness and holiness, and the begetting in them a "false security of mind, and abhorred libertinism: Had "it not been far better that they had rested in the funda"mentals of their faith, comprised in the Apostles creed, "with an obligation on their conscience to live according to "the laws of Christ and his holy precepts, than to be led "about and infatuated by the heat and noise of such false "guides ?" To what those false guides led in that age, the reader may see in Edward's Gangræna, or a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies, and Pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this Time, &c. 1646.

"Concerning preaching," Dr More says, "that which is 66 most remarkable is this, that whereas there are three "chief kinds thereof, namely, catechizing, expounding a "chapter, and preaching, usually so called; whereof the "first is the best, and the last the least considerable of "them all ;-this worst and last is the very idol of some

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men, and the other rejected as things of little worth. I "confess this exercise may be of laudable use in such a "congregation where all the people are thoroughly ground"ed in the fundamentals of Christianity, and are well skill"ed in the knowledge of the Bible; otherwise, if the other "two necessary ways of preaching be silenced by this more "overly and plausible, it is to the unspeakable detriment of "the flock of Christ, which will happen even then when it is performed after the very best manner." The neglect of catechizing, and of the fundamentals of our Christian profession, which no system of preaching will ever supply, will easily account, I think, for those essential deviations from the faith of our baptism which have been recently remarked and lamented in some foreign churches, and in England, among the successors of the ancient Puritans. "Baptism once received doth continue all a man's life, and is a perpetual

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