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waters were meant as types to prefigure the spiritual washing of Christ. The fountain of living waters by Christ, which was but faintly set forth under the old covenant, was fully opened under the new. It now began to flow more abundantly, and its healing virtue was now more apparent. "In that day (says God) there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." Its healing and cleansing virtue as well as its comforting and refreshing power was to be felt and acknowledged by all the people of God. Referring therefore to the gift of the Holy Ghost, as the water of life, our Lord said to the woman of Samaria, "if thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water; and addressing himself more generally to the Jews, he said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified."

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The element of water in the natural world is often employed as an emblem of the grace and holy Spirit of God as promised through our Lord Jesus Christ. "This is he that came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the spirit that beareth witness because the spirit is truth. There are three that bear witness on earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one." The fitness and propriety of this figure is evident, for as water tends to cleanse and purify, to strengthen and refresh the body, so the grace and holy Spirit of God tends to cleanse and purify, to strengthen and refresh the soul. On these grounds, we have reason to infer that Christ the author and finisher of our faith, so intended it when he gave commandment to his disciples, how they were to receive new converts into the covenant of grace, and give them a title to the blessings and privileges of the everlasting gospel. It was designed to be not only a sign and seal of the righteousness of faith, but a means of grace.1 At a moment

1 The grace which is given them with their baptism, doth so far depend on the outward, that God will have it embraced, not only as a sign or token of what we receive, but also as an instrument or mean whereby we receive grace.-HOOKER ON BAPTISM,

of all others the most interesting and solemn, when the Son of God had died on the cross, was risen from the dead, and was about to ascend into heaven, he gave this his last and most sacred commission to his disciples. "Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me both in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." "Go," said he, "into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned."

The sanction of Christian baptism, as an initiatory rite of saving grace, is grounded on those commands of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, given after he had washed us from our sins in his own blood, after he had risen again for our justification, and at the very moment when he was about to ascend into heaven, to his Father and to our Father, to his God and to our God, and therefore demands the most serious attention of all his people. The holy sacrament as an outward

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ordinance is in itself a very plain and simple institution; yet plain and simple as it is, there is none on which professors of the gospel have more differed in opinion, none which hath been interpreted with a more various and opposite meaning, as to the promises of grace which attends it when duly observed. There are some who perceiving that the great design of the gospel is that men should be quickened by the spirit of God, have been led to think that under the new covenant of grace there is no need of the baptism of water: there are others who, admitting the washing of the body in pure water, have considered it as a mere sign of admission into the new covenant, but not as any means of grace, or a pledge to assure us thereof. There are others again who in an opposite error have maintained that the sacrament of baptism when once administered as a mere form of godliness, confers on the person baptized, as a mere form, an opus operantis, all the blessings of the everlasting gospel, without fervent prayer or true faith in the act itself, and without any change of heart and mind and life in the person baptized,-without

1 Sacraments, says Hooker, by reason of their mixed nature, are more diversely interpreted and disputed of than any other.

any conversion, renewal, or sanctification of the soul. So too in the ministration of baptism there are some who consider it to be Christian baptism valid and perfect, when performed by laymen, and even women and children who never received any commission or authority for the purpose.1 From the different notions thus entertained as to the holy sacrament of baptism, and from the manner in which it is too often ministered, even by those who are rightly appointed to their office, we need not be surprized that much of the sacredness and solemnity of this holy ordinance has been actually lost in the present day, and that it is not what it was intended-an act of consecration to the service of God, as well as to convey the gift of grace and God's spirit to the soul as appointed by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The sacrament of baptism from being so desecrated, instead of being the means to ensure the blessings which are promised in the covenant of grace, is too often considered as little more than giving a name to the person baptized: nay, there are numbers who like Simon Magus of old,

1 The nullity of that which a judge doth by way of authority is known to all men, and agreed with full consent of the whole world.-HOOKER.

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