culties which I am going to state lie in the way of the Scripture doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration.

I say then, we have these startling appearances:Persons brought up without Baptism may show themselves just the same in character, temper, opinions, and conduct, with those who have been baptized; or when these differ from those, this difference may be sufficiently or exactly accounted for by their education.

An unbaptized person may be brought up with baptized persons, and acquire their tone of thought, their mode of viewing things, and their principles and opinions, just as if he were baptized. He may suppose that he has been baptized, and others may think so; and on inquiry it may be found out that he has not been baptized.

On the other hand, a baptized person may acquire the ways of going on, and the sentiments and modes of talking of those who despise Baptism, and seem neither better nor worse than they, but just the same.

An unbaptized person may in after-life be baptized; and if quiet and religious before, may remain so afterwards, with no change of any kind in his own consciousness about himself, or in the impression of others about him.

Or, he may have had a formed character before Baptism, and not a pleasing one; he may have been rude and irreverent, or worldly-minded. He may have improved; he may have had faith sufficiently to bring him to Baptism, and, as far as we can judge, may have received it worthily; yet he may remain, improved indeed just 'so much as is implied in his having had

faith to come to Baptism, but apparently in no greater

measure.

Or, he may come to Baptism and improve after it, but only in such way as to all appearance he might have improved without having received it when he did; viz. from the intercourse of friends, from reading religious books, from study and thought, or from the trials of life.

Again, he may come to Baptism as a mere form, or from worldly motives, and yet in appearance be no worse than he was before. If he had a mixture of good and evil in him before, the same apparently remains.

And again, whether he has received Baptism or not, he is liable to the same changes of mind, to the same religious influences, nay, may run through the same spiritual course, may be gradually moulded on the same habits,-perhaps be affected in some remarkable way, so remarkable that it may be called a conversion, and what he himself may incorrectly call a regeneration,-which it cannot be, if we judge according to Scripture, and not appearance, since he either has been already regenerated in Baptism, or has not yet been regenerated, being unbaptized. Yet the same religious experience (as it sometimes is called) may befall him, whether he has been baptized or not.

It is indeed most obvious and striking how, in all systems, whether we take our own, or that which principally obtains abroad, or that of any dissenting bodies, we find the same sort of moral character attaching to this or that class of persons; how rank, wealth or power forms men every where alike; how all systems

have their freethinkers; how all have the same parties. Men are formed every where by the influence of visible things on the same types, and correspond one to another, as if proving against the Word of God, that baptism and grace are not the really influential principles among men, but the world that is seen.

Here then, I say, is experience counter to the word of God, which says, that except a man be born of water and the Spirit he is no member of Christ's kingdom. To which may be added, the nature of the rite of Baptism itself, its great simplicity, even supposing immersion is used, and much more in the case of pouring or sprinkling. No outward rite indeed can measure the great dignity of the gift of regeneration; were the outward ceremonies ever so laborious they would not be adequate; a simple rite, on the other hand, is a symbol of the freeness of the grace given us, which requires nothing on our part but repentance and faith;-yet, at the same time, the more simple the outward rite is, and the greater, on the other hand, the hidden gift, the greater trial is it to believe that it is given through the rite. Whether, then, we consider the ceremony of Baptism itself, or the persons who are made subjects of it, in both respects, sight and the word of God, the doctrine and the fact, are strangely contrasted. Let us not deny that it is so; why should we? Let us fairly and calmly gaze upon the contrariety, upon the difficulty, as some call it, or rather on the trial,-the trial of Faith, which alone overcomes the world.

2. This, then, is one trial of Faith. Another, which has in all ages assailed it, and not the least in our own

T

age, is the success which attends measures or institutions which are not in accordance with the revealed rule of duty. This was the perplexity of believers in the old time, as we read in the Psalms and Prophets, viz. that the wicked should prosper, while God's servants seemed to fail: and so in Gospel times. Not that the Church has not this peculiar prerogative with it, which no other religious body has, that as it began with Christ's first coming, so it will never fail till He comes again; but that for a time, in the course of single generations, nay, I may say in every age and at all times, it seems to be failing, and its enemies to be prevailing. It is the peculiarity of the warfare between the Church and the world, that the world seems ever gaining on the Church, yet the Church is really ever gaining on the world. Its enemies are ever triumphing over it as vanquished, and its members ever despairing; yet it abides. It abides, and it sees the ruin of its oppressors and enemies. "O how suddenly do they consume, perish, and come to a fearful end!" Kingdoms rise and fall; nations expand and contract; dynasties begin and end ; princes are born and die; confederacies are made and unmade, and parties, and companies, and crafts, and guilds, and establishments, and philosophies, and sects, and heresies. They have their day, but the Church is eternal; yet in their day they seem of much account. How in early times must the Church have been dismayed, when, from the East, the false religion of Mahomet spread far and near, and Christians were extirpated or converted by it by thousands! Yet even that long-lived delusion is now failing; and though

younger than the Church by some centuries, has aged before it. And so in like manner, in spite of the duration of the Christian name hitherto, much there is to try our faith at this moment, who cannot see the future, and therefore cannot see the short duration of what shows proudly and successfully now. We at this day see a number of philosophies, sects, and parties, thriving and extending, and the Church seems poor and helpless, as if its very place were to be insulted, and its very calling to give way. We see men in one department of philosophy rejecting the accounts, for instance, of the Creation or the Deluge, as they stand in the Old Testament; others setting aside the precepts of almsgiving, and the like, as given in the New; others disputing the historical narratives contained in the Old; and others denying those interpretations of the doctrinal portion of Scripture which have ever been received. We see imperfect forms of Christianity made the religion of states and nations, and apparently bringing forth good fruit; nay, apparently flourishing more than many forms which are more perfect and catholic. We see the Church in slavery apparently flourishing more than the Church free. We see sects apparently flourishing more than the Church. We see wrong principles, unsound doctrines, apparently making men what Christians should be, and what the true Gospel can alone really make any one. We find the teachers of what we must call heresy, and the ministers of division, doing what the Church does not, or cannot do; we find dissenting bodies sending missions to the heathen, and apparently succeeding in converting them. I do not speak of the