This conquest is reserved for the faithful preaching of the Cross. Christ crucified is the blessed magnet, which draws perishing souls to happiness and heaven. The gospel is "the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth,"* though esteemed foolishness by the worldly-wise. Blessed are they, who hold forth, by their doctrine, and in their lives, the gospel of the grace of God. They may be called to endure the wrath of Satan, and the hatred of the world; the reproach of the formalist, and the anathemas of ecclesiastical rulers; but they shall have the smiles of Christ here, and their portion in his kingdom, though burnt at the stake, as heretics unfit to live.

Blessed be God, against this true Church, the gates of hell shall not prevail. The waves of trouble may dash against it, but it cannot be overthrown, because it is founded upon the Rock, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. The work of redemption is the work of omnipotence. The word of God is mighty in operation. It is as a fire to consume the chaff of error in doctrine, and the dross of sin in practice. It is as a hammer to break in pieces the adamantine heart of the rebellious sinner. It is the wisdom of God, and the power of God.

O! my soul, hast thou experienced this transforming grace, through a believing reception of Christ crucified? "Examine thyself whether thou be in the faith; prove thy ownself."+ Rest not in forms and ceremonies, however excellent. "Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils." Let all thy hope and confidence be in God.

+

True religion, such as God will approve, is not confined to particular times and places, but, if truly received into the heart, will show its influence in every place, in every part of the conduct. It is like the sap of a living tree, which extends to the most distant boughs, and circulates through the smallest fibres. Not only actions, but words; not only words, but

Rom. i. 16.

+2 Cor. xiii. 5.

Isa. ii. 22.

thoughts; yea, motives, affections, and desires, are guided by the law of truth, and influenced by the law of love.

True religion consists in the right dispositions of a heart, sanctified by the Spirit of Christ; a heart, where self is humbled, where Jesus reigns, where holiness is promoted.

When the renewed soul is enabled, through the power of the Spirit, not only to discern the exceeding sinfulness of sin, but also to forsake it: when it is strengthened by faith to overcome the world, and to trust in the righteousness of Christ alone for salvation; not pleading its own good works, those neverfailing fruits of faith, but the riches of redeeming love: when the renewed soul is brought, through the power of the Holy Ghost, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, in his temper, mind, and spirit, being clothed with humility, beautified by meekness, and adorned with charity: when thus renewed and born again, living upon Christ by faith, and being spiritually united to him, as the member to the head, the soul can cast itself in deep contrition at the foot of the Cross, bewailing the imperfections of its holiest services, and imploring pardon and acceptance through the atoning sacrifice and all-perfect righteousness of the Redeemer then is that soul truly a member of Christ, a child of God, and shall soon be made the happy inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

Is this the prevailing character of baptised Christians? Does the visible Church thus shine in the beauty of holiness? Are all her members temples of the Holy Ghost? Would it not be so, if all were spiritually born again in baptism, since St. Paul hath declared that "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance ?"* O! it is well to have the mind scripturally enlightened, at a time when many would substitute the doctrines of men for the truth of God.

Some persons are apt to confound the sign with the thing signified, and thus to make the ordinance

* Rom. xi. 29.

of baptism and spiritual regeneration to be one and the same operation; that is, that every child sprinkled with water is invariably born again of the Spirit.

"The agency of the Holy Ghost, when he testifies of Christ and glorifies him, is quite distinct from the MEANS which conveys the testimony. This important distinction is carefully noted in Scripture. In confirmation of this truth, it is written, that the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to attend unto the things which were spoken by St. Paul. In this instance we plainly see the man of God preaching Christ, and all that is needful for the conversion of the soul on one hand; on the other, the God of all grace exercising his powerful influence, by which the Apostle's preaching obtained success.

Preaching the Gospel is a divinely-appointed means of grace; so also are the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; but, as in the former, the agency of the Holy Ghost is quite distinct from the means; so it is with respect to the two latter. Many heard Paul preach with as much power as Lydia did; but they remained unconverted, and why? because of the hardness of their hearts! Many receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper without benefit, being destitute of true faith. And multitudes are baptised in the name of Christ, who never manifest their love to him, being still in the bond of iniquity; for the agency of the Holy Ghost can alone render the means effectual, and not any power or virtue vested in the priest, or in the sacramental rite, apart from the Sovereign grace of God.

The Holy Spirit's influence must, then, ever be earnestly implored, through faith in the name of Christ, whenever we hear the gospel preached, and whenever the sacraments are administered. We must cease from man. "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase."+

* Venn.

+ Acts xvi. 13, &c.

1 Cor. iii. 5, 6.

How different is the language and the doctrine of the Apostles, from their boasted successors in the Church of Rome. Oh! that our Reformed Churches may ever be preserved from Papal errors; and, like the primitive Church of Jerusalem, continue "steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."* Then will a divine blessing rest upon the labours of faithful ministers, "and much people will be added unto the Lord."+ Ordinances will then become as wells of salvation, out of which we shall draw, by faith, the living water, through the blessed influence of the Holy Ghost.

"In and by baptism, believers have sealed to them a covenant right in the glorious privileges of membership in Christ, adoption into God's family as children, and inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. And baptism, which does thus in a covenant-way seal these privileges to believers, does, in what was called a charter-way, seal them to baptised infants: so that it lies upon themselves, coming to years, to make out their claim to these things by a true faith wrought in them by the Spirit of God."+

66

Inseparable baptismal and spiritual regeneration is the opus operatum of Popery....Regeneration by promise, sealed in the baptism of infants, and wrought out in faith in their subsequent lives, is the doctrine of God's word, and fully loaded with all the rich blessings of the gospel of Christ to every real believer......It is a wide-wasting mischief to make baptism and regeneration the same thing; this is substantially to ascribe to the minister who baptises that power which the Scriptures exclusively appropriate to God, and it is directly to contradict the article. of the Church of England which calls baptism a sign of regeneration, conveying grace and spiritual blessings a sign and the thing signified cannot be the same thing. And yet is there in the promise of God sufficient warrant both for the prayer of faith, and

Acts ii. 42. + Acts xi. 24. + Walker. § John i. 12.

after that prayer for the thanksgiving of faith. For, on the other hand, God's ordinances are never bare signs. If faith be absent, they greatly increase guilt in the partakers of them......If regeneration be thus connected with baptism, how is it that we see so many baptised children so manifestly unregenerate. He that is born of God overcometh the world, worketh righteousness, loves the children of God, and has his affections set on things above; and we see, alas! innumerable multitudes that are baptised, to whom none of these characters belong. The real root of this grievous failure of God's ordinance is man's unbelief....The sacrament is made void through unbelief. To save and to bless there must be more than the sign...... Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.' Heb. iv. 1. ”*

6

"Let us suppose for a moment, that baptism is the new birth, and that baptism was the point which our Lord so strongly insisted on, (in his discourse to Nicodemus.)+ Why should our Lord, when explaining and enforcing his first assertion, so carefully distinguish between water-baptism and the operations of the Holy Spirit: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' Here, admitting that he insisted on the necessity of being born of water, he insisted also on being born of the Spirit, in order to convince Nicodemus that he spoke not of an outward and carnal, but of an inward and spiritual change." "Some distinguished characters are very strong and positive upon this point, viz., Baptismal Regeneration. The chief source of the error is, that men do not distinguish between a change of state, and a change of nature. Baptism is a change of state; for by it we become entitled to all the blessings of the New Covenant ; but it is not a change of nature. A change of nature may be communicated at the time that the ordinance Bickersteth. + John iii.