through the merits and mediation of our High-Priest in Heaven?

Let them who reject the mystical Oblation of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, remember that Antichrist is already in the world. His work, indeed, has been parallel with the work of Christ from the beginning, for the kingdoms of the world and their glory have been given to him. Disguised as an angel of light, he, under the plea of a more pure and spiritual service, is tempting men to their destruction. He has first cut them off from the " one Body," and now he robs them of the “ one Sacrifice for sin." Having taken away from them the Sacrifice and Oblation, they willingly yield to him the Priest and the Altar.

God is not the Author of confusion. He has established the boundaries of the natural world by immutable laws,-one day telling another, and one night certifying another, and His Spiritual kingdom standeth fast for ever. In that, He has made the outgoings of the morning and evening to praise Him in His work of Creation; in this, He has established a perpetual memorial of His greater work of Redemption. There He has stationed the Sun, Moon, and Stars to tell of His Power; here He has instituted a Sacrifice, Priesthood, and Altar to speak of His Mercy-binding in one common and universal system, the One Holy Catholic Church of Jesus Christ, —who is the Head over all, God blessed for ever!

BAPTISM.

Baptism is a word not so much out of use, as misrepresented or misconceived. Even with right, but not very deep-thinking persons, the careless and irreverent manner in which the ordinance of Baptism is slurred over, leaves a painful suspicion on the mind, of a serious depreciation of this Sacrament.

Baptism, according to the divine institution, is the washing of the body with water, as the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual cleansing by the operation of the Holy Ghost.

As God was pleased to institute an outward and visible symbol of His own great piacular Sacrifice and work of Redemption, as the means by which the benefits of the real Sacrifice of the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," should reach mankind; so He ordained, as well under the Patriarchal and legal, as under the Evangelical dispensation, an outward and visible sign by which men should become fitted or qualified to receive these benefits. Under the two former of these dispensations, circumcision was the initiatory rite, signifying the putting away of the filth of the flesh: under the latter, Baptism is the instituted ordinance, which symbolizes the being washed from the pollutions of sin.

As the entire Evangelical system or "better covenant” was fully prefigured and set forth in the typical ordinances of the earlier dispensations, so we

read that Noah was commanded to build an Ark, in the which he and his family were to be saved. Of this sign the Apostle Peter thus speaks." When

the longsuffering of God waited in the days of

Noah, while the Ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure"-literally the antitype or parallel-" whereunto Baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh"-according to the legal ceremony-" but the answer of a good"-or cleansed -"conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."3

Again. When the Israelites were led through the wilderness, the types of the Evangelical system became extended and multiplied. The Ark of the Levitical, like that of the Patriarchal covenant, was commanded to be built,-both of them figures of the one true Church; the Priesthood established; the vicarious Sacrifice ordained,-which typified and shadowed forth that better Sacrifice which was to follow. Thus they had the Altar, the Priesthood, and the Sacrifice. For them, therefore, the Rock was smitten, from whence, in a figure, they drank of the waters of life. They ate also of the Bread from Heaven,-type and figure of Him who declared, "I am that Bread from Heaven." Being bitten of fiery serpents-types of an evil conscience-they

1 Vide Hammond in loc.

31 Pet. iii. 20--22.

2 Vide Heb. x. 22.

66

were healed by looking with faith on the Brazen Serpent, (emblem of God and eternity) which was to be lifted up to be seen of all men; for, as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." Into this privileged state, from one of bondage and oppression, they were conducted by the waters of the Red Sea; of which St. Paul speaking, says, "Our fathers all passed through the Sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the Sea; (that is, by the Spirit and the water), and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ."

Baptism, as may be deduced from both these types, is not only the being washed and cleansed, it is likewise the passing by death, from one state or condition to another. In the former we see that the old world, having been cursed for man's sake, was to give place to the new one which was brought under a covenant of mercy. "And the Lord said, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." In the latter, the chosen

1 John iii. 14, 15.

3 Gen. viii. 21, 22.

2 Cor. x. 1—4.

people of God are brought from a state of bondage into a land of freedom; being led forth with a high hand by the agency of Moses, the prophet and type of their everlasting Redeemer.

Had they been suffered to follow the dictates of human reason, the Israelites would have passed from Egypt to their promised inheritance, by dry land, as the shortest and safest way; but "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord." It was by the way of the Red Sea-the miraculous opening up of a passage through the waters, (emblem of the tomb) that a new and living path from death to life, a Baptism from above and from below-in the cloud and in the seawas made for them: a change from a state of slavery to a land of freedom, in which God vouchsafed to lead, discipline, and instruct them. Surrounded on all sides by the nations of the world, yet hedged in, separate, and kept apart from them by the most stringent laws, and exact ordinances—they were, in type and in reality, the Church of God in the world of that day. This was their state of trial. For before they reached the land of promise-figure of the heavenly Canaan—another symbolical death awaited them. Joshua, or Jesus, the victorious leader of God's people (himself the type of the heavenly Jesus, the true Captain of our salvation) conducted them once more through the shadow of death, by the passing of the waters of Jordan. But having tra