his Son! To whom, with Thee, O Father, and Thee, O Holy Ghoft, three persons in one Godhead, be all honour and glory, in all churches of the faints, now, henceforth, and for ever. Amen.

DISCOURSE VI.

JOHN iii. 5.

Jefus anfwered, Verily, verily, I fay unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

AT the time that Almighty God first selected the Jews for his peculiar people, he instituted the rite of circumcifion, whereby they were to be admitted into covenant with him. This institution was defigned not only for an outward and visible mark to distinguish those, who profeffed their belief in the true God; but at the fame time for a memorial to remind them of his covenant; and for a monument to incite them to perform their part of the covénant; and for a token that God would perform his part.

This inftitution, which was designed for the Jews as the chofen people of God, was extended to thofe ftrangers alfo, who became profelytes to the true faith. But in addition

to this, another ceremony was appointed by the Jews themselves, derived, as they imagined, from the law of Mofes, and certainly stamped with the fanction of high antiquity. Proud of their own peculiar fanctity, as the elect people of God, and regarding all the rest of mankind as in a state of uncleannefs, they would not admit converts into their church without washing, to denote their being cleanfed from their natural impurity. Profelytes, thus purified and admitted into the Jewish church by baptifm, were faid to be regenerated, or born again: nor was this a mere empty appellation; but being confidered dead to their former relations, they became intitled to rights and privileges, from which by nature they were excluded.

The duration of God's covenant with the Jews being limited, the rite of circumcifion was of course limited, and was to ceafe upon the completion of God's promife in the fending of Chrift. God had now accomplished his covenant with Abraham by fending that feed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be bleffed. And as there was no longer to be any distinction in favour of the Jews, the children of Abraham, above the other nations of the world, the outward mark of distinction was no longer ufeful. God was now to show no refpect unto perfons, to the

circumcifed or to the uncircumcifed; but in every nation, among the Gentiles as well as among the Jews, he that feared God and worked righteousness was equally to be accepted with him.

But upon the introduction of the new covenant in Chrift, God was pleased to inftitute a new ceremony; whereby mankind at large were to be admitted into covenant with him, as the Jews had been by the rite of circumcifion. For this purpose Chrift adopted baptifm, which had been confecrated by his brethren after the flesh to a fimilar use; and ordained it as the rite, by which thofe, who believed in him, should be admitted to the privileges of his religion. He kept the ceremony," says Bishop Taylor, "that they, who were led only by outward things, might be the better "called in, and easier enticed into the religion, "when they entered by a ceremony, which "their nation always used in the like cafes: " and therefore without change of the out"ward act, he put into it a new spirit, and

gave it a new grace and a proper efficacy: "he fublimed it to higher ends, and adorned "it with stars of heaven: he made it to fig

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nify greater myfteries, to convey greater blesfings, to confign the bigger promises, to "cleanse deeper than the skin, and to carry profelytes farther than the gates of the in

" ftitution. For fo he was pleased to do in "the other facrament: he took the ceremony " which he found ready in the custom of the "Jews, where the Major-domo after the Paf"chal fupper gave bread and wine to every

perfon of his family; he changed nothing of "it without, but transferred the rite to greater myfteries, and put his own Spirit to their sign, " and it became a facrament evangelical1.”

It was to this facrament of baptism, the inftitution of which he was anticipating, that our Saviour alluded, when he declared to the Jewish Rabbi, who was inquiring into the nature of his doctrine, "Verily, verily, I fay unto "thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot "fee the kingdom of God:" and when, in reply to a farther inquiry, he repeated his former declaration, and stated it in more limited and specific terms, "Verily, verily, I

fay unto thee, Except a man be born of wa"ter and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into "the kingdom of God." It should appear, I fay, that he was here alluding by anticipation to the facrament of baptism, which he intended to ordain; and to that fupernatural grace, which was thereby to be conferred through the inftrumentality of water, and by the agency of the Holy Ghoft: adopting, not only

* Life of Chrift, part i. fect. 9.