visible and solemn forms, and has been so from the of faith with the Romish Church, that the Council of most ancient times, so when Almighty God was pleased Trent anathematizes all who deny that grace is not to enter into covenant engagements with men, he con- conferred by the sacraments from the act itself of redescended to the same methods of affording, on his ceiving them, and affirm that faith only in the Divine part, sensible assurances of his fidelity, and to require promises is sufficient to the obtaining of grace,-" Se the same from them. Thus, circumcision was the quis dixerit, per ipsa nova legis sacramenta, ex opere sign and seal of the covenant with Abraham; and operato, non conferri gratiam, sed solùm fidem Divine when the great covenant of grace was made in the promissionis ad gratiam consequendam sufficere, anaSon of God with all nations, it was agreeable to this thema sit."(4) It is on this ground also, that the memanalogy to expect that he would institute some con-bers of that Church argue the superiority of the sacrastantly-recurring visible sign, in confirmation of his ments of the New Testament to those of the Old; the mercy to us, which should encourage our reliance upon latter having been effectual only ex opere operantis, his promises, and have the force of a perpetual re- from the piety and faith of the persons receiving them, newal of the covenant between the parties. Such is while the former confer grace ex opere operato, from manifestly the character and ends both of the institu- their own intrinsic virtue, and an immediate physical tion of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; but as to the influence upon the mind of the receiver. five additional sacraments of the Church of Rome, "they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God,"(2) and they stand in no direct connexion with any covenant engagement entered into by him with his creatures. Confirmation rests on no scriptural authority at all. Penance, if it mean any thing more than repentance, is equally unsanctioned by Scripture; and if it mean "repentance towards God," it is no more a sacrament than faith. Orders, or the ordination | of ministers, is an apostolic command, but has in it no greater indication of a sacramental act than any other such command,-say the excommunication of obstinate sinners from the Church, which, with just as good a reason, might be elevated into a sacrament. Marriage appears to have been made by the Papists a sacrament for this curious reason, that the apostle Paul, when speaking of the love and union of husband and wife, and taking occasion from that to allude to the love of Christ to his Church, says, "This is a great mys-effect physically, and not morally. The fourth is its tery," which the Vulgate version translates," SACRAMENTUM hoc magnum est." Thus they confound the large and the restricted sense of the word sacrament, and forget that the true "mystery" spoken of by the apostle lies not in marriage, but in the union of Christ with his people,-"This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." If, however, the use of the word "mystery" in this passage by St. Paul, were sufficient to prove marriage a sacrament, then the calling of the Gentiles, as Beza observes, might be the eighth sacrament, since St. Paul terms that "a mystery," Eph. i. 9, which the Vulgate, in like manner, translates by "sacramentum." The last of their sacraments is Extreme Unction, of which it is enough to say, that it is nowhere prescribed in Scripture; and if it were, has clearly nothing in it of a sacramental character. The passage in St. James's Epistle to which they refer, cannot serve them at all; (for the Romanists use extreme unction only when all hope of recovery is past, whereas the prayers and the anointing mentioned by St. James were resorted to in order to a miraculous cure, for life, and not for death. With them, therefore, extreme unction is called "the sacrament of the dying."

Of the nature of sacraments there are three leading views.

The first great objection to this statement is, that it has even no pretence of authority from Scripture, and grounds itself wholly upon the alleged traditions of the Church of Rome, which, in fact, are just what successive inventors of superstitious practices have thought proper to make them. The second is, that it is decidedly anti-scriptural; for as the only true notion of a sacrament is, that it is the sign and seal of a covenant; and as the saving benefits of the covenant of grace are made expressly to depend upon a true faith; the condition of grace being made by the Church of Rome the act of receiving a sacrament independent of true faith, she impudently rejects the great condition of salvation as laid down in God's word, and sets up in its place another of an opposite kind by mere human authority. The third is, that it debases an ordinance of God from a rational service into a mere charm, disconnected with every mental exercise, and working its licentious tendency; for as a very large class of sins is by the Romish Church allowed to be venial, and nothing but a mortal sin can prevent the recipient of the sacrament from receiving the grace of God; men may live in the practice of all these venial offences, and consequently in an unrenewed habit of soul, and yet be assured of the Divine favour, and of eternal salvation; thus again boldly contradicting the whole tenor of the New Testament. Finally, whatever privileges the sacraments are designed to confer, all of them are made by this doctrine to depend, not upon the state of the receiver's mind, but upon the "intention" of the administrator, who, if not intending to impart the physical virtue to the elements, renders the sacrament of no avail to the recipient, although he performs all the external acts of the ceremony.

The opposite opinion to this gross and unholy doctrine is that maintained by Socinus, and adopted generally by his followers: to which also the notions of some orthodox Protestants have too carelessly leaned. The view taken on the subject of the sacraments by such persons is, that they differ not essentially from other rites and ceremonies of religion; but that their peculiarity consists in their emblematic character, under which they represent what is spiritual and invisible, and are memorials of past events. Their sole use, therefore, is to cherish pious sentiments, by leading the mind to such meditations as are adapted to excite them. Some also add, that they are the badges of a Christian profession, and the instituted means by which Christians testify their faith in Christ.

The first is that taken by the Church of Rome. According to the doctrine of this Church, the sacraments contain the grace they signify, and confer grace, ex opere operato, by the work itself, upon such as do not put an obstruction by mortal sin. "For these sensible and natural things," it is declared, "work by the almighty power of God in the sacraments what they The fault of the Popish opinion is superstitious excould not do by their own power." Nor is any more cess; the fault of the latter scheme is that of defect. necessary to this effect, than that the Priests," who The sacraments are emblematical; they are adapted to make and consecrate the sacraments, have an intention excite pious sentiments; they are memorials, at least of doing what the Church doth, and doth intend to do "(3) the Lord's Supper bears this character; they are badges According, therefore, to this doctrine, the matter of of profession; they are the appointed means for declarthe sacrament derives from the action of the Priest, in ing our faith in Christ; and so far is this view supepronouncing certain words, a Divine virtue, provided rior to the Popish doctrine, that it elevates the sacrait be the intention of the Priest to give to that matterments from the base and degrading character of a such a Divine virtue, and this grace is conveyed to the soul of every person who receives it. Nor is it required of the person receiving a sacrament, that he should exercise any good disposition, or possess faith; for such is conceived to be the physical virtue of a sacrament, that, except when opposed by the obstacle of a mortal sin, the act of receiving it is aione sufficient for the experience of its efficacy. This is so capital an article

(2) Article 25th of the Church of England. (3) Conc. Trid. Can. 11.

charm and incantation, to that of a spiritual and reasonable service, and instead of making them substitutes for faith and good works, renders them subservient to both.

But if the sacraments are federal rites, that is, if they are covenant transactions, they must have a more extensive and a deeper import than this view of the subject conveys. If circumcision was "a token," and "a seal" of the covenant, by which God engaged

(4) Conc. Trid. Sess. vii. Can. 8.

the followers of that faith whereof cometh justification, than to his natural descendants. "That the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to that which is by the law, but to that also which is by the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,"-of all believing Gentiles as well as Jews. The third stipulation in God's covenant with the patriarch was the gift to Abraham and to his seed of "the land of Canaan," in which the temporal promise was manifestly but the type of the higher promise of a heavenly inheritance. Hence St. Paul says, "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;" but this "faith" did not respect the fulfilment of the temporal promise; for St. Paul adds, "they looked for a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God."(9) The next promise was, that God would always be "a God to Abraham, and to his seed after him," a promise which is connected with the highest spiritual blessings, such as the remission of sins, and the sanctification of our nature, as well as with a visible Church state. It is even used to express the felicitous state of the Church in heaven, Rev. xxi. 3. The final engagement in the Abrahamic covenant was, that in Abraham's "seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed;" and this blessing, we are expressly taught by St. Paul, was nothing less than the justification of all nations, that is, of all believers in all nations, by faith in Christ:-"And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen by faith, preached before the Gospel to Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they who are of faith, are blessed with believing Abraham," they receive the same blessing, justification, by the same means, faith, Gal. iii. 8, 9. This covenant with Abraham, therefore, although it respected a natural seed, Isaac, from whom a numerous progeny was to spring; and an earthly inheritance provided for this issue, the land of Canaan; and a special covenant relation with the descendants of Isaac, through the line of Jacob, to whom Jehovah was to be "a God," visibly and specially, and they a visible and "peculiar people;" yet was, under all these temporal, earthly, and external advantages, but a higher and spiritual grace imbodying itself under these circumstances, as types of a dispensation of salvation and eternal life, to all who should follow the faith of Abraham, whose justification before God was the pattern of the justification of every man, whether Jew or Gentile, in all ages.

1. ITS NATURE. The Romanists, agreeably to their superstitious opinion as to the efficacy of sacraments, consider baptism administered by a Priest having a good intention, as of itself applying the merits of Christ to the person baptized. According to them, baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, and they therefore admit its validity when administered to a dying child by any person present, should there be no priest at hand. From this view of its efficacy arises their distinction between sins committed before and after baptism. The hereditary corruption of our nature, and all actual sins committed before baptism, are said to be entirely removed by it; so that if the most abandoned person were to receive it for the first time in the article of death, all his sins would be washed away. But all sins committed after baptism, and the infusion of that grace which is conveyed by the sacrament, must be expiated by penance. In this notion of regeneration, or the washing away of original sin by baptism, the Roman Church followed Augustine; but as he was a predestinarian, he was obliged to invent a distinction between those who are regenerated, and those who are predestinated to eternal life; so that, according to him, although all the baptized are freed from that corruption which is entailed upon mankind by Adam's lapse, and experience a renovation of mind, none continue to walk in that state but the predestinated. The Lutheran Church also places the efficacy of this sacrament in regeneration, by which faith is actually conveyed to the soul of an infant. The Church of England, in her baptismal services, has not departed entirely from the terms used by the Romish Church from which she separated. She speaks of those who are by nature "born in sin," being made by baptism "the children of grace," which are, however, words of equivocal import; and she gives thanks to God "that it hath pleased him to regenerate this infant with his Holy Spirit," probably using the term regeneration in the same large sense as several of the ancient Fathers, and not in its modern theological interpretation, which is more strict. However this be, a controversy has long existed in the English Church as to the real opinion of her founders on this point; one part of the Clergy holding the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and the absolute necessity of baptism unto salvation; the other taking different views not only of the doctrine of Scripture, but also of the import of various expressions found in the Articles, Catechisms, and Offices of the Church itself. The Quakers view baptism only as spiritual, and thus reject the rite altogether, as one of the "beggarly elements" of former dispensations; while the Socinians regard it as a mere mode of professing the religion of Christ. Some of them indeed consider it as calculated to produce a moral effect upon those who submit to it, or who witness its administration; while others think it so entirely a ceremony of induction into the society of Christians from Judaism and Paganism, as to be necessary only when such conversions take place, so that it might be wholly laid aside in Christian na-day," was to be "cut off from his people," by the spe

tions.

Now, of this convenant, in its spiritual as well as in its temporal provisions, circumcision was most certainly the sacrament, that is, the "sign" and the "seal;" for St. Paul thus explains the case: "And he received the SIGN of circumcision, a SEAL of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised." And as this rite was enjoined upon Abraham's posterity, so that every "uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin was not circumcised on the eighth

cial judgment of God, and that because "he had broken We have called baptism a federal transaction; an God's covenant," (1) it therefore follows that this rite initiation into, and acceptance of, the covenant of grace, was a constant publication of God's covenant of grace required of us by Christ as a visible expression and among the descendants of Abraham, and its repetition act of that faith in Him which He has made a condi-a continual confirmation of that covenant on the part tion of that salvation. It is a point, however, of so much importance to establish the covenant character of this ordinance, and so much of the controversy as to the proper subjects of baptism depends upon it, that we may consider it somewhat at large.

That the covenant with Abraham, of which circumcision was made the sign and seal, (8) was the general covenant of grace, and not wholly, or even chiefly, a political and national covenant, may be satisfactorily established.

The first engagement in it was, that God would "greatly bless" Abraham; which promise, although it comprehended temporal blessings, referred, as we learn from St. Paul, more fully to the blessing of his justification by the imputation of his faith for righteousness, with all the spiritual advantages consequent upon the relation which was thus established between him and God, in time and eternity. The second promise in the covenant was, that he should be "the Father of many nations," which we are also taught by St. Paul to interpret more with reference to his spiritual seed,

(8) Gen. xvii. 7-14.

of God, to all practising it in that faith of which it was the ostensible expression.

As the covenant of grace made with Abraham was bound up with temporal promises and privileges, so circumcision was a sign and seal of the covenant in both its parts,-its spiritual and its temporal, its superior and inferior, provisions. The spiritual promises of the covenant continued unrestricted to all the descendants of Abraham, whether by Isaac or by Ishmael; and still lower down, to the descendants of Esau as well as to those of Jacob. Circumcision was 'practised among them all by virtue of its Divine institution at first; and was extended to their foreign servants, and to proselytes, as well as to their children; and wherever the sign of the covenant of grace was by Divine appointment, there it was as a seal of that covenant, to all who believingly used it; for we read of no restriction of its spiritual blessings, that is, its saving engagements, to one line of descent from Abraham only. But over the temporal branch of the covenant, and the external religious privileges arising out of it, God exercised a

justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace." The second is that milder view which he himself must have had when he circumcised Timothy to render him more acceptable to the Jews; and which also appears to have led him to abstain from all allusion to this practice when writing his Epistle to the believing Hebrews, although many, perhaps most of them, continued to circumcise their children, as did the Jewish Christians for a long time afterward. These different views of circumcisio held by the same person, may be explained by considering the different principles on which circumcision might be practised after it had become an obsolete ordinance.

rightful sovereignty, and expressly restricted them first | is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are to the line of Isaac, and then to that of Jacob, with whose descendants he entered into special covenant by the ministry of Moses. The temporal blessings and external privileges comprised under general expressions in the covenant with Abraham, were explained and enlarged under that of Moses, while the spiritual blessings remained unrestricted as before. This was probably the reason why circumcision was re-enacted under the law of Moses. It was a confirmation of the temporal blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, now, by a covenant of peculiarity, made over to them, while it was still recognised as a consuetudinary rite which had descended to them from their fathers, and as the sign and seal of the covenant of grace, made with Abraham and with all his descendants without exception. This double reference of circumcision, both to the authority of Moses and to that of the patriarchs, is found in the words of our Lord, John vii. 22; "Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;" or, as it is better translated by Campbell, Moses instituted circumcision among you (not that it is from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and ye circumcise on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a child receive circumcision, that the law of Moses may not be violated," &c.

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1. It might be taken in the simple view of its first institution, as the sign and seal of the Abrahamic covenant; and then it was to be condemned as involving a denial that Abraham's seed, the Christ, had already come, since, upon his coming, every old covenant gave place to the new covenant introduced by him.

2. It might be practised and enjoined as the sign and seal of the Mosaic covenant, which was still the Abrahamic covenant with its spiritual blessings, but with restriction of its temporal promises and special ecclesiastical privileges to the line of Jacob, with a law of observances which was obligatory upon all entering From these observations, the controversy in the that covenant by circumcision. In that case it involved, Apostolic Churches respecting circumcision will de-in like manner, the notion of the continuance of an old rive much elucidation. covenant, after the establishment of the new; for thus The covenant with Abraham prescribed circumcision St. Paul states the case in Gal. iii. 19, "Wherefore as an act of faith in its promises, and a pledge [to per- then serveth the law? It was added because of transform its conditions] [on the part of his descendants].gressions, until THE SEED should come." After that But the object on which this faith rested, was "the therefore it had no effect:-it had waxed old, and had seed of Abraham," in whom the nations of the earth were vanished away. to be blessed which seed, says St. Paul, "is Christ," Christ as promised, not yet come. When the Christ had come, so as fully to enter upon his redeeming offices, he could no longer be the object of faith, as still to come; and this leading promise of the covenant being accomplished, the sign and seal of it vanished away. Nor could circumcision be continued in this view, by any, without an implied denial that Jesus was the Christ, the expected seed of Abraham. Circumcision also, as an institution of Moses, who continued it as the sign and seal of the Abrahamic covenant both in its spiritual and temporal provisions, but with respect to the latter made it also the sign and seal of the restriction of its temporal blessings and peculiar religious privileges to the descendants of Israel, was terminated by the entrance of our Lord upon his office of Mediator, in which office all nations were to be blessed in him. The Mosaic edition of the covenant not only guaranteed the land of Canaan, but the peculiarity of the Israelites, as the people and visible Church of God, to the exclusion of others, except by proselytism. But when our Lord commanded the Gospel to be preached to "all nations," and opened the gates of the "common salvation" to all, whether Gentiles or Jews, circumcision, as the sign of a covenant of peculiarity and religious distinction, was done away also. It had not only no reason remaining, but the continuance of the rite involved the recognition of exclusive privileges which had been terminated by Christ.

This will explain the views of the Apostle Paul on this great question. He declares that in Christ there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; that neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but "faith that worketh by love;" faith in the seed of Abraham already come and already engaged in his mediatorial and redeeming work; faith, by virtue of which the Gentiles came into the Church of Christ on the same terms as the Jews themselves, and were justified and saved. The doctrine of the non-necessity of circumcision he applies to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles, although he specially resists the attempts of the Judaizers to impose this rite upon the Gentile converts; in which he was supported by the decision of the Holy Spirit when the appeal upon this question was made to "the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem," from the Church at Antioch. At the same time it is clear that he takes two different views of the practice of circumcision, as it was continued among many of the first Christians. The first is that strong one which is expressed in Gal. v. 2-4, "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing; for I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ

3. Again: Circumcision might imply an obligation to observe all the ceremonial usages and the moral precepts of the Mosaic law, along with a general belief in the mission of Christ, as necessary to justification before God. This appears to have been the view of those among the Galatian Christians who submitted to circumcision, and of the Jewish teachers who enjoined it upon them; for St. Paul in that epistle constantly joins circumcision with legal observances, and as involving an obligation to do "the whole law," in order to justification.-"I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do THE WHOLE LAW; whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace." "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ," Gal. ii. 16. To all persons therefore practising circumcision in this view it was obvious, that "Christ was become of none effect," the very principle of justification by faith alone in him was renounced, even while his Divine mission was still admitted.

4. But there are two grounds on which circumcision may be conceived to have been innocently, though not wisely, practised among the Christian Jews. The first was that of preserving an ancient national distinction on which they valued themselves; and were a converted Jew in the present day disposed to perform that rite upon his children for this purpose only, renouncing in the act all consideration of it as a sign and seal of the old covenants, or as obliging to ceremonial acts in order to justification, no one would censure him with severity. It appears clear that it was under some such view that St. Paul circumcised Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess; he did it because of "the Jews which were in those quarters," that is, because of their national prejudices, " for they knew that his father was a Greek." The second was a lingering notion, that, even in the Christian Church, the Jews who believed would still retain some degree of eminence, some superior relation to God; a notion which, however unfounded, was not one which demanded direct rebuke, when it did not proudly refuse spiritual communion with the converted Gentiles, but was held by men who "rejoiced that God had granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life." These considerations may account for the silence of St. Paul on the subject of circumcision in his Epistle to the Hebrews. Some of them continued to practise that rite, but they were probably believers of the class just mentioned; for had he thought that the rite was continued among them on any principle which affected the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, he would no doubt have been equally prompt and fearless in pointing out that apostacy from Christ which was implied in it, as when he wrote to the Galatians.

express the state of his Church on earth, which is the gate to that celestial kingdom; and generally indeed speaks of his Church on earth under this mode of expression, rather than of the heavenly state. If then he declares that no one can "enter" into that Church but by being "born of water and of the Holy Spirit," which heavenly gift followed upon baptism when received in true faith, he clearly makes baptism the mode of initiation into his Church in this passage as in the last quoted; and in both he assigns to it the same office as circumcision in the Church of the Old Testament, whether in its Patriarchal or Mosaic form.

Not only might circumcision be practised with views 80 opposite that one might be wholly innocent, although an infirmity of prejudice; the other such as would involve a rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ; but some other Jewish observances also stood in the same circumstances. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, a part of his writings from which we obtain the most information on these questions, grounds his "doubts" whether the members of that Church were not seeking to be "jrtified by the law," upon their observing days, a months, and times, and years." Had he done more than "doubt," he would have expressed himself more positively. He saw their danger on this point; he saw that they were taking steps to this fatal result, by such an observance of these days," &c., as had a strong leaning and dan gerous approach to that dependence upon them for justification, which would destroy their faith in Christ's solely sufficient sacrifice; but his very doubting, not of the fact of their being addicted to these observances, but of the animus with which they regarded them, sup-him in baptism," &c. Here baptism is also made the poses it possible, however dangerous this Jewish conformity might be, that they might be observed for reasons which would still consist with their entire reliance upon the merits of Christ for salvation. Even he himself, strongly as he resisted the imposition of this conformity to Jewish customs upon the converts to Christianity as a matter of necessity, yet in practice must have conformed to many of them, when no sacrifice of principle was understood; for, in order to gain the Jews, he became "as a Jew."

From these observations, which have been somewhat digressive, we return to observe that not only was the Abrahamic covenant, of which circumcision was the sign and seal, a covenant of grace, but that when this covenant in its ancient form was done away in Christ, then the old sign and seal peculiar to that form was by consequence abolished. If then baptism be not the initiatory sign and seal of the same covenant in its new and perfect form, as circumcision was of the old, this new covenant has no such initiatory rite or sacrament at all; since the Lord's Supper is not initiatory, but, like the sacrifices of old, is of regular and habitual observance. Several passages of Scripture, and the very nature of the ordinance of baptism, will, however, show that baptism is to the new covenant what circumcision was to the old, and took its place by the APPOINTMENT of Christ.

This may be argued from our Lord's commission to his Apostles, "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," Matt. xxviii. 19, 20. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," Mark xvi. 15, 16.

To understand the force of these words of our Lord, it must be observed, that the gate of "the common salvation" was only now, for the first time, going to be opened to the Gentile nations. He himself had declared that in his personal ministry he was not sent but to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel ;" and he had restricted his disciples in like manner, not only from ministering to the Gentiles, but from entering any city of the Samaritans. By what means, therefore, were "all nations" now to be brought into the Church of God, which from henceforth was most truly to be catholic or universal? Plainly, by baptizing them that believed the "good news," and accepted the terms of the new covenant. This is apparent from the very words; and thus was baptism expressly made the initiatory rite, by which believers of "all nations" were to be introduced into the Church and covenant of grace; an office in which it manifestly took the place of circumcision, which heretofore, even from the time of Abraham, had been the only initiatory rite into the same covenant.Moses re-enacted circumcision; our Lord not only does not re-enact it, but, on the contrary, he appoints another mode of entrance into the covenant in its new and perfected form, and that so expressly as to amount to a formal abrogation of the ancient sign, and the putting of baptism in its place. The same argument may be maintained from the words of our Lord to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." By the kingdom of God, our Lord, no doubt, in the highest sense, means the future state of felicity; but he uses this phrase to

A farther proof that baptism has precisely the same federal and initiatory character as circumcision, and that it was instituted for the same ends, and in its place, is found in Colossians ii. 10-12, “And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power; in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with initiatory rite of the new dispensation, that by which the Colossians were joined to Christ in whom they are said to be "complete ;" and so certain is it that baptism has the same office and import now as circumcision formerly, with this difference only, that the object of faith was then future, and now it is Christ as come,that the Apostle expressly calls baptism "the Circum cision of Christ," the circumcision instituted by him, which phrase he puts out of the reach of frivolous criticism, by adding exegetically,-"buried with Him in baptism." For unless the Apostle here calls baptism "the circumcision of Christ," he asserts that we "put off the body of the sins of the flesh," that is, become new creatures by virtue of our Lord's own personal circumcision; but if this be absurd, then the only reason for which he can call baptism "the circumcision of Christ," or Christian circumcision, is, that it has taken the place of the Abrahamic circumcision, and fulfils the same office of introducing believing men into God's covenant, and entitling them to the enjoyment of spiritual blessings.

But let us also quote Gal. iii. 27-29, "For as many of you as have been baptized INTO Christ, have put on Christ; there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus; and if ye are Christ's," by thus being "baptized," and by "putting on" Christ," then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

The argument here is also decisive. It cannot he denied that it was by circumcisión believingly submitted to, that "strangers" or Heathens, as well as Jews, became the spiritual "seed of Abraham," and "heirs" of the same spiritual and heavenly "promises." But the same office in this passage is ascribed to baptism also believingly submitted to; and the conclusion is therefore inevitable. The same covenant character of each rite is here also strongly marked, as well as that the covenant is the same, although under a different mode of administration. In no other way could circumcision avail any thing under the Abrahamic covenant, than as it was that visible act by which God's covenant to justify men by faith in the promised seed was accepted by them. It was therefore a part of a federal transaction; that outward act which he who offered a covenant engagement so gracious required as a solemn declaration of the acceptance of the covenanted grace upon the covenanted conditions. It was thus that the Abrahamic covenant was offered to the acceptance of all who heard it, and thus that they were to declare their acceptance of it.In the same manner there is a standing offer of the same covenant of mercy wherever the Gospel is preached.The "good news" which it contains is that of a promise, an engagement, a covenant on the part of God to remit sin, and to save all that believe in Christ. To the covenant in this new form he also requires a visible and formal act of acceptance, which act, when expressive of the required faith, makes us parties to the covenant, and entitles us through the faithfulness of God to its benefits. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;" or, as in the passage before us, "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ; and if ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

We have the same view of baptism as an act of covenant acceptance, and as it relates to God's gracious