specific sort by whatever different appellations it may be distinguished: it will necessarily follow, that the various circumstances attendant upon circumcision of the heart must also be attendant upon spiritual regeneration; for the self-same radical inward change is expressed to us by these two several titles.

Hence, as this one change under two denominations has been at different periods shadowed out by two successive external signs, it must inevitably bear exactly the same relation to the one sign that it does to the other: that is to say, outward cir cumcision must be a perfect type of outward baptism by standing in the same relation to circumcision of the heart that outward baptism does to spiritual regeneration.

(3.) Such being the case, as outward circumcision might subsist without any concomitant circumcision of the heart; so baptism may subsist without any concomitant spiritual regeneration : and, as outward circumcision was a sacramental sign of circumcision of the heart; so baptism is a sacramental sign of spiritual regeneration.

3. The union in short of the outward sign and the inward grace depends alike, in each sacrament, upon the worthiness of the recipient. If the partaker of the consecrated bread and wine partake of it worthily; then he also feeds spiritually upon body and blood of Christ: but, if the contrary ; then (as St. Austin most justly determines) he is in no wise a partaker of Christ, although carnally and visibly he may press the holy elements with his

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teeth. In a similar manner, if the recipient of outward baptism be a worthy recipient; then he also receives the inward grace of regeneration, being born again of the Spirit no less than he is washed by the water: but, if the contrary; then he derives no benefit from the external sign, remaining still as much as before in a state of unregeneracy, from which (in that case) he can only be brought at some future time by the gracious agency of God the Holy Ghost.

This, accordingly, is the rational and scriptural determination of the Church of England. In such ONLY as WORTHILY RECEIVE the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, they have ▲ WHOLESOME EFFECT OR OPERATION: but they, that RECEIVE THEM UNWORTHILY, purchase to themselves condemnation.*

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VI. Thus had the Israelites of old their sacraments as well as ourselves: and indeed the whole Law may well be pronounced to look forward to the better things of the Gospel. This, were it necessary, might be instanced in various particulars but, to avoid prolixity, I shall now conclude with noticing a peculiarity of the ceremonial institutes, which more particularly connects the Law and the Gospel.3

3 It may be worth while to adduce a curious Jewish tradition, mentioned by Maimonides, respecting the red heifer, which was appointed to be slain with various ceremonies for the purification of the unclean, and which in two several places is represented by St. Paul as being a type of our Sa

1. The Jews were ordered to abstain from certain kinds of meats, which, if we examine their

viour. Compare Numb. xix. with Heb. ix. 13, 14. and Heb. xiii. 11, 12.

Nine red heifers have been sacrificed, between the original delivering of this precept and the desolation of the second temple. Our master Moses sacrificed the first: Ezra offered up the second: and seven more were slain during the period, which elapsed from the time of Ezra to the destruction of the temple. King Messiah himself will sacrifice the tenth by his speedy manifestation he will cause much joy. Amen, may he come quickly! Maimon. de Vacc. Ruf. c. iii.

Nearly allied to this tradition is another Rabbinical legend, mentioned in Bereschit Rabba on Gen. xlii. 6.

Ten kings shall reign from the beginning of the world to the end of it: of whom the first is the Blessed God, and the last the Messiah; according to Psalm lxxii. 8. Dan. ii. 35, 44. In this last king, the kingdom shall return to the Lord the rightful owner: and thus he, who was the first king, shall be the last. Martin. Pug. Fid. p. 316. Lampe in Joan. i. 50. Jamieson's Vind. book i. c. 7. p. 87.

By the ten kings, I strongly suspect, that the Rabbins mean ten of the most eminent incarnate descents of the Angel of Jehovah the first being that immediately subsequent to the fall, when the Seed of the woman was promised as a deliverer from the tyranny of the evil spirit; and the last being the permanent manifestation of that Seed in the person of the Messiah. If I am not mistaken, moreover, they learned the number ten, during the Babylonian captivity, along with the doctrine of the Metempsychosis and other pagan vanities, from the ten Iranian or Indian Avatars or incarnate descents of the middle god Mithras or Vishnou; much of whose character has been borrowed from old tradition respecting the predicted Serpenticide. In the Calci or tenth Avatar, Vishnou appears in the form of an armed warrior leading a winged white horse, after a mode not dissimilar to the equestrian descent of the Word in the Apocalypse: and the dissolution of

nature, will usually be found typical of some vices practised by the idolaters; and, pursuant to the type, they carefully withdrew from the company and fellowship of its antitype, the heathen nations. Thus the hog was a fit emblem of gluttony; the vulture and the kite, of rapacity and cruelty; and the owl, of those deeds of darkness which shun the light. On the other hand, the kinds of food, which they were allowed to eat, were generally emblematical of some virtue; as the ox, of patience and industry; the sheep, of meekness and innocence. Consequently, those animals may be considered as typical of the Church of God, at that time confined to the Jews.

But, when the Gospel came, the wall of distinction, between the Jew and the Gentile, was to be broken down. In place of the external cleanliness of meats, the spiritual cleanliness of the soul is to be substituted; and, instead of rejecting unclean food, we are commanded to reject unclean actions.

2. Let us now advert to a famous typical prophecy under the Law, with its interpretation and completion under the Gospel.

There shall come forth a rod out of the stem. of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his rootsThe wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and

a little child shall lead them. And the cow and

universal nature is the consequence. See Maurice's Hist. of Hind. vol. ii. p. 503.

the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.'

It is superfluous to assert, that no such change in the nature of real wild beasts ever took place literally; this event therefore must have happened figuratively, or not at all. The prophecy above cited begins with announcing the advent of the Messiah. Afterwards a wonderful alteration is to be made in the temper of certain wild and savage animals; BECAUSE2 the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the Gentiles shall seek to the root of Jesse. It appears, therefore, that the conversion of the heathens was to be the cause of this change in the wild beasts.

3. If now we turn to the New Testament, we shall find, that the first fruit of the conversion of the Gentiles was the devout centurion Cornelius. God, foreseeing the scruples of Peter on this head, was pleased to remove his error, by the revelation of a vision, manifestly explanatory of this very prophecy of Isaiah.