the modified respect due to antiquity shall be elevated into a feeling of conscientious reverence. Is it in fact going beyond the truth, if I observe that symptoms of the evil which I am now deprecating, have already begun to display themselves? Already we hear the Bible spoken of, not as the great vehicle of original teaching, but as a point of appeal only. The Church we are told, by its summaries, its extracts, its expositions, must instruct catechetically, and the Scriptures must be referred to from time to time, as a guarantee for the orthodoxy of the doctrines thus inculcated. Against such a mode of instruction indeed as this, there can lie no objection, provided the continual resort to the inspired volume is enforced as a concurrent object of study. But the probability is, that such will not be the practice. Revealed truths will be taught as culled from the Bible, and not as taught in the Bible. Separated from the original context, detached doctrines will be presented to the mind in a more harsh and isolated form, than that in which they are contained in the word of God, and thus, whilst the facts of revelation will be preserved, the harmony, the keeping, and the analogy of the several parts of revelation one with the other will eventually be lost sight of. Let me explain what I mean by a comparison. What judgment would a young student in painting be able to form of one of the Cartoons of Raphael, were the separate figures presented to him one by one, without any reference to their position and grouping as integral portions of a large composition? He would be able to judge indeed of the accuracy of the individual drawing, but he would form an extremely feeble conception of the main intention of the artist. In like manner, I conceive that in order really to understand the teaching of the Bible, we must read it in the Bible. We shall then, and then only, be able to per

ceive the exact proportion which one part of revelation bears to another, and to judge of its relative importance: to know in short what are the great, prominent and 'palmary truths there revealed; what are those simply ancillary, and secondary, not indeed in authority, but solely in extent and degree. Human teaching, even when derived from Scripture itself, where it does not convey the whole truth, must ever be received with a certain degree of suspicion. Men much too conscientious to alter what they find written, will still be too often tempted to set off to advantage their favourite doctrines, by giving them in their oral teaching a prominence which they do not possess in the original record. And thus human ingenuity and learning step in to colour and distort, and perplex the best gift of God. The result accordingly is, that theology as a science becomes at length too ponderous for the average understanding of mankind, and the humble, the timid, and the simple-minded are left dependent upon the glosses and expositions of schoolmen, instead of deriving their knowledge of their God and their Redeemer from the original fountain head. Such is the process by which grows up, insensibly and by degrees, the fatal, the unscriptural doctrine of reserve in spiritual teaching. The simple mind is declared to be unequal to the apprehension of the plainest revealed truth, until that truth be tested and examined by the labours of the learned. And thus man steps in, not indeed with the intention of interrupting or cutting off the descending streams of divine knowledge, but still determined at all events that they shall pass through earthen conduits, of which he is to reserve to himself the right of regulating and adjusting the supply. Reserve in scriptural teaching! How strangely does this expression sound in Protestant ears! It was our blessed Redeemer's boast

respecting his doctrine, that "to the poor the gospel was preached;" it was that of his great Apostle Paul, that, rejecting all human philosophy and human wisdom, he taught one thing only, "Christ crucified." This momentous truth he himself urged, and exhorted his followers to urge, "in season and out of season;" and yet in our own day we hear of learned men and good men holding back, as an esoteric doctrine, this central and fundamental position, as a thing not to be lightly laid bare to the gaze of the multitude! Of such an attempt we may, I trust, pronounce with confidence, that it cannot eventually succeed. The auxiliaries of learning, and the force of personal respectability may give it a momentary popularity; and an increase in practical holiness, and a more complete development of the religious principle may, by oversanguine minds, be anticipated as its probable result. But it requires nothing more than the knowledge afforded by past experience, to pronounce with confidence that it will disappoint all such expectation. Not having its foundation in revelation, and not being suited to the circumstances of human nature, its effect, if carried into operation, will no doubt be, in another generation, the revival of the cold superstitions of former ages, and the substitution of the abject slavery of external ordinances for the heartfelt devotion of the spiritual servant of Christ.

By way of conclusion, let me now subjoin a few observations upon some of those leading points of Christian doctrine which have been most affected by being brought into contact with ecclesiastical traditions.

OF BAPTISM.

The rite of baptism bears every appearance of being exactly analogous with that of circumcision under the Jewish ritual, as constituting the initiative introduction

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into the divine covenant to which it is annexed.

That it is universally required of all persons admitted into the Christian church, precisely as circumcision was of all members of the Jewish nation claiming the Levitical privileges, is evident from the command of our Saviour to baptize all nations, and from the whole tenor of his conversation with Nicodemus on the subject. It is moreover self-evident that no command, thus universal in its application, would be lightly given by the great Founder of our faith. We are therefore bound to believe that obedience on our part, accompanied with a due submission of the will to so positive an injunction, must necessarily be accompanied with some appropriate divine blessing, which we could not receive on any other terms. Granting then, as we necessarily must, the universal obligation of submitting to this ordinance, and the reality of the spiritual benefit annexed to its due performance, it remains, in the first place, to be considered how far Christians are justified in deviating from what would seem to have been the primitive usage, by administering it, as is now almost universally practised, to new-born infants. It will not, I think, be difficult to show that in this practice we are borne out by the spirit, if not the letter, of holy Scripture.

Upon the first preaching of the Gospel, it was natural that the larger portion of the persons coming to partake of this rite should have been adults; and we are not therefore to be surprised that the New Testament alludes only to such cases, and of course considers that service of the heart which consists in repentance for past sins, and acceptance through faith of the terms proffered by the Gospel, as generally coincident with it in point of time. But it by no means follows, that what circumstances made necessary at that particular period, should constitute a rule strictly binding in all future

ages. As Bishop Taylor observes, the analogy of the case of circumcision, which shows that God, under the Mosaic laws accepted during the nonage of the infant, the faith of the parents who brought him to be thus initiated, is quite a sufficient warrant for Christians under the Gospel covenant, in adopting the same system with respect to baptism. We may therefore confidently argue, in opposition to those who would rest the usage of infant baptism upon tradition only, that we have in Scripture as direct a sanction as a strong analogy can afford for our present practice. And we shall be more confirmed in this view of the question when we consider it practically in its results.

Now the expediency of infant baptism (and where an usage appears to be not inconsistent with Scripture, its salutary mode of working must always be considered an additional argument in its favour), may be fairly considered as established, by the moral benefits upon the character which it is found experimentally to produce. A child cannot too soon be made to know that he is "not his own," that "he is bought with a price." If well disposed, he will from the moment that he begins to comprehend the duties of religion, feel a strong additional inducement to a course of early piety, from the consciousness that his regeneration (that is to say, his abjuration of his natural character, and his assumption of that of a servant of Christ) is not a thing which is to take place at some future indefinite period; but that it is already done. That he is actually assigned over to his Redeemer's service; that the old man is already buried in him; and that he is already spiritually risen again with Christ to newness and holiness of life.

Where then the rite of baptism is duly followed up, as the faculties of the mind develop, by a course of piety and obedience, we cannot doubt that our Lord's com