No Baptist, or any other person in his senses, caiz suppose that water baptism in any mode, can produce, or that it invariably stands connected with the several effects here enumerated. All that can in reason be

pretended is, that it is an outward sign of these effects. Simon Magus was doubtless baptized in a scriptural mode, yet none of these effects were connected with his baptism, and the same no doubt has been the case with the baptism of thousands, and thousands besides.

Let us for a moment attend to the effects certainly produced by, or connected with the baptism of which mention is here primarily made. These effects are three, union to Christ himself, baptized into Christ; union to his death, "baptized into his death;" union to his burial," buried with him by baptism."

Of these respective unions, the baptism here mentioned is the instrumental cause. They are all effected by it,

Now what do these unions signify, or in other words. what is done when a person by baptism is brought into Christ, into his death, and buried with him? I answer, there is produced a union of heart to him in love and faith, and a conformity to him in that temper which he exercised in his life and in his death. important change in heart and life, the Apostle represents towards the close of the first cited passage, in these words," Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should

not serve sin.

This

What the Apostle, in the second cited passage, means when he addresses the believing Colossians, as being circumcised, in Christ with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, he also means, where he addresses them, as being buried with

him in a baptism, in which they were risen with him thro the faith of the operation of God, who had raised him from the dead.

As spiritual circumcision is intended in the first clause, so spiritual baptism is intended in the second. Outward circumcision and outward baptism therefore signify, or express the same thing, viz. a renovation and sanctification of the heart.

Keeping these conclusions in view, let us inquire what there is in either of these passages, determining that the mode of outward baptism must be immersion.

If it be said that the Apostle, when he says buried with him by baptism, alludes to the mode of baptism, it may with equal propriety and certainty be said, that he alludes to the mode of baptism where he speaks of being baptized into Christ, and into his death, and, therefore, for precisely the same reasons, that water bap tism, in its mode, must resemble the burial of Christ, must it resemble his person, and his crucifixion. What a mode of baptism this would be, no mortal can tell.— The fact is, that the mode of baptism can no more be determined from what baptism signifies, than the mode of circumcision can be determined from what circumcision itself signified.

"As it was not the mode of circumcision that made it signify the renovation of the heart, so it is not the mode of baptism that makes it signify the same fruit of the spirit." The effects of the internal washing of regeneration, may be represented by the effects of an external application of water, but they cannot be represented by any mode of applying water.

If our remarks upon these passages be correct, the inference which our brethren deduce from them, is inconsistent with their scope and meaning.

By the same process in reasoning by which they attempt, from these passages, to support immersion as essential to baptism, may we maintain that the sign of the cross is essential to it. For the persons, addressed by Paul, are no more clearly represented, as having been buried with Christ in baptism, than they are represented as having been planted together in the likeness of his death. There is certainly a much stronger allusion to the sign of the cross, in the latter phrase, than there is to the entombment of Christ, in the former.

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I cannot here forbear to state the words of a distinguished Divine, who was once himself a Baptist, at the close of a review of these passages. Upon the whole, the examination of this place convinces me of nothing so much as this, that both the Baptists in eral and myself in particular, have been carried away with the mere sound of a word, even to the neglect of the sense and scope of the truth of God."

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Let us now inquire whether baptism expresses the effects of the spirit in his influences on the souls of men.

That it does, appears from several considerations.-The effects of both are purifying, the one consists in putting away the filthiness of the flesh, the other the filthiness of the spirit.

The effects of each are repeatedly called by the same name. Both are termed baptism and very frequently connected in the same passage, as in Mat. 3, 11, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me, he shall baptize you with the Holy Chost and with fire, and in many other places.

It clearly appearing from these and other reasons, that the design of baptism is to be a sign of the effects of the operation of the spirit, rather than to represent

*Feter Edwards, Can. Rea. p. p. 171.

the death or the burial of Christ, we feel authorized to administer water initin a mode resembling the one in which the spirit is communicated in his gifts and influ

ences.

Learning from our Bibles, that He is "shed forth and poured out," in those gifts and influences; reading that He shall come down like the rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth;" hearing the Most High saying to his people "I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean, and I will be as the dew unto Israel;" reading that Christ "loved his church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, and also that believers are saved, not works of righteousness but by the washing of tion, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost :"

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I say, when we read these and similar passages, we feel authorized to administer baptism by affusion, or sprinkling rather than by immersion. We. verily think, that the scriptures favor that mode of baptism, in which water is applied to the subject, rather than the one in which the subject is applied to the water. We nevertheless allow the validity of immersion, and are willing to consider and fellowship those regularly baptized in this way, as baptized persons, yet we cannot view it as the mode most favored by scripture, nor the one best comporting with the situation of the church, scattered as it now is, and as it hereafter will more fully be, in the several climates and regions of the earth ours being a mode capable of adininistration "at any place, whether at home or abroad; in any situation, whether in sickness or in health; in any apparel usual, or unusual; in any season, whether cold or hot, wet or dry, and in any hour of the twenty-four, whether morning, noon or night."

As Christ has imposed on his church no heavier burden in respect to baptism than this, we can see neither virtue nor propriety in practicing any heavier one. We suppose that Christ lays down all the crosses which he requires us to take up, and when we hear our brethren say so much about the cross which there is in their baptism, and the greatness of the goodness and humility requisite to take it up, we cannot refrain from putting to them an inquiry, which in another case they put to us, who hath required this at thine hands.

There is no evidence with which we are acquainted to believe that Christ ever designed the ordinance of baptism to be a cross, and if he did not, there is no goodness, or propriety in making it one.-If there be, then the greater the cross is made, the more difficult and painful the rite becomes, by appendages and additions of human invention-the more virtue and goodness there will be in taking it up.

Here my remarks might close, but there are two or three topics of argument not yet noticed, to which our brethren resort to support the exclusive validity of their mode of baptism. "Say they, the Apostle informs us that there is one faith, one baptism."

That there is but one faith, and but one baptism that are saving, is no doubt correct, and that there are several species of faith and of baptism that are not saving is also certain. The scriptures speak of a dead faith, and of the faith of miracles, neither of which had any connection in itself with eternal life. They also speak of a baptism by water, a baptism by sufferings, and a baptism by the Holy Ghost. The latter no doubt is the baptism intended in the words before us. By one spirit all true christians are "baptized into one body, whether Jew or Gentiles, whether bond or free." But by the one baptism here mentioned, the Baptists