same chapter. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law; but through the righteousness of faith.' Again; in chap. x. 6. the apostle, having spoken of the righteousness of the law, says, 'But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise.' It is certain, that the righteousness of faith, in these instances, means gospel righteousness which is imputed 'without works.' These things are sufficient to determine its import to be as has been stated, in the case before us. So that the apostle is to be understood as asserting that Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the imputed righteousness of Christ which is apprehended and enjoyed by faith." To the doctrine that circumcision was, and that baptism now is, a token of an individual's faith, we object, that ordinarily, the dispenser of either, must be incapable of deciding positively whether the recipient is a believer or not. Of course, neither rite could, with a good conscience, be administered by any one to whom the Holy Spirit should not testify, that the person to be sealed believes unto righteousness. God alone looketh on the heart: man must be governed in his judgment of his fellow-men by the "outward appearance." One who should circumcise or baptize another, might give a sign or token that he had made a profession; but could not attest the sincerity of the profession, or the fact of actually believing, unless he could know what is in man. The provision made in the Abrahamic covenant, for the introduction of Gentiles into the Church, is in these words; "he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you; every man child in your generations: he that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger, which is NOT OF THY SEED." Gen. xvii. 12. According to this provision the Gentiles who professedly believed in the days of the apostles, and who have professed faith in Christ since, together with their offspring, have been brought into the visible Church. The covenant of circumcision, by which the church in the world was organized, is perpetual, and is the only charter given for the separation of one portion of mankind from the rest, by an ecclesiastical pale. The infants of the members of the church were circumcised, and are now baptized, Mr. Williams observes, because by God's constitution they are born members of the church. "Thus, we mark the sheep and lambs of our flocks, because they are our's, not to make them our's." Inquiry, p. 6. Drs. Hemmenway, Lathrop, Osgood, Janeway, and Mason, with Mr. Chadwick, teach the same doctrine. We think the word of God inculcates it. Some of the principal arguments for the perpetuity of the Abrahamic covenant are the following. 1. It is declared by God himself to be an everlasting covenant. Gen. xvii. 7. 2. The scriptures contain no intimation that it ever has been, or ever will be abrogated. 3. "The promise of Abraham's being a father of many nations, who are, therefore, his seed, never was, nor could be fulfilled, before the Christian dispensation."* 4. "If the Abrahamic covenant is no longer in force, the church of God, as a visible public society, is not, in any sense, connected with him by covenant relation."* 5. If the church erected by covenant with Abraham has ceased to exist, then all the prophecies of Isaiah and others, respecting the gathering of the nations into it, and its becoming coextensive with the babitable earth, were false, and will never be accomplished. 6. Many passages of the New Testament assert, or imply, that the church under the Christian administration of the covenant of grace, is one with the church in Abraham's family, with Moses in the wilderness, and in the land of Israel at the time of our Saviour's residence on earth. We refer particularly to Ephesians iv. 4. Rom. xi. 1. 17 to 25. Eph. ii. 1 to 22. Gal. iv. 1-7. and 26. Gal. iii. 29. and Acts. ii. 39. 1 Cor. vii. 14. "There is one body,-one Lord, one faith, one baptism.-Hath God cast away his peo. ple? God forbid. For I also am a Israelite.-If some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive-tree; boast not against the branches: but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.-Because of unbelief they were broken off;-and they also if they abide not still in * Dr. Mason. unbelief, shall be graffed in-again:-and sO ALL ISRAEL shall be saved. Remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh,-were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,-but now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh: for he hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of com. mandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man," or body, which is his church. "And if ye be Christ, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors, until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage; but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son,-to redeem them that were un der the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. -Jerusalem which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. The promise is unto you, and to your chil dren, and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call. The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now they are holy." We quote Dr. Janeway's remarks on two of these passages. "Now, from this passage, it is evident that the church, composed both of Jews and Gentiles, which has obtained the adoption of sons, is the same church which was formerly under bondage to the elements of the world, that is, to the cere monial law; and that the change of dispensation, which it has undergone, no more affects its unity, than the different states of minority and manhood, through which an heir passes, affect the identity of an individual. "This illustration of Paul constitutes a clear proof of the unity of the church. His comparison assumes it as an acknow ledged principle. Deny it, and you destroy the propriety, as well as the force of his figure. For, if the Jewish and Christian churches be, not one, but two, entirely distinct and different from each other, it might be consistent to compare one to the state of a minor, and the other to that of an heir arrived at full age: but it would be highly improper to liken the former, which on this supposition continued under bondage till its dissolution, to an heir passing from his minority and subjection to governors to manhood, and entering on the full possession of his inheritance; and still more improper to represent Gentile-converts as having been in bondage to the ceremonial law. But, admitting this great principle, the figure is correct throughout; and the Galatian believers were properly said to have been in subjection to the law, because they were members of that church which had been in bondage." p. 66, 67. "We adduce but one more passage of sacred scripture, in support of the unity of the church. It is recorded in Rom. xi. 17-23. In this text, St. Paul compares the church to a good olive-tree, planted in a sacred enclosure, and highly cultivated; the Jews to natural branches, and believing Gentiles to branches taken from a wild olive-tree, and grafted into the good one, so as to partake of its root and fatness. Let it be carefully observed, that the good olive-tree of which the Jews were natural branches, and from which they were, in consequence of unbelief, broken off, is the very same tree into which Gentiles were ingrafted; the very same into which the Jews shall, on their conversion, be grafted again. Now, is this comparison reconcilable with the sentiment, that the Jewish and Christian churches are two churches entirely and essentially different? On this supposition, the Gentiles were not grafted into the Jewish olive-tree; nor can the Jews, when converted, be grafted in again: for the tree has perished; the Jewish church has long ago been destroyed. On this supposition, the Jews will be introduced into a church of which they never formed a part; grafted into an olive-tree, from which they were never broken off, and of which they never were the natural branches. But admitting the truth for which we plead, the church of God to be one, and its unity unimpaired by a change in exterternal dispensations, the Christian being only a continuation of the Jewish church; and the figure appears natural and just, expressive and beautiful. The Gentiles do indeed partake of the root and fatness of that olive-tree, from which the Jews were broken off; enjoying those very covenant-privileges and promises, which the latter forfeited by their unbelief: and when the unhappy descendants of faithful Abraham shall turn to the Lord, they will be brought into the Christian church; and, by union to it, will be grafted into their own olive-tree, and recover those very covenant-privileges and promises which they formerly lost." p. 69, 70. It being established, that the only covenant which VOL. I. 3 B No. 3. chartered the one, only, visible church, included professed believers with their families, and considers them still as members, whose ecclesiastical relation has never been discontinued by God, it only remains to be proved, that they ought to be baptized, in order to settle the dispute concerning the subjects of baptism. Shall all who are included in the covenant ecclesiastical, wear the seal of it? From Abraham to Christ, all your males in your families shall wear it, saith Jehovah, by being circumcised. Since the ascension of Christ, it has been decided by a council of divinely inspired apostles, that the rite of circumcision is no longer to be observed. Has the covenant of circumcision, then, any seal under the Christian dispensation? We affirm that it has; that the seal is baptism; that baptism was instituted in place of circumcision; that all who would have been entitled to circumcision, had the rite been continued to this day in the visible church, are entitled to baptism; and that females moreover are now to wear the seal as well as males, because we have received a commandment from the risen Saviour to "disciple all nations, baptizing them;" and because his Holy Spirit has taught us, that in visibly puting on Christ in baptism, there is no distinction to be made between the sexes; "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Gal. iii. 27, 28. That baptism has come in the place of circumcision, we conclude from the fact that the former like the latter is directly a sign, seal, token or symbol, of a visible ecclesiastical relation: and indirectly of the covenant of grace. The most decisive evidence, however, is the assertion of the apostle, (contained in Colos. ii. 11, 12.) that in Christ we are circumcised by being buried with him in baptism. Of this text we have expressed our views, in the second article of this number. Dr. Janeway says, "We find, in this text, a further confirmation of the substitution of the Christian for the Jewish rite. Baptism is denominated the circumcision of Christ. That the inspired writer means by this phrase, neither our Lord's personal circumcision, |