grace; then (chap. viii. ix. x. xi.) as of God's eternal purpose; then (chap. xii. xiii. xiv.) as working by love: but, in the very midst of this Divine scheme, we have Baptism, and its grace. We have it introduced for a most important practical purpose. It is used as the safeguard, as it were, to fence the doctrine of God's free grace, lest men pervert that doctrine to their destruction.

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Rom. vi. 1-4.)

Observe then, reader, that, in the most systematic account of the plan of salvation in the whole compass of God's Word, we have a most prominent place assigned to Baptism, and its doctrine; and in the midst of the fullest statement of the freedom and spirituality of God's grace, the central position is assigned to Baptism, and its grace of union with Christ.

But more, as if to mark with greater emphasis the importance of this aspect of the grace of Baptism, we have the words just quoted reiterated in another Epistle. "Buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." (Coloss. ii.)

The exposition and practical bearing of these texts I shall give more fully further on. I only now advert to them, as indicating the high place Baptismal doctrine occupied in the mind of the Apostle.

Again, the same Apostle is inspired to write another Epistle, that to the Ephesians,-also containing, though in fewer words than that to the Romans, a systematic sketch of divine truth.

In this Epistle we have twice mention made of the initial sacrament.

The first mention of it occurs in an exhortation to unity, (Ephes. iv. 1.) "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."

The Apostle, in these words, beseeches the members of an (apparently) most advanced and spiritual Church to abide in unity.

He adjures them by their oneness in the Divine Persons in Whom they believed, and the greatness of the divine. and spiritual bonds which united them.

One Father from Whom all grace flowed, One Lord their Redeemer, One sanctifying Spirit, one body the Church, one animating hope, one faith professed throughout the world; and in the midst of such as these, "one Baptism," as a reason why they should be "one."

Surely he must have thought that God worked great things by that (mean though it be in the eyes of some) which he couples with the one faith, the one hope, the one elect body! Unless he had had the most exalted thoughts of what God in His wisdom had joined to it, could he have so mentioned it?

In a second place in this Epistle, he mentions it as the outward means whereby God cleanses His Church,—“that He might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the Word." (Ephes. v. 26.)

No wonder, then, that in another Epistle,-that to the Hebrews, the doctrine of Baptism is included among the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, the foundations of divine truth :

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"The foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." (Heb. vi.)

But again, the Apostle Paul was inspired to write. another Epistle, (that to the Galatians,) to assert Christian liberty against the claims of a ceremonial system; and in this also we have another testimony to the important position of Baptism. "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." (Gal. iii. 27.)

From these places but one inference can be drawn,— that no matter how spiritual the Christian system be, that spirituality is coincident with the most wondrous grace being attached, in God's infinite wisdom, to a rite not purely spiritual, in which not only the mind but the body has its part.

We must reverently search and see whether God has given any clue to the understanding of this mystery.

But, before doing so, let us turn for a moment from the words to the life and example of Christ.

When the fulness of time arrived for Christ to enter upon His public ministry, a remarkable person, miraculously born, and full of God's Holy Spirit, was exercising a ministry that was to prepare the way for His (Christ's).

This ministry was a ministry of Baptism, so much so that he who exercised it took his name from the rite: he was called "John the Baptist."

To this Baptism of His servant, Christ (the One Only Man Who, because He was without sin, needed it not) submitted; and God honoured His submission by accompanying it with His first testimony to Christ's Eternal Sonship. Then, too, He was anointed with the fulness of the Spirit for the work of His Messiahship.

Now, consider the prominence given in the Word of God to this submission of our Lord.

It is chronicled in full by two out of the four Evange

lists; another (St. Mark) begins his Gospel with the notice of it; and the remaining one (St. John), in the first chapter of his Gospel, makes the first testimony to Christ's Messiahship to be that of John the Baptist witnessing to the descent of the Holy Ghost on Jesus at His Baptism. By each of the four it is implied to be the gate by which our Lord entered on His ministry.

And why was all this written? Why was such honour put upon the Baptism of John the Baptism of water only, the imperfect Baptism-that had to be repeated? Why, but for our sakes; that if such was the honour put upon the Baptism of the servant, how should we regard our Baptism-the Baptism of the Master! How should we reverently acknowledge the one Baptism! How should we believe in, confess, uphold its place in Christ's kingdom, its divine reality! From these considerations, then, one thing is abundantly plain, that the deeper the spiritu ality of the Christian scheme, the more reason for us to consider why Christ should have exalted to such a place in it an ordinance not purely spiritual.

No truly spiritual man can ignore the place that Christ has, in His religion, assigned to Baptism; for the first element of Christian spirituality must be a submission of the whole inner man to all that God reveals, and this because He reveals it whose weakness is stronger and whose foolishness is wiser than men.

Let us remember how St. Paul would have the Corinthians test their spirituality: "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord."

Are we then permitted to discern any reason for Christ's having placed at the gate of His spiritual kingdom. an ordinance not purely spiritual, touching the body through an element (water) of God's outer creation? I think we are so permitted.

I think that God, by introducing into Christianity, not

only an evangelical and a moral, but also a sacramental element, has looked to the "supply of all our need, according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus."

We are not spiritual beings only, nor shall we be through eternity.

As Christ our Head is, so shall we be. He, the Son of God, is now in His glorified humanity at God's right hand, not a pure spirit, but clothed in that BODY in which there dwells the fulness of the Godhead.

And in our perfect state of bliss, we also shall be body and spirit; our bodies spiritualized and glorified, but yet bodies. The sacramental doctrine of Scripture has to do with the fact, that Christ in His glorified human nature is our Second Adam, and that we are saved in Him, not in soul only, but in body, soul, and spirit.

Reader, I ask your patient and prayerful attention to the exposition of this I am now going to offer you.

God, in His all-wise purposes, ordained that the race of mankind should spring from one parent. Adam was the fountain from which the whole river of human being has flowed. He was the root from which the whole tree of human life has sprung.

God ordained that he should transmit his human nature, whatever that nature might be, to his posterity, so that if he continued holy, he should transmit to them a holy nature, but that if he became sinful, he must, of necessity, transmit to them a sinful nature. Through his own free-will he ate of the forbidden fruit, and became sinful, and this before any children were born to him; so that when he begat children, he transmitted to them, not the sinless nature which he possessed originally, but the sinful nature he received the moment he trangressed. Hence the fountain of human nature became poisoned at its very source; the root of human nature became evil before a single branch or bud had sprung out of it. Hence when Adam begat children, they were in his likeness. Hence all mankind are sinners from the very womb.