and of hope, when she afterwards trusts that every baptized member of the communion has fulfilled the terms of his baptismal covenant, has nurtured the seed of Divine grace, and as she originally asked for him, has "ever remained in the number of God's faithful and elect children." Precisely as in her other sacrament, of the Lord's supper, she, in the same judgment of charity, assumes that her members "have duly received those holy mysteries" and in consequence assures them, that they are very members incorporate in the mystical body of the Son of God, and heirs through hope of His everlasting kingdom."

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Now it is perfectly true, that although in the service of this solemn sacrament of the Lord's Supper we speak thus and assume thus without the least hesitation, that "all we" who approach the table of the Lord "have duly received these holy mysteries," yet that, with the utmost stretch of Christian charity, we must still fear that there are many at all times in the Christian Church, who in the language of the 29th Article "do carnally and visibly press with their teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ; yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ." No enlightened Christian, however, is offended at the discrepance between the language and the fact, simply because we know that the Church is not now gifted with the power of "discerning spirits," or of reading the heart; and therefore is not only fully justified, but is bound in Christian charity to hope the best of all and of each of her members.

This, indeed, appears to be the key to the right understanding of the motive and intention of our Church in all her services. It is obvious that if the Church have but one set of services for her members, she must so construct those services as to apply to the case of her real and spiritual, and not her nominal, members. Bearing this in view, it is not remarkable that she should act in faith upon the declaration of her God, that his "promises are to us and to our seed," and concluding that the parents and sponsors of the children presented at the baptismal font, are themselves among the faithful, devoted, prayerful, servants of the Most High, she is bound to expect that the infant will "rightly receive" Christian baptism; that God will hear and answer petitions so scriptural, so reasonable, so entirely for the honor and glory of his own great and holy name, and that the child will lead the rest of his life according to this beginning."

That she is often disappointed, that in after years, we are com pelled to mourn over the alienation from God, of those, over whom as infants, we have united in the prayers and thanksgivings of the Church, only proves that while our Church is true to her God, and to his revealed Word, by suppressing nothing of all the blessings which he has promised to his people, we parents are in too many cases untrue to the best interests of our children, and to our own souls, by not coming up to the baptismal font with more enlarged and scriptural views of these blessings, and that our children have not improved the gift of God which is in them, but have permitted the holy seed to remain unwatered by the dews of the Spirit, for which they have neglected to ask; and uncultured by the aid of the great Husbandman, whom they have forborne to seek.

We must now pass on to the important and individual application of this high subject. This, then, brings us to the great practical question in which all are interested, not merely we who are parents in the welfare of our children, but all in the welfare of their own souls. I address myself then, to you, my brethren, as baptized members of the Church, and say to each individual among you, your Church once beheld you brought as one, “by nature born in sin and the child of wrath," to the water of baptism, and there having offered her prayers that you might undergo that spiritual change, without which, as Christ himself has said, you "cannot enter into the kingdom of God," she returned her thanksgivings that you had undergone this change, had been born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost, made a child of God by the Spirit of adoption, and incorporated into the Church of the Redeemer. Now, brethren, we require you to ask yourselves, honestly and conscientiously, and as in the presence of Him who seeth the heart, whether in your own case, this reasonable belief of your Church has been fulfilled? and that you may be enabled to answer the inquiry, remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit." Have you then, like Samuel, and like Timothy, been so born of the Spirit, from your earliest infancy, that the unholy and sinful pleasures of the flesh, have possessed no hold upon you, that you have not indulged them, have not tolerated them, have not allowed them, even for a moment, to gather strength by your supineness or indifference, but

have been led to seek a power greater than your own to repel and to vanquish them? And, further than this, have you reason to hope that spiritual things have ever been your delight, the real element in which your souls would live, and in which alone they can breathe freely and unrestrainedly? If these things be so, "happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you;" for then may you indeed indulge the hope that you have from your earliest infancy been brought among the spiritual children of the family of God, and educated for your Father's kingdom.

But, perhaps, such evidences as these are wanting. Then would we ask, have you the distinct, yet equally satisfactory and encouraging feelings, that whereas you once were blind, now you see; that you have been renewed by the Spirit of God; that old things have passed away, that all things have become new; and that by God's own free and sovereign grace you have been brought out of darkness, and misery, and sin, into the glorious light, and liberty, and holiness, of his redeemed people? That you, through grace, have been taught to deplore, and to forsake the sins and follies of your youth, your once cherished lusts and unholy passions, and are now endeavoring, even now, though it be at the eleventh hour, to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in all holiness and godliness of living.

Or, again, are you conscious that this testimony also is absent, the spiritual feelings,the faith and penitence, the joy and hope, of the believer, are still to you as unknown and disregarded things; that the world, and the things of the world, form your home and your enjoyment; that pride and vanity, sensuality and uncharitableness, or even some of the darker children of the natural heart, are still, as they ever have been, the welcomed inmates of your bosom? Upon what, then, do you ground your assurance that you are, at the present moment, "a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven?" Upon your baptism? Surely you have not the hardihood to avow such a conviction. As well might Simon Magus, who was baptized by an Apostle, have contravened the decision of St. Peter, “I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity," by pointing to the waters of baptism, as that any baptized member of the Christian Church should take comfort to himself while in a state of alienation from God, and disobedience to

his commands, and indifference to the Saviour of the world, from having once been made the subject of the prayers and thanksgivings of his Church. No, brethren, " by their fruits, ye shall know them;" there is no other test here, there will be none other on the great day of account. Living thus, and dying thus, it is vain, utterly vain for you to hope, when standing before the bar of God, that it will avail you to plead baptismal regeneration. Where are its fruits? what have been its effects? where is the renewed heart?"the death unto sin," the "new birth unto righteousness," the love to the Saviour, which must ever be the features in the character of "a member of Christ?" where the love of God, which must ever be the feeling of a child of God? where the meetness to be a partaker of the worship, and the joys, and the services of the heavenly temple, which must ever mark "an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven?" Alas! are all these absent; and yet do you imagine that no total change of heart, and affections, and mind, and life, in you can be required? Banish for ever such a delusion, or it will be your ruin. Be assured, if God be true, that if you have lived, and are now living in sin, if you have entirely, or partially forgotten God, and been content to receive the wages, and to act as the servants of "the world, the flesh, and the devil," his bitterest enemies, no slight improvement, no merely moral reformation, will avail you. You may denominate the change which God requires of you, by any term; you may speak of it in any language you prefer; we will not contend for names, but things: a change, an entire change, must be wrought in you, or you will not see the kingdom, of God. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint," even unto death, and unless the whole head be enlightened by the Spirit of God, and the whole heart renewed by the Spirit of God, the spiritual death of the present hour, will be inevitably succeeded by the eternal death of banishment from God and from the presence of his glory. We do then, most earnestly exhort you who have never yet thought seriously of your baptismal covenant, to read over carefully the service of your Church which contains it, to examine yourselves by it, to inquire, before you come to the second Sacrament of your Church, whether you have ever been lastingly benefited by the spiritual blessings of the first Sacrament-whether your part of the baptismal covenant has ever yet been performed,-whether the devil and his works, the world and its vanities, the flesh and

its lusts, have ever yet been really and conscientionsly renounced-whether, in fact, you have any sensible evidence that you have been born anew of the Spirit; and if not, to be most earnest in persevering prayer to God, that you may be a partaker of that spiritual renewal, without which the kingdom of heaven will be as certainly, as effectually, closed against the baptized and nominal worshiper of God, as against the most dark, and obdurate, and guilty, of the unbaptized worshipers of wood and stone. For never did the God of truth declare a more solemn, a more awakening truth than this, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.",

SERMON XIX.

THE WATERS OF ISRAEL, OR MEANS OF GRACE.

By the Rt. Rev. ALEXANDER V. GRISWOLD, D. D., Bishop of the Prot. Epis. Church in the Eastern Diocese of the U. States.

2 KINGS, V. 12.

Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?

"THE natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," nor is it without reluctance and opposition, that human pride submits to his righteousness. And he has shown his wisdom, and exposed our folly, in "choosing the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and weak things to confound the things which are mighty; yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are, that no flesh should glory in his presence."

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