God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Observe, second, that he had not then commenced, but was soon to commence, his public career as a preacher and minister of religion. He was just then emerging into publicity, being "about thirty years of age." Hence the scene of his baptism has been styled that of his inauguration or formal introduction to office. Still, he was a private character when he was baptized as all others are: Observe, third, how sedulous he was to receive baptism. He came incognito from Galilee to John, a distance of nearly 100 miles, to receive it; and then insisted on its performance. Observe, fourth, that the principle was old, though its application was then peculiar, in his practice. He was circumcised; he attended the passover; obeyed his parents; wrought at an humble trade; inhabited an obscure and disreputable village; waited patiently and unknown till the lawful age; celebrated the passover, and instituted its counterpart, the very night before he suffered; and in all "left us an example that we should follow his steps; who did no sin." Observe, fifth, the force of the sentiment that thus "it BECOMES us" to do! It is proper, obligatory, honorable, necessary! It every way becomes us! How unbecoming then for us to keep an inward light that contradicts both his example and his commandment! We may do other things innumerable. We may do them scrupulously and in vain. It is no part of "all righ teousness" unless divinely commanded. It is dire

ful to have our wisdom in collision with the wisdom of God. We never can compensate for neglect or violation of positive duties by a multitudinous observance of other matters. Poor King Saul tried this sort of piety to his sorrow on more than one occasion. "And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord! Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft; and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king." Again, "not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but HE THAT DOETH THE WILL OF MY FATHER who is in heaven. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."

Other objections of Friends to the ordinances of God, I am little careful to answer. But, in relation to the subjects and the mode of baptism, I have only to say that it will be time enough to discuss them when they cease to deny the rite itself. It were frivolous to investigate how or to whom a service is to be performed, while we doubt or deny that it is to be performed at all. Let Friends acknowledge the fact; and then we will attend to their subordinate queries. The same may be said in regard to the uses of baptism. "What good does it do thee?" is a very common question with them. It is very much like the question often put in respect to "the forbidden fruit," What harm

could it do for Eve to eat an apple? The divine sanction is every thing. To honor it has a vital connection with good, and to dishonor it, with harm. I sincerely pity the men who must wait for eternity to convince them of this! I add, the utility of any measure or observance in religion is not, as such, our first question respecting it; but this, Is it the pleasure of God? To question the excellency of a divine enactment is absurdity, equalled only by its impiety. Suppose Abraham had doubted and hesitated when ordered to forsake his country, his paternal mansions, and all the peerless charities of home, because the utility of the mandate did not appear to him! Suppose he had preferred his own eye-sight in the matter of sacrificing Isaac, and had plausibly and naturally enough questioned its expediency and uses! Would he ever have been called "the Father of the faithful and the Friend of God!" To be such a Friend, is worthy the ambition of immortals and the competition of mankind.

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." The utilities of baptism however are not inscrutable, not paradoxical or severely trying to our faith; though it is no part of my present pur

pose to discuss them. To be publicly devoted to God according to his own appointment; to have "the answer of a good conscience toward God" by duly respecting his own appointed signals of alliance with himself; to feel that we have been typically washed according to his own order, and at the same time sensibly admonished of our natural defilement of the purity of God-of his purifying grace-of "the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost," which is the great archetype of baptism-of the conservative "ark" into which baptism symbolically places us-and of the obligations and solemn commitment to holiness of life which baptism implies; and to understand and appreciate the import of being baptismally allied "to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," in duty, profession, worship, covenant and hope, are a few of the intelligible advantages of this branch of "righteousness:" and however baptism, in common with every other item of christianity, may be or has been abused, perverted, mistaken, dishonored, prostituted, or ignorantly observed, by professors of religion, its utilities, like its authority, are wholly independent of the actions of men and entirely resolvable into the constitution of God. If it be demanded whether grace is conferred or only signified by this sacrament; I answer, both! not indeed that grace is necessarily conferred by the sign or always accompanies it; because, as in the case of Simon Magus, it is not always sincerely received. But this is true of every other conceivable institution of God! What is prayer,

when not sincerely used? Shall we then say that grace is not conferred and received by prayer? or reading the scriptures? or performing any other duty? In all these cases, grace is not necessarily connected with the service; it is not mechanically connected; it is not found ex opere operato with the mere performance. Shall we then, through an ultra spirituality, renounce the total service of God! We must do this, or remain inconsistent and wrong in the rejection of divine ordinances in general, or that solemnly commissioned one of baptism in particular. FOR THUS IT BECOMETH US TO FULFIL ALL

RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Barclay devotes nearly 40 pages to the treatment of baptism; and it would require 400 fully to notice all the sophistry of his argument. When I read him on the sacraments, I confess that I am led to doubt whether he himself believed what he wrote; though upon reflection, I am unwilling to deny his sincerity. If the positive evidence already adduced will not convince the reader of his perversion, I leave him to his responsibility; only observing that positive evidence has not been exhausted. I have only given a few items of proof, despairing of conviction where these fail to produce it; and remembering that truth is independent of the stupidity of men.

One argument of Barclay deserves some separate notice. It is fundamental in his reasoning, and very plausibly treated. The text of Ephesians, 4: 5, "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism," suggests his position that there is only "one baptism;"