I.

SERM. different Caft of our Notions will not make my Words fall to the Ground, asWaters that cannot be gathered. It is upon this Cafe that I hear there are feveral, who fuppofe that Baptifm is only the Work of thofe that are grown up, and yet neglect it themselves. My Brethren, whoever is in the right in Doctrine, you are quite wrong in Practice: Don't defpife the Advice of one who has more Value for your Happiness, than he has for his own Opinion; I will give you it in the Words of Ananias, Why tarrieft. Acts xxii. thou? Arife and be baptized, washing away thy Sins, and calling on the Name of the Lord.

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You know in what hafle the Eunuch was; See, here is Water, what binders me that I should not be. baptized? Peter upon feeing that the Holy Ghoft fell on them that heard the Word, foon concluded what was next to be done; What Man, fays he, can forbid Water, that thefe should be bap-. tized who have received the Holy Ghoft as well as we! The Jailor was baptized the fame Hour of the Night; and it is but changing one Turn in the Exhortation, and that will ferve those of different Sentiments, and with whom my Concern chiefly lies.

Own the Covenant for yourfelves, in the Way that God expects it from you, and then it's more regular and uniform to own it for your Children. I am far from pretending to be either an Exam-1 ple or a Judge for other Minifters; but I have along while thought that admitting Children to Baptifm, whofe Parents live in a plain Neglect of their Duty, has fheltered a great Impropriety. in Churches: I am fure it's not doing things decently and in Order: It's beginning at the wrong End. Put them in Mind how the Covenant runs, I will first be a God to thee, and then to thy Seed after thee. Thus one Ordinance shall appear

con

connected to another. You will be among the SER M. living, and praife our God.

Children ball declare his Truth.

The Fathers to the

3. As another Preliminary to your Benefit and Comfort in this Ordinance, do not admit of fome vile and dangerous Opinions, that Men of corrupt Minds have toffed into the World about it; I will mention these three.

1. That it is a regenerating Ordinance. 2. That there is no Salvation without it.

3. That the Salvation that comes by it, is owing to the Regularity of the Minister that performs it.

I.

1. It is a bafe and carnal Opinion to say that it is a regenerating Ordinance. The Papift tells you very roundly, that it washes away Original Sin: If fo, I fuppofe there would be no Occafion in the New Testament to complain as David did in the Old, Behold I was fhapen in Iniquity, and in Pfal. li. 5. Sin did my Mother conceive me; for which he prays, purge me with Hyfop, and I fhall be clean, wash me, and I fhall be whiter than Snow. But, it is apparent, that the Apostle Paul had no fuch Notion of it. Ananias, indeed, bid him be baptized, and wash away his Sins: But that refers to his calling on the Lord Jefus: Remiffion of Sins comes with the Sanctification that is by Faith in him. It is the Baptifm of Repentance for the Remiffion of Sins, that is, the Baptifm that obliges to Repentance; as even John's did; and the Baptifm that led up to the Righteousness in which we are accepted and pardoned, and this Saul had before his Baptifm; he did no more than declare his Confent to, and his Dependance upon that Covenant in which he was to be baptized.

So that as to the Guilt of original Sin (and actual too) it was done away, but the remains of it ftuck by him as long as he lived: And a great while after his Baptifm he complains, in me, that is in my Flesh, there dwells no good thing. O wretched Man that I am, who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death? It is far from being the Baptifm of Repentance, that is advanced with fuch Notions as fuperfede the Practice of Repentance; no: Poor Wretches are taught to think that a Minifter has done all that for them which ought to be their chief Care for themselves. But its plain when the Grace of God comes into the Souls of Men, it roots up all that the Church has planted.

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We are told in the Office for baptizing Infants, that the Child is conceived and born in Sin;" then follows a Prayer for fanctifying Grace, and fo when he has got the Water and the Crofs in his Forehead, the Prieft ventures to fay, that this Child is regenerated and grafted into the Body of Chrift's Church: And afterwards this is delivered in a Prayer, "We give thee Thanks, moft merciful Father, "that it has pleafed thee to regenerate this In"fant with thy Holy Spirit, and to receive him "for thine own Child by Adoption." And how early are poor ignorant Perfons taught to say "that in their Baptifm they were made "Members of Chrift, Children of God, and "Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven?"

But can Regeneration, Adoption and Union to Christ mean fo little in the Bible, as they do in that Catechifm? Are Children to be taught to go aftray, fpeaking Lies as foon as they are born; for either what they fay is falfe, or if there is any way of making it true, it is not enough to be a Privilege. And its a Notion of the fame Stamp

4

Stamp that closes the whole Office; that "its SER M. "certain by the Word of God. Children I. "which are baptized dying before they commit

18.

actual Sin, are undoubtedly faved." As God himself has thrown a Vail over this, fo intruding Col. ii. into thofe Things which we have not feen, only proves that we are vainly puffed up in our flefly Minds. But it is very bold to fay that its certain by the Word of God, which the Word of God has never told us a Syllable of.

Whether your Children are regenerated by Baptifm or no, is more than we can tell God has not faid it. That they fhall be fanctified and filled with the Holy Ghoft from their Mother's Womb, upon their being received in this Ordinance, is making the Bleffing of the New Covenant come by the Will of Men, and of the Will of the Flesh and not of God: But be not deceived, God is not mocked, don't think fo idly of those Favours that come by his Spirit: If he does not more for you than Minifters were capable of doing by Baptifm, if the Regeneration of that Ordinance, is all the Regeneration you have, you are still sowing to the Flesh, and must reap Corruption.

2. It is another very dangerous Opinion that there is no Salvation without Baptifm: the former Notion brings you into Stupidity, and this into Defpair; but the Comfort is, that there is as little Ground for the one, as the other. Where has God made either this Ordinance, or any other fo needful to Happiness; fo that Perfons who cannot have them, which is the Cafe of many Thousands, are under a Neceffity of perifhing eternally? Why will Men talk with fuch a Confidence? As if they had the Keys of Death and of the unfeen World; and could, at their own Pleasure, make Paffes either to Heaven or C 2 Hell!

SERM. Hell! Is it in this Senfe that they have the Keys I. of the Kingdom of Heaven? We may well fay, as the Scripture does, upon another Occafion, Wo! Wo! Wo! to the Earth, becaufe of fuch a Plague, that Happiness and Damnation fhall be difpofed of by a selfish and peevish Order of Men.

But rejoice, O Daughter of Sion, that thy King reigns; and there is but One of whom it is faid, that he has the Key of David, He opens and no Man fhuts, he huts and no Man can open, don't give way to fuch a Notion as will tear the Bowels. of tender Parents with unquiet Fears about their Children that die young: Don't think that they are not in the Covenant, becaufe not received, as its called, into the visible Church.

We have one Cafe in the Bible that will fhew us how good Men used to think upon this Head, and that is David's Behaviour upon the Death of that Child which he had by Bathsheba: He was not to be circumcifed until the eighth Day, now he died upon the Seventh, but what then? Is that any Torture to the Father's Hopes? No, far from it; he speaks with as much Serenity as if he had lived to the ninth Day, I fhall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

I think there is a Practice which pays too great a Compliment to this fcandalous Notion, and that is hurrying on the Baptism of a Child because it is fick; for which I can fee no fhow of Argument, unless it fprings from this Root of Bitterness that I have been fpeaking of. I rather think a dying Creature, one, of whofe Recovery we have no Hopes, cannot be the Object of Baptifm; that Ordinance was never defigned to be used among Proteftants, as extreme Unction is among the Papifts.

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