MANY people think that baptism makes a Christian; it is the error of the Romish and of the Greek churches, and the error of many Protestants; and yet facts have lifted up their testimony against this doctrine for centuries.

Look at the thousands of criminals who fill our prisons—most of these have been baptized. Look at the thousands baptized in the name of Christ, who are utterly regardless of Him, and utterly thoughtless about their own souls; and the thousands of irreligious, the thousands of infidels can these, although baptized into the Christian Church, be called Christians in the true sense of the word? Can it be believed that a little water sprinkled over the face, a few words of the Gospel repeated, have power, as by a magic spell, to change the heart?

If those who hold this doctrine would but remember how baptism was administered in the time of the apostles, they would see how different it was then to the rite we now use. We read nothing in the new Testament of the

baptism of infants; we can only guess that it may possibly have been practised, but the Bible is absolutely silent on the subject. Those who were baptized were adults; they were already Christians, that is, believers in, and followers of, our Lord. They had felt themselves to be lost sinners, and believed in Christ as their Saviour, and because they believed, they came to be baptized in order to make an open confession of their faith. They were then plunged entirely into the water, as a sign that they were dead and buried to their old life of sin and unbelief, as Christ died and was buried; and they rose again out of the water, as Christ arose out of the tomb, to begin a new life with Him.

I can hardly conceive a more striking symbol. The "old man" being dead in them, they became "new creatures" in Christ. Delivered from the burden of sin, from the fear of punishment, they were free to devote their whole energies to the service of the Lord who had bought them.

This is the divine theory of the religion of

Jesus; it is a purely spiritual religion. We must first feel ourselves to be lost sinners, we must hate the sin we have committed, and must come in faith to Christ for pardon. The baptism that makes us Christians is that of faith, which brings our souls into communication with God; and this no mere outward baptism can do. Outward acts and forms follow to symbolize the inward change.

Oh! what a difference there is in the service of those "freedmen of Christ," who work with the energy of gratitude and love for Him who has made them free, to the service of those who, still labouring under the burden of their sins and infirmities, are painfully striving to deserve pardon by some merit of their own.

Which of us can say that we have always obeyed the dictates of our conscience? How much less have we fulfilled the law of God, as given in the Ten Commandments; and still less have we come up to that ideal of perfection which is held up to us in the example and

precepts of Jesus, our Divine Master. How then can we ever hope to deserve pardon?

to men.

The grace of God is free! The pardon of God is free! "The gift of God is eternal life.” This is the "good news" that angels proclaimed "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life:" John iii, 16. If there are any here who have not yet come to Jesus for pardon, let them "He will in no wise cast them out:" John vi, 37. Let them give themselves to Him, let them trust themselves to Him entirely, and then, freed from care for themselves, their hands will be strong to work for the glory of Him who has saved them, and for the salvation of

come now.

men.

E

VII.

COL. III, 1-3.

1. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

2. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.

3. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

St. Paul begins this epistle with the inculcation of the doctrines of which, in this chapter, he makes the application, or, as it were, draws the moral.

We nowhere find a complete code of morals set forth in the New Testament. The precepts of the Lord Jesus were not intended to supersede or displace the laws given by God of old to the Jews, but rather to teach us how best to fulfil