professors the wealthy and the great; they began at once to feel it a disgrace to Christians, to expend all their wealth on themselves, on their palaces, their aqueducts, their other public buildings, and not to provide temples for the worship of their God. Nor could any feeling be more becoming, or more honorable, to Christian men. It was this feeling which in earlier times, had stirred up David to devote such untold treasures to the building of a Temple to Jehovah; and which afterwards led Solomon to raise, adorn, and consecrate it, with such singular magnificence. And the result of such a feeling among Christians was, that when Christianity had obtained the sanction of a Roman Emperor, and had become the established religion of his vast dominions, there sprung up every where noble edifices in some degree worthy of the high and holy purpose for which they were set apart. Our Reformers weighed all this: they saw that, although costly sacred buildings were unavoidably not in use in the primitive Church, they were as old as the days of David and Solomon, and had received the express sanction of God himself. Hence, they decided, that the use of such places of worship was one of the good old ways from which it would be unwise and irreverent to depart. I have thus endeavoured, however briefly and imperfectly, to show you, brethren, how the reformed Church of England has carried out the great principle involved in my text, 1st in regard to her Doctrine, and 2ndly in regard to her Government and Discipline: and how, like the noble constitution which was long the glory of this land, our National Church is admirably balanced between sovereign power and popular freedom, being equally removed from the despotism of Popery on the one hand, and the democratic spirit of sectarianism on the other. I am not insensible of the patience and attention, with which you have listened to the discussion of a subject, which, to some perhaps, may have been neither interesting nor agreeable. I trust, however, that through the divine blessing it may not have been unprofitable; for sure I am, that the better we become acquainted with the nature and institutions of our Scriptural Church, the higher she will rise in our esteem and veneration, as the guardian and teacher of those vital doctrines of the Gospel, on the saving and experimental knowledge of which our everlasting happiness depends. Suffer me, however, in conclusion, to remind you, my dear brethren, that the Church and all her valued institutions, are but means to one great end. They are the school in which candidates are to be trained for a blessed immortality. In vain, therefore, shall we rest in the possession of these privileges, if we do not improve them; in vain shall we cry, like the formal hypocrites of old, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we,” unless the humbling but life-giving truths of the Gospel have sunk deep into our hearts, and their power has been manifested in subduing our sins, and correcting our depraved and mere worldly tastes, and constraining us, out of love to Christ, to seek to do his will and promote his glory. O then, brethren, let us give the more earnest heed unto the things that we hear, lest at any time we should let them slip. Whilst you value, in a degree proportioned to their real excellence, the ordinances of our holy Apostolic Church, watch and strive against coldness and formality, and pray continually for the life-giving and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, which alone can enable you to receive the full benefit they are intended to afford. So shall you find the words that Jesus speaks to you by his ministers and in his ordinances, precious to your souls, and be able to say of them from happy experience, "They are spirit, and they are life." So shall you be enabled to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, and having kept to the good old paths which Saints and Martyrs have trod in before you, at the close of your earthly warfare, with a hope full of immortality, you shall pass at length from the ranks of the Church militant here below, to those of the Church triumphant and glorified in heaven. SERMON III. 1. PETER, iii. 21. "THE LIKE FIGURE WHEREUNTO EVEN BAPTISM DOTH ALSO NOW SAVE US (NOT THE PUTTING AWAY OF THE FILTH OF THE FLESH, BUT THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE TOWARD GOD,) BY THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST." HAVING had occasion lately to call your attention to the subject of confirmation, which on the part of the persons to be confirmed, is but a renewal and confirming of the vows already made in their name at baptism; it seems a fit opportunity to bring this holy sacrament, to which reference must needs be so often made in a course of Christian instruction, under your immediate and special consideration. With a view to this, I have chosen for our meditation this afternoon, the words I have just read to you; in which you will find, on referring to the context, that St. Peter is illustrating the nature of baptism, by comparing it to the preservation of eight souls in the ark, at the time of the deluge. The comparison, though it may not hold good in every minute particular, or strike the mind of every one at first sight, is nevertheless a proper and forcible one, otherwise it would not have found a place in the inspired volume; and it is one, moreover, which was generally recognized in the early Church. Noah and his family, believing the declaration of God, that destruction was coming upon the world, and that none could escape but in the way that God had pointed out, believing this, and acting upon their belief, were saved in the ark by water, whilst the rest of mankind were swept away and perished. This event, the inspired Apostle distinctly pronounces to have been typical of the salvation of all true Christians, in the Church of Christ, by baptism. "The like figure whereunto," or "the antitype whereof,' for such is the literal meaning of the original, even Baptism doth now save us." The Sacrament of Baptism, being the only appointed door of entrance, and means of incorporation into that Church of Christ, out of which there is ordinarily no salvation, is made by divine appointment as necessary to our eternal salvation, as the entrance into the ark was to the temporal safety of Noah and his family; except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," and when duly received, it does become to each recipient the means of grace and salvation. But the Apostle, in order to guard against any misapprehension, to which his words up to this point might have given rise, in order to prevent any one from supposing that the outward rite of baptism would save us, apart from the consideration of the inward and spiritual grace, 66 |