IT was observed in our chapter on "Covenants of Promise," that those vouchsafed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were finally engrossed and developed in two grand social institutions, called "the Old and New Covenants." Each of these had its own peculiar provisions, precepts, promises, and mediator. Moses mediated and administered the one; Jesus the Messiah mediates and administers the other.

      These great institutions are very improperly called, on the title-page of our Bibles, "the Old and New Testaments." "Testaments are of no force;" said Paul, "while the testator lives." Whether a true or false version of the original, this, certainly, is a true saying. The last will and testament is made valid and obligatory by the death of the testator. But neither God nor Jesus Christ made two last wills or testaments. Hence the title-page of the apostolic writings usually printed "THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST," is every way inadmissible. First, a new testament of Jesus Christ implies that there was an old one! Is this a fact? Again, if there be two testaments of Jesus Christ, the last one only is valid, according [102] to the proper meaning of the word, and the reasoning of the Apostle. But does any one believe, that Jesus Christ made first one will, and then changed it, making it void, by a second--or last will and testament! Yet all our Bibles published "by authority," perpetrate this great mistake, this palpable aberration from propriety. Translate it "the covenant of Jesus Christ," or "a new covenant administered by Jesus Christ," and we speak rationally, scripturally, and intelligibly. God has given to mankind in the Bible two great covenants, the first administered by his servant, Moses, the second by his Son, Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord. The former is the old, the latter the new covenant. By a figure of speech very common, the Jewish writings are called the old covenant, because they contain it, and grow out of it; and by the same figure, the Christian Scriptures are called the new covenant, because they contain it and originate from it.

      These two grand social institutions, it was also remarked, are but the development of two great promises made to Abraham; one concerning his natural, the other concerning his spiritual offspring. One of these promises is--"I will make of thee a great nation, and will bless him that blesses thee, and curse him that curses thee." The other promise is--"In thee," that is, "in thy seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed." One family exhausts the first covenant, while the second unites in one community all the faithful of all the families of the earth. The first promises to all its subjects, all worldly and temporal blessings; the second guarantees to all its subjects, spiritual and eternal blessings.

      But the centre of attraction, or the principle of association in these two communities, differs as radically as do the blessings stipulated in each of them; so that connection with the one community secures no interest in the other. The flesh of Abraham is the centre of attraction in the one, while the faith of Abraham is the centre of attraction in the other. All the privileges, rights, interests, and immunities in the one are fleshly and temporal; all the rights, interests, and immunities in the other are spiritual and eternal. A person being the son, of Abraham by the flesh gives him no interest whatever: in any of the blessings of a son of Abraham by faith. Neither does a Gentile's being a son of Abraham by faith, give him, any interest whatever in any of the covenanted blessings of a son of Abraham by blood. [103]

      Every thing in these two institutions is consistent with their respective centres of attraction or principles of union. Blessings and curses, temporal and fleshly, are the rewards and sanctions of the one; while blessings and curses, spiritual and eternal, are the rewards and the sanctions of the other. The ordinances attached to the first covenant are called "carnal," while those appended to the new are "spiritual." The inheritance of the first covenant was worldly. Its blessings were in the basket and in the store, in the flocks and herds, in fruitful seasons and abundant harvests, in oil and, wine, in milk and honey, in victories and triumphs over their national and personal enemies. Their tabernacle and their temple, with all that appertained to them--their altars and lavers, their tables and candlesticks, their censers and incense, their gold and their gems, their priests and victims, their blood and water, their oil and wine--their music and their dance, their trumpets and their cymbals, their feasts and their fasts, were, all of the same sensible, fleshly, and worldly character, suited to a carnal, worldly, and unregenerated nation; every citizen of which, good or bad, was a member of the church: for the church and the nation of Israel, were not only commensurate, but identically the same. Their suspensions were mere temporary separation from the public assemblies, and their great excommunication was death according to the law.

      Still, under that national and worldly, or politico-religious institution, there were persons who had faith in the promised Messiah, and spiritual illumination; who saw the promised blessings afar off, and embraced them, and walked with God. But they were sanctified and saved by the grace and spiritual provisions of another institution--the kernel that was in the shell of those outward symbols. For "the law was a shadow," or faint adumbration of "good things to come;" not, indeed, "the exact image of them," but a general outline, through which those "led by the Spirit" were inducted into the holy of holies of that sublimely allegoric representation. Still, the good and the bad worshipped in the same sanctuary, came up to the same festivals, observed all the same rites, and shared in all the national blessings and calamities.

      They had, indeed, legal sacrifices, a legal repentance, and a legal remission of sins. The sinner came to a priest, as great a sinner as himself. He carried his lamb, his kid, or his calf, to [104] the altar. He laid his right hand upon its head, confessed his sin, and killed it. The priest piled its flesh upon the altar, poured out or sprinkled its blood, while the fire of heaven consumed it. This done, the legal penalty only was remitted. It did not strengthen the heart, nor "make him perfect who did this service, as pertained to his conscience." Hence, their sins were again "remembered every year," in the annual atonements. And even the most faithful and believing amongst them only received a final and plenary remission of sins, by reason of the ransom then prospective "for the redemption of the transgressions" under that covenant, that they who were then called might with us partake in the blessing of the eternal inheritance.

      The Jewish institution, and the people under it, were alike carnal. "Carnal ordinances," says Paul, "were imposed on them until the time of reformation." They had letter and symbol, but they had not the spirit nor the reality. They had, indeed, the word addressed to the ear, and the picture to the eye; but that which was spoken they neither understood nor obeyed; and that which was a type they could not read, "for they could not see to the end or meaning of that which is now abolished." Paul, that greatest of commentators, most aptly calls it letter, and type, and shadow, while with him the new covenant is "spirit, and righteousness, and life." The letter killeth, while the spirit giveth life. It is also called "the ministration of condemnation," while the gospel is called "the ministration of righteousness." The former, indeed, was gloriously introduced, but much more gloriously the latter.

      Still, we must enter the sanctuary of the Lord through its own portico. The new covenant always presupposes the knowledge of the old. The reader of the apostolic writings is supposed to have read or learned from Moses and the Prophets. The gospel presupposes the law. It was a school-master to introduce the Messiah to our acquaintance. It is all letter and type; but we receive the spirit through the letter, and the reality through the type. "The law was given by Moses, but the grace and the reality, or the truth, came by Jesus Christ."

      As the body to the spirit, so stood the Jewish to the Christian institution in many prominent points of view. As the spirit dwells in the body, so the gospel dwelt in the Levitical institution. When that died, the spirit, or that indicated by all its ordinances, alone survived. So that while that religion [105] sanctified to the purifying of the flesh only, the Christian sanctifies the spirit, and through it the soul and body. "We, therefore, serve in the newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." "Christ is the end of the law for justification to every one that believeth." The ritual of Moses, says Paul, "stood only in meats, and drinks, and divers ordinances concerning the flesh, imposed on the Jews until the time of reformation."

      We, then, serve in a "better tabernacle" than did the Jewish people. For their animal sacrifices, we have the slain Lamb of God. For their deliverance from penal temporal sufferings, through the blood of bulls and goats, we have "justification from all things"--through faith in the blood of the Messiah. For their legal purification by "the water of separation," we have the sanctification of the spirit, through faith in the blood of Christ, and baptism into his death. For their oil of consecration, we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit, by which we are led into all truth and holiness. For their national adoption, we have a personal and filial adoption into the family of God, by which we feel that we are sons, and can say, "Our Father, who art in heaven."

      The doctrine of a future life, and of the immortality of man, constituted no part of the Jew's religion. There is not one promise of eternal life, not one word of the heavenly inheritance in any part of the Jewish institution. Neither is there one threat of any punishment after death. Indeed, neither salvation nor damnation, in the Christian sense of these terms, ever occurs in any portion of the writings of Moses, so far as they respect the Jewish nation, religion, or peculiarities. The law was added to an antecedent promise, as Paul affirms. So that the Jewish institution is to be contemplated as an episode--an intercalary or parenthetic dispensation.¹

      It was added to the antediluvian revelations. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is one of those ancient prophets who taught a future life, a future condemnation of wicked men; and in his [106] own personal translation to heaven, God gave a practical demonstration of the certainty of a state of immortality for those who walked with God according to the rules prescribed for them. That such rules were given, is evident from the fact that where no law is, there can be neither obedience nor disobedience.

      Evident, then, it must be to all who reflect on Scripture premises that the object of the Jewish institution was not to reveal life and immortality, nor to prescribe rules for the attainment of them. Moses and his law are better defined by Paul to the Hebrews. When comparing him with the character and official grandeur of "the Apostle and High Priest of our religion," Paul represents Moses as having lived and acted for "a testimony of the things that were to be spoken in after tines." God gave the mould or pattern to Moses, and Moses cast the type. He gave the letter which leads us to Christ and which reveals Christ to us. To this the Prophets added much in after times. Still, Moses and his tabernacle and worship are but the patterns of things in the heavens--a shadow of good things, then future, but now come.

      The covenant of circumcision and of the Law, as administered by Moses, had, therefore, no special, direct, or specific relation to a spiritual people or a spiritual institution. Circumcision, though before the law, is by the Messiah himself incorporated with it; because, as we have shown, that covenant was one of the "covenants of promise" engrossed in the national institution given to the twelve tribes. The words of the Messiah are remarkable: "If a person receives circumcision on the Sabbath day," (being sometimes the eighth day,) says he, "that the law of Moses be not broken, why thus speak of him whom the Father has sent into the world?" &c.

      Thus we are directed to the gospel, as a new and sublime development of God's philanthropy, prepared for an educated world. The Jews were all minors, under tutors and governors, until the fulness of time, when God sent forth his Son, born of woman, and made under the law himself, that he might redeem his own people from the curse of the law, and introduce a new system, bringing in an everlasting redemption for us.

      The Christian institution is addressed to the understanding, the heart, the conscience. It first presents itself to the understanding. It works its way into the heart. It seizes the affections [107] and induces men to come, not to be carried or borne by physical necessity to Christ. "A willing people in the day of thy power shall come to thee." Christianity presupposes that its subjects shall first be taught by Moses, and then come to Christ. No man can come to Christ unless God induces him to come, by the former intimations given by Moses and the Prophets. "If they will not hear them," they never can, they never will come to Christ; "they would not be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

      Not so the antecedent institution. Men were by necessity born members of it. There was no appeal to the understanding, no addresses to the conscience, no motives addressed to the heart to win over a people to the Jewish institution. They were Jews, not by choice, but by necessity. They were compelled to be members of that church, just as they were compelled to be born. They were, indeed, born of the flesh, and not of the spirit, as preparatory to admission into that church.

      No one preached to the Jews that they must be born again to enter into their kingdom of God. We have no regeneration in the law of Moses. The Jewish elect are all chosen in Abraham's flesh. Hence, there never was a missionary sent out of the Jewish Church to bring into it any one not born of the flesh of Abraham. There was no gospel in the law but for the Jews. Their inheritance was on earth, and their title to it was blood, and not faith,--natural, and not supernatural birth. Hence the perplexity of Nicodemus, when he heard the doctrine of the necessity of intelligence, and a new birth, in order to entrance into the new kingdom of God.

      A few proselytes from a few nations were, on their own application, in certain cases, admitted into that community. To these, certain privileges were extended; but the genius, character, and aim of that institution was not catholic. It had the flesh of the Messiah in solemn keeping for fifteen hundred years--and, therefore, did only admit of a few proselytes. Its "proselytes of justice," or its real proselytes, (for as for those of "the gate," we have no authentic evidence; they seem to be a modern invention,) were, on full conviction and a solemn declaration of their willingness to be governed by the whole law of Moses, admitted to circumcision; and so soon as healed from the wound inflicted in the performance of that bloody rite, they were plunged into a cistern of water by one single immersion; [108] and thus incorporated into the Jewish nation. So teach some of the Jewish Rabbis.

      Still, this provision for the benefit of a few worshippers of the true and only living God, in no way changes the general and appropriate character of that institution. Its proper subjects were not circumcised to make them members of the Abrahamic or Mosaic church, but to mark them as such; the church and nation being always coextensive. There was, therefore, no necessity whatever for any one to be born either of the spirit or of water, to become a member of the Jewish community, or to participate in its honours and privileges.

      On the contrary, Christianity is catholic in its spirit, and proselyting in its character. It contemplates a great community, gathered out of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. It makes provision for them all. Jesus was born a Jew, and came first to his own family and church, and, to confirm the covenant made unto the fathers, he tendered to them of the circumcision the blessings of membership in his new institution. He confined his personal labors to his own people. He informs every man in Judea by some one of the seventy heralds, that the new kingdom of God was soon to appear. After his death, born again from the dead, literally and truly regenerated, he feels no more the ties of Jewish blood, and sends his twelve illustrious heralds into all the nations of the earth, to gather out of them a people for his name. He begins with the Jews, proceeds to the Samaritans, and thence to all the nations of the earth. He founds a new kingdom under a large commission. He sends them into the whole world, and commands them to convert all nations. He establishes the doctrine of personal liberty, of freedom of voice, and of personal responsibility, by commanding every man to judge, reason, and act for himself. "Preach the gospel" to the whole human race--"to every creature," is his benevolent precept. This is truly a catholic spirit, and worthy of all admiration.

      There are now no more fleshly or family distinctions. There are now no hereditary rights and honours as respects access to the person of the Messiah. There is no natural relation to him that gives any sort of claim, right, or privilege spiritual. Parents and children are now alike to act for themselves. It is he, and only be, "who believes and is baptized, that shall be saved." In the Lord's kingdom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, [109] Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. Indeed, there is neither male nor female, parent nor child, under his administration. Intelligence and candour, faith and obedience, are supposed to be possessed by every member of Christ's kingdom. There are not two classes of church members in Christ's church, any more than there are not two sorts of citizens in the United States. There are no patricians nor plebeians, no feudal barons nor feudal serfs, amongst all the faithful in Christ Jesus. All are one in rank and privilege in Christ's kingdom. It is not flesh, but spirit, that characterizes Christian membership. The Harbinger anciently preached, when preparing a people for the Lord, "Think not to say that you have Abraham for your father." No hereditary privileges now. "Repent, every one of you, and bring forth fruits worthy of repentance."

      The Christian church is the only perfect cradle of human liberty, as it is the only proper school of equal rights and immunities on earth. It commands every man to think, speak, and act for himself. It asks not even a parent to stand or fall for his child. It knows no sponsorship, no godfather, nor godmother. It asks no father to make a profession for his child. It commands him to "bring up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." It guaranties freedom of thought, of speech, and of action, to every citizen under the Messiah's reign--provided only, he speaks and acts as the oracles of God require. The great doctrine of a personal accountability is made the foundation of personal liberty. It teaches that every man shall give an account of himself to God. And as there shall be no proxies in the future and eternal judgment, so there must be none in Christ's kingdom on earth. From these sublime facts spring all rational liberty of thought and action on the greatest choice which man can make: whom he shall acknowledge, love, and serve as his God, and in what way and manner he shall best serve him.

      Both Joshuas--he that led the twelve tribes of Israel into Canaan, and our Joshua, "the great Captain of Salvation," "who leads many sons to glory," say, "Choose you this day whom you shall serve." "If the Lord be God, serve him; but if Baal be god, serve him." Previous examination of the pretensions of the candidates for our suffrage is presupposed. No one can choose without consideration and comparison. Hence infants cannot choose whom they should serve, and whose name [110] shall be stamped upon them, because they cannot consider and compare rival candidates.

      But were not the babes of Israel circumcised; and did not that bind them to the religion of their fathers? Circumcision bound no man morally or religiously. It was merely the sign of a covenant between God and Abraham. The persons whom Joshua commanded to make a choice had all been circumcised. The female infants uncircumcised were neither more bound nor more free in moral and religious obligation than the circumcised male infants. If one infant is bound by circumcision or baptism to the religion of its father, then all are; for these rites are of the same significance and of the same obligation to all. Indeed no Jew ever supposed that his circumcision morally obliged him: for without one single demur of this kind, not only Joshua commanded the circumcised to choose, but so did the Messiah and the twelve Apostles command all whom they addressed to choose whom they should serve, and in what manner they should serve him. Hence myriads of circumcised Jews in the age of the Apostles renounced Judaism and embraced Christianity, circumcision to the contrary notwithstanding.

      We have said that "circumcision" means the same thing to every circumcised person of the name class. To Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, it means just the same thing. So does every ordinance to all the subjects of it. If Jesus commands infants to be baptized, it morally or politically obliges them all to the same course of action. If it binds one to the religion of his parents, it binds all; and then it is in every case a barrier interposed between God and human liberty of choice;--every baptized infant is bound to follow the religious belief and profession of his parent or godfather without consideration, comparison, or choice. According to this view of the subject, Martin Luther and John Calvin morally offended God in becoming Protestants. The Jew as well as the Mussulman sins in becoming a Christian. The Churchman and the Presbyterian sins against in becoming a Baptist, a Methodist, or a Moravian. If God has given this power to parents, and if children are thus obliged by parental vows for them, then is it not preposterous ever after to teach them to think, to reason, and to act for themselves in any moral concern, if in the greatest of all concerns they are [111] compelled by divine authority to be thus servile and obsequious to the will of another?

      No religion preached on earth is so favourable to human liberty as the Christian. Indeed, it prescribes the only rational foundation of liberty even submitted to the human understanding. This it does by making every man's destiny for ever depend upon his own choice. If he must be judged for himself, he must think and choose for himself--is as sound logic, as sound theology, as were ever preached. His father cannot act for him unless he be judged for him. No Pedobaptist has, therefore, fully abjured popery. He carries a pope in his bosom, so long as he will vow for his child, and then by the force of that vow teach his son that he is obliged to join his father's church, because in that church he was sealed, signed, and delivered by the divine warrant of infant baptism.

      There is, then, a doctrine of liberty and necessity in the American church as respects church membership and religious charters, as well as in the schools of moral philosophy. This new species of ecclesiastical fatalism is not confined to Calvinists, but extends into the bosom of the Arminian churches. They all, more or less, and sometimes while disavowing it, impose their solemn rites upon their infant offspring, by dedicating them to God; and that in connection with certain ecclesiastic formulas of faith and manners. They say, "Only dedicate them to God." Only dedicate them!! This is still worse. Dedicate them as a thing, a chattel, or a person! Such dedication is not named in the Bible nor in the oracles of Christian reason and faith.² I have sometimes listened, not with admiration of the wisdom, but with astonishment at the weakness, of some of our hoary doctors, descanting upon the great advantages of infant dedication. Strange, thought I, that neither Moses nor the Prophets, neither Christ nor his Apostles, ever spoke one word in commendation of dedicating a person to the Lord, infant or adult. To dedicate a thing is, indeed, intelligible; because it has no soul in it to dedicate itself--but to speak of dedicating [112] any thing with a soul in it to the spiritual service of the Lord, as it appears to me, shocks all common sense. On this subject, as well as some others, our theological dictionaries and "Encyclopedias of Religious Knowledge" are at fault. They can quote no passage in which a person is dedicated to any service--not even consecrated, or set apart, unless possessing a spiritual mind.³

      To dedicate infants to the Lord is, therefore, wholly a papistical notion, a delusion of the imagination, an article of spiritual traffic by those who deal in the wares and merchandise of the great ecclesiastic emporium, "spiritually called Babylon and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." It is an ingenious contrivance to rob them of a property, a right of the value of which they can form no correct estimate, and for which the whole world would be no equivalent. I sincerely pity the youth who has thus been piously wronged of one of the dearest rights and noblest privileges ever guaranteed to man. Enslaved he is to a set of opinions thus imposed upon him, under pretence of a divine authority, being told that vows undertaken and made for him must be assumed by himself, for that he is under covenant to keep them.

      The Jew was, by what some call fate, obliged to be a Jew. He had no choice as to the covenant under which he should live, and whose sign he should wear deeply inscribed upon his flesh. But under the Christian institution every one is called upon to choose his own master and his own associates. Perfect liberty is extended to all; requiring. from all deliberation, examination, and decision. "Whosoever willeth, let him come and drink of the water of life freely."

      The New or Christian Institution is the full development of the divine philanthropy. It is not a Hebrew, Greek, or Roman Catholic institution, but simply a catholic institution. It is not the starlight, the moonlight, the twilight, but the sunlight development of the divine philanthropy. Its promises are free and ample, and rich in the choicest blessings which Gad can bestow [113] upon man as he now is. It addresses man as he is--an animal, intellectual, and moral being in ruins; and for no other purpose but to make him what he ought to be. In contrast with every system in the universe, it is purely a spiritual system. It begins with the heart of man. It transcribes the will of God, expressed in the law of righteousness and holiness, upon the table of the human heart. God, in this New Institution, gives this law not into the hand of a mediator, and then into the hands of the people; but he gives them into the hearts of all the covenantees. He makes them all spiritually intelligent. Not a citizen in his kingdom can be found ignorant of the Lord. They "know him from the least to the greatest." They are an enlightened and spiritual people. Of such a people "he is not ashamed to be called their God." He makes them his people--he becomes their God, and declares that he will remember "their sins and their iniquities no more." Beyond these blessings, man can ask for nothing more in order to spiritual happiness. As an animal being, he may for a time need food and raiment. But these are guaranteed to him on certain conditions. If he ask for them and work for them, God has promised them. And as for the future, the infinite and eternal future, the universe is his. He will obtain the freedom of the eternal city. The "things to come" are all his. Such is the inheritance attached to the new institution. It is, indeed, beyond the river Jordan. But, while in the wilderness of sin, he may eat the mystic manna, drink of the spiritual rock, and walk by the guidance of the cloud, illumined by the Spirit of God, till he behold the "clearer light of an eternal day."

      The provisions of this institution, so ample, so rich, and so enduring, have cost a very great price, and call for a very thorough renunciation of oneself on the part of all who would partake of its blessings. Hence its conditions are in harmony with the liberality of its provisions and the dignity of its Author. It cannot be merited, but must be received as a perfect gratuity. The conditions, then, are not the conditions of a purchase, but of a free donation. God bestows its blessings in a way the most blissful to the recipient. He simply requires a surrender of his own will, and a consecration of his person to the glory of his God and his Redeemer. He is bought with a price of such inconceivable value as to make it his duty and honour to give himself away for ever to Him that ransomed him. But that [114] very surrender is made the unwasting spring of eternal consolation and bliss to him. He drinks more liberal draughts of consolation from the conditions of pardon and salvation than if he could have bought it himself. For when God asks him to give himself away to him, God gives himself to him in every way that he can enjoy him now and for ever.

      Truly this is a gracious institution. If the law was given by Moses, truly the grace and the reality have come to us by Jesus Christ. Man blesses not himself, but is blessed in obeying the gospel. Faith, repentance, and baptism are, therefore, selected as the media of communication of all spiritual blessedness, to man in entering into covenant with God.

      The world called Christian has long since decided that three things are essential to the Christian profession; that a person must believe, and repent, and be baptized, before he can enter into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, called "the church of the living God, the pillar and the support of the truth." The constitution of the Christian church, it seems, requires all this. Hence the Acts of the Apostles, as reported by Luke, develop this as the universal law for Jew, Samaritan, or Greek. Not one exception in Jerusalem, Samaria, or to the uttermost parts of the earth. The order was, Hear, believe, repent, and be baptized, every one of you. Five things were essential to conversion: preaching, hearing, believing, repenting, and being baptized. The Apostles preached, the people heard, then believed, then repented, then were baptized, and then went on their way rejoicing in the remission of their sins, the reception of the Holy Spirit, and the hope of eternal life.

      The nice connection and intimate dependence of these items will now call for clear and ample development. Faith, repentance unto life, the covenants of promise, and the new institution, being now introduced to the consideration of the attentive reader, we shall next furnish a few chapters on Christian baptism.

[CBAC 102-115]