"For as by Adam all die, even so by Christ shall all be made alive; but every man in his own order."--1 Cor. 15:22.
      "Much more they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by Jesus Christ."--Rom. 5:17.

HIS will exhibit itself from the nature of the topics which it is designed to embrace, under two general heads: 1. Sin, or the disease. 2. The gospel, or the remedy, or cure.

      We shall not consider the evils of sin. That sin is in the world no Christian denies. How diversified soever may be our opinions with reference to other facts, there can be none with respect to the prevalence of sin. It is agreed, too, that its nature is malignant--its consequences most appalling. If sin were limited to the present world--if it could not, by any possibility, molest us beyond the grave--we see enough of it here, enough of its turpitude and of its tendency toward the production of misery, to demonstrate that it is an evil fraught with infernal venom, every way injurious and destructive, and above all things to be dreaded and abhorred. [307]

      In respect to the origin of sin, we have often been asked such questions as the following: "Why did God permit evil to be introduced into the world?" "Why did He not constitute or organize Adam upon principles such as would have rendered him incapable of sinning?" In answer to these questions, and all similar ones, we have but little to say. We have no disposition to perplex ourselves or our readers with bewildering speculations and disquisitions concerning things which have never profited those by whom they have been agitated. A few remarks, however, on these questions may not be without benefit to some plain, honest minds, which have been needlessly perplexed or confounded by unwarrantable speculations relative to the origin of sin.

      We might ask, Why did God so constitute water that it will drown a man; and why did He permit fire to possess such properties that it burns the fingers of the cook, consumes the bodies of living men, and is in all respects, while a good servant, a furious and tyrannical master? A proper answer would be that were fire and water deprived of those essential principles by the misapplication or misuse of which physical evils are sometimes produced, they would cease to be fire and water, and would be, therefore, incapable of their beneficial results. The same is true in respect to man. To be a man, he must neither be a mole [308] nor an eagle, a mere animal nor the archangel. He must be that link in the long chain of created beings to which we apply the term "man." He must have all his native properties of soul and body--all his passions and appetites. And, to be an accountable being, he must be a moral agent. He must be placed under law. He must be capable of the feeling of approbation, on account of conformity to the law of God, and of disapprobation or guilt, on account of transgression. Any conceivable organization of human nature or constitution of the divine government, in which these principles should not have been recognized, would have placed man, with respect to morality and immorality, in a condition such as is that occupied by the brutal tribes--as incapable of virtue and vice, of rewards and punishment, of moral elevation and degradation, as is the mole, the oyster or the bat. He could have possessed no consciousness of merit nor of demerit, any more than a mere animal or a clock or a watch. The not conferring upon him those elements of nature, those faculties and powers, by the misdirection of which he might fall, would have deprived him of the ability to rise, and would, therefore, have cut him off forever from all those exquisite, those ennobling emotions consequent upon a sense of praiseworthiness, and of fitness for those rewards, rich with everlasting glory, which are treasured in the heavens for the obedient. [309]

      Evil, natural and moral, is incidental to the works of God, but forms no part of those works. "God cannot be tempted with evil," and therefore is not, can not be, the author of sin--"is the Father of lights"--"is the light, and in him is no darkness," and, therefore, the source of darkness He can not be! Teeth were contrived as instruments with which to eat--not in order that they might ache; just as sickles were contrived, not that they might wound the fingers of the reaper, but to cut the waving, golden grain. So God endowed man with faculties to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever. If, therefore, moral evil has been produced, it is of human origin, and is incidental; the result of the perversion, misdirection or misapplication, on the part of man, of those elements of his moral nature which are as necessary to his moral weal as is the edge of the sickle to reaping, the heat of fire to render us comfortable, or certain properties of water to quench our thirst, to bathe our bodies, or to cleanse our clothing.

      In strict accordance with these principles, Adam, being constituted a rational, a moral agent, was placed under law. The law under which he was placed seems to have been well adapted to the incipient state of his knowledge and experience. "Of every tree of the garden," said God, "thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for on the [310] day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Only one object, the fruit of one tree, in the midst of all the rich variety of trees and of fruits with which the garden abounded, was prohibited the first happy pair. On the circumstances of the first temptation and sin we need not expatiate. Suffice it to say that the serpent beguiled Eve; Eve gave to her husband and he did eat. Sin, the source of death, was born; and death came into the world. A stream of ills, comparatively small, commenced its onward flow, widening as it ran, until its black and filthy waters inundated the whole earth.

      Indeed, no sooner was the first transgression committed than the malignant nature of sin began to be exhibited in its direful consequences. The eyes of our first parents were opened to contemplate the enormity of their crime, and they were overwhelmed with horror. Ashamed and affrighted, they sought concealment in the most retired recesses of Eden, foolishly imagining that they could hide themselves from the eye of God. But the Lord beheld them in their guilty retreat, penetrated their secret thoughts, and knew afar off the bitterness of their hearts. Adam attached the blame to his wife, and Eve to the serpent. But on their guilty heads the merited penalty must fall. God cursed the serpent, and He also cursed the ground for man's sake. And He declared to our first parents that this world should be to them [311] a scene of sorrows and afflictions, of trials and woes, till they should return to the dust. He drove them from the garden, and placed cherubim and a flaming sword to keep the way of the tree of life, lest man, in his sins, should eat and live forever.

      But sad, and even heartrending, as are these facts, when considered with reference to our first parents, the darkness of the picture is greatly increased when we contemplate the innumerable myriads of Adam's posterity, as all, to an alarming extent, involved in the same dreadful ruin. Our first father, not only for himself, but as the father and social head of the human family, had been cut off from the tree of life. He had by one act forfeited his title to that estate, one very important, nay, invaluable, item of which was this life-perpetuating tree. He had become a bankrupt. As, therefore, when a wealthy father turns spendthrift, and squanders his money or property, poverty, and sometimes shame, are entailed upon his children; or, as when, through luxury or other vices of parents, children are born the unhappy subjects of hereditary disease--so the posterity of Adam inherited a loathsome patrimony of evils on account of his defection from the divine law, as well as lost that which their father possessed in innocence; especially the tree of life, by a continued participation of which they might have inherited the fruition of perpetual health and life. [312]

      Could we bring into one group, and place under our close inspection, all the miserable beings who have suffered on account of the first transgression; could we with one glance behold all their writhings and contortions; could their sighs and groans and tears speak with emphasis into our ears the keenness of their pains, and the bitterness of their sorrows; could we behold them pale in sickness, cold in death, undergoing decomposition in the grave--then should we have in some good degree a view of the horrible nature of sin; for these are fruits or consequences of sin--the mementoes of God's righteous wrath against it--the indices which point to its malignity, its loathsomeness, its power to fit both soul and body for destruction in hell.

      But, dark as is this picture, the half is not yet portrayed. Had Adam been the only sinner, good would it have been for the family of man. The dreadful truth, however, is that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Thus, as by Adam's sin all mankind were made liable to death and all the miseries of the present life, so by their own sins have all mankind constituted themselves heirs of the second death and all the miseries of the world to come. But who shall describe the miseries of the future world? Neither the tongues of men nor of angels can give it an adequate expression. Only judgment and eternity can paint and exhibit this fiery picture. When [313] the incorrigible shall stand in the presence of their Judge; when all their thoughts and words and actions shall be brought to light; when they shall be made to remember gospel privileges slighted, the great salvation despised, the authority of God contemned, the blood of the Lord Jesus trampled upon--ah! when sinking down into deep perdition, their souls, pierced with guilt, shrieking with terror, horrified with despair, will feel at their sensitive and convulsed center the inexpressible sinfulness of sin! "Cursed sin," they will say; "oh, fools that we were to serve sin in yonder world! Oh, wretched men that we are, who shall deliver us from this burning perdition? Oh, this blackness of darkness! Oh, this never-dying worm! Oh, this never-ceasing fire!"

      Sin is a moral disease, destructive of both soul and body. Its advances may be imperceptible, but its effects are certain and its influence as deleterious as its guilt is deep and its nature damning. Not the less is it to be dreaded, nor the less feebly resisted, when its invasion of the soul is soft and noiseless; when it whispers peace and safety to its victims, lulling them into quietness and repose. Ah, how deceitful! Like the consumption, it is a flattering disease, but more to be dreaded; being in cases greatly more numerous, mortal, and bringing about, not the death of the body, but the death of the soul. Its delusive quietude is as the calm that precedes the tornado. The cloud that seems [314] to slumber above the horizon indicates "the wrath to come." The thunderbolt is in its bosom, but you hear no sound! The lightning is there, but you see no flash! Another moment, and the atmosphere is fraught with death, and destruction flies abroad on the wings of the winds. The sinner's disease has almost reached a mortal crisis, but he feels not his danger. The farther the hateful influence spreads, instead of becoming the more alarmed, and seeking with greater earnestness for deliverance, the more besotted and infatuated does he become--the more are his faculties and moral feelings steeped in insensibility. "A little more sleep," says he; "a little more folding of the hands, a little more indulgence in sinful pleasure." The cloud bursts, the disease reaches its crisis, and the sinner is whelmed in everlasting ruin! O sin, eldest born of hell! how hast thou deluged the world with pollution and misery! In every direction we contemplate thy direful ravages, we behold thy devastating footsteps. Insatiate murderer! thou art stained with the gore of thousands! thou art red with the blood of souls! God hates thee with a perfect hatred; and shall men love thee, and embrace thee, and be thy ignoble vassals?

      Even the Christian, renewed as he has been in the spirit of his mind, and daily experiencing the efficacious remedies of the great Physician of sin sick souls, feels that he has received a tremendous moral shock. He feels it in the shortness of his [315] memory, in the defectiveness of his judgment, in the dimness of his reason, and in the sometimes capricious freaks of his imagination; he feels it in the coldness of his heart, in the lightness of his thoughts, in the barrenness of his mind, in the smallness of his joys, and in the poverty of his gratitude. He feels within him the law of sin and death--the flesh against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. He feels that when he would do good, evil is present with him. He feels that in his flesh dwells no good thing; and that before his body will be fitted to inhabit heaven, it must be changed from a natural to a spiritual body--from a vile body to the likeness of the glorified body of our Redeemer.

      Upon this awful subject what shall we say more? The time would fail us were we to attempt to give the constituents of the whole black catalogue of sins now prevalent among men--the wraths, strifes, idolatries, heresies, envyings, immolations, murders, revelings, drunkenness, and such like! Sin is worse than Satan, for sin made him a Satan!--imparted to him all his diabolical principles, and clothed him with the horrid characteristics of the devil--all his subtilty, falsity, malignity, pride! And it is sin that makes, or will make, men devils! Compare the most depraved with the most excellent man. How great the difference! So is the difference between sin and righteousness! It is as the difference between [316] heaven and hell! Think of the most depraved human being with whom you have been acquainted, or of whom you have ever read or heard. How degraded! Sin has sunk him thus low, and may sink him lower, and would eventually, were there no remedy, plunge the whole family of man into the same yawning vortex of depravity. Thanks to God that a remedy for sin has been provided; that a Physician has been sent us from beyond the skies, endued with all divine skill; possessed of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; furnished with the whole materia medica of heaven; whose bosom overflows with perfect benevolence; whose heart bleeds at every prospect of human woe--melts at every symptom of human sorrow.

      He has laid, in His own death, the foundation of human redemption. He has tasted death for every man. He ever lives, the Christian's intercessor and advocate--the sinner's friend, able to save to the uttermost all who will come to God by Him.

      ii. Having now, as we know, very imperfectly sketched the consequences of sin, we proceed, as was proposed, to consider the cure.

      This department of our subject is of vital importance. In order, therefore, to present [317] appropriate truth, with all practicable intelligibility and force, we shall exhibit, as the first step of the discussion, an analysis both of the disease and of the remedy. In sin there are at least five prominent characteristics:1. The love of sin. 2. The practice. 3. The state. 4. The guilt. 5. The punishment.

      In the gospel there are not less than five points, or characteristics:1. Faith. 2. Repentance. 3. Baptism. 4. Pardon. 5. The resurrection.

      1. Faith destroys the love of sin. 2. Repentance, the practice. 3. Baptism, the state. 4. Pardon, the guilt. 5. Resurrection, the punishment.

      To prevent mistakes, and to enable the reader to proceed with the greater satisfaction and intelligence, we would here offer a few explanatory remarks: 1. That when we affirm that the resurrection destroys the punishment of sin, we mean, not that it delivers us from the punishment of our own sins, but that it saves us from the consequences of the sin of our first father! This, in the proper place, we hope to make apparent. 2. When we say that faith destroys the love of sin, we do not mean that faith, considered in the abstract, accomplishes the work of destroying the love of sin, but that faith, connected with all the regenerating influences of the gospel, destroys the love of sin, in all hearts which fully and unfeignedly believe the gospel. Under this view of the subject, the reader may observe that we have not admitted into the present [318] arrangement one point which obtained in the first edition of this discourse--that the Spirit destroys the power of sin. The power of sin greatly consists, if not exclusively so, in its love and guilt. As, therefore, pardon removes the guilt, and faith the love, of sin, and as, also, the Spirit operates and produces all its purifying effects, and heavenly fruits, through faith, we deem our present arrangement much more neat and Scriptural than was the former arrangement. We proceed now, without further circumlocution or apology, to the capital points of this discussion.

      Faith.--It makes no part of our present plan to write a dissertation on the subject of faith. That it comes by hearing, and this hearing by the word of God (Rom. 10:17); that without it we can not please God, or come to Him (Heb. 11:6); that all our works, which are to be esteemed good or righteous, are fruits of faith (Heb. 11:33); that without faith we can not obtain a victory over the world, but by its mighty workings may come off more than conquerors (1 John 5:4); that the Christian lives by faith (Gal. 2:20), walks by faith (2 Cor. 5:7), runs by faith (Heb. 12:1)--are truths, not only explicitly affirmed in the Scriptures, but admitted by all who deserve to be ranked among the friends of our Redeemer.

      Faith is to the moral machinery of the soul what a mainspring is to a Watch. When associated with all those principles and influences with which [319] the gospel inspires the individual who believes with his heart unto righteousness, it puts all his moral faculties into motion. It propels the believer onward in the road of obedience. It enables him to obey from his heart the form of heavenly doctrine. It purifies his heart. It renews his mind. He is made a partaker of the divine nature. It is the medium through which he receives all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:2), escapes the pollutions that are in the world through lust, and will ultimately secure a permanent abode in the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

      There are various similes or illustrations by which the power of faith might be explained. We sometimes assimilate it to a telescope. We consider it as making visible the invisible, and as placing at a point apparently near to the observer objects that are afar off. Thus we are enabled to contemplate all the facts and things revealed in the Bible. The Father, the Son, the Spirit; creation, providence, redemption; heaven, earth, hell; time, eternity, judgment; eternal life and eternal death; motives which strike at the foundation of our moral nature; considerations the most weighty of which the human mind can possibly conceive are not only rendered visible by faith, are not only brought near, but their relation to us is demonstrated. We are made to view them in the light of eternal truth. They are made to approach [320] us, to knock at the door of our hearts, and to pour into our souls a continual stream of spiritual influence, proportioned to the amount of our religious intelligence and faith. Thus, as, when we look through a literal telescope at the literal heavens, an indescribable influence comes streaming down from each planet and sun, overwhelming us with emotions indescribably sublime, so, through the telescope of faith, we contemplate the heavens of religion, more glorious than the literal heavens, and from God and Christ, and the saints' ultimate triumph--from the raptures of paradise, and the agonies of the damned--from every revealed object in time or in eternity--by the testimonies which originate and sustain our faith--by the promises which excite our hope, and by the threatenings which inspire us with godly fear, are our hearts filled with principles which stimulate, which purify, which elevate, which fill us with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

      The word of God is said to be spirit and life (John 6:63); living and powerful (Heb. 4:12)' to live, and abide forever (1 Pet. 1:23), and to be the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). This powerful Word being the basis of faith, and the atmosphere in which faith lives and moves and has its being, can not but impart to faith, or at least connect with it, its own potent principles. As when you receive a letter, in reference to the truth of which you have no doubt, which informs [321] you of the death of a beloved relative, the words of the letter have power, from the very nature of the facts which it reveals, almost to break your heart, and to cause the streams of anguish to gush from both your eyes; so those facts and things which the gospel reveals render the Word "quick and powerful"--a hammer to break the heart, and a fire to melt it. Hence, it pleases God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe (1 Cor. 1:21). Hence, too, the preaching of the cross is the power of God (v. 18), and the world is crucified to the Christian, and he to the world (Gal. 6:14). The spirit of truth becomes the spirit of faith, and the power of truth, which is the power and wisdom of God, the power of faith; as the life of truth is the life of faith. Truth, with all its wonder-working principles, is inseparably united, by the act of believing, with faith in the truth believed. So that the fruits of faith are the fruits of the truth, and vice versa (Col. 1:6), and the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22); the Spirit of God being the spirit both of faith and the gospel (John 15:26).

      From the above it will be perceived that the faith of the gospel is not a mere inoperative or speculative principle. It works by love. It is intelligence in the head and love in the heart. It is light and heat. It brings head and heart together, in a state of happy harmony. It teaches that head religion, without the heart, is cold and dead; while heart religion, without the head, is ignorance of [322] blind, and fanatical or enthusiastic. This faith, as it is a believing with the whole heart, takes the government of the whole man, leads the imagination and thoughts into the captivity to the obedience of Christ, and exhibits our religion, not upon the ends of our tongues only, but in a multitude of good works, like precious jewels, upon the ends of our fingers. The operative or fruit-bearing faith will destroy the love of sin--will break down the power of darkness within us--by purifying the heart; will renew us into the heavenly image; will save the soul. Call it historical, or what you may, still Heaven will approve; for if the tree brings forth good fruit it can not be an evil tree.

      The operative faith, then, is adapted to the destroying of the love of sin, because, by the potent and efficacious principles with which it inspires the believer, it regenerates him, or changes his heart, and makes him a new creature. The remedy, therefore, in so far as faith is concerned, is precisely adapted to the disease.

      Believing that our first point is now satisfactorily proved and illustrated, we proceed to the second consideration.

      Repentance.--Repentance destroys the practice of sin. But that this proposition may be rendered indisputable, we ask, What is repentance? As one step toward the obtaining of an answer of truth, we shall refer to the ninth, tenth and eleventh verses of the seventh chapter of the second Epistle [323] to the Corinthians. "For I rejoice not," says the apostle, "that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed, to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage from us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you?" etc.

      According to this text, repentance is preceded by "godly sorrow"; therefore, godly sorrow is not repentance. It is the cause, while repentance is the effect. The word here rendered "repentance" is different from that in the eighth verse, rendered "repent." This signifies mere regret; but that repentance which was the effect of godly sorrow evidently denoted a change of mind and of heart, which terminated in a thorough reformation of life. They put away the evil of their doings, as we learn from verse 11, in which Mr. Barnes very appropriately remarks as follows:

      "We may learn what constitutes true repentance. There should and there will be deep feeling. There will be carefulness, deep anxiety to be freed from sin. There will be a desire to remove it, indignation against it, fear of offending God, earnest desire that all that has been wrong should be corrected, zeal that the reformation should be entire, and a wish that the appropriate revenge or expression of displeasure should be [324] excited against it. The true penitent hates nothing so cordially as he does his sins. He hates nothing but sin; and his warfare with that is decided, uncompromising, inexorable and eternal."

      As further proof that repentance is an internal change or amendment connected with an external reformation, let it be noted that when the men of Nineveh repented, "God saw their works, that they turned from the evil of their way" (Jonah 3:10). They "believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth" (v. 5), and the king commanded them "to turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that was in his hands" (v. 8). To the same effect are those Scriptures in which men are commanded to "cease to do evil, and learn to do well"; to "break off their sins by righteousness, and their transgressions by turning to the Lord," and in which it is said, "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" and "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." In all these cases, reformation is that which is most prominent as a fruit of repentance. And John the Baptist commanded the people to "repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance." The case of the Pentecostians also is in point; for when Peter commanded them to repent, instead of being overwhelmed [325] with sorrow, their hearts were filled with gladness. They were already sorry. They had been pierced in their hearts. This sorrow, therefore, wrought the repentance unto salvation which Peter commanded. It began in sorrow and sin, but terminated in gladness and reformation. Now, as repentance terminates in reformation, it follows that it destroys the practice of sin. This second position, therefore, being established, we proceed to the consideration of baptism.

      In baptism the state is changed. As to what that action or ordinance is which is denominated baptism in the Scriptures, we shall leave the reader to determine; only remarking in passing that whatever may be said in favor of pouring and sprinkling, it is certain that immersion is valid baptism. It is also a very significant and solemn ordinance, being an emblem of the burial and resurrection of our Lord, things which can not, in truth, be said of sprinkling and pouring. They are not emblems of anything, and, therefore, in so far as emblematic significancy is concerned, are rites perfectly unmeaning. That either is an emblem of the outpouring of the Spirit is an assertion perfectly gratuitous. Why, then, should a dying man prefer ordinances which, possibly or probably, are not baptism, and which fall infinitely short of the solemnity and emblematic import of immersion, to that which, in any view of the subject, is a valid and most significant baptism? Let piety [326] and honesty, not bigotry and prejudice, answer this question!

      But to the point. When a foreigner takes the oath of allegiance, he passes from the state of an alien into that of a citizen; when persons are married, they pass out of the single into the married state; so when penitent believers put on the Lord Jesus Christ, they pass out of the unpardoned into the pardoned state. Observe, we do not affirm that the state of a sinner is never changed except in baptism. What may be done out of baptism is no part of the present question. We have, however, no great liking for the principles of those persons who are always inquiring how nearly they may approach the precipice of disobedience without falling over. Is baptism a divine command? or is it an unmeaning ceremony? Does it convey any blessings to the obedient? What are those blessings? What say the Scriptures? These are questions from which we can not turn away and be innocent.

      "Baptism," say our Methodist brethren, "is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference, whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized, but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth" (Art. XVII.). And on page 107 of the "Discipline" they say: "We call upon thee for these persons, that they, coming to Thy holy baptism, may receive remission of their sins by spiritual regeneration." The Presbyterian "Confession of Faith," in [327] answer to the ninety-second question, says: "A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed and applied to believers." If, then, the Methodists and the Presbyterians are right in the articles just quoted, we can not be wrong; or, in other words, if "baptism is a mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized," and if in baptism, "by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are applied to believers," certainly baptism must be an ordinance in which the state is changed; and, if possible, the more certainly so should the prayer of the Methodists be answered in granting the remission of sins by spiritual regeneration. This, however, only by the way, in proof of our orthodoxy! Our appeal is to the law and to the testimony.

      It will, we presume, be granted by all that, if baptism is for the remission of sins, those who, in obedience to the gospel, are baptized, experience a change of state; that is, pass out of the unpardoned into the pardoned state. We affirm that baptism was, from the time of its first institution, for the remission of sins. "John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" (Mark 1:4). "And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of [328] sins" (Luke 3:3). "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38). "And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16). "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). "Baptism doth also now save us" (1 Pet. 3:21). "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" (Rom. 6:3). "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as have been baptized into Jesus Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:26, 27).

      We are utterly incapable of perceiving how any proposition could be more conclusively demonstrated than is that which affirms that baptism is for the remission of sins, by the Scriptures presented in the preceding paragraph. The testimony is positive, and most explicit. Not more fully can it be proved that Jesus is the Son of God; not more conclusively can any other proposition, within the whole range of human investigation and discussion, be sustained by evidence; for evidence more explicit and positive can not be adduced in proof of any proposition. May we not, then, say that if any person will not believe from the force of these positive declarations of Holy Writ, neither would he be persuaded though one should rise from the dead? [329]

      Let it be deeply impressed upon the mind of the reader that although we teach that baptism effects a change of state, yet we do not believe that it effects this change in behalf of any who do not possess the faith and repentance of which we have spoken as prerequisites to its reception. A believing with the heart, and a repentance in and from the heart, we must possess before we can be recognized as qualified subjects of baptism. But, having these, "baptism," Peter affirms, "saves us." Not baptism alone! Eight souls were saved by water, not by water alone! Noah and his family believed and obeyed God; and in this faith and obedience were they saved from drowning. And we might add that not in faith and obedience only were they saved, but in and by the ark, into which they were introduced by faith and obedience. Thus it is under the gospel. We are not saved by faith alone, by repentance alone, by baptism alone, by grace alone, by hope alone, by blood alone, by the Word alone, by the Spirit alone, nor by any other one thing alone. As "man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God," so the purify ourselves," not by any one thing alone, but "in obeying the truth" (1 Pet. 1:22), seeing that in obedience we become the subjects of the concentrated energy of all the gracious means appointed for our salvation. We are baptized into Christ, and have "put on [330] Christ"; we are, therefore, saved in our ark, Christ Jesus, by baptism, with which baptism are connected faith, repentance, the blood of Christ, the grace of God, all the saving energies and influences which God has been pleased to appoint in order to a perfect and most gracious salvation. Or, to change the illustration, as Mother Eve, by the internal act of believing a lie, and the external act of eating the forbidden fruit, passed out of a state of innocence into one of guilt, so we, by a cordial belief of the gospel in our heart, and an external submission to it from our heart, pass out of the a unpardoned into the pardoned state. "We obey from the heart the form of doctrine and are then made free from sin, and become the servants of righteousness" (Rom. 6:17).

      We have not space, in this discourse, for an extended discussion of this subject. One additional effort, however, we will make to convince the reader--if, indeed, he is not already convinced--that baptism is for the remission of sins. The reader will please to take his Book, and turn to the second chapter of Acts of the Apostles. In the thirty-eighth verse Peter commands the penitents to "repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins." Now, the circumstances of the case prove incontrovertibly that, at the time at which this command was given, these penitents were in an unpardoned state. Their hearts were bleeding with convictions, and burning with remorse. In the [331] bitterness of their pierced hearts, they were crying for mercy; were pleading to know whether or not pardon could be extended to blood-stained, heaven-daring, hell-deserving sinners, such as they felt themselves to be. That sudden springing up of joy which, by modern anxious-seat revivalists, is held as an evidence of pardon--but certainly without Scripture authority--they felt not, but, in its stead, dread alarm--inexpressible perturbations. We have a right, therefore, to consider them unpardoned at the point of time at which the apostle commands them to be baptized for remission of sins; and, if unpardoned, it follows that they could not otherwise have understood the apostle than as teaching that if they would repent and be baptized, their sins should be pardoned. This, together with the commission law--"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," or pardoned--makes assurance doubly sure; and we can not perceive how any person who venerates the Bible can withhold his assent from this doctrine, unless it may be accounted for by reference to the stubbornness of the human will; for, as the poet has said:

      Pardon.--This destroys the guilt of sin. "The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin." It "sprinkles us from an evil conscience." "We [332] have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." We "are justified by his blood." The death and resurrection of Jesus are the great foundation facts of our holy religion. "He was delivered for our offenses, and rose for our justification." He entered the heavens by His own blood, and is there our High Priest, to intercede for us, and to make reconciliation for our sins. Upon the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, and the offering of Himself without spot to God, do we found our hope, in respect to the eternal inheritance. Without the shedding of His blood, there could be no remission. Glory and honor and power and praise and blessing and majesty be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!

      From the whole premises, then, this is our conclusion. Pardon destroys the guilt of sin through the mercy of God and the blood of Jesus. The water of baptism can not cleanse from sin. But the blood of Jesus can cleanse us, when in the water, from all our past sins. The reader, perhaps, believes that the blood can cleanse from sin, at an anxious-seat, in the atmosphere, on dry land. And, pray, why may not the blood of Jesus as well cleanse the believing penitent in the water? Why not, we would say, better be cleansed by this blood, in baptism, as "baptism doth even now save us"? Does baptism save us without blood? Every place under heaven is suitable, with some [333] people, for remission of sins but that place which God has explicitly appointed.

      But not only does the blood of Jesus cleanse from the sins committed anterior to baptism; it also removes the guilt consequent upon sinning after we have become Christians. "If we [Christians] confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Thus is the heart purged from an evil conscience, and the conscience from dead works through life. Thus is the ever-rankling thorn of guilt extracted from the human soul. And hence it will be that, upon the banks of deliverance, the Christian, whilst unearthly transport swells his bosom, and one thrilling ecstasy after another, inexpressible and full of glory, exhilarates his spirit, shall sing, "Thou hast loved us, and washed us from our sins in throe own blood, and hast made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever."

      Resurrection.--This destroys the punishment consequent upon the sin of our first father. The process exhibited under the four preceding heads presents a perfect remedy for all our personal sins. By faith, the love of sin is destroyed; by repentance, the practice of sin; by baptism, the state of sin; and by pardon, the guilt. But, renewed as the Christian is in the spirit of his mind, his regenerated soul remains incarcerated in a mortal, dying body--a body of sin and death. Oppressed [334] with labors and infirmities and afflictions, he sighs and groans, and prays for deliverance. He anticipates, through the hope of the gospel, the bright, salubrious morn when he shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God; when his vile body shall be changed, and fashioned like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nor shall he groan and hope in vain. When Jesus shall make up His jewels, He shall sing the brilliant, ecstatic song of a resurrection triumph: "O death, where now thy sting? O grave, where now thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Then the cure of the soul and body shall be complete. "God will wipe away all tears from the eyes of the righteous; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain." There, natural bodies shall have become spiritual bodies. We shall be like Jesus, and see Him as He is. But what will be the breadth and length and depth and height of our bliss and glory, neither human nor angelic eloquence can tell. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but our inheritance shall be an infinite and an eternal weight of glory.

      But we must hasten to the conclusion of this discourse. And, in order to reach this point in the most profitable manner of which we are capable, we must be permitted to remark briefly on three classes of our race:1. Infants and idiots. [335] 2. Those who obtain pardon in this life, and die in a state of justification. 3. Those who live and die in their sins.

      1. Infants and idiots. The Scriptures teach that God requires of every person according to his ability--according to what a man has, and not according to what he has not--according to his talents, whether one, two or five; and that to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. But infants and idiots know neither good nor evil, have no talents, possess no moral ability, and, therefore, can not be guilty of personal sin. Being, however, involved in the consequences of Adam's sin, without any act of their own, the second Adam will, without any act of theirs, redeem from all these consequences. As the offense came upon all to condemnation, so will the free gift come upon all to justification of life (Rom. 5:18). Thus, through the righteousness of Christ, and without faith, repentance, baptism, or the performance of any other conditions, will ail infants and idiots be saved with an everlasting salvation.

      2. Those who obtain pardon, and die in a state of justification. These, as well as infants and idiots, will need no other salvation, at the last day, than that which consists in a resurrection unto life, and glory which will follow.

      3. Those who live and die in, their sins. These, too, will be saved from all the consequences of [336] Adam's sin, but their own sins will be their ruin. They would not have Christ to reign over them. They would not come to Him that they might have life. They despised all His counsels, and would have none of His reproofs. A resurrection, therefore, shall be theirs, but it shall be a resurrection unto damnation. The fault will be theirs, not God's. They will be self-destroyed, having plucked down upon their own heads fiery, eternal destruction.

      In addition, we shall present one argument against Calvinism, one against restorationism, and one against skepticism.

      1. Calvinism. It is by virtue of certain relations which exist between all men and the first Adam that this sin affects them, and they are brought to the grave. Now, as the second Adam will raise all mankind from the grave, He must have sustained a relationship to all. But if there be a part of mankind for which Christ did not die, that part can not be raised from the dead; just as if, with reference to a part of mankind, Adam had not sinned, that part would not have died. Those systems of Calvinism, therefore, which deny that Christ died for all, are as certainly false as it is certainly true that all will be raised from the dead.

      2. Restorationism. We have seen that, in order to our redemption from temporal death, Jesus must have died that death for us. We arrive at [337] this conclusion from the utter impossibility of imagining that the death of Christ would be a prerequisite to our redemption from one death, and not from another. But as Jesus has not died the second death for any man, therefore there is no redemption from the second death. It follows, consequently, that restorationism is false.

      3. Skepticism. We have seen how admirably the five points of the gospel--each to each--are adapted to the removal of the five points of sin. Was there ever a more beautiful or wonderful adaptation? Surely the unbeliever will not say that this adaptation is a work of chance, or a production of clumsy priests. As well might he say that the adaptation of the glove to the fingers, of light to the eye, of sound to the ear, and of truth to the conscience, or that all the numerous adaptations, human and divine, in the whole universe, are works of chance. Men have never searched sufficiently deep into human nature, nor been so profoundly versed in moral pathology, as to invent a system such as is the gospel. No wisdom short of His who needed not that any should testify to Him of man, for He knew what was in man, was adequate to this adaptation. Hence, all systems of religion merely human, and perhaps all systems of education, are greatly defective; but the Christian religion reaches the whole man; it anticipates all his wants; it presents a remedy for all his moral maladies; it purifies, elevates, [338] glorifies him, and fits him for the most exalted heavenly society and enjoyments. This is the Lord's doing, and marvelous in our eyes. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all who love Him sincerely. [340]

[NTC1 307-339]