SERM. VII.] CHRISTTAN BAPTISM. 97 you shall find complete and perpetual rest from all that is sinful and all that is painful ; you shall enjoy a day of glorious and blissful worship in communion with the holy and happy inhabitants of that world, and it must be an everlasting day, for " there is no night there ;" Rev. xxii. 5. SERMONVII. CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. MAT. V t-ill. 19. Co ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. IN all the religions which God had prescribed to man- kind, there have ever been some outward rites or cere- monies appointed for man to perform, whereby God would represent the blessings of his own grace, and whereby men might profess their humble acceptance of those blessings, and their own correspondent obligations to duty. These are a sort of seals of the covenant of grace between God and man : Such were sacrifices, which we have good reason to believe were appointed to Adam just after his fall, when the Lord God made them coats of the skins of beasts which were sacrificed Such was the right of circumcisiongiven to Abraham and his children: Such were the numerous trains of ceremo- nies or ordinances which were prescribed to the Jews by the hand of Moses, wherein, by many offerings made by fire, by washings and sprinklings of water and of blood, the blessings of the covenant of grace were described in a sort of emblem or typical language ; and the people gave up themselves to the Lord in a way of covenant, accord- ing to the several appointed rules of duty. In the religion or gospel of Christ, there are hut two ordinances of this kind, instituted for christians to ob- serve, that is, baptism, which is performed by water; and the Lord's-supper, which is celebrated by bread and wine. The institution of baptism is contained in the VOL. III. Ii
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