CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 109 ble helps to our faith, such sensible memorials of his grace and our duty." True religion is in a great mea- sure an inward and spiritual thing; but it is of vast im- portance towards the preservation of any particular reli- gion in the world to have some of the most considerable points of it held forth or represented in visible ceremo- nies, to strike the senses of men, and to dwell upon their imagination. The God of nature knows our frame, how much we are touched and affected with things sensible, and therefore he bath condescended to deal with us in. this manner in all ages of his church; and upon this ac- count the two chief blessings of the New Testament, viz. cleansing from the defiling principles of sin by the Holy Spirit, and washing from the guilt of sin by the blood of Christ, are held forth to our senses in the two great or- dinances of the gospel, baptism and the Lord's-supper. Words and discourses, precepts and promises, given out by the lips of men, oftentimes vanish into the air and are lost and forgotten : Writings are preserved indeed, but all men are not learned, nor know letters; and though our age be blessed with so much knowledge, yetmultitudes in all former ages could not so inuch as read. But these sensible emblems and ceremonies preserve the articles of our holy religion in the blessings and in the duties of it from age to age, and write them upon the memory of the unlearned, and that in lasting characters. Blessed be God for his condescending goodness in such an evangelical ceremony ! Exhortation II. " Let us enquire into the spiritual meaning of all christian ordinances, and never content ourselves with the mere outward forms without enjoying the blessings signified thereby and practising the respec- tive duties." Children should enquire of their parents when they see a child washed with water, and say, " What is the meaning of this washing ? And what are we to understand by the use of these names, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ?" And parents should be able and will- ing to instruct their children, and teach them these im- portant points of their holy religion, viz. that they are under a defilement by sin, they are to be washed from the guilt of it in the blood of Christ, and to be cleansed and purified from the principles of it by the renewing grace of the Spirit! So it was among the Jews; Ex. xii.
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