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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
G
od
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.