supreme authority of his own injunction,— "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." No other sanction can be needed for the alteration, by those, in whose hearts there is a response to the Redeemer's unspeakable love.

The tender wisdom of the change, however, and its moral fitness to the altered circumstances, under which the Church was placed, are no less conspicuous than the supremacy of sovereignty, wherein it originated. He who came to form one Church, purchased by his blood, sanctified by his grace, and made meet for his glory,-resolved, in order to effect that blessed unity and brotherhood in the salvation of his grace, to break down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, to abolish the enmity of ordinances between them, that He might reconcile them into one body on the Circumcision, next to sacrifice, which the oblation of the Lamb of God once offered, had for ever abolished, was the most prominent of these dividing ordinances; and therefore, there was an especial fitness in the institution of some other seal. And while the promises, wherein consisted the power of the signs re

cross.

mained the same, the outward ceremony might well be changed. The Jews had become odious and ridiculous to all other nations, because of this rite. Had it therefore been continued by the Saviour, a stumbling block would have been cast into the way of men's conversion, whereof their great enemy would gladly have taken advantage, to make the faith of Christ crucified, with such a sign of its profession, both hateful and absurd to those Gentile nations, to whose ears the tidings of salvation were brought. The doctrine of the cross, under the most favourable circumstances of its preaching, would be to the Greeks foolishness. He therefore who knew the depths of prejudice in the carnal mind against the revelation of his grace in the matter to be proclaimed, resolved that there should be nothing to disgust in the manner of its promulgation. And well indeed for the peace and harmony of the Church would it have been, if the preachers of his gospel, and the undershepherds of his flock, had always exercised the same wise and salutary tenderness.

Circumcision was also a rite of such painful nature, that men would have shrunk from it,. as Zipporah from the act of Moses: it was

therefore laid aside, as quite inconsistent with the first badge of that service which is perfect freedom: while Baptism was substituted, as an easy ceremonial, which pagans, (as paganism was nothing else than Judaism corrupted by the devil,) practised as well as the Jews; and therefore would be the more readily disposed to receive it. In fact our blessed Lord only applied that which was amongst the most common, to the highest and most sacred use: so that the same element, whereby the body of the newborn infant is cleansed from the pollutions of the womb, should be applied to remove the pollutions of sin, and renew the soul to God.

Circumcision was the seal of inheritance in the land of promise, and the badge of distinction between Abraham's posterity and all other nations; that so this visible sign might make them strive after the invisible grace which it sealed, the rest that remaineth for the people of God,--and a walk of corresponding holiness. When therefore Jew and Gentile became one fold, when no peculiarity of clime or country was to be regarded, but there should be one Lord, one faith, one salvation,-when in every

1 Cases to recover Dissenters, p. 329. ? Ezek. xvi. 4,9; xxxvi. 25.

nation he that feared God and wrought righteousness was to be accepted of Him, the badge of appropriation, the seal of a painful and odious singularity gave place to another badge, more simple and more suitable to its end of grace and general mercy.' The rite of Circumcision, is moreover abolished under the new testament of redeeming love, by the authority of the great Law-giver; because the blood of the covenant, whereof it was a memorial, and which it was designed to prefigure, has been shed upon the cross by the crucifixion of the Lord of glory. While the Jewish people therefore continue this rite, they declare in act, what in the dreadful obstinacy of their unbelief they constantly affirm, (and that with blasphemies of the name of Jesus,) that the blood of sprinkling has not been shed, nor the reconciliation made between guilty man, and his injured, dishonoured, holy God and Judge.

Circumcision was used, and blood shed in performing it, to keep in memory the atonement afterwards to be made by the surety of the covenant: even as sacrifices pointed out to the eye of faith, the blood of Jesus Christ which

1 Lightfoot's Works, IV. 277.

cleanseth from all sin. Baptism, on the other hand, is an unbloody Sacrament, because the atonement prefigured by Circumcision has been made. The Almighty Head and Lawgiver of the Church therefore, has given another mode of initiation into its fold of spiritual grace and privilege, especially pointing to that sanctification which follows, when the blood of Christ is applied by faith to the soul.

St. Paul, beseeching his brethren of Colosse to stand fast in the simplicity of the Gospel, declares," that they were complete in Christ, who is the Head of all principality and power. He adds, "In whom also ye are circumcised with the Circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." What means St. Paul by the circumcision of Christ? It is made without hands: it is therefore a supernatural and spiritual act. It is attended with the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, and therefore with deliverance from those burdensome ordinances of purification, which testi

1 Col. ii. 10-12.