winnows the corn, and separates the light and bad grains from the heavy and the good, and in the same. manner as the fire afterwards destroys the chaff so the baptism of Christ, for which he was preparing them, was of an inward and spiritual nature, and would effectually destroy the light and corrupt affections, and thoroughly cleanse the floor of the human heart.

This baptism too was to be so searching as to be able to penetrate the hardest heart, and to make even the Gentiles the real children of Abraham. "For

think not," says John, in allusion to the same bap-> tism, "to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."-As if he had said, I acknowledge that you Pharisees can, many of you, boast of relationship to Abraham, by a strict and scrupulous attention to shadowy and figurative ordinances; that many of you can boast of relationship to him by blood, and alt of you by circumcision: but it does not follow therefore that you are the children of Abraham. Those only will be able to boast of being his seed, to whom the fan and the fire of Christ's baptism shall be applied. The baptism of him, who is to come after me, and whose kingdom is at hand, is of that spiritual and purifying nature, that it will produce effects very different from those of an observance of outward ordinances. It can so cleanse and purify the hearts of men, that if there are Gentiles in the

* Matt. iii, 9.

most distant lands, ever so far removed from Abraham, and possessing hearts of the hardness of stones, it can make them the real children of Abraham in the sight of God.

This distinction between the watery baptism of John and the fiery and spiritual baptism of Christ was pointed out by Jesus himself; for he is reported to have appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, and to have commanded them," that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which," says he, "ye have heard from me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence."*

St. Luke also records a transaction which took place, in which Peter was concerned, and on which occasion he first discerned the baptism of Christ, as thus distinguished, in the words which have just been given: "And as I began to speak," says he, "the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John, indeed, baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized by the holy Spirit."

A similar distinction is made also by St. Paul; for when he found that certain disciples had been baptized only with the baptism of John, he laid his hands upon them and baptized them again,→ but this was evidently with the baptism of the Spirit. In his Epistle also to the Corinthians we find the

following expression; "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."*

SECTION III.

The Question now is, which of these two baptisms is included in the great commission given by Jesus to his apostles, "of baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”—Quakers deny it to be that of John, because contrary to the ideas of St. Peter and St. Paul—because the object of John's baptism had been completed-because it was a type under the law, and such types

were to cease.

IT appears then that there are two baptisms recorded in Scripture, the one the baptism of John, the other that of Christ; that these are distinct from one another, and that the one does not include the other, unless he who baptizes with water, can baptize at the same time with the Holy Ghost. Now St. Paul speaks only of onet baptism as effectual; and St. Peter must mean the same, when he speaks of the baptism that saveth. The question therefore is, which of the two baptisms, that have been mentioned, is the one effectual or saving baptism; or which of these it is that Jesus Christ included in his great commission to the Apostles,

when he commanded them to 66 go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."*

The Quakers say, that the baptism included in this commission was not the baptism of John.

In the first place, St. Peter says it was not in these words," which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water, whose antitype, Baptism, doth now also save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

The apostle states here concerning the baptism that is effectual and saving; first, that it is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, which is effected by water. He carefully puts those upon their guard, to whom he writes, lest they should consider John's baptism, or that of water, to be the saving one to which he alludes; for, having made a beautiful comparison between an outward salvation, in an outward ark, by the outward water, with this inward salvation, by inward and spiritual water, in the inward ark of the testament, he is fearful that his reader should connect these images, and fancy that water had any thing to do with this baptism.

* It is on this great command that Christians found the duty of water-baptism.

† 1 Peter iii, 20, 21.

Antitype is the proper translation, and not "the like figure whereunto."

Hence he puts his caution in a parenthesis, thus guarding his meaning in an extraordinary manner.

He then shows what this baptism is, and calls it "the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." In fact, he states it to be the baptism of Christ, which is by the Spirit¿ for he maintains, that he only is truly baptized, whose conscience is made clear by the resurrection of Christ in his heart. But who can make the answer of such a conscience, unless the Holy Spirit shall have first purified the floor of the heart; unless the spiritual fan of Christ shall have first separated the wheat from the chaff; and unless his spiritual fire shall have consumed the latter?

St. Paul makes a similar declaration: "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ."* But no man, the Quakers say, merely by being dipped under water, can put on Christ; that is, can put on his life, his nature, and disposition, his love, meekness, and temperance, and all those virtues, which should characterize a Christian.

To the same purport are those other words by the same apostle: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." And again, "buried with him in baptism, wherein also