not be supposed to enjoy inferior privileges under the more glorious dispensation of the Gospel'; because our Saviour commanded them to be brought unto Him, with an expression of high displeasure against those that would have kept them from Him, and “embraced them in his arms, and laid his hands upon them, and blessed them, thus by his outward gesture and deed declaring his good will towards them2;" finally, because it is by no means to be believed, that they, concerning whom Christ has pronounced that " of such is the kingdom of God," should be excluded from baptism, which He has solemnly appointed to be the avenue to that kingdom, and without which He has affirmed that no one shall enter in3. For reasons such as these we adhere to the custom, which long prevailed throughout universal Christendom, of suffering infants to be brought unto their Saviour, that He may "embrace them with the arms of his mercy, that he may give unto them the blessing of eternal life, and make them partakers of his heavenly kingdom*:" and whilst on the one hand we contend in the language of our authorised confessions of faith, that baptism is

1 2 Cor. iii. 8.

2 Mark x. 13-16. See the Ministration of the Publick Baptism of Infants.

s John iii. 3, 5.

4 Publick Baptism of Infants.

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generally necessary to salvation'," we scruple not to maintain on the other, that "the baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ 2."

I pass on to the second division of my subject; and therein to a consideration of the conduct of the primitive Christians after their admission by baptism into the Church.

And first we are informed, that "they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine;" that is, they persevered in a constant belief and profession of those doctrines which the Apostles taught. It appears then that they did not approve of a frigid indifference to peculiar modes of faith; but they held resolutely, and they "contended earnestly" for that which had been "once delivered to them". by their inspired teachers3: being, doubtless, persuaded of this truth, that it is a Christian's faith which distinguishes him from the professors of all other religions; and admonished not in vain by their Saviour's unequivocal declaration, that, wherever the Gospel is preached, it is required of all men that they believe it; that "he who be

1 Church Catechism.

2 Article xxvii.

3 Jude 3.

lieveth, shall be saved, but he, who believeth not, shall be damned1."

Of the several articles, which the primitive Christians believed, the Scriptures do not supply us with one precise compendious enumeration. Generally they believed "the Apostles' doctrine," or those truths which the Apostles taught: the particulars must be collected from the narrative of the Acts, and from the writings of the Apostles themselves, added to the accounts which the Gospels deliver of the teaching of our blessed Lord.

A few of these articles may be recited. They believed then in the existence of the ever-blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; for into their name they were baptized by a form of words', not only useless and insignificant, but unintelligible, inconsistent, and absurd, unless intended to convey the notion of three several personal agents united in one Divine substance. They believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God: an article, which not only imported his Divine mission, as a Prophet, to instruct mankind ; but which comprised likewise the mysterious doctrines of his incarnation, death, and intercession1,

1 Mark xvi. 16.
3 Acts viii. 37. ix. 19.

* 1 John v. 1. iv. 2.

2 Matt. xxviii. 19.

Matt. xvi. 16. John vi. 69. xi. 27. ii. 1, 2.

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with all their momentous consequences; and not to believe these things they regarded as a signal opposition to the Christian dispensation; as a heresy, which in an especial manner excluded him who espoused it from the enjoyment of a Christian's privileges, and ranged him in direct hostility to evangelical truth'. They believed that the Holy Spirit, to whose service, conjointly with that of the Father and of the Son, they had been dedicated, and whom conjointly with the Father and with the Son they worshipped and glorified, was sent to supply the immediate presence of the Son with his faithful followers2; to purify the corruption, and to strengthen the weakness, of their nature; and to confer upon them that gracious assistance, without which they could do no good thing, but with and by which they were enabled to "work out their salvation with fear and tremblings." Finally, they believed, that the Son of God, who had come into the world in great humility to die for the sins of men, would hereafter appear again in glory and great majesty to judge them; when they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire1.

These are some of the leading particulars of that apostolical doctrine, I speak briefly and summarily as the present occasion will allow, in which

1 2 John 7-10.
3 Phil. ii. 12, 13.

2 John xvi. 7. xiv. 16.

Matt. xxv. 31, 32. 46.

the primitive Christian converts stedfastly continued. And these are some of the particulars, which the Church of England has laid down for the regulation of the faith of her members: which she has stated compendiously in her creeds; has detailed with greater fulness of exposition in her articles; and has interwoven and incorporated into her liturgy.

It is a proof of the unhappy weakness and pride of our nature, that men will not be contented to believe what God hath taught them, but take their own inventions and imaginations too frequently for the rule of their religious faith, adding to or diminishing the truths, which are comprised in the written word of God.

Thus on the one hand it may be sufficient if I advert briefly to that accumulation of superstition and corruption, wherewith the Church of Rome hath overwhelmed the scriptural and apostolical doctrines of the Gospel, by filling the minds of her deluded followers with traditionary notions concerning an infallible hierarchy; concerning purgatory, pardons, or indulgences, the worshipping and adoration of images, of crosses, and of reliques, and the invocation of the Virgin Mary, and other saints; concerning the five supernumerary sacraments; concerning the change of the substance of bread and wine in the supper of the Lord, and the consequent elevation and worship