refer, he shall meet with some in the world of glory, whom he never knew on earth, who shall be to him for his glory and crown of rejoicing, throughout the ages of eternity. RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS. THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OF RELIGIOUS vows. (Continued from page 171.) THE nature and obligation of religious vows were considered in my last number. The serious addresses to several classes of persons who are under solemn Tows to God, promised as an ap. plication of this subject, follow. I begin with those, who have Towed to GOD in the highest sense, I mean, complete Christian professors and communicants. Besides your early baptismal dedication, in which you were passive, you have personally put your hands and seals to the obligation; you have done it in the face of day, in the presence of God, angels, and men; to all of whom you have practically appealed, as witnesses of the transaction. Accordingly, the articles of this covenant between you and your Maker have been registered, so to speak, among the standing records of heaven and earth, to be produced either for or against you in the day of judgment. If it shall then appear that any of you were induced to a religious profession and attendance on Christian ordinances by a regard to custom and reputation, or to worldly convenience and interest, by the mere influence of surround. ing example or solicitation; that you took shelter in the visible church merely as a refuge from present remorse, or future pun ishment, and have employed its external ceremonies as a substitute for inward holiness, as a veil or compensation for habitual neglect and disobedience in other respects; or that you have, on the whole, proved unfaithful to your solemn vows; in either of these cases what aggravated confusion must cover your faces! That holy name, which you have hypocritically profaned; that table of the Lord which you have polluted and disgraced, that heavenly religion, which you have exposed to contempt, the church of Christ, whose interest and honor you have wounded; those sincere Christians whom you have grieved, and those enemies of righteousness whom you have hardened by your unfaith. fulness; all these will combine their testimony to convict and condemn you. If you would escape so dreadful a condemnation, and appear with boldness before the Judge of the world, resolve to pay your vows in future in a better manner than heretofore. Be persuaded to this by all the temporal and spiritual mercies you have received; by the distinguishing privileges and obliga tions, which result from your covenant relation, and frequent sacramental opportunities. Let these cords of love bind your hearts to your infinite Benefactor, and engage you to renewed zeal and activity in his service. Aspire, to be distinguished from the world by a holy and edifying conversation, as much as ye are by your sacred profession and privileges. Especially distin. guish yourselves by that noble badge of Christ's disciples, broth. erly love, by cherishing a tender sensibility, and ardent zeal for each others welfare; by readily giving and receiving fraternal instruction and counsel, reproof and admonition; by laying aside every appearance of an envious, vindictive, censorious, and slande rous Spirit; by executing in a gentle, yet resolute, manner, the prescribed laws and discipline of Christ's kingdom in their fullest extent. By such a conduct we shall honor GOD, religion, and ourselves; strengthen and beautify the church of Christ, and be ripening for a blessed union with the church of the first-born in heaven. Let me now address the subject to those who have recognized their baptismal dedication, and yet neglect the dying command of their professed Master and Sovereign. I would ask such persons, have you not publicly chosen Christ for your King, his laws for your rule, and his atonement for your salvation? Was not this the language of that sol The writer of this communication, we presume, supposed that the Panoplist and Magazine, would fall into the hands of many to whom the following address would be applicable. For the sake of such of our readers we admit it, without intending, however, to convey any opinion of our own, either for or against, the practice, which renders such an address appropriate. In respect to this practice there is a diversity of opinions in our churches, with which we wish not, at present,to intermeddle. EDITORS. emn transaction, in which you publicly announced your faith in, and obedience to Christ ? And yet you all neglect one of his plainest and most interesting precepts. Yea, there is reason to fear that not a few, who make this profession, live in the general neglect of religion in their closets, families, and daily conversation, and that they employ what is styled the baptismal covenant merely as an instrument of ob. taining baptism for their children, that they may avoid the disgraceful imputation of singularity, and of heathenism in a Christian land. Thus they sacrifice the holy name of Jesus to the idol of private honor! Is it not a tremendous spectacle, to see a rational creature solemnly vowing allegiance to Christ; while he uniformly refuses to obey him? GOD and your own consciences can best tell, whether your neglect of the ordinance of the Lord'sSup. per, proceeds from careless in. difference, or serious, distressing scruples of conscience. If the former, it is plain that your pretended covenant with GoD, was but an empty compliment; and that it would have been far better never to have vowed, than thus to sport with solemn engagements. At best, religious promises of such persons as you are, were the offspring of short-lived, serious impressions, which have vanished as the morning cloud and the early dew, and have left your minds more hardened than ever; or of sudden, inconsider. ate and self-confident resolutions, which hurried you, like the foolish builder, to engage in a relig ious profession, without first counting the cost, and without heartily seeking and securing that stock of divine grace, which is necessary to your finishing the spiritual fabric. Let me therefore exhort you to remember the awful doom which the Bible denounces upon those, who put their hands to the plough and look back, who seem to begin in the spirit, but end in the flesh, who draw back from hopeful beginnings into a cold and perhaps contemptuous neglect of christianity; remember the terrible language of the King of Zion to the Laodicean professors for being lukewarm, or indifferent in their spiritual concerns. short, consider that your unfeeling and indolent spirit, which prevents your obeying Christ in all his instructions, is itself a very criminal and dangerous state of mind, that it affords no excuse for neglecting any divine command; that it unfits you to perform any duty acceptably, and especially to meet an aproaching death and judgment with confidence and peace. And can you rest in such a condition? Can you quiet your consciences with such an excuse? O lay these considerations to heart; awake from your stupor; give to God the fervent affections of your souls, and then be honest. If the latter, if your neglect of the Lord's Supper proceeds from serious scruples of conscience, I shall only say, those who are scrupulously afraid of coming to the table of Christ, lest they should incur guilt and danger by unworthy receiving, ought at least, to be equally a. fraid of bringing guilt and dan. ger upon their souls, by sinfully neglecting it; for those who have the most humbling and tender sense of their own unfitness and unworthiness, are, generally speaking, the very persons, who have the best qualifications for, as well as the most need of this comforting sacrament, and may expect the most sensible relief and benefit from it. Let such fearful souls, therefore, impartially inquire, whether amid all their humble complaints, they have not a real and steady desire to honor their Master, and to be conformed to his example and will; whether sin be not their greatest burden, and duty their greatest delight; whether an interest in the holy salvation of the gospel be not the object of their supreme concern and pursuit ? If so, let them resolve to dismiss their old excuses and delays, and to complete the payment of their Christian vows. Let me then urge those, who have thus far vowed to GOD, to take this great subject into their immediate and mature consideration, and to dismiss their old excuses and delays and complete the performance of their vows of Christian engage ments. Permit me in the next place to descend a step lower, and to call upon all baptized persons to recognize and fulfil their baptismal obligations. By this initiating rite, you were visibly marked and set apart for God, and entered into his family. As the infants of God's professing people under former dispensations, were always admitted into his covenant and church with their parents, and as circumcision was then a bond upon both to keep the whole law; so under the Christian dispensation the promise is still to us and our children; and baptism is equal. ly a bond upon both to observe the whole gospel. As Christian infants are capable subjects of covenant obligations and privi. leges, equally with Jewish; so the evangelical dispensation no where repeals the ancient charter in this particular, but implicity, if not expressly, confirms it. The right of parents to lay their children under civil engagements to men has never been disputed; much more then have they authority to bind them to God, who has a previous and absolute property in, and dominion over them, as his own reasonable creatures. I may add that many children have undoubtedly been consecrated to Jehovah by the private act of their parents, though the latter have been hindered by their religious principles or fears from presenting them to the baptismal ordinance. Let me then beseech those who have been early dedicated to GoD, especially children and youth, to consider seriously both the duties and privileges which result from their carly consecration and covenant relation to their Creator. Can you bear the thought of slighting and defeating the condescending grace and tenderness of GoD and your Redeemer towards you, in admitting you to this near and comforting relation; of frustrating the peculiar engagements, labors, and prayers of the church, of your parents and minister, for your everlasting salvation, and of breaking asunder the very special and sacred bonds, which oblige you to be good and happy? Can you hear Christ saying, suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, without feeling yourselves allured into his arms; without replying, "To whom shall we go but unto the blessed Jesus, for thou hast the words of eternal life.” Let all these considerations, my young friends, allure and constrain you to give your personal consent to the covenant of God, into which you have been baptized, and to distinguish yourselves from the children of pagans and infidels, by an early and striking display of Christian virtue and piety. Can you bear to think that such favored children, as you are, should be little or no better than those wretched young creatures, who either know nothing of GoD and Christ, of who are early taught to deny or blaspheme these glorious names? Do you not feel thankful that you were not born and educated in a country where Christian sabbaths and sermons, ministers and ordinances, are either un known or wholly slighted? If your Christian baptism and edn. cation are privileges, will not God call you to account for your improvement of them? And will it not be far worse in the day of judgment for careless and wicked children of godly parents, and of Christ's visible church, than for those of ignor ant heathens and unbelievers? Those parents who have de voted their children to God, are likewise called upon to falfil their vows, for favoring their consecrated offspring with the best instructions and government, examples and prayers. This is a debt which they owe to God. to the church, to the world, to unborn posterity, to their ow souls, as well as to their beloved children! To bind parents the payment of it is one princ pal design and advantage of in fant baptism. If this debt wer t faithfully and generally discharg. ed, there would be no room for opposers of infant baptism to ask, what profit is there in sprinkling an unconscious in fant? We might confidently reply, and appeal to facts for the justness of our answer, much every way; for hereby our children have the best security of a Christian education. And in this way, by the promised special blessing of a covenant God, they are generally formed to piety, usefulness, and happiness. In the life of that distinguished servant of Christ, the Rev. Philip Henry, written by his no less eminent son Matthew Henry, it is recorded, that, "in dealing with his children about their spiritual state, he took hold of them very much by the handle of their infant baptism; and fre. quently inculcated that upon them, that they were born in God's house, and were betimes dedicated and given up to him, and therefore were obliged to be his servants: Psalm cxiv. 16, "I am thy servant, because the son of thy handmaid." This he was wont to illustrate to them by the comparison of taking a lease of a fair estate for a child in the cradle, and putting his life into it. The child then knows nothing of the matter, nor is he capable of consenting. However, then he is maintained out of it, and hath an interest in it. And when he grows up and becomes able to choose and refuse for him. self, if he go to his landlord and claim the benefit of the lease, and promise to pay the rent, and do the services, well and good, he hath the benefit of it; if other wise it is at his peril. "Now children, (would he say) our VOL. II. New Series. great Landlord was willing that your lives should be put into the lease of heaven and happiness; and it was done accordingly by your baptism, which is the seal of the righteousness, that is by faith; and by that it was assured to you, that if you would pay the rent, and do the service, (that is, live a life of faith and repentance and sincere obedience) you shall never be turned off of the tenement: but if now you dislike the terms, and refuse to pay this rent, this chief rent, (so he would call it) for it is no rack, you forfeit the lease. However, you cannot but say that you had a kindness done you, to have your lives put into it." "Thus did he frequently deal with his children, and even tra vail in birth again to see Christ formed in them and from this topic he generally argued, and would often say, "If infant baptism was more improved, it would be less disputed." The growing inattention of parents and churches to this benefit and obligation of infant baptism, and the consequent rapid decline of order and religion in the families and among the children even of Christian professors, are among the darkest symptoms of the present day, and call aloud for immediate remedy. With respect to those parents, who have themselves been baptized, and who yet have never given up their offspring in baptism, such are reminded that even you are under solemn engage. ments both to God and your children. For your own early baptism and covenant relation to the Most High, made it both your duty and privilege public. ly to avow this relation and en 2 B |