him to have life, being justified freely by his grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Go ye and teach all nations. Let the great trumpet be blown, that many may come who were ready to perish.

Teach all nations. "Let all the nations know, to earth's remotest bounds, the year of Jubilee is come:" that now the price of redemption is paid down, the ransomed sinners may return home. The command was obeyed: as the angel flew through the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach, (and well he might fly upon such an errand,) so each of these honored servants of the Lord winged his way through the earth, one in one direction and another in another, proclaiming wherever they went the Gospel of the Grace of God. Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, Cretes and Arabians, heard them speak in their own tongues the wonderful works of God. Happy is it for us, that the stream of life thus opened by Christ, and permitted by him to have free course through the earth, has flowed even to the shores of India.

Bless the Lord Jesus Christ, all ye his saints, that he ever gave this commission to his disciples, and gave them grace to obey it. Here we are actual and living monuments of the power of the Gospel; we have drunk of the tide of love contained in it, and find it to be indeed the Gospel of our salvation. Had not the feet of him that brought good tidings ap

peared on the mountains of our island, publishing salvation and peace, we had perhaps at this moment, been viewing with savage delight a dying fellow-creature bleeding beneath the knife of the murderous Druid; whereas, behold us enclosed within the mansions of our God! On this spot where perhaps, nothing once was heard but the howling of the wolf, and the groans of men more miserable than they; behold walls, sacred to Jehovah which ring with the choral symphonies of heavenborn saints.

Let us take the next thing in our text and observe the form of initiation, with which the Apostles were to admit converts into the Christian communion. Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. It is a delusion not unknown in the present day, that some pretend to abrogate all forms as inconsistent with the spiritual nature of Christianity, and accordingly the two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, are dismissed from their ritual. But here you see baptism is no invention of priests—no ceremony of human institution, but derived from an authority which none can dispute.

We do not say that it is any more than an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace; but none who has any regard to Christ would dare to think slightly of an ordinance so expressly enjoined by him. The form of baptism is in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, where you observe three distinct persons. Now whatever be the exact import of this form, this is certain, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are equally interested in it. According to some, it means, let your authority for baptizing and introducing to Christ's church be the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Others, explaining it as it is in the original, say that baptizing into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, means that the baptized persons are thereby dedicated to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Whichever of these senses is the right one, or if there be any other sense more properly to be affixed to the words, it amounts to the same thing, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are equally and similarly the objects. If the minister's commission to baptize, be the authority of the Father, it is also the authority of the Son, and the authority of the Holy Ghost. If the person is dedicated to the Father as God, he is also dedicated to the Son as God, and to the Holy Ghost as God. How the Son and Holy Ghost should have precisely the same right to every creature as the Father, and yet not be equal to him, is impossible to describe without blasphemy. If the three persons are not equal, why is there no inequality pointed out in the text? God hates idolatry, and we are prone to it; yet here is a text directly tending to mislead us into it, if the three persons are not equal. Yet

these three are one: for we are baptized, not into the names, but into the name; these three persons have but one name. I am Jehovah, saith the Holy One, that is my name.

The concluding part of our Lord's charge is for the regulating and government of his Church, in all ages. Before, we had a form, here then is discipline. Teaching them to observe whatsoever I command you. A church without discipline is in a state of no great purity; it has departed from the ancient institutions of our Lord; and it is an unfavorable symptom of the present times, that the spirit of insubordination so pervades all species of characters, religious and irreligious, that Christian churches are infected with it. The ministerial reproof in private, though administered with the utmost humility and lenity, is received with surprise, and often rejected with disdain. But when the Savior commanded his disciples to teach men all things whatsoever he taught them, did not his commission extend to private admonition? Was not its design that they should exhort and rebuke with authority received from the Lord Jesus Christ? Was not Timothy commanded to rebuke with all authority?

Teach them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you. Observe this, brethren, whatever Christ commanded his disciples at first, that does he enjoin to you. When we come to the people of the world who call themselves Christians, and remind them of some self-denying precepts of the Gospel not to be found

in their lives-when we ask them, "Do you know that according to Christ, Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God? Their reply in general is, that was only meant for the heathens of those times; and it is a convenient artifice to which they have often recourse, in order to shift the burden of dif ferent duties and the necessity of an inward change from themselves. But here we learn that all that was delivered to the disciples is extended to us. He unfolded the will of God to a chosen few that they might go abroad and explain it to the rest of us. What ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Have ye heard from me that ye are to be no more of the world, than I am of the world? then go and tell them likewise that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Have I told you that ye are to confess me before men, go and tell them to come out from among the world and be separate, and go forth without the camp bearing my reproach. Have I said, ye must be born again of the Spirit; let them know, that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Have I commanded you to watch; let them be warned, that what I say unto you I say unto all, watch! Whatsoever Ï

have commanded you, teach them to observe. Think, brethren, if the Lord Jesus had deferred the time of his coming to the present, would not he speak in the same manner to the present generation as to those of old? Would he alter his tone? would he lower his stand