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.

you

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 baptism, 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 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 all 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 fire of Christ's baptism shall be applied. The baptism of him, who is to come after me, and whose king

y Math. 3.9.

dom 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 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 Christ 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."

Saint 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 been just given. "And as I began to speak, says he, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on

a

z Acts 1.4.

a Acts 11. 15, 16.

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."

b

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 hand upon them, and baptized them again; but this was 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 unto one body."

b Acts 19.

c1 Cor. 12. 13.

SECT. III.

Question 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, except he who baptizes with water, can baptize at the same time with the Holy Ghost. Now St. Paul speaks only of one 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,

d Eph. 4. 5.

d

that Jesus Christ included in his great commission to the Apostles, when he commanded them "to 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 antetype baptism doth also now

f

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

e 1 Peter 3. 20. 21.

and not "the figure whereunto."

f Antetype is the proper translation,