the Spirit, and are made the sons of God. He is arguing, that the Holy Spirit accompanies water Baptism; which effect of Baptism, he says, "was represented by that vi"sion at our Saviour's Baptism, of the Holy "Ghost's descending upon him, as he came "out of the water, in the similitude of a "dove: for I suppose," he adds, “that in "that Baptism of his, the mystery of all "our Baptisms was visibly acted: and that "God says to every one truly baptized,

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as he said to him, (in a proportionable "sense,) Thou art my son, in whom I am "well pleased "."

I do not however insist upon the certainty of this, any more than on an allusion, as it appears to me, to Baptism, in our Lord's declaration to Peter, that if he wash him not, he has no part in him; such re

c Mede, Disc. XVII. on Tit. iii. 5. p. 62. Op. edit. 1672. Erasmus has something of the same idea, in reference to the gift of the Holy Ghost in Baptism, in his paraphrase on Mark i. 10. "Expressum est in Domino

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corporali typo, quid fiat spiritualiter in omnibus, qui "sincerâ fide suscipiunt Baptismum Evangelicum. Cor"pus aquâ tinguitur, sed mens invisibili gratiâ perungitur." d John xiii. 8.

ferences, however plausible, being unsafely alleged in support of doctrine: though they may afford a pleasing and not unjustifiable topic of religious meditation.

But in the third chapter of St. John's Gospel, a passage occurs of greater importance; not only as it bears upon the more immediate subject of these Lectures, but from its having been a fundamental text referred to in the controversy, which so long disturbed the church of England, concerning baptismal regeneration. To our more immediate consideration it presents itself, as a text, from which, should it be found to refer to Baptism, the confirmation of previous conclusions perhaps, rather than the suggestion of new benefits, is fairly to be expected, and to this I shall confine myself in the use I shall have occasion to make of it. It is the last insulated text, relating to Baptism, to which your attention will be called; and I confess that it has been no slight inducement to me to persevere in the order of inquiry with which we at first set out, that it does thus bring us to the investigation of this celebrated

passage, armed with all the more direct information which the rest of the New Testament is able to supply on the subject of inquiry. And as the Gospel in which it stands is acknowledged on all hands to have been, chronologically, among the latest, if not the very last, of the Scriptures promulgated; so, by deferring its consideration, we really come to its perusal, as those came for whom it was originally written to whom the other parts of the New Testament and the general doctrines of revelation must have been familiar, when they received the words of inspiration from St. John.

The passage occurs in the memorable dialogue between our Lord and Nicodemus; and the particular expression, which attracts our attention in an inquiry into the effects and benefits of Baptism, is contained in our Lord's assertion, that Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Now for the right understanding of

e John iii. 5.

these words, we are of necessity carried back to the consideration of the narrative in which they occur, the connection in which they stand, and the occasion on which they were delivered.

It is, I think, sufficiently obvious, that something more than it fell in with the object of St. John to record, must have taken place between our Saviour and Nicodemus, previously to our Lord's uttering the words in question; and it seems from the context most probable, that the particular subject under discussion, or upon which Nicodemus had been seeking information, was, either the nature of the kingdom of heaven, the approach of which had already been announced both by our Lord and his forerunner, or the mode of admission, or the qualifications for admission into it. To these points, it is evident, that our Lord's declaration would seem, upon the face of it, to refer.

As to the nature of the kingdom itself, it may be observed, that the expression, the kingdom of heaven, was universally understood by the learned Jews, as signifying that

dispensation of things, which should follow the revelation of the Messiah: and the familiar use of the phrase for that purpose has been referred to the language of the prophet Daniel'. It signifies little to our present inquiry, that the Jews, mostly, if not universally, mistook in understanding it of a visible establishment of a temporal government only; because that error will in no way affect the question under consideration. We may however remark, that to a certain point their interpretation was a correct one; namely, that the expression, both in Daniel and in the New Testament, does refer to the actual establishment of Messiah's kingdom: and that it is only inasmuch as the preaching of the Gospel was to be contemporary with, and to form a part of the administration of that kingdom, that the times of such preaching, and indeed the whole state of Christianity on earth, have received the same name, metonymically. The kingdom of heaven, under the personal rule of the Messiah, exalted to

f Daniel ii. 44.