king's assistance in war time. What then was to be done in the case supposed of the baron's death during his eldest son's infancy? Was the orphan child to be cast out from the baronial castle and estate, and lose all the connected privileges and advantages, in consequence of his inability to do the required homage, and to engage for the required services? Not so. His guardians made the engagement to perform during his minority the acts of homage and service in his name, and as his representative: the boy-heir, as boyhood advanced, though still but imperfectly instructed as to the legal obligation, often joining heartily in the services; especially, when of a brave spirit, in those of war. And then, when he came of age, and to the full exercise of his reasoning faculty, he had to examine for himself into the whole matter:-to acquaint himself, on the one side with the value and privileges of the domain; and, on the other, with the conditions of holding it, whether more or less burdensome; the legal or constitutional right of the sovereign so to grant, and so to make conditions, being also inquired into and then, finally, supposing the king's legal right to be clear, to make his decision, whether to ratify and confirm the promises made for him by his guardians, and so to retain possession of the castle and its domain; or whether to decline the ratification, and forfeit them.

So, dear young friends, you have now to do. Having come to years of discretion, you have carefully to consider for yourselves, on the one hand, the blessings conditionally offered in God's name to the children of Adam in Christian baptism; and whether there is really satisfactory evidence to prove that these offers are trustworthy, even as from God Himself: next, and on the other hand, (if satisfied that that evidence is thoroughly dependable,) to consider the conditions on which the blessings are offered; and which provisionally, in your infancy, your sponsors engaged for you that you should fulfil, in order to your admission into the baptismal cove

nant. Which done, it will remain for you, finally, after comparing the one with the other, to make your conclusion whether to accept or to reject; whether to confirm and ratify the engagements made for you by your sponsors, or to repudiate them.

It will be my office to assist you, so far as I am able, on each of these points of inquiry. But it will need that you resort to a better helper than any earthly minister, in order to a right understanding and conclusion on them; even to that Spirit of truth who alone can guide you into all truth. To Him I now commend you : earnestly urging on you to address your best faculties of mind to the subject; and with prayer all through, for the divine help and guidance in your deliberations. For indeed it is no subject of trifling importance; but one that concerns your everlasting well-being. In my succeeding Lectures I purpose to speak, 1st, of the blessings conditionally offered in Christian baptism; 2ndly, on the evidence of that offer being really from God; in other words, on the evidences of the divine origin and truth of the Christian religion; 3rdly, of the conditions on which the baptismal blessings are offered. Then finally I. shall have to urge on you a right conclusion.

LECTURE III.

ON THE BLESSINGS CONDITIONALLY OFFERED, AS FROM GOD HIMSELF, IN CHRISTIAN BAPTISM.

THE subject of my present Lecture is the blessings conditionally offered, as from God Himself, in Christian baptism.

You may remember the parallelism which I suggested in my last Lecture between your present case, and that of some son and heir of a Norman baron of the old feudal times, left an infant at his father's death; who, when come of age, would have to consider whether, or not, to ratify the engagements provisionally made for him by his sponsors or guardians, as those on which alone his castle and domain might be held from the sovereign. Thus he would have to consider, on the one side, the advantages of his baronial fief; on the other, the conditional services required, sometimes, it might be, very onerous;-then, supposing it clear that the reigning sovereign had a legal right to bestow the domain, and impose the conditions, to elect whether to ratify and confirm the engagements thus provisionally made for him, or whether to repudiate the engagements, and surrender the fief.

Very similar, I repeat, dear young friends, is the case now with yourselves. You have to consider, first, what are the blessings conditionally promised in Christian baptism; secondly, whether there is really satisfactory evidence in proof that the offer comes from God; thirdly, if so, what are the conditions,-those same which were provisionally engaged for in your names by

sponsors at your baptism in infancy;-then, finally, (if satisfied on the second question,) to decide whether to confirm the engagements so made for you, and thus remain under the baptismal covenant; or whether to repudiate it, and them.

It is my purpose and duty to help you in the consideration of each of these several important questions. And first, and in the present Lecture, as to the blessings conditionally offered, as from God, in Christian baptism-blessings nothing less, as our Catechism expresses it, than of being made children of God, members of Christ, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. Éven as we read the words, and prior to any more particular investigation, how vast do they seem, and how satisfying to the highest aspirations of the soul:-to be children of God even here, and heirs to a heavenly and everlasting kingdom hereafter!

In order the better to appreciate their exceeding value, (if indeed the offer of them be trustworthy,) it may be well to dwell a little, ere proceeding further, on the darkness and hopelessness of man, both as regards the present and the future, in that natural state in which the offer of these blessings of the Christian baptismal covenant finds him.-Now here I will not illustrate from the cases of uneducated heathens, such as in Indian, Chinese, or African heathendom. The wretchedness, as well as darkness, of the superstitions which enthral them is well known to most of you, from the concurrent reports of Christian missionaries to that effect respecting those countries. "Having no hope, and without God in the world," is notoriously their characteristic. But I will ask you to enter with me into the sanctuary of the innermost thoughts on this subject of one of the most philosophic of the Greeks, and one of the most philosophic of the Romans, in the times of the highest civilization respectively of Greece and Rome. Said Euripides,* putting the sentiment

* Hippol. 191.

indeed into another's mouth, but evidently expressing what was his own:-"The whole life of man is painful. There is no rest to him from labour. If it be really the case that there is anything sweeter than this life, clouds of darkness enwrap and hide it from us. Hence only our insane clinging to this present life: seeing that, as to any other, we are tossed to and fro with senseless fables."-Similarly spoke Pliny,* the famous Roman naturalist of Vespasian's time, who was killed, when approaching too near, in order to scientific observation, in the great volcanic eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed the cities of Herculaneum

and Pompeii. "What God is (if in truth there be any such, distinct from the visible world) is a thing beyond the reach of man's understanding to know. To suppose however that the Supreme Existence (whatever it may be) should trouble and defile itself with the direction of the multiplex and miserable concerns of man is a foolish delusion. The vanity of man, and his insatiable longing after existence, have led him to dream of a life after death. But to God Himself it is a thing impossible to give to mortal man immortal life. The only thing certain is that there is nothing certain.† A being full of contradictions, man, while the proudest, is also the most miserable of animals. For other animals have no wants but what the bounty of nature supplies. Their freedom from the agitating cares of ambition, or money-getting, and, above all, from the fear of death, more than counterbalances whatever superiority man may otherwise have over them. What seems most desirable is never to have been born; or, if born into the world, to die very speedily. Considering

Plin. N. H. ii. 5, and vii. 1. The passages are partially given by Neander in his "History of the Christian Religion," vol. i. Introduction. I have a little varied in my extracts; like Neander, translating freely, and here and there condensing, and combining the extracted sentences from either Book in one. Pliny's expression for the Deity is in the neuter, Summum quid.

+ Similarly spoke Socrates. So Cicero, Acad. Qu. i. 4.