service. And though many (alas too many!) who are sprinkled with the elemental water of baptism, never attain by it the answer of a good conscience towards God; yet all, who receive that seal of the divine promises, and bear its outward impression, and are content to be classed amongst believers, have, in fact, witnessed a good profession, good as far as it went; and are everlastingly bound by the terms and spirit of that profession.

But according to the wise and salutary discipline of our own Church, this profession, instead of being left to an inference, unobserved, perhaps, by others, and unthought of by the party who has made it, is embodied in a distinct and solemn form, with significant and edifying ceremony; agreeably not only to the obvious propriety and consistency of a system which permits infant baptism, but to the practice of the Christian Church from the very beginning. To all who have received the ordinance of Confirmation, that is, to every sincere and consistent member of the Church of England, may be addressed, with peculiar emphasis and truth, the exhortation of St. Paul to Timothy, Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed

The

a good profession before many witnesses. I have before observed, that whether such a distinct and public act of acknowledgment has ever taken place or not, every Christian, every nominal Christian, is supposed to have made it, and will be answerable for it, as if made. very name by which he is called, a professor of the Gospel, implies it; and a miserable subterfuge and self-deceit would that be, if any such were found, which would seek to escape the strictness of evangelical obligation, by shunning the formal and express acknowledgment of its authority. But still, as it is a duty, of a very sacred kind, incumbent upon all Christians, to make such a public and solemn avowal of their faith and love; so, when it has been made, the ministers of religion are furnished thereby with an additional topic of encouragement, or rebuke; and forgetfulness becomes less excusable in the parties themselves, who, in the exercise of an unfettered choice, and guided by the dictates of conscience and a deliberate judgment, have professed themselves the disciples of Christ, and the children and servants of God.

To all, therefore, who have so renewed the promises made for them at their baptism, whether recently, or at any former period, I would say,

and first to the latter, Remember the profession which you once professed before many witnesses. If it were made at the time with insincerity, or careless trifling, that was a sin, of which, I trust, you have had grace to repent; and seriously to reconsider the nature and extent of that selfdedication, which you then declared in words. But if it were sincere, made under a deep conviction of the unspeakable importance of a right belief, and a holy practice; of your own sinfulness and weakness, and of the necessity of God's grace and mercy, and of its plenteousness towards those who are taken into covenant with him; I would then ask, whether you have been from that day to the present, uniformly and conscientiously observant of your promises? If not, what excuse have you to allege? Have you, since that solemn devotion of yourselves, seen any reason to suspect that the religion in which you then declared yourselves believers, is not a true religion? or that the alternative between life and death eternal, between salvation and damnation, is less awful and important than when it was pressed upon your tender understanding, and unhardened conscience?

Does the Word of God speak another language now, from what it then did? Have you

seen any cause for believing, that his hatred of sin is less intense, his justice less severe, his promises, or his threats, less certain? Or have you acquired any right to absolve yourselves from one jot or tittle of that sacred engagement, by which you then, freely and of your own accord, bound your souls for ever? or to loosen a single band of that strictness, by which the Gospel law obliges the consciences and thoughts of men? No I am persuaded that there is no man so blinded by the deceivableness of sin, as to venture an affirmative answer to these questions. What then? Are the promises in themselves of that nature that they may safely be violated or neglected? Is the alternative, which depends upon them, of too trivial a kind to occasion much anxiety? No: for the promises are made to God, who has commanded us by his Spirit, promise unto the Lord thy God, and keep it; to him, who, as his own promises are yea and amen, expects that his children and servants will abide by their engagements, and not start aside like a broken bow, at the very first trial of their faithfulness. Then as to the alternative which depends upon that faithfulness, what is it? the question whether we belong to Christ or not; whether we are the destined inheritors of his kingdom,

or are reserved for chains and outer darkness. Again, then, we ask, what excuse have you to urge, who have forgotten or transgressed your baptismal engagement, solemnly renewed in confirmation?

You will, I foresee, be prepared to urge two. The first, that you have been, of necessity, too much occupied in the business of the world, to think so much or so seriously as you could have wished, and as, indeed, you acknowledge that you ought to have done, about the engagement which you contracted in early life with your Creator and Redeemer. Of necessity? What necessity does a Christian acknowledge in such a matter? As if any necessity could be so great as that of saving your souls alive! According to the common acceptation of the term, where no physical constraint is used, advantage is usually the measure of necessity; that is most necessary to be done, which is most profitable to be done; and if so, we close the argument at once with our Saviour's unanswerable question, What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? O that his Spirit might bring that question home to the hearts and consciences of many thousand self-deluding sinners, who toil, and labour, and contrive, and suffer