not our dread of the consequences of exalting Christ's ordinances, "after the rudiments of the world" (an earthly wisdom) "and not after Christ?"
In these passages, we have deprived ourselves of the strength which God purposed to impart through them to His Church; and, yet more, have robbed ourselves and our flock of the knowledge of the greatness of the gift intended for them, by God, in Baptism. In another class, we have appropriated to ourselves the gift, independently of the channel through which it is conveyed. We are, namely, in different passages of Holy Scripture, said to have been "sealed by God," or "by the Holy Spirit of God," to "have received an anointing from the Holy One," to "have been anointed by God;" and these passages, persons at once, without doubt or misgiving, interpret of the inward and daily graces of God's Holy Spirit (which are, also, undoubtedly involved in them); so that, if any one were to propose to explain these passages of Baptism, as containing the first pledge and earnest of the Spirit, I fear he would be looked upon as a cold and lifeless interpreter, perhaps as a mere formalist. It will, doubtless, startle such to know, that this was, in some passages at least, the interpretation of almost all Christian antiquity[1]; and it may serve as an index of our altered state of religious belief, that most of us, perhaps, would at first regard as cold and formal, the interpretation, which to them spoke of the fulness of their Saviour's gift. This would, itself, be sufficient for our purpose; for it is not so much abstract proof of the value and greatness of our Lord's Sacraments, that we need, as, rather, to be convinced that our feelings have undergone a change, that we fall very far short of the love and respect which the Fathers of the Christian Church bore to them. And then let us consider within ourselves, whether, since those holy men realized in their lives the ordinances which they loved, we must not confess, that our lessened esteem for our Saviour's gift, betokens a diminished, or, at all events, a less humble affectionateness for the Giver. We aim at receiving every thing directly from God's hand, from
