Lectures on Christian Baptism Author:Thomas M'Crie General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1801 Original Publisher: Johnstone and Hunter Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where yo... more »u can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: LECTURE V. THE EFFICACY AND BENEFIT OF BAPTISM. Having considered some of the most common objections to the admission of children, we have passed the most complicated and disagreeable part of the subject, and now come to a much more important and edifying, as well as pleasing view of the question, -- viz., the efficacy and benefit of baptism; although here also (such is the sad condition annexed to all our religious discussions in this imperfect state of things) we may have occasion to tread on disputed ground. 1. We may begin by remarking, that the efficacy of baptism does not depend on any virtue in the mere symbol. Baptism is a mere symbol of spiritual good, not the spiritual good itself. Inattention to this distinction, trite and palpable as it is, lies at the root of all the error and misapprehension which so widely prevails on this subject. So strongly are men inclined, in the matter of the unseen world, to rest upon the tangibilities and visibilities of the world around them, that it is with the utmost difficulty they can be kept from confounding the form with the essence of religion. With many therefore, in all denominations of Christians, the mere outward sign, provided it is dispensed in the way they deem agreeable to the will of God, is inseparably identified with the thing signified -- not by its leading them, in the exercise of faith, to the promised blessing, but by itsbeing substituted in the place of that blessing. Thus in the Church of Rome baptism is put in the room of regeneration ; and in the controversy now raging in the Church of England...« less