Believers are said to have been 'baptised into the Christ;' and therefore into the church, for he is the head of the church; into salvation, for he is the Saviour; and into the remission of sins' (Act. ii. 38). And do not they who are baptised into the Christ come into union with him thus? Some say 'No, but we come into union with him when we "believe into him."' The question now is, Does baptism effect a change of state in the baptised? Or, Is it those who are already united to Jesus who are required to be baptised; or are those who believe required to be baptised in order to come into union with him? Another question may be replied to at the same time, viz.. Should eis be rendered towards, (as in Act. xx. 21), in connection with faith; and into (as in Rom. vi. 3), in connection with baptism We reply that towards' is correct as to faith:-'faith (eis) towards our Lord Jesus'-because faith is only one step-the first indeed, ye only one step in a certain direction. He who exercises faith toward our Lord Jesus, is also required to exercise 'repentance toward God,' and to make the good confession,' in order to 'baptism int the Christ.' If faith is the last, or the only step-if salvation is b faith alone, and baptism has no connection with it; then is it prope to render eis into, and read Act. x. 43, 'Whoever believes into him xiv. 23, 'The Lord into whom they believe;' Phil. i. 29, To believ into him;' 1 John v. 10, Believe into the Son of God.' But baptism is the last step-if it is subsequent to faith, repentance, &e.then the common version, with all its faults, is quite correct in re dering 'baptised into ;' but believed into-never !* We say, therefore, 'Repentance (eis) towards God; faith (ei towards our Lord Jesus; and baptism (eis) into him-(eis) into b death-(eis) into or for the remission of sins' (Acts ii. 38, xx. 21 Rom. vi. 3, &c.) The baptism of such as believe and repent is t discipling ordinance. W. D. H. APPENDIX. Having received the following query, and the abo being so far an answer to it, we append the question as put by o correspondent T. J., and supplement the foregoing at the same tim T. J. says on Matt. xxviii. 19, &c. : 'If you disciple a person by baptising him, you cannot bapti him as a disciple, consequently the pronoun autous cannot ha for its antecedent, the masculine matheetees (disciple) in the ve matheeteusate, with which it agrees in gender according to rule; b must have ta ethnee (the nations), with which it does not agree, t result of which would be that you would, with Dr. Halley, bapti every one in the nation you could lay hold of, irrespective of fait repentance, &c.' Though we do hold that the participle 'baptising' denotes manner in which the thing commanded is to be done, as when sovereign says, 'Go enlist men, swearing them into my service yet it does not follow that the administration of the oath of allegian is the only item in the enlistment. The language does specify t oath as a particular item, without which the enlistment is not com *I received a message from a friend in the next street that he was lying on a bed sickness and desired to see me. I came out of my house, and turned TOWARDS street in which he lives: then went INTO that street, TOWARDS his house; reach which, I passed along the passage TOWARDS the chamber of my friend: reache which, I went INTO the same. lete-it does denote that the oath has to do with the introduction of Le men referred to into the royal service, but it does not mean that without anything preceding the administering of the oath they were o be made soldiers. So in the Saviour's commission. The participle des certainly denote that baptism has to do with the introduction of en into the relationship indicated-it does denote that the discipling ajoined is not complete without the baptising specified; but it does ot signify that baptism is the only item in the making of disciples. part from the consideration that though the word 'baptising' signies mode, but not the whole mode, and apart from the additional conderation that it were impossible to make disciples by the mere act of ptism, we have the still farther consideration that 'baptising' stands receded by a word which implies the communication of elementary struction, and succeeded by one which denotes the giving of informion, appropriate to one who has received the previous. Thus it ems to us that we are quite sufficiently guarded against the one istake which christens' those who have received no Christian jowledge, and against the other extreme which regards as lawfully ristianized those who have not been baptised into Christ. The ath lies between the two. 6 Noting this we submit that brother W. D. H. inclines somewhat in or three particulars. With the words' He that believeth and is ptised shall be saved''Many of the Corinthians hearing, Bieved, and were baptised,' and such passages before us, we not say that the appellation believer' is applied in the apostolic itings to members of the church only, or that no one is entitled to prior to his baptism, or that it is unscriptural to speak of any as levers who have not been baptised, or that it is erroneous to speak baptised believers or of the baptism of believers. Before baptising yone we require to ascertain by his confession whether he has beved-only if he has are we to immerse him: if then he has believed, y not call him a believer? Why not speak of his baptism as that a believer? Nor would we be beyond the pale of scripture raseology, if we were even to go a step further and speak of the mersion of those who believe as disciples' baptism. John iv. 1 78 that Jesus made and baptised more disciples than John.' This ssage says Jesus baptised disciples, and with this and the commison before him, we opine that brother W. D. H. is scarcely justified saying we are not instructed to baptise disciples. Discipleship is Ging of progress, and the period of its commencement may be vasly reckoned; either from the hour that the individual seriously, Lolarwise, committed himself to the ascertaining of the truth of the spel-or from that in which the truth in the fulness of its adaptation himself as a sinner, burst with gladdening rays upon his soul-or the hour of his publicly putting on his Lord in baptism. It ere wrong to hide from him at any previous stage that he could ly be fully accredited as a disciple at his baptism; but it were intions to deny all right and title to the appellation while honestly king to know the will of the Lord. It is true that a man is not a dier before entering the army, but it is only in part true that inructions are not given to enlist soldiers. The enlistment of diers' is a well-known phrase, though it is not meant that the men e soldiers before enlistment. But as enlistment, like conversion, nsists of various steps of progress, it is not contrary to common usage to speak of men in process of joining the army as soldiers There is a possibility of being over nice, as there is of being right eous over much. God in revealing his will to us spoke in huma language, and human speech is not perfect. Idiomatic phrases ar especially liable to criticism, and nothing is easier than to rais questions of extreme nicety upon them. When, for example, it i said by one character in the parable, I have married a wife, an cannot come the objector might say, with much plausibility, Mar ried a wife! Impossible! A woman is not a wife till she is married And were we disposed we might offer a similar edifying (?) criticis on brother W. D. H.'s own question- Does baptism effect a chang of state in the baptised?' Were they the baptised when baptism is su posed to effect this change of state? If they were the baptised, we they not Christians? disciples? believers? But what good is the in splitting hairs of such tenuosity? Lastly, were we to answer the question, Is it faith or baptism th unites men to the Saviour? we should answer: Both. Faith unit heartily; baptism formally. If there be not a heart union throug faith previous to baptism, the latter can effect no union; it is a fal form. Those who are already united in soul by faith are required come into formal union by baptism; precisely as the law of marria requires that those whose hearts are already united become one by ceremonial union. It is faith into,' as it is 'baptism into Chris And whatever reasons our translators had for adopting the differe prepositions they have given us-whether those reasons were basi on the idiom of our language or arose from their own theologic bias, it remains undeniable that the preposition eis is as express symbol of union with Jesus when connected with faith, as whe found in connection with baptism. If we have the idea of union the one case, we have it in the other. The union begun in faith summated in baptism. ED. BAPTISMS.—Since last report five persons, having confessed with mouth the Lord Jesus, believing with the heart that God hath raise him from the dead, have been baptised into the name of the Fathe and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and united with the chur meeting in Nicolson Street Hall, Edinburgh. On the 19th June, young man was added to the church. It affords us much pleasure to learn from Brother King that eigh persons have been added to the church in Birmingham during past month. ! bob to docuw od Jedi Sastave @ Jud ow blios todd enigma yibnot ow tra siqmetroo & ortsa mi wod bend one vol etdquant an Dawdinot ba! od gliqqed bluow od samo bøorb awa za Jau ada lo mok - w THE TREASURES OF THE LOST. POETS have sung of the treasures of the deep, where dwell the living creatures of thousand forms, where the pearl and the coral attract the search of man, and where the relics of wrecked merchantman and warship of every nation lie far down in depths never to be broken till the last trumpet sound. Who, as he has looked upon the far-spreading sea, has not thought of these long lost treasures? But there is a deeper depth than may be found in old ocean's darkest bed, and there are treasures being stored by man more frightful far than tongue can tell-the Treasures of the Lost. The peculiar treasures of kings have often seemed to us most frightful things for human heart to prize. In looking through some royal treasure-house, where the trophies of kingly fame— swords and fire-arms, coats-of-mail, battle-axes and skull.. crackers-court the gaze, we have thought of the woe-the untold sorrow and misery these riches have cost, and we have gladly turned away, happy they were not ours, but sorry that any man should own them. Oh sin, cruel sin, what dire havock hast thou wrought on God's fair earth! What misery hast thou brought to that wondrous heart which God so kindly formed as the home of love and joy! Yes, sin has its trophies, blood has its price, even the lost have their treasures. Impenitent, unconverted, unsaved reader, hast thou ever thought of this, that thou art treasuring up UNTO THYSELF WRATH AGAINST THE DAY OF WRATH and revelation of the righteous judgment of God? Such is the fact. So terrible as to baffle alike the skill of speech and the power of imagery, yet unheeded as though unworthy of a serious thought. How strange is the infatuation of sin that it should lead a being possessed of reason and liberty, daily and deliberately, to heap up to himself a treasure of wrath, and that the wrath of God! Yet so it is. But we fondly imagine that could we but fix the reader's thoughts for one brief hour in serious contemplation on his own dread case, he would happily be led forthwith to the wisdom of the just. No. 9. Vol. III.-Sept., 1859. Lend your serious attention then, dear reader, and mark1. You have sinned. Your name is sinner. You have sinned against heaven and in God's sight. Your life is one of sin. No man knows how much you have sinned. You yourself do not know. Living in the daily habit of sin, transgression follows transgression in quick succession, insomuch that along the entire period of your responsible being, you cannot point to a single hour and say, During that hour I did no sin. The vast majority of your sins you have forgotten; for you try to forget them; besides, by your habit of life you have come to sin almost unconsciously, and a heart rendered deceitful above all things seeks ever and anon to excuse that which, with God, is inexcusable. Therefore, thou art inexcusable. O man. 2. You have incurred the penalty of sin. The end of these things is death. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. What is to die, in the full sense of the word, no man knows. This we know, that death is separation -separation from God-separation from all good. But what it is to be thus bereft, and what it is, in this desolation of bereavement, to undergo that certain fearful looked for judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries of God and his Messiah, we leave the terrific imagery of scripture to suggest. Suffice it to say that wisdom's voice has employed the most appalling of figures to warn the sinner into timely flight from the wrath to come. What can be more terrific than the thrice-told words-" Hell, the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched!" 3. You are despising the mercy of God. has no pleasure in the death of the sinner. God avers that he He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Such being his gracious pleasure, he has not only put it on record, but he has given the most satisfactory proof of his clemency which man could ask or God could give. He has provided a Saviour able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto God by him. He has so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life. He has made him who was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from |