Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/389

, you might perhaps put her in mind, that our Saviour in His prayer before His sufferings, in ch. xvii. of St. John, plainly had an eye to the command he purposed to give them, when he was going to be taken out of their sight: which command we read in the last three verses of St. Matthew. The prayer was "not for the Apostles alone, but for all who should believe on Him : that they all might be one." For whom was this prayer offered? Not for all who any how should believe in, but "for them who should believe on Him through the word of the Apostles:" i. e. for the very same persons described in the other text: "Go ye and teach (or, as it is in the margin, make Disciples, or Christians, of) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the , the , and the ." Those whom he had before prayed for, he here in effect orders to be taught or made Disciples, by persons having Apostolical authority. But these very same Disciples are to be one and all baptized. For our Lord's words are quite express: "Make Christians of them by baptizing them;" so that if we are to go by these words, it is quite plain that persons unbaptized cannot properly be called Christians: and if we compare the same words with the other text, it seems very doubtful whether such persons are included in the meaning of our gracious intercession: which is surely a point to be deeply considered. Do you quite understand me, Richard?"

"Yes, Sir, I believe I do. Those are some of the places in Scripture, which I turned to and begged my sister Lucy to consider. But of course. Sir, I could not reason on them so exactly as you have now done. There was another place too, which I begged her to think a good deal of, which must needs, I think, sound very awful to those who are inclined to make light of Baptism: I mean what was said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of ." It seems to me. Sir, that in speaking those words, our Saviour, who knew what he would do, must have borne in mind his purpose of causing water to be what it is made in the Sacrament of Baptism, the outward and visible sign of our new birth,