LECTURES

ON

BAPTISM.

BY

THE REV. W. RITCHIE,

BERWICK-ON-TWEED:

AUTHOR OF "AZÛBA," &C.

EDINBURGH:

OGLE AND MURRAY, 49, SOUTH BRIDGE.

MDCCCLVI.

100.7.140.

PREFACE.

THE following discourses, now collected into one volume, were originally published separately, which will account for their not being continuously paged. This circumstance may cause, in referring to particular passages, a slight inconvenience which, perhaps, the Table of Contents will partially obviate.

A knowledge of human nature forbids the anticipation that any investigation of the important subject of Baptism will command the cheerful assent of all. In these fickle times, the religious principles of a few are being unsettled. Even well-disposed individuals, bewildered by strong assertions from zealous partizans, are sometimes chargeable with imprudence in adopting unscriptural practices, rather than hazard, as they think, the danger of omitting the smallest ceremony which the Lord requires to be observed. Popery, in various forms, is secretly exerting every power to regain its lost influence. Some are boldly denying the claims of the Bible to inspiration and implicit obedience. Others, by scoffing or sneering at religious feeling, in their demoralizing publications widely circulated, are gradually slackening the moral cords which bind the public mind to sound doctrine and holy action. Many, by adding to the Word