But there will also be a change of heart. It is wholly impossible that there should be a union so close, so intimate, so rich in gifts as this is, without the likeness of our Lord being formed in the heart of Him that is so united to him. The member of Christ must be like Him. This seems so obvious as scarcely to require proof. If we be so made one with Christ as to be accepted in Him, to share the love shewn Him, to be regarded in all respects as members of His body, we must be moulded after His likeness, and changed by the Holy Ghost after His image. The words of St. Paul, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” set this question at rest at once. They shew that there must be a change of heart whenever there is a union with the Lord. The same appears from 2 Cor. v, 17, 18, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, &c.” The change here spoken of is not one of condition, or of covenant relationship with God; but a new creation of the soul, a renovation of the habit of the mind, of the thoughts, of the affections, of the whole bearing of the new created spirit. “Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.” None, therefore, can claim a union with Christ in whom no such change has taken place. The careless, thoughtless, prayerless professor may be in outward fellowship with the Church; but he is not, he cannot be, partaker of a union with Jesus. No system of man can dethrone from their sovereign authority those awakening words of sacred Scripture, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” A union with Christ, therefore, involves invariably a change of condition and a change of nature; it only remains that we examine whether these change are connected in the word of God with baptism. If our first conclusion were correct, that a union with Christ is the blessing connected with the sacrament, it ought to follow that these two gifts are connected with it likewise. What then saith the Scripture respecting the change of condition, or the pardon of our sins? In Acts ii. 38, we read, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” And in Acts xxii 16, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” Can anything be clearer than that there is a connexion in these passages between baptism and forgiveness? A similar connexion may be observed between baptism and a change of heart. In John iii 5, believers are said to be “born of water and of the Spirit.” In the passage above referred to, Acts ii. 38, the gift of the Holy Ghost is described as a gift consequent on baptism. “Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” In Eph. v. 26, there is a clear connexion between baptism and the cleansing power of the word. “That He might sanctify it with the washing of water by the word.” (See also Rom. vi.)