And just so, baptism says to us: “Your sins are forgiven you. You are taken into covenant with God. You are God’s people, God’s family. You must forget and cast away the old Adam, the old slavish and savage pattern of man, which your Lord died to abolish, the guilt of which He bore for you on His cross; and you must rise to the new Adam, the new pattern of man, which is created after God in righteousness and true holiness, which the Lord showed forth in His life, and death, and rising again. For now God looks on you not as a guilty and condemned race of beings, but as a redeemed race, His children, for the sake of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. You have a right to believe that, as human beings, you are dead with Christ to the old Adam, the old sinful, brutal pattern of man.” Baptism is the sign of it to you. Every child, let it or its parents be who they may, is freely baptized as a sign that all that old pattern of man is washed away, that they can and must have nothing to do with it hence-forward, that it is dead and buried, and they must flee from it and forget it, as they would a corpse. And the Lord’s Supper also is a sign to us that, as human beings, we are risen with Christ, to a new life. A new life is our birthright. We have a right to live a new life. We have a duty to live a new life. We have a power, if we will, to live a new life; such a life as we never could live if we were left to ourselves; a noble, just, godly, manful, Christlike, Godlike life, bred and nourished in us by the Spirit of Christ. That is our right; for we belong to Him who lived that life Himself, and bought us our share in it with His own death and resurrection. That is our duty; for if we share the Lord’s blessings, it can only be in order that we may become like the Lord. Do you fancy that He died to leave us all no better than we are? His death would have had very little effect if that was all. No, says St. Paul; if you have a share in Christ, prove that you believe in your own share by becoming like Christ. You belong to His kingdom, and you must live as His subjects. He has bought for you a new and eternal life, and you must use that life. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above.” . . . And what are they? Love, peace, gentleness, mercy, pity, truth, faithfulness, justice, patience, courage, order, industry, duty, obedience. . . . All, in short, which is like Jesus Christ. For these are heavenly things. These are above, where Christ sits at God’s right hand. These are the likeness of God. That is God’s character. Let it be your character likewise.