did. And this very thing might be the cause of the different forms of baptism recorded in the Acts *, of " baptizing in the name of Jesus'," and at other times" in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost";" the former being the manner of doing it in pursuance of the design of John's baptism, and the latter the form of institution by Christ for the whole Christian church, appointed after his resurrection; the disciples, at first, using promiscuously what was used by the same authority, though with some difference of mystery. 11. The holy Jesus having found his way ready prepared by the preaching of John, and by his baptism, and the Jewish manner of adopting proselytes and disciples into the religion, a way chalked out for him to initiate disciples into his religion, took what was so prepared, and changed it into a perpetual sacrament. He kept the ceremony, that they, who were led only by outward things, might be the better called in, and easier enticed into the religion, when they entered by a ceremony which their nation always used in the like cases: and, therefore, without change of the outward act, he put into it a new spirit, and gave it a new grace, and a proper efficacy; he sublimed it to higher ends, and adorned it with stars of heaven; he made it to signify greater mysteries, to convey greater blessings, to consign the bigger promises, to cleanse deeper than the skin, and to carry proselytes farther than the gates of the institution. For so he was pleased to do in the other sacrament: he took the ceremony which he found ready in the custom of the Jews, where the major-domo, after the paschal supper, gave bread and wine to every person of his family; he changed nothing of it without, but transferred the rite to greater mysteries, and put his own spirit to their sign, and it became a sacrament evangelical. It was so also in the matter of excommunication, where the Jewish practice was made to pass into Christian discipline: without violence and noise" old things became new," while he fulfilled the law, making it up in full measures of the Spirit. 12. By these steps baptism passed on to a Divine evangelical institution, which we find to be consigned by three evangelists":" Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, * Vide supra, Sect. ix. n. 1. Matt. xxviii. 19. Acts, viii. 16. Acts, ii. 38. "Matt. xxviii. 19. baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." It was one of the last command> ments the holy Jesus gave upon the earth, when he taught his apostles the things which concerned his kingdom." For he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved": but "unless a man be born of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;" agreeable to the decretory words of God by Abraham in the circumcision, to which baptism does succeed in the consignation of the same covenant, and the same spiritual promises, "The uncircumcised child, whose flesh is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." The Manichees, Seleucus, Hermias, and their followers, people of a day's abode and small interest, but of malicious doctrine, taught baptism not to be necessary, not to be used, upon this ground; because they supposed, that it was proper to John to baptize with water, and reserved for Christ, as his peculiar, to " baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Indeed Christ baptized none otherwise; he sent his Spirit upon the church in Pentecost, and baptized them with fire, the Spirit appearing like a flame: but he appointed his apostles to baptize with water, and they did so, and their successors after them, every where and for ever, not expounding, but obeying the preceptive words of their Lord, which were almost the last that he spake upon earth. And I cannot think it needful to prove this to be necessary, by any more arguments; for the words. are so plain that they need no exposition: and yet if they had been obscure, the universal practice of the apostles, and the church, for ever, is a sufficient declaration of the commandment: no tradition is more universal, no, not of Scripture itself; no words are plainer, no, not the ten commandments : and if any suspicion can be superinduced, by any jealous or less discerning person, it will need no other refutation, but to turn his eyes to those lights, by which himself sees Scripture to be the word of God, and the commandments to be the declaration of his will. 13. But that which will be of greatest concernment in this affair, is, to consider the great benefits which are conveyed to us in this sacrament; for this will highly conclude, that the precept was for ever, which God so seconds with his grace and mighty blessings; and the susception of it necessary, because we cannot be without those excellent things, which are the graces of the sacrament. : 14. First The first fruit is, that "in baptism we are admitted to the kingdom of Christ," presented unto him, consigned with his sacrament, enter into his militia, give up our understandings and our choice to the obedience of Christ, and, in all senses that we can, become his disciples, witnessing a good confession, and undertaking a holy life: and therefore, in Scripture, uanteúei and Bartíċε are conjoined in their significations, as they are in the mystery; it is a giving up our names to Christ, and it is part of the foundation, or the first principles, of the religion, as appears in St. Paul's catechism; it is so the first thing, that it is for babes and neophytes, in which they are matriculated and adopted into the house of their Father, and taken into the hands of their mother. Upon this account, baptism is called in antiquity," Ecclesiæ janua, porta gratiæ, et primus introitus sanctorum ad æternam Dei et ecclesiæ consuetudinem: the gate of the church, the door of grace, the first entrance of the saints to an eternal conversation with God and the church." St. Bernard calls it, "Sacramentum initiationis, et intrantium Christianismum investituram; the sacrament of initiation, and the investiture of them that enter into the religion." And the person so entering is called σμévos and σvykatatedeiuévos ", one of the religion, or a proselyte and convert, and one added to the number of the church, in imitation of that of St. Luke, ο Κύριος προσετίθει σωζομένους τῆ ixxλnoix, "God added to the church those that should be ἐκκλησίᾳ, saved;" just as the church does to this day and for ever, baptizing infants and catechumens: σωζόμενοι προστίθενται, they are added to the church, that they may be added to the Lord, and the number of the inhabitants of heaven. 15. Secondly: The next step beyond this is " adoption into the covenant"," which is an immediate consequent of the * Τὸ βάπτισμα και υιοθεσίας χάριν τυγχάνειν. - Cyril. Hierosol. Catec. 2. first presentation; this being the first act of man, that the first act of God. And this is called by St. Paul, a being "baptized in one Spirit into one body 2," that is, we are made capable of the communion of saints, the blessings of the faithful, the privileges of the church: by this we are, as St. Luke calls it, TeTayμévo eis why aivov, ordained, or disposed, "put into the order of eternal life," being made members of the mystical body, under Christ our Head. 16. Thirdly: And therefore" baptism is a new birth," by which we enter into the new world, the new creation, the blessings and spiritualities of the kingdom: and this is the expression which our Saviour himself used to Nicodemus, "Unless a man be born of water and the Spirit';" and it is by St. Paul called λουτρὸν παλιγγενεσίας, “ the laver of regeneration;" for now we begin to be reckoned in a new census, or account; God is become our Father, Christ our elder Brother, the Spirit "the earnest of our inheritance," the church our mother; our food is the body and blood of our Lord, faith is our learning, religion our employment, and our whole life is spiritual, and heaven the object of our hopes, and the mighty price of our high calling. And from this time forward we have a new principle put into us, the spirit of grace, which, besides our soul and body, is a principle of action, of one nature, and shall, with them, enter into the portion of our inheritance. And, therefore, the primitive Christians, who consigned all their affairs, and goods, and writings, with some marks of their Lord, usually writing Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, Θεοῦ υιός, Σωτήρ, “ Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour," made it an abbreviature by writing only the capitals, thus, I. X. O. T. E, which the heathens, in mockery and derision, made 'Ixùs, which signifies a fish, and they used it for Christ, as a name of reproach: but the Christians owned the name, and turned it into a pious metaphor, and were content that they should enjoy their pleasure in the acrostic; but upon that occasion Tertullian speaks pertinently to this article, " Nos pisciculi, secundùm ixtừ nostrum * 1 Cor. xii. 13. b John, iii. 5. a Acts, xiii. 40. Ο Διὰ βαπτισμὸν ἀρχὴ ἑτέρου βίου γίνεται ἡμῖν, ἡ παλιγγενεσία, καὶ σφραγίς, καὶ puhantńpiov, xai pœrioμés. — Damasc. lib. iv. Orth. Fid. c. 10. Jesum Christum, in aquâ nascimur; Christ, whom you call a fish, we acknowledge to be our Lord and Saviour; and we, if you please, are the little fishes; for we are born in water, thence we derive our spiritual life." And because from henceforward we are a new creation, the church uses to assign new relations to the catechumens, spiritual fathers, and susceptors; and, at their entrance into baptism, the Christians and Jewish proselytes did use to cancel all secular affections to their temporal relatives. "Nec quicquam priùs imbuuntur quàm contemnere deos, exuere patriam, parentes, liberos, fratres vilia habere," said Tacitus of the Christians: which was true in the sense only that Christ said, " He that doth not hate father and mother for my sake, is not worthy of me;" that is, he that doth not hate them præ me, rather than forsake me, forsake them, is unworthy of me. ness "." 17. Fourthly: " In baptism all our sins are pardoned," according to the words of a prophet, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthi"The catechumen descends into the font a sinner, he arises purified; he goes down the son of death, he comes up the son of the resurrection; he enters-in the son of folly and prevarication, he returns the son of reconciliation; he stoops down the child of wrath, and ascends the heir of mercy; he was the child of the devil, and now he is the servant and the son of God." They are the words of Ven. Bede concerning this mystery. And this was ingeniously signified by that Greek inscription upon a font, which is so prettily contrived, that the words may be read after the Greek or after the Hebrew manner, and be exactly the same; NIYON ANOMÍMA, MH MONAN OYIN," Lord, wash my sin, and not my face only." And so it is intended and promised: "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, and call on the name of the Lord'," said Ananias to Saul 1; for "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι, with the washing of water in the word;" that is, baptism in the Christian religion: and, therefore, Tertullian calls baptism e Lib. de Baptis. c. 1. f Lib. 5. Hist. 6 Ezek. xxxvi. 25. Πιστεύω ἓν βάπτισμα εἰς ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτίαν. — Symb. Nicen. h Lib. i. e. 3. in Joann. i Acts, xxii. 16. * Eph. v. 26. |