Baptism doth save us? not the putting away the filth of the flesh, (yet this is the immediate effect of the water in Baptism,) but the answer (or stipulation) of a good conscience towards GOD! But how doth this kind of Baptism, or this concomitant of Baptism save us? The Apostle, in the same place, tells us, "by the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST." "The answer or stipulation of a good conscience," includes an illumination of our spirits by the SPIRIT of GOD; a qualification by which we are made sons of light, being before the sons of darkness. But, that by this qualification we become the sons of light; that this qualification is, by Baptism, wrought in us; that by this qualification, however wrought in us, we are saved from our sins; all this is immediately from the "virtue of CHRIST'S Resurrection." That is, as you have heard before, He was consecrated by the sufferings of death to be an everlasting Priest, and by His resurrection from death, His body and blood became an everlasting propitiation for sins, an inexhaustible fountain of grace, by which we are purified from the dead works of sin.

Ibid.-Of Christ's session at the right hand of God. ch. xvii. p. 170.

[St. Paul] saith, "that all that are baptized are dead to sin ;" that is, first, they are" dead unto it by solemn vow or profession." Secondly, they are said to be "dead unto sin, or sin to be dead in them," inasmuch as they in Baptism receive an antidote from GOD by which the rage and poison of it might easily be assuaged or expelled, so they would not either receive that grace or means which GOD in Baptism exhibits unto them in vain, or use it amiss. So we may say that any popular disease is quelled or taken away, after a sovereign remedy be found against it, which never fails; so men will seek for it, reasonably apply for it, and observe that diet which the physician, upon the taking of it, prescribes unto them. Some in our times there be (and more, I think, than have been in all the former) which deny all baptismal grace. Others there be which grant some grace to be conferred by Baptism, even unto infants; but yet these restrain it only to infants elect. And this they take to be the meaning of our Church's Catechism, wherein children are taught to believe VOL. III.- -76.

C

[That as CHRIST, the second person in the Trinity, did redeem them and all mankind; so the HOLY GHOST (the third person) doth sanctify them, and all the elect people of GOD.]

But can any man be persuaded that it was any part of our Church's meaning, to teach children when they first make profession of their faith, to believe, that they are of the number of the elect; that is, of "such as cannot finally perish?" This were to teach them their faith backwards, and to seek the kingdom of heaven not ascendendo, by ascending, but descendendo, by descending from it. For higher than thus St. Paul himself, in his greatest perfection, could not possibly reach; no, nor the blessed angels, which have kept their first station almost these 6000 years. Yet certain it is, that our Church would have every one, at the very first profession of his faith, to believe that he is one of the elect people of God.

LAUD, ARCHBISHOP AND MARTYR. Conference with Fisher, § 15.

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First, that Baptism is necessary to the salvation of infants (in the ordinary way of the Church, without binding God to the use and means of that sacrament, to which He hath bound us) is expressed in St. John iii. Except a man be born of water," &c. So, no baptism, no entrance. Nor can infants creep in any other ordinary way. And this is the received opinion of all the ancient Church of CHRIST.

And, secondly, that infants ought to be baptised, is first, plain by evident and direct consequence out of Scripture. For if there be no salvation for infants in the ordinary way of the Church but by Baptism, and this appear in Scripture, as it doth, then out of all doubt, the consequence is most evident out of that Scripture, that infants are to be baptized, that their salvation may be certain. For they which cannot help themselves, must not be left only to extraordinary helps, of which we have no assurance, and for which we have no warrant at all in Scripture, while we, in the mean time, neglect the ordinary way and means commanded by CHRIST. Secondly, it is very near an expression in Scripture itself. For when St. Peter had ended that great Sermon of his, Acts ii., he applies two comforts unto them, verse 38,

66 Amend your life," "&c. And then, v. 39, he infers, "For the promise is made," &c. The promise; what promise? What? why the promise of sanctification by the HOLY GHOST. By what means; Why, by Baptism. For it is expressly, "Be baptized, and ye shall receive." And as expressly, "This promise is made to you and to your children."

BRAMHALL, ARCHBISHOP AND CONFESSOR.-Of persons dying without Baptism, p. 979.

The discourse which happened the other day, about your little daughter, I had quite forgotten till you were pleased to mention it again last night. If any thing did fall from me, which gave offence to any there present, I am right sorrowful, but I hope there did not; as, on the other side, if any occasion of offence had been given to me, I should readily have sacrificed it to that reverend respect, which is due to the place-your table,―anciently accounted a sacred thing, and to the lord of it, yourself. This morning, lying musing in my bed, it produced some trouble to me, to consider how passionately we are all wedded to our own parties, and how apt we are all to censure the opinions of others before we understand them, while our want of charity is a greater error in ourselves, and more displeasing to ALMIGHTY GOD, than any of those supposed assertions which we condemn in others, especially when they come to be rightly understood. And to show this particular breach is not so wide, nor the more moderate of either party so disagreeing, as is imagined, I digested these sudden meditations, drawn wholly, in a manner from the grounds of the Roman schools; and so soon as I was risen, I committed them to writing.

First, there is a great difference to be made between the sole want of Baptism upon invincible necessity, and the contempt or wilful neglect of Baptism when it may be had. The latter we acknowledge to be a damnable sin, and, without repentance and GOD's extraordinary mercy, to exclude a man from all hope of salvation. But yet if such a person, before his death, shall repent and deplore his neglect of the means of grace, from his heart, and desire, with all his soul, to be baptized, but is de

barred from it invincibly, we do not, we dare not pass sentence of condemnation upon him ; nor yet the Roman Catholics themselves. The question then is, whether the want of Baptism, upon invincible necessity, do evermore infallibly exclude from heaven?

Secondly, we distinguish between the visible sign, and the invisible grace; between the exterior sacramental ablution, and the grace of the sacrament, that is, interior regeneration. We believe that whosoever hath the former, hath the latter also, so that he do not put a bar against the efficacy of the sacrament by his infidelity or hypocrisy, of which a child is not capable. And therefore our very Liturgy doth teach, that a child baptized, dying before the commission of actual sin, is undoubtedly saved.

Thirdly, we believe that without baptismal grace, that is, regeneration, no man can enter into the kingdom of GOD. But whether God hath so tied and bound himself to His ordinances and sacraments, that He doth not or cannot confer the grace of the sacraments, extraordinarily, where it seemeth good to His eyes, without the outward element: this is the question between us.

HAMMOND, PRESBYTER, CONFESSOR, AND DOCTOR.-Sermon XV. -A New Creature.

It is observable, that our state of nature and sin is, in Scripture, expressed ordinarily by old age, the natural sinful man; that is, all our natural affections that are born and grow up with us, are called the old man; as if, since Adam's fall, we were decrepit and feeble, and aged as soon as born, as a child begotten by a man in a consumption never comes to the strength of a man, is always weak, and crazy, and puling, hath all the imperfections and corporal infirmities of age before he is out of his infancy. And, according to this ground, the whole analogy of Scripture runs; all that is opposite to the old decrepit state, to the dotage of nature, is new. The new covenant, Mark i. 27. The language of believers, new tongues, Mark xvi. 17. A new commandment, John xiii. 34. A new man, Eph. ii. 15. In sum, the state of grace is expressed by τávτα кaɩvà, all is become new, 2 Cor. v. 17. So that old and new, as it divides

the Bible, the whole state of things, the world; so it doth that to which all these serve, man; every natural man, which hath nothing but nature in him, is an old man, be he never so young, is full of years, even before he is able to tell them. Adam was

a perfect man when he was but a minute old, and all his children are old even in the cradle, nay, even dead with old age, Eph. ii. 5. And, then, consequently, every spiritual man, which hath somewhat else in him than he receiveth from Adam, he that is born from above, John iii. 3, yɛvvņēñ ävwēɛv, (for it may be so rendered from the original, as well as born again, as our English read it), he that is by GOD'S SPIRIT quickened from the old death, Eph. ii. 5, he is, contrary to the former, a new man, a new creature; the old eagle hath cast his beak and is grown young; the man, when old, hath entered the second time into his mother's womb, and is born again; all the grey hairs and wrinkles fall off from him, as the scales from blind Tobit's eyes, and he comes forth a refined, glorious, beauteous new creature: you would wonder to see the change. So that you find, in general, that the Scripture presumes it, that there is a renovation, a casting away the old coat, a youth and spring again in many men, from the old age and weak bedrid state of nature. Now that you may conceive wherein it consists, how this new man is brought forth in us, by whom it is conceived, and in what womb it is carried, I will require no more of you, than to observe and understand with me, what is meant by the ordinary phrase in our divines, a new principle, or inward principle of life, and that you shall do briefly thus. A man's body is naturally a sluggish, inactive, motionless, heavy thing, not able to stir or move the least animal motion, without a soul to enliven it; without that, it is, but a carcase, as you see at death, when the soul is separated from it, it returns to be but a stock or lump of flesh; the soul bestows all life and motion on it, and enables it to perform any work of nature. Again, the body and soul together, considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity, are as impotent and as motionless as before the body without the soul. Set a man to remove a mountain, and he will heave, perhaps, to obey your command, but in event will do no more towards the