itself insufficient, or is made so by the fall of Adam, and the consequent evils, that nature alone, or our first birth, cannot bring us to heaven, which is a supernatural end, that is, an end above all the power of our nature as now it is. So that if nature cannot bring us to heaven, grace must, or we can never get thither; if the first birth cannot, a second must: but the second birth spoken of in Scripture is baptism; "a man must be born of water and the Spirit." And therefore baptism is λourρor Tаλуyevɛoias, "the laver of a new birth." Either then infants cannot go to heaven any way that we know of, or they must be baptized. To say they are left to GoD, is an excuse, and no answer; for when God hath opened the door, and calls that the "entrance into heaven," we do not leave them to God, when we will not carry them to Him in the way which He hath described, and at the door which Himself hath opened: we leave them indeed, but it is but helpless and destitute: and though GOD is better than man, yet that is no warrant to us; what it will be to the children, that we cannot warrant or conjecture. And if it be objected, that to the new birth are required dispositions of our own, which are to be wrought by and in them that have the use of reason; besides that, this is wholly against the analogy of a new birth, in which the person to be born is wholly a passive, and hath put into him the principle that in time will produce its proper actions; it is certain that they that can receive the new birth, are capable of it. of being saved, and arriving to a supernatural felicity. If infants can receive this effect, then also the new birth, without which they cannot receive the effect. And if they can receive salvation, the effect of the new birth, what hinders them but they may receive that, that is in order to that effect, and ordained only for it, and which is nothing of itself, but in its institution and relation, and which may be received by the same capacity, in which one may be created, that is, a passivity, or a capacity obediential? The effect of it is a possibility Fourthly; concerning pardon of sins, which is one great effect of baptism, it is certain that infants have not that benefit, which men of sin and age may receive. He that hath a sickly stomach, drinks wine, and it not only refreshes his spirits, but cures his stomach he that drinks wine, and hath not that disease, receives good by his wine, though it does not minister to so many needs; it refreshes, though it does not cure him: and when oil is poured upon a man's head, it does not always heal a wound, but sometimes makes him a cheerful countenance, sometimes it consigns him to be a king, or a priest. So it is in baptism: it does not heal the wounds of actual sins, because they have not committed them; but it takes off the evil of original sin: whatsoever is imputed to us by Adam's prevarication, is washed off by the death of the second Adam, into which we are baptized. HEYLIN, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR.-On the Apostles' Creed. Art. x. Chap. vi, In which, [Article the 27th] lest any should object, as Dr. Harding did against Bishop Jewell, that we make baptism to be nothing but a sign of regeneration, and that we dare not say, as the Catholic Church teacheth, according to the Holy Scriptures, "That in and by baptism, sins are fully and truly remitted, and put away," we will reply with the said most reverent and learned prelate, (a man who well understood the Church's meaning), That we confess, and have ever taught, that in the Sacrament of Baptism, by the death and blood of CHRIST, is given remission of all manner of sins; and that not in half, or in part, or by way of imagination and fancy, but full, whole, and perfect of all together; and that if any man affirm, that "Baptism giveth not full remission of sins," it is no part nor portion of our doctrine. To the same effect also saith judicious Hooker, " Baptism is a Sacrament," &c. [quoted above]. . . . . . But because these were private men, neither of which, for aught appears, had any hand in the first setting out of the Book of Articles, (which was in the reign of King Edward the Sixth,) though Bishop Jewell had in the second edition, when they were reviewed and published in Queen Elizabeth's time; let us consult the Book of Homilies, made and set out by those who composed the Articles; and there we find, that by God's mercy and the virtue of that sacrifice which our High Priest and SAVIOUR CHRIST JESUS, the Son ..... of GOD, once offered for us upon the cross, we do obtain God's grace, and remission, as well of our original sin in baptism, as of all actual sin committed by us after baptism, if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly unto Him again. Which doctrine of the Church of England, as it is consonant to the Word of GOD in Holy Scripture, so is it also most agreeable to the common and received judgment of pure antiquity. For in the Scripture it is said expressly by St. Peter, &c. &c. This also was the judgment of the ancient writers, and that too long before the starting of the Pelagian heresies, to which much is ascribed by some as to the advancing of the efficacy and fruit of baptism, by succeeding Fathers. For thus Tertullian; "Now (saith he) do the waters daily preserve the people of GOD, death being destroyed and overthrown by the washing away of sins; for where the guilt is taken away, there is the punishment remitted also." St. Cyprian thus ; "That the remission of sins, whether given in baptism, or by any other of the sacraments, is properly to be ascribed to the Holy Ghost." The African Fathers in full Council do affirm the same, and so doth Origen also for the Alexandrian, of both which we shall speak anon in the point of Pædobaptism. Thus Nyssen for the Eastern churches: "Baptism (saith he) is the expiation of our sins, the remission of our offences, the cause of our new birth and regeneration." Thus do the Fathers in the Constantinopolitan Council profess their faith in one baptism (or being only once baptized)" for the remission of sins." And finally, that this was the doctrine of the Church in general, before Augustine's time, who is conceived to be the first that did advance the power and efficacy of baptism to so great a height, in opposition to the Pelagian heresies, appears by a byword grown before his time into frequent use; the people being used to say, when they observed a man to be too much addicted to his lusts and pleasures, Let him alone to take his pleasure, "for as yet the man is not baptized." More of this we shall see anon in that which follows. Nor is this only Primitive, but good Protestant doctrine, as is most clear and evident by that of Zanchius, whom only I shall instance in, of the later writers. "When the minister baptizeth, I believe that CHRIST with his own hand reacheth as it were from heaven, besprinkleth the infant with his blood to the remission of sins, by the hand of that man whom I see besprinkling him with the waters of baptism." So that I cannot choose but marvel how it comes to pass, that it must now be reckoned for a point of Popery, that the "Sacraments are instrumental causes of our justification," or of the "remission of our sins," or that it is a point of learning, of which neither the Scriptures, nor the reformed religion, have taught us anything. So easy a thing it is to last that with Popery, which any way doth contradict our own private fancies. ALLESTRIE, PRESBYTER.-Serm. ii. p. 23. In our Israel by our covenant there is as much of this required, for we were all initiated into our profession by washing, "regenerated in a laver," and "born again of water," becoming so Tertullian's sanctitatis designati, set aside for holiness, consecrated to cleanness, and made the votaries of purity: how clean a thing then must a Christian be who must be washed into the name? nor is he thus washed only in the font, there was a more inestimable "fountain opened for sin and uncleanness." (Apoc. xi. 5.) 66 JESUS CHRIST hath washed us in his own blood;" and Heb. ix. 14. "The blood of CHRIST did purge our consciences from dead works to serve the living God." How great is our necessity of being clean, when to provide a means to make us so, GOD opens his Son's side, and our laver is drawn out of the heart of CHRIST. Yet we have more effusions to contribute to it. (1 Cor. vi. 11.) "But ye are washed," &c. and we must "be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire." A laver of flame also to wash away our scurfe as well as sallages, and beyond all these, some of us have been purged too with the fiery trial, and molten in the furnace of affliction, to separate our dross and purify us from alloy, that we may be clean and refined too, may become Christians of the highest carrect. BARROW, PRESBYTER AND DOCTOR.-Of the Holy Ghost. The memorial therefore of that most gracious and glorious. dispensation, [of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, &c.] the Christian Church wisely and piously hath continually preserved, obliging us at this time peculiarly to bless GOD for that incomparable and inestimable gift conferred then most visibly upon the Church, and still really bestowed upon every particular member duly incorporated thereinto. I say bestowed upon every particular member of the Church, for the evangelical covenant doth extend to every Christian; and a principal ingredient thereof is the collation of this Spirit, which is the finger of GOD, whereby (according to the Prophet Jeremy's description of that covenant) "God's law is put into their inward parts, and written in their hearts!" inscribed (as St. Paul allusively speaketh) not with ink, but by the Spirit, &c.; not only as the Jewish law, represented from without to the senses, but impressed within upon the mind and affections; whence God's Spirit is called the Spirit of promise, the donation thereof being the peculiar promise of the Gospel; and the end of our SAVIOUR's undertaking is by St. Paul declared, "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit by faith;" that is, by embracing Christianity might partake thereof, according to God's promise; and the apostolical ministry or exhibition of the Gospel is styled "the ministration of the Spirit," and tasting "of the heavenly gift, and participation of the Holy Ghost," is part of a Christian's character; and the inception of Christianity is described by St. Paul," But we are bound to give thanks," &c. (2 Thess. ii. 13.) and our SAVIOUR instructed Nicodemus, that no man can enter into the kingdom of GOD (that is, become a Christian, or subject of God's spiritual kingdom,) without being regenerated by water, and by the Spirit, that is, without baptism, and the spiritual grace attending it, according as St. Peter doth in the words adjoining to our text imply, that the reception of the Holy Spirit is annexed to Holy baptism: "Repent (saith he) and be baptized every one," &c. . . . " for the promise (that great promise of |