And this stipulation of every Christian, male or female, though baptized after they have passed their nonage for civil contracts, ought to be resumed or reacknowledged as often as they intend to receive the sacramental pledges of CHRIST'S Body and Blood, either privately or in the public congregation. But for all such as have been baptized in their infancy, the personal resumption or ratification of that vow, which their fathers and mothers in GOD did make for them at the sacred laver, is to be exacted of them ore tenus, in some public congregation, before they can be lawfully admitted to be public communicants of CHRIST'S Body and Blood.

Ibid.-Ch. lv. (p. 298.)

If either the actual sins of all men, or the sins of the elect in special, had been so remitted by CHRIST's death, as some conceive they were, that is, absolutely pardoned before they were committed, there had been no end or use of CHRIST'S Resurrection in respect of us; no need of Baptism: yet was Baptism, from the hour of His resurrection, necessary unto all that did believe in His death and resurrection. The urgent and indispensable necessity of Baptism, especially in respect of actual believers, is not anywhere more emphatically intimated than in St. Peter's answer to the Jews, whose hearts were pierced with sorrow that they had been the causes of CHRIST's death. They in this stound or sting of conscience demand, "Men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter answered them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you, in the name of JESUS CHRIST, for the remission of sins. And they that gladly received the word were baptized the same day." Acts ii. 37, 38. 41. These men had been deeply tainted with sin, not original only, but with sins actual of the worst kind; guilty they were, in a high degree, of the death of the Son of GoD, yet had they as well their actual as their original sins remitted by Baptism. It is then unsound and imperfect doctrine, that sin original only is taken away or remitted by Baptism; for whatsoever sins are remitted or taken away by CHRIST's death, the same sins are in the same manner remitted and taken away by Baptism into His death;

actual sins are remitted, in such as are guilty of actual sins when they are baptized, though only sin original be actually remitted in those which are not guilty of actual sins, as in infants. No man's sins are actually remitted before he be actually guilty of them.

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The question is, how either sin original is remitted, or how any work of Satan is dissolved by Baptism; and this question, in the general, is rightly resolved, by saying, " They are remitted by faith." But this general resolution sufficeth not, unless we know the object of our faith in this particular. Now the particular object of our faith, of that faith by which sins (whether by Baptism or otherwise) are remitted, is not our general belief in CHRIST; even our belief in CHRIST dying for us in particular, will not suffice, unless it include our belief of the everlasting virtue of His bloody sacrifice, and of His everlasting priesthood for purifying and cleansing our souls. No sins be truly remitted unless they be remitted by the office or exercise of His priesthood and whilst so remitted they are not remitted by any other sacrifice than by the sole virtue of His body and blood, which He once offered for all," for the sins of all. It is not the virtue or efficacy of the consecrated water in which we were washed, but the virtue of His blood which was once shed for us, and which, by Baptism, is sprinkled upon us, or communicated unto us, which immediately cleanseth us from all our sins. From this everlasting virtue of this His bloody sacrifice, faith, by the ministry of Baptism, is immediately gotten in such as had it not before. And in such as have faith before they be baptized, the guilt of actual sins is remitted by the exercise or act of faith, as it apprehends the everlasting efficacy of this sacrifice, and by the prayer of faith, and supplication unto our High Priest. Faith, then, is as the mouth or appetite by which we receive this food of life, and is a good sign of health; but it is the food itself received, which must continue health and strengthen spiritual life in us; and the food of life is no other than CHRIST's body and blood; and it is our High Priest Himself which must give us this food.

Baptism, saith St. Peter, (1 Pet. iii. 20.) doth save us. What

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,

"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