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KETTLEWELL, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR.-On the Creed-
Article, Forgiveness of Sins, p. 685.

Ques. For whose sake doth ALMIGHTY GOD allow us all this

benefit of forgiveness?

Ans. For JESUS CHRIST, who, as you have seen, died for our sins, and gave His blood a ransom, to purchase for us this pardon of them. "He is set forth a propitiation," &c. (Rom. iii. 25.) And thus we shall receive all this mercy for His sake, when, with the disposition before expressed, we devoutly pray to GOD for it in His name.

Ques. By the promises of the Gospel, I see that this forgiveness is assured to all Christians upon the terms which you have described. But is it in any signs and tokens outwardly dispensed to them?

Ans.-Yes; both in the Holy Sacraments and in the sacerdotal Absolution. Which ways of ministering this forgiveness, as well as the forgiveness itself, are noted in some ancient Creeds: this article being thus professed in St. Cyprian's Form at Baptism: "I believe the Remission of Sins by the Church."

Ques. Is this forgiveness dispensed to us in the Sacrament of Baptism?

Ans.-Yes; and that most amply, the water of Baptism washing off the stain of all former sins." "Be baptized, and wash away thy sins," said Ananias to Saul; "Repent, and be baptized for the Remission of Sins," said St. Peter to the Jews; and "He hath saved us by the Laver of Regeneration;" i. e. the Water of Baptism, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. (Tit. iii. 5.) So that whatever pollutions men had upon them, if they come to Baptism with true faith and repentance, they are thereby made clean again.

HICKES, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR.-Christian Priesthood.

It belonged to the Apostles and Presbyters, by virtue of their sacerdotal office and ministry, to be advocates and intercessors with GOD..... I need not insist upon their power of baptizing for the remission of sins with fasting and prayer, which was a

most solemn act of expiation for washing away all the past sins

of the baptized.

JOHNSON, PRESBYTER.-Unbloody Sacrifice.-Vol. i. ch. ii.

sect. 1. p. 165.

I think the only immediate effect of the Spirit in Baptism, is the remission of all sin, and removing our natural disability to the worship and service of GoD, and the sentence of condemnation under which we were all born: (Rom. v. 16.) and that other graces are wrought in us by that Holy Spirit, which by Baptism receives us under its protection, gradually, and according to the capacity of the recipient: and this doctrine I learned from those words of St Barnabas, in his Epistle, cap. vi. : "After, therefore, that CHRIST had renewed us by the remission of our sins, he made us [in] another shape, so as to have an infant-like soul, even as he himself reformed us:" where he plainly makes renovation to consist in forgiving sins; and makes the new moulding, or reformation of our minds, to be not performed at the same time with the other, or all at once, but to be consequent upon the former renovation and CHRIST is always thus reforming us, from our Baptism to our death. And I look on these words of St. Barnabas to be a better explication of the renovation, or regeneration of Christians by Baptism, than whole volumes of modern writers upon the same subject. And I may here very reasonably observe, that as the Holy Spirit is present in our Baptism, to seal the remission of sins, and to infuse the beginnings of Christian Life; for He is present in confirmation, to shed further influences on them that receive it, for the further suscitation of the gift of God bestowed in Baptism and in the Eucharist, as will hereafter appear at large for our further progress and increase in grace.

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LESLIE, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR.-On Water Baptism, § 5.

The end of CHRIST'S Baptism was, to instate us into all the unconceivable glories, and high eternal prerogatives which belong to the members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, (Eph. v. 30.) that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Gal. iv. 5.)

Henceforth no more servants, but sons of GOD, and heirs of heaven! These are ends so far transcendent above the ends of all former Baptisms, that, in comparison, other Baptisms are not only less, but none at all; like the glory of the stars in presence of the sun, they not only are a lesser light, but when he appears they become altogether invisible.

And as a pledge or foretaste of these future and boundless joys, the gift of the Holy Ghost is given upon earth, and is promised as an effect of the Baptism of CHRIST as Peter preached (Acts ii. 38.), "Repent, and be baptized," &c. And (Gal. iii. 27.) " As many of you as have been baptized into CHRIST have put on CHRIST."

This of the gift of the Holy Ghost was not added to any Baptism before CHRIST'S, and does remarkably distinguish it from all others.

WILSON, BISHOP, CONFESSOR, AND DOCTOR.--Maxims of piety, Vol. i. p. 310.

The Holy Spirit at Baptism takes possession of us, and keeps possession, till men grieve Him; then He forsakes us, and an evil spirit succeeds.

By Baptism we contract and oblige ourselves, all our life long, to complete and perfect the image of JESUS CHRIST in ourselves. The blessings and excellencies of Baptism :-It separates us from Adam, and engrafts us into CHRIST.-It is a resurrection from sin to grace. It discharges us from the debt owing to the justice of GOD, by our sins, now fully satisfied by faith in the suffering and death of CHRIST.-It cancels the law of death and malediction which was against us.-In Baptism our sins did indeed die, and were buried; but the seed and root remain in us. These we are to mortify all our lives long.

Bingham, PresbYTER.-On Lay Baptism, part ii. ch. vi.

....

What it [indelible character] was taken to signify in Baptism? For an indelible character was always supposed to be imprinted as much in Baptism as in ordination; though I do not remember that any ancient Council expressly used that term about VOL. III.-76.

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Though a man turns

either, but only say something that may be reckoned equivalent to it; and that is this, as it relates to Baptism: that a man, who is once truly baptized, can never do any thing that can so far erase or cancel his Baptism, as that he shall need, upon any occasion, to be re-baptized with a second Baptism. Thus far the ancients believed an indelible character in Baptism. his back on Christianity, and totally apostatize and fall away from the profession of it; though he turn heretic or schismatick; though he excommunicate himself, or be excommunicated by the Church; though he embrace Paganism or Judaism, or any other opposite Religion; though he curse and blaspheme CHRIST in a synagogue or in a temple, as many of the old apostates did; though he become a Julian or an Ecebolius, and "trample under foot the Son of God, and count the Blood of the Covenant an unholy thing, and do despite to the Spirit of Grace;" yet, after all, if this man turn again to Christianity, he was not to be received by a second Baptism. His repentance, and the Church's absolution was sufficient in that case to reinstate him in his ancient profession, and he was not to be re-baptized to be made again a Christian. The Church had but one Baptism for the remission of sins, and the virtue of that was so far indelible, that it would always qualify the man that had received it, to be admitted to communion again after the greatest apostacy, only by a true repentance and reconciliatory imposition of hands, without re-baptizing. This was what the ancients understood by what we now call the indelible character of Baptism. But they were far from thinking, that a man who was such an apostate had any right or authority whilst he was an apostate, to challenge any of the common privileges of a Christian. They did not think, whilst he was a Pagan or a Jew, that he was properly a member of the Christian Church still, because of his Baptism; or that he had any right to be called Christian, or to be admitted to the prayers of the Church, and much less to the communion with other faithful laymen and yet, after all, there was so much of a Christian in him, by virtue of his Baptism, that he needed not to be baptized again as a mere Jew or Pagan. His Baptism was such as nothing could obliterate; it would remain with him when he was an

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apostate, and either go to hell with him to his condemnation, or bring him back to heaven and the Church by way of repentance, not re-baptization. Now, if any one should ask whether such an apostate, while he continued an apostate, was a Christian? the answer must be in the negative; but yet there is something of a Christian in this apostate, that is, his Baptism; in respect of which he is not so perfectly a no-Christian, as one that never was baptized.

SKELTON, PRESBYTER.-Vol. ii. Disc. xxi.

Our blessed Saviour and Mediator, who hath procured the benefit of this covenant for us by the "sacrifice of His Blood," hath appointed the Sacrament of Baptism as the means whereby the contracting parties, GoD and the new Christian, solemnly plight their promises to each other; and hath likewise made the other Sacrament, that of His Last Supper, the seal which renews and confirms the covenant with every penitent transgressor. In both He communicates the assistance of the Holy Spirit, which "helps our infirmities," and enables us, if we are not shamefully wanting to ourselves, to observe and perform the. conditions promised on our part.

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We have already seen, in general, what we are to expect as the fruits of peace with GoD; namely, eternal life, eternal happiness and glory. Our present assurance of this is represented in various lights by the Scriptures. We are made one with CHRIST, as He is one with the Father. We are united into one Church, or Spiritual Body, whereof "He is the head." All together we are the body of CHRIST, and members in particular." Thus joined to Him, who is by nature the Son of God, we also become, by a new birth in Baptism," the adopted sons or children of GOD. "We have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father :" and being taken into the family of GoD, are made His children by "faith in JESUS CHRIST." The provision made for us is suitable to the grandeur of our new relation; no less than an eternal kingdom, "which it is the Father's good pleasure to give us," as His beloved children, and, consequently," heirs of GoD, and joint heirs with CHRIST :" inso

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