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Again he saith, "Believe not only the bodily eyes (in this sacrament of baptism): the thing that is not seen, is better seen the thing that thou seest is corruptible; the thing that thou seest not is for ever." To be short, in consideration of these invisible effects, Tertullian saith, "The Holy Ghost cometh down and halloweth the water." St. Basil saith, "The kingdom of heaven is there set open." Chrysostom saith, " God himself in baptism, by his invisible power, holdeth thy head." St. Ambrose saith, "The water hath the grace of CHRIST; in it is the presence of the Trinity." St. Bernard saith, St. Bernard saith, "Let us be washed in his blood."

"By the authorities of thus many ancient Fathers, it is plain, that in the sacrament of baptism, by the sensible sign of water, the invisible grace of God is given unto us."

HOOKER, PRESBYTER AND DOCTOR.-On Ecclesiastical Polity. Book v. 60.

Unless as the Spirit is a necessary inward cause, so water were a necessary outward mean, to our regeneration, what construction should we give unto those words wherein we are said to be new born, and that έ vdaros, even of water? Why are we taught, that with water God doth purify and cleanse His Church? Wherefore do the Apostles of CHRIST term baptism a bath of regeneration? What purpose had they in giving men advice to receive outward baptism, and in persuading them it did avail to remission of sins? If outward baptism were a cause in itself possessed of that power, either natural or supernatural, without the present operation whereof no such effect could possibly grow, it must then follow, that seeing effects do never prevent the necessary causes out of which they spring, no man could ever receive grace before baptism: which being apparently both known, and also confessed to be otherwise, in many particulars, although in the rest we make not baptism a cause of grace; yet the grace which is given them with their baptism, doth so far forth depend on the very outward sacrament, that God will have it embraced, not only as a sign or token what we receive, but

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also as an instrument or means whereby we receive grace, because baptism is a sacrament which God hath instituted in His Church, to the end that they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into CHRIST; and so through His most precious merit obtain, as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul their first disposition towards future newness of life. There are that elevate too much the ordinary and immediate means of life, relying wholly upon the bare conceit of that eternal election, which notwithstanding includeth a subordination of means, without which we are not actually brought to enjoy what GOD secretly did intend; and therefore, to build upon GOD'S election, if we keep not ourselves to the ways which He hath appointed for men to walk in, is but a self-deceiving vanity. When the Apostle saw men called to the participation of Jesus CHRIST, after the Gospel of GOD embraced, and the sacrament of life received, he feareth not then to put them in the number of elect saints; he then accounteth them delivered from death, and clean purged from all sin. Till then, notwithstanding their preordination unto life, which none could know of, saving God, what were they, in the Apostle's own account, but children of wrath, as well as others, plain aliens, altogether without hope, strangers, utterly without GOD in this present world? So that by sacraments, and other sensible tokens of grace, we may boldly gather, that He whose mercy vouchsafeth now to bestow the means, hath also sithence intended us that whereunto they lead. But let us never think it safe to presume of our own last, and by bare conjectural collections of his first intent and purpose, the means failing that should come between. Predestination bringeth not to life without the grace of eternal vocation, wherein our baptism is implied. For as we are not naturally men without birth, so neither are we Christian men in the eye the Church of GOD but by new birth; nor according to the manifest ordinary course of divine dispensation new born, but by that baptism which both declareth and maketh us Christians.

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In which respect, we justly hold it to be the door of our actual entrance into God's house, the first apparent beginning of life, a seal perhaps to the grace of election before received; but to our sanctification here, a step that hath not any before it.

Ibid. 64.

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Were St. Augustine now living, there are which would tell him for his better instruction, that to say of a child, it is elect, and to say, it doth believe, are all one; for which cause, sith no man is able precisely to affirm the one of any infant in particular, it followeth that precisely and absolutely we ought not to say the other. Which precise and absolute terms are needless in this We speak of infants as the rule of piety alloweth both to speak and think. They that can take to themselves in ordinary talk, a charitable kind of liberty to name men of their own sort God's dear children, (notwithstanding the large reign of hypocrisy,) should not, methinks, be so strict and rigorous against the Church, for presuming as it doth of a Christian innocent. For when we know how CHRIST in general hath said, of such is the kingdom of heaven, which kingdom is the inheritance of GOD's elect; and do withal behold how His providence hath called them unto the first beginnings of eternal life, and presented them at the well-spring of new birth, wherein original sin is purged, besides which sin there is no hindrance of their salvation known to us, as themselves will grant; hard it were that having so many fair inducements whereupon to ground, we should not be thought to utter, at the least, a truth as probable and allowable in terming any such particular infant an elect babe, as in presuming the like of others whose safety, nevertheless, we are not absolutely able to warrant.

ANDREWS, BISHOP AND DOCTOR.-On the Holy Ghost. Serm. viii.

Now CHRIST is baptized. And no sooner is He so, but He falls to His prayers, Indigentia mater orationis, (we say) want begets prayer: therefore, yet there wants somewhat-a part, and that a chief part of baptism is still behind.

There goes more to baptism, if it be as it should be, than

baptismus fluminis, yea, (I may boldly say,) there goes more to it, if it be as it should, than baptismus sanguinis. CHRIST "came in water and blood, not in water only, but in water and blood :" that is not enough, except the "Spirit also bear witness." So baptismus flaminis is to come too. There is to be a Trinity beneath,-1. water, 2. blood, and 3. the Spirit, to answer to that above but (the Spirit's baptism coming too) in the mouth of all three, all is made sure, all established thoroughly. This is it, He prays for, as man.

For the baptism of blood that was due to every one of us, (and each of us to have been baptized in his own blood, to have had three such immersions,) that hath CHRIST quit us of. When he was asked by the prophet, "How his robes came so red?" He says, "He had been in the wine press;" but there He had been, and that "He had trod alone, and not one of the people with Him;" none but He there; in that, spare us in that.

But the other two parts He sets down precisely to Nicodemus (and in him, to us all,)—1. water, 2. and the Holy Ghost ...

St. Paul tells us (Col. ii.) that besides the circumcision, that was the manufacture, there was another made without hands. There is so in baptism, besides the hand seen, that casts on the water, the virtue of the Holy Ghost is there, working, without hands, what here was wrought.

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And for this CHRIST prays; and might ever, be joined to that of the water.

tism only, but in the people's; and (as he afterwards enlarges His prayer) in all others that" should ever after believe in His name:" that what in His (here) was, in all theirs might be; what in this first, in all following; what in CHRIST's, in all Christians; heaven might open, the Holy Ghost come down, the Father be pleased to say over the same words, toties quoties, so oft as any Christian man's child is brought to his baptism. CHRIST hath prayed, now,

See the force of His prayer. Before it heaven was mured up, no dove to be seen, no voice to be heard, Altum silentium. But straight upon it (as if they had but waited the last word of His prayer) all of them follow immediately.

Heaven opens, first. For, if when the lower heaven was shut three years, Elias was able with his prayer to open it, (it is our Saviour in the next chapter following,) and bring down rain; the prayer of CHRIST (who is more of might than many such as Elias) shall it not be much more of force, to enter the Heaven of heavens, the highest of them all, and to bring down thence the waters" above the heavens," even the heavenly graces of the Holy Spirit?

For so, when our Saviour cried, (John vii.) "If any thirst," &c. "This (saith St. John) He spake of the Spirit." For the Spirit and His graces are the very supercelestial water; one drop whereof, infused into the waters of Jordan, will give them an admirable power to pierce even into the innermost parts of the soul and to baptize it, (that is) not only to take out the stains of it, and make it clean; but further, give it a tincture, lustre, or gloss; for so is baptism properly of ẞárrw, taken from the dyer's fat, and is a dying or giving a fresh colour, and not a bare washing only.

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Always, the opening of heaven, opens unto us, that no baptism without heaven open and so, that baptism is de cœlo non ab hominibus, from heaven, not of men. So was it here; so is it to be holden for ever. 2. And from heaven; not clanculum (as Prometheus is said to get his fire), but dve@xoñvai, orderly, by a fair door set open, in the view of much people; for all that were present saw the impression in the sky. Which door was not mured up again; for we find it still open, (Apoc. iiii.) and we find that keys were made, and given of it, after this. 3. And all this, that there might not only be a passage for these down, but for us up. For heaven gate, ab hoc exemplo, doth ever open at baptism; in sign, he that new cometh from the fount hath then right of entrance in thither. Then (I say) when by baptism he is cleansed; for before, Nihil inquinatum, nothing defiled can enter there.

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