We shall now, as proposed, refer to some our learned pædobaptist friends, for further information as to the ends for which the great Head of the Church instituted this expressive ordinance.

Burying, as it were, the person baptized in the water, and raising him out of it again, without question was anciently the more usual method; on account of which, St. Paul speaks of baptism, as representing both the death, and burial, and resurrection of Christ, and what is grounded on them, our being dead and buried to sin, renouncing it, and being acquitted of it, and our rising again to walk in newness of life.

Archbishop Secker's Lectures on the Catechism. We Christians, who by baptism were admitted into the kingdom and church of Christ, were baptized into a similitude of his death. We did own some kind of death, by being buried under water, which being buried with him, i, e. in conformity to his burial, as a confession of our being dead, was to signify, that as Christ was raised up from the dead into a glorious life with his Father, even so we being raised from our typical death and burial in baptism, should lead a new sort of life.

Mr. Locke's Paraphrase on Rom. vi. 4. Upon this institution and commission given by Christ, we see the apostles went up and down preaching and baptizing. And so far were they from considering baptism as a carnal rite, or a low ele ment, above which a higher dispensation of the Spirit was to raise them, that when St. Peter saw the Holy Ghost visibly descend upon Cornelius and his friends, he upon that immediately baptized them, and said, "Can any man forbid (or deny) water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" Christ has also made baptism one of the precepts, though not one of the means, necessary to salvation. A mean is that which does so certainly procure a thing, that it being had, the thing to which it is a certain and necessary mean, is also had, and without it the thing cannot be had, there being a natural connexion between it and the end; whereas a precept is an institution, in which there is no such

natural efficiency; but it is positively commanded; so that the neglecting it is a contempt of the authority that commanded it; and therefore, in obeying the precept, the value or virtue of the action lies only in the obedience. This distinction appears very clearly in what our Saviour has said both of faith and baptism. "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; and he that believeth not, shall be damned.

Bishop Burnett's Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles. The sacraments are not converting, but confirming ordinances; they are appointed for the use and benefit of God's children, not of others; they are given to believers, as believers, as Rutherford expresseth it; so that none other are capable of the same before the Lord. Ursinus, on that question, Who ought to come to the Supper? tells us, The sacraments are appointed for the faithful and converted only, to seal the promise of the Gospel to them, and confirm their faith. Mr. Thomas Boston's Works.

That baptism, by which the primitive converts were admitted into the church, was used as an exhibition and token of their being visibly regenerated, dead to sin; as is evident by Rom. vi. throughout. He (the apostle) does not mean only that their baptism laid them under special obligations to these things, and was a mark and token of their engagement to be thus hereafter; but it was designed as a mark, token, and exhibition, of their being visibly thus already.

Mr. Jonathan Edwards's Inquiry into the Qualifications for Full Communion.

Some of the Fathers hold, that the apostle's argument in the text (1 Cor. xv. 19.) is of this sort: If there shall be no rising of the dead hereafter, why is baptism so significant a symbol of our dying and rising again, and also of the death and resurrection of Christ? For those who are proselytes to the Christian religion, were interpreted to make an open profession of these, in their being plunged into the baptismal water, and in being there overwhelmed and buried, as it were, in the consecrated element. The immersion into the water was thought to signify the death of Christ; and their coming out, denoting his rising again, did no less represent their

own future resurrection. On which account, the minister's putting in of the Christian converts into the sacred water, and his taking them out thence, are styled by St. Chrysostom, the sign and pledge of descending into the state of the dead, and of a return from thence. And thus because the washing and plunging of the newly-admitted Christians was a visible proof and emblem, first of Christ's, and then of their resurrection from the grave, the forementioned Fathers have been induced to believe, that this passage of our apostle, which I am speaking of, hath a particular respect to that, and is to be interpreted by it. Nay, this seems to agree exactly with the language and tenor of our apostle himself, who may be thought to be the best interpreter of his own words: "Know ye not (saith he) that so many of us as have been baptized into Christ, were baptized into his death? therefore, we are buried with him by baptism," &c. Rom. vi. 3, 4. Dr. John Edwards.

Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism, plunging us under the water, into a conformity to his death, which put his body under the earth; that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead, by the power of the Father; even so we also, thus dead in baptism, should rise with him, and walk in newness of life.

Dr. Whitby's Paraphrase on Rom, vi. 4.

Ye are in baptism buried together with Christ, in respect to the mortification of your sins, represented by lying under the water; and in the same baptism, ye rise up with him in newness of life, represented by your rising up out of the water again, through that faith of yours, which is grounded upon the mighty power of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

Bishop Hall on Col. ii. 12. Edit. 1633.

The dipping in holy baptism has three parts; the putting into the water, the continuance in the water, and the coming up out of the water. The putting into the water doth ratify the mortification of sin by the power of Christ's death: Rom. vi. 3. "Know ye not that all we which have been baptized into Jesus Christ, have been baptized into his death; and that our old man is crucified with him?" The continuance in the water notes the burial of sin; to

wit, a continual increase of mortification, by the power of Christ's death and burial; Rom. vi. 4. The coming out of the water figured our spiritual resurrection and vivification to newness of life, by the power of Christ's resurrection. Rom vi. 4. Col. ii. 12.

Dr. Bay's Works. "We are buried with him by baptism into death." The apostle alludes, no doubt, to the ancient manner and way of baptizing persons in those hot countries, which was by immersion, or putting them under water for a time, and then raising them up again out of the water; which rite had also a mystical signification, representing the burial of our old man, sin, in us, and our resurrection to newness of life. Burkitt's Expos. Rom. vi. 4.

In our baptism, we are dipped under the water, as signifying our covenant profession, that as he was buried for sin, we are dead and buried to sin. They (your lusts) are dead and buried with him; for so your baptism signifieth, in which you are put under the water, to signify and profess that your old man is dead and buried. We are raised to holiness by his Spirit, as we rise out of the water in baptism, Col. ii. 11-13. Where note, that the putting of the body under the water, did signify our burial with Christ, and the death, or putting off of our sins; and our rising out of the water doth signify our rising and being quickened together with him. Note also, that it is not only an engagement to this hereafter, but a thing presently done. They were, in baptism, buried with Christ, and put off the body of sin, and were quickened with him; and this doth all suppose their own profession to put off the body of sin, and their consent to be baptized on these terms. Baxter.

They (the primitive Christians) put off their old clothes, and stripped themselves of their garinents; then they were immersed all over, and buried in the water, which notably signified the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, as the apostle speaks, and their entering into a state of death, or mortification, after the similitude of Christ. According to the same apostle's language elsewhereWe are baptized into his death: we are buried with him in baptism. Though we, by going into the water, profess that we are willing to

take up the cross, and die for Christ's sake; on God's part, this action of going into and coming up out of the water again, did signify, that he would bring such persons to life again at the general resurrection.

Bishop Patrick's Discourse of the Lord's Supper.

Where baptism is in the right use, there is a seal of union with Christ. They have the power of his death in mortification, and the power of his resurrection in a divine life; the one is notably adumbrated in the baptismal immersion into the water; the other in the eduction out of it. Mr. Polhill's Mystical Union.

We know one saving baptism, seeing there is but one death for the world, and one resurrection from the dead, of which baptism is a type. Hear Paul speaking aloud, "They passed through the sea, and were all baptized in the cloud and in the sea." He calls their passage through the sea, baptism; for it was an escape from death, accomplished by water. To be baptized and plunged, then to return and emerge, are signs of our descent to Hades, and of our ascent from it. Baptism is a pledge and figure of the resurrection. Baptism is an earnest of the resurrection. Dipping bears the resemblance of death, and of a burial. I might accumulate innumerable testimonies; but these, I think, are abundantly sufficient to prove that baptism is properly a type of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and also, of all believers that are baptized into the faith of him, from a death in sin to newness of life; which if they do in this world, they have a most firm hope that after death they shall, with Christ, arise to glory.

Sir Norton Knatchbull's Animadversions.

From the sacrament of baptism, as from all others, we obtain nothing, except so far as we receive it in faith.

Calvin's Institutes.

But a second end of baptism is internal and spiritual. Of this St. Paul speaks in very high terms, when he says, that “God has saved us, according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost," It were a strange perverting the design of the words, to say, that somewhat spiritual is to be