FAITH AND BAPTISM REQUIRED TO SALVATION.

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efficacious in casting out devils, so they believed that spiritually also devils should be cast out in His Name1; that "the invocation of the Name of the adorable Trinity" was efficacious, not in itself, but because He willed it.

of the commission given
St. Mark adds the aweful

St. Matthew records the words through the Apostles to the Church; sanction under which it was given. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned." Our LORD thus states, positively, what He had before to Nicodemus said negatively. Through Nicodemus, He warned us that without Baptism there was no entrance into His kingdom; here He tells us, that whoso believeth in Him shall then have the blessings, which are in Him, imparted to him, if he be baptized. He places two conditions of salvation before us; one required on our part, the other promised on His; one, a requisite in us, though His gift in us, the other His gift to us; Faith, whereby we desire to be healed, and His gift, whereby He healeth us. And as in His bodily miracles He could not do many mighty works among His countrymen, because of their unbelief, and He required in them who would be healed, Faith in Him the SAVIOUR of all, and telleth them, "Thy Faith hath saved thee," yet was it not Faith alone, which healed them, but rather His "Virtue," which "went out of Him," and Faith was only a necessary condition which, in the fitness of things, He required in those upon whom He should exercise His goodness; so, in this His spiritual miracle of our new-birth, faith removes the obstacle which sin presents to our receiving the Divine Influence; it turns us to Gon, who by Adam's fall were turned away from Him; it replaces us in a position of dependance upon Him; it presents us willingly before Him to receive that life, which He is and communicates (according to their measure) to all His creatures, who depend upon Him. By one universal law, from the highest Angel, or Dominion, or Power, who "always beholdeth the face of our FATHER which is in Heaven," to the "young

+

1 Mark xvi. 7.

VOL. II. P. II.-NO. 67.

G

1

82 REQUISITES IN US IN ORDER TO THE RECEPTION OF GOD'S GIFTS

ravens' which cry unto Him," or the "young lions","

who " roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from GOD;" (yea, and the thirsty land," which gapeth for the dew and rain from heaven, expresses the same law) He hath appointed dependance upon Him to be a condition of receiving His gifts. Yet is not our dependance the gift for which we depend upon Him; the raven's cry is not the raven's food; the Archangel's fixed unvarying gaze on our Father's countenance is not "the Light which in His light he seeth;" our faith is not our Baptism, nor God's gift in it. It is then, of course, right that we should be jealous that our faith be of the right sort, (in whatever way this is to be ascertained, which is another question,) but it is mere egotism, self disguising itself under the form of zeal for purity of faith, which would look upon this as all or as the chief thing; which would confound the cleansing of the cup and platter, for the rich wine which He poureth into it, the setting our mansion in order, for its Celestial Visitant, who, though we be unworthy, comes under our roof; or rather, what is our's is not even so much as this, but rather it is the wish that He would fill our empty vessels, and by filling cleanse them; that He would repair the walls of our mansion, which is broken down, and repairing make it His habitation, or by so making it repair it. It is then a grievous fault in our habit of mind, if any venture to make that which is required in us, as of chief moment, and God's gift secondary; would place a quality or qualification in us, above that for which it qualifieth us; and, when our LORD has said, " he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved," should dissect and sever what He has thus conjoined, and hold that we were in such sense 66 saved by faith only," as that Baptism was of secondary account, an outward exhibition of what had already taken place inwardly. And yet this will be found by many (if they would be honest to themselves) to be their habit of mind, and they regard Baptism as of no moment, except as any other act of obedience, having no virtue annexed to it, but a sort of incumbrance, which must be taken, and taken thankfully, because it has been enjoined, but still is just as much a burthen, and as

1 Job xxxviii. 41. 2 Ps. civ. 21. cxlv. 15. cxlvii. 9. Joel i. 20.

NOT TO BE SET ABOVE THOSE GIFTS.

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outward, as any rite of the Jewish law was ever held to be. They look upon it as a mere outward duty to be performed, not as an inestimable privilege to be received, as an appendage to faith, which they only dare not say may be dispensed with.

It is not then for us to establish any comparison between the two conditions to which our Lord has here annexed salvation; they are plainly incommensurables; any quality in us can have no proportion to God's gift to us; there can be none between our desire to have our sins remitted and His remission of them: our belief, that "if He will, He can make us clean" and will, if we will it earnestly, and His cleansing us; our desire to be conformed to Him, and His conforming us to Himself.

There is, indeed, a strange gloss, which, because, our Lord having + first limited salvation to those "who believe and are baptized," then adds only, "he that believeth not shall be damned," would infer that He also would thereby disparage the Sacrament, which He had just placed at the threshold, and as the very door of salvation. For a very little thought would have shown, that, though our SAVIOUR annexed the reception of the Sacrament of regeneration, to belief in Him, as a condition of salvation, there was no occasion to mention it in the case of unbelief: unbelievers would not be "baptized in CHRIST's name, for the remission of sins:" since they believed not, the "wrath of God abode upon them." (John iii. 36.) Baptism, without faith, undoubtedly would save none: as faith, also, without charity, profiteth nothing (1 Cor. xiii.): yet no one would think this was said in disparagement of faith; much less, then, the omission of Baptism, in the other case, when our SAVIOUR had just ordained it, without any limitation, as necessary for all who

believe.

Can then, (to insist again on the end for which these passages are here adduced, the comparison of our mind with the "mind of Christ" in Holy Scripture,) can then they who, out of this teaching, in which our LORD inculcates the necessity of Baptism, fix their minds only on the one sentence in which mention of it is omitted, think that they are listening teachably to Him? or that, when they speak disparagingly of that, which He enjoined whereever He should be believed on, they are like-minded with Him?

Does the Sacrament of Baptism acquire no awefulness of value
from being commanded by our ascending LORD, just as He was
establishing His everlasting kingdom upon earth, and about to
assume His heavenly kingdom above all things?
"So then after

the LORD had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven,
and sat on the right hand of GoD1?" Rather, every thing here
invests it with solemnity; His foundation of His Church thereon;
His bestowing it as His parting gift; His annexing to it our sal-
vation; His binding up with it, and imparting to us by it, and re-
serving for this moment at which to impart it, the full and dis-
tinct revelation of the doctrine of the Ever Blessed Trinity; His
commanding this act alone in the whole Christian life, to be done
in Their Name; His promise that Their Name shall herein be effi-
cacious. In St. Chrysostom's words," the holy angels stand by,
"doing nothing, they only look on what is done; but the FATHER,
"the Son, and the HOLY GHOST, effect all. Let us, then, obey
"the declaration of GOD, for this is more credible than sight; for
sight is, yea and oftentimes, deceived; but that can never fail.
Obey we then it.”

66

Our LORD annexed salvation to Baptism, in that He said, "Whoso believeth and is baptized shall be saved," and it is accordingly the same truth, only directly enunciated, when His Apostles say, "Baptism saves us," (1 Pet. iii. 21.) "He saved us through the washing of regeneration." (Tit. iii. 5.) Of these two statements, it is remarkable that St. Paul leaves his wholly unguarded; he contrasts Baptism with any works which we had done; but while he contrasts our works with God's free mercy, he declares unhesitatingly and unqualifiedly, " He saved us by the washing of regeneration." St. Peter (writing to Jewish converts, who had been "chosen" out of " the Dispersion"," their brethren in Asia Minor, " to obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of JESUS CHRIST,") accompanies his statement of the benefits of Bap

1 Mark xvi. 19.

2 Hom. 25. al. 24. in Johan. § 2.

"Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” 1 Pet. i. 1.

ENQUIRY INTO A GOOD CONSCIENCE TOWARDS GOD EXPLAINED. 85

tism with a contrast with those "divers washings" to which as Jews they had been accustomed, and reminds them that this was not, as theirs, an outward, but an inward washing; not merely a putting off of the filth of the flesh, such as "those purifications of the flesh', imposed upon them until the time of reformation." (Heb. ix. 10.) In like way, St. Paul, when writing to the same class of persons, speaks to them as "having had their hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," as well as "their bodies washed with pure (i. e. purifying ") water," not, as under their law, having been outwardly cleansed only. But this, as every gift of God, could only be received by those who came in " an honest and true heart," not feignedly; wherefore he adds, "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the enquiry into a good conscience towards God," i. e. Baptism, received not hypocritically, but with a good conscience; the candidate for Baptism, with integrity of heart, renouncing Satan, engaging to obedience, and confessing unto salvation the truths of the creed delivered to him; (for it is certain, that in this word "enquiry" allusion is made to the interrogations in Baptism, which were to be answered by a "faith unfeigned 3.") Thus, then, St. Peter declares precisely the truth delivered to him by his LORD, that "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," or, "Baptism saves us," approaching it with "a good conscience towards GOD." This truth the Church, in the simplicity of ancient faith, readily received, and accordingly adopted it in her creed, "I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins," i. e. one Baptism only, the effect and end of which is that remission. The difference of a modern habit of mind shows itself here in two ways: 1.) as, before, it seized on the omission of Baptism in our LORD's words, "He that believeth not," &c. to make use

1 diкaúμатα σаρкòç, i.e. " carnal commandments, cleansing the flesh, and so justifying according to the flesh, those who according to the flesh were accounted unclean." Theophyl. ad loc.

2 "i. e. of Baptism. 'Pure' is that which makes men pure (or that which has not blood mingled with it, as that of old was with ashes). For although the grace of the Spirit in Baptism purifies the soul only, yet here Paul has conjoined visible [in the N. T.] with visible [in the Old]. And in the very act of Baptism, water is conjoined for the sake of the body. For we being twofold, the cleansing also is twofold." Theoph. ad loc. 3 See Note H. at the end.