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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	flesh_n	fulfil_v	law_n	6,597	5	5.9828	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33967	The improvableness of water-baptism, or, A discourse concerning the gravity and seriousness of the action and the usefulness of the sacred institution of baptism instructing all parents how great a thing they do when they bring their children to that holy ordinance, and all persons, whether young or old, what obligations their baptism hath brought them under, what wrath it hath exposed wicked and impenitent persons to, and what use they may make of their baptism for confirmation of their faith, and quickening them to repentance and an holy life : discoursed from Rom. 6:3,4, by way of sermon / by John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1681 (1681)	Wing C5321; ESTC R5112	38,449	47

of baptized persons whole lives are but a continued apostacy God would be justified in it as Creator for your not living up to the law of your Creation but how much more when you have in Baptism dedicated your selves to him and made a solemn vow to be his servants Instruct 5. From hence you may observe That there is a great difference to be put betwixt persons baptized Some are Baptized with Water others not with water only but with the Holy Ghost also and with fire some have been baptized only with a Ministerial Baptism others have been baptized also with a true effectual spiritual Baptism some have been baptized in the name of Christ or into Christ only in a large sense others are baptized into Christ in a true spiritual and strict sense And this brings me to a second Use Vse 2. Which shall be of Enquiry Whether we be baptized into Jesus Christ yea or no Multitudes as you have heard have been baptized that in a true proper and spiritual sense have not been baptized into Christ But you will say how shall we ever satisfie our selves in this point I pray observe my text and the parallel text to it Gal. 3. 27. In that text you will find these words As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ In this text you have it As many of us as have been baptized into Christ are baptized into his death We are buried with Christ by baptism into death The phrases of the text I have fully opened but let me speak a word or two to the other phrase As many of us saith the Apostle as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ We meet with the phrase in other texts Rom. 13. 14. But put you on the Lord Jesus Christ Eph. 4. 24. you read of putting on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and holiness and Col. 3. 10. you have a phrase much like it But put you on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and holiness and Ephes 6. 11. you read of putting on the whole armour of God Christ and his Graces in these texts seem to be set out to us under the notion of a garment Rev 6. 11. you read of white robes that were given to the Saints and chap. 7. 9. of a great multitude to whom were given white robes and palms St. John v. 13. asking what they were who were arrayed with white robes had answer That they were those who had washed their robes white in the blood of the lamb In some conformity to this God speaks Ezek. 16. 10. I girded thee about with fine linnen Now Rev. 19. 8. the fine linnen is the righteousness of the Saints not our own righteousness which is of the law but the righteousness which is of God even the righteousness which is of God through faith in Christ Phil. 3. 10. and the Church owns that her righteousness was as a menstruous cloth and as filthy rags but Jerem. 23. 6. he Christ is the Lord our righteousness So then to put on Christ is to put on the righteousness of Christ This is put on 1. For our Justification It is the Righteousness of God in the Gospel revealed from faith to faith that is spoken of Phil. 3. 10. 2. For our Sanctification not that we are to do nothing but as the Apostle speaks that we might be compleat in him and Rom. 8. 3. that the Righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit This now more generally but more particularly Doth any one ask me Sir how should I know whether I have put on Christ or no I answer 1. If thou hast put on Christ thou hast sometime before discerned thy soul to be naked It is Gods act to put us on Christ and what God doth of this nature is all in Charity He hath commanded us Luke 14. 13. When we make a feast to call the poor the maimed the lame and the blind not our rich neighbours v. 12. lest they bid us again and make us a recompence God will not be recompenced for his acts of grace he feeds the hungry and cloatheth the naked the rich he sends empty away The proud Pharisee is too well cloathed in his own opinion for the Lord to put him on Christ and his robes Again Though the putting on Christ be Gods act as to Imputation of Christs righteousness and the acceptation of us in the beloved yet it is also our Act in respect of the exercise of our faith no soul will wear the garment of another that hath a fit and decent one of his own we naturally scorn to be beholden to any God therefore first causeth the soul to see that it is naked and to complain of its nakedness then he putteth Christs robes upon it Did you ever discern that you were naked Were you ever truly sensible that you wanted a righteousness a garment of righteousness to appear in before God another day lest you at that day should walk naked and men and Angels should see your shame if you did not you may be confident that you never yet put on Christ nor were in a strict spiritual sense baptized into Christ 2. If you have put on Christ you have put on him alone The Children of God shall never stand before him another day in a parti-coloured coat Christs robes will not go over another garment nor be stitched together with our rags It is a piece of new cloth that must not cannot be sown to an old garment This is the Papists vanity they would stitch up their own works with the robes of Christs righteousness and both together shall make up a righteousness for them to appear before God The good Christian may be resembled to one of you Weavers who are hard at work all the week long but never put on a piece of your own making A good Christian is always hard at work and working the work of righteousness praying hearing fasting serving God in the works of his general calling and of his particular relation with his utmost diligence and faithfulness but when he hath done he saith Lord let not this be my clothing I dare not appear before thee in these things Lord put me on Christ help me to put on Christ Let me saith the Apostle Phil. 3. 9. be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith He that hath put on Christ saith as Esau to his Brother to all the Angels and Saints I have enough my brethren I have enough keep what you have unto your selves nay he saith to his own Soul I have been washed in Jordan I need not my own Abana and Parphar he will see a need of his own work as to salvation and the judicial discharge of him at the last day if men

a solemn adstriction and binding over of the soul to the service and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ There is a vow and a Covenant in Baptism as Circumcision of old was the Lords Covenant the sign and symbol of his Covenant with the Jewish Children so Baptism is the Lords Covenant with Children under the Gospel The soul of the Baptized person is not only given up unto the Lord but it is bound over to Christ and entereth a Covenant with him and as the Married woman upon her Marriage covenants with her husband and loseth her own name and taketh that of her husband so the baptized person covenanteth with Christ and there takes upon it the name of a Christian Or as Soldiers upon taking their Sacramentum for that word properly signifies the Military-Oath taken by Soldiers to their Commander in chief are bound and obliged by it to the Obedience of their General so the baptized person upon receiving this Sacrament becomes obliged and engaged unto Jesus Christ and is sworn in nomen imperationi coeti Thus Bucer Dickson and Peter Martyr do expound the phrase 3. The phrase may signifie the Exterior form of Baptism as to Baptismi formam the Administration of it it must be in the name of Christ so we are baptized into Christ 1. According to the institution of Christ he hath commanded his Ministers saying Mat. 28. 19. Go preach and baptize all Nations This is mentioned by Ambrose Aquinas Pareus Justinian Chrysostome Beza and P. Martyr 2. By a solemn invocation of the name of Christ This Beza insisteth upon expounding Mat. 28. 19. Then the sense is no more than so many of us as were baptized in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost solemnly invoking the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Aquinas thinks this the whole sense of this text but that I cannot agree I shall give you my reason for it anon 4. The phrase may import something of the significancy of this Ordinance Every Sacrament is significative a Sacrament is an outward and sensible sign Now what doth Baptism signifie saith the Apostle We are baptized into Christ 1. It is signum rei a sign of the redemption of our Souls by the blood of Christ of that clean water with which he hath promised to sprinkle the Souls of his people and which he hath poured out for their sprinkling even the blood of that lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world 2. It is signum spei A sign that our hope alone is in Christ Jesus there being no other name under heaven but his by which we can be Acts 4. 12. saved nor any salvation in any other Thus Deodate seemeth to interpret it 5. The phrase may signifie the End of our Baptism If any ask To what purpose are we and our Children baptized the answer is We are baptized into Christ to this end 1. That we should bear a testimony to the death of Christ and hold forth the great truth of the Gospel to the world that Jesus Christ is come into the world to save sinners That he was incarnate hath died and is risen again from the dead that in and through him we might have remission and forgiveness of sins through his blood 2. That we might bear witness that he is the alone object of our hopes that we rest upon him and him alone for eternal life and salvation This is the very end why we are baptized 3. That we might grow up in him so Beza and Hemingius We are by baptism as it were implanted and ingrafted into Christ and as the end of the implantation and ingrafting of a cien into a stock or of a plant in any soil is that it might grow up in that soil or in that stock So the end for which we are baptized into Christ is that we might grow up in Christ 6. The phrase may be understood to signifie the fruit of Baptism lest any should say What good is there of this Sacrament or what availeth Baptism saith the Apostle We are baptized into Christ This is the fruit of Baptism the Baptized person hath an interest and relation given him to Christ and is become a member of Christ Sacramentally so Really so All baptized persons have a real relation to the Church whose head is Christ 7. But lastly This phrase may be understood to denote the Perfection of Baptism As the Apostle distinguisheth of Circumcision Rom. 2. 26 27 29. telling us there is a Circumcision in the letter and of the flesh and there is a circumcision of the heart in the spirit So we must distinguish of Baptism there is a baptism of Water and there is a baptism with the Holy Ghost There is a baptism of the letter and upon the flesh and there is a baptism in the heart and the spirit Now this latter is the Baptism into Christ the other is in the name of Christ but this most properly into Christ it signifieth that we pass into Christ saith P. Martyr So as I think there is some difference and that a great one betwixt the phrase used here and Gal. 3. 27. Baptizing into Christ and that used in many other Scriptures of being baptized in the name of Christ I will shortly offer you my reason for my opinion as to this phrase signifying thus much 1. In the first place the Apostles phrase seems to me to restrain the subject of the Proposition He doth not say All of us were baptized into Christ and so into his death but as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death As much as to say Many are baptized in the name of Christ but some of us have not only been baptized in the name of Christ according to the sorm he hath prescribed with solemn invocation of his name but we have upon our baptism truly believing been ingrafted into Christ and united to him Now so many of us as have been thus not only been formally but really baptized into Christ having with the sign received the thing signified are baptized into his death 2. Again Observe the Praedicate As many of us saith the Apostle as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death I am aware that that phrase may be interpreted and is by some as I shall shew you more by and by into the sign and symbol of his death but I do not take that interpretation to be comprehensive of the full of what that phrase importeth I think it is interpreted v. 6. Knowing that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin may be destroyed which cannot be understood of all baptized persons but such only as are baptized with the Holy Ghost or according to the phrase of this text Baptized into Christ 3. This phrase is but once more found in Scripture Gal. 3. 27. where you have another predicate affixed to the subject of this Proposition There it is As many of you as have been

them Friends I cannot I am ingaged Every baptized person as you have heard is an ingaged person because he is baptized into Christ When Nehem. 6. 2. Sanballat and Geshem thinking to do Nehemiah a mischief sent to him saying Come let in meet together in the Villages he sent back messengers to them saying I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down why should the work cease It was Nehemiah's advantage there that he was engaged at that time every tempter to sin intends to do the soul a mischief and tempters are ever and anon treating and sending to the best of souls Baptism furnisheth the soul with a weapon to repel the fiery dart The soul hath this to say I am pre-ingaged in the service of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ I am dedicated to him I am bound over to his service Mark how Joseph resisted the temptation of his Mistris Gen. 39. 9. How shall I do this great Evil and sin against God So should the soul say I am baptized I am listed in the service of Christ How should I do this thing and break my vow break my ingagement in Baptism to be the Lords steal away my self from God to whom I long since was dedicated 2. A second thing which I shall insist upon to shew you the exceeding usefulness of this sacred Institution is the advantage the soul may have from it to quicken it in and to the exercises of some habits of grace and the performance of some duties I shall instance in four 1. The first I shall instance in stedfastness in the faith of the Gospel To quicken the soul to the exercises of Grace It is an exercise of grace very often called for in holy Writ We have indeed a liberty and it is our duty to prove all things but we must hold fast that which is good My beloved brethren saith the Apostle be you stedfast 1 Cor. 15. 58. 1 Pet. 5. 9. Whom resist stedfast in the faith and in many other texts Now I say our Reflection on our Baptism must needs have a great force in it to oblige us to this stediness which it must needs have if we consider it as an Oath or solemn Covenant and ingagement under which it brings us to God Religion hath little force upon that man or womans conscience whom an Oath will not oblige to do that which he hath sworn to do It is said of Herod after he had sworn to give Herodias what she should ask though she asked John Baptists head in a Charger which Herod had no mind to give her nevertheless for his Oath-sake he commanded it to be given her It is true in that case Herod was under no obligation for the Rule is That an Oath cannot be a bond of iniquity But where the thing we have sworn to or engaged for is such that we may do or are otherwise bound to do an Oath layeth a great hold upon the conscience and makes the soul to see a further obligation to it than what it before lay under to the doing of it Hence you shall observe that Paul both to the Churches at Corinth Ephesus and Galatia argues to stedfastness from this Topick There were in the Churches of Corinth some giddy-headed persons of which one said I am of Paul another said I am of Apollos another I am of Cephas How doth St. Paul endeavour to reduce them 1 Cor. 1. 13. Is saith he Christ divided was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul I pray saith he consider your baptism Were you baptized into the profession of my Doctrine or into the profession of the Doctrine of Christ Are you under Temptations to waver in the profession of the great Truths and Doctrines of the Gospel Think with your selves Into what Doctrine or into the profession of what Doctrine was I baptized Was it not the Doctrine of Christ Doth this appear to me from holy Writ to have that stamp upon it So in Gal. 3 2 3. This only saith the Apostle I would learn of you Received you the spirit by the works of the law or by hearing of faith Some of that Church were at that time running away from their profession of the Gospel being seduced by those who in those days insisted upon Justification by the works of the law The Apostle is attempting to reduce them he doth it by this argument Received you the spirit saith he by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith I shall not dispute whether the Apostle there intends by receiving the spirti the receiving peculiar to those times in the extraordinary gifts or manifestations of it Or such a receiving of the spirit as is common to all believers either of which were then generally received or appeared to be received about the time of their Baptism Now saith the Apostle in all reason you ought to receive that Doctrine upon the imbracing of which you had such an eminent evidence of the truth of it that you received the spirit as a seal of it and were baptized into Christ upon your first profession and owning of it So as I say our Baptism and reflections upon it will and must engage us to stedfastness unless it evidently appeareth to us that that Doctrine was false and erroneous 2. A second thing which our Baptism is useful to quicken us to is The keeping of the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace A Keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace duty mentioned in Ephes 4. 3. and mark by what argmments the Apostle perswades it v. 4 There is one body and one spirit as you are called in one hope of your calling One Lord one Faith one Baptism There is but one body compare that with that 1 Cor. 12. 10. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body That one body is the universal Church as appears by the next words Whether Jews or Gentiles and upon this argument which the Apostle would not have used if he had not judged there had been a force in it the Apostle perswades Vnity an unity of Doctrine and Affections for an Vnity in words and syllables and in rites and ceremonies is a stretching of that text beyond the staple there having never at that time been such a thing in the Church of Christ and it being what can never be attained nor was ever commanded by the Apostle But to perswade an unity in faith and love he minds them of the Oneness of their Baptism by which they were united to the Church which is but one body Those that you divide from or quarrel with are of the same body with you and you as well as they were baptized into one and the same body Divide not therefore nor quarrel each with other fall not out by the way for you are brethren It will sometimes put us upon agreeing with and loving of one another to consider that we are fellow

it and rests much upon the establishment or not establishment of the Doctrine of the Gospel by the Laws of this or that place But there is another way of defending the Truths of the Gospel by our blood and that is in a way of Martyrdom patiently and chearfully suffering even death it self rather than to deny the truths of the Gospel This is every Christians duty by vertue of his Baptism The very term Sacrament originally signified an Oath that Soldiers took to their Prince or Captain General to fight or spend their blood under his Command and Conduct and the giving of this name to these two great Ritual Institutions signifies the duty of a Christian that is baptized to fight under Christs colours and to resist unto blood fighting against sin 4. Finally There is a duty incumbent upon all baptized persons to be continually mortifying of sin and keeping under their body and making no provision for the flesh to obey it in the lusts thereof For saith the Text as many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death and we are buried with Christ by baptism into death The import of both which phrases I have at large before opened to you shewing you that they signifie this ingagement laid upon us Instruct 3. We may from hence infer What dreadful perjured Apostate wretches the most baptized persons are plain Renegado's from those colours under which they were listed in the day wherein they were baptized Shall I reckon them up to you that you may see the difference betwixt Christians in name and Christians in deed 1. What do you think of those who deny the Lord that bought them that blow a Trumpet and say What portion have we in David or in the son of Jesse What will you say to them who deny that Christ is the Eternal Son of God equal with the Father that have made shipwrack of their faith in Christ as God or the only Saviour and Redeemer of the World Was this the faith into which they were baptized 2. But how many more are there who are not in this black bill of Hereticks and Apostates but yet refuse to come to Christ that they might have life to lay hold on him and make application of his redemption By their baptism they were ingaged when they should come to years of discretion to say unto Christ Thou art our Lord our Saviour and the guide of our youth and we as the Embassadors of the Lord Jesus have besought them in Christs stead to be reconciled unto God and have not ceased from day to day with all the arguments we could use and even with tears to intreat them to be reconciled unto God yet they live at enmity and in open rebellion and disobedience to the great Precept of the Gospel They in their Baptism ingaged that they would take the Lord Jesus Christ to be their spiritual husband they are now grown up to years of discretion One is married to his Lusts another is married to the World many live in a total ignorance of the Gospel many more in a desperate unbelief of it in a neglect if not a contempt of Gods way of salvation The Lord makes a wedding-feast he sends to invite men to it One hath married a wife and cannot come another hath bought five yoke of oxen and hath not tryed them c. Every impenitent sinner is maimed unto one lust or another 3. How many are there who by their Baptism are obliged to defend and maintain the interest of Christ and his Gospel whose work it is to persecute the Image of Christ wherever they see it and set themselves in a direct opposition to those Truths Institutions and persons who have any thing of the image and superscription of Christ upon them 4. Finally What shall we say to those who live in the constant practice and indulgence of those lusts which by their baptism they were ingaged to mortifie and dye unto In short not only every person that is erroneous in Doctrine and a stiff maintainer of any Propositions contrary to the fundamental Doctrine of the Gospel not only persecutors and open enemies to the Cross and Gospel of Christ but every one that abideth and goeth on in his unbelief or who indulgeth himself in any unmortified lust is before God by reason of his Baptismal Dedication and Vow a sacrilegious perjured and Apostatized person Instruct 4. And from hence in the next place will the righteousness of God appear in throwing multitudes of baptized persons into that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone The Jews of old were wont much to glory in two things 1. That they had Abraham to their Father 2. That they were of the Circumcision and looked upon others that were not circumcised as accursed Our Saviour John the Baptist the Apostle Paul Matth. 3. John 8. Rom. 2. as you will find were put to take a great deal of pains to beat them out of these vain and empty confidences I am afraid that we have too many that are apt to flatter themselves with the name of Christ and that they are called Christians and are baptized into the name of Christ Luther complained that there were many that did but crepare Christum make a vain boast of Christ Jactant fumos nomina vana Catonum What said John Baptist to the Jews Think not to say within your selves We have Abraham to our Father Mat. 39. What doth Christ say John 8. 39. If you were Abrahams seed you would do the works of Abraham But now you seek to kill me This did not Abraham What saith St. Paul to their boasting of Circumcision Rom. 2. 25. For circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the law but if thou be a breaker of the law thy circumcision is made uncircumcision v. 28 29. For he is not a Jew that is one outwardly neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh But he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit whose praise is not of men but of God and Phil. 3. 2 3. Beware saith he of the concision he means the Jews the circumcision he calls them the concision because of the russle and rent they made in the Church of God For saith he we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit Alas poor creatures here will be your judgment your condemnation will be aggravated from this That you were baptized and so under a solemn dedication to Christ under a solemn vow to be his disciples and this vow of God you have broken this Oath you have satisfied you were bound to God and you are run away and brake your bonds and cast the cords behind you Shall the Master be justified that sends his Covenant-servant that runs from him or neglect his business to Bridewell Shall the General be justified which hangs up the Soldier who runneth from his colours and shall not God be justified in condemning thousands