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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

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the house to the Congregation thinking in that action I had something else to do than to entertain my friends with ordinary discourses Secondly That all persons baptized may from hence be instructed how useful their Baptism may be to them if the fault be not in themselves though it doth not actually justifie and wash away Original sin which I durst not assert By this short discourse Reader thou mayest if I mistake not easily understand the nature of Baptism and of thy engagement to God in thy Baptism and know how to make use of an Ordinance of God under which thou hast been brought and which it may be hath lyen dead by thee many years because thou knowest not how to make a spiritual use of it Such as the discourse is it is now tendred to thee if it doth thy Soul any good pray for the Author who is a debtor to thee and to all in the business of the Gospel and Thy most affectionate Friend and Servant for thy Souls advantage JOHN COLLINGES Norwich Dec. 13. 1680. ROM VI. 3 4. Know you not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his Death Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into Death c. THE great Apostle of the Gentiles in this Epistle hath been vindicating the same blessed Doctrine concerning the Justification of the Soul before God by the Righteousness of Christ which Chap. 4. v. 6. he calleth an imputing of righteousness without works received by faith which we are at this day contending for A Doctrine which Luther was wont to call The Article of a standing or falling Church A Church keeping or losing its purity and integrity as it upholds or loseth this great truth Of which we may say as one of the Ancients concerning that Text 1 Tim. 1. 15. It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners We could better want the Sun in the firmament than this great light in holy Writ Or as David said of the Sword of Goliah V. Lutheri Epist ad Eremitam in Sculteti annal in anno 1517. There is none to it without which it is impossible to relieve a soul in a distress of Conscience and under the violence of a temptation as Luther rightly judged upon his restoring of this great point in Germany in the beginning of that Reformation of which God made him so blessed an instrument This is that great Doctrine which made St. Paul profess Chap. 1. v. 16. that notwithstanding all the opposition the Jews made to it notwithstanding all their scoffs and drolleries he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek For v. 17. therein the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith and conformable to the Doctrine of the Old Testament the New Testament being as Augustine called it the Revelation of the Old as the Old was Occultatio novi the New Testament in a Mystery for it was written there Hab. 2. 4. The just shall live by faith That text Rom. 1. 17. Luther tells us infinitely perplexed him he was miserably tortured to understand how the righteousness of God should be revealed from faith to faith for still he dream'd having been all his life-time before a Papist of a righteousness of his own but at last he began to conceive that the Righteousness of God might signifie in a passive sense not a righteousness in which a man should walk before and towards God but the righteousness wherein a man should appear before God as righteous as the power of God and the wisdom of God in some Texts signifieth that power by which God maketh us strong and that wisdom by which God maketh us wise Now as life and immortality so this righteousness was not first discovered but brought to light by the Gospel fully and clearly there manifested When Luther apprehended this he Jam quanto odio vocabulum Justitia Dei oderam ante tanto amore dulcissimum istud vocabulum extollebam ita miki iste locus Pauli fuit vere Porta paradisi Luth. Jenae t. 1. op in praefat tells us the Gospel looked upon him with quite another face Now saith he look how much I before hated that word The righteousness of God so much now I loved that most sweet word and that place of St. Paul was to me the very gate of Heaven This Doctrine was but darkly revealed in the Old Testament in types and prophecies and dark sayings but in the Gospel it is fully revealed viz. That the righteousness by which a soul is justified and by which it must stand righteous before God is not a righteousness of Works neither an obedience of the law contained in Ordinances which law is perished nor yet our obedience to the Moral Law whether by works done before or after conversion but the righteousness of Jesus Christ on Gods part imputed to us without works on our part received by faith as it is expounded Phil. 3. 10. and in several other places of the New Testament The Apostle having laid down this Proposition in Chap. 1. v. 16 17. he confirmeth it by a very great variety of argument in the remaining part of the first Chapter and in Chap. 2 3 4 5. In the first and second Chapters he proveth it by an Induction If works will justifie any they must either be the works of the Heathens or the works of the Jews As to the first he proveth that the works of the Heathens could not for they were abominable such as the wrath of God was revealed against Acts of ungodliness and unrighteousness Chap. 2. He proveth that the works of the Jews could not for they were imperfect and they rested in some rituals and external priviledges which could never justifie a soul In the third and fourth Chapters he proveth it as by other arguments so from the instances of Abraham and David the same way that Abraham the Father of the faithful was justified the same way must all believers his children be justified and the same way that David was justified the same way also must we be justified but Abraham and David were both justified by an imputed righteousness In the fifth Chapter he argueth from the sweet fruits which flow from justification by faith In that Chapter v. 20. he had said But where sin abounded grace did much more abound The wise Apostle foresaw there would be that very clamorous objection made which we hear now made against this excellent Doctrine of the Gospel viz. That it openeth a door to licentiousness destroyeth any obligation to good works giveth a license to sin c. He therefore in this Chapter obviateth this silly or malicious cavil What shall we say then saith he shall we continue in sin that grace may bound May we then neglect any good works because we
are not justified by works but by the aboundings of grace freely imputing the righteousness of Christ to us 1. He aversateth this and rejects such a notion with utmost abhorrence and detestation God forbid saith he far be it from us to assert any such thing or to lay down any position from whence any such thing can be reasonably concluded Then he proceeds to prove that there can be no such conclusion drawn from his premises For saith he how shall they who are dead to sin live any longer therein The strength of the Argument lyeth in this Hypothesis That God at the same time that he dischargeth the soul from the guilt of sin and the obligation to death under which sin layeth it doth also renew and sanctifie the heart and destroyeth the Souls appetite and love to sin so that sin hath no longer a power and dominion over the Soul and look as for a dead man to live is a contradiction so it is no lesser contradiction for a justified soul to live in sin every justified soul hath an heart dead to sin and so cannot any longer live therein he may be overtaken with faults he doth sin seven times in a day and who knoweth how often he offendeth But he sinneth not as other men he cannot live in sin much less take an encouragement to sin from the grace of God abounding towards his soul for the justification of it 2. In the Text which I have read to you he proveth it from our Baptism Know you not saith he that so many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his Death Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death In the words you have 1. A Preface Know you not Which confirms the following Proposition as a Proposition of undoubted truth and great Evidence such as all good Christians must be supposed to know and it were strange if any understanding Christian should be ignorant of so evident a truth 2. A Proposition in those words So many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his Death 3. Here is the proof of this Proposition or if you had rather call it so an Inference upon this Proposition We are therefore buried with him by Baptism into death What is necessary for the Explication of the words you shall have in the Explication of the Proposition which for the advantage of your memories I shall deliver you in the words of the Text. Prop. So many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death and buried with him by baptism into death The Proposition will only require Explication and Application In the first I have these Questions which all of them have their difficulty to open to you Quest 1. What this is to be baptized into Christ Quest 2. What it is to be baptized into the death of Christ and in what sense those who are baptized are baptized into the death of Christ Quest 3. How we are buried with Christ by Baptism into death Quest 1. What is this to be baptized into Christ I do not think that this is to be expounded by being baptized according to the true form of Baptism In the name of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost I can easily allow that to be comprehended in this phrase but I can by no means allow it to exhaust the full sense of it for I cannot understand how in that sense a person baptized can be said to be more baptized into Christ than into the Father or the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must certainly be more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ambrose is I think a little critical when to justifie this restriction of sense against the aforementioned obvious objection he tells us That in the name Christ is not only to be understood that person whom the name denotes viz. the second person in the Trinity but the other two persons qui mittit he who sends who is the Father and qui ungit he who annointeth who saith he is the Spirit the third person in the blessed Trinity 2. We often meet with phrases much a-kin to this in holy Writ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the name of Jesus Christ Acts 2. 38. In the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Lord Jesus in the name of Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 8. 16. 1 Cor. 1. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Moses 1 Cor. 10. 3. We are baptized into one body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 12 13. Into Christ Gal. 3. 27. the only text in Scripture fully parallel to this Into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Mat. 28. 19. We translate it in in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The phrase as it lyes before us may signifie several things 1. The term of the Action So we may be said to be baptized Actus terminum into Christ 1. As we are baptized into the Gospel of Christ thus Origen We are not baptized into the Law but into Christ not into the Doctrine of Justification by works but by faith in Christ Christ is so much the substance of the Gospel that his name is sometimes put for the Gospel so we preach Christ i. e. the Gospel of Christ The Jews were baptized into Moses into the Cloud and the Sea 1 Cor. 10. 3. We are baptized into Christ they signified a Christ to come you are baptized into a Christ already come who hath died for your sins into a Doctrine that so teacheth you 2. Or secondly Into the profession of the Gospel Paul tells the believers at Ephesus that John baptized with the baptism of Repentance that they should believe on him who should come after him Acts 19. 3. that is on Christ Jesus but now we are baptized into Christ and into the Baptism of Christ That we should believe on him who is come who hath died for our sins and risen again for our justification We are baptized into the profession of this faith 3. Or thirdly Into Christ that is into the mystical body of Christ thus Pareus and Estius into the number of visible Saints visible In populum Dei adoptamur Pareus Professors c. And thus it excellently agreeth with that of our Apostle 1 Cor. 12. 13. By the Spirit we are baptized into one body 2. The phrase secondly may denote the nature of the Act of Baptism and so two things are spoken in it 1. That in Baptism we are dedicated and given up to the Lord Jesus Christ By Baptism saith Estius we give up our Names to Regno grae illius assignari Musculus Christ We are assigned over to the Grace and Kingdom of Christ This is the very nature of Baptism to give up and assign the baptized person to the service of Christ 2. Nay there is not only in Baptism a dedication of the Soul to Christ to his Kingdom and Grace but there is an initiation of the soul and