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also used in a sacramental sense: Paul saith of the Israelites, that "they were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea," 1 Cor. x. 2. The ecclesiastical and typical washings of the Old Testament, are called by the apostle, baptismoi, “ baptisms," Heb. ix. 10, which our translators render "washings." To these the Jews added also a baptism, when they would solemnly receive and incorporate into their church a convert, or proselyte to Judaism; for after they had circumcised him, they baptized him, after which they ordered him to offer his gifts; hence it was that the baptism of John and of Christ did not appear so strange to them; yea, they seem to suppose that Christ. when he came, would baptize, for they asked, John i. 35, "Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not the Christ ?" But these words are mostly used, as we also use them here, of "the first sacrament of the New Testament, in which the washing away of sins through the blood and Spirit of Christ is signified and sealed with water to believers, by virtue of the institution and promise of Christ."

II. In order that we may consider the matter itself, we must attend, 1. to the sign of baptism. 2. To the thing signified. 3. The union of them. 4. The foundation of the union, and 5. To the circumstances.

1. The external sign is the use of water, "the external washing with water, by which the filthiness of the body is commonly washed away," saith the instructor," John came, and was sent to baptize with water," John i. 31, 33. "He baptized in the river Jordan," Mark i. 5. "Also at Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there," John iii. 23. "See here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized," said the Eunuch, Acts viii. 36. It is necessary that it should be pure and clean water as those rivers were, if it shall be proper to represent the spiritual cleansing. And therefore the Papists pollute baptism, and trifle with it, and with the institutor of is, when among many adjurations of the devil, and crossings, they besmear the nose and ears of the person who is baptized, with spittle, and anoint him with oil. Who hath required this at their hands? But it was necessary to confirm their opinion concerning the virtue of waterbaptism water alone would not suffice to wash away sinspopish spittle and oil are more efficacious. Trifles: in this manner do the Papists "make the commandment of God of none effect by their traditions," like the Pharisees, Matt. xv. 6.

Nevertheless, water by itself cannot cleanse, uniess it be used. Anciently they obliged the person who was to be baptized, to go into the water, and they dipped him in it, by which means he seem

ed to be dead, and buried under the water, and when he came up again, to rise from the dead, and so his whole body was cleansed; but as this cannot be done in these cold countries without great danger to the person who is baptized, pouring or sprinkling hath been wisely introduced. This ceremony is not to be disapproved of, as though it militated against the institution of Christ, and the efficacy of baprism, since dipping and sprinkling are only circumstances. It is not to be tought, that the apostles always dipped the persons, who were to be baptized, but they also sprinkled them when occasion required. Who can believe that when they baptized three thousand at the same time, they dipped them? Who can imagine that when they baptized Cornelius and Lydia in their own houses, yea, the jailer by night, they then found vessels at hand, capacious enough to plunge fullgrown persons in and under the water? The thing sig nified is also expressed by sprinkling, and is called "water, and the blood of sprinkling," Ezek. xxxvi. 25. Heb. xii. 24. We can also cleanse as well by sprinkling, as by dipping; it is of no consequence, whether we sprinkle the face, or the whole body, inasmuch as the face, being the principal part, represents the whole man. Under the Old Testament, when one member was circumcised, the whole person was considered as circumcised. "When Peter desired that his hands and head should be washed, as well as his feet, Jesus said to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit," John xiii. 9, 10. Why should we not then look upon him to be wholly clean, whose face is washed ? • We reckon it a matter of indifference, whether we sprinkle or dip once or thrice, if it be not done to confirm any erroneous opinion, like the Arians, who, dipped thrice, because they divided the Godhead: and therefore the council of Toledo, in the year 633, permitted the church of Spain to dip only once, that they might thus testify the purity of their doctrine against the Arians. We may sprinkle or dip once to testify the oneness of the divine essence, and thrice to testify that there are three distinct divine Persons; but when we say that sprinkling once or thrice is a matter of indiffer ence, we do not mean that every person who baptizeth, hath a right by his own authority to sprinkle once, when the church is used to sprinkle thrice; for he who should undertake this would be suspec ted of presumption and of error.

Since baptism must be administered in the name of the divine Trinity, it is proper that the Trinity should be mentioned, when a person is baptized, according to the command of Jesus, who ordered his ambassadours" to baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, and

of the Holy Ghost," Matt xxviii. 19. It is true he doth not command, Ye shall say, when ye baptize, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, &c. yet it is not to be thought that the apostles were silent when they baptized, but that they expressed the virtue of baptism by words. They baptized indeed in the name of the Lord Jesus; but the whole divine Trinity manifes's itself in Jesus: the Father is in him, and he is in the Father, and the Holy Ghost bestows all grace from the Son, who hath it from the Father, according to the words of Christ, John xiv. 7-16, and xvi. 13, 14, 15. And therefore it is the same thing, whether we baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus, or in the name of the divine Trinity. We will show presently what is signified by baptizing in the name of the Trinity.

2. But this use of water in the name of the Trinity is not merely a commanded duty of divine worship, but it is also significative, or it respects something signified. This is the blood of Christ, shed in his sacrifice on the cross, and bis Spirit purchased thereby, by which the sins of the elect are washen away, according to the promises of the covenant of grace.

In order to understand this properly, we must remember that God enters into a covenant of grace with the believing sinner, and promises him therein that his sins shall be washen away. "I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols," saith the Lord, Ezek. xxxvi. 25. But God could not do this, unless a sufficient sacrifice were offered, upon which the sinner could enter into a covenant treaty with God, and God with the sinner, as men were wont anciently to enter into covenants by sacrifices. The Lord having respect to this saith, Psaim 1, 5, "Gather my saints together unto me those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice."

When the Lord had established his covenant with all Israel, "Moses took the blood of the sacrifice, and sprinkled it upon the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you," Exod. xxiv. 1-8. But the sacrifice served not only to confirm the covenant, but also to cleanse the Israelites, in order that it might shadow forth the true washing away of sins by a better blood: "The blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh," as Paul saith, Heb. ix. 13. But since it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins," as the same apostle speaks, Heb. x. 1. therefore the God of the covenant gave his Son, who of fered himself up to God in his bloody sacrifice, that he might obtain the true purification, and also confirm the covenant of God with the sinner. The same wise apostle teacheth us this again; after hẹ

had shown that the blood of beasts, offered up in sacrifice, could sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, he saith, Heb. ix. 14, 15, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spir it offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. "But we are baptized not only in the name of the Father, who establishes the covenant, and promises the washing away of sins, and in the name of the Son, who purchases the covenant, and the promises thereof by his sacrifice, and his blood, shed therein; but also in the name of the Holy Ghost, who is likewise signified in baptism, and hath a relation to the covenant of grace, and to the washing away of sins; for the Holy Ghost effects by a real and active application the washing away of sins, which the Father prom-. iseth, and the Son bath purchased: therefore Paul saith, 1 Cor. vi. 11, "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." And therefore the Holy Ghost also brings the sinner into the bond of the covenant, which is also signified by baptism, according to the promise of the Lord, Isaiah xhv. 3, 4, 5. "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring. And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses. One shall say I am the Lord's: and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob: and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." And thus baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, and of the washing eway of sins by the blood and Spirit of Christ, promised in that covenant by the Father.

But "what is it to be washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ," thus asks the instructor, and he saith that it is our justification and sanctification and he speaks thus with the scripture, agreeably to the words which we have just now quoted from 1 Cor. vi. 11. We have explained, in treating on the twenty third Lord's day, the manner in which God justifieth the sinner, and forgives his sins. This forgiving of sins is expressed by cleansing, when the Lord promiseth, Jer. xxxiii. 8, I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, and I will pardon all their iniquities." But as sin doth not only subject. the sinner to guilt, of which he is cleansed by justification, but as it renders him also filthy, that filth is therefore also washen away by

sanctification. The catechism describes this as consisting in three things. (a) The sinner is renewed by it; for the image of God, after which he is renewed, is restored in him by "putting off the old man, and putting on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," Eph. iv. 22, 24. He is then, like one who hath been washen, clean and new, and so he is "saved by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost," Titus iii. 5. (b) Sanctification implies also, that a person is sanctified to be a member of Christ, by which he is surrendered to Christ, and is united to him; Paul saith. "We all are baptized by one Spirit into one body," I Cor. xii. 13. And thus we partake of the holiness of our Head, yea, just as if we had been dead, buried, and raised up with him, according to our text. (c) It belongs also to sanctification, that a person dies more and more to sin, and leads a godly and unblamable life. Sanctification is not perfect in a person at the beginning, but it advanceth gradually, since the soul herself becomes ac tive, bewails her sins, fights against them, and endeavours to drive them out, and bestirs herself time after time to conduct in a manner that is pleasing to God: for "it is given to her to grow, to be chang ed from glory to glory, and as she is holy, to become more holy," Psalm xcii. 13. 2 Cor. iii. 18. Rer. xxii. 11. Both these benefits, which are signified in baptism, are effected by the blood and Spirit of Christ. His blood, that is, his bloody suffering hath merited justification and sanctification; for "he is made to them who are his, righteousness and sanctification," 1 Cor. i. 30. And thus "he is a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin, and for uncleanness," Zech. xiii. 1. Therefore the beloved disciple saith, 1 John i. 7. "The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin." But how is jutsification intimated to them internally? is it not by the Holy Spirit, as we showed upon the twenty third Lord's day? Thus the Holy Spirit effects also the merited sanctification; for "God hath chosen them through sanctification of the Spirit," 1 Thess. iv. 13. 1 Peter i. 2. And therefore the Ho'y Spirit is likened to water, with which they are born again, according to the words of Ezekiel and of the Saviour, Ezek. xxxvi. 25. John iii. 5.

Since now the covenant of God, and his gifts of grace are unchangeable, and since the Son of God hath made a perfect satisfaction for all the sins of his people, and loveth his own until the end, and the Holy Spirit abides for ever with believers for an everlasting seal; therefore the washing away of sins, signified in baptism, must necessarily have respect not only to sins committed before baptism,