| 500 (From the Cross and Journal.)
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN-SUBJECTS ADMITTED.
THE DECISION OF BAPTISM.
CONCESSIONS BY EMINENT PAIDO BAPTISTS.
In a former essay we argued, that, as the Lord's supper taught and exemplified the sufferings of Christ, in atoning for sin, so also baptism taught and exemplified the burial and resurrection of Christ. That the actual death and resurrection of Christ were taught and insisted on as important and essential features in the christian system, to be received by every disciple, that the believers baptism illustrated the burial and resurrection of Christ, just as the believers observing the Lord's supper illustrated the sufferings of Christ. We then also promised to show, that the most learned, most devoted, and celebrated divines of the paido baptist denominations acknowledged and taught the same things. We now proceed to show the same.
Witsius.-Immersion into the water is to be considered by us, as exhibiting that dreadful abyss of divine justice, in which Christ for our sins, which he took on himself, was for a time absorbed; as in David, his type, he complains, (Ps. 60:3,) [Ps. 69:3] 'I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.' More particularly, seeing such an immersion deprives a person of light, and of other things pertaining to this world, it excellently represents the death of Christ, while his continuance under water, however short, denotes the burial of Christ, and the lowest degree of his humiliation; when being laid in a sepulchre [sepulcher] that was sealed and guarded by the Roman soldiers, he was considered as entirely cut off. Emersion [Immersion] out of the water exhibites [exhibits] an image of his resurrection, or the victory which, being dead, he obtained over death in his own dark domains, that is, the grave. All these the apostle intimates, (Romans, 6:3-4.)
Robert Newton.-Baptism was usually performed by immersion, or dipping the whole body under water to represent the death, and burial, and resurrection of Christ together, and therewith to signify the person's own dying unto sin the destruction of its power and his resurrection to a new life.-St. Paul plainly refers to this custom. (Rom. 6:4.)
A. H. Frankius.-The baptism of Christ represented his sufferings, (Matt. 20:22.) and his coming out of the water, his resurrection from the dead.
Richard Baxter-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, as we rise out of the water in baptism, (Col. 2:11, 12, 13,) that the putting of the body under the water did signify our burial with Christ, and the death and putting off our sins. And though we now use less quantity of water, yet it is to signify the same thing, or else we should destroy the being of the sacrament: so also our rising out of the water signifieth our rising and being quickened together with him. 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 present profession to put off the body of sin, and their consent to be baptized on these terms.
Saurin.-Paul says, 'We are buried with him by baptism into death; that is the ceremony of wholly immersing us in water, when we were baptized, signifies, that we died to sin, and that of raising us again from our immersion, signified that we would no more return to our disorderly practices, in which we lived before our conversion to Christianity.
Bp. Patrick.-They (the primitive Christians) put off their old clothes, and stripped themselves of their garments; 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 enduring into a state of death or mortification after the similitude of Christ; according to the same apostle's language elsewhere, 'We are baptized into his death-We are buried with him in baptism.
Scudder.-Baptism doth lively represent the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, together with your crucifying the affections and lusts; being dead and buried with him into sin, and rising with him to newness of life, and to hope of glory.
Buddeus.-Immersion, which was used in former times, was a symbol and an image of the death and burial of Christ, and at the same time, it informs us, that the remains of sin, which are called the old man, should be mortified.
Dr. Whitby.-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 glorious power of the Father, even so we also, thus dead in baptism, should rise with him and walk in the newness of life.
Bp. Hall.-Ye are in baptism buried together
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