with contempt, we are not to doubt but that they really give what they promise, and are what they signify. For we take not baptism nor the eucharist for bare resemblances or memorials of things absent, neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of grace received before, but (as they are indeed and in verity) for means effectual whereby God, when we take the sacraments, delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eternal life, which grace the sacraments represent or signify." There have grown in the doctrine concerning sacraments many difficulties for want of distinct explication what kind or degree of grace doth belong unto each sacrament. For by this it hath come to pass, that the true immediate cause why baptism, and why the supper of our Lord is necessary, few do rightly and distinctly consider. It cannot be denied but sundry the same effects and benefits which grow unto men by the one sacrament may rightly be attributed unto the other. Yet then doth baptism challenge to itself but the incohation of those graces, the consummation whereof dependeth on mysteries ensuing. We receive Christ Jesus in baptism once, as the first beginner; in the eucharist often, as being by continual degrees the finisher of our life. By baptism, therefore, we receive Christ Jesus, and from him that saving grace which is proper unto baptism. By the other sacrament we re a "Dum homini bonum invisibile redditur, foris ei ejusdem significatio per species visibiles adhibetur, ut foris excitetur et intus reparetur. In ipsa vasis specie virtus exprimitur medicinæ." Hugo de Sacram. lib. 1. cap. 3. Si ergo vasa sunt spiritualis gratiæ sacramenta, non ex suo sanant, quia vasa ægrotum non curant, sed medicina." Idem, lib. 1. c. 4. 66 grace ceive him also, imparting therein himself and that which the eucharist properly bestoweth. So that each sacrament having both that which is general or common, and that also which is peculiar unto itself, we may hereby gather that the participation of Christ, which properly belongeth to any one sacrament, is not otherwise to be obtained but by the sacrament whereunto it is proper. 489 ON BAPTISM. a [ISAAC BARROW, D.D.] THERE were, as the Apostle to the Hebrews telleth us", in sacred use among the Jews, διάφοροι βαπτισμοὶ, several kinds of baptism. The learned in their laws and customs teach, that they never did receive any person into their covenant, whether that which was more strict (to which natural Jews and "proselytes of righteousness" were tied), or that which was more lax (with which strangers and " proselytes of the gate" did comply), without a baptism. And that priests and Levites, entering into their office, were to be sanctified by washing with water, we see plainly prescribed in their law; likewise that all persons who had contracted any kind of defilement were purified by the like ceremony, particularly children new born, is expressed there. Moreover, that it was in use for persons who were conscious to themselves of having transgressed God's law, being in God's name invited by some person of eminent authority (a prophet, or like a prophet, one commissionated by God) unto repentance and amendment of life, to be washed by him, in testi e a Baπтioμav didaxh. Heb. vi. 2. c Seld. de Synedriis. d Exod. xxix. 4. b Heb. ix. 10. e Levit. xv. 8. 16. 18. 27.; xxii. 6. Num. xix. 7, &c. Ezek. xvi. 4. |