that we may be of His resurrection. Again, our old man has been crucified—that the whole body of sin may be destroyed. And so, throughout, there are two deaths, in one of which we were passive[1] only; we were baptized, buried, planted, crucified; the very language marks that this was all God's doing, in us, and for us: there remains the other death, which we must continually die. Sin has once been remitted, slain, crucified; we must, henceforth watch that it live not again in us, that we extirpate all the roots thereof, that we serve it not again, that we live through its death. "It is not here," says St. Chrysostom[2], "as in other Epistles, where St. Paul appropriates one part to doctrine, the other to moral instruction; but he here, throughout, mingles the two. He mentions, then, here, two puttings to death, and two deaths; one, which has taken place through Christ, in Baptism; the other, which must take place through our subsequent diligence. For that our former sins were buried, was His gift; but that we, after Baptism, should remain dead to sin, must be the work of our diligence; for Baptism can not only efface our former offences, but strengthens us also against future. He saith not also, if we have been made partakers of the likeness of death, but if we have been planted; hinting, by the name planting, at the fruit derived to us therefrom. For, as His body, buried in the earth, bore for fruit the salvation of the world; so ours, also, buried in Baptism, bore fruit, righteousness, sanctification, adoption, unnumbered bless-
- ↑ "In the very beginning of regeneration, the seal whereof is Baptism, man is merely passive; whence, also, no outward act is required of a man who was to be circumcised or baptized, as there is in other Sacraments, but only passively to receive it. Infants, therefore, are equally capable of this Sacrament, in regard to its main use, as adults." Ames. Medull. Theol. L. i. c. 40. Thes. xiii. quoted by Burges, pp. 52, 3. and Bp. Taylor, Life of Christ. Of Baptizing Infants, § 16. t. ii. p. 275. "If it be objected, that to the new birth are required dispositions of our own, which are to be wrought by and in them, that have the use of reason: besides that this is wholly against the analogy of a new birth, in which the person to be born is wholly a passive, and hath put into him the principle, that in time will produce its proper actions," &c.
- ↑ See Note (C), at the end.
