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EXPOSITION OF 2 COR. I. 22.

De prædestinatione Sanctorum. De dono Perseverantiæ. De Gestis Palæstinis. De octo Dulcitii quæstionibus. Comment. in Psalm. li. 'I was shapen in iniquity,' &c. Sermo x. xiv. De verbis Apostoli. it. in Sancti Johannis nativitatem. Letters to Paulinus, to Optatus, to Sixtus, to Celestinus, to Vitalis, to Valentinus, and several others." And in the De Peccat. Merit. L. ii. § 23. he energetically says:—"If infants be ill of no sickness of original sin, why are they, by the pious fear of their hasting friends, carried to Christ the physician, i.e. to receive the Sacrament of eternal salvation? and why are they not told in the church, 'Take these innocents hence; they that be whole need not a physician, but they that be sick; Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners!' Such a fiction never was pronounced, nowhere is pronounced, never anywhere will be pronounced, in the Church of Christ."


Note (D), on page 34.

"Almost all say, that in 2 Cor. i. St. Paul speaks of that spiritual sealing which is received in Baptism, by which we are made the flock of Christ, as Chrys. and Theod. have expressly said."—Saurez in 3 Part. D. Thomæ qu. 63. art. 3. See also Ambrose (Note E. p. 214). In Calvin, and most who have followed him, there seems not to have been even a surmise, that Baptism could have been here intended; nor is this exposition named in the collections of Marloratus or Pole. Bucer, however, says, on Eph. i. "'After ye have believed.' The Apostle is speaking of true faith, not that our salvation is tied to faith; for we shall hereafter be blessed without faith; and infants have it not as yet, and still are saved:" and after a description of true faith: "For they are at Baptism purified, adopted, and sealed by the Spirit, whereby they are daily prepared for faith, and hearing of the word, when they shall grow up." And on Eph. iv. "God has marked His own, whom He has purchased with the blood of His Son, with that seal, which He doubtless will acknowledge in the day of the perfected redemption. That Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father, is the mark of Christ in us, and the day of Baptism is the day of the promised redemption; but the day of our resurrection will be the day of the redemption fully realized." From him, as appears, Hieron. Zanchius says the like, on Eph. i. "I doubt not that the Apostle alludes to Baptism, whereby the Ephesians, after they believed and made the confession of their faith, were sealed for Christ." And on c. iv. "When does God seal us? In our Baptism, when He baptizes us, not so much with water as with the Spirit." And in the Diss, on Baptism, on Eph. v. "This right (to eternal life) is sealed in us by the seal of Baptism, which is the meaning of Eph. i. 'Ye have been sealed,' &c. and John iii. 'Except a man be born of water and the Spirit," &c.