the disciples and literature of heresy. But this is not the only, nor is it the most powerful, method of preserving the purity of the faith. In the "Index Expurgatorius" the Roman Catholic Church has planted a hedge about its people, to keep out the wild boar of heresy. Is this a legitimate and reliable procedure? Can faith thus kept under a glass case be living, healthy, robust? We think not. The faith of Christ will be conserved, and preserved in its power and integrity, just so far as the Christian world has a clear knowledge and living experience of the deepest facts and truths of the Gospel. It must be, it ought to be, that the Christian Church can endure conflict with unbelief; putting down that unbelief by her living testimony, and shining all the more brightly for the struggle. "Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter i. 5–7.) Faith must be tried; and the truth hidden in the hearts of the people is the best defence of Christian orthodoxy.

W. L. WATKINSON.

THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BAPTISM INTO

CHRIST:

AN EXPOSITION OF ROMANS VI. 1-11.

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead [rather, died] to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are [were] buried with Him, by [the] baptism into [the] death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted [have become grafted] together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is [was] crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead [that died] is freed [hath been justified] from sin. Now if we be dead [died] with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died. He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through [in] Jesus Christ our Lord."

NOTE, how very materially the sense of this Scripture, and the point and force of the argument, are obscured in the English Version by its disregard of the voice and tense of the verbs.

The abrupt demand, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" forcibly puts an objection to the immediately foregoing argument which is supposed to be not unnaturally awakened. If the case be as you have so tersely stated it; if a sinful man may be justified before God without any respect being had to his own previous moral character; if he may be justified solely on the condition of his submission to Christ, and faith in Him; and if the more his sin has abounded in provoking the wrath of God, the more will grace abound in extending to him a free salvation; then, surely a man may have full liberty to continue and abound in sin, that grace may have the better opportunity for its superabounding! What say you? Will you admit the consequence? Certainly not. Let no such thought be entertained. For how shall we who died to sin, live any longer therein? Can you be ignorant of the fact "that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?" Or that we were therefore buried with Him, by the baptism into His death, that, like as He was "raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also," being "quickened together with Him," "should walk in newness of life?"

Observe I.-The moral significance of baptism into Jesus Christ,— of baptism into His death.

Of course the forms of expression are elliptical. Just as when the Lord Jesus gave commandment to His Apostles to go and "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into (eis) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," (Matt. xxviii. 19,) the meaning was that all disciples were to be baptized into the faith and for the service of the Triune God; so here, to be baptized into Christ, and that too into His death, is to be baptized into the faith of Christ, and that too of Christ crucified. Regarded from its human side, baptism into Christ crucified is an act by which a man makes open profession of faith in Christ as His Saviour, and of subjection to Him as his Lord; an act by which he avows his renunciation of Satan, and sin, and self; separates himself from the fellowship of the unbelieving and the disobedient; and unites himself to the society of the faithful in Christ Jesus. He is therefore said to be baptized into Christ; to be baptized into that one body of Christ, the Church, of which each particular believer is a member. (1 Cor. xii. 12-27.) The rite of baptism was appointed by the Lord Himself as that of formal incorporation, and every baptized man, who has not by word or deed renounced his baptism, is therefore a member of the visible Church.

The baptism itself, however, does not constitute its subject a living member in the living body of the Lord Jesus. Nor does the

profession of faith which is made in baptism insure this result. The baptism is a mere material, though significant, act; a mere bodily exercise, which cannot possibly, of itself, have any moral or spiritual efficacy. And the profession of faith made in baptism. may be false, ignorant, or insincere. Thus Simon of Samaria, although he had made public profession of faith in Christ, and had been truly baptized, so as to be admitted into the visible Church, was nevertheless assured by St. Peter himself that he had "neither part nor lot" in the salvation of Christ, but was still "in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity." But that faith of which baptism is the profession, does bring its possessor into living union with Christ. Therefore, if the faith professed in baptism were true, sincere, and intelligent, that is to say, if the man really had the faith which he professed to have, then he has been, by this faith, brought into such legal and effective union with Christ as to participate with Him in all the benefits resulting from His redeeming work. He has been baptized into the faith and fellowship of God's Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

But the faith in Christ, of which baptism is the profession, is faith in His death. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?" Under Apostolic teaching and requisition there was no room for misapprehension or mistake on that point. According to them, the death of Christ was that one act by which life and salvation were purchased for a dying world. They not only preached Christ, but Christ crucified. They not only gloried in Christ, but in the cross of Christ; and they would glory in nothing else. They maintained that not only had God given and set forth His Son Jesus as a ground of faith and hope for perishing men, but that He had thus set Him forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. Those whom they baptized were therefore baptized not into the faith of Christ only, but into the faith of His death. The faith, therefore, of which they required the profession in baptism, was not simply faith in Jesus as the Messiah, nor faith in Him as the incarnate Son of God, nor faith in Him as an infallible Divine Teacher, nor faith in Him as the appointed Lord and Judge of all. The faith did indeed embrace all that, but it embraced more, for it was emphatically faith in Him as having been delivered on account of our offences," and as raised again on account of “our justification," as having "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

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Now this faith in Christ's death, when truly exercised and professed, brings its possessor into real union with Christ, both legal and effective. Hence the Apostle's further statement that, by the baptism into Christ's death, we were "buried with Him." It is very

commonly supposed, and by many expositors proceeded upon as a matter not to be disputed, that there is here a reference to the mode of baptism, which is assumed to have been by immersion. It is first insisted that the statement cannot be properly understood but on the assumption that the Apostolic practice was to baptize by immersion; and then the statement is triumphantly adduced in proof of the practice. Baptism itself, it is then affirmed, when properly administered, is in reality a scenic representation of the death, and burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and, especially, that the subject of it is buried in water as the dead body of the Lord was buried in the earth. But that, we submit, is altogether to misapprehend and confuse the Apostle's statement. For he really does not either assume or teach therein anything whatever as to the mode of baptism. So far as his statement is concerned, it is of no consequence whether the baptism be administered by immersion, or by pouring, or by sprinkling. For he does not say that we are buried in baptism; but that, by means of the baptism into Christ's death we were buried with Him, (συνετάφημεν οὖν αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος εἰς τὸν θάνατον.) Our being buried together with Christ was not, in any sense, either literal, figurative, symbolical, or scenic, a burial in baptism, but a burial together with Christ by baptism; and we were buried together with Christ, not in a grave of water, but in that "new sepulchre," "in the garden," at Jerusalem, wherein never before Christ had any man been laid. That is the true ideal representation which needs no aid from the mode of baptism to make intelligible.

For, if we have truly that faith in Christ of which baptism is the open avowal, then we are brought into such effective oneness with Christ as to become "members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; " and thenceforth are regarded and treated, by God the Judge of all, as though we had been crucified when Christ was crucified, had died when He died, had been buried when He was buried, and had risen again when He was raised. For Christ was crucified, and was buried, and rose again from the dead, as our Substitute and Representative; virtually and potentially as the Representative of the whole human family, but effectively of all them that believe. It was for our sins that He was condemned: it was our penalty that He endured: it was our death that He died and it was for us that He was buried. So that, legally and in effect, all that believe were, in and with Him, condemned, crucified, and buried. Therefore, baptism being the rite by which profession of this faith is openly made, believers are said to be baptized into Christ,-baptized into His death, and, by the baptism into His death, buried together with Him.

VOL. XXII.-FIFTH SERIES.

3 E

But there is yet a further moral significance in that act of faith by which a sinner makes surrender of himself to Christ for salvation. There is included in it, of necessity, a confession that he himself, because of his sins, deserves to die; that, but for the death of his Divine Substitute, he must himself have died; that he repents of, hates, and thus openly renounces those sins which imperilled his own soul, and caused such untold agony to his adorable Representative; and that he gladly, and with all his powers, avails himself of this Divinely provided and authenticated means of salvation from sin. In short, it is an act of believing self-surrender into the hands of Jesus, in order that the old sinful self may be put to death, as it deserves to be, and be buried out of sight so as to be abolished and forgotten,-be put to death as Jesus was put to death, and buried as He was buried. Therefore it is said that "our old man was crucified together with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." The Christ who was crucified and buried, was the Christ who was "made sin for us," on whom our sin was laid, and who "bare our sins in His own body on the tree." But "in that He died, He died unto sin once." By that death, He made an end of sin. As the Bearer of sin, He was buried in the grave. But when He emerged therefrom, He had no more concern with sin, nor had sin any further hold upon Him. And so we, in making surrender of ourselves to Him, do it that the body of sin may be crucified, dead, and buried; that the old sinful self may be abolished and disappear; that we ourselves may become, both legally and really, "new creatures; "—may assume, as it were, a new personality, with new relationships, new aims, and new hopes; and, especially, that we should henceforth break completely with sin, and "walk in newness of life." Therefore, it is not meet, it is not befitting, it is not consistent, that we, who thus died to sin, should "live any longer therein."

For, II.-The very purpose for which we were baptized into the death of Christ, and by that baptism buried with Him, was "that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father," to live for ever unto God, "even so we also," having been “quickened together with Him," might "walk in newness of life."

For Jesus, who was delivered to death on account of our offences, was not delivered over to the power of sin and death for ever. Therefore, though He died, and was buried, He does not continue dead. The grave does not now hold Him prisoner: for "death hath no further dominion over Him." By dying He satisfied the legal claim, paid the full penalty, completely expiated sin. His burial was the proof and consequence of death-a death which had been