Rich. Baxters apology against the modest exceptions of Mr. T. Blake and the digression…

I prove the Antecedent: Act. 22.16. Ananias saith to Paul, Why tarryest thou? arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins. This was a present Remission, and not a future only. So Act. 2.38. Be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sins. And it is a Faith which hath the Promise of Remission which Peter requires of the Gentiles before he baptize them. Act. 10.43. Act. 13.39. the Apostle tells them, All that believe are Justified, when he is persuading them to believe. It is therefore a believing to Justification, which he was persuading them to. Rom. 6.3, 4. Know ye not, that as many as were Baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? therefore we are buried with him, •y baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, &c. It is therefore in the act of Baptism, that we are buried and rise Sacramentally, to signify the present change of our state from the Grave of sin. So Col. 2.11, 12, 13. and 1 Pet. 3.21. Baptism is said to save us, but not the external washing, without the answer of a good conscience; which affordeth two arguments. One in that Baptism saveth, and therefore leaves not man (when rightly used) a child ⟨p. 99⟩of wrath afterward. 2. In that the Answer of a good conscience is required to concur with Baptism: for so the Apostle plainly intimates, and the best Expositors understand it, and not of a thing to follow, as Mr. Bl. doth. Eph. 5.25, 26. Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Wherefore Paul supposeth them cleansed that are Baptized: