Christus in corde, or, The mystical union between Christ and believers considered in its…

Baptism is not, as the Socinians would have it to be, a nude rite, but an obsignative one; it is not a mere picture of spiritual Grace, but a Seal of it. Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of Faith; Baptism, which succeeds in the room of it, can be no less.¹ In man there is a body and a soul: to answer both, there is in Baptism an outward part and an inward one; the outward part is water, which cleanses the body; the inward part is Christ, who by his Blood and Spirit cleanses the Soul: in both cleansings, union is requisite. Water, unless applied, cleanses not the Body; Christ, unless applied, cleanses not the Soul. Where Baptism is in the right use, there is a seal of union with Christ, who communicates the spiritual cleansing to those who are in him as parts of his mystical body: Hence are those Phrases in Scripture touching baptized persons; they are baptized into Christ, Rom. 6.3. So united to him, as to be in him; they are baptized into one body, 1 Cor. 12.13. So united to him, as to be parts of his mystical body; they have put on Christ, Gal. 3.27. So united to him, as a man is to a garment; his satisfaction covers them, his Spirit adorns them with ⟨p. 203⟩holy Graces, they are in Baptism buried with him, and risen with him, Col. 2.12. So united to him, that they have the power of his death in mortification, and the power of his resurrection in a Divine life; the one is notably adumbrated in the baptismal immersion into the Water; the other in the eduction out of it: Thus Baptism is a seal to confirm Christ with his benefits to us. But this is not all; it is also a seal to convey him with his benefits to us. Hence in Scripture, it is for the remission of sins, Acts 2.38. It is the Laver of regeneration, Tit. 3.5. Hence in the Fathers it is called, the investiture of Christianity, the genital Water; the spiritual Nativity; the divine Generation, with the like; which import, that it is a sacred Medium, by which divine Grace is communicated to us; only it is to be remembered, that Baptism doth not this ex opere operato, out of the work done; it is not the Physical cause of Grace, but the Moral; it is Idolatry to imagine, that a mere creature should physically, by its own intrinsical virtue, cause such a thing as Regeneration, which is only proper for God to do; we are all apt to be led by Sense rather than by Faith;