Page images
PDF
EPUB

bers of the Christian community, whether adults or infants.

For the first, viz. adults, we believe that baptism, or an admission into the Christian covenant, procures the remission of sins actually committed. And baptism also procures for infants a remission of those sins to which the curse has attached since the fall of our first parents.

Q. Supposing converts to have received the remission of sins at baptism, if they afterwards offend against any of the laws and ordinances of religion, how will they be saved?

A. Doubtless like other Christians, by repentance and amendment of life, and consequent reconciliation with God. After they are once admitted by baptism partakers of the covenant of our Redeemer, they become heirs of all the promises of the Gospel, and subject to all its threats.s

Now for all Christians, we know and consequently for them, it is necessary frequently to call their ways to remembrance, for none can maintain their integrity pure and perfect, as the Gospel requires. In fact at all times, and in various ways, all stand in need of the mercy and

[ocr errors]

Hominem, si post baptismum lapsus fuerit, primò per reconciliationem, deinde per pænitentiam credimus posse salvari. St. Augustin. tom. x. Serm. de Temp. cxci.

forbearance of God; and we are assured that it never will be withholden from those who ask for it in sincerity, and in compliance with the conditions God has been pleased to attach to it. Now the first condition is baptism, the subsequent conditions after baptism are repentance, renewed faith, amendment of life, prayer and supplication.

[ocr errors]

Q. What if believers are not baptized?

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

A. It is for us to point out the direct and certain road; to explain how salvation may be ensured under the Christian dispensation: but no more. We leave those who would wander into dangerous bye-paths to themselves, expressing only a word of caution. When two things are submitted to their choice, one promising the greatest imaginable benefits on easy terms: the other holding out no real advantages, and accompanied with the greatest risk: we entreat them under such circumstances to ponder well, and consider long, before they throw away the promises of incalculable advantage, and refuse the proffered good.

Q. What comfort do Christians derive from the doctrine of the remission of sins, as contained in this Article of their belief?

A. First, They become possessed of the com

'See Bingham's Orig. Ecc. book x. ch. i. and ii.

fortable, the delightful assurance, that those sins which even the best of them must feel conscious they have committed, and are continually committing, will be pardoned, through the merits of Christ.

Secondly, They are filled with a sense of the infinite goodness of God, and the unbounded love of Christ, who have opened such a glorious prospect of salvation to the unworthy sons of

men.

The result of these two considerations must be, to raise the gratitude of Christians to the highest possible point, and to render them ever studious to make the only return in their power to the Immortal Beings who have thus had pity on, and redeemed them; by living a life of virtue and religion, by obeying the suggestions of the Holy Spirit, and maintaining their faith firm and undeviating unto the end.

[merged small][ocr errors]

ARTICLE XI.

ས ་

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.

SECTION I.

The resurrection of the body.

Q. WHAT do you understand by the "body ?" 4. The mortal part of man; that perishable and corruptible substance, which was originally made by God of the dust of the earth".

Q. What is meant by" the resurrection?" A. It is the reproduction of the body after dissolution; by means of which the soul is reunited to, and reanimates, its former tenement. Barrow says, "As to be born at first doth signify the production and union of the parts essential to a man; so to be born again implies the restitution and reunion of the same; a man thereby becoming entirely the same person, in substance completely the same he was before "." Q. When will this resurrection take place?

a Rom. viii. 11. Job xix. 26.

b

[ocr errors]

b. Barrow's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 520. See also Ezekiel's prophecy, xxxvii. 1. 14. and St. Cyril. Cateches. iv. § xix.

A. At the last day, when Christ shall come to judge the world in righteousness.

Q. What difference is there between our resurrection and that of Christ? For the truth of our Saviour's resurrection has been already explained, and if the cases are similar, a reference to what is there said would be sufficient.

A. There is this great difference in the cases; Christ's body was within three days raised to life again, without being subjected to decay or corruption; whereas our bodies lying in the grave for many years, become decomposed, crumble into dust, and are scattered abroad, the same atoms from which they sprang.

Q. How is the resurrection of the body possible, after it has rotted in the grave, and become mere dust and ashes?

A. With God all things are possible. He numbereth the very hairs of our head; he counteth the sand which is upon the sea shore; at one glance he looketh through all the works of nature; and allotteth to each atom in the creation its office and its place.

Why then may he not by an act of his absolute will and power bring together again into one, the scattered particles of which man is composed, since such an exercise of his authority implies no contradiction? What difficulty

« PreviousContinue »