§ 116. BAPTISM. 585
more than a mark or sign by which we profess our religion before men, as soldiers wear the insignia of their sovereign. It is " for the remission of sins," past and future. No new sacrament is necessary for sins committed after baptism. At whatever time we are baptized, we are washed and puriiied for the whole life. "Whenever we have fallen, we must recur to the remembrance of baptism, and arm our minds with the consideration of it, that we may be always certified and assured of the remission of our sins.'*
2. Baptism shows us our mortification in Christ, and our new life in him. All who receive baptism with faith experience the efficacy of Christ's death and the power of his resurrection, and should therefore walk in newness of life (Rom. 6 : 3, 4, 11).
3. Baptism affords us " the certain testimony that we are not only engrafted into the life and death of Christ, but are so united to him as to be partakers of all his benefits " (Gal. 3 : 26, 27).
But while baptism removes the guilt and punishment of hereditary and actual sin, it does not destroy our natural depravity, which is perpetually producing works of the flesh, and will not be wholly abolished till the close of this mortal life. In the mean time we must hold fast to the promise of God in baptism, fight manfully against sin and temptation, and press forward to complete victory.
III. On the question of the validity of baptism by unworthy ministers, Calvin fully agrees with Augustin against the view of the Donatists, who measured the virtue of the sacrament by the moral character of the minister. He applies the argument to the Anabaptists of his day, who denied the validity of Catholic baptism on account of the idolatry and corruption of the papal Church. "Against these follies we shall be sufficiently fortified, if we consider that we are baptized not in the name of any man, but in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and consequently that it is not the
586 THE ItEFOllMATION IN FRENCH SWITZEKLAND.
baptism of man, but of God, by whomsoever administered." The papal priests " did not baptize us into the fellowship of their own ignorance or sacrilege, but into the faith of Jesus Christ, because they invoked, not their own name, but the name of God, and baptized in no name but ]iis. As it was the baptism of God, it certainly contained the promise of remission of sins, mortification of the flesh, spiritual vivification, and participation of Christ. Thus it was no injury to the Jews to have been circumcised by impure and apostate priests ; nor Avas the sign on that account useless, so as to render it necessary to be repeated, but it was sufficient to recur to the genuine orig^inal. . . . When Hezekiah and Josiah assembled together out of all Israel, those who had revolted from God, they did not call any of them to a second circumcision."
He argues against the Anabaptists from the fact also, that the apostles who had received the baptism of John, were not rebaptized. " And among us, what rivers would be sufficient for the repetition of ablutions as numerous as the errors which are daily corrected among us by the mercy of the Lord." 1
1 These passages (IV. ch. XV. §§ 16 and 17) furnish arguments against the decision of the Old-School-Presbyterian General Assembly held at Cincinnati, 1845, which, with an overwhelming majority, declared Roman Catholic baptism to be invalid, and thus virtually unchurched and unbaptized the greater part of Christendom, including the founders of the Protestant churches, who were baptized in the Roman communion, as the apostles were circumcised in the synagogue. But Drs. Charles Hodge of Princeton and Henry B. Smith of New York — the two leading Presbyterian divines of that day — vigoronsl_y protested against that anomalous decision; and when, in the United Assembly, held likewise at Cincinnati, in the year 1885, an attempt was made to re-enact that decision, it failed by a very large majority. Calvin did not unchurch the Church of Rome. " While we refuse," he says {Inst. IV. ch. II. § 12), "to allow to the papists the [exclusive] title of the Church, without any qualification or restriction, we do not deny that there are churches among them. ... I afiirm that there are churches, in as much as God has wonderfully preserved among them a remnant of his people, and as there still remain some marks of the Church, especially those, the efiicacy of which neither the craft of the devil, nor the malice of men can ever destroy."