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1.1. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into JESUS CHRIST, were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him by Baptism into death; that like as CHRIST was raised from the dead lay the glory of the FATHER, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For, if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.”  Rom. iv. 3-6. 

Now all, unquestionably, that a large number of Christians, at the present day, find, in this passage, is that Baptism represents (as it does) to us our profession, that we, having been baptized, and having acknowledged CHRIST as our LORD, are bound to lead a new and godly life, and to be crucified to sin and the world, as He was crucified for our sin ; and if so, that we shall rise with Him. This is very true, and is certainly in the passage; but the question is, whether this be all? whether St. Paul speaks only of duties entailed upon, and not also of strength imparted to, us?  The Fathers certainly of the Christian Church, educated in holy gratitude for their BaptismaI privileges, saw herein, not only the death unto sin, which we were to die, but that also which in CHRIST we had died, the actual weakening of our corrupt propensities by our having been baptized and incorporated into CHRIST; not the life only which we are to live, but the actual life which, by Baptism, was infused in us, and by virtue of which it is, that many of us are now “walking in newness of life,” are living in CHRIST.  St. Paul speaks throughout of actual facts, which have taken place in us, and duties consequent upon them; he sets, side by side, means of grace, which we have received, and the holiness which we are thereby to strive to attain unto. “We were all baptized into CHRIST,” i.e. into a participation of CHRIST, and His most precious Death, and union with Him; “we,” i.e. our old man, our corrupted selves, “were buried with Him by Baptism into death, that we also may walk in newness of life.” Again, “we were planted in the likeness of His death”—that we may be “of His resurrection.” Again, “our old man was crucified with Him” —”that the whole body of sin might be destroyed.” 

Now, in these pairs (so to speak) of gifts and duties, two things are, at first sight, observable:— 
1. That, (as indeed we shall have occasion to point out more extensively,) St. Paul speaks throughout of these gifts as having taken place at a definite past time. Not only we “were baptized,” but we “were buried,” “were planted,” “were crucified;” those acts are in their fruits to live in us, but in themselves they are past, just as much as our Baptism is, in which they took place, and wherein they were contained; he speaks not here of a present crucifixion, or even (as elsewhere)  of a past crucifixion, continuing on to the present, “whereby the world has been crucified (estaurwtai) to me, and I unto the world,” [Gal. vi. 14.] but of one wholly past, “our old man was crucified with Him (sunestaurwyh).” 2.) That a most intimate communion with these same acts in our Lord’s own holy Life and Death is, by the original language, conveyed. It were much, to be buried, to be crucified, with Him, like Him; but it is more to become partakers of His Burial and Crucifixion; to be (so to speak) co-interred, co-crucified ; to be included in, wrapt round, as it were, in His Burial and Crucifixion, and gathered into His very tomb; and this, he says, we were by Baptism transfused into His Death, (sunetafhmen)- implanted or engrafted into it (sumfutoi), our old man was thereby nailed to His very cross (sunestaurwyh). There is a marked identification with our LORD; and so, also, our walking in newness of life, is not the result of any motive, however persuasive, but “the power of His Resurrection.”  “We were buried with Him by Baptism unto death, that, like as CHRIST was raised up from the dead by the glory of the FATHER, even so we also,” having died with Him, died through Baptism in His death, having been buried with Him, and so (else were we not living) having been raised again with Him, having been reborn to a new life, should live in His new Life imparted to us, “should walk in newness of life.” The Apostle needed not then to express in words that we had actually been made partakers of His Resurrection; he conveys more, in that he does not express it, for so he identifies it more “with His Resurrection through the glory of the FATHER.” 

And this, as already implied, throws light on other Scriptures, as when St. Peter less explicitly parallels our death with that of CHRIST; “CHRIST then, having suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that hath suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,” conveying, that we had not only had the benefit of His sufferings imputed to us, but in some mysterious way been joined in them; for the words “he that hath suffered in the flesh,” clearly belong to us, and in this context they belong to us through our being joined with CHRIST, i. e. “we have suffered in the flesh,” because “He suffered for us the flesh,” and we have been engrafted into Him.  And St. Paul again, “The love of CHRIST constraineth us, having thus judged, that if One died for all, then have all died, and He died for all, that they who live might not any more live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again,” [2 Cor. v. 14, 15.] i. e. by His dying for all, all have died, with and in Him; and that, that the new life, which through that death they live, “they might not live to themselves, but to Him Who died for them, and rose again,” and with Whom, (it is again implied) they have been raised. For such seems to be the very end with which St. Paul adds the words, “and rose again.” 

In these events we are spoken of as passive only; we did nothing for ourselves; we were baptized, buried, planted, crucified; the very language marks that all this was God’s doing, in us, and for us. We had no more to do with it, than a man hath with burying or crucifying himself, much less could we join ourselves in our Saviour’s Death, or include ourselves in His Cross: but we gave up ourselves only to God, for Him to work this in us; and He “by Baptism,” the apostle says, wrought it. Hitherto we were passive only; the Apostle assigns us our own part, but subsequently; in our old life, we could only have struggled impotently; though “the angel troubled the waters,” yet had we lain like the infirm man who “had no one to put him into the pool;” we had lain within sight of our remedy, but unable to apply it to ourselves; our part begins with our new life in CHRIST, which we have received in Baptism; when in Him we have died, then begins that other death, which through Him we must continually die. Sin has once been remitted, slain, crucified; we must, henceforth, watch that it live not again in us, that we extirpate all the roots thereof, that we serve it not again, that we live through its death. These points were prominently in the thoughts of the ancient Church, when dwelling on the text; the close connection of what CHRIST had done for us on the Cross, with what He worketh in us by His SPIRIT in Baptism: that this union with Him is the power of Baptism, and that from this union so im-parted is all the Christian’s strength to realize Christian duty. 

“It is not here,” says St. Chrysostom [Ad. loc. Hom. xi. s.1,2.t. ix. p. 530. ed. Bened.], “as in the other Epistles,” which St. Paul divides into two, appropriating the first part to “doctrine, the latter to moral instruction; but he here, throughout, mingles the two. He saith here, then, that there are two puttings to death, and two deaths; that the one was wrought by CHRIST, in Baptism; but that the other must take place through our subsequent diligence.  For that our former sins were buried, was of His gift; but that we, after Baptism, should remain dead to sin, must be the work of our diligence, although here also our very chief and great support comes from God. For Baptism not only availeth to efface our former offences, but secures us also against future. Seest thou how he animateth his hearer, taking him at once to his LORD, and striving to show him how like he has been made to Him ?— He saith not also, if we have been made partakers of the likeness of His death, but if we have been planted; hinting, by the name planting, at the fruit derived to us therefrom. For, as His body, buried in the earth, bore for fruit the salvation of the world; so ours, also, buried in Baptism, bore fruit, righteousness, sanctification, adoption, unnumbered blessings, and, last of all, shall bear that of the resurrection. Since, then, we were buried in water, He in the earth, and we in respect to sin, He in regard to the body: therefore he saith not, ‘planted with Him in death,’ but ‘in the likeness of death.’ For each was death, but not of the same object.—Nor doth he say merely (v. 6.) our old man was crucified, but was ‘crucified together,’ bringing Baptism in close union with the Cross.—He saith this of every man (v. 7.), that ‘he who is dead is thenceforth freed from sinning,’ abiding dead; so also he who ascendeth from Baptism; for since he hath then once died, he ought to remain throughout dead to sin. If then thou hast died in Baptism, remain dead.” And so again [Hom. x. in Rom. p. 525.], “‘We who have died to sin, how shall we live any longer in it?’ What is this ‘have died?’ is it, that as far as it is concerned, we have all renounced it? or, rather, that having believed and been enlightened,” [received the true light,—been baptized,] “we have become actually dead to it ? which the sequel shows.  But what is to be (lead to it? to obey it no longer. For this Baptism hath done for us once; it deadened us to it; but for the rest, by our own earnest zeal we must realize this constantly. So that, though it issue ten thousand commands, we should obey it no longer, but remain motionless as the dead. Elsewhere, indeed, he says, that sin itself died; and that, to show how easy goodness becometh; but here, wishing to rouse the hearer, he speaks of him as having died.—As the Death of CHRIST in the flesh was real, so is our’s to sin real; but although it is real, we must for the future contribute our part.” 

St. Basil also speaks at large, how for this end, not mere imitation will suffice, but actual conformation, a conformation whereby our old life, which we inherited from Adam, should be broken through, and a new life, derived from CHRIST, implanted, whereby we should be actually severed from our old stock in Adam, and engrafted into a new one in CHRIST. And that such is the Christian’s privilege, and bestowed upon him through Baptism, he proves from this saying of the Apostle [De Spiritu S. c. 15. s. 35.], 

“The dispensation of our GOD and SAVIOUR in behalf of man is a calling him upward from his fall, a return to familiar intercourse with GOD from that alienation which took place through the disobedience.  To this end was the Presence of CHRIST in the flesh the patterns of evangelical life; the Passion; the Cross; the Burial; the Resurrection; so that man being saved by the imitation of CHRIST, might receive again that ancient adoption of sons.  To the perfection then of life, there is needed the imitation of  CHRIST, not only of the gentleness, and humility, and long-suffering, displayed in His Life, but also of His very Death; as St. Paul saith—he, the imitator of CHRIST—’ being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead.’ How then are we made in the likeness of His death? ‘Having been buried with Him through Baptism.’  What then is the mode of burial, or what the benefit of the imitation? First, it is necessary that the course of the former life should be broken through. But this is impossible, unless “a man be born again, as the LORD said. For the regeneration “(as the name also itself implies,) is the beginning of a second “life; so that before we begin the second, an end must be put to the preceding.—Wherefore the LORD, who dispenseth life to us, gave us the covenant of Baptism, containing an image of death “and life—the water fulfilling the image of death, and the Spirit giving the earnest of life.—This then is ‘to be born again of water and the Spirit,’ our death being effected in the water, and “our life worked in us by the Spirit.—So that whatever grace “there is in the water is not from the nature of the water, but “from the presence of the Spirit.”

In the union also with CHRIST, in Whose Death and Life they were through Baptism engrafted, the elder Christians saw with the Apostle the pledge of their resurrection. 

“Hast thou believed,” says Chrysostom [Hom. 10. in Rom. 4], "that CHRIST died and rose again, believe then thine own. For this is like to it, since the Cross and the Burial is thine also; for if thou hast shared with Him in the Death and the Burial, much more shalt thou in the Resurrection and the Life. For since the greater, that is, sin, has been destroyed, we may not hesitate about that which is lesser, the destruction of death.” 

And St. Ambrose [De Myst. 21. c.2.], 

“Naaman, “the Syrian, dipped seven times under the law, but thou wert baptized in the name of the Trinity. Thou confessedst the FATHER, recollect what thou diddest; thou confessedst the SON; thou confessedst the HOLY GHOST. Hold fast the order of things in this Faith. Thou diedst to sin, and rosest again to GOD. And, as though co-interred with Him in that element of the world, having died to sin, thou wert raised again to life eternal.” 

They were not accustomed, in our lax way, to look upon the resurrection to life as, one might almost say, the mere natural consequence of our escaping condemnation, that since our natures were immortal, we must live on in some way, and since we were rescued from misery, therefore in bliss. Eternal life was, with them, not the mere alternative of death, or the necessary result of forgiveness; nor was His Resurrection the mere making known of God’s acceptance of His Sacrifice, a confirmation of our faith, an outward attestation to the fact of our immortality, an evidence or earnest of our Resurrection. It was to them all these, but it was more; it was the cause of our resurrection. “The rocks were rent,” when the atoning Sacrifice was finished; the bars were loosed, and they seemed to hold their prisoners no longer; yet it was not until “ after the resurrection” that “many bodies of the saints, which slept, arose and came out of the graves, and went into the holy city.” [Mat. xxvii. 52,53.]  The sacrifice on the Cross perfected our redemption to Godward, but there was a further act to complete it toward, and in, us.  “He was delivered for our offences," [Rom. iv. 25.] — and so completed the Atonement; but “He was raised again for our justification,” to communicate its fruits to us.  The Resurrection contains a ground of hope, even beyond the Cross ; “It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is CHRIST that died; yea rather that is risen again.” [Ro. viii. 34.]  Our incarnate Lord imparted to our decayed nature, by His indwelling in it, that principle of life, which, through Adam’s fall it had lost; and when “by the Spirit of Holiness,” which resided in CHRIST, He raised it from the dead, He made it not only “the first fruits,” but the source of our Resurrection, by communicating to our nature His own inherent Life. And hence, after His Resurrection, His Body, though still made present to His disciples, for the confirmation of their faith, was already of a spiritual nature, not recognized by His own disciples [Luke xxiv. 16; John xx. 14, xxi. 24.], appearing in different forms [Mark xvi. 12.], so ‘showing that this outward form was but an accident to it; appearing or vanishing out of sight, without reference to material obstacles; and whereas, before, He showed indeed by His miracles that He was the Lord of nature, yet subjected Himself to His own laws, which He had given it, now His Life was wholly independent ‘of them. “I,” He saith, “l am the Resurrection and the Life ;“ He not only has obtained, purchased, wills, bestows, is the meritorious cause of, our Resurrection; He Himself is it ; He gives it us not, as it were, from without, as a possession, as something of our own, but Himself is it to us : He took our flesh that He might vivify it; He dwelt in it, and obeyed in it, that He might sanctify it; He raised it from death by His quickening Spirit that He might give it immortality; the “ first Adam” was “a living soul;” [1 Cor. xiv. 25] and that life being by sin lost, “the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.”  And we in His Church being incorporated into Him, being made members of His Body, flesh of His Flesh, and bone of His Bone, through His Sacraments, partake of His Life and immortality, because we partake of Him; we are made members of Him, He dwelleth in us, and is our Life; “Because I live, ye shall live also." [John xiv. 19.]  As in His transfiguration, that inward glory which dwelt in Him, but vailed from man’s sight, shone through and illumined His countenance, and penetrated the very raiment which He wore, so that His earthly form was changed, so “are we,” His Apostle says, transformed or “transfigured from glory to glory as by the LORD, the SPIRIT.” [2 Cor. iii. 18.]  It is through the commu-nication of that life, and so by belonging to Him, being joined on to Him, that as many as live, have and shall have their life.  In CHRIST shall all be made alive.” [1 Cor. xv. 22, 23.] “ CHRIST the first-fruits, afterwards they that are CHRIST’S [belong to CHRIST] at His coming.” And “that I might be found in Him, so to know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the participation of His sufferings, being conformed to His Death, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.” [Phil. xiv. 19.]  And this power of His Resurrection is imparted to us through Baptism. “ Baptism saves us, through the Resurrection of JESUS CHRIST," [1 Pet. iii. 21. comp. i. 3.] as applying its power and efficacy.  “Having been buried [co-interred] with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye were raised together with Him” [Col. ii. 12.] made partakers of, joined in, His Resurrection. “Inasmuch then, as ye were raised together with CHRIST;” [Col. iii. 1.] and so again in our passage, “If we were planted in the likeness of His death, we shall be also of His Resurrection.”  And so, after the confession of “the one Baptism for the Remission of sins,” there follows in the Creed of the Universal Church, “And I look for the Resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”  Nor is it without significance that the title’ of Regeneration, which denotes the gift in our Baptism, or our second birth, is used once more in Holy Scripture, by our LORD, [Matt. xix. 28.] to designate our last perfected birth to immortality, when “death shall be swallowed up in victory,” whereof this “our second, or rather our first birth in CHRIST,” [Jerome Ep. ad Ocean] is the seed, to be matured in this life, and in the next to be developed in glory. 

This connection of Baptism with our LORD’S Resurrection, and that of our resurrection from sin then, with our participation in His Resurrection, and again to the future resurrection of the saints to glory, with all these,—with His Resurrection as the cause, and our Baptism as the means, and our resurrection from sin as the earnest,—is often dwelt upon by the ancient Church, (as contained in this teaching of St. Paul,) especially in reference to Easter, as the solemn season of Baptism. And the very selection of this period for Baptism shows how the whole Church looked upon it, not as a mere outward representation or correspondence, but as a reality that they wished to bring this our resurrection from sin as closely as they might with the Resurrection of our Lord, the power" [Phil. iii. 10.] whereof it was to transfuse into the new members of His spiritual body.  Thus St. Chrysostom [Adv. ebrios. et resurr. s 4.], 

“In CHRIST there was but one death; for He sinned not, and that one death was for us; for He owed no death, since He was not subject to sin, and so neither to death; wherefore He arose from the one death; but we, having died a double death, arise by a double  resurrection; one at that time from sin, for ‘we were buried with Him in Baptism,’ and ‘raised with Him’ by Baptism.  This is one resurrection, the delivery from sin; the second resurrection is of the body. He hath given the greater; await we the less also; for this is far greater than that; for it is far greater to be freed from sins, than to see a body raised. The body therefore fell, because it sinned: if then the beginning of falling be sin, the beginning of rising again is to be freed from sin. We have risen the greater resurrection, having cast away the sharp death of sin, and stripped off the old garment; despair we then not of the less. This resurrection we too long since rose, when we were baptized; and they who yesterday had Baptism vouchsafed to them. Two days past was CHRIST crucified, but in the night past He rose; and these also two days past were held by sin, but with Him rose again; He died in the body, and rose again in the body; these were dead through sins, but having been freed from sins rose again.” 

And St. Basil [Hom. 13. in. S. Bapt. para 1, 2. t. ii. pp. 114, 115.], 

“What can be more akin to Baptism than this day of Easter? for the day is the day of the Resurrection, and Baptism is a power to resurrection. On the day then of the Resurrection let us receive the grace of the Resurrection. Dost thou worship Him Who died for thee? Allow thyself then to be buried with Him in Baptism. For if thou be not planted in the likeness of His death, how shalt thou be partaker of His Resurrection?”

St. Leo again, assigning the ground of the administration of Baptism at Easter [Epist.16. c.3.]: 

“Although the things which relate to the humiliation of CHRIST, and those which pertain to His glory, meet alike in One and the same Person; and the whole as well of Divine Power, as of human weakliness, which was In Him, tend to work out our restoration; yet is it peculiarly in the Death of CHRIST crucified, and His Resurrection when dead, that the power of Baptism maketh the ‘new creature’ out of the old, so that in those reborn, as well the Death of CHRIST worketh as His Life. For thus the blessed Apostle saith, ‘Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into JESUS CHRIST, were baptized into His death? For we were buried with Him by Baptism unto death, that like as CHRIST rose from the dead, through the glory of the FATHER, so we also should walk in newness of life.  For if we have been planted with Him into the likeness of His Death, we shall be also of His Resurrection;’ as well as what the Apostle of the Gentiles further enlargeth on, to set forth the Sacrament of Baptism; so that it appears, from the Spirit of this doctrine, that for regenerating the sons of men, and adopting them for sons of GOD, that day and that time was chosen, wherein through the very likeness and form of the mystery those things which are wrought in the members, might agree with those which took place in the Head; in that, according to the prescribed form of Baptism, a death intervenes, by the putting to death of sin, and the threefold immersion copies the three days burial, and the raising from the waters was a copy of Him rising from the tomb.” 

And not only as instruction to the Church, but against the heretics who denied “the resurrection of the flesh,” a cogent argument  furnished by that, wherein because it takes place also in the flesh, some can see only a carnal ordinance. Since the flesh also had its share in Baptism, and the Apostle said, “we,” our whole selves, “were therein buried in the Death of our LORD, that we might be partakers of His Resurrection,” then will our flesh also ‘partake of that Resurrection; and thus, in the goodness and wisdom of GOD, not only was our flesh restored, but we had an earnest and pledge of its full restitution. 

“Thus,” says Tertullian [De. Resurr. Carnis, c. 47.], “throughout this whole series of sayings, while he separateth our members from unrighteousness and offence, and joineth them to righteousness and holiness, and transfers them from the ways of sin to the gift of eternal life, he holds out to the flesh also the recompense of salvation; for it had been no ways consistent, to enjoin it its own peculiar discipline of righteousness and holiness, unless it had also in store a reward for that discipline no, nor might Baptism itself have been bestowed upon it, unless by regeneration it also were inaugurated to restoration ; which also the Apostle impresses, ‘Know ye not that all we who have been baptized into CHRIST JESUS, were baptized into His death.  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into 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.’” 

The same text which, pressed on the one side, yielded an argument against these, when examined with the same strictness, on another, refuted the Pelagian, heretics; shewing how right exposition is at variance with all heresy, and a fuller and more literal apprehension of Scripture is at the same time a shield against doctrinal error. St. Augustine continually cites this passage against the Pelagians, in proof that “infants are cleansed from original sin by regeneration,” (ab originali peccato parvulos regeneratione mundari,) and that, because St. Paul asserts, that all, without exception, who have been baptized in CHRIST, have been baptized in His Death, i. e. have died an actual death to sin : all infants, therefore, must have died to sin; otherwise CHRIST had not died for them, which no one would say. 

“After the Apostle had spoken of the punishment through one, and the free grace through One, as much as he thought sufficient for that part of his epistle, he then recommended the great mystery of Holy Baptism in the Cross of CHRIST in this way, that we should understand that Baptism in CHRIST is nothing else than the likeness of the Death of CHRIST, and the Death of CHRIST crucified nothing else than the likeness of the remission of sin; that as in Him there was a real Death, so in us a real remission of sins; and as in Him a real Resurrection, so in us a real justification.—If then we are proved to be dead to sin, because we are baptized in the Death of CHRIST, then do the little ones also, who are baptized in CHRIST, die to sin, because they are baptized in His Death. For it is said without exception, ‘so many of us as are baptized in CHRIST JESUS, are baptized in His Death.’ And this is said, to prove that we are ‘dead to sin.’ Yet to what sin do the little ones die, by being born again, but to that which they contracted by being born? And thereby also pertains to them what follows (vv. 4—11.), ‘ that their old man is crucified with Him—that they are dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto GOD through JESUS CHRIST our LORD.’—He saith then to those baptized in the Death of CHRIST, in which not the elder only, but the little ones also are baptized, So do ye,’—i. e. so as CHRIST,— ‘so do ye think that ye are dead unto sin, and alive to GOD in CHRIST JESUS." [Encheirid. c. 52. t. vi. pp. 215, 216.]

It will have appeared incidentally, that these appeals to Baptism contained in them the appeal to Christian newness of life, (which alone moderns have seen in this passage,) and that the more forcibly, since they were founded upon what had been done for each Christian, and in him; Christians were exhorted to the carrying on of the “good work, which had been begun (not by them, but) in them.  “What,” saith St. Basil [Moralia, Reg. 80. c. 22. t. ii. p. 317.], “belongeth to him who hath been born of water?”  That as CHRIST died to sin once, so he also “should be dead and motionless towards all sin; as it is written,  ‘as many as have been baptized into JESUS CHRIST have been baptized into his death.’” 

“The very mystery of Baptism,” says Theodoret [Ad loc. v. 4.], “taught thee to flee from sin.  For Baptism hath an image of the Death of the LORD; for in it hadst thou communion with CHRIST, both of Death and Resurrection.  It beseems thee then to live a new kind of life, and conformable to Him, with Whom thou hast shared the Resurrection. Thou deniedst sin, and becamest dead to it, and wast buried with CHRIST, how then shouldest thou admit again that sin?” 

Nay this appeal becomes the more forcible, just on the ground upon which moderns shrink from the reception of the doctrine, that all had received, and that, therefore, all had somewhat to lose. They were not in the position of men called for the first time to take upon them a certain course, and promised an ulterior reward; rather, they had received already an inestimable gift, and this gift they were to keep and guard. We speak familiarly of “having a stake,” as giving a person a greater interest in things; we look upon a person being born already with certain temporal advantages, as birth, station, ancient family, reputation of parents well-conducted ancestry, as a ground the more why he should be diligent to keep them; much more, when a person has any thing of his own, a good name, an even course of life, or the like. This instinctive feeling of watching the more heedfully over that which they had, was seen by the ancient Church to be called into action by St. Paul, only heightened by the inestimable greatness of that gift, and purified by its awful holiness. 

“It is plain,” says St. Ambrose [Ep. 63. Eccl. Vercell. parpa11. 12. t. ii. p. 1025.], “that this [that ‘no unclean person, nor covetous man, which is an idolator, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of CHRIST, and of GOD,'] is said of baptized persons; for they receive the inheritance, who are baptized in the Death of CHRIST, and are buried with Him, that they may rise with Him. Therefore, they are ‘heirs of GOD, joint-heirs with CHRIST;’ ‘heirs of God,’ because the grace of GOD is transcribed into them; ‘co-heirs with CHRIST,’ because they are renewed into His Life; heirs also of CHRIST, because through His Death, as of a testator, the inheritance is given them. They then ought more to take heed to themselves, who have what they may lose, than they who have it not. They must act with greater watchfulness, must avoid the inticements to vices, the provocations to sins, especially such as arise from meat and drink. Lastly, ‘the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ 

Recollect,” says St. Jerome, “that day of thy commencing warfare, wherein ‘buried with CHRIST in Baptism,’ thou swarest into the words of that sacramental oath.”

We need no testimony from later writers ; yet it is remarkable that even Calvin, as a commentator, forgetting, for awhile, his dread, lest men should rest in their Baptism, says, 

“St. Paul proves what he had just said, namely, that ‘CHRIST slays sin in those who are His,’ from the effect of Baptism.  Know we then that the Apostle does not here merely exhort us to imitate CHRIST, as if he said, that the death of CHRIST was a pattern which all Christians should imitate. Assuredly he goes deeper; and brings forward a doctrine, on which afterwards to found exhortation; and this is, that the death of CHRIST has power to extinguish and abolish the corruption of our flesh, and His Resurrection, to raise up in us the newness of a better life; and that by Baptism we are brought into the participation of this grace.” 

And again, on the word “planted,” he observes,— 

“Great is the emphasis of this word, and it clearly shows, that the Apostle is not merely exhorting, but is rather teaching us of the goodness of CHRIST. For he is not requiring any thing of us, which may be done by our zeal or industry, but sets forth a graffing-in, effected by the hand of GOD. For graffing-in implies not merely a conformity of life, but a secret union, whereby we become one with Him; so that quickening us by His Spirit, He transfuses His power into us. So then, as the graft shares life and death with the tree into which it is graffed, so are we partakers of the Life no less than of the Death of CHRIST.”