# Baptism and Assurance



## Brian (Nov 4, 2004)

Admins. & Mods.: If this is in the wrong section, feel free to move it.

What light can the Puritans bring to bear on the following subject:
What role should baptism have in our assurance? Should we ever look to our baptism for assurance?

Eagerly awaiting your thoughts,
BRIAN

[Edited on 4-11-2004 by Brian]


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## Scott Bushey (Nov 4, 2004)

Westminster Confession of Faith


Chapter xxviii

Of Baptism

I. Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church; but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in the newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in His Church until the end of the world.


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## Scott (Nov 8, 2004)

Brian:

Here is a quote from Book 4 of Calvin's Institutes. Hope this helps.




> 14. Sign and thing
> 
> Now that the end to which the Lord had regard in the institution of baptism has been explained, it is easy to judge in what way we ought to use and receive it. For inasmuch as it is appointed to elevate, nourish, and confirm our faith, we are to receive it as from the hand of its author, being firmly persuaded that it is himself who speaks to us by means of the sign; that it is himself who washes and purifies us, and effaces the remembrance of our faults; that it is himself who makes us the partakers of his death, destroys the kingdom of Satan, subdues the power of concupiscence, nay, makes us one with himself, that being clothed with him we may be accounted the children of God. These things I say, we ought to feel as truly and certainly in our mind as we see our body washed, immersed, and surrounded with water. For this analogy or similitude furnishes the surest rule in the sacraments, viz., that in corporeal things we are to see spiritual, just as if they were actually exhibited to our eye, since the Lord has been pleased to represent them by such figures; not that such graces are included and bound in the sacrament, so as to be conferred by its efficacy, but only that by this badge the Lord declares to us that he is pleased to bestow all these things upon us. Nor does he merely feed our eyes with bare show; he leads us to the actual object, and effectually performs what he figures.
> 
> ...


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