What Are The Ordinances All About?

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JM

Puritan Board Doctor
I was happy to find this classic work online and wanted to share:

Question 4 Inquiry

Whether there be any time in which man is freed from obedience to the Scriptures since the New Testament came in force, and if not, then what part of truth stands now in force to be obeyed and what does not?

There Is No Time When Men Are Free From Obeying The Word of God

For man to be freed from obedience to the Scriptures in general, I suppose none that fear God will once countenance such an opinion, Therefore I come more particularly to consider what part of the Scriptures are now in force, and specially to be known and obeyed. They are those Scriptures that are necessary to bring God and man together unto a oneness in Christ. This is the Gospel which is called the Word of Reconciliation, the Gospel of the Kingdom, which holds forth Christ to be King, Priest and Prophet and the only way unto the Father. This brings persons to be of the household of God. This household is that composed order and instituted state of Christ's Church of the New Testament, with the subjects in that order and state, according to the same Testament of which Testament Christ is the Mediator Who has confirmed the same by His own blood and sanctified all things therein contained. All which the Scriptures of the New Testament hold forth. Therefore, they of all others are to be obeyed. For therein the whole Mediatorship of Christ, together with the effect of the same, and His rule and order for ever to be observed, is written for our learning.

Saving Faith Brings the Heart to a Public Profession of Christ In Baptism

This Testament and Christ the Mediator thereof, and man's salvation, are all so inseparably joined together by the Holy Spirit, that the Gospel holds forth no one of these without the other. There is no faith in Christ approved of apart from the word of the Testament of which He is the Mediator. That faith which is truly of Him, and in Him, brings up the heart believing to a professed subjection to Him. Both which together (viz. faith, and the profession of faith) do give unto a man both a being and a name in Christ's Testament, Rom. 10:10; Gal. 3:26, 27; Mark 16:16. Take away from a man either faith, or the profession of faith, and there is no name found for that man in Christ's New Testament, Rev. 22:14; Heb. 3:1; Heb. 10:22, 23. None are owned either of God or man to be members of Christ, that are no way under the profession of Him as appears in Matt. 10:32, 33; I John 4:3.

There is now no profession of Christ according to the rule of His Word without Baptism, Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:16; Luke 7:30; Gal. 3:26, 27; Eph. 4:5.

Baptism is a Profession of the Saving Benefits of Christ's Mediatorship

By all which it appears not only in general, that the Scriptures of the New Testament stand now in force and are to be obeyed of all that do believe. But also in particular that the word of the New Testament which holds forth Baptism and requires the use of the same is still in force and to be obeyed; because the clear promise of the saving benefits of Christ's Mediatorship and the administrations of the New Testament, whereof He is Mediator, go together in the Word, Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16; Rom. 6:3, 4, 5; I Cor. 12:13; Col. 2:12; I Peter 3:21.

The Lord's Supper is of Perpetual Observance

Here let it be well minded how Christ encourages us to the perpetual observation of that rule in Matt. 28:19, 20, by this promise, And lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world. The Apostle signifies it to be our duty in the use of the Supper, to show the Lord's death till He comes, I Cor. 11:26. Is not then the word of the New Testament, concerning the use of the Ordinances of the New Testament, now in force? Let us take good heed that we do not diminish from the word of Christ, nor make void the same, Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:19; Psa. 119:126.

God's Ordinance
 
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