Moreover, when we are assaulted, and, as it were, wounded with Satan’s fiery darts, whereby great discouragements are thrown in our way, the guilt of sin magnified, as though it were unpardonable, and the stain and pollution thereof such, as can never be washed away: And when we are ready to conclude from hence, that our state is hopeless, and the comforts we once enjoyed, irrecoverably lost; this is, indeed, an afflictive case. Nevertheless, our baptism is to be improved by us, as considering that remission of sins was the blessing desired and hoped for, inasmuch as it was signified thereby; so that we are to be sensible that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin; and that, as we were given up to him, in hope of obtaining this privilege, and have been enabled since then, to give up ourselves to him by faith, and therein to improve our baptismal engagement; we therefore trust, that he will appear for us, rebuke the adversary, establish our comforts, and enable us to walk as those, who desire to recommend his grace to others, that they may be encouraged to adhere to him, by the comfortable sense which we have of his love shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost. 3. Our baptismal engagement is to be improved by us, before and after we are brought into a converted state. (1.) Unregenerate persons are to improve it, as it should afford them matter of deep humiliation, that though they have been devoted to God, and thereby were called by his name, and made partakers of the external blessings of his covenant; yet they have been alienated from the life of God, and strangers to the internal saving blessings thereof. There was a profession made, in baptism, that they stood in need of Christ’s mediation, to deliver them from the guilt of sin, and of being cleansed from the pollution thereof, which is of a spreading nature; but they have, notwithstanding, given way to it; and, how _pure_ soever they have been _in their own eyes, are not yet washed from their filthiness_, Prov. xxx. 12. Now such may take occasion from hence to plead earnestly with God for converting grace; which is the only means whereby they may know that he has accepted of their solemn dedication to him; or that they are not only born of water, but of the Spirit; and are made partakers of the thing signified in baptism, without which, the external sign will not afford any saving advantage. We may also plead with God, that as we are professedly his, he would assert his own right to us, overcome us to himself, and make us _willing in the day of his power_, Psal. cx. 3.