{18} That Aristotle should teach that we are to become right-minded by acting rightly, is not to be wondered at. He knew nothing of the work of the Spirit of God, or of the love of Christ, or of the impossibility (see Acts x. and xii.) of our acting rightly without the grace of the Holy Spirit to give a right mind first. But that Oxford Divines should teach so is to be wonderfully “dark amidst the blaze of noon!” {19} To be grafted into the church is to be outwardly admitted into the enjoyment of church privileges and ordinances. _Rightly_ means, not as hypocrites, but with the repentance and faith of the regenerate. The wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, do receive the sacrament of so great a thing as regeneration to their condemnation. Not receiving baptism rightly, they have no true part in the privileges and ordinances of the church, which are thereby sealed to the faithful. {20} When the invitation is received, “Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord,” (Acts xxii. 16,)—our church has guided us at once to say, it is the _mystical_, that is, the _significant_, washing away of sins, that is then accomplished; _but_ so _signifying_ the _true_, that a lively recollective enjoyment of it is excited in the mind. When we are called to obtain the true remission of sins, it is thus,—“Repent,” (there is the spiritual operation,) “and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ,” (there is the outward sign) “for the remission of sins;” or, without any notice of the sign at all, “Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” But repentance, and faith, and conversion, are the fruits of regeneration. Baptism was no more intended to _impart_ the spiritual cleansing from sin, than was the offering of the blood of bullocks and goats; and yet the people are spoken of as purged by that blood, and remission of sins as received by it. It was only a mystical ceremony.—Circumcision was the same: the thing itself was mystical: And Baptism is its counterpart; and both of them are significant of the remission of sins, “the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh,” a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness in Christ Jesus, effected by the Holy Spirit of God implanting the seed of the Word of Christ in the soul and vivifying it; before even it is proper that baptism should be administered. {22a} 1 John v. 1. Whosoever believeth that JESUS is the CHRIST is born of GOD.