Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/234

24, and hereafter 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 says not, 'planted with Him in death,' but 'in the likeness of death.' For each was death, but not of the same object. Nor does 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 freed from sinning, abiding dead; so also he who ascendeth from Baptism; for since he has then once died, he ought to remain throughout dead to sin. If then thou hast died in Baptism, remain dead." And so again, "We who have died to sin, how shall we live any longer in it? What is this 'we have died?' is it, that as far as it is concerned, we have all thought right to renounce it? or, rather, that having believed and been enlightened, (received the true light,—been baptized,) we have become dead to it? which the context approves. But what is it to be dead to it? to obey it no longer. For this Baptism has done for us once, it deadened us to it; and for the rest, we must use our own earnest zeal to effect this constantly. So that, though it order us ten thousand times, 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 transfers the death to him. As the death of in the flesh is real, so is our's to sin real; but although it is real, we must for the future contribute our part. "What," saith St. Basil "belongeth to him who hath been born of water? That as 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  have been baptized into His death.'" And again —"The dispensation of our  and  in behalf of man, is a recalling from his state of fall, a return to a familiar intercourse with  from that state of alienation which took place through the disobedience. For this