24 ress of Spirit baptism. And after, when Peter preached to Cornelius, and his family and friends, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, Acts x. And Peter gives this account to those of the circumcision at Jerusalem, Acts xi. 15. “And as I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell on them as on us at the beginning; then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit: so that Peter evidently declares, the gift of the Spirit by the ministry of the gospel, to be the baptism of Christ, or the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, which Christ promised at his ascension into heaven. And this is the only baptism wherein all the church of the New Testament are to partake with Christ: I say, not the baptism of water, but of the Spirit: he and we drinking into one Spirit, and the same Spirit descending on us as did on him. The pouring out of the Spirit on the flesh of Christ, was his New Testament baptism, and it is ours too; mid all our true and sound comfort and happiness lies in this, that we are baptized with the same Spirit that he was ; for it would be as little spiritual comfort to be dipped in the same water with Christ, as to eat with him at the same table or to drink with him in the same cup, or to go along with him in the same ship, as Judas did, and divers of the unbelieving Jews; but to drink with him into one Spirit, is to partake of one flesh with him, and to be one with Christ; and this is a comfort indeed, John vi. 56, 63, and xvii. 21. Now the outward instrument of Christ’s, or Spirit baptism, is not material water, but the word, as Christ shews, Mat. xxviii. where he saith, “ Teach and baptize;” shewing, that teaching the word is the outward means of baptizing with the Spirit. And again, John xv. 3. “ Now ye are clean through the word,” not which Moses but “ which I have spoken unto you,’ (and therefore is the gospel called the ministration of the Spirit, because it proceeds from the Spirit, and communicates the Spirit, and Christ baptizes with the Spirit, through the ministration of the Spirit, which is the preaching of the gospel) and Eph. v. 26. “ Christ gave
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