mystical
washing away of sin," etc.[7]

The figure is to him not that of an act, but of a process
extending throughout the entire earthly life of the one baptised.
Sin is not drowned at once, or its consequences escaped in a
moment. It is a graphic presentation in epitome of the entire
work of grace with this subject.[8] Life, therefore, in the
language of this treatise, is "a perpetual baptism." As the mark
of our Christian profession, as the sacramental oath of the
soldier of the cross, it is the solemn declaration of relentless
warfare against sin, and of life-long devotion to Christ our
Leader. As the true bride is responsive to no other love than
that of her husband, so one faithful to his baptism is dead to
all else. It is as though all else had been sunk beneath the sea.

In the distinction drawn between the sacramental sign and the
sacramental efficacy in paragraphs seven and eight, the
Protestant distinction between justification and sanctification
is involved. The one baptised, becomes in his baptism, wholly
dead to the condemning power of sin; but so far as the presence
of sin is concerned, the work of deliverance has just begun. This
is in glaring contrast with the scholastic doctrine that original
sin itself is entirely eradicated in baptism.[9] For baptism but
begins the constant struggle against sin that ends only with the
close of life. Hence the warning against making of baptism a
ground for presumption, and against relaxing the earnestness of
the struggle upon the assumption that one has been baptised. For
unless baptism be the beginning of a new life, it is without
meaning.

Nor is the error less fatal which resorts to satisfactions,
self-chosen or ecclesiastically appointed, for the forgiveness of
sin committed after baptism. For as every sin committed after
baptism is a falling away from baptism, all repentance is a
return to baptism. No forgiveness is to be found except upon the
terms of our baptism. Never changing is God's covenant. If broken
on our part, no new covenant is to be sought. We must return to
the faith of our childhood or be lost. The Mediaeval Church had
devised a sacrament of penance to supplement and repair the
alleged broken down and inoperative sacrament of baptism.
Baptism, so ran the teaching, blotted out the past and put one on
a plane to make a new beginning; but, then, when he fell, there
was this new sacrament, to which resort could be taken. It was
the "second plank