Thus, some would have baptism to be regeneration itself, and that there is no other evangelical regeneration but that alone, with the profession which is made thereon.
Every one who is baptized is thereby regenerated. The sign and figure of grace, they would have to be the grace itself. Nothing can be invented more pernicious unto the souls of men; for all sorts of persons may be brought to a ruinous security about their spiritual condition by it, and diverted from endeavours after that real internal work, in the change of their hearts and natures, without which none shall see God. This is to put that into it which God never placed there. Some suppose it to be such a distinguishing, or rather separating ordinance, that the administration of it in such a way or at such a season, is the fundamental rule of all church fellowship and communion; whereas God never designed it unto any such end.

John Owen | An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Works of John Owen (Edinburg: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 22:39.

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Post authored by:

• Inwoo Lee

  

  Inwoo Lee (BA, UCSD) earned his MA (Historical Theology) in 2020 from Westminster Seminary California and is author of “Righteous Before God: William Perkins’ Doctrine of Justification in Elizabethan England” (MA Thesis, Westminster Seminary California, 2020). He lives in the Great Seoul area, in South Korea with his wife Holly.

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