'R5 "\'« Pi ,. :*iP*^*|r:'; ,ft,?^^.P^>' mm ^^'S-.'-r,: :^^^-a.^^* A - ' s ^ ,/^lii^^ mmmMsis.mnusASo ' PRINCETON, N. J. Presented by Mr. Samuel Agnew of Philadelphia. Pa. Agnezv Coll on Baptism, No, '^/.,Q...y5 Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2011 witii funding from Princeton Tiieoiogicai Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/scripturalviews1843puse SCRIPTUEAL VIEWS OP HOLY BAPTISM, AS ESTABLISHED BY THE CONSENT OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH, AND CONTRASTED WITH THE SYSTEM OF THE MODERN SCHOOLS, BY REV. E: B/ PUSEY, D. D., Regius Professor of the Hebrew Canon of Christ Church and late fellow of Oriel College . " What sparkles in that lucid flood Is water, by gross mortals ey'd: But seen by Faith, 'tis Blood Out of a dear Friend's side. Christian Year. — Holy Baptism. NEW-YORK : J. S. REDFIELD, Clinton Hall: BURGESS & STRINGER, 222 Broadway. '' 1843. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. On the Principles necessary for the attainment of Scriptural Truth, and some of the obstacles which of late have prevented men from receiving that of baptismal regeneration. p. 7 20. Man no judge beforehand of the etfect of divine truth — danger of speak- ing of essential and unessential truths in the Gospel, p. 7 — 11. Individual holiness no test of religious truth — holding the truth in unrighteousness — blessing of being placed in Christ's Church — use of private judgment im- aginary — ministry not infallible because blessed — p. 11 — 15. — Greatness of Baptismal regeneration if held positively — who serves earliest serves best — p. 15 — 18. All restorations at first partial — recovery hitherto par- tial — Scripture evidence is for those who believe — object of the present work, p. 18—20. CHAPTER n. On THE MEANING OF BAPTISMAL REGENERATION, AND THE PASSAGES OF HoLV Scripture which speak of, or imply the greatness of Baptism, p. 21 — 315. Meaning of Regeneration, p. 21 — 25. Preliminary observations, p. 25 — 28. Position of John iii. 5. as a key to other Scripture, compared with other passages and with primitive interpretation, p. 29 — 76. (I.) Passages in which Holy Scripture speaks of God, moderns see only duties of man, p. 76 — 109. (n.) Passages in which moderns have appropriated to themselves the privileges of Holy Baptism, without thought of the means through which they are conveyed, p. 109 — 151. (H.) Passages implying the high dignity, essential office and large place of Baptism in the Divine scheme of Redemption, 151, sqq. (iii. 1.) Incidental mention of Baptism, p. 152 — 170. (iii. 2.) Indications of the importance of Baptism, arising from the mode in which Holy Scripture speaks of it, when conferred on individuals. The Ethiopian Eunuch — Lydia — The Jailor — St. Paul— Cornelius — Simon Magus — John's Bap- tism, p. 170 — 216. (iii. 3.) Indications of the dignity of Baptism arising from circumstances connected with our Blessed Saviour's Person, and from prophetic declarations and types of it recognized by Scripture, by the Ancient Church, or as derived from it by our own, p. 216 — 309. AddkndAj p. 311 — 315. V, TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. *^>, ' ' J No. 67. {Ad Clerum.) SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLY BAPTISM, AS ESTABLISHED BY THE CONSENT OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH, AND CONTRASTED WITH THE SYSTEMS OP MODERN SCHOOLS. What sparkles in that lucid flood Is water, by gross mortals ey'd : But seen by Faith, 'tis Blood Out of a dear Friend's side. Christian Year. Holy Baptism. PART I. CHAPTER I. ON THE 1>RINCIPLES NECESSARY FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF SCRIP- TURAL TRUTH, AND SOME OBSTACLES WHICH OF LATE HAVE PRE- VENTED MEN FROM RECEIVING THAT OF BAPTISMAL REGENERA- TION. Every pious and well instructed member of our Church will in the abstract acknowledge, that in examining whether any doctrine be a portion of revealed truth, the one subject of inquiry must be, wheth- er it be contained in Holy Scripture ; and that in this investigation, while, in proportion to the fulness of the evidence, he defers to the interpretations handed down to us through the early Church, so also must he lay aside all reference to the supposed influence of such doctrine, the supposed religious character of those who held it at any given time, and the like. Any right-minded person, I say, will readily acknowledge this in the abstract ; for to judge of doctrines by their supposed influence upon men's hearts, would imply that we know much more of our own nature, and what is necessary or conducive to its restoration, than we 8 do : it would be like setting about to heal ourselves, instead of re- ceiving w^ith implicit faith and confidence w^hatever the Great Physi- cian of our souls has provided for us. The real state of the case is indeed just the contrary of w^hat this habit would inrply. We can, in truth, know little or nothing of the efficacy of any doctrine but what we have ourselves believed and experienced. Even in matters of our own experience we may easily deceive ourselves, and ascribe our spiritual progress exclusively to the reception of the one or the other truth, whereas it has depended upon a number of combining causes which God has ordered for our good, upon a great variety of means, by which God has been drawing us to Himself, whereof we have seized upon one or two of the principal only. In other cases we may be altogether mistaken. Thus, to take a published instance; a person now living has said of himself that " he read himself into un- behef, and afterwards read himself back into belief." As if mere diligent study could restore any one who had fallen from the faith ! Whereas, without considering what circumstances, beside the read- ing of infidel books, led him to infidelity, or what commencing un- soundness led him to follow up the reading of infidel books, on which he. was not competent to judge ; — the very fact of reading at one time infidel, at another Christian, writings, implies that the frame of mind was different at each time ; so that by his own account, other causes must have combined both to his fall, and his restoration. Again, he himself incidentally shows that, though a sceptic, he still continued to exercise considerable self-denial, for the welfare of others : so that among the instruments of his restored faith, may have been one which he omitted, that his benevolence, like that of Cornelius, and the prayers of those, whom he benefitted, went up as a memorial before God.* But if we can be mistaken, even as to the influence of what we have tried, much more assuredly must we, in spiritual matters, be in ignorance of what we have not tried. We may have some intimation with regard to such questions, whether of doctrine or of practice, from the experience of good men ; but so far from being judges about them, it will often happen that precisely what we are most inchned to disparage, will be that which is most needful for us. For, since all religious truth or practice is a correc- tive or purifier of our natural tendencies, we shall generally be in ig- norance beforehand, what will so correct or purify them. Our own palate is disordered, our own eye dimmed : until God then has re- stored, by His means, our spiritual taste, or our spiritual vision, we should select for ourselves very blindly or undistinguishingly. In matter of fact, the Christian creed has been repeatedly pared down, * Knox's Correspondence, t. ii. p. 586, 7. " It has often struck me that probably this good man was rewaided for his fraternal piety by his providen- tial conversion to Christianity." as every one knows, in consequence of men's expunging beforehand, what they thought prejudicial to the effect of the other portions of Scripture truth. Thus, early Heretics objected to the truth of the human nature of Christ : against the Reformers it was urged that the doctrine of "justification by faith only" was opposed to sanctifi- cation and holiness : Luther, (although he afterwards repented,) ex- cepted against God's teaching by St. James, and called his Epistle an "Epistle of straw ;" fanatics of all ages have rejected the use of both Sacraments : stated or premeditated prayer has been regarded as mere formality, and the like. And in these or similar cases, when at a distance, we can readily see how some wrong tendency of mind suggested all these objections, and how the very truth or practice objected to, would have furnished the antidote which the case needed. We can see e. g. how stated or fixed prayer would have disciplined the mind, how a form would have tended to make the subjects of prayer more complete : for we ourselves have felt, hov/, by the prayers which the Church has put into our mouths, we have been taught to pray for blessings, our need of which we might not have perceived, or which we might have thought it presumption to pray for. And this is a sort of witness placed in our hands, to tes- tify to us, how in other cases also we ought with thankful deference to endeavor to incorporate into the frame of our own minds each por- tion of the system which God has ordained for us, not daring to call any thing of little moment, which He has allowed to enter into it ; much less presuming to "call that common, which God hath cleansed," or to imagine that, because we cannot see its effects or should think it likely to be injurious, it may not be both healthful and essential. The doctrine, then, of Baptismal Regeneration (rightly understood) may have a very important station in God's schenae of salvation, although many of us may not understand its relation to the rest of that dispensation, and those who do not believe it, cannot understand it. For thus is the method of God's teaching throughout; "first, be- lieve and then ye shall understand."* And this may be said, in Christ- ian warning, against those hard words, in which Christians sometimes allow themselves ; as, " the deadening doctrine of Baptismal Re- generation ;" language which can only serve to darken the truth to those who use it, and which is by so much the more dangerous, since all Christians believe that Regeneration sometimes accompanies Baptism. Since, also Baptismal Regeneration was the doctrine of * "We are not therefore ashamed of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, because miscreants in scorn have upbraided us, that the highest point of our wisdom is, Believe. That which is true, and neither can be discerned by sense nor concluded by mere natural principles, must have principles of re- vealed truth whereupon to build itself, and an habit of Faith in us, where- with principles of that kind are apprehended." — Hooker, L. v. ^ 63. 10 the Universal Church of Christ in its hohest ages, and our own re- formers (to whom, on other points, men are wont to appeal as having been highly gifted with God's Holy Spirit) retained this doctrine, it would seem to require but little modesty in a private Christian, not to feel so confident in his own judgment, as to denounce, in terms so unmeasured, what may after all be the teaching of God ; " lest haply he be found to fight against God." Others again, holding rightly the necessity of Regeneration for every one descended of Adam, would strongly set forth this neces- sity ; but whether God have ordinarily annexed this gift to Baptism, this they would have passed over as a dilficult or curious question. They bid men to examine themselves whether they have the fruits of regeneration ; if not, to pray that they be regenerate. " This abso- lute necessity of regeneration," they say, "is the cardinal point ; this is what we practically want for rousing men to the sense of their danger, and for the saving of their souls : what privileges may have been bestowed upon them in Baptism, or, in a happier state of the Christian Chrich, might not only be then universally bestowed, but be realized in life, is of lesser moment : regeneration, and the necessity thereof, is the kernel ; these and other questions about outward ordinances, are but the husk only : regeneration and 'jus- tification by faith only' are the key-stones of the whole fabric." I would, by the way, protest against such illustrations, whereby men, too commonly, embolden themselves to call any portion of God's in- stitution for our salvation, " husk," or " shell," or the like : let it seem to us never so external, it can in no stage of the Christian course be dispensed with, which these similitudes would imply. Rather, if we use any image, we might better speak of the whole Gospel as an elixir of immortality, whereof some ingredients may be more powerful than the rest, but the efficacy of the whole depends upon the attemperament of the several portions ; and we, who formed neither our own souls, nor this cure for them, dare not speak slight- ingly of the necessity of any portion. Doubtless there are truths, which in one sense (comparatively speaking) may be called the great truths of Christianity, as embodying in them a larger portion of the counsel of God, and exhibiting more fully His attributes of holiness and love. Better perhaps, and more Scripturally might we speak of the truth, — the Gospel itself ; yet there is no evil in that other ex- pression, if intended solely as the language of thankfulness for the great instances of His mercy therein conveyed. If used, on the other hand, — I will not say disparagingly, but — as in any way conveying an impression that other doctrines are not in their place essential, or that we can assign to each truth its class or place in the Divine eco- nomy, or weigh its value, or measure its importance, then are we again forgetting our own relation to God, and from the corner of His world in which we are placed, would fain judge of the order and cor- 11 respondencies and harmonies of things, which can only be seen or judged of, from the centre, which is God Himself. We cannot, without great danger, speak of lesser, or less essential, truths, and doctrines, and ordinances, both because the passage from " less es- sential," to " unessential," is unhappily but too easy, and because al- though these truths may appear to relate to subjects further removed from what we think the centre of Christianity, the mode in which we hold them, or our neglect of them, maT/ very vitally affect those which we consider more primary truths. We can readily see this in cases in which we are not immediately involved. Thus we can see how a person's whole views of Sanctification by the Holy Ghost will be affected by Hoadly's low notions of the Lord's Supper ; or how the error of Transubstantiation has modified other true doctrines so as to cast into the shade the one oblation once offered upon the Cross ; or how the addition of the single practice of " soliciting the Saints to pray for men," has in the Romish Church obscured the primary articles of Justification and of the Intercession of our Blessed Lord ; and yet Transubstantiation was at first connected with high reveren- tial feeling for our Lord, and no one could have anticipated before- hand, that this one error would have had effects so tremendous. If then wrong notions about the one Sacrament, among both Romanists and Pseudo-Protestants, have had an influence so extensive, why should we think error with regard to the other, of slight moment ? Rather, should we not more safely argue, that since Baptism is a Sacrament ordained by Christ Himself, a low, or inadequate, or un- worthy conception of His institution, must, of necessity, almost, be very injurious to the whole of our belief and practice ? Does not our very reverence to our Saviour require that we should think any thing, which He deigned to institute, of very primary moment, — not (as some seem now to think) simply to be obeyed or complied with, but to be embraced with a glad and thankful recognition of its importance, because He instituted it ? The other point, which was mentioned as important to be borne in mind, in the enquiry whether any doctrine be a Scriptural truth, was that we should not allow ourselves to be influenced by the supposed religious character of those whom we happen to know of, as holding it, on the contrary. This we should again see to be a very delusive criterion, in a case where we have no temptation to apply it : we should at once admit that Pascal and Nicole were holy men, nay, that whole bodies of men in the Church of Rome had arrived at a height of holiness, and devotion, and self-denial, and love of God, which in this our day is rarely to be seen in our Apostolic Church : yet we should not for a moment doubt that our Church is the pure "Church, although her sons seem of late but rarely to have grown up to that degree of Christian maturity, which might have been hoped from the nurture of such a mother: we should not think the com pa- 12 rative holiness of these men of God any test as to the truth of any one characteristic doctrine of the Church of Rome. We should rightly see that the holiness of these men was not owing to the dis- tinctive doctrines of their Church ; but that God had ripened the seed of life which he had sown in their hearts, notwithstanding the corrupt mixture with which our Enemy had hoped to choke it : we should rightly attribute the apparent comparative failure among ourselves in these times, not to our not possessing the truth, but to our slothful use of the abundant treasures which God has bestowed upon us. They hold the great Catholic truths of our Creeds, and much of the self-discipline (as fasting), or means of grace (as more frequent prayer), which modern habits have relinquished ; and these have brought their fruit : yet we should not infer that all w^hich they held was true, because they were holy. Holiness, (whether pro- duced in the teacher or the taught) proves the presence of some truth, not of the whole truth, nor the purity of that truth. And so also, with regard to any doctrine in which persons either within or without our Church may depart from her ; no one can say with confi- dence, that the superior holiness of any who do not accept it, is attributable to their not accepting it. Since it may be only that by their rejection of this one truth, they have not forfeited the blessing of God upon the other truths, which they yet hold : while others who do hold it, may be holding it in name only, and may never have ex- amined the treasure committed to them, or stirred up the gift that is in them. It may be (to speak plainly) that many who deny or doubt about Baptismal Regeneration, have been made holy and good men, and yet have sustained a loss in not holding this truth : and again, that others may nominally have held it, and yet never have thought of the greatness or significance of what they professed to hold. If, again, right practice were a test of doctrine, then could there be no such thing as * holding'* the truth in unrighteousness, for which how- * Or " hold down the truth," Rom. i. 18, but Karix^ is used without empha* sisj Luke xiv. 9. for " take," " hold ;" and 2 Thess. ii. 6. it signifies '' hinder;*' Luke iv. 42. " detain," not " keep dov;n." The doubt was not alluded to (Ed. i.,) because it does not in the least affect the argument. In either case the truth is in the persons, whether they keep it for a time, and then at last lose it, or forcibly keep it down, and repress it from rising up, and being present to theii' minds and influencing them. And so St. Paul, verse 19, directly asserts that " that which might be known of God was manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them ;" and this is explained, verse 20, to be, " His invisible power and Godhead ;" and, verse 21, he says, " they knew God." Their condemnation was not that they knew not God» for then, in comparison, " they had had no sin," (John ix. 41.,) but that they knew Him and yet acted against their know- ledge by " changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man," and so at last God gave them up unto an undis- tinguishing (A&oKi^oi) mind ; so that, at last, they lost the knowledge also. And so it is with individuals ; men act at first against the light and truth in them, and afterwards, and at length only, is the light withdrawn. See St. August. Tract, 2. in Joann. § 4. 13 ever ihe Apostle pronounces the condemnation of the heathen. Fur- ther, if the comparison were any test at all, it must manifestly be made not at one period only, but throughout the time that such doc- trine has been held by the Church ; one must compare, not the men of our own day only, but those of all former times. Confessors, Saints,, and Martyrs, which were impossible ! This is not said, as if we were competent judges even as to our own times, or as if any could be, but God alone, who searcheth the hearts ; for if the number of those who being earnest-minded and zealous men, do not hold Baptismal Regeneration, were increased an hundred fold, or if those who im- agining that they hold Baptismal Regeneration, do in fact use it as a screen to hide from themselves the necessity of the complete actual change of mind and disposition necessary to them, were many more than they are, — still, who can tell to how many thousands, or tens of thousands, this same doctrine has been the blessed means of a con- tinued child-like growth in grace, who have been silently growing up, supported by the inestimable privilege of having been made God's children, before they themselves knew good or evil ; who have on the whole been uniformly, kept within Christ's fold, and are now " heartily thanking their heavenly Father for having called them" thus early to this state of salvation, into which, had it been left to their frail choice, they had never entered • who rejoice with " joy unspeakable and full of glory, '^ that they were placed in the Ark of Christ's Church, and not first called, of themselves to take refuge in it out of the ruins of a lost world.* Most of this, people will in the abstract readily acknowledge ; even if they are not conscious of the full value of the Church, as an Interpreter of Holy Scriptures, still they will confess that Scripture is the only ultimate authority in matters of Faith, and that in search- ing it they ought not to be biassed by any questions of expediency, or grounds distinct from the obvious meaning of the Inspired word : and yet they will probably find on examination that some of these irrelevant grounds have occasioned them to bold Baptismal Regene- ration to be an un scriptural doctrine. If they examined Scripture at all, yet still the supposed effects of this, and of a contrary doctrine^ the supposed character of those who hold it, or the reverse, were in * " They with whom we contend are no enemies to the Baptism of infants ; it is not their desire that the Church should hazard so many souls by letting them run on till they come to ripeness of understanding, that so they may be converted and then baptized, as Infidels heretofore have been ; they bear not towards God so unthankful minds as not to acknowledge it even among the greatest of His endless mercies, that by making us His own possession so soon many advantages which Satan otherwise might take are prevented, and (which should be esteemed a part of no small happiness) the first thing whereof we have occasion to take notice is, how much hath been done already to our good, though altogether without our knowledge." — Hooker, b. v. { 64. p. 287. 14 fact ih^eir rule for interpreting Scripture ; or perhaps wearied with the controversy (which is and must be in itself an evil) they came to the conclusion that, if we but hold the necessity of Regeneration, it matters not when we suppose it to take place ; thus assuming, in fact, the unscripturalness of the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, since if God has connected Regeneration witii Baptism, it must be of importance. This is very natural ; for men must lean upon something. Our Reformers, in their interpretation of Scripture, besides the divine means of prayer, leant on the consent and agreement of the " old holy Cathohc Doctors," who had received their doctrine immediately, or but at a little interval, from the Apostles, when every link almost in the chain was a saint and martyr. The agreement of the Church was to them the evidence of God's speaking in the Church. But now that men have forgotten these maxims, and the blessed dead who re- sisted unto blood Heathen malice, and established and fixed for us the Creeds wherein we find rest, and look upon deference to the Church almost as a relic of Papal errors, man, since he is not made to be independent, leans upon his fellows ; and the supposed spiritual character of individuals is made the test of truth. Man cannot es- cape from authority : the question only, in religious truth, as in civil society or in private life, is, whose authority he will follow. This jaaode of judging is indeed a tacit recognition of external au- thority; those who adopt it have virtually renounced the narrow and cold notion of individual judgment, and taken refuge from it in that of a body of Christians ; they adopt and imitate the principles of our Church, which refers us to the agreement of Catholic antiquity, only that unhappily they take as a test moderns instead of ancients ; those who arose after the waters had been polluted, instead of those who lived near the source ; a section of the Church, instead of the Church itself. They are thereby necessarily much narrowed in their choice, substituting a sort of Ultra-Protestant Popery of one or more individ- uals, for the Catholic unity of all times and Churches. The several controversies with individuals, again have led to some false maxims as to the tests of truth : for, instead of setting forth against these despisers, the power of the Gospel of Christ as a whole — that it is " the power of God unto salvation to every one that be- lieveth," that ** the truth," i.e. the whole Gospel, "will set free" those who receive it, men have dwelt too much upon its natural ten- dency, as they deem it, to produce such or such effects, upon the efficacy of particular doctrines, or its contrast in such or such points with other religions; thereby fostering the conviction that we are much more judges in these matters than we are. These men, how- ever, were contented with contrasting Christianity, or parts thereof, with that which was out of the pale of the Gospel ; and for this hap- pily, a more general and superficial view and statement of doctrine 15 sufficed : others have arisen, who have apphed this same test within the compass of Christianity, contrasted the supposed efficacy of one doctrine with another ; and thus we have made ourselves judges in matters yet more beyond our grasp. Undoubtedly faithful and sound preaching is likely, by God's blessing, to produce a harvest : the holy and earnest life of a religious pastor is a yet more powerful ser- mon ; his performance of his weekly duties, his greater Avatchful- ness over the right dispensation of the Saciaments, his more earnest prayers are also means of promoting God's kingdom. Obviously, then, the blessed effects of a v/hole ministry cannot be made a test of the truth of each doctrine preached ; and yet more obviously per- haps on this ground, that there is not complete agreement in the doc- trines, the preaching of which is attended with these apparent effects : add also, that even in this way, one must judge not by the preaching of those, who being already full of fervor preached these doctrines, but by that of their disciples ;* for it may be that that influence was owing to the fervor of the individuals, not to the entire truth of their system. For since we do not think that incidental error will mar the benefit of a whole ministry, or that fallible man, though richly endowed by God's Spirit, is yet rendered infallible, we cannot infer that because his teaching is blessed, therefore every portion of it must be sound. Rather one might infer from the fact that the same doctrines when preached by a less gifted follower, have not the same efficacy, that the former efficacy was not to be referred to the truth of each doctrine, which was preached, but to the Spirit of God, with which each faithful minister is endowed. Had the effect been the result of the whole doctrine, and of that only, the effects had been more uniform. Lastly, we must look not to immediate only but to lasting effects, not only to the foundation but to the super- structure. This arguing from the supposed effects of a system, as it is at this day the plea for every irregularity, so is it most used by a body where the good effects are the least lasting, and subsequently are fearfully neutralized ; and it is in great part owing to the absence of this doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, that while a foundation is so often laid, the edifice of Christian piety among us still bears such low and meagre proportions, and still further, that there is not more of early Christianity among us. As of course, if it is a Scrip- tural truth, the neglect of preaching it must be a loss as well as a neghgence. These observations! are not made under any idea that they who * Thus the early Pietists in Germany, whose system and practice much re- sembled that of the body here alluded to, had, from their personal character, a great, and for the time a blessed influence ; but they shook the Lutheran body, and prepared the way for its downfall : their successors with the same system had no weight. f The following remarks are made reluctantly now, (Ed. ii.) because, in a controversal writing, what had been said above has been construed into an ad- 16 oppose the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration are more zealous and earnest than they who preach it -^ quite the contrary ; they who be- lieve and realize the height of the gift of God in Baptism must, in the belief of the great things which God has done for them and His whole Church, have a source of solemn responsibility and deep awe, and humble amazement of God's graciousness, peculiar to them- selves : and in proportion as they are penetrated with it, their preach- ing must be also raised. One may appeal safely on this point to the solid, subdued, but sublime eloquence of the early Church, or to those of our own who in older times most realized their Baptismal gifts. Baptismal Regeneration, as connected with the Incarnation of our Blessed Lord, gives a depth to our Christian existence, an actu- alness to our union with Christ, a reality to our sonship to God, an int rest in the presence of our Lord's glorified Body at God's right hand, a joyousness amid the subduing of the flesh, an overwhelming- ness to the dignity conferred on human nature, a solemnity to the communion of saints, who are the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, a substantiality to the indwelling of Christ, that to those who re- tain this truth, the school which abandoned it must needs appear to have sold its birthright. But it is one thing to hold Baptismal Re- generation, and another to hold merely that there is no regeneration subsequent to Baptism. A mere negative view must always be a cold one. Any careless person may hold Baptismal Regeneration negatively ; they only can hold it positively and in its depth, who have endeavored to realize it. Yet as well might we urge the case of the Antinomian, i. e. of him who holds justification by faith nega- tively, in opposition to the necessity of good works, against that holy doctrine, as the case of him who should in like way abuse the doc- trine of Baptismal Regeneration, to lower the greatness of subsequent holiness. Both may be abused to men's own destruction ; both may be blasphemed in consequence of their being held in name only ; both may be held imperfectly, and inadequately; nay, both in this life must be so held ; yet one would not select those who hold either, and therewith other truths, most imperfectly, as the specimens of the ef- fects of the doctrine in itself. Let those who would remonstrate against any such injustice, in the case which they make their own, beware how they be themselves guilty of the like injustice. But, again, it might very well be, that a body of men, having much zeal for religion, and very active in promoting it, might yet for a time be in error upon some one or more points ; nay, in circumstances such as the present are represented to be, it is probable that it would be so. It is professed that they who now oppose Baptismal Regeneration, arrived at their present views by a sort of reaction ; the Church, it mission of the superiority of those who oppose the doctrine of Baptismal Re- generation. The author wished, while he might, to avoid everything directly bearing on modem controversy. IT is represented, was in a state of lethargy and coldness, preaching moral discourses, and forgetful of her office as teacher of the truth, when certain individuals were aroused, and preached faithfully the leading truths of the Gospel, of which our generation is reaping the fruits. In like manner individuals who oppose the same doctrine, are wont to refer to the time when they suppose they held it, as a period of rehgious apathy, during which they lulled their consciences with the notion that, having by Baptism been made children of God, they had nothing further to do.* In either case (whether of individ- uals or bodies,) it is probable that they would arrive at a portion only of the truth. It is not in these sudden reactions that God generally imparts a consistent enlarged view of truth. To such he gives what is most needful for them, and they are often energetic preachers of conversion; but the deeper, calmer, insight into truth, He usually reserves for those (whether bodies or individuals) whom he has gently led, and who have on the whole equably followed his leading. Un- •der the elder dispensation, 5c/zoo/5of the prophets were formed, so soon as God purposed to raise up a succession of teachers for His Church ; from very youth were they to be trained to the service of the Lord, 'Samuel himself, who was appointed to form them, was before his birth consecrated to the Lord, and formed ia His temple : the forerun ner of the Lord was sanctified from his mother's womb ; and of the Apostles whom He chose, the saintly disciple whom He loved, who Joved most early, steadily, boldly, alone by the Cross, was chosen further that he should ., " Armed in his station wait, Till his Lord be at the gate i" forming and carrying on the Church when the rest were removed, and (through his disciple St. Polycarp) the author of the earliest school of Christian doctors for the transmission of sound doctrine. So also in later times, they to whom, in her hour of need, the Church of Christ has been most indebted for the maintenance of purity of life and doctrine, St. Basil,t St. Gregory of Nazianzum, St, Alhana- * Hence such persons persist in calling the doctrine of Baptisnjal Regene- ration " deadening," and " soul-destroying," because they held it amiss, and so it became deadening to them ; e.g. " A Tract for the Times in Reply to the Oxford Tracts," p. 1. & 13, notes. t St. Basil, chiefly by his grandmother Macrina, a confessor of the Catholic Faith, and a disciple of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus ; St. Gregory of Nazian- zum, by the excellent Nonna, who, like Hannah, dedicated her son to God from the womb, and soon after his birth, placing the Gospel in his hand, de- voted him at the Altar to the service of the Lord, as was St. Ephraim also, the son of Confessors ; St. Athanasius, by very pious parents, and then by the saintly Alexander the Bishop ; St. Ambrose, by his sister Marcellina, who -devoted herself to celibacy, that she might the more " care for the things of the Lord ;" St. Chrisostom, by his mother Anthusa who lived a widow from her twentieth year, retiring from the world, wherewith she was connected, to lievote herself to educate her son. 1® sius the Great, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom^ St, Ephraini', werey by pious mothers, sisters, grandmothers, bishops, piously trained^ and grew up in that ripening piety ; or else, as St. Hilary and St, Cyprian, born heathens, faithfully followed God's earliest guidance to the truth. St. Augustine, on the other haad, — although his. wan- derings were before he received the seal of Baptism, and through subsequent steadfastness he became, as it were, a guardian angel to the Church, standing in the gap against Pelagianism, — yet propagat- ed or introduced error into the Church along with the good seed, was the author of a stern theory of predestination, and through his statements, a chief promoter of the behef in Purgatory. It is, then, even probable, on the very view of the case set forth by the adherents of this system, that men or parties, so circum- stanced, should in this sudden recovery have seized hold of certain prominent truths, applied them forcibly, but have forgotten others^ "which still are essential to their perfect use and truth. They have re-erected the temple of God, but it has no longer Aaron's rod that budded, nor the Manna, nor the Shechinah — the full truth of the in- dwelling of the Lord in His Church. It was so in the Swiss refor- mation, whose traditions of doctrine and exposition of Scripture, those of the school in question have engrafted upon the Church : and as in the early reformation, many of the German Reformers, together with the truths which they learned from St. Augustine, imbibed from him also a rigid predestinarian. theory,, and subsequently relaxed it, so now, together with the truths which Calvin, (the parent, as it were> of their reformation,) intended to advocate, men have unwittingly entertained also his deep disparagement of the Sacraments, whereby he corrupted the truths which he held. They received boih together ;. and because the doctrine of Baptismal regeneration must correct his^ view of "justification by faith," they think it opposed to the doctrine- in itself. Their views then are defective, in that,, arising (accordmg to their own statement,) in a cold period of the Church, they seized upon certain principal truths,* as the means of restoring the energy of the Church, or of rousing men from their lethargy ; but as men * It ought to be borne- in mind that Dr. Chalmers' testimony, so often alleged as decisive between two sorts of preaching, contrasts simply Christian preach- ing, as a whole, and Heathenism. For what Dr. C. speaks of is" pressing the xetormations of honor and truth and integrity, the virtues and proprieties of soaal life,'''' — " subordinate reformations." Why so might Cicero have preach- ed. A mode of preaching "^ wherein Christ was scarcely ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way as stripped Him of all the importance of His character and offices," has obviously nothing to do with any thing existing at the pre- sent day, nor with the belief that Christ imparts His gift of the new birth through Baptism. Bp. Sumner, in quoting this passage, (Apost. Preaching, c. v. end,) keeps the same contrast between Christianity and Heathenism, or Christianity as a republication of the religion of nature. This is seldom ob- served by those who quote them. awaking from n slumber in alarm, look not round with full self-pos- session, ihey let slip other truths. Without deciding as to the whole extent of their allegations, the eighteenth century was comparalively a stagnant period of the Church, — in England, owing to the violent revolution, whereby so many of her best members, the Non-junng Clergy, were ejected, and that at one time, the State set itself to cor- rupt and degrade her, and her writers looked for strength in foreign alliances ; — abroad through the developement of the principles of the ultra-reformation, and the influence of degraded England and corrupt- ed Fiance, But this very fact, while it accounts for the weight at- taching to any energetic, though partial, statement of truth, affords a presumption, that persons vehemently aroused at that period, and connectmg themselves with a defective reformation, would not see the whole ; their influence was blessed as far as they w^ere faithful, fell short, where their system was defective. A happier time, we trust, is dawning, when with the energy for conversion which now exists, shall be combined care for the young, «uch as the belief in God's gift through Baptism brings with it, and the holy calmness of a complete faith. It has seemed necessary to premise thus much, both because the habits of mind referred to, have an evil tendency, far beyond even this one important subject, and also because the difficulties raised against Baptismal regeneration seem to lie entirely in these collateral questions, not in the defect of Scripture evidence for its truth. Tiiey are made, however, more in the hope of removing difficulties from the minds of such as have not yet taken any decided line against the -doctrines «f the Church, than of convincing such as have : and to Uie former only will the evidence proposed be addressed. But let not ■others think, that because the evidence does not persuade them, this is owing to its want of validity : for Scripture evidence is through- out proposed to those who believe, not to those who believe not ; it will be enough for those who " conCinue in the things which they have learned, and have been assured of, knowing of whom they have learn- ed them ;" (2 Tim. iii. 14.) but there is no promise that any, be they nations, sects or individuals, who have failed to hold fast to them, should be enabled to see their truth. God has provided an institu- tion, the Church, to "holdfast," and to convey " the faithful word as they had been taught." (Tit. ii. 2.) He ordered that the immediate successors of the Apostles should " commit the things which they had heard of them to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. ii. 2.) Whoever, then, neglects this ordinance of God, and so seeks truth in any other way than God has directed it to be sought, has no ground to look to obtain it ; nay, it appears to be a penalty annexed to departure from this channel of truth, both in individuals and bodies, that they not only lose all insight into the Scripture evidence for that truth, but gradually decline further from it, and but seldom, and not without extraordinary effort, recover. The first misgivings, and restrictions, and Hmitations, are forgotten : ■what was originally an exception is made a rule and a principle : and departures, which were at first timidly ventured upon, and excused upon the necessity of the case, (as that of Calvin upon the episcopal ordination, or the license with regard to the authority and extent of the Canon of Scripture among several denominations of Christians,) are by their followers looked upon as matters of glory and of boast, and as distinctive marks of Protestantism. For, on the one hand, the dissatisfaction generated by a state of doubt leads us to prefer even wrong decision to suspense or misgiving ; we " force ourselves to do this" unbidden " sacrifice :" on the other, oui natural listless- ness and dislike of exertion tempts us to make an arbitrary selection of such portions of the vast compass of Divine Truth as is most con- genial to ourselves, (since to enter equally into all its parts costs much effort,) and this done, we acquire a positive distaste for such truth as we have not adopted into what is practically our religious creed : we dislike having our religious notions disturbed ; and since no truth can be without its influence upon the rest, the adoption of any forsaken truth involves not only the admission of a foreign and unaccustomed ingredient, but threatens to compel us to modify much at least of our actual system. My object, then, in the following pages is partly to help, by God's blessing, to relieve the minds of such persons as, being in the sacred ministry of the Church, or Candidates for the same, have difficulty in reconciling with their ideas of scripture truth what appears even to them to be the obvious meaning of our Baptismal and other* For- mularies, as to the privileges of Baptism ; partly (and that more especially) to afford persons a test of their own views of their Sav- iour's ordinance, by comparing them with the language and feelings of Scripture. And this, because a due sense of the blessings which He has bestowed upon us must tend to increase our love for Him ; as also, because I know not what ground of hope the Church has to look for a full blessing upon its ministry from its Head, so long as a main channel of His grace be, in comparison, lightly esteemed. * Persons often forget that Baptismal Regeneration is taught in the Cate- chism as well, as undoubtingly, and as warmly, as in the services of Baptism and Confirmation ; for when the child is taught to say that it was " in its Bap- tism made a member of Christ and a child of God," that " being by nature bom in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby (by the spiritual grace of Bap- tism) made the children of grace ;" what is this but to say that there were bom of God, i. e. regenerate 1 and every child is taught to " thank its Heavenly Father for having called it into this state of salvation through Jesus Christ our Saviour," and humbly to pray — not that it be brought into any other state, but •— " that it might continue in the same to its life's end." CHAPTER II. ON THE MEANING OF BAPTISMAL REGENERATION, AND THE PAS- SAGES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE WHICH SPEAK OF OR IMPLY THE GREATNESS OF BAPTISM. The passages of Holy Scripture, which refer to Baptism, may naturally be divided under two heads ; those which directly connect regeneration with it (John iii. 5. Tit. iii, 5.,) and those which speak of its privileges, in high indeed and glorious terms, but without the same precision and definiteness. Each class, in a different way, strengthens our faith ; the one telling us what our privilege is, the other raising or illustrating our notions of that privilege, by speaking of its accompaniments or results. Before entering upon the consideration of these passages, how- ever, some may wish to know the meaning here attached to the Scrip- ture words " regeneration," or " new birth,'! and " birth from above." This were easy for practical purposes, by way of description, so as to set before ourselves the greatness of the gift by Baptism bestowed on us ; but it is not so easy by way of a technical definition. This arises from the very nature of the subject ; for we can only accurately define that which we understand, not in its efifects only but its cause. Things divine, even by describing, we are apt to circumscribe ; much more, if we attempt strictly to define them : the depth of things divine cannot be contained within the shallowness of human words. The more carefully we express ourselves in the one way, the more escapes us in another. Thus, in the doctrine of justification by faith, a mind which should mainly fix itself on our being ** accounted right- eous," would by degrees lose sight of that other portion of it, the "having righteousness, actually imparted, the being made righteous ;" as on the other hand one* who recently attempted to recover this last portion of the truth, became so intent thereon, as to do away the vi- vidness of that former truth, that we are "judicially pronounced righteous or absolved for Christ's sake :" what Christ worketh in us cast a shade over what He did and suffered for us. So again, in many good persons, the desire to uphold (as they think) the doctrine of justification by faith, practically obliterates the truth, that our jus- tification is imputed to us, not through the feelings, but throvgh Baptism ; as on the other hand, there may be also a cold and exclu- sive recognition of the gift of God in Baptism, without any vivid per- ception tliat by abiding faith only can that gift be retained. In all * Knox's Kemains. 22 these cases, a portion of the truth has been taken for the whole, and has narrowed the whole. Neither again sufficeth it often, that the whole truth should be really involved in the definition given. Thus in the words "justification by feith,"all the Christian privileges and gifts are indeed included, since they are all a part of the faith, be- stowed on one who en:ibraces the mercies of God in Christ, and is through the Sacraments made a member of Him. It is justification by God's free grace in the Gospel, as opposed to every thing out of the Gospel ; yet when a person comes to look upon this as a defi- nition, not as exhibiting the truth vividly upon one side only, he an- nexes restraining senses to the words, and goes on to substitute or op- pose one portion of the truth — that most familiar to his own mind — to other portions, likewise contained in it. Thus "justification by faith" came to be opposed* in men's minds to Baptism, the means ordained by Christ Himself for the remission of sin or for justification. The like has happened with regard to Baptism. Hence also it may be in part that the early Church has not fixed the language on this subject beyond the statement of the Nicene Creed, (that there is " one Baptism for the remission of sins,") and her teachers have, as occasion suggested, dwelt at different times upon the one or other portion of its blessings, but left no fixed form of speaking thereon. They have described not defined the gifts of God in Baptism. Thus Baptism may obviously be looked upon either with reference to the past or the future ; as a passage/rom death, or to life ; as a deliverance from sin, or a renewal to holiness ; a death unto sin, or a new birth unto righteousness ; and men's minds might from circumstances be directed prominently to the one or other view. Again, they might look upon Baptism as it was a channel of these blessings, in that the person baptized becomes thereby "a member of Christ," (which one saying comprehends more than all which men's or angels' thoughts can conceive of blessedness ;) or they might look at the blessings of which it is the channel. Thus the Greek Fathers (who were harass- ed by no controversies connected with it) spoke principally of the blessedness whereof it makes us partakers. So St. Chrysostom :t " Blessed be God, who alone doeth wonders ; who made all things, and changeth all. Behold, they enjoy the calm of freedom who a lit- tle before were held captives, they are denizens of the Church who were wandering in error, and they have the lot of righteousness who were in the confusion of sin. For they are not only free but holy ; not holy only, but righteous ,- not righteous only,, but sons ; not sons * Papers from the " Record," p. 31, .33, &e- t Orat. ad Neophytes, ap. Augustin. c. Julian. 1. i. 5 2^1. It is plain, (as -St. Augustine remarks) that since St. Chrysostom speaks of children being free from sins, he means actual sins, since original sin must always be spoken of in the singular ; so the Pelagians, to make the passage serve their end, substituted the singular for the plural which St. Chrysostom used. S3 only, but heirs ; not heirs only, but brethren of Christ ; not brethren of Christ only, but co-heirs ; not only co-heirs, but members ; not members only, but a temple ; not a temple only, but instruments of the Spirit. See how many are the largesses of Baptism ; and where- as some think that the heavenly grace consists only in the remis sion of sins, lo, we have recounted ten glories thereof. Wherefore we baptize infants, although they have no sins, that holiness, right- eousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, may be added to them ; that they may become His members.". It appears from this that some already had begun to restrict themselves too ri- gidly to the words of the description given in the Creed of Constan- tinople. St. Augustine, on the other hand, living in the midst of the Pelagian heresy, was compelled to take prominently this very line, which St. Chrysostom regards as cold, when taken exclusively ; since the Pelagians denied all sin in infants, he was obliged very principally to insist upon Baptism as the remission of original sin. In like manner, our Church at first, in her Catechism, used the warm undefined language of tlie Eastern Churches, " wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the king- dom of heaven ;" and afterwards defined the benefits of Baptism more after the manner of St. Augustine, " a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness ; for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace." The two views, as above said, do in fact -coincide, and are only the same great truth looked upon on different sides ; for neither did St. Augustine regard the remission of •original or actual sin as taking place in any other way than through the union with Christ, nor doubted he that this union infused actual righteousness and holiness, the seed of immortality, and gifts in Christ far more than had been lost in Adam. On the other hand the Greek Churches, though chiefly dwelling upon the blessings acquired, yet acknowledged Baptism to be for the remission of original-, as well as actual sin. The difficulty of explaining Baptismal Regeneration is two-fold ; First, from its being a mystery; Secondly, from men being in these days inclined to lower that mystery. Thus one should prefer speak- ing of it with our Catechism, as that whereby w^e were made "mem- bers of Christ;" but then, when people explain "members of Christ" to be "members of Christ's Church," and that, to mean "members of His visible Church, or of the society of men called Christians," a description in itself the highest and most glorious, and the source of every other blessing, is made equivalent to " a mere outward ad- mission into a mere outward assemblage of men," In either case, however, man is the author of his own difficulties ; in the one, by lowering the fulness of Scripture truth ; in the other, by carnally inquiring into the mode of the Divine working. For a mystery pre- sents no difficulty to belief ; it becomes difficult only when we ask 24 about the mode of its being. Nicodemus asked, "How can these things be ?" and most of our questions about Baptismal Regeneration are Nicodemus-questions, We know it in its author, God ; in its instrument. Baptism ; in its end, salvation, union with Christ, son- ship to God, "resurrection from the dead, and the hfe of the Avorld to come." We only know it not, where it does not concern us to know it, in the mode of its operation. But this is just what man would know, and so he passes over all those glorious privileges, and stops at the threshold to ask how it can be ? He would fain know how an unconscious infant can be born of God ? how it can spirit- ually live ? wherein this spiritual life consists ? how Baptism can be the same to the infant and to the adult convert ? and if it be not in its visible, and immediate, and tangible effects, hotv it can be the same at all ? Yet Scripture makes no difference ; the gift is the same, al- though it vary in its application ; to the infant it is the remission of original guilt, to the adult of his actual sins also ; but to both by their being made members of Christ, and thereby partakers of His "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption;" by be- ing made branches of the True Vine, and so, as long as they abide in Him, receiving from Him, each according to their capacities^ and necessities, aM willingness, nourishment and life ; but if they abide not in Him, they are east forth like a branch, and withered.. We can then, after all, find no better exposition than that incidentally given in our Catechism, — "my Baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ;" and with this statement we may well be content, as it expresses roost our union with our Redeemer, the fountain of our gifts, and the ground of our hopes. One may then define Regen" eration to be, " that act whereby God takes us out of owr relation to Adam, and makes us actual members of His Son, and so His sons^ as being members of His Ever-blessed Son, and if sons, ihen heirs of God through Christ," — (Gal. iv. 7.) This is our new birth, an actual birth of God, of water, and the Spirit, as we were actually born of our natural parents ; herein then also are we justified, or both accounted and made righteous, since we are made members of Him; who is alone righteous ; freed from past sin, whether original or actual; hare a new principle of life imparted to us, since having been made members of Christ, we have a portion of His life, or of Hira who is our Life ; hereiu we have also the hope of the resurrection and of immortality, because we have been made partakers of His re- surrection, have risen again with Him. (Col. ii. 12.) The view, then, here held of Baptism, following the ancient Church and our own, is that we be engrafted into Christ, and there- by receive a principle of Hfe, afterwards to be developed and en- larged by the fuller influxes of His grace ; &o that neither is Bap- tism looked upon as an infusion of grace distinct from the incorpora- 25 tion into Christ, nor is that incorporation conceived of as separate from its attendant blessings. The following sentences of Hooker express, in that great master's way, the view here meant to be taken : — " This* is the necessity of Sacraments. That saving grace which Christ originally is, or hath for the general good of His whole Church, by Sacraments He sever- ally deriveth into every member thereof. Byt Baptism therefore we receive Christ Jesus, and from Him the saving grace which is proper unto Baptism. — Baptismt is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in His Church, to the end that they which receive the same might be incorporated into Christ, and so through His most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue of the Holy Ghost, which giveth to the powers of the soul the first dispo- sition towards future newness of life." Two more observations must be premised on the Scripture evi- dence itself: First, Whereas, confessedly, Regeneration is in Scrip- ture connected with Baptism, there is nothing in Scripture to sever it therefrom. The evidence all goes one way. This, in itself, is of great moment. For if God, in two places only, assigns the means of His operations, and then in other places were to mention those ope- rations apart from the means, we are not (as the manner of some is) to take these texts separately, as if they did not come from the same Giver, but to fill up what is not expressed in the one by what He teaches plainly in the other. Thus, when we have learnt that the " new birth," or " birth from above," is " of water and the Spirit," (John iii. 5.) then, where it is said, " who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," (John i. 13,) we should, with the ancient Church, recognise here also the gift of God in Baptism to " such as receive Him." But, Secondly, not only is there nothing in Scripture to sever Re- generation from Baptism, but Baptism is spoken of as the source of our spiritual birth, as no other cause is, save God : we are not said, namely, to be born again of faith, or love, or prayer, or any grace which God worketh in us, but to be born of^ water '* and the Spirit, in contrast to our birth of^ the flesh ; in like manner as we are said to be born of ^ God : and in order to express that this our new birth of God is, as being of God, a deathless birth, it is de- scribed as a birth of^ seed incorruptible, in contrast with our birth af- * Eccl. Pol. b. V. c. Ivii. { 5. ed. Keble. f lb. 5 6, X lb. c Ix. \ 2. 1 yevvridrj 'ES vSaroi Kai HvevjiaTos. John iii. 5. 2 TO ytycvvrtiiivov 'EK r^r aapxSs. ib. V. 6. 3 01 oiiK 'ES alfioLTbUi — dXX' 'EK Qeov iytvvri6r]iTav. \. 13. 4 ivaytyevvii^ivoi ovk 'EK* 6dapTov, * It has been a careless habit of interpretation which has here confounded words so distinct as it and iia, andth en proceeded to identify >>