PRINCETON, N. J. '^' 
 
 '^ 
 
 Presented by Mr. Samuel Agnew of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 soe 
 
 A^neiv Coll. on Baptism, No. 
 

':>^^^U\^' 
 
 A NEW TREATISE 
 
 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter Into the kingdom of God. 
 
 St. John, ill. 5. 
 
 WILLIAM ^'ADAMS, D.D., 
 
 P)-ofessor of Systematic Divinity in Nashotah Tfieological Seminary, Wisconsin. 
 
 M, H. MALLORY AND COMPANY, HARTFORD, CONN. 
 1871. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
 
 WILLIAM ADAMS, D.D., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 H. H. MALLORY .t CO. 
 
 raiNTBRS AND ELECTROTYPEBS, 
 
 HARTFORD, CONN-, 
 
TO THB 
 
 RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 WILJLIAM MOIjJLIWBON WMITTIWGMAM, JD.D., 
 
 Bislnop of nVEaryland., 
 
 THIS BOOK, 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF A 8CKIPTTJRAL AND MOST PKECIOTJS DOCTRINE OF 
 
 THE ONE HOLT CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC 
 
 TO WHICH HE HAS SO CONSISTENTLY AND ITNSPARINGLT DKTOTED HIS WHOLE LIFE AND 
 
 THOUGHT, 
 
 BEGUN AT HIS INSTANCE, AND CARRIED ON TO COMPLETION 
 
 UNDER HIS ADVICE AND ENCOURAGEMENT, IS 
 
 5lffrrtinnnttlt| DrliirntBli: 
 
 BT 
 HIS LOVING FKIEND AND PUPIL, 
 
 THE A.UTHOB. 
 
\ 
 
 Hr- -- ^- 
 
 »<tC. APftlbbi % 
 
 JHSOLOGIOAL 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 The object of this book is to bring forth, distinctly, the 
 doctrine of Regeneration in its full meaning and significance. 
 For, owing to the fact that we of the Church are yet a 
 minority in this land, and our doctrine upon this matter has 
 been so misepresented and misunderstood as to cause disturb- 
 ance and confusion even among ourselves, systems that are 
 utterly hostile to us and our standards have got possession 
 of the public mind. And, therefore, we are loaded down and 
 overborne with prejudices and misconstructions. The very 
 name of Baptismal Regeneration is by this means made odious 
 and hateful. 
 
 This volume, therefore, is intended — especially for those 
 within the Church — fully to assert, to explain, to prove our 
 doctrine ; to show that it is the most Scriptural and the most 
 practical, the most lovely of all doctrines in its effects upon 
 the Christian life. 
 
 I would induce our own people to weigh and understand 
 our own doctrine ; to examine the evidence which our stand- 
 ards bear to it, and the testimony to their meaning and pur- 
 port of men of education and great ability, both within and 
 without the Church ; to consider its harmony and accordance 
 with all the doctrines of the faith, its Scriptural truth, and its 
 most efficient and telling infiuence as applied spiritually to 
 human life. For these purposes I have written this volume. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 And, whilst I know that our sj^stem is distinctly one, and 
 that of Calvin another, I would apprise my readers that my 
 business is not controversy, hut exposition, — not to assail the 
 opinion of others, but to explain and vindicate our own. My 
 effort in this treatise, in fact, is to draw forth into clear conscious- 
 ness the doctrines of the Church, not to attack those of others. 
 Only, therefore, incidentally do I mention the systems of those 
 who are not with us. And I have no doubt that they who 
 go along with me will find that in our standards, in the Script- 
 ures, in the opinions of the ablest and the best, the doctrine 
 that we are in our baptism new born unto God, is most genu- 
 ine and most true. 
 
 And, furthermore, I tell them that they will find in this doc- 
 trine, and in the principles that naturally and directly flow 
 from it, the fountain and the healing waters of a high spiritual 
 morality of which the world has not seen the like since the 
 days of Constantine. I say that in the doctrine of Baptismal 
 Regeneration are to be found — for parents and children, for 
 husbands and wives, for brothers and sisters, for mortal men and 
 women, in all the relations of the family, the nation, and the 
 Church — the roots and elements of a Christianity so true and 
 genuine, so lovely and tender, so pure and holy, that the world 
 has not seen the like for fourteen hundred years. With these 
 convictions fully and distinctly held, I ask from my readers 
 a patient and careful consideration of a doctrine which is evi- 
 dently on the face of the Book of Common Prayer, and which 
 makes these claims, and promises these results. 
 
 W. A. 
 
 Nashotah, October 4, 1871. 
 

 OOlNrTEE"TS. 
 
 PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. 
 
 The state of the question. — There are three separate and distinct sys- 
 tems upon the doctrine of Regeneration. — The Anglican, or Prim- 
 itive and Catholic, the Calvinist, and that founded upon the dogma 
 of Luther. — Wherein these agree. — Wherein they differ. — Calvin- 
 ism and Calvinists in England. — Their career. — All these systems 
 are here, in this New World, to be discussed on their own merits. 
 — Hopes, in this fact, for the Gospel in this New World. — The 
 Anglican system laid out. — The Calvinist system also. — Sacra- 
 ments and the Church. — The doctrine of Justification ; its relation 
 to that of Regeneration. — Prejudices against the doctrine of Re- 
 generation in Baptism. — Their effect upon us. — Plan of this treatise. 
 — The first book ; our Standards : the Creeds ; the Baptismal Ser- 
 vices ; the Catechism ; the Confirmation Service ; the Articles. — 
 The doctrine of Regeneration is shown, in their own words, to be 
 in them. — Second book : the practical truth and fact of the doctrine 
 of Regeneration in Baptism, and its harmony with the whole body 
 of Scripture doctrine and with the system of God's providence 
 and man's existence in this world. — The third book : the exegesis 
 of the doctrine and truth according to the words and tenor of 
 Holy Writ 
 
 BOOK FIRST.— OUR STANDARDS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Our Standard of Faith and Doctrine is the Book of Common Prayer, 
 and its contents. — The method of this treatise is to spread upon 
 our pages, before our readers' eyes, its very words. — Liturgic wor- 
 ship and extempore prayer compared in view of doctrinal distinct- 
 
Vm CONTENTS. 
 
 ness and definiteness. — Our prayers are, in fact, Articles of Faitli, to 
 priest and people, old and young. — Examples in the Litany. — The 
 Collects ; their origin and beautiful effect. — The effect of Liturgic 
 Services in producing uniformity of doctrine, when they are in the 
 tongue of the people. — In the Prayer Book our Standards are : 1st, 
 the Creeds, Nicene and Apostolic ; 2nd, the Church Services — 
 doctrinal influences of these — their weight and power ; 3rd, the 
 Church Catechism — Its peculiar doctrinal position and influence ; 
 4th, the Articles. — The Prayer Book our fourfold cord. — The doc- 
 trine of Eegeneration in Baptism is the doctrine of this book in all 
 its parts. — We place the evidence of this fact before our readers' 
 eyes. — We also give the testimony of men of great character and 
 ability, eloquence and learning. — The evidence of Henry Melvill ; 
 of John Foster; of W. Gresley; of Albert Barnes; of the well- 
 known Mr. Spurgeon of London. — All these testify that Baptismal 
 Regeneration is the doctrine of the Prayer Book and the Church. . 31 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Nicene Creed : its testimony to our doctrine. — The Scriptures assert 
 the same verbatim. — The Baptismal Offices. — Their solemn and 
 public nature, and the meaning and effect of this fact. — Three 
 Ofiices of Baptism in the Book of Common Prayer : Public Baptism 
 of Infants in the church ; Private Baptism of Infants in houses ; 
 and the Office of Baptism for those of riper years. — The declarations 
 of these Services spread upon our pages, and commented upon. — 
 Evidence, at length, as to the meaning and purport of these 
 Offices, of the English Evangelicals, Mr. Simeon and Archbishop 
 Sumner, also of the celebrated Mr. John Wesley. — Our system. — 
 The value of consistency in our clergy. — Baptism a reality. — Why 
 men deny this. — The reason is in themselves : their own personal 
 want of faith in various doctrines connected with Baptism, or else 
 the prejudice with which they approach the doctrine. — We should 
 be consistent. — Value of a true faith, and a true life upon it 50 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Catechism : its testimony. — Calvinists of this day on Sacraments. 
 — Calvin on the same. — Whitefield's virulence against our doctrine. 
 — Bishop Beveridge's testimony to its Scriptural truth and beauty, 
 from his Commentary on the Catechism. — His Sermons. — Jeremy 
 Taylor. — Hooker. — His character and genius. — His testimony. — Dr. 
 Barrow, the Master of Trinity. — His genius and learning. — His 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 evidence to the doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism. — Bishop Ken. 
 — His evidence from his " Practice of Divine Love." — His Poem on 
 his Baptism. — Tlie whole Catechism is based upon the doctrine of 
 Regeneration in Baptism. — The dislike of Calvinists to the Cate- 
 chism. — The Confirmation Service. — Our doctrine is in it most 
 plainly. — Evidence, to this eifect, of the Puritan Divines and the 
 English Bishops at the Savoy Conference. — Calling all the baptized 
 regenerate, absolutely sinful according to these Puritans. — Arch- 
 bishop Lawrence and Bishop Bethell. — Archbishop Cranmer, the 
 martyr of the English Reformation. — The Bishop of Tasmania. . . 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Articles. — The same doctrine in them. — Some disadvantages under 
 which they labor. — The Declaration. — The Latin version. — The 
 twenty-seventh Article. — Bishop Beveridge's comment upon it. — Tes- 
 timony, in this comment, of the Primitive Church to our doctrine. — 
 St. John Chrysostom. — St. Athanasius. — St. Basil. — St. Justin Mar- 
 tyr. — Remarkable identification of Baptism and Regeneration in 
 the ninth Article. — The twenty-seventh Article. — The Bishop of 
 Ely's testimony that the Articles contain the doctrine as the rest 
 of the Prayer Book, precisely. — The Collect for Christmas day. — 
 Dr. Waterland's comment on it. — General remarks in conclusion of 
 this book. — The doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism runs through 
 all the Offices of the Prayer Book. — So through the whole of the 
 New Testament. — Its revelation to the doctrine of the Church. — 
 Difficulties met. — Summing up of the evidence of our Standards. — 
 Two distinct questions. — The first, that which is discussed in this 
 book, of the meaning and interpretation of documents that are of 
 authority. — The second, of their truth. — This first question only 
 discussed in this book. — The verdict, we think, must be, that 
 whether it be true or false. Scriptural or unscriptural, the doctrine 
 of Regeneration is the doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer. ... 97 
 
 BOOK SECOXD.— THE PRACTICAL TRUTH AND 
 
 FACT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 What is Regeneration, and what does it imply ? — 1st, It is a supernatural 
 and spiritual change ; 2nd, It is peculiarly a Christian change ; 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 3rd, Eegeneration is tlie new and second birth ; therefore analo- 
 gous, in some degree, to the first, or natural birth. — Ideas, then, that 
 belong to the one must, in some degree, belong to the other. — There 
 are, then, in the new birth, first, a life ; second, an organization for 
 the life to dwell in and act by ; and, thirdly, a sphere of being into 
 which the new born or regenerated man is introduced. — What life 
 is. — The natural life and its natural sphere. — The life supernatural 
 and spiritual is the life of Christ in us. — The Church of God on 
 earth is its sphere of existence. — Humanity regenerated through 
 our Lord is the organization in which it dwells. — Conversion is not 
 regeneration. — What spiritual nourishment is given to the regen- 
 erated man in the Church of God. — Two aspects of the Church. — 
 Bishop Davenant of Salisbury (a.d. 1421.) on the new life in 
 Christ 113 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 What is conversion ? — As distinctly known under the old law as under 
 Christ. — But regeneration, or the new birth, not known under the 
 Jewish Dispensation — Nicodemus. — The explanation given by our 
 Lord to him is not that the new birth is only conversion. — The idea 
 of a new life given us in Christ, as a real principle, is a very old 
 idea in the English Church. — Thomas Rogers, on the Articles 
 (a.d. 1586). — Bishop Pearson, on the Creed (a.d. 1659). — The nature 
 and position of the first man, Adam. — This idea of the primeval 
 man before the thought of all men, and employed, even now, in 
 science, by men of the highest genius. — But man fell ; was 
 degraded in type and his position. — Hence all men are in this 
 state as children of the first Adam, and in his nature. — All men, one 
 only excepted. — The second Adam : His works for man. — The 
 Church : its uses in the system of the Gospel 129 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Man's condition at this time. — Two extremes. — The first, man as born 
 naturally upon this earth. — The second, man as reigning upon 
 the throne of Heaven, the Living Christ. — In the Second Adam 
 are given unto us : 1st, Forgiveness of all sins ; 2nd, The New 
 Life ; 3rd, Entrance into the Church, which is the kingdom of 
 God on earth. — Declaration of St. John to that effect. — Of our 
 
 , Blessed Lord himself, on various occasions, to various persons. — 
 The sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John : its purport and mean- 
 ing. — Testimony of the other writers of the New Testament. — 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 St. Peter. — St. Paul. — Injury done to him, and his writings, in the 
 Western or Latin Church. — His character. — His testimony to the 
 doctrine of the Living Christ. — The Roman Empire and the Chris- 
 tian Church. — Their strange similarity. — The Church : wliat it 
 means, and what it is. — The result, throughout History, on the world 
 " and man in it, of these ideas and facts 152 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The doctrine of Regeneration implies the doctrine of the Living Christ, 
 and of our death in sin. — This death in sin is termed, in scientific 
 theology. Original Sin. — Original Sin, not total depravity. — Our 
 ninth Article. — Original Sin proves the need of Regeneration. — The 
 Heathen philosophy : its imperfection. — In the Christian doctrine, 
 only as held in the Christian Church, is there any true or perfect 
 philosophy of man's nature and being. — The doctrine of Original 
 Sin completes and perfects all philosophy of man that is real and 
 sincere. — The passage concerning philosophy in the Epistle to the 
 Corinthians quoted. — Different positions of the Latin and of the 
 Greek Church toward philosophy. — Causes of this fact — The two 
 states of man : his original and his fallen state. — The incarnation 
 of the Word, and the New Birth through Him, the remedy for man's 
 fall 176 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The original state of man. — He was perfect and in a perfect world ; 
 endowed with supernatural gifts and graces. — By the act of hia 
 own free-will and by the temptation of Satan, he fell from his first 
 estate, and was cast out from Paradise. — On himself, therefore, 
 and on his posterity, came all the results and consequences of that 
 fall. — These, in scientific theology, are enumerated and defined as 
 five in number : 1st, Ignorance ; 2d, Insubordination and rebellion 
 of his natural powers and faculties against their law ; 3d, The pol- 
 lution and stain of sin ; 4th, Its guilt ; 5th, Shame and fear and 
 the sting of remorse. — If Regeneration be a reality, it has a remedy 
 for all these. — In all the means of grace in the Church a remedy for 
 these wounds of nature. — Her action in promoting knowledge and 
 counteracting ignorance considered at length. — There are two effi- 
 cient powers that employ and put to use all these means : in Christ 
 our Lord, the personal Spirit ; in the regenerated man, the power of 
 a living faith. — The prospects of the Church in this land. — Three 
 great teachers of the Church in the East and the West. — Their wide 
 influence and power. — So with the Church here, in this land, it shall 
 be. — She shall be a teaching Church preeminently 195 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Sin — peccatum in classic Latin — liamartema in Greek. — The Law, a 
 great objective fact and idea understood and tauglit by Chris- 
 tianity. — Modern philosophy ignores this fact in its mental and 
 moral science. — 'Eesults of this mistake. — What is the Law ? It is 
 the final and ultimate rule for man in all action : Eectum — 
 Eight — that is, ruled by the Law. — Four forms of the Law.— Its 
 effect upon man. — In what man's wretchedness consists. — The say- 
 ing of Paschal. — Explanation of the facts of fallen nature and 
 the Law by St. Augustine and John Calvin. — Flaw in their reason- 
 ing. — They omit the great idea (which afterward dwelt upon the 
 mind of Bishop Butler, and shaped his whole thought), that this 
 world is a school of probation. — St. Augustine, furthermore, read the 
 Scriptures in a translation, not in the original languages. — True 
 statement of the effect of the Law upon man, taking into account 
 all these three elements of the problem : 1st, The nature and at- 
 tributes of God ; 2nd, The moral system of this world in all its modes 
 of action upon humanity ; 3d, Man fallen and wretched. — The Law 
 in the Church, considered as the kingdom of God. — Its operation 
 as the Law of Grace, the Law of the Spirit of Life, the Eoyal Law 
 of Liberty, upon our heart and nature, considered at full length, 
 and practically 209 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 Individualism denies the existence of the Church and of its blessings. — 
 The earnest preachers of forty years ago. — They could not rise up 
 to the idea, or realize the fact, of a Church of God ; a sphere and 
 kingdom of salvation and grace and pardon of sins. — Baptism is the 
 transition from death unto life.— The Law and Grace. — The Law to 
 those who are unregenerated, and to those who are sons of God 
 through Jesus Christ. — All means of grace are means of absolution 
 and forgiveness of sins to the sons of God, on condition of their 
 living and real faith. — Bishop Andrewes's sermon on absolution 
 referred to. — Negligence of the laity of their great privileges in the 
 kingdom of God, as under the Law of Christ. — Christian Optimism. 
 — All things work together for good to them that love Him 236 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 The influences of the Church and her means toward cleansing and puri- 
 fying our humanity. — Good universally typified by light, and Evil 
 by darkness ; Sin by filthiness and uncleanness. — The blood of 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 Christ is applied to our souls in our baptism, and henceforth the 
 Life of Christ and His indwelling Spirit cleanse and purify the 
 man, permanently and immanently. — The Spirit of the Word of 
 God upon man's purification. — Word in two senses : 1st, The Word 
 of God Incarnate; 2nd, The message which the Word Incarnate 
 uttered to man with the tongue and voice of a sinless humanity. — 
 The Word, in this sense is, in the Scripture, now completed. — The 
 Word in the Church, the seed-grain of all civilization. — Examples 
 of this. — The Scripture doctrine concerning woman. — Marriage 
 and divorce. — The principles of this word flung broadcast on the 
 world since our Lord's ascension 251 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Man's wretchedness. — It may be considered in itself, as apart from 
 God, unaided and uninfluenced ; but it is not so in fact ; man is 
 in the world, and unceasingly wrought upon by manifold influ- 
 ences that come upon him from without. — The meaning and effect 
 of the outward world according to the Calvinists ; according to 
 Bishop Butler. — Nature fallen from God and wretched. — This 
 world to all men a school of probation. — God sends His light to all 
 men in and through the world. — The state of nature in itself, if 
 left alone ; but it is not left alone. — The interpretation given of 
 the outward and objective world in its action upon man from the 
 
 earliest times in Holy Writ, that it teaches man of God. The 
 
 Psalms. — St. Paul to the heathen. — Again, to the heathen philoso- 
 phers at Athens. — Again, in his Epistle to the Romans. — Nature, 
 however, cannot save, being fallen and wounded by sin as man is ; 
 but, through nature, the Word and the Spirit ever shine upon, and 
 calls unto man. — And man is not a brute in unconscious stu- 
 pidity, or a fiend ; but a man still, conscious of his own wretched- 
 ness, and of the height from which his humanity has fallen. — There- 
 fore, through nature, God calls all men to repentance from sin and 
 to faith in his heavenly truth 263 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The state of Grace : its blessings natural and supernatural. — The super- 
 natural shines through the natural. — Julian the Apostate and the 
 pagan high-priest of Galatia. — To be within the Church is a 
 blessing, even in a natural point of view. — Sons of God of two 
 classes: those who are justified, and those who are not justified. — 
 To the first class belong all the blessings of the Church, natural 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 and supernatural, in title and in possession. — Blessings given all 
 men in their baptism : 1st, Remission and forgiveness of all our sins ; 
 2nd, Regeneration, through Jesus Christ our Lord; 3d, We become 
 herein members of the Covenant ; and, lastly, we are in the number 
 of the Elect of God. — Application of these facts to the subjectivity 
 of these times. — But, again, there are given to those who have a 
 living faith peculiar privileges. — Faith : its value. — The word Faith, 
 how often used in the New Testament. — The Royalty of Christ our 
 King. — Its blessings to the man who lives in faith. — The Priesthood 
 and Mediation of Christ. — Application of His merits to all the 
 wounds of our nature. — Christ in heaven is our Prophet, supplying, 
 by His Spirit, to the spirits of all His people, the truest wisdom ac- 
 cording to their necessities and their faith. — Our duties as Chris- 
 tians having faith, in consequence of these things : 1st, To those 
 outside ; 2nd, To our brethren within the Church ; those that are 
 good, first ; and then those that are evil. — The final consummation 
 and end of all things. — When is our Regeneration made perfect ? . . 277 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The principles of the Church with regard to regeneration require to be 
 stated distinctly and in harmony with all the correlated and sub- 
 siding doctrines. — This done. — The Gospel system 306 
 
 BOOK III.— SCRIPTURAL PROOFS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Reasons for discussing the Scripture proofs at this point of our 
 treatise. — Verbal and grammatical interpretation. — The legal science 
 of interpretation. — The central passage, our Lord's discourse with 
 Nicodemus. — Tholuck's commentary on the passage cited. — The lit- 
 eral sense the true sense. — Schedule of passages on Regeneration. — 
 These passages literally assert the Church doctrine. — The literal 
 sense also agrees with all the other correlated and subsidiary doc- 
 trines of Holy Writ. — It was, till the time of Zuingli, in the fifteenth 
 century, the only interpretation of the passage of St. John. — Hooker's 
 challenge. — The weight of this fact on the principles of legal inter- 
 pretation. — The Greek Church read the New Testament in its 
 own language. — Church literature, for twelve hundred years ; the 
 Latin Fathers, for the same period ; the Syrian Christian literature ; 
 all these put but one sense on the passage. — The legal and judicial 
 weight of this fact. — Criticism on the passage from other commen- 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 tators : Bishop Wordswortli, Dean Alford. — Causes of the individu- 
 alist and predestinarian theories on the Continent of Europe. — This 
 land in a different position, from the freedom of the Church from 
 State bondage 315 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Christ's Commission to His Apostles. — Its peculiar position and weight 
 in the Christian system, as central between the doctrine of 
 Christ and the practice upon it of the whole Christian Church, 
 given from the Four Gospels. — What does it mean ? — It is a com- 
 mission to do a great work, supernatural and miraculous, in this 
 world of nature. — Not the apostles by their personal powers as 
 agents of an absent Lord far away, that has left them, but of a 
 Living Christ, Prophet, Priest, and King, who, to His Church and to 
 His sons that believe, is ever present ; personally, actually, and 
 really ; Himself and His Spirit doing the work, actually and really, 
 that His priests do ministerially. — He baptizes and regenerates. — 
 He forgives sins really and personally. — We, ministerially. — " I ab- 
 solve thee," never said by any clergyman of the Church for twelve 
 hundred years after Christ. — The Eastern Church does not permit 
 her clergy to say, " N. or M., I baptize thee." — The meaning of the 
 commission in the existence of the Church miraculously upon the 
 earth ; and in it of the one baptism for the remission of sins, 
 as a miraculous and supernatural gift to. fallen man 343 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Further extracts from the Scriptures, with comments upon them of emi- 
 nent divines. — Remarks upon the texts which say that we are saved 
 " iy " faith. — The word " by : " its manifold meaning. — What the 
 Church teaches as to man's salvation 353 
 
 CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 
 
 Summation of work done in this whole book. — We do not believe in 
 any ma media. — Caveat to our readers. — Concluding address to the 
 baptized members of the Church in this land. — The necessity of un- 
 derstanding our doctrine in all its relations. Scriptural, social, and 
 national. — For before this Church there are the highest hopes in 
 the system of God's providence. — Therefore, being the sons of 
 God through Christ, we are to live in the Spirit of God and of 
 Christ in this world, that we also may be glorified together with 
 Him 377 
 

 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 PKELIMIKARY CHAPTER. 
 
 When in Europe the Papal and Imperial systems came 
 in direct conflict witli one another in the war of Investi- 
 tures, it ended not in the victory of either side, as their 
 several partisans pretend, but in a compromise.* As in all 
 compromises of moral and religious questions, humanity 
 suffered. And therefore, for three hundred years from the 
 date of the Concordat, things became worse and worse in 
 the political and religious state of Europe, until finally that 
 great explosion occurred which we call the Reformation. This 
 is ordinarily considered to be one movement, and that exclu- 
 sively religious. It was manifold; the antagonism to Rome 
 being carried on by the alliance, for the time at least, of three 
 different religious systems. It was also political, being, without 
 doubt, the uprising of the national spirit in the great Euro- 
 pean countries against the lust of universal dominion in the 
 Chm'ch and the Empire. Too often are these facts forgotten. 
 Too often is it represented on the one side as the rebellion of 
 self-will against authority, or on the other as the uprising of 
 religious freedom against antichristian tyranny. 
 
 As its result, however, that portion of Christianity in 
 Europe which had been brought into obedience to the Pope 
 was broken up into great fragments. Of these the principal 
 
 *The Concordat of Worms, a.d. 1123. 
 
2 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 may be laid down as the Roman, the Anglican, the Lutheran, 
 the Calvinist. On the continent of Europe these last two are 
 invariably called Protestant and Reformed. 
 
 !Now, if we examine these four systems, we find the Roman 
 to be essentially a corruption and depravation of primitive 
 faith and primitive practice. Every error in this system, how 
 far soever it may have gone, has a certain centre or core of 
 original and traditional truth, which it has corrupted and 
 alloyed, or overlaid with falsehood. The Anglican system is 
 an honest attempt at reformation on the part of the nation 
 and the Church of England, by cleansing the temple of the 
 rubbish and the accumulated filth of ages, by casting down the 
 idols and restoring the primitive doctrines and devotions. 
 The Lutheran and Calvinist schemes are individuahst systems 
 of doctrine and discipline, honestly elaborated from the Scrip- 
 tures on the basis of private judgment, by the intellectual 
 efibrts of these two great and sincerely religious men, Martin 
 Luther and John Cahdn. 
 
 ITow, there is a certain agreement among these four parties, 
 existing even to the present day. They all profess, and we 
 believe honestly and sincerely, to hold the Scriptm-es of the 
 Old and New Testaments, ex animo, and in their plain, mani- 
 fest sense. They all baptize in the name of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost. So far they all claim to be, and 
 justly are, accounted Christians. 
 
 Now, we assume no philosophic indifierence. We are 
 upon a distinct and clear basis. We belong to the Church in 
 the United States, which is descended from the Church in 
 England ; we think the Roman system to be a corruption of 
 primitive doctrine and organization ; and we have no love 
 for Calvinism, or Lutheranism, as systems. Yet, nevertheless, 
 we do consider this common agreement as a matter of great 
 hope for the future, and we rejoice in it. 
 
 Now let us put the Roman system upon one side, and con- 
 sider the other three. We see that at the Reformation the 
 German, the French, the English nations rose up at one and 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 3 
 
 the same time in favor of personal and individual holiness and 
 morality, and of national freedom against the ciml and religious 
 despotism of the Imperial and Papal systems, allied, as they 
 were, by concordats and compromises. This is the true state- 
 ment. 
 
 But what has this to do with the doctrine of regeneration 
 in haptism f Everything. For, ask an Anglican, a Calvinist, or 
 a Lutheran the question, and you will find that upon this doctrine 
 is their disagreement, here their want of harmony begins. 
 They all believe in original sin. Hence, in the estimate of 
 them all, man needs a restoration to a higher life, a state where- 
 unto, by his own efforts, he cannot arise. They all believe in 
 the doctrine of the Holy Trinity — that the Father is the Crea- 
 tor — the Son the Redeemer — the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier. 
 Hence from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit alone can proceed 
 man's restoration. They believe, all of them, that the Son of 
 God became incarnate, that He died upon the cross and offered 
 up thereby a real and sufficient atonement and sacrifice for the 
 sins of man. By the benefit of that sacrifice alone, according 
 to all these parties, is man saved. Again, all these believe 
 that the Holy Spirit is the source to man of grace and holi- 
 ness. He is the Lord and the Giver of Life. See in how 
 many things these parties agree, and yet they have three sys- 
 tems so distinct and clear that there is but little harmony 
 among their adherents. 
 
 Wherein do they differ? In this very doctrine of regen- 
 eration. They all assert that man's nature is fallen and corrupt, 
 and needs a regeneration. They all agree that a regeneration 
 is given by God to man upon the earth. But how ? at what 
 time ? and by what means is it given ? This is the central 
 question. Starting from this one point, there are three sys- 
 tems, the Anglican or Primitive Church system, as we assert 
 it to be, the orthodox Calvinist, the Lutheran. We cannot 
 disregard this fact. To assume that it is not so, or to evade it, 
 is either weakness or insincerity ; and, in the long run, it is 
 not wise either for the clergy or the laity. In this country the 
 
4 BEGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Cliurchman, the Calvinist (whether Congregationah'st or Pres- 
 byterian), and the Methodist, together with the American 
 Lutheran, are the representatives of the three parties. It 
 needs but Httle experience of religious life to see upon what 
 a distinct and diiferent basis of practice and of doctrine these 
 three parties stand. 
 
 ISTow, in England the Church and the State, for they were 
 allied, and therefore were united in action, adopted the Primi- 
 tive system. It is seen in their standards, and acknowledged 
 in their legislation. But the conflict of the Reformation, we 
 must remember, was not simply against Pome, but against 
 despotism also. Constitutional freedom was at stake as well as 
 religious truth. The vigor and the craft of that great king 
 and great Englishman, Henry the Eighth, kept his kingdom 
 comparatively free from the political strifes of the continent in 
 the early stages of the Peformation! Indeed, it is wonderful 
 how clear, at all times, England kept from the German Pefor- 
 mation, religious and national. The only great German 
 reformer, whose influence reached England in early times, 
 was Melancthon, and he was more in the spirit of the primi- 
 tive Church than of Luther, or the genuine Lutherans. In 
 fact, pure Lutheranism, that is, religion based exclusively upon 
 the Lutheran dogma, made itself no home in England until 
 it was brought in by John Wesley, nearly two hundred years 
 after. 
 
 But hardly had the short-lived son of King Henry, Edward 
 the Sixth, passed away, before the strife began which England 
 as a nation was to wage, in behalf of the whole world, against 
 despotism, -backed by the whole political, religious, and social 
 influence of Pome in Europe. Germany stood aside in this 
 great agony. The only sympathy and help that came to 
 England came from the nations in which the Calvinistic Refor- 
 mation had prevailed. The Hollander, with heroic energy, 
 by sea and land ; the French Huguenot, nay more or less the 
 whole French nation ; the Scotchman ; the Switzer, these were 
 they who alone sympathized with England in her struggle for 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 5 
 
 existence against Eome and Spain united. No wonder that 
 the gratitude of the nation ahnost overpowered the doctrinal 
 convictions of the Church. No wonder that doctrinal Calvin- 
 ists obtained livings, and even bishoprics. They actually got 
 partial control of the universities, the sources of opinion, and 
 thereby more or less extensively educated and trained the 
 clergy and gentry of the nation in Calvinism ! They made 
 the Institutions of John Calvin a text-book in Cambridge 
 University ! And by and by they almost succeeded in alter- 
 ing the articles of the English Church, by foisting in among 
 them the Lambeth articles, a rigidly Calvinistic document.* 
 
 This base intrigue, for such it was, was put down by Queen 
 Elizabeth. One breath of her mouth — one stamp of the foot 
 from the lioness of England — saved the English nation from 
 this hateful fatalistic formula. f 
 
 And yet some years after, so strong was the influence of the 
 party that the English king, her successor (the king personally, 
 not the Parliament of the nation or the Convocation of the 
 Church), sent deputies to the Council of European Calvinism, 
 the Synod of Dort. So much can the union of Church and 
 State and the consequent confusion of politics and religion do 
 to commingle, or rather to huddle together systems the most 
 distinct, the most hostile, and the most incongruous. 
 
 As long as the strife against Philip of Spain lasted, that 
 great agony which every Englishman felt to be a death strug- 
 gle against popery and despotism for the very existence of the 
 English nation, so long this confusion was possible. But no 
 sooner was the struggle at an end and peace begun, than Cal- 
 
 * " Their aim was to fasten upon the ^^Church a number of arbitrary 
 definitions, ill according with the spirit of the men by whom the Reforma- 
 tion had been carried on, and altogether out of harmony with the Prayer 
 Book and the older formularies of faith." — Hardwick's " History of the Arti- 
 cles," p. 66. 
 
 f See in Hardwick these articles in their uncompromising and rigorous 
 proscriptiveness as originally devised and drawn out by the Calvinists of 
 Cambridge, and passed in the hole-and-corner meeting at Lambeth, Nov. 20, 
 A.D. 1595. 
 
6 REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 
 
 vinism found what it should have known long before, that it 
 was essentially antagonistic and hostile to the Anglican system 
 of doctrine, and to the Anglican Church. The clergy who pro- 
 fessed and propagated Calvinism had been educated at the 
 expense of the English Church, They had signed the English 
 articles, they had been baptized by her forms of baptism. 
 They had been taught in her Catechism, and had been confirmed 
 with her order of confirmation. They had been ordained with 
 the forms of her Ordinal by her bishops. All these express 
 clearly and distinctly her doctrine of regeneration. And they 
 held office in her considered as the Established Church of the 
 English nation. They received salaries, and were bishops, deans, 
 rectors, under an oath to conform to these standards, to uphold 
 these formulas. We make all allowance for the self-deceit of 
 prejudice and passion, but we cannot help thinking that the 
 leaders, at least, of the Presbyterian and Puritan party in the 
 English Church, at all times, knew that they were upon a dif- 
 ferent system from that of the Church to which they had sworn 
 allegiance. We cannot but think that they knew that they 
 were essentially hostile to it, and that their duty, therefore, 
 knowing this, if they were honest men, was to resign its emol- 
 uments, to give up their position among its clergy, to retire 
 from a system which they counted unchristian and untrue. 
 
 They did not do so. They acted as faction and treason 
 always act. They employed their position, their means, their 
 influence, in destroying the very Church and system in which 
 they were sworn officials. They may have been blinded by 
 prejudice, deafened to the truth by the clamor of popular 
 excitement, blinded and maddened by party frenzy ; but look- 
 ing at the conduct of the Calvinist clergy in the English Church, 
 after making all these allowances, we must think that their 
 course was disloyal and dishonest — the course of traitors within 
 a fortress they were sworn to defend. 
 
 Their system, however, gained strength in the nation. It 
 accumulated power to itself by all the means which faction 
 uses. It availed itself to the full of every prejudice. It pal- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 7 
 
 tered to every passion of tlie Euglisli people, that nation so 
 honest in its intolerance, so set and stubborn in all its dislikes, 
 and lastly it availed itself to the utmost of all the political mis- 
 takes, of all the constitutional blunders of its opponents. Cal- 
 vinism therefore conquered. In the State as a political party, in 
 the nation as a system of religion, it was victorious. The im- 
 mediate result of its victory at once made manifest the insin- 
 cerity of its previous career. For it abolished Episcopacy^ — 
 it overthrew the whole system of the English Church, — nay, it 
 forbade the xise of the English Booh of Common Prayer, in 
 public or even in a private house, under a heavy penalty for 
 each offence ! * It reigned, then, in one shape or another ab- 
 solutely for, say, ten years. And once and forever, the whole 
 English nation were convinced that political Calvinism, as a 
 dominant party in the State, is hateful and insufferable, and 
 that the purely Calvinistic theological system is antagonist es- 
 sentially to that of the English Church. 
 
 Our readers will remember that Christianity, for nearly 
 four hundred years after its entrance into the world, knew 
 nothing of a union between the Church and the State. They 
 will also bear in mind that the English nation never knew 
 anything of a State-free Christianity. Its conversion was 
 begun and completed under the bondage of Church and State. 
 They will remember, also, that for some centuries that nation 
 was, of all European nations, the most devoted champion, the 
 most obedient instrument of the Roman system. The parties, 
 therefore, that after the Reformation came in conflict in Eng- 
 land, whether Roman, Anglican, or Calvinistic, fought for 
 dotninion and r)%astery, not for religious freedom. This was 
 the last idea to enter the mind of any one of them. There was 
 no possibility, therefore, of \'iewing any system apart from 
 
 * " Those who read the Common Prayer, either in Churches or their 
 families, were to forfeit five pounds for the first offence ; ten pounds for 
 the second ; and suffer a year's imprisonment without bail or main-prise for 
 the third." — Ordinance of the Lords and Commons at Westminster, August 
 23, 1645. In Scobell's Collection of Acts of Parliament, folio 97. Cited in 
 Collier's " Ch. History," vol. viii. p. 396. 
 
8 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 national politics. The Anglican party, for instance, was essen- 
 tially the English constitutional party, wrapped np in the 
 nsages and principles of the English national monarchy, as they 
 had come down upon the tradition of ages. The Roman party 
 in England was inclined to the maxims of Despotic Imperial- 
 ism. And the Puritans were what they called Republicans ; 
 that is to say, from their school-boy and college reminiscences 
 of classical literature, which then had hardly lost that rosy 
 glow with which it rose upon ignorant Europe a hundred years 
 before, they had picked up a quantity of so-called Republican 
 notions, — the most impracticable, the most absurd, the most 
 ridiculous, the cast off rags of Greek and Roman rhetoricians. 
 Whosoever shall look at the Puritan men of genius in those 
 days, Milton and Harrington and Sydney and Yane, may see 
 that in politics they were children, not men. The real men 
 were the soldiers and the constitutional lawyers on both sides ; 
 but these others were literary pedants, brilliant declaimers, 
 vending mere heathenism — the declamatory commonj^laces of 
 that most insincere and most unreal of all things, the later 
 literature of Rome. They republicans ! They were dreamers 
 and talkers and phrase-mongers, not statesmen, in any shape. 
 But they aided in rousing popular fury, in swelling the tide 
 of popular discontent, in giving the victory to a small and 
 merciless faction, which did not amount to one tenth part of 
 the English nation, all told. 
 
 By the providence of God, when that strife in England 
 ceased, undecided and undetermined although it were, the ele- 
 ments of the same parties were transferred to this land ; nay, 
 the parties themselves perfectly organized with all the weaj^ons 
 of their conflict. Puritanism became established in JSTew Eng- 
 land- It was in the closest alliance with the State. It used 
 the State in raising taxes for the support of its ministry, in pun- 
 ishing its opponents by exile, confiscation of goods, imprison- 
 ment, and death. Anglicanism also was settled here, in Yir- 
 gmia, and Romanism also in Maryland, although neither were 
 perfect in their organization, being without the Episcopate. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 9 
 
 Tlie Eevolntion came, it dissolved the union of Church and 
 State ; it estabhshed, as a principle and as a fact of the con- 
 stitution, the doctrine of civil and religious liberty. By 
 that enactment all religious systems stand in this land 
 wholly separated from the State, and perfectly free, and there- 
 fore unmingled and uneonfused with questions of polity, to be 
 discussed and examined upon their own merits exclusively as 
 systems of religion. 
 
 Romanism is here, pertinaciously asserting itself, its dogmas, 
 and its traditions. "We, the descendants of the Anglican Church, 
 are here, with the fact and faith of the Church, One Holy Cath- 
 olic and Apostolic, with the open Bible in our hands, with a 
 primitive liturgy and primitive sacraments — separated entirely 
 from the State and exulting in tliis freedom — equally free from 
 the supremacy of the Pope and the supremacy of monarchy — 
 feeling that we alone stand at this period of time as the Church 
 stood in the world until the fatal days of the first Constantino. 
 And the system of John Calvin is here also. The system too 
 of Martin Luther. Are not all these, holding, as they all do, 
 the objective facts of Christianity, the doctrine of man's fallen 
 nature and of its consequent needs, the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity and its works for man, and differing in respect to 
 their application — are not they here — placed separate from 
 the State and from all confusing questions of civil government, 
 politics, taxation, and persecution — in order that the questions, 
 debated in Europe and left undecided there, should here be 
 reexamined, here be decided ? Is there not then a hope that 
 by the providence of God it is intended that Christianity in 
 this ISTew World once more may become reunited ? That this 
 land and nation may have been intended as an arena for the 
 peaceable discussion and the peaceable and final decision of 
 all these religious questions, as the place and the instrument 
 for the ultimate reunion of the Christian world in the doctrine 
 and the unity of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
 perfectly free from the tyranny of Imperialist or Boman usur- 
 pation ? 
 
10 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Now, as we said above, we put on one side the discussions 
 we have with Rome as alien to the purpose of tliis treatise. 
 "We then ask what is the difference between ourselves and the 
 representatives of Calvinism and Lutheranism in this land? 
 and wherein do we agree ? We agree with them, evidently, 
 in confessing the truth and authority of the Scriptures. We 
 agree with them in the doctrine — that the Father is the Creator, 
 the Son the Redeemer, the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier. We 
 agree, also, that man in this world is a fallen being, and that 
 in this life he can be regenerated or born again. 
 
 Now our difierence is precisely upon this doctrine of regen- 
 eration, not upon the fact, but upon the mode and manner. 
 We admit the fact as possible in the system of God's providence, 
 we confess the doctrine as an essential doctrine of Christianity ; 
 but when we come to a development of the questions concern- 
 ing the mode and manner, at once it is manifest that there are 
 three distinct systems of doctrine. And these issue forth in 
 three distinct courses of religious practice and religious emotion. 
 A pious and sincere Churchman, a pious Calvinist, a pious 
 Methodist, while they admit respectively each other's sincerity 
 and devotion, recognize at once the different grounds upon 
 which they stand. They feel that they are of a different spirit 
 and temper, and breathe a different air^ 
 
 Now we shall give the three systems, honestly, and accord- 
 ing to our best judgment and knowledge. The first is the 
 Anglican. 
 
 First. Man's nature is fallen ; it needs a regeneration. 
 
 Secondly. This regeneration comes from the effects of 
 Christ's work and merits for man. 
 
 Thirdly. It is effected by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Fourthly. It demands in the man certain qualifications, 
 .which are prerequisites. These are sincere repentance from 
 past sins, and a living faith. 
 
 Fifthly. The regeneration takes place in and by the Sacra- 
 ment of Baptism. 
 
 Sixthly. The man's sins are all then forgiven. The vital 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 11 
 
 principle of a new life., the life of Christ, is then and there 
 implanted in him. He is then and there introduced into the 
 earthly sphere of that new life, which is the Holy Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 Seventhly. As before he was in the World, under a natu- 
 ral probation, so now he is in the Church, which is a school of 
 supernatural and spiritual probation, the probation of Grace. 
 He is a member of the Election, which is the visible Church 
 of Christ. He is given in it all the means of grace. He is 
 therefore bound to make his calling and election sure. And 
 henceforth until the day of his death he is upon his trial as a 
 regenerated man, a son of God, endowed with all these privi- 
 leges. 
 
 Eighthly. If he avail himself by a living faith of all these 
 blessings, he shall, at the resurrection day, pass as a son of 
 God from the state of grace into the state of glory, his son- 
 ship being then completed, so that he is thenceforth immutably 
 a son of God, being a son of the resurrection. 
 
 Kow, our readers will take notice that we of the Church 
 have a system* upon the doctrine of regeneration. Here are 
 various elements, in various ways concurring to the same re- 
 sult. Here are various coordinate doctrines asserted, all of 
 them doctrines of the Gospel — the fallen nature of man; the 
 effects of Christ's death and sacrifice; the grace of the Holy 
 Spirit; the doctrines of faith and repentance; the doctrine of 
 a Church, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, ^nsible in this world, 
 instituted by Christ himself, and to last to the end of time; 
 the doctrine also of the ministry, a body of embassadors for 
 Christ, who are commissioned to preach repentance and faith, 
 and to admit men by baptism into the Church of God ; the 
 doctrine, too, that this world is for man a school of natural 
 probation, and that the Chui'ch also is a school of spuitual 
 probation. 
 
 Look, therefore, at the doctrine of regeneration as held in 
 
 * This system is more fully drawn out, in all its relations, in the last 
 chapter of the second book. 
 
12 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the Church, and you will see a pyramid solidly built up of 
 many doctrines, all of them true, all of them seen in the Script- 
 ures, all of them eminently practical and evangelical, and 
 resting and leaning upon them all, as the highest and crowning 
 stone, is the doctrine asserted by the Church, that "in baptism 
 we are made members of Christ, children of God, inheritors 
 of the kingdom of Heaven." "^ System, the bringing out of 
 one result by manifold and various concurring causes; this is 
 the usual way wherein God works, and in this the Church 
 doctrine of regeneration is in harmony and accordance with 
 the method of God's operation in nature and the world. 
 
 We only dwell one moment more upon this statement to 
 remark that the mass of objections against our doctrine arise 
 from men's not discerning the manifold elements in the sys- 
 tem, and the various ways in which they are coordinated and 
 work together. How often do we hear that baptismal regen- 
 eration denies the atonement of Christ ! or the power of the 
 Holy Spirit ! or the doctrine of faith ! Whereas it is plainly 
 manifest that upon these doctrines it is based; all these doc- 
 trines it asserts, emphatically and distinctly, as parts of the one 
 harmonious system. The only thing it really means is that 
 the objector does not understand their relations in the system, 
 and that his objections arise from this ignorance upon his part. 
 Or perhaps it means that two or three hundred years ago, in 
 England, his ancestors were on the Puritan side in English 
 politics, and from them he has, somehow or other, derived the 
 traditional notion that baptismal regeneration is hostile to civil 
 and religious liberty ! 
 
 Here, then, is the Church system. We go on to expound 
 as plainly as we can the opposite systems. It is but fair to say 
 that in this country the system of Calvinism has been mod- 
 ified and softened in many particulars, so that it does not 
 present so harsh and stern an aspect to the popular mind. 
 But the system, as such, is laid down definitely and exactly 
 in the works of Calvin, his Institutions mainly, and in the 
 
 * Catechism. 
 
JR.E GENE RATION IN BAPTISM. 13 
 
 decrees of tlie Synod of Dort, These present a clear, con- 
 nected, logical body of doctrine. As we take the Anglican 
 system in its clearness and fulness of meaning and preciseness 
 of definition, so we take the Calvinist system. Modifications 
 which the timorousness, the kindliness, or the feebleness of 
 later times have effected, may be allowed for in the case of the 
 individual person, but are not to be taken in account in an 
 exact and scientific comparison of the systems. Calvin was 
 clear-minded and systematic to a very great degree.* His 
 Latin style is eminently definite and precise. He was fearless 
 and bold in asserting what he considered the truth. There is 
 no doubt whatever as to what was his system and that of the 
 Synod of Dort. 
 
 ]^ow, this it is : 
 
 First. Man's nature is fallen ; it needs a regeneration. 
 
 Secondly. This regeneration comes to man from the effects 
 of Christ's death and merits. 
 
 Thirdly. It is effected by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 These, then, the first maxims of the Anglican system, the 
 Calvinist is willing to assert. However, the word "fallen" is 
 hardly sufiicient in strength for him ; the high Calvinist gene- 
 rally prefers the words "totally depraved." f 
 
 * Even his enemies acknowledge tliis. They compare his Institutions to 
 the Institutes of Justinian, the famous system of the Roman Law. " His 
 method," says Schulting, a canon of Cologne, " is so clear, so subtle and 
 systematic, that it is deserving of comparison in these respects with the 
 Institutes of Justinian, which all lawyers think to be the most systematic 
 and most methodical book ever written." 
 
 In fact, Calvin was of a legal family, himself trained in the civil law, 
 and fed upon the Institutes and Pandects. He thought in the Latin of the 
 civil law; — its methods, its unrivalled system, its subtle clearness of con- 
 nection, all were his, and above all, that judicial authority of statement which 
 is so overpo^cering to all ordinary men. Any one that has read the Roman 
 Law, and the Institutions of the Christian Religion, in the original Latin, 
 can see their brotherhood. 
 
 f The chief point of difference between the two great parties which so 
 long divided the Protestant Churches, the Calvinists and Arminians, was on 
 the extent of the vitiation of our nature by the fall. The Calvinists thought 
 that the corruption of man was so great that no spark of moral goodness 
 
14 REGENERATIOX IX BAPTISM. 
 
 Foiirtlily. All mankind, therefore, being in this condition 
 of total depravity, and unable to do any good, it pleased God 
 to predestinate a certain portion of the mass to salvation, by 
 an absolute and irreversible decree of election ; and to repro- 
 bate by a decree of damnation, or else to pass over and leave 
 to an absolute certainty of eternal misery all the rest. 
 
 Now, in order that those predestinated to eternal life may 
 be saved, and the decree carried out : 
 
 Fifthly. The elect receive at the time, and by the means 
 appointed by the unchangeable decree, an eflfectual calling. 
 This is the work of irresistible grace iipon their hearts. By 
 this they are made sons of God. By this they are morally and 
 spiritually regenerated. By this they are endued with actual 
 hohness, and the grace of final perseverance. They cannot 
 fall away. They are infallibly saved. The evidence that 
 they are regenerated, to themselves and others, is that they 
 are morally and spiritually changed. The tune of that change 
 is the time of their regeneration. 
 
 Now admit the fundamental idea of this system, the idea 
 of absolute predestination, and all its other conclusions follow 
 as a matter of course. But that God absolutely and unchange- 
 ably predestines all tilings, wherein does this difier from the 
 old pagan idea of " Fate," " Destiny, " or " Doom " ? Admit 
 it to be true, has man any freedom of action % Is he morally 
 responsible % Is he not wicked because God has predestined 
 him so to be ? or good because the decree makes him so ? And 
 again, is not the decree everything? Are there any means 
 of grace — any means that are real — not merely aj)parent? 
 Would not the man be saved just as well without sacraments — 
 without preaching — without a Church, as with them % 
 
 And, then, what is the evidence to the man that this great 
 change has taken place in himself? It is the knowledge and 
 
 was left in him ; that he was utterly and totally bad and depraved ; that, 
 however amiable he might be in regard to his fellow men, there was no 
 relic of what he once was, any more than in lost spirits and damned souls. 
 — Bishop Browne on the Articles, vol. i. p. 324. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 15 
 
 conviction of himself internally, that he is converted. Where 
 then is the certainty of that fact to his fellows ? At the first 
 it is his simple word, his single testimony. Where is the evi- 
 dence to himself of that which is actnally a miracle, wrought by 
 the immediate power of the Holy Ghost ? He has no evidence, 
 save his internal feeling at the time, his immediate conviction 
 that it is so. A logical system of destiny, fate, or doom, 
 founded upon abstract and general arguments — whose validity 
 one educated man out of one hundred will not concede — at the 
 one end as a theoretic and doctrinal premise ; and then at the 
 other as a practical conclusion, a miracle asserted, of which 
 there is no visible evidence, and no certainty on the part of 
 the supposed recipient save his own internal consciousness (he 
 feels convinced and is certain that it is so). ISTo wonder that 
 this system, disengaged as it is, in this land, from European 
 politics and left to its own influences exclusively, has produced 
 swarms of doubts, uncertainties, unbeliefs. 
 
 But with all these faults, and many more, the Calvinistic 
 doctrine is a system. And the human mind clings to system. 
 Calvinism is exact. It is clear. JSTo one can mistake its defini- 
 tions and distinctions. Place it side by side with any other re- 
 ligious system, upon any one point, and there is no mistaking 
 its voice. The trumpet of John Calvin gives no uncertain 
 sound. 
 
 We proceed to compare it with our own doctrines, in the 
 matter of regeneration. " We are made in baptism," says the 
 Anglican Catechism, " members of Christ, children of God, 
 inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven." "Being by nature 
 born in sin and children of wrath, we are hereby (by baptism) 
 made the children of grace." 
 
 Here is a means of grace, a sacrament. Thus is the time 
 and the place of regeneration set and determined. It is an 
 external and outward fact having proofs, witnesses, evidences. 
 An internal and spiritual grace is asserted as connected with 
 the outward means, b}^ the covenant of God. Faith is pre- 
 scribed as a requisite, and also repentance. An unvarying 
 
16 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 liturgy asserts all these things. The clergyman openly, in its 
 unchanging form of words, demands the profession of repent- 
 ance and faith, exacts the promises of renunciation and obedi- 
 ence. He cannot baptize the candidate without these. He 
 uses the material form and the words, then and there baptizing 
 the person in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost. And then, after all this is done, he declares 
 him or her to be regenerate.* What more manifest than that 
 here is our system, which asserts that we are regenerated in 
 baptism, that baptism is the sacrament of regeneration ? 
 
 Now take the system of Cahauism and put it side by side 
 with this. When does regeneration take place, according to 
 the Calvinist? At any point of time in the man's life, that it 
 may please God, from infancy to old age. The time of the 
 effectual calling of any man is determined only by the secret 
 decree of God, — is part of that decree. One person may be re- 
 generated just stepping out of childhood, another in extreme 
 old age, just on this side the gates of death. 
 
 Has regeneration any appointed place ? Yes, in the fore- 
 knowledge and decree of God, not in the system of nature and 
 man, or in the order of the visible Church. In the Church it 
 may take place, on the sea, or in the chamber, on the high- 
 way, or in the field, in the mill, the ship, or the store — wherever 
 God may predestine the time and the place of its coming to be, 
 then and there regeneration comes. 
 
 Is it bound to sacraments, so that when the outward and 
 visible sign is received in living faith, then the promised bless- 
 ing is received ? No, it has no means in this sense. Sacra- 
 ments are decent signs used in compliance with the weakness 
 of man, signifying but not conveying grace. But the gift of 
 regeneration depends altogether upon the " decree of God," 
 any means that he employs is a means, or appears to be. One 
 may be regenerated in baptism, another under the influences 
 of Gospel preaching, another by a word in season, another by 
 
 * Baptismal ser\nces generally. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. lY 
 
 a torn leaf of the Bible or a piece of a tract picked up by 
 the way-side. 
 
 All things may appear to be means; but, in reality, the 
 '' absolute decree " is the only means, the "irresistible grace" 
 is the power it employs, regeneration is its consequence, and 
 the "effectual calling" is the only evidence to the individual 
 man. 
 
 Is it not manifest that here is a distinct and complete system 
 of ideas and conceptions on the subject of regeneration ? Is it 
 not evidently opposed to the Anglican system, if words mean 
 anything? Is it not manifest that the man who holds it 
 honestly should not use the Anglican Catechism, or baptize 
 with the Anglican formula? Certainly, a plain, honest man 
 of good judgment and unprejudiced mind must say so. 
 
 But this brings us onward to a most important point of 
 comparison. The Anglican asserts that " in (the sacrament of) 
 baptism we are regenerated." He defines that " a sacrament 
 is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, 
 instituted by Christ himself." With him, therefore, sacraments 
 are a necessary part of the Gospel system, for it seems they 
 are means which God has appointed, there are graces given in 
 them which are not given in any other way. 
 
 The Calvinist uses the word " sacrament," it is true ; but 
 in no proper sense does he employ it, for the doctrine of sacra- 
 ments is manifestly no part of his system.* Nothing, according 
 to him, occurs by a sacrament, through it, or at it, that may 
 not occur by, through, or at the occurrence of anything else. 
 In fact, look at it logically. Examine it also by the test of the 
 practical results of experience, and you will see that the system 
 
 * Dr. Cunningham, of the Free Church of Scotland, the denomination to 
 which Chalmers belonged, thus expresses himself in regard to sacraments : 
 " All Protestants regard them as mere appendages to the word or the 
 truth, and as exerting no influence whatsover apart from the faith which the 
 participation in them expresses." — " Historical Theology," vol. i. p. 13, cited 
 in Literary Churchman, Jan., 1863. If this does not deny that the Spirit 
 employs the sacraments as a means of grace in the Church by the institution 
 of Christ, we do not know what it does mean. 
 
 2 
 
18 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 of Calvin has logically no place for the old Church doctrine of 
 sacraments. It is perfect without that doctrine. It is incon- 
 sistent with it. And when they are brought together, it finally 
 eliminates and wholly casts out the doctrine of sacraments. 
 Antecedent, therefore, to the exposition of the Church's doc- 
 trine of regeneration in baptism, and necessary to it, is the 
 Church's doctrine of the nature and effects of sacraments in 
 general. This, therefore, we consider in a separate discussion.* 
 But this last consideration brings us to another thought 
 most important in this discussion. When we come to the 
 ground and basis of the doctrine of sacraments, we find that 
 they rest upon the doctrine of a Church, — the doctrine that 
 our Lord instituted a society for the propagation and mainten- 
 ance of His religion. This being a visible society, organized 
 by Him, was by His power and His providence to have a 
 continuous existence upon the earth throughout all ages to the 
 end of time. This is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church. I^^ow Calvinism finds such an idea in existence in the 
 language and thoughts of all Christians. It therefore must 
 use the word. But to it as a system the idea and the thing is 
 of no importance. For a system founded upon absolute pre- 
 destination the fact does not exist. Calvinism, therefore, uses 
 the word " Church," but attaches to it a different meaning. 
 The " elect" must all be known to God. Their number, there- 
 fore, in His secret knowledge, is precisely recounted. The 
 number, then, of the elect, in the secret counsel of God, is the 
 Church. The Church, then, is invisible; by the decree the man 
 who is elect is admitted to it. Nay, he is within it before he 
 was converted, before he was born — has never been outside of 
 it, nor ever can be. This is the real and true Church of Christ 
 according to Calvin. The visible Church is a mere conven- 
 ience, a mere congregation of men, of no importance in any 
 way. You may give it a decent respect, but it is not the 
 Church of Christ in any more than an outward sense. The 
 
 * See " The Doctrine and Rationale of Sacraments," by the author of this 
 book. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 19 
 
 Church visible has no gifts to give to man, no graces. There 
 is nothing in it that does not come from the members that 
 belong to it. 
 
 Assert the doctrine of sacraments, and you assert the doc- 
 trine of a Church in our own sense. Assert the scheme and 
 system of Calvin, you deny at once the doctrine of a Church 
 and the doctrine of sacraments. Hence can we see at once why, 
 in our system, a distinct and fervent assertion of the fact and 
 doctrine of an Apostolic and Catholic Church goes along with 
 our doctrine of sacraments ; and both are connected with the 
 doctrine of regeneration in baptism. We can also see how the 
 Calvinistic bodies are equally opposed to both — with equal 
 energy deny the doctrine of a visible Church and of regeneration 
 in the sacrament of baptism. 
 
 The next doctrine we specify is, that we are saved by faith 
 alone; which we suppose means the faith of the individual 
 man, without any other means of grace. As we intend this 
 book to be rather an exposition of our own doctrine than a 
 discussion and refutation of those of others, "we shall pass this 
 by with the mere remark, that upon the matter of regenera- 
 tion, all objections to the system of Calvin lie equally against 
 this. 
 
 Our readers will please remark, in reference to the systems 
 we have enumerated, that all of these, Anglican, Calvinist, and 
 Lutheran alike, take regeneration to be a supernatural gift, a 
 state which is the gift of God in this world, and as such can- 
 not be reached by any one, merely by the exercise of his own 
 natural powers. We must, however, notice that there is in 
 existence, in this land, a large party who have quite a different 
 idea. They use the word in a metaphorical sense. As the 
 politician talks of the regeneration of his party, they talk of 
 the regeneration of the man, meaning a change, for the better, 
 wrought in him by his own powers or by the persuasion and 
 influence of others. We say nothing in disparagement of any 
 moral change whatsoever. The man who obeys the moral law 
 when he formerly disobeyed it, has made a great step onward. 
 
20 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Any conversion, any single-minded, any conscious turning 
 a/way from evil toward the good {conversio) is no small gain. 
 It may take place on merely prudential, on moral, or on 
 religious motives ; still we say, if real, it is no small gain, God 
 forbid that we should depreciate or disparage any sincere and 
 real moral change. 
 
 But regeneration is something more than this, in idea and in 
 fact. It is the raising up of fallen man, by the power of the 
 Living Christ and the Holy Spirit, into a state of grace, which 
 of himself, by no power of his own, he could attain unto. 
 They who believe that man, by nature, is born in sin, will be 
 found generally to believe that it is a supernatural change. 
 They, on the other hand, who deny original sin, make regenera- 
 tion to be merely a moral change.* Such persons cannot 
 understand the necessity for regeneration in our sense, or the 
 nature of it. They use the precise and exact theological lan- 
 guage of the Christian Church, in a rhetorical way, as they 
 might that of a pagan mythology, to adorn their discourse, 
 without any distidct understanding as to what the words mean. 
 Once for all, we have done with them. "We are seeking to 
 define and expound the reality of a grand Christian fact in all 
 its breadth and depth, the doctrine of the first step in the 
 Christian life, that great change which takes us from death into 
 life, out of the dominion of the world into the kingdom of 
 heaven ; and the last persons to whom we are thankful are 
 they who would turn this reality into a commonplace meta- 
 phor, who would take the grandest, the most fruitful, the most 
 practical fact and doctrine of the Gospel, and use the words 
 that express its truth as they would any technical religious 
 phrase of paganism, to adorn their rhetorical discourse. 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that our object in this treatise is 
 
 * We cite, for example, the definition given of regeneration in tlie only 
 authoritative book ever published by the Unitarians of Europe, the " Raco- 
 vian Catechism " : " Regeneration is the changing of our reason, will, and 
 affections, and the conforming them to the doctrine of Christ our Saviour." 
 — " Racovian Catechism," a.d. 1608, translated by Rees. London, 1818, p. 254. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 21 
 
 mainly exposition — the bringing forth clearly and distinctly of 
 the doctrine as to regeneration that is held in the Anglican 
 Church and in our own. Controversy, discussion, and refuta- 
 tion come in only incidentally. Still, however, as this treatise 
 is intended to be a practical one, it will be our duty to show 
 the beautiful accordance of our system with all true morality, 
 and we may, therefore, be compelled, as it comes in our way 
 incidentally, to show the mistakes and errors of those who 
 have abandoned it. This we hope to do temperately and 
 calmly. But we cannot be expected to speak with apathetic 
 indifference when we advocate that system which the whole 
 Catholic Church of God held unanimously for fifteen centu- 
 ries,* and which, with the Scriptures in her hands, she asserted 
 and declared to be the system of the Gospel.f We cannot be 
 complimentary to systems antagonistic and radically hostile to 
 this fundamental verity. "We will not eulogize and applaud 
 doctrines of which we believe there is not a trace to be found 
 in the Scriptures apart from bad translation and poor philos- 
 ophy.:}: We cannot be expected to glorify systems to the 
 
 * " A learned writer (Dr Wall) lias well proved, at large, and beyond all 
 reasonable contradiction, that both the Oreek and Latin fathers {i.e., the 
 Christian writers for twelve centuries after Christ) not only used that word 
 (regeneration) /or baptism, hut so appropriated it as to exclude any other con- 
 version or repentance not considered with baptism from being signified by that 
 name; so that, according to the ancients, regeneration, or new birth, was 
 either baptism itself {including both sign and thing), or a change of man's 
 spiritual state considered as wrought in or through baptism." — Dr. Water- 
 land on Regeneration. 
 
 f The judicious Hooker, the pride of the English Church and nation, re- 
 marks, in regard to the words of our Blessed Lord himself, in St. John, iii. 5, 
 " Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God," — " that of all the ancient Christian writers, there is not 
 one to be found that does not expound or quote this place as connected with 
 external baptism." See the third part of this treatise, on the Scripture 
 proofs of our doctrine. 
 
 :j: Predestination, in the sense of absolute decrees, doom, destiny, or 
 fate, is simply the pagan philosophy of the Stoics. And in tJie original 
 Greek of the New Testament there is no word with any such sense. Pre- 
 destination, the term and the idea, was introduced into Christian theology 
 
22 REOENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 result of whose principles, carried out earnestly, by sincere and 
 pious men, under the impression that they are the pure Gospel, 
 we attribute the wide-extended non-professorism and infidelity 
 in this land, which we ourselves have seen in action, com- 
 porting themselves with a fierce dogmatic intolerance, a fiery 
 fanaticism, a jealous and denunciatory proscriptiveness which, 
 after the "revival" or the "camp-meeting" was passed, even 
 the very actors therein could not believe that they had used, 
 and yet the community aroimd had seen with their eyes, and 
 been repelled thereby from Christianity. These systems we 
 cannot be expected to praise. We think them unscriptural 
 and injurious in their influence, and therefore we affect no in- 
 difference. 
 
 And disliking, as we do, the systems alluded to, we must 
 say that we have met many of their adherents, many of their 
 advocates, who have been, in our estimation, better, a great 
 deal better, than their systems, — sincere, devotional, believing 
 men and women, in whose hearts and lives, as far as we could 
 judge, the Holy Spirit of Christ our Lord truly reigned. But 
 not, we believe, because of their systems, but in despite of 
 them, — because of the Holy Spirit, because of the Scriptures, 
 because of " the light that lighten eth every man that cometh 
 into the world," although under systems antagonist to the 
 Church of God and her teaching. And in these cases we have 
 fully seen the duty there is upon the Christian to hate any 
 system Avhich is false and hostile to the Gospel, and yet to pity 
 and love the man who unhappily is entangled in its meshes. 
 
 One consideration more there is, of no small importance. 
 Eegeneration is a new birth. JSTow birth, natural or spiritual, 
 is the entrance into a new life and a new world. It is there- 
 fore only a beginning, only a first step. How and by what 
 means that life is maintained, by what food it is nourished 
 and brought to perfection, is another question. In all such 
 questions there are two distinct considerations. A birth is a 
 
 in the Latin Church, and in the Latin version of the Scriptures, nearly four 
 hundred years after Christ. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 23 
 
 fact occurring but once, at a determinate point of time. "We 
 shall not now discuss the matter, but suppose for the moment 
 that it is so with the spiritual birth, that it takes place only 
 once and at the moment. Now suppose that the person has 
 true repentance for past sins ; that he has true faith in Christ 
 our Lord ; that having these as conditions, he is new-born, 
 regenerated — what is his state then ? All parties will unani- 
 mously answer, that his sins are all forgiven ; he is placed in a 
 condition of acceptance with God through Christ ; he is made 
 a "son of God;" he has received the ''adoption of sons." 
 All this is consummated. 
 
 Suppose that at that very moment the man dies. All 
 Christians will say then that he is saved. He passes at once 
 from the state of grace to that of glory. This must be the 
 conclusion on any theory whatever of regeneration. 
 
 But it is not always the case that the man dies immediately 
 upon his regeneration. Nay, it is most unfrequently so. 
 Ordinarily he has a great portion of his life to live before he 
 passes to his final account. How, during all that period, is his 
 spiritual life maintained, so far as the man himself is con- 
 cerned ? The answer is, by a true and living faith. And by 
 that he is justified, that is, continues in a state of forgiveness 
 and acceptance with God. 
 
 Here there are two questions of fact and doctrine : the ques- 
 tion of regeneration, or the birth into a new life; the question 
 of justification, or the maintenance of the man in a permanent 
 enjoyment of the privileges of that life. These questions are 
 distinct. In the Creed the distinction of these two questions 
 is very clearly indicated in the words, " I believe in the Holy 
 Catholic Church ; " and again, " in the Communion of Saints." 
 By baptism we are regenerated, made members of the Holy 
 Catholic Church. Bj a living faith we are, having once for all 
 been regenerated, members of the Communion of Saints, " true 
 saints, men of real holiness," * justified, accepted before the 
 throne of God. The question, then, of regeneration is a dif- 
 * Bishop Pearson on this Article of the Creed. 
 
24 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 ferent one from that of justification. The subjects are distinct; 
 and yet the one doctrine is a complement to the other. 
 
 We have intended to follow up this treatise by a series of 
 essays upon True Christian Faith ; but we say so much upon 
 the subject, as we do here, to clear away at the first a cause of 
 error. For, by many, regeneration and justification are de- 
 clared to be identical, and the questions concerning them are 
 confounded, because they often concur and exist together in the 
 same person at the same time. Such a mistake is frequently 
 made by men of all shades of opinion. 
 
 One thing more we have to say to our readers. If we look 
 to the history of the English Church, we shall find, from the 
 days of Edward the Sixth (a.d. 1547), down to the overthrow 
 of the Church in the time of Cromwell, the Puritan party were 
 very energetic in propagating the principles of Calvinism, and 
 making adherents ; but more so, if possible, in creating odium, 
 sowing hatred and prejudice broadcast, and exciting popular 
 feelino^ against the Church and her doctrines. In this land, 
 the Puritan, or the Methodist principles, have predominated. 
 As all men are at liberty to worship God as their conscience 
 dictates, there is here more candor and freedom than in Euroj)e, 
 and less of the blind, intolerant fury of religious hatred, sharp- 
 ened by political disabilities. But still there is in existence 
 the same willingness on the part of these sects to accept as 
 true, against the Church, all the odious prejudices, all the ac- 
 cumulated hatred of past times. And, more than this, there 
 is an unwillingness to understand or comprehend our sys- 
 tem, — a desire not to hear what we have to say in our own 
 defence. Every clergyman of the Church who has been in ac- 
 tive life can say that this is one of our main difficulties. Per- 
 sons who will expound their own systems at full length, and 
 be listened to by us, and think it unjust if they are not, M'ill 
 stop their ears against any explanation from us, any attempt 
 to show the reasonableness and Scripturalness of our doctrine. 
 An Episcopal clergyman, therefore, owing to these widely- 
 sown prejudices, is at a very great disadvantage. Instead of 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 25 
 
 saying, as they would do in reference to a Roman Catholic or 
 an Unitarian, "the man is bold and consistent and honest in 
 advocating the platform of principles upon which he stands," 
 even sensible men begin to call names, and refuse to listen. It 
 has been, to our own personal knowledge, an injury to the cler- 
 gy of our Church to hold the doctrines of the Church, although 
 it was done calmly, consistently, and religiously. And again, 
 to others of our own clergy it has been a profit, in money and 
 standing, to join the popular outcry of the "religious world," 
 that is, the mass of professors, Calvinist and Methodist, against 
 the doctrines of their own Church and their own Prayer Book. 
 
 From all these considerations, it is manifest that at this 
 present time there is room for a new exposition of our doc- 
 trines upon the matter of baptismal regeneration, adapted to 
 the circumstances of our own Church, in our own land, and 
 depending for its proof upon our standards, the Bible and the 
 Prayer Book. We acknowledge that this is a difhcult task, 
 when the mass of Christians are pledged to systems which are 
 essentially antagonistic, essentially hostile, to ours ; when the 
 accumulated prejudice and odium which they have been bring- 
 ing against us for three hundred years are constantly kept 
 afloat in the air, constantly blown back upon us by the breath 
 of a majority, after we have labored to clear them away. Yery 
 liard it is, when the leaders of the various denominational sys- 
 tems, if they become convinced of their untruth and of our 
 Scripturalness, must renounce all their interests, abandon their 
 means of living and all their social pleasures and connections, 
 as the price of their conversion. The leaders are thus pledged, 
 by the heavy penalty of what is actually a large pecuniary 
 fine and a social excommunication and proscription, against 
 all changes, in favor of antiquated formulas and hereditary 
 hatreds and prejudices. It is very hard for the Church system 
 to make headway against such a current, to go against so great 
 a multitude. 
 
 Yet we believe that our doctrine is the Scriptural and ortho- 
 dox doctrine. We believe that, being clearly understood and 
 
426 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 practically acted upon, it is true to all the facts of man's nature 
 and state, satisfactory to all his needs, sufficient for all his re- 
 quirements. We believe that it agrees with the system of 
 God's providence in the government of this world, and with 
 the constitution which He has given to man. We know that, 
 standing upon it, preaching it, understanding it, the Christian. 
 Church, at unity in itself, as having a clear, working, har- 
 monious system of doctrine, went on in early ages triumph- 
 antly as a missionary Church, and gathering into its bosom 
 dense masses of population, whole nations of the heathen, 
 subdued and trained and educated them to Christ. We be- 
 lieve that in all these respects, these other systems have neces- 
 sarily the contrary results. 
 
 Yet the age of controversy is past. Men having free 
 choice, by their position as American citizens, among all 
 Churches, all sects, and all denominations, are naturally in- 
 clined to listen to good asserted, instead of evil imputed. 
 They prefer that the clergy of any system should advocate 
 and expound their own doctrine rather than display the evil 
 consequences of any other. They are inclined, in a word, to 
 give their attention to exposition rather than to controversy. 
 
 And, besides this, there is at present a continual restless- 
 ness among professors, a discontented and unsatisfied state 
 among the masses of the religious world, so called, which 
 makes them feel as if in their position there was something 
 wrong, as if the foundation upon which they are now placed 
 were not exactly sure. Men are becoming more willing than 
 of old to listen to the truth distinctly and precisely stated, if 
 the tone be temperate and calm, if it be the voice of exposi- 
 tion, not of controversy. 
 
 Our plan, therefore, in this book, is to this effect. We 
 take our own standards first. From them we set forth the sys- 
 tem they contain. We show from their own words what is 
 their doctrine, so manifestly and plainly, that no one shall be 
 able to mistake it. We declare from them that the doctrine of 
 the Church is the doctrine of regeneration in baptism, that this 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 27 
 
 is their system. In this first part, we profess, from the 
 standards of the Church, to lay out that system in its propor- 
 tions, and to show the several constituent parts of the doctrine 
 in their mutual relations. As we have a system, let us declare 
 it, let its several elements be clearly understood by ourselves 
 and by our opponents. This is the first question to set forth, 
 to expound, to define, so that we shall clearly comprehend 
 what our faith is, and thus to remove all confusion and misap- 
 prehension. Ignorance lies in midnight darkness, error flies 
 to the uncertain gloom of twilight, the region that lies between 
 day and night. 
 
 We think that this method of laying down in precise 
 terms exactly what our system is, first, and then after that of 
 expounding it from the Scriptures, is far better than the liate- 
 ful, sceptical method of discussion that is usual at this day. 
 We have heard from the pulpit, a preacher begin his discourse 
 with a proposal, "calmly and without prejudice, to examine, 
 by reason, the question as to whether there is in existence, ac- 
 tually and truly, such a being as God." The man's method 
 was utterly wrong, entirely sceptical. He was bound, as an 
 honest man, before he undertook to preach, to be so absolutely 
 certain, that discussion and examination on this point were for 
 him all past and gone through. And then, after that, to preach, 
 to declare with assured authority, and to expound the truth as 
 a commissioned ambassador of Christ, was his only true and 
 consistent course. 
 
 After this first part of our treatise, which may be called 
 the legal and documentary part, comes naturally the practical 
 part, the showing that the doctrine is a portion of the great 
 doctrinal system of the Gospel ; that it harmoniously agrees 
 with the other doctrines that are acknowledged by all Chris- 
 tians to be true ; that it is a central organ, an essential constituent 
 of the living body of Christian truth ; that to tear it away is to 
 leave the whole system mangled and dying; to recognize its 
 position and act upon it, is to accept the system of the Gospel 
 as perfect, and endued with its whole vital force and harmony. 
 
28 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Thirdly and lastly, we undertake to demonstrate that the 
 doctrine is Scriptural, that it is in reality the only doctrine of 
 regeneration which the Scriptures teach, and which agrees 
 with the whole range of the Gospel; that it is, being rightly 
 understood and acted upon in a true faith, the literal and 
 common-sense system of practical Christianity, as seen in the 
 Scripture. 
 
 Of course we are aware that in asserting these facts we 
 encounter the prejudices and contradict the accumulated sect- 
 opinion of three hundred years. Yet, still, the attempt to 
 display the truth in its beautiful proportions to the minds that 
 are seeking for it; little by little to cleanse away the stains of 
 falsehood, the accumulated deformities of prejudice, so that 
 the fair statue, in all its beauty of proportion, its lucid glory of 
 form, shall stand manifest and unveiled to the eyes of all men, 
 this is no ignoble task. And such as this we account the work 
 that we here undertake, of bringing forward before the eyes 
 of all men, in its perfect religious and moral beauty and truth 
 and harmony, the doctrine of our Church, that, in holy bap- 
 tism, all persons, who have the requisite qualifications, receive 
 regeneration from God, the Father Almighty; through the 
 Spirit, the Lord and the Giver of life ; and through Jesus 
 Christ, our Saviour, the Redeemer of fallen man. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 OUR STAl^DARDS. 
 
f-?w%*' 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 We have in our preliminary chapter declared our method 
 in this treatise to be that of exposition, not of controversy. It 
 is therefore our first work to lay out distinctly the declarations 
 of our standards. This will place before the reader the system 
 which we consider adequately to represent the truth of Holy 
 Writ, the system, that is, which is contained in the Prayer 
 Book. And seeing that there are two other systems, and that 
 their several advocates have the Scriptures in their hands, at 
 least in the English version, and profess honestly to base their 
 doctrines upon them, our readers can see that any other course 
 than that which we have adopted would plunge us at once into 
 endless controversy and debate. We must, therefore, lay out 
 and define the system of the Church first, by giving in full all 
 her own sentiments in her own words, so that all men, with 
 the Prayer Book in their hands, may see, at a glance, their 
 meaning and intent. After this the agreement of these defi- 
 nitions with the Scripture will come up for examination, and 
 also their practical use in reference to piety and life. 
 
 What does the Prayer Book say upon the doctrine of re- 
 generation ? This is a question which honest and sincere men, 
 within and without the Church, have a right to have answered. 
 And we intend to put it in such a light that they can answer 
 it easily for themselves, by looking up the passages as we give 
 them. And thus having seen, with their own eyes, that there 
 is an exact and practical system clearly set forth in the Prayer 
 Book, they can follow us further onward, and consider the 
 agreement of that system with Holy Writ, and its usefulness 
 in promoting faith and piety. 
 
32 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Now, we would point out to our readers some things 
 which distinguish the Church, in this land, from any of 
 the so-called orthodox denominations in reference to this 
 matter of standards of doctrine. They generally have, or 
 have had, " articles of faith." The Westminster Confession, 
 the Articles of the Synod of Dort, the Saybrook Platform, 
 are examples which all will recognize. The minister is bound 
 to a conformity of doctrine with one or other of these sets of 
 articles. His official performances, in the congregation, are 
 to conform to them as standards. 
 
 His services, moreover, are generally extemporaneous. In 
 this he has a great advantage over us, as concerns the matter 
 of standards, or rather a great disadvantage. Our services are 
 liturgical, that is, in a form precomposed and unvarying. The 
 effect of this fact, since a liturgy demands literal exactness in 
 its use, is to give us fixity of doctrine upon many points 
 whereupon others are left to their own opinion, and undeter- 
 mined. 
 
 In fact, liturgic worship brings forth and establishes the 
 services of the Church themselves as standards, with a fre- 
 quency of impression and a solemn exactness of faith which no 
 mere articles can ever attain unto. As a small instance, we 
 here adduce the second petition in the Litany. Cannot any 
 thoughtful person see, at once, that the prayer — " O God, the 
 Son, Redeemer of the world ; have mercy upon us miserable 
 sinners ! " — embraces a solemn affirmation of the divinity of 
 our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Do not the 
 clergy and the laity, therefore, who publicly use that petition, 
 assert that doctrine emphatically and solemnly ? If the Litany 
 is of binding authority, does not that doctrine bind them? 
 Will the man who denies, or the man who even doubts, the 
 divinity of Christ, use this petition? Will he not rather 
 abstain from uttering it ? Again, take the petition, " From 
 everlasting damnation, good Lord deliver us ! " Is it not 
 manifest that this also is a most stringent article against Uni- 
 versalism ? 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 33 
 
 But there is a more telling instance still in the Prayer Book 
 in the case of the Collects. These terse and beautiful forms of 
 prayer were peculiar to the Latin, or "Western Church. Now 
 the great genius and saint of the Latin Church was St. Augus- 
 tine. He opposed the Pelagian heresy, and as against it 
 brought forth the doctrines of grace in the most admirable way, 
 with an unfortunate adjunct (which he received, most likely, 
 from his rhetorical pagan studies) of the Stoic doctrine of fatal- 
 ism, or absolute predestination. Now, our Collects are taken 
 verhatim, the most of them, from the Sacramentaries of the 
 Roman bishops, Leo the Great, Gelasius, and Gregory the 
 Great. We examine the works of these men, and we see that 
 their mission was to give to the Western Church the doctrines 
 of grace without fate, Augustinism without its absolute pre- 
 destination. In this point of view, if we examine the whole 
 series of our Collects we see that day after day, through the 
 whole Church year, the doctrines of grace without fatal- 
 ism are asserted in these Collects, and that in an exact and 
 precise verbal shape, the most devotional and the most earnest. 
 We ask, is not this liturgic fact, as against Pelagianism, more 
 efficient than any amount of articles ? 
 
 Let us, then, in this point of view, consider our services, 
 and we shall find that we have, in various ways, a very bind- 
 ing and a very distinct series of standards running through 
 the whole Prayer Book. For thus we see that, under the au- 
 thority of the Church, every sentence in every liturgic form of 
 faith, of prayer, or praise becomes, by the concurrent use and 
 consent of the priest and the people, constantly uniting in 
 them, a most stringent article. The Lord's Prayer becomes a 
 creed ; the Litany and Collects, standards of faith ; the whole 
 wide range of the psalms in the Psalter a most extensive and 
 precise system of dogmas concerning the truths of God's being 
 and his dealings in the world with man. The public use of a 
 vernacular liturgy has, as regards the faith of the Holy Catholic 
 Church, a precision and definiteness, a power and influence in 
 forming and retaining doctrinal opinion, a wide-extended, all- 
 3 
 
34 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 embracing harmony of faith, which no system of articles, man- 
 made, written, signed, and sworn to, ever can attain. 
 
 Having seen these effects of precomposed liturgic forms, 
 we go on to examine our Prayer Book, and there in daily use 
 we behold a series of most venerable Church forms, which have 
 framed and moulded in this way the faith of the untold myriads 
 of the Church from the earliest apostolic times down to our 
 own days. These unchanging forms, used day by day through 
 the whole Christian year, in the worship of the Church, are, 
 undoubtedly, standards of the most exact kind. From them, 
 therefore, we are sure to find the living faith of the Church. 
 And these, in the Book of Common Prayer, are of various 
 degrees of authority. 
 
 First of all, we place the Apostles' Creed, which is re- 
 quired, as a profession of faith, of every person at his baptism. 
 This is the apostolic faith of the primitive Western Church ; 
 and on the same level of authority stands the Nicene Creed, 
 the baptismal faith of the primitive Eastern Church, which 
 was very early adopted as its Eucharistic Creed by the "West- 
 ern Church. These, manifestly, are the highest and weightiest 
 class of documents in the Church, as being the most ancient 
 and most Catholic Creeds, and as used upon the most solemn 
 occasions of baptism and communion, obligatory also upon all 
 Christians, both clergy and laity. 
 
 ISText we shall take the Church services. These, as we have 
 said, are liturgic, of a precomposed form, not extemporaneous. 
 Kow, applying what we have said before, is it not manifest 
 that they also contain definite doctrinal propositions, distinct 
 assertions in matters of faith, although they are liturgical ? 
 The second petition of the Litany, as we have shown, has 
 clearly in it, by a simple analysis, the assertions, first, that " the 
 Redeemer is God," and secondly, that " He is Redeemer of the 
 world," not of a few only. 
 
 Another thought : these propositions are afiirmed, by us, in 
 prayer, and as in God's presence, that is, before God, and in a 
 solemn appeal unto God. They partake, therefore, of the 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 36 
 
 nature of an oath, which is an affirmation of any fact as true, 
 before God. Behold, therefore, the doctrinal solemnity and 
 awfulness of liturgic worship ! See the sacred weight that 
 its words, rightly considered, possess ! 
 
 Again, how much is this character of the services enhanced 
 when we see that the whole congregation, old and young, men 
 and women, children and adults, learned and unlearned, all 
 join in them, earnestly, sincerely, devotionally, with one mind, 
 and with one voice ; and that this occurs so often, one hundred 
 and four times, at least, every year. Surely, these considera- 
 tions show a power of unanimous personal testimony to the 
 truths declared in the services of the Church that places them, 
 as doctrinal standards, only second to those most ancient and 
 revered formulas of faith, the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds. 
 
 A third document of great importance is the Catechism, 
 the foi-m of sound words which the Church has provided for 
 the education of the young in the principles of her faith. As 
 this is to be taught viva voce in catechising, by bishops, pastors, 
 and parents, we must necessarily take for granted that they 
 believe it themselves. Herein, also, we have a series of doc- 
 trinal propositions, and these are taught by authority to the 
 young, publicly and openly in the church. The binding power 
 and truth of the Catechism is therefore most manifest. 
 
 But more than this is involved in the position of the Cate- 
 chism as a manual for the young of all ranks and stations. 
 There is implied thereby a plainness of doctrine in distinct 
 words, easily understood, which puts out of the question all 
 subtlety of explanation and argument, all special pleading, all 
 evasion. The words of this document we must take as chil- 
 dren understand them, in the evident and literal sense that lies 
 upon the surface, — as parents teach them, whose only quality for 
 the task is piety, parental love, and ordinary understanding, 
 
 Next we have the Articles of Religion, definitions of great 
 value, adopted by our General Convention from the English 
 Church, in the year 1801, the Prayer Book itself having been 
 accepted and ratified eleven years before. In England, the 
 
36 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 clergy subscribe the articles, the laitj do not.* Here, neither 
 clergy nor laity subscribe them. The clergy in our Church in 
 the United States, at their ordination, subscribe only this 
 declaration : 
 
 " I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testament to be the "Word of God, and to contain all things 
 necessary to salvation; and I do solemnly engage to con- 
 form to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in the United States." f 
 
 Of course this embraces the Articles of Religion as a 
 portion of our doctrinal standards. And for ourselves we sin- 
 cerely accept our articles in their literal sense. We think that 
 they hold clearly and distinctly the system of the Church. In 
 them it is brought out, just as in the Creeds, the Services, the 
 Catechism. The wise man says, "A fourfold cord is not 
 quickly broken." Through this our fourfold cord of Creeds, 
 Services, Catechism, and Articles, we shall clearly show that 
 one strand of doctrine runs, one system, compact and well 
 knit, upon the matter of regeneration. And this we shall do 
 by bringing forward the very words of the Book of Common 
 Prayer in its fourfold unity and harmony of faith. 
 
 These, then, are our standards. The Creeds of the Holy 
 Catholic Church of the East and West, first, as documents of 
 the weightiest importance; secondly, the public Services of 
 the Church, used by all the people, both clergy and laity, in 
 their public worship, solemnly and unceasingly through the 
 whole course of the Christian year; thirdly, the Catechism 
 authoritatively taught by the Church to the young; and 
 fourthly, the Articles of Religion. 
 
 Now, our readers having seen the different ways in which 
 these several classes of documents impress upon the mind the 
 one harmonious system of truth which is embodied in them 
 all, will please look at them again in another point of view. 
 They will bear in mind that our doctrine is no changeable, 
 
 * Hook's " Church Dictionary," p. 56. 
 f Constitution, Article VII. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 37 
 
 flitting expression of sentiment ; no mere momentary declara- 
 tion of personal opinion, made in the heat of extempore prayer 
 or preaching. Our Prayer Book is, to all intents and purposes, 
 the Book of the English Reformation. Three centuries have 
 passed, and during that period all the clergy of the English 
 Church, the most learned and eloquent, the most pious, the 
 most judicious, and the most moderate, have used it in their 
 public rmm&ti'dition^, punctitatim et literatim. Solemnly before 
 their God, and publicly before all His people, they have, word 
 for word and letter for letter, confessed its creeds, prayed with 
 its prayers, been taught, and themselves have taught, its 
 Catechism, and have signed its Articles. Since the time of 
 Cranmer, for twelve generations, it has been in every hand, 
 before every eye, in the mouth of the millions now living and 
 the millions that are dead and gone, who have prayed in the 
 myriad churches of the Anglican fold. Here among ourselves 
 it is our Book of Common Prayer, used in our common 
 worship of God by all the clergy and all the people of the 
 American Church, willingly and lovingly. 
 
 They who stand upon another system in our land have 
 with us no inducements to insincerity and duplicity, no power 
 of bringing political faction to bear upon religious questions. 
 If the system of the Prayer Book does not please them, is not 
 their system, they have no State position or State endowments 
 to retain or gain by staying among us. ]^o State disabilities 
 are upon them if they leave us. All they have to do is to 
 transfer their allegiance, to cross the line toward the camp of 
 their friends. 
 
 Our readers will bear in mind the weight of these consider- 
 ations which we have brought before them. They will see the 
 doctrinal value of a public liturgy, prescribed by authority and 
 received by common consent, used by whole nations for 
 hundreds of years, and varying not in sentences, words, or 
 syllables, nay, hardly in the smallest comma. Let them, with 
 all these circumstances in their mind, peruse the extracts which 
 we shall give, and we have not a doubt that they will say with 
 
38 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 US that regeneration in baptism is the doctrine of the Prayer 
 Book of our Church, which has received that book, and of the 
 English Church, which has given it to us ; this, and not the 
 equally distinct and definite system of John Calvin. 
 
 We do not now enter into the rationale of the doctrine 
 of baptismal regeneration. We do not at this period of our 
 treatise expound its agreement with the other doctrines of the 
 Gospel, the fall of man, original sin, the grace of the Holy 
 Spirit, the incarnation and atonement of our Blessed Kedeemer. 
 Our readers already know our opinion, that it takes for granted 
 the truth of all these doctrines, that it asserts them all, and is 
 itself the result of them all. It rests upon them as their com- 
 pletion. It is the key-stone of the arch, the crowning-stone 
 of the pyramid. It is supported by them all, and again it 
 secures and maintains them all, each and every one in its own 
 peculiar and appropriate place, in the doctrinal system of God's 
 dealings with man. At another period of this discussion we 
 shall consider the relation of all these doctrines, severally, to 
 the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. 
 
 And, furthermore, we shall enter fully into its uses as an 
 aid to practical piety. For we are clearly convinced that the 
 highest and noblest piety, the loftiest and at the same time 
 the lowliest-stooping goodness, the widest and the most far- 
 reaching benevolence, are immediate and direct consequences 
 of holding thoughtfully and understandingly the faith of the 
 Church. In other words, we think and are convinced, by per- 
 sonal and actual experience, that from the system of the Church, 
 distinctly understood and faithfully held and acted upon, comes 
 a more full, a more rich, a more deep, practical piety toward 
 God and man, than from any of the systems that have been 
 substituted for it. The names of Hooker, of Herbert, of 
 Jeremy Taylor, of Beveridge, of Ken, of White, of Seabury, 
 and of Hobart, are enough to allege at present of the multi- 
 tudes whose doctrine and life is recognized by all men, univer- 
 sally, as having been most truly in the spirit of the Gospel. 
 
 These considerations, engaging as they are, may be put off 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 39 
 
 to another period of this treatise. Our present aim is not the 
 discussion of these points, nor, indeed, discussion or argument 
 in any way. We simply wish to present to our readers, at this 
 stage of our inquiry, the documentary evidence from the Prayer 
 Book, in all its four parts, that baptismal regeneration is the 
 doctrine of our Church. We wish to place hefore their eyes 
 the words which the Church says, as to the doctrine of regen- 
 eration, by the mouths of all her bishops, of her tens of 
 thousands of clergy, before the eyes and in the ears of millions 
 of people over the world, every Lord's day, every time an 
 infant or adult is baptized, every time a class is catechised or a 
 confirmation is held, in the same unvarying form and unchang- 
 ing sense, through all these varieties of times, occasions, and 
 offices. These are our words, " printed in a book," as unchang- 
 ing and unvarying as if " they were graven with an iron pen 
 and lead in the rock forever."* What we contend for here 
 is, that any one who will only read the documents we produce, 
 and examine them by the laws of the legal science of evidence, 
 merely as a matter of testimony, must come to the conclusion, 
 that however men may explain it away, or try to evade it, the 
 doctrine of regeneration in baptism is the doctrine of the 
 Church, upon the face of all her standards. 
 
 We have promised to spread the documents upon our 
 pages, so that, with the evidence before their eyes, our readers 
 shall see for themselves and come to their own conclusions. 
 We shall do more than this : we will give them, furthermore, 
 the conclusions of men of great learning and ability, and of 
 the most different tempers and positions, within and without 
 the Church, who have considered this evidence, and testify to 
 its meaning and its force, — men who have examined for them- 
 selves, and give their opinions freely and unconstrainedly. We 
 give, therefore, at this point of our investigation, the estimates 
 as to what our standards say and signify of Henry Melvill, 
 the eminent Evangelical pulpit orator of London, a man of 
 the highest character for piety and talents ; of John Foster, 
 
 * Job, six. 24. 
 
40 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the distinguished essayist, an English Baptist ; of Greslej, an 
 English High Churchman of some considerable prominence in 
 the English Church ; of the eminent Albert Barnes of Phila- 
 delphia, perhaps the best known New-school Presbyterian in 
 the world ; and lastly, of the well-known Spurgeon, the English 
 Baptist preacher in London. "We begin with the testimony of 
 Henry Melvill : 
 
 " That the Church of England does hold, and does teach 
 haptismal regeneration, would never, we must venture to 
 think, have heen disjputed, had not men heen anxious to remain 
 in her communion, and yet to make her formularies square 
 with their own private notions. The words put into the 
 mouth of the officiating minister immediately after every 
 baptism, ' Seeing now, dearly beloved, that this child is re- 
 generate,' seem, too distitict to he explained away, and too 
 general for any of those limitations by which some would 
 restrict them. You may tell me that the Church speaks only 
 in the judgment of charity, on the supposition that there has 
 been genuine faith in those who have brought the infant to the 
 font. But, 6'ye7i on this modified view, the Church holds hajp- 
 tismal regeneration / she holds that, if not invariably, yet under 
 certain circumstances, infants are regenerate, only hecause bap- 
 tized. We cannotj however, admit that the language is only 
 the language of that charity which ' hopeth all things.' Had 
 the Church not designed to go further than this, slie might 
 have said, ' Seeing that we may charitably believe,' or, ' Seeing 
 that we may charitably hope that this child is regenerate ' ; she 
 could never have ventured on the broad unqualified declara- 
 tion, a declaration to be made whensover the sacrament of 
 baptism has been administered, ' Seeing that this child is regen- 
 erate ' ; and then have gone on to require of the congregation 
 to express their gratitude in such words as these, ' We yield 
 Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased 
 Thee to regenerate this infant with Thy Holy Spirit.' We 
 really think that no fair, no straightforward dealing can get 
 rid of the conclusion, that the Church holds what is called 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 41 
 
 haptismal regeneration. You may dislike the doctrine ; you 
 may wish it expunged from the Prayer Book ; hut so long 
 as I subscribe to that Prayer Booh, and so long as I officiate 
 according to the forms of that Prayer Booh, I do not see how 
 I can be commonly honest, and yet deny that every baptized 
 person is, on that account, regenerate.'''' * 
 
 We ask our readers to look at this opinion and weigh it 
 well. Calm and deliberate and resolved, it is manifestly the 
 final conclusion of a man of great abilities, of thorough knowl- 
 edge and great judgment, as well as of thorough evangelical 
 piety. And yet with all this decision upon a point so disputed, 
 how gentle it is, how little bitterness in it or scorn toward op- 
 ponents. I am sorry to warn my readers that it is not so with 
 some others of the quotations I am shortly to make. 
 
 We go to John Foster. In his " Life and Letters " he re- 
 marks : " As to this last (regeneration in baptism), how much 
 dishonest quibbling has there been by Biddulph and others of 
 the Evangelical clergy, to form some other meaning to expres- 
 sions of which the sense is as clear as daylight." f 
 
 In the note upon this opinion of his, is then cited from an 
 English clergyman. Rev. W. Gresley, the following declaration 
 to the same effect : 
 
 "I would appeal to any man of common understanding, 
 from the most unlettered peasant to the ablest in the land ; or 
 to any jury of twelve honest men, be they dissenters or be they 
 Romanists ; or the first twelve one might meet in the streets of 
 London, and submit to their judgment whether it is possible 
 for a doctrine to be couched in plainer or more positive words, 
 whether there can be the shadow of a doubt that the Church 
 of England holds the doctrine of baptismal regeneration; 
 whether the denial of baptismal regeneration be not as clearly 
 contrary to the doctrines of the Church of England as the main- 
 tenance of transubstantiation or the Pope's supremacy; and 
 whether it is not one of the most astounding facts in religious 
 
 * Melvill's " Sermons," p. 361. New York, 1844. 
 
 f Foster's " Life and Letters," vol. ii. p. 116. New York edition. 
 
42 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 controversy that ministers of the Church of England should, 
 Sunday after Sunday, use this service, baptize infants brought 
 to them, should call on the congregation to join with them in 
 thanking God that it hath pleased Him to regenerate such 
 child, and yet hold the opinion, either that the child has not 
 been regenerated at all, or that his regeneration is hypotheti- 
 cal ! If the maintenance of baptismal regeneration be ortho- 
 dox, the denial must be heretical, or at least ' the setting forth 
 of erroneous and strange doctrines.' The question is come to 
 a direct issue, the Church cannot contain both doctrines, the 
 advocates of one or other must give way ! " * 
 
 "We proceed now to the testimony of Albert Barnes. It is 
 extracted from his pamphlet on " The Position of the Evan- 
 gelical party in the Episcopal Church." This, as we learn in a 
 letter from himself, was first published in the JVew Miglander, 
 and then as a pamphlet ran through four or five editions, and is 
 now out of print. We have to return our thanks to the author 
 for his courtesy in supplying iis with a copy at some trouble to 
 himself. t We cite only the part that concerns the doctrine of 
 regeneration. And we beg our readers to consider the candid 
 but somewhat censorious testimony of Mr. Barnes to this fact 
 — that the Church doctrine is indubitably what he calls " the 
 odious doctrine of baptismal regeneration." 
 
 " But the difiiculties encountered by the Evangelical party 
 lie deeper than this. We mean, that they are compelled per- 
 petually to use a liturgy which counteracts all their teaching. 
 The liturgy is opposed to the views of the Low Church Episco- 
 palian, and to the whole influence of his teaching, and is a con- 
 stant influence. To some of the views thus constantly brought 
 before the people in the Prayer Book, opposed to the Evangeli- 
 cal teaching, we will now advert. 
 
 "There is, first, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, 
 a doctrine which we regard as the undoubted teaching of the 
 Prayer Booh, and which presents a constantly counteracting 
 
 * Gresley, quoted by Foster in tlie before cited place, 
 f A.D. 1867. Mr. Barnes is since dead. 
 
EEGENEBATION IN BAPTISM. 43 
 
 influence to the doctrine of the necessity of a change of heart 
 by the agency of the Holy Spirit accompanying the truth (?). 
 The doctrine of the Prayer Book is, that a child that is baptized 
 in the proper manner is ' regenerated ' by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 " The language of the Liturgy on this subject is as explicit 
 as language can be, and we ha/oe never seen amy explanations 
 hy the advocates of Low Church views, which seemed to us 
 to have the least degree of jplausihility.^^ * 
 
 w *3? 7v 7r T? , 
 
 " Here is a regular order in the teachings, prayers, and 
 thanksgivings, all implying the doctrine of haptismal re- 
 generation, and all implying that that regeneration is accom- 
 plished by the Holy Ghost. There is the exhortation to the 
 people to pray for this, then the prayer actually offered for it, 
 and then a solemn form of thanksgiving that it has been done. 
 And that this is the true teaching of the liturgy on this sub- 
 ject, and that the meaning is not, as some Episcopalians have 
 endeavored to show, that the word ' regeneration ' here means 
 a mere 'change of state,' or a transition from the world into 
 the Church, seems to us to he perfectly clear — for (1) Such is 
 not the meaning of the Scripture terms 'regeneration,' and 
 'being born again,' employed in this service. In the Bible 
 they cannot be understood to have this meaning, and there is 
 no evidence that the framers of the liturgy meant to depart 
 from the Scripture usage. (2) The regeneration here sj)oken 
 of is not a mere ' change of state or relation,' It is a change 
 of regeneration hy the Holy Ghost. This is what is prayed 
 for, what is taught as having been accomplished, and that for 
 which ' hearty thanks ' are given when the form of baptism is 
 passed through. Now regeneration by the agency of the Holy 
 Ghost in the Scriptures means a definite thing. It is not a 
 transition from heathenism to nominal Christianity ; it is not a 
 mere profession of religion ; it is a work on the heart itself, by 
 which that is changed, and by which the soul begins to live 
 anew unto God. (3) This cannot be the meaning in the 
 
 *P.35. 
 
44 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 liturgy. Is it possible to believe that sensible men should 
 gravely intreat a whole congregation to offer fervent prayers 
 that certain persons then present might be enabled to join a 
 Church ? Is it necessary for all this parade and ceremony, and 
 all this solemn invocation of the special aid of God's Holy 
 Spirit, that they might be enabled to change their relation ? 
 Is this a work so difficult to be performed as to need the special 
 interposition of Heaven in the case ; a work which no one 
 could hope to be able to do without the particular influ- 
 ences of the Spirit of God ? And is religion in the Episcopal 
 Church such a solemn, trifling thing as this representation 
 would imply ? We do not believe it ; and despite all the efforts 
 of the Low Church Episcopalians to explain this, we believe 
 that the High Church and the Puseyites have the fair inter- 
 pretation of this part of the liturgy, that it is intended to 
 teach the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and that this 
 will be the impression ever made on the great mass of those 
 who use the Prayer Book." * 
 
 TT TV vv w w 
 
 " The first thing we meet with {in the Catechism) is the 
 odious doctrine of baptismal regeneration. . . . The same doc- 
 trine we have affirmed again, if possible in still stronger terms, 
 in the same Catechism, which is to be ' learned.' " f 
 
 After an exceedingly able analysis, of ten pages in extent, of 
 the services of the Church, proving that they teach the doc- 
 trine of regeneration in baptism, Mr. Barnes ends with this 
 most honest and candid advice to the Low Churchman in the 
 Church, bound by his vows to use the service of the Church in 
 the public worship of Almighty God : 
 
 " But has he a right to put his own interpretation on what 
 constitutes a proper qualiflcation ; to say that baptism does not 
 mean regeneration ; that the child that was baptized was tiot 
 ' made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor 
 of the kingdom of Heaven ' ; that it has not ' pleased God to 
 regenerate him with his Holy Spirit ' when he was baptized, 
 * Pp. 37-8. tP.42. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 45 
 
 but that another kind of regeneration is necessary, and to 
 withhold him from confirmation until he has himself the evi- 
 dence that he is born again ? Has he a right to set his own 
 views thus against the teaching of the Church, and to insist 
 that his views shall be complied with, contrary to the obvious 
 meaning of the canons, and to the almost unhrohen custom of 
 the Church f We think not. We think that hy hecoming an 
 Episcopal TTiinister, he hinds himself to act in accordance with 
 the obvious meaning of the liturgy in this respect, and that 
 however his soul may revolt at it, and however contrary all 
 this may he to his co7ivictio7is of what is taught in the New 
 Testament, as long as he chooses to remain in the Church, he 
 has no discretion. He is the servant of the Church. He has 
 received this Prayer Book as his guide, and it is his to carry 
 out its views. If he is dissatisfied with them, the way is 
 clear. It is to leave the comrfiunion ', it is not to introduce 
 and defend practices contrary to the elementary conceptions 
 of Episcopacy.^'' * 
 
 Having given these opinions, we approach with reluctance 
 the sermon on baptismal regeneration, published in 1863, by 
 Mr. Spurgeon, the eminent Baptist preacher of London. Only 
 because it testifies to the fact most emphatically that regenera- 
 tion in baptism is the doctrine of the Church, do we bring him 
 upon the stand along with Melvill, Foster, Gresley, and Albert 
 Barnes. These have tenderness for the weakness of their fel- 
 low-men; but Spurgeon, we must say, is rude and fierce and 
 bitter. Hard and coarse-fibred in himself, he cares nothing 
 for the feelings of others. We have personally known and 
 valued Low Churchmen, even when we saw and regretted their 
 inconsistency. And we think that, at least, as much tender- 
 ness and mercy should be shown to the intellectual inconsist- 
 ency and weakness of such men as Henry Martyn, Wilberforce, 
 Yenn, and Cecil, and Bishop Wilson of Calcutta, and the 
 sainted Archbishop Leighton, as to the Roman Catholics, 
 Francis Xavier, Pasquier Quesnel, Blaise Pascal, and Carlo 
 
 * P. 45. 
 
46 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Borromeo. When we admit the missionary spirit and the 
 Christian hohness of these last, knowing, at the same time, that 
 they held the whole system of popery, we should, at least, 
 abstain from personal charges of " gross and pestilential im- 
 morality " against the first and their disciples. We ought to 
 make allowance for the weakness of poor human nature in the 
 case of the best and ablest ; for the influences of revered and 
 holy (if mistaken) parents ; of teachers and associates respected 
 and beloved, and known in every circumstance of life ; and, 
 above all, for fervent feelings of devotion and predominant 
 tradition. We might do all this, and at the same time under- 
 stand and guard against their errors. But Spurgeon cannot 
 do this. It is not in his nature to do it. We cite him, as we 
 have said, with reluctance, and only for his testimony. 
 
 We go on, now, to make extracts from the sermon on 
 baptismal regeneration. 
 
 In the Church Journal, of July 27, 1864, we find the fol- 
 lowing notice, from the English Clerical Journal, of that 
 notorious sermon : 
 
 " The man has appeared, publicly, in his true character, as 
 a hater of the Church of England, as all his fraternity are at 
 heart. He insulted both High and Low, by comparing the 
 font of one of our cathedrals to a spittoon / he has since re- 
 peated the insult to the Low in the pulpit, in a sermon on 
 baptismal regeneration, which he looks upon as a little less than 
 ' a doctrine of devils.' He first commends the honesty of High 
 Churchmen : ' My brethren, those are honest Churchmen in 
 this matter, who, subscribing to the Prayer Booh, helieve in 
 baptismal regeneration, and preach it plainly. God for- 
 bid that we should censure those who believe that baptism 
 saves the soul, because they adhere to a Church which teaches 
 the same doctrine. So far they are honest men ; and in Eng- 
 land, wherever else, let them never lack a full toleration. Let 
 us oppose their teaching by all Scriptural and intelligent means, 
 but let us respect their courage in plainly giving us their views. 
 I hate their doctrine, but I love their honesty.' But then 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 47 
 
 comes his withering sarcasm in reference to the Evangelical 
 clergy : ' But,' I hear many good people exclaim, ' there are 
 many good clergymen in the Church who do not believe in 
 baptismal regeneration.' To this my answer is prompt: 
 Why^ then, do they helong to a Church which teaches that 
 doctrine in the plainest terras f I am told that many in the 
 Church of England preach against her own teaching. I know 
 they do, and herein I rejoice in their enlightenment ; but I 
 question, gravely question, their morality. To take oath that 
 I sincerely assent and consent to a doctrine which I do not 
 believe, would, to my conscience, appear little short of perjury, 
 if not absolute, downright perjury ; but those who do so must 
 be judged by their own Lord.' " 
 
 So far the English paper. We go on to make further ex- 
 tracts from this sermon, which now is lying before us : 
 
 " For me to take money for defending what I do not be- 
 lieve; for me to take the money of a Church, and then to 
 preach against what are most evidently its doctrines ; I say, 
 for me to do this (I shall not judge the peculiar views of other 
 men), for me, or any other simple, honest man to do so, were 
 an atrocity so great, that if I had perpetrated the deed, I 
 should consider myself out of the pale of truthfulness, honesty, 
 and common morality.* 
 
 " For clergymen to swear, or to say that they give their 
 solemn assent and consent to what they do not believe, is one 
 of the grossest pieces of immorality perpetrated in England, 
 and is most pestilential in its influence, since it directly teaches 
 men to lie (!) whenever it seems necessary to do so, in order to 
 get a living or increase their supposed usefulness ; it is, in fact, 
 an open testimony, from priestly life, that, at least, in ecclesi- 
 astical matters, falsehood may express truth, and truth itself is 
 a mere unimportant nonentity. I know of nothing more 
 calculated to debauch the public mind than a want of straight- 
 forwardness in ministers ; and when worldly men hear ministers 
 denouncing the very things which their own Prayer Book 
 
 * Sermon, p. 4 
 
48 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 teaches, they imagine that words have no meaning among 
 ecclesiastics, and that vital differences in religion are merely 
 a matter of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and that it does not 
 matter what a man does believe, so long as he is charitable to 
 other people. If haptism does regenerate people, let the fact 
 he preached with a trumpet tongue, om,d let no Tnanhe ashamed 
 of his helief in it.* 
 
 " It is time that there should be an end put to the flirta- 
 tions of honest men with those who believe one way and 
 swear another. (!) If baptism works regeneration, let them 
 say so ; but if they do not believe it in their hearts, and yet 
 subscribe, and yet more, get their livings by subscribing to 
 words asserting it, let them find congenial associates among 
 men who can equivocate and shuffle, for honest men will 
 neither ask nor accept their friendship." 
 
 The coarse brutality, and insolent and abusive common 
 sense of this sermon, roused even Baptist Noel (who having 
 been an Evangelical clergyman of the Church of England, had, 
 at the cost of all his preferments, given up his position and 
 become a Baptist) to come forward in defence of his old asso- 
 ciates, the Evangelical clergy of the Church of England. Yet 
 with all its rudeness, and the utter want of anything like 
 Christian charity, or tenderness, in Spurgeon's sermon, he 
 speaks the truth ; the Calvinistic doctrine on regeneration is 
 not that of the Book of Common Prayer, and the men that 
 hold it, and are clergy of the Church of England, are sadly 
 inconsistent. They lay themselves open to such reproaches as 
 these of Spurgeon. 
 
 This sermon was preached before three thousand people in 
 London, England, and has been widely spread by the Baptist 
 press. We quote from its pages. 
 
 We give two other small extracts commenting on vari- 
 ous parts of the Prayer Book. On the Catechism, he 
 says : " Is not this definite and plain enough ? I prize the 
 words for their candor ; they could not speak more plainly. 
 
 * Sermon, p. 5. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 49 
 
 Three times over the thing is put, lest there should be any 
 doubt in it. The word ' regeneration ' may, by some sort of 
 juggling, be made to mean something else, but here there can 
 he no misunderstanding. The child is not only made a mem- 
 ber of Christ — union to Jesus is no mean spiritual gift — hut 
 he is made in hajptism the ' child of God ' also. Nothing can 
 he more plain. I venture to say that while honesty remains 
 on earth the meaning of these words will not admit of dis- 
 pute. It is as ce7'tain as noonday. ^^ * 
 
 Again : 
 
 " I am not aware that any Protestant Church in England 
 teaches the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, except one, and 
 that happens to be the corporation which, with none too great 
 humility, calls itself the Church of England. (!) This very 
 powerful sect (!) does not teach the doctrine merely through a 
 section of its ministers, who might be charitably considered as 
 evil branches of the vine, but it openly, holdly, and plainly 
 declares the doctrine in her own appointed standard, the 
 Booh of Common Prayer, and that in words so express, 
 that, while language is the channel of conveying intelligible 
 sense, no process, short of wresting from their plain meaning, 
 can ever make them say anything else.^'' 
 
 Our citations from Spurgeon are at an end. He bears the 
 same witness as the other four, in how diiferent a spirit all 
 can most plainly see. To him, and those who sympathize with 
 him, as well as to the men, good in life and fervent in the 
 Christian faith, although, perhaps, mistaken and inconsistent, 
 whom he has abused, we recommend these two verses : 
 " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
 have not charity (love), I am become as sounding brass, or a 
 tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy 
 (preaching), and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; 
 and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, 
 and have not charity, I am nothing.f 
 
 * Sermons, p. 3. t !• C!or. xiii. 1, 2. 
 
 4 
 
CHAPTEK II. 
 
 Or course, in examining our standards, we consider that 
 their great value lies in their giving us the doctrine of the 
 Scriptures, systematically laid out. All doctrinal standards, of 
 course, profess to do only this. Our Prayer Book system, 
 however, has this one advantage over its competitors. At the 
 first, no one will deny that the literal sense, that which lies 
 upon the face of Holy Writ, appears, evidently, to uphold the 
 doctrine of baptismal regeneration. The text, "Except a man 
 [in the Greek rrc, any person whatsoever] be born of water 
 and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God," * certainly says that there is a birth of water and the 
 Spirit. " Pie that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," f 
 seems, upon its face, to say that baptism has, at least, as much 
 to do with salvation as faith has. 
 
 " The like figure (the antitype) whereunto even baptism 
 doth also now save us" :{: asserts that we are saved by baptism. 
 
 Our readers will see, as we go on, that our system expressly 
 asserts all that Scripture, in the plain literal sense, says con- 
 cerning baptism. All that Scripture says it is, we say it is, our 
 opponents say it is not. To them we are not " regenerate of 
 water and of the Spirit," but of the Spirit only. "We are not 
 saved by faith and baptism, but by faith only. " Baptism does 
 not save us." And so it goes through their whole system. 
 Let the humble-minded Churchman bear this in memory, 
 especially when he is told that the system of his standards is 
 unscriptural, and adhere to it, at least, until he sees very plain 
 reasons, indeed, for a most violent and emphatic " ?io," where 
 * John, iii. 5. f Mark, xvi. 16. 1 1. Peter, iii. 21. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 61 
 
 the Scripture gives a most plain affirmation, taken as it stands, 
 literally, in its evident sense. 
 
 We shall take the Nicene Creed as the first of our standard 
 documents. In the liturgic use of this creed the minister and 
 the people together repeat aloud the words, " I acknowledge 
 one baptism for the remission of sins." 
 
 How much this confession agrees with the doctrine that 
 baptism is not a mere form, but a sacrament, a "means of 
 grace," a spiritual instrument which God employs to confer 
 upon the believer heavenly blessings, by the immediate opera- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit, may easily be seen by the baptismal 
 services. Here we see that the Creed says, " I acknowledge 
 one baptism for the remission of sins." Then, again, in the 
 services the minister prays for those who are to be baptized^ 
 as well infants as adults, that, 
 
 " They coming to Thy holy baptism may receive remission of sin by 
 spiritual regeneration." * 
 
 He implores of God 
 
 " To sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin." 
 
 He then baptizes the person, and, after this is done, 
 in case it is an infant, he gives thanks to God, and prays for 
 him, 
 
 " That he being dead unto sin and living unto righteousness, and being 
 buried with Christ in His death, may crucify the old man, and utterly abolish 
 the whole body of sin ; and that, as he is made partaker of the death of 
 Thy Son, he may also be partaker of His resurrection ; so that finally, with 
 the residue of Thy holy Church, he may be an inheritor of Thine everlast- 
 ing kingdom ; through Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 In the case of adults, he prays that 
 
 " Being now born again, and made heirs of everlasting salvation, through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, they may continue Thy servants, and attain Thy 
 promises ; through the same Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, who liveth and 
 reigneth with Thee in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, everlastingly. 
 Amen." 
 
 * OflBces for infant and adult baptism. 
 
52 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Whatever opinion any one may have of the doctrine, it is 
 very manifest that the " Nicene Faith " says that baptism is 
 "for the remission of sins," and that the Services of the 
 Church say precisely the same thing. They both hang together. 
 As documents they give the same evidence, that in baptism 
 " remission of sins " is given. If we cast out the evil spirit of 
 negation and prejudice, and of hostile systems preoccupying 
 the mind, we shall not find it very hard to discover that the 
 Holy Scripture makes the same assertion : " Arise," Ananias 
 says to the repentant and believing Saul, "and be baptized, 
 and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord ! " * 
 
 In days of old, when the scientific men of that age had made 
 their minds up that the earth was the centre of the solar sys- 
 tem, it was very hard to give an unprejudiced hearing to the 
 pleading of Copernicus or Galileo in favor of the sun being 
 its centre. We believe that the centre of God's system upon 
 earth is God's work done through His Son, by His Spirit, in 
 this world ; and we are not likely to be impartially, calmly, 
 or candidly heard by those who are certain that that centre 
 lies in man's consciousness of the religious workings of his 
 own heart. We see the doctrine of the Nicene Creed in Holy 
 Writ ; their system forbids them seeing it there. We place 
 the centre of God's system in the Son ; they, in man's feelings 
 and his heart. This is plain assertion. Is it not a matter of 
 fact also ? 
 
 We go on now to the Baptismal Services, and, to avoid 
 unnecessary comment, we shall take the liberty of drawing the 
 attention of our readers to the emphatic parts by printing them 
 in italics. Our readers, of course, know what doctrine it is 
 which w^e consider that they hold. To follow our exposition 
 of these services with the Prayer Book in their hands, to see 
 that we fairly declare and expound their meaning and purport, 
 we think no very difficult task for candid inquirers who are 
 seeking the truth. 
 
 The first thing that strikes us in the Baptismal Offices is the 
 * Acts, xxii. 16. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 53 
 
 public and solemn nature of the service. It is to be in the 
 church,* upon a Sunday, or other festival day, before the eyes 
 of the whole congregation. This last object is secured by its 
 being rubrically placed in the middle of the morning service, 
 immediately after the second lesson. In fact, throughout the 
 baptismal service, the whole congregation is supposed to be 
 present, to assent to its declarations of doctrine, to pray for the 
 regeneration of the person presented, before the baptism, and 
 to give thanks for the same after it has been completed. The 
 authorized minister of Christ is in the chancel ; the person to 
 be baptized, and chosen sponsors on his part to assume most 
 solemn obligations, are assembled in one group and placed close 
 by the most sacred part of the church, publicly before the whole 
 congregation. All the solemnities of time and place and per- 
 son which the Church can gather together are herein accumu- 
 lated. 
 
 Surely this invests the transaction with deep importance. 
 It shows that it is far more than a mere form. It is the con- 
 clusion of a solemn covenant between God and man, in His 
 church, by His ministers, before His people, — a sacrament by 
 the "Word and the Spirit, actually conferring, here upon earth, 
 the grace of regeneration. This is what all these solemn rites, 
 these careful surroundings of time and place, most plainly in- 
 dicate. Except we believe this, all the publicity, the solem- 
 nity, the particularity as to witnesses and sponsors, as to place 
 and position and time, are utterly without use or meaning. 
 We bring these considerations forward now, because we have 
 seen in some persons a willingness to strip the sacrament 
 of these its investitures of awe and reverence and respect. 
 We have recognized that intention, and the motive for it, in 
 the history of the Church of England, and of onr own. If a 
 man thinks baptism to be in effect nothing, all these solemn 
 surroundings are meaningless and useless. He will break them 
 away if he can, in spite of custom or usage, laws or rubrics. 
 
 It will be remembered that there are three offices for bap- 
 * Always, except in case of sickness. 
 
54 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 tism, in the Prayer Book, — "Public Baptism of infants," "Pri- 
 vate Baptism of children in houses," and " Baptism of such as 
 are of riper years." 
 
 Upon the infant or adult being brought to the font, "which 
 is then to be filled with pure water," the minister asks: 
 
 " Hatli this cliild (or person) been already baptized, or no ? " 
 
 And, upon the answer being given in the negative, he 
 makes a short address to the cijngregation, asserting the fact of 
 original sin, and the necessity arising from it of '^heing regen- 
 erate, and horn anew of water and of tlie Holy Ghosts He 
 requests of them to pray the Father 
 
 "To grant to this child (or person) that which hy nature he cannot 
 have ; that he may he baptized mih water and the Holy Ohost, and received 
 into Christ's Holy Church, and made a living member of the same." 
 
 Surely this address is perfectly consonant with the doctrine 
 that the child is brought to the Church, then and there* to be 
 regenerated and born anew of water and the Holy Ghost in 
 baptism. It is perfectly consistent with this doctrine, hardly 
 with any other. Nay, does it not distinctly tell all who are 
 present, that for this purpose the child is brought to the font ? 
 
 * We see a very distinct assertion of this in the Homily of the Church 
 of England " On the Repairing and Keeping Clean of Churches :" " And 
 shall we be so mindful of our common houses, and so forgetful toward the 
 house of God, wherein He ministers the sacraments and mysteries of our 
 redemption? The fountain of our regeneration is there presented unto us, 
 the partaking of the body and blood of Christ is there oflfered us." — " Homi- 
 lies." Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1802, p. 229. 
 
 The same thought is presented to us most beautifully by Archbishop 
 Cranmer, in his "Answer to Gardiner." " The sacraments," he says, " are 
 Christ's sacraments, not the priest's. Therefore, when the priest, in our 
 eight, in the Church, putteth to his hand, and washeth the child in baptism, 
 we must believe that God putteth to His hand, and washeth the infant 
 inwardly with the Spirit, and Christ cometh down upon the child and ap- 
 parelleth him with His own Self. And, as at the Lord's table the priest 
 distributeth bread and wine, so, inwardly, by faith, we ought to see Christ 
 feeding both body and soul to eternal life." — See whole passage quoted in 
 H. Browne on the Articles, p. 329. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 55 
 
 This doctrine is perfectly consistent with the address, and with 
 all the concomitant circumstances. They are in harmony with 
 this doctrine, and no other. 
 
 Then, two prayers follow, either of which may be used at 
 the discretion of the minister. It may be easily seen that both 
 hold the same doctrine. 
 
 In the first, which we shall not cite entire, it is said : 
 
 " By the baptism of Thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ in the river Jor- 
 dan, (Thou) didst sanctify icater to the mystical washing away of sin." 
 
 Mystical, in liturgical language, being equivalent with sac- 
 ramental. It is prayed, also, for the person, whether infant or 
 adult, that he may he washed and sanctified with the Holy 
 Ghost ; 
 
 " That he being delivered from Thy wrath, may he received into the ark 
 of Christ's Church." 
 
 All these benefits are prayed for as not heing possessed at 
 the time when the prayer is uttered. And, after the baptism, 
 thanks are then immediately returned for them, as at that time 
 having heen given hy God to the person who has been baptized. 
 What other conclusion can be drawn, than that the Church 
 considers them to have been given, then and there, in answer 
 to the prayer of faith, by the Holy Spirit, at the instant of the 
 baptism ? You may not, as is said in the foregoing chapter by 
 Henry Melvill, agree with the doctrine, but you must confess 
 that the words, in their position and with their attendant cir- 
 cumstances, signify this and nothing else. 
 
 And, really, if there be in truth and fact such a change as 
 that of regeneration or new birth, we cannot see why it should 
 not take place at such a soleinn conjuncture of concurrent acts 
 of faith, hope, and love as the moment of baptism is — when 
 the authority and faith of the minister, the repentance and 
 faith of the candidate, the faith and promises of the sponsors, 
 the prayers and faith of the people, all concur and come to- 
 gether in time and place, at a solemn sacrament, a means of 
 grace instituted and ordained by Christ himself. If the Holy 
 
56 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Spirit actually and really operates and eifects this great change 
 supernaturally, upon man while living upon the earth, at any 
 one moment of time, surely all these circumstances most ap- 
 propriately gather around and mark the time of baptism as 
 the moment of that new birth. 
 
 It may need an humble Christian heart, free from self- 
 opinion and fervent in faith, to see it and believe. It may be 
 easy to doubt that it is so. But that the words of the bap- 
 tismal service assert that the change of the new birth or re- 
 generation takes place at the moment of baptism, then and 
 there, no one, who candidly examines them, we think, can 
 deny. 
 
 The next prayer for the infant or adult, proceeds thus: 
 
 " Almiglity and immortal God, the aid of all who need, the helper of all 
 who flee to Thee for succour, the life of those who believe, and the resur- 
 rection of the dead ; We call upon Thee for this infant (or person), that he, 
 coming to Thy holy baptism, may receive remission of his sins by spiritual re- 
 generation. Receive him, Lord, as Thou has promised by Thy well-beloved 
 Son, saying. Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and 
 it shall be opened unto you. So give now unto us who ask; let us who 
 seek, find; open the gate unto ms who knock; that this infant (or person) 
 may enjoy the everlasting benediction of Thy heavenly washing, and may 
 come to the eternal kingdom which Thou hast promised by Christ our Lord. 
 Amen." , 
 
 The service then proceeds with a Gospel appropriate to the 
 sacrament of baptism, and a short exhortation following it. 
 The Gospel in the case of infants is a diflferent one from that 
 in the office for adult baptism. In the first it is the narrative 
 of our Lord's blessing little children, from St. Mark ; in the 
 second, it is the history of Nicodemus's coming to Jesus by 
 night, from St. John. 
 
 The exhortations also are different, but they both end 
 with the same prayer. This prayer, it is most convenient at 
 this place to say, contains these words : 
 
 " Give Thy Holy Spirit to this infant (or person), that he may be born 
 again, and be made an heir of everlasting salvation." 
 
 The same constant asseveration of new birth, or regenera- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 51 
 
 tion in baptism, is seen here, as forms the central thought of 
 all the baptismal services. 
 
 The Gospel in the service for adults, from the third chapter 
 of St. John, and containing the proof text, "Except a man be 
 born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God," we need not cite in full in this place. But the 
 exhortation in it is most remarkable. All the passages which 
 the pure, primitive Church, and such writers of the Church of 
 England as Hooker, Barrow, and Beveridge, so unanimously 
 refer to baptism, are there accumulated. And after the cita- 
 tion of each text comes the assertion that it belongs to haptism, 
 and that it is now to be fulfilled in these persons. It is hard 
 to say how an honest and intelligent man can use this exhorta- 
 tion, in the course of his duty as a clergyman, and not believe, 
 in some intelligible sense, in the doctrine of regeneration in 
 baptism. We spread the whole of it before our readers' eyes : 
 
 "Beloved, ye hear in this Gospel the express words of our Saviour 
 Christ, that except a man he horn of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of God. Whereby ye may perceive the great necessity of 
 this sacrament, where it may be had. Likewise, immediately before His 
 ascension into heaven (as we read in the last chapter of St. Mark's Gospel), 
 He gave command unto His disciples, saying : Go ye into all the world, 
 and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized 
 shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned. WJdch also show- 
 etli unto us the great benefit we reap thereby. For which cause St. Peter the 
 Apostle, when upon his first preaching of the Gospel many were pricked at 
 the heart, and said to him and the rest of the Apostles, Men and brethren, 
 what shall we do? replied and said unto them, Repent, and be baptized 
 every one of you for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you and your children, and to all that 
 are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many 
 other words exhorted he them, saying. Save yourselves from this un- 
 toward generation. For (as the same Apostle testifieth in another place) 
 even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the 
 flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus Christ. Doubt ye not therefore, but earnestly believe, that He 
 will favorably receive these present persons, truly repenting, and coming unto 
 Him by faith ; that He will grant them remission of their sins, and bestow 
 upon them the Holy Ghost ; that He will give them the blessing of eternal 
 life, and make them partakers of His everlasting kingdom. 
 
58 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 " Wlierefore we being thus persuaded of the good will of our Heavenly 
 Father toward these persons, declared by His Son Jesus Christ; let us 
 faithfully and devoutly give thanks to Him, and say, 
 
 " Almighty and everlasting God, heavenly Father, we give Thee humble 
 thanks, for that Thou hast vouchsafed to call us to the knowledge of Thy 
 grace, and faith in Thee : Increase this knowledge, and confirm this faith in 
 us evermore. Give Thy Holy Spirit to these persons, that they may be born 
 again, and be made heirs of everlasting salvation ; through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit, now and 
 forever. Amen." 
 
 Is it not the duty of the clergyman who uses such a form 
 as this, rather to seek out for himself, by thorough and patient 
 examination, the system of the Church upon the matter of re- 
 generation, so that he may understand its spiritual significance, 
 than to follow at random the lead of dissenters, Calvinist or 
 Methodist, who, however personally pious they may be, have 
 cast off the whole system of the Church we love, and inveigh 
 against all her doctrines and usages? They are at liberty, ut- 
 terly disengaged from us. They stand outside, upon the sj's- 
 tem they have chosen. We, of our own free choice, are bound 
 to use the services of the Church. In the system taught by 
 these services, the "washing of water" has its place. "Repent- 
 ance and faith " also have their place. The " operation of the 
 Holy Spirit upon the soul of man" has its place. "The re- 
 mission of sins " its place also. Is it not a great deal better to 
 acknowledge these several coordinated elements of our salva- 
 tion, these distinctly-asserted constituent parts of the system 
 and scheme of salvation by grace, to balance and consider their 
 relations, efiects, and position, than to talk of the Church doc- 
 trine with the contemptuous tone which we have heard dis- 
 senters employ ? 
 
 Of the way in which the doctrine of the Chm-ch has been 
 held by the thoroughly educated and consistent clergy of the 
 Church at all times we have given some instances, and shaU 
 give many more. But it may at this point of our inquiry be 
 interesting to consider the effect of these services upon some 
 of that class called Evangelical in the English Church, men, 
 that is, who have sympathized more or less with pious dissen- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 59 
 
 ters and have adopted more or less of their senthnents and 
 modes of thought. 
 
 " The majority of the clergy have ever held baptismal re- 
 generation, but among those connected with the party which 
 formally opposed it, large concessions were made. The late 
 Mr. Simeon acknowledged that any use of the word regenera- 
 tion which separated it from the benefits of baptism was alto- 
 gether modern. Mr. Simeon, some twelve or fourteen years 
 ago, published a candid narrative of the progress of his mind 
 to this point, and showed how he was led to see his error in 
 opposing the orthodox doctrine." * 
 
 We turn, therefore, to the works of Simeon (vol. ii. p. 289), 
 and we find the following, which, we must say, we take to be 
 a very admirable commentary upon the services. 
 
 " In the baptismal service we thanh God for having regen- 
 erated the haptized infant hy His Holy Spirit. Now from 
 hence it appears that in the opinion of our Reformers, regen- 
 eration and remission of sins did accompany haptism. But in 
 what sense did they hold this sentiment ? Did they maintain 
 that there was no need for the seed then sown in the heart of 
 the haptized person to groio and hring forth fruit, or that he 
 could he sa/ved in any other way than hy a progressive renova- 
 tion of his soul after the divine image ? Had they asserted 
 any such doctrine as this, it would have been impossible for any 
 enlightened person to concur with them. But nothing can be 
 conceived more repugnant to their thoughts than such an idea 
 as this ; so far from harboring such a thought, they have, and 
 that, too, in this very prayer, taught us to look to God for that 
 total change, both of heart and life, which long since their days 
 has hegun to he expressed hy the term regeneration, f . . . . 
 
 * Catena on Baptism. London, 1850. 
 
 f " In saying that there is no objection to the use of the term regeneration 
 in connection with haptism when rightly interpreted, we would not be under- 
 stood as advocating the use of it in conversation, or sermons, or tracts, 
 except where it can be easily explained, and is explained at the time so as 
 not to be misunderstood." — Bishop Meade of Virginia, " Companion to the 
 Font and Pulpit," p. 104. 
 
60 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Here the only question is, not whether a baptized person can 
 be saved by that ordinance without sanctitication, but whether 
 God does always accompany the sign with the thing signified ? 
 There is certainly room for difference of opinion ; hut it cannot 
 possibly he decided in the negative, because we cannot know or 
 even judge respecting it in any case whatsoever, except by the 
 fruits that follow ; and therefore, in all fairness it may be con- 
 sidered only as a doubtful point ; and if we appeal, as we ought, 
 to the Holy Scriptures, they certainly do in a very remarhahle 
 way accord with the expressions of our liturgy. St. Paul says : 
 ' By one Spirit we are all haptized into one body, whether we 
 be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have 
 been all made to drink into one Spirit^ And this, he says of 
 all the visible members of Christ's Church.''^ Again, speaking 
 of the whole nation of Israel, infants as well as adults, he says : 
 ' They were all haptizedxxnio Moses in the cloud and in the sea ; 
 and did all eat the same spiritual meat ; and did all drink the 
 same spiritual drink : for they drank of that Spiritual Rock 
 that followed them : and that Roclc was Christ.'' f Yet, behold, 
 in the very next verse he tells us that ' with many of them God 
 was not well pleased : for they were overthrown in the wilder- 
 ness.' In another place he speaks more strongly still: 'As many 
 of you,' he says, 'us are baptised into Christ have put on Christ.^ 
 Here we see that what is meant by the expression ' baptized 
 into Christ,' is precisely the same expression as that before 
 mentioned of the Israelites being ' baptized unto Moses.' The 
 preposition ect; is used in both places ; it includes all who have 
 been initiated into His religion by the rite of baptism ; and of 
 them universally does the Apostle say, they have put on Christ. 
 Now I ask, have not the persons who scruple the use of that 
 prayer in the baptismal service equal reason to scruple the use 
 of these different expressions ? 
 
 "Again, St. Peter says, 'Pepent, and be baptized everyone 
 of you for the remission of sins.' :{: And in another place, 
 ' Baptism doth also now save us.' § And, speaking elsewhere of 
 
 * I. Cor. xii. 13, 27. f I- Cor. x. 3-4. t Acts, ii. 38. § I. Pet. iii. 31. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 61 
 
 baptized persons who were unfruitful in the knowledge of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, he says, ' He hath forgotten that he was 
 purged from his old sins.' * Does not this very strongly coun- 
 tenance the idea which our reformers entertained, that the 
 remission of our sins and the regeneration of our souls is 
 attendant ujpon the hajptismal rite f " 
 
 We had intended to quote no more from Mr, Simeon, but 
 we extract the next paragraph, principally to show how such 
 pious and good men as he feel the inconsistency of the rigid 
 logical system of Calvin with that of the Church, and finally 
 as an introduction to the next quotation from Archbishop 
 Sumner. 
 
 " Let me say the truth before God," Mr. Simeon proceeds 
 to say ; " though I am no Arminian, / do thinh the refine- 
 ments of Calvin have done great harm in the Church / they 
 have driven multitudes from the plain and jpopular way of 
 speaking used iy the inspired writers, and have made them 
 unreasonably and unscripturally squeamish in their modes of 
 expression. And I conceive that the less addicted any person 
 is to systematic accuracy (!) the more he will accord with the 
 inspired writers, the more he will approve the views of our 
 reformers." (!) 
 
 By this last extraordinary sentence we can easily see that 
 Simeon was rather tired of the rigorous and accurate logic of 
 Calvinism, and seems never to have suspected an accurate sys- 
 tem in the New Testament, but to be willing to settle down in 
 the strange opinion that the doctrine of the Sacred Yolume is 
 loose and popular, inaccurate and unsystematic ! 
 
 We give, now, the opinion of Archbishop Sumner of Can- 
 terbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of the 
 English Church. The doctrine of " special grace," which he 
 speaks against, seems to be the Calvinistic doctrine that irresisti- 
 ble and indefectible grace is given to the person specially and 
 individually at the moment of his effectual calling, which is, 
 upon that theory, the moment of his regeneration. He remarks, 
 
 *II. Pet. i. 9. 
 
62 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 most truly, that " it is, indeed, a sufficient confutation of tlie 
 doctrine of special grace that it absolutely nullifies the sacra- 
 Tnent of hajptism. It reduces it to an emjpty rite, an external 
 mark of admission into the visible Church, attended with no 
 real grace, and therefore conferring no real benefit.* 
 
 " Another practical evil of the doctrine of special grace is 
 the necessity which it implies of some test of God's favor, 
 and of the reconcilement of Christians to Him, beyond and 
 subsequent to the covenant of baptism. St. Paul, it has been 
 seen, insists upon the necessity of regeneration ; he declares 
 that ' the natural man is at enmity with God, and cannot receive 
 the things of God ; ' he calls the heathen nations ' children 
 of wrath^ and ' sinners of the Gentiles ' ; he speaks of the old 
 man as being corrujpt according to the deceitful lusts ; and, in 
 short, he expresses, under a variety of terms, the assertion of our 
 Saviour, that ' except a man be bom of water and of the Spirit, 
 he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' 
 
 " With equal clearness he intimates that the Christians he 
 addresses were thus regenerate / as having ' put ofi" the old man 
 with his deeds / ' and having ' become the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost and the members of Christ '/ as having the ' Spiritual 
 circumcision^ ' being buried with Christ in baptism ' / as 
 having ' received the Spirit of adoption ' ; and as being 
 ' washed., sanctified., and jtistified in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
 and by the Spirit of our God.' To the Galatians, ' bewitched ' 
 as he says they were, ' that they should not obey the truth,' he 
 still writes, ' Ye are all the children of God by the faith in 
 Christ Jesus, for as many of you as have been baptized into 
 Christ have put on Christ.'' These addresses and exhortations 
 are founded upon the principle that the disciples, by their 
 dedication to God in baptism, had been brought into a state of 
 reconcilement with Him, had been admitted to privileges which 
 the Apostle calls upon them to improve. On the authority of 
 this example, and of the undeniable practice of the first ages 
 of Christianity, our Church considers baptism as conveying 
 * Sumner on Apostolical Preaching, p. 99. New York edition. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 63 
 
 regeneration, instructing ns to pray before baptism that the 
 infant may be born again and made an heir of everlasting sal- 
 vation, and to return thanks after baptism that it Kath jpleased 
 God to regenerate this infant with His Holy Spirit, and re- 
 ceive him for His own child by adoption." * 
 
 Here, in addition to the evidence of these sincerely pious, 
 if somewhat inconsistent men, we shall introduce another wit- 
 ness, whose name is sufficiently known in this country, though 
 we imagine he is hardly suspected by anybody of believing in 
 regeneration in baptism — we mean John Wesley. Among his 
 works, published for the Methodist Episcopal Church in New 
 York, 1851, there is a treatise on baptism, written and pub- 
 lished when he was fifty-three years of age, in the midst 
 of his career, and in the fullest vigor of his powers. In it he 
 comes out so strongly in favor of baptismal regeneration, that 
 it puzzles his American editor, and he remarks that it must be 
 remembered that " he was originally a High Churchman, and 
 uses some expressions in regard to the doctrine of baptismal 
 regeneration, which we at this day should not prefer ! " 
 
 The second section of the treatise is — "What are the 
 benefits we receive by baptism ? " 
 
 " First, the washing away the guilt of original sin. Second, 
 the being admitted into covenant with God. Third, the being 
 admitted into the Church, and made consequently members 
 of Christ, its head. Fourth, thus we are regenerated in hajp- 
 tismJ^ 
 
 We have hardly space to cite, in addition, more than the 
 fourth and fifth sections ; we shall, therefore, give them entire. 
 
 " Fourth. By baptism we who were by nature children of 
 wrath are made the children of God. And this regeneration, 
 which our Church, in so many places, ascribes to hajptism, is 
 more than barely being admitted into the Church, though 
 commonly connected therewith ; ' being grafted into the body 
 of Christ's Church, we are made the children of God by 
 adoption and grace.' This is grounded upon the plain words 
 * Sumner on Apostolical Preaching, pp. 91, 93. 
 
64 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 of our Lord, ' Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, 
 lie cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 
 
 " By water, then, as a means, the water of baptism, we 
 are regenerated, or horn again, whence it is also called by the 
 Apostle ' the washing of regeneration.' Our CkurcJi, therefore, 
 ascribes no greater virtue to haptism than Christ himself does. 
 Nor does she ascribe it to the outward washing, but to the 
 inward grace, which added thereto, makes it a sacrament. 
 
 " Herein a principle of grace is infused, which will not 
 be wholly taken away, unless we quench the Holy Spirit of 
 God by continual wickedness. 
 
 " Fifth, In consequence of our being made the children of 
 God, we are heirs of the kingdom of heaven. 'If children,' 
 as the Apostle observes, ' then heirs, heirs of God, and joint 
 heirs with Christ.' Herein we receive a title to and an 
 earnest in a ' kingdom that cannot be moved.' ' Baj)tism doth 
 now save us,' if we live answerable thereto ; if we repent, 
 believe and obey the Gospel ; supposing this, as it admits us 
 into the Church here, so into glory hereafter.^'' * 
 
 Indeed, in our own Church the force of the formulas has 
 been so great that the opponents of the doctrine have been 
 compelled to admit that " baptismal regeneration is certainly 
 in some sense true." A proposition which any of those who 
 stand outside the Church, boldly and consistently placing 
 themselves upon their own ground, will at once tell them to 
 be a mere timorous compromise between Gospel truth (that' is 
 the Calvinistic system) and the necessities of their position as 
 Episcopal clergy. 
 
 We have a system. It is in our Prayer Book. It is Evan- 
 gelical. It agrees with the GosjdcI. It is practical. Its ele- 
 ments are well arranged, coordinated in mutual harmony. It 
 has been held distinctly and uncompromisingly by men as 
 learned, as pious, as surely and clearly converted to God as 
 the world has ever seen. And we say that to search out this 
 
 * Wesley's Works. Printed at the Conference office, New York, for the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, 1851. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 65 
 
 system, to accept it, to live by it, is the duty of every clergy- 
 man and layman of our Church. This, and not to import 
 among us the doctrines, and therefore the difficulties, the objec- 
 tions, the entanglements of alien systems. For, as every strong- 
 minded, earnest-hearted, pious Calvinist knows, they have 
 another system, one utterly distinct from ours ; the Methodists 
 have yet another ; better learn our own, know our own, live 
 upon and in our own system, than try to bring again into the 
 Church in this land the turbidness and confusion of thought 
 and of conscience of the Church-and-State Puritanic times of 
 England. Methodism or Calvinism seeking to wriggle itself 
 into the liturgical garments of the Church, to speak its own 
 language in her words, is at the best a pitiful sight. Some- 
 what excusable it may have been under the coldness and 
 immovable hardness of an establishment and a State-bound 
 Church ; but here, in this land, at this date, it is entirely out of 
 place. But upon this point we say no more, we simply refer 
 our readers to the opinion of Henry Melvill, cited on p. 40. 
 
 We go on with an analysis of the Baptismal Services The 
 minister now addresses the sponsors. He says : 
 
 "Ye have brought this child Aere to be baptized ; ye have prayed that 
 our Lord Jesus Christ would vouchsafe to receive him, to release him from 
 sin, to sanctify him with the Holy Ghost, to give him the kingdom of heaven 
 and everlasting life. Ye have heard also that our Lord Jesus Christ hath 
 promised in His Gospel to grant all these things which ye have prayed for : 
 which promise He, for His part, will most surely keep and perform. 
 
 " Wherefore, after this promise made by Christ, this infant must also 
 faithfully, for his part, promise by you that are his sureties (until he come 
 of age to take it upon himself) that he will renounce the devil and all his 
 works, and constantly believe God's holy Word, and obediently keep His 
 commandments." 
 
 We see in this address the simple and assured faith of 
 parents and sponsors, which believes that the child is brought 
 here, to the church and the font, for the purpose of receiving 
 all the benefits of regeneration. And also we see the assured 
 faith of the commissioned minister, who authoritatively tells 
 them that God will grant their prayers. 
 5 
 
66 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Another remark we make in this place, which we consider 
 of great importance. Baptism, the Church considers to be a 
 covenant, a valid contract between two parties, in which one 
 is bound as well as the other. The two parties are God and 
 the person who is baptized, whether infant or adult. As the 
 man is bound by the covenant unto God, so is God bound unto 
 the man. !N"ow look at this last clause which we have cited. 
 Where did this baptismal service come from? We answer, 
 from the primitive Church in Rome. Skill in the law, legal 
 science and lawyer-like ability, is one most prominent charac- 
 ter of the ancient Roman people. And what do we see 
 here? A covenant, legally concluded according to the prin- 
 ciples of the Roman law. A case of " intercessio," on the 
 behalf of a " pupillus," by his " sponsores," or " fidejussores," 
 by which they assume the "obligatio" upon themselves 
 in his behalf. The whole thing being that peculiar form of 
 covenant called " stipulatio," in which a person, or his rep- 
 resentative, appears before the authorities and concludes a 
 contract or covenant verbally.* The Roman Christians of 
 the very earliest times, perhaps even in the days of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, were so certain of the reality of the baptismal 
 covenant between God and man, that they set it out, formally 
 and solemnly, as a contract, in the terms and according to the 
 principles of the Roman law ! And our dissenters, at the 
 present time, think it to be a mere formal ceremony, having 
 little or no meaning ! 
 
 We believe that it is a real covenant, a solemn contract 
 betwen God and man, wherein He has been pleased to bind 
 Himself to us for grace to aid us in our temptations, suflScient 
 unto all our needs ; and for guidance, so that all things shall 
 work together for our good, if, having come within the Church 
 (being elect according to His will), we " love Him." We be- 
 lieve that upon the fact of this " covenant," concluded between 
 us and God, we may rest with a living and a certain faith. 
 
 * Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Article Stipti- 
 latio. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 67 
 
 We may appeal to Him, upon the basis of this fact, as His 
 children by adoption and grace, and we think that one of the 
 worst evils of the popular religionism of this day is, that it 
 ignores and sets aside the " everlasting covenant, the sure 
 mercies of David." It tells the man to dwell upon his own 
 uncertain, feeble, shivering self-consciousness, instead of the 
 clear, indubitable matter-of-fact understood and accepted by 
 faith, that between him and God a solemn covenant has been 
 validly concluded, binding him to God, and God to him, on 
 certain stipulations. 
 
 But it will be said that all this is merely figurative. If it 
 be merely figurative, no clergyman that is an honest man 
 should ever use this baptismal form. For upon that supposi- 
 tion the whole thing is a deluding of the people into the belief 
 of a fact that is not so — it is a mere trifling with sacred things. 
 But it is not so. In baptism a covenant is concluded between 
 God and man. It is a real and true covenant. We receive it 
 and accept it by faith. And if, as baptized men, children of 
 God and of the Church, we have forgotten it, we should learn 
 to recall and realize it in our principles and our life. 
 
 After this stipulation, solemnly concluded, the service pro- 
 ceeds with four short prayers. The first of these is this : 
 
 " O merciful God, grant that the old Adam in this child (or person) may 
 be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in him. Amen." 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to remark that this is an allusion 
 to regeneration through Christ our Lord, the raising up of our 
 humanity from the old state in which we are by our natural 
 birth, into a new state, in which we are placed by our new birth. 
 " The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last 
 Adam was made a life-giving spirit," * Original sin being the 
 partaking, by natural birth, of the corrupt nature of the fallen 
 Adam ; and regeneration the partaking, by the new birth, of 
 the life-giving, spiritual, and glorified man, of the nature of our 
 Lord, who is in us, the new man. But in regard to this passage, 
 we refer our readers to the second and third parts of this trea- 
 * I. Cor. XV. 45. 
 
68 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 tise, only we would not that they should pass over thoughtlessly 
 the clear allusion that exists in this prayer to the doctrine of 
 the new birth in Christ. The other prayers are, the second 
 and third for grace to him who is regenerate, and for his final 
 perseverance by the same spirit ; and the fourth is a prayer 
 for all those who, in the same place and by the same ministry, 
 may be dedicated to God. 
 
 Then comes a prayer, summing up the whole in what is 
 really a collect, in the ancient sense : 
 
 "Almiglity, everliving God, wliose most dearly beloved Son Jesus 
 Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins, did shed out of His most precious side 
 both water and blood ; * and gave commandment to His disciples, that they 
 should go teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; Eegard, we beseech Thee, the sup- 
 plications of Thy congregation ; sanctify this water to the mystical washing 
 away of sin; and grant that this child, now to he baptized therein, may receive 
 the fulness of Thy grace, and ever remain in the number of Thy faithful 
 children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 The minister then takes the child into his arms. He re- 
 quires of the sponsors to name it. He baptizes it with water 
 from the font, " in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost. Amen." He signs it with the sign of the Cross, 
 declaring that he receives it into the congregation of Christ's 
 flock. And then forthwith he addresses the people ; he declares 
 " This child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church." 
 
 He calls upon the brethren, in a solemn address, to give 
 thanks to Almighty God for this henefit, and pray 
 
 " That this child may lead the residue of his life according to this begin- 
 ning," 
 
 We lay the address before our readers. They will remem- 
 
 * " In the early Church there is a constant reference of the water and 
 blood from our dead Saviour's side to the sacraments. Chrysostom repeats 
 it four or five times, and Augustine thrice as often in his writings. Au- 
 gustine has it in this way : ' While Adam slept. Eve was formed out of his 
 side ; and so, while Christ slept, out of His pierced and wounded side the 
 sacraments flowed.' The same thought is constantly referred to by the 
 greatest writers in our Church, — Pearson, Hooker, Andrews, etc." — " Plain 
 Commentary," condensed. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 69 
 
 ber that it follows instantly and immediately after the bap- 
 tism. Then shall the minister say, 
 
 " Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and 
 grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty 
 God for these benefits ; and with one accord make our prayers unto Him, 
 that this child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning." 
 
 Then all kneel. The Lord's Prayer * is said. And, after 
 that, the minister says : 
 
 "We yield Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath 
 pleased Thee to regenerate this infant with Thy Holy Spirit, to receive him 
 for Thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into Thy Holy 
 Church. And humbly we beseech Thee to grant, that he being dead unto 
 sin, \ and living unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ in His death, 
 may crucify the old man, and utterly abolish the whole body of sin ; and 
 that, as he is made partaker of the death of Thy Son, he may also be par- 
 taker of His resurrection ; so that finally, with the residue of Thy Holy 
 Church, he may be an inheritor of Thine everlasting kingdom; through 
 Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 The assertion having been made by the clergyman that 
 " this child is now regenerate" and " grafted into the body of 
 Christ's Church," the people are called upon to return thanks 
 to God "for these benefits," in unison with him. (What an 
 awful blasphemy and mockery of God would this be if there 
 were no regeneration in baptism, no benefits whatsoever ; if no 
 work or influence of God's spirit had taken place in the sacra- 
 ment! and it be nothing, in fact, except a mere convenient 
 and decorous form ! ) And then, with one voice together, the 
 clergyman and the people, upon their knees, thank God that 
 
 " He has been pleased to regenerate this infant," 
 the particular child then personally present, 
 
 " by the Holy Spirit, to receive him as His own child, to take him out of the 
 world into the Holy Catholic Church." 
 
 * " The Lord's Prayer always strikes me as beautifully appropriate then 
 and there, when one soul more has just received ' the Spirit, whereby we cry 
 Abba, Father ! ' " — Bishop Armitage of Wisconsin. 
 
 ■j- In the modern English idiom it would be, " That he, as now dead unto 
 sin, and living unto righteousness," etc. 
 
10 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 If Christian faith behold no such change then and there 
 effected by the power of God, why should clergy and people 
 solemnly assert, in the presence of God, that all this has taken 
 place ? Why should they thank God for it ? Is not such a 
 thanksgiving a mere mockery of God on any other hypothesis 
 or supposition than that of the Church doctrine, that a mirac- 
 ulous work of the Holy Spirit in time and place, is then and 
 there done, at the moment of baptism, regenerating that child 
 by implanting in his being the life of Christ, and transferring 
 him from the state of nature to the state of grace ? 
 
 And thus as regards the prayer which uses these words of 
 the person baptized, that 
 
 " He being dead unto sin, and living unto righteouaness," 
 
 in other words, having now received the baptismal grace which 
 in the Catechism is defined to be " a death unto sin, and a new 
 birth unto righteousness ; " which says that he 
 
 " Being buried with Christ in His death," 
 "buried with Him by baptism into death," ^ which says of him, 
 
 " He ieing made partaker of the death of Thy Son," 
 
 made to have a living interest in the atonement of our Lord ; 
 how any clergyman or layman, of sincere and honest mind and 
 good sense, can make void this prayer, and all these assertions 
 (concerning the person baptized), and say, " TTiese things we 
 have prayed for, we have thanked God for, we have said to 
 have taken place, in this church, at this font, in this haptism, 
 of this infant, and possibly they have not taken place at all, 
 and may never take place ! " — how, when they habitually and 
 officially use the address and the prayer we have cited, any 
 clergy can think or say so, is perfectly astonishing to us ! 
 Surely the plain and evident sense of the words, lying upon 
 the face of them, and manifest to all men, is only one, — gives 
 only one, meaning. And it is, that God is thanked by priest 
 and people, because that He has, in baptism, regenerated the 
 
 * Romans, vi. 4. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 71 
 
 child brought into the church by his sponsors, then and there 
 to obtain for him from God that unspeakable gift. 
 
 The service is then concluded with an address to the 
 sponsors, not enjoining upon them any labors in the future 
 for the regeneration and new birth of the baptized child, but 
 most carefully and particularly prescribing and directing its 
 Christian training and Christian culture, as of a son of God, a 
 human being, new born into the kingdom of heaven, — taking 
 for granted throughout, that there is a peculiar Christian edu- 
 cation for him who is really and truly a Christian, and that the 
 infant just baptized is such by spiritual regeneration, now con- 
 ferred upon him by the Spirit of the Father and the Son. 
 
 We have done with our review of the Baptismal Services. 
 And we fear not but that the clear-minded and candid reader, 
 who has gone along with us, with the Prayer Book in his hand, 
 who has attended to the sense and tenor of these offices, who 
 has considered their position and significance, will agree with 
 us, whatsoever his own doctrine may be, that if they do not 
 assert that we are regenerated in holy baptism, it is utterly 
 impossible to say what they do mean. If the words have any 
 meaning at all, this is the meaning that they have. The per- 
 son, whether child or adult, by nature needs regeneration, or 
 the new birth through Christ our Saviour. He is brought to 
 the church for the purpose of receiving it in baptism, by the 
 efficient grace of the Holy Spirit. The clergyman and the 
 congregation pray for this grace for him as for one that has it 
 not. He is then baptized. And immediately, on the spot, it 
 is declared again and again, in the most solemn and most em- 
 phatic way, that now he is regenerate, now he has the grace of 
 the new birth through Jesus Christ our Lord. As a plain 
 matter of documentary evidence, a mere fact of interpretation, 
 this is and must be the meaning of the Baptismal Offices, or 
 else they have no meaning whatsoever. 
 
 And the only reason why it has been doubted by any is, 
 that men have had in themselves good reason to doubt the 
 doctrine. In themselves, we say, that is, in the systems, pre- 
 
72 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 judices, or preconceived opinions with wMcli they come to the 
 consideration of these services. For, upon a matter so deeply 
 important as our new birth in Christ, there are very few serious 
 persons who have not formed some opinion as to what it is, and 
 how it is effected. And the opinion of the Church is certainly 
 not that of the majority in this land. We may, indeed, doubt 
 whether the majority comprehends what our doctrine is, or 
 even understands the meaning of the terms we employ. 
 
 However, as an illustration, we shall take the case of a 
 modern Unitarian, and suppose him to come to a consideration 
 of these services. As an Unitarian, he disbelieves and denies 
 the fact of original sin. He denies the divinity and person- 
 ality of the Holy Spirit, accounting the Spirit to be merely 
 the moral and intellectual inliuence of religion upon the public 
 mind, — the spirit of the Gospel in the same sense as we speak 
 of the spirit of Shakespeare, or the spirit of the age. He 
 asserts that sacraments are not in any way means of grace, but 
 are merely figures and symbols, suggesting solemn thoughts 
 by the association of ideas and their consequent influence on 
 the imagination. Now, with these doctrines, or negations of 
 doctrine, in his mind, he approaches the doctrine of baptismal 
 regeneration. Is it not plain that he has in hwiself abundant 
 reasons for denying it ? It asserts original sin. It asserts tliat 
 sacraments are means of conferring grace. It asserts that the 
 giver of that grace, the Holy Ghost, is a person, and is God. 
 Furthermore, it asserts the divinity and atonement of our 
 blessed Lord Jesus Christ. The Unitarian, denying all these, 
 has therefore abundant reasons for denying the doctrine of 
 baptismal regeneration. If he accepted it, he must accept all 
 these. But all these great doctrines, which it takes for granted 
 and implies, of which it is actually the crown and consumma- 
 tion, it is part of his profession of faith, if we may call it so, 
 not to helieve. He has good reasons, then, to disbelieve it. 
 But these reasons are in himself, in his own denial of all 
 these Christian doctrines of which it is the natural amd logical 
 conclusion. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 73 
 
 And yet he does not recognize this fact in any way. He 
 is not conscious of it. He thinks, and no doubt sincerely and 
 honestly, that there is for him no difficulty but in the doctrine 
 itself. 
 
 But, indeed, as the Unitarian does not take regeneration to 
 be anything supernatural, but a mere moral change, it must 
 be for him almost impossible to imagine that it takes place in 
 or by a sacrament. He can conceive why, for an adult, what 
 he calls regeneration should happen at a camp-meeting, under 
 a fervent discourse, when men's souls are wonderfully moved ; 
 but not that regeneration should take place at what he thinks 
 to be only a calm, cold, formal ceremony. 
 
 But the other denominations, who are usually called 
 orthodox, almost as little can conceive of such a time and 
 place for regeneration. They have lost altogether the doctrine 
 of sacraments,* and they have their own systems, Calvin- 
 istic or Methodist, preoccupying their mind. They hold these 
 very strongly, and sometimes express themselves as to our 
 doctrine with exceeding contemptuousness and harshnesss. 
 "Mr. ," said one of them to a clergyman of my acquaint- 
 ance, " I like your liturgy and the order of your Church very 
 well; but I don't believe your nonsense about baptismal 
 
 regeneration. Why, I was regenerated at a revival at , 
 
 and I know it." The good man had a theory, and a practice 
 also, of regeneration, and every other, of course, must be con- 
 temptibly untrue. 
 
 And, indeed, there has been among our own people very 
 great indistinctness and confusion, so much so as actually to 
 invite assaults, or to afford opportunities for doubts to make 
 a lodgment in the mind. We have hardly understood the 
 eminent practical Christian value of the doctrine. And 
 seeing at the moment the fervor, the boiling zeal, the earnest 
 professions of personal piety of those who clearly are upon 
 opposite systems, we have hesitated in our opposition to them. 
 
 * We do not say from tlieir standards, but from their public opinion, the 
 general Christian sentiment of their people. 
 
Y4 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 !Nay, we have been timorous in asserting our own doctrine, 
 through an excess of Christian charity and a faith that believes 
 too much. 
 
 It requires some assured courage, some collectedness and 
 decision, even some hardness and setness of judgment, when 
 a whole city is excited, and fifty ministers are preaching 
 earnestly and fervently on the revival system, and hundreds 
 of people are declaring themselves regenerated under the 
 working of that system, to look assuredly and calmly to our 
 own doctrine, and believe with a firm faith in it. And then, 
 in the midst of the storm of emotion, to look forward quietly 
 to the time, which surely shall come, when nine out of ten of 
 the actors in the scene shall recognize the fact that it has been 
 for themselves mere emotional delusion, mere excitement. 
 
 We must understand our own doctrine better than we have 
 done. We must hold it with more faith. We must develop 
 its meaning in our life, as the primitive Christians did, until 
 its sacred fulness and beauty of practical truth abide upon our 
 souls as it did upon theirs, and we know and understand, in 
 heart and principle, the value of being born unto Christ, of 
 water and the Spirit. 
 
 We have, upon this subject, derived from the English 
 Church too much discussion upon the mere letter of the 
 Prayer Book, too much legalism. We rest too much upon 
 the evidence that the doctrine is really to be found in the 
 words of the Bible and the Prayer Book, as they truly are, 
 and as it is very necessary to be considered that they are. We 
 should make a further step. We should realize the spiritual 
 value of the doctrine, practically, to ourselves and our people. 
 We should hold it forth, and preach it, and act upon it, with 
 such a fervid grasp of apprehension, such a glow of realization, 
 as to make them know and feel that they are in fact and in 
 truth born unto Christ anew in holy baptism. 
 
 We fear not that this time is coming. In the meantime 
 we are in the minority. Antagonist systems fill up the field. 
 Only by a true Christian life, exemphfying our own system 
 
BEGENEEATION IN BAFTTS3L 75 
 
 and showing tliat it can be made — nay, actually is — the best 
 basis for a true and real piety, can we gain any hearing from 
 the multitudes. Only by a calm and clear-sighted and loyal 
 adhesion to our own doctrines and our own principles can we 
 teach men what we are, what these are. And having this, 
 we may trust that its value will come forth more and more 
 in despite of the stream of reproaches and imputations which 
 Puritanism has poured upon it, until finally all men shall truly 
 comprehend that it is the truth, and furthermore that it is the 
 most practical and the most lovely of all the doctrines of the 
 Church. 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 We go now to the Catechism, which is by authority taught 
 to all our children. If our readers will turn to this manual, 
 they will find the doctrine of regeneration in baptism asserted 
 as plainly in it as in the Baptismal Service. Nay, the doctrine 
 is there put into the mouth of children. " Thou hast hid 
 these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed 
 them unto babes." * The catechist, whether he be clergyman, 
 or parent, or guardian, or Sunday-school teacher, asks of the 
 baptized child the question : 
 
 " Who gave you this name ? " 
 
 The child replies, 
 
 "My sponsors in baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, tTie 
 child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 Here, " out of the mouth of babes and sucklings," the 
 Church brings forth her truth. She makes the baptized child 
 declare personally, " I was made in my baptism the child of 
 God." 
 
 Our readers will notice in the passage of the Catechism 
 above cited the change from the indefinite article in the 
 phrases " a member of Christ," " an inheritor of the kingdom 
 of heaven," to the impressive and telling emphasis of the 
 definite article in the words " the child of God." ISTot a son 
 in any other of the manifold senses in which sonship may be 
 predicated of persons, but " the " son in the definite sense in 
 which we are begotten of the Spirit, and born anew by the 
 regeneration wrought out for us in Christ our Lord, and con- 
 ferred by Him upon us in His holy religion. 
 
 *Matt. xi. 35. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 77 
 
 In the Catechism there is yet another passage in which 
 the doctrine is as distinctly put into the mouth of the child, 
 and as plainly asserted by him of himself and the rest of the 
 baptized, as may be. It is in the part of the Catechism that 
 treats expressly of the sacraments. The question is legarding 
 baptism : 
 
 " What is the inward and spiritual grace (in baptism) ? " 
 
 Answer. " 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." 
 
 Here again is the doctrine of original sin and of regen- 
 erationin baptism. We " are born in sin and the children of 
 wrath," and hereby {i. e., by baptism) we are new born, and 
 "made the children of grace." The Calvinists of this day are 
 very plain in speech in telling how we are formalists, and 
 therefore deny the " doctrines of grace." Yet here they are — 
 the doctrines of the Holy Spirit, and grace, and original 
 sin — taught to children in the Church. But mark the differ- 
 ence. They cannot believe it possible that the Spirit should 
 act in and by sacraments,* although it is expressly declared in 
 the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 There is the very point of the difficulty with them. They 
 deny that the Spirit can regenerate us in the sacrament. 
 They disbelieve it. They will tell you that it is utterly unrea- 
 sonable and absurd. 
 
 * Calvin could. His highly systematic and penetrating mind understood 
 clearly the objective and the subjective in the case of sacraments ; the 
 power of the Spirit in giving by the means, and then of the personal faith 
 in receiving by the same means. " Itaque," he says, " inter Spiritum sacra- 
 mentaque partior, ut penes ilium agendi virtus resideat, his ministerium 
 duntaxat relinquatur, idque sine Spiritus actione inane et f rivolum ; illo 
 vero intus agente vimque suam exerente, multa energia refertum." ^ 
 " Wherefore, in distributing between the Spirit and the sacraments, I con- 
 sider that in Him dwells the power of acting ; to them is left merely an 
 instrumental ministry ; and this, without the agency of the Spirit, is empty 
 and idle. But as He acts inwardly in them, and puts forth His power, that 
 ministry is filled with manifold energy." 
 
 1 Calvin's "Institutes," book iv. chap. xiv. § 9. 
 
IS REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 ISTay, they will go farther than this, and abuse the doctrine 
 in the most virulent and hateful terms. Listen to Whitefield : 
 "I would as soon believe the doctrine of transubstantiation as 
 that all persons who are baptized are born again." " Baptismal 
 regeneration is the Diana of the present clergy and the present 
 age." 
 
 From this proscriptive and uncharitable criticism we turn 
 to Bishop Beveridge, whose learning is immense, his holiness 
 without a blot, and his name known over the English world. 
 He can believe that the Spirit regenerates us in baptism. 
 
 We cite, as in this place is most suitable, first from his 
 " Commentary on the Church Catechism," and then from his 
 Sermons. Our readers will perceive in him what Calvin, in 
 his keen scientific way, calls the " distribution {partitio) 
 between the Spirit and sacraments," the perception of the 
 relation between the Spirit as the agent, and the sacraments 
 as means which he employs ; and, again, the effect of personal 
 faith in availing itself of the gift proffered. All this appor- 
 tionment is distinctly marked out by the bishop. He is truly 
 described by a prominent Low Churchman * as "an evangelical 
 and practical bishop, deeply serious and holy." 
 
 " They who bring a child to holy baptism are called his 
 godfathers and godmothers, because they are the means of his 
 being then regenerate or horn again of God. They also give 
 him the Christian name, because that belongs to him only as 
 he is a Christian, and so the child of God j and they give him 
 this name in his baptism, or at the same time that he is bap- 
 tized, because it is then that he is hrought into this relation to 
 God, so as to be made His child, according to the tenor of the 
 new covenant which God hath made with mankind in Jesus 
 Christ, promising pardon, and peace, and grace, and His own 
 fatherly care of, and provision for, aU those who repent and 
 believe in Him," f 
 
 Again : " He is therein also made ' the child of God,' 
 
 * The Eev. E. Bickersteth. 
 
 f Beveridge's Works, vol. viii. p. 20. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 79 
 
 because, at the same time that he is baptized or horn again of 
 water J lie is horn also of God the Spirit, and therefore is His 
 child, as having received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we 
 cry Abba, Father, that is, call God our Father. And, besides, 
 he that is ' the member of Christ,' is therefore also ' the child of 
 God ; ' for Christ being the Son of God, all His members must 
 needs stand in the same relation to God that He doth, though 
 in a lower degree, according to their capacities. Hence it is 
 that, as He it is that gives them power to become the sons of 
 God, so ' He is not ashamed to call them brethren,' as He doth, 
 because His Father is their Father also, and therefore theirs 
 because His." * 
 
 We now go on to our extract from the bishop's sermons : 
 " What He (Christ) means by being ' born of water and of 
 the Spirit,' is now made a question : I say now, for it was 
 never Wjade so till of late years ^ for many ages together none 
 ever doubted of it, but the whole Christian world took it for 
 granted that our Saviour, by. these words, meant only that, 
 except a man be baptized according to His institution, he can- 
 not enter into the kingdom of God, this being the most plain 
 and obvious sense of the wordiS,, forasmuch as there is no other 
 way of heing horn a^ain of water, as well as of the Spirit, hut 
 
 only in the sacrament of haptism But that we 
 
 may he thus horn of the Spirit, we must he horn also of water, 
 which our Saviour here puts in the first place. Not as if there 
 was any such virtue in water, whereby it could regenerate us, 
 but because this is the rite or ordinance (sacrament) appointed 
 by Christ, wherein to regenerate us hy His Holy Spirit; 
 our regeneration is wholly the act of the Spirit of Christ. 
 But there must be something done on our parts in order to it, 
 and something that is instituted and ordained by Christ him- 
 self, which, in the Old Testament, was circumcision ; in the 
 New, baptism, or washing with water — the easiest that could 
 be invented, and the most proper to signify His cleansing and 
 regenerating us by His Holy Spirit. And seeing this is insti- 
 * Beveridge's Works, vol. viii. p. 23. 
 
80 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 tuted by Christ himself, as we cannot he horn of water without 
 the Spirit, so neither can we, in an ordinary way, he horn of 
 the Spirit without water, "used or applied in obedience and 
 conformity to His institution. Christ hath joined them 
 together, and it is not in our power to part them ; he that 
 would he horn of the Spirit, must he horn of water tooP * 
 
 Again : " After all, we must observe that, although our 
 blessed Saviour here saith ' That except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of God,' yet He doth not say that every one that is so born 
 shall inherit eternal life. It is true, all that are baptized, or 
 born of water and the Spirit, are thereby admitted into the 
 Church, or kingdom of God ; but, except they submit to the 
 government and obey the laws established in it, they forfeit 
 all their right and title to the kingdom of heaven. They are 
 brought into a state of salvation ; but unless they continue in 
 it, and live accordingly, they cannot be saved. For, as St. 
 Peter observeth, ' Baptism now saves us (not the putting away 
 of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience 
 toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.' Baptism 
 puts us into the way of heaven ; but unless we walk in that 
 way, we can never come thither. "When we were haptized, we 
 were horn of water and the Spirit, so as to hoAie the seed of 
 grace sown in our hearts, sufficient to enable us to bring forth 
 the fruits of the Spirit, to overcome temptations, to believe 
 aright in God our Saviour, and to obey and serve Him faith- 
 fully all the days of our life But if we neglect 
 
 to perform what we promised, and so do not answer the end of 
 our haptism by keeping our conscience void of offence toward 
 God and men, we lose all the henefit of it, and shall as certainly 
 perish as if we had never been baptized." f 
 
 We pass on to the golden-mouthed Jeremy Taylor, the 
 great glory in warm-hearted eloquence of the English Church 
 and nation. He, too, believed in regeneration in baptism. 
 
 * Beveridge's Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 181, 183. 
 f Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 187, 188. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 81 
 
 We extract two long passages, the first from " The Liberty of 
 Prophesying," the second from " The Life of Christ." 
 
 " Adam sinned, and left nakedness to descend upon his 
 posterity, a relative guilt and a remaining misery; he left 
 enough to kill us, but nothing to make us alive ; he was the 
 head of mankind in order to temporal felicity, but there was 
 another head intended to be the representative of human 
 nature to bring us to eternal hfe; but the temporal we lost in 
 Adam, and the eternal we could never receive from him, but 
 from Christ only; from Adam we receive our nature, such as 
 it is, but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ; Adam left 
 us an imperfect nature that tends to sin and death, but he left 
 us nothing else, and therefore to holiness and life we must 
 enter from another principle. So that, besides the natural 
 birth of infants, there must be something added by which they 
 must be reckoned in a new account ; they must be born again ; 
 they must be reckoned in Christ ; they must be adopted to the 
 inheritance, and admitted to the promise, and entitled to the 
 Spirit. Now, that this is done ordinarily in hajatism is not 
 to he denied ; for, therefore it is called Xourpov 7va?.iYY£vsaca(;, 
 ' the font or laver of regeneration ' ; it is the gate of the 
 Church ; it is the solemnity of our admission to the covenant 
 evangelical ; and if infants cannot go to heaven by the first or 
 natural birth, then they must go by a second and supernatural ; 
 and since there is no other solemnity or sacrament, no way of 
 heing horn again that we Tcnow of, hut hy the ways of God^s 
 ajpjpointing, and He hath ajpjpointed hajptism, and all that are 
 horn again are horn this way, even men of reason, who have 
 or can receive the Spirit, being to enter at the door of baptism ; 
 it folloivs also that infants must enter here, or we cannot say 
 that they are entered at all." * 
 
 Again : "Tn- hajptism we a/re horn again ^ and this infants 
 
 need in the present circumstances, and for the same reason 
 
 that men of age and reason do. For our natural birth is either 
 
 of itself insufficient, or is made so by the fall of Adam and 
 
 * " Liberty of Prophesying," p. 567 ; Eden's edit, of Taylor's Works. 
 
 6 
 
82 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the consequent evils, so that nature alone, or our first birth, 
 cannot bring us to heaven, which is a supernatural end, that is, 
 an end above all the power of our nature, as now it is. So 
 that if nature cannot bring us to heaven, grace must, or we 
 can never get thither ; if the first birth cannot, a second must / 
 but the second hirth spoken of in Scripture is hajptism^', 'a 
 man must be born of water and of the Spirit,' and therefore 
 baptism is '•Xouxpov itaXtyyzvta'iaz^ the laver of a new birth." * 
 
 "We proceed now to the illustrious Hooker. His " Eccle- 
 siastical Polity " was written nearly three hundred years ago, 
 yet to this day it is constantly published and read in England 
 and the United States. We venture to say that there is no 
 great lawyer in the United States or England to whom his 
 first book upon the nature of law is not familiar. Indeed, 
 his treatise is such a combination of judicious and sober reason, 
 of grand and lofty eloquence, and of the tenderest and sweetest 
 humility of heart, that it must last until its words are wholly 
 obsolete and unintelligible through hoar antiquity, like monu- 
 mental stones corroded by time, overgrown by the mosses, and 
 sunken in the ruins and decays of centuries. 
 
 We add here, from his biography by Izaak Walton, a little 
 anecdote, to show the esteem in which his work was held : 
 
 " And I have been told, more than forty years past, that 
 either Cardinal Allen or the learned Dr. Stapleton (both 
 Englishmen, and in Italy about the time when Hooker's four 
 books were first printed), meeting with this general fame of 
 them, were desirous to read an author that both the reformed 
 and the learned of their own Church did so much magnify, 
 and therefore caused them to be sent for to Rome ; and, after 
 reading them, boasted to the pope (which then was Clement 
 YIII.), ' That though he had lately said he never met with 
 an English book whose writer deserved the name of an au- 
 thor, yet there now appeared a wonder to them, and it would 
 be so to his holiness if it M^ere in Latin ; for a poor obscure 
 English priest had writ four such books of laws and Church 
 
 * " Life of Christ," Part i. § ix. p. 260. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 83 
 
 polity, and in a style that expressed such a grave and so hum- 
 ble a majesty, with such clear demonstration of reason, that in 
 all their readings they had not met with any that exceeded 
 him ' ; and this begot in the pope an earnest desire that Dr. 
 Stapleton should bring the said four books, and, looking on 
 the English, read a part of them to him in Latin, which Dr. 
 Stapleton did to the end of the first book; at the conclusion 
 of which the pope spake to this purpose : ' There is no learn- 
 ing that this man hath not searcht into ; nothing too hard for 
 his understanding ; this man, indeed, deserves the name of an 
 author ; his books will get reverence by age, for there is in 
 them such seeds of eternity that, if the rest be like this, they 
 shall last till the last fire shall consume all learning.' " * 
 
 We give this great man's judgment on regeneration in 
 baptism : f 
 
 " They which deny that any such case of necessity can fall, 
 in regard whereof the Church should tolerate baptism, without 
 the decent rites and solemnities thereunto belonging, pretend 
 that such tolerations have risen from a false interpretation 
 which ' certain men ' have made of the S cripture, grounding 
 a necessity of external baptism upon the words of our Saviour 
 Christ, ' Unless a man be born again of water and of the 
 Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' For, by 
 ' water and the Spirit,' we are in that place to understand (as 
 they imagine) no more than if the Spirit alone had been men- 
 tioned, and water not spoken of, which they think is plain, 
 because elsewhere it is not improbable that ' the Holy Ghost 
 and fire ' do but signify the Holy Ghost in operation, resem- 
 bling fire. Whereupon they conclude that seeing fire in one 
 place may be, therefore water in another place is, but a meta- 
 phor. Spirit the interpretation thereof, and so the words do 
 only mean, ' That unless a man be born again of the Spirit, he 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 * Keble's Hooker, vol. i. pp. 70, 71. 
 
 f He is known as " the Judicious Hooker," wherever the English lan- 
 guage is spoken. 
 
84 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 " I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred 
 Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand, the 
 farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. There is 
 nothing more dangerous than this licentious and deluding art 
 which changeth the meaning of words as alchemy doth or 
 would do the substance of metals, making of anything what 
 it listeth, and bringeth in the- end all truth to nothing. Or 
 howsoever such voluntary exercise of art might be borne with 
 otherwise, yet in places which usually serve, as this doth con- 
 cerning regeneration by water and the Holy Ghost, to be 
 alleged for grounds and principles, less is permitted. 
 
 " To hide the general consent of antiquity agreeing in the 
 literal intei-pretation, they cunningly ajBSrm that ' certain ' have 
 taken those words as meant of material water, when they 
 know that, of all the cmcients, there is not one to he named 
 that ever did otherwise expound or allege the jplaoe than as 
 implying external hajptism^ * 
 
 Again: "When the letter of the law hath two things 
 plainly and expressly specified, water ^ and the S_pirit — water 
 as a duty required on our parts, the Spirit as a gift which God 
 bestoweth — there is danger in presuming so to interpret it 
 as if the clause which concerneth ourselves were more than 
 needeth. We may, by such rare expositions, attain perhaps in 
 the end to be thought witty, but with ill advice. 
 
 7v w vv w 7v ' 
 
 " The true necessity of baptism, a few propositions con- 
 sidered will soon decide. All things which either are known 
 causes or set means, whereby any great good is usually pro- 
 cured, or men delivered from grievous evil, the same we must 
 needs confess necessary. And if regeneration were not in 
 this very sense a thing necessary to eternal hfe, would Christ 
 himself have taught Mcodemus that to see the kingdom of 
 God is impossible, saving only for those men which are bom 
 from above ? 
 
 * Keble's Hooker, vol. ii. pp. 262, 263. All modern critics allow the fact 
 as Hooker states it. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 85 
 
 " His words following in the next sentence are a proof suffi- 
 cient that, to our regeneration, His Spirit is no less necessary 
 than regeneration itself is necessary unto life. 
 
 " Thirdly, unless as the Sjpvrit is a necessary inward cause, 
 so water were a necessary outward means to our regeneration^ 
 what construction should we give unto those words wherein 
 we are said to be new born, and that s^ u^aroc, even of water ? 
 "Why are we taught that with water God doth purify and 
 cleanse His Church ? "Wherefore do the apostles of Christ term 
 haptism a hath of regeneration f What purpose had they in 
 giving men advice to receive outward haptism, and in per- 
 suading them it did avail to remission of sins f " * 
 
 "We proceed to a man nearly as great as Hooker in his day, 
 Isaac Barrow, the Master of Trinity, ranking, as a great mathe- 
 matician, with Newton, Pascal, Des Cartes, and the greatest of 
 that age. As a Greek scholar, he was the first of his age. As 
 a historical theologian, his treatise on the Papal Supremacy is 
 yet unanswered. And as a perfect master of the English 
 language, so unequalled was he that the elder Pitt, the Earl 
 of Chatham, the great father of as great a son, compelled 
 the younger Pitt to learn his sermons by heart, as the best 
 preparation for the copiousness and precision and power 
 of language which he thought necessary in a parliamentary 
 orator. 
 
 "We give, from Barrow's " Discourse upon the Sacraments," 
 a condensed statement of the efiects of baptism : 
 
 " The benefits of baptism are, 1st, The absolution of us 
 from the guilt of past offences, hy a free and full remission 
 of them ; and, consequently, God's being reconciled unto us ; 
 His receiving tis into a state of grace and favor / His 
 freely justifying us. That these benefits are conferred in 
 baptism, many places of Scripture plainly show, and the 
 primitive Church, with firm and tmanimous consent, did 
 helieve. 
 
 '■'■'i^, In haptism, the gift of God^s Holy Spirit is con- 
 *Kelbe's Hooker, vol. ii. pp. 263-365. 
 
86 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 ferred^ qualifying us for the state into which we then come, and 
 enabling us to perform the duties which we then undertake ; 
 for purifying our hearts, for begetting holy dispositions and 
 affections in our souls ; to guide, instruct, sustain, strengthen, 
 encourage and comfort us in our Christian cause. 
 
 " 3d, With these gifts is connected the henefit of regen- 
 eration, implying our entrance into a new state and course of 
 life, being endowed with new faculties, dispositions, and 
 capacities of soul ; becoming new creatures ; our being sancti- 
 fied in our hearts and lives ; being quickened to a spiritual and 
 heavenly life ; in short, hecoming the children of God. 
 
 " 4th, With these benefits is conjoined that of being inserted 
 into God's Church, His family, the mystical Body of Christ, 
 whereby we become entitled to the privileges and immunities 
 of that heavenly corporation. 
 
 " 5th, In consequence of these things, there is, with hajptism, 
 conferred a capacity of, and a title unto, an assurance (under 
 condition of persevering in faith and obedience to our Lord) of 
 eternal life and salvation." * 
 
 Hooker — Jeremy Taylor — Beveridge — Barrow — there are 
 no greater names in any Church than these, for genius, for 
 learning, for sobriety of judgment, for varied eloquence. Men 
 as different in gifts and character and temper, as various in. 
 opinion as they were one in lofty Christian morality and 
 holiness of life. 
 
 These men could believe that the Holy Spirit operates in 
 baptism because the Scripture says so, and because it is a 
 sacrament for that purpose, instituted by Christ himself. Who 
 has more of the quality of faith, Whitefield, who virulently 
 denies, or these great men who reverently believe the very 
 words of Holy Writ in their literal and manifest sense ? We 
 speak not of intellect, for no one can equal him with any one 
 of these men, or with Kidley, or Jewell, or Andrewes, or 
 Pearson, or Sherlock — all holding the same doctrine. 
 
 It was not deficiency of mere intellect, however, nor want 
 * Barrow's Works, Edinburgh edition, vol. ii. pp. 585, 586. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 81 
 
 of a certain energetic and real althongli narrow faith, — it was 
 simply that the system that he had been taught, and which 
 preoccupied his mind, utterly denied that the Spirit did or 
 could work in baptism. He, therefore, inveighed against the 
 doctrine, and those who taught and believed it ; and did so, 
 being an ordained clergyman of the Church whose system it is, 
 lying plainly upon the face of her creeds, services, catechism, 
 and articles. 
 
 But, to return. Our readers see in the Catechism the same 
 doctrine of baptismal regeneration that is visible in the 
 Services. We think that they will be gratified by our insert- 
 ing here the commentary upon it from the devotional treatise 
 upon the Catechism by Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and 
 Wells. He is known by his Morning and Evening Hymns, 
 which are sung the whole world over. He is known, too, in 
 English history, by the conscientious devotion with which he, 
 with the other six bishops, opposed himself, in behalf of consti- 
 tutional liberty, to James the Second, at the risk of life and 
 fortune. And again, in his successor's reign, he went down 
 from wealth and rank, at the command of conscience, into 
 absolute poverty. No man more holy, more sincere, more 
 earnest, and more eloquent ever served at the altars of the 
 English Church. We give his commentary because it shows 
 the way in which a true Christian, a man of heartfelt holiness, 
 uplifted in his life and death far above all suspicion, could 
 view the doctrine of regeneration as seen in the Catechism. 
 The treatise is called " The Practice of Divine Love ; being 
 an Exposition of the Church Catechism, to which be added 
 Directions for Prayer," by the Right Reverend Father in God, 
 Thomas Ken, D.D,, Bishop of Bath and Wells. 
 
 " The Outward Glory be to Thee, O Lover of Souls ; it was by 
 Sign. rj^Yij preventing love that T was baptized with 
 the ' outward sign, water, in the name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' that I should believe in the Most 
 Holy Trinity ; that I should entirely live devoted to the three 
 most adorable Persons ; that I shoidd wholly depend on their 
 
88 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 gracious assistances, and that it should be my chief care to love 
 and glorify that triune Love, the Author of my salvation. 
 
 " The Invisible Glory be to Thee, O Jesu, who, by water that 
 Grace. washes away the filth of the body, dost represent 
 to my faith Thy iiwisihle grace in hajptism, which spiritually 
 washes and cleanses the soul. , 
 
 " Glory be to Thee, O blessed Lord, who in baptism savest 
 us, not by the outward washing, but by the inward purifying 
 grace, accompanied with a sincere vow and stipulation of a 
 good conscience toward God ; by which Thy propitious love 
 brought me into the Church, the spiritual ark, to save me 
 from perishing in the deluge of sin, which overwhelms the 
 generality of the world ; and, therefore, all love, all glory be 
 to Thee. 
 
 " Glory be to Thee, O All-powerful Love, by whose ' invisi- 
 ble grace' we, in haptism, die to sin, to all carnal affections, 
 renouncing and detesting them all, and resolving to take no 
 more pleasure in them than dead persons do in the comforts of 
 life. O, may I ever thus die to sin ! 
 
 " Glory be to Thee, O Jesu, who, from our ' death to sin^ 
 in our baptism, dost raise us to a new life, and dost breathe 
 into us the breath of love ; ' it is in^this laver of regeneration 
 we are horn again hy water and the Spirit^ by a ' new birth 
 unto righteousness ' ; that as the natural birth propagated sin, 
 our spiritual birth should propagate grace ; for which all love, 
 all glory, be to Thee. 
 
 " Glory be to Thee, O most indulgent Lord, who, in our 
 haptism dost give us the holy spirit of love, to he the principle 
 of new life and of love in us, to infuse into our souls a super- 
 natural, habitual grace and ability to obey and love Thee ; for 
 which all love, all glory be to Thee. 
 
 " Glory be to Thee, O compassionate Love, who, when we 
 were conceived and ' born in sin,' of sinful parents, when we 
 sprang from a root wholly corrupt, and were ' all children of 
 wrath,' hast in our haptism ' tnade us children ' of Thy own 
 heoAienly Father by adoption and ' grace ' ; when we were 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 89 
 
 heirs of hell, hast made us heirs of heaven, even joint-heirs 
 with Thy own self, of Thy own glory ; for which, with all the 
 powers of my soul, I adore and love Thee. 
 
 "Conditions required. I kuow, O dearest Lord, that I am Thine 
 I. Repentance. ^^ longer than I love Thee ; I can no longer 
 feel the saving efficacy of my baptism than I am faithful to my 
 vow I there made ; no longer than I am a penitent, no longer 
 than I am a Christian ; if I ' name the name of Christ, I am 
 to depart from iniquity.' O, do Thou give me the grace of 
 true repentance for all my sins, for my original impurity, and 
 for all my actual transgressions, that I may abhor and forsake 
 them all ; wound my soul with a most affectionate sorrow for 
 all the injuries and affronts and dishonors I have offered to in- 
 finite love. 
 
 Glory be to Thee, O most liberal Jesu, for all those 
 
 "n. Faith. -^ ' ' 
 
 exceedmg great and precious ' promises of j^ardon 
 and grace and glory lohich Thou hast made to us Christians 
 in the sacrament of l)ajptism. O, may I ever steadfastly be- 
 lieve ; O, may I ever passionately love, may I ever firmly rely 
 on Thy superabundant love in all these promises ; for which 
 I will ever adore and love Thee. 
 
 " Glory be to Thee, O sweetest Love, who in my infancy 
 didst admit me to holy baptism, who by Thy preventing grace, 
 when I was a little child, didst receive me into the Evangeli- 
 cal covenant, didst take me up into the arms of Thy mercy 
 and bless me. Glory be to Thee, who didst early dedicate me 
 to Thyself, to prepossess me by Thy love before the world 
 should seize and defile me. 
 
 "O, gracious Lord, how long, how often have I polluted 
 myself by my sins ! but I repent and deplore all those pollu- 
 tions, and I consecrate myself to Thee again ; O, let the in- 
 tenseness of my future love, not only love for the time to come, 
 but retrieve all the love I liave lost." 
 
 We follow this with a poem by the bishop, upon his regen- 
 eration in baptism. This poem, we confess, is not equal to 
 his time-honored and glorious Morning, Evening, and Mid- 
 
90 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 niglit Hymns. But still it does most clearly show his doctrine 
 to be that of regeneration in baptism. And its tone plainly 
 declares with what feeling his loyal and loving heart accepted 
 it and dwelt upon it. 
 
 " Blest hour! when I, a new-born child. 
 Great God, my God, my Father styled, 
 I then, adorned with Christ's dear name. 
 To Christ-like bliss had Christ-like claim. 
 Christians, who Christ's anointed are. 
 In His celestial unction share. 
 
 " Persons and things to God applied. 
 Were by anointing sanctified ; 
 To turn them to a worldly use 
 Was sacrilegious abuse. 
 Lord, keep alive my Christian flame. 
 With Christ-like love and Christ-like aim. 
 
 " The Holy Ghost, on Jesus' head, 
 Unmeasurable graces shed ; 
 Christians, who Christ's anointed are, 
 In His celestial unction share ; 
 The Spirit, templing in their hearts. 
 His all-sufficient aid imparts. 
 
 " O, may I, with a faith unfeigned. 
 Preserve my Christian name unstained. 
 To copy Christ, O, may I strive. 
 From whom I that dear name derive ; 
 And die, when death shall me arrest, 
 A Christian, with Christ's unction blest." * 
 
 Before we leave this portion of our subject, we would ask 
 our readers to look at the Catechism in a general point of view. 
 We ask, — Is it a manual to prepare the unregenerate for a pro- 
 fession of Christianity, so far as instruction in the elements of 
 the Gospel can prepare them ? Is it an elementary system of 
 instruction for those who are not Christians, not born of God ? 
 Ko. It is for the children of God, sons of God through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, — a personal and individual instruction for the 
 regenerated child, who twice is taught to assert himself as new 
 
 * " Voice of the Church," vol. i. p. 346. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 91 
 
 born, regenerate through Christ our Lord ; once in the singu- 
 lar number, " In my hajptism I was made a member of Christ, 
 the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," 
 and once again in the plural, "Being by nature born in sin, 
 and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of 
 grace " ; and again, the baptized child is made to assert of him- 
 self, personally, that " God the Son hath redeemed m^g," " God 
 the Holy Ghost sanctifieth Tne^'' and personally to " thank our 
 heavenly Father that He hath called ine to this state of salva- 
 tion." 
 
 This, therefore, is not an instruction to the unregenerate, 
 those who are outside the Church and aliens unto Christ. No ; 
 it presupposes and takes for granted everywhere that the per- 
 son instructed is regenerated, is a Christian, a son of God 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord, within the Church, a subject 
 of the kingdom of God. It makes him assert all this of him- 
 self, — it makes him acknowledge and confess it personally and 
 individually. 
 
 The whole Catechism, is hased upon the doctrine of regen- 
 eration in hajptism. It bears witness to that doctrine in its 
 entire purpose and structure. It proceeds expressly and exclu- 
 sively on the idea of teaching the child of God, as such, his 
 duties and responsibilities. And accordingly to him, as a re- 
 generated child of God, within the kingdom, not without it, 
 is taught the rule and standard of his faith, which is the bap- 
 tismal creed, the law and rule of morality, that is, the Ten 
 Commandments, as adopted and interpreted by Christ, and 
 illumined by His grace ; the Lord's Prayer, which is the Chris- 
 tian's form and rule of prayer, and the doctrine of the sacra- 
 ments. Cannot every candid and fair man who examines and 
 considers the questions in this catechism put to the baptized 
 child, its whole structure and spirit, the position in which it is 
 placed, and the relation that it bears to the Baptismal and Con- 
 firmation Services, standing after the one and before the other 
 in the Prayer Book, and in our Christian life, see that all this 
 gives the very strongest support and testimony to the doctrine 
 
92 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 of the Church, that in baptism we are bom anew of water and 
 the Spirit, and that this birth is no barren verbal metaphor, 
 but a real and actual regeneration in time and space, by the 
 Word incarnate and His Spirit supematurally raising up fallen 
 man from a death in sin to a life in Christ ? All this is very- 
 manifest, and we have seen it testified to most clearly by the 
 ill-concealed dislike to the Catechism which we have known in 
 Calvinists in the Church, and by their restless desire to get rid 
 of its teacliing, and to substitute in the Sunday schools some- 
 thing else for it. Their favorite is " Bible Questions " of the 
 American Sunday-school Union. The teaching of this is not 
 80 Church-like and Scriptural, but is purely dissenting and 
 Calvinistical. 
 
 Leaving, now, the Catechism, and going onward in our ser- 
 vices, we reach the Ofiice of Confirmation, in which those who 
 are baptized are required " openly, and before the Church, to 
 ratify and confirm the promises and vows made for them by 
 their sponsors in baptism," and wherein the bishop " lays his 
 hands upon them after the example of the holy apostles." 
 And before the imposition of hands he prays solemnly for 
 these persons before him at the chancel rail, after they have 
 taken upon themselves, publicly and audibly, their baptismal 
 vows, and the prayer is this: 
 
 " Almighty and everliving God, who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these 
 Thy servants hy water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness 
 of all their sins ; Strengtlien them, we beseech thee, Lord, with the Holy 
 Ghost, the Comforter, and daily increase in them Thy manifold gifts of grace ; 
 the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and ghostly 
 ■ strength, the spirit of knowledge and true godliness ; and fill them, Lord, 
 with the spirit of Thy holy fear, now and forever. Amen." 
 
 Here, again, we find the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. 
 Here, also, is the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, that "bap- 
 tism is for the remission of sins." These doctrinal assertions 
 are placed, in a most solemn prayer to God, immediately before 
 the laying on of hands. Moreover, it is most expressly and dis- 
 tinctly asserted, of these persons present, thai "they are regen- 
 erated," that " God has given to them forgiveness of all their 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 93 
 
 sins." And, furtliermore, be it remarked, that this prayer 
 is used by om' highest Church officer, the bishop, our right 
 reverend father in God, every time a conf/rmation occurs^ in 
 the face of the whole congregation, in a solemn address to the 
 Almighty. It has been used in the plain hearing of every 
 man and woman who is now a communicant of our Church in 
 these United States. In reference to each and every person now 
 communing at our altars, the most revered for holiness, and 
 the most exalted for doctrine and truth, has asserted solemnly 
 before God, that he is regenerate of water and the Spirit, 
 and has received remission of all his sins. 
 
 No wonder that the Calvinists in England should have 
 hated a service so public, so solemn, so frequently repeated, so 
 distinct and personal in its assertion and its application of the 
 doctrine of regeneration in baptism ; a doctrine completely and 
 entirely different from that which they held. How natural 
 that all our clergy and all our laity should with one mind 
 agree that baptismal regeneration is in some sense the doctrine 
 of the Church ! 
 
 ISTo wonder that the English Puritans should petition the 
 Government " that confirmations may be taken away," * and 
 systematically try, as they did, by all social and political means 
 and influences in their power, to prevent their being held. The 
 doctrine of the Confirmation Service upon the matter of regen- 
 eration is certainly our doctrine upon the matter of regenera- 
 tion. As certainly it is not their doctrine. 
 
 But to close up our remarks on this service, we shall cite 
 the objections of the committee of Puritan divines at the 
 Savoy Conference (a.d. 1661). They make exceptions to the 
 prayer we have just cited, and desire it altered on these 
 grounds : 
 
 " This (prayer) supposeth that all the children who are 
 
 brought to be confirmed have the spirit of Christ, and the 
 
 forgiveness of all their sins ; whereas, a great number of children 
 
 at that age, having committed many sins since their baptism, 
 
 * See Millenary Petition. 
 
94 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 do show no evidence of serious repentance, or of any special 
 saving grace, and therefore, this confirmation (if administered 
 to such) would be a perilous and gross abuse." * 
 
 The bishop's reply to the objection is this : " It supposeth 
 (this prayer, that is), and that truly, that all children were at 
 their hwptism regenerate hy water and the Holy Ghost, and 
 had given unto them the ' forgiveness of all their sins ' ; and 
 it is charitably presumed that, notwithstanding the frailties 
 and slips of their childhood, they have not totally lost what 
 was in haptism conferred ujpon them ', and therefore adds: 
 * Strengthen them, we beseech thee, O Lord, with the Holy 
 Ghost the Comforter, and daily increase inthem Thy manifold 
 gifts of grace,' etc. 
 
 " None that lives in open sin ought to be confirmed." f 
 
 These two committees at this conference were evidently 
 upon different systems of doctrine : the one upon the Predesti- 
 narian and Calvinist, the other upon the system of the English 
 and the primitive Church. This is manifest from the terms 
 they severally use, and the distinctness with which they 
 express their opinions. To the one, therefore, upon their 
 system, the prayer appeared to be sinful and dangerous to the 
 soul, a " perilous and gross abuse." % To the other, it asserts 
 the plain Gospel truth in reference to all the baptized, although, 
 as a matter of discipline, they assert that "none living in 
 open sin should be confirmed." "Well might our own bishops. 
 White and Hobart, assert that "baptismal regeneration is con- 
 fessedly contained in the original prayer of the Confirmation 
 Office." 
 
 We conclude the examination and exposition of our Church 
 Services, with the opinion in reference to them of two bishops 
 of the English Church, which we are persuaded must, on a 
 
 * Cardwell's Conferences, pp. 238, 339. 
 
 \ Cardwell, pp. 358, 359. 
 
 \ " Calling all the baptized regenerate is one of the eight things in our 
 Liturgy which the Presbyterian disputants at the Savoy Conference deter- 
 mined to be absolutely sinful, and contrary to the Word of God." — Car- 
 withen's " History of the Church of England," vol. ii. p. 308. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 95 
 
 candid review of these services, be the opinion of the honest, 
 common-sense reader, as it is of these judicious and learned 
 prelates. 
 
 " We find that our Liturgy, in strict conformity to the doc- 
 trine of the universal Church, makes no mention of regeneration, 
 except in conjunction with baptism ; and that its compilers were 
 so far from attempting to separate what had been intimately 
 connected in the faith and discipline of their forefathers in 
 Christianity, that they ha/ve never introduced the word into 
 their services even, in the popular sense. The learned Arch- 
 bishop of Cashel (Dr. Lawrence) has investigated the geneal- 
 ogy of these ofiices, and shown that this doctrine pervades all 
 the documents from which we can infer their true drift and 
 import in legitimate principles of analogy and induction. He 
 has traced the doctrine which they exhibit to the writings of 
 Cranmer, the books of Homilies, the Paraphrase of Erasmus, 
 and the public services of the Lutheran Church, And as we 
 ascend higher, the line of testimony continues unbroken, and 
 the doctrine of regeneration in and through baptism as a 
 necessary article of Christian faith, grounded upon our Saviour's 
 express declaration, 7nay he traced backward, without interrup- 
 tion, from the time of the Reformation to the days of the 
 Apostles.''''^ 
 
 As Archbishop Cranmer, here mentioned, has a great 
 name, as the organizer and the martyr of the English Refor- 
 mation (burned at Oxford by the Roman Catholics, March 21, 
 1556), we cite his opinion : 
 
 " But here we mean of a second birth which is spiritual, 
 whereby our inward man and mind is renewed by the Holy 
 Ghost, so that our hearts and minds receive new desires which 
 they had not at their first birth or nativity. 
 
 " And our second hirth is hy the water of baptism,, which 
 
 St. Paul calleth the bath of regeneration, because our sins be 
 
 forgiven us in baptism, as the Holy Ghost is poured into us as 
 
 into God's beloved children, so that by the power and working 
 
 * Bethel on Regeneration, pp. 69, 70. American edition. 
 
96 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 of the Holy Ghost we be bom again spiritually and made 
 new creatures. And so by baptism we enter into the kingdom 
 of God, and shall be saved forever if we continue to our life's 
 end in the faith of Christ." * 
 
 * Archbishop Cranmer, as quoted in the Bishop of Tasmania's " Lectures 
 on the Catechism," pp. 606, 607. 
 
CHAPTEE TV. 
 
 "We proceed finally to consider the Articles of Eeligion. 
 It is hardly necessary to state that the same doctrine of regen- 
 eration is in them as in the Catechism and Services of the 
 Church. Of course our readers will bear in mind the caution 
 with which we began this exposition of our standards. We 
 give their words to show, as a matter of evidence, that they 
 declare, as documents, that regeneration takes place in baptism, 
 that this is the sense which they put upon the Holy Scriptures, 
 this is their doctrine. The Scriptural proof that their doctrine 
 is true, we reserve for another time. 
 
 At the same time we would notice some disadvantages 
 which they lie under. No layman signs them in the Church 
 of England, — no clergyman in our Church, save inclusively. 
 The Creeds, the Services, the Catechism, are in perpetual and 
 reverent use, in the hands and the heart, and upon the tongue, 
 perpetually, of priest and people, of young and old. But these 
 Articles he there, in the back of our Book of Common Prayer, 
 hardly glanced at even by the curious. 
 
 They are in antiquated English also, so that their meaning 
 does not always lie upon their face, but has to be explained 
 and interpreted. And worse still than this, unscrupulous men 
 in the English Church, taking advantage of these difiSculties, 
 have invented theories, enabling them to evade their plain 
 sense. Calvinists and Arminians and Romanizers, Church and 
 State Privy- Councillors in England, and loose Latitudinarians, 
 have gone, all of them, into this operation. As we before 
 have said, we take the Articles in their plain and literal sense, 
 ex animo* 
 
 * In the English Church the Articles were published in 1629, with " His 
 Majesty's Declaration " prefixed, a document ever since reprinted with them, 
 
 7 
 
98 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Another most important remark we would make, that there 
 is a copy of the Articles in Latin, which in the English Church 
 is equally of authority with the English version.* This, there- 
 fore, as a means of arriving at the true sense, and avoiding 
 ambiguities, is exceedingly valuable, even to us. 
 
 "We shall consider the twenty-seventh Article first, as its 
 title is in reference to this very sacrament : " Of Baptism." 
 
 " Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, 
 wliereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, 
 but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New Birth, whereby, as by an 
 instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; 
 the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God 
 by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed ; Faith is confirmed, and 
 Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God." 
 
 The other clause refers to infant baptism. We omit it 
 here. 
 
 Look that Article plainly in the face, and what does it say % 
 The same, precisely, that the services say, it says to all persons, 
 except their minds are preoccupied and their hearts filled with 
 alien systems. To them, of course, it says anything they want 
 to have it say. The word " sign," manifestly, here is the same 
 as the word in the Catechism, the " sacrament," or " sacra- 
 mental sign,"f that is, the word " sign " is used in the ecclesi- 
 
 and of authority. In this it is expressly said — " No man, hereafter, shall 
 either print, or publish, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall sub- 
 mit to it in the 'plain and full meaning thereof, and shall not put his own 
 sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the 
 literal and grammatical sense." We have, unfortunately, omitted this 
 declaration. We might, at least, have retained the substance of it, even 
 if it were His Majesty's declaration. 
 
 * " These things considered, I might justly say that the Latin and English 
 are both equally authentical. This much, however, I may certainly infer, 
 that if in any places the English version be ambiguous when the Latin 
 original is clear and determinate, the Latin ought to fix the more doubtful 
 sense of the other (as also vice versa), it being evident that the Convocation 
 Queen, and Parliament, intended the same sense in both." — Waterland's 
 Works, vol. ii. pp. 316,317. 1843. 
 
 f See Catechism. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 99 
 
 astical sense. Now, what does the Article say ? That baptism 
 is not merely a sacrament of profession and religious distinc- 
 tion. Such was the rite of circumcision among the Jews, a 
 sacrament, to use the word in the wide sense, without grace. 
 But more than this, it is " a sacrament " accompanied by grace, 
 "the sacrament of regeneration," "whereby," "by which 
 sacrament {jper quod), as by an instrument," " they who 
 receive baptism rightly," that is duly, " are grafted into the 
 Church," and the promises of forgiveness of sins, and of an 
 adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly 
 signed and sealed." A sacrament, it will be remembered, is 
 defined to be an outward and visible sign of an inward and 
 spiritual grace. The grace of a sacrament is not an absent,'^ 
 but a present grace, a grace actually given, then and there, to 
 those who have faith and repentance. 
 
 We deny not that loose interpretation, arising from loose 
 doctrine, can make up its mind to take this Article differently. 
 But the perfect agreement of the Article with the doctrine of 
 the Church as contained in the rest of her standards is very 
 manifest, lies upon its face. 
 
 But perhaps our readers would prefer, to our opinion, the 
 commentary upon this Article of a very great man, renowned 
 for piety and learning. We insert, therefore, here the com- 
 ment upon this very Article of the celebrated Bishop Bever- 
 idge : 
 
 " As it was by circumcision that the Jews were distinguished 
 from all other people in the world, so is it by baptism that 
 Christians are distinguished both from Jews and others ; for 
 all that are haptized are Christians, and none are Christians 
 hut such as he haptized. And so baptism is a mark of differ- 
 ence whereby Christians are discerned from such as are not 
 christened. But though this be one effect of baptism, it is not 
 all. For it is not only a sign of our profession, hut also of our 
 regeneration, and therefore it is called the washing of regen- 
 
 * " No vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent." 
 — " Homilies of the Church," cited in E. H. Browne on the Articles. 
 
100 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 erationJ^ So that hy it we are grafted into the Church, and 
 made members of that body whereof Christ is the head ; for 
 we are all haptized into one hody, f and have a promise from 
 God of the forgiveness of those sins we have committed against 
 Him. And therefore Peter said unto them, Be^ent^ and he 
 hajptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for 
 the remission of sin^.^ That so heing justified hy His grace, 
 we should he made (not only sons, but) heirs according to the 
 hope of eternal life.% And so in baptism our faith is con- 
 firmed, and grace increased ; not by virtue of the water itself, 
 but by virtue of prayer, whereby God is prevailed with to 
 purify oiir souls hy His Spirit, as our bodies are washed with 
 the water ; that as the water washeth off the pollution of our 
 bodies, so His Spirit purgeth away the corruption of our 
 souls. I 
 
 " But, because it is here said that baptism is the sign of re- 
 generation, and the word regenerated is so much carped at in 
 our order for the administration of baptism, I shall next show 
 how the primitive Church did, long ago, not only hold the same 
 assertion, but also use the same expression. So saith St. 
 Chrysostom — 'By water we are regenerated; by blood and 
 flesh we are nourished.' Athanasius — ' He that is baptized, 
 puts off the old man, and is renewed as being regenerated by 
 the grace of the Spirit.' 'And so,' saith St. Basil, 'being 
 baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost, we are regenerated.' 
 The second council at Milevi or Milenum — ' Infants who can- 
 not commit any sin as yet of themselves, are, therefore, truly 
 baptized into the remission of sins, that what they contracted 
 by generation might be cleansed in them by regeneration.' 
 To name no more, Justin Martyr (a.d. 114-166) himself, 
 long before any of these, said expressly — 'Afterward they be 
 brought by us to a place where there is water, and after the 
 same manner of regeneration that we are regenerated hy, are 
 they also regenerated.'' And, therefore, let such as carp at 
 
 * Titus, iii. 5. f I. Cor. xii. 13. % Acts, ii. 38. § Titus, iii. 7. 
 II Beveridge on the Articles, vol. ii. 227, 228. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 101 
 
 that word in our liturgy liereafter know it is the primitive 
 Churcli itself and the most ancient and renowned fathers they 
 carp at."* 
 
 We have pointed out the connection of the doctrine of 
 baptismal regeneration with that of original sin in our services. 
 We turn to the Articles upon that point, and here we find an 
 indirect but most emphatic assertion of the doctrine. In the 
 ninth Article, in English, occurs the clause, " Although there 
 is no condemnation to them that believe and are hajptlzedP 
 The Latin is, " quamquam renatis et credentibus nulla propter 
 Christum est condemnatio." The reader at once can see that 
 " renatis" and "are baptized" are taken as equivalent one to 
 the other. The literal sense of "renatis" is "are regenerate." 
 So that in this Article the words "are baptized" and "are re- 
 generate " are identical. 
 
 In the Savoy Conference, which we cited a little back, the 
 Puritans object distinctly to the assertion of this opinion ; the 
 Bishops as plainly uphold it. The Puritans, in that confer- 
 ence, say : " We cannot, in faith, say that every child that is 
 baptized is ' regenerated by God's Holy Spirit ;' at least it is a 
 disputed point, and, therefore, we desire that it may be other- 
 wise expressed." 
 
 The Bishops reply : " Seeing that God's Sacraments have 
 their effects when the receiver doth not 'ponere obicem,' 
 ' put any bar ' against them, we may say in faith of every 
 child that is haptized that it is regenerated hy OodJs Holy 
 Spirit, and the denial of it tends to anabaptism and the con- 
 tempt of this Holy Sacrament as nothing worthy nor material, 
 whether it be administered to children or no."f It is here, 
 therefore, in this Article, just as plainly as in the Catechism or 
 the Confirmation service. 
 
 In the twenty-seventh Article also the same identification 
 occurs. " Christiani" occurs in the Latin; in the English the 
 word " christened " or " baptized " is its translation. " Christians 
 
 * Beveridge on the Articles, vol. ii. pp. 230, 231. 
 f Cardwell's "Conferences," pp. 234,235. 
 
102 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 are tliey who are ' christened ' or ' baptized,' and they who are 
 'baptized' are 'Christians.'" The Scriptural truth of the 
 opinion we shall afterward expound. At present we simply 
 wish to make manifest the fact that it is asserted in our Articles 
 by the words being made equivalent. 
 
 In the fifteenth Article there also occurs a similar identi- 
 fication : 
 
 " All we the rest, although baptized, and iorn again in Christ, yet offend 
 in many things." 
 
 This is a plain assertion that the baptized are born again in 
 Christ. An interpretation which is manifestly the natural 
 one, as it lies upon the very face of the Article and is very dis- 
 tinctly shown by the grammatical structure of the Latin, of 
 which it is the translation : " Sed nos reliqui etiam baptizati et 
 in Christo regenerati." All others of the human race, save 
 our Blessed Lord, are liable to sin, even we who are baptized 
 and thereby regenerate in Him. 
 
 The sixteenth Article also has, by implication of the 
 plainest kind, the same doctrine : 
 
 " Not every deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is sin against 
 the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore the grant of repentance is 
 not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism. After we have 
 received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, 
 and by the grace of God we may arise again, and amend our lives." 
 
 Here, then, is left a huge gap between one part of the 
 Article and the other, a perfect and complete want of connec- 
 tion, if we take the ordinary Calvinistic doctrine. There is, upon 
 that gromid, no "nexus" of sense or of words between the one 
 part of the Article and the other. Whereas, on the ground of 
 the doctrine that the Holy Spirit gives His grace by Spiritual 
 regeneration in baptism, and we receive Him therein, the sense 
 at once is connected and clear — the natural sense, which evi- 
 dently was in the mind of the writers of the Article. The " sons 
 of God" may fall from grace, and by God's grace, even after 
 this, they may repent them of their sins, and arise again. How 
 
BE GENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 103 
 
 true it is, we see by the ease of St. Peter, who denied his Lord, 
 with cursing and swearing, and repented. And surely no man, 
 regenerated in any sense, but must consider that so far as he 
 himself is concerned, there is nothing but the grace of God, 
 nothing save His guiding hand, that can keep him from falling 
 away. Our doctrinal sense, not the Calvinistic, which asserts 
 that no son of God can fall from grace, lies upon the face of 
 this Article. 
 
 We have now gone through our review of the Articles, 
 and have seen that they contain the same doctrine of regener- 
 ation in baptism as we have seen in the Services and the Cate- 
 chism ; and, in the language of the present learned and able 
 Bishop of Ely, we conclude that " the Articles speak the same 
 language as the other formularies of our Church on the subject 
 of baptismal grace." * 
 
 We shall bring our examination of the Articles to an end 
 with an eloquent passage from the English editor of Water- 
 land's tract on regeneration : 
 
 " From this connected view, therefore, of these formularies 
 of the Church, it is evident that spiritual regeneration in bap- 
 tism is interwoven throughout with her doctrine. In all stages 
 of the Christian life, from childhood to gray hairs, from the 
 font to the altar, it is introduced as a distinguishing and prom- 
 inent note of the Catholic community. Like a perennial stream 
 threading its way under some place of flowers, the river that 
 makes glad the city of God, the baptismal waters of life are 
 heard uttering their many voices as they glide invisibly 
 through the enclosed garden of the Church, scattering their 
 recreating dew along her beds of flowers, her adoration and 
 her prayers, quickening and fostering and making more beau- 
 tiful the aromatic blossoms of the soul." f 
 
 One place more in the Prayer Book we must refer to, at 
 this point of our treatise, the Collect for Christmas Day. 
 This prayer says : 
 
 * Harold Browne on the Articles, p. 423, English edition, 
 f Black's " Waterland," Introduction, pp. 33, 33. 
 
104 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 " Almighty God, wto liast given us Thy only-begotten Son to take our 
 nature upon Him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin ; Grant 
 that we being regenerate* and made Thy children by adoption and grace, 
 may daily be renewed by Thy Holy Spirit ; through the same our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the same Spirit, ever 
 one God, world without end. Amen." 
 
 Here manifestly the " sons of God," those who are regenerate 
 and made His children, being assembled together to celebrate 
 the birth, in human flesh, of the Eternal Son, and sensible of 
 their own weakness and liability to sin, ask of the Father daily 
 renovation by the Holy Spirit, through the same incarnate and 
 ever-living Son. 
 
 In fact, when we look at the third chapter of the Epistle to 
 Titus, the fourth, fifth, and sixth verses, it seems as if this 
 collect had been written with express allusion to these verses. 
 We are said there to be " saved, not by works of righteousness 
 which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved 
 us by the laver (washing or font) of regeneration and the re- 
 newal of the Holy Ghost." Dr. "Waterland, one of the classic 
 divines of the English Church, remarks that " regeneration is 
 but another word for the new birth of the Christian, and that 
 new birth in the general means a spiritual change wrought 
 upon any person by the Holy Spirit in the use ofhaptism, where- 
 by he is translated from hi§ natural state in Adam to a spirit- 
 ual state (sonship) in Christ." He remarks then, that for the 
 son of God to avail himself of this change, a constant work of 
 the Spirit must be going on in his heart, actively, by the work- 
 ing of the grace of the Holy Spirit, and passively, as received 
 by him with faith joyfully. We give his sentiments in their 
 import, not verbally. This last is renovation, the renewal of 
 which the Apostle speaks, which each son of God needs, and 
 for which he prays. To use the words of Waterland, " It (the 
 
 * At the date of this collect, A.D. 1549, the assembly in any English 
 church was altogether of baptized persons, as to this day it is in some of 
 our Eastern parishes. The prayer, therefore, is that we being (in the 
 present tense continuous), that is, as having been and now being, regenerate, 
 may from day to day be renewed by the Holy Spirit. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 105 
 
 distinction between regeneration and renovation) is what our 
 Church appears to have gone on, in her Offices of Baptism, as 
 likewise in the Catechism. She clearly expresses it in one of her 
 collects (the Collect for Christmas Day), wherein we beg of God 
 that "we heing regenerate, and made Thy children by adoption 
 and grace, may daily he renewed by Thy Holy Spirit," etc. 
 Such is the public voice of our Church.''^ 
 
 And this idea runs through the whole of our services, that 
 there are among the human race two classes — they who are 
 brought within the pale of God's Church by holy baptism and 
 thus are sons of God, and those who are not so. The broad 
 distinction that there exists in the world, by God's mercy and 
 grace, sons of God, a class of human beings who are palpa- 
 bly, distinctly, unmistakably such, by the outward and visible 
 means of grace, the sacrament which God has appointed for 
 that purpose. And this relation the person must acknowledge 
 and take to himself, with all the Christian doctrines arising 
 from it. Upon this ground we must take our stand, except we 
 deny the whole doctrine of the Church, except we say the 
 sacrament is nothing — the Church is nothing — the express 
 words of Holy Writ, " except a man be bom of water and the 
 Spirit, ..." nothing — and that all the solemn declarations 
 of the Creeds, Offices, Catechism, and Articles are all nothing. 
 Such is the position a man must take in order to deny the 
 doctrine of baptismal regeneration. 
 
 But this doctrine, as it runs through the whole services of 
 the Church, so through the whole of the New Testament also 
 is it felt and understood. Every time the word " son of God " 
 is named in reference to any man, other than our Most Blessed 
 Lord, it implies that he is regenerate through Christ, in and 
 by his baptism. Every time we speak in the Church of a man 
 as our brother, it is brother by the spiritual new birth. Every 
 time we say "our Father," we call Him Father by the right we 
 have as brethren through our regeneration in Christ. All our 
 duties, all our rights, all our privileges depend upon that one 
 fact, that in our baptism we have "put on Christ." "As 
 
106 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on 
 Christ." * " By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, 
 whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; 
 and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." f And this 
 is spoken in these Epistles of all the visible members of Christ's 
 body. 
 
 Is there an actual Church of God, a society instituted by 
 our Lord and existing in the world, which is a reality ? Then 
 admission into its fold is a reality also. They that are in it are 
 in a different position from those without it. They are sons of 
 God, those without are not sons of God. We believe that the 
 sons of God need the renewal of the Spirit, we believe that 
 they may sin ; but this does not make void their birthright. 
 They are sons of God still, they are in a different position and 
 state entirely from the unbaptized. They are within the Church 
 of Christ, and not without it, having all the means of grace 
 which our Lord came into this world to give, if they will avail 
 themselves of them by repentance and faith ; having the benefit 
 of all the institutions which He organized for man, all the 
 blessings of His incarnation and atonement. His death and 
 passion, if they will only use them for the purposes for 
 which they are given. 
 
 That some Christians are good Christians, habitually living 
 in faith and in the use of all the means of grace ; that some are 
 bad Christians, sinning against light and against knowledge, 
 rebelling against God's law, and neglecting and despising all 
 means — these are facts manifest in the experience of life, and 
 asserted in Holy Writ. But that sons are rebellious, disobe- 
 dient, wicked, unfilial, this does not destroy or disprove their 
 sonship, it only shows that they have abused it. 
 
 Why this should actually be so is one of the most sad and 
 awful inquiries in the world. How it comes that two men 
 should have the same privileges in all respects, the same posi- 
 tion, and the same means, and yet that one of these men 
 should use them to the end appointed by God, the other misuse 
 * Gal. iii. 27. f I- Cor. xii. 13. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISiV. 10*7 
 
 them to his own ruin ; this is a sad problem we acknowledge, 
 awfully and unexplainably mysterious. But we submit that 
 it is not solved by the idea of fatalism. This only puts the 
 question one step further back, and does not explain it. A 
 more natural doctrine is, that God has given to men in his 
 nature and being the faculty of free-will ; and that our natural 
 freedom is perfected by our freedom in Christ ; and therefore 
 being a son, man can now, as Adam did in Paradise, yield to 
 the temptation of Satan. And on the other hand he can, by 
 God's grace, go onward to salvation, can realize and substan- 
 tiate his sonship. " As many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
 they are the sons of God." * 
 
 We have now gone through the standards of our Church, 
 the Creeds, the Services, the Catechism, the Articles, and we 
 may remark — 
 
 First, that any plain man who has gone with us can see that 
 most certainly and distinctly they assert regeneration to take 
 place in baptism. All must see this, except those whose 
 minds are preoccupied, and their affections filled with hostile 
 and antagonist systems. 
 
 Secondly, that the most learned and able divines in the 
 Church of England, and our own Church, interpret these 
 standards in this way, men whose names are everywhere known 
 for piety and holiness of life, as well as for honesty and sin- 
 cerity. They all assert that this sense of our standards is the 
 plain and manifest sense, that it is the system of the Scriptures, 
 and also that it is the universal interpretation of the Holy 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 One consideration more we shall here present to our read- 
 ers. They will please bear in mind that there are separate and 
 distinct points in reference to such questions as this is. The 
 first is this — Supposing that there are documents taken by any 
 religious society as standards, what is the legitimate and actual 
 sense of these documents, the true interpretation of them? 
 This manifestly is a legal question, a question wholly distinct 
 
 * Komans, viii. 14. 
 
108 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 from that of tlie truth of that interpretation, according to 
 the Holy Scriptures. For instance, " Do the Roman Catholic 
 standards teach that purgatory is Scriptural ? " is a very dis- 
 tinct question from this, " Is the doctrine of purgatory the 
 doctrine of the Scriptures ? " 
 
 "Do our standards, therefore, assert the doctrine of bap- 
 tismal regeneration ? " This is a distinct question, a question 
 of documentary evidence, of legal interpretation, of authority, 
 and testimony. This we count to be decided, calmly, clearly, 
 distinctly. We think that there is no court in the United 
 States in which, if the question were placed before them, the 
 most keen sifting of evidence, the most solemn weighing of it 
 by the judicial mind, would not finally come to that conclusion. 
 Apart from all other considerations, the doctrine as a matter of 
 standards of authorities and documentary evidence, must be 
 declared to be truly and legally the doctrine of our Church. 
 
 Its spiritual and practical meaning has been obscured. Its 
 interdependence and connection with the most vital doctrines 
 of the faith has been hidden away. Its morality has been for- 
 gotten. All this has taken place in the Established Church 
 of England. Moreover, by the hostility of party, the unceas- 
 ing work of religious faction for three hundred years in our 
 mother Church, it has been oppressed with perpetual imputa- 
 tion and invective, buried under a load of odium. And for all 
 these reasons the plain literal assertion of the doctrine in Holy 
 Writ has been put aside. The Scripture has been annulled and 
 the Word of God made void and of none effect, by the Cal- 
 vinistic and Puritanical traditions of England. 
 
 We stand here, in the United States, upon other grounds. 
 We say to the Churchman, " Here are your standards. As a 
 matter of fact they assert the doctrine of regeneration in bap- 
 tism." This is aU we ask at present. We will go on next to 
 show the meaning of the doctrine, what it really and truly 
 asserts. To this we now ask your attention, apart from preju- 
 dice, apart from misintei'pretation and party odium. The 
 consideration will then come up, thirdly, of the doctrine as 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 109 
 
 existing in the Scripture, and of its connection with the other 
 doctrines of Holy Writ. To these two subjects in succession 
 we request the attention of our readers. 
 
 We ask our readers, therefore, to go on with us in this next 
 book to examine what the doctrine means, its truth and its 
 vahie, the way in which it is connected with and completes 
 the other doctrines of Holy "Writ, and above all, its beautiful 
 and most telling influence upon Christian life and Christian 
 morality. This shall be the subject-matter of our second part. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE PEACTICAL TEUTH AE^D FACT. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 HAvnsra thus distinctly seen that regeneration is declared to 
 take place in baptism, by the unanimous voice of our standards 
 considered as documents, the next question is to consider what 
 this change, which we call regeneration, is in itself, and in its 
 relations to God and man. ]^ow, if we look abroad around 
 us, we see hardly any subject upon which there is more vague- 
 ness and cloudiness of speech, less distinctness of view, less 
 clearness of conception. And yet one would think that the 
 Christian world, so called, should by this time understand 
 clearly what that change is, in itself, in its causes, and in its 
 eiFects, for which our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, 
 that he might make us "the children of God." One would 
 think that the Christian mind would hold with a strong grasp, 
 and understand the loftiest reality of this high truth of son- 
 ship and the new birth, and not be carried away into secondary 
 meanings, mere moral influences upon life and conduct, which 
 might just as well have taken place if our Lord had never 
 entered into this world, had never been made man for us. 
 
 And yet so it is. Christians have left the distinctness of 
 creeds and the doctrinal exactness of liturgies; they have 
 spoken with such glowing sentiment of the beauty of Christian 
 morality, and with such ill-concealed dislike of Christian doc- 
 trine, that just now the Christian world, so called, hardly 
 knows where it is upon any one given point. Our readers, 
 therefore, will excuse us from any discussion of the doctrine of 
 regeneration, saving that only that lies within the limits of the 
 Church. Her standards first; secondly, what her standards 
 mean to say; and lastly, their practical uses and influence. 
 
114 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 This limits tile discussion within our own bounds, and saves a 
 great deal of controversial ill-will. 
 
 "We come, therefore, at once to the question — "What does this 
 word regeneration mean ? What truths and facts are asserted 
 or implied in it ? And at once the answer comes — Regeneration 
 is a new birth. As a man is born naturally into this world, so 
 to he a Christian^ to enter the kingdom of hea/uen, to he a child 
 of God^ he must be horn a second titne, new horn, regenerated. 
 
 Now, this change cannot take place by the means of man's 
 own unaided powers. It is not a change wrought by himself, 
 nor within the compass of mere nature. It is a supernatural 
 and spiritual change. 
 
 Again, it is a change connected with Christianity, with the 
 Gospel as exclusive of aU other kinds of religion, natural and 
 traditional. Except our Lord had been born into the world, 
 except He had died for us, had been buried, had risen again 
 and ascended into heaven, and had sent from thence His Holy 
 Spirit, there had been for us no new birth, no possibility of 
 regeneration. 
 
 What shall we say, then, of the new birth ? This first, that 
 it is to the man a gift supernatural and miraculous, and that it 
 comes from Christ our Lord, the Saviour and Redeemer of the 
 human race. And, secondly, that it is the new hirth, explain- 
 able, therefore, in some degree, by the natural or first birth. 
 For, since God has been pleased to constitute our natural birth 
 as the type and title of this great change that takes place in us 
 by Christ, the facts of the one must give us some light to un- 
 derstand the facts of the other. There must be a certain par- 
 allelism and analogy, a degree of similarity between the natu- 
 ral and the spiritual birth, which shall aid us in comprehending 
 the one by means of the other, else had not the one been 
 employed to illustrate the other. 
 
 Now, there is a very distinct and definite cluster of ideas 
 connected with the natm*al birth, and with no other event of 
 man's existence, which, when we examine them, we shall find 
 to illustrate very precisely and exactly this fact of the spiritual 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 115 
 
 birth, and to give us very clear and definite ideas concerning 
 it. If we look, therefore, at a child new born, what do we 
 see ? What facts do we behold in all children new born, as 
 such, putting aside individual peculiarities, and considering the 
 nature of birth generally ? The answer is, three facts, mainly. 
 First, an organic life ; secondly, an organized being, in which 
 that life exists, and to which it belongs ; and, thirdly, a sphere 
 of existence, into which that being has just been introduced, 
 in which it is to grow to maturity and live, and which contains 
 in itself all the elements to support and nourish that life. 
 Look at the fact of birth, these things it implies — these are 
 necessary to it. These make it up. Take the idea of birth, 
 and these three belong to it essentially. These are they that 
 complete the idea. If it be actual, it has these as of its being. 
 Not having these, it is not a birth. 
 
 Now, we acknowledge that the problem of the nature and 
 origin of life is one of the most inscrutable that there is in sci- 
 ence ; but the fact of life is one of the plainest, the most man- 
 ifest, and the most joy-giving that there is in nature. Man 
 recognizes it in all its shapes, and is glad in it. In the bare 
 fact of life it seems there is something delightful, even to the 
 animals that rise not above mere animal being ; merely to live 
 is a pleasure; their existence is a joy and gladness to them. 
 And to ourselves, as human beings, to behold vigorous life, 
 the glow and lustre of vitality in any living creature, is an en- 
 joyment. Nay, to look at the lowest form of life manifesting 
 itself in the foliage of a thrifty tree, or the waving grass of a 
 green meadow, is most agreeable. In that sight we get a 
 glimpse of the great mystery of being, in which we our- 
 selves are so much interested. 
 
 All men, from the earliest times, have taken life to be a 
 principle, a reality. They have placed the life above the ma- 
 terial body in which it exists. They have considered the body 
 and its members to be subordinate to it, — instruments, organs, 
 which the life employs that it may work in this material world 
 by means of them, that it may operate by its powers through 
 
116 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 their agency. The lil'e has always been taken in this way as 
 an organic principle. The universal mind of all nations, 
 savage and civilized, educated and ignorant, has had and 
 has expressed this conviction. I^ay, even at the present 
 time it is an underlying principle, it may be unconsciously, of 
 all science. And the men who the most have tried to cast 
 doubt upon it in their writings, take it for granted in every 
 page. Whiteness and blackness are everywhere acknowledged 
 to be merely qualities, none take them for entities ; solidity 
 or figure, hardness or softness, are universally acknowledged 
 to be attributes of matter, not real existences ; but all men, 
 in all ages, in all their thoughts, consider life to be a con- 
 stituent principle, a reality, a force. And furthermore, that 
 organization depends upon it, is energized and vitalized by 
 it, is an effect, a consequence first, and then an agent of 
 it. That life is not a mere attribute of matter, or an abstract 
 term used to express certain phenomena of growth or decad- 
 ence, but is a real power, a principle or constituent force 
 of various kinds, propagating itself after certain laws, taking 
 up and appropriating matter to itself, and employing it in its 
 own support and in its own manifestation. 
 
 This idea some may think to be a mistaken one, but it has 
 been and is the conviction of the whole human race. And 
 we believe that if science ever reaches to the solution of the 
 problem of -life and being, such will be its ultimate conclusions. 
 And, in the meantime, we must remember that we are now no 
 nearer this, as a matter of rigorous logic, than philosophers 
 were two thousand years ago. We can refute some of their 
 theories, we can establish none of our own that shall give per- 
 fect and entire satisfaction. 
 
 We see, then, the new-born child. The body is manifest 
 to us ; to our eyes it is visible ; it is tangible, it is perceptible 
 to all our senses. And, very quietly and assuredly, we take all 
 parts of its organization to be organs of that which we do not 
 see, the life. The warmth of the skin, the regular beat of the 
 heart, the inflation of the lungs, these to us are signs of life. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 117 
 
 The crj that reaches our ears, the movements of the little 
 frame, are proofs that the child is not dead, but that its life is 
 going on. The desire for food and warmth is evidence that 
 the vital principle demands its nutriment, in order that it may 
 live and exist in the organization in which it dwells. All 
 man's experience, all his modes of speech, all his ideas, when 
 we analyze them thoroughly, imply a very definite and exact 
 system, of which the central doctrine is that life is a constitu- 
 ent principle or force ; not the result of external matter, but 
 rather the owner and the lord of matter, employing it after the 
 laws of its species and nature, to us for the most part unknown. 
 Vegetable, animal, spiritual and intellectual life — all the classes 
 of life with which we are acquainted — are different in action, 
 but in this one fact they agree, that each and every one of 
 them is a life. 
 
 "We have, then, at birth, the life connected with an organi- 
 zation appropriate and peculiar to it. But this is not all. By 
 the very fact of birth, the living being, the life that is organ- 
 ized, is introduced into a sphere of circumstances which, in 
 various ways, are just as appropriate, just as adapted to tlie 
 life, as are its own various organs. This sphere lies around 
 the living being, it is actually in material contact with him, it 
 actually touches him, it shuts him in, it surrounds him bodily, 
 in space and in time. His organs are material. He touches 
 matter everywhere. He is encircled, ensphered by it, he can- 
 not get outside of it. He is truly surrounded by a sphere of 
 material things. He sees himself as a centre, and the material 
 contents of time and space lie around him, upon all sides of 
 him, and in every direction toward which he can turn himself. 
 There are material tilings that belong to him — are part of his 
 own being by nature — his bodily frame and the various organs 
 that constitute and make it up. His life actuates and possesses 
 these, makes them part of his own being, although they are 
 material. But these other existences that press upon him, and 
 close . him in, — these he feels to be not his, although in such 
 close contact with him. The life, with its organization, con- 
 
118 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 stitutes one distinct fact. The sphere in which it dwells is 
 another. All men separate these two facts in their thoughts 
 natm-ally and easily. 
 
 And yet, essentially different as they are in this one 
 respect, there is, when we think of it, a most wonderful cor- 
 respondence, a most exact harmony between these two. A 
 life introduced and brought, by means of a living organization, 
 within a given sphere, has an exact adaptedness in itself to all 
 the facts of that sphere. Intended to begin its existence, to 
 grow and to reach maturity therein, every organ, every fibre 
 of the being is arranged with an intelligent prescience of all 
 the facts that are to come in contact with it in its sphere of 
 existence. For the stomach, food ; for the lungs, air ; for the 
 eyes, light; these are broad and patent examples which all 
 men recognize at once. And when the sphere is different, the 
 organization is varied. For the fish that must breathe in the 
 water, gills perform the same work that the lungs do for the 
 man who lives in the air. How the organs of animals are 
 varied, with a multiform adaptedness to the sphere in which 
 their life is to exist, is a very pleasing thought. This, also, is a 
 principle that lies at the base of all science. We do not dwell 
 upon it any further than to merely point it out distinctly, to 
 show its real value in the matters of thought connected with 
 the fact of life. 
 
 Wherever in this world there is life of any kind, a living 
 being, there it has been introduced into a sphere appropriate 
 to that life. There the organization in which the life mani- 
 fests itself, beginning in a state of infancy, as we call it in the 
 human being, or incipient growth, as in plants and animals, 
 receives all the Tnaterials of its increase from without, appro- 
 priates them by means of its organs, and reaches its maturity 
 nourished and upheld by the nutriment which this external 
 sphere supplies. Of course, in some cases, the organization 
 being in itself imperfect, perishes, or the outward circumstances 
 fail to supply the requisite food and support. But these are 
 exceptional cases. The general principle is as we have said. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 119 
 
 All birth, therefore, implies these three things : First, a 
 principle of organic or constituent life; secondly, an organi- 
 zation in which that life is embodied ; and, thirdly, a sphere 
 for the life, in which it is to grow and increase and to come 
 to maturity, finding in it appropriate nutriment. 
 
 If there be, therefore, a regeneration, an actual and real new 
 birth for man, through Jesus Christ our Lord, these two things 
 it must have : First, a new life implanted in us, which we 
 did not hef ore possess ; and, secondly, even in this world there 
 must be, there must actually and really exist, for this new life, 
 a sphere wherein are supplied to it all elements of growth and 
 increase, all the nourishment necessary and competent to feed 
 that sacred principle of spiritual vitality. Thus regeneration 
 must be no metaphor, no mere change of manners or morals, 
 or way of living ; but a real new birth, the actual and real 
 implantation of a spiritual principle of life in the man, which 
 he had not before, and the actual and real transference of the 
 man into a new sphere of existence for the growth and matur- 
 ing of that principle, until it arrives at full perfection ; and the 
 new birth must take place not by any natural power existing 
 in the man, or in his fellow-men, but supernaturally and 
 miraculously, here in this natural world of space and time, by 
 the present power of God. 
 
 The third qualification, that of the organization, man 
 already possesses in the fact of his humanity, originally made in 
 the image of God. This natural fact supplies the third require- 
 ment belonging to the doctrine of birth, that of an organization 
 for the life to dwell within. We understand that man is to be 
 born anew, to be regenerated, l^ot that his old constitution is 
 to be annihilated and a new one created by the new birth, but 
 that, remaining man still, having the same soul, the same mental 
 and moral powers, the same body, he is to be new born, the prin- 
 ciple of a new life is to be implanted in him, and the man is to be 
 transferred to a new sphere, in which that new life is to obtain 
 all the requisite nourishment, and all influences material to its 
 growth and progress. Here, then, we have all the ideas 
 
120 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 belonging to birth, in this of the new birth. First, the 
 natural organization and constitution of man in all its parts, 
 existing first in one state and sphere, then in another ; secondly, 
 the idea of a new spiritual principle of life ; and, thirdly, the 
 idea of a sphere for the growth and maturation of that new life. 
 
 Now, this is precisely what we say the doctrine of regener- 
 ation contains, according to the Scriptures and our standards. 
 We say that man is dead by nature in trespasses and sins ; that 
 there is a ministry sent to preach repentance and faith to the 
 natural man ; that their message is attended by the influence of 
 the Holy Ghost, the Life Giver, so that it is not merely in word, 
 but in power. When the man is awakened by these means to a 
 sense of sin, to a true sorrow and real contrition for it, which is 
 repentance in the true sense, then he is pointed out to the 
 Lamb of God that taketh away sin, to the Redeemer of the 
 world, that he may have faith in Him, in His atonement and 
 propitiatory sacrifice. Having been led to that living faith by 
 the influence of the Holy Spirit accompanying the Word of 
 the preached Gospel as its ordinary means, the man turns away 
 from sin with a true sorrow and a real repentance ; he turns, 
 with a sincere and living faith, toward Christ his Saviour. 
 So turned (coTi-'uersws), he is a '■'' converted'*'' man. Such was 
 Zacchseus, such Cornelius the Centurion, such Saul of Tarsus 
 after he had seen the Lord and before he was baptized by 
 Ananias. 
 
 Such^ I have no doubt, are multitudes at this day who are 
 not sons of God in the full sense, because, under the influence 
 of an imperfect system, they have been taught that ^Ho he 
 converted'''' is the same with being ^^ regenerated.^^ They have 
 understood and accepted the one half, and not the other half, of 
 the text,' "^ that helieveth and is baptized shall be saved." 
 For repentance and faith are not all. Even if sincere and true, 
 they make not up the whole of the Christian's change. They 
 are prerequisites, absolutely necessary in the man as a prepar- 
 ation to his regeneration, but, of themselves, they are not 
 regeneration, do not give regeneration. They, as coming from 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 121 
 
 the Holy Spirit, working upon an honest and true heart, adapt 
 and prepare the man for the new birth, but are not the new 
 birth itself. 
 
 What, then, is the new birth or regeneration ? It is this : 
 That there is, originating from Christ our Lord and His incar- 
 nation and atonement and glorification, an organic principle 
 of spiritual life and vitality, which is capable of being im- 
 planted in the man who is prepared for it ; that this new 
 principle — " the Life of Christ " it is called in the New Testa- 
 ment — is, by the power of the Holy Sjpirit, a miraculous, super- 
 natural gift to the individual man who by faith and repentance 
 is prepared for such a blessing. This, together with entrance 
 into the Church of God, its sphere, actually and really is the 
 new birth ; the implantation of this new life in the fallen being 
 and constitution of man, and at the same time his being brought 
 into God's Church upon earth. 
 
 This new life is the first idea and fact of regeneration. 
 And as the child who is born, by the very fact of birth, is 
 placed within a sphere wherein are contained all the elements 
 of nourishment and supply to the vital principle of life which 
 he has in the natural birth, and as this entrance within such a 
 sphere of supply forms part of the idea of that birth, so it is 
 with the new birth from heaven. The sphere of material 
 things wherein the air exists for the lungs, food for the appetite, 
 light for the eyes of the infant, has its parallel to the regener- 
 ated Christian man in the Church, which is the sphere of life 
 and nutriment for him who is new born in Christ. Herein all 
 the means of grace exist in full plenitude for the new-born 
 son of God. Herein the regenerated Christian is to grow, and 
 in it the life is to be made perfect, to come to maturity and 
 ripen for heaven. In this, unto the inward life, all external 
 nourishment is given. To the inward living faith of the son of 
 God, the outward objective faith is given in express and dis- 
 tinct creeds, and in the Holy Scrij)tures. In it, also, is given the 
 constant demand and opportunity for Christian works of love, 
 of benevolence and self-denial, perfecting faith by charity. To 
 
122 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the inward feeling of love to God, of reverence to His name, 
 the outward exercise of the tenderest, of the grandest, the 
 most solemn and lovely forms of devotion, is given in the 
 liturgies of the Church. To the thoughtful soul, meditating 
 on all tlie problems of man's being and destiny, all these 
 problems are examined and stated, discussed and decided in 
 the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 Look at the loftiest intellects, the tenderest and the noblest 
 human souls in the history of our race from the earliest ages, 
 discussing all these problems, brooding over them with the most 
 assiduous meditation. See in the remotest East, Gotama 
 Buddha, Zerdusht, Confucius, and Lao-tze. Then among the 
 Greeks, behold Pythagoras and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, 
 noble souls all of them, seeking in the darkness of heathenism 
 for a solution of the problems of life. And then sweep down 
 the stream of intellect and civilization until you see the great 
 Germans, Spinoza, Kant, and Goethe, central suns surrounded 
 by smaller and dependent orbs, and what is it that you behold ? 
 The same problems examined by them, by the same dim, uncer- 
 tain light of mere nature, and with the same result of uncer- 
 tainty and variety of speculation. 
 
 And then look to the man within the Church of Christ 
 when in its normal condition, uncorrupted and free. In his 
 ears are read every day, to his inquiring soul are given, 
 the clear statement of all these problems and their solution. 
 From the words of Job, the Idumean prince, long before the 
 times of Moses, through a manifold stream of lofty and lowly 
 intellects, this heavenly wisdom passes onward until it ends in 
 these two men of great genius, St. Paul and St. John. To the 
 man brought within the Church all the problems of life and 
 being are stated and solved in his ears plainly in the works of 
 so many writers, reaching over so long and extended a tract 
 of time ; for the Bible is not one book by one author, of one 
 epoch, but is the work of upward of thirty authors, extending 
 over two thousand four hundred years. 
 
 In all human souls, therefore (since our Lord ascended to 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 123 
 
 heaven), of all ages and of all countries, the life of Christ can 
 be implanted by spiritual regeneration ; and for them is open 
 the heavenly sphere of being, the Holy Catholic Church of God, 
 fall of life, full of spiritual, intellectual, and moral truth. The 
 breath of the Holy Spirit in it as a vital air lies around them. 
 The guardianship of the holy angels, ministering spirits to 
 those who are called according to his will, is given to them. 
 The powers of Him who now reigns and mediates for us in 
 heaven in His ascended and living humanity, our King whose 
 power is omnipotence, our Prophet whose counsel is omniscience, 
 our Priest whose atonement is ever before the throne as a pre- 
 vailing sacrifice for all our sins. Behold all these are for us, these 
 spiritual blessings of the Church of God upon earth, contents 
 of the sphere into which we are introduced by our regeneration. 
 
 See again the sacramental nutriment that is given us. Con- 
 sider how even material things, perishing elements, are made, 
 in the Church, the means of heavenly nourishment to the 
 spiritual life in us. Consider, also, how all the relations of 
 our natural existence are employed as agencies of the Holy 
 Spirit in the Church, all feed the sacred flame of the new life 
 in us. The mother becomes a Christian mother, the father a 
 Christian father ; the relation of brother and sister, of wife and 
 husband, of sovereign and subject, of magistrate and citizen, all 
 are sanctified. As the electric fluid can dwell within and issue 
 from all material bodies in this material sphere, making every 
 prominent point a conductor, so, for the regenerate man, the 
 child of God, all the natural relations of humanity are brought 
 within the supernatural sphere wherein he exists ; all are made 
 means whereby the Holy Spirit feeds the life that is in him, — 
 all things become in some measure sacraments, outward and 
 visible efficient signs of the inward and spiritual grace wherein 
 we stand. 
 
 And, again, the moral and intellectual influence of this new 
 sphere, how transcendent it is ! Oh, that these classes of Chris- 
 tians, who put away the liturgic services of the Church on vari- 
 ous pretences, only knew this, — they who use no liturgy at all, 
 
124 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 and they who use one in a strange tongue not understood by 
 the people ! The mere moral and mental value of the Psalms 
 of David, dwelt upon in a Christian sense, devotionally, by the 
 soul from childhood to old age in the public services of the 
 Church, is too great to be appraised. The single chapter in the 
 Burial Service, on the resurrection, heard, as it is, and acquiesced 
 in, by millions in the presence of their dead, does more than all 
 the ablest intellects can do or have done, by writing or preach- 
 ing, in behalf of that truth of the Gospel, since the English 
 language began to be spoken in its present form. The Ten 
 Commandments, read with solemn authority from the altar, 
 accepted by the kneeling multitudes in a Christian sense, and this 
 taking place in each Church over the world fifty-two times in 
 the year, — this is a moral and intellectual teaching and training, 
 is a constant education in true morality, in a way and to a 
 degree that man hardly dreams of. 
 
 In the whole Bible, read each year in the ears of the people, 
 see the effect of the Christian year. See, again, the various 
 ofiices of the Church, both regular and occasional. See the 
 catechising of clergy and parents. See the great and precious 
 influence of the pastoral care, of the threefold ministry. Con- 
 sider these things — for all these, manifestly, are contained for 
 the individual man in that outward sphere of the Church into 
 which he is introduced at his baptism — and you will say that no 
 wonder it is called a new birth ; for all these blessings are given, 
 to me, they come to me, they are provided for me. Not from 
 myself, not from my powers, not from my wisdom do they 
 originate, any more than the light or the air in the natural 
 world, the sphere of my natural existence, comes from myself 
 or my own forethought. When the Church was instituted, 
 upon the day of Pentecost, then was it provided with all these 
 sacred treasures of nutriment and life for the regenerate soul. 
 Then began for man that opportunity and power, that here on 
 earth he could be regenerated by the implantation of a spiritual 
 organic life in his soul, and that there should exist for him on 
 earth the kingdom of heaven, the Church of God, a sphere 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 125 
 
 of existence, a new world, fnll-charged with an unfailing sup- 
 ply of all the elements of nourishment, spiritual and intellect- 
 ual, for that implanted life. As a matter of faith, and as a 
 matter of fact, we see that it is so. 
 
 It is true the mass of Christians in this New World do not 
 as yet comprehend the nature of the Church as a Divine organ- 
 ization, Calvin and Luther, men of great genius and great 
 influence, predominate, and their ideas are most prevalent. 
 But we hold a Church to have been organized at the very 
 birth of the Gospel, a visible society, a sphere of life in which 
 the regenerate sons of God, through Jesus Christ, should 
 dwell and live, and that so organized it is to last for all time. 
 "We cite a description from an article written by ourself : 
 
 " The Church, as originally organized, was a distinct so- 
 ciety in the world, having two aspects, the natural and the 
 supernatural, and yet both equally true. In the one it is an 
 assemblage of men, women, and children, for public and 
 religious worship, its members introduced by certain forms, 
 having a certain faith, using certain sacred canonical books and 
 certain liturgical services, and then showing forth in life and 
 conduct the results of the principles so implanted and so 
 trained. This is the aspect in which the Church would be 
 looked upon by those without. A true view, but an imperfect 
 one. The view, we are sorry to say, which too many ordinary 
 Christians take of it. 
 
 " The other aspect is wholly supernatural ; the view which 
 the first Christians took, the aspect whence it is viewed by the 
 eye of faith. It is this : Christ our Lord, the Word of God 
 incarnate, our Brother in the flesh, ascended into the highest 
 heaven, there to reign until the conflict of evil against good is 
 ended. He instituted a kingdom upon earth, His Church. 
 This is a society that has supernatural powers to sustain it until 
 the end of the world, so that 'the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail against it.' For its head is Christ, it is the body of Christ, 
 so close is the connection between it and Him. He is its 
 King, the Church is His kingdom. It is the ' temple of 
 
126 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 God,' and He its Eternal Priest and Prophet. I^ay, the 
 Holy Spirit is conceived as dwelling in it, as being as it were 
 its vitalizing and organizing spirit, the power of its life by 
 which it lives ; that Spirit which, by His own miraculous 
 power called grace, unites each living member to Christ our 
 Lord. To be within the Church is to be in a state of grace, 
 to be without it is to be in the state of nature. Such the 
 privileges with which the Church is endued ; such the powers 
 by which she is sustained. And the end is sure; the final 
 and certain victory of the Church and her Lord over Sin, 
 Satan, Death, and Hell. Now, all this implies that the Church 
 has a distinct power of self-existence ; a power of self-sustain- 
 ing life. Nay, that she cannot but exist until her final object 
 is accomplished. 
 
 " This was the view taken of the nature of the Church by 
 the primitive Christians. This is the Bible view, the way in 
 which our Lord presented His Church, the aspect wherein St. 
 Peter and St. Paul, St. John and St. James, and all the 
 Apostles, held it. And lastly, this is the view in which we 
 alone, perhaps, of all denominations in this New World, look 
 upon the Church of God." * 
 
 "We admit that these are not the ordinary ideas among the 
 mass of men outside the Church. They do not conceive the 
 idea of a supernatural life implanted in the man ; they must 
 have something tangible and visible. An organic life, hidden 
 in the being, originating with our unseen Saviour and the 
 invisible Spirit, and manifesting itself only in its efiects, the 
 Christian life and Christian graces, is not striking enough, not 
 exciting enough, not glaring enough for the most of men. 
 They have not faith, "the evidence of things unseen," to 
 view a calm, solemn baptismal covenant and sacrament, and 
 to say, " Herein, since God has promised it, is regeneration 
 wrought out, and the new life implanted, by the power of the 
 Holy Spirit." This they cannot believe, even if true faith 
 be in the person baptized, true sorrow for his past sins, true 
 * " Cliurch Review," July, 1859, pp. 213, 213. , 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 127 
 
 spiritual influences, all that in their own mind goes to make up 
 regeneration. 
 
 Nor can they conceive the idea of an Apostolic and Cath- 
 olic Church. The very idea of a Church, organized on the 
 day of Pentecost, lasting to the end of the world, " against 
 which the gates of hell cannot prevail " ; * this idea has perished 
 from the popular mind, men do not comprehend it. No won- 
 der that the doctrine of regeneration is so confused, when the 
 two facts upon which it depends, the doctrine and fact of a 
 new life and of a Catholic Church, are denied, doubted, not even 
 understood in their terms by the mass of men that call them- 
 selves Christians. 
 
 We admit, as we have said, that these ideas of regeneration 
 — that it is an organic spiritual life, breathed into the being of 
 man by the Spirit of God, and dwelling permanently in it as 
 the natural life does, and also that the visible Church of God 
 is its sphere — are doctrines almost forgotten ; slidden, as it were, 
 out of the memory of the mass of Christians, and therefore, 
 perhaps, looking strange to them. This, however, is most 
 certainly the doctrine of the Prayer Book, the doctrine, we 
 say, also, of the New Testament. And we expect to show it 
 clearly so to be. Nevertheless, feeling as we do at the present 
 time, that one of the main faults of this age is that when any 
 one brings up a truth authoritative and obligatory, that has 
 been partly forgotten, men cry out, " innovation ! " " novelty ! " 
 " strange new doctrine ! " we shall just bring up the opinion 
 of a very able and very influential bishop of the English 
 Chm'ch, Dr. Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury (a.d. 1621) : 
 
 " As to the term ' born again,' or ' regenerate,' I do not 
 consider every one ' born again ' who may chance to be en- 
 lightened by some ray, or breathed upon by some motion of 
 the Holy Spirit. But him only who is already raised up from 
 the death of sin and is made alive hy the most omnipotent 
 [omnipotentissimd in the Latin original) operation of the 
 same Spirit. On the other hand, I call him not regenerate 
 * St. Matt. xvi. 18. 
 
128 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 who has not yet arrived at this spiritual vivijication, howso- 
 ever he may have been affected by some prevenient operations 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 " But here we must carefully attend to the fact that the 
 word regeneration either denotes the very first creative act, 
 by which the spiritual life is infused into the person, and 
 which, therefore, is the worTc of a moment. Or else it signifies 
 the continued operation of the Spirit by which the new powers 
 and qualities breathed into the man, along with this new life, 
 are cherished and strengthened, and it (the life) is hrought to 
 maturity, not without the endeavors and strugglings of the 
 regenerate man himself." * 
 
 How different this from all the notions of the present day. 
 Here are all the facts we have been urging as belonging to the 
 idea of a new birth, an organic life, breathed into the man as 
 a new element of his being by the power of the Holy Spirit, 
 with new strength and new ability, a miraculous creation of 
 spiritual life in him. These ideas, we believe, are strange to 
 the ordinary Christians of this present day. This passage 
 being in so ancient and so prominent a writer of the English 
 Church as the Bishop of Salisbury, Divinity Professor in 
 Cambridge, proves, we trust, that they are no novelties. 
 
 And that simultaneously with this new life we are brought 
 within the Church, needs no citation from the divines of the 
 English Church, or of any other. It needs only the plain 
 words of the Scripture : " By one Spirit are we all haptized 
 into one hody, whether we be Jews or Greeks, whether we 
 be bond or free, and ha/ve heen all made to drinh into one 
 Spirit. ''^ t 
 
 * Davenant's " Determinations " (translated from the original Latin), 
 Question 9. 
 
 f I. Cor. xii. 13. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 We admit, as we have said, that the sense we have given 
 of the word life is, to the ordinary mass of Christians, one 
 very nnusuaL The "life of Christ " they generally think to 
 mean merely a Christian way of living. Having lost the idea 
 of a Church actually existing upon the earth, they have lost 
 also the grand Christian idea of an organic vital principle im- 
 planted in the man, and raising him up from the death of sin.* 
 Therefore, they have confused regeneration with conversion, 
 and so gone back to the level of the Jewish dispensation. 
 
 For conversion, the work of true repentance and true faith, 
 is everywhere to be seen in the Old Testament. Men are, 
 throughout that dispensation, called unto both, most frequently 
 and most fervently. The glories of a true faith in the living 
 and unseen God are as manifest in the Old Testament as in 
 the 'New. And the preciousness before God of a sincere sor- 
 row for sin is just as evident. And conversion, the fruit of 
 both, is as fully attributed to God's Spirit in the Old Testa- 
 ment as in the New. As one example out of multitudes that 
 might be cited, we quote one passage from the Psalms : 
 
 "Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine in- 
 iquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God ; and renew a 
 right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence ; 
 and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me 
 the joy of Thy salvation ; and uphold me with Thy free spirit. 
 Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways ; and sinners shall be 
 convet'ted unto Thee."t 
 
 * " For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." — Col. iii, 3. 
 f Psalm li. 9-13. 
 
 9 
 
130 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Is it not evident that the full conception of a true conversion 
 is here, in all its parts of a sincere repentance, a living faith, a 
 pure heart, all wrought in the man by the Holy Spirit, his 
 own spirit receiving and accepting willingly of the Grace of 
 God ? Certainly it is. 
 
 And is not this all that regeneration is, according to the 
 orthodox of the present day ? Certainly it is. With them 
 regeneration is wholly identical with conversion. Why, then, 
 should Christ become incarnate and die ? why should 
 He enter into the world, if the highest and most glori- 
 ous privilege of the Gospel was fully and completely given 
 under the Law ? 
 
 Why is it that in the Old Testament, while the idea of 
 conversion in all its fulness is perpetually coming up, the idea 
 and the plirase of " regeneration," or " being born of God," 
 never occurs? Surely the reason for this is, and must be, that 
 only since our Blessed Lord came upon the earth and became 
 man, only because of Him and His incarnation, can man be- 
 come a son of God by spiritual regeneration. And regenera- 
 tion is not conversion, but something higher and greater ; a 
 grand and glorious privilege to w^hich, as Cliristians, we have 
 access since our Lord's birth. His sacrifice upon Calvary, and 
 His ascension. " These all," says the apostle, of the dead 
 saints of the Old Testament, " having obtained a good report 
 through faith, received not the promise : God having provided 
 a certain greater privilege (thing) for us, that they apart from 
 us should not be made perfect."* Is it not manifest, then, that 
 they who assert that conversion is regeneration, reduce tlie 
 Christian dispensation to the level of the Jewish, since they 
 must assert that before Christ's advent just as great privileges 
 and blessings were enjoyed by the members of the covenant. 
 
 More than this they do. As the deist, by asserting the fact 
 
 of a Being of infinite power, who rnade the world, substitutes 
 
 this great and true but utterly inadequate idea for the Christian 
 
 conception of God the Father Almighty, and thereby wholly 
 
 * Heb. xi. 39,40. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 131 
 
 puts this last truth out of the minds of men and destroys it, so 
 these men do with the grand idea of regeneration. An actual 
 sonship, a reality in any adequate and true sense is put away by 
 them from the consciousness and thought of the ordinary Chris- 
 tianity, by substituting for it another fact and truth, of Jewish 
 revelation, which, however great and blessed, is merely pre- 
 paratory. And so the indwelling life, the organic vitality of 
 Christ our Lord in His disciples, is forgotten and put aside ; re- 
 duced from a fact to a strong and fervid metaphor. And this, 
 although our Saviour and His apostles state it in language the 
 most precise, although they assign its causes and specify its 
 effects in the most clear and calm unexaggerated way that can 
 be conceived. 
 
 And then, when we merely assert the perpetual privilege of 
 sonship and new birth through Christ as distinct from the 
 privileges of the Mosaic law, and as given us by our Lord in 
 the way that He has appointed, we are met with downright 
 abuse, and sometimes even with ribaldry and blasphemy, from 
 men that think themselves truly religious. 
 
 And yet, when we assert and preach, as we do, conversion 
 in its full sense of a true repentance from sin and a living faith 
 in God, as a preparation for regeneration, but as not ieing 
 regeneration itself, do we not place the highest gift that was 
 given to those under the Old Law in its proper position under 
 the New, as a preparation only for the new birth, as the initial 
 qualification for entrance within the covenant of Christ ? Do 
 we not say with Christ our Lord, " Except ye be converted, and 
 become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom 
 of heaven."* 
 
 And again, when we assert that the new birth is more than 
 conversion, a privilege, supernatural, of true sonship unto God, 
 given to the man as God has appointed it, do we not thereby 
 assert that Christ has " actually come in the flesh," that now 
 as man He lives and reigns, that His kingdom really exists here, 
 that His Spirit here in this world of time and space truly 
 * St. Matt, xviii. 3. 
 
132 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 effects in us the one regeneration, the new birth that He 
 promised ? " As many as received Him, to them gave He the 
 power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe 
 in His name." * 
 
 These views are remarkably confirmed by our Lord's con- 
 versation with I^icodemus. " He came to Jesus by night," 
 acknowledging that He was a teacher come from God ; and 
 then, when our Lord announced to him that " except a man 
 be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," he in- 
 quired, manifestly in reference to his owm case : " How can a 
 man be born again when he is old ? Can he enter the second 
 time into his mother's womb and be born ? " His inquiry as 
 to the manner and possibility of the new birth, and the sim- 
 plicity of thought in the second clause, manifestly shows that an 
 idea wholly new to his thought was then presented to him for 
 the first time. The idea of a kingdom of God upon the earth, 
 and of a new birth into it ; of regeneration ; of man's being in 
 this world the son of God ; of the Spirit and its indwelling 
 life in man, — all these components of the Christian idea were 
 not upon the surface of the Old Testament — were not familiar 
 to him, and, therefore, he marvelled. The very idea was 
 marvellous or wonderful to him. It was manifestly not the 
 idea of conversion, with which the Master of Israel, the grave 
 and sincerely religious, if somewhat timorous Rabbi, was fully 
 acquainted, upon the pages of the Law, the Holy Books, and 
 the Prophets, that was then presented to him. The idea of con- 
 version is a distasteful and unpalatable idea, but by no means 
 can be considered mysterious or marvellous. It was that other 
 idea of new birth, unknown to the older dispensation, the 
 precious and unspeakable gift of God through Christ to the 
 children of the new covenant. 
 
 This, for the first time presented to his mind, caused him 
 to marvel. 
 
 And the explanation then given is not such as is given in 
 Calvinistic commentators — " that it is nothing but what He 
 * St. Jolin, i. 12. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 133 
 
 said before."* But, with a solemn asseveration, Christ 
 declares : " Yerily, verily, I say unto thee, excej)t a man be 
 born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God." An explanation of the instrumentality of the 
 new birth, which again calls forth his wonder — "How can 
 these things be ? " In reply to this our Lord does not bring 
 forth to him the doctrine of conversion so plainly explainable, 
 and so applicable as they say it is, but speaks to him in a 
 solemn and mysterious way of allusion to His own death, — 
 " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
 must the son of man be lifted up," — of His ascension into 
 heaven, — His coming down from heaven ; all which things, con- 
 sidering that they had received no explanation then from His 
 life and teachings, His death and resurrection, must have been 
 full of the deepest mystery to Nicodemus. 
 
 In fact, the great idea in that reply, extending over twelve 
 verses, is that He himself, "the Son of Man which is in 
 heaven," is the "only begotten Son of God" (three times this 
 title, in those few verses, is asserted of Himself), that in Him 
 is eternal life for those who believe in Him (twice is this as- 
 serted), that in Him is freedom from condemnation, in Him is 
 the light and the life. All these assertions, at a future period, 
 would be to Nicodemus truths full of glory, when shone upon 
 by the facts of the death and resurrection of our Lord, the 
 teaching of the great forty daj^s, and His ascension to the right 
 hand of the Father. But, considering that they were made by 
 Jesus at the very beginning of His career, and that Nicodemus 
 thought of Him simply as a Divine teacher, they must have 
 been most deeply mysterious, in fact, incomprehensible, at that 
 time to him. And certainly they cannot be looked upon as 
 giving in any way the explanation that the birth of water and 
 the Spirit is nothing but conversion. 
 
 Most undoubtedly they do assert the fact that our Lord is 
 the " only begotten Son of God," that in Him is the gift of 
 eternal Kfe to those who profess His name, and that He is sent 
 * Matthew Henry's comment on the verse. 
 
134 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 into the world for that purpose. Of life for man, through the 
 eternal and " only begotten Son of God," who is also the Son 
 of Man, the whole discourse is full ; mysteriously, awfully, in- 
 comprehensibly full, at that time, to the Jewish master in 
 Israel. He could not interpret them — of conversion, or of any- 
 thing else than that this new teacher came from God, and 
 claimed that He was the " only begotten Son of God," being 
 at the same time a man, and that in Him is everlasting life for 
 all who should become His disciples. And that this is the 
 new birth, — this believing in Him, this receiving from Him of 
 eternal life in the way that He should appoint. 
 
 The word life, as we have said, in common language, and 
 even in the Scripture itself, is employed in two very different 
 senses. The first is that in which it is connected with bap- 
 tism, the sense of a vital principle, a constituent force, which 
 sustains the organization, the life or vital power in beings that 
 are organized and live. This we have sufficiently illustrated 
 in the last chapter. And this is what we understand to be as- 
 serted in the Scriptures of our new birth, that, as there is an 
 animal or sensuous life in man by nature, and an intellectual 
 life also, so from God is given to man, by the Spirit, a spirit- 
 ual life, a vital and living principle, which, dwelling in him, as 
 the life of Christ, is the root and source of spiritual growth 
 and progress. This idea, together with that of a Catholic 
 Church in the world, is the fundamental idea, the very basis of 
 the doctrine of the new birth. As the life is in the infant at 
 its birth derived from its earthly father and mother, and is the 
 root and cause of its growth, being nourished in manifold 
 ways, through a wonderful complexity of organs, so, in the 
 child of God, unseen of men (as being properly an object of 
 faith), is the spiritual principle of a new life, the life of Christ, 
 implanted and indwelling. 
 
 The second sense of the word, as we have said, is that 
 which signifies a mode and manner of living. In this sense 
 we ordinarily speak of such a man leading a Christian life, 
 implying that his mode of living is under the law and guided 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 135 
 
 bj the principles of Christianity. And in this sense we often 
 use, even apart from the Gospel, the phrase "anew life." 
 For instance, that a drunkard should leave off drunkenness, 
 and become habitually a sober man, we say it is to him a new 
 life. This second sense is the favorite with the religionists of 
 the day. They cannot conceive of a life that is hidden, that 
 does not manifest itself, that may be in infants or in persons 
 of a quiet and undemonstrative Christian temper, that may 
 continue to exist even in the vile, the irreligious, and the rep- 
 robate for years, unseen of man, perhaps smothered in wilful 
 sin, or oppressed with vice, and yet working and struggling in 
 the man's inmost being as a living power. All this they can- 
 not comprehend. In fact, the idea is a strange and unfamiliar 
 one to the mass of professing Christians. But, to show how 
 familiar it is to us in the Church, we cite from one of the 
 earliest writers upon the Articles of the English Church, 
 Thomas Rogers, chaplain to Archbishop Bancroft, nearly three 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 " The regenerate," he says, " have in them a double life ; 
 the one carnal, the other spiritual. 
 
 " The life carnal and temporary they brought with them 
 into this world ; the spiritual life was given unto them after- 
 ward, in their second birth, through the Word. 
 
 " The life carnal and corporal is common to all men, good 
 and bad, and is maintained and preserved by earthly and cor- 
 ruptible bread, common also to all and every man. The life 
 spiritual is peculiar only to God's elect, and is cherished by 
 ' the bread of life, which came down from heaven,' which is 
 Jesus Christ, who nourisheth and sustaineth the spiritual life 
 of Christians, being received of them by faith." * 
 
 Also in Bishop Pearson on the Creed, in the article upon 
 eternal life, we have it laid down that "life eternal" is of 
 three kinds : " life initial," "life partial," and " life perfectional." 
 Life eternal initial, is that which is given to the regenerate in 
 this world ; life partial belongs to the saints that are dead, in 
 * Kogers on the Articles, a.d. 1586. Reprinted 1607. 
 
136 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the state of the departed, their bodies being dead, and their 
 souls, a part only of the man, alive ; life perfectional belong- 
 ing to the bodies and souls of the saints, after the resur- 
 rection and the judgment. So that eternal life, according to 
 Bishop Pearson, is received and possessed by the sons of God, 
 during their human life in this world. The ordinary idea, we 
 need hardly say, of eternal life, is that of a continuous and 
 unlimited happy state of being of the good, conferred upon 
 them after death. That in this world there is in the possession 
 of any one the gift of eternal life, is never even dreamed of or 
 imagined. And yet, no doubt this is the plain truth of Holy 
 Writ. " Ye have {^X^tb, are in possession of) eternal life." * 
 
 In order to understand this subject fully, it will be neces- 
 sary to consider the incarnate Word, and the Spirit of the 
 Father and the Son, in their relations to man upon the earth. 
 The first is the Prince of Life, " the Archegos (in the original) 
 of life," — not merely prince, but originator and beginner, as 
 well as chief leader and prince of life to man. The second is 
 the Zoopoios of the Nicene Creed, " the Giver and Imparter of 
 life," He by whose immediate supernatural agency upon the 
 earth, obtained from the Father for His brethren, by Christ is 
 imparted to man. Only by understanding what the Son of 
 God and the Spirit have done and now do for us, can the gift 
 of life eternal, in this world, be comprehended. 
 
 And first, in regard to our Most Blessed Lord, His position 
 to the race, and to each individual man in the Church, may 
 be understood, perhaps, most fully, by a remarkable passage in 
 that great chapter in the Corinthians upon the resurrection of 
 the body : " And so it is written, the first man Adam was 
 made a livmg soul; the last Adam was made a life-giving 
 spirit." f 
 
 All men are familiar with the idea that the whole human 
 race came from one man and one woman. In fact, this idea is 
 both the most natural and the most humane. Men are con- 
 ducted toward it by so many various avenues of reason and 
 * I. John, V. 13. t I. Cor. xv. 45. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3L 137 
 
 science, pliilantliropic sentiment, history and tradition, that it 
 always has been, always will be, the one predominant theory 
 of the origin of our race, that they came from a single pair. 
 And the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are 
 equally pledged to it, with the universal tradition of all races. 
 " God hath made of one blood all nations, for to dwell upon 
 the face of the whole earth," the apostle says, uncontradicted? 
 to the Athenian philosophers in the Areopagus. 
 
 Adam was the first forefather of our race. From him, on 
 the mountain plateaux of Asia, where was placed the antedilu- 
 vian Paradise, all the races of men descended. Nor is there a 
 variety in color, or form, or stature, which cannot be accounted 
 for by the influence, for many generations, of climate, or food, 
 or education, or national habits, or religion, or legislation. 
 Endless flexibility and power of adaptation, and the most ex- 
 traordinary tenacity and unchangeableness exist together in 
 man, governed by laws not yet fully understood, which are 
 strangely complicated, and, it would seem, in many cases most 
 strangely fantastic. The triple combination of body, soul, and 
 spirit, exists in each man of every nation. The many faculties 
 and powers which, by due analysis, are in any one man's mind, 
 exist in the mind of every other man, of every other race. 
 All limbs and parts and organs that constitute the bodily 
 frame of one man, are in the frames of all. Nor is tliere an 
 emotion, an afliection, or a natural feeling which, in degrees 
 more or less strong, is not common to all hearts. All men are 
 the same, all w^omen are the same, over the world, in all 
 elements and powers and faculties and organs that go to 
 make up the constitution of the human being. The variation 
 of the nation, the tribe, and the family, showing itself in the 
 individual, is the only difi'erence there is among them. And 
 thus are men, like leaves upon an oak, all similar, and yet none 
 perfectly the same ; to each his own individual existence and 
 character, and yet all springing from the same root and trunk. 
 What were the qualities, therefore, what the position, accord- 
 ing to Holy Writ, of that first man, of whom the whole earth 
 
138 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 was overspread? No feeble, ignorant, and miserable savage 
 was he, wretched and barbarous in himself, and crushed beneath 
 a hostile nature, oppressed alike and enslaved by the darkness 
 and cold of the Arctic regions and the burning heats of the 
 Equator. 
 
 This is not the Scriptural idea of the first man, only the 
 tradition of modern sectism. He was, according to the Bible, 
 a glorious being, fresh from the hands of his God. A perfect 
 man, existing in a perfect world, without sin, unfallen and up- 
 right before God. The idea that man originally was a mere 
 anthropoid animal, a hnman beast, without language, without 
 morality, or decency, or cleanliness, standing outside of society, 
 is simply unhistoric and unscientific. As a matter of fact, no 
 such men, socially or nationally, were ever found in existence. 
 There are none such at present. None such have ever existed 
 in the world. In days of old the idea of the " mutum et turpe 
 pecus " was a philosophic myth. It sprang from the Epicurean 
 theories of the nature of God and the world and man, wholly 
 unsupported, at that time, by fact or by history. The same 
 theoretic notions are the basis of the same conclusions in 
 modern days. Men who would laugh to scorn the idea of an 
 ape with language and laws, clothing and fire, and demand at 
 once facts and evidence, — when they come to discuss the origin 
 of man, theorize, and suppose that in millions of years the ape 
 could learn to talk, — and then, to help their theory, they take 
 the millions of years they require, of ape-existence and unre- 
 corded ape-history for granted, as a fact. But the most ancient 
 history that we have of Europe and Asia shows us, as a fact, no 
 such period of man's existence. Nineveh and Babylon and 
 Damascus, the most ancient cities of the world ; Mesopotamia, 
 Egypt and Ethiopia, China and Persia and Hindostan, bear 
 historic evidence of mighty nations, great in wars, in laws and 
 literature ; but none, of the existence, as a matter of fact, of tlie 
 Epicurean or Darwinite man-brute. 
 
 In nations, of course, as in men, the type of man is con- 
 stantly either rising or falling, it is in a perpetual ebb or flow. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 139 
 
 There is no unchanging status, no dead level for any man in 
 morality. He is always becoming either better or worse. So 
 it is with nations. In morals, in intellect, and in type of body, 
 the nation is always either rising or falling, never permanent. 
 Advance and progress in type, or, just as often, degradation 
 and debasement, is perpetually going on. And it is far easier 
 to speculate and theorize than to observe and deduce, to suppose 
 uniform advance from the basest type in millions of years 
 than to look at the variations for centuries — the risings and 
 fallings, the ebb and flow of humanity in actual existence. 
 Therefore we have these three theories: First, of uniform pro- 
 gress and perpetual advance ; second, of millions of years of 
 continuous existence in organisms; and, third, of changes of 
 one form and type into another, wholly superior. Of these 
 there is no clear and definite evidence, as a matter of recorded 
 fact and experimental knowledge, only philosophic suppositions 
 that it may be so. 
 
 But, as we have said, the Scripture represents the first man 
 as a perfect being, in a perfect world. Nature to him is not 
 an enemy to be wrestled with, and half conquered, to conquer 
 him at last. Ko harsh stepmother is she, crushing and oppress- 
 ing him ; but bounteous and overflowing with all blessings, 
 ever kind and gracious, as a sister that is also a nurse, elder- 
 born from the same father. And man is not represented as a 
 mere child, a subject, or a creature of the natural world, but 
 as its lord and king, the sovereign of all its realms, the ruler ot 
 all its created beings, lord of this earth and vicegerent of God 
 upon it, Adam (ha- Adam, the man), the son of God. It is not 
 a warfare that he wages with hostile forces, their very nature 
 to him unknown, only to be guessed at and understood partially, 
 after ages of his best thought ; but a dominion that he possesses 
 over familiar servants, well understood, kindly and perfectly 
 obedient. It is not for him a perpetual strife and struggle with 
 the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fishes of the 
 sea, with only the alliance of two or three domestic animals, 
 half bent to his will, half understanding his behests ; but a per- 
 
140 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 feet rule and dominion over all living beings that belongs to 
 the first born man, the sovereign of this world. The Christian 
 tradition considers Adam as being to this world the natural 
 lord and ruler of it, as it looks upon the Eternal Son, the only- 
 begotten of the Father, as the lord and ruler of the universe. 
 As God the Word, to eternity and immensity, the infinite and 
 all its realms, so man, the son of God, to this world of time 
 and space. God the Word— and heaven— and the universe— man 
 made in his image — and paradise — and the outer world of this 
 earth, — these are parallel and cognate ideas and facts in Holy 
 Writ. 
 
 But we anticipate. We return to the gifts of the first man. 
 For him there was no death, no disease, no decay. The Script- 
 ures of both the Old and New Testaments assert in the plainest 
 terms that man was created immortal, that death was to him 
 no natural fact, no law of his being which must ensue by natural 
 causes inevitably in the course of his existence. This doctrine 
 of the natural immortality of man evidently separates him from 
 the whole animal creation, and exalts him above them by an 
 essential difference of his nature. It has always been decried 
 as a manifest absurdity by Pelagians and Socinians, and yet we 
 think that modern science is by no means hostile to the Chris- 
 tian idea. In fact, the possibility of a perpetual life to man, 
 by the perpetual restoration and repair of the physical frame 
 of man, is not an idea, by any means, unknown to scientific 
 men. 
 
 And this seems to be the Mosaic idea, — that man's immor- 
 tality in Paradise was a freedom from death, pei'petually main- 
 tained in him, by the perpetual, voluntary, and rational use of 
 the means for that purpose ap]3ointed, and existing externally 
 to him. Hence comes the famous distinction between the im- 
 mortality of Adam in Paradise and that of man, after the 
 resurrection, that " he was able not to die^'' and " we shall not 
 be ahle to die." Hence is man's immortality connected with 
 the world of which he is yet the lord. His food is of the herb 
 of the field, and of every tree bringing forth fruit, and among 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3T. 141 
 
 tliem is " the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden," the 
 sacrament of immortality, the perpetual means of grace 
 whereby his physical frame remained undecaying, constantly 
 renewed, perpetually suj)plied with new vigor and new life.* 
 
 Here, then, we have completed for us the idea of the pri- 
 meval man, as a being perfect in all his powers and faculties, 
 existing in a perfect world, immortal, freed by the gifts of God 
 from decay and disease, lord of the external world and of all 
 its inhabitants and powers. And therefore, in all these ways, 
 and because of all these endowments and gifts, external and 
 internal, greater and happier, and more loftily endowed than 
 any of his descendants. And Paradise lay all around him, a 
 happy and a perfect state and sphere of being. 
 
 Is not this doctrine of the Scripture, as to man's primeval 
 state, confirmed by the lingering traditions of all men of all 
 races ? Have we not among them all the memory of the per- 
 fect man, glorious and immortal, lord of the material world ? 
 The Hindoo, the Greek, the Scandinavian, even the wild Indian 
 of our western prairies, and the wandering Malay of the Indian 
 seas, — does there not rest upon them all the faint memory of 
 the golden age, the happy and sinless time for man upon the 
 earth ? 
 
 And although we call it by a new name, the ideal man and 
 the ideal state, is not the image of the perfect man and the 
 perfect state perpetually before the human soul ? In what but 
 this thought are centred all the visions of humane hope, all 
 the calculations of benevolent science, all the outlook of the 
 unselfish statesman ? For all the thoughts of man tell us of 
 a perfection of man and a glory that is past and faded, and of a 
 glory and a perfection like it that is yet to come. 
 
 But in this repi'esentation of the first man and his state, one 
 thing more is necessary. If we look at all this, and con- 
 sider it carefully, the objection will be made, — this is the idea 
 of a mere animal with reason, of a being complete in himself 
 and with all his wants perfectly supplied, but with no motives 
 * See the Sermon of Bishop Home, on the Tree of Life, in his works. 
 
142 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 to stimulate, no excitement toward growth and progress, 
 no uneasiness or want of satisfaction in tlie present to 
 cause him to look onward and to struggle toward the future. 
 Nay, it seems as if he were hardly a moral being, but a mere 
 animal, an innocent, unconscious of good or of evil, on the 
 same moral level of unthinking and unmeritorious freedom 
 from sin with the brute creation. And it is manifest that these 
 objections would be valid if the only descriptions of the first 
 man in the Scriptures were those we have above given. 
 
 But this is not all. Man in his perfection was not left 
 alone with the beasts, without society, with his body, his soul, 
 his spirit, and external nature on the same dead and unaspiring 
 level. The spiritual world, now closed to our intuitive sense, 
 was open to him. All the high personal qualities of the pri- 
 meval man are expressed in Holy Writ by that one most preg- 
 nant phrase, " He was made in the image of God." And man 
 made in the " image of God " is expressly stated to have 
 been in the society of God. God the Word, the Creator of 
 the world, " the effulgence of the Father's glory, the express 
 image of His person,"* the only begotten Son walked with 
 the first man in Paradise as with a brother. Hence man, the 
 social and intelligent being, as he manifests himself even now, 
 was not at first a mere animal among the animals, but, made in 
 the image of God, he was in the society of the spii'itual and su- 
 pernatural world. All its facts and powers and persons, which 
 we but dimly imagine, or rather dream of and guess at, — which 
 for us lie outside the horizon of clear knowledge in the regions 
 of spiritual instinct, or, when we come to reason and argue 
 upon them, of misty and vague conjecture, were open to him. 
 As the grass, the trees, the sky, the stars, to our eyes, so all 
 the facts of the spiritual world were immediately visible to the 
 spiritual sense in him. Whereas, to us, now, material facts are 
 at once discernible by the intuition of the bodily senses, 
 without any intervention of the reasoning power; but it is only 
 by persistent reflection and Christian faith that we come to any 
 
 * Hebrews, i. 3. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 143 
 
 knowledge of spiritual things, and even then, we know them 
 not as we know the things of sense. 
 
 This completes the idea of the first man ; this, that his 
 being was open to the supernatural and spiritual world, that he 
 dwelt in Paradise, with God the Word, in whose image he 
 was made, and with the whole spiritual world open to his 
 sense. Hence a loftiness of nature and a nobleness of intellect 
 in him, of which we see merely faint gleams in the highest 
 natures of our fallen race. Hence a perfection, a grandeur 
 and glory in the intellect, the spiritual being, the person of the 
 first man in Paradise, of which we have seen but floating 
 fragments in the most transcendent of this world's sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 And thus, finally, we get to the full and perfect truth of the 
 nature of the first man in Paradise, unfallen. Thus we see 
 that the words of our great English preacher are not merely 
 high rhetoric, but actual truth ; the eloquent intellect of genius 
 condensing in one focus the scattered raj^s of light given us in 
 Holy Writ regarding the first man. " And certainly that must 
 needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so 
 admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely 
 was very beautiful when young. An Aristotle was but the 
 rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments (rudimenta, 
 broken and shattered fragments, that is) of Paradise." * 
 
 Hence, in the primeval man the sources of all our misery 
 have no existence. There is in him no sin, no ignorance, no 
 perversion of the good of nature into evil, and above all, there 
 is no sting of remorse, no fear and guilt, no pollution and 
 shame. He is clothed in righteousness, arrayed in glory, 
 robed in the garments of immortality. As a matter of bare 
 historic truth man was created perfect, and stood upon this 
 earth higher than any of his children (One only excepted) 
 have been ; and in and because of all these facts was his pre- 
 eminence over his descendants. These facts are all of them 
 plainly to be found upon the pages of Holy Writ. 
 * South's Sermons. Sermon No. 3. 
 
144 REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 
 
 But is not all this mere theory ? The opposite idea is certainly 
 unmixed theory and assumption, that pagan, Epicurean idea of 
 an origin debased and degraded at the very first, then of a per- 
 petual development in one direction, a progress onward and 
 upward for millions of years, and then of an endless transmu- 
 tation of species. All this is certainly theory. In the days of 
 Epicurus and in our own, the only fact upon which it is built 
 is wholly subjective and personal, that is, that its authors cannot 
 and will not believe in a God, but do believe in a materialistic 
 and mechanical theory of the universe. But, as for this Script- 
 ural doctrine of the primeval man, the protoplast, that he was a 
 perfect being, in a perfect world, immortal, living in society with 
 spiritual beings, all the history that we have, all the existing 
 facts, are in its favor. All the traditions, all the instinctive 
 natural feelings of the race universally assert it, and all science 
 that lies outside the doctrine of materialism assents to it. 
 l^ay, if we look at the one grand luminous thought that has 
 lighted up the path of the great men of science for the last 
 seventy yeai'S (we speak of the men of genius, of discoverers, not 
 of teachers, or compilers, or ready- writers), it has been that of 
 the typal or ideal man ; that is, man perfect in all organs, 
 powers, faculties, and uses. This idea, extended in all directions 
 and universally applied, has been, and is, a most leading idea 
 with the really great men of science, in all its regions. What • 
 else is this than to accept the Hebrew and Christian idea of 
 the perfect man, in the perfect world of Paradise, existing 
 completely under the law of his being, and to transform this 
 conception and fact into a high scientific method, a new light 
 upon the path of scientific discovery ? 
 
 But, indeed, the same idea is suggested universally to every 
 thoughtful man. Take all earnest and scientific and unselfish 
 thought of disease and misery and wickedness and sin, of 
 every evil that crushes man and makes up the sum of his suffer- 
 ings in this life, and before you, at one and the same time, 
 there lies the idea of original and typal perfection in man, and 
 of a falling away and a degradation from the normal state of 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 145 
 
 that perfection ; a perfection of a finite being, which consists 
 in its entire accordance with the law of its type. Sin, the 
 falling away from the state and law of goodness — disease from 
 the normal perfection of bodily well-being — misery from that 
 of happiness, — all these are, in fact, degradations from a perfect 
 type. The idea and fact of the perfect being, and also of its 
 degradation, the falling away from its law, are perpetnally sug- 
 gested to the minds of all earnest men. All evil, all disease, all 
 unhappiness in the world, imply these facts and ideas of the 
 perfect man, and of a personal or hereditary degradation from 
 that original type. 
 
 That death and disease, crime and misery, do exist in the 
 world in which, as created by God, there should be happiness, is a 
 fact. That these come from man internally, and have their source 
 in him, and not, save abnormally, in external circumstances, is 
 evident to all thoughtful men. That in his present state there 
 is a tendency toward them in his being, even from birth, the 
 observation of all men shows. That it is universal, the preva- 
 lence of moral evil over the whole world, and the experience of 
 it, or of the temptation to it in each man, proves. 
 
 There is a conviction, also, that it is in generation after 
 generation, in the father as well as in the children, belonging 
 to the nature of man as it comes into the world. We do not, 
 therefore, seek its origin in the individual man, or in the pres- 
 ent time. But we are compelled to pass upward until we reach 
 a point of time and a person in which it began. We must also 
 consider that, from that point downward, it is in all men univer- 
 sally and equally, existing as a hereditary and connate tendency. 
 
 It is not exclusively in the body, as the philosophy of the 
 remotest East considered, but in the spiritual being of man, in 
 his intellectual powers, in his physical frame alike. All parts, 
 all powers, all faculties of man that really belong to man, and 
 are constituent facts of his being, all alike in themselves are 
 good, and all alike are flawed by this hereditary depravation. 
 Hence, scientific physicians tell us that there is no human 
 frame that has not in itself the germs of disease existing at the 
 10 
 
146 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 very moment of birth ; that there is no human intellect that does 
 not at all times bear within it a speck of unsoundness which, 
 by the man's own voluntary action, or by the force of external 
 circumstances, may be developed into actual insanity. And there 
 is no spiritual faculty or moral power of any man, in which the 
 possibility of the basest and most hateful degradation does not 
 lurk. Corruptio oj^titni jit ])essim,a. Hence is the scholastic 
 definition most true, ^^ Omnia naturalia honaP And again, 
 that man and all his faculties are essentially good, evil per 
 accidens. That is, that man's nature, all parts and portions 
 of his being, all faculties and powers that he possesses, that 
 are constituent parts, and can be said to have been created 
 by God ; all these are good in themselves. The evil in them 
 is by depravation, by degradation, by perversion and debase- 
 ment, from the original type, from its law, its uses, and its 
 ends. 
 
 Hence all men naturally are in this position, beings fallen 
 from a perfect condition ; born even in this state, as all human 
 experience can tell us ; for it is a fact that sin and vice, and 
 crime and disease and misery exist in this world, and they 
 originate in an universal tendency in the race, an universal 
 depravation, which is both hereditary and congenital. JSTo 
 philosophy, except this, which is the ultimate and highest 
 product of Christian thought, will in any degree explain the 
 fact of the existence in this world and in man (both of them 
 made by God, and creatures of His hand), of evil and wretch- 
 edness. 
 
 The first man, therefore, as the Scriptures tell us, fell from 
 God by his own free act, and sin entered into the world (" sin 
 is the transgression of the Law"), and "death by sin." And 
 man's nature, and all its powers, were flawed and diseased, and 
 he was cast out from Paradise. He lost his spiritual gifts, all 
 the blessings and benefits of his intercourse and communion 
 with the spiritual world. He lost his position also as ruler and 
 lord of this created cosmos. Material nature, before an obe- 
 dient and willing servant both in the outer world and in his 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 147 
 
 own frame, rebelled against liim and became to him a cruel 
 and treacherous enemy, ever in conflict with the enfeebled 
 reason and will, crushing him down or leading him astray. 
 
 For it may be truly said that in man the lower portions of 
 his being are in rebellion. In him, as he now is, the appetites 
 and passions tend to vanquish reason. This predominance of 
 sense over reason, although it is not all, is certainly a very 
 considerable part of our injury from the fall. To all this, 
 when we add the wonderful tendency there is in man by nature 
 to follow the suggestions of evil rather than good, even when 
 this last is for his best interests ; when we add the tempta- 
 tions of the evil intelligent world, both invisible and visible, 
 evil spirits and evil men, we have in all this a Scriptural repre- 
 sentation of man's state which most perfectly agrees with the 
 facts, as we see them in the present, all around us, and before 
 our eyes. 
 
 And that which connects them with the future is, that as 
 all men are by nature sons of the first or fallen Adam, in the 
 fallen state, so to all men, who will accept it, is given in Christ, 
 who is the last Adam, the power of a restoration to eternal life, 
 and in it to all the glories of the primeval man. " The first 
 man Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a 
 life-giving Spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spirit- 
 ual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is 
 spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second 
 man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they 
 also that are earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are they also 
 that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the 
 earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." * 
 
 We sum up all these facts and their results in three arti- 
 cles: 
 
 " Man, as originally created by God, was a perfect being, 
 
 sinless and immortal, dwelling in a perfect world. He was 
 
 made in the image of Grod. He was full of spiritual life. 
 
 The law of God was written in his heart. From the Father, 
 
 * I. Cor. XV. 45-49. 
 
148 REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 
 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost, there flowed upon him freely 
 gifts and graces and endowments, transcending nature, truly 
 supernatural, coming from the spiritual world. By the temp- 
 tation of Satan, and the act of his own free will, man fell. 
 Thereupon he suffered a threefold loss. His whole being, in 
 all its constituent parts and faculties, became depraved and dis- 
 eased by sin. He was cast out of Paradise. He lost his right 
 and title to the gifts of his first estate. A son of God wounded 
 mortally, exiled from his Father's House, amerced of his 
 inheritance, this became from that time his state, and that of 
 all men, " naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam." 
 
 " By nature, therefore, all men as born into the world are 
 dead in sin — cast out from Paradise, under condemnation of the 
 law — unable by their own power to restore themselves." 
 
 Now look at this. The whole human race have one com- 
 mon nature from one common forefather. In them death 
 now reigns in all its shapes, bodily and moral and spiritual, 
 and this is the one great flaw upon which all the other evils 
 depend. In it and under it they are born. Their souls, their 
 bodies, the very air which they breathe, the food that nour- 
 ishes them, the whole sphere of their existence, material and 
 social, all have the same taint of death. Hence, in man's own 
 being, considered as apart from God, there is no help for this 
 depi'avation, for it begins with his life, and is an inherent and 
 hereditary flaw in it. ]Nor is there any aid in the material 
 world, for this, too, has the same flaw running through it. ISTor, 
 again, in the world of man, for the whole race universally is 
 diseased. Hence, to all men, sons, by their natural birth, of 
 Adam, the fallen son of God, and, therefore, themselves fallen, 
 there is no help in mere nature, no aid in the sphere of this 
 life, save in a new life and a new birth by means of a second 
 Adam. And all this is supernatural, above nature, not to be 
 found in nature. 
 
 The elements of the Christian system, then, are these : 
 
 " God the Word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, 
 the Eternal Son, becomes incarnate, takes upon Himself the 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 149 
 
 humanity of man, a real and true body, soul, and spirit, so that 
 He was born upon this earth, becoming actually a man, 
 
 " And then passing through all the stages of man's life, 
 infancy, childhood, and youth, until He arrived at the maturity 
 and perfection of manhood, He became the teacher of a few 
 disciples ; asserting for Himself, as the Son of Man and the 
 Son of God, powers to repair all the evils that rest upon the 
 whole race. And henceforth, even in the history of His life, 
 and in the recorded words of Him ' that spake as never man 
 spake,' there is a power for good, an influence over all men of 
 all races, that has never been equalled in any teacher or witness 
 of the truth. 
 
 " He is then slain upon the cross by his enemies. He 
 has prophesied this His death, has declared it to be an atone- 
 ment and a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, has 
 declared that He will rise again. He then rises from death 
 and the grave. He abides with His disciples for forty days, 
 instructs them fully in His doctrine, that He is the God-man, 
 that humanity in Him is glorified and perfected, that in Him 
 the perfect man, being restored to life, is forever one with the 
 perfect Godhead, in one person. In Him is life, in Him salva- 
 tion, in Him restoration, in Him the new birth for man. All 
 that was lost in the first man can be restored through Him, the 
 ISTew Man, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, to those 
 who accept of Him." * 
 
 But this took place in Judea, in the age of Tiberius, the 
 Roman Emperor. Hence, that the work may be extended 
 over the whole earth tliroughout all time, there is a commis- 
 sion given by Him to the Apostles to endure perpetually. 
 His kingdom, the Chm-ch of God, is organized to last to the 
 end of the world : " against it the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail." The Spirit of the Father and the Son dwells in the 
 Church as a life-giving power, and all men are to be called 
 within its bounds, becoming through Him " sons of God, 
 children of the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 * See " The Gospel System," Book ii. cliap. ii. 
 
150 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 We sum up, therefore, the needs of men and the works of 
 our Lord for them, in a few more articles : 
 
 " They need, therefore, first, deliverance from the con- 
 demnation of sin and its dominion; second, a new spiritual 
 life from heaven to dwell in them and heal them ; third, the 
 existence and continuance upon earth for them of a sphere for 
 that new life to dwell in ; fourth, in it all the means and 
 influences whereby the flame of that new life shall be fed and 
 cherished until it reach perfection. 
 
 " The Word, therefore, became incarnate. God made man, 
 the two natures, the perfect Godhead of the Eternal Son, united 
 with perfect humanity in One Person, was born of the Virgin 
 into this world. He lived with us until the age of mature and 
 complete manhood, as the perfect example and standard of the 
 human race, in His life and precepts. He died then upon 
 Calvary as a sacrifice and atonement for the sins of the whole 
 world. He rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven to 
 be our mediator ; the King, the Priest, and the Prophet of 
 His people upon earth until the Judgment Day. This is the 
 threefold work of our Lord for man, which once done, estab- 
 lishes the Gospel. 
 
 " For, in consequence of this, and because of it, the Spirit 
 of the Father and the Son was sent upon earth to organize the 
 Church of Christ, and to call upon all men to come within it. 
 The Church, the Eangdom of our unseen King, the Temple of 
 our High Priest and Prophet within the veil, is a permanent 
 and visible tabernacle upon the earth for the regenerate to 
 dwell within. It is the sphere of the new life. In it are present 
 unto man all the spiritual blessings which our Lord obtains 
 and confers upon His brethren. 
 
 " The Church of God is a visible organized society upon 
 earth, with an Apostolic ministry. It is Catholic as receiving 
 all men, in all times, and of all lands and races, within its 
 bosom, and as finally to spread over the whole world. The 
 Spirit is its indwelling and organizing power. It is holy, for 
 within its fold are all the means of holiness and salvation to 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 151 
 
 liim that believeth and is baptized. All men are called by 
 Christ to come within His Church, — ' The Spirit and the 
 Bride say come.' 
 
 " Hence, to all men the Gospel is preached. To all men are 
 proffered, — 1st, Remission of all their sins; 2d, Entrance 
 within the Church of Christ upon earth, and, with it, the new 
 life of Christ, which, together, make regeneration, the new 
 birth into the new state, the state of grace and salvation ; 3d, 
 After this, until death, sufficient grace and guidance, that we 
 may reach everlasting glory in heaven." * 
 
 We ask, is not this work for man, of Christ our Lord, as 
 born into this world, as dying, as reigning, — is not all this a 
 'supernatural work, a remedy from heaven for the evil that is 
 in us by nature ? Is not this also the representation that the 
 whole New Testament gives of Him in his relation to man ? 
 Surely it is. In Him alone, as the new man, the last Adam, 
 we have the losses repaired that accrue to us from our having, 
 by inheritance and birth, the fallen nature oi the first man. 
 " The first Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam a 
 life-giving spirit." 
 
 * See " Tlie Gospel System," Book ii. cliap. ii. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The condition of man, therefore, at this present time, con- 
 sists of two extremes, both now existing, both in actual being. 
 The first is man, as born upon this earth naturally, fallen, and, 
 therefore, in sin and misery. The second is man made perfect, 
 the God-man, the last Adam; that is the Living Christ, our 
 Blessed Lord, glorified and exalted to the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high. In Him the humanity which He assumed 
 as frail and feeble, being made perfect by suffering, is now a 
 glorious humanity, immortal, enthroned forever at the right 
 hand of the Majesty on high. 
 
 But, if this were all, the Son of the Virgin alone would be 
 benefited and blessed. He might be a model for the race and 
 a teacher, a pattern man and a prophet. From Him we might 
 see how high man could arise — to what a glorious height of be- 
 ing humanity could aspire. But in Him, then, there were for 
 man no help, save that of example and instruction. 
 
 But in our exalted Saviour the Godhead and the humanity 
 are united in one person. Hence, all the qualities of the 
 two perfect natures severally, are inherent in the one person. 
 Therefore, upon earth, and in time, God was born, lived, 
 taught, suffered, died and was buried, and rose again. And 
 now in heaven, in the same person, exist all the attributes of 
 our humanity, aftd, along with them, all those of God. In 
 Him is human love and sympathy, and kindliness of heart, and 
 truth and justice, and equitable feeling ; every natural affection 
 and emotion of the human soul, every gift and faculty and 
 power of the intellect of man, every perfection of the human 
 body, all these co-existing with the Divinity of the Word. So 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISuV. 153 
 
 that man, all-pnre, all-wise, all-loving, reigns as God, in the 
 person of Christ, our Brother, upon the throne of heaven. 
 And in His glorified humanity He is omnipotent, omniscient, 
 even personally present in this world, according to His will, 
 in any place.* 
 
 Consider this. It is no ideal of man, brain-conceived, but 
 not existing outside the thought, which Plato might have im- 
 agined or Goethe sung. It is no mere suggestion to man's soul 
 of the possible, which never has existed, and does not exist. 
 But this is a fact and truth, this of the perfect and glorified God- 
 man actually and objectively existing as a reality in the same 
 universe, the same w^orld, with this fallen and wretched 
 humanity of ours ; and existing not simply in Himself and for 
 Himself, as the glorious and perfect man, as an ideal to our 
 intellect, but that He should be the source to multitudes of the 
 same glory ; that He might be " the first-born among many 
 brethren"; that "as He is, so we shall be also." If the 
 Christian doctrine of Christ's nature and position is not seen 
 to be the loftiest, the grandest, the tenderest, the fullest of 
 hope ever preached to man, it is simply because Christians, 
 so-called, of this day will turn its transcendent facts into frigid 
 metaphors, — "having no faith, they will not believe." 
 
 1*^0 w, as Christ is the perfect man, the last Adam, and as 
 we are by nature sons of the first Adam, having in us his life, 
 so also is the spiritual life of the second Adam in us, when we 
 have become the sons of God. We shall see, therefore, a mul- 
 titude of places in Holy Writ in which this gift to man of the 
 heavenly life is spoken of and referred exclusively and clearly 
 to Him. For example, this passage of St. John, — " And this 
 is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this 
 life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life ; and he 
 that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have 
 
 * See, upon this subject, the fifth book of Hooker, the whole of the 
 fifty -fifth chapter : " Of the personal presence of Christ everywhere, and 
 in what sense it may be granted that He is actually present according to 
 the flesh." 
 
154 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 I written unto you that ye have eternal life, and that ye may 
 believe on the name of the Son of God." * 
 
 We give another passage from the same apostle. Let our 
 readers consider and think upon the exceeding solemnity, the 
 weighty emphasis, with which the Eternal Word and His in- 
 carnation is connected with the life, and with which our com- 
 munion with the Father through the Son is asserted. "That 
 which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our 
 eyes, which we have beheld, and our hands have handled of the 
 Word of Life ; for the life was manifested, and we have seen 
 it, and bear witness, and announce to you that eternal life, 
 which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us ; that 
 which we have seen and heard we announce to you, that you 
 may have communion with us ; and the communion that is 
 ours is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ." f 
 
 How exactly does this correspond to his declaration in the 
 first chapter of his Gospel, — " In the beginning was the Word, 
 and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In 
 Him was life ; and the life was the light of men." X The 
 Word incarnate, the Lord of life in our humanity — He is the 
 source of all light and life, even to the men that comprehend 
 it not. With what weight and fervency this thought of the 
 life in man's humanity — of God incarnate, God manifest in 
 the flesh — dwelt upon the mind of the holy Apostle may be 
 seen by a passage from another Epistle of his, — " Every spirit 
 that confesseth that Jesus the Christ § is come in the flesh is 
 of God : and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus the 
 Christ is come in the flesh is not of God : and this is that 
 spirit of Antichrist whereof ye have heard that he cometh ; and 
 even now is it already in the world. Ye are of God, little 
 
 * I. John, V. 11, 12, 13. t I- Jolin. i- 1-3. X St. John, i. 1, 3. 
 
 § One great injury to our English version is the influence of the Latin 
 language through the Vulgate. Now the Latin has no article. Hence im- 
 mense vagueness. The original Greek has it " Jesus the Christ." On 
 account of the Latin we have it " Jesus Christ." People commonly, and 
 without thought, take it as if Jesus was the first name, Christ the family 
 name. Whereas, it is " Jesus the Christ," or the " Messiah." 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 155 
 
 children, and have overcome them : because greater is lie that is 
 in you, than he that is in the world." * We have only to point 
 additionally, in this passage, to the assertion of the indwelling 
 of Him who is life in ns, in opposition to the evil one in the 
 world without us. 
 
 Again, " We know that every one that hath been begotten 
 of God sinneth not ; but he that is begotten of God watcheth 
 himself, and the evil one doth not lay hold of him. We know 
 that we are the sons of God, and the whole world lieth in the 
 evil one. And we know that the Son of God is come, and 
 hath given to us discernment that we may know Him that is 
 true, and we are in Him that is true, in His Son, Jesus the 
 Christ. This is the very God, and Eternal Life." f The same 
 ideas are here seen of our sonship, our possession of an in- 
 dwelling life, and that life coming from Him who is very God, 
 and has come into the world for us, to be man as we are, but 
 the perfect and glorious man, the living Christ, that giveth 
 life to those that accept Him. 
 
 But it will be said these are the words of St. John, the 
 beloved disciple, a man of exceeding tenderness and loving- 
 ness of character toward his departed Lord, and also of a 
 peculiarly Oriental. cast of thought. We shall bring, however, 
 other witnesses. And in them all we shall find that this doc- 
 trine of the living Christ is no Orientalism, but a doctrine for 
 the whole world, east, west, north, and south as well. It is 
 no merely personal tenderness of heart, no lofty emotion in one 
 disciple, uplifting a departed teacher and friend to an apothe- 
 osis among the gods. It is no heathen dream of hero-worship ; 
 but it is the assertion by all the writers of the New Testa- 
 ment of the uplifting to the throne of heaven of the first- 
 fruits of our humanity, — God the Eternal Word, the Only- 
 begotten Son of the Father, born of a woman upon the earth, as 
 very man, and now and forever seated for us upon the throne. 
 This is that fact and truth which one and all they testify and 
 asseverate. We shall proceed to give their evidence. 
 
 * I. John, iv. 3-4. f I. John, v. 18-20. 
 
156 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 But in those fom' historical narratives, which the early- 
 Christians called the " Glad Tidings " (Evangel in the 
 Greek, Gospel in the language of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors), 
 we find reported the very words and discourses of our Blessed 
 Lord. What account, therefore, did He, according to them, 
 give of himself. His nature and origin, His mission upon earth, 
 and the object and issue of it ? This is very important. For 
 from the time of Mohammed, the idea has been a favorite one 
 among unbelievers, that His friends gave a very diiferent 
 account of Him from what He himself did. " Issa," says 
 Mohammed, " called himself a prophet, and his disciples say 
 that he was the son of God." It is, therefore, worth while to 
 cite our Saviour's own words concerning himself. We proceed 
 so to do : 
 
 " For what He (the Father) doeth, these things also doeth 
 the Son in like manner. For the Father loveth the Son, and 
 showeth Him all things which He himself doeth : and greater 
 works than these will He show Him, that ye may marvel. 
 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth them life / 
 even so the Son giveth life to whom He willeth. For the 
 Father judge th no man, but hath given all judgment to the 
 Son : that all men may honor the Son as they honor the 
 Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the 
 Father that sendeth Him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that 
 he that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sendeth 
 Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into condemnation ; but 
 hath passed from death into life. Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you, that the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall 
 hear the voice of the Son of God : and they that hear shall 
 live. For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given 
 to. the Son also as well, to have life in Himself. And He 
 giveth Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is 
 the Son of Man." * 
 
 This was said almost at the beginning of His career. And 
 at the end of it, immediately before He was taken captive, — 
 * St. John, V. 19-37. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 157 
 
 " These things said Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, 
 and said. Father, the hour is come ; glorify Thine own Son, 
 that Thy Son also may glorify Thee: as Thou givest Him 
 power over all flesh, that He may give life eternal to as many 
 as Thou givest Him. And this is eternal life, that they may 
 know Thee the only very God, and Jesus the Christ whom 
 Thou hast sent. I glorify Thee on the earth : I finish the 
 work which Thou hast given Me that I may do it. And now, 
 
 Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory 
 which I had before the world was with Thee." * 
 
 Again, he had said to Nicodemus, " And no one hath 
 ascended up to heaven, but He who cometh down from heaven. 
 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even 
 so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that every one that 
 believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For 
 God so loved the world, that He gave His own Son, the Only- 
 begotten, that every one that believeth in Him should not 
 perish, but have eternal life." f 
 
 Again, to His disciples, in their distress at His coming 
 death. He says : 
 
 " Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God (the 
 Father), believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many 
 abiding places : if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to 
 prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
 
 1 will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I 
 am, there ye may be also. And where I go ye know, and 
 the way ye know. Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know 
 not whither Thou goest ; and how can we know the way ? 
 Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life : 
 no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. If ye had 
 known Me, ye should have known My Father also : and from 
 henceforth ye have known Llim and seen Him. Philip saith 
 unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 
 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long with you, and yet 
 hast thou not known Me, Philip ? he that hath seen Me hath 
 
 * St. Jolm, xvii. 1-5. f St. John, iii. 13-16. 
 
158 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 seen the Father ; and how sayest thou then, shew us the Father ? 
 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in 
 Me ? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself: 
 but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. Be- 
 lieve ye Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me : or 
 else believe Me for the very works' sake." * 
 
 He says, also, to the Jews : " I am the door : by Me, if any 
 one enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and 
 find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to 
 kill, and to destroy : I am come that they might have life, and 
 that they might have it more abundantly. I am the Good Shep- 
 herd : the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. . . . 
 As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father : and I 
 lay down My life for the sheep. . . . My sheep hear My 
 voice and I know them, and they follow Me : and I give unto 
 them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any 
 one tear them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them 
 Me, is greater than all ; and no one is able to rend them out of 
 the hand of My Father. I and the Father are one." f 
 
 To the Pharisees, he says : " I am the light of the world : 
 he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have 
 the light of life." % 
 
 To the woman of Samaria, he says : " If thou hadst known 
 the free gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee. Give Me 
 to drink ; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would 
 have given thee living water. . . . Whosoever drinketh of 
 the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the 
 water that I shall give him shall be a fountain of water, 
 leaping up into eternal life." § 
 
 To the Jews, also, he says : " The Father himself, which 
 hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither 
 heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape. And His 
 Word ye have not abiding in you : for whom He hath sent. Him 
 ye believe not. Ye search (or search ye) the Scriptures, for 
 
 * St. John, xiv. 1-11. f St. Jolin, x. 9-11, 15, 27-30. 
 
 X St. Jolin, viii. 12. § St. John, iv. 10, 14. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISE!. 159 
 
 in them ye believe that ye have eternal life : and these are they 
 which testify of Me. And ye are not willing to come to Me, 
 that ye may have life." * 
 
 These are our Lord's sayings concerning Himself ; and what 
 is the sum and the substance of them ? This, plainly, that He is 
 the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father ; that now He is made 
 man, a real man, abiding upon the earth with His disciples, 
 in Judea, and thus " God was manifest in the flesh " ; f that 
 in Him, personally, the God-man, are all the works, all the 
 gifts, all the blessings of God for man's salvation, for his deliv- 
 erance in time and in eternity, from sin and death and ruin. 
 He lays down, in this world. His life for man, and takes it 
 up again. In Him dwells for man the life ; nay, He is himself 
 the life. He is also the teacher and guide of man, the Liglit 
 and the Way and the Truth. Atonement, forgiveness of sins, 
 reconciliation with the Father, heaven-sent truth, and heaven- 
 born life are in Him, from Him, through Him. All the reme- 
 dies for sin and misery and wretchedness, in these passages that 
 we have quoted, are exclusively, and with full and calm assur- 
 ance, ascribed to Himself in person by Jesus. It is the Son of 
 God, the Son of man, God and man in one person, in whom 
 is all the remedy for sin. As fully as the beloved disciple 
 speaks of his master as the Christ or Messiah (the words are 
 identical) come in the flesh, as being the Son of God, and as 
 gi-vnng life to those that believe in Him, so fully and broadly 
 does the Master himself assert the same facts and truths of 
 His own nature and person to the Jewish nation and to His 
 own disciples. 
 
 We come now to that celebrated discourse in the synagogue 
 of Capernaum, in which the wonders of the humanity assumed 
 by God the Word, and by Him perfected and glorified, are 
 declared, in which also its reception and participation by us, 
 His brethren of the human race, and the necessity of this 
 communion as a source of life is so clearly declared. Over 
 this passage, we regret to say, in the Western Church 
 * St. John, V. 37-40. \ I. Timothy, iii. 16. 
 
160 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 there have been many vain jangHngs and vehement disputes 
 of men, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, who would 
 begin with the bare letter instead of the spirit, the bark 
 instead of the tree.* Does this concern the Eucharist, or the 
 Atonement, or the example of Christ in His life or His verbal 
 teachings ? And these questions have been discussed so volu- 
 minously and virulently, with such a quantity of negatives— argu- 
 ments that gainsay and contradict, and do not teach — as almost 
 to wipe away from the mass of readers any definite understand- 
 ing of the passage, — to force upon them the notion of a body 
 of vague figures, accumulated in a heap, with but little distinct 
 or clear meaning. We, therefore, once for all, to spare our 
 readers these discussions, say plainly that we consider that the 
 passage asserts fully what these other passages assert : 1st, 
 That God the Word, the Eternal Son, was incarnate, became 
 man really and veritably ; 2d, That to all that believe in Him 
 and come to Him are given, from the God- man exalted unto 
 the throne of heaven, all the blessings that man's fallen state 
 requires, — life and light, atonement for sin, the resurrection 
 of the body at the judgment-day, and during this life mystical 
 union with our Lord in His glorified humanity. In other 
 words, it declares the incarnation and atonement of our 
 Blessed Lord, and all their consequences and effects for man. 
 Of course, therefore, the regeneration of man in baptism, 
 which comes from the God-man, is herein contained ; and most 
 plainly, the other sacrament of His Body and Blood, the Holy 
 Eucharist, is alluded to and expressed in it. But the general 
 doctrine is that upon which all these depend, the doctrine of 
 God manifest in the flesh, and of man's privilege through this 
 great fact of the incarnation of the Eternal Son. f 
 
 We proceed now to the passage from the Gospel of St. 
 John, which we have spoken of: 
 
 " And finding Him beyond the sea, they said unto Him, 
 Rabbi, when camest Thou hither ? Jesus answered them and 
 said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek Me not because 
 * Qui liaeret in litera liaeret in cortice. X I^- -P®*- ^- 4- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 161 
 
 ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and 
 were filled. Labor not for the food that perisheth, but for the 
 food that endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of man 
 shall give unto you : for Him hath God the Father sealed. 
 They said, therefore, unto Him, What ought we to do, that 
 we may work the works of God ? Jesus answered and said 
 unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him 
 whom He hath sent. They said therefore unto Him, What 
 miracle dost Thou then, that we may see, and believe Thee ? 
 What dost Thou work ? Our fathers did eat the manna in 
 the wilderness; as it is written. He gave them bread from 
 heaven to eat. Jesus therefore said unto them, Yerily, 
 verily, I say unto you, Moses hath not given you the bread 
 from heaven, but My Father giveth you the bread from 
 heaven, the true bread. For the bread of God is that which 
 Cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. 
 
 " They said, therefore, unto Him, Lord, evermore give us 
 this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of 
 life : he that cometh unto Me cannot hunger ; and he that 
 believeth on Me can never thirst. But I said unto you, that 
 ye have both seen Me, and do not believe. All that the Father 
 giveth Me shall come unto Me; and Him that cometh to 
 Me I will in nowise cast out. For I have come down from 
 heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that 
 sendeth Me. And this is the will of Him that sendeth me, 
 that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, 
 but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of 
 Him that sendeth Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and 
 believeth on Him, should have eternal life : and I will raise him 
 up at the last day. 
 
 " The Jews, therefore, were murmuring at Him, because He 
 said, I am the bread which cometh down from heaven, and 
 they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father 
 we know, and his mother ? How is it then that He saith that 
 I have come down from heaven ? 
 
 " Jesus therefore answered and said to them. Murmur ye 
 11 
 
162 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 not with one another. ISTo one is able to come to Me, except the 
 Father which sendeth Me draw him: and I will raise him 
 up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they 
 shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that heareth 
 from the Father, and learneth, cometh unto Me. Not that any 
 one hath seen the Father, save He which is from God, He 
 hath seen the Father. 
 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me 
 hath eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did 
 eat the manna in the desert, and they died. This is the bread 
 which cometh down from heaven, that any man may eat 
 thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which cometh 
 down from heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live 
 forever : and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I 
 will give for the life of the .world. 
 
 "The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, 
 How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? Jesus therefore 
 said unto them, Yerily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat 
 the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no 
 life in you. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, 
 hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For 
 My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He 
 that feedeth on My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in 
 Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I 
 live by the Father : so he that feedeth on Me, he also shall live 
 by Me. This is the bread that cometh down from heaven : 
 not as your fathers did eat the manna, and died : he that feed- 
 eth upon this bread shall live forever. 
 
 " These things He said in the synagogue, teaching in Ca- 
 pernaum. 
 
 " Many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard 
 this, said, This is a hard saying ; who can hear it ? And 
 Jesus, knowing in Himself that the disciples murmured con- 
 cerning this, said to them, Doth this offend you? "What, 
 then, if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending up where 
 He was before ? The Spirit it is that giveth life ; the flesh 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. X63 
 
 profiteth nothing : the words which I speak to you, are spirit, 
 and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe. 
 For Jesus had known, from the beginning, who they were that 
 believed not, and who should betray Him. And He said. 
 Therefore have I said unto you, that no one can come to Me, 
 except it were given unto him of My Father. 
 
 " From this, many of His disciples went away backward, 
 and walked no more with Him. 
 
 " Jesus therefore said unto the twelve. Are ye also desirous 
 to depart? Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom 
 shall we go away (from Thee) ? Thou hast the words of eternal 
 life. And we have believed and do know that Thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of the Living God." * 
 
 Now, we may look upon this passage in the Gospel of St. 
 John as the very crowning revelation, the completion of our 
 Lord's doctrine concerning His own nature, both in itself and 
 as it concerns the human race. 
 
 And what does it say ? This, that He is the eternal Son 
 of the Father ; that also He is very man, the God-man upon 
 the earth, God incarnate ; that of His flesh. His humanity — 
 not mere flesh, or dead flesh (apart from the living spirit), but 
 of the human nature of the Living Christ, the Prince of Life, 
 glorified and ascended and ever reigning — can His disciples, 
 that believe in Him, receive. And believing and receiving, 
 spiritually and really by their faith, and by the power of the 
 Holy Spirit, they have, if they abide in Him, all the blessings 
 of His mission from heaven to earth, and of His ascension from 
 earth to heaven. This is the full and adequate sense of this pas- 
 sage, embracing and expressing all its significance and preg- 
 nancy of meaning. And it manifestly accords most completely 
 with all the passages hitherto quoted ; or, rather, it is a perfect 
 and glorious light which makes them all to shine from within 
 w^ith a golden glow and a clear brilliancy of hope for ruined 
 man, as it shows us man in Christ made perfect, and in Him 
 perfection for all men. It is the crown and completion of all 
 * St. John, vi. 25-69. 
 
164 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 doctrine for the Christian Church, and so it is most suitably 
 placed in that gospel which was the last written of all the 
 books of the New Testament. 
 
 As confirmatory and subsidiary to this, we shall go on to 
 cite the other writers of the ISTew Testament, St. Peter first. 
 In Solomon's porch, immediately after the day of Pentecost, 
 Peter, being along with John, boldly asserts this doctrine con- 
 cerning Christ to the Jews : 
 
 " The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the God of 
 our fathers, hath glorified His own Son Jesus ; whom ye de- 
 livered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he 
 was determined to acquit Him. But ye denied the Holy One 
 and the Just, and asked a murderer to be granted unto you ; 
 and ye killed the Prince (the originator and leader) of life, 
 whom God hath raised from the dead ; whose witnesses we 
 are." * 
 
 The same apostle, in his epistle, describes the Christian 
 husband and wife as fellow-heirs of the grace of life.\ He 
 begins that epistle with these words : " Blessed be God, even 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus the Christ, who according to 
 His abundant pity hath begotten us again to a living hope 
 through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto 
 an inheritance unperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved 
 in heaven for you, who are guarded by the power of God 
 through faith unto the salvation that is ready to be revealed 
 in the last time, in which ye exult." % 
 
 We proceed now to the Apostle St. Paul, the great teacher 
 of the Gentiles, and in his case we cannot but express our 
 regret that a scheme of predestinarian or fatalistic doctrine has 
 been imposed upon his writings as a key to explain them, there- 
 by putting aside and perverting their plain sense. An intel- 
 lectual system of fatalism addressed to the individual man as 
 separate and apart from the Church, and considering him only 
 in this light before God, is a poor substitute for the fact of a 
 Kingdom and Church of God in actual and continuous histor- 
 * Acts, iii. 13-15. f I. Peter, iii. 7. % I. Peter, i. 3-6. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 165 
 
 ical existence upon the earth, with its ever-present Ahnighty 
 King and Priest, the God-man, reigning even here in this world, 
 blessing ns His brethren here npon earth with all spiritual 
 blessings ; the same eternal King and Priest to the baptized 
 and believing slave, or diseased leper, or hunger-bitten mendi- 
 cant, as to the crowned king ; the same glorified Lord, the man 
 Christ Jesus, equally and personally present to Christian faith 
 in the smallest peasant church among the mountains, as in the 
 inmost sanctuary of the highest heaven before the throne of 
 the Father, We believe that the Latin or Western predestina- 
 tion systems of those two great and sincerely pious men, St. 
 Augustine and John Calvin, have obscured and hidden most 
 sadly from the ordinary Christian mind the doctrine and fact 
 of the Living Christ, the Prince of Life; and, above all, we 
 fear that it has destroyed the sense of the perpetuity and 
 continuity of our Lord's work that it is doing ^ now, at this 
 present time, for us. " We have an advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the Pighteous," and '•'•He is the propitiation for 
 our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of 
 the whole world." * For the Scriptures and Creeds in the ver- 
 nacular, for the ever-present and living Lord, and the Church as 
 a fact upon earth, the Scholastics of the West have given to the 
 Christian world predestinarian and Presbyterian schemes of 
 doctrine and Latin services ; and Christianity in Europe has 
 suffered most grievously in its interpretation of all the New 
 Testament Scriptures, and above all, of the writings of this 
 wonderful apostle, St. Paul. 
 
 When we come to look at this apostle, we find no enthusiast 
 steeped in the Oriental spirit, imbued with Shemite and Asi- 
 atic modes of thought, but a man of great genius and great 
 practical ability, in whom the argumentative logical mind is 
 most predominant. Roman, Greek, and Hebrew training have 
 had their several parts in his education. And looking at the liter- 
 ature that is in existence of these three nations, it is most aston- 
 ishing how little attraction the dreamy, the mystic, or the fantas- 
 * I. John, ii. 1-2. 
 
166 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 tic, either in fact or feeling, had for the intellect of St. Paul. He 
 comes to all thoughts that are suggested to him, to all outward 
 circumstances that meet him, with the clear and strong grasp 
 of the Aristotelian mind, w^ith the business-like readiness and 
 the principles of a Roman lawyer. Plato had never a smaller 
 share in any human soul than in his. More knowledge of the 
 cii'cumstances of man in that huge Roman world in which he 
 moved, with its million-peopled cities lying all around the 
 Mediterranean, its population of three hundred millions of 
 freemen and slaves, of manifold races become one people under 
 one great law and one Emperor, — more knowledge of this 
 huge federated nation in all its varieties, more tact in manag- 
 ing all classes of men, has not been seen in any man. In Jeru- 
 salem, in Athens, in Corinth, in great Rome itself, — before 
 Agrippa the Jewish prince, with the Roman centurions and 
 chief captains, with the sailors on the Mediterranean, and their 
 captains, and the barbarians of Melita, he is the same keen, man- 
 aging, business-like person — of what we should call exceedingly 
 hard, shrewd, practical common-sense ; sometimes, perhaps, even 
 to a fault, as witness this : "And when Paul perceived that the 
 one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in 
 the council. Brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee : of 
 the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. 
 And when he had so said, there was a dissension between the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees : and the multitude was divided. For 
 the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, 
 nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. And there arose 
 a great cry : and the scribes that were of the Pharisees' party 
 uprising, ybi^^A^ it through {ois/jta^opzo), saying. We find no evil 
 in this man : but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let 
 us not fight against God. And the dissension being great 
 the military tribune, fearing lest Paul should have been torn 
 in pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to 
 take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the 
 castle." * 
 
 * Acts, xxiii. 6-10. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 167 
 
 Surely this transaction manifests in Paul a degree of bold 
 skill and promptness in managing a popular assembly which 
 we hardly expect in a mere enthusiast. The whole Sanhedrim 
 was united as one man as against the ringleader of the new 
 sect, an apostate and a deserter from Judaism. But at one 
 glance he sees the divided character of the meeting, and flings 
 in among them a firebrand, which brings at once upon his side 
 the most pugnacious and obstinate and nationalist part of the 
 council, and causes such an explosion that the session breaks 
 up in confusion. 
 
 ]^ow, what was the opinion, upon the point which we have 
 been discussing, of this able man of business and of the world, 
 this keen and close reasoner, this lawyer- like Israelite, full of 
 the temper of the Roman forum, and as able to meet the 
 exigences of a popular assembly as if he had been a practiced 
 orator in the Athenian Agora in its wildest, stormiest, most 
 democratic era ? This is the fact, the one great European mind 
 among the disciples, — the one man among them all who, born 
 an Asiatic, was not an Oriental, but in temper and talent essen- 
 tially an European— the one man among the followers of our 
 Lord in whom the argumentative power and the practical facul- 
 ties predominate, — his opinion as to Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 His nature and relation to the human race, is just the same as 
 that of all the other apostles. 
 
 With them, St. Paul thought that Jesus is now and for- 
 ever the Living Christ : " The Christ must have suifered, and 
 risen up from the dead ; and this Jesus, whom I preach unto 
 you, is the Christ."* "He is able to save to the uttermost those 
 that came to God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make 
 intercession for them." f " He is the Prince and Perfecter of the 
 faith ; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the 
 cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand 
 of the throne of God." % 
 
 No dead Christ did Paul preach, to be apprehended by a 
 
 * Acts, xvii. 3. t Heb. vii. 35. % Heb. xii. 3. 
 
168 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 living faith, " but the Son of God ; who abideth a priest for- 
 ever.''^ * " Straightway in the synagogue preached he Jesus, 
 that He is the Son of God." f " His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 made of the seed of David according to the flesh ; and demon- 
 strated to be the Son of God, by spiritual power, according to the 
 spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." X This 
 is the declaration regarding Christ set fortli in the preface of 
 his most elaborate epistle. Everywhere, with him, " Jesus the 
 Christ is the Son of God, the efiulgence of His glory, the 
 express image of His person, who upholdeth the universe 
 (ra Tzavxd) by the word of His power." § 
 
 And no less is He man ; " The second man is the Lord 
 from heaven." || By man coineth the resurrection from the 
 dead. The man Christ Jesus is the one mediator between 
 God and man, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men. 
 And here upon earth, being made perfect by suffering, " we 
 behold Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, 
 crowned with glory and honor, because of the suffering of 
 death." 1 
 
 We see Him, furthermore, in the writings of St. Paul, as 
 the glorified God-man, sitting at the right hand of God, ex- 
 alted above measure {uiiepuipioae). He is sitting on the right 
 hand of the Majesty on high. He forever is seated on the 
 right hand of God, — of the throne of the Majesty in the 
 heavens. 
 
 Consider this doctrine of the Living Christ, the man who is 
 God, and is our King, and the King of the universe, and then 
 you will see how this bold, brave apostle, who before men 
 never forgot his rights and privileges, so fully realizes the do- 
 minion of his Lord, and his own position toward it. "When 
 the military tribune (chief captain) commanded him to be ex- 
 amined by scourging, the punishment of a slave according to 
 the Roman law, " As they w^ere binding him with the thongs, 
 Paul said to the centurion that stood by. Is it lawful for you 
 
 * Hebrews, vii 3. f Acts, ix. 20. % Romans, i. 3, 4. 
 
 § Hebrews, i. 3. || I. Cor. xv, 47. T[ Hebrews, ii. 9. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 169 
 
 to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned ? " (He 
 knew the law of the empire, and his own rights under it as a 
 Roman citizen, and he would not submit to the treatment of a 
 slave at their hands.) " And the centurion, hearing this, ap- 
 proached the tribune and told it to him, saying, Take heed 
 what thou doest : for this man is a Roman. And the tribune, 
 approaching, said to him, Art thou a Roman ? And he said 
 Yea. The tribune answered, With a great sum acquired I 
 this franchise; and Paul said. But I w^as free born. Then 
 they departed from him which should have examined him : 
 and the tribune also was afraid, finding that he was a Roman, 
 and because he had bound him." * 
 
 And this Paul, so bold in asserting his freedom as a Roman 
 citizen, and repelling all servile treatment, even when a cap- 
 tive, when he comes to speak of Jesus, whose apostle he was, 
 in relation to himself, is most humble. It is Paul " the ser- 
 vant {slave or hondsman) of Jesus Christ." Three several 
 times, in his writings, he uses this appellation of himself. 
 And when he speaks of Christ, his Master, he applies to Him 
 the word which, in Hellenistic Greek, implies godhead and 
 supreme dominion. It is always, with him, the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 He is the God-man, having supreme dominion. And we 
 are, through Him, " children of God ; and if children, then 
 heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ," f " fel- 
 low-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God ; and 
 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
 Christ himself being the chief and corner-stone." :j: " We are 
 sons of God through Jesus Christ." " Christ is our life," and 
 " our life is hid with Christ in God." § " The life of Christ is 
 to be made manifest in our mortal flesh." | " The whole cre- 
 ation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God." *][ 
 " Christ is in us the hope of glory." *^ 
 
 Now, look at these doctrines of St. Paul, and they are pre- 
 
 * Acts, xxii. 25-29. f Romans, viii. 17. % Epliesians, ii. 19, 20. 
 § Col. iii. 3, 4. II II. Cor. iv. 11. T[ Rom. viii. 19. ** Col. i. 27. 
 
170 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 cisely the same as those of Christ our Lord, and of St. John 
 and St. Peter, and the other writers of the I^ew Testament ; 
 the doctrines of the God-man, om- living and ever-present 
 Lord, and we, through Him, " partakers of the Divine nature 
 and life," sons of God through Jesus the Christ. The doc- 
 trines of a real new birth for man, of a living and life-giving 
 Lord, and of a Church that is no abstraction, but a reality, 
 — the kingdom of God, in fact and truth, existing upon the 
 earth. 
 
 ISTow, let us think upon all these ideas, and then place them 
 side bj side with the Roman empire and its gigantic facts, and 
 how do they stand related ? Simply in broad and distinct an- 
 tagonism. 
 
 There is not an idea or doctrine of the Christian Church 
 preached by St. Paul, but it meets and tends to overthrow some 
 Roman counterpart, some actual fact, some real and organic 
 element of that great polity that has to itself such a strange 
 resemblance. Paul preached a dominion world-wide that 
 should rule all nations. This was the very claim of the 
 Roman, for the Roman state among the kingdoms of the 
 world. Paul was a member and minister of a rtoXcrda to 
 which all nations should belong. This, too, was the claim of 
 Rome ; a world-ruling, world-embracing polity. Paul was full 
 of Christ his King, who was placed by God " far above all prin- 
 cipality and power, and might and dominion, and every name 
 that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is 
 to come."* Look at the Roman Emperor, and the same is the 
 case with him ; for, by a most curious process, and a course of 
 events, partly revolutionary and partly constitutional, the pe- 
 culiarity of the Lnperator of Rome is that he has absorbed 
 and centred in himself all the powers and magistracies of the 
 great republic. At once he is high-priest and consul, and 
 general, and tribune of the people, and censor. He has in 
 himself the supreme might, majesty, power, and dominion over 
 Rome and the world. I^ay, more closely than this does the 
 
 * Epli. i. 21. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 171 
 
 parallel run, for the Roman Emperor, after liis death, in all 
 cases, and in many during his life, was worshipped. Divus, 
 or God, in ordinary, was one of his titles — Divus Augustus, 
 Divus Tiberius, or Divus Nero. 
 
 And then, when we look to the grand engine and instru- 
 ment of Roman civilization, that great science of the law, in 
 which Rome transcended all nations, and still, in a measure, 
 rules by it the European world outside of England, hardly do 
 we find the idea of law less prominent among the Romans 
 than among the early Christians. St. Paul's writings might 
 all be put in one hundred pages of ordinary English octavo, 
 and the word "law"' occurs about one hundred and thirty 
 times in them. 
 
 What, then, does this mean ? It means this, that a great 
 people has, for hundreds of years, been nationally possessed of, 
 developing, and carrying out the grandest and greatest ideas ; 
 that in that process all the noble and manly virtues have de- 
 veloped in the race ; and now, when at last their system of 
 polity was fully realized, and the world Avas one nation, under 
 one ruler and one law, — from Judea comes the counterpart of 
 all this, and yet its uncompromising opponent, a system which 
 never hid the fact that it would give the whole world to Christ 
 its King, to His kingdom and His law. 
 
 Looking, now, at St. Paul and his character and position, 
 and considering the Roman state as established, its policy and 
 its religion, and what is he in regard to the whole completed 
 system? A destructive. See his peculiar talents, legal and 
 argumentative, and ask what ought he to be considered in the 
 eyes of a grave Roman statesman? A revolutionist, certainly, 
 of a kind the most dangerous and destructive to the Roman 
 dominion and the Roman system. This is the answer. 
 
 And most surely did it come true, for pagan Rome was 
 overthrown. And in the writings of Paul, the Roman citizen, 
 and of the other apostles, we see the means. Not an argu- 
 ment, not an idea — hardly a single word in them — but, being 
 scattered broadcast among the nations, became a seed of ruin 
 
172 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 for tlie grandest edifice of merely national and human polity 
 that the world ever saw. 
 
 We say, the empire was destroyed by Christianity. It 
 is a mere dream to imagine that it was converted. The 
 Roman Emperor, even when he became a Christian, had 
 to flee away from Kome ; the pagan associations of the 
 eternal city, and the genius of the place, were too mighty 
 for the man. And from his time hardly a Christian em- 
 peror dared to dwell at Rome. And when Alaric the Goth 
 took the city, four hundred and ten years after Christ, the 
 nobility then were almost all of them pagans. The empire 
 of Rome was destroyed, but never converted. The nations 
 of Europe became free from her dominion, and their people 
 were measurably converted, but the empire never. 
 
 We have spoken of Paul as he must have appeared to a 
 Roman statesman of the better kind, grave and severe, and 
 moral in his unfeeling and stern legal way, but wholly in the 
 spirit of Rome. He would have appeared to them as a revolu- 
 tionist and destructionist — a man of purely destructive ideas. 
 
 But, what if these are not ideas only, hut facts f What 
 if there be in truth a King, the God-man, ever-present to those 
 who believe and are baptized ? What if His kingdom upon earth 
 be no metaphor, no grand ideal or poetic dream, but a truth 
 and a reality ? What if man can become, in a true and verit- 
 able sense, the sons of God through Jesus Christ our Lord ? 
 What if " as many as have been baptized into Christ have put 
 on Christ ? " And if " in Him there are neither Jew nor Greek, 
 bond nor free, male nor female : for (ye) all are one in Christ 
 Jesus." * What if Christ has shed His blood for all men ; and 
 all men can be baptized and become in their baptism, by a real 
 and veritable new birth, brethren of the Eternal Son of the 
 Most High God ? What do these facts say ? 
 
 This, that in Christ all men are equal, — all men are free. 
 The dream of Grecian political Mdsdom is realized in the 
 world of fact, for here is equality to all in their re- 
 * Gal. iii. 37, 28. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 173 
 
 demption, their new nature, and their new birth. And 
 again, here is freedom to all men, in the power given 
 them, through Christ, by the indwelling spirit, to abstain 
 from evil and sin. And then, in His Church, that which 
 the Greek statesmen knew not of, but the Roman so highly 
 valued, the presence of a law, " the law of the Spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus." * " The royal law," " the law of liberty." f 
 A perfect law, propounded in the Church, of conduct and 
 morals toward God and man. 
 
 And then, the unseen King, omnipresent (according to His 
 will and om* faith), the omniscient, omnipotent God-man, King, 
 Priest, and Prophet to His Church, His kingdom upon earth, 
 giving forgiveness of sins, sufficient grace and guidance, to His 
 brethren, — does not this one fact give a steadiness of hope and 
 a persistence of action and principle to the Church, which has 
 been the lack of all republics ? The Pope-king, a visible mon- 
 arch and head of the Church, the favorite theory of the Roman 
 Catholics (two heads to the one body), at once would have put 
 the Church measurably in the power of the world, and ruined 
 it, as it has done in the West. The invisible King and head of 
 the Church, dwelling in the unseen world, far above the sphere 
 of human force or craft, with His apostles in every city, all 
 equal, all only ministers, all mere representatives of His power , 
 and yet ever present with them, while the Almighty Spirit 
 wrought by them all the works of grace, — this insured the 
 constant existence of a Church upon earth, for it was a polity 
 whose monarch, being far above the reach of man, was utterly 
 incapable of being controlled or influenced, much less managed 
 or dominated by Csesar, whether emperor, king, or president. 
 
 Again, men could be citizens of that great politeia, and 
 obey their native governments with an obedience limited only 
 by the law of Christian morals. They could hope and pray 
 for the coming of Christ's kingdom ; and, in their earthly 
 citizenship, they could act upon His principles, and make the 
 law of Christ the rule of their individual life. And so doing, 
 
 * Romans, viii. 2. f James, i. 25 ; ii. 8. 
 
174 BEGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 day after day, year after year, century after century, the stern 
 pagan prescriptions and principles of Roman Law, the massive 
 organization of the Roman empire, the perfection of all ex- 
 ecutives, yielded to Christian morality, until, at this present 
 time, all law, all government, all policy and rule are steadily 
 and surely becoming imbued with the principles of the Law 
 of the kingdom of Christ. 
 
 "We need not say that we think that throughout all history 
 this movement has been taking place, checked and limited, 
 more or less, by the evil heart, the self-will, and the unbelief 
 of man. We need not say that we look for a time when it 
 shall be completed, and the Spirit of Christ shall rule all 
 nations upon the earth, and be the fundamental principle of 
 government everywhere ; that not simply natural justice and 
 public, administrative rigor of law and punishment, as in Rome, 
 or mere time-serving policy, as in Europe now, but that Chris- 
 tain mercy, and kindness of heart, and brotherly love toward 
 misery and poverty, and disease and sorrow, shall reign in 
 all law and all government. That the Christian principle of 
 love that takes all men as brethren, of which we have seen so 
 many glimpses and sparks in man since Christ our Lord came 
 upon the earth, but which nowhere has as yet entered into 
 the ordinary dealings of man with man, in dominion, in trade, 
 or in administration, — that one temper of the Christian system 
 which we call the Spirit of Christ, so utterly unknown, and so 
 perfectly opposite to that of the ancient Roman rule. 
 
 We must say that we look for this to the Church of Christ 
 exclusively, in the consistent carrying forth into practice of her 
 principles by all her sons, and to no philosophy, much less to 
 any fragmentary or unorganized Christianity, however zealous 
 and earnest it may be. 
 
 And we thank God that, at last, in the ages there has 
 come to be a country in which all men are declared equal, and 
 all men are free ; in which the Church is wholly free, separ- 
 ated entirely from the State, and, therefore, permitted to re- 
 cover from the wounds of European feudalism, and of despot- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM, 175 
 
 ism, imperial and papal, and to develop lier institutions and 
 direct her course according to the Spirit of Christ her King. 
 
 And thus, at last, upon the earth there is a nation in which 
 the sons of God can, as far as they will, no one making them 
 afraid, obey the laws of our Lord and King, the Son of God 
 incarnate upon the earth. Thus can they feel that His king- 
 dom exists for tliem, and is a truth and a reality. For, at last, 
 after ages gone and past, a government exists, by the provi- 
 dence of God, which considers itself as in being exclusively 
 for the benefit of the governed ; which exists only for the pro- 
 tection of ifte and property, and has abdicated, therefore, all the 
 pretensions of Imperial Kome ; is honafide ajpolice, and not a 
 Mngdoni or sovereignty. And thus is the field left clear for the 
 kingdom of God to develop itself, as in no realm heretofore 
 upon the earth. And the Son of God, in His life, in His prin- 
 ciples, in His glorified and perfected humanity, can reign in His 
 Church and in us. His sons, if we will follow Him, as never 
 before in any land. This is His work, during the ages past 
 up to this point of time, and now completed and established. 
 " God is my King of old ; the might that is done upon earth, 
 He doeth it himself."* 
 
 * Psalm Isxiv. 13. 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 In these last chapters we have systematically explained what 
 the idea of regeneration is. We have shown that it implies an 
 organic, vital principle, the life of Christ in a sphere of exist- 
 ence adapted to feed and cherish its growth to maturity. This 
 principle of life, dwelling in ns, forms us into His likeness, 
 moulds us after his loveliness, shapes us into the image of His 
 virtues, as it is His life, the life of the God-man dwelling in 
 us. It is the source, the fountain, the vital principle, the 
 constituent force of all virtue in us that is real, — of all true 
 morality, of all Christian works that have in them any verity. 
 As the life in the vine is not the trunk, the branches, the 
 leaves, or the fruit, but is a force that lies beneath and behind 
 them all, unseen, and yet is the cause of them all — so it is with 
 the life of Christ in the Christian. All the Christian graces 
 are its results, not its causes. They may indicate, therefore, that 
 it exists, they cannot bring it into existence. Good works are 
 its fruits. We argue from them that the tree is planted, is 
 alive, is producing; but we cannot bring it into being by 
 means of good works. The planting of the root having in 
 itself its special life, this must come before all fruits, and Chris- 
 tian faith is the living sense that acts upon this fact. From 
 these principles it follows that regeneration in itself is super- 
 natural, miraculous, visible only to the eye of faith, to be re- 
 ceived and acted upon by faith, indiscernible by the senses. 
 
 And again, it is the specific work of the Holy Spirit, so fixed, 
 so decided, so distinct, by the providence of God, in time and 
 circumstance, that there can be no mistake in reference to its 
 having taken place. That the man at once has to step off the 
 ground of mere nature upon that of faith, which is above 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. Ill 
 
 nature, and to say, "Here, in my baptism, by the mercy 
 of the Father, I am regenerated. Now, at this time, by 
 the power of the Holy Spirit, and the life of Christ, I am 
 new born. This is simply and purely of the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit. It is true, repentance and faith are demand- 
 ed of me as qualifications and prerequisites ; but even these, 
 truly as I feel them in my heart to be real and sincere, have 
 been and are wrought in me by the Spirit of Grace. This 
 work of regeneration is done in me, in my baptism, at this 
 place, and at this time, by the Holy Spirit. I am called 
 upon to believe this, and I do believe it." 
 
 And again, this doctrine, as we have seen, implies a sphere 
 for this true life, in the regenerate man, to grow into matu- 
 rity ; a world of influences, various and manifold, to feed and 
 cherish that new life, — some aiding in one way, some in another. 
 As to the smallest and feeblest plant, there is a world of influ- 
 ences given : the humus and the moisture to be sucked up by 
 the fibrous roots ; the rain and the light and the heat and the 
 various gases to be absorbed by the leaves ; and then the im- 
 ponderable fluids, the unseen influences which science dimly 
 conjectures to exist, abiding in it or passing in currents through 
 it ; and yet all these are necessary, so that a whole world is 
 needful to the life of one poor plant, — thus it is with man when 
 new born in Christ. There is for him a spiritual world, infinite, 
 manifold, far-reaching, and he has entered within it. It has 
 been let down upon the earth from heaven. It is in this world 
 of time and space, as the Church Militant upon earth, yet it 
 evermore exists as the Church Triumphant in eternity. Now 
 and liere it is the kingdom of grace ; when the resurrection 
 morning is past for us, it is the kingdom of glory. A society 
 it is, at once natural and supernatural, militant and triumphant, 
 on earth and in heaven, in time and in eternity ; organized 
 upon earth with a threefold clergy and a twofold laity, — weak 
 and fallible men, doing in faith a feeble work that ever slems 
 to promise perfection, and never appears to be perfect. And yet 
 that work of theirs, upheld by the Father Almighty in the 
 12 
 
178 REGENERATION IN BAPTISE 
 
 operations of His limitless love, His almiglity power, His 
 omniscient wisdom, by the Atonement and Sacrifice and 
 Mediation of God the Son Incarnate, our advocate with 
 the Father, by the abiding and indwelling presence and mission 
 of the Sanctifying Spirit. Such is the Church of God, His 
 kingdom upon earth, into which we are introduced by our new 
 birth ; that celestial sphere of life filled with so many facts and 
 powers and influences, known and unknown, wherein dwells, 
 even here on earth, the poorest human being, the feeblest in 
 mind and body, the lowest in birth and circumstances, of the 
 children of Adam who, by spiritual regeneration, is made a 
 Son of God. 
 
 We see, therefore, how the true doctrine of a Church of 
 God upon the earth goes naturally along with the true idea of 
 regeneration. And we who uphold the one, naturally main- 
 tain the other. 
 
 Wherefore, then, this need of regeneration ? Why is it 
 that man requires an organic spiritual life to be implanted 
 in his humanity, a life having power to change his being 
 into the image of Christ, the Son of God ? Wherefore, 
 again, should there be a sphere upon earth, supernatural and 
 miraculous, and at the same time natural, for that new life to 
 mature within its bosom ? Because the necessities of man's 
 being require it. Less than this is not regeneration in the 
 sense of Holy Writ ; less than this is not adequate to his wants 
 and wounds, to the needs and demands of his nature and 
 position in this world. The necessity of the fact and doctrine 
 of regeneration, in the Church's sense, arises from the fact and 
 doctrine of original sin. This is a theological term which is 
 employed to express the whole extent of the facts of man's 
 nature and being, which require the system of salvation revealed 
 to us in the Gospel. If all that man needs can be found in 
 his own being and the influences and circumstances that lie 
 arorfnd him, then, as man is a moral being, as he is a being 
 gifted with reason, a morality framed upon reason and guided 
 by it would be all that he would require. But if he needs an 
 
REOENERATION IN BAPTISM. 170 
 
 atonement for sin; if for him the Son of God must become 
 incarnate, must suffer and die ; if for him the Holy Spirit must 
 descend upon the earth, and for him a Holy Catholic Church 
 of God upon earth must be miraculously organized, and mirac- 
 ulously sustained, as the fold for the straying sheep brought 
 back by the Good Shepherd, — then all these supernatural 
 gifts imply, manifestly, wounds and losses and defects in the 
 nature of man, which nothing but these could compensate for 
 or heal. All these injuries of the fall, in their effect upon man, 
 we embrace in this short phrase — Original Sin. 
 
 We use not the term " total depravity," — this is an exaggera- 
 tion of the doctrine that is not to be found in our standards ; one, 
 also, that has done endless moral and social mischief. For 
 depravity that is " total " cannot be added to, it is complete 
 and consummate in its corruption. There is no man, however 
 wicked and depraved he may be, upon earth, that can be 
 totally depraved, inasmuch as there is no living man who, by 
 further acts of wickedness, cannot increase and add to his 
 depravity. The term, therefore, which the Church employs, we 
 confine ourselves to, the term of " original" or " birth" sin. 
 
 Now, we have already analyzed our services as to the doc- 
 trine of regeneration. If our readers will please turn again 
 to those services, they will notice a very remarkable fact. The 
 Baptismal Services of the Church, just as distinctly as they as- 
 sert regeneration, assert the doctrine of original sin. In fact, 
 they are crowded with declarations of it, and allusions to it. 
 " All men are conceived and born in sin." " That which by 
 nature we cannot have." " The mystical washing away of 
 sin." " Remission of sins." " The old Adam in this child," etc. 
 In truth, the doctrine is so fully asserted in these services, that 
 without it, and a full understanding of it, our services cannot 
 themselves be comprehended. 
 
 The state of mere nature, according to the Church, is a 
 state of death in sin, an unshielded and unprotected state ; in 
 baptism, eternal life is given, and an entrance into the shelter 
 of the fold pf Christ. The one doctrine is asserted and predi- 
 
180 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 cated upon the fact and truth of the other. The same thing 
 we find in the Catechism. Both these doctrines are there as- 
 serted, and in it, also, they are placed in the same relative 
 position as they are in the Services. " Being by nature born 
 in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby («'. e., by bap- 
 tism) made the children of grace." We go through the other 
 standards of the Church, and through them all there runs the 
 most emphatic assertions of these two doctrines, correlatively : 
 " that man by nature is born in sin," and then that for man, 
 in this world, there is in existence, organized by our Lord and 
 His Spirit, a state of grace, a state of sonship, a state of salvation, 
 into which, in this life, he can enter ; and wherein all the means 
 of grace are given him, that he may " work out his own salva- 
 tion," and " make his calling and election sure." 
 
 In the Scriptures the one state is described in this way : 
 " You (who) were dead in trespasses and sins." * The other 
 in this : " When we were dead in sins, He (God) hath made us 
 alive together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved ;) and hath 
 raised us up together, and made us to sit in the heavenly places 
 through Christ." f The one is the state of our death in sin, the 
 other of our life in Christ as sons of God, and of our dwelling 
 in the heavenly places of His kingdom, here upon the earth. 
 
 Of course, to our readers, there is no need that we should 
 say that we believe not in the Calvinistic doctrine that the 
 elect cannot fall away. Our final perseverance is due to grace, 
 of which we avail ourselves, not to an absolute decree. Even 
 in this world, we think that the children of God may be re- 
 bellious, so that it may ensue that in the future world " the 
 children of the hingdom shall be cast into outer darkness." \ 
 In other words, we think that our new birth into the kingdom 
 of grace, in this world, being a real birth, has, in this world, 
 by the co-working of our own free will and of God's mercy 
 and grace, to mature and ripen into the " stature of the ful- 
 ness of Christ," the "perfect man." This growth in Christ is 
 completed and consummated for us upon the morning of the 
 
 * Eph. ii. 1. f Eph. ii. 5, 6. :j: St. Matt. viii. 12. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 181 
 
 resurrection. And then we, and the whole Church of God, 
 shall be born from the state of grace into the state of glory. 
 Our state then shall be consummated, and then we shall be 
 entirely incapable of falling away. 
 
 But, that our readers — who have gone so far with us, and 
 have seen how distinctly regeneration, and a state, even in this 
 world, of life in Christ through grace, is asserted in our stand- 
 ards — may see, on the other hand, how clearly it is our doctrine 
 that all men by nature are dead in sin and unregenerate, we 
 go on to give our Article on the doctrine. It will be noticed 
 that we change some words and phrases in it. Some of these 
 because of their antiquated sense, others because they give 
 more nearly the sense of the Latin, which, as we have before 
 said, is authoritative as well as the English : 
 
 " Art. IX. Of Original or Birtli-Sin. 
 
 " Original sin doth not consist in the imitation of Adam (as the Pela- 
 gians fable) ; but it is the flaw and depravation'of the nature of every man 
 "whatsoever, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby 
 man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature 
 inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit ; and 
 therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath 
 and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain even in those 
 that are regenerated ; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek <pp6vT]fia 
 capKog (which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the af- 
 fection, some the desire, of the flesh), is not subject to the law of God. And 
 although because of Christ there is no condemnation for them that believe 
 and are baptized (in the Latin ' renatis,' regenerated) ; yet the apostle doth 
 confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin." 
 
 This, then, is the doctrine of the Church as to man's nat- 
 ure when born into the world. If this be true, the first 
 requisite, manifestly, to man in this world, the crying neces- 
 sity of his whole being, is a new birth, — that he be born again 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 "We make no apology to our readers for bringing before 
 them the doctrine of original sin, any more than we would to 
 educated persons for speaking to them of the principle of 
 gravitation in a popular treatise upon astronomy. Original 
 sin, or as our article translates it, " birth-sin," is a brief phrase, 
 
182 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 used in scientific theology to signify the facts of the condition 
 of man in the merely natural state. 
 
 These facts belong to the whole human race, and to each 
 individual of the same. They are of universal concernment and 
 universal interest. If they are true, they, with the correspond- 
 ing doctrines of regeneration and justification, solve many prob- 
 lems which from the earliest times have agitated the heart as 
 well as the intellect of man. They declare the inherent and 
 original causes of his misery and its remedy, and they place him 
 upon a sure basis of calm hope. For, being by nature dead in 
 sin, we can become alive in Christ. Being condemned we can 
 be acquitted, or justified. Having no hope in this world in 
 our own merits, we can dwell in a sure and certain faith in 
 Christ our Saviour and Redeemer. Our state by nature, into 
 which we are born, can be, even in this world, repaired by tliat 
 heavenly life and state into which we are new born. There- 
 fore, to understand fully and definitely the benefits and bless- 
 ings of our state as sons of God through grace, it is necessary 
 that we should as distinctly comprehend our position through 
 original sin, that state into which we come by our natural birth. 
 
 This is no problem of recondite science, which but a few 
 men need take any interest in. It is the question of the origin 
 of evil, the question of the whole world and of our whole race. 
 Men of all ages and of all climates have occupied themselves 
 with this question ; in fact, each human being that is born upon 
 this earth is forced, by the experience of his life and the neces- 
 sities of his inmost being, to ask of himself this question, and 
 to attempt a solution of it. Throughout all time, over the 
 whole world, this has been the problem of high and low, of rich 
 and poor, of the sage and the ignorant, of the man and the 
 woman, the adult and the child ; for it is the problem of man's 
 weakness, his sorrow, and his suffering. We have in actual 
 existence philosophic, treatises of all ages and of all nations from 
 one thousand j^ears before Christ downward, and in them all 
 this question of man's misery in this world is a leading question, 
 — the question, we may say, that originates and makes necessary 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 183 
 
 all philosophy. It puts itself in the thought of all men in this 
 shape, " Wherefore am I wicked and miserable, — wherefore are 
 all men so, since God is good, and God has made the world 
 and man ? " No man has escaped this question that ever has 
 been born into this world. All men have felt it in their being, 
 in the very core of their heart. It has been the one great 
 problem to all men, from Gotama Buddha and Zoroaster in 
 the East, Socrates and all the Greek philosophers in the West, 
 down to wretched Byron and wa-etched Shelley. 
 
 This problem, and its facts, is the centre of all men's agony 
 and all their distress. Has it any solution in intellect and life ? 
 We answer, yes. But not in mere human speculation or science, 
 or in the conclusions of human intellect. It is solved completely 
 in these two correlated doctrines of revelation,— the doctrine of 
 original sin, that is, the doctrine of revelation concerning man's 
 state by nature ; and the doctrines of regeneration and justifica- 
 tion, which declare the state to which man may be uplifted in 
 this M'orld by the grace of God. 
 
 Here, then, Christianity approaches philosophy, which is 
 helpless. Here it solves the problem which has employed all 
 men, the problem of man's misery. It declares the disease. It 
 also gives the remedy. Intellectually and practically the answer 
 to the enigma is complete. 
 
 By tlie light, therefore, of this solution we look at the philos- 
 ophy, mental and ethical, of these ancient sages, and especially 
 of the Greek philosophers, and M^e find a peculiar deficiency 
 in them all. In them we find a true intellectual analysis of the 
 powers and faculties of man, of the ends to which they may 
 be directed, of the happiness which they may produce when 
 rightly guided. We find in them also rules and directions for 
 guiding all of them aright. And yet all these, as a matter of 
 fact, are deficient and inefiicient, for the simple reason that the 
 ancient Greek philosophers, one and all, take for granted that 
 the being of man is perfect, his faculties untainted by disease. 
 And this hypothesis they assumed in the face of the actual 
 viciousness, the immorality, the criminality of man. Their 
 
184 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 philosophy was imperfect, as it assigned no place and no cause 
 for these patent facts, present before their eyes. These thinkers, 
 then, M-ere, for the most part, helpless dreamers and theorizers, 
 isolated by their mere intellectualism from the world of action. 
 They supplied splendid commonplaces for the orator, intellect- 
 ual exercises for the student, glittering ornaments for the ambi- 
 tious advocate and rhetorician ; but they gave no guidance to 
 the men of action, they supplied no controlling influence over 
 character and life to the masses. 
 
 Christianity, entering into the pagan world, changed all 
 this. It objected to no honest philosophic analysis of the facul- 
 ties or powers of man, but it supplied at once a primal defect. 
 It gave to the philosophy of man's nature the doctrine of orig- 
 inal sin, a doctrine without which there can be no true and ade- 
 quate philosophy of humanity, wrought out by the toil of human 
 intellect, whether by the ancients who were ignorant of it, or 
 by the moderns who overlook and ignore it. Christianity 
 asserts in this doctrine that in every man born into this world, 
 his nature is diseased ; depraved, flawed as it were, in itself, and 
 in each and every faculty of his threefold being, corporeal, in- 
 tellectual, spiritual. This disease or depravation is sin. The 
 doctrine is called the doctrine of Original or Birth-Sin. 
 
 Now, if this statement be true, we shall find, first, that it is 
 clearly and distinctly asserted as a fact and doctrine in Holy 
 Writ. 
 
 And again, over the whole world and in every natural man 
 we shall find its consequences in evil done by man against the 
 convictions of his reason, the warnings of his conscience, and 
 even his own best interests. And as the result of this fiaw in 
 the universal nature of man, we see evil and misery spread over 
 the face of the earth, a bitter and black flood, fed from the 
 fountain in the heart of every man who is unregenerate and 
 unrenewed. 
 
 And thirdly, for this we find a remedy in the atonement of 
 our Lord for the sins of all men, and in the gift of a new life, 
 extended and proffered by Him to all the sons of men. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 185 
 
 Have we not, therefore, in tlie facts of man's life upon the 
 earth, in the declarations of Holy Writ, and again in the great 
 events of our Lord's incarnation and atonement, adequate 
 proofs of this great fundamental doctrine of philosophy, which 
 is revealed and given to us only by revelation ? Does it not 
 place us at once in a true philosophic position when it assures 
 us of the fact that human nature is diseased, that all true 
 analysis and anatomy of marCs natui'e is and must be nior- 
 hid. Not nature simply, must be examined, but nature in re- 
 lation to the diseases that impede and deprave its action. A 
 twofold nature, — first, the nature in which the man originally 
 was created, and then its actual condition as it now is, polluted 
 and diseased by sin. 
 
 We should expect, then, that the first Christians would 
 take a very peculiar position toward the Greek philosophy 
 with which they were brought into conflict, a position not of 
 hatred and contempt, but of sincere pity, as feeling its earnest- 
 ness and at the same time its vanity, and as knowing that they 
 themselves were in possession of the only possible, the only 
 real and adequate basis for a true philosophy of man. 
 
 Well did the Apostle St, Paul understand this. He knew 
 the great deficiency of all philosophy framed by man's unaided 
 intellect, both in its primal analysis and in its final conclusions. 
 And, therefore, to the Greeks of the most opulent and educat- 
 ed city of Hellas, he shrinks not to present the vainness of 
 their doctrine, and the fulness of Christ. The passage to 
 which we refer is, in the point of view we have been consider- 
 ing, most remarkable. The gist of it is lost in our version, 
 because the English word " wisdom " has no such peculiar 
 sense, no such fulness of allusion, as the original word urofia 
 has. In order to understand the passage, we must attend to 
 the words he employs, ao<fia and aocpol, and again, //copca and 
 /jicopoc. The first, translated "wisdom" and "wise," is un- 
 questionably identical in Greek usage with " philosophy " and 
 "philosophers." The second, translated " foolishness," is un- 
 translatable. It is the scornful technical term the philosophers 
 
186 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 gave the "Idiotae," — those untrained in their schools. "We 
 translate it "silliness." 
 
 We would only make one remark more, — that the inter- 
 pretation we give is that of St. John Chrysostom and Tlieo- 
 doret. It furthermore is the sense which would easily and at 
 once occur to a native Greek of that city and that time, the 
 easily-understood words ao(pia and fxiopia occurring no less 
 than nineteen times in fourteen verses. The one word, in the 
 Greek idiom, it will be remarked, has these two meanings — 
 the technical sense of "philosophy," the ordinary meaning 
 of "wisdom"; the other word, of "want of philosophic 
 training" or " silliness." There is, therefore, in the original 
 Greek, in this double sense, a rapid and pregnant suggestive- 
 ness, which we cannot get at or express in any English trans- 
 lation. The sense is true, nevertheless. 
 
 " For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gos- 
 pel : not with the j)hilosophy {ao(pia) of words, lest the Cross 
 of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching 
 of the Cross is to them that perish silliness (jjicopca) ; but unto 
 us which are saved it is- the power of God. For it is written, 
 I M'ill destroy the wisdom {aocpca, philosophy) of the wise 
 {aocpatv, philosophers), and will bring to naught the intellect 
 of the intellectual iawzaic, and auvzxiov). Where is the wise 
 {aoipbz^ philosopher)? Where is the scribe? Where is the 
 disputer of this world ? Hath not God made silly {i[icopavev) 
 the philosophy {ao(pia) of this world? For after that in the 
 wisdom, {aoifio) of God the world by philosophy (aofca) knew 
 not God, it pleased God by the silliness (jicopca) of preaching to 
 save them that believe. For the Jews demand a sign (miracle), 
 and the Greeks seek after philosophy {ao(pia). But we preach 
 Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the 
 Greeks silliness (juiopio) ; but unto them which are called, both 
 Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the philosophy 
 {(Tocfca) of God. For the silliness {jxcopia) of God is wiser 
 {ao(piOT£poc;) than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger 
 than men. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 187 
 
 " For ye see your calling, brethren, liow tliat not many 
 pliilosopliic men (aoipol) after the flesh, not many powerful, 
 not many nobly -born are called : but God hath chosen the 
 silly ijuopd) to confound the philosophic {aotpd) ; and God hath 
 chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things 
 that are mighty ; and the ignoble things of the world, and 
 things which are utterly set at naught, yea, and the things 
 which are not, to annul the things that are : that no flesh 
 should glory in His presence. But of Him are ye in Christ 
 Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom (our philosophy, 
 ao(pid), and sanctification, and redemption." * 
 
 See how to these philosophic Greeks he rings the changes 
 on the words aoipia^ equivalent to <pcXoao(pia, and ficopla, the 
 proud, contemptuous word of the Greek philosophers for all 
 that were not trained in their discipline. 
 
 And above all, listen to the triumphal trumpet-tone of the 
 last verse, wherein Christ is the completion of all desires to 
 all nations of the world. The Greeks, as a nation, pursue 
 philosophy. The facts of Christ's life and death and doctrine 
 are our best philosophy. The Jews seek for justification in 
 the presence of the Law. He is our justification. The na- 
 tions of the remotest East seek sanctification, mystical union 
 with the all-pure and all-holy God, cleansing us and making us 
 holy by an indwelling in us of His Spiritual life. Such has 
 always been the religious instinct of that region of Asia. 
 Christ again is our sanctification. And then, bolder still, since 
 most likely many of the Church to which he wrote were slaves, 
 Christ is our redemption, our freedom from slavery. No more 
 grandly audacious and sublime address than this last verse 
 contains could have been pronounced by man. 
 
 AVe go on to his conclusion, in which the reader will note 
 the same constant recurrence of allusions to the Greek philos- 
 ophy. " My speech and my preaching was not in the persua- 
 sive M^ords of human philosophy {aoipia^)^ but in demonstration 
 of the spirit and power : that your faith should not stand in 
 * I. Cor. i. 17-30. 
 
188 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the philosophy {<70<pca^) of men, but in the power of God. 
 Howbeit we speak a philosophy (aocpca) among those that are 
 perfect: yet not the philosophy {coipiav) of this world, or of 
 the leaders of this world, who are brought to naught. But 
 we speak the mysterious philosophy {ao(piav) of God, that 
 which has been hidden, which God ordained before the world 
 unto our glory : Avliich none of the leaders of this world 
 knew : for had they known it, they would not have crucified 
 the Lord of glory. But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor 
 ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the 
 things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." ^ 
 " Which things also we speak, not in the didactic (or instruc- 
 tive, oidaxTOc^) words of man's philosophy ((To<fcai;), but in the 
 instructive {dcdaxrdi^) words of the Spirit, comparing spiritual 
 things with spiritual." f 
 
 We have placed these passages just as they are, before our 
 readers, to consider and examine them. And by thinking 
 upon them they will get a better insight into the relations of 
 philosophy and religion than by many and learned disquisi- 
 tions. The sum of it all lies between two limits, two terminal 
 propositions : the first, that through their philosophy " the 
 leaders of the world," the great men of Greece and Rome, had 
 attained and could attain no true knowledge of God and man ; 
 and the last, that " we," the apostles of Jesus Christ, are in 
 possession of the only true philosophy, that is, the Christian 
 faith, — a high, mysterious wisdom, fully and completely ex- 
 plaining all the facts and problems of man's nature and posi- 
 tion in this world. And this they were wont to unfold and 
 teach "among those who are perfect," that is to say, to those 
 who had attained to the highest privileges of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 Herein lies the relation of the Gospel to philosophy. Not 
 
 in opposition to it as sinful. For undoubtedly many a poor 
 
 heathen soul, in and by means of that same philosophy, went 
 
 forth in an anxious and earnest seeking after God and the rules 
 
 * I. Cor. ii. 4-9. \ I. Cor. ii. 13. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 189 
 
 of guidance for man, which in itself was so far good. Such, 
 if we may judge by what we know of them, were Xenophanes 
 of Elea, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, Xenocrates and 
 Panoetius, thousands, and perhaps myriads more in heathen 
 lands, before the coming of our Lord, honest and sincere fol- 
 lowers of the light that was given to them. Not, then, in 
 scorning the speculations of these great souls, nor in a rude, 
 contemptuous rejection of the cycle of Greek or Oriental 
 philosophic thought, does religious wisdom consist ; but in a 
 knowledge that from the day of Pentecost henceforth the 
 whole range of heathen philosophic speculation — however grand 
 and soaring it may be in the sages of the East, or subtle in its 
 analysis and logical in its arrangement and statement in those 
 of Greece — is rendered unnecessary, save as an intellectual 
 exercise, by a comprehensive, all-sufficing system of truth 
 revealed in the Scrnptures, — within the Church, — hy the Spirit, 
 embracing all truth concerning God and man, this world and 
 the next, time and eternity. 
 
 After this perfect wisdom, the soul of man, for ages, had 
 been searching. The rising of the sun has come, — it destroys 
 not the light of the stars. They gave a true light before. 
 They cease not now to shine. But their faint rays are swal- 
 lowed up in his glory. Such is philosophy before the advent 
 of Christ, such is the light it gave to man, compared to the 
 clear and full glory of the Sun of Kighteousness, now risen 
 upon the world. 
 
 This we take to be the true Christian position toward all 
 the heathen philosophy. This was preeminently the position 
 of the early Church. They considered that all the honest 
 philosophic speculations of the heathen sages were instinctive 
 searchings of the human soul after the manifold verities of the 
 one complete and perfect system of truth, which was to be 
 revealed to man in its appointed time. Therefore they looked 
 with wonderful tenderness upon these poor heathen sages. 
 One of them goes so far as to say that "Plato was in some 
 measure a Christian, inasmuch as he discussed so much the 
 
190 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM, 
 
 doctrine of the 'Logos,' and Christ is the Logos." * ^aj, so 
 full were they of this feeling, that the Greeks paint to this day, 
 in the porches of their churches, the ancient philosophers,f as 
 men whose speculations prepared, in the Greek world, the 
 human mind that it should readily receive the Gospel. X 
 
 The Western or Latin Church stood upon diiferent grounds. 
 To them the philosophers were hateful wretches ; all philoso- 
 phy an abomination. It is most amazing to read the fierce 
 invectives of Tertullian against them.§ The secret being, we 
 suppose, in the natural temper of the Roman race, who were 
 of high genius as organizers and administrators, military men 
 and politicians, and above all, as lawyers ; but had no specula- 
 tive or meditative powers, no philosophic capacity or ability 
 whatsoever. There never was such a thing of native growth 
 as a Koman philosophy. Anything that they had in that way, 
 
 * Justin Martyr. 
 
 f " The gentle spirit of the Greek fathers has granted to the heroes and 
 sages of heathen antiquity a place in the Divine favor, which was long 
 denied in the West. Along the porticos of Oriental churches are to he seen, 
 portrayed upon the walls, the figures of Homer, Solon, Thucydides, Pytha- 
 goras, and Plato, as pioneers preparing the way for Christianity. This is to 
 be seen in the Churches of Mount Athos, Iberia, and Moscow." — Stanley's 
 " Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church," p. 123. 
 
 :j: Clement of Alexandria (193-317 a.d.) says: "Philosophy was the 
 schoolmaster of the Greek race to lead them to Christ, as the law was of 
 
 the Jews Philosophy came from God to man When I 
 
 speak," he says, " of philosophy, I mean not exclusively the Aristotelian or 
 Platonic, or Stoic, or Epicurean. But every tenet in every one of the schools, 
 which with piety and knowledge instructs man in righteousness." 
 
 Justin Martyr (103-165 a.d.) goes further even than this. " We have 
 learned," he says, " and before explained, that Christ was the first-begotten 
 of God, being the Word (or the Reason) of which all men were partakers. 
 They, then, who lived agreeably to the Reason were really Christians, even 
 if they were reputed commonly to be atheists, such as Socrates, Heraclitus, 
 and the like among the Greeks." — Justin's "Apology to Antoninus," chap. Ixi. 
 
 § " The philosophers are the patriarchs of the heretics. . . . Plato is the 
 grocer (condimentarius) of all the heretics. . . . What has Athens to do with 
 Jerusalem ? or the Academy with the Church ? we have no need of any- 
 thing beyond faith," etc., etc. — Tertullian, as quoted in Tennemann's " Hist. 
 of Philos." 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 191 
 
 as we may see in Cicero, is foreign, imported from Greece, and 
 in them is mere literary affectation and trifling, a matter of 
 mere culture. They had no earnest or sincere belief in philos- 
 
 Also, we suppose, the distinction lay very much in the 
 differences between the two languages ; the Greek being the 
 strongest, the clearest," the most capable of expressing all the 
 subtle shades of thought and meaning that the world has ever 
 seen ; and the Latin, the clumsiest, the vaguest, and the most 
 indistinct.* We suppose that these at the time were the rea- 
 sons for the different way in which the Church in the East 
 and that in the West looked upon heathen philosophy. We 
 confess we agree with the Greek Church. 
 
 But to return to our subject. The doctrine of the Church 
 is the doctrine of original sin. She looks over the world and 
 beholds the state of man as it actually is. She takes the facts 
 
 * This matter of Christianity and the Roman language is a strange 
 thing. To give examples, the word " Saviour " is easily expressed in 
 Hebrew or Greek. When you come to the Latin, it is a diflFerent matter. 
 " Hoc quantum est," says Cicero, speaking of this very word, " ita magnum 
 ut Latine uno verbo exprimi non potest." The Greek word " crwry^," or 
 " Saviour," is so weighty and comprehensive in significance that it cannot be 
 expressed in one Latin word.^ And so hard was it for the Latin Christians 
 to find a proper word for it that it was three hundred years and more before 
 they settled down upon the word " salvator " ! Before that time they had 
 gone through the clumsiest set of appellations imaginable. Consider the 
 Roman word " salus," meaning health, or bodily well-being ; and then im- 
 agine " salutaris," " salutificator," " salvificator," the translations of Ter- 
 tullian and St. Hilary, such as if, in English, instead of " Christ the 
 Saviour," we used the phrase," Christ the Wholesome," " the Healthmaker," 
 or " the Safemaker" ! Another instance is the word " fieravoia,''^ expressing 
 repentance exactly in the Greek. The Latin " me poenitet " is a mere com- 
 monplace phrase of social politeness, expressing merely regret. In fact, 
 the idea of repentance did not belong in any shape to the Roman. He 
 might make a mistake in war, or politics, or law, and "regret it," but repent- 
 ance, in any point of view, approaching to the Christian idea, he had no 
 notion of. Therefore, to express the word, St. Jerome had to say " facitote 
 penitentiam." The Latin verb, by itself, would not have conveyed the 
 Christian sense. 
 
 1 Cicero against Verres, cap. Ixiii. 
 
192 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 as they are, and does not shrink from confessing them to exist 
 in their full degree, though she will not exaggerate them, or 
 declare that man upon the earth is a malignant demon, or a 
 filthy brute-beast endued with reason. She sees him as a 
 man still, made in the image of God, although infected with 
 sin, as he is born into this world, — although " very far gone," 
 quam longissime, as far as possible {as far as he can he, heing 
 still a man) from original righteousness. She accepts as true 
 all the facts of man's vice and criminality, his ignorance and 
 pollution. She assigns the reason for them in the flaw and 
 depravation of the nature of every son of Adam born into this 
 world naturally, and in the temptations of Satan, and declares 
 the remedy to be in regeneration through Christ our Lord, in its 
 full and complete sense, and in justification by a real and living 
 personal Christian faith. 
 
 She does not declare this sinfulness to arise spontaneously 
 in the man, or to be the result of the natural powers of sym- 
 pathy and imitation, but to be a birth-sin, a depravation that 
 is born with us, and coeval with our being. And backward 
 and upward, against the descending stream of time, she traces 
 it, until she comes to the first parents of our race, the single 
 pair from whom all men are descended. 
 
 Two states, therefore, are seen at different times in the history 
 of man. First, the original state, wherein the man came from 
 the hand of his Maker, pure and holy and unstained, perfect in 
 all his faculties and in all his surroundings : " Adam, the son 
 of God." * And this son of God was placed in Paradise, the 
 dwelling appropriate to his nature, and his gifts and faculties. 
 And then, again, we see him in the second state. Adam 
 fallen into sin, Adam driven forth from Paradise. See how 
 these contrast. The first Adam, the son of God, in Paradise ; 
 the same Adam, fallen from God, in a state of sin, driven forth 
 from Paradise ; and all his descendants, naturally born of the 
 race of Adam, tainted by the infection of sin, born into this 
 world, which surely is not Paradise. 
 
 * St. Luke, m. 38. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 193 
 
 Then, again, we behold, as a fact of history, the Eternal 
 Word, the Everlasting Son of God, born into this world. He 
 becomes incarnate, man born of a woman, assuming to Himself 
 and uniting with his Godhead a sinless humanity. So does 
 He, the Son of God, become the Son of Man, our brother in 
 the flesh. And this He remains unchangeably and eternally. 
 His work beginning with His incarnation, going on through 
 His life on earth. His agony and His bloody sweat. His cross 
 and passion, His descent into Hades, His ascension into heaven, 
 is consummated and completed for man by His session at the 
 right hand of God as Prophet, Priest, and King. Then, sent 
 by Him, the Holy Spirit comes down upon the earth and 
 organizes the spiritual kingdom, the Church of God. 
 
 The second Adam, the life-giving Spirit, has thus com- 
 pleted His work for man. And, henceforth, all men can 
 become the sons of God. The second Adam, in regeneration, 
 repairs that which was lost to man by means of the first Adam. 
 The new life of Christ, our brother and our Lord, and the 
 Church, the sphere of that new life, repairs for us the death in 
 sin, the expulsion from Paradise. 
 
 Is not this the Scripture representation of man's original 
 state, man's fallen state, and our Lord's position as the last 
 Adam ? If this be so, as most surely it is, can we not clearly 
 see that to our regeneration there is needed just what we have 
 said — the life of Christ, the perfected and glorified God-man ; 
 and, secondly, the Holy Catholic Church upon earth, as we 
 preach it, as the sphere of that life. Nothing less than this 
 can heal the mortal wound of sin and repair the loss of 
 Paradise. 
 
 And this, our new birth in Christ, is not complete here upon 
 earth, but only to reach its full bloom and perfect glory in 
 heaven. The Church here on earth will always have more or 
 less imperfection mingled with it; only in heaven will it be 
 "the glorious Church without spot or wrinkle, or any such 
 thing." Only there shall we arrive at " the fulness of the stat- 
 ure of the perfect man in Christ ; " for then we shall be " sons 
 13 
 
194 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 of God, as being sons of the resurrection." * " When I awake 
 up after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it."f But 
 with the fact of original sin, there are ideas and conse- 
 quences connected which go still deeper into the thoughts and 
 interests of all men than even these which we have discussed 
 in this chapter. These, therefore, we pui'pose to examine in 
 our next. 
 
 * Luke, XX. 36. t Psalm xvii. 16. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 "We have seen, therefore, that in man, as born into this world 
 by nature, there is a very great defect, a degradation from his 
 original state of being. This is threefold : first, in himself, the 
 infection of original sin, an hereditary depi»vation of all his 
 faculties of body and soul ; secondly, in that he is banished from 
 Paradise, the sphere of existence of the unfallen man ; but, thirdly 
 and lastly, there is, distinct from these, a very great loss, — that 
 of the supernatural gifts which man had in that blessed abode. 
 For as man is composed, even now, of the spiritual and the 
 material, so was it with man in his original state. But now the 
 material predominates in a great measure over the spiritual, and 
 our bodily senses being awake and intense, the sense in us ot 
 spiritual things is heavy and dull. In fact, in our present state 
 of being, we discern the material world intuitively and directly, 
 and with no mental effort. Nay, the material sphere surrounds 
 us, presses upon us, tends wholly to engross and occupy us ; 
 but that which is spiritual we only come to by an effort ot 
 reflection and by continuous thought and meditation, or else 
 by the persevering suggestion of others. 
 
 But in the original state of man it was not so. The bodily 
 senses, although perfect, had no such tendency to preoccupy and 
 engross the whole attention as they have now, but were under 
 complete control, and man's spiritual perception was immedi- 
 ately awake to spiritual things. As now there is an intuition 
 of the senses, by which the ideas of the material world are at 
 once conveyed to the mind without the intervention of any 
 .reasoning or the effort of any reflection, so was it then with 
 the spiritual powers of man. The spiritual senses were open 
 to the spiritual world. Hence was man, by the gift of God, in 
 
196 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 immediate communion with the whole spiritual world. As to 
 his material senses now, all the material world is in relation ; so 
 to man's spiritual sense in Paradise, the whole spiritual world 
 was open, — direct communion was given him with the uncreated 
 and the created spiritual world, which is now to him the world 
 of the unseen. In this he had full knowledge, full light, full 
 grace, full glory, — all lying around man, — all paljDable and tan- 
 gible, if we may use the metaphor, to his spiritual perception, — 
 all occupying and immediately pressing upon his spiritual sense. 
 This is what the theologians of our Church call the supernatural 
 gifts of man in Paradise ; and the loss of these gifts makes up 
 the last injury to man by the fall. The deadly wound to his 
 nature and being of original sin, the casting out from Para- 
 dise, the original sj^here of man's existence, and the loss of the 
 supernatural gifts, — these .three make up the whole circle of 
 man's injuries and losses by the fall. * 
 
 * " And this brings us to the head of our inquiry concerning the first 
 covenant and the state of man before the fall. The Church of God, then 
 (if we may gather its judgment from the writings of the most approved 
 doctors thereof in their several ages), hath constantly believed and asserted 
 these two things : 
 
 " Firstly, that Paradise was to Adam a type of heaven, and that the never- 
 ending life of happiness promised to our first parents, if they had continued 
 obedient and grown up to perfection under that economy wherein they were 
 placed, should not have been continued in the earthly Paradise, but only 
 have commenced there, and been perpetuated in a higher state : that is to 
 say, after such a trial of their obedience as should seem sufiicient to the 
 Divine wisdom, they should have been translated from earth to heaven. 
 
 " Secondly (which is indeed a consequent of the former happiness), that 
 our first parents, besides the seeds of natural virtue and religion sown in 
 their minds in their very creation, and besides the natural innocence and 
 rectitude wherein also they were created, were endowed with certain gifts 
 and powers supernatural, infused by the spirit of God, and that in these 
 gifts their reflection consisted. These two hypotheses are by many very 
 learned men, with too great boldness, questioned, and yet they seem to me the 
 two main pillars of the Catholic doctrine concerning original sin. 
 
 " And, again, I do profess that I can by no means understand how that 
 doctrine can be intelligibly explained or rationally defended, otherwise than 
 upon the foundation of the said hypotheses." — Bishop Bull's " Discourse on the 
 State of Man before the Fall," pp. 6, 7, 8, and 130. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 197 
 
 "We do not dwell upon them at full length, for this is not a 
 treatise upon the fall of man. But let any thoughtful man 
 consider the internal facts of his own being, the narrative in 
 Genesis, and the truths of the Gospel, and the more deeply and 
 earnestly he meditates, the more closely he w^ill come to these 
 doctrines. Let him take the Holy Scriptures, and no other 
 doctrines than these of man's fall, and man's wounds and losses 
 will satisfy and fully represent all the declarations of Holy 
 Writ. And 'corresponding to, and supplying these losses, he 
 will find asserted in Holy Writ the gift of life in Christ our 
 Kedeemer, the institution of a Holy Catholic Church, the 
 sphere and world of that new life, and lastly, that in it are all 
 the gifts of grace that are required to sustain and feed the new 
 life in the new-born son of God. 
 
 The sum of the whole doctrine of the fall of man, therefore, 
 is this : that God created man perfect in his being, placed him 
 in Paradise, and gave him manifold gifts of grace and knowl- 
 edge in addition to the personal endowments wherewith he 
 had adorned his nature ; and man, by the temptation of 
 Satan, and the act of his own free-will, fell from that state, and 
 upon his posterity, as well as upon himself, he brought the 
 consequences of that fall. 
 
 Hence, apart from grace, the being which originally was 
 full to overflowing of spiritual knowledge, tends to sink down- 
 ward into brutal ignorance. 
 
 Secondly, the human being, whose whole faculties and 
 powers were under the perfect control of the reason and the 
 will, so that all were directed aright to the ends appropriate to 
 them, finds now his greatest misery in the insubordination of 
 his nature, in the rebellion, within his being, of natural powers 
 and desires, which, rightly guided to right ends, are good. For 
 what else are tJie greatest crimes, the greatest vices, the greatest 
 sorrows of the man, than the insubordination and wrong action 
 of powers, appetites, passions, and desires which, rightly guided 
 toward the proper ends and objects, and governed by God's 
 laws, are not only innocent, but good ? 
 
198 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Thirdly, pure as he was ori^naUy, and holy, he feels him- 
 self polluted. His nature was created immaculate ; it is now 
 stained by evil. 
 
 Fourthly, upright before his Maker, he stood originally in 
 conscious innocence ; he is now guilty. 
 
 And fifthly, shame and fear and the sting of remorse 
 perpetually abide with, him. 
 
 All these are consequences of the fall ; all these the in- 
 heritance of every son of Adam by nature. The results they 
 are of the corruption and depravation of the nature of every 
 human being everywhere, in all conditions, in all ages, and under 
 all climates, only by the faith of Christ our Lord to be re- 
 paired. In Him alone our ignorance is illumined. By His 
 law and His grace only the disorder of our being, the rebellion 
 and tumult of our passions and appetites, can be controlled and 
 bridled ; by His sacrifice only is our guilt forgiven ; by His 
 cleansing Spirit only our pollution removed ; and the sting of 
 conscience abated by habitual faith in His merits. These five 
 — ignorance, insubordination, guilt before God, pollution in 
 our own eyes and in the sight of God, and the sting of con- 
 science — are, in the language of theologians, the consequences 
 to man of sin. Are they not in existence over the whole 
 world, and the cause of misery to every human being ? Does 
 not the experience of every human being testify to the ex- 
 istence of these vipers, these harpies of the human soul, and to 
 the agony they cause to man ? And can we not go onward 
 and upward from these miseries in the man, and see the source 
 and fountain of them all in the fall of man, the hereditary in- 
 fection and the losses which exist in man's being and surround- 
 ings from the moment of his birth ? 
 
 Now, if regeneration be a real and true change for the 
 remedy of original sin and its consequences, we shall find in it 
 a counteracting influence to all these. We shall find that the 
 regenerate man, who lives on faith, is enlightened, day after 
 day, with new spiritual knowledge, dispersing more and more 
 his ignorance. We shall find that he gets, day by day, a more 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 199 
 
 permanent control over himself, habitually ; that the sense of 
 his pardon before God constantly increases ; that his inner 
 nature is purified perpetually by all the means of grace ; and 
 that the sting of remorse being removed, more and more has 
 he in his soul a calm faith, a sure hope of heaven, through his 
 trust in Jesus Christ his Saviour, and an increasing love toward 
 God and man. And, that all these remedies for the conse- 
 quences of original sin are due to his regeneration in its two 
 aspects, — first, as looking to the inner life of Christ implanted 
 in his being by the Spirit of God ; secondly, as regards his 
 entrance within the Church, the sphere of that life wherein 
 he is placed. 
 
 The Church, then, is a sphere and world of manifold means, 
 all preestablished and provided, all tending to heal man's wounds 
 that have been inflicted upon his nature by sin. Is ignorance, spir- 
 itual and mental, the first of those wounds ? Then the Church 
 of God is a sphere of manifold teaching. Is insubordination, 
 disorder of nature, rebellion against the law of his own being 
 and of God, another wound ? Then do all the means of grace 
 in the Church tend to restore to him self-control, to subdue his 
 diseased and perverted nature to the law of God, to train his 
 mind and actions in Christian principle and Christian habits. 
 Is he guilty before God and obliged to punishment ? Then all 
 the means of grace are means of conveying, to the man who 
 receives them with a living faith, the merits of Christ's death 
 and sacrifice, the absolution and pardon of his sins. And, as 
 our Catechism has it, the very state of a baptized man is a 
 " state of grace," a " state of salvation." And, lastly, all the 
 influences that are brought to bear upon him, when once he is 
 within the Church of God, all tend to purify and cleanse his 
 soul, to remove the sting of remorse, and to give him peace 
 before God. 
 
 We are aware that religious men have become so subjective, 
 so occupied with their own internal emotions, as to forget and 
 despise the outward means which God employs to bear upon 
 them ; nay, to call the mere internal emotions of their own 
 
200 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 bodily frame by the most solemn and sacred names.* This shall 
 be our excuse, if we need any, for showing in detail, and prac- 
 tically to the regenerate man, how the means of grace within 
 the Church tend to heal the wounds of sin. 
 
 At once, and in a moment, regeneration takes place, and 
 the regenerated man is transferred from the state of nature 
 wherein he was born — an exile from God, cast out from his 
 Father's house, wounded and diseased — into that new world of 
 grace. And then the vital air breathes upon him, healing and 
 restorative powers are around him, the life that is within him 
 is fed and cherished, and grows beneath the influences that 
 come on him from without. There is, to those within the 
 Church of God, a growth in grace, a ripening and maturation 
 for heaven, — a long year, a spring, a summer, and a harvest 
 season, for the plant of God's planting in His garden here on 
 earth. Is it not most true that the Church, the outward 
 sphere in which we are placed, has manifold powers and gifts 
 and graces that bear upon and form the regenerate man during 
 his whole course in this world, from his new birth until his 
 death? And all of them tend to heal in him the wounds of 
 sin, to ripen the husbandry of God for the harvest in heaven. 
 
 We have these consequences laid out, in number and order, 
 above. We shall look, therefore, in the same order, at the 
 means that are within the Church of God for remedying and 
 healing these wounds. 
 
 And, first, we shall consider the tendency of all her means 
 of grace to illuminate man's spiritual ignorance, and to give him 
 spiritual knowledge. We make no apology for this. We say 
 that the Church is an educational and teaching institute to the 
 regenerate man through his whole course ; that it gives knowl- 
 edge of the most exact and definite kind; that all its means 
 of grace are means of spiritual instruction, intended to remedy 
 the spiritual ignorance under which man is fallen and sunk by 
 
 * " I have often been deceived in times past, and erroneously called 
 animal spirits joy in the Holy Ghost." — "Journal of Henry Martyn," vol. ii. 
 p. 325. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 201 
 
 reason of sin. We say, moreover, that this is so plain a fact 
 that it is only the dulness and inattention of habitual thought- 
 lessness that can hide it from us. It only needs the serious- 
 minded to have it pointed out to them, that they may recognize 
 and realize the immensity of the knowledge that is given in 
 the Church of Christ to the regenerated man, and the urgency 
 and persistency with which it is constantly pressed upon him. 
 Only, let a man think for a moment, and at once he can see 
 that the remedy for man's ignorance is in the Church of Christ 
 upon earth, established by God as a sphere of spiritual 
 teaching. 
 
 We have been so accustomed to Christian knowledge from 
 our childhood, that we hardly think how peculiar a blessing 
 this is of Christianity, as distinguished from all other religions. 
 Now look at this one fact. In none of the pagan religions of 
 Greece and Rome was there any such thing as a creed, a dis- 
 tinct and comprehensive form of doctrine and knowledge to be 
 received in faith. In none of them was there a distinctly 
 sanctioned rule of morals, such as the Ten Commandments in 
 the Christian sense is to us. In none of them was there any 
 book professing itself to be a revelation, and standing in the same 
 relation to man's heart and intellect as the volumes of the Old 
 and the New Testament do to the Christian. And this was to 
 Julian the emperor, the leader of the pagan reaction in the 
 fourth century, the great difficulty ; he could find for his new 
 sesthetic heathenism no Bible, no creed, no royal law. The 
 mythology of Homer, the speculations of Plato, the forms 
 of heathen sacrifice were, at best, but poor substitutes for 
 that definite and manifold instruction and knowledge with 
 which the Christian religion surrounds the Christian from 
 childhood. 
 
 Nay, look away from Greece and Rome to the Eastern 
 nations of the Indo-Gennanic race, kindred in blood and genius 
 to ourselves, and there you will find that facts which are 
 familiar to the Christian child, — as taught by clergy and cate- 
 cliists to all Christians, both children and adults, from the 
 
202 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 beginning, and received and accepted as nndoubtingly as the 
 letters of the alphabet, — M^ere unknown and undreamed of by 
 great poets and sages and men of genius ; the personality 
 and unity of God, the creation of the world, the nature of 
 moral evil, unknown to them ! and in their stead, a mass of 
 vague, indistinct, poetic speculations, but no definite teaching, 
 no clear knowledge, no documents speaking with the same 
 historic and doctrinal autliority to poor and rich, learned and 
 unlearned, as the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, 
 the Creeds, the Decalogue, the Lord's Prayer, the Liturgies, do 
 to all persons that are within the Christian Churcli. 
 
 In fact, the character of the Christian revelation, when 
 compared with all pagan religions is, that it is a teaching and 
 educational institution. It has been such to the w^hole world, 
 such it is to this day to the man who, with honest faith, pro- 
 fesses Christ's name in holy baptism. " Go ye," says our Lord, 
 "make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : 
 teaching them to keep (in memory and in practice) all things, 
 as many as I have enjoined upon you." * 
 
 And His command has been in process of fulfilment in the 
 Church from the earliest period of Christianity down to the 
 present time. See our great code of instruction, the Holy 
 Scriptures, the Bible, the inspired volume of Holy Writ, con- 
 taining the truest history, the tenderest and the sublimest 
 poetry, legislative enactments of the grandest and most scien- 
 tific kind. All these merits, in the mere point of knowledge, 
 are conceded by all men. And then in reference to man's 
 spiritual state, see what a flood of light it sheds upon those 
 problems of his being which have so tormented the race. 
 Look how it lifts up the curtain from his past history, and by 
 the facts of the fall which it reveals, and of hereditary sin, and 
 then of the incarnation and atonement of Christ our Lord, 
 gives tlie full solution of all the mystery of man's being. 
 
 Again, see the unseen and the future unveiled, the spiritual 
 * St. Matt, xxviii. 19. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 203 
 
 world, the mystery of the existence of God in the Holy Trinity, 
 the Father Uncreate, the Only-begotten Son, the Eternal and 
 Personal Spirit of the Father and the Son, the primal fact 
 of all existence, in express words definitely revealed. The 
 hierarchy of angels shown to us, the temptations of Satan and 
 evil spirits manifested to us, the reign and final victory of the 
 incarnate God, through the whole history of the world, and 
 the perpetual progress of the human race by Him, onward 
 throughout the ages, until Satan is bound, and the world and 
 man reach that state which all hearts upon earth long after, 
 dream of, and think possible. 
 
 Again, see in it the declaration, as a fact, of the future 
 judgment, that ultimate and final solution of all the enigmas 
 of life, in which the freedom of man, the power of God's 
 benevolence, and His justice, — all things in the course of this 
 world and in the secret thoughts of man's heart that seem to 
 be at variance, come together and are reconciled. Let us look 
 at the Holy Scriptures merely in the light of the knowledge 
 they convey to all men, of all climates, all races, all ages, — and 
 comparing them with the loftiest products of the pagan intel- 
 lect, when completely isolated and apart from Christianity and 
 its influences and traditions, and it would seem, in the one case, 
 as if we were standing in the darkest morning gloom before 
 the break of day, and in the other, as if in the new-born world 
 of Paradise we were looking over an unfallen earth and sea, 
 toward the midday splendors of a cloudless sun. Such an 
 overflowing fountain of definite and exact knowledge of all 
 kinds have we within the Church for man, in the Scriptures 
 of the Old and the New Testament, the common inheritance of 
 all Christians, young and old, priests and people. 
 
 And, then, in the Creeds of the Church, her Services, her 
 Catechism, her Articles, we see the system by wliich this 
 knowledge is methodised, is arranged, is taught. Look at the 
 catechising of the young by parents and teachers and clergy. 
 See the preaching of the clergy in the Church, and their 
 pastoral instructions from house to house ; hear the con versa- 
 
204 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 ti on of pious friends and relatives. What is all this bnt the 
 grand educational system of Cliristianity, year by year, 
 Sunday by Sunday, week-day by week-day, almost hour by 
 hour, going on within the sphere of the Church, as a remedy 
 for the tendency of man to sink into God-forgetting ignorance, 
 mental and spiritual. 
 
 But, when w^e come to consider the influence and the 
 operation of the litui'gy, then especially it is that we see the 
 workings of the Church as an educational institute. Examine 
 first the matter of it. See what a multitude of propositions 
 there are in it concerning God and man and the world of sense, 
 in their being and various relations, all laid down definitely 
 and distinctly, varying not in word or letter from year to year. 
 Look at these reverently confessed in the Church, as in the 
 presence of God, by the priest and the people, upon no other 
 ground than that of divine authority. And this going on 
 through the whole Church-year, — the same material of faith and 
 doctrine, in manifold forms, repeated over again by the same 
 people and the same priest, in the same house, at least one 
 hundred and four times every year. What is this but a sys- 
 tematic teaching of the most distinct, copious, and impressive 
 kind ? 
 
 And, when to this is added the liturgic variety of Fast and 
 Festival, of Baptism and Burial, of Confirmation and the 
 Holy Eucharist, all liturgic, all in the vernacular language, its 
 educational weight and efficiency is still more distinctly felt. 
 The lessons in the Service from the Old and the New Testa- 
 ment, the Gospels and Epistles read in the ears of the people 
 assembled there in the Church to hear them, the responsive use 
 of the Psalms, — all these are parts of the one great educational 
 system by which the Church counteracts man's tendency to 
 sink into ignorance, — by which she pours perpetual light upon 
 his darkness. 
 
 But all these influences which are manifested in the sphere 
 of man's spiritual life, the Church, and in its working, so fully 
 and evidently, if men would merely open their eyes to see and 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 205 
 
 consider their effects and powers, — these are rather results 
 of the action of two powers (the one outside the man, the 
 other within him) by which, as the active cause and as the 
 recipient means, man is new born by the Holy Spirit of God, 
 and the living faith of the man. 
 
 He that shall look to our Saviour's own words will find 
 that the Spirit is described by Him as a personal being, as 
 God, as the organizing and vitalizing power of the Church, 
 which maintains its continuous existence in this world by per- 
 petually adding to its body the sons of men by spiritual re- 
 generation. And, again. He is constantly described as the 
 teacher and the instructor of the people of God, — " He shall 
 teach you all things, and recall to your mind all things ; as 
 many as you have heard of me."* The Holy Scriptures are 
 inspired by Him. He speaks to us as to the children of God. 
 To the soul of the Christian He is a prophetic instructor and 
 guide, leading him onward in the darkness of this world. All 
 these educational influences of which we have spoken before as 
 operating in the Church, all these are but the varied means by 
 which, in the Church, the Spirit instructs and guides those who, 
 by His action, have been made members of Christ and children 
 of God. 
 
 We have left now but a small space to speak of a great 
 theme, — the power of a living personal faith in receiving and 
 learning the lessons of the Spirit within the Church. We 
 have said that the heathen religions had no creed. ISTor had 
 they any knowledge concerning the power of a personal faith.f 
 
 * John, xiv. 26. 
 
 f We find that this doctrine of faith was to the heathen one of the most 
 incomprehensible and the most misunderstood of all the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, and, therefore, the most ridiculed by them. No wonder, standing 
 as it does, on the part of the Christian personally, between this present life 
 and the world unseen, as the sense that understands and explains them 
 both, that it should be thought a vague fancy by the heathen philosophers. 
 " Our doctrine of faitli," says Clement of Alexandria (about a.d. 220), " the 
 Greeks perpetually jeer at and slander as a frivolous and barbarian doctrine." 
 " The pagans," says Rufinus, in the fourth century, " usually object that our re- 
 ligion rests solely upon faith, as if it were deficient in reason and argument." 
 
206 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Yet look at the Scriptures upon the matter of faith. It is, in 
 the Tnan, the sole means by which, in the state of nature, he 
 can receive spiritual regeneration and enter within the king- 
 dom of heaven. And, again, when he has become a son of 
 God, it is the only hand by which he can grasp the gifts given 
 him in the Church ; the only eye by which he can behold 
 them. Indeed, is not faith, in ordinary life, the basis of all 
 knowledge, all aiFection, all commerce, all intercourse of man 
 with man, all society ? See, then, in the Church of Christ, the 
 man illumined, taught, instructed, day by day. It is by the Holy 
 Spirit that all this is done, the Spirit employing and direct- 
 ing all the means for this purpose. And, again, it is the living 
 personal faith in the man that learns and apprehends making 
 use of all these means, and between them full knowledge 
 grows and increases from day to day. 
 
 Of course this is but one point of view in which the Church 
 of God upon earth may be viewed. It has many other aspects, 
 as, for instance, the family of God upon earth through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, the kingdom of God through Him who is our 
 King, the worshipping community of the Saints upon earth, the 
 election and the chosen people to do God's will and to receive 
 the benefits He has ordained for them. All these are aspects of 
 the Church of God from many points of view, of God's gracious 
 goodness and of man's necessities. Still, none of these make 
 void the aspect of the Church as a teaching institution, where- 
 in, through a manifold system of means employed by the Holy 
 Spirit and received by the living faith of the sincere Christian, 
 knowledge is increased and applied and accumulated to the 
 salvation of souls and the spreading of the heavenly light amid 
 the darkness of this world. 
 
 And freed as we are in this land from the burden of the 
 State yoke upon the neck of the Church, there is no pleasure 
 greater for the thoughtful Churchman than to behold her light 
 increasing day by day, to see the bitter hereditary prejudices 
 against the Church being scattered, and men confessing that 
 they and their fathers had been mistaken, and the prophecy in 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 207 
 
 reference to the Church being fulfilled more and more, "All 
 they that despised Thee shall come and bow themselves down 
 to the soles of Thy feet." * 
 
 But more beautiful still is it to see in the members of the 
 Church the increase of knowledge, how the doctrines of the 
 Scripture are taken honestly and plainly and practically by 
 thousands, of young and old, men and women, and accepted 
 and lived by, in a way and in a temper that certainly has not 
 been that of Europe for many centuries. And then to see in 
 consequence of this how faith is growing— simple-minded, sincere 
 faith — and Christian earnestness and Christian works. All this 
 seems to say to the Church, " Arise, shine ; for thy light is 
 come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." f For 
 with the Church here in this land it shall be as it was with the 
 Church in prunitive days. She bore the taunts of dilettante 
 philosophers and unearnest poets, pagan literati, who more and 
 more cultivated verbal polish, and the tinklings and glitterings 
 of an over-wrought rhetorical style. Celsus and Lucian and 
 Porphyry and Libanius the Sophist and the pagan apostate 
 Julian, scorned and spurned the " stupid wretches," the " skulk- 
 ing generation." X And then, by and by, it was found out, 
 as it will yet be found out here, that all knowledge whatsoever 
 begins with faith ; all ignorance, mental and moral and spiritual, 
 with doubt and unbelief. 
 
 And, finally, in the fourth century, Augustine in the 
 West, and Athanasius and Chrysostom in the East arose, and 
 gave to the world, upon Christian grounds, the whole basis of 
 European and Eastern opinion ; so that henceforth, whatever 
 their errors and deficiencies may have been, they have reigned 
 in Europe and the East as crowned kings, over all generations, 
 in the power of a public sentiment, derived through these 
 three men of great genius, essentially from the teachings of the 
 
 * Isaiah, Ix. 14. f Isaiah, Ix. 1. 
 
 X The enumeration of the abusive names given by the heathen to the 
 early Christians then, that is, of the first four centuries, with the explana- 
 tion of them, occupies fifteen octavo pages in Bingham ! 
 
208 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Cliristian faith. For there is no opinion in Europe at this 
 day upon metaphysics, history, pohty, morals, or religion, held 
 and taught by any body of people whatsoever, that is not to 
 be found in the works of these great leaders of the world's 
 thought. 
 
 And so shall it be here, in this new world, sooner or later. 
 The masses will one day find out that they have to make their 
 choice between a lawless, fraudulent, filthy, immoral unbelief, 
 and the Christian faith in the Christian Church, witnessed nnto 
 by its teachings upon life, theoretic and practical. And the same 
 result shall take place among us as did in Europe, except that 
 our Angustines and Chrysostoms shall not be shackled and 
 impeded by a Constantine or an Arcadius. 
 
 We go on in the next chapter to consider the remedies 
 which, in the Christian Church, are conferred upon the Chris- 
 tian man to heal the second wound of original sin, — the ten- 
 dency, that is, that exists in man toward rebellion against the 
 law of God and the harmony of his own nature. 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 The Greek philosophy, keen as it was, failed in its ultimate 
 analysis of man, because it took for granted that it was exam- 
 ining a perfect nature instead of one morbid and diseased. 
 There was in it, accordingly, no knowledge and no doctrine of 
 the infection of nature, and therefore no remedy for the disease. 
 Naught in its sages but their dumb sense of weariness and 
 restlessness, their feeling of sorrow for man, or of contempt, 
 or of scornful disgust, testifies to the fact that the disease 
 existed in themselves, and they knew it not. The doctrine 
 and the fact of sin, so familiar as it is to our thoughts, was a 
 conception of which the Greek sages had no distinct and 
 scientific knowledge. In fact, the words by which the Chris- 
 tianized Greeks and Romans expressed what the Hebrew race 
 understood by the word "sin,"* in the language of their 
 classic ancestors had no such meaning. Whether the Greek 
 word meant any more than mere intellectual error, or the Latin 
 more than a mistake in the practical work of the world's busi- 
 ness, may very fairly be doubted. Certainly, the classic 
 words had by no means that awful sense of personal guilt and 
 of responsibility which attaches itself to the Christian idea of 
 sin. The " peccatum " of Cicero, and the " hamartema " of the 
 Attic Greek writers, have a sense quite difi'erent from the idea 
 attached to the same word in the Epistles of St. Paul or the 
 theology of St. Augustine. In fact, we believe that the Christian 
 idea of tlie word " sin " is our inheritance from the Old Testa- 
 ment, which required constant and manifold indoctrination even 
 to render the sense not strange to a Greek or Roman. 
 
 * " Chatah," in Hebrew. 
 
 14 
 
210 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 We have in the last chapter discussed the matter of original 
 sin in general, and shown its relation to our doctrine of regen- 
 eration. It remains now to consider it particularly in regard 
 to the insubordination of man's nature, and the question of 
 the Law ; for the definition of sin given in the New Testa- 
 ment, strictly considered, brings in this idea of Law, " Sin 
 is the transgression of the Law." * Fully, therefore, to under- 
 stand the nature of sin, we must understand the nature of 
 the Law. 
 
 For, admit that man may have this great flaw in his nature 
 and being, so that he may have a tendency toward that which 
 is evil, still it is possible it might have existed in him uncon- 
 sciously, as unquestionably the elements of the same depra- 
 vation are spread over the brute creation. For the tiger and 
 all animals of the cat kind are cruel, the wolf is ferocious, other 
 animals are full of malice, of greediness, of lust, of mockery, of 
 quarrelsomeness. Nay, the roots of pride and ambition, of 
 jealousy and vanity, and even of avarice, are to be seen in 
 various animals. And these defects, while they injure the 
 nature and the individual, are yet wholly without conscious- 
 ness, without the sense of good or evil. Of course this injury 
 in them is that of a mortal nature, not of an immortal being, — 
 it is that of an animal nature, not of one moral and spiritual ; 
 but the great practical difierence is that to them there is no 
 moral law. Man, a spiritual and moral and immortal being, 
 has, outside his nature, and within it, a rule, a measure, to which 
 he is to conform his action. In man's nature within is the in- 
 fection, the hereditary flaw whence arises his ignorance of God, 
 his impurity, his disorder, his guilt, — all the elements of fear 
 and shame and wretchedness. Outside of man, therefore, exter- 
 nal to his being, and also within it, written upon his heart, God 
 has placed the measure of good and evil, a universal rule known 
 to all human beings, which to them all shall be the standard of 
 holiness, of purity, of justice, and of truth. This is the Law. 
 Thereby applying this ever-present, all-embracing rule to them- 
 * I. John, iii. 4. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 21 i 
 
 selves, all men know what they are. They know also what 
 course of action, upon their part, God requires. 
 
 Now let the New Testament be opened, and it will be at 
 once seen how frequently and how earnestly this subject of the 
 Law is discussed in it. In fact, the writings of St. Paul seem 
 almost entirely to be a set treatise upon this idea and fact of 
 the Law and its relation to grace. The word ^' law " occurs one 
 hundred and ninety-two times in the New Testament, the word 
 " sin " one hundred and eighty-two times, very naturally from 
 the relation which the one tact, being objective, bears to the 
 other fact of man's inward nature and his actions. Were there 
 no law, man would follow his own corrupt nature, without any 
 knowledge or conviction of sin ; nay, without any feeling or 
 sense. Were there no internal deficiency, there would be no 
 difficulty in doing according to the Law ; in fact, hardly any sense 
 of its existence. But the Law manifests to us our sin ; and sin, 
 again, makes us feel the existence and the burden of the Law. 
 
 We are not ignorant that many divines of high standing 
 suppose that in these cases, wherein St. Paul speaks of the Law, 
 he means, with but few exceptions, the Mosaic law, the Jewish 
 polity which was to be abrogated by the Gospel, But he who 
 shall take all these places of Scripture wherein the word law 
 occurs, one by one, and, according to the logical rule, substi- 
 tute in each the supposed definition for the word, will, by this 
 means, find out that it by no means answers, that this is not the 
 universal and exclusive meaning. 
 
 He shall find out also, in this idea of the Law, a more grand 
 idea, a deeper philosophy than heathen philosophers, Greek or 
 German, French or Enghsh, have ever dreamed of. What is 
 this idea, then ? It is this, that in the " Law " an authoritative 
 rule of life has been revealed to every one of the human race, 
 more or less perfectly ; that no man is left alone to his own 
 individual, unaided, reason or conscience to decide upon what is 
 right or wrong, but that external to him, coming to him from 
 without, there is, in the Law a manifestation to him, a declaration 
 from the throne of God, of that which is holy, is just, is pure, 
 
212 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 is true, is righteous. It is a standard and a rule by which his 
 reason at all times examines itself and measures its own con- 
 clusions, — an authority which reason takes as its final court of 
 appeal. 
 
 As in the material world the man and his senses do not 
 exist alone, but are ensphered in an external world of material 
 things corresponding to those senses, so it is in the moral world. 
 The eye in man is the power of sight: it supposes the light, and 
 responds to it in organization and use. These two, the eye 
 and the light, mutually require, nay, infer and even demonstrate, 
 the existence and reality the one of the other ; so it is in the 
 spiritual and moral, nay, even in the intellectual world of man. 
 The internal fact in man's being always implies and asserts 
 another great fact external to it and related to it. 
 
 Here, then, we have two facts. The first is that which all 
 philosophers have recognized, — that man has in himself, as a 
 distinct being, a constitution composed of body, soul, and spirit, 
 and of the several powers and faculties and qualities that belong 
 to each, bound up and united in one person. All moral phi- 
 losophy has recognized that by means of these, his powers, man 
 has the ideas of truth and beauty, justice, holiness, and goodness. 
 Few have thought that to the internal sense an external fact and 
 influence is necessary. They have searched for the source and 
 origin of these ideas in man's own nature and its consciousness. 
 They have forgotten or despised the fact that every man is born 
 into society, and that society in its three forms — the family, the 
 nation, the Church— is not a mere chance aggregation of persons, 
 but exists organically and indefectibly. No man has originated 
 from the unaided labor of his own mental powers any one of 
 these transcendent spiritual ideas. Society brings the knowl- 
 edge of these, each and all, to each individual man as a matter 
 of fact, and language is the channel by which that knowledge 
 comes. All that reason does is to receive, to examine, to dis- 
 cuss, to balance, to illustrate, to apply the ideas it has received 
 more or less perfectly. Whence have I, or any other man, 
 received the ideas of God, of freedom, of immortality ? Clear- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 213 
 
 ly from this source and by this channel, and from no other. 
 And then in me the corresponding emotions and principles 
 awake, and the full idea and conception is formed by the action 
 of my reason. And all these grand moral ideas, presented ex- 
 ternally to man, together with this other truth, that they are 
 obligatory upon his action, make up the idea of moral law. 
 
 Modern philosophers ignore the objective and the external. 
 The Law with them is nothing, language nothing, tradition 
 nothing, — society, and all its institutions and influences, go 
 for nothing. The sole source of all their knowledge is the 
 internal being of man, " an analysis of the contents of his con- 
 sciousness." And yet all these, which they so despise, are just 
 as much facts as the faculties of the man are, just as much re- 
 lated to those faculties as light is to the eye, food to the appetite, 
 sounds to the ear, odors to the sense of smell. If a natural 
 philosopher, discussing man's physical being, were to begin by 
 supposing the external world to be non-existent, and proceed 
 to construct a system upon such a principle, making difficulties 
 for himself, and then solving them scientifically as well as he 
 could, under such a strange self-imposed condition, he would be 
 thought worthy of a lunatic asylum. What else does the moral 
 and mental philosophy of our day do than this ? What else is 
 the procedure of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Cousin ? 
 They take the individual man, and their own analysis of his 
 faculties, to be everj^thing. This is the exclusive source of their 
 philosophy. No wonder that it ends in denying the existence 
 of all things objective, since it began in taking for granted 
 their non-existence, by shutting them out from all philosophic 
 consideration. No wonder that this process ends in atheism, 
 in radicalism, and in immorality, when their philosophy is wholly 
 based upon the individual, and naught else is considered to exist 
 in the world, neither God, nor government, nor moral law. In 
 fact, as a logical consequence of this philosophy, the idea of 
 law is altogether forgotten. The only thing that saves any 
 disciple of it is, that although they can, in their science, ignore, 
 they cannot, in fact, annihilate the outward and objective world. 
 
214 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 But to return. We deny not the powers and tlie rights of 
 the human reason. It deals with all these grand and high ideas. 
 That we admit. But not alone; not without a rule and a 
 standard. That standard is the Law. Society exists external 
 to the man. Language is, in society, a channel through which 
 all these ideas reach and enter man's knowledge. Also, with 
 authority, society presses and enforces these ideas upon the 
 man as duties and obligations. It says, " Thou shalt," or " Thou 
 shalt not;" it enforces them by sanctions, and enacts and 
 inflicts penalties ; and the man accepts this legislation as a rule 
 of his action. Reason recognizes authority as a coordinate 
 power with itself. Reason is not, as European despots have 
 thought, an enemy to authority ; nor is authority, as European 
 radicals have imagined, a foe to reason ; for law is the perfection 
 of reason on the one hand, and, on the other, the most perma- 
 nent and successful authority is that which understandingly 
 rules and guides itself by the widest and the loftiest reason. 
 
 Here, then, is the Law, — an external and real fact of society 
 to every man in every place and condition ; for man is every- 
 where in society. Its rules are the same over the whole world ; 
 for it is the law of morality, a revelation given to us of the 
 nature of God, who is one and unchangeable. The nature of 
 man, also, is everywhere the same. The Law, therefore, is 
 immutable. " Thou shalt not steal," " Thou shalt do no 
 murder," " Thou shalt not commit adultery," are principles 
 recognized everywhere, in all ages, and in all climates, — prin- 
 ciples of the one great universal Law. 
 
 In truth, this law is neither more nor less than the moral 
 law, — the law of the Ten Commandments. Existing inerad- 
 icably in society and in the nature of man, it is for each man 
 the one great fact. It declares and proves to man the being of 
 God, the future judgment, his own responsibility. It reaches 
 to the inmost parts of the heart of man. His thoughts, his 
 words, his outward acts, alike belong to its dominion, are to 
 be brought beneath its rule. It is to man the standard of all 
 his actions, the absolute measure of good and evil ; only by it 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 215 
 
 can he ascertain tliat which is right or wrong. What shall I 
 do? The one sufficient answer is, "That which is right," 
 — i^ectum; "that which \.% ruled by the Law of God." Mj 
 reason, my affections, my conscience itself, may be guides to 
 lead me onward on the way toward this result ; but great as 
 they are of themselves, and in their products, they are no 
 ultimate, absolute rule. And they themselves must be ruled ; 
 they must have a standard and a measure to which they are to 
 conform. It may be difficult to ascertain what is " right," for 
 uncertainty seems naturally to cling to man ; but when that 
 which is " right " is found, it is the ultimate fact, that upon 
 which man is bound to act. 
 
 Here, then, is the grand source of all morality, of all 
 progress, for the individual and the race, in this great fact of 
 Law, this grand idea of duty and of right. They do not come 
 from philosophic speculation or analysis, nor from literature, 
 still less from sentiment, but from this : that whensoever the 
 objective Law of God, wherever I find it, and the law written 
 in my heart, unite in telling me that there is a duty for me to 
 do, then let me do it firmly, constantly, and habitually. This 
 was known of old, even by the heathen. " I must declare," 
 says Cicero, " that I have learned more from the Law of the 
 Twelve Tables than from all the writings of philosophers." 
 
 And, for myself, I candidly confess that, much as I admire 
 our liturgy in other things, I think it the grandest privilege of 
 the minister of the Church, and his most efficient work for 
 God, that he stands every Lord's Day by the altar, and pro- 
 claims to the people, with authority, one by one, the Ten 
 Commandments, and they, upon their bended knees, respond, 
 " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep 
 this Law." This done, every year, week by week, through the 
 whole range of ministerial life, is a true and permanent work 
 of moral teaching to the whole community, the value of which 
 God only can estimate. For the most efficient and telling act 
 of morality on the part of man is to seek after and to apply to 
 himself the Law of God as a rule and measure of action. And 
 
216 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the loftiest position that the Church can take in anj land, is to 
 see itself as the kingdom of God upon earth, and to proclaim 
 His Law from her altars to rich and poor, "old men and 
 maidens, young men and children, one with another," 
 
 And that this should be done as unto the sons of God, in 
 connection with the Lordship of Christ, the mercy of God, 
 and the grace of the Spirit that inclines our hearts, is a great 
 and glorious work, — the fulfilling of the Law by Christ. For 
 the Law of God in the kingdom of God is the great source 
 and origin to man of all moral advance, all civilization that is 
 real and permanent. We conclude this paragrapli with the 
 last period from the famous first book of Richard Hooker : 
 " Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her 
 seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the 
 world : all things in heaven and earth do her homage, — the 
 very least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempted 
 from her power ; both angels and men and creatures, of what 
 condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet 
 all with uniform consent, admire her as the mother of their 
 peace and joy." * 
 
 The Law, then, in the Christian sense, is an ultimate and 
 universal rule for the acts of man. In what forms has it ex- 
 isted, or does it exist ? 
 
 First, to the heathen, who have had no revelation vouch- 
 safed to them, both before and since the coming of our Lord, it 
 exists in the form of a tradition of society. The usages of the 
 nation, the influences of religious worship and doctrine, the 
 laws of the State, in all heathen nations, manifest and declare 
 the Law to men. Its faults in this form are the faults of all 
 knowledge that is conveyed by oral tradition merely, — vague- 
 ness and uncertainty, and the liability to yield to the heat of 
 passion or the temptations of interest. Therefore, the longer 
 it exists in such a state, the more corrupt it becomes ; although, 
 even in its worst state, it ceases not to be of use and to show 
 indications of its origin. 
 
 * Hooker, vol. i. p. 285. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 217 
 
 Secondly, when all nations had corrupted themselves upon 
 the earth, the Almighty was pleased to organize a people for 
 the very purpose of showing forth His Law. He revealed it 
 upon Mount Sinai. He gave it to them in a definite form, in 
 distinct words, as a written Law. He promulgated it with 
 penalties and sanctions, as Himself condescending to become 
 their Lawgiver. It became the Law of the Ten Command- 
 
 • ments, and of all the grand morality which so richly shoots 
 forth through the Pentateuch, as distinguished from merely 
 national and ceremonial polity. 
 
 Thirdly, we see the Law as part of the religion of our 
 Blessed Lord Jesus Christ. It is as clear in its requirements, 
 as definite and precise in its injunctions, as under the Mosaic 
 dispensation: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the com- 
 mandments ; " * " If ye love Me, keep my commandments ; " f 
 and " This is love, that we walk after His commandments." X 
 " Little children, let no man deceive you : he that doeth 
 righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." § 
 
 The Law, under Christ, is as clear, as exacting in its de- 
 mands, as under the Old Covenant. We are under it, how- 
 ever, as a rule of life, not as a covenant of salvation. For the 
 Lord has taken the Law from its former ground of condemna- 
 tory and unyielding harshness. He has given it His own 
 interpretation. He has satisfied it by His perfect obedience, 
 and the sacrifice of His death. He gives to us also the grace 
 of regeneration, whereby we are no longer bondsmen, but sons ; 
 no longer in a state of mere nature under the Law, but within 
 His kingdom upon earth. And lastly, according to the good 
 pleasure of His will and His knowledge of our needs, He gives 
 us, who are within His Church, the Holy Spirit to aid and 
 assist us in our obedience. These, manifestly, are great changes 
 in us andybr iis., although the Law itself is not changed as the 
 standard of morality, the measure to us of right and wrong, of 
 good and evil. 
 
 Whosoever shall look at these three last paragraphs will 
 
 * St. Matthew, xix. 17. f St. John, xiv. 15. % II. John, 6. § I. John, iii. 7. 
 
218 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 see that they specify three conditions or states of the Law of 
 God, which are to man external, — objective, as it is called. 
 But there is another state of the Law, and one just as im- 
 portant, which is subjective, — internal, — in the nature of man at 
 all times. The Law is written u])on man's heart, inscribed, as 
 it were, upon his whole being. His nature is, as it were, by its 
 original formation, cast in the mould of the Law. " When the 
 heathen, which have not the Law, do by nature the things 
 contained in the Law, these, having not the Law, are a law 
 unto themselves : which show the work of the Law written in 
 their hearts." * The writing may be broken and fragmentary, 
 the image more or less flawed and shattered, yet internally, on 
 the being and in the heart of every man upon earth, the Law of 
 God is written. 
 
 Here, then, we see the cleft that goes to the very centre of 
 man's being. The Law is written on his heart by nature ; yet 
 still in his heart there is disobedience against the Law. There 
 exists in his inmost being the conviction that he ought to obey, 
 and the wish to obey the Law, and, at the same time, the 
 tendency and the inclination to rebel. 
 
 And then, externally, the Law meets the man. It surrounds 
 him everywhere; it demands of him obedience ; it threatens 
 him. Hence, man's great misery ; hence, his great agony ; 
 hence, his inconsistency in all the relations of his being. Well 
 might the high intellect of Pascal express the result of these 
 two facts in these words, — " What a chimera is man ! what a 
 monster ! what a chaos ! what a contradiction ! what a prodigy ! 
 Judge of all things, yet a helpless worm of the earth ; endowed 
 with all truth, yet the very sink of uncertainty and error, — the 
 pride and the refuse of the universe." f 
 
 And what is the result of this present state of man, of the 
 concurrence in him of these two facts, — the demands of the Law, 
 and the effects of his own original sin ? It is this, that man, 
 in the state of nature, is guilty before God ; that he is con- 
 demned even by the verdict of his own reason and conscience. 
 * Rom. ii. 14, 15. f Pascal's " Thoughts." 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 219 
 
 And this state begins with the very beginning of his being, 
 commences with his existence. "What, then, shall we say as to 
 the position of man as being under the law of God — acknowl- 
 edging its obligation upon him, and the justice of its demands 
 upon his obedience — and yet unable of himself or of his own 
 nature to obey it ? 
 
 Taking the matter merely as it stands, there is no doubt 
 that the problem, even to the Christian, is one of great diffi- 
 culty. We shall merely indicate the elements of its solution. 
 All mankind are under the sense of sin, the condemnation of 
 the Law before God. No man can help himself. No man can 
 of himself do aught that is good. See you not that all this 
 is true ? The Scriptures assert it ; the wdiole experience of 
 man declares it ; our inward heart accedes to its truth and con- 
 fesses it. 
 
 What, then, with these facts and truths full in our mind, 
 shall be our philosophy of man and his state in this world ? 
 Listen to the great Augustine bringing back into Christianity 
 the philosophy of heathenism, — the stoic doctrine of predestin- 
 ation, necessity, fate or doom. Since, by the Law, he says, all 
 men are condemned, all are justly condemned, inasmuch as the 
 Law comes from God and is the expression of His will. Since 
 that condemnation is universal and excepts none whatsoever of 
 any age or climate, there is but one thing can be said of our 
 whole race. The whole race is " massa perditionis" (one mass 
 of perdition), " conspersio damnata " (a condemned batch). 
 These are the views of St. Augustine, followed by Calvin.* 
 
 How, then, on this theory, is any man saved ? In this way : 
 over this mass, there passes a twofold decree, — the one, for the 
 few, a decree of salvation unmerited entirely ; the other, for 
 the remainder, of I'eprobation, which, by the state in which man 
 is, is completely deserved. This is the doctrine of Augustine,t 
 and, after him, of Calvin. Is it true ? 
 
 We answer in this way : If there be nothing in existence 
 
 * Wiggers's "Augustinism and Pelagianism," p. 99, American edition. 
 \ Hagenbacli's " History of Doctrines," vol. i. p 327. 
 
220 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 save God the uncreated, who is most holy, and created man 
 who is fallen, then all this must be true. But since there is a 
 world of God's making, a system of nature material and social, 
 external to man ; and since man, after the fall, was left by God 
 to abide in that system for a time, as it were given a reprieve 
 from the execution of the sentence he had incurred ; and since 
 to him it is a school and state of probation ; since, also, in his 
 being were left the remains of the original nature, a reason that 
 dimly discerns the truth, a free-will which, liowever feebly and 
 faintly, struggles toward it, — that dogma cannot be true. For, 
 that this world is a school of probation even to fallen man^ 
 and ever has been, implies that man is not totally depraved. 
 It implies that even to the heathen, even to the unregenerated, 
 prevenient grace is sent to call man toward God. " The Light 
 lighteneth every man that cometh into the world." "The 
 Spirit striveth with all men." And, so far from being author- 
 ized to cast out of consideration, as these great men do, the 
 moral system of the world in which man is placed, and to 
 ignore its existence, we are bound to take it into the fullest 
 account. For it is only by ignoring the moral meaning and the 
 influence of the outer world of nature and of God's providence 
 upon man, and by casting it entirely out of consideration, that 
 St. Augustine and Calvin could have arrived at their predes- 
 tination and reprobation theories, even for the heathen world 
 before Christ. And, as for such a dogma being, since our Lord 
 was incarnate and made man, the basis of the Gospel system, 
 it is hateful and unchristian and heathenish.* 
 
 Since, then, we have cast aside the system of absolute pre- 
 destination, what shall we say is the effect in this world of the 
 law, and of original sin upon man ? It is this : Their united 
 effect is to convince me, as man, that of myself, my own nature, 
 apart from God, of all my powers of body and soul and spirit, 
 I can do no good, although I feel that my whole being is 
 
 * " In an evil hour did the restless mind of man devise for itself the 
 perilous question of fatalism ; and in a more unhappy one was it intro- 
 duced into Christian theology." — Southey. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 221 
 
 framed for good originally ; that its ends and objects are good ; 
 for in me, that is, in my whole nature, lies that essential flaw 
 of original sin. It is like delirium existing in the brain, along 
 with thought, and impeding it ; like palsy dwelling in the nerv- 
 ous system and preventing its natural action. I act, and in all 
 my actions comes in the result of this original depravation. The 
 unyielding law measures them all, condemns them all, and thus 
 declares and proves to me that I need forgiveness of sins, that 
 I need salvation, and that by no powers of my own, by nothing 
 that I myself can do, can I be saved. This is their effect to 
 me and to the whole race, — the conclusion forced upon all men, 
 from all experience of their own powers and their own acts, 
 that they cannot save themselves, and that elsewhere than in 
 themselves they must look for a Redeemer. This is the effect 
 of the Law as it acts in this world upon fallen man, — to con- 
 vince me of sin, to turn my thought and will toward Christ ; 
 and then if, my whole life through, I reject and refuse Him, 
 to condemn me finally and justly and deservedly. 
 
 Had St. Augustine, great-hearted saint and man of genius 
 as he was, meditated as thoughtfully upon the moral and 
 spiritual import and significance of the external world, of 
 nature, and of society, as he did upon man's inward nature, 
 he never would have made the mistake he did. For it is only 
 by ignoring its existence in relation to man that such a system 
 as his could be imagined or maintained. Or, in fact, had he 
 read the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament in the 
 original, he would have made no such blunder. It is only by 
 means of translations, Latin, or French, or English, that any 
 man can maintain that a system of fate is the system of the 
 Gospel. No such theory is possible to one who reads in the 
 original, as a native ; or, if he be a foreigner, who reads with 
 critical understanding, — not as a schoolboy, but as a man.* 
 
 Here, then, is the state of all men in the world. They 
 are fallen ; they need to be lifted up. They are dead 
 
 * Augustine had no knowledge whatsoever of Hebrew, and but little of 
 Greek. " Thy servant," he says, " knows no Hebrew, and very little Greek." 
 
222 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 in sin ; they need to be made alive. They are pol- 
 luted ; they need to be purified. They are sold under sin 
 and condemned ; they need to be redeemed and justified. 
 This is the fact as to all men by nature. And because of the 
 Law, this is the knowledge, the conviction, the conclusion and 
 ultimate thought of all men. What, then, do they require ? 
 They are in one • condition and state. They need to be 
 brought into another. Hence regeneration, received by faith, 
 must be a complete remission of all sins. Hence it must be 
 the beginning of a new life, and entrance into the sphere of 
 that life. Hence, along with it must go, as a gift, the sancti- 
 fying and purifying influence of the Holy Spirit. And, there- 
 fore, to the baptized Christian, the Law ceases not to exist, but 
 comes to be and remains the Law of Christ. Condemned for- 
 merly by the Law, he is now justified by grace. 
 
 We see, then, the idea of regeneration completed in this 
 idea of the Law. Baptism is the entrance into the Church of 
 Christ. The Church of Christ is the kingdom of God, — the 
 kingdom of heaven actually existing on the earth. By its very 
 nature it is a permanent state, a kingdom. The man is brought 
 within it, from that kingdom wherein he was born, in which 
 sin reigned, Satan reigned, death reigned. We are now within 
 that kingdom actually and really; and the Law which con- 
 demned us formerly, which to us, as outside of Christ, was the 
 Law of death, is become to us a Law of life. " There is there- 
 fore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, 
 if they walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the 
 Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
 from the Law of sin and death." * 
 
 See, therefore, how the Law drives all men to seek a Re- 
 deemer. See how it implies and suggests that there is for us a 
 a permanent state, a kingdom and a king. Does this agree with 
 the idea that sees in the Gospel only the individual man, and 
 his personal, isolated faith ? Or does it not rather agree with 
 that which, asserting faith as fully, asserts for it no power save 
 * Romans, viii. 1, 2. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 223 
 
 as a hand that receives the gifts that are extended to us 
 by God's free grace, and then says that these gifts are remission 
 of sins, a real hfe of Christ implanted in us, and a real 
 entrance into the Church of God, which is the kingdom of 
 heaven, the heavenly state full of all spiritual blessings in 
 Christ,* a visible kingdom upon the earth, against which the 
 gates of hell cannot prevail ? 
 
 Having, therefore, seen in their mutual relations the Chris- 
 tian doctrines of sin and the Law, — their relation also to man in 
 the state of nature, and to man as regenerated and within the 
 kingdom of God upon earth, — we now can see the remedy for 
 the insubordination of man's nature. As in the Church, and 
 in its agencies, we have seen an actual educational system truly 
 operating upon man, so in the Church, considered as the king- 
 dom of God, do we see the means of subduing man unto the 
 Law of God. 
 
 Considering, as we have done, that the flesh, the lower part 
 of the nature of man, tends perpetually to rise in rebellion 
 against the higher and spiritual portion of his being ; consid- 
 ering, also, tliat every power and faculty of man tends to go 
 astray from the path of right action ; and then looking at the 
 operation upon him of the Law and Grace in regard to this 
 insubordination of his nature, we come to these conclusions : 
 The Law of God is proclaimed to the baptized man, Sunday 
 after Sunday, from the altar, with authority as absolutely in- 
 cumbent and binding upon him. It is taught him also in the 
 Catechism. It is read in his hearing, in the Scriptures of 
 the Old Testament and of the New. There is no Christian 
 man in the Church who can by any means fall into Antino- 
 mian or Solifidian delusions, and deny the obligation of God's 
 Law. The parent and the child, the most advanced in holi- 
 ness and faith, alike with the youngest and the most unripe, 
 confess upon their knees, and acknowledge the binding nature 
 of God's Law. But the Law is proclaimed to us, and acknowl- 
 edged, in the Christian point of view, as interpreted by our 
 * Ephesians, i. 3. 
 
224 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Lord himself, as connected with His atonement and sacrifice, 
 and the grace of His Holy Spirit. And we are in a different 
 position from those outside. We are within the kingdom 
 of Christ on earth. We are no longer servants, but sons, 
 having been redeemed from slavery and become subjects of 
 Christ ou.r king, — citizens of the kingdom of God, — fellow- 
 citizens with the saints, — the holy nation. In ourselves, we 
 have the indwelling life of Christ in our bodies, our souls, and 
 our spirits, to grow in us, to pass throughout our whole being 
 as the sap through the vine, that we may be brought into con- 
 formity with the image of Christ ; and to feed this sacred 
 principle of life, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit of grace 
 perpetually aiding us in our progress, — sent down to us with pro- 
 phetic suggestions, with comforting, illuminating, supporting 
 grace from the throne of Christ our king. Is it not manifest 
 that the member of the kingdom of God upon earth, so far as 
 it concerns the Law itself and his own position under it, is in a 
 new state, a state completely changed from that in which he 
 was before he was baptized ? 
 
 And here we would say that this idea of a kingdom of God 
 upon the earth actually existing, is one of the most prominent 
 and distinct ideas of the New Testament. It meets us every- 
 where in the discourses of our Saviour and in the writings 
 of His apostles. The phrase is not used as a metaphor, only 
 to denote the spiritual subjection of the person to a spiritual 
 law, but it asserts, furthermore, the fact of a real spiritual 
 realm, a kingdom of God, organized and abiding upon earth, 
 which admits by visible and unmistakable solemnities to its 
 citizenship. The Church on earth is the kingdom of Christ, 
 and He is its king. All within it are citizens of the holy 
 nation, and His subjects. All outside its limits are aliens. 
 
 We go on, therefore, to apply the principles we have been 
 bringing forth to the matter in hand, — the means of the Church 
 as the kingdom of God, under His laws, for remedying the in- 
 subordination of man's nature, considered as one of the conse- 
 quences of original sin. And before we enter upon this subject 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 225 
 
 at greater length, we shall make the same proviso that we did 
 when considering the Church as the sphere in which the ig- 
 norance of man is remedied. In that chapter we considered 
 that although the Church is the school of heaven, the sphere 
 of illumination to man, and all its institutions are means of 
 that light, still these are but means, the efficient cause being 
 twofold, — the Spirit of the Father and the Son, which employs 
 these means ; and the faculty that receives them, being in man 
 a living faith. So, it must be said, is the case with the Church 
 considered as the kingdom of Christ. It is the Spirit, in the 
 Church, that employs all her ministries to bring us under obe- 
 dience to the law of God and Christ. And again, in man, 
 within the Church, it is his living faith that avails itself to the 
 full of all these means. But still there actually are in existence 
 outward means instituted to these ends, which the Spirit em- 
 ploys and faith receives and puts to use. As such we discuss 
 them, their action and their influence. 
 
 "We shall take an adult, — one, we will suppose, who has 
 grown up to mature years without regeneration. Professing 
 repentance from past sin, and faith in Christ, he comes forward 
 to the baptism of Christ, and is therein born anew. !Now, do 
 we tell the man that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to 
 him, as the Calvinists say ; or, with the Roman Catholics, that 
 " the whole of that which in him has the nature of sin, is 
 taken away V ^ No ; certainly not. The man is brought into 
 the Church. He has implanted within him the seed of the spirit- 
 ual life. All his past sins are forgiven ; all the means of grace are 
 given him that his needs require. But still his new birth into 
 the kingdom of God in this world is not that consummated and 
 perfected regeneration which it shall be when completed at the 
 Judgment Day. The infection of nature doth yet remain in 
 them that are regenerated, our Article truly tells us. 
 
 * " If any one assert that the whole of that (in man) which hath the 
 nature of sin is not taken away (in baptism), but that it is only erased 
 (scraped over, eradi) or not imputed, let him be accursed." — Council of Trent, 
 Session V., Decree concerning Original Sin. 
 
 15 
 
226 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 What, then, is the state of that man within the Church of 
 Christ according to the doctrine of the Church ? It is a state 
 of conflict between the new implanted life and the old de- 
 pravation. It is, on his part, practically a state of constant 
 struggle against temptation and sin. But, of a struggle with 
 all advantages upon his side, and all hopes ; nay, with the abso- 
 lute certainty of ultimate and complete success, if he only 
 hold fast the assurance of faith firm unto the end. For we are 
 within the kingdom of Christ, sworn soldiers of our King, 
 with His life within us. His almighty power upon our side, 
 controlling all the circumstances that environ us. The whole 
 spiritual world of the host of heaven is for us. Angels and 
 archangels, cherubim and seraphim, — these, if we may trust 
 His word, are ministering spirits unto us. Again, the Holy 
 Spirit is with us, aiding us in our warfare in manifold ways. 
 " The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we know not 
 what we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit itself 
 maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be 
 uttered." * The Spirit helpeth our infirmities. And, as we 
 have seen in this chapter, the Law of God is brought forth to 
 our knowledge in a thousand ways, through all the services of 
 the Church, all the sacraments, all the ministrations of her clergy. 
 And with all these instructions in God's Law — all these demands 
 upon our obedience — constant grace is given us, assisting us 
 to obey. Power to abstain from sin and ability to overcome 
 temptation is, in the Church of God, perpetually held forth 
 and given to the outstretched hand of a living faith. This 
 conflict, therefore, of the regenerate man, this warfare his 
 whole life through with sin, is difierent in everything from 
 the struggle of unregenerate human nature, spoken of in the 
 seventh chapter of the Romans, f — that sad and melancholy 
 and despairing struggle in which all men are entangled, and all 
 men are conquered who do not take refuge in Christ. 
 
 How far Christians, by misusing their Gospel privileges, by 
 sinning against light and against knowledge, may reduce them- 
 * Rom. viii. 26. f Rom. vii. 5-24. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 227 
 
 selves to the state of heathens, and bring despair upon them- 
 selves, we do not know. But it is certain that in all ordinary 
 eases of habitual faith, the Christian is not to be described by 
 the passage we have alluded to, only the despair and agony of 
 the unbelieving and unregenerated man. 
 
 Now let us look at the course of an adult brought by bap- 
 tism within the Church of God upon earth, and we shall find 
 that it is distinctly analogous to the course of an alien who, in 
 full maturity, has become a citizen of another country than that 
 wherein he was born. The man has vowed himself willingly 
 and sincerely unto God through Christ. He professes faith in 
 Christ, and that he will obediently keep God's will and com- 
 mandments all the days of his life. And yet all the habits of his 
 native land wherein he was born, abide with him, — its language, 
 its modes of thought, its ways of action in all the relations of 
 life. For a man who has for years lived in sin, or in mere 
 carelessness, unconverted and unregenerate, the habits, the 
 modes of thinking, nay, the very tone of his past life, is the 
 one great difficulty. He has, with a continued efibrt of his will, 
 oftentimes a very hard and struggling effort to subdue the 
 influences and results of the past upon his present being, to 
 bring his whole nature under the law of the Gospel, the obedi- 
 ence of Christ. " Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving 
 against sin," * says the Apostle, showing how great the agony 
 of the strife against habitual sin in the new-born Christian soul 
 may be ; "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection : 
 lest by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself 
 should become a castaway." f Of himself, the Apostle says 
 this, showing that even in him the lawlessness, the rebellious 
 habits of nature, had with many struggles to be subdued unto 
 Christ. 
 
 Look at the multitude of baptized men and women that you 
 
 see. All these have in themselves that moral peculiai-ity that 
 
 belongs to all human beings, that there being for them these 
 
 three modes of action — deeds, words, and thoughts; the first 
 
 * Heb. xii. 4. f I. Cor. ix. 27. 
 
228 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 two are manifest to men, the last is hidden from their fellows, 
 only known to God and the man's own heart. And yet, in the 
 secret world of man's thought, moral guilt is just as great as in 
 the sphere of speech or action. In it, unquestionably, the mass 
 of sins and temptations originate, from the suggestions of evil 
 spirits, from the man's own corrupt heart, from diseased and 
 depraved imaginations. And with this internal anarchy, this 
 central chaos and tumult of the soul to subdue unto the law 
 of God, the man enters within the Church, truly sorrowing for 
 his past sins, deeply believing, seeking a Saviour to redeem him, 
 not simply from the penalty of sins that are past and gone, but 
 from the power of sin, from this internal rebellious and turbid 
 world, this despotic anarchy of the secret heart. 
 
 And this is actually the fact when men have had a true 
 repentance and a true faith, — when they have sincerely and 
 earnestly made profession of them, and been baptized into Christ. 
 What they need, therefore, and what they desire, is that Christ 
 should come to reign within them ; that, as a real fact of their 
 internal consciousness, the spirit of Christ should bring all the 
 jarring elements within the man under obedience to the law of 
 liberty ; so that, freely, of his own will, and yet by a controlling 
 power not of himself, he may be enabled to rule himself and 
 his inmost thoughts according to the royal law, the law of 
 liberty. This, we say, is the one great necessity of the men 
 and women of this day, especially in view of the manifold 
 popular doctrines which energetically enough, and with real 
 truth, preach the need of repentance and faith, and then, after 
 that, seem to be utterly unconscious of anything else, — seem to 
 ignore any further needs on the part of the regenerate man, and 
 to leave him to scramble on by himself as best he may — without 
 guidance, without governance, without aid — in the strife which 
 all men, even the regenerate and baptized sons of God, must 
 endure in this world. 
 
 Now, we say, are not these, facts of the inner heart — these 
 things that we have alleged ? Are they not true ? Do they not 
 then of themselves require a kingdom of heaven upon earth, 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 229 
 
 an actual and real spiritual kingdom, existing in fact and truth, 
 and no mere metaphor? Do they not demand the presence 
 and the dominion of the Living Christ within that kingdom, — 
 reigning and governing, protecting, punishing, and pardoning, 
 by his infinite powers, his omniscience and omnipresence, — as 
 much king, in things internal and external, to the poorest and 
 weakest and feeblest child of the kingdom as to the most edu- 
 cated and most able ? 
 
 Again, — do they not imply a law of that kingdom, patent 
 and manifest to all His subjects, and within their reach ; and also 
 means of obedience to that law on the part of the subjects of 
 Christ, the citizens of that heavenly kingdom, whereby, after 
 entrance within it, the disordered heart shall be controlled and 
 the inner chaos reduced to order ? Surely they do. It is only 
 by means of blind prejudice and inadequate conceptions that 
 a truth and a fact so grand, so necessary to man, so distinctly 
 asserted over the whole of the New Testament as the kingdom 
 of heaven is, could in any way have been denied, as it is by 
 many Christians at this day. 
 
 The Church upon earth is the kingdom of heaven, the 
 kingdom of God. It was actually founded upon the day of 
 Pentecost. Since that time it has been really and truly in ex- 
 istence upon the earth. Christ our Lord, — the Word incarnate, 
 man made perfect, seated on the right hand of the Majesty on 
 high, clothed with omniscience and omnipotence, — is our King. 
 He is ever present for us in the Church, ever leading us in the 
 great conflict against evil that is going on in the world, never 
 to cease until the consummation of all things. Externally and 
 internally the enemies of that kingdom shall be subdued, or 
 perish, unto Him. The Jewish nation was overthrown, the 
 bitterest foes of Christ. The Homan empire sank in ruins, the 
 sternest enemy of the spiritual kingdom of God upon earth. 
 Every nation and every man that is essentially hostile to this 
 kingdom, its principles and its progress onward, shall be sub- 
 dued, or overthrown, or taken out of its way. 
 
 The power of the God-man, enthroned on high, exerting 
 
230 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 itself through the feebleness, the failures, the weaknesses of the 
 visible Church upon earth, against the thrones, dominions, prin- 
 cipalities, and powers of evil, unseen and seen, in a ceaseless, 
 yet ever-gaining conflict, — this is the Christian principle of 
 history. And the final cause is that in this world, even here 
 upon earth, before the Judgment Day, there shall be a time 
 when Satan and his hosts shall be bound, when man shall be 
 freed from their temptations and suggestions, when over the 
 whole world the kingdom and Church of Christ shall spread, 
 and "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
 the waters cover the sea."* That such an era shall come into 
 being in this world, is the doctrine of the Gospel most plainly 
 asserted. 
 
 And that the kingdom of God is now in actual existence 
 upon the earth, as the Church of Christ, having a King and a 
 law, and everything else that is implied in the idea of a kingdom, 
 is most evident from the New Testament. " Our commonwealth 
 (^oXlTtOfia, a state in which we have the privileges of citizens, 
 not ' conversation,' as the English version has it) is in heaven, 
 from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus 
 Christ." " And ye are," says St. Peter, " the elect race, the 
 royal priesthood, the holy nation, the purchased people ; that ye 
 may show forth the virtues of Him who hath called you out of 
 darkness into His marvellous light."f In fact, so far as the Chris- 
 tian Church is concerned, it has, as the kingdom of Christ, all 
 the blessings and the privileges that the Jewish nation had, re- 
 garded as a polity. It is the election, that is, the chosen peo- 
 ple. It is the kingdom of God upon the earth ; and Christ is 
 its King, reigning and ever present in it. But it is no longer 
 confined to the bounds of a single nation, — it is Catholic, to 
 reign over the whole world finally, and to receive all men 
 within its borders. It is spiritual, no longer concerned with 
 things merely of this world ; it is concerned with the consum- 
 mation of all things — God manifest in the flesh ; man regen- 
 erate and new bom through the second Adam. And the 
 * Isaiah, xi. 9. \\. Pet. ii. 9. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 231 
 
 world itself, and all things in it, are even now, in a certain 
 sense, sanctified through His incarnation, and its consequences 
 to the Church of God on the earth.* 
 
 Under tliat old dispensation, within the temple was the 
 Holy Place; and again, separated from it, was the Holy of 
 Holies, in which God the "Word, the King of Israel, dwelt 
 within the veil, between the cherubim, in the glory (the She- 
 kinah) that ever abode upon the mercy-seat. Now, the whole 
 world has become the Temple of our King. The earth is sanc- 
 tified and become the Holy Place for his Church, — and the 
 highest heaven is for us the Holy of Holies, wherein our King 
 dwells for us, within the veil, ever present, ever ruling, ever 
 reigning among his people, as of old in the tabernacle, among 
 the host of Israel in the desert. And now He is Immanuel, 
 God with us, — that is, God incarnate, God manifest in the flesh, 
 God born of a M^oman ; the Sovereign of the Universe by His 
 eternal generation from the Father — He is King, also, by his 
 incarnation, over His own kingdom, the Church of God upon 
 the earth. 
 
 What, then, is the baptized man, the regenerate son of God, 
 to expect from his being a citizen of the Church, considered as 
 the kingdom of God, and a subject and servant of Christ, as 
 in truth and reality our King ? 
 
 This he is to expect : that, in consequence of the prayers, 
 the good works, the faith, the examples of the justified within 
 the Church of God, the struggle between good and evil in this 
 world, the fight of faith in the world's history, is rapidly con- 
 verging, is coming nearer and nearer to its final victory. On 
 the part of our Lord and His kingdom, the era is approaching 
 when He shall reign and Satan shall be bound. This is the 
 object and the result, for the world, of the faith and the prayers 
 of each baptized and believing Christian in the world. 
 
 Next is he bound to believe that, as Christ our Lord is 
 King, perfect man and perfect God, on the throne of the 
 universe, so for us, who are His brethren in the Church, are the 
 * St. James, i. 18 ; Rom. xi. 16. 
 
232 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 powers of that royalty exerted, — Omnipotence, stooping for us 
 from the throne, — Onmiscience, beholding all that is within our 
 hearts, of frailties and feeblenesses, of wants and necessities, — 
 considering the poorest, the weakest, the feeblest of the 
 children of the kingdom, in all their circumstances, and by 
 almighty power and all-seeing wisdom, — infinite compassion, 
 humanity, and tenderness, made perfect, glorified, and deified, 
 arranging, controlling, and regulating all the events of life 
 around the baptized and believing Christian man, — so that all 
 things shall work together for his good. And all this done, in 
 reference to our peculiar nature and the circumstances that are 
 around us, by Christ our King, for every member of the king- 
 dom. This control and dominion over the circumstances 
 wherein the man is, for his good, by the power of his Almighty 
 King, each Christian, each regenerated person, possesses as a 
 right, by the fact that he is within the kingdom of Christ, on 
 the one condition of a living faith. 
 
 But, more than this, he has a law as subject of a kingdom, 
 a law spiritual and living, proceeding from his King, and 
 received by him with faith, and forming him anew in the 
 image of Christ. Listen to the Apostle St. Paul, contrasting 
 the living law of the kingdom of Heaven with Jewish and 
 Pharisaic legislation, showing how faith, through grace, seizes 
 upon the inner power of the eternal law in the kingdom of 
 Heaven, and makes it the law of life, the law of liberty, the 
 law of the kingdom of Heaven, the royal law : " There is 
 therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, if 
 they walk not * after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the 
 law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
 from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not 
 do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own 
 Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin hath condemned 
 sin in the flesh : that the righteous demands {dcxauofjtd) of the 
 law might be fulfilled by us, if we walk not after the flesh, but 
 
 * This conditional sense does not appear in the Latin or English, but is 
 the real and actual meaning of the Greek original. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 233 
 
 after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh regard the 
 things of the flesh; and they that are after the Spirit, the 
 things of the Spirit." * 
 
 What, then, in reference to the law, is the state of the Chris- 
 tian man considered as a member of the kingdom of Christ his 
 King ? This, that because of the insubordination of nat- 
 ure, as one of the effects of original sin, he requires a spiritual 
 law to control, rule, and govern his whole nature — body, soul, 
 and spirit, — to bring him " from the bondage of corruption into 
 the glorious hberty of the sons of God."f And being within 
 the kingdom, he receives the law from manifold means, and in 
 multiform shapes, by the one faculty and power of a living 
 faith. 
 
 Let us look at Christ, in the aspect of His kingdom, and we 
 shall see in how manifold ways this gift is given to the baptized 
 man. See, as we have said, how every Sunday the law of God 
 is set forth in its most definite and perfect shape, that of the 
 Ten Commandments. See how the Christian is made to apply 
 it to himself, personally to acknowledge its obligation, and yet 
 to unite it in his thoughts with the atonement of Christ and 
 the grace of the Spirit, — to accept it as interpreted by our Lord. 
 
 Again : look at this one fact, — the reading of the New Tes- 
 tament constantly in the audience of the people. We do not 
 underrate this reading as a means of knowledge and spiritual 
 illumination ; still, we cannot but look upon the Old and the 
 New Testament in the aspect of law : the Old Testament con- 
 veying the most perfect revealed law of objective morality that 
 could be given to man ; the New, the same law in effect, but 
 spiritual, in connection with the merits of Christ, the grace 
 of the Spirit, the kingdom of God in the world, and the living 
 faith of the Christian. And when we hear the Gospels, the 
 Epistles, the Revelation, read in the audience of the people of 
 God assembled in the church for that purpose — the minister 
 reading with authority, the people listening with assent and 
 consent — we cannot but think that this is a great work done in 
 * Rom. viii. 1-5. f Rom. viii, 21. 
 
234 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the Church to that very end which we have spoken of. The 
 whole law, of Christ spiritually, being received and applied in 
 the silence of the heart, to the frailness, the sinfulness, the re- 
 belliousness of the inner man, — we cannot but think that the 
 whole New Testament, day by day, month by month, and year 
 by year, thus read through before the people in their own 
 tongue, gives to the hand and the eye of faith, the gift of a 
 knowledge and instruction in the whole law of God which man 
 needs, and which the Church has ever supplied, — an instruc- 
 tion which, it is most sorrowful to see that they, on the 
 one hand, who assert the highest Church authority, and they, on 
 the other, who most fervently extol the necessity of faith, almost 
 altogether omit ; but which, in primitive Christianity, made up 
 the lai'gest part of the public service of the Church. 
 
 If, in continuation of the same view, we look at the Chris- 
 tian man, through a whole lifetime attending upon the services 
 of the Church of God — liturgical as they are, and therefore per- 
 petually recurring, and placed exclusively upon the ground of 
 authority, and not upon that of personal ability or eloquence — 
 we can see how the perpetual use of them in faith, is a lifelong 
 application to the inner heart of man — excitable and rebellious 
 as it is — of an unvarying spiritual law. If we look at the Old 
 Testament and at the I^^ew, as read and heard in the Church — • 
 at the Book of Psalms especially, that great liturgic instrument 
 of holiness, used responsively with such reverent estimation 
 from the earliest days of the Church down to the present time ; 
 if we look again at the Litanies, the Services, the Prayers, the 
 Collects, of the Book of Common Prayer, and consider each 
 baptized man, using all these persistently his whole life through, 
 — what is all this for him but one great code of spiritual law, 
 precise and exact in its language and definitions, yet spreading 
 out into an endless and limitless sea of application, embracing 
 all ages, all conditions, all characters in its comprehensiveness 1 
 What else do we see, then, in the actual work of the Church 
 upon the insubordination of man's heart, than the work of God's 
 law upon the soul of the regenerated man, yearning for such a 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 235 
 
 discipline as this, and by faith receiving it, and submitting to 
 it, — aiid the ever-present Almighty Spirit of the Father and the 
 Son applying it to the heart ? And thus in the Church of God 
 there is always at work " the Law of the Spirit of Life making 
 us free from the Law of Sin and Death."* 
 
 AV^e could go much further with these considerations ; but 
 enough has been said to show the baptized man the value of 
 his position in the Church, as the kingdom of God, and the 
 great import'knce of all its means, as instruments of spiritual 
 Law, in the kingdom of our King, forming and moulding and 
 shaping us in the image of Christ our Lord, " until we come, 
 in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
 God, unto the perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of 
 the fulness of Christ." 
 
 We need hardly apologize for bringing forward so fully 
 these ideas, lying, as they do, upon the face of the New Testa- 
 ment. But, as they have passed away from the ordinary 
 current of Christian opinion outside the Church, we have 
 thought it right to place before the minds of those within its 
 fold, the idea of the Church as the kingdom of heaven, — one of 
 the truest and most fruitful ideas of the Christian faith, — that 
 they may fully see all the privileges they have, as being within 
 it, and all the duties they owe to its King, as being subject 
 perpetually to all the obligations and influences of His Law. 
 
 * Rom. viii. 3. 
 
CHAPTER YII. 
 
 Regeneration implies, as we have seen, first, a new life, 
 and, secondly, a sphere of that new life actually existing, that 
 is, the Church of God. "We have, in the last two chapters, 
 considered the Church as being to the baptized man, first, a 
 sphere of spiritual illumination ; secondly, as being the king- 
 dom of heaven, in which the law of God, having through 
 Christ lost its condemnatory aspect, has become to the regen- 
 erate the law of life and liberty. We now come to consider 
 the Church as a society wherein to man are given all the means 
 of absolution and remission of sins, — all gathered within the 
 Church, as in a new world, the breath and air of which is 
 freedom and forgiveness to the soul that has a living faith. 
 We do not say that forgiveness of sins is not given to any 
 except within the Church of God, because " in every nation, 
 he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of 
 Him," because " the Spirit is sent to all men," and " the 
 Light lighteneth every man that cometh into the world!" 
 The individual man, outside the Church by the force of inevit- 
 able circumstances, we do not deny, may have great faith in 
 God, and receive the benefits of it. Just so the same man, 
 cast out by unforeseen circumstances upon a desolate island, 
 apart from all social or national organization, may live, and be, 
 to a certain degree, happy. 
 
 Yet how absurd it would be to take Crusoe or Selkirk for 
 our model, and to urge upon the man in crowded cities and 
 populous nations to pattern himself according to their lives ! to 
 say to him, " Upon yourself exclusively, and upon what you 
 can obtain by your own hands and by your own work, unas- 
 
REGENERATION IX BAPTISM. 237 
 
 sisted by all the varied organization of labor in the nation, you 
 shall rely ! " What an absurdity this would be ! And j'et 
 what better is it to tell the repentant sinner, when he has come 
 to liave faith in Christ, that there is actually no kingdom of 
 heaven upon earth, — all that is a mere figure ! that there is 
 no Church of God existing in the world, — it is an abstraction ! 
 that it is only upon his own individual faith, without any 
 means of grace, — without any evidence outside himself, — 
 without any assurance but his own personal, internal convic- 
 tion, — that he has to rely upon for certainty, for salvation, for 
 pardon of all his sins ? 
 
 Now, we ask, is not this the ordinary religion ? Is it not 
 a denial of all the means of grace, a sheer unbelieving denial 
 of every means which God has appointed for the salvation of 
 man, — a denial of the plainest asseverations of Scripture, of the 
 very words of Holy Writ ? We have seen it in its results upon 
 men, — ignorance and contemptuous scorn of all doctrine, — self- 
 conceit that feels no need of knowledge, but is wrapped up in 
 its immediate notions ; that talks of the Scriptures, but reads 
 them most unfrequently, — arrogance that scorns all creeds, and 
 yet most bitterly and most proscriptively imposes any whims 
 of the day as terms of communion, — and finally, as a result of 
 all this, in the ordinary Christianity, absolute uncertainty, 
 absolute infidelity, on the part of huge masses of people who, 
 under earnest and fervent preaching of repentance and faith, 
 have truly and sincerely made, at one time or another, pro- 
 fession of Christ. 
 
 For our Saviour himself had said, — " Except a man be 
 born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God."* St. Peter had said, — "Kepent, and be bap- 
 tized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the 
 remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit." t Our Saviour had said, — " He that believeth and is 
 baptized shall be saved ; he that disbelieveth shall be damned.";}: 
 And here, in this land, men have preached repentance and 
 * St. John, iii. 5. f Acts, ii. 38. % St. Mark, xvi. 16. 
 
238 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 faith most fervently, and just as fervently they have preached 
 against baptism and all its realities ! They preached to men 
 the full requirements for admission into the Church of 
 Christ, and then, just as energetically have they preached 
 that there is no Church of Christ ! no baptism for the 
 remission of sins ! no sacraments in any Christian sense ! 
 no means of grace outside the man himself and his mere per- 
 sonal faith ! Oh, what a result upon the nation is there now, 
 in consequence of this fervent, one-sided preaching, this faith 
 that went forth forty years ago, with half the Gospel in one 
 hand, and in the other hand, a furious denunciation and a rabid 
 denial of the remainder as exclusiveness, bigotry, proscrip- 
 tiveness. Popery ! 
 
 What a different state had the nation been in if those men, 
 so fervent in their assertion of the necessity to man of repent- 
 ance from past sins and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ had had, 
 moreover, in their souls, the solemn and heartfelt conviction of 
 the grand truth and fact of the existence of God's Church 
 upon the earth, — if they had believed the doctrine of regenera- 
 tion, of the new life given to man upon the earth, of the 
 entrance of man, even here, in this world, into the kingdom of 
 heaven, — if, then, as a preparation for this supernatural and mir- 
 aculous work of God's Spirit, they had taken the men and women, 
 who were warm and pliable beneath their hands, and had trained 
 and taught them in the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, and 
 the Cre.ed, and in all their duty toward God and man, fixing in 
 them the deep principles of Christian morahty, and the funda- 
 mental doctrines of the Christian faith, — and had brought them 
 within the Church, apostolic in its ministry, and liturgical in 
 its worship, and, therefore, authoritative in all its doctrines, — 
 how many myriads thus taught and instructed^ thus trained, 
 thus furnished with a distinct religious faith and definite 
 religious principles, might have been good, earnest, sincere, 
 consistent Christians at this day, instead of being now, as they 
 are, scoffing infidels, or cold, self-satisfied non-professors. 
 
 But these men went forth with no apostolic ministry, with 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 239 
 
 no commission to baptize, without the creeds of the Church or 
 its means of grace ; and, therefore, we have seen their labors 
 perish. And a most melancholy thing it is, to see so much 
 fervor and true zeal, and real, if misguided, faith, fail in per- 
 manent results. But sadder still it is to know that around us 
 are great multitudes of men and women in whose hearts, at 
 one time, real sorrow for past sins and real faith in our Lord 
 Jesus Christ existed fervently, and yet that these are now 
 perished and dead. 
 
 Truly, in reference to earnest teachers with imperfect doc- 
 trines and organizations, we may say, " Other foundation can 
 no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if 
 any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, 
 wood, hay, stubble ; every man's work shall be made manifest : 
 for time shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; 
 and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If 
 a man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall re- 
 ceive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned up, he 
 shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by 
 fire."* Looking at such men as Calvin and Luther, Edwards 
 and Wesley, the founders of the popular systems of the day, 
 and the fact of their unquestioned faith in our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, we believe the above passage of Scripture to be most 
 true with regard to them and their systems. Time is trying 
 their work, and it is perishing from the foundations. And yet 
 we must feel deep sorrow for them that they preached but 
 half the Gospel, and that because of this their deficiency, the 
 earnest repentance and the fervent faith of multitudes have 
 been poured out idly upon the earth. And that at the same 
 time that the prophets of this mutilated Gospel without a 
 Church were tens of thousands, spreading over the whole na- 
 tion everywhere, the Apostolic ministry of the Church of God 
 were but six or seven hundred in this land. 
 
 Now, the doctrine which these men preached is undoubt- 
 edly true, — that man, in a state of nature, is under condemnation 
 *I. Cor. iii. 11-15. 
 
240 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 before God, and as such, lie needs an atonement and pardon 
 for his sins, — that his state by nature is a state of guilt. Does 
 not, then, a state of condemnation require as its remedy a 
 state qf pardon f — a condition of guilt, one of forgiveness f — 
 a world of sin into which the man is bom, a world and sphere 
 into which he may be new born, and wherein all the objective 
 facts of that new sphere of his existence shall be means of 
 breatliing upon him the light of heaven and the vital power 
 of the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life ? Surely the one state, 
 under God's providence, demands, suggests, nay, implies and 
 proves the other, under God's mercy and grace. 
 
 The poverty-stricken, feeble, religious thought of this 
 present day cannot rise up to that grand idea. It looks at 
 itself merely. Any change, it thinks, is in itself, — none can 
 exist outside of itself. The man was in the world of wicked- 
 ness before his conversion : he is in it still. That there is a 
 spiritual world upon this earth, a kingdom of heaven actually or- 
 ganized and actually existing, a Church of God — One Holy Cath- 
 olic and Apostolic — this narrow religion only hears of it to deny 
 it. And yet no idea is more prominent than this through the 
 whole of the New Testament ; nothing more plain than that 
 the Christian regeneration is not exclusively internal — only a 
 change in the man inwardly — but is also a change for the man 
 outwardly, in his being transferred into a new sphere, wherein 
 forgiveness and pardon and acceptance with God are the breath 
 and air of that new world, as condemnation and guilt of the 
 old state and world of sin wherein he was born. The first, 
 therefore, is the state of nature and spiritual death ; the second 
 is the state of grace and life. 
 
 Now, let us look on these two states or spheres. We find 
 that the very fact that they are real states and conditions im- 
 plies a precise and definite time and place of transition from 
 the one to the other, manifest and evident to the man himself, 
 and also capable of being testified to by others. See, in civil 
 life, the entrance into citizenship, into marriage, into the obli- 
 gations of alliance, or contract, or of debt, — how marked or 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 241 
 
 distinct they are. So it is in religion, with these two states of 
 condemnation and salvation. In baptism, a covenant between 
 man and God is publicly concluded before the whole congrega- 
 tion, by the man's own consent and will ; on the part of 
 God, His minister and ambassador is present ; the man and his 
 sponsors on his part ; it takes place in God's own house, sol- 
 emnly consecrated and set apart, and in the most public part 
 thereof, with an outward and visible sign and express words of 
 obligation, with exact and unvarying promises of faith, of re- 
 nunciation, and of obedience on the part of the person ; kings 
 and paupers, men and women, adults and infants, make the 
 same promises. And on the part of God, the words of Christ 
 are used. His words prescribed by Himself in the beginning. 
 So that the form and matter of the sacrament has continued the 
 same, unvarying and unchanged, for eighteen hundred and 
 thirty years. What does all this mean and signify but the 
 termination, precisely marked, of an old condition and state, — 
 the entrance into a new one, distinctly defined ? And thus to 
 the baptized man, having the qualifications of repentance and 
 faith, the moment of baptism is the precise moment of transi- 
 tion, over a line most definitely marked, from a state and world 
 of condemnation and guilt to a state and sphere of grace and 
 pardon. 
 
 This doctrine is the doctrine of the Scriptures. It is main- 
 tained in the Nicene Creed, — " I believe in one baptism for the 
 remission of sins." And it is only an inadequate conception 
 of the work of the Holy Spirit, an implicit, infidel denial, that 
 in time and place. He exerts His influence, — only a denial of 
 the reality of the Church, and an utter loss of the idea of 
 sacraments in their spiritual effect, — only the most confused 
 ideas of the office of faith and repentance, that can gainsay this 
 truth. But for us, as ministers and ambassadors of the Church 
 of Christ, we can say to the man approaching baptism, " Have 
 you a true repentance and a real faith ? Then, for you, at the 
 moment of your haptism, the Holy Spirit applies to your, soul 
 the atonement and sacrifice of your Lord in whom you believe, 
 16 
 
242 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 and gives you full and perfect forgiveness of all past sins. He 
 regenerates you also at that moment, and henceforth, as a son 
 of God, you are within the domain of grace and pardon, — not 
 of condemnation. " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse 
 of the Law." * " Sin shall not have dominion over us, for we 
 are not under the Law, but under graced f "By whom also 
 we have access by faith unto this grace wherein we stand, and 
 we boast in the hope of the glory of God." X 
 
 Let us look through the whole of the New Testament, and 
 we shall see, throughout, the conception of a Church actually 
 existing upon the earth for man, the kingdom of God in the 
 world, a real and living sphere of existence ; and within it, for 
 man, the grace of the spirit ever breathing upon the flame of 
 the spiritual life that is within him, with pardon from Christ 
 and grace and forgiveness of all sins, on the one condition of 
 his acceptance of these gift with a sincere and living faith. And 
 thus his former state was a state of condemnation and guilt, — 
 his present state is one of salvation and grace and acceptance 
 before God. 
 
 We are not afraid that our readers should mistake us, know- 
 ing, as they do, the twofold condition in which all things are, 
 that " all things are double, one against another, and God hath 
 made nothing imperfect."§ For instance, in the case of health, 
 — there is a healthy or an unhealthy man, a healthy or an 
 unhealthy climate around him. We say the man is healthy 
 and the climate healthy, in different and yet real senses. So 
 the man is free, and the country in which he dwells is free. So 
 it is with the Church. It is for the baptized man a state of 
 grace and pardon, and he is within that state actually ; hvit for 
 himself, as a baptized man, a son of God, he is pardoned, 
 only if he have a living faith. 
 
 Of course, lying underneath this consideration is the doctrine 
 of the free will of man, that man, — being regenerate, is capable 
 of sinning by an act of his own free will. We may further say 
 that the Christian doctrine of free will is a fundamental doc- 
 
 * Gal. iii. 13. f Rom. vi. 14. \ Eom. v. ii. § Jesus, the son of Siracli. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 243 
 
 trine, without which religion is utterly impossible. For if man 
 have no free will, he is merely a grain of chaff floating upon 
 a midnight storm, the plaything of a blind and irresistible fate. 
 And if man has free will, then he is responsible to God and 
 man. On these considerations, the man who is within the 
 Church is in a state of grace, — and his faith freely availing itself 
 of all the advantages he has, determines his actual condition. 
 It is a fact that the state of mere nature is a state of condem- 
 nation. It is also a fact that the Church of God upon earth, 
 abstracted from all consideration of the individual man, is a 
 state of grace, of pardon, of forgiveness, within which, because 
 of this fact and truth, all men should desire to enter. 
 
 It is, we admit, a hard thing for ordinary Christians, who 
 have been accustomed to think that there is no spiritual bless- 
 ing of forgiveness save by their own immediate personal and 
 conscious efforts, to conceive that a calm, unexcited state of 
 mind, that rests quietly in the assured confidence of its citi- 
 zenship, is faith. But look at this analogy guaranteed by the 
 Scripture itself. Here am I, we will suppose, a citizen of an 
 earthly state. I go on quietly, my obedience to the law is my 
 happiness. It is a real obedience. And yet I am hardly con- 
 scious of the existence of the law,— certainly not as a compulsory 
 rule, an external trammel, forcing and compelling my course 
 in a definite path. No ; the external path of the law of the 
 state I travel in, not from compulsion, but from the fact of my 
 internal principle of uprightness, my reason and my moral 
 feeling, as a citizen and a man. I therefore am scarcely con- 
 scious of the existence of the law. Yet it exists. It is for me 
 almost unfelt and unseen. But the moment I transgress it, that 
 moment the law manifests itself, as ever in being, condemna- 
 tory, stringent, and stern. This fact, — that the law is as it 
 were imperceptible and indiscernible to the law-abiding citizen, 
 seeming for him almost non-existent, and yet is brought forth at 
 once to his consciousness by transgression, — was fully evident to 
 St. Paul, that man of great genius, whose office in the Church 
 seems to have been the explanation of all the mysteries of man's 
 
244 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 being by the mysteries of grace. " But we know," he says, 
 " that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully ; knowing this, 
 that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the law- 
 less and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the 
 unholy and profane, for the murderers of fathers and murder- 
 ers of mothers." * 
 
 Thus it is with the law of God in the Church of Christ. 
 Formerly, we were in a state of condemnation ; now, of freedom 
 and forgiveness, of salvation, of pardon, and absolution from 
 sins, — a state of grace and mercy, and the atoning blood of 
 Christ our Lord. And the same relation that the civil and crimi- 
 nal law, enacted by and prevailing in the State, has to the citi- 
 zen who, upon internal moral principle, abides by the law, that 
 same relation has the law to the member of the kingdom of 
 Christ our Lord, who has the inward living faith. By faith 
 we do the works of the law, — by faith we are free from the law, 
 — by faith we are justified before God without the law. The 
 law does not cease to exist, but in our heart a more efficient 
 principle reigns, and a more brilliant light exists — the principle 
 of faith in God through Christ, and the light of the Spirit. 
 And these enable us to do all the works of the law, — all that 
 the law prescribes to man, — by the light they cast, and the power 
 they give us. If we cast these away of our own free will, if 
 we sin wilfully and consciously, then the light being quenched 
 in our own souls, at once the law reveals itself in the light of 
 nature, — it manifests itself as condemnatory. It is made for 
 sinners, — and heaviest its verdict is upon sinners in the Church, 
 those who willingly sin after they have come to the full " knowl- 
 edge of the truth, and have tasted of the heavenly gift." 
 
 But for those in the Church who are in a living faith, for 
 them there is perpetual light and continual progress by all the 
 means of grace that are within the Church. For them, their 
 state is one not of condemnation but of salvation and absolu- 
 tion. By baptism their sins have been forgiven and pardoned, 
 and henceforth all means of grace received in faith are means 
 
 * I. Timothy, i. 8, 9. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 245 
 
 of absolution to them. The Holy Communion, first of all, 
 means, — " This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is 
 shed for many for the remission of sins,"* our Lord himself 
 says. Again, in the Word preached and received by the faith 
 of the Christian man, there is remission of sins in the Church 
 of Christ. Nay, in every prayer of the regenerate man there 
 is a power of absolution, of receiving and of laying hold upon 
 forgiveness. And by the very fact of their commission 
 the ambassadors of Christ have the power in the Church 
 ministerially of pronouncing and declaring to the penitent the 
 absolution and remission of their sins.f 
 
 Such are to the regenerate man the results of the fact that 
 there is a real kingdom of heaven upon the earth, and that he 
 is really and truly in fact, and not merely in idea, a member of 
 it. " He that believeth on Him is not condemned : but he that 
 believeth not is already condemned, because he hath not be- 
 lieved on the only begotten Son of God.":}: " There is there- 
 fore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, if they 
 walk not after the Jlesh, hut after the spirit. For the Law of 
 the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
 Law of sin and death."§ 
 
 We have dwelt upon this consideration, perhaps, more than 
 we otherwise should do, because of certain faults in clergy and 
 laity, which we have seen, that show a carelessness of this 
 truth, and of action upon it. 
 
 It is plainly asserted in Holy Writ that there are two differ- 
 ent positions in this world for man : the man in the state of 
 nature, — the man within the kingdom of heaven. The posi- 
 tion of this last, manifestly requires a diflt'erent teaching. How 
 often have we heard fervent, sincere men preach to the baptized, 
 both good and evil, as if they were aliens, — under no covenant 
 and no obligations to God in any way! As if a statesman 
 should address good citizens as foreigners ; and those citizens, 
 
 * St. Matt. xxvi. 28. 
 
 f Bishop Andrewes' Sermons, On the Absolution of Sins, vol. v. p. 83. 
 
 X St. John. iii. 18. § Rom. viii. 1-3. 
 
246 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM, 
 
 again, who were really rebels and traitors, as mere alien ene- 
 mies, ignoring and casting aside in both cases the fact of 
 their citizenship ! 
 
 But grievons as this is, in its effects upon the clergy, it is 
 far less disastrous than upon the laity, for the Baptismal Ser- 
 vices, which almost weekly the clergyman uses, the Catechism, 
 the whole theory of the Prayer Book, keep up in the clerical 
 mind more or less this doctrine of the kingdom of heaven, 
 and all its legitimate consequences. But for themselves and for 
 their children, how utterly careless are some of our laity, even 
 pious and good people. Look at our congregations. They are 
 in the Church for the express purpose of liturgical and respon- 
 sive worship. They are there with their Prayer Books by 
 them, with naught else, for the time, to do ; there in that place 
 they are, at that time, for that object. And yet we all know of 
 congregations in which a response is hardly obtained, a mere 
 faint whispering murmur arises from half a dozen or a dozen 
 among a thousand people, and they seem afraid of their own 
 voices ! "What is this ? It is utter thoughtlessness, utter ignor- 
 ance of the great work they can do for their own souls, in lit- 
 urgical worship. 
 
 "We have shown how these services, used authoritatively by 
 the clergyman, accepted with faith by the persons responding, 
 are an actual means of education and instruction. They are 
 more important still to the Christian, when we look upon the 
 Church as the kingdom of Christ, and the baptized man as a 
 subject and citizen thereof. For, take any part of the Church 
 services, we will say, any one of the Ten Commandments. 
 The clergyman utters it to the people, with the authority of his 
 office. It is read in their hearing, in a tongue understood by 
 them, — read to them as children of God, as Christian men and 
 women. "What else is this but the proclaiming and promulga- 
 tion of a definite portion of the law of Christ to the conscience, 
 the reason, the heart of each person there present, as bounden 
 upon him personally and individually ? And, if then, M'ith a 
 living faith, he applies it to himself, — acknowledges, confesses. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 247 
 
 accepts it by faith, — what a great work he does that moment 
 for himself; what a great problem he solves in one sentence for 
 himself personally ! For then, when the man responds with 
 faith, the Law concurs and coexists with his faith, — the Al- 
 mighty power of pardoning grace, with his free will, — the minis- 
 terial authority of the ambassador of Christ, with the personal 
 faith of the Christian man. All these elements, which, as dis- 
 cussed by Calvinists and Lutherans on the one side, and Roman 
 Catholics on the other, on the grounds of mere argumentation 
 and intellect, seem so antagonistic, so clashing, so unreconcila- 
 ble, are brought together and reconciled by the act of personal 
 faith in the liturgical response of the Christian in Church, 
 " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this 
 law." How many deep questions does this response solve for 
 the Christian soul, in one breath, when uttered in the Church 
 of God in heartfelt faith ? 
 
 Repeat that sacred attitude of a willing faith, freely bowing 
 itself before the Law of God, freely accepting it through grace 
 as a rule of life, — the same rule, yet infinitely varied in the Deca- 
 logue, in the Psalms, in the Litany, — this affiance of a willing 
 faith, moved by grace, freely accepting and embracing God's 
 law,— repeat that act of faith in the secret heart and in the 
 voice, perhaps one hundred times in the course of the services 
 of one Lord's Day, and think how a great work of pardon and 
 grace is done for the baptized man. 
 
 Consider, again, widely and deeply and weightily, the 
 influence, upon the life, of this blessed work going on year by 
 year, for a whole lifetime, from childhood to old age, and the 
 reason can be plainly seen why the Church of God has always 
 had liturgical services, — why men no sooner abandon the 
 Church than they abandon them. 
 
 How much, then, it is the duty of our laity to assume, as 
 Christian men and women, a true attitude of faith toward all 
 the services of the Church, toward all the means of grace ; to 
 set their minds with firm attention, to lay hold day by day, 
 with a hving faith, upon every means by which they are sur- 
 
248 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 rounded, from every point to receive the electric power of the 
 Spirit ; and then habitually to think, " not of myself, not of my 
 own power and deserving, but because I am a child of God on 
 this earth, in the kingdom of God, and under His Law, a per- 
 petual freedom, a daily and hourly forgiveness and absolution 
 are extended to me by our present King, our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 on the one condition of maintaining a living and habitual 
 faith. 
 
 The discussion of this subject would be inadequate if 
 we did not bring into consideration, along with this, another 
 branch of the kingship of our Lord, which we now proceed 
 to examine. 
 
 Every man that has in the slightest degree thought upon 
 his own nature, has felt within himself that inward power of 
 voluntary action which we call free-will. He has felt, also, 
 externally, a limitation upon this power from the pressure of 
 external circumstances. Now, when we come to consider, in 
 modern times, the excuses that men ruined and engulfed in 
 sin make for themselves, it is this matter of circumstance that 
 is constantly alleged, — temptations that stood around them, 
 hemmed them in on every side, overpowered them by their 
 seducing and captivating influence. And, again, when we 
 look to actual life, we see no small reason for such an 
 opinion in the actual existence, before our eyes, of persons 
 whose reason and sense of self-interest, and strong, natural 
 common-sense, have been overpowered by temptation. And 
 this common fact of human life is put forth in eloquent novels, 
 in glowing poems, as an excuse, almost a justification, for vicious 
 self-indulgence. Nay, so important is this fact of the strife 
 between free-will and circumstance, that the greatest genius 
 of the last century, Leibnitz, seeing that it was absolutely 
 necessary that it should be taken into account, framed upon 
 this, his philosophic theory of Optimism. Of this philosophy 
 the fundamental principle is that everything is for the best, — a 
 theory amply refuted by one glance at the facts of moral evil, 
 of the sins of men, and of personal responsibility. And yet it 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISE!. 249 
 
 has within itself the elements of a great truth. There is a 
 Christian Optimism, a sense in which every circumstance is for 
 the best. It is a living truth for the regenerate man, the son of 
 God through Christ, in the Christian Church, when he meets all 
 outward circumstances with an inward living faith. Every- 
 thing, then, for him, is for the best. " We know," says the 
 Apostle, " that all things work together for good to them that 
 love God, that are the called according to His will." * 
 
 " There has no temptation taken you but such as is com- 
 mon to man : but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be 
 tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the temptation 
 also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to endure it." f 
 
 We have seen that as a King, Christ our Lord has in His 
 kingdom a real and true Law. We have seen, also, that there 
 is in that kingdom forgiveness and pardon conveyed by all the 
 means of grace to the faithful citizen of that city ; but here is 
 a promise for us still greater and more glorious, that our King, 
 the God-man, infinite in power, omniscient in knowledge, 
 without limits or bounds to His mercy and love, shall so rule 
 and sway the tides of circumstance, shall so control all the events 
 that touch upon those who are within His Church (the called 
 according to His will), that all things shall work together for 
 their good, upon the one condition, " that they love Him." 
 He has promised, also, that no temptation shall be irresistible 
 to those who strive earnestly in faith, with prayer to the 
 Father through Him, but that inward strength shall be sup- 
 plied to resist successfully, or else that, from without, by His 
 omnipotence, a way shall be made for us to escape. 
 
 Here, then, is the completion to the baptized man of his 
 position in the kingdom of God in this world. Let him, in 
 what climate soever he may be, whatsoever position he may oc- 
 cupy, whether rich or poor, bond or free, strong in intellect and 
 education, or feeble in mind and ignorant, — let him only h(we 
 a Iwing faith, andyb^ him Christ reigns omnipotent upon the 
 throne of heaven ; for him all events that happen are for the 
 * Romans, viii. 28. f I, Cor. x, 13. 
 
250 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 l>est / for Mm no temptation is irresistible ; but he is travelling 
 onward, among God's elect, through the wilderness of this 
 world, with his ever-present King and Captain in the van, 
 leading him onward by the way that is for him the l)€st, 
 from Egypt throxigh the vnlderness toward the everlasting 
 land. 
 
CHAPTER yill. 
 
 The effects of the Church and her means upon man's 
 ignorance, his insubordination, and his guilt, have been seen in 
 these last chapters. We come now to the fourth consequence of 
 sin, — its pollution or stain, and the influence upon this of all 
 the means of grace. 
 
 "We do not know why it is that the good has always been 
 signified by hght and the evil by darkness; but so it has been, 
 and is, in the speech of every nation in the world. So it is in 
 the unvarying language of the Old and the New Testament. 
 " God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." * The 
 wicked hate the " light, because their deeds are evil." f " God 
 hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light." :{: 
 " Ye are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not 
 of the night nor of the darkness." § Undoubtedly this lan- 
 guage, common to all nations, is part of that symbolism by 
 which the whole world and all the objects that are in it are 
 naturally typical to man and intended to instruct him in spir- 
 itual things. 
 
 Analogous to this is the universal conviction of the pollu- 
 tion of sin. It would seem as if our brightness were soiled, 
 our glory darkened, and we were polluted and defiled by sin, 
 so as to be filthy and unclean, both before God and in our own 
 eyes. We need cite no more than the prophecy concerning 
 our Lord's atonement in the Old Testament : "There shall be 
 a fountain open for sin and uncleanness ; " and again, in the 
 New Testament, " The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleans- 
 eth us from all sin." In truth, these are two separate ideas 
 
 * I. Jolin, i. 5. t Joliii» iii- 19. 1 1- Pet. ii. 9. § I. Thess. v. 5. 
 
252 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 connected with the fact of sin, — the guilt, first ; and secondly, 
 the pollution, or stain. The first declares that we are obliged 
 to punishment ; but this last asserts that by every sin we com- 
 mit, there is a stain upon our nature, defiling it, and making 
 us polluted and filthy in our own sight, and in the sight of 
 God. And therefore the sacrifice of Christ, the blood of 
 the Lamb of God, has this effect, — that not only it remits the 
 guilt, but it cleanses also from the stain. 
 
 Now, as before, we do not put aside or deny the great value 
 of individual faith, but we desire our readers to consider the 
 Church as a real sphere of existence, in which man is placed 
 by his baptism ; and we wish the objective influence of the 
 means of grace in this direction to be well weighed and con- 
 sidered. 
 
 And first, we would suggest to our readers to take into 
 account the profound difference that there is between our 
 theory of regeneration and those of others. We consider one 
 part of regeneration to be the inplanting of an organic life — 
 the life of Christ — witliin us. This implies that, within us, 
 and yet not of us, there is an internal pui-ifying and cleansing 
 principle and power upon which, as a most precious gift of 
 grace, we may rely ; that it will grow in us if we impede it 
 not, more and more, until, at the resurrection, it arise in us 
 perfect and complete, raising us from the dead. This is the 
 spiritual life of our Lord, the glorified and perfected God-man. 
 And in this world, this life is in us from the moment of our 
 new birth, growing and increasing, and therefore sanctifying 
 and purifying us from the stain of original sin. It is fed and 
 nourished in our being by all the means of grace ; and it 
 decays and is enfeebled in the regenerate man only by wilful 
 sin. " And we have," says the Apostle, " this treasure in 
 earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of 
 God, and not of us. We are perplexed on every side, yet not 
 crushed ; persecuted, yet not abandoned to despair, . . . Al- 
 ways bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, 
 that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 253 
 
 body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for 
 Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest 
 in our mortal flesh," * Again, it is said, " Christ, who is our 
 life^'' ',\ and ^'^ Our life is hid with Christ in Godj^^X ^^^^ 
 " He that hath the Son hath life.'''' § 
 
 How much superior this conception of Christ as being 
 really the life to man, of the actual reception in our regener- 
 ation of an organic spiritual life received from Him and abid- 
 ing in us, is to these shallow Socinian ideas of regeneration as 
 a mere moral change, that are so prevalent in the masses. A 
 spiritual change of the most real kind, tliat is, a true re]3ent- 
 ance from past sins, on religious motives, and by the super- 
 natural and miraculous influence of the Spirit, and then a 
 true personal faith in Christ produced in the same way, must 
 result in a moral change of the most eftectual kind. But even 
 such a spiritual change is not regeneration. It brings not the 
 man within the Church of God. It plants not in him the life 
 of Christ. It merely prepares the soil for the seed which 
 comes from God, which is the life of Christ in us. And when 
 the gift is given, then, within our being, there is a new princi- 
 ple, a life above nature, a purifying vitality, passing through 
 our whole being with a cleansing and renovating power. It is 
 not from ourselves or our nature, but it comes to us from the 
 merits for us of Christ, the God-man glorified upon the throne 
 of heaven. 
 
 What have I, then, as a son of God, to depend upon, in this 
 world, for my purification from the stain of sin ? Is it my own 
 faith, or my own works, or my own emotions ? Ko. Primarily 
 it is the fact that Christ has suflfered for me, has shed His 
 blood as an atonement for my sin, and then that this blood 
 has been applied to me, and I have been born of God, " I 
 bear in my body the dying (the effect of the death) of the 
 Lord Jesus, that His life also should be manifested in me." || 
 The fundamental and primary principle, therefore, of spiritual 
 
 * II. Cor. iv. 7-11. t Coll. iii. 4. t <^ol^- "i- 3 
 
 § I. John, V. 13. i II. Cor. iv. 10. 
 
254 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 sanctification and purification is to me the death and the hfe 
 of Christ. Faith is secondary, although all-important. It ap- 
 prehends and confesses, and is assured of the fact of our Lord's 
 merits. It seeks nourishment and support for that sacred prin- 
 ciple of supernatural life. It brings forth in man the fruit of 
 good works. And yet we are but branches in the vine. Our life 
 is not our own, but is from the root in which we are grafted. 
 This life of Christ, then, is to the Christian the primary foun- 
 tain and source of all Christian purity and holiness, — of our per- 
 petual dying unto sin and living to righteousness. And faith, 
 although it be the living hand by which he lays hold of all the 
 means of grace, is but a secondary and instrumental cause. 
 
 But, in addition to this primary cause of purification in the 
 regenerate man, there is another. In the ordinary indefinite 
 Christianity of the day, the Spirit is taken to be the influence 
 of the Gospel upon man, just as we use the phrase " the spirit 
 of Shakespeare," or " the spirit of the age." But in reference 
 to that which is more orthodox, the truth is very distinctly 
 held that the Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, a 
 personal being and very God, the Spirit of Christ in deed and 
 fact, by whose means the truths of religion are brought close 
 and applied to the soul. 
 
 And yet we find among those who hold the truth in regard 
 to the Holy Spirit a very great short-coming and deficiency in 
 their views. They look upon the Holy Spirit as something 
 external and occasional, an influence which comes wholly from 
 without. Now, in reference to the Scripture doctrine of the 
 Spirit and His relation to the regenerate man, this is a sadly 
 weak and deficient view. The Scripture doctrine takes it, that 
 the baptized man is not merely externally admitted into the 
 sacred enclosure of the Church of God by the Holy Spirit, but 
 also that by the fact of his being the son of God, the Christian 
 has an inner gift, of the indwelling in his humanity of that 
 Spirit, " by which all the building fitly framed together grow- 
 eth unto an holy temple unto the Lord." * And this so actual 
 
 *Eph.ii.21. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 255 
 
 and real that impurity of the body is a sin, just as the defile- 
 ment of a temple is a sin. " What ? know ye not that your 
 body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which 
 ye have of God, and ye are not your own ? For ye are bought 
 with a price : therefore glorify God in your body, and in your 
 spirit, which are God's." * " The Spirit of truth dwelleth with 
 you, and shall be in you," f saith our Lord himself. " The 
 Holy Spirit dwelleth in us." X 
 
 There is no doctrine in the Holy Scripture more certain 
 than these two concerning the Spirit : first, that He comes to 
 all men in this world in various ways and by various means of 
 access, calling upon them to repent from sin and to turn to the 
 right path. And as no man in this world was ever so hidden 
 that the universal, permeating, circumambient air could not 
 reach him ; so no human being was ever so plunged in the 
 depths of destitution, or viciousness, or ignorance, or pagan- 
 ism, but that the Spirit of God could reach him and did reach 
 him, — if we only could see as the Almighty Father sees, from 
 whom " are His goings forth unto the sons of men." And 
 this we call "prevenient" grace, — the grace of the Holy Spirit 
 that "goes before" all acts of goodness in man, and calls all 
 men to God. 
 
 And, secondly, to the regenerate man there is not merely an 
 outward calling at times, occasionally, of the Spirit, but an in- 
 ward and constant indwelling, whereby the personal Spirit of 
 God abides and dwells within him, — in his humanity as in a 
 temple, — the Spirit of Grace and Glory feeding with his in- 
 fluence, as with consecrated oil, the sacred flame of the life of 
 Christ that is implanted and lives within us. 
 
 To this inward cause, also, of sanctiflcation and purification 
 the Christian man is to look ; he is to consider all external 
 means to be means only, used and employed by the Spirit to 
 give life and grace, and his own personal faith to be merely 
 the hand by which he receives the gifts. His most inward and 
 heartfelt appreciation of the truths he must consider to be only 
 
 * I. Cor. vi. 19, 20. f St. John, xiv. 17. % II- Tim. i. 14. 
 
256 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the quickening of the grace that is in him from the indwelling 
 of the Divine Spirit. AVith these provisos as to the sources, 
 the twofold efficient and primary causes of Christian purity in 
 the regenerate man in Christ our Lord and His Spirit, we come 
 to consider the secondary and instrumental causes that exist 
 and are employed in the Church of God. 
 
 Now, if we look at human nature itself in the light of our 
 own experience and of Holy Writ, we find two things most 
 clear: first, the fact of this pollution, and, secondly, its posi- 
 tion. It exists as a fact, — and in the heart of man. 
 
 Let us see what this implies. This, first, that in the nature 
 of man there is an innermost portion, — the heart, a secret and 
 retired chamber, as it were, impenetrable by his fellows, indis- 
 cernible save by the eye of the omniscient God. And therein 
 the man personally dwells alone, with his thoughts, his inten- 
 tions, his desires, — knowing what in truth and reality all these 
 are himself, unknown by his fellow-men, and only now and 
 then, by a word or an action occasionally, indicating the char- 
 acter and significance of that hidden depth. 
 
 Secondly, that secret shrine is the chosen abode of the affec- 
 tions, that highest and tenderest part of our nature, by which 
 we are bound to our fellows in society. 
 
 And thirdly, that there— in the secret heart— most easily are 
 these perverted into base and evil appetites, vile passions, rag- 
 ing and burning lusts, making that which should be an inner 
 temple and presence-chamber of the Holy Spirit, to be a 
 sweltering and sunless den of savage beasts, — a home upon 
 earth for all the foul spirits of the abyss to enter in and dwell 
 there. 
 
 There, as all men know, in the heart, is the origin and source 
 of all the pollution of man by sin. There, the natural tendency 
 of man toward sin meets with the secret suggestions of Satan and 
 his hosts. There, in the darkness of the heart, the evil com- 
 mences, and thence it issues forth full-grown, " Out of the heart," 
 says our Lord himself, " proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul- 
 teries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. These 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 25Y 
 
 are tlie things that defile a man." * And these facts, so plainly 
 asserted in Holy Writ, are just as plainly understood to be true 
 by the experience of every thoughtful man who has any knowl- 
 edge of human nature and of the world. 
 
 See, then, in reference to these facts, the weighty signifi- 
 cance of the doctrine of regeneration, the immense value of 
 our doctrine of an implanted inner life of Christ, with an in- 
 dwelling, sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit of God ; and 
 again, of a holy Church, a real kingdom of Christ upon earth, 
 filled with all the means of grace, of pardon for sins, of sancti- 
 fication and justification. Taking these facts of nature and of 
 the Gospel to be true, let us see how the means of grace with- 
 in the Church tend to purify the man and to cleanse away the 
 pollution of sin from his secret soul. Let us look, first, at the 
 effect upon the heart of the whole Gospel of Christ, read pub- 
 licly in the church from year to year. The clergyman is there, 
 in the church, reading with authority ; the people are there, 
 that they may receive the teaching of our Lord with submissive 
 faith. Does any man, we would ask, upon this earth sufficiently 
 comprehend, in its width of meaning, its depth and surpass- 
 ing fulness, that saying of Christ to His disciples : " Now are 
 ye clean through the Word that I have sjpoken unto you " ? f 
 Does any one fully comprehend what a cleansing, purifying, 
 sanctifying influence the words must have upon man, which 
 the Eternal Word of the Father spoke, during Llis abidance here 
 upon the earth, with the tongue and voice of a sinless humanity, 
 to His believing disciples ? Look through the whole of the 
 ISTew Testament, and this phrase, " the word of God," has 
 there two senses ; the first, the personal sense in which Christ 
 is the Eternal Word of the Father, and the second, of the 
 message in its widest import which that Word, becoming incar- 
 nate, spake to man, in the speech of man. 
 
 This sacred word we have in the Scriptures, read by His 
 ambassadors publicly before the people, with authority, received 
 by them with submission and faith. Of course, in examining 
 * St. Matt. XV. 19-20. t St. John, xv. 3. 
 
 17 
 
258 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 this Word as read in the church, we leave out of our consider- 
 ation the Roman Catholics, as it is manifest that their use of 
 the Latin language exclusively in their services hides away from 
 their laity all liturgical instruction. And, so far, there is with 
 them a very great loss of the purifying influence of the "Word 
 of God. We need not speak of dissent in any way, for there 
 is no doubt that until of late there was, even among the most 
 zealous dissenters, a most ruinous neglect of the public reading 
 of Holy Writ. One example will suflice : " In all the 
 (Presbyterian) meetings of the north of Ireland," says Arch- 
 bishop King (1650-1729), "in a whole year, perhaps there is 
 not as much Scripture read as in one day in our Church, by the 
 strictest inquiry which I could make." * 
 
 ]^ow let the baptized man, with these thoughts in his mind, 
 take the Services of the Church. Let him go over them, 
 through the whole Christian year, from Advent throughout. 
 Let him think how frequently, how impressively, how solemnly 
 the teaching of our Lord himself, in His own words, is urged 
 upon the faithful in the second lessons of the morning and 
 evening throughout the whole year, and in the appointed Gos- 
 pels of every Sunday and holy day. Let him then take the 
 lessons read from the Acts, and those from the Epistles, as 
 many in number, and the Epistles in the Communion Service, 
 and think that these last are really and truly the commentaries 
 upon our Lord's words of inspired men. His own apostles, and 
 the application by the Holy Spirit, of the Word of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, to all circumstances of life. Let him take into 
 account, then, the millions that hear, and estimate, if he can, 
 the effect of this definite and distinct teaching in purifying 
 and cleansing the hearts of believers. Then shall he have 
 some faint, imperfect sense of the purport of the words of our 
 Lord, "Now are ye clean through the Word that I have 
 spoken unto you." f 
 
 Of course we, as Churchmen, do not deny tiie right of 
 
 * King on the Inventions of Man in tlie Worship of God. 
 f St. John, XV. 3. 
 
 I 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 269 
 
 eacli private Christian to read for himself the Holy Scriptures. 
 It is a duty plainly asserted in our second Collect for Advent, 
 publicly before the congregation. It is a franchise of each 
 baptized man to read the Scriptures in his own language, as dis- 
 tinctly held in the primitive Church as in ours, and, as we 
 believe, most plainly asserted in Holy Writ as a privilege, and 
 enjoined as a duty. All this is true. Still, the public reading 
 in the ears of the people, with authority, by the commissioned 
 ambassador of Christ, and the submissive reception from his 
 mouth of the Word of God into the secret heart by faith, is a 
 matter of distinct and preeminent importance. The private 
 man, in his private perusal of Holy Writ, may place himself 
 in an attitude he cannot take in reference to the same Script- 
 ures, when they are read with authority in the church. He 
 may neglect its perusal, he may treat it as a common book ; 
 but in the church, if he be there, he must hear it read, he 
 must consider it as no ordinary book ; and we suspect that 
 where the Scripture has not been read in public worship sys- 
 tematically and abundantly before the people, on any pretence 
 whatsoever, it is because the tenor of the New Testament, 
 taken as a whole, day by day the entire year through, reproves 
 and condemns the scheme of doctrine held. Therefore they 
 do not read it. 
 
 Now, considering our Lord as the one spotless and sinless 
 man upon the eartli, — considering ourselves, also, as the sons of 
 God in this world, and yet liable to temptation and to sin, — we 
 have, through the whole of the New Testament, in our Lord's 
 Word . and in His life, for all actions in the present life, the 
 most perfect rules of purity. 
 
 See how the nature of God's Law is laid before us con- 
 stantly, and our obligation to obedience. Consider how man's 
 being is so unfolded and laid open by it, in its widest extent 
 and its most subtle depths, before the eyes of all men, — that 
 deep mysteries unknown to the men of genius, the sages 
 of the Old World before our Lord's advent, are now uttered 
 and understood by children. Behold how the nature of God is 
 
260 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 declared most distiiictlj in plain words ; that problem so difficult 
 to the human race antecedent to revelation. See the great truth 
 revealed of the incarnation of the Eternal Word, and all the 
 manifold consequences to the morality of man that flow from 
 it. See the doctrines of the atonement and sacrifice for sin by 
 Christ our Lord; of the mediatorial reign of Christ before 
 the throne as Prophet, Priest, and King ; of the grace 
 and influences of the Holy Spirit ; of the existence of a 
 Church upon earth and its ministry ; of the nature and in- 
 fluences of the Sacraments ; of the ministry of angels to 
 us who are the heirs of salvation ; of the communion of 
 saints ; of Paradise and the future judgment ; of heaven and 
 hell. All these truths are read in our hearing constantly ; all 
 these lie upon the face of Holy Writ in the pages of one small 
 book, the New Testament. There is not a doctrine of all these 
 that does not come in the closest and most practical contact 
 with the soul of the baptized man when read and heard and 
 received by faith ; not a doctrine of all these that does not 
 give moral knowledge, supply motives to righteous action, 
 regulate, control, purify, and cleanse the inner heart of man. 
 Nay, not a line is there of Holy Writ, as coinj^leted hy our 
 Lo7'd, not a sentence, but may be to the man a sacred fountain 
 of life, a fundamental principle of action passing through 
 his whole being, as a living stream of purity of motive and sanc- 
 tity of life. What, then, is the whole of revelation, tlie Word 
 of the God-man, and the inspired comments of His disciples 
 upon it, heard in the church, and received in faith through the 
 whole course of the life of a Christian, — what is all this but a 
 new world of light and life and purity, of cleansing waters 
 and bright sunlight and breezes from heaven, embracing and 
 enfolding the man, admitting him, as it were, by the key of a 
 sanctified knowledge, into a new heaven and a new earth? 
 What is it for the baptized man, considered as a reasonable 
 being, capable of moral action, but a perfect philosophy of life 
 and action, a new and complete moral and ethical science for 
 the whole human race, of which the author is the Only Be- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 261 
 
 gotten Son from the bosom of the Father ; man, born of a 
 woman, npon this earth, for us ? And the school of this teaching 
 is every church, over the whole world, wherein the Scriptures 
 are read in the ears of the people in their mother tongue ; 
 the teacher is the Holy Spirit, and the power that is taught, 
 and learns, is the living faith of the regenerated man. 
 
 Our readers who are not within the Church (for such we 
 may possibly have) may think this to be exaggeration. Yet, 
 let them take the Christian doctrine of chastity as now pro- 
 fessed in all civilized nations, — let them contrast it with the 
 heathen estimate of the sex, and the coldest historians that have 
 historical insight and impartiality can attest that it sprang 
 from the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, and that Article 
 of the Christian creed, " conceived by the Holy Ghost, born 
 of the Virgin Mary." There were, undoubtedly, in middle-age 
 Europe, exaggerations, and very unchristian exaggerations, of 
 the formative principle of chastity, in an idolatrous reverence 
 for the Blessed Virgin ; but still the result is what we have 
 stated. The one fact that God our Saviour was born of the 
 Virgin, in its intellectual and moral action upon the human 
 mind, continuously, throughout the ages of Christian history, 
 has lifted woman up from her debased and degraded position, 
 and placed her on the same level with man. 
 
 Again, take the Christian doctrine of marriage and divorce ; 
 and this, as distinguished from the old pagan doctrine of mar- 
 riage, shall be seen to be a source and origin of moral purity. 
 And so might we go over the whole of the New Testament. 
 We might take any or every doctrine that lies upon its pages, 
 and manifest, from the course of history in the world, its sanc- 
 tifying influences upon man, in the family and the na- 
 tion, as husband or wife, as father or mother, as son or 
 daughter, as brother or sister. We might show, in truth, that 
 civilization, in the real sense — including not only progress in 
 intellect, and the increase of the conveniences and comforts of 
 life, but in morals, the acknowledgment and acceptance of 
 righteous principles of action — comes from the fact that the 
 
262 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 words of our Lord, the seed-grain of all morality, have been 
 for ages flung broadcast upon human life, and been adopted as 
 principles of public opinion, of municipal law, and of state and 
 national action, even by unbelievers. 
 
 But to return from these more general illustrations to the 
 particular facts as concerns the Christian man admitted into the 
 Church of Christ by holy baptism. He is regenerated. There- 
 fore in him is the purifying and sanctifying life of Christ 
 implanted. In him the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple, aid- 
 ing his spirit with the merits of the sacrifice and atonement 
 of Christ, — " to purify itself even as He is pure." And he is 
 within the Church of God upon earth, wherein all means and 
 influences that meet him are means of sanctifying grace, — the 
 sacraments of the Church, the work of her ministry, her wor- 
 ship, her doctrines, her principles. And lastly, and above all, 
 the words of his Lord, the teaching of the one sinless man 
 upon the earth, is perpetually impressed upon his soul, and the 
 life of that one man is perpetually held up as his example. 
 Cannot the Christian man see that all these influences around 
 him, in the Church, tend to cleanse away from him the defile- 
 ment and pollution of sin, if he only employ and use them 
 with a constant faith, if he only receive them into his heart. 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be : but we know that, when He shall 
 appear, we shall be like Him ; for M^e shall see Him as He is. 
 And every man that hath this hoj)e in Him jpurijieth himself^ 
 even as He is jpureP^ 
 
 * I. John, iii. 3. 3. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 As a matter of fact, we see tlie misery and wretcliedness of 
 the human race upon the eartli. As a matter of fact, also, we 
 see original sin as a flaw existing in every human being, and 
 the existence, furthermore, of a law which reveals to man the 
 moral perfection of which his nature is capable, and condemns 
 him also. By himself, therefore, of his own powers unaided, 
 man cannot obey the law, is condemned by the law, is guilty 
 before God. From these premises, then, taking iheyn alone to 
 exist, the Calvinist brings forth his hateful doctrine of Predes- 
 tination and Reprobation, — doctrines that depend upon bad phi- 
 losophy and worse Greek, for no such word is there in the 
 original of the N^ew Testament as predestination in the sense 
 of absolute decrees, doom, destiny, or fate, — the word mean- 
 ing, simply, to predispose, prearrange, or preordain. 
 
 What, then, is man's state by nature ? Of himself, of his 
 own powers, of unaided nature, he cannot please God. The 
 law is around him, it condemns him, it makes him guilty before 
 God, it manifests to him his sin and his pollution. 
 
 But is he the only being in existence ? Is there for him 
 nothing outside himself save God ? Has God left man to dwell 
 solitary and alone with his guilt, his pollution, his remorse, — 
 in abject terror, in remediless despair ? The answer is, Ko ! 
 For, external to man, there is a world of material things, — 
 the wide earth his dwelling-place, with all its influences of 
 storm and sunshine, of day and night, of land and sea ; food 
 upon it for him, and hunger also; toil and rest, sleep and 
 waking, — a manifold world of influences that bear unceasingly 
 upon him. 
 
264 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Then, furthermore, as he is a person, so is this world crowded 
 with persons like himself. And from tliem thousandfold per- 
 sonal influences come — moral, intellectual, mental — all acting 
 upon him, and he in return acting upon them in the same per- 
 sonal way. What does all this outward world, material and 
 personal, mean ? What is its operation and influence upon the 
 man ? And again, what interpretation shall we give to it in con- 
 nection with original sin and man's condemnation by the law? 
 
 But one interpretation, say those men whose theory is 
 that of the decrees : God having decreed, before all ages, the 
 predestined salvation of some persons out of the mass, irrespect- 
 ive of their own works, — and possibly having decreed the dam- 
 nation of all the others in like manner, — decreeing the end, he 
 therefore decrees all the means.* 
 
 The meaning, then, of the external world, and its influences 
 upon man, is, that it is a system of machinery for bringing about 
 God's decrees of predestination and reprobation. This, and 
 none other, is its effect. If I am reprobated, the Almighty so 
 arranges it by His decrees, that all temptations shall be presented 
 to me externally, — that I shall be importuned by them and led 
 into sin sufficiently to bring about that result, — and so forms 
 me internally, so weakens the power of resistance, that I shall 
 yield to these. He gives me no grace to resist, or only grace 
 enough to condemn me ; light only sufiicient for me to reject it. 
 This theory is most hateful, this interpretation of the moral 
 uses of the world is an outrage upon man's intellect and moral 
 sense,— an insult to the Father Almighty. We cheerfully admit 
 that the mass of religious men at this time, who call themselves 
 Calvinists, do not hold it. And yet it is the very theory of 
 Calvin himself, as may be seen in his own words.f 
 
 Kow, admitting man's sinfulness, and man's condemnation 
 by the law, and his inability to save himself, what interpreta- 
 
 * See Dr. Chalmers' Sermon on Predestination. 
 
 f See Faber, on the Doctrine of Election, pp. 45-47, for a series of ex- 
 tracts to this eflfect from Calvin's " Institutions." We have verified these 
 quotations in the edition of the " Institutions," by Tholuck. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 265 
 
 tion shall we, who are not Calvinists, give to this external world, 
 — what work shall we say that it actually does upon man ? Is 
 it the carrying out of irresistible decrees ? Or is it the calling 
 forth in man of the thought of God and heaven and immor- 
 tality ; the bringing forth for him, in manifold sparks and 
 rays, from the most unexpected regions, of that light which in 
 the full glory of revelation beams from the Cross of Christ ? 
 We answer, clearly and distinctly, in the words of Bishop But- 
 ler, in his immortal " Analogy," that " this world is a school of 
 moral probation to man, from the beginning of his life to the 
 end of it." The interpretation, then, of this objective world 
 of things and persons that encompasses man, is, that man, hav- 
 ing fallen of his own free will, and being condemned, God was 
 pleased not to execute at once the sentence of condemnation, 
 but, as it were, to suspend it, and to place man in a state of 
 reprieve. And man was not left alone with himself, his sin, and 
 his sorrow ; but in manifold ways God was pleased to send 
 upon him spiritual influences, to give him moral knowledge, to 
 call him to moral and spiritual action by means of the external 
 world, both physical and personal, and also through it, by the 
 light of the Word and the grace of the Spirit, sent to and acting 
 upon all men. 
 
 There are two states of man's nature to be considered here— 
 the state of nature before the coming of our Lord upon the 
 earth, — the state of nature since that era. The first we pass over 
 as no longer in existence. We only consider the state of mere 
 nature as it now exists. What, then, is the state of mere nature 
 now, in man, — the state of the man unbaptized, not born again 
 in Christ ? We do not speak of the man to whom Christ has 
 been preached and who has rejected Him. Still less of him who, 
 under the temptations of lust, or avarice, or ambition, has cast 
 away the profession of the Christian faith, that he ma}^ get free, 
 if possible, from the laws of Christian morality and the con- 
 demnation and the remorse of sin. But we speak of him who 
 has not heard of Christ, who is, in the state of mere nature, a 
 non-believer, not an infidel or an apostate. 
 
266 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 What, then, is to him the external world and its influences? 
 See joii not that man in such a state is still a moral being, not 
 a beast or a devil, but a fallen man 1 In him exist all the powers 
 and all the faculties that man had in Paradise, although all of 
 them are diseased, all of them unable fully to accomplish their 
 ends. 
 
 Free-will, for example, exists in man still, as a natural 
 power; he feels it; he is certain of its existence as a faculty 
 in his being; no argumentation can convince him that he has 
 it not. He acts upon his conviction, and takes it for granted. 
 And yet, of itself and by itself, it gives the man no help. By 
 it, unaided, he cannot do good ; by it, unaided, he cannot even 
 desire good : for it is diseased and disabled ; it is as a limb that 
 is paralyzed, a foot that cannot walk, a hand that has no grasp. 
 
 Again, in him is natural benevolence, — the natural kind- 
 liness of our being toward our brother man, a faculty in us 
 akin to the good- will and love of the Almighty Father to our 
 race. This, too, is in man ; yet it lies bound and in chains, 
 unable of itself to do aught of good. 
 
 Analyze all the virtues that make man happy in himself, or 
 that tend to the good of his fellow-men, in all relations wherein 
 they can come in contact with him, and you will conclude and 
 be convinced that the roots and faculties of all these exist in 
 man's nature and constitution. And yet all are in the same 
 encumbered and enchained, diseased and corrupted state and 
 position. Unaided, they can do nothing; without help and 
 assistance, without healing, they do not act. 
 
 Nay, let us look upward and onward toward God and 
 heaven and immortality. Has not man in himself all the fac- 
 ulties that look toward these glories far away, — all the powers 
 that make him capable of recognizing and seeking after them ? 
 Is not man, even now, made in the image of God, — God-like ? 
 Is there not, even now, in him a natural faculty of faith, by 
 which he desires to worship, by which he believes in the 
 Unseen ; by which, in spite of idolatry, of ignorance, of false 
 philosophy, his soul leaps onward toward the idea of a Father, 
 
BEGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 267 
 
 omniscient, almighty, eternal ? Has he not a natural faculty 
 of hope, also, which overleaps the limits of time and space, and 
 transcending the day and its engrossing toils, feels for itself 
 no ultimate resting-place, no final, permanent abode but in 
 Eternity ? Has he not, even now, as we see him in this world, 
 all the powers, all the faculties, all the affections that make 
 him capable of dwelling with God in Heaven, immortally ? 
 Yes, truly, all these also here exist in man, yet all in the same 
 condition, — all in themselves diseased and perverted. He is 
 unable of himself, of his own free-will, of all his powers — 
 the loftiest of the spiritual nature as well as the lowliest of his 
 mere animal being — to obey the laws of God. Man, unaided, 
 can do no good. Of himself, in himself, hy himself, he has 
 nothing but sin and its consequences, — guilt and pollution 
 and shame, the sting of remorse and the agony of self- 
 condemnation. 
 
 If man were left alone, with all his powers in this state, 
 well might he frame to himself such a theology of presumption 
 and of despair as pure Calvinism is ; for all things within and 
 without him w^ould be of no import to him, save that of being 
 means to carry out his natural wretchedness to final misery. 
 
 But man is not left alone. From the earliest time of 
 revelation down to the latest, there is but one interpretation put 
 upon external nature, but one significance assigned to it in 
 Holy Writ, — that it witnesses to all men of God, — that it calls 
 forth in all men the consciousness of their own being and the 
 purposes for which it was made, and tends to awake in them all 
 a desire to struggle onward toward God and freedom and im- 
 mortality. Hear what the Psalmist says : " The heavens 
 declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His 
 handiwork. One day telleth another, and one night certifieth 
 another. There is neither speech nor language, but their voices 
 are heard among them. Their sound is gone out into all 
 lands and their voices unto the ends of the world." * Again, 
 listen to St. Paul, declaring the purposes of God in Christ 
 
 * Psalm, xix, 1-4. 
 
268 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 among the heathen : " "We preach unto you that ye should turn 
 from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven 
 and earth, the sea and all things that are therein : who in past 
 times suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Never- 
 theless he left not himself without witness, in that he did 
 good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling 
 our hearts with joy and gladness." * Again, hear the same 
 Paul declaring that " The invisible things of Him (that is, God) 
 from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
 stood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and 
 Godhead." f 
 
 And when, to the material created world, we add the 
 world of man and society, and its various influences, we 
 see still more distinctly, both in our own convictions and in 
 the assertions of Holy Writ, that the whole external world of 
 circumstances is used and employed by God as a system of means 
 to call forth in man the knowledge of his state, to lead him on- 
 ward toward a sense and a natural knowledge of spii-itual things. 
 True it is, that this knowledge is dim, it is uncertain, it is after 
 all but an instinctive feeling in the dark, a vague, uncertain 
 tradition. Yet it is ordained by God as a part of the agency 
 of the external world upon man, that in a state of mere nature 
 all men should be turned by Him toward the light. And this, 
 again, has the same apostle asserted to the cultivated and subtle 
 philosopliers of Athens upon the Areopagus. " (God) hath 
 made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the 
 face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appoint- 
 ed, and the bounds of their habitations ; that they should seek 
 the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, 
 although He he not far from every oiie of us^ :}: 
 
 We take it, then, that this, by God's will, is a part of His 
 system, — that the external world should have upon man a moral 
 and spiritual influence ; that it should be a school of probation, 
 to awaken, to instruct, and even, in some small measure, to aid 
 and help man in his moral weakness. Not that man, by means 
 
 * Acts, xiv. 15-17. t I^om- i- 20. X Acts, xvii. 26, 37. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 269 
 
 of external nature, can save himself, but that God employs 
 this outward world, which is made by Him, as a means of act- 
 ing upon the moral sense of man, — a stimulus whereby he 
 awakens in man the feeling toward a knowledge of Himself. 
 
 For it is not to be forgotten that the same flaw which 
 passes through man's nature, and renders him, of himself, inca- 
 pable of obeying the law of God, — making him subject to con- 
 demnation, — this same flaw is declared in Holy Writ to pass also 
 through the whole outer world of external nature. The same 
 wound that pierced through man's whole being, and all its 
 powers, and left disease and death in them all, passed also 
 through external nature and all its powers. Man was the lord 
 and kingly vicegerent of the whole outward world, and the 
 infection and vitiation that came upon him came also upon his 
 realm. This, although somewhat obscured in our English 
 version, is the undoubted doctrine of Holy Writ. " The ear- 
 nest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of 
 the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to sin 
 (vanity, in the Hebrew idiom), not willingly, but by reason of 
 him who hath subjected the same in hope. And the creation 
 itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption 
 into the glorious liberty of the sons of God." * 
 
 Hence, from the outward world of nature, no more than 
 from his own inward being, can man obtain full light and full 
 freedom, — light enough to awaken, in some degree, his spiritual 
 sense, to enable him to see his own state ; freedom enough to 
 struggle and be convinced, practically, that he needs a Redeemer, 
 and that he absolutely requires supernatural help and aid to 
 his weakness, — this is all that is given him. If, therefore, 
 there comes to man, through nature, light and moral illumin- 
 ation, training and teaching, as in a school, this is not of nature 
 merely, or its unaided powers. It is simply that the external 
 world, being the creation of God, He employs it, although it is 
 flawed and imperfect, that, by means of it and through it, His 
 influences toward good may act upon man. 
 * Romans, viii. 19-21. 
 
270 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 See, then, the flaw and vitiation in man's being, rendering 
 him, of himself, incapable of obeying the Law of God. Behold 
 the Law manifesting his duty to him, and yet the result being 
 that by it he is condemned. Then behold the outward world, 
 in its action upon him, as a perpetual stimulant toward that 
 which, of himself, by his utmost exertion, he cannot reach. 
 Truly, if you take man as he is, in himself, unassisted, there is no 
 paradox, no contradiction of terms sufficiently strong, no anti- 
 nomy of propositions discordant enough to describe him. But 
 take these facts of man's original being, and of his present fallen 
 state, and then place close by them the doctrine that this world 
 is a school of probation, in connection with those of redemp- 
 tion and regeneration, and all becomes plain, — nature then is 
 exj^lained by the Gospel, and revelation is supported by nature. 
 
 We shall illustrate this doctrine of man's state a little fur- 
 ther. In no man is sin committed with the dull stupidity of 
 an unconscious brute animal ; nor, on the other hand, with the 
 despair of a condemned fiend, — an evil intellectual being, with- 
 out help or hope. But in all ordinary cases of sin, the sense 
 of degradation comes in, and of an organic fall from a higher 
 state. This is what man's restlessness, and even man's misery, 
 means : that God is perpetually awakening in him the sense and 
 conviction of sin, in order that he may seek onward toward its 
 full remission — toward a state of sonship and salvation, even 
 in this world. Thus, by God's good pleasure, all men in the 
 state of nature are being moved and led onward toward the 
 state of grace, if they will only give themselves to His guidance. 
 
 And midway in the man's career, between the two states of 
 nature and of grace, lies for him the one great fact of our Lord's 
 death and sacrifice for sin, of the atonement of Christ. If to 
 man in a state of nature there is light to lead him onward 
 toward heaven, from the Cross, its rays fall upon the gloom in 
 which he wanders. If grace be given, prevenient or assisting, 
 to enable the man yet in the state of nature to move toward 
 the state of regeneration, from the Cross does that mission of 
 the Life-giving Spirit take its rise. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 271 
 
 And with the apphcation of the merits of Christ's death 
 and sacrifice to the man in his baptism the state of nature ends. 
 Witli it the state of grace begins. For, as regards man, bap- 
 tism lies central between the two states, being the terminus that 
 ends the one and begins the other. By being regenerate, by 
 being born again, he leaves the old state, and enters upon the 
 new. And, at his entrance into the new state, the first and 
 initial gift to his faith is the forgiveness of all his sins. 
 
 We have seen the state in which man is, of himself, and of 
 his own unaided nature. We have shown, also, that God does 
 not leave him alone, even in a state of nature, but moves and 
 leads him perpetually onward toward a better state. We give 
 no more proofs of this, additionally, than these two in refer- 
 ence to our Lord, — the Eternal Word, and His Spirit : " This is 
 the true light, that lighteneth every man that cometli into the 
 world." * " The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath 
 appeared unto all men."f We fully believe that the beams of 
 light which come from Christ our Lord reach to every human 
 being upon the earth. We do not say in full enlightenment, 
 for this is the privilege only of those who are regenerated and 
 justified ; but that to all men, everywhere, lying as they are, 
 by mere nature, in darkness, light is sent by God into their 
 darkness. It may be but a faint ray, but still it is light, that 
 they may see their own darkness, that they may follow the light 
 and be led onward by it until they reach the great central 
 source of light, — the Cross of Christ. We believe that the Holy 
 Spirit speaks to each human being, in a voice wholly unheard 
 by the outward world, it may be, but still as a voice audible to 
 his own soul, and calling upon him to arise, and to walk on- 
 ward in and upon the right way. 
 
 To this fact of God's dealing with the fallen race of man, 
 allusion is made in that beautiful chapter in the Proverbs in 
 wdiich wisdom is personified, — " Doth not wisdom cry ? and 
 understanding put forth her voice ? She standeth in the top 
 of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. Unto 
 * John, i. 9. f Titus, ii. 11. 
 
272 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 yon, O men, I call ; and mj voice is to the sons of men." * If 
 to man tliere is light even in the smallest degree, — if there is 
 a feeling of his sin, and aid to move onward, — if, through the 
 world of manifold influences that surround him, this help in his 
 weakness comes to man, — it is that the good Shepherd goes 
 forth to seek the sheep that is lost, that his voice is calling 
 through the wilderness, his lamp is shining through the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 We shall illustrate this doctrine a little more by a circum- 
 stance that happened to ourself personally. We were out, in 
 the beginning of winter, upon a treeless prairie in the West. 
 We had lost our way, and night came on, and with it a furious 
 storm of cold rain and sleet. We did not know where to turn, 
 for there was no road or track in the new and unsettled coun- 
 try to guide us, and had there been, it was too dark for us to see 
 it. What with the rain and the darkness, we were in a perish- 
 ing state. As a last resource we turned round (in a circle) so 
 as to sweep the whole circuit of the darkness. We saw a feeble 
 light at a distance. It must have been four or five miles away. 
 We set ourself toward it, because it was light, and the only 
 light we had. We went on through the storm, over rough and 
 difficult ground, firmly fixing our eyes on the light. Finally 
 we reached it. We found a house and shelter and M^armth. 
 This is the condition of man by nature, — the darkness, the wil- 
 derness, the perishing state ; and at the same time the light 
 shines upon him, — feeble, it may be, and remote ; yet it is to be 
 followed, heeauseit is light j and finally it leads to the Cross of 
 Christ, to the Church, the temple of God upon earth. In it, is 
 the entrance, by the door of baptism, upon a state most dififer- 
 ent from that of nature, — the state of salvation. 
 
 Has not this ever been God's way of dealing with the hu- 
 man race ? Yes, surely it has. The ancient heathen tell us 
 of the light which comes forth to man. They even reached 
 unto the idea of a Word of God, — the same doctrine, in some 
 
 * Proverbs, viii. 1-4. We do not cite the wliole of this beautiful para 
 ble. Read onward to the thirty-sixth verse. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 273 
 
 degree, that lies in front of the Gospel of St. John. They felt, 
 even in their darkness and gloom, the outflowings of the per- 
 sonal Spirit and of the Eternal Word, calling upon man to walk 
 onward in the waj. True, their sense and feeling of the facts 
 was but dim. It is only our knowledge from revelation that 
 interprets to us what they have said. But we can see that to 
 them the facts existed, that to fallen man the light of the Word 
 and the voice of the Spirit forever go forth, have forever gone 
 forth. 
 
 What, then, came of the heathen before Christ, these that 
 were outside the covenant and the election ? We know not 
 how they availed themselves of what God gave them, but we 
 know this, that " the God of the whole earth is not unjust." 
 We know, too, that His Apostle has said, in his address to a 
 heathen captain, "In every nation he that feareth Him, and 
 worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him." * We know, 
 also, that God, our Lord, speaking of that last great day of judg- 
 ment, says, " That many shall come from the east and the west, 
 and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
 kingdom of heaven, and the children of the kingdom shall be 
 cast into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and gnashing 
 of teeth." f We know, furthermore, that outside the cove- 
 nant and election there always have been men holy and good, 
 accepted with God. Such were Abimelech, Hobab the Kenite, 
 and even Job the Idumean prince, whose book is in the canon 
 of the Holy Scriptures, and Melchizedek the king of Salem, 
 the king of righteousness and the king of peace, most highly 
 honored of them all. 
 
 But do not the Holy Scriptures say that "he that believeth 
 not shall be damned " ? The translation used by the Latin or 
 Western Church says so ; our English translation. King James's 
 version, says so too ; but the original says no such thing. The 
 true sense is, " He that dishelieveth shall be damned." This 
 puts quite a different look upon the matter. 
 
 On the whole, we think that this view of the, case of the 
 
 *Acts, x.'35. f. St. Matthew, viii. 11, 12. 
 
 18 
 
274 BEGENERATION IN BAPTISM, 
 
 heathen is more conformable to what we know of the nature 
 and being of God, than is that of the Latin Church and the 
 Calvinists. We have only a certain amount of the facts requi- 
 site to a complete solution of the question. These we have 
 given above. We can rest in them, and in the analogies dra^vn 
 from them, in faith that the God of the whole earth is not 
 unjust to his children, either in this world or at the judgment 
 day. And we can be contented to believe that now there are 
 many things hidden from us of God's purposes and His oper- 
 ation, which we cannot comprehend, and that, in a future world, 
 we may see them clearly. 
 
 We have spoken, so far, of the state of mere nature before 
 Christ, because it was, in a degree, necessary to the question. 
 Since our Lord came upon the earth, mere nature, we think, 
 is, in itself, the same. It is flawed and diseased by sin. It is 
 condemned by the ever-present law. It is, of itself, wholly un- 
 able, and in a perishing state ; yet perpetually it is called upon 
 by the Spirit of God to repentance from past sins, and to know 
 and believe in God, But now the consummation of all things 
 has come, the system of God's operation stands at length com- 
 plete upon the earth. That which all the sons of men desired, 
 and did not see, — that which the most accorded with all the 
 wonderful truths of God's being, and all the sorrow and needs 
 of man upon the earth, — has been completed. " God, who at 
 sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto 
 the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto 
 us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, 
 by whom also He made the worlds ; who being the eftulgence 
 of His glory, and the express image of His person, and up- 
 holding all things by the word of His power, when He had 
 by Himself made atonement for our sins, has taken His seat 
 on the right hand of the Majesty on high." * 
 
 See, then, in this completed system, the power of full for- 
 giveness to man, — the power of his becoming a son of God in 
 truth and in reality. And, above all, behold the kingdom of 
 * Hebrews, i. 1-4. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 275 
 
 God — the Church of Christ — founded and abiding upon the 
 earth. The Word of God had through all ages gone forth, over 
 the whole world of fallen man, with manifold rays of light, 
 calling all human beings onward toward Himself. Now has 
 He become incarnate, and has been made man ; now has He 
 died for us and for our salvation ; now has He, by His Spirit, 
 instituted the Church, a society visibly existing upon the earth, 
 so close-bound in mystical union with Him that it is called, 
 and is, His body. And the Spirit is its vital and organizing 
 life. See how appropriate this is. The Word and the Spirit 
 call all men to God. To them, therefore, is the continual 
 being and existence of the Church due. The Word has 
 ever given light to all our fallen race. In the Church, there- 
 fore, of the Incarnate Word, is all light for man. The Spirit, 
 from the beginning, has convinced all men of sin, has gone 
 forth to them all upon that message. Unto all men, then, in 
 the Church, is given, by the Spirit, full remission and sufficient 
 grace. All men were dead in sin, — they are called to life in 
 Christ ; the}'' were under bondage, — they are called to freedom 
 in Him. They were slaves or bondsmen, — they are called to 
 become sons through Christ. All these gifts and privileges 
 imply a Church of Christ and His Spirit upon the earth, — a 
 home for His brethren, the sons, through Him, of the Almighty 
 Father; a kingdom for his subjects, a fold for His sheep, — a 
 definite and distinctly organized society visibly existing, into 
 which men may enter visibly, in such a way that their being 
 therein is a matter of no doubt, no uncertainty, but that each 
 man can say to himself, " I am within the Clim'ch of the 
 Living God," or else, " I am without it." 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church stands upon the earth. It is 
 the temple of Christ our Lord, the abiding-place of the Spirit. 
 From it comes forth His light upon all the race of fallen man, 
 from it His voice calls upon them all. Christ's sacrifice has 
 been offered, — the one atonement for all men has been made.. 
 If they come with repentance for past sins, with faith in our 
 Lord, then can they have full remission of all their sins. They 
 
2^6 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 can become sons of God, tliey can enter Mntliin the Church of 
 God. All this takes place in baptism for them — on condition 
 of their faith and repentance — by the Holy Spirit applying 
 into them, then and there, the merits of the death of Christ, 
 our most blessed Lord, our Saviour and Kedeemer, And 
 henceforth the man baptized is a son of God, in the state of 
 grace and the state of salvation, — not in the state of nature 
 and of condemnation. With baptism the state of nature ends, 
 the state of grace begins. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 We have seen what man is in the state of Nature ; let ns 
 now see what he is in the state of Grace. 
 
 What, then, are the blessings in this state to the man ? This 
 one blessing is the first, the great fact, the foundation of them 
 all, — that he is regenerated, a son of God by a real and true 
 spiritual new-birth. Therefore, formerly he was dead in sin ; 
 now is he alive in Christ. Formerly he was in a state of con- 
 demnation ; now he is in a state of salvation. Formerly he 
 was a slave to sin, to Satan, and death ; now he is free through 
 Christ. In his former state all his powers, even the highest 
 and noblest, were wounded mortally by sin ; now, through the 
 life of Christ in him, they are in the process of being healed, 
 so that, finally cured of his mortal wound, the son of God may 
 stand, at the last day, before the throne of God, his regeneration 
 completed and perfected by the resurrection, — then entirely in- 
 capable of falling, the glorious man, higher than Adam in his 
 unfallen state, as regenerated and renewed after the image of 
 Christ. 
 
 We have pointed out that the Church of God has two as- 
 pects, — the natural aspect, as a visible society existing in the 
 world ; again, a supernatural aspect, as being at the same time 
 the Church of God upon the earth, — upheld by the Spirit, — the 
 body of Christ full of spiritual and miraculous blessings, — 
 never to perish in this world. According to this view, the bap- 
 tized man has entered within a body which, at one and the same 
 time, is natural and supernatural ; and, therefore, he is made the 
 subject of blessings, natural and supernatural. See how full 
 the Church is for the man of moral benefits which are visible. 
 
278 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 tangible, and real, and yet all these find their foundation to rest 
 upon in the supernatural. See the moral influence of the min- 
 istry, their teaching from house to house, their blessed work 
 among the poor, their catechising of the young, their preach- 
 ing, their example. This is the one profession which works 
 not for proiit or ambition, but lays its basis upon a supernatu- 
 ral mission to do good : the being sent by the Spirit of God, — 
 being commissioned by Christ, — being endowed with powers 
 that come not from man. Do we not, then, see that all the 
 work of the ministry, like the Church itself, has a natural as- 
 pect and a supernatural one also ? 
 
 Again, looking at the services of the Church, we behold the 
 same thing. In a mere moral and natural point of view these 
 are a blessing to the land, and to man. The sanctifying influ- 
 ences, and the rest of the seventh day, — the operation of litur- 
 gic prayer upon the moral powers, — the efiiect of a definite 
 faith in the creeds, pi'oducing definite principles of action in 
 life and conduct, — the moral uses of the constant repetition, 
 the constant acceptance and confession of the Ten Command- 
 ments, the highest law of morality, — the reading of the Script- 
 ure continually in the ears of the people, and the instruction 
 thereby given them in all the duties of life,— the peculiar value 
 which the Church of Christ has always placed upon the 
 Psalms, and their result in creating man's character Christ- 
 like ; — again, the Church's doctrine of marriage, — her doc- 
 trine of the sacredness of the family, — her doctrine of infant 
 baptism, and the whole doctrine of Christian education depend- 
 ing upon it, — all these things are, in one aspect, natural. The 
 moral use and etfect of them is perfectly manifest to any clear- 
 headed, thinking man, in the Church or outside of it. For the 
 mere moral benefits of these things, if for nothing else, a man 
 who looks merely to social and domestic morality, to peace and 
 happiness in his own home, should look with favor upon the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 Yet all these natural benefits will be found to have their 
 roots and their foundations in and upon the supernatural. For 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 279 
 
 this is the constant state and condition of the Church upon 
 earth : tliat the heavenly shines through the earthly, and the 
 spiritual glows through the moral, with such a glory that it 
 attracts to itself even the admiration of the mere natural man. 
 " Do we not see," says Julian the Apostate, to the pagan high- 
 priest of Galatia, Arsacius, "what has made popular and 
 increased the Christian religion ? It is their hospitality to 
 strangers, their thoughtfulness and care in regard to the burial 
 of the dead, the sanctity and holiness of their life. And, 
 therefore," he goes on, " you, and all the priests under you, are 
 to cultivate the same qualities, that you may stem the tide of 
 this atheistic superstition." * 
 
 Poor Julian ! Poor Arsacius ! All these acts of goodness and 
 practical morality in the Christians, which made them so popular, 
 went back to their doctrine of the Incarnation of God the Word, 
 and the consequent sanctity of the human body, — to their doc- 
 trine of angels and the angelic world, — to their doctrines of sin 
 and holiness, of man's new birth in this world, and of his hopes 
 of heaven in the next. Upon this basis of faith were these acts 
 founded. What had a pagan high -priest to do with them ? 
 The command of the emperor, that with all his underlings he 
 should do the works of Christian faith and love, in order that 
 they might compete for popularity with the Christian clergy, 
 was historically a failure. Yet still it illustrates our subject. It 
 shows, very strikingly, we think, how, in the Christian Church, 
 the supernatural shines through the natural, so as to be attrac- 
 tive even to unbelievers. 
 
 And we may say that to the man within the Church of 
 Christ all these natural blessings are given as the fi-uits of the 
 supernatural doctrines, organization, and tradition of the 
 Church. It is not that, being within the Church of Christ, he 
 is morally, mentally, bodily, as well off as if he were in any 
 other religious society, and so loses nothing. It is that, so far 
 as mere natural influences are concerned, the Christian is in 
 the best possible condition, in all these respects, that he can 
 * The whole passage is to be found in Sozomen, Book v. chap. 13. 
 
280 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 be in this world. The best, we say, considering the man's 
 own nature and temper, his past life, and his eternal happi- 
 ness. Let those who are within the Church, baptized with the 
 baptism of Christ (we mean the earnest and thoughtful), tliink, 
 and they will find, from their experience, that it is so. And by 
 and by the whole world shall come round to the same conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 We go on, now, to the supernatural blessings given to man 
 in the Clnu-ch of God. And here we wouldnoticea very exact 
 parallel between the state of man in the world of nature and 
 his state in the Church. Man is, in the natural sphere of his 
 life, upon conditions. So far as his state is a state of proba- 
 tion, he has the full benefits of his own constitution and of the 
 circumstances that surround him, only by availing himself of 
 them to the full. Still, the very fact that he is therein is a bless- 
 ing to him. God withdraws not all His influences, but employs 
 them still upon the man for his good, even if he neglect the 
 conditions, " He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on 
 the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." * 
 So it is in the Church of Christ on the earth. They only that 
 have a justifying faith enjoy to the full all the blessings of the 
 Church of Christ upon earth, natural and supernatural, visible 
 and invisible. Still, even to the thoughtless and careless, naj'-, 
 even to those within the Church that are evil, there are benefits 
 and blessings because they are within the Church of God. It 
 is full of blessings even to them, — a world and sphere filled with 
 spiritual influences. 
 
 And as we see not the secret things of God's operation upon 
 them, His dealings with their secret souls, so, again, we do not 
 see the secret things of the man's own heart. Only this we 
 know, as the final result of each man's career, that no one is 
 condemned but that he is justly condemned. And this would 
 seem very distinctly to imply that, in the course of the whole 
 life of each man in the Church of Christ, known, it may be, 
 only to himself and the all-seeing God, all the means of 
 * St. Matthew, v. 45. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 281 
 
 salvation needful to him have been proffered and given, 
 and he that is finally condemned has rejected them all 
 of his own free will. There is an nnseen world of man's 
 thought ; there is also another world unseen, of God's secret 
 dealings with His children. These two, summed up and 
 known, and the account closed at the day of judgment, 
 will declare God's justice. These considerations enable us to 
 see how — to those who are within the Church of Christ, even 
 if they are negligent of their privileges, even if they are sin- 
 ful — there are manifold spiritual influences given them and 
 acting upon them, which they have, because they are sons 
 and not aliens,* within the Church, and not without it. 
 
 The sons of God, therefore, those who are baptized, are 
 divided into two classes. First, those who are justified — 
 that is to say, those who have a living faith, and thus avail 
 themselves, to the utmost, of all the blessings of their sonship, 
 of the life that is within them, and the influences that are 
 around them; and, again, the second class is that of those who, 
 being regenerate, are not justified, wdiether through careless- 
 ness or through downright rebellion. To both these classes, as 
 we have seen, there are spiritual blessings tending to their good, 
 because they are within the Church of Christ upon the earth. 
 And a living faith in the person it is that makes the dividing 
 line between these two classes. It manifestly makes a great 
 difference in the individual man whether he uses the gifts to 
 which he has the title, or rejects them. But whether he does 
 so or not, the gifts are treasured up within the Church of Christ, 
 and are offered to every son of God in the appointed way. At 
 the present point, therefore, our business is to ask what are the 
 spiritual and supernatural gifts in the Church of God, which 
 are offered to every Christian, to every son of God, on the one 
 condition of his faith ? Greatest, as we have said, of all super- 
 natural and miraculous gifts on the earth, is that of his new 
 birth, — that in this world man should be the son of God, in the 
 Church of God. 
 
 * Heb. xii. 7. 
 
282 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 But to US, of these last times, the blessings of the former 
 dispensation are all united, and contained in the Church of 
 Christ. The visible Church on earth, therefore, is the election, 
 as was the people of Israel of old, and every baptized man is 
 one of the elect. Again, in the Patriarchal dispensation, 
 Abraham was in covenant with God ; so, therefore, are all the 
 baptized. 
 
 Let us look at these two privileges a little. We have seen 
 that the Word and the Spirit ever go forth unto man. Hence, 
 if man come toward God, it is that God has gone forth to him 
 with His prevenient grace. If he follows that light, and is bap- 
 tized into the Church of God, while, it may be, that he acts of 
 his own free will, it is God that has enabled him to come. 
 Hence, to nothing else, ultimately, but the free choice of God, 
 to his mercy wholly undeserved, can man consider it due that 
 he is within the number of the baptized, of those who have 
 all the privileges and blessings of the visible body of the elect 
 which God has upon the earth. These, therefore, who are 
 chosen into that visible body upon the earth, through the course 
 of God's providence in this world, are called the " elect," or 
 the " chosen." They are elect {electi, from eligo, to choose), 
 that is, chosen by God's mercy out of the world, absolutely, to 
 the privileges and blessings of the Church, conditionally, for 
 this purpose,— that they should be saved, should make their call- 
 ing and election sure.* 
 
 The elect body was the family of Abraham and the Patri- 
 archs fii'st, — then it was the Jewish nation, — now it is the 
 Christian Church. "Ye are," says St. Peter, in his general 
 Epistle to all Christians, " a chosen (elect) generation, a royal 
 priesthood, a peculiar (a purchased) people ; that ye should show 
 forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness 
 into His marvellous light." f Therefore, let us not forget these 
 privileges also, — that God has gone forth and sought for us, and 
 found us ; that, when He might have left us in a state of mere 
 nature, He has placed us among the number of His elect ; that 
 * II. Peter, i. 10. f I. Peter, ii. 9. (What a sublime idea and fact !) 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 283 
 
 He gives us sufficient grace, and that, if we perish, we perish 
 because we have of our own free will cast aside and rejected the 
 means of our salvation. 
 
 But, furthermore, we, who are in the Church of Christ, are 
 in covenant with God, as Abraham was. This is an actual 
 and real covenant. See how grand this doctrine is, that, 
 through the mediation of our Lord, "■ the Mediator of the 
 New Covenant," inan can actually be in covenant with God ; 
 that, on certain and distinct conditions, man is hound to God 
 and God also to man ! I am pledged to Him in my bap- 
 tism, solemnly — in a covenant, before the whole congregation, 
 by my sponsors — " to renounce the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil"; " to believe all the Articles of the Christian faith;" 
 " to keep His holy will and commandments all the days of my 
 life." And then, on the other part, He, the Almighty, is 
 bound to me through the intercession of His Son, to give me, 
 in this world, all spiritual blessings, all the grace and the 
 guidance that may lead me onward to everlasting life in heaven. 
 
 These three spiritual blessings of regeneration, election, and 
 the covenant, all cluster around the sacrament of baptism, all 
 are given to him who, in God's appointed way, with heartfelt 
 repentance and a living faith, receives Christ. These, together 
 with full remission of all our past sins, embrace the initial 
 blessings of the Gospel. 1st. Our sins are all forgiven through 
 the death and sacritice of our Lord. 2d. We are all the sons 
 of God through the faith in Christ Jesus.* 3d. We all are 
 brought within the number of the elect. 4th. We also are 
 all made members of the New Covenant through Jesus Christ. 
 
 We are, therefore, not sent to our own argumentations, to 
 the uncertainty of our reason, or the ebb and flow of our own 
 emotions, for evidence of our actual state before God. No ! this 
 is not what the Church of God says to the baptized man. It 
 is this : 
 
 "Are you within the visible Church of God, by holy bap- 
 tism received, with a sincere sorrow for your past sins, in an 
 
 * Gal. iii. 26. 
 
284 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 honest and earnest faith ? If so, then are you a child of God ; 
 the Father is your father, the Lord Jesus Christ is your brother, 
 the Spirit is your inheritance, indwelHng in you with sufficient 
 grace, if you will use it as it is given. You are, also, elect, 
 chosen out of the world, among the number whom God has 
 called to salvation. Only, therefore, of your own will, by 
 yielding to sin when you have the power and the grace to 
 resist and to triumph, can you perish. 
 
 " You are, moreover, in covenant with God. He is bound 
 to you for your salvation, on conditions which he has given you 
 the power to fulfil. Trust, then, in God, and in the permanent 
 benefits He has conferred upon you, — His law to rule your life 
 by ; the Holy Scriptures as your chart ; the ministry your advis- 
 ers ; the Spirit of Grace your soul's secret counsellor ; the ever- 
 living Lord your Prophet, Priest, and King, and all the means 
 of grace he has so richly given in the Church, His kingdom. 
 Why should you reject all these blessings and their habitual 
 use and benefit, and cast them aside, and then go searching for 
 proofs of your state and condition in the inward emotions of 
 your own mind, when you know that a little bodily sickness over- 
 shadows the mind with gloom, a little stimulant medicine raises 
 it up to unnatural and unfounded hope ? No ! This wyrld, out- 
 side us, is uncertain ; happiness and misery, sorrow and joy, 
 hope and despondency, are waves that ever roll over the ocean 
 of life. And, again, man's reason, his emotions, thoughts, and 
 feelings, internally, are fickle. God has not left us wholly, or 
 mainly, to these. He has given us, in the Church, the sacra- 
 ments, the ministry, the Scriptures, — objective certainties, facts 
 independent of our feelings, solid land amid the stormy seas 
 of merely subjective, personal emotion. 
 
 " Upon these we are to anchor. By these we are to stay 
 ourselves. To these let us hold fast, and say, in despite of the 
 world and its uncertainties, in despite of our own ebbings and 
 Sowings of mental emotion, ' We have a firm and unwaver- 
 ing faith in Him who has made us His sons, has enrolled us 
 in the number of His elect, has taken us into His covenant.' " 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 285 
 
 Such are the privileges of the baptized, — to be sons of God, 
 to be elect absolutely to the privileges of the Church, condi- 
 tionally to salvation ; to be in covenant with God, having 
 given unto them, at their baptism, full remission of all their 
 sins, and to have, on condition of their habitual faith, a full 
 certainty of this, their fourfold state. 
 
 We are aware that this is not the belief of the masses of 
 men in this land that call themselves Christians. They think 
 that the Bible is given to man, and that from it he has to make 
 his own faith by his own investigation, his own argumentation. 
 They think that, after that, he has to organize his own societies 
 or churches for all that agree with him in that faith. That he 
 has then to constitute his own preachers or lecturers, to preach 
 to him and them upon it. And when we add to all this 
 wretched religionism, the popular materialistic doctrines of the 
 absolute control of physical laws over man, and of the nature 
 of society, we find the supernatural shut out and exiled from 
 the consciousness of man, — as far as man can do this, which it 
 is impossible wholly to do. The ordinary religion is to blame. 
 It strives to get rid of the supernatural, to banish all that is 
 above nature, save that one dogma, — that the Bible is inspired. 
 
 Not so Holy Writ. Not so the Primitive Church. Not so 
 the Apostles. If man has light, it is from the Word of God 
 and the Spirit of God. If there be a Church upon earth, it is 
 by their present power that it exists, and is kept in being. If 
 man is regenerate, it is by the life of Christ, and by the 
 power of the personal Spirit ; and then, if he is in the Church 
 of God, he is in actual covenant with the Father of Heaven, 
 through Jesus Christ His Son ; as really and truly as in an 
 ordinary legal bond, drawn up and signed and sealed, he is 
 bound to his fellow-man, and his fellow-man is bound to him. 
 And the Church visible upon earth is also miraculous, super- 
 natural, filled with blessings above nature, with privileges 
 that are wholly heavenly, which, on condition of baptism 
 and a living faith, are given him in full abundance. This, 
 and not the modern rationalistic view alluded to, is the 
 
286 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 doctrine of the Bible. We might bring forward hundreds or 
 thousands of passages of Holy "Writ, and show these con- 
 clusions in them all. One shall suffice. The Apostle says to 
 the Christians, to whom he wrote, " Ye are not come to the 
 mountain that could be touched," — that is, to the palpable, 
 visible Sinai in the Wilderness, whereat the first covenant was 
 concluded — " But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and imto the 
 city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an 
 innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and 
 Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and 
 unto God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, 
 and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things 
 than that of Abel. See, then, that ye refuse not Him that 
 speaketh." * 
 
 Such are, in the estimation of the Apostle, the privileges of 
 Christians in this world — supernatural, miraculous, and spirit- 
 ual — belonging to the unseen realities of heaven. And to 
 this agrees the whole of the New Testament. Every passage 
 that speaks of the man in covenant with God in the Church, 
 implies that, being in the world, " after that he is enlightened," 
 baptized, that is, he has " tasted of the heavenly gift, he is made 
 partaker of the Holy Ghost, and has tasted the good word 
 of God and the powers of the world to come." f 
 
 We go on, therefore, to consider further the spiritual gifts 
 of the baptized, who have a living and justifying faith. The 
 greatest blessing, manifestly, of such a faith is, that by it the 
 soul is opened to apprehend and realize all the s]3iritual powers 
 and blessings wherewith we are environed and endowed. By 
 it the life of God in us, is freed from all obstacles that would 
 impede its growth. By a living faith, the mental eye is open 
 to the spiritual sense of Holy Writ. By it the Law of God is 
 searched out and applied to all the actions of life. Consider 
 what a realizing earnestness comes into the soul, what a tender- 
 ness into the feelings of the Christian who lives in faith. All 
 * Hebrews, xii. 18-35. f Hebrews, vi, 4, 5. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 287 
 
 means of grace in the Church and the Gospel are received, 
 realized, and applied in a way that seems almost miraculous to 
 the baptized man who had before been rebellious or even 
 merely careless and unthinking. So wonderful, indeed, is this 
 new life of faith, that many have been led away to dwell upon 
 the emotions that come from it, as if these, of themselves, 
 were the blessings, instead of being the consequences of the 
 blessing. 
 
 Need we doubt that this state of living faith, in the regen- 
 erate man, opens the soul to the unseen ; that it renders it 
 more sensitive to the influences of the Holy Spirit, and the 
 rays of spiritual light that proceed from the Son of God? 
 Surely, upon the man whose faith is so awake and alive, all the 
 spiritual blessings of the Church of God, wherein he is, pour 
 down, unimpeded and unclouded. In him the life of Christ 
 grows and increases, — it is fed by all the means of grace whereby 
 God lias intended that it should be nourished. He places no 
 obstacle, no bar, against their entrance ; but opens his soul by 
 faith, and receives all the influences wherewith God surrounds 
 him. 
 
 And, therefore, it is that, everywhere through the New 
 Testament, the preaching of the doctrine of faith is so frequent, 
 so emphatic, so urgent. Faith, first, as the qualification for 
 the New Birth, for entrance within the Church of Christ ; and 
 then, to the sons of God, faith again and again, faith ever- 
 more, as the eye that discerns, as the hand that receives all the 
 spiritual blessings with which the Church of God — the sphere 
 of the spiritual life, the new world wherein the baptized man 
 upon the earth has his citizenship — is so overflowingly full. 
 
 We have stated how often the words " sin " and the " law " 
 occur in the New Testament ; this word, "faith," is far more 
 numerous. Five hundred and seventy-three times it is found 
 in its various forms, although the impression of its frequency 
 made in the English translation is not so great as it is in the 
 original Greek ; in fact, is cut in two. We have for it, un- 
 fortunately, two words in our version, the substantive " faith," 
 
288 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 having one root, being derived from Norman-French ; and the 
 verb "to believe," coming from the Anglo-Saxon, In the 
 Greek original there is but one root and one word. The 
 impression of its frequency, therefore, for us who read the 
 !N^ew Testament in the English language, is more or less 
 diminished in weight. 
 
 The Christian man has, on condition of his faith, certain 
 blessings, because the Church of Christ our Lord is a reality 
 upon the earth, and because our Lord has arisen. For we be- 
 lieve not in a dead Christ, but in one that lives and reigns. We 
 believe in a Christ that has died, but also that has arisen, and 
 is alive now for us. God-man, raised up from the dead, He has 
 ascended into heaven, and reigns as our King : the Church visi- 
 ble on earth is His kingdom. An ever-living High Priest he is, 
 and ever makes atonement, offers up to the Father His own sac- 
 rifice, perpetually for us. A Prophet He is also, and the Spirit 
 that spake in the old prophets ; His Spirit perpetually flows 
 forth from Him in His Church to those that believe. See, then, 
 the blessings of the man baptized in the Church of God, if, with 
 a willing soul, he abides in faith. All the blessings of our 
 Lord's sovereignty — His priesthood. His prophetic office — flow 
 down from heaven upon the man. The want of a willing and 
 a conscious faith is the only bar that shuts up the soul against 
 these radiations of grace and glory. More than this it does, — it 
 puts the man in the position of a disobedient son to be scourged ; 
 it may be, of a rebel, or a traitor, to be subdued and overthrown, 
 until he feels his wretchedness, and seeks for mercy and for- 
 giveness. 
 
 But for the man who is within the kingdom of Christ upon 
 earth, and who has a living faith, — and the test of that faith, in 
 the Scriptures, is love to God and man, — to that man all things 
 work together, practically and perpetually, for his good. For 
 him the God-man reigns, omnipotent, omniscient, upon the 
 throne of heaven. For him that Almighty power is pledged, 
 so that all the circumstances that surround him, each influence 
 that reaches him from without, personal or impersonal, whether 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 289 
 
 intended for good or for evil, shall be directed and guided for his 
 good. The heaven above him, the earth beneath, daylight and 
 darkness, summer and winter, the falling rain and the glitter- 
 ing sunshine, — all are made to the Christian man who lives in 
 faith, consciously and willingly, means and powers that perpetu- 
 ally influence him for good, perpetually send him onward upon 
 his path, perpetually ripen him for heaven. 
 
 Nay, those things that seem accidents and misfortunes, these 
 to him, on that one condition, are blessings, — often, even in the 
 course of this life, interpreted and made plain. But, then, cer- 
 tainly understood at last, when we have reached our haven, 
 when we stand upon the mountain, and look back over our 
 past career, — then shall we see all things that happened unto 
 us, and the reason that was in our Saviour's wisdom and mercy, 
 and in ourselves for them all. We shall see then, how, by be- 
 ing brought within the kingdom of Christ, and by giving an 
 implicit faith to our Lord, we established for ourselves. an un- 
 seen guidance, an infallible pilotage, that has directed us on- 
 ward, throughout our life, toward the haven that we at length 
 have reached ; that the omnipotence and omniscience of our 
 Blessed Lord have been employed for us, so that all events in 
 our life have been controlled for our good. Not, it may be, for 
 our good in the world ; not for that which we ourselves thought 
 the best ; but for the final and consummate good of the immor- 
 tal soiil and the ever-living body, then made perfect on the 
 morning of the resurrection, at the day of judgment. 
 
 This gift is given to each baptized man upon the earth, each 
 moment of his existence, upon the one condition of a living 
 and justifying faith. No age, no sex, interferes with this priv- 
 ilege ; no state or condition ; no region, from frozen Greenland 
 to the sweltering basins of torrid Africa. The Hindoo and the 
 brutal Feejeean or Papuan, the cultivated European and the 
 fierce Malay, the Chinese, the Persian, the Arab, the Toorkoman, 
 — in every nation and in every land, God's Holy Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church can exist, is intended to exist. And, every- 
 where, to each one within its fold, male and female, poor and rich, 
 19 
 
290 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 in tlie palace or the dungeon, or on the dying bed, the promise is 
 the same. " All things work together for good to them that 
 love Him, that are the called according to His will." 
 
 And, furthermore, to us, baptized in the Church of Christ, 
 He is more than our King. Great and glorious although that 
 Royalty be to us, the Church is more than His kingdom on 
 the earth, we are more than subjects. We know that sin is 
 born with us, — it is the infection of our nature as we come into 
 the world. At our baptism, our sins are all forgiven, and the 
 new life is implanted in us, henceforth to struggle with, and 
 finally to conquer, in those who are saved, the mortal disease 
 which is within. But this disease is not comj)letely healed, or 
 cast out, until the consummation of all things. The liability 
 to sin is still in the sons of God, during their life in this world. 
 The elect may fall away and rise again, like Peter. They 
 may fall finally and perish, as was the case with Judas. The 
 Spirit may be quenched, — the life of Christ in us may be ob- 
 structed, or finally extinguished. But, if this takes place, it 
 tallies place by the man's own free will, yielding to tempta- 
 tion, against light and knowledge, against the will of God, 
 against the influences of the Spirit, against the love of the 
 Son to us. 
 
 We, therefore, although regenerate, are still liable to tempta- 
 tion and to sin, in fact and in truth. Less and less, however, its 
 influence becomes, in proportion to our growth in Christ, — that 
 is, to our own obedience to the Law of God, and to our habitual 
 and persistent faith. For, if we abide in faith, it produces in 
 our conscience more capacity of obedience to God's law in 
 our hearts, more love to our fellow-men and to God, more 
 Christian works and Christian principle in our lives, in the 
 sphere wherein God has placed us. And, therefore, the in- 
 ward life by these habits acquires a constantly increasing pre- 
 dominance, a perpetually growing power over the inbred 
 disease of original sin ; and the power of temptation upon us 
 becomes less and less. And thus, from a babe new born in 
 Christ, the regenerated person grows up by actual faith to the 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 291 
 
 strength and stature of tlie full-ofrown man in Christ Jesns. 
 Such are the results of an habitual faith. 
 
 But this is not effected by mere faith, but by faith that per- 
 ceives and receives all the benefits of the priesthood of our 
 Lord in heaven, as against sin, and against temptation. For 
 when the God-man ascended into heaven, He ascended with 
 the same body which He took of the Yirgin, but glorified and 
 made perfect. The two natures — the Godhead and the Man- 
 hood — were indefeasibly and eternally joined together. The 
 humanity wherein He suffered for our sins is now in Heaven 
 in union with the divinity of the "Word, in the one person of 
 our Lord. The sacrifice was completed npon Calvary. But 
 when He rose into heaven, He passed with the merits of that 
 sacrifice into the Holy of Holies, to make atonement for His 
 Church, until the end of the world. There, in the highest 
 heaven, — in the most sacred presence-chamber of the Father, 
 in the Holy of Holies, — there He is, our Priest made perfect 
 forever, presenting unto God His sacrifice for us, forever 
 making atonement for our sins. " If any man sin, we have 
 an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous : and 
 He is the propitiation for our sins." * The Living Christ, He 
 is our Priest perpetually, noio ofifering up His atonement for 
 us, now sending down from the mercy-seat all the benefits of 
 His priesthood, by His Holy Spirit, upon each man in the 
 Church, who has in Him a living faith. This is the doctrine 
 of the Church in regard to the pei-petual priesthood of our 
 Lord. 
 
 See how grand it is ! It is not that over eighteen hundred 
 years ago in time, six or seven thousand miles away from us 
 in space, the sacrifice and atonement were oft'ered and con- 
 summated, and then ceased to be ; and that henceforth for man 
 there is nothing done, — nothing henceforth for man to do, but 
 to fix his faith as well as he can, here, in the present, upon that 
 past and ended work, and thus be saved. 
 
 These facts are true, but they are not all the truth. They 
 
 * I. Jolin, ii. 1,3. 
 
292 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 give not the full plan of salvation, only a small part of it, — two 
 or three limbs torn from the body of the faith. The Church 
 of Christ upon earth, the perpetual priesthood of our ever- 
 living Lord in heaven, the miraculous work upon earth of the 
 personal Spirit, omnipotent and omniscient, who overthrows 
 for us all obstacles of time and matter and space, and makes 
 our prayers of faith instantly present with our Priest before 
 God's throne, and as instantly confers upon us, by His pre- 
 vailing intercession, all the blessings for which He petitions the 
 Father in our behalf, — all these facts now, at this time, exist 
 for us, if we are within His covenant, and endowed with a 
 living faith ; these, also, are necessary parts of the plan of 
 salvation. It is not in a dead Christ that we believe, but in 
 one that liveth ; not in a sacrifice that is past and gone, but in 
 one which, being consummated upon Calvary, is perpetually 
 offered up for us as an atonement in heaven, and is perpetu- 
 ally applied to us by the Spirit upon earth. " This man, 
 hecause He continueth for ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. 
 Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that 
 come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make inter- 
 cession for them,.'''' * 
 
 God forbid that we should be understood to speak in any 
 way against the great truths of the atonement and sacrifice of 
 our Blessed Lord, by which alone we are saved from our sins ! 
 God forbid that we should in any way depreciate the act of a 
 true and living faith within or without the Church ! Yet, do 
 we think that the mass of orthodox Christians, as they are 
 called, do at this day mutilate the Gospel of Christ, when they 
 actually deny the existence of the Church of God, and thereby 
 ignore the great truths of the perpetual priesthood of our Lord 
 in heaven, that " He appeareth now in the presence of God for 
 us." t Have not these portions of the work of Christ been 
 almost forgotten ? Have not men so exaggerated their own 
 personal faith, and dwelt so much and so fondly upon it, that 
 these great facts have passed away from their thought and 
 * Hebrews, vii. 24, 25. f Hebrews, ix. 24. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 293 
 
 knowledge ? We think tliat it is so, by our own experience of 
 the Christian world. 
 
 We would call our readers' attention, then, more fully to 
 these facts and ideas, — we would wish them to realize their 
 grandeur and sublimity. Let us, then, with this intent, look 
 at the public worship of the people of God under the Mosaic 
 Dispensation. In the Tabernacle made by Moses, " after the 
 pattern shown him in the Mount," there was, first, the Sanctu- 
 ary or Holy Place ; then, separated from it by the veil, was 
 the Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. In the Sanctuary 
 were the seven-branched candlestick of gold, — the type of the 
 Holy Spirit and His sevenfold gifts — the Table of Shew-bread, 
 and the Altar of Incense. Within the Most Holy Place was 
 the Mercy Seat, between the Cherubim of Glory ; and, there- 
 upon, the Shekinah rested, — the luminous nimbus of bright 
 light which indicated the presence of God, and filled the 
 House with glory. Now, no one entered within that chamber, 
 save once a year the High Priest, with the Golden Censer in 
 his hand, and with the blood of the atonement for the people 
 and for himself. The blood he sprinkled upon the Mercy 
 Seat and before the Altar ; the Golden Censer he filled with 
 live coals from the Altar of Atonement, and, placing incense 
 upon them, burned it before the Lord. 
 
 See how this pretypified our Lord and His whole work for 
 us. The Church upon earth is the Holy Place. The High 
 Priest is Christ our Lord. He is gone within the veil that 
 divides the Holy from the Most Holy Place, — the Church on 
 earth from the Church in heaven. There He presents His 
 sacrifice in heaven before the Mercy Seat, and incense from 
 the Golden Censer, " which is the prayers of the Saints." He 
 is our ever-present Priest, although unseen, within the veil. 
 We are His people, — a Royal Priesthood, the Holy nation (" He 
 hath made us priests and kings unto God, even His Father,") — 
 within His Holy Place on earth, the Church of God. How 
 grand is this idea, which declares the oneness of the Church on 
 earth with the Church in heaven, which brings the Christian 
 
294 REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 
 
 man before an ever-present Advocate and High Priest, which, 
 places him before the veil that divides time from eternity ; 
 and says to him, " Have faith, — in heaven thy prayers are 
 offered up by Him before God's throne. For thee the atone- 
 ment now is made. He is thy Priest that ever liveth to make 
 intercession for thee. Only a veil divides thee from Him." 
 How sad it is that these grand ideas, so plainly taught in Holy 
 Writ, should fall out and perish from the minds of the mass of 
 men that profess and call themselves Christians. 
 
 We conclude this subject, therefore, by saying, that to the 
 man baptized, in the Church of God, all these blessings of our 
 Lord's Priesthood are given upon the one condition ot his faith. 
 By faith he sees Him that is unseen, the Living Christ. By faith 
 he receives all the blessings of His mediation. By faith he is 
 justified, receiving from his great High Priest remission of all 
 his sins, day by day, and hour by hour, through all the means of 
 grace. By faith he waits before the veil, trusting not in his own 
 merits, his own works, or even in his own faith, but in his Great 
 High Priest. This is the Christian's position his whole life 
 long, and then the veil is taken away, the thin film of mortal 
 vision drops from the immortal eye, — this life is at an end, 
 eternity is open, and we see Him face to face. Such are the 
 blessings of the Priesthood of our Lord to the baptized man 
 who has a living faith. 
 
 We come, lastly, to the prophetic ofiice of our Lord, and 
 its relation to the faithful in the Church of Christ. And in 
 this we have indications of a most wonderful work for us, 
 half seen. We know that we are in a twilight world. If we 
 see a step or two before us, it is the most that we can do. In 
 it the changes from happiness to misery, from good to evil, are 
 most rapid and perplexing. Man must go onward upon his 
 path, he must act ; yet it does seem, sometimes, as if mere 
 chance swayed the course of events, as if bold presumption 
 were more successful than forethought or knowledge. Then, 
 again, unvarying luck, as it is called, or ill luck, suggests the 
 idea, so popular with the multitude, of chance, or of mere fate. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 295 
 
 Power, not proceeding from ourselves; events, originating 
 far away, npon whose sources and causes we have had no guid- 
 ance ; influences, from heaven above, from the earth beneath, 
 striking upon our senses, moving our minds, disturbing, 
 exciting, agitating us, through our bodily organizations : how 
 shall man be led by reason? how shall he have wisdom to 
 guide himself aright when he is the focus, the centre of such 
 a concurrence of powers, material and mental, known and 
 unknown, over whose origination and action he has no control? 
 Launch a vessel on a torrent river filled with rocks and eddies 
 and rapids ; place at the helm a pilot who is purblind, — and 
 you have a faint image and similitude of man guiding his 
 course of life by his own reason in this world, apart from 
 God. 
 
 Yes ! there are but few, even of the most abandoned and the 
 most hardened, that can stand face to face with the world of 
 actual life, and clearly, in the depths of their own hearts, say 
 that there is no God. To the mass of men, the current of outer 
 events and facts and circumstances which so incessantly strikes 
 upon us and modifies our course at each moment of our 
 existence, irresistibly suggests the direct action through them 
 of a personal being, omnipotent and omniscient, who under- 
 stands and controls them all, that is, of God. This is the 
 thought of all thoughtful men, at all times, under all climates. 
 It is only the " fool that hath said in his heart. There is no 
 God." 
 
 Under these circumstances, what does the Christian need ? 
 Existing, as he does, in such a tumultuous and darkling world ; 
 wrought upon, as he is, by the fact that he is a man, by so many 
 powers alien to his being, liable to so many temptations, 
 bound to a haven that lies so far away, set upon a course 
 shrouded in clouds, which his sight can but feebly penetrate, — 
 what does he need ? A guidance, plainly, that is not his own ; 
 a wisdom that comes not from himself ; a supporting power 
 which he cannot obtain from nature or himself. All this he 
 has from Christ assured to him, and given on condition of his 
 
296 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 faith. All this is promised in the Kew Testament to the 
 Christian in the Church of God. 
 
 Eead through the Epistles of St. Paul and the other apostles, 
 with the fact upon your mind that they were written to baptized 
 men. The man of most experience in the world has no keener 
 sense of the dangers of life than is manifested by these writers, 
 and of the resources of wisdom required to meet them. And 
 nothing can surpass, in weight of conviction, and in deep 
 earnestness of feeling, the solemnity with which they promise 
 to all Christian men the wisdom sufficient to guide them to the 
 end, on the one condition •of their faith. For this is, in the 
 theology of the Scriptures, and the primitive Church, the third 
 point of the present work of our ascended Lord, — that the God- 
 man, clothed with omniscience, is the prophet of the whole 
 Church, and of every member thereof. In whatsoever condi- 
 tion of life, of health, or of circumstances the baptized man 
 may be, only let him seek from our Lord, in faith, the wis- 
 dom he requires, and it shall be given to him. " If any of 
 you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all liber- 
 ally, and upbi'aideth not ; and it shall be given him. But let 
 him ask in faith, nothing doubting." * 
 
 We see, then, how this great need is satisfied, this promise 
 to us is fulfilled. With wisdom from on high, from the Word 
 incarnate and His Spirit, each regenerate man is fully provided 
 by his regeneration, if he will only open his soul by a true 
 faith to the gift that is given him. 
 
 In fact, look at man's state of perplexity, and the uncer- 
 tainty in which he is by nature, — see the need that he has for 
 guidance, — and the Christian doctrine and fact of the Holy 
 Spirit is the supply of all those needs, the solution for all these 
 doubts. Look, again, at the cold, deistic doctrine of a mere 
 maker of the world, a being who so far as they describe him, 
 only creates, his sole attributes being power — who may, there- 
 fore, as far as they know, be good or evil — and then compare 
 with it the Christian doctrine of the Third Person of the Holy 
 * St. James, i. 5, 6. 
 
REGENERATIOrr IN BAPTISM. 297 
 
 Trinity, and see how tliis last, fully preached and fully under- 
 stood, comes home to onr hearts. A Personal Spirit, omni- 
 scient and omnipotent, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, 
 coming forth to the spirits of all men upon the earth, — the 
 Spirit of God, to each spirit of man, with prevenient grace, 
 calling all men to repentance for sin, and to faith in God, 
 through Christ. That Spirit, again, by His power in holy 
 baptism, conferring remission of all sins, planting in the man 
 the life of Christ, bringing him within the fold of the Church. 
 And the same omniscient Spirit, giving their commission to 
 the ministry of Christ, aiding them and guiding them in their 
 dealings with man on behalf of God. The same Spirit mak- 
 ing even material things means of His grace to those who have 
 faith to believe, — :as we have shown in the essays upon the 
 doctrine and rationale of sacraments. And then, again, the 
 Spirit, from age to age, inspiring the prophets and apostles, 
 and, from their illumined intellect, producing the Scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testaments, until, in His Church, we have 
 the completed volume of inspiration, a treasure of infinite value 
 to the whole earth. The Eastern Church looked upon the 
 Holy Ghost as especially the Spirit of Life, " the Lord and the 
 Life-giver," — the "Western, as the Spirit of Grace, giving freely 
 according to His will, the influences that enable us to obey 
 God, and that set us free from sin. And both views are true 
 of Him. But, what a gift this is ! — that the Spirit of Christ 
 should dwell and abide in the Church, — that He should dwell 
 in the regenerated man, — that, as the Spirit of Life, the Spirit 
 of Grace, the Spirit of Wisdom, He should be ever pres- 
 ent in their souls, unto all who, being within the Church of 
 Christ, open their hearts to His influences by their living and 
 willing faith. 
 
 Hence, especially is our Lord in heaven our Gi'eat Prophet, 
 since from Him proceeds to His believing people upon earth, 
 in manifold ways, and with manifold gifts, the Spirit of God. 
 He it is who awakes in us the desire, and gives us the power, to 
 pray. He commends our prayers to our Lord in heaven. He 
 
298 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 warns iis of the approacli of evil. He gives us strength to re- 
 sist temptation. He arouses us when we shimber. He pours 
 into our hearts consoLition in our sorrow, comfort in our heavi- 
 ness. He renews us to repentance and faith. Far away lies 
 the haven toward which we are bound, — the course thither is 
 hidden from our eyes ; by a living faith in Christ we gain unto 
 ourselves the guidance of the omniscient and omnipotent Spirit. 
 He beholds our course, and leads us through it in a way that 
 is most expedient for us. The wisdom that we have not of 
 ourselves, He gives us. The grace that is needful, we have from 
 Him, from day to day, to resist evil, to do good. The life to 
 overcome the mortal wound of sin, to grow and dwell in us, 
 and change us so that at the Resurrection we shall stand as 
 full-grown sons in the image of Christ our brother, is from Him. 
 All these gifts we have, here in the Church upon earth, from 
 the Spirit of the Living Christ, our Great Prophet, before the 
 throne of heaven. 
 
 Such are the blessings which we receive from our Lord Je- 
 sus Christ, who ascended into heaven, and there reigns for us 
 as our King, our High Priest, and our Prophet, — the Mediator 
 between God and man until the Resurrection. 
 
 We have dwelt on them the more fully, because the com- 
 mon religion hides them away, or rather forgets and ignores 
 them. It is not that it denies them, for they plainly lie 
 upon the very face of Holy Writ ; but that it is so full of its 
 own emotions, its own feelings, its own faith — it is so occu- 
 pied with its little paltry self — that it has no time to lift up its 
 eyes to these great objective truths. And, therefore, they 
 make no impression ; and instead of distinct ^doctrines and solid 
 facts, as they really are, they are taken to be mere Oriental 
 figures of speech, mere warm, emotional phrases, that have no 
 reality, no facts that they convey or signify. But to our read- 
 ers who have not thought upon these matters, we say, open 
 the New Testament, and turn to the Epistles. All these are 
 addressed to baptized men in the various Churches, to the elect, 
 that is, to men who are within the covenant of Christ, to the 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 299 
 
 sons of God. It is asserted everywhere in these Epistles that 
 to them these blessings are given on condition of their faith, — 
 not to those who are without. 
 
 For all men are divided into two great classes, — those in the 
 state of nature, and those in the state of grace. To the iirst we 
 preach repentance from dead works, and faith in our Lord Je- 
 sus Christ, that they may enter within His covenant by holy 
 baptism, and thus become sons of God ; secondly, there is 
 the class of sons of God, they who in baptism have been made 
 members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom 
 of heaven. 
 
 And of these, again, there are also two classes, — the rebel- 
 lious, and the obedient sons. The last are those who have a 
 living faith, and thus are justified. To them the full blessings 
 of the covenant belong, for personal faith removes all obstacles 
 and bars in the way of the reception of God's grace. How God 
 deals with His sons that, either through carelessness or w^icked- 
 ness, are not justified, have no living faith, we know ; but less 
 distinctly, then, we understand the privileges of those M'ho, by 
 their living faith, are of the " Communion of Saints" upontlie 
 earth. 
 
 Kow, then, if this be the true representation of the state of 
 man upon the earth, what shall we do who, however weakly 
 and feebly, try to have faith in God, who has redeemed us and 
 placed us in His Church 1 For ourselves our duty is plain, — 
 the Church teaches it through the whole year, by her liturgies, 
 by her ministry, by the Scriptures which she reads in our ears 
 and places in our hands. As regards those outside the cove- 
 nant, our duty, both clergy and laity, is to be filled for them 
 with a holy fear, a sacred compassion for their state as lying out- 
 side of the covenant of God, which is proffered to man, through 
 Christ our Lord ; and by our life, by our words, by our prayers, 
 by our personal entreaties and influence, to move them to 
 repentance for sins, to faith in our Redeemer, and to baptism 
 into His Church. For the full and complete recognition and 
 confession of Christ, is that alone which places man upon the 
 
300 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Rock. The faith by which we are saved in the highest degree, 
 is the faith that accepts Christ in His covenant. The " con- 
 fession that is made with the mouth unto salvation," in the 
 fullest sense, is the confession that is made before God and man 
 in holy baptism, and continued on in the same fulness through 
 life. This is the great work to be done by us, for those in the 
 state of nature, that they be brought within the state of salva- 
 tion, the state of grace. 
 
 And, then, for those within the Church of Christ, who are 
 obedient, see how much each Christian man and woman is bound 
 to do. See how we are to train our children in the doctrines 
 and the faith of Holy Scripture. See how we are to encourage 
 one another to persevere. See how, as members of the one 
 great family, of which Christ is the head, we are to aid 
 and strengthen one another in Christian growth and progress. 
 For we are not sons, at once, of full stature, and incapable of 
 falling away. We are at first children, new-born in Christ. 
 The portion of life which God has in His wisdom allotted to us 
 in this world after our baptism, — this is our term of growth, that 
 we may increase and grow until we reach the fulness of the 
 stature of Christ. We are planted in the garden of God upon 
 earth, to grow and bear fruit for heaven. Perhaps it may be 
 only there that the full growth shall be seen, the full harvest 
 shall be reaped. See you not how manifold a work the justified 
 Christian man or woman has to do for those who are along with 
 him in the household of faith ? 
 
 This is a great work for us to do, even for those in our 
 sphere of circumstances who are not willingly and understand- 
 ingly evil. But how great does it become when we have to 
 deal with the sons of God who are rebels to their own con- 
 victions and knowledge, their own vows and promises. We 
 consider this no further than simply to say, that every Chris- 
 tian, by the fact that he is a brother in Christ, is bound, as God 
 shall give him the opportunity, to aid those who are fallen 
 away from Christ, by the influence of his Christian example, 
 by actual personal remonstrances, by his earnest and secret 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 301 
 
 prayer for them. Mainly does this last work rest upon the 
 clergy, under whose pastoral care the baptized are. Still, if 
 private Christians in the Church, who are brethren by baptism, 
 knew how much aid they might give, by these means, to the 
 cause of God, it would be well, both for them and for their 
 fallen brethren — the sons of God — who are not justified. 
 
 One thing more we must add. Fully as the doctrine of 
 regeneration is preached in Holy Writ, distinctly as it is 
 declared to us as a fact that even in this world we may become, 
 by an actual and real new birth, the sons of God, there is a 
 higher state still of that sonship after this world is past. 
 
 "VVe know that when we have been brought into the Church 
 of God upon earth, we belong to it always, to the end of life. 
 No excommunication casts man out of the Church, only out 
 of the communion of the Church. No new baptism is required 
 for the most evil and abandoned apostate after his repentance. 
 If he be restored, he is restored as a son that returns to his 
 father's house, not as an alien. He needs not another regener- 
 ation, but reconciliation. AVe never baptize again the fallen 
 children of the kingdom, who come back with sorrow to 
 the fold. Hence, so long as they are upon the earth, so long 
 as they live, hope is open before them ; they are upon their 
 trial before God, the Spirit is working upon them, the Son 
 is calling to them ; all the influences, spiritual and natural, of 
 the kingdom into which they were introduced, are at work to 
 lead them onward toward heaven, to lift them upward from the 
 pit into which they have cast themselves. 
 
 See what a fountain of hope and mercy is herein, for the 
 son who has left his father's house, who has gone into the far 
 country, and hired himself to the citizen of that foreign land 
 to feed swine, — that he may arise and go to his Father, and say 
 to him : " Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, 
 and am no more worthy to be called Thy son." See what a 
 basis of hope for the evil and the abandoned there is, in the 
 doctrine of baptism to us — the clergy and laity of the Church — 
 who desire the salvation of souls. To those outside the cove- 
 
302 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 nant we preach regeneration and the complete remission of all 
 sins, if, with sincere faith and sincere repentance, they accept 
 Him in His appointed way. Then, again, to the fallen sons of 
 God, our message is not of despair, not of decrees of predesti- 
 nation and reprobation, but of hope, of mercy, of grace, that 
 they may finally turn unto God. 
 
 We deny not, that to our eyes the man may seem self-aban- 
 doned to utter ruin, plunged in the bottomless abysses of sin, 
 gone beyond power of recovery ; still, because he is a son of 
 God, within the covenant, and because our eyes see not the 
 secret things of man's heart, nor the secret method of God's 
 dealings with man, we have no such message for the man, of 
 our own short-sighted experience, our narrow knowledge, and 
 presumptuous argumentation. Our message for all such cases 
 is, "Son of God, arise! abandon sin, struggle after the faith 
 that is lost, come back to thy Father in heaven ! For the Great 
 High Priest, the Prophet and the King — thy brother in human 
 nature — is upon the throne, before the altar, in the Holy of 
 Holies, interceding also for thee ! Only repent and abandon 
 sin, only have faith in our Lord, and obey His laws." This is 
 the sole message the Christian has from Christ his Saviour for 
 his fallen brother, however sunk he may be in sin. 
 
 We do not, as we have said, deny that to man it may appear, 
 in certain cases, that men have cast themselves away during 
 this life, that they have built up a wall between themselves and 
 the light, and enclosed themselves, as it were, in a living tomb. 
 Upon these grounds and notions of their own narrow minds 
 and mere human experience, some have generalized and framed 
 a theology of despair for living men, forgetting the moral object 
 of the world as a school of probation, forgetting the effects ot 
 regeneration, and the value of the Church of God as a spiritual 
 school of trial ; forgetful, also, we must say, of the love, the 
 mercy, the long-suftering of the Almighty God, and His Son, 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 No ! When man's life closes, then, and not till then, closes 
 against him the door of hope, the possibility of repentance 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 303 
 
 and restoration. To Judas Iscariot, to Barabbas, to Simon 
 Magus, no other doctrine is to be preached than those of ab- 
 horrence and abandonment of sin, and of faith toward God. 
 For Judas maybe conv^erted ; Simon Magus may himself* re- 
 pent, and pray to God, and receive forgiveness, — as long as they 
 are living men upon the earth. This is the principle upon 
 which the Christian man must act, how much soever difficulty he 
 may see in the case before him : inasmuch as he believes in 
 God ; inasmuch as he believes in remission of all their sins, 
 upon condition of a full acceptance of Christ, for all the un- 
 regencrated; and for all the regenerated, that their privileges as 
 sons cease not until death. We do not fully discuss this last 
 subject, nor say all we have to say upon it. We only lay it 
 before the minds of our readers, and submit for their acceptance 
 the conclusions we have come to from a consideration of this 
 subject that has been going on in our mind for many years. 
 We place this determination of the question before them, as the 
 one which we feel to be the most consistent with the analogies 
 of God's dealings with man ; with the nature of the world 
 considered as a state of trial, and of the Church as His kingdom 
 on the earth ; with the mercy of our Father in heaven, the love 
 of His Son our Lord, and the grace of the Spirit ; with the 
 responsibility of man to God, and the final and consummate 
 justice of an Almighty and Omniscient Father to all His 
 creatures at the judgment day. 
 
 One thing more completes the discussion of this part of 
 the subject, — the relation it bears to the resurrection. Through 
 the whole of the New Testament the Gospel dispensation is 
 considered to be completed at that day. The Church now con- 
 tains the evil as well as the good, the tares or poisonous darnel 
 as well as the wholesome wheat. At the end of the world the 
 angels go forth and separate the tares (the darnel) from the 
 
 * It is curious to look at the thorough selfishness of Simon Magus's reply 
 to St. Peter's exhortation to repent of his great wickedness, and to pray for 
 forgiveness of his great sin. It is, " Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none 
 of these things which ye have spoken come upon me." (Acts, viii. 34.) 
 
304 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 wheat, and cast them into the furnace of fire. It is only at the 
 day of judgment that the Church is a "glorious Chnrch, not 
 having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; holy and without 
 blemish." * So it is with onr justification. In this life, by 
 the grace of God, we have the great blessing that, by a living 
 and true faith, laying hold upon His death and sacrifice, we can 
 stand upright, justified before God. Yet, after this, we may 
 fall into condemnation. But our complete and perfect justifi- 
 cation is, then, when God shall pronounce us finally, irreversibly, 
 unchangeably justified, tlirough Christ our Redeemer. Our 
 complete justification is at the day of judgment. Thus, also, 
 it is with our regeneration. We are sons of God here upon 
 earth, truly and really. But that sonship is not perfected, it 
 does not attain its complete growth and consummation, until 
 the resurrection day. Then are " we children of God, as being 
 the children of the resurrection." Then, from the womb of 
 the earth we are born, out of the life of grace into the life of 
 glory. Then the life of Christ in us, which in this world has 
 been initial, shall dwell in us in full perfection. Then the im- 
 mortal body changed into His image, shining like the sun, 
 incapable of death or disease, filled with the Spirit of life, 
 shall stand perfect before the throne of God, united with a soul 
 cleansed from all sin, and an intelligence made perfect in all its 
 powers and fiiculties, by God's Spirit. 
 
 This is the perfect and complete regeneration, of which, in 
 this world, we have only the first fruits. This is that ultimate and 
 final change, completing all that has been begun on earth in 
 us, " the sons of God." This is our " manifestation which the 
 whole creation groaneth and travaileth to behold," the con- 
 summation of all things, the regeneration of the sons of God 
 completed in the Hesurrection, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 The flaw and disease which fell upon man, and the whole 
 world, through the sin of Adam, in them is healed. And the 
 " sons of God, being the sons of the Resurrection," then fully 
 and finally endowed with all the blessings obtained for them 
 *Epliesians v. 27. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 305 
 
 by their Redeemer, standing upon the new earth, sheltered by 
 the new heavens, shall be like Him, for as He is, so shall they 
 be also." This is the completion of the regeneration received 
 by the Christian man in this world, the full perfection and 
 heavenly ripeness and maturity of the life which he receives 
 in his baptism by faith upon the earth. 
 20 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Our readers have seen, in various parts of this work, how 
 the denial or the misunderstanding of various other doctrines 
 has led to the denial of this doctrine of baptismal regeneration. 
 If men assert that there is no such thing really in existence as 
 a Church of Christ, they cannot believe in a doctrine which 
 makes admission within it of preeminently great importance. 
 If they deny the Divinity of Christ, and think Him to be a 
 mere man who is dead, as other men are dead, they cannot 
 comprehend how from Him a spiritual, supernatural life can 
 now proceed. If they deny the divinity and personality of 
 the Holy Ghost, they cannot conceive any spiritual regener- 
 ation effected by His present power. If their doctrine be that 
 sacraments are nothing, of course, to them, it is an absurdity 
 that anything real should take place in the sacrament of bap- 
 tism. Looking over all these things, we have at once the strange 
 facts accounted for, that men deny this doctrine against the 
 manifest words and manifest sense of Holy Writ. l!^ay, we 
 see how they deny the doctrine before they discuss it, even 
 before they hear it stated. The doctrine itself, as we have 
 said, rests upon an accumulation of doctrines ; it is, itself, the 
 crowning-stone of the Christian pyramid. The doctrine of 
 regeneration is the last link, nearest to man, in the chain of 
 Divine truth, that fastens humanity to the throne of the Father, 
 as the divinity of Christ our Lord is the first link, nearest unto 
 God. Deny any one of these, its supporting and connecting 
 doctrines, and the negation is felt in it, — it must be denied. 
 
 We, therefore, who hold it, are subjected to a multi- 
 tude of prejudices, a multitude of difliculties, if we present 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 307 
 
 this great truth of the Gospel system as an isolated doc- 
 trine, standing alone. If we believe in it, we believe be- 
 cause it is in the Bible, and it is, also, the inevitable logical 
 consequence, the result and completion of many other evan- 
 gelical doctrines. If those outside deny it, it is because they 
 have first denied one or more of these. In order to avoid 
 these difiiculties, and to have the advantage of presenting to 
 our readers the doctrine which we advocate, in its systematic 
 connection w^ith other doctrines, we present them with a syn- 
 opsis of connected Scriptural truths, which we term the Gospel 
 System. We lay it before them as agreeing, in spirit and in 
 letter, with our Book of Common Prayer. And this, again, 
 we consider, in its doctrine and in its practice, to represent the 
 purest practice of the Church in the purest ages. We ask our 
 readers, then, w^itli the Bible and the Prayer Book in their 
 hands, to examine this system which we lay before them, and 
 the Scriptural proofs which we have alleged and expounded, — 
 and thus, we think, they will see, in the system of regeneration 
 as held in the Church, a harmony with all the doctrines of the 
 Gospel, a beauty in the waj- it applies to all the problems of 
 human life, surpassing all the philosophies, both ancient and 
 modern, and, above all, a consummate depth of wisdom, an 
 intense practical spirit, which, in the same words, can teach, 
 catechetically, a child, and satisfy the inquiries of a sage. 
 
 THE GOSPEL SYSTEM. 
 
 I. Man, as originally created by God, was a perfect being, 
 sinless and immortal, dwelling in a perfect world. He was 
 made in the image of God. He was full of spiritual life. The 
 law of God was written in his heart. From the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, there flowed upon him, freely, gifts 
 and graces and endowments, transcending nature, truly super- 
 natural, coming from the spiritual world. By the temptation 
 of Satan, and the act of his own free will, man fell. There- 
 upon he suffered a threefold loss. His whole being, in all its 
 constituent parts and faculties, became depraved and diseased 
 
308 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 by sin. He was cast out of Paradise. He lo?t his right and 
 title to the gifts of his first estate. A son of God wounded 
 mortally, exiled from his Fathek's House, amerced of his 
 inheritance, — tliis became from that time his state, and that of 
 all men naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam. 
 
 II. By nature, therefore, all men as born into the world are 
 dead in sin ; cast out from Paradise, under condemnation of 
 the Law ; unable by their own power to restore themselves. 
 
 III. They need, therefore, 1st, Deliverance from the con- 
 demnation of sin, and its dominion ; 2d, A new spiritual life 
 from heaven to dwell in them, and heal them; 3rd, The 
 existence, and continuance upon earth for them, of a sphere 
 for that new life to dwell in ; 4th, In it, all the means and in- 
 fluences whereby the flame of that new life shall be fed, and 
 cherished until it reach perfection. 
 
 lY. The WoED, therefore, became incarnate. God, made 
 man — the two natures, the perfect Godhead of the Son, united 
 with perfect humanity, in One Peeson — was born of the Virgin 
 into this world. He lived with us until the age of mature 
 and complete manhood, as the perfect example and standard 
 of the human race, in his life and precepts. He died then upon 
 Calvary as a sacrifice and atonement for the sins of the whole 
 world. He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to be 
 our Mediator. The King, the Priest, and the Prophet of His 
 people upon earth, until the judgment day. This is the three- 
 fold work of our Lord for man, which, once done, establishes 
 the Gospel. 
 
 Y. For, — in consequence of this and because of it, — the 
 Spirit of the Father and Son was sent upon earth to organize 
 the Church of Christ, and to call upon all men to come within it. 
 The Church, the Kingdom of our unseen King, the Temple of 
 our High Priest and Prophet within the veil, is a permanent 
 and visible tabernacle upon the earth for the regenerate to dwell 
 within. It is the sphere of the new life. In it are present 
 unto man all the spiritual blessings which our Lord obtains and 
 confers upon his brethren. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 309 
 
 YI. The Chnrcli of God is a visible organized society upon 
 earth, with an apostolic ministry. It is Catholic as receiving- 
 all men, in all times, and of all lands and races, within its 
 bosom ; and as, finally, to spread over the whole world. The 
 Spirit is its indwelling and organizing power. It is holy ; for 
 within its fold are all the means of holiness and salvation to 
 him that believeth and is baptized. All men are called by 
 Christ to come within His Church. " The "Spirit and the Bride 
 say, come." 
 
 YII. Hence, to all men, the Gospel is preached. To all 
 men are proffered, 1st, Remission of all their sins ; 2d, En- 
 trance within the Chnrcli of Christ upon earth, and with it 
 the new life of Christ, which together make regeneration, — the 
 new birth into the new state, the state of grace and salvation ; 
 after this, until death, sufficient grace and guidance, that we 
 may reach everlasting glory in heaven. 
 
 YIII. This gift is offered to man on stated conditions and 
 by the appointed means. The conditions on the part of man 
 are, 1st, True and heartfelt repentance from sin ; 2d, Real 
 and sincere faith in God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 These two, actually existing in the man, constitute conversion ; 
 that is, a sincere and earnest " turning away from sin and a 
 turning toward " God, of the soul, willingly, heartily, and 
 affectionately done. It is the work of the Holy Spirit influ- 
 encing and aiding the will of man. It is required of all who 
 come to Christ, both of those who have never been baptized 
 and of those who, having professed His name in baptism, have 
 fallen away into sin. Of this work, the ordinary means is the 
 preaching of the Gospel by the commissioned ambassadors of 
 our Lord. Yet, in manifold ways, and by means the most un- 
 expected, does the eternal Spirit strive with man, that he may 
 turn toward God. 
 
 IX. Man being thus prepared, there is no bar, on his part, 
 to the grace of God. The gift of regeneration is given to him 
 in God's appointed way, and by the means He has established 
 in the sacrament of baptism. Therein we are born of water, 
 
310 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the outward and visible sign, and of the Spirit, the inward life- 
 giving power. Therein we are made " members of Christ, 
 children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven." All 
 this is done on condition of our faith and repentance, by the 
 6Uj)ernatural and miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, acting 
 in this world of space and time, in and by means of the 
 sacrament of baptism. 
 
 X. This birth is no bare figure, no mere outward sign of a 
 grace which we had before. But it is the actual and real gift 
 of regeneration, then and there conferred upon us, on the con- 
 ditions required of us by God, and by the means which He has 
 ordained for our acceptance. Our sins are all forgiven by the 
 merits of Christ's death and sacrifice, then applied to our souls 
 by the Holy Spirit. The life of Christ is then implanted in 
 our being. We are then brought, by the same Spirit, within 
 the Church of God. As every true and real birth consists of, 
 and is made up of, these two, — an organic life and a sphere of 
 being for that life to mature and exist therein ; so our new 
 birth consists of these two, internally and externally, — the life 
 of Christ and our entrance into the Church of God, which is 
 upon earth, the sphere and home of that new life. 
 
 XI. Henceforth, from the moment of our baptism, we are, 
 1st, The sons ot God, through Jesus Christ our Lord ; 2d, We 
 are members of the Election, which is the Church of God visi- 
 ble upon the earth, " Elect according to the foreknowledge oi' 
 God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obe- 
 dience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." 3d, We 
 are in covenant with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the Mediator of the New Covenant. All these privileges belong 
 to the members of Christ's Church militant, collectively and 
 individually. 
 
 XII. Our Lord Jesus Christ is, therefore, unto us who are 
 baptized into the Church, a living and a present Saviour. Now 
 He intercedes and reigns for us. We are subjects of a Kingdom 
 — members of a Church that has now a real, organized exist- 
 ence upon the earth ; that is now visible and actual in space and 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 311 
 
 time ; although its King and Prophet and Great High Priest ; 
 its heavenly hosts of angels and archangels, cherubim and ser- 
 aphim; its communion of saints that are gone to their rest; 
 nay, our own highest spiritual privileges and blessings, be not 
 visible to our bodily eyes. These, during our abidance in the 
 Church militant upon earth, are only to be seen by faith. In 
 our future life of glory, in the Church triumphant, " we shall 
 see even as we are seen, face to face." 
 
 XIII. Having thus entered within the Church, the one 
 great key to all the blessings of our state and condition is, upon 
 our part, an earnest and living faith. Faith is the eye that 
 opens the soul to all the light of heaven. It is the hand that 
 receives and appropriates all the gifts and graces of the state 
 in which we are placed. It lays hold upon and accepts all the 
 merits of Christ. Faith, therefore, justifies. For, as Christ is 
 the centre of all salvation, the substance and the reality of all 
 means, all sacraments, all spiritual blessings, it is faith which 
 willingly, consciously, lovingly accepts and receives Him in 
 them all. In Him, therefore, it receives pardon of all sins, 
 and all the merits of His incarnation ; of His death and sac- 
 rifice on earth, and of His present and perpetual mediation for 
 us in heaven. Such, to the regenerate man, are the eflects of 
 faith, a living, habitual, and loving personal faith, constantly 
 laying hold upon God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 XI Y. Hence, within the Church of God upon earth there 
 are two classes equal, in the blessings by which they are sur- 
 rounded, unequal in the use they make of them : the sons of 
 God who love, believe, and obey their Heavenly Father, and 
 they who, being sons, have no faith, and therefore no love and 
 no obedience to His laws. The first " hold fast the faith," they 
 " build themselves up in faith," " they follow after faith," 
 " they fight the good fight of faith " — all, therefore, of the 
 spiritual blessings of this state that they can receive they do 
 receive. First and greatest of all, as opening the way to all, 
 that they are uncondemned, or justified, before God, through 
 faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. To be in such a state is mani- 
 
312 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 festlj to be really lioly, according to our capacity, and that not 
 of ourselves, but of the gift of God. Hence they who have a 
 living faith, the justified that is, make up a class of real saints 
 within the Church of God. They are " the communion of 
 saints." Those, again, who have not that living faith, are they 
 who are rebellious sons, — they who wilfully and knowingly 
 live in sin, and therefore are condemned before God and not 
 justified. 
 
 XY. The signs of a living faith in the baptized are, first, in 
 the heart, — love to God and man ; second, in the life, — a will- 
 ing obedience to God's laws; in other words, a religious and 
 devotional life, arising from a true and sincere habitual faith. 
 
 Of man's baptism all men can judge — they can see whether 
 it has taken place or not ; of his justification, only God, and 
 the man's own secret heart, are certain and assured. 
 
 XVI. Our sonship, begun in this world, is completed at the 
 resurrection. Here, our greatest privileges in Christ, although 
 real, are only initial. Then and there, is the Consummation 
 — the final completion of our career. We are then born from 
 the state of grace into the state of glory, "Sons of God, being 
 sons of the Resurrection." The spiritual life that began in this 
 world, comes to its maturity then, in the glorified body, the 
 perfected intellect, the redeemed and spotless spirit in the open 
 vision of God. We have then attained unto maturity. We 
 have " come unto the perfect man, unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fulness of Christ." " As he is," so then " shall 
 we be also." And furthermore, the creation itself is then re- 
 generated, "born with us, unto the glorious liberty of the sons 
 of God." And the new heavens and the new earth are hence- 
 forth forever our eternal home and dwelling-place. So shall 
 all who, in the state of grace upon earth, had lived in a true 
 faith, live with our Lord forever in the state of glory in heaven. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 SCEIPTURAL PROOFS. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Our readers have now before them, clearly, what the 
 Church means by the word regeneration. They have before 
 them the authority in our Prayer Book for the doctrine. They 
 have also seen its uses, and the deep and practical philosophy 
 it contains, as applied to life. Now, therefore, is the time to 
 examine the Scripture proofs, for there is no doubt that the mass 
 of professing Christians in this country attach no such meaning 
 to the word " regeneration " as we do ; the ideas of which it, 
 with us, is the centre, do not belong to their ordinary use of the 
 word. Regeneration and conversion are, with them, identical. 
 "VVe claim that the two ideas are utterly distinct, — we assert 
 that regeneration is a doctrine and fact peculiarly Christian ; it 
 is a gift to us from Christ our Lord, in His Church, and since 
 His coming into the M^orld. It is only since Christ came, and 
 because of His coming, as the Cod-man upon the earth, the 
 Redeemer of the world, that men can become sons of God. 
 
 Surely, then, since this great confusion of words reigns 
 among the masses of ordinary Christians, it is well that we 
 should fully and exactly understand what we mean by the 
 word " regeneration," and the ideas we attach to it, before we 
 examine the word as found in Holy Writ. And this the more 
 that the other doctrine, that of conversion, is also held by us as 
 distinctly as by any of them, but only as belonging to its own 
 proper term, and in its proper position. For we do not say 
 that conversion is regeneration, or that regeneration is con- 
 version ; but we say that regeneration is the new birth, and 
 conversion is the turning of man from evil to good, under the 
 influence of the Spirit of God. 
 
316 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Anotlier remark we would make most important in these 
 days of mere verbal arguers — that wretched class so nnmerons 
 since men have given up belief in the real existence of the 
 Church — that there is something more necessary to truth than 
 exclusively grammatical examination. In fact, all discussion 
 of any truth of Scripture, to be sound and complete, must 
 have, first, the verbal examination of the term or phrase in 
 Holy Writ, with its context ; secondly, the discussion of the 
 conception, or the examination of the logical truth and consist- 
 ency of the whole "complex of the ideas which we attach in om* 
 minds to that word or phrase ; and, thirdly, the reality and 
 actual truth of the thing itself in the woi'ld of facts and events. 
 These remarks we make in reference, mainly, to those gram- 
 marians of Germany, who take it for granted, at the start, that 
 merely from the verbal form of Scripture, they can bring forth 
 the truth, — who cast aside all the laws of logic, and laugh to 
 scorn creeds, liturgies, and doctrines.* In regard to this, we 
 say, let us have all the knowledge of grammatical principles, 
 of words, and idiom that we can have, by the most extended and 
 laborious verbal research. Then let us have all the skill in the 
 necessary laws of thought, all the logical training, verbal and 
 
 * Luther, with, his enormous personal influence, and his extreme sub- 
 jectivity, commenced all this mischief. His doctrine of " the Bible only," 
 and the infallibility of private judgment, in fact, shut him into this idea. 
 And, accordingly, we find him asserting that all theology is merely gram- 
 mar 1 "Lutherus — theologiam veram et summam nihil aliud esse, quam 
 grammaticam, h. e., Grsecarum, Hebraicarumque literarum scientiam pu- 
 tabat." — Ernesti, cited by Donaldson, "The New Cratylus," p. 11, Preface, 
 Chalmers also asserts the same thing : " The mind and meaning of the 
 author who is translated, is purely a question of language, and should be 
 decided upon no other principles than those of grammar or philology." — 
 Works, p. 54, Am. ed. 
 
 There never was any more blind and stupid principle laid down, as any 
 one will tell you who is really conversant with the science of legal interpre- 
 tation. And yet it is undoubtedly the principle upon which the German 
 exegetes of the Bible have worked up to this time. Because grammar 
 and philology are very advantageous indeed in the interpretation of docu- 
 ments, therefore, no other knowledge whatsoever is in any degree necessary 
 or requisite ! 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTIS3I. 317 
 
 real, which these men are now so deficient in. And, lastly, 
 let us have the science of real intei*pretation — as lawyers at the 
 bar, practically acquainted with the business of life, and judges 
 accustomed to the weighing of evidence upon the bench, under- 
 stand it — applied to the documents of Scripture. 
 
 For there is a science of real interpretation. Men of great 
 genius in the legal profession have laid down its principles and 
 given the rules requisite for its aj)plication. This science is 
 part of the education of every well-trained lawyer in this 
 country, and a primal qualification of every judge that sits 
 npon the bench. We have yet to learn that these German 
 exegetes understand any of the principles of this important 
 science. We question whether, as a matter of fact, even the 
 ablest and honestest of them, Michaelis, or Tholuck, or Ernesti, 
 or Gesenius, ever even dreamed of the existence of such a 
 science. In fact, so far as we have seen of the German com- 
 mentators, their commentaries give no indication, in any way, 
 of real principles of interpretation. We question whether 
 any of their commentaries, considered as examinations of docu- 
 ments, and their evidence and gist, would stand for a moment 
 the judicial eye, we will say, of Story, or Marshall, or Green- 
 leaf. 
 
 In truth, their whole process is the reverse of interpretation. 
 This science seeks scientifically to fix and determine the mean- 
 ing of documents that are of authority. The German exegesis, 
 in eft'ect, is generally the reverse of this. It loosens all mean- 
 ing. It gives the power of attaching any sense you please. 
 It is a magazine of negations and evasions. It is merely verbal 
 and grammatical, not logical, nor real, nor legal.* 
 
 * There are, now, both in classical and sacred exegesis, many indications 
 that this vicious system is to pass away, and that real interpretation is going 
 to take its station in Germany, side by side with grammatical argumenta- 
 tion. It may seem that we have spoken somewhat harshly of these ex- 
 egetes ; and yet we have by no means used, concerning them, stronger lan- 
 guage than that which most able and learned men in Germany have employed 
 of late. Take, for instance, the very first paragraph of the preface to the 
 sixth edition of Winer's " Grammar of the New Testament Idiom." " When 
 
318 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Indeed, it is only in the great commentators of the Primi- 
 tive Church — St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius ; 
 only in the great English theologians — Bull and Barrow, 
 Pearson, Laud, and Hooker; and in some of the Roman 
 Catholics, when these last are not upon their own peculiar 
 notions — that we see real intei-pretation. Only in these do we 
 behold the principle that the Scriptures relate to awful realities 
 connected with man's eternal destinies ; only in them the con- 
 viction that they are authoritative documents. In fact and truth, 
 were our system of interpretation — that of the interpretation 
 of Scriptures in accordance with the creeds and the universal 
 sense of the Primitive Church — drawn forth in a scientific 
 form, as well adapted to modern times as the manual of 
 Vincent of Lerins was for the fifth century, we have no doubt 
 that it would perfectly satisfy the most scientific jurisconsult. 
 And, indeed, if the science of legal interpretation as to its 
 principles be thoroughly examined, these will be found to be 
 the basis of the interpretation of Scripture, which is given by 
 the Fathers, and by the great Anglican divines. 
 
 To resume : our readers will remember that the central and 
 leading text on the subject of regeneration, is our Blessed 
 Saviour's own conversation with Nicodemus, narrated in the 
 third chapter of the Gospel of St. John. 
 
 " There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a 
 ruler of the Jews : the same came to Jesus by night, and said 
 unto Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from 
 God : for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, ex- 
 
 tliis grammar first made its appearance, in 1823, the object proposed was to 
 oppose the tinbridled license witli which the diction of the New Testament 
 was then, &nd had long heen,handled in commentaries and exegetical lectures; 
 and to apply, as far as practical, the results of an enlightened philology, as 
 taught by Hermann and his School, to the study of the language of the 
 New Testament. It was high time that some voice should be raised against 
 the inveterate empiricism of expositors, and that some effort should be made 
 to emancipate the writers of the New Testament f7'om the bondage of a per- 
 verted philology which styled itself sacred, and yet slwwed not theleast respect 
 toward the sacred authors and their well-considered phraseology." 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 819 
 
 cept God be with Him. Jesus answered and said unto him, 
 Yerily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto 
 Him, How can a man be born when he is old ? can he enter 
 the second time into his mother's womb, and be born ? Jesus 
 answered, Yerily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be 
 born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and 
 that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I 
 said unto thee. Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth 
 where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 
 not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every 
 one that is born of the Spirit." * 
 
 Now here is a new birth spoken of, — a birth of water and 
 the Spirit. What is the meaning of this ? We think it but 
 fair, after what we have said of German exegetes, to give them 
 a full chance of being heard. We, therefore, copy entire the 
 interpretation, upon the fifth verse, of Tholuck, one of the most 
 learned, most able, and most pious of the German commen- 
 tators. 
 
 " The Fathers of the Church, and after them the inter- 
 preters of the Roman and Lutheran Churches, almost univer- 
 sally take udojp here in the sense of Christian baptism only. 
 And this is, in fact, the sense which most readily offers itself 
 to the reader ; among the moderns also it is so understood by 
 Tittmann, Knapp, Fikenscher, and others. It is also con- 
 firmed by the parallel passage in John, v. 6, where ev udarc 
 xac Kciiazt is referred to baptism by far the greater number of 
 interpreters, and lately by Liicke also. This view is not less 
 supported by the intimate connexion in which baptism and 
 regeneration are generally placed in the New Testament, 
 (Eph. V. 26 ; I. Pet iii. 20 ; Tit. iii. 5.) To those, however, 
 who regard the baptismal water only as a signaculum or seal, 
 it seems strange that the Redeemer should put so much im- 
 portance upon this sign. On this account this view has been 
 * St. John, iii. 1, 8. 
 
320 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 dismissed by the interpreters of the Eeformed * Church, as 
 well as by the Arminians and modern interpreters." f 
 
 In order to show plain men what help they have, when the 
 manifest literal sense is banished, because it seems strange that 
 the Redeemer should place so much importance upon this 
 sign, — a sacrament, that is, which He himself instituted to be 
 used perpetually and unchangeably in His Church ! — we shall 
 go on to give the rest of these annotations. 
 
 " Many, like Calvin, take spirit as epexegetical of water, 
 ' aquae spirituales non fluviales,' and appeal to the hendiadys. — 
 (Matt. iii. 11.) So also in Winer (Ex. Stud. p. 140). 
 
 " Others, like Grotius, understand a hendiadys reversed, 
 ' spiritus aquae instar emundans.' 
 
 " Some, as Cocceius and Lampe, understand by udcop the 
 ' obedientia pura ' of Christ. 
 
 " Zuinglius : intelligit per spiritum, celestem operationem 
 Spiritus Dei ; per aquam, cognitionem, claritatem, lucem 
 celestem. 
 
 " Others, like Beza, Beausobre, and Herder, suppose that 
 Christ referred to the then well-known rite of John's baptism, 
 or that of proselytes ; and, as Beausobre says, it may be trans- 
 lated without hesitation. 'Si quelq'un n'est ne non seulement 
 del'eau niais aussi de I'esprit.' — [If any one is born not only of 
 water, but also of the Spirit.] 
 
 " Some, also, think of a mystical, ethereal element — the 
 higher water — out of which the spiritual body of man is 
 formed. — (What does this mean ?) So Schubert (in Y. Meyer, 
 Blatter fiir Warh. xi. 76, Ueber einige Bed. des worts Wasser 
 in der Schrift, and also the Ev. Schiillehrerb. 
 
 " Heissen in a Dissert, von 1727, shows that the Rabbins 
 spoke of a heavenly water in a mystical sense, and he believes 
 that allusion is made here to the history of creation, where the 
 ' Sjnrit moved ujpon the face of the waters.'' " 
 
 * i. e. Calvinistic. In the language of the Continent, Reformed always 
 means Calvinistic ; Protestant, always Lutheran. 
 f Tholuck, on the passage. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 321 
 
 " Finally, according to Erasmus, TTvlufxa is to be understood 
 of the air. Christ places, figuratively, the two purest spiritual 
 elements in opposition to the gross earthly birth. 
 
 " The view of Olshausen is peculiar : ' The ideas of birth 
 and creation are very nearly allied, — as in creation now, water 
 appears as the passive element, and Spirit as the forming 
 power ; so also in the jevurjdrjvat ic odazoc; y.at Tivkuyiaxoz^ 
 being born of water and the Spirit, the Spirit is the creative 
 power of regeneration, whilst water is the feminine principle 
 in repentance, the purified element of the soul, which becomes, 
 as it were, the mother of the new man The interpre- 
 tation which refers this to baptism is entirely correct, only it 
 must be understood as intimating not the sacrament, but the 
 idea of baptism." * 
 
 Quite a collection, this, of modes of regeneration, for " Cal- 
 vinists, Arminians, and modern interpreters," when we have 
 once left the plain, literal sense of the words. We leave bap- 
 tism, because we cannot understand how " so much importance 
 can be attached to the signaculum by the Redeemer." And 
 then, round and round we go, until finally baptism comes up 
 again, " only it must be understood as intimating, not the sao- 
 rament, but the idea of baptism." Was there ever such a 
 congeries of guesses, notions, half-ideas flung out at random, 
 and whimsies, as interpretations ? And this, too, by men of 
 great learning and great name. 
 
 AVe go on, however, to give the final summing up of Tho- 
 luck himself, a conclusion which concludes nothing, a decison 
 in which nothing is decided : 
 
 " Our opinion is, that we must commence with the opposi- 
 tion which is almost always made between the water bap- 
 tism of John, and the baptism of the Spirit by Christ 
 (John, i. 26, 31, 33 ; Luke, iii. 16 ; Acts, i. 5). The baptism of 
 water denotes the baptism of repentance (St. John, i. 26); the 
 baptism of the Spirit is that of an inward purification, of a 
 life-giving faith. Both must be united in genuine conversion. 
 * Tholuck on John, p. 110, 111. 
 21 
 
322 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 If we explain this (Liicke comments excellently on tlie passage), 
 the reference to Christian baptism is inunediatelj compre- 
 hended within it. It is very possible, however, that this term 
 may have had still other signilications which were more intelli- 
 gible to Nicodemus ; as, for instance, this, that he was directed 
 to the ablutions, already known to him, in order to apprehend 
 them in a more spiritual manner; perhaps, also, by baptism he 
 was to be exhorted to an open profession of Christ. An in- 
 quiry, also, might be made concerning the profounder meaning 
 of the symbol of water." * 
 
 We have given to our readers the interpretations of a man, 
 certainly of great learning and ability, and of undoubted hon- 
 esty and personal piety. We now set before them a principle 
 of the great Anglican divine, Richard Hooker, upon the sub- 
 ject of interpretation, before cited in this volume, which we 
 ask them to consider : " We take it as a most infallible rule 
 in exposition of sacred Scriptures, that when a literal construc- 
 tion will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the 
 worst. There is nothing more dangerous than this licentious 
 and deluding art, which changeth the meaning of words, as 
 alchemy doeth, or would do, the substance of metals, making 
 of everything what it listeth, and hringeth, in the end^ all truth 
 to nothing.'*^ f 
 
 Now, let us look to the passage of St. John above cited. 
 What does it say in the plain, literal sense ? This, first, that 
 there is, from the " only-begotten Son of God," in this world, 
 a new spiritual birth for man. 
 
 Second, that this new birth is of water and of the Spirit. 
 
 Third, that except he be so born, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God. And thereby ensues a stringent and con- 
 clusive logical inference, that by being born of water and the 
 Spirit, he does thereby enter the kingdom of God. 
 
 These three things are said in the plain, literal sense of the 
 words. There is, therefore, such a thing for man as a new birth. 
 It must be by water and the Spirit, and by it we enter into the 
 * Tholuck on John, p. 111. f Hooker, vol. ii. p. 253. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 323 
 
 kingdom of God. This is what the passage says, plainly, dis- 
 tinctly, and manifestly. 
 
 But these great interpreters (we have given twelve or 
 thirteen of them) do not take the literal sense of the passage. 
 We admit they do not. And we think that if our readers will 
 look back over these interpretations, as given by Tholuck, they 
 will find them, as Hooker says, " making of words what they 
 list, and finally bringing all truth to nothing." They would 
 find, had they read the whole of the voluminous argumenta- 
 tions of these learned men (for Tholuck only gives their con- 
 clusions), that their method is a delusive art ; so delusive, in- 
 deed, that no honest, plain man, cast into that huge labyrinth 
 of learning, could tell how, or when, or by what means regenera- 
 tion takes place, or w^hat it is. 
 
 But why should these great and learned men shrink back 
 from the literal sense, supposing them also honest men ? The 
 answer is plain. They refuse the literal sense, because they say 
 it is impossible. The truth is, they cannot hold it, because they 
 do, consciously or unconsciously, hold something else entirely 
 inconsistent with it. (See Tholuck, for example, in the very 
 passage we have cited.) He admits that the fathers of the 
 Church — that is, all Christian interpreters, without excep- 
 tion, Greek, Latin, and Oriental — for twelve hundred years 
 after Christ, all the Lutheran and Homan Catholic commenta- 
 tors (he might have added, all the great Anglican commenta- 
 tors) take the literal interpretation. But he cannot, and why? 
 Because " it seems strange that the Redeemer should attach so 
 much importance" to the baptismal water and words. That is, 
 really, because he, Tholuck, does not understand or accept the 
 doctrine of the sacraments as it is in the Christian system. 
 
 Looking, with this thought in our mind, and from the 
 same point of view, over the discussions upon the subject 
 of baptismal regeneration, we shall at once find many things 
 made plain to us. An Unitarian, for instance, reading 
 this passage of St. John, cannot take it in the literal sense, 
 because he does not believe in original sin, — he does not 
 
324 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 believe in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, or of the 
 Holy Spirit, or in the existence of a Church on earth. 
 A Methodist does not believe in the existence of a Cliurch, 
 or that sacraments are in any way effectual. A Calvinist, 
 although he believes in the Holy Spirit, and in the corrup- 
 tion of man's nature, yet believes actually in no Church upon 
 the earth, and connects the work of the Holy Spirit with pre- 
 destination and absolute decrees, and not with sacraments in 
 any way. Now ask any of these, Wherefore do you not be- 
 lieve that the words, " born of water and the Spirit," mean a 
 birth of water and the Spirit, by which we enter into the 
 kingdom of God ? and they will at once answer. Because it 
 is not Scriptural. They are perfectly honest, and yet perfectly 
 unconscious that they are rejecting the plain, literal sense of 
 Holy Writ, and that, not\ie(i?i\\^Q it is not asserted vn t\\Q ^cvi^t- 
 ures, but because, heing asserted, it is contrary to ideas and 
 notions with which, personally, they are possessed, when they 
 approach the text. 
 
 We, therefore, again distinctly assert that in the Holy 
 Scriptures of the New Testament we are said to be regenerated 
 or new born of water and the Spirit, and that this takes place in 
 baptism. And we assert, also, that the reason M^hy these com- 
 mentators deny it, first, is, tliat they do not understand the 
 principles of real, but only of verbal interpretation ; and 
 that, secondly, they are filled with prejudices, false principles, 
 and false systems, which immediately deny the truth itself, or 
 some of its coordinate and subsidiary doctrines. 
 
 Let us look, then, at this passage plainly. Is it simply con- 
 version that it proclaims? Merely the doctrine of repentance 
 from past sins, and faith toward God ? Of this, the Old Testa- 
 ment is full to overflowing. This the Law and the Prophets, 
 through every page, declare to man in trumpet tones. Where- 
 fore, then, is the great Rabbin, " the master of Israel," aston- 
 ished when he hears of a new birth, if all that it means is the 
 turning of the man from unbelief and sin to faith and holiness, 
 by the power of the Holy Spirit of God ? Why should he be 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 325 
 
 astonislied at the doctrine of conversion (if that be exactly 
 what "being born again" means) when the Psahnist says, 
 " Sinners shall be converted unto thee ;" * when Isaiah says, 
 " They should be converted, and I should heal them ; " f when 
 the Spirit of God, and His work upon the heart of man, is so 
 often mentioned in the Old Testament. 
 
 If the new birth, proclaimed by our Blessed Lord, means 
 nothing but the old work of conversion, which the Spirit of 
 God was wont to do under the Old Covenant as well as under 
 the New, why should the Master of Israel be startled and mar- 
 vel and hesitate and make inquiries so strange as these : " Can 
 a man be born when he is old ? Can he enter the second time 
 into his mother's womb and be born ? " Is it not perfectly evi- 
 dent that it was not the idea of conversion — with which, on the 
 pages of the Old Testament, he was perfectly familiar — that was 
 propounded to him then, but a greater and grander thought, 
 not to be found on the surface of the Jewish system under the 
 Old Covenant, — the idea and principle and fact that because 
 the only-begotten Son of God has become the Son of Man, so 
 by Him man can become, by a new birth, really, in this life, a 
 son of God ? 
 
 And then, again, in reply to his anxious inquiry as to the 
 manner of the new birth, why is the answer given with most 
 solemn and emphatic asseveration — '' Yerily, verily, I say unto 
 thee. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can- 
 not enter into the kingdom of God" — instead of such an 
 answer as our Presbyterian commentators give, that " it 
 simply means conversion," the spiritual and moral change 
 produced upon the man by faith and repentance, — a process 
 perfectly understood by him as a master in Israel, and by no 
 means new or astonishing to any pious mind at that time, or 
 at the present day ? 
 
 Wherefore, if this new birth into the kingdom of heaven 
 means simply and only conversion — when an explanation of 
 the mode is required — does the Saviour merely add that it is of 
 
 * Psalm li. 13. f Isaiah, cited in Matthew, xiii. 15. 
 
326 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 water and the Spirit ? The commentators that take this ground 
 are sadly incommoded by this word water. They shir it over, 
 they feel uncomfortable with it, — the text would be, for them, a 
 little better without it, as we can plainly see. In fact, upon 
 their interpretation, the word water is utterly without meaning, 
 wholly unnecessary and out of place. It should not be there 
 at all, only the word Spirit. 
 
 And then, furthermore, when jN^icodemus urgently inquires 
 " How these things can be ? " asking an explanation, the explan- 
 ation given by our Lord is the doctrine of the incarnation of the 
 only-begotten Son (the word " Son " is used of Himself five 
 times in five verses, — Son of Man twice, and Son of God three 
 times), and of His coming into the world that everlasting life 
 should be given through Him. After this explanation Nicode- 
 mus makes no more replies or inquiries. 
 
 We believe, as fully as any one can do, in the necessity of 
 conversion for those outside the Church, and also for those 
 inside, who have fallen into sin ; but it seems to us that noth- 
 ing is gained by attempting to find in this passage that doctrine 
 only. It looks like an attempt to shut out grand Christian 
 ideas and facts, which never had existed for man but that our 
 Blessed Lord came upon the earth in our humanity, and to 
 shut us in to so much only of truth as the Jews knew 
 before Christ came. In other words, it is an inadequate, 
 poverty-stricken, traditional teaching that would abase Chris- 
 tianity to the level of a believing and pious Judaism, by 
 asserting that man, since Christ came, can only enjoy the same 
 spiritual privilege of being converted which the believing 
 Jews, before the birth of Christ, enjoyed, instead of having, 
 through Him and His incarnation, the power of being sons 
 of God. 
 
 But, examine the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament 
 thoroughly. See therein repentance and faith necessary to 
 man ; see the influence of the Holy Spirit upon our race univer- 
 sally asserted ; see, therefore, the doctrine of conversion in its 
 proper place, as a preparation for a great gift to be given in the 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 32 Y 
 
 fulness of time to man from God, through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. And then this passage of St. John's Gospel describes 
 for us that gift, coming from our Lord's incarnation and atone- 
 ment, wrought by the Spirit and received by faith, and abiding 
 in the man, — a true birth, a real regeneration, not a mere un- 
 necessary and unfruitful figure of speech. 
 
 And, then, let us think, furthermore, that we know all the 
 facts of our Saviour's life and teaching which He has thought 
 necessary for us to know, — His incarnation. His death and 
 sacrifice, His burial and descent into Hades, His resurrection, 
 from the dead, His teaching of the Great Forty Days, His com- 
 mission to His apostles. His ascension into heaven. His 
 mission of the Paraclete, His institution of the Holy Catholic 
 Church. All these facts and doctrines are, for us, facts and 
 events. They have taken place, been consummated and per- 
 fected. They are clearly before our minds and upon our 
 tongues, as most certain and authentic truths. With these on 
 our minds, we read and understand this passage in the Christian 
 sense. And we hardly think that all these, for Nicodemus, had 
 not occurred, and were in the future, or else they were unre- 
 corded, as yet unwritten. From this consideration, we do most 
 plainly see why the doctor of the old law, the master of Israel, 
 did not understand, when he heard Christ speak of the " new 
 birth," — the birth of water and the Spirit, into the kingdom 
 of God. And for us, as Christians, the literal sense is the real 
 sense, because all the facts and doctrines connected with that 
 new birth have been completed in Christ, and are taught in 
 His Church, and because they are all of them recorded in 
 plain words on the face of Holy Wi*it. 
 
 We now present to our readers a schedule of passages in 
 the New Testament that bear upon the doctrine, heading it 
 with the famous passage of John : 
 
 "Jesus answered and said unto him, Yerily, verily, I say 
 unto thee, Except a man he horn again, he cannot see the king- 
 dom of God." * 
 
 * St. John, iii. 3. 
 
328 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 " Yerilj, verily, I say unto tliee, except a man be horn of 
 water and of the Spirit, lie cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God."* 
 
 " According to His mercy He saved us, by the vjashing (or 
 baptism) of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." f 
 
 " Eight souls were saved by water, the antitype whereunto 
 even haptisin doth no-w save us.'''' X 
 
 " He that helieveth and is haptized shall be saved ; but he 
 that disbelieveth shall be damned." § 
 
 " Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, bap- 
 tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost." || 
 
 '' Kepent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of 
 Jesus Christ ybr the remission of sins.'" ^ 
 
 " Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins.''' ** 
 
 " Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it ; 
 that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing (a bap- 
 tism) of (the) water with the Word'' ff 
 
 " So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were 
 baptized into His death." XX 
 
 " Ye are all the sons of God through (the) faith (that is) in 
 Christ Jesus. For as ma^ny of you as have been baptized into 
 Jesus Christ have put on Chrtst." §§ 
 
 " We have all been baptized by one Spirit into one body, 
 . . . and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." |||| 
 
 "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed 
 upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore 
 the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Be- 
 loved, now are we the sons of God." 1^^ 
 
 Here are many passages concerning baptism, and all of 
 them taken from the New Testament. What do they say? 
 Do they not manifestly assert, in the plain, literal sense, our 
 
 * St. John, iii. 5. f Titus, iii. 5. X I- Peter, iii. 20, 21. 
 
 § St. Mark, xvi. 16. || Matthew, xxviii. 19. "[[ Acts, ii. 38. 
 
 ** Acts, xxii. 16. ft Eph. v. 25, 26. W Rom. vi. 3. 
 
 §§ Gal. iii. 26, 27. |||i I. Cor. xu. 13. H I. John, iii. 1, 2. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 329 
 
 doctrine of regeneration ? Surely they do. There is a new birth 
 for man in this world. That birth is of water and the Spirit. 
 By it we enter into the kingdom of God, which is the Church 
 of Christ. We are saved by the washing (or baptism) of regen- 
 eration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Baptism (the 
 antitype to the waters of Noah) doth now save us. He that 
 has faith and is baptized shall be saved. All men are to be 
 made disciples of Christ, being baptized by His apostles. Bap- 
 tism is for the remission and washing away of sins. The 
 Church is cleansed by the washing (identical with the baptism) 
 of the water and the Word. As many as have been baptized 
 into Jesus Christ, have put on Christ. All the baptized are 
 the children of God. We have all been baptized by one spirit, 
 into one body. All the baptized are sons of God. 
 
 Look over these plain assei-tions. They lie on the face of 
 the texts we have cited, they are expressly asserted in them. 
 They are the plain sense, the evident meaning of the words. 
 We, with our doctrine, assert them in the literal sense. Can 
 others do the same? Must not they, on the contrary, deny the 
 plain sense of all these passages? Examine the doctrine of 
 baptism, in our standards, and there is no doubt whatsoever 
 (whether you accept that doctrine or not) that it agrees exactly 
 with the plain, literal sense of these passages. 
 
 Furthermore, all the facts which require this doctrine of 
 regeneration, as that of man's wounds and his losses by the fall, 
 his death in sin, his casting out from Paradise ; all these truths, 
 also, which declare the principles upon which and by which 
 regeneration takes place — as the doctrine of the incarnation of 
 the Word, the personality and divinity of the Spirit, His mirac- 
 ulous workings, in all ages, on the earth ; and the doctrine, 
 also, of the sacraments, the doctrine of an Apostolic Church, 
 of a living faith, and a true repentance, — all these are to be 
 found in as plain words, in the New Testament. 
 
 And, again, the various ways wherein the Apostles ad- 
 dress the Churches all take for granted the doctrine of bap- 
 tism, "that every one who is baptized in the Church is a 
 
330 REGENEEATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 member of Christ, a child of God, an inheritor of the kingdom 
 of heaven." 
 
 Is not that system, then, the correct and scriptural sj'-stem, 
 which agrees, in all respects, with the plain, literal sense of 
 Holy Writ, both as concerns the doctrine itself, and all the 
 subsidiary doctrines upon which it rests ? For this challenge 
 we can plainly give to all our opposers, — that not one passage in 
 the New Testament can be brought, which our doctrine shall 
 contradict in plain terms. But as for theirs, it is manifest that 
 they begin in this way : " We are not born of water, for we can- 
 not be." " We are not saved by baptism, for it is impossible." 
 "Baptism is not for the remission of sins — how can a mere 
 ceremony remit sin ? " " We are not the sons of God by bap- 
 tism, but by our faith." Any one who knows the tone of the 
 dissenting pulpit and press, knows well that these negations of 
 Holy Writ, in express words, — these outrageous denials and 
 contradictions of plain, literal assertions that are in the Script- 
 ures literally, are aphorisms with the Calvinistic and Metho- 
 distic sects among us. Very good reason, indeed, is there for 
 this ; for if a man believe the plain sense of Holy Writ, in the 
 passages we have cited, his first business, when he repents of 
 sins and has faith in Jesus Christ, is to seek out the ambassa- 
 dors of Christ, His commissioned ministers, the clergy of the 
 Apostolic Succession, and, being baptized by them, to enter 
 thereby the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, the kingdom 
 of heaven. All these denials of the plain sense of Scripture, 
 therefore, are, consciously or unconsciously, actual excuses from 
 this course of action, by which the man justifies himself in 
 staying in the sect wherein he happens to be. 
 
 In fact, the whole thing is the efiect of self-will on the part 
 of the popular religionism of the day. "He that believeth and 
 is baptized shall be saved," the Scripture says. The man cuts 
 the text in two. One half suits him. With wilful faith he 
 takes it to his heart. The other half, with wilful unbelief, he 
 casts away. 
 
 " If Christ himself, which giveth salvation (says the ju- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 331 
 
 dicious Hooker), doth requirehaptism, it is not for us, tliat look 
 for salvation, to sound and examine Him whether, unbaptized, 
 we may be saved, hut seriously to do that which is required, 
 and religiously to fear the danger which may grow from the 
 want thereof." 
 
 "We would add from Hooker a most remarkable fact, we have 
 before alluded to, in regard to the interpretation of this verse : 
 " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot en- 
 ter into the kingdom of God." He says : " Of all the ancients, 
 there is not one to be named that did otherwise allege or ex- 
 pound this place than as implying external baptism." An 
 assertion identical with this the reader will find in the passage 
 of Tholuck, above cited. 
 
 Now, we would desire our readers to consider the weight of 
 this fact. In the first place, let them think that the New Tes- 
 tament is written originally in Greek. Let them consider how 
 easily, in a translation, mistakes are made ; how often verbal 
 allusions, idiomatic terms of thought, all the subtle references 
 and suggestions implied in the original, are wholly lost in any 
 translation, even the best. Let them, therefore, consider what 
 an immense advantao^e he has who reads a livins' book in the 
 original language, and that his own native tongue ; how he 
 shall understand it perfectly, sympathize with its sentiments, 
 feel its true tone and drift, and be moved by all the harmony 
 of its thought and words ; in fact, be acted upon by it in a 
 difterent way entirely from one who reads a translation of it, 
 even the best and ablest. 
 
 Now, look at this. The Christians of the Greek Church 
 read the Scriptures in their native language, their mother 
 tongue, for a period upward of twelve hundred years from 
 the date of the four Gospels. We have, of that Church, com- 
 mentaries, treatises, eloquent orations, Christian poems — all 
 based upon the Scriptures — from Clemens Romaniis and Igna- 
 tius, in the first and second centuries, to Theophylact and QCcu- 
 meniusinthe eleventh, — a huge Christian literature still in ex- 
 istence of native Greek authors, reading the Scriptures in their 
 
332 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 own tongue, and writing upon them in the same. The extent of 
 that literature may be understood when we merely say that the 
 works of one of these writers, St. John Chrysostom, a man of 
 genius and renowned through the whole Christian world, to this 
 day, for eloquence and learning, are in thirteen folio volumes ! 
 From that one fact, we may judge how enormous the Christian 
 literature of the Greek Church is. And in all this literature 
 of Christianity, extending over twelve hundred years, and be- 
 ginning with men who lived in the days of St, John himself, 
 the only interpretation of the passage in St. John which speaks 
 of being born of water and of the Spirit, is that it speaks of 
 Christian baptism ! 
 
 We put this to our readers, now, in a legal and judicial point 
 of view. Say, here is an authoritative document, written hun- 
 dreds of years ago. Certain words occur in it. There is no 
 dispute as to the fact that they are the very original words. A 
 dispute takes place at this modern day, the present time, as to 
 their meaning. If we can show that for so many hundred 
 years all interpreters, from the first, without exception, in one 
 uninterrupted stream, agreed in assigning them one sense, and 
 that 710 other sense than this was ever assigned to them, is it 
 not most manifest that such a fact is the weightiest proof that 
 this only is the meaning, — in fact, nearly an absolutely conclu- 
 sive proof to that effect ? Any one that understands real in- 
 terpretation must see that it is so. 
 
 Our readers, of course, will understand that "the ancients," 
 in the passage we have cited from Hooker, includes the writers 
 of the Latin Church through all Europe, for the same period 
 as well as the Greeks. This makes up another huge Christian 
 literature. But, although his assertion is equally true of them 
 also, we have not brought them forward, principally because 
 they knew the books of the New Testament, not in their own 
 vernacular language, but only in translations, as we do. Still, 
 put them both together, and add to them the whole Oriental 
 Church, it is a most weighty and stringent proof, one that is 
 well-nigh irresistible. And, as the author of the " Plain Com- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 333 
 
 inentaiy " says of the time since Hooker, " The result of the 
 most searching inquiry has but served to establish the truth of 
 this remarkable statement." It is as true now as it was three 
 hundred years ago, in the time of Plooker, that " not one of the 
 ancients can be found that did otherwise allege or expound this 
 place than as implying external baptism." 
 
 And Hooker himself gives the reason, that " as the Spirit 
 is the necessary inward cause, and water is the necessary out- 
 ward means to our regeneration, — both being appointed by 
 God, both being parts of the one means that He has instituted, 
 are, therefore, from the fact of His ordinance, to be accepted as 
 such with faith." Hooker then proceeds to remark, that " ex 
 cept this be so, no possihle meaning can he given to the words 
 that we are new born of water. If this be not so, why are 
 we taught that with water God doth purify and cleanse His 
 Church ? Wherefore do the apostles of Christ term baptism a 
 bath of regeneration ? What purpose had they in giving new 
 advice to receive outward baptism, and in persuading them that 
 it did avail to remission of sins ? " 
 
 In fact, what has water to do with conversion in any way or 
 in any sense, literal or figurative, practical or theoretical ? Is 
 it not faith, prayer, fervent zeal on the part of the man who 
 preaches ; the atonement of our Blessed Lord and the grace of 
 the Holy Spirit on the part of God ; and heartfelt repentance 
 and living faith on the part of the converted man, that com- 
 plete and make up conversion ? What has water to do with it 
 in any way. Why, then, should our Lord use a term so un- 
 meaning and ambiguous, so unnecessary, as being " born of water 
 and of the Spirit " is, if there be no birth in which water has a 
 part, if water have, in the text, absolutely and really no mean- 
 ing ? Why should He have brought in a figurative allusion to 
 an outward element, if that element have absolutely nothing at 
 all to do with the sense, and therefore the phrase merely tends 
 to deceive and lead astray ? 
 
 Surely, these considerations should make us see that there is 
 a " birth of water and of the Spirit " possible, in this world, for 
 
334 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 man, and that it is in no way antagonist to the doctrines of 
 Holy Writ that God, by His Son, should appoint, in baptism, a 
 certain time, a definite place, and a sure, appointed, sacramental 
 means, whereby the man, who has in his soul true repentance 
 and sincere faith and therefore is converted, should further- 
 more receive, and God's Spirit then and there give to him 
 the great gift of regeneration. It is on the face of the Script- 
 ures. We receive it and believe it. And so did the whole 
 Church of God, one and all, for fifteen hundred years, until the 
 time of Zuingli and Calvin. 
 
 And, furthermore, we are utterly unable to comprehend 
 how they, who so persistently and obstinately rule out the plain 
 literal sense in this passage, and assert that the word "water" 
 is in it purely figurative, can uphold water baptism in any way, 
 or find anything in the Bible to authorize its use. Surely, the 
 grounds that they take here should, in connection with that 
 other passage — " I indeed baptize you with water unto repen- 
 tance : but He that cometh after me is mightier than I : . . . He 
 shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire "* — enable 
 them, nay, compel and force them, to forego and dismiss alto- 
 gether any use of water in baptism ; in fact, any baptism at all, 
 except the outpouring of the illuminating and life-giving fire 
 of God's Spirit upon believing and repentant souls. They 
 should adopt the Quaker system, and have no water baptism. 
 
 And, on the other hand, the fact that these people do 
 adhere, however inconsistently and illogically, to baptism by 
 water, nay, to infant baptism itself, — this holds out to us the 
 hope that they will yet come to see and understand the doctrine 
 which alone reconciles the plain literal sense of Holy Writ 
 with their own practice, and embrace it and acknowledge it 
 and act upon it. 
 
 But, as we would not (for the satisfaction of our readers) 
 rest the criticism of this passage only upon our own interpre- 
 tation — although they can evidently see that we take the plain 
 and manifest meaning, and the evident and literal sense — we 
 * St. Matthew, iii. 11. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 335 
 
 shall cite critics of authority and reputation, both in and out 
 of the Church. The first we shall adduce is the " Plain Com- 
 mentary '• : 
 
 " 5th verse. 'Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto 
 thee. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can- 
 not enter into the kingdom of God. ' 
 
 "As if lie said, thou understandest me to speak of a carnal 
 birth ; but a man must be born of water and of the Spirit, if he 
 is to enter into the kingdom of God. If, to obtain the temporal 
 inheritance of his human lather, a man must be born of the 
 womb of his mother ; to obtain the eternal inheritance of his 
 Heavenly Father, he must be born of the womb of the Church. 
 And, since man consists of two parts, body and soul, the mode, 
 even of this latter birth, is twofold : Water is the visible part, 
 cleansing the body ; the Spirit, by His invisible cooperation, 
 changing the invisible soul. Consider the truly Catholic state- 
 ments on this subject contained in our Church Catechism. It 
 will be remembered that the Church of England, in her Bap- 
 tismal Service, expressly grounds the necessity of baptism on 
 the present declaration of our Lord. ' Except a man be born 
 of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of God.' Famous words ! which it has been the endeavor of 
 misguided men to set aside or explain away. Opposing them- 
 selves to externals in religion generally, and to the two sacra- 
 ments of the Church in particular, sectarians have sought to 
 fasten a strange sense on these plain words of Christ ; contend- 
 ing eagerly, indeed, for the bestowal of God's gift (the Spirit), 
 wdiile they have striven to make it appear that the duty required 
 on man's side (the water) can be a matter of no real impor- 
 tance." * 
 
 We go on, furthermore, to give, from Mant and D'Oyly, 
 some additional comments and remarks upon this passage, 
 extracted from great theologians of the English Church : 
 
 " That our Lord here speaks of baptismal regeneration, the 
 
 * " Plain Commentary," upon St. Joliu, iii. 3-5. 
 
336 EEGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 whole Christian Church, from its earliest times, has invariably 
 taught." * 
 
 " Baptism is a new birth, by M^hich we enter into the new 
 world, the new creation, the blessings and spiritualities of the 
 kingdom. And this is the expression which our Lord himself 
 uses to Nicodemus : ' Except a man be born of water and of 
 the Spirit;' it is called, also, by St. Paul, 'the laver of regen- 
 eration,' For now we begin to be reckoned in a new account. 
 God is become our Father, Christ our elder brother, the Spirit 
 the earnest of our inheritance, the Church our mother; our 
 food is the body and blood of our Lord, faith is our learning, 
 religion our employment ; our whole life is spiritual, heaven 
 the object of our hopes, and the mighty prize of our high 
 calling." t 
 
 " But these, it will be said, are old commentators ; what say 
 the new ? Has not the sifting biblical criticism of modern 
 times shaken the sacramental meaning of these texts ? So far, 
 from this, we have three commentaries on the Greek Testament, 
 published by the most eminent scholars of England, within the 
 last five years. We allude to Wordsworth, Alford, and Ellicott, 
 and these men interpret all this jjassage, and all the other hap- 
 tismal passages in the New Testament, of regeneration and 
 haptism, just as Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Beveridge, AVhitby, 
 and Mant have done. And yet these men are alive to every 
 variety of reading that the industry of such men as Tischen- 
 dorf and Lachmann have brought to light, fully aware of every 
 variety of interpretation suggested by German philology. Ration- 
 alistic, Reformed, or Lutheran. Still is their interpretation the 
 same as their great English predecessors, the same as that of 
 the whole Church Catholic for fifteen hundred years.'''' \ 
 
 We proceed, therefore, to give some extracts from Dr. 
 Wordsworth's commentary, and Dean Alford's. Bishop Elli- 
 cott's commentaries we do not possess. Wordsworth's review 
 of the third of St. John will be found worth reading : 
 
 * Whitby, in his Commentary. f Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 \ Sadler's tract, on the meaning of the word Regeneration, 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 337 
 
 " The Evangelist had begun his Gospel by declaring the 
 eternal Godhead of Christ (i. 1-10), and His incarnation (i. 
 14), and the reasons of it, namely, that by our adoption into 
 Him, and union with Him, we might become sons of God 
 (i. 12). He had described the Epiphany (or manifestation) of 
 Christ's Divinity (ii. 1-10), made more striking by its contrast 
 with His humanity, derived from the Yirgin Mary (v. 4), and" 
 he had showed Christ cleansing His Father's house by the 
 majesty of His presence and power, and foretelling that He 
 would die as man.^ and raise Himself as God (v. 19). 
 
 "He then proceeds to describe His conversation with 
 Nicodemus, the Pharisee, who had been led by Christ's 
 miracles to acknowledge that our Lord was " a teacher come 
 from God (iii. 2). But Nicodemus, not being as yet enlightened 
 by Divine Grace, had no faith in His Divinity, and did not feel 
 his own need of regeneration. 
 
 " Our Lord, desiring to elevate him to a higher degree of 
 faith, proceeds to teach him that this new birth from above is 
 to be effected by water and the Holy Ghost. Do not be sur- 
 prised because you do not understand how this is to be. You 
 do not see whence the wind comes, but you see its effects. So 
 in spiritual things : you do not see how regeneration takes 
 place, but you may see its fruits." 
 
 On turning back to Dr. Wordsworth's commentary on the 
 chapter, we find these remarks : 
 
 " Yerse 4. ''How can a man he horn ivhen he is old ? ' 
 This questioning ' how f ' is of the natural man (I. Cor. ii. 14), 
 and is characteristic of a weak faith and an earthly mind, and 
 many, by putting such questions as to the manner of God's 
 operations on the soul, have fallen from the faith. If a person 
 ask. How is a man born again hy water ? let us ask, in return, 
 Hoio was Adam born from the earth f How are our bones, 
 and sinews, and veins, and all our organs formed ? In both 
 cases the work is God's, whose the elements are, to work upon 
 them, and by them, according to His will. 
 
 " If the earth is endued with such power that such marvels 
 22 
 
338 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 as we see every day are produced from it, so, in like manner, 
 when the Holy Spirit is present with the water, the marvels 
 which exceed our comprehension are easily performed. The 
 element of water is there, but the whole work is wrought by 
 the grace of the Holy Ghost. By the second creation from 
 water, the old man is buried in the water as in a tomb, and 
 the new man rises from it." 
 
 On the fifth verse. Dr. Wordsworth continues, citing from 
 St. Augustine: 
 
 " As the Israelites were not delivered from the Egyptians 
 before they came to the Red Sea, so none can be freed from the 
 pressure of his sins before he comes to the waters of baptism. 
 And if the Red Sea, the figure of baptism, had such a virtue 
 as it had, how great is the power of baptism of which the Red 
 Sea was a type ! " 
 
 Again, Dr. Wordsworth says : " Surely it is a significant 
 circumstance that St. John's Gospel abounds with references 
 to the element of water. Here the son of Zacharias comes bap- 
 tizing with water. Our Lord's first miracle is here wrought 
 upon water ; water is changed by Him into wine. Here, He 
 declares to Nicodemus that ' Except a man be born of water 
 and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ' 
 (iii. 5). He is in Judea, and baptizes with water (iii. 22). 
 Here, He sits at the well of Sychar and first reveals Himself as 
 the Messias (iv. 1-26). Here, He promises the gift of living 
 water (iv. 10-14). Here, He comes to Jerusalem, to the pool 
 of water called Bethesda, and heals the impotent man there 
 (v. 1-8). He walks on the water of the sea of Galilee (vi. 18), 
 and comes to the disciples in the storm. He comes again to Jeru- 
 salem at the Feast of Tabernacles, and cries, ' If any man thirst, 
 let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, 
 as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of 
 living water ' (vii. 37, 38). Here, He sends the blind man to wash 
 in the waters of Siloam, and the blind man returns seeing (ix. 7). 
 At the Paschal supper He here pours water into a basin and 
 washes His disciples' feet (xiii. 5-10). At His crucifixion His 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 339 
 
 side is pierced, and 'forthwith came there out blood and 
 water ' (xix. 34.) After His resurrection He shows Himself 
 to His disciples at the sea of Galilee, and the only miracle which 
 He is recorded to have worked, after He was risen, was wrought 
 there. As Tertullian says, Nuixqtimn sine aqua Christus. 
 And this is specially true of our Lord's acts and speeches, as 
 recorded in St. John's Gospel. Many of the incidents first 
 noticed are recorded in this Gospel only. This is in harmony 
 with the belief that the natural element of water is declared in 
 this Gospel to be made by Christ the means for conveying 
 spiritual grace. 
 
 " If there are any who doubt whether Christ — who knew 
 what he would do (John, vi. 6), and foresaw, not only His own 
 institution of the sacrament of baptism, but every baptism that 
 has ever been administered in the Church — referred here to 
 the holy sacrament of baptism, let them read the words of 
 Hooker (Y. xix), and consider the use made of this Scripture 
 by the Church of England in her Ofiices for Baptism of Infants, 
 and of those of riper years." 
 
 We proceed, now, to give the criticism upon this passage 
 from the Greek Testament, of Henry Alford, the Dean of 
 Canterbury. He is not what we should call a High Church- 
 man in any way ; but the natural force of the Scripture itself, 
 with his keen sense of the influence of motive in determining 
 opinion, compels him to assert the plain and manifest sense of 
 the words. 
 
 We go on to give his commentary upon a part of the pas- 
 
 " St. John, iii. 5. Our Lord passes by the question of Nico- 
 demus without notice ; further than that, this. His second asser- 
 tion, takes, as it were, the ground from under it, by explaining 
 the token and means of the new birth. 
 
 " There can be no doubt, on any honest interpretation of 
 the words, that Ytvvrjdr^vcu £$ udaroi; (to be born of water), to 
 be born refers to the token, or outward sign of baptism ; ^evvjy- 
 drjvac ex TzveujuaToi; (of the Spirit), to the thing signified, or inward 
 
340 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 grace of the Holy Spirit. All attempts to get rid of these two 
 plain facts have sj)rung froTn doctrinal jyt'ejuclices, hv which 
 the views of expositors have been warped. Such we have in 
 Calvin, Grotius, Cocceius, Lampe, and others, who endeavor to 
 resolve odazo<; xac TzveuixaToc; (of water and the Spirit) into a 
 figure of hendiadys, so as to make it mean the ' cleansing or 
 purifying Spirit.' " * 
 
 With this last testimony we close our extracts from com- 
 mentators upon these words of our Lord to Nicodemus. Our 
 doctrine is upon the face of Holy Writ manifestly, and the truth, 
 that upon earth man can, by baptism, become most truly the son 
 of God, if he only have repentance and faith in God, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. And this assured and certain faith of 
 the Scriptures, and our standards, can be carried out in an all- 
 embracing, wide-extended life of holiness and truth, in all the 
 pathways of life. If we are actually and really sons of God, with 
 .the life of Christ living and abiding in us organically, with the 
 kingdom of heaven around us, in a new world of heavenly in- 
 fluences, — all this enforces upon us and demands of us a con- 
 scious and earnest growth in all that is like Christ ; inward 
 control over all our passions and emotions, even over all our 
 thoughts ; inward prayer and faith, outward good works to- 
 ward God and man, steady belief in the truth, persistent hope 
 and love. All this, if we believe in our regeneration in this 
 world through Christ, should flow from that fact and that belief. 
 Let our children be baptized in infancy, as this doctrine im- 
 plies and requires, and be trained up and educated as children 
 of God. As children of God together, let the husband and 
 the wife sanctify their household and their home as a temple of 
 God. Let us walk in this world as the sons of God. For 
 truth, and justice, and honesty, and pity, and benevolence, and 
 purity of hfe, and singleness of motives, — these, in Christian 
 men and women, are the fruits of the Christian life and of 
 Christian principles ; these all men can understand and feel. In 
 
 * Alford, in loco. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 341 
 
 our humanity is the root and germ of all these, but it is only 
 in our sonship in Christ that these are perfected. 
 
 One thing more to the members of the Church we would 
 say. Only here, in this land, has the course of all evils and 
 corruptions to the Church — the union of the Church with the 
 State — been cast away. Only for eighty years has the Church 
 been delivered from the long bondage of fourteen centuries. 
 Hardly yet do we move freely, and look about us confidently, 
 in the open brightness of the free daylight. Some of us, even 
 yet, like Calvin and Luther of old under the tyranny of the 
 popes and the supremacy of monarchs and feudal nobles, can 
 hardly believe that there is a Church at all in existence in this 
 world. But we are free ; the sense of the necessity and the fact 
 of a Church is awakening and spreading, — it is dawning upon 
 all hearts. Let us, then, who have the Church, and are within 
 it, uphold tliese doctrines practically, by a pure and holy life 
 and a living faith. 
 
 And then we may meet the odious sneers and doubts of 
 unbelievers with the assertion that we believe in the doctrine 
 of regeneration in baptism, because it is asserted by our blessed 
 Lord himself, in His own words to ^Nicodemus; because their 
 meaning was never doubted in the Christian Church by any 
 one, or any different interpretation from this given, until 
 Zuingli, in the fifteenth century ; because it is the plain 
 sense of the Prayer Book, in all its parts ; because it is the 
 very centre of all Christian doctrine, asserted most plainly, and 
 universally taken for granted and implied, in the whole of the 
 New Testament ; because it is the basis of a Christian morality 
 of the highest kind. And finally, from it, carried out practi- 
 cally and consistently in the Church and in the family, is capa- 
 ble of arising and growing and coming to maturity, — a state 
 of Christian holiness and love and purity which for fourteen 
 hundred years the world has not seen. 
 
 For it was only when the Church was taken captive, and 
 enslaved by the State, and oppressed by corrupt and vile kings, 
 and feudal nobles, and ministers of State, and politicians with 
 
342 BEGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 a single eye to their own interests, — only when the papal system 
 became completely corrupt in Europe, — that Christians upon the 
 continent of Europe were driven to despair of, to doubt, and 
 finally to deny the powers and privileges, and even the existence 
 of the Church. And then the isolated and individual man 
 and his destiny, or else his mere personal faith, became the 
 centres of systems, the all-in-all of honest theories of doctrine. 
 But, by the great mercy of God, the Church of His Son is free, 
 it is in existence here. It shall grow in zeal, in lioliness, in 
 purity, in truth. And then, once again in the Church shall 
 they who are sons be able to feel that saying true which St. 
 Paul addressed to a whole national Church, " For ye are all 
 the sons of God, through the faith in Christ Jesus. For ye (as 
 many as have been baptized into Christ) have put on Christ. 
 In Him there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor 
 free, neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ 
 Jesus. And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, 
 and heirs according to the promise." * Once again : for the 
 Church and her sons, each baptized Christian will be able to 
 give, for himself and his brethren, the glorious answer which, 
 in the midst of the free ages of the Gospel, the martyr Blan- 
 dina,f a woman and a slave, gave to those who tortured her : 
 {^^ Xpcazcavij iific xac nap rjiicv dudku ipauXov ycyueToc^^) " I am a 
 Christian, and with us nothing evil is done." 
 
 * Gal. iii. 26-29. f A.D. 177. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Whatevee doubt there may be upon any other point in the 
 New Testament, there is none upon this, — that our Saviour gave 
 a commission to His apostles. It lies on the face of the New 
 Testament, patent and plain to the ordinary reader. The words 
 authorize and enjoin duties to which the apostles were before 
 incompetent ; they convey authority, they assign and impart 
 distinct and specified powers to certain persons, and therefore 
 shut out all others. That the Saviour gave a commission to 
 His apostles, to them as such, and to them only and exclusively, 
 is evident on the very face of the words. 
 
 Socrates might leave to his disciples the treasure of mani- 
 fold philosophic views and ideas, which he had wrought out by 
 the meditation of his whole life ; Plato and Aristotle, their 
 manuscript treatises upon science, to be read and studied by their 
 disciples ; but here is a course of action prescribed in a definite 
 and exact form of words, embracing the whole world, — a king- 
 dom to be established in all nations, and means of entrance into 
 that kingdom given. The apostles are to proclaim (preach) 
 that kingdom ; they are to make disciples for it, out of all 
 nations ; they are to teach them to 'believe and to do all things 
 that they have learned of Him. And in strict accordance with 
 the assertion that " Except a man be born of water and of the 
 Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," the centre 
 of that commission is the power and the authority to baptize. 
 
 And most expressive and significant it is of the position that 
 baptism holds in the Christian system, that the baptismal form 
 is given by Christ, in express and prescribed words ; no power 
 of change, verbal or material, being permitted to the agents. 
 There may be some variation in preaching, in accordance with 
 
344 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 national temper and feeling; some variety in teaching, according 
 to character : the Greek requiring one class, the rude and igno- 
 rant barbarian — German, Celt, or Sclavon — another ; a neces- 
 sary variation in the mode of teaching the essential and unchang- 
 ing principles of the Gospel ; but all, without exception, are to 
 be baptized in the same invariable form of words, with the 
 same element of water. All persons, in all ages of the world, 
 must enter the kingdom of God by the same baptism, the same 
 new birth of water and of the Spirit. 
 
 What an intensity of meaning, what an overpowering 
 weight, is added to this by the further declaration — " He that 
 believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that disbe- 
 lieveth shall be damned," * Surely, in this commission there is 
 a deiiniteness and precision, an exactitude of persons commis- 
 sioned, of powers given, and of duties enjoined ; nay, of the 
 sacramental form, both words and mattei*, which by no means 
 corresponds with the vague philosophizing concerning Christ 
 and His Gospel, which Germans, EngHsh, and French have of 
 late indulged in, — men who think nothing liberal except it be 
 loose and careless. Surely these theorizers must finally advance 
 to the conclusion that this whole matter of the commission to 
 the apostles is very exclusive, in fact, highly illiberal and pros- 
 criptive and denunciatory, as undoubtedly it is, on any other 
 doctrine but this only, — that the speaker was the God-man, the 
 Saviour and Redeemer of the world, and His baptism the new 
 birth into a new and heavenly life. 
 
 Our readers must see, therefore, what a significant and pe- 
 culiar position the commission to baptize holds on the pages of 
 Holy Writ in reference to the exegesis of the doctrine of bap- 
 tism. He, himself, declares what His baptism was to be, — a 
 birth into His kingdom. In the commission, its objects and 
 purposes, the persons to administer it, its extent, its form, all 
 are defined and prescribed by Him with authority. We see, 
 therefore, all that He authorized it to be. And, again, in the 
 Acts and in the Epistles we have the practice under the com- 
 * St. Mark, xvi. 16. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 345 
 
 mission. We have in these, the historic and doctrinal com- 
 mentaries of practice upon it, by the very men that received 
 it. 
 
 We go on, now, to lay before our readers these facts from 
 the New Testament. Here is, first, the commission given to 
 the apostles by their Lord : 
 
 " Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is 
 given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye. therefore, and 
 make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching 
 them to observe (rather to keep, rripziv) all things whatsoever 
 I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world. Amen." * 
 
 Again, in St. Mark's Gospel, it is, " Go ye into all the 
 world, and preach (proclaim) the Glad Tidings to every nation. 
 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that 
 disbelieveth shall be damned." f 
 
 Again, in St. John, " Then said Jesus to them. Peace be 
 unto you : as My Father hath sent Me, so send I you. And 
 when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto 
 them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, 
 they are remitted unto them ; whose soever sins ye retain they 
 are retained." X 
 
 Again, in St. Luke, " Thus it is written, and thus it be- 
 hooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third 
 day : and that repentance and remission of sins should be 
 preached (proclaimed) in His name among all nations, begin- 
 ning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. 
 And behold I send the promise of My Father upon j^ou." § 
 
 N^ow, let us look here. A commission is given unto men from 
 
 the Incarnate Son of God. "As My Father hath sent Me, so 
 
 send I you." The power of that commission is — " Receive ye 
 
 the Holy Ghost." The result is — " Whose soever sins ye remit, 
 
 they are remitted unto them, whose soever sins ye i-etain they 
 
 * St. Mat. xxviii. 18-20. f St. Mark, xvi. 15, 16. 
 
 X St. John, XX. 21-23. § St. Luke, xxiv. 46-49. 
 
346 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 are retained." This power and commission comes from the 
 fact that all power is given to the God-man in heaven and 
 earth. That He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Eternal Son of 
 God, and has suffered and risen. And, therefore, " Lo, I am 
 with you alway unto the end of the world." His power there- 
 fore, His Spirit, His personal presence as our Prophet, Priest, 
 and King, are given here upon earth, as an actual and rea^ 
 source of authority to those unto whom He has given a commis- 
 sion so extraordinary, so astounding. 
 
 For, look these passages plainly in the face ; what do they 
 mean ? Are they merely florid, Oriental metaphors, used to 
 express the moral influences of a fervent declaration of the 
 principles of natural religion, by earnest-minded men ? No, 
 certainly they are not. They are plain, and what we should 
 call prosaic and unimpassioned asseverations by the writers 
 of the fact of a commission investing men as His apostles, with 
 powers supernatural and miraculous. 
 
 And this commission receives its sole justification in the 
 way of sense and reason, from the supernatural facts asserted 
 in the Holy Scriptures of Christ our Lord, that He is the 
 " Eternal Word," begotten from everlasting, "God from God, 
 very God from very God, of one being with the Father ; " that, 
 by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was incarnate of the 
 Yirgin, and became man, so that two whole and perfect natures, 
 the Godhead and the manhood, were in this world joined to- 
 gether in one person, never to be separated ; and that here, upon 
 earth. He became, in a true and veritable sense, a sacrifice and 
 atonement for the sins of the whole human race to the end of 
 time. And then, that after His resurrection. He truly ascended 
 into heaven, with His flesh and bones, and everything pertaining 
 to the perfection of man's nature ; so that, forever He is man, for- 
 ever He is God, in one person, reigning, interceding, mediating, 
 till the end of the world. Take all these as facts — a supernat- 
 ural, miraculous chain of connected, harmonious facts — let down 
 from heaven to earth, beginning with that one fact, " The 
 Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," and all things in 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 347 
 
 the commission follow by a natural sequence. Deny them, or 
 any one of them, and all this commission means nothing. 
 Any amount of arbitrary rhetorical wresting of its words will 
 then be required to bring out of it a reasonable sense. 
 
 We take the supernatural assertion as the plain sense, and 
 at once behold the " God-man," risen from the dead, to whom 
 all power is given in heaven and earth, giving His apostles 
 a commission to do a miraculous and supernatural work on. 
 the earth, and investing them, therefore, with the supernatural 
 and miraculous powers necessary thereunto. This is the plain 
 sense of these passages, if they have any sense at all. 
 
 The apostles are to go over the whole world, they are to 
 proclaim the Glad Tidings (to preach the Gospel) of Christ to 
 every creature. They are to make disciples of all nations, bap- 
 tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost. Whose sins they remit, they are remitted ; 
 whose sins they retain, they are retained. " He that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved ; he that disbelieveth shall be 
 damned." This is their astounding task, their grand commis- 
 sion. And their authority and guarantee is this : " And lo, I 
 am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 
 Man is no longer left to mere nature, no longer to the unas- 
 sisted Law, great and glorious as that is, for a sacrifice and 
 atonement has been offered for him. The Most High God, 
 who has offered that sacrifice, is forever close by him. Man is 
 no longer left to the darkness of his nature, for his Prophet is 
 perpetually present. His King, with His royal Law, and His 
 supernatural powers, omniscient and omnipotent, is close by 
 him. And that all this may be enjoyed — that there may be no 
 doubt upon it — the kingdom of heaven has come down and 
 taken its place upon the earth. That which is above nature, 
 supernatural, is here in the world, in the midst of nature. 
 The work of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, is done, here 
 upon the earth, in His Church, amidst the facts of time and 
 space, at precise and distinct times, and by the means of human 
 beings, and even of material things. 
 
348 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 First, then, of all these supernatural facts is this one : the 
 apostles, as commissioned by their Lord, baptized believing 
 men in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost. And, again, they that believe, and are baptized, 
 are saved. And why ? Because heaven and earth, God and 
 man, are united in this work. On the part of heaven, there is 
 the Son of God, incarnate and glorified, Iliinself present, Him- 
 self forgiving sins, Himself giving grace, Himself admitting 
 into His Holy Catholic Cliurch on earth, and giving us, Him- 
 self, the adoption of sons.* On the part of earth, there is the 
 faith and repentance of the recipient, the commission of the 
 minister, the appointed use of the baptismal water and the 
 baptismal words ; both the heavenly and the earthly uniting 
 for man's salvation in the Church of God. And, therefore, it 
 is that the Church itself participates in this twofold character ; 
 at one and the same time it is a society visible in the world, and 
 it is, also, the kingdom of God upon the earth. Such, also, is 
 baptism, the initial sacrament of the kingdom ; spiritual be- 
 cause it is of the Spirit of Christ, and because man is a Spirit, 
 — material, because man is, also, of matter, and occurring at a 
 definite point in time and space, — because these are the condi- 
 tions of man's present existence here upon the earth. 
 
 Forever, therefore, in the Church of God, the Spirit and 
 the water combine in the new birth. The Spirit of our Lord is 
 always present in the baptism of the Church. This we assert 
 as against those who would make of it a mere figure for our 
 own affections personally. The water is constantly employed, 
 a material element, as a perpetual protest against those who 
 would deny the literal sense of Holy Writ, and the power of 
 God in sanctifying material things. 
 
 * So great was the sense of this fact of the presence of Christ in the 
 Primitive Church of the East, that the priest was never permitted to say, as 
 he does in the West, " N, Ibaptize thee, in the name," etc. ; but he said, " N, 
 the servant of God, is baptized in the name," etc. In Christian baptism, it is 
 not man that baptizes, but the Son of God, the glorified God-man, who is 
 present to our faith in all the offices of His Church, and the Spirit of life 
 and grace, the personal Spirit of the Father and the Son. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 349 
 
 For never in the Church of Christ has this fundamental 
 text been interpreted otherwise than of baptism. Never have 
 the commissioned ambassadors of Christ ceased to admit men 
 by baptism only into the Church. Never has it been other- 
 wise than upon a full, and, as far as they could judge, a sincere 
 profession of repentance and faith. Never otherwise than in 
 the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost, and with the use of the material element of water, as 
 an outward and visible sign, a sacrament of the iuM-ard and 
 spiritual grace. The declaration of our Saviour to Nicodemus 
 on baptism, the commission He gave to His apostles, and their 
 action upon that commission, all these certainly make a three- 
 fold cord on the doctrine of baptism that cannot be broken. 
 
 We add here, simply in order to point out and trace the 
 steps of transition from the giving of the commission to the 
 exercise of it, a few passages from the Acts. 
 
 " Through the Holy Ghost He had given commandments 
 unto the apostles whom He had chosen: . ". . being seen of 
 them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the 
 kingdom of God ; and, being assembled together with them, 
 commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, 
 but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye 
 have heard of Me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye 
 shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." '^ 
 
 " And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were 
 all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came 
 a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled 
 all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared 
 unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each 
 of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and 
 began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them 
 utterance." f 
 
 Here, then, was the Church organized by the descent of the 
 energizing and vitalizing personal Spirit; and the commission 
 before given the apostles was " endued with the power from on 
 *Acts, i. 2-5. f Acts, ii. 1-4. 
 
360 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 high." And at once they acted upon it. They preached. 
 They taught. They baptized. We have the sermon of St. 
 Peter, the chief of the apostles, to the many-torgued multi- 
 tude, assembled from all nations, at Jerusalem. And the bur- 
 den of the whole is Christ, the Lord, the Saviour, while the 
 practical conclusion is most plain — " Therefore let all the house 
 oi Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, 
 whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." And when 
 they were pierced with remorse and compunction, and said 
 unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, " Brethren, what shall 
 we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and he hajp- 
 tized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the 
 remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and 
 to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall 
 call." * 
 
 " Then they that gladly received the Word were haptized: 
 and the same day there were added unto them about three 
 thousand souls." f 
 
 This is the first action by the apostles upon their commis- 
 sion. We ask, does it not completely agree with the doctrine 
 of the Church in every way ? Certainly it does. We ask our 
 readers again to look back to our baptismal services for adults, 
 and there they shall find this very passage read in the ears of 
 all the people, teaching them forever the same doctrine, and 
 the same practice upon it, as the apostles taught in that first 
 day of Gospel preaching. 
 
 We admit that these doctrines are not popular now. They 
 are not such as are preached by the ordinary preachers outside 
 the Church, who are a large majority. But, day by day, the 
 faith shall grow, and' truth increase. The plain meaning and 
 literal sense of Holy Writ shall be better understood, the 
 relations to Christian baptism of all the doctrines of the Gospel 
 shall be more distinctly comprehended, and the children ot 
 those who now deny the plain sense, the very words of Holy 
 * Acts, ii. 36-39. f Acts, ii. 41. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 351 
 
 Scripture, shall confess the faith, and wonder how their fathers, 
 sincere and honest men of true piety, could be so blind. For 
 the teaching that men receive and accept in childhood, the tra- 
 dition they are under, is most powerful for truth or falsehood. 
 And here, for the present, in the religious world of the United 
 States, Calvin and Luther and Edwards, and their traditions 
 and doctrines, are dominant, more believed in, than the four 
 Gospels, than St. John, or St. Peter, or St. Paul, than the 
 "Written Word, or the Holy Catholic Church. 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 The Christian Church, as we have seen, invariablj consid- 
 ered baptism to be the door of entrance into the kingdom of 
 God upon earth, so that the baptized were ever counted to be 
 within the Cliurch, the unbaptized outside it. And the sacra- 
 ment-of baptism was always performed with water, according to 
 the commission of our Lord. These two facts are manifest in 
 the Scriptures, they come forth in the universal p"actice of 
 the Church since the time of Christ our Lord, and are visible at 
 the present time in the practice of all that profess Christianity, 
 except a very small and minute fragment indeed. For who is 
 there now who does not begin the full profession of Christianity 
 with baptism ? Who is there now that does not baptize with 
 water, using literally and in fact the material element ? We, 
 therefore, do not discuss them, but take them as true, referring 
 those who doubt to the authors cited underneath.* 
 
 With these preliminaries we go on to our extracts from 
 Holy Writ. In the Epistle of St. Paul to Titus, we find this 
 passage : " And when the kindness and love of God our 
 Saviour toward man was manifested, not in consequence of 
 works of righteousness which we have done, but according to 
 His own mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, 
 and the renewing of the Holy Ghost ; which He shed on us 
 abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour ; that being justi- 
 fied by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the 
 hope of everlasting life. This is a faithful saying, and these 
 things I will that thou affirm constantly." f 
 
 Here is the same doctrine still. We are saved by the wash- 
 
 * Leslie, on Water Baptism, in Lis Works ; Bingham's " Christian Antiq- 
 uities," vol. iii. 415^25. f Titus, iii. 4-8. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 353 
 
 ing, or baptism, of regeneration. And then, after this initial 
 sacrament, by the constant operation upon ns of the Holy Spirit 
 of God, which implies, in the active or objective sense. His re- 
 newing of our hearts by grace, and, in the subjective or personal 
 sense, our reception by faith of that sanctifying influence, and 
 our consequent growth in holiness. 
 
 We would remark, here, that the word baptism, in our ver- 
 sion of the New Testament, is transferred, not translated. And 
 the reference to water, therefore, which it has in the original, is 
 not so distinctly seen. For, with us, baptism is used exclusively 
 in the technical sense, not being a word of English origin. In 
 the original, its significance, implying the use of water, lies 
 before the eye, on the face of the word. Accordingly, we" have 
 various places in which it occurs in the Greek of the New 
 Testament in the same form in which it is used of the initial 
 sacrament, Baptizo {BoKzi^co) and Baptismos (BaTrvcfffib^), and 
 yet signifying a mere washing with water ; and, in fact, is so 
 translated in the English version, — " When they come from 
 the market, except thei/ wash {BaTCTcacouvai), they eat not." * 
 And, again, in the same verse, — " The washings {BaTTTia/ioht;) 
 of cups and pots, brazen vessels and couches." 
 
 We see, then, in this passage, a manifest agreement with the 
 doctrine. In it is plainly implied our regeneration, or new birth 
 of water and of the Spirit ; and then, again, our renovation, 
 by the fostering influences of the Holy Ghost, renewing us, 
 day by day, where aught in us is decayed by our own weak- 
 ness, or by the malice of Satan. And see with what a solemn 
 asseveration the apostle crowns and consummates all this doc- 
 trinal declaration, — " Faithful is this saying, and these things I 
 will that thou affirm constantly," Faithful, indeed, to the truth 
 of the Gospel of our Lord, that " except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God," the saying is, that " according to His mercy He saved 
 us by the washing or baptism of regeneration, and by the re- 
 newal of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 * St. Mark, vii. 4. 
 
 23 
 
354 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 And as we have said that we do not rest our interpretation 
 of any passage of Scripture solely upon our own argumenta- 
 tion, we give, from the commentaries of Bishop Mant and Dr. 
 D'Oyly, a large collection of comments upon this important 
 passage, from the ablest and most learned English divines. 
 And, finally, we give Adam Clarke's commentary upon the 
 verse, — a most curious instance of the want of coherency and 
 logic in the mind of that learned but injudicious man, and yet 
 a testimony to the fact that the text refers to baptism. "We 
 go on with our extracts: 
 
 " ' By the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost.' By means of these holy ordinances which He 
 hath appointed, and, namely, as one of them ; by the holy 
 sacrament of baptism, which is the laver of our spiritual re- 
 generation, yet not by any virtue of the outward sign, but 
 by the inward ]-enovation which is wrought in us by the Holy 
 Ghost.* 
 
 " By means of the baptismal covenant and sacrament, and 
 the Holy Ghost then vouchsafed unto us, as a principle of a 
 new or holy life." f 
 
 " 'By the washing of regeneration ' in baptism, and by ' the 
 renewing of the Holy Ghost' given, then, to the baptized. 
 The apostle, by the ' laver of regeneration,' understands that 
 baptism by which Christians coming then from heathenism, 
 engaged to renounce idolatry, the works of the flesh and of the 
 world, and dedicated themselves to the service of the sacred 
 Trinity, and testified their faith in Christ (see John, iii. 5; 
 Matt, xxviii. 19). From the beginning, the . word here ren- 
 dered ' regeneration,' was used to denote baptism, as Justin 
 Martyr, Irenseus, and Clement of Alexandria inform us. The 
 same apostle elsewhere ascribes this virtue to baptism (Eph. v. 
 26 ; see, also, I. Pet. iii. 21), and all Christians are said to be 
 baptized by one Spirit (I. Cor. xii. 13), who is here said to be 
 plentifully poured out upon all believers." X 
 
 " That wonderful change in all our faculties which is eflected 
 * Bishop Hall. f Dr. Welle. % I>r. Whitbj. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 3S5 
 
 by the Spirit of holiness — as it were annihilating onr former 
 selves, and making other creatures of us than we were before — 
 is, at its commencement, called ' regeneration.' ]S"ot that this 
 change is at once, or at all perfected in this world, so that 
 none of the dregs of our old nature and original corruption 
 remain. Our Christian course is only a ' going on unto per- 
 fection,' and not the arrival at it ; it is the abounding more 
 and more (I. Thess. iv. 1), and not a full attainment. The 
 guilt of original corruption may be blotted out, and the punish- 
 ment remitted ; but the stain continues, and sullies our best per- 
 formances. The blood of Christ, once shed, did not wash it out ; 
 but the graces of the Holy Spirit, repeated and continued, grad- 
 ually diminish it. So that regeneration, if it he applied to the 
 whole and entire change of a man, is a progressive state, — the 
 perfection of which is in another world, the commencement 
 and degrees in this. The commencement of it — when, instead 
 of children of wrath, we are received into God's favor, and have 
 the Spirit given us as a principle of new life, gradually to un- 
 fold itself hereafter, as we shall nourish and comply with it — is 
 usually called more particularly our regeneration, as it is our 
 being born of the Spirit, and is the first beginning of a new 
 and spiritual life," * 
 
 "We are, hy baptism, made the children of grace, and, 
 therefore, enabled to do the work of grace ; which work flows 
 not immediately from the sacraments, but from the power of 
 Christ and His Spirit that works hy the sacrament. The 
 rule of the school is sound, and to be retained, that ' Sacra- 
 ments, hy resemblance represent, by institution signify, and by 
 the power of Christ they sanctify.' " f 
 
 " Undoubtedly the apostle here means baptism, the rite by 
 which persons were admitted into the Church, and the visible 
 sign of the cleansing, purifying influences of the Holy Spirit, 
 which the apostle immediately subjoins. Baptism is only a 
 sign, (!) and should, therefore, never be separated from the 
 thing signified ; but it is a rite commanded by God himself, 
 * Dr. Gloucester Ridley. f Bishop Beveridge. 
 
356 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 and, therefore, the thing signified should never he expected 
 without it.'''' * 
 
 We go on, now, to another passage in the writings of the 
 same apostle. In it St. Paul, speaking to the Roman con- 
 verts, argues with them against a perverse misrepresentation of 
 the doctrine of grace. We may observe how he argues to 
 them, from their absolute possession of certain privileges, and 
 these privileges based upon the fact of their baptism. As a 
 matter of fact, in the argument of the apostle, we have been 
 baptized into Jesus Christ; we have been buried with Him in 
 the baptismal waters ; we have been planted with Him in the 
 likeness of His death. From all these facts comes the infer- 
 ence, plainly and stringently drawn, that we, as having within 
 us the life of Christ, " as dead to sin," should walk in a new 
 life. The same arguments, precisely, these are, as upon the 
 Church doctrine and fact of baptism we should address at this 
 day to the regenerate who are tempted to sin, taking for 
 granted all the powers and all the privileges conferred upon 
 them in their baptism, and making these the basis of our 
 exhortations to a Christian life. 
 
 The passage is this : " What shall we say then 1 Shall we 
 continue in sin, that grace may abound ? God forbid. How 
 shall we, who have died unto sin, live any longer therein ? 
 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
 Christ were baptized into His death ? Therefore we are 
 bnried with Him by baptism into death : that like as Christ was 
 raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so 
 we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been 
 planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also 
 
 in the likeness of His resurrection Thus reckon 
 
 yourselves also to be dead indeed' unto sin, but alive unto 
 God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore 
 reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the 
 lusts thereof." f 
 
 Here is not only actual baptism spoken of — the initial 
 *Adain Clarke. f Romans, vi. 1-5, 11, 12. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. Z5i*I 
 
 sacrament of water and the Spirit — but, also, the ordinary mode 
 of immersion, whereby the man, as it were, is buried in the 
 water, — is planted, as it were, with Christ. And to this bap- 
 tism in water is actually attributed a death unto sin, through 
 Christ, — a new lite through Him. How fully does the Cate- 
 chism of the Church agree with this, when it says that the 
 inward and spiritual grace in baptism is 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 (by baptism, that 
 is) made the children of grace." 
 
 We go on here, as we did upon the last passage, to give 
 some comments from eminent divines, showing the sense in 
 which they have taken it : 
 
 " How shall we that are dead — or, according to the orig- 
 inal, ' have died ' — to sin, by our baptism, which is an entrance 
 into the Christian covenant, live any longer therein ? " * 
 
 " To ' live in sin ' is not to commit any one act of sin, for 
 so all do live in sin (I. John, i. 8 ; James, iii. 8) ; but to have a 
 habit and custom of sinning." f 
 
 " Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into 
 Jesus have the full efficacy of Christ's death sealed up unto 
 us, and by virtue thereof die unto our sins ? " :{: 
 
 " ' We are buried with Him by baptism into death.' It is 
 probable that the apostle here alludes to the mode of adminis- 
 tering baptism by immersion, the whole body being put under 
 the loater, which seemed to say, the man is drowned, is dead, 
 and when he came up out of the water, he seemed to have a 
 resurrection to life ; the man is risen again ^ he is alive.''' § 
 
 Again, we go to another passage of St. Paul: 
 
 " For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily. And ye are made full {i. e., of the graces of the Spirit 
 and the life of Christ) in Him, who is the head of all princi- 
 pality and power : in whom also ye are circumcised with the 
 circumcision made without hands, in putting ofi' the body of the 
 
 * Dr. Whitby. f Bishop Fell. 
 
 :J: Bishop Hall. § Adam Clarke. 
 
358 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 sins of the flesh : having been buried with Him in your bap- 
 tism, in which also ye are risen with Him, through the faith 
 of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. 
 And you, heing dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision 
 of your flesh, hath He Tnade to live together with Him, having 
 forgiven you all trespasses ; having blotted out the bond of 
 ordinances that was against us, and He took it out of the way, 
 nailing it to His cross ; and having spoiled principalities and 
 powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them 
 upon it." * 
 
 Here is the same deep significance attached to baptism 
 which the Church has ever placed upon it, and which we have 
 endeavored to bring forth to our readers in this book. See 
 how, in this passage, baptism lies midway between the incar- 
 nation of our Lord — " in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily" — and His triumph upon the cross! "Ye" 
 — that is, the Colossian Church and its members — " are buried 
 
 with Him in baptism, in it ye are risen with 
 
 Hitn I " ye are made alive, with Him, who were formerly dead 
 in trespasses and heathenism, outside the law of Moses, in your 
 sensual corruption (the uncircumcision of your flesh), and now 
 all your sins are forgiven. Baptism, the initial sacrament of 
 the grace of Christ, the true circumcision of the Spirit of Christ, 
 you have received. This is not " made with hands," but it is 
 the work of the Spirit. And all these are reasons why no 
 one should make a spoil (or prey) of you, through philosophy 
 and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments 
 of the world, and not after Christ. 
 
 " The characteristics here specified," says "Wordsworth, in 
 his Commentary, "point, in the first place, to the spirit of that 
 proud, vainglorious Pharisaism which endeavored to corrupt 
 the simplicity of the Gospel, and to impose the observances of 
 the ceremonial law, and of their own traditions, on the con- 
 science of Christians, as necessary to salvation, and so to dom- 
 
 Col. ii. 9-15. We consider that the translation, " upon it," i. e., upon the 
 cross, in eruce, is much nearer the literal sense than " in." 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 359 
 
 ineer over those whom Christ had purchased with His own 
 blood." * 
 
 Imagine the case of the heathen converted by St. Pauh 
 He had received them into the Church by baptism merely, 
 upon a profession of faith and repentance. Having been him- 
 self a Jew of the most rigid sect, he put not upon these men 
 the heavy yoke of the ceremonial law, but gave them to know 
 their freedom in Christ our Lord. And then, by and by, they 
 were invaded by these Judaizhig teachers. We can see, by 
 considering the law as given to Moses, the man of God, 
 what a multitude of plausible arguments there must have been, 
 in those days, for imposing the law of Moses upon heathen con- 
 verts, with all its painful and burdensome ritual ; and more 
 especially the rite of circumcision, the form established by God 
 himself for admission into covenant with God, into the election 
 of Israel. Furthermore, we must remember that the temple 
 was not yet overthrown, and its sacred rites were still going 
 on ; and, also, that the nation had its position as a people 
 still, in the world ; and, also, that Jewish practices were, to a 
 great extent, tolerated in the Christian Church, so much so, 
 indeed, that St. Paul himself, on another occasion, took Timo- 
 theus " and circumcised him because of the Jews which were 
 in those quarters." f The more, indeed, we place before our 
 mind in imagination the position of the Christian Church an- 
 tecedent to the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the 
 temple, the more we see that in this was, then, the great 
 stress of danger to the Church, — that the Gospel might become 
 so overloaded with Jewish tradition and usages and ceremo- 
 nies, that Christianity should assume the position and aspect 
 of a mere sect of Judaism, such as were the Pharisees, the 
 Sadducees, or the Essenes. 
 
 Now, in view of that imminent danger, let us consider the 
 passage quoted. What is it, in reference to this crisis, but a 
 full and perfect argument against these dangerous and destruc- 
 tive Judaizers, founded upon the facts of the Christian life, and 
 * Wordsworth's Commentary, p. 316. f Acts, xvi. 3. 
 
360 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 taking them as real and precious facts far transcending in value 
 all Jewish rites, which were merely types and shadows ? See 
 what a reality baptism has in this passage, considering these 
 circumstances. It renders circumcision wholly unnecessary ; 
 for itself is the true circumcision of the Spirit, the circumcision 
 of Christ, the sacrament of admission into the covenant of God, 
 through Christ. Man's hand circumcised in the Jewisli ordi- 
 nance, but in the sacrament of baptism it is the Holy Spirit, the 
 *' finger of God," and by his operation the " body of the sins 
 of the flesh is put away." The old man is overthrown in our 
 baptism, the new man is raised up in it. In it ye are buried 
 with him ; in it ye are made alive with him ; in it your sins 
 are forgiven. The handwriting of ordinances is blotted out, 
 and the law is cancelled in your baptism into Christ. The 
 Jewish sacraments of the old law were merely shadows, and 
 you have the substance, the solid reality. 
 
 Look at all this argument. Does not the very stress and 
 power, the whole weight and gist of it, depend upon the 
 truth which we of the Church assert, — that in baptism all men 
 receive permanent spiritual gifts, who approacli it with the 
 qualifications that Christ has prescribed. Is it not upon these 
 grounds, and upon these only, a triumphant answer to the 
 advocates of circumcision ? God the Word eternal is incarnate 
 in these last days. In Him dwells all the fulness of the God- 
 head bodily. He has died upon the cross for the sins of man, 
 upon it as a conqueror triumphing over all the powers of evil. 
 In Him we are complete and perfect ; in Him we are new 
 born ; in Him we have new life ; in Him we have forgiveness 
 of all our sins. For our baptism into Christ is the true circum- 
 cision, not made v/ith mortal hands, but by the Eternal Spirit.* 
 
 * The circumcision made without hands, with which we are circumcised, 
 the Greek fathers, one and all, interpret of baptism and the work of the 
 Spirit therein upon the sotil. We give, for an example, the words of Epipha- 
 nius, from Suicer (" Thesaurus," vol. i. p. 693), translating the Greek for the 
 convenience of our readers : " Among them (the Jews) was the circumcision 
 in the flesh, which served for a time, until the coming of the great circum- 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 361 
 
 Having, therefore, the substance, which is Christ, we refuse the 
 sliadow. Tlie argument on tlie grounds of tlie CInirch doctrine 
 of baptism is impregnable, unassailable, irresistible. Deny the 
 Church doctrine, and suppose that baptism is a mere ceremo- 
 nial, a sign that may have a reality or may not, and the whole 
 force and cogency of the argument is gone. The Judaizing 
 teacher can show that circumcision, by the ordinance and law 
 of God, is just as much, indeed a great deal more, than this. 
 But take the Church doctrine of baptism, and the whole pas- 
 sage is clear in all its meaning and validity of argumentation, 
 and the Judaizing teacher is overthrown triumphantly. 
 
 We go now to another passage in St. Paul's writings : "As 
 the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members 
 of that one body, being many, are one body : so also is Christ. 
 Fo7' hy one Spirit are we all 'baptized into one body, whether 
 we be Jews or Greeks, whether we be bond or free ; and have 
 
 all been made to drink into one Spirit Now ye are the 
 
 body of Christ, and members in particular." * 
 
 Here, again, is baptism seen in the sacramental sense in 
 which the Church teaches it, as introducing man into the 
 Church of God, the body of Christ upon this earth ; and, again, 
 as having its efficient power in the Spirit of God, really acting 
 upon the man to that effect, here upon the earth. In the one 
 he is carnally, in the other spiritually, circumcised ; not as in 
 the Jewish fashion, " for it is sins tliat ye have laid aside, not 
 flesh. When, and wherein ? In your hajptisinP f 
 
 cision — that is, baptism — which cuts us away from sins, and seals us into the 
 name of God." 
 
 On this very passage St. Chrysostom, in his Homilies, also gives us the 
 full meaning : " No longer is it circumcision by the knife, but by Christ 
 himself, /o?' no hand imparts the circumcision here but the Spirit. It circum- 
 cises not a part, but the whole man. It is the body in both cases, but in the 
 one it is carnally, in the other spiritually circumcised ; but not as in the 
 Jewish fashion, for it is sins that ye have laid aside, not flesh. When, and 
 wherein? In your baptism." — St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Coll. ii. 
 11. 
 
 * I. Cor. xii. 13, 13, and 27. 
 
 f St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Coll. ii. 11. 
 
362 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Into that Church* — see how, in the passage cited, "all" 
 the Corinthians have, by that " one Spirit, been baptized," and 
 " all " have been grafted into that " one body, Jews or Greeks, 
 slaves or freemen," and " all have been made to drink of that 
 one Spirit," — all the members of the Church had been bap- 
 tized. The circumcision of the Jew was disregarded and set 
 at naught, and he also was baptized. The Roman citizen, and 
 his slave alike, had to enter the Church of Christ by the same 
 baptism. So it was, also, with the cultivated and literary Greek. 
 All persons, without exception, were baptized, and, therefore, 
 all were within the one body by the sacramental efficiency of 
 the one Spirit. All had these privileges by their baptism. 
 And yet, when we look at the morality of the Corinthians, we 
 find that all the "sons of God" were not dutiful sons, all the 
 " children of the kingdom " were not obedient to its laws. In 
 other words, all who had been regenerate were not justified ; 
 all the sons of God had not the living faith that purifies the 
 heart ; for we find that there were many weak and wicked 
 Christians among them. " For this cause many are weak and 
 sickly among you, and many sleep," f We find, in fact, most 
 dreadful sins in the members of the Church at Corinth : 
 drunkenness at the Lord's table ; toleration of idolatry, and of 
 sacramental feasting in the temples of idols, upon the idol sacri- 
 fices ; abuse of spiritual gifts, even those that were miraculous, 
 to vainglorious and unprofitable self-display ; and, also, unchris- 
 tian and unseemly rivalry and contention. And, worse than all, 
 there was in the Church incest of a most hateful kind, by a 
 prominent member of the Church, — " Such fornication as is 
 not so much as named among the heathen, that one should have 
 his father's wife." X And this last, it would seem, was connived 
 at by the rulers of the Church ; and with all these sins the 
 Church was puffed up with a spirit of vainglory, of spiritual 
 
 * " By one and the same Spirit of God, working with and by the outward 
 elements, are we baptized into the communion of one and the same Church, 
 and are all made partakers of the same sacramental cup, and therein of the 
 same blood of Christ, by the working of the same Spirit." — Bishop Hall. 
 1 1. Cor. xi. 30. X I. Cor. v. 1. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 363 
 
 pride and blindness ; presumptuous and self-sufficient ; insub- 
 ordinate and refractory against apostolic authority; contempt- 
 uous, in fact, toward the apostle, his teachings and his person. 
 Such was the character of many baptized members of that 
 Christian Church, that lies upon the face of the two Epistles to 
 the Corinthians. 
 
 Now, upon the modern Calvinistic theory, there are only 
 two classes in the world, — those who are Christians, and those 
 who are not Christians. Baptism is not taken into account in 
 any way. They only are Christians who are pious men, 
 and they are not Christians who are not pious men. Upon 
 our doctrine there are, of all men, first, two classes, — the unbap- 
 tized, who are not Christians ; and the baptized, who are Chris- 
 tians. And these last are divided into two classes more, — 
 Christians who are justified before God, and Christians who are 
 condemned ; those who are good, and those who are evil ; sons 
 that are obedient, and sons that are disobedient. Now, con- 
 sider these two Epistles, — which theory is in them ? Surely, 
 it is ours, — the theory that the Clinrch of God is a definite body 
 upon the earth, into which men are admitted upon definite en- 
 gagements, pu1)licly taken, and in a prescribed and visible way ; 
 the sacrament of baptism, about which, as a matter of fact, 
 there can be no doubt or uncertainty in the man's own mind, or 
 in that of the Church. And that, therefore, as in the nation, the 
 man, heing a citizen, may be a felon, a traitor, or an outlaw ; as 
 in the family, heing a son, he may be in everything vile and 
 unfilial, so as not to deserve the name of son, and yet he still 
 is, by blood and birth, a son, — thus it can be in the Christian 
 Church, and this, because of the man's own wickedness, aris- 
 ing from his personal want of living faith. 
 
 The whole tenor of these two Epistles to the Corinthians, 
 doctrinal and practical, is most evidently in this direction. It 
 is, ye have sinned grievously ; but remember that ye are the 
 S071S of God within the Church of Christ. Dread, then, if you 
 persist in sin, a penalty so much the more awful and terrible as 
 your privileges in Christ are great and glorious. And, there- 
 
364 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 fore, as sons, turn with repentance and sorrow of heart to your 
 Father, through Jesus Christ your Lord, and live and act accord- 
 ing to your position and your privileges. We see in these 
 Epistles, everywhere, the Church doctrine of Christian baptism 
 and of Christian sonship, our doctrines of the Spirit and of 
 the Church, of regeneration and justification, and nowhere that 
 other ordinary and popular notion. 
 
 We only shall refer, further, in this Epistle, to the tenth 
 chapter, from the first to the tenth verse, in which the apostle 
 compares the Church to the Jewish election under Moses, so 
 far as regards tlie universality of baptism, and its privileges 
 that are given unto all the baptized, and omitting and pass- 
 ing by circumcision, states that, in the time of the exodus, 
 " all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea " : 
 " Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, 
 how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed 
 through the sea ; and were all baptized unto Moses in the 
 cloud and in the sea ; and did all eat the same spir- 
 itual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink : for 
 they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them : and 
 that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not 
 well pleased : for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 
 .... Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed 
 lest he fall." * 
 
 The same allusion we find here to the universality and 
 reality of baptism and baptismal privileges in the Christian 
 Church ; as also to the fact that in the Old Church, as in the 
 New, were m-any who did not live up to their privileges. 
 
 We go now to a passage which, in its declaration that man 
 is saved by baptism, and that that salvation is not a mere efifect 
 of the bodily " washing" (/?a;rrr<T//oc) is most plain. And yet, 
 because of the clumsiness of the English language, compared 
 with the Greek, it is very vague and confused in our version. 
 
 " In the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparjng, 
 wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The 
 *I. Cor. X. 1-5, 12. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 365 
 
 antitype [dvuTUTzou) whereunto even baptism doth also now 
 save us (not the removal of the uncleanness of the body, but 
 the answer to the interrogations of a good conscience toward 
 God), by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ : who has 
 gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God ; angels 
 and dominions and powers being made subject unto Him." * 
 
 The ark of Noah, from the earliest times, has been typical 
 of the Church, because all who desire to be saved must enter 
 within it. Here, then, we have this type originating in Scripture 
 history. In the ark of Noah few, that is, eight, souls were 
 saved hy water. The antitype, the reality unto which the type 
 corresponds, is the Church of God, and baptism, by which we 
 enter within it. 
 
 We can see, here, much meaning is lost, in the English 
 version, by the use of the word " figure " instead of "antitype." 
 However, we suppose the ordinary mass of the congregation 
 in English churches, in the reign of James I., would not 
 have understood the word " antitype." So far there is some 
 slight excuse. But still the word " figure " is in no sense a 
 translation of the Scripture word, only the substitution of a 
 meaning, in some remote and vague degree corresponding. 
 
 However, to resume, God was pleased, by a type, to signify 
 His Church, its baptism, and salvation therein and thereby. 
 The ark in the waters was the type, baptism and the Church the 
 antitype. We are saved, therefore, the text says, by baptism ; 
 but not, in a mere physical point of view, by the washing of the 
 material water ; but it is when we have the i7tep(i)Trjfj.a of a 
 good conscience toward God. 
 
 This word is translated the " answer," but it means more 
 than this: it is "the answer to the questions," the answer to 
 the baptismal interrogatories. For never, in the Church, was 
 man baptized, but that the officiating minister interrogated him 
 most solemnly, before the congregation, as to his repentance 
 from sin, his faith toward God, his promise of renunciation, 
 and his vow of obedience to the laws of God. Upon a sincere 
 * I. Peter, iii. 20-22. 
 
366 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 answer to these questions, the answer of a good conscience 
 toward God, he was baptized. To be able, therefore, con- 
 scientiously, as before God, to profess a true repentance and 
 faith, and a sincere determination to obey God's will, is a 
 qualification, on our part, for the reception of baptism, and, 
 through it, of salvation in the Church of God. 
 
 In this way, baptism saves us, — not physically, by means 
 of the mere washing with water ; not as by a ceremonial rite, 
 requiring no qualification on our part. But to those who have 
 true faith and true repentance, the reception of the sacrament 
 of baptism is salvation ; a washing by the Spirit, in the blood of 
 Christ, for the remission of all past sins ; an entrance into the 
 ark of God, the Church of Christ upon the earth. And this is 
 by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is gone into 
 heaven, and is on the right hand of God, — angels and dominions 
 and powers being made subject unto Him, 
 
 Dr. Waterland, upon this text, says : " St. Peter assures us 
 that baptism saves us, that is, it gives a just title to salvation 
 
 But, then, it must be understood, not of the outward 
 
 washing, but of the inward lively faith stiptdated in it ; and 
 by it baptism concurs vnth faith, and faith with haptism, 
 and the Holy Spirit with hoth ; and so the merits of Christ 
 are savingly applied. Faith alone will not ordinarily save 
 in this case, but it must be a contracting faith on man's part, — 
 contracting in form corresponding to the federal promises 
 and engagements on God's part / therefore, Tertullian right- 
 fully styles baptism, ' obsignatio fidei,' ' testatio fidei,' ' sponsio 
 salutis,' ' fidei pactio,' * and the like." f 
 
 In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is an allusion to the 
 conscientious reception of baptism, and the powers it confers 
 
 * Tertullian was a Roman lawyer, and these Latin phrases are terms of 
 the Roman law, signifying the obligation of contract, with witnesses, in- 
 struments, seals, and magisterial sanctions. As the mere translation of the 
 words would give no adequate sense, we leave them untranslated, referring 
 to any ordinary manual of the Roman law. 
 
 \ Dr. Waterland, cited by Bishop Wordsworth. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 367 
 
 Tipon us, which corresponds most exactly with this passage of 
 St. Peter : " Having therefore, brethren, hbertj to enter into • 
 the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way, 
 which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that 
 is to say. His flesh ; and having a great High Priest over the 
 house of God ; let us draw near with a true heart, having been 
 sprinkled from an evil conscience as to our hearts, and having 
 been baptized (washed) as to our bodies with the pure water. 
 Let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering 
 (faithful is He that hath promised unto us) ; and let us con- 
 sider one another to excite unto love and good works : not 
 neglecting the assembling of ourselves together, as the man- 
 ner of some is : and so much the more as ye see the day ap- 
 proaching." 
 
 Here is the confession of faith, the Christian creed, that is 
 to be held without wavering. Here is He who hath promised, 
 or rather hath stipulated unto us, in the new covenant, upon 
 fixed conditions, and also the absolute certainty of His faith- 
 fulness. Here, our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, 
 cleansed, that is, sacrificially, by the purifying blood of Christ, 
 our atonement and sacrifice, — the allusion being to the High 
 Priest who, on the great day of atonement, slew the sacrifice, 
 and offered it up for the sins of the whole people, and 
 then, with the blood of the victim, entered into the most holy 
 place, and " sjarinkled the blood upon the mercy-seat eastward ; 
 and before the mercy-seat shall he sprinkle of the blood, with 
 his finger seven times." Here, too, is the fact that we have 
 been washed in the cleansing waters of baptism, and that the 
 atoning blood of Christ our Lord has been applied thereby to 
 our souls, not "the sprinkling of the blood of bulls and goats 
 which can never take away sin." The reality of Christian 
 baptism, and of the Christian covenant in it, accepted publicly 
 in the Church, is clearly asserted here in the whole passage. 
 And then we see how naturally these thoughts of the circum- 
 stances, place, time, and witnesses of baptism lead the apostle 
 to the consideration of strict attendance on the public worship 
 
368 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 of the Church, — " IS^ot forsaking the assembhng of yourselves 
 together as the manner of some is." 
 
 In this last passage, our readers will not fail to notice the 
 union of the " washing of our bodies w\i\\ the pure water," with 
 " the sprinkling of our hearts from an evil conscience," — the 
 combination, that is, of the material element and the spiritual 
 cleansing. The same thing, also, may be seen in the passage 
 cited from St. Peter ; the answer of a conscience pure before 
 God is, then, also connected with the baptism in water. St. 
 Paul, furthermore, illustrates the same doctrine in the narration 
 he gives of his own baptism, when he tells us how Ananias 
 said to him, "And now why tarri est thou ? arise, and he hap- 
 tised, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the 
 Lord."* 
 
 And, again, when the jailor at Philippi asked of the same 
 apostle, " What must I do to be saved ? " Paul answered : 
 " Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, and thy 
 house." This, of course, involved immediate and exact obedi- 
 ence to all the law of Christ. And, therefore, although it was 
 midnight, " he and all his house w^ere baptized forthwith," an 
 act, certainly, on the part of the apostle, which shows that he 
 held, upon the matter of faith and baptism, quite a different 
 doctrine from that of those, in modern times, who say that faith 
 is everything, and baptism of no importance. An act, surely, 
 that is based on nothing else than the truth and obligation, in 
 both its clauses equally, of the text, saying, " He that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved." And, therefore, at midnight, 
 the apostle preaches the duty of faith, and the promise of salva- 
 tion, to the jailor; at midnight he believes, and '■'• forthioith is 
 hajptizedP And thus, in the primitive days, when the Gospel 
 was in its early youth, men never delayed, or put off, the 
 baptism of Christ. They never questioned it, or balanced 
 one part of baptism against anotlier. They never divided 
 it, even in thought. They simply, as we see, received it, in 
 full faith, in its totality ; and this they did without delay, just 
 
 *Act8, xxii. 16. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 369 
 
 as soon after their conversion as they were permitted by the 
 Church. 
 
 When we look over these examples of doctrine and practice 
 on the part of the apostles, what an exact and literal fidelity 
 do we see in them to the commission of Christ their Lord ? It 
 has pleased God, by means of the sacrament of baptism, to 
 give certain gifts on certain conditions. And they, as the 
 ambassadors of God, the apostles of His Son, are the ministers 
 of that sacrament. They preach those conditions, which are 
 faith and repentance, boldly ; they demand, everywhere and 
 at all times, submission to the sacrament of baptism. And 
 just as boldly do they declare that the gift of the Holy Spirit 
 is given to those who, under these conditions, receive that 
 sacrament. 
 
 And yet, how far from arrogance is their preaching and 
 their practice, although they are ministers of such an unspeak- 
 able gift. The apostles give the sacrament, and in the sacra- 
 ment Christ gives regeneration and remission of sins. It had 
 been said to them, " Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted 
 unto them " ; yet no apostle says, "7 remit your sins." Wor, 
 in the Church, for twelve hundred years after Christ, was any 
 such indicative form of absolution used. Only in the arro- 
 gant papal Church of the West was it introduced, after that 
 long tract and lapse of time. For the sense of the Church as 
 the actual kingdom of Christ, existing supernaturally in this 
 world, the sense of Christ as our King, and as actually reigning 
 here in the world with us, — this implies a miraculous and super- 
 natural work in His baptism, done iy Himself ever present in 
 His sacraments, and by His Spirit, although it be discernible 
 only by the eyes of faith. 
 
 This thouo-ht forbids His ministers froni attributing that 
 work to themselves. They can say, then, to the baptized, 
 " Your sins are forgiven in your baptism, for so Christ himself 
 says in the commission He gave to His apostles ; but it is God 
 the Father, through Christ, our ever-present King and Priest, 
 that forgives them by the power and gift of the Holy Ghost. 
 24 
 
370 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 We do not forgive sins, only ministerially. He is with us, 
 and He it is that forgives your sins. We are not the agents of 
 a principal that is far away, a Christ that is not here, but in 
 heaven ; but we are the ministers, to man, of a living and pres- 
 ent Christ. He is witli us always, unto the end of the world." 
 
 We return, and add two passages more, that are most inter- 
 esting, as well from the allusions they contain as from the 
 doctrine that is in them. The first is in the Epistle of St. 
 Paul to the Ejjhesians: "Husbands, love your wives, even as 
 Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it ; that He might 
 sanctify and cleanse it by the washing (or baptism) of the water 
 with the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glori- 
 ous Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; 
 that it should be holy and without blemish." * Here is the 
 Church represented as sanctified and cleansed by the washing 
 or baptism of the water. The article is in the original, and 
 wrongly omitted in tlie English translation. Unquestionably 
 it is the baptism, or the washing of the sacramental water, 
 wherein all are baptized. It will be remembered that the 
 same word is used in a passage before cited, — "■ We are saved 
 by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost." It may be, therefore, fairly concluded that the wash- 
 ing of regeneration — that is, baptism — by which we are said, in 
 one Epistle, to be saved, is the same as the washing of the 
 water with the Word, by which the Church is sanctified and 
 cleansed in the other. 
 
 To return, we need only remark, furthermore, that this 
 passage looks forward to the state of the Church in glory, — 
 when, at the judgment-day, the Bride, the Lamb's wife, shall 
 be presented to Him, free from all pollution, for the Church 
 upon earth is the field that contains within it tares (darnel, that 
 is) and wheat; at the judgment-day the reapers shall sepa- 
 rate the tares from the wheat. And, therefore, npon earth, the 
 work of the baptized man is by the Word, and by the renew- 
 ing of the Holy Spirit, to labor that he may be sanctified and 
 * Ephesians. v. 25-27. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 371 
 
 cleansed, so that in the regeneration he may stand before God 
 a glorified man, in the glorious Church. And, as this is the 
 final cause of the abidance of the man upon earth for the period 
 between his regeneration and the judgment-day, so it is of 
 the Church. She abides in the world until that time, being 
 cleansed continually by the Spirit and the Word, being here 
 the Church militant and suffering {Ecclesia militans et patiens) 
 upon earth, that there she may be manifested as the Church 
 in glorj^, the Church triumphant in heaven. 
 
 We adduce one passage more in the writings of St. Paul : 
 " For ye are all the sons of God through the faith in Christ 
 Jesus. For yoti.^ as many as have been baptized into Christ 
 have put on Christ. There is, in Him, neither Jew nor Greek ; 
 there is, in Him, neither slave nor freeman ; there is not, in 
 Him, male and female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 
 And if ye are Christ's, therefore are ye the seed of Abraham, 
 and the heirs according to the promise." * Again, " When 
 the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of 
 a woman, made under the Law, . . . that we might receive 
 the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent 
 forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
 Father. Wherefore thou art no more a bondsman, but a son ; 
 and if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ." f 
 
 See the doctrine here, " Ye are all sons of God, through 
 the faith in Christ Jesus. For you, as many as have been 
 baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." All the baptized 
 are sons of God, children of the kingdom, and, therefore, all 
 distinctions of nation, condition, and sex, become as nothing 
 in the presence of that transcendent Sonship, that brother- 
 hood of ours to the glorified God-man. Being, therefore, sons 
 of God by the faith in Christ, and by your baptism je are 
 Abraham's seed, and the true Israel of God. Ye, not the 
 synagogue, the Jews by nation and birth, — Israel according 
 to the flesh. 
 
 But, is it not the doctrine of the Scriptures, that it is hy 
 * Gal. iii. 2&-29. f Gal. iv. 4^7. 
 
372 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 faith that we are the sons of God, and not hy hajptismf "We 
 saj, in reply, there is nojpassage in Holy Writ which so sjpeaJas 
 of faith as to exclude baptism,' that says that we are regen- 
 erated by faith, not by baptism. It is simply the argumen- 
 tation of narrow-minded men, of contracted views and poor 
 understanding, — men utterly illogical, deficient in the first prin- 
 ciples of reasoning, and in the most ordinary scientific knowl- 
 edge of the value and meaning of language. 
 
 Our readers will remark that their argument is this : " We 
 are saved by faith," therefore, " we are not saved by baptism." 
 " We are the sons of God by faith," therefore, " not by bap- 
 tism." The very gist of the argument rests upon the principle 
 herein taken for granted, — that that which is caused by the one 
 cannot, in any way, be caused by the other ; the idea and 
 fact of causation being expressed in English by the word " by." 
 And yet this principle will not stand, even upon the face of 
 the Scripture, as it appears in the plain English Bible. For we 
 are "justified by faith." * We are "justified by His blood." f 
 We are "justified by His grace.":}: AVe are "justified by 
 works." § £y each of these causes, distinctly, our justification is 
 said, in the Bible, to be efi'ected, yet not one of them shuts out or 
 excludes the other. What comes of that principle, then, in the 
 face of these passages ? It certainly is gone. All these passages 
 are perfectly true ; yet in them our justification is ascribed to 
 dilferent causes, and the word of cause, " by," is used with each 
 and every one of them. The one cause, however, does not 
 exclude the other, for these, all of them, are causes in different 
 senses. Our justification is by the sacrifice and atonement of 
 our Lord, " the blood of Christ," as the efficient cause. Our 
 faith is the instrumental cause on our part, the hand which 
 we reach forth to receive and appropriate that sacrifice to our- 
 selves. The grace of the Spirit is the instrumental cause on 
 the part of our Lord, by which He confers upon our faith that 
 gift. And by works we are justified, as the realizing cause. 
 Our faith is evinced and manifested, as real, by our works, as 
 * Rom. iii. 28. f Rom. v. 9. % Titus, iii. 7. § St. James, ii. 24. 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 373 
 
 a tree is known by its fruits. Let us look at this example, and 
 we shall see that this small word " by," having in it only two 
 letters, has an extensive variety of meanings that is hardly 
 dreamed of by the mass of men, certainly not understood 
 thoroughly by any but the very thoughtful and the educated. 
 In fact, in the famous " Port Koyal Logic," two whole pages* 
 are occupied in specifying all the varieties of the idea of cause 
 which are expressed by the one little English word " by." In 
 each of these the word " by " can be employed in a different 
 causal sense. 
 
 And we ordinarily use the same variety of meaning in Eng- 
 lish, without ever dreaming that the asserting of one cause 
 excludes the other. Let us frame a slight parable, extempora- 
 neously, in illustration of this variety of meanings. A man 
 falls overboard from a ship at sea. The captain orders the 
 mate to lower a boat for him. It is done, and he is reached. 
 A rope is thrown to him, which he grasps with his hands, and 
 is pulled into the boat by the sailors, and brought back to the 
 ship and saved. See what a concurrence of causes herein to 
 his rescue, and hy them all, and each, he is saved. First, he is 
 saved hy the captain ; secondly, he is saved l>y the mate ; thirdly, 
 he is saved hy the sailors ; fourthly, he is saved hy the rope ; 
 fifthly, he is saved hy his own hands that grasped it ; nay, 
 sixthly, he is saved hy the boat ; and seventhly, hy the ship, in 
 a certain and true sense. All these are concurring causes, and 
 real causes ; of any one of them, the saving of the man is as- 
 serted truly. Ordinary men of common sense would use the 
 particle "by" of any one of them, and feel no difficulty. They 
 all concur, and the assertion of the causality of one of them 
 does not shut out all or any one of the others. "VVe can say 
 that he is saved by any one of them, and so to say does not 
 exclude any other, for, in reality and fact, all these concur as 
 causes to save the man from drowning. Such a multitude of 
 meanings, or rather such a manifold ambiguity of meaning, has 
 
 * See translation by Thomas Spencer Baynes, pp. 242-245. Edinburgh, 
 1851. • 
 
374 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 the English causal preposition " by." In the above parable, the 
 Greek language would have four or five different prepositions 
 to express the varieties of cause. 
 
 Now, look at the salvation of man as it is described through- 
 out the New Testament. See the manifold concurrence of 
 causes ; first, on the part of God the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holj Ghost ; and secondly, on the part of man, until the time 
 when formally and distinctly he professes his belief and is bap- 
 tized. And this parable, which we have employed to illus- 
 trate the use of the English word " by," sliall become a very 
 fair parable to ilhistrate the concurrence of the various influ- 
 ences and causes that produce his salvation. Here is the love 
 of God the Father leading man onward. Here is His power 
 guiding, controlling, overruling him, in manifold providential 
 ways ; the teachings of a father, the sacred influence of a 
 mother's example, the preaching, perhaps, or catechizing of a 
 clergyman, the conversation or the influence of a religious 
 friend, the infinite variety of external circumstances that come 
 in contact with man in his course of life, all of them guided, and 
 by the hand of the Almighty God. Then, again, we have the 
 man's OAvn repentance, his own faith, his own submission unto 
 Christ, — free acts of his own will, although coming in their 
 origin from the Spirit, and gifts of grace, — all these concur- 
 rently have brought the man onward to the holy sacrament of 
 baptism. 
 
 And then, in it, we find with the mouth confession made 
 unto salvation, a declaration, that is, of his repentance and of 
 his faith in Christ our Saviour. We find vows to abandon sin 
 and to keep God's holy law. Again, we find the act of bap- 
 tism, the washing with water and the application of the Sacred 
 Words. We find in it, also, the instrumental work of the Holy 
 Spirit ; the atonement of our Lord's sacrifice applied ; His in- 
 dwelling life given ; entrance within His body, the Church, 
 conferred ; and remission of sins bestowed. Look at the num- 
 ber and variety of concurrent causes, special and instrumental, 
 on the part of God and on the part of nf&n, to each and every 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 375 
 
 one of which, in senses as various, the man's salvation is to be 
 ascribed. And then, thinking how the assertion of no one of 
 these will exclude the other, it will be manifest that such an 
 assertion as that we are saved by faith is most perfectly con- 
 sistent witli the assertion " Baptism doth also now save us ; " 
 the assertion that " we are sons of God through faith " is per- 
 fectly in agreement with the doctrine that " we are born of 
 water and of the Spirit ; " faith being the hand which we 
 reach out, and by which we appropriate to ourselves the gift of 
 regeneration which is conferred upon us by Christ our Lord, 
 in our baptism, by the Spirit. 
 
 AVe preach, therefore, to all men, the goodness and kind- 
 ness of God the Father Almighty toward all tlie human race. 
 We preach, also, the doctrine of the Everlasting Word ; that 
 He is the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father ; that for us He 
 came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost 
 of the Vii'gin Mary, and was made man ; that He suffered 
 and died for us, and then ascended into heaven, and now is 
 sitting on the right hand of the Father. We preach, also, the 
 doctrine of the Eternal Spirit coming forth from the Father and 
 the Son, to us and to all men, with perpetual solicitations, draw- 
 ing every son of man onward, in manifold ways, to repentance 
 from sin and to faith in God ; and, again, organizing the Church 
 of God upon earth, and making it the body of Christ, and by 
 spiritual regeneration bringing men within it, implanting in 
 them the life of Christ, and mystically uniting them with His 
 body. 
 
 All this we preach in reference to the Holy Trinity, and the 
 work upon the earth of tlie Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit. We, therefore, proclaim to all men that, by nature, as 
 born into the world, they are dead in trespasses and sins, and 
 they can become alive only through Christ our Lord, and His 
 Spirit. They are in a state of condemnation ; they can enter 
 into a state of grace and salvation. And all this can be done 
 through the atonement and sacrilice of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world ; by our 
 
376 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 accepting Him in the way He has appointed, with a true re- 
 pentance and a living faith entering into covenant with Him ; 
 becoming sons of God and members of the election ; and that 
 this is effected and consummated by the supernatural operation 
 and work of the Holy Spirit, — regenerating us in baptism, 
 and making us therein and thereby the sons of God. 
 
 Thus do we preach the doctrine of the One Holy Catholic 
 Church, visible upon the earth, from the time of Christ until 
 now, and indefectible, to continue until the consummation of 
 all things ; the doctrine, also, of the sacraments as outward and 
 visible signs of the inward invisible grace ; the doctrine of a 
 true and real new birth in baptism, evident to the eyes of all 
 men, and the distinct terminus and definite point of division 
 between the state of mere nature and the supernatural state of 
 regeneration and grace. 
 
 And then, to all those within the Church of Christ, we 
 preach, as to the sons of God, the doctrines of a life of faith 
 and holiness ; the realization of their high privileges, — that, as 
 sons, we should be led by the Spirit of God; as sons, we should 
 be transformed to the image of His dear Son ; as sons, we should 
 look forward perpetually to that day — the last of time, the first 
 of eternity — wherein our sonship, begun in this world, shall be 
 consummated, and that regeneration — of which, by faith, we 
 receive the first-fruits, and are assured upon earth — shall be 
 made perfect and complete in glory. 
 
 "Behold," says the beloved apostle St. John, the kinsman 
 of our Lord, writing to the whole Church, " what manner ot 
 love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called 
 the sons of God : therefore the world knoweth us not, because 
 it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and 
 it is not yet manifested what we shall be : but we know that, 
 when He is manifested, we shall be like unto Him ; for we 
 shall see Him as He is. And every one that hath this hojpe in 
 himself jpurifieth himself, even as He is pure y * 
 
 * I. John, iii. 1-3. 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 
 
 Our task is now finislied. We have laid before the children 
 of the Church the evidence for the Scriptural doctrine of re- 
 generation in baptism, and that, we trust, in such a way that any 
 plain, honest son or daughter of the Church may see it in its 
 whole extent, its entire weight and significance, and, above all, 
 in its clear and beautiful harmony with all the doctrines of the 
 Gospel, and all the principles of Christian holiness. And, 
 while this broad and extended statement of facts and principles 
 is, we hope, so distinct and clear as to be easily understood, 
 even by the unlearned in the Church — if they only have their 
 Bible and their Prayer Book in their hands— at the same time 
 we assure our i*eaders that it has cost us much time and research 
 and toil ; for this treatise, as they have it before them, has 
 occupied all tlie time we could spare for more than six years. 
 There is not an argument or principle in it that we have not 
 tested again and again ; not a quotation that we have not 
 verified ; not an exegesis of the Scriptures which we do not 
 consider sound and correct. 
 
 We would, therefore, sum up what we have done. After 
 having, in the preliminary chapter, declared that there are three 
 distinct systems upon the doctrine of regeneration — first, our 
 own, which is that of the Scriptures and the primitive Church ; 
 secondly, the Predestinarian or Calvinist system ; and, thirdly, 
 the Methodist or Lutheran system, — each of these last in such 
 utter antagonism to ours, that the holding of the one must ex- 
 clude the other from the mind — we go on, then, in the first book, 
 to give the documentary evidence of our standards in favor of 
 our own system. We open the Prayer Book to our readers. 
 
378 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Creeds, Serv-ices, Catechism, and Articles, — these are spread be- 
 fore them upon our pages. That, in so many forms, they assert 
 regeneration in baptism as the true and Scriptural doctrine is 
 made manifest to the eye and the mind of the reader. That 
 the assertion and confession of the doctrine is publicly enforced 
 upon, and required of, every bishop, every clergyman, every 
 layman of our Church, in their most solemn offices of worship 
 before God, in the Church, is amply shown. That it is every- 
 where publicly asserted and declared, and also understood and 
 implied and taken for granted, through the whole book in all 
 its parts, is made, we trust, most evident, from the Prayer Book 
 itself 
 
 And then, in order to aid our readers to a further sense of 
 the weight of the legal and documentary argument and proof 
 tlmt baptismal regeneration, by our standards, is the doctrine of 
 our Church, we give them profuse quotations to that effect from 
 the great theologians of the English Church, and of our own, — 
 men, whose names, even in an intellectual and literary point of 
 view, ring through the world. These great men are seen upon 
 our pages to assert our doctrine as true and Scriptural, in their 
 own words. Their genius, their eloquence, their learning, their 
 fame, and, above all, their holiness and laith, give tremendous 
 additional weight to the legal argument. 
 
 This accumulation of evidence, we think, must fully con- 
 vince any one that weighs it calmly and without prejudice, 
 and Nvith any appreciation of the value of testimony, that the 
 doctrine of regeneration in baptism is the doctrine of all our 
 standards ; of the Creeds, the Services, the Catechism, the Ar- 
 ticles ; of every document by which w^e are bound, as clergy or- 
 dained, or as laity baptized and confirmed, in the Church. What- 
 ever meaning you may attach to the term, whatever practical 
 conclusion you may draw from it, in whatever way you may 
 connect it with life and action, the doctrine or eegeneeation 
 
 LN" BAPTISM, IS THE DOCTRINE OF THE ChURCH, ABSOLUTELY, UN- 
 MISTAKABLY, DISTINCTLY ASSERTED, IN ALL HER STANDARDS. 
 
 The second book we give to the meaning and purport 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 379 
 
 of tlie doctrine, the practical truth and fact, of baptismal re- 
 generation. We show therein what it is, — its connection with 
 the other doctrines of the Church, — its sanctifying influences 
 upon life and conduct, — and we end this book with a summary 
 of the system of the Gospel, according to the Church. 
 
 Upon this sunnnary we have spent a great deal of time 
 and labor, and we will say that we think it embraces a very 
 distinct and scientific statement of the whole doctrine of the_ 
 Church upon baptism and the Christian life, expressed clearly, 
 in all its connections and relations. 
 
 And here w^e must say that in the whole of this book our 
 main object has been so to state the Church doctrine as to 
 keep our readers clear of the two systems of Geneva and 
 Rome, and to give purely all the truth which each of these 
 accepts, and at the same time adulterates and alloys. For the 
 Romish system, and that of Calvin, in this, are highly similar, 
 — each of them is logical and systematic in the extreme ; in 
 each, also, there are grains of glorious truth, but mixed up 
 with the most poisonous alloy. It has been, therefore, our 
 object and task, in this book, to state the true Church doctrine 
 so as to embrace all the truth, free from those adulterations; to 
 show the firm and secure position, in this world, of the sons 
 of God, apart from fate and the denial of free-will, on the one 
 hand, and from Pharisaic legalism and ceremonial bondage 
 and formalism, on the other. And yet we have been careful to 
 do this by the cautious and precise statement of our own doc- 
 trines, abstaining from controversy against these two antagon- 
 ists, — opposed to one another and each of them to us, — hostile 
 camps on the north and on the south of our position. 
 
 We believe in no via media., no attempt like that of Mr. 
 Kewman, to make a compromise of doctrine carried out by 
 taking a little bit of Popery, a little bit of Calvinism, and a 
 little bit of Lutheranism, and from them compounding a body 
 of doctrine and practice to please all tastes and tickle all pal- 
 ates. No ! we believe in a systematic and consistent body of 
 doctrine, held by the pure Church of the first centuries, over 
 
380 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 tlie whole world, when it was entirely free from the State. 
 From this, these other doctrines are divergencies and aberra- 
 tions, on the right hand and on the left, beginning at once 
 after Constantine, and then to grow and to reach their ripeness 
 and perfection of system only in the course and tract of ages.* 
 And then, finally, as we have Loped, to be met in these last 
 days by a State-free American Catholic Church, with a system 
 of pure primitive doctrine, embracing all the truths that they 
 hold, practical and doctrinal, without their corruptions, — the 
 pure gold freed at last from the poisonous alloy. 
 
 And we hope that in this second book we have succeeded 
 in a measure in conveying to our readers the deep feeling, the 
 absolute certainty, that we have of the truth, the beauty, the 
 glory, the wonderful adaptedness to man's condition in this 
 world of the doctrine of regeneration in baptism. For as the 
 doctrine of the Holy Trinity — God the Father, God the Son, 
 and God the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God — is the 
 central doctrine of all revelation as concerns God, so that the 
 Son became man, and died for man, and therefore, that man 
 upon this earth can become and be (his whole life through), in 
 a most true and real sense, the son of God, — this is the central 
 doctrine of revelation with regard to man. Thus, and thus 
 alone, the glory of the Godhead in heaven is reflected in the 
 humanity of man upon the earth. And thus the infinite and 
 unapproachable truth and splendor of the Father has its image 
 
 * The seed-corn of Popery and Calvinism seems to have lost no time in 
 starting, after the union of Church and State was begun by Constantine 
 (a.d. 325). The first germ, in fact, of the Papal supremacy is seen in the 
 decree of the Council of Sardica (a.d. 347), only twenty-two years after, 
 giving an appeal to Julius, Bishop of Rome. And the Papal and Calvinistic 
 systems respectively, in all their elements, are to be found intellectually 
 developed and theoretically wrought out in the works of two great Latin 
 fathers, Leo the Great (died 461) and Augustine (died 430). And yet these 
 systems were brought into actual existence and practical development in 
 the Church only in the course of centuries, — the Papal politically by Hil- 
 debrand (1083), intellectually systematized by Thomas Aquinas (1274), and 
 the Calvinistic intellectually and politically hatched out by John Calvin 
 (1564). 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 381 
 
 and reflection here, in this world, in man born therein of water 
 and of the Spirit, through the Son. 
 
 In the third book our readers will find the examination of 
 the most controverted texts of Scripture connected with this 
 doctrine. Here, also, they will see the arguments and com- 
 ments of many able and learned men. They will, in this part, 
 see how perfectly our doctrine is the doctrine of the Scriptures, 
 and how much this fact is conceded, even by the ablest of its 
 opponents. 
 
 And here we would enter one caveat. On looking over 
 the whole volume, it will be seen that everywhere in it regen- 
 eration is discussed Scripturally, — everywhere the doctrine is 
 supported by the express words of Holy Writ. Through the 
 whole book Scriptural passages are cited and explained, and 
 Scripture analogies traced out and delineated. In truth, the 
 doctrine is a central and vital doctrine of Holy Writ. It is 
 interwoven with the whole body of the Scriptures ; just as in 
 man the nervous system is coextensive with the human frame ; 
 and although it has one great centre and one great trunk, yet 
 it extends a connecting fibre to every muscle, however small 
 or however remote ; so is the doctrine of regeneration in 
 Holy Writ. We are unwilling, therefore, to put it exclusively 
 on what are called the proof-texts. We desire that its Script- 
 ural connections may be seen throughout the whole volume, 
 and then that these proof-texts should be examined in refer- 
 ence to their exegesis ; that the reasons why we understand 
 and believe them in a Church sense should be brought forward 
 broadly and distinctly, and as distinctly the criticisms of those 
 that deny that sense. 
 
 We think that, upon the candid reader, the result of this 
 third book will be the conviction that the Scriptures, in their 
 plain, literal sense, assert distinctly our doctrine, and that the 
 only reason why men deny the fact is, that they come to the 
 Scriptures with preconceived theories, — the Calvinistic or the 
 Methodist system occupying their minds so fully as to ex- 
 clude any other interpretation. 
 
382 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 Men cannot and will not take the doctrine that asserts 
 the plain words of Scripture in their manifest literal sense, be- 
 cause they are preoccupied with antagonist traditional systems, 
 which are popular and widespread, and yet actually deny the 
 doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ, making void and contradict- 
 ing His very words. 
 
 Finally, we would say to the children of the Church : We 
 are here, in this land, amidst a multitude who are hostile to our 
 system, owning to false tradition, honest but misguided teach- 
 ers, and strong prejudices. They misconceive and misrepre- 
 sent our doctrine ; honestly, and with no ill intent, but from 
 the tradition they have received. They are violent, bitter, and 
 unfair when they speak against it and against the Church. 
 Our only remedy is to understand clearly what our own doc- 
 tine is ; what our own standards say ; what meaning their 
 words convey ; how the doctrine tells upon duty, upon life, 
 upon godliness. For we have with us the very words and the 
 express and literal sense of Holy Writ, — the doctrine and fact 
 of the incarnation, the atonement, and mediation of Christ, as 
 our ever-living King, our prevailing High Priest, our Prophet, 
 in whose teaching is all truth, — the doctrine and fact of the 
 personal, omnipresent Spirit, and of the One Holy Catholic 
 and Apostolic Church, — the doctrine, also, that man, miserable 
 and sinful, can here, upon earth, be raised up to the glory of a 
 son of God, upheld, during his course in this world, by graces 
 and aids, supernatural and heavenly ; becoming a son of God, 
 a brother -in the flesh, of God made man; having upon this 
 earth a miraculous and supernatural life, Christ dwelling in 
 him, and he in Christ. 
 
 We say, therefore, to all that are within the Church, by 
 Christian baptism : Understand and realize these glorious facts. 
 Assert them firmly, yet mildly, and deny them not. Let no 
 sneers, no sophisms, no shrewd arguments, no personal influ- 
 ences, no eloquent speeches or sermons, deprive us of the fact 
 and sense of the glorious inheritance which we have from 
 God through Christ, that through Him we are actually and 
 
REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 383 
 
 really sons of God, lifted up from the earth, and made, through 
 Him, kings and priests, even here, in this world of time and 
 space ; endowed with the unspeakable gift ; j)artakers of the 
 glory that shall be revealed at last, in the manifestation of the 
 sons of God. Husbands and wives, parents and children, 
 brothers and sisters, baptized in the Church with the baptism 
 of Christ, let us thank God for this great franchise, and look 
 upon one another in the light of its glory. Let us live under 
 its light, and walk in faith, understandingly, in the new state 
 it reveals, the new privilege it confers, the new sense it opens 
 in the soul. 
 
 For since Christ our Lord came in man's nature — since He 
 suffered on the Cross for us, and ascended to His Father's 
 throne — man can be born of God in this world, and the sphere 
 of that his new being, the Church militant, exists here upon the 
 earth, — and all the relations of human life, by these two facts, are 
 exalted, sanctified, purified. N^ay, man's nature itself has new 
 light cast upon it, a new meaning given to it, an interpretation 
 which we seek for in vain in all the keen, analytic science of 
 the Greek philosophy, or the synthetic and systematic wisdom 
 of the Roman sages. 
 
 To the children of the Church, therefore, we say : Under- 
 stand for yourselves, in all the relations of life toward God 
 and man, the doctrine of the Scriptures, of the Church, of 
 your standards ; hold it and assert it firmly, and, above all, 
 live by it. For in that doctrine there is the root and centre of 
 a Christianity, personal and national, so grand and glorious, so 
 tender and affectionate, so holy and pure, as the world has not 
 seen for fourteen hundred years. 
 
 For the Church in this land, free from bondage, shall in- 
 crease and grow, through Christ, in the feeling of all truth, social 
 and scientific, moral and Divine ; in the purity and holiness of 
 its priesthood and its people ; in general zeal and faitli, and 
 individual honor and truth. And thus shall the strife come to 
 an end which in Europe has been so long waged between the 
 individual and the Church, between the true doctrine of the 
 
384 REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 
 
 value of personal faith and the equally true doctrine of the 
 objective blessings given by the Cliurch. For these parties in 
 Europe, and their descendants and disciples here, have vehe- 
 mently cried out one against the other : the one, that personal 
 faith is all in all, and the Church is nothing ; the other, that tlie 
 Church is everything, and faith of no use or necessity in her 
 blessings, only obedience. But we see in this Church, in this 
 land, the coming together and reconciliation of these two ex- 
 tremes, because the Church here is free from monarchic and 
 papal domination and supremacy ; and therefore it is, by God's 
 blessing, in the state of the earliest and holiest Christianity. 
 And in her upward and onward progress in holiness and purity 
 and living faith and personal zeal, we look for the time (it may 
 not be now, but it is fast coming) when all within the Cliurch 
 shall say, "As we are born of M^ater and of the Spirit, so are we 
 the sons of God;" and all outside its bounds shall say, "We 
 truly see that the children of the Church are the children of 
 the kingdom, the sons of God, for in them, in its fulness and 
 completeness, do we behold all the Christian morality of a liv- 
 ing faith." 
 
 " Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live 
 after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : but 
 if ye by the Spirit do mortity the deeds of the body, ye shall 
 live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are 
 the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bond- 
 age again to fear ; but ye have received the spirit of adojytion 
 as sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself 
 beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of 
 God : and if children, also heirs ; heirs of God, and fellow heirs 
 with Christ; if we suffer (and feel, aujiTida-^ofxtv) together with 
 Him, that we may also be glokified together with Him." * 
 * Romans, viii. 12-17. 
 

 
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