even that shadow of regeneration, which was seen and admitted among men, was as unintelligible to him as the rest: "How can these things be?" This it was which induced our Lord to remark, If I have told you of earthly things, of things known and received among men, and ye believe not even that, if you cannot understand the meaning of regeneration by water, how can you understand spiritual regeneration? How can you believe my evidence on a subject with which I alone can be acquainted, because no one else ever came down from heaven? How can you believe in that gift of the Holy Spirit, which all who come to my baptism in faith shall assuredly receive? In perfect conformity with this view, St. Paul studiously associates the ideas of baptism and regeneration. To the Church at Corinth, he says, “Ye are washed; ye are sanctified." If there had been no necessary connection between them, the mention of washing might have been spared; and it would certainly not have been introduced by any one, who regarded that washing, as some do in the present day. But he more plainly affirms the same thing, where he says, that Christ gave himself for the Church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." For in that passage," the word," on the authority of all the Greek and of many of the Latin fathers, including St. Augustine, is to be understood to mean the mystical words of baptism, the words by which mere water was consecrated, and became a sacrament.3

1

' 1 Cor. vi. 11.

2 Ephes. v. 25.

3 Estius and August. in Pusey's Scriptural Views of Baptism, p. 216.

IT has been shown, that ever since the time when the family of Noah, the offspring of the Ark, which was indeed the mother of all living creatures, with the exception of those which inhabited the sea, issued forth into the air and light of a new life, and stepped once more upon the renovated earth, now cleansed from its former guiltiness by the waters of the Deluge, the Providence of God had so overruled the superstition thence arising, that a notion of some mystical regeneration by water and expiation of sin had been kept alive among all the nations, with whose history we are well acquainted; and thus the world was prepared to receive that doctrine of a moral regeneration by baptism and forgiveness of sins, which is the commencement of a new life to every Christian. It has been shown, that this view of the matter is in perfect conformity with the account given of it by the inspired penmen, and that all Scripture rightly interpreted and correctly understood speaks the same language. But there are some who see it in a different light, and contend, with equal confidence, for the correctness of their own interpretation. Now when there is a difference of opinion between two parties on a subject affecting their civil rights, they are in

the habit of bringing their cause before a competent tribunal, in order to obtain a decision, in which both may be content to acquiesce; for otherwise, since both would still persist that their opponents were in the wrong, it is plain that the dispute would be interminable. For the same reason common sense points out the necessity of having recourse to the same means of arriving at a determination of the present inquiry. To whom then shall we appeal? Some may say to the illuminating Spirit of God: and, if the honour of God were concerned, it is possible that he might not withhold an answer from his humble suppliants, supposing both parties to be sincere but if one of them were not, the controversy would remain exactly on the same footing as before. For though the doctrine of one would be true, and of the other false, yet, without some external sign, without some extraordinary gift of the Holy Spirit, like the power of working miracles, there would be nothing for the guidance of human judgment to show which had received an answer, and which had not. But we have no right to expect a Divine interposition to resolve the ordinary questions of theological dispute; for these were intended to exercise our industry, our meekness, our humility, and our powers of discernment: and therefore if Candidus and Sincerus, not having sufficiently examined the state of a question about which they differ, agree to pray to God to decide their difference by teaching them the truth, they will indeed have shown their piety, but not their wisdom. For it is certain, that each will arise from his

prayer only the more confirmed in his own opinion, each as far as ever from convincing his opponent; and the only result of the experiment will be to scandalize true religion, by making it appear that the Spirit of Truth can affirm direct contradictions. To whom then shall we appeal? Who are most competent to judge what was the meaning of the language used by the Evangelists and Apostles? Shall we consult those who lived fourteen centuries after them, or those who lived with them, and conversed with them, and were taught by them, and received from them all their knowledge of Christianity? And if no reasonable man can doubt, that their contemporaries were the most capable of conveying to us that instruction, it follows, that those whom they instructed were in the best condition for receiving the truth, and transmitting it to their successors in return. The nearer we ascend to the fountain head, the purer will the waters flow; the three first centuries therefore after the Apostles were more likely to know in what sense the Apostles themselves used a theological term, than any three centuries that have since elapsed. I do not say that they were free from error, or that any uninspired writers are absolutely safe authorities for doctrine; but they are unexceptionable witnesses to a mere matter-of-fact; and, in the present instance, the fact with which we have to do is this: -were the first converts to Christianity in the habit of considering baptism equivalent to regeneration, and necessarily attended with some spiritual grace, or were they not? Exceptions no doubt there were;

exceptions, like Simon Magus, which are sometimes particularly noticed: but exceptio probat regulam. The identity of the two terms was the rule, and a rule absolutely universal, except where the prevarication of man was a hindrance to the mercy of God. In every other case baptism was held to be the passage into a new life, a resurrection from death, a transition from a state of enmity into a state of peace and reconciliation with God. It was the commencement of a new existence to those who were thus admitted within the pale of Christianity, which fully justified the expression, that they were born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; since the privileges of the Christian life, though they may be lost by folly and wickedness, can never perish by decay, nor by any defect of immortality in themselves. Among those privileges, the greatest stress was deservedly laid upon the remission of sins; for all guilt contracted before baptism was considered to be absolutely cleansed away by the laver of regeneration; and therefore, when the Pelagian controversy arose, the baptism of infants was brought forward as the most irrefragable argument to prove the doctrine of original sin. The champions of orthodoxy appealed to the universal admission of that principle; namely, that baptism conveyed remission of sins to the recipient, and justly argued, that since infants cannot sin after the similitude of Adam's transgression, knowingly and willingly, the sin remitted in their baptism must be original sin, the fault and corruption of their nature. Since then it is only sin which sepa