about the mode of its being. Nicodemus asked, "How can these things be?" and most of our questions about Baptismal Regeneration are Nicodemus-questions. We know it in its author, God; in its instrument, Baptism; in its end, salvation, union with Christ, sonship to God, "resurrection from the dead, and the life of the world to come.' We only know it not, where it does not concern us to know it, in the mode of its operation. But this is just what man would know, and so he passes over all those glorious privileges, and stops at the threshold to ask how it can be? He would fain know how an unconscious infant can be born of God? how it can spiritually live? wherein this spiritual life consists? how Baptism can be the same to the infant and to the adult convert? and if it be not in its visible, and immediate, and tangible effects, how it can be the same at all? Yet Scripture makes no difference; the gift is the same, although it vary in its application; to the infant it is the remission of original guilt, to the adult of his actual sins also; but to both by their being made members of Christ, and thereby partakers of His "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption;" by being made branches of the True Vine, and so, as long as they abide in Him, receiving from Him, each according to their capacities, and necessities, and willingness, nourishment and life; but if they abide not in Him, they are cast forth like a branch, and withered. We can then, after all, find no better exposition than that incidentally given in our Catechism,-"my Baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven;" and with this statement we may well be content, as it expresses most our union with our Redeemer, the fountain of our gifts, and the ground of our hopes. One may then define Regeneration to be, "that act whereby God takes us out of our relation to Adam, and makes us actual members of His Son, and so His sons, as being members of His Ever-blessed Son, and if sons, then heirs of God through Christ,"-(Gal. iv. 7.) This is our new birth, an actual birth of God, of water, and the Spirit, as we were actually born of our natural parents; herein then also are we justified, or both accounted and made righteous, since we are made members of Him who is alone righteous; freed from past sin, whether original or actual; have a new principle of life imparted to us, since having been made members of Christ, we have a portion of His life, or of Hime who is our Life; herein we have also the hope of the resurrection and of immortality, because we have been made partakers of His resurrection, have risen again with Him. (Col. ii. 12.) The view, then, here held of Baptism, following the ancient Church and our own, is that we be engrafted into Christ, and thereby receive a principle of life, afterwards to be developed and enlarged by the fuller influxes of His grace; so that neither is Baptism looked upon as an infusion of grace distinct from the incorpora tion into Christ, nor is that incorporation conceived of as separate from its attendant blessings. The following sentences of Hooker express, in that great master's way, the view here meant to be taken:-"This is the necessity of Sacraments. That saving grace which Christ originally is, or hath for the general good of His whole Church, by Sacraments He severally deriveth into every member thereof. Byt Baptism therefore we receive Christ Jesus, and from Him the saving grace which is proper unto Baptism.-Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in His Church, to the end that they which receive the same might be incorporated into Christ, and so through His most precious merit obtain as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue of the Holy Ghost, which giveth to the powers of the soul the first disposition towards future newness of life." Two more observations must be premised on the Scripture evidence itself: First, Whereas, confessedly, Regeneration is in Scripture connected with Baptism, there is nothing in Scripture to sever it therefrom. The evidence all goes one way. This, in itself, is of great moment. For if God, in two places only, assigns the means of His operations, and then in other places were to mention those operations apart from the means, we are not (as the manner of some is) to take these texts separately, as if they did not come from the same Giver, but to fill up what is not expressed in the one by what He teaches plainly in the other. Thus, when we have learnt that the "new birth," or "birth from above," is "of water and the Spirit," (John iii. 5.) then, where it is said, "who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," (John i. 13,) we should, with the ancient Church, recognise here also the gift of God in Baptism to "such as receive Him." But, Secondly, not only is there nothing in Scripture to sever Regeneration from Baptism, but Baptism is spoken of as the source of our spiritual birth, as no other cause is, save God: we are not said, namely, to be born again of faith, or love, or prayer, or any grace which God worketh in us, but to be born of water and the Spirit, in contrast to our birth of the flesh; in like manner as we are said to be born of God: and in order to express that this our new birth of God is, as being of God, a deathless birth, it is described as a birth of seed incorruptible, in contrast with our birth af * Eccl. Pol. b. v. c. lvii. § 5. ed. Keble. 2 τὸ γεγεννημένον ἘΚ τῆς σαρκός. ib. v. 6. + Ib. § 6. 3 οἱ οὐκ ἘΞ αἱμάτων—ἀλλ' ΕΚ Θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν. i. 13. 4 αναγεγεννημένοι οὐκ ΕΚ* σπορᾶς φθαρτῆς, ἀλλὰ φθάρτου, Ib. c. lx. 2. * It has been a careless habit of interpretation which has here confounded words so distinct as i and dià, andth en proceeded to identify ¿ añopà here with ter the flesh, of corruptible seed through our earthly parents. The immediate causes of our birth are not here spoken of; only we are taught that it is of God, and in itself immortal, if men will but not part with it, or occasion God to withdraw it. Holy Scripture, indeed, connects other causes besides Baptism with the new birth, or rather that one comprehensive cause, the whole dispensation of mercy in the Gospel, (for this, not the written or spoken word, is meant by the "word," the "word of truth;") but it at once marks, by the very difference of language, that these are only more remote instruments: we are not said to be born of them as of parents, but by or through them. They have their appointed place, and order, and instrumentality, towards our new birth, but we are not said to be born of them. Thus we are said to be "born" (as was noticed)" of seed incorruptible," i. e. of an immortal birth, but only "through the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" "in Jesus Christ have I begotten you through the Gospel;" "of His own will begat He us by the word of truth;" no other instrument being spoken of as having the same relation to our heavenly birth as this of Water. Had it even been otherwise, the mention of any other instrument in our Regeneration could not of course have excluded the operation of Baptism as indeed in Baptism itself, two very different causes are combined, the one, God Himself, the other a creature which He has thought fit to hallow to this end. For then, as Christ's merits, and the workings of the Holy Spirit, and faith, and obedience, operate, though in different ways, to the final salvation of our souls, and yet the one excludes not the necessity of the rest; so also the mention of faith, or of the preaching of the Gospel, as means towards our Regeneration, would not have excluded the necessity of Baptism thereto, although mentioned in but one passage of Holy Scripture. But now, as if to exclude all idea of human agency in this our spiritual creation, to shut out all human co-operation or boasting, as though we had in any way contributed to our own birth, and were not wholly 1 ΔΙΑ λόγου ξώντος Θεοῦ καὶ μένοντος εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. 1 Pet. i. 23. 3 βουληθεὶς ἀπεκύησεν ἡμᾶς λόγω ἀληθείας. James i. 18. 4 "Unless as the Spirit is a necessary inward cause, so water were a necessary outward mean to our regeneration, what construction should we give unto those words wherein we are said to be new born, and that è daros, even of water ?"-Hooker, b. v. c. 59. the orépua in our Lord's parable; and so, by this double mistake, inferred that St. Peter declared that "the incorruptible seed, of which we are re-born,' is the "preaching of the word." The two metaphors are quite distinct. St. Jerome rightly translates (adv. Jovin. 1. i. § 39.)" renati non ex coitu corruptibili sed ex incorruptione, per verbum viventis Dei et permanentis," and so Cajetan. ad loc. clearly explains it, 66 quæ natura generat, generat per semen, et illud corruptibile; vos quidem renati estis per semen, sed incorruptibile." the creatures of His hands, no loop-hole has been left us, no other instrument named; our birth (when its direct means are spoken of,) is attributed to the Baptism of Water and of the Spirit, and to that only. Had our new birth, in one passage only, been connected with Baptism, and had it in five hundred passages been spoken of in connection with other causes, still, because it was in that one place so connected with Baptism, no one who looked faithfully for intimations of God's will, would have ventured to neglect that one passage; the truth contained in Holy Scripture is not less God's truth because contained in one passage only; but now, besides this, God has so ordered His word that it does speak of the connection of Baptism with our new birth, and does not speak of any other cause, in the like close union with it. These circumstances alone, thoughtfully weighed, would lead a teachable disposition readily to incline his faith whither God seems to point. For although the privileges annexed to Regeneration are elsewhere spoken of, and the character of mind thereto conformable, -our sonship and the mind which we should have as sons, our new creation, yet these are spoken of, as already belonging to, or to be cultivated in, us, not as to be begun anew in any once received into the body of Christ. There are tests afforded whether we are acting up to our privilege of Regeneration, and cherishing the Spirit therein given us, but there is no hint that Regeneration can be obtained in any way but by Baptism, or if totally lost, could be restored. We are warned that having been "saved by Baptism through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we should no longer live the rest of our time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God," (1 Pet. iii. 21. iv. 2.) that, "having been born of incorruptible seed, we should put off all malice, and like new-born infants desire the sincere milk of the word," (1 Pet. i. 23. ii. 1—3.) that "having been saved by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, we should be careful to maintain good works," (Tit. iii. 1-8.) and again, those who had fallen in any way are exhorted to repentance; but men are not taught to seek for regeneration, to pray that they may be regenerate; it is nowhere implied that any Christian had not been regenerated, or could hereafter be so. The very error of the Novatians, that none who fell away after Baptism could be renewed to repentance, will approach nearer to the truth of the Gospel, than the supposition that persons could be admitted as dead members into Christ, and then afterwards, for the first time, quickened. Our life in Christ is, throughout, represented as commencing when we are by Baptism made members of Christ and children of God. That life may through our negligence afterwards decay, or be choked, or smothered, or well nigh extinguished, and by God's mercy again be renewed and refreshed; but a commencement of life in Christ after Baptism, a death unto sin and a new birth unto righte ousness, at any other period than at that one first introduction into God's covenant, as is little consonant with the general representations of Holy Scripture, as a commencement of physical life long after our natural birth is with the order of His Providence. Those miracles of God's mercy, whereby He from time to time awakens souls from their lethargy, to see the reality of things unseen, and the extent of their own wanderings from the right way, no more indicate that they had had no life imparted to them before, than a man awaking from an unnatural slumber would that he had been physically dead. These analogies go but a little way; but the very terms "quickened," awakened," " roused," and the like, wherewith men naturally designate the powerful interposition of God's Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men hitherto careless, convey the notion that the life was there before, although sunk in torpor, the gift there, although not stirred up, the powers implanted, although suffered to lie idle. The evidence, however, arising from a general consideration of God's declarations in Holy Scripture, obtains fresh strength from the examination of the passages themselves: only we must not look upon them as a dead letter,* susceptible of various meanings, and which may be made to bear the one or the other indifferently, but as the living Word of God; particularly we should regard, with especial reverence any words which fell from our Saviour's lips, and see that we consider, not what they may mean, but what is their obvious untortured meaning. We should not argue, therefore, as some have done, that it is "improbable that Christ, discoursing with a carnal Jew, should lay so much weight upon the outward sign;" (for this teaching was not for Nicodemus only, but for His Church; and of all our Saviour's teaching we can know this only, that it would be far different and far deeper than what we should have expected, and that it would baffle all our rules and measures ;) nor, again, would he say with Zuingli,† Calvin, Grotius, and the Socinians,‡ that the "water" may be a mere metaphor, a mere emblem of the Spirit; and so, that being "born again of water and the Spirit," means nothing more than "being born of the Spirit" without water.§ *"Now, then," says even Zuingli, vindicating Matt. xxviii. 19. from the common Anabaptist cavil, "see whether we also cannot weigh the sense and order of words, if indeed this strife about words (λoyopaxia) ought to have any avail, uhen they are the words of Christ. For although I am by no means addicted to the bare letter of words, yet sometimes it needeth to weigh them according to the letter, yet in a due and right way, lest perchance the letter should kill."-De Baptismo, Opp. t. 2. f. 65. De Baptismo. Opp. t. ii. f. 70. v. See Faust. Socinus de Baptismo, c. 4. Opp. Fratr. Polon. i. p. 718. Slichtingius, ad loc. ib. t. vi. p. 26. agrees to the letter almost with Calvin. See Note P. at the end. "I do not think they are to be heard, who hold that under 'water', in this place, not water, but the Holy Spirit is to be understood; as if the Lord meant |