Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

tion; as original sin precedes all actings of our will, so also regeneration; as original sin is the root of all evil in us, so regeneration is the root of all good. Strange is the cycle in which errors run. Those very tokens by which the gift of regeneration is manifested to be freely given to us of God, are the very grounds of modern unbelief. Men will have it to be no more than a change of state, and not of nature; a mere outward trans-. fer into the outward means of grace; and that, forsooth, because a passive, unconscious child is, in their eyes, incapable of the infusion of a quality of good. What is this but the Pelagianism of regeneration? How can they defend the doctrine of original sin as the transmission of evil to passive, unconscious infants, by inheritance from a man that sinned, while they deny the infusion of a quality of good by the free gift and grace of God? In truth it is much to be feared that this is simple unbelief in the great freeness of God's grace, in the presence and reality of spiritual mysteries. And it is to be feared too, that it is an unbelief which spreads further into the doctrines of faith. Can it be thought that even the doctrine of original sin is thoroughly believed? or the doctrine of the creation of Adam from the dust, and of Eve from the side of Adam? or of the mysterious Incarnation of the Word, of the substance of His

mother? or of the resurrection of the body? or of the doctrine of regeneration in any sense or shape? For, if the passiveness and unconsciousness of the subject be any objection to the regeneration of infants in baptism, it is an objection to the doctrines of creation, incarnation, resurrection, and regeneration, in any form, unless we be Pelagians and Rationalists. After all, will it not be found that the root of all this is a rationalistic unwillingness to believe any thing which does not base itself upon the active and conscious workings of the human soul?—an error fatal to faith in the Gospel of Christ; subversive of the freeness and sovereignty of God's grace, which it assumes to magnify. Let us not give up the faith of a childlike heart for petulant, half-sighted reasonings. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." "What have we that we have not received?" "By the grace of God I am what I am." All things come from Him; we are but receivers, empty vessels to be filled out of His fulness; passive and unconscious till He breathe into us the breath of life, as in our first, so in our second birth. This is the very law of our regeneration, whereby we are taken out from the first Adam, and incorporated into the second; whereby we are made "members of His body, of His flesh, and of His

bones ;" and are made partakers of His Incarnation, and of the virtues of healing, life, and resurrection, which go out of His flesh, which He gave "for the life of the world."

1 Eph. v. 30.

SERMON II.

HOLINESS IN CHILDHOOD.

ST. LUKE ii. 40.

"And the Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him.”

IF

Ir any proof were needed of the true and proper humanity of our blessed Lord, we should have it in these words. He was subject to the laws and conditions of our nature; He was as truly a child as we have been; He grew; He waxed strong in spirit; He was endowed with gifts from His Heavenly Father, being "filled with wisdom :" His understanding, reason, and conscience, were illuminated as ours; "the grace of God," the spirit of holiness, humility, love, "was upon Him." This subjection of His person to the laws of human nature is again recorded where St. Luke says, He "came to Nazareth," being about twelve years old, "and was subject unto them." "And Jesus in

C*

creased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." One of the earliest Fathers of the Church says, He came "not disdaining nor going in a way above human nature; nor breaking in His own person the law which He had set for mankind; but sanctifying every age by the likeness it bears to Him. For He came to save all men by Himself, -all, I mean, who are by Him born again unto God,―infants, and little ones, and children, and youths, and those of older age. Therefore He went through the several ages; for the sake of infants being made an infant, sanctifying infants; to little ones He was a little one, sanctifying those of that age, and giving them an example of godliness, righteousness, and dutiful subjection."

In this passage we have many great truths recorded. One is the baptism of infants; another is the regeneration of infants baptized, in which assertion, without so much as naming it, their right to baptism is affirmed; and lastly, the parallel between the perfect holiness of our Lord in all ages from childhood, and the sanctity of those in whom the grace of regeneration has its true and perfect work.

There is evidently a correspondence, by way of analogy, between His miraculous conception and our regeneration through the Spirit. He took our na

'S. Iren. lib. ii. c. 39.

« VorigeDoorgaan »