same manner that we ourselves have been regenerated. For they are bathed and cleansed in the water in the name of God the Father and Lord of all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost." In which sense, therefore, the word Regeneration becomes nearly synonymous with Justification, or Adoption into the favour and family of God. As the Lutheran Reformers remark,* "Sometimes the word Regeneration is used for Justification; and then it means no more than remission of sins, and adoption into the number of the children of God. In which sense it is frequently employed in the Apology for our Confession, as for example where it is asserted, Justification is Regeneration. In like manner as the word to make alivet is used to signify the remission of sins." To the same purport our English Reformer, Wycliffe, says, "In Baptism, God christeneth the souls of men; that is to say, washeth their souls from the uncleanness of all sin." And again,"Bodily baptizing is a figure showing how man's soul should be baptized from sin. — Bodily washing of a child is not the end of baptizing; but baptizing is a token of the washing of the soul from sin, both original and actual, by virtue taken of Christ's death." And this, therefore, is a prominent,

*Formula Concordiæ, + Compare Eph. ii. 1, 5.

though not the exclusive,* sense which pervades the Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England. As, for example, in the Twenty-seventh Article, where we read that "Baptism is 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 forgiveness of Sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed." So also in the Collect for Christmas day we pray that " being regenerate and made God's children

*Not the exclusive sense. For it is equally clear that the Church supposes the communication of a sanctifying as well as justifying benefit in Baptism. For in the twenty-seventh Article she adds that thereby "faith is confirmed and grace increased by virtue of prayer to God." And though she must be speaking here of adult recipients only, since she puts in the condition of their "receiving baptism rightly" and presupposes the existence of that "faith" and "grace" which she asserts to be "confirmed' and "increased" in Baptism; yet in the Baptismal service she prays for infants that “God's holy Spirit may be given to them that they may be born again" and that "all carnal Affections may die in them and all things belonging to the Spirit may live and grow in them." The benefit, therefore, which our Church ascribes to Baptism is threefold, and cannot be better summed up than in the words of Dean Comber. "1. It doth seal a Pardon to us for all former transgression, and begets us again to the hope of eternal life. 2. It restores us to the favour of God and gives us a new relation to Him and to his people. 3. It heals our nature, by the Spirit hereby conveyed to us." The belief of this third benefit is grounded on the supposition that all

by Adoption and Grace, we may daily be renewed by his Holy Spirit." And in the Baptismal service we pray that this Infant coming to thy holy Baptism may receive remission of his sins by Spiritual Regeneration ;" and again Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin ;" and then afterwards give thanks to God "that this child is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's

church."

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Such then is the first sense of the term Regeneration; denoting a relative change of state from men naturally are "born in sin and the children of wrath" with no capacity for good; and it regards the Holy Ghost as graciously implanting in the infant soul that possibility of sanctification, that seed of holiness, which by occasion of subsequent instruction, discipline, and grace may grow up and expand into "all things belonging to the Spirit." The difficulty as regards such implantation is entirely metaphysical. The practical necessity of the fostering and developing this seed, and the impossibility of ultimate salvation in every adult but as it is so fostered and developed, remain untouched. And therefore any dispute upon the subject, while that practical necessity is recognized and pressed and acted on, would seem to me as idle as that between a follower of Locke, who denies all innate ideas, and makes experience the producing cause of every thought; and a Kantist, who contends for the origination in the soul itself of the ideas of the universal and the necessary, but holds, not the less, Experience to be indispensable as the occasion of their actual manifestation in the conciousness. If indeed, we so estimate what has been done without our conciousness and co-operation, as to think and teach that little more remains to be done with our conciousness

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guilt, and condemnation, and ruin; to pardon, acceptance, and the hope of everlasting life; from being "without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world;" to being "made nigh by the blood of Christ, and reconciled to God by his cross." Christian Reader! Recollect, I pray you, that this, with all its benefits and all its attendant responsibility, is your state. You have passed through this relative change. You have been transferred from the Court of the Gentiles into the Sanctuary of God. You have been dedicated in his temple and made holy to the Lord. The blood of the covenant has been sprinkled over you. The cross

of Christ is on your brow. And the Sacramental

and co-operation; if we endeavour to make a regeneration of capacity stand substitute for a regeneration of act and deed ;— if we plead a previous "healing of our nature" to ward off all demand for the experience of the healthful workings of that nature in thought, and feeling, and purpose ;—if we refer to the buried seed, when we are asked to find and to produce the growing fruits; then are we indulging in Pharisaical presumption -popish superstition-antinomian licentiousness; we are running counter to the spirit and the words, the feeling and the demands, of all the formularies of our Church, and of every holy man, of every school, therein; we are outraging the eternal principles of reason and morality; and we are making the WORD OF GOD of none effect by our traditions."

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oath of your allegiance to his name is registered on high. You are no longer your own. You are pledged and devoted as a follower of Jesus, "not to be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, but manfully to fight under his banner against Sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto your life's end." O what must be your condemnation if you become a deserter from his camp, a renegade to the faith you have been dedicated to, false to the oath that has been pronounced upon you! "How shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation !" "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall you be thought worthy if you tread under foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the Covenant wherewith you are sanctified an unholy thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace!" O be what you profess! Realize what you are devoted to. Enter consciously, with heart and soul, into your sacred relation to Almighty God. Become in fact and personally, in mind and disposition, character, and conduct-a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven!

sense

For, this latter is the sense the all-important in which Regeneration or New-birth is spoken of, and pressed, (in the second place,) both in Scripture, and by the best theological writers, as