REGENERATION.

JOHN i. 12, 13. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

JOHN iii. 3, &c. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 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.

JOHN viii. 39. Jesus said unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

JOHN viii. 47. He that is of God (that is, a child of God: compare 1 John iii. 12), heareth God's words. Ye, therefore, hear them not, because ye are not of God. ROM. viii. 14. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

ROм. ix. 8. They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

1 Cor. iv. 15. In Christ Jesus I have begotten you, through (by) the Gospel.

2 COR. v. 17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature old things are passed away; behold all things are become new and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.

GAL. iii. 7. Know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

GAL. iii. 26. Ye are all (as many as have put on Christ, ver. 25) the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus. GAL. v. 6. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith, which worketh by love; or (as chap. vi. 15), but a new crea

ture.

EPH. iv. 22-24. That ye put off the old man : and be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and that ye put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Coloss. iii. 9, 10, 11. Ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him; where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free; but Christ is all and in all.

JAMES i. 18. Of his own will begat he us, with the word of truth.

1 PETER i. 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, aceording to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the résurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 PETER i. 23. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

1 JOHN ii. 29. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doth righteousness is born of him.

1 JOHN iii. 9. Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he can

1 As there is no preposition, λoyw might as well have been rendered by, denoting the instrument. See the following quotation from 1 Peter i. 23.

not sin, because he is born of God. Ver. 10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God; neither he that loveth not his brother.

1 JOHN iv. 7, 8. Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God; he that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 JOHN v. 1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. Ver. 4, 5. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? Ver. 18. We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

After reading this second class of texts, you will probably consider it an extraordinary circumstance, that St. John, the historian of our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus, should never have referred to that connexion between baptism and regeneration which that conversation is supposed to assert— That, in a long epistle or treatise, written on the subject of regeneration, and in which the new birth is so often introduced, a phrase which must have originated in that conversation, St. John should never have even alluded to the sacrament of baptism, except in the mention of the three earthly witnesses to the divine record concerning Jesus and salvation by him, if water there be supposed to refer to baptism-That neither St. John himself, in

his Gospel or in his Epistles; nor St. Paul, St. James, nor St. Peter, in their numerous Epistles, should have repeated so momentous a doctrine, though they have all mentioned the subject of regeneration; nay, that they should all have ascribed the change thereby denoted to the instrumentality of another mean of grace, viz. the word of God ; and that, among all the varied evidences of a state of regeneration which St. John, in particular, has enumerated, baptism should have no place, though, were it the exclusive vehicle of this grace, it should be the only evidence. This silence on the subject, independently of the arguments which the quotations produced afford to disprove any necessary connexion between the sign and the thing signified, affords to my mind a moral certainty that the meaning of our Lord's words has been mistaken.

U. Will you now have the goodness to state the testimony of the Scriptures concerning Infant Baptism; which appears to me the most difficult part of the subject?

C. It is so because no instances of infant baptism are on record in the New Testament; we must, therefore, have recourse to analogy. But the argument from thence is, I conceive, as strong as it would have been, had it been drawn from a direct reference to cases of recorded facts relative to the baptism of infant subjects. The church requires promises of repentance and faith to be made by

sponsors in her public administration of the ordinance, as preliminaries to an admission to it.

Analogy then justifies a reference to the rites of the Jewish church, and especially to circumcision, in treating on this subject. Circumcision, under the Jewish dispensation, and Baptism, under the Christian, are both to be considered as sacraments, or outward visible signs of inward spiritual grace. Both bear the character of initiatory ordinances, by which, in different periods of the church of God, and under differing circumstances, sinners have been admitted to the communion of the visible church. Both testify that man is by nature "born in sin and is a child of wrath." The outward visible signs in these two ordinances differ, but the inward spiritual grace is the same in both.1 (Coloss. ii. 11, 12.) This is asserted by Bishop Beveridge, in his 'Private Thoughts.' And, indeed, if this be not allowed, the grand argument in favour of infant baptism is abandoned.

On this subject I adduce the opinion of Bishop

1 Is it at all probable, that, if circumcision were, during the former dispensation, 'the vehicle of regeneration,' and therefore essential to salvation, the performance of this rite would have been postponed, by divine command, till the child became eight days old, when it is well known how many infants die before they attain that age? Such a doctrine seems nearly allied to that of reprobation in its worst form. See the Works of Bp. Hall, Vol. vii. p. 223, Epistle iv. to Lady Honoria Hey.