tation; and the only question is, which departure you will choose. Will you understand the statement that the baptized are regenerate as not literal, and interpret the term " regenerate" naturally; or will you understand the statement as literal, and interpret "regenerate" artificially? I would be content to ask any unbiassed person which alternative he would prefer as more agreeable to common sense, — the natural interpretation of terms, with only a familiar and recognised kind of departure from literal truth in the application of them, or the literal application gained at the cost of distorting and violating the sense of the terms? Which would be the more easy and natural explanation of the expression in the Prayer Book, "Our religious and gracious Queen," that which should explain it as designed to be a literal assertion, whatever character the reigning monarch might be of, and, in order to procure this literal force for it, should interpret "religious and gracious" as meaning having the capacity for religion, and having the opportunity of obtaining grace: or that which, understanding these terms in their natural meaning, as signifying religious in fact, and endowed with grace in fact, should explain the assertion as a charitable presumption or supposition? I would say, then, to one who insisted on the literal force of the statement in the baptismal service, as distinguished from the presumptive one, who is it who really explains away this statement? Do I, who take the word regenerate in its natural meaning, as signifying a real change of character, being dead to sin, and entered on a new life of holiness and goodness, and only take it as applied to the individual in a particular mode-a mode of common, familiar, and universal use, viz., that of charitable supposition?-or do you, who explain away the word regenerate itself, understanding it in

an artificial sense of your own, wholly different from its natural one?!

My remarks in this Preface have been devoted to two questions, that of literal interpretation and that of the meaning of the word "regenerate." I will now make one or two remarks on some obstacles which stand in the way of a correct conclusion on the subject of baptismal regeneration, and the sense of the statement in our baptismal office.

The great and fundamental obstacle, then, to a correct conclusion on this subject, I have already mentioned, which is, the non-recognition of the predestinarian language of Scripture. But, besides this, I will mention another important obstacle.

The whole nature of the rite of baptism, whether we consider the conditions attached to it, its unity or that it cannot be repeated, or the symbol involved in its external

1 Great stress has been laid, in the baptismal controversy, on our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus, and the text "except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," is often quoted to prove the literal conveyance of regeneration in baptism. But if persons would attend to the simple construction of this sentence, and to the statement made in it, instead of going off upon one phrase, "born of water and the Spirit," they would see that this text does not assert anything of the kind which they think it does. For this text does not say that every one who is born of water, is born of the Spirit, but that those who are born of water and are born of the Spirit, shall enter into the kingdom of God, or have what necessary for that entrance. This latter statement is a totally different one from the former, and does not the least even imply or contain it. It asserts two conditions for entering into the kingdom of God, but it does not say that a person who has fulfilled one of these conditions has fulfilled the other. There is one condition said to be necessary for

this purpose, viz., " being born of water," i. e., being baptized: and so far as this text asserts this condition, it simply asserts what all parties agree in, that baptism is generally necessary for salvation. There is another condition pronounced to be necessary, viz., "being born of the Spirit;" and that also is universally admitted. Then what does this text assert, but what all parties agree in, viz., the necessity of regeneration, and the necessity (by all interpreted to be only general) of baptism. Thus much

is clear from the simple construction of the sentence. But take, in addition, the meaning of "being born of the Spirit," and "being born again," and another reason will appear, and that an irresistible one, why this text cannot be interpreted to signify that whoever is baptized is born of the Spirit, and born again. For "being born again" and "being born of the Spirit," involve in their Scriptural meaning, as I have shown, actual holiness and goodness, and not merely the capacity for them: and all the baptized are not holy and good persons.

form, points to a final state, as distinguished from a merely preparatory and enabling one as the one connected, whether literally or hypothetically, with baptism. Were the grace connected with baptism only a new spiritual capacity or assisting grace, depending on the man's free-will for its use and cultivation, what would be the meaning of annexing the conditions of faith and repentance to baptism, as necessary to be fulfilled in order to receive the grace connected with it? For does God exact conditions before He gives assisting grace? Certainly not. He gives it to sinners in the very depth of their sins, and in order to draw them out of them. The very circumstance, then, of conditions being attached to baptism, points to something more than an assisting grace, or spiritual capacity, as the grace connected with it. Again: why should not baptism in that case be repeated? God repeats His gift of assisting grace over and over again; and, therefore, if baptism is only supposed to give assisting grace, why should not baptism be repeated? Such a law could at any rate only be laid down for convenience sake, and could not be made essential to the sacrament, as it is made. Again: the form of the rite evidently typifies more than a state of improved capacity in the person baptized, viz., an actual change and ascent from a life of sin to that of righteousness, a spiritual resurrection. The whole nature, then, of the institution of baptism, points to more than a preparatory state as the one connected with it, viz., to a final state of actual holiness, into which the baptized person is supposed to be, by God's grace, admitted, as the reward of faith and repentance; so that now he can no more fall away: not that I shall insist here on the finality of the state, but only on the fact that it is a state of actual holiness, and not the mere capacity for it.

But while the doctrine of baptism points to this conclusion,

the practice of the Church with respect to baptism has rather overlaid the doctrine, and diverted attention from these characteristics of the Sacrament. These characteristics of the Sacrament belong to it, in its primary use, as designed for adults; for adults alone can show faith and repentance; adults alone can rise from a life of sin to that of righteousness. But in practice infant baptism has grown to be the general rule, and adult the exception. These characteristics of the Sacrament, then, have been, with the prevalence of infant baptism, comparatively withdrawn from attention; for though infant baptism retains a representative faith and repentance as its conditions, the representatives are not so impressive as the reality and the grace of baptism or regeneration has practically figured before men's minds as a grace bestowed without conditions. The type, again, contained in the external rite has by the custom of sprinkling been lost altogether to the rite; and even in language it has become a vague generality, rather than the representation of a change supposed to take place in the baptized person himself. With the comparative withdrawal, then, of these characteristics of baptism, the conclusion to which they point has been lost sight of; and, losing these arguments which proved it to be more than a spiritual capacity, the grace of baptism has come to be regarded by many as such a capacity and no more.

There have been other subordinate obstacles in the way of arriving at a true conclusion on this question.

1. The term "regenerate" has been separated too much from that whole class of terms which are connected with it in Scripture, and may be called synonyms for it, and has drifted into an isolated position, as if it were altogether different in sense and import from the rest of this class of terms. Thus, to say that a man is "born again" is quite a different thing, with many, from saying that he is "risen again.”

When our Lord, then, in his conversation with Nicodemus, uses the term "born again,” He means a certain grace or imparted spiritual capacity, which a man must receive in order to attain holiness of life; but when St. Paul uses the expression "risen again," he means holiness itself, -the man's resurrection in fact from a carnal to a spiritual disposition of mind. And so, when all the baptized are asserted to be risen again, that, they admit, is an hypothetical assertion; but when they are all asserted to be born again, that, they think, is a literal assertion. As if "risen again” and “born again,” did not mean exactly the same thing; and, supposing one statement to be taken hypothetically, the other must not be also.

2. Another great mistake in the treatment of this whole question has been the not considering it in connection with Scripture at all, and so the loss of that light which Scripture language throws upon it. No reasonable person can doubt that when St. Paul addresses the saints in Achaia, the saints at Ephesus, the saints at Philippi, the saints at Colosse, i. e., by implication asserts all the members of these churches to be saints or righteous men, that his assertion is to be understood as a charitable presumption, and not as literal. No reasonable person, therefore, can doubt that when the same Apostle addresses all the members of the Churches to which he writes, as dead to sin, risen with Christ, alive unto God, and the like, that the assertion is hypothetical and not literal. These being synonyms for regenerate, then, no reasonable person can doubt that the assertion of regeneration of all baptized Christians, is in Scripture hypothetical. But the very same persons who would naturally and as a matter of course construe the statement thus, as occurring in Scripture, think it altogether a different kind of statement, when they sce it in the baptismal office. Then it seems wrong to them,