the being while he is as yet without intelligence and reason, are not virtues, are not moral habits and dispositions. When he has gained that advance in his condition, they may become such, but before that time they cannot be that which we mean by these words, and that which is essentially implied in these moral states. Two schools in theology, however, and very opposite ones, have used a language to the effect that baptized infants are in possession of actual virtues and holy dispositions, which are imparted in baptism to them. The schoolmen held that "infants obtained grace and the virtues in baptism1;" and the Council of Trent declares that "the grace bestowed in baptism is a divine quality inhering in the soul; a kind of brightness or light (divina qualitas in anima inherens, et veluti splendor quidam et lux), which not only effaces all the stains of our souls, but renders them more beautiful and shining; and that to this grace is added a most noble company of virtues. Huic autem additur nobilissimus virtutum omnium comitatus, quæ in animam cum gratia divinitus infunduntur."2 Aquinas argues formally for the truth of this position, and meets the objection that virtues in a being imply a will, which infants as yet do not possess, by a distinction between the will in power and the will in act; moral habits only requiring, he says, a will in power, though moral acts require a will in act-habitus virtutum requirunt potentiam voluntatis, actus virtutum actum voluntatis. Moral habits then, he concludes, or virtues, can belong to an infant, who has the will in power, though not the will in act; and an infant can possess the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, although he cannot perform any act of faith, hope, or charity. But this is verbal reasoning. What is meant by a will which cannot act, and by habits which have nothing to do with action? For, it must be remembered, Summ. Theol. P. 3. Q. 69. A. 6. 2 Cat. Conc. Trid. pars. 2. s. 50, 51. Syn. Trid. s. vi. c. 7. the will and habits here assigned to infants are not only occasionally dormant, as true will and habits in adults may be, but radically incapable of exhibition in act. It is obvious that such a will and such habits are not what we mean by will and habits, and are simply unintelligible words, or words without meaning. I can hardly believe, indeed, that divines of the Church of Rome ever seriously thought that infants at the breast had the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. All this language is, when we examine it, only a machinery of adjustment, to meet the doctrinal exigencies in which the schoolman finds himself, on the baptismal question. Scripture and antiquity regarded, by supposition and anticipation, the baptismal state as one of actual holiness and goodness, and spoke of all the baptized as citizens of heaven, and having the moral and spiritual dispositions suited for that condition. But in course of time, while all this language is retained, the hypothetical ground on which it was used is forgotten, and a literal one substituted. But a literal conveyance of all "the virtues" in baptism requires some rationale in order to make it square with facts. And among other facts which have to be met is the fact of infancy; that men are baptized in infancy, when apparently they cannot possess virtues or habits at all. Here is accordingly the rationale to adjust the difficulty;- the distinction between the will and virtues in habit, and the will and virtues in act. A section of the Reformers, again, appears to have maintained the principle that spiritual habits and dispositions could exist in infants; and to have regarded infants as capable of having incipient faith. In a discussion between Luther, Bucer, and others on this subject, to the argument that infants could not, "as some maintained," believe of their own act, because they did not understand the words themselves of the Gospel which were the subject matter of faith, Luther replied, "that just as in sleep, we are counted believers, and really are such, although we are not thinking at the time of God at all; so a certain commencement of faith, which was, however, the work of God, existed in infants, according to their measure and capacity, the extent of which we did not know; which commencement of faith he called faith." Lancelot Ridley maintains that "children may have faith, though they have it not by hearing; yet they have faith by infusion of the Holy Ghost, as the holy prophets had, and many holy men in the old law had. . . . . Therefore, he continues, it is not impossible for children to have faith, as these Anabaptists falsely suppose.. .. God regardeth no persons, but giveth his gifts without all regard of persons; a child or old man be counted as persons in Scripture: wherefore it followeth plainly that God giveth not faith to an old man, or denieth faith to a child because he is a child; for then God should regard persons, which he doth not.”2 Such a The Reformers, who adopted this position respecting infants, appear to have been led to it by a jealousy for the doctrine of justification by faith, and a fear to admit that Divine favour could be bestowed where there was not faith. jealousy, however, was, upon their own theological system, wholly unnecessary; for if faith is the work of God in the human heart, the Divine favour must have existed before the work existed, and in order to produce it. 1 Hoc autem ubi in Scriptura fundatum sit, quod nimirum aliqui affirmant, infantes dum baptizantur verba Evangelii intelligere, iisque actu ipso credere, atque ita salvos fieri. Hoc ergo unde e sacris literis probari possit, videre huc usque non potuimus. His rursum respondebat Lutherus: hanc suam suorumque sententiam non esse sed sicut nos etiam dormientes inter fideles numeremur, et revera tales simus, quantumvis actu de Deo nihil cogitemus: ita initium quoddam fidei (quod tamen Dei opus sit) in infantibus extare, secundum ipsorum mensuram et modulum, quem nos ignoremus; atque hoc se fidem nominare.-Bucer's Scripta Anglicana, p. 655., quoted in Dr. Bayford's Speech, p. 115. 2 Richmond's "Selection from the Fathers," p. 140., quoted in Dr. Bayford's Speech, p. 153. THE END. RECENT WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. REV. J. B. MOZLEY'S TREATISE on the AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE of PREDESTINATION. 8vo. 14s. DEAN MILMAN'S HISTORY of LATIN CHRISTIANITY, including that of the POPES to the PONTIFICATE of NICHOLAS V. With an Index. 6 vols. 8vo. 78s. 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