they will readily admit that it is an obvious, perhaps (apart from other considerations) the more obvious meaning; add, then, to this, that the Christian Church uniformly, for fifteen centuries, interpreted these His words of Baptism; that on the ground of this text alone, they urged the necessity of Baptism; that upon it, mainly, they identified regeneration with Baptism. If, then, this be an error, would our Saviour have used words which (since water was already used in the Jews' and John's Baptism) must inevitably, and did lead His Church into error? and which He, who knew all things, must, at the time have known, would lead His Church into error; and that, when, according to Zuingli's or Calvin's interpretation, His meaning had been as fully expressed, had it stood, " born of the Spirit," only. Rather, if one may argue from the result, one should think, that our Saviour added the words, "of water," (upon which, in His immediate converse with Nicodemus, He does not dwell,) with the very view, that His Church should thence learn the truth, which she has transmitted, that "regeneration" is the gift of God, bestowed by Him, in this life, in Baptism only. Indeed the opposite exposition, invented by the Swiss teachers, was so manifestly a mere weapon, by which to demolish a Papal argument for the absolute necessity of Baptism, that it had hardly been worth commenting upon, but that no error ever stops at its first stage; mere repetition hardens as well as emboldens; what is first adopted as an expedient, is afterwards justified as being alone the truth-the mantle, which was assumed to cover shame, cleaves to us, like that in the fable, until it have sucked out the very life and marrow of our whole system. One text, misquoted in order to disprove the absolute necessity of Baptism, has ended in the scarcely disguised indifference or contempt of an ordinance of our Saviour.

Not less peremptorily, however, do our Blessed Saviour's words refuse to be bound down to any mere outward change of state,† or

re

* I say, identified, because, so convinced were they of the connection of “ generation" with Baptism, that they use it, unexplained, when the ordinary sense of "regeneration" were manifestly incorrect. Thus Jerome uses it of the Baptism of our Saviour, (L. 1. c. Jovinian. circa med. quoted by Wall, Infant Baptism, p. 19. :) as also do others, where, if it have any sense but that of "being baptized," it can only mean, was "declared to be the Son of God," (as Ps. ii. 7. is sometimes applied to His Baptism ;) but they never could have used "re-natus" in this sense, had they not been accustomed to use it as identical with Baptism. In like manner, in our own Articles "renatis," in the Latin copy (Art. 9,) is Englished by "baptized." As in the Ancient Church, St. Hilary, on the confession of Faith in Baptism, "Didst thou not, when thou wast re-born (renascens,) confess that the Son of God was born of Mary ?”— De Trin. L. ix. c. 49.

† Whitaker de Sacr. q. iv. c. 2. ad test. 1. ex Concil. Nic. 1. ap. Gataker, P. 123. "The Fathers did not mean to be understood to the letter, (that there 66 was one Baptism for the remission of sins; but the Council thus speaks because Baptism designates a new state." I cannot but think, too, that Water

circumstances, or relation, however glorious the privileges of that new condition may be. For this were the very opposite error; and whereas the former interpretation" dried* up" the water of Baptism, so does this quench the Spirit therein. One may, indeed, rightly infer, that since the Jews regarded the baptized proselyte as a newborn child,t our Saviour would not have connected the mention of water with the new birth, unless the new birth, which He bestowed, had been bestowed through Baptism: but who would so fetter down the fulness of our Saviour's promises, as that His words should mean nothing more than they would in the mouth of the dry and unspiritual Jewish legalists ? or, because they, proud of the covenant with Abraham, deemed that the passing of a proselyte into the outward covenant, was a new creation, who would infer that our Saviour spoke only of an outward change? Even some among the Jews had higher notions, and figured that a new soul descended from the region of spirits, upon the admitted proselyte. And if it were merely an outward change-a change of condition only, wherein were the solemnity of this declaration, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," ? for the "seeing" or "entering into" the kingdom of God, i. e. the Church of Christ, (first militant on earth, and then triumphant in heaven,) was itself a change of state, so that the two sentences would have had nearly the same meaning. And who could endure the paraphrase, "unless a man be brought into a state outwardly different, he cannot enter into the kingdom?" But our Saviour Himself has explained His own words. To be "born of the Spirit," stands opposed to the being "born of the flesh." As the one birth is real, so must the other be; the agents, truly, are different, and soalso the character of life produced by each: in the one case, physical agents, and so physical life, desires, powers; and, since from a corrupted author, powers weakened and corrupted: in the other, the Holy Spirit of God, and so spiritual life, strength, faculties, energies; still, in either case, a real existence; and, to the Christian, a new, real, though not merely physical beginning-an existence real, though invisible-and, though worked by an unseen Agent, yet (when not stifled) felt in its effects, like the energy of the viewless winds.§

land's statements lead to too outward a view, at least in the case of infants, an outward admission to privileges which may afterwards become inward. In saying this, however, I mean not to depreciate the services, which on this, as on other subjects, Waterland has rendered to the Church.

*Hooker, 1. c.

† See Lightfoot, ad loc. Archbishop Laurence's Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, p. 28. See note AA. at the end.

Archbishop Laurence, 1. c. pp. 31, 32, See note AA.

The two births, the natural and the baptismal, are eloquently contrasted by St. Augustine :-"One is of the earth, the other of heaven; one of the flesh, the other of the Spirit; one of mortality, the other of eternity; one of man and woman, the other of God and the Church."-In Joann. Tract. xi.

This birth" of the water and the Spirit" our Blessed Saviour declared to be avweev, i. e. (as seems probable) not simply that we must be born again, (for this is implied by the very saying that one now living must be born,) but "from above," as the word aver is always used by St. John, and indeed throughout the Old and New Testaments. Nicodemus, namely, had (in the name of himself and others) confessed that our Lord "was come from God," and then made a sort of inquiring pause, (as it would appear,) as to the signs of His coming, or the mode of His manifestation." Carnal notions of our Lord's kingdom were probably at the root of his error; he thought that the kingdom of God would come with observation, and awaited its coming. Our Lord, seeing the love of truth mixed with his natural fearfulness, graciously prepared him for the contrary, and connected the discovery of the spiritual nature of His kingdom with the confession of Nicodemus. As if He had said, "I am, indeed, come down from God (ano Oco,) and he can only see My kingdom, who is born from above, or from God. The children only of the kingdom can know the mysteries of the kingdom, the children of God the things of God." "Nicodemus," says St. Chrysostom, "thought that he had made some great confession of Christ when he had so spoken. But what saith Christ? He showeth that he had not reached the very threshold or vestibule of the true knowledge; but that he, and all who spake thus, were yet straying without the palace, and had not even caught a glimpse of the true knowledge, who had such thoughts of the Only-Begotten. What said He? Verily, verily,'&c., i. e. 'unless thou be born from above, and receivest the truth, thou wanderest without, and art far from the kingdom of God;' only to make the words less grievous, He speaketh not plainly but indefinitely, 'unless a man,'-all but saying, 'whether thou or any other thinkest this of Me, he is without the kingdom-' What He says then is of this sort, Unless thou be born again, unless thou receive the Spirit through the bath of regeneration, thou canst not receive the fitting conception of Me. For this conception [that He was a teacher only] is not spiritual, but carnal. For it is impossible for him who is not so born to see the kingdom of God;' Christ here pointing to Himself, and showing that He is not that only which was seen, but that we have need of other eyes to see the Christ."

So then our Lord declares here the mystery, not only of a new

no. 6. See a similar passage against the Pelagians, de peccat. meritis et remiss. L. 3. c. 2.

*This connection has been suggested by Lightfoot ad loc., and others from him; "Since then there was so earnest an expectation among the Jews of the coming and kingdom of the Messiah, and Nicodemus appears to have thought the miracles of Christ an indication and specimen thereof, Christ instructs him, how he may be fit to see and enter into that kingdom, and enjoy the blessings of those times."

birth, but of a birth "from above,"*" from God," as the beloved

6

64

* Besides vv. 3. 7. it occurs in St. John v. 31. "He who cometh from above;" xix. 11. "given thee from above;" and xix. 23. St. Matt. xxvii. 51. Mark xv. 38, "woven from above." So in St. James i. 17. "is from above, coming down from the Father;" ii. 15. "coming down from above;" iii. 17. "the wisdom from above." In the only other cases in which it occurs in St. Luke and St. Paul it signifies "from above" of time, St. Luke i. 3. Acts xxvi. 5. Gal. iv. 9. In the LXX. it occurs seventeen times, always in the sense of "above" and "from above;" nine times answering to yo, which word our Lord may have here used, (y). The authority of Antiquity goes the same way. S. Crysostome gives the two renderings, ad loc., "the word avwer some say 'from heaven,' others, again,'" but does not decide; yet his language leads one to think that he took that sense which he placed first, and so his Benedictine editors have translated him throughout, "desuper." And so (which has much weight,) Theophylact manifestly understood him; for in his commentary, which is here a sort of paraphrase of St. Chrysostom, he says, "Since Nicodemus had a low notion of Christ, that he was a teacher, and God was with Him, the Lord says to him, it was to be expected that he should have such conceptions of Me; for not as yet have you been born from above; i. e. the spiritual birth of God (Ex Oɛo).—-But I say unto thee, that thou, or whosoever is not born from above and of God," &c. (where the ex eo is inserted to explain the ǎvwoɛv, which Chrysostom uses in this same sentence.) "For the birth through Baptism, illumining the soul, enables a person to see, i. e. to perceive, the kingdom of God, i. e. His Only-Begotten Son." And before Chrysostom, Origen (lib. v. in Ep. ad Rom. 8.) “wee signifies both 'again' and from above.' But here, since he who is baptized by Jesus, is baptized in the Holy Spirit, it must be understood not as again,' but ' from above;" for we say again' when the same things are repeated; but here the same birth is not repeated, but setting aside this earthly birth, a new birth is received from above, and so we should read more correctly in the Gospel, 'unless a man be born from above,' for this it is to be born of the Holy Spirit." (This last paragraph," and so we should read more correctly," &c. must be the translator's Ruffinus, making Origen's interpretation his own, since in Latin only could there be any question about the reading; in the original avwoεv expressed both; so we have here the authority of Ruffinus also.) St. Cyril of Alexandria (whose explanation is like Chrysostom's) compares (ad loc.) the use of ek Tv avw, "I am from above," John viii. 23, and at the end of this ch. v. 31. vwbev pxóuevos, "he that cometh from above," and explains it thus: "it is the will of the Father that man should be made partaker of the Holy Spirit, being born to an unwonted and foreign life, and that man, being of the earth should be a citizen of heaven. But in that He says that the new birth through the Spirit is from above,' He showeth plainly that the Spirit is of the essence of the God and Father, and of Himself He says, 'I am of ' above.' Ammonius (Catena Corderi) explains also 'from above,' and argues in the same way the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. St. Cyril of Jerusalem seems to take it in the same way, since he compares and contrasts our birth" of water and the Spirit" with that of Christ of the Father, and with St. John i. 12, and it is adopted in the Greek liturgy, (Ass. ii. 138.) "thou hast granted us the regeneration from above (rv avwṣev dvayévvnoiv) through water and the Spirit," (where the avwe would be superfluous except in this sense) Nonnus (A. D. 410) alone of the Greek writers (as far as I am aware) interprets avwber again;' and this, in a question of Greek interpretation, has great weight; and with it, the fact that St. John uses it elsewhere only in this sense. The translations (Syriac, Vulgate, Coptic) have given perhaps the general sense

disciple from his mouth repeats it, "born of God" (John i. 13.) and in his Epistle dwells so longingly on the words, "born of Him" (1 John ii. 29.)" born of God" (iii. 9. iv. 7. v. 1. 4. 18.) "of God"(ix Toû 000) (iii. 10. iv. 1, 2, 3, 4. 6. v. 19.) "children of God" (iii. 2. 10. v. 2.) which he so intertwines as being identical one with another. No change of heart, then, or of the affections, no repentance, however radical, no faith, no life, no love, come up to the idea of this "birth from above;" it takes them all in, and comprehends them all, but itself is more than all; it is not only the creation of a new heart, new affections, new desires, and as it were a new birth, but is an actual birth from above or from God, a gift coming down from God, and given to faith, through Baptism; yet not the work of faith, but the operation of "water and the Holy Spirit," the Holy Spirit giving us a new life, in the fountain opened by Him, and we being born therein of Him, even as our Blessed and Incarnate Lord was, according to the flesh, born of Him in the Virgin's womb. Faith and repentance are the conditions on which God gives it; water, sanctified by our Lord's Baptism, the womb of our new birth; love, good works, increasing faith, renovated affections, heavenly aspirations, conquest over the flesh, its fruits in those who persevere; but it itself is the gift of God, a gift incomprehensible, and not to be confounded with or restrained to any of its fruits, (as a change of heart, or conversion,) but illimitable and incomprehensible, as that great mystery from which it flows, the incarnation of our Redeemer, the Ever-Blessed Son of God.

only in that they have rendered "again," (Euthymius certainly, who is commonly quoted for this rendering, really expresses himself neither way) and it is remarkable that a trace of the other interpretation occurs in their Liturgies, as in the Syriac, "the new birth, which is from above," (Ass. i. 220. sup. p. 38;) and in another (t. ii. p. 255.) "the gift from above of adoption" (sup. p. 39;) and so perhaps also the Latin in the ninth century, "the everlasting benediction of the heavenly washing." (Ass. i. 24.)

The only apparent grounds for the rendering "born again" are, first, the use of the word "regeneration" in Tit. iii. 5; Secondly, that Nicodemus has been thought so to understand it. But (as has been observed) Nicodemus's answer. is," Can a man be born [not "born again"] when he is old ?"-"Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born ?" wherein the second sentence is an inference from the first, and the stress is not upon the being "born again" but on the dεúrepov circle, so that the words are in no way a commentary on our Lord's words. And any birth of one already born must be a second birth, so that Nicodemus's words, if they applied ever so strictly, would apply just as well in the one case as in the other. The same may be said of the passage of St. Paul; it is an evil mode of interpretation, which would so interpret one Scripture by another as to restrain the larger by the limits of the less. St. Paul declares the mystery "of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost;" the Son of God speaks more fully of our sonship to God, our being "born" not "again" only, but "from ahove," "of God." One should look also for explanation rather to our Lord's own words than to those of Nicodemus; and he explains "being born avwer" by "being born of water and the Spirit," v. 5, whereof He names "the Spirit" only, vv. 6. 8.