REGENERATION AND BAPTISM.

CHRISTIANITY the more it is understood, the more it is devoutly admired. It is adapted to the moral condition of young and old. It is the law of Divine Charity-the almost infinite expression of "good will towards men." It is a perfect system of REMEDIES, and is provided for the use of all. It is provided, to "restore the soul" to its original Righteousness, "to comfort all that mourn," to "deliver the prisoners from him that worketh in the children of disobedience," and to prepare them for that state of "Eternal Redemption which the blessed Jesus † obtained for them by His precious Bloodshedding."

"The Son of man," the second Adam, is the Mediator of the System, having "given Himself a ransom for all." By whatever outward means Salvation has been granted to the guilty and depraved during all past ages of the world, He was the Saviour" the doer of the good that was done upon the earth." And the means of grace which He was pleased to institute were always such as the state and circumstances of His people and of the world required. He never instituted empty ceremonies. His positive institutions were in some way, directly or indirectly, the Channels

Joh. iii. 16. Ma. x. 14.

A

Heb. ix. 11, 12.

of Mercy and Grace. In "these last days," He has given to means a greater efficacy, accompanying them, when used faithfully, with a higher degree of Blessing than under either the Patriarchal or the Jewish dispensation-to teach us duly to appreciate them, and to praise Him for his goodness, and to use them faithfully. Regeneration is, of the Mercies thus communicated, the greatest; for by it is our first entrance into Life. As to its unspeakable importance professed Christians are by no means generally agreed. They differ also in their definitions of it, and especially in their opinions as to the medium whereby it is ordinarily conveyed to the soul. Some persons' maintain, that the word of God only conveys Regeneration, and that God has not afforded to the very young any mean of obtaining it. Others, on the contrary, seeing "the exceeding breadth" of the Remedial System, argue that the young (a very numerous class) are not left in spiritual destitution, (which would be the case, as far as we know, could no mean of

Lu. vii. 28.

Joh. x. 10.

* Is. xxx. 25, 26. + Means are the channels of gifts and graces; and every mean affects the heart by one or more of the senses, the hearing, the taste, the sight, the touch. If, therefore, Regeneration comes by the hearing or the sight, infants cannot be regenerated in the ordinary way. Some have said, that the Saviour may regenerate infants in consequence of prayer being made on their behalf. But has He said that He will? Or is it likely, that in ordinary cases, He saves the souls of His people by different means?

Is there not

a beautiful simplicity in the means by which He works in nature? Does not the same water cleanse, and the same air support, both old and young?-Has God departed from His own admirable rule in the most glorious work of His Hands?

Salvation be used with certainty in their behalf;) and that it is plainly signified in holy writ, that persons of every age may, by Baptism in the name of the three blessed persons of the Godhead, "wash away their sins," receiving the Holy Ghost. The writer, after long and mature consideration unreservedly declares himself to be of this opinion-an opinion in which he is countenanced by the greatest Divines; and he will endeavour, at the proper time, to trace its SCRIPTURAL origin, in the spirit of candid investigation.

It is not intended, in this work, to refer to the different modes of purifying among the Jews; or to notice, at present, their established custom of receiving + Proselytes into their Church by Circumcision, Baptism, and Sacrifice, and their children with them; or to shew the essential

difference between John's, and our Saviour's Baptism; or to enquire into the § reasons why

* Spencer. de Leg. Heb. Ritual. Tom. 2. passim.

Wall's Inf. Bapt. Introduction. p. xliii—lvii. ed. 4to.; Lightfoot,-Hor. Heb. Tom. i. p. 390-392. ed. fol.

Mar. i. 4. Acts ii. 38.

or

§ Voss. de Bapt. sec. 48.-"The holy Jesus having found His way ready prepared by the preaching of John, and by his baptism, and the Jewish manner of adopting proselytes and disciples into their religion, a way chalked out for Him to initiate disciples into His religion, took what was so prepared, and changed it into a perpetual Sacrament. He kept the ceremony, that they, who were led only by outward things, might be the better called in, and easier enticed into the Religion, when they entered by a ceremony which their nation always used in like cases: and therefore, without change of the outward act, He put into it a new spirit, and gave it a new grace and a proper efficacy; He sublimed it to higher ends, and adorned it with the

they baptized at all; or to prove the lawfulness and sufficiency of Baptism by * affusion. These points of lesser interest have scarcely deserved the great attention which has been paid to them, to the neglect, it is to be feared, of the main point-the effects of Baptism. At any rate, to notice them further is unnecessary in this limited enquiry. It will be more agreeable with the author's design, if he proceed, at once, to consider, in what order the several parts of this practical essay should be arranged, that the whole may be set in the clearest point of view. And it would seem, that, to prevent confusion, and to bring every argument to bear upon the subject,, and, indeed, to pursue the most natural course, it will be proper to direct the attention of the reader-1st. to the nature of Regeneration; 2dly. to its necessity; 3dly. to the outward mean instituted to convey it; 4thly. to the title of Infants to the use of this mean; and, 5thly, to the question, what, in their case, is necessary to make Baptism available to the great end for which it was ordained?

stars of heaven; He made it to signify greater mysteries, to convey greater blessings, to consign the bigger promises, to cleanse deeper than the skin, and to carry proselytes further than the gates of the institution. For so He was pleased to do in the other Sacrament."-Jeremy Taylor. Vol. 2. p. 230. Bishop Heber's Ed.

* Ezek. xxxvi. 25. Joh. iii. 5. Act. x. 47. 1 Cor. x. 1, 2.— See also Wall. p. 433, 434. 462-466. And for an application of the word Barril, see Mar. vii. 4. Lu. xi. 38. From hence it that the quantity of water used in Baptism must be

СНАР. І.

On the Nature of Regeneration.

No Scripture-phrase has been the subject of more frequent definition than Regeneration; and, perhaps, none has been more inaccurately defined. Some have defined it a change of Relation to God; others, the term expressive of a person's qualification for admission into the visible Church, calling it, Baptismal Regeneration; others, the Grace of the Spirit for the performance of the duties of Christianity, and, in infants, as remaining in a dormant state till the commencement of regular sensation and knowledge, and the use of the means of Grace while others think themselves justified in defining it-the raising up of a "new man" from the ruins of "the old."

:

This last definition, and this only, appears easy and natural. In this sense have the most eminent Divines understood the word: and that, by Regeneration, or new birth, the Sacred Writers intended, newness of heart, and nothing else, will