morality. Consequently, the truth of that doctrine is, and will be, a question of importance, so long as morality is important to beings whose happiness depends upon their virtue.

Lastly, the morality of the Gospel is not the result of our own unaided efforts and resolutions. We are represented in the Holy Scripture, as having been reduced by the fall of Adam to a state of helpless ignorance and sin. The fountain of our affections has been poisoned. The original tendency of our spirits has been inverted. We do not come into the world pre-disposed to love God, as soon as He is made known to our understandings. We are born with full-grown enmity to God, lurking within our hearts; an enmity which would develop itself, in all its frightful disproportions, with our opening powers, if we were, in the first moment of our being, transplanted from the noxious contagion of this world, to the pure atmosphere of heaven itself. To undo the mischief done to our nature by the sin of our first parent, re

quires a change of such a nature as to be called in Scripture a second birth', a new man', and a new creation. This change can be effected by no other than that God who was the first cause and producer of our being. And to God it is expressly ascribed in the New Testament 4. Besides this, the Scripture describes our sanctification as a progressive work, and as one, which, at every step and period of its progress, depends on the inspiration and assistance of him by whose almighty power it was first commenced.

Now, in every part of this work, from the first hour when the creative Spirit moved on the sacramental waters 5, to the

2

1 John iii. 3-7. Eph. iv. 24. Col. iii. 10. 32 Cor. v. 17. Gal. vi. 15. Eph. ii. 10.

✦ John i. 13.

5 John iii. 15. I do not feel it requisite to justify the application of this passage to the sacrament of baptism. The church of England has referred it to baptism in the opening of the service for the public baptism of infants; and, in the baptism of persons of riper years, has alleged it, to prove the great necessity of this sacrament where it may be had." To that interpretation, therefore, her

last triumphant cry of the victorious saint, the whole change, in its beginning, pro

clergy are bound by law, and by their voluntary subscriptions; if, indeed, such considerations can be necessary to bind men to the plain meaning of words which they use in the most solemn acts of their religion. Perhaps one cause of the disputes on this subject may be, that people do not observe that the Church always supposes faith and repentance to precede regeneration: which she could not, I apprehend, have done if she had used the word in the sense it popularly bears in modern theology. But then, is it not a grave consideration, whether the clergy are justified in using a theological term in a new and fantastical sense, and then, to suit this novelty, explaining away the meaning of the most solemn and unequivocal language? How any honest man can doubt, that, in the sense in which the Church uses the term, Regeneration invariably accompanies Christian Baptism, and yet presume to address the Almighty in the language which every clergyman must use, every time he baptizes a child, is perfectly incomprehensible. My reason, however, for alluding to the point at all, is its immediate connexion with my subject. For every attempt to deprive the Sacraments of their spiritual efficacy, is in fact an attack on the doctrine of the Trinity. Socinus has devoted a chapter in his work, 'De Baptismo Aquæ,' to prove that the words of our Saviour are to be explained figuratively that they do not relate to water bap

:

gress, and perfection, is ascribed, in the New Testament, to a being, who cannot be imagined to be less than God, without impiety, or confounded, in his personality, with the Father, or the Son, without doing violence to the plain words of Scripture. The recovery and exaltation of our souls to a conformity with our Creator's image, is, in every part of the New Testament, ascribed to the Holy Ghost, as a free and discriminating agent', communicating life, light, and liberty, to the spirit. It is he who sets to right our disjointed and depraved affections. He sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts 2. He helps our

tism; nor prove the necessity of the Sacrament. One sentence I quote, because the notion it puts forward, that regeneration is more or less an intellectual process, seems to lie at the root of all modern objections to the primitive use of the term. Mani

festum est enim, nec terrenam aquam, nec universam cæremoniam illam aliquid cum divinarum rerum scientia commune habere, nedum ut ad eam scientiam consequendam eo baptismo tingi necessarium sit." De Bapt. Aquæ, c. iv. Opp. tom. i. p. 719. a. 11 Cor. xii. 11. Heb. ii. 4.

2

Rom. v. 5.

In

infirmities'. He inspires our prayers. He confirms our principles, and strengthens our resolutions 2. He arms us against the enemies of our souls; He enables us to fight, to endure, to triumph. He is represented as a being sent down to us by the Father and the Son, to inhabit our mortal bodies, and infuse into our hearts the spirit of children, that we may have an instinctive confidence and delight in our relation to our heavenly Father*. a word, the morality of the Gospel, is the work of the Holy Ghost, a real and living being, dwelling within us, teaching, leading, and sanctifying us. By his donation, we have joy and peace and consolation. By his inspiration, we have purity, wisdom, truth, good desires, and holy purposes. By his assistance and powerful energy, we bring forth fruits, acceptable unto God, and profitable unto men; even “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:" that "good

1 Rom. viii. 26.

2

3 John xiv. 26. xv. 26. xvi. 7.

Rom. viii. 15. Gal. iv. 6.

Eph. iii. 16.