DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEWING BAPTISM. 66 21 either with reference to the past or the future; as a passage from death, or to life; as a deliverance from sin, or a renewal to holiness; a death unto sin, or a new birth unto righteousness; and men's minds might from circumstances be directed prominently to the one or other view. Again, they might look upon Baptism as it was a channel of these blessings, in that the person baptized becomes thereby a member of CHRIST," (which one saying comprehends more than all which men's or angels' thoughts can conceive of blessedness;) or they might look at the blessings of which it is the channel. Thus the Greek Fathers (who were harassed by no controversies connected with it) spoke principally of the blessedness whereof it makes us partakers. So St. Chrysostom1:"Blessed be God, who alone doeth wonders; who made "all things, and changeth all. Behold, they enjoy the calm of "freedom who a little before were held captives, they are denizens " of the Church who were wandering in error, and they have the "lot of righteousness who were in the confusion of sin. For "they are not only free, but holy; not holy only, but righteous; "not righteous only, but sons; not sons only, but heirs; not "heirs only, but brethren of Christ; not brethren of Christ only, "but co-heirs; not only co-heirs, but members; not members "only, but a temple; not a temple only, but instruments of the 66 Spirit. See how many are the largesses of Baptism; and "whereas some think that the heavenly grace consists only in the "remission of sins, lo, we have recounted ten glories thereof. "Wherefore we baptize infants, although they have no sins, that "holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with 66 Christ, may be added to them; that they may become his "members." It appears from this that some already had begun to restrict themselves too rigidly to the words of the description given in the Creed of Constantinople. St. Augustine, on the other hand, living in the midst of the Pelagian heresy, was com 1 Orat. ad Neophytos, ap. Augustin. c. Julian. 1. i. § 21. It is plain (as St. Augustine remarks) that since St. Chrysostom speaks of children being free from sins, he means actual sins, since original sin must always be spoken of in the singular; so the Pelagians, to make the passage,serve their end, substituted the singular for the plural which St. Chrysostom used. 22 66 66 INCIDENTAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE SUBJECT. pelled to take prominently this very line, which St. Chrysostom regards as cold, when taken exclusively since the Pelagians denied all sin in infants, he was obliged very principally to insist upon Baptism as the remission of original sin. In like manner, our Church at first, in her Catechism, used the warm undefined language of the Eastern Churches, "wherein I was made a "member of CHRIST, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven;" and afterwards defined the benefits of Baptism more after the manner of St. Augustine, "a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness; for being by nature "born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the "children of grace." The two views, as above said, do in fact coincide, and are only the same great truth looked upon on different sides; for neither did St. Augustine regard the remission of original or actual sin as taking place in any other way than through the union with CHRIST, nor doubted he that this union infused actual righteousness and holiness, the seed of immortality, and gifts in CHRIST far more than had been lost in Adam. On the other hand, the Greek Churches, though chiefly dwelling upon the blessings acquired, yet acknowledged Baptism to be for the remission of original, as well as actual sin. The difficulty of explaining Baptismal Regeneration is twofold; First, from its being a mystery; Secondly, from men being in these days inclined to lower that mystery. Thus one should prefer speaking of it, with our Catechism, as that whereby we were made "members of CHRIST;" but then, when people explain "members of CHRIST" to be " members of CHRIST'S Church," and that, to mean " members of His visible Church, or of the society " of men called Christians," a description in itself the highest and most glorious, and the source of every other blessing, is made equivalent to a mere outward admission into a mere outward assemblage of men." In either case, however, man is the author of his own difficulties; in the one, by lowering the fulness of Scripture truth; in the other, by carnally inquiring into the mode of the Divine working. For a mystery presents no difficulty to belief; it becomes difficult only when we ask about the mode of its being. Nicodemus asked, "How can these things be?" and 66 WHAT WE KNOW, AND WHAT NOT. 23 most of our questions about Baptismal Regeneration are Nicodemus-questions. We know it in its author, GoD; in its instrument, Baptism; in its end, salvation, union with CHRIST, Sonship to GOD, "resurrection from the dead, and the life of the world to "come." We only know it not, where it does not concern us to know it, in the mode of its operation. But this is just what man would know, and so he passes over all those glorious privileges, and stops at the threshold to ask how it can be? He would fain know how an unconscious infant can be born of GOD? how it can spiritually live? wherein this spiritual life consists? how Baptism can be the same to the infant and to the adult convert? and if it be not in its visible, and immediate, and tangible effects, how it can be the same at all? Yet Scripture makes no difference; the gift is the same, although it vary in its application; to the infant it is the remission of original guilt, to the adult of his actual sins also; but to both by their being made members of CHRIST, and thereby partakers of His "wisdom and "righteousness, sanctification and redemption;" by being made branches of the True Vine, and so, as long as they abide in Him, receiving from Him, each according to their capacities, and necessities, and willingness, nourishment and life; but if they abide not in Him, they are cast forth like a branch, and withered. We can then, after all, find no better exposition than that incidentally given in our Catechism,-"my Baptism, wherein I was made a member of CHRIST, the child of GOD, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ;" and with this statement we may well be content, as it expresses most our union with our Redeemer, the fountain of our gifts, and the ground of our hopes. One may then define Regeneration to be, "that act whereby God takes us "out of our relation to Adam, and makes us actual members of "His Son, and so His sons, as being members of His Ever"blessed Son; and if sons, then heirs of God through CHRIST,"(Gal. iv. 7.) This is our new birth, an actual birth of God, of water, and the Spirit, as we were actually born of our natural parents; herein then also are we justified, or both accounted and made righteous, since we are made members of Him who is Alone Righteous; freed from past sin, whether original or actual; 24 BAPTISM ENGRAFTING INTO CHRIST, AND ITS FRUITS. have a new principle of life imparted to us, since having been made members of CHRIST, we have a portion of His life, or of Him who is our Life; herein we have also the hope of the resurrection and of immortality, because we have been made partakers of His resurrection, have risen again with Him. (Col. ii. 12.) The view, then, here held of Baptism, following the ancient Church and our own, is, that we be engrafted into CHRIST, and thereby receive a principle of life, afterwards to be developed and enlarged by the fuller influxes of His grace; so that neither is Baptism looked upon as an infusion of grace distinct from the incorporation into CHRIST, nor is that incorporation conceived of as separate from its attendant blessings. 66 66 The following sentences of Hooker express, in that great master's way, the view here meant to be taken :-" This is the necessity of Sacraments. That saving grace which CHRIST originally is, or hath for the general good of His whole Church, by Sacraments He severally deriveth into every member thereof. By Baptism therefore we receive CHRIST JESUs, and from Him "the saving grace which is proper unto Baptism.-Baptism 3 is 66 66 66 2 3 a Sacrament which God hath instituted in His Church, to the "end that they which receive the same might be incorporated "into Christ, and so through His most precious merit obtain as "well that saving grace of imputation, which taketh away all "former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue of the "HOLY GHOST, which giveth to the powers of the soul the first disposition towards future newness of life." 66 Two more observations must be premised on the Scripture evidence itself: First, Whereas, confessedly, Regeneration is in Scripture connected with Baptism, there is nothing in Scripture to sever it therefrom. The evidence all goes one way. This, in itself, is of great moment. For if God, in two places only, assigns the means of His operations, and then in other places were to mention those operations apart from the means, we are not (as the manner of some is) to take these texts separately, as if they did not come from the same Giver, but to fill up what is not 1 Eccl. Pol. b. v. c. lvii, § 5. ed. Keble. 2 Ib. § 6. 3 Ib. c. lx. § 2. 66 25 expressed in the one by what He teaches plainly in the other. Thus, when we have learnt that the "new birth,” or “ birth from "above," is" of water and the Spirit,” (John iii. 5.) then, where it is said, "who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the "flesh, nor of the will of man, but of GoD," (John i. 13.) we should, with the Ancient Church, recognise here also the gift of GOD in Baptism to "such as receive Him." But, Secondly, not only is there nothing in Scripture to sever Regeneration from Baptism, but Baptism is spoken of as the source of our spiritual birth, as no other cause is, save GoD: we are not said, namely, to be born again of faith, or love, or prayer, or any grace which God worketh in us, but to be "born of1 water " and the Spirit," in contrast to our birth of the flesh; in like manner as we are said to be born of3 GOD: and in order to express that this our new birth of God is, as being of God, a deathless birth, it is described as a birth of1 seed incorruptible, in contrast with our birth after the flesh, of corruptible seed through our earthly parents. The immediate causes of our birth are not here spoken of; only we are taught that it is of God, and in itself immortal, if men will but not part with it, or occasion GOD to withdraw it. Holy Scripture, indeed, connects other causes besides Baptism with the new birth, or rather that one comprehensive cause, the whole dispensation of mercy in the Gospel, (for this, not the written or spoken word, is meant by the 1 γεννηθῇ ΕΞ ὕδατος καὶ Πνεύματος. John iii. 5. 2 τὸ γεγεννημένον ΕΚ τῆς σαρκός. ib. v. 6. 3 οἳ οὐκ ΕΞ αἱμάτων—ἀλλ ̓ ΕΚ Θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν. i. 13. 4 ἀναγεγεννημένοι οὐκ ΕΚ * σπορᾶς φθαρτῆς, ἀλλὰ ἀφθάρτου, * It has been a careless habit of interpretation which has here confounded words so distinct as ek and did, and then proceeded to identify ǹ σropà here with the σTÉρμa in our Lord's parable; and so, by this double mistake, inferred that St. Peter declared that "the incorruptible seed, of which we are re-born," is the "preaching of the word." The two metaphors are quite distinct. St. Jerome rightly translates (adv. Jovin. 1. i. § 39.), "renati non ex coitu corruptibili " sed ex incorruptione, per verbum viventis Dei et permanentis," and so Cajetan. ad loc. clearly explains it, " quæ natura generat, generat per semen, et illud corruptibile; vos quidem renati estis per semen, sed incorruptibile." 66 |