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And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward, (oxoλiãs,) perverse or corrupt generation." Forsake the traditions of the Pharisees, and their worldly interpretations of the prophecies of the Messiah, and embrace the truth as it is in Jesus. That all this is here implied in the word repent, and in the Apostle's exhortation to save themselves from that perverse generation, is unquestionable; for they had already convinced him of their sorrow for their sin; and if he had not meant that their repentance should include their embracing the Gospel, he would have desired them to be baptized without making any profession of their faith at all, which cannot be supposed by any Christian.

They were Jews who were thus admitted into the church and justified; but we have the most conclusive evidence that the Gentiles, or heathen, were justified on the very same condition; for it is evident that it was to them that St Peter referred, when he said, "The promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Accordingly St Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, after mentioning the superior privileges which the Jews had long possessed, and had then forfeited by their rejection of the Messiah, says, " But now the righteousnessbenignity *—(dixa106) of God without the † law is

* See Schleusner on the word; Hammond on the whole passage; and Dr John Taylor's Key to the Apostolical Epistles, Chap. xvi.

+ In the original there is no article.

trine which is delivered in it." Thus, the Jews, who were converted by the preaching of St Peter, "were pricked," we are told,* "at the heart-filled with the deepest grief-when convinced that, by wicked hands, they had crucified and slain a man approved among them by God;" and when they asked St Peter and the rest of the Apostles what they should do, they were directed to "repent and be baptized every one of them in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." They are indeed said by St Peter to have "done it in ignorance"-i. e. in ignorance of Jesus being the Messiah promised to their forefathers; but they could not be ignorant that they had consented to the death of a man, against whom the chief priests and Pharisees had failed, even by suborning false witnesses, to bring proof of any kind of guilt, and whom the governor himself, profligate and abandoned as he was known to be, had repeatedly pronounced to be absolutely guiltless. Yet even of those sinful wretches, who had called out-" His blood be on us and on our children," no other repentance seems to have been required as a condition of baptism, than such a change of religious principles as was implied in sincerely professing the Christian faith. Repent, (eravonoare,) says the Apostle, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

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And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward, (oxoλiãs,) perverse or corrupt generation." Forsake the traditions of the Pharisees, and their worldly interpretations of the prophecies of the Messiah, and embrace the truth as it is in Jesus. That all this is here implied in the word repent, and in the Apostle's exhortation to save themselves from that perverse generation, is unquestionable; for they had already convinced him of their sorrow for their sin; and if he had not meant that their repentance should include their embracing the Gospel, he would have desired them to be baptized without making any profession of their faith at all, which cannot be supposed by any Christian.

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They were Jews who were thus admitted into the church and justified; but we have the most conclusive evidence that the Gentiles, or heathen, were justified on the very same condition; for it is evident that it was to them that St Peter referred, when he said, The promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Accordingly St Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, after mentioning the superior privileges which the Jews had long possessed, and had then forfeited by their rejection of the Messiah, says, " But now the righteousnessbenignity*(dxas) of God without the † law is

*See Schleusner on the word; Hammond on the whole passage; and Dr John Taylor's Key to the Apostolical Epistles, Chap. xvi.

In the original there is no article.

as universally understood in the primitive church, the eunuch was now justified; and supposing his faith in Christ to have been unfeigned, as we cannot doubt but it was, he would unquestionably, had he died immediately on his coming up out of the water, have been admitted into the society "of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect," to which blessedness his works done before his justification could have contributed nothing. Hence it is that the church of England so positively declares, that " it is certain by God's word that children who are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved;" not meaning thereby that children unbaptized, dying before they commit actual sin, shall not be saved, but leaving them to the uncovenanted mercy of God, because in His word there is no direct promise about them.

The justification received at baptism, may, however, be forfeited or lost by the baptized person not performing the conditions on which it was bestowed on him, and may again be recovered, so that he may finally be justified at the tribunal of Christ; but how all this may be done will furnish matter for another letter.

LETTER XVI.

ON REGENERATION.

IN my last Letter, I treated particularly of what has been called the first justification, and of the terms on which adult converts were, by the first preachers of the Gospel, admitted to the benefits of that justification; and I concluded, by promising to show you how those benefits may be forfeited and lost. Before this can be done, however, there is another doctrine-termed regeneration, which must be thoroughly understood; for justification and regeneration are so incorporated with each other, that they ought never to be separated; and I would not have thought of treating of the one but in conjunction with the other, had not the church prescribed three articles on justification, in none of which regeneration is so much as mentioned.

As the word regeneration is indisputably metaphorical, to ascertain what is meant by it, we must trace it from its origin, which we are most likely to find in the Old Testament, and in the writings

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