Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (Browne, 1883)/Article XXVII

Part of Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (Browne, 1883).

Article XXVII: Of Baptism

Of Baptism.

BAPTISM is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or new Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

De Baptismo.

BAPTISMUS non est tantum professionis signum, ac discriminis nota, qua Christiani a non Christianis discernantur, sed etiam est signum regenerationis, per quod, tanquam per instrumentum, recte Baptismum suscipientes, ecclesiæ inseruntur, promissiones de remissione peccatorum, atque adoptione nostra in filios Dei per Spiritum sanctum visibiliter obsignantur, fides confirmatur, et vi divinæ invocationis gratia augetur. Baptismus parvulorum omnino in Ecclesia retinendus est, ut qui cum Christi institutione optime congruat.

Section I. — DEFINITION OF DOCTRINE

IT is, unhappily, well known to every one, how much discord has arisen on the subject of baptismal grace. On the one side, men, perceiving that in Scripture the new birth of the Spirit is closely coupled with new birth by water, and that the ancient Church ever identified baptism with regeneration, have unhesitatingly taught that regeneration is the grace of baptism, never separated from it, but when the recipient places a bar against it by impenitence. On the other side, it has been observed, that the grace of regeneration is a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness; that it extends to an entire renewal of the moral nature of man, restoring him to the image of Him who created him; that no such change as this can be attributed to the washing with water; that such a change can only result from the influences of God's Spirit, subduing the perverse will, and bringing the whole man into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and that, as a matter of fact and experience, the vast majority of the baptized never have undergone, and never do undergo, a change so momentous and unmistakable.

The difference of opinion has often been considered to depend on the different tenets of the opposing parties concerning predestination; the Calvinist denying that baptized infants are regenerate, because grace once given can never be forfeited; the anti-Calvinist explaining the apparent anomaly, that the baptized are often practically unregenerate, by saying that the grace has been given, but lost by unfaithfulness.

Something beyond this, however, must be at the root of the disagreement; for St. Augustine, and a large number of zealous predestinarians, have held high doctrine on baptismal grace; whilst many, who reject the tenet of absolute predestination, have been as strongly opposed to the doctrine of baptism, which Augustine and many of his followers have allowed.

It is perhaps too much to say that the diversity is dependent on mere difference of definition. Yet accurate definition is no doubt very desirable; and it is probable that, if both parties understood either their own or their opponents' principles better, they would find many more points of contact, and many fewer grounds of disagreement than at present. As it is, both sides see one important aspect of truth, and both perhaps often overlook its opposite, and equally necessary phase. On the one hand, the importance of training up children as heirs of immortality and recipients of the seed of life, is much and rightly insisted on; on the other side, too much overlooked.

But again, the belief in the grace of baptism at times has led to some degree of formalism and neglect of spiritual vitality; whilst those who deny that grace have exhibited a greater zeal for conversion of souls from sin and error, because putting no trust on the supposed existence of a spark of grace derived to all professing Christians in the initiatory Sacrament.

May there not be a possibility of holding the truth which there is on both sides, without the error of either?

Baptism is confessedly an embracing the service of God, an enlisting into the army of Christ, to fight under His banner, the Cross. Every one, therefore, who is baptized, is thenceforth bound to be a faithful follower of Him whose soldier he has professed himself. But it is not God's plan to entail responsibilities on us, without giving us the power to fulfil them. Hence naturally we might expect that, when He has called us to His service, He would furnish us with arms and strength to the contest. It is better therefore to begin with God's gifts to us: for we can only give Him of His own: Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα ("Let us begin with Zeus").

1. We know then, first of all, that God, in Christ, has made with man a covenant of grace. The terms of that covenant are on God's part, that He, for Christ's sake, not for our merit, freely, fully, graciously pours down upon undeserving sinners, (1) pardon of sin; (2) the aid of the Spirit; (3) in the end, everlasting life. All this is given us in Christ. No terms are in the first place required from us; for we have none to give. We have but to accept the offer of free pardon made to rebellious subjects, and, with pardon, of strength for the future to obey.

Now baptism is the formal act by which we are admitted into covenant with God. It is the embracing of God's covenant of grace in Christ: in the case of adults, by their own deliberate choice; in the case of infants, by God's merciful appointment, and according to the election of grace.

We cannot doubt of the truth of God's promises. Hence we may be assured, that He will make good His covenant to all that are brought within the terms of it: i. e. to all who are baptized. Hence again, we infer that the promises to the baptized, and therefore the blessings of baptism, are: —

(1.) Pardon of sins.

(2.) The aid of the Spirit of God.

(3.) If not forfeited, everlasting life.

2. But, moreover, baptism is the engrafting into the Church, to which belong the covenant and the promises. The Church is the body of Christ; and Christ is its covenanted Head. Hence we see another relation consequent on baptism; namely, that we thereby become members of Christ. And indeed without this we could not receive the blessings of the covenant. For pardon and grace can only flow to us from Christ. It is in Him that God gives us both, — that God will give us everlasting life. "In Him is life." "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."

So too, the Church is the family of God, as well as the body of Christ. Hence by baptism we become, not only members of the mystical body of the Lord, but adopted children of our heavenly Father. God thenceforward looks on us as united, according to covenant, to His Son, and hence as His children by grace; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.

Thus, in the language of the Catechism, we are made in baptism members of Christ, children of God, and therefore inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.

All this results from the nature of a covenant and the nature of the Church.

But here a great practical question has arisen, which it is of the utmost importance not to disregard. Does all this merely indicate a new outward federal relation of the baptized to God? or does it imply a spiritual change in the soul itself, and a moral change of disposition? A federal relation it undoubtedly points out; for the soul is by baptism taken into covenant in Christ. But a covenant on God's part implies the faithfulness of the Covenanter. Hence, undoubtedly, baptism guarantees a spiritual change in the condition of the recipient. But we must not confound a spiritual change in the condition of the soul, with a moral change of the disposition and tempers. It is a great spiritual change to be received into Christ's Church, to be counted as a child of God, to obtain remission of sins, and to have the aid and presence of the Spirit of God. But a moral change can only be the result of the soul's profiting by the spiritual change. If the presence of the Sanctifier does not produce sanctification, no moral change has been effected. If the pleadings of the Spirit have been rejected, and the soul has remained unmoved under them, it cannot be said that there is a moral renovation of the character.

We may therefore define the internal grace of baptism to consist rather in the assured presence of the Renovator, than in the actual renovation of the heart. The latter is indeed the natural result of the influence of the former; but it requires also another element, namely, the yielding of the will of the recipient to the previous influences of the Sanctifier. It is unnecessary to inquire here, whether the presence of God's Spirit is not vouchsafed to others besides the baptized. We have instances of such in Cornelius, whose prayers and alms were accepted, whilst he was yet in ignorance of the Gospel; and upon whom the Holy Ghost fell, before he had received the baptism of water (Acts x. 4, 44, 47). The point to be remembered is this, that to the baptized the aid of the Spirit is promised by covenant; and therefore to them it is assured. Others may receive it, according to the will of God; but cannot claim it, according to His promise.

Now this fact, that baptism, from the very nature of the covenant, carries with it an assurance of pardon for sins, of adoption into the Church, and of aid from the Spirit, is sufficient to warrant the term, "Baptismal Regeneration." Birth into the Church and adoption into the family of God, remission of original sins in infants, and of all past sins in worthily receiving adults, and the gift of the Spirit to renew and sanctify, comprise the elements of the new birth, the germ of spiritual life. Hence they are called by the Church "Spiritual Regeneration." Yet, as God's gifts of grace are not compulsory, it follows that the baptized, by his own perverseness, may reject them all. Whether then he received baptism in infancy or in maturity, if he has not profited by its blessings, he has never received such a renovation of heart and nature that he can be called practically regenerate. Nay! his heart is unregenerate, although his outward state and his covenanted privileges be never so great. He yet needs conversion and renewal of spirit. And hence it comes to pass, that many of our greatest divines (e. g. Hammond, J. Taylor, Beveridge), who held distinctly the doctrine of baptismal grace, or baptismal regeneration, yet constantly spoke of some of the baptized as still unregenerate; because, though God could not be supposed to have failed to make good His promise to them, yet they had not yielded to His Spirit's gracious influences; and so their hearts had never been renewed "after the image of Him that created them;" and they had continued in darkness and in the bondage of corruption, though "called to the glorious liberty of the children of God."

If we take this as the explanation of the great doctrine in question, we may see at once: —

1. That the absence of practical results, and of anything like practical spiritual life in many of the baptized, is not to be accounted for merely and solely by the theory that such have early fallen away from grace and from a state of holiness once effected; for from the first they may never have yielded to the gracious workings of the Spirit, and so real practical holiness may never have been produced.

2. Nor, again, must it be accounted for by the hypothesis, that their regeneration is in a state of abeyance, until their own will rises to meet and coöperate with the grace bestowed upon them. For this hypothesis seems to savour of Semi-pelagianism, making the will, as it were, an independent agent, coördinate and equally efficient with the Holy Spirit; and allowing it a spontaneous movement towards good. Whereas, sound evangelical truth will teach us to consider the will utterly incapable of moving towards holiness, till first quickened to it by the grace of God.

3. But the real solution of the difficulty will appear to be, that, though God never failed of His promise, and though the aid and presence of His Spirit were ever vouchsafed to the recipients of baptism, yet their wills had never yielded to be renewed by it; and therefore, though subjects of the grace of God, they had never brought forth the fruits of holiness.

Yet all baptized persons, though not personally sanctified, have a relative holiness: For, —

1. They are members of the Church, which is holy; branches therefore of the true Vine, even if they are fruitless branches, and so withering and dying. They have a covenanted relation to, and a spiritual union with Christ, who is the Head of His Body mystical.

2. They are adopted into the family of God; and, though they be from the first rebellious and prodigal sons, yet they have a covenanted title to be regarded as children, and moreover, if they return from their wanderings, to be received and welcomed as children.

3. They have been solemnly set apart and dedicated to God, consecrated to be temples of the Holy Ghost: and as such, have a real, even though it may be a rejected presence of the Spirit assured to them. That presence will, if they cultivate and obey it, truly sanctify them, but, if not cultivated, but resisted, it will leave them in unfruitfulness.

A distinction must be drawn between adult and infant recipients.

1. In the case of adults, faith and repentance are necessary prerequisites; and without them we must not expect the blessings of the Sacrament. But then the reason why these graces are requisite is not because they contribute their share to the production of the grace of baptism. That would be to derogate from the free gift of God, and from the bounty of the Giver. On the contrary, we must ever esteem the grace of God to be free and unmerited, and not attracted to us by any good which is in us. It is not the active quality of our faith which makes us worthy recipients. That would be to make faith a fellow-worker with, and in itself independent of the Spirit of God; which is closely bordering on Semi-pelagian heresy. But, though our faith cannot be of that meritorious character, that it should elicit grace from above, yet our impenitence and unbelief are permitted to act as obstacles to the free-working of the grace of God; and, by our own obstinacy and hardness of heart, we may "quench the Spirit."

Hence, that there may be no impediment to their regeneration, a believing and penitent spirit must be cultivated in those who are to be baptized; lest, like Simon Magus, they receive the washing of water, but still remain, as regards their hearts and consciences, "in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity."

2. Concerning infants the case is different. Active faith in them is not possible; nor is it even to be desired. It is not the active character of his faith which seems to qualify the adult. It is rather, that it implies and assures an absence of that repelling obstinacy and hard-heartedness which makes sinners reject the mercy of the Lord.

The very helplessness of infants is, in this case, their protection.

We cannot too much remember, that God's gifts come from Him and not from us; from His mercy, not our merits, our faith, or our obedience. The only obstacle which infants can offer to grace, is the taint of original corruption. But to say that original sin is a bar to receiving remission of original sin (which is one chief grace of this Sacrament), is a positive contradiction in terms.

Again, the theory that the faith of parents or of sponsors is necessary to give effect to baptism in infants, is not to be maintained for an instant. This were to cross the whole principle of evangelical mercy. It would be to make the child's salvation hinge on its parent's faithfulness. It would make God's grace contingent, not even on the merits of the recipient, but actually on the merits of the recipient's friends. Sponsors, after all, are probably of human institution, and therefore cannot affect a divine ordinance. And this theory does sadly derogate from the grace of God, which acts ever freely and spontaneously; and grievously magnifies the office of human faith, which is humbly to receive mercy, not arrogantly to deserve it.

Once more, the theory that infants have need of a "prevenient act of grace," to make them meet for remission of sins, is evidently founded on a low appreciation of God's pardoning love. The very thing which makes them meet for pardon, is their helpless sinfulness. This is their very plea for mercy; and cannot therefore be the bar opposed to it. If they were not sinful, they would need neither pardon nor grace. Active hostility and wilful obstinacy they cannot exhibit. And God's mercy in Christ extends to the pardon of all sinners, who do not wilfully reject it. Hence the Church has ever held, that there is nothing in the character of infants (whose sinfulness is inevitable, and not wilfully contracted) which can offer an insuperable obstacle to receiving the grace of remission of sin, or the aid of the Spirit of God.

But, though it be true that infants can, at the time of their baptism, oppose no obstacle, lest they should receive pardon and grace; and though therefore, in case of their death before actual sin, we believe in the certainty of their salvation; yet we must bear in mind, that the pardon of sin and the aid of the Spirit, assured (and therefore surely given) at baptism, will not have produced an entire change of their nature, eradicating the propensity to sin, and new creating a sanctified heart. The grace of the Spirit, we may believe, will, as the reason opens and the will developes, plead with their spirits, prompt them to good and warn them from evil; and, if not resisted, will doubtless lead them daily onwards in progressive holiness. But the power too to resist, which they did not possess in infancy, will daily increase with their increasing reason and activity; and their actual and internal sanctification will result only from an obedient yielding to the grace of the Sanctifier; and will be utterly abortive, if, through sinful propensities and sinful indulgence of them, that grace be stifled, disregarded, or abused.

Thus, though we may not define the grace of the Spirit, vouchsafed in infant baptism, to be a "mere potential principle," and, until it be stirred up, "dormant and inactive;" yet we may define it, so as to understand that its active operations are only to be expected when the dawning reason and rising will themselves become active and intelligent; and that anything like a real moral renovation of disposition and character can only be looked for, where the adolescent will does not resist and quench the gracious influences of the Spirit of God, but suffers itself to be moulded and quickened into a state of subjection to the good pleasure of the Lord, and of likeness to the character of Christ.

Yet this need not prevent us from believing that the aid of the Spirit has been vouchsafed, even to those who have never profited by it. It is possible for a branch to be grafted into a vine, and a stream of nourishment to flow from the root to it; and yet, if a knot or obstacle exist in the branch, the life of the vine may never reach the engrafted member; from no fault in the parent stem, but from the hardening of the bough itself. It is in like manner possible, that the infant grafted into the true Vine, a member of the Body mystical of Christ, may, through its own fault as it grows to maturity, fail of deriving grace from the life of the Spirit, and yet there be no unfaithfulness on the part of the Giver, no want of liberality in the Fountain of goodness. And this seems sufficiently to account for the well-known and familiar fact, that so many millions of baptized Christians grow up to manhood with no profit from their baptism, and when grown up, can be considered, in their spiritual condition, as no better, if not worse, than heathen men: except, at least, that they are in the formal covenant of grace, and are therefore admitted to its outward ordinances; have probably from time to time the Spirit's warnings and pleadings; and have the assurance too, that, on their repentance and conversion, God will ever receive them to His mercy, and welcome them as prodigal sons returning to their Father, as sheep coming back to the Shepherd of their souls.

Section II. — SCRIPTURAL PROOF

HAVING thus defined the doctrine, we may proceed to consider the Scriptural evidence for its truth.

I. First, let us see what aid we can derive from the old Testament, and from Jewish rites and language.

1. It is an acknowledged fact, that circumcision among the Jews was the typical and corresponding rite to baptism in the Church. It admitted into the Mosaic covenant; as baptism admits into the Christian. It was given to Abraham for that very end, that it might be the initiatory rite, the seal and token of the covenant between God and the posterity of Abraham. (See Gen. xvii. 9–14; Acts vii. 8.) The person who had received circumcision, was a partaker of God's promises to the Israelites. (See Exod. xii. 48.) The person who neglected it, was to be cut off from the people (Gen. xvii. 14; Exod. iv. 24, &c.) St. Paul himself draws the parallel between this Jewish rite and the Christian rite of baptism; which latter he calls "circumcision made without hands" (Col. ii. 11, 12). And from his language it is plain that the parallel altogether holds good, allowing for this important difference, that circumcision admitted to a legal or carnal covenant, baptism admits to a spiritual covenant.

2. In addition to circumcision, thus given by God, it is well known that the Jews, in admitting proselytes from heathenism, ever added a form of washing, or baptism. They baptized all, men, women, and children, of any proselyted family; and then they esteemed them as new-born from their Gentile heathenism into the Church or family of Israel. The language which they used concerning such, was very remarkable. "If any one become a proselyte, he is like a child new-born." "The gentile that is made a proselyte, and the servant that is made free, behold, he is like a child new-born; and all those relations which he had while either a gentile or a servant, they now cease from being so." Nay! they even taught that men might legally marry those who had been their former relations; though, for edification and propriety, it was forbidden.

This well accounts for the way in which the Jews understood the baptism of John. They knew that baptism implied admission into a new covenant or faith; and when he baptized, they thought he did so because the age of Messias was come, and that he himself must be either the Messiah, or else Elias, who was to prepare the way for Him. (See John i. 19, 25.) Those, too, who were baptized of him, came confessing their sins, because in the baptism of proselytes it had been always the custom to examine into the spirit and motives of the converts, before they were admitted to the rite of initiation.

Our Lord was ever pleased to adapt His teaching and ordinances to the habits and understanding of the people whom He taught. The Lord's Prayer is a collection from familiar Jewish forms. The cup in the Lord's Supper was taken from the wine-cups used, by ordinary custom, at the ancient Passover, one of which was called "the cup of blessing." These were but human institutions; yet our gracious Saviour, stooping to man's infirmities, sanctioned with His approval, and sanctified with His blessing, things which before had but earthly authority. There can be little, or no doubt, that it was so with baptism. Washing was a common mode of typical purification, in use on all occasions with the Jews: especially it was ordained for the ceremonial purification of proselytes. And accordingly, our Lord adopts and authorizes it, as the means for the admission of proselytes or converts from Judaism or heathenism into the Gospel and the Church: for admitting to a participation of the covenant of grace, as circumcision had admitted to the covenant of works.

Circumcision then, and Jewish baptism, were both types and precursors of Christian baptism; and from the signification and use of them we may infer somewhat concerning the signification and use of baptism.

3. Besides these, there were certain great events in old Testament history to which the Apostles point as typical of baptism, especially the ark of Noah, and the passage of the Red Sea. In the ark of Noah, God's chosen people were saved, so as by water, from the destruction of a perishing world. The ark was, as it were, the body of the Church, in which all who entered it might be safe. To this, St. Peter tells us, baptism is the counterpart (ἀντίτυπον) (1 Pet. iii. 21); because by baptism we have access to the Church, and to that salvation which God has ordained in the Church.

4. The passage of the Red Sea was the first step of the Israelites from the land of their bondage. Before they passed it, they were slaves; after they had passed it, they were free, their enemies were overthrown, and they were delivered. Yet it was a passage, not into Canaan, but into the wilderness; deliverance from inevitable bondage, but not deliverance from fighting and toil. They had yet forty years to wander, before the passage of Jordan should lead them into rest. In these forty years' wanderings they had contests, temptations, and dangers. Though saved from Pharaoh, their disobedience and unbelief overthrew most of them in the wilderness; and but few of those who had passed through the sea, ever reached the home of their inheritance. St. Paul (1 Cor. x. 1–12) sets this before us, as a type of Christian baptism and Christian life. Baptism is to us a rite ordained for our deliverance, — deliverance from sin and the slavery of sin; but it is only our first step in the course of our profession; and if we, like the Israelites, though bathed in the waters and fed from the manna and the rock, yet lust, and murmur, and tempt Christ, and commit idolatry and impurity, we must expect to fall under the power of the serpent, to be destroyed of the destroyer, and never to enter into that promised land, which is nevertheless the inheritance prepared for us of God.

II. Baptism then is admission into the Christian covenant, as circumcision was admission into the Jewish covenant. Now a covenant implies two parties, and certain stipulations. In the case of enemies it requires a mediator. In the old covenant, the parties were God and the Jews: the Mediator was Moses: the stipulations were, "This do:" and then the promise was, "Thou shalt live." The whole dispensation was worldly and legal. It had no promise of eternal life, but only of temporal prosperity. It had no sacrifice which could take away sin (Heb. x. 4). It had no assurance of the aid of the Spirit of God.

But the new covenant is widely different: a covenant of grace, not a covenant of works; not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. Its promises are not earthly, but heavenly. Its Mediator is not Moses, but Jesus Christ. In Him there is forgiveness of sins. From Him flows the Spirit of grace. By Him is an everlasting inheritance. And so God Himself describes the blessings to those within the new covenant to be, that He would be "merciful to their unrighteousness," and no more remember their sins; and that He would "put His laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts" (Heb. viii. 10, 12).

We may see at once therefore, wherein circumcision and baptism differ; why neither remission of sins nor spiritual aid were promised to the recipients of the former; why both are promised to the recipients of the latter. Neither could belong to a covenant of works; neither could flow from their Mediator Moses. Both are parts of the covenant of grace; both flow to us from our Mediator Christ. In short, God's part in the new covenant is this: He assures to us pardon, the Spirit, life eternal. This, however, involves a response on our parts. We promise renunciation of sin, faith in the Gospel, obedience to the commands. This is the covenant between God and man, made in Christ. But God's part must come first. We cannot move a step till He gives us life. We are helpless, but in His strength. Hence God must first move to give us grace, before we can move to do Him service. He will not break His part of the covenant. He will not keep back His promise. Therefore, when we are baptized, being received into the covenant, we may be sure that God will give us, 1, pardon in Christ, 2, help through Christ: if we reject both, we shall fail of the final promise, which is, 3, eternal life. But the failure will be from us, not from Him: from our will not responding to His motions; from our spirit not yielding to the influence of His Spirit; not from a keeping back on His part of pardon or grace. All this seems to be the necessary result of the striking of a covenant, which is done at the baptismal font, between us and God.

To this view of the subject belong the questions and answers made at Baptism. The Church recounts God's promise, "to receive the person baptized, to release him of his sins, to sanctify him with the Holy Ghost, to give him the kingdom of Heaven, and everlasting life:" and adds, "which promise He, for His part, will most surely keep and perform." But then she goes on to require, that the person to be baptized (or his sureties, if he be an infant) shall respond to God's promises, by engaging to fulfil his part of the covenant, namely, to renounce the devil, to believe all the articles of the Christian faith, and obediently to keep God's commandments. This custom has existed from the very earliest times. It is mentioned by Tertullian (who wrote but a hundred years after the Apostles) as having prevailed in the Church, by immemorial tradition. The ancients very generally understood St. Peter to allude to this, in the famous passage concerning the ark of Noah (1 Pet. iii. 21). There, having spoken of the deliverance of Noah and his family from the deluge, which overwhelmed the wicked, he goes on to say, that baptism is the counterpart of (ἀντίτυπον, that which actually corresponds with and resembles) the ark. For, as the ark saved Noah, so baptism saves us. But then, lest it should appear as if he taught baptism to act as a charm or incantation, ex opere operato ("by the work itself performed"), he adds, "not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God." That is to say, the mere washing with water will not save the soul. It is the appointed ordinance for bringing the soul into the ark of the Church, into covenant with God, and therefore into a state of salvation. God's Spirit and blessing too are assured to its recipients. But, in order that it may be a truly saving ordinance, the conscience of the recipient must respond to the mercy of God; just as the catechumen is required to make answer to the interrogations then proposed to him. "The answer of a good conscience" most probably alludes to the pledge given by the baptized in reply to the questions; but it seems still farther to indicate, that as the lips then move in answer to the questions of the minister, so, if the ordinance is to be truly life-giving, the heart of the respondent must move in obedience to the grace received by it, must spring up in response to the good motions of the Spirit of God.

To return then to what was said above; God's part in the covenant is to give, (1) pardon or remission of sins, (2) the aid of the Spirit, and (3) (in the end, and our part of the covenant not being violated) eternal life. Now these are just the blessings which are not only the obvious promises of the baptismal covenant, but which moreover Scripture couples immediately with the actual rite of baptism.

1. Remission of sins is promised to the baptized.

Even John the Baptist preached "the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins" (Mark i. 4); although he constantly pointed to "One mightier than himself, who should baptize with the Holy Ghost" (Mark i. 7, 8). But Christian baptism is far more distinctly spoken of as bringing this grace with it. St. Peter told the multitude convinced by his preaching, to "repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins" (Acts ii. 38). Ananias bade Saul of Tarsus, "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins" (Acts xxii. 16). In allusion to this doctrine of God's pardoning love, assured to those who come for it in baptism, we find St. Paul mentioning, as one of the requisites for drawing near to God through our great High Priest, that we should have "our bodies washed with pure water" (Heb. x. 22). Again he tells us, that Christ cleanses the Church "by the washing of water" (Eph. v. 25, 26). And when he reminds the Corinthians of their past lives of sin and impurity, he comforts them by adding, "But ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified," &c. (1 Cor. vi. 11). In which passage, it is true, that "washed" may be to be taken figuratively; yet at least the figure is borrowed from baptism, and the more literal and obvious interpretation of it would apply it directly to baptism. In another place, we find, "the washing of regeneration" put as the correlative of justification (see Tit. iii. 5, 7). According to such words of Scripture, the Constantinopolitan Creed contains the clause, "I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins;" where, although some lay all the stress on the word "one," as intended to prohibit the iteration of baptism, yet it cannot be denied, that the words "for the remission of sins" indicate the belief of the council that that grace was annexed to baptism, a belief which the fathers of that council repeatedly have expressed in those works of theirs which have come down to us.

2. The aid of the Holy Spirit is promised to the baptized. This is the express declaration of St. Peter in the passage just quoted. "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." And lest it should be thought that this meant but the temporary, miraculous gifts of the Spirit, he continues, "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" (Acts ii. 38, 39).

It is scarcely necessary to add proofs to so plain a statement; yet we find direct evidence in the history of the Acts, that the presence of the Spirit accompanied the administration of baptism. Thus, in the case of Cornelius and his household, who had received the Holy Ghost by direct effusion from above, St. Peter immediately enjoined, that baptism should be administered to them, that the outward rite should not be wanting to whom the inward grace was already given (Acts x. 47, 48). Certain Ephesian converts had not received the Holy Ghost. St. Paul, finding this to be the case, then asked them, "Unto what they were baptized?" and they said, "Unto John's baptism." Whereupon, the Apostle enjoined them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus; and when they had been so baptized, he laid his hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost (Acts xix. 2, 6). It is probably true that, in both these instances, the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were given; yet the connection between the gift of the Spirit and the Sacrament of baptism is plainly pointed out by them; confirming the doctrine which the words of St. Peter so distinctly have laid down.

3. Eternal life is promised to the baptized.

Here indeed we must qualify the promise. Eternal life is not so much a present gift, as a future contingency. It is a treasure laid up for us; not a deposit committed to us. Both pardon and grace may be forfeited; yet they are present possessions. Heaven is not a present possession, but a promised inheritance. Still it is part of the promise of the covenant, and therefore one of the blessings of the baptized. The very commission to admit into the covenant by baptism expressed this.

The Apostles were to make disciples of (μαθητεύσατε) all nations (Matt. xxviii. 19). The Gospel was to be preached to every creature. He that so believed it as to be baptized, was to be saved; he that disbelieved and rejected it, was to be damned (Mark xvi. 15, 16). Salvation then was promised us to follow on belief and baptism; where plainly we must understand, not eternal life, but the way to life — a state of salvation. So it is said that "the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved" (τοὺς σωζομένους): the Lord, that is, brought into His Church by baptism all those who were being saved, or placed in the way of salvation. And so St. Peter says, that, like the ark of Noah, "baptism doth now save us" (1 Pet. iii. 21). In all such passages (and many might be added looking the same way) baptism is declared to be a saving ordinance: salvation appears to be attached to it. Yet it is evident, from the whole tenor of Scripture, that the title to such salvation is defeasible; that the promise of eternal life, though sure on God's part, may be made of none effect by us; so that, "a promise being left us of entering into His rest, we may come short of it."

Yet thus we see that, as we are admitted to covenant by baptism, so baptism has the promise, 1, of pardon; 2, of spiritual aid; 3, of everlasting life.

III. The Ark then, into which we are thus admitted by baptism, is the Church. The Church is the great company of baptized Christians, the number of those who are within the covenant.

Here we have another relation to consider; the baptized not only embraces the covenant, but he is formally grafted into the Church. Now the Church in Scripture is called, 1, the Body of Christ; 2, the Household or Family of God; 3, the Kingdom of Heaven.

1. Christians therefore by baptism are made members of the Body of Christ.

St. Paul tells us, that the Church is one Body of which Christ is the Head, and all Christians the different members (1 Cor. vi. 15, xii. 12–27. Eph. iv. 15, 16. Col. ii. 19). "Ye," he says, addressing the whole Church of Corinth, "are the Body of Christ, and members in particular" (1 Cor. xii. 27). And he shows us how we become members of that Body, when he says, "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body" (1 Cor. xii. 13). By a very similar figure our Lord calls Himself the Vine, and His disciples the branches; and as St. Paul tells us that the Body of the Church derives strength and vigour from the Head (Eph. iv. 16), so our Lord says that the branches of the Vine derive life and nourishment from the Vine (John xv. 1–8). Yet it is plain enough that, in both the Lord's and His Apostle's teaching, it is not meant that none but the devout believer can be a member of Christ; for St. Paul reasons with the Corinthians against causing divisions in the one Body, and so losing the blessing of belonging to it (1 Cor. xii.) and against making their bodies, which are members of Christ, to become members of an harlot, and so liable to be destroyed (1 Cor. vi. 18–20). And our blessed Lord explains to His hearers, that those branches of the true Vine which do not bear fruit, or do not abide in Him, shall be cast forth and withered and burned (John xv. 2, 6).

Another expression of Holy Scripture, concerning the union of the Christian to his Saviour, is especially applied by St. Paul to baptism: "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ," (Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε, put on Christ as a garment). And again, referring to his favourite figure of the Head and the Body, he tells the Christian Church that they are complete, "in Him, which is the Head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands" .... "buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead" (Col. ii. 10–12. Comp. Rom. vi. 3, 4).

On such authority it is that the Church has ever taught its children to say, that in baptism they were made "members of Christ;" that is, members of that mystical Body of which Christ is the Head, and to which He communicates grace and strength, as the head communicates vigour to the body, or the vine sends forth life and strength into its several branches.

The question, which has been raised, whether this union be real and vital, or merely formal and federal, seems altogether inadmissible. It is plainly real and life-giving, except the fault of the individual renders it ineffectual. The branch grafted into the Vine is really united to it; yet it may fail of deriving life from it. Though it die, it will still be a dead branch. Then, indeed, it may be, that its attachment to the Vine cannot be strictly called vital union. Yet all the language of our Lord and of St. Paul shows, that the members of Christ, the branches of the Vine, are really privileged to draw life and strength from Him, and may surely receive that life and strength, unless they reject or disregard it. (See John xv. 4. Eph. iv. 16, 17. Col. ii. 18, 19). If they reject or disregard it, they will then, but by their own fault, lose the benefit of membership, and in the end be cut off (John xv. 6).

2. The Church is also called the Household or Family of God (Gal. vi. 10. Eph. ii. 19; iii. 15).

Accordingly, when persons are baptized into the faith of Christ, they are said to be made children of God; and that, by right of their union with Christ, who is the true only-begotten Son of God. Thus the Apostle tells us, that all who have embraced the faith of the Gospel are made children of God; because they put on Christ in baptism. "Ye are all the children of God by the faith in Jesus Christ (διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ): for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ" (Gal. iii. 26, 27. Compare iv. 5).

Hence the Church says, that in baptism we are made, not only "members of Christ," but also "children of God." Baptism is the seal of our adoption. We are brought into God's family, God's household, the Church; and thus "to all, who receive Him, does Christ give power to become the sons of God" (John i. 12). Yet here again we must make the same reservation. Though the baptized have a covenanted title to be God's children, and hence are permitted to approach Him as their Father; there is nothing which says that they shall not be prodigals, that they shall not even "go astray from the womb," and so lose all the privileges and blessings of sonship. As there may be an union to the true Vine, which, because the branch draws not its own nourishment, ends in cutting off and casting into the fire; so there may be a sonship, which leads only to disinheriting.

If the privileges vouchsafed in baptism be profited by, the sonship will be real, living, lasting. If the privileges be neglected or despised, the sonship will become but nominal, and to be done away. For, "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they" only are the true "sons of God" (Rom. viii. 14). "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother" (1 John iii. 10).

3. The Church is called a kingdom, "the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. iii. 2; v. 19, &c. &c.) It is the spiritual reign of Christ upon earth; the Israel, of which He is the King.

Accordingly, all Christians by baptism are admitted into the earthly kingdom of Christ; and "except a man be born again of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into this kingdom" (John iii. 5). The baptized then are the subjects of Christ here. They may prove rebellious subjects, and so be cast out of the kingdom, but still they are enrolled among His subjects; and if they are faithful, they shall continue His subjects in the eternal kingdom of His glory.

Nay! this right results to them from another title, namely, that they are sons. "If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom. viii. 17). And so the Church, having taught us that we are "children of God," teaches us also, that we are "inheritors of the kingdom of heaven." We are "begotten again to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us" (1 Pet. i. 3, 4). Yet heirs may be disinherited. The inheritance is sure; but the heirs may be prodigal. And, as the branch may wither, and the child may be an outcast, so the heir may be cut off, and the inheritance never be attained.

4. There is one more character of the Church to which we may refer, namely, that it is set apart to be a temple of the Spirit of God.

St. Paul describes the whole Church as "fitly framed together, growing into an holy temple in the Lord;" and speaks of individual Christians, as "builded together" in it, so that the whole should become "an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. ii. 21, 22. Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 5). So again, he calls the whole Corinthian Church "the temple of the living God" (2 Cor. vi. 16). Hence the individual Christian, when brought into the Church, becomes a portion of that sacred building, which is consecrated for the Spirit to dwell in.

But moreover, St. Paul speaks of Christians as in like manner set apart to be individually God's temples; and urges this upon them, as a motive why they should keep their bodies holy, and not pollute them with sin; lest they should defile the temple of God, and be destroyed for desecrating so sacred an abode. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy: for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17). "Flee fornication. . . . What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" &c. (1 Cor. vi. 18, 19).

This seems to teach us, that, as the whole Church is God's temple, so every member of the Church is consecrated to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, — as a member of Christ, so a temple of the Spirit. But, as unholiness will defile the member of Christ, and spoil the blessedness of membership, so sin will pollute the temple of God, and bring destruction, rather than salvation, on such as walk after the flesh, not after the Spirit. The Holy Ghost, if not repelled, will come and dwell with, and sanctify every member of the Church; but if dishonoured, not only may He take His flight, but the guilt will be aggravated by the holiness of the heavenly Visitor, thus driven from His dwelling-place.

IV. We come, lastly, to speak of what has been most commonly called the special grace of baptism, namely, Regeneration or the new birth.

We have indeed anticipated the consideration of this already. If by baptism we are all made "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," then are we new-born in baptism; for therein we are joined to Christ, cut out of the wild olive-tree, and grafted into the good tree, born into the Church, into the family of God, as children of our Father which is in heaven. Moreover, if then the Spirit of God becomes our assured guest and present help, the first germ of spiritual life must be ours: and this is all that is meant by new birth.

The theology of later days, among the Zuinglians and Calvinists, but still more among the Arminians, has attached a different sense to regeneration; identifying it with conversion or renovation, and denying its existence, except in such persons as attain to a state of true sanctification. Enough has already been said in the way of definition. It is merely needful here to show, that as Scripture assigns certain graces to baptism, so it speaks of those graces under the name of regeneration. In John iii. our Lord especially seems to refer to the Jewish language concerning the baptism of proselytes. Of them the Jews were wont to say, that at their baptism they were born anew, and had entered on a new life. So our Lord says of proselytes to the Gospel or Kingdom, that "except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (ver. 5). And when Nicodemus expresses his astonishment, our Lord says, "Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?" (ver. 10): as though the language of his own nation and of the masters in it might have taught him some understanding of the words of Christ. The Calvinistic divines have followed the Zuinglians, in denying that baptism is here alluded to at all. They think, that, by "water and the Spirit," we must understand only "the Spirit which washes as with water." But it is a strong argument against this interpretation, which is brought by Hooker, and was before him admitted by Zuingle, that "of all the ancients there is not one to be named, that ever did otherwise expound or allege the place than of external baptism." "When the letter of the law hath two things plainly and expressly specified, water and the Spirit; water, as a duty required on our parts, the Spirit, as a gift which God bestoweth; there is danger in presuming so to interpret it, as if the clause which concerneth ourselves were more than needeth. We may by such rare expositions attain perhaps to be thought witty, but with ill advice."

Confirmatory of the meaning of these words of our Lord is that expression of St. Paul where he speaks of us as "saved by the washing of regeneration," λούτρον παλιγγενεσίας, (Tit. iii. 5); a passage which, like the last, the whole ancient Church understood of the laver of baptism.

So much has been said already concerning our becoming children of God, clothed in Christ, and members of Christ, — concerning our being buried with Christ and rising again with Him, — concerning our being baptized into the Church by the Spirit of God, (see Gal. iii. 26, 27. Rom. vi. 4. Col. ii. 12. 1 Cor. xii. 13), all bearing on the subject of our new birth, that it is scarcely necessary to do more than again refer to such expressions here, in confirmation of the just cited passages, which distinctly speak of being born again in baptism.

I have purposely delayed this part of the subject to the last; because here we meet with the chief difficulty and the greatest diversity of opinions. Many, who perhaps will concede that baptism admits to covenant with God and to the Church of Christ, and therefore to a participation in the blessings of the covenant, namely, remission of sins, the aid of the Spirit, and the promise of eternal life, will yet refuse to call these blessings by the name of regeneration. To them that name bears a deeper signification. It implies renovation of the whole man, or, in the school-language, an infused habit of grace. We so naturally identify the thing signified with the name by which we have been used to signify it, that we almost as readily part with a truth, as with the word by which we have known that truth. It is like the name of one dear to us, dear almost as the bearer of that name.

At all events, then, let us understand, that it is the word in which the difference lies, rather than the substance. Let us remember, that regeneration is itself a figure of speech. I do not mean, that the birth of the Spirit is an unreality. God forbid! it is as real as, if not more real than, natural birth. But when we call it a birth, or regeneration, we adopt natural images to express spiritual truths. In figures there is always a likeness, but not an identity, between the image and that which it represents. Now the term or figure, regeneration, has been applied in various languages to many things. We saw that the Jews applied it to the manumission of a slave, to the conversion and reception into their Church of a proselyte. Heathens too have used like terms, to express initiation into their mysteries, and the like. But it is obvious, that a much greater change than any of these takes place in the condition of a person who is grafted into the Christian Church, pardoned of his sins, and with the grace of the Spirit bestowed to quicken him. And hence, with great propriety, such a person may be said to be new-born. However, the fathers often used glowing terms of the blessings thus given to the baptized; so that it might be easy to suppose that with them regeneration signified far more than this, and involved of a certainty newness of life and sanctification of heart. The schoolmen followed to its consequences the language which had been used by their predecessors; making it to include an entire eradication of original corruption, and an infused habit of holiness in the heart. Thus the term "regeneration" came to signify far more than its original force implied; and hence Zuingle, and after him the Calvinists, and still more strongly the Arminians, adopting the scholastic view of regeneration, saw clearly that such an extent of grace was not the grace of baptism, and were so led to deny that regeneration took place in baptism at all, and to assign it to a different, and generally subsequent, period of life.

No little difficulty again may probably have arisen from want of observing that the figure, regeneration, may not unreasonably have a twofold significance. For first, it may be used of the time when the new-creating grace is bestowed upon us, secondly, it may be applied to the hearty reception of that grace by the subject of it, and to the springing up and growth of it in his heart and life. So, the person baptized may be said to be new-born, because the quickening Spirit is given to him; and yet, afterwards, the same person may be called unregenerate, because the life of the Spirit (rejected and uncultivated) has never grown up in him. This we have already seen in the language of St. Paul. In one place he says, we are all made children of God by being baptized into the faith of Christ (Gal. iii. 26, 27). In another, that only they can truly be called sons of God, who are led by the Spirit of God (Rom. viii. 14).

Does not the very same reasoning explain the often objected language of St. John? He it is who records the discourse in which the Lord Jesus tells us that a man must "be born again of water and of the Spirit," — a passage which all antiquity expounded of the new birth of baptism. Yet he too tells us, that "he who is born of God sinneth not" (1 John iii. 9); and that faith is the evidence of new birth; for that "he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" (1 John v. 1). He too tells us, that in "this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother" (1 John iii. 10). The distinction between the one and the other set of passages seems still the same — the distinction namely between the germ and the expanded blossom — between the principle calculated to produce holiness, and the actual renewal and sanctification of the heart.

We may add, that the different objects in view in the different passages explain the difference in the use of terms. Our Lord was instructing Nicodemus how a man must first come to Him and be admitted into His kingdom; and so He points out to him baptism by water, to be accompanied by its covenanted grace of God's Holy Spirit. St. John, on the contrary, was plainly combating the errors of certain heretics, who prided themselves on their Gnosis or illumination, and who claimed to be born of God, though neglecting holiness and the fruits of the Spirit. The Apostle therefore tells them, that real new birth showed itself in a renewal of the heart, that a sound faith and an active obedience manifested the true sons of God, and that to pretend to know God, and yet not to keep His commandments, was to act the part of a liar and dissembler (1 John ii. 3, 4, 6, 22; iii. 7–10, 24; iv. 2; v. 1, 2, 4).

It is said, probably with justice, that the past tenses, used by St. John, show that he meant to speak, not only of those who had once been regenerate, but of those who yet retained their new life of the Spirit, and had not fallen away from it by sin. Yet it seems to me, that, apart from all questions of grammatical nicety, it may be correct enough to admit the doctrine of regeneration in baptism, in the acceptation already expounded; and yet, to say that regenerate Christians, true children of God, live a life of faith, overcome the world, and keep themselves by the Spirit from the commission of wilful sin. And this will exactly explain the language of St. John: and will furnish an unfailing key to those passages which seem to differ with each other, because some speak of us as born anew in baptism, whilst others deny the grace of regeneration to any but such as walk after the Spirit, and live the life of the Spirit.

V. Some objections considered.

The chief objections which have been made to the statements of the Church concerning baptismal grace, apply to an imaginary view of the subject, rather than to that stated in the foregoing pages.

1. On the hypothesis that "regeneration" always means a real change or renovation of the moral character, a conversion of the heart from sin to godliness, it is urged that such grace cannot be given in baptism. As a matter of fact, we see a large proportion of baptized infants growing up with no sign that their natural corruption has been subdued, and a new heart created within them. If all the change, that is to be looked for in our souls, be such as we see daily exhibited in the life of the baptized, then we must sadly dilute and explain away the language of the Scriptures concerning the new birth, the new creation, the regenerate and converted soul. The belief that this language applies merely to what takes place in baptism, is calculated to lower our standard of Christian holiness and our estimate of the effects of the operations of the Spirit. In our actual experience we know that many mere formalists have taken shelter under the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, satisfied to believe that all the necessary change had passed upon them then, and that they need look for no more.

I am fully prepared to go all lengths with those who would protest against such mere heartless formalism as this. But such protest applies to a totally different view of the doctrine of baptism from that which has been taken above. It is a most important truth that, if we would enter into the kingdom, we must undergo a great moral change of heart and nature; and it is most true, that many have grown up from baptism, and gone down to the grave, without ever undergoing such a change. Such (as has been already observed) are practically unregenerate. Still they may have had given them all the grace which has been above defined to be the grace of baptism. Yet, though God made good His promise, they may never have embraced it. He may, at baptism, have received them to His Church and favour, and have bestowed on them the grace of His Spirit. Yet they may never have responded to the grace, never have yielded to the influence, and so never have profited by the aid of the Spirit. Though grafted into the Vine, they drew no life from it. They were dead branches, and in the end were to be burned.

Still the grace which they derived from their baptism may be correctly called regeneration; because, if it had been accepted, instead of being rejected, it would have gone on springing up in them, as a well of life. The new creation, like the natural creation, is progressive. Strong men are first helpless infants. A particular period must be fixed, as the moment of birth. None can be so truly pointed out, as that when first by covenant the Spirit is given, and the soul is counted in Christ, and not in Adam. Now that period is baptism. It is the starting-post of the Christian race; the seed-time of spiritual growth; the moment when the Spirit of God breathes into the nostrils the breath of life. Yet it by no means is meant, that the race always is run, because he who should run it is at the starting-post; nor that the seed grows up, because it is then sown; nor even that the infant quickens into life, because God's Spirit is there to kindle it. And if it be so, still it is but the first beginning of life. The new creation goes on through life. It is first the seed, then the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear (Mark iv. 28). Thus Luther, whilst admirably stating his views of baptismal grace, observes, that the grace of baptism is not a thing transient and confined to the moment, but which, if cultivated, remains and renovates through the whole course of life.

If then a person has been baptized, but still remains with his carnal nature unrenewed; we are not to conclude that God was unfaithful, though the man has been unfruitful. But we are still to look upon that person as practically unregenerate; and we ought to try to bring him to conversion of heart, to a real change of soul and spirit. We may indeed still hope, that God's Spirit, promised in baptism, will be ever ready to aid him, when he does not continue obstinately to resist. But we must look, that "Christ should again be formed in him," — that he should "be converted and become as a little child," before we can pronounce that he is a true son of God. It has been the custom of the Church to call such a change, when wrought after baptism, not regeneration, but conversion or renewal; but the practical effect is the same: namely, that at conversion that change is really and practically wrought upon the soul, which actually was not produced at baptism, but which, except for his own fault, would have been wrought by the Spirit assured to the baptized.

2. Another objection is drawn from the Calvinistic scheme. Baptismal grace is supposed to contradict the doctrine of final perseverance. The Calvinistic scheme teaches, that grace is always irresistible, and that grace once given always abides. The soul once in a state of grace, is always in a state of grace. If therefore grace was given at baptism, it can never fail.

The most rigid form of Calvinism might make this inevitable. Yet very high predestinarians have thought otherwise. Augustine held that persons might be predestinated to grace, but not to perseverance; nay, that they might be ordained to persevere for a time, yet not to the end. Calvin himself does not seem to have held his doctrine of perseverance so rigidly as to make it impossible that God should give some degree of aid to such as reject it. At all events, many, who have followed him a great way in his predestinarianism, have believed that grace might be given in baptism, yet rejected and forfeited by sin. Of such was our own Hooker, and many other of our most eminent divines. It has been already shown, that the more extreme and exaggerated forms of the doctrine of final perseverance are not sanctioned by our own formularies, nor, it is believed, by the word of God. (See Art. XVI.)

3. A third objection is, that all the promises of God are to faith; that it is by faith we embrace Christ, and through faith receive the Spirit of God; that therefore to make baptism the means of receiving grace, is to put it in the place of faith.

It is undoubtedly true that an adult should not come to baptism without faith; and that, if he comes in an unbelieving spirit, he cannot expect to find grace in the Sacrament. But the objection, to the extent to which it has been urged, would magnify the office of faith beyond all reason, and utterly beside the teaching of Scripture. It cannot be that faith is requisite before any grace can be given; for it is quite certain, that there can be no faith unless grace has first been given to generate faith. Otherwise we are inevitably Pelagians. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." Therefore, it is quite clear, that there must be some quickening from the Spirit, before there can be any faith. To magnify faith, so as to make it essential to the first reception of grace, is to take away "the free gift of God." If God cannot give till we believe, His gift is not free, coming down from the bounty of Him "who giveth liberally and upbraideth not," but is attracted (that we say not merited) by our faith.

Besides, this would go near to damn all infants. They cannot have faith. Yet unless they be regenerated, they are not within the promise of eternal life (John iii. 3, 5). This is Calvin's argument against impugners of infant baptism. Infants, he contends, must be capable of regeneration, though they are not capable of faith; else they could not receive purgation from innate corruption. "How," ask they, "can infants be regenerate who know neither good nor evil?" We reply, "God's work is not of none effect, though not down to our understanding. It is clear, that infants who are saved, must first be regenerate. For, if they bear a corrupt nature from their mother's womb, they must be purged of it before entering God's kingdom, where nothing entereth, polluted, or defiled."

Luther, who of all men spoke most earnestly of the importance of faith and its office in justifying, uses still stronger language in condemnation of this opinion. He complains, that Papists and Anabaptists conspire together against the Church of God, "making God's work to hinge on man's worthiness. For so the Anabaptists teach, that baptism is nothing, unless the person baptized be believing. From such a principle," he says, "it needs must follow that all God's works are nothing, unless the recipient be good. Baptism is the work of God; but a bad man maketh that it is not the work of God." We may add, though not subscribe to, his vehement conclusion, "Who sees not in such Anabaptists, not men possessed, but demons possessed by worse demons?"

4. A fourth objection is as follows. In the case of adults it is admitted that baptismal grace will not be bestowed on such recipients as come in an unbelieving and impenitent spirit. But if there be already repentance and faith, there must be already regeneration, and therefore regeneration cannot be given in baptism.

Here again the misunderstanding results from difference of definition. The Church calls the grace of baptism by the name of regeneration, for reasons already specified; but she does not deny that God may work in the souls of men previously to their baptism; nay! she does not deny that there may be true spiritual life in them before baptism. But that spiritual life she does not call the new birth, till it is manifested in the Sacrament of regeneration. We must remember that the terms new birth and regeneration are images borrowed from natural objects, and applied to spiritual objects. In nature, we believe life to exist in the infant before it is born, — life too of the same kind as its life after birth. Nay! if there be no life before it is born, there will be none after it is born. So, the unbaptized may not be altogether destitute of spiritual life; yet the actual birth may be considered as taking place at baptism; when there is not only life, but life apparent, life proclaimed to the world; when the soul receives the seal of adoption, is counted in the family of God, and not only partakes of God's grace and mercy, but has a covenanted assurance and title to it.

5. One more objection we may notice. It is said that Sacraments and all outward ordinances are but the husk and shell: the life of God in the soul is the kernel and valuable part of religion. Let us regard the latter, and then we may throw the former away.

But we may reply, that He who has made the kernel, has made too the husk and the shell. In the natural creation, He has ordered that no seed shall grow to maturity if the husk and shell are untimely stripped off from it. If we have a treasure in earthen vessels, we may not rashly break the vessels, lest the treasure be lost. In God's kingdom of nature, he has created for man a body as well as a spirit; we must not think to insure the life of the spirit by disregarding and despising the body. Such conduct seems precisely that of Naaman the Syrian, who refused to bathe in the waters of Jordan, as seeing no natural virtue in them to heal his leprosy. But had he persisted in his refusal, he would have returned to Syria a leper as he came. It was not the waters of Jordan that healed him: it is not the water of baptism which heals us. But God appointed both them and it; and to despise His appointment may be to forfeit His grace.

6. There is indeed one difficulty which I cannot solve, which Scripture has not solved. How is it, that if God's Spirit is given to every infant baptized, some profit by the gift, and others profit not? It cannot be that God is faithful to His promise in one case and not in others. Nor again, can we believe that there is some inherent merit and excellence in the one child, but not in the other. This is one of the deep things of God, — of the secret things which belong to the Lord our God. Why one heart responds to the calls of grace, one steadily resists them, we inquire in vain. If we gain a step in the inquiry, we only find a new inquiry beyond it. The Calvinistic theory cuts the knot; but it leaves harder knots uncut. It is safer to admit the difficulty, — to acknowledge the impotence of our own intellects to disentangle it, — and humbly to rest satisfied with adoring, reverent, trusting, patient faith. We may feel assured concerning our God, that, though clouds and darkness are round about Him, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His seat.

Section III. — HISTORY

It has generally been considered, that on the doctrine of baptismal grace the testimony of primitive antiquity is more than ordinarily clear, uniform, and consentient. A very high esteem of the Sacraments pervades the writings of all the fathers, and is especially apparent in their respect for baptism. The controversies of later days, of course, had never arisen. Many of the early writers were rather eloquent rhetoricians, than accurate reasoners. We may therefore expect to find extreme and exaggerated statements. Yet such language (allow what you will for it) is the index to something more solid than itself. It would never have been used concerning things of little moment, or low estimation.

The most obvious example of this is to be found in the fact, that the fathers ordinarily call the Sacraments themselves by the name of the grace of the Sacraments. Thus baptism is perpetually called regeneration or illumination; not the Sacrament of regeneration, but simply regeneration. So the Eucharist is called the Body and Blood of Christ. And again, to be regenerated is used for to be baptized. All this is without qualification. And if these expressions stood alone, we should naturally infer that the primitive Christians believed the grace of the Sacraments to be inseparably tied to the Sacraments, and to be wrought by them ex opere operato ("by the work itself performed"). Happily, however, abundant testimonies exist, to prove that they esteemed unworthy recipients partakers of the Sacrament, but not partakers of its life-giving power. This has already appeared by what was said on the subject under Article XXV. It is very difficult to convey a correct impression of the teaching of four or five centuries on such a subject as this, by the quotation of a few isolated passages. I will endeavour to exhibit it, as well and as honestly as I can, in the small space which must necessarily be allotted to it. And, I believe, we shall see every reason to conclude that the fathers held that conversion of heart did not accompany baptism, when unworthily received, or not duly profited by; but that they did hold that remission of sins and the grace of the Spirit were promised to accompany baptism, and that that grace, if yielded to and cultivated, would regenerate and new create the soul. Hence, they assigned the name of regeneration to the Sacrament to which regenerating grace was promised; and sometimes, no doubt, they spoke as if regeneration were tied to that Sacrament. Yet still we shall see that, when they explained themselves accurately, it always appeared that the Sacrament did not work ex opere operato; but that the effect was to be attributed to God's Spirit acting, according to covenant, on the soul, when the soul did not harden itself against His grace.

We may remember then, that Ignatius calls baptism the Christian's arms, meaning probably, that, as the Christian at baptism enlists as Christ's soldier, so then he is furnished with armour from above to fight in His service. We may remember also the strong statement of Barnabas, or the writer under his name: "We descend into the water full of sins and pollutions, and ascend out of it full of good fruits." So Hermas speaks of our "life being saved by water;" and again he says, "Before a man receives the Name of the Son of God, he is destined to death; but when he receives that seal, he is freed from death, and delivered to life. That seal is water, into which men descend bound over to death, but ascend out of it assigned to life." Justin Martyr, professing to give to the heathen emperors an account of the Sacraments and ordinances of the Christian Church, thus describes to them the rite of baptism: "As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach is true, and undertake to lead lives agreeable to the same, are brought by us to a place where there is water, and are regenerated, after the same manner of regeneration in which we ourselves were regenerated; for they are washed in the water, in the name of the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost." The reason of this, he says, is that, as in our first birth we, without our own knowledge, and of necessity, were born in sin, "so we should no longer remain children of necessity and ignorance, but become children of choice and knowledge, and should receive in the water remission of all our former sins."

Irenæus, in like manner, puts regeneration as a synonyme of baptism, — "baptism, which is regeneration to God." So, when speaking of the commission given by our Lord to baptize, he says, "Committing to His disciples the power of regeneration, He said to them, Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them," &c. Accordingly, he speaks of infants as born anew by Christ to God. Yet, on the other hand, he appears not to have esteemed the mere reception of baptism as a proof that there would be newness of life. It was the Sacrament of regeneration, but it would be life-giving, only if its grace was cultivated, and so productive of faith. Therefore he describes the Christian as by nature like a wild olive-branch, which is grafted into a good olive; not losing the nature of the flesh, but suffering a transmutation from the carnal to the spiritual man. But the good olive, neglected, becomes wild; so the negligent Christian ceases to be fruitful, and returns to his old condition of a mere natural man. He, who does not by faith obtain and keep the grafting in of the Spirit, will be but flesh and blood, not capable of inheriting the kingdom of God.

In the time of Irenæus some Gnostic heretics had rejected Sacraments on the ground that they were material, and that all matter was impure. Soon after, we find Tertullian ascribing this error to the Cainites. Against them he wrote his treatise De Baptismo. He begins it thus: "Happy the Sacrament of our water, whereby being cleansed from the sins of our former blindness we are made free unto eternal life! . . . . We, as lesser fish, after our ΙΧΘΥΣ, Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor are we safe, except we abide in the water." "Water first brought forth that which had life; so that there may be no wonder if in baptism the waters should be life-giving." "Thus the nature of water, sanctified by the Holy One, itself also received the power of sanctifying." "Wherefore all waters obtain, after prayer to God, the Sacrament of sanctification. For the Spirit straightway cometh down from the Heavens above, and is over the waters, sanctifying them from Himself; and they so sanctified acquire the power of sanctifying." He shortly afterwards explains his belief, that the Spirit is not given in the water, but that in the water the angel cleanses and purifies, and prepares for the Holy Spirit, to be given in the imposition of hands, which anciently formed a part of the baptismal ordinance. So, speaking of water flowing from the Rock, he says, "If that Rock was Christ, without doubt we see baptism blessed by the water in Christ. How great is the grace of water for the confirmation of baptism before God and His Christ! Never is Christ without water, forasmuch as He Himself is washed in water." Again he calls baptism "the most holy laver of new birth;" and declares that none can be saved without baptism.

Yet, on the other hand, very strong as these expressions appear, we must judge that Tertullian did not teach the opus operatum; for we find him exhorting the candidates for baptism to prepare for it with the most earnest and frequent prayers, fastings, and watchings, and with confession of all past sins; evidently, that they might not miss the grace to be expected in it. And to unworthy receivers he believed that the Sacrament would be, not the fountain of life, but the sign of death.

The doctrine of Clement, Tertullian's great contemporary at Alexandria, and of Clement's still more illustrious pupil and successor, Origen, seems to have been just the same. "The Pædagogue," i. e. Christ, says St. Clement, "forms man from the dust, regenerates him with water, gives him increase by the Spirit, and instructs him by the Word." "Being baptized, we are illuminated; being illuminated, we are adopted as sons; being adopted, we are perfected; being perfect, we are rendered immortal . . . . This work (i. e. baptism) is called by many names, grace, illumination, that which is perfect, and the laver. Laver, because by it we are washed from sins; grace, because the punishment due to our sins is remitted; illumination, because by it we see that holy and saving light, i. e. by it we are clear-sighted to behold the Divine; that which is perfect, for what is lacking to him who knoweth God? "Our sins are remitted by one sovereign remedy, baptism according to the word (λογικῷ βαπτίσματι). We are washed from all our sins, and at once are no longer evil. This is one grace of illumination, that a man is no longer the same in manners as before he was washed. For knowledge rises along with illumination, shining around the mind; and immediately we, who were unlearned, are called learners (μαθηταί); this learning having at some former time been conferred on us; for it is not possible to name the precise time: for catechetical teaching leads to faith, and faith, at the very time of baptism, is instructed by the Spirit."

It may be remembered that, under Article XXV., Origen was quoted as saying, that some, who receive baptism unworthily, receive not the Spirit of God with it; as Simon Magus, "not being baptized to salvation, received water, but not the Spirit of God." Yet Origen distinctly asserted that baptism was ordained for remission of sins and spiritual regeneration. "Children," says he, "are baptized for the remission of sins . . . . By the sacrament of baptism the uncleanness of our birth is put away; and therefore even infants are baptized . . . . In the regeneration of baptism, the Sacrament is received, that, as Jesus, according to the dispensation of the flesh, was purified after His birth by an oblation, so we should be purified by spiritual regeneration." We have already spoken of the error, into which Origen fell, of believing that deadly sin after baptism was the sin against the Holy Ghost. Such a notion would have been impossible, had not a very high esteem of the blessings of baptism been prevalent when he wrote.

This brings us to the age of Cyprian. Thenceforth it would be far easier to convict the fathers of holding the opus operatum, than of doubting that grace was given in baptism. Cyprian himself says, "All who come to the Divine laver, by the sanctification of baptism put off the old man by grace of the saving laver, and being renewed by the Holy Spirit, are purged of the filth of the old contagion by a second birth." "Thence begins the origin of all faith, and a salutary entrance to hope of eternal life." His own experience of the blessings of baptism he sets forth in the enthusiastic language of a young convert. We perhaps need not attribute very much weight to such a glowing picture; for the passage was written soon after his baptism; and Augustine has expressed his opinion, that it was in the taste of a young writer, not of a matured divine. Cyprian appears to have followed Tertullian in considering chrism, or the imposition of hands, essential to the completion of the grace of baptism.

From Cyprian we may pass to the great Athanasius. A few words will express his doctrine. "He who is baptized, puts off the old man, and is renewed, being born again of the grace of the Spirit."

It is natural, on this subject, to turn with much interest to the works of St. Cyril of Jerusalem; whose Catechetical Lectures were addressed to catechumens preparing for baptism. His prefatory lecture sets forth at once the great blessings of baptismal grace, and the great need of duly preparing the mind of the adult recipient, lest by unbelief or hypocrisy he should miss the benefit. To those who were training for it he says, that already "the savour of blessedness was upon them, and they were gathering spiritual flowers, to wreathe heavenly crowns. The blossoms of the trees have budded; may the fruit be brought to perfection." But he adds, that an honest intention was necessary to blessing; "for though the body be present, yet if the mind be absent, it is of no avail." He then goes on to speak of Simon Magus, as brought to baptism, but not enlightened; "dipping his body in the water, but not permitting the Spirit to illuminate him." He therefore bids his catechumen to look, "not on the bare water, but to salvation from the working of the Spirit." The blessings, however, of the Sacrament, if duly accepted, he rates at the highest value. "Great is the baptism which is set before you. Liberty to the captives; remission of sins; death of sins; regeneration of the soul; garment of light; holy seal, indissoluble; chariot to heaven; delight of Paradise; procuring for us the kingdom; the free gift of the adoption of sons." "Jesus sanctified baptism by being Himself baptized." "By baptism the sting of death is destroyed." "Thou descendest into the waters dead in sins; thou risest again quickened in righteousness."

Gregory Nazianzen sums up the blessings of baptism in words which bear a striking resemblance to those above quoted from Cyril. "Baptism (τὸ φώτισμα) is the splendour of souls, the change of life, the answer of the conscience to God. It is the aid of our infirmity, the putting off of the flesh, the following the Spirit, the participation of the word, the correction of images (πλασμάτων ἐπανόρθωσις), the drowning of sin, the participation of light, the destruction of darkness, the chariot of God, the travelling with Christ, the confirmation of faith, the perfecting of the mind, the key of the kingdom, the change of life, the destruction of slavery, the loosing of chains, the conversion of the constitution (συνθέσεως μεταποίησις), the most beautiful and glorious of the gifts of God . . . . It is illumination, more holy than all other illuminations . . . . It is called gift, charisma, baptism, unction, illumination, the clothing of incorruption, the bath of regeneration, the seal," &c. &c. Elsewhere he speaks, like Cyril, of the need of diligent preparation, and counsels: "Let the laver wash, not thy body only, but thine image." And, in one place, he seems to consider, that all the graces of baptism might possibly, though not probably, be given before the reception of the Sacrament, to which the Sacrament itself would then be the seal; for of his sister Gorgonia he says, that "to her almost alone baptism was not the gift of grace, but the seal only."

St. Ambrose in the West, contemporary with St. Gregory in the East, calls the dividing of the waters of Jordan by Elijah (whereby some of the water must have flowed back to its source) "a type of the Sacrament of salutary laver; by which infants, who have been baptized, are reformed from a state of wretchedness, to the primitive state, in which they were created."

One word more from St. Chrysostom. Comparing God's pardon to us with the pardon granted to criminals by earthly rulers, he says, that, if kings were to pardon, and even to invest their offending subjects with their own royalty, they still could not free them from their sins. "It is God only who does this; which He will accomplish in the laver of regeneration. For His grace touches the soul, and eradicates its sins" . . . . "As when iron or gold is recast, it is made pure and new again; so the Holy Spirit, recasting the soul in baptism, as in a furnace, consumes its sins, and makes it shine with more purity than the purest gold."

If we stopped here, might we not conclude, that the fathers uno ore affirm that baptism, rightly administered and duly received, is an ordinance appointed by God, in which He promises to receive the sinner to Himself, to give Him for Christ's sake pardon of his sins, and to bestow upon him the gift of the Spirit? And, although some rhetorical language may obscure their meaning, is it not yet clear, that this grace is not to be looked for from baptism, as though it worked as a charm, but that baptism is to be diligently prepared for, and its grace made use of; and that the unbelieving and the hypocrite may receive the water without receiving the Spirit of God, enhancing his condemnation, rather than obtaining remission of his sins?

We have yet to consider the views of St. Augustine. No one speaks more fully, no one has a juster claim to be heard. Perhaps the greatest of uninspired divines, he has influenced, more than any, the opinions of all succeeding generations. The reformers especially drank deeply from the fountain of his thoughts. He writes, not with the rhetoric of an orator, but with the logic of a thoughtful reasoner, and yet with the eloquence of an earnest and devoted Christian.

His predestinarian sentiments may, doubtless, have affected his views of baptismal grace. It has been asserted that, in one point only, he materially differed from Calvin. Both believed that God's predestination was irrespective of individuals, and to eternal life. But Calvin held, that once regenerate a person could never finally fall; and so taught that none but those elect to glory could receive regeneration in baptism. Augustine, on the contrary, held that all infants are regenerate in baptism; and therefore, that the regenerate may fall away. It has, however, been said that this difference is not real, but apparent only; for that, by regeneration Calvin meant a moral change of disposition, but Augustine meant only a beneficial federal change of relative condition.

If we remember what was said of Augustine's predestinarianism (under Arts. XVI. XVII.), we shall see that this statement falls short of the truth. We there saw, that St. Augustine distinctly taught, not only that persons regenerate in baptism might finally fail of salvation, but even that persons might believe, and live for some years in a state of piety and godliness, and yet fall away and be lost. He distinguished between predestination to grace, and predestination to perseverance. He said indeed, that persons could not with the strictest propriety be called elect who had not the gift of perseverance; but yet that persons might be baptized, regenerate, believing, and for a time persevere — "that a man might live for ten years and persevere for five, and yet for the last five fall away and be lost." "We call those elect," he writes, "and Christ's disciples, and children of God, because they are to be so called, whom we see having been regenerated, living piously; but then only are they truly to be called so, if they continue in that for which they so are called." "They were then in a good state, but because they did not continue in it, i. e. did not persevere unto the end, therefore the Apostle says, they were not of us, even when they were with us, that is, they were not of the number of sons, even when they had the faith of sons." &c. He takes the case of two godly men: to one perseverance is given, to the other not. This is God's inscrutable decree (inscrutabiliora sunt judicia Dei). One, no doubt, was of the predestinated; the other, not. "Yet were not both created by God, born of Adam, made out of the earth, and received souls of like nature? Nay! had not both been called, and had followed Him that called them? Had not both been justified, though before ungodly, and both by the laver of regeneration made new creatures?" (utrique ex iniquis justificati, et per lavacrum regenerationis utrique renovati). "Whence then," he asks, "this distinction?" and he resolves it into the decree of God.

Now here is the great difference between Augustine and Calvin. Whatever the latter may have held, the former certainly did not hold, that grace inevitably leads to glory.

With respect to the meaning which Augustine attached to the term regeneration as applied to baptism, it is, perhaps, not incorrect to say that he held that it was not conversion of heart or "a moral change of disposition," but rather, "a beneficial federal change of relative condition." His own words clearly prove that he did not believe the necessary consequences of baptism to be conversion of heart, nay, that in infants conversion of heart could not be the immediate consequence of baptism. Yet we may venture to say, that he was too profound a thinker and too sound a divine to have believed that baptism admitted us into a new federal relation with God, or, in plainer words, that it brought us into a new covenant of grace, without also believing that it made us partakers of the blessings of that covenant. He could never have taught, that, under the dispensation of the Gospel, God would bring us into a covenanted relationship with Himself, thereby saddling us with fresh obligations to obey Him, without also bestowing upon us the power which would enable us to fulfil those obligations.

The view which he takes of the difference between baptized and unbaptized infants, clearly shows his high estimation of baptismal blessing. We need not herein follow his teaching, but it is quite certain that he held that all unbaptized infants, if they died in infancy, would perish everlastingly; and, on the other hand, he clearly held that if they died in infancy, having been baptized, they passed at once into eternal life. The distinction between the state of the baptized and the unbaptized infant he thus clearly marks: "In infants, born but not baptized, Adam may be recognized; in infants, born and baptized, and hence born again, Christ may be recognized." He identifies baptized with believing infants (fidelibus infantibus, id est, in Christo baptizatis); and says of them, that, "though infants, they are members of Christ, partakers of His Sacraments, that they may have in them life." When they are baptized, nothing less is done than that they are incorporated into the Church, that is, are joined to the Body and members of Christ; and this, he says, is so important, that without it they would be damned. However holy their parents may have been, they themselves cannot be free from the taint of original sin, but by baptism. But in baptism it is effected by God's grace, that all original sin is made void. Yet it is not so made void, that concupiscence is also destroyed with it, but only so that, if the child dies, it shall not operate to his destruction. If, however, the infant lives, and grows to an age of understanding and responsibility, he will have need to fight against that concupiscence, and, by God's help, he may overcome it, unless he have received God's grace in vain. Those then, who are baptized, receive remission of all their sins. Infants cannot believe, when they are baptized, nor make responses and stipulations for themselves. Therefore the response of others is sufficient for their consecration. In Cornelius, spiritual sanctification preceded the Sacrament of regeneration; but in baptized infants the Sacrament of regeneration precedes; and if they hold fast Christian piety, conversion in heart will follow, the Sacrament of which preceded in body. But how is such conversion of heart to follow? If baptism be a mere outward change, nothing in it could give hope of future conversion of heart. Accordingly, St. Augustine teaches that, "in baptized infants, though they know it not, the Spirit of God dwelleth." And again, that "a power is given them, by which, from the sons of this world, they may become the sons of God."

I believe these quotations give a faithful representation of the general teaching of St. Augustine on baptism. They are not garbled extracts; but, on the contrary, if consulted at length, will be found to give only more fully the same impression of the writer's meaning. Is it not plain then, that his meaning is, as nearly as possible, coincident with the doctrine laid down in the two preceding sections?

He teaches, that baptism is not in itself conversion of heart; and of adults he says, that a person may be baptized with water, but not born of the Spirit. In infants also, he says, that the Sacrament of regeneration precedes conversion of heart. He considers that the regeneration of baptism consists in a grafting into the Church, the body of Christ; a remission of all original sin, so that baptized infants dying in infancy are sure of salvation; and, moreover, in an assured presence of the Holy Spirit, which, if not obeyed, will profit them nothing; but which, if held fast, and not received in vain, will lead, with the opening reason, to that faith and conversion in heart, of which, in unconscious infancy, they had been incapable. Accordingly, he uses the term "child of God" in a twofold signification. At one time, he speaks of all the baptized as regenerate in Christ, and made children of God, by virtue of that Sacrament. At another time, he speaks of baptismal grace as rather enabling them to become, than as actually constituting them God's children; and says that, in the higher and stricter sense, persons are not to be called sons of God unless they have the grace of perseverance, and walk in the love of God.

It has very justly been observed, concerning this teaching of St. Augustine, that over and above the great value of his own judgment and testimony, he appeals to the uniform voice of antiquity, and declares that, in his baptismal doctrine, he proceeds upon principles which from the earliest ages have been admitted in the Church.

It is needless to trace the chain of fathers beyond St. Augustine. The scholastic discussions too may have had a sufficient interest in themselves, but we have neither need of, nor space for them here, and must at once pass to the period of the Reformation.

The Council of Trent declared that in baptism not only remission of original sin was given, but also all, which properly has the nature of sin, is cut off. In the regenerate there is nothing which God hates. Concupiscence indeed remains; but has not the nature of sin, and will never hurt those who fight against it. As a general principle, the Council decided (Sess. VII. can. VIII.), that the Sacraments confer grace ex opere operato.

Luther and the Lutheran reformers are clear and express in their assertion of baptismal grace. Luther lays great stress on Gal. iii. 27; which he says "is much to be observed against fanatical spirits, who lower the dignity of baptism, and speak impiously concerning it. St. Paul, on the contrary, adorns it with glorious titles, calling it the laver of regeneration and of the renewing of the Holy Ghost. And here, he says, all baptized persons have put on Christ; as though he would say, Ye received not by baptism a sign or watchword (tesseram), by which you were enlisted into the number of Christians, as many fanatics of our day think, who make baptism a mere watchword, i. e. a short and empty sign. 'But as many,' he says, 'as have been baptized have put on Christ,' that is, Ye have been snatched from the Law into a new nativity, which was effected in baptism. Therefore ye are no longer under the Law, but are clothed with a new garment, i. e. Christ's righteousness. St. Paul therefore teaches that baptism is not a sign, but a clothing in Christ, yea, that Christ Himself is our clothing. Wherefore baptism is a most potent and efficacious rite." "To be baptized in God's name, is not to be baptized by man, but by God. Wherefore, though it be done by man's hands, we must believe and hold that it is the work of God." "God Himself honours baptism with His Name, and confirms it with His own power (sua virtute)." "Separated from the Word, it is but water. Joined with the Word, it is Christ's Sacrament." "The effect of baptism is remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit." Some had urged, that to ascribe such blessings to baptism was to attribute salvation, not to faith, but to works. Luther replies, that one of the objects of faith, and one of those things on which faith rests, is the grace of God in baptism. Besides, baptism is not our work, but God's. On God's work we rely for salvation, not on men's. And baptism is not the work of the bather, but of God.

He denies that, in the case of infants, there is any need of faith. God's work is not rendered ineffectual, because they have no power to believe. The work of God is then begun in the soul; but the effect of baptism is a thing which remains through the whole of life. For the mortification of the body of sin, which is part of the grace proper to baptism, is a work which we are constantly to experience through life, till the sin be altogether abolished, and we rise and reign with Christ. "This life therefore is a perpetual spiritual baptism, till we die." "Baptism is the deluge of grace; as Noah's deluge was the deluge of wrath." Baptism does not take away sin. "But in it God makes a covenant with you." "Immediately from your baptism God begins to renew you. He bestows on you His Spirit, and the Spirit begins immediately to mortify your nature and sins, and so to prepare you for death and resurrection." "God pledges Himself not to impute to you the remains of sin, which still cleave to you, nor to condemn you on their account." A baptized person may therefore humbly say: "I know my works to be impure and defiled; but I am baptized, and I know that God, who cannot lie, has bound Himself to me in baptism, not to impute my sins to me, but rather to mortify them in me and abolish them." All this, however, on God's part, Luther considers to involve a corresponding obligation on ours, to use the grace so assured to us, and to mortify by its help the deeds of the body.

Zuinglius took a view the exact opposite to Luther's, on this Sacrament, as on Sacraments in general. He begins by stating, that almost all, whoever went before him, from the very times of the Apostles, have erred concerning baptism. He states his own opinion to be, that a person who is signed by the sign of baptism, promises that he will be a hearer and disciple of God, and that he will obey His laws. "If," he says, "the Sacraments were the things they signified, then could they not be signs. For the sign and the thing signified cannot be the same. Baptism therefore is the sign which binds and initiates us to Jesus Christ." "External baptism with water contributes nothing to the washing away of sin." To get rid of a difficulty which naturally presented itself, he says that "Original sin does not deserve damnation, if a person have believing parents. . . . Original sin is a disease, which yet is not blameworthy in itself, nor can bring with it the pain of damnation . . . . until a person, corrupted by its contagion, transgresses God's law; which then mostly happens, when he sees and understands that law." Accordingly, he argues for the undoubted salvation of infants, baptized or unbaptized.

Calvin, in his general view of Sacraments, was in accord neither with Luther nor Zuinglius. It is by no means easy to define his doctrine of baptism. Inconsistency is very little his character; yet on baptism he appears to have been somewhat inconsistent with himself. His peculiar predestinarian system made it difficult for him to believe that infants received grace; because, according to him, grace given was always effectual, not to be resisted, never to be lost. Yet his sacramental system led him to teach, that Sacraments were effectual means of grace, by which God acted on the recipient, unless the recipient opposed an impenitent and unbelieving heart. If we took only his famous work, the Institutes, (which was a youthful production, but from the general principles of which he never departed,) we might think his views of baptism scarcely higher than Zuingle's. He argues, indeed, against the Anabaptists, that infants must be proper recipients of baptism, because they can be saved, and can only be saved by being regenerate; and therefore they must be fit to receive the Sacrament of regeneration. He objects to the statement, that baptism is a mere badge or watchword (tessera), whereby Christians, like soldiers, may be distinguished among men. Yet he seems to make baptism little more than a figure or sign of an inward blessing; not a means also, whereby that blessing may be conferred. "Baptism is a sign of our initiation, whereby we are admitted into the society of the Church; that being grafted into Christ, we may be counted among the sons of God. Moreover, it was given us, that it might serve for our faith with Him, and for our confession before men." We must not suppose that water can wash away our sins. St. Paul connects the word of life and baptism of water together (Eph. v. 26), signifying that the promise of our ablution and sanctification is brought by the word, and sealed by baptism. Still, he says that those who receive baptism with a right faith, perceive the efficacy of Christ's death in mortifying their flesh, and of His resurrection in renewal of the spirit; as the branch derives nourishment from the stock into which it is grafted. Original sin, which of itself would bring certain damnation, is by no means abolished by baptism; but the elect and believers are assured by baptism, that the guilt of original sin will not condemn them. Ananias, when he exhorted Saul to "arise and be baptized, and wash away his sins" (Acts xxii. 16), did not mean that in baptism, or by virtue of baptism, sins were remitted; but that by baptism he might have testimony and assurance, that his sins had already been remitted. As regards infants: the children of faithful parents, dying before the age of reason, are certainly saved, whether baptized or not baptized. Therefore the children of faithful parents are not baptized, that they may then first become sons of God, but rather are by a solemn sign then received into the Church, because by virtue of the promise they already belonged to the body of Christ. He denies that John iii. 5, has any reference to baptism; and, on the whole, seems to teach, that elect children (among whom are all children of the faithful dying before the age of reason) receive from God the grace of remission and regeneration, and therefore are sealed with the seal of baptism, the effect of which is not to be confined to the period of baptism, but endures throughout life.

Here, then, notwithstanding some difference of expression, and a material difference about the guilt of original sin, there is no considerable disagreement between Calvin and Zuinglius on the grace of baptism. I do not know that Calvin ever retracted any of the opinions which he thus expressed. I will not say, that he ever materially modified them. Perhaps other expressions, which he used afterwards, may be reconciled with all that has just been referred to. Yet certainly, in some of his later works, he speaks much more favourably of the grace of baptism; as though, when off his favourite system, he were constrained, by the evidence of Scripture, to attach more importance to it. In the Catechism which he composed for the children of the Church of Geneva, (which bears date A. D. 1545,) he teaches it to be "certain that pardon of sins and newness of life are offered to us in baptism." It is possible enough, that this Catechism was itself designed for the use of (presumed) elect children. It must therefore be read with some allowance. Yet, in other of his works, somewhat similar statements may be found. In his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (in Acts ii. 38), he says, that we cannot indeed receive miraculous gifts, as the Apostles; yet the promise, "Ye shall receive the Holy Ghost," applies to all ages of the Church, in a more exalted sense than any promise of mere miraculous gifts. "To baptism therefore the grace of the Spirit will ever be annexed, unless an impediment from us occurs." Again he says, "We must take notice, that no mere figure is proposed to us in baptism, but that an exhibition of the thing signified is annexed to it; for God never fallaciously promises, but really fulfils, what he signifies by figure. But then again, we must take heed not to tie God's grace to the Sacraments; for the administration of baptism profits nothing, except where God thinks fit." In another place, after bidding us direct our minds in baptism, not to the water, but to Christ, he adds: "But if any one, relying on this, should make baptism a mere frigid spectacle, and void of all grace of the Spirit, he will be much deceived." And again he tells us, that in Sacraments the sign is joined with the word; and then there is grace received by the faithful. "So Christ breathed on His Apostles. They received, not only the breathing, but the Spirit too. Why? Because of Christ's promise. So in baptism, we put on Christ, are washed with His blood; our old man is crucified, and God's righteousness reigns in us . . . . Whence so great a power, but from Christ's promise, who effects and makes good by His Spirit what He witnesses by His word!"

Notwithstanding these statements, which are certainly very different from those of Zuingle, it is probable that Calvin limited the reception of sacramental grace to the elect. There can be little doubt that he was not always consistent on this head; yet I think it cannot be denied that he did believe some grace to be promised in baptism. But then God's promises he limited to the elect. Hence, he probably believed that the elect received an accomplishment of these promises, and therefore remission of sins, and God's Spirit in baptism; but that the non-elect received the sign only, without the grace.

The followers of Calvin have, for the most part, been purely Zuinglian in their views of baptism: not indeed all predestinarians since Calvin's time; but those who have expressly adopted Calvin's predestinarianism. It may be added, that the Arminians, who sprang from the Calvinists, though on one point at least widely separated from them, not only agreed with them in their Zuinglian view of baptism, but far more decidedly repudiated baptismal grace than the Calvinists themselves, calling baptism by the name to which Calvin had specially objected, a mere watchword, or badge of profession (Tessera).

Our own English reformers seem to speak very strongly and plainly. It has been said of late, that it is impossible they could hold the doctrine that infants uniformly receive remission of sins and the assured help of God's Spirit in baptism, because they were all Calvinists. It cannot be meant that they were, in all respects, followers of Calvin; for such an assertion would be obviously and notoriously untrue. The statement probably implies no more than that they were predestinarians, i. e. believers in an absolute and irrespective predestination of individuals to eternal glory. There is very slight, if any, foundation, even for this. Yet allowing it to be true, it is by no means a consequence, that Cranmer and Ridley must have followed out to its natural conclusions this doctrine of irrespective decrees. Calvin did, no doubt, though even he appears to have had some misgivings about baptism. But much greater men than Calvin held the same doctrine of irrespective personal election to glory, but did not follow it out to what may seem its inevitable consequences, — for instance, St. Augustine and Luther; though the latter appears ultimately to have shunned all discussions on predestination. If the English reformers were absolute predestinarians, it is quite certain that they took Augustine's, not Calvin's view. Now Augustine's, as has been shown, did not in any way influence his baptismal doctrines. There can therefore be no propriety in disposing at once of the opinions of the Anglican reformers, by saying that they were predestinarians, and that they therefore could not but have coincided with Calvin on baptism.

Here, as elsewhere, Cranmer and Ridley must be our great authorities, because they were the chief compilers both of the Articles and the Liturgy. It was their genius which directed the Reformation, and their spirit which is infused into its formularies.

Cranmer, in 1548, published his Catechism, translated and modified from the Latin of a Lutheran divine, Justus Jonas. In that Catechism the statements are remarkably like Luther's. It is said, that "without the word of God water is water, and not baptism; but when the word of the living God is joined to the water, then it is baptism, and water of wonderful wholesomeness, and the bath of regeneration, as St. Paul writeth." Again, "We ought not to have an eye only to the water, but to God rather, which did ordain the baptism of water, and commanded it to be done in His name. For He is Almighty, and able to work in us by baptism, forgiveness of our sins, and all those wonderful effects and operations for the which He ordained the same, though man's reason is not able to conceive the same. Therefore, consider, good children, the great treasures and benefits whereof God maketh us partakers, when we are baptized, which be these. The first is, that in baptism our sins be forgiven us, as St. Peter witnesseth. Let every one of you be baptized for the forgiveness of his sins. The second is, that the Holy Ghost is given us . . . . according to this saying of St. Peter, Let every one of you be baptized in the name of Christ, and then ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The third is, that by baptism the whole righteousness of Christ is given us . . . . Fourthly, by baptism we die with Christ." It is then said, that before baptism we cannot have peace or quietness of conscience. "But, after our sins in baptism be forgiven us, and we believe the promise of God, and so by our faith be justified, then our consciences be quieted." A sinner that is not baptized, "although he had the Holy Ghost to this effect to help him to fight against sin, yet oftentimes he is overcome and falleth into sin. . . . . But when in baptism the righteousness of Christ is given and imputed to him, then he is delivered from all those perils. For he knoweth for a surety that he hath put upon him Christ, and that his weakness and imperfection is covered and hid with the perfect righteousness and holiness of Christ." Once more, "The second birth is by the water of baptism, which Paul calls the bath of regeneration, because our sins be forgiven us in baptism, and the Holy Ghost is poured into us as God's beloved children." "He that is baptized may assuredly say thus, I am not now in the wavering opinion that I only suppose myself to be a Christian man, but I am in a sure belief that I am made a Christian man; for I know for a surety that I am baptized, and I am sure also that baptism was ordained of God . . . . and the Holy Ghost doth witness that he which is baptized hath put on him Christ."

So completely is this Luther's language, that similar statements, word for word, may be taken from all parts of his writings. But it nevertheless appears exactly to exhibit the sentiments of Cranmer, who adopted it; for the same tone pervades all his subsequent writings; and I know of no single contrary statement, though I have carefully read and noted all his remains, with special reference to this doctrine. He attributes no holiness to the water itself; denies the grace of baptism to those who come feignedly, "who be washed with sacramental water, but be not washed with the Holy Ghost, and clothed with Christ." But as to others (infants or worthily receiving adults) he teaches, that "Through baptism in this world the body is washed and the soul is washed: the body outwardly, the soul inwardly; the work is one;" and that "that doctrine is not to be suffered in the Church which teacheth that we are not joined to Christ by baptism." "As in baptism we must think that, as the priest putteth his hand to the child outwardly, and washeth him with water; so must we think that God putteth to His hand inwardly, and washeth the infant with His Holy Spirit, and moreover, that Christ Himself cometh down upon the child, and apparelleth him with His own self."

His great friend and contemporary, Bishop Ridley, calls baptism by the name of "regeneration;" says that "the water in baptism is sacramentally changed into the fountain of regeneration;" that "the water in baptism hath grace promised, and by that grace the Holy Spirit is given; not that grace is included in water, but that grace cometh by water."

There was little dispute in England at the time of the Reformation about baptism. Most of the passages above cited occur in controversy with Romanist divines; and it is truly remarkable that Cranmer, instead of maintaining lower ground than the Romanists on baptismal grace, maintains rather higher ground; for the Romanist divines were inclined to derogate from the dignity of baptism, in order the more to elevate the importance of the Communion. The most systematic statements are to be found in Cranmer's Catechism, which, as noticed above, uses the very language of Luther. Luther appears exactly to have followed, on this head, his great master, St. Augustine. We may therefore naturally infer, that the sentiments of Cranmer and Ridley were nearly those of Augustine. Certain it is, they were not those of Zuinglius nor of Calvin. A few quotations can never bring out the full force of an author's meaning. The works of Cranmer are readily to be obtained. In the notes I have put a considerable number of references. It is easy to turn to them, and each reader may convince himself whether the context does not fully bear out the impression which the extracts convey.

If from the reformers who first drew up our services and Articles, we turn to those of the reign of Elizabeth, who adopted and slightly modified them, we shall find no different language. Jewel's Apology says, that "Baptism is the Sacrament of remission of sins, and of our washing in the Blood of Christ." "We assert, that Christ exhibits Himself truly present in His Sacraments: in baptism, that we may put Him on," &c. In Nowell's Catechism, a work like Jewel's Apology, to be esteemed semi-authoritative, the child is taught thus: "M. what is the hidden and spiritual grace in baptism? A. It is twofold: namely, remission of sins and regeneration.... M. You seem to make the water only a certain figure of divine things? A. A figure indeed it is, but by no means empty and fallacious; but such, that to it the verity of the things themselves is joined and tied. For, as God truly offers to us in baptism pardon of sins and newness of life, so are they certainly received by us. Far be it from us to suppose that God would mock us with vain images! M. Do we then receive remission of sins by mere outward washing and sprinkling? A. By no means! For Christ alone washes off the stains of our souls with His own Blood. It were impious to attribute this honour to an outward element," &c.

If we pass to the formularies themselves, we may begin with the Articles agreed on between the Anglican and Lutheran divines in 1533. In them it is said, that "in baptism remission of sins and the grace of Christ is offered to infants and adults . . . . that infants in baptism attain remission of sins and grace, and become children of God, because the promise of grace and life eternal extends not only to adults but also to infants . . . . But because infants are born with original sin, they need remission of that sin, and this is so remitted that its imputation is taken away. Howbeit the corruption of nature or concupiscence remains in this life, although it begins to be healed, because the Holy Spirit, even in infants, is efficacious and cleanses them." If we refer to the Articles of 1536, the Bishops' Book, A. D. 1537, and the King's Book, A. D. 1543, we shall find them all agreeing to teach, that "infants by the Sacrament of baptism receive remission of sins, the grace and favour of God, and be made thereby very sons and children of God;" that "the effect and virtue of this Sacrament is forgiveness of sins and grace of the Holy Ghost;" that infants, "being offered in the faith of the Church, receive forgiveness of their sins, and such grace of the Holy Ghost, that, if they die in the state of their infancy, they shall thereby undoubtedly be saved."

The First Book of Homilies is the earliest public document of the reign of Edw. VI. In the "Homily of Salvation" (Part I.) it is stated, "that infants, being baptized and dying in their infancy, are by this sacrifice washed from their sins, brought to God's favour, and made His children, and inheritors of His kingdom of heaven;" and that "we must trust only in God's mercy and the sacrifice . . . offered on the cross, to obtain thereby God's grace and remission, as well of our original sin in baptism, as of all actual sin committed after our baptism, if we truly repent."

The Second Book of Homilies was not published till the reign of Elizabeth, yet it now is united with the First; and we may therefore quote them together. In a former Article XXV we saw that baptism and the Supper of the Lord were described as the two Sacraments having "visible signs, whereunto is annexed the promise of free forgiveness of our sins, and of our holiness and joining in Christ." The "Homily of repairing of Churches" says of the Church, that "The fountain of our regeneration is there presented unto us." The "Homily of the Passion," that "We be therefore washed in our baptism from the filthiness of sin, that we should live afterward in the pureness of life."

The next authoritative document, after the First Book of Homilies, was the First Service Book of Edw. VI. This was compiled in the same year (1548) that Cranmer's Catechism was put forth. The Baptismal Service in that Book differs from our present service for infant baptism, in that the latter lacks some of the ceremonies which were retained in the former. The doctrinal statements (if prayers can be said to contain statements) are the same. It is, however, desirable to postpone the consideration of these till the last. Yet one portion of the First Service Book we must not omit. It is the Catechism. Here we have (drawn up by Cranmer and set forth in the same year with his larger Catechism already cited) all the portion of our present Church Catechism, down to the end of the Lord's Prayer. The latter part, concerning the Sacraments, was not added till after the Hampton Court Controversy, in the reign of James I., more than fifty years later. The teaching in the earliest questions, however, was, as it still continues: "Who gave you that name? My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." The child is taught to call this "a state of salvation," and to speak of himself as "sanctified by God the Holy Ghost," like "all the elect people of God."

Immediately before the Catechism in the First Service Book there is a rubric, which now stands in the baptismal service, to the following purport: "It is certain by God's word, that children being baptized, if they depart out of this life in their infancy, are undoubtedly saved." These were the principal public documents put forth at the period of the Reformation, in which baptism is treated of, with the exception of the Articles, and the services for Infant Baptism. Let us then next take the Articles. These were published A. D. 1552, four years after the First Service Book and Cranmer's Catechism, and the same year as the Second Service Book. Those Articles which treat on baptism, were not altered in the reign of Elizabeth.

Besides the Article on Baptism itself, one or two expressions occur in the earlier Articles. Thus, in that on original sin (now the IXth), we read in the English, "although there is no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized." In the Latin the word rendered "baptized" is renatis, "born again." And the Article "Of Christ alone without sin" (now the XVth) says: "All we the rest, although baptized and born again in Christ." In both these there appears an identification of baptism and regeneration.

To proceed to our present Article, the XXVIIth. It is difficult to find any exact model on which it is framed. It bears little resemblance to any former Article, in any other confession, either English or foreign. It is evidently penned with considerable caution. It begins with a denial of the Zuinglian notion, that "baptism is a mere sign of profession or mark of difference." It continues, that it is "a sign of regeneration or new birth." So far, however, its statement is not much more than Zuinglius's. But then it adds, "whereby, as by an instrument, they, who receive baptism rightly, are grafted into the church; the promises of forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God, by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed." The concluding words of the paragraph contain considerable difficulty. "Faith is confirmed and grace increased by virtue of prayer to God," vi divinae invocationis ("by virtue of divine invocation"). The Latin and the English do not correspond, and appear to convey different ideas. The former would indicate that the invocation of God, which accompanies the act of baptism, confirms faith and increases grace. The latter would imply, that the prayers of the congregation might, over and above the ordinance of God, be blessed to the recipient's soul, so that, whereas he might receive grace by God's appointment, whether prayer accompanied baptism or not; yet the addition of prayer was calculated to bring down more grace and to confirm faith. Whence the confusion sprang, if such it were, it may be hard to say. The Latin and English have both authority; but one does not explain the other. Perhaps they rather supply than explain each other.

The Articles then speak the same language as the other formularies of our Church, on the subject of baptismal grace. Yet it has been truly observed, that the Article which expressly treats of baptism speaks less distinctly than any other authorized document, and is more easily explained away. Why this should have been is not apparent. The primate, and his coadjutor Ridley, perpetually, both before and after the publication of the Articles, expressed their own views in strong and unmistakable language. It is certain that the bishops and clergy in general were not more disposed to Zuinglian doctrines than the primate; but, on the contrary, were rather more favourable to Romanism and doctrines verging on Romanism. The Article could not therefore have been softened to please them. It is not impossible, that the king himself, young as he was, may have had some leaning to the Swiss reformers, and that to please him, and perhaps to satisfy some foreign divines, a certain degree of ambiguity may have been admitted.

We must remember, that the office for Infant Baptism was put out nearly at the same time with the Articles, that it was enjoined by the same authority, that it is of equal obligation on the clergy, and of still greater interest to the laity of the Church. Its meaning has been a fertile source of trouble in the present century. Yet, if fairly considered, its sense can scarcely be ambiguous.

It perhaps would be conceded that, if the sentiments of the reformers were clearly known and fully established, the natural sense of the service would be no longer doubtful. We have had copious extracts from their works; and their own doctrine has been given in their own words. Most of their statements must have concerned infant baptism; for so little was adult baptism known in their day, that no office for adult baptism was appointed till nearly a hundred years after them. We know that they speak of infants as regenerated in baptism. The only questions which can occur are these: Did they believe all baptized infants to be regenerated, or only some? And, if so, what did they mean by regeneration?

A considerable number of men, whose piety forbids us to doubt their honesty, suppose that the reformers believed some but not all, infants to be regenerated in baptism. Such persons therefore say, that the well-known strong expressions in the baptismal service must be interpreted with some reservation. They adopt the notion of a charitable hypothesis. The Church charitably hopes that a particular child may be regenerate, and therefore fearlessly expresses its conviction that he is regenerate. In special confirmation of this theory, they adduce the office for Adult Baptism, where nearly the same expressions are used, and where it is impossible to be sure that regeneration is bestowed; for confessedly to adults grace is given only when there is sincerity and faith. To this they add the Burial Service; where we give God thanks for taking our departed brother out of this world, evidently on the charitable supposition that he is fit for a better.

Now it is quite plain that the office for Adult Baptism cannot explain the office for Infant Baptism; for this reason. The office for Adult Baptism was not drawn up till a hundred years after that for Infant Baptism, i. e. in the reign of Charles II. It was so worded as to be as like as possible to the more ancient office for infants; and as few alterations as could be were adopted. An office drawn up A. D. 1661 cannot interpret one drawn up in 1552. Or if it be supposed that the bishops of 1661 were likely to understand the language of their predecessors in 1552, then we may listen to their explanation of the office for Infant Baptism, the strong terms of which were objected to by the puritans. "Seeing," say these very bishops, who compiled the office of Adult Baptism, "that God's Sacraments have their effects, where the receiver doth not ponere obicem, put any bar against them (which children cannot do), we may say in faith of every child that is baptized, that it is regenerated by God's Holy Spirit; and the denial of it tends to anabaptism," &c.

The Burial Service does not seem a case in point. There is there no positive assertion of the certainty of the individual's bliss, as there is of the certainty of the infant's regeneration in the baptismal service. Concerning the individual, we indeed give thanks that God has "been pleased to deliver him from the miseries of this sinful world." But, as regards his resting in Christ, we only say, "as our hope is this our brother doth." The expression, "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life," is a general proposition, affecting all men, and not specially the individual. The very words then of the Burial Service express plainly a charitable and comfortable hope. Those of the baptismal service, on the contrary, contain a positive assertion, and a consequent thanksgiving. The one therefore cannot explain the other.

But is it in any manner likely that the reformers should have intended a charitable hope, where they express an undoubting confidence? The belief that some were regenerate in baptism, and others were not, was, to say the most of it, a perfectly new notion in their day. The fathers believed all infants to be regenerate; so did the schoolmen; so did the whole mediæval Church; so did Luther and the Lutherans. Zuingle and the Zuinglians, on the contrary, believed that no one was regenerate in baptism; with them baptism was a mere outward sign. With Calvin and his followers originated the idea that the elect might receive grace, but the non-elect be left unblessed, in the Sacrament of baptism.

It is quite certain that, early in their career, our reformers could have known nothing of this theory. It was not until late, that they had any connection whatever with the Calvinistic divines. But if, at any period in their lives, they obtained from Geneva a perfectly new light on the subject of infants receiving baptismal grace, is it not most strange that their writings should exhibit no trace of this? From 1536 to 1555 we have their documents and disputations. The same tone and statements, concerning baptism and the grace of baptism, prevail from first to last. In the Articles of 1536, in the Bishops' Book of 1537, in the Articles of 1538, in the King's Book of 1543, in Cranmer's Catechism, the Baptismal Service, the Church Catechism of 1548, in the Second Service Book and the Articles of 1552, in the Answer to Gardiner 1551, and the Disputation with Chedsey 1554, exactly the same general assertions occur. There is nothing said about all infants, still less is anything said about excluding any. Unworthy adults are excluded, but infants never. Is it not most probable that the utter silence concerning the inclusion of all, or the exclusion of some, resulted from the fact that Calvin's theory, which is not very apparent even in his own published works, had never been brought to their notice? that they therefore used the ordinary language of those who went before them, speaking in the general of infants as the subjects of the grace of God, and not caring to specify all, because not dreaming that some could be excluded? In fact, their own sentiments, to any one who will fairly examine their writings, must seem plainly to have been these. All men, infants as well as elders, are subject to original sin, and as such, subject to the wrath of God. But all too are subjects of the redeeming love of God. He would have all to be saved. He freely offers pardon and grace to all. Thus, even of unbaptized infants we may hope that they shall share the blessings of the atonement, and dying in infancy, shall be saved from the curse of sin. But baptism is God's special ordinance for bringing them into covenant with Him. Of those infants therefore who have been baptized, we do not hope, but we know, that as they are partakers of the covenant of grace, so they are partakers of the assurance of pardon, and moreover have a right to those graces of the Holy Spirit, which, if cultivated, as they grow up, will surely new-create in them a sanctified nature, mortifying and destroying their old and corrupt nature, and making them sons of God indeed. Hence, as they are by baptism entitled to regenerating grace, we do not scruple to use the language of Scripture and antiquity, and to call them, regenerate in baptism. Yet we do not thereby intend that original corruption is quenched in them, or that their whole moral disposition is changed; but only, that they are new-born into the Church, that their sin of nature is not imputed to them, and that they have an assurance of that spiritual aid, which, if not hindered, will renew, convert, and restore them.

It will be no small confirmation to the belief that this was their sentiment concerning baptism, if we learn that the model on which their baptismal services were formed was not Calvinistic, nor Zuinglian, but Lutheran. Archbishop Laurence has shown that, on the subject of our formularies in general, there was much correspondence between the English and the Lutheran divines. But it has been proved, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the sources of our present office for Infant Baptism were, first, the Service in common use in the mediæval Church, and still in the Church of Rome; secondly, a formulary adopted by Luther for his own followers in Germany; thirdly, a Service composed by Melancthon and Bucer for the use of the Archbishop of Cologne, which was itself adapted from the ancient Liturgy of Nuremburg. This fact directly associates our own formularies with those, first of the ancient Church, secondly, of the Lutheran reformers. The parts of the more ancient services which were deemed superstitious, such as chrism and exorcism, were omitted. But the doctrine involved is evidently the same as that held by Luther and Melancthon; who, it has been seen, followed and symbolized with St. Augustine.

Section IV. — INFANT BAPTISM

So much space has been occupied on the earlier part of this Article, that the latter part must be very briefly considered; especially as some of what has been already said may bear on the question of infant baptism.

We have already traced the analogy between circumcision and baptism. The latter indeed excels the former, as the new covenant excels the old; but both were alike initiatory rites, the means of entering into covenant with God, and the seal of that covenant. If children could be admitted into the covenant of works, why not, a fortiori ("with yet stronger reason"), into the covenant of grace? If, before they knew good from evil, they were capable of being bound by an obligation to do good and to renounce evil, and that without the assurance of quickening grace, how can they be incapable of admission to the promises of pardon, to the offer of life eternal, to the mercy and love of Him "who came to seek and to save that which was lost?" In that case, the blessings of the old covenant, instead of being more limited, must have been more extended than those of the new; and the Law, which was given by Moses, must have been more merciful than the grace and truth, which came by Jesus Christ. The parallel too is the more exact, if we remember, that to adults circumcision was "the seal of the righteousness of faith" (Rom. iv. 11); and so was not given to Abraham, till he had believed. But this prerequisite in adults was no prerequisite in infants. The infant children of the Israelites, and of the converts to Judaism, were all circumcised, though they could have no faith to qualify them.

We saw, in a former Section, that not only circumcision, but baptism, was practised among the Jews; and that, when they admitted proselytes into their communion, they not only circumcised all the males, but baptized all, male and female, infant and adult. When therefore our Lord sent out His disciples to "make proselytes of all nations by baptizing them" (μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτούς, "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them," Matt. xxviii. 19), He addresses persons, who had been ever used to the mode of proselyting, or admitting of proselytes, which He commanded; and, as they had always seen infants, as well as adults, baptized for such proselytism, they could only have understood that they too were to practise infant baptism. Unless therefore there were a special bar put upon such a practice, our Lord's words naturally implied that the practice was according to His will. The omission to specify infants is only analogous to the omission of commands to perform other obvious duties which were well understood before, and which the first teachers of Christianity took naturally for granted.

The necessity of baptism has constantly been inferred from our Lord's declaration, "Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John iii. 5). But the same supreme authority declared too concerning infants, that "of such is the kingdom of God" (Mark x. 14). If so, they must be capable of baptism, both by water and the Spirit. Otherwise, one would think, they cannot be capable of entering into that kingdom, which is said specially to appertain to them. The whole of our Lord's teaching, on that occasion, when infants were brought to Him, seems to show, as plainly as possible, the propriety of infant baptism. If young children ought to be brought to Christ, and He has peculiar pleasure in and love for them, then can there be no possible reason why we should keep them from the Sacrament of His love. It may be said that we thereby bind them, without their own consent, to obligations which they might be unwilling to contract. But every human being, created by God, and redeemed by Christ, is, baptized or unbaptized, bound to believe, to love, to obey Him; and hence, whether acknowledged or not, the obligation exists. And, moreover, if in baptism responsibility is undertaken, far greater is the blessing than the responsibility: for let it ever be remembered, that it is admission not to a covenant of works and to a bargain, "This do, and thou shalt live;" but that it is to a covenant of grace, to pardon, and mercy, and spiritual aid, and the promise of eternal life. Great therefore are the blessings of baptism; and, though of course there are consequent obligations, yet they are only such as, more or less, would exist for the unbaptized.

Again, the statement of St. Paul, that the children of Christian parents are holy (1 Cor. vii. 14), is fairly alleged as a proof that Christians' children are fit recipients of the first Christian Sacrament. The other Sacrament, which is a renewal of the covenant made in the first, may be fitter for the adult and intelligent; but there can be nothing to keep the infant from the first. If it be said that he has original sin, this, so far from keeping him from baptism, is his very reason for needing it. For though we may hope that, under the Gospel of the grace of God, sin will not be imputed where it has not been actual and wilful; yet baptism is "for the remission of sin" (Mark i. 4); and there is no way, but baptism, whereby we can place the infant in formal covenant with God, and therefore within the terms of the covenant, and having the assurance that his sins shall not be imputed to him, and that, if he go hence, his soul shall be safe.

The words of St. Peter, again, sound much like an encouragement to bring the young to baptism. For when he had exhorted those who asked what they should do, to be "baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins," and assured them that then they should "receive the Holy Ghost;" he added, "For the promise is to you and to your children" (Acts ii. 38, 39).

Lastly, though it is true that we read nothing of infants being baptized by any of the Apostles, it being on every account far more likely that we should hear of the baptism of adults, yet we do find that whole households were baptized by them, in more cases than one (Acts xvi. 15, 33; 1 Cor. i. 16); and in households it is most likely that there must have been children.

If we consult the records of antiquity, we shall find every reason to believe that the practice of infant baptism prevailed from the very first. Justin Martyr wrote his Second Apology about A. D. 148 (i. e. 48 years after the death of the last Apostle). He there speaks of persons 60 and 70 years old, who had been made disciples to Christ in their infancy. How can infants be made disciples, but by baptism? And if these had been baptized in their infancy, it must have been during the lifetimes of the Apostle St. John, and of other apostolic men. Irenæus, next in succession to Justin, says: "Christ came to save all by Himself; all, that is, who by Him are regenerated to God, — infants and little ones, and boys and youths and old men. Therefore He went through every age, being made an infant for infants, that He might sanctify infants." &c. If we consider that Irenæus, like other of the fathers, commonly calls baptism by the name of regeneration, this passage will seem conclusive of the custom and doctrine in his day.

Tertullian is an important, though unwilling witness. He shows that in his day (about a century from the Apostles) the custom of baptizing infants prevailed, and that sponsors were wont to answer for them; but he himself advocated a delay in baptism; for he thought the innocent age of infants could scarcely need the haste of bringing them to baptism; he thought also that sponsors might, from death or other causes, be unable to fulfil their duties, and he considered it better to seek remission of sins later in life, when temptations were less likely to make men fall away. This was his own reasoning against the custom of the Church, showing what that custom of the Church, against which he reasoned, was. His own view arose from his fear of the heinousness of sin after baptism, which we have already considered.

Origen, a few years later, bears ample testimony to the custom of infant baptism. "Infants," he says, "are baptized for the remission of sins;" and he gives the reason, that "none is free from pollution, though his life be but of one day on the earth." He tells us also, that "the Church received a custom handed down from the Apostles, to give baptism even to infants." Origen, it is observed by Wall, was born about 85 years after the Apostles, and his family had long been Christian.

The next father of note is Cyprian. In his day (circ. A. D. 250) there arose a question as to what day a child should be baptized. Fidus, an African bishop, wrote to him to inquire whether baptism, like circumcision, should be always deferred till the eighth day; or whether, if need required, it might be administered at once. An answer was returned by Cyprian and a council of sixty-six bishops. The unanimous judgment of the council was, that there was no need of such delay, for "the mercy and grace of God is to be denied to none that is born." If anything could be an obstacle to persons obtaining the grace of baptism, they argue, adults would be rather hindered by their grievous sins. But if no one is so kept from baptism, how much less infants, who have no sins but such as they derived by inheritance from Adam.

The foregoing testimonies all occur in the first century and a half from the Apostles. It would be easy, but in this brief sketch it is unnecessary, to carry the chain further down. For a moment we may notice the view taken by Gregory Nazianzen, as it seems remarkable and indeed unaccountable. He gives his judgment, that, in case of danger, baptism ought to be administered without delay; but if there be no danger, he advises that it be deferred for about three years. Why deferred at all, if to be deferred but three years, he does not explain.

That, among the later fathers, baptism was not so universally administered in infancy as amongst ourselves, there does indeed seem reason to conjecture. The great potency which many attached to it, and the fear of the contraction of heinous sin after it, appear to have induced some to delay its administration. Thus Constantine was not baptized till he was dying. St. Augustine, though his mother was a Christian, did not receive baptism in his infancy. He himself deplores the delay, but says it was owing to his mother's fear of the great temptations which seemed impending over his boyhood, to which she thought it better "to expose the clay, whence her son might afterwards be moulded, than the cast when made."

Such instances, resulting from peculiar scruples, are no proofs that the custom of baptizing in infancy did not prevail from the first. Augustine himself clearly asserts, that the Church both held the custom, and believed the efficacy of infant baptism, from all times, and so universally, that it could only have received it from the Apostles.

Editorial Notes

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Source: Edward Harold Browne, An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Historical and Doctrinal (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1883), edited, with notes, by the Rev. J. Williams, Bishop of Connecticut. Text proofread against the 1883 edition; spelling and punctuation as in the original.