76 THE CHURCH AND THE SCRIPTURE.

crotchet of my own in preference to the opinions of wiser, better, and more experienced men? Will it not be rather refusing to set up my judgment against any of them; refusing to determine to which of them I shall not render the respect and homage which I feel that all have a right to claim from me? But at least, I must on my own authority determine this view to be that of the church.' Not until I have brought you to confess, that each of these parties was right in reading its own view in the forms of the church; not till I have shown that each has failed, palpably failed, in identifying its own views with those of the forms of the church; not till I have shown you, that it is by the forms of the church, and not by my own wit, that I have been led to see how truly each of these views includes a portion of the meaning of Baptism, how its full meaning is only expressed by the union of them all. But then, I must assume the Scripture view and the church view to be the same.' Not if you can find another that coincides equally with the letter of Scripture, the spirit of Scripture, the scheme of Scripture. But, after all, this view is to be forced upon you,' Not unless you want it. If there are no wants in your mind and heart which require such an idea of Baptism, and will not be content without it, I know that I may allege the union of discordant opinions, the authority of the church, the consistency of Scripture, in vain. If there be, you will seize it, though the person who offers it to you be the silliest man in Europe. In your case I

REGENERATION.

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know there are such wants. I therefore set before you that which I believe will satisfy them. In the case of the writers in religious newspapers, whose craft is to make paper shrines to the great goddess of opinion, which the religious world worships, I do not suppose that there are any such wants. They have their own peculiar wants ; the spirit of strife and division caters to them abundantly. We have no command to supply them with food; on the contrary, the injunction is very peremptory, Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.'

I need not tell you, that our formularies speak of a baptised child as regenerate. All churchmen, therefore, who acknowledge and use these formularies, of course, believe that in some sense or other the child is regenerate. The question is, In what sense? Here the dispute begins to which I have alluded. Those who, in honour or derision are called High Churchmen, maintain that the words are to be construed strictly,-that they denote a positive change in the moral and spiritual condition of any person to whom they are applicable, and fix Baptism as the period of that change. Those who, in honour or derision are called Evangelicals, affirm that no moral or spiritual change can take place in an unconscious subject; that the word regeneration, in its highest sense, signifies such a change, and describes the state of a man who has actually and consci

78

EVANGELICAL NOTION OF IT.

ously passed from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness; but that in a lower and not illegitimate sense, it may signify merely an admission into the privileges of the Christian Church. The followers of Mr. Budd (I know not whether they have yet acquired any nickname), maintain, that the child of a parent who truly believes the covenant of God, is certain, in virtue of that covenant, to be hereafter brought into Christian faith and obedience; and therefore, by a very allowable prolepsis,-present and future being one in the eyes of God, may be called, even in the highest sense, already regenerate. I may not have quite satisfied the supporters of any of these opinions in the description I have given of them, of course the modifications of each are very numerous, and at their extremities they touch upon each other ;but to all intents and purposes I believe you will find my classification a sufficient one, and you will find it hard to invent any fourth opinion which shall not fall under the principle of one of them, unless it shall comprehend them.

The second of these opinions is the one which will present itself to you as the most plausible, so far, at least, as it is an explanation of the fact designated by the word regeneration. You may possibly find it hard to understand,—and all the Dissenters, I believe, feel the same difficulty,how the word can ever come to mean merely a possession of outward privileges. You may wonder what outward privileges of a religious kind a baptised child enjoys, which he would not pos

ON WHAT FACTS GROUNDED.

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SO

sess if he were unbaptised; and if a little grace is supposed to go along with these privileges, you wonder how persons so accurate in the use of language as the Reformers generally were, little inclined to look upon words as mere counters, should, in documents carefully superintended by them, and intended to form the hearts and the theology of future ages, have sanctioned the application of so solemn a phrase to so very inconsiderable a matter. But, leaving these points, with which you do not feel that you have any particular concern, to those who are obliged, for the comfort of their own minds, to settle them,—you think that the so called Evangelical party, has abundant reason to rejoice that it has, under circumstances somewhat disadvantageous, ascertained that really precious sense of the word, which, so long as they keep it, makes their evidently reluctant admission of another formal sense comparatively unimportant.

This opinion you would ground, no doubt, upon the evidence of experience and fact. Scripture, you of course believe to be on the same side; but the experience of a transition from an evil to a righteous condition, is that, you think, which determines the meaning of Scripture; and ascertains the doctrine of baptismal regeneration in any but a formal sense, to be a falsehood and an impossibility. As this is the ground which you, and hundreds of others take, I cannot do better than ask you to study attentively the actual recorded cases of conversion. For what purpose, you

6

80

EXAMINATION OF THESE FACTS.

inquire? To prove that there are numerous, confused, superstitious, or fantastical notions in the minds of those who experienced them? I am willing to admit so much. But after all deductions, and allowances, and special pleadings, there will remain a startling positive fact, the most amazing in its history and its consequences, which no artifice can get rid of.' But, my dear friend, I do not want to get rid of one fact; I do not mean to special plead a single history of the kind; I take them as I find them; I assume their truth. And what then? Why, I find in every one of these narrations expressions such as these: Then I was first awakened; then I was first brought to a knowledge of the truth; then I first felt and understood the love of Christ.' These, you will allow, are recognised phrases, and they are phrases, thank God, from which, after ten thousand distillations, the meaning has not wholly escaped. I will be bold to say yet farther, that you may estimate the sincerity of the person who describes these spiritual processes by no test more surely than this, if it appear evident that these phrases are significant, and not merely phrases of course, if the writer recognises the existence of certain facts before he became conscious of them, and acknowledges that he had been struggling and closing his eyes against the light, you cannot avoid the conclusion, that, let external circumstances or fantasy have lent what aid they may to the colouring of the story, it is the story of an actual and mighty transaction.

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