baptized are called upon to enter, as for the first time, into covenant relationship with God; or to become His children, or to become regenerate. The professing Christian, no matter what his declension, is always assumed to have been once in his Father's house. The erring and straying sheep is always assumed to have strayed from a fold in which he was once included

CHAPTER III.

THE BAPTISMAL DOCTRINE OF THE SCRIPTURES MORE UNQUALIFIED THAN THAT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK.

SUCH is the Scripture teaching respecting Baptismal grace.

Now, before proceeding to consider what conclusions the study of the New Testament compels us to adopt respecting the Baptism of Infants and the grace they receive in it, let me dwell upon some considerations which the plan of the accompanying tract, and the limits to which I had restricted myself in writing it, obliged me to pass over without notice.

1. The doctrine of Baptism, as contained in Scripture, is, in some important respects, more unqualified and absolute than that deducible from the Prayer-book.

(a) Assuming that our Lord's words, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," refer to Baptism, then the necessity of Baptism is declared absolutely, for the words of Christ contain no qualifying or limiting expression; whereas, in the Prayer-book, a very important qualification is suggested by the language of the Office for the Baptism of such as are of riper years, in the words "Ye see the necessity of Baptism where it may be had." Of course the limitation or qualification is quite justifiable; but it is no less the fact that the limitation is expressed in the Prayer-book, not in the Bible.

(b) The worthy receiver of Baptism, i. e. the man who receives it in repentance and faith, is most distinctly said, in the New Testament, to be "saved" by it. "The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us (1 Pet. iii. 21). Again, "By His mercy He saved us by the Bath of New Birth and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Titus iii. 5). "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark xvi. 16). In the service of our Church for the Baptism of Adults, in which it is expressly assumed that the persons baptized receive it "truly repenting and coming unto Him by faith," this consequence is not expressed.

(c) Again, there is somewhat of indistinctness in the Prayer-book respecting the fact that the baptized have been buried with Christ in Baptism and have been raised again with Him in it. It is, I allow, assumed when we give thanks for the child that he is "buried with Christ in His death;" still the minister is directed to say that “as He died and rose again for us, so should we who are baptized die from sin and rise again unto righteousness : and notably in the collect for Easter Eve this burial is represented as in some sense future, for we ask that "by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with Him." In the two places in Scripture where this burial and resurrection with Christ are mentioned (Rom. vi., Col. ii.) they are mentioned as having already taken place once for all in Baptism, and the moral teaching grounded upon it proceeds upon the assumption of a past burial and resurrection. I would not lay much stress upon this, further than saying that the Scripture teaching is somewhat more unqualified than that of the Prayer-book.

(d) But, lastly, the Scriptures are far more unqualified than the Prayer-book on a point which, after all, furnishes

us with the most unerring test as to whether a Church or an individual holds the true doctrine of Baptism; and that is the line taken with those who, after Baptism, fall into sin. The strict Calvinist must on his principles attribute any such fall to the withholding of grace on God's part. But the Scriptures, as I have most abundantly shown, invariably attribute the sins of the baptized to falling from grace on the part of man, never to the withholding of grace on the part of God. So that the view of "charitable assumption," or the hypothetical view, is absolutely incompatible with the statements of Scripture. By the analogy of some places in the Prayer-book, especially in the Burial Service, it may be applied to explain away the language of the Baptismal offices, but it cannot possibly be applied to the expressions in the New Testament, because the Scripture writers invariably assume that those who have been made partakers of grace in Baptism may fall into gross sins, and finally fall away, and they assume that the sins of the baptized are the greater because they have been once made members of Christ.

There are three ways in which the Apostolic writers may meet the case of Christians falling into sin after Baptism. (1) They may ignore Baptism altogether, and treat Christians as if they fell away from some grace received only at conversion. This they do not do. St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (vi. 1-6), 1 Corinthians (x. 1-10), Galatians (iii. 26, 27), Colossians (ii. 12), makes specific mention of Baptism as the time from which the reception of grace, and responsibility consequent upon such reception, must be dated.

If they do not ignore Baptism, (2) they may assume that God, for some purpose, known or unknown, did not accompany the Sacrament with its particular inward grace; or (3) they may assume that God gave the grace, and that

man has fallen from it. Now they invariably take the latter course, never the former. They always assume that the Sacrament has been accompanied with grace, and that the wilful sinner has fallen from it. Now this is, of course, perfectly irreconcilable with any charitable assumption which is not true in reality. The charitable assump

tion would be to suppose that the sinner has not received grace in Holy Baptism, for, if he has, it is the worse for him.