volume, that no textual criticism can possibly affect it. If half the books of the New Testament were proved to be spurious, it would be equally certain from the uniform language of the other half. Any so-called criticism, or "principle of interpretation," which would affect it, would equally shake our confidence in the trustworthiness of the whole volume of Scripture as a revelation of the will of God. "Criticism" and "principles of interpretation" can be applied to such a book as the Bible only up to a certain point. If they go beyond, they destroy its trustworthiness as a revelation.

With respect to the texts or passages in which some grace pertaining to salvation is explicitly connected with Baptism, their teaching is all in one direction, and I cannot see how it can be evaded. It is true that it is the fashion to run down texts, and inveigh against strings of texts, but suppose that, instead of calling these places texts, we call them "statements," for such they undoubtedly are,-1 think we should deprive this objection of much of its edge. The texts which we produce are statements respecting a matter which is strictly doctrinal, and respecting which we can only know the truth by direct revelation ; and so it seems to me we are bound to trust these statements as the form under which God has given to us a revelation. We have of course to see that the inferences we draw from these statements are in accordance with their context; and I have shown abundantly throughout this little tract, and my larger volume on this subject, that these texts are not isolated, but are in strict accordance with a mode of addressing the baptized which prevails from one end of the sacred volume to the other.

Taking then the lowest view of Inspiration compatible with the belief that the Bible is a gift of God designed to teach us His will, we have two facts: first, that all the

statements respecting Baptism would lead us to believe that God wills to grant us some great grace in it, and the second, that all the Apostles, in addressing the baptized, address them on the assumption that God has carried out this His will in the case of each one among the baptized.

Of the twelve or thirteen passages connecting Grace with Baptism, only one is in the least degree affected by textual criticism, and that one is Mark xvi. 16. This place of course shares in the degree of uncertainty which attaches to the few last verses of St. Mark's Gospel.

With respect to John iii. 5: assuming that St. John has given to us a correct report of the words which Christ actually used, we have to take into account that our Lord made mention of "water' as well as of the Spirit, and that from His foreknowledge He must have had before Him the Baptismal interpretation which His Church has since given to His words. We are then bound to look out for some meaning of the term "born again," which will at once compel us to regard it as a work of the Holy Spirit, and yet also compel us to connect it with the application of water. The interpretation which the Church has ever given to this place is the only one which satisfies these two conditions; and which, whilst assuming that Regeneration is a work of the Spirit, rationally, and for some sufficient purpose, connects it with the application of water.

The bearing of Rom. vi. 1-6 in favour of Baptismal Grace is much intensified by giving their proper renderings to the Aorists, απεθάνομεν and συνετάφημεν—“we who died," instead of “ we that are dead;" we were buried with Him," rather than " we are buried:" the right transla

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tion of the Aorist more distinctly pointing to the past moment of the reception of Baptism in which this burial took place.

The more correct translation of λovrpóv in Eph. v. 26 and Titus iii. 5, by "laver' or "font" rather than "washing," also brings out more distinctly the reference to the Sacrament of Baptism in these places.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUPERNATURAL.

We have now to consider the Baptismal doctrine of the Church in its bearings on a question which has been already raised in a form which challenges the existence of any Divine element in Christianity itself. This question is whether Christianity be a natural or a supernatural system -whether it be one of the products of mere human thought, or feeling, or will, to which in the course of ages the human race has given birth, and which, by something analogous to natural selection, has won itself a place in the world which it will hold till it is dispossessed by some stronger element evolved by the religious consciousness of the race; or whether it be of God, planned by His wisdom, given by His grace, and set up amongst us by the advent of His only-begotten Son?

Now of course we have not in a publication like this to consider whether Christianity really be supernatural, but whether it claims to be so. The question whether it really be supernatural is, of course, the question of the evidences of Christianity itself-whether the books, in which the earliest account of it is contained, give us a reliable record of the words and works of its great Founder; and whether the Founder Himself was worthy of credit when He set Himself forth as the especial Revealer of the will of the unseen God.

This book is of course for believers, and in all that I am writing I take it for granted that Jesus Christ came from

God, that He revealed to us the truth of God, and that we of the Church can ascertain that truth from the Scriptures; using, of course, all other helps which His merciful providence has vouchsafed to us to assist our natural understandings. The question, then, for us is this-Did the Divine Founder of Christianity ordain a natural or a supernatural system, or a system which, though by its existence in the things of time and sense it may be affected by and assimilate to itself, or use, what is natural, is still pervaded by a supernatural element? And then the further question-Does the doctrine of Holy Baptism, as revealed in the Scripture, and interpreted by the Church, fall in readily with this supernatural element, and seem to correspond with its limitations or conditions, as they are laid down in the New Testament?

Now, first of all, let me remark that it seems only to be expected that Christ, in ordaining His Kingdom or Church, should ordain something supernatural, or at least a something with supernatural attributes or characteristics: for, if otherwise, the system which He inaugurated would not be in accordance with its commencement; for the commencement of the economy of Redemption is, in the highest sense, supernatural. The root of the whole matter is nothing less than the Incarnation itself, the most supernatural event that God has ever brought about in the universe He has created. Nothing in the whole range of God's dealings with His creatures can come near to this, that the uncreated Nature so took and knit to itself the created that God and man is one Christ. Nothing can be named beside such an exhibition of love and power-that God should in very deed dwell with men as One of themselves, conformed to all the conditions of their lower nature, so that in this His lower or assumed nature He should come into real contact with and taste the bitter