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BORN OF WATER, BUT THROUGH THE WORD.

46

2

"word," the "word of truth"); but it at once marks, by the very difference of language, that these are only more remote instruments: we are not said to be born of them as of parents, but by or through them. They have their appointed place, and order, and instrumentality, towards our new birth, but we are not said to be born of them. Thus we are said to be "born" (as was noticed)" of seed incorruptible," i. e. of an immortal birth, but only "through the word of GOD, which liveth and abideth for "ever;"" in JESUS CHRIST have I begotten you through the Gospel ;" "of His own will begat He us by the word of truth ;" no other instrument being spoken of as having the same relation to our heavenly birth as this of Water 1. Had it even been otherwise, the mention of any other instrument in our Regeneration could not of course have excluded the operation of Baptism: as indeed in Baptism itself, two very different causes are combined, the one, God Himself, the other a creature which He has thought fit to hallow to this end. For then, as CHRIST's merits, and the workings of the Holy Spirit, and faith, and obedience, operate, though in different ways, to the final salvation of our souls, and yet the one excludes not the necessity of the rest; so also the mention of faith, or of the preaching of the Gospel, as means towards our Regeneration, would not have excluded the necessity of Baptism thereto, although mentioned in but one passage of Holy Scripture. But now, as if to exclude all idea of human agency in this our spiritual creation, to shut out all human co-operation or boasting, as though we had in any way contributed to our own birth, and were not wholly the creatures of His hands, no loop-hole has been left us, no other instrument named; our birth (when its direct means are spoken of) is attributed to the Baptism of Water and of the Spirit, and to that only. Had

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1 ΔΙΑ λόγου ζῶντος Θεοῦ καὶ μένοντος εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. 1 Pet. i. 23.

2 ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ΔΙΑ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς ἐγέννησα. 1 Cor. iv. 15. 3 βουληθεὶς ἀπεκύησεν ἡμᾶς λόγῳ ἀληθείας. James i. 18.

"Unless as the Spirit is a necessary inward cause, so water were a necessary outward mean to our regeneration, what construction should we give "unto those words wherein we are said to be new born, and that idaros, even of water ?"-Hooker, b. v. c. 59.

NO REGENERATION AFTER BAPTISM.

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our new birth, in one passage only, been connected with Baptism, and had it in five hundred passages been spoken of in connection with other causes, still, because it was in that one place so connected with Baptism, no one who looked faithfully for intimations of God's will, would have ventured to neglect that one passage; the truth contained in Holy Scripture is not less God's truth because contained in one passage only; but now, besides this, God has so ordered His word that it does speak of the connection of Baptism with our new birth, and does not speak of any other cause, in the like close union with it.

These circumstances alone, thoughtfully weighed, would lead a teachable disposition readily to incline his faith, whither GoD seems to point. For although the privileges annexed to Regeneration are elsewhere spoken of, and the character of mind thereto conformable,—our sonship and the mind which we should have as sons, our new creation,-yet these are spoken of, as already belonging to, or to be cultivated in, us, not as to be begun anew in any once received into the body of CHRIST. There are tests afforded whether we are acting up to our privilege of Regeneration, and cherishing the Spirit therein given us, but there is no hint that Regeneration can be obtained in any way but by Baptism, or if totally lost, could be restored. We are warned that having been "saved by Baptism through the resurrection of "JESUS CHRIST, we should no longer live the rest of our time in "the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God," (1 Pet. iii. 21. iv. 2.) that "having been born of incorruptible seed, we "should put off all malice, and like new-born infants desire the "sincere milk of the word," (1 Pet. i. 23. ii. 1—3.) that “having "been saved by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of "the HOLY GHOST, we should be careful to maintain good works," (Tit. iii. 1-8.) and again, those who had fallen in any way are exhorted to repentance; but men are not taught to seek for regeneration, to pray that they may be regenerate: it is nowhere implied that any Christian had not been regenerated, or could hereafter be so. The very error of the Novatians, that none who fell away after Baptism could be renewed to repentance, will approach nearer to the truth of the Gospel, than the supposition

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LIFE IMPARTED TO ALL IN BAPTISM, HOWEVER WASTED.

that persons could be admitted as dead members into CHRIST, and then afterwards, for the first time, quickened. Our life in CHRIST is, throughout, represented as commencing, when we are by Baptism made members of CHRIST and children of GOD. That life may through our negligence afterwards decay, or be choked, or smothered, or well-nigh extinguished, and by God's mercy again be renewed and refreshed; but a commencement of life in CHRIST after Baptism, a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness, at any other period than at that one first introduction into GOD'S covenant, is as little consonant with the general representations of Holy Scripture, as a commencement of physical life long after our natural birth is with the order of His Providence. Those miracles of God's mercy, whereby He from time to time awakens souls from their lethargy, to see the reality of things unseen, and the extent of their own wanderings from the right way, no more indicate that they had had no life imparted to them before, than a man awaking from an unnatural slumber would that he had been physically dead. These analogies go but a little way; but the very terms "quickened,' awakened," "roused," and the like, wherewith men naturally designate the powerful interposition of God's Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men hitherto careless, convey the notion that the life was there before, although sunk in torpor, the gift there, although not stirred up, the powers implanted, although suffered to lie idle.

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The evidence, however, arising from a general consideration of God's declarations in Holy Scripture, obtains fresh strength from the examination of the passages themselves: only we must not look upon them as a dead letter', susceptible of various meanings, and which may be made to bear the one or the other indifferently, but as the living Word of God; particularly we

1 "Now, then," says even Zuingli, vindicating Matt. xxviii. 19. from the common Anabaptist cavil, "see whether we also cannot weigh the sense and “order of words, if indeed this strife about words (λoyoμaxía) ought to have any 66 avail, when they are the words of Christ. For although I am by no means "addicted to the bare letter of words, yet sometimes it needeth to weigh them "according to the letter, yet in a due and right way, lest perchance the letter "should kill."-De Baptismo, Opp. t. 2. f. 65.

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WRONG EXPOSITION OF JOHN III. 5.

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should regard, with especial reverence, any words which fell from our SAVIOUR's lips, and see that we consider, not what they may mean, but what is their obvious untortured meaning. We should not argue, therefore, as some have done, that it is "improbable that CHRIST, discoursing with a carnal Jew, should lay "so much weight upon the outward sign;" (for this teaching was not for Nicodemus only, but for His Church; and of all our SAVIOUR's teaching we can know this only, that it would be far different and far deeper than what we should have expected, and that it would baffle all our rules and measures ;) nor, again, would be say with Zwingli', Calvin, Grotius, and the Socinians", that the "water" may be a mere metaphor, a mere emblem of the Spirit; and so, that being "born again of water and the Spirit," means nothing more than "being born of the Spirit" without water. For Hooker1 well says, "I hold it for a most infallible

1 De Baptismo Opp. t. ii. f. 70. v.

2 See Faust. Socinus de Baptismo, c. 4. Opp. Fratr. Polon. t. i. p. 718. Slichtingius, ad loc. ib. t. vi. p. 26. agrees to the letter almost with Calvin. See Note P. at the end.

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3" I do not think they are to be heard, who hold that under water' in this 66 place, not water, but the Holy Spirit is to be understood; as if the LORD meant to make mention of the Holy Spirit twice, and to say, Whosoever is not born of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit,' or whosoever is not born "of water which is the Holy Spirit.'"-Bucer de vi et efficacia Baptismi Script. Anglican. p. 596.

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"When the letter of the Law hath two things plainly and expressly speci"fied, water and the Spirit; water as a duty required on our parts, the Spirit 66 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 in the end to be thought witty, "but with ill advice."-Hooker, L. v. c. 59.

"That we may be thus born of the Spirit we must be born also of water, "which our SAVIOUR here puts in the first place. Not as if there were any "such virtue in water, whereby it could regenerate us; but because this is the "rite or ordinance appointed by CHRIST, wherein He regenerates us by His "Holy Spirit: our regeneration is wholly the act of the Spirit of CHRIST.— "Seeing this [Baptism] is instituted by CHRIST Himself, as we cannot be born "of water without the Spirit, so neither can we in an ordinary way be born of "the Spirit without water, used or applied in obedience and conformity to His "institution. CHRIST hath joined them together, and it is not in our power to

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LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GOD'S WORD THE BEST.

"rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that where a literal con"struction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly "the worst. There is nothing more dangerous than this licen"tious and deluding art, which changeth the meaning of words,

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as alchemy doth, or would do, the substance of metals, maketh "of any thing what it listeth, and bringeth in the end all truth "to nothing. Or however such voluntary exercise of wit might "be borne with otherwise; yet in places which usually serve, as "this doth, concerning regeneration by water and the Holy "Ghost, to be alleged for grounds and principles, less is permit"ted. To hide the general consent of antiquity, agreeing in the "literal interpretation, they cunningly affirm, that certain have "taken those words as meant of material water, WHEN THEY KNOW

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THAT OF ALL THE ANCIENTS THERE IS NOT ONE TO BE NAMED THAT EVER DID OTHERWISE EITHER EXPOUND OR ALLEGE THE PLACE, 66 THAN AS IMPLYING EXTERNAL BAPTISM."

Rather, as the prophecy which these same persons alleged, that CHRIST namely shall "baptize with the HOLY GHOSт, and with "fire," received its literal fulfilment at the day of Pentecost, and in this the later Baptism of the Apostles, we find," as well 66 a visible' descent of fire, as a secret miraculous infusion of the "SPIRIT; if on us He accomplish, likewise, the heavenly work "of our new birth, not with the SPIRIT alone, but with water "thereunto adjoined, sith the faithfullest expounders of His "words are His own deeds, let that, which His hand hath manifestly wrought, declare what his speech did doubtfully utter." To name individuals in this universal consent is to disguise

46 part them; he that would be born of the Spirit, must be born of water also." -Beveridge's Sermons, vol. i. p. 304.

1 Hooker, 1. c. See Note A. at the end.

* Vazquez, in 3 Part. S. Thomæ Disp. 131. n. 22, refers to Justin Apol. 2. Tertullian de Baptismo, c. 11. n. 89. Cyprian, L. 3. ad Quirin. c. 25. Ambrose, L. 3. de Spiritu Sancto, c. 11. Jerome, in c. 16. Ezek. Basil and Gregory of Nyssa de Baptismo. Gregory Nazianzen. Orat. 40. in S. Bapt. and he adds "all the commentators, whom he omits as superfluous." Such are, to name the older, not only St. Chrysostome, St. Augustine, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Nonnus, but Theodorus of Mopsuestia, Apollinarius, Ammonius, Severus, (ap. Corderius Caten. in Joann. Evangel.) To these may be added,