indifferently, but as the living Word of God; particularly should we 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 would not therefore, as some have done, argue that it is improbable that "Christ, discoursing with a carnal Jew, would 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 we say with Calvin, and Grotius, and the Socinians[1] 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[2]. For Hooker[3]
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ "I do not think they are to be heard, who hold that under 'water' in this 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.
- ↑ "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 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 part them; he that would be born of the Spirit, must be born of water also."—Beveridge's Sermons, vol. i. p. 304.
