physical agents, and so physical life, desires, powers; and, since from a corrupted author, powers weakened and corrupted: in the other, the Holy Spirit of God, and so spiritual life, strength, faculties, energies; still, in either case, a real existence; and, to the Christian, a new, real, though not physical beginning—an existence, real, though invisible—and, though worked by an unseen Agent, yet felt in its effects, like the energy of the viewless winds[1].
Our Blessed Saviour's words declare the absolute necessity of regeneration, for the entrance into the kingdom of heaven, or our state of grace and glory, in which we live in His Church, and in which we hope to live with Him for ever; and that this regeneration is the being "born of water and the Spirit," or by God's Spirit again moving on the face of the waters, and sanctifying them for our cleansing, and cleansing us thereby. To this St. Paul was directed to add the irrespectiveness of our calling and election to this grace of Baptism, and privilege of sonship. "But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we had done, but according to His mercy. He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and of the renewing of the Holy Ghost[2], which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour." Thereby is excluded, not merely "grace of congruity," but all such previous preparation as should make Baptism "a seal only of spiritual grace already given;" for we are saved, it is said, not by regeneration which should be attested and confirmed by Baptism, but by "the washing of regeneration, and of the renewing of the Holy Ghost," i.e. a Baptizing, accompanied by, or conveying a re-production, a second birth, a restoration of our decayed natures, by the new and fresh life,
- ↑ The two births, the natural and the baptismal, are eloquently contrasted by St. Augustine:—"One is of the earth, the other of heaven; one of the flesh, the other of the Spirit; one of mortality, the other of eternity; one of man and woman, the other of God and the Church."—In Joann. Tract, xi. no. 6. See a similar passage, against the Pelagians, de peccat. meritis et remiss. L. 3. c. 2.
- ↑ Tit. iii. 4–6. See Note (B), at the end.
