partly (and that more especially) to afford persons a test of their own views of their Saviour's ordinance, by comparing them with the language and feeling of Scripture. And this, because a due sense of the blessings which He has bestowed upon us, must tend to increase our love for Him; as also, because I know not what ground of hope the Church has to look for a full blessing upon its ministry from its Head, so long as a main channel of His grace, be, in comparison, lightly esteemed.
First, then, I would remark on the fact, that whereas, confessedly, Regeneration is in Scripture connected with Baptism, it no where is disconnected from it. Baptism is spoken of as the source of our spiritual birth, as no other cause is, save God: we are not said, namely, to be regenerated by faith, or love, or prayer, or any grace which God worketh in us, but to be "born of[1] water and the Spirit" in contrast to our birth of[2] the flesh; to be saved by the washing of the regeneration, or the new-birth, in like manner as we are said to be born of[3] God, or of[4] incorruptible seed. Other causes are indeed mentioned as connected with our new-birth, or rather that one comprehensive cause, the whole dispensation of mercy in the Gospel, as, "born of seed incorruptible through[5] the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever[6]," "in Jesus Christ have I begotten you through the Gospel," "of His own will begat He us by[7] the word of truth;" but no other instrument is spoken of as having the same relation
- ↑ γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ Πνεύματος. John iii. 5.
- ↑ τὸ γγεννημένον ἐκ τῆς συρκός. v. 6.
- ↑ οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτν—ἀλλ' ἐκ Θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν. i. 13.
- ↑ ἀναγγεννημένοι οὐκ ἐκ σπορᾶς φθαρτῆς, ἀλλὰ ἀφθάρτου. 1 Pet. i. 23.
- ↑ διὰ λόγου ζῶντος Θεοῦ καὶ μένοντος εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.
- ↑ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰηοῦ διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς ἐγέννμσα. 1 Cor. v. 15.
- ↑ βουληθεις ἀπεκύησεν ἡμᾶς λόγῳ ἀληθείας. James i. 18.
member of Christ and a child of God," that "being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby (by Baptism) made the children of grace;" what is this but to say that they were born of God, i.e. re-generate? and every child is taught to thank God for having called it into this state of salvation through Jesus Christ our Saviour, and to pray that it might continue in it.
