necessary; but the sanctifying work of the Spirit with which salvation is connected is, on the Romish hypothesis, subsequent, in point of time, to incorporation in the Church, and, therefore, to incorporation in Christ; and not only subsequent in time, but separable in idea: so that to be a member of Christ's body, or of Christ, by no means necessarily implies the being in a state of salvation. Hence it is but natural that the conception which Romanists entertain of the Church should be, that it is a visible institution, provided with a complete apparatus of machinery for the rectification of fallen human nature; an institution into which men are gathered promiscuously, in order that they may be brought under a course of spiritual discipline, which, if they are not wanting to themselves, will issue in their salvation. With some the course prescribed succeeds, and the end is attained; in other instances it fails; but whatever be the spiritual condition of those who belong to it, the institution itself remains the same,pure, infallible, and indefectible. The first sacrament of incorporation-baptism-unites man to Christ's mystical body, that is, to Christ Himself; conferring upon them not increase of sanctifying, but sacramental, grace, or a spiritual capacity for performing holy actions (e. g. receiving the other sacraments), which spiritual capacity, however, is in itself a morally indifferent thing, -a mere power, which may be turned to good or to evil: confirmation arms the Christian soldier for the spiritual warfare: in the Eucharist-working still ex opere operato-he feeds upon the body of Christ: penance restores him when fallen: extreme * * That the "baptismal regeneration” of Romanism contains nothing moral in it lies on the face of the Tridentine formularies; but it is worthy of remark, as illustrating the natural result of a certain well-known type of doctrine, that in the sermons of a distinguished convert to the Church of Rome, composed previously to his conversion, precisely the same neutral character is (potentially at least) attached to the spiritual effect of baptism. "Regeneration, I say, is a new birth, or the giving of a new nature. Now, let it be observed, there is nothing impossible in the thing itself (though we believe it is not so), but nothing impossible in the very notion of a regeneration being accorded even to impenitent sinners. I do not say regeneration in its fulness, for that includes in it perfect happiness and holiness, to which it tends from the first; yet regeneration in a true and sufficient sense, in its primary qualities. For the essence of regeneration is the communication of a higher and diviner nature; and sinners may have this gift, though it would be a curse to them, not a blessing. The devils (!) have a nature thus higher and more divine than man, yet they are not preserved thereby from evil." - Newman's Sermons, vol. iii. serm. 16. Repulsive as such a view of regeneration is to the biblical Christian, it must be remembered that it is only the ultimate result of the dogma that regeneration can be present in an adult where there is no rectification of the will, or, in common language, change of heart. In Tridentine Romanism the revolting aspect of the theory is, in some measure, disguised by its dogma of the "impressed character," which in baptism is defined to be merely a passive spiritual power of receiving the Sacraments and other benefits of the Church.-See Ballarm. De Effect. Sac. c. 19. unction dismisses him with the Church's passport to heaven: such (the argument runs) are the means divinely appointed for the purpose of making individuals partakers of the benefits of Christ's passion and resurrection. And what is required in order to ensure their due operation? Nothing but that the recipient place no positive hindrance in the way, and perform the prescribed act. Most consistently does the Church of Rome teach that a state of bliss follows not at once upon the Christian's dying in the Lord,— that is, in communion with His body, the Church; and provides a place of purgatorial cleansing, where the moral change, apart from which a man might here be a member of Christ, but confessedly cannot enter heaven, may be effected. On the insurmountable difficulties under which these statements labour,as, for instance, the difficulty of conceiving how he can be, in any proper sense of the words, a member of Christ, who is not a partaker of the Holy Spirit's sanctifying influences, it is needless, and would be here out of place, to enlarge; but the nowτor weidos, or fundamental error, of the whole theory, deserves our particular notice. In order to perceive clearly what it is, it will be necessary to enter a little more fully into the subject of the Christian's union with Christ; to present a true view of which, is the professed object of the modern advocates of the sacramental system. So far as the maintainers of that system insist upon union with Christ, the glorified Redeemer, as one of the facts peculiar to the new dispensation, they take up a true position. In considering the characteristics of our Lord's teaching, it was intimated that other peculiarities of it, besides those mentioned, remained to be noticed; and, in fact, the great distinctive feature of it is the enunciation of the truth of which we are now speaking, viz. that in Himself-God manifest in the flesh, the second Adam-is life eternal, and that, to become partakers of that life, we must be brought into union with Him, "Abide in me and I in you;" "whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life abiding in him, and I will raise him up at the last day:" :"*-whatever be meant by such expressions as these, they, as presupposing the incarnation of Christ, obviously contain a new idea, to which nothing is found in the Old Testament exactly corresponding. The union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ was, in fact, the commencement of a new order of things, both in heaven and upon earth: then a new head-a second Adam-appeared amidst the ruins of humanity, by union with whom sinful man is to be brought into fellowship with God, and attain a higher state of dignity and privilege than that in which he was originally created. Union with Christ is the distinctive blessing of the Gospel dispensation, in which every other is comprised—justification, sanctification, adoption, and the future glorifying of our bodies: all these are but different aspects of the one great truth, that the Christian is one with Christ. In our Lord's discourse with Nicodemus, we have the first intimation of this great mystery of the Gospel dispensation. When Christ declared to the Jewish rabbi that, "unless a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God,"+ he delivered a truth partly old and partly new; or rather, a truth one aspect of which had a reference to the ancient, the other to the Christian, dispensation. For, notwithstanding the dictum of Hooker, and the general consent of the fathers in the literal interpretation of the passage, we may well doubt whether it contains a direct reference to baptism, as a ritual ordinance of Christianity. How could Nicodemus be blamed for not understanding the nature of a Christian Sacrament, when the latter had not been instituted, nor the redemption which it was intended to symbolize, and apply, accomplished? What Nicodemus, as a master of Israel ought to have known was what he could gather from the Old Testament writings; and by the degree of religious illumination which they were calculated to impart, we must judge of our Lord's meaning. Now the Jewish scriptures contain no instruction upon the Christian Sacraments; but they do inculcate, in numerous † John, iii. 5. * John, vi. 54. passages, the necessity of a great moral change, symbolized by the cleansing effect of water, and they connect with the coming of Messiah a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in the first instance upon the house of Israel, and then upon the Gentiles.* In not recollecting such passages as these, Nicodemus merited the rebuke, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" Thus far, the prophets had prepared the way for the Gospel. But, in the whole expression, "born of water and of the spirit," an idea was involved, which Nicodemus never could have gathered from a perusal of the Old Testament alone, the idea of Christian regeneration, as distinguished from the same thing under the law. Christian regeneration is the first incorporation of the believer in Christ: and the true idea of it is such a union with the Son of God, in His glorified human nature, as confers upon the believer the like privilege of sonship. Christians are Christ's brethren; "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ;"† sons of God through adoption and grace; their bodies, as well as souls and spirits, being taken up into spiritual union with Christ, in order that in due time they may be made like unto His. This is a real new birth; for it is a transplanting out of the old Adam, not merely into a new moral condition, but into the second Adam -the man Christ Jesus-the glorified Head of a new race of spiritual sons of God. And the vital power which effects the incorporation is that special efflux of the Holy Spirit which was withheld until Christ was glorified, and which, in order to distinguish it from the spiritual influences vouchsafed under the law, may, with the utmost propriety, be called the regenerating influence of the Holy Ghost. The aspect which regeneration assumes in the Old Testament is merely that of a moral change, or, as it is commonly called, a change of heart, the uɛrávoua of John the Baptist. In this sense which no doubt is the most important one, regeneration must have existed equally under the Law and under the Gospel; for it is with a moral change, or new heart, that salvation is connected, and salvation belonged to the pious Jew not less than to the Christian. But in its positive aspect, as denoting the privilege of sonship, through incorporation in Christ, it did not form part of the Jewish revelation. True it is that we occasionally find the nation, as distinguished from the heathen world, spoken of as collectively enjoying the privilege of adoption-as in the passage, "Israel is * Is. i. 16.; Jer. iv. 14.; Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27.; Zech. xiii. 1. † Rom. viii. 17. -- my son, my first-born" (Exodus, iv. 22.); but the privilege of the nation in this point was, like the nation itself, but a type, a shadow, of the reality which was to come: the notion of an individual regeneration by the Spirit, whereby the individual is enabled to cry Abba, Father, the Spirit bearing witness with His spirit that he is a child of God, does not appear in any part of the Jewish Scriptures.* When Christ, therefore, enunciated the great truth that, "unless a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God," He alluded to a special prerogative of the Christian dispensation, a special gift derived from His heavenly life at the right hand of God. That gift is, the (in the strict sense of the word) regenerating influence of the Spirit, which, with creative energy, must transform the penitent disciple of the law into a member of Christ, before he could "see the kingdom of God,"i. e. belong to the Christian dispensation. To the "water"-the preparatory repentance and contrition produced by the discipline of the law, and symbolized by John's baptism, hence called the baptism of water unto repentance-there is superadded, under the Christian dispensation, the "spirit," or a participation of Christ's own heavenly life, flowing from union with Him,-the effect of the indwelling of His Spirit; in the combination of which two elements of the life in Christ—the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new-lies the peculiarity of Christian regeneration, as distinguished from the same thing under the law. Had the change which the incarnation of Christ produced in the spiritual standing of believers been borne in mind, it would have been seen that the reply to be given to the question, "Can believers before Christ be said to have been regenerate?" turns entirely upon the meaning which is attached to the word regene ration. If we use it to signify the great moral change which must take place in every son of Adam before he can enjoy fellowship with God, then, unquestionably, the ancient believers were regenerate: but, if the word be taken in its properly Christian acceptation, as denoting incorporation in the glorified Redeemer, they were not, for they could not be, in this sense, regenerate. They were morally, but not mystically, regenerate; they were believers in the promised Messiah, but they were not, "in Christ," in the New Testament sense of that expression. Doctrinal prepossessions have in this, as in other instances, prevented a due By the Rabbins a proselyte was called na, “a new creature;" but the expression seems to have denoted merely the outward change which ensued on the profession of Judaism. See Olshausen on John, iii. 3. |