salvation or not? the answer might be easily anticipated. But passing over this dilemma, I would ask, what consistent sense they can affix to the assertion, that Baptism may be a means of conveying the blessing of Regeneration to a recipient capable of devout prayer, who is already, one would think, according to their own doctrine, in possession of it?

Should I be informed, that I misconceive their meaning, and that with a certain degree of latitude devout prayer may be predicated even of the unregenerate; I could not still release them from the charge of inaccuracy in their definition. For upon this presumption the same phrase, devout prayer, would be here used without discrimination, as applicable both to the regenerated and the unregenerated; to the regenerated concerned in the administration of the sacrament, and to the unregenerated concerned in the reception of it.

Besides, is it not incorrect to call the sacrament itself the means of a blessing which would be thus solely attributed to devout prayer, an act

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certainly not confined to the administration of any sacrament?

And let it also be remembered that this description of Baptism, as being a pledge of previous Regeneration to those who receive› it worthily, and as being a possible means of concomitant regeneration to those who receive it unworthily, but who unite with the minister and others in praying devoutly for that blessing, is supposed to be in perfect conformity with the doctrine of the Church Catechism. Now the Catechism represents a sacrament "to be an "outward and visible sign of an inward and spi"ritual grace, ordained by Christ himself, as a " means whereby we receive the same, and as a

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pledge to assure us thereof." The obvious import of this language I take to be, that the outward and visible sign is to the same person, to whom it is a means, by which he receives the inward and spiritual grace, a pledge likewise to assure him thereof, that is, of his thus receiving the grace alluded to. Indeed the whole object of the doctrine respecting the sacraments, con

tained in the latter part of the Catechism, is to point out the mode in which they may be worthily received, and what is in that case to be deemed their efficacy. But how is this object here perverted! The sacrament of baptism is represented only as a means, although, correctly speaking, not the sacrament itself, but the adventitious act of devout prayer is rather the means, which, in the possibility of chances, may prove applicable to an unprepared recipient; and as a pledge to the prepared recipient of his having been regenerated upon some former occasion, and at some former period.

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I should not have dwelt so minutely upon the ideas of Regeneration entertained by the opposite party, if I had not been attracted to the examination of them by the confident assertion of their being particularly definite and consistent a..

But whatsoever may be their accuracy or in

"Our views of Regeneration are surely more definite " and more consistent with themselves, whether they be Scott's Inquiry, &c. p. 16.

more correct or not."

accuracy either in a logical or a theological point of view, one deduction from them is unambiguous. It is this. That Baptism, as a sacrament, is in no case the appropriate means of Regeneration; and that in the case of a worthy recipient of baptism, that blessing is never during its administration, but always previously, communicated.

This position I wish distinctly to mark, because I am persuaded, that it directly contradicts what has always been the doctrine of the Church of England upon the same subject. For she, on the other hand, has uniformly held, that to him who receives baptism worthily, Regeneration, or an incipient state of salvation, including forgiveness of sin and adoption into the number of the elect, is to be regarded as at all times the true and appropriate effect of that sacrament, not ex opere operato, but by the virtue which it derives from the ordinance and promise of God. This I maintain was her doctrine from the dawn to the full splendor of the Reformation; and was certainly the doctrine of those, who at a much later period compiled the

very office, respecting the import of which a controversy is now agitated.

I have pointed out in some former publications the connection which subsisted between the principles of the Reformation and those of Lutheranism; and that our own Baptismal service was little more than translated from one in use among the Lutherans b. I shall not therefore go over the same ground again unnecessarily ; but shortly illustrate the point in hand by a few extracts, among many which might be quoted, from the works of Luther.

That Reformer repeatedly represents Baptism as consisting of water united to the word and command of God. "Ex his jam memoratis," he remarks, "sanum intellectum percipe, atque "interrogatus, quid baptismus sit, ita responde: "non esse prorsus aquam simplicem, sed ejus" modi, quæ verbo et præcepto dei inclusa sit, "et per hoc sanctificata, ita ut nihil aliud sit, quam divina aqua: non quod aqua per sese

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b Bampton Lecture, and Sermon on Baptismal Regeneration.