Justin Martyr is one of the earliest writers from whom we learn anything of the ritual observances of the primitive church.

His language is, "We take them to a place where there is water, where they are regenerated after the same manner of regeneration in which we ourselves were regenerated; for in the name of God the Father, and Lord of all things, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then undergo the bathing in the water; inasmuch as Christ said, "Unless ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

So Augustine objects to a Pelagian opponent, that he had purposely chosen mean and degrading expressions; when, says he, "You might have said, that which is born again;' you might have said, 'that which is regenerated;' you might have said, 'that which is baptized;' for our Latin usage confines the meaning of this word, which is from the Greek, to the sacrament of regeneration."

So also, Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, says, "Being baptised, we are illuminated; being illuminated, we are made sons of God; being made sons of God, we are initiated; being initiated, we become immortal." "Justly, therefore, are we the sons of God; inasmuch as we have thrown off the old man, and have put on the incorruptibility of Christ; in order, that, being made a new and holy people, we, thus regenerated, may henceforth keep our humanity unpolluted."

We do not feel it necessary to add to these citations of Mr. Arnold's; for we do not wish to attach undue weight to this part of the evidence; nor do we suppose that the fact will be questioned by any one, that the Fathers were, for the most part, believers in some sort of Baptismal Regeneration.

The judgment of our own Church, as expressed in her standards and formularies, is so well known that we shall give it in the briefest manner possible; and merely because our view would be rendered incomplete by its omission.

In the order for the Baptism of Infants, it is said,

"We call upon Thee for this infant, that he, coming to thy holy baptism, may receive remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration."

And again:

"Give thy Holy Spirit unto this infant, that he may be born again."

Then:

"Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church."

And lastly:

"We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy holy Spirit; to receive him for thine own child by adoption; and to incorporate him into thy holy Church."

And, in the Catechism, the child is taught to say,

"In

my baptism I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven."

Now, if there were any doubt as to the verity of these expressions, or as to the sense in which they were used by the framers of our Liturgy, we might turn to their individual writings, as now publishing by the Parker Society, and there we shall read, in

RIDLEY. (Parker Soc. Edit. p. 57.)-"The water in baptism is sacramentally changed into the fountain of regeneration."

"All that man doth profess in his regeneration, when he is received into the holy Catholic Church of Christ, and is now to be accounted for one of the lively members of Christ's own body,all that is grounded upon God's holy word, and standeth in the profession of that faith, and obedience of those commandments which are all contained and composed in God's Holy Word."

HUTCHINSON. (Parker Soc. Edit. p. 11.)—" In that bath of holy baptism we are regenerated, washed, purified, and made the children of God, by the workmanship of the Three Persons which formed also heaven and earth."

And in CRANMER, which is shortly to follow, we shall find these words :—

"Christ hath ordained one visible sacrament of spiritual regeneration in water."—(Works, vol. ii. p. 302.)

"And when you say that in baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ, and in the sacrament of his body and blood we receive his very flesh and blood, this your saying is no small derogation to baptism, wherein we receive not only the Spirit of Christ, but also Christ himself, whole body and soul, manhood and Godhead, unto everlasting life; as well as in the holy communion. For St. Paul saith, Quicunque in Christo baptizati estis, Christum induistis,— as many as be baptized in Christ, put Christ upon them. Nevertheless this is done in divers respects; for in baptism it is done in respect of regeneration; and in the holy communion in respect of nourishment and augmentation."-(Works, vol. iii. p. 65.)

It is not, then, to be denied, that in Scripture, in the writings of the early church, in the Prayer Book, and in the works of the Reformers, the sacrament of baptism is often,-perhaps usually,— spoken of as connected with, and inclusive of, that great spiritual change which is sometimes called "regeneration," and sometimes "the new birth." And any one who chooses merely to cast all

these various expressions aside, and to argue the question upon other grounds, must not be surprised if his reasonings are sometimes regarded as inconclusive and unsatisfactory.

This, however, even all that we have recounted, constitutes only one view of this important question. There are many and serious errors in the Church, arising from the custom of forming a system from books alone. Even when THE BOOK itself forms (as it ought to do) the substance of our studies, it is scarcely safe to proceed in disregard of those other means of instruction which God has placed within our reach. The lessons to be learned from printed pages are often less effectual than those derived from the study of human experience and the human heart. FACTS, assuredly, including the actual state of mankind around us, ought no more to be disregarded than the lessons of the written word.

How far, then, will the evidence of facts conduce to modify our abstract notions of the spiritual change wrought in baptism?

Let an enquirer visit the abodes of the working classes. Let him take a stroll through St. Giles's, or Oldham, or Whitechapel; and out of a throng of little ones who will everywhere surround him, let him select half a dozen children of about the age of five or six years. Out of the six, it is nearly a certainty that at least one,-probably two or three,—will be found never to have received any kind of baptism. Let him, then, excluding external evidence, try to discover which of these infants are "children of God," and which are still in a state of heathenism. Is there a man living, even among the boldest system-makers of Oxford, that can so much as imagine for a moment the possibility of effecting this discovery? Three or four out of the six are considered to be regenerate; the others are regarded as unregenerate; and yet if even the author of No. XC. himself were to put forth all his ingenuity, he would never be able to form the remotest idea, by any symptom discernible in the children themselves, which were the regenerate, and which the unregenerate.

It will doubtless be replied, that the grace of regeneration, originally bestowed on these children, must have been lost, or impaired, or obliterated, by the subsequent neglect of the parents.

But this is merely a set of phrases, which does not in reality affect the argument. We will engage to find, in the nearest abode of poverty to the spot in which we are writing, half a dozen children of the class and age which we have described. The parents of an average description, tolerably moral, not religious, some of them having taken their children to church because it was usual to do so; others having neglected it from mere carelessness and procrastination. The state of the children, then, as to birth,

parentage, and education, shall be precisely the same: but four of them shall have been said to be regenerated, and the other two left in heathenism. Four of them shall have been made "members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven," and the other two left destitute of these great privileges. And we will place these children before Dr. Pusey, Mr. Newman, and Mr. Keble; and (excluding external testimony) they shall not be able, in a week or a month's examination, to determine which are the Christians, and which the heathen.

This broad fact, although we have perhaps stated it more unreservedly and strongly than is customary, must be one which, in a latent and passive form, is already present with the minds of even the boldest assertor of baptismal regeneration. But it must be admitted to have a strong and important bearing on the general question. It is apparently at variance with the doctrine of baptism, as asserted in the Scriptures, and in the formularies of the Church. Apparently, we say,-for we know that between positive truth, as it exists in Scripture, and actual fact, as it exists in the world around us,-there cannot in reality be any discrepancy or contradiction.

To reconcile these opposite views, then, or rather, to find out how they modify and adjust each other, is the problem. And it is somewhat remarkable,-though not at all difficult to account for, that in the discussion of this apparently perplexed question, men have almost always chosen to commence at the wrong end; endeavouring first to ascertain that which is nearly inscrutable, instead of commencing with that part of the subject in which solution would be easy, and agreement highly probable. In so doing, the order adopted by the Church of England is reversed. She speaks in the first place, and most fully, respecting conscious and intelligent participants in the sacrament; and then more briefly, and with less decision, touching infants. Modern controversialists take the opposite and less reasonable course. They scarcely allude to the baptism of adults, concerning which they might probably agree; but rush into a contest touching the effect of baptism on an unconscious infant; forgetting that we really know little more of the actual state and predicament of this numerous class of the inhabitants of the earth, than we do about the condition and prospects of the population of the moon!

Has it never occurred to any of the eager combatants concerning "the effect of baptism" upon an unconscious infant, that there are many other questions concerning that infant, on which it would perplex him greatly to be obliged to give an answer?

What myriads of the new-born offspring of the Heathen are

perpetually passing into eternity, in lands where the very name of Christ is unknown. Do we regard it as a decided point, that all these, by the power of the sacrifice of Christ, are pardoned and saved? Sinful and polluted as they are, and thus naturally unfit for heaven, do we assert that they are nevertheless sanctified by the Holy Spirit, although no prayer is offered, and no washing of regeneration takes place? Or do we not rather reply, that this is one of "the secret things which belong unto the Lord our God," and that our wisdom is, to confess our utter inability to form any theory or opinion on the subject.

Should any one, however, attempt to dogmatize on this inscrutable point, we should have next to direct his attention to those among our own countrymen who differ only geographically from the class we have just mentioned. Heathens we have in great abundance, in our own land: creatures who, in some of our neglected mining and manufacturing districts, have been permitted to grow up to man's estate, and to produce offspring of their own, themselves possessing scarcely any more idea of the Christian faith than if they had lived all their lives in Tartary or Burmah.

Whoever is disposed to indulge hope for the children of the heathen, must not draw a distinction to the detriment of the English savage. No reasonable or defensible ground can be stated, for coming to a harsher conclusion in the one case, than in the other. Yet thus we should be brought to the startling conclusion, that the baptized and unbaptized infants of England, dying in their earliest years, are alike objects of hope, touching their eternal salvation.

Further, supposing that a very extensive view were taken, of the saving efficacy of baptism in the case of infants; and Dr. Pusey's conclusion were adopted, that "in virtue of the faith of the Church" they are regenerated and made the children of God; still, even Dr. Pusey himself talks of the loss of this "baptismal purity" by the indulgence of sin, and regards those who have thus "fallen from grace," as in a state of imminent peril.

Another difficult question then arises: At one month old, an infant, being duly baptized, is regarded as "a temple of the Holy Ghost," and as being perfectly fit for, and entitled to, heaven. But this child lives, and is brought up by sinful parents. At the age of four or five, he is apt to steal, swear, lie, and indulge the passions of envy, wrath, and malice, to a conspicuous degree. He is, in short, changed from a child of God into a child of the Wicked One.

But this sinful state came on only by degrees. At three years, or even at two, many signs of guilt and a sinful nature were discerni