The following Works, all in single volumes, or pamphlets, and recently published, will be found more or less to uphold or elucidate the general doctrines inculcated in these Tracts. Bp. Taylor on Repentance, by Hale.-Rivingtons. Bp. Taylor's Golden Grove.-Parker, Oxford. Vincentii Lirinensis Commonitorium, with translation. - Parker, Oxford. Pusey on Cathedrals and Clerical Education.-Roake and Varty. Hook's University Sermons.-Talboys, Oxford. Pusey on Baptism (published separately).—Rivingtons. Newman's Sermons, 4 vols.-Rivingtons. Newman on Romanism, &c.-Rivingtons. The Christian Year.-Parker, Oxford. Perceval on the Roman Schism.-Leslie. Bishop Jebb's Pastoral Instructions.-Duncan. Hymns for Children on the Lord's Prayer.-Rivingtons. Herbert's Poems and Country Pastor. Evans's Scripture Biography.-Rivingtons. Le Bas' Life of Archbishop Laud.-Rivingtons. Jones (of Nayland) on the Church. Bp. Bethell on Baptismal Regeneration.-Rivingtons. Bp. Beveridge's Sermons on the Ministry and Ordinances.-Parker, Oxford. Bp. Jolly on the Eucharist. Fulford's Sermons on the Ministry, &c.-Rivingtons. Rose's Sermons on the Ministry.-Rivingtons. A Catechism on the Church.-Parker, Oxford. Russell's Judgment of the Anglican Church.-Baily. Larger Works which may be profitably studied. Bishop Bull's Sermons.-Parker, Oxford. Wall on Infant Baptism.-Do. Pearson on the Creed.-Do. Leslie's Works.-Do. Bingham's Works.-Straker, London. Palmer on the Liturgy.—University Press. Palmer on the Church.-Rivingtons. Hooker, ed Keble.-Do. TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. BY MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. VOL. II.-PART II. FOR 1834-5. “If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" FOURTH EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL; & J. H. PARker, oxford. FOURTH EDITION. TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF HOLY BAPTISM, AS ESTABLISHED BY THE CONSENT OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH, AND CONTRASTED WITH THE SYSTEMS OF MODERN SCHOOLS. What sparkles in that lucid flood Is water, by gross mortals ey'd : Out of a dear Friend's side. CHRISTIAN YEAR. Holy Baptism. PART I. CHAPTER I. ON THE PRINCIPLES NECESSARY FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF SCRIPTURAL TRUTH, AND SOME OBSTACLES WHICH OF LATE HAVE PREVENTED MEN FROM RECEIVING THAT OF BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. EVERY pious and well instructed member of our Church will in the abstract acknowledge, that in examining whether any doctrine be a portion of revealed truth, the one subject of inquiry must be, whether it be contained in Holy Scripture; and that in this investigation, while, in proportion to the fulness of the evidence, he defers to the interpretations handed down to us through the early Church, so also must he lay aside all reference to the supposed influence of such doctrine, the supposed religious character of those who held it at any given time, and the like. Any right-minded person, I say, will readily acknowledge this in the abstract; for to judge of doctrines by their supposed influence upon men's hearts, would imply that we know much more of our own nature, and what is necessary or conducive to VOL. II. P. 11.-No. 67. B its restoration, than we do: it would be like setting about to heal ourselves, instead of receiving with implicit faith and confidence whatever the Great Physician of our souls has provided for us. The real state of the case is indeed just the contrary of what this habit would imply. We can, in truth, know little or nothing of the efficacy of any doctrine but what we have ourselves believed and experienced. Even in matters of our own experience we may easily deceive ourselves, and ascribe our spiritual progress exclusively to the reception of the one or the other truth, whereas it has depended upon a number of combining causes which GOD has ordered for our good, upon a great variety of means by which God has been drawing us to Himself, whereof we have seized upon one or two of the principal only. In other cases we may be altogether mistaken. Thus, to take a published instance; a person now living has said of himself that " as he had "read himself into infidelity, so he was enabled to read himself "out of it." As if mere diligent study could restore any one who had fallen from the faith! Whereas, without considering what circumstances, beside the reading of infidel books, led him to infidelity, or what commencing unsoundness led him to follow up the reading of infidel books, on which he was not competent to judge; the very fact of reading at one time infidel, at another Christian, writings, implies that the frame of mind was different at each time; so that by his own account, other causes must have combined both to his fall, and his restoration. Again, he himself incidentally shows that, though a sceptic, he still continued to exercise considerable self-denial, for the welfare of others so that among the instruments of his restored faith, may have been one which he omitted, that his benevolence, like that of Cornelius, and the prayers of those, whom he benefited, went up as a memorial before God'. But if we can be mistaken, even as to the influence of what we have tried, much more assuredly must we, in spiritual matters, be in ignorance of what we have not tried. We may have some intimation with Knox's Correspondence, t. ii. p. 586, 7. "It has often struck me that ' probably this good man was rewarded for his fraternal piety by his providen"tial conversion to Christianity." |