leges of that new condition may be. For this were the very opposite error; and whereas the former interpretation "dried ' "up" the water of Baptism, so does this quench the SPIRIT therein. One may, indeed, rightly infer, that since the Jews regarded the baptized proselyte as a new-born child, our SAVIOUR would not have connected the mention of water with the new birth, unless the new birth, which He bestowed, had been bestowed through Baptism but who would so fetter down the fulness of our SAVIOUR'S promises, as that His words should mean nothing more than they would in the mouth of the dry and unspiritual Jewish legalists? or, because they, proud of the covenant with Abraham, deemed that the passing of a proselyte into the outward cove nant, was a new creation, who would infer that our SAVIOUR spoke only of an outward change? Even some among the Jews had higher notions, and figured that a new soul descended from the region of spirits, upon the admitted proselyte. And if it were merely an outward change-a change of condition only, wherein were the solemnity of this declaration, "Verily, verily, "I say unto you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the "kingdom of GOD?" for the "seeing" or "entering into" the kingdom of GOD, i. e. the Church of CHRIST, (first militant on earth, and then triumphant in heaven,) was itself a change of state, so that the two sentences would have had nearly the same meaning. And who could endure the paraphrase, "unless a

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man be brought into a state outwardly different, he cannot "enter into the kingdom?" But our SAVIOUR Himself has explained His own words. To be "born of the SPIRIT," stands opposed to the being "born of the flesh." As the one birth is real, so must the other be; the agents, truly, are different, and

infants, regarding Baptism as an outward admission to privileges which may afterwards become inward.' In saying this, however, I mean not to depreciate the services, which on this as on other subjects, Waterland has rendered to the Church.

1 Hooker, l. c.

2 See Lightfoot, ad loc. Archbishop Laurence's Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, p. 28. See Note AA. at the end.

3 Archbishop Laurence, c. pp. 31, 32. See note AA.

so also the character of life produced by each: in the one case, physical agents, and so physical life, desires, powers; and, since from a corrupted author, powers weakened and corrupted: in the other, the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD, and so spiritual life, strength, faculties, energies; still, in either case, a real existence; and, to the Christian, a new, real, though not merely physical beginning —an existence real, though invisible—and, though worked by an unseen Agent, yet (when not stifled) felt in its effects, like the energy of the viewless winds 1.

This birth" of the water and the SPIRIT" our Blessed SAVIOUR declared to be avwoɛv, i. e. (as seems probable) not simply that we must be born again, (for this is implied by the very saying that one now living must be born,) but "from above," as the word årwoɛy is always used by St. John, and indeed throughout the Old and New Testaments. Nicodemus, namely, had (in the name of himself and others) confessed that our LORD " was come "from GoD," and then made a sort of inquiring pause, (as it would appear,) as to the signs of His coming, or the mode of His manifestation 2. Carnal notions of our LORD's kingdom were probably at the root of his error; he thought that the kingdom of GOD would come with observation, and awaited its coming. Our LORD, seeing the love of truth mixed with his natural fearfulness, graciously prepared him for the contrary, and connected the discovery of the spiritual nature of His kingdom with the confession of Nicodemus. As if He had said, "I am, indeed, come down "from God (anò Oɛou), and he only can sce My kingdom, who is

1 The two births, the natural and the baptismal, are eloquently contrasted by St. Augustine:-"One is of the earth, the other of heaven; one of the "flesh, the other of the SPIRIT; one of mortality, the other of eternity; one of 66 man and woman, the other of GOD and the Church."-In Joann. Tract. xi. no. 6. See a similar passage, against the Pelagians, de Peccat. Meritis et Remiss. 1. iii. c. 2.

2 This connexion has been suggested by Lightfoot ad loc., and others from him; "Since then there was so earnest an expectation among the Jews of the "coming and kingdom of the Messiah, and Nicodemus appears to have thought "the miracles of CHRIST an indication and specimen thereof, CHRIST instructs

"him, how he may be fit to see and enter into that kingdom, and enjoy the blessings of those times."

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"born from above, or from God. The children only of the king"dom can know the mysteries of the kingdom, the children of "GOD the things of God." "Nicodemus," says St. Chrysostom,

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thought that he had made some great confession of CHRIST "when he had so spoken. But what saith CHRIST? He showeth "that he had not reached the very threshold or vestibule of the "true knowledge; but that he, and all who spake thus, were yet straying without the palace, and had not even caught a glimpse "of the true knowledge, who had such thoughts of the Only"Begotten. What said He? Verily, verily,' &c., i. e. ' unless "thou be born from above, and receivest the truth, thou wan"derest without, and art far from the kingdom of GoD;' only "to make the words less grievous, He speaketh not plainly but "indefinitely,' unless a man,'-all but saying,' whether thou or "any other thinkest this of Me, he is without the kingdom-' "What he says then is of this sort, 'Unless thou be born again, "unless thou receive the SPIRIT through the bath of regeneration, "thou canst not receive the fitting conception of Me. For this conception [that He was a teacher only] is not spiritual, but "carnal. For it is impossible for him who is not so born to see "the kingdom of God;' CHRIST here pointing to Himself, and showing that He is not that only which was seen, but that we "have need of other eyes to see the CHRIST."

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So then our LORD declares here the mystery, not only of a new birth, but of a birth "from above '," "from GOD," as the beloved

1 Besides vv. 3. 7. it occurs in St. John v. 31. "He who cometh from above;" xix. 11. "given thee from above ;" and xix. 23. St. Matt. xxvii. 51. Mark xv. 38. "woven from above." So in St. James i. 17, " is from above, coming down "from the Father;" iii. 15. "coming down from above;" iii. 17. "the wisdom "from above." In the only other cases in which it occurs in St. Luke and St. Paul it signifies "from above" of time, St. Luke i. 3. Acts xxvi. 5. Gal. iv. 9. In the LXX. it occurs seventeen times, always in the sense of "above" and "from above;" nine times answering to bypbn which word our Lord may have here used (xbyb). The authority of antiquity goes the same way. St. Chrysostom gives the two renderings, ad loc., " the word avшlev some say ""from heaven,' others, again,'" but does not decide; yet his language leads one to think that he took that sense which he placed first, and so his Benedictine editors have translated him throughout, "desuper." And so (which has much weight) Theophylact manifestly understood him: for in his commentary,

disciple from his mouth repeats it, "born of GOD" (John i. 13), and in his Epistle dwells so longingly on the words, "born of "Him" (1 John ii. 29), "born of God" (iii. 9. iv. 7. v. 1. 4. 18), "of GOD" (EK TO≈ Оɛoũ) (iii. 10. iv. 1, 2, 3, 4. 6. v. 19.), "children

which is here a sort of paraphrase of St. Chrysostom, he says, "Since Nico"demus had a low notion of CHRIST, that he was a teacher, and GOD was with "Him, the LORD says to him, it was to be expected that he should have such "conception of Me; for not as yet have you been born from above; i. e. the "spiritual birth of God (iк Oɛov).—But I say unto thee, that thou or whoso ever is not born from above and of God," &c. (where the έ Oɛou is inserted to explain the avwłεv, which Chrysostom uses in this same sentence). "For the "birth through Baptism, illumining the soul, enables a person to see, i. e. to "perceive, the kingdom of GOD, i. e. His Only-Begotten SoN." And before Chrysostom, Origen (lib. v. in Ep. ad Rom. § 8.) “ ävw0ɛv signifies both ' again' "and" from above.' But here, since he who is baptized by JESUS, is baptized "in the HOLY SPIRIT, it must be understood not as ' again,' but 'from above;' "for we say 'again' when the same things are repeated; but here the same "birth is not repeated, but, setting aside this earthly birth, a new birth is "received from above, and so we should read more correctly in the Gospel, "unless a man be born from above,' for this it is to be born of the HOLY "SPIRIT." (This last paragraph, " and so we should read more correctly," &c. must be the translator's, Ruffinus, making Origen's interpretation his own, since in Latin only could there be any question about the reading; in the original avwoev expressed both; so we have here the authority of Ruffinus also.) St. Cyril of Alexandria (whose explanation is like Chrysostom's) compares (ad loc.) the use of ik Tv avw, “I am from above," John viii. 23, and at the end of this ch. v. 31. ò avwlεv iρxóμevos, "he that cometh from above," and explains it thus: "It is the will of the FATHER that man should be made partaker of the "HOLY SPIRIT, being born to an unwonted and foreign life, and that man, being "of the earth, should be a citizen of heaven. But in that He says that the new "birth through the SPIRIT is 'from above,' He showeth plainly that the SPIRIT "is of the Essence of the GOD and FATHER, and of Himself he says, ' I am of "' above.'" Ammonius (Catena Corderii) explains also from above,' and argues in the same way the Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT. St. Cyril of Jerusalem seems to take in the same way, since he compares and contrasts our birth "of "water and the SPIRIT" with that of CHRIST of the FATHER, and with St. John i. 12, and it is adopted in the Greek Liturgy (Ass. ii. 138.) “thou hast granted us the regeneration from above (τὴν ἄνωθεν ἀναγέννησιν) through water " and the SPIRIT” (where the avwley would be superfluous except in this sense). Nonnus (A.D. 410) alone of the Greek writers (as far as I am aware) interprets avwoεv'again;' and this, in a question of Greek interpretation, has great

"of God" (iii. 2. 10. v. 2), which he so interwines as being identical one with another. No change of heart, then, or of the affections, no repentance, however radical, no faith, no life, no love, come up to the idea of this "birth from above;" it takes them all in, and comprehends them all, but itself is more than all; it is not only the creation of a new heart, new affections, new desires, and as it were a new birth, but is an actual birth from above or from GOD, a gift coming down from GoD, and given to faith, through Baptism; yet not the work of faith, but the operation of "water and the HOLY SPIRIT," the HOLY SPIRIT giving us a new life, in the fountain opened by Him, and we being born therein of Him, even as our Blessed and Incarnate LORD was, according to the flesh, born of Him in the Virgin's womb. Faith and

weight; and with it, the fact that St. John uses it elsewhere only in this sense. The translations (Syriac, Vulgate, Coptic) have given perhaps the general sense only in that they have rendered "again," (Euthymius certainly, who is commonly quoted for this rendering, really expresses himself neither way,) and it is remarkable that a trace of the other interpretation occurs in their Liturgies, as in the Syriac, "the new birth, which is from above" (Ass. i. 220. sup. p. 38); and in another (t. ii. p. 255.) “the gift from above of adoption" (sup. p. 39); and so perhaps also the Latin in the ninth century," the everlasting benediction "of the heavenly washing." (Ass. i. 24)

The only apparent grounds for the rendering "born again" are, first, the use of the word "regeneration" in Tit. iii. 5; secondly, that Nicodemus has been thought so to understand it. But (as has been observed) Nicodemus's answer is, "Can a man be born [not "born again"] when he is old ?"—" Can he enter "a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" wherein the second sentence is an inference from the first, and the stress is not upon the being “born again,” but on the dɛúrɛpov ɛlσɛλ0ɛïv, so that the words are in no way a commentary on our LORD's words. And any birth of one already born must be a second birth, so that Nicodemus's words, if they applied ever so strictly, would apply just as well in the one case as in the other. The same may be said of the passage of St. Paul; it is an evil mode of interpretation, which would so interpret one Scripture by another as to restrain the larger by the limits of the less. St. Paul declares the mystery "of regeneration and renewing of the HOLY "GHOST;" the SON of GOD speaks more fully of our sonship to GOD, our being "born" not "again" only, but "from above," "of GOD." One should look also for explanation rather to our LORD's own words than to those of Nicodemus and He explains "being born ävwlɛv by "being born of water and the SPIRIT," v. 5, whereof He names "the SPIRIT" only, vv. 6. 8.