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"He entereth a sinner, he ariseth justified; He who dragged us "to death is cast aside; He received, Who brought us back to "life; through Whose free grace it is granted you, that ye should "be sons of GOD, not born by the will of the flesh, but begotten "by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT." Such was the exposition of the antient Church; the difference is radical, essential; it relates not to the exposition of a text, but to the insight, the depth, the harmony of Scripture, the greatness of what God has wrought, the unutterableness of His condescension. They formed no system, and so received everything as it fell into that which GOD had ordained; moderns have formed theirs; yet will even they venture to think that they have not lost as to all these things?

Our blessed SAVIOUR'S words declare the greatness of the mystery in itself. He Who never ceased to be in the bosom of the FATHER announces the exceeding and hidden mystery of our actual birth of GoD: the disciple who lay in His bosom, inculcates and draws out to us the yet "dark saying." Our LORD, Who is Love Eternal, takes on Him (what even after He has declared it, we still shrink from echoing, otherwise than as He has said it) the absolute necessity of regeneration, for the entrance into the kingdom of heaven, or our state of grace and glory, in which we live in His Church, and in which we hope to live with Him for ever; and that this regeneration is the being "born of water and the SPIRIT," or by GOD'S SPIRIT again moving on the face of the waters, and sanctifying them for our cleansing, and cleansing us thereby. He Who died for us', took upon Him to scare us, or our parents for our sakes, to seek refuge in the ark, by the words, "Except a man be born of water and the "SPIRIT, he cannot see the kingdom of GoD:" His disciple, St. Paul, had only to dwell on the greatness of the love herein displayed, the unmeritedness and irrespectiveness of our calling and election to this grace of Baptism and privilege of sonship. This contrast was suggested by a like distinction in the Lyra Apostolica, no. lxxxii, which ends

The Fount of Love His servants sends to tell
Love's deeds; Himself reveals the sinner's hell.

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"But when the kindness and love of GOD our SAVIOUR toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we had done, but according to His mercy, He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and of the renewing of the HOLY GHOST, which He shed on us abundantly, through JESUS CHRIST our SAVIOUR '." Our LORD, Himself the First Cause, declares the cause of our regeneration," water and the SPIRIT;" the servant (who of GOD'S free mercy had been called, and experienced the transcendentness of the change thereby wrought, from the persecutor to the persecuted, from the wolf to the lamb) speaks of it chiefly in its effects, the renewal of that, which by man's disobedience was decayed. In this language, also, as a comment on that of our LORD, we should observe how closely the gift is connected with the Sacrament; as our LORD speaks of "being born of "water and the SPIRIT," So, here, His Apostle, of the " washing "of regeneration ;"-not, (as a modern school has paraphrased it,) "regeneration, which is as a birth," or "baptism, which "attests or signifies regeneration," or "is a seal of regenera"tion, before given," or in whatever other way men have tortured the plain words of Holy Scripture, but "the washing of regene"ration, and of the renewing of the HOLY GHOST," i. e. a Baptizing, accompanied by, or conveying a re-production, a second birth, a restoration of our decayed nature, by the new and fresh life imparted by the HOLY GHOST. As before, our Blessed SAVIOUR had respect unto the contrary tendencies of our nature, the neglect, as well as the bare acquiescence in the outward ordinance; so here, also, the Apostle has been directed both to limit the imparting of the inward grace by the mention of the outward washing, and to raise our conceptions of the greatness of this second birth, by the addition of the spiritual grace. The gift moreover is the gift of God in and by Baptism; every thing but God's free mercy is excluded—“ not by "works of righteousness which we have done"-they only who believe will come to the washing of regeneration; yet not belief alone, but "GOD, according to His mercy, saves them by the washing of regeneration;" by faith are we saved, not by 2 See Note P. at the end.

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1 Tit. iii. 5.

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works; and by baptism we are saved, not by faith only; for so God hath said; not the necessity of preparation, but its efficiency in itself is excluded; Baptism comes neither as grace "of congruity," nor as an outward seal of benefits before conveyed; we are saved neither by faith only, nor by Baptism only; but faith bringing us to Baptism, and "by Baptism GoD saves us." They are the words of God Himself. As our

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LORD said negatively, that without the birth" of water and the "SPIRIT," or Baptism, man "could not see the kingdom of GOD," so St. Paul, that "by it we are saved;" saved out of the world, and brought into the ark, if we but abide there, and become not reprobates. Lastly, as our LORD had placed the birth" of water and the SPIRIT" at the threshold of His kingdom, without which men could neither enter in nor see it; so St. Paul speaks of the manifestation of the love of GoD therein, as distinct from and higher than all other, as what men had waited for, longed for, and at last it dawned; "but when the kindness and love "of GoD our SAVIOUR toward man appeared" (¿ñɛpávŋ), shone, arose upon him'. The privileges, then, of Baptism, the new birth, and renewal of the HOLY GHOST therein imparted, are something different in kind, from what had been before made known; they were part of the hidden mystery, which in times past was not made known, but now at length God's goodness

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1 I observe that Cassian makes the like remarks (de Incarn. Christi. 1. 2. c. 2.): "When he says ' appeared,' he expresses the dawn of this new grace " and nativity; for the gifts of this new grace thenceforward began to ' appear,' "when GOD' appeared' born in the world. So, then, by the very correspondence of the term he pointed out, as it were, this dawning' of a new grace. "For that is most properly said to have appeared,' which suddenly, as by a "sort of apparition, flashes upon us. As in the Gospels we read that the star' appeared' to the Eastern Magi, and in Exodus The angel appeared to "Moses in the flame in the bush.' In all these, and other sacred visions, 66 Scripture thought right especially to use this word, speaking of those things, as having appeared,' which shone with unwonted brightness. So then the "apostle also, knowing the coming of the heavenly grace, which appeared at "the dawn of the Holy Nativity, expressed it by the term of bright appari"tion;' using, namely, the term ' appeared,' of that which beamed with the "glory of a new light."

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therein "shone upon us :" accordingly, it must, on this ground, be something, which conversion, or change of heart, such as were known under the old dispensation, could not exhaust; and the relation of Israel, as the child of GoD, could but shadow forth, not realize, the privilege of our sonship. "But' perhaps 66 one will ask, wherein consists the eminence of believers in "CHRIST above Israel, since he too is said to have been born of "GOD, as is said, I have begotten and brought up children, and "they have despised ME.' (Is. i.) To this must be answered, "I think, that the law had a shadow of the good things which were to come, not the very image of the things; neither then "did He give this to Israel in real and full possession, but "sketched in them, as in an image and figure, until the time of ""restoration,' as is written (Heb. ix.), when there should be a "visible display of such as should in a truer and more cor"responding sense call GOD Father, on account of the Spirit of "the Only-Begotten dwelling in them. For Israel had the "spirit of bondage to fear, but these the spirit of adoption to "freedom, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.' Wherefore the "people, which was through faith in CHRIST to be advanced to "adoption, was described, as in outline, by that former people, "much as we see our spiritual circumcision [Baptism] imaged "by that in their flesh; and in a word, all we have was sha"dowed out in them. Moreover, we say that Israel was called "to adoption, as in an image, by a mediator Moses, wherefore "they were baptized unto Him, as St. Paul saith, in the cloud "and in the sea."

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St. Chrysostom well gives the context of the whole passage, and brings out the greatness of the mystery therein declared, and the application of the context to such of us as, having been made Christians from the eighth day, have persevered. "Re"proach no one," he says, "for thou wast such an one thyself. "For we likewise,' he says, "Let no one boast, for all have sinned. For if from thy earliest "youth thou hast lived virtuously, yet must thou have many

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were sometimes disobedient,' &c.

1 St. Cyril of Alexandr. ad loc.

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"sins; but if thou hast not, as thou thinkest, consider that this was not the result of thy excellence, but of the grace of God. "For had He not called thy forefathers, thou also hadst been an "unbeliever. Observe how he enumerates every sort of wickedness. Did not GoD order innumerable ways for us by the "prophets; did we obey? For we,' he says, were some"times deceived.' But when the love and kindness of God our SAVIOUR toward man appeared.' How? not from works "of righteousness which we had done, &c., but—by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the HOLY GHOST.' Oh! "how were we plunged in wickedness, so that we could not be "cleansed, but required to be born again; for such is regenera"tion. For as when a house is decayed, no one underprops it, nor binds together the old ruins, but taking it down to the "foundation, raises it up again, and restores it from the very be"ginning, so did He; He raised us not up on what we were; "but He razed us to the ground. This is what is meant by 're"newal of the HOLY GHOST' He made us new from the very core how? through the SPIRIT.' And again pointing out, in "another way, our great need, he says, which He shed on us abundantly through JESUS CHRIST Our SAVIOUR' So much "mercy did we need, that having been justified by His grace' "-again' grace,' not debt,'-' we might be heirs, according "to hope, of eternal life.' Here is both an exhortation to For if when our case was

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humility, and hope for the future.

so desperate, that we must be wholly born again, be saved by 66 grace, had no good in us, He saved us, much more will He do "this in the time to come."

One is almost ashamed to go about to prove that a text so plain applies to Baptism, or that the Holy Church Universal always so held it. The proof which one person can bring, can be but a sample of what remains behind. The proof is the same in kind as before; and may be useful to those who (because they have never examined) doubt even whether there be such a thing as Catholic consent and agreeing interpretation in Christian antiquity. First, then, no passage from any Father can, or has been pretended to be adduced, which should imply

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