SPIRIT OF THE SCRIPTURE. 143 does he never stay for an instant to hint that, though in all other points the Christian church was more comprehensive than the Jewish nation, in one particular point there was great danger in not considering it more exclusive? If our principle then be true,—if there be nothing in the nature of Baptism inconsistent with its being administered to infants, we require a positive prohibition before we can depart from a principle,—before we can set aside as unnecessary and useless all the previous dealings of God with His creatures. And now I must say a few words on the Spirit of Scripture. First, then, it is one of its essential characteristics, to refer the origin of every state in which man can be placed, to God, and to speak of every transgression as a departure from that state. Look through the law and the prophets, and say whether this feeling does not breathe through them all. You find nowhere a hint of man putting himself into any position except an evil and an anomalous one. I will be bold to say, there is not a passage in the whole of Scripture, in which a man is blamed for any thing but rejecting a position into which God, of his free love and grace, had brought him. So far, then, the idea of Baptism as a covenant in which man is put, a state conferred upon him, with which his acts may be either in accordance or discordance, harmonizes with what every Christian man feels to be the tone and mind of Scripture. But, again, the spirit of Scripture is eminently one of fellowship. See what havoc you are obliged to make of the most living parts of it 144 IT SUPPORTS OUR DOCTRINE. when you are determined to individualize it, to make every passage bear upon your own experience. You have twelve prophets, all writing upon national sufferings, sins, and judgments; you have sixteen or seventeen epistles, all written to bodies; only six letters to particular persons; and the three longest of these to men, not as individuals, but as officers of the church. How impossible is it to enter into the spirit of Scripture, unless you will identify yourself with a body; unless you will look upon yourself as possessing the highest spiritual privileges, only because you belong to that body, and not on account of any favouritism shown to you, or any excellence belonging to you as an individual? On this ground then, again, the idea of Baptism, as I have developed it, is especially in agreement with the spirit of Scripture. Once more; the spirit of Scripture is evidently a spirit of confidence, submission, and hope. Men are told to trust in God; to confide in a Being who has manifested that he cares for them. They are to submit to a Being who has the power and government of all the springs of life within them; they are to hope for that blessing to which he has promised to guide those who do not resist him; the blessing of being acquainted with their best and dearest friend. The idea of Baptism has these three criteria of being a Scriptural doctrine: It bids you confide in One who has taken you into union with himself :-it tells you are constituted in a righteous Being; that the flesh, and the world, and the devil are seeking to separate you from LETTER OF SCRIPTURE. 145 Him; that it is a narrow way in which you have to walk:- it tells you that it is a sin not to hope that this journey and this conflict shall have an end; and that you shall enter into the fulness of that communion, of which you have enjoyed only dreams and glimpses on earth. I could say much upon this last subject; for I believe it will be found, that a false view of the rewards which God has provided for those who love him, is the secret cause of men's objection to the views of Baptism which I have been now expounding. How it can be dangerous to tell men that they are freely admitted into a kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; that all spiritual blessings are freely bestowed upon them; and that these blessings are what every man really wants, and without which he cannot be satisfied, -those who invented the calumny can best explain. But this subject I reserve for my next letter. 6 And now I may ask you, without fear, to examine the letter of Scripture, to look plainly and steadily at the different texts in which Baptism is spoken of. Commence, then, with the Gospels, and see first to what shifts persons who deny the principles which I have been advocating, are driven, in order to get rid of that phrase, kingdom of heaven,' which meets them in every chapter, almost in every verse. Now they think they have escaped the embarassment which it causes them, by calling it the Christian dispensation;' now it is Christ reigning in the heart of believers;' now it is going to heaven.' I do not deny that each 146 6 of these expressions has a meaning, and that all their meanings are included in the words 'kingdom of heaven; but I must say, that if persons would recollect their own often repeated appeals to the text of Scripture, and would steadily and manfully grapple with this one phrase, they would find how very little light their vague notions throw upon it, and, on the contrary, how very much light it would throw upon them. I think you must, at least, grant, that I do not in this instance depart from the letter. It is said that Christ came to set up a kingdom, and I believe he did set it up, and that this kingdom is that restored or regenerate constitution in Christ; that constitution, according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh, which, by his incarnation and atonement, he has asserted for mankind, and into which we do, on that warrant, receive every member of our species by Baptism. In the next place, spend a few minutes (they will suffice,) in meditating on those instances in which the word regeneration, maλiyyeveσia, is used, and see whether they accord better with this meaning, or with that which the word bears in the vocabulary of the religious world. Next, I would ask you attentively to read St. Paul's Epistles to particular churches; calmly to inquire whether the adoption of this principle does or does not deliver you from the necessity of introducing some most awkward, and not over-honest interpolations, and of doing outrage to what seems to be the plain sense of innumerable passages. Supposing, for instance, I meet with such words EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 6 147 as these: We are buried with him by Baptism unto death; that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life;'-is it not something very like trifling with Scripture to be obliged to say, 'You must not understand that persons are actually buried with Christ in Baptism, but only that a believer has the privilege of becoming more and more dead to the world every day, and more and more alive unto Christ:' in other words, that the allusion to Baptism was merely a gratuitous ornament of speech, introduced by the Apostle without any reason or purpose. Or again, when it is said, shortly after, Count yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God,' are not some good people driven hard upon Popery, in order to get rid of the letter, when they say, 'That is to say, you know, the believer, the justified holy man, is so to account himself dead.' For if this be not the definition of a believer; if a believer is not one who accounts himself dead to sin and alive unto God, what is he? Do you not see, that an inexplicable something called faith is here thrust in between man and his Lord, just as the 'works which were to deserve grace of congruity,' were thrust in by the Romanist? Again, is it not comfortable, when St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Corinthians, 6 All things are yours, whether life or death, or things present or things to come, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's,'-to believe that he meant what he said; and that he had not a secret mental reservation of this kind:- I do not 6 |