NOTE. Since writing the passages in the text relating to Dr. Pusey, I have read a letter addressed by the Rev. J. H. Newman to the editor of the Christian Observer. In this letter the author declares, for himself and Dr. Pusey, that they object to the view of Regeneration generally adopted in the religious world, as feeble and inadequate. He had, it appears, been attacked by the editor of the Christian Observer, for maintaining, that Regeneration is a privilege specially belonging to the New Covenant, which could not by any accurate divine, be attributed to an Israelite. The reviewer had been pleased to consider this a most startling and dangerous assertion, involving the doctrine, that Voltaire had a spiritual character which did not belong to Abraham. Mr. Newman replies, first, that every privilege which his opponent, or any of the party to which he belongs, claims for Abraham, would be claimed for him by Dr. Pusey. That he only differs from them in refusing to consider sanctification and regeneration as the same, and to treat those who receive the promises which the Patriarchs of the elder dispensation expected as on a level with them. Secondly-That he sees nothing monstrous in the notion that Voltaire may have inherited higher blessings than belonged to any Jewish Saint - his sin being that he fell from those blessings. It will be perceived, that these sentiments are exactly those which I have 338 NOTE. advocated in this, and my former letter. I have maintained that men are admitted into a regenerate constitution at Baptism, into which, before the incarnation of Christ, it was impossible they could enter, and I have asserted as Mr. Newman does, that the sin of men under the new dispensation is, that they refuse this inestimable privilege. But the question is, has this doctrine been strengthened or enfeebled by Dr. Pusey's language respecting a new or infused," or Mr. Newman's respecting an "angel nature?" I contend that it has been greatly weakened: I contend that by these phrases, they have brought themselves into apparent conflict with the assertions of the Evangelical party, when they need only have brought themselves into conflict with their negations. The Evangelicals say, "A new life is given at conversion;" meaning that when persons turn to God from sin, they become inheritors of a new life in Christ, they become justified and sanctified men as Abraham was.-Dr. Pusey, says, "No, this new life is given at Baptism." Why need he say so? Why might he not say,-Men are then brought into a glorious constitution in Christ; (I will not say an angel constitution, because I think it something much higher, seeing that " Verily He took not upon him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham,") they are made the members of Christ, children of God and heirs of everlasting life; they are made inheritors of life and glory; and when they are afterwards brought to acknowledge their relation to Christ, and when they are at length brought to the full glory of God; it is but the entering livingly into that very state which was theirs long before; and of which the Spirit then undertook to give them the possession. Put the doctrine so; and the period at which the con scious and sanctified life begins has its honour; and the period at which the glorified life begins has its honour; and neither is in the least inconsistent with the idea of baptism being the induction into all Christian felicity. Put the doctrine in the other way; and the mere period of baptism is set up against all the other periods of human life; the child is supposed to be holier than the man conscious of pardon and sanctification; better than the saint who beholds the glory of God and is changed into his image; the notion of a gift or impregnation displaces the idea of all blessings being in Christ, and being possessed by virtue of union with him; the fallen baptised man is supposed to be lost and all but irrecoverable; the dying Christian is supposed to be an imperfect imitation of the baby. I ask again which doctrine gives you the greater sense of the glory of baptism? |