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(Continued from page 148.)
The Bishop says he does not venture to give a
precise definition of what is meant by the word
“regenerate,” but will offer a suggestion which may
pave the way to a common understanding. This seems
to say that he will offer an opinion in which all
<<181>> parties may join by making mutual
concessions. It does not, however, even appear that
this is his real opinion on the subject. He proceeds
to say that in different passages of Holy Scripture
(meaning the New Testament), man is said to be born
of water and of the Spirit.
The passage is so curious that I will transcribe it
wholly. “To be born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God; to
have been begotten again of God; to be born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; to
have been begotten again of God into a lively hope;
to have been born of God and to sin not; to have
been begotten of God and to keep himself.” (This he
considers to be delivered in the New Testament, and
to be “regeneration.”) “Now he who is born becomes
thereby the son of him to whom he is born, by whom
he is begotten; and therefore he who is born of God,
or begotten of God, means, to be made a child of
God; and regeneration, or the being born again,
means, a person being made the child of a father
whose child he was not before. Regeneration by
baptism means, then, the being made by baptism a
child of God, and, with reference to God’s no longer
regarding him with displeasure, but with favour, a
child of grace.”
Now, in this laboured explanation and defence of the
meaning of the term “regenerate,” there are many
things assumed which cannot be proved, and which are
morally impossible. The words used cannot be taken
in the natural meaning which they bear, and must be
understood in some mystical sense. The child has
been begotten by the will of man, but by the means
provided by God for that purpose; when thus begotten
and born, it cannot again be begotten and born. If
it please God, he can alter the disposition of the
child’s soul from bad to good; but that is not a
regeneration; it is not thereby again begotten or
born; and it leads to the inference that God had
made a wicked soul and placed it in the child’s
body, and afterwards corrected his work. Add to
which that it is the soul which commits sin, the
body and members are only the instruments. The
mortal frame once formed, cannot again be formed
without previously being dissolved.
Doubtless the Almighty could at his pleasure collect
<<182>> the atoms of which it was composed, and
reproduce the same materials into the same form, and
by the same process,—which would indeed be a
regeneration; but that is not what is meant by the
term when applied to baptism. All the terms by which
the ceremony is described are used to indicate a
spiritual change, which is supposed to be effected
by it in the recipient’s soul; and there is no
evidence to support the assumption or to suppose the
fact that any change takes place in any infant’s
soul a few weeks after its entrance into the world,
at which time generally the ceremony is performed.
As to the assertion that it is thereby made a child
of God, an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven, a
member of Christ, it is no more than an invention to
enhance the value of the ceremony; and the late
discussion has decided that what is meant by the
term regeneration is not necessarily the elect of
baptism.
The Church of Rome has been censured for depriving
her lay children of the perusal of the Bible, and
her ecclesiastics of the exercise of their private
judgment. She has given an interpretation of the
mysteries of her doctrine which must be received by
all;—she claims infallibility, which resides ex
officio in the supreme Pontiff. That certainly is
very tyrannical; but it has in a great measure
preserved the unity of her doctrine: she has laid
down a certain rule, from which there no appeal. The
Reformers, when they threw off the papal yoke, took
credit for their liberality in allowing the free
study of the doctrine of their
faith as set forth in the Gospel. They permitted and
invited every one to exercise his own judgment on
the mystic dogmas therein contained, and the
consequence was soon apparent, and becomes every day
more visible.
The Protestant Church has not any fixed rule for the
explanation of its mysteries. Many theologians are
laboured to elucidate them, each in his own way, but
have rendered them more obscure.
The Bishop of Norwich declared “that, considering
the number and nature of many of the propositions in
the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common
Prayer, it is impossible that any numbers of
individuals should view them all in the same light
<<183>> therefore some latitude in subscribing to
them is utterly unavoidable.”
The judgment delivered by the Chairman of the
Judicial Committee, last July, was, that the whole
of the Catechism required a charitable construction.
The charitable construction is explained to be the
same as a qualified construction, not strictly nor
literally true.
The Bishop of London, in treating of baptismal
regeneration, says: “A question may be properly
raised as to the sense in which the term
regeneration was used in the early church and by our
own Reformers; but I do not understand how any
clergyman who uses the office for baptism, without a
breach of God’s faith, can deny that, in some sense
or other, baptism is indeed the laver of
regeneration.” (That which is true must be true in
every sense.)
Bishop Pearson’s exposition is not very luminous. In
treating of baptism, he says that it is an outward
and visible sign indeed; but by it an invisible
grace is signified, and the sign itself was
instituted for the very purpose that it should
confer that grace.
It
is not the object of a sign to confer a grace, but
to signify that the grace has been conferred; but by
the above quotation it is affirmed that baptism
actually conferred the grace, and necessarily is a
sign of it. It seems the Bishop’s exposition is to
be received with a charitable construction.
The Bishop of London says again (page 7): “I suppose
that few among us will be found to deny that all who
receive baptism worthily are, in some sense of the
term, therein regenerated.”
Now I do not think that sufficient; they should take
it in the sense that the Church uses the term,
though the term certainly does not express the sense
which is put upon it; and I believe that few will be
found to maintain that the rite of baptism confers
the benefits which are ascribed to it. I think every
one will allow that the language of the Church on
that subject is merely figurative of some blessing
or benefit which the recipient is supposed to derive
therefrom. It must not only receive a charitable
construction, but be repudiated in its literal
meaning; and then what remains but a simple
ceremony? When the Church extols
<<184>> the virtue
of its effects, it cannot bring any evidence from
the Gospel in support of the terms which are
employed.
It
appears that there is a party in the Church who are
anxious for the further reformation of the reformed
religion, and would “expunge from the Common
Prayer-Book the Athanasian creed, the assertion of
baptismal regeneration, some of the rubrics in the
office of the Holy Communion, &c. Should the time
unhappily ever come when such concessions shall be
made, it will not be long before our venerable and
scriptural liturgy is replaced for the second time
by a ‘Directory for the Public Worship of God.’”
On
this subject the Bishop quotes the opinion of the
Rev. L. Newton: “As for your Liturgy, I am far from
thinking it incapable of amendment; though, when I
consider the spirit and temper of the present times,
I dare not wish that the improvement should be
attempted, lest the remedy should be worse than the
disease.” In this opinion the Bishop coincides. He
has declared that the Book of Common Prayer,
contains a full exposition of the doctrine of the
Church; still, it is capable of amendment. If there
be any Jew who contemplates conversion, he had
better wait till the amendment is made, so that he
may not hereafter have to discard what must have
cost him much trouble to reconcile to his mind.
Now, let us consider what dogmas, are taught in the
Catechism, but which the Judicial Committee say
require a charitable construction, but which, every
child is expected to know. The first question is,
“What is your name?” The second is, “Who gave you
that name?” to which the child must answer, “My
godfather and godmother, at my baptism, when I was
made a Member of Jesus Christ, a child of God, and
inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” The
construction must be charitable indeed that can lend
to these phrases a shadow of truth. The child is
taught to repeat these words when it has not reason
to understand them in any other than their literal
meaning; and, I believe, in ninety-nine cases out of
one hundred, no effort is made to undeceive it.
Bishop Beveridge admits that they are only figures
of speech, when he explains that by baptism the
<<185>> child is admitted into the Church, or
kingdom of God upon earth; but except he submit to
the government and the laws established in it, he
forfeits all right and title to the kingdom of
heaven. But he does not say that the child by
baptism becomes a member of Christ, a child of God,
and inheritor of his kingdom. Baptism, he says,
puts us in the way to heaven, but unless we walk in
that way we can never come thither, but the mere
ceremony cannot have any effect on the child. The
catechumen then states his belief, which is “in God
the Father and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, who
was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin
Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
dead, and buried, descended into hell; on the third
day he rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven,
where he sitteth on the right hand of God.”
Now, the whole of this confession of faith requires
“the charitable construction,” except the first
member; but it is taught to the child without any
explanation or modification, whilst the teacher
must know in his heart that very little of it is
literally true. All that relates to the Son of God
(who is there called Jesus Christ), as such, is
false and impossible, as the child will find when he
is instructed that the Son is equal to the Father in
power and glory. He will then either reject the
doctrine altogether, or remain in the erroneous
belief inculcated in his childhood, that a god was
conceived by a woman of a spirit which proceeded
from himself and his father; that he was born,
suffered and died, rose again from the dead, and
ascended into heaven. Where is the teacher who will
tell him that there is not anything that is
literally true as to the Son of God? After having
deceived the child in his infancy, they will let him
live and die in his error.
(To be continued.) |
