that we shall study afresh the thinkers of the continental Reformation, with the masculine minds of England in the same great period; that we shall look for the principles of our church beyond one school of Anglo-Catholic divines; that the communion which has produced a Hooker, a Cudworth, a Whichcote, a Butler, is to have again as sound a learning, and to be as it was meant to be, the leader in the reconciliation of Christendom.

E. A. WASHBURN.

REGENERATION IN ITS MANIFOLD ASPECTS.

AN HUMBLE ATTEMPT TO RECONCILE HONEST DIFFERENCES.

In some previous publications, the earliest in 1850, I have tried to show, as the meaning of many parts of God's word, that the Eternal Son, assuming our nature, sanctified that nature, and made it capable of goodness, of God-likeness. This was the new probation of humanity, begun instantly, upon the first apostacy; pre-ordained as the renewal of the life forfeited and lost by the violation of the first covenant. Under this new covenant of grace every human being has lived. For the nature of every man is that nature which Christ assumed, and endued through the Eternal Spirit, with the capacity to know God, to believe, to fear, to serve, and to love Him. The history of the world and of society, it seems to me, cannot be adequately appreciated, except in the light of this transcendent truth.

It ought not to be imagined that the merciful purpose of God towards men, which, in His wise Providence, was first manifested as a material fact in the reign of Augustus Cæsar, was through all the intervening period between the Promise and the visible manifestation of Messiah, restrained and frustrated by the limits of time. The purpose and the promise of God-the everlasting If such construction could

covenant-cannot be so restrained.

be allowed, Christ would not be, as he is declared to be, the Second Adam-the second and spiritual Head of the Human Race. The late Dr. Samuel Seabury states this point in his usually clear and forcible language:

By his act of disobedience, Adam lost the life in which he was created, and was thus changed from an obedient to a disobedient, from a happy to a miserable being. Into this state of apostacy, or separation from God, the discendants of Adam are born, and from this state the Son of God interposed to redeem them. He was promised to Adam immediately after the fall; and with the promise came the thing promised, for the promises of God are never fallacious, but always true. The fallen Adam and his posterity were thus made capable of faith and repentance-acts which cannot be acceptably exercised without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was given as the principle of a new life, by whose powerful energy man was made capable of being reclaimed from his apostacy.

In a restrained and qualified sense, therefore, the Son of God assumed human nature instantly on the fall of Adam. He assumed the human nature so far as to communicate to it by the energy of the Holy Spirit the capacity or principle of a new and holy life. Unless all men have this capacity, the gospel would be preached in vain, for none could respond to its call. If man in virtue of his own will, reason and conscience, or any of the natural powers which belong to him as man, could recover himself from his apostacy, then Christ died in vain; if man, in virtue of his natural strength, could do the least conceivable thing which would be effectual toward his recovery, then would he share with Christ the merit and glory of redemption. Neither of these consequences can be admitted; and we therefore conclude that the Eternal Word, from the moment of the fall, assumed human nature for the accomplishment of His gracious purpose; so assumed it as to be in and with it, though not of it, as the principle of a new and heavenly life, bestowing on it the capacity of being re-united to God in the life of obedience and happiness which was lost by the fall." [Discourses, pp. 72-3.]

At a time of unusual agitation in our Church, it seemed to me that if the light of this great truth could be brought to bear upon the vexed question of the meaning and effect of Baptism, these inveterate disputations might be resolved into harmless logomachies. Every reasoner knows that a logomachy, while unresolved, is the most mischievous and hopeless of all controversies, because each party is contending for a truth, and, for want of a mutual understanding, they can never come to an intelligible issue. Such, I think, has been the history of the Baptismal controversy.

Since that time the great truth which I advocated has forced itself, against the barrier of a narrow and technical theology, into more general acceptance; so that it is boldly affirmed in our Mother Church that the recognition and full allowance of this truth must be laid at the foundation of all successful missionary work among the more cultured heathen peoples.

Since that time, also, the progress of the controversy has brought the disputants to the last terms of the question on either side, so

that it can be more easily taken hold of, and its real quality discerned.

I propose, therefore, to give a general resumé of the Baptismal question in its present state, as it appears in the light of the great truth-the Universality of the grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This great gift of God to man, providing for the fallen creature a new life, and a new capacity of holiness, was not only a fact in the counsel and eternal purpose of God, and by consequence a fact in the actual condition of human nature, but it was a fact revealed, as the object of Faith, and as the pregnant sense of all the worship and of all the sacrificial rites of mankind. The mysterious promise, the Seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpent's head, illustrated and enlarged by a continous stream of prophecy, and by all the services of primeval worship, was the solace and comfort of all nations; inspired the hopes and directed the faith of the whole world.

The growing and various corruptions of this faith and worship gave occasion, first to the call of Abraham, and afterwards to the establishment of the Mosaic Polity. The chosen people thus were made the special guardians and keepers of the truth. But the rest of mankind did not then and therefore cease to believe in God, and in the promised redemption. They did not then and therefore cease to offer the worship, however corrupted, which embodied and showed forth that faith. On the contrary, this worship and this faith retained their hold upon the world, and were the salt and savour of humanity, down to the actual birth of Christ, and in some nations, long after. It is true, that by lapse of time, and by the progress of corruption, the traditional faith became more and more obscured. And St. Paul in his address to the Athenians expressed the actual condition of the religious mind in that time and country-" Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, HIM declare I unto you." [Acts xvii: 23.]

Now take the early chapters of the Epistle of the same Apostle to the Romans, and see how distinctly he declares, that the Gentiles, having the truth, had departed from it by iniquity. See with what emphasis he sets forth his great theme :

Because * but

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. * that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. [Rom. i: 19, 21, 25, 26, 28.]

Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and un circumcision through faith. [Rom. iii: 29, 30.]

Here it is plainly and fully declared that the Gentiles were condemned, not for ignorance, but for sin: "because they held the truth in unrighteousness," and that they shall be justified by faith, even as the Jews, and on the same terms.

And now a new element in this wondrous provision of eternal wisdom for the salvation of the world becomes prominent. The desire of all nations has come. The object of the faith of the whole world, through all generations- the Divine, Human Redeemer "God, manifest in the flesh," is revealed in time-the Babe of Bethlehem, the Fulfiller of the Law, the Teacher of the Nations, the One Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. And yet, on the eighth day after His human birth, He is brought into the narrow pale of the Jewish Church, by Circumcision. And at the close of His ministry He commanded that all nations, as they were converted, should be brought into His earthly kingdom by Baptism. This earthly kingdom of Christ is indeed far wider and more comprehensive than Judaism, but compared with mankind, for whom Christ came and lived and died, it has continued to be a very narrow circle. In contemplation of the corresponding problem in the old time, St. Paul had asked, "Is He the God of the Jews only?" The same question with its satisfying answer belongs equally to the same problem in its Christian form. Is He the God of the Christians only? Is He not the God of the Heathen also?

Looking at different sides of this complexed and world-wide problem, different men come to opposite conclusions. Some are so impressed with the broad comprehensiveness of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus that they set at naught, as mere bigotry