that the term grace is of almost infinite application, so that there may be a portion of grace to precede, as well as another portion of grace to accompany, regeneration.

In corroboration, indeed, of the opinion, which he attributes to Hooker, he also quotes the subsequent passage from the same section of the Ecclesiastical Politie; "And because equity so "teacheth, it is on all parts gladly confessed, "that there may be in divers cases life by vir"tue of inward baptism, even where outward is "not found." But he sinks the first sentence, "because equity so teacheth," and does not give what follows; "so that if any question be "made, it is but about the bounds and limits of "this possibility." Besides, Hooker adds examples, which plainly demonstrate that he had in his view extraordinary, and not, as Mr. Scott would have us surmise, ordinary, dispensations of mercy. For he exemplifies his reasoning, by referring to the case of martyrs, and of penitents" desirous of baptism, but suddenly cut off "by death;" of whom he remarks, it has been constantly held, "that baptism taken away by

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necessity, is supplied by desire of baptism, because with equity this opinion doth best "stand." To these cases, also, he subjoins that of infants dying unbaptized. What can all this have to do with regeneration preceding baptism

in ordinary instances? And by what peculiar fatality does it happen, that Mr. Scott always stops short, where the requisite elucidation of the passage, which he brings forward, imperiously compels him to proceed?

Nor is this all. For, in his last work, he adduces the same quotation, also, against me, in a manner, which leaves his gloss upon it unquestionable. "How much more scriptural," he observes," and reasonable, and, surely, more

agreeable to the doctrines of our Church, is "the sentiment of her champion Hooker, that "such" (viz. adults truly repenting and coming to Christ by faith) "have life by virtue of in"ward baptism, where outward is not yet "found"." And thus, by the interpolation of the word yet, which is not Hooker's, combined with the object of his own argument, he invests the passage with a sense abhorrent from the intention of its author.

But, it may be thought, that the term regeneration, in this instance, may have been used by him loosely and largely. This, however, he will himself by no means speaks decidedly upon the

allow,

for he thus

point.

"It will be

"observed, that when, in the passage just cited",

"I deny that regeneration can be the blessing conveyed by baptism to the persons, whose "case is under consideration, I carefully limit

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my proposition to regeneration, strictly taken, "in the sense of..... the first disposition towards "future newness of life." And in the same page he adds, " to pretend that he who possesses repentance and faith has yet to receive the first disposition towards future newness of life, "would be a palpable contradiction."

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Upon the whole, then, it appears, that I am unjustly charged with differing in sentiment from Hooker, and of maintaining a palpable contradiction, to which that "great champion "of our Church" must himself plead guilty. For, in the quotation made from his works, he expressly states this first disposition towards future newness of life, combined with remission of sins, to be a grace given" with baptism," to be "dependent on the very outward sacrament," not, indeed, as upon the necessary cause, but as upon the necessary mean, of its reception, because baptism was instituted, that by it we might be

"tion, strictly taken in the sense of the infusion of a new "principle of life and action, as Dr. Mant has expressed it, "or as Hooker's words are, the first disposition towards future

newness of life, cannot be received by these persons in bap"tism, for they already have it before they are baptized."

incorporated into Christ, and so obtain the identical grace in question. But so plainly and perspicuously is the position here expressed, that the first disposition towards future newness of life exists not before, but takes place by the instrumentality of, baptism, that I forbear further comment upon the subject. The tribunal of the "judicious" Hooker was that to which my opponent chose himself to appeal; and by the sentence of that tribunal, his hypothesis ought, in his own judgment at least, to stand or fall.

The sole object of the section under consideration is simply to prove the necessity of baptism to regeneration, where, in the language of our Church, it may be had," that is, in all ordinary, without prejudice to extraordinary, cases, and, certainly, not to prove the existence of regeneration independently of baptism. I will add, therefore, to the same point, one or two more extracts from this section, quoted neither by Dr. Mant nor Mr. Scott. Alluding to the old Valentinian error of despising external sacraments, Hooker thus expresses himself: "They "draw very near to this error, who, fixing wholly their minds on the known necessity of faith, imagine that nothing but faith is necessary for the attainment of all grace. Yet " is it a branch of belief that sacraments are in "their place no less required than belief itself.

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CHAP. V.

Regeneration in and by baptism the apparent sense of the Liturgy. No second baptism.

THE superstructure of my argument I have principally raised on the obvious meaning of the language adopted in our Liturgy, and not on any extraneous authority. Nor does Mr. Scott himself deny what he calls the apparent force of my reasoning upon this ground. Nay, he goes further, and says; "Be it allowed, that Dr. "Laurence has opposed a difficulty, deduced "from the language of the Church, in her ser"vices, against the admission of the principle, "that adult persons, rightly receiving baptism, "are substantially regenerate even before they "are baptizedd." And he even admits it to be "true, that the Church seems to speak of the "regeneration of the parties concerned, as then " and there taking place." But this obstacle in his way he professes "fairly and fully to meet," by taking his "stand upon the ground, which "Bishop Jewel," he says, "has thus laid down