of belonging to the profession, not belonging to the hypocrite.

Such do not "enter" into Christ's church, though they profess to do so; only those who have both "water and the Spirit," which hypocrites have not.

FORBES observes, respecting the fathers, "Austin, and many others, believed respecting reprobate children, when they grew up and lacked the spirit of forgiveness of (towards?) their brethren, &c." (C. 16. p. 529.)

"Most considered their sins only conditionally forgiven in baptism." (Ib.)

-"And that though they were regenerate and ingrafted into Christ, as to the reception of baptism, they had not received the incorruptible seed, were not of the number of Christ's saints; in short, were not born of God." (531.) Forbes proceeds:

"To an objection about the means, St. Austin says; 'I answer, the sacraments never were, nor are they either the sole, or the principal means of man's salvation: the chief means for the salvation of little children are the passion of Christ, the faith of the parents, or of the church; the prayers of the pious, the sanctification of the child by the internal grace of the Holy Spirit: these are means of perpetual efficacy, whether the visible sign be afforded, or not afforded.'"*

FABER (on the ordinary operations of the Spirit) says; "Our venerable Reformers, in exact accordance with Tillotson, Hopkins, and Wilkins, clearly speak of regeneration as taking place in adult subjects after baptism; therefore they do not necessarily, and in the way of cause and effect, attach the inward grace to the outward sign. The same doctrine was taught and maintained by the primitive church from the beginning.

"The early ecclesiastical writers do, indeed, perpetually bestow upon the outward sign, the appellation of inward grace for baptism they are wont familiarly to denominate

*Respondia, sacramenta nunquam fuerunt, neque sunt, vel sola, vel præcipua salutis humanæ media: præcipua media pro parvulorum salute sunt passio Christi; parentum fides, vel ecclesiæ, preces piorum sanctificatio ipsius parvuli, per internam graciam Spiritus Sancti; hæc sunt media perpetuæ efficacitatis, sive accedat visibile signum, sive non accedat." (Forbes, c. 16. p. 508.)

This one sentence annihilates Dr. Pusey's notion about the Fathers and baptisinal regeneration.

illumination or regeneration; while correspondingly, the baptized they style the illuminated or regenerated. But whenever they descend to the strictness of definition and explanation, they then teach us distinctly that the inward grace does not necessarily attend upon the outward sign; that a man may be externally baptized without being internally regenerated: and that spiritual regeneration is by no means inseparably attached even to the most canonical administration of baptism. Such, not to mention others, is the doctrine explicitly taught by the great Augustine, by Jerome, and by Cyril of Jerusalem: and the declaration of the last of these three writers, I cannot but deem peculiarly important; because, speaking to the collective body of the catechumens, in his official capacity of the episcopally appointed public catechist of the church of Jerusalem, he must plainly be viewed as propounding, not merely his own isolated private sentiments, but the universally received doctrine of the primitive church catholic."

"In the case of infants, Augustine taught that regeneration always accompanied baptism: but then, in their case he understood regeneration to mean nothing more than a federal change of condition. Hence he contended that a moral change of disposition, which he styles conversion, and which was not communicated at baptism, must, in order to salvation, follow afterward." (De Corrup. et Grat. de Baptismo.)

"According to the voice of antiquity, and by the explanatory statement in the first part of the Homily for Whit-Sunday, we must obviously understand the phraseology of our Anglican church in her baptismal offices. In the judgment of charity, it is hoped and presumed that the inward grace attends upon the outward sign: but when our Reformers, like the early ecclesiastics, descend to the strictness of explanation, they then teach us that a baptized individual may, nevertheless, still need to be spiritually regenerated,-whether in baptism or the eucharist, the outward visible sign may be given without any communication of the inward spiritual grace, which was

*Conversion NOT communicated by baptism." Notwithstanding this doctrine of Augustine, Pusey quotes him as teaching that both regeneration and conversion take place at baptism.

No. 6.

C

the doctrine of the primitive catholic church, and it is still the doctrine of the reformed Church of England."

HOOKER.-We shall close our references with an extract or two from the venerable Hooker.

"The greatest moral perfection of baptism consisteth in men's devout obedience to the law of God, which law requireth both the outward act, or thing done; and also, that religious affection which God doth so much regard, that without it, whatsoever we do, is hateful in his sight. The first thing required of him who standeth for admission into Christ's family, is belief. So the true reason wherefore Christ doth love true believers is, because their belief is the gift of God; a gift, than which, flesh and blood in this world cannot possibly receive a greater.-No religion enjoyeth sacraments,-the signs of God's loveunless it have also that faith whereon the sacraments are built, and which is to the kingdom of God a key, the want whereof excludeth infidels both from that kingdom, and all other saving grace.'

"Two covenants there are which Christian men do make in baptism-the one concerning the relinquishment of Satan, the other touching the obedience to the 'faith of Christ.' Neither do I think it a matter easy for men to prove, that ever baptism did use to be administered without interrogatories of these two kinds." Id. b. v. § 63.

Hooker gives us what we may safely receive as the summing up of the whole survey of all different or discordant opinions on the subject of baptism, its necessity, and its importance.

"It is on all parts gladly confessed, there may be in divers cases, life by virtue of inward baptism, even when outward is not found.. So that if any question be made, it is but about the bounds and limits of this possibility. It has been therefore constantly held, as well touching other believers as martyrs, that baptism taken away by necessity, is supplied by desire of baptism, because with equity this opinion doth best stand. Such infants, which die unbaptized, the judgment of many hath gone hard against them. But seeing grace is not absolutely tied to the sacraments, God imputeth the secret desire that others have on their behalf, and accepteth the same as theirs." § 60.

* Ecclesiastical Polity, c. ii. § 5.

NEUTRALIZED BY CONFLICTING TESTIMONY.

51

We may observe, respecting Hooker's notion of imputation, here stated, that we do not know of any imputation of the holiness of one person to the use of another, saving the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed for the justification of sinners; yet, ecclesiastically speaking, we do not know how far the holiness of a parent may be beneficial to the child, and how far God may accept the real desires of the parent, in external matters, as a substitute for the infant's lack of performance. "I will have mercy and not sacrifice," is a blessing of universal, when of just and necessary, application. If Moses had not neglected his child's circumcision, God would not have been angry; witness its long omission in the wilderness where no such displeasure was shewn.

The foregoing testimonies, which might be multiplied to almost any extent, will we conceive be deemed perfectly satisfactory for the purpose for which we principally use them, i.e. to show the utter inutility and perfect impracticableness of Dr. Pusey's system, which is to send us to the fathers for his interpretation of "water and the Spirit;" who, he assures, have handed down to us that 66 one sense which he has embraced, even from the apostles' days." We assert that such a system is, for all practical and useful purposes, visionary and mischievous: which the statements above made from Burges, Bingham, Faber, Hooker, and himself, abundantly prove.

1. We have seen that, as THEY understand the ancients, those fathers do NOT mean what Dr. Pusey's system asserts that they do mean. So that there is a "division among" the readers and interpreters of the fathers themselves. But we have seen that Bingham, Faber, &c., have given evidence from the fathers themselves, that they must be so understood, and that they do so explain their own meaning, as those authors explain them. Yea, and even Dr. Pusey himself, is occasionlly compelled to make the same admissions; though he takes great pains to get those admissions out of sight again, as soon as possible.

We assert that this process, at least NEUTRALIZES and makes void all Dr. Pusey's quotations and inferences from the fathers, because those writers, it is proved, do not mean what isolated passages, so extracted from them, seem to

mean. If it be objected that the afore-mentioned writers have no more right to claim their interpretation for the fathers than Dr. Pusey and his associates have theirs: we would answer, that so far as they substantiate their claim from the fathers themselves (in which Dr. Pusey himself at times concurs), they have a perfect and exclusive right-a right which Dr. Pusey can never disprove. But on any ground the professor cannot claim a right of interpretation which they have not.

Then, if their authority be only equal to Dr. Pusey's, on interpretation, seeing it is so directly in opposition to his, it is obvious that it neutralizes and makes his interpretation void. As two bodies of equal gravity and velocity striking a third in opposite directions, destroy each other's influence, while the body itself remains unaffected by the collision.

2. But when to this we add that the entire evidence of the APOSTOLIC FATHERS is against Dr. Pusey's exclusive interpretation, that their silence respecting "water conveying the Spirit," and their use of repentance, faith, holiness, and conversion, promiscuously, as identical with "spiritual regeneration," we shall see sufficient reason to assert that the professor's chain is broken off from the apostles in its very first links. If we further consider that Irenæus, the first authorized link in the chain of tradition, has not given from the mouth or writings of Polycarp, the last apostolic father, a single sentiment confirmatory of Dr. Pusey's system, and moreover, that Tertullian may be conformably understood: we may assure ourselves, without fear of contradiction, that so far as the fathers are concerned, Dr. Pusey has "built his house upon the sand." For, what Hooker writes (B. v. § 67.) that "variety of judgments and opinions argueth obscurity in those things whereabout they differ;" was never more pungently applicable than to the "obscurity" out of which Dr. Pusey vainly attempts to elicit divine light from the human authority of the Christian fathers.

The Church of England.

As we shall probably take another opportunity of saying something upon the subject of the services of the church, we shall here only make a few observations, and such as are connected with the interpretation of the fathers. That the Established Church has servilely copied the fathers in her