there ;" i.e. when he makes up the list of his citizens he shall reckon among them as having all the privileges of birthright, many a Proselyte from heathen lands. Whence the Jewish Divines say that Abraham when he was called by God and cast off idolatry to serve him, became " a new creature;" and speak of Proselytes as "born anew;" "brought into the world a second time, and by another mother," and changed from "children of Satan into children of Abraham," entering thereby into new family relations, and new ties and duties towards a new community.

We need not wonder therefore at the similar use of these terms by our Lord and his Apostles to express the similar transition of the Hebrew convert from the Old law to a New one, and of the Gentile Proselyte from Heathenism to Christianity; from their connexion with what St. Paul denominates "this present evil world" whether Jewish or Pagan,

shall be upon the prophets that see vanity and that divine lies they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel." And Isaiah xliv. 5, where reception into this commonwealth is thus promised-" One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord,"-he shall enter his name in the roll of my people,-" and shall surname himself by the name of Israel."

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into a new connexion with the community of Christian worshippers. This transition was avowed and witnessed before both the world and the church in the public solemnity of Baptism, which was the symbol of the convert's renunciation of the old family of his birth, and entrance as a new-born babe into the new family of his adoption; of the blotting out his past existence and the commencing of a new one; and which therefore is called by our Lord the "being born again of water," and by St. Paul "the washing of Regeneration;" and is referred to by St. Peter as transferring its recipient from an old world into a new one, as completely as the waters of the flood transported Noah and his family from the wickedness and ruin of the ante-diluvian, to the renewed purity and the regenerated hopes of the post-diluvian, state of things. "Except a man be born again of water," said Jesus to Nicodemus (John iii. 5);-except he pass, not mentally only by private conviction of my being sent from God, but manifestly also by public avowal of his sentiments, into the number of my open followers," he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." "God," says St. Paul to Titus (iii. 5), "according to his mercy hath saved us,"-has transferred us out of the community of the "foolish, disobedient, deceived," &c. (verse 3), into the community of his saved ones; has "justified" us (as it is in verse 7), and received us

into his favour and protection,-"by the washing of Regeneration." "In the days of Noah," says St. Peter (1 Peter iii. 20, 21), "few, that is eight souls were saved by water ;"-were rescued on the bosom of the flood from the ruin of the old world into the security of the new ;-"The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us,"-by water in like manner is our transition now effected from the world on which the curse of God is come, and which is ready to be burned (2 Peter iii. 10), into that little family of his delivered ones who have the promise and the hope of "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter iii. 18.) What the writing of his name to the Mosaic covenant was to the Proselyte from Heathenism; what the washing from the defilements of his birth was to the new-born infant; what the water of the flood was to the rescued family of Noah; that is Baptism to the Christian convert; the method of transition into a new community-a new sphere of being a new world.

Scripturally therefore, as well as by a just analogy, does the Christian church employ this term Regeneration to express the new State of Adoption, or admission into the favour and the family of God, to which we are introduced by Baptism; our transference from being "children of wrath" to "children of grace." Thus Justin Martyr, speaking of the

mode of dealing with converts in his time, says, "They are then led by us to a place where there is water, and are regenerated after the same manner that we ourselves have been regenerated. For they are bathed and cleansed in the water in the name of God the Father and Lord of all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost." Whence the Lutheran Reformers remark, "Sometimes the word Regeneration is used for Justification; and then it means simply remission of sins, and adoption into the number of the Children of God. In which sense it is frequently employed in the Apology for our Confession, as for example where it is asserted that Justification is Regeneration. In like manner as the word to make alive" (compare Eph. ii. 1, 5) “is used to signify the remission of sins."* To the same purport our English Reformer Wycliffe says, "In Baptism God christeneth the souls of men; that is to say, washeth their souls from the uncleanness of all sin.' And again, "Bodily baptizing is a figure showing how man's soul should be baptized from sin. Bodily washing of a child is not the end of baptizing; but baptizing is a token of washing of the soul from sin, both original and actual, by virtue taken of Christ's death." And this therefore is a prominent, though not the exclusive, sense which pervades the Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England. * Formula Concordiæ, p. 686.

"The idea which our Reformers entertained," says Mr. Simeon, 66 was, That the remission of our sins, as well as the regeneration of our souls, is an attendant on the Baptismal rite.” * We see this in the Twenty-seventh Article, where we read that "Baptism is a sign of Regeneration or New birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the church: the promises of forgiveness of Sin, and of our adoption to be the Sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed." So also in the Baptismal service we pray" that this Infant coming to thy holy Baptism may receive remission of his sins by spiritual Regeneration ;" and again, " Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin;" and then we afterwards give thanks to God "that this child is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church." Whence, again, in the collect for Christmas Day we pray that "being regenerate and made God's children by adoption and grace, we may daily be renewed by his Holy Spirit."

Such then is the first sense of the term Regeneration; denoting our transference into a state of adoption-our being new-born from a condition of guilt and condemnation, to one of pardon acceptance and the hope of everlasting life; from being "without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of * Simeon's Works, ii, 258.