A QUERY. TO THE EDITOR OF The christIAN EXAMINER. SIR-Could any of your correspondents inform me by what authority laymen read the lessons in the chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, and whether the privilege extends to any other churches in Ireland? I am, Sir, yours, MINIMUS. ON BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. TO THE EDITOR OF The christIAN EXAMINER. SIR-It has long afforded matter of discussion, whether the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is taught in the formularies of our church. needless to attend to the opinions of those few who seem to verge towards the opus operatum of popery; let us rather consider the two principal divisions which exist amongst those who reject such an idea altogether. Some have supposed that the expressions-regenerate, born again, &c. when applied to infants, are used precisely in the sense in which they are applied to adults, and from a well-grounded persuasion, that if any were thus regenerated, they would not afterwards fall away, they have been led to speak of the regeneration of the believer's seed in baptism, as that which may, in some instances, take place, in answer to the prayers of the church, but as if it were of rare occurrence, and not to be prayed for as a matter of special promise. Others again, having the same view of the term regeneration, as applied to infants, but differing as to the certainty of perseverance in the regenerate, have expressed themselves as if all baptised children were regenerate, while few, comparatively, acted up to their privileges. Both of these may be considered as belonging to the same class, and both, I am persuaded, err as to the real meaning of our service from overlooking the Scriptural import of regeneration. Instead of conceiving of it as a physical operation upon an insensible subject, in which sense it would be applicable to infants, it is represented in Scripture as a change which passes upon a moral agent, when he receives by faith a different view of the character of God, revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The language of the apostle James is perfectly convincing, and clearly shows that regeneration is by means of faith. "Of his own will," says he, "begat he us," i. e. regenerated us "with the word of truth," or by causing us to believe the gospel. Equally clear is the language of Peter: addressing believers, he tells them that they are "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible seed of the word." In this sense it is evident we cannot conceive of an infant's being regenerated, no more than of its being made partaker of the faith of Christ. We now proceed to consider the second class, who, acknowledging this difficulty, believe that regeneration, when applied to infants by the church, must be designed to express something different from the regeneration of an adult believer, as spoken of in Scripture, but differ as to what that something is. Accordingly, some have been inclined to think that a physical change passes upon the soul of an infant in baptism, since it is confessedly incapable of being regenerated by moral means. On this hypothesis, however, in order to be consistent, we must also conceive a kind of faith physically produced in the infant, as the church does not scruple to account it one of the faithful, and to pray that it may ever remain amongst the number of believers. The last view of this matter, which I humbly conceive to be the true one, agrees with the preceeding, in representing regeneration as applied in a different signification to infants, from that in which it is applicable to believers; but regards the term as applied federally to the infant seed of the believer as regenerate in him, according to the promise of the new covenant. Acts ii. 38, 39. They who have taken this view, seem to keep more closely to the language of the church, and cannot conceive why she should be understood federally, when speaking of the infant as one of the faithful, and requiring of it a profession of its faith, and yet not be allowed to speak in the same sense of its regeneration, of which it is, in itself, equally incapable, as it is of exercising faith in the testimony and promises of God. These last scruple not to account all the seed of believers-all the infant offspring of the church, regenerate, or born again, as well as faithful or believing-spiritually, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, symbolically and mystically by baptism. To conceive of this matter more clearly, let us recollect that all are by nature" alienated from God through the ignorance that is in them;" this seed of sin dwells in all the natural children of Adam, so that the infant offspring is included in the curse of the parent, (see Art. ix.) But when the parent receives that knowledge of the word of truth, by which he is made partaker of the righteousness of faith, the promise of salvation reaches to his infant offspring, who is now included in his blessing. The child was not a sinner by actual transgression before, but accounted to in its parent; neither is it now justified by actual faith, but in its believing and justified parent. The parent has received the knowledge of God in the light of truth, and the child is at once translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God. The parent believes the word of truth, and the child is accounted to believe in him, is numbered with the faithful, and made partaker of all their privileges. The parent is "begotten with the word of truth," "born again of the incorruptible seed of the word," and the child is accounted of as born again in him of the same incorruptible seed that dwells in the parent by faith, and in the child, through him.. Let us now consider in this view, the expressions in the service: firstwe have an exhortation to prayer, that the child "may be baptised with water and the Holy Ghost, and received into Christ's holy church, and be made a lively, i. e. a living member of the same," and to this the prayer itself corresponds" wash him and sanctify him with the Holy Ghost, that he, being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ's church," i. e. that the Holy Ghost, by whose divine agency all living members are spiritually "added to the church," as they are outwardly and symbolically to the visible church by baptism, whether believers, or their infant seed, may spiritually baptise, wash, and sanctify him, or graft bim into the number of the baptised, washed, and sanctified, and to set him apart, and consecrate him to God-accounting him as one of them. and making him partaker of all their privileges, so that he is "received into the ark of Christ's church" and included in the salvation of the gospel federally, in his believing parent, spiritually, by the Holy Ghost, symbolically and mystically by baptism. We may here observe, that to sanctify, in the language of Scripture, signifies primarily to set apart to God: thas the first born of cattle were sanctified amongst the Jews, (Exodus xiii. 2.) thus also the water in baptism. In this sense, Jeremiah and John were consecrated and set apart to God from the womb, and St. Paul was similarly sanctified, as he himself tells us, Gal. i. 15; and in like manner is the seed of the believer set apart and sanctified to God, to be an holy seed, accorded to 1 Cor. vii. 14, a passage which seems to give considerable weight to this view of the subject. Having now seen, according to this view, what is meant by spiritual regeneration, we understand the prayer, not as offered in the expectation of any physical work of the Spirit upon the soul of the infant; but we believe the blessing prayed for, to be that spiritual union, effected by the divine agency of the Holy Ghost, between the child and his believing and regenerate parent; and the church through that parent, who, in the faith of the promise, Acts ii. 38, 39, presents him that he may have that blessing visibly sealed in baptism; and in this sense it seems perfectly reasonable to use the terms regeneration, faithful, &c. since all the privileges of regeneration and faith belong to the child of the believer, even as the terms righteousness, justice, &c. are applied to those who are by no means either righteous or just, but only accounted so in Christ, and made partakers of the favour of God, as if they had been really so themselves. That this is the meaning of regeneration, as applied to the infant, will appear still more clearly as we proceed with the service. Let it be granted that faith is required in them that come to be baptised, as is expressly stated in the catechism, therefore the infant must be a believer in order to be baptised. Now here is just a similar difficulty, and the same view removes it more easily, than to conceive of any change produced by physical operation on the soul of an insensible subject called faith. The child of the believer is accounted to "partake of like precious faith" with him, and is actually interrogated through him, that it may exhibit the " answer of a good conscience towards God," and that the answers are accounted to be those of the infant, appears most clearly in that given to the question, "wilt thou be baptised in this faith," so that the church has no more scruple in accounting the child a believer than regenerate. This is particularly remarkable in the prayer that follows the profession of faith, which it is accounted to have made, "that it may ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children," clearly implying that it is now accounted one of that number. After the baptism, the service proceeds to state that the "child is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's church;" or that it is now added, spiritually by the Holy Ghost, to the regenerate Church, as it is outwardly and figuratively to the visible church by baptism, and for these blessings we finally give thanks to God. I am, Sir, yours, &c. CLERICUS. ON THE 1260 DAYS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. SIR-The arguments of your able correspondent R. D. in support of Mr. Maitland's view of the 1260 days, did for a time at least almost shake my belief in the soundness of those calculations which are built on the usual interpretation of that prophetic period; and this led me to consider what remains, (even if the fabric which has been constructed on these calculations should fall to the ground,) what remains to favour the expectation of a reign of blessedness yet to come upon the earth. Allow me then to offer you some reflectious which, without pretending to go deeply into the matter, presented themselves to my mind. The Scriptures, it will be admitted, represent the three following points clearly-1. That the cause of God and righteousness has been hitherto a depressed and militant cause upon earth; and that from the fall of Adam up to the present hour, the whole world lieth in wickedness. 2. That a time is coming when true religion will be ascendant and triumphant; and that the kingdoms of this world will then become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. 3. That before the final close of God's dispensations in this world there will be a short-lived apostasy, when his almighty power will interpose and separate between the righteous and the wicked for ever. Without aiming to be wise above what is written, I would just observe, upon the general review of these Scripture statements, how admirably the whole is fitted to display the wonders of the divine administration, so that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God. Man's eventful history is thus a field of exhibition, on which the powers of light and of darkness contend for victory. In the first scene righteousness and unrighteousness appear in conflict, while the latter holds the ascendant. In the second scene the same powers are engaged, but their places are changed, and righteousness becomes the ruling principle. The scene displays the final and utter expulsion of evil, when the gates of that celestial city are opened, into which nothing that defileth can enter, but they only which are written in the Lamb's book of life. Many persons whom I have conversed with say, that they could well conceive the existence of a state of millennial blessedness, provided that state were to be final upon earth. But the recurrence of evil, and of opposition to God's authority, after a long reign of righteousness, seems to them altogether unaccountable. If the whole world is to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, whence, they ask, can that sinful generation proceed, who are to go up on the breadth of the earth and compass the camp of the saints ?" In answer to these doubts I would observe, that the millennial state is to be the ascendancy, not the universal prevalence of righteousness on earth. Its peculiar characteristic will, I conceive, be this-that the law of opinion will then be on the side of holiness and of God. Now we know by experience how next to omnipotent the law of opinion is. Much as men complain of the strength of temptation, and of the impossibility of resisting certain passions, nevertheless the most headlong of these passions yield implicitly to any authority which is sufficiently respected. Men will commit sin when they have opportunity. But what they call opportunities are, dreadful to say, those moments when the presence of their fellow creatures is withdrawn, and nothing but the presence of God remains to overawe them. I have not time to pursue this pregnant topic. No one, however, can be so insensible to the real state of things, as not to perceive how immaculate men are, and how they can quell the risings of the fiercest passions, wherever the law of opinion requires it of them-how in decent company the foulest of beings observes the strictest rules of purity-how each sex obeys whatever laws, whether good or bad, easy or severe, which the world is pleased to impose upon them-how men of the most timid constitutions will, at its bidding, rush on death; and women, though devoid of every genuine principle, will be sober as saints, and chaste as angels, not because God, but because the world demands it from them-no one, I say, can understand what all this means, without perceiving that the law of opinion has power to move the mass of mankind at its will. Now only suppose a state of things in which this law is wholly on the side of purity and religion, and you will have at once a righteous world. Where sin is certain degradation, and VOL. XI. 3 R where the marked discountenance of those who take the lead, and hold the higher stations in society. is sure to follow and hunt from human converse the open violators of the laws of heaven, to such an influence it is man's nature to submit; and however powerful other passions may be, they will learn obedience to this master passion, and yield without a struggle to the impulse which the law of opinion, when acting with full force, is sure to give. The millennium I conceive, then, to be a state in which righteousness is ascendant, but in which multitudes outwardly conform, though not reconciled in heart and mind to this holy and happy order of things. But this is not the final condition of Christ's church. That bright and endless day is yet to come when none but pure and righteous souls will form itsmembers. Previously to this blessed consummation, sin is to make its last expiring struggle. Opportunity is to be given for the development of that evil principle which circumstances only had controlled. Satan is to go forth and to deceive the secret enemies of God; to deceive them especially with the hope, that by combination, and by one decisive effort, they may shake off the yoke and overthrow the kingdom of the Redeemer. Such, as it appears to me, will be the nature of the last apostasy. And thus as the Christian dispensation was preceded by the falling away of the Jews, and as the millennium will be ushered in by judgments upon the Christian nations, so is it in full harmony with God's plans of administration, to conceive that the eternal exaltation of that glorious church which Christ will present without spot unto the Father, will be consequent upon the final discomfiture of the powers of darkness upon earth. On the much contested point, whether the dispensation of millennial blessedness imply merely an increased outpouring of the Spirit, or whether in addition to that it imply also the personal reign of Christ and of his saints, I would venture a few observations; speaking, however, as one who is rather an inquirer than a decided advocate of either system. Still I cannot deny that on the supposition that the millennium is to be an universal reign of righteousness, much would incline me to believe in the personal advent. In the first place, there is, in my mind, great force in the argument that, to a triumphant church, the Scriptures of the New Testa ment would be in a great measure inapplicable; for how could the friendship of the world be enmity against God, when all its kingdoms do him service? How could those who live godly in Christ Jesus suffer persecution, when none had power, even if they had the inclination, to persecute? How could the way to life be narrow, and the way to destruction broad, when to follow the multitude would be to follow after righteousness, faith, and charity? But it is needless to multiply such passages. The New Testament breathes in every line separation from the world. All its consolations, and all its promises, are addressed to those, and those alone, who come out in heart and mind from the conversation of the many, and. whose peculiar characteristic it is to have no sympathy with the system with which they are encircled, and in which they live. Does not this then, strongly indicate, that a reign of righteousness, in which the church and world identify, must suppose not merely an improvement of the present system, however great, but a total change in the administration of things below? For all additional light thrown upon the Scriptures could only prove the more how inapplicable they were, as a rule of life, to those whose circumstances were diametrically opposite to the trials and abasement of that people to whom the Scriptures are so uniformly addressed. The millennium then must imply altogether a new order of things, and what were suitable to so entire a revolution as the visible interposition of |