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There is, of course, but one way of ascertaining whether documents are Scriptural, i. e., by seeing whether they agree with Scripture. It is needful continually to remind the reader of this, for with many persons the word Scriptural" does not mean in accordance with "Scripture," but in accordance with a certain scheme or form of doctrine which they have deduced from certain parts of Scripture, ignoring all that does not at once fall in with this their scheme, no matter how plainly it is revealed. If these Services are "6 Scriptural," they must embody or reflect what "Scripture" teaches respecting Baptism; they must also reflect or embody what Scripture says respecting the status or spiritual condition of the bap tized, for Baptism is but the entrance into a state or condition.

The Scripture teaching bearing upon Baptism may be summed up under the five following heads :

I. In about twelve places in Scripture Christ or His Apostles connect Salvation with Baptism.

II. The Christians of the Apostolic Churches are always addressed as having been brought into a state of Salvation or Regeneration at their Baptism.

III. This state of Salvation or Regeneration does not insure the final salvation of those brought into it. On the contrary, the members of these Churches are always supposed to be in danger of falling into sin, and liable to be cast away.

IV. Those who thus fall away are always assumed to fall from grace. They are never for a moment sup posed to fall into sin because God has withhold grace from them.

V. In no one case are Baptized Christians called upon to become regenerate. They are called to repent-to turn to God-to cleanse their hands-to purify their hearts; never to become regenerate.

I. In above twelve places have we things pertaining to salvation-such as the New Birth, Remission of sins, &c. -connected with Baptism.

These places are the following:

1. John iii. 3-5: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

2. Mark xvi. 16: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."

3. Acts ii. 38, 39: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children."

4. Acts xxii. 16: "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord."

5. Rom. vi. 1-4: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by Baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.'

6. 1 Cor. x. 1-10: "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.... but with many of them God was not well pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness." Taken in connexion with Jude 5: "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not."

7. 1 Cor. xii. 12-27: For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ, for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. . . . Ye are the body of Christ and members in particular."

8. Gal. iii. 27: "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ."

9. Eph. v. 25, 26: "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself For it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word."

10. Col. ii. 12: "Buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead."

11. Titus iii. 5: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing [or font] of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."

12. 1 Peter iii. 21. "The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

The proper understanding of the first of these places, John iii. 3-5, is essential to our taking a just view of the whole subject. For it is the one sole reference throughout the discourses of our Lord to Regeneration or to the New Birth.

The Church also grounds the necessity of Baptism itself, and its connexion with the New Birth, on this place, when she says at the commencement of the Service, "Forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin, and that our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom of God except he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost."

In endeavouring, then, to ascertain the bearing of these words on Baptism and on Regeneration, I shall first observe that our Lord here can allude to one thing, and to one thing only. In the third verse He speaks of a birth,

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Except a man be born again," and in the fifth He explains what He means by describing it as a "birth of water and of the Spirit."

If He speaks of one thing, occurring at one point of time, in the third verse, He must speak of one thing, occurring at one point of time, in the fifth; for a birth cannot oe divided. It can be but one thing taking place

at one time.

A man cannot be born partly at one time and partly at another. The consideration of this at once disposes of all interpretations which would involve a double birth, that is, a ceremonial birth of water in Baptism, and a moral or spiritual birth of the Spirit, when a nominal Christian becomes a spiritual one.

On this hypothesis our Lord would explain one thing ("Ye must be born again") by two things by no means necessarily connected, and differing from one another so very widely in their relative importance, that no reason whatsoever can be given why He should associate the two together.

The application of water in Baptism is of itself the most insignificant of all ceremonies, whereas the change from sin to holiness is the greatest of all internal changes.

It is not likely, then, that our Lord can allude, by the words, "Born of water and of the Spirit," to two births so immeasurably different in their respective importance. For if He meant by being "born of water" a mere ceremony of external profession, and by being "born of the Spirit" the great internal change from sin to holiness, then He would elevate the mere external reception of the ceremonial rite in which men are "born of water," to an equality with the great internal spiritual change; for He calls them jointly by the name of "birth," and asserts that both are needful to salvation.

In the next place we cannot, on any reasonable principle of interpretation, suppose that our Lord meant to impress upon Nicodemus the need of some merely moral change, as, for instance, the change which takes place when a bad man becomes a good one, or when a formalist becomes a spiritual man, for on this hypothesis our Lord's second answer ("Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit") instead of explaining His first ("Except a man be born again") increases its difficulty tenfold.

We have one writer laying down that Regeneration is simply moral goodness, and asserting that if an unbaptized man has "goodness" before Baptism, he has all the essentials of Regeneration-all that he receives in Baptism being an increase (generally inappreciable) of what he had before.

But it cannot be supposed, if our Lord meant to impress upon Nicodemus the need of any branch of moral goodness, that He would have clothed His explanation in more difficult words than His first assertion.

If by being "born again" our Lord meant simply being made "good," it is strange that He should have expressed so simple a matter by such a periphrasis as being "born of water and of the Spirit," when He could have made His meaning so perfectly plain by saying, "Except ye be good-except ye repent-except ye be cleansed from sin -except ye be renewed in your affections and desiresexcept ye be holy-ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

Again, it is equally impossible to suppose that our Lord meant to impress upon Nicodemus the need of some chango synonymous with a strong conviction of sin, or with believing on Him, or with relying upon His merits, or with not trusting in our own righteousness, for such a