Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/213

Rh vision, we should select for ourselves very blindly or injudiciously. In matter of fact, the Christian creed has been repeatedly pared down, as every one knows, in consequence of men's expunging, beforehand, what they thought prejudicial to the effect of the other portions of Scripture truth: thus, early Heretics objected to the truth of the human nature of : against the Reformers it was urged, that the doctrine of "justification by faith only" was opposed to sanctification and holiness: Luther, (although he afterwards repented,) excepted against teaching by St. James, and called his Epistle an "Epistle of straw:" fanatics of all ages have rejected the use of both sacraments: stated or premeditated prayer has been regarded as mere formality, and the like. And in these or similar cases, when at a distance, we can readily see how some wrong tendency of mind suggested all these objections, and how the very truth or practice objected to, would have furnished the antidote which the case needed. We can see e.g. how stated or fixed prayer would have disciplined the mind, how a form would have tended to make the subjects of prayer more complete: for we ourselves have felt, how, by the prayers which the Church has put into our mouths, we have been taught to pray for blessings, our need of which we might not have perceived, or which we might have thought it presumption to pray for. And this is a sort of witness placed in our hands, to testify to us, how in other cases also we ought with thankful deference to endeavour to incorporate into the frame of our own minds each portion of the system which has ordained for us, not daring to call any thing of little moment, which He has allowed to enter into it; much less presuming to "call that common, which  hath cleansed," or to imagine that, because we cannot see its effects, or should think it likely to be injurious, it may not be both healthful and essential.

The doctrine, then, of Baptismal Regeneration (rightly understood) may have a very important station in God's scheme of salvation, although many of us may not understand its relation to the rest, and those who do not believe it, cannot understand it. For this is the method of teaching throughout; "first