Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/224

14 are tests afforded whether we are acting up to our privilege of Regeneration, and cherishing the Spirit therein given us, but there is no hint that Regeneration can be obtained in any way, but by Baptism, or if totally lost, could be restored. We are warned that having been "saved by Baptism through the resurrection of, we should no longer live the rest of our time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of ," (1 Pet. iii. 21–iv. 2.) that "having been born of incorruptible seed, we should put off all malice, and like new-born infants desire the sincere milk of the word," (1 Pet. i. 23.–ii. 1–3.) that "having been saved by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, we should be careful to maintain good works;" (Tit. iii. 1–8.) and again, those who had fallen in any way are exhorted to repentance; but men are not taught to seek for regeneration, to pray that they may be regenerate: it is no where implied that any Christian had not been regenerated, or could hereafter be so. The very error of the Novatians, that none who fell away after Baptism could be renewed to repentance, will approach nearer to the truth of the Gospel, than the supposition that persons could be admitted as dead members into, and then afterwards, for the first time, quickened. Our life is, throughout, represented as commencing, when we are by Baptism made members of Christ and children of God; that life may through our negligence afterwards decay, or be choked, or smothered, or well-nigh extinguished, and by mercy again be renewed and refreshed: but a commencement of spiritual life after Baptism, a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness, at any other period than that one first introduction into  covenant, is as little consonant with the general representations of Holy Scripture, as a commencement of physical life long after our natural birth is with the order of His Providence.

The evidence, however, arising from a general consideration of declarations in Holy Scripture, obtains fresh strength from the examination of the passages themselves; only we must not look upon them as a dead letter, susceptible of various meanings, and which may be made to bear the one or the other