Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/226

16 well says, "I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. There is nothing more dangerous than this licentious and deluding art, which changeth the meaning of words, as alchemy doth, or would do, the substance of metals, maketh of any thing what it listeth, and bringeth in the end all truth to nothing. Or however such voluntary exercise of wit might be borne with otherwise; yet in places which usually serve, as this doth, concerning regeneration by water and the Holy Ghost, to be alleged for grounds and principles, less is permitted. To hide the general consent of antiquity, agreeing in the literal interpretation, they cunningly affirm, that certain have taken those words as meant of material water, when they know that of all the ancients there is not one to be named that ever did otherwise either expound or allege the place, than as implying external Baptism."

Rather, as the prophecy which these same persons alleged, that namely shall "baptize with the, and with fire," received its literal fulfilment at the day of Pentecost and in this the later Baptism of the Apostles, we find, "as well a visible descent of fire, as a secret miraculous infusion of the ; if on us He accomplish, likewise, the heavenly work of our new birth, not with the  alone, but with water thereunto adjoined, sith the faithfullest expounders of His words are His own deeds, let that, which His hand hath manifestly wrought, declare what his speech did doubtfully utter."

But, combined with the consent of antiquity, our meaning becomes so clear, that, with one who loves His, I would gladly rest the whole question of Baptismal regeneration on this single argument. It is confessed, that the Christian