01.09. Additional Notes: Note B. Baptismal Regeneration

(Note B.) Baptismal Regeneration. This unscriptural and pernicious doctrine is not confined to the Roman Catholics, in whose system it may without impropriety be said to be indigenous; but is also frequently found in the pulpits and the manuals of some Protestants^ in the midst of whose general principles, it ought to be regarded as a poisonous exotic.

I. The doctrine referred to, as held by some Protestants, in its most objectionable form, appears to be this: — that the spiritual change which the Scriptures designate by the term regeneration, is always attendant upon, and effected by, the rite of baptism, when duly administered; that, on the one hand, every person, infant or adult, who has been baptized by an authorized minister, is a regenerated person; and that, on the other, every person who has not been baptized, however deep or mature his penitence and faith, is still unregenerate. In short, the position is, that the inward grace of regeneration always accompanies the outward sign of baptism; that they are inseparable; that the one cannot exist without the other; that he who has been thus regenerated, if he die without falling from grace, is certainly saved; that baptism is essential to salvation; and that to call by the name of regeneration any moral change, from the love of sin to the love of holiness, which takes place either before or after baptism, is unscriptural and absurd. This, as I understand them, is the doctrine maintained by Bishop Tomline, Bishop Marsh, Bishop Mant, and a number of other writers, of equal conspicuity, in the church of England, and by not a few divines of the Protestant Episcopal church in our own country. This doctrine, I apprehend, is contrary to Scripture; contrary to experience; contrary to the declared opinion of the most wise, pious, and venerated divines even of the Episcopal denomination; and adapted to generate the most dangerous errors with regard to Christian character, and the Gospel plan of salvation.

1. It is contrary to Scripture. Without regeneration, the Scriptures declare, it is impossible to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But the penitent malefactor on the cross undoubtedly entered into the kingdom of heaven, if we are to credit our Lord’s express declaration. Yet this penitent, believing malefactor was never baptized, therefore he was regenerated without baptism; and, of course, regeneration and baptism are not inseparably connected. Again; Simon Magus received the outward and visible ordinance of baptism, with unquestionable regularity, by an authorized administrator; yet who will venture to say, that he received the “inward and invisible grace" signified and represented in that ordinance? He was evidently from the beginning a hypocrite, and remained, after baptism, as before “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.*’ Therefore the outward and sensible sign, and the inward and invisible grace are not in all cases, or necessarily, connected. Again; it is evident that the apostle Paul, Lydia, the Ethiopian Eunuch, the Philippian Jailor, who “believed with the heart," and were, consequently, brought into a state of acceptance with God before they were baptized. But we are told (John 1:12-13.) that as many as believe have been “born of God," and made the “sons of God." Of course, regeneration may take place, in the case of adults, ought to take place, and in these cases, did take place, before baptism; and, consequently, is not the same thing with baptism, or inseparably connected with that rite. Once more; we are assured in Scripture, that “he who is born of God, or regenerated, doth not commit sin, (that is, deliberately or habitually,) for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God;" and farther, that “every one that loveth is ’ born of God’ and knoweth God;" and that “whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." But can it be said that this character belongs to all who are baptized? Or, that none who are unbaptized manifest that they possess it? Surely no one in his senses will venture to make the assertion. Therefore a man may be “born of God" before he is baptized, and, consequently, the administration of the outward ordinance, and that work of the Holy Spirit, called in the word of God regeneration, are not always connected.

2. The doctrine before us is as contrary to experience as it is to Scripture. “It is asserted," says an eminent divine of the church of England, now living — “It is asserted, that the spiritual change of heart called regeneration invariably takes place in the precise article of baptism. If this assertion be well founded, the spiritual change in question will invariably take place in every adult at the identical moment when he is baptized; that is to say, at the very instant when the hand of the priest brings his body in contact with the baptismal water; at that precise instant, his understanding begins to be illuminated, his will to be reformed, and his affections to be purified. Hitherto he has walked in darkness; but now, to use the scriptural phrase, he has passed from darkness to light. Hitherto he has been wrapped in a death-like sleep of trespasses and sins; but now he awakes, and rises from the dead, Christ himself giving him life. Hitherto he has been a chaos of vice, and ignorance, and spiritual confusion; the natural man receiving not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: but now he is created after God in righteousness and true holiness; being in Christ he is a “new creature;” having become spiritual, the things of the Spirit of God are no longer foolishness to him; he knows them because they are spiritually discerned. Such are the emphatic terms in which regeneration is described by the inspired writers. What we have to do, therefore, I apprehend, is forthwith to inquire, whether every baptized adult, without a single exception, is invariably found to declare, that, in the precise article of baptism, his soul experienced a change analogous to that which is so unequivocally set forth in the above-mentioned texts of Scripture." {24} We need not dwell long on the inquiry. The fact is notoriously not so. Nor does it diminish the difficulty, in admitting the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, to say, as the Arminian advocates of this doctrine invariably do say, that those who are once regenerated may fall from grace, and manifest a most unhallowed temper. This is not the question. The question is, does experience evince, that every subject of baptism, who has reached an age capable of manifesting the Christian character, does, at the moment of receiving the baptismal water, show that he is the subject of that regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, by which “old things are passed away, and all things become new in the Lord?" No one who has a particle of intelligence or candor can imagine that any such fact exists; but if it do not, then the doctrine under consideration falls of course.

3. The doctrine of baptismal regeneration is contrary to the declared opinion of the most pious, judicious, and venerable Protestant divines, including those of the very highest authority in the church of England. Nothing can be more certain than that the mass of the English reformers distinctly taught that baptism is a sign only of regeneration, and that the thing signified might or might not accompany the administration of the outward ordinance, according as it was received worthily or otherwise. In support of this assertion, the most explicit quotations might be presented from the writings of those distinguished martyrs and prelates, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and Hooper; and after them from the writings of the eminent bishops, Jewell, Davenant, Hall, Usher, Reynolds, Leighton, Hopkins, Tillotson, Beveridge, Burnet, Seeker, and a host of other divines of the English church, of whose elevated character it would be little less than an insult to any intelligent reader to attempt to offer testimony. All these men declare in the most solemn manner, against the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, in the sense which we are now considering. Indeed, I cannot call to mind a single writer of that church, from the time of Archbishop Cranmer to the present hour, who had the least claim to the character of an evangelical man, who did not repudiate the doctrine which I am now opposing; and not a few of them denounce it as Popish, and adapted to subvert the whole system of vital and spiritual religion.

4. The last argument which I shall urge against the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, is, that is it adapted to generate the most fatal errors with regard to the Gospel plan of salvation. So far as this doctrine is believed, its native tendency is, to beget a superstitious and unwarranted reliance on an external ordinance; to lower our estimate of that inward spiritual sanctification which constitutes the essence of the Christian character; in fact, to supersede the necessity of that spiritual change of heart, of which the Scriptures speak so much, and for which the most holy and eminent servants of Christ have, in all ages, contended. The truth is, the doctrine now under consideration is the very same, in substance, with the doctrine of the opus operatum of the Papists, which all evangelical Protestants have been opposing for more than three hundred years, as a mischievous delusion. Accordingly, the Popish character and fatal tendency of this error have been unreservedly acknowledged by many bishops, and other pious divines of the church of England, as well as by many of the same denomination in this country.

Further; if regeneration, which is the commencement of holiness in the soul, is always communicated in baptism, then it follows, as, indeed, those who entertain this doctrine distinctly avow,— that baptism invariably places its subject in a state of salvation; so that every baptized person who dies immediately after the administration of this sacrament, is infallibly sure of entering the kingdom of heaven. If this doctrine were fully believed, would not every thinking, anxious parent refrain from having his child baptized in infancy, and reserve the ordinance for an hour of extremity, such as the approach of death, that it might serve as an unfailing passport to glory? Would it not be wise in every adult who may be brought to a knowledge of the Savior, from Paganism, or from the world, to put off his baptism to the last hour of his life, that he might be sure of departing in safety? This is well known to have been one of the actual corruptions of the fourth century, growing out of the very error which I am now opposing. “It was the custom of many," says Dr. Mosheim, “in that century, to put off their baptism till the last hour; that thus immediately after receiving by this rite the remission of their sins, they might ascend pure and spotless to the mansions of life and immortality." This is no far-fetched or strange conceit. It is the native fruit of the doctrine before us. Nay, if we suppose this pernicious theory to take full possession of the mind, would it not be natural that a tender parent should anxiously desire his child to die immediately after baptism; or even, in a desperate case, to compass its death, as infallibly for its eternal benefit? And, on the same principle, might we not pray for the death of every adult, immediately after he had received baptism, believing that then “to die would certainly be gain?" In fine, I see not, if the doctrine be true, that a regenerating and saving efficacy attends every regular baptism — I see not how we can avoid the conclusion, that every Pagan, whether child or adult, that can be seized by force, and, however thoughtless, reluctant or profane, made to submit to the rite of baptism, is thereby infallibly made “a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven!"

These consequences, which appear to me demonstrably to flow from the theory in question, afford sufficient evidence that it is an unscriptural and pernicious error, even if no other means of refutation could be found.

It is not forgotten that language which seems, at first view, to countenance the doctrine which I am opposing, is found in some of the early Fathers. Some of them do employ terms which would imply, if interpreted literally, that baptism and regeneration were the same thing. But the reason of this is obvious. The Jews were accustomed to call the converts to their religion from the Gentiles, little children, and their introduction into the Jewish church, a new birth, because they were brought, as it were, into a new moral world. Accordingly, circumcision is repeatedly called in Scripture “the covenant,” because it was the sign of the covenant. Afterwards, when baptism, as a Christian ordinance, became identified with the reception of the Gospel, the early writers and preachers began to call this ordinance regeneration, and sometimes illumination, because every adult who was baptized, professed to be born of God, illuminated by the Holy Spirit. By a common figure of speech, they called the sign by the name of the thing signified. In the truly primitive times this language was harmless, and well understood: but as superstition increased, it gradually led to mischievous error, and became the parent of complicated and deplorable delusions.

II. But there is another view of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which is sometimes taken, and which, though less pernicious than that which has been examined, is still, I apprehend, fitted to mislead, and, of course, to do essential mischief. It is this: That baptism is that rite which marks and ratifies the introduction of its subject into the visible kingdom of Christ; that in this ordinance the baptized person is brought into a new state or relation to Christ, and his sacred family; and that this new state or relation is designated in Scripture by the term regeneration, being intended to express an ecclesiastical birth, that is, being “born" into the visible kingdom of the Redeemer. Those who entertain this opinion do not deny, that there is a great moral change, wrought by the Spirit of God, which must pass upon every one, before he can be in a state of salvation. This they call conversion, renovation, &c.; but they tell us that the term “regeneration’’^ ought not to be applied to this spiritual change; that it ought to be confined to that change of state and of relation to the visible kingdom of Christ which is constituted by baptism; so that a person, according to them, may be regenerated, that is, regularly introduced into the visible church, without being really born of the Spirit. This theory, though by no means so fatal in its tendency as the preceding, still appears to me liable to the following serious objections.

1. It makes an unauthorized use of an important theological term. It is vain to say, that, after giving fair notice of the sense in which we use a term, no misapprehension or harm can result from the constant use of it in that sense. The plea is insufficient. If the sense in question be an unusual, and especially an unscriptural one, no one can estimate the mischief which may result from the use of it in that sense. Names are so closely connected with things^ that it is of the utmost importance to preserve the nomenclature of theology from perversion and abuse. If the sense of the word *’ regeneration" which is embraced in this theory, were now by common consent admitted, it would give an entirely new aspect to all those passages of Scripture in which either regeneration or baptism is mentioned, making some of them unmeaning, and others ridiculous; and render unintelligible, and in a great measure useless, if not delusive, nine-tenths of the best works on the subject of practical religion that have ever been written.

2. But there is a more serious objection. If men be told that every one who is baptized, is thereby regenerated — "born of God," — "born of the Spirit," — made a "newcreature in Christ," — will not the mass of mankind, in spite of every precaution and explanation that can be employed, be likely to mistake on a fundamantal point; to imagine that the disease of our nature is trivial, and that a trivial remedy for it will answer; to lay more stress than they ought upon an external rite; and to make a much lower estimate than they ought of the nature and necessity of that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord?

After all, however, although the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, in the first and most objectionable sense, is known to be rejected by all the truly evangelical divines of the church of England, and by the same class in the Protestant Episcopal church in this country; yet it cannot be denied that something, to say the least, very like this doctrine is embodied in the baptismal service of that denomination on both sides of the Atlantic. The following specimens of its language will at once illustrate and confirm my meaning: “Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits, and with one accord make our prayers unto him, that this child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning." And again: “We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant by thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy church," &c. The same language is also repeated in the baptismal service for “those of riper years." They are represented as being “regenerated;" as being "born again," and "made heirs of salvation;" and as having “put on Christ." This language is differently interpreted, by the Episcopal ministers who employ it, according to the opinion which they adopt with regard to baptism. Those who coincide in opinion with Bishop Mant, and others of similar sentiments, make no scruple of avowing, that these expressions literally import, what they fully believe, that every one who is duly baptized, is, in and by that rite, born of the Spirit, and brought into a state of grace and salvation. A second class of interpreters, however, consider this language of the Liturgy as merely importing that the person baptized is brought into a new state, or a new relation to the visible church. While a third class, although they acknowledge that the language before us, literally interpreted, does certainly express more than a mere visible relation, even the participation of truly spiritual and saving blessings; yet say, that they can conscientiously employ it, because a Liturgy intended for general use, ought to be, and must be, constructed upon the principle, that those who come to receive its offices are all to be considered as sincere, and as having a right, in the sight of God, to the ordinance for which they apply! And thus it happens, that those who reject as Popish and delusive, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, as taught by Mant, and those who concur with him, feel no difficulty in publicly and solemnly repeating this language, every time they administer the ordinance of baptism.

It is not for one of another communion to interpose between the consciences of Episcopal ministers, and the import of their public formularies. In fidelity to my own principles, however, and as a warning to those of my own church who may be assailed by the proselyting efforts of some of this denomination, I may be permitted to say, that if I believed with Bishop Mant, and his associates in sentiment, the language of the baptismal service would be entirely to my taste; but if not, I could not, on any account, conscientiously employ it. It would not satisfy me to be told, that the language of one of the Thirty-nine Articles, and some of the language found in the Book of Homilies, bears a different aspect. This is, no doubt, true. Still this does not remove or alter the language of the baptismal service. There it stands, a distress and a snare to thousands of good men, who acknowledge that they could wish it otherwise, but dare not modify it in the smallest jot or tittle.” {25} Had I no other objection to ministering in the church of England, or in the corresponding denomination in this country — this part of the Liturgy would alone be an insurmountable one. I could not consent continually to employ language, which, however explained or counteracted, is so directly adapted to deceive in a most vital point of practical religion. I could not allow myself to sanction by adoption and use, language which, however explained and counteracted in ray own ministry, I knew to be presented and urged by many around me in its literal import, and declared to be the only true doctrine of the church. As to the plea, that a Liturgy must necessarily be constructed upon the principle that all who come to its offices must be presumed to be sincere, and be solemnly assured, in the name of God, that they are so, nothing can be more delusive. Cannot scriptural truth be as plainly stated, and as wisely guarded in a liturgical composition as in any other? Our Methodist brethren have a prescribed form for baptism; and so far as I recollect its language, they have succeeded, without apparent difficulty, in making it at once instructive, solemn, appropriate, and unexceptionable. And I have heard Presbyterian ministers a thousand times tell their hearers, with as much distinctness in administering sacraments, as in ordinary preaching, that “the sacraments become effectual to salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them; but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them.” But it may be asked, what kind or degree of efficacy do Presbyterians consider as connected with baptism? Do they suppose that there is any beneficial influence, physical or moral, in all cases, connected with the due administration of this sacrament? I answer, none at all. They suppose that the washing with water in this ordinance is an emblem and a sign of precious benefits; that it holds forth certain great truths, which are the glory of the Christian covenant, and the joy of the Christian’s heart; that it is a seal affixed by God to his covenant with his people, whereby he certifies his pm-poses of grace, and pledges his blessing to all who receive it with a living faith; nay, that it is the seal of valuable outward privileges, even to those who are not then, or at any other time, “born of the Spirit;" that, as a solemn rite appointed by Christ, it is adapted to make a solemn impression on the serious mind; but that when it is administered to the persons, or the offspring of those who are entirely destitute of faith, there is no pledge or certainty that it will be accompanied with any blessing. They receive the water, but not the Spirit. They are engrafted into the visible church, but not into the spiritual body of Christ, and are, after baptism, just as they were before, like Simon the Sorcerer, “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity."