Such are the objections, as far as I know them, urged against Baptismal regeneration: in part, they would be objections against all infant Baptism, and as such would, I doubt not, be instantly dropped by those who now inadvertently use them, whom Burges[1] calls the "unwitting Proctors of the Sacramentarians."
The question is needlessly embarrassed by any reference to adult Baptism, since what we are now concerned with, is, whether our infants, who oppose no obstacle to God's grace, do, by virtue of His institution, receive that grace; not, what would be the case of one who should receive Baptism from any worldly motive, and at the same time place an obstacle to its benefits by receiving it in unbelief. The questions are entirely distinct; nor would any conclusion which we might come to, as to the unbelieving adult, affect the case of our infants, who cannot be unbelievers; and this protest it is necessary to make before we enter upon that case, because a misapplication of the case of unbelieving adults, has furnished most of the arguments whereby men disparage the value of Infant Baptism. The unbelieving adult then could of course derive no present benefit from Baptism; and it is an awful question, whether by receiving the Sacrament of Regeneration in unbelief, there being no other appointed means whereby the new-birth is bestowed, such an one had not precluded himself for ever from being born again? It is a case of
- ↑ L. c. p. 76.
purpose, probably, although not so clearly, paraphrases Jerome against Jovinian (who from this place maintained impeccability after baptism, and that those who were tempted, had, like Simon Magus, been baptized with water only). "I write unto you, little children, that ye may not sin, and that ye may know, that ye so long abide in the generation of the Lord, as ye do not sin. Yea, they who persevere in the generation of the Lord cannot sin; for what fellowship has light with darkness? As day and night cannot be mingled; so neither righteousness and iniquity; sin and good works; Christ and Antichrist. If we receive Christ in the abode of our breast, we forthwith expel the devil. If we sin, and by the door of sin the devil have entered, immediately Christ will depart. Whence David said, "'restore to me the joy of thy salvation,' which namely he had by sinning lost." (L. 2. § 2.) So also of moderns, the learned and pious John Gerhard, Loci de Bon. operib. § 144. "as far as any one is and remains born again, so far he does not give way to sins:—regeneration and mortal sins cannot abide together."
