This is a faithless fear: our one concern is to know what God has taught: but to dread beforehand to find any thing to be His teaching, is to make ourselves wiser than God: as if, did He teach any thing, He would not also provide that His teaching should be efficacious! Is it not the very objection of the Heathen and Socinian scoffer, that the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement, and free pardon, must be an immoral preaching, and produce laxity of conscience? And were it not the character of Abraham's faith to follow God's guidance, "not knowing whither we go," but assured that His guidance, if followed, would lead us into all truth? But indeed, has the doctrine of late been preached? for to prove, to state, to hold, Baptismal regeneration, is not to preach it! and has not the very dread of the subject as thorny and debateable ground, in great measure produced the very effect, that it has lain uncultivated? Is it not of the very character of Scripture-teaching to set forth to us the greatness of our privileges, the immensity of what God has done for us, the freeness of the pardon with which he has pardoned us, our adoption, our Sonship, our calling, our Redemption, our Sanctification, our promised inheritance, our imparted earnest of the Spirit, and every other mercy with which He has already crowned us, yea and our regeneration also, "not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible" (1 Pet. i. 23.) as so many grounds for sincere and upright walking, and for the desire for future growth? and why then are we to dread, that to tell our flocks, that they were all once placed in Christ's fold, would make them less careful to know whether they have wandered from it? that to tell them that they have been washed, have been cleansed, would make them less careful lest they again "wallow in the mire"? that to warn them of the talent which they have received, would make them less anxious to return it with increase? that to tell them that they have been born again will make them less anxious lest they be again dead? They are not, cannot be, Heathen! They may be worse! Apostate Christians,
her baptismal formularies, for exclaiming 'she destroys more souls than she saves!' Dr. P. Smith's Letter to Prof. Lee, p. 79. We need no excuse made to us; but such language can only blind the minds of those who use it.
