PREFACE. UNDERS NDERSTANDING that this Tract is now out of print, I have been induced to publish a new edition of it. My opponent indeed, the Vicar of North Ferriby, is no more; but as the subject of which I treat is connected with a controversy by no means personal to him, or rather indeed with a controversy, in which the opinions of a party, not of an individual, are involved, I mean of a party which appropriates to itself the epithet Evangelical, I have complied with the solicitations made to me, and republish it. Lately, however, and that in the place where I now write, men of talent, learning, and piety, have advocated from the pulpit and the press, among other things, the doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism, which I have myself maintained; but have encumbered it with opinions and appendages with which, if I do not misconceive them, I cannot coincide. In their zeal against Rationalism, they appear to me too much to decry the use of Reason in explaining the language of Scripture; and they wish for the restoration of certain rites, viz.—exorcism-clothing the infant in a white vesture, and anointing it with oil-rites which were first enjoined, but subsequently omitted, in our Baptismal Service. In the Tracts for the Times' there is a distinct treatise on Baptism, in which the necessity of a strictly literal interpretation of Scripture is strongly urged. It is there said, 'In setting forth this 'teaching of holy Scripture, we have, it is well to ob6 serve, adhered strictly to the letter of God's word: ' we have not gone about to set forth any other doc'trine than is contained in its plain words: we have only not glossed over, or distorted its language, but ' have taken God's promises and declarations sim'ply, as we found them. *** When the plain letter ' of scripture says, "we are saved by Baptism," ' and men say, "we are not saved by Baptism;" our 'Lord says, "a man must be born of water and the 'Spirit," man, that "he need not, cannot be born of water;"***Scripture, that "Christ cleansed the 'church with the washing of water by the word," man, that "he did not, for bare elements could have no such virtue;" Scripture, that " we were baptized into one body," man, that “we were not, but that we were in that body before;" surely they have entered into a most perilous path, which, 'unless they are checked in pursuing it, must end in the rejection of all Scripture truth, which does 'not square with their own private opinions. It 'did once so end; and it is a wholesome but ‹ awful warning, for those who will be warned, that 6 it was out of the school of Calvin, from familiar 'intercourse with him, and the so called "Reformed ' church”—that it was out of and through the Re'formed Doctrine, that Socinianism took its rise; 'that the chief corrupters of the Polish and Transylvanian churches passed through Calvinism or Zuinglianism to their Heresy. * Let us not be high-minded but fear. Especially let us be ́aware of that straining of the Letter of Holy Scripture in conformity with preconceived no<tions, and the requisitions of human reason, wherein the school of Calvin most fatally set the example 'to that of Socinusa? 6 6 6 The slightest inspection of the present Tract will shew, that the sole object of controversy was, in what sense Baptismal Regeneration was understood by the Church of England, not in what sense it was deducible from Scripture. In this way I only had to refute the misconceptions and consequent misrepresentations of the Evangelical party in our Church, who seemed to me to put a construction upon the words of our Liturgy, extracted from the principles of Calvinism, which they would not bear. Whether I annexed the same precise meaning to the words of our Liturgy, which the present advocates for Baptismal Regeneration annex, I cannot say; but I am certain, that I did a Vol. ii. p. 197, 198, 201. not represent my opponents as foes to Scripture, because friends to Reason; much less did I vilify the principles of their decisions, as naturally tending to Socinianism. 6 6 From the preceding quotations it will be seen, and others to the same purpose might be adduced, that 'the perilous path' pursued by the Calvinist on this subject, is ascribed to his not giving a strictly literal meaning to the words of Scripture, and overstraining them in conformity with the requisitions of human reason.' But it is not my business to defend, or my wish to censure, the Calvinist for his appeal to human reason in deriving the principles of his creed from Scripture. With this I am not directly concerned. I would however ask, when it is stated, that although the Scripture 6 says that Christ cleansed the Church with the washing of water by the word; yet man (i. e. the • Calvinist) says that he did not, for bare elements 'could have no such virtue;' whether it is intended to assert, that the words of St. Paul alluded to, (Ephes. v. 26,) if taken in a strictly literal sense, signify, that the bare element of consecrated water has in any way the virtue of regenerating the soul, which the Calvinist maintains that it cannot have? If so, it is a sense to which with the Calvinist I could not myself subscribe; and that not in contradiction to, but in conformity with, what I conceive to be the meaning of Scripture. To suppose 6 6 |