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CALVIN.

self; since no error can affect the mind, more pestilent than such as disturbs the conscience, and destroys its peace and tranquillity towards God. Therefore, if we dread shipwreck, let us anxiously beware of this rock, on which none ever strike without being destroyed. But though the discussion of predestination may be compared to a dangerous ocean, yet in traversing over it the navigation is safe and secure, and I will also add pleasant, unless any one freely wishes to expose himself to danger. For as those who, in order to gain an assurance of their election, examine into the eternal counsel of God without the word, plunge themselves into a fatal abyss; so they who investigate it in a regular and orderly manner as it is contained in the word, derive from such inquiry the benefit of peculiar consolatin.-Institut. l. 3. c. 24. s. 4.

In attempting to explain away this part of the 17th Article, his lordship gives us another definition of Predestination somewhat different from that already cited from him. "What is this sentence of God's Predestination? It cannot be the sentence of Predestination we have been considering, by which God purposed and decreed to save all who shall believe and obey the gospel." p. 267. But his lordship has not advanced the shadow of an argument to show that the word Predestination, in this part of the Article, ought to be understood in a different sense from what it bears in the beginning of it. And the meaning of it there is too clear to need any further elucidation. But whoever peruses his lordship's treatise with an expectation of finding its assertions supported by clear proofs, and its positions established by solid arguments, will meet with little but disappointment.

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Two things are chiefly to be respected, in every good and godly man's prayer; his own necessity, and the glory of Almighty God. Necessity belongeth either outwardly to the body, or inwardly to the soul; which part of man [i. e. the soul], because it is much more precious and excellent than the other, therefore we ought, first of all, to crave such things as properly belong to the salvation thereof; as, the gift of repentance; the gift of faith; the gift of charity and good works; remission and forgiveness of sins, &c. and such other like fruits of

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For though faith in election animates us to call upon God, on God, yet it would be preposterous to obtrude it upon him when we pray, or to stipulate this condition: O Lord, if I am elected, hear me; since it is his pleasure that we should be satisfied with his promises, and make no further inquiries whether he will be propitious to our prayers. This prudence will extricate us from many snares, if we know how to make a right use of what has been rightly written; but we must not inconsiderately apply to various purposes, what ought to be restricted to the object particularly designed.-Institut. l. 3. c. 24. s. 5.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Sacraments ordained of Christ, be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession; but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace and God's good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in him.-Art. 25.

What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?-I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spi

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In the first place, it is necessary to consider what a Sacrament is. Now I think it will be a simple and appropriate definition, if we say that it is an outward sign by which the Lord seals in our consciences the promises of his good will towards us to support the weakness of our faith, and we on our part testify our piety towards him, in bis presence and that of angels, as well as before men. It may however be more brieflydefined in other words, by calling it a testimony of the grace of God towards us, confirmed by an outward sign, with a reciprocal attestation of our piety towards him. Whichever of these definitions you choose, it conveys precisely the same meaning as that of Augustine, which states a sacrament to be "a visible sign of a sacred thing," or

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CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

their sins by SPIritual reGENERATION.-Baptism of persons of riper years.

Let us only trust to be saved by his death and passion, and to have our sins clean washed away through his most precious blood; that in the end of the world, when he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead, he mayreceive us into his heavenly kingdom, and place us in the number of his elect and chosen people. 2 Hom. on the passion, p. 261.

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common to all; but the grace itself, by which the members of Christ are regenerated with their head, is not common to all.-S. 15.

Wherefore we may certaiuly conclude, that the office of sacraments is the same as that of God's word, which is to offer and present Christ to us, and in him the treasures of heavenly grace. But they avail or profit nothing unless they are received by faith.-s. 17.

Baptism is a sign of initiation, by which we are ad

mitted into the society of the Church, that, being engrafted into Christ, we may be numbered among the children of、 God.-Instit. l. 4. c. 15. s. 1.

All those who are clothed with the righteousness of Christ are also regenerated by the Spirit, and of this regeneration we have an earnest in baptism*.-s. 12.

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Dr. Tomline says, "The holy rite (Baptism) by "which these invaluable blessings are communicated is by St. Paul figuratively called Regeneration or New Birth. Many similar phrases occur in the New Testament, such as born of water and of the Spirit, begotten again unto a lively hope, dead in sins and quick"ened together with Christ, buried with Christ in bap

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tism, born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible: these expressions all relate to a single act once performed upon an individual.-The word Rege

*Rom. vi. 1, 4, &c.

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"neration therefore is in Scripture solely and exclusively applied to the one immediate effect of baptism once "administered, and is never used as synonymous to the repentance or reformation of a Christian, or to express any operation of the Holy Ghost upon the human "mind subsequent to baptism." p. 84, 85.

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Here his lordship evidently confounds, what the Church has so clearly distinguished, the OUTWARD AND VISIBLE SIGN with the INWARD AND SPIRITUAL GRACE, the washing of baptisin with SPIRITUAL ReGENERATION, and loses sight of the limitation of the benefits of baptism to those " that receive it RIGHTLY." If baptism be "a SIGN of Regeneration," how can it be Regeneration itself? as is here asserted. If it be an "inward effect produced by the Holy Ghost through "the means of baptism," in the case of EVERY person that is baptized, as his lordship fully implies p. 95, and by adopting as his own the quotation p. 30, expressly maintains, how can the benefits of this Sacrament be confined to those "that receive it RIGHTLY?"

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But the Bishop's notion of Regeneration is so completely at variance with every Scriptural representation of that important subject, has an aspect so unfavourable to the promotion of real piety, leads to such an erroneous estimate of "attention to the outward acts of religion*" as of greater value than "purity of mind and singleness of heart*,” and so directly tends to inspire delusive hope and false confidence in persons who, though baptized like Simon Magus, are like him still in the gail of bitterness and in the "bond of iniquity," and therefore need, as much as any heathen can need, "the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost ;" that I trust the reader

*Refut. p. 282.

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