more doubtful as to the connexion of these benefits with the rite of Baptism, why should they have gratuitously inserted into their new Service such a downright assertion that the child is regenerate, there being no such assertion in the unreformed Service?

But the Articles are supposed to modify this. How is this possible, if the Articles came from the same hands, and were published at the same time? Our present Baptismal Service first saw the light in 1552. The Articles were agreed upon in the same year, though not published till May, 1553.

It would have been most unaccountable for men to have published a new Baptismal Service connecting, by the strongest categorical assertion, the inward grace with the outward sign, and there and then prepared Articles to nullify their own work.

It is impossible to suppose that men who knew their own minds would thus wantonly pull down with one hand what they built up with another.

Let us now examine the doctrine of the original Articles. We shall find that it exactly accords with the doctrine of the Service published at the same time. Of course I quote, in this investigation, the Articles of 1553, which, on this matter, say precisely the same thing as our present Thirty-nine Articles.

The Article on Sacraments contains the following:

"Sacraments ordained by the Word of God be not only badges and 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."

Here we are taught that the Sacraments are SURE wit

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nesses, and EFFECTUAL signs of grace. In the Baptismal Service we practically acknowledge that the Sacrament which has just been administered has been a sure witness "of God's good will to that particular child, and an 'effectual sign" by which God has invisibly worked Regeneration in him; for when the child has been baptized the minister is directed to assert that he is "regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Congregation," and thanks are returned to God that "it hath pleased Him to regenerate this infant with His Holy Spirit, to receive him for His own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into His Holy Congregation." (Service of 1552.)

And all this accords with what the congregation had been called upon to believe would take place when they were addressed in the words, "Doubt yo not, therefore, but earnestly believe, that He will likewise favourably receive this present infant, that He will embrace Him with the arms of His mercy," &c.

If our Reformers held such a meaning of the term Regeneration as must practically dissever it from Baptism, or if they hold the connection of Baptism with Regeneration under a multitude of restrictions and reservations, how could they have possibly framed an Article which defined a Sacrament to be a sure witness of God's good will, and effectual sign of grace; knowing all the time that the connection of the inward grace with the outward sign was anything but certain; and how could they at the same time bring out a Service in which the apparent doctrine of the Article is practically recognised by our thanking God for the Regeneration of every child baptized?

But in addition to this Article on the Sacraments, there is an Article on Baptism itself, which is little more than a ropetition, with special application to Baptism, of the matter

contained in the Article on the Sacraments.

there called a

Baptism is

"Sign or Seal of our New Birth; whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of forgiveness of sins, and our adoption to be the sons of God, are visibly signed and sealed: faith is confirmed: and grace increased, by virtue of prayer unto God. The custom of the Church to christen young children is to be commended, and in any wise to be retained in the Church."

Comparing this Article with the previous one on the Sacraments, we must evidently understand the term sign here as meaning an effectual sign of grace; and in the case of Baptism, of course this grace is Regeneration. If, then, Baptism is a sure witness and effectual sign of the grace which God instituted it to convey, then God works the grace invisibly in us when we receive the sign.1

There are no doctrinal discrepancies between the Thirty-nine Articles and Baptismal Services greater than the discrepancies between certain statements in the Articles themselves.

If we understand the seventeenth Article in the Calvinistic sense, there is an irreconcilable difference between its language and that of the twenty-fifth Article; for in the latter Article Sacraments are said to be certain "sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace and God's good will towards us."

Now on the Calvinistic hypothesis we are obliged to hold that a very few out of all those who are baptized as infants receive the inward grace along with the outward sign, inasmuch as in after life they show evident signs of not persevering in the Divine life. So that this Sacrament is anything but a "sure witness and effectual sign of grace" to infants, i.e., to those whose Baptism our present twenty-seventh Article declares to be most agreeable with the Institution of Christ.

With still less truth can the Sacraments be called "effectual signs of God's good will," when, on the Calvinistic theory, God is supposed to have elected to eternal life only a small number out of the visible Church. Sacraments are, on the Calvinistic theory, only a sign of God's good will to the elect and the election of these persons,

In accordance with this Article, we assert in the Service that the infant when baptized has actually received the inward grace of which the outward sign is the sign.

A sign of Regeneration is a sign that the man who has received the sign is Regenerate, just as a sign of wealth is a sign that the person in question possesses wealth.

But, in addition to this, Baptism is called a "seal" of our New Birth. Now, a seal is appended to a deed of gift, or to any other graut, when the donor, who has promised it, actually makes the thing promised over to

to whom God accords this "good will," is, in the language of the seventeenth Article, "secret to us."

So that in accordance with one Article (the twenty-seventh) we baptize all infants: in accordance with another (the twenty-fifth) we assert that this Baptism is a "sure witness and effectual sign of grace and God's good will" towards them; and (if we hold the strict Calvinistic meaning of a third Article-the seventeenth) we do this with the mental reservation that we cannot possibly tell whether Baptism is a sign of God's good will" in any case, as such "good will " depends on a decree "secret to us." Add to this the fact that to all appearance very few of the multitudes who are baptized (i.e., who have received a sure witness and effectual sign of grace and God's good will) manifest their secret election by "walking religiously in good works," and the discrepancy seems complete and irreconcilable.

In point of fact, upon the strict predestinarian hypothesis, we are not called upon so much to modify the language of the Prayer-book by the Articles, as the language of the rest of the Articles by that of one of their number-the seventeenth.

And we are called upon to do this in spite of a very strong caution inserted at the end of this same Article (the seventeenth) that its predestinarian statements are not to modify our reception of the "promises of God as generally set forth in Holy Scripture."

Now the promises of Holy Scripture are generally set forth as belonging to all the visible Church, nay, to all who hear the sound of the Gospel, and the whole idea of Calvinistic predestination is to confine to a few what is addressed to all.

the receiver, and thereby assures the possession of it to him.

In accordance, then, with this Article we acknowledge in the Service that the Baptism of the particular child baptized is a seal of his New Birth, whereby, as by an instrument (or deed), he having, as far as we can possibly tell, received Baptism rightly, is grafted into the Church. We acknowledge that the "promises of forgiveness of sins, and his adoption to be the son of God, are visibly signed and sealed" to him, for we thank God that He has made the child "His own child by adoption."

And we proceed to say, that the child being "buried with Christ in His death may crucify the old man, aud utterly abolish the whole body of sin," thereby acknowledging that "grace is increased by virtue of prayer to God."