2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from

a ch. vii. 50. & xix. 39.

God: for no man can do these miracles that bch. ix. 16, 33. thou doest, except God be with him.

с

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily,

2. "Miracles." Properly, "signs," equa; Vulg., signa.

Acts ii. 22.

c Acts x. 38.

and silently, long before the Holy Spirit guided the Evangelist to put them into writing. The Church for many years had been permeated with Baptismal and Eucharistic doctrine; for instance, St. Paul's leading doctrine is that the Church is the Body of Christ, and that Christians are now in Christ as they were by nature in Adam, and now at last St. John is led to give the root of it all in the words of Christ, recorded in the third, sixth, and fifteenth chapters of this Gospel.

Of Nicodemus nothing is known except what is told us in the three notices of him in this Gospel (iii. 1, vii. 50, xix. 39). A rich man of his name is mentioned in Jewish tradition as living in our Lord's time, and surviving the destruction of Jerusalem. He comes here before us as a believer in some Divine Mission of Jesus, but afraid to come to Him in the broad light of day. He expresses his faith in the words, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him."

3. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The answer of Christ is very abrupt. Whether there had been more words of inquiry on the part of Nicodemus, or whether our Lord read and answered his thoughts, we know not. In either case his thoughts, or his unrecorded words, must have been respecting "the kingdom of God." If Nicodemus came to our Lord as a God-sent prophet for instruction, it must have been to learn what he could not know from the Old Testament, or from the Jewish traditionary teaching. He could scarcely have come to Christ with some personal inquiry as to how he was to serve or please God, or to inherit eternal life, as the young ruler did (Matth. xix. 17), or he would have received some similar answer, He could only have come to inquire respecting the new Kingdom; and our Lord's answer, though more circumstantial, is, in effect, that which He

d ch. i. 13. Gal. vi. 15. Tit, iii. 5.

James i. 18. 1 Pet. i. 23.

1 John iii. 9.

d

verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born

3. "Born again," or, "from above," but see below. Vulg., denuo.

gave when questioned by Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world," "Now is my kingdom not from hence."

It will be needful to dwell more upon this, as it is the key to the understanding of the whole matter.

66

Did our Lord mean by the words, " Except a man be born again," followed, in the way of explanation, by "except a man be born of water and of the Spirit," to press upon Nicodemus, as a worldly, carnal man, the necessity of repentance or conversion, or of a new heart? It is impossible to suppose that He did, because, if so, why should He not express Himself plainly, so that Nicodemus could have had at once no doubt about the matter? Our Lord, at other times, called men to repentance and conversion in words respecting the meaning of which no one could have a moment's hesitation. Neither can we suppose that our Lord meant to bring to bear upon Nicodemus the necessity of deeper spiritual religion; for we have such heart religion, expressed in terms devoid of all mystery, in the Beatitudes, and our Lord speaks here enigmatically and mysteriously.

Again, He speaks of that of which He sets forth the necessity, as a "birth." Now, what is a birth? It is not a change of heart, or of character. It is the entrance into a new state of existence. Generation is coming out of non-existence into existence. Birth is also the entrance into a state of life as different as possible from that in the womb. A new birth would be into a new life requiring an outward state of things corresponding to that life, for the creature which is born possesses its own particular sort of life, and by birth enters into a state fitted for the sustentation and development of that life. Again, this new birth is represented as universally necessary, Except any one (ric) be born of water and of the Spirit." This is more than the calling of those who have sinned to repentance. It is not a necessity which follows upon some sinful course, but a necessity for all human nature.

66

Now all this leads us up to the doctrine of the Catholic Church in all its branches, respecting these words of our Lord, which is, that they set forth the new birth as an entrance into a new spiritual state corresponding to the old, or first birth into a state of sin and evil.

again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

With this comparison or contrast, the Baptismal Service of the English Branch of the Catholic Church opens: Forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin, and that our Saviour Christ saith 'none can enter into the kingdom of God except he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost,' I beseech you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of His bounteous mercy He will grant to this child that thing which by nature he cannot have, that he may be baptized with water and the Holy Ghost, and received into Christ's holy Church, and be made a lively member of the same." All explanations of the words of Christ which I have seen, which were written before the sixteenth century, are substantially the same as this. It also expresses what all the Fathers of the Church from Justin and Irenæus downwards, have said upon these words of Christ.

That the Church has seized upon the truth of our Lord's words is evident from the testimony of all the rest of the New Testament. The great teacher of the Church, St. Paul, has no words throughout his Epistles exactly reproducing or quoting our Lord's words. In only one place does he describe the entrance into the Christian state as a birth, and that is in Titus iii. 5, "By His mercy He saved us by the font [or bath] of New Birth, and renewing of the Holy Ghost," but it cannot be supposed for a moment that an Apostle to whom God committed the writing of so much of the Christian scriptures, and the bringing of such multitudes of Gentiles into the kingdom of God, should have nothing in his writings corresponding to his Master's words.

Now the words of St. Paul respecting entrance into the Kingdom or Church of God, answering to these words of Christ, are: "So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His Death. Therefore we were buried with Him by Baptism into [His] death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Rom vi. 3, 4.) They are also "Buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, Who hath raised Him from the dead." (Col. ii. 12.) Again, "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." (1 Cor. xii. 13.) Again, "Christ sanctifies and cleanses His Church with the washing of water by the Word." (Ephes. v. 26.) Again, "Ye

[Sr. JOHN. 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born

are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus: for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." (Gal. iii. 26, 27.) Again, "By His mercy He saved us by the washing [bath or font] of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus iii. 5.)

The greatest Christian privilege in the eyes of this Apostle is to be "in Christ." In Christ mystically and spiritually, as we are in Adam naturally and carnally. The leading expression of St. Paul's practical teaching is being "in Christ." He urges men to have every Christian disposition, he would have men perform every Christian duty as members of Christ.

Does then our Lord, when He says, "Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," mean that every human being to whom His kingdom is preached must die to sin and be raised again to newness of life in holy Baptism, must by Baptism put on Christ, must by one Spirit be baptized into one body, must be cleansed with the washing of water by the Word, must be brought into Christ, and continue in Him spiritually as he is in, and continues in, Adam naturally? Yes, it must be so, if St. Paul is an inspired teacher who carries on the teaching of our Lord; for our Lord, by the words He uses, evidently describes the entrance into the state of things, the kingdom or Divine Fellowship which He came into the world to establish, and St. Paul, in the words he was led by the Spirit to use, describes the entrance into, and the continuance in the same state. There cannot be two Christian states or kingdoms, one described by our Lord, the other by His inspired servant. The servant must describe the same kingdom and the same entrance into it as the Master does.

Does our Lord then, by being "born again" "of water and of the Spirit," mean that a man must be baptized, and nothing more? No, He means that a man must enter into a new state of things, having throughout the closest relation to Himself and to His Spirit, but that this entrance is, for reasons known only to Himself, so connected with Baptism, that a baptized man must be held to have entered into it, and an unbaptized man, no matter how spiritual, must receive Baptism, or he cannot be accounted to be in it: and besides this, inasmuch as a man is born in order that he may live

when he is old? can he enter the second time into his

and grow up in the state into which he is born, our Lord must have in His mind, not a mere momentary entrance, but an abiding in the state into which the man has entered. We must take His words here in connection with His words in John xv. that He is the true Vine, His people are the branches who have to abide in Him; if they abide in Him they bear fruit; if they abide not in Him they are fruitless, and they are, or will be, cut off.

Our Lord's words, then cannot be taken by themselves; much less can we measure their meaning by the knowledge or ignorance, faith or unbelief, which Nicodemus had, or is supposed to have had. They were spoken at the very outset of our Lord's ministry, but like many others, perhaps like all His words, they were seeds which were deposited through the Apostles in the mind of the Church, and sprung up and were developed into the doctrine of the apostolic age, which doctrine was necessarily taught to every one baptized or grafted into the Church; but, apparently, not in our Lord's words as recorded in this chapter, but in kindred words, which preserved the original feature of our Lord's utterance in that they made water and the Spirit co-factors in the production of the New Birth. The principle contained in them is this:

The Son of God came amongst us, not as a spirit, but in the flesh. He came to renew a race which was in the flesh, and had received evil not spiritually, as from teaching, or from following an example, but through their flesh; through the human nature each one had received at his birth. He came to regenerate our whole nature and all that belongs to us. He came to redeem not only our souls, but our bodies also: He came to redeem our social relations, our society, our intercourse both with God and our fellow-creatures. He came amongst us not only as a Teacher, or as a propitiatory Sacrifice, or as a private Friend to each person who individually accepts Him, but as the Head of a new family or race, a mystical Head, an Adam.

To this end He instituted a new order of things which, though not of this world, was to be in it; a heavenly kingdom or fellowship, yet a kingdom existing upon earth, discernible amongst the things of time and sense. This new state of things is His Church. It is the Vine of which He is the stem, the Body of which He is the Head. But if it is to be one of such things it must be organized, it

F