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corrupt mixture with which our Enemy had hoped to choke it: we should rightly attribute the apparent comparative failure among ourselves in these times, not to our not possessing the truth, but to our slothful use of the abundant treasures which God has bestowed upon us. And so also, with regard to any doctrine in which persons either within or without our Church may depart from her; no one can say with confidence, that the superior holiness of those who do not accept it, is attributable to their not accepting it, since it may be only that by their rejection of this one truth, they have not forfeited the blessing of God upon the other truths, which they yet hold: while others who do hold it, may be holding it in name only, and may never have examined the treasure committed to them. It may be, to speak plainly, that many who deny or doubt about Baptismal Regeneration, have been made holy and good men, and yet have sustained a loss in not holding this truth: and again, that others may nominally have held it, and yet never have thought of the greatness or significance of what they professed to hold. If again right practice were a test of doctrine, then could there be no such thing as "holding the truth in unrighteousness," for which however the Apostle pronounces the condemnation of the Heathen. Further, if the comparison were any test at all, it must manifestly be made not at one period only, but throughout the time that such doctrine has been held by the Church; one must compare not the men of our own day only, but those of all former times, Confessors, Saints, and Martyrs, which were impossible! This is not said, as if we were competent judges even as to our own times, or as if any could be, but God alone, who searcheth the hearts; for if the number of those, who being earnest-minded and zealous men, do not hold Baptismal Regeneration, were increased an hundred fold, or, if those who imagining that they hold Baptismal Regeneration, do in fact use it as a skreen to hide from themselves the necessity of the complete actual change of mind and disposition necessary to them, were many more than they are, still, who can tell to how many thousands, or tens of thousands, this same doctrine has been the blessed means of a continued, child-like growth in grace, who have been silently growing up,