of Divine grace to the soul, which are closed up indeed by unfaithfulness, yet are efficacious, not simply by animating our faith; but the one, by actually incorporating us into Christ, and creating in our souls a new principle of life, and making us "partakers of the Divine nature;" the other, imparting to us increased union with Christ, and (to use a term of the Fathers[1]) a deifying influence, whereby God gives us that which man would have accepted from Satan—to "be as Gods," being partakers of the Son of God. But how the Sacraments effect this we know not: we understand not the mysteries of our first, how should we then of our second, birth? Of both rather we confess, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but how we were fashioned, we know not.
This school[2] then, by taking as their one definition of the
- ↑ E.g. St. Gregory of Nazianzum, (when "peril of waters" seemed to threaten death, before he should be baptized):—
καθαρσίων γὰρ οἲς Θεούμεθ' ὑδάτων
ἠλλοτρούμην ὕδασιν ξενοκτόνοις. - ↑ Only some principal authorities are here adduced; and that, chiefly, because the language of those consulted was so very similar, and their theory so entirely identical, that it would have been needless repetition to have quoted them. The authorities examined comprise those of chief weight, and who are acknowledged as such by later writers, as by Gataker, de vi et efficacia Baptismi Infantilis (a disputation against Dr. S. Ward, Divinity Prof, at Cambridge, who maintained the Baptismal regeneration of all infants, Whitaker, the regeneration of elect infants only); and Witsius, de efficacia Baptismi in Infantisis (Misc. Sacr. t. ii. Exerc. 19). Of older authorities, Zuingli, Calvin, P. Martyr, Bullinger (Comm.) Beza, Musculus (loci, who agrees altogether with P. Martyr), Z. Ursinus, A. Willet (Synopsis Papismi), Whitaker (de Sacramentis), who, as an English divine, speaks sometimes more strongly of the efficacy of the Sacraments than the foreign, but his theory is the same;—of intermediate writers, Vorstius (Anti-Bellarm.), Polanus (Syntagma Theolog.), Chamier (Panstrat. Cathol.), have been examined for the most part throughout; but some two or three, just so far as to ascertain that they spoke to the same purpose, and used the same language. Moderns have been purposely omitted, both to avoid the appearance of controversy, and because the object was to ascertain the original character of the theory in question, of which they could, of course, give no evidence. A large portion of the quotations are given by Gataker, who has selected naturally those most bearing upon his purpose, and is a repertorium for this end.
