' other virtues." Were a modern writer to express himself in this manner, he would be charged, and not unjustly, with mysticism, and perhaps with heretical enthusiasm: and with the utmost deference to the learned person who has adduced the passage, I would submit that antiquity has no prerogative to change the nature of truth. The first clause of the sentence is sufficiently vague; but as it admits of a construction consistent with truth, I take no further notice of it. But what can the author mean by "no one is born without Christ?" Surely not that the Messiah's existence continues; nor probably that his mediation is co-existent with the births of all mankind. From the connexion, it should seem, he means that no one is born without some kind of interest in Christ. What kind of interest however, can it be? Is there in fact, any conceivable interest in Christ which is not founded in union to him? Union by faith is out of the question and his being united to our nature by his incarnation, could be no more a ground of interest to infants than to adult profligates; the nature of each individual being alike included in the incarnation. He must therefore mean a spiritual union in virtue of which every one born has an interest in Christ. But is there a particle of evidence for this opinion? Besides,

Refut. p. 412.

allow it and you prove too much even for his Lordship, because in that case every one would be justified before he was baptized; it being, is manifest from the whole tenor of the New Testament, that he who is thus united to Christ is in a justified state. "There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." "He that hath the Son hath life."

§ 17. Again, what "seeds of wisdom, and of justice, and of the other virtues," without which "no one is born," can there conceivably exist in any human being, except as the effect of a vital, spiritual union? Nay, the notion abetted makes the second birth prior to the first, since, according to him, " no one is born without Christ;" or at all events the first and second births are coeval. Now as it is contended by his Lordship that baptism is the new birth, I confess I do not perceive how he can honestly disown the fair inference, that "no one is born without baptism!" Moreover, as there is "no second regeneration," why should any adult persons be baptized, and why should Christ say, "Ye must be born again?" On this author's principle, it might have been replied, We were not born without Christ, we had from the first breath a new nature, "the seeds of wisdom, and of justice, and of the other virtues;" and if the design of baptism be to

"confer" or to "convey" these blessings, it comes too late: and as our natural birth cannot be repeated, so neither can our spiritual birth. In brief, this Father's notion must be considered as a groundless enthusiastic hypo, thesis, until it be made to appear that "no one is born without the indwelling spirit of Christ," -and in proportion as any one succeeds in the attempt, consequences will follow not a little disastrous to his Lordship's doctrine of baptism and regeneration.

As

§ 18. The Bishop attacks Calvinism, by an insulated quotation from the same author, concerning a middle life and a middle sentence. the modern Calvinists are so prone to run into extremes, possibly the insertion of the following passage was intended to counteract their eccentric propensities.

"It is not to be feared but

that there may be a certain middle life between 'virtue and sin, and that the sentence of the Judge may be in the middle, between reward ' and punishment." Now as I am at a loss to know against what Calvinistic extremes this middle doctrine is intended to be operative, unfortunately I cannot profit by it. Let us, however, re-examine the passage; for it was neither written by JEROME, I presume, nor

* Refut. p. 415.

quoted by his Lordship without some design. "It is not to be feared;" from this we may infer that it was intended by the author as a consolatory doctrine, and calculated to cheer a disconsolate parent on the loss of an infant child, especially if death seized it unbaptized. This, however, will not do; for the author believed, as we have seen, that "no one is born without Christ, and without the seeds of every virtue:" and clearly he who has the seeds of every virtue has a virtuous nature, and he who has Christ is free from sin and condemnation. This middle doctrine therefore cannot apply to new-born infants: nor is it to be supposed that the ascribed benefit is withdrawn until forfeited by some actual transgression, as this would turn the scales, and their life would no longer be a medium "between virtue and sin,"

§ 19. We have sometimes heard it asserted by a certain class of preachers, that the virtues and charities of men are a counterbalance to their sins and failings: that, for instance, when the scripture says "Thou art weighed in the balances," the meaning is, that thy sins are put in one scale, and thy virtues in the other. Now it may so happen that the weights are equal, without any preponderance one way or other. Who can tell but this may be the "middle life" intended by JEROME, which is

to receive from the Judge a "middle sentence " between reward and punishment. But I am apprehensive that this also will not succeed. Because, first, one unpardoned sin is a heavier weight than all the virtues of any man put together in the opposite scale: a conclusion which easily admits of formal proof, but for the truth of which I shall only appeal at present to the proper nature of sin and of human virtue. Again, if the man's transgressions are forgiven, or his sins covered, they are never likely to be put in the scale: what is blotted out is not to be produced virtues and charities have the whole exclusive sway, -and what becomes of the middle life, and the middle sentence? If we appeal to scripture, instead of human fancies ancient or modern, we may soon learn that there is no medium between being in Christ and out of Christ; between being justified as united to him, or condemned as not united to him; and that there will be no medium at the final judgment between "Come ye blessed," and "depart ye cursed." If indeed there were any force in JEROME's doctrine against the Calvinists, it would go to establish the doctrine of purgatory, a limbus infantium, or a limbus patrum. The Papists must have felt extreme regret when they found that they could not prevail upon the Protestants to abide by an appeal to the Fathers upon all disputed points.