Surely this breathing of a new breath of life may well be called new birth.

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Such is the threefold privilege of Baptism, its inward spiritual grace, called "regeneration" or new birth," on purpose to show that it is the free gift of God, not won by any effort of our own, but God's gift just as much as natural birth is God's gift.

And if it be so, if it require no effort on the part of the baptized, then clearly infants are as capable of it as adults. Just as an unconscious plant may be conveyed from one master to another, may be grafted into a new stock, may be transplanted into a more genial climate,- —so may the unconscious babe change masters, be grafted into Christ, and brought under the Holy Spirit's influence.

Some may say, "Nay, but is not Baptism of the nature of a covenant? and does not the Catechism tell us that faith and repentance are required? How then can it be right to baptize infants?”

The answer is a very simple one: Baptism is of the nature of a covenant, and repentance and faith are required. But so gracious and merciful is our heavenly Father, that He is satisfied with an engagement to repent and believe on our part: the adult engages, the infant is engaged, to renounce evil and embrace the faith. We enter on our new life" under this engagement or obligation; and if in after years we fail to fulfil this engagement, just in that proportion do we forfeit these privileges of our new birth.

Most rightly therefore does the Article affirm in its last clause that "the Baptism of young children is most agreeable with the institution of Christ."1

'The Scripture proofs of this are given in Lesson IX. of Part I.

One only question remains. This "regeneration being the inward and spiritual grace, how is it connected with the outward and visible sign? How can one be said to be the means of the other? The Article answers the question in that most instructive phrase : "Whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church."

That the word "instrument" is to be understood in its legal sense (just as a deed is called an instrument of conveyance) is shown by the use of that other legal phrase, "the promises are signed and sealed." The Baptism is an instrument of conveyance, signed and sealed in the thrice Holy Name, whereby the child is transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. i. 13), so becoming part of Christ's "purchased possession" (Eph. i. 14).

LESSON XI.

The Lord's Supper.

ARTICLE XXVIII.

Of the Lord's Supper.

THE Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.

Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly

and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.

The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.

Notes.-This Article is directed against two errors: first, the error of those (the "Zuinglians") who explain away the Sacramental character of the Lord's Supper, saying that it is only a bond of fellowship, "a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves," denying that there is therein any real participation in the Body and Blood of Christ. And second, the error of those who maintain a real participation in the Body and Blood of Christ, but lower the doctrine by an unworthy conception of the mode in which the participation is effected.

The Anglican Church, in common with the Roman and Lutheran Churches, believes in a real participation, but differs from both as to the mode in which Christ is received. For, as Hooker and Bishop Harold Browne point out, there are three principal opinions as to the mode in which Christ is received :

1. The Romanists say by Transubstantiation, that is, by conversion of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of Christ's Body and Blood; so that, though the appearance of bread and wine remain, yet their substance is gone, and in its place we have the substance of Christ's Body and Blood.

2. The Lutherans deny that there is any such conversion of substance; the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine; but as in red-hot iron there is the nature both of iron and of fire, so in the Eucharist

there is both the substance of the bread and the substance of the Lord's Body. This is Consubstantiation.

3. Rejecting both these opinions, the English Church maintains a real but spiritual partaking of Christ's Body and Blood in the Lord's Supper; and this is the doctrine of the Article. "To such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking (a means of our partaking, St. Paul's phrase in 1 Cor. x. 16) of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking (a means of our partaking) of the Blood of Christ;" but (as the Article proceeds to assert) this partaking is "only after an heavenly and spiritual manner."

The meaning is clear. We consist of body and of spirit. By our body we are connected with the visible world, by our spirit we are connected with the unseen world. Christ is in the unseen world; it is by our spirits, therefore, that we feed on Him. While with our body we are feeding on the hallowed bread and wine according to His command, He, remembering His promise, is feeding us spiritually with His Body and His Blood. The two feedings go on concurrently, and the one is the condition and occasion of the other.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor (quoted by Bishop Harold Browne) expresses it thus :-"As Christ's Body is now a spiritual Body, so we expect a spiritual presence of that Body; and we do not believe that we naturally and carnally eat that which is no longer natural and carnal; but that we spiritually receive Christ's spiritual Body into our souls, and spiritually drink His lifegiving Blood with the lips of our spirit." (Bishop