Baptismal regeneration

“ Some contend that the Church of England does not teach baptismal regeneration, but it is hard to see how any one can read this service, and then deny the teaching; it is clearer and fuller than is the teaching of her voice upon most subjects. The ceremony of baptism and the idea of regeneration are both derived from the sun-worship of which so many traces have already been pointed out: the worshippers of Mithra practised baptism, and it is common to the various phases of the solar faith. ”

“ Their divinity of the Church, with its visible head upon earth, the Pope, of purgatory, mass, worship of the Virgin and the saints, indulgences, confessional,—are these not wood, hay, and stubble? And coming to the Reformed Churches, which of them believes in baptismal regeneration, accepts Baptism to be a christening? Which believes in the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Sacrament? Not one. Then, again, the Baptists insist, contrary to God's Word, that immersion is the only mode of baptism; he that has not been completely put under water has not been baptized. ”

“ The document presents an angry defence of the Church formulas; and, whilst there is much in the reasoning which commends itself to admirers of the Liturgy, the temper betrayed is of a kind which assuredly most of those admirers will condemn. [229]
1661.
The discussion upon baptism alone needs particular attention. It is affirmed that the form in the Prayer Book is "most proper; for baptism is our spiritual regeneration." That answer indicates that the Episco [180] palians in the Conference took the words in the Prayer Book to express the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. ”

“ We may adopt this statement from Plumptre's Commentary, with the alteration of the word “conveyed” into “symbolized” or “manifested.”Plumptre's interpretation is, as he seems to admit, in its obvious meaning inconsistent with infant baptism; to us it seems equally inconsistent with any doctrine of baptismal regeneration.
Scriptural regeneration is God's (1) changing man's disposition, and (2) securing its first exercise. Regeneration, according to the Disciples, is man's (1) repentance and faith, and (2) submission to baptism. ”

“ Let it be particularly remembered here, that we do not substitute baptism by water, however dispensed, whether by sprinkling or immersion, in the room of regeneration. Some of the Christian Fathers used the words, regeneration and baptism, as similar in signification, though at the same time, they by no means excluded the doctrine of a renovation of nature; or meant to be understood that the application of the Element of water, in the baptismal Sacrament, was the actual scripture-new-birth. Some few Christians, have supposed that baptism rightly administered is the scripture-regeneration. ”

“ Mr. Roscoe.—"It appears to me, after a close investigation of the subject, that confirmation, as administered by our bishops, is based on the fatal error of baptismal regeneration, and is a necessary sequence to it. Two objects are accomplished by it. In the first place, it is a release to godfathers and godmothers from the heavy responsibilities they took upon themselves, when they gave the vow at the baptismal font that their godchild should renounce all the sinful lusts of the flesh, &c. ”

“ Whatever may be the right doctrinal opinion as to baptismal regeneration, all really orthodox men will grant, I presume, that as people grow up they may lose that privilege of being children of God which we trust they who were baptised in their infancy did enjoy, and would have reaped the benefit of it had they died before, by the gradual development of their mental powers, they became moral agents capable of responsibility. ”

“ Those who cannot repent are sons of perdition. Their sin is unpardonable, involving utter recreancy to divine light and power previously possessed.
The Washing of Regeneration.—Sin must not only be repented of; it must be blotted out. The soul must be cleansed of it. Baptism is the soul-cleansing process, the divinely instituted means whereby sins are remitted—that is, forgiven and washed away. Immersion in water, symbolizing birth, or burial and resurrection, is the true form of the baptismal ordinance. Baptism is the third principle of the Gospel. ”

“ By baptism we are as effectually freed from sin, as by death, burial and resurrection, the mortal is changed to immortal and ushered into a new existence. Hence, baptism is termed "the washing of regeneration." Regeneration means "new birth." ”

“ Without baptism and the Lord’s Supper he received the highest spiritual blessings while he lived, and was with Christ in paradise when he died! To assert, in the face of such a case, that baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation is something monstrous. To say that baptism is the only means of regeneration, and that all who die unbaptized are lost for ever, is to say that which cannot be proved by Scripture, and is revolting to common sense. ”

“ By baptism is man purified from original sin—from his own personal or actual sins, if there be any; there is infused into him habitual or justifying grace, accompanied by faith, hope, charity, as well as the gifts of the Holy Ghost; and he is made the adopted child of God. The efficient cause of such spiritual regeneration is Jesus Christ; and yet it is by a Minister of Reconciliation, pouring water and saying the words "I baptize thee in the name of the Father," etc., etc., that the cleansing is effected. ”

“ Without baptism, faith is like the works of a clock that has no dial or hands by which one can tell the time; or like the political belief of a man who refuses to go to the polls and vote. Without baptism, discipleship is ineffective and incomplete. The inward change—regeneration by the Spirit—may have occurred, but the outward change—Christian profession—is yet lacking.
Campbellism, however, holds that instead of regeneration preceding baptism and expressing itself in baptism, it is completed only in baptism, so that baptism is a means of regeneration. ”

“ As he saw in the immersing under water the symbolical repetition of the death and resurrection of Christ, baptism appeared to him as the act of spiritual dying and renovation, or regeneration, of incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, that 'new creation.' As for Paul the baptism of adults only was in question, faith in Christ is already of course presupposed by it, and baptism is just the act in which faith realizes the decisive resolution of giving one's self up actually as belonging to Christ and his community. ”

“ As water, in its highest and divinest significance, symbolizes all the holy means by which man is enabled to renounce and remit his sins, so baptism symbolizes his heartfelt acceptance of and submission to those means. From this it is called the baptism of repentance first, and, later on, as the truth became clearer, it is called baptism for the remission of sins. As additional light was still thrown upon man's salvation, a light which Nicodemus could not see, baptism acquired a new significance, described by Paul as "the washing of regeneration." ”

“ Baptism is appropriate for penitent believers, not for innocent infants, because it is the “washing of regeneration,” designed to cleanse, not from inherited original sin, but from the guilt of actual personal sins. Yet it is not a magical “water salvation,” though he was often accused of teaching that. “The blood of Christ really cleanses us who believe.... The water of baptism formally washes away our sins.” ”

“ Regeneration and baptism, although not holding to each other the relation of effect and cause, are both regarded in the New Testament as essential to the restoration of man's right relations to God and to his people. They properly constitute parts of one whole, and are not to be unnecessarily separated. Baptism should follow regeneration with the least possible delay, after the candidate and the church have gained evidence that a spiritual change has been accomplished within him. ”

“ And we are brought to the same conclusion when we contemplate the third or final use of baptism as now revealed; which is, "that the man may be regenerated." And the means of regeneration, we are told, are in the possession of all who profess the Christian religion, "because a Christian possesses the Word in which the means of regeneration are plainly described, those means being faith in the Lord and charity toward the neighbor." All Christians, then, have abundant means of attaining the final end of baptism, because they all have the Word. ”

“ We therefore teach all who are baptized that, if they bring to their baptism a heart that renounces sin and implicitly trusts the power of Christ to save, they should rely on the Savior's own promise—'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.'”
All these utterances agree in making forgiveness chronologically distinct from regeneration, as the concluding point is distinct from the whole. Regeneration is not entirely the work of God,—it must be completed by man. It is not wholly a change of heart, it is also a change in outward action. ”

“ Such are not aware that no one receives heaven or faith through baptism; for baptism is merely for a sign and memorial that man should be regenerated, and that those born within the church can be regenerated because the Word is there, and in the Word are the Divine truths by means of which regeneration is effected, and there the Lord who regenerates is known. ”

“ It embodies faith in original sin, regeneration, atonement, the continuation of the soul, and the reward and punishment of the soul after death as taught in the New Testament. The Mormons do not believe in infant baptism, nor in any kind of baptism as a necessity for salvation. ”

“ Baptism was instituted for a sign that a man is of the Church and for a memorial that he is to be regenerated. For the washing of baptism is no other than spiritual washing, which is regeneration. All regeneration is effected by the Lord through truths of faith and a life according to them. Baptism, therefore, testifies that a man is of the Church and that he can be regenerated; for it is in the Church that the Lord is acknowledged, Who regenerates man, and there the Word is, where are truths of faith, by which is regeneration.
—Heavenly Doctrine, nn. ”

“ Men, you say, are regenerate when they are enlightened; you must therefore concede that they who are baptized in their infancy, being without understanding and so unenlightened, cannot be regenerated. Yet do you contend that they are properly baptized. Dissevering regeneration from baptism you make baptism a sign of adoption; but you deceive yourself in this, the Scriptures declaring that adoption is effected when to the believer is given the spirit of the divine Sonship—πνεύμα Ὑωοθεσίος. ”

“ Some persons have confused conversion with regeneration, and have taught that all men—the baptized, and therefore in fact regenerate—must be regenerated afterwards, or they cannot be saved. Now this is in many ways false; for regeneration, 251which the Lord Jesus Christ himself has connected with holy baptism, cannot be repeated: moreover, not all men (though indeed most men do) fall into such sin after baptism, that conversion, or, as they term it, regeneration, is necessary to their salvation ”

“ A point of great weight surely is this:—that they are (even if really ambiguous when subjected to the searching eyes and acute minds of the most subtle lawyers: I use the word in no ill sense; yet) to all ordinary men, and ordinary unbiassed minds, so clearly on the catholic side, and so plainly to such minds convey nothing but the ancient doctrine of regeneration in baptism, that it is much more easy and natural to believe the Church never contemplated the ambiguity than that she did. ”

“ I do not say anything about the disastrous effects that have followed from such a conception of the medium by which this greatest of all Christian gifts is effected upon men. Since the Spirit who is given is life, the result of the gift of that Spirit is a new life, and we all know what disastrous and debasing consequences have followed from that dogma of regeneration by baptism. No doubt it is perfectly true that normally, in the early Church, the Divine Spirit was given at baptism ”

“ The laver and the regeneration refer to one fact, and to one fact only; a fact which takes place once for all and can never be repeated. A man cannot have the new birth a second time, any more than he can be born a second time: and hence no one may be baptized twice. But the renewing of the Holy Spirit may take place daily. It precedes baptism in the case of adults; for it is only through a renewal which is the work of the Spirit that they can prepare themselves by repentance and faith for baptism. It takes place at baptism, as the Apostle clearly indicates here. And it continues after baptism ”

“ Closely allied to baptism is the idea of regeneration, being born again. In baptism the purification is wrought by the male deity, typified in the water flowing from the throne or the feet of the god. In regeneration without water the purification is wrought by the female deity. ”

“ The Plea states: "He (God) is able to accomplish by the Holy Baptism, performed in the mysterious name of the ever adored Trinity, a work of regeneration in the heart of the little child." "The expression used in the Augsburg Confession, Art. II., is, regenerated by baptism and the Holy Ghost, (John iii. 5.) This doctrine, however, is not to be understood as if the new creation was fully completed by new generation. It is complete so far as a live seed is complete in itself. ”