have been, in some Churches, few compared with the faithful ones, but their existence is always recognised.

IV. This brings us to our fourth point.

How do the Apostles meet the case of fallen or falling Christians?

There are two ways in which they might meet the cases of such persons.

When professing Christians sinned, or fell away, the Apostles might use such a fall as evidence that such persons had not received effectual grace in Baptism—that they had never been really engrafted into Christ's Church, and were not to be accounted as "brethren."

Or the Apostles might treat them as persons who had once received God's grace and received it in vain, and so were cutting themselves off from His favour after He had gathered them into His fold, and were grieving and vexing His Holy Spirit.

Now, the Apostles invariably adopt the latter of these alternatives, and eschew the former.

Those among the Apostolic Christians who fall into sin are assumed to go counter to grace once received. They are never supposed to fall into sin because God has withheld grace-always because they resist grace or receive it in vain.

Thus if the Roman Christians continued in sin, the Apostle assumes that they went counter to the grace which in Baptism had buried and raised them again with Christ, in order that they might walk in newness of life. (Rom. vi. 1-4.) They were, in a sense, in God's goodness, because they had been engrafted into the Divine Olive-tree of His Church (xi. 17, 22); unless they continued in this they would be cut off.

If the Corinthian Christians defiled themselves, they

defiled the temple of God (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17), and would be destroyed accordingly; "for the temple of God," the Apostle tells them, is holy, "which temple ye are" (iii. 17). If they committed fornication they sinned against the grace of incorporation into Christ, by which their very bodies had been made members of Christ, and the temples of the Spirit (vi. 15-20). It was the fact of their mem bers having been once made the members of Christ which made their sin the more sinful.

If, after the example of the Israelites in the wilderness, they lusted after evil things, committed idolatry or fornication, tempted Christ, or murmured, they went counter to that baptismal grace or salvation of which the salvation of the Israelites at the Red Sea was a type. (1 Cor. x. 1-10.)

When the Galatian Christians fell back upon Justification by the Law, they fell from the grace which had adopted them into God's family, and of which the outward sign and seal was their Baptism. (Gal. iii. 26, 27.)

If the Ephesian Christians gave place to Satan by lying, stealing, speaking defiling language, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking, or still worse sins (Ephes. iv. 25, 28, 29; v. 3, 11), then they grieved the Holy Spirit by which they had been "sealed" (iv. 30). The commission of these evil things was, in the Apostle's eyes, no proof that they had not been scaled by the Spirit, or that their Baptism had been without its characteristic grace; it was rather a proof that they had received it in vain.

If the Colossian Christians did not "mortify their members" in the matter of "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness," &c., they sinned against the grace which had united them in a mystical death and resurrection with their Saviour. (Col. ii. 12; iii. 3.)

If the Thessalonians were unmindful of the purity to which they were pledged, and so defrauded one another, they despised God, who had also given unto them His Holy Spirit. (1 Thess. iv. 8.)

When the Hebrew Christians denied their profession, by so doing they counted the "blood wherewith they had been sanctified unholy," did "despite to the Spirit of grace," and forfeited a birthright already received. (Heb. x. 29; xii. 15-17.)

Similarly, the Christians to whom St. Peter wrote are told that they who lacked virtue, knowledge, temperance, &c., had "forgotten that they had been purged from their old sins." (2 Pct. i. 9.)

Above all, Christians are bidden by St. Jude to take warning from the doom of the "angels who kept not their first estate." We cannot well imagine beings in a more sure state of grace than angels in heaven, and yet Christians are warned by two Apostles (2 Pet. ii. 3, 4; Jude 6), lest after the example of these wicked spirits they fall away and share their punishment. It seems impossible to draw but one inference from such an example, which is, that, when baptized Christians fall, they fall from grace.

Be the explanation, then, what it may, no fact is more certain than that the Apostles conclude that all Christians have been, or are, in a state of grace, from which state of grace they are in danger of falling by very gross and grievous sins, and of being cast away for ever; and when they thus sin it is distinctly implied that they sin (not because God has not given grace, but) against grace which He has given, and the seal of this grace is their Baptism.

V. But, lastly, in no one case do the Apostles call upon sinning Christians to become regenerate. They are bidden

to repent-not to receive God's grace in vain-to cleanse their hands, and to purify their hearts; but never to be "born again."

In no single instance does an Apostle call upon any lapsing Christian to enter, as if for the first time, into that state which is allowed, on all hands, to be synonymous with Regeneration. No baptized Christian is ever called upon to become a member of Christ, or a member of His Church or mystical Body. No baptized Christian is ever bidden to get himself grafted, as for the first time, into Christ. No baptized Christian is ever called upon to become a saint (ayıos), or a brother (ådeλpós). In no one case is a falling or sinning Christian bidden to stand in doubt as to whether he ever has been effectually called; he is rather enjoined to see whether he is walking worthy of a calling wherewith he is always assumed to have been called.

The reader can form no conception of the amount of this testimony in favour of Church teaching, unless he examines thoroughly the Apostolic Epistles for himself. He will then ascertain for himself how invariably the Apostles assume that all Christians have received grace; how carefully they avoid all assertions which might tend to throw doubt on the efficacy of the means of grace, or on the fact that all the members of the Apostolic Churches had once been grafted into Christ.

No contrast can be more marked than that which exists between the way in which the Apostles addressed baptized sinners in their day, and that adopted by those in this day who profess to be guided by them. The Apostle addresses. the sinner as one who sins against grace: the modern Evangelical addresses the sinner as one who sins because God has withheld grace from him.

Such is the nature of the Scripture evidence for the

connexion of Regeneration with Baptism. The professing Christian enters by a new birth of "water and of the Spirit" into the kingdom of God. This "kingdom of God" is the Church, or mystical Body of Christ. The root of all the blessings and privileges of this state is union with Christ as the Second Adam. Through union with Him, as a member of His Body, the Christian receives Adoption into God's family, and a birthright; the sins of his heathen or natural state are blotted out;and these are not merely outward privileges, but there goes along with them a certain measure of internal spiritual grace, to enable the member of Christ to apprehend the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and to avoid sin. This Church state, or state of salvation, or state of Regeneration, the professing Christian enters into, or is to be accounted to have entered into, at his Baptism; not (if he has been a heathen) at the time of his conversion; nor (if he has been baptized in infancy) at the moment when he first consciously realises his interest in Christ's promises; but at the moment when he receives Baptism: and this because throughout the New Testament he is supposed to have received things pertaining to salvation at his Baptism-because all the baptized are assumed to have been once grafted into Christ, or into His mystical Body, or saved by the bath of a Now Birth; and, when they fall they are always assumed to fall from this state of grace and salvation-because in no one case is tho Baptism of any professing Christian supposed to have been an unreality, or to have been dissevered from its inward aud spiritual grace; all exhortations calculated to throw doubt on the reality of the calling of each baptized Christian being carefully avoided by the Apostles.

I shall afterwards consider the adjustment of the respective claims of Faith and Baptism, and, also, how far