touches upon the distinction between Supralapsarianism and Sublapsarianism.

Augustine, as we have seen, contends; that, in the case of infants, Regeneration UNIVERSALLY accompanies Baptism: but then, in their case, he confines the sense of Regeneration to A Federal Change of Condition; maintaining, that the inward spiritual grace, which he styles Conversion of heart, must be looked for at some subsequent period. And this opinion he holds so rigidly, that, unless I wholly misunderstand him, he denies altogether the very possibility of the occurrence of ANY Moral Change of Disposition in the baptism of an infant that is to say, in Calvin's sense of the word Regeneration, he asserts, that Infants never are, and never can be, spiritually regenerated in Baptism.

:

Infants, he argues, can neither believe from the heart to righteousness, nor confess from the mouth to salvation. Therefore infants are INCAPABLE of any Moral Change of Disposition. Consequently, since they CANNOT experience a Moral Change of Disposition at their baptism, their INEVITABLE want of this indispensable Moral Change must hereafter be supplied by a spiritual Conversion of heart. August. de Baptism. cont. Donat. lib. iv. c. 24, 25. See the last note.

Such a round denial of the very POSSIBILITY of a Moral Change in the Disposition of infants, on the ground that Infants can neither believe nor confess, goes, I apprehend, far beyond Calvin himself: for, though, with Augustine, he fixes what he calls Regeneration and what Augustine styles Conversion, to the time of the Effectual Calling of the Elect; he never, so far as I know, denies that an infant may be effectually called from the day of his baptism, and thence never denies that an infant may be spiritually regenerated in baptism.

In truth, this speculation of Augustine strikes me, as being alike unwarrantable and inconsistent.

If infants, as infants, be capable of The Moral Taint of Ori

Calvin, as we have seen, unreservedly professes his adherence to the higher modification.

ginal Sin; a scriptural doctrine, which Augustine rightly and strongly maintains: there is no very intelligible reason, why, still as infants, they should not also be capable of a Moral Regeneration to Holiness. An admission of the former possibility requires and involves an admission of the latter possibility: nor, on the just principle of homogeneity, can I see, why the argument of Augustine, from the acknowledged circumstance of The physical inability of infants to believe from the heart to righteousness and to confess from the mouth to salvation, should forbid our admission, that an infant is capable of being morally, as well as federally, regenerated at the time of his baptism.

Any such moral regeneration would of course be, as the schoolmen speak, according to the measure of the recipient. But, why a moral regeneration may not commence at the baptism of an infant, and why the only regeneration of which an infant can be deemed capable is a Federal Change of Condition, I have not sufficient acuteness to understand.

That, on this point, I have mistaken Augustine, I can scarcely think: for he expressly argues, that Divine Grace may hereafter supply the involuntary moral defectiveness INHERENT in infant baptism.

Eadem gratia Omnipotentis implere credenda est, quod, non ex impia voluntate, sed EX ÆTATIS INDIGENTIA, nec corde credere ad justitiam POSSUNT, nec ore confiteri ad salutem. August. de Baptism. cont. Donat. lib. iv. c. 24. Oper. vol. vii.

p. 52.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HISTORICAL VINDICATION OF HIS

SYSTEM,

PREFERRED BY AUGUSTINE, AND REPEATED BY

CALVIN.

For those doctrinal peculiarities, which, collectively as a System, are now generally denominated Calvinism, the Genevan Reformer may undoubtedly claim the authority of Augustine: and thence he may very fairly throw off from himself the weighty responsibility of rash and unwarranted innovation.

But Augustine wrote on Predestination in the early part of the fifth century, or somewhat more than three hundred years after the death of St. John, the last survivor of all the Apostles.

Hence the important question arises: Whether Augustine himself was a daring innovator; or whether he propounded nothing else, than what had been the universally familiar doctrine of the Church from the very beginning.

I. With respect to this question, simple chronology alone shews us that, Antecedent to the time of Augustine's formal exposition of his Doc

trinal System, we have at least three whole centuries to account for.

Therefore, unless we can satisfactorily fill up those three centuries, it is quite clear: that, Even if the peculiarities before us rest not indeed upon the insulated private judgment of Calvin, they will still rest solely upon the insulated private judgment of Augustine.

Consequently, in that supposed case, save only with the exchange of the sixteenth century for the fifth, an interpretation of Scripture, propounded for the first time by the mere private judgment of an insulated individual, will equally be the exclusive basis of the Doctrinal System which is now submitted to the test of historical discussion.

Augustine, however, conscious of the vast evidential importance of Primitive Antiquity, vindicates his System on the score: that He himself set forth no new Scheme of Doctrine; but, on the contrary, that He faithfully delivered to posterity what had been actually received from priority.

Our business, therefore, is, carefully to examine a vindication thus specially constructed.

1. During some considerable time at the beginning of the fifth century, Augustine had been usefully employed in conducting a dispute, relative to Divine Grace and Human Nature, with Pelagius and Celestius and Julian and their followers.

Now, as he himself states even in one of those later controversial Works which more fully develop

and defend his peculiarities, the whole question, between the Pelagians and the Catholics, really turned upon three points.

The first point, asserted by the Church, was: that The Grace of God is not given according to man's antecedent merits.

The second point, asserted by the Church, was: that, Whatever may be the comparative righteousness of any one particular man, no person lives in this corruptible body without incurring the actual guilt of a certain degree of positive sinfulness.

The third point, asserted by the Church, was : that We are all born obnoxious to the sin of the first man; and, consequently, are all subjected to damnation, unless the guilt, which is contracted in our generation, be removed by our regeneration *.

These three several points were denied by the Pelagians and these three several points, with the

* Tria sunt, ut scitis, quæ maximè adversus eos Catholica defendit Ecclesia.

Quorum est unum: Gratiam Dei non secundum merita nostra dari; quoniam Dei dona sunt, et Dei gratia etiam conferuntur merita universa justorum.

Alterum est: In quantacunque justitia, sine qualibuscunque peccatis, in hoc corruptibili corpore, neminem vivere.

Tertium est: Obnoxium nasci hominem peccato primi hominis, et vinculo damnationis obstrictum; nisi reatus, qui generatione contrahitur, regeneratione solvatur. August. de Prædest. et Persever. lib. ii. c. 2. Oper. vol. vii. p. 495.