But there will also be a change of heart. It is wholly impossible that
there should be a union so close, so intimate, so rich in gifts as this
is, without the likeness of our Lord being formed in the heart of Him
that is so united to him. The member of Christ must be like Him. This
seems so obvious as scarcely to require proof. If we be so made one with
Christ as to be accepted in Him, to share the love shewn Him, to be
regarded in all respects as members of His body, we must be moulded after
His likeness, and changed by the Holy Ghost after His image. The words
of St. Paul, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” set this
question at rest at once. They shew that there must be a change of heart
whenever there is a union with the Lord. The same appears from 2 Cor. v,
17, 18, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, &c.”
The change here spoken of is not one of condition, or of covenant
relationship with God; but a new creation of the soul, a renovation of
the habit of the mind, of the thoughts, of the affections, of the whole
bearing of the new created spirit. “Old things are passed away, behold
all things are become new.”
None, therefore, can claim a union with Christ in whom no such change has
taken place. The careless, thoughtless, prayerless professor may be in
outward fellowship with the Church; but he is not, he cannot be, partaker
of a union with Jesus. No system of man can dethrone from their
sovereign authority those awakening words of sacred Scripture, “If any
man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
A union with Christ, therefore, involves invariably a change of condition
and a change of nature; it only remains that we examine whether these
change are connected in the word of God with baptism. If our first
conclusion were correct, that a union with Christ is the blessing
connected with the sacrament, it ought to follow that these two gifts are
connected with it likewise.
What then saith the Scripture respecting the change of condition, or the
pardon of our sins? In Acts ii. 38, we read, “Repent and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” And in Acts xxii 16,
“Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of
the Lord.” Can anything be clearer than that there is a connexion in
these passages between baptism and forgiveness?
A similar connexion may be observed between baptism and a change of
heart.
In John iii 5, believers are said to be “born of water and of the
Spirit.” In the passage above referred to, Acts ii. 38, the gift of the
Holy Ghost is described as a gift consequent on baptism. “Ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” In Eph. v. 26, there is a clear
connexion between baptism and the cleansing power of the word. “That He
might sanctify it with the washing of water by the word.” (See also Rom.
vi.)
The whole of Scripture, therefore, is harmonious. The great, grand,
primary gift is a union with Jesus; and as this is inseparably connected
with forgiveness of sin and renewal of heart, so these two blessings are
connected with the sacrament of baptism. This is the sense in which
throughout the following pages we employ the term “regeneration.”
It is important that this definition should be borne in mind, for, if we
are not agreed as to the meaning of terms, there can be no hope of
agreement in our conclusions. When, therefore, the word regeneration is
used in this tract it is in the higher sense just described. It is not
used for that admission into the visible church with all its privileges
and responsibilities which invariably takes place at baptism; nor is it
spoken of as the sowing of a certain seed, which may or may not grow in
after life; but it is employed to express the commencement of a new life
in the Lord Jesus Christ invariably accompanied by justification and
change of heart. I am anxious that there should be no mistake on this
point; for those who do not believe in the invariability of baptismal
grace are sometimes said to take low views of the sacrament of baptism.
But nothing can be further from the fact, for it is just because we take
high views of the spiritual grace connected with it that we believe that
spiritual grace to be incompatible with the ungodly lives of too many of
the baptized.
We have thus far spoken of these spiritual blessings without attempting
to define their connexion with the outward sign. Our only concern,
hitherto, has been to shew that there is such a connexion clearly pointed
out in the word of God. It now behoves us to examine—