(Vol. viii., pp. 244. 397.)
The book for which J.T. inquires is:
"The Important Doctrines of Original Sin, Justification by Faith and
Regeneration, clearly stated from Scripture and Reason, and vindicated
from the Doctrines of the Methodists; with Remarks on Mr. Law's late
Tract on New Birth. By _Thomas_ Whiston, A.B. Printed for John Whiston,
at the Boyle's Head, Fleet Street. Pp. 70."
I do not know who the author was. Perhaps a son of the celebrated _William_
Whiston, six of whose works are advertised on the back of the title-page;
and whose _Memoirs_, Lond. 1749, are "sold by Mr. Whiston in Fleet Street."
If the passage cited by J. T. is all that Taylor says of Thomas Whiston, it
conveys an erroneous notion of his pamphlet, which from pp. 49. to 70. is
occupied by the question of regeneration. I think his doctrine may be
shortly stated thus: Regeneration accompanies the baptism of adults, and
follows that of infants. In the latter case, the time is uncertain; but the
fact is ascertainable by the recipients becoming spiritually minded.
Afterwards he says:
"I cannot dismiss this subject without observing _another sense of
regeneration_ in the Gospel. However, _this makes no alteration in the
doctrine I have before established_; because, with us, regeneration and
new birth are terms that bear the same exact meaning. What I before
delivered of the spiritual new birth or regeneration is strictly true,
though the word regeneration _is sometimes used in another sense_. It
is not to be there understood of a spiritual or figurative birth, but
of a literal and actual revival of the body from corruption. But _this
is not that new birth we have before inquired after_, but only the
assured and certain consequence of our preserving ourselves to the end
in that spiritual state or birth we have entered into in this world.
That I do not represent the sense of the word regeneration unfairly,
may be gathered from Matt. xix. 28., rightly pointed and distinguished:
"'And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have
followed me (in the _regeneration_, when the Son of Man shall sit upon
the throne of his glory), ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Here regeneration _is not to be
understood in the same sense as the new birth or regeneration mentioned
by our Saviour_ (John iii.), from whence the new birth is to be derived
and stated; but, as I before observed, must be referred to a literal
restoration to life, _i. e_. either to the general resurrection, or
rather to the Millennium, when Christ is to reign upon earth over the
Saints for a thousand years, after the dissolution of the present form
of it. I make no doubt that this latter opinion is the genuine sense of
the text I have quoted from St. Matthew; and consequently, that
regeneration, _in this passage_, is to be applied to the first
resurrection of the dead, or to the supposed Millennium."--Pp. 67, 68.
The above will show that Thomas Whiston did not "_maintain_ that
regeneration is a literal and physical being born again," in the sense
which the passage quoted by J. T. conveys. I have not seen Taylor's work
with the date 1746. As the name is common, and the pamphlets and sermons of
that time on original sin are innumerable, many Taylors may have written
besides the one mentioned by [Greek: Halieus]. J. T.'s Taylor cannot be
excused even on the ground of having read only a part of the book he
misrepresented: for he refers to p. 68., from which he must have seen that
Thomas Whiston there explained only an isolated passage.