Regenerating Baptism.
As there is one Holy Ghost, so there is one only visible body of Christians which Almighty God "knows by name" and one baptism which admits men into it. This is implied in the text, which is nearly parallel to St. Paul's words in the Ephesians: "There is one body, and one Spirit,... one baptism." But more than this is taught us in it: not only that the Holy Ghost is in the Church, and that baptism admits into it; but that the Holy Ghost admits by means of baptism, that the Holy Ghost baptizes: in other words, that each individual member receives the Holy Ghost as a preliminary step or condition or means of his being incorporated into the Church, or, in our Saviour's words, that no one can enter, except he be regenerated in order to enter it.
I. When men refuse to admit the doctrine of baptismal regeneration in the case of infants they look about how they may defend infant baptism, which perhaps from habit, good feeling, or other causes they do not like to abandon. Surely, if we go to Scripture, the question is decided at once, for no one can deny that there is much more said in Scripture on behalf of the connection between baptism and Divine grace than about the duty of infant baptism. If the doctrine and the practice are irreconcilable baptismal regeneration and infant baptism let the practice which is not written in Scripture yield to the doctrine which is; and let us (if we can bear to do so) defraud infants of baptism, not baptism of its supernatural virtue. Let us go counter to tradition rather than to Scripture.
II. The partly assumed and partly real parallel of circumcision comes in fact, whether they know it or not, as a sort of refuge to those who have taken up the intermediate position between catholic doctrine and heretical practice. They avail themselves of the instance of circumcision as a proof that a divinely appointed ordinance need not convey grace, even while it admits into a state of grace. Circumcision admitted to certain privileges to the means of grace, to teaching, and the like; baptism, they consider, does the same, and no more. The plain objection to this view is that Christ and His apostles do attach a grace to the ordinance of baptism such as is not attached in the Old Testament to circumcision which is exactly that difference which makes the latter a mere rite, the former a sacrament; and if this be so, it is nothing to the purpose to build up an argument on the assumption that the two ordinances are precisely the same.
III. If baptism has no spiritual value, can it be intended for us Christians? If it has no regenerating power, surely they only are consistent who reject it altogether! I will boldly say it, we have nothing dead and earthly under the gospel, and we act like the Judaizing Christians of old time if we submit to anything such; therefore they only are consistent who, denying the virtue of baptism, also deny its authority as a permanent ordinance of the gospel. Either baptism is an instrument of the Holy Ghost, or it has no place in Christianity.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iii., p. 271.
References: 1 Corinthians 12:13. Collyer, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxx., p. 116. 1 Corinthians 12:14. A. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit,p. 312. 1 Corinthians 12:14-20. R. A. Armstrong, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxiii., p. 141. 1 Corinthians 12:14-21. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 171. 1 Corinthians 12:22. Homilist,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 86. 1 Corinthians 12:24. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 107. 1 Corinthians 12:25-27. L. Campbell, Some Aspects of the Christian Ideal,p. 55.