ART. XI. The Christian Doctrine of Regeneration. By I. H. T. BLANCHARD. Boston. Leonard C. Bowles and B. H. Greene. 1832. 12mo. pp. 81.

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We care not how much calm and judicious discussions of doctrinal topics, like the one before us, are multiplied.. It be that there are as good or better treatises on the same subjects already before the public; still many, for various reasons, will read the new book, who but for this would read none. Besides, new doubts will from time to time arise, and new difficulties and objections be started, which the recent publication will take care to meet and obviate, and new connexions and bearings be suggested, which the recent publication will take care to consider and weigh.

Mr. Blanchard begins with a careful "review and illustration" of the first part of the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus, and particularly of the declaration, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

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"I have quoted the passage," says he, as it appears in our in our version. It is to be observed, that it is printed, born of water and of the Spirit,' with the article prefixed to the last word, and with a capital letter as the initial. This is calculated to suggest immediately, and very naturally, to the common reader, the idea that the Spirit of God is meant, or, as some would understand it, the third person in the Trinity. Either supposition would be erroneous. The strict literal translation of the original, is, born of water and spirit. There is no more reason for writing the latter part of the expression, the Spirit, with the article and a capital, than for writing the former, the Water; both are written alike in the original, without an article, or a capital. I have no doubt that this circumstance, trivial as it may appear to some, has misled many a reader into an erroneous interpretation of the passage, and has done much to perpetuate the error.

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Making then this correction in our version, the declaration of our Lord would stand thus; Except a man be born of water and spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' 'born of water,' is to be baptized, and baptism is an outward sign or symbol of a new religious profession. To be born of spirit,' is, simply, to be born in a spiritual sense, to be spiritually born. This was intended undoubtedly to be a repetition,

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and at the same time an explanation, of what he had first affirmed, Ye must be born again."-p. 8.

To be spiritually born, as he afterwards explains it more at length, is to have the temper and principles of a spiritual religion formed in the mind, without which no one can expect to participate in the benefits of Christ's mediation. This, as he shows in the second section, is "the essential truth inculcated" in the passage under consideration, and then proceeds to indicate some of the causes which have tended to obscure it. We do hope that much more need not be written to convince any body capable of putting two ideas together, that "regeneration is not, properly speaking, a Christian doctrine, nor a literal statement of a Christian doctrine, but simply and solely a figure of speech sometimes used by the sacred writers to illustrate a Christian doctrine. If a writer or preacher uses the term, he must do it as a matter of taste, and not because it is necessary or important to the inculcation of the whole counsel of God. On the subject of pressing too hard the analogies between the spiritual and a natural birth, Mr. Blanchard says:

"It grows out of an abuse or overstraining of a single figure of speech adopted by our Lord on a single occasion, so far as we know, and occurring sometimes in the writings of his apostles. To strain this figure into a complete analogy, is the same abuse as might be committed, and often has been committed, upon almost all the comparisons and parables that are found in the New Testament, sometimes to the scandal of the Christian religion, and always to the reproach of those who would be 'wise above what is written.' There is in truth no anology of any importance between the natural birth and the spiritual birth, except that as one is the commencement of the natural life, so the other is the commencement of the spiritual life; as one entitled the descendant of Abraham to the privileges of the Mosaic dispensation, so the other entitles all of every coming age, and of every nation, to a participation in the happiness of the Messiah's kingdom. To pursue this simple analogy into many fancied particulars is deviating widely from the example set us by our Lord in his instructions, and derogates from the simplicity and dignity of the truth inculcated." - pp. 25, 26.

In the Third and last, and much the longest Section, he answers the questions, whether regeneration is universally necessary, or not; whether it supposes and requires, in all cases, a radical entire change of heart; whether it is in

staneous; and whether it be the work of ourselves, or of God. On all these topics he is instructive, and in general satisfactory, and hints are thrown out occasionally of a wider application, which are striking and valuable. Thus, in speaking of the change implied in regeneration, he says:

"Now it cannot, we should think, fail of having been observed by almost every one, that the cases are not rare, in which, before religion can be said to have dawned in the mind, or to have exerted its genuiue influence upon the character, dispositions are manifested, which, though not, strictly speaking, religious, because not formed under religious culture, are yet amiable and commendable in the sight both of God and men, and are entirely in unison with the dictates and spirit of religion; and these surely are not to be suppressed by religion, when the individual becomes the subject of it, but rather fostered and strengthened; they will be more firmly rooted and established, not extirpated, by the newly implanted principle. Such dispositions are like those wild flowers which have sprung up spontaneously in the spot destined to be reduced by the hand of the gardener; if they are recommended by their beauty and fragrance, they are not only spared, but carefully cherished, to be improved by cultivation, and to have place among those which he collects by transplanting, or rears from the seed." p. 35.

Again, in considering the instrumentality by which regeneration is effected, he begins by observing:

"Before we reply to this inquiry, it may be proper first to make an additional remark on an erroneous idea to which we have just alluded, but which in connexion with the present topic, claims a more particular notice. I mean the idea, somewhat vaguely entertained, that religion is something communicated whole and entire to the soul, existing distinct from the mind. Now it is only necessary to consider the nature of religion, in order to perceive at once the absurdity of this idea. Religion is not a gift of divine grace conferred outright upon man without his seeking it, or using means to obtain it. Religion can no more exist distinct and apart from the mind, than any of its moral qualities, principles, or endowments. Religion, I mean experimental religion, is the mind or heart, enlightened by the truths, governed by the principles, swayed by the motives, exercising the affections, influenced by the hopes, and filled with the spirit of religion; it is the conscience, the active powers, the whole moral, spiritual nature of the man, directed

by a sense of his accountableness to God, his duty to Christ, his obligations to his fellow-men, and the requisitions of his high, immortal destiny."-pp. 59, 60.

Obviously that change of character which the sacred writers represent under the figure of a regeneration, is wholly a moral change, and in no respects, either in its causes or effects, a physical change. It did not, even among the first Christians, presuppose or produce any alteration in their original capacities or susceptibilities of knowledge or holiness, but only a further developement of their original capacities and susceptibilities. They were new men morally and spiritually, but not physically; in other words, regeneration had no reference to any change of their nature, or to the necessity of such a change.

The early believers, prior to conversion and regeneration, were not only not Christians, but many of them were addicted to other religions of a most corrupting and debasing tendency. They were not only not Christians, but most of them, and some of the best of them were, like Saul, bitterly, actively, and openly opposed to Christianity. Obviously, therefore, the moral change, in its whole extent, through which such persons had to pass, was different and greater than that expected in those, who have been trained up from childhood in some understanding of, and some respect for the Bible, and all Christian institutions. But it does not follow that the animating, the vivifying principle of the change, the being alive to a new set of motives and influences, differs essentially in the two cases; and this is what we understand by the figure of regeneration considered as contradistinguished from the process of sanctification, or Christian improvement.

There is, as it seems to us, an obvious distinction between merely knowing, respecting, and assenting to the all important truths unfolded in the gospel, and feeling their reality; but it is on this feeling of their reality that all proper regeneration must depend. When a man at the present day, who has been brought up in a Christian community, and has enjoyed perhaps the advantages of a Christian education, comes at length to be impressed with a sense of the reality of his relations to God, eternity, and the spiritual world, and from the impulse thence derived begins in good earnest the formation of the Christian character, we say he is regenerated.

We greatly err, however, if we suppose that regeneration, thus explained implies a change in our purposes or dispositions, which we can do nothing to bring about or hasten. We do not make, it is true, our moral and religious capacities and susceptibilities; nor the exciting and quickening influences and motives which are brought to light in the gospel, and which are necessary to the full developement of our moral and religious capacities and susceptibilities. These are

from God. But it remains for us to take ourselves with the moral and religious capacities and susceptibilities which God has given us, and subject ourselves to the exciting and quickening influences and motives which God has provided and set before us; and regeneration will follow as certainly as the result of any other of the established laws of our moral being.

ART. XII. — A Memoir of Miss HANNAH ADAMS, written by HERSELF. With Additional Notices by a Friend Boston. Gray & Bowen. 1832. 12mo. pp. 110.

THE above is the title of an unpretending little work, which is designed to perpetuate the memory of a very unpretending but most worthy lady. The autobiography occupies about forty pages of the book, the remainder of which is filled with the "Additional Notices, by a Friend."

The autobiography bears marks of that trembling diffidence and delicate sensibility which were Miss Adams's peculiarities. It was called forth only by the hope that it might furnish the means of support to her surviving sister. It consists of the leading events of her life, stated with great brevity, of short notices of the preparation and publication of her works, and of warm expressions of gratitude towards her benefactors, whom she evidently speaks of with far greater pleasure than of herself.

She was born in Medfield, Massachusetts, in the year 1775, 1755 as would appear from the "Obituary," which is included among the "Additional Notices." She has inserted in her "Memoir "so few dates, that we cannot definitely fix the period of many of the incidents which she relates. For some years

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