It is too obvious to require suggestion, that these words here quoted apply with yet greater force and propriety to the point in question: as the babe is an unconscious subject, which the dying man need not be supposed to be. My avowed convictions respecting Regeneration with the spiritual Baptism, as its condition and initiative (Luke iii. 16; Matt. i. 7; Matt. iii. 11), and of which the sacramental rite, the Baptism of John, was appointed by Christ to remain as the sign and figure; and still more, perhaps, my belief respecting the Mystery of the Eucharist, (concerning which I hold the same opinions as Bucer,[136] Peter Martyr, and presumably Cranmer himself)--these convictions and this belief will, I doubt not, be deemed by the Orthodox _de more Grotii_, who improve the _letter_ of Arminius with the _spirit_ of Socinus, sufficient data to bring me in guilty of irrational and Superstitious Mysticism. But I abide by a maxim, which I learnt at an early period of my theological studies, from Benedict Spinoza:--Where the alternative lies between the Absurd and the Incomprehensible, no wise man can be at a loss which of the two to prefer. To be _called_ irrational, is a trifle; to _be_ so, and in matters of religion, is far otherwise: and whether the irrationality consists in men's believing (that is, in having persuaded themselves that they believe) _against_ reason, or _without_ reason, I have been early instructed to consider it as a sad and serious evil, pregnant with mischiefs, political and moral. And by none of my numerous instructors so impressively, as by that great and shining light of our Church in the æra of our intellectual splendour, Bishop Jeremy Taylor: from one of whose works, and that of especial authority for the safety as well as for the importance of the principle, inasmuch as it was written expressly _ad populum_, I will now, both for its own intrinsic worth, and to relieve the attention, wearied, perhaps, by the length and argumentative character of the preceding _discussion_, interpose the following Aphorism.[137]
[132] Dr. Richard Field's "Of the Church," folio ed., Oxford, 1628, p. 58.--ED.
[133] This word occurs but once in the New Testament, Romans v. 11, the marginal rendering being _reconciliation_. The personal noun, καταλλακτης, is still in use with the modern Greeks for a money-changer, or one who takes the debased currency, so general in countries under a despotic or other dishonest government, in exchange for sterling coin or bullion; the purchaser paying the _catallage_, that is, the difference. In the elder Greek writers, the verb means _to exchange for an opposite_, as, κατακκασσετο την εχθρην τοις στασιωταις.--He exchanged within himself enmity for friendship, (that is, he reconciled himself) with his party;--or, as we say, _made it up_ with them, an idiom which (with whatever loss of dignity) gives the exact force of the word. He made _up the difference_. The Hebrew word of very frequent occurrence in the Pentateuch, which we render by the substantive, _atonement_, has its radical or visual image, in _copher_, pitch. Gen. vi. 14: _Thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch_. Hence to unite, to fill up a breach, or leak, the word expressing both the _act_, namely, the bringing together what had been previously separated, and the _means_, or material, by which the re-union is effected, as in our English verbs, _to caulk_, _to solder_, _to poy_ or _pay_ (from _poix_, pitch), and the French _suiver_. Thence, metaphorically, _expiation_, the _piacula_ having the same root, and being grounded on another property or use of gums and resins, the supposed _cleansing_ powers of their fumigation. Numbers viii. 21: _made atonement for the Levites to cleanse them_.--Lastly (or if we are to believe the Hebrew Lexicons, _properly_ and most _frequently_) it means _ransom_. But if by _proper_ the Interpreters mean _primary_ and _radical_, the assertion does not need a confutation: all radicals belonging to one or other of three classes. 1. Interjections, or sounds expressing sensations or passions. 2. Imitations of sounds, as splash, roar, whiz, &c. 3. and principally, visual images, objects of sight. But as to _frequency_, in all the numerous (fifty, I believe,) instances of the word in the Old Testament, I have not found one in which it can, or at least need, be rendered by _ransom_: though beyond all doubt _ransom_ is used in the Epistle to Timothy, as an _equivalent_ term.