Note 22b — SERMON.

“Except a man be born of water and of the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Of the Holy Ghost comes the spiritual birth, and thereby the entrance into the spiritual kingdom or church of God: if the water of baptism be meant, then also figurative birth, and concurrently the visible kingdom or church to which baptism is the only door: a proper parallelism of idea being sustained. But probably, as the expression “baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” means, baptize with the Holy Ghost as a spirit of burning, so “born of water and of the Holy Ghost” means, “born of the Holy Ghost as a Spirit of washing,” the real “washing of regeneration.” This last expression is most frequently understood, and by Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Hopkins amongst others, to refer to the sacramental washing, not the spiritual. But why the force of the term regeneration should not preponderate over that of washing, I cannot see. So “the washing of water by the Word,” wherewith Christ sanctifies and cleanses His church, is the ablution, like as of water, that is by the Word, when the Holy Ghost uses that Word in the hearts of men.