The Doctrine Of Baptismal Regeneration As It Is Held By Many In The Present Day

Excerpt from The Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, as It Is Held by Many in the Present Day: Calmly Examined by the Bible and Common Prayer Book, in Three Letters In the first letter the reader will find the doctrine of baptismal regeneration examined on the ground of Scrip ture, and in the second, on that of the Church of England. The third letter, of a general character as to its arange ment, was thought necessary to substantiate the evidence given in the two preceding ones. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

This work by Burgess was written to prove and declare the Scriptural position of Presumptive Regeneration in administering the covenant sign on infants of believers. Burgess' thesis is, "That it is most agreeable to the institution of Christ, that all elect infants that are baptized (unless in some extraordinary cases) ordinarily receive the Spirit from Christ in baptism, for their first solemn initiation into Christ; and for their future actual renovation, in God’s good time, if they live to years of discretion, and enjoy the other ordinary means of grace appointed of God to this end." It also serves to separate the Reformed Doctrine from the Scripturally deviant positions of the Anabaptists, Arminians and the Roman Catholic Church. Burgess teaches through a careful study of Scriptural doctrine and application, that the benefits of the Covenant of Grace are only efficaciously conferred by the Holy Spirit to the elect, which include infants. This laver of regeneration (Titus 3) is found opened to us in baptism, and that infants of believers receive the same benefits in the sacrament as any others. This topic was debated thoroughly at the time Burgess was writing, and his work serves as a Reformed polemic to those who would take exception to the Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th century, as well as from various divines such as the early church fathers like Cyprian, Athanasius and Augustine, Reformers like Calvin, Bucer and Beza, Reformed Confessions like the Helvetica and Belgica, as well as English divines of his day like Bishop Jewel, Dr. Whitaker, Dr. Fulke, Dr. Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. White, Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Daniel Featly, Dr. William Ames, and many others. This work is not a scan or facsimile, has been carefully transcribed by hand being made easy to read in modern English, and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.