Who, then, are those who are predestined to the gift of immortality? The manner in which he speaks of election will enable us to answer this question. In explaining the parable of the vineyard let out to husbandmen, he says,[385] that, after the first set of husbandmen had been cast out, the vineyard was “no longer fenced in, but opened to all the world, and [pg 169] the tower of the election exalted every where, beautiful to look on; for,” said he, “the Church is every where distinctly visible, and every where is there a winepress dug, and every where are those who receive the Spirit.” Here we find election commensurate with the visible Church (indeed he knows no other): and so he proceeds further on[386] to speak of “the Word of God, who elected the patriarchs and us;” just as in the passage before cited[387] he had said, “We who were not as yet were predestined to be;” that is, spiritually, through redemption. And so in another place he speaks of the Church as “the congregation of God; which God, that is the Son, has himself collected by himself[388];” and in another passage, [pg 170] “the wages of Christ are men collected out of various and differing nations into one company of faith[389].”
All these passages reflect light upon each other, and exhibit the all-wise God as planning from eternity the last dispensation, by which He chooses, through the Divine Word, to gather out of the world men of all nations, and to restore to them the lost gift of immortality, by adopting them for his own children, and bestowing on them his Spirit, and thus uniting them in the one body of his Church; so that those who believe, and continue in obedience to Him, and hold fast his teaching, continue his children; whilst those who do not obey Him are cut off from Him, and cease to be his children. And as baptism is the sign and means of our union with God and the reception of the Holy Spirit[390], so baptism is the sign and pledge of this predestination and election.
There is another question as to this election, upon which Irenæus throws but little light; that is, whether God has elected into his Church upon foreseen faith or not. He expressly declares[391] that God leaves [pg 171] in darkness and unbelief those who, He foresees, will not believe; but what is the precise application of that declaration, whether to those to whom God vouchsafes no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the Gospel, or to those who, living in the hearing of the Gospel, do not receive his grace, is by no means clear. And it would be unsafe, therefore, to argue that Irenæus believed that God predestines men to grace from foreseen faith. The two things may appear to us correlative; but we must remember that there had been no controversy on the subject, and therefore he cannot be supposed to have weighed his language as we should perhaps do at present.
Chapter XII. On Baptism.
The doctrine of the Church in regard to baptism has afforded less dispute than almost any other down to the very times in which we live. It was fully recognized by Irenæus, and appears scattered up and down in various parts of his writings.
He asserts in direct terms that baptism is our new birth to God[392], and ascribes to infants a share in that new birth equally with grown persons[393]. There is no room for any equivocal meaning in these passages. It is not merely that he speaks, as a thing of course, of infants being baptized, (which, by the plain force of words, he manifestly does,) but he directly ascribes to them also the new birth, which he asserts to be baptism. This testimony in favour of infant [pg 173] baptism and infant regeneration is very valuable from one who lived so near the apostolical times.
The necessity of the laver of regeneration he states to arise from the original corruption of man[394], whom he asserts to be and to remain carnal, until he receives the Spirit of God[395]. The water of baptism is therefore a type of the Holy Spirit[396]; and in baptism our bodies receive the union with God to eternal life, which our souls at the same time receive by the Spirit[397]. In receiving the Holy Spirit, therefore, the soul of man receives that which it had not by nature since the fall; it becomes a living soul; for the Spirit of God is the life of the soul[398]. This Spirit [pg 174] he elsewhere calls the Spirit of remission of sins[399], and declares that we are quickened by it. In connexion with what he says of our flesh being united to God in baptism, we may take what he elsewhere says, that our flesh is a member of Christ[400].
If we inquire for his opinion of the actual spiritual state of the Christian body, we shall find him declaring that those only are the children of God who do the will of God[401]; that some remain thus in the [pg 175] love of God, even from the time of their baptism; others fall away, and cease to be his children; and of those who fall, some by repentance recover their relation to Him, and remain thenceforward in his love[402].