The Sacrament of Responsibility; Or, the Testimony of Scripture to the Teaching of the Church on Holy Baptism, with Special Reference to the Case of Infants and Answers to Objections - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIIL NATURAL SELECTION. Recent controversies are supposed, though with little truth, to affect another matter closely connected with the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine of Holy Baptism is undoubtedly based upon the truth that Christ is the Second Adam, and that we must be, in some mysterious but real way, in Him for purposes of salvation, as we are in the first Adam for sin and death. Of late years free speculation (it can hardly be called free thought) has run counter to the truth of the record of the origin of man which we have long supposed that we have derived from the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. It is surmised (though with not a grain of anything like proof) that man came into existence, not by an independent act of creation, but by natural selection, or by some means analogous to it, and that, for anything that we know, man derived his origin in this way not from one parent, but from many. Various anthropoids, such as those which now range the tropical forests, may, it is surmised, at some remote period have given birth to creatures capable of holding converse with God. Outrageous as all this seems, it is nevertheless suggested by some as tending to throw doubts on the received accounts of the origin of the human race, and consequently is supposed to affect the truth of those doctrines of original sin and salvation in Christ which seem to be built upon the truth of such an origin. I shall nsw briefly attempt to show how far the received doctrine of the Church can be affected by it. First of all, let us assume that mankind sprung from one pair. Both revelation and universal tradition are in favour of the assumption. Reason, too, is in its favour, for the chances are enormous against any inferior being giving birth to any one s...

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