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 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 baptism and infant regeneration is very valuable from one who lived so near the apostolical times.