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 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 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). There is one passage(403) in which he appears at first sight to deny forgiveness to those who sin since the coming of Christ, and thence to give some countenance to the idea that wilful sin of Christians cannot be forgiven. What he really does say is simply this; that whereas the ancients who sinned before the coming of Christ did, when they had the Gospel preached to them in the regions below, and believed, receive remission of sins, there is no such hope awaiting those who now commit sin. If they die in sin, there is no further sacrifice remaining for them to be preached to them in the regions of the dead. We can scarcely avoid remarking the strict correspondence between the doctrine of Irenæus upon this subject and that contained in the formularies of the Church of England, particularly in the Baptismal Service and the 16th and 27th Articles. And it is the more valuable, because it does not appear _directly_ in the form of a precise statement, but indirectly, as in the Scriptures themselves; showing that it pervaded the whole practical system with which his mind was imbued. The difficulty in the Scriptures unquestionably is, that regeneration is no where in so many words affirmed respecting infants, and that there is language, as in St. John’s first epistle, appearing to restrict it to persons capable of actual obedience. Now in Irenæus we find that omission supplied, and yet he uses without scruple the same kind of language as St. John; showing that in the system he inherited, and that by an interval of only one descent from St. John himself, the two things which, with our prejudices, are apt to appear inconsistent, were parts of one and the same doctrine. CHAPTER XIII. THE EUCHARIST.