The text, after denying that we are saved by works of righteousness, and declaring that our salvation is according to the Mercy of God, or through his free grace, asserts, that this salvation is accomplished by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. There has been no small dispute among divines about the meaning of the third phrase in this passage; The washing of regeneration. Some have supposed it to denote baptism; and some to denote the same thing with the following phrase; the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Others have interpreted it in other manners. The second interpretation, which I have mentioned, is, in my apprehension, the true one. If baptism be intended, the passage is equivalent to the declaration of our Saviour to Nicodemus; Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. He is born of water, or baptized, indispensably, in order to his admission into the visible Kingdom of God; and of the Spirit, indispensably also, in order to his admission into the invisible and eternal Kingdom of God. As his admission into the former is a symbol of his admission into the latter; so baptism, the means of his admission into the former, is a symbol of regeneration, the means of his admission into the latter. The difference between the two interpretations, which I have specified, will, therefore, be found ultimately to be immaterial: the one referring the phrase to the type, and the other to the thing typified. On either scheme, it must be admitted, that the Apostle declares mankind to be saved by regeneration. Regeneration is, therefore, that event in the gracious providence of God, by which we become the subjects of faith, entitled to justification, and consequently heirs of salvation.

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