As mentioned just below, I am reading M.F. Sadler's "The Second Adam & The New Birth" (available here), and I intend to report on my progress from time to time.
I am finding that the breadth and depth of this book are much greater than I had originally thought as I eagerly consumed the opening pages. My reading is a bit slower and more purposeful now but I maintain the strong opinion that Sadler laboured well in composing a readily understood treatment of his subject, the doctrine of Baptism.
Today, I finished the third chapter which has as its focus, John 3:3-5: Regeneration, a birth by water and by Spirit. Excellent material here. If this one chapter were extracted and distributed on its own as a pamphlet, I believe God could use it to accomplish much toward the sanctification of His Son's Bride.
Though the task was difficult, I selected only one good quote for you here, edited for length without altering the essence of his point:
"God in the highest wisdom has ordained that this great change of spiritual relationship should take place at a certain definite time, and with certain outward sensible circumstances of washing with water, and the invocation of the name of the Ever-blessed Trinity...He has done this, we may reverently surmise, because we, His creatures...are subject to the conditions of time and sense; so that we may each one of us know that our relationship to Him does not depend upon certain lively feelings, which may possibly pass away, and are always fluctuating, but upon our having at a certain time come in contact with an outward and visible instrumentality...at which moment we underwent that Baptism which His incarnate Son ordained as the means of incorporating men into His Church...His mystical body, the branches of Himself, the true Vine."
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