Columbia ®nit)cr^itp tntljrCitpoflftDgork THE LIBRARIES PROGRESS BAPTIST PRINCIPLES THE LAST HUNDEED YEARS. THOMAS F. CURTIS, PBOFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE DSIVERSITY AT LEWISBURG, PA., AND AUTHOR OF "COMMUNION," ETC. ETC. BOSTON: aOULD AND LINCOLN, 69 WAaHINOTON STREET. NEW YORK : SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO. CINCINNATI : GEO. S. BLANCHAKD. 1856. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by GOULD & LINCOLN, tn the Clerk'3 Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. PREFACE. This volume miglit almost be called " Concessions of Pedobaptists as to tbe Errors of Infant Baptism, and tbe Importance of Baptist Principles," Tbe aim of tbe writer bas cbiefly been to arrange tbese autbori- ties, and point out tbe consequences of tbeir admis- sions. He bas for a few years occasionally noted down some of tbe more striking of tbese acknowledgments, as be bas casually met witb tbem in tbe course of bis tbeological reading. Eacb year tbese bave become more distinct and decisive, wben fairly put togetber, so tbat no system of Pedobaptism can now be pro- duced consistent witb itself. A body of concessions so complete and oveinvbelming at every point, could not be brougbt forward in regard to any otber practice yet maintained by sucb large bodies of excellent Cbristians as still upbold infant baptism. It would bave been easy to double tbe number of tbese admissions, and tbe autborities adduced on every point. Indeed tbe recollection of most students will at eacb step suggest several important additional testi- monies of a similar kind. Tbe object of tbe autbor 101094 IV PREFACE. has been to select none but what were easily accessible, and are, or ought to be, well known to every impartial thinker. To the writer they ajjpear as decisive as tes- timony can be in regard to any thing. If, in a single line of the following pages, there should appear to the reader the slightest unkind allu- sion to any other denomination or individual, the writer would at once say that nothing has been further from his intentions or his feelings. For his Christian breth- ren of different denominations he has ever cherished the most fraternal regard, and wishes increasingly to pro- mote every thing that may tend to cultivate and strengthen this sentiment. But he is persuaded that this is not to be done by diminishing denominational attachments, or the closeness of Church ties — not by an increase of laxity, but of love. His aim has been to draw a wide distinction between parties and opinions. Hence the object of this volume is not to exhibit or defend the Baptists, but their prin- ciples. So, on the other hand, the author has not intentionally made an unkind allusion to any Pedobap- tist denomination, or a single person, while conscien- tiously maintaining an opposite system. PniLAKELPniA, September 1, 1855. CONTENTS. Preface Introduction . BOOK ONE. PROGRESS OF PRINCIPLES NOW CONCEDED IN THEORY BY THE MOST ENLIGHTENED OF OTHER DENOMINATIONS. CHAPTER I. Opening Remarks 15 CHAPTER II. Freedom op Conscience, and Separation op Church and State 18 Section I. — Earlier Developments op the Principle op Re- ligious Liberty 20 Views op the Donatists 21 " the "Waldenses 21 " the Menxonites 30 " THE PEDOBAPTIST REFORMED DENOMINATIONS 31 " British Baptists, 1560-1610 33 " Roger Williams 37 " Lord Baltimore 40 " William Penn 42 " The New England Puritans 46 VI CONTENTS. PAGB Section II.— Progress in the last Hundred Tears 47 Example of Khode Island and Pennsylvania 43 Church Establishment in Virginia 49 " in Massachusetts 52 Massachusetts Provincial Congress 54 Liberty of Conscience in North--5vest Territory 56 United States Constitution Amended 56 Influence of the Principles of the United States 58 These Principles in England 58 " IN Europe 59 " in Turkey 59 " IN China 60 CHAPTER III. A Converted Church Membership 60 Difference between American and European Ideas CI Progress among Roman Catholics 61 " Episcopalians 62 " German Reformed Churches 63 Opinions One Hundred Years ago in America 64 The Methodists 65 The Presbyterians 66 The Congpj;gationalists 68 Progress in- Europe 11 CHxVPTER IV. Sacraments Inoperative without Choice and Faith f3 Ordinances Vitalized by Faith 74 Sacramextalism in German Reformed Churches 74 " in Episcopal Churches 75 " in Melville's Sermons 75 " IN John Wesley 76 " IN Dr. Nevin 77 Views of the Congregationalists 78 Baptist View 79 Concessions op North British Review 80 Admitted Uxscripturalness of Infant Baptism 81 Infant Baptism the main reliance of Puseyism 83 CONTENTS. VU CHAPTER V. Believess the only Sceiptural Subjects of Baptism 85 Section I. — Baptist "VrEW stated 86 Section II. — Infakt Baptism admitted by Pedobaptists TJnscrip- TURAL 87 (a.) Sponsorship admitted of no Authority 88 (b.) No Precept or Example for it 89 (c.) Abrahamic Covenant no Authority 90 (d.) Household Baptisms no Authority 93 (e.) Matthew, xix. 14, no Authority 95 (/.) 1 Cor, vn. 14 proves Infant Baptism Unknown. 96 (g.) Proselyte Baptism no Authority 98 Section III. — Church History admitted to Confirm the above View 99 (a.) The Cause of its Silence as to Infant Baptism 99 Gale and "Wall 100 Coleridge 102 Neander 102 Bunsen 104 North British Review 107 (b.) The Catechumenical System Decisive 108 AUGUSTI 114 Bunsen 114 Neander 116 Apostolic Constitution 117 Section IV. — The Rise of Infant Baptism Traced by Pedobaptists 117 Justin Martyr Ignorant of it 119 Iren^us 119 Tertullian 121 Origen 122 Cyprian 123 Superstitious Reverence for Ordinances 124 Section V. — The Decrease of Infant Baptism 128 In Europe 128 Increase of Baptists m United States 129 Methodists Relinquishing Infant Baptism 130 Infant Baptism among Episcopalians 131 CONGREGATIONALISTS ABANDONING InFANT BAPTISM 131 Presbyterian Decline in it 133 Proportion of Infant Baptisms to Births in U. S 136 VIU CONTENTS, CHAPTER VI. Immersion altvays the Baptism of the New Testament 137 Bishop Smith of Kentucky 137 Dr. Anthon, Dr. Campbell, Ecclesiastical Historuns, German Critics, the Greek Church, Roman Catholics 138 BOOK TWO. PEOGRESS OF PRINCIPLES STILL CONTROVERTED. CHAPTER I. The Command to Baptize a Command to Immerse 141 Section I. — Ordinary Meaning of Barrrifw 141 Common Usage fixes the Force of a Command. Il- lustration 143 Ernesti's Rules 146 Dr. Pond's Mistake 146 Customary Meaning op BanTl^u 149 Section II. — Force of the Prepositions 152 Meanings of "in" and " into" 152 cic AND Professor Stuart's Rule 153 iv 156 Section III — Circumstances 159 (a.) Objections, Accommodations for Immersion at Jerusalem 160 Time required for Immersion 161 Baptism of the Jailor 163 (h.) Circumstances requiring Immersion 164 Section I"V. — Figurative Allusions to B.uptism 166 1 Corinthians, x. 2 166 1 Peter, hl 20, 21 167 Hebrews, x. 22 168 Luke, xn. 50 168 Romans, vi. 4 169 CONTENTS. IX PAGE Section V. — Historical View 171 Section VI. — BawTi^u always involves Immersion 175 Proper and Tropical Use op Words 175 (a.) Classical Usage 177 (b) New Testament Usage 183 as to the Baptismal Eite 185 IN the two other cases 187 IN the three cases op BaTTTiafiog 192 (c.) Septuagint Usage 195 (d) Usage in the Apocrypha 196 Concluding Illustration 200 CHAPTER II. The Importance op Believer's Baptism 202 Section I. — General Remarks 202 Clinic Baptism 206 Section II. — The Teachings of Baptism 209 (a.) Submission to the Religion op New Testament. . 209 Conversion of a French Infidel 209 (6.) Allegiance to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 213 (c.) The Outlines of the Evangelical System Baptism op a Universalis! 218 Section III. — The Pledges made in Baptism 221 {a.) Separation from the World 221 (6.) Open Avowal of Religious Principle 222 (c.) The Pledge Reciprocal and Divine 223 (d.) Embracing a Glorious Resurrection. 223 Section IV. — Baptism Important for its Effects 226 The Church a Light-house 229 CHAPTER III. Infant Baptism Injurious — its Modern Defenses Considep^d. 233 Section I. — Coleridge's Defense of Infant Baptism 234 Discretionary Power of the Church. . . ....... 235 1 * X CONTENTS. PAGE What is " the Church ?" 236 Infant Baptism a Change of the Constitution 239 Constitution of Episcopal Chukch 240 Purposes at first Blended 242 Intolerable View of God 245 Section II. — Dr. Bushnell's Defense of it Considered 246 No settled Congregational Theory 247 Evangelical Church all Baptist in Theory 248 Edward's Theory Misunderstood 250 Dr. Bushnell's Theory — Organic Connection 253 The Baptist Theory — Sensible Experience 254 Presumptions of Infant Baptism 256 Dr. Bushnell's History of Theories 259 "Dangerous Tendencies" 262 Baptist Theory more Natural 267 Section ni. — Chevalier Bunsen's Defense 270 Reforming the Bible 271 The Ratification op a Nullity 274 Section IV. — North British Review 282 Reforming Biblical Interpretation 284 CHAPTER IV. Open Communion Unwise and Injurious 285 Dr. Bunsen's Idea 286 Coincides with R. Hall 287 History of the Question in England 288 " " " IN THIS Country 290 Its present Practical Aspect 291 Views of other Denominations 293 Inexpedlent 294 A Breach of Trust 296 The Ordinances Committed to the Churches 297 Not to a Visible Church Universal 301 Voluntary Alliances not Churches 305 Churches the sole Guardians 307 " Aggressive Bodies 307 " MUST, THEEEFORB, BE UNITED 308 CONTENTS. XJ BOOK THREE. PKOGRESS OF PRINCIPLES ALWAYS HELD BY EVANGEL- ICAL CHRISTIANS, BUT MORE CONSISTENTLY BY BAP- TISTS. CHAPTER I. PAOE The Sufpicienot op Holt Scripture 312 Position op other Denominations 313 Of the Baptists 318 Effects as to Missions 319 In the Translation and Circulation op the Bible 325 CHAPTER II. Salvation bt Grace alone 329 CHAPTER III. The Essential Priesthood op all Christians 336 CHAPTER IV. Connection of Baptist Principles and Political Liberty 347 CONCLUDING CHAPTER. Summary of the foregoing "Work 365 Reasons why it is Written 366 (1.) Due to Historical Truth 367 (2.) Modern Attacks on Evangelical Christianity 368 (3.) The Difficulties of Evangelical Pedobaptists 369 (4-.) The Condition of the Baptists 374 (5.) The Relative Positions and Approaches of Parties. . 380 XU CONTENTS, APPENDIX A. PAGE Statistics of the Presbyterian Chubch 387 APPENDIX B. Professor Hodge's Wat op Life 388 APPENDIX 0. On the Force of the Dative and Prepositions in Connection with BaTTTL^u 390 APPENDIX D. On Romans, vi. 4, and Colossians, il 12 396 APPENDIX E. The Misconceptions of Open Communion 401 APPENDIX F. Robert Hall on the American "War of Independence 409 INTRODUCTION. By many persons, Baptists, are supposed to differ from other evangelical Christians merely in relation to two points of a single rite — the form and time of baptism. Hence, even where believed to be coi'rect in their opin- ions, they are supposed to be wrong in spirit, lacking in charity, building up a sect upon a ceremony, and mak- ing every other Christian " an offender for a word." Those who have fairly examined their history, how- ever, will have observed that they have uniformly main- tained a body of principles of which then* baptism has been merely the appointed symbol. Some of these they have held alone, and others frequently in common with Christians of different denominations. XIV INTRODUCTION, The present work is mtended to trace out the ivt'O- gress of J3aptist 2>nnci'ples durino the last hundred years^ their coherence and consistency. These principles may be divided into three classes. I. Those which have been by degrees conceded in theory by many of the most enlightened of other de- nominations. n. Those which form the remaining pomts still con- troverted. III. Those which, though always held in common by evangelical Christians, require the acknowledgment of Baptist principles, to be advocated with due force and consistency. BOOK I. CONCEDED PRINCIPLES. Mantt of the most important facts and principles as- serted by the Baptists, have, within the last himdred years, by degrees been fully conceded in theory by several of the "svdsest and best of other denominations. These "will be found to form such a basis of concessions as to leave it impossible that opposite principles should long survive among enlightened evangelical Christians. They embrace, 1. Freedom of Conscience, and the entii'e separation of Church and State. 2. A Converted Church Membership. 3. Sacraments inoperative withou.t Choice and Faith. 4. Believers the only Scriptural Subjects of Baptism. 5. Immersion always the Baptism of the New Testament. CHAPTEE I. OPENING REMARKS. A Pedobaptist gentleman in Philadelphia has for some years been making a collection of all works on the Baptis- mal Controversy. He has already obtained more than four- 16 OPENING EEMAEKS. teen hundi'ed volumes in tlae English language alone, which he i^roftoses to arrange chronologically, and to j^resent to the Ubrary of Princeton Theological Seminary. In examin- ing this collection, two things are specially noticeable : that this controversy has of late years been conducted in a far more Christian spirit, and that the points of difierence are greatly narrowed down. Two hundred years ago, when Dr. Featley published his " Dippers Dipped, or the Anabaptists Ducked and Plimged Head over Ears," the oi^ponents of Baptist \T.ews complained on exactly the opj^osite grounds from what they do now, re- garding them as so radicaUy different that they could not safely be even tolerated. There seemed to them something that cut at the root of all Christianity, in contending for liberty of conscience, denying baptism to infants, and call- ing m question the utihty of a vicarious faith by sponsors and parents. Fines, fetters, and banishment alone appeared the suitable reward for such oj^inions. Now, on the con- trary, it is the chief complaint of evangehcal Pedobaptists that the difference is so imimportant as not to justify Bap- tists in maintaining their pecuHarities as a distinct denomi- nation. A great change has taken place among Protestants generally, and evangelical Protestants esiDeciaUy. Time has killed many of their errors, and more of their prejudices. No one knows where they have gone, or how they have evaporated. ChevaHer Bunsen,' for instance, " does not see for what good internal reason the Baptists, as such, can be excluded from a National Church, Those who give a preference to adult baptism * * * should no more be looked ujion as heretics on that account than Baptists on their part should stigmatize by that name such congrega- 1 Hippolytus, vol iiL p. 215. OPENIXG REMARKS. 17 tions as have a preference for infant baptism." Disbeliev- ing in a National Church, Baptists may not be able to see the advantage of suddenly domg away distmctions that have so long been matters of historical fact and growth ; but they earnestly desire to see all those who love the Saviour united in heart, and loving each other as fellow- heirs of eternal life. The degree to which the points of this controversy have naiTowed down is still more remarkable. It has only been by slow stages that those evangeUcal truths which were the essence of the Reformation, however sincerely held by a few of the more prominent Reformers, penetrated into the religious life of the masses, or have been carried out to their legituuate results. In many cases there was at first but a chaos of confused principles. Often where the heart was evangehcal, m.any of the remains of Popery hung about it, as a fog "svill linger on the surface of the Avaters, while at a little elevation all is clear. It may not impede the current or the tide, or the motion of the vessels borne upon the surface, but prevents the navigators from seeing where they are going, or pursuing an undeviating course with certamty and safety. The clearness and consistency of Baptist prin- ciples have enabled those who have held them to penetrate these vapors with precision and ease, as a ship guided by a well-adjusted compass sails through a mist at sea. But then the directness with which they have advanced to their point has seemed to others not only dangerous to them, but to aU around. By degrees these fogs have been clearing away. Vast multitudes of the most pious men of the age, many of them Pedobaptists in name, have become what Dr. BushneU calls " Baptists in theory," to such an extent that they ought, as he admits, in all consistency to become 18 FEEEDOM OF COXSCIEXCE. SO in practice. A careful examinatiou "will ftilly show that there is a series of principles of which the Baptist denomi- nation alone has been tlie consistent and uniform advocate ; principles of the utmost importance to vital religion, and now admitted and contended for by none more strenuoiisly than those who haA'e most opposed this denomination m name. There is nothing which will be more Ukely to sur- prise the student of the ecclesiastical history of this country, than to notice that many of the points which were in dispute a hundred years ago, and which Avere originally regarded as Baptist peculiarities, have become estabhshed jirinciples of the great unwiitten creed — the general rehgious senti- ment of the whole country — the common law, so to speak, of American Christianity. It is probable that when some of them are named, the only astonishment and difficulty with many readers wiU be to realize that these things ever were disputed or even doubted. As a first illustration of this, we may name Freedom of Conscience, CHAPTER II. FEEEDOM OF COXSCrEXCE, AKD THE PERFECT SEPARATION OP CHURCH AXD STATE. Two points which, superficially viewed, may seem distinct, are here connected together, because they wiU be foimd to resolve themselves essentially into one great principle. The utmost distmction is, that the union of Church and State puts a premium upon one form of religion, while all other opposition to freedom of conscience j^laces a penalty upon another. But as in the former case the Chm'ch which is THE DONATISTS. 19 established receives a premium from the dissenter, its union with the State involves, in fact, a stigma, a penalty on all other forms of worship, and this bemg compulsory, is per- secution. Freedom of conscience can not be fully and fau'ly predicated where any penalty is attached to its ex- ercise. Of the millions of all denominations in this coimtry, who now enjoy so perfectly as we do the inestimable blessing of religious liberty, and of all those who throughout Europe and the world are advocathig it in various degrees, few are aware how much they are indebted for these views and enjoyments to the Baptists ; fewer still know that this indebtedness, such as it is, is not mere accident, biit a neces- sary consequence of their distinctive pecuharities as a de- nomination. They may probably have learned from Ban- croft that Roger Williams was the first Christian legislator who introduced perfect rehgious liberty into the constitution of any State, but are not aware, perhaps, that these views were advocated pubhcly in London by the Baptists, with great zeal, a few years before he came to this coimtry. Or if prepared to go so far, they are probably ignorant that the advocacy of this spiiitual freedom is to be traced in connection with Baptist sentiments, long before the time of Luther, among the Waldenses, and through such men as Arnold of Brescia, Peter de Bruis, and the Henricians, back probably to the Donatists, and the time of Constantme the Great. Before, then, commencing to trace the progress of these views during the jiast century, it Tvdll be necessary in this instance to give a rapid sketch of their previous history, in order to show how far they may be fau'ly and justly claimed as distinctively Baptist principles. 20 THE DONATISTS. § I. Early Developjiext of the Principle of Religious Liberty. Previous to about the time of Constantine, there could, of course, be no controversy on this subject. The Greeks and Romans, though generally tolerant of the religion of others, and not attemptuig to change the faith of any con- quered State, never doubted the right of government to interfere, or the wisdom of the exercise of this right on occasions. Thus Socrates was condemned to the cup of hemlock, on the charge of alienating the minds of the young from the religion of the State, and it is pamful to note the indifterence ^^-ith winch the mild and philosophic Pliny -RTites to the Emperor Trajan of the cruel and extensive punish- ments he thought proper to mflict upon the "harmless" early Christians. Until the time of the first so-called Chris- tian emperor, therefore, these men were often j^ersecuted, but never had possessed the power of the State on their side, either for persecution or for 2:)atronage. But no sooner was Christianity the reUgion of the State, and its powers employed in crushing the Donatists, than the rights of con- science were asserted by the oppressed minority with great eloquence and jjower. In this respect, Neander considers it " the most important and influential Church division of this period." " That which distmguishes the present case is," lie says, " the reaction proceedhig out of the essence of the Christian Church against the confoimding of the ecclesias- tical and political elements, on which occasion, for the first time, the ideas Avhich Christianity, as opposed to the pagan religion of tlie State, had first made men distinctly con- scious of, became an object of contention withm the State itself, the ideas concerning universal inalienable human THE DONATISTS. 21 rights^ concerning liberty of conscience.^ concerning the rights of free religious convictiony^ The election of a cliurch officer was tlie accidental occa- sion of this rupture. But when the emperor compiled " an- other more important matter, the employment of force in matters of religion" evoked a spirit long existing, and a zeal that force could not subdue. " Christ persecutes no one ; he was for inviting, not forcing men to the faith. Why do you not permit every man to follow his own free "will? Christ in dying for men has given Christians the example to die, but not to kill." Such was the language of the Donatist bishop, Petihan. The Catholics, on the other hand, "with Augustine at their head, argued that " men were authorized and bound to employ force," and compel men to enter the visible Chm'ch, from Luke xiv. 23. Such was the commencement of a controversy contmued to this day. In many of the incidental circvmistances of the quarrel, the Donatists may have been wrong, and were wrong, because they were but men, but in the great prin- ciples which remained with them, of opposition to the Cathohcs sweepmg the world into the Church,'^ and compell- ing the consciences of men, they were right, and the means of exhibiting an important part of Christian truth and Church life. God chooses his people in the fires of affliction, and he purifies them there. These Donatists, joined gradually by other sects who broke oif from the Catholics in search of a purer fiuth, seemed to have formed the germ of the Wal- denses. This alone accomits for the tradition ever faithfully maintained by them and acknowledged by their enemies, 1 History of the Cliristian Religion and Church, vol. ii. p. 182-217. Torrey. • Neander, vol. ii. p. 205, 6. 22 THE DONATISTS. that they had maintamed a distuact existence from the time of Pope Sylvester, the tune when, under Constantine, the imion between Church and State was completely eifected, Neander considers this " the true historical origin of the sect" of the Waldenses,' and there is every reason to feel assured of the truth of this opinion. It was universally acknowledged among them. Reinerius Saccho, who had the best means of kuowmg, havmg been for seventeen years one of them, but not writing until he became a Catholic Inquisitor, a.d. 1250, states this fact, and adds that their xmiversal extension and high antiquity make them the most dangerous enemies of the Catholic Church. There is stUl extant among the remains left by these most ancient Protestants, a Treatise on Antichrist, which is an authentic exposition of their faith. It is generally consid- ered to have been written about a.d. 1120, but ISTeander thinks it may have been much older.^ It thus describes Antichrist : " He arrived at maturity when men whose hearts were set upon the world multiphed in the Church, and hy the union of Church and State got the power of both into their hands. * * * * He teaches to baptize children into the faith, and attribiTtes to this the woi'k of regeneration, thus confoimding the work of the Holy Spii-it in regeneration with the external rite of baptism, and on this foundation bestows orders, and indeed groimds all liis Christianity." ' The reactionary spirit against the corruptions of the State Church, appears in this extract to have given clearness to * Church History, voL iv. p. 605, and notes. 2 Yo\. \y. p. 605. 3 Jones' Church History, p. 338, whose quotations I have followed, }ie having gone over the whole ground carefully, with Wall and Perrin before him. THE DONATISTS. 23 the pious autliors of this Treatise. It is the benefit which the presence of error occasions to the Church, that it pro- duces in contrast a faith more sharply defined, exact, and clear. When the Donatists first broke loose from the Cath- ohcs, they saw the corruption of then* opponents to such a degree that they re-baptized all who came over to them from the Romish party. But they did not then define and trace out so clearly the origin and prmciples of Romish errors, as after long observation. At the tune Avhen the Donatist secession finally and fuUy seems to have occurred, the tune of Sylvester, about a.d, 330, and for one hundred and fifty years after, infant baptism according to Neander, " entered rarely and with difficulty into the life of the Churchy It had not become the universal or even the usual practice,' On this account at fii-st there is httle distinction recorded between the Cathohcs and the Donatists in regard to this pomt. The latter were soon known universally as Anabap- tists in the views of then* opponents, because they de- nied the validity of the Cathohc baptism, and repeated it, generally, adhering to a primitive exclusiveness in its admin- istration,^ The repetition was on accomit of the general worldhness and corruption of that Church, but specific at- tention had not then been turned to many of the errors in detail. It is even probable that individual cases of infant baptism may have existed among the earlier Donatists. But the Christian consciovisness of a Divine life awakened y\A\h- in, tended always to the purity of the Church, operating with a reactive force agamst the errors of the Cathohcs, and must have prevented this error from spreadhag far, while it eventually woke up against them many an indignant re- i Vol. ii. p, 319. 2 Hase'a Church History, sec, 142, 24 ARNOLD OF BRESCIA. monstrance like the above from the Treatise on Anti- christ. From this time forward we shall find, in connection with the warmest defenses of liberty of conscience, the most solemn protests against infant baptism. The Petrobrus- sians (a.d, 1110) and the Henricians (a.d. 1140) both be- came extensive sects earnestly opposed to the worldliness of the clergy and to mfaut baptism.' Arnold of Brescia about this time, a.d. 1136-57, main- tained the same views, but with a greater vigor and imme- diate political effect and distmctness than any of his prede- cessors or cotemporaries. Liberty, sacred and secular, was the great object of his hfe. He produced an immense effect upon Europe and his age, and gave an impulse to those reformmg movements m the Church of Rome that are distinctly traceable as the germs from which, four hun- dred years later, sprang the great Protestant Reforma- tion.^ This remarkable reformer on returning home to Bres- cia, his native city, was observed to have midergone a change. " The inspiring idea of his movements," says Ne- ander, " was that of a holy and a pure Church. His Ufe cor- resjDonded with his doctrme. Zealously opposing the cor- ruption of the worldly-minded clergy, he set the examj^le himself by his dress and his entire mode of living — a fact which even his most violent enemies could but acknowledge." This was the young clergyman " who gave the first im- pulse to the new reaction agamst the secularization of the clergy and agamst the power of the Pope in temporal things." Impressed with holy fervor imder the lectures of the cele- brated Abelard, he put hunself at the head of a party " in • Neander, vol. iv. p. 595. 2 Ibid., p. 147, 162, 180. AEKOLD OF BRESCIA. 25 opposition to the practice of mixing up tilings spriritual and secular." He required that the bishops should abjure their princely powers, and that the clergy should be content ■\vith whatever the love of the conimunities might bestow on them for their support. Pie was disposed to make much depend on experimental religion, or " the subjective char- acter of the men" who officiated in church matters. In fact, the great object at which he aimed was a Spiritual Church, and one chief method of accomplishing it was to be its entu-e sej)aration fi-om the State, while the baptism of adults only was another. As Dr. Brewster says,^ " Insisting that the Kingdom of God is not of this world, he maintained that the temporal power of the Church was an unprincipled usurpation of the rights of princes, and that all the corrujDtions which dis- graced the Christian faith, and all the animosities which distracted the Church, sprang from the overgro"mi pos- sessions of the clergy." He commenced hi his native city, but it was in Rome itself that the amazing j^ower of tliis man and of his prmciples were chiefly succesful. He re- stored the Roman Republic, and maintained it for ten years. Four Pojies successively driven from the Eternal City, tried in vain to subdue him. At last when Frederick Barba- rossa, hu-ed for that purpose, had succeeded in capturmg him, so fearful of liis popularity were those in power, that having strangled Mm in prison, his body was burned and his ashes thrown into the Tiber, lest the people should idol- ize his beloved remains. The same desire for the purity of the Church which in one direction led him to oppose the mixing up of tem- poral power, in another direction brought him in opppsi- * Edinburg Encyclopffidia, Art. Arnold, 2 26 THE WALDENSES. tion to inftyit baptism. A cotemj^orary of his remarks that " he is said to have jiidgecl erroneously ui regard to the sacrament of the altar [/, e. transuhstantiation], and the baptism of mfants." ' Everviniis and Bernard, also his opponents, both appear to allude to hun as ridicuhng mfant baptism, while in a Bull issued in 1181, the Arnoldists are included in the category of sects " not afi-aid to oppose the doctrmes of the Church on baptism and the Lord's Sup- per." Indeed, Arnold was condemned by Pope Innocent II., in the Lateran Council of 1139, as an opponent of infant baptism. Dr. Murdoch, the translator of Mosheim, seems inclined to doubt if he is alluded to in the decrees of that council, because he is not mentioned by name. But a cotemporary wi-iter. Otto Bishop Freysingen, expressly declares that he and the Petrobrussians were both con- demned by that council, and his authority in this matter is justly regarded as decisive by Mosheuu, Giesler, and Ne- ander. Though the man was slain, his followers long sur- Anved as a distinct sect, and by such leaders, recruits were added, and other bodies of Christians were gradually dra^vn together by an inward principle and driven together by common persecutions, until mider the name Waldenses several sects, dissimilar in many of their opinions though united in common Evangelical principles, continued to be known for centuries as the friends of spiritual liberty. To what extent they re^jected mfant baptism has long been a matter of dispute. That many of them did. so is beyond question. And, on the other hand, that some of the sects who went under this general name continued to practice it, we do not doubt. But Limborch, whose ac- count of them Wall endorses as the most accurate and dis- ' See Giesler, vol. ii. sec. 51, note 6. THE WALD"ENSES. 27 criminating/ says " To speak my own mind freely, the Al- bigenses and Waldenses appear to me to have been two dis- tinct sects, and they were entirely ignorant of many tenets now ascribed to them. Particularly the Waldenses appear to have been plain men, unskillful and uiexperienced, and if their opinions and customs loere to be examined without prejudice^ it would appear that among all the modern sects of Christians they bear the greatest resemblance to that of the Mennonites," or modern Dutch Baptists.'' This author gives the acknowledgment of an Albigensian nobleman, on which he Avas condemned, that he had listened to one of the more distinguished of their teachers, Peter Auterii (about A.D. 1300), preaching that the baptism of water, made by the Church, was of no avail to children, who were so far from consenting to it that they wept. He also cites the sentence of the Inquisition on Stej)hana di Proando for de- nying, among other things, " baptism of water administered to children." Yet it is clear that they did not, as often supposed, deny all water baptism, but only its being essen- tial to salvation, or useful to infants, for another witness is also cited saving that " no baptism availed any thing, no not their own?'' ^ M: de Potter, in his Ecclesiastical History, says that " they opposed the sacraments, rejecting all the ceremonies of bap- tism except the ablution, and they had care that this should never be conferred on children of a tender age ; and it is for that reason they used to baptize anew all the persons who, leaving the Romish Church, claimed to embrace their doctrines." ■• * Infant Baptism, vol. ii. p. 230. 2 History of the Inquisition, vol. i. chap. viii. ^ Ibid.^ chap. viii. 4 See Hague's Centenary Address, Appendix, p. T7. 28 THE WALDE2fSES. What is more remarkable thau general statements of this kind, and more imjDortant to our present piirpose, is that the strongest expressions in favor of liberty of conscience are fomid in the mouths of those who also opposed infant baptism. This we have already noticed, as well as the cause of it, in the case of Ai-nold of Brescia and the Dissertation on Antichrist. There is an epitome of the faith of the Waldenses of the twelfth centmy, given by the Centiiriators of Magdeburg, which does not say any thing about infant baptism one way or other, but asserts " the Pope hath not the primacy over all the Churches of Christ, neither hath he the power of both swords.''' But another full confession of their faith of the same century (a.d. 1120), says, "We hold in ab- horrence all human inventions, as proceeding from Anti- christ, which produce distress and are prejudicial to the liberty of the onind. We consider the Sacraments as signs of holy thmgs, or as the visible emblems of invisible bless- ings. We regard it as proper and even necessary that be- lievers use these spnbols or visible forms when it can be done. Xotwithstandhig we maintain that believers may be saved -without these signs when they have neit?lier place nor opportunity of observing them." ^ The testimony of an enemy is unportant here, ^neas Syhdus, afterward Pope Pius II. (a.d. 1458), in his His- tory of Bohemia, gives this account of the Waldenscs. He says, " they assert that the Church of Rome ceased to be the true Church from the time of Pope Sylvester, at which time the poison of temporal advantages was cast into the Church, * * * They reject all the titles of prelates, as pope, bishop, &c. They affirm that no man ovight to be 1 Jones, p. 333. THE WALDEXSES. 29 forcibly compelled ill matters of faith. * * * They con- demn all the Sacraments of the Church. Concerning the sacrament of baptism they say that the Catechism signifies nothing, tliat the absolution pronounced over mfants avails them nothing — tliat the godlathers and godmothers do not understand what they answer the priest." ' In 1540 the Parliament of Aix passed a law that the Wal- denses residing in Provence, and who were the subjects of the French Kmg, " should all be destroyed.'''' This sentence was brutally cai-ried into effect five years afterward. But they strove in the mean time to conciliate their persecutors by presenting them vdth. a Confession of their Faith, dra^vn up in language of touching sunplicity. In it they say, " We acknowledge that kings, princes and governors are the appouited and established ministers of God, whom we are bound to obey. From this power and authority no man can exempt himself, as is manifest from the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, Avho voluntarily j^aid tribute, not taJc- ingxiponhhnself any jurisdiction of teynporcd2:>oioer. * * * By baptism we are received uito the holy congregation of God's 'people, previorisly professmg and declarmg om* faith and change of life." Enough this to show that from the tune of Pojje Sylves- ter, that is, from the time of ConstantLne, when he united the spiritual and temporal power, there is every reason to feel assured that there has been a body of men who have opposed the whole of this, and have vigorously maintained freedom of conscience and the entire separation of Church and State. The above extracts will also show on what grounds an 1 to what ext^ii, even before the modern strug- 1 Jonea, p. 324. 30 THE HEXIfOXITES. gles since the Reformation, this may be considered a Bap tist principle and peculiarity. If we turn now to the history of this great principle since tiie Reformation, the Mennonites must claim our first no- tice. At a tune when all other denominations sought to establish themselves by alliances with the State, and too frequently by becoming the persecutors of their brethren, the Mennonites, who sprang out of the Waldenses in 1536,^ contended for perfect Uberty of conscience, and that the magistrates had no right to interfere with religious convic- tions. This opinion is founded on "the one principle," which, as Mosheim justly remarks, is at the basis of all their peculiarities, i. e. " that the kingdom which Christ has estab- lished on earth is a visible society or company, in which is no l>lace for any but holy or pious persons." Hence all connec- tion with mere State institutions, where the terms of mem- bership must be diiferent, they regarded as injurious. In this they have always persevered, and when about the year 1820, on the publication of the proofs of their ancient ori- gin, by Professor Upeij and Dr. Dermont, they Avere offered government support by the King of the Netherlands, and recognition as a State religion, they deelmed the bounty on the ground that it was contrary to their oldest and most settled principles. How different was the conduct of all their cotempora- ries in the Avork of religioixs reformation, great, pious and sincere as they doubtless were. There is not a Creed nor a Confession of Faith framed by any of the Reformers which ' See Moslieim's Cent. XVI., sec. 3, pa5^2, chap, iii., n. 22, and extracts from " An account of the origin of the Dutcli Baptist's Religion," Eucj. Art. Mennonites. ENGLISH PROTESTANTS. 81 does not give to the magistrate a coercive j^ower iii religion,' Luther says of false teachers, " I am very averse to the shedding of blood. 'Tis sufficient that they should be ban- ished," but he allows they may be " corrected and forced at least to silence, put under restraint as madmen." As to the Jews, he thought "their Synagogues should be leveled with the ground, their houses burned, and their books, even to the Old Testament, taken from them." Several of the Anabaptists were also put to death by the Lutherans " for propagating their errors, contrary to the judgment of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel." Nor can Calvin be acquitted of the death of Servetus. He says himself " it was by my prosecution he was impris- oned," and expressed the " hope that they would condemn him to death, though not the terrible one of being burned." Melahcthon, Bucer, and many other of the Reformers, wrote letters of approval, saymg tliat " to endeavor to destroy his dreams by a tram of reasoning, what would it be but to grow mad with a madman." Beza ^^^.•ote a public defense of persecution, and in 1618 the Synod of Dort urged upon the civil power the restramt and punishment of heresy, in consequence of which one man was mxmediately beheaded, another condermied to perpetual miprisonment, and several to banishment.* In England the same spirit prevailed. Henry VIII. burned Papists and Baj^tists at the same stake to prove himself Defender of the Faith, and Cranmer's hands were stained with, the blood of pious women, whUe Queen Eliza- beth re-lighted the fires of Smithfield, like her father, to burn Anabaptists and Catholics. King James resolved to ' Struggles and Triumphs of Eoligious Liberty, p. ST. 2 See Cumberland's Introduction to Limborcb's History of the Inquisition. 32 THE BROWlSriSTS. " break the spii-it of the Non-conformists if it would not bow," and caused them to quit the country in large num- bers. In the reign of Charles I., Archbishop Laud ruled the Church with a rod of u-on ; fines, imprisonments, cut- tmg off the ears, brandhag in the face, and tortures of all kinds were inflicted. Nor did the Presbyterians when they obtained the power, neglect using the authority of the State to persecute, as well as j^romote, in their turn. In 1638, wliile Roger "WiUiams Avas battlmg for freedom of conscience with Mas- sachusetts, and nearly thirty years after their principles had been publicly avowed in London by the Baptists, we find the General Assembly of the Presbj-terian Church in Scot- land mterfering -svith the liberty of the press and the ci\il power in a manner never exceeded by Poj)ery itself. They forbade " all printers in the kingdom fi-om piinting or re- printing any confession of faith, or protestation, or reason pro or contra,'''' in regard to religious controversies, " with- out warrant subscribed by the clerk to the Assembly." * In 1642, Roman Cathohcs Avere ordered to renounce their "obstinacy" imder penalty of banishment or imprisoimient, as might seem fit. Even the Brownists " agreed but too well with them," as Neal testifies " in assertmg the necessity of an uniform- ity of public worship, and of callmg in the sword of the magistrate for the support and defense of their several principles, which they made an ill use of in their turn as they could grasp the poAver mto their hands." And the In- dependents while they reformed many of their opmions, held fast to this as we shall see. On the restoration of Charles II., two thousand Non- ' Pictorial History of England, voL iii. p. 472. Harper. THE INDEPENDENTS. 83 conformist ministers nobly resigned their benefices at once rather than conform to the tyranny of Government interfer- ence in a specific case against themselves. But they never publicly abandoned the principle of a imion of Church and State, but remained just as Chahners did who headed the Free Church movement, though theoretically m favor of an estabhshed rehgion. It may be questioned whether, a hundi-ed years ago, if an estabhshment broad enough to have included them had been proposed in England, the bulk of the Independents would not have favored it. But in 1560, early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Baptists m Great Britain publicly wrote and pubUshed theii* protestations against all persecution, for conscience' sake. John Knox rephed to one of these pubhcations, in a Trea- tise called " An Answer to a great number of blasphemous Cavillations, written by an Anabaptist and adversary of God's eternal Predestination, and confuted by John Knox." Alluding to persecuting Christians, the Baptist had said, " Be these I pray you, the sheep whom Christ hath sent forth in the midst of wolves ; can the sheep persecute the wolf? Doth Abel kill Cain? Doth David, though he might, kill Saul ? Doth he which is born after the Spiiit kill hun that is born after the flesh ?" To all this John Knox replies, " I Avill not now so much labor to confute by my pen, as my full purpose is to lay the same to thy charge if I shall apprehend thee in any com- monwealth where justice against blasphemers may be nuii- istered as God's word requireth. And hereof I give thee warning lest that after thou shalt complain that mider the cloak of friendship I have deceived thee. Wert thou my nat- ui-al brother I durst not conceal thhie iniquity in this case." ' ' Struggles and Triumphs, pp. HO, 3. 2* 34 THE BKOWNISTS. Toward tlie close of the sixteenth century theii' numbers increased in England. They regarded Christ as the Su- preme Governor of the Church, denied that the queen had any authority to appoint ministers of religion, or frame any ecclesiastical government, and asserted that the Church ought to be composed of " lively stones," and that it was im- lawful to baptize children. It is true that on the accession of Bang James to the Enghsh throne, some few of the Puritans and Indej)end- ents were favorable to a more enlarged religious tolera- tion than was then practiced, under certain restrictions of officers, appointed by the State to supervise their proceed- ing; and a petition was j)resented to that effi^ct m 1609, by a Mr. Jacob and others ; but the inalienable right to lib- erty of conscience, even those petitioners had yet to dis- cover. About tliis time, also, a number of the Brownists, who already held to a converted church-membership, and had fled to England, followed out this principle to its legitunate conclusion, became Baptists and were excommunicated by then- brethren m exile.' They also foimd light break upon them in regard to the principle of liberty of conscience and the union of Church and State. This led to a discus- sion of all these prmciples in Holland. In 1610, we find John Robinson, the celebrated Puritan divine, the father of the Pilgrims, wi'iting earnestly m defense of the power of the magistrate " to punish civilly, religious actions," * " he being the preserver of both tables and so to punish all branches of both." He is to " by compulsion, repress public and notable idolatry, as also to provide that the truth of God in his ordinance be taught and published, and by some 1 Struggles and Triumphs, pp. 197, 8. JOHN ROBINSON AND THE BAPTISTS. 35 penalty to provoke Ms subjects tmiversally imto hearing for their instruction and conversion ; yea, to mflict the same upon them if after due teaching they offer not themselves unto the Church.'''' ^ Opposed to him was John Smyth, originally an Episcopal clei gyman, of such superior abilities that Bishop Hall speaks even of John Robinson as no more than his " shadow," He thinking it would be a great help and encouragement to the Baptists in England for the exUes to return and openly avow their sentiments, piit himself at the head of his brethren and returned with them as their pastor to Lon- don, in order as they declared that Christ might say to them, ministering to their persecuted brethren, "I was in prison and ye visited me, in distress and ye comforted me." " They determined to challenge kmg and State to their faces, and not give way to them, no, not a foot." Thus they returned to their owti comitry, there to vmdicate the great principles of moral and religious freedom. How much England, how much America, how much the whole world owes and will owe to this one great act of unsurpassed moral heroism, who can tell ? From the hour they set foot in England, those prmciples have been steadily advancmg. From their advocacy, in all probability, Roger WUliams, then a lad, must have first heard of them. And by him, some twenty-three or four years later, they were nobly evolved upon American ground, and thus became the germ of that perfect religious Uberty we now enjoy. In 1611, they pub- Hshed a Confession of their Faith. In this, true to the Waldensian spirit that had existed for so many ages, they declare that " the magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, nor compel men to this or that * Struggles aud Triumphs, p. 210. 36 JOHX EOBIXSOX AXD THE BAPTISTS. form of religion, because Christ is the Kmg and Lawgiver of the Church and Conscience." John Robinson ui HoILand not only opposed the return of Mr. Smyth to England, hut was still more opposed to his vi3ws of the right of Conscience. In 1614, he pub- lished an attack upon these, Avhich led to an extended con- troversy between him and 3Ir. lielwisse, Mr. Smyth's suc- cessor. The following passage will be enough to show the Baptist view m this discussion : " The power and authority of the king is earthly, and God hath commanded me to submit to all ordinances of man. Therefore I have faith to submit to what ordinances of man soever the king commands ; if it be a human ordinance and not against the manifest word of God. But my soul, wherewith I am to worship God, that belongeth to a:n"otheb King, whose kingdom is not of this world, whose j^eople must come willingly, whose weapons are not carnal, but spiritual." " As to the breach of Christ's laws, His king- dom is spiritual, His laws sphitual, the transgression spirit- ual, the punishment spii'itual, everlasting death of the soul. No carnal or worldly weapon is given to the supportation of His kingdom." " Magistracy is God's blessed ordinance in its right place, but let us not be wiser than God." Such were some of the words of Helwisse, and the avowed faith of all Baptists.' And yet, ten years after, we find John Rob- mson defending the right of the magistrates to persecute error, and promote what they think to be true religion, by the power of State. Well might he tell the departmg pil- grims that he was " verily persuaded and confident that the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy word." AY ell would it have been for the principles of ' Struggles and Triumphs, preface, p. 11. ROGER WILLIAMS. 37 religious liberty if on the other side of the Atlantic the pilgrims had been ready to act upon that last counsel ; — " if God reveal any thing to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my mmistry." It ^ill be evident thus far that the difference between the Baptists and all other Christian sects, at this time, was not one of degree, but of principle. It was not as to the measure of toleration, but of an inalienable right to abstract liberty of conscience. Nor was it a mere negation for which they contended, and on wliich they built, but a positive prmciple, that the Lord was King in Zion, that His control over the conscience was supreme, and that human interfer- ence was wrong because a usurpation of his prerogative. While these publications were takmg place m London (1015), Bacon, as Attorney-general, was torturmg a clergy- man for writuig a seditious sermon he never even j^reached. In Bacon's own language, he questioned him " before tor- ture, between torture, and after torture," as Dr. W. R. Williams who narrates this incident, weU remarks, "thus turning the spit of human sacrifice." Sir Edward Coke refused to sanction this act as legal, hi the foUo^^dng year. About this time, or soon after, a Welsh lad was noticed by this same Sir Edward Coke on account of his manu- script notes of cases argued before the Star Chamber, and of Sei'mons. This great man, the promoter of hberty, became the patron, friend, and almost father of this lad, who iu turn cherished an enthusiastic regard for the Hfe and writings of his benefactor. Coke got him into one of the most fiimous pubhc schools m London — the Charter House — where his abilities won him distinguished honors, and a pension for his support at the University The name 38 ROGER WILLIAMS. of this youth is still preserved at Jesus' College, Oxford — Roger Williams, It will ever be preserved in the records of the great statesmen of the world, of the great Lights of Religious Liberty, and above all of those whose names are written m heaven. Ordained in the Church of England about 1628, he very shortly afterward became so strongly Puritan that he could not use the prayer-book of the Church of England, and fomid it unsafe to remain in the country for fear of the per- secutions of Laud. In 1G30, therefore, he sailed for Amer- ica and joined the Pilgruns who had preceded him only by about ten years. But his zeal and the measure of his knowledge already had outrun theh's, and he soon found himself exposed to various kinds of misconstruction and persecution. It would seem that from the time of his arri- val he steadily set his face agamst all kinds of rehgious in- tolerance, and compulsion in matters of faith and conscience. For five years, however, he remained among his Pimtan brethen, his peculiar views gradually dra^dug round him warm friends on the one side, and stern opposition on the other,. until at length banished from Salem in 1635, after fourteen weeks with neither bed nor bread, he settled down at Providence, there to develoj^ the genu of a new style of government among men, one which recognized the rights of God as supreme, and presumed not to molest the conscience. For this government and on these principles he secured a charter, and at his oyvn cost watched over its infant Uberties. To Rogers Williams belongs imquestionably the honor of bemg the first Christian legislator who formally recognized this great principle m the establishment and administration of any government. Nor is it easy to estimate the boldness required to achieve it, or the value of this success to the ROGER "WILLIAMS. 39 "world. Doubtless his love and veneration for his great patron had done much to form and mature in his mind principles of constitutional fi-eedom applied to rehgion. But he went to lengths that his benefxctor would never have thought of going, and for advocating which the descendants of that great man abused him grossly. It seems hardly- probable that one of his cast of mind had failed to hear of and notice the controversy raging "with fierceness aU through his youth m London, on the subject of religious Uberty. Certain it is that from the fii'st he seems to have grasped "with precision all the consequences of his j^rmciples. " It is "wonderful," as Bancroft has said, ""with "what distmctness Roger Williams deduced his inferences, the readiness with which he accepted every fair inference from his doctrines, and the circumspection ^ith which he repelled every mijust imputation." One thing is certain, it was the light "v^dthin that enabled him to perceive a truth that might have re- mained hidden to tliis day from mere worldly sagacity and statesmanshij). Even Oliver Cromwell, England's great Protector, and one less disposed to persecute than the Prelatists, or Puritans, of his day, developed not, m his whole com'se of government, one principle or practice of half the value of this to the "world. Indeed, he claimed the right, as head of the State, to persecute Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, and even to examine every minister as to his call to preach. Not an uninstructive contrast might be exhibited to the "world were Mr. Carlyle to place the characters of these two governors side by side, and weigh them in the balance impartially, either as to the ideas on "which they wrought, or the consequences ofthem to the world. But it is upon American soil, and by contrast "nith the principles then developmg themselves on this side of the 40 LOED BALTIMORE. Atlantic, that tne character of Roger Williams will be most fairly estimated. Strange to say, it is that Church drunk ■\Tith the blood of the saints, which for ages persecuted the suffering Waldenses that alone has ventured to contend with Roger Williams for the honor of fii-st proclahumg re- ligious freedom to the world by law. Archbishop Hughes has preferred this claim in behalf of the Roman CathoUc proprietor of Maryland, Lord Baltimore. But with what preposterous injustice this claim is urged, let facts show. It is said that, as early as 1632, he had recognized a general rehgious toleration. But where is the proof of it ui any authentic shape before 1648 ? Not in the Charter certamly, which contains no single hint of any toleration in religion not vouchsafed by the laws of England. But, on the other hand, places of worsliip, it is provided, are to be consecrated according to the " ecclesiastical law of England," and all laws were to be " so far as conveniently might be, consonant to the laws of England," which would, of course, have force imtil others were enacted. The most which can be pretended, therefore, is, that the desne and mtention to extend this toleration resided m the breast of Lord Balti- more, although he had not the power to give it the force of legal enactment. But we have seen that, so far as this was concerned, twenty-one years before this time, the Bap- tists m London had pubHshed to the world far more noble sentiments in favor of religious fi-eedom. Roger Williams had probably uttered far higher prmciples two years before and for centuries and centuries the Waldenses had protested agamst the Roman CathoUc Church for her opposition to all these very prmciples, and had mamtained the docti'ine of rehgious fi-eedom far more thoroughly and fairly than Lord Baltunore ever di'eamed of. EOGER WILLIAMS. 41 But it was not until 1649 that this toleration was duly- enacted/ In what "way, then, can it be pretended that the Roman Catholic has precedence of the Baptist as to dates. In 1630, Roger WUliams commenced to preach in favor of religious liberty; and in 1636, having purchased tcrritoi-y from the Indians, commenced to found a colony on the ex- press principle of perfect religious liberty. In 1638, others having joined, and purchased the territory of the present State of Rhode Island, a voluntary government was formally mstituted by a solemn covenant of all to " submit to the orders of the major part in civil things onlyP Thus was a constitution formed on the express basis of a perfect liberty of conscience.^ It is true that it was not untU 1644 that Roger Williams obtained his Charter from the knag. This was not sought, even then, because he deemed it necessary, but only expedient, as a means of preventing the encroachments of the colony of Massachusetts. This Charter was obtained, and solemnly accepted and adopted by the inhabitants, in 1647 ; and on the 10th of May, in that yeai*, a body of laws was enacted, and the government further settled upon the principle of perfect reUgious liberty.^ Even tliis last was about two years j^revious to any enactment in favor of toleration afterward established in Maryland. A more vital point, however, than one of dates remains to be considered. The very word toleration uupUes a right to persecute ; and how flir was immunity in this case to extend ? When first, in 1649, it took the form of law, while allowing general re- ligious liberty to others, it denounced death, "u-ith forfeiture of goods, against all who should deny the Godhead of any of the three persons of the Trinity, and fine, whippmg, and > See Hndreth, vol. i. pp. 20T, 347 2 HUdreth, vol. i. p. 256. 3 Ibid., vol. i. p. 322. 42 WILLIAM PENN. banishment, against all who should ntter any reproachful words or speeches respecting the Virgin Mary, it was expressly declared that the Roman Cathohc Chm-ch should have aU its rights and privileges, and that, in particular, no Roman Catholic should be molested. In fact, it was a mere plan to include Papists in a reUgious hberty just broad enough to shield them from the persecutions of the Puritans, but no hroader. Instead of equitable terms of citizenship, it would have put to death such men as Dr. Channing and Edward Everett ; and even Robert Hall, for the opinions of his earlier years. These laws were never repealed, and only superseded a few years ago by the adoption of a new Con- stitution. They probably remain the law to this day in the District of Columbia. Lord Baltimore was, indeed, no bigot, and far in advance of most of his own sect and age. But a claim Uke that put forth by Archbishop Hughes manifests a degree of effi-ontery rarely equaled. It wiH not be forgotten that just before the Revolution of 1688, James II. attempted a system of toleration of exactly this very character, merely to smuggle in the Cathohcs, and throw England back agam into the arms of the CathoHc Church. The treachery was discovered, and James II. lost his throne soon after, none considering re- ligious liberty safe. About fifty years after Roger Williams had first advanced his views on the subject of reUgious hberty, m 1682, Wil- liam Penn pubUshed in London his celebrated " Frame of Government," which has been justly considered to contain some of the most Avise and admirable views ever set forth by one to whom so much power was committed. Himself by bh-th the son of a Baptist, and by conviction a Quaker, no small degree of liberty of conscience was naturally to be WILLIAM TENX. 43 expected in the constitution of tliis colony. And he care- fully provided "that all persons who confess and acknowledge the Almighty and Eternal God to be the creator, upholder, and I'uler of the world, * * * shall ui no ways be mo- lested nor compelled to frequent or mamtam any rehgious worship." Yet only those who professed " faith in Jesus Christ" were allowed to become freemen, a clause which would now, perha^Ds, exclude from the rights of suftrage not only every infidel and Jew, but a large portion of the very denomination to secure whose equal rights of conscience tlie colony was especially planted. This was far in advance of the age generally — it was in advance of Lord Baltimore's platform, out of deference to which it is not improbable that the clause as to fiiith m Christ was inserted, but it failed to recognize the true i^rmci^jle of " soul freedom," as set forth by Roger Wilhams in writings published forty years before. To Penu it doubtless seemed difficult to know where to draw the line, as it has to many both before and since. That all law essentially rests upon a rehgious basis no Avise man can doubt. So far, therefore, as^ imiversal religion teaches man, as man, the rights and duties which he owes to his fellow- citizens, so far his fellow-citizens may insist upon those rights bemg fully respected and those duties enforced. And it may also be theu' aim and poHcy to afford every oppor tunity to cultivate the rehgious sjjirit, which is a part of man's nature miiversally. But it has no right to make opmions a crime, unaccompanied by any overt act. And to enforce what God has been pleased to reveal by special revelation, is an insult to Him who declared, " 3Iy kingdoni is not of tills world." Unquestionably those who acknowl- edge the truth of Christianity feel assured that it can in no way contradict natural religion, but, on the contrary, gives 44 TVILLIAM PENN. to it its fullest, clearest, and most authentic expression, developing the highest moral ti-uths ages in advance of what they might otherwise have been discovered by human wis- dom. So far, however, as Christianity is a special revela- tion, and enjoins any new and particular duties on men, such as to be baptized or join a church, it is no part of the duty or right of the civil government to enforce them.' To do so is to interfere ^^-ith the prerogatives of the Mngdom of God. As to all matters of belief reqmi-ed by Christianity as a special revelation, it is stUl more objectionable to make them tests of citizenship. Here the principles of Roger Williams are far in advance of those of WilHam Penn, But no man, no body of men, should be made an ofi'ender for a word, and the Friends, as a whole, have argued and wrought nobly in defense of an unfettered conscience. To them has been given the prerog- ative of suffering greatly in this cause, and enduring more than any others, unless it has been ourselves. And yet a singular practical illustration may serve to show how dan- gerous it is to trust even the best Christians A\ith one par tide of excuse for using the power of the magistracy to promote the revealed truth, or put down error. In less than ten years from the promulgation of this " Frame of Government," the city of Philadelphia was thrown into no ' In regard to laws for enforcing the observance of the Sabbath, the first point on which Roger "Williams commenced his protests, see Way- land's Moral Science, p. 190. A Sabbath, that is, a period for religious cultivation, is a duty of natural religion. Hence the observance of that duty ought to be protected from all possible molestation and inconvenience. Government offices should be closed, therefore, by law, and all influence without persecution thrown in favor of that day most acceptable to the consciences of the best and largest number of citizens. THE FRIE:!iDS. 45 little confiision by the iutevforence of Quaker magistrates, as such, iu a dispute puri'ly religious. George Keith, foreseeiug that certain views of "plenary inward iUuniinatiou'" superseding the written word of God, Avould ultimately culminate in the modern Hieksite views, sj)oko much on this subject, for which he incm-red fines and imprisonments from some of the authorities, who were Friends, At last the case came before John Holmes, a magistrate and judge of considerable influence, but also a Baptist. He at once refused to concur with the Quaker magistrates, alleging that " it was a religious dispute, and therefore not fit for a civil court." The Keithians broke off from the rest of the Friends in 1691, procured a lot, and built a house of worsliip in Second street, Philadelpliia. And when, a few years afterward, the Baptists were itntairly expelled from a place of worship in Chestnut street, the use of tills house of the Keithians was kindly ottered to them. The members of that body sliortly afterward be- came Baptists, and thus the house ancLA'aluabk' lot so long occupied by the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia, came into their possession — an apt illustration of the effects of the exact exercise of principles of perfect liberty of conscience. For some years there were many so-called Quaker Baptists connected with that church. Down to the period of tlie American Revolution, all the other colonies probably, except Rhode Island and Pennsyl- vania, had more or less of an established Churi-h, and there- fore religious persecution. In Virginia, Avherc, from the first, the Church of England had been by law established, many acts were passed of a most intolerant character. Lord Baltimore and the Romanists were persecuted until a state of almost civil war existed between that colony and 46 NEW ENGLAND. Maryland. Laws intencled chiefly against the Quakers were used for the oppression of all, even the Presbyterians, and before a.d. 1650, more than one thousand N"ew England Congregationalists had been driven away by her oppressive severities.' In that State, as we shall hereafter see, the Bap- tists suffered severely untU after the struggle of the Revo- lution began. In New England, as we have seen, the Congregationalists were, on principle, at war with liberty of conscience, perse- cuting bitterly alike Roman Cathohcs, Quakers, and Bap- tists, except as deterred by occasional interference from Great Britain. These errors brought about, by their natural oi:)eration, severe consequence. The same alliance of Church and the Magistracy, which led to the persecution of Roger Wilhams, led also to the burnmg of the su2)j)osed witches in Salem, the very town fi-om which he was expelled. The same connection of the elective fi-ancliise and church mem- bership, led to the introduction of Unitarianism through the half covenant systen^ This at least was one of the causes. In that colony no man could become a voter, or eligible to ofiice, who was not a member of the Congregational Church. Hence arose a strong desire on the jiart of many of the children of the first settlers, men not themselves professmg personal piety, to become members, so far at least as to possess political rights. To accommodate them, an act was passed in 1663 which recognized all persons sprinkled in infancy as members of the Church, and then* children as entitled to baptism, even when the j^arents, makmg no pro- fession of j^ersonal faith, were not admitted to the commu- nion. In a few years later, another step ine\'itably followed, and such persons were mvited to the table of the Lord, ' Howison'a Historj' of Virginia, vol. ii. p. 160. NEW ENGLAND. 47 because they wore already church members. Thus were those who were not pious uitroducecl mto the churches m vast numbers. The pulpits Avere then recruited from theu* ranks, until the ministry became a mere profession, not re- quiring even an avowed belief m the doctrme of the new birth. Such was the imion of Church and State iu New England, and such its results. The above is a rapid sketch of the history of religious liberty, pv'or to the last himdrecl years. It was essentially a Baptist principle, derived by them, and by them alone, from their views of church-membership. It was first in- troduced by Roger Williams into the registered principles of actual statesmanship. In all this he was the precursor of MUton, and the superior of Oliver Cromwell and Jeremy Taylor. Bancroft has still further justly said : " If Coperni- cus is held in perpetual reverence, because on his death-bed he published to the world that the sun is the center of o\vc system — if the name of Kepler is preserved in the annals of human exceUence for his sagacity in detecting the laws of planetary motion— if the genius of Newton has been al- most adored for dissecting a ray of light, and weighing the heavenly bodies in a balance, let there be for the name of Roger Williams at least some humble place among those who have advanced moral science, and made themselves the benefactors of mankind." § n. Progress op Religious Liberty in the last Hundred Tears. There is not now probably a State or Territory m this Union in which there is left even the vestige of an Estab- lished Church, or of direct persecution on account of relig- ious opinions, unless indeed among the Mormon settlements 48 A HUNDEED TEARS AGO. in Xltali. Hardly an American is to be found any where who would vote to restore these injurious principles. In- deed this may be considered as one of the most marked features of American, as distmct from European, Christianity. But a hmidred years ago it was not so. There was more or less of an Estabhshed Church, and of persecution for conscience' sake, in the laws of all Europe, and of every one of the colonies, excepting only in Rhode Island and Pennsyl- vania. This was not the fault of civU governments so much as of religious sects. Not a siagle Pedobaptist denomina- tion held to the views now so universal m this country. Every one of them hi turn had claimed and exercLsed the right to promote religion by law, which involves a right to persecute aU oj^ponents. It is now only about a hundred years (1746) since the Protestants ventured to appear pub- licly in Languedoc and the south of France, so dreadful Avas the bitterness of the persecution to which they were sub- jected from the Cathohcs, after the massacre of St. Bar- tholomew, and the revocation of the Edict of Xantes; while, to this day, molestation and ^persecution of all Protest- ants are the most distmguishing characteristics of the French Papacy. The Episcopahans collected their tithes by law in England, and their tobacco tax in America, and conferred no offices of State but upon their O'^ahi communicants, not suffering a Roman Catholic to vote, even in Ireland. Pres- byterianism was as clearly established jjy law in Scotland, and Congregationalism m Xew England. What, then, has wrought the change — what has given these United States such perfect religious hberty as all enjoy ? Beyond all question, the successful workmg of the principles of a free conscience m Rhode Island and Penn- sylvania. Massachusetts beside the one and Virginia beside VIRGINIA. 49 the other, fined, imprisoned, and maltreated m various ways, by law, for conscience' sake. Yet it was not found to render the people more religious. On the contrary, it alienated the minds of some of the best citizens from each other and from the State, and two of the most orderly, re- ligious, and pleasant cities to reside in, even to this day, are Providence and Philadelphia, one being at the time of the Ilevolution the largest city of the Union, the other proba- bly the wealthiest in proportion to its size. Hence, when a struggle came which called for the most perfect union and strength of every colony individually, and of the whole collectively, the only course was to discontinue every occa- sion of dissension and ahenation, by allowing a perfect fi'ee- dom of religious opinions. • One immediate occasion of brmging all these prmciples into action was the persecution and estrangement produced by the Established religion in Virginia, preparmg and unit- ing the pubUc mind, to no small degree, in such a manner as to precipitate the American Revolution. Rapacity in claim- ing the tobacco tax, which was the legal support of the Episcopal clergy, and negligence in the performance of their duties, had made the Established ministers impopular with the planters, who had this tax to pay. A rotten system will, however, stand for a long time, provided there is noth- ing to give the people an idea of any thmg better. But that idea once given, the first accident will overthrow an establishment that has lost its hold upon the affections of the people. It was so now. Some small but zealous bodies of Baptists, converted m Xew England in the revivals un- der Whitefield, had moved southward as missionary com- munities, and settled for a time in Yirgmia. They were called New Lights, on account of their zeal, and were for 3 60 VIEGIXIA. many years the constant subject of every indignity. But their zeal sustained them, and the more they Avere perse- cuted the more they grew. The complete contrast which they exhil)ited to the prevailing coldness of all, and the utter dea(hiess of the worldly ministers of the EstabUshed Church, elevated them in the eyes of the people. The Episcopal clergy lost their hold upon the religious feelings of the peo- ple by their profligacy, and these Baptists gained it by their zeal. The magistrates and aristocratic friends of the EstabUshed Church felt their danger, and imprisoned all the more zeal- ous Baj^tist preachers on whom they could lay hands. This only raised theii- popularity with the common people, until at length it became a sapng of then- enemies, that it was useless to incarcerate the Baptists, as they would only preach more successfully from the prison windows. A short crop of tobacco at this juncture did what other^-ise a cen- tury might not have effected — it united the powerful and haughty aristocracy of Virginia with the masses, against the Established Church. Tobacco was scarce, and the price was high. The clergy demanded their per centage in kind, and refiised to take the customary equivalent of the usual price jDer pound. The colony of Virginia passed a law in favor of commutation at the usual price, it being worth many times more. Ilie clergy appealed through the Bishop of London, and an Order in Council nullified the law. So far, the Established Church triumphed. But Avhen they brought a suit to recover, Patrick Henry, whose feelings were "\\4th the masses, inflaming the passions of the jury with his ovv n eloquence, obtained a verdict against the law, on revolutionary principles, which practically nullified the power of the Crown, and made the colonial law su- VIRGINIA. 51 preme. From that hour, the influence of the Established Church was destroyed ia Virginia. The aristocracy of Vir- ginia, through the House of Assembly, at once united in retaining Patrick Henry, the man of the people, to defend them, by destroying the Established Church. The work was done efiectually. Baptists stUl continued to be impris- oned and tried " for preachmg the Gospel of the Son of God ;" but this only awoke the orator of the people to higher efforts of eloquence. Liberty of conscience for per- secuted Baptist ministers, was the theme which inspired him ■u-ith an eloquence, the traditions of which almost sur- pass belief These tilings all wrought upon the public mind to such an extent, that, in 1776, it is said fully two thirds of the people were dissenters. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War all persecution for religious opinions was forever blotted from the statute-books, and almost by the end of that struggle, the last vestige of the union of Church and State, or the compulsory support of religion, was, chiefly through the influence of the Baptists, abol- ished, in this the most populous and influential State of that time. Up to a certain point, the labors of Patrick Henry were of great use in securing these triumphs of religious liberty. He pleaded for them nobly and boldly, but the Baptists, on whose behalf he spoke, suffered for them and pleaded too. In some of the later stages of these move- ments, he hesitated and compromised, where Jefferson, who, though a free-thinker, had studied carefully the prin- ciples of the Baptists, took the lead, and carried them through. Others, of course, assisted in this great work be- sides Baptists ; the Presbyterians, vigorously ; and these two seemed to form the conscience, so to speak, of the movement. So little, however, were their principles appre- 52 NEW ENGLAND. ciated at the time, tliat the Methodists joined with the Ejiiscopalians, and took decided ground in favor of the support of rehgion by the State/ and in every movement favorable to hberty of conscience and entire separation of Church and State, the Baptists " took the lead." ^ Nor were they less active in other parts of the country, or in other ways. In Massachusetts, w]) to the time of the Declaration of Independence, the Baptists were subjected to severe persecutions by the standing order. Pecuniary assessments, considered quite unjust, were made in the name of religion. These demands the Baptists refused to pay, and then- property was seized to large, often exorbitant, amounts, the object being apparently thus to break them tip. A committee of remonstrance was formed in Philadel- phia, and large funds were raised by committees of Baptist Churches and associations all over the country to assist in defraymg their expenses and burdens. What made their case harder was, that the very men who were upholding Church establishments among Congre* gationalists, were opposing them on purely Baptist piiiici- ples, when urged by the Church of England. The English Government clearly contemplated the taxing of all the American Colonies to support the Episcopal clergy in them. Against this Dr. Chauncey wrote strongly : " We are in principle against all civil estabUshments in rehgion, and as we do not desire any establishment in support of our own religious sentiments or practice, Ave can not reasonably be blamed if we are not disposed to encourage one in favor of the Episcopal colonists." lie went on to declare that the religion of Jesus Christ had suffered more from such estab- lishments than from all other causes put together, and that * Hawkes, p. 142. * Howison, vol. ii. p. ITO. ISAAC BACKUS. 53 the primitive purity, simplicity, and glory of religion would never be restored till they were all put doA^Ti, And yet this very man for thirty years advocated the compulsory support of Congregationalist worship by law/ The plan adopted m Massachusetts seemed indeed com- paratively mild in itself, considered for an establishment. Each parish called its own minister, and then a tax was laid on all by law for his support. If dissenters could prove that they were members of some other congregation, to the support of which they paid, they were to receive a certifi cate of exemption. These certificates, however, were so little useful that, in the small town of Stanbridge, Mass., in two years the Baptists lost about four hundred dollars un. justly. In 1752 all Baptist Churches were excluded even fi-om the power of giving certificates to their own members until they had got a document, signed by three other Bap- tist Churches, that they were conscientiously Anabaptists^ ov rebaj^tizers^^hich. of course all such denied. In 1768 a law was made by which the proprietors could lay a tax upon all the lands for the support of the town minister. And in 1770 three hundred and ninety-eight acres of land, owned by Baptists, were sold to pay this tax. A single trial the year before had cost two hundred and fifty dollars. Li fine they were subjected to great vexations and injustice. To meet this, the Baptists of Rhode Island, New York, and Philadelphia, appointed committees of remonstrance to raise money, relieve their persecuted brethren, and to awaken a spirit in favor of perfect liberty of conscience and the separation of Church and State. Isaac Backus, the general agent of the Baptists for this purpose, was one whose name wiU always be remembered in the history of ' Backus, p. 186. 54 COXTIXENTAL CONGEESS, 1774. this struggle for the ability and zeal with which he united the whole influence of the denomination in favor at once of ci\'il and reUgious fi-eedom, most usefully to the cause of both.' The first Continental Congress ever held was in 1774, in Philadelphia, two years before the Declaration of Independ- ence. It had not been in session ten days before these comittees, as repi-esentatiA^es of the denommation, memorial- ized Congress that they united with their country in de- fense of its privileges, and besought them to secure at once the recognition of the mallenahle rights of conscience. Committees were appointed, and the whole subject was dis- cussed with much earnestness. If no unmediate result fol- lowed, the final efiect fully realized the most sanguine hopes. For a tmie one of the leading men of Massachusetts, on his return from the Congress, endeavored to use the matter to excite popular j^rejudice agamst the Baptists. But it failed, and only showed that the matter had not dropped before the Continental Congress until the four delegates from Mas- sachusetts had pledged themselves " to use thek influence in favor of the rehgious Hberty" the Baptists there con- tended for. And when, at the meeting of the Provmcial Congress of Massachusetts shortly afterward, the Baptists presented themselves and requested to realize the good ef- fect of this influence, the following resolution was adopted, which the great change of popular feeling fully endorsed : "In PROTiNCLiL CoNGHESS, December 9, 1774. " On readbig the memorial of the Rev. Isaac Backus, agent to 'he Baptist Churches in this Government, Hesolced, That the establishment of civil and reUgious 1 ELildi-eth, vol. ii. p. 577. CHURCH AND STATE MASSACHUSETTS. 55 liberty to each denomination in the province is the sincere wish of this Congress ; but being by no means vested with powers of civil government, whereby they can redress the grievances of any person whatever, they therefore recom- mend to the Baptist Churches that when a General Assem- bly shall be convened m this Colony, they lay the real grievances of said churches before the same ; when and where their petition will most certainly meet with all that attention due to the memorial of a denomuiation of Chris- tians so well disposed to the pubHc weal of thek country. " By order of the Congress, " John Hancock, President." Accordingly the Baptists memorialized the next session of the Massachusetts Legislature, 1775. In domg so they said, "Our real grievances are, that we, as well as our fathers, have from time to time been taxed on rehgious ac- counts where we were not represented, and our causes have been tried by interested judges. I^or a civil Legislature to impose religious taxes, is, toe conceive, a power ichich their constituents never had to give, and therefore going entirely out of their jurisdiction. We are persuaded that an entire freedom from bemg taxed by civil rulers to rehgious wor- ship is not a mere favor from any man or men in the world, but a right and property granted us by God, who commands us to stand fast in it. We should wi'ong our consciences by allowing that power to men which we believe belongs only to God." This memorial was debated and referred to a committee, who reported favorably, and a bill was brought in, read once, and a time set for its second reading ; but being crowded out by other business, the Baptists Avere shuffled 56 COXSTITUTION OF THE ITXITED STATES, for a time out of Avhat none noAv pretended to be other than just, and the last rehcs of Church and State were not abol- ished in Massachusetts until 1832. But it Mas thus the Baptists defended this great princi- ple in the forming period of the national naind and character. The Quakers sympathized in then* principles, and their weight in Philadelphia was great, but the influence of the Baptists was more conspicuous from the active part they took, as chaplains, and soldiers, and advocates of the Revo- lutionary struggle. By the time of the close of the war of Independence, the principles of religious liberty had become almost national. In 1787 the act for the government of the ISTorth-west Territory pro^-ided that "no person should ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or re- ligious sentiment in the said Tei-ritory." Nothing, how- ever, had been done by Congress to secure religious liberty elsewhere. In August, 1789, therefore, a committee of the Baptist Churches in Virginia presented an address to Gen- eral TTashington wherein they expressed a high regard for him, but " a fear that our religious rights were not well se- cured in our new Constitution of government." In ansAver to this he assured them of his readiness to nse his influence to make these rights indisputable, declaring that the relig- ious society of which they were members had been "through- out America uniformly the persevering promoters of the glorious Revolution." In the followmg month, accordingly, an amendment to the Constitution was passed declaring that Congress should " make no law respecting any establish- ment of religion, or j^rohibiting the free exercise thereof" ' Thus was the whole weight of the example of the general government thrown against all religious establishments, and 1 Backus, chap. 12. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE UNITED STATES. 57 its iufluence secured in favor of the free exercise of the conscience on all such matters. About this time, i. e. 1788, the Presbyterian Church of the United States adopted a " Form of Goveiimient," in which they fully and distinctly express themselves in favor of per- fect liberty of conscience, and the complete separation of Church and State. Up to this tune all governments, and nearly all men, however pious, had feared that if religion were left without other support than the fi'ee choice of the worshipers, it would dechne. Nor was it any confidence in the purity of human nature that had led Baptists, so long before, to con- tend for an imrestrained conscience ; rather was it a strong sense of the want which all men feel of just such a system as the Gospel to meet their deepest necessities, and to heal the diseases of the soul. It was not that they were indif- ferent to reUgion or to truth, but because they knew that while the sword of the magistrate might produce hypocrites, it could never make Christians. It was not even that they grudged tithes, but because they relied on the power of re- ligion to support worship, and felt it an injury and an insult to conscience to make men pay for systems in which they did not believe. It was not that they despised human gov- ernments, but because they honored the government and authority of God, that they denied the jurisdiction of the magistrate in matters of religion. At the present day, no principles are so familiar to all ears, and so responded to by all hearts, through the length and breadth of this land. They spread with the principles of American independence, ffere incorporated in the Constitution of the Union, and now belong, without important practical exceptions, to each of the States. 3* 58 EELIGIOtJS LIBERTY IN EUROPE. The elements of nature are oftentimes most powerftiUy at work -vvlieii most silent ; and it was by quiet influences upon the colonies, such as have been portrayed, from the times of Roger Williams to those of the Revolutionary struggle, that the principles of reUgioiis hberty became in- corporated, not only in the statute book of civil law, but in the religious belief and conscience of the United States, the great unwritten creed of American Christianity. The only astonishment and difiiculty now with many of the readers of this work will be to conceive that the rights of conscience have ever been doubted and disputed. The adoption of the Constitution, with its first amend- ment, before quoted, placed the United States foremost of all the nations of the earth in recognizing and sustaining the great truths of rehgious hberty. Its example and influ- ence have been more powerftd in diflfasing these than can readily be expressed. Theii- leaven has worked, and is working, among the nations of the earth, and producing the most astonishing results. In England, untU 1829, Dissenters were barely tolerated. No man could hold any civil oflfice, or have a seat in ParUa- ment, or be even a simple collector of the taxes, without communing in the Church of England once a year. Now the Dissenters have the largest nimiber of worshipers. It is hardly sixty years since the East India Company possessed the power, and openly used it, of preventing missionaries from sailing in English vessels for their possessions, support- ing the native idolatries, and assuming to fi•o^v^l on and frustrate all attempts at conversion. Now this is abohshed. The Test and Corporation Acts even have been repealed ; the Union of Church and State is every year gi\'ing way at some new point ; Canada is secularizing the Chm-ch lands EELIGIOUS LIBERTY IX EUROPE. 59 ynih the consent of the home government, and the Dis- senters are being admitted into the Universities. If the Madiai are persecuted in Italy, or an Oncken in Germany — il^ in any part of Europe, oppression for conscience' sake is carried on, next to America, England is the first to plead in behalf of full religious liberty. The voice of public oinnion is now heard and feared on these subjects by all the spiritual tyrants of Europe. Spain and Italy have been compelled to abandon the horrors of the Inquisition, and those abodes of terror to disgorge their prey. Tlie King of Prussia is understood to be setting his face agamst intolerance, and the mmisters of the Estab- lished Chui'ch of that kingdom, no less than its more en- lightened members, are beginnmg to protest against infant baptism being compulsory, either to avoid persecutions or to secure membership m the Establishment. France has, by oj)en proclamation, again and again given the most pub- lic and positive assurances of equal religious protection to all, and if these assurances are still in a measure violated, it is only by temporary intrigues of the Jesuits, which sooner or later will bring their own retribution. At this moment the Mohammedan empire, whose persecut- ing sword used to be the horror and scourge of Christen- dom, has entered into a treaty with France and England guaranteeing throughout its wide dominions perfect religious liberty, and England is understood to be seekmg the recog- nition of the rights of conscience as a part of the xaw of nations. In Barmah, where, thirty years ago, Judsi.n was persecuted well-nigh to death, religious Hberty is now fully enjoyed. In China an encroachment upon this great right produced the rising of that free party which is now so rapidly diifusing the name, at least, of Chi-ist, and many 60 CONVERTED CHUECU-MEMBERS HIP. principles of His leiigion through that vast empu-e. In deed, the leader of that movement is one who for months studied Christianity trader a Baptist missionary at Canton, and, it is said, even apphed for baptism, but was refused. Thus far, at least, has the whole world been coming round to these great truths, first embodied, vindicated, and main- tained by the Baptists. Except the Russian dominions, there is hardly a country of importance in the world that has not felt the power of this prmciple. Progress has been made which a hundred years ago would have been impossible to anticipate ; and from America to China, from England to India, doctrmes of religious hberty have been carried home to the hearts of many millions. CHAPTEK III. A COJ^VERTED C H U R C H - M E M B E R S H I P . NoTHiXG will more forcibly impress the mind of a pious American, traveling in Europe, than the different religious atmospheres inhaled by the masses on the two sides of the Atlantic. It is a great difierence that he wUl feel when he enters a Protestant as distinct from a Roman CathoUc State. But there is a more striking distinction between American Christianity, as a whole, and that of the continent of Europe, where Church Establishments are in every coim- try. Here a man's religious professions are the result of personal con\dction ; there they appear so uniformly as the effect of the law, routine, or instruction, as seldom to imply earnest individual piety at all. Xot that dcA^otion is lacking in Europe ; but simply that the most rehgious do not pro- ROMAN CATHOLIC PROGRESS. 61 fess more than others, those utterly destitute of it being en- titled to become its professors and its ministers as much as any others. Dr. Baird has observed that he found the most intelligent persons in Europe quite at a loss to comprehend this difterent feature of Christianity in the two continents.' Among all classes of Americans, however pious or however worldly, and as a general tlung, of whatever denomination, the conviction seems natural that a man does not become a Christian merely in consequence of being born in a particular State, or inducted m mfancy mto a nominal connection with some church, but by personal choice and earnest rehgious character. All through Europe, except among certain small, well-marked evangeUcal denominations, the idea is cuiTcnt that every one born in a Christian land must be considered a member of the National Church, no matter what his private belief or character. Here pubhc sentiment, and the luiAvritten Christianity of the country, seem to suggest instinctively that none ought to be received as full members of any church, or re- garded as true Christians, with whom sound morality and steady piety is not a matter of estabhshed personal influence and supremacy. We are not miaware that there are several exceptions to this spirit ; and in some cases a settled pur- pose is evident to resist what is esteemed an American in- fluence encroaching into the domain of religion. In the Roman Catholic Church, for instance, this detennination is most strongly manifested on the part of most of the spiritual guides ; and yet to any one brought up with Papists in Europe, the general change of sentiment among the laity in this direction, which by degrees manifests itself, is greater than could possibly have been expected. Roman Catholic- ' Religion in America, book v. chap. 4. 62 PROGRESS IX THE EPISCOPAL CHTTRCH. ism not only loses its hold on multitudes m'Iio come to this country, but it is altogether a different thing for those who remain in its communion from what it is either in Europe, or in Mexico, or in Canada. As when one who has long lived in a flat coimtry, climbing a mountain top on a clear day, feels by the play of his lungs that the atmospheric pressure is not the same, and that he breathes a different air ; so now even a Roman Catholic on coming to this country finds himself in a perfectly new religious atmosphere, one that has in it the pressure of a greater and more direct personal responsibility. The priest is no longer the mere tool of the bishop, nor the layman of the priest. It is not simply that both are more free, but also that both have a stronger sense of direct personal responsibifity to God ; not simply that the layman wUl not perform what he considers an arbitrary penance, but that he will claim, his right to read the Word of God. And probably more Bibles are circulated and read by the Roman Catholics m this country than in any, perhaps, of all the countries of Europe. Large numbers of copies of the Douay version are freely to be ob- tained M-ith the approbation of the priests themselves. This silent change, giving to every man's religion a closer personal character, is also manifested in its degree in the Episcopal Church. So long as it Avas a national institution, it was necessary that it should admit every one to its priv- ileges, and in England to this day the laws compel a cler- gyman to administer the communion to all baptized in infancy, and without reference to personal character, pro- vided they are not proved to be scandalous offenders. The trouble and expense of establishing this proof are so great as to leave even the most pious minister very little power to withhold this official testimonial of the communion of the THE MEECERSBURG SCHOOL. 63 Church. By the same laAV, however neglectful they may have been of every voluntary mark of Christian character, he is compelled to proclaun them when they die his be- loved brethren who have " departed this life in sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection." But in this country the entire separation of the Church from the State has prodiiced a very marked alteration and improvement in the character of the Episcopal Church. It is not merely that there is a vast mcrease of lay power, but a deeper sense of personal interest and responsibility rest- ing upon the communicants as a class. So it is not a matter of simple form and routine for their young people on arriv- ing at a certain age to be confirmed and partake of the com- munion, but to a greater extent than heretofore those only whose hearts are touched "O'ith a personal and supreme interest in religion receive the symbols. Tiiie, all this im- provement is rather in practice than in theory, and the ten- dency among the clergy in some sections has been of late years to magnify and restore an exploded reverence for a merely ritual religion. Yet this is a movement with which the masses of the people of that denomination have but httle sympathy. But some kind of knowledge and earnest regard for religion, some indications of personal piety are required more generally than ever before, while in many of the Churches their ministers preach the doctrines of the new birth and Christian conflict ^vith the utmost clearness ; nor would they think of recommending the people of their charge to appear at the table of the Lord mthout the e^i- dences of conversion. In the German Reformed Church, Drs. ISre\an and Schaif, of the Mercersburg School, may contend that it is an error to attempt to have a Church below composed wholly of 64 THE BAPTISTS. those savingly converted to God ; but tliis again is rather the eftbrt of a few of the clergy to bring back then- people to a state of things current a himdred years ago, and in Europe, than a movement generally sustamed by the Churches. It is, in fact, an eiFort to galvauize new life into infant baptism. But the great mass of the reformed denom- inations in this country, of German origin, now hold to the l^ropriet J of requiring personal faith jjrior to full commim- ion. The great numerical bulk of American Churches are imited on the same point of a voluntary and converted Church membership. So wide-spread indeed is the con- viction that unconverted persons should not be communi- cants, that very few of them would think it right to par- take if invited. Denominations seem to be unpopular in proportion as they favor an unconverted membership. AU of them, mcluding Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and even Episcopahans, are sho'ttm by the last census to em- brace not above a sixth of the whole Church-going popu- lation, Now it is, if we mistake not, this wide-spread con- viction that Christianity does not consist in forms and ceremonies, but in the personal surrender of the heart to God, and that the converted alone should be communicants, which constitutes the great superiority of American over European Christianity.^ But however simple, clear, and natural all this may now appear, it was not so a hundred years ago. At that tune the Baptists stood alone, the only denomination in this country that made a credible profession of personal piety a pre-reqiiisite to their communion. It was then generally esteemed a Baptist peculiarity. It is so treated by Knapp in his Theology.^ He admits that the Novations, Dona- • See Baird's Relig. in America, b. v. c. 4. ' Sect. 135, 2, and 141, 2. THE METHODISTS. 65 tists, Waldenses, AVickliffites, and Hussites, also held it, and that their labors " had, U2:»on the "vvhole, a mighty beneficial efiect ;" that " in times of ignorance and unbelief they have been the depositories of uncorrupted Christianity," and that " without them the Reformation would never have taken place." Yet he maintams, in common with most of the Pedobaptists of Europe, that "the external visible Church can not be a society consisting of pious Christians only, but rather a imrsery designed to raise up many for the mvisible Kingdom." A hundred years ago, except Whitefield, discarded as a " new light," there was scarcely an evangehcal preacher to be found in the Episcopal Church in this country, or one who considered any thing more as necessary to regeneration or to make a man a Christian, than the baptism of his infancy. It was not mitil within seventy years that the Methodists, now so efficient in evangelical labors, considered themselves as other than a mere converted society m an unconverted Church, from which they received the communion, and wdth which they identified themselves. They have therefore not unnaturally borrowed many expressions and views from the Church of England. Even John Wesley tried hard to up- hold its teachings, on the subject of Baptismal regeneration, in language which no Methodist now teaches.^ Their stand- ard writers* regard baptism as the entrance of the visible Church. But by a happy mconsistency, produced by their evangelical preaching, they do not now seem to admit that persons ought to be complete members until after conver- sion. The language of their book of Discipline is, however not decisive,^ and " seekers" are often urged to partake of 1 See Wesley's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. pp. 157, 8. 2 See Watson's Theology, vol. ii. pp. 595, 626, 3 Chapter ii. sec. 2. 66 ARCHIBALD ALEXAXDER. the comniitnion as a suitable means of grace to this day. Among the Presb}i:erians it is just about a hundred years since Gilbert Tennent was foimdmg Princeton Seminary to educate evangelical ministers. At that time, so far from conversion being esteemed necessary to full communion, it was a matter of formal discussion whether it was proper to require the credible profession of a change of heart in the ministry, and considered that it was not. At the present time, no body of Christians are more clear and judicious upon this point than the Prcsbytei'ians, both those of the old and those of the new school. Yet even now there is nothing in their confession of f:\ith to prevent the recej^tion of unconverted persons as communicants. The Established Church of Scotland, with a similar confession, does not re- quire conversion. The change, then, is one in the spirit of the people, or the age, not in the constitution of their churches, or the text of then- laws, and at the time to which we refer, the Tennents were jeered at as "new lights," and mere enthusiasts. To this day, their form of government' declares that all their baptized are members of the Church, and " are bound to perform all the duties of church mem- bers." Thus it is quite clear that however evangehcal this excellent body of Christians may now be in practice, their Confession, and, above all, their infant baj^tism, have an oppo- site tendency, dra-^-ing them back toward a system Avliich would mtroduce the world mto the Church, by making tho terms of admission too regardless of personal piety. In the life of the late venerable Dr. Archibald Alexander, of Princeton, is found a record by himself of the struggles through which his mmd passed on the subject of infant ' Book ii. of Discipline, chap. 1. PROGRESS AMOXG PKES B YTERI AJTS . 67 baptism. It refers to a period while he was President of Hampden Sidney College, Virginia, from 1797 to 1799, about ten or twelve years before his appointment to the more important post he so long and so honorably tilled at the head of the Princeton Theological Seminary. "About this tune," he says, " I fell mto doubts respectmg the au- thority of inflmt bajitism. The origin of these doubts Avas 171 too rigid notions as to the purity of the Churchy \nX\i a behef that receivmg infants had a corruptmg tendency. I communicated my doubts very freely to my friend Mr. Lyle, and to Mr. Speece (Presbyterian mhiisters, who were his assistants m the college), and found that they both had been troubled by the same. We talked much privately on the subject, and often conversed A\'ith others in hope of getting some new light. At length Mr. Lyle and I determined to give up the practice of baptizmg infants until we should re- ceive more tight. This determination we publicly commu- nicated to our jieople (churches in the vicmity which they statedly supplied as pastors), and left them to take such measures as they deemed expedient." We may hereafter notice the rest of the remarks by Dr. Alexander. At present we desire only to quote this to show that a belief in the " corrupting tendency of infant baptism led Dr. A. at one time very seriously to think and speak of " joming the Baptists," and that he could not get rid of these impressions without lowering his views " as to the purity of the Church." He intimates in fact that the Baptist notions on the subject are " too rigid." We have been happy to believe that our Presbyterian brethren have now practically adopted the principle of admitting to fuU communion those only who give credible evidence of personal piety. This is what Bap- tists have ever maintained, and we should be sorry to learn 68 CONGREGATIONALISTS. that tlie denomination of which Dr. A. was so distinguished an ornament had abandoned it. A hundred years ago, nearly all the Congregational Churches of Massachusetts were passing through the dark- est part of that cloud which drove off ultimately so many into Unitarianism. For sixty or seventy years longer, it overwhelmed with confusion all attempts to establish the denomination on the basis of a converted membership. That rare and holy man, Jonathan Edwards, was dismissed from liis church at Northampton, Massachusetts, for no other reason than the maintenance of these very views, and was, at the time of which we speak, laboring in exile, on this ac- count, among the North American Indians. The teachings of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Tennents, which had led to "the great awakening," had also produced the desire in many quarters that the system then current of admitting all persons of reputable life, who had been sprinkled m in- fancy, to the communion-table, should be abandoned. Sev- eral churches had adopted Edwards' views, but the great body were opposed to them. Large numbers of these " new lights," as they were stigmatized, became Baptists, however, on this very account. All the way between Massachusetts and Georgia, no other denomination held this principle of church-membership ; nor was it until within about thirty years, that the Congrega- tionalists became completely separated from the Unitarians, and the most fundamental part of their present constitution came to be a featiire of their denominational character. Dr. Baird has sho^vTi that Unitarianism originally grew out of a dislike to the practice of requii'uig evidence of piety in can- didates for admission to the churches.^ ' Religion in America, book vii. chap. 3. UNITARIAN VIEWS. 69 In 1790 there was but one Congregational Church in Boston that maintained orthodox views ; and so cold had it become as to be unable to keep up any prayer-meeting. When its lamp of piety was weU-nigh extmguished, it was the zeal incidentally imparted to those noble and struggling brethren at a Baptist Church that rekindled the smolder- ing fire in a Church " beloved for their fathers' sakes." Thus in due time they were enabled to throw off the uicu- bus which had so long paralyzed their movements. But in 1812 aU but two of these churches were still Unitarian. The views of our Congregational brethren, therefore, on this subject of the relation of the baptized to the visible churches, have been extremely unsettled and contradictory at different periods, and in the view of different authorities. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts holds that part of the communicants yviih which the majority of the parish concur, to be " the Church," and on this decision Unitarians now hold many houses of worship and endowments. This must have been upon the princii^le that the children, being bap- tized, are a part of the Church. Infant baptism has always been held by them to produce some kind of connection ^ith it, though precisely what, it is hard to define. Or rather, it has been with them, as with many other denominations, at those periods in which piety has shone the brightest, the effect of mfant baptism has been least perceptible, while in proportion as personal religion has declined, the value pxit upon the ceremony has increased. For the first thirty years after the landing of the Pilgrims, none of those bajDtized in infancy were, in most of the churches, admitted to the com- munion, or other privileges of membership, until they pro- fessed personal piety. But in 1657, a Synod was called in Boston to consider this matter, in special reference to the 70 PROGKESS OF BAPTIST VIKWS, right of voting in the town meetings — a poUtical franchise, yet permitted only to Church members. They decided that the baptized, as such, ought to be considered members of the Church, under its discipline, and should be admitted to all the privileges excejit communion. Even thLs last prerog- ative was generally accorded to them a few years later. About a hundred and fifty churches ha^nng been thus led Dff into Unitarianism, the orthodox Congregationalists have, amid a variety of theories, turned practically to the plan of admitting to chiirch-priAoleges such only as give credible e\'idence of conversion. Dr. Bushnell, in his work on Christian Nurture, no less than Dr. Nevins, has clearly showni that the Congregationalists have never had any well- settled theory as to the precise relations of the baptized to the Church ; but that the views of Edwards and their pres- ent course are essentially " Baptist in theory," and ought to lead those who hold them to become so in fact. The sim- ple principle of behevers' baptism naturally makes a credi- ble profession of personal piety pre-requisite to visible church-membership ; and it has been in a very great meas- ure the bold and fearless manner in which our fathers up- held this truth by preaching and by practice, by which the whole Christian world has been so greatly refoiTned, and the religious sentiment of the country changed in its favor. It has been worth all the prayers, struggles, and suffer- ings which it has cost, to effect what has been accom- phshed. What Baptist can look back upon the last century, and view the great change wrought in pubHc opinion, and m all the prevailing denominations, ^nthout being ready to exclaim, " What hath God WTOught ?" Never, perhaps, in the history of the Church, has the gi-eat truth of a convert- ed church-membership been so clearly taught as at the PROGRESS IN EUROPE. 71 present day. It is si:)reading on every side. Where mis- sions are established by the evangehcal denominations abroad, it is planted, and none are admitted as communi- cants until they give evidence of being personally and sav- ingly interested in the truths of the Gospel. In England this principle has an entii-e ascendency among the evangeli- cal Dissenters, and in all their missions, while many of the "Episcopalians uphold it in all but practice, and through the circulation of such tracts as those of Leigh Richmond and others, spread it among all classes, and indeed all nations. In France and S^^dtzerland, the writings of 3ilerle D'Au- bigne, and men of that theological school, open it to the large classes of readers. Throughout a large part of Ger- many, Denmark, and Sweden, it is spreading through the labors of men like Oncken and his associates. While in Prussia, the present King, as head of the National Church, has within a few months issued a document of much signifi- cance, announcmg his " determination to place his mlierited authority" in the hands of " ajjostolically-foi-med churches ;" that is, as he goes on to explain, "• churches of small appa- rent size, in each of which the life, the order, and the offices of the Univei'sal Church are brought into activity, in sliort independent self-increasing creations, by which, as with liv- ing stones, the Apostles of' the Lord commenced building." Doubtless the researches and communications of such men as Neander and Bimsen, no less than those of Oncken, have in part produced these salutary convictions. It is a pleasant and a glorious thing to see human learn- ing and power coming round at length to concede and to support, in the very same terms, what for centuries our fathers have contended and suffered for all over the world, i. e., that every true Church of God is built up of Uvely V2 PROGEESS IN EUROPE. stones a spiritual house. Far be it from us to undervalue the labors and principles of aU other evangehcal Christians in bringing about a healthy state of religious opinion on this unportant point. Every sermon preached on regenera- tion has contributed to this result. But to us it seems clear that if the evangelical rehgion of other denominations is in favor of the truth in question, the practices of Pedobaptists are essentially opposed to it. In a word, Baptists alone can consistently advocate a church-membership composed ex- clusively of those who make a credible profession of per- sonal piety. It is necessary for the sake of their other principles. But all Pedobaptists hold it only by a happy inconsistency with theirs. For if infant baptism does not entitle its recipients to become -visible church-members, what does it effect ? Just now all tliis may be called the popular sentiment of the whole country, but the time might soon come, should the practice of infant baptism remain, when all should retrograde. This, the late declension of evangelical sentiments in the Episcopal Church, and the wiitmgs of the Mercersburg School, mdicate but too plainly. Dr. Baird, in his "Religion in America," rej^resents many per- sons in Europe as utterly unable to comprehend the relation which the children of pious parents sustain to the churches in this country. He speaks of it as one practically "invisible" in all evangelical communions, and presses, as the advantage accruing, that the miconveited " occupy their proper place." Thus on the one hand mfant baptism is j^erpetuaUy draw ing all these chm-ches into the vortex of a mere ritual rehg ion, while on the other, evangelical truth, so far as it pre- vails, leads the people to become, as Dr. Xevin and Dr. BushneU both show, " ^Baptist in tJieory,'''' even where they neglect to become so in practice. SAFETY OF UNBAPTIZED II^FANTS. 73 CHAPTEE lY. SACEAME>T"S INOPERATIVE WITHOUT CHOICE AIND FAITH. Chevalier Buxsex in his work called " Hippolytus orn infants, and she did so on principle. The ancient \i. 6., ante-Xicene] Church, as a general rule, baptized adults, and only after they had gone through a course of instruction ; and, as the exception, only Christian children who had not arrived at years of maturity, hut never infants. Tertullian's opposi- tion is to the baptism of young gro^^dng children. lie does not say one word about new-born inlants. Xeither does Origen, when his expressions are accurately weighed. Cy- prian and some other African bishops, his cotemporaries, at the close of the third century, were the first who viewed baptism in the light of a wasliing away of the universal sin- fiilness of human nature, and connected this idea -R-ith that ordmance of the Old Testament — circumcision." He goes on to give the reasons why " the Church has been dragged into this icrong path /" and concludes by saying, " This is the consequence of the admission of an untruth. When the Church attached rights and promises of blessmg ' Book iiL chap. 6. 2 VoL iii. p. 194. RISE OF INFANT BAPTISM BUNSEN. 105 to any thing except to the conscious abandonment of sin, and to the voluntary voto of dedicating life and soul to the Lord, the consciousness of sm and the longing for real truthful reformation died away in the same proportion among her members." Comparmg ancient baptism with modern, he says,' "But if you look closely into the ecclesiastical condition of the two ages, are you not overpowered by one predomuiant feeling ? And is not this the feeling that in the one age we find upon the whole, connection, reality, internal and exter- nal truth ; in the other little else but patchwork and ruins, shams and phantoms ? That in one case a real life was lived, a life of freedom as to the Church and as to the in- dividual ; that in the other conventionalism is fostered, or rather in most instances maintained by fire and sword, by the tyranny of State Churches, or by the unthinking super- stition of habit ? and that such a state of things is most ill- advisedly vaunted as possessing vitality, while it most im- pudently proclaims itself perfect and infallible. "Tlie ancient baptism comprised on Gospel grounds /bwr spiritual elements — instruction, exammation, the vow, the initiation. * * * Thus did the beggar enter into the communion of the faithful, thus the emperor when he ven- tured to do so. Constantme considered of it until his death- bed." " It is impossible but that this ceremony should have produced a great general impression, which was not dimin- ished if the initiated were the child of Christian parents. The act was his axon as much as it was in the case of a con- vert fi-om heathenism. The very gradual advancement, even of the age of baptism in the case of children of Christian families, must have been injurious to its charac- ' VoL iii. p. 201. 5* 106 KISE OF INFANT BAPTISM BUNSEN. ter as a solemnity. "We have already seen hoAV, even before the close of our period, [a.d. 325] the baptism of new-born infants grew out of that of childi-en advancing toward the age of boyhood. We have seen how, fi-om the baptism of the spirit, which Christ instituted, j^eople re- lapsed mto ceremonial law, and fell back upon the shadow of a Je'R'ish custom (cu-cumcision) which had ceased to be bind- ing Avith the extinction of the nation, and now was made a sanction for the rehgion of the new covenant of humanity. " Li consequence of this alteration and complete subver- sion of its main features, brought about principally by the Afi'icans of the tliird century and completed by Augustine, these natural elements have been, in the course of nearly fifteen centuries, most tragically decomposed^ and nothing is noxi} remaining any lohere hut ruins. In the East people adhered to immersion, although this spnbol of man volim- tarily and consciously making a vow of the sacrifice of self, lost all meaning in the immersion of a new-Tiorn child. The Eastern Church, moreover, practiced the ujiction im- mediately after the unmersion, although that unction un- plies even more than immersion, man's full consciousness ; and is to be the seal of a free pledge of a responsible act. Yet the Eastei'n Church requii-es, nevertheless, the genei'al recognition of both as necessary to salvation, and denies there is any eificacy in the Western form of baptism. " The Western Church evidently commenced her career under the guidance of Rome, with more freedom of thought. She abolished, together -with adult baptism its symbol, im- mersion, and introduced sprinkling in its stead. She re- tained agam unction (the chrisma) by way of confii'mation, and separated the two acts." ' 1 Page 204. NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. 107 Such OA'erwhelming concessions and j^roofs of the truth of Baptist views, as to the unscripturahiess of infont baptism, as abound m the subsequent pages of these volumes make it only astonishing that even with all the restrictions he Avould throw around it, Bunsen should advocate retaining it at all. He admits that it will appear strange, and even allows, that, in order to effect it, " in the first place the doc- trine of Biblical haptmn must be reformed^ ' Thus, to accommodate the religious prejudices of the age, BibUcal Christianity is to be modified, ay and " reformecP'' at pleas- ure ! Thus Pedobaptism contains the germs of Popery, on the one hand, and of German skepticism on the other. The " ISTorth British Review" not only concedes freely and repeatedly that " the only baptism known to the New Testament, was that of adults," on their profession of faith, but argues strongly from that, accounting for the early views of the connection of baptism \\nth a state of salva- tion. Revie^ATng " Hippolytus and his Times" it remarks" in a note that " the correctness of the picture of ancient baptism, given by Dr. Bunsen, will not, we apprehend, be disputed by any one icho is content to accept the mere facts of the case,'''' and that it is " a subject on which they could have wished especially to dwell." They point the attention of the reader to what Dr. Bunsen has so clearly showTi to be the animating principle of baptism, namely, " the thank- ful offering of the self-will to God," and significantly attemjDt to plead that " the question of the validity of infant bap- tism is one separated from that of its direct apostolic au- thority.'''' Since, then, the anhnating principle and correct form are both confessedly wanting, but for the customs of early education it w^ould be easier far to turn Quaker and I Page 211. 2 May, 1853. 108 ANCIENT CATECHUMENS. deny the obligation of any Ibaptism, than admit the perpe- tviity of the command, and yet plead that it is fulfilled in such an emasculated rite as this. Let any Christian read in Neander's life of Christ^ the chapter on "The Church" and its object, let him mark its fundamental idea as there laid down, i. e., a commimity founded on the principle of all its members being absolutely/ subordinated in heart to God and Christ / '^ and then con- sider the mevitable effect of admitting every infant of pious parents to its initiating rite. Let him bear in mind that the very idea, and even the name of the Church, are to be traced back to Christ himself, no less than a voluntary bap- tism as its initiatory rite, and then behold infant baptism sweeping, as it does, the world mto the Church, and say if it at all realizes that conception. Li fact the true question lying at the bottom of all this is, whether the Church is a divine institution. If so infant baptism radically alters it, and is therefore uavaUd. (5.) The Catechumenical system decisive. But it has not been merely the silence of early Church history that has disproved infant baptism. It has been clearly shown that there* were other institutions among the early Christians utterly opposed to the bestowment of this rite on infants. The catechumens of the Ancient Church were a body of persons composed entu'ely of such as were preparing for baptism by mstruction and special prayer. They were at fii'st something hke the inquirers connected ^vith many of our modern evangelical churches, and there is no doubt that the Methodist custom of anxious seats and classes of ' Book iv. part il chap. 4. 2 page 124, Harper. CATECHUMENS ALL UNBAPTIZED. 109 penitents Avas derived by Mr. Wesley, cliiefly from reading the accounts of this order in the ancient congregations. Indeed the difference between them lies chiefly in two pomts : 1st. That as more attention was bestowed in the ancient classes, on the facts of Christianity, than is now done in our Bible classes, so by degrees less examination was made as to experimental piety. 2d. AU the ancient catechumens were persons preparing for baptism (an ordi- nance origiuaUy regarded as the profession of regeneration, by degrees as its consummation, and m later times too often con- founded with regeneration itself), while Mr. Wesley's anxious classes were supposed to be baptized persons, yet seeking regeneration by the spirit of God. The ancient catechu- mens, then, were unregenerate mquii-ers out of the Church ; the modern catechumens were unregenerate mquirers with- in. The hues of demarcation were most rigidly drawn between the catechumens and the baptized, so that in Au- gustme's time, or as late as the year a.d. 400, the question " Is he fidelis or catechumenus .^" meant the same thing as the uiquuy, " Is he yet baptized or not ?" as WaU shows. The catechumens sat in a specific part of the church, had special prayers offered for them, that they might become fit for the holy mitiation, and were not allowed to remain even in the house of worship wliile the eucharist was celebrated. If one did so accidentally, he was to be unmediately taken and baptized ; or if one was supposed to be m danger of death, he was to be ba^rtized, and if he recovered, the course of his religious instruction completed afterward, but still he was not called, or considered, or ranked as a cate- chumen.' I Council of Laodicea, Can. 47, a.d. 361. The proof of all this is^un- questionable. Any one can, however, easily verify it for himself, by con- 110 CHILDREN CATECHUirEXS. From the time of Tertullian, this order in Christian con- gregations may be considered to have been iiniversal, and traces of it are found by Augusti as far back as a.d. 110. Regularly no person could be admitted to baptism, without being a catechumen. If there was danger of death, excep- tion was made, but not otherwise. The orduiary period for remammg in this state of mstruction, was three years, but R^here a person was earnest m his attendance and disposition, and well mstructed in the history of Christ, and the doctrines of Christianity, he was admitted much sooner, often in a few months or weeks. But all had to be made catechumens fii'st. Baptists have always contended that the children of pious parents were no exceptions to this rule ; that by degrees they were often made nominal catechmnens at a very early age, and frequently remained all theh* lives members of this class, being only baptized, like Constantme, just before death. Thus, BasU (a.d. 350), exhortmg the catechumens to bap- tism, alludes to this, it is clamied when he says : " Do you demur and loiter and put it oif, when you have been from a child catechised in the Word ; are you not yet acquamted with the truth? Having heen always learning it, are you not yet come to the knoAvledge of it ? A seeker all your life long, a considerer till you are old. When will you be- come one of us."'^ Dr. Wall and others have denied that these youths could be children of Christians ; but from that day to this, the priests of the Romish and of the Greek Churches have always gone through the form of first mak- ing every child of Christian parents a catechumen before they baptize it. suiting " Bingham's Christian Antiquities," book i. chap. 3, and book x. generally. " Coleman's Christian Antiquities," chap. ii. sec. 5. * Basil Oratio Exhort, ad Baptismum. BASIL. Ill It would seem that the larger part of the catechumens ad- dressed by Basil, had been made such in childhood. Hence they must have been the children of pious parents. Dr. Wall admits that when he first saw the above extract, he thought it " the strongest evidence against the general practice of infant baptism in those times." Baptists think so still. His suj^position that so large a proportion of this body were the children of catechumens, seems to them out of all reason. Besides, they say when afterward mfant baptism did prevail, as in the time of Justinian, a.d. 526, it was an established rule that on any adult beconiing a catechumen, his children were all bcq^tized forthwith ; even while he re- mained m the preparatory state for two years. In proportion as mfant baptism became general, it reduced the eatechumenical state to a merely nominal thmg, but the form of it was still strictly adhered to, and has been ever since. In some Irish Church regulations, probably about the year a.d. 600, it is provided that the infants of Chris- tians may be made catechumens on the eighth day, and that after that they can be baptized at any festival.' At 1 The following is the present rule of the Romish Church : " The per- son to be baptized is brought or conducted to the church door, but for- bidden to enter as one unworthy. * * * xhe priest then asks what he demands of the Church of G-od, and having received an answer, he first instructs him catechetically in the doctrine of the Christian faith, of which a profession is made in baptism. But as the catechetical form consists of question and answer, if the person to be instructed be an adult, he himself answers the interrogatories ; if an infant, the sponsor answers according to the prescribed form, and enters into a solemn en- gagement for the child." Then follow the exorcism, salt, sign of the cross, spittle, renunciation, the oil of the catechumens, the profession of faith, and then the baptism. An adult is kept a catechumen for some months, but an infant is made a catechumen and baptized at once. (Gate- 112 INSTRUCTION BEFORE BAPTISM. an earlier period they were kept in this state till three or four years old, so that they might be taught to repeat at baptism some of the sacred words, as Gregory Nazianzen recommends. It follows that the early churches all held it as a primi- tive truth that those born of Christian parents equally with others needed instruction and the renunciation of sin be/ore baptistn could properly and regularly he adminis- tered. This is precisely the Baptist theory and practice — the point on which they diifer from all Pedobaptist Churches. Even Dr. Henry of New York, in his abridg- ment of Bingham's Ecclesiastical Antiquities, admits that " it is difficult to reconcile the practice of infant commun- ion with the well-known custom of trammg the yomig for some tune as catechumens before they were admitted either to baptism or the eucharist." ' The whole practice of the Church from Auo-ustine to Luther in making infants cate- chumens before baptism, is so far as it goes, the admission of a witness under cross-examination against his own pre- possessions and prejudices, to the truth of Baptist views. chism of the Council of Trent.) In the liturgy of the Greek Church, and indeed in all the liturgies, the " seahng" of infants as catechumens before their baptism is required. In Augustine's time, a.d. 400, whenever an infant was baptized, the sponsor replied to the questions in the name of the child, which an adult would have been taught to answer as a cate- chumen, just as now in the Greek and Roman churches. Boniface, in his correspondence with Augustine, is very much troubled at this, and rep- resents others as objecting strenuously to it, and begs for some more solid reason in its favor, than the authority of the Church. " How can this," says Boniface " be reconciled to truth, which the sponsor answers in the child's name ?" Augustine replies " You are wont to be exceedingly cautious of any thing that looks like a lie." ' Sec. 194. CATECHUMENICAI. SYSTEM. 113 In the fourth and fifth centuvies the Churches were in a transition state. Two practices essentially contrary to each other prevailed — that of giving catechunienical instruc- tion to children, and infant baptism. Both could not have belonged to primitive Christianity, for the two are in their very essence contradictory. Prior catechunienical uistruc- tion to the children of Christians never Avould have been thought of had infant baptism been a universal, or even a general custom when it arose. As when a scion, tall and vigorous, grows up from the side of an old trunk prostrate and rotten, we know that the ancient tree must have lived, decayed, and fallen before the young one began to grow, and oversj^read it ■with roots ; so when we see infant bap- tism after the fourth century, waxing strong, becoming universal, trampling on catechumenical mstruction and re- ducing it to a mere form, it is clear that this lifeless, pros- trate, and decaying order must have existed, and become old, before infant baptism, as a system, took root in its sides, or to use Neander's expression, "entered into the Church hfe." Nor could the younger custom have swelled to the size it afterward assmned, and presumed to stretch its roots as they now lie across that more ancient system, until the catechumenical rank had been first up- heaved and overthrown. Such, accorduig to the Baptists, is the true \aew of the catechumenical system, such the proof it affords of the unscriptural origin of infant baptism. Let us observe how far recent researches have sustained this view. A Mr. Coleman has done a good service to the churches in this country in condensing and translat- ing from the works of Augusti on Christian Antiquities. The following extract contains in substance the results of that distinguished authority upon this subject. 114 CHANGE MADE BY INFANT BAPTISM. " The general introduction of the rite of infant baptism has 80 far changed the regulations of the Church concerning the qualifications of candidates, and their admission, that what was formerly the rule m this respect has become the exception. The institutions of the Church dm-ing the first five centuries concerning the requisite preparations for bap- tism, and all the laws and rules that existed during that petriod, relating to the acceptance or rejection of candi- dates, necessarily fell into disuse, when the baptism of in- fants began not only to be permitted, but enjoined as a duty, and almost universally observed. The old rale which prescribed caution in the admission of candidates, and a careful pi'eparation for the rite was, after the sixth century, appUcable for the most part only to Jewish, heathen, and other proselytes. The disciplme which was formerly requi- site, preparatory to baptism, now followed this rite," ^ The whole of this has been not only conceded but dem- onstrated by Dr, Bunsen^ with remarkable clearness: " The Apostolical Church made the school the connect- mg link between herself and the world. The object of this education was admission mto the fi-ee society, and brotherhood of the Christian coirmiunity. The Church ad- hered rigidly to the principle, as constituting the true pur- port of the baptism ordamed by Christ, that no one can be a member of the communion of saints, but by his own free act and deed ; his own solemn vow made in presence of the Church. It Avas with tliis understanding that the candidate for baptism was immersed m Avater and admitted as a brother upon his confession of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, It understood, therefore, in the exact sense, ' Coleman's Christ. Antiq. chap. xiv. sec. 3. 2 Hippolytus, voL ii. pp. 179-181. BUNSEJf. 115 1 Peter, iii. 21, not as being a mere bodily purifica- tion but as a vow made to God \vdtli a good conscience througli faith in Jesus Christ, This vow was preceded by a confession of Christian faith made in the face of the Church in which the catechumen expressed that faith in Christ and in the sufficiency of the salvation offered by Him. It was a a'ow to live for the time to come to God and for his neighbor, not to the world and for self; a vow of faith in his becoming a child of God, through the com- munion of His only-begotten Son, in the Holy Ghost ; a vow of the most solemn kmd, for life and for death. The keeping of this pledge was the condition of continuance in the Church, its infringement entailed repentance or ex-com- munication. All Church discipline was based ui^on this voluntary pledge, and the responsibility thereby self-im- posed. But how could such a vow be received without ex- amination ? How could such examination be passed ^yiih.- out instruction and observation ? " As a general rule the ancient Church fixed three years for this preparation, supposing the candidate, whether heathen or Jew, to be competent to receive it. With Christian chUdi'en the condition was the same, except that the term of probation was curtailed according to circiun- stances, Pedobaptism in the more modern sense, meanmg thereby baptism of new-born infants with the vicarious promises of parents or other sponsors, was utterly iniknown to the early Church not only do-«Ti to the end of the sec- ond, but iadeed to the middle of the third century. We will show in a subsequent page how, toward the close of the second century, this practice originated ui the baptism of clnldi'en of a more advanced age," Neander. has shown the derangement produced in the 116 neander's views. whole church service by the iutroduction of mfant bap- tism destroying the more ancient rank of the catechumens.' Speaking of the period between Constantine and Gregory the Great (a.d. 312-590), says: " With reference to the two constituent portions of the Church assembhes, the catechumens and baptized behevers, the whole serA"ice was di\ided into two portions, one in which the catechumens were aUowed to join, embracing the reading of the Scriptures and the sermon — the prevail- ingly didactic portion ; and the other in which the baptized alone could take part, embraemg whatever was designed to represent the feUowship of believers — the communion and aU the prayers which preceded it. These were caUed the missa catechumenoruni and the missa fidelium, which di- vision must of course have fallen into disuse after the gen- eral introduction of infant baptism.'''' The same author has shown from the ancient foi"mularies, that they must have originated in a period of the history of the Church when infant baptism had no existence, but cate- chetical instruction preceded the initiatory rite. Some of the questions and answers stiU preserved by the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches, or even by the Church of England, and other reformed communions, embalm, as it were, within their encrusted folds the dead figure of that which once had vitality, the formula of a beheving catechu- men applying for baptism. It is for this reason that the infant is stUl asked in these forms if he desires to be bap- tized ; if he renounces the devil and all his works ; if he be- lieves all the articles of the Christian faith, and if he will obediently keep God's holy will and commandments. Ne- ander^ j lastly says of all this that it "originated in a period I Church Hist. vol. iL p. 325. 2 Vol. iL p. 665. HOW IT ORIGIXATED. 117 when infant baptism had as yet no existence, and was after- ward applied without alteration to childi-en, because men shrunk from undertaking to introduce any change in the consecrated formula established by apostoUc authority." Let any one examine the work known as " The Apostolic Constitutions," containing as it does, formularies, enlarged indeed, and interpolated as late as the sixth century, but presenting, in the main, a fair picture of the Church in the third, and he wiU find the services they give for the ad- ministration of baptism to be for adults altogether, and not for mfants, even while infant baptism is commended by them in one or two later passages. Nothing is, therefore, more clear than that the whole ground on which the divine authority of infant baptism has been supposed, by our Pedobaptist brethren, for centuries to rest, has utterly given way and been abandoned, not only silently by large masses of evangelical Christians m the country, but openly and earnestly in argument by nearly all those persons of learning in Europe whose studies have led them impartially to examine the question in the light of the present age. Dr. Bunsen says " we are at this moment better able than either the defenders or opponents of infant baptism have hitherto been, to explain hoxo it originated^ § lY. The Eise of Ixpaxt Baptism Traced. Between thirty anS forty years ago, when, in England and Scotland, Church history was imder an eclipse even among respectable di-vdnes, Dr. Chalmers urged the follow- ing as a chief argument in favor of infant baptism : " There is no satisfactory historical evidence of our prac- tice having ever crept in — the innovation of a later period in 118 DK. ALEXANDER. the history of the Church. Had infant baptism sprung up as a new piece of sectai-ianism, it would not have escaped the notice of the authorship of the times. But there is no credible written memorial of its ever having entered among us as a novelty, and we have, therefore, the strongest reason to beUeve that it has come doAvn in one uncontrolled tide of example and observation from the days of the Apos- tles." ' Even Dr. Alexander tells us in his Life that he at one time gave up baj^tizing mfknts, but that this was one of those " considerations," which he says, " kept me back fi-om joining the Baptists, i. e., that the universal prevalence of infant baptism as early as the fourth and fifth centuries was imac- coimtable on the supposition that no such j^ractice existed in the times of the Apostles." ^ It is just here that the historical researches of imj^artial Pedobaptists, within the last half century, have so fully sub- stantiated all that the Baptists had claimed. 1 Lecture xiv. on Romans. 2 The other consideration was that " if the Baptists are right, they are the only Christian Church on earth, and all other denominations are out of the visible Church. Besides I could not see how they could obtain a vaUd baptism." The sentiment of the former clause of this sentence has been considered in my little work on Communion. As to the latter Dr. Alexander should have been aware that the Roman Catholic Church has ever held that "the minister of baptism, in case of necessity, is the first person who passes by having the use of his reason of whatever sex or religion,^'' and that this necessity even needs not to be extreme, but it is sufficient for it to be reasonable. (Dens. TheoL De Baptismo, n. 12, 3, 4.) So that Dr. Alexander's scruples were ultra High Church, and tending even beyond the Church of Rome itself to make the validity of the sacraments depend on apostoUc succession. There is no possibility of any Protestant or Papist now assuring himself that there is no defect- ive link in hia chain of succession, on Dr. Alexander's principles JUSTIN MAKTTB. 119 Now, for instance, it is conceded by the most respectable authorities, that Justm Martyr (a,d. 140) could have known notlung of infant baptism. As Semler says, " From Justia Martyr's description of baptism we learn that it was ad- ministered only to adults. He says ' we were, corporally, born A\'ithout our wWl, xcct' ufayTjv, but we are not to remaia children of necessity and ignorance (as to our biith), but in baptism are to have choice, knowledge, etc. This we learned from the apostles.' " It seems astonishing that persons could ever have thought other\vise concerning this most unportant Christian writer, for not only here have we this distinct assertion that in baptism we must have " choice" and " knowledge," but in his first apology presented to the emperor, he undertakes at length to relate the manner in which we, " ha\ing been renewed by Christ, dedicate ourselves to God" in baptism. He says that those who " are persuaded and believe the things taught by us are true and promise to hve according to them," after praying and fasting and asking God to for- give them are " conducted by us to some place where there is water," and that " they are then bathed in water (ea^ t()ts XovTQov TioiovvTiu) in the name of the Lord-God, the Father of all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit." Neander therefore says that Irenajus, a.d. 180, is the first Church teacher in whom we find any allusion to infant bap- tism, and quotes from that father the follo-v^ing well-kno^\Ti passage : " He came to redeem ail by hunself, all who through him are regenerated to God, infants, Uttle children, boys, young men and old. Hence he passed through every age, and for the infants he became an infant, sanctifying the in- fants — among the little childi-en he became a little child." ' ' Church History, vol. i. p. 311. 120 BUNSEN ON IBEK^US. This is now confessed to be tlie only shadow of reason for supposing that infant baptism was ever known until a period much later than the year 200, certainly. But here, all turns upon the meanmg of the phrase " regenerated to God" in the above. If it means " baptize," then infant baptism was practiced in the year a.d. 180 ; if not, all proof of it at this period falls to the groimd. It is not the duty of the author to offer an opinion either way, but simply to record those of others. But there is certainly no proof that the custom had then originated, especially as we have not the original, but only a Latin translation of later date. Dr. Sears and Dr. Chase have endeavored to show that Irenseus " gener- ally employs the word 'regeneration' to designate the general work of Christ in redeeming the human race," and hence that there is here no ground for believing that in his time infant baptism had been introduced.' But as both of these are Baptists, it would be contrary to the object of this volume to quote their arguments. Dr. Sears, however, refers to Baumgarten — Crusius, "Winer, Rossler, and Mun- scher, all German authorities of high rank, and who, though not Baptists, deny that any thing m Irenseus proves the existence of infant baptism. Dr. Krabbe declares that this passage " will hardly bear ciiticisra," and Dr. Bunsen is decidedly of this opmion. If this be so, we have no allusion to the baptism of infants, at any rate until after the beginning of the third century of the Christian era. Let any one think of the changes two hundred yeai'S have wrought m the customs and opinions of Christians in New England, and then say if two thou- sand years hence, because some antiquarian should read in * See Christian Review, vol. iii. p. 206. Chase's Design of Baptism, pp. 67-85 TERTULLIAX BUXSEX. 121 a work of this day, of churches fitted up with gas and bap- tistries, organs, and choirs, that therefore he would justly infer that choirs, organs, gas, and baptism by immersion, were all known and approved by the Pilgrim Fathers. We now come down to Tertullian, a.d. 200, who strongly protests against the baptism of young persons. But it has generally been taken for granted by Pedobaptists, that he was arguing against infant baptism in the strict sense of the word, and hence they have urged that he must have been well acquainted with the system, that this opinion was but that of an mdividual, while his opposition j^roves the prevalence of the custom. Neander, however remarks on his testimony : " Tertullian appears as a zealous opponent of infant baptism, a proof that the practice had not as yet come to be regarded as an apostolical institution, for other- wise he would hardly have ventured to express himself so strongly against it. * * * jjg says, ''Let them first learn to feel their need of salvation^ so it may appear that we have given to those that wanted? Tertullian evidently means," contmues Neander, " that children should be led to Christ by instructing them in Christianity, but that they should not receive baptism until after having been sufficiently instructed, they are led from personal conviction, and by their o^w\ free choice to seek for it with the sincere longing of the heart." ' But Bunsen shows that Tertullian was not arguing against infant baptism at all, then unknown, but of "little growing children from six to ten years old," who could " go do'wn with the other catechumens hito the baptismal bath, but were not yet in a state to make the proper responses." The custom was commg into fashion, but Tertullian " rejects" it, ' Church History, vol. i. p. 312. 6 122 ORIGEN. quoting the well-known passage/ as follows : " For it is de- sLi-able to postj^one bajitism according to the position and disposition of each individual, as well as in reference to his age, but especially so in the case of children. Where is the necessity for placing the sponsors in jeopardy, who may l)e prevented by death from performing theu* promises, or may be deceived by the breaking out of an evil disposition. It is true that our Lord said, " Hmder them not from coming unto me," but they may do so when they have arrived at the age of puberty, they may do so when they have begun to learn, and have learned to whom they are going. Why should they at that mnocent age hasten to have their sins forgiven them ? Ought we to act with less circmnspection than in worldly matters, and allow those who are not in- trusted with earthly property to be intrusted with heavenly? Whoever attaches to baptism the importance it deserves, will be afi-aid rather of being too hasty than too procrasti- nating. True faith is sure of salvation." This, continues Bunsen, " is the way m which TertulUan treats the subject of baptism of groAving children. What would he have said to the application of Christ's words to the case of infants ?" * There is no proof, then, of a smgle case of infant baj)tLsm up to the close of the second century. Origen, a.d. 230-250, si^eaks indeed of an apostolical tra- dition to give baptism even to little children [parvulis], but Xeander justly remarks in regard to this declaration, that it is " an expression wliich can not have much weight in this age, when the inclination was so strong to trace every msti- tution which was considered of special hnportance, to the Apostles, and when so many walls of separation, lundering the freedom of prospect, had already been set np between ' De Baptismo, c. 18. 2 Hippolylus, vol. iii. p. 194. BUNSEN ON ORIGEN. 123 this and the apostoUc age." The same author also shows that "m Origen's thne, too, difficulties were frequently urged against infant baptism, similar to those thrown out by Tertullian," and that we are not to infer fi-om any single expressions of this khid, that it was ever in customary use, but to remember that long after infant baptism " was ac- knowledged in theory, it was still very far from being miiformly recognized m practice." ^ But Bunsen fully explains the cause of this reference to apostolical tradition, showing that it simply alludes to the verse " Suffer the little children [parvuli] to come unto me," and from the passage before quoted, that in both of these cases, the reference is to " little groioing children from six to ten years olcl.^^^ " TertuUian's opposition is to the baptism of young grow- ing children ; he does not say one %oord about nexo-horn in- fants. Neither does Origen^ when his expressions are ac- curately weighed. Cyprian, and some other African bishops, * Vol. i. p. 314. ' " This, then, is also the true interpretation of this and of the other two passages in Origen where the same word occurs. A comparison with what appears to have been considered apostolical tradition before the time of Origen, slwws that no other interpretation is admissable. The Text Book speaks of those wJio go down with the other catechumens into the baptismal bath, hut are not yet in a state to make the proper responses. In that case, the parents are bound to do it for them. This is undoubtedly the " apostolical practice to which Origen refers, for it was to the Church of Alexandria that he particularly belonged. In this ordinance the whole arrangement seems to be an exceptional one, and so it is in Origen, for he says the " Uttle ones also." When the Church instituted Pedobap- tism (in the sense of children from six to ten years of age), she doubtless had before her eyes our Lord's afiectionate words referred to likewise by Origen on the occasion, and the divines of the sixteenth century soor found themselves obhged to revert to them." Hippolytus, vol. iiL pp. 192,39, 124 AUGUSTINE. his cotemporaries, at the close of the third century, were the first who viewed baptism in the Hght of a Avasliing away of the universal sinfulness of human nature, and connected this idea ^■ith the ordinance of circumcision." ^ By Cyjirian the rightfuhiess of uifant baptism was urged on the people, upon the ground of circumcision, which ar- gument was at about this time first introduced. But these views were then confined to the clergy of Xorth Africa, where infant baptism origiaated in the manner which Neander has sho^vn. Speaking of the period fi-om Tertul- lian to Cji^rian, he says : " The error became more firmly established, that without external baptism no one could be dehvered from that in- herent guilt, could be saved from the everlasting punishment that threatened him, or raised to eternal life ; and when the notion of a magical influence, or charm connected with the sacraments, continually gained ground, the theory was finally evolved of the unconditional necessity of infant bap- tism. About the middle of the third century this theory was already generally admitted in the Xorth Afi-ican Church, The only question that remained was whether the child ought to be baptized unmediately after its bu-th, or not till eight days after, as m the case of the rite of circumcision." ' And yet it is certain that, after the middle of the fourth century, the baptism of Augustine, the son of the pious Monica, was put off in his cliildhood, under circumstances that Augusti considers to show that liis baptism, A\dth so little preparation, " would have been an exception to the general rule on this subject."^ All kinds of superstitions and ceremonies rapidly accumu- 1 Hipolytus, vol. iii. p. 195. 2 Church History, vol. i. p. 313. 3 Coleman's Christian Antiquities, chap. 2, sec. 5. IXFANT COMMUNION. 125 lated around infant baptism in proportion as tlie custom gradually extended ; for some of the details of which the curious may consult " Hart's Ecclesiastical Antiquities," and sunilar works. At length, in Ireland, the land of saints, every father baptized his own child, as soon as it was born, in milk^ that it might be mild in disposition, immersing the whole body, except always the right arm, " that he might be strong in war?'' From the time of Cyprian, infant com- munion spread side by side with infant baptism ; and we find revolting details of children made sick by the bread and wine forced into their mouths. This contmued several centuries. So late as a.d. 957, Elfric, in his address to the priesthood in England, says : " Ye should give the eucharist to children when they are baptized, and let them be broiight to mass that they may receive it all the seven days that they are unwashed." ^ Thus is the origin and progress of this error clearly traceable from the most authentic Pedo- baptist sources. One thmg alone remains to be accoimted for. Whence, in so spu'itual a rehgion as Christianity, came this super- stitious reverence for the ordmances of religion ? Even this it is not difficult to trace. Our Saviour msists much upon the confession of Sim before men. The disj)osition to do this, in whatever way he may choose to make kno^ATi his \n\\, even at the cost of life, he makes an essential part of Christian character. But in practical life the dispositimx to confess can only be proved by the act of confession. Plence baptism, as the pixbUc avowal of Christ, came very early to be considered essential to being " a complete'''' or '"'' perfect Christian." The multitudes who delayed it on account of persecution increased this tendency ; while the ' Hart's Ecclesiastical Records, p. 188. 126 BAPTISMAL EEGENEEATIO^Sr. decision of character, aud consequent peace it gave to those who embraced it, j^robably helped to foster the snperstition that by degrees attached to the mere act itself. Soon, therefore, the former sins were not thought to be generally washed away imtil the moment of baptism, however mani- fest the iaith iu Christ before. Thus it came to be esteemed essential to salvation, not indeed without faith, but when accompanied by it, mystically washing away all sins iij) to the moment of its administration. Hence, too, sins after baptism were forgotten by the Church ^dth difficulty. Thus came the common delay of multitudes of men to be baptized tUl just before death, as was the case with Constantme. Then the counteracting zeal of the Church was awakened. Pious parents first encouraged their children to place themselves as catechumens very early in life, and then the parents placed them as such at six or seven, and even earlier. At the close of the second, and all through the third and fourth centuries, there were increased classes of children catechu- mens. But these chUdi-en, if allowed to wait untU they grew up, would still, iu superstitious dread of sins committed after baptism, defer that rite until a deathbed, as the ex- hortation of Basil, already quoted (a.d, 379) shows. Hence the clergy, m a mistaken zeal to multiply members, and dreading lest a rite, to which so much unportance was now attached, shoidd be delayed for a precarious deathbed, encroached ^itli their baptism, as they easily could through their influence over the flexible niuids of the children cate- chumens, aided by the bUnd zeal of parental piety, earlier and earlier into the years of childhood. From boys of ten, who might sometuues be volunteers, and possibly give e\i- dences of smcere piety, they advanced to take in those of six or seven responded for by others, though able to descend CAUSE OF SUI'EKSTITION. 127 unaided into the water ^viih the adult catechumens. Then those of three or four, when just able to repeat a few of the sacred words, as Gregory Nazianzen recommends, were, by a fmther corruption, brought by baptism into the fold of the Church. From this very circimistance would arise the strongest argument for going a step ftirther. For, since in these very yoimg children baptism could not be a profession of personal faith, it could only lead the masses to sujipose that it acted as a charm, and that the child was made moi-e safe in case of death, a view carefully cherished by the clergy. Thus arose the belief that all, even infants, dy- ing without baptism, would be lost; and hence followed finally the baptism of babes of eight days old, and even those of a day. The first Tcnoxmi instance of this last is A.D, 252, in North Africa, but it was by " slow degrees only, and with much difficulty, that all this entered into the Church life," mitil after the year 400, as Neander has shoAVTi. Down to the middle of the fourth century, many, hke Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and Augustine, whose parentage would have rendered infant baptism certam had it been usual, were not baptized tUl they became adults, even where dedicated to God most solemnly by parental piety in then- infancy, " like Samuel." The concessions of such authorities as Augusti, Neander, Bunsen, and a host of others, ftilly sustam this view of the origui of uifant baptism and its efficacy. To most Christians, indeed, the chief difficulty will be to im- derstand how those who concede so much concede no more ; how they can give up the Divine authority of infant bap- tism and yet retain the practice. After making all allow- ance for early associations and the difficulty and dread of cutting the Church loose from a system tune-honored and 128 DECREASE OF INFANT BAPTISM. remote, this must still be considered a humiliating fact. The masses of those who contijiue to practice it, do so be- cause they regard it as most imquestionably a Divine insti- tution. They draw mferences from it of the most objec- tionable theological character, because they so esteem it. Surely those who know better, and who perceive these dangers, should not content themseh'es with protesting against the inferences, but should abandon Avhat they own to be the unscriptural practice, from Avhich these are so nat- urally drawn. § V. Decrease op Infant Baptism. It only remams that we now trace the progress, during the last hundred years, of Anti-Pedobaptist views among the masses of the Christian people — among those, in fact, who, guided chiefly by the Xew Testament and conscience, have, after great conflict with early prejudices, adopted the baptism of beUevers as alone scriptural, or at least reUn- quished that of infants as erroneous and injurious. In Prussia, where the Baptists have suifered much perse- cution, it has been j^roposed recently, by many of the clergy, to do away with the requirement of infant bajitism to inem- bersliip in the National Church. There are now in Ger- many more than five thousand Baptist members, with about four hundred and fifty preaching stations, and about sixty preachers to supply them, under the care of the American Baptist Missionary Union. About seven hundred were baptized in 1854. In addition to this are the Mennonites, and others known in history. In England the increase of the Baptist denomination, though regular and satisfactory, has presented no very re- markable national results of late years at home. But the INCREASE OF BAPTISTS. 129 success of their missions abroad, together witli their zeal in cii'culating translations of the sacred Scriptures, have given a degree of currency and power to Baptist sentiments, throughout India, which it is not easy to estimate, but far beyond what now appears from the munbers baptized. In the West Indies are some of the largest Baptist Churches in the whole world. In Scotland, though mcreasmg, the Baptists are few, so few, indeed, that the organ of the Free Church has not feared publicly to admit the unsciTi"»tural character of uifant baj)tism, to the extent that we have seen. But it is in this country, where religion is most free, that the change has been the most steady and decisive. Ever since 1790, a tide of emigration has been coming in from Europe: very few, comparatively, have been Baptists. Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Metho- dists, have all received greater accessions in this way. Had the Baptists kept up in proportion to the increase of popu- lation, it might have seemed as much as could have been expected. But there were in the United States — In 1792, about 1 Baptist communicant to every 56 inhabitants. In 1812, " 1 " " «' 38 " In 1832, " 1 " " " 33 " In 1854, " 1 " " " 80 " In addition to this, there are many Free^vill Baptists, Men- nonites, and Campbellites, making the proportion of 1 com- municant to every 22 of the whole population belonging to churches which reject infant baptism. They have also ministers and accommodations for upward of 3,500,000, out of about 14,000,000, the Avhole Church accommodation of the United States ; or more than one quarter of the xchole. It is not, however, from statistics of this kind that a full 6* 130 METHODISTS. idea of the j^rogress of Baptist principles is to be gathered. "We all know that infant baptism has been greatly falling into disuse among all evangelical denominations. Perhaps this decline has been the greatest among the Methodists. But they appear to preserve no statistics of then- baptisms as a denomination, none certainly in their general annual reports : a fact which in itself shows its uselessness in their sight, and incongruity vdth. their evangehcal principles.' Occupied intently with the one great truth of regeneration by the Spirit, and not originally considering themselves a Church, but only a voluntary Society in a Church, the prin- ciple of their foimdation has had a stronger hold ujjon them than even the teachings of their founder. Hence they now appear to welcome those who beheve in mfant baptism, or baptism only on a profession of faith. Their Book of Dis- ciplme, it is true, would bind them to receive none who do not " promise to observe and keep the rules of the Church,'» of which infant baptism is one. But, practically, none are refused admission simply for neglectmg this rite. Among Ei^iscopalians, on the other hand, their strongly ritual ten- dencies at the i:>resent day render the number of their in- fants baptized out of all proportion to their actual com- municants. 1 It is not a hundred years ago since John "Wesley, defending infant sprinkling, wrote : " By baptism we enter into covenant wdth God into that everlasting covenant which he hath commanded forever, * * * are admitted into the Church, and consequently made members of Christ as its Head. * * * ^^e who were by nature children of wrath are made children of God ; * * * and if children then heirs with God, and joint heirs with Christ." (Wesley's Miscellaneous "Works, vol. iL pp. 157, 8.) None of our Methodist brethren would use such language now. The drawings of a higher and more spiritual regeneration have silently absorbed their interest from this rite. CONGKEGATIONALISTS. 131 They baptize the mfaiits of the whole congregation, but even for this the proportion is very large, being about forty thousand reported to the last General Convention where their whole Church accommodation in the United States is but six hundred and forty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-eight, being just one infant baptized for every sixteen persons, that their Churches wUl seat. The Episcopahans, however, are but a small denomination, confined chiefly to cities, and less fairly represented by the numbers then- edi- fices will seat than any others except, perhaps, the Roman CathoUcs. Among the Congregationalists, whUe theu' last "Year Book" is a most valuable document, and shows clearly their prosperity in many points of view, it gives no statistics of infant baptism, but in place of them the followmg resolution : " Voted, That a committee of three be a^jpointed to as- certain the existing facts m reference to the baptism of in- fants in our churches, to mquu-e after the causes of the neglect of infant baptism, and to present a report at the next meeting of the body." More significant, however, if mdeed there is not some omission of the printer, is a confession of Faith of the Con- gregational Association of Minnesota, pubhshed at i)age 264, of this work, the thirteenth article, reading as follows : "Art. 13. We beheve that the sacraments of the New Testament are baptism and the Lord's supper, that believers of regular Church standing only can consistently partake of the Lord's supper, and that visible heUevers be admitted to the ordinance of baptism.'''' Nor is there a word ui favor of infant baptism. In a re- cent number of the " Journal of Commerce," the Boston coi'respondent chronicles it as quite a marked event in that 132 PKCUEASK OF INFANT BAPTISM. city, that " three inflmts Averc baptized" on the previous Sabbatli, and adds : "In our Congregational Clnirclies we fear that there is considerable intliiFerence and neglect in reference to infant l)ni)tisni. In one of our oldest churches in this State there had not been, a few years since, an instance of iiil'aiit liap- tisni ibr the seven preceding years. Last yeai' there were seventy Congregational Churches in New Hampshire tha re])orted no infant baptism. This year ninety-six churches, or about one lialf in the State, repoi-t none. If tliis indif- ference continues the ordinance will become extinct in the Congregation.'il ('iuirches." We have heard it nunored that in a church near New York upward of fifty have '•'•joined imder lorUten jyrotesV against that rite. The ibllowing more cautiously worded acknowledgment of the same facts is made in an editoriiil Avhich i-ccently a])peared in the " New Yoj-k Independent," a paper that boasts of twenty thousand subscribers, and is edited by several leading Congregational ministers : " In some cases it is affirmetl that this neglect has spi'ead so widely, and has become so habitual in the absence of a pastor, or through his tacit consent to the omission, that the instances of baptism among the children of Church mem- bers are the exception rather than the rule, and that the ef- forts to revive it meet with coolness or opposition. Tlie members of such churches doubt the propriety of adminis- terhig the ordinance to any but adults and in their own practice conform to tlieir convictions." The reasons assigned for this neglect arc, if possible more significant than the facts, proving how essentialy extraneous to evangelical religion is the whole system,* * " "Wo can not particularly blamo this when we reflect how slight a PRKSHYTEJU A N8. 133 The Rcfovniod Dutcli Cliurcli, acconlinuj to its stiitislica in 1853, baptized one inluut to every lilleeu aiul one lillh communicants. Perliaps the Presbyterians liave maintained the disc,ij)lino of their Cluucli more thoroughly than most other denomi- nations for a series of years, and preserved their records with more care. But unfortunately there are no statistics back of the year 1827 tliat will enable us to determino the progress or decline of inlimt ba])tism among them. In that year the number of infants bajitized was already fewer than the number of adults received on a profession of religion, being in the following proi)ortion in the years stated. In 1827 there wore 10 infants sprinkled to 12 added on examination. 1828 " 10 " " 15 " " 1829 " 12 " " U " " Indeed if we take all their baptisms, both of adults and in- fimts together, for the three years above, they barely exceed the number of those received into conun union, being only in the i)ro])ortion of forty-three to forty-two.' For twenty years the whole number of their ])aptism8 of adults and infants put togethei" have probably but lit- tle exceeded the number of tiicir admissions on a ])rofes- place this ordinance lias liad In either the doctrinal expositions or the forms of religious worship common among our churches. Frequently the baptized chiltl is treated, from first to last, by his parents, by ilio minister, by the church itself, which stand around him at his baptism, precisely as if no such rite had been administered ; while the service itself, as we have said, is sniflfed out of sight with a hasty observance that as nearly as possible intimates contemj)t for it." — New York Tridependenl, SiyHember, 1854. ' See Appendix A. 134 DECREASE OF INFANT BAPTISM:. sion of faith. In some years they have siuik much below. For instance, there were in 1832 13 infants, or 22 infants and adults, to 34 added on examination. 1833 14 " 21 " " " 23 " " " These figm*es, however, are less to he rehed on because there are in all churches seasons of revival when large num- bers are admitted, and seasons of declension in wliich or- dinances may be maintained with regularity, while but few make a profession of personal piety. But the general re- sult shows that the declme of infant baptism among them must be very great. A fairer way of examining statistics of this kind is to take the per centage of infant baptisms to the whole body of the communicants. The following are the results of such an estimate. In 1827 1 infant was baptized to every 13i communicants. 1828 1 " " " " 13| " 1829 1 " " " " 13i " At this period, therefore, it would seem that the average yearly number of baptisms was about one to thu-teen and one third. But in 1837, ten years later, and just before the division of the Church into its two present organiza- tion of old and new school, the proportion of infant bap- tisms to the number of the communicants was one to eight- een and four fifths. This would indicate a very rapid decline. The old school Presbyterians have always been more con- servative than the new, especially of observances like tliis. Hence, in the year 1839, after the separation was complete, the statistics indicate some temporary check to this de- crease among them, and there was one infant baptism to PEESBYTERIANS. 135 sixteen and three fifths commimicants. But in 1853, it had fallen, in the old school branch of the denomiaation alone, to one in eighteen and four fifths, and in 1854 to one in eighteen and seven tenths. The statistics of the new school branch began in 1838, and exhibit one baptism to twenty-two and seven tenths of the communicants. This, however, had fallen in 1853, the last year of which we have seen statistics, to one in thirty- four and seven tenths! That is, where in 1827 there were ten baptisms to every one hundred and thirty-five communi- cants, in 1853 there are four baptisms to every one hun- dred and forty communicants ! But if we add, as we ought to do in an estimate of the whole period, the tables of the old and new school bodies together, then the infant baptisms have decreased in seven- teen years from one in thu-teen and one fifth to one in twenty-two and three tenths. Or to make the matter more palpable, supposmg that in 1827 every Presbyterian infant was duly baptized, it would foUow that now one hundred and fifty-two thousand seven hundred and ninety-two of then* members were hvmg in ne- glect of that ceremony. So that the practice has decreased among them about oiie half in twenty years. Let us next multiply the number of communicants by four, and it ^viU give us fairly the whole amount of men, women, and children, belongmg to strictly Presbyterian families, just as the census would take them, and coming withm the scope of infant baptism as now generally admin- istered. This would give a population of one million four hundred and thii-ty eight thousand eight hundred and sixty in 1853. The last census returns give one birth m the year to 136 DECREASE OF INFANT BAPTISM every thirty-three inhabitants, but these are admitted to be quite defective. In Boston, indeed, the increase has been found to be about one to every twenty-six. In England and Wales the average has been considered abo^^t one birth to every thirty-one mhabitants, and in this country the m- crease is larger. But accordmg to this estimate there were forty-six thousand four hundred and fourteen Presby- terian children born, less than one third of whom, fifteen thousand six hmidred and seventy-six, were baptized. But the Prussian returns give one birth to every twenty-six inhab- itants. This would give about fifty-five thousand bb'ths, of whom about forty thousand are unbaptized.' And further, a hundred years ago it was not only the serious Presbyterians who had their infants sprinkled, but as now in Scotland even the most worldly. Many who rarely set foot in a chu.rch of any kind, would yet bring their children forward. There is still another clearer method of exhibiting the decrease of infant baptism. By the late census the whole church accommodation of this country for all those denom- inations who baptize infants, is ten million six hundred and fifly-eight thousand six hundred and thirty-one, of which the 1 The average of births is exceedingly hard to estimate. The regis- tration of them in England and "Wales has ever been, and probably now is, below the truth. There, the population has about doubled in the last fifty years, in spite of war, emigration, and deaths. In Prussia there were, according to an account before me in 1849, six hundred and ninety-one thousand five hundred and sixty-two births to sixteen million three hun- dred and thirty-one thousand one hundred and eighty-seven population, or one birth to twenty-three and three fifths. The statistical reports of Prus- sia seem to me the most reliable. If we suppose the births to be one in twenty-six in Prussia, the estimated average, they are probably not less than one in twenty-five in this country. IN TUB UNITED STATES. 137 Presbyterians have two million seventy-nine thousand six hundred and nuiety. If, then, they baptized in 1853 fifteen thousand six hundred and seventy-six, and all other Pedobap- tist denominations m the same proportion, it would give, as the total number of infants sprinkled in the United States in that year, about eighty thousand. Supposing the popula- tion that year to have been twenty-live millions, there would have been, according to the English tables, eight hundred thousand children born to eighty thousand baj)tized. But by the Prussian tables, upward of nuie hundred and sixty thousand children were born, that is, onore than twelve infants born to one haptized, by all deno'tninations^ the whole country through? In one sentence, then, uifant baptism is now completely the exception where it used to be the rule. If the Presbyte- rian returns furnish a fair average, out of twelve infants born, eleven go unbaptized. A hmidred years ago the pro- portions were nearer the reverse. [Appendix B.] CHAPTEE V. IMMERSION ALWAYS THE BAPTISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. In the year 1841 Bishop Smith of the Episcopal Church in Kentucky was pubUcly declared by his o^vn brethren to be the author of a letter in the " Church Record," saying ' The Roman Catholics, as well as the Episcopalians, baptize a larger proportion of their infants than the Presbyterians. But the first named are only to the Methodists as six to forty-three, estimated by church ac- commodations ; and these last as well as the Congregationalists are far more lax in this matter than the Presbyterians. 138 BISHOP SMITH, that he and many of his -western brethren ^vere " con- strained to admit immersion to have been semper^ uhique^ et ah oninihus^'''' and as " being exceedingly galled by the argum, or immei^se, and its secondary meanings, if ever it had any, all refer in some way or other to the same leading idea. jSprinkling, etc., are entirely out of the question." If from the Episcopal Church we turn to the Presbyte- rian, we can not forget that Dr. Campbell declared, about fifty years ago, that the Avord 8unjl';Eiv^ both in sacred au- BAPTISM IMMERSIOIf. 139 thors and in classical, signifies to dip^ to plimge^ to im- merse, and that " it is always construed suitably to this meaning." We are not aware of a single writer of Church History who has expressed a doubt on this point. Xeander says that, "In respect to the form of baptism, it was in conform- ity with the original institxition, and the original unport of the symbol, performed by immersion as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, and of being entirely pene- trated by the same." ' Mosheim declares that in the first century " baptism was admmistered in convenient places, without the public assemblies, and by innuersmg the candi- date wholly in water." "^ Among the Germans, where the controversy has not been much agitated, this concession is most freely made. Winer, Tholuch, Hhan, Augusti, and many others, say, as Jaeobi says,' " the whole body was immersed in water," To this it must be added that the Greek Church does now, and always has, reqiiired immersion, holding that nothing else can be baptism. As Professor Stuart says : " The mode of baptism by hnmersion the Oriental Church has always continued to preserve, even down to the present time. * * They maintam that ^umllfa can mean nothing hut imm^erge?'''^ Even the Roman Catholics frequently urge it as a deci- sive argument against all Pedobaptist Protestants, that they do not immerse ; arguing that sprinldmg is only a substi- tute introduced on the authority of the Church, and that originally baptism was by immersion alone. In fact, the vast preponderance of e%'idence of all Christians, even of * History, voL i. p. 310. ^ Eccl. History, cent. 1. part ii. chap. 4. * Kitto's Cyc. Art. Baptism. * Bib. Repos. April, 1833, p. 360. 140 PEOFESSOE STUAET. those practicing iniant baptism, is most decisively in favor of all the baptisms of Scripture having been by immersion. And Professor Stuart, as we shall see, admits that there is not a single case in the New Testament irreconcilable with this supposition. Even when endeavormg to show the mode of baptism unimportant, his arguments are chiefly derived from the spiritual nature of Christianity rendering aU forms non-essential, thus curiously coming round to the chief error of Popery, i. e., taking for granted that baptism and salvation are so far connected that what is essential to the one is essential to the other ! Nearly aU the rest of his argument is based, in truth, as we shall see, on this fallacy, that if a Greek word ever has more senses belonging to it than its one most usual mean- ing, it can never be supposed, without demonstrative proof, to be used in less than the whole complement of its possible significations at the same time. Thus far have Baptist principles been fuUy conceded by the most enlightened of other denominations, in theory at least. "Were each of these admissions but universally acted xipon — were baptism delayed imtU the only proper time of fuU commimion, i. e., that of personal faith, and were im- mersion alone practiced, every division might be done away, and all Christians have now, as at fii'st, " one Lord, one faith, and one baptism." BOOK II. CONTROVERTED PRINCIPLES. We turn now to consider those principles which form the chief points of controversy remaining between Baptists and other denominations. 1. The Command to Baj^tize a Command to Immerse. 2. The Importance of Believer's Baptism. 3. Infant Baptism Injurious as well as Unscriptural. 4. Mixed Commmiion Unwise and Injurious. CHAPTER I. THE COMMAISTD TO BAPTIZE A COAniAXD TO IMiCEESE. § I. Ordinary use of iSa-rrTi^u. To persons not versed in this controversy, the subject of the present chapter and that of the foregoing will appear so nearly alike, that none, it might be almost presumed, who would admit what has been shown to be conceded in the former, would question what we are still obliged to call controverted ground. Yet such a supposition would be 142 THE COMMAND TO BAPTIZE erroneous. Many excellent Christians, freely admitting that primitive baptism was performed only by immersion, yet suppose that the command to be baptized may now be vaHdly fulfilled in other ways. Many more who admit the exceptions to immersion, if any,, to have been extremely rare and guarded, yet take the same ground. The word ^ttTTT/^w, they say, though primarily and almost always meaning to " f??jt>," to "*wimerse," or to '"'' plunge^'' has in some few cases other significations, less specific as to mode, and fi'om this they infer that the coiimiand of Christian bap- tism may therefore be fulfilled Avithout immersion. The object of the present chapter "wdll be to show the progress of opinion upon this subject, and how far the discussions of the last hundred years have reduced the points of difiiculty and tended to estabUsh those views for which the Baptists have usually contended. It will, first of all, be necessary to show how far the general principles and laws of interpre- tation that have been developed by the Biblical studies of such men as Professor Stuart and others, enable us to limit with precision the meaning of a divine conunand, even though the principal words of that command may each have several distinct senses. After this is done, it will be proper to in- qitire if it has been proved, during the last hundred years, that ^amiXfii ever has actually in Greek literature any mean- ing which does not necessarily involve the idea of immer- sion. The specific instances m which alone scholars like Professor Stuart and Robinson contend that it is not in- volved in the literal meanmg of the word, are very few. Apart from the rite of Christian baptism, and one or two that will prove figurative xises, these cases amount but to about seven in the whole compass of Greek literature. iVbwe of these belong to classic Greek, but are found either A COMMAND TO IMMEKSE. 143 in the Bible or Apocry])ha. They can, therefore, with a little attention, be tolerably well estimated, even by those not acquainted with the origmal. Perhaps the sense of this term -oill thns be foimd quite as specific and certam as the English word " r?//)." If, at sea, the cai^tam of a sloop-of-war were to order one of the hands " to dip a bucket overboard," would any one doubt the meanmg of the word " dip f " But if, thereupon, the sailor merely suspended the bucket a few mmutes out- side the vessel, where the waves might splash and wet it with theu' spray, and then were gravely to assert that he had obeyed the order, and dipped the bucket as he was instructed, would the captain hesitate to assert on oath, if necessary, before a court-martial, that the man had utterly neglected to obey the command given ? But suppose the accused were to plead, m justification, that he had foimd a copy of Milton's works m the hbrary of the forecastle, and had read in " Comus" a passage which fully justified his construction of the command, as follows : " A cold shuddering dew Dips me all o'er." Suppose he should urge hence, that it was clear the word dip m the order given was quite ambiguous, and might mean merely to l)edew or to sprmkle ; if he should produce the various meanings of the word, given in Webster's Dic- tionary, m proof of the ambiguity of the command, and particularly his fifth signification, i. e., " to moisten," " to wet," and argue thence that nothing more was decided by the verb used than that liquid was to be applied in some way to the bucket, but that it mattered not how : — suppose he were even to argue on this basis, that the Avord " dip" 144 DIP AND ^amlX,U). did not intimate any thing as to mode, but merely conveyed the idea of " moistening," or of " pm-ification ;" would it not be instantly replied that the meaning of the word " dip" must be detei-mined by its common usage, and the general manner of speaking, where no sj)ecial reason for supposing an exception was shown. Would it not be urged that almost all words are used sometimes in different senses, but by a well-known principle of language and of common sense, each word, although it should possess a dozen distinct meanings, can have but one of these significations at the same tune, so that in interpreting a command we are not at liberty to affix to each word all of its possible senses, or to ]3ick out from among them any one that may suit our pleasure, but the meaning of a command is always that signification of each word which the most common usage m such cases shows to have been intended by the speaker, exceptional meanings requii'ing specific proof in proportion to their rarity. Now in place of the English word " dip" let the reader put its exact equivalent in Greek, paTii/^w, and he will have before him an illustration of the real question whether the command to baptize is a command to immerse, as it has developed itself, especially during the last hundred years, through the researches of such critics even as Professors Stuart and Robinson. There is only this difference, that there has not been produced from the whole compass of Greek literature, a single instance in which ^amltb) is used in so figurative a manner as our English word " dip," in the instance quoted from the writings of Milton.' Apart from its use in reference to the rite of Christian baptism, we shall find that the meaning of the word ^anri'Qa more clearly and ' See p. 143. A. PRINCIPLE OP IXTEEPRETATION. 145 oniformly involves immersion in Greek, according to Lid- dell and Scott's Lexicon, the latest and most approved standard, than " dip" does in EngUsh, according to Webster, If the Sacred Scriptures had been originally written in English, and the word " dip'''' had been placed by the pen of inspiration, where we noAV read " haptize^'' few we sup- pose would esteem the meaning at all doubtful, even though it could be proved that the word was sometimes used dif- ferently from its primary signification. There has been much error on this point. The real ques- tion to be settled is not whether, throughout the whole range of Greek literature, any cases do or do not occur, in which the term ^anriL^M is used in any other sense than " immerse,'''' as one would suppose from the arguments of most of our Pedobaptist brethren. They generally content themselves with attempting to prove that ^amltfii may sometimes be used m another sense, freely conceding, as all who know any thing of the language must, that the prhnary and com/mon usage of the term is precisely what Baptists contend. This is the first and most important point of issue now remaming between Baptists and Pedobaptists, not whether the word ^anxi'Qji ahcays involves immersion, but whether the command to baptize is always a command to immerse. The question is as to a law of interpretation. Almost every word has several significations, but the in- terpreter of Scripture has not therefore a right to attach any of the senses he pleases, much less all of them, but he is to take that one meaning, in each case, which common usage and the connection show to have been ui the muid of the writer, and that is the sense of every command of Scripture, to the exclusion of all the other possible mean- ings, as completely as though they never existed. n 146 PRIXCIPLE OF INTERPRETATION. In Ernosti's Principles of Interpretation, as translated and enlarged by Professor Stuart, it is laid down " that the sense of a word can not be diverse or multifarious at the saine time, and in the same passage or expression. " All men, in their daily conversation and wi-itings, attach but one sense to a word at the same time and in the same passage, unless they design to speak in enigmas. Of course it would be in opposition to the imivei'sal custom of lan- guage if more than one meaning should be attached to any word of Scripture in such a case. Yet many have often done this. " Although a word can have but one meanmg at the same time and in the same place, usage has gradually assigned many meanings to the same word. The question, then, for an interpreter, is simply this : Wlaich one of the significa- tions that a word has, is connected mth its use in any par- ticular instance." ' It might be admitted, therefore, for the sake of argument, that many other senses may belong to the word ^amli^w, but the question then would be, which 07ie of these significa- tions is that which our Saviour mtended in this particular command ? It is just at this point that a distinguished Pedobaptist, whom the wi'iter of these pages vrW\ ever feel bound to re- vere and esteem, appears to him to have fiUen into au im- portant mistake. Defining the question at issue, Professor Pond says,'^ " Whatever Baptists ofier to show that immer- sion is a valid mode, or the most proper mode, or that it was frequently practiced in ancient tunes, has no direct bear- ing on the controversy, and no tendency to bring it to a close. Let them prove what we deny, that immersion is ' Part L chap. 1, sees. 17, 18. ' Treatise on Baptism, p 14. DR. POND'S MISTAKE. 147 essential to baptism — so essential that there can be no bap- tism without it, and our diiierences on the subject are at an end." This conies just after representmg the Baptists as asserting that " the meaning of the word [pamiQix)] is al- ways the same, and it always signifies to dip. It never has any otlier meaning." Now it is true that most Baptists hold what he here represents, in regard to the meaning of the original word for baptize. But it is obvious that he has confounded two things that might differ greatly, i. e., what is essential to Christian baptism, and what is always essen- tial to the meaning of the Greek word ^umilo). Hence he has misconceived the point at issue in such a way as to give himself great advantage. The question just now cer- tainly is not whether immersion is " so essential to the mean- ing of the word §amL'Cfa that there can be no baptism with- out it" but whether the sense of the command is such that immersion is enjoined in Christian baptism. The first is a speculative question of Greek philology — a comparatively nice and minute question — one upon which ninety-nine out of a hundred Christians can form but little positive opin- ion ; but the other belongs to the common sense meaning of a plain command intended to be easily understood and clear to the masses of Christians, one that would always be thus clear but for the learned dust that has been thrown around it. Our blessed Saviour gave his disciples instructions to " baptize'''' a certain class of persons. The word, we will suppose, may have five or six different senses, as most words have, and as Webster considers " dip" to have. But we want just now to find that one sense which ^umi'Cfa has in this command. To ascertain this, the first resort is obviously to common usage ; and, unless something in the preposi- 148 COMMON USAGE OF WOEDS. tions, idiom, connection, or circumstances decide otliei'"nnse, this and this alone is the meaning of the command. In Professor Stuart's Ernesti the question is asked, " If the same word has many significations, how can the mean- ing in each case be foimd ? 1. From the general man- ner of speaking, i. e., fi'om common usage. 2. From the proximate words or context. That is, the usual and ob- vious meaning is attached to the word, or else one which the context rendei'S necessary. In addition to the aid drawn fi-om these sources, an interpreter may sometimes obtain assistance from the scope or design of the writer, or from history, antiquities, or the nature of the subject."' If a house is " to let," and a foreigner declares the mean- ing of the advertisement not clear, because Webster's Dictionary teUs him that " let" sometunes means to " hin- der,'''' will it not reheve his difficulty to adhere to the only common sense rule of construing words, i. e., according to ordinary usage, imttl proof of another is shown. Whatever else may be questioned, no competent person will now deny that the primary and prevaihng meaning of this term in ordinary usage was precisely equivalent to our English words to " dip," or to " immerse." If ever it had any other senses, they were either merely figurative, or very secondary to this the ordinary usage, and they ahnost always involve m some way the primary idea. More than fifty years ago, Professor Campbell, in his "Notes on Matthew iii. 11," had conceded in the fullest manner that the ordinary sense of ^uml^w was so obviously inunerse, that he said he should have preferred to adopt it instead of baptize throughout the New Testament but for the fact that the other term had been so long in use. ' Part i, chap. L sec. 19. LEXICONS. 149 Since that time the most important Pedobaptist authorities on this pomt are such lexicons as those of Robinson, or Liddell and Scott, and such a dissertation as that of Profes- sor^^tuart. As to the prunary meaning of ^anjit,(D there is no question. Professor Stuart even says: "The original etymological root of (?«:tt/^w, ^dnTta, as also the nouns and adjectives kin- dred with them, appears plainly to be the monosyllable Bjn. The leading and origmal meaning of the monosyl- lable seems to have been dipping^ plunging^ immerging^ soaking, or drenching in some liquid substance." ^ The common regular usage of this verb in classic Greek is fuUy proved by all these authorities. JRobinson gives under this head " to dip in, sink, immerse, to dip in a vessel, to draw water." Liddell and Scott give the following meanings in the first edition of their Lexicon : " To dip repeatedly, dip under, mid. bathe, hence to steep, to wet, to pour upon, drench, to dip a vessel, draw water, to baptize." In the next edition, " to steep, to wet, to pour vpo7i, to drench,'''' are all expunged." Professor Stuart, mdeed, has accurately and at length gone over the whole ground, and considered all the mean- ings of §umltut in classic Greek, and at the conclusion he admits that there is no proof in it all that the word is ever used in any other tlian one of the two following senses : " 1. To dip, plunge, immerse any thing in Uquid. " 2. To overwhelm literally or figuratively."^ » Biblical Repos. April, 1833, p. 288. 2 See p. 179. 3 The only possible exception to this, in Professor Stuart's view, is the following passage brought forward as " not altogether certain," but prob- ably meaning " to bathe, by the application of liquid to the surface." Dionysius, of Helicarnasus, is commenting upon Homer, II. xii. 333, 160 PREDOMIXAJ^T USAGE. In other words, the general classic usage of this term is, if possible, more clear, vmambiguous, and uniform in its mean- ing than our English word to " <"7//:>." Xor do any excejjtional cases, which he supposes to exist in the New Testament, affect the above conclusion, so far as the ^yi'evailing and current sense of the word among the Jews in om- Saviour's time is concerned. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, Professor Stuart concedes hnmersion to be the pi-edominant meaning. So also in the Apocrj^iha. In Josephus and PhUo the imiformitj of this usage is miquestioned.' Hence Professor Stuart, winding up his remarks on the whole use of the word, classic and Hellenistic, or sacred, and asking the question, " What is the proper force and signification of the word according to the general use of language ?" concedes fully that " A review of the preceding examples must lead any person to the conclusion that the predominant usage of the words ^aniat and §uml':(>> is to designate the idea of dipping, plunging, and overwhelming." " This concession as to the customary signification of the word, throws the burden of proving an exception in the where it is said of Ajax that he struck Cleobulus across the neck with his heavy sword, " and the whole sword became warmed with hlood." On this text Dionysius remarks that here " Homer exhibits very great em- phasis, as much as to say, the sword was so bathed (iSaTr-iadivroc) with blood as to become heated." But this should be rendered as Professor Stuart allows it might, " the sword was so dipi)ed, or immersed in blood, as to become heated." ' Thus when the former is speaking of the death of Aristobulus, drowned by order of Herod, he says: "The boy was sent by night to Jericho, but there being, according to command, plunged (jSaTTTi^o/ievog) in a diving- bath by the Ga\ils, he died." (Wars of the Jews 1, 11.) 2 Bib. Eepos., April, 1833, p. 313. MEANING OF ETERNAL. 151 case of a command like this, upon those who claim it. It fixes the meaning of immersion upon the injunction, unless some other sense is shown to be more obvious in this case. In an important command like tliis of baptism given by Divine inspkation, we must presume that the term used is unequivocal in itself, as the Baptists contend, unless the connection renders some other meaning instantly clear ; for it is a settled law of all . correct language, that " equivocal tenns ought ever to be avoided, unless where their coimec- tionwith the other words of the sentence zVis^avi^??/ ascertain the meaning."^ The whole certainty of language rests upon this principle. We build upon it the most important and certain of our conclusions. All our assurance fi-om Scripture, even of eternal happiness for the righteous, rests upon it, as well as of the eternal punishment of the wicked. When, for in- stance, in arguing with a UniversaUst, we set before him the terms " eternal" and " everlasting," or rather the orig- inal aiaviog^ he will, of course, plead that there are instances, like Ecclus., xlv. 15, and that the term does not mean fully and fairly without any end. And have we to go through the whole range of Greek literature, and give up the eter- nity of the blessedness of heaven if there shall be one or two cases found in which, figuratively or Uterally, the word may possibly have reference to a less duration ? Surely it is sufficient if we establish a prevailhig usage. We are then entitled to claim that as the sense of the promise or the threatening of Scripture, imless those who think otherwise can produce proof of a different meanuig in this case. The burden of showing an exception is thrown on them. • Campbell's Rhetoric, book ii. chap. 6, sec. 2, part 1. 152 PREPOSITIONS. So the commancl to baptize is here plainly a command to Immerse, unless some special exceptional meaning can be clearly proved from the connection or circumstances to ap- ply in this case. It is not enough to show that the word may mean this or that in other cases, but that it must mean something else here. Until that be done, the most usual and obvious sense of the word is the command. We have no right, by our constructions, to put ambiguities into the Divine laws. § II. The Force op the Prepositions. In illustrating the command to baptize, near the com- mencement of the former section, the use of any preposition that would determine the nature of the command was care- fully avoided, so that it might rest upon the usual meaning of the verb alone. But if in the case we supposed, the cap- tain had directed the sailor to " dijj the bucket in, or into, the sea," the case would, of course, be, if possible, still plainer. Or if, in addition to being told to " dip the bucket over- board," it were in evidence that the captain himself had just previously performed the same ceremony by way of example to the men, and to the knowledge of this sailor, by dijjping the bucket " iVi" or " ifito'''' the water, could more be desired ? The concessions of Pedobaptists have made the case now, as we shall show, as clear as this Avould make it in the supposed illustration. A caviler might say that even our English preposition " in'''' is sometimes used where we only mean "on the surface," as Genesis, i. 22, " let fowl multiply in the earth." Chaucer thus speaks twice of " starving wretchedly in a mountain." Less hterally still, we speak of a man being " in w ine," intending only that FOKCE OF elg. 153 the wine is in him. Nor is " into'''' more absoUitely decisive.' But we rightly argue that where, as in Mark, i. 9, or Mat- thew, iii. 6, the obvious sense of the prej)osition confirms the obvious sense of the verb, it for^ns a construction as dii'ect and decisive as language can make it. It has been commonly asserted by our Pedobaptist brethren that the prepositions used hi connection Avith the descriptions of baptism could not assist in determinmg the sense of the command, or the method in which the rite was administered, and might mean either that baptism was to be icith or ifi water as we pleased to miderstand them. This is a great mistake. We fii'st consider Professor Stuart's own proposed rule for showing immersion to be the sense of the term ^amil^oi in the clearest possible manner by the use of the preposi- tions in connection "with it. " The Greek classic wi'iters are accustomed, when they designate the idea of plimgviff, dijyping, immersing^ etc., INTO any thing, to put the name of that thmg in the accu- sative case after ^dntoi or i^wtit/^w, and to ])ut before this case the pi'eposition sig>, or some equivalent one.'''' * In the account of the baptism of Jesus Christ, by John, Mark, i. 9, we have precisely this very form of construction, rendered as follows in our Enghsh version : " Jesus came and was baptized of John i?i Jordan," {sig rdf 'loQddi'riv). The primary and most natm-al idea of eig indicates motion into as Passow, Robmson and all lexicons agree. As such ' See John, vi. 15, and Rev. viii. 5. Of course the English prepositions "in" and "into" are used more specifically as a whole than the Greek ^j' and etc ; but i?i the constrrictions above, the sense of them is not more clear and definite. 2 Bib. Repos. April, 1833, p. 313. 7* 154 MAEK, 1. 9. it is opposed to ^x/ That it may mean at^ in other cases, is not questioned, because all the prepositions are thus in- definite, except by the connection. They are so in a degree even in English. But here the sense is as clear as Greek "words can make it. The concurrence of translators is strong but the following cases from Professor Stuart are highly im- portant concessions. Quoting an exactly similar use of the preposition Big and accusative after the verb here used, he says, '■'■' E^amias el; top noiafiov, can not usually mean less than that the individual of xohom this is affirmed, did actually dive tsto the icater, or icas in some way submerged into it.'''' '^ Xot a single exception to this usage has been pointed out by Professor Stuart in the whole range of Greek literature, nor, we may venture to add, can it be found. Quoting a passage before referred to, fi-om Dionysius of HaUcarnassus in which he uses the ^anTl^u followed by the dative without any preposition, and wtichGale renders "dip- ped in blood ;" Professor Stuart admits that it is capable of being so rendered, but thinks that this meaning would have been more certain i^ instead of the dative, he had used els followed by the accusative.' Just thus we have it, Mark, i. 9. So that there is, in regard to oui- Sa^viour's baptism, pre- cisely that form of expression which Professor Stuart would himself imagine and suggest as the most imequivocal possi- ble to make it certain that Jesus was baptized not at the river merely, or icith its water, but was plunged in or into the Jordan. He can conceive of no combination of terms in the Greek language that would make it more certain. Here at least the preposition adds every confirmation and clearness that a preposition can to the signification of the verb itself, so that the real question is, whether the Greek I See LiddeU and Scott, Art. 'Ev. ' Page 317. s Page 305. LUKE, III. 21. 155 language can unequivocally express that a person was dip- ped in water. Robinson, in his Lexicon, gives this passage, Mark, i. 9, as a clear case of being baptized or jjUinged " into the Jordon," and Bloomfield ^ (who seems to think it possible that the eunuch having descended into the water might then only have had water poured copiously on his head) gives up the sense of this passage as decisive in favor of a com- plete immersion of the Saviour in the river. " The sense," he says, " is, ' was dipped or plunged into^ * * * ^j. j^ may here be ' He underwent the rite of baptism by being plunged into the water.' " Matthew's account corroborates this idea. It is then as clear ^ from Mark, i. 9, as it is in the j^oicer of Greek word$ to make it^ that Jesus was baptized by being innnersed in Jordan. The verb, the preposition, and the circumstances all concur in rendering this the only opinion. And this alone, in the absence of other evidence would be sufficient to fix the meaning of the command by an illustra- tion. And further, this being established, the absence of any preposition in Luke's^ account goes to show that he con- sidered immersion here as sufficiently indicated by the verb ^uniiQw itself; and that there was nothing but what was cus- tomary in this case so far as the method of baptism was concerned. If, then, we had not a single other case of baptism in the New Testament to illustrate the sense to be attached to the command, this one, showing the manner in which he who gave it had submitted to the rite himself, would be as perfect and authoritative an exposition as could be conceived, suffi- cient to clear a hundred elliptical expressions in which it might not have been thought necessary to add any prepo- * Notes oa Matt., iii. 16. 2 Chap. iii. 21. 156 FORCE OF iv. sition. This is one of the most important results to a can- did mind of going over Professor Stuarts' examination of these prepositions. But is there any thing in the particles elsewhere to con- tradict this sense, or prevent it being attached to the com- mand ? Do we, for instance, find any such preposition as we might expect somewhere to meet with, if pouring water u2^on a person or sprinkling him with it, had been the mod( adopted, but such as would not be used if immersion i?i water were intended ? More than fifty years ago it was re- marked by one of the most judicious critics, that there is not one such case in the New Testament, We never, for instance, find inl or ixno thus immediately in connection vnth baptize, " Avhich (as Campbell remarks) we doubtless should if spriuklmg had been intended." ' On the contrary, in Mark i. 5, and Matt. iii. 6, we have a form of construction in which the use of the preposition sf [^V^] is, clearly in the opinion of this very high authority, not less decisive. Here we read of John, that " there went out unto him Je- rusalem and all Judea * * * and were baptized of him in Jordan.^'' {i*' tw 'logSdcrr^. It is true Professor Stuart contends that "in aU these cases the manner of the action is no further designed than the word i?«7rr/^w impUes it."^ But here it is that the de- velopment of those settled rules and laws of language aod of interpretation to which the last hundred years has con- tributed so much, become mvaluable. If Professor Stuart's view of the case were correct, it would simply foUow that the common usage of the verb would stiU be decisive of the command, there being noth- ing to cause a deviation. Or the clear passages would de- ' Note on Matthew, uL 11. 2 Page 319. MARK, I. 5. MATTHEW, III. 6. 157 cide those supposed to be doubtfuL Certainly tbe doubtful could not shake the clear. " If one passage is acciirately expressed so as to admit of no doubt it can not admit of any accommodation. The doubtful one inust he accommodated to the plain?'''^ It has just been established that John im- mersed Jesus in the Jordan, and that this was regarded by Luke as sufficiently indicated by the verb ^oLnxlXsa alone, without any preposition. And we are now told that there were multitudes of others who received the same rite fi-om the same administrator. Since the common, regular, and established meaning of the verb is to immerse, that is the sense we are boimd to affix to it in the absence of opposite proof. If the signification is made clear ia Mark, i. 9, we have no right to consider it ambiguous in verse 5. A nar- rative or a command is often expressed less specifically in proportion as it is supposed to be well understood. " There are in all languages," as Dr. Campbell says, " certain eUipti- cal expressions which use has estabhshed, and which there- fore very rarely occasion darkness. When they do occa- sion it they ought always to be avoided." If, then, the evangelists have not avoided eUipffcal expressions in regard to this rite, in any case, we are bound to conclude it was because there was nothing to render ambiguous the sense of the verb. But the prepositions are, ui fact, quite decisive in confirm- ing the regular meaning of the verb in all cases, as Camp- bell has shoT\Ti and as wiU be seen more fuUy at Appendix C. Here it is sufficient to remark that, according to the last edition of Professor Robinson's lexicon of the New Testament, in every case where any preposition is used by the sacred writers Lq this relation to ^aml^o)^ and the ele- ' Stuart's Ernesti, § 186. 158 DR. CAMPBELL. ment of the baptismal rite, it always indicates the manner, and that manner to he immersion as plamly as om* English Avord "iVi" can express this. Thus, according to him, it should be translated. Even Professor Robmson's evident desire in the three cases of St. Luke (considered in Appendix C), in which there is no preposition, to leave the sense of the verb am- biguous, only makes his views of the force of the preposi- tions more marked and decisive, and shows that the latest Pedobaptist authority directly contradicts Professor Stuart's estimate of the force of the prepositions here. Dr. Campbell goes further, and comments with great severity on those who in these cases do not translate the preposition so as to give the most unequivocal support to the idea of immersion. In his note on Matt. iii. 11, he says, that so "inconsistent" are King James' translators in havmg rendered the clause iv vSari '■'■ tcith water" that "none of them have scrupled to render 'ev tw 'loQddf-ri in the sixth verse ' in Jordan,' though nothing can be plainer than that, if there be any incongru- ity m the expression 'in water,' this 'in Jordan' must be equally incongruous. BfR; they have seen that the prepo- sition in could not be avoided there without adopting a cu'cumlocution and saying ' ^dth the water of Jordan,' which would have made their deviation fi-om the text too glaring." " It is to be regretted," he adds, " that we have so much evidence that even good and learned men allow their judgments to be warped by the sentiments and cus- toms of the sect which they prefer. The true partisan, of whatever denomination, always incUnes to correct the dic- tion of the Spirit by that of the party." The above is a fair reAaew of the light thro^vn upon this question dui'ing the last centm*y by the discussions in regard POOLS IN JEETJSALEM. 159 to the force of the prepositions used in connection with bap- tism. In a word, they are not such particles as " doubt- less would have been used" as Campbell well says, had ^anjCCfa meant in these cases to " sprinkle" or to " pour." But they are such as show it to be the duty of the trans- lator in all cases to make his construction as indicative of immersion as om- English word " in'''' can make it. § m. Circumstances attending Baptism. It has often been urged that it was imjiossible for water to have been found in the city of Jerusalem for the bap- tism of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost, no river being near at hand. A hundred years ago, when sacred geography was but little understood, few persons could definitely meet such assertions, and they have become so common, handy, and habitual, that to this day the same thing is often urged as an objection even by the most re- spectable writers. But within the last thirty years the sacred city has been so measured and explored by smwey- ors of the highest authority, that a point like this can be settled now on data that can not be shaken. The re- searches of Dr. Robinson and others, in Palestine, have estabUshed the most ample conveniences. It will be sufficient simply to enumerate five or six of the princi- pal public pools, the dimensions of which are or were as follows. The figures are in most cases those of Dr. Robinson. 1. There was tJie Pool of Bethesda, where the impotent man lay. It had every convenience and suitability for this rite, three hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and thirty feet broad, seventy-five feet deep in parts, but so ar- 160 WATER FOR BAPTIZING. ranged round the sides as to afford facilities for the bap- tism of multitudes. 2. The Klng''s^ or Solomon'' s Pool^ supplied from "the Fomitaux of the Virgm," according to Dr. Robinson, is fif- teen feet long, six feet broad, three feet deep in parts, and capable of bemg raised for bathing purposes by a slight dam used to this day. It was suppHed mth a constant stream of fresh water, and exactly fit for immersing any number. 3. The Pool of Siloam^ fifty-three feet long, eighteen feefe broad, nineteen feet deep m parts, with another smaU-jr pool close by, both commonly used for bathing purposes as Dr. Robinson remarks. 4. The Old Pool, or Zipper Pool in the hightoay of thf Fuller's Field, according to Dr. Robinson, three himdred and sixteen feet long, two hundi'ed and eighteen feet broad, eighteen feet deep in parts, covering more than an acre and a half, " with steps at the corners, by which to de- scend mto it." 5. The Pool of JETezeJciah, according to Dr. Robinson, two hundred and forty feet long, one hundred and forty- four feet bi'oad, covering thus more than an acre of ground, with a descent of steps at the north-west angle, and sloping bottom in other places. 6. The Loioer Pool of Glhon, according to Dr. Robmson, five hundred and ninety-two feet long", two hundi-ed and sixty fset broad, forty-two feet deep in parts. It covers more ^an four acres of gromid, is rather a pond than a pool in point of size, its sides lia\'ing a slope just adapted to a de- scent for immersion. In this spot alone, three thousand or any number might have been baptized the same day. There are many other cisterns and pools in which immersion could TIME OCCUPIED. 161 have been performed. In all of these places the sides are more or less sloping, so that unless at the time of some freshet they would have been suitable for bathing.' The time it would have occupied to have unmersed the three thousand, used commonly to be brought forward as an objection to the ordinary signification oi ^antlQo) m Acts, ii. 41. Now it is seldom adduced, probably, because so httle if any time would have been saved by adopting any other method. It is worthy of remark that this difficulty never has troubled those who would best know it, if it were real. There is something painfully little in having to discuss questions of time about a matter of this solemn interest ; it is an ordinance that is usually prolonged, from its pleas- ing nature. And yet it may be proper to show that if time were an object, little, if any thing, would necessarily be gained by sprinklmg in j^lace of immersion, where a large number had to be baptized. What antiquary ever denied the immersion of the ten thousand, baptized in one day in the river Swale, near the beginning of the seventh century, on account of supposed difficulties of this kind ? Or who ever ventured to question that the baptism of the three thousand on Easter eve, a.d. 404, at Constantinople, dis- turbed by the officers sent to arrest Chrysostom, was by immersion ? And yet with all the complicated mysteries then introduced, this must have been more difficult to ac- complish in one night than that of the three thousand in one day by the administrators of those times. A few years ago a minister had occasion to baptize twenty-seven persons in a stream of water. The plan ' For a fuU description of the above, see Baptismal Tracts, 115, 36, by Dr. Chase and Rev. G. W. Sampson. 162 THE QUESTION OF TIME. adopted, was one M^hicli had been customary in that place for one or two generations. The administrator having pro- ceeded a convenient distance into the stream with an assist- ant acquainted ^ith the ground, the candidates properly- attired followed in procession, not behind exactly, but a lit- tle to the right hand of the minister. As each was bap- tized he passed on a Uttle to the left, and another was ready to step forward immediately, and another, and another, while those baptized walked in procession to the shore. In this way the principal time really was occupied by the ad- ministrator in repeating the baptismal formula, for that taken up by the immersion was scarcely a second, and would not make the service much, if any longer than by pouring. It was a solemn season and one over which neither the administrator nor the candidates had the least disposition to hurry, nor will that semi-circular procession ever fade from the minds of those who witnessed it. A short time afterward, one of the deacons, a gentleman most careful and exact in all he said and did,' informed the writer that he had marked the time occupied m administering baptism to the whole twenty-seven candidates, which was just eight minutes. In this way which is as solemn as any in which the ordinance could be performed, especially where there is a large number of candidates, the whole of the three thousand might have been baptized by twelve admin- istrators in less than 07ie hotir and a quarter. But a better knowledge of early ecclesiastical customs than was customary a himdred years ago has reduced this objection to a perfect absurdity. Then the masses of Chris- * The late Oliver Stevens, Esq., of Savannah, father of the esteemed missionary of that name in Burmah, for so many years the companion in labor of Judson. THE JAILOR. 163 tians probably believed that under no circumstances could a baptism be valid unless performed by a minister, regu- larly ordained, and bringing down a title to administer it in succession from the xVpostles, who, it was therefore granted, could alone have been the dispensers of the ordi- nances in this case. But now it is well known to all, that in the earliest times the administration of baptism was not confined to ministers, and that the Apostles generally pre- ferred not to baptize with their own hands. It is 2:)robable that the seventy at least were even more engaged in baptizing than the twelve, according to apostohc custom.' These two bodies alone would give eighty-two administrators. If we should suppose a hundred present, who might be employed in case of any difiiculty as to time, and even a minute occupied in the baptism of each (which is more than double what was necessary where there were several candidates), the whole might have been adminis- tered in thirty minutes. Making all allowance for changes of dress, there is no difficulty as to time.'' Such are the two only difficulties, from attendant circum- stances in the way of consideruig the rite of baj^tism al- ways to have required immersion, unless perhaps some should suppose that of the jailor and his household to de- mand elucidation. But in those Eastern countries where baths are so usual, what is there remarkable in this case ? * See Acts, xi. 48, and 1 Cor. i. 14. 2 It is surprising that it never occurred to those who make this ob- jection to immersion, how much more strongly it would bear against tre- fant baptism, which, if administered, as a matter of course, according to their supposition, and only on this account not recorded, must have re- quired them to bring forward their children also, doubling the number to be baptized, and far more than doubling the time required for its admin- istration. 164 PHILIPPI. Judson observed the commonness of baths in jail premises even in India. However, the labors of modern Pedobaptists may assist us here a Httle. It was in a city (Philippi) on " the Place of Foimtalns," " so called from its numerous streams^'''' scooped out no doubt into many reservou's, on account of the gold and silver mines which first brought its early inhabitants together. Here flowed the River Gangas, by which must have stood the house of prayer where Lydia's heart was opened. But was there water i7i the prison sufii- cient for baptism ? it is demanded. Probably not, for as Connybeare has shown, i^is distinctly intimated that the jailor took them out of the prison itself to some fountain or convenient place for ablution, probably connected 'with the prison, where he washed their stripes, and was baptized before he again removed them into his o^^l house.' Now this is every thing which used to be supposed ad- verse to the idea of immersion connected with the rite of baptism in the New Testament ; and it all exhibits not the sUghtest occasion to. imagine any deviation intended from the ordinary signification of the word, when used m the command. But this is not all. There are many facts mentioned that have been supposed to imply unmersion. To begin with the baptism of John. It is particularly mentioned that he went to tJie Jordan to baptize, and that Jesus came to that river to receive the orduiance. Apart fi-om the force of ' napaXaJa)!', in verse 33, intimates a change of place. Prof. Stuart fails of his usual accuracy, therefore, in supposing the water for the wash- ing of their stripes and baptism to have been brought into the prison. See Connybeare and Howson's Life of St. Paul, vol. i. pp. 311, 331. Lon- don quarto edition. MUCH WATER. 165 the prepositions, why is he represented as "coming up (dno) out of, or even from the water f " And Avhy is it so carefully specified ' that it was " because there was much water there,'''' that John selected Enon as a place for bap- tism, and that the people came there and were baptized ? It has been said that it may mean simply that there were " many strearns^'' there. Suppose it so ; what then ? Why the people may have brought their flocks with them, and have needed convenient streams for these. But why then should the water be more carefully specified than the grass? For, what we want to know is, why the " much water" or " many waters" is so particularly mentioned, just between the two announcements of baptism. It must have been for the reason given by Bloomfield, ^. e., that " it is plain, from various passages of the Gospels, that baptism was adminis- tered by the baptizer after having placed the 2^erson to be baptized in some river or brooJc. And that plenty of water was thoiight desirable, we learn from John, iii. 23."* The phrase vSaia no'klu is so used in all other places as almost ne- cessarily to imply a large body or bodies of water, rather than many little streams.* Campbell adheres to the English translation. It is straining to question that the allusion here is clearly to immersion and nothing else.' The case of the eunuch is generally considered as an illustration of immersion.'* " See here is water." Why this for aspersion ? Wliy this remark, and if made, why is it recorded ? And again, why do they botJi go down iiito * John, iii. 23. ' See Bloomfield's Notes on Acts, viii. 38. ' See Ripley's Reply to Stuart, pp. 64-7 2 ; and Robinson's Calmet. Art. Gibeon. * But see Samson's letter, pp. 146-152, in Chase's Design of Baptism. » Acts, viii. 38. 166 1 CORINTHIANS, X. 2. (slg) the "water, and come up out of (if) the watei" ? It is said the prepositions «zay mean that they went doMai only to the AA-atcr, and came up/ro?K it. Suppose it so. Why do they both go down to the water ? Wliy not send the charioteer ? or if they go, why so particular to record it, and the coming up out of, or from it ? But in fact there is not the slightest reason to depart from the natural sense of Bis, which clearly indicates here into, as ifc out of, to suit the verb and the noun. Bloomfield admits this, and that " the baptizer and the baptized" both went " into water of some depth," m tliis case, and customarily. For what then should both go into the water, in baptism, but immersion ? These circumstances, so naturally and specifically recorded, all make up an amount of corroboration that it is difficult to estimate and impossible to overcome, conceded and con- firmed as we find them now by the clearest results of mod- ern criticism. § IV. The Figurative allusions to Baptism. Some have foimd in 1 Corinthians, x. 2, " were baptized unto Moses ua the cloud, and m the sea," an allusion to the spray of the Red Sea sprmkUng the Israelites. This Professor Stuart gives up.' Baptists consider that the ref- erence is to their going down mto the bed of the Red Sea, which stood as a wall on the right hand and on the left, mitil they came up again out of the deep, the cloud above them completmg the immersion. Tliat this baptism was figurative, and not related as Uteral, is evident. But aU figures rest on a basis of fact. That the IraeUtes were not literally immersed in the sea is plain. But that is far fi'om * Page 333. THE ARK A FIGUEE. 167 justifying Professor S.'s assertion, that it seems " of neces- sity to imply that immersion is not essential to the idea of baptism." For the " idea" is founded on the literal fact. What hteral fact, in regard to baptism, is the figure based on ? Professor Stuart replies thus : " I do not see how, on the whole, we can make less of it than to suppose that it has a tacit reference to the idea of surrounding m some way." And again : " It is therefore a kind of figurative mode of expression, derived frova the idea that baptism is surround- ing ynth. a fluid." ^ But how a person could be surroimded with water in baptism ^vithout being immersed, it must take some ingenuity to discover, especially if the idea he so often insists on, of overichelming^ be added as embraced in the word baptize. In 1 Peter, iii. 20, 21, baptism is said to be the figure of cm* being placed in a state of salvation, like Noah in the ark, who was thus kept alive in the midst of the waters. Here the same figure founded upon the Avater surrounding and immersing the sides of the ark in which he was en- closed, is evident. From this idea, Noah's ark became a favorite symbol of the Church with ancient Christians, so long as iromersion m as jjracticed, and is constantly found rudely sculptured in the catacombs of Rome, to indicate that the tenant of the tomb A^dthin AA'as a member of the Church. The publication of many interestmg researches of modern ecclesiastics among the tombs of these ancient saints, illustrated by plates, has withm the last few years thrown new interest around this passage. So far as it goes it must be favorable to the Baptist views of the question of immersion, especially as the Apostle, in guarding us against the superstition of supposing its efficacy derived • Page 336. 168 TRENCH ON HEBREWS X. 22. from " washing away the filth of the flesh," clearly implies that baptism was always a rite in which there was a thor- ough washing of the whole body. Hebrews, x. 22, " having our bodies washed with pure water," Professor Stuart admits to be in no way inconsist- ent with immersion, as this is one way in which cleansing may be efiected, but gathers from it that " loashing was at least one method, and perhaps even the more ordinary one, of practicing baptism/ But iBkovftivoi shoiild here be ren- dered " bathed in.'''' Trench, m his masterly " Synonymes of the New Testament," says,'^ " ^oisbv is not so much ' to wash' as ' to bathe,' and lavadai^ ' to bathe oneself,' implies always, not the bathing of a part of the body, but of the whole — Iskovfili^oi to au)fia^ Heb. X. 23." Thus, baptism is here compared to a bath, and the accurate rendering of the passage would be, " having our bodies bathed in pure water." In Luke, xii. 50, the Saviour says, according to our trans- lators, " I have a baptism to be baptized with," etc. The use of the word with in connection with baptism, is preju- dicial, for it is a preposition we never use in connection with immersion, and there is nothing in the original to warrant its insei'tion. Campbell gives the true sense : " I have an immersion to undergo," or as Professor Stuart says, " I am about to be overwhelmed with suifering." So in Mark x. 38, " Can ye indeed take upon you to undergo patiently and submissively, sufierings like mine — suiferings of an over- whelmi7ig nn.twi'eV' So in Matthew, iii. 11, which should read as Campbell translates it and defends, " He shall bap- tize you in {ir) the Holy Ghost and in fire.' ' Most would admit that whatever is here meant by " washed with pure water," is spoken of as pertaining to all the Christians of the Apostle's time. "^ Pages 216, IT. ^ See his Notes. ROMANS, VI. 4. 169 There are two other figurative passages considered by the Baptists more decisive than any others as to the Ught they throw on the manner in which the rite was imiversally at first understood to be commanded. The first of these is Romans, vi. 4, " We are buried with him by (Sin) baptism into death, that hke as Christ was raised from the dead by the glor}^ of the Father, even so Ave also should walk in ne^A^less of Ufe." To an imsophisticated English reader, the allusion here, it is urged, is plain. Baptism is made the figure of a hurial, and immersion is thereby indicated. Al- most every commentator of repute, ancient and modern, has adopted this view. Professor Stuart, even while un- dertaking to show a difibrent sense, confesses that " it is difficult to procure a patient re-hearing, becaxxse it has been so long regarded by some as being out of /air dispute."* [See Appendix D.] The whole weight of modern criticism is utterly against ' The apostolic constitutions say, "Baptism is given into the death of Jesus. The water is instead of the burial ; * * * the descent into the water, the dying together with Christ, the ascent out of the water, the rising again with Him." Book iii. ch. 17. And so again at each baptism, the prayer was solemnly made, "Sanctify this water, so that he who is baptized, may die with Him, and may be buried with Him, and may rise witli Him," while baptism is thus called in the same prayer, " an emblem of the death of Christ." (Chase's edition of the Constitutions and Canons, book vii. chap. 43. Chrysostom thus makes baptism an emblem and proof of the resurrec- tion (Hom. 40, in 1 Corinthians), and again "we dip our heads in water as in a grave. Our old man is buried, and when we rise up again the new man rises therewith." (Hom. 25, in John iii. 5.) In fact it would prob- ably be impossible to find a question as to the doubt of these words to immersion, during the first fifteen hundred years of the Christian era, 8 170 FORCE OF ROMANS IV. 4. the new view, as Bloomfield has shown m his comment on Romans, vi. 4. " The rite of immersion," he says " in the baptismal ^sater, and egress from it, were used as a symbol of breakhig off aU connection with the present sinful hfe, and giving one's self to a new and pure one." And he gives the sense of verse 4, as follows : " We have been thus buried in the waters of haptmn. There is a plain allusion to the ancient custom of baptism by immersion." Connybeare declares of Komans, vi. 3, that " this passage can not he understood except by remembering that the primitive mode of baptism was by immersion." It is useless to multiply authorities. The real importance of these allusions, Rom. vi. 4, Col. ii. 12, Is that tliey complete the proof that nothing else was known by the Apostle as Christian baptism. It has been coimnonly conceded by Pedobaptists, that all John's bap- tisms were by immersion, that Jesus was thus baptized, but then they have sometimes supposed that Christian baptism was variously adiuiiiistered. liut St. I'aul here obviously shows that all those to whom lie was writing were as a matter of course, and an essential part of their baptism "buried" in the water. Jle says of hhnself and all the primitive Christians, " loe are buried with Christ by baptism." This figure shows how the command to be baptized was every where understood. Indeed the form of a question in verse 3 (which as Connybeare remarks can only be un- derstood by reference to immersion), reduces every other view to an absurdity. " KnoAv ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death ? therefore we are buried with him by baptism," etc. Thus the biblical criticism of the last hundred years has unfolded an amount of evidence from the figurative allusions HISTORICAL VIEW. lYl to the ordinance of baptism in the New Testament, which renders it certain that the universal understanding and and practice of all the earliest Christians in reference to the method of administering the rite of baptism, Avas exactly that of the Baptists. For according to the mterpretation of Bloomfield, Connybeare, and others, the language of Romans, vi. 4, is not true of any persons but those im- mersed in baptism. They ij^ay be, and thousands are, spiritually dead with Christ. They may be spiritually risen with him. But they are not as all primitive Christians plainly were " buried with hhn by baptism.'''' § Y. Historical View op Immersion and Sprinkling. Professor Stuart has devoted a section to the proper hi- quiry, " What was the mode of baptism practiced by the churches in the early ages of Christianity, and after the times of the Apostles ?" While he gives it up as " a thing made out that the ancient practice was immersion,"' yet he also thinks it " no doubt true that there were cases of exception allowed to persons in extreme sickness or old age." "^ This is substantially the Baptist view, with one important omission. Professor Stuart does not add how soon tliis exceptional practice begun. Baptists have clauned that there is not a single case of any baptism but immersion on record, before near the middle of the thii'd century. In a chronological table cited by Coleman from Rheinwald, a.d. 230, is given as the date of the tirst appearance of clinic baptism.^ In examining the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, Pro- fessor Stuart complains that " scarcely any thing of a defi- * Page 359. ' Ibid. ^ Christian Antiquities, p. 531. 1V2 HERMAS. nite nature occurs respecting baptism." We can easily gather that baptism Avas practiced, he thinks, but are not able to determine Avith precision the manner of the rite. He refers us, however, to a jjassage in the " Shepherd of Hernias," which he partly quotes. Taken as a whole, it is an import- ant passage here. The vision is indeed but the dream of some ignorant Christian, intended to describe his views of the building up of the Churcjj. This is represented by the erection of a tower upon a rock, near by a place of deep water. The shejjherd sees stones raised one by one out of the deep, and others afterward rise out of it themselves, and are carried by virgins and built up in the form of a tower. The she])herd asks the angels what these are that were raised up out of the deep water, and they are sho^vn to be the Old Testament saints ; those who rose up of them- selves are the Apostles and saints of the New Testament. It is then asked how the Old Testament samts came to arise out of the water and enter into this tower, seeing that they were holy spirits long ago. The angel intimates that they were baptized in the world of spirits by the Apostles. " It was necessary for them to ascend by loater^ that they might be at rest," and that they being dead nevertheless, were thus scaled. " That seal," he proceeds, " is the water of baptism intoichich men descend^ being under obligation to death (/. e. in a state of condemnation), but come up ap- pointed unto life." The shepherd next asks Avhy the New Testament saints also ascend with them out of the deep, and is answered that the Apostles and teachers went and preached to those who Avere dead before, and gave them this seal. " They went down therefore into the xcater xcith them^ and again came np.^'' The Avhole of this is one of the most absurd allegories JUSTIN MARTYR. 173 handed down to us in early Church History. It shows how soon the doctrine of the necessity of baptism to salvation entered, and the folly of havhig to go out of the Bible for any part of our Christianity, shice, at one of the very first steps, we meet with such superstition as this. However, the only question here is whether, when this was written, it is not evident that immersion alone was considered baptism, seeing that the writer plainly thought that even the Old Testament samts had to be immersed ! And this, though ordhiarily ranked as a production of the fii'st century, is r^ow, on mternal evidence, commonly placid in the second. Professor Stuart proceeds to say, that in the writings of Justm Martyr, " wdiere we might naturally expect some- thing definite, nothing of this nature occurs." ' He quotes the well-known passage from that writer, in which he says that those who become believers " are led by ics to a place tchere there is water ^'' etc. Professor Stuart does not attach the same mipoitance to the verb y-oxna that Trench would have done, where Justin says that there " they are bathed hi the name of God the Father," etc. Yet he observes : " I am persuaded that this passage, as a whole, most naturally refers to immersion ; for Avhy, on any other ground, is the convert, who is to be initiated, to go out to the place where there is water. There could be no need of this if mere sprinkling, or partial effusion only, was customary in the time of Justin." Nor is there anything contrary produced until long after TertuUian, when it ceases to be so impor- tant. Augusti, however, translated by Coleman, says : " It is a great mistake to suppose that baptism by immersion was discontinued when mfant baptism became prevalent. This > Page 855. 1V4 "a thing made out." "was as early as the sixth cent uiy, but the practice of immer- sion contmued mitil the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Indeed, it has never been formally abandoned, but is still the mode of administermg infant baptism in the Greek Church." ' " But enough," writes Professor Stuart. " It is, as says Augusti, a thing made out, i e., the ancient practice of im- mersion. So, indeed, all AVTiters who have thoroughly in- vestigated this subject conclude. I know of no one usage of ancient times which seems to me more clearly and cer- tainly made out. I can not see how it is possible for any candid man who examines the subject to deny this.'' We have thus shown the progress of Baptist views, from the concessions of Pedobaptists, as to the rules of interpre- tation ; the usual meaning of ^ami'c^oo ; the force of the pre- positions used m connection "ndth it ; as to the places where, and circumstances under which, both in Scripture and early Church History, the rite was performed ; and even as to the figurative allusions which are all demonstrative of the universality of immersion in primitive baptism. ' Coleman's Christian Antiquities, chap. 14, sec. 8, p. 275 Since the first pubhcation of the above work, especiaDy valuable as an excel- lent condensation and translation of important portions of the conclusions of Augusti, Rheinwald, and others, Mr. Coleman has been unfortunately- tempted to recast his work, put in a arge amount of his own, and oblit- erate some valuable portions of the translations. By this his book is far from having gained in real value whatever may be the ofTect on its popularity. Among other results of this, he seems to express the eon- clusioD that one of the earliest corruptions of the Church was the intro- duction of immersion instead of pouring, or sprinkling, which he sagely conjectures must have taken place at a very early date 1 2 Page 359. PROPER AND TROPICAL SENSES. 175 IsTothing more is necessary to determine most certainly that the command to baptize is a command to immerse, al- though the word ^amllix) should have a hundred other pos- sible meanings. Nor does the correctness of Baptist \dews depend in the least upon the nicer philological question we are about to discixss in the next section. § VI. BanTj^u Alwats Involves Immersion. It will now be proper to show how far the discussions of the last hundred yeai's have gone toward settling definitely that ^unil'Qoi is never used in classical or Hellenistic Greek, except with a direct reference to its primary and common signification — to clip, to immerse. All words are either proper terms or rhetorical tropes ; that is, they are used either literally ov figuratively. When one of our poets, describing a sunset, says : " Each flinty spire Was hathed in floods of living fire." Or another says : " A cold, shuddering dew Dii^s me all o'er," it occasions us no embarrassment. We understand the figurative language by first of all referring back in our minds to the literal meaning of the teiTus. And although the word " bathe" sometimes in EngUsh means only to saturate, or wet, copiously with and not in a fluid, yet in such a pass- age as that where it occurs above, we form our conception of the figure by conceiving first of all of an immersion. And we grasp the beauty of the figure only as we get a vivid 176 DANIEL, IV, 30. conception of the literal meaning of the term as there used, distinct from all its other meanings. The figurative use of a word, then, must always, so long as it is figurative, bring before the mind some pre-existing and well-known proper sense of the term. Such a word as " dip" in English, always, even when used figuratively, as above, of the dew, first of all gives us the idea of an immersion, which, transferred to the action of the dew, suggests the conception of a satura- tion as complete as if there had been a literal dippmg in water. No instance in the whole compass of Greek literature has been adduced of so figurative a use of ^ccmCru) as this of the word " <7i/)." One case, however, has been produced fi-om the Septuagint of a kindred term, §6.mn)^ used in very much this way. It is Daniel, iv. 30, concernmg ISTebuchadnezzar, who, it is said, was driven forth fi"om among men, and made to eat grass like the ox, " and his body was {i3&(frl) hathed in the dew of heaven." A single case like this does not m.olest the literal meaning of §('nn(x)^ but rather confirms it, implying as do all the figurative uses both of Sanjot and §uTn[t,(x)^ the largest possible application of fluid that the nature of the case will admit. But it is unnecessary to pursue this further, as it is ad- mitted by all, that in the command to baptize the principal verb is not iised figuratively, but in some proper sense, and the verb (id-nTw is never used at all. Sometimes, it is true, that which was at first only tropical, becomes at length a literal meaning of a word, and it is often a nice point to say whether a term is used literally or figuratively. It is thus that meanriigs multiply. But tliis change is only brought about by the common and long- continued usage of a metaphor, so that it ceases to have any influence upon the imagination of those to whom it is ad- LIDDELL AND SCOTT. 177 dressed. TIjus we never speak now of " edifying''^ a house that we may ie erecting, but even confine the proper sig- nification of the word to what must at first have been its metaphorical use, and talk only of edifying an audience. In ascertaining the literal meanmg of the tenn j?anT<'^Q», aU the figurative uses of it will not afiect us then, unless the same figure can be sho^Ti to have become so hack- neyed, that it had ceased to throw back the hnagination to another and literal sense, when alone it would become a proper meaning of the word itself («). Classic use of §anxilfa. The following facts may be considered as no slight proof wrought out by a singular combination of circumstances, that in the whole compass of classic Greek and in the con- ception of the best critical authorities in the world, the term ^aml'^a is tiever once used without i?ivolving the idea of immersion^ and that it has literally 7io proper signiflccir- tion that does not include that idea. In July, 1843, there was published with great care at the Oxford University Press, the now celebrated and stand- ard Greek Lexicon of Messrs. LiddeU and Scott. It was founded on the great one of Passow, pubUshed in Germany, but embraced an amoimt of other investigations far beyond his. In fact, it may be almost said that there is not an im- portant sentence in the whole range of Greek literature that it has not weighed. At the commencement of this chapter, we gave its defi- Tiitions of ^aml^o) as they appeared in the first edition. PubUshed by the clergymen of the Church of England, then- testimony in favor of "pouring," "steeping'," or " wetting," as sometimes proper meanings, might not have 8* 178 LEXICOiSr COREECTED. been absolutely conclusive Avith a Baptist, "without better proofs than they attempted to produce, but would at least make it incumbent on him to weigh Avell his case before venturing to .disj^ute the authority of such a work. These definitions have been weighed, however, not by Baptists so much as by independent critics and by the authors of the Lexicon themselves — found wanting, and the senses thus attached to the word abandoned and expunged as untena- ble ^dthin a year and a half of their first publication. The work itself was reviewed in the " London Quarterly," and considered justly, as not indeed without its faults, but very far before all other Greek Lexicons extant. " A great many" of the first scholars suggested " corrections," how- ever, which were made in the second edition. Li the mean time Professor Drisler was bringing out an edition of it in this country ^^-ith Ms o^^ii " corrections and additions." Shortly after this was pubUshed, the Professor of ancient languages in the University of Louisiana, on comjiaring Professor Drisler's edition ^^'ith a copy of the second pubHshed at Oxford, was surj^rised to find, that the literal senses of the term ^unil^u)^ not imjilying immersion (unless "bathe" be an exception), which were m the Amer- ican, were 7iot to be found in the London copy. Public attention bemg called to this fact, and the American editor having been blamed in some quarters for makmg so im- portant an interpolation without avowing it, he defended himself by showing that the meanings to " steep^'"' " to ?^e^," " to ponr upon;'' " to drench^'' though quietly dashed out by Liddell and Scott from their second edition, were all in the first ; this suppression being a part of those " correc- tions" which the Lexicon had undergone through the sug- gestions and co-operation of then- many Mends. Another EDITIONS COMPARED. 179 edition of the American work being called for, it has been brought out by Professor Drisler. Among his own addi- tions and corrections he has not esteemed it fitting to add any thmg to the second English edition in regard to this word, but followed it and loithdrawn all the senses which the Oxford editors had retracted. The effect of all this in deciding the meanmg of the term §anjic,o) as a classic Greek word, is most important. If a single instance could ha\n3 been produced from the re- searches of Passow, or of any j^receding lexicograj)her, or from a most extensive exanimation of all the important passages of Greek literature beai'ing upon it, in the course of a learned controversy of two hundred years, these mean- ings never Avould have been retracted by men who are daily in the habit of sprinkling infants. Let any one place side by side the definitions of the two editions. FIRST EDITION'. SECOND EDITION. BaTTTil^u, 1. To dip repeatedly, dip under, middle voice, to lathe; hence to steep, wet. to pour upon, drench; 2. To dip a vessel, draw water ; 3. baptize. — New Testament, To baptize. — ^New Testament. BaTr«;"w, 1. To dip repeatedly ; of ships, to sink them, passive voice, to bathe; 2. To draw water ; 3. To It is true that the definition " bathe," is still retamed, and as we sometimes use this word m the sense of to soak or to steep copiously loith a fluid as well as in it, this might seem to leave the sense somewhat ambiguous. If so intended it would lessen the value of the dictionary, but in fixct, the obliteration of the senses to sfeej), loet, jyoicr upon., drench, is a sufticient admission that the word can not once be shown to have the sense of bathmg with a fluid, as distinct fii-om being immersed in it. 180 LIDDELL AXD SCOTT. The second signification, " to draw water^'' is to " fill by dipping in," and thus to draw, see Liddell and Scott, ^drrrca. It is simply an elhptical mode of expression, Aristotle* gives it more explicitly thus, " One must dip ^aipai {i. e.^ the bucket), and then draw it ?." This sense of ^dnju) and §u7iiiz(x) has been elaborately considered by Professor Stuart, who gives his views of the result thus, " The verb ^uTiTU) only is employed in order to convey the meaning t( dip Old, to dip up by plunging a vessel into a liquid, and drawing it up." ^ Suffice it, then, that in the whole field of classic Greek the embodied learning of the age is not able to produce a single case which these respectable authors will ven- ture to ofler as proof that ^amlLfa is ever used for any thing distinctly other than immersion. If it had not been first of all publicly claimed by Pedobaptists (but too CAidently to favor their own theological \dews), and then as publicly, from a decent sense of what is due to the scholar- ship of the age, withdra's\Ti both in England and America, this result would not have been so marked. But this claim to a right in the word having been advanced, and then re- tracted, is the clearest possible eA'idence that it can not be sustained by proof, even in the judgment of scholars the most competent to settle such a matter among Pedobaptists themselves. Thus all researches of English, German, and American linguists, have not been able to shake this result, established by Gale more than a hundred years ago, but so often caviled at and denied by partisan clamors as to be rarely recognized as a settled philological fact. It is true, indeed, that this lexicon mentions three other uses of the word ^amlloj, but they are given in the first 1 Quffist. Mechan. c. 27. ' Page 301. PKOFESSOR STUART. 181 edition as metaphorical phrases, not proper senses of the term, as idioms, in fact. Thus Plato,' " I am one of those who were soaked in tcine {Bs3a:riia^ifotv') yesterday," So the authors of the lexicon render it. Professor Stuart brings the same passage forward as an illustration of the figurative use of ^unxii^oy in the sense of " overiohehnP We have the same figure when we speak of a man being "*%'?* wine^'' meaning that his senses are metaphorically drowned in what he has drank. '•'•Head over ears in debt" and " drotoned^ i. e., with questions," are the only other figm-ative senses of the term they give in either edition. These can only be understood as referring to the proper sense of the word, ^. e., inimersioJi. We have in English just the same figures, and speak of a man as immersed in cares, or in debts, in study, or in business, or of a city as plunged in sleej), or by sudden attack, into confusion and distress.^ In fact, we now use the word immerse figuratively just in those cases where a Greek would have used the term §ixmtt,(x). This does not misettle, but rather establish the literal meaning of the En- ghsh word. Thus even the metaphorical use always con- firms the literal signification of ^uniirw^ and is used on pur- pose to unply the largest possiNe ajy)licaiion of a supposed fluid that the nature of the case will admit. Such, then, are the established results at the present day of all sound critical mquiries as to the classical meaning of ^omil'Qo)^ the same substantially as those to which we have seen that Professor Stuart arrived, after elaborate investigation, when he conceded that in classic literature he could find proof but of these two senses of the term in question : 1. To dip^ p>lunge^ or immerse. 2. To overiohehn, literally and figuratively. ' Conv. ne. ' See Jos. B. J. 4, 3, 3, 182 THE SYNECDOCHE. The only difference is that the later authorities do not sub- stantiate the second of these two senses as any part of the literal or figxirative meaning of the word. Professor Robinson, in the last edition of his lexicon, gives the sense thus : " to dip in,^'' " to sitik,^'' " to immerse.^'' He says : " It is spoken of ships' gaUeys, etc., of horses sinking in a marsh, or jjartially, to the breast ;" adding, " in Greek writers, as above exhibited, fi'om Plato onward, (iumlZ^M is every where to smk, to immerse, to overwhelm, either wholly or partially.'''' As he alone speaks of this partial immersion in this term, a little explanation of the laws of language may be necessary to reconcile all the statements. If a man says that he has dipped his finger in water, it is true that he only professes partially to have immersed himself^ but as he wholly immersed the finger, it would not be fair on this ac- coimt to say that " c?^}->" signified " to immerse whoUy or partially.^ Besides that, however, there is di figure of spteech to which all words are subject by which a part is put for the whole, and the whole for the part. It is treated of in every Rhetoric under the head of Synecdoche.'' Our words dip, sink, im- merse, are, however, quite as subject to this figurative use as §anTii^(t). If, for instance, a man told us that his horse, having got off the causeway, had siinic in the marsh, it would have been no contradiction if he asked assistance directly after to get him out, as his head and neck were still above the sm-face. We daily speak of hurying a man, mean- ing only a pai"t of the man, his body, not his soul, SaUors are not the less said to dip their oars into the water in row- ing because they keep the handles out. Yet no one sup- ' See Leviticus, iv. 6, Deuteronomy, xxxiiL 24, where, however, /Sanro is used. 2 See Campbell's Rhetoric, pp. 322, 332. Harper. NEW TESTAMENT USE. 183 poses these Jlffurative uses to disturb the literal or proper significations of the verbs " to buri/,^^ or " to si;«A-," or " to dip:' Thus is it abundantly established that ^umiQw means in classic Greek to dip^ to sink, to immerse, and nothing else. (b.) New Testament use o/ ^ccriTf;o). The only point now left is whether, in the New Testa- ment, the term §anilt,o) possesses some new meaning or meanings not figurative, and difierent from aU the classic usage in regard to it. This was the ground taken by Pro- fessor Stuart, in which he has been followed by Professor Robmson, in his lexicon of the New Testament. He gives the classical signification much as LiddeU and Scott, " to dip in, to sink, to itnmerse, to dij? in a vessel, to draw water." But in the New Testament he contends that it has quite distinct senses; and means, "1. To loash, to lave, to cleanse by washing, mid. and pass. aor. 1 m mid. sense, to wash one''s self, i. e., one's hands or person, to perforin ablu- tion. 2. To baptize, to administer tJie rite of baptism, either that of John or of Christ. Pass, and mid. to be baptized, or to cause one's self to be baptized, i. e., generally to receive baptism." In all this he takes up the positions of Professor Stuart, defending them -with, perhaps, more point, and having the advantage of going over the ground last. Professor Stuart complains that he is " unable to find any thing in the New Testament which appears to settle whether the mode of baptism is determined by the sacred writers," although he is " quite ready to concede" that he finds no cases " Avhich seem absolutely to determine that immersion was not practiced." Baptists, therefore, consider that he 184 THE QUESTION NARROWED. has quite mistaken, xohere lies the burden of proof, that the New Testament was not wi'itten to settle the signification of the word baptize. But the word baptize was adopted into the ISTew Testament because well understood to settle the nature of the command. It is not, therefore, necessary, in order to establish the meaning, that we hunt up confirm- ations in each case. But to unsettle it a drfferent usage of the word, in each case, must be clearly proved. The classical sense of the Greek term, which always im- plies immersion, was the settled and estabhshed meaning hundreds of years before the New Testament was wi'itten. The sense of ^anxi'Qfa is not, and has no right to be, like a piece of blank paper to the scholar when he first takes up a Greek Testament, it was not so to those who wi-ote it. The burden of proof, then, lies on those who maintain that it is used m some special signification. And this narrows down the whole question about the meaning of this long-disputed term to a point where any plain English reader of the Bible can, with a Uttle help very easily obtamed, settle it for himself 'odth as much certainty as the profoimdest scholar. The question is precisely this : Supposing that in every case where the Greek word ^uml'Qfa occurs, it had been translated immerse, are there any cir- cumstances connected with the biblicaP use of the term sufficient to alter the sense of the English word immerse, so that, instead of understanding it as meaning " to dip," we should have to regard it as signifying " to wash," " to lave," " to cleanse by washmg," " to perform ablution." This is clearly the point at issue. Professor Robinson's argument amounts substantially to 1 I include under the term biblical here the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, as well as the New Testament. PEOFESSOE EOBINSON. 185 this. He says : " In Hellenistic usage, anu especially in reference to the rite of baptism, ^umi^u) would seem to have expressed not always simply immersion, but the more gen- eral idea of ablution or affusion.'''' It is proper to remark, however, that in establishing this new and more general sense oi §uniL'c,w, neither Philo nor Josephus assist Professor Robinson, though both of them Jews, and about cotem- poraries with Christ and his Apostles. On the contrary, they always use ^anil^w as synonymous with immersion as when Josephus, speaking of Herod murdering Aristobulus, says that he was '"'■ phmgecl''' in a diving-bath until he was drowned, using ^uml^oj. The command to baptize, there- fore, if not a command to immerse, was recorded in a Greek word, of which two of the most celebrated Greek Jews of that day manifest no knowledge, and the proof of which has to be made out from the Bible alone. 1. Professor Robinson's '■'■ especiaP'' argument to establish this new meaning, is from the circnmstances attending " the rite of baptism." Of this all can haj^pily judge who consider those circumstances. He admits that Jesus was plunged " ^/^to" the Jordan at his own baptism, and that the vast multitude si3oken of in Matthew, iii. 6 were baptized "wi" water, gomg even further m this respect than Professor Stuart, who, however, had declared : " For myself, then, I cheerfully admit that §uniic,M m the New Testament, when appHed to the rite of baptism, does in all probabihty mvolve the idea that this rite was usually performed by immersion, but not always." ' Professor Robinson would probably admit all this ; uideed he has himself sho^vn further that, in all cases wliere any prepositions are used in connection with the element of this ' Page 362. 186 PROFESSOR ROEIXSON. rite, they show it to have been " ?Vi" water;' so that the case is narrowed down still further. We have a Greek verb that always implies immersion out of the Bible, which usually involves that idea even in speaking of the rite of baptism itself in the New Testament, and that, according to Professor Stuart, is never used in cases " which seem ab- solutely to determine that unmersion was not practiced." " And yet Professor Robhison has in fact ventured entirely to expunge from his definition of Samic^o}^ when it is used in the New Testament, the established and distinctive character of the word, and substituted others in its place, explaming in a " note" at the end that he only intends to say, the word j?«rTT/^w " would seem not always to have ex- pressed simply unmersion, in Hellenistic usage, and espe- cially in reference to the rite of baptism." If by divine authority the word " immerse" were placed in our Enghsh Bibles wherever ^amiloi occm-s in the oi'iginal New Testa- ment, the Septuagmt, and the Apocry^jha, w^ould it be right for a missionary in the Sandwich Islands, in preparing an Enghsh New Testament Lexicon, to represent the significa- tion of imm.erse, as Dr Robinson has given that of this term ? What should we think if he first taught the heathen that in aU other English hterature it signified " to plunge into some fluid," but that in the JSfeio Testament it meant, " 1. To wash, to lave, to cleanse, by washing to per- form ablution ; 2. To baptize" adding, in a mere note, that he only mtended to say that although " immerse" was the word used by divine authority, it would seem not always simply to dip, but " especially in reference to the rite of baptism," to have the more general idea of * I mean after the verb iSairn^G), and governing the element. ^ P. 337. LUKE, XI. 38. 187 ablution or affusion. This is precisely what Professor Robinson has done. The reader has already in § III. examined the progress of opinion as to all the circumstances attending the rite of baptism in the Xew Testament, and has seen that in no mstance do they prove the least exception to immersion, but afford an overwhelming amount of proof that in all cases the primitive converts were "buried" m the waters of baptism. Rom. vi. 4. Now while ^anjllbi and its derivatives occur about one hundred and thirty times in the New Testament, there are only three or four occasions in which it does not either literally or figuratively refer to the rite of baptism. These are Mark, vii. 4, 8 ; Luke, xi. 38 ; Heb. ix. 10. But Professor Stuart has adinitted that there is nothing wliich seems ab- solutely to determine that immersion was not practiced even here. So that there is not one of these cases in which, if the reader should translate this term by some word impljdng immersion, he would not have a perfectly intelligible mean- ing, and one supported, too, by many of the highest critical authorities. These cases are therefore at once too doubtful and too few to estabUsh a new sense upon, much less to overturn the hundred and thirty others, backed by the whole classic usage, so as to shake the meanmg of a pubUc command. But Professor Robinson refers us to Luke, xi. 38, which might be literally rendered, " The Pharisee wondered be- cause he did not first immerse himself {i^aniladii) before dinner." The Syriac here uses the same word as for the rite of baptism. Accordmg to it, the host " was surprised that he did not previously baptize." Before introducing a new sense like " wasA," instead of " immerse," it might be 1P8 LUKE, 51. 38, well to consider if allusion was not had to the use of the bath, so customary before dinner, " Those who had been invited to a feast bathed themselves before they went," says Campbell, in his Notes on John, xiii. 10. But our Sa- viour seems to have been invited while publicly teaching in the neighborhood, and gouig in, he reclined at once at the table ready for the meal. The host had probably expected that he would have iised the bath at his hoiase, and was surprised, especially coming from the dust and the heated crowd among whom he had been laboring. But it must also be borne in mind that this man is ex- pressly mentioned as a Pharisee, on purpose evidently to account in part for his surprise, a surprise purposely given to enable Christ to reprove the Pharisaic observances as to ceremonial purity. " Xow do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup," etc. By the Mosaic law, whoever touched a dead body was imclean, (even the dead body of a mouse,) or a grave, or the bone of a man ; and whoever touched one who was unclean, or an unclean garment or article of furniture, also became unclean. The law for all such was that they should " 'bathe themselves in water. '''' Lev. xv. 5-18; Nimib. xix. 18, 19. Even the High Priest offermg the yearly atonement was subjected to this rule. How carefully the Pharisees regard- ed this as enjoining an immersion of the whole body, we shall see. But in addition to the Mosaic law, they had also added certain cases of constructive., or probable uncleanness. If a man had been to the inarket-place., where flesh was on every side, or any place of public resort, where ceremonially unclean persons (Gentiles, for instance) must have abound- ed, special care was taken to i^urify themselves on returning liome. Mark, vii. 4. Spencer, on the "Ritual Laws of the LUKE, XI. 38. 189 Hebrews," says, " Some of the Jews, ambitious for the credit of superior purity, frequently immersed their whole persons in water, the greater part, however, following a milder dis- cipline, frequently washed only their hands." Ilhan ' says, " Those who had departed from the house washed in a bath, or at least immersed their hands in water with the fingers distended." Grotius on Mark, vii. 4, says, " They cleansed themselves more carefully from defilement contracted at the market, by not only washing their hands, but even by im- mersing their bodies." Vatabulus, on the same passage, says, " They bathed their whole persons." ^ It seems, then, that there were two customs — ^the stricter Pharisees, after going into a promiscuous assembly, would have bathed themselves before eating. How particular they were, may be gathered fi'om what Maimonides says, as quoted by Dr. Lightfoot, on Mark, vii. 4 : " Wherever in the laAV washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body. For if any wash himself aU over except the top of his little finger, he is stiU in his imcleanness." This seems by our Saviour's remark to have been one of the stricter Pharisees. He had conceived of our Lord as a person of extraordinary purity and holiness, hence his surprise would be natural at his reclinmg for dinner after mixing with the crowd, without first bathing him- self This passage is certamly far enough from favoring, much less requiring, the creation of a new sense for ^amiXfii. Be- fore doing so, it would be our duty to regard this as an in- > Section 3 20. " For the above extracts, I am chiefly indebted to Professor Ripley's excellent Reply to Professor Stuart. 190 MAEK, VII. 2, 3. stance of the rhetorical figure of which we have before spoken, in which the whole is sometimes put for a part, to save detail. We daily speak of a man washing himself^ where we mean only that he has washed his face, or even his hands. This does not alter the meaning of the verb wash / it is only a figurative use of " himself" for " his hands," So here, if the surprise of the Pharisee was only occasioned by the SaA-iour not dipping his hands in water — a still more frequent custom with all the Jews — the lite- ral meaning of ^nmllo would remain quite imchanged. The same figure of speech would have to be supposed by whatever word was rendered. But Professor Robinson tells us to " comj^are the like circumstances in Mark, vii. 2, 3," where he considers that vlnrofiai is used spionjinously with ^anji^o). The whole of this supposition, however, Dr. Campbell has shown most clearly to arise from the want of a sufficient discrimination, where a contrast is intended. " For illus- trating this passage," he says, in the note on this text, " let it be observed first, that the two verbs rendered wash in the EngUsh translation are different in the original. The first is vlifwuat^ properly translated '■wash/'' the second is /?«7Ti/^w>'iat, which limits us to a particular mode of wash- ing ; for ^amltbj denotes ' to plunge,' ' to dip.' " He translates the passage in question thus : " The Phari- sees, and indeed all the Jews who observe the tradition of the elders, eat not untU they have washed their hands, by pourmg a Httle water upon them [viipoiVTui) ; and if they be come fi'om the market, by dij^pmg them {^ami'c,o}vtai).'>'> " Nlniei,v^->^ he says, " Hke the general word to wash, in EngHsh, may be used for ^amiieiv, to dip, because the genus comprehends the species, but not conversely, ^tn. MARK, VII. 2, 3. 191 Tl^eir for vlmsiv^ the species for the genns. By this inter- pretation, the words which, as rendered in the common version, are mimeaning, appear both significant and empliat- ical, and the contrast in the Greek is preserved in the trans- lation. The Vulgate does not confomid the two verbs as the English does." That there is a contrast of thought or a very marked iistinction intended to be indicated by the use of these two Greek words both rendered in English, " ?. Bloomtield admits that in the latter case it refers to the washmg of their bodies in opposition to xhat of their hands, though he will not allow that this was by immersion. But certainly to bathe as the easiest way of washmg the whole body, especially in those Eastern coiuitries, would be the probable sense even apart from the meanmg of the word itself The most literal ren- dering of this passage wovild be " The Pharisees except they wash their hands, eat not. And when they come from the market, except they immerse, they eat not," and the only question" ought to be whether we are to suppose the words " their handd" are left to be understood as repeated after the word " immerse" or not. The sole objection to this is that of Kumoel and others who do not find what they imagine sufficient proof of such a general custom as com- plete immersion, but think with Campbell that the dipping was conlined to the hands. We have, however, already 192 MARK, VII. 4. seen the ctxstoms on this point from which it would appear that the laxer Jews and those who went but a little way, merely immersed their hands, but the stricter sort of Phar- isees, especially when they went into the marJcets or promis- cuous crowds where there was danger of defilement unless they "washed in a bath," i. e., immersed themselves in watei", did not eat. But no distinct object of the verb being expressed, we might suppose "their hands," the object of viipwvrai^ to be here also the understood object of §amiio)vjal. What is Certain is all that is necessary. The distinction between the two modes of ablution is here strongly marked by the terms used. The same distinction is accm-ately laid down in the Mishna. The Jews, it is clear, had two distinct modes of washing for purification, one by pouring, and the other by immersion. They were dis- cussed in separate Treatises. The Treatise Yadaim being apparently devoted exclusively to the ablution of the hands by pouring so much water upon them, and several other Treatises to immersion^ So far, therefore, from this pas- sage being favorable to a more general sense to the term §ami'Cfi)^ whichever way it is construed, it demonstrates a very specific use of the word, implies immersion most strongly, and is put in contrast with vimw, to tca^h. The reader ^ill probably be surprised to learn that upon two cases like these, where alone in the Xew Testament this verb occurs apart from the rite of baptism. Dr. Robin- son has undertaken to erase from his definitions the specific sense of " immerse" from ^nniiQn) wherever it occurs in this portion of holy writ. It is true, however, we have three instances of the noun, now to be considered. Mark, A'ii. 4 and 8, may seem, perhaps, the strongest to • See " Eighteen Treat, from the Mishna," by Dr. Raphall, Lond., p. 35Y. MARK, VII. 4. 193 the mere English reader. " And many other thuigs there he which they have received to hold as the washing (SnTniouov;) of cups, and pots, and brazen vessels, and of tables," etc. So our English version reads. Here again the Syriac has it the haptism of cups, etc. And so Campbell renders it, because this baj)tism of them was of a religious and ceremonial character ; a Pharisaic observance added to the Mosaic law. The reader will easily find proofs of two distinct kinds of religious purifica- tion, both for persons and things, one was by pouring water over the object, and the other by immersion in water. Both are laid down vdt\\ great exactness in the Mishna. The first as we have seen might be represented by 'tTrrw, the second most appropriately by BamiQo). The question here is whether there is any thing to prove the more thorough ablution not mtended, so that we must alter the mean- ing of the word to accommodate the sense, A little con- sideration will show that the proof is all the other way. So far as the baptism of cups, and pots, and brazen ves- sels are concerned, there can at least be no difliculty in sup- posing immersion. Even the law of Moses had prescribed that the dead body of any animal or creeping thing touch- mg any vessel or garment, or skin, or sack, it must be dipped in water before it would be clean, and a vessel in which any work had been done must be immersed in like manner. Lev. xi. 32. But it was some washing much more mconvenient and less foimded on the nature of things than all this, that the Evangelist here charges on the Phaiisees.' ^ Dr. Gill, in his commentary on this passage, has shown how exact- ing were the Pharisees in requiring all vessels to be covered with water for constructive uncleanness. 9 194 HEBREWS, IX. 10. Tlie word rendered " tables''' means strictly couches (xA/juj), and it has been asked, could the Jews have been in the habit of immersing whole couches ? But this diffi- culty soon vanishes fi-om an oriental mind. 1. Let it be observed that these couches were used in- stead of chairs to recline upon while eating ; and the food and gravy constantly spilled on them woiild render them frequently unclean, literally and ceremonially. 2. The Jews were in the habit of distinguishmg between the couch itself and the bedstead,^ or elevated part of the floor, as it generally was, on which the couch proper was laid. In Persia, to this day, this latter consists at times only of " tioo cotton qidlts-'' easily sjiread.'^ Tliis accoimts for the couch being so easily carried by one who had been paralytic.^ These would often need dipping in water to be ceremonially clean if animal matter touched them, 3. The object of the wi-iter was to set forth the absurd lengths to which the Pharisees enjomed these cleansings? and it has been shown by Dr. Gill that they required the whole to be cleansed by immersion when they had been, defiled ; nothing, therefore, can well be more certain than that superfluous immersions of this kind were specifically intended ; for the object of the ^vi-iter would be best ac- complished by exhibiting the fidl extent of their trouble- some requirements. Hebrews, ix. 10, refei's doubtless, to the frequent msti- tuted dippings in water, both of persons, vessels, clothes, and skins, ordained Lev. xi. 32. 15. 5-18, etc., for ceremo- nial purification. This was the evident design of the writ- ter ; i. e., to show the inconveniences of the Jewish reUg- ion and its madaptedness to perpetuity and universal ex- 1 Deut. iii. 11. 'See Robinson's Calmut, Beds. ^ Matt. ix. 6. K A A M A N" . 1 95 tension. The above are the only reasons from the New Testament adduced l3y Professor Robinson, apart from the rite of baptism, ah-eady considered,- for changing the mean- ing of the word SuniiCsa. Closely and fairly examined, in- stead of altering the sense of ^aml'c is used, and in which the idea of immersion is inapplicable. It is even urged that these are sufficient to establish a peculiar Hellenistic usage and meaning of the term, existing before theXew Testament. But it is not pleaded that all these cases together are sufficient to show that the common Hellenistic usage was not the same as the classical meaning " immerse." Indeed Professor Stuart gives us the primary and iisual meaning of the word in these writings, to plunge^ to iminerse, to dip in, quoting' " Naaman went down and plunged {i^fxmiauTo) seven times into the river Jordan," as an instance. He even says that in the " majority of examples" of this verb and §&moi, that is the sense. The exceptional cases, " which are few in number," "^ are given. All of these are quite insufficient to disturb the sense of ^ami%oi, in an ordi- nary command, however regarded. But Professor Robinson, strange to say, less con«eding here than Professor Stuart, brings forward 2 Kings, v. 14, to prove that the term is not used in the specific sense of '" imm.erse^'' but in the more general one of " loash^'''' quot- ing in proof verse 10, where the command under which he acted was given to go and vmsli (Aow.)) seven times in Jor- dan. Thus instead of l.etting the specific term explain the more general one, he wishes the more general term to un- • 2 Kings, V. 14. * Page 307. 196 JUDITH, XII, 7. settle the whole usage of the more specific. Is this right ? "Wliat could not be unsettled on such principles ? This is the more inexcusable, as m his Hebrew Lexicon (Art. ^trs) he has given this very passage^ as an illustration of the meanings " to dip, to inmaerse," translating it in full, " and dipped himself seven times in Jordan." But supposing ^-ouw in the direction given simply meant to '•'■ icash,'''' then verse 14 tells us specifically how this wash- ing Avas actually performed, i. e., by unmersion. The com- mand here, however, implied immersion. For lovuai htiuxig kv 7(5 ^loQiiuiri should be rendered " bathe thyself seven times in Jordan," Trench m his " Spionymes of the Xew Testament," says that Aoiw " is not so much to ' wash'' as to ' hathe^ and InvsaBai^ to bathe one's self,' implies always not the bathing of a j^art of the body, but of the whole,'''' quot- ing Hebrews, x., 23, as an example. ISTothing, therefore, can well be more clear, than the specific sense both of the command, and of ^amicui here. Judith, xii. 7, is adduced by Professor Robinson as by Professor Stuart. The passage is translated in King James' version, Judith " went out in the night into the Valley of Bethulia, and tcashed herself (^e^aml^sTo) in a fountaui by the camp." The question here is, did the writer intend to say that she bathed herself in the fountaui, or simply that she washed herself tcith its water. The point is not which of these circumstances really took place. Probably neither of them did, for the whole j^assage is an evident and most improbable fiction. Xothing can be more unlikely than that a Jewish woman should have been allowed to pass in and out of a camp besieging a Jewish city, at her o^vn pleasure. Hence we may, if we will, think it very unlikely ' 2 Kings, V. 14. JUDITH, XII. 7. 197 and indecorous, that she should immerse herself. It is not so much so as other j^arts of this romance, but the trans- lator's duty is to put the improbable thing in English, just as it stands in the story. The object of the writer is to represent her as a person of rare piety, according to the Pharisaic standard, but hy- ing in the midst of a camp of unclean persons, and sur- rounded by ceremonial defilements. Hence this custom of nightly bathing is mentioned, the fountain being also care- fully recorded to give plausibility to the narrative, and also that it was hy nighty when she would not be observed. There were often such places at the outskirts of cities, with proper and separate accommodations for men and women to bathe. In the sixth century conveniences of this kind at the Pool of Siloam were found by Antonius the Martyr. Still it was urged that this was " in (e»') the camp," and at night. The utmost that can, however, be argued from that cu'cumstance, is, that it was somewhere probably ^c^Y/i^V^, but possibly only near the sjjace inclosed by sentries, a circuit perhaps of miles, and in which this seems to have been a secluded and solitary valley. The sujjposition of a lone woman, and perhaps her maid, going out and in at night to wash at a fountain, in a camp, must have been attended with about as many difficulties, as to delicacy and safety, as if we suppose her to have bathed. But there is this diffi- cidty to the former supposition — it was not cleanliness, but l^eculiar ceremonial sanctity, that is here being represented, and when in verse 19 it is expressly said that " sAe came in clean'''' — that is, ceremonially clean — there is no room to doubt that she bathed her body in the water, according to Jewish custom. Spencer, in his " Laws of the Hebrews," bving-s this very case forward to prove that " the Jews when 198 ECCLESIASTICUS, XXXIV. 25. about to perform their vows, sometimes cleansed the whole body in a bath." Living as she was by day, in the midst ot the imclean, she could only have made clean Pharisaically by immersmg nightly. This supposition is necessary to the 'plausibility of the narrative, and we are not even bound to beUeve m the prohability of any part of the story. The only other case adduced is Su-ach, xxxi. 25, [or Ec- clus : xxxiv. 25] "He who is haptlzed (5«.Ti/^o/<£»'Of) from a dead body, and toucheth it again, what does he profit by his hath or bathing," tcD Aout^qj aviov. In Numbers, xix. 19, we find that Avhoever touched the body, or even the bone of a man, was to be unclean seven days, and as the concluding ceremony of his purification, " to hathe himself in waterP Let it be granted that f^i, the Hebrew term for " hathe^"* here might mean less than immerse. Yet followed as it is by !3, which here must be rendered " in.^'' it is clear wliat it meant in the eyes of the son of Sirach. His sj^eaking of the " bath" ui the same verse, makes it plain. And the fol- lowmg passage produced by Lightfoot, m Matthew, iii. 6, from Maimonides, renders all these passages beyond further dispute. " Vf heresoever ua the law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body. For if any wash hnnself aU over, excej^t the very top of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness." Lightfoot on Mark, vii. 4, produces also from another Jewish writer a sentence which shows that pollution occasioned by the tou.ch of the dead was so great, that the person " must x^lunge his whole body." ' The spe- cific sense is plain beyond doubt, here. * Ripley, p. 33. If it were the fact, which it is not, that reference here is had to the custom of washing Uie whole of the clothes in water, Bee Leviticus, xi. -25-28, as well as the immersion of the person, the DIP A PERFECT EC^UIVALEXT. 199 Thus, in fact, not a single passage lias been adduced, in wliich less than the primary idea of the word " immersion" can he accorded to it, ^dthout positive detraction from the meanmg of the origmal, either in the New Testament, the Sej^tuagint, or the Apocrypha.^ Thus every use of the word, classic or Hellenistic, lit- eral or figurative, contributes to show that the command to haptize is a command to immerse^ and that the word j?a7rr/ju), is nevcT used literally (or even figuratively) with- out reference to this, the radical idea of the word, so that our verb to dip is its j^erfect equivalent. etymology of &iD shows that it is to xoash by treading the garments in a trougli filled with water, therefore implying immersion. ' The fact to which Robinson alludes of the old Italic version transfer- ring baptize into the Latin, certainly does not show that there was any thing in the method of performing the rite which " immergd'^ would not properly indicate ; but simply that this word having been used first, had become a technical term in that language, through the preaching of the Apostles, and was thus naturally transferred as a thousand other such words are. Tertullian and all the Latm fathers at least continually use " Tingere" and '^ Ime^-gere.'" The baptismal fonts still found among the ruins of the most ancient Greek Churches in Palestine, as at Tekoa and Gophna, and goiiag back apparently to very early times, are quite too late to affect this question. No one pretends that they belong to the first or even to the second centuries of the Christian era. They have nothing, therefore, to do with the question of the alteration which he has made of the meaning of the word fSarcTi^u in the New Testament. That the gen- eral custom of the early Church was immersion is too clear to be doubted ; nor can a single case be shown of any thing else up to a.d. 230 ; later than this it was in fierce dispute whether less than that was valid bap- tism, even in cases of the sick and dying. The fonts are beyond doubt too late to weigh in this matter, but the ancient custom of baptistries built separately from the churches is decisive the other way, for had sprinkling originally been the customary baptism none would have thought of erecting a house for that purpose. 200 ILLUSTKATIOX COMPLETED. The case is in every way, therefore, as plain as that sup- posed at the commencement of this chapter/ It is in fact 'plainer. To put it fairly, it should be stated thus : The commanding officer of a vessel tells one of the hands to " dip a bucket overboard." He pleads that the meanuig of " dip" is uncertain, and that Milton uses it for " moisten." The officer, therefore, tells him to "dip it in the water" and the man complains that " in" does not always mean " within" or " into." The connnander sets him an exatnple and dips the bucket do^\^l " into''' \}^i\ the river, Mar. i. 9, and shows him thou- sands of cases in which it is dipped " /;<" [i*] the same water. Matt. iii. 6. But he still replies that all these in- stances do not prove that the command might not as well be performed in some other way. The object for which the order was given is pointed out to the man, clearly im- plying immersion. Finally, the history of the word itself is gone into, and it is shown that literally and properly the term " dip''' always involves an " immersion ;" or if it ever have another sense (which ^unTl'^u never has), it is so remote as not to affect the case, and that in the order in question, the Aerb to dip means to ifnmerse, or it means nothing. And so the command given us by the Captain of our Salvation to be ba^jtized, is a command to be immersed, if it is any thing. The question discussed in this chapter is not at all as to the importance of baptism ; that Avill be treated of else- where. It is not as to whether we are responsible for un- derstanding it, or whether we may or may not be sincerely mistaken y that depends upon each man's knowledge or 1 See pp. 143, 4. KEMOTE SUBTLETIES, 201 means of kno^v'ing the truth. The simple question Me have discussed throughout is, %chat is the meaning of the command itself? We are far, indeed, from intenduig to represent, even by the ilhistration mtroduced, that our PedobaptLst brethren Avould intentionally use any such subtleties in regard to a Di^Tne orduiance so obvious, if the case stood before them in theii" native tongue as phxinl}-, and with the same author- ity, that it does in the original. But it has been for the purpose of illustrating the difficulties that have been arti- ficially, however smcerely, thrown around a very jjlain question, as well as the progress toward their removal made during the last hundred years, that this slight figure has been used. In the niceties of a dead language there are continual plausibilities and incentives to the exercise of in- genuity that beguile the most candid and learned to an in- calculable extent. And as a generous and zealous coimsel will fully persuade himself of the truth and justice of some cause that he has volunteered to defend, when no impartial person, with the same knowledge of the facts, Avould trust in it for a moment ; and from believing it himself, will make use of remote subtleties that it mU take much patient thought to unravel ; so in the order of defendmg sprinkhng, plausibilities have sometimes been assumed for facts, and exceptions for rules, in regard to the construction of a very simple command in Greek : which, stripped of a learned disguise, and put into the language in which both parties are accustomed to think and to speak, would at once ap- pear to all, inconsistences the most strange and inconceivable. 9* 202 IMPORTANCE OF BELIEVER'S BAPTISM. CHAPTEE II. THE Il^rPORTANCE OF BELIEVERS' BAPTISM. § I. Gexeeal View of the Subject. All that large, respectable, and in creasing class of Pedo- baptists who concede the pomts previously discussed, and yet do not peld their personal adhesion and obedience to the ordinance of beUevers' baptism, justify themselves on the ground that they do not esteem the matter one of suf- ficient importance. They admit the command originally given was to immerse, but say that sprinklhig will do as roell ; that a drop is as well-pleasing as an ocean to Him who reads the heart. Baptism, they concede, was instituted as a profession of personal fxitli in Christ, but they think the ratification of faith aftervxird will do as well. "We have seen fi-om the concessions of Pedobaptists what the com- mand is ; the point now at issue between them and the Baptists is whether we are at liberty to deviate from it. But here the Baptist pleads at once that a comniandfrom which ice are at liberty to deoiate, is to us no command at all. It is only advice at best, and not always that. If the injunction, for instance, be conditional, then, in the absence of those conditions, it ceases to enjom. There are. Baptists admit. Christians to whom the command of bajrtism does not apply. Persons converted on a death-bed are cases of this sort. In these instances, the best respect that can be shown to the ordinance is to let it alone, as Christ himself taught us in the case of the dying thief, but certainly not to POSITIVE INSTITUTIONS. 203 adiTiit the commancl as binding and then substitute some- thhig else instead. That lowers do^^ni, by exam23le, the whole tone of Christian piety and obedience. The Saviour did not, as a Papist would have done, command some of the women that stood by bewailmg to fetch a little water, ]ior the beloved disciple, to whom he committed his mother, to asperse the quivering jjenitent. Thus he taught us that it is more acceptable to him to avow a general direction to be no command to us in certam cases, than to substitute something else m its place for the sake of a quasi fulfillment of the command. All this forms no real exception ; it only narrows the question down to this : Is it important to obey a command of Christ when we know it to be applicable to us ? Thus viewed, it seems beyond discussion, appealing too directly to the moral sense. It may, however, be iUus- trated by parallel circumstances of moral obhgation. Herein consists the speciality of positive institutions. Moral commands rest simply upon inherent relations, but positive institutions simply upon the authority of the law- giver. If the injunction had been to do " some great thing^'''' ' in which could have been traced some connection A\'ith the good to be efFected, men would probably, like Xaaman, be more wUling to comply. We may obey moral mj unctions because we see our interests bound up in them. But positive commands test the pruiciple simply of obedience to T)\\'me authority. To say that one institution of Christ is of no importance, cuts at the root of all ordmances, as they rest simply upon the same basis ; throws us back for all our religion upon our moral philosophy and eternal re lations ; and strikes at all revelation. For if nothing in re- ligion is to be buiding, on the authority of God, irntH we ' 2 Kings, V. 13. 204 CAUSE OF PUSEYISM. can first see the "wisdom of it, eyen a Divine command is nothing but advice. We must be prepared to substitute the tenth day for rest and worship instead of the Sabbath, if a French pliilosopher can show that the decimal system is more advantageous. The Lord's Supper, the ministry, the Church, all must be subject to the refining crucible of a utilitarian philosoj^hy, or the newest fashion of supposed convenience. Withm the last twenty years the whole principle, or want of prmciple, on which this supposed non-importance of be- lievers' baptism rests, has received the most signal rebuke in the rise and temporary success of Puseyism. For what is it, if weighed, but the jiantmg of earnest, if self-righteous, hearts for a religion of positive mstitutions. It is the re- bounding of the popular mind fi'om the excess of laxity and indifference as to ordinances, into the old extreme of super- stition. But the laxity arose out of the contradiction be- tween an evangelical faith and infant baptism. This the " Xorth British Review" has shown in passages before quoted. Xo wonder Episcopacy gains ground in Xew England. Men want a religion of positive institutions, and not one of which each part in turn, except some abstract faith, is de- clared every Sabbath from the j^ulpit, and in every act, a matter of no importance. Does St. Paul make the sacraments of religion unimport- ant in their places ? Does he not say, " I praise you, breth- ren, that ye keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you .^" Much has been said of the undue stress laid by Baptists upon correctness in regard to a ceremony. But whUe modern evangehcal Pedobaptists are thus blaming them on one side, the Church of Rome and millions of Protestants EUCHARISTIC ELKMENTS CHANGED. 205 are more violent against them on the other. Baptists at least occupy a consistent medium. The vast majority of those who uphold mfant sprmkhng, do so from an exagger- ated and idolatrous belief that the magical efficacy and power of baptism make those who receive it, " members of Christ, and heirs of heaven," by an opus operatum. This was the ancient extreme, against Avhich for centuries BajDtists pro- tested. But now they are assailed on the other hand by a lai-ge body of Christians fallhig mto just the opposite error, and accomiting all the sacraments of reUgion as of no im- portance. The contests of all Protestant Churches with Rome, on the subject of the Lord's Supper, render certain the ulti- mate progress of that prmciple on which rests the import- ance of believers' baptism. These Churches have all agreed as to the necessity of upholding the Lord's Supper, and of keeping it as it was delivered unto them. What reproaches have not been heaped upon the Roman CathoHcs for pre- summg to alter it by takmg away the ^\-ine from the laity. But then is it not at least equally blameworthy m Protest- ants to have kept back the innnersion from baptism. Sup- posing that, histead of bread and wine, a church should substitute, of its own notion, other elements, such as potatoes and milk, none would feel more shocked at it, we are per- suaded, than those very brethren who are most active in advocatmg a substitution of spriuklhig for the original im- mersion. If it should be urged that the word " supper" admitted of the proposed articles as well as those which have always been used, would that be sufficient to reconcile Christians to the alteration ? But while there may easily be a suj)per of other substances than bread and wine, the very term baptism necessitates an immersion. 206 CLINIC BAPTISM. But the importfince of a rigid adherence to positive pre- cepts may well be illustrated from the eftects of one of the best intentioned deviations in regard to baptism itself upon the whole doctrine of the early Churches. Sprmkling was substituted first for immersion through " Clinic J^ctptism,''^ or the baptism of those reclming on couches by reason of extreme sickness. For the sake of these, first pouring and then aspersion were introduced at about the middle of the third century. But then this was, by many, esteemed no baptism at all, and Cyprian, the great early defender of infant baptism had to plead earnestly in vindication of its sufficiency in extreme cases. And still many nicknamed such persons " Clinics instead of Christians.'''' The feel- mg on this pomt was very strong against Cyprian in the Churches, and he cheerfully conceded that if" any of the pastors deemed it mvalid, they could, without any breach of good fellowship, or charge oi anabajjlism, do — just what we do, immerse them afterward. Bingham says,' " As to the question about the validity of Clinic baptism, that is, whether persons who were only sprmkled with water in their beds hi time of sickness, and not hmnersed or washed all over the body in baptism, were to be looked upon as complete Christians ; Cyprian, for his own part, resolves it in the affirmative. But yet if any bishops were otherwise persuaded that it teas not lawful hajitism, and upon that groimd gave such persons a new unmersion, he professes that he prescribes to none, but leaves every one to act according to his own judgment and discretion." This case was about a.d. 250. Doubtless many a sick man on his dying bed desii-ed much to profess his Saviom- in baptism, and it appealed strongly to the heart ' Book 2, chap. vii. sec. v. HOW TO PREVENT SACERDOTALISM. 20*7 and imagination of Christian charity to bestow it, even at the expense of deviating from the rnle. It was a strong case. And yet we may noio see that, had those early Chris- tians told such dying j^enitents the story of the thief upon the cross instead, and shown them that such cases were doubtless left on purpose to bear Avitness against all idolatry of the outward signs, and to show that baptism teas not a saving ordinance^ it would have been a most timely protest, and probably have saved after generations an awful revela- tion of the man of sm. Sacerdotalism would have been stifled at its birth, and Roman Catholicism been averted.' Were Peciobaptists faithfully to restore the original insti- tution, and immerse their candidates, it Avould soon put an end to infant baptism. Nothing but adult baptism would then be tolerated. The importance of keeping the ordinances as they were * It was at this time and for long after, a generally understood rule, however, that those who had received only clinic baptism were to be held forever after as iacapable of being ordained to any office in the church. The Council of Neocesarea especially ordains this, a.d. 312. It has been said that it was only to mark disapprobation of such as had delayed baptism till sickness. But the account given by Cornelius, a.d. 251, of the ordination of Novatus shows that it was at first rather from doubts as to the lawfulness, and, in many minds, tlie validity of such bap- tisms. Speaking of that ordination, he says, " All the clergy and many of the laity resisted it, since it was not lawful that one who had been bap- tized in his sick bed hy aspersion as he was, should be promoted to the order of the clergy. The bishop, however, requested that it should be granted to him to ordain only the one." Describing his baptism, Corne- lius says, "Being supposed at the point of death he was baptized by as- persion in the bed on which he lay, if indeed it he proper to say that one like Mm did receive baptismy (Eusebius, Book 6, chap, xhii.) Such is, perhaps, the earliest distinct instance of clinic baptism on record given in the language of a cotemporary. 208 NEGLECT OF OKDINANCES. delivered, may be illustrated again fi-om the practical ten- dency of the contrary course to destroy all the sacramental part of religion. This has been exhibited dui'ing the last hundred years. The open neglect of mfant baptism is ob- vious, and has awakened the attention of the Pedobaptist Churches in Xew England. But the decline of attention to all the admitted requirements of positive religion is not sufficiently felt. There are vast multitudes of men who are generally considered, and indulge the hope themselves, that they are Christians, but yet live for years without mak- ing any profession of rehgion, mthout any baptism, or any communion, without family prayer, with but a meager at- tendance at pubUc worship, and but a lax observance of the Sabbath. The proportion of such persons is increasing through the regions of evangehcal Pedobaptism, and the secret of all this is lax views of the importance of positive religion. Directly ministers begin to ai'gue as an excuse for diso- beying a divine command, that " a drop is as good as an ocean," it is not difficult to foresee that then' people will carry it one step further, and say, " Xone is as good as a drop." It may not at once be said, or in so many words ; it may only manifest itself in action, or the want of action, but the inference "ttHll soon be drawn. The tendency of the whole is to Quakerism. Xow, as in man the soul and body are miited, and neither can operate m the present state without the other, so is it in religion. God has clothed the spiritual essence of faith and love -^^ith a corpo- reity of sjTnbol and sacrament from which they can not be separated without death ensuing. BAPTISM WITNESSED BT AN INFIDEL. 209 § IL The Teachings and Professions of Christian Baptism: IMPOE.TANT. The first great lesson of Christian baptism is that per- sonal allegiance, and an im2>licit submission to the religion of the New Testament, lies at the entrance of a pure Chris- tianity. About fifty years ago, an officer of the French army, a gentleman of distinguished connections, was taken prisoner m the war between France and England, brought to Liver- pool, and put upon his parole. Strolling one fine Sabliath afternoon, in company with some brother officers in the same situation with himself, outside the city, he saw a com- pany gathered round a small sheet of water, where baptism "was about to be administered. Curiosity led him to ap- proach, when he perceived some boys annojdng those present, by throT\"ing pebbles into the water. There were several ladies going to be baptized, and, Frenchman-like, a feeling of gallantry induced liim to persuade his brother officers to join with him, and form a " guard of honor" round the water. He could not understand much English, but he soon gathered that these persons were consecrating themselves to the service of their Saviour. He noticed also that the minister, a gentleman of superior education, appealed to the JVeio Testament as the foundation of all that he said and did ; not to the authority of the Church, not to reason, but to the loords of Christ and his Apostles. Brought up ui Paris during tlie fervor of the first French Revolution, not only was he an utter infidel himself, but he did not know that any persons of education now believed the Xew Testament. He supposed that Christianity might do to amuse children and uneducated people, but that no 210 A FRENCH CONSUL mtelligent persons in tlie nineteenth century believed the Xew Testament to be true. His chief surjwise was that the minister, candidates, and people, all so evidently considered the words of Christ and his Apostles to be of bindmg authority in this matter. So deep was the impression thus made, that he resolved to do what he never had done, " read the Xew Testament for himself." From the moment he began, the truthfulness of the narrative became to him miquestionable. The majesty and authority of the words of Christ laid hold upon his heart. He read on and on, retired for a fortnight from the company of his fellow officers, and at last, to save himself from further interruptions, wrote a card, and fastened it on the door of his own room — " M. De engaged reading the ISTew Testament." He rose fi-om the study of that book a converted man, and soon was himself buried with Christ by baptism. At first, his fi^iends would ridicule the Xew Testament in his presence. But he soon silenced them thus : " Gentle- men, have you ever read this book ?" " No." " But I have, and it is not what you imagme. Read it through, and then ridicule it as much as you please. But, untU then, unless you A^dsh personally to hurt me, ridicule it no more." In that way, by the earnest conviction of its di- ■vine authority which had first impressed him at the water's edge, he persuaded at least one brother officer to read that blessed book, who also became a Christian, and imited with the same Church. In his youth, the writer of these pages remembers well to have seen him. Kind, gentlemanly, j^olished to the highest degree, he became bold, earnest, and active as a Christian, beyond most aromid him. From being a soldier OPENS HIS HOUSE, 211 under the greatest of earthly generals and potentates, he became a soldier under the Captain of Salvation. So strong was his attachment to his religion and his rehgious friends, that, on the restoration of peace, his brother, who became Keeper of the Seals of France, procured him an appointment as consul at one of the English ports. Through- out the whole remamder of a long hfe, but recently closed, he retained, to a suigular degree, and with a touchuig fidelity the impression, first made at those baj^tismal Avaters, that an implicit allegiance of heart and life to Jesus Christ, and submission to the system of religion taught m the New Testament alone is Christianity. He was never or- dained. But, while French consul, he opened his house each day and conducted worship, preaching to his family, and such j^rivate friends and countrymen as his station gathered roimd him.^ Meeting on one occasion with a note Avhich pleased him, written by a pastor to a member of his Church, he addressed him a letter, such as one of the Chi-istians of early times might be supposed to have writ- ten to another. " Dear Sir and Brother," it began : " I shall not apologize for troubUng you with this letter. If you are a true minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, as I take you to be, you Avill be glad to aid a brother soldier in his great conflict." He then narrated the history of liis con- version, and requested a correspondence, which continued for about twenty years. Having iniated the minister to come and visit him ; he had, hke Peter, calculated the hour of his arrival, made an appointment for service, sent and gathered his friends and * His ignorance of denominations and parties produced great simplicity of character and address. 212 "follow me." acquaintances, emj^loying even the bell-man of the town to give the matter publicity. Visiting London, the ministei- insisted that he should preach an evening lecture to the congregation. With broken English, but a heart full of love to Christ, he took for his text those words of the Saviour, "Follow me." This, he said, was the word of command given by the great Captain of our salvation. He frankly spoke then of his own former life as a soldier, and how he had been led into allegiance and obedience to Christ, proceeding to shoAV that this was a Captain who was never conquered, but went forth conquering and to conquer, on which account He had a right to say " Follow me ;" a Captain who had never re- treated an inch of ground, and therefore He said " Follow me" — who had never lost a soldier — who had never bidden one to go where he had not gone before, but through peril, and temptation, through suflering and death, had led the way, and therefore said '■'■Follow me.'''' His broken English, his military air, his sharp accent, as he gave out, over and again, " the word of command," left deep the impression on many a heart that night, that he had learned the great lesson of baptism at that water's side, as but few even of Christ's followers learn it — that implicit obedience and alle- giance to Jesus Christ is the first requisite of Christianity. This is the great lesson needed by the present age, both practically and speculatively. AYhere the outward profes- sion of Christianity costs no suffering — where a certam measured amount of respect for religion, and profession of it, is highly reputable, half-heartedness is the great practical besetting sin of us all. And now when Roman Catholic- ism and Puseyism on the one side are putting the authority and customs of the Church above the New Testament, and THE DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. 213 when infidelity in all its forms and shades on the other, is putting above it the reason and moral philosophies of the day, there is no lesson of Christian truth more central^ more Catholic and valuable than this, that an unfeigned, practical, and implicit loyalty to that system of religion which Christ and his Apostles gave us — that, and nothing else is Christianity. Jesus Christ demands our allegiance to himself person- ally. Even one of the disciples of Socrates remarked that he perceived so much that was wise and excellent in aU those sayings which he did understand, that he felt assured that those which he did not were equally valuable. Beyond this, whether the Christian can see the reasonableness or not of the sayings and commands of the Saviour, he knows it is his duty to receive them as true, and obey them as divine — to own allegiance to Christ as the Eternal Word and the King of kings. The soldier on the field of battle does not stop to argue whether the orders of liis general are wise, and much less if they wiU lead him out of danger, but carries out the prescribed system, and obeys with a high feeling of honor and allegiance. So the true Chris- tian carries out tlie Christian discij^line as a system of Ufe, and obeys Christ the great Captain of his salvation. Thus true baptism teaches men a holy personal devoted- ness to that system of religion which Christ and His Apostles gave, in distinction from Roman Catholic views of Church authority on the one hand, and the cold morahties of a mere skeptical philosophy on the other. The importance of Christian baptism appears again in this, that it instructs each believer in the original and divinely appointed summary and confession of the Christian Faith. 214 AN AGE OF KECOXSTRUCTIOX. "We live in an age remarkable for the formation, not so much of new sects, but of new parties that embrace the most ^ital portions of old denominations. And the sects, at present, will remain for the meclianical arrangements and organization of religious worship, but there are new gen- eral prmciples, new affinities, and repulsions now becoming far stronger than those of the creeds which marked the distmctions of two hundred years ago, and so much more unportant are these becoming with the moving spuits of the age, that the merging of many sects is a mere question of tune ; and the reconstruction of Christians on broader and more comprehensive principles, both of faith and char- ity than is recognized by mere sectarians, is inevitable. In the midst of this anarchy preceding reconstruction. Christian baptism, truly considered, is rendered increas- ingly important by every movement of the age ; as mstruct- ing each candidate into living views — and an ex animo con- fession of the fundamental piinciples of Christianity by baptizing them mto the faith of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The commission mserts the creed of the Church, the rock upon which it was founded. And short as the words are, there is couched under these three mysterious names, as here used, all that is essential in Christianity ; so that every one who rightly and in his heart receives and em- braces them, has therein all the elements of the Christian religion, and is fit for Church membership ; while no one not thus recei^•ing them is worthy. Mere assent to the words is nothmg one way or the other, but the \dtal assent of the heart is the essence of Christianity. What is it, for instance, to be baptized into the name of the Father ! and why is this made the first requisite of the BAPTISMAL CREED THE FATHER 215 heavenly system ? Because as the realization of the Fatherly character of God is the greatest requisite of all true piety ; so the avowal of this realization by that living faith which gives alone vitality to all the teachings of natural religion, is made the first part of the Christian profession. When a man can lay his hand upon his heart and say, " Now I beUeve — now I feel that God is my Father and that I am His child — from Hun I have derived a new and holy life — He has breathed uito me the filial spirit — I commune with Him through prayer as my Great Father in heaven — I love and look up to Him, depending on Him m all things, and bemg governed by His will and pleasure supremely ; and I know that He loves and Avatches over me — that Plis Pi-ovi- dence is disciplining me, and His hand guiding all my affairs" — that man has rightly learned this first article of the Christian creed ; this portion of the great mysteiy of the Godhead. He believes in the doctrine of the Father. The wicked, the impenitent man can not say this, ^-ith truth ; no unregenerate man can. Ea'cu a bad man may adore the God of nature, may feel that he is a Great Being and a Powerful Beii]g — yes, a terrible Being. He may be- lieve in him as the All-A\-ise Creator, and love ingeniously to trace out the wonders of his works, he may conceive of him as Almighty, the Self-existing .JehoA\ah, as the Ruler and Governor of men ; or even as their final Jiidge ; — but as the Father ? — Xo. Hence, St. John declares, no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and He to whom the Son shall reveal Him. " No man," says Christ, " cometh to the Father but by me." "I am the way, the truth, and the Life." What is it then rightly to receive the doctrine of the Son ? Can it mean less than to believe that as ordinarily 216 "the son." the Son partakes of the mtrinsic and equal nature of the Father, even so withui the man Clu-ist Jesus there came do'wn and tabernacled a full and complete mdwelling of the Divme Nature ? — that he who was thus the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express miage of His person, became at once the Revealer of the Father and the Res- cuer of men ? To believe in the Son then embraces a re- liance on the divine authority of all He said and did on earth for man's redemption ; the Son executing and acting out here those things of which the pattern existed in the eternal counsels of the Divine mind ; doing nothing of Him- self but what He thus saw in the bosom of the Father. The plan all prepared in Heaven — its working out committed to the Son on earth ; even as He says, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" — " I and my Father are one." To receive Christ, therefore, is (and lierem Ues the great prac- tical efliciency of the doctrine), to receive all His work, all He said, all He did and suflered as the authorized exposi- tion and carrying out of the divine counsels in our behalf, and a reflection of the disposition of the full Deity toward each weary and heavy-laden sinner. When the Ethiopian eunuch sat in his chariot, and his faith was demanded by Philip, he replied at once, " I be- lieve that Jesus is the Son of God." It was the most com- * prehensive confession possible of all this — the essence of the whole Christian faith. When a man has thus, with all his soul, received Christ as the Son, when he can lay his hand upon his heart, and say, "Now I believe in the Son of God — I receive Him as my Master, I acknowledge allegiance and obedience to Ilim as my Head and Kmg ; I hope for forgiveness and jjeace through Hun as my Mediator and Priest ; I receive Him as "the holt ghost," 217 my guide tlirough life, His precepts to be my rule, His doctrines and revelations my faith — Himself as the great elder brother in whom the whole family are named, the Head of His body the Chm-ch ;" — that man hath both the Father and the Son. But " no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost." "What is it, then, that a man professes to believe in being baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost ? Cer- tainly not less than that a Divine Spiritual Power operates consciously and directly upon his soul ; and which he recog- nizes as distinct from all other impressions produced by the Father and the Son ; a power which enlightens and elevates him, makes dark thmgs light and difficult duties easy, in- structs and keeps him in the way of holiness, gives him. energy in feebleness, and conifort in sorrow ; causes him to know what he could not know ^\4thout, to love what he hated, and to hate what he loved : a power which thiis changes his nature, restoring the soi;l, in its ultimate and perfect sway, to its original image of God. When a man can lay his hand ujDon his heart and say, I thus believe in the Holy Gliost : God's holy Spirit works ndth my spirit, teaches me to pray, causes me to love holiness and hate iniquity, "vvith supreme affection has taught me to " embrace Christ, and to love the Father ; when a man has an experimental faith thus in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost ; feels that these three are but One — one whole — one "name" — one in his O'wn heart and expe- rience : then, and not till then, has he the elements of that Christian faith professed in being baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. "Who can estimate the importance of such teachings at such a time, both to enlarge Christian charity to the com- 10 218 UNIVERSALIST BAPTISM. prehension of all vrho credibly avow their experience of these fundamental truths ; and as a conservative element, at the same time, to restrict the profession of Christianity to such. All the controversies now agitating Christendom will giA^e each year an increased prominence to the baptismal confession thus regarded. Christian baptism is more than instruction, therefore, it is a -personal profession of m.2knjYital truths. Several years ago, there was an extensive revival of re- ligion in an inland towTi of New England, where the Uni- versahsts were numerous and influential. Some who had belonged to that Society joined the Baptist Chm-ch, and many more, firm supporters of the system, were much shaken. At length their minister, who had heretofore for twelve years ever ridiculed the ordinances of reUgion in his sermons, altered his style of preachmg, told his people that he was con\dnced of the propriety of Christian baptism, and of the importance of formuig a Universalist Church, inviting those of his congregation who desired, to miite with him in domg so. A few agreed to jom, some desired sprinkling, some pour- ing, and some immersion ; and of those who chose the latter some preferred kneeling in the Avater, some at the water's edge. Another Universalist preacher came over from a neighboring town, first innnersed the mmister who resided there, after which they together administered what each desired, to the rest, and then formed them all into a professed Church. On the next Sabbath it was noticed that one of the prin- cipal Universalists of the town, and his wife, attended with the Baptists, and agam on the following Sabbath. It was the first time for years that they had been seen in an evan- THE AWAKENIKG. 219 gelical place of worship, and all were convinced that there must be .some change in their views. The man had, years before, fitted up the whole of the second story of his house into one large ball-room, where nearly all the balls and public gatherings used to be held. It was the rendezvous of the opponents of evangelical religion, and he had ever been particularly bitter. Nor was it without some mis- givings that the Baptist minister, having resolved to visit him, fastened his horse at his gate. He at once gave this account of himself: " About two or three weeks ago I attended the baptism of Mr. , (the Universalist minister). I had heard him formerly ridicule that which he now quoted the New Testament to prove true. This led me to observe it more carefiilly, and I be- came convmced that if baptism was nght, universalism was all wrong, and if imiversalism was right, baptism was all wrong." "Wliat led you to that opinion?" "Baptism," he repUed, "seems mtended to divide all men into two classes, the rehgious and the worldly. It draws a line between them. Universahsm makes no such difference. It breaks down all the distinction." The minister asked which he intended to give up. He rephed that he and his wife had been led by what they had witnessed, prayerfully to read the Bible ; that they had foimd singular light and strength through prayer, and had enjoyed the worship in which they had united, but wished to see more clearly before they decided. In the course of a few weeks they both professed an en- tire change, and m proper time applied for Christian bap- tism, desiring to consecrate the hall-room, and open it for the worship of their Master, whenever there should be an opportunity. 220 THE BAPTISMAL PROFESSION. It was therefore arranged that on the follo^dng Sabbath evening, this room should be used for Divine service, pre- vious to the baptism. "Within full view of the house rolled a clear and beautiful stream, which suited well for the ordinance. Seldom has baptism seemed so powerfully to j)reach the whole doctrines of evangeUcal religion, and show its own practical import- ance by the nature of the profession which it makes. A large multitude was there of those who a short time before had -uatnessed the same outward form used by a Universahst. But " without controversy" it professed and preached all the points of an evangelical faith and personal experience as no words of man could express them. It seemed devised to cut at the roots of the system of popular modern Uni- versalism, by its simple professions, as no mere argument could. It ajipeared as if made to utter just all of those truths that a Universahst might desire to proclaim in re- noxmcing that system. It professed a " fleeing from the lorath to come^'' by per- sonal repentance.' Redemption through the death andresur- rection of Christ ;° his o\n\ regeneration or death to sin, and newness of heart and hfe,^ and his faith in future retribu- tions and hope of being finally raised from the dead to hve with Him in glory. ^ It is not as a matter of controversy, not as a sectional distinction, that Baptists love this ordi- nance, but as the most clear profession, the most eloquent preacher of those great truths which all real Christians desire to bind around their hearts, and unfold to the world as a bamier, in their acts and lives. ' Matthew, iii. 7, 8. * Colossians, ii. 12. ' Eomans, vL 4-6. * 1 Corinthians, xv. 29. THE PLEDGES OF BAPTISM. 221 § III. The Pledges op Baptism. Baptism is not merely retrospective, but also prospective; not only a profession of the past, but a promise and a i^ledge of things yet future, and hence its important bearing on the Christian to the very end of life. It binds him by solemn obligations, and sustanas his fliith by formal pledges. It is not necessary here to repeat what has been said on a former page, as to the increasing sense which is every where mani- festing itself of the value of the formal part of reUgion, Puseyism and Romanism prove this. The only question is, whether we shall have a series of forms and symbols teach- ing error or teacMug truth ; those estabhshedby the Saviour of men, or those which sprmig up out of the corruptions of after ages. The idea of many evangeUcal Christians, that because good men differ about forms, therefore it is better to treat them all with indifference, makes as little accoimt of human nature and exj)erience, as it does of the Bible. On the pai't of the candidate, baj^tism is a promise to live a life of separation from the world, and consecration to Christ ; and in this its importance is felt. At the close of a passage before quoted, from the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul speaking of the baptismal vow, says, " Let not sm, therefore reign in your mortal bodies that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof, neither yield ye your members as instru- ments of unrighteousness unto sin ; but yield yourselves mito God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness imto God." Thus the baptized are pledged to separation from a life of sin, dedicating themselves to a course of holmess. Baptism is in this respect the most solenm thing on the face of the 222 BAPTISM A RENUNCIATION. earth. The believer in Christ here sixrrenders the world, and iwofesses huuself aUve unto God. He here renounces, yea, as it ^Yere, buries in a Hquid grave, the jDomps and vanities ot the Avorkl — its pride, its ambition, its selfishness, its sui^reme and ruling attachment to the riches, and hon- ors, and pleasures of this life. He promises to be a fol- loAver of the meek and humble Jesus, to obey his laws, to imitate his example, to be guided by his Spirit, to hve, in fact, a life of holy love, courage and confession. Baptism is here placed at the threshold of the Christian course, as a pledge that the candidate will be ready to follow it up by a life spent in the confession of Christ m whatever way he requires. This duty, deriving its obhgation from the wiU of the Saviour alone, bemg a positive, as distinct from a moral command, is well fitted to show that in all our ways, even of avo\\Tiig Christ, we must be regulated by his will. The moment that any lose sight of this, they are much distressed to know just when and how to confess Christ, and when and where to stop. On the one hand, there is to be avoided the ostentatious spii'it of a Jehu, who through pohcy and vain glory cried out " Come see my zeal for the Lord of Hosts," or the unbidden impetiiosity of Peter, when he smote off the ear of Malchus. But the cowardly spirit of approaching Jesus but only m private; and as the " Teacher come from God," yet like Nicodemus only venturing by night, for fear of the cross, this is also to be dreaded on the other hand. The child of grace here learns at the entrance of his course, that nothing is more necessary than to be ready cheerfully, openly, and daily, to avow his rehgious princi- ples. And he also pledges himself to confess Christ through life, in the Saviour's own way ; to go so far as he has some A RECIPKOCAL PLEDGE. 223 plain directions, and no further ; never to go back where there is a command to go forward, and never to go forward where he is not bidden. Such a principle heartily embraced and acted upon, at the outset, will save the Christian many sorrows and difficulties, conferring the elements of a manly and consistent piety. But the pledge is reciprocal. While the beHever surren- ders himself to Christ in the waters of baptism, Christ in that ordinance pledges himself to the beUever, yea to carry him through, who faithfully and earnestly engages in the Christian Hfe, relying on his grace. Here he enters, as it were, into a public covenant wnth his Maker and Redeemer. He takes God for his portion, who by authorizing him to do this, here pledges himself that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things pres- ent, nor things to come shall separate him from His love. He who has known what it is truly to thirst after righteous- ness, will find here the voice of God saymg to him, " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters * * * and I will tnahe an everlasting covenant loitli you^ even the sure mercies of David." And when in after days his soul is cast do^^m, and his heart is disquieted within him, he can remember and recur to the covenant thus publicly ratified by divine avithority in the waters of his baptism, and liis spu'it will be refreshed while he says, " As the hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after Thee, oh God.''^ Indeed the final pledge given to the Christian in his bap- * The whole of this beautiful Psalm (42d) was sung, during some cen- turies, by the Christians, as they walked in procession to the baptistries, when a candidate was about to be baptized. So also were parts of Isaiah, Iv. 224 BAPTISM A TLEDGE tism is that Jesus will raise him up at the last great day by the same spirit which raised up Christ from the dead, dwel- ling in him. Rom. viii, 11. It thus becomes the pledge to Mm of a resurrection to eternal life. There is a passage of Scripture not without its difficulties of interpretation indeed, but which yet clearly shows that there is insj)ired authority for regarding the baptism of a behever a jjledge of his glorious resurrection. It is in 1 Cor. XV. 29, where St. Paul, arguing on this subject sud- denly asks, "Why are we then baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not, and why stand we in jeopardy every hour?" The Ajiostle may perhaj^s be regarded as referring to the case of those who presented themselves for baptism after the funerals of the martyrs, hke fresh soldiers pressmg for- ward in the assault in the room of those fallen on the field of battle. Such persons might be said to be baptized for, or in the room of the dead. And St. Paul might reasonably ask, why then are these thus ba^jtized for the dead ? Why, when one rank of Christian soldiers is swept away by the sword of persecution, does another step forward and take its place, except that in baptism they have symbohzed their faith in the resurrection, their hopes of thereby arriving at a better state of existence ? And why stand the rest in jeopardy of the same fate every hour ? But whatever precise intei-pretation we may give these words, it is clear that in baptism the Christian professes his faith in the resur- rection even on the i^rinciple upon which the Apostle argues, " if we have been planted together in the hkeness of his death Ave shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." The fathers, therefore, received baptism as a pledge and symbol of the resurrection in its very mode. Chrysostom says, " our being baptized, even immersed in water, and our OF A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION. 225 rising again out of it, is a symbol of our descending into the grave, antl our returning thence. Wherefore St. Paul calls baptism a burial. For he says we are buried with Christ by baptism unto death." ' This Christian rite, then, is a pledge of the bright fu- ture life from him who liveth and was dead, and is alive for- ever more, and who has the keys of hell and death, who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth. It is a message direct from the Lamb that sitteth in the midst of the throne. " Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life." He says to each weak and trembling beUever, "Struggle on but a little while, be himible in the midst of a proud world, be self- denying in the midst of the gay and luxurious, be prayer- ful amid the worldly, love when hated, bless when perse- cuted, be faithful for a little time, and as sure as thou art what thou here professest, I will come again and receive thee unto myself, that where I am thou mayest be also." Thus the Christian's baptism becomes to him a symbol, yet not a mere symbol, but a pledge fi'om the Head of the Church, let down to hun, as it were, by a golden thread from heaven ; a pledge and a foretaste of joys to come ; " an earnest of his inheritance." And is it now asked by any, why is it important to preserve true and origmal baptism ? The reply is, be- cause each and all of these principles which it teaches, pro- fesses and pledges, are important ; it assures the candidate that all these things are not, as many would suppose, interpo- lations into the Christian system ; they are reaUties, all en- grafted by Christ himself mto the initiatory ordinance of his discipleship. * Chrys. Horn. 40, on 1 Cor. 10* 226 EFFECTS OF BAPTISM. In this new we may and ought to prize Christian baptism very highly. Not as an act of merit; not as. a matter of controversy and of dispute. A holy mind will shrink from doiug or saying any thing unnecessarily to wound the feel- ings of a sincere Christian, who may be weak and in ig- norance of his duty. But as a solemn act of spiritual wor- ship to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost ; as a most solemn part of authorized self-consecration ; as the most eloquent preacher of all the chief doctrines of Christianity, we are obhged to love and prize this ordinance most highly. It is a grand conservator of those holy truths. It is the ark of the covenant, in which is deposited the autograph, not of the law, but of the Gospel. § rv. Baptism Important foe its Effects. The object of the present section is further to illustrate the importance of Christian bajatism, from its effects on the world, as the commencement of a life of open and avowed piety. Every yoimg Christian in turn probably asks this question. Why can not I as well be a follower of Christ without making a public profession of rehgion ? As it is not possible for hun to understand all the reasons at the outset of his religious hfe, God has not left the matter op- tional, but seen fit to rest it upon his or^'n positive institu- tion, and attached to it a degree of unportance wiiich, in the present day, it is too much the custom to disparage. The history of an avowed piety is one that begins very early in that of our race, and long before the flood. No sooner was the famUy of Seth, the son of Adam, estabUshed in the earth, than we read, according to our present version, SEPAEATIOK. 227 that " then began men to call upon the name of the Lord," ^ This can not mean that now, for the first time, men began to pray to God. Adam and Eve worshiped Him both be- fore and after the expulsion from Eden. Cain and Abel both sacrificed to Him ; and Seth was probably a pious man. Without examinmg other conjectures, the marginal reading appears to give the probable sense of the passage, " Then hegan inen to call themselves by the 7iame of the LordP That is to say, in the time of Enos, the grandson of Adam, the descendants of Cain had probably become so wicked that it was necessary to make a broad fine of de- markation between those who served Jehovah and those who served him not. At this period j)ious men first began to separate themselves openly from the Avicked, and to avow a distinctive religion. In the same spirit, Moses, at a later period, says to the children of Israel, " Thou hast avouched this day the Lord to be thy God." "^ And thus Isaiah pro- phecies, " One shall say I am the Lord's, and another shall caU himself by the name of Jacob, and another shaU sub- sci'ibe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel."' God has always had a seed to serve him. Long before the event recorded in Genesis, there were men of personal and practical holiness, but not of the same conspicuous and avowed piety as henceforth. The Avickedness of the wicked made their reUgion stand forth more conspicuously, and made them feel the necessity of a more bold, active, agress- ive piety than heretofore, hence they " called themselves by the name of the Lord." Accordingly, in Genesis, vi. 3, we find them known as " the sons of God." Here, then, commenced the distinction between the Church ' Genesis, iv. 26. 2 Deuteronomy, xxvL 17. ' Isaiah, xliv. 5. 228 DANIEL'S OPEN WINDOW. and the world; and just in proportion as it has been kept up, religion has ever prospered, while by so much as it has been relaxed, religion has degenerated and lost its power over the hearts and consciences of mankind, We are not now, however, gomg to discuss the state of the world and of the Church as they Avere five thousand years ago. We have to speak of them as they are noio, to show the miportance of open 2>iety — the necessity of avow- ing our religion so far as it goes, and of calling ourselves by the name of the Lord. It is probable that every emotion of the mind has its natural and appropriate expression in some corresponding motion of the body. And our actions are becoming, in proportion as they are the natural or divinely-appointed expressions of some proper emotion of the mind. If the Spirit truly worketh within us, it is to "uall and to do the good pleasure of our Heavenly Father. There are certain natural exhibitions of piety, to repress which is highly injurious to the religious character. When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, consigning to the den of lions whosoever worshiped God for thirty days, he prayed as aforetime^ with his window open, three times daily. To have opened that Avindow, if he had been accus- tomed to have it shut, would have been ostentation, but to have closed it for fear of the king's decree, or of the lion's den, would have been denying his God. His consistency, perhaps his salvation, turned upon leaving that window open at that time. " Ye are the light of the world," said the Saviour ; " a city that is set on a hill can not be hid." It is m the nature of light to shine, and to throw its bright and glittering rays far and wide over creation, and it is a law of God that we may not fetter this diffusive tendency, may not light a THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 229 candle to put it under a bushel. If we make the attempt, the light will soon exhaust the air "within, and thus extin- guish itself. If Christ has kindled a flame of grace m our hearts, however feeble, all artificial efforts to conceal it are wrong. That light might otherwise shine over the dark waters of the sea of hfe, and perchance keep others from the rocks and breakers which are on every side of a reli- gious course. All unnatural effort to repress the flame of piety is a WTong done to the Church and to the world. Christians are like light-houses along a rock-boimd coast. What should we think of the keeper of one of these beacons, who Avas too modest to make his habitation knoT\Ti by kindling up his lantern on some stormy night ? He might not hear the gurgling soimd of the vessels as they sank like lead in the mighty waters. They might riot strike against his light-house. He might not perceive the shriek and last, loud wail of mortal agony, as men were in their death struggle. But would he be the less answerable for not hav- ing let Ms light shine ? Or if it were a revolving light, off the mouth of some harbor, where the bright home of many a storm-tossed mariner awaited him, and the keeper only neglected to Avind the machinery, so that it blazed not up at the appointed moment, Avho can tell the perils mto which thousands, sailing by those hghts, would be thi'OAvn in a single night ? Christians are the keepers of these light-houses. They are the light of the world. No man can teU the efiect of a single suppression of the soul's great message to mankind. Not until the thrones are set, and the dead, small and great, stand before God ; not until " the sea shall give up the dead that are m it," shall aU the consequences of suppressing light be manifest. 230 EFFECTS ON TIMID CHRISTIANS. That sea ! it is navigated by millions, crossed by all in the great voyage of human life, ships are foundering on it in every gale, and shoals and breakers are all around. But yonder lies the harbor, and there stands the light-house — the Church of the livmg God, round which the hopes of a thou- sand spiritual mariners are cluiging, and to 'which each eye is directed. Suddenly the Ught gets out of order — it revolves no longer ; its rays are dim when they should be clear and bright. The mariner stands in doubt, and fears to venture ; the hght is not such as is laid down m his chart ; he deems it safer to ride out the tempest at sea. Or, while he hesi- tates, the light goes out, and he has missed its bearings ; he strikes a rock. Is there no responsibility here ? But the keeper is only asleep perhaps, when he should have been awake, he only does not let his light shine. One of the earliest and most universally extended tempt- ations of the young Christian, is to suppress the natural and appropriate expression of the religious emotions. But what does it really amount to ? Just this : smothering the cries of an infant, by which it makes known its existence, and its want of care and nutrition. Many young Chris- tians, from a fear of forwardness, and self-deception, and future inconsistency, stifle every natural and spontaneous exhibition of their reUgious wants and emotions, the anxie- ties and experiences of their souls, in the great struggle after the unseen mysteiies of spiritual Ufe ; until by stifling the expression, they lose the ability to express, and soon the disposition to act, and the power to feel. It is as if one should put an extinguisher on a lamp, lest the wid should blow it out. Such jicrsons wUl point to the many who have professed and boasted ; — who, Hke the foolish virgins, have gone forth EDDYSTOiSrE LIGHT-HOUSE. 231 "with, the lamp of a profession, but without the oil and fire of grace. They refer to these failures, and ask how they shall venture to erect then- hght, even on the Rock of ages, "vvhen so many have failed. There stands upon the coast of England, near PljTnouth Harbor, the celebrated Eddystone Light-house. About one hundred and twenty years ago, an engmeer of distiri- giiished abiUty, erected a fabric there, riveted so firmly to the rocks by iron elects, that he was heard boastmgly to say, that he only wished he might be in it when the fiercest storm that ever raged under heaven was blo^ving. After many years, he was on a visit to the building in 1745, dur- ing one of the severest gales on record. And in a dark night, whUe many a sailor was tossing upon the sea, the hght was observed to be extinguished; and when the stoi'm cleared up, light-house, keeper, architect, all were found to have been swept away, not a vestige Avas left, the very iron ha\dng been torn from its riveted foundations in the rock. The present light-house, which has stood ever since, was then erected on the same spot ; over the entrance to which, the new architect modestly and piously mscribed these words : " Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it." And there it stands to this day. Christian baptism, naihng np this talismanic sentence over the door of each heart, whUe it boldly erects its hght to the world, becomes divinely protected and preserved in doing so, amid all the storms and temj^ests of life. Every one of us has some circle of influence. Our avowal of the Saviour is the most efficient way of mducing others to take refuge in Christ. Multitudes are constantly led to him through the experience of those around them, 232 INDIVIDUAL NEGLECTS MULTIPLIED. and his fame and his glory is thus spread more in the earth than in any other way. Our avowal of gratitude may bring thousands of others ultimately to glorify Hun to aU eternity. What should we thmk of a poor man cured gra- tuitously of some desperate disease, who refused to ac- knowledge that he ever had been sick, or restored by the physician, saying that the cure of so bad a case could brmg no renown to any one ? What might seem slight neglect in an individual case, multiplied by the thousands and tens of thousands of the spiritual Israel, mounts up in each age to a mighty robbery of the great Bang of Zion, defrauding him of vast revenues of glory. Were aU those who consider themselves truly pious, to bring their full and proper meed of praLse, and honor, and glory to the Lamb, by a public and constant confession of Him before men, in every appointed way, it would make tills earth resound with hallelujahs and ring ^viih the praise of Immanuel, It would bring such a tribute of reno'wn and thanksgivmg as to produce the greatest awakening, both of saints and of sinners, the world has ever seen. And these cases would bruig others and others in each suc- cessive generation. But what wonder if the great Head of the Church withhold his Spirit and his presence — what wonder if the world be so neglectful of religion, and the Church so cold, while Jesus is robbed and defrauded of liis own glory, as He is daily in the house of those of all of us, in this age, who consider ourselves his friends ? INFANT BAPTISM PEOVED INJURIOUS. 233 CHAPTER III. INFANT BAPTISM PROVED INJURIOUS BY THE CONCESSIONS OP ITS RECENT DEFENDERS. Some years ago several students were being examined in Systematic Theology, in a Theological Seminary, m which, though itself Pedobaptist, young men of diiferent denomi- nations were educated, and ui which there Avas much Chris- tian UberaUty both of sentiment and expression. "Who are the proper subjects for baptism?" was one of the questions asked. A student replied, " Believers, and it has generally been the opmion of the Church, that then- mfants are entitled to the same privilege." " And pray, sir, what is your own oj^inion on the sub- ject?" " I have not been able to satisfy myself that it was a Scriptural practice." He then explained that although he did not beheve infant baptism to be a Biblical institution, yet he thought it a touching and beautiful rite, well calcu- lated to lead parents to recognize their religious duties to their children, and dedicate them solemnly to God. This is in substance the view now entertained in regard to this ordinance by a large number of the most enlight- ened Pedobaptist divines in this country — by the Organ of the Free Presbyterian Church in Scotland — by such men as Coleridge was in England, by Bunsen, Neander, and the great body of men of the highest claims to learning and 234 COLERIDGE'S IDEA piety in Germany. This is, in fact, the grovmd-work of most modern defenses of the system, and as such, demands our present attention — itself indicatmg great progress, while rendermg the ultimate abandonment of the system inevit- able. § I. Coleridge's Defense of Infant Baptism. We begm with one whose varied learning and profound reasoning powers have given his thoughts, fragmentary and almost contradictory as they often were, and generally ob- scurely exj^ressed, so much weight with all deep thinkers on religious subjects, Coleridge, as we have before seen, concedes freely that " there exists no sufficient proofs that the baptism of in- fants was the practice of the Apostolic age," and that he "honors the course of those who reject it, as most scrip- tural." Yet he argues in favor of infant baptism, on such grounds as the foUo^^'ing : " "Where a ceremony answered and was intended to an- swer several pm-poses, which at its first institution were blended in resi:)ect of the time, but which afterward by change of circumstances were necessarily dismiited, then either the Church hath no power or authority delegated to her, or she must be authorized to choose and determine to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be at- tached." And he asks boldly, " in what manner the Chm-ch could have exercised a sound discretion more ^\dsely and effectively than it has done." ' Such a defense as this is surely more alarming and in- jurious than infant baptism itself For so long as Scripture was quoted to maintain it, however erroneously, a tribute 1 Aids to Reflection — ^Baptism. OF A "dISCRETIOXARY POWER." 235 of respect was at least paid to its supremacy, while liere in- fant baptism is made to rest upon the " discretionary authority" of the Church, The whole plausibihty of this argument lies in taking for granted a " change of circumstances" which has no exist- ence. But the real point is not whether the Church has made a wise or unwise use of its authority, but M'hether it possesses any power at all to make such an alteration. This is the true question at issue. The visible churches of Christ are simply executive bodies, not legislative. Their duty is to carry out the laws of Christ, not to make laws of their own ; to exhibit m living operation that system of religion which Jesus Christ and His mspired Apostles left us, but not to alter or amend it at pleasure. K any set of men in the name of a Church, undertake to improve upon Christianity, to repeal its most fundamental laws, and alter the whole nature of its membership ; they may raake an agglom- ei'ation of the superstitious philosophies and opinions of all subsequent ages, upon a small basis, perhaps of Christianity as a germ. This concedes in full the principle of all that the Church of Rome has ever asserted. It is certain that at the Reformation, none of the Churches that then arose could have stood a moment, had they admitted this openly. The right here claimed is not only a legislative but a funda- mental — a constitutional power, an authority to overthrow the origmal construction of Christ's visible church, and to create an mstitution fundamentally different. For if bap- tism is the door of visible Church membership, the admis- sion of all infants for life to a society originally composed only of penitent believers, is one of the most radical alter- ations conceivable. The whole terms of membership are changed. It is a coup d'etat of the most sweeping kind, 236 WHAT IS "the church?" flooding and altering the whole course of operative power. Part of the effects may be obviated where these persons are arbitrarily excluded until they are converted as they sometimes virtually are, but the prmciple of deviation at wUl is established. But ui the vast majority of cases, those thus admitted become its members and officers, often ob- tamhig the comjjlete control, as in all National Establish- ments. Another question arises here. What is this body which it is m-ged has thus the right to change the terms of Church membership so radically ? The word Church, exxXijoiu^ it is generally conceded, is used in the Xew Testament ecclesias- tically hi two senses, and but two.^ 1. A particidar "vdsible Church or body of Christians in the habit of assembling to- gether for worshij), and walkuig in the doctrmes and ordi- nances of the Gospel." 2. The Church universal, consist- ing of all those whose names are written in heaven.' Now if the authority to make this alteration were lodged any where, it would be in the imiversal Church, according to Mr. Coleridge. But then this Church consists not al- ways of those who profess religion, but of all those who possess it, whether they are baptized or not. The dying thief was a member of no visible Church, but was not he a member of Christ's mystical body, seeing that om- Saviour said, " To-day shalt thou be with me m Paradise ?" All true Christians are members of this body, the samts in heaven as well as those on earth. Christ its Head is in heaven, and its members wiU all assemble at the Marriage-supper of the Lamb, but never till then. The idea of one only true, visible, universal Church on earth, is a fiction early invented * See Robinson's Lexicon, eKK?.7]aia, (b.) » GaL i. 2, Rev. L 20, iii. 22. » Heb. xii. 23, Eph. L 22, iil 10. HOW IT WAS CHANGED, 237 to crush out supposed heretics, and naturally and necessarily resolving itself into Popery. Besides, if " the Church" possess this fundamental pow- er to alter its o^ii constitution, where is the proof that it has ever so exercised it. If the masses of Christians ever consented to the change, it was not with their eyes open, publicly and fairly. It was through false pretenses of Scrip- tural authority, through the force and usurpation of spirit- ual rulers ; a fi-aud \dolating the whole procedure. For it was, before it became common, falsely professed to have been derived from apostolic tradition, or from the authority of circumcision, and above all from the necessity of its re- generating efficacy to procure salvation. Even now it could not stand with evangelical Christians, except upon a suppo- sition, by the masses, of its Scriptiiral authority. We should soon find, universally, that if the Church had power to alter it one way, they had power and discretion too to alter it back again. But, in fact, this whole appeal to " the Church" is as if the President of a Bank should, at the annual meeting of its shareholders, decide that every biU-holder had a right to vote, and then take advantage of a resolution passed by the body composed of both these classes to prove that his decision was correct. The natural result of such an exten- sion of the controlling power to a large number of those who had Httle real interest in its management, would be the practical reversion of it back mto the more entire charge of the officers. This was, too, the immediate effect of infant baptism. But let us suppose further that such a meeting should em- power the directors, president and cashier to make any other alteration they saw best, and henceforth fill all vacan- 238 A FRAUD LEADING TO POPERY. cies, and be self-j^erpetuatiiig with the whole legal powers of the bank. Would that render the transaction valid ? And if, while acting under these quasi powers, the property were squandered by folly or by fraud, would not the real shareholders have a right to step in, resume the election of their own officers, and proclaim all measures carried through the admission of improper persons to the corporate powers of the body, Uable to be invalidated ? This is precisely the manner m which the name of " the Church" has been mis- used, and its authority prostituted. Under the plea of exer- cising " a sound discretion -wisely and effectually," the whole terms of Church membership have been radically altered through infant baptism, and then the ajjpeal is made to the body thus altered, to prove both its own authority and its consent. First by a baptism, without any profession of faith, vast herds of the unregenerate are for centuries accounted members of the Church. Unfit to manage these concerns themselves, all the jjower naturally falls into the hands of the clergy, whether with or ^\-ithout the consent of the masses matters little. The whole affair is radically opposed in principle to the nature of the Church established by Christ and his Apostles. So palpably is what is commonly called " the Church" but a fiction, in all, excepting the earlier centuries of ecclesi- astical history, that it means really not the people, but the priests ; not the body, but the officers ; until the whole sys- tem culminates natm-ally in a center — the Pope. But if it be said that each of the true visible Churches of Christ have this j^ower of altermg their owai constitu- tions at any tune, which is the only possible Protestant ground, then each being independent, can not, by its action, bind any other. It would amount to this, therefore, that CHUECHES DIVINELY RECOGNIZED. 239 every particular Church is a perfectly voluntary societ}', withoict even the most fundcanental prinoAple of metnher- ship or organization laid doion in the JVeio Testament un- alterably/, having not a single necessary feature of perma- nent identity. The New Testament represents each one of those Churches scattered over the face of the whole globe, as being buUt up of " lively stones a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to oifer up spiritual sacrifices to God." "We find ui the book of Revelations, Christ representing himself as walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and declarmg that the candlesticks represent liis Churches. On these and other representations of Scripture we have aU been taught that they are divine institutions to which Christ has promised his presence to the end of time. But if now these bodies claim a right to alter this con- stitution, and mstead of a spiritual house built of lively stones, whole nations may be swept into them without per- sonal piety, the next question is, does this promise of the presence of Jesus Christ extend to all such institutions ? Their constitutions may be made or altered by some liber- tine monarch, like Henry VIII., or by delegates who agree upon a certain platform, and amend and alter it at their pleasure. They may all of them call themselves Churches, they may have a succession of ministers if they see fit, but the question now is much more fundamental, have they adhered suiticiently to the orighial constitution to be considered as Christian Churches at all ? Jesus Christ \n\\ not extend his presence and recognition to every thing that calls itself by that name, and allow an vmlimited " discretionary power" as to its most fundamental provis- ions. The best that can be looked for is that He will per- haps also exercise a discretionary power ; whUe it is cer- 240 CONSTITUTION OF THE tain that the whole procedure must be regarded as utterly unauthorized. If now we take up a work by a distinguished clergyman of the Church of England (the author of " The Seven Lamps of Architecture"), we shall find hun. wi-iting as follows, about the constitution of his own ecclesiastical body : " It has been ingeniously endeavored to make baptism a sign of admission into the visible Church, but absurdly enough, for we know that half the baptized people m the world are very visible rogues, believing neither in God nor devil, and it is flat blasphemy to call them visible Christians." And yet if we ask Mr. Coleridge by what right mfant baptism has been introduced to effect this radical alteration m the constitution of his Church, in reply, he says, " I ask with confidence in what way could the Church have exercised a Bound discretion more wisely, piously, and effectively." ' We may perhaps be told that all this is the result, not of infant baptism, but of Church and State, and if we turn to the Episcopalians in this country, we shall unquestionably find a great improvement. But still, in " The New York Churchman" will be found an article written a short time ago, entitled, " Rights of the Laity." Speaking of these, the author says : " What are their rights ? I take this diocese as an ex- ample. Connection of the loosest kind gives a layman, no matter what may be his opinions, and I am sorry to say hardly any matter what may be his moral and reUgious character, a right to vote for wardens and vestrjnnen, and a right to be a warden or vestryman. Every such person is eligible to membership of the Diocesan or General Con- vention, to a seat in the Diocesan, standing committee, and ' On Baptism, Aids to Reflection. EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 241 every appointment in the gift of either Convention, These rights are secured by constitutions and canons, which can not be altered without the consent of the laity." Such are some of the results of " this sound discretion, wisely, pi- ously, and eifectually exercised." On the other hand, the essential principle of Church con- stitution with the Baptists, is the admission only of persons baptized, upon a credible profession of faith in Jesus Christ, in the habit of assembling for worship and ordinances. This is, we have seen, identically that of the primitive churches — the bodies to which Christ promised his presence and blessmg to the end of time. And when Coleridge, himself, " inclines to this view as the more Scriptural, * and Neander and Augusti are certain of it, can it be said that infiint baptism is not mjurious as well as erroneous? But the question is not merely whether any Church has, or has not exercised her discretionary power wisely and pi- ously. It is something far more grave, even whether she has any discretionary power at all like that claimed, to make and unmake constitutions, and whether the usurpation of such a power is not injurious ? This is one of the most important of all questions, because, in fact, it bears most directly upon the Divine authority of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, to institute a form of organi- zation beyond the control and authority of after ages ; to institute a permanent visible body of Christians. Pedo- baptism thus maintained, says m effect, that Christians now are just as wise, and have as much power to alter things, as Christ had to establish them. And this, while it may seem at first view to be merely an exaggerated claim of Christ's presence, or an undue exaltation of the Church authority, ' "Works, vol. v- p. 542. Notes oa Robinson. 11 242 PURPOSES AT FIRST BLENDED. which were bad enough, is yet so much worse as this, that it is in fact a lowering do^n of the Divine authority, of the work of Christ and his Apostles. It is a denial of the per- manent character of all Divine institutions. It says in ef- fect, and Bunsen almost says it in words, " true we are poor fallible creatures, nevertheless, by the lights of experience and Church history, Ave are able in this age of reconstruc- tion to fashion a constitution not merely for the ideal Church of the future, but for the actual Chxwch of the present, that shall be an improvement \ipon the original." Covered up in words that deceive even those who use them, this is the real point which is now ultimately involved in the theory of these modern advocates of infant baptism, on the groimd of a discretionary power. All who attentively consider Coleridge's ideas, and those which have been in Germany at the root of this whole argument, \ri{\ perceive that these are not merely theoretic inferences, but most practical and vital facts. The tendency of the Avhole is beyond what its authors j^^i'f^i^'S, to diminish the supreme authority and Divine perfection of original Christianity, so far as the foiin- ation of a church is concerned, and by a theory of develop- ment, cautiously let down this religion to rest upon a found- ation of naturalism in place of super-naturalism. True, the entering wedge is here inserted by the feather end. It is supposed that baptism was " originally intended to answer several purposes, which purposes at its first insti- tution were blended in resj^ect of time, but which afterward by change of circumstance, were necessarily disimited, as when for uistance a large and ever-increasing proportion of the Christian Church, or those who at least bore the Chris- tian name, were of Christian parents." Was baptism then designed to answer several purposes at HOW DISUNITED. 243 first blended in point of time, but afterward disunited ? The supposition is hapj^ily baseless. If true, it would re- flect upon the prescience of the founder of Christianity. There were surely just as large a proportion of childi-en belonging to the first Christians as there are belonging to Christians now. There is no change of circumstance in that particular. True, they were not then considered fit to become members of the visible Church, or in this sense to " bear the Christian name." Yet that bemg the effect of the introduction of infant baptism could not be the cause of it. But those baptized seem to have been even chiefly heads of families, and therefore as large, if not a larger proportion of children were then connected with Christianity by family ties, than later. Nor did it originally matter, so far as Church membershij) was concerned, Avhose children they were, for until they became truly pious, they were never baptized. All, whether descended from Chris- tian parents or heathen, were then baptized m the same way, and on the same principles. There was, and could be no change affecting the object of this ordinance. But Coleridge proceeds : " One purpose of baptism was the making it publicly manifest, first, what individuals were to be regarded by the world as belonging to the visible communion of Christians. Secondly, to point out for the Church itself those that were entitled to that especial dear- ness, that watchful disciplinary love and loiing-kuidness, which, over and above the duties of philanthropy and uni- vei'sal charity, Christ himself has enjomed in the new com- mandment." If we should admit aU this, what has it to do with the question ? -If the children of believers were to be baptized as entitled to this " especial dearness" and disciplinary love 244 COLEEIDGES' VIEW. of the Church, at the end of two hundred years ; they ought to have been so received at first. Xothuig is more injurious to Christianity than by baptism pubUcly to declare to the world, that a child belongs to the visible commimion of Christians, because his father is a pioiis man, if he turn out a reprobate. And so also, while the children of Chris- tians are entitled to that especial dearness and Avatchful disciplinary love which belong to them as children of pious parents, yet they are not entitled to be loved even by their parents as Christians, imtil they are such, and manifest the sensible experiences of the new life. And so in regard to the relations they sustain to all other bemgs, whether equals, instructors, or pastors. There is in all this, no change of circumstances at all affecting the ordmauce, even if the parental relation had not existed ui the days of the Apostles, as it does now. The history of Christ blessing the infants is so recorded as to leave no room for the sup- position that they were baptized. There must have been vast multitudes of the children of believing parents^ in the first ages. The neglect to baptize them then, and the insti- tution of such terms as they could not possibly comply with, was a clear decision against their admissibility, until they became Christians by choice. So that infant baptism is even in direct opposition to the authority of our Saviour. A further reason advanced is the most remarkable of all. Coleridge would have us combine with the above, " the ne- cessity of checking the superstitious abuse of the baptismal rite ;" that is, " the importance of preventing the ceremony irom being regarded as other and more than a mere cere- mony." Who does not know, that as infant baptism was never current until it was supposed to be necessary to sal- > 1 Cor. vu. 14. INTOLERABLE VIEW OF GOD. 245 vation, so it became the great evidence, witness, and proof, to after ages, of this the most gigantic error of corrupt re- ligion? It is difficult to conceive how Coleridge could have been quite sincere in penning a senthnent such as this, for in his " Notes on Jeremy Taylor," he says : " Xow this is the strongest argument of all against in- fant baptism, and that which alone weighed at one time with me ; namely, that it suj^poses and most certainly en- courages a belief concerning a God the most blasphemous and intolerable^'''' even that the want of it may occasion their " eternal loss." ' Neander not only sustains this, but says, alluding to the time when infant baptism began to be advocated, that " now * * * the error became more firmly established, that without external baptism no one could be delivered from inherent guUt, or raised to eternal life, and when the notion of a magical influence or charm connected with the sacraments, continually gained ground, the theory was finally evolved, of the unconditional necessity of infant baptism." Certainly nothmg so favored the idea of " a magical influence or charm" connected with the sacraments ; nothing so naturally and inevitably caused this notion to gain ground, as that very administration of baptism to in- fants, which Coleridge declares was piously and wisely intro- duced from its obvious tendency to have the opjjosite effect ! He does indeed admit that, by an " imforeseen accident," wormwood was " afterward cast into the sweet waters of this fountain, and made them like the waters of Marah, too bitter to be drank," But he does not admit half their native bitterness, as it ought to be admitted, and they certainly have been pretty extensively drank, however bitter, until within the last hundred years. ' "Works, vol. V. p. 192. Harper. 246 DK. BUSHNELL. § IL Dr. Bushnell's Yiews of Infant Baptism. In the year 1847, the Massachusetts Sabbath School So- ciety piiMished two " Discoiirses on Christian Nurture," by Dr. Bushnell. Tliey contained what was considered quite an original line of argmnent hi favor of infant baptism, and were read first of all before the Hartford Association which body requested the author to publish them. Aftei this, they were submitted to the Executive Coimnittee of the above Society, read by every member, and re-read until the pajjer Avas considerably worn ; corrected verbally by the author, at their request, and, approved, sanctioned, and en- dorsed by them, were finally published by the Society. A Baptist neA\'spaper in Boston first called attention to the remarkable character of this little work, as a defense of infant bajitism at the expense of evangelical prmciples. Dr. Tyler, the senior Professor of a neighbormg Congrega- tional Theological Seminary, after a time, wrote a review of it, declaring it full of " dangerous tendencies ;" and at last the Society itself, without retracting any thing, resolved " to suspend the sale of it, without publicity." This in- duced Dr. BushneU to publish " An Argument in favor of the Discourses," etc., which finally he republished with the discourses themselves. Dr. Bushnell's want of controversial tact has no doubt much hmdered the spread of his theoiy, for in vuidicating himself from the charge of heresy, he assumes positions and produces arguments exen more ofiensive to his opponents than the point he wishes to prove. His system, too, has carried him far, very far ; for the deeply logical structure of his mind, and the frankness of his character, hav^e led him to avoid all shirking of legitimate consequences. But NO SETTLED THEORY. 247 this is, in its essence, the mildest and most moderate theory of infant baptism ever exhibited ; the least offensive to others, the most simple, and consistent with itself. If it will not stand, notlung will. Dr. Tyler's letter in reply to it, is but an argument for Baptist principles from beginning to end. Dr. Bushnell, indeed, has, beyond any other wiiter on this subject, resolved infant baptism back mto the principles on which it essentially rests. He has even attempted to do the same in regard to the views of theu' oj)ponents, thus enabling us to contrast, Math the greatest accuracy, Pedo- baptist and Baptist theories of Church membership. There are several valuable concessions brought out in these wi'itings, most important as arising from discourses originally intended against the Baptists, and yet made the more freely, from the fact that, after the first publication, Dr. Bushnell's particular opponent was hunself a Pedobap- tist. Thus, for instance, it was admitted that " no settled opinion on the subject of infant baptism and of Christian nurture has ever been attained to. Between the standard Protestant wi-iters themselves there has been no agreement. What is the covenant ? What meaning and force has it ? Here we have never agreed, and do not now. The BajJtists have pushed us for an answer, we have given them many answers, hut never any single ansioer in xohich loe could agree among owselves.''''^ He even shows that Dr. Hopkins msisted on " the essen- tial absurdity of infmt baptism as commonly practiced," "^ and says, " There is little reason to wonder that the Bap- tists should reject infant baptism Avhen we hold it oursehes ' Views of Christian Nurture and Subjects Adjacent thereto, pp. 56-61. * Page 71. 24y EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. only as a dead tradition, separated from any rational mean- ing or use. And if we stand upon the footing of absolute individualism, it follows irresistibly, as any child may see, that they are right in requiring e\ddence of actual faith previous to baptism.' He admits that they have all been holding infant baptism as an empty tradition, a form, the ?oul of which is evaporated and lost, giving its rejectors the strongest argument possible against it. And he approvingly quotes Dr. Nevins as declaring, in despair and horror, that the evangelical Puritanism of New England " has tnade \i.s all Baptists in theory, v)hich is the same as to say that we ought to he so in fact.'''' "^ We have long believed all that is here stated ; that the Congregational Churches of New England, by just so much as they differ from the old Uni- tarian Churches, and the Presbyterian Churches, since the time of Tennant, were so far " Baptist in theory ;" and on this ground it is that Baptists have felt less interest than, per- haps, they otherwise would, and ouglit to have done, in see- ing them become so " m tact." We have long seen that infmt baptism was among them but an empty tradition, a form, the soul of which had evaporated ; that with the prin- ciples of the Evangelical Congregationalists of New England, in regard to a regenerate church-membership, it follows ir- resistibly, as any child may see, that Baptists are right in requu'ing evidence of actual faith previous to bajDtism. In fact, though we would not have introduced the words our- selves in regard to an institution any Christian brethren hold sacred, yet as they have done this, we may quote them, and admit " the essential absurdity" of infant baptism, as commonly practiced, from the time of Dr. Hopkins doA\Ti to Dr. Bushnell ; and that the New England Pedobaptists ' Page 82. 2 Page 96. ALL BAPTIST IN TUEORY. 249 have not been able, in the conrse of two hundred years, to attam to any scheme of mfant baptism, or settled opinion of its gromid and import, consistent with their own writers, or even consistent -wdth themselves. All this, however, we did not expect to have seen confessed so readily in " An Argument" in favor of infant baptism. Dr. Bushnell also makes a still more pregnant concession when he says truly enough, we doubt not, " At the time of my settlement in the mmistry, the council came near reject- ing me, because I could say nothing more positive concern- ing infant baptism." ' Even now, though he quotes Scrip- ture, he does not build much on that, and, indeed, treads so very gently and softly on it, as to remmd his readers of a man walking on what he suspects to be rather rotten ice in the spring. He brings forward the case of " household baptisms," but admits that the power of these proof texts " does not depend in the least on the fact that there were children ui these households." He even thinks " the argument for infant baptism rather weakened than strengthened by the supposi- tion that there were infants ;" and finally, that " these pas- sages * * * certainly do not p^-ove infant baptism ui just the way in which many have used them as proof texts." ' In fact, infant baptism with him does not rest directly on Scripture, but on " a theory'''' of Christian nurture ; and he tells us how he obtained it. After relating that he came near being rejected for not beheving in it, he adds : " Aftei two or three years of reflection, I came upon the discovery that aU my views of Christian nurture were radically defect- ive, and even false. And now what before was dark, or even absurd, immediately became luminous and dignified."* • Page 82. « Pages 29, 30. " 3 Page 82. 250 EDWARD'S VIEWS These views we will examine in a moment, for upon this aU turns with him. He tells the Congregationalists that some of them are sunply mdiiferent, " not seemg what good it can do the child, and others have positive theological objections to it." But it is his " settled conviction (now) that no man ever objected to infant baptism who had not, at the bottom of his objections, the " false views" which create so great difficulty in sustaining infant baptism in our (in the Con- gregational) Churches."' In a word, he concedes that, unless the " Baptist theory" of Christian nurture, ^. e., the views of Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield, and the whole evangelical theory of the New England Puritans, have been wi'ong (for he admits them all to be essentially Baptist), and his theory of children grooving up Christians right, infant baptism is an " essential absurdity." ^ We desu-e, then, now to compare the Baptist and Pedo- baptist theories of Church membership and Christian nurture, upon which the whole of Dr. Bushnell's argument rests ; an argument which was, it is true, " without jDubHcity," droj^ped by the Committee of the " Massachusetts Sabbath School Society" when the controversy waxed warm, but which has been publicly " approved^'' by them, and never repudiated. It must, at least, be supposed to contain the doctrine of infant baptism, as they would like, were it consistent, to hold it forth, and is the only ground on which Dr. Bushnell thinks it can be reasonably held at all. The whole of this argument rests upon these two errors ; 1 . It makes a serious mistake as to what really is the Baptist theory of the operations of Divine grace. 2. Much of what it considers as belonging exclusively to the Pedobap- tist theory, our own principles admit and embrace quite as 1 Pages 38, 9. 2 Page 71. DESCRIBED. 251 cordially as this, rejecting it only where it deviates from the truth. Dr. Bushnell thus describes the "Baptist," or (as he sometiraes calls it), " Ictic theory," or that of "individual- ism," which he puts in contrast with his own, to set it off to a better advantage : " It is a religion that begins explosively, raises high fi-ames, carries Uttle or no expansion, and after the day is spent, subsides into a torpor, * * * j^ makes nothing of the family, and the Church, and the organic powers God has constituted as vehicles of grace. It takes every man as if he had existed alone^ presumes that he is unreconciled to God until he has undergone some sudden and explosive experience in adult years, or after the age of reason ; de- mands that experience, and only when it is reached, allows the subject to be an heir of life. Then on the otlier side or that of the Spirit of God, the very act or ictus by which the change is wrought, is isolated, or mdividualized, so as to stand m no connection with any other of God's means or causes — an epiphany in which God leaps from the stars, or some place above, to do a work apart from all system, or connection with His other works. Religion is thus a kind of transcendental matter, which belongs on the out- side of life, and has no part hi the laws by which life is organized — a miraculous epidemic, a fire-ball shot from the moon, something holy because it is from God, but so ex- traordinary, so out of place that it can not sufier any vital connection with tlie ties, and causes, and forms, and habits, which constitute the frame of our history. Hence the de- sultory, hard, violent, and often extravagant or erratic char- acter it manifests. Hence in part the dreary years of decay, and dai'kness, that interspace our months of excite- 252 THE CHILD TO GEO"W UP. ment and victory." ' It is with regret that we see such a picture, such a caricature, drawn of the Baptist theory of conversion. It is true he puts us ia respectable company, and paints the above, not as the description of Baptist views, except as a part of that Congregational puritanism advanced by Jonathan Edwards, " all Baptist in theory." We leave it for others to decide, if it fairly represents the behef of the Evangelical 'New England churches, eithei Baptist or Congregational, A^iewed on the scale of the last hundred years. It would be almost an unfair caricature, even of the extreme excitements of itinerant evangelists — excitements, not arising legitimately out of any theory — but the boisterous jiassions of unruly individuals, tolerated indeed for a time, by several churches, but soon over. Sim- ilar excesses have arisen in all ages and m all parts of the Avorld, even m Catholic as well as Protestant countries. The Jansenists have exhibited them as well as the Metho- dists. They are a phase of reaction from the great disease of sin and all religious indifference, and ^Hl exhibit them- selves with any theory while human nature is in its present disordered state. The true Pedobaptist theory Dr. Bushnell thus states by way of contrast. It is, " That the child is to grow up a Chkistiax. — In other words, the aim, effort, and expectation should be, not as is commonly assumed, that the child is to grow up in sin, to be converted after he comes to a matiu'e age, but that he is to open on the world, as one that is spiritually renewed, not remembering the time when he went through a tech- nical experience, but seeming rather to have loved what is good, from his earhest years." ^ ' Pages 68, 9. ' Page 6. A CHRISTIAX. 253 This theory he illustrates as follows : " If we narrowly examine the relation of parent and child, we shall not fail to discover sometlimg Uke a law of organic connection, as regards character, subsisting between them. Such a connection as makes it easy to believe, and natural to expect, that the faith of the one will be propagated in the other. Perhaps I should rather say such a connection as induces the con\action that the character of one is actu- ally mcluded in that of the other, as a seed is formed hi the capsule, and being there matured by a nuti'iment derived from the stem is gradually separated from it." ' Page 18. * Dr. Bushnell afterward explains his meaning as follows : " I take the actings of the parent in the child, both before and after birth, for as far as the child's will or individuality are concerned, they are included in the same category of passivity, and cover them both by the same term ; call- ing them ' wganic.'' Considering next this organic power as inhabited by Christ, and the Spirit of God, and exalted thus into a spiritual state above itself, I take my stand at the birth point of the will (not of the body), and there I say that the Christian child ought to emerge into individual- ity, not as ripened into sin, and set off in it, but as one that is regener- ated, quickened unto spiritual life. In other words it is the privilege of the Christian, not that he is doomed to give birth to a tainted life and cease, but tliat by the grace of God dwelling in him, and in the child, fashioning his own character, as an organic mold for the child, and the child to a plastic conformity with the mold provided, he may set forth the child into life, as a seed after Mm — one that is prepared unto a godly life, by causes prior to his own will, that is, by causes metaphysically organic. Thus every thing previous to the will falls into one and the same cate- gory. * * * At some time, sooner or later, but only by a gradual transition, he comes into his own will, which theologically speaking, is the time of his birth as a moral subject of God's government ; and if he takes up life, as a corrupted subject, so he may and ought also to take it up, as a renewed subject, that is, to grow up as a Ohristian." i (1) Page 94. 254 THE BAPTIST TUEORY. "We will not just here examine very deeply into Dr. Bush- neU's theory. Suppose it correct, in fact, that many chil- dren are brought to the saving knowledge of God at a very early age ; he still calls them " regenerated ;''"' sup- pose that through early training, while there was, as Dr, B. would say, a metaphysical organic connection between the j^arent and child, this should be far more generally the case witli the children of pious, than of irreligious parents ; or suppose even that sometimes the physical and metaphy- sical organization of the child of irreligious parents, shall not be so favorable to this early development of piety, as in the child of pious parents. When then ? Let us be- Heve all this, and we do believe it ; stiU what is there in it, at all opposed to the Baptist theory ? "We may believe that Jeremiah was sanctified from the womb, that Samuel " grew up" so piously from earliest in- fancy that he was never sensible afterward of any sudden or violent change. It may have been so with John the Baptist and with Timothy. It may have been, and prob- ably was in great part, through pious training and influences on the part of pious parents, that all this took place and at so early an age. It is certainly implied that in the case of Timothy it was. Let all this be granted, and what then ? Wliere does it touch the Baptist theory ? Dr. Bushnell could only reply, 1. That the Baptist theory of Church membership teaches that no persons are fit for the Church until they manifest a sensible religious experi- ence, and 2. It " tells the child that nothing but sin can be expected of him, presumes that he will not grow to a be- liever, or be eventually sanctified through his parent's faith, and therefore that the rite of baptism is inappropriate." ' ' Pages 28, 9. SENSIBLE EXPERIENCES. 255 1. As to the first, it is indeed and exactly true that, ac- cording to the Baptist theory, none are proper subjects for Church membership until they manifest a sensible religious experience. But Dr. B. seems to confound two things that differ mightily : the sensible experiences of grace, and " ex- plosive conversion," or at least " sensible conversion." A person may be sensible of being in a gracious state every day, without remembering possibly when such experiences first began to da^^m upon him. With some, these things are more gradual m their manifestations, even in riper years, than vnth others ; much more when they take place in the dawnings of life. The Baptist theory of " effectual calling" does not depend in whole or in part on token it takes place. It only asserts that there must be credible manifestations of its ha^Tiig taken place previous to Church membership. It is not in- consistent Avith the Baptist theory or practice to baptize a person twenty years after he shall have been converted, if he has neglected it till then. We object, as much as Dr. Bushnell can do, to the taking nothing for evidence of being in a state of gi-ace but " an explosive experience." We believe, practically, that many a true child of grace is long kept in doubt as to his acceptance with God, by look- ing for some more sudden, violent and " angular" conver- sion than m the nature of things he can ever realize. But we also think that, should Dr. Bushnell's statements spread and become popular, there would be another danger more to be dreaded, one pointed out very ably by Dr. Ty- ler in his letter, i. e., that of the children of pious parents, supposing that usually they were not to expect to pass through any sensible conversion, but ought to " take it for granted" they were in a state of " effectual calling" because 256 PEESUMPTIONS OF their parents were pious and liad had them baptized. Dr. Bushnell has mistaken the extreme revival theory of " ex- plosive conversions" for the Baptist theory, which only in- sists ujDon sensible experiences of being in a state of grace. But certain it is, if he wants to get rid of a sensible present experience of grace, as a necessary prerequisite to fuU Chui-ch membersliip, he would do the Congregational Churches of New England the most pernicious evil that has been accomplished m a hundred years. We do not under- stand lum thus. He cei'tamly speaks of all those he caUs quickened into spiritual life as " regenerated.'''' ' But some of his illustrations may seem rather unguarded. 2. But Dr. Bushnell argues further (to quote his own lan- guage), that " It must be jjresumed either that the child will grow up a believer, or that he wiU not ; the Baptist pre- sumes that he will not, that nothing but sm can be expected of him, and therefore declares baptism inappropriate."'' "We suppose Dr. Bushnell and the Massachusetts Sabbath School Committee meant that by declining to baptize theni^ we say so in eflect to the child. And, therefore, fighting against this supposed Baptist theory. Dr. BushneU says, " Who, then, has told you that the child can not have the new heart of which you speak ?" And we ask, who has told Dr. Bush- nell that the Baptist presumes, in declining to baptize an in- fmt, that he will not grow up a beUever, or that he may not even now possibly be sanctified from the womb ? And who told him that God presumes that he Avill ? In our view the Supreme Being does not presume about the matter, for he Jcnoios, and so, on the other hand, as we do not pretend to know, neither do yfo, presume to decide, or rather decide to presume, about the matter; but as to his joining the Church, ' Pag© 94. * ' Page 28, 9. INFAKT BAPTISM, 257 wait the developments and manifestations He gives. In om- view it would indeed be a presimiption to take that universally for granted which is, as all must admit, practical- ly, so very doubtful. Yet this is the very essence of the Pedobaptist theory. The whole philosophy of it is a pre- suming to take for granted that in every case the child loill grow %(p a Christian from its very birth. This is the height of presumption. It assumes always a conjunction of three things, no one of which can be shown to occur at all. 1. That the parent shall perfectly discharge his duty. 2. That the Church shall also perfectly do the same ; and, 3. That if both of these do thus, God will in every case not only save that child at last, but effectually call it in earliest infmcy ; so that it shall " open on the world spiritually re- newed, not remembering the time when it went through a technical experience." Now this is the philosophy, the ul- timate essence of infant baptism, the innate principle of the Pedobaptist theory. It takes for granted that m the case of every child baptized, the two former, or human condi- tions will be perfectly fulfilled, and then it further presumes that the third or divine result will not only eventually but immediately follow. This we think the very extreme of presunung. And here we must allow Dr. Tylei", a Pedobaptist profess- or of Theology, to demohsh, in his own style, some of the presumptions of infant baj^tism. Speaking of Christian Pedobaptist parents, in his letter to Dr. Buslmell, he says : " If God had promised to save all their children, on con- dition of entire fixithfulness on their part, they could not appropriate the promise to themselves, for they know they are not entirely faithful, but come very far short of their duty. 258 r>E. TYLER ON " And here permit me to ask, when you maintam that if parents were faithful, they might expect to see their chil- dren (as a general thing at least) grow up Christians from their earliest childhood, what degree of fvithfulness do you consider necessary to msure this result ? Must they be sinlessly perfect ? If so, what you have written is labor lost, for there are no such j^arents. But if you mean a de- gree of faithfulness short of smless perfection, how great must it be ? How faithful must a sinful, erring parent be, to render it certam that God will change the hearts of his children, at the very begmning of life, before they are old enough to receive any verbal mstruction ? " There are many parents who are eminently pious, and whose piety shines in nothing more conspicuously than in the education of their children. But they see no evidence that their children are pious. On the contrary, they think they see decisive evidence that they are not." As to the fulfillment of the conditions on the part of the Church, Dr. Tyler does not speak. We may beUeve they are not better performed than those of the parents. But in relation to the third pomt, i. e., the certainty of unmedi- ate divuie renewal, he says : " Now the question is, has God expHcitly informed us in his word, that he ^\il\ thus early rencAv the hearts of our children, if we will faithfully discharge our parental duties ? Where is any such explicit promise to be found ? The duty of the Christian j^arent is analogous to that of the Christian minister. * * * * it is true that the faithful minister has reason to hope and be- lieve that he will not labor in vain. But when, how, and to what extent God will cro'mi his labors with success, he has no means of determining. God is a holy Sovereign. ' Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy.' PAEEXTAL FAITHB ULXESS. 259 It is true, he employs means, and he gives efficacy to the means of his own a|)|)ointment ; but he does it m his own way and in his own lime, and such degrees as seem good ua his sight. It is not always true that the labors of the most faithlul minister are crowned with the greatest success. Many more souls seem to have been converted mider the preaching of Paul than nnder the preaching of Christ. But surely Paul was not more faithful than his Master. The great aim of the Christian minister should be to do his duty, and to leave the results with God." We see the two theories contrasted ; we see the philos- ophy of the two systems. It now only remains that we trace some of the chief difficulties and injuries to vital religion, that have naturally and necessarily groAvn out of the system of infant bajjtism, as they are exhibited by Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Tyler. It would really seem, from the concessions of these two divines, taken together, that it is impossible to evolve any theory of uifant baptism that mil not, sooner or later, strangle all spiritual religion in the womb. We are far enough from saying that practically it has always done so. In New England, the Congregational Churches have unquestionably escaped or emerged from this fate, " so as by fire." But then all this is accounted for when we are told, and told truly, that they have " all be- come Baptists ill theory," and ought in all consistency " to become so in fact." ' But, viewed historically, what a category of errors has infant baptism introduced, according to Dr. Bushuell's own showing, until, disgusted with the theme, he skips over the period from Gregory Nazienzen, a.d. 350, to Luther, sun- ply saying : " To follow the Church into all the absurd • Page 96. 260 DR. BUSHXELL S opinions on this subject tlirongh whicli s'lie strayed for long ages, is unnecessary. We descend immediately to the Reformation." ' But even although this might aj^pear a pretty quick leap down the j^ages of history, it does not seem to carry him to the bottom of the difficulty, of find- ing one consistent theory of infant baptism. For Dr. Bush- nell declares that "here we shall find that no settled opinion on infant haptism and- of Christian nv.rture has ever been attained to. Between Protestant standard writers them- selves there has been no agreement." " Owen uses lan- guage hardly reconcilable with Calvin, unless it can be shown either that all infants who die are elect, or that all elect infants die." Lxither, the German Reformed Church, and the Church of England, throw out opinions of the efficacy of this insti- tution, that " convey a strong scent of the old errors of Romanism. * * * We pass the sea." But " the New England divines have never agreed, and do not ?20«', as to what the covenant is, what meaning and force it has." They " had been accustomed in Europe to State Churches, in which baptism practically gave a title to complete membership." But the Cambridge Platform of 1649 "was on a different principle, allowing none to be members save such as gave evidence of spiritually renewed character." Thus occurred what was "more uncomfortable to most Christians of that age than we can well imagme ; the children of their sons and of their daughters often could not be baptized." Hence, in 1662, the half-covenant system, a " mongrel scheme ;" the result of which was " undoubtedly bad in theory, as it j^roved to be in its prac- tical eflects." ^ ' Page 56. 2 Pages 5'7-62. HISTORY OF THEOEIES. 261 " Mr. Stoddard took the far more dignified and consist- ent ground" that both sacraments are to be regarded as means of grace offered to all of moral hfe. " Under the combined influence of these two changes, or partly by force of other causes, religion fell into a serious and alarming state of decline. Making every allowance for exaggera- tions, there was evidently a serious decline of piety in the Church." In fact, Massachusetts became Unitarian.* Such have been the results of the Pedobaptist systems, one after another. And yet because Jonathan Edwards " brings them round at length unconsciously to the Baptist theory," as the only remedy, his system is caricatured as one of " extreme individualism," etc. The remarkable part of this is not that the above statements are true, but that they are so plainly admitted and proved in an argument in favor of infant baptism. It was a controversy between two Pedobaptists, and hence the concessions both have made unthinkmgly to the truth of our principles. But now let us observe the " dangerous tendencies" of infant baptism as exhibited in the mind and language of Dr. Bushnell himself It would seem that, like Dr. Alexander, he came near being a Baptist himself at one time : so near that, even now, when glancing at the relation of his doctrine to the Baptist denomination, he thinks " it may not be in- delicate to allude to his o^vn mental experience ;" and tells us how near he came to " being rejected by the council at his settlement," because he could say " nothing more posi- tive respecting mfant baptism." Such cases are more com- mon than Dr. B. thinks, but there is nothing alarming m this, as none of them are quite rejected. It is only those who reject infant baptism altogether, and are baptized on a > Page 64. 262 DR. bush:n'ell's profession of their faith, that are altogether refused. On the contrary, they are ordained as Congregationalists. They baptize a few children, and then are di-iven, by logical necessity, to find some defense for themselves, and then, naturally enough, " what before was dark, or even a5sr«Y?," ' becomes " luminous and dignified." We are far from be- lie\dng that there is a conscious insincerity in such cases. Infant baptism has been associated with many pious senti- ments and afiections in their imaginations, and where they can not find scriptural evidence for it, they still consider it an edifying and a touching rite. And many things will seem positive e\ddence of a controverted ceremony con- stantly practiced in such circumstances. The main argument which appears to have satisfied Dr. BushneU's own mind, and that of the Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, when suggested, was, as we saw before, " a law of organic connection as regards character, subsisting between the parent and child ; such a connection as mdi;ces the conviction that the character of one is actually included in that of the other, as a seed is formed in the capsule.'^ Now, after making aU allowance for his explanations about a " metaphysically organic connection," and acknowledging, as we do, great truth, value, and beauty m very many of his ideas on this subject, yet who can read .such language without feeling that his words are not sufficiently guarded ; that there are " dangerous tendencies" here ; and this arises directly fi-om his rejecting the Bajitist theory, which allows full scope for all that is true in what he advances. It is just from trying to advance something " more positive" in favor of the Pedobaptist philosophy than truth Avill warrant, ' Page 82. » Page 18. DANGEROUS TENDENCIES 263 that he gets into difficulty. We can not see that " it is easy to believe, and natui'al to expect, that the faith of the one wiU be propagated in the other," Faith is the gift of God, It can not be produced by any organic connection, physical or metaphysical. Those things which tend to pro- duce or prepare the mind, in a certain sense, for a work of grace, may, and do result from the connection between pious parents and their children, A parent puts a Bible into the hand of his child : unquestionably that book has in it a tendency to prepare the mind for a work of grace — a tendency, if you please, to i:)roduce holiness, A parent takes liis child to hear the preaching of the Gospel : this has the same mfluence ; yet who would thmk it judicious to say that it is easy to believe, and natural to expect, that either the Bible or preaching will " propagate faith" in the heart of the hearer or reader. But whatever modifying effect the parental connection may exert upon different dispositions in the cliUd, it is cer- tainly not correct to say that the character of the one is actually included in the character of the other. It would be unjust to treat the child of an habitual drunkard as " presumptively" intoxicated.' Character is the sum of the dispositions, as molded and modified not only by her- editary tendencies and parental influence, but by the air breathed, the climate inhabited, the companions of child- hood, by each look, thought, word of every stranger, each accident and action of life, good and bad. Latent tenden- cies of former generations, fire-side stories, infant tales, the ' In other matters, men of common sense wait the development of facts, nor act until they appear ; and are we forever in the Church to put fic- tions and presumptions in their place 3 This is the real issue between Baptists and Pedobaptists. 264 DR. bushnell's Bchool attended, all modify the character. Who, then, can entertam the con^dctiou that the character of the child is " actually included" in that of the parent ? ISTow, Dr. Biishnell is not merely incautious and incorrect here in his language, but the ideas which he means to con- vey by it, are, as Dr. Tyler charges, positively full of " dan- gerous tendencies." And all these incorrect words and dangerous ideas arise from the logical necessity he felt in his own mind of getting hold of " somethmg more positive" in favor of mfant baptism than he set out with, or could find in the Gospel. There is nothing in his whole scheme to prevent the child from falling into an error which has been most wide-spread and fatal in all Pedobaptist churches, i. e., that it most probably inherits a pious character from its jDarents, without any evidence of the fict. This is, indeed, a necessary jDart of the theory, and Dr. Bushnell, by a necessity of his own mind, brings it out. But Dr. Tyler, and all other Congregationalists, very properly shrmk back with alarm from an error that has already proved so de- structive among themselves to all spiritual religion. The Baptist, by not presuming to decide concernmg the faith of the child either one way or other, from that of the parent, but watching closely, and requirmg in each case sensible present exj^eriences indicative of bemg in a gracious state, derives all the advantage that can come from the Pedobaptist views, and avoids all dangerous tendencies, both ecclesiastically, of introducmg all the world uito th( Church ; and experimentally, of leading those to believe they live who are dead. We do not mean to say that Dr. Bushnell would practi- cally take it for gi'anted that all baptized children are Christians. Tliis he mdignantly denies, saying " a-^.k your- DAXGEEOUS TENDENCIES. 265 selves whether it [a passage m his discourse], teaches that Christian parents are to take it for granted that their chil- dren are pious ?" But notwithstanding his disclaimer, Dr. Tyler has fixed it upon him. Though Dr. B. may not practically wish always to carry it to that length, his lan- guage does, when it says, " the character of the one is actu- ally included in that of the other." ' His system, indeed the whole Pedobaptist theory implies it, more strongly than any words. Of this he himself is witness. For while he calls " baptismal regeneration" " a great error in the form in which it is held," yet in another form it seems to him a great truth, that is to say he proceeds, " The re- generation is not actual but only presumptive^ and every thing depends upon the organic law of character pertaining between the parent and the child," etc." Infant baptism is, he says, " a seal of faith in the jjarent applied over to the child on the ground of a presumption that his faith is wrap- ped up in the parent's faith. It sees the child in the parent, and counts him presumptively a believer and a Christian." And yet Dr. Bushnell denies and exclaims, " ask yourselves whether [this theory] teaches that Christian parents are to take it for granted that their children are pious." What else does the word "presmne" mean but just to "take for granted," to take before jwoof or trial or without examina- tion ? Richardson so defines this word, and so Webster, and so Crabbe, in substance ; only that the latter adds a hint, especially intended, one would think, for the Pedobaptists, and peculiarly for Dr. Bushnell, " we must be careful not to presume upon more than we are fully authorized to take for certain." Here then is infant baptiana declared publicly to teach > Page 18. » Page 33. 12 266 DR. BUSHNELL'S every time it is administered, what Dr. Bushnell himself afterward, with indignation, repels the charge of teaching, and what Dr. Tyler lifts his hands in horror at, asking, " Wliat Christian pastor would dare take the responsibiUty of teaching it to the baptized children and youth of his congregation ?" But Dr. Bushnell does teach it publicly and so did the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society for a time, by so openly admitting this to be the great lesson of infant baptism. Yet once more the theory of infant baptism has led Dr. Bushnell, ecclesiastically, and to a dangerous extent practi- cally, to appear as the opponent of sensible experiences of grace and revivals. VTe have no idea that he would do any such thing deliberately and completely; indeed he says — "Let me not be understood as rejecting re-vdvals of religion," and many of his views on this subject we heart- ily approve. But unused to the Baptist theory, which con- sists in sensible experiences of being in a gracious state, he confoimds quite too much all such things "ndth " explosive conversions" and revivals with a " miraculous epidemic, a fire-ball discharged from the moon," etc. Let any one read the sixty-ninth page of his argument befoi-e quoted, and say if such is not the fact. It is very remarkable, but infant baptism leads him also into theories and Adews, dangerous from tlieir tendency to produce just the error Avhich the Pedobaptist scheme is thought by its advocates particularly calculated to guard against, i. e., throwing responsibility off the parent in relation to the religious training of the child. Thus he speaks of it as foniiing a relation " between parents and churches on the one side, and children on the other." ' ' See page 72. DR, bushnell's system. 267 Now, if as Pedobaptist writers say, there is such a tendency in parents to neglect then* duty, and throw off the r respon- sibility in regard to their children, will not this dividuig of it with the Church, just favor that tendency and really pro- duce a laxity at home — a sense of only a divided or jomt responsibility in quarters where God has put it undividedly ? There is m this day too much of that already, and what with Sabbath-schools, and catechisms, and among Episcopa- lians sponsors, the whole work of religious training is left in the hands of the Church mstead of where the God of nature and of grace has placed it, in those of the parents. We value Sabbath-schools as above all praise, but if any other power is systematically to step in between the parent and child on religious subjects, no matter whether it be a Sabbath-school teacher, a sponsor, or an orthodox minister, claiming a kind of official supervision, and a divmely uisti- tuted partnership with the parent on behalf of the Church, dividing with him the responsibihty, the result will be per- nicious to all parties, No parent has a right to form any such partnership. He may not lay off his personal responsibihty. The Baptist theory is both more natural and more scrip- tural. It holds the parent to be the officer appomted of God, for the religious training of his own child. It per- mits - of no shirking of the responsibihty by a division of offices. He must make use of such agencies and assistances as he can. Sabbath-schools, Bible-classes, sermons, cate- chisms, prayers, but he is the responsible supervisor alone. If he neglects his duty palpably, by failing to take advan- tage of all reasonable facilities, the Church must discij^line Mm for neglect but not sUp in between him and his own child. Dr. Bushnell charges the Baptist theory with " excessive 268 DE. bushnell's system. individualism," but the opposite system, it will be seen, naturally tends to downright SociaUsm. Take the plan of Fourierite communities, and you might almost fancy they had obtained the germ of their thought from the cove- nant of infant baptism. For " parents and churches,'''' read " parents and communities'''' on the one side, and " children" on the other, and you see at a glance all the difference. Both would rather seem poor imitations of the education of Spartan children. The Baptist view is far more comprehensive. It allows scope and makes provision for parental religious training of children as ample, and more so than the Pedobaptist theory. It is the only scheme that throws the responsibility thor- ouglily and AvlioUy where it belongs — on the parent ; and does not divide it out uito as many hundred fragments as there are members of the Church, or deacons, priests, bish- ops, and cardinals, up to the pope himself. It provides room for all that is true in Dr. Bushnell's theory of " organic connection," physical and metaphysical, between the pious parent and the child. It provides ample room even for the child to " grow up a Christian," insensible of any particular moment of conversion, yet being truly re- genei'ate, to bow his head Uke young Samuel, and worship the God of his parents, and partake of the blessmgs of Christian ordinances. It proA^ides the only scheme for this to be accomplished, without danger of flooding the Church with unbelievers, in requiring that the candidate have pres- ent sensible experiences of grace, a conscious daily repent- ance for sin and walk with God. It is true our scheme does not teach parents or children either to " take it for granted" that this has already taken place without evidence that " the faith of the parent has been propagated in the child" as a DE, BUSnXELL'S SYSTEM, 269 matter of course, through Christian nurture. But the Baptist theory holds as essential the doctrme of regenera- tion by grace, that natural goodness is not sufficient, that there must be a supernatural work of the Spirit on the heart, a death to sin, and new life to righteousness, ui fine, that we " must be born again." And it leans to sensible conversions and repentance as the most usual manner in which the ranks of the array of Christ are as a whole recruited. And who wUl doubt that this is the case ? Is not this the way in which the multitudes are, and must be brought in, who are not now in a state of grace ? Is it not thus that theii* children will usually be brought even in Dr. Buslmell's own view ? And practically is it not thus that the large majority even of the children of all pious parents are brought ? It must never be forgotten that although Christianity is in no respect inconsistent with natural or universal re- ligion, yet that it contemplates man fi'om a different and nearer stand-point. It views him as sick, and comes to him as a remedial rather than a normal system, it views him as in bondage to sin, and sets before him liberty, as a sinner, and brings him salvation. " I came," said Christ, " not to caU the righteous, but srauers to repentance." This is the pecu- Harity of the system. Natural religion regards man as a holy being, needing only to see virtue in order to choose it. Christianity presupposes sin. It does not contradict natural or universal religion. So far as that goes, and can go, well. But the peculiar genius of the Gospel is quite different. It is not that of original health, but of health restored by its own medicines. Its province is that of the physician, and they that are whole need not the physician, but those that are sick. 270 CHEYALIER BUNSEN'S The head of a family mil strive so to regulate the food, clothing, and habits of his children, that they shall maintain uniform health the year round. But yet he knows that owing to a thousand occurrences, they will need mediciaes, and the i^hysician, and that it Avould be absurd in his scheme of life to overlook or exclude remedies. To treat his chil- dren as always in health, might often cost him their lives. So the wise and pious parent will strive to train his children so that they may " grow up" in the nurture and ad- monition of the Lord, and as holy as possible. But he Avill not expect practically this result, without exposure and sub- jection to sin, and therefore the need of coming to Christ. Generally there will be in the religious history of each, sea- sons of marked spiritual crisis, and even where they seem to grow up holy youths without sensible transitions from the sorrow of penitence to the joy of pardon, it is only because these tilings began so early, and take place so constantly, that there never was a day when they were not sensible of them. This it is for them to " grow up Christians." Such a view of the work of grace on the souls of chil- dren, is surely not contradictory, but entirely coincident ^dth spiritual regeneration, and sensible experiences of grace as universally necessary to Church membership. But any other view, however ably advocated, and cautiously guard- ed, must be full, not only of " dangerous tendencies" always, but destructive results too often. § III. Chevalier Bunsen's View of Baptism. Dr. Bunsen defends infuit baptism on much the same general principle as Coleridge and Xeander. Yet he goes further than any of them in exhibiting its non-apos- VIEAV OF BAPTISM. 271 tolio origin, while yet at the same time defending it on tho groimd of those Church-State views to whicli he, Dr. Ar- nold, and others, are so wedded : views which seem through infant baptism almost inherent m European reUgion, press- ing it down as an hicubus. He admits explicitly that Pedo- baptism in the modern sense of the word * * * -was titterly unknown to the early Church, not only down to the end of the second, but mdeed to the middle of the third century.^ Yet he adds,' " Upon closer and deeper reflection it will aj)pear Anse to retain Pedobaptism, hut to remodel the ichole haptismal discipline. * * * To this end, in the first place the doctrine of Siblical baptism m,ust he reformed in the sense of the German Church, and of the doctrinal works of Schleiermacher, Neander, Nitzsch, and the Ger- man school in general. According to this view, our act of baptism forms a Avhole, the commencement of which is the sprinkling of the child, the conclusion the pledge of the grown up and instructed young Christian sealed by a bless- ing." ^ Afterward the author admits that which he proposes can only be done "by positively and practically realizing the idea that the baptism of new-born children is the out- ward sign of the vow of the parents to dedicate their child to God as his gift intrusted to them, and to j)repare it by a Christian education for becoming a member of the Chris- tian Church, until it be itself able to profess the faith in Christ, and to make the vow of a godly life dedicated to God and the brethren." Here, then, it is proposed in the first place to " reform the biblical idea of baptism," coolly to remodel the whole thing * Hippolytas and his Times. voL iii. p. 179. 2 Page 211. 'Vol. iii. p. 211. 272 CHEVALIER BTTI^rSEK'S on the basis of historical philosophy, making it the vow of the parent, not the cliilcl. All this is done without any more regard for its being the institution of Christ and his Apostles than if it Avas merely some venerable custom of the middle ages, to be altered, remolded, or taken away, according to the whims and taste of these modern German architects in the work of reconstructing the spiritual tem- ple. It is this ill-disguised disregard, not to say contempt, for the institutions of Jesus Christ and his Apostles which here again, as in the remarks of Coleridge, is the first thing which strikes us in a passage such as the above. Much as we must and may honor the excellent tone and truly Chris- tian spirit of this man, and of his writings generally, it is painful to see him, merely because he has been brought up in the midst of Pedobaptism, defend it on principles ut- terly subversive of the divine authority of every mstitution of positive Christianity. Here, in direct disregard of what he had professed at the commencement of his work, i. g., to adhere strictly to the Xew Testament as a basis, he de- hberately proposes to " reform the Bible." We have then the distinct acknowledgment that the idea which we are to realize in infant baptism is " the vow of the parents to dedicate their child to God," and not the vow of the baptized. Yet he has before admitted that " the true purport of the baptism ordained by Christ" is " that no man can be a member of the communion of saints but by his oxen solemn vow."^ And he has declared" that, "When the Church attached rites and promises of blessing to any thing •except to the conscious abandonment of sin, and to the vol- untary vow of dedicating life and soul to the Lord, the longing for real truthful reformation died away in the same ' Vol. iii, p.'na a Page 198. VIEW OV BAPTISM. 273 proportion among her members." Thus mfant spruikling, by his o^^^l confession, if baptism in any sense of the word, would be " another bcqjtisni''' from that instituted by Christ. So that we have, at best, one Lord, one faith, and two bap- tims. Nor is this less the case because, at the close of a number of years, he proposes to add on another ceremony. Confirm- ation, which he forms into the completion of the baptism by the personal ratification and vow of the subject. The best that could be said, would be that there were two bap- tisms, joined m many cases no doubt, by a connecting link of pious ulstruction. But in the vast majority of instances, there is practically no such connection, and where there is, the danger then ensues that this very link should cause what he calls the first jmrt of baptism, to draw after it the rest of the chain of profession as a matter of course, and with- out any personal abandonment of sin or spuitual regeneration of the soul. In England, for instance, what do we see but infant baptism followed, as a matter of course, by confirma- tion and communion, whether there be any conscious aban- donment of sin or not. So it ever must be, and so it ever will. Even if there be little or no deep religious instruction, custom is quite suflicient, and it Avelds the two rites together and draws the young people by links of ceremony from the one form to the other, from infant spruikling to confirma- tion, and from confirmation to the communion-table without any vital Christianity. Those who participate in them thu become " confirmed," not in holiness, but in iniquity, " con firmed" in the notion that an impenitent life is not incon- sistent with the profession of Christianity. There is no doubt that the idea more or less prevails vhere infant sprinkling is practiced in connection with evan- 12* 274 CHEVALIER BUNSEN'S gelical piety, that however Arorthless or invalid the "baptism may be. iti itself as the appointed Christian profession, yet that being afterward ratified by the sincere faith of the party, and his taking upon himself the vows which ought to be made personally in that ordinance, it thereby becomes a vaUd sacrament. But what would be the advantage of it in case it were ? According to this supposition it is in fact no real baptism till ratified by the personal adoption of the candidate ; why not then, like the Baptist, defer the rite altogether until the party is able and willing to take these vows upon himself No power of man, however, could make a bond, drawn up, signed, sealed, and ratified m a manner at aU analogous to infant baj^tism, and its attempted confii-ma- tion, worth, as such, the j^archment on Avhich it was draTVTi, on the simple principle that " you can not confirm a nulHty." And yet this is perhaps the most specious argument used as a plea against the duty of believers to be baptized in the present day. " I was sprinkled in infancy," a person wiU say, " and on becoming a Christian (or perhaps before) I took the A^ows of baptism upon myself; the rite has thus been made valid by my own ratification, however void and unauthorized a ceremony infant baptism may in itself be." It is unquestionably true that after a person has once taken on himself the vows made by his sponsors at his baptism, he is bound, not only by the general law of his duty to God, but still more specifically by his assumption of the baptismal promises. Yet it does not follow that hLs baptism is valid. It is the promise he has made, and not the act of baptism that binds him. He may by this, place himself un- der the obligations to lead the life of the baptized, but can not clahn its privileges, without comjjlpng personally with its requirements. The following legal decision of Lord VIEW OF baptism:. 275 Ellenhorough, one of the highest English authorities, and adopted in this country so far as to settle the principle of American Common Law, in such instances, may illustrate the universal instincts as to what is just and fitting in such cases. A minor gave a penal bond for £100. On coming of age he ratified and confirmed the bond, but subsequently re- fused to pay, and pleaded that " the bond being void ah orlgme, can not be ratified and confirmed in any way, be- cause confirmation implies the existence of the thing to be confirmed," that therefore " neither a new promise or new deUvery would make the bond good which was originally void." And it was urged on the other side, that if the in- strument was set aside it would follow, " that in no possible way could an infiint after full age aflirm such an obligation." The bond was jjronounced invalid on the ground that it re- quired " the act after full age to be of as great solemnity as the original instrument." ^ Hence it is a principle of Ameri- can Common Law, in such cases, that a penal bond " being void," even if affirmed, the action to recover " must always be founded on the new promise and not on the bond." If, then, such an instrument would not bind a man, how much • less shall he have the right to claim the benefits of it to him- self, as a most solemn covenant. To make the illustration, however, completely parallel, it ought to be supposed that, instead of the minor having signed the bond himself, his guardian during his infancy should have afl^xed his ward's name, ^dthout his knowledge or consent : Avhat subsequent aflirmation or delivery could render such bond a legal instrument, or its seal bmding ? Any precedence which such a paper might seem to possess would have to be waived ; and if the other party were en- * See Maule and Selwyn's Rep. 477. 276 CHEVALIER BUNSEN'S titled to this precedence it would be the duty of the minor, on coming of age, to give a new bond altogether, which would have a force that the old one, however ratified, would not be made to possess. To apply now this illustration : BajitLsm is, so to speak, the sealed instrument, acknowledging our obUgations to lead a Christian life, and through which we pubhcly claim the blessings of being Chi'ist's acknowledged discijiles. It is a solemn covenant transaction, placing the seal of Christ's disciples pubhcly upon us. Sponsors and parents may vow and covenant m the name of an mfant, but it is A^dthout any authority from Him. And beyond all of this we have the confession of Dr. Bunsen that " the baptism of new-born children is the outward sign of the vow of the parents to dedicate their chUd." Arrived at years of discretion, and become a Christian, that cliild desires to take the vows of God upon hunself How shall he do it ? How would he be done by in a similar transaction of daily hfe. If any of us had an important covenant depending on such an instrument, and the other party, on commg of age, should wish to receive some great benefit from it, were he to promise always to respect it as vaUd, and solemnly to ratify what he knew to be a nullity, but refuse to sign a new bond, might it not be a proper reply that at least be- fore he claimed any thing fi-om such an instrument, he should make it what it purported to be ? And if it were his duty from any cause to give a legal bond, an acknowledgment or ratification of his father's unauthorized promise to induce him to do it would be no fulfillment of that duty. Doubtless every such Christian is bound to lead a holy life. But it is his promise that binds him, and not a valid baptism. And such a man has no right to claim any privi- VIEW OF BAPTISM. 277 leges on the ground of such a baptism, the obligation to submit to which remains upon him. Why is it that in the most solemn duties of rehgion men are wiUuig to put up with what Bunsen rightly names " patchwork and ruins, shams and phantoms," fictions they would esteem utterly worthless and nuU in the business of daily life ? By no subsequent process can a bajitism, originally void, be ren- dered valid. The ordinance being " the sign and seal," which makes it, so to sjjeak, a covenant rather than a mere verbal promise, is, o^nng to the utter incompetence of the parties at the time (or because the real parties do not cov- enant at all), worthless and mcapable of being rendered good, not having been a jirofession of his personal faith. Upon these grounds not only Baptists, but all those in other communions who occupy the position of Dr, Bunsen, are bound to treat it as utterly invalid, however afterward af- firmed by the jjersonal assumption of its vows. "We have so far supposed the proper /orm, at least, to have been adhered to in the body of the instrument. But in the case of infant baptism, as it is called (and as we have called it fi-om courtesy, but nothing else), all this is reversed, except in the Greek Church. All others have taken away the very thing that alone is the baptism — immersion. They have passed the act, to borrow a legislative figure, without the enacting clause, signed the bond, but torn off the seal, and inserted magical incantations instead of the names of witnesses. Let any one read over the baptismal service of the Episcopal Church for infants, how, substituting spiink- ling for immersion, it demands of an infant, but is answered by a sponsor, and declaiing it regenerated thereby, contra- dicts and confuses the most solemn truths, omitting every thing that baptism is, and making it appear every thing 278 CHEVALIER BTTNSEN'S that it is not, even in Dr. Bunsen's view ; and then say if such a ceremony is, or can be made a valid Christian Bap- tism. What lawyer would thus judge of a s«>aled instriunent in any transaction of life beside. But this, it may be said, only shows the worthlessness, not the mjurious consequences of infant sprinkling. Let us proceed, then, to such a passage as the following from the pen of Dr. Bunsen : " In the second place, the superstition that such children of Christian parents as die of tender age unbaptized are under damnation, from which they must be rescued by baptism, is to be put dowai forcA^er." This is just, and bold, and admirable, so far as it goes ; but must it not suggest to every man this question : Why first teach through infant baptism this fearful dogma, or imply it, as Coleridge admits that the ceremony does, and as infant baptism, viewed in the Ught of Church history, clearly and ever has done, only at last to contrarlict the whole ? Why not rather defer baptism until the party is old enough to choose for himself? dedicate infants to God by prayer, and any other rites that may seem appropriate as a voluntary religious act, but not pretend to confer baptism until there be in it " the answer of a good conscience toward God," * as well as the washing of the body in water by im- mersion. There are passages in the introduction to the third volume of Chevalier Bunsen's work in regard to the need of a second grand reconstructive Reformation, which would favor well the view that, in the judgment of our author, changes quite as sweeping in public sentiment as the restor- ation of believers' baptism, in place of that of infants, are expected, and sought by the author as necessary steps to ' 1 Peter, iii. 21. VIEWS OF BAPTISM. 279 the restoration of pure Christianity. He tells ns, for in- stance, that " a seA^ere trial awaits any one who looks prim- itive Christianity in the face." " Yon take your stand," he proceeds, " upon the Church ; here is its commencement. You take your stand upon the Bible, here is its first apos- tolical realization. What is required of you is not to sub- stitute scholarship and research for simple Christian faith, much less to set up the idol of philosophy ha the shrine of religion. * * * You live in the nineteenth centiiry, one of historical jihilosophy and of reconstruction. The work to which we are called is unweariedly and humbly to sweep the porch of the temple, to clear the floor. Not to riot as destructives in the darkened chambers, but to bestir our- selves to restore and to allow the light of heaven to penetrate within them. It is the rubbish of false learning and con- ventional scholasticism which separates us from the sanc- tuary ; and it is high time to sweep it away, as the signs of the latter days have appeared, in which infidel superstition intends to sweep the altar, and willful falsehood the throne of truth. " What is to be done ? The question at this moment, is not how to carry out, but how to prepare a second grand reconstructive Reformation. The porch of the Temple must first be more thoroughly cleansed than it was in the sixteenth, and above all restored more honestly than it was in the seventeenth century, and lastly the work must be handled more practically than it has been done by the crit- ical German school of this age." Now surely Dr. Bunsen has conceded every thing. He allows infant baptism to be utterly unscriptural. He con- cedes the miserable state of religion of Europe, through the corruptions of Christianity ; declares that the preju- 280 CHEVALIER BUNSEN'S dices of men have got to receive " a severe trial" in order to the restoration of primitive Christianity ; that this res- toration can only be effected through a second grand recon- structive reformation, in which the porch of the Temple shall be cleansed, and more practically restored than has yet been done by the learned men of modern Germany — more honestly and thoroughly than by an}' of the Reformed Churches, It is strange sometimes to see how the wisest overlook the things which are transpiring under their eyes — how Christians receive the very blessings for which they have been praying, and recognize them not as they come. Had ChevaUer Bunsen only looked at home, he might have seen some two hundred Baptist congregations sprmging up in Germany all within the last twenty years, and exactly meet' ing the requisitions above given. Of the progress value of the Baptist theory in Amer- ica, he seems better able to form a just idea, than of the same principles in his 0"hti country, " How little the National Churches of the seventeenth century can make head against the onsets of the Bap- tists, in countries where a great and free rehgious move- ment exists, is evinced by the fact that among serious Chris- tians of the Enghsh race, in the United States, the Baptist or Congregational preachers are on the increase more than any other sect, so that they form already the most numer- ous and most progressive commixnity." * This change is affecting, and has already to a great ex- tent altered the whole texture of American Christianity fi'om that of Europe, having abolished infant baptism to a large extent where it occurs on that continent, and insisting • Vol. iii. p 209. VIEWS OF BAPTISM. 281 on personal piety as essential to Church membership. Upon its spread, tliroughout the world, depends the future spirit- ual prosperity of Europe, and of mankind, to a degree not easily conceived. A few years ago, and shortly before the death of Neander, some Baptist ministers calling on him with letters of introduction, he conversed very fi-eely and candidly on the baptismal question with them, after a short pause, remarking — " Ah, there is a future for you Bap- tistsP In the mean time who can forbear to join with Chevalier Bunsen in uttering such language as the following : " Let every one cleanse his own heart and house as well as he can. When the feeling of the misery which is com- ing, and a real faith in the saving truth which is in Christ shall have thoroughly penetrated the nations ; then wall the Spirit of God assuredly come upon them with might, either for the reformation, or the annihilation of the existing churches. Whether this crisis will end in the renewal, or the destruction of the present nations and states, will de- pend upon the position they take in face of the demands of the Gospel, and the wants of the times. For every nation and age has its time and its day of visitation, after which its fate is sealed. " This great movement, however, will assuredly not lead to the destruction of Christianity but to its establishment on a firmer basis ; not to the lowering of the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but to his greater glorification ; and God's Kingdom of Truth and Liberty on earth, mil advance as triumphantly over the perishing as over the renovated kingdoms and states of the present world." 282 XOETH BEITlSn REVIEW § IV. The North British Revie-w on Infant Baptism. " Let us not be misunderstood ; we have not wished to breathe the shghtest insinuation against the legitimacy and the importance of infant baptism. We have expressed our persuasion that it is a rite unknoA\^l to Scripture and that it was probably unpracticed in the apostolic age ; but we also firmly believe that it is an institution eminently con- formable to the genuine spirit of Christianity, as such war- ranted by Scripture, and m the highest degree valuable to the Christian Church." * Thus writes the North British Review. It is with difficulty after makhig every allowance for the effect of custom and prejudice, that we can imderstand how a Protestant Christian, how a Presbyterian especially, could pen such lines. In one paragraph the writer hails it as the dawning of a bright day that " Dr. M'lSTeil, Mr. Litton, and the Arclibishop of Canterbury, are perceiving that the prac- tice of infant baptism is not found in Scripture." In the next, he declares that he would not msmuate a word a^inst its " legitunacy and importance !" And yet afterward he urges that rehgious controversies are every day " assuming more and more the sharp and definite form of an antago- nistic struggle between the Christianity of Sciipture and the Christianity of Tradition." * True it is, and lamentably true, that in this " antagonistic struggle," the organ of the Free Chm-ch of Scotland does not wish to breathe a word more against infant baptism than is absolutely forced out of it by the '■'■ p'essure of the language of Scrij)twe," as it says. Its position in regard ' August, 1852, p. 211, Amer. Ed. ' Page 212. ON INFANT BAPTISM. 283 to infant Laptism, is like that of Austria at this moment b'^tween the pressure of the Allies on one side, and Russia on the other. It admits too much, to make what it reserves decently consistent. It admits that the language of Scrip- ture, applied to infant baptism, would teach the most fear- ful and fatal errors ; that it is a rite " utterly unknown to Scripture ;" and yet professes to be not quite sure as to its bemg unpracticed in the apostolic age; commends it as "in the highest degree valuable," and finds in circumcision " ample authority," and in " every Christian heart an echo" " for the jjublic incorporation of intants into the Church of Christ." Is it not, then, as plam as the day, that if infant baptisiu was ever practiced by the Apostles, if it was any thmg but a corruption, it must have been universal at the beginning ? That if circumcision furnishes ample authority now, it did in the first ages ? If, ui all the language of Scripture, not one word of it will apjjly to mfant baptism, without leading to the most awful consequences, it never could have been known to the Apostles. And it mnst be utterly anti-'&Qxv^- tural. In another number,' this Review, commending Bunsen's ideas of baptism, in which he asserts " confidently'''' that infiint baptism was unkno^^^l, the reviewer " can not hold this to be loholly determined." To us there seems some little Avant of candor just here, after such a masterly article as most of that from Avhich we continue to qiiote. " In the absence of all ex2:)ress institution of uifant baptism by Christ or his Apostles, we dare not call it a complete sacrament till the consciousness of the baptized person has become capable of fulfillmg the spiritual condition of the sacramental blessing, and become susceptible of its recep- * May, 1853, p. 66. 284 NORTH BRITISH REVIEW tion." Why not then defer it nntil the spmtual conditions are fulfilled ? "The celebration of the outward rite, at an age when in- telligence is stUl dormant, separates, in respect of time, the two elements which are necessary to constitute a sacra- ment ; and we have not a particle of authority for suppos- ing that the sacramental virtue can be realized tUl both elements are present. A spiritual blessing, of necessity im- jjlies a spiritual recipient. This momentous truth, which Ues at the foimdation of the Christian faith, has been for- gotten by those who hold that infant baptism is a complete sacrament. They have been betrayed into this forgetful- ness by the belief that infant baptism was expressly of apostolical origin, and by the consequent pressure of the language of Scripture. They found spiritual blessings at- tached to baptism in Scripture, but they found also spiritual conditions imposed upon the recipient. The belief that in- fant baptism was the institution then spoken of, involved them in a hopeless dilernma^ from which they vainly en- deavored to extricate themselves by overlooking the spir- itual state of the infant, and at the same time supposing that God, in some mysterious manner, communicated some equally mysterious blessing to his soul. The very essence of sacerdotalism was involved m this belief. But a mere exammation of Scrijjture has made all clear. The language of the Apostolic Church does not apply to infant baptism.'''* " The Church indeed advanced * * * to the baptism of in- fants, but it neglected, while modifying the practice, to modify the rule which guided the interpretation of Scrip- ture respecting it." Here, then, we find the same trouble growing out of in- fant baptism in Scotland as in Germany. It avowedly re- OPEN COMMUNION. 285 quires that " the doctrine of JBihllcal baptism must he re- formed^'''' as Bunsen contends. True, in Bible-loving Scot- land, this thing can not be quite so openly expressed as in Germany. There it is simply termed "modifying theprac- ^^ce" of the Bible, and then, to make matters more consist- ent, " modifying the rule Avhich guides the interiJi'etation of Scripture." But it all means precisely the same thing. It is an essential remodeling of Christianity, in one of its most important features, the terms of its Church member- ship, and of Biblical doctrine itself^ to suit such altera- tions. It talks about " advancing''' to the baptism of in- fants, beyond all the limits of the Bible, and until it in- volves all who practice avowedly in endless confusions and contradictions, so that they have to modify and remold all the rules which guide their interpretation of the Scriptui-es themselves. Thus, w"h ether we examine the defenses of infant baptism by Coleridge or Bushnell, by Bunsen or by the " North British Re\dew," all concm- in showhig a fearful hst of the most injurious consequences accompanying in all ages. CHAPTEE VI. MIXED COMMUNION UNWISE AND INJURIOUS. Many excellent Christians say that they agree ivitli the Baptists in every thing but this, that they would like all whom they consider Christians admitted to the communion of then* Churches. This, as we have seen, is Dr. Bmisen's chief objection to them j he can not see why Pedobaptists 286 ROBERT hall's should reflise to join in Church relations with Baptists, or the converse.' K Baptists were wrong in regard to this practice, there is then nothmg to prevent members of Churches, heretofore Pedobajjtists, being baptized and fonning open commun- ion Churches in which both of these parties should be on terms of perfect equality. Yet neither in this country nor in England, that we know of, has a single Pedobaptist Church thus altered its character in the last two hundred years. In many cases they do practically admit those who will not have their children sprinkled, and sometimes even allow their members to be baptized ; but their creeds re- quire a behef that infant baptism is scriptural, and their preaching upholds it. Their ministers are expected to per- form it, and the whole weight and influence of the Church, as an organization, is exerted in its favor. Many instances have occun-ed in England of churches originally Baptist, can-ying ojien communion sentiments so far as to elect Congregational jjastors, and even iising the font and the baptistry in the same house of worship ; but other denominations have never been inclined to meet Bap- tists in this matter, justly fearing, no doubt, that it might brmg all ordinances into contempt. Nor have Pedobaptist Churches ever been in the habit of pubUcly mviting, even to occasional commmiion, those who had not in their opin- ion been baptized, such as Quakers, etc. That the views of such men as Bunyan and Robert Hall arose fi'om a truly noble and liberal disposition none can doubt, and many Bap- tist Churches have tried the principles they proposed. Pedobaptists never have, though many have professed to admire the arguments of Robert Hall. There is, then, no ' See p. 16, and Hippolytus, vol. iii. p. 215. SYSTEM. 287 justice in the charge so often made against the Baptist de- nomination for illiberality in not accomplishing what its members alone have attempted to effect. Where is the Church, origmally Pedobaptist, that has felt itself con- strained to admit all pious persons, even if unbaptized, to the Lord's Supper, to a full and perfect membership in any numbers, vnth an equal right to vote, even to elect officers, or to become officers themseh^es, as weU as to preach and administer ordinances only as they conscientiously believed correct ? If this were the diA-inely appointed prmciple of visible Church membership, Pedobaptists ought not, in any way, to require infant baptism or any particular form of government in their Churches. The revolution which would then take place in other denominations would be quite as great as any proposed in om- own. When they have tried this experi- ment and succeeded in it, they may blame us perhaps for bigotry. But until then the case stands thus — some Bap- tists have, fi'om the most liberal views, tried it, but it has not been found conducive to prosperity, and many of them deny that it is correct in principle. Robert Hall advocated this plan on the only equitable and reasonable basis. He says that were the practice he proposed universally to pre- vail, " the mixture of Baptists and Pedobaptists m Christian societies would probably, ere long, be such that the appel- lation of Baptist might be foimd not so j^roperly applicable to Churches as to mdividnals." ' And he calls this his lead- ing position, " that no Church has a right to establish terms of communion which are not terms of salvation."^ Indeed he would make it a matter of indifference whether the min- isters of the Gospel were themselves baptized or unbaptized, ' Works, vol. ii. p. 228. Harper. 2 Works, vol. i. p. 359. 2S8 HISTORY OF THE or what their views were upon any subject of theology, provided, they were esteemed to be Christians. The following is the history of this whole question. Be- fore the year 1600, several of the Puritans who had left England and joined the Bro^niists or Independent Church in Holland became Baptist, there being many of that per- suasion around them. For this " they were excommuni- cated by the rest.'''' ' This led to the formation of an Eng- lish Baptist Church in Holland, w^hich afterward moved back and settled in London, Before this time the practice of English Baptists seems to have been various. There were some Churches distinctively Baptist, and there were Baptists, at least in sentiment, mixed up in other churches. Certain it is that in 1633, in an Independent Church, enough of its owT^i members, who did not believe in infant baptism, asked and received their dismissions to form a distinct Church on Baptist principles. It is probably owing to circumstances such as these that some of the churches m England became mixed commu- nion and some strict. When Bunyan wrote in defense of the former practice it was not, however, general in the de- nomination, nor did it become so, until the influence of Rob- ert Hall's writings gave it a currency in England it has never obtained in this country. For a time the splendor of his essays on this subject dazzled and delighted all. And by degrees the practice he recommended became exceed- ingly current m the Baptist Clun-ches of that country. Tc such lengths were matters carried, that many openly de- clared themselves not Baptist Churches in any sense of the word, or attached to any particular denomination, but sim- ply Christian. Sprinkling and hnniersion were performed in ' See Struggles and Triumphs, p. 197. QUESTION. 289 the same house of worship, as they are in some of these places to this day. Pedobaptist ministers were called and settled as pastors when the numbers of persons of that per- suasion became the majority, as they must frequently in a country where the proportion of Baptists is so exceedingly small. They were sometimes preferred as able and willing to accommodate all parties, which Baptists could not. The result of this was found to be that while Baptist Churches lost their distinctive character and influence, the Pedobap- tist Churches lost none of theirs. And thus the question naturally evolved itself, whether it was the duty — whether it was right, in fact, in those who conscientiously beUeved in Baptist sentiments, to give up so powerful a source of uifluence in their favor as that of church organization. The result seems to have been very generally a practical convic- tion, even in the minds of all English open communionists, that the Pedobajitists and Regular Baptists of this country were light so tkr as this at least, that the maintenance of the ordinance of Baptism is committed in charge to the visible churches as such — that it is one of the specific ob- jects for which they were instituted and that they may not lay aside this means of extending their influence. Hence most of the Enghsli Churches now do not allow Pedobaptists to become fully members of the Church in the sense of voting or having any share in the government, but simply to commune. Thus the Church is Baptist though the communicants may be half Pedobaptist. This is a quiet but complete abandonment of Robert Hall's theory, and of the principle of mixed communion, while re- taining its practice. For it is quite clear that the maintenance of the two ordinances devolves on the same body of men. If baptism is committed to \dsible Churches as such, so is 13 290 BAPTISTS IN AMERICA. also the Lord's Supper, and they are both Church ordi- nances. The only possible question is, whether occasional participation ought or ought not to be governed by the prhaciples which regulate habitual Church communion. In this country there never has been the same hesitation on these questions, owing m part to the more rapid manner in which all practices are here pushed back untU they rest upon their ultunate principles, and are carried out to their legitimate consequences. Another cause more immediately historical is that in their early origin in this country, the Baj^tists Avere driven ofi" by the action of their opponents, excluded on the plea of anabaptism from their Church fel- lowship, and thus forced into the position of imiting as an entirely distinct denommation. The earliest Baptist Churches were in this way foimed by the action of Pedo- baptists who drove them together by banishing those who embraced these views alike from their Churches and from their colonies, and punished them for preaching in their cities or being found in their streets. The Churches thus formed grew, because they were fomided on principles of truth and of enormous, though unperceived, importance to all vital Christianity. It was soon fovuid also that the very exclu- sion of them from other communions, by drivmg them into Church relations with each other, enabled them more ftdly to preach, act out and practice upon their prmciples. This was the means of a combined strength and rapid propaga- tion of their views by that immensely superior force which every social organization has over an equal number of men unorganized — and above all by that which the presence of the Saviour confers upon every two or three gathered to- gether in his name. In the course of time good men became united in Mas- THE PRACTICAL QUESTION. 291 sachusetts, and by degrees all over the country the preju- dices agahist them gave way, until now the chief complaint against them is that of Bunsen, that they remain a distinct denomination. The question, therefore, has resolved itself into this prac- tically, havmg by the jn-ovidence of God, and the action of others, been formed on prmcij)les of organization, very powerful for the dissemination of what they are convinced are important truths, is it now theii* duty to alter these principles so as to surrender that peculiar power, especially while all Pedobajitist Churches retain it on theu* side, and apply it to the support of infant bajitism ? But apart from the danger of forsaking g. position in which they are placed by Providence, and endorsed by the course of all others, the fact wliich has ultimately decided their position is, that the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper being committed to the visible Churches of Christ, as such, for mamtenance and extension, it is their duty to throw their whole proper weight as a divine institu- tion, in favor of the correct and regular observance of both these sacramients. But this is impossible, if they associate themselves on an equality in the visible Churches, with those whose belief, practice, and influence are erroneous on these subjects, and paralyze their owti. Hence, m this comitry it seems to be generally admitted as a truth, that without lovmg each other less, all Christians can act more efficient- ly by resolving themselves into churches, constituted on their own views in regard to those Divine ordinances which it is part of the duty of those organizations as such, to uphold. If infant baptism is a divine institution, the Pedobaptists are right in preaching about it, and practicing it as a visible 292 ALL OTHER CHURCHES Church ordinance, and the hest way of testing the matter is for all those Avho conscientiously believe thus, to cany it out in action to its legitimate results. On the other hand, if behever's baptism is alone di^-inely appointed, if Baptist principles have the distinctive power and utility which has been sho«Ti, it is not only the right but the duty of all who beUeve these truths, to act up to them by uniting in churches, the Aveight of whose jjubUc and social influence is in favor of all those objects for which j)articular churches are organized at all. To carry out any other principles, every Presbyterian and Congregational, and Methodist Church must give up all the denominatioijal pecuUarities of its organization. Baptists ought to be admitted to a full and hearty equality m all evangelical Churches — admitted, not only as members but as officers, and allowed to preach their views and act out their sentiments, as freely and fully as Pedobaptists, or ^nth such difierences only as fluctuating majorities might rightly impose upon conscientious minorities in the same Church, all having equal privileges of oi^inion and of voting. In fine, it would do away with every thing like a constitution derived from the New Testament, beyond the simple fact that each person must be a society of those supposed to be pious persons, however heterogeneous their views. This might be a Church of Christians then, but would not be a Church of Christ. The whims, oj^iuions, and heresies of good men, however dangerous, would all be entitled to equal support. Augustine beUeved in baptismal regenera- tion, and Fenelon in purgatory. Foster shrank from end- less punishment, wliile Milton advocated divorce at pleasure, and Massillon adored the Virgin Mary. Must we then either deny the personal Christianity of such men as these, SIiriL.\RLY CO^rSTITUTED. 293 or admit any numbers of them if supposed to be pious, who may wish to join all our churches as membei'S or ministers, to advocate any of these \iews ? Are they to have liberty not only to advocate them, but to act them out, to seek the intercessions of samts and virgins, to baptize children, or pray for the dead ? Must we have a quiet corner for the confessional, ^\'ith an altar and a crucitix to conciliate the conscientious Papist ? Must we alter the marriage vow, and provide for its amicable termination, to accommodate the disciples of Milton ? And yet it would all necessarily follow from mixed communion principles, as stated by Rob- ert Hall himself, in that " we are expressly commanded to tolerate in the Church those diversities of opmions which are not mconsistent with salvation." ' When the Churches of other denominations are prepared for this, they may rightly complain. At present, the Con- stitution of all Pedobaptist Churches pledges their mem- bers individually, and the whole weight and moral influence of the Church collectively, to the support of infant bap- tism. In the Episcopal Church, meager as its articles are in regard to many other parts of ecclesiastical polity, they yet particularly specify that infant baptism " is in any wise to be retained m the Church." (Art. 27.) Our Methodist brethren have the same article in sub- stance (Art, 17), and it is made "the duty of every rmnis- ter of a circuit, or station, to obtain the names of the chil- dren belonging to his congregation, * * * and diligently to instruct and exhort all parents to dedicate their children to the Lord in baptism, as early as convenient." In an- swer to the question, " How improper persons shall be kept from joining the Church ?." the answer is, " Let none be ' Terms of Commumon, part ii. sec. 2. 294 OPEN COMMUNION received into the Church until they are recommended by a leader, with Avhom they have met at least six months on trial, and have been baptized, and shall, on examination by the leader in charge, before the Church, give satisfactory assurances both of the correctness of their faith and their wUhngness to observe and keep the rules of the Church." * Among the Presbyterians, both their Confession of Faith and their Larger and Shorter Catechisms declare that " the infonts of such as are members of the visible Church are to he haptizedP In their form of government, they xitterly set themselves against the principles on which alone mixed communion could be advocated, and declare that all their baptized members of the Church are " bound to perform, all the duties of Church members." ^ It would not even be sufficient for Pedobaptists simply to be willing to break down then* church walls so far as to receive Baptists to a full and perfect equaUty in the Church, in order to make the cases parallel, seeing that they fully admit the baptisms of these latter, who, how- ever, are unal)le to acknowledge theirs. The following objections to mixed communion wiU be felt both by conscientious Pedobaptists and Baptists. 1. If Ulcere simply lawful, and not absolutely command- ed, it loould be inexpedient, as calculated to make all ordi- nances obsolete, by bringing them mto contempt. Whether the notion be scriptural or otherwise, it always has been supposed that the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper belong appropriately to the visible Churches of Christ, as such. The Lord's Supper, for instance, is celebrated in the Church as a general rule, and members are commanded ' Discipline, chap. ii. sec. 2. " Book L caap. i. ii. and Book ii. of Discipline, chap L INEXPEDIENT. 295 " to tarry one for another." Both ordinances are adminis- tered by the presiding officer of the Church, specially to intimate that it is performed as an official act of him, as their minister. What then, must be the effect, if, in the same body, all kinds of different views in regard to the ordinances prevail ? Either there would be perpetual bick- erings, or else complete and compelled silence, leading to indifference. The latter, as the only course of equitable peace, would soon prevail. The Baptist conscientiously be- lieves infant sjirinkluig to be invalid to the individual and injurious to the religious community. The Pedobaptist would dishke to sanction the baptism of an adult who had been sprinkled in infancy, esteeming it an imj^roper repeti- tion of the ordinance — «wa-baptism. The officers of a church, anxious not to wound the feeUngs of any brethren, would keep these occasions of difference out of sight ; neither infant baptism nor that of adults would be upheld from the pulpit. The duty of submission to the rite in awy way would cease to be enjoined. It would be shunned as a matter of conversation generally among members, or those who spoke freely about it would be liable to discip- line for disturbing the peace of the Church, Thus baptism, that ordinance which is placed so conspicuously m the New Testament, would necessarily be treated with utter disre- gard — banished the Churches, But if expelled the Church, where could it find a home ? For that, as we have seen, is its appropriate place. It has thus far ever been administered as the official act of the Church ; but its officers would feel that they were never acting in the name of the whole Church, but of a divided body, let them administer it as they might. They would hardly like to perform it, and when done, it would be al- 296 OPEN COMMUNION most by stealth. But h the sph-it of the Church really discountenanced any form of baptism AAithin its Avails, all baptism would certainly be despised and become obsolete, and this with very far more rapidity than mfant baptism itself, fostered by Churches and upheld by muiisters, has yet done. Thus, from an ostensible regard for the Lord's Supper, all baptism would be discarded. But this would be certain to react upon the Lord's Sup- per itself A body which avowed itself not called on to defend the one institution, could find no authority to en- force the other. If the Church, as such, is not an institu- tion appomted to uphold baptism, it has no more authority in regard to the Lord's Supper, The whole would be a private matter, perfectly optional, observed only by a few of the stricter brethren, and all ordinances, and of course all discipline, disjointed and disunited, would drop to pieces as a rope of sand. 2. But, beyond all this, the principle upon which mixed communion rests involves a breach of trust, because bap- tism and the Lord's Supper are committed to the custody and guardianship of the visible Churches of Christ, as such, which are the trustees, the administrators of these ordi- nances, by a divine appointment. It must be quite evident that they are committed to the care of some agents. They are not simply enjoined in the Bible, and left without any to defend them, agauist abuses and attacks, or to exhibit then* divine authority and the duty of submitting to them, none being responsible for administering them to proper subjects, and to those alone. On whom does this responsibility officially devolve ? We know that one important duty of the visible Churches of Christ is to uphold the doctrmes of the Gospel, and to A BREACH OF TRUST. 297 spread them before the whole world. It is thus that they exhibit their character as the golden candlesticks supporting the Ught of divine truth in the world, ti'immed and filled with the oil of grace by the hand of Christ himself But is it only doctrmes that give Ught ? Is there nothing lutainous m the ordinances of the Gospel ? To whom then is the maintenance of these institutions committed ? "Whose duty is it to uphold and to admmister them, but those Churches of Christ regularly constituted, according to the institution of the Gospel ? If we consider baptism, for mstance, who can doubt that the visible Churches were mtended, among other objects, to support and maintain this ordinance. Such certainly has been the mstmctive feeling of Christians m all ages. When first the commission was given to preach and to bap- tize, there was but one visible Church on earth. And the commission seems to have been delivered twice. First to the eleven privately ; at which time Christ does not say any thing specifically aboiit the administrator of baptism, only its administration.* Secondly on one of the mountains of Galilee, where he met Avith his disciples, by a solemn and long-standing appointment. There were clearly, on this last occasion, many others present besides the eleven, some of whom up to that time doubted. This is probably the occasion on which he met the five himdred brethren at once, as Robinson has shown." "He therefore" says this sound critic, " here takes leave on earth of those among whom he had lived and labored longest, and rej^eats to all his disciples, in public, the solemn charge which he had al- ready given in private to the Apostles, ' Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, and lo, I am -ndth you always, even ■ Mark, xvi. 16. 2 Notes to English Harmony, § 170. 13* 298 OEDINAXCKS COMMITTED TO unto the end of the world.' " * This commission, then, ap- pears to have been given to the visible Churches as such. Afterward when the first great missionary enterprise was undertaken, Acts, xiii. 1, although St. Paul as an Apostle of Christ was to be an oiRcer in the Churches among all na- tions, it was still to the Church at Antioch that the Spirit said " separate unto me Barnabas and Saul," and to it they returned and gave an account of their labors. So that dur- ing the life-time and service of these extraordinary minis- ters it was still through the Churches that the work of con- ducting even missionary oj^erations and baptisms was conducted. It has by many been supj^osed that baptism was specifi- cally committed to the ministry as such. If this were con- ceded, the question would then arise if it was not committed to them as officers of the visible Churches. The Apostles indeed might have claimed a more direct commission. But they were extraordinary oflicers connected ^ith the first establishment of Christianity, and have left no successors. All the distinctive powers of ministry now come to them through the relations they sustain to the visible Churches. This is clearly the case in regard to jjastors and deacons, neither of whom have any pecuhar prerogatives in any other Church than their own, except by courtesy and invita- tion / not of right. Evangehsts have been considered offi- cers rather appointed to labor outside the bomids of any Church for the conversion of the world. But still they are always called to engage in this work by some Ansible Church of which they are members, through wliom their credentials are received. Indeed originally every Church member, as such, was an Evangelist wherever he could be. Acts, viii. 4. ' Page 215. THE VISIBLE CHURCHES. 299 As N'eander has s1ioa\ti, and all early Church history proves, the distinction between the clergy and laity was much less marked at first than it afterward became.^ In regard to the administration of baptism, this was cpxite as much the case as teaching. It belonged to the original priesthood of all, at first, or was at least committed to them except as limited by the Church. The Ajjostles seem to have avoided the administration of it themselves. Peter commanded Cornelius to be baptized by some of those brethren who accompanied him instead of administering it hiuTself. Hillary, m the fourth century, commenting on Eph. iv. 11, 12, says, "at first, before Churches were every Avhere established, aU taught and aU baptized ;" and again he says, " it was conceded to aU to evangeUze and to baptize." As Mosheun says, " at first aU who were engaged in propagating Christianity administered this rite, nor can it be called in question that whoever per- suaded any person to embrace Christianity could baptize his own disciple. But when the Churches became more regulated and provided with rules of order, the bishop alone exercised the right of baptizing."'' But then the bishop or pastor could not do it against the voice of the Church, of which he was head, and Avhose consent to it was al- ways either expressed or implied, so that it Avas by or through the Churches that the baptism was administered. During the early persecutions none but those who were fit woidd desire baptism ; hence it needed but little discretion and the Church gave impliedly a general commission to each of its disciples to admmister the rite in its behalf. Af- terward more care was needed, and it was restricted to the 1 See also Merle D'Aubigne's Hist. Reform, vol. i. pp. 16, 17. ' Cent. 1, part ii. chap. iv. sec. 8. 300 THE COMMON LAW chief officers of the Church, But in all this the Church really administered the rite, the individual only acted as its organ. But if now Christ has committed this ordinance to the visible Churches and given them on earth the duty of maia- taiaing it, then it is contrary to the most obvious prmciples of common sense that a Church should do right in admit- tmg in any numbers and to an equal share of the govern ment those who neglect ui practice and even oppose on principle that which Baptists have sho^^^Ti alone to be true baptism. So fiir then from its being true as Robert Hall contends, and as many siippose, that we are " expressly com- manded to tolerate in the Church all those diversities of opinion which are not inconsistent with salvation," some of the very objects for which visible Churches were founded, must be utterly frustrated by the adoption of this principle. No person doubts that in primitive times every one was baptized prior to being admitted to the Lord's table or the Church, The Rev. Baptist Noel gave it as his ot\ti rea- son for submitting to this ordinance, that to approach the Lord's table conscious of not being baptized " would be to act contrary to all the precedents of Scripture," and Robert Hall concedes that "the members of the primitive Churches consisted of only such as were baptized." The only question is whether all this was a mere casual circumstance as Robert Hall contends, or whether it was from an instituted connection. Surely what we have showTi above proves it to have been a pax"t of the great common law of primitive Christianity ; a custom that arose in the divine will, and had in it all the force of a fundamental con- stitution, since it is clearly essential to one of the purposes for which Churches were established, i. e., the perpetuar OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 301 tion of baptism by precept, example, and administration. This connection is obvious in the nature of things. To all this but one objection has ever been suggested. In the minds of many, there is the idea of a body interme- diate as it were between the separate visible Churches of Christ and "The Universal Church," which is invisible. This body they sometimes call " the Universal Church vis- ible," and it is supposed to consist of all those who make a credible profession of the Christian religion throughout the world, whether they possess it or not. To this body rather than the smaller separate bodies they suppose the ordinances to be in truth committed. There can be no objection to the figurative conception of such a body by thro'wing all the separate Churches into one, just as a Gibbon might speak of the " several detachments of that immense army of Northern barbarians," which in the course of successive centuries overran Southern Europe. Yet as in such a case we should not conceive of a body im- der one general, or in fact, any more one than as actuated by a common purpose which moved distinct tribes and or- ganizations, so we can not accurately speak of any ong visi- ble earthly Church, having constitution, oiRcers and pow- ers separate from the visible Churches which are each inde- pendent bodies. This Robert Hall has fully admitted.^ To any idea of a proper Church Universal Visible, there are overwhelming objections. There is not any such body and never has been since the scattering of the first Church in Jerusalem. Even at the resurrection we shall be re- ceived according to our membership or otherwise in the invisible Church. Not by the profession of reUgion, but its possession. ' Terms of Communion, part 2, sec. 8. 302 THE CHUECH IJNIYERSAL. If there were any such body, it would be without any government, or assemblies, or discipline, "or visible organi- zation. So that it can only exist as an imaginary rather than a real power — a body vaguely conceived of, but the limitations of whose membership are variously viewed by every different Christian without any being more certainly correct than the other. It would be in fact no more one and the same body, than the rainbow which a thousand per- sons stationed at different points might behold at one time. Each would see but one bow, but no two would behold the same. Whoever will look into Church history wUl find that though the idea of a Church Universal Visible was an error which commenced very early, yet it originated m confound- ing the outward profession of religion with its inward reception — visible Churches veith the Church iavisible ; and that it was from this confusion all the worst errors of Popery naturally and necessarily evolved themselves. This idea, revived by Dr. Pusey, has carried back several into the bosom of the Church of Rome, and multitudes to her gates. It has been a matter of dispute between Presbyterians and CongregationaHsts if the term Church (exxi^ja/w) is ever used in the sense of a Visible Church Universal as dis- tinct from the Church invisible in the New Testament. Robinson in his Lexicon of the Xew Testament makes no distinction of the kind. The chief passages favorable to such a view are considered in my work on connnunion.' If the term is ever so used either in the New Testament or by us, it can only be in a figurative manner. Baptism is, therefore an ordinance, the duty of perpetu- ' Pages 282-4, 1 COR. XI, 18-34. 803 ating which is committed to the visible Chiirches as such. But a Church by receiving unbaptized persons to their membership incapacitates itself for rightly fulfilling this trust, as we have seen. And if this be true of baptism, how much more obviously true is it of the Loi'd's Supper. It in like manner is a \isible Church ordinance, one in which the members are on this account commanded to " tarry one for another." To these Churches, as such, the injunction is addressed to " do fhis''^ in remembrance of Christ. The whole regulating power in regard to it is clearly committed to then\ such as deciding when and where it shaU be administered, who shall and who shall not participate. They are to put away the im- pure and receive back the penitent, to exhort and urge the doubting and the lingering, and by preaching and example perpetuate the celebration of this ordinance to the end of time. Let any one read, in the most cursory manner, 1 Corinthians, xi. 18-34, and he will see the full proof and illustration of all this. The Church is there spoken of as "coming together" in assembly to eat the Supper,' and those as " despising the Church" ^ who conduct improp- erly m that ordinance. And the Apostle declares to the Church at Corinth that he had " delivered'''' it into their charge just as he had received it into his, as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus, ^ It is not only committed to theii* care, but is to be admin- istered among them as a symbol among other thmgs of that fraternity which they bear to each other as such. It there- fore unquestionably indicates visible church relations as sub- sisting among all who by right imite together in its cele- bration. " Verse 18. " Verse 22. » Verse 23. 304 A DISTIXCTIO'Sr CONSIDERED. Occasional communion by in\-itation must follow there- fore the principles established for the regular celebration of this ordinance. We may not bend the rule to the excep- tion, but the exception to the rule. And yet the whole charge of intolerance, brought against the Baptists by other denominations, must rest upon just this basis, and no other, i. e., that they do not make an exception in favor of irregularity, or break down well-established and admitted general principles to accommodate exceptional occasions. A distinction is attempted sometimes to be drawn between an admission to participate with us at the Lord's Table, and an admission to fellowship T\Hth us in the same Church. " It is the Ziord's Table," it is urged, " and hence we dare not deny any who are the Lord's children." But would the same persons be willing to carry this out to its legitimate conclusion, that it is our Church and not the Lord's, seeing that we may refuse to admit to the one those whom we are bound to receive to the other. No, siirely it is the Lord's Table and it is the Lord's Church. Both are given by Christ for specific purposes, and the former is among other things the symbol of the other. The symbol can not be ap- propriate where the thing signified is wanting, andhence even occasional commimion must follow the regulations of Church membership. Robert Hall cheerfully admits this through- out the whole discussion." ' * Our Methodist brethren seem to admit the principle in their Book of Discipline:' "Xo person shall be admitted to the Lord's Supper among us who is guilty of any practice for which we would exclude a member of the Church." The Old School Presbyterian General Assembly admitted it fully a few years ago, when being invited to unite with the New School body at the Lord's Table, with whom they had dissolved their former ecclesiastical 1. Chap. i. sec 28, 3. EVANGELICAL ALLIANCES. 305 Baptists simply regard the Lord's Supper as a visible Church ordinance, and those who partake by special invita- tion, as members for the time being, not destroying or al- tering the ecclesiastical chai'acter of the feast, nor making it as many loosely suppose it, a mere local celebration of membership m the Church universal, eitlier invisible or visible. They do not ^dsh to facilitate the extension of an error which has broken down the original liberties of Christ's Churches, and hatched Popery. They therefore repudiate in common with A^ery many Pedobaptists, every thing which involves such mischief. We may, to make this distmction more clear, regard the evangelical movements of the present day, the Bible and Tract Societies, Evangehcal AlUances, and Young Men's Christian Associations, as partial embodiments of this sup- posed visible Church Catholic. By what instinct is it then that so imiformly at their anniversaries while their members imite in demonstrations of Christian fellowship, they do not esteem it appropriate to unite in celebrating the Lord's Supper, It is because they have instinctively felt that by so doing they would be in symbol formmg themselves into a visible Church, and so interfere with the ecclesiastical ar- rangements of their various bodies. It is not for want of Christian fellowship, nor does it even assert that they do not esteem each other worthy of a place at the Lord's connections, they declined to do so, substantially upon this very ground. And yet how many persons assaQ the Baptists as uncharitable, not for regulating their Church membership as they do, and as all do, but for not inviting to commune with them those whom they could not welcome to their clmrches. To Baptists it seems that such invitations, where ex- tended, must appear like ostentatiously inviting a neighbor into the piazza, but carefully shutting the door of the house. 306 THE ANCIENT OPINION. Table in their o^ti churches. All we ask is, that our ab- staining from uniting witli other denominations in that or- dinance, may not be more harshly construed by our Chris- tian brethren than their own hi the cu'cmnstance named. We have the more right to expect this, as ui our own de- nominational Associations and Conventions, and missionary anniversaries, we never imite ui any of those capacities in celebrating the Lord's Supper. If it is done at all, it is by the invitation of the Church ^yiih which we meet. This is not because we doubt the fitness of our own brethren, certauily, for the ordinance in question, but because we consider the Lord's Supper as belonging specifically to visible churches as such, and would guard against the idea of symbohcally clothing our voluntary associations Tvdth Church authority. This is no modern opinion. There are proofs abimdant that it is the primitive view of the Lord's Supper, long pre- served even after the idea of a Catholic Church visible had seriously affected the independence of churches. From the time when the Ignatian Epistles were written, down for several centuries, the motto of " but one altar to a church," even where that church embraced in fact several congregations, was in practical operation. And the care with which it was managed that each distinct visible bishop- ric or church should have its own altar, or place where alone the Eucharist might be consecrated, is a clear proof that it was esteemed an original and miportant truth, that the Lord's Supper was an ordinance committed and belonging to the visible Churches, as distinct from any one universal visible Church.* There is, as we have seen, in 1 Corin- * See Bingham's Christian Antiquities, book viii. chap. vi. sect. 16, 17 ; Curtis on Communion, 89, 90. CHURCHES AGGRESSIVE BODIES. 307 thians, xi. 18-34, direct proof that tliis idea belongs orig- inally to the Xew Testament, and is m fact part of that universal usage which marks it as one of the most radical elements of the constitution of the churches. Thus, then, it is clear that the Lord's Supper is given in charge to those visible Churches of Christ, in the midst of which he has promised to walk and dwell. Rev. ii. 1. To each of these it belongs to celebrate it as one family. The members of that particular Church are to be tarried for, and it is to be a symbol of their relations, as members, to each other. Other things are no doubt signified also, but this none the less. In all ordinary cases, it should be par- taken of by each Christian in the particular Church of which he is a member. Here is the home of ordinances, and this is one of the purposes for which these bodies are instituted ; not alone for the defense of Gospel doctrines, but for the advocacy and celebration of Gospel ordinances. "What is more, the guardianship of these rites is commit- ted to them alone. If they neglect it, there are no other persons to supply their lack hi discharging this duty. What then can be more certam than that their own united obedience and hearty belief in them must be preserved ? Nor are they at liberty to enter mto any compromise or deviations fi-om the original practice of the Church, which shall im2:»air their capacity for fulfilling these purposes of their mstitution. It is one of the specific objects of their union to uphold these things as aggressive bodies, and not merely as recep- tive. The power of organized bodies of men to propagate any truth, or revive one that has been overlooked, is natu- rally immense. It emboldens the timid and decides the wavering. It incites to action, because it exhibits truth in 308 u:n^iox of faith and symbol. action. Another and a greater source of power is the present and indwelling Spirit of Christ. A Church, there- fore, is both a human and a divine institution. As in man, by the union of soul and body, one person is formed, of powers greater than many miitedly would jiossess with but one of these alone, so is each visible Church of Christ en- doAved with resources, strength, and influence illimitable for good, and far transcending the sum of its individual human powers. Its eflect on the customs of society, for mstance, are incalculable. The morals and manners of a nation, and of an age, its intelligence, even its form of government, ■ndll generally have then' archetype in the congregations of its saints. He who has given to these bodies their peculiar strength — who first applied the power of voluntary social organiza- tion to religious purposes in His OAvn Churches, and has guarded, guided, and actuated that power ever smce, — He has committed two sacramental orduiances specially to their care. Baptism and the Lord's Supper. These, as mere out- ward signs, might seem of little importance ; but that He has connected with them, in a remarkable manner, a whole system of docti'uies and practice, of which He has made them the spnbols and exponents, to which indeed He has united them in a unique manner, so that practically the severing of them should no more be thought of than the disuniting of the body and the soul. He has made it the duty of these organizations to convert the world to this system of Christianity, in all its wholeness, just as He delivered it to them, the parts balanced Hke the various parts of man, and adjusted by His own hand. They have no right to proclaim baptism or the Lord's Supper without the faith they symbolize, nor yet, on the other hand, the THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE. 309 faith without the symbols. The body without the soul is a mere carcass. And the soul without the body is too ethereal — it can not be realized in the present state. Sym- bol is the appointed dwellmg-place for piety, as the body for the spirit. To the churches Christianity is thus committed in its symmetry and wholeness. The Bible is indeed its text- book and standard. But each church is a living body to s which the Saviour has given in charge both the oracles and ordinances. It is for these churches to draw sustenance from the Scriptures and j^ropagate the system of life they find through the whole earth, by their divine powers, exam- ple, and organization. "Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord." " Ye are the light of the world." The Church and the Bible stand in the same position to the guilty dymg world that the physician and his books stand to the sick patient. The patient looks upon the phy- sician as the living embodiment of his books. So the sin- ner looks to the Church as the authorized exponent of what Christianity, as a system, is. Whether rightly or wrongly, each Church of Christ is thus regarded by the great masses of m.en. From this they derive far more of their relig- ious ideas than from any other source. These two ordi- nances, then, should be upheld by the churches in Hving ex- hibition, just in the same position as they are placed in the New Testament, and all must admit that they stand very prominently m the sacred volume. The admixture of Baptists and Pedobaptists in the same Church would be a great hinderance to both. All agree that it is a duty of visible churches as such to uphold bap- tism to the best of their knowledge and power, although not uniting as to the nature and subjects of baptism. But 310 INDIFFERENCE TO ORDINANCES mixed communion cliurclies are formed upon the basis of being neutral on the whole question, and thus the veiy prmciple of theu* organization is diametrically opposed to one great object for which they are constituted. These ends will not be accomphshed by unitmg those who differ at the zero of mdifference in regard to ordinances. The truth will best finally be exhibited by each accompUshing separately what they conceive to be their respective mis- sions, and mauitaining the truth ia love. The author is aware that in some of the pages of this last chapter, and thi'oughout the whole of the Second Book, he may seem not to have confined himself simply, to the line of tracing what the actual progress has been of Baptist principles, but, m addition, of showing what he esteems it logically ought to have been. But the careful reader wiU mark to what extent the Pedobaptist authorities alluded to, sustain him in this opinion, or in other words, concede the pomts at issue. Just where one wi'iter fails to do this, others have more than suppUed the deficiency. It must also be borne in mind that it would be impossible fully to show the importance of each concession, except by also exhibiting how little it left unacknowledged, and the nar- row and untenable nature of the position to which the opponents of further progress or practical adhesion to Bap- tist views Avere reduced. Let any one consider the concessions made duiing the past hundred years by such men as Campbell, Stuart, and Robinson, as to the meaning of /^a/rT/^w, or as to the effect of the prepositions and the circumstances and figures con- nected with the administration of Baptism. In the chapter NOT CHRISTIAN UNION. 31^ on the importance of that rite, the author has inserted more of his own ideas than elsewhere. Bult let any one consider the rapid success of Puseyism as an illustration of the importance of a correct observance of ordinances, by showing the results of erroneous views of them, and by the certainty of a fearfid reaction from the neglect of the posi- ive institutions of Christianity. Let him consider the con- cessions of Coleridge, Bushnell, Bunsen, and the " North British Review" as to Avhat inconsistencies, and injurious effects have ever arisen out of mfant baptism ; and the testi- Tnonies that have been exhibited in various ways by a" Christian denominations — that the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper are committed to the visible churches as such, and he will see how little there is left which is now a matter of fan- controversy at all. BOOK III. PRINCIPLES ALWAYS HELD IN COMMON. Ix order now to perfect our view of the progress of Bap- tist principles during the last hundred years, we must mark the advance of a third class of opinions, namely, those which Baptists yet hold in common with other evangelical Chi'istians, but wliich require the acknowledgment of Baptist principles to be advocated with force and consist- ency. Some of these are the Sufficiency of Holy Scrip- ture as a rule of faith and practice ; Salvation by grace alone ; and the essential Priesthood of all Christians, CHAPTER I. THE SUTTICIEXCY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE AS A RULE OF FAITH AST) PRACTICE. The Roman Catholic system has, perhaps, more clearlj and abundantly claimed infallibility for the Church than for Scripture, but all who regard Christianity as a religion of Divine authority, admit that the Bible stands in an unique relation to man. PROTESTANT VIEW. 313 At the Reformation, therefore, one of the great j^oints of discussion between the Cathohcs and Protestants, was the position which ought to be assigned to the sacred Scrip- tures. Luther, converted through their perusal, found them the source of his strengtli, and in his battles ^dth Rome he and all his followers maiutamed their full sufficiency. " The foundation of articles of faith" said he, " is the word of God." The sixth article of the Church of England fairly embodies the general Protestant view m opposition to that of the Papists. "Holy Scrijjture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." So im- portant is this esteemed, that in every ordination of a Pres- byter, and consecration of a bishop in that Church, the candidate is especially interrogated on this point, and has to promise conformity to this article in all his teachings. Just in proportion as Protestants have been brought into conflict with the Romish Church, this has been the groimd on which alone they have planted themselves with success. It is the uadependent and original study of the sacred Rec- ords fostered by this great principle among the masses of the people, that has produced the superiority of Protestant nations m every point of view. AU that the United States is at this moment, all the superiority of her people in mor- als and in enterprise over the Roman Catholic States of this contment, she owes to the rehance of her people on the Bible as the standard of their faith. This is the source and safeguard even of her liberties. It is this makes Mas- sachusetts what she is; and the want of it that makes Mexico what she is. All the brightest glory of England 14 314 M. DE TOCQUEVILLE. can be traced to this one source, the Bible taken as the i ule of Faith and life. It has been the foundation of national virtue and greatness wherever it has gone, and a source of power such as nothmg else in the whole history of man- kind has produced.' If now we look back a hundred yeai's, we shall perceive that great progress has been made in the practical acknowl- edgment of this sufficiency and jDOwer of Scripture. Look for a moment particularly at the religious instruction of youth. One hundred years ago, and the chief means for ac- comjihshing this were Catechisms and creeds committed to memory, in place of those fresh living views of truth dra'vvn from the Word of God, in the Sabbath School and Bible class systems which now prevail. A very unportant branch of literature has sprung up, designed to render the study of the Bible popular and pleasant to children, and its his- tories and truths familiar. When M. de TocqueviUe \dsited the institutions of the country, a few years ago, he went, among other places, of a Sabbath mornmg, to one of the largest Sabbath Schools in the city of New York. Brought up in Roman Catholic or infidel France, he had never beheld such a sight before. Some hundreds of happy children all had Sibles in their hands. He had only seen them taught religion by Cate- chisms and forms of prayer. " What," he exclaimed, " do you let each of these young people read the Bible ?" " Yes." " And do you found your whole system of instruc- 1 Let any one who doubts the above, read the history of Pitcairn's Island, and see the effect of the Bible as a foundation of all the laws of old Adams, and of that authority which secured theh obedience. He will never again question the amazing power of the Scriptures in a po Utical point of view. POPISH OBJECTIONS. 315 tion directly on the Bible ?" " Yes." " And is this done in yonr Sabbath Schools generally throughout the country ?" " Yes." " And do all the children attend '?" " Very gen- erally." " It must produce a profound impression iii^on the national character," was the reply of that sagacious philoso- pher. But the Roman CathoUcs have naturally turned upon all Protestants, and appealed to infant baptism as an unfailmg proof of the authority of tradition and of the Church, and of the insufficiency of Scripture. They have said again and again, " we have substituted sprinklmg for unmersion hy the authority of the Church. What other authority can you show for this ? Scripture is against you, and the very meanmg of the word is against you. You baptize infants^ where is your authority ? Tliis can not be proved from the Bible without the aid of tradition. We believe in it on the authority of the Church, but if you rely so much on the Bible alone you must give it up as unauthorized." Nor have Protestants generally been fairly able to meet this. And hence among them aU there has been more or less of shrinking practically from the full sufficiency of Scripture, and a disposition to rely in part upon tradition. In no denomination has this tendency manifested itself so strongly as in the Episcopal Church, both in England and in this country ; and that chiefly in the form of Puseyism. In England it began among the clergy. They were anxious to make head against the growing popularity and evangeli- cal power of the dissenters, by pretending to a degree of au- thority in matters of faith which the non-conformist mmis- ters utterly dLSclaimcd as grossly superstitious and idola- trous. To such a degree of approach to Romanism did this at length proceed, that in the celebrated Tract, No. 90, it is 316 TRADITION TEACTS FOE THE TIMES. boldly stated that " In the sense ui which it is commonly tmderstood at this day, Scnj)tnre, it is plain, is not^ on An- glican prmciples, the rule of faith." " All dilRculties in the interpretation of Scripture would be removed, or nearly so, would we but yield our private interpretations to the sense of the Church Catholic whenever that can be ascer- tained." ' But such doctrines could only be made to appear plausi- ble by appealmg to the common belief in infant baptism in proof of the doctrme of tradition. This is done over and over again. The language of Field is quoted and referred to m these Tracts to prove tradition by infant baptism, thus, " The fourth kind of tradition is the continued practice of such thuigs as are neither contained in the Scriptures ex- vressly, nor the examples of such practice expressly there delivered^ though the grounds, reasons, and causes of the necessity of such practice be there contamed ; and the benefit or good that foUo weth of it. Of this sort is the hap- tism of infants, which is therefore named a tradition, be- cause it is not expressly delivered in Scripture that the Apostles did baptize mtants, nor an express jirecept there found that they should do so."^ Bishop White and Mon- tague are also cited as more unqualifiedly still speaking of in- flmt baptism, as practiced upon tradition alone, and " of which it may be declared that Scripture teacheth nothing.'''' ^ Directly the Puseyite is put to the proof, he retires back to infant baptism. It is perhaps in Scripture, he thinks, but certainly not on it. It can be wi-ought out by the aid of tradition, but it can not be proved from the Bible alone. ' Carry's Testimony of the Fathers to the thirty-nine Articles, Pref. p. 2. 2 Tract No. n, p. 429. ' Pages 431, 433, American edition. APPEALS TO "the FATHERS." 31*7 The Presbyterian and Congregationalist may have pro- fessed to such men formerly that they could prove mfant baptism from the Bible. But the "North British Review" now has openly given all this up, and directly Pedobaptists turn round to meet the Baptists, their main reliance is, and ever has been, certam scraps of the fathers and of Church history, half quoted and worse imderstood. Even these are now being abandoned ; and Glmrch authority and dis- cretionary power are boldly appealed to as suflicient by Coleridge, Neander, Buusen, etc. In a word infant baptism essentially rests uj^on, and proves to those who believe m it, the insufficiency of Holy Scripture as a rule of faith and practice, and the great authority if not the supremacy of tradition or the Church. Let any one take up a defense of infant baptism, no mat- ter by what denomination prepared, or on what gromid it is based, and he "will be astonished at the vast parade of " the Fathers." Except our Eijiscopalian brethren, none use much of this 1-dnd of argument on other occasions ; hence the mistakes which many make when they try to employ it as to this rite. But the chief misfortune of it all lies in teaching the poor man that the Scriptures are not sufficient as a rule of faith. The practical result is that the real ap- peal in regard to this controversy is made to a very large, rare, and expensive class of wi'itiugs, which few are famiUar with, and which few could even read if they had them. Every time mfant baptism is called in question, the mass of Pedobaptists have to go to their ministers for arguments. The Bible, they are forced to confess, seems to favor our views, but their minister tells them that something else is the true sense. And he in turn either has to become a Baptist, or else is obliged to set up in his o"\vn heart, without j^erhaps doing 318 RIGHTFUL CHURCH AUTHORITY SO in set words, the authority of the Church as superior to that of the BiWe, since he beheves implicitly the ap- parent teaching of the one at the expense of beHeving the apparent teaching of the other. In this way a supreme re- Jiance upon human authority, in matters of reUgion, becomes imperceptibly an estabhshed custom and habit. Infant baptism thus is made the entering-wedge of a priaciple which forms and molds the whole religious character, laying the most substantial basis for Romanism. Far be it from us to wish to overthrow respect for the proper Scrij^ture authority of each true Christian Church. But all submission of miad Avliich leads men to receive on authority that which can not be ultimately substantiated by the reasons professed, must at some time give a severe shock to true faith. It vnW produce a skepticism m regard to aU those subjects which are most easily received at first through confidence, m the judgment of others ; and pre- vent the knowledge of the Avise becoming useful to the masses, except just so far as they are able at once to follow out the processes of reasoning involved, with full confidence in their own judgments. The Baptists have been distinguished for their close at- tachment to the Scriptures. They, and they alone, have never appealed to any thing else for proof of any portion of their faith and practice, as Christians. This has not been from any doubt as to the value and corroboration afibrded by an impartial examination of Church history. One hun- dred and fifty years and more before ISTeander and the German scholars generally had arrived at the conclusions now becoming so universal as to infant baptism and the original pohty of the Chu.rch, Baptists had arrived at these THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 319 same conclusions, published them to the world, and fully verified them by early Church history. But it has been the principle involved wliich has made them rely on the Scriptures alone^ as a sufficient appeal in all cases of controversy. The Bible and a Christian expe- rience in the heart are the only weapons needed. All the rest has ever been regarded by them as Saul's armor. They have preferred the simpler sling and stone of David. The simplicity of this principle has been favorable to their success. It is one capable of being wielded by a plowboy or tinker with immense effect, as the writings of the dreamer of Bedford Jail have sho^^^l. Its simplicity also has given those who adhere to it, courage, boldness, and strength to xmdertake the most difficult duties. It is worthy of remark how this simple prmciple has practically given strength, within the last hundred years, to a comparatively small denomination, poor and for the most part uneducated, and caused them thus to produce the leaders m many of those enterprises which have most tended to spread the Word of God among the nations ; enterprises which have even given to the age its chief re- ligious characteristics. The Missionary system now requires no very extraor- dinary amount of reliance m the "Word of God, because faith is largely turned to sight. But it was a very different matter when the father of the modern Enghsh missionary movements, William Carey, sailed from the shores of Eng- land in 1793. This "consecrated cobbler," as Sydney Smith, with desecrated wit, facetiously termed him, was for years the laughing-stock of the Reviewers, and of the Churchmen, both high and low. For a long time he plied liis awl for a living, with a Hebrew Bible and a map of the 320 CAKEY JUDSON. world alternately spread out before him, Tliat Bible he had taken for his rule of faith, and there he had read : " Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for an in- heritance, and the uttermost parts of the eai'th for a pos- session." He turned to his majj of the world, blackened over all the parts yet lying in heathen darkness, and then his faith in the word of God, and that alone, assured him of a fact to which all around hun were asleep, i. e,, that there must be a brighter day reserved for the Chm-ch, and that it was the duty of Christians to ask the Father in the naine of the Son, and then to rise and take possession of those vast regions, in the authority of Christ their Kiug. It was a case of the most simple unmixed faith in the promises and commands of Scrij^ture alone ; and against aU human encouragement and prospect of success, it led hun forth without fortune and without outfit for his voyage, or per- mission to laud, or means of support. But he went down into the well, amid its dai'kness, damps, and vapors, guided by the bright safety-lamp of God's Word, and by it alone. The heads of his great missionary sermon showed the soUtary principle which unpelled him : " Expect great things from God ; and, attempt groat things for God." It was this implicit reUance on the Bible alone m William Carey, that awoke Protestant nations to that modern missionary movement which is now beginning to reap the harvest of the world. A swelling wave of this strong impulse soon spread across the broad Atlantic, and swept Judson and his com- panions to this great work, then all Congregationalists in sentiment, yet animated by the same spirit. But the feeling of allegiance to the New Testament caused Judson to become a Baptist also. In fact, faith in the sufficiency of CHINESE INSTRUCTION. 321 Scripture made liim all he was, all he ever became. And thus began chiefly those great missionary enterprises of England and America which are now truly the most successful and astonishmg in the world. They have raised the Sandwich Islands to the rank of a civilized people, and are fast scattermg the seeds of life, liberty, and love among the heathen nations of the earth. In fact, the Word of God is at this moment exhibiting a power, through its mis- sionary operations, as extraordinaiy in its political effects upon the world at large, as ui the early centuries ujion the Roman emj^ire. A few years ago an uncouth missionary was preaching in Canton, when a Chinese student applied to be taught the outlines of the Christian system, and finally for baptism. This latter was refused from a just fear that the Gospel had not a sufiicient hold upon the young man's heart, but that young man took the same method of imparting Christian truth tliat he had seen practiced by the missionaries with whom he had resided, and through these Biblical instructions, imperfectly conveyed, spread around him a knowledge of Christian truth. At length the authorities, ofticers of the Tartar dynasty, interfered arbitrarily and cruelly, and the community of the ancient Chinese rose really in defense of religious liberty. Thus commenced the present insm-rec- tion, and that student was the acknowledged head of the existing movement. Whatever may be the political results, whatever the rehgious superstitions involved, whatever the motives in the hearts of the leaders, God only knows ; but it is in the midst of such confused scenes that God is carry- ing the knowledge of the Bible and of Christ, to the hearts of the millions of Chinese by the lips of their OAvn country- men, as they never could have been conveyed in centuries 14* 322 POWER OF THE BIBLE by foreign missionaries. Xor do the sujjerstitions appear to be more numerous or important than might be naturally expected, or than early Church history shows to have at- tended the first rapid spread of the Gospel among the hea- then nations, and even the Jews. Three principles which characterize this movement, give it great hopefulness. It guarantees full rehgious lib- erty, it jDromotes the cu'culation of the Scriptures in large quantities, and it makes war ujDon the use of opiimi and aU intoxicating hquors. Just before the rise of the movement, so discouraging had matters appeared to the eyes of Christians in tliis country, that they had begim to despair of any large re- sults in Chma. We were told that there were not so many converts as missionaries, after more than twenty years of labor ; that they were a cold, hard, pohshed people, not with hearts hke other men, but ^^•ithout any real religious chai'acter to work upon. Missionary boards were utterly discouraged mitil this news suddenly burst upon them. No man can yet foresee the results of this movement en- tirely ; but some thhigs have been demonstrated, namely, that the Chinese are not the cold, hard, atheistic people they used to be imagined. Xow it seems that superstition is the chief lault. It may be that Christianity is to operate here primarily as the rod of iron dashmg m pieces the pot- ter's vessel. How often does it really seem to act on governments like the fabled island of loadstone, which first drew the vessels to it through then* iron bolts, and then drew out all the bolts that held them together. So Chris- tianity by absorbmg and dra^^ing to itself through its own holiness and attractiveness aU the elements of good, is the occasion unquestionably of many a rotten system of govern- COMPARED WITH "tHE CIIUKCH." 323 ment and of iuiqmty, dissolving and dropping to pieces of its owTi weight, as the walls of Jericho fell flat before the ram's horns of Joshua and of the priests. The destructive energy of Christianity thus actmg with the force of mii-acle, prepares the way for faith m its power as a reconstructive system. One tiling is indeed certain, the New Testament as the rule of faith, has given to the modern missions of Protestantism, their energy and success, and all their supe- riority over those conducted by the Papists. Wherever Roman Catholic missionaries have gone, they have first taken pains to establish the authority of the Church, just where we put that of the Bible. This has been the characteristic difl:erence, and this has led to the different results. A few years ago. Dr. Wiseman treated with scorn the attempts of Protestant missionaries as perfect failures compared with those of Rome, seeing that we could only count up a very few thousands as the result of our last fifty years' labor and expenditures, while the Catholics could boast of millions. It was in vain we pointed out that for real power and knowledge and piety our thousands were worth more than their millions, that our humblest converts were in character better than their saints. They looked and cared alone for numbers, and all whom they could get, whether adults or children, if submitted to their sprinkling, they accounted converts. On the contrary, modern Protest- ant missions have been founded on the Word of God as the ■jule of fiiith and practice. Hence they have bestowed far iiore labor on the work of translating the Scriptures, and this has seemed for years to retard their labors. Francis Xavier's zeal was splendid and brilliant m its way, like some sudden charge of cavalry, that seemed to carry all before it. He baptized thousands where our missionaries would hardly 324 CAREY AND XATIJiR COXTRASTED. have bai^tized one. He swept every thing before his face, but the enemy closed in overwhelming masses on his rear, as where cavalry are not supported by infantry, and the re- sults of his labors were comparatively fruitless of permanent spmtual results. "WilUam Carey hardly baptized a hundred at Serampore, where Xa^ier would have sprinkled a miUion, and such has been the contrast every where. But then as to the amount of good actually done on a broad scale, the results are to be estimated differently. The Jesuit missionaries, as a whole, have passed through many lauds Uke the whirhvhid through the desert. They seem to achieve sweej^ing suc- cess, but leave ruin and desolation in their track. They change the name of the heathen gods, but leave the people idolaters ; baptize the images, and call them saints. But take away the Papal priests for a few years, and their con- verts relapse without any sensible change. They multiply churches as rapidly as travelers pitch theii* tents, because they have no foundation to dig. On the other hand, Bap- tists have dug deep, because building for eternity, and the fomidation once laid on the Rock of Ages, and the under- ground work done, the superstructure is easily erected and lasts, because solid. If any one in this point of view com- pares Protestant missions generally, with Catholic, they will be astonished at the difference. The conversion of the na/- tives has been delayed for the work of translation, baffled by disease, weakened by deaths, and yet more real progress has been made by Protestants for the overthrow of hea- thenism in Asia, in fifty years, than Roman Catholics have made in ages. And with us the Avork is only just beginning, while theirs is bemg brought to a close. Protestant mis- sions in twenty years, have produced more sensible results BIBLICAL TRANSLATIONS. 325 in the three hundred milUons of Chma, than the Roman Cathohc eflbrts in ten centuries. The press occupies a very diflerent position among Prot- estants from what it does among Papists, because when men have learned to read the Bible they have acquired the key of all knowledge and the desire to enter its opened door. The work of translation is infinitely more prominent in the one than in the other. This has caused our success. And if it be asked what has made this great difference m the two methods of operation, we must look for it in the type of labor first entered upon by the pioneers in this enter- prise. We must look for the germ of it very greatly m the mission presses of Serampore. William Carey and his associates had been accustomed to prove every thing by Scripture. Of strong sense but ignorant of philosojihy, and of Church history, the Bible and experimental religion were their great resorts. Wil- liam Carey could as soon have made shoes without a last, as a discourse Avithout his Bible. Hence before the Bajjtists could fairly get to work they must translate the Bible. The herculean labors of this kind already performed by Protestant missions, within the last fifty years, probably exceed aU that was done in eighteen hun- dred years before. Languages have been reduced to writ- ing, grammars made, lexicons formed, the Bible translated, and nations been taught to read its pages of everlasting life. Comparatively few, poor and ignorant as the Baptists were, when Carey started on his great mission, it could little have been expected that they should have been able at all to keep pace with other Protestants in the blessed rivalry of translating and giving the Word of God to the 326 BIBLE SOCIETIES. heathen. And yet on exammation it will be found that they have done far more than then- natural proportion in this great work, even among Protestant missionaries who have all wrought nobly. Carey translated the Bible into one language, and Judson into another, and thus the work was begun by English and thus by American Christian missionaries. If now from the work of translating the Scriptures we turn to that of distributing Aheva.^ nobly have the Bible So- cieties of Europe and America all wrought. They have reduced the price of the Bible so that what the whole labor of a Avorking man for a life tune v>'ould hardly have pro- cured hun before prhiting was invented, may now be pur- chased for a quarter of a dollar, or the worth of his labor for an hour or two. Forty millions of Bibles and Testa- ments have been put into cu-culation since Bible Societies arose ; while but four milUon had been jjubUshed in the eight- een hmidred years before. Protestants have spread the bless- ed book, not only over the civiUzed world, but among heathen nations, of one hundred and fifty difterent tongues, and dialects, with a profusion and success that must make the work of ministers at home and missionaries abroad quite different, and it is to be hoped far more successful, in futm-e than heretofore. But here again the mind that first conceived of the form- ation of a Bible Society was Rev. "William Hughes, a Baptist. He formed the idea, drew np the circular that called it into existence, wi'ought out the plan, and for years watched over its success. Indeed it has been declared by an impartial and cotemporary authority, that " the Bible Society was almost entirely the result of his suggestions." ^ • "London Christian Guardian," in his obituary notice. THE CHARGE OP BIBLIOLATEY. 32V Let no injustice be done to otlier denominations. Tliey have had the honor of doing more, far more than Baptists have in spreading the Bible among all nations. They have had wealth, and niunbers, and influence that we have not possessed. And many of them have manifested a zeal and UberaUty which could not have been excelled. But yet it may be questioned if it has been altogether by accident, or not m part by the force of inherent principles and owing to Baptists being, hi fact, men of one Book, that they have furnished the pioneers to the extent which has been shown to those modern movements which form the hope of the age — Foreign Missions — BibUcal translations and the chcu- lation of the Bible without restriction and without com- ment. These are the great religious enterprises of the times, giv- ing to the present age its deepest mterest and to the future its brightest hopes. All certainly are developments of that great priacij^le, the poioer and suficieticy of Scripture. Nor is this principle worn out, waxhig old, and ready to vanish away as many supj^ose who are iaveighing against the " Bibholatry" of the present age. It has done much, but it has got to do still more. The rehgion of Jesus Chi'ist as a system of doctrines and practice, is threatened now as never before, by Roman CathoUcism on the one hand, and German RationaUsm on the other. Both of these profess a sort of Christianity and offer it the tribute of a professed veneration. So that now the great question is, how are we to determme and to prove what is true Christian faith ? Where are we to draw the line between it and superstition, as between it and infidelity. A Ime must be drawn somewhere ; and in all simpUcity we plead that it should be drawn just here. That system of religion 328 THE CONSTITUTIONAL TEXT-BOOK. which Christ and His Apostles taught, and which is, there- fore, recorded ui the Xew Testament, that and nothing else is pure Christianity. And Christianity not only as a system of doctrines, but also of ecclesiastical relations, must be defined in the same manner. Within the last few years much has been said and written about " the Church." The German boasts of this as an age of historico-philosophical reconstruction which is to erect what he calls the Christian Church em- bodying all the developments and cutting off all the abuses of the past eighteen hundred years. He claims a right to alter m the name of sentiment, beauty, and expediency. Even Bunsen wishes, as Ave see, to " reforiu the doctrines of the Bible." The Roman Catholic professes an inherent right in the Church by viitue of a supposed indwelling Di- vine authority resting in the successors of St. Peter, to do the same. The Anglican party in the Episcopal Church, makes the same claim in behalf of the Three Orders of that denomination. But all of these have overlooked the broader, deeper question which concerns not Church gov- ernment but Church existence. Not who are the proper officers, but who are the proper members. The Church is the assembly not the rulers, the people not the Priests. The government of a coimtry or of a society is one thing, the citizensliip quite another. France changed her gov- ernment thirteen times in fifty years, but the French nation never ceased to exist. There is something infinitely more vital to a Chm-ch than how many orders shall compose its officers, i. e., what constitutes the terms of memhership f This question can not be determined, hardly discussed un- til the New Testament is respected as the only constitu- tional Text-Book of the Christian Church, instead of being JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE. 329 ignored as jt is practically by all these systems, modern and antiquated, that of Chevalier Bimsen no less than that of Cardinal Wiseman, and all in between. CHAPTER II. SALVATIOK BY GEACE ALOXE. In all ages men have built their hopes of salvation either upon their o^vn good works, or upon the grace of God ; or upon some admixture of the two. The doctrine of St. Paul unquestionably is, that we are justified by faith alone, and not by the deeds of the law. That our salvation is " not of works, lest any man should boast ;" but that it is by grace alone we are saved. Justification being a gratui- tous thm'g, and good works the necessary results of a li\T.ng faith ; the efiects, therefore, and not m any degree the meritorious cause of our salvation. This was the principle which Luther uttered, and insisted upon with so much energy, as the mark of a standing or of a falling Church ; it was the leading principle of the Re- formation. Centuries before, indeed, Augustine had boldly preached it, from his own experience ; but it had become completely overshadowed by the ceremonies of the Church and the doctrines of human merit. All the Reformed Churches, in proportion to the life of their piety, placed this as the cor- ner-stone of true Christianity. The Church of England declares, in her eleventh Article, 330 ECLIPSE OF THE DOCTRINE. " that we are justified by foith only^ is a most wholesome doctrme ;" and in the twelfth Article, that " good works, as \}iiQ fruits of faith, /b^foto a^i^er justification," "as a tree is discerned "by its fi-uits," but " can not put away our sins ;" whUe, in the thirteenth Article, it further urges that " works done before the grace of Christ and the insph-ation of his Spu'it are not j^leasant to God ; forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace." And yet again in the four- teenth Article, that " works of supererogation can not be taught without arrogancy and impiety." This was the doctrine prevalent in England, Scotland, and throughoiit the Continent, among the Reformed Churches, down to the period of the English Common- wealth. Doubtless many a courtly priest of Elizabeth and Charles I. believed in High Church doctrines of an oppos- ing character, but these had to be taught in such covered up and ambiguous language that those who held them were tolerated only because their sentiments were not dis- cerned through the drapery of language in which they were enveloped. From the restoration of Charles II., however, this great doctrine, though not openly denied, was gradually thrown into the shade. In England this neglect might have been from its supposed connection with Puritanism. But in Scotland it was the same, and so on the Continent of Eu- rope. Even the Congregational churches of New England felt its influence. A more general cause, therefore, must be looked for, and this is to be found alone m the unconverted memhershi}) introduced into all these churches by infant ba2otism. About one hundred years ago, nothing can be conceived ITS KEVIVAL. 331 of, moi'e dead than the religious condition of the Chvu-ch of England. Co^v|)er, the poet of the evangelical faith, was yet a law-student, and Montgomery was not yet born. Romaine and a few others preached the doctrine, we are considering, in the Estahhshed Church, and were grossly lampooned by Hogarth for doing so. Wesley and White- field suffered every obloquy and insult for declaring it. In New England, Edwards was dismissed fi-om his pastoral charge for upholding it, and the Temients, who maintamed it, gathered roimd them a small and des2:)ised minority in the Presbj-terian Church. The general revivals of religion which took place, however, under the preaching of such men as we have named, soon j^roduced a very different state of things, especially in this country. Large numbers seceded and joined the Baptists, and this among other causes perhaps rendered the clergy of other denominations more open in their adoption of these sentiments. In Eng- land, the bulk of the Dissenters were men who held these truths ; and they were encoui'aged by the rise of the Methodists, no less than by the boldness and extemporane- ous eloquence of the evangehcal party in the Church of England. Thus the doctrine m question became exceed- ingly popular with the masses of all denommations, until the check given to it, m certain quarters, by the advance of Puseyism within about twenty years. In Scotland, Chalmers and men of his stamp became every where popular. In Geneva the flame of evangehcal religion was lighted iip through the labors of a Haldane ; and in the United States, during the past fifty years, the membership of the evangelical Churches adhei'ing to this faith, has multiphed from about four hundred thousand to three miUious and a half, bemg an increase of 332 EPISCOPAL FORMULARIES. eightfold, while our population has expanded only four- fold. The point to be considered just now is, whether infant baptism is or is not friendly and consistent with the spread of this great doctrine, to which all evangelical Protestants have professedly subscribed. A moment's consideration will show that it stands in utter contradiction to justifica- tion by faith alone. Infant baptism has generally been held to involve a saving change from a state of dai'kness into one of grace, thus put- tmg an act of man in place of the free gift of God. In the Church of Rome this is, and has been ever, the doctrine avowed, and in the Church of England, since the Reforma- tion, her formularies have retained the same language, though m contradiction to the spirit of her articles. Even the final decision in the celebrated case of Rev. Mr. Gor- ham, vs. the Bishop of Exeter, within a year or two, ad- mits that such is the teaching of the Church of England formularies, only mamtaining that it was not so essential a part of the system as to justify the silencing of a mmister of Low-Church views. We know that the evangelical min- isters of that denomination have been better than their forms, but what else can common i^eople understand beside baptismal regeneration from such language as that in which God is solemnly besought " for this infimt that he, coming to thy holy baptistu, may receive remission of sin by spiritual regeneration. Receive him, O Lord as Thou hast jDrom- ised." Just before the baptism, it is prayed, " sanctify this riater to the mystical wasliing away of sin." And imme- diately after baptism it is officially declared, " seeing how, dearly beloved, that this child is regenerate,''^ etc., Avhile the Divme Being is solemnly addi'essed in language such as this, BAPTISMAL GRACE. 333 "We yield Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased Thee to regenerate this infant with Thine Holy Spirit ; to receive him for Thuie own chUd, by adoption, and to incorj^orate him into Thy holy Chm-ch." A spiritual change and a change of state are here declared to have taken place, and sacramental works are put as the channel through which the grace is asserted to have flowed, in circumstances, too, where the party supposed to be justi- fied can not even have manifested faith. What can more directly cut at the root of justification by faith alone with- out works ? So clear, uniform, and certainly afliecting the eternal condition is this change supposed to be, by the Church of England, that in case a cliild die at any tune after the performance of this ceremony it may be buried in consecrated gromid. But if not thus sprmkled it has no such right, and in 1854 a bishop refused to consecrate one portion of a public burial-gromid for the members of the Church of England unless a substantial loall should separate their dead from those of the Dissenters. It may be said that all who have practiced infant ba^jtism have not believed it to produce a savmg change Uke this. True, but essentially infmt baptism teaches that it in some way alters the spiritual condition of the child, that it makes the child dying in infancy " more safe." Whatever good it eflects is not of grace, but of works ; works going before justification, and not the fruits of faith. To get rid of this, some of the New England divines have taken the ground that the children of parents who are in the Cliurch are em- braced in the covenant hy hirth and therefore baptized, thus not admitting that baptism brmgs them into it. But in that case the baptism of their parents would be as sufficient as 334 INFANT BAPTISM their faith. Unquestionably the New England divines have had all sorts of theories, earnestly deshuig to make infant baptism less contradictory to the whole evangelical system than it natm-ally appears. This Dr. Bushnell has shown while himself endeavormg to establish yet another view. Certam it is that in Xew England, in spite of all its ingen- ious theories, infant baptism, through the half covenant sys- tem, had weU-nigh subverted the whole evangeUcal faith, especially around Boston. Dr. Ide' says, "A Pedobaptist historian very candidly mforms us that, at the beginnmg of the present century all the Congregational Churches in Boston, with a single ex- ception, had renounced the faith of the Pm-itans. The Old South stiU stood upon the platform of the Fathers, though her pastor was a semi-Arian. But when the enemy came in hke a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifted up a standard against him. In the year 1803 the Baptist Chm-ches in the city were visited with a precious revival, in which the Old South shared to some extent. A few of the members of this Church occasionahy worshipmg with the Baptists be- came revived and established a i^rayer-meeting among themselves, from which a renovating movement commenced that has been the origin of all the orthodox Congregational Churches ^\dth which the city of the Pilgrims is now blessed. Thus when infant baptism had put out the fire on aU its own altars, with the exception of one soUtaiy shrine, and had caused it even there to burn dim and low, the flame was kindled again from altars which this unscriptural rite had never been sufi'ered to profane. And whUe amid the Egyjitian darkness that settled over the Pedobaptists in ' See his edition of Infant Baptism Part and Pillar of Popery, pp. 95-98. AND U:!fITABIANISM. 335 Boston, the Baptists iu tlieir Goshen, at the North End, thus walked in ixnclovided hght, and showed themselves valiant for the truth ; so throughout the land, feeble and scattered as they were, they stood firm by the cause of theu' Master. Though thousands around were casting off the authority of Jesus, not a man of them wavered m his allegiance. From all then* places of worship the ensign of the cross streamed out undepressed and untarnished, and from all their pulpits the Godhead of Christ and the sover- eign efficacy of His blood were distinctly and earnestly pro- claimed. " To the memory of these brave hearted men justice may never be done in this world, but we doubt not, in the great day of decision, when all events and instrumentalities shall be placed in their true light, it will appear that to the Baf)- tists of Massachusetts belongs the honor of having been the first to arrest the overflowing scoiu'ge, that they were the Abdiels Avho remained faithful in the midst of revolted multitudes, that it Avas they who, when aU seemed lost, threw themselves single-handed into the van of the battle and held the field against fearful odds, until behind their scattering front the broken ranks of orthodoxy were formed anew. Peace to the ashes of these Christian heroes." 336 THE ESSENTIAL PKIESTHOOD. CHAPTEE III. THE ESSEXTIAL PEIESTHOOD OF ALL TEUE CHEISTIAJSTS. Two of the most deservedly popular writers of Ecclesi- astical history in the present day, Neander and Merle D'Anbigue, consider '•'•the essential priesthood of all true Christians'''' as one of the most important and origuial fea- tures presented in the history of the Christian Church. In his " History of the Reformation" the latter of these says, " At the begmning the Church was a society of brethren. * * * All Chiistians were j^^'iests of the Hving God with humble pastors for their guidance. * * * But in popery the holy and primitive equality of souls before God is lost sight of, Christians are divided into two strangely vmequal camps, on the one side, a separate class of priests, on the other, timid flocks reduced to blmd submission." Indeed he declares that one of the two most important fea- tures in which Christianity differed from all the human sys- tems which fell before it was, that " whereas the priests of Paganism were almost the gods of the people, Jesus Christ dethroned those livmg idols, abohshed this proud hierarchy — took from man what man had taken from God, and re-estabUshed the soul in direct communication with the Divine fouutam of truth, p-oclaimiug himself the only Master and Mediator, One is your Master, even Christ, and ye are all brethren." Neander traces out the departure fi-om this principle as one of the first great corrnptious — '•'■revolutionizing,'''' in fact, the Chi'istian Chm-ch.^ He speaks of " the formation ' Torrey, vol, i. 193-200. NEANDER AXD EU:N"SEX. 337 of a sacerdotal caste iii the Christian Church" as " an idea ahen to the Christian principle — an idea -vdiich could not fail to hrmg about a revolution of views, destined to last for ages, and even to imfold itself in a ^\ider circle from the germ which had once been implanted." " The great prui- ciple of the New Testament, the universal i^riestly charac- ter, grounded in that conunon and immediate relation of all to Christ as the source of the divme life was repressed, the idea interposmg itself of a })articular mediatory j)riest- hood attached to a distinct order." After this " Although the idea of the (universal) priest- hood, m the purely evangehcal sense, grew continually more obscure and was thrust further mto the background, in proportion as that unevangelical point of view became more and more predominant, yet it was too deeply rooted in the very essence of Christianity to be totally suppressed." " When the idea of this universal priesthood reth-ed into the background, that of the priestly consecration which aU Christians should make of their entu'e hfe loent along v>ith it.'''' ChevaUer Bunsen, in his recent work on " Hippolytus and his Times," insists with great strenuousness on the same truths and their \'ital importance. But a higher authority among Christians than Neander or than Bunsen addressed himself to the members gener- ally of the first Churches of Christ, and said, " Ye also, as Uvely stones, are built up a spiritual house, an lioly priest- hood to oifer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." ' AU true Christians, then, are by nature and inheritance, priests^ and as such it is their highest privilege and imper- ' 1 Peter, ii. 5, 9. 15 338 DUTIES OF THE PEIESTHOOD. ative duty to pray for and teach all mankind the knowledge of the true God, That "svhich m this coiintry forms the basis of all our lib- erties, is the acknowledged fact of the sovereignty residing in the people, and not in the rulers. So, that which consti- tutes the liberty and excellency of true Christianity as op- posed to false, is the essential priesthood of all true Chris- tians. In heaven the souls of the blessed continually do praise the Redeemer, not only that He hath redeemed them to God by his blood, but hath made them kings and pHests to " God and to the Lamb." We have not m this lost sight of the Christian ministry as a distinct and divinely constituted order. The political fact that the sovereignty is in the people, does not obA^iate the necessity of executive officers, such as a president and magistrates. Neither, then, does the universal priesthood of the Church do away with distinct ministries and pastor- ships. But there is much work in the Church which never can be adequately performed by ministers alone, or while all other Christians forget that they, too, have sacrifices to offer and duties to accomplish. This whole subject has not vmfi-equently been stated in missionary and other discom-ses, thus: "The evangeliza- tion of the world belongs to all churches and to all Chris- tians as such, but all are not able to go out personally to preach Christ, and these must do their part by contributing to the support of those who do go." But such a repre- sentation even as this foils utterly short of the great truth stated by St. Peter. It makes a loop-hole for laziness in the great commission itself For many a man might easily afford to give his hundreds or his thousands, if he could thus buy himself off from the duty of personal labors and IJIPERFECTLT COXCEIVED, 339 services for the cause of Christ. While the Christian, how- ever, as a priest, has got to present the sacrifices and the thank ofte rings of his gold and his silver ui^on the altar of God, he has far more than this all to do. He has first of all to present himself a living sacrifice. His time, his tal- ents, his personal labors, and instructions, must all be flilly consecrated to the service of his Master. The greatest difticulty is not to find men who are willing to contribute for the support of all church and missionary expenses cheerfully. There are thousands who wUl pay a minister liberally to pray for them and j^reach to them, and to the whole world besides, if they may but sit still in spiritual idleness or follow their wonted pursuits from Mon- day morning to Saturday night, immolested by the claims of religion and by the duties of this universal priesthood. We would not disparage the moralities and amiabilities manifested by such persons ; and it is, perhaps, a hopeful sign to see their places filled in the sanctuary on the Sab- bath. But we can not help asking whether those who are in Scripture addressed as " a holy priesthood," have not got some spiritual sacrifices to ofiier up themselves, whether it is not their duty to instruct their children at home in the ways of piety, and to pray in their fainilies, and in the prayer-meetings, and to take part in the Sabbath-school and Bible-classes. It is as truly their prerogative to labor directly for the conversion of souls to God as it is of those who preach. This has been the great point at issue between true and formal religion in all ages. That professed Christian who does not labor personally, and pray earnestly, for the cor • version of mankind, not only lowers down the tone of thu whole of God's eternal priesthood by an injurious example, 340 PROTESTANT POPEKT. but injures his own soul inconceivably by the lack of these spii'itual exercises. One can no more maintain the comforts of piety in his own soul without an active and aggressive piety than a man can enjoy health without exertion. And it is for this cause that so many are weak and sickly among lis, and so many sleep. Exercise on the one hand, or disease on the other, are as much laws of the spiritual as of the physical world. Except a man deny himself, says the Saviour, and take up his cross daily, he can not be my dis- ciple — and if not a disciple, not a priest. Indeed, the Christian, all the time he is on earth, is, in this respect, like one recovering from a long and dangerous disease, the exercise that refreshed him yesterday, and in- creased his health, will be too little for him to-morrow, and he must go on increasing his labors as he increases strength, under the penalty of a relapse. Yea, there is a joyousness about the increasing exertions of pious labor like that of one whose strength is daily augmenting. No man who is not labormg earnestly, and laboring directly^ as a spiritual priest Avill enjoy the spiritual health and privileges, which are his birthright. "VYe may call ourselves Protestants, or by any other name we i^lease, but the restrictions of the priesthood to the muiistry is the essential error of Popery. That system makes the minister the only jjriest — the only one to offer up the spiritual sacrifices of prayer and j^raise, keeping back the people from doing any thing. And just as the old ab- solutists of Europe have placed that sovereignty m one man, that rightly belongs to the whole people, so it has devolved that ^j>?v'esles is the principal source of its strength. National governments have generally undertaken to rule men just m the reverse way from the Church, and miserable work have they made of it. They have governed mainly by force, by armies, by police, and by stringent laws, until society in the old world "UTithes in its agony, and is all ready to drop to pieces. The Church of Christ imdertakes to govern man by love, by conscience, by exhibiting wjiat is right and true, by con- ferrmg its pri^dleges only on the good — and it flourishes and increases. Napoleon, speaking of the kingdom of Christ, said, " We rest the creations of our genius upon force, Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love, and at this mo- ment millions of men would die for hkn." ITS POWER. 351 There is not a Christian but must have felt the strange contrast which there is between the kingdom, of Christ and most other kingdoms that have yet seen the light of the sun. Its objects seem so different, and its methods so dif- ferent, while yet it accomplishes all the great ends, even the earthly ends of government better than any other mstitu- tion. It does more to assist men and put ^nithin their reach the best means of promotmg their happiness, prosperity, and protection. Go into some neighborhood where vice most prevails, and social order is least preserved, where all that makes a community vii'tuoits, mdustrious, and happy, is set the most comjjletely at defiance. Go with laws, with constables, with magistrates, and soldiers, and can you rectify the dis- orders of that community as you can by plantmg a Church of Christ, opening the doors of a house of worship, training the yoimg m Sabbath-schools, and exhortmg the old to reformation and penitence? Gather the community to- gether to adore their Creator and rej^ent of their sins, form the Christians into a holy brotherhood, and it will soon ai> pear that there is no power on earth equal to it. And yet it is a power of which the nations of mankind have very little real conception. If ever there was a time when it was paljDable to all man- kind that there is something radically wrong and rotten at the root of most of the old systems of government, tliis is the time. Like a row of dominoes which children set on end, and make one fall against another till the whole drop, so are most of the kingdoms of Europe and Asia tottermg, jostling, and crashing against each other at this time. From the only uuagitated spot, one may say, in the civilized world, we in this country calmly survey tliis state of things without 352 ORIGIN OF SELF-GOVERNMENT cause of alarm, if we can but adhere only to the princiiiles on which the nation was constituted. Now, it can easily be shown that it is religion — the re- ligion of Christ that has given to this country the germ of her present happiness and institutions, makmg her political importance what it is. What was Xew England originally but a live coal shot out from the volcano of the Reformation ? It was the livmg embodiment of principles struck out in the heat and fires of those tremendous throes of religious opinion wdiich agitated England from Henry VIII. to Charles II. Rights of conscience which seemed visionary and impractic- able m the Old World were here tested and proved not un- practicable for the ISTew. The basis of the modem civil liberties of this coimtry (and of Europe) may all be traced back to speculations upon reUgious liberty and the rights of conscience. The Declaration of Indei^endence was but the public announcement of a thmg, the germ of which had existed long before. The American principles of self-gov- ernment in the State origmated in self-government in the Church. The idea of choosing officers and settling every thing peaceably by the vote of the majority, was evidently derived, in this country, from the custom of thus electing Chxirch officers, and of thus arranging all religious matters, in Holland. The Church without a prelate went before the State without a king. The germ and basis of those political institutions which here have produced so much happmess may be found m the Church and town meetings of the New England colonies long enough prior to the Revolution. In fact, the history of self-government in America may be traced back to its origin, in 1620, when the voyagers of the May Flower on landing, finding themselves out of the colony of Virginia, signed a paper, mutually promisuig to IN AMERICA. 853 submit to all such "just and equal laws and ordinances" as should from time to time he thought most convenient for the common good.' What alone were wanting in Massachusetts — full religious liberty, safe guarantees for the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority, and separation of Church and State, were supplied by Roger Williams, drawing his idea of a Church from the N"ew Testament alone. It was the reserved rights of each, first completely conceived and struggled for in this country by Roger Williams, that be- came the foundation of the perfect civil liberties and indi- vidual rights secured to each hi this land. In 1638, a solemn covenant was, hi like manner, signed by Roger Williams and his associates to submit to the orders of "the major part," but " in civil thmgs owTy."'' The Charter from Khig Charles, which he afterward secured, was obtained chiefly to protect themselves from the en- croachments of Massachusetts. We have only to read the Acts of the Apostles, and see the model of this Republic of Independent States in those spiritual communities scattered here and there over Pales- tine, and extending through Asia Minor and Egypt, until they filled the whole Roman empire. Those Churches so dependent ujion Christ, yet so mdeijendent of the whole world beside, peaceably choosing then* own ofiicers, and managing their own afiliirs, counselmg like brothers, and fraternizmg without interfering with each other's independ- ence and reserved rights ; those Churches of Christ and his Apostles gave to the world the idea of that new kind of civil government which now stands in such a happy contrast to the moldering thrones of the Old World. > Hildreth, vol. i. p. 159. 8 HUdreth, vol i. p. 256. 354 ORIGIN OF The right of the majority to govern, was in New Eng- land, taught the State by all the Congregational Churches in common. But the reserved rights of the mhiority on all matters about which there could be conscientious scruples were first declared to this Continent by the Bap- tist colony of Rhode Island. As a smgular illustration of the whole of this, it should not be forgotten that the Charter, drawn up on pruiciples suggested by Roger Wil- hams, survived the Revolution of 1776,. and remained the Constitution of that State imtil mthm a very recent period. There is no other civilized government on the face of the earth that changed so little hi its constitution m those two hundred years, while yet altermg so largely and so pros- perously m all outward circumstances. If from the mtellectual origin we turn now to the prac- tical development of liberty, it was in Virgmia that the resolutions of 1765, against the Stam^i Act, carried through by Patrick Henry, brought to a crisis the great struggle for liberty. And it is the history of liberal views, m the most originally aristocratic of the colonies, which will best illustrate the bearing of religious opinions on the civil con- stitution of a peoplo. In 1745 a company of New England Baptists settled in Virgmia, from whose extraordinary zeal nearly the whole of the Baptists of the South and South-west, now num- bermg more than half a million of communicants, have since sprung. They first undermined the union of Church and State in Virginia, A religious revolution precisely on the same principles as the political one which followed, took place when Patrick Henry overthrew the established clergy in the parson's cause. It was this success that gave him weight and enabled him to unite the aristocracy with the AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 355 masses of the peo})le (two thirds of whom were now dis- senters), in the revohitionary resohitious against the Stamp Act. He turned the popular feeluig of the State in pre- cisely the same way agamst British interference with pohti- cal liberty in the latter case, as agamst her infringement ujioii religious liberty in the former. The carrying of those resolutions against the Stamp Act was the turning pomt of the question of revolution, and no one could or would have fought that through but the man who had already led on successfully the former revolution- ary struggle.^ But for his popularity with the people, both his resolutions and himself would have shared a very dif- ferent fxte. It was what he had gamed in the religious contest that enabled hun to hold the aristocracy of Vir- ginia to the cause of the people ; and this united the whole weight and uifluence of that colony, then the largest from the outset, in the cause of tlie Revolution. But for all these causes combining, the Stamp Act would have^been submitted to. And all through the early part of that struggle, it was Patrick Henry's devotion to religious liberty that drew round him no unmiportant measure of his personal pop\;larity and influence. He became the open and voluntary legal defender of the Baptists, and from the very first, as all historians agree, the Baptists, to a man, united in espousiag the cause of the Revolution. They Avere of all classes foremost in their labors and sufferings for its achievement. Throughout the whole country from Georgia to Massachusetts, as Backus'' and others have shown, they were every where publicly committed to the cause beyond any other religious denomination, and as such their houses of worship were defaced or destroyed, and their ' See ante, p. 51. 2 Backus, ch. xi. p. 196. 356 JEFFERSON congregations subjected to unusual persecutions 'svherever the British forces came. Tlieir sons joined the army, and their ministers acted as cliaphiins to the troops. Jefferson in Vii'ginia did more tlian most others to give a scientific and formal cast to the prmciples of hberty in Yirgmia, and thus largely to the United States ; and it is not unimportant to show how he obtained some of his ideas. From the experiments and falliwes of the ancient Greek Repubhcs he unquestionably got many of the checks and balances of his opmions. But he, no less than Patrick Henry, got his first clear conceptions of a free civil consti- tution from observation of the results of freedom of con- science. Religious government as exhibited by Baptist Churches taught him the form of government best suited to the United States. There was a small Baptist Church which held its monthly meetings for business at a short dis- tance from Mr. Jefferson's house, eight or ten years before the American Revolution. Mr. Jefferson attended these meetings for several months in succession. The pastor on one occasion asked him how he was pleased with their Church government ? Mr. Jefferson repUed that it struck him with great force, and had interested him much, that he considered it the only form of true democracy then exist- ing in the worlds and had concluded that it would be the best plan of government for the American colonies. Tliis was several years before the Declaration of Independence. This practical exhibition of religious liberty and equality would seem then to have operated on Mr. Jefferson's mind no little in formmg those principles of civil freedom and government which he afterward so ably developed and ad- vocated. There has been a question raised whether it was not a FREE GOVERNMENT 357 Presbyterian Church in the neighborhood, that Jefferson attended for this purpose. Though a matter of no great consequence, it may not be improper to remark that a gen- tleman of the highest respectability, and well known in North Carolina, told the writer that his attention havmg been called to the statement, and he knowing that the venerable Mrs. Madison had some recollections on the sub- ject, asked her m regard to them. She expressed a distinct remembrance of Mr. Jeflerson si^eaking on the subject, and always declaring that it was a Baptist Church from which these views were gathered. Indeed a moment's reflection would show that it could hardly have been any other. For in no Presbyterian Church is the business ever transacted in the presence of those who are not members, it being all conducted by " the session," as it is called, consistmg only of the officers of the Church and uniformly in private. The conception, the faith that calls tilings into existence, the confidence of the practicability of a free government^ whose ultimate earthly power is vested in the masses of the community — this idea was plainly obtained by Jefferson himself, from a small Baptist Church, meeting month after month to govern itself by the laws of the New Testament, in his own neighborhood. It was certainly the Baptist Churches of this country w^ho were the first to suggest and to maintain those ideas of religious hberty, and of conse- quent lunitations upon the power of the majority to inter- fere with the rights of tlie minority, which form some of the most sacred features of American liberty.' It was thus, in more general terms, the Church that gave men m this country a faith in self-government, and a knowl- edge of the only way m which it could be maintained — a 1 See ante, p. 56. 358 REVOLUTIONS UNSUCCESSFUL faith and a knowledge that have not taken root in Europe, but which, are now at work like leaven, and must work untU the happiness of nations has grown out of it. The American Revolution, howcA^er, was but the firing of a signal gun for a campaign of liberty in Europe, of which no mortal can even yet begin to see the end. The first French Revolution was the immediate result ; an attempt to imi- tate m France what had been accomplished in America. But there was this important distinction at the outset, which made all the diflierence in its immediate results — the people had never been used to self-government in religion, and therefore were unprepared for it in politics. They had particularly never received the ideas of Roger WUliams, as to the sacredness of conscience, and the reserved rights of the soul. Hence they were imprepared to conceive of true political liberty, or the constitutional rights of each man reserved to him against the anarchical oppression of a ma- jority. They had no pure religion, and therefore could have no true liberty. They had infidel philosophy on one hand, and Papal superstition on the other ; the Missal in- stead of the Bible, and the confessional in the place of family worship, an unscrupulous Jesuitical priesthood instead of a pure and Gospel Church. It is not in every page of histary that this lesson can be so clearly and demonstrably traced out, as just here. In ordinary times, and among common men, the secret forces which the religion of a land is ever exerting, are hardly perceptible ; just as the constant vitalizing influence of elec- tricity momentarily at work is not usually perceived, but only the occasional thunder-cloixd. Does a land prosper ? men bless the wisdom of their OAvm schemes, their educa^ tion, their laws, their enterprise, their liberties, all these "WITHOUT KELIGIOJiT. 359 secondary causes are brought forth m turn, and worshijjed, just as of old they cried out by the space of three hours, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" while yet the First cause, the cause of all other causes of prosperity, is forgotten. But what are any of these without the vitalizing agency of a pure and simple religion to regulate them and give them sufficiency ? What is education? Knowledge truly s power, but power of evil to the bad ; of good only to the good. Who would "n^sh to see every tyrant become a giant, and a razor in the hands of every madman ? Yet such is knowledge to a people without virtue and piety. What can law eifect ? It requires good men to make good laws, a good community to support them, and a good heart to love them. What is liberty itself with all its sweets, to the reckless and unprincipled ? The veriest bubble that ever child blew. Indeed those arrangements which are best, so long as a majority remain on the side of virtue, are worst where, as in the city of Paris, the majority become corrupt. Not one, nor all tlimgs beside can make a land either great or happy. Li^dng religion is the real source of this nation's jH'osperity — that only can make its truly wise and philo- sophical arrangements work successfully. We hazard nothing m sajdng that this country owes more to the prayers and the piety of its ancestry, than it does even to their valor and their "s^-isdom, great as they were. And each de- nomination and each Christian, in proportion as they con- tribute to a pure reUgion, make the most valuable offering to civil liberty. As in prosperity men exult in the wisdom of their own schemes, instead of glorying in the only wise God, so in adversity they can see no cause for the disruptions of civil commotions, or the sudden panics and fluctuations of com- 360 FIRST FREXCH REVOLUTION. merce, beyond excess of trade, fictitious capital, the con- duct of the banks, or the pohtical mismanagement of other nations. But the man of piety perceives a cause far above all these. He sees generally some great religious prmciple violated. The people of America or of England have hastened to be rich, perchance, and they have not been inno- cent ; or those of Italy have trampled on the rights of con- science, and civil liberty Ues prostrate. The powers of the Old "World have become steeped in luxury and extravagance, and those of the New World, perhaps, are not free from political corruption. Just where the wisdom of the wise man fails him, and the intelligence of the j^rudent man is brought to naught, and can suggest no remedy, the Christian "has imderstanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do." All the disasters and failures, all the horrors and excesses of the first French Revolution, are distinctly attributable to the want of a true religion in the hearts of the masses, and were at length traced to it most clearly and distinctly by the very Frenchmen who first tamed this wild political chaos.' What is the whole history of Spain but a repetition of the same great lesson, that Uberty can not flourish in the State until men are first accustoij^ed to use and to imjDrove it in religion ? In England, where pohtical liberty has slowly but steadily advanced, it has been preceded by a firm and correspond- ing progress of refigious freedom. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts characteristically went before the Reform Bill, and rendered it inevitable. The special connection of the Bajjtists in Europe with all ' Alison's History of Europe, vol. ii. p. 200. Harper. ROBEKT HALL AND DK. KYLAND. 3G1 the great movements in favor of liberty, has been one wliich can never give them cause to bhish. During the Revohitionary War, and after Lord Chatham liad deserted the cause of the Colonies, the English Baptists remamed fast friends to their liberties, and this even while Eng- land was carrying on the war; and it is a fact not unworthy of notice and of record, that Robert Hall seems to have received the concei^tion of the very finest passage he ever uttered in the pulpit, or A^Tote with his pen, from hearing his father and Dr. Ryland, two Baptist ministers, advocat- ing the merits of the Revolutionary cause ^ — a passage considered by the best judges as " unsurpassed by any pro- duction of modern or of ancient orators." If from England we turn to the Continent, almost every kuigdom of Europe has, within the last ten years, been on the eve of overthrowmg its monarch. The chief reason why so little progress has been made toward Uberty is the dread of that infidel, red rej)ublicanism, which threatens ihe destruction of the whole social system. Men "wisely, in such circumstances, prefer the knowTi evils of much tyranny to the unkno^\^l abuses of utter anarchy. France, the ex- periment-making nation for Europe, has tried both. But if now it should be asserted that this connection be- tween Baptists and Hberal prmciples has been of an acci- dental nature, or if it should be demanded what great re- ligious truths are held by them pecuUarly favorable to a true and yet judicious attachment to liberty, we need only remind the reader of some of the principles which we have shown to belong to them universally and eminently. 1. Their reliance on the JBlble, and the Bible alone, as their rule of faith and practice. This has led them to do every ' See Appendix F. p. 411, 16 362 THE BIBLE AND FREEDOM. tiling to place it in the hands of the whole world, and has done more to identify them with the cause of true liberty, more for the progress of mankind, than all the speculations of philosophers. The freest nations are those which have the Bible most thoroughly in^a-ought into the texture of their constitu- tions ; not trusting to mere natural religion, on the one hand, or to the Canon Law of Roman CathoUcism on the other. If we take, for instance, Christian nations as a whole, and compare them with the heathen kingdoms of the earth, there can be no question but that science, litera- tm-e, art, national power, mdividual security, and social happmess greatly preponderate among Christian people. But if we look among nominally Christian nations, and ask where is the greatest amoimt of true Uberty, happiness, and rapid national advancement, the answer must come back, that it is in those nations and in that proportion in which the Bible, the true text-book of Christianity, is most circulated. The whole history of the world shows that atheism on the one hand, and superstition on the other, destroy liberty in any nation. •2. The recognition of inalienable rights is the basis of all freedom, and the vindication of the rights of conscience has done more for the liberties of mankind than can easUy be estimated. As we have seen, any bold achievement in favor of re- ligious freedom has always been followed by corresponduig successes to temporal liberty. The English Reformation in religion was the basis of modern English and American freedom. Hence the vindication of the inalienable rights of con- science by Roger Williams, and their practical declaration THE REFUGE OF HUMAN EIGHTS, 363 by the Baptists in Virginia, did so mucli to prepare the way for those assertions of the abstract rights of citizens which have been among the characteristic features of American liberty. Liberty of conscience has ever been the last refuge and hiding-place of all the other rights of man. Hence has it al- ways been tlie most persecuted and hated by tyrants. Nor is it to be questioned that Roger Williams and all those Baptists before him, who asserted the sacredness of " soul liberty" did in that thmg strike the boldest stroke at all tyranny, and establish most firmly the base of all future successful operations against despotism. Liberty of speech on other subjects, and finally liberty of action grow natural- ly by degrees out of this. Men miist ever be educated for liberty before they will know how to use it without infring- ing the rights of others. Religious freedom prepared and trained this nation for the use of civil liberty, by the happy and considerate acknowledgment of the just rights of all others, A nation not thus trained, like France, found it impossible to be free, because not apj^reuticed to tliis con- siderate use of its liberty, 3, And still more directly are Baptist institutions power- fully friendly to free civil government by the form of theii" own ecclesiastical organizations, A person looking at the various denominations in this country superficially, might be disposed to believe that the religious and civil governments of a people have no necessary connection with each other. But yet nothing is more certain and demonstrable than that there is a constant tendency in the two to approach each other, Li the time of Constantine the government of the Chiu'ch gradually assumed the form of that of the State, the ranks of the hierarchy and the divisions of its metro- 364 CHANGES IN CHURCH GOVERNMENT. politan dioceses and patriarcliites, corresponding with simi- lar divisions in the Roman Emjiire. By degrees Rome Pa- gan was broken in pieces, but Rome Papal grasped the power it had dropped, sat itself in the vacant chair and still imitates, on a sf)iritual scale, as nearly as it can, the ancient temporal sway. Bitt notwithstandmg all its boasted miity there is much divergence in its practical government in exact correspond- ence ■with the political institu^tions of the various lands mto which it is extended. In the United States, for instance, notwithstanding all the efforts of bishops, and councils, and legates, we find a variety of the Roman Catholic re- ligion springing up vastly different from that even of Ire- land. We find lay trustees of CathoUc Churches capable, sometimes by themselves, of resistmg the priesthood. We find the Douay Bible more generally permitted, sermons more fi-equent and confessions more rare. In the Episcopal Church of this country again the laity have secured to them, by canons and constitutions, rights quite unknown to the Church of England. On the other hand the State, in like manner, m a great measure imbibes, by a kind of capillary attraction, its constitutions from the religious forms of government to ^^-hich men are accustomed. Thus the centrahzation of English Episcopal power in the See of Canterbury helped in no small degree to unite the Heptarchy into one nation. Xor is it without some found- ation that an analogy has been supposed to exist between the three orders m the English Church, and the three or- ders in the British Constitution. It is not, therefore, by accident, but by tlie natural and inevitable tendency of things that the self-government of the Churches of New England led to self-government in the civil institutions, wrought out SUMMARY J65 by the Revolution of 17V6, or tl^it led even the free-think- ing Jefferson, in Virginia, to look forward before the Revo- lution to the Baptist form of chm-ch government, then just becoming popular with the masses, because most free, as the pattern of the future civU government of the Colonies. CONCLUDING CHAPTER. We commenced this volume by tracing the history of the struggle for religious liberty entered mto by the Baptists single-handed and alone, and we have seen the principles for which they suflered not only nationalized in this coun- try and engrossed mto its very Constitution, but rapidly spreading throughout Europe, rescumg the Mazziuis in Naples from the power of the priests, and AchUli from the dimgeons of the Inquisition in Rome. It has penetrated the Mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinople, sheathing for- ever the persecutmg sword of the false prophet. "We have seen, too. Baptist principles the means of reviv- uig, m other denominations, the requirement of personal piety to Church fellowship, until it has made indi\ddual choice before full commmiion, the most distmguisliing and obvious feature of American Christianity. "We have seen the mfluence of this denommation in chang- ing the most firmly estabUshed religious usages of society, and banishing infant sprmkling to such an extent that per- haps not one infant in ten, born in the United States, is now the subject of this ceremony where, a hundred years ago, hardly one in ten was left uninitiated. The change thus w I'ought constitutes one of the most powerful revolu- 366 SUMMARY. tions as to tlie terms of Cljristian Chui-ch membersliip that have taken place in a thousand years. We have seen not only the prmciples but the practices of the Baptists extending to such a degree that, in addition to the very large number of persons rejecting Lafant bap- tism in other Churches, a quarter of the whole church ac- commodation of the United States is in the hands of thos who immerse adults only in baj^tism.* "We have seen this denomination originating those for- eign missionary enterj^rises of modern evangeUzation which are at this moment producing such astonishing effects upon the nations of the East, dashing the empire of China in pieces as a potter's vessel, and destmed apparently to bring about the latter-day millennial glories of the Christian cause. Their ministers were the first to suggest and engage in those gigantic labors of modern Bible circulation, Avhich have pubHshed ten times more copies of the word of God in the last fifty years than aU which were put in circulation in the pre\aous eighteen hundred, translating the Bible mto the languages of a proi^ortionably greater number of the mhabitants of the world. We have seen their views of rehgious Hberty and the ^ The last census shows the whole number of the houses of worship for the United States to be 33,061, capable of seating 14,234,825, of this number, i. e., 10,341 houses of worship, capable of seating 3,576,199 per- sons, are held by churches practicing adult immersion as the only Chris- tian baptism. Those Christians who practice mixed communion are in this estimate mostly counted with the Pedobaptists. I have here included the Campbellites (who do not, however, exceed in number those Baptists in sentiment who are in other denominations), but if they are omitted, it will not essentially vary the result since tvitliout them a quarter of the whole toiises of worship in this country, wanting only seventeen, are Baptists. A DEKP FOUXDATIOX. 3G7 reserved rights of conscience made the pattern of the lib- erties and reserved rights of each citizen, and their very forms of .Church government examined by free-thinking philosophers and statesmen, and, after mature deliberation, declared to be suggestive of the best form of government for the peojile of the United States. Such has been the progress and such have been some of the eiFects of Baptist principles during the j^ast hundred years. It surely must be projDer and hnportant to trace all this on the ground of historic truth. The history of a doc- trine of principle is far more valuable than that of a sect. A full account of the Baptists as a denomination has not been the object of this volume. But the history of the spread of their ][>rinciples is far more important to the world, more demonstrative of their truth or falsehood, and more indicative of their future progress, and that of those who uphold them. The men who originate the most im- portant movements, seldom are the men to record them. Those who achieve the materials for history, seldom stop to wi-ite them dpAvn. Thus far Baj)tists have wi'ought rather than WTitten. They have dug a deep foundation, running mider groimd through the history of Christianity in the world and resting on the Rock of Ages. But as a denomi- nation they have not occupied its pages Asdth a description of the lofty erections which they have reared. As in the construction of some large buildmg it takes months to dig away the rubbish, and lay the foundations firm so that the building seems long m reaching the level of the surroimd- ing earth, while after that, it soon appears as a lofty edifice that shall stand for ages ; so thus far the progress of the Baptists has been slow and laborious, while removhag errors and prejudices fi'om the minds of nations so as to get a 368 DANGEROUS ATTACKS. clear space and settled foundation, upon wliich to build. But that woi'k accomplished, the rest becomes cei-tain, easy and enduring. As the historian Neander once remarked, " There is a future for you Bajitists." And further, it has appeared to the author proper to ex- hibit these developments because many of those principles upon which it had been supposed that all Protestants "vvere agreed, have of late years been made the objects of subtler and more dangerous attack than ever before — these attacks nsually coming from those "U'lio were themselves, in their religious antecedents, leaders m all the evangelical move- ments among our Pedobaptist brethren. Infant baptism is also the chief uistrument ui all these opposmg movements. In the hands of the sons of a Wilberforce it is the lever by which they and multitudes more, prejudiced against dissent, would upheave Protestantism from the foundation of the Apostles and prophets ; in those of Dr. Xevin it conducts to a High Church ground, equally fatal to evangelical piety in others, though not, perhaps, in him. It is time to show historically that on the scale of a himdred years, the most consistent, durable, and reliable plan for an evangelical Church is that of bajitism upon a credible profession of personal faith. But further, this historical sketch of Baptist principles is also written for the sake of many of the Pedobaptist breth- ren in Christ, who are truly evangelical in spirit, who ab- hor Romanism in all its forms ; M^ho would rather give up infant baptism than encourage Popery, but who also view the Baptists as men dotmg about questions and strifes to no profit, magnifying little matters and making a mere cer- emony the foundation of a sect. We may ask such candidly if under lyiiig the simple THE PROrER REMEDY. 369 forms which Baptists profess, there is not a deep and dis- tinctive theory, clear and evangehcal, embodyuig what is vital, necessary, and consistent to Christian visible Church membership in the greatest smiplicity — if experience has not proved the hnportance of our prmciples not only to ourselves but to the age in which we live. In looking for- ward to the unknown future, and all the possible changes and corruptions anticipated by such men as Bunsen, likely to take place, it may be asked if these principles do not aiford the most secure and consistent platform on Avhich to build Christian Churches. Indeed, seeing that Pedoba})- tists can admit the validity of the initiatory rite as performed by Baptists, whUe they are unable to do the same in regard to that performed otherwise, it may be asked if there s^iould not be a general return to the ancient practice of 'jnmersion indicated in the original command " to JBap- tize''' — and if it could not t)e deferred altogether, mitU the time of personal and chosen faith, being now generally acknowledged to be incomplete without it. Then alone it can be valid, and, therefore, appropriate. Other denomi- nations may thmk it unnecessary and a weakness in Bap- tists to plead so strenuously for points tike these ; but they know from the experience of the past that these greatly mvolve the permanence of the evangelical system. Many are probably struggling for light upon their j^ath of duty m this very respect. The general decline of infmt baptism shows that this must be the case. The remarks and biographies of many of the leading defenders of the system point to the same truth. When such a man as Dr. Bushnell tells us that at the thne of his ordination, so strong were his doubts and so little could he find that was positively in favor of the system, that he came near being 16* 370 TEMPTATIONS OF THE EXEMT. reject 3d from ordination, and could only at last find ground for it in a system -wliicli all bis brethren give up as full of dangerous tendencies, surely tbere must be many who have his doubts 's\T.thout his method of resohong them. Dr. Alex- ander and one of his fellow professors for some years had to give up the practice of mfant baj^tism, and hesitated about the duty of joiuing the Baptists, and at last were de- terred chiefly by the dangerous idea that Baptist " notions of the purity of the Chm-ch" are " too rigkl^'''' and by a want of knowledge of Church history, which, though al- lowable enough forty years ago, every reader of Xeander or Augusti could at once supply. The writer was assured from a most authentic source, while in an Eastern city of the Union a few years age, that a late distinguished evangelical divme, whose name is fa- miliar to thousands, told a ladj who applied to him with doubts ujion the subject, that he himself had been much tried in the same way, but at last had concluded these were temptations of the enemy of souls, and had j^rayed against them as such. Should such doubts as to the truth of this or any other point of religious duty molest any of our Pedobaptist brethren, nothing surely can be more appropriate than to pray, but not as many excellent men do, prejudguig while they pray. A more trustmg sjDirit, and the desire that God vnVi lead them into all truth, clear their minds from mis- takes, and give them grace to tread boldly the j^ath of duty ; faithful in that which is least, as well as in that which appears greatest, is surely Tviser. It was no tempta- tion of the Evil One that led Baptist Noel lately to forsake the Church of England and become a Baptist. When a child is added to a Pedobaptist family, it is AM I BAPTIZED. 371 I robably dedicated by the pious parents to God iu prayer, t efore any tiiouglits about a christening occur. But at last the question comes up for practical solution, " Shall we present this child for baptism ?" and Scripture is sometimes hunted for proofs, and books and tracts are examined, only to discover how weak and insufficient they all appear in its suj)port. The matter is suffered perhaps to lie over. An- other and another little one cause fresh remonstrance on the part of the mmister, and fresh mvestigation on that of the parent, A\4th the settled conviction now that there is no divine authority for infant baptism. Sometimes a sermon iu defense of sj)rinklmg leads to doubt,' and the question, often stifled, comes plainly up, ^'' Am I baptized P^^ And then the Christian finds that 1 The following anecdote was given me by a gentleman who witnessed the scene, in South Carolina : — The Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyte- rians, in a small community, agreed to build a meeting-house in com- mon — preaching by turns. When it came to the turn of the Presbyte- rian minister, he said he felt it his duty to preach on baptism, and did so, remarking that he should give them the truth, and the whole truth, on the subject. In the course of his discourse he quoted Heb. x. 22 : " Having your hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience ;" and there he stopped. A little German member of the Baptist church was sitting in one comer of the house. He could only speak broken English ; but, Bible in hand, he turned to each passage referred to. Observing the minister stop at "conscience " he continued out loud, "a7id your bodies vashed- vith pure vater." This much confused the minister, who to re- cover himself repeated his last sentence, " having your hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience ;" " and your bodies vashed vith pure vater,'" was again the response of the pertinacious German. The minister was so an- noyed that he wound up his discourse. The congregation all began to read for themselves, and several became Baptists. As for the little Ger- man, he defended himself by saying, " Vy de minister say he vas going to give us de truth and de whole truth, and this vas de whole truth." 3V2 REMAINING ON SUFFERANCE botli th 3 mtentiou and the form, the feith and the ceremony of infant spiinklmg, are so completely distmct from those of believer's baptism, that he is not. Some will tell him, that though originally imperfect, his faith and subsequent pro- fession have ratified his baptism and made it valid. But he knows that no other mstrument, so far departmg, both in form and spirit, from the prescribed standard, could be rati- fied by any subsequent act, but wonld have to be executed afresh. Others ■will urge that " it is a matter of no miportance." But he sees that if one sacrament is of no hnportance, neither is the other, neither are visible Churches, nor mmis- ters, nor Sabbaths — that all stand on the same level, and must stand or fall together — that, whatever may be their importance to membership in the in-vdsible Church, they essentially belong to \dsible Chm-ches as s, \ and must be upheld " as they were delivered," or not at all. Some, like Coleridge, will claim a diecretionary power for the Church to alter and amend its own constitution. But this either makes it a merely human institution, a sim- ply voluntary Society, or else so divine a body that its au- thority equals that of the Saviour who foimded it. r^issatisfied with every defense of infhnt baptism, a pious Pedobaptist wiU often apply to his minister to baptize him. But then the pastor feels that by so doing he would ac- knowledge that all infant baptism might be reasonably re- garded as a nullity. Sometimes this difiiculty is got over, and the individual remams in a Church in which he has but little influence, and is perhaps stripped of office on accomit of his views. He is permitted to remam, but only on Suf- ferance, not on equal footing, while the whole influence of the Church is directed to the support of infant sprinkling, AMONG PEDOBAPTISTS. 873 by its sermons, catechisms, Sabbath-school insti-uction, and the public administration of it as a Chnrch rite. Where a person is already a member of an Evangelical Ch irch, to which he is bound by many ties, he may easUy think, possibly, that his duty lies rather among them than others. But then, perhaps, this further view of the case yvWl pre- sent itself, that among the duties of the visible Churches is that of upholding ordinances, keepmg them as they were originally delivered. Each approach to the commtinion table pledges every member to this. The case then would seem to stand thus : All the members of visible Churches are trustees, to whom it is committed of God to see that vahd baptism is upheld and urged in His name, and ad- ministered to the right characters, and in proper form, A conscientious ti . jtee finds that through mistake and care- lessness those with whom he had been accustomed to act have not properly quaUfied themselves for tliis duty, and have been in the habit of voting to administer it to unquali- fied persons, and in a manner quite unauthorized by the trust. He is so satisfied of this that he has anew qualified himself to act in the appointed form. But others remain as ignorant on this subject as he was, and by this means are perpetuating the error and all its evil consequences. There are, however, other bodies of trustees, who, having become duly qualified, rightly administer the trust, and thus correct the mistakes of their erroneous brethren. The question is, loith ichich of these bodies shall he act in future as a thor- oughly consistent Christian man f But the subject of this volume "Nrill, it is hoped, afibrd some matter of useful meditation to Baptists / and it has been for their sakes chiefly that it has been wi-itten. We 374 THE USEFUL EARNESTNESS onglit to mark the faithfulness of the Great Head of the Church to those who act, rclpngly upon His word without lookuig to consequences. The fathers of tlie Baptist de- nomination in this country a hundred years ago, Avere men of this stamp ; men of great firnmess and independence of character ; men Avlio walked alone with God, and could, therefore, endure to stand alone before men. There were among them, here and there, those of cultivated mind and of some repute for leammg, and attainments in the denomi- nations they left. But as a body they were all men who loved righteousness — men of great endurance for the truth's sake. If at any time since the baptisms of the day of Pentecost there were a body of persons who, from jjure and simple love of truth, and at the cost of every thing most dear to men, came out from the world and sometimes from other denominations, to form new and pure churches, they were the early Baptists of this country. Noble m- deed were the Pilgrim Fathers of Massachusetts in all these resj)ects, but they made one mistake. They were afraid to trust the truth to stand alone. They wanted to coerce men to make them good, and to get children com- mitted by vows before they could understand, lest they should not be willmg to commit themselves afterward. Such, indeed, has ever been the history of infant baptism, and they simply retained an error which had originated ages before, and which they rendered less harmful than any of their predecessors. But they had many prejudices not easily rooted out. The Baptists, on the other hand were more completely formed upon abstract JVeio Testament prindples from Roger Williams downward. To the superficial they may have seemed too fond of an abstract correctness with too OF THE EAKLY BAPTISTS. 375 little regard to what was practical. It is on this point that we have been anxious to vindicate their memory. For the first hundred years of their existence m this country they stood very much alone, insulted, fined, imprisoned, and de- spised. In Massachusetts this was the case up to the War of Independence. They were yet more unjustly and cruelly persecuted in Virginia for simply " preaching the Gospel of the Son of God." Few of them had education, and not many Avealth. They were looked ui^on by aU. others with a hatred it is now difiicult to conceive. They needed, and God gave to them, intrepidity of character to endure and to sufier without retaliation on the one hand, or flinchmg on the other. They were not reeds shaken by the wind ; and in raiment they approached him who wore the garment of camels' haii' more closely far than those clad in soft rai- ment, and who feed delicately. They were men deeply impressed with the importance of the peculiar principles upon ichich they had planted themselves — principles un- folded in the former pages of this work ; and they reitei*- ated them again and again, not separately, but as an aggre- gate — not in the form of dissected limbs of truth, but as one living body, clothed "with flesh, and into which God breathed the breath of heavenly life. These truths lay in theii' mmd as a simple whole, no part of which could be touched and abstracted without some injury to the rest. This was the essence of theii- Church system, this the life of their cause. The sunj^hcity, the consistency, and the intimate connection of every part Avith the whole, they deeply felt. That scheme was the same that the Savioui had embodied eighteen hundred years before in the DivLoo and lining organization of His Church system. These men felt its power and, therefore, they spoke. They had a boldei 316 THE GREAT DANGER way of instructing their cliurches iii those truths of whioh baptism is the symbol, than is now common. They brought it into the foreground as the New Testament unquestion- ably does, and gave it a conspicuousness as the most eloquent preacher of all those fundamental truths with which it was associated in their minds.. It was this boldness, this mi- questionable Scriptiiralness of their statements which gave Baptists aU their power and success. Itwas not their argu ments but their declarations that succeeded. Their views on baptism do not requu-e much reasoning to prove them true, for they are quite obvious. The burden of proof Ues on the other side to show that something else may possi- bly be true also. It is not by critical discussions on the word. (?a77T/^w, however appropriate in their place, perhaps, that this controversy is going to be settled or exhibited in its true light, but rather by keeping all tlie principles of which baptism is the sjTubol connected together as a consistent whole.) just as they are combined in the New Testament. And it has been admitted and proved by the ablest organ of Presbyterianism ' that infant baptism is utterly at war with the whole Scripture representation of this ordinance. There is not the slightest fear of any Baptists ever com- ing to disbelieve m the great distinctive features of theu' denominational sentiments. But there is a danger at the present day of quite a different character, i. e., that they should begin to believe them so plain and clear, as not to be Avorth maintauiing — as sure to make their way without any advocacy. It is painful to differ fi-om other Christians, and hence the whole subject is often forcedly kept out of sight. Then it is soon urged that baptism is non-essential, and this is reit- 1 The "North British Review," August, 1852, Art. 3. or BAPTISTS. 377 erated wi .li an emphasis wliicli shows that a great deal more is meant by it than the very common-phice and nniversally believed truth which the words pro2:)erly affirm, i. e., that persons may be saved without ba})tism. But thus, singularly enough, it happens that the very assertion most opposed to the saving efficacy of water baptism, becomes the niain ar- gument for not disturbing the corruption of that ordinance which most essentially teaches it. This sentunent generally means m the mouth of those avIio use it, that " baptism is a inatter of no hnportance?^ This once admitted. Baptist principles may one after another be rapidly ignored, even where the truth of them is never questioned. Without a strong regard to their history and the prin- cij)les of their ancestors, a denomination may quite lose sight of those distinctive peculiarities which have been the source of its usefulness to the Church and to the world. When a person has been brought up a conscientioiis and thorough Pedobaptist, and in after life embraces Baptist principles, he generally feels very vividly the importance of the discovery he has made, and the clear and firm Biblical character which true baptism has imjjarted to the Avhole system of his belief and practice. Hence he generally becomes a strong and earnest advocate of these sentiments, from a conviction of their importance. But in Baptist families, among young people brought up in these principles, the fcclmg is often very different. Without doubting generally the truths they find it difficult to realize the hnportance to the world and to the Church, of views which to them seem so simple as to be quite trite and common-place. Few children of Baptist parents have perhaps grown up without a difficulty of this kind. They see pious and ex- 378 THE VALUE OF cellent Pedobaptists, whom tliey resj^ect and love, and love as Christians, and they ask what is there after all so important in Baptist principles? Here are Pedobaptist ministers and members, who, except that they hold some exploded and imintelhgible notions of infant Church membership, and practice spi-inkihig, are as good, and as pious, and as Tvise, as any Christians Hving. It takes (we speak from observation), some time, some experience, and some study of the natural development of principles into practices, to know truly how to estimate the importance of any abstract truth, and many persons, for want of this, sujopose that Baj^tists attach too much import- ance to their own A'iews, and are prej^ossessed in favor of them, merely because their fathers were, and not because there is any thiug in their nature that renders them im- portant. This work has been written to meet that conscientious laxity of views which arises, not from too great a love of other Christians, but from ignorance of the hnportance of Baptist prmciples to the evangeUcal history of the last cen- tury, and to the success of many of those movements which are the greatest glory of the present age. When an agricultural chemist by minute analysis, has satisfied himself that a jDarticular soil contains two or thi-ee thousand parts too much of the protoxide of iron, though the soil may appear excellent, though wheat may gi'ow in it tall and heavy, yet he knows from his analysis that the wheat will be liable to rust. And so as he analyzes vari- ous soils, he can teU, from differences that escape all, but the most muaute tests, that one soil will most product- ively yield wheat, and another beans, and another clover. The real importance of the study of Church history rests AXALYZING PKIXCITLES. 379 on the same basis. It enables us to estimate the value to the world and to the Church, of certain principles, to analyze them by the tests of the Gospel, to weigh them in the balances of the sanctuary, and thus to ascertain be- forehand, their ultimate effects. The superficial farmer might esteem it a matter of but little consequence to know if his soil had a thousand parts more or less of gypsum, or the salts of sul^ihuric acid. But the more enlightened man would regulate his purchase and his expectations upon just such facts as these. So to persons unaccustomed to analyze and estimate the value of prin- ciples m history, those of the Baptists may seem of little importance. But to such as look further, we are per- suaded they vnll appear in a very diflercnt light. Even on the scale of a century, facts of the deepest significance and imjiortance to all who love evangelical truth, are connected Avith these principles. Doubtless in nature, very many of the most important phosphates in the soil, and which weighed separately in the scale of the apothecary would seem pitifully light and commercially valueless, may, as chemical ingredients stimu- lating the life of every seed, increase the price of land a hundredfold. Or the same amount of rusty iron, which as metal woilld not be worth a cent, duly mixed up in the soil, may, by means of its very oxidation, give its most import- ant productive quahties to the land. It is thus, too, with j^rinciples in the constitution of a Church. By theological analysis we may define, by our systems demonstrate them in few words, but in order for them to have their appropri- ate and vitalizmg power upon the Church and upon the world, it is not enough that they be accurately stated and logically proved, but that they should occuj^y just that size 380 MUTUAL APPEOACHES OF and shape, that proportion and position in the Christian life and Church Hfe, which Christ and His Apostles originally gave them. Many things contribute to produce lax views of these dis- tinctive pecuUarities. There is tar less actual difference be- tween the Baptists and many other denominations than there was a century back. The Presbyterians are now as a body all evangelical, and nowhere are the doctrmes of grace more faithfully preached than among them. The separation of the orthodox Congregationalists from the Unitarians has brought the former of these bodies to the same happy po- sition, with a greater correctness and freedom in their sys- tem of Church government. The Methodists, now com- pletely distinct from the Episcopal Church, preach the doctrines of the new birth with the greatest earnestness and success, while what is left of the evangelical portion of the Episcopal Church has become more zealously anti- sacramental from their opposition to Puseyism. These have all drawn much nearer to the Baptists than formerly. Tliey have, too, in most cases, qiiite altered then* to7ie. Now they are generally charitable, brotherly and kind. Some of them have made the most Christian concessions as to the trvth of these prmci])les, and done ample justice to the exer- tions of the Baptists. In other mstances, and very ex- tensively, without any controversy, they have given up the preaching and the practice of infant baptism. Indeed their chief plea now is that baptism is a non-essential and there- fore they suppose an unimportant matter. The Baptists have also approached other denominations in some respects. AU have greatly advanced in the com- forts and refinements of life during this last century. In the education of their ministers, in the commodiousness, BAPTISTS AKD PEDOBAPTISTS. 381 style and decorations of their houses of worship, there has heen a general assimilation of Baptists with other denomi- nations, to such a degree that in any of our cities and towns a person might attend most of the different congre- gations for years and so far as these things go, not be able to conjecture Mdth what denomination he was worshiping. And might we not go further and add that there is so very little that is distinguishing in the character of the ser- mons themselves, and of the whole worship, and impression left, that unless a person should attend upon some baptismal occasion, he might be present for months and years without bemg able to discover any of our denominational principles. This would not have been the case a hundred years ago. The causes of this difference are worth notice. Our young ministers study theology as a science after the Col- lege course, and because in that time Baptism as a distinct point may properly occupy but a lecture or two of their systematic theology, they, on entering the pulpit, pursue a proportionable distribution in their sermons, and empty out a course of systematic lectures m which each part of divine ti'uth is separately discussed, and dissected with clerical nicety, but nothing more. This is a grave mistake, not at all necessarily arising from theological education, which should indeed rather correct it. It is just as erroneous as for a surgeon, when sent for to cure a wound, forgetting the dis- tinction between livuig organism and dead matter, to dis- sect the limb instead of applying a balm. Let the student analyze closely in the dissecting-room^ but let the physician of souls never forget that he is sent of God to deal with livmg men, to bind up their wounded sj^irits, to establish or to feed the Church, the body of Christ. It is not by analy- sis but by syyithesis, not by dissection but by nutrition that 382 EXCIIAIfGE OF POSITION this is to "be done. There is too much of mere Ji'v dis- cussion, and too little of the freedom of Biblical preaching and exposition, too Httle of the simplicity and straight- forwardness of the Gospel, too little heart in all preaching at the present day. It is well to consider how completely Churches, like in- dividuals, are altered by becoming imitators of the points of usefulness belonging to others, instead of developing in a natural manner the ideas arismg out of their own princi- ples and circumstances. A few years ago, especially in England, the Episcopal Church was noted for a want of flexibility m all its minis- trations. Xot only its prayers were previously prepared, but its sermons and its regulations were all gone through Avith so much formahty, and so Httle adaptation to the various wants of the congregation, as to drive from the es- tablishment many families who wished to enjoy an earnest and practical i:)iety. The Dissenters meanwhile were poor and far inferior in education, weallh and all external attrac- tions. But they were zealoua, earnest men, who sought to do the people good. Their preacliing was for the most part extemporaneous, it applied the Bible closely to the wants of their hearers, and had little that was dry and dogmatic. It came from the heart and it went to the heart. There might be no choir or organ in the gallery, but the tune was sure to be such that the whole congregation could jom. In this way they won upon the masses, who saw among them the signs of a lii'ing piety, and half the people became Dis- senters, supporting the religion of the State, and their o%vn besides. But now all this is much changed. The Dissent- ers have become wealthy, their church accoimnodations have improved, scientific singmg has greatly superseded i:n^ englaxd. 383 that of the congregation, and scientific essays have too ninch taken the place of earnest preaching. They have become akaost as stifl' and inflexible as the EpiscopaUans used to be. Meanwhile, among the more pious clergy of the English Establishment there has arisen a spirit of new life. Seeing that they were losmg their congregations, they sought and they found out the cause. Many of the bishops exhort their clergy to abandon the habit of reading their dis- courses, and to i^reach extemporaneously. They cultivate congregational singing, and persuade the whole audience to utter the responses. They study to make their visits, their preaching, and their labors tell upon the masses, and have come round wisely to the greatest possible simplicity and earnestness m their duties. The result is, that they are at this moment rapidly gaining again upon the common people, who, to their surprise, find an earnestness and life in the Established preachers which the Dissenters seem to have lost in anti-Corn-Law leagues, and political excite- ments. A minister of the Church of England, on visiting this coxmtry not long ago, exjDressed himself with surprise that in so young and free a country the religious services should be so artificial ; the choir-singing so artistic that few could enjoy it, and the preaching so studied and in- tellectual that few could follow it ; but void of warmth, unction, and popular adaptedness. In all this, so far as we are chargeable as a denomination, it has originated in imitating others. And as imitations are never natural, and generally extreme and exaggerated, so has it prove?l here. That it may have been a necessary step in our mtellectual progress as a denomination, we would not deny ; that it will enable us hereafter to en- graft a more comprehensive adaptedness to various condi- 384 THE FUTURE. tions of the world and of the Church, is probable. It will certainly allow a greater range and variety, accordmg to the gifts both of sjieakers and of hearers, and form the basis of a more extended culture and universal usefulness. But it is not less true that all this is but the mark of sec- ond-rate culture, even intellectually. As we advance fur- ther we shall no doubt come round again to a greater love of simplicity in all our ministratiens. Then heUever''s baptism, both in preaching and in prac- tice, will occupy a more natural prominence in the minis- trations of the sanctuary, and the Spirit of God agam in redeemmg love, as origmally at creation, be found movmg " upon the face of the waters." When, as Baptists, we have better studied our own principles, and learned wherem our true strength lieth, even in simplicity and sincerity, then will self-respect and humility be always combuaed by us ; an earnest desire for the appro- bation of God, and less care for that of man. Then all the varied experiences of God's grace will be wisely appropriated, and contribute to our future progress. Then shall we elevate large masses of the community, rising steadily with them liighcr and higher in mtelligence and in virtue. For while a religion too exclusively intellectual in its sympathies renders the soul cold and sterile, that of earnest spiritual life will impart a genial warmth to the com- munity and to each member, in intellect, heart, and life ; "that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work." APPENDIX. 17 APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. Page 133. STATISTICS SHOAVIXG THE DECLINE OF INFAJST BAPTISM. The following tables are compiled from the reports of the Gen- eral Assembly, and sufficient for my present purpose. I found it impossible to obtain a complete set of these except in the later years, but the calculations were made with the most extensive tables before me now probably to be found. Date. IS Added on Examina- tion. II T3 cq Presbyterian Church (0. S.) 1827 135,285 146,308 162,816 217,348 233,580 219,126 220,557 177,665 128,043 219.263 225,404 100,850 140,452 36,597 12,938 15,095 14,846 34,160 23,. 546 11,512 11,580 9,562 6,377 11,846 13,433 4,691 6,174 1,759 10,229 10,790 12.171 13,246 14,035 11,089 11,697 10,164 7,712 11,644 12,041 4,426 4,032 2,394 2,965 3,389 3,982 9,650 6,950 2,729 3,031 2,692 1.644 2,942 3,597 1,630 1,715 350 13 194 1828 14 179 1829 16,153 22.896 1832 1833 21,820 13 818 1836 1837 14,728 12,856 18o8 1839 9,356 14 586 1853 1854 15638 Presbyterian Church (N. S.) 1838 6 056 1853 5 747 Reformed Dutch Church. 1853 2,744 388 "the way of life." APPENDIX B. Page 137. "the WAT OF LIFE" BAPTIST IN THEOET. If from the statistics of the Presbyterians we turn to their lit- erature, what Baptist can look at such a work as " The Way of Life," by Professor Hodge of Princeton, published by the Ameri- can Sunday-school Union, without surprise and pleasure. In chap- ter eight, particular!}', Baptist views are taught most clearly. The following abstract has been put into my hands by a friend. It was published some time since in the " Christian Eeflector." The doctrine " that professed believers only are qualified sub- jects for baptism" has never been more distinctly stated than in this work. The positions " that baptism involves a public profes- sion of the Gospel," and, " that the sacraments are signs and seals of spiritual blessings, and consequently utterly useless without faith on the part of the recipient," are repeatedly enforced and illustrated. The whole spirit and tenor of the chapter on " the Profession of Keligion," harmonizes with the strong language which we shall proceed to quote. The first sentence in section two, reads : " That baptism and the Lord's Supper, whatever other im- portant ends they may be intended to sei've, were appointed as a mode of publicly professing our faith in the Gospel, is clearly taught in the Bible." Again, "When Christ commanded the Apostles to make disciples, baptizing tliem, etc., he obviously in- tended that baptism should be a badge of disci pleship, or that by that rite his followers should acknowledge their relation to him." Again, " The Scriptures require those who are admitted to these ordinances to make a profession of their faith and repentance." To sustain this assertion he refers to the baptism of the converts on the day of Pentecost, of the eunuch, of Cornelius, and of Paul, with this concluding remark. "Paul was a penitent believer be- fore his baptism, and thus in all other cases when men were bap- tized, they professed to be Christians." " Baptism implies faith. "the way of LIFJi." 389 If this faith be wanting, bcaptism can do ns no more good than a heartless confession." In a subsequent part of the chapter he de- fends at length the position that knowledge and piety are neces- sary qualifications for baptism, or, in his own words, " essential to a proper attendance on the sacraments." After proving from Scripture his second principal doctrine, that " the sacraments are signs and seals of spiritual blessings," he con- cludes, " If, however, the sacraments are seals on the part of God, the reception of them implies a voluntary engagement on the part of the Christian, to devote himself to the service of Christ." " To be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, im- plies a voluntary dedication of ourselves to God as our Father, Re- deemer, and Sanctifier." He compares baptism to the oath by which a soldier consecrates himself to military service ; again to a deed ; to the marriage ceremony, and the ceremony of inaugura- tion, all implying the voluntary action of the parties interested. In answering the important question, what good do these ordi- nances accomplish, he describes beautifully the invigorating, reno- vating power which baptism possesses " when the Christian, in the exercise of faith, sees in the water of baptism the lively em- blem of the purifj'ing influence of the blood and spirit of Christ." "The Scriptures teach that tlie sacraments are thus efficacious, not to every recipient, but to the behever," and " to neither rite is any value ascribed apart from the spiritual change which they are ap- pointed to represent." The same sentiments are repeated in a variety of expressions which it is unnecessary to quote, as eacli one can read the work and thus verify our declaration that it advo- cates Baptist views. Not a single qualifying remark is introduced to break the force of the statements above quoted, but on tlie con- trary the Professor closes every avenue of escape by saying, "When in human governments the laws prescribe a particular mode in which we are to acknowledge allegiance to our country, it is not competent for us to neglect that mode, nor have we a right to adopt a different method of acknowledgment, or to sutler our allegiance to be inferred from our r »nduct. And if Christ has 390 THE DATIVE prescribed a particular way in -which lie will be acknowledged by Lis followers, intelligently and willfully to refuse obedience to His command is to renounce our allegiance to Him, and to forfeit the benefits of His kingdom." APPENDIX C. Page 158. ON THE DATIVE AXD THE PKEPOSITIOXS USED IN CONNECTION WITH BumiL,(x). Notwithstanding the concessions of Professor Robinson, in his lexicon (last edition), many still appear disposed to hold on to Pro- fessor Stuart's view, and strongly affirm that in all these cases, even where the preposition kv occurs, " the manner of the action is no further designated than the word jSarrri^ij implies it."^ Let us therefore more closely examine the rule which Professor Stuart attempts to lay down, and by which he would justify so singular an assertion in connection with his own admissions. Those who do this will never be disposed to adopt such a statement. "When the genitive or dative is used after the verb, either with or without a preposition, it does not designate the manner of the baptism, but only the kind of element by which this baptism was effected. And further still, the connection shows that the prepo- sition, and in fine the whole construction, is no more decisive than the verb alone." But is this true? He says "it results from the nature of the genitive and dative cases, and the prepositions with which they are connected in all the constructions now in question. To this," he continues, " I make the appeal, and those who know enough of the laws of syntax and idiom in Greek to be qualified to judge, wnll be able to determine for themselves," etc.'' Now to this we too make the appeal, both because it can be clearly shown that Professor Stuart has fallen into a serious error, 1 Biblical Repos., p. 317. « Ibid AND Bum['C,(i), 301 and still more because of the enormous and dangerous superstruct- ure erected on this saudy basis. It is from this, for instance, he sweepingly infers that (setting aside Mark, i. 9), " we may say in all otlier cases in the New Testament, the mode of baptism is left un- determined by the original Greek, so far as the language itself is concerned, unless it is necessarily hnplied by the word (SaKri^u ; for in all other cases, only the element by which, not the mode in which baptism is performed, is designated by the sacred writers." ' We shall perhaps see, before we close, that the word Panri^u necessarily implies immersion. But we now only contend that tliis is its primary and usual signfication, so that there is always a probability of such being the case, until an exception is shown. All this Professor Stuart cheerfully concedes; but it being granted, it is quite a serious grammatical blunder to state that in " all cases" the dative, even the dative and the preposition iv together, leave the mode as undetermined as they found it; that they "wo fu7'- ther designate the manner of the action" than the verb (ianTi^u alone. On the contrary,' as Campbell has shown, the whole to- gether make up a construction that renders the meaning of the verb irresistible, being such a " phraseology" as is never used where sprinkling or pouring alone are indicated.'^ The dative is, as Kiihner remarks in his Grammar, " the where- case," and hence designates as a local object " the place in (by, near, at) which an action occurs." Usually in prose a preposition is added so as to designate the sense more precisely. Where it is not, however, the above is the exact force of the dative alone.^ In this case the natural signification of the verb must indicate which of these senses the dative has. And it is sometimes capable of doing this very precisely. Besides the idea of the "w/^er, .... 153 on Matt. iii. 6, 156, 390 on Immersion, 140 on the New Testament use of Barrri^co, 183 on the Prepositions after Ban-- T,-r(j 153, 390 on Proselyte Baptism, ... -99 on Rom. vi. 4, 396 on the force of the Dative, . . .391 Historical view of Baptism, . . 171 Sufficiency of Scripture, 312 Infant Baptism, 315 Summaryof this work, 366 Sylvester, Pope, alluded to by the Waldenses and Neander; . . 22 Symbols and Faith, 308 Synecdoche, and Dr. Robinson, . . 182 T Teacliings of Baptism, 209 Tennent, Gilbert, 66 TertuUian, as to Infant Baptism, . . 121 Bunsen on, 121 Neander on, 121 Time occupied by Immersion, . . .161 Tobacco tax, elTect of, ... . 49, 354 Tocqueville, JI. de, on the Bible, . . 314 Tracts for the Times, quoted, . 84, 316 Tradition, supported by Infant Bap- tism, 316 Translator and Interpreter, their re- spective duties, 395 Treatise on Antichrist, 22 Trench on the sense of \oieiv, . . . 168 Tropical use of words, 175 Turkey and Religious Liberty, ... 59 Tyler, Dr., on Dr. Bushnell, . . 247, 257 422 INDEX. TJ PAGE Unconverted Church IMembership, its effects, 330 Unitarians of New England, .... 68 Unitarianism caused by Infant Bap- tism, 334 Universal Church, visible, .... 302 Universalist Baptism, 218 Virginia, Baptists in, 354 religious persecution in, . . . .49 abolish persecution, 51 Visible and In\'isible Churches, . . 403 Church Universal, 302 W Waldenses, and Religious Liberty, . Limborch's description of, as Bap- tists PAGE Waldenses, M. de Potter on, ... 27 spring from the Donatists, ... 21 Wall, Dr., his radical mistake, . . . 100 on Basil 110 Water in Jerusalem, 139 much, John, iii. 23, 165 " Way of Life," Baptist, 388 Wesley and Baptismal Regeneration, 76 John, and Baptismal Regenera- tion, 65 Wilberforce, his sons, 368 WilUams, Roger, account of, ... 37 Bancroft on, 39 the first Legislator introducing Liberty of Conscience 36 Wiseman, Dr., on Missions, .... 323 Words, have generally various signifi- cations, 146 literal meaning of, 175 figurative, do., 176 X Xavier and Carey, 324 INDEX TO TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE AXD APOCRYPHA, ILLUSTRATED IX THIS VOLUME. Gen. IV. 26, . . 2 icings, V. 14, ... . Isaiah, xlv. 5, . . . . Judith, xii. 7 Ecclesiasticus, xxxiv. 25, Matt. lii. 6 156 Matt.iii. 6 393 ! Rom. vi. 4, Matt. iii. 11, 394 Matt. xix. H, 95 PAGE ■ . 227 . 195 . 227 . 196 . 198 PAGE . IC8 . 95 Luke, xii. 50, Luke, ^-iii. 15-17, John, iii. 23, 165 Acts, i. 5, 395 Acts, viii. 38, 165 Acts, xi. 16, 395 Acts, xvi. 33, illustrated, 164 169 Mark, i. 5 156 Mark, i. 5, 394 Mark, i. 9, 155 Mark, vii. 2, 3, 190 Mark, vii. 4, 8, 189, 192 Mark, x. 13-16. 95 Luke, iii. 16, • . . 395 1 Peter, ii. 5, 9 337 Luke, xi. 38, 187 1 Peter, iii. 20, 21, 167 1 Cor. vii. 14, 96 1 Cor. X. 2, 166 1 Cor. xi. IS, 34, 303 1 Cor. XV. 29 224 Col. ii. 12, its true importance, . 170, 396 Heb. ix. 10, Heb. X. 22, 194 371 VALUABLE WORKS PUBLISHED BY GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. SACRED RHETORIC: Or, Composition and Delivery of Sermons. J5y Henry J. Ripley, Prof, in Newton Theological Institution. Including Ware's llints on Extemporaneous Preaching. Second thousand. 12rao, 75 cts. An admirable ■work, clear and succint in its positions and recommendations, soundly based on good authority, and well supported by a variety of reading and illustrations..^ xV. Y. Literary World. We have looked over this work with a lively interest. The arrangement is easy and natural, and the selection of thoughts under each topic very happy. The work is one that will command readers. It is a comprehensive manual of great practical utility. — PAt7. Ch. Chronicle. The author contemplates a man preparina to compose a discourse to promote the great ends of preaching, and unfolds to him the process througli which his mind ought to pass. We commend the ■work to ministers, and to tliose preparing for the sacred office, as a book that will efficiently aid them in studying thoroughly the subject it brings before them.— Fhil, Ch. Observer. It presents a rich variety of rules for the practical use of the clergyman, and evinces the good sense, the large experience, and the excellent spiri of Dr. Ripley : and the whole volume is well fitted to instruct and stimulate the writer of sennous. — Bihliotheca Sacra. An excellent work is here offered to theological students and clergymen. It is not a compilation, but is an original treatise, f csh, practical, and comprehensive, and adapted to the pulpit offices of the present day. It is full of valuable suggestions, and abounds with clear illustrations. — Zion's Herald. It cannot be too frequep'ly perused by those whose duty it is Xo persuade men.- Congregationalist, Prof. Ripley possesses 'he highest qualifications for a work of this kind. Hie position has given him great experience in I he peculiar wants of theological students. — Providence Journal. His canons on selecting texts, stating the proposition, collecting and arranging materials, style, de- livery, etc., are just ana Well stated. Every theological student to whom this volume is accessible will be likely to procure t— Christian Mirror, Portland. It is manifestly the frit* of mature thought and large observation ; it is pervaded by a manly tone, and abounds in judicious lO'insels; it is compactly written and admirably arranged, both for study nnd reference. Itwill trcom" a text Dook for theological students, we have no doubt: that it deserves to be read by all ministers L U. us as clear. — A'. Y. Recorder. THE CHRISTIAN V^ORLD UNM2VSKED. By Jonx Berridgk, A. M., Vicar of Everton, Beu.*"irii=hire, Chaplain to ttie Right Hon. The Earl of Buchan, etc. JVcw Edition. With Life of the Author, by the Rev. Thcmas Guthrie, D. D., Minister of Free St. John's, Edinburjih. 16mo, cloth. "The book," says Dr. Guthrie, in ms Imrcduction, "which we introduce anew to the public, has survived the test of years, and still stanas towerla<; above things of inferior growth like a cedar of Lebanon. Its subject is all important; in doctrine it is sound to the core; it glows with fervent piety; it exhibits a most skilful and unsparing dissection of the dead profesjior ; while its style is so remark- able, that he who could preacA as Berridge has written, would hold any congregation by the ears." THE CHRISTIAN REVIEW. Edited by James D. Knowles, Barnas Sears, and S. F. Smith. 8 vols. Commencing with vol. one. Half cl.. Jittered, 8,00. Single volumes, (except the first,) may be had in numbers, 1,00. These first eight volumes of the Christian Review contain valuable contributions from the leading men of the Baptist and 6«Teral other denominationB, and will be found a valuable acquisition to any library. Aa WORKS BY JOHN ANGELL JAMES. THE CHURCH IN EAENEST. Seventh thousand. 18mo, cloth, 40 cts. Mr. James's ■writings all have one object, to do execution. He writes under impulse — " Do some- thing, do It." He aims to raise the standard of piety, holiness in the heart, and hohness of life. The influence whicli this work will exert on the church must be higlily salutary. — ruritan Recorder. AVe are glad to see that tliis subject has arrested tlie pen of ^Mr. James. We welcome and recom- mend it. Let it be scattered lilic autumn leaves. 'We believe its perusal will do much to convince of the high mission of the Christian, and to arouse the Christian to fulfil it. The reader will feel ihat he is called into the Church of Christ, not to enjoy only, hut to labor. — N. T. Recorder. Those who have the means should purchase a number of copies of this work, and lend them to church members, and keep tliem in circulation till they eirc worn ejut t — Mvihern^ Assistant. Probably no \friter of the present age has done so much to promote the interests of vital and practi- cal religion as Jlr. James. The present work in ability and adaptation is inferior to none preceding it, and should be m the hands of every professor. — Congregational Journal. A most tin'.ely prompter is this new work of Mr. James. lie paints out the nature and efferts of earnest piety with reference to individual action for the promotion of one's personal religion, tiie sal- vation of others, the religion of the family, and of the church. No time should be lost in putting the book into the bauds of as many church members as possible. — Ch. Mirror, Portland. A more important work at the present time could not well be presented to the Christian world. Every church member should have a copy. — Retp. Memorial. " Its arguments and appeals are well adapted to prompt to action, and the times demand such a book. We trust it will be universally read." — X. 1'. Observer. To give the work a word of approbation, were but a poor tribute. It should receive the earnest at- tention of professing Christians of every name. — Southern Lit. Gazette. CHRISTIAN PROGRESS ; a Sequel to " The Anxious Inquirer after Salvation." 18rao, cloth, 30 cts. "We remember none of the numerous works of James's — all of them of uncommon practical excel- lence, which is better calculated for circulation among the church at large than this. The necessity, nature, and means of progress in the Divine life, with mistakes concerning it, hindrances to it, motives to it, and encouragements in it, here find brief, appropriate, satisfying and edifying discussion, while a deeply- devout spirit breathes through the whole. It ought to be sold by hundreds of thousands, until every church member in the land has bought, read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested a copy. — Congrcgationalist. This work is the latest production of its gifted author; and although it is styled a "sequel" to a preceding work, is, of itself, adapted to the case of every professing Christian. To every lover of truth and progressive holiness, we commend this little volume. — Vh. Secretary. So eminently is it adapted to do good, that we feel no surprise that it should make one of the pub- lishers' excellent publications. It exhibits the whole subject of growth in grace with great simplicity and clearness, and guards the young Christian against many mistakes, into which he is in danger of falling. It is of the same general character with all James's works, — earnest, persuasive, tender, and faithful. — Puritan Recorder. This work is one of a class very much needed in our chuTCheg at this time. The subject is treated in a faithful and eamest manner, characteristic of Mr. James's writings, and which has rendered him one of the most popular and useful religious writers of the present day. — Zion's Advocate. It is written as a sequel to the anxious inquirer, " whose praise is in all the churches." The sub- ject is one of equal importance, and the author addresses himself with characteristic ardor and suc- cess to the theme. — Southern Baptist. CHURCH ME]\IBER'S GUIDE. Edited by the Rev. J. Overton Choules, D. D. New Edition. Willi an Introductory E^^say, 1-y the Rev. Hubbard WlivsLOW. Cloth, 33 cts. The spontaneous effusion of our heart, on laying the book down, was, — may every church member in our land possess this book, and he blessed with all the happiness which conformity to its evangeli- cal sentiments and directions is calculated to confer. — Christian Secretary. A pastor writes, " I sincerely wish that every professor of religion in the land may possess this ex- cellent manual. I am anxious that every mrmbcr of my church should possess it, and sh:ill be happy to p^.^nlote its circulation still more extensively." Kb THE CHURCH MEMBER^S MANUAL Of Ecclesiastical Principles, Doctrines, and Discipline. By the Rev. Wil- liam Crowell. Intrtnluction by H. J. Ripley, D. D. Second edition, revised and improved. 12mo, clotli, 75 cts. We have looked through this book with no little interest. It is WTitten with perspicuity, candor, and ability. It contains much to whicii all denominations, and especially Orthodox CongregationuUsts, would heartily subscribe. — i'wW^ari liccordcr. We welcome this Manual with unusual satisfaction. In a brief compass we have a development of Baptist principles as to church organization, and church order, with a comprehensive view of the doctrines of tlie gospel as held by Baptists, and an exliibit of various usages wliich obtain, more or less, in lire denomination. We regard tlie work as one of great practical value, and desire for it a Wide circulation in our churclies. — ^V. Y, Jieconlcr. We would be happy to sec a copy of this work in every Baptist family in our state. — Zion's Adv. As a Manual of ecclesiastical principles, doctrine, and discipline, presenting a systematic view oC the structure, policy, doctrines, and practices of Christian churches, as taught in the Scriptures, as a book for old ami young, it will be found very interesting and instructive, and as a book of reference, one of great value. We wish all our young brethren would study it. — Bap. Eegister. This has now, by common consent, obtained a place among our pennanent literature as a denom- ination. It is a book that should find a wide circulation in ihe west. — Cli. Messenger. The first edition was well received. The author has been over every chapter and line, and presented us witli a new and tlioroughiy revised edition. It sliould be introduced into all the families, and among all tlie members of our churches. Its influence, in explaining and enforcing our polity, as a denomination, would be most instructive and salutary.— Phil Ch. Chronicle. The main positions are defended with a vigor and clearness of argument that reflect great credit upon the bearing and tact of the author. There is an air of practical good sense, and a candor and good feeling towards other denominations, which give the book additional value, and will, undoubted- ly, enhance its usefulness. — BiUicul Repository. Hardly any question can be raised with regard to the nature, powers, rights, and duties of a church, to the appointment, character, ordination, and authority of its officers, to the articles of its belief and the nature and proofs of its positive institutions, to its government, discipline, and usages, which ia not lieru met by a distinct, intelligent, and satisfactory answer. —Southern Baptist. It brars the marks of attention, study, and great care in the arrangement and discussion of the numerous topics embraced in it, and contains much that will interest evangelical readers of every church. — I'hil. Ch. Obserrer, THE CHURCH MEMBER'S HAND-BOOK; a Plain Guide to the Doctrines and Practice of Baptist Ciiurclies. By REV. WILLIAM CrOWELL. Fifth thousand. 18mo, cloth, 3S cts. Contents. — The Ground Work of Religion : Christian Truth : Frame Work of Religion ; Chris- tian Churches; Memorials of Religion ; Christian Ordinances: Symbols of Religion ; Christian Sacraments : Privileges of Religion ; Church Discipline : Life of Religion ; Christian Love, etc. We h,ive never met with a book of this size that contained so full and complete a synopsis of the doctrines and practice of the Baptist, or any other church, as this. Just such a book as is needed by every young church member. — Ch. Secretary. It is concise, clear, and comprehensive ; and, as an exposition of ecclesiastical principles and prac- tice, is worthy of study by all young members of our churches. We hope it may be widely circu- lated, and that the youthful thousands of our Israel may become familiar with its pages. — Watch- man and llcjlector. This is just Ihe book wanted in all parts of our country. It contains a condensed but complete epitome of all those things which come up in practice, and on whicli churches and ministers are fre- quently called to aei. — Western Watchman. A brief, plain guide to young church members. We wish every one of this class might have the " Hand Book." Ignorance of the doctrine of the Bible and the laws of Christ's house is the disgrace of too many, both of the young and old, and through it blight and dishonor often come upon the visible church of God. — Mich. Ch. Herald. This is decidedly the best treatise that has ever come under our notice. — Indian Advocate. Its doctrinal views would tend to stability, as its practical suggestions would to spiritual life. Its hints and rules on rights, duties, disciphne, business, and order, if duly observed, would contribut« greatly to the peace, purity, and efficiency of our churches. — jV. Y. Recorder. XJu WORKS ON BAPTISM. THE MODE AND SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. By Milo P. Jew ETT, A. M., late Minister of tlie Presbyterian Church, and Professor in Marietta College. Twelfth tJiou«and. Cloth, 25 cts. *,* There continues a steady demand for this valuable and increasingly popular book. Its che:ip- ness puts it within the reach of all, and giving, as it does, a simple, yet concise account of the " Pmg- ress in Error, and Discovery of the Truth," of a prominent Presbyterian clergyman and distinguished Professor in " Marietta College," it is just the book to piit iuto the hands of any one seeking after truth on the subject of Baptism. Multitudes who, owing to prejudice, early education, etc., have been perplexed and in doubt on the subject, will have occasion to be grateful for the perusal of tliis work in conuection witli the Bible, as the means of enUghteniug and settling their minds in the truth. Jiev. J. E. Graves, editor of the Tenne.tsee Baptist, in a recent number of his paper, says, " AVho will write tlie history of one little Jewctt on Ba2^tism ? Hundreds in our land have been converted to the truth by perusing that book. Remington, an able Methodist preacher, read that work ; it resulted in his conversion — he wrote ?iis, ' reasons,' and they converted another preacher, and the pebble thus thrown by Bro. Jewett in the sea of mind, produced a wave which produced another, and tliMS in long succession they will travel on, each producing its successor until tliey break on the shores of eternity. Is the object not a commendable one? It is pouring oil upon the unresting wave of reli- gious mind, lashed by angry discussions. Sucli books read in solitude with one's Bible and his God, will hush the tempest of his own soul to rest." CHRISTIAN BAPTISM ; with many Quotations from Pcdobaptist au- thors. By Ado.mram Judson, D. D. New edition, revised and enlarged. Cloth, 18mo, 25 cts. •,* Several large editions, in pamphlet form, were many years since published in this country in rapid succession; and although frequent calls have been made for copies, it has been for a long time "out of print." The venerable author, during his late visit to this country, took occasion to thorough- ly revise and enlarge the work, and it is now, for the first time, published in regular book form. It will doubtless be sought for and read witli interest by all, deemed, as it is, by those capable of judging, one of the best works on the subject of Baptism extant. The Christian Revieiv says, " It is a clear, calm, and convincing view of the futility of the distin- guishing points of Pedobaptism, and a rational and scriptural defence of the baptism of persons of suitable age and qualifications, and in the manner prescribed in the New Testament. ESSAY ON CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. By the Rev. Baptist W. Noel. IGnio, cloth, 60 cts. BIBLE BAPTISM. A beautiful Steel Engraving. In the centre of this splendid work of art, (nine by twelve inches in size,) is represented a Church, a Baptismal Scene, &c., and in tlie margin are arranged all the texts of Scripture, found in the New Testament, alluding to the subject of Baptism, which not only renders it very convenient for reftr- cnre, but as a whole is truly an elegant ornamental picture for the pai'lor. Printed on thick fine paper for framing. Price, 25 cts. CHRISTIANITY DEMONSTRATED : in four distinct and independ- ent Series of Proofs. With an explanation of the Types and Prophecies concerning the Messiah. By Rev. IIarvey Newcomb. lOnio, cloth, 75 cts. BUCK'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE; a Treatise in which the'Na- tiire. Evidences, and Advantages are considered. By Rev. C. Buck, London. 12nio, cloth, 50. ANTIOCH ; or, Increase of Moral Power in the Church of Christ. By P. Church, D. D. With an Essay, by Baron Stow, D. I). 18nio, cloth, 50 cts. MY PROGRESS IN ERROR AND RECOVERY TO TRUTH; or, a Tour throujh Universalism, Unitarianistn, and Scepticism. Second thousand. }8nio, cloth, 63 cts. Ss HISTORY OF AMERICAN BxVPTIST MISSIONS In Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, from their earliest Commence- ment tu tlie Present Time. Prepared uniler llie direction of llie American Baptist fllissioNARY Union. By Prof. William Cammell, Brown University Wiih seven Maps. Seventh tliousand. 12nio, clotli, 75 cts. 03" III order to give this work the widest circulation, placing it within the means o/all, the TRICE, which would okdinakily be $l,li5, is put at the low sum qf seventu-five cents! Extract from the Certificate of Rev. Drs. Cone, Sharp, and Chase, Committee appointed by the JUissionury Union to ciaminc the IVork. The undersigned, having been requested by the Executive Committee of the Missionary Union to read, in manuscript, Prof. Gammell's History of American Baptist Missions, are liappy to state tliat, ill our opinion, the worlc is well adapted to accomplish the important purposes for which it was written. Such a history we thinic to be much needed, and wortliy of being read by all. It exhibits gratify- ing evidence of research, fidelity, and skill. It sets before the reader, in a lucid manner, facts that should never be forgotten. Some of them, iu power to awaken attention and touch the heart, could Boarcely be surpassed by fiction. Testimony of Missionaries who have long- labored in the Fields concerning which the Book treats. Rev. J. H. Vinton says, " I am so much interested in the circulation of Prof. GamraeU's History of Missions, that I am resolved to give away every Jifih copy. Could it be put in tlie hands of every man in the denomination, able to pay for it, you might then almost dispense with all other agencies." Rev. S. 31. Osgood says, " I read this History with great interest, and, having been for more than twelve years connected with the Mission in Burmah, am happy to bear decided testimony to its au- thenticity. AVe have long needed just such a work — a work not only intrinsically valuable as a Ai's- torif, but written in a style suthciently attractive to insvjy: its hcing read, not only by pastors, but by the members of our church and friends of missions, young and old." Rer. E. Kincaid says, " As I have labored more or less at all the stations in Burmali, I could but admire the singular accuracy with which all the leading facts of these missions are detailed in Prof. Gammell's History of American Baptist Missions. I have not found a single error of any importance." Rev. J. Wade says, "I can most cordially recommend it to the public as being a very trutliful and ■well-written work." A Specimen of a great JVitmher of JVoticr:s of the Press. The reader is borne along from chapter to chaper with a narrative which, while it fully satisfies his desire to know, commends itself as entirely truthful and trustworthy. Let pastors, friends of mis- sions, agents, and colporteurs, scatter it by thousands. Like bread cast upon the waters, it will come back in prayers and blessings. No Baptist family should be without it. — JV. Y. Recorder. Prof. Gammell lias here furnished a book that was actually demanded by the church. A work of thrilling interest, every word of which may be regarded as reliable. — Ch. Secretary. This is a book which pays well for the reader. The incidents connected with the first labors of the American missionaries in India are in this volume very graphically narrated. The history is written in a catholic spirit, and we commend it to all who love the cause of missions. — Congregationalist. In point of style, it is chaste and elegant. It rejects all rhetorical embellishments, and, where the narrative is most exciting, its flow is still calm and dispassionate. Prof. Gammell deserves our liigh regard, also, for the kindly spirit in which he has brought out this monument to the philanthropy of his denomination. The most generous notice is uniformly taken of the missionaries of other sects, and the ashes of buried controversy are in every instance left undisturbed. In fine, the hook is emi- nently a Christian one, and higher praise than this we know not how to give. — North Am. Review. We hope that every Christian family will have a copy of this work. The History of the American Baptist Missions are fully, accurately, and elegantly sketched, and judiciously arranged ; which is all that was required to make one of the most interesting books of tlie age. — Mich. Ch. Herald. We have rarely read a work of so unabating and thrilling interest as the one before us. It is writ- ten in a clear and graceful stylo, and abounds in incidents of moral courage and Christian heroism to which every thing in the range o{ fiction seems tame and insipid. — Western Lit. Messenger. A copy should be in every family. — Phil. Ch. Chronicle. We welcome with unfeigned pleasure this new contribution to the literature of Christian missions. For its phin and execution, and for the interest which it gathers around subjects in themselves deeply interesting and truly sublime, it will be attractive no less to the readers of general literature, than those who approve and love the work of missions. — Baptist Missionary Magazine. Every page would convey to the mind of one who is an utter stranger to our miisioni, internal •vidence of truthfulness. We trust that the volume will be widely read, and increase th« fruits of missionary leal, an hundred fold. — IVatehman and Refiector. Xt VALUABLE AYORKS. TlIE SUFFERINGr SAVIOUR ; ok, ^SLeditations on the Last Days OF CiiKlST. By Fked. W. Krummachsr, D.D., Chaplain to the King of Prussia, and author of' Elijah the Tishbite," " JLast Days of Elisha," '• The Martyr Lamb,'' etc. etc. Translated under the express sanction of the autlior, by SAiiuKi JacK" SON. 12nio, cloth. §1.25. The leading article in a recent number of the New York Independent is wholly de- voted to the subject of this worli. Kespectiug the work itself and its author, it speaks as follows : " It 13 refreshing at times to meet ■with one who views the work of Christ from the emotional Btand-point» without immediate reference either to the dialectic or the practical. Such, in an emi- nent degree, is Krumraacher — the Krummacherof Elijah, the Tishbite.' A series of meditations from his pen on the last days of Christ upon earth has just appeared under the title of ' The Suffer- ing Saviour.' The style of the author need not be described to those who have read his ' Elijah ;' and whoever has not read an evangelical book of our own time that has passed through many editions in Gorman, English, French, Dutch, Danish, had better order the Chinese edition, which has recently appealed. » » • We like the book — LOVE it, rather — for the vivid perception and fervid emotion with which it brings us to the Suffering Saviour." ' " Krunimacher is himself again ! Till the present work appeared, he had done nothing equal to his first one, ' Elijah, the Tishbite.' We felt that the productions which he gave to the world during the interval were scarcely up to the mark. In the present he comes upon the literary firmament in his old fire and glory, * like a re-appearing star.* The translator has done his work admirably. * ♦ » Much of the narrative is given with thrilling vividness, and pathos, and beauty. Marking as we proceeded, several passages for quotation, we found them in the end so numerous, that we must refer the reader to the work itself." — News of the Churches (Scottish). "All those characteristics which made ' Elijah, the Tishbite,' so deservedly popular, — as, due appreciation of the sulyect ; a comprehensive treatment, which, while it embraces a grand whole, neglects not even the minutest details ; fertility of illustration ; and earnest and impressive lessons inculcated by the way, and in affectionate tertns, — all re-appear in the present work, which, so far, it least, as concerns the dignity of its subject, is of infinitely greater importance to us than its prede- cessor."— Bkitish Ceitic. THE PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES IN THE LAST IIUXDRED YEARS. By T. F. Curtis, Professor of Theology in Lewisburg University, Pa., and author of " Communion,"' etc. 12mo, clotli. $1.25. This work is divided into three books. The first exhibits the progress of Baptist principles, now conceded in theory by the most enlightened of other denominations. Tlie second presents a view of the progress of principles still controverted. The third sets forth the progress of principles always held by Evangelical Chris- tians, but more consistently by Baptists. It is a work tliat invites the candid consideration of all denominations. In his preface the author says : "If, in a single Hue of the following pages, there should appear to the reader the slightest unkind allusion to any other denomination or indi- vidual, the writer would at once say that nothing has been further from his inten- tions or feelings. * * * His aim has been to draw a wide distinction between parties and opinions. Hence the object of this volume is not to exhibit or defend the Bajv tists, but their principles."' " The principles referred to are such as these : Freedom of Conscience and Separation ol Church and Sfate ; a Converted Church Membership ; Sacraments inoperative without Choice and Faith ; Believers the only Scriptural Subjects of Baptism ; Immersion always the Baptism of the Xew Testament ; Infant Baptism Injurious ; Open Communion Unwise and Injurious. To show the progress of these principles, statistics are given, from which we learn that in 1792 there was but one Baptist Communicant in the United States to every fifty -six inhabitants, while in 18.34 there was one to every thirty inhabitants. The Baptists have more than one quarter of the whole Church accommodation in the United States. • • ' The entire work is written with ability and unfaiUng good temper."- Qcaeterlt Jocksal of Americas Uxitaeiax Association " We know of no man in our Churches better fitted to prepare a fair exhibition of ' Baptist Prin- ciples.' lie is no controversialist ; and his discussions are in most refreshing contrast with many, both of Baptist defenders and their opponents." — Southekn Baptist. " T'. . --r^ of the work is important, the plan ingenious, yet simple and natural, the author's pre- par • apparently thorough and conscientious, and his spirit excellent."- Watchmait asd l;i:i " J lie /inid temper of the author of this volume is obvious, the method of arranging his materials for effect admirable." — Pkesbyteki AN. " The work exhibits ample learning, vigorous argumentative power, and an excellent spirit toward those whose views it controverts. Apart from its t'ueological bearings, it possesses not a little histori- cal interest."— NEW YoEK Teiboe, (r) IMPORTA NT NE^ y WOP.KS. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE : Social and Individual. By Peter Bayne, A, M. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. Contents. — Faut I. Statement. I. The Individual Life. II. The Social Life. Part II. E.xposition and Illustration. Book I. Christianity the Basis of Social Life. I. First Principles. II. Howard; and the rise of Philanthropy. III. Wilberforce ; and the development of Philanthropy. IV. Biidgett; the Christian Freeman. V. Thesocialproblemof theage, and one or two hints towards its solution. Book II. Clcristianity the Basis of Individual Character. 1. Introductory : a few Words on ilodern Doubt. II. John Foster. III. Thomas Arnold. IV. Thomaa Chalmers. Part III. Outlook. I. The Positive Philosophy. II. Pantheistic Spiritualism. III. General Conclusion. Particular attention is invited to this work. In Scotland, its publication, during the last winter, produced a great sensation. Hugh Miller made it the subject of an elaborate review in his paper, the Edinburgh Witness, and gave his readers to under- standl^iat it was an extraordinary work. The " Ncics of the Chiirchts," the monthly organ of the Scottish Free Church, was equally emphatic in its praise, pronouncing it " the religious book of the season." Strikingly original in plan and brilliant in execution, it far surpasses the expectations raised by the somewhat familiar title. It is, in truth, a bold onslaught (and the first of the kind) upon the Pantheism of Carlyle, Fichte, etc., by an ardent admirer of Carlyle; and at the same time an exhibition of the Christian Life, in its inner principle, and as illustrated in the lives of Howard Wilberforce, Budgett, Foster, Chalmers, etc. The brilliancy and vigor of the author s style are remarkable. PATRIARCHY; or, tlie Family, its Constitution and Probation. By John Harris, D. D., President of " New College," London, and author of " The Great Teacher," " Mammon," " Pre-AJamite Earth," " 5Ian Primeval," etc. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. This is the third and last of a series, by the same author, entitled " Contributions to Theological Science." The plan of this series is highly original, and thus far has been most successfullj' executed. Of the first two in the series, " Pre-Adamite Earth," and " Man Primeval," we have already issued four and five editions, and the demand still continues. The immense sale of all Dr. Harris's works attest their intrinsic popularity. The present work has long been expected, but was delayed owing to the author's illness, and the pressure of his duties as President of New College, St. John's Wood. We shall issue it from advanced sheets (a large portion of which have already been received) simultaneously with its publication in England. GOD REVEALED IN NATURE AND IN CHRIST: Including a Refutation of the Development Theory contained in the " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." By the Author of " The Philosophy of the Plan of Sal- vation." 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. The author of that remarkable book, "The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation," has devoted several years of incessant labor to the preparation of this work. Without being specifically controversial, its aim is to overthrow several of the popular errors of the day, by establishing the antagonist truth upon an impregnable basis of reason and logic. In opposition to the doctrine of a mere subjective revelation, now so plausibly inculcated by certain eminent writers, it demonstrates the necessity of an external, objective revelation. Especially, it furnishes a new, and as it is conceived, a conclusive argument against the " development theory " so ingeniously maintained in the " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." As this author does not pub- lish except when he has something to say, there is good reason to anticipate that the woi-k will be one of unusual interest and value. His former book has met with the most signal success in both hemispheres, having passed through numerous editions in England and Scotiana, and been translated into four of the European languages besides. It is also about to be translated into the Hindoostanee tousue. (m) HYMN BOOKS. THE PSALMIST ; a New Collection of Htmxs for the Use of the Bap- tist Cliurches. By BARON STOW and S. F. SMITH : Assisted by W. R. Williams, N. Y. ; Geo. B. Ide, Pa. ; R. W. Giiswold, N. Y. ; S. P. Hill, Md. ; J. B. Taylor, Va. ; J. L. Dagg, Ala. ; W. T. Brantley, S. C. ; R. B. C. Howell, Ten. ; Samuel VV. Lynd, Ky., and John M. Peck, III. With Supplement, containing a variety of Chants, and Selections of Scripture for Chanting. Pulpit edition, 12rao, (large type,) Turkey morocco, gilt edges, 3,00 i morocco gilt, 1,75; plain mo- rocco, 1,50 ; sheep, 1,25. Pew edition., 18ino, sheep, 75 cts. ; morocco, 1,00; morocco, gilt, 1,25; Turkey morocco, gilt, 2,63. Pocket edition, 32mo, sheep, 50 cts. ; morocco, plain, 75 cts. ; morocco, gilt, 83 cts. ; embossed moroc- co, gilt edges, 1,00 ; tucks, gilt, 1,25; Turkey morocco, 1,50. THE PSALMIST; WITH SUPPLEMENT. Containing an additional Selection of more titan one hundred Hymns, (in place of the Chants and Selections for Chanting.) By Richard Fuller and J. B. Jeter. Same sizes, styles of binding, and prices, of tlie other editiuit. 10- The Psalmist is, unquestionably, the best collection of Hymns in the English Language. It has been almost universally introduced into tlie Baptist churches throughout the United States, and also iu the British Provinces, and supijlies have been ordered for London. The united, and unsolicited testimony of pastors of the Baptist churches in Boston and vicinity, New York, and Philadelphia, of the most decided and flattering character, has been given in favor of the book. Also, by the Professors in Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, and the New- ton Theological Institution. The same, also, has been done by a great number of clergymen, church- es, associations, conventions, etc., in every State of the Union. So that it not only may be said to have been sanctioned 6i/, but become 1 Q inrr^ A! 'K 1 lyoi C28(842)M50 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY_^ 0035520884 m