I 
 
INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
L. B. SEELEY AND SONS, WESTON GREEN, THAMES DITTON. ' 
 
INFANT -BAPTISM THE MEANS 
 OF NATIONAL REFORMATION 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE 
 OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH : 
 
 IN NINE LETTERS TO A FRIEND. 
 
 BY HENRY BUDD, M. A. 
 
 V- 
 CHAPLAIN OF BRIDEWELL HOSPITAL, MINISTER OF BRIDEWELL 
 
 PRECINCT, AND RECTOR OF WHITE ROOTHING, ESSEX. 
 
 If ye will not beaieve7 surely ye shall not be estaolished. — Isa. vii. 9. 
 
 Be not afraid, only believe. — Mark v. 36. 
 
 Lord, I believe, help thou my. unbelief. — Mark ix. 24. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: PUBLISHED BY R. B, SEELEY AND W. BURNS IDE; 
 
 AND SOLD BY L. B. SEELEY AND SONS, FLEET STREET: 
 
 AND J. HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCXXYIIL 
 

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 ^^ OP TRR ^^ $S 
 
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 THE REV. EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 
 
 SECRETARY TO THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 
 
 To improve a community of natural men, united 
 for the common advantages of social life, into 
 a Communion of Saints, enjoying the privi- 
 leges, discharging the duties, and encouraging 
 the hopes of the Gospel — is the highest object 
 at which both the Statesman and Divine can 
 aim, though they should live in the more refined 
 condition of society upon earth. 
 
 It is with this view, I conceive, that the State 
 has instituted our Ecclesiastical Establishment; 
 and that it expects all — both Divine and Layman 
 to concur in advancing the kingdom of ^^ the 
 Christ of God,'"* as the highest possible attain- 
 ment that can make the subjects of the realm 
 truly happy whether here or hereafter. 
 
 This kingdom of Christ is^a spiritual king- 
 dom ; and does not proceed from any native 
 moral power or goodness of man whatever : it 
 
vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 is founded on the assumption of man's utter 
 worthlessness and sinfulness before God : it is 
 eminently the kingdom of promise— a kingdom 
 of mere mercy, and love, and grace, and peace. 
 On this principle, I conceive, in perfect con- 
 sistency with the genuine Gospel of Christ, the 
 Established Church of these realms is built. 
 It is assumed that every child introduced into 
 her communion, is introduced in virtue of the 
 PROMISE made to the children of believers : on 
 this ground the Parents and Sponsors present 
 the Child ; on this ground the Church receives 
 the Child into " the Communion of Saints ; " and 
 on this ground she commits the responsibility 
 of educating the Child to the Sponsors, as inter- 
 ested in all the privileges of the promise. On 
 this ground she instructs him in her Catechism 5 
 on this she prepares him to be Confirmed by the 
 Bishop ; on this he is interested in every subse- 
 quent formulary, and throughout all her Liturgy 5 
 and on this ground she takes her leave of him, 
 in the last act of kindness she can pay him in 
 this world, when she gives " hearty thanks'' to 
 God, " for that it hath pleased" him "to 
 deliver this our brother out of the miseries 
 of this sinful world." 
 
INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 The above statement is the argument of the 
 present volume. It is the mode of blessing 
 mankind revealed in the Bible — salvation by 
 PROMISE : and it is the mode established by 
 the Legislature of the land, consistently with 
 the Bible, of making every subject a blessing to 
 himself, his neighbour, his country, and an 
 honour to his God. Let the education of our 
 children be conducted on this principle, as it is 
 carried into practice by our church in her 
 Baptismal Service, and its two kindred formu- 
 laries, the Catechism and Confirmation Service. 
 We may then hope that as faith pleads and acts 
 on the Promise, God will bless his own mode 
 of ameliorating the human character, and that 
 our population shall not be a community of 
 mere natural men, but a Communion of the 
 Saints of God. 
 
 May the blessing of God smile on this weak 
 effort to glorify his grace, and may every 
 Reader say. Amen. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 I CANNOT send this second edition into the 
 world without blessing God for the quick 
 circulation with which it has pleased him to 
 favour the first edition of a work which is 
 devoted to recommend to general acceptance 
 the excellence of the great principle of the 
 Gospel — salvation by promise. May the same 
 blessing rest also on this, and on every effort 
 to commend his grace. 
 
 By one description of Readers the argument 
 of the book is plainly mistaken, and indeed 
 necessarily so ; for no man can rise above his 
 principles. An unspiritual mind can discern 
 nothing in the water of the one Sacrament, 
 and in the bread and wine of the other, but 
 the natural elements presented to his outward 
 eye. These act no faith on the word which 
 gives spiritual effect to the Sacrament, because 
 they know not what faith is. And hence they 
 cannot ascend above the opus operatum, or 
 the mere external observance. I have no hope 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 that such can understand the argument of the 
 book, or behold it in any other light than as a 
 confirmation of their own imperfect view of the 
 Sacraments. For however acute the natural 
 talents of man may be, however cultivated his 
 mind by learning, or however extensive his 
 acquirements, he is still a natural man with 
 all his mental advantages ; and therefore " re- 
 ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." 
 And as well may a man who has been blind 
 from his birth, with all his acquired exquisite- 
 ness of touch, conceive the appearance of a fall 
 of snow, as a natural man with everv accumu- 
 lated talent and acquirement conceive the nature 
 of that divine faith which applies the promise 
 of a covenant God to the soul. 
 
 There are many excellent persons, and these 
 men of decided piety, who oppose the argument 
 of the Book, on the ground that ^^ the spirituality 
 of religion is inconsistent with Infant-baptism 5" 
 or, in fact, that because grace is not discoverable 
 in infants, therefore they have no grace. But 
 this objection seems to me to strike at the very 
 essence of the Gospel — salvation by promise. 
 If salvation be of promise, as it is throughout, 
 then only let a promise be given, and it is both 
 the duty and privilege of the Believer to live by 
 faith in that promise. Now it seems to me to 
 be undeniably clear, that God has made pro- 
 mises of spiritual blessings to Believers and 
 their children. And on this account, when the 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 Believer receives a child from God, it is his 
 privilege to receive that child, not as a child 
 of nature merely, but as a child of promise, 
 entitled to spiritual benefits and blessings. To 
 esteem him not to be a child of God before 
 graces are evident in him, is to live not by 
 faith, but by sight; not to trust to promise, 
 but to trust to sense; not to honour God in 
 covenant, but in accomplishment ; not to trust 
 his word for what that word is engaged to 
 perform, but practically to distrust the word, 
 by suspending our belief till we see it in its 
 performance. And what is this, after all, but 
 a life of sense and sight, rather than a life 
 of faith and confidence ? Whereas a Christian 
 life is a life of faith — credit resting upon the 
 divine word : and the most accomplished Be- 
 liever, after the discharge of all his duties, the 
 exercise of all his graces, and the enjoyment 
 of all his privileges, must, at his last hour, 
 look for comfort to the promise — ^ " Him that 
 cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." 
 Lord, thy promise is to coming sinners; I 
 come as a sinner — save me.' And why is not 
 the promise to him and his children to be 
 acted out in faith, as well as every other 
 promise of the word of God ? 
 
 Another description of persons, who demur 
 at the argument of the Book, are those, who 
 conclude that our expectations are unwar- 
 ranted, in attempting to " improve a com- 
 
xu PREFACE. 
 
 munity of natural men, into a communion 
 of saints/^ They reason from the secret, 
 rather than the declared will of God. And 
 because it is said, that " a remnant shall be 
 saved/' and that " there is an election of grace/' 
 are withheld from proposing the Gospel as a 
 universal remedy. To such, a large portion 
 of Scripture seems to be mere dead letter : 
 they oppose the secret will of God to his re- 
 vealed will ; and because the real Church 
 of Christ consists of the " secret ones " of 
 God, they see no meaning in " Go ye into 
 all the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature.'' Thus they elevate themselves into 
 the throne of God, arrogate to themselves the 
 " secret things " which " belong" to, and are 
 eminently the attributes of " the Lord our 
 God," while from the '^ things which are reveal- 
 ed," and " belong unto us and to our children," 
 we are to derive no practical benefit. Thus 
 they have resolved in their practice the great 
 turning-point of faith, how a select Israel 
 of God, is consistent with the offer of the 
 Gospel to every creature. A point, which 
 both the page of Scripture, and the general 
 confession of the Saints, has placed far beyond 
 the ken of the acutest reason ; and which, it 
 seems, ever has afforded, and ever shall afford, 
 in this world, exercise for patient faith, and 
 which never shall receive its complete develope- 
 ment, till faith is matured into the full vision 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 of intellectual blessedness before the throne 
 of glory. 
 
 Others say, ^^ We can go with you part of the 
 way, but we cannot go your whole length."' To 
 such I can only reply. Once admit the prin- 
 ciple — salvation by promise, as faith may apply 
 the same — and when shall that faith cease to 
 operate, from its apprehension of the first rise 
 of salvation in the electing love of God before 
 the world was, through the calling, conversion, 
 justification, adoption, sanctification, and re- 
 ligious walk of the soul in time, to the final 
 accomplishment of the promise in the complete 
 beatification of that soul in the regions of glory ? 
 Only once embark at the fountain of grace, 
 and where can you stop till yx)u arrive at the | \ r 
 confluence of glory ? r 
 
 I again commit the work to Him, to the 
 honour of whose grace it is devoted, and 
 implore Him to make it an instrument, however 
 humble, of promoting His cause of free grace 
 and sovereign mercy upon earth. 
 
 v 
 
 March 31, 1838. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Letter Page. 
 
 I. Preliminary Remarks on the pre- 
 
 sent relaxed observance of Baptismal 
 duties and obligations. - - - 1 
 
 II. The Parent. - - - - 20 
 
 III. The Sponsor. - - - - 69 
 
 IV. The Infant. - - - - 116 
 
 V. The Church. . - - . 140 
 
 VI. Objections stated and answered. - 163 
 
 VII. Sentiments of the Reformers. - 19S 
 
 VIII. Advantages which might be ex- 
 pected to arise from the above 
 interpretation of our Baptismal 
 Service. ----- 235 
 
 IX. Modes humbly suggested of carry- 
 ing the same into effect. - - 402 
 
 Index. - - - - - - 517 
 
LETfER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE PRESENT 
 RELAXED OBSERVANCE OF BAPTISMAL 
 DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 You asked me some time since^ for a statement 
 of my sentiments, on the subject of Infant-bap- 
 tism, as administered by our Church ; and on 
 putting into your hands a paper which I had 
 drawn up on that subject, you returned it to 
 me, with a wish to ' see it in print, in a more 
 enlarged form.* 
 
 Urged by your request, and encouraged by 
 your judgment, I cheerfully cast my mite into 
 the treasury of those benevolent exertions 
 which are intended to compose our differences, 
 and to bring us to that " Communion of saints," 
 
 B 
 
2 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 in which, I conceive, it is the great object 
 of our Church in all her formularies to unite 
 her children. 
 
 It is but too evident then, that men may "pro- 
 fess and call themselves Christians," without 
 being effectually " led into the way of truth." 
 They may therefore be formally admitted into 
 the membership of " the Holy Catholic Church ;" 
 but they may still have no fellowship with the 
 saints in spirit, having no spiritual communion 
 with Christ, the vital Head of his spiritual 
 body. Since it is from Him that that genuine 
 spirituality proceeds, which combines every 
 real member of this Communion in one holy 
 society, and unites and incorporates both Him 
 " that sanctifieth'' and them that " are sanctified 
 all'^ in "one."^ " The mystical union between 
 Christ and his Church," says Bishop Pearson, 
 " the spiritual conjunction of the members to the 
 Head, is the true foundation of that commun- 
 ion which one member hath with another, all 
 the members living and increasing by the same 
 influence which they receive from Him. " - 
 Without a previous communion with Christ 
 then, there can be no real spiritual communion 
 with each other. 
 
 Hence it is but too clear that admission into 
 " the Holy Catholic Church" by any external rite, 
 and a partaking of " the Communion of the 
 
 » Heb. ii. 11. = On the Creed, Article ix. p. 357. 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 3 
 
 saints/' differ as truly as a mere profession does 
 from a sincere and indisputable reality. The 
 one bears the name, the other possesses the 
 Spirit of Christ : the one enters the door, but 
 proceeds no further ; the other ranges through 
 all the delightful apartments of the mansion, 
 and enjoys all the privileges of a child of the 
 family. '^ There were not hypocrites among 
 the Jews alone, but in the Church of Christ 
 many cry, "Lord, Lord," whom he knoweth 
 not. The tares have the privilege of the field, 
 as well as the wheat ; and the bad fish of the 
 net, as well as the good. The saints have 
 communion with hypocrites in all things with 
 which the distinction of a saint and a hypocrite 
 can consist. They communicate in the same 
 water, both externally baptised alike ; they 
 communicate in the same creed, both make 
 the same open profession of faith, both agree 
 in the acknowledgment of the same principles 
 of religion ; they communicate in the same 
 word, both hear the same doctrine preached ; 
 they communicate at the same table, both eat 
 the same bread and drink the wine, which 
 Christ hath appointed to be received ; but the 
 hypocrite doth not communicate with the saint 
 in the same saving grace, in the same true faith 
 working by love, and in the same renovation 
 of mind and spirit ; for then he were not a 
 hypocrite, but a saint. A saint doth not com- 
 municate with the hypocrite, in the same sins, 
 
 B 2 
 
i PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 in the same lurking infidelity, in the same un- 
 fruitfulness under the means of grace, in the 
 same false pretence and empty form of godli- 
 ness ; for then he were not a saint, but a 
 hypocrite. Thus the saints may communicate 
 with the wicked, so they communicate not with 
 their wickedness ; and may have fellowship 
 with sinners, so they have no fellowship with 
 that which makes them such, that is, their 
 sins.'^ 1 And by parity of reasoning, hypocrites, 
 i. e. mere formal professors may openly and ap- 
 parently communicate with the saints, but they 
 can have no fellowship with their holiness, no 
 communion with their graces. The Pharisee 
 and the publican may both go up to the same 
 temple, but the pride of the one can have no 
 communion with the humility of the other : nor 
 can characters so dissimilar hold the same Head, 
 derive grace from the same source, or be in- 
 fluenced by the same Spirit. 
 
 As Bishop Pearson's name is deservedly vener- 
 able, and his work on the Creed is considered as 
 a standard book, I appeal again to his authority, 
 on this question. The following is the third 
 reason he gives for believing the Church of 
 Christ to be holy. " It is necessary to believe the 
 Church of Christ to be holy, lest we should 
 presume to obtain any happiness Z>y being of it, 
 \yithout that holiness which is required in it* 
 
 ^ Id. Article ix. p. 350. 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. &c. 5 
 
 It is enough that the end, institution, and ad-" 
 ministration of the Church are holy 3 but that 
 there may he some real and permanent advantage 
 received by it, it is necessary that the persons 
 abiding in the communion of it should he really 
 and effectually sanctified. Without which holi- 
 ness, the privileges of the Church prove the 
 greatest disadvantages ; and the means of sal- 
 vation neglected, tend to a punishment with 
 aggravation. It is not only vain but pernicious 
 to attend at the marriage feast, without a 
 wedding garment ; and it is our Saviour's 
 description of folly, to cry, ^^ Lord, Lord, open 
 to us," while we are without oil in our lamps. 
 We must acknowledge a necessity of holiness, 
 when we confess that Church alone which is 
 holy can make us happy."* 
 
 Here, according to the Bishop, it is presump- 
 tion to think of obtaining any happiness by 
 being of the Church, without obtaining that 
 holiness which is required in it. " The persons 
 abiding in the communion of it should be really 
 and effectually sanctified." Nay he goes so far 
 as to say, that profession without reality will 
 prove the greatest disadvantage, and be produc- 
 tive of aggravated punishment. The assertion 
 then, that " admission into " the Holy Catholic 
 Church," by the external rite of Baptism, is that 
 internal regeneration of the heart which evi- 
 
 J Art. ix. 350. 
 B 3 
 
6 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 dences our union with "the Communion of 
 saints," " only needs a plain statement of terms 
 to prove its fallacy. External admission into 
 "the Holy Catholic Church'* by the rite of water- 
 baptism, is but part of the Sacrament, " the 
 outward visible sign : " it is the Baptism of the 
 Spirit, " the inward and spiritual grace *' of 
 which the water is the emblem, the means, and 
 the pledge that constitutes that holiness, which 
 evidences our title to '^ the Communion of the 
 saints,** and makes the Sacrament complete. 
 
 But is it not to be expected that this very 
 mistake should have arisen in the Church ? So 
 long as the mere natural man may be the subject 
 of the outward dispensation, he must be expect- 
 ed to confound external things with things 
 spiritual. " The natural man," however distin- 
 guished by talents or acquirements, " receiveth 
 not the things of the Spirit of God." ^ He can- 
 not rise above his level 5 which is to look "at 
 the outward appearance : '" he is a creature of 
 sense, and sight, and reason, and can comprehend 
 the things which are obvious to those faculties ; 
 but not having the super-added faculty of faith, 
 he cannot comprehend the things of the Spirit, 
 which faith alone can discern. Hence he ne- 
 cessarily confounds the outward act with the 
 inward grace — the sign with the thing signified 
 — the water with the Spirit — the professing 
 
 » J Cor. ii. 14. 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. T 
 
 ** Holy Catholic Church/' with the spiritual 
 *' Communion of the saints ; " and thus con- 
 founding circumstantials with essentials, all the 
 mischiefs of delusion follow ; and the Christian 
 body, thus feeding on wind instead of whole- 
 some nutriment, is starved, and faints, and 
 decays. 
 
 That this is not a speculative mischief merely, 
 is but too evident from the relaxed estimation 
 of this privilege of Baptism, throughout the 
 professing Christian world. Is it not much to 
 be feared, that, in most cases, none of the 
 parties engaged in the rite, seem to expect any 
 spiritual advantages to flow from it ? Are they 
 not commonly content with the mere observ- 
 ance ? Are they not satisfied that the ceremony 
 should have been performed, without caring for 
 the privileges which the promise imparts to 
 the baptised ? Do not Parents usually compli- 
 ment away all hope of spiritual benefit to the 
 baptised, in selecting for Sponsors, those who 
 are related to them in nature, by the ties of 
 friendship, or those from whose rank or wealth 
 they encourage expectations of temporal aggran- 
 disement for their children ? Are not Sponsors 
 usually quite reckless of the spiritual character 
 of " the young Christian ? " Is not the Child, 
 as he increases in years and knowledge, educated 
 in complete indifference to his Baptismal privi- 
 leges and obligations ? and does the Church feel 
 any interest in the baptised, as belonging to the 
 
8 ' PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 " Communion of the saints ? " Are any of these 
 parties anxious to secure to the Child the most 
 glorious and important privileges of being " a 
 member of Christy the ehild of God;, and an in- 
 heritor of the kingdom of heaven^ ' by training 
 him up in a constant sense of his obligations to 
 renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, 
 effectually to " believe the articles of the Chris- 
 tian faith/' and to " keep God's holy v/ill and 
 commandments ; "' and heartily to thank his 
 Heavenly Father, that he hath called him to so 
 blessed a state of salvation, and that it should be 
 the object of his fervent prayers that he may' 
 have grace to walk in the same all the days of 
 his life ? Alas \ My Dear friend, how many 
 of us have either been the victims of this delusion 
 of mistaking the sign for the thing signified, in 
 our education from childhood ; or have contri- 
 buted to theconfirmatiouof thesame, by under- 
 taking the office of Sponsors for others, to whom 
 we have paid no attention after the ceremony 
 of Baptism had been performed. 
 
 I confess that this prevailing error, in the 
 very outset of our professing Christian course, 
 appears to me to be the fruitful source of both 
 the loose profession, and the fickle attachment 
 to our Established Church, which has been so 
 much and so feelingly lamented. If Baptism be 
 no more than a sign, a sign is no more than a 
 form, and a form is easily satisfied by a mere 
 profession : and if it admit us into nothing more 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 9 
 
 than the name of the Church, without uniting 
 us to the privileges, and sympathies, and spiritual 
 fellowship which form the essential realities of 
 " the Communion of saints,^' how can we hope 
 for attachment to that which is merely nominal, 
 and with which .no perception of spiritual 
 blessings is connected. Viewed as Baptism 
 xisually is, how can profession be otherwise than 
 loose, and attachment otherwise than fickle. 
 Solid attachment to an object arises from a sense 
 of its loveliness, its excellence, or from our 
 experience of the blessings we derive from it ; 
 but where these are not perceived or felt, 
 attachment cannot be otherwise than fickle ; it 
 rests on no solid basis, and is the sport of every 
 error that may assail it. 
 
 And is not this fundamental error the mighty 
 mischief which is now desolating our Church ? 
 All the evils that have ever been ascribed to the 
 doctrines of grace, with all their perversions, 
 and all their misapprehensions, must sink into 
 insignificance, when compared with those which 
 daily and palpably issue from the assertion of 
 " the general efficacy of Baptism in all w^ho 
 partake of the rite.'' The former evils are 
 generally apparent, not so much in practice, as 
 on the pages of speculative and accusing con- 
 troversialists ; while the latter force themselves 
 on our notice in the experience of every day ; for 
 were a due regard paid to Baptismal privileges, 
 and Baptismal duties, by all those who have 
 
 B 5 
 
10 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 solemnly engaged to improve the one, and to 
 discharge the other ; and were our li\ es, a& 
 they should be, practically employed in accom- 
 plishing our Baptismal vows ; i. e. were our 
 Baptism not merely a profession but a reality ; 
 is it possible that we could sec so much pride, 
 vanity, ambition, covetousness, and worldly- 
 mindednes? — so much mere morality, and so 
 much awful presumption as we witness in the 
 professing world ? It could not surely be. Con- 
 fidence in the sig7i is consistent enough with 
 mere profession, and profession may consist with 
 an accommodating similarity to the character 
 of the professors around us : but vital possession 
 of the thing signified— the blessed influence of the 
 Holy Spirit, without which it is no Sacrament 
 to the recipient, must purify the heart, renew 
 the life, and thoroughly furnish the man of God 
 '^ unto all good works/' ^ In the one case there 
 is the genuine '^answer of a good conscience 
 toward God," a conscientious recognition of 
 Baptismal obligations, and a corresponding holy 
 conversation ; in the other there is nothing* 
 more than " the putting away of the" outward 
 "filth of the flesh; "2 an ablution which, 
 unless joined with the influence of the Spirit, 
 can never affect the soul. And as Bishop Jewell 
 asserts, " Verily to ascribe felicity or remission 
 of sin, which is the inward work of the 
 
 » 2 Tim. iii. 17. * 1 Peter iii. 21. 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 11 
 
 Holy Ghost, unto any manner outward action 
 whatsoever^ it is a superstitious, a gross, and a 
 Jewish error." ^ 
 
 But if the Sacrament of Baptism is thus 
 rendered vain and effete by mistaking the sign 
 for the thing signified, — the water for the Spirit ; 
 is this all the injury which it has received ? 
 Has it not to complain also of the unworthy 
 treatment it has experienced in the house of its 
 friends ? 
 
 Blessed be God there are those who know 
 and feel that Baptism is not " an outward and 
 visible sign" only, but " an outward and visible 
 sign of an inward and spiritual grace,"' and yet 
 their estimate of the privileges and efficacy of 
 Baptism is low and inoperative. They rather 
 consider it as an introduction into a professing 
 Church, than as accompanied with any real 
 spiritual blessings to the baptised, as admitted 
 " into the Communion of the saints."' Their 
 faith in the promise issues in no corresponding 
 practice in the education of the Child. They can- 
 not so much be said to '' doubt " as to forget 
 that God has received the infant, that he has 
 regenerated him with his Holy Spirit, that he has 
 received him for his own child by adoption, and 
 incorporated him into his holy Church; and 
 that they have given God '^ hearty thanks" for 
 the same. They do not consider the Child as 
 
 * Jewell's Reply; &c. p. 442. 
 
12 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 thus " regenerated/' " adopted/' and " incor- 
 porated," and therefore they do not plead the 
 promise for a hlessing on their education of him 
 as devoted to God, or call upon him, as one 
 invested with so high privileges as " a member 
 of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of 
 the kingdom of heaven," to walk worthy of his 
 high calling. The promise affords them no aid 
 in bringing up the Child as a child of God, and 
 the privileges conferred are not urged as a 
 ground of encouragement to induce to the pursuit 
 of holiness, the attainment of one grace, or the 
 regulation of one temper. The rich expressions 
 of privileges actually conferred in Baptism, 
 which occur in the Baptismal and Confirmation 
 Services, and in the Catechism, have no influence 
 on their practice. Neither Baptismal blessings, 
 nor Baptismal vows are distinctly presented to 
 the mind of the Child, and his Baptism has no 
 practical purpose. Even these pious Parents 
 make no demand on the spiritual superintend- 
 ence of the Sponsors of the Child ; — even pious 
 Sponsors acknowledge no obligation of this 
 spiritual superintendence ; — the Child grows up 
 w^ithout any consciousness of his Baptismal 
 enjoyments or privileges ; — and the Church, not 
 inerely the professing, but the spiritual Church 
 entertains neither hopes nor fears on account 
 of the Child, and consequently exercises no faith 
 in the promise, and presents no prayers for its 
 accomplishment towards him. And thus, even 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 13 
 
 among the pious. Baptism is little more than a 
 dead letter, promises without plea for their ful- 
 filment — vaws without concern to discharge 
 them — a ceremony acquitting them from sub- 
 sequent interest — a sign signifying nothing. 
 
 We have had of late many interesting treatises 
 on education, most of which have lamented the 
 defective instruction of our times ; but as it ap- 
 pears to me, the best treatise on education is to 
 be found in the best principles and order for its 
 practice. The Church of England has made the 
 largest and most efficient provision for the holy 
 education of its children : and no treatises ever 
 yet published on this most interesting subject 
 appear to me to approach in excellence within 
 any comparable distance, to that of the Baptismal 
 and Confirmation Services, and the Catechism 
 of our Church. Here are the best rules, even 
 those proposed by the Scriptures of truth — here 
 are the best means, the application of the pro- 
 mises of a gracious God, the prayers of the sym- 
 pathising Church, spiritual instruction in graces 
 and duties, and privileges unquestionably holy ; 
 and the confirming efficacy of the Holy Spirit — 
 here is the best issue, certainty of success, 
 dependent on our faith in the promise of a faithful 
 God. Were we but consistent Churchmen, did 
 we but adhere to this system of education laid 
 down by our Church, beginning with the simple 
 devotion of the Child to God, and training him 
 up in the way that he should go with a just con- 
 
14 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 fidence on the divine promise for success in our 
 endeavours, we might then sow in hope that the 
 holy principles of his childhood would, with 
 growing years, be formed into holy habits, and 
 that when he was old he would not depart from 
 them. 
 
 And to what, indeed. My Dear Friend, may we 
 ascribe the infidelity, the scepticism, the Socin- 
 ianism, the spiritual indifference, the lukewarm 
 profession, the fashionable formality, and the too 
 visible ignorance of the blessed principles on 
 Avhich our Church is built, and above all, the 
 confused notions of Baptism which so generally 
 prevail, but to this departure from the simple 
 mode proposed by our Church for the education 
 of her children. It would be acting against the 
 plainest principles of our nature, to educate our 
 youth as we do at present, and to expect from 
 such education a Christian practice. In what 
 mode does Christianity as a practical system 
 enter into our plan of instruction ? Is it not 
 notorious that mythology has assumed the place 
 of Christianity, and that the education of the 
 young is more mythological than Christian ? 
 The respective systems by no means divide the 
 attention of our youth, or exercise an equal in- 
 fluence in training their minds, or in forming 
 their principles. On the Sabbath indeed they 
 are taught to read Christian Scriptures, to attend 
 a Christian place of worship, and to bow down 
 to the Christian God as the true God ; but on 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 15 
 
 the other six days of the week how little is done 
 to temper by Christian instruction the impure 
 and corrupt elegancies of heathen learning, or 
 even to neutralise the polluting effect of the 
 lascivious examples of heathen deities — the false, 
 obscene, excessive, and defiling sentiments and 
 descriptions of heathen poets and historians— or 
 the erroneous policy, the glaringly false mora- 
 lity, and the unmeasured profligacy of heathen 
 philosophers and statesmen. The unqualified 
 instruction of six days must be expected to in- 
 fluence the mind more than the customary 
 attentions paid to Christian institutions and 
 Christian instruction on the seventh ; especially 
 where Christianity is not so much taught in its 
 spiritual influence and vital loveliness, as in the 
 way of a task, of a dry lesson of ethics, or a system 
 of theological orthodoxy. To expect Christian 
 conduct fro^ an education principally, nay in 
 practice, almost exclusively heathen, is surely 
 highly unphilosophical and unreasonable ; it is 
 in fact to expect impossibilities, to seek for 
 '^ grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles." ^ 
 
 I know it will be said, that at our schools and 
 colleges Christianity is largely taught, that its 
 evidences are insisted on, that prayers are regu- 
 larly said, chapel and church attended, the 
 Sabbath exempted from the ordinary occupa- 
 tions which would desecrate it, and the Bible held 
 
 * Matt. vii. 16. 
 
16 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 out as the alone volume of inspiration ; that it 
 has a decided preference assigned to it above all 
 human productions; and that thus Christian 
 impressions become habitual and customary. 
 I grant, indeed, that these things produce an 
 effect in impressing the youthful mind with the 
 value of Christianity as an external dispensation, 
 and that they ensure respect to our Established 
 Church; but is the effect of all this teaching 
 so powerful as the teaching of heathenism ? Are 
 not the principles enforced really heathen — the 
 love of human glory, the cultivation of taknt as 
 the means of gratifying ambition, and acquiring 
 distinction among men ? and are not the virtues 
 of heathens more pmctically recommended to 
 the attention of the young than the graces of 
 Jesus Christ and those spiritual perfections which 
 constitute holiness ? Indeed, it has long appeared 
 to me that one fact is decisive of this question, 
 the neglect of Hebrew literature in our general 
 education : had the great truths of Revelation 
 been the subject of general instruction, the lan- 
 guage of that Revelation had been more gene- 
 rally cultivated : whereas it is notorious that not 
 only in our ordinary education it finds no place, 
 but that in many of our Public Schools the cul- 
 tivation of Hebrew literature is altogether ex- 
 cluded from the system. ^ 
 
 ^ It is worth while to observe the attention paid to Scripture 
 instruction, by the importance assigned to Hebrew literature ia 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 17 
 
 But indeed. My Dear Friend, will not the plain 
 truth of the case justify us in further remarking, 
 that the plan of education laid down by our 
 -Church in the three formularies already specified, 
 is only regarded by us as calculated to occupy 
 the attention of our childish years while yet 
 under maternal tuition ; or that it may do well 
 enough for the instruction of our Charity Schools 
 and the children of the poor : and when we enter 
 upon Greek and Latin authors, is not this very 
 entrance into heathen literature the usual signal 
 far laying aside the early instructions of our 
 former years ? or at least of admitting them to 
 so secondary a place in our education, (if indeed 
 it can be called secondary,) that from mere 
 desuetude they are treated with indifference and 
 neglect. And thus these admirable formularies 
 become little more than a dead letter, a rule 
 without practice, a system without observance, 
 a privilege without enjoyment. And can it be 
 the subject of wonder to a reflecting mind, that 
 
 the education given by our Public Schools as they were esta- 
 blished at the Reformation, or before or after that period. At 
 Winchester and Eton founded before the Reformation, and 
 at the Charter-house, founded since, when the purity of the 
 principles of the Reformation had declined, Hebrew is not 
 taught ; while at St. Paul's, Westminster, and Merchant 
 Taylor's, founded during Reforming times, the Hebrew lan- 
 guage still continues to be taught. The opportunity of early 
 instruction in the rudiments of knowledge, once lost, is seldom 
 regained amidst the occupations of after life ; a remark which 
 many of us can confirm by painful experience. 
 
18 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, &c. 
 
 a course of education. Christian in name and 
 heathen in effect, should produce its proper 
 fruits ; that a defective principle should issue in 
 a defective practice, and that among all ranks 
 of our people, and all the great moral executive 
 of the country — the Cabinet, the Legislature, 
 the Bar, the Magistracy, and the Pulpit — and in 
 that perhaps chief organ of moral influence, the 
 domestic circle, where first principles are usually 
 formed into practice — the neglect of a sound 
 pious education, provided by our truly Christian 
 Church, should be visited by the state of society 
 we behold — decency substituted for piety, form 
 for substance, ordinances for devotion, and 
 where the rottenness of heathen corruption 
 seeks in vain for concealment under the nail- 
 deep film of a Christian profession and a 
 Christian name. 
 
 From this self-inflicted state of moral debase- 
 ment to raise our still blessed country by the 
 application of that system of education provided 
 by a Church which she still upholds and vene- 
 rates, is the design of the following hints. I 
 profess myself hopeless of the revival of sound 
 Christianity in our Church, but by a recurrence 
 to the primitive principle on which she is founded, 
 salvation by grace through faith in the Redeemer. 
 This, I apprehend, to be the great prevailing 
 principle of our Baptismal Service, and its 
 kindred formularies. It is the free promise 
 of mercy to the children of believing Parents, 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS, Sec. 19 
 
 which at once encourages the Parent to present 
 his infant for incorporation into ^^ the Commu- 
 nion of the saints" — the child to holy effort, and 
 holy perseverance in his Christian course — the 
 Sponsors to undertake and to persist in their 
 tutelary work with any hope of success — and 
 the Church to extend her interest to every such 
 incorporated little one, as a nascent heliever, 
 growing" up under her prayers and affectionate 
 communion, a sound member of that body of 
 which Christ is the Head, and thus privileged 
 to be a child of God, and an heir of glory. 
 
20 THE PARENT. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THE PARENT. 
 
 If we ask then, how are the benefits of Infant 
 baptism to be secured^ so as to answer the ends 
 of a holy education ? we answer, from faith in 
 the general promises made to believing Parents 
 in behalf of their Children, and particularly in 
 the promise made at the celebration of this 
 Sacrament to all who partake of it in faith. And 
 these relate to the parents — the sponsors — the 
 INFANT baptised — and the Church, 
 
 It is surely no small consolation to Christian 
 Parents and to those who belong to the communion 
 of our Church, in common with others who have 
 entered into the married state, ^^ reverently, 
 discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of 
 God," " that they may see their Children chris- 
 tianly and virtuously brought up'' to the ^^ praise 
 and honour" of God. According to the doctrine 
 of our Church, founded on the word of God, the 
 loveliest Child living is " by nature born in sin, 
 and the Child of wrath," " forasmuch as all 
 
THE PARENT. 21 
 
 men are conceived and born in sin, and none 
 can enter into the kingdom of God except he 
 be regenerate and born anew of water and the 
 Holy Ghost." It must therefore be the leading 
 desire of these Parents' hearts that their Children 
 should be partakers of covenant mercies, and 
 should be interested in all the blessings con- 
 nected with that name, than which there is none 
 other given " under heaven whereby we must 
 be saved." 1 And as Baptism has ever been 
 considered by the Church of Christ as that 
 initiating Sacrament, by which the Child receives 
 the solemn investiture of his privileges as a 
 believer in Christy and as it is eminently so 
 considered by that portion of the Church to 
 which they belong 5 while they will hope for no 
 blessing upon their Child but as faith draws 
 it from the promise of a gracious God, so they 
 will be desirous that every blessing of the 
 promise should be sealed to him by that Sacra- 
 ment which is its sign and pledge. 
 
 It might be expected, that, as our Church 
 takes for granted, that all the Infants of her 
 members will be presented for the sign and seal 
 of their Church-membership, in the initiatory 
 Sacrament of Baptism, any formal mention of 
 the grounds of Infant-baptism might be spared, 
 and that nothing more was necessary than to 
 insist on the privileges and duties of this Sacra- 
 
 * Acts iv. 12. 
 
22 THE PARENT. 
 
 ment, and to encourage all within the pale 
 of the Church to enjoy the one and to discharge 
 the other. Our Church assumes that all who 
 are engaged in the ordinance, are " persuaded 
 of the good-will of our heavenly Father towards 
 this Infant, declared by his Son Jesus Christ: 
 and" are " nothing doubting but that he favour- 
 ably alloweth this charitable work of ours, in 
 bringing this Infant to his holy Baptism." It 
 assumes^ therefore, that all such are convinced 
 of the excellence of the rite, and of the pro- 
 priety of its institution. And to such all further 
 mention of the grounds of Infant-baptism might 
 seem superfluous. But so low is the general 
 estimate of Baptism among us, that it is to 
 be feared, that few have taken pains to in- 
 form themselves of the grounds on which the 
 Baptism of Infants rests. The introduction, 
 therefore, of the more obvious reasons for the 
 administration of Baptism to Infants seems 
 indispensable. 
 
 I say " the more obvious reasons," for it 
 would be quite inconsistent with the plan of this 
 letter, as well as unjust to the subject itself, to 
 attempt any thing like a complete statement of 
 all the grounds that may be adduced in favour 
 of Infant-baptism, within the short compass 
 proposed. What 1 shall offer, by the blessing 
 of God, are such as are conclusive in deciding 
 my own mind on the subject; and if they should 
 appear to be insufficient to any who may favour 
 
THE PARENT. 23 
 
 them with a perusal, I must refer such to the 
 authors who have written professedly on the 
 question. 
 
 I am aware that the acceptance which this 
 subject will find, will vary with the quarter 
 from which it is presented. If it come from the 
 regions of controversy, and address itself dryly 
 to the mind, apart from those circumstances in 
 which fallen man is found as a rebel to his God, 
 desirous of reconciliation to his favour, and 
 anxious for every mark and pledge which may 
 assure to him and his, the possession of that 
 favour ; it will meet with a cold reception 
 probably, and produce no greater effect than 
 the attempts which have preceded it. From 
 tliose regions of controversy, therefore, where 
 mere mind reigns devoid of feeling, and in- 
 tolerant prejudice banishes the kindlier dispo- 
 sitions of the heart, I make no approach. Religion 
 is only really acceptable to a mind rightly dis- 
 posed, or what the Scripture calls an " under- 
 I standing heart.'* We do not so much need the 
 logical acuteness of the head to comprehend ideas, 
 j as the kindly disposition of the heart to approve 
 I and to embrace them. With all the advantages 
 I ever yet ascribed to it, I am one, who have long 
 i thought that controversy has done more harm 
 I to the Church than it has ever done good.^ 
 
 ' If the proverbial allusion to express the bitterness of human 
 hatred, is not — the hatred of philosophers, or the hatred of 
 
24 THE PARENT. 
 
 Truth spoken in opposition, and therefore too 
 often under irritation, prejudice, or party- 
 feeling, was never yet a just exhibition of the 
 Gospel ; it was counteracting in spirit what it 
 was asserting in the letter. I utterly renounce, 
 therefore, all approach to controversy, and 
 take my stand in that station of domestic 
 life, where the kindlier affections have their 
 freest exercise — where, in the bosom of a 
 Christian family, the religion of Jesus pre- 
 sents its fairest exhibition, and where it both 
 originates and matures the sweetest character 
 of grace. 
 
 That we may view the subject then in its due 
 bearing, let us place ourselves in the family of 
 two Christian Parents, whose conjugal affection 
 has been blessed with a living Child. It is not 
 only received as the pledge of their affection to 
 each other, but of God's love to them. They 
 
 politicians, or of rivals, or even that of those whose trade is 
 war, — but odium iheologicum, the hatred of divines ; it is surely 
 time for the honour of our common Christianity, that theologi- 
 cal discussion should exhibit the essence of that choicest gift 
 of God, the name of which it bears. That man knows but 
 little of himself, who, even in his honest ardour to establish 
 truth, does not feel " the abundance of his own sense " of a 
 subject ever inclining him to intolerance of every differing 
 sentiment. I would avail myself of this opportunity of re- 
 questing my reader to pardon what he may deem excessive in 
 the course of this work ; and to attribute it rather to the in- 
 firmities of a nature over-sanguine in effecting its object, than to 
 any intention of trenching upon the sentiments of another, by 
 the undue enforcement ©f my own. 
 
THE PARENT. 25 
 
 receive it in faith ^ believing his word, that 
 ^^ children are an heritage of the Lord, and" 
 that " the fruit of the womb is his reward ; " 
 that " happy is the man that hath his quiver 
 full of them ; " and that the blessings of a re- 
 ligious household, so beautifully described by 
 David, are among the richest gifts, both in 
 providence and grace, that the bounty of our 
 Heavenly Father can bestow. His wife seated 
 in the chair of domestic respect, "as a fruitful 
 vine by the sides of" his " house ; " his " chil- 
 dren, like olive-plants, round about the" same 
 *' table," orderly, affectionate, and taught to 
 love God— surely such a scene whether wit- 
 nessed or anticipated, must impress the grateful 
 husband who fears God with the conviction, 
 that " thus blessed," he is blessed " out of 
 Zion ; " that these blessings are his as he fears 
 God ; and he trusts to " see the good of Jeru- 
 salem all the days of" his "life," even to "see 
 his children's children, and peace upon Israel." i 
 Thus connecting both his present and future 
 happiness as well as that of his Child with the 
 fear of God, he is most desirous of securing to 
 him every spiritual blessing : and while it is 
 his object to train him up in the fear and nur- . 
 ture of the Lord, as his truest happiness, it is 
 also his object to assure himself, that God to 
 whom he has devoted his Child, has a favourable 
 
 ^ Psalm cxxviii. 
 c 
 
26 THE PARENT. 
 
 countenance towards him, and that his " labour'* 
 shall not be "in vain in the Lord."' ^ 
 
 With this view he will reflect on the instances 
 of kindness shown by God to Children. When 
 Korah and his company were destroyed, " not- 
 withstanding the children of Korah died not. " ^ 
 So of the Edomite and the Egyptian it is said, 
 though excluded themselves, " the children that 
 are begotten of them, shall enter into the con- 
 gregation of the Lord in their third generation.*' ^ 
 The jealousy of God extends no further than to 
 the third or fourth generation of them that 
 hate him, in visiting "the sins of the fathers 
 upon the children ; '' but he shows mercy unto 
 thousands of generations of those that love him, 
 and keep his commandments. * His jealousy 
 towards the family of the wicked, knows a 
 measure of punishment ; his mercy towards the 
 family of those that love him knows no measure 
 of grace. And when God spared Nineveh, his 
 consideration for the helpless Infants in " that 
 great city,'* formed a leading ground of his 
 merciful forbearance, '^ wherein are more than 
 six-score thousand persons, that cannot discern 
 between their right hand and their left.'* ^ 
 
 To the above, these Parents will add the 
 cheering consideration that the Children of be- 
 lievers are " beloved for the fathers' sakes 5 " 
 
 M Cor. XV. 58. 2 jvfmxib. xxvi. 11. ^Deut. xxiii. 8. 
 ■* Exod. XX. 6. * Jonah iv. 11. 
 
THE PARENT. Zt 
 
 and that, as such, they have muny exceeding 
 great and precious promises, the rich expressions 
 of God's favour to them especially. " The just 
 man walketh in his integrity, his children are 
 blessed after him/* i— " The faithful God which 
 keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love 
 him and keep his commandments to a thousand 
 generations." 2 — a xhe righteous — is ever mer- 
 ciful and lendeth ; and his seed is blessed.*' 3 — 
 " For the Lord is good ; his mercy is everlast- 
 ing ; and his truth endureth to generation and 
 generation." — margin^ "The children of thy 
 servants shall continue, and their seed shall be 
 established before thee." ^ — " The generation of 
 the upright shall be blessed." ^ — « gut the 
 mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting upon them that <ifear him, and his 
 righteousness unto children's children ; to such 
 as keep his covenant, and to those that remem- 
 ber his commandments to do them."'^ — "The 
 seed of the righteous shall be delivered." » — " I 
 will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and 
 floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my 
 spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine 
 offspring : and they shall spring up as among 
 the grass, as willows by the water courses. 
 One shall say, I am the Lord's ; and another 
 
 * Prov. XX. 7. * Deut. vii. 9. ' Psalm xxxvii. 25, 26. 
 
 * Psalm c. 5. ^ Psalm cii. 28. ^ Psalm cxii. 2. 
 
 ' Psalm ciii. 17, 18. « Prov. xi. 21. 
 
 C 2 
 
3« THE PARENT. 
 
 shall call himself bv the name of Jacob, and 
 another shall subscribe with his hand unto the 
 Lord, and surname himself by the name of 
 Israel/' i — The above is a full and comprehen- 
 sive promise, which may cheer the heart of the 
 most timid believing Parent. "But my righte- 
 ousness shall be for ever, and my salvation 
 from generation to generation." 2 — a They shall 
 not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble ; 
 for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, 
 and their offspring with them." 3 — ^^ His mercy 
 is on them that fear him from generation 
 to generation." 4 — I close this enumeration of 
 promises by that large and ample expression of 
 mercy uttered by St. Peter ; " Repent, and be 
 baptised every one of you, in the name of Jesus 
 Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
 receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the 
 promise is unto you, and to your children, and 
 to all that are afar off," whether in time, or 
 place, " even as many as the Lord our God 
 shall call ."5 
 
 And all these promises seem to be confirmed 
 by the following striking passage of St. Paul ; 
 " For the unbelieving husband is sanctified 
 by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanc- 
 tified by the husband : else were your children 
 unclean; but now are they holy." To which 
 
 ^ Isa xliv. 3—5. « Isa. li. 8. ^ isa. Ixv. 23, 
 
 4 Luke 1. 50. 5 Acts ii. 38, 39. 
 
THE PARENT. 29 
 
 words I will only add Hooker's comment. 
 " We are plainly taught of God, that the seed 
 of Faithful Parentage is holy from the very 
 birth/' 1 
 
 Indeed God looks upon the Children of the 
 Church as his own Children, as is evident 
 from the following affecting expostulation of 
 God with his people, during their captivity in 
 Babylon. ^^ Moreover thou hast taken thy sons 
 and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto 
 me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them 
 [idols] to be devoured. Is this of thy whore- 
 doms a small matter, that thou hast slain my 
 children, and delivered them to cause them to 
 pass through the fire for them ? " ^ 
 
 Encouraged by these repeated promises of 
 mercy and love to his Children, all of which the 
 believing Parent will apply to himself and his 
 Child by faith; he will find yet larger encou- 
 ragement in that act of condescending love, 
 when the Saviour confirmed these promises of 
 mercy in his acceptance of the " Infants,'* 3 
 that were brought to him, and in bestowing 
 his blessing upon them. Will these Parents 
 form a false judgment of our Church's inten- 
 tion in selecting this one passage from the 
 Scripture, as the ground of Baptismal blessing, 
 without mentioning one of the above promises ; 
 
 ^ See Ec. Pol. B. v. c. 60. See also this text largely dis- 
 cussed by Wall. " Hist, of Infant Baptism," i. 123. 
 f Ezek.xvi. 20, 21. 3 Luke xviii. 15. 
 
 C 3 
 
30 THE PARENT. 
 
 if they should infer, that she conceives the virtue 
 of all the promises to the Children of believers, to 
 be concentrated in this one act of our Lord, when 
 he received Infants into his arms and blessed 
 them ? In this act is something beyond promise ; 
 it is not a promise given, but a promise acted 
 out ; not a vrord of mercy spoken, but an act 
 of mercy accomplished. " Ye perceive, " says 
 the Church, " how by his outward gesture and 
 deed he declared his good will toward them, 
 for '* — he did not give a promise ; but he ratified 
 every promise heretofore given to the Children 
 of believers, by his authentic act and deed ; — 
 " he embraced them in his arms, he laid his 
 hands upon them, and blessed them." On 
 this accomplishment of promise she encourages 
 the faith of the believer ; '^ Wherefore we being 
 thus persuaded of the good will of our Heavenly 
 Father towards this infant, declared by his son 
 Jesus Christ, and nothing doubting," &c : and 
 in the address to the Sponsors, shortly after, 
 she adds, " ye have heard also that our Lord 
 Jesus Christ hath promised in his Gospel, to 
 grant all these things that ye have prayed for : 
 which promise he for his part will most surely 
 keep and perform." In the first sentence the 
 Congregation is reminded of " the good will of 
 our heavenly Father" towards ^Mnfants," first 
 the subject of promise, that promise afterwards 
 practically " declared by his Son Jesus Christ," 
 in his loving acceptance of them : and in the 
 
THE PARENT. ^^^- 31 
 
 second sentence the Sponsors are encouraged 
 by the general promise " ask and ye shall have/^ 
 to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ will 
 " grant all these things that ye have prayed for." 
 Here then are great and abundant promises, 
 promises ratified by the practical kindness of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of his flesh, 
 full of encouragement and peace : and the 
 benefit of these promises, these faithful Parents 
 will apply to themselves and their offspring. 
 
 Nor will they stop here : they will on so im- 
 portant a question, as that of the favour of God 
 towards their Child, not rest merely on the ge- 
 neral assurance of the mercy of God towards 
 him in the promise ; they will ask further for 
 some particular token, sign, seal, and pledge of 
 this mercy in a Sacrament especially appointed 
 for this purpose. If the Child, according to 
 the promise, be a gracious Child, as the off- 
 spring of the believer, he belongs to the family 
 of grace ; and there must surely be some visible 
 mode appointed by God for his admission into 
 that family, a mode by which the Church shall 
 testify the reception of the Child into her 
 bosom, and afford the Parents, and Sponsors, 
 and the Child himself, when he arrives at an 
 age to comprehend his own privileges, a pledge 
 to assure them that such Child does really 
 belong to the family of Christ. 
 
 And on looking into the page of Scripture, and 
 observing the general practice of the Church 
 
32 THE PARENT. 
 
 throughout all ages^ from the early covenant 
 of God with Abraham and all his faithful pos- 
 terity, both Jew and Gentile, they will to their 
 inexpressible satisfaction learn, that as God 
 has given a promise of grace to believers and 
 their Children after them, so he has uniformly 
 afforded them the richest assurance of the bless- 
 ing, by appointing a particular Sacrament for 
 the initiatory ingrafting of such Children into 
 his Church, as the means of actually conveying 
 the blessing, and as a sign, and seal, and pledge 
 to assure every believer of the same.* 
 
 While these believing Parents contemplate 
 their Child as born in sin, and therefore the 
 Child of wrath, it must be their most anxious 
 
 * St. Stephen states this idea most concisely and impres- 
 sively, and in a manner encouraging to every Christian Parent. 
 " And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn 
 in a strange land; and that they should bring them into 
 bondage, and intreat them evil four hundred years. And the 
 nation to w^hom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said 
 God : and after that shall they come forth, and serve me 
 in this place." Here is the promise. Next we have the 
 seal of it ; " and he gave him the covenant of circumcision." 
 Thus assured, Abraham acted on this assurance — " and so 
 Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day : '' 
 and the Patriarchs acted with the same faith : " and Isaac begat 
 Jacob, and Jacob begat the twelve Patriarchs." The Chris- 
 tian Parent and all his posterity have the same warrant. First 
 the promise ; next the assurance and pledge of the promise, 
 " the covenant " of Baptism ; let him only act with the same 
 faith, and all the blessings of the Covenant shall be to him 
 and his Children. 
 
THE PARENT. 33 
 
 Inquiry, how can this Child stand before God 
 without the imputation of sin, and be assured of 
 restoration to his favour ? And they will see, 
 that God has done this, for the comfort of be- 
 lievers, by the Sacrament of Circumcision under 
 the Law, and by the Sacrament of Baptism under 
 the Gospel ; and that while the seal of ratifica- 
 tion has been altered from the blood of Circum- 
 cision to the more merciful water of Baptism, 
 the blessing has equally been conferred by 
 promise, and not by any mere act or obser- 
 vance of law, whether under the Law or under 
 the Gospel. 
 
 And as Circumcision, as preparatory to Bap- 
 tism, appears to be the hinge on which the 
 question mainly turns, it seems to deserve our 
 more particular attention. Let us consider it 
 first then in its institution. " As for me, behold 
 my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a 
 father of many nations. Neither shall thy name 
 any more be called Abram ; but thy name shall 
 be Abraham, for a Father of many nations have 
 I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding 
 fruitful, and I will make nations of thee ; and 
 kings shall come out of thee. And I will esta- 
 blish my covenant between me and thee, and thy 
 seed after thee in their generations, for an ever- 
 lasting covenant 3 to be a God unto thee, and thy 
 seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and 
 to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art 
 a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlast- 
 
 c 5 
 
34 THE PARENT. 
 
 •ing possession; and I will be their God." Thi^ 
 is God's part of the covenant, and can it be said 
 from these expressions, that " the old Fathers did 
 look only for transitory promises ?'' The words 
 seem to convey blessings of two characters. First 
 temporal ; Abraham was to " be a Father of many 
 nations/' he was to be " exceeding fruitful,'^ 
 " kings " should " come out of him, and 
 "Canaan'' should be "an everlasting possession" 
 to him and his "seed after'^ him. The covenant 
 had, secondly, spiritual blessings : for Canaan 
 was to be given to him and his seed "for an 
 everlasting possession," intimating that eternal 
 possession of which Canaan was but a type, con- 
 cluding the promise with the blessed spiritual 
 assurance, " and I will be their God." Jehovah 
 assures him also in the preceding verse, " and 
 I will establish my covenant between me and 
 thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, 
 for an everlasting covenant ; to be a God unto 
 thee, and to thy seed after thee." Did the Father 
 of the faithful annex no other meaning to these 
 expressions, " to be a God unto thee,^ and to thy 
 
 * For God to be our God is the highest privilege he can 
 bestow upon us. It is to impart himself to us, with all his 
 communicable excellencies. — " And in his blood shed upon 
 the cross (says Bradford addressing his God) thou hast made 
 a covenant with me, which thou wilt never forget, that thou 
 art, and wilt be my Lord and my God : that is, thou wilt for- 
 give me my sins, and be wholly mine, with all thy power, 
 wisdom, righteousness, truth, glory, and mercy." 
 
THE PARENT. 35 
 
 seed after thee/* in " Canaan an everlasting 
 possession/* than that God should be to him a 
 God in providence, in a land flowing with the 
 milk and honey of temporal prosperity ? or in 
 this covenant did he see the day of Christ ; and 
 recognise God as a (jod of mercy and grace, 
 pronouncing spiritual blessings on himself and 
 his posterity ? If he saw nothing more than tem- 
 poral blessings in this covenant, his faith had 
 surely but a comparatively poor subject for its 
 confidence ; but if he accepted God as his God, 
 and as the God of his seed after him, as the God 
 and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, dispensing 
 spiritual blessings to himself and his off*spring; 
 here was a subject of promise worthy of the 
 utmost confidence of the Father of the faithful, 
 in which he recognised himself as the distin- 
 guished channel of the primeval blessing of the 
 Messiah, in whom all the nations of the earth 
 should be blessed. And this was surely the 
 object of his faith. 
 
 Then follows man's part of the covenant : 
 " and God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep 
 my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after 
 thee, in their generations. This is my covenant 
 which ye shall keep, between me and you, and 
 thy seed after thee ; every man child among you 
 shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise 
 the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token 
 of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he 
 that is eight days old shall be circumcised among 
 
?e THE PARENT. 
 
 you, every man child in your generations^ he 
 that is born in the house, or bought with money 
 of any stranger, which is not of thy seed," ^ &c. 
 In the painful act of Circumcision, the faithful 
 Jew doubtless recognised the excision of a 
 fleshly nature j and as his faith discerned the 
 spiritual nature of the rite, so did lie really 
 enjoy the blessing. But we cannot suppose that 
 any spiritual advantage was conveyed by the 
 rite, any further than that advantage was applied 
 by faith ; even as at present, Baptismal washing 
 is not the blessing, but the thing signified, the 
 heavenly cleansing by the blood and Spirit of 
 Christ, which living faith extracts from the 
 application of the sign. 
 
 It is clear from a variety of passages in Scrip- 
 ture, that Circumcision had more than a na- 
 tional distinction, it had a spiritual distinction 
 also. " Circumcise therefore the foreskin of 
 your heart.'' 2 " And the Lord thy God will cir- 
 cumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, 
 to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, 
 and with all thy soul, that thou ma)' est live."^ 
 " Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take 
 away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of 
 Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem."* " Behold 
 the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish 
 all them that are circumcised with the uncir- 
 cumcised, &c. for all these nations are uncir- 
 
 ^ Gen. xvii. 2 Deut. x. 16. 
 
 ' Deut. XXX. 6. ■* Jer. iv. 4. 
 
THE PARENT. 37 
 
 cumcised, and all the house of Israel are 
 uncircumcised in heart : " ^ and the Apostle 
 decides the point beyond all question : " For he 
 is not a Jew which is one outwardly 5 neither is 
 that circumcision which is outward in the flesh : 
 but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and 
 circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, 
 and not in the letter; whose praise is not of 
 men, but of God. " 2 
 
 Here then it is clear, First, that Circumcision 
 was a spiritual rite, and conveyed spiritual 
 blessings ; secondly, that the Child circum- 
 cised the eighth day was capable of spiritual 
 blessings ; thirdly, that the Child thus circum- 
 cised was considered, and by this Sacrament 
 admitted, a member of the Church ; and it 
 seems to' me to be equally clear, that the spiritual 
 blessing was conferred on the Child, not as it 
 was a Jew, "one outwardly," but as those who 
 brought the Child and the Church acted faith on 
 the promise, and as the circumcised Child ex- 
 ercised faith in the same promise, in after life, 
 and showed that his "circumcision^' was " that 
 of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter ;" 
 practically applying the promise to his own in- 
 dividual advantage, by believing that the God of 
 faithful Abraham was his God also, as the faith- 
 ful seed of Abraham, and evidencing that faith 
 by a corresponding holiness of life. 
 
 » Jer. ix. 25, 26. =» Rom. ii. 28, 29. 
 
38 THE PARENT. 
 
 We may further remark, that the Gospel is 
 the subject of all the Sacraments, whether un- 
 der the Legal dispensation, or that of the Gospel. 
 The blessings of Circumcision were by promise ; 
 the blessings of the Passover were by promise 
 also : so under the Gospel dispensation the bless- 
 ings of the Sacraments, both of Baptism and of 
 the Lord^s Supper, are by promise. What then 
 is the great and uniform blessing of promise ? 
 The forgiveness of sin, free, full, and sovereign, 
 not on account of works, but simply from mercy 
 and grace. Let us attend then to the Apostle's 
 statement of this subject, and apply his reason- 
 ing. He thus states the Gospel and its blessings 
 as connected with Circumcision : " Blessed is 
 the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.^' ^ 
 This is a compendium of the Gospel : the non- 
 imputation of sin to the sinner, or the removal 
 of the charge of sin from his person, and in this 
 his gratuitous pardon, is the sum of redemption : 
 as the Apostle declares, "In whom we have 
 redemption through his blood, — the forgiveness 
 of sins." 2 In either case this blessing is a free 
 gift, whether bestowed on the Jew or the Gen- 
 tile, of which the Sacrament is the means and 
 pledge 3 and faith is the recipient, as in the in- 
 stance of Abraham, whose faith in the promise 
 was counted to him for righteousness, of which 
 promise Circumcision was afterwards given as 
 
 » Rom. iv. 8. « Eph. i. 7. 
 
THE PARENT. 39 
 
 the seal, that he might be equally the Father of 
 believers, whether circumcised or uncircum- 
 cised. " Cometh this blessedness then upon the 
 circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision 
 also ? for we say that faith was reckoned to 
 Abraham for righteousness. How was it then 
 reckoned ? when he was in circumcision, or in 
 uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in 
 uncircumcision. And he received the sign of 
 circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the 
 faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised.*' 
 Circumcision was not the blessing ; that was the 
 non-imputation of sin : it was only the sign of 
 that blessing, which was signified by it ; neither 
 did the mere observance of the rite of Circum- 
 cision benefit Abraham or his Children without 
 faith, for it was only the seal of the righteous* 
 ness of that faith which he had before his cir- 
 cumcision : and thus Abraham is " the Father " 
 of all "them that believe" in all times of the 
 Church, "that righteousness might be imputed 
 to them also." Whether under the law then, or 
 vmder the Gospel, the blessing is given by pro- 
 mise, to which the Sacrament was superadded, 
 as the means, and pledge, and sign, and seaL 
 The real blessing was under both appropriated 
 by faith : it w^as the faith of Abraham the Father 
 of the Church which conveyed the spiritual 
 blessing to his circumcised offspring ; and it is 
 the faith of the Church ever since that has con- 
 veyed the blessing to her Children, whether 
 
40 THE PARENT. 
 
 Under the Sacrament of Circumcision, or of its 
 succeeding counterpart, Baptism. The Church 
 is still the family of faithful Abraham, her Chil- 
 dren are still the children of the promise ma*^ ^ 
 to him, and the seal of the promise varies wi 
 the character of the dispensation under which 
 they are placed. 
 
 And this conclusion appears to be just, not 
 only from the reason of the thing, as above, but 
 from the express terms of the Apostle in the 
 epistle to the Colossians, "In whom also ye 
 are circumcised with the circumcision made 
 without hands, in putting off the body of the 
 sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ — 
 buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are 
 risen with him through the faith of the opera- 
 tion of God, who hath raised him from the dead." 
 What is the plain sense of the passage ? The 
 Colossians were " circumcised with the circum- 
 cision made without hands," which CircuQicision 
 consisted " in putting off the body of the sins 
 of the flesh by the Circumcision of Christ," 
 which Circumcision of Christ, or Christian Cir- 
 cumcision, consisted in being "buried with him 
 in baptism," in which baptism ye are not only 
 buried, but "wherein also ye are risen with him 
 through the faith," &c. Let the whole passage 
 be read, not as divided into verses, but as one 
 connected sentence, introducing a hyphen be- 
 tween "Christ" and "buried," as above, and 
 all difficulty seems to be removed as to its sense ^ 
 
I 
 
 THE PARENT. «1 
 
 then " the circumcision of Christ '* is the being 
 " buried with him in baptism, &c/' in other 
 words what Circumcision was under the Law, 
 Baptism is under the Gospel of Christ. This 
 appears to be the most natural construction of 
 the passage ; it is that which is given to it by 
 names of no mean note ; the Belgic confession 
 expressly stating, " For the which cause Paul 
 calleth Baptism the circumcision of Christ.'^ 
 And if Baptism be admitted to be under the 
 Gospel what Circumcision was under the Law, 
 (and it is apparent, as above, that Circumcision 
 conveyed spiritual blessings,) it is clear that if 
 Infants were capable of spiritual blessings by 
 being partakers of the one Sacrament, they are 
 equally capable of the same blessings by being 
 made partakers of the other. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable that the early 
 Fathers of the Church to the time of Augustine, 
 consider Baptism as given to us in the place of 
 Circumcision; as Origen, Cyprian, Gregory 
 Nazianzen, Ambrose, &c. ; and that three of 
 them, Basil, Augustine, and Chrysostom, give 
 to the above passage in the epistle to the Colos- 
 sians, the same sense as that ascribed to it above.^ 
 The same sentiment prevailed at the Reforma- 
 tion ; and it cannot reasonably be doubted, that 
 
 * See Wall's " Defence of the History of Infant-baptism," 
 vol. iii. pp. 269 — 272. The discussion on the above text 
 which these pages contain will amply reward a patient perusal 
 of them. 
 
42 THE PARENT. 
 
 it has been at all times both anterior and sub- 
 sequent to that period, the generally received 
 sentiment of the Church, that what Circumcision 
 was to the faithful Jew under the Law, Baptism 
 is at least to the faithful Christian under the 
 Gospel. The covenant blessings of the Father 
 of the faithful are sure to all his faithful seed ; 
 and as they are sealed by the blood of Circum- 
 cision under the first dispensation, they are sealed 
 by the milder seal of the water of Baptism under 
 the second. The Church is equally " Abraham's 
 seed, and heirs according to the promise." 
 
 To the above considerations, let it be added, 
 that Baptism by water was a practice to which 
 the Jew had long been accustomed before the 
 coming of Christ, and to which he seems to have 
 been especially familiarised during the ministry 
 of our Lord, by the introductory Baptism of him 
 who was the last messenger of the Law, and the 
 preparatory harbinger of the Gospel, expressly 
 sent, as the messenger of the Saviour, to pre- 
 pare his way before him. 
 
 That the Jews had long been accustomed to 
 this practice is affirmed by Wall, from sufficient 
 authority. " It is evident," says he, " that the 
 custom of the Jews before our Saviour's time 
 (and as they themselves affirm, from the 
 beginning of their law,) was to baptise as well 
 as circumcise any proselyte that came over to 
 
 ^ Gal. iii. 29. 
 
THE PARENT. 43 
 
 them from the nations. This does fully appear 
 both from the books of the Jews themselves^ and 
 also of others that understood the Jewish customs, 
 and have written of them. They reckoned all 
 mankind besides themselves to be in an unclean 
 state, and not capable of being entered into the 
 covenant of Israelites without a flashing or 
 Baptism, to denote their purification from their 
 uncleanness. And this was called the baptising 
 of them unto Moses." " This custom of the 
 Jews continued after Christ's time, and after 
 their expulsion from the Holy Land ; and con- 
 tinues (as I shewed from Leo Modena,) to this 
 day, if there be any that now a-days do turn 
 proselytes to their religion. Wherever they 
 sojourned, if they found any of that country that 
 chose to be of their religion, they would not 
 admit him, unless he would first be washed or 
 baptised by them." ^ Thus the idea of Baptism 
 as typical of the spiritual washing of the soul, 
 was an idea to which the Jew had long been 
 accustomed. 
 
 The Jews were also familiarised to Baptism 
 by the preparatory Baptism of John, which was 
 just that intermediate dispensation that formed 
 an easy transition from the Law to the GospeL 
 
 ^ See Wall's " History of Infant-Baptism," introduction 
 pp. 68, 72. It does not consist with the proposed brevity of 
 the above statement to quote the authorities given by Wall : 
 they are well worth consulting by those who entertain any 
 doubt of the fact. 
 
44 THE PARENT. 
 
 He baptised with water to repentance, which as 
 it does not appear to have superseded the Cir- 
 cumcision of the Law on one hand, neither did it 
 convey the full spiritual blessings of the Gospel 
 on the other. We do not find that Infants were 
 admitted to the Baptism of John^ so that Circum- 
 cision, so far as appears, took place as usual, 
 during his Baptismal ministry; while on the 
 other hand those, who were " baptised unto 
 John's baptism," might " not so much as hear 
 whether there be any Holy Ghost," ^ j and must 
 be referred to Christ for those full spiritual bles- 
 sings which he alone could communicate, who 
 was to " baptise " them " with the Holy Ghost 
 and with fire/' 2 Thus John's Baptism was an 
 intermediate dispensation betwen Circumcision 
 and Baptism, preparing the way for the substi- 
 tution of the latter for the former. 
 
 With the advantage of these considerations, 
 let us conceive a faithful Jew to be the hearer 
 of St. Peter's first sermon preached on the day 
 of Pentecost, when the Gospel was completed, 
 and when " they that gladly received his word 
 were baptised." ^ Baptised himself, what is he 
 to do with his Child ? This Child has arrived at 
 its eighth day. By the spirit of the new dispensa- 
 tion. Circumcision is done away ; and is there 
 no Sacrament under the Gospel which seals 
 covenant blessings to his Child as Circumcision 
 
 ^ Acts xix. 2, 3. 2 ]y[att. iii. n. 3 Acts ii. 41. 
 
THE PARENT. 45 
 
 did under the Law ? At the institution of Cir- 
 cumcision^ God had promised to be " a God *' to 
 Abraham, and " to his seed after " him — that 
 blessing was a spiritual blessing, extending, 
 under the outward emblem " circumcision/' to 
 that of '* the foreskin of the heart" — the promise 
 was " sure to all the seed ; not to that only 
 which is of the law, but to that also which is of 
 the faith of Abraham,'' ^ — he hears of a " circum- 
 cision made without hands, in putting off the 
 body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision 
 of Christ," which is the " being buried with 
 him in baptism : " Christ has instituted a new 
 Sacrament of Baptism, and has enjoined his dis- 
 ciples, to go and teach all nations, and baptise 
 them ', if all nations had been proselyted to 
 Judaism, they must have been baptised at least ; 
 he is accustomed to this Baptism by the ordi- 
 nary mode of receiving proselytes ; he is still 
 more familiarised with it, having been a partaker 
 of John's Baptism : shall not his faith then apply 
 the new Sacrament of Baptism to his Child in 
 the place of Circumcision, and thus the Child be 
 outwardly acknowledged by the Church as an 
 heir of grace, as well as virtually be such by the 
 covenant of promise ? In Circumcision his Child 
 would have received his covenant name, as the 
 Jewish Child did ; 2 at Baptism he receives the 
 same— in the former the Child receives the seal 
 
 * Rom. iv. 16. 2 Luke i. 59, and ii. 2U 
 
46 THE PARENT. 
 
 of the promise ; in the latter it receives the same, 
 —in the former it is accepted into Church-mem- 
 bership 5 in the latter it finds the same accep- 
 tance, — in the former the faith of the Church has 
 enrolled the Child in the number of the faithful ; 
 in the latter the same faith has admitted the 
 Child to the same blessed privilege, — in the 
 former he is educated on the promise as a Child 
 of faithful Abraham ; in the latter he is educated 
 in faith of the same promise, and of additional 
 and confirmatory promises, as " a member of 
 Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the 
 kingdom of heaven.*' 
 
 And if Baptism be not the successor of Cir- 
 cumcision, what is the designation of his Child ? 
 He is not a Jew, he is not a Gentile, he is not a 
 Christian ; he is nothing " outwardly 5 " he 
 nominally belongs to no Church, no " household 
 of God ; " for without the pledge of Church- 
 membership, which the initiatory Sacraments of 
 either dispensation confessedly are, no visible 
 Church acknowledges him ; he is consequently 
 without Church character, without designation 
 and name. 
 
 Let the two Christian Parents then, whom we 
 suppose to be discussing this subject, place 
 themselves just in the position of this converted 
 Jew, at the first establishment of the Gospel, 
 with all his previous knowledge, preparatory 
 habits, and introductory education for the sub- 
 stitution of water for blood as the emblem, and 
 
THE PARENT. 47 
 
 Baptism for Circumcision as the Sacrament ; 
 and let them add to this the sweet and blessed 
 character of the Gospel, full of encouragement, 
 and invitation, and promise, demanding faith, 
 and discouraging doubt and hesitation and dis- 
 tance — and will they not see, that the transition 
 from Circumcision to Baptism is natural and 
 easy, and that Baptism is just the very privilege 
 which the Church, so richly redeemed, might 
 expect from the kindness and condescension of 
 her covenant God ? 
 
 I must confess, My Dear Friend, so deeply 
 impressed is my mind with this view of Baptism, 
 — and I would speak it with the utmost lowli- 
 ness that dust and ashes should assume when 
 speaking of the gracious dispensations of Al- 
 mighty wisdom and love — that had I been a Jew 
 converted to Christianity at that early time, with 
 all my previous associations and prepossessions, 
 on comparing the two dispensations together, I 
 should have been disposed to have complained, 
 that the archetype did not answer to its type, nor 
 the building correspond with the scaffolding, had 
 Baptism been wanting in the new dispensation, 
 as the pledge of covenant mercies to the Children 
 of the faithful : and I must yet go further, and 
 say, that if this view be correct, so prepared 
 was the mind of the Church for this substitu- 
 tion of one Sacrament for the other, as the 
 initiatory pledge of covenant blessings to her 
 Children, as to render the explicit mention of 
 
4a THE PARENT. 
 
 baptising Children, in the final commission 
 to teach and baptise all nations, wholly super- 
 fluous ; that in the then prepared state of 
 the Christian mind for this application of the 
 ordinance to Children, it would have been as 
 unnecessary to say, "administer this baptism 
 to Infants,** as at the institution of the other 
 Sacrament it would have been an unnecessary 
 announcement to have said, " do not you only 
 receive this in remembrance of me, but let your 
 women receive it also/' Nor does it appear to 
 me, that the general custom of the Church for 
 centuries thus to apply the promise of mercy to 
 Infants, would ever have been either interrupted 
 or questioned, had not declining doctrine and 
 declining practice found it necessary to contra- 
 dict the doctrine, or counteract the practice of 
 Infant-baptism in earlier times ; or a too hasty 
 attempt to prevent the mischiefs arising from 
 the abuse of the practice in the general laxity of a 
 mere Christian profession, have induced some in 
 these latter times, to innovate rather than to re- 
 form, and to abolish the privilege, rather than to 
 correct the scandal of an undue administration 
 of it. 
 
 And surely the general custom of the Church 
 of Christ through all ages from the institution of 
 Baptism, as it may be collected from history, 
 affords no small encouragement to these Parents 
 to baptise their Infants. Origen, who lived one 
 hundred and ten years after the Apostles, says, 
 
THE PARENT. 49 
 
 " For this also it was, that the Church had from 
 the Apostles a tradition [or order] to give bap- 
 tism even to infants."^ And again, "Besides 
 all this, let it be considered, what is the reason, 
 that whereas the baptism of the Church is given 
 for forgiveness of sins, infants also are, by the 
 usage of the Church^ baptised ^ when if there 
 were nothing in Infants that wanted forgiveness 
 and mercy, the grace of baptism would be need- 
 less to them/' 
 
 Augustine's testimony is very full and explicit, 
 and brings down the evidence to three hundred 
 years from the time of the Apostles. " And if 
 any one do ask for divine authority in this 
 matter; though that which the whole Church 
 practises, and which has not been instituted by 
 Councils, but was ever in use, is very reasonably 
 believed to be no other than a thing delivered 
 [or ordered] by authority of the Apostles ; ^ yet 
 we may besides take a true estimate, how much 
 the Sacrament of Baptism does avail Infants, 
 by the circumcision which God's former people 
 received." 
 F " But the custom of our Mother the Church in 
 baptising infants must not be disregarded, nor 
 
 » <* Pro hoc et Ecclesia ah Apostolis traditionem suscepit 
 etiam parvulis baptismum dare.'^ Wall, vol. i. pp. 54, 55, 
 
 2 " Secundum Ecclesiae observantiara," &c. Wall i. 53. 
 
 ' " Quanquam quod universa tenet Ecclesia, nee consiliis 
 institutum, sed semper retentum est, non nisi autoritate Apos- 
 tolic^ traditum rectissimb creditur," &c. Wall i. 105. 
 
 B 
 
50 THE PARENT. 
 
 be accounted needless, nor believed to be otlier 
 than a tradition [or order] of the Apostles."^ 
 
 It is clear to my mind from these extracts, 
 and from others which might be produced from 
 their works, that for the first three centuries 
 the baptising of Infants was the general ^^ usage" 
 and ^^ custom'' of the Church, that which was 
 ^^ not instituted by Councils,'' because unneces-- 
 sary, it being " that which the whole Church 
 practises." The casesofTertullian and Gregory 
 Nazianzen are evident exceptions to the general 
 sentiment and practice of the Church, and 
 therefore corroborate the evidence for the 
 universal reception of Infant-baptism among 
 Christians, since the exception proves the rule. 
 And throughout all subsequent ages, from the 
 days of Augustine to this hour, the same remark 
 may be made ; those who do not baptise their n 
 Infants at this day, are exceptions in the Church 
 of Christ ; the Universal Church throughout the 
 world concurring in the practice, as it ever has 
 
 1 C( 
 
 Consiietudo tamen matris Ecclesiae in baptizandis par- 
 vulis nequaquam spernenda est, neque ullo modo superflua 
 deputanda, nee oranino credenda nisiApostolica esse traditio." 
 Wall i. 213. 
 
 My reason for referring to Wall is, because his work pur- 
 ports to be a History of Infant-baptism, and abounds with 
 original information from the Fathers ; to the extracts from 
 whose writings an easy reference may be made. My appeal 
 to him is more for documents than sentiments ; though I am 
 obliged to him for both. 
 
THE PARENT. 51 
 
 done, as is apparent from the history of its creed 
 and usage.i 
 
 But these Parents will not only be confirmed 
 m their favourable sentiments of Infant-baptism 
 
 * In order to invalidate the force of this conclusion, drawn 
 from the general habit of the primitive Church, as apparent 
 from history, an attempt is made at once to depreciate the 
 authority of these primitive times, by representing that it was 
 their custom to administer to Infants the Sacrament of the 
 Eucharist as well as that of Baptism. But let the question be 
 fairly stated. No mention is found of this practice before 
 the time of Cyprian, one hundred and fifty years after the 
 times of the Apostles ; and he does not speak of Infants, but 
 of a child four or five years old ; nor after him till the time of 
 Augustine and Innocent of Rome, three hundred years from 
 the same times, from whose authority the practice seems to 
 have spread throughout the Wesl for the following six hundred 
 years ; during which time it was adopted by the Greek Church. 
 It declined in the West about the year one thousand, when 
 the Church of Rome, beginning to entertain the doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation, no longer gave the holy elements to Infants, 
 though probably to this day, it is continued in the Greek 
 Church, as it was observed by it, about a century since. [See 
 Wall ii.446.J It is obvious to remark on this account, that the 
 practice of administering the Sacrament of the Eucharist to 
 Infants was unknown for a Century and a half after the Apos- 
 tolic times, and that its existence even then is uncertain ; that 
 it wants the stamp of that primitive authority, which derives its 
 virtue from the well-known axiom, "that which is first is true." 
 And as it is not so early as the Baptism of Infants, neither, if 
 it ever did obtain so general usage in the Church, was it ever 
 general till after the time of Augustine and Innocent of 
 Rome, three hundred years from the Apostles, when the Church 
 was overrun with corruptions both of doctrine and practice. 
 The cases, therefore, seem by no means parallel, 
 
 B 2 
 
52 THE PARENT. 
 
 by the above considerations, and others of a 
 similar character which might be adduced: 
 there is yet a species of evidence on this question, 
 unheeded alas ! in the noise of controversy, but 
 whose mild and persuasive voice is peculiarly 
 acceptable to the faithful Parent, desirous of 
 assuring himself that his Child is within the 
 covenant of mercy, and that he should be pri- 
 vileged with the seal of so distinguished a 
 blessing. I mean the evidence that flows from 
 the peculiarly mild and lovely character of the 
 Gospel, as a dispensation of mercy ; such as 
 the following : 
 
 Without Baptism, children seem to be more 
 considered under the Law than under the Gospel. 
 Without Baptism, faith fails of its due en- 
 couragement, the promise and the Sacrament 
 to confirm it. 
 
 Without Baptism, the Church gives the Chil- 
 dren of the faithful no accrediting mark of 
 entrance into its communion ; or that they are 
 partakers of its interests, its sympathies, and its 
 prayers : In a word, they are without covenant 
 name, and character, because without the con- 
 firmatory seal. 
 
 It is consisent with the nature of the Gospel, 
 to give to a doubt the most favourable, and not 
 the most harsh construction. 
 
 It is a want of charity to the whole Communion 
 of Saints, both glorified and militant, to decline 
 from the univeral practice of the Church, in 
 
THE PARENT. 53 
 
 filling up the ranks of her member s, throughout 
 all ages, by the Baptismal admission of the 
 Children of the faithful to her notice and 
 regard. 
 
 And surely the faithful Parent desirous of 
 Baptismal blessings for his Child, may feel a 
 want of assurance in the absence of such ordi- 
 nance, as the covenanted seal of mercy, — of the 
 maternal care of the Church, — of God the Father, 
 as the reconciled Father of his Child in Christ 
 Jesus, — of the kind encouraging interest of him 
 who said, " Suffer the little children to come unto 
 me,'* — and of the regeneration of " the Spirit of 
 adoption;" the Sacrament of Baptism being 
 t^e great accrediting "means" by which he 
 receives the same, as well as " a pledge " to 
 assure him of it. 
 
 But as the spirit of these suggestions will, by 
 God's blessing, be more or less enforced in the 
 following pages, I will offer but one more re- 
 mark under this head : which is, that a faithful 
 man will be equally fearful of wronging the 
 mercy of God in Christ, and of depriving the 
 Infants of the faithful of their rich boon of mercy, 
 by contracting the scriptural expressions of 
 privilege by any human reasonings : he will 
 rather give them the largest meaning that faith 
 can apply to them, " the length and breadth of 
 all the plain as far as faith can see." 
 
 Consider the expressions of our Lord's com- 
 mission to baptise : " Go ye therefore, and teach 
 
 D 3 
 
54 THE PARENT. 
 
 all nations, baptizing" them in the name of the 
 Father/' ^ &c. : a large portion of every nation 
 consists of Infants : the original promise to 
 Abraham was^ " in thy seed shall all the nations 
 of the earth be blessed ; " the Infants of Abra- 
 ham's own nation were capable of spiritual 
 blessings^ of which their Circumcision was the 
 pledge; and^ if so, surely the Infants of all 
 other nations are capable of spiritual blessings 
 also, of which Baptism is now the pledge. If 
 it does not appear to some that there is any 
 intentional allusion made by our Lord, in adopt- 
 ing the word " nations/' to the same word used 
 in the original grant of the blessing to the Father 
 of the faithful of all nations, whether Jew or 
 Gentile; faith, on the contrary, sees that our 
 Lord, in adopting the same expression, would 
 convey the same covenant blessings to the 
 Infants of all nations, sealing them under the 
 Gospel not with blood, but with water. Thus 
 as Abraham is the Father of the faithful of all 
 nations, so the promise is thus made sure to 
 all the seed. 
 
 I present the following passage to the faith of 
 every Christian Parent, and leave it to the ac- 
 ceptance of this efficient Interpreter. 
 
 " And they brought young children [infants 2} 
 to him, that he should touch them : and his 
 disciples rebuked those that brought them. But 
 
 ^ Matt, xxviii. 19. ^ Luke xviii. 15. 
 
THE PARENTx 55 
 
 when Jesus saw it he was much displeased, and 
 said unto them, Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
 kingdom of God. Verily, I say unto you, who- 
 soever shall not receive the kingdom of God as 
 a little child, he shall not enter therein. And 
 he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon 
 them, and blessed them."^ Let faith but 
 interpret the circumstances, the persons, the 
 words, and the blessing of the above passage, 
 and love will never have to complain that 
 one Infant has been withheld from Baptismal 
 privileges. 
 
 Let the same Interpreter give the sense of the 
 following passage, and the faithful Parents shall 
 be filled with holy fear, lest in withholding 
 their Child from Baptismal blessings, they sub- 
 ject themselves to the charge of " offending " 
 the spiritual welfare of him, who in virtue of 
 the promise is accounted a believer. " At the 
 same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, 
 who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? 
 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set 
 him in the midst of them, and said, verily, I say 
 unto you. Except ye be converted, and become 
 as little children, ye shall not enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall 
 humble himself as this little child, the same is 
 greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso 
 
 » Mark x. 13. 
 
^6 THE PARENT. 
 
 shall receive one such little child in my name, 
 receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of 
 these little ones which believe in me, it were 
 better for him that a millstone were hanged 
 about his neck, and that he were drowned in the 
 depth of the sea/' ^ 
 
 The last passage I will select as the subject 
 of holy fear, lest in omitting the Baptism of his 
 Infant, the faithful Parent should violate its 
 meaning, is that which the Church of Christ for 
 fifteen hundred years, from its early institution 
 to the days of the Reformation, has ever applied 
 to Baptism 5 " Jesus answered, Verily, Verily, 
 I say unto thee. Except a man « be born of water 
 and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king^ 
 dom of God/' It is well known that the early 
 Fathers' of the Church gave the most rigorous 
 interpretation to these words, proceeding so far 
 on the letter of the text, as to exclude from 
 heaven such persons, whether Infants or others, 
 as had not been baptised. But abating the 
 rigour of this interpretation, a faithful Parent, 
 alive to the spiritual interests of his Child, may 
 not suffer it to pass him without its due im- 
 pression. Certainly " God is not tied to means," 
 and damnation is not awarded to him that is not 
 baptised, but to him " that believeth not ; '* 
 
 » Matt, xviii. 1 — 6. 
 2 eacy fM] ria-, except a Person, i. e. every one, a matiy 
 generally comprehending all our human nature : John iii. 5. 
 
THE PARENT. 57 
 
 still as the words of the passage, as interpreted 
 for ages by the general sense of the Church, 
 seem to connect the outward seal with the 
 inward blessing, the faithful Parent will be 
 desirous that his Infant should be a partaker 
 of the outward seal, that he may, by fulfilling 
 the word, " fulfil all righteousness" also.^ 
 
 * If an excessive and too exclusive sense may have been 
 given to this text, as applicable to Baptism by the Church 
 before the Reformation ; has not too low and indistinct a 
 sense as specially applicable to that Sacrament been given to 
 it by many since that time ? It is true such passages as the 
 following occur both in the Old and New Testament. " Then 
 will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and make you clean : 
 from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse 
 you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will 
 I put within you : and I will take away the stony heart out of 
 your flesh, and 1 will give you an heart of flesh. And I will 
 put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, 
 and keep my judgments, and do them." Ezek. xxxvi. 25 — 27. 
 It is true also that " Spirit" is exegetical or explanatory of its 
 figure " water." And to what has the figure a reference but 
 to the divers washings or baptisms [hccfopoig ta7rTn;iA0it;'] 
 of the legal dispensation spoken of by the Apostle, Heb. ix. 
 10, This dispensation was confessedly preparatory to that of 
 the Gospel. Now it is the privilege of him who enjoys the 
 full light of day to look back on, and to decypher the imper- 
 fect shadows of the morning. It is the province of the 
 Gospel to explain the meaning of the Law. May we not 
 stand then on the eminence afforded us by the positive insti- 
 tution of Baptism, as literally interpreted and as confirmed by 
 the practice of almost the whole Christian world, and thus give 
 a substance to the shadows of the Law ? 
 
 First here is a preparatory process in the " divers washings " 
 
 D 5 
 
5a THE PARENT. 
 
 As some of these passages will meet us again 
 in the course of this discussion, I forbear from 
 all further comment on them here, and merely 
 
 of the Legal ceremonies ; then a frequent reference is made to 
 these as anticipative illustrations of that spiritual purity which 
 was to distinguish the day of the Gospel, as above. Then, as it 
 seems, the Jews gave a practical application to this illustration 
 by the Baptismal reception of proselytes. Next the shadows 
 assume a more substantial appearance in the Baptism of 
 repentance, which marked his ministry, who came to prepare 
 the way of the Lord, and to whom " went out Jerusalera, 
 and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and 
 were baptised of him in Jordan, confessing their sins." 
 A stronger light was imparted in the Baptism of him whom 
 thus it became " to fulfil all righteousness." With the ad- 
 vantage of this light we come to the much-contested passage, 
 John iii. 5. to which, if the context be considered, I am not 
 aware that any passage strictly parallel can be found. Our 
 Lord first informs Nicodemus, that without regeneration, no 
 person can see or comprehend the kingdom of God ; and 
 on the Jewish Ruler expressing his surprise, he proceeds 
 further to inform him how the entrance into this kingdom is 
 to be effected, and this is by being " born of water and of the 
 Spirit ; " of " water," which, by what he and " Jerusalem " 
 had seen in John's Baptism, was the figure of spiritual 
 purification, and of the " Spirit" of which the water was the 
 significant emblem : which Baptism, when the kingdom of 
 God was established should be its initiatory rite of admission, 
 and which he would fully understand hereafter. Accordingly 
 at ver. 22. of the same chapter it is said, " After these things 
 came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea : and 
 there he tarried with them, and baptized." [See alsoiv. 1, 2.] 
 And a very few years after at most his meaning receives a full 
 developement in the institution of the Sacrament of Baptism ; 
 " Go ye therefore, and teach [or disciple] all nations, baptizing 
 
THE PARENT. 59 
 
 adduce them as Scriptures which strongly apply 
 to the holy fear of a faithful Parent, lest by 
 withholding his Child from Baptism, he should 
 at once be guilty of an offence to that which is 
 
 them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 In the ancient Church, when the Sacraments were duly 
 estimated, and they continued " daily with one accord in the 
 temple, and breaking bread from house to house;" Acts ii. 
 46. such a retrospect from light to obscurity, would probably 
 have been entertained. In the modern Church where the 
 Sacraments seem not to be regarded with the same portion of 
 esteem as means of grace, such a retrospect is considered by 
 many as more than questionable. The thing signified is admit- 
 ted, but the Sacramental sign of such signification is denied. 
 
 Will not those who hold this text as inapplicable to Baptism 
 do well to pause before they arrive at a peremptory decision, 
 when they consider that when the " fathers were under the 
 cloud, and all passed through the sea," even these simple 
 figures were applicable to Baptism, as they " were all baptised 
 unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea, 1 Cor. x. 1, 2. And 
 as faith could behold God " figuring thereby " his " holy 
 Baptism," may not the same faith equally extract a Baptismal 
 meaning from words surrounded by so much more luminous 
 a reference from the time, and circumstances, and person, at 
 and by which they were uttered ? 
 
 The text need not be the subject of strife ; neither kind of 
 Baptism is dependent on it ; and like other similar questions, 
 Baptism rests not its evidence on one text. But I own that 
 the above retrospect seems to rae to justify the sense entertained 
 of this passage by the Church for fifteen hundred years, 
 almost without interruption, as applicable to water-baptism, 
 as well as the adoption of this sense by our Church in the 
 large use she makes of this text both in her adult and infant 
 Baptismal Services. 
 
60 THE PARENT. 
 
 most dear to him of all his earthly blessings, 
 and to the letter of the word of God, 
 
 In presenting" these grounds of Infant-baptism, 
 I must repeat what was said in the outset of 
 this Letter, that it is by no means my object to 
 attempt a statement of all the grounds which 
 may be adduced in its favour. The view here 
 given, brief as it is, is quite satisfactory to my 
 own mind, and, as it appears to me, will fully 
 authorise every faithful man to present his Child 
 at the font of Baptismal blessedness, with an 
 assured confidence in the promise of a gracious 
 God, that his Child is thus sealed as " a member 
 of Christ, the Child of God, and an inheritor of 
 the kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 The believing Parent who has arrived at the 
 above conclusion respecting Baptism, will select 
 Christian Sponsors and joyfully introduce his 
 Child to tlie full Congregation, that he may 
 enjoy the prayers and spiritual sympathies of 
 the Church. Most heartily will he join in the 
 antecedent prayers for a blessing on the Sacra- 
 ment 5 most earnestly will he dissipate all doubt 
 of a favourable reception 5 and his Child being 
 privileged with the sign and seal of the sacra- 
 mental blessing, most ardently will he yield his 
 thanks to the Father of mercies, *^ that if hath 
 pleased" him to "regenerate" his Infant with 
 his "Holy Spirit, to receive" him "for his own 
 child by adoption, and to incorporate him into " 
 his " holy Church." And while he constantly 
 
THE PARENT. 
 
 pleads the promise, he acts like a man who 
 verily believes that it shall be accomplished 
 to him and his Child. He watches his opening 
 faculties, he impresses on him the value of the 
 privileges with which he is invested, he reminds 
 him that the vows of God are upon him, and 
 stimulates him to " walk worthy of the vocation 
 wherewith" he is " called.'" He sows in hope, 
 and he trusts that he shall be a " partaker of 
 his hope.'' 2 
 
 The Christian, who thus presents his Child 
 at the font for Baptism in our Church, wishes 
 not that one word should be altered, either in the 
 Baptismal Service, or in the formularies more 
 immediately connected with it. He can neither 
 part with the fervent supplications for a blessing, 
 nor with the rich and confident ascriptions of 
 praise for mercies so graciously bestowed and so 
 firmly ratified and sealed; nor would he wish 
 the tone of their expression to be lowered in the 
 smallest degree, for he feels ar*l acts upon this 
 principle, " according to your faith be it unto 
 you.'' 3 
 
 It is this principle of faith in the promise that 
 actuates the whole course of the education of 
 his Child. This Child is "a member of Christ," 
 and is to be educated on this persuasion both 
 with respect to his Parent and to himself. His 
 
 ' Eph. iv. 1. 21 Cor. ix. 10. 
 
 3 Matt. ix. 29. 
 
62 THE PARENT. 
 
 resources therefore are not in himself but in 
 Christy and he is habitually taught, as a poor 
 impotent sinner, to go out of himself for 
 spiritual strength, and to call upon God " by 
 diligent prayer," i. e, a holy habitual diligence 
 in prayer, for that spiritual power which is suf- 
 ficient for every occasion, and which is only to be 
 found in Christ : so that as the member retains 
 life no longer than the head influences the body 
 of which it is a part, so it is vain for him to 
 hope for spirituality unless the supply is con- 
 stantly supported by the grace of Christ. Here 
 is a provision for a holy walk, and a Christian 
 conversation. If the weakness of nature show^s 
 itself in idleness, the Parent, acting thus in 
 faith, persuades his Child to call upon God for 
 diligence and attention. If some self-denying 
 duty is to be performed, the Parent will en- 
 courage him to hope for ability from God to 
 discharge it. In the commission of faults, he 
 will be taught to lament them as sins, to confess 
 them to God, to deplore the weakness of his 
 fallen nature, and to ask forgiveness through 
 the merits of that Saviour who is the God of his 
 salvation. And under a due sense of his sinful- 
 ness, the Christian Parent will encourage his 
 Child : " For me I am a sinner as you are, and 
 most readily forgive you ; it is a light thing for 
 me to do. Your offence is against God : go to 
 him, and ask forgiveness of him." And such 
 a season may be improved into one of deep and 
 
THE PARENT. 63 
 
 lasting impression, if the Parent joins his pray* 
 ers to those of the Child, and with confession 
 of sins pleads the promises of pardon to every 
 penitent that approaches God in faith, and casta 
 himself on his mercy. 
 
 In the habitual renunciation of " the sinful 
 lusts of the flesh/' this Christian Parent will 
 not teach his Child to expect happiness from 
 the attainment of any thing that is exquisite. 
 The ordinary circumstances, and every-day 
 occurrences of life present but very little to 
 gratify an exquisite taste ; they are rather 
 marked by an opposite character, and frequently 
 call for the exercise of self-denial in the tolera- 
 tion of what is mean, and low, and shabby and 
 offensive. Not only does such a mistake in 
 education expose its subject to constant disap- 
 pointment, repining, and complaint, but also 
 to that wide-wasting pestilence which seems to 
 me to prove the curse of the Church at this time, 
 a fastidious spirit, ever coveting something 
 more and something higher> for which nothing 
 is sufficiently good or sufficiently refined, and 
 which is equally hostile to usefulness in practice 
 and simplicity in faith,^ Much less will such a 
 
 » It is a question well worth considering, not whether the 
 Belles Lettres, or the accomplishments of literature, should 
 be encouraged ; but how far should they be encouraged in an 
 education which regards man as an immortal being, and pro- 
 poses the honour of God and human usefulness as its aim. 
 Sound principle, just taste, and practical wisdom, are the 
 
64 THE PARENT. 
 
 Parent on whom Baptismal obligations to his 
 Child have any hold, inflame those passions he 
 is bound to controul, by the excitements of 
 theatrical exhibitions, dancing, light and trifling 
 parties of pleasure, novel-reading, and all those 
 loose and fashionable amusements, which di- 
 rectly tend to the undue excitement of passion, 
 rather than to its wholesome restraint, and 
 which in the very teeth of Baptismal require- 
 ments seem now to be considered as legitimate 
 accomplishments of the professing Christian 
 world. 
 
 Neither were the vows of Baptism considered 
 as valid, could a Parent with any consistency, 
 teach his child to admire " the pomps and vanities 
 of this wicked world," by gratifying a worldly 
 taste, and by taking him to the exhibition of 
 this pomp in splendid spectacles, and the garish 
 display of public festivity, as calculated to ex- 
 cite his admiration, and to attract his esteem. 
 His respect for the civil and political institutions 
 of his country, will arise from a purer source, 
 and depend on a more solid foundation. That 
 " first commandment with promise,^' J will 
 
 main ingredients of such a character. Can that which is 
 intensely refined consist with what is practical, and that which 
 is exquisite with that which is useful ? And does not the general 
 fastidiousness of our day, compel us to the deliberate con- 
 sideration of this question, and counsel us rather to qualify 
 our refinement, than to encourage it ? 
 
 ' Ephes. vi. 2. 
 
THE PARENT. 65 
 
 assure him that as all his relative duties are 
 performed, so will his " days be long in the 
 land which the Lord" his ^^God has given" 
 him for a residence during his sojourn upon 
 earth; and as the exercise of his graces, and 
 the discharge of his duties, will be a constant 
 blessing to his country ; so his care for the 
 preservation of every private and public bless- 
 ing will call upon him to defend her from 
 civil commotion from within, and from foreign 
 invasion from without ; and his respect for 
 all superior relations will take its rise from 
 that primitive obligation specified by the com- 
 mandment to " honour his father and mo- 
 ther;" for as he has been taught this first 
 discharge of duty, so may he be expected, in 
 after life, to discharge the other relative duties 
 which embrace the whole circle of his private 
 and public obligations — husband, master and 
 servant, minister and people, magistrate and 
 subject. He will thus be taught, not to look 
 up to the possession of rank or place with 
 ambitious views of self-aggrandisement, but 
 to be content with that station to which it 
 has pleased God to call him : or should it be 
 the will of God, that he quit the walk of private 
 life for the distinction of public employment, 
 he will accept the office as the instrument of 
 general usefulness, chiefly desirous to direct his 
 own energies, and those of all within his influ- 
 ence to the promotion of the best interests of 
 
66 THE PARENT. 
 
 mankind, in the spread of the Gospel upon 
 earth* 
 
 Invested with the high distinction of " a 
 member of Christ," his Parent will teach him 
 that this is no futile designation, that his pri- 
 vileges are real and substantial, and that the 
 honour of his Saviour demands no equivocal 
 exhibition of them to the world : that neither 
 condition nor circumstance divest him of this 
 prominent character : that with Nebuchad- 
 nezzar on the throne a public and penitent 
 confession of sin is the truest honour of his 
 Imperial dignity ; or with Joseph in the prison, 
 the most striking declaration of his innocence 
 is that meek and upright deportment, which 
 shall inspire unreserved confidence, and submit 
 the liberty of the prisoner to himself as the 
 reward of his own virtuous conduct. That the 
 mansion and the cottage, the parlour and the 
 kitchen, present various duties, and exercise 
 tempers and appetites and passions from which 
 his character as a " member of Christ " is not 
 suspended even for a moment : that all times, 
 relations, and situations demand his recogni- 
 tion of his own holy and heaven-born desig- 
 nation ; and that it is at once his privilege 
 and his calling to "shew out of a good con- 
 versation ; " — and that conversation embracing 
 the whole field of human usefulness, the whole 
 play of human talent, the unsparing regulation 
 of human temper, and the unabated effort of 
 
THE PARENT. • 67 
 
 liunian energies — his "works with meekness 
 of wisdom/' ^ 
 
 How different a character then, does educa- 
 tion assume, with respect to the Parent's part, 
 when thus conducted under the sense of Bap- 
 tismal obligations ! a new class of motives is 
 applied, and a positive attainment of holiness is 
 expected. Under such a system, the wonder 
 will be, not as at present, that a young Child 
 should be really holy, but that a Child thus 
 educated should not be holy. This Christian 
 Parent looks upon his Child really as '• a mem- 
 ber of Christ," endeavours to invest him with 
 all the privileges to which he is entitled as a 
 " Child of God ; " and considers that he has an 
 unquestionable title to the inheritance of glory. 
 For this his whole education is intended to 
 qualify him, even to make him " meet to be a 
 partaker of the inheritance with the Saints in 
 light." 2 
 
 Only let us substitute the constraining sweet- 
 ness of the Baptismal promise for the dry au- 
 thority of the legal precept, and as the principle 
 savours of the mercy of the gospel, the conduct 
 it produces will be the holiness of the Gospel 
 also. Its rich uniting influence will form the 
 firmest cement of attachment between the Parent 
 and the Child. The love of God will originate 
 the love of man ; and while the Parent no 
 
 1 James iii. 13. *Col. i. 12. 
 
68 THE PARENT. 
 
 longer complains of despised authority, mis- 
 placed confidence, and defeated hopes — the 
 Child conscious of his privileges discharges 
 duty as a pleasure ; to displease his Parent is to 
 displease his God, and this is most displeasing 
 to himself. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 69 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 THE SPONSOR, 
 
 The Sponsor's warrant to undertake for the 
 Child seems to rest on the same promises which 
 encourage the Parent: the one being the na- 
 tural^ the other the spiritual Parent, the God- 
 father. And thus King Edward the Sixth's 
 Catechism equally accepts the profession of 
 either. " For the young babes, their Parents' 
 or the church's profession sufficeth.'^i The 
 Sponsor therefore undertakes his duty in faith 
 of the promise, and, according to his oppor- 
 tunities, provides for the spiritual education of 
 the Child. He pleads the promises ; he bears 
 his charge upon his heart in prayer; and it is 
 his desire to acquit himself to the Church of the 
 trust she has reposed in his spiritual vigilance, 
 and parental superintendence in Christ. 
 
 The institution of Sponsors for the Infant 
 baptised seems to be coeval with Infant-Baptism, 
 It is mentioned by TertuUian one hundred years 
 
 } Fathers of the English Church, ii, 369. 
 
70 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 from the Apostles' times incidentally, as though 
 it were the ordinary practice of the Church.' 
 And both the existence and manner of Sponsor- 
 ship, as practised in the primitive times, are thus 
 detailed by Augustine. ^ But I would not have 
 you mistake so as to think that the bond of guilt 
 derived from Adam may not be broken, unless 
 the children be offered for receiving the grace 
 of Christ by their own Parents. For so you 
 speak in your letter, " that as the Parents were 
 authors of the punishment, so they may also by 
 the faith of their Parents be justified." Whereas 
 you see that a great many are offered not by 
 their Parents, but by any other persons. As the 
 infant slaves are sometimes offered by their 
 masters : and sometimes when the Parents are 
 dead, the infants are baptised, being offered by 
 any that can afford to shew this compassion 
 on them. And sometimes infants whom their 
 Parents have cruelly exposed to bebrought up by 
 those that light on them, are now and then taken 
 up by the holy virgins, and offered to baptism 
 by them who have no children of their own, nor 
 design to have any. And in all this there is 
 nothing else done than what is written in the 
 Gospel, when our Lord asked who was neighs 
 bour to him that was wounded by thieves, and 
 left half dead in the road? And this was answered, 
 ^ He that shewed mercy on him.^ ^^ 
 
 Ik 
 
 iWalli. 43. Mbid.i. 195. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 71 
 
 It seems clear from the above extract, not 
 only, as Wall remarks, that both Augustine, 
 and Boniface, to whom he writes, " take it for 
 granted that Infants are to be baptised," and 
 ^' that the ordinary use then was for the Parents 
 to answer for their Children;" but that any 
 person, who undertook the charitable work of 
 bringing up the destitute Child, whether the 
 masters of slaves, the friends of orphans adopted, 
 or the holy virgins who educated the exposed 
 Children as their own, in performing an act of 
 charity to the body, performed a still greater 
 act of charity to the soul, by presenting such 
 Infants for the seal of the covenant mercies of 
 the Church in Baptism, of whose pious educa- 
 tion they undertook the responsibility. The 
 Church, at that time, committing the spiritual 
 care of the Infant to the person who engaged to 
 be his natural Parent. 
 
 And is it an improbable suggestion, that the 
 present requisition of the Church — that the spi- 
 ritual friends of the family should be received as 
 Sponsors, in preference, or rather in addition, 
 to the natural Parents of the Child — arose from 
 this custom of receiving the natural guardian of 
 the Child as its Sponsor in Baptism ? It is in 
 effect the same, whether the Parent appears by 
 himself in person, or by the Sponsor deputed by 
 him. The act of the Sponsor, in presenting the 
 Child, is assumed by the Church as having the 
 sanction of the Parent; and on this assumption 
 
72 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 she acts in confirming the choice of the Parent, 
 hy committing the spiritual interests of the 
 Child to the Sponsor approved by him. The 
 entrusting the Child to the spiritual care of the 
 Sponsor, is, in fact, the work of the Church, 
 who says to every Sponsor as Pharaoh's daughter 
 did to the mother of Moses, " Take this child 
 away, and nurse it for me.''* The Church con- 
 siders the character of the Parent as represented 
 by the Sponsor: his character, as interpreted 
 by his profession, and the office which he volun- 
 tarily undertakes before the Congregation, is 
 her security, under God, for the spiritual educa- 
 tion of the Infant. To him she commits her 
 charge ; he voluntarily accepts the responsi- 
 bility ; and that she may not be disappointed in 
 her hope by the death or default of the parties, 
 she appoints three Sponsors to every Child she 
 receives. 
 
 And now, let prudence interpret this usage of 
 the Church in the appointment of Sponsors. 
 The Parents, who presented their Infants for 
 Baptism in primitive times, were such as the 
 Church might safely intrust with the superin- 
 tendence of the young of the flock. Persecution 
 then sifted character, and the hazard of a Chris- 
 tian profession was then a security for its reality. 
 But in process of time, when a Christian pro- 
 fession was established by fashion, as at the pre- 
 
 * Exodus ii, 9. - 
 
THE SPONSOR. 73 
 
 sent day, it was prudent, as doubtless it was 
 necessary, for the Church to require an addi- 
 tional security: and as the Parent, if truly 
 Christian, would necessarily train up the Child 
 to the consistent enjoyment of the covenant 
 mercies sealed by his Baptism, and to the dis- 
 charge of the corresponding duties incumbent 
 on him to perform ; so in the defect of the real 
 holiness of the Parent, the Church kindly pro- 
 vided for the spiritual welfare of the Infant, by 
 requiring holy Sponsors to undertake the charge, 
 which according to their opportunities they 
 were expected to fulfil. 
 
 And next, let charity interpret this usage of 
 the Church in the appointment of Sponsors 
 to her Infants. First in giving the promise 
 its largest interpretation, and assuming that 
 it is made to her and every Infant she re- 
 ceives into her communion ; so that not onlv 
 does each Parent undertake for his baptised 
 Child, not only every particular vSponsor, but 
 every individual of that " Communion of Saints" 
 into which the Child is received, is its spiritual 
 Parent also : and any interpretation of the pro- 
 mise short of this, does not fully invest the 
 Child with the interests and privileges of the 
 spiritual communion into which it is admitted; 
 nor does it give to that " Communion of Saints " 
 the full interest of that affectionate relation in 
 which it stands towards the Child it has adopted. 
 Thus the Child is the child of the Church, and 
 
74 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 the Sponsor is the particular member of the body, 
 presented by the Parent, and approved by the 
 Church, to which the Church commits her own 
 responsibility of training up the Infant for God. 
 
 Let the same blessed charity interpret the 
 usage of the Church in calling upon Sponsors 
 to undertake their interesting charge. And did 
 the masters of slaves, the voluntary guardians 
 of orphans, and the holy virgins kindly under- 
 take the charitable office of being Sponsors to 
 destitute Infants in that day, and is it a less 
 charitable office for Christians to undertake the 
 same kind responsibility at this ? Were unpro- 
 tected slaves, parentless Infants, and Children 
 exposed to perish, the subjects of holy con- 
 cern to these primitive believers, and are the 
 Infants of professing Christians at this day, who, 
 but for the interference of some real believer in 
 Christ, are likely to be brought up in nothing 
 better than the formality, and vanity, and 
 worldly-mindedness of their Parents, not equally 
 the subjects of the charitable consideration of 
 Christian Sponsors at this ? What is this but the 
 commonest exercise of charity ? ^ In all this 
 there is nothing else done (as Augustine well 
 remarks) than what is written in the Gospel, 
 when our Lord asked who was neighbour to 
 him that was w^ounded by thieves, and left half 
 dead in the road ? and it was answered, " He 
 that shewed mercy on him.'* ' 
 
 Let us consider the undertaking of the Sponsor 
 
THE SPONSOR. T5 
 
 in this same light as our Church does, consis- 
 tently with the view entertained by the Church 
 of old, as a " charitable act," a kind expression 
 of Christian love, consulting the best interests 
 of the Child baptised, and we shall approach 
 the consideration of our subject with the spirit 
 that it demands. 
 
 But first, it is incumbent on us to remark the 
 too general negligence of those who undertake 
 this solemn office. And here, My Dear Fi'iend, 
 I find myself so deeply involved in this general 
 charge of neglect, that were not the cause of 
 truth paramount to that of private feeling, a 
 sense of my own negligence would induce me to 
 be wholly silent on this subject. But I must 
 indeed acknowledge, not only that ^^ I am not 
 better than my Fathers," ^ but that Tamar is 
 " more righteous than I :'*^ and I would be so 
 far from taking refuge imder the broad shield 
 of universal delinquency, that as our return to 
 what is right must be individual before it can be 
 general, so I am desirous that my particular 
 share in the commission of this evil may meet 
 with its particular share of reparation. And it is 
 my fervent prayer, that a ten-fold clearer view 
 of the advantages of Baptism than I entertain, 
 and a ten-fold deeper impression of the mischiefs 
 which result from our neglect of them than I 
 feel, may be entertained and felt by every mem- 
 
 » Kings xix. 4. 2 Qg^, xxxviii. 26. 
 
 E 2 
 
76 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 ber of our Established Church ; that a propor- 
 tionate degree of reparation may be made to our 
 Church, by the increased vigilance and more 
 active superintendence of her Sponsors, and 
 thus her children become really possessed of the 
 spiritual blessings which are their unquestion- 
 able birthright. 
 
 May I therefore assume, and lament the fact 
 as indisputable, that the duties of this solemn: 
 office of Sponsor, have sunk into general desue- 
 tude among us ? That some consider the mere 
 undertaking of the duty in private, or at the 
 font, as all that the office demands — that some 
 politely comply with it as the receipt of a com- 
 pliment — that others accept the offer, or make 
 it, as an earnest of subsequent favourable testa- 
 mentary dispositions towards the baptised, — 
 and that even those who deem the promises 
 they have made for the Child as important, yet 
 show a very inadequate sense of this importance 
 by any after attention they may bestow on their 
 charge. Nay, is it not yet further notorious, 
 that many conscientious Churchmen hesitate to 
 undertake the office of Sponsor at all, under 
 their impression of the weight of the duties, the 
 performance of which it implies ; and that such 
 can only be persuaded to become Sponsors to 
 children of decidedly pious Parents, imder the 
 condition often expressed, and oftener implied, 
 that the Parents will be responsible for the 
 education of the Child, and thus disengage them 
 
THE SPONSOR. it 
 
 from the due discharge of their office ? In these 
 different ways, whether from ignorance, fashion, 
 or, shall I say, mistaken principle, it is but too 
 evident that the office of Sponsor becomes a dead 
 letter, a name without a thing. 
 
 Or put the case in another way : let it be 
 supposed that Parents as generally required of 
 the Godfathers and Godmothers of their Children, 
 the serious performance of the duties which so 
 solemn a name imports, as they are at present 
 negligent in making such requirement. That 
 *^ after" the " promise made by Christ,'' their 
 Infant should "also faithfully for his part, pro- 
 mise by his Sureties (until he come of age to 
 take it upon himself) that he will renounce the 
 devil and all his works, and constantly believe 
 God's holy word, and obediently keep his com- 
 mandments;" and that before their entrance 
 upon such office, a solemn engagement werC: 
 required of the Sponsors, that they would period- 
 i-cally examine their charge, as to his religious 
 progress, aud generally interest themselves in 
 his spiritual welfare, more especially remember- 
 ing him in their prayers. Could we, in the 
 utmost latitude of charity, believe that such 
 offer would be generally acceptable ? Rather as 
 Sponsors now act, would not such a requirement, 
 viz. to discharge the duties of the office, be the 
 most certain inducement with such Sponsors to 
 decline the acceptance of it ? 
 
 To what a lamentable state then, is the office 
 
 E 3 
 
7% THE SPONSOR. 
 
 of Sponsor reduced among us, when it is gene- 
 rally undertaken on the assumption that it is 
 a sinecure ; and when even conscientious men 
 engage in it, on the condition that the Parents 
 are virtually responsible for the charge, while 
 they themselves are free from the obligation of 
 their own promises and vows. 
 
 But can we subscribe to this decision of good 
 and pious men on this subject ? Are they not 
 attending more to their fears than their faith ? 
 And is this the line of conduct which faith 
 demands of them in our present juncture of 
 spiritual depression ? " By whom shall Jacob 
 arise,'^^ if those, who are most eminently quali- 
 fied to assist him, shrink in the hour of difficulty, 
 appalled by a mischief, the very extent of which 
 should form one of their strongest motives to 
 exertion ? To whom can spiritual responsibility 
 be reasonably confided but to spiritual men ? 
 If Baptism be any thing more than a ceremony, 
 who shall rightly appreciate its value, and teach 
 others rightly to appreciate it, but spiritual men? 
 Who shall practically confute that wide-wasting 
 position, that ^' every externally baptised person 
 is necessarily regenerated;" but the man, who 
 practically shows, that it is the wildest enthusi- 
 asm to expect the end without using the means 5 
 and that to instruct a Child that he is enjoying 
 the privilege of " a member of Christ, the child 
 
 ^ Amos vii. 5. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 79 
 
 of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
 heaven/' while no care is taken, that he shall 
 really renounce the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil, vitally believe in Jesus Christ as his Savi- 
 our, readily obey the will of God, and habitually 
 walk in his laws — is the most cruel delusion, 
 and can terminate in nothing but the most hope- 
 less disappointment ? Who, but the tried sol- 
 dier of Christ, shall courageously oppose the 
 evil prevalence of a perverted Sacrament, mis- 
 chievous almost as the mass itself, and recover 
 the professing* Protestant world to the sound 
 conviction, that " if the Lord be" our '^God,'' 
 we must "follow him;" and if Christ be our 
 Saviour, we must " manfully light under his 
 banner, against sin, the world, and the devil, 
 and continue Christ's faithful soldiers and ser- 
 vants to our life's end ? " 
 
 And if this declining of good men to accept 
 the office of Sponsor be an evidence of weak 
 faith in the promise of God, is it not, as might 
 be expected, the evidence of a cold and calculat- 
 ing charity also ? Had such men accompanied 
 Gregory through the streets of Rome, when the 
 helpless state of some of our British ancestors, 
 publicly exposed to sale as slaves, attracted his 
 Christian regard, would they not have rejoiced 
 in the ability to have given liberty to the bodies of 
 their captive countrymen ? And if that ability 
 had extended to the purchase of one or more 
 of those interesting children, would they not 
 
80 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 have rejoiced to have introduced them into the 
 Christian Church by Baptism, — willingly have 
 undertaken the responsibility of educating them 
 according to the requisition of the Church in 
 Christian principles and Christian practice, — 
 and have deemed it the most acceptable exercise 
 of charity, to have been thus instrumental in 
 saving souls from death, and in investing them 
 with all the privileges of a Christian communion, 
 ever pleading the divine promise in prayer for 
 the accomplishment of so desirable an object ? 
 Ecclesiastical history records that it was among 
 the brightest exercises of primitive charity for 
 Christians to liberate unhappy slaves from their 
 bondage ; and doubtless, in addition to corporeal 
 liberty, they endeavoured to communicate to 
 them that richer liberty of the soul from the 
 thraldom of sin. And were African and New 
 Zealand children at this time exposed for sale 
 as slaves in the streets of London, would not 
 really Christian men delight in emancipating 
 such both from corporeal and spiritual bondage ? 
 And where is the difference ? Can we cast our 
 eyes around the streets of our vast metropolis, 
 or indeed throughout the cities, and towns, and 
 villages of the land, without discovering, as it 
 were, at every step, objects who should excite 
 similar pity, and who really need the same com- 
 miserating attention — "baptised Infidels," bap- 
 tised worldlings, baptised ignorants, baptised 
 formalists, baptised profligates, baptised of all 
 
THE SPONSOR. 81 
 
 descriptions of sinners, who instead of renounc- 
 ing the worklj the flesh, and the devil, exhibit 
 in too glowing colours the very characters which 
 drew tears from the eyes of an Apostle ; who 
 under a Christian profession " Walk as enemies 
 of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, 
 whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in 
 their shame, who mind earthly things ? '' ^ Surely, 
 My Dear Friend, as it is no charity to shut our 
 eyes upon truth, so wide a waste of moral barren- 
 ness and spiritual death, may well excite the 
 most awakened feelings of every real Christian, 
 and call forth that charity, the distinguishing 
 character of which is to promote the everlasting 
 interest of the soul. 
 
 But I think I hear it said, the cases are widely 
 different : a slave redeemed w^ould be wholly in 
 my own power ; I might either take him into 
 my family, or so dispose of him as to ensure 
 my frequent superintendence of his life; but 
 constituted as society is among us, the Child for 
 whom I engage as Sponsor, must necessarily 
 be under the tutelage of his own Parents and 
 Guardians, so that I cannot know enough of his 
 habits and conduct, to justify my undertaking 
 the training of them. 
 
 But may not this objection be met by the 
 following considerations ? Should you be re- 
 quested by a friend to accept the office of Sponsor 
 
 » Phil. iii. 18, 1^. 
 JS 5 
 
S2 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 to his Child, you are surely justified in accept- 
 ing it on your own conditions : and may not this 
 Sponsorial right of interference be proposed as 
 a necessary condition of such acceptance? or 
 should you voluntarily engage in the office, may 
 not the offer be accompanied by the above terms ? 
 or without any conditions expressed, may it not 
 be undertaken under the assumption, that your 
 claims conscientiously to discharge the duties of 
 Sponsor will be allowed ? And after all should 
 a more active interference be discouraged in the 
 education of your charge, you may supply books ; 
 you may avail yourself of such opportunities as 
 present themselves 3 and should a total exclu- 
 sion from his person be the consequence of your 
 benevolent endeavours, still he cannot be ex- 
 cluded from an interest in your prayers. You 
 may then sit down, with the conviction, that, 
 what charity could do, you have done, and are 
 doing : that to do what you can is the limit of 
 charitable ability—" Let her alone— she hath 
 done what she could : '' ^ that to give what you 
 have is the measure of its means — "Silver and 
 gold have I none ; but such as I have give I 
 thee : in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth 
 rise up and walk:"^ and, that the design of 
 charity, and not the success of its exertions, is 
 the real guage of its perfection — " ready to distri- 
 bute—willing to communicate."^ Never let it 
 
 ' Mark xiv. 6, 8. * ^cts hi. 6. ^ 1 Tim. vi. 18. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 8^ 
 
 be forgotten, that it is the character of real 
 charity not so much to calculate on difficulties 
 which may obstruct, as on possibilities which 
 may encourage : and that it is also the character 
 of that genuine faith which gives charity its 
 birth, to sink mountains of difficulty into plains 
 of encouragement_, while it brightens dark and 
 distant possibilities into the clearer and nearer 
 assurances of attainment. Shrink not then dis- 
 couraged and paralised by unbelief, O doubting 
 Christian, from this blessed labour of love ; 
 engage in it on the warrant and encouragement 
 of the divine precept and promise ; use the ap- 
 pointed means ; avail yourself of the opportu- 
 nities, which the God of mercy presents to you 
 in his providence ; and call down a blessing on 
 your exertions by your faithful prayers, and 
 success shall assuredly be your reward. 
 
 Nor can I omit to suggest the large encourage- 
 ment which our Church gives to Sponsors. First 
 the efficacy of fervent prayer according to the 
 promise, " ask and ye shall have^" which she 
 thus pleads ; " So give now unto us that ask ; 
 let us that seek, find; open the gate unto us 
 that knock ; that this Infant may enjoy the ever- 
 lasting benediction of thy heavenly washing, 
 and may come to the eternal kingdom which 
 thou hast promised by Christ our Lord.'* 
 
 The Church next, as I apprehend, concen- 
 trates the force of all the promises made to 
 believing Parents or Sponsors with respect to 
 
S4 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 their children, in that one gracious act of our 
 Lord, his kind invitation, and reception of 
 young Children, as recorded by St. Mark. x. 13. 
 by a special enumeration of the particulars of 
 so interesting a transaction. First, here are 
 "the words of our Saviour Christ" himself; 
 these words are no less than a command ; ^^ that 
 he commanded the children to be brought unto 
 him : he even blamed those that would have 
 kept them from him : '' he proposes their love- 
 liness, their docility, and simplicity as the very 
 sum of gracious attainment, as the pattern of- 
 heavenly qualification. "He exhorteth all men 
 to follow their innocency." Nor was this all : 
 for this declaration of " his good will " toward 
 them he confirmed " by his outward gesture and 
 deedj" for "he embraced them in his arms, 
 lie laid his hands upon them, and blessed them." 
 After this accumulation of blessing, so fully so va- 
 riously expressed by our Lord, what possible room 
 can there be for doubt and hesitation, that he 
 is less willing now to receive "young children'* 
 to the arms of his benevolence, and to confer 
 his blessing upon them, than he was " in the days 
 of his flesh?" "Doubt ye not therefore, but 
 earnestly believe," ye kind and feeling and faith- 
 ful believers, who are introducing and receiving 
 this Child into the Church of Christ, in expecta- 
 tion of a blessing — Doubt ye not, that he will re- 
 ject this work of faith and labour of love : no, 
 rather be assured, that as of old, so he will now. 
 
i.T^?^ 
 
 THE SPONSOR. \*^, ^ 
 
 \\ ■ 
 
 " likewise favourably receive this present Infant ; 
 that he will embrace him with the arms of his 
 mercy ; that he will give unto him the blessing 
 of eternal life, and make him partaker of his 
 everlasting kingdom/' Then the Church ex- 
 presses a persuasion of God's good- will towards 
 the Child presented, and concurs with the 
 Sponsors, and by them the Parents, in one 
 general ascription of praise to God for the same. 
 " Wherefore we — Minister — Sponsors — and Pa- 
 rents if present, (and what Parent if able to 
 attend would decline so interesting a scene) and 
 all the Church present — being thus persuaded of 
 the good-will of our heavenly Father towards 
 this infant, declared by his Son Jesus Christ/' 
 (for this one act of Christ in receiving Children, 
 and blessing them, is the great confirmatory 
 declaration of all the Father's promises to them) 
 — ^^ and nothing doubting, but that he favourably 
 alloweth this charitable work of ours in bring- 
 ing this infant to his holy baptism, let us 
 FAITHFULLY and dcvoutly give thanks unto 
 him," &c. 
 
 I cannot but remark on the above exhortation, 
 how the Church insists on faith in the promise, 
 as the means of any benefit to be derived to 
 the Child about to be baptised. '^ Doubt ye 
 not therefore, but " on the contrary, " earn- 
 estly believe" — "We being thus persuaded" 
 — " nothing doubting " — " faithfully give 
 thanks" — for the Church well knows that 
 
86 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 as a man is persuaded of the reality of a pro- 
 mise, so will he use the means to secure its 
 blessings. 
 
 After this offering of praise follows a special 
 address to the Sponsors, or Godfathers and 
 Godmothers, recapitulating the subjects of their 
 foregoing prayers, and the Gospel-promise that 
 those prayers shall be granted ; again supporting 
 their faith with the never-to-be-forgotten sug- 
 gestion, " which promise, he [Christ] for his 
 part will most surely keep and perform." Then 
 follows^ the requisition to the Sponsors that they 
 will promise as the " sureties '' of the Infant, 
 '^ that he will renounce the devil and all his 
 works, and constantly believe God's holy word, 
 and obediently keep his commandments." 
 
 We may observe on this address, that it first 
 reminds the Sponsors of the spiritual blessings 
 they have prayed for, and of the promise on 
 which their expectation of them is founded : 
 clearly insisting still on the great principle that 
 pervades the Service, that all Baptismal bless- 
 ings are grounded on the Gospel, and not on 
 the Law 5 that God's promise of mercy to the 
 Child, precedes the Child's engagement to be 
 obedient to God ; that God's mercy depends not 
 on the obedience of the Child, but that the obe- 
 dience of the Child flows from a sense of tl\e 
 mercy of God to it. " Wherefore after this promise 
 made by Christ, this Infant must also faithfully 
 for his part, promise by you that are his Sure- 
 
THE SPONSOR. 87 
 
 ties/' &c. — " Wherefore/' i. e. in consequence 
 of this promise of Christ, the Sureties are both 
 obliged and encouraged to promise obedience 
 for the Child. The Catechism observes the same 
 order ; first the Child is taught that at his Bap- 
 tism he " was made a member of Christ," &c. 
 then the promises made for him. The Confirm- 
 ation Service recognises this order: the Bishop, 
 in his opening prayer, gratefully addressing 
 God, " who has vouchsafed to regenerate these 
 thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and 
 hast given unto them forgiveness of all their 
 sins : '' here their justification and regeneration, 
 are faithfully and thankfully admitted, and on 
 that admission is grounded further prayer for 
 strength and increase of grace. Thus as Bap- 
 tismal blessings are the result of mercy. Baptis- 
 mal obedience is the obedience of faith. ^ 
 
 ' This view of adoption as introductory to sanctification is 
 beautifully described by perhaps the most spiritual of the 
 Reformers, Bradford. " Oh ! how faint is faith in me ! how 
 little is love to thee or thy people, how great is self-love, how hard 
 is my heart ! &c. By the reason whereof I am moved to doubt 
 of thy goodness towards me, whether thou art my father or no, 
 and whether I be thy child or no. Indeed worthily might I 
 doubt if that the having of these were the causes and not the 
 fruits rather of thy children. The cause why thou art my Father, 
 is, thy mercy, goodness, grace, and truth in Christ Jesus, the 
 which cannot but remain for ever. In respect whereof thou 
 hast borne me this good-will, to accept me into the number 
 of thy children, that I might be holy, faithful, obedient, inno- 
 cent, &c. And therefore thou wouldest not only make me a 
 
88 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 Thus encouraged^ the Sponsors solemnly 
 engage " in the name of" the Child, to renounce 
 sin, and all its abettors, to believe the Gospel, 
 and to obey the Law. After which, the whole 
 Church joins in four distinct and most fervid 
 supplications ; that every spiritual blessing may 
 be imparted to the Child, now about to be intro- 
 duced to their communion. Then follows the 
 prayer for the consecration of the element of 
 Baptism, concluding that with the sign the bap- 
 tised may receive the thing signified also, — " the 
 fulness of thy grace, and ever remain in the 
 number of thy faithful and elect children." The 
 
 creature after thy image, enduing me with sight, limbs, shape, 
 form, memory, -wisdom, &c ; where thou mightest have made 
 me a beast, a maimed creature, lame, blind, frantic, k.c ; 
 but also thou wouldest that I should be born of Christian 
 parents, brought into thy church by baptism, and called 
 divers times by the ministry of thy word into thy kingdom, 
 besides the innumerable other benefits always hitherto poured 
 upon me ; all which thou hast done of this thy good will, 
 that thou of thine own mercy barest to me in Christ and for 
 Christ before the world was made ; the which thing, as thou 
 requirest straitly that I should believe without doubting, so in 
 all my needs that I should come unto thee as a Father, and 
 make my moan without mistrust of being heard in thy good 
 time, as most shall make to my comfort. Lo ! therefore to 
 thee, dear Father, I come, through thy Son our Lord, Mediator, 
 and Advocate Jesus Christ, who sitteih on thy right hand, 
 making intercession for me, and pray thee of thy great good- 
 ness and mercy in Christ to be merciful unto me, that I may 
 feel indeed thy sweet mercy as thy child." Fathers of the 
 English Church. Vol. vi. p. 339. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 8& 
 
 Glmrch assumes, that the Child is one of God's 
 "faithful and elect children" in virtue of the pro- 
 mise, and she prays that he may ever "remain" 
 one of that truly blessed, and highly privileged 
 company. 
 
 The Minister then proceeds, formally to in- 
 vest the Child with his designation as a Christian, 
 and to confer on him the sign, and seal, and 
 pledge, of his Baptismal privileges ; pronounc- 
 ing the name bestowed on the Child as a 
 Christian, and calling upon him the name of the 
 Triune Jehovah, baptising him " in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 Then presenting the Child before thq as- 
 sembled Church, the Minister declares in the 
 name of all present : " We receive this Child 
 into the congregation of Christ's flock ; " he 
 then confers on him the badge of his profession ; 
 " and do sign him with the sign of the cross, 
 in token that," in the midst of a world 
 ashamed of its Saviour, " hereafter he shall 
 not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ 
 crucified," but decidedly, boldly and resolutely 
 encounter the foes of Christ, " manfully fight 
 under his banner, against sin, the world, and 
 the devil ; " and that he shall persist in 
 this holy warfare to the last gasp of his earthly 
 being, " and continue Christ's faithful soldier 
 and servant unto his life's end." And this 
 interesting reception declared by the Minis- 
 
90 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 ter, is confirmed by the express approbation 
 of the whole Church. " Amen." 
 
 The Child being thus " regenerated, and 
 grafted into the body of Christ's Church/' the 
 Congregation is exhorted to " give thanks unto 
 Almighty God for these benefits, and with one 
 accord," as a congregational act, to make their 
 prayers unto him, " that the Child may lead the 
 rest of his life according to this beginning." 
 
 And here, I do not see, how any one can 
 conscientiously join with the Church, in the 
 following praise and prayer, who declines to 
 give the full import to those fervent expressions 
 which they fairly and honestly convey. Accord- 
 ing to the view I have already taken of the 
 privileges conferred by this Sacrament on the 
 faithful, with what perfect accordance, what 
 unreserved and unbosomed thankfulness, what a 
 sincere effusion of holy gratitude will the faithful 
 Parent, and Sponsor, and believer unite in those 
 expressions of praise : ^^ We give thee hearty 
 thanks, most merciful Father," first, " that it 
 hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with 
 thy Holy Spirit," not to confer on him the sign 
 only, but the thing signified also — not to impart 
 the seal only, but to bestow an earnest of the 
 blessings sealed — not only to wash the Child 
 with the outward emblem of water, but inwardly 
 to communicate that grace of the Holy Spirit 
 which cleanses from sin. Secondly, '' to receive 
 him for thine own Child by adoption 5 " not 
 
THE SPONSOR. 9t 
 
 merely to give him a Christian name, and to 
 enroll him nominally among thy children, but 
 really and truly to receive him into thy family 
 of grace, as "thine own'' adopted child, of 
 which thou hast given an assurance by regene- 
 rating him by thy Holy Spirit. " And to incor- 
 porate him into thy holy Church ; " to which 
 body, he is as vitally united by faith, as the 
 member constitutes a part of the body, and with 
 which he really holds communion in virtue of 
 thy blessing on the Sponsorial engagements now 
 undertaken for him. And since this Child is 
 now " dead unto sin, and living unto righteous- 
 ness, and is buried with Christ in his death, we 
 humbly beseech thee to grant that,'' he may 
 have grace to perfect the work thus graciously 
 begun, that he " may crucify the old man, and 
 utterly abolish the whole body of sin ', and that 
 as he is " now " made partaker of the death 
 of thy Son, he may also be partaker of his 
 resurrection, so that finally, with the residue 
 of thy holy Church, he may be an inheritor 
 of thine everlasting kingdom, through Christ 
 our Lord." 
 
 I cannot but remark here, that he who views 
 our Baptismal Service in the light that I have 
 represented it, would not willingly alter one of 
 the above expressions ; he would not qualify one 
 word, or lower one of these rich and rapturous 
 specifications of blessings conferred. The terms 
 are admirably adapted to express the awakened 
 
92 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 feelings of a believing soul — the combined sen- 
 timents and graces^ of love and joy and gratitude 
 and praise. 
 
 Then follows, if I may so say, the system of 
 Christian education, expressed by our Church, 
 in a few short hints, which do indeed contain 
 the pith and essence of all just education, con- 
 ducted on Christian principles. No modern 
 system can supersede this 5 it may explain, it 
 may expand it, it may build on it as a foundation, 
 but where is the modern treatise of education, 
 that can pretend to come up to the purity and 
 simplicity of these few short hints ? Admired 
 as some of them may have been, does not the 
 very best fall much below these plain and spirit- 
 ual directions ? and mav we not ascribe the 
 comparatively low tone of even the best of 
 modern systems, though written to recommend 
 a Christian education, to the authors of them 
 setting up a model of their own, instead of 
 availing themselves of that already provided for 
 them in the formularies of our Church ? I give 
 them full credit for their benevolent designs, 
 and well-intentioned endeavours : but they have 
 set up a standard of their own ; and by bringing 
 that of the Church into neglect, it may be ques- 
 tioned whether they have not brought it into 
 contempt also. The total and unsparing renun- 
 ciation of all sin, and the persevering cultivation 
 of all holiness, as a delightful privilege as well 
 as a necessary duty — this is the animating system 
 
THE SPONSOR. 93 
 
 of our Cliiirch, which stamps it with a truly 
 Gospel character, which gives energy to faith, 
 animation to hope, perseverance to love, and joy 
 to duty. It grounds all its education on a sense 
 of divine mercy 3 it despatches the Sponsor to his 
 interesting work, relying on the promise of 
 God ; and it sends forth the weak and helpless 
 Child into the field of warfare, against the flesh, 
 the world, and the devil, as ^^ a member of Christ," 
 safe in his protection, and secure of victory, in 
 the strength of "him that loved'' him, "and 
 gave himself for '' him. ^ 
 
 The Sponsors then, having been encouraged, 
 throughout the whole of the Service, by the 
 promises ; and having been repeatedly desired 
 not to doubt, but earnestly to believe them, and 
 to give them the largest credit, the Church in 
 her concluding exhortation reminds them of the 
 promises they have made for the Child, and 
 suggests certain particulars as to the mode of 
 carrying these promises into effect. "Foras- 
 much as this child hath promised by you his 
 Sureties to renounce the devil, and all his works, 
 to believe in God, and to serve him ; ye must 
 remember that it is your parts and duties to see 
 that this Infant be taught, so soon as he shall be 
 able to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and 
 profession he hath here made by you." The first 
 subject the Child is to be instructed in, so soon 
 
 1 Gal. ii. 20, 
 
94 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 as he can comprehend it, is his Baptismal obli- 
 gations — the covenantor mercy he is under, and 
 what his Godfathers and Godmothers undertook 
 for him in his Baptism. And how strong a hold on 
 his conscience, would his Parents, and Sponsors, 
 and minister have, were he duly instructed in 
 the solemnity of the vow he had made, of the 
 awfulness of the promise in which he had en- 
 gaged, the publicity, and sanctity of the profes- 
 sion he had witnessed, and the privilege of 
 believing, and doing all that was then promised 
 for him. Here attachment to our Church as a 
 holy communion would begin ; it would not 
 rest on fashion, and custom, and loose and vacil- 
 lating habit, but on reasonable and intelligible 
 grounds of the blessedness and the privilege of 
 the state and communion into which he was 
 called. A Child may be deeply interested by the 
 Sponsor's reading to him, in a simple and en- 
 gaging manner, the particulars of the Baptismal 
 Service ; explaining to him the important work 
 he then undertook for him, and distinctly calling 
 upon him to observe and give effect to the pro- 
 mises then made ; reminding him how he stands 
 committed to Christ, to his Sponsors, and to the 
 whole Church, for his due observance of the 
 same. 
 
 To render this teaching effectual, the Sponsors 
 are further admonished, " And that he may 
 know these things the better ye shall call upon 
 him to hear sermons." He is next to frequent 
 
THE SPONSOR. 95 
 
 the Church, into the Congregation of which he 
 was initiated at his Baptism ; and this, not only 
 to enjoy the Christian communion there, so far 
 as he is able, but also for the purpose of his 
 further " instruction in righteousness," ^ by 
 "hearing sermons." And this is no imintelli- 
 gible intimation of what the Church expects the 
 sermons of her ministers should be composed,— 
 even of such materials as a Child may profit by, 
 not of long and wearisome sentences which 
 fatigue the attention, not of dry disquisition and 
 uninteresting detail : but of plain and simple 
 expressions, arresting the attention by forcible 
 appeals to the conscience, winning exhibitions 
 of Christian privileges, and pressing invitations 
 of Gospel mercy and love. Of course there must 
 be many things in every sermon above the com- 
 prehension of a Child ; but the great leading 
 character of a Church of England sermon, as 
 here intimated by our Church, is, that in its 
 general matter and manner, its simplicity should 
 engage the attention of a Child. And w^hat sub- 
 ject but that of the mercy of God to sinners in 
 Christ Jesus, the special gift of a Saviour equally 
 necessary to sinful Child as to sinful man, affords 
 that plain, and direct, and intelligible, and in- 
 teresting path that can attract the attention even 
 of a Child, and that " the way-faring men, 
 though fools," should '^nor err therein," 2 
 
 * 2 Tim. iii. 16. 2 jga, xxxv. 8. 
 
96 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 Butther^ is yet a more special provision made 
 for the Child^s instruction : " and chiefly ye 
 shall provide that he may learn the Creed, the 
 Lord's prayer, and the Ten Commandments in 
 the vulgar tongue." These three particulars 
 constitute the substance of what every Christian 
 child is '^ bound to believe and to do.'' The 
 Church Catechism at first consisted but of these 
 three particulars, with the introductory ques- 
 tions and answers on Baptism, the concluding 
 portion on the Sacraments not having been 
 added till some years after : and I apprehend, 
 that, this is "the Short Catechism" mentioned 
 in the opening address of the Confirmation 
 Service, in contra-distinction to the longer, or 
 King Edward's Catechism, which "all school- 
 masters " w^ere enjoined " truly and diligently 
 to teach in" their "schools, immediately after 
 the other brief catechism already set forth." 
 And let these great principles of faith and prac- 
 tice be but duly and perseveringly inculcated 
 by an interesting mode of instruction, as re- 
 commended by the Bishop of London to the 
 clergy of his diocese,^ and let but the more ex- 
 panded detail of Christian doctrine and practice 
 contained in King Edward's Catechism " im- 
 mediately" follow, "after the other brief Cate- 
 chism," as is enjoined, and what an intelligent, 
 ready, and as we might trust, holy communion 
 
 1 Charge of 1822, page 27. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 9T 
 
 of her youth might our Church present to every 
 Bishop for Confirmation^ — a communion, which 
 might animate him in the discharge of duties, 
 however fatiguing, and on which he might look 
 with heavenly complacency as the loveliest 
 exercise of his office. 
 
 This chief and main provision for the Child's 
 instruction contains the '^ Creed,'' or the leading 
 Articles of that faith which he is to helieve, — the 
 ** Ten Commandments," or the will of God with 
 respect to man, which is to form his practice ; — 
 and the " Lord's Prayer," which asks for every 
 temporal and spiritual blessing, and the bestow- 
 ment of that grace, without which he can neither 
 eflfectually believe the Gospel nor acceptably 
 practise the Law. Sound, solid, and persever- 
 ing instruction in these three great branches 
 of divinity, conducted in faith and prayer, with 
 the blessing of God, must form the enlightened 
 and efficient believer. And were " all Fathers, 
 Mothers, Masters, Dames, " and Sponsors, 
 earnestly and affectionately to persevere in this 
 mode of instructing the Children of the Church, 
 with what hope might they be sent to " the 
 Curate of every Parish, upon Sundays and Holi- 
 days," for open instruction in the Church : and 
 how might the faith and love of the assem- 
 bled Church be animated towards these little 
 ones, in whose favour its prayers and sympathies 
 had been already engaged by the previous intro- 
 duction of Baptism ! 
 
 F 
 
98 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 Then follows a most important clause. The 
 Sponsor is to provide that the Child may learn 
 ^' all other things which a Christian ought to 
 know and believe to his soul's health/' The 
 soul, the immortal soul^ is the great subject of a 
 Christian education 5 and all knowledge and all 
 faith are to be so imparted as they may tend to 
 promote the spiritual health of the immortal soul. 
 And is this the object proposed in the general 
 education of children ? Survey the whole range 
 of education among us, whether domestic, 
 private or public — whether in the family, at 
 school, or at college, and are the main interests 
 of an immortal soul principally regarded ? Is 
 all instruction regularly and designedly arranged 
 upon this consideration ? '^ The work we have 
 undertaken is to train up an immortal soul for 
 heaven, and all merely human instruction must 
 be subordinated, and be only auxiliary to this 
 grand leading object ? " Is the Child systemati- 
 cally brought up for earth or for heaven ? Are 
 his desires sharpened upon the whetstone of 
 human selfishness, or is he taught the hard duty 
 of self-denial for his soul's sake ? Is he taught 
 to prefer the praise of God to the praise of men ? 
 Is he instructed to esteem all things truly valu- 
 able, as they are really useful ; and that as he 
 is holy, he is indeed happy? 
 
 That the "soul's health" is not the chief 
 object of general education, is sufficiently ob- 
 vious to every candid observer. Were this the 
 
THE SPONSOR. 99 
 
 case, the Bible, in its original, as well as in its 
 translations, would become the basis of instruc- 
 tion, and all other knowledge would be imparted 
 with reference to it. The Greek and Roman 
 Classics would serve as striking illustrations of 
 its great truths, and the veneration now excited 
 for mere learning, would receive its proper level 
 from a comparison with this standard of intel- 
 lectual and moral perfection. The different 
 branches of human knowledge would, thus 
 subordinated, be taught with the view of form- 
 ing those paramount and solid excellencies of 
 character, which would prepare the man for 
 future usefulness, and gird up the loins of his 
 mind for the conscientious discharge of every 
 relative obligation. Then not the excitements 
 of the imagination, but the cultivation of the 
 judgment would be a main object proposed ; 
 and man, immortal man, as related to God and 
 his neighbour, would be placed before the 
 youthful mind, as he is represented in history 
 sacred and profane, rather than as he is misrepre- 
 sented in the fictions of Poets, and the reveries 
 of Philosophers : and it would be systematically 
 shown, that all the hypotheses of the schools, 
 and the figments and schemes of unchristian 
 moralists and statesmen for the amelioration of 
 their species, are mere childish folly, and weak 
 delusion, and empty pretence, when compared 
 with those three simple formularies, which are 
 proposed as the ground work of every Christian's 
 
 F 2 
 
100 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 education, " The Creed, the Ten Command- 
 ment?, and the Lord's Prayer," as exhibited in 
 the one authentic record of immutable truth ; and 
 that the one plain and simple doctrine of Christ 
 crucified, has done more to bless our species, 
 has shed abroad more wisdom, more truth, more 
 peace, more blessing", than all the collective 
 principles and efforts of heathen learning- and 
 heathen power. Then human wisdom, and hu- 
 man prudence, the two fairest daughters of 
 nature, would become the willing hand-maids 
 of grace. Then all that is lovely in personal 
 character, all that is excellent in relative life, 
 and every advance that man can make in do- 
 mestic, social, civil, political, national, and in- 
 ternational happiness, as well as the universal 
 happiness of his species, would be seen inti- 
 mately connected with the spread of the three 
 simple Catechetical formularies of his childhood. 
 Then it would be found that the feeble, incom- 
 plete, hasty, half-measured, partial arid often 
 contradictory enactments of human legislatures ; 
 and the inconsistencies and perplexities which 
 attend the administration of everv merelv 
 human code^ would be rectified as men re- 
 garded the exquisitely simple requisitions of 
 the divine law ; which in its first statute, that 
 enjoining the duty of man to man, promises a 
 happy and peaceful life to every one who, in 
 the fear of God, discharges the whole round of 
 his relative duties, whether superior or inferior. 
 
1H£ SFOHSOR. tH 
 
 whkh it lUoslimtes bjr, and bottoms on that first 
 rdatioa in which every man is found — his 
 relation as a Child to his Parents — whidi in its 
 second statute secures the penom of man, bj 
 forindding the entertainment of any one leding 
 of hatred in the mind, whidi, if permitted to 
 issue in act, mig^t deprire that person of life, or 
 interrapt its widl-being — which in its third 
 statute provides for the domestic happness 
 of man in his fmmibf, and lorbids the pruriencj 
 of those carnal passions^ whidbi would most 
 eflfectuall J interrupt the peace of the ^milj, 
 in smq>ping^ asunder the conjugal bond by the 
 abduction <^an adidterons Parait — ^which in its 
 /ourth statute secures the p t upa^ of man, by 
 ^irbidding erery straggling desire that might 
 issue in depriving his fellow-man of his proper^ 
 by stealths stealth being the nlmost ei^resnoB 
 4if eoretousness that man can eaoercise against 
 tthR property of his ndghbour, as murder is the 
 most intense ezpresaon of hatred against his 
 iperson — ^wfaieh in its fifth statute provides for 
 the repuiadim of man, by fiHrbidding all flatt^y 
 as well as detraction, and erery intimation 
 inconsistent with the strictest truth — and which 
 in its sixth and last provision fiir the moral 
 welfime of mankind, applies itself to the feuntain 
 of evil, and lorbids the embryo desire of what 
 belongs to our ne^bour in our hearts. 
 
 What is all human legislatkm when compared 
 with this exquifitely brief but fini^JM^ taUe 
 
 F 3 
 
102 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 of Statute law ? It is usual to admire the code 
 of Napoleon for its intelligible and lucid ar- 
 rangement ; but here is a code, which, whether 
 for brevity or comprehension, which for exquisite 
 arrangement and intelligible precision, exceeds 
 every known effort of legislation on earth. We 
 commend the study of Political Economy, but 
 what are all the projects of mere Political Eco- 
 nomy compared with this ? — a Moral Economy 
 which, originating in the charities of domestic 
 life, gradually expands those charities through 
 the whole circle of human relations, and knows 
 no termination till it has mixed with all the 
 sympathies and wants of suffering and sinful 
 man. It is a Universal Economy, which being 
 grounded on the four first fundamental statutes, 
 man's duty to God, is engaged in promoting 
 the interests and advancing the happiness of his 
 creatures, not only as those interests and that 
 happiness are connected with time, but as they 
 iire connected with eternity also. And viewed 
 through the Gospel, what an inestimable ad- 
 vantage has this over eveiy human code ? This 
 does not merely enact what is '^ holy, just and 
 good,** it provides ability to perform also : it 
 does not merely demand, it provides compliance 
 with its own demands. The Everlasting Gospel, 
 contained in the Articles of our Creed, provides 
 a power to perform the Law, from the constrain- 
 ing love of Christ to the soul ; and prayer is 
 annexed for grace, from the fountain of grace. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 103 
 
 by which every needful help is supplied, to en- 
 able us to do that " which by nature we cannot 
 do." And now let the warmest benevolence, 
 the most matured judgment, and the most 
 enraptured imagination, apply themselves to 
 pourtray a finished state of human society ; let 
 a Republic, a Utopia, or any other political 
 device, exhibit the best and most perfect designs 
 of Plato or More, or of the most gifted philan- 
 thropist, to ameliorate the condition of their 
 species, yet how pitifully do they fail ? And for 
 this plain reason, because " the soul's health" 
 is not the leading object of their systems. 
 Whereas Christianity, by uniting man to God 
 by the bonds of faith, animates him to obedience 
 by the constraining influence of love. It gives 
 a simple law which respects the regulation 
 of the inmost thought of the soul, it supplies a 
 desire and an ability to observe this law, and it 
 opens a channel of divine communion between 
 the soul and its God, which, in return for every 
 ascending confession of defect, and humble 
 petition for supply, readily conveys infinitely 
 more than the lips of man can express, or the 
 soul of man can desire. 
 
 Were " the soul's health," then ever to become 
 the object of education ; according to this great 
 Baptismal injunction, it is evident that our pre- 
 sent mode of general instruction must receive a 
 materially new character. Then ideas would 
 not be imparted for the sake of teaching 
 
10-1 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 language^ but language would be taught for the 
 sake of imparting ideas. Then false sentiments 
 would be rectified with more assiduity than 
 false grammar is corrected. Then this leading 
 axiom of morals that — Men are as their 
 PRINCIPLES, — would pervade and animate the 
 whole circle of relative life, from the Legislature 
 to the lowest subject of its enactments. Then 
 gifts would be subordinated to graces, what is 
 useful would be preferred to what is garish, 
 what is pious to what is accomplished. Then a 
 Tutor would find the measure of his excellen- 
 cies not in the extent of mere knowledge, but 
 in the ardour of that piety, which gives to com- 
 petent knowledge its most spiritual effect ; and 
 the ability of a Schoolmaster would be estimated 
 by his skill in ascertaining individual character, 
 in adapting his instruction to the peculiar genius 
 and talent of each scholar, and in improving 
 the natural powers and attainments of each to 
 the greatest good of men, and the highest glory 
 of God.i 
 
 * Locke, in '' Some thoughts concerning education/' expres- 
 ses himself strongly on this subject. " Heading, and Writing, 
 and Learning, I allow to be necessary, but yet not the chief 
 business. I imagine you would think him a very foolish 
 fellow, that should not value a virtuous, or a wise man, in- 
 finitely before a great Scholar. Not but that I think Learning a 
 great help to both in well disposed minds; but yet it must be 
 confessed also, that in others not so disposed, it helps them 
 only to be the more foolish, or worse men. I say this, that 
 when you consider of the breeding of your Son, and are 
 
THE SPONSOR. 105 
 
 It is gratifying to the spirit groaning under 
 the errors and miseries of our present relaxed 
 condition of society, to contemplate that ameli- 
 orated state of human existence to which edu- 
 cation, directed with this one simple aim " the 
 soul's health,'' must necessarily elevate our 
 country ; and in that elevation become a bless- 
 ing to mankind. Whence do all our corruptions 
 that are so loudly and feelingly lamented arise ? 
 Simply from defect of principle ; and what is 
 real principle but the fear of God ? that concern 
 for eternal things which is associated with the 
 " health of the soul." Interest men steadily 
 for the health of their own souls, and you have 
 a principle in action which must improve every 
 earthly occasion and purpose to the advance- 
 ment of those higher interests which affect 
 themselves as well as the whole species to 
 which they belong. Then, indeed, not in the 
 fictions of poets, but in the clear prediction of 
 prophecy, in the certain progress of the design 
 
 looking out for a Schoolmaster, or a Tutor, you would not 
 have (as is usual) Latin and Logic only in your thoughts. 
 Learning must be had, but in the second placCf as subservient 
 only to greater qualities. Seek out somebody, that may know 
 how discreetly to frame his manners. Place him in hands, 
 where you may, as much as possible secure his innocence, 
 cherish and nurse up the good, and gently correct, and weed 
 out any bad inclinations, and settle in him good habits. This 
 is the main point, and this being provided for, Learning may 
 be had into the bargain, and that, as I think, at a very easy 
 rate, by methods that may be thought on.'' pp. 268 — 9. 
 
 F 5 
 
106 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 of Almighty mercy, and in the infallible verity 
 of the divine promise, a more perfect dispensa- 
 tion of human society would arise. And with 
 this general complexion of improvement all our 
 public and private Institutions would receive a 
 corresponding character. Then there would be 
 no question about Reform in the Legislature or 
 in the Church, it would as certainly take place 
 from the reformation of private principle, as the 
 best wheat sown in the earth produces a crop 
 of the same excellence as its seed. Then every 
 measure of Government, as it was dictated by 
 the love of the people, would meet with the 
 grateful acceptance of those for whom it was 
 designed. Then the laws of a country must 
 necessarily be simplified, for they would be few 
 and simple. Its criminal code would not be 
 written in blood, for where the " soul's health " 
 is duly estimated, human life is ever precious. 
 The interference of Law in many of the ordinary 
 transactions of life would cease to be intrusive 
 and onerous ; and the tyranny of Selfishness and 
 Cunning would not force the letter beyond its 
 evident design. The administration of the laws 
 would be unfettered by questionable precedents, 
 and unembarrassed by litigation and chicane, 
 and Justice and Equity might occupy the same 
 Bench. Then Trade would be conducted on 
 the most liberal as well as the most equitable 
 principles ; it would then appear how strikingly 
 selfishness defeats itself by restricting* the free 
 
THE SPONSOR. 107 
 
 barter of the products of nature and art by 
 exclusive imposts and forbidding duties; and 
 that the more unobstructed the interchange 
 might be of those superfluities with which a 
 bounteous Providence has enriched each respec- 
 tive country, the greater the abundance both of 
 national and universal blessings. And this reign 
 of liberal commerce once established, wars of na- 
 tional aggrandisement would cease ; discoveries 
 for mere increase of territory would be no more, 
 and the invasion of civilized or uncivilized man 
 to deprive him of freedom of person or property, 
 would yield to the blessed experience that Jus- 
 tice is preferable to Force, Honesty to Fraud, 
 Liberality to Exclusion, and the kind confidence 
 of peace to the distrustful suspicions of war. 
 Nor would rapacity and cruelty and the sacri- 
 fice both of the natural and spiritual interests 
 of men to mere gain be the reproach of com« 
 mercial enterprise; but "the soul's health'* 
 being associated with it, it would be found that 
 the improving interests of the body were pro- 
 portioned to the improving interests of the soul. 
 Then Agriculture would be freed from the charge 
 of oppression and unfeeling selfishness in the 
 employer, and from ignorance and improvidence 
 in the employed. The light of truth would then 
 break in upon the most inaccessible retirement 
 of rustic life, and convince its occupant that 
 justice makes no man poor, that liberality secures 
 industry, fidelity, and honesty, and that the best 
 
108 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 charity consists in rendering the poor independ- 
 ent of it.i The Farmer would then learn both 
 the responsibility and the privilege of the influ- 
 ence with which his station in society invests 
 him. Like the family of a Patriarch, the de- 
 pendents of his house would share the blessings 
 of his abundance 5 and every field, the cultivation 
 of which too frequently groans under the curses 
 of hopeless pauperism, would then smile in 
 truly blessed fertility, imder the watering of 
 those prayers which w^ould as naturally follow 
 the share, as the share follows the animal that 
 draws it. The unnatural anomaly of legalized 
 compulsory charity would then cease ; industry 
 by receiving its best wages, independence, 
 would supersede the necessity of legislative 
 interference between men ; and charity, free as 
 the operations of that Spirit which imparted 
 this crowning grace to the soul, being left to 
 the unfettered play of its own diffusiveness 
 would assuage every genuine woe, and supply 
 every real want. The impostor would be 
 abashed, the indolent stimulated, the indifferent 
 interested, the careless would be roused to 
 attention, and the patience of the real sufferer 
 from below, meeting the ready hand of active 
 benevolence from above, the whole mass of 
 human suffering w^ould be alleviated and 
 
 * It was a saying of the first Earl of Orrery, ** That the 
 greatest charity consisted in keeping people from needing it." 
 
 1 
 
THE SPONSOR. 109 
 
 assuaged. But unless our moral reformation 
 were conducted with a prevailing and para- 
 mount regard " to the soul's health 3 " though 
 Reform took place through every varied gra- 
 dation of rank and station among us, from the 
 Legislature to the lowest night-cellar in our 
 crowded metropolis, the present abode of de- 
 signing worthlessness, and meditative crime, — 
 the social chord though strung to the most ex- 
 quisite pitch of moral harmony would quickly 
 lose its tension, and having no stay to maintain 
 it, would speedily revert to its wonted state of 
 discord and disorder. A well-principled people 
 are alone fit for Reform ; let the people once 
 be prepared to receive it, and in the necessary 
 process of human circumstance it must infal- 
 libly establish itself. But how are the people to 
 be brought to this state ? By listening to that 
 Church to which they profess to belong : by re- 
 forming the education of all ranks, and chiefly 
 PROVIDING that all " may learn all things which 
 a Christian ought to know and believe to his 
 
 SOUL*S HEALTH." 
 
 I must entreat you. My Dear Friend, to 
 pardon the detention which this rapid survey of 
 society, improved by a prevailing regard in the 
 Sponsor to educate his charge in what may tend 
 to his " souFs health,"' has produced : the 
 scene is too lovely not to be dwelt upon with 
 complacency, and I am unwilling that the 
 Sponsor should lose any stimulant which may 
 
110 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 encourage him to the earnest discharge of his 
 duties. 
 
 The next clause addressed by the Church to 
 the Sponsors is, " and that this child may be 
 virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a 
 Christian life." Not merely a moral life, but 
 " a godly and a Christian life." In this and in 
 this alone can he " be virtuously brought up." 
 Mere moral virtue is loose in its principle, vacil- 
 lating as human habit, and arbitrary as human 
 caprice in its exercise, and short and defective 
 in its end. Christian virtue, is grace wrought 
 into the habit, the fruit of the Spirit springing 
 out of a lively faith in the merits and death of 
 our crucified Mediator, and is the very soul of 
 " a godly and a Christian life." No Christian 
 virtue, that is, no gracious habit can flow from 
 the Law, or from a mere legal education, in 
 which I conceive the mistake that dwarfs our 
 present Christian growth to originate, and con- 
 sequently it cannot issue in " a godly and a 
 Christian life." But once associate this educa- 
 tion, or " bringing up," with the promise of the 
 Gospel, once let the Child see that he is a child 
 of adoption, that God is again his reconciled 
 Father in Christ Jesus, and you have " a godly 
 life" emanating from godly principles, and 
 maintained by " godly " support : and once 
 let him feel that he is indebted to the blood and 
 merits of his crucified Saviour for every mercy 
 he enjoys, and that it is his privilege as well as 
 
THE SPONSOR. Ill 
 
 his duty that men should glorify Christ in him 5 
 and that an unfailing supply of his Spirit shall 
 be granted to maintain this divine life in his 
 soul, to his " diligent" and persevering prayer 5 
 and you have " a Christian life" also — a life of 
 which Christ is the beginning, the middle, and 
 the end ; of which the example of Christ is the 
 unfailing rule, faith in Christ the ever-flowing 
 spring, and the Spirit of Christ the ever-animat- 
 ing support. This is the Christian man of vir- 
 tue ; the man alone who can live " a godly and 
 a Christian life : " never yet did a human soul, 
 formed upon the mere precepts of the Law, 
 attain this state of perfection 5 it is to the 
 vitally-operating promise of the Gospel alone to 
 Which the praise of such a character is due. 
 
 The address concludes, by recommending the 
 Sponsors, for the better performance of their 
 duty, to " remember always, that Baptism doth 
 represent unto us our profession, which is " to 
 imitate the life and graces of our Redeemer, — 
 " to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, 
 and to be made like unto him 3 that as he died and 
 rose again for us, so should we who are bap- 
 tised die from sin, and rise again unto righteous- 
 ness." These two expressions comprise the 
 whole of our sanctification, — the mortification 
 of sin ; and, as our old divines term it, vivifica- 
 tion to holiness : and this will be the work 
 of the baptised believer " unto his life's end; " 
 even till the graces of time are consummated in 
 
112 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 the glories of eternity : for as Ciiristian men, 
 our whole lives must be spent in ^^ continually 
 mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, 
 and in daily proceeding in all virtue and godli- 
 ness of living/' Here the Christian course is 
 described, as a continual contest with sin, and 
 a daily progress in holiness, even to the last gasp 
 of life. This is real and vital and bible-proof 
 Christianity : the Child thus qualified is a child 
 of grace, holy and humble ; while every other 
 child is merely moral, and therefore worldly 
 and unhumbled, for he can attain nothing more 
 than a proud and meagre morality. 
 
 And here, My Dear Friend, permit me to ask, 
 on what other consideration could a Christian 
 man become responsible for the Christian educa- 
 tion of his charge ? He is too well acquainted 
 with his own infirmity, and that of the Child 
 committed to his care, to advance one step in 
 this spiritual work without the encouragement 
 of the promise, and the aid of the Holy Spirit. 
 Unless in a judgment of faith and charity this 
 Child is a " member of Christ, the child of God, 
 and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven^" 
 unless he is " a lively member " of the Church, 
 unless he is really regenerated by the Holy 
 Spirit, received as God's '^ own child by adop- 
 tion,*' and incorporated into the " holy Church ; " 
 unless in answer to the faithful prayers of him- 
 self, the Parents, and the Church, " the Holy 
 Ghost " is " sanctifying " him as one of " the 
 
THE SPONSOR. \< 113 
 
 elect people of God/' and being one so truly 
 blessed, he shall " ever remain in the number 
 of his "faithful and elect children/'— with 
 what hope of success could a Christian man 
 accept the office of a Sponsor ? For a man who 
 sees nothing more in Baptism than the mere 
 ceremony, it is consistent enough to undertake 
 the promise without any subsequent endeavour 
 to execute it ; as he never understood the vows, 
 so neither had he any intention to discharge the 
 obligations of them ; but for a Christian man to 
 engage in this office knowingly and intelligently, 
 for such an one to undertake to train up a soul 
 for glory, to endue it with spiritual qualities, 
 and to make it " conformable to the image of 
 the Son of God," without believing that it was 
 the good pleasure of God to fulfil his promise in 
 sanctifying that soul as one of his own elect — 
 would surely be the height of rashness and pre- 
 sumption* 
 
 How different the process of the Sponsor's 
 engagements when faith in the promise is ever 
 animating him to discharge them ? Grounded 
 on faith, he proceeds in hope, " Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ has promised in his Gospel, to grant all 
 those things that " he has " prayed for ; which 
 promise," the Church assures him, '^ he for 
 his part will most surely keep and perform." 
 *' Wherefore," he is " persuaded of the good- 
 will of" his "Heavenly Father towards" the 
 Infant of his care, " declared by his Son Jesus 
 
114 THE SPONSOR. 
 
 Christ 5 " he nothing doubts " that he favourably 
 allows this charitable work of his, in bringing 
 this Infant to his holy Baptism." He doubts not 
 but earnestly believes that Christ has likewise 
 favourably received this present infant as he did 
 those of old ; and he is thus encouraged hope- 
 fully and perseveringly to use all the prescribed 
 means that a child so distinguished, should 
 *^ receive the fulness of the " grace '* of God, 
 " and ever remain in the number of his faithful 
 and elect children." 
 
 And now. My Dear Friend, to this reasoning 
 add the moral certainty, that it is only the 
 Sponsor who acts upon this statement, that will 
 ever be found to perform his engagements 5 and 
 for this plain reason, because he only can form 
 a proper estimate of the privileges of Baptism. 
 A negligent Sponsor is an unbelieving Sponsor ; 
 for no man will be anxious to secure advantages, 
 which he does not believe that a promise is given 
 to convey. It is the man that believes the pro- 
 mise, who can alone expect any advantages 
 from it, and it is his vigilance and his care alone 
 that will be concerned to secure them. 
 
 Thus encouraged, let not the faithful Sponsor 
 flinch from his charitable undertaking. L#et 
 him rally his weak faith by recurring to the 
 promises in favour of the children of the Church. 
 Let him say " should such a man as I flee ? ^' * 
 
 » Neh.vi.ll. 
 
THE SPONSOR. 115 
 
 In the hour of difficulty is it for me to turn my 
 back ? " O Lord what shall I say, when Israel 
 turneth their backs before their enemies ? " ^ Let 
 him rather gird up his loins to the work, stand 
 in the gap, and make up the breach, remember- 
 ing that " it is not the will of" his " Father 
 which is in heaven, that one of these little ones 
 should perish," ^ 
 
 > Josh. vii. 8. » Matt, xviii. 14. 
 
116 . THE INFANT. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE INFANT. 
 
 The Infant baptised can justly expect the bene- 
 fits of Baptism in no other way than by faith in 
 the promise. He is taught, that when his name 
 was given him at his Baptism by his Sponsors, 
 he was as a professed Christian admitted into all 
 the privileges of that high character, that he 
 was then ^^ made a member of Christ," incorpora- 
 ted into his body the Church, by faith expressed 
 for him by his Sponsors, thence " the child of 
 God " by adoption and grace ; and thence ^' an 
 inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," — if a 
 son, then an heir of God through Christ. He 
 is then taught to walk worthy of his calling as 
 a *^ Child of God," to renounce the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil, to believe the Articles of 
 the Christian faith, and to keep and walk in 
 God's holy will and commandments all the 
 days of his life. And he " heartily " thanks his 
 " Heavenly Father that he has called " him " to 
 this state of salvation through Jesus Christ " his 
 " Saviour," and it is his prayer to " God, to 
 give " him " his grace that " he " may continue 
 in " this state to which he has been thus graci- 
 ously called, " unto his life's end." He is then 
 taught " to believe in God the Father who hath 
 
THE INFANT, 117 
 
 made '^ him " and all the world ; in God the Sou 
 who hath redeemed '' him '^ and all mankind ; " 
 and " in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth " 
 him, " and all the elect people of God." Not 
 who may sanctify or shall sanctify, or whose 
 office it is to sanctify, but is then presently en- 
 gaged in sanctifying him, together with ^^ all 
 the elect people of God ; " of which it is strongly 
 implied that he is one, since all w^ho are sancti- 
 fied are " God's elect." He is then taught the 
 particulars of the will of God which constitute 
 the rule of his obedience, in the ten command- 
 ments, of which an epitome is given in the two 
 great branches of his duty. Then the duty and 
 necessity of prayer are insisted on : and the 
 " Instruction " concludes with an explanation 
 of the Sacraments, which, as means of grace, 
 are, under the blessing of the Spirit, to nourish 
 and confirm his graces. 
 
 Here the construction and form, as well as 
 the subject matter of the Catechism, go to in- 
 struct the Child, that he is '^ a member of 
 Christ," &c : that God has called him into a 
 state of salvation by grace through Jesus Christ 
 his Saviour ; and that the Holy Ghost is even 
 then sanctifying him, together with all the elect 
 people of God. And is not all this in perfect 
 consistency with the prayers and praises of his 
 Baptism which has preceded, and the prayers 
 of the Bishop at Confirmation, which succeeds 
 his Catechetical Instruction ? In the former wc 
 
 I 
 
118 THE INFANT. 
 
 say^ " grant that this child now to be baptized 
 therein, may receive the fuhiess of thy grace, 
 and ever remain in the number of thy faithful 
 and elect children : '' and we " yield hearty 
 thanks " to our " most merciful Father, that it 
 hath pleased '' him '^ to regenerate this infant 
 with " his " holy Spirit, to receive him for " 
 his ^^ own child by adoption, and to incorporate 
 him into '' his " holy Church/' And in the 
 latter, the child having " renewed the solemn 
 promise and vow made in " his " name at '* his 
 " baptism ; " the Bishop opens his prayer with 
 an acknowledgment of the regeneration and 
 justification of the child, " Almighty and ever- 
 living God who hast vouchsafed to regenerate 
 these thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, 
 and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their 
 sins," &c. And is not this in perfect accordance 
 with the Scriptures ? On what ground does St. 
 Paul call upon the Romans for sanctification ? 
 ^' I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the 
 mercies of God, to present your bodies a living 
 sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,'' &c : the 
 duties of the five last chapters of the epistle, are 
 built on the mercies of the eleven first ; and the 
 important illative " therefore " is the cement 
 which binds the superstructure of duties and 
 graces to the foundation of " mercies." On what 
 ground does he call upon the Colossians to exer- 
 cise graces or to discharge relative duties, but as 
 <^ risen with Christ/' and as ^^ the elect of God ? " 
 
THE INFANT. 119 
 
 And have we not ample reason to take this 
 encouraging view of the subject, both from the 
 letter of our formularies, so perfectly according 
 with that of Scripture, and the ill success which 
 has hitherto attended our legal mode of enforcing 
 Catechetical Instruction ? Let us no longer 
 educate our children in the persuasion that they 
 have an ability to do good " which by nature " 
 they " cannot have/' Let us no longer, when a 
 child is in fault, exact a promise from him, made 
 in the confidence of his own natural strength, 
 that he will not repeat it. Let us be consistent, 
 and no longer teach the child, that he has ^^ no 
 power of" himself" to help *' himself, and yet 
 constantly make demands upon the exercise of a 
 strength, as though it were his own, which we 
 know ourselves, and also teach him, that he has 
 not. Let us rather encourage him to faith and 
 good works, by showing him that he is under a 
 covenant of grace ; that what his own " un- 
 godly " nature, without any strength to good, 
 cannot do, Jesus Christ has done, and will 
 do, both /or him and in him ; that what the Law 
 demands of him, Christ has done for him, both 
 in his life and death ; and that what the Law 
 demands in him, Christ has engaged to impart 
 
 I by his Spirit ; that his constant prayer must be 
 " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew 
 
 , a right spirit within me-/'^ that his coldness in 
 
 » Psalm li. 10. 
 
120 THE INFANT. 
 
 prayer, his trifling and his indisposition in this 
 duty are proofs of his fallen nature, and of the 
 necessity of grace 5 that all his childish faults, his 
 lying, his idleness, his disobedience, his thought- 
 lessness and the like, are sins against a holy God ; 
 that this God is now his kind Father in Jesus 
 Christ J whose love to him demands a willing 
 obedience, a devoted heart, and the dedication 
 of body and soul to his service ; that a sense of 
 his sinfulness should bring him low on his knees 
 in constant confession and sorrow for his sins ; 
 while God as a reconciled Father in Christ Jesus, 
 is ever ready to receive his confessions, to 
 pardon his sins, and to renew him in holiness 5 
 that the grace which has adopted him, will 
 assuredly help him; that in all his trials and 
 difficulties he must go to God, and never cease 
 to call upon him " by diligent prayer." It is 
 confessed by many a Parent with a bitter sense 
 of disappointment that our present mode of 
 education is unsuccessful ; let us change our 
 principle for that of the Baptismal Service, and 
 its corresponding formularies ; let us trust to the 
 promise, draw our resources from grace and not 
 from nature, educate our children as children 
 of adoption, and hope that God will reward our 
 faith with his blessing. 
 
 But it may here be said, would you have us 
 teaeh our children the doctrine of particular 
 election, as a principle of action stirring them 
 up to a holy life ? I answer, that 1 would have 
 
THE INFANT. 121 
 
 it taught as our Church teaches it, not in 
 a dry, scholastic, and angry manner, as it is too 
 frequently taught in the pages of disputatious 
 controversialists ; but with all the blessed 
 sense of privilege, and all the encouraging 
 accompaniments with which it is taught in the 
 three formularies of our Church which relate 
 to Baptism. 
 
 I conceive then, that the Sponsor is, accord- 
 ing to those formularies entitled thus to address 
 his charge. " My Dear Child ; There can bene 
 doubt, I think, in your mind, that you are a 
 sinner against God 5 the Bible teaches you this, 
 and your daily experience teaches you the same. 
 You know that you are indebted to him for all 
 things ; he made you, he preserves you, he has 
 redeemed you ; and what returns do you make 
 to him for all thi« kindness ? Do you pray to 
 him ? You know what a trouble it is to you to 
 engage in prayer, and how thoughtlessly and 
 coldly you perform this duty. You should fear, 
 respect, and reverence him ; but in your prayers 
 how little reverence do vou show for him : how 
 carelessly and inattentively do you conduct your- 
 self ! You should love him " with all " your 
 *^ heart, mind, soul, and strength 5 " now if you 
 love him with all your heart, you will prefer 
 him td every person and every thing ; but do 
 you not love your Parents better than God, and 
 do you not love many foolish trifles more than 
 you love him ? And as to loving your neighbour 
 
 G 
 
122 THE INFANT. 
 
 as well as yourself, you know how unwilling you 
 are to give to another, even to your own friends, 
 any part of that which you have set your heart 
 upon. Now all this is sin, for it is not doing 
 what God's holy law commands you to do ; and 
 it all springs from an evil heart of unbelief in 
 the living God ; with which evil heart you came 
 into the world, and which your Parents as well 
 as yourself derived from the fall of our common 
 Parent Adam. Thus being a sinner by nature 
 you are a child of wrath, for you are " not able 
 to do these things of" yourself, " nor to walk in 
 the commandments of God," nor " to serve him." 
 " Think then in what a dreadful state you were 
 born ; " by nature " you are a " child of wrath," 
 and being a child of wrath, your just portion is 
 everlasting punishment in hell. But see what 
 mercy God has shown you ; for through his 
 mercy in giving his only Son for you, you are 
 no longer a child of wrath, but a child of grace : 
 you are again admitted as the child of God by 
 adoption ; for God in his holy word has given 
 us '^ exceeding great and precious promises," ^ 
 which he has adapted to us in our different rela- 
 tions and conditions as fallen sinners. Children 
 have promises made to them, and Parents have 
 promises made to them. Now God has greatly 
 encouragedChristian Parents to de\H)te their chil- 
 dren to him, and to bring them up to love and 
 
 1 2 Pet. i. 4. 
 
THE INFANT. 123 
 
 to fear him. And all these promises are summed 
 up in that gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 when he reproved those who would have kept 
 little children from him as they brought them to 
 him for a blessing ; and when he said, ^' Suffer 
 the little children to come unto me and forbid 
 them not, for of such is the kingdom of God." 
 When you were an Infant your Parents chose 
 me as your God-father, your spiritual Parent to 
 present you to the Church for Baptism ; in this 
 office of kindness to you I willingly engaged : 
 and because the Church requires of all " persons 
 to be baptised, repentance whereby they forsake 
 sin, and faith whereby they stedfastly believe 
 the promises of God made to them in that Sacra- 
 ment ; " and as you were then an Infant, and 
 *^ by reason of your " then " tender age you 
 could not perform them," — '^ I promised them 
 both '* for you before the Church as your 
 " Surety," which promise when you come of 
 age you yourself ^^ are bound to perform." 
 
 " And now you are arrived at sufficient age to 
 understand these things, let me remind you first 
 of the engagements which I have undertaken for 
 you. I promised first, that you " should re- 
 nounce " the great enemy of God, " the devil, 
 and all his works," for he was a liar and *^ a 
 murderer from the beginning ; " ^ and not only 
 the devil, but '^ this wicked world," which is 
 
 * John viii. 44. 
 G 2 
 
124 THE INFANT. 
 
 indeed a world lying in wickedness with all its 
 pomps, and all its vanity, which encourage you 
 to self-exaltation and self-display : and that 
 you should renounce " all the sinful lusts of the 
 flesh/* which you so frequently feel the power 
 of, and which are so constantly stirring you up 
 to perform your own desires in preference to 
 the will of God. The second promise I made 
 for you was, " that you should believe all the 
 Articles of the Christian Faith : " which are the 
 principles of your conduct, and without which 
 it is impossible that you can be either holy 
 or happy. The last promise I made for you 
 was, ^^ that you should keep God's holy will 
 and commandments, and walk in the same all 
 the days of your life." You see then how 
 large and important the engagements are 
 which I have undertaken for you, so large and 
 important that I could not have thought 
 of undertaking them but on the security of a 
 divine promise : but I saw you destitute and 
 helpless, and being "affectionately desirous 
 of you,'' and believing that God would favour- 
 ablv allow the " charitable work " of mine 
 in bringing you to his holy baptism, weighty 
 as the charge was, since it was all for your 
 benefit, I could not but willingly engage to 
 perform it. 
 
 " You see then how much is required of you 
 now you are of sufficient age to understand and to 
 discharge your Baptismal obligations ; I ask yoti 
 
THE INFANT. 125 
 
 now to make good my promises to the Church : 
 the Church expects it both of me and of you, 
 and God forbid that we should disappoint her 
 reasonable expectations* 
 
 " Be not discouraged at the difficulty of your 
 undertaking : believe only the rich promises 
 of God, and you shall not fail. It is true, you 
 " are not able to do these things of yourself;" 
 you cannot in any strength of your own renounce 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil ; you have no 
 ability in either your mind or heart to believe 
 one of these Articles of your faith ; nor can you 
 *^ walk in the commandments of God, and serve 
 him without his special grace : " but do not 
 forget, that this grace God is ever ready to give 
 you, and that he loves you " at all times to call'' 
 on him " for" it " by diligent prayer ; " and as 
 you are now a child of his adoption, you are at 
 all times acceptable to him, and his ear is ever 
 open to hear you. You have much to encourage 
 you 5 for remember what blessed privileges you 
 were admitted to at your Baptism ; you were 
 first " made a member of Christ : " now I ex- 
 pect the evidences that you are as truly incor- 
 porated into, or become a member of Christ's 
 spiritual body, as that my arm or my leg are a 
 part of this my natural body ; and these evidences 
 are, that you live in Jesus Christ by the exercise 
 of a lively faith, and that he lives in you by the 
 renewing, sanctifying, and consoling influence 
 of his Spirit. The life, therefore, which I am 
 
 G 3 
 
126 THE INFANT. 
 
 desirous of seeing you live in the body, is a 
 spiritual life, which you can only live by '^ faith 
 of the Son of God/' * Let it encourage you to 
 bring all your wants to a throne of grace, when 
 you remember that Jesus Christ sits as the Head 
 of his body the Church, of which I trust you 
 are a lively member, to supply all your wants, 
 and to give you grace sufficient for every time 
 of need. 
 
 ^' Let me also encourage you by reminding 
 you that as you were at your Baptism " made a 
 member of Christ," you were, in virtue of this 
 connexion with Jesus Christ, then made " the 
 child of God '' also. As God is '^lis Father'' 
 so he is now your Father, not by nature but by 
 adoption and grace. You know, that, as you 
 are a sinner, you can claim nothing of God ; all 
 that you have from him therefore is in the way 
 of mercy. If I meet a poor ragged houseless 
 starving child in the street, he cannot claim one 
 farthing from my pocket as his right ; much less 
 to be taken into my house : but if I extend my 
 pity still further than this ; if I take him home 
 to my house, make him one of my family, clothe 
 him at my own expense, seat him at the same 
 table with myself,and introduce him to my friends 
 as my own child, to whom I purpose to leave my 
 property when I die ; this is freely and graciously 
 to adopt him as my own child. It is an act of mere 
 
 > Gal. ii. 20. 
 
THE INFANT. 127 
 
 pity^ of free grace, nothing moving me to this 
 act of benevolence but my own will and pleasure. 
 It is thus, that, in virtue of your being a member 
 of Christ through faith, you become a child 
 of God by adoption : you are one of his family, 
 you are of the household of God, not a ^' servant 
 but a Son,"^ and therefore entitled to see your 
 Father's face, to enjoy what his house affords, 
 to tell him all your wants, to pour all your 
 complaints into his bosom, to find access into his 
 presence at all times by prayer, and to enjoy a 
 constant sense of his kindness and love 5 and this 
 sense of a Father's kindness and love you will 
 find the grand preservative from sin. 
 
 " And being thus God's adopted child, let 
 the third privilege of Baptism encourage you 
 to go " on your way rejoicing ; " for being a 
 child of God, you are " an -inheritor of the 
 kingdom of heaven ; '* if a child then an heir, 
 an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. 
 Enjoying the privilege of a child, heaven is given 
 you as your everlasting inheritance. It is the 
 free purchase of the blood of Christ, graciously 
 and gratuitously bestowed upon you. You stand 
 before God in the merits of Christ Jesus ; he 
 regards you as a portion of his Son, a member 
 of his very body; and with the love wherewith he 
 loves him he loves you also, for ^^ so are we in the 
 sight of God as is the very Son of God himself.'' " 
 
 ' Gal. iv. r, 2 Hooker. 
 
128 THE INFANT. 
 
 " " Do you not think/' then, since all these 
 things are so evidently for your advantage, " that 
 you are bound to believe and to do as " we 
 " have promised for you ? " And should you not 
 say " yes *' indeed I do think so ; and it is my 
 iirm intention, if God help me with his grace, to 
 believe and to do as you have promised for me ; 
 and I heartily thank our heavenly Father that 
 he hath thus called me from my natural state 
 of sin and condemnation, to this state of salvation 
 of free mercy and mere grace through the 
 channel of all his mercies Jesus Christ our 
 Saviour : and it shall be my constant prayer to 
 God to give me his grace, that I may continue 
 in this same state of salvation by grace, to the 
 very end of my life, when the grace which he 
 has bestowed on me on earth shall be perfected 
 in the gloiy of heaven ? 
 
 " You do well to say *"' unto my life's end,'' for 
 it is yours to discharge Baptismal vows, and ta 
 enjoy Baptismal privileges to the very last gasp 
 of your mortal life ; and of this the Church will 
 not fail to remind you. Whenever you are ill, 
 you will be told of " the profession which you 
 made unto God in your Baptism ; " and at your 
 Confirmation, the Bishop will make the most 
 pointed appeal to your conscience, whether you 
 are willing to confirm in your own person the 
 vows and promises of your Baptism. 
 
 " Let me conclude then, by affectionately re- 
 minding you that a season is approaching when 
 
THE INFANT. 129 
 
 you are to " be brought to the Bishop to be 
 confirmed by him ; " this "care " is committed 
 to me ; and our minister will expect me to see 
 that you are prepared for that solemn occasion. 
 The Bishop will then ask you the questions I 
 have just now put to you ; demanding of you 
 whether you do there in the presence of God, 
 and the whole " congregation, renew the solemn 
 promise and vow that was made in your name 
 at your Baptism ; " and on your answering " I 
 do/* as I trust you will through grace be 
 enabled to do with all your heart, he will assume 
 that " God " has " vouchsafed to regenerate 
 you by water and the Holy Ghost/' and has 
 " given " to you " forgiveness of all '* your 
 " sins ; " and his pi-ayer will be that God would 
 " strengthen " you " with the Holy Ghost the 
 Comforter, daily increase '' in you " his manifold 
 gifts of grace," and that you " may continue " 
 his " for ever." You see then what the Church 
 and its ministers expect from us, that I should 
 present you a truly gracious soul at your Con- 
 firmation. It is my heart's desire not to disap- 
 point them. 1 would watch over your growing 
 years with the most affectionate solicitude, 
 trusting to those kind promises for success, on 
 which alone I undertook the interesting office of 
 your Godfather ; and by which I trust you are 
 indeed a " child of God," and that the Holy 
 Ghost is even now " sanctifying " you with " all 
 the elect people of God." And it is my hearty 
 
 G 5 
 
130 THE INFANT. 
 
 prayer, that you may constantly avail yourself 
 of all the means of grace which secure this 
 happy state, so that you " may receive the ful- 
 ness of grace, and ever remain in the number 
 of" the " faithful and elect children of God/''' 
 
 Did every Godfather thus address his charge, 
 habitually and perseveringly, from the first ap- 
 prehension of his opening faculties, to the day 
 of his Confirmation, would not the Christian 
 world present an improved appearance ? and 
 might we not hope, that God would smile on 
 such endeavours to honour the most blessed 
 trutlis of his word, his mercy and his love, as 
 they were legitimately and practically brought 
 into action to form a soul in holiness, on the 
 indisputable warrant of his promise ? 
 
 But I am well aware. My Dear Friend, that 
 such is the opposition of all our hearts by 
 nature to this great leading doctrine of the 
 grace of God, that it will be necessary to heap 
 proof upon proof before we can be persuaded 
 to admit the doctrine of election as a motive 
 of Christian action, especially to the young. 
 I have already shown, I trust, that this is the 
 principle of holiness approved by the Baptismal 
 Service, the Catechism, and the Service of Con- 
 firmation ; I must again appeal to our Church 
 in the second Catechism, or longer and more 
 expanded detail of doctrine and practice which 
 she has provided for her more adult catechumen. 
 This is King Edward the Sixth's Catechism, 
 
THE INFANT. 131 
 
 an elaborate and authorised work of our Re- 
 formers, and far too little known among us. 
 
 This Catechism enjoins " all School-masters 
 — that ye truly and diligently teach this Ca- 
 techism in your schools, immediately after the 
 other brief Catechism which we have already 
 set forth,** and does not shrink from animating 
 the Scholar to holy exertions by the considera- 
 tion that " as many as do truly fear, honour, 
 and call upon God/' wholly applying their mind 
 to holy and godly living, ^* belong to the com- 
 monwealth" of God's elect. 
 
 " Master. — Now remaineth that thou speak 
 of the holy church ; whereof I would very fain 
 hear thy opinion. 
 
 " Scholar, — I will rehearse that in few words 
 shortly, which the Holy Scriptures set out at 
 large and plentifully. Afore that the Lord God 
 had made the heaven and earth, he determined 
 to have for himself a most beautiful kingdom 
 and holy commonwealth. The Apostles and the 
 ancient Fathers, that wrote in Greek, called it 
 "EKKXtj^iu, in English a congregation or assembly : 
 into the which he hath admitted an infinite num- 
 ber of men, that should all be subject to one 
 king, as their sovereign and only one head ; him 
 we call Christ, which is as much to say, as 
 Anointed. To the furnishing of this com- 
 monwealth belong all they as many as do truly 
 fear, honour, and call upon God, wholly ap- 
 plying their mind to holy and godly living : and 
 
132 THE INFANT. 
 
 all those that, putting all their hope and trust 
 in him, do assuredly look for the bliss of ever- 
 lasting life. But as many, as are in this faith 
 stedfast, were fore-chosen, predestinated, and 
 appointed out to everlasting life, before the 
 world was made. Witness hereof, they have 
 within in their hearts the Spirit of Christ, the 
 author, earnest, and infallible pledge of their 
 faith. Which faith only is able to perceive the 
 mysteries of God : only bringeth peace unto the 
 heart : only taketh hold on the righteousness 
 that is in Christ Jesus. 
 
 " Master, — ^Doth then the Spirit alone, and 
 faith (sleep we never so soundly, or stand we 
 never so reckless and slothful,) so work all 
 things for us, as without any help of our own 
 to carry us idle up to heaven ? 
 
 ^' Scholar. — I use. Master, as you have taught \ 
 me, to ftiake a difference between the cause and 
 the effects. The first, principal, and most per- 
 fect cause of our justifying and salvation, is the 
 goodness and love of God : whereby he chose 
 us for his, before he made the world. After 
 that, God granteth us to be called by the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; when the 
 Spirit of the Lord is poured into us : by whose 
 guiding and governance we be led to settle our 
 trust in God, and hope for the performance of 
 all his promises. With this choice is joined, as 
 companion, the mortifying of the old man | 
 that is, of our affection and lust. 
 
THE INFANT. 133 
 
 " From the same Spirit also cometh our sancti- 
 fication, the love of God, and of our neighbour, 
 justice, and uprightness of life : finally, to say 
 all in sum, whatsoever is in us, or may be done 
 of us, pure, honest, true, and good : that alto- 
 gether springeth out of this most pleasant root, 
 from this most plentiful fountain, the goodness, 
 love, choice, and unchangeable purple of 
 God. He is the cause, the rest are the fruits and 
 effects/' &C.1 
 
 Here the Scholar is plainly taught, as the 
 child is in our Catechism, that holiness is by 
 grace and not by nature ; " it springs from this 
 most pleasant fountain, the goodness, love, 
 choice, and unchangeable purpose of God.'' 
 A holy life is the consequence, " the rest are the 
 fruits and effects." How much more encourag- 
 ing then is it to a poor creatiu'e, the victim 
 of all the corruptions and infirmities of a fallen 
 nature, to lead him to " this most pleasant root, 
 and most plentiful fountain " of grace, than to 
 throw him on the delusive resources of his own 
 perverted will, and the incapacity of his own 
 depraved heart. 
 
 And may we not add to this persuasive precept 
 and practice of our Church, the yet more con- 
 clusive argument of fact ? Are there not many 
 instances on record, and are they wanting in 
 the living experience of the present day, of 
 
 ^ Fathers of the English Church, vol. ii. pp. 362 — 364. 
 
134 THE INFANT. 
 
 children into whose hearts the Spirit of God has 
 wrought a lively feeling of the blessedness of 
 these doctrines ? whose religion, as Hooker calls 
 it, is a ^^ feelingly-known " religion : and who 
 though they can give no correct analysis of the 
 same, are exhibiting a lively evidence of the truth 
 of these doctrines of grace in their daily walk 
 and conversation ? The grace of God is really 
 operating in them a change of heart. If a child 
 on retiring to rest at night, sheds a tear over 
 the sins committed during the day, and prays for 
 pardon of that God who "seeth'* that tear " in 
 secret ; ^' if, when driven to distress under the 
 frown of his Parent, he says " Let me kneel 
 down and pray to God for pardon and strength 
 to sin no more,'^ acknowledging God as his 
 refuge ; if the Bible and the things of the Bible 
 are dear to him ; if he denies himself for the 
 good of others ; and if amidst his childish folly 
 and trifling there is a prevailing disposition to 
 regard the concerns of his immortal soul, — could 
 we justly withhold from such a child, the cha- 
 racter which the Scripture ascribes to the young 
 Abijah, that there was " found in him some good 
 thing towards the Lord God of Israel ? *' ^ Shall 
 we not, in a judgment of charity, hope that the 
 Holy Ghost " sanctifieth,'* or is sanctifying 
 that child, and that he is therefore one of " the 
 elect children of God ? " I do hope that such 
 
 » 1 Kings xiv. 13-. 
 
THE INFANT. 135 
 
 instances are not only on record, but that some 
 domestic circles contain these cheering* evidences 
 of effectual grace in the youthful mind in this 
 our day; and that Parents are yet to be found, 
 who hail these rising graces as germs of future 
 blessings, both to themselves, their children, 
 and the Church of Christ. 
 
 And here, suffer me, before I conclude this 
 part of the subject, to draw the very necessary 
 distinction between experience of the blessed- 
 ness of a doctrine, and the power to analyse 
 that experience. The one is the work of the 
 heart, the other of the head ; the one is the 
 exercise of the affections, the other of the un- 
 derstanding : the child can feel the love of God 
 and the fear of God, when he may not be able to 
 analyse those feelings, or correctly to describe 
 them. The Scriptures address themselves not 
 to an understanding head but to an ^^ under- 
 standing heart : " ^ their blessed truths are not 
 given so much to be reasoned on, as to be felt; 
 not so much to be canvassed by the understand- 
 ing, as to be applied by the heart. A hungry 
 beggar does not reason about the ingredients 
 of the food presented to him : it is wholesome, 
 it is suitable, it is presented by a friend, it is 
 just the supply which his wants demand. And 
 while learned disputants are controverting the 
 truth of a doctrine, and subjecting it to the 
 
 * Prov. viii. 5. 
 
136 THE INFANT. 
 
 severest analysis of critical acumen, the child 
 may without controversy be feeling the blessed- 
 ness of that very doctrine in his holy experience, 
 which they are questioning, and possess that 
 best evidence of its truth " the witness in him- 
 self," ^ which all the mass of external and 
 internal evidence accumulated in unnumbered 
 folios, may be unequal to convey. The one is the 
 ratiocination of man, the other is the impress 
 of the Spirit 5 the one may be the accurate 
 deduction of intellect, the other is the exquisite 
 essence brought home in power to the heart, 
 and wrought out in all the lively efficacy 
 of experimental blessedness. Children taught 
 as above, have been known experimentally 
 to apply the doctrine of the Trinity in their 
 prayers. 2 They have addressed God the Father 
 
 * 1 John V. 10. 
 
 2 A child may be taught the God with whom he has to do, 
 if the practical purposes for which that God is revealed, are 
 explained to him in the three Unities. 
 
 The first Unity is that of the three Persons of the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost, existing in the Godhead. 
 
 The Father is the fountain of Deity — abstract and essential 
 perfection — ^being, wisdom, justice, holiness, truth, power, 
 mercy, love, infinity, &c. The child has seen a holy man, 
 and a powerful man, but he never saw power or holiness ; 
 he has seen them as qualities, but he never saw them in essence ; 
 now God the Father is all this in essence. And this " no man 
 hath seen, nor can see." 1 Tim. vi. 18. 
 
 The Son is the expression of Deity, for " no man hath 
 seen God the Father at any time," John i. 18. neither can he 
 see or comprehend what is essential, " the only begotten Son 
 
THE INFANT. 137 
 
 as their reconciled Father in Christ Jesus : God 
 the Son as their Saviour and Redeemer, who 
 
 which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him : " 
 John i. 18. He has not only declared him in his revealed 
 word, but he has declared him in his own person, for " he 
 that hath seen " him " hath seen the Father." John xiv. 9. 
 Hence the names of our Lord Jesus Christ denote expression : 
 the " Son " is the expression, or image of the Father — " the 
 WORD " is the expression of the idea in the mind. Phil. ii. 6. 
 He is " in the form of God ; " Form or appearance denotes 
 expression — " The image of the invisible God," Col. i. 15. is 
 that in expression which the Father is in abstract — " the ex- 
 press IMAGE of his person," Heb. i. 3. not iiKuv as above but 
 Xa^paKTTjp the character of the seal expressed on the wax — 
 " the brightness of his glory ; " Heb. i. 3. the very lustre and 
 brilliancy of his attributes, the perfection of his perfections, 
 and the glory of his glory manifested or expressed in its most 
 luminous splendour. " It pleased the Father that " thus " in 
 him should all fulness dwell;" Col. i. 19. and thus " in him 
 dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;" Col. ii. 9. 
 or substantially, visibly, intelligibly. 
 
 The Holy Ghost is the agent of Deity — In creation, " and 
 the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Gen. i. 
 2. In redemption. " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
 and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." Luke 
 i. 35. At his Baptism Jesus " saw the Spirit of God descend- 
 ing like a dove, and lighting upon him;" Mat. iii. 16. he 
 was " led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted 
 of the devil;" Mat. iv. 1. and it was " through the eternal 
 Spirit" that he <^ offered himself without spot to God." 
 Heb. ix. 14. In regeneration — " Except a man be born 
 of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of God." John iii. 5. 
 
 And these three Persons are one God. 
 . The second Unity springs out of the first, and is that of God 
 
138 THE INFANT. 
 
 took upon him the nature of man for them ; and 
 God the Holy Ghost who sanctifies, supports and 
 comforts them. Here is the doctrine of the 
 Trinity applied in power for the very purpose 
 
 and man in the Person of the Expression of Deity, — Im- 
 manuel, God-man, — thus capable of becoming the Mediator, 
 Redeemer, and Intercessor of fallen man, by taking our nature 
 into his Deity, atoning for all our sins by the all-sufficient 
 merits of his blood, and making each sin-polluted soul that 
 believes in him, the partaker of the divine nature again, that it 
 may be an inheritor of glory. 
 
 The third Unity springs out of the second, and is that 
 of the Head with its body, the Church — the spiritual union 
 of the believing soul vvith its God, through the agency of the 
 Holy Spirit, " taking " of the things of Christ, and " shewing " 
 John xvi. 15. them to that soul with experimental compre- 
 hension and loveliness. The imparted graces of which this 
 union, or divine fellowship consists, are Christ's, that ** in all 
 things he might have the pre-eminence," Col. i. 18. as well in 
 our sanctification, as our justification. The agency by which 
 it is originated, maintained and perfected, is that of the Spirit 
 in the regeneration, sanctification and growing consolation 
 of each individual believer, as the Spirit " glorifies " Christ in 
 receiving of his grace, and applying it to the Church. These 
 are the things " revealed, which belong to us and to our chil- 
 dren:'^ they are unfathomable by the acutest intellect, and 
 they are intelligible as applied by the Spirit to a humble and 
 simple soul, even like that of ** a weaned child ; " as seems 
 to be plainly intimated by the Apostle, when after a full 
 enforcement of the blessedness of this doctrine of the Trinity, 
 he concludes by addressing the Church under the character 
 of children. " Little children, keep yourselves from idols." In 
 this view the Trinity is practically intelligible ; the very purpose 
 I apprehend for which it is graciously revealed ; and " this is 
 the true God; and eternal life." 1 John v. 20, 21. 
 
THE INFANT. 139 
 
 for which it was given — God intelligible as a 
 God of mercy, in all the characters and offices 
 in which he offers himself as a gracious God to 
 recover a lost sinner, and to prepare his soul 
 for heaven : and all the volumes that have ever 
 been written on the subject are condensed in 
 the essence of these brief words, the love of 
 
 THE FATHER THE GRACE OF THE SON and 
 
 THB COMMUNION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. And 
 
 as a child may perceive the virtue of this 
 gracious representation of the Godhead in his 
 heart, though he cannot explain, he may feel, 
 and say, " truly our fellowship is with the 
 Father and with his Son Jesus Christ/^ ^ 
 
 » 1 John i. 3. 
 
14a THE CHURCH. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The last party yet remains to be noticed, 
 and that most deeply interested in the view 
 of Baptismal privileges we have taken above, — • 
 This is The Church. 
 
 ^^ Me have ye bereaved of my children/' ^ has 
 been her just complaint for centuries past. 
 Faith is the Parent of her children, and faith 
 having failed, her family has been proportionably 
 contracted. It is from faith in the promise that 
 the Church also expects the blessing. " Receive 
 him, O Lord, as thou hast promised by thy 
 well-beloved Son" — "that this Infant may 
 enjoy the everlasting benediction of thy heavenly 
 washing, ^nd may come to the eternal kingdom 
 which thou hast promised by Christ our Lord." 
 She entertains no doubt herself as to the per- 
 formance of the promise towards the baptised 
 Infant, provided the proper means be observed. 
 These means she insists on largely in her address 
 to the Sponsors ; and as she entertains no doubt 
 herself, so it is her unwearied effort, through- 
 
 » Gen. xlii. 36. 
 
THE CHURCH. 141 
 
 out the whole of the Baptismal anol its kindred 
 Services^ to impress the minds of her people, 
 the Sponsors, and the Child when arrived at 
 years of discretion, with the same undoubting 
 confidence in the promise of a Covenant-God, 
 that he will assuredly " grant " the "things " that 
 they " have prayed for," and " for his part will 
 most surely keep and perform the promise '' be 
 has made. 
 
 It is therefore her desire continually to enlarge 
 the communion of her saints ; and for this pur- 
 pose she would have every child introduced into 
 her communion visibly and openly, so soon as 
 he may conveniently be brought to the church. 
 She therefoi'^ directs, " The Curates of every 
 Parish shall often admonish the people that they 
 defer not the Baptism of their children longer 
 than the first or second Sunday next after their 
 Birth, or other Holy-Day falling between, 
 unless upon a great and reasonable cause, to be 
 approved by the Curate." " And also they shall 
 warn them, that without like great cause and 
 necessity they procure not their children to be 
 baptized at home in their houses." The Church 
 further enjoins, " The people are to be admo- 
 nished, that it is most convenient that Baptism 
 should not be administered but upon Sundays, 
 and other Holy-days, when the most number of 
 people come together : as well for that the con- 
 gregation there present may testify the receiving 
 of them that be newly baptized into the number 
 
142 TJIE CHURCH. 
 
 of Christ's Church ; as also because in the Bap- 
 tism of Infants every man present may be put 
 in remembrance of his own profession made to 
 God in his Baptism. For which cause also it is 
 expedient that Baptism be ministered in the 
 Vulgar Tongue." 
 
 Here surely is a jealous vigilance that all 
 things may be done to excite and maintain the 
 sympathy, and charity, and vital influence of a 
 holy communion, all tending to the general 
 edification of the Church. 
 
 First, Baptism is not to be deferred but from 
 necessity, after " the first or second Sunday next 
 after" the " birth." If the Jewish Infant was 
 introduced into the Church on the eighth day 
 after its birth, and received the sign and seal of 
 the covenant ; why is the heir of a brighter dis- 
 pensation to be excluded from the earliest parti- 
 cipation of its blessings; and of the interest, 
 and love, and communion of that Church into 
 which he is admitted ? — Nothing but necessity 
 therefore is deemed by the Church a sufl[icient 
 reason for withholding the Infant from its bosom 
 of grace, so soon as it is capable of partaking 
 of the blessings of its communion. 
 
 Secondly, so desirous is the Church of pro- 
 moting the holy fellowship of her members, and 
 of maintaining their gracious sympathies towards 
 each other, especially towards the lambs of the 
 flock, who most need her tender care, that she 
 •will have them receive the sign and seal of her 
 
THE CHURCH. 143 
 
 communion^ not in the private chamber of their 
 natural parent before the confined domestic 
 circle, but in their spiritual " Mother's house/' 
 and in " the chamber of her that conceived " ^ 
 them, even the fullest resort of her children in 
 the " great Congregation ; " Parents are there- 
 fore to be warned, that without " great cause and 
 necessity they procure not their children to be 
 baptized at home in their houses/' On the con- 
 trary, " the People are to be admonished, that, 
 it is most convenient, that Baptism should not 
 be administered but upon Sundays, and other 
 Holy-days, when the most number of people come 
 together." The first reason assigned for this 
 publicity is, " that the Congregation there pre- 
 sent may testify the receiving of them that be 
 newly baptized into the number of Christ's 
 Church." And why " testify,'' but that they 
 may be interested in each child as he is respec- 
 tively introduced " into the number of Christ's 
 Church." But what interest can the Church take 
 in a child baptised in secret, whom she never 
 saw, never recognised ? What sympathies can 
 the Church entertain for a child baptised " at 
 home," not visibly incorporated into her com- 
 munion, and of whom she formally and sacra- 
 mentally knows nothing ? She cannot " testify " 
 that which she never saw, and of which she 
 has no knowledge or experience but from the 
 
 * Song of Solomon, viii. 2. 
 
144 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Register book of the parish. Here is not only 
 no personal knowledge of the Child^ but no feel- 
 ing is excited in favour of the baptised Infant, 
 by her prayers being solicited and obtained. 
 Prayer is perhaps the sweetest expression of the 
 ^^ Communion of the saints : " while they pray 
 together they are brought into the experience 
 of the most vital blessing of their communion : 
 they are all together before the throne of one 
 Covenant- God and Father ; they are pleading 
 the merits, and availing themselves of the inter- 
 cession of one common Saviour ; and they are 
 exercising the graces and enjoying the acknow- 
 ledged presence of one common Sanctifier and 
 Comforter. Prayer is the loveliest and the live- 
 liest sympathy of Christian communion : and 
 therefore the best mode of" testifying*' the in- 
 troduction of the Infant " into the number of 
 Christ's Church." But how can the Church feel 
 the lively interest of prayer for a child of which 
 she knows nothing ? 
 
 The second reason assigned for the introduc- 
 tion of the Child to Baptism, " when the most 
 number of people come together," is, *^ because 
 in the Baptism of Infants every man present 
 may he put in remembrance of his own profes- 
 sion made to God in his Baptism." As Baptismal 
 obligations end not but with life itself, it is wise 
 in th€ Church to suggest to her members a per- 
 petual memorial of them. It is her " endeavour 
 that" we " may have these things always in re- 
 
THE CHURCH. 145 
 
 membrance : " ^ for this purpose the instances 
 of Baptism are continually presenting to us the 
 profession we also have made, that we may ob- 
 serve and adorn it by our life and conversation. 
 But who can be reminded of his profession when 
 there is no instance to remind him ? And is it 
 not on this account chiefly that any thing like a 
 reference to Baptismal obligations has become 
 almost obsolete ? Who examines his conduct by 
 the rule of his Baptismal vows ? Who animates 
 himself to holy exertion, by recurring to his 
 Baptismal privileges ? The majority of the 
 Christian world seems agreed to retain the name 
 of Baptism, and the rite of Baptism, but to have 
 equally agreed to permit its virtue and efficacy 
 to sink into desuetude and neglect, whether 
 under the winning Popery of the delusion, that 
 the external washing of water is the internal 
 cleansing of the Spirit, or the scarcely less 
 pernicious mischief, a total disregard of the 
 promise and of the privileges connected with it. 
 The remaining provision for publicity made 
 jby the Church is,—" for which cause also it is 
 ixpedient that Baptism be administered in the 
 [Vulgar Tongue." Christianity is a common 
 >oon, and admission to the communion of the 
 liurch equally free to high and low, rich and 
 Ipoor, educated and uneducated : the one and the 
 lother meet here without distinction as sinners : 
 
 * 2 Pet. i. 15. 
 H 
 
146 THE CHURCH. 
 
 all needing mercy, since ^^ all have sinned and 
 come short of the glory of God." The common 
 language of the country, therefore, is the most 
 expedient channel for conveying common bless- 
 ings, for what all are privileged to enjoy, all 
 are concerned to understand. 
 
 And here let me vindicate our Reformers, 
 from an objection which I have heard lu'ged 
 against them, as to the presumed interest which 
 the Church is said to take in the Baptism of the 
 Infant. It has been said, that when they use 
 this expression, " for the young babes, their 
 parent's or the Church's profession sufficeth," ^ 
 that they affix no positive meaning to the word 
 " Church ; " that they use loose and indefinite 
 language ; and, in plain terms, that they did not 
 understand what they were talking about. I 
 admit, that alienated, as the Child is, from the 
 Church by the prevailing mode of Baptism, 
 neither Infant, nor Parents, nor Sponsors being 
 presented to the Church in her full Congrega- 
 tion, that the term has no intelligible meaning ; 
 but then surely the Reformers are free from 
 blame, whose whole endeavour in our formu- 
 laries is to render the presentation of the Infant 
 as public as possible, to engage the interest, 
 and to awaken the holy sympathies of the Con- 
 gregation in favour of the baptised Infant ; that, 
 
 1 
 
 King Edward the Sixth's Catechism, Fathers of E. C. 
 vol. ii. p. 369. 
 
THE CHURCH. 147 
 
 in factj no one spiritual member of that holy 
 communion should behold the Child, but with 
 an interest and a sympathy which may issue in 
 subsequent attention to its spiritual welfare ; so 
 that, in fact, every member of the Congregation 
 becomes the Sponsor of the Child, Is it just 
 then to cast a reproach upon the Reformers 
 which is due to our own negligence alone ? 
 And does not our own want of discernment 
 both evidence and reprove that unbelief, which 
 has deprived the Sacrament of its meaning, and 
 the Church of that interest in the baptised, which 
 the faith of our Reformers steadily and uniformly 
 ascribed to it? Let us but attach the same 
 important meaning to this Sacrament that the 
 Reformers did, and the Sponsorial responsibility 
 of the Church will be both intelligible and 
 appropriate. Let the Church once feel a ma- 
 ternal interest in the Child introduced to her 
 communion, and a parent's regard and a parent's 
 attentions will follow: it is experience alone 
 which can render the idea truly intelligible. 
 But is it not somewhat ungracious in us, to 
 neglect the means expressly provided by our 
 Fathers, to secure the interest of the Church in 
 favour of the Child, and then to charge upon 
 them the darkness of that ignorance, into which 
 our own errors have betraved us ? 
 
 Here then. My Dear Friend, let me ask what 
 sight can be more interesting than that of the 
 Baptismal Service of our Church, conducted on 
 
 H 2 
 
148 THE CHURCH. 
 
 the principles above stated ? Why should a 
 large interest be excited in favour of Jewish 
 children, or Mahommedan children, or Heathen 
 children, who are presented for Baptism, and 
 crowds attend to ^^ testify'' their interest in this 
 sight, while no similar expression of interest 
 attends the presentation of our children or 
 of those of our neighbours ? Assuredly either 
 Baptism is nothing more than an empty sign or 
 an unmeaning ceremony in our esteem ; or we 
 are regardless of the spiritual welfare both 
 of our own children and of those of our friends. 
 But do they stand in less need of covenant 
 mercies than the children of the Jews ? Do they 
 less need the accrediting sign and seal of such 
 mercies ; or do they less need the prayers and 
 communion of the Church ? But once open the 
 true meaning of our Baptismal Service, and 
 awaken a real interest for the spiritual welfare 
 of our children, and what Service is so cal- 
 culated to give that interest due expression, 
 and to maintain and confirm it as our Service 
 of Baptism, understood by the respective parties 
 according to the above explanation ? 
 
 Place before your view, then, the full Con- 
 gregation ; the Parents, the Sponsors, and the 
 Church, presenting and receiving the Infant, in 
 virtue of the promise made to the believer and 
 his children. — The Congregation committing the 
 Child of their hopes to approved Sponsors, and 
 accepting their promise, as a pledge that the 
 

 THE CHURCH. 149 
 
 Child shall " be virtuously brought up to lead a 
 godly and a Christian life ; '* and the Sponsors 
 engaging the prayers of the Church, for every 
 promised blessing to be poured forth and con- 
 tinued on their Infant charge. Infuse but 
 spiritual life into all the parties engaged in this 
 interesting work, active charity, lively faith, 
 realising hope, and holy expectation, and hear 
 all these blessed graces actively expressing them- 
 selves in the prayer and praise of our admirable 
 Service, and might we not hope that a Christian 
 Communion,-^— even that fellowship of the saints, 
 which was once so encouraged as forming the 
 cement, and bond, and vital energy, and real 
 glory of the Church, — might be generated in 
 favour of the received and incorporated Infant, 
 which might issue in unceasing prayers for its 
 welfare, and an equally unceasing interest in 
 its spiritual growth and prosperity ? 
 
 But let us advance still further, and see how 
 every other formulary of our Church would 
 receive a meaning, a beauty, a consistency, and 
 a perfection, from this right understanding 
 and observance of this initiatorv Sacrament. 
 And here it will be found, that the intelligence 
 and spirit infused into the Baptismal Service, 
 is the very soul which gives intelligence and 
 spirit to every subsequent formulary ; for all 
 the rest are subsequent, and are intended to 
 give to this perfection and eiFect. 
 
 Trace the progress of this newly incorporated 
 
 H 3 
 
150 THE CHURCH. 
 
 member throughout the whole of the Church's 
 communion, as that progress is exhibited 
 in her respective offices. Say then, that the 
 Parents, the Sponsors, the Child, and the 
 Church, are all engaged in discharging the 
 duties, and enjoying the privileges which the 
 Church assumes them to be discharging and 
 enjoying, towards one of God's elect children. 
 Thus "virtuously brought up," and piously 
 educated, " to lead a godly and a Christian life," 
 and growing in grace himself, his catechetical 
 instructions both at home and in the Church are 
 producing the proper fruits, and there is a sound 
 hope that he is in fact, what the promise at his 
 Baptism gave assurance that he should be, " a 
 member of Christ, the child of God, and an 
 inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." In this 
 hopeful state he is presented for Confirmation ; 
 and the Bishop assuming that God has " vouch- 
 :Safed to regenerate " him " by water and the 
 Holy Ghost," and to " give " him " forgiveness 
 of all " his " sins," prays that God would— not 
 begin a new work in him, but further and 
 perfect what he has already begun,— would 
 " strengthen " him " with the Holy Ghost the 
 Comforter, and daily increase in" him his 
 *^ manifold gifts of grace : " he also makes " hum- 
 ble supplications," for this " servant" of God, 
 *' upon whom, after the example of the Holy 
 Apostles " he has " laid " his " hand, to cer- 
 tify " him " by this sign of" God's " favour and 
 

 THE CHURCH. 151 
 
 gracious goodness towards ^' him 5 not to 
 impart the incipient " favour and gracious 
 goodness " of God " towards *' him, for this 
 he assumes the child has enjoyed from the hour 
 of his Baptism 5 but to certify him of it by the 
 " sign/* the imposition of hands ; the sign and 
 seal of an instrument adding nothing thereto, 
 but the final ratification and conclusive confir- 
 mation of its contents. To these petitions 
 of her chief minister, the Church adds her 
 hearty " Amen " of concurrence and consent 3 
 testifying by her voice, her heart-felt interest 
 in the confirmation of those graces and privi- 
 leges, in the primary imparting of which she 
 had " testified *' a similar lively commimion at 
 the Baptism of the Child. 
 
 He is now admitted into the full participation 
 of the privileges of the Church ; being free 
 of that Sacrament, which she dignifies by the 
 name of The Communion : intimating that it is 
 the highest act of spiritual communion, whether 
 with their Saviour or with each other, into 
 which the faithful can be admitted on earth. 
 With what real joy does the Church receive the 
 Child thus Confirmed, into the choicest and 
 richest privilege of her communion ! How does 
 she seat her children with her at the same table 
 of redeeming mercy, and invite them to partake 
 of the same divine repast ! and how fully and 
 perfectly are the awakened affections, and 
 expectant graces of the newly confirmed grati- 
 
152 THE CHURCH. 
 
 fied, by his recognition of the same privileges 
 enjoyed in The Communion, with which he had 
 long been acquainted in the former days of his 
 childhood as he had found them in Baptism, and 
 its two kindred Services 1 After having " duly 
 received '' those " holy mysteries/' he heartily 
 thanks God, " for that thou dost vouchsafe to 
 feed us, with the spiritual food of the most pre- 
 cious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of thy 
 favour and goodness towards us." These latter 
 are the very expressions of the Confirmation 
 Service : they are words most dear to him. 
 " The favour and goodness of God tow^ards " 
 him are those blessings of which he desires 
 especially to be assured. Of these he was " cer- 
 tified " at his Confirmation by the " sign '' of the 
 imposition of handsj but now he has a far 
 richer assurance, being a spiritual partaker of 
 " the most precious body and blood of the 
 Son of God, his " Saviour Jesus Christ.'* He 
 proceeds to thank God with the Congregation 
 present, " that we are very members incorpo- 
 rate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is 
 the blessed company of all faithful people, and 
 are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting 
 kingdom by the merits of the most precious death 
 and passion of thy dear Son." Here he blesses 
 God, for the assurance, that he is indeed what 
 he was made at his Baptism, a ^^ very member 
 incorporate in the mystical body of " the " Son, 
 
 I 
 
THE CHURCH. 153 
 
 which is the blessed company of all faithful 
 people/' or the adopted children of God ; and 
 that he is also an " heir through hope of God's 
 " everlasting kingdom : " and his prayer is that 
 he " may continue in that holy fellowship, and 
 do all such good works as " God ^^has prepared 
 for " him '^ to walk in." He is '^ God's work- 
 manship, created in Christ Jesus unto good 
 works which God has " prepared " for him to 
 walk in/ and he is now admitted into the full 
 participation of all the rights and privileges 
 which belong to the '^ holy fellowship " of God^s 
 elect."- 
 
 Let us now proceed further. With what holy 
 feeling and spiritual intelligence does he now 
 join the Congregational communion of the 
 Church ! The Morning and Evening Services 
 of the Liturgy, are now spiritually understood, 
 and relished, and enjoyed ; he has tasted that 
 the Lord is gracious, and he feels how admirably 
 adapted our Liturgy is, to express the lively 
 feelings of a gracious soul. It is no longer a 
 dead letter and a lifeless form ; but viewed as 
 the rich expression of the '^ Communion of the 
 Saints," it receives a life, and vigour, and spi- 
 
 » Ephes. ii. 10. 
 2 See the Second Prayer after the reception of the Com- 
 munion ; a prayer deserving of more frequent use, as it abounds 
 in the richest assemblage of the assurances of faith and hope, 
 and in this respect probably exceeds every other prayer 
 throughout the whole of our Liturgy. 
 
 H 5 
 
154 THE CHURCH. 
 
 ritual meaning, which, in the absence of this 
 view of the subject, it fails to have. As none 
 but a spiritual soul can understand the Liturgy, 
 so none but a spiritual soul can enjoy it. It is 
 that true and essential Gospel which exactly 
 suits the case of a redeemed sinner. It opens 
 with abundant promises to the penitent, to 
 " turn away from his wickedness and live : " 
 on the promises, it grounds all its hope of pardon 
 in confession 5 on the promises it grounds all 
 its supplications ; and on the promises it con- 
 cludes its petitions, that God " would fulfil the 
 desires and petitions of his servants. Amidst 
 every variety of devotion, it prays that God 
 would ^^ make *' his " chosen people joyful,'^ 
 that he would deliver them for his " name's 
 sake," — for the sake of his mercy and truth ; 
 that for his " Honour's " sake, he would help his 
 Chiu'ch now as he had helped their Fathers ; 
 and " that in all our troubles, we may put our 
 whole trust and confidence in his mercy." None 
 but a gracious soul can surely comprehend these 
 petitions or enjoy them. They are the " chosen 
 people " of God, who alone can rejoice in these 
 things ) and the Church assumes, that all who 
 partake of her Liturgy, as well as all who par- 
 take of her other Services, being truly regene- 
 rated at their Baptism, are " chosen people ^' of 
 God indeed. And it is only by improving Bap- 
 tismal privileges and discharging Baptismal 
 obligations, that we can realise her just assump- 
 
 i 
 
THE CHURCH. 155 
 
 tlons, 01* fulfil her just CTtpectations. Thus the 
 Church proceeds^ with a most harmonious 
 consistency, to impart the blessings of her 
 communion to all her subjects, both infant and 
 adult, simply under one character, and that as 
 the " chosen ^' of God. 
 
 The Church continues to express her interest 
 in the welfare of her young charge as he attains 
 manhood, and having been hitherto in the 
 inferior relation in the family of his Parents, is 
 now about to be admitted into that superior 
 relation, which while it justifies him in " leaving 
 his Father and Mother,** invests him certainly 
 with one new relation, that of Husband, and 
 probably with two others, those of Parent and 
 Master also. She cannot permit this child 
 of her prayers, to enter upon so important a 
 change, without again distinctly making him 
 the subject of her communion, and testifying 
 her interest in his welfare, by admitting him to 
 this blessing in the midst of her Congregation. 
 This is not indeed expressly stated in her rubric ; 
 it is there ordered, that " the persons to be 
 married shall come into the body of the Church, 
 with their friends and neighbours 5 *' but pub- 
 licity is to be given to the proposed marriage, 
 by the publication of the Banns in the Parish 
 Church of each party, for " three several 
 Sundays or Holy*days;** and it is stated, that 
 " it is convenient that the new« married persons 
 shpuld receive the Holy Communion at the time 
 
156 THE CHURCH. 
 
 of their marriage, or at the first opportunity 
 after their marriage ; '' and as the Communion is 
 a Congregational act, it implies that the marriage 
 should be celebrated before the Congregation. 
 No act of her baptised member, of which she 
 can take especial cognizance, is suffered to pass 
 by her with indifference, '' for the members 
 should have the same care one for another." ^ 
 
 And while the Church admits the offspring 
 of this marriage into her bosom by Baptism, as ' 
 she received the Parents before 5 she does not 
 forget to take her share of interest in the reco- 
 very of the Mother, by making her " safe 
 deliverance and '* preservation " in the great 
 danger of childbirth " an occasion of Congrega- 
 tional praise to God for '' his goodness. '' " The 
 woman, at the usual time after her Delivery," 
 comes " into the Church decently apparelled, and 
 there " kneels " down in some convenient place, 
 as hath been accustomed, or as the Ordinary shall 
 direct," that all may see her about whom all are i 
 interested: and after repeating that graphical 
 description ^ of the state of her soul, during the 
 late trying circumstances through which she 
 has past, she rejoices to express her gratitude 
 with the assembled Church, " I will pay my 
 vows now in the presence of all his people : 
 in the courts of the Lord's house, even in 
 the midst of thee, O Jerusalem." And that she 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xii. 25. 2 Psalm cxvi. 
 
THE CHURCH. \\ ^ 157 
 
 may enjoy the richest act of thamtsgivmg 
 to which the Church can admit her, she is ]'j^ 
 invited to the Eucharist, for " if there be a'^'^^^^^^^^ 
 Communion, it is convenient that she receive 
 the Holy Communion/' Nothing that can 
 happen to the baptised or his family, is foreign 
 from her regard ; that baptised person is a saint, 
 and every saint is entitled to the sympathy of the 
 whole blessed communion to which he belongs. 
 This interest remains undiminished through- 
 out the whole of the earthly pilgrimage of the 
 baptised. Is he " any ways afflicted or distressed 
 in mind^ body, or estate ? " if so, he acquaints 
 " the Communion of Saints " with his malady, 
 and requests their prayers for him ; and the 
 Church prays " especially '" for him " for whom *' 
 her " prayers are desired ; " for " if one member 
 suffers," so intimate is her communion, that 
 " all the members suffer with it.'* Has he been 
 visited with mercies ? he requests the Church, 
 as partaker of his joy, to unite with him in 
 thanksgiving ; and the Congregation offer to 
 God " most humble and hearty thanks for all " 
 his goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to 
 all men, particularly to " him," who desires 
 now to offer up " his praises and thanksgivings 
 for thy late mercies vouchsafed to him 5 '* here 
 " if one member be honoured, ail the members 
 rejoice with it." ^ 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xii. 26. 
 
158 THE CHURCH. 
 
 And if he be detained from the public " Com- 
 munion of the Saints '' by sickness, the Church 
 does not forget him, but as she is desirous to 
 preserve and continue this sick member in the 
 " unity of the Church/* she sends her minister 
 into the chamber of sickness to prepare liim for 
 his latter end* Of all our formularies, this is the 
 one which I have heard stated to be least worthy 
 of the piety and judgment of the Reformers 5 
 and more especially on this account, that it 
 makes no provision for diversity of character ; 
 that it is only adapted to the case of the real 
 Christian, and that the unregenerate man seems 
 to have no share iti it. But is not this objection 
 the distinctive character of the formulary ? and 
 does it not show its perfect consistency with all 
 the other formularies, which uniformly assume 
 the regeneration of their subject, and treat him 
 as one of God's elect ? It is to the baptised, 
 regenerate, and elect, that the Church sends her 
 minister to comfort him under his sickness, and 
 to prepare him for that solemn change, into 
 which he may be about to pass* Immediately 
 that ^^ he comes into the sick man's presence^^' 
 he asks God to ^^ spare '* his people whom he 
 has redeemed with " his most precious blood 5 " 
 and shortly after, he prays, " save thy servant 
 which putteth his trust in thee : *' and in this 
 spirit, assuming the regeneration of the "sick 
 member,*' the prayers proceed. ^* Look upon 
 him with the eyes of thy mercy, give him 
 
THE CHURCH. 159 
 
 comfort and sure confidence in thee— keep 
 him in perpetual peace and safety— extend thy 
 accustomed goodness to this thy servant — 
 sanctify this thy fatherly correction to him, that 
 the sense of his weakness may "—not give him 
 faith as a new thing, or repentance as a new 
 thing ; but may strengthen and confirm them— 
 *^ may add strength to his faith, and seriousness 
 to his repentance." In these expressions the 
 Church gives no hint of her ^' member " not 
 being regenerated, on the contrary she assumes 
 the fact, and her minister prays for the growth 
 and establishment of grace in him who already 
 possesses it. So in the "Exhortation" to the 
 sick man, the Church does not hint that his 
 " sickness is sent ** to regenerate, but to sanctify 
 him, and that it may " turn to " his " profit," and 
 help " him " forward in the right way that leadeth 
 unto everlasting life.'* The "sick member" is 
 exhorted " in the name of God to remember the 
 profession which ^' he " made unto God in " his 
 " Baptism : " it was at that time that he was 
 regenerated, and whether his present sickness 
 be "to try** his "patience," to illustrate his 
 " faith," or " to correct *' whatsoever is offensive 
 to "the eyes of" his "heavenly Father," his 
 whole course from the font to the grave is but 
 an exhibition of his Baptismal profession, which 
 is shortly to be consummated in glory. 
 
 Let us say then that the closing scene has 
 arrived ; and that this " member of Christ," and 
 
160 THE CHURCH. 
 
 this " child of God/' not being suffered "for any 
 pains of death to fall from him," has entered into 
 his rest, is now in possession of his inheritance, 
 and as Bishop Hall calls him, is now a " Glorious 
 Comprehensor " in the kingdom of heaven. The 
 Church cannot forego her communion, so long 
 as any vestige remains of him who has so long 
 enjoyed it. He has come to his end like a shock 
 of corn in his season, rich in grace, and ripe for 
 glory : and the Church, while she commits his 
 body to the ground, " in sure and certain hope 
 of the resurrection to eternal life," rejoices over 
 the happy transfer of the glorified spirit, now 
 " delivered from the burden of the flesh," and 
 admitted into the mansions of "joy and felicity." 
 With what genuine and sacred joy, do the smiles 
 of grace irradiate the tears of human infirmity, 
 when the Church can calmly terminate her 
 earthly communion with her departed member 
 in these heartfelt thanksgivings, " We give thee 
 hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to 
 deliver this our Brother out of the miseries 
 of this sinful world ; beseeching thee that it may 
 please thee of thy gracious goodness shortly to 
 accomplish the number of thine elect, and to 
 hasten thy kingdom, that we, with all those that 
 are departed in the true faith of thy holy name, 
 may have our perfect consummation and bliss, 
 both in body and soul, in thy eternal and ever- 
 lasting glory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord ! " 
 This Brother was recognised as one of " God's 
 
THE CHURCH. 161 
 
 elect/' at his introduction into the Church by 
 Baptism ; as an elect of God, he has been uni- 
 formly recognised throughout all his pilgrimage 
 in all the formularies of the Church, which 
 express his various communion with her ', and 
 now when his earthly course is run, and his 
 mortal remains are brought to receive the last 
 affecting token of her regard, she consigns them 
 to the ground as those of an elect of God, 
 " beseeching '* him " of his gracious goodness 
 shortly to accomplish the number of his elect, 
 and to hasten " his " kingdom ; " when this 
 troubled scene of sin and sorrow shall for ever 
 cease, and when all those who witness his inter- 
 ment, together with all that are " departed in 
 the true faith of" God's " holy name,'' may be 
 perfected both in body and soul, " in his eternal 
 and everlasting glory." 
 
 And here. My Dear Friend, can it be necessary 
 to draw your attention to the intelligible sym- 
 metry, the harmonious consistency, and the 
 exquisite beauty of our Church, when viewed in 
 the cheering light of this interpretation ? What a 
 rich and ample provision is here made for " the 
 Communion of the Saints ! " What an extension 
 of charity to the bodies and souls of men from 
 infancy to age ! What efficient means of renova- 
 tion amidst the miseries and ruins of the fall I 
 What an approximation of earth to heaven, of 
 grace to glory, of man regenerated and renewed 
 to the spiritual image of his God ! In vain does 
 
162 THE CHURCH. > 
 
 my imagination strive to pourtray a scene of 
 things upon earth so perfectly lovely : once let 
 faith, and love, and prayer, but set the wheels 
 of this spiritual machinery in motion, once let 
 the gracious principle of Baptism, — regeneration 
 according to the promise, — be infused into that 
 and all its sister formularies, and you would 
 witness a condition of human society infinitely 
 beyond that which fable ever fancied, which the 
 prophetic pages of truth have alone anticipated, 
 — a scene of amity, and peace, and love, and 
 joy, and blessedness, 
 
 " Such as earth 
 Saw never, such as heaven stoops down to see.'^ 
 
OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. 163 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. 
 
 There are two principal ^objections which I 
 anticipate to the above interpretation of our 
 Baptismal Service and the corresponding for- 
 mularies of our Church. The one arising from 
 the fact — that Baptism does not produce these 
 desirable results which the above interpretation 
 would lead us to expect : the other, questioning 
 the principle of regeneration according to the 
 promise, and hesitating to admit that we are 
 warranted in expecting so much from it. It 
 is but justice to our subject, to answer these 
 objections, before we proceed to state the ad- 
 vantages with which the above interpretation 
 would, with the blessing of God, be accom- 
 panied, if carried out into its practical detail, to 
 our Church and consequently to our country. 
 
 First then the/ac^ — the real condition of things 
 under our present administration of Baptism, 
 may be insisted on, and it may be said, " are not 
 Parents and Sponsors and the Church often dis- 
 appointed ? Does the Child thus incorporated 
 
164 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 into the visible Church always grow up a holy 
 child ? In a word is the promise generally 
 performed ? " 
 
 We may answer first, that to order events is 
 the prerogative of God. His precept is the rule 
 of our duty, and his promise is our encourage- 
 ment to discharge it ; and if, after the persevering 
 discharge of duty, with prayer for a blessing on 
 the same, we perceive no fruit to the conclusion 
 of the life of the baptised, we may still trust 
 that our faith shall not be without a blessing, 
 and say, " though Israel be not gathered, yet 
 shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and 
 my God shall be my strength." ^ Our grand 
 consideration should be. Have we the warrant 
 for the practice ? Is the precept to baptise clear ? 
 Have we then the promise of a blessing to en- 
 courage us ? Are promises of spiritual blessings 
 given to the Children of believers, and did our 
 Saviour invite the Infants to him and bless them 
 when they were brought ? Then let us act the 
 precept, and plead the promise, and leave the 
 event to God. Duty, faith, and prayer, are ours ; 
 the event, — the blessing is solely the prerogative 
 of God. 
 
 Or we may answer, with the concluding 
 clause of the Seventeenth Article. " We must 
 receive God's promises in such wise, as they be 
 generally set forth to us in holy Scripture : and 
 
 * Isa. xlix. 5. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 165 
 
 in our doings that will of God is to be followed, 
 which we have expressly declared unto us in the 
 word of God/' " Secret things belong unto the 
 Lord our God ; " with his hidden will, his secret 
 intentions, no soul of man must presume to 
 interfere ; for they are the attributes and prcr 
 rogatives of Absolute Deity, and eminently and 
 exclusively '^belong" to him. The ^^ things 
 that are revealed belong to us and to our childr 
 ren : " i they are rich expressions of his infinite 
 mercy to us sinners, free intimations of his sove- 
 reign love, and as our faith acts upon them 
 with fullest confidence of a blessing, even so 
 shall that blessing be bestowed. 
 
 Or we may answer in the following full and 
 satisfactory statement of Beza. " There is a 
 special regard to be had to the Infants of the 
 faithful. For although they have not faith in 
 effect, such as those have that be of age, yet so 
 it is that they have the seed and the spring in 
 virtue of the promise, which was received and 
 apprehended by the Elders. For God promised 
 not us only to be our God, if we believe in him, 
 but also that he will be the God of our offspring 
 and seed, yea unto a thousand degrees, that is, 
 to the last end. Therefore said St. Paul, that 
 the children of the faithful be sanctified from 
 their Mother's womb. By what right or title 
 then do they refuse to give them the mark and 
 
 * Deut. xxix. 29. 
 
166 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 ratification of that thing which they have and 
 possess ah-eady ? And if they allege yet further, 
 that although they come of faithful Elders or 
 Parents, it followeth not that they be of the 
 number of the elect, and by consequent, that 
 they be sanctified, (for God hath not chosen all 
 the children of Abraham and Isaac,) the answer 
 is easy to be made ; that it is true all those be 
 not of the kingdom of God which be born of 
 faithful Parents, but of good right we leave this 
 secret to God for tojudge^ which only knoweth 
 it, yet notwithstanding we presume justly to be 
 the children of God, all those which be issued 
 and descended from faithful Parents according 
 TO THE PROMISE, forasmuch as it appeareth not 
 to us the contrary. According to the same, we 
 baptise the young children of the faithful, as 
 they have used and done from the Apostle's time 
 in the Church of God, and we doubt not but 
 God by this mark, (joined with the prayers of 
 the Church, which is their assistant) doth seal 
 the adoption and election in those which he hath 
 predestinate eternally, whether they die before 
 they come to age of discretion, or whether they 
 live to bring forth the fruits of their faith in 
 due time, and according to the means which 
 God hath ordained." ^ 
 
 It is some years since I met with the above 
 
 * See " a Booke of notes and common places," &c. by 
 John Marbeck, 1581, Article " Baptism." 
 
AND ANSWERED. 167 
 
 extract from Beza ; but the increasing acquaint- 
 ance which those years have afforded me with 
 the writers of the Reformation, has convinced 
 me that it contains the very pith of the question 
 of Infant-baptism, as held by the Reformers 
 generally, whether of our own or of foreign 
 Churches. They conceived that the children 
 of the faithful were heirs according to the 
 promise, they acted in faith of that promise, 
 and they expected the blessing from God, whose 
 prerogative it is to bestow it. 
 
 But may we not further answer on God's 
 part, Who shall presume to say in what degree 
 Baptism is really effectual to the imparting 
 of grace, since the virtue of Baptism is not 
 complete till grace be consummated in glory ? 
 " Baptism is not done only at the font," says 
 Archbishop Usher, ^^ which is a thing that 
 deceives many : for it runs through our whole 
 life ; nor hath it consummation till our dying 
 day, till we receive final grace : the force and 
 efficacy of Baptism is for the washing away of sin 
 to-morrow as well as the day past : the death 
 of sin is not till the death of the body, and 
 therefore it's said, '^ we must be buried with him 
 by Baptism into his death." Now after death we 
 receive final grace ; till when, this washing and 
 the virtue thereof hath not its consummation." ^ 
 Who then shall presume to say at what season 
 
 * See Eighteen Sermons preached in Oxford, 1640, p. 55. 
 
168 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 it may please God to make Baptism effectual by 
 the vital calling of the Spirit ? The whole season 
 from the Baptismal introduction of the Child 
 into the visible Church, to his passing out of it 
 into an eternal state, is the day of grace, in 
 which is that " due season '' when it may please 
 God to call him by his Spirit. The day of grace 
 has its twelve hours : some are effectually called 
 in the first or second, or in early life ; some in 
 the sixth or seventh, or in manhood ; and others 
 in the eleventh or twelfth, or in declining age. 
 And let it not be forgotten, that not only is the 
 day graduated, but the hour is graduated also. 
 The twelfth hour has its degrees ; and how many 
 are effectually called by the Spirit within that 
 latter period, which is frequently spent within 
 the curtains of sickness, or the chamber of 
 wasting infirmity, who shall say ? Who shall 
 " limit the Holy One of Israel," ^ or presume 
 to impose bounds on that grace which is bounds 
 less ? Who can seize a wave of the sea in his 
 hand, as it washes our shores, and fix it in 
 stationary thraldom ? Will it not quickly join its 
 kindred element, mingle itself with the ocean, 
 expatiate in the world of waters, and float to 
 either pole ? Free grace cannot be restrained. 
 To our apprehension, had we witnessed the scene, 
 the thief on the cross would have been within 
 an hour of hell ', it only remained for his legs 
 
 '■> Psalm Ixxviii. 41. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 169 
 
 to be broken, that the body might be taken 
 away : but in the eternal counsels of free mercy, 
 that very hour was appointed as the " due 
 season" for the Spirit to work in him that 
 repentance, which was not to be repented of, 
 and that faith which was to issue in immortal 
 salvation. The virtue of Baptismal Regenei'ation 
 is only known to him, who knows the secrets 
 of the heart, and who orders all things after 
 the good pleasure of his own will. Doubtless 
 he will honour his own appointments, and invest 
 his Sacraments with due power and success : 
 it is not for man to limit their efficacy, or to 
 confine the freedom of grace within the narrow 
 restraint of finite apprehensions : and as it is 
 the freedom of divine grace which encourages 
 the believer to dive into the dungeon of the 
 most hardened criminal, or to attend the dying 
 bed of the most profligate debauchee ; so the 
 Church asserts the same freedom of grace when 
 over the body of every baptised member that 
 she commits to the earth, she expresses " sure 
 and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal 
 life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." The grace 
 that is in Christ Jesus being so free and so full, 
 that it becomes man to give it the largest credit, 
 — even to encourage the hope that with the 
 very last gasp, the " free Spirit" may impart 
 spiritual life to the soul, and by one single effort 
 pour in upon the astonished man, a combined 
 flood of grace and glory. The same moment. 
 
170 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 in the sinner's experience, may be that both of 
 incipient and of final grace, as the same moment 
 is that of final grace and of incipient glory. ^ 
 
 But with respect to the failure of Baptismal 
 blessings, we may, lastly, well vindicate the 
 ways of God to man, by proposing " the riches 
 of his goodness, and forbearance, and long^ 
 suffering,''^ to our admiration and our love. 
 How grossly has this blessed Sacrament been 
 insulted by our ignorance, our negligence, our 
 indifference, and our contempt? Treated as 
 Baptism has been among us, could any reason^ 
 able man hope for a general blessing to attend 
 the ordinance ? Without faith in the parties 
 concerned, without intelligence, without any 
 well-understood hope of a blessing, without 
 any distinct expectation of spiritual advantage, 
 without subsequent pleading of the promise in 
 prayer, or subsequent effort to secure the bless- 
 ing, without one thought of a godly education ; 
 
 * The possibilities of divine mercy aflford no just argument 
 either to commit sin, or to continue in the impenitent indulgence 
 of it. The contrary doctrine may suggest arguments on paper; 
 but where is the practical evidence of their truth ? Has one 
 thief been known to go on the high-way, because the thief was 
 forgiven on the cross ? Or one unhappy female justified her 
 continuance in profligate habits, because " a woman in the 
 city which was a sinner " had her sins forgiven her ? Such 
 are too often known to " despise the riches of his goodness," 
 but I have never yet known one that justified continuance in 
 sin by the possibilities of the divine sovereignty. 
 
 ^ Rom. ii. 4. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 171 
 
 or one endeavour to evidence Baptismal privi- 
 leges in the nascent graces of the Baptised; 
 with no habitual instruction to avoid the snares 
 of the world, the flesh, and the devil, or rather 
 with no attempt to impart it ; and, in one 
 word, to disregard throughout the education 
 of our children, both Baptismal privileges and 
 Baptismal obligations, as though the ceremony 
 of Baptism were all, and that nothing more 
 were intended — if this. My Dear Friend, be the 
 general complexion of Baptismal observance 
 among us, and if it be so at this moment, surely 
 we may find ample cause of failure in our own 
 remissness, and ample cause of thanksgiving 
 that the God of all grace has so patiently borne 
 with our contempt, and that while we have been 
 despising the ordinance of his grace, he has 
 been mercifully exercising the graces of his 
 
 k forbearance and long- suffering towards us. 
 But I had rather express this state of things 
 in the* language of others than of my own. 
 P ^^ We are baptised in our infancy, that is, as 
 I conceive, dedicated and devoted to God's ser- 
 vice, by our Parents and the Church, as young 
 Samuel was by his mother Hannah ; and there 
 we take a solemn vow, to forsake the devil and 
 all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the 
 world, with all the covetous desires of it ; to 
 forsake also all the carnal desires of the flesh, 
 and not to follow nor be led by them. This vow 
 we take when we be children, and understand 
 
 I 2 
 
172 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 it not : and, how many there are, who know, 
 and consider, and regard what they have vowed, 
 when they are become men, almost as little as 
 they did being children ! Consider the lives and 
 public actions of most men of all conditions, in 
 court, city, and country, and then deny it, if you 
 can, that those three things which we have 
 renounced in our Baptism-— the profits, honours, 
 and pleasures of the world, are not the very 
 gods which divide the world amongst them, are 
 not served more devoutly, confided in more 
 heartily, loved more affectionately, than the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in whose name we 
 are baptised ? Deny, if you can, the daily and 
 constant employment of all, to be either a violent 
 prosecution of the vain pomp and glory of the 
 w^orld, or of the power, riches, and contemptible 
 profits of it, or of the momentary or unsatisfying 
 pleasures of the flesh, or else of the more dia- 
 bolical humours of pride, malice, revenge, and 
 such like. And yet with this empty form we 
 please and satisfy ourselves, as well as if we 
 were lively born again by the Spirit of God, not 
 knowing or not regarding what St. Peter hath 
 taught us, that the Baptism which must save 
 tts, is, " Not the putting away of the filth of the 
 flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to 
 God.*' 1 Pet. iii. 21. 
 
 *^ When we are come to years capable 
 of instruction, many, which is lamentable to 
 consider, are so little regarded by themselves or 
 
I 
 
 AND ANSWERED. 173 
 
 Others, that they continue little better than Pagans 
 in a commonwealth of Christians^ and know 
 little more of God or of Christ, than if they had 
 been bred in the Indies. A lamentable case, 
 and which will one day lie heavy upon their 
 account, which might have amended it and did 
 not. But many, I confess, are taught to act 
 over this play of religion, and learning to say, 
 " Our Father, which art in heaven,^' and, " I 
 believe in God the Father Almighty : '' but, 
 
 »\ where are the men that live so, as if they did 
 believe in earnest, that God is their Almighty 
 Father ? Where are they that fear him, and 
 trust him, and depend upon him only for their 
 whole happiness, and love him, and obey him, 
 as in reason we ought to do to our Almighty 
 Father ? Who, if he be our Father, and we be 
 indeed his children, will do for us all the good 
 he can; and if he be Almighty, can do for us all 
 the good he will : and yet, how few are there, 
 who love him with half that affection as children 
 usually do their parents, or believe him with 
 half that simplicity, or serve him with half that 
 diligence ? " ^ 
 
 Such was the state of Baptismal observance in 
 the time of Chillingworth. Let us next attend 
 to a more modern evidence. 
 
 "As it (Christianity) has introduced such a 
 new state of things, and so fully informed us 
 
 » Chillingworth 's Works, Sermon i. p. 333. 
 
 I 3 
 
174 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 of the nature of man, the ends of his creation, 
 the state of his condition ; as it has fixed all our 
 goods and evils, taught us the means of purifying 
 our souls, pleasing God, and becoming eternally 
 happy ; one might naturally suppose, that every 
 Christian country abounded with schools for the 
 teaching, not only a few questions and answers 
 of a catechism, but for the forming, training, 
 and practising youths in such an outward course 
 of life, as the highest precepts, the strictest rules, 
 and the sublimest doctrines of Christianity 
 require. 
 
 " An education under Pythagoras, or Socrates, 
 had no other end, but to teach youth to think, 
 judge, act, and follow such rules of life, as 
 Pythagoras, and Socrates used. And is it not 
 as reasonable to suppose, that a Christian educa- 
 tion should have no other end, but to teach youth 
 how to think, and judge, and act, and live 
 according to the strictest laws of Christianity ? 
 
 " At least one would suppose, that in all 
 Christian schools, the teaching youth to begin 
 their lives in the spirit of Christianity, in such 
 severity of behaviour, such abstinence, sobriety, 
 humility, and devotion, as Christianity requires, 
 should not only be more, but an hundred times 
 more regarded, than any, or all things else. 
 
 , '^ But, alas ! our modern education is 
 
 not of this kind. 
 
 " The first temper that we try to awaken in 
 children, is pride; as dangerous a passion as 
 
AND ANSWERED. 175 
 
 that of lust. We stir them up to vain thoughts 
 of themselves, and do every thing we can, to 
 pufF up their minds with a sense of their own 
 abilities. 
 
 " Whatever way of life we intend them for, 
 we apply to the fire and vanity of their minds, 
 and exhort them to every thing from corrupt 
 motives : we stir them up to action from prin- 
 ciples of strife and ambition, from glory, envy, 
 and a desire of distinction, that they may excel 
 others, and shine in the eyes of the world. 
 p " We repeat and inculcate these motives upon 
 them, till they think it a part of their duty to be 
 proud, envious, and vain-glorious of their own 
 accomplishments. 
 
 " And when we have taught them to scorn to 
 |. be out-done by any, to bear no rival, to thirst 
 after every instance of applause, to be content 
 with nothing but the highest distinctions ; then 
 we begin to take comfort in them, and promise 
 the world some mighty things from youths 
 of such a glorious spirit. 
 
 " If children are intended for holy orders, we 
 set before them some eminent orator, whose fine 
 preaching has made him the admiration of the 
 age, and carried him through all the dignities 
 and preferments of the church. 
 
 " We encourage them to have these honours 
 in their eye, and to expect the reward of their 
 studies from them. 
 
 If the youth is intended for a trade, we bid 
 
 (( 
 
176 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 him look at all the rich men of the same trade, 
 and consider how many are carried about in 
 their stately coaches, who began in the same low 
 degree as he now does. We awaken his ambi- 
 tion, and endeavour to give his mind a right 
 turn, by often telling him how very rich such 
 and such a tradesman died. 
 
 " If he is to be a lawyer, then we set great 
 counsellors, lords, judges, chancellors, before 
 his eyes. We tell him what great fees and great 
 applause attend fine pleading. We exhort him 
 to take fire at these things, to raise a spirit 
 of emulation in himself, and to be content with 
 nothing less than the highest honours of the 
 long robe, 
 
 " That this is the nature of our best educa- 
 tion, is too plain to need any proof; and I 
 believe there are few parents, but would be 
 glad to see these instructions daily given to 
 their children. 
 
 " And after all this we complain of the effects 
 of pride.'* ' 
 
 Such was the anti-baptismal education of 
 baptised England in the days of Law. And can 
 it be said that both these descriptions do not 
 suit our own times ? 
 
 Here then we account but too clearly for the 
 
 facty the failure of Baptismal blessings among 
 
 us, when we trace it to our own remissness and 
 
 » " A Serious Call," &c. pp. 236—7. 
 
AND ANSWERED, 177 
 
 neglect alone. No, God has not been unmind- 
 ful of his promise ; but we have been unmindful 
 of our obligations : God has not failed to do his 
 part, but we have fkiled to do ours ; " How 
 often would I have gathered thy children toge- 
 ther ! " Whence then the failure ? "but ye would 
 not."i cf God is" faithful, " who also will do 
 it; "2 jjut man is faithless, and but too plainly 
 shows that he disregards the promise, by his 
 indifference to the means of securing its bless- 
 ings. Is it needful to accumulate evidence of 
 this fact, when the general state of Christian 
 society in the professing world exhibits the 
 worldly and unchristian appearance that it does 
 at present ? And is it still necessary to repeat, 
 that while the two great descriptions among us, 
 both the men of God and men of the world, 
 under different sentiments indeed, equally con- 
 cur in depriving this Sacrament of its due ob^ 
 p servance, and equally dishonour its vital efficacy 
 in declining to apply it in the education of the 
 baptised, no divine blessing can justly be ex- 
 pected. When God ordains the end, he ordains 
 the means also, and if man will neglect the 
 means is it not the weakest enthusiasm to expect 
 ^ the end ? We hear much of enthusiasm : but 
 what a wide- wasting enthusiasm prevails on this 
 subject of Baptism, over a large portion of the 
 baptised Christian world ! Never let us forget 
 
 i Matt, xxiii. 37. = 1 Thess. v. 24. 
 
 I 5 
 
If8 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 ill the words of Hooker, " To our own safety 
 our own sedulity is required." It is not the pro- 
 mise given that can benefit us, but the promise 
 accepted. When the High Priest went into the 
 Holy of Holies, "not without blood," i it was 
 not the provision of blood only that was re- 
 quired, It must be sprinkled also. It is not a 
 Saviour provided only that can benefit us, but a 
 Saviour applied. It is not a covenant entered 
 into that can avail us, but a covenant observed. 
 " Then," says Usher, that is, at Baptism " thou 
 enterest into God's livery, mark this, for by it 
 I strive only to bring thee back to thyself. Thou 
 enterest into covenant with him, thou bindest 
 thyself to forsake the world, the flesh, and the 
 Devil ; and we should make this use of Baptism, 
 as 7101V to put it in practice. When we promised 
 there were two things in the indenture ; one, 
 that God will give Christ to us 5 the other that 
 we must forsake all the sinful lusts of the flesh ,• 
 this is that makes Baptism to be Baptism indeed 
 to us."^ Let this simple question then be 
 asked, have we done that part of the covenant 
 which " makes Baptism to be Baptism indeed ?" 
 Let the tens of thousands who have never once 
 thought of Baptismal blessings or obligations 
 after the administration of the rite till the 
 season of Confirmation, answer this question, 
 and let the scores who have declined Sponsorial 
 
 J Heb. ix. 7. ^ See " Eighteen Serm." as above, p. 54^ 
 
AND ANSWERED. 170 
 
 responsibility from timidity and unbelief answer 
 the same, and it will but too plainly appear, 
 from our own confession, that the fact itself, — 
 
 ^ the failure of Baptismal blessings among us — 
 must be justly ascribed to our non-observance 
 of the covenant, to our own neglect, our own 
 unbelief. Indeed were it not for the fashion 
 of a Christian name, the expediency of a register 
 of that name for secular purposes, and the fre- 
 
 ^ quent hope of temporal advantage, for any 
 spiritual renewal that is expected from it, would 
 not the administration of Baptism be nearly 
 obsolete ? 
 
 Surely then it is our part to vindicate the faith- 
 
 w fulness of God, by a penitent confession of our 
 own failure of faith and duty, and to acknow- 
 ledge that *^ it is of the Lord's mercies that we 
 are not consumed, because his compassions fail 
 not." • 
 
 The second objection proposed, is to the 
 principle itself upon which the whole of our 
 superstructure is built, viz. that we are not 
 warranted in concluding that believing Parents 
 have these exceeding rich and precious promises 
 with respect to their Children ; consequently 
 that as Baptism is the seal of these promises 
 our assumption is false, that they are indeed 
 *^ members of Christ, children of God, and 
 inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," 
 
 * Lament, iii. 22. 
 
180 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 And here I must plainly confess that to answer 
 this objection with effectual suasion, so as to con- 
 vince the understanding, and to affect the heart, 
 is a task utterly beyond any power of statement 
 I can hope to possess, or the strength of any 
 evidence I may hope to accumulate. If I could 
 overwhelm the mind with conviction, and 
 silence every whisper of contradiction, I should 
 still find the main assertor of this objection so 
 deeply intrenched within the native depravity 
 of the human heart, that not only no power 
 of man but even of Angel, could avail to disturb 
 him. Unbelief is our deadliest foe, it stands 
 opposed in determined resistance to the promise 5 
 and nothing but that '^ mighty power which" the 
 Father "wrought in Christ when he raised him 
 from the dead,"* can subdue this tyrant, and 
 deliver the human heart from his controul. I 
 have found this generally to be the fact. Those 
 persons of decided piety, to whom I have pro- 
 posed the above interpretation, have staggered 
 in the very outset. They have said, " But has 
 God given these promises to the Children of 
 believers ? Are believers so signally privileged ? " 
 They have questioned the reality of the pro- 
 mise, not the just claim of the children to the 
 seal of that promise in Baptism. I am riot 
 therefore, in addressing the members of our Esta- 
 blished Church, so much concerned to justify the 
 
 » Eph. i. 20. 
 
X^-'-^F 
 
 AND ANSWERED. 
 
 application of the seal, as the reality and validity y^I 
 of the indenture itself. Their objection strikes 
 directly at the root ; and with one mighty blow, 
 the tree, with all its fruits, is to be levelled with 
 the earth. And this is no speculative objection j 
 it is one of most pernicious efficacy in practice : 
 for as such have no belief in the promise,^ 
 neither do they discover any interest to secure 
 the blessings it bestows. 
 
 I will offer then one or two plain suggestions 
 which, though to my own apprehension, for 
 luminous exhibition of truth, they might be 
 written with a sun-beam, I place no dependence 
 on whatever, but commit solely to His effectual 
 teaching who alone can enable us to receive 
 the truth in the love of it, and whose grace 
 alone can empower us to behold the promise as 
 the promise of a Covenant-God, and to apply 
 the same to our individual advantage. These 
 suggestions will consist chiefly of the materials 
 already provided in the second letter. 
 
 First then, how many and how minute are the 
 promises of God to the bodies of believers ! It 
 would be offering a tedious illustration of this 
 remark to advert to the large variety of Scrip- 
 tures which promise blessings to the respective 
 members of the body of the faithful man. His 
 foot shall be blessed when he comes in and 
 when he goes out : his " hand" shall be blessed 
 " in air* its work : his eye, his ear, his mouth 
 shall be blessed : nay, " the very hairs of" his 
 
182 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 "head are all numbered.'*^ And is there no 
 blessing upon that which is most dear to him, 
 " the fruit of the body ? " * Shall every member 
 have its peculiar blessing ? and is there no 
 blessing upon that which, as it represents 
 them all, is the glory of them all ? Is there 
 no blessing on that which, as it springs from that 
 body, is to transmit its very self to posterity, 
 and to protract its earthly name and existence 
 to distant generations ? It is surely enough to 
 have asked these questions : the mercy of his 
 Father which is in heaven, cannot have omitted 
 to have made the most ample provision for that 
 which is most dear to him of all his earthly 
 blessings ; and as this provision might be 
 expected from his mercy, so that expectation is 
 abundantly confirmed by the manifold declara- 
 tions of his word. 
 
 Or is there indeed no promise given to the 
 posterity of believers that is valid at this day ? 
 Are we justified in applying all the other pro- 
 mises of Scripture, so far as they are applicable 
 to our present condition and circumstances, but 
 are those promises which relate to the children 
 of believers restricted to the peculiar persons to 
 whom they were respectively given? Is the 
 whole book of God the rich mine of the be- 
 liever's comforts, and the store-house of his most 
 animating consolations 5 but when he attempts 
 
 ' Matt. X. 30. 3 Deut. xxviii. 4. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 183 
 
 to apply these promised blessings to his children, 
 is he to be denied the boon, and told, " these 
 jewels are indeed deposited among the other 
 precious stores of the treaisury of grace, but like 
 the royal crown, they are not for common use ; 
 they were bestowed exclusively for the use 
 of the original favourite, but the other children 
 of the family have ever been forbiddeii to enjoy 
 them ? " Shall the Spirit, by the mouth of St. 
 Paul, apply the promise originally bestowed 
 upon Joshua, " I will iiever leave thee nor 
 forsake thee,"^ for the perpetual comfort of the 
 Church j but is there nothing of perpetual 
 application in the promises made to the children 
 of the saints? If there be such a restriction 
 either in the letter or the spirit of the Scriptures, 
 let it be shown. But if no such restriction can 
 be shown, perish that unbelief which would 
 " limit the holy one of Israel " in one of the 
 sweetest promises of his grace, and would 
 deprive the believer of one of the richest con- 
 solations of divine mercy and love. 
 
 Nor must we fail to insist on the example 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, on which our Church 
 exclusively insists in her Baptismal Service, as 
 the ground and warrant for the introduction of 
 the Child to this initiatory rite. Indeed nothing 
 more is requisite 5 for all the promises made to 
 the children of believers receive their establish- 
 
 * Heb. xiii« 3. 
 
tH OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 ment and confirmation in the practice of him 
 who gave them. We have here the promise 
 acted out in practical blessedness by him, who 
 alone can effectually accomplish it. For in that 
 gospel, Mark x, 13. we have the express " words 
 of our Saviour Christ ; he commanded the 
 children to be brought unto him; he blamed 
 those that would have kept them from him 5 he 
 exhorted all men to follow their innocency. By 
 his outward gesture and deed he declared his 
 good will toward them 5 for he embraced them 
 in his arms, he laid his hands upon them, and 
 blessed them." This was not a mere reception 
 of kindness, the expression of natural affection 
 in the Saviour, as it was expressed towards the 
 young Ruler, of whom it is said that "Jesus 
 seeing him loved him;"' it was an expression 
 of spiritual love ; for he not only " took them up 
 in his arms," but he " put his hands upon them 
 and blessed them." Here was all the form of a 
 spiritual blessing, the imposition of hands, as 
 well as the blessing itself. And if children are 
 capable of a blessing, when in the arms, and 
 under the hands of Christ, are they less capable 
 of a blessing, when, brought in faith to partake 
 of his Sacrament of Initiation, he " receives " 
 them " favourably," in the benign interpreta- 
 tion of our Church, and "embraces" them 
 " with the arms of his mercy ? " And is it a 
 
 J Mark x. 21. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 185 
 
 presumptuous intrusion on the riches of his 
 grace towards them to assume " that he will 
 give unto them the blessing of eternal life, and 
 make them partakers of his everlasting king- 
 dom ? " Jesus put his hands upon the Infants, 
 and blessed them; and are we justified in 
 ascribing any lower meaning to the words, than 
 that the blessing imparted spiritual virtue to 
 their souls ? It is surely the privilege of faith 
 to give grace the largest credit, and to honour 
 the words and actions of Christ with the most 
 kindly interpretation of mercy. We may not 
 only say then with Beza, " by what right or title 
 do they refuse to give " children " the mark 
 and ratification of that thing which they have 
 and possess already, inasmuch as they have the 
 seed and spring of faith in virtue of the promise 
 which was received'* by believing Parents ? 
 but we may say since Christ did actually " in 
 the days of his flesh" impart grace to the souls 
 of Infants by his blessing, by what right do we 
 withhold the children of the faithful from 
 dmilar blessings now ? And if Jesus was "much 
 displeased *' when his disciples forbad them to 
 come to him of old, is he less displeased with 
 those whose unbelief forbids children to be par- 
 takers of similar blessings now? How grace 
 can exist in the soul of an Infant, it is not 
 within the limits of my faculties to comprehend, 
 nor, as my finite powers are not submitted to 
 such an obligation, am I concerned to com^ 
 
186 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 preliend it *, ^ neither can I conceive how the 
 soul of an Infant departed is capable of glory : 
 and yet we all admits and rejoice in the admis- 
 sion, that the souls of Infants departed, are thus 
 highly privileged : and where is the consistency 
 of admitting that the soul of an infant is capable 
 of glory hereafter, and of denying that the same 
 is capable of grace here ? for what is glory but 
 consummate grace, and what is grace but 
 maturing glory? and the same divine power 
 and love which appoint this incipient state 
 of natural existence as a preparatory requisite 
 to that of eternal duration, may in this incipient 
 state of spiritual existence equally invest the 
 soul of an infant with grace as a preparatory 
 requisite to its perfection in immortal glory. 
 That we cannot conceive it, is no just argument 
 of its untruth ; we cannot conceive the principle 
 of natural life, any more than we can conceive 
 that of spiritual 5 the difference is not in the 
 fact but in our apprehension of it^ The natural 
 life of an infant is obvious to our senses, and 
 therefore we believe it ; the spiritual life is sub- 
 mitted to our faith, and where no faith is, there 
 can be no spiritual perception ; the faculty of 
 such perception is wanting. But the strength 
 or weakness of our faculties of apprehension 
 
 * The Scripture informs us that one of the same nature as 
 ourselves was actually gracious even from his birth. It is said 
 of John the Baptist " and he shall be filled with the Holy 
 Ghost; even from his mother's womb." Luke i. 15, 
 
AND ANSWERED. 187 
 
 makes no difference in the fact : " though we 
 believe not, yet he abideth faithful." ^ 
 
 While then we are warranted in trusting the 
 promise, from the confidence that God, in pro- 
 nouncing blessings on the faithful, would not 
 exclude his choicest gifts, their children, from 
 his grace — from the right of the believer to 
 enjoy the promises made to the children of the 
 faithful, as well as every other promise of the 
 word intended for the perpetual consolation of 
 the Church, and from the real accomplishment 
 of these promises, by the actual extension 
 of grace to Infants by the blessing of our 
 Incarnate Saviour — let our confidence in the 
 reality of these promises be confirmed by the 
 known kindness of the Father of mercies to 
 the helplessness and innocence of childhood. It 
 is unnecessary to dwell on that kind considera- 
 tion of their infant weakness which was a chief 
 reason assigned for the preservation of Nineveh 
 of old ; 2 or on the assemblage of " children 
 and those that sucked the breasts " to observe 
 the fast in the time of Joel. ^ If " kings of 
 the earth and all people, princes and judges, 
 and young men, and maidens, and old men 
 praise the Lord," the chorus is incomplete if 
 " children" are wanting.^ — We have already 
 shown that under the old dispensation the espe- 
 
 » 2 Tim. ii. 13. * gee Letter ii. 
 
 3 Joel ii. 1 6. * Psalm cxlviii. 11,1 2. 
 
188 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 cial Sacrament of Circumcision was appointed 
 to bestow more than temporal blessings; and 
 almost without controversy, during fifteen cen- 
 turies of the new dispensation, the correspond- 
 ing Sacrament of Baptism has been applied to 
 the children of the faithful; and to this hour, 
 the propriety of such application has been ques- 
 tioned by a comparatively small part of the 
 professing Christian world. — The word of God 
 abounds as we have seen with gracious promises 
 in favour of the children of believers, nor is it 
 less abundant and particular in its precepts to 
 " train up a child in the way that he should go."* 
 The life of one holy child in Jeroboam's family, 
 suspended the judgments which were hanging 
 over the royal house and over the nation at 
 large. When the admirable greatness of " the 
 kingdom of heaven" was to be illustrated, 
 Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him 
 in the midst," and made him his text by which 
 he exhibited the exquisite simplicity and charac- 
 teristic humility of that greatness. Nor can J 
 decline to insist on the important words which 
 occur in that portion of Scripture, " Whoso 
 shall receive one such little child in my name 
 I'eceiveth me. And whoso shall offend one of 
 these little ones that believe in me, it were better 
 for him that a millstone were hanged about his 
 neck, and that he were drowned in the depth 
 
 ' Prov. xxii. 6. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 189 
 
 of the sea. '^ ^ How forcible are these words 
 both in 'warning- and encouragement 1 First, 
 how impressively do they warn us to beware 
 of offending " these little ones that believe " 
 in Christ, by abridging their privileges or 
 excluding them from a benefit to which they 
 have even jmssibly a claim ! And now let all 
 prejudice and affection be absent ; may the 
 Spirit of Christ endue our souls with simplicity 
 and godly sincerity — and though we may hesi- 
 tate to admit the full meaning which I 
 have ascribed above to our Lord's " blessing 
 the children that were brought to him*' — 
 though we may hesitate to admit with Beza 
 that children " have the spring and seed 
 of faith in virtue of the promise received by 
 their Parents, '' — yet is there an unprejudiced 
 mind endowed with the just exercise of reason, 
 which looking simply at these accumulated 
 evidences of God's favour to children, espe- 
 cially to the children of the faithful, that can 
 hesitate to say, " certainly these promises, and 
 these evidences denote the favour of God to 
 the children of believers : if these promises 
 have any meaning, they express in terms, as 
 plain as language can convey, the precious 
 favour of God towards the children of the faith- 
 ful." If then we admit this gracious expression 
 ^Ven in the lowest degree, and if there be any 
 
 » Matt, xviii. 5, 6. 
 
lao OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 even the lowest sense in which we can allow 
 them to be partakers of grace, O let us trem- 
 ble lest we " offend one of these little ones '* 
 by abridging him of one privilege which may 
 possibly belong to him, by withholding him 
 from the participation of blessings to which 
 he is possibly entitled, and by excluding him 
 from that character to which he may possibly 
 have a claim, as " a member of Christ, the 
 child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom 
 of heaven/' Rather let us take encourage- 
 ment from the consideration that ^^ whoso shall 
 receive one such little child in the name " 
 of Christ, receives the Saviour himself. Let 
 the Church throw wide the arms of her bene- 
 volence, and receive every child presented to 
 her in the name of Christ with affectionate 
 readiness. Let Sponsors testify their love of 
 Christ and immortal souls, by voluntarily 
 engaging in the interesting work of training up 
 a child for God according to the encouragement 
 of the promise j let them plead the promise in 
 prayer; let them sedulously improve all the 
 means of grace, that their charge " may be 
 virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a 
 Christian life " — and show me that man, who, 
 upon his death-bed, though he should have 
 witnessed no success in his labours, would 
 repent, at that hour, th,at he had placed such 
 confidence in the promise of a Covenant- God ; 
 or that his prayers and vigilance and instruction 
 
 J 
 
AND ANSWERED. 101 
 
 had been unwarrantably expended^ or that his 
 "labour/' could such ever be the case, had 
 been " in vain in the Lord."^ 
 
 Add to the above considerations the character 
 of " the glorious Gospel of the Blessed God/' ^ 
 It is a dispensation of gi'ace from beginning to 
 end ; from its first origin in the love of God, 
 before the world was, predestinating the soul to 
 glory in Christ Jesus, through all its certain 
 and gradual developement of mercy towards 
 that soul, in its effectual calling, justification, 
 adoption, sanctification, religious walk, and 
 crowning glorification, — all is boundless love, 
 unfathomable mercy, and " unsearchable " 
 grace. And are not those who profess this 
 blessed Gospel to exercise its characteristic 
 spirit towards each other ? If there, be a doubt 
 upon this interesting subject, whether the prO'* 
 mises of God do indeed embrace the children 
 of believers, does not the spirit of love, and con- 
 siderate kindness and condescending pity, which 
 characterises the Gospel, enforce the adoption 
 of the same heavenly spirit, in those who profess 
 it, and compel us rather to give the benefit 
 of the doubt in favour of mercy, than in favour 
 of exclusion, and privation ? and if that lovely 
 Charity which " belie veth all things, and hopeth 
 all things,"^ were standing at the door of the 
 Congregation, and two believing Parents were 
 
 » 1 Cor. XV. 58. ? 1 Tim. i. It. ' 1 Cor.xiii. 7. 
 
192 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 to offer her their Child for acceptance, that he 
 might enjoy the seal of the promise, and the 
 benefit of communion with the Church, could 
 she send them away with this cheerless dis- 
 missal ? " You have brought your child here 
 upon the ground of the promise made to the 
 children of believers 5 but doubts are enter- 
 tained whether such children have any just 
 claim to so great a privilege ; to these doubts we 
 give the most unfavourable interpretation ; we 
 will receive yow, but as to your child, we acknow- 
 ledge no title that it can have to the blessings 
 of grace : it has no covenant privileges ; the pro- 
 mises avail it nothing." Rather would she not 
 cast wide her arms, like the Saviour of old, and 
 say, " It is true, some entertain doubts as to 
 the validity of the promises to the children 
 of believing Parents, but the very nature of the 
 Gospel of Grace compels us to give you the 
 benefit of the doubt, and willingly to sink the 
 scale in favour of your child. The promises are 
 to you and your children, for they are " to all 
 that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our 
 God shall call '/'^ we trust that he now "vouch- 
 safes to call this child to the knowledge of his 
 grace and faith in him," enter — we accept him 
 with joy, and cheerfully admit him to the com- 
 munion of the Church." How strikingly does 
 want of faith annihilate love, and deprive the 
 
 » Acts ii, 39. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 193 
 
 Gospel of its sweetest character ! Did the love 
 of God and man glow in our hearts^ as it did in 
 the heart of him who came to save us, should 
 we not labour to extend the meaning of the 
 promise to its utmost bearing ? Should we not 
 be desirous, that the faintest ray of grace should 
 warm and enlighten our children ; and would 
 not the great principle of their education be — 
 ' See what God has done for you, O what should 
 you not do for him in return ? Let the love of 
 Christ constrain you, and as you are alive to God 
 according to the promise, no longer live to your- 
 self, " but to him which died for " you " and 
 rose again." ' I know not that language affords 
 a happier expression to designate Infant-bap- 
 tism, than that w^hich is adopted by our Church ; 
 it is God's " favourable allowance of a charitable 
 work.'' O wrong not his favour ; dishonour not 
 liis grace ; suspect not his faithfulness; doubt 
 not his love ; frustrate not his mercy : all this 
 you do, if you hesitate to accept his promise. 
 Believing Parents and Sponsors ! we call upon 
 you to be consistent. How can you believe the 
 Gospel and yet doubt one of its choicest pro- 
 mises ? Why injure him in his tenderest part, 
 the attribute of his mercy, who is the ^' Father 
 of the fatherless,'* 2 and " in whom the father- 
 less findeth mercy ? "^ Why injure his chiefest 
 gift to you in providence, your other self, 
 
 " 2 Cor. V. 15. ^ JPsalm Ixviii. 5. ^ Hos. xiv. 3. 
 
 K 
 
194 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 the impress of your own image, the creature 
 of your most cherished affections, by hesitating 
 to apply to him the practical benefit of those 
 promises which adopt him into the family of 
 Christ, and by the daily application of which he 
 is daily encouraged to that exercise of graces, 
 discharge of duties, and enjoyment of privileges, 
 which by evidencing the religion of Jesus to be 
 a reality, evidence it to be a blessing also; not 
 an injunction harsh, repulsive and unattainable ; 
 but the richest practical blessing the heart of 
 man can enjoy, ^^ full of sweet, pleasant, and 
 unspeakable comfort." ^ 
 
 I should be disposed to apologise for thus 
 gathering up the arrows of promise, and pre- 
 senting them to your notice again, did not the 
 importance of our subject imperatively demand 
 this repetition. But the promises are my main 
 battery, and what I am most concerned to render 
 impregnable. It is here that my grand assail- 
 ant Unbelief directs his most vigorous and most 
 restless attacks. And though repeated foil frus- 
 trate each repeated attack, his assaults are not 
 
 * What a beautiful description do the following words give 
 of the communion of the Primitive Church ? — " And when we 
 had accomplished those days (at Tyre) we departed and went 
 our way ; and they all brought us on our way, with wives and 
 ckildreny till we were out of the city : and we kneeled down 
 on the shore and prayed." Acts xxi. 5. — ^The communion 
 would have failed of its full sympathy had the children of the 
 Church been absent from this interesting group. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 195 
 
 therefore the less determined or the less frequent. 
 To speak plainly, though I have found opponents 
 to be reduced to silence, I have not found them 
 therefore to yield ; they have commonly said, 
 " Well, I cannot believe ; I cannot think that 
 such blessed promises belong to us." I will 
 rein the question then within a short compass. 
 Can it be denied that believing Parents have 
 these promises ? If it can be so denied ; then 
 deny against the plainest evidence of fact that 
 they exist in Scripture; or prove, that these 
 promises, unlike their fellows, have no reference 
 to us ; or expunge them from the sacred page : 
 but consider the consequence : if you still per- 
 sist in bringing up your children as Christians, 
 you are acting without warrant, without en- 
 couragement, and therefore without any well- 
 grounded prospect of success ; for if you have 
 no promised—your faith has no foundation, 
 your hope has no solid support, your expectation 
 is presumption, and your anticipation delusion. 
 
 " BeLIEVB " THEN, AND '^ BE ESTABLISHED." ^ 
 
 Against this unyielding objection I have but 
 one other arrow in my quiver ; and happily 
 that is of celestial temper, and is never known 
 to fail. — Let us quit reasoning then for prayer. 
 
 " Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
 And lighten with celestial fire ; 
 Thou the anointing Spirit art. 
 Which dost thy seven-fold gifts impart : 
 
 * Isa. vii. 9. 
 K 2 
 
196 OBJECTIONS STATED 
 
 Thy blessed Unction from above, 
 Is comfort, life, and fire of love. 
 Enable with perpetual light. 
 The dulness of our blinded sight : 
 Anoint and cheer our soiled face, 
 With the abundance of thy grace." 
 
 " Lord be favourable to thy land, bring back the 
 captivity of Jacob ; wilt thou not revive us again, 
 that thy people may rejoice in thee ? Shew us 
 thy mercy O Lord, and grant us thy salvation." ^ 
 We bless thee for the memorials of the exceeding 
 great love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus 
 Christ in dying for us, and the innumerable 
 benefits which by his precious blood-shedding 
 he hath obtained to us : we bless thee that he 
 hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries 
 as pledges of his love, and for a continual 
 remembrance of his death, to our great and 
 endless comfort. O may we rightly understand, 
 duly appreciate, and specially apply thy holy 
 Sacraments to all the blessed purposes for which 
 they were mercifully ordained. '^ Assure us 
 thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us, 
 and that we are very members incorporate in 
 the mystical body of thy Son, which is the 
 blessed company of all faithful people ; and are 
 also heirs through hope of thy everlasting king- 
 dom, by the merits of the most precious death 
 and passion of thy dear Son. And we most 
 humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to 
 
 ' Psalm Ixxxv. 
 
AND ANSWERED. 197 
 
 assist us with thy grace, that we may continue 
 in that holy fellowship, and do all such good 
 works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord ; to whom with 
 thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and 
 glory, world without end." 
 
 ^^ The promise of eternal life, is the 
 SEED OF the Church of God." ^ 
 
 To attempt one spiritual act, except on this 
 ground, is presumption ; not to expect the 
 most consummate blessedness to flow fron) 
 the confident application of the promise, is 
 
 UNBELIEF. 
 
 ' Hooker, b. v. s. 63. 
 
 K 3 
 
198 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 SENTIMENTS OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 But it is highly important to ascertain whether 
 this view of the subject of Baptism, and the 
 interpretation given above be confirmed by the 
 Reformers. It will therefore be my object in 
 this Letter, with the blessing of God, first, to 
 show the concurrent testimony of our own 
 Reformers, on this subject ; and then to establish 
 this by the united voice of the Churches of the 
 Reformed. And as it appears to me, the result 
 of the following extracts may be expressed in 
 the opening words of King Edward the Sixth's 
 Catechism. ^^ It is the duty of them all, whom 
 Christ hath redeemed by his death, that they not 
 only be servants to obey, but also children to 
 inherit." '^ To obey " is the duty of an inferior, 
 " to inherit " is the privilege of a child : and 
 it is that discharge of duty which is the rich 
 privilege of holiness, that is the characteristic 
 feature of the Gospel. Into this it will be seen 
 that the Child of the believer is admitted at his 
 Baptism. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 199 
 
 Tin DAL, Martyr* 
 
 " And to know how contrary this law is unto 
 our nature, and how it is damnation not to have 
 this law written in our hearts, though we never 
 commit the deeds : and how there is no other 
 means to be saved from this damnation than 
 through repentance toward the law, and faith 
 in Christ's blood, which are the very inward 
 baptism of our souls, and the washing and the 
 dipping of our bodies in the water is the outward 
 sign. The plunging of the body under the water 
 signifieth that w^e repent and profess to fight 
 against sin and lusts, and to kill them every 
 day more and more, with the help of God, and 
 our diligence in following the doctrine of Christ, 
 and the leading of his spirit, and that we believe 
 to be washed from our natural damnation in which 
 we are born, and from all the wrath of the law, 
 and from all the infirmities and weaknesses that 
 remain in us, after we have given our consent 
 unto the law, and yielded ourselves to be scholars 
 thereof, and from all the imperfectness of all 
 our deeds done with cold love, and from all 
 actual sin, which shall chance on us while 
 we enforce the contrary, and ever fight there 
 against, and hope to sin no more. And thus 
 repentance and faith begin at our baptism and 
 first professing the laws of God, and continue 
 unto our lives end, and grow as we grow 
 in the Spirit. For the perfecter w^e be, the 
 
200 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 greater is our repentance, and the stronger our 
 faith. And thus as the Spirit and doctrine on 
 God's part, and repentance and faith on our part 
 beget us anew in Christ : even so they make us 
 grow and wax perfect, and save us unto the end, 
 and never leave us until all sin be put off, and 
 we clean purified, and full formed and fashioned 
 after the similitude and likeness of the perfectness 
 of our Saviour Jesus, whose gift all is/' 
 
 — " But when we believe in God, and then do 
 all that is in our might, and not tempt him, then 
 is God true to abide by his promise, and to help 
 us, and perform alone, when our strength is 
 past/' — '^ And therefore, because we be never 
 taught the profession of our baptism ive remain 
 always unlearned^ as well the spirituality, for all 
 their great clergy and high schools, as we say, 
 as the lay people. And now because the lay 
 and unlearned people are taught these first prin- 
 ciples of our profession, therefore they read the 
 Scripture, and understand and delight therein." i 
 — " Yet there is sin remaining in us, but it is 
 not reckoned, because of faith and of the Spirit, 
 which fight against it : wherefore we have 
 enough to do all our lives long to tame our 
 bodies, and to compel the members to obey the 
 Spirit and not the appetites : that thereby we 
 might be like unto Christ's death and resurrec- 
 tion, and might fulfil our baptism, which signi- 
 
 1 Fathers of the English Church, vol. i. pp. 31 — 33. 
 
THE llEFORMERS. 201 
 
 lieth the mortifying' of sins, and the new life 
 of grace. For this battle ceaseth not in us, 
 until the last breath, and until that sin be utterly 
 slain by the death of the body/' ^ 
 
 "The faith of a repentant soul in Christ's 
 blood doth justify only, and the sacrament 
 standeth in as good stead as a lively preacher ; 
 and as the preacher justifieth me not, but my 
 faith in the doctrine : even so the sign justifieth 
 not, but the faith in the promise which the 
 sacrament signifieth and preacheth. And to 
 preach is all the virtue of the sacrament ; and 
 where the sacraments preach not, there they 
 have no virtue at all. And, sir, we teach not 
 as ye do, to believe in the sacrament or in the 
 holy church, but to believe the sacrament and 
 holy church." - 
 
 Frith, Martyr, 
 
 " This outward sign doth neither give us the 
 Spirit of God, neither yet grace, that is, the 
 favour of God. For if through the washing in 
 the water, the spirit of grace were given, then 
 should it follow, that whosoever were baptized 
 in water should receive this precious gift; but 
 that is not so, wherefore I must needs conclude, 
 that this outward sign, by any power or influ- 
 ence that it hath, bringeth not the spirit or 
 favour of God. — Moreover if the Spirit of God 
 
 • Fathers, &c. vol. i p. 61. » ibid, vol. i. p. 277. 
 
 K 5 
 
202 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 and his grace were bound unto the sacraments, 
 then where the sacraments were ministered, 
 there must the spirit of grace wait on; and 
 where they were not ministered should be 
 neither spirit nor grace. But that is false, for 
 Cornelius and all his household, received the 
 Holy Ghost before they were baptized. — Here 
 may we see, that as the Spirit of God lighteth 
 where he will, neither is he bound to any thing. 
 Yea^ and this example doth well declare unto 
 us, that the sacraments are given, to be an out- 
 ward witness unto all the congregation of that 
 grace, which is given before privately unto 
 every man. 
 
 '^ So, is baptism given before the congregation 
 unto him, which before he receive it, hath either 
 professed the religion of Christ, or else hath the 
 word of promise, by the which promise he is 
 known to be of the sensible congregation of 
 Christ; and for this cause, when we baptize 
 one, that is come unto the age of discretion, we 
 ask of him whether he believe : if he answer, 
 yea, and desire baptism, then is he baptized, so 
 that we require faith in him before he be bap- 
 tized, (which is the gift of God) and cometh of 
 grace, and so it is an outward sign of his invisi- 
 ble faith, which before was given him of God. 
 If an infant be brought unto baptism, whom his 
 friends offer up willingly, to sanctify and fulfil 
 the commandment and ordinance of God, we 
 inquire of his friends before the congregation, 
 
THE REFORMERS. 203 
 
 whether they will that their child be baptized ; 
 and when they have answered, yea, then re- 
 ceiveth he baptism. Here also went before the 
 promise of God, that he of his grace reputeth 
 our infants, no less of the congregation, than 
 the infants of the Hebrews, and through baptism 
 doth the congregation receive him, which ivasjirst 
 received through grace of the promise. Thus may 
 we see that baptism bringeth not grace, but doth 
 testify unto the congregation, that he which is 
 baptized, had such grace given him before ; so 
 is baptism a sacrament, that is the sign of an 
 holy thing, even a token of the grace and free 
 mercy, which was before given him ; a visible 
 example of invisible grace, which is done and 
 given through the gentleness of God/' ^ 
 
 — " Our judgment recounteth all faithful and 
 chosen, that seem to be ; but Christ knoweth them 
 that are his, and them that shall forsake him." ^ 
 
 ^' Now have we expounded the signification 
 of baptism, which signification we may obtain 
 only by faith, for if thou be baptized a thousand 
 times with water, and have no faith, it availeth 
 thee no more towards God, than it doth a goose, 
 when she ducketh herself under the water. 
 Therefore if thou wilt obtain the profit of bap- 
 tism, thou must have faith ; that is, thou must 
 be surely persuaded that thou art newly born 
 again, not by water only, but by water and the 
 
 » Fathers, &c. vol. i. pp. 384—385. 2 ibid vol. i. p. 388. 
 
^204 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 Holy Ghost; and that thou art become the child 
 of God, and that thy sins are not imputed to 
 thee, but forgiven through the blood and pas- 
 sion of Christ, according unto the promise of 
 God. This faith have neither the devils, neither 
 vet the wicked. For the wicked cannot believe 
 the remission of their sins, but fall unto utter 
 desperation, and make God a liar, as much as in 
 them is. — And the devils cannot believe it, for 
 they have no promise made unto them.'' ^ 
 
 But I refer the Reader to the " Treatise on 
 Baptism,'' from whence the above extracts are 
 taken, the whole of which is well worth hi« 
 perusal. 
 
 Lancelot Ridley. 
 
 " Here is shewed, how Christ hath purged his 
 church truly in the fountain of water, by his 
 word. Although God of his mere mercy and 
 goodness, without all man's deserts, or merits, 
 only for Christ's sake, hath washed and purged 
 man from sin : yet he useth a mean, by the 
 which he cleanseth men from sin, which is by 
 baptism in water by the word of God ; and so in 
 baptism are our sins taken away, and we from 
 sins purged, cleansed, and regenerated in a new 
 man, to live an holy life, according to the Spirit 
 and will of God. It is not the water that washes 
 us from our sins ; but Christ by his word and 
 
 * Fathers, &c. vol. i. p. 391. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 205 
 
 his Spirit, given to us in baptism, that washeth 
 away our sins, that we have of Adam by carnal 
 nature. 
 
 — " If we be Christian men, our office is to 
 bring every man, as much as in us is, to Christ, 
 and that sinners may be cleansed from their sin, 
 and be saved." ^ 
 
 Cranmer, Archbishop, and Martyr, 
 
 That children baptised, should believe them- 
 selves to be indeed ^^ members of Christ, 
 children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom 
 of heaven," is the very spirit that pervades 
 the long catechism expressly provided by the 
 Archbishop for the use of children. 
 
 " Wherefore, good children, believe ye with 
 all your heart in this Jesus Christ, the only Son 
 of God, our Lord, and doubt not but that he 
 hath suffered for our sins, and contented the 
 justice of his Father for the same, and hath 
 brought us again unto his favour, and made 
 us his well-beloved children, and heirs of his 
 kingdom. And when you be asked. How un- 
 derstand you the second part of the Creed ? 
 You shall answer, I believe that Jesus Christ, 
 very God, begotten of God the Father, and very 
 man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, 
 -which by his precious blood and holy passion 
 hath redeemed me a miserable and damned 
 
 * Fathers, &c. vol. ii. p. 135. 
 
206 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 wretch from all my sins, from death eternal, 
 and from the tyranny of the devil, that I should 
 be his own true subject, and live within his 
 kingdom, and serve him in a new and everlast- 
 ing life and justice, even as our Lord Christ 
 after he rose from death to life, liveth and 
 reigneth everlastingly." ^ 
 
 ^^ Wherefore, good children, mark well this 
 lesson, that when ye be demanded. How under- 
 stand you the third part of the Creed ? Ye may 
 answer thus : I believe that neither by man's 
 strength, power, nor wisdom, neither by mine 
 own endeavour, nor compass of mine own rea- 
 son, I am able to believe in Jesus Christ, or to 
 come unto him. But the Holy Ghost did call 
 me by the word of the Gospel, and with the gifts 
 of his grace he hath hitherto endowed me and 
 hallowed me, and in the true faith he hath 
 hitherto preserved and confirmed me : and this 
 he hath not done only to me, but also he calleth 
 and gathereth together, in the unity of one faith 
 and one baptism, all the universal church that is 
 here in earth, and he halloweth, keepeth and 
 preserveth the same in the true knowledge 
 of Christ, and faith in his promises. And in 
 this Church he giveth free and general pardon 
 to me, and to all that believe in him, of all our 
 sins, offences, and trespasses ; and at the last 
 day he shall raise me, and all others that be 
 
 1 Fathers, &c. vol. iii. p. 229. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 207 
 
 dead, and all that died in the true faith of Jesus 
 Christ he shall glorify in the life everlasting. 
 Therefore to the said Holy Ghost that sanc- 
 tifieth us, with the Father that made and 
 created us, and the Son that redeemed us, be 
 given all honour and glory world without end. 
 Amen.''^ 
 
 " Before I told you, good children, that we go 
 not before God : we pray not first that God will 
 be our God and our Father: but God of his 
 inestimable mercy doth prevent us, doth call us 
 by his word, doth call us unto faith, doth give us 
 his Spirit, to know him for our Father and Lord, 
 before we could think thereof and seek for God. 
 But now, seeing that by his word and faith he 
 hath called us, and by baptism hath grafted us in 
 Christ, and made us members of his church, we 
 ought not to be slothful nor idle, but study to 
 go forward and increase in godliness, and to 
 pray thus, " Our Father which art in heaven 5" 
 for as much as thou hast given unto us, being 
 unworthy, thy holy Gospel, and hast chosen us, 
 and not we thee; and seeing that thou hast 
 gent unto us preachers, which teach unto us 
 thy word, whereby we be sanctified and in- 
 structed in the faith, so that now we may know 
 thee for God, and partly fulfil the first com- 
 mandment : now fulfil, O Father, that thou hast 
 begun, proceed to help us, that we may fulfil the 
 
 ' Fathers, &c. vol. iii. p. 239. 
 
208 SENTIMENTS OF' 
 
 second commandment ; that is, that thy name 
 may be hallowed, that is to say, may be honoured 
 as holy. This prayer pleaseth God, and he 
 heareth it, and God giveth us grace and strength 
 that we may hallow his name/' ^ 
 
 '' Hitherto you have heard what we promise 
 to God when we are baptized. Now learn also, I 
 pray you, what God worketh in us by baptism, 
 and what benefits he giveth us in the same. 
 For baptism is not water alone, and nothing 
 else besides, but it is the water of God, and 
 hath his strength by the word of God, and 
 is a seal of God's promise. Wherefore it doth 
 work in us all those things whereuntoGod hath 
 ordained it. For our Lord Jesus Christ saith, 
 " Go and teach all nations, and baptize them in 
 the name of the Father, and the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost." This God commanded his dis- 
 ciples to do. Wherefore by the virtue of this 
 commandment which came from heaven, even 
 from the bosom of God, baptism doth work in 
 us, as the work of God. For when we be bap- 
 tized in the name of God, that is as much to say, 
 as God himself should baptize us. Wherefore 
 w^e ought not to have an eye only to the 
 water, but to God rather, which did ordain the 
 baptism of water, and commanded it to be done 
 in his name. For he is Almighty, and able to 
 work in us by baptism forgiveness of our sins, 
 
 ' Fathers, &c. vol. iii. p. 247; 248. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 20^ 
 
 and all those wonderful effects and operations for 
 the which he hath ordained the same^ although 
 man's reason is not able to conceive the 
 same." 
 
 "Therefore, consider, good children, the great 
 treasures and benefits whereof God maketh us 
 partakers when we are baptized, which be these. 
 The first is, that in baptism our sins be forgiven 
 us. — The second is, that the Holy Ghost is given 
 us, the which doth spread abroad the love of 
 God in our heart. — The third is, that by baptism 
 the whole righteousness of Christ is given unto 
 us, that we may claim the same as our own. — 
 Fourthly, by baptism we die with Christ, and 
 are buried, (as it were) in his blood and death, 
 that we should suffer afflictions and death, as 
 Christ himself hath suffered. — By this which I 
 have hitherto spoken, I trust you understand, 
 good children, wherefore baptism is called the 
 bath of regeneration, and how in baptism we 
 be born again, and be made new creatures in 
 Christ.^' 1 
 
 Philpot, Archdeaco7i and Martyr, 
 
 The whole of the letter, from which the 
 following extracts are taken, is well worth the 
 perusal. 
 
 " But the catholic truth delivered unto us by 
 the Scripture, plainly determineth, that all such 
 
 * Fathers, &c. vol. iii. p. 295 — 297. 
 
210 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 are to be baptized as whom God acknowledgeth 
 for his people, and voucheth them worthy 
 of sanctification or remission of their sins. 
 Therefore, since that infants be in the number 
 or scroll of God's people, and be partakers 
 of the promise by their purification in Christ, 
 it must needs follow thereby that they ought to 
 be baptized, as well as those that can profess 
 their faith. For we judge the people of God 
 as well by the free and liberal promise of God, 
 as by the confession of faith. For to whom- 
 soever God promiseth himself to be their God, 
 and whom he acknowledgeth for his, those no 
 man without impiety may exclude from the 
 number of the faithful. But God promiseth 
 that he will not only be the God of such as do 
 profess him, but also of infants, promising 
 them his grace and remission of sins, as it 
 appeareth by the words of the covenant made 
 unto Abraham : " I will set my covenant 
 between thee and me (saith the Lord) and 
 between thy seed after thee in thy generations, 
 with an everlasting covenant, to be thy God, 
 and the God of thy seed after thee.*' To the 
 which covenant circumcision was added, to 
 be a sign of sanctification, as well in children 
 as in men: and no man may think that this 
 promise is abrogated with circumcision and 
 other ceremonial laws. For Christ came to 
 fulfil the promises, and not to dissolve them. 
 Therefore in the Gospel he saith of infants, 
 
THE REFORMERS. 211 
 
 that is, of such as yet believed not ; Let the 
 little ones come unto me, and forbid them not, 
 for of such is the kingdom of heaven." ^ 
 
 " After this will I answer to the sum of your 
 arguments for the contrary. The first, which 
 includeth all the rest, is, it is written ; ^ Go ye 
 into all the world, and preach the glad tidings 
 to all creatures. He that believeth and is bap^ 
 tised shall be saved : but he that believeth not 
 shall be damned.' " 
 
 " To this I answer, that nothing is added to 
 God's word by baptism of children, as you pre- 
 tend, but that is done which the same word doth 
 require, for that children are accounted of Christ 
 in the Gospel among the number of such as 
 believe, as it appeareth by these words ', " He 
 that ofFendeth one of these little babes which 
 believe in me, it were better for him to have a 
 mill-stone tied about his neck, and to be cast 
 into the bottom of the sea.'' Where plainly 
 Christ calleth such as be not able to confess 
 their faith, believers, because of his mere grace 
 he reputeth them for believers. And this is no 
 wonder so to be taken, since God imputeth faith 
 for righteousness unto men that be of riper 
 age : for both in men and children righteousness, 
 acceptation, or sanctification, is of mere grace 
 and by imputation, that the glory of God's 
 grace might be praised." 
 
 » Fathers, &c. vol. iv. pp. 537, 538. 
 
1112 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 " And that the children of faithful parents are 
 sanctified, and among such as do believe is 
 apparent in the 1 Cor. vii. &c. ^ " 
 
 " The Lord sent his apostles, at the beginning 
 of the setting up his true religion, unto all 
 nations, unto such as were ignorant of God, and 
 were out of the covenant of God ; and truly 
 such persons it behoveth not first to be baptised, 
 and afterwards taught ; but first to be taught, 
 and after baptised. If at this day we should go 
 to the Turks to convert them to the faith of 
 Christ, verily first we ought to teach them, 
 and afterwards baptise such as would yield to 
 be the servants of Christ. Likewise the Lord 
 himself in times past did, when first he renewed 
 the covenant with Abraham, and ordained cir- 
 cumcision to be a seal of the covenant, after that 
 Abraham was circumcised. But he, when he 
 perceived the infants also to pertain to the 
 covenant, and that circumcision was the sealing 
 up of the covenant, did not only circumcise 
 Ishmael, his son, that was thirteen years of age, 
 but all other infants that were born in his house, 
 among whom we reckon Isaac. 
 
 " Even so faithful people which were converted 
 from heathen idolatry by the preaching of the 
 Gospel, and confessing their faith, were baptised ; 
 when they understood their children to be 
 counted among the people of God, and that 
 
 * Fathers, &c. vol. iv. p. 543. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 213 
 
 baptism was the token of the people of God, 
 they procured also their children to be baptised. 
 Therefore as it is written, "Abraham circumcised 
 all the male children of his house/' Semblably 
 we read in the Acts and the writinsrs of the 
 apostles, that after the master of the house was 
 turned to the faith, all the whole house was 
 baptised. And as concerning those which of old 
 time were compelled to confess their faith before 
 they received baptism, which were called cate- 
 chumens, they were such as with our forefathers 
 came from the Gentiles to the church, who being 
 yet rude of faith, they did instruct in the prin- 
 ciples of their belief, and afterward they did 
 baptise them ; but the same ancient fathers not- 
 withstanding did baptise the children of faithful 
 men, as I have already partly declared." ^ 
 
 Hooper, Bishop and Martyr. 
 
 " This new life cometh not, until such time 
 as Christ be known and received. Now to 
 put on Christ, is to live a new life. Such, as 
 be baptised, must remember that repentance 
 and faith precede this external sign, and in 
 Christ the purgation was inwardly obtained, 
 before the external sign was given. So that 
 there are two kinds of baptism, and both neces- 
 sary. The one interior, which is the cleansing 
 of the heart, the drawing of the Father, the 
 
 ^ Fathers, &c. vol. iv. pp. 545, 546. 
 
214 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 operation of the Holy Ghost, and this baptism 
 is in man, when he believeth and trusteth that 
 Christ is the only actor of his salvation. Thus 
 be the infants examined' concerning repentance 
 and faith, before they be baptised with w^ater : 
 at the contemplation of the which faith God 
 purgeth the souL Then is the exterior sign and 
 deed not to purge the heart, but to confirm, 
 manifest, and open unto the world, that this 
 child is God's. 
 
 ^^ And likewise baptism with the repetition 
 of the words is a very sacrament and sign, that 
 the baptised creature should die from sin all his 
 life, as Paul writeth. {Rom. vi.) Likewise no man 
 should condemn nor neglect this exterior sign, 
 for the commandments' sake ; though it have no 
 power to purge from sin, yet it conlirmeth the 
 purgation of sin, and the act of itself pleaseth 
 God, because the receivers thereof obey the will 
 of his commandment." 
 
 — ^^ Thus assured of God, and cleansed from 
 sin in Christ, he hath the livery of God given 
 unto him, baptism, the which no Christian should 
 neglect ; and yet not attribute his sanctification 
 unto the external sign. As the king's majesty 
 may not attribute his right unto the crown, but 
 unto God and unto his Father, who hath not 
 only given him grace to be born into the world, 
 but also to govern as a king in the world ; 
 
 ^ Viz. through their Sponsors. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 215 
 
 whose right and title the crown confirmeth and 
 sheweth the same unto all the world. Whereas 
 this right by God and natural succession pre- 
 cedeth the coronation, the ceremony availeth 
 nothing. A traitor may receive the crown, and 
 yet be true king nothing the more. So an 
 hypocrite and infidel may receive the external 
 sign of baptism, and yet be no Christian man 
 any the more, as Simon Magus and others.'* ^ 
 
 Bradford, Prebendary and Martyr, 
 
 " For if when we were enemies, we were 
 reconciled unto thee by the death of thy Son, 
 much more we, being reconciled shall be saved 
 by his life. (Rom. v.) And that I should not 
 doubt hereof, but certainly be persuaded all 
 things to pertain to me, where I might have 
 been born of Turks, lo ! thou wouldest I should 
 be born of Christian parents, brought into thy 
 church by baptism, which is the sacrament 
 of adoption, and requireth faith as well of remis- 
 sion of my sins as of sanctification and holiness, 
 to be wrought of thee in me by thy grace and 
 holy Spirit. — For in that thou hast given to me 
 this benefit to be thy child, undeserved, unde- 
 sired on my behalf, simply and only in respect 
 of thine own goodness and grace in Christ, lest 
 at any time I should doubt of it, how should I 
 but hope certainly that nothing profitable to 
 
 » Fathers, &c. vol. v. pp. 169 — 171. 
 
216 .SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 me can be denied, in that thy power is infinite ? 
 For as thy good will is declared in adopting me, 
 so nothing can be finally wanting me which 
 may make for my weal (for that should improve 
 [disprove] thy power to be almighty) in that thy 
 will is so bounteously already declared; whereas 
 my belief requireth to believe in thee the Father 
 Almighty; in consideration whereof I should in 
 all things behave myself as a child, rejoice in 
 thee, praise thee, trust in thee, fear thee, serve 
 thee, love thee, call upon thee, &c. But alas ! 
 how heavy hearted am I ! how unthankful 
 am £ ! how full of unbelief and doubting of this 
 thy rich mercy ! how little do I love thee, fear 
 thee, call upon thee, &c. Oh ! be merciful unto 
 me, forgive me, good Father, for thine own 
 sake, and grant me the Spirit of thy children, 
 to reveal thyself unto me, and Jesus Christ 
 thy dear Son our Lord, by whom we are made 
 thy children, that I may truly know thee, 
 heartily love thee, faithfully hang upon thee in 
 all my needs, with good hope call upon thee, 
 render faithfully this honour to thee that thou 
 art my God and Father, and I thy dear child, 
 through thy grace in Christ, and so always be 
 endued with an assured hope of thy goodness, 
 and a faithful, obedient heart in all things to thy 
 holy will. At thy hands, and from thee, as I 
 must look for all things, so come I unto thee, 
 and pray thee to give me those things which thy 
 dear children have, and thou requirest of me. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 217 
 
 that I might come and ask them of thee, as now 
 I do through Jesus Christ our Lord."i 
 
 " Not only this, but also thou wouldest that I 
 should know and believe, that by the same thy 
 dearly beloved Son thou hast brought me from 
 the tyranny and captivity of Satan and this sinful 
 world, (whereof the captivity of Egypt under 
 Pharaoh was a figure) and in his blood shed 
 upon the cross thou hast made a covenant with 
 me, which thou wilt never forget, that thou art 
 and wilt be my Lord and my God : that is, thou 
 wilt forgive me my sins and be wholly mine, 
 with all thy power, wisdom, righteousness, truth, 
 glory and mercy ; wherefore, although I might 
 confirm my faith by the innumerable mercies 
 hitherto poured upon me most abundantly, as 
 thy children of Israel might have done, and did 
 confirm their faith by the manifold benefits 
 }K)ured upon them in the desert : yet specially 
 the seal of thy covenant, I mean thy holy 
 sacrament of baptism, wherein thy holy name 
 was not in vain called upon me, (O dear Father, 
 sweet Son and Saviour Jesus Christ, and most 
 gracious good Holy Ghost) should most assuredly 
 confirm, and even on all sides seal up my 
 faith of this covenant, that thou art my Lord 
 and my God ; even as Abraham and thy people 
 of Israel did by the sacrament of circumcision, 
 which as the Apostle calleth the seal or signal 
 
 1 Fathers, &c. vol. vi. pp. 238, 239. 
 L 
 
218 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 of righteousness, so dost thou call it | being but 
 the sign of thy covenant indeed, yet thy very 
 covenant; because as thy word is most true 
 and cannot lie, as thy covenant is a covenant 
 of peace infallible and everlasting; even so the 
 sacrament and seal of the same is a most true 
 testimonial and witness thereof." ^ 
 
 " Now to the question : a man regenerate 
 (which we ought to believe of ourselves, I mean 
 that we are so by our baptism, the sacrament 
 thereof requiring no less faith) ; a man, I say, 
 regenerate, that is born of God, hath the Spirit 
 of God : and as a man born of flesh and blood 
 hath the spirit thereof, whereby as he can stir 
 up himself to do more and more the deeds of the 
 flesh, so the other can, by the Spirit of God in 
 him, stir up in himself the gifts and graces 
 of God, to glorify God accordingly." ^ 
 
 *f As I would have us often to muse upon the 
 catholic church or communion of saints (whereof 
 we may not doubt, in what state soever we be, 
 under pain of damnation, being baptized in the 
 name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost) 
 so would I have us to meditate upon the other 
 articles following, that is, remission of sins, 
 resurrection of the flesh, and life everlasting. 
 It is an article of our faith to believe, that is, to 
 be certain that our sins are pardoned ; therefore 
 doubt not thereof lest thou become an infidel. 
 
 » Fathers, &c. vol. vi. pp. 273—274. « ibid, vol. vi. p. 390. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 219 
 
 Though thou have sinned never so sore, yet now 
 despair not^ but be certain that God is thy God, 
 that is, that he forgiveth thee thy sin/^ ^ 
 
 Jewell, Bishop, 
 
 ^^ As princes' seals confirm and warrant their 
 deeds and charters, so do the sacraments wit- 
 ness unto our conscience, that God's promises 
 are true, and shall continue for ever. Thus 
 doth God make known his secret purpose to his 
 church ; first he declareth his mercy by his 
 word, then he sealeth it, and assureth it by his 
 sacraments. In this word we have his promises ; 
 in the sacraments we see them."^ 
 
 " Chrysostom saith, '^ Christ's baptism is 
 Christ's passion." They are not bare signs 5 it 
 were blasphemy so to say 5 the grace of God 
 doth always work with his sacraments ; but we 
 are taught not to seek that grace in the sign, 
 but to assure ourselves by receiving the sign, 
 that it is given us by the thing signified. We 
 are not washed from our sins by the water, we 
 are not fed to eternal life by the bread and wine, 
 but by the precious blood of our Saviour Christ, 
 that lieth hid in these sacraments." ^ 
 
 " Such a change is made in the sacrament of 
 baptism : through the power of God's working, 
 the water is turned into blood 3 they that be 
 
 » Fathers, &c. vol. vi.p. 415. 2 ibjd^ yqI. yii.p. 483. 
 
 3 Ibid, pp. 488, 489. 
 
 h 2 
 
220 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 washed in it receive the remission of sins ; their 
 robes are made clean in the blood of the lamb. 
 The water itself is nothing ; but by the working 
 of God's Spirit^ the death and merits of our 
 Lord and Saviour Christ, are thereby assured 
 unto us." 1 
 
 ^^ Our children are the children of God ; he is 
 our God, and the God of our seed ; they be under 
 the covenant with us."^ 
 
 ^^ By these few it may appear, that the Sacra- 
 ment maketh not a Christian, but is a seal and 
 assurance unto all that receive it of the grace 
 of God, unless they make themselves unworthy 
 thereof, and that no man may despise this 
 holy ordinance, and keep back his infants from 
 baptism, for in so doing he procureth his own 
 damnation/'^ 
 
 " Therefore a father must teach his child 
 what God is ; that he is our Father, that he hath 
 made us, and doth feed us, and giveth us all 
 things needful both for body and soul ? that he 
 is our Lord and therefore we must serve him, 
 and obey him, and do nothing whereby he may 
 be displeased ; that he is our judge, and shall 
 come to judge the quick and the dead ; and that 
 all men shall come before him, to receive 
 according as they have done in the flesh. 
 
 " He must put his child in mind of his bap- 
 tism, and teach him that it is a covenant of God's 
 
 * Fathers, &c. vol. vii. p. 497. ' Ibid, p. 499. 
 
 3 Ibid, p. 500. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 221 
 
 mercy to us, and of our duty to God : that it 
 is a mystery of our salvation, that our soul is 
 so washed with the blood of Christ, as the water 
 of baptism washeth our body."^ 
 
 And commenting on St. Paul's words (1 Cor. 
 vii.) " Now are your children holy," he says, 
 ^' his meaning is, that the children of the 
 faithful, notwithstanding by nature they be the 
 children of anger, yet by God's free election 
 they be pure and holy." 
 
 2 
 
 NowelVs Catechism* 
 
 ^^ blaster, — Do all generally, and without 
 difference receive this grace ? 
 
 Scholar, — The only faithful receive this fruit, 
 but the unbelieving in refusing the promises 
 offered them by God, shut up the entry against 
 themselves, aud go away empty. Yet do they 
 not thereby make that the Sacraments lose their 
 force and nature. 
 
 Master, — ^Tell me then briefly in what things 
 the use of baptism consisteth ? 
 
 Scholar, — In faith and repentance. For first, 
 we must with assured confidence hold it deter- 
 mined in our hearts, that we are cleansed by the 
 blood of Christ from all filthiness of sin, and so 
 be acceptable to God, and that his Spirit dwelleth 
 within us. And then we must continually with 
 all our power and endeavour, travail in mortify- 
 
 » Fathers; &c. vol. vii. p. 540. « Ibid, p, 683. 
 
 L 3 
 
222 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 ing our flesh, and obeying the righteousness 
 of God, and must by godly life declare to all 
 men that we have in baptism, as iv vere, put on 
 Christ, and have his Spirit given us. 
 
 Master. — Sith infants cannot by age perform 
 those things that thou speakest of, why are they 
 baptized ? 
 
 Scholar, — That faith and repentance go before 
 baptism, is required only in persons so grown in 
 years, that by age they are capable of both. 
 But to infants, the promise made to the church 
 by Christ, in whose faith they are baptized, 
 shall for the present time be sufficient ; and 
 then afterward, when they are grown to years, 
 they must need themselves acknowledge the 
 truth of their baptism, and have the force 
 thereof be lively in their souls, and to be repre- 
 sented in their life and behaviour." ^ 
 
 After adopting the first part of that beautiful 
 extract from king Edward's Catechism, given 
 at p. 131. The Scholar proceeds nearly in the 
 same terms ^ " They that be steadfast, stable, 
 and constant in this faith, were chosen and 
 appointed, and (as we term it) predestinated to 
 this so great felicity, before the foundations of 
 the world were laid, whereof they have a witness 
 within them in their souls, the Spirit of Christ 
 the author, and therewith also the most sure 
 pledge of this confidence." To which the 
 
 ^ Fathers, &c. vol. viii. pp. 126, 127. 
 
THE REFORMERS. 223 
 
 Scholar adds this application of the doctrine to 
 himself. " By the instinct of which divine 
 Spirit, I do also most surely persuade myself 
 that I am also, by God's good gift through 
 Christ, freely made one of this blessed city/' 
 
 Master, — It is sure a godly and very necessary 
 persuasion." * 
 
 The two following extracts are taken from 
 certain ^' Prefaces^ Prayers^ and other Godly 
 Tracts, printed in various editions of the Geneva 
 Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the 
 Psalter, during the reign ofQvBB^ Elizabeth." 
 
 " Question, — How doth the word of God 
 serve to draw men unto him ! 
 
 Answer, — When it is so preached and heard, 
 that men may understand and learn what God 
 teacheth, accept and receive thankfully that 
 which is thereby given, promised, and assured ; 
 and be moved with desire and diligence to do 
 that which it commandeth. 
 
 Question* — Do the sacraments also serve to 
 this end ? 
 
 Answer, — Yea, verily; that by sight, taste, 
 and feeling, as well as by hearing, we might be 
 instructed, assured, and brought to obedience. 
 
 Question, — How doth our baptism serve here- 
 unto ? 
 
 Answer, — It teacheth us to put on Christ, that 
 
 » Fathers, &c. vol. viii. pp. 79, 80. 
 
224 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 with his righteousness our sinfulness may be 
 hidden ; it assureth us that we are so graft into 
 Christy that all our sins by him are washed away : 
 it chargeth us to die to sin, to continue in the 
 profession of Christ, and to love each other. 
 
 Question, — Hath the Lord's supper also this 
 use ? 
 
 Answer, — Yea, doubtless ; for it teacheth 
 that the body and blood of Christ crucified is 
 the only food of the new-born children of God ; it 
 assureth that Christ is wholly theirs, to give and 
 to continue life spiritual and heavenly to both 
 hody and soul, to nourish, strengthen, refresh, 
 and to make cheerful the hearts of the elect, it 
 requireth thankful remembrance of the death 
 of Christ, unity among those that do profess 
 him, with a free profession of his truth. 
 
 Question, — Why is not this use of the Sacra- 
 ments commonly known ? 
 
 Answer, — Because they are abused for form, 
 for fashion, for custom, and company, without 
 regard unto the word, whereunto they are so 
 annexed, that they ought not upon any necessity 
 by any person be severed from it, which teacheth 
 the right use of every thing.'* ^ 
 
 Peter Martyr, Professor of Divinity at 
 
 Oxford, 
 
 " Note here that the Fathers made a league 
 
 \ Fathers, &c. vol. viii. pp. 203, 204. 
 
THE KEFORMERS. 225 
 
 with God, not only for themselves but also for 
 their posterity, as God again for his part pro- 
 mised them, that he would be the God not only 
 of them, but also of their seed and posterity; 
 wherefore it was lawful for them to circumcise 
 their children, being yet infants. And in like 
 manner, it is lawful for us to baptise our little 
 ones, being yet infants, forasmuch also as they 
 are comprehended in the league. For they 
 which have now the thing itself, there is nothing 
 that can let, but that they may receive the sign : 
 it is manifestly written in xxix. chap, of Deut. 
 that the league was made not only with them 
 which was present, but also with them which 
 was absent and not yet born.'* — On Judges, 
 fol. 75. 1 
 
 The attentive Reader cannot but be struck 
 with the general consistency of the doctrine of 
 Baptism as represented in the foregoing extracts, 
 with that expressed in our Baptismal Service and 
 its kindred formularies. The Child is a child 
 of God in virtue of the promise to his faithful 
 Parents; as such he receives the sign of the 
 covenant in Baptism ; and he is urged to a holy 
 life in consistency with his profession ; not in 
 his own strength, but as " a member of Christ, 
 the child of God, and an inheritor of the king- 
 dom of heaven." 
 
 ^ See " Marbeck's Common Places," under the head 
 *< Baptism." 
 
 L 5 
 
226 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 These sentiments of our Forefathers of the 
 Reformation respecting Baptism, will receive 
 ample confirmation from the concurrent senti- 
 ments of the Reformed Churches throughout 
 Christendom in their day. I extract the follow- 
 ing testimonies from " An Harmony of the 
 Confessions of the faith of the Christian and 
 Reformed Churches which purelie professe the 
 holie doctrine of the Gospeil in all the chiefe 
 Kingdomes, Nations, and Provinces of Europe, 
 — allowed by publique authoritie/' and " im- 
 printed by Thomas Thomas, printer to the 
 Universitie of Cambridge, 1586." And should 
 these testimonies not be deemed sufficient, I 
 must refer to the " Corpus Confessionum " for 
 any further evidence that may be required. 
 
 The latter Confession of Helvetia, 
 
 " There is but one baptism in the church of 
 God : for it is sufficient to be once baptized or 
 consecrated unto God. For baptism once re- 
 ceived doth continue all a man*s life, and is a 
 perpetual sealing of our adoption unto us. For 
 to be baptized in the name of Christ, is to be 
 enrolled, entered, and received into the cove- 
 nant, and family, and so into the inheritance of 
 the sons of God, yea and in this life to be called 
 after the name of God, that is to say, to be called 
 the son of God, to be purged also from the filthi- 
 ness of sins, and to be endued with the manifold 
 grace of God, for to lead a new and innocent 
 
THE REFORMERS. 227 
 
 life. Baptism therefore doth call to mind, and 
 keep in remembrance the great benefit of God 
 performed to mankind, for we are all born in the 
 pollution of sin and are the sons of wrath. But 
 God who is rich in mercy, doth freely purge us 
 from our sins by the blood of his Son, and in 
 him doth adopt us to be his sons, and by an holy 
 covenant doth join us to himself, and doth in- 
 rich us with divers gifts, that we might live a 
 new life. All these things are sealed up unto 
 us in baptism. 
 
 " We condemn the Anabaptists who deny that 
 young infants born of faithful parents, are to be 
 baptized. For according to the doctrine of the 
 gospel "this is the kingdom of God." And 
 they are written in the covenant of God. And 
 why then should not the sign of the covenant be 
 given to them ? Why should they not be con- 
 secrated by holy baptism, who are God's pecu- 
 liar people, and in the Church of God ? " 
 
 The former Confession of Helvetia, 
 
 " Baptism, according to the institution of the 
 Lord, is the font of Regeneration, the which the 
 Lord doth give to his chosen in a visible sign, 
 by the ministry of the Church in such sort, as 
 we have declared before. In which holy font 
 we do therefore dip our infants, because that it 
 is not lawful for us to reject them from the com- 
 pany of the people of God, which are born of 
 us, (who are the people of God) so long as they 
 
228 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 be not pointed out by the voice of God, espe- 
 cially seeing that we ought godly to presume 
 of their election." 
 
 The Confession of Bohemia, 
 
 " For we believe that whatsoever by baptism, 
 as by a Sacrament added to the word of the gos- 
 pelj is in the outward ceremony signified and 
 witnessed, all that doth the Lord God work and 
 })erform inwardly ; that is, that he washeth away 
 sin, begetteth a man again, and bestoweth salva- 
 tion upon him, and through the washing of 
 water cleanseth by the word the society of his 
 Church, cloatheth and appareleth it with his 
 Son, burieth and taketh away sin,, and giveth 
 testimony to, and sealeth the peace of a good 
 conscience, &c. 
 
 " And although Baptism in the primitive 
 Church was for the most part ministered to 
 such, as were well grown and of discretion, after 
 a confession of faith made by them, according 
 to Christ's commandment ; yet this is taught, 
 that young children also, wlio are reckoned in 
 the number of God's people, in like sort are by 
 this ministry to be benefited toward the attain- 
 ing of salvation, that they likewise may be con- 
 secrated and dedicated to Christ, according to 
 this commandment, when he saith, " Suffer ye 
 the little ones to come to me, and forbid them 
 not : because unto such belongeth the kingdom 
 of God." Therefore according to the word 
 
THE REFORMERS. 229 
 
 of the Lord, and many other testimonies and 
 other promises made to this beloved age of chil- 
 dren, especially when as also there is extant an 
 example of that ancient ministry ordained of God, 
 to wit, circumcision, which by the covenant be- 
 longed not only to those of discretion, but there- 
 withal also to young children. For these causes 
 do our ministers without any doubt and boldly 
 baptize children in the name of the Holy Tri- 
 nity, applying unto them a sign of most effectual 
 virtue, and a most sure witness- bearing of that 
 thing which by Christ's own words is assigned 
 to this age, and is imparted unto it. For so 
 Christ in general, and without exception giveth 
 in charge, not touching some, but touching 
 all, " Teach ye all nations, and baptise them, 
 in the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost.'* And so over children this most 
 holy name is called upon. In which alone there 
 is salvation/' 
 
 The French Confession, 
 
 " Furthermore, although Baptism be a Sacra- 
 ment of faith and repentance, yet seeing that 
 God doth together with the parents account 
 their posterity also to be of the Church, we 
 affirm, that infants, being born of holy Parents, 
 are by the authority of Christ to be baptized. 
 
 " We say therefore that the element of water, 
 be it never so frail, doth notwithstanding truly 
 witness or confirm unto us the inward washing 
 
230 ' SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 of our souls in the blood of Jesus Christ, by the 
 virtue and efficacy of the Holy Ghost/' 
 
 The Confession of Belgia, 
 
 *^ Neither doth this baptism profit us only at 
 that moment when the water resteth upon us, 
 and when we are sprinkled with it, but it is 
 available throughout the whole time of our life. 
 Therefore here we do detest the errour of the 
 Anabaptists, who are not only content with one 
 only baptism, arid that once received, but do also 
 condemn the baptism of infants, yea of those 
 that be born of faithful Parents : but we by the 
 same reason do believe that they ought to be 
 baptized and sealed with the sign of the cove- 
 nant, for the which in time past the infants 
 among the Israelites were circumcised, that 
 is, by reason of the same promises made unto 
 our infants, that were made unto others. And 
 verily Christ hath no less shed his blood to wash 
 the infants of the faithful, than he did for the 
 washing of those that are of riper years. There- 
 fore it is meet that they should receive the sign 
 or sacrament of the thing which Christ hath 
 wrought for their sakes, as in the law the Lord 
 commandeth, that the sacrament of the death 
 and passion of Christ should be communicated 
 to children new born, by offering up the lamb 
 for them which was a sacrament of Christ to 
 come. (Levit. xii. 6.) Furthermore that which 
 circumcision did perform to the people of the 
 
THE REFORMERS. 231 
 
 Jews, the same did baptism perform to the chil- 
 dren of the faithful. For the which cause Paul 
 calleth Baptism, " the circumcision of Christ." 
 
 The Confession of Augshurgh, 
 
 " Concerning baptism they teach that it is 
 necessary to salvation, as a ceremony ordained 
 of Christ. Also that by baptism the grace of God 
 is offered. And that young infants are to be 
 baptized, and that they being by baptism com- 
 mended unto God, are received into God's 
 favour, and are made the sons of God as Christ 
 witnesseth, speaking of little children in the 
 Church, (Matt, xviii*) " It is not the will 
 of your heavenly Father, that any of these 
 little ones should perish.'* They condemn the 
 Anabaptists, which allow not the baptism 
 of infants, and hold that infants are saved, 
 though they die without baptism, and be not 
 within the Church of God." 
 
 The Confessio7i of Saxony, 
 
 " We do also baptise infants, because it is 
 most certain that the promise of grace doth 
 pertain also of (to) infants, and to those only 
 which are ingrafted into the Church, because 
 that of these it is said, " Suffer little ones to 
 come Unto me, because that to such appertaineth 
 the kingdom of heaven." And Origen writeth 
 upon the sixth of the Romans, " That the 
 Church received the custom of baptising 
 
232 SENTIMENTS OF 
 
 infants from the apostles.'' Neither do we 
 think that this custom is only an idle ceremony, 
 but that the infants are then indeed received 
 and sanctified of God, because that then they 
 are grafted into the Church, and the promise 
 pertaineth to such. And of this matter there 
 be many things written and published in 
 our Churches, whereby the anabaptists are 
 refuted." 
 
 2^he Confession ofWirtemherg, 
 
 " We acknowledge that Baptism is to be 
 ministered as well to infants as to those that 
 are grown to full age, and that it is to be used 
 in the Church, even to the end of this world, 
 in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost, according to Christ his 
 institution,'' &c. 
 
 — " Moreover we teach, that he which is bap- 
 tised in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost, is sprinkled with a 
 spiritual anointing, that is, is made a member 
 of Christ through faith ; and endued with the 
 Holy Ghost, that the ears of his mind may be 
 opened, and the eyes of his heart lightened, to 
 receive and understand heavenly things," &c. 
 
 The Confession of Sueveland. 
 
 " And seeing that Baptism is a sacrament of 
 that covenant, which God hath made with those 
 that be his, promising that he will be their God, 
 
THE REFORMERS. 233 
 
 and the God of their seed, and that he will be a 
 revenger of wrongs and take them for his people ; 
 to conclude, seeing it is a token of the renewing 
 of the Spirit, which is wrought by Christ : there- 
 fore our Preachers do teach, that it is to be given 
 to Infants also, as well as that in times past 
 under Moses they were circumcised : for we are 
 indeed the children of Abraham, and therefore 
 that promise, " I will be thy God, and the God 
 of thy seed," doth no less pertain unto us, than 
 it did to that ancient people." 
 
 To the above I add the following extracts 
 from the Articles of Religion of the United 
 Church of England and Ireland. 
 
 Of the Sacraments. 
 
 " Sacraments ordained of Christ, be not only 
 badges or tokens of Christian men's profession ; 
 but rather, they be certain sure witnesses, and 
 effectual signs of grace, and God's good will 
 towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly 
 in us, and doth not only quicken, but also 
 strengthen and confirm our faith in him." 
 
 Of Baptism, 
 
 " Baptism is not only a sign of profession, 
 and mark of difference, whereby Christian men 
 are discerned from others that be not christened ; 
 but it is also a sign of Regeneration, or New 
 Birth, whereby as by an instrument, they that 
 receive Baptism rightly, are grafted into the 
 
234 SENTIMENTS OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Church 3 the promises of forgiveness of sin, and 
 of our adoption to be the sons of God by the 
 Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; 
 Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by 
 virtue of prayer unto God. The Baptism of 
 young children is in any wise to be retained 
 in the Church, as most agreeable with the 
 institution of Christ/' 
 
 From the above extracts it appears— 
 
 First, that the child is introduced to the 
 Church for Baptism, as the child of believing | 
 Parents, in virtue of the promise made to them. 
 
 Secondly, That Baptism is the sign and seal 
 of the faith which the child possesses in virtue 
 of the election of grace* 
 
 Thirdly, That Christian Baptism is but Jewish 
 Circumcision expressed under another outward 
 and visible sign, ^^ For the which cause Paul 
 calleth Baptism the Circumcision of Christ." ^ 
 
 Lastlv, That no doubt should be entertained 
 as to the child's condition : he is an adopted 
 child of God, and should be esteemed and 
 educated as such. 
 
 Compare these particulars with the letter and 
 spirit of our Baptism and its kindred formularies, 
 and how exactly do they agree ! 
 
 > Confession of Belgia. 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THIS INTERPRETATION. 235 
 
 LETTER VIIL 
 
 ADVANTAGES WHICH MIGHT BE EXPECTED TO 
 ARISE FROM THE ABOVE INTERPRETATION OF 
 OUR BAPTISMAL SERVICE. 
 
 The advantages which might be expected to 
 arise from the practical adoption of the above 
 interpretation of our Baptismal Service, are 
 neither few nor doubtful 5 the practice will amply 
 vindicate the principle, for as we believe, so 
 will it appear that we shall be established. 
 
 The first advantage arising from the above 
 interpretation of our Baptismal Service is, that 
 — it renders all our formularies intelli- 
 gible. 
 
 It puts a sense and a meaning into them fully 
 equal to their expressions : and while it gives 
 those expressions their plain and natural mean- 
 ing, it justifies them from the charge of being 
 too strong and intense 5 since, after all, they 
 do but inadequately convey the unquestionable 
 privileges, and '^ unsearchable riches " of the 
 Gospel of Christ. 
 
 It is vain to dissemble, My Dear Friend, that 
 
236 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 we have ourselves found considerable difficulty 
 in reconciling the several formularies of our 
 Church with each other 5 and that we have for 
 years been accustomed to hear a variety of com- 
 plaints and doubts as to the consistency of our 
 Liturgy. What various interpretations have 
 been given of the Baptismal Service ! To what 
 difficulties have those been reduced, who, 
 teaching that our salvation depends on our strict 
 obedience to the Law, would bend the letter 
 of the Catechism and the Confirmation Service, to 
 the support of this mistaken system ! And how 
 many have been confounded, that our Liturgy, 
 in its various Services, assumes all who use it 
 to be real believers in Christ Jesus, and that it 
 makes no provision for neutral characters, or for 
 any but penitent and believing sinners ! The 
 Service for " the Visitation of the Sick '' has been 
 constantly reproached as inapplicable to the great 
 proportion of cases, which the minister, in the 
 discharge of his duty, is called upon to attend • 
 and the Burial Service has been the repeated 
 theme of complaint, both with friends and foes, 
 that it can with propriety be read over real 
 believers alone. And have not good and intelli- 
 gent ministers of our Church been driven to 
 such distress of mind by these doubts and 
 perplexities, as to hesitate, whether they could, 
 consistently with the claims of a safe conscience, 
 continue to minister her Services ? If you. My 
 Dear Friend, have been happily exempt from 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 237 
 
 the trial, I must confess, that such doubts have 
 arisen in my own mind, and in those of some 
 excellent men with whom I have conversed on 
 this subject ; nor were such doubts ever dissi- 
 pated from my mind, till the above view of the 
 Baptismal Service furnished a clue of interpre- 
 tation, which admitted me to the meaning of 
 every subsequent formulary, and with that 
 meaning, displayed the beauty and consistency 
 of the whole. 
 
 How perfectly intelligible then is our whole 
 Liturgy viewed from the portal of Baptismal 
 regeneration — faith in the promise covenanted to 
 the children of believers. Fix your eye but upon 
 this entrance, and all the beautiful edifice rises 
 in simple integrity, and commanding majesty 
 before you. In Baptism "we being persuaded 
 of the good-will of our heavenly Father towards 
 this Infant, declared by his Son Jesus Christ, 
 and nothing doubting but that he favourably 
 alloweth this charitable work of ours in bring- 
 ing this Infant to his holy Baptism^" in the 
 Catechism we proceed consistently to teach 
 him, that he was then " made a member of 
 Christ, the child of God, and an Inheritor of the 
 kingdom of heaven," and that the Holy Ghost 
 even at this present sanctifieth," or is '^sanc- 
 tifying him, and all the elect people of God/' 
 At his Confirmation, the Bishop accepts him 
 as a believer, as " regenerate by water and the 
 Holy Ghost 3" as "given forgiveness of all " 
 
238 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 his ^^ sins ; " and with the Church prays the 
 "Lord'' to "strengthen'' him "with the Holy 
 Ghost, the Comforter, and daily increase in " 
 him "his manifold gifts of grace." In "the 
 Communion," he is privileged to say with the 
 Church, " We most heartily thank thee, for 
 that thou dost assure us thereby of thy favour 
 and goodness towards us, and that we are very 
 members incorporate in the mystical body of thy 
 Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful 
 people. — And we most humbly beseech thee, O 
 heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy Grace, 
 that we may continue in that holy fellowship," 
 &c. In The Liturgy, the whole language and 
 spirit is suited to a child of God addressing a 
 Father of mercy. In addition to the passages 
 already adduced in page 154, the following selec- 
 tions from the Collects can only be pleaded by a 
 believer, ^^ grant that we being regenerate and 
 made thy children by adoption and grace, may 
 daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; " ^ "mer- 
 cifully grant that we which know thee now by 
 faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy 
 glorious Godhead." ^ And at the " solemnization 
 of Matrimony," he is recognised as belonging 
 
 » On the Nativity. 
 2 On the Epiphany. See also the Collects for Good-Friday, 
 Easter-Even, Easter-day, Ascension-day, Trinity-Sunday, and 
 All-Saints day : indeed those Collects are rather exceptions, 
 where the expressions are not peculiar and appropriate to 
 believers. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 239 
 
 to " the Communion of the Saints/* *^ We are 
 gathered together here in the sight of God, and 
 in the face of this Congregation to join together 
 this man and this woman in holy matrimony ; '* 
 and the Church prays for them both in the cha- 
 racter of believers, " O Lord, save thy servant 
 and thy handmaid, who put their trust in thee/* 
 In "The Churching of Women, the Congrega- 
 tion prays for " the woman " who " shall come 
 into the Church,** ^^OLord, save this woman, 
 thy servant; who putteth her trust in thee.'* 
 In The Visitation of the Sick the same words 
 are repeated, and the whole office is calculated 
 for the encouragement and spiritual establish- 
 ment of the believer. And in " The Burial 
 OP THE Dead,** the crowning work of a holy 
 assurance is accomplished over the believer by 
 ^^ the Communion of the Saints,** when they 
 conclude their earthly intercourse, by giving 
 " hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee 
 to deliver this our Brother out of the miseries 
 of this sinful world.'* From the beginning 
 to the end of this exquisite display of order 
 the same principle appears in active pro- 
 minency, — a saint is introduced into " the 
 Communion of the Saints** at Baptism, and in 
 this holy character he is uniformly entertained 
 by the Church, so long as he can be a partaker 
 of her communion, and till her means of grace 
 have under the divine blessing perfected him 
 for glory. I am not aware that any force is put 
 
240 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 Upon a single expression in any one of our for- 
 mularies by the above explanation : all is natural, 
 harmonious, lucid, consistent, and intelligible : 
 it is an interpretation which a child may com- 
 prehend. Let us only enter by the portal of 
 Baptismal regeneration in faith of the promise, 
 and the key is in our hands, which opens the 
 door of every apartment, in orderly succession, 
 and admits us, with ease, into all the beautiful 
 interior of the building. 
 
 Hence necessarily follows another advan- 
 tage of the above interpretation, — an intel- 
 ligible EXHIBITION OF THE BEAUTY AND 
 SYMMETRY AND ADMIRABLE PROPORTION OF 
 THE CHURCH TO WHICH WE BELONG. 
 
 What Other interpretation exhibits it in a 
 light so truly lovely and desirable, and so 
 excellently adapted to man as a fallen and 
 helpless creature upon earth ? Particular 
 prayers with their peculiar comprehensiveness, 
 accurate arrangement, and felicitous expres- 
 sion may arrest our attention, and particular 
 Services may receive our commendation ; but 
 the excellency of a magnificent edifice does 
 not appear so much in the minute perfection 
 of its parts, as in the concurrence of each 
 particular part in producing an imposing 
 whole. Nay, so far may those parts, when de- 
 tached from the body, be from engaging our 
 approbation, that they may incur our reproach, 
 as disproportioned; inappropriate, and useless ; 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 241 
 
 nay as wholly inapplicable and unfit ; as it is 
 well known that some of our formularies^ when 
 viewed as detached portions, have frequently 
 been esteemed. But viewed from this point, 
 the whole edifice rises before us in admirable 
 beauty and exquisite proportion. Each part 
 has its appropriate place ; and every distinct 
 member conduces to the symmetry and stability 
 of the whole. Let our Church be presented to 
 the people of the land in this engaging aspect, 
 and let the real excellence of her system be re- 
 commended to them by the practical application 
 of her blessings; let it be wrought out in all 
 its winning experience, and let its advantages 
 be but once felt, by active and persevering efforts 
 on the part of us who are ministers to intro- 
 duce them to the notice of our charge ; and what 
 an intelligible ground of preference, of esteem 
 and attachment would be presented to the 
 people 1 Popular attachment then, would not 
 rest on the fickle grounds of fashion, education, 
 prejudice, and custom, or on the more rational 
 grounds of regard for things constituted, of 
 political expediency, and national advantage ; 
 but on the real spiritual blessedness, which such 
 a system, practically and experimentally applied 
 must necessarily confer, and on all the virtues 
 and graces, which, taking their rise in the tran- 
 quillity of the domestic circle, would gradually 
 expand, till they reached the remotest relations 
 and conditions of social life. It would be 
 
 M 
 
242 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 grace, pouring out its rich abundance of bless- 
 ings from each paternal roof, till it met in one 
 vast confluence, not of national merely, but of 
 international benignity and love. Such, I own. 
 My Dear Friend, have been long my grounds 
 of attachment to our Church. I know nothing 
 human, as a system of spiritual means, in any 
 measure comparable to her. I am not insen- 
 sible to her defects, and I do most sincerely 
 deplore them ; while, at the same time, I cannot 
 but admire her capabilities of usefulness, her 
 well-adapted machinery, and her unrivalled abi- 
 lity, not only to bless this distinguished country, 
 but the whole earth, to every part of which, the 
 spiritual or unspiritual condition of England, 
 at this hour, in God's mysterious providence is 
 imparting a corresponding character and com- 
 plexion. Yes, indeed, I believe our Church to 
 be " the Eldest Daughter of the Reformation : " 
 it is a high designation, but it is one, to which, 
 I believe, she can well vindicate her claim ; and 
 while we are able practically to display her 
 excellencies in ameliorating the moral condition 
 of her people, we are adopting the most certain 
 means of securing their attachment, and per- 
 petuating their support. 
 
 Another advantage resulting from the above 
 interpretation is, that — it exhibits in lively 
 
 REALITY THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE " COMMU- 
 NION OP THE SAINTS.'' 
 
 I say, reality, for what reality is presented to the 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 243 
 
 people, loosely and imperfectly apprehended as 
 this communion is at present ? It is true the ex- 
 pression occurs in the Creed, and is often repeated 
 by the lips ; but how few seem to attach any intel- 
 ligible meaning to it ! and how little can usually 
 be collected by the interpretation of these words, 
 when expressed in these indefinite and unmean- 
 ing generals, " a partaking of the common 
 benefits and privileges of Christianity ! " What 
 are these common benefits and privileges ? Are 
 they the means of grace merely, and a partaking 
 of the outward and visible sign ? or are they 
 the real spiritual virtues of which these means 
 are but the medium — the inward and spiritual 
 grace, of which the visible representation of the 
 Sacraments is but the outward sign ? But once 
 admit the interpretation above given, and no 
 doubt, or uncertainty, or indistinctness remain. 
 On the ground of the promise, faith beholds 
 the baptised introduced into " the Communion 
 of the Saints/' The faith of the believing 
 Parents hath sanctified tlie Child, " else were " 
 their " children unclean, but now are they 
 holy : '* ^ and the Church has acknowledged this 
 application of the promise, by admitting the 
 Child into its bosom, and making it a partaker 
 of its sympathies, its interests, its prayers, and 
 its praises. Nor does it relax the interests 
 of this communion in its subsequent instruction 
 
 1 1 Cor. vii. 14. 
 M 2 
 
244 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 and edification, from infancy to youth, from 
 youth to manhood, from manhood to age. The 
 interest once imparted never declines : it is a 
 communion in Christ, and so long as each is 
 grafted into him by faith, being members of 
 him, they are also members one of another. 
 How truly blessed would be the intercourse 
 of every parish among us, did it but present the 
 character which our Church assumes it to do 1 
 We should then meet each other not contented 
 with inquiring after the bodily health of our- 
 selves and children ; the second question, at 
 least, would be expressive of our Christian com- 
 munion, and we should mutually inquire as to 
 the spiritual welfare of our souls : and if the 
 latter question were answered satisfactorily as 
 to the soul, the welfare of the soul would be the 
 measure of that we should wish to the body, 
 according to the Apostle's words ; " Beloved, 
 I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper 
 and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." ^ 
 The health of the soul would then be deemed 
 more important than that of the body ; and our 
 inquiries after each other's children, would chiefly 
 consist as to their possession of those graces 
 which are the common benefit of the " Commu- 
 nion of the Saints/' to which we trust they 
 belong. And is it really wild and enthusiastic^ 
 to assume, with our Church, that the whole of 
 
 ^ 3 John 2. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 245 
 
 the baptised in her communion may become that 
 ^' blessed company of faithful people^" which 
 forms the true Church of Christ ? It appears 
 to me, that either this is her meaning, according 
 to the plain interpretation of her letter, or that 
 all her Services are a mockery. And if this be 
 her meaning, with what show of reason or 
 propriety can we hope for that holy state of 
 society, to which she would elevate her people, 
 unless we act faith upon those promises which 
 she places as the foundation of every spiritual 
 blessing ? Let us at least do our part, act 
 consistently with the vows made for us, and 
 those we have made for others in Baptism, and 
 leave the honour of his own faithfulness, and 
 the credit of his own word to God. 
 
 Another evident advantage attending this 
 interpretation of the Baptismal Service received 
 and acted upon, would be, — the improved 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OP THE WHOLE SERVICE OP 
 
 OUR Church. 
 
 Do our Congregations present a lively picture 
 of that worship which might be expected in 
 *' the Communion of the Saints ? " Have we not 
 often heard the Service complained of as dry, 
 wearisome, uninteresting, and as incapable of 
 arresting the attention ? and has not the appear- 
 ance of the Congregation, drowsy, inattentive, 
 and indifferent, too frequently proved, that they 
 at least have felt the Service to be such as is above 
 described ? And have not ministers complained, 
 
 M 3 
 
246 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 that it is difficult to keep up their attention 
 while the same routine work is to be performed ? 
 And has not this defect too often become appar- 
 ent in the heavy listlessness, and dull monotony, 
 and evident want of interest with which the 
 Service has been conducted ? But let the above 
 interpretation prevail, and be maintained, and a 
 sense of the " Commmunion of Saints "' would, 
 with the aid of the Spirit, be maintained, which 
 would infuse new life and sense and intelligence 
 into the ministration of our Service, however 
 frequently repeated. How few seem to attend 
 " the assembling of ourselves together," ^ with 
 any lively impression that they are about to enjoy 
 that communion with the Church, in the great 
 Congregation, which most honours God ? Does 
 the minister approach the desk animated by a 
 sense of the privilege bestowed on him in leading 
 the devotion of " the Communion of Saints ? " Do 
 the people approach the church with any similar 
 impression, that they are privileged to enjoy 
 this delightful communion ? Does either the 
 one or the other, under the pleasing anticipations 
 of this enjoyment, offer up a prayer as they go 
 up to the house of God, any '^song of degrees'' 
 — " I was glad when they said unto me. Let us 
 go into the house of the Lord. — For my brethren 
 and companions' sakes, I will now say, peace 
 be within thee?"- Did minister and people 
 
 » Heb. X. 25. 2 Psalm cxxii. 1, 8. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 247 
 
 go up with this heavenly spirit, how different 
 would the whole strain of our worship he, both 
 in heart and lip ! The excellence of our Service 
 would then appear in its own characteristic 
 simplicity and beauty. There is no wearisome- 
 ness in the Service : alas ! our unspiritual hearts 
 are indisposed for spiritual communion, either 
 with God or man, and hence inattention, dis- 
 traction, and fatigue. But let us once realise 
 the impression, that we are about to enjoy the 
 richest communion that earth presents, and both 
 minister and people, with awakened expecta- 
 tions, will endeavour to excite corresponding 
 affections. Then secret but fervent aspirations 
 will arise to the great Master of Assemblies in 
 our way to his temple, " Awake, O north wind, 
 and come thou south : blow upon my garden 
 that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my 
 Beloved come into his garden and eat his plea- 
 sant fruits." 1 We should take our places among 
 a holy brotherhood, and offer up a fervei^t 
 prayer both for ourselves, our minister, and our 
 fellow-christians, that the season might be a 
 delight to our souls, and that the Spirit of Christ 
 would cause us to say, " It is good for us to be 
 here." ^ The minutes before the commencement 
 of the Service would be improved, in pleading 
 the opening promises to penitent sinners : 
 " When the wicked man," &c. * Lord, I am a 
 
 I Song of Solomon, iv. 16. ^ Matt. xvii. 4. 
 
248 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 wicked man ; my thoughts^ my words, my acts, 
 are wicked ; but I desire to turn away from my 
 wickedness, and to do that which thy holy law 
 approves; turn me, O Lord, and I shall be 
 turned 5 and ^^ save " my '' soul alive/' ' Filled 
 with this penitent concern, with what interest 
 and advantage would the minister begin his 
 address, more especially inviting his people to 
 the confession of sin ; and with what heartfelt 
 humility in the presence of the God and Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of each other, 
 would they join in the " General Confession ! " 
 after the '^ Absolution," with what peculiar 
 meaning, as expressive of " the Communion of 
 Saints," would the Lord's prayer open, " Our 
 Father," the Father of all saints, of the whole 
 Church of believers upon earth, for which we 
 pray, that it may embrace every living soul, 
 '^ thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven I " 
 with what holy energy would the minister utter, 
 '^ O Lord, open thou our lips," and the people 
 answer, " and our mouth shall shew forth thy 
 praise ! " and after the intermediate sentences, 
 with what appropriate exultation would they 
 repeat, " O come let us sing unto the Lord, let 
 us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salva- 
 tion ! " Each psalm, as the Service proceeded, 
 would find a corresponding character of prayer 
 or praise in our hearts ; each lesson would be 
 read, according to its peculiar character of simple 
 narrative, earnest conversation, authoritative 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 249 
 
 precept, or encouraging promise ; rejecting 
 equally the pompous and turgid manner, as 
 the indifferent and negligent. And after each 
 portion of God's holy word, what heartfelt bursts 
 of praise for the same would find expression in 
 the respective songs of praise ? ^' We praise 
 thee, O God," and '^ O be joyful in the Lord 
 all ye lands/' The Creed would then be the 
 concurrent confession of faith of each individual 
 in the Congregation ; and " I believe," issuing 
 with grateful acknowledgment from each par- 
 ticular Christian, would declare the united faith 
 of the Church. And after a solemn pause, how 
 would minister and people provoke each other 
 to renewed devotion ; the minister affectionately 
 and pointedly pronouncing this blessing on the 
 people, " The Lord be with you," and the people 
 returning the blessing, " and with thy spirit !"^ 
 It is unnecessary to add more ; enough has been 
 said, to show that on the above interpretation, 
 with the aid of the Holy Ghost, a new character 
 would be given to " the assembling of ourselves 
 together," and that public worship among us, 
 instead of being the cold and formal thing it is 
 
 ' I have seen this done with most awakening effect : after the 
 Creed, the minister made a pause which was evidently felt : 
 then with a voice and manner of affectionate earnestness, he 
 resumed the attention of his people to prayer, by wishing them 
 the presence of the Spirit, and the people acknowledged the 
 blessing, by praying that the Holy Spirit might be with their 
 minister's spirit in return. 
 
 M 5 
 
250 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 too often at present, without intelligence and 
 therefore without enjoyment, would then be a 
 ^^ blessed company of faithful people/' enjoying 
 the privileges of divine communion in all the 
 rich and varied devotion afforded by our Church. 
 Religion being felt as a reasonable service, — an 
 intelligible service, would, with God's blessing, 
 be a spiritual service also. No man can enjoy 
 what he does not understand. But let this 
 interpretation of our Baptismal Service once 
 be carried into general practice, and maintain 
 its own proper place in our worship, and a 
 luminous intelligence would pervade our whole 
 Liturgy, which, with the blessing of the Spirit, 
 would convince every worshipper of the reality 
 of '^ the Communion of the Saints,'* by his 
 own individual experience of the blessings 
 which that communion was actually bestow- 
 ing on himself. The Church of * England 
 w^ould then exhibit The Beauty of Holiness 
 indeed. 
 
 So administered, and so felt, would the Ser- 
 vices of our Church be any longer complained 
 of as tedious and tiresome ! 
 
 Another advantage arising from this in- 
 terpretation of our Baptismal Service would 
 spring directly from that above stated : for the 
 blessings of the " Communion of Saints " being 
 once felt, we should naturally be desirous 
 of cultivating them, by — a more frequp:nt 
 observance of the means of grace. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 251 
 
 Men are in public what they are first in 
 private ; and " where was public virtue to be 
 found where private was not ?" Closet duties 
 would be more attended to ; and closet piety^ 
 the piety of the heart, communion with God 
 in meditation and prayer more encouraged. 
 Religious knowledge would then consist, not 
 in the stores derived from a multiplicity of books 
 merely ; but in that heavenly possession the 
 WORD OF God, made our own by meditation 
 and spiritual digestion, dwelling in us richly, 
 and flowing out in a blessed benignity of word 
 and act to all around us ; and every Christian 
 would then exhibit that best literature which 
 Herbert ascribes to a minister, " The Parson's 
 library is a holy life.'' It would be knowledge 
 diffusing itself in a holy experience of peace 
 and love. Our houses would present means 
 of grace, not only in the stated meeting of the 
 family for purposes of devotion, but every meal 
 would be a means of grace ; the topics of 
 conversation receiving a divine tendency and 
 complexion from the holy principles within. 
 All the subjects of human art and science, and 
 that master-subject as toman, political economy 
 combined with history, being all secondary and 
 subservient to the one grand design, the ad- 
 vancement of human happiness and the glory 
 of God in the establishment of the Redeemer's 
 kingdom on earth. How delightful would social 
 intercourse then be, when " they that feared 
 
252 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the Lord spake often one to another/' ^ and the 
 subject of their conversation was, how they 
 might most 'Het" their "light shine before 
 men,'^ that thus seeing their " good works "** 
 they might " glorify " their " Father which is 
 in Heaven ! '' " And what praise would then be 
 of God in " the great Congregation ! " We 
 could not then consent to confine our Church 
 assemblies to one day in the week ; every day 
 must then be refreshed by at least one public 
 Service in the parochial church. It is evident that 
 the advantages of a holy communion would be 
 ever endeavouring to enlarge and lo perpetuate 
 themselves ; and this could alone be done, under 
 God, by presenting religion more frequently and 
 more attractively to the people. Five times 
 in the day, it is said, does the Mowedden as- 
 cend the minaret of the mosque and call the 
 Mohammedans to prayers. The Roman Catho- 
 lics are ever presenting the exterior of religion 
 to their people : the churches are open during 
 a great part of the day either for public service, 
 or the admission of private worshippers 5 the 
 bells are addressing the ear, the host or the 
 crucifix the eye ; and in some form or other the 
 exterior of their religion meets the senses of 
 their worshippers. And has it not a deadening 
 and infidel effect upon our Protestant popula- 
 tion, that during six days of the week, religion 
 
 > Mai. iii. 16. « Matt. v. 16. 
 
>-^-^-e.:g= 
 
 THIS INTERPRETATION. \:\ 853 
 
 is^ with us, almost excluded from our view x^^ 77 1 
 except in some Towns the bells ringing for 
 prayers on two days in the week ; an occasional 
 toll at the death or burial of a neighbour, or the 
 place of worship, or the house or the person 
 of the minister, reminding us of religious 
 ministrations ? The infrequency of our public 
 meetings for worship, is both the evidence and 
 cause of our present low condition of spiritual 
 communion. Provision is made in our Liturgy 
 for morning and evening Service on every day 
 of the year : and, as it is easy to see, that, with 
 the decline of this practice, vital godliness has 
 declined among us, so it is as easy to see that 
 with the adoption of this practice, or of that 
 which approximates to it, the establishment 
 of weekly lectures in the church, or religious 
 assemblies in private, vital godliness is on the 
 increase among us. Without the means of grace, 
 we cannot expect grace to abound ; and did we 
 value '^ the Communion of Saints,^' the principal 
 means of that communion would necessarily be 
 cultivated. Again our churches would be opened 
 daily 5 and the Church at this day would re- 
 semble that of old, of which it is said, ^^ they 
 were continually in the temple praising and 
 blessing God.''^ 
 
 Such was the practice of our Reformers : and 
 if we would have the times of the Reformers we 
 
 ' Luke xxiv. 53. 
 
254 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 must have the Reformers' principles, and the 
 Reformers* practice. 
 
 I know it may be said, that the industry and 
 energies of the country are so occupied in trade 
 and agriculture at this day, that it would be a 
 vain attempt to reduce the people to this prac- 
 tice of our ancestors. But is not this rather the 
 voice of avarice, clamorous to engross every 
 portion of time for human exertion, except that 
 portion which is absolutely necessary to main- 
 tain and recruit it ? It is a most fatal mistake in 
 a Christian country, to suppose that national 
 wealth and national prosperity are synonimous 
 terms. A visit to our manufacturing districts 
 would soon dissipate this delusion in every un- 
 prejudiced mind ; where it is but too evident, 
 that human prudence and human happiness bear 
 no proportion to excessive wages and exorbitant 
 means. ^ Less wealth and more piety, by dimi- 
 
 * An incident that has happened this day, (Feb. 23, 1827.) 
 while I am preparing the above for the press, will amply illus- 
 trate my meaning. A poor Irish woman with a child at her 
 , breast, while applying at my door for relief, sunk down in a 
 state of utter exliaustion. On recovering she declared that she 
 had been without food for four-and-twenty hours, that her 
 husband was too ill to work, and that the family was starving. 
 On visiting them, I found them in the most squalid condition of 
 pauperism ; the man disabled from disease, the room destitute, 
 cheerless, and dirty, and the children filthy and unmanageable. 
 On inquiry I found that the man, when in health, could earn 
 from twenty to thirty shillings per week, that his wife was a 
 Protestant, and he a Roman Catholic ; that he had been in 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 255 
 
 nishing temptation on the one hand, and supply- 
 ing means of moral amelioration on the other, 
 would make them a far happier population than 
 they are. Never let it be forgotten for a moment, 
 while human happiness is the subject of our 
 consideration, that it is Christianity alone which 
 sets up a due standard of civilization -, a standard, 
 
 England eight years, but that neither of them had attended 
 any place of worship, not having been able to purchase decent 
 clothes. On informing the man, that on the lowest calculation 
 of his earnings, he had an income of £52 per annum, which 
 with a wife and two children should not only have enabled 
 him to live in comfort, but also to have laid up a reserve for 
 sickness, in a Savings' Bank ; he seemed quite astonished. The 
 fact was, that brutish ignorance had begotten improvidence, and 
 improvidence pauperism. His want was that of a spiritual 
 principle to have taught him those habits which should have 
 improved his means. Christ crucified, received into the hearts 
 of this couple, as the seed of spiritual life, would have elevated 
 them and their family from a state of degradation little better 
 than that of the brute, and have induced those habits which 
 would have provided thenv with every necessary comfort here, 
 and eternal happiness hereafter. But no such sound had 
 reached them ; for they were living in a dense population, 
 where in each apartment was a family, and in a parish con- 
 sisting of nearly forty-thousand persons. Is it either policy 
 or justice to go on, as we do, transporting and hanging such 
 a population ? Surely their pitiable ignorance demands 
 rather the aggressive kindness of a domiciliary visit from th€ 
 unwearied perseverance of a Christian minister to enlighten 
 them with holy principles, than the unsparing rigour of an 
 inflictive jurisprudence to punish them for offences which 
 they have scarcely been taught to consider such, and to the 
 commission of which not a few of them have been regularly 
 trained from their infancy. 
 
256 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 which is as far removed from the fastidiousness 
 of an excessive refinement, as it is from the 
 rudeness of a ferocious barbarism ; and that a 
 pause in the midst of the hurry and distraction 
 of business, which our Church proposes in the 
 morning and evening Services of each day, while 
 it broke through the engrossment of worldly 
 habits, and tempered the keenness of secular 
 pursuits, would also sanctify our daily occupa- 
 tion, '^and, with God's blessing, introduce holy 
 principles and practices into the ordinary com- 
 merce of life. Trade and agriculture have 
 nothing in them more peculiarly repulsive to a 
 holy communion than any other modification 
 of human agency in which the life of man is 
 past, and by which his well-being is promoted : 
 but as they aiFord a large field for the display 
 of avarice and selfishness, every day's experience 
 but too evidently proves that they need the 
 powerful counteracting influence of grace to 
 moderate and restrain them. So far then are 
 our increased energies from being a reason that 
 the frequent religious assemblies of our ances- 
 tors should be discontinued, that thev are in fact 
 a more urgent reason for their renewal ; since 
 if the world has indeed so fully engrossed our 
 attention, the everlasting welfare of our souls 
 demands a proportionate counteraction. ^ 
 
 * The comparative condition of the manufacturing and the 
 agricultural labourer has a strong claim on the most patient 
 consideration of the political economist. The one seems to 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 257 
 
 But it may be said, you could not prevail on 
 the people to attend ; the Service would be per- 
 formed to bare walls. I do not believe that this 
 objection would hold long, if the privileges of 
 " the Communion of the Saints'^ were practically 
 exhibited, and the real Gospel of mercy and 
 peace were offered in all its attractive loveliness. 
 If, in addition to the prayers, a familiar expo- 
 sition of some portion of Scripture were orderly 
 given, say, a Gospel or Epistle, or a book of the 
 Prophets, the minister opening the spiritual sense 
 of the words in one continuous explanation, by 
 
 have risen to the attainment of luxuries unfit for his condition^ 
 while the other has in proportion, been sinking into a state 
 of pauperism which admits of little more than necessaries^ if it 
 can indeed be said to admit even of them. Excessive wages 
 have elevated the one to luxuries which corrupt him ; defective 
 wages have depressed the other to dependence and pauperism, 
 which deprive him of industrious effort under the pressure 
 of despair. It seems clear that the most commanding state 
 of commerce is not national prosperity, if that prosperity be 
 measured, as it should be, by the general well-being of the 
 community. Much less is national wealth national security. 
 Where is Tyre ? Where is Babylon, " the glory of kingdoms, 
 the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency," with its " head 
 of gold?" Where are all the empires which succeeded it? 
 Fallen — and that, not because they were not rich, but because 
 their moral bore no proportion to their temporal wealth. And 
 if England would enjoy either prosperity or security, she must, 
 with her quarterly returns of revenue, adopt a quarterly return 
 of morals also. Wealth, untempered by morality, can but 
 produce excess ; and excess, by corrupting the moral resources 
 of a people, has been the grand destroyer of all the nations that 
 have preceded us, as history amply testifies. — Aug. 1825. 
 
258 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 which, in course of time, the whole sense of the 
 complete Bible were laid before the people ; and 
 if this exposition were accompanied by an 
 interesting, short, and pithy extemporaneous 
 application, familiarly and affectionately brought 
 home to their respective bosom and business ; 
 and thus the whole Service rendered interesting 
 and impressive, — might we not hope that the 
 Holy Spirit would acknowledge this renewed 
 spiritual agency with his blessing, and induce 
 such an attendance as would soon evidence that 
 the minister had not run in the path of his 
 forefathers in vain. 
 
 Two striking advantages would result from 
 this practice, the first to the ministry : for let 
 this habit of familiar exposition but once prevail 
 among us, and the unnatural and unsocial, and 
 therefore uninteresting practice of written ser- 
 mons would gradually cease 5 and extempora- 
 neous expression once become habitual, would 
 also become familiar and easy. Is it not by 
 listening to a graceless fastidiousness, and to 
 that corrupt taste and scholastic frigidity which 
 prefer correctness to effect, that the ministry 
 of our national Church, probably the best quali- 
 fied of any national ministry in the world, has, 
 for the last hundred and sixty years at least, by 
 departing from the truth and simplicity of our 
 ancestors, been condemned to comparative in- 
 efficiency ? One of our Reformers, himself a 
 Bishop, asks, " should one sermon every day be 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 259 
 
 too much for a godly Bishop and evangelical 
 preacher ? ^^ ^ It is evident that he cannot mean 
 a written sermon 5 for such a labour, in addition 
 to his ordinary engagements, would exceed the 
 powers of the most able and industrious. It is this 
 habit of exposition doubtless to which he refers. 
 
 And as it would benefit the ministry, so 
 secondly, in no small degree would it benefit 
 the people. It would interest their best sense 
 
 * The whole passage, from Bishop Hooper, is so much in 
 point that I subjoin it. " Exercise and diligence bring credit 
 unto religion, whether it be true or false. For it never taketh 
 place nor root in the people without diligence, as it is to be 
 perceived by the acts and gestes done in the time of Jeroboam 
 and Rehoboam, the kings of Israel and Judah. 
 
 " What brought the mass and all other idolatry into estima- 
 tion, but daily preaching and saying thereof, wiih such laud 
 and praise as every old wife knew what a mass was worth ? 
 Fifteen masses in a church daily were not too many for the 
 priests of Baal, and should one sermon every day be too much 
 for a godly Bishop and evangelical preacher ? I wonder how 
 it may be too much opened and declared unto the people ? 
 If any man say, labour is left and men's business lieth undone 
 by that means, surely it is ungodly spoke : for those that bear 
 the people in hand of such things, know right well that there 
 was neither labour, care, need, necessity, nor any thing else 
 that heretofore would keep them from hearing of mass, though 
 it had been said at four of the clock in the morning. Therefore 
 as far as I can see, people were contented to lose more labour, 
 and spend more time, t^en to go to the devil, than now to 
 come to God ; but my faith is, that both master and servant 
 shall find the advantage they gain thereby at the year's end, 
 though they hear morning sermon and morning prayers every 
 day of the week." Fathers, &c. vol. v. pp. 210, 211. 
 
260 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 and their best feelings ; it would convince them 
 that religion was something more than the 
 exclusive business of the Sabbath j it would 
 show them that it was the business of every 
 day^ the great leading concern of life, which 
 should regulate all its interests, and mingle 
 with all its employments. It w^ould help much, 
 also, to do away distinctions, and names, 
 and parties. By this continuous explanation 
 of Scripture, the whole Bible, in all its doctrines 
 and precepts, in all its faith and practice, would 
 be offered to them : they w^ould not then take a 
 partial view of it, as they must do at present, 
 from having it proposed to them in scraps and 
 detached texts ; but Scripture would be seen in 
 its integrity, an integrity w^hich as it is its 
 main perfection, so it is almost impossible to 
 present in one or two sermons, that is, discussions 
 of single texts, as now represented on one day 
 in the week. Party names would cease, and 
 partial views of truth would be corrected as 
 the detached text merged in the self-expository 
 context, and each several portion maintained its 
 appropriate bearing in the consistency of truth : 
 so that sermons would not be so much dry and 
 didactic statements, conveying mere knowledge 
 tothe understanding, as experimental expositions 
 of Scripture truth, exhibiting with the words 
 and meaning, the simplicity and spirituality 
 of the sacred page, for the edification as well as 
 instruction of " the Communion of the Saints. '^ 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION 261 
 
 Once interest the heart and you gain the man : 
 once make him feel the blessedness of a holy com- 
 munion, and it would be no question whether he 
 would cultivate its privileges. Let the doors of 
 our churches be thrown open daily, and the above 
 desirable mode of worship introduced, and it 
 would be seen, that an interesting worship 
 would, with the blessing of the Spirit, obtain an 
 interested audience ; and the privileges of '^ the 
 Communion of the Saints " being once felt, a 
 due estimate of them would provide the means 
 of maintaining and establishing themselves. The 
 Sacraments would then indeed be justly appre- 
 ciated, and new Baptisms would daily be hailed 
 with pleasure. But can we wonder. My Dear 
 Friend, at our present low state of Church-com- 
 munion, when such contracted public means are 
 observed to support it ? This " forsaking the 
 assembling of ourselves together, as " our " man- 
 ner is," must be corrected, either by resorting to 
 the daily public worship of our ancestors, or 
 by the establishment of more frequent weekly 
 lectures, if we would witness that communion, 
 which must distinguish the latter-day glory of the 
 Church, to which it seems to be an act of Chris- 
 tian duty to " exhort one another, and so much 
 the more as " we " see the day approaching.'* 
 
 Another advantage attending this inter- 
 pretation of our Baptismal Service, would be — 
 
 THE GIVli^G TO EACH SACRAMENT THAT HONOUR 
 WHICH IS ITS DUE. 
 
262 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 It is but too evident from the degraded con- 
 dition to which the public Baptism of Infants 
 is reduced among us, that this Sacrament is 
 deprived of its just estimation. And it appears 
 to me to be equally evident that as the one 
 Sacrament is unduly depressed, the other is 
 unduly elevated ; so that while the one is re- 
 ceiving less than its due, the other is receiving 
 more. In our old churches, by which, I mean 
 those*' built before the Restoration, the font 
 enjoyed a distinguished station towards the 
 entrance of the church ; emblematically inti- 
 mating, no doubt, the entrance and initiation 
 of the baptised into the Church at the ad- 
 ministration of the Sacrament of Baptism. 
 And to this hour, in many of our country 
 churches particularly, the broad and solid block 
 of stone, let deep into the floor, where it has 
 preserved its station for ages, upholding a short 
 and rude column of granite, which supports, as 
 a capital, a heavy mass of the same, presenting 
 a spacious font sufficiently ample to contain the 
 body of a child, according to the option of im- 
 mersion or affusion granted by our rubric, — has 
 maintained the indisputable rights, and initi- 
 atory claims of the Sacrament of Baptism, by 
 maintaining its situation immediately opposite 
 to the principal door of the church. But in 
 many churches, built and repaired since the 
 Restoration, the font has lost this distinguished 
 place at the principal entrance: it has been 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 263 
 
 removed from that conspicuous spot where it 
 challenged observation^ and placed out of sight 
 under the gallery, or condemned to yet more 
 hopeless seclusion in some unfrequented part 
 of the edifice. In many churches, in and near 
 the metropolis, this is strikingly the case ; in one 
 of which, as I was lately officiating as God- 
 father to the child of a friend, I could not but 
 lament the cheerless character of the Service, 
 compared with what it ought to be. There 
 were none present, I think, besides the neces- 
 sary attendants ; the font was placed in a dark 
 corner under the gallery, in a pew close to the 
 vestry : it was only within the church 3 and it 
 occurred to me, that Baptismal degradation 
 wanted but two more removes of the font to 
 make the Sacrament itself a complete nullity, 
 or indeed to get rid of its public administration 
 altogether : the first was from the church into 
 the vestry ; the next from the vestry into the 
 lumber room, among the fi-agments of brooms 
 and hassocks, and all that was discarded and ob- 
 solete. And indeed. My Dear Friend, unless the 
 Sacrament of Baptism be restored to its honours, 
 — an event, which nothing, as it appears to me, 
 but the practical assertion of the above inter- 
 pretation can, humanly speaking, effect, — what 
 but the mere civil requisitions of a Christian 
 name and a Baptismal register, can prevent it 
 from utter extinction as a public Sacrament 
 of the Church ? The real advantages of Baptism 
 
264 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 seem to be so indistinctly understood, that the 
 mere observance of the ceremony can hardly 
 be expected to preserve it from oblivion. 
 Cheaply as its spiritual blessings are estimated, 
 divest it but of its civil distinctions, and our 
 Papal regard for a ceremony is scarcely so 
 intense, as to encourage the expectation, that 
 the ceremony itself would long survive the 
 invasion of indifference, and negligence, and 
 desuetude, and unbelief to reduce it as a pub- 
 lic act to utter annihilation. 
 
 It is not a little observable that this Sacra- 
 ment has been losing its honours, as its fellow 
 Sacrament has been obtaining an excessive 
 regard. The Sacrament of the body and blood 
 of our Saviour Christ, is known in our church by 
 its distinctive title, " The Communion.'" And 
 it has received this title doubtless, as affording 
 the richest act of communion that the saints 
 can hold either with their Saviour or with each 
 other. The more lively apprehensions they 
 entertain of the sufferings and sacrifice of their 
 Redeemer, the more is their love increased 
 both towards him and all who are his. As this 
 Sacrament then shows forth in so lively a man- 
 ner the " death" of Christ " till he come; " ^ 
 " if there be any consolation in Christ, if any 
 comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, 
 if any bowels and mercies/' ^ if any holy sym- 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 26. « Phil. ii. 1. 
 
THIS INTERPRETION. 265 
 
 pathy, if any real ^^ Communion of the Saints," 
 this Sacrament must form the grand attractive 
 medium of holy joy, and spiritual intercourse. 
 Where then can the table which contains the 
 elements of this holy communion stand with 
 greater propriety than in the centre of the Con- 
 gregation in the body of the church ? As the 
 font standing at the entrance of the church is 
 the intelligible emblem of initiation into the 
 communion ; so the table of consecrated elements 
 exhibiting the common centre of all spiritual 
 communion, Christ crucified, would stand with 
 emblematic propriety in the midst of the Con- 
 gregation. This seems to have been its position 
 in the ancient Church ; i and from the period 
 of the Reformation, to that when it was removed 
 to its present situation at the east of the edifice, 
 it seems to have maintained the same in our 
 Church. I am aware. My Dear Friend, that 
 the position of a font or a communion table 
 may appear to be attended with very trivial 
 effects, so trivial indeed as to be undeserving 
 of notice: but he knows little of our common 
 nature, who does not see that sentiments are 
 often shaped by external things ; and that while 
 abstractedly considered, the location of a font or 
 
 2 Mr. Gilly, in his interesting account of the Vaudois 
 Church, says of the church of La Torre ; " I did not observe 
 any division to answer the description of a chancel : the com- 
 munion table stands directly in front of the pulpit, and the 
 pulpit is placed near the centre of the church," p. 107. 
 
 N 
 
266 ^ ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 a table may signify nothing, yet that relatively 
 considered it signifies much. For as the re- 
 moval of the font from the entrance of the 
 church has deprived the initiatory Sacrament 
 of its publicity, and thereby of its meaning and 
 import ; so the undue elevation of the table 
 of communion from the centre of the Congre- 
 gation to a remote and isolated spot, has, in the 
 minds of many, really altered the character 
 of the Sacrament of " The communion," and 
 elevated it into an " altar," to be venerated, not 
 as the familiar emblem of Gospel communion, 
 vi^here " the king sits at his table " ^ and the 
 ^^ spikenard " of holy graces diffuses itself 
 from and over the whole blessed company that 
 encircle it ;/ but rather as an altar attended by 
 an unintelligible presence of deity, inspiring 
 distance and terror into an awe-struck devotee. 
 The mischief is practical; the complexion of 
 the Sacrament is altered to common apprehen- 
 sion : for the Spirit of adoption manifesting 
 itself in filial confidence, and peace, and love, 
 which is the peculiar character of the Gospel, 
 is exchanged for the hesitation, and reserve, and 
 distrust of the Law. In "The Communion," 
 perfect love casteth out " fear ; " in the Sacra- 
 ment of " the altar, " the spirit of bondage 
 generates " fear," I am not aware that in any 
 part of our Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, " the 
 
 » Song of Sol. i. 12. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 267 
 
 altar " as synonymous with ^^ The communion " 
 once occurs. From the Communion Service 
 itself it seems to be guardedly excluded ; it is 
 there called ^^ the holy table" and in the rubric 
 " the Lord's table/' and the elements upon it 
 are " creatures of bread and wine :" it knows no 
 other sacrifice, than that of the Eucharist^ '^ our 
 sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving/' founded 
 on the sacrifice of Christ once made on the 
 altar of the '^ cross, — who rffade there (by 
 his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, 
 perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and 
 satisfaction for the sins of the whole world,'' and 
 the grateful sacrifice of ourselves for the same. 
 The " Companion " appointed to lead us " to 
 the Altar " savours strongly of the rigour and 
 severity of the Law : and the " The New Week's 
 Preparation " to be observed before the attend- 
 ance on " the altar," implies a state of soul 
 which is rather an exception to the walk of a 
 child of adoption, than that habitual grace, and 
 continual holiness of spirit which he is desirous 
 to cultivate, so as to be ready for prayer, or 
 praise, or Sacraments, or means, every hour 
 of his life. The practical difference between 
 *^ The Communion " and " The altar " is wide 
 indeed; it is just the difference between the 
 Law and the Gospel. In the one we see the 
 coldness of alienation, in the other, the confi- 
 dence of affinity ; in the one, we are " strangers 
 and foreigners " approaching with the appre- 
 
 N 2 
 
268 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 liension of distrust; in the btlier, we enjoy the 
 familiarity of the child assured of our Father's 
 "favour and goodness towards us." I offer 
 these remarks on the almost superstitious ob- 
 servance witl} which the one Sacrament is often 
 unduly regarded, not with any view of inno- 
 vation, but to illustrate the indifference and 
 neglect with which the other is unjustly dis- 
 regarded. As the table has approached the one 
 end of the church, the font seems to have ap- 
 proached the other; and the undue elevation 
 of the one has been accompanied with the undue 
 degradation of the other. But let the above 
 interpretation of our Baptismal Service prevail, 
 and the font would resume its station of initiatory 
 publicity; and, with it, the Sacrament of Bap- 
 tism be admitted to the honours which it justly 
 claims : with the blessing of God, the reception 
 of the Child into the Church would become a 
 Congregational act, and all might sympathise 
 in a rite which was presented to the eye of all. 
 
 Another advantage necessarily resulting 
 from the practical admission of the above inter- 
 pretation would be THE REFORMATION OF OUR 
 
 Ecclesiastical Polity. 
 
 A renewed state of discipline must necessarily 
 spring from a well-understood and well-experi- 
 enced "Communion of the Saints:" and this 
 would be the principle of it. " Personal commu- 
 nion would be the measure of ministerial respon- 
 sibilityw" I have often admired the beautiful 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 269 
 
 theory of our discipline, and have perhaps as often 
 deplored the failure of it in practice. I cannot 
 conceive any arrangement more perfect than the 
 division of the whole land into parishes, each un- 
 der a resident Minister ; a given number of these 
 Ministers forming a deanery presided over by a 
 Rural Dean ; the Rural Dean responsible to the 
 Archdeacon : thr Arch-deacon accountable to the 
 Bishop of the diocese ; and the Bishop to the 
 Arch-bishop of the province. Here is a theory 
 of order beautiful and complete ; combining the 
 whole land in one harmonious system of eccle- 
 siastical polity. But it is evident that beautiful 
 as the theory is, without the constant application 
 of a principle which shall preserve the limits of 
 each department, and which shall provide for 
 the needful accommodation of the system to the 
 growing necessities of the population, such a 
 polity may retain the name of order, without 
 possessing that efficient reality in which genuine 
 order consists. And the practical defect of this 
 principle, as I apprehend, amply accounts for 
 the pastoral provision of the country being so 
 disproportionate to the spiritual wants of the 
 people at this day. For had there been such a 
 self-renewing principle applied, ecclesiastical 
 ministrations would have arisen as the popula- 
 tion of the country was increasing. Now this 
 principle our Church possesses in the above 
 interpretation of our Baptismal Service ; and I 
 cannot but think, that it is for want of applying 
 
 N 3 
 
270 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 that interpretation in practice^ that our present 
 ecclesiastical provision is so altogether inade- 
 quate to the demands of the people. For once 
 regard onr Church as a " Communion of Saints," 
 and the principle establishes itself, that '^ per- 
 sonal communion must be the measure of minis- 
 terial responsibility/' Admit the validity of this 
 principle, and no man will- be required to accept 
 a charge, the extent of which exceeds the utmost 
 effort of human industry and ability : and when 
 the charge does exceed that ability, each parti- 
 cular instance of that excess, will call the prin- 
 ciple into action to meet the occasion. 
 
 Let us apply this principle then to our pa- 
 rishes. Say, that, when a minister is first 
 placed over a parish, it consists of a thousand 
 persons, a number with which he may hold per-^ 
 sonal communion ; that it is his object to know 
 every individual of his flock, and that by public 
 ministrations and pastoral visits, he has a com- 
 petent acquaintance with his people. Say, that 
 the population in course of time amounts to two 
 thousand; a number, with which no one man, 
 with the unceasing devotion of all his energies 
 to the pastoral w^ork, could hope to hold per- 
 sonal communion in any satisfactory manner, 
 without a well-arranged and active auxiliary 
 system of church-wardens, sidesmen, and over- 
 seers, who would not only attend to the tempo- 
 ral wants of the people, but the spiritual also. 
 With such an auxiliary system perhaps such a 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 271 
 
 number at the utmost might be committed to 
 one minister. When this population, by con- 
 tinuing to increase^ exceeded the ability of the 
 pastor to hold personal communion with each 
 individual^ and that excess amounted to a given 
 number, or the health of the incumbent was 
 insufficient for his charge, a curate might then 
 be appointed. And when that excess amounted 
 to a population of one thousand, an independent 
 pastoral charge might then take place, the parish 
 be divided, and a second minister appointed. 
 Admit but the above principle of the necessity 
 of *^ personal communion in pastoral charge," 
 and ministerial agency would increase as the 
 spiritual wants of the people increased. It is 
 clear, that, as the personal communion of the 
 minister is felt, his character as a minister is 
 felt and acknowledged and maintained ; but 
 when this ceases, sympathy ceases ; and where 
 there is no sympathy there is no interest. A 
 Church, the blessings of which are not felt, can 
 be but little prized ; and hence, I apprehend, 
 the prevailing indifference of so large a portion 
 of our population to the Established Church. 
 Nor does it appear to me that any act of legis- 
 lation, or any effort of human prudence, can 
 restore our Church to the place which she should 
 hold in the affections of the people, till the above 
 principle is practically carried into effect. As- 
 suredly the division of a parish amounting in 
 population to sixty or forty thousands into four 
 
i 
 
 272 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 parishes is but a faint approach to effectual ame- 
 lioration : and if the mother Church should in any 
 case retain the right of Baptism, the very seed of 
 pastoral and Congregational communion being 
 wanting, such communion cannot reasonably be 
 expected. The most certain mode of increasing 
 the indifference of the people to theEstablishment 
 is to crush that communion in its principle, and 
 to do away one of the most winning and affecting 
 modes of connecting the minister with his people. 
 And must not the necessary consequence of such 
 a system be the rapid diminution of popular 
 respect for this Sacrament, when we allow for 
 the ignorance and lukewarmness and infidelity 
 of so large a population, which can never be 
 expected to encounter the distance and the diffi- 
 culties of bringing the child to the church ? A 
 field, the size of which exceeds the ability of the 
 cultivator, must be partially barren. And as the 
 means of cultivation diminish, the barrenness 
 must proportionably increase. To preserve a 
 Church from decline, it is necessary to have a prin- 
 ciple in action which with a growing community 
 shall provide a growing communion. Such a 
 principle, with the blessing of the Spirit upon it, 
 is, as I apprehend, provided by our Church in the 
 above interpretation of our Baptismal Service. 
 Adopt it, and you set an engine in motion which 
 on the ground of the divine promise, shall reno- 
 vate human society, and remedy the very defects 
 of which we are at this moment complaining. 
 
k 
 
 THIS INTERPRETATION. 273 
 
 If it should be asked, from whence is the 
 support of so large a supply of ministers to be 
 derived ? I reply, that, let but this personal 
 communion be indeed a spiritual communion 
 between the minister and his people, and it 
 might be hoped that a respectable support 
 would not be wanting : or should that be the 
 case at first, a part might be supplied by the 
 State, the cheapest as well as the happiest 
 application which it could make of its funds 5 
 the improved condition of society under such a 
 system, producing so great a saving of national 
 expenditure in legal process, civil officers, jails, 
 transportation, foreign colonies for transport^, 
 and all the outlay in the provision of penal 
 inflictions, that the comparative advantages 
 would fully justify this application of the funds.^ 
 Let " personal communion be the measure of 
 pastoral charge;'' and society would then 
 receive so decided a moral amelioration, that 
 the most inveterate infidel, from the necessity 
 of supporting his own both private and public 
 welfare, could not but support the Establishment. 
 To grudge at upholding such a state of things, 
 would be to grudge at upholding his own com- 
 forts. O that statesmen would be but just to 
 
 * Let this communion be once felt, and there would be a 
 fund provided and supported by Christian zeal in every 
 deanery or diocese for the supply of competent Curates to 
 the aged, the infirm, or the over-charged incumbent as occa- 
 sion might require. 
 
 N 5 
 
274 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 their own principles ! for if religion be admitted 
 to be good for a State, it must, as the chief 
 good, be a blessing as it reaches its highest 
 attainable point of perfection : and, as to derive 
 one shilling to the support of the State from 
 any source which demoralizes the principles 
 of the people, is the grossest impolicy, as it is 
 in fact to increase the difficulties we would 
 remove; so to withhold support from that which 
 has an evident tendency to moralize and improve 
 them, is a policy which can but impoverish, and 
 a saving which must terminate in penury. 
 
 It is unnecessary to proceed any further in 
 the illustration of our principle ; let it only 
 operate with respect to our parishes, and all the 
 superior gradations of our ecclesiastical order 
 would receive its vivifying influence. Each 
 deanery would then feel the influence of its 
 Rural Dean,^ and be measured by his ability to 
 
 ^ Should the day of the above desirable state of communion 
 ever arrive, the office of Rural Dean would be found one of the 
 most efficient links in the polity of our Church. Bishop 
 Brownrigg in his answer to Baxter [Life and Times, p. 175.] 
 on church government says, " Tliis proposal looks like our 
 Rural Deaneries, or Choriepiscopal Order, which hath been 
 laid much aside, but for the reducing of it, and to make it 
 profitable, I wish that it may be bounded with fit canons 
 prescribing what they may do, and with intimation from the 
 Bishop and his inspection, and that such a Dean or President 
 may be continued for life, that being a means to breed expe- 
 rience, if he do not deserve a removal." Bishop Hall expresses 
 himself as follows. " Instead of their Presbyteries [those 
 of the Church of Scotland] consisting of several pastors, we 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 275 
 
 sustain that influence; the Arch-deacon would 
 reside in the midst of the deaneries over which 
 he presided^ to maintain the necessary personal 
 communion ; the Bishop's diocese would then 
 be limited by the number of Clergy with whom 
 he could hold personal intercourse, and the 
 Archbishop with his diocesan character would 
 fill the tribunal of appeal, and the King be " in all 
 causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, supreme." 
 We may further remark, that this principle 
 when once permitted to operate, would not only 
 be the means of supplying a minister to every 
 growing community, but that it would be attended 
 with the further advantage of supplying places 
 of worship also for the discharge of his minis- 
 trations. It is a question of solemn import with 
 every reflecting man, at this season of our 
 abounding population, what effectual means can 
 be resorted to, to render our supply of churches 
 equal to the demand ? Has the Government any 
 well-arranged plan for this purpose? Has it 
 taken a survey of the country, ascertained the 
 ecclesiastical wants of our population, and 
 
 have our number and combination of Ministers, in the 
 divisions of our several Deaneries ; under which are ranged all 
 the Ministers within that circuit ; over whom the Rural Dean, 
 as he is called, is every year chosen, by the said Ministers of 
 that division, as their moderator for the year ensuing • 
 whose office, if it were carefully looked into, and reduced 
 to the original institution, might be of singular use to God's 
 church." See " A modest offer to — the Assembly of Divines 
 met at Westminster." 
 
276 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 arrived at the decision whether Government can 
 or ought to undertake the supply of those wants 
 or not ? Is it prepared to recommend to the 
 Legislature any feasible plan to be effected by the 
 public purse ? Are the grants already made, the 
 million of one year, the half million of another, 
 and any other sums the Parliament may have 
 contributed to this purpose, parts of a regular 
 system of supply, or are they only occasional 
 and temporary ? Have our ecclesiastical rulers 
 any other mode of relief in contemplation than 
 that of voluntary contributions towards the 
 enlargement of churches and the provision 
 of additional seats ? If there be no system of 
 relief, it is in vain to expect relief: and if there 
 be, and the progress of it, whichwe have already 
 witnessed, is to be considered as a fair sample 
 of its operation ; it is but too evident that, as a 
 measure of supply, it is altogether inadequate to 
 our demands. But indeed. My Dear Friend, I 
 must profess that I entertain no hope that either 
 the efforts of Government or of voluntary So- 
 cieties are at all equal to this undertaking. We 
 have no reason that I am aware of to believe, 
 that our churches throughout the land originally 
 rose from the pecuniary aid of our successive 
 Governments, but in the zeal and voluntary 
 exertions of the people. And let the appeal be 
 but now made to the same voluntary energies, 
 those energies being regulated and encou- 
 raged by certain known legislative securities 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 277 
 
 and privileges^ and should we not wrong the 
 zeal of our present more enlightened population, 
 to doubt, for a moment, that their voluntary 
 exertions would not at least equal those of their 
 Popish ancestors ? Let the appeal be made ; 
 and call this principle of Baptismal regeneration 
 in virtue of the promise into action -, follow it 
 out in persevering practice, and water it with 
 constant prayer ; and probably neither would 
 churches be wanting, nor ministers to officiate 
 in them, nor a considerable support for such 
 ministers, with little other aid from the State 
 than its countenance and protection. Surely 
 the most devoted supporter of our present line 
 of policy, must be far from sanguine of success, 
 while so many impediments are opposed to the 
 religious zeal of the people in raising churches 
 within the Establishment, and so unrestrained 
 a liberty is given to the very same zeal in 
 erecting places of worship among those who 
 are without it. 
 
 Another advantage flowing from the above 
 interpretation, is that — this communion would 
 
 BOTH BEGET UNITY AND PRESERVE IT. 
 
 The Child trained up as a believer in Christ 
 Jesus, practically renouncing the world, the flesh, 
 and the devil, enjoying the articles of faith in his 
 life, and walking in the path of the command- 
 ments as the '' trade" of that life, would feel the 
 reality of his Baptismal privileges. It would be 
 no mere succession of phrases on his lips, but 
 
278 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the vital experience of every day, that he was 
 " a member of Christ, the child of God, and an 
 inheritor of the kingdom of heaven/' The reality 
 of his privileges is the best evidence that he does 
 indeed belong to him, " of whom the whole 
 family in heaven and earth is named." He is a 
 child of this family in the domestic circle, in the 
 neighbourhood, and in the Church; and the 
 acknowledged blessedness of his life convinces 
 him, that he enjoys that unity of heart and sen- 
 timent and privilege, to interrupt which by any 
 dissent which does not arise from imperious 
 necessity, — a necessity arising from violated 
 principle alone, — is a mischief to be deprecated, 
 as depriving him of the most valuable blessing 
 of life. Let any Christian society once possess 
 these privileges, and unity must be the necessary 
 consequence : the advantages of it would be so 
 evident in the improved happiness of mankind ; 
 that dissent from such a communion would be 
 dreaded as high treason against the general 
 interests of the community. The loveliness 
 of such a state of society, would present any 
 approach to disunion as an approach to exclusion 
 from blessings, which each would esteem as his 
 most desirable happiness. Let the members of 
 the Established Church once exhibit this lovely 
 communion, and independence then, would only 
 be another name for exclusion ; it would be 
 exemption from blessing, immunity from union, 
 exception from peace : to be independent then, 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 279 
 
 would be to stand aloof from the highest welfare 
 that man could obtain upon earth. The Metho- 
 dist would then encourage no class distinct from 
 that of the Church, where all is tending to 
 produce one great class, one holy assembly 
 of spiritual unity and love. The Friend would 
 drop his distinctions of language and dress, 
 and find an irresistible argument for the admi- 
 nistration of the Sacrament of Baptism, in the 
 unquestionable blessings which the faithful ad- 
 ministration of that Sacrament is seen to produce. 
 And the Anabaptist would cease from his "many 
 pretences to scorn at the baptism of children,^' 
 and beholding faith actively engaged in applying 
 the promises to the children of believers, the 
 whole education of the child proceeding on this 
 faith, and " the Communion of the saints" sup- 
 plied and maintained by it, would no longer 
 permit " the Church to hazard so many souls by 
 letting them run on till they come to ripeness 
 of understanding, that so they may be converted 
 and then baptized as infidels heretofore have 
 been.^' l And as unity must necessarily be the 
 result of so blessed a condition of society, so 
 uniformity would as necessarily be the result 
 of unity : essentials being the very bond of unity, 
 circumstantials would soon assume their proper 
 bearing and place. There would first be " in 
 necessariis unitas," unity in essentials, as the 
 
 1 Hooker, b. v. 64. 
 
280 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 basis of this communion ; next " in non-neces- 
 sariis libertas/* discretion in things indifferent ; 
 and the heavenly result would be " in omnibus 
 charitas/' a charitable concession and forbear- 
 ance in every questionable point. Uniformity 
 would no more be thought of as the effect of 
 legislative enactments, but the use of a ring, or a 
 surplice, or the observance of a posture being 
 left to every man's discretion, charity would 
 dijcect the use or observance of each, as we could 
 most accommodate ourselves to the taste^the feel- 
 ings, or the prejudices of each other. What tears 
 did charity shed over the scrupulosity of Hooper, 
 in refusing to wear the episcopal robes, and 
 over the intolerant rigour of Ridley, in threat- 
 ening him with the Fleet for such refusal ! 
 What still more bitter tears did she shed over 
 the unyielding spirit that frustrjated the Confer- 
 ence at Hampton Court ; and the enlarged pre- 
 tensions on the one hand, and the contemptuous 
 stiffness on the other, that embittered the Con- 
 ferences at the Savoy ! It is not in discussioiis 
 on uniformity that unity can arise ; but uniformity 
 will arise, without discussion in the establish- 
 ment of unity. Once produce throughout the 
 land " the Communion of Saints," and all forms 
 will sink into their proper estimation and assume 
 their proper place : but once leave them as things 
 indifferent to the discretion of such a communion, 
 and charity would prevent discussion, peace 
 would suggest the most desirable order, and " all 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 281 
 
 who profess and call themselves Christians," 
 being "led into the way of truth," would "hold 
 the faith in unity op spiRrr," and consequently 
 "in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life." 
 Shall I own. My Dear Friend, that my antici- 
 pations of that better season of Gospel harmony 
 and love, the establishment of which is " my 
 heart's desire and prayer to God," ^ are attended 
 with the hope, that at that day dissent will be 
 utterly banished from the Church. Dissent 
 under its best form, and most allowable circum- 
 stances, is to be deprecated as the infringement 
 of unity. Christian love may tolerate it, but 
 Christian love cannot approve it. To walk arm 
 in arm with a Christian friend, enjoying in holy 
 converse the consolations of our common faith, 
 till we arrive at a spot where he must turn into 
 a meeting-house, and I into a church, to engage 
 in the most honourable worship of God, which 
 is that of his assembled saints in the great Con- 
 gregation; in other words, to be separated in 
 that act of Christian communion which most 
 honours God, while it most elevates the soul in 
 prayer and praise, under the richest experience 
 of Church communion, is a state of things which 
 the violated feelings of Christian sympathy can- 
 not look forward to with complacency. The 
 heart must feel a void and confess its dissatisfac- 
 tion, while it laments that forbearance is called 
 
 ' Rom. X. 1, 
 
282 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 upon to tolerate, where a more perfect com- 
 munion anticipated the free enjoyment of undis- 
 senting harmony and love. I am most willing 
 to admit, that dissent has not been unattended 
 with advantages. It has been one means of pre- 
 serving a holy seed among us, and we are 
 greatly indebted to it for the maintenance of our 
 civil and religious liberties ; but then it should 
 be equally admitted, and truth I think demands 
 the admission, that these are not advantages 
 necessarily flowing from dissent; but rather 
 expressions of divine mercy and love, the graci- 
 ous providence of God over-ruling it for the 
 production of good. The evil of disunion is 
 necessary and certain : it is felt as a practical 
 evil in most of our parishes throughout the land. 
 It separates man from man, and Christian from 
 Christian ; it prevents concert, paralyses charit- 
 able effort by distracting both our designs and 
 performances, wastes our means, whether per- 
 sonal, pecuniary, or religious, and reduces the 
 order and moral agency of our admirable paro- 
 chial system to confusion and inefficiency. Could 
 all the decidedly religious in a parish combine 
 with the minister in religious and charitable 
 effort, in resisting abounding iniquity, and en- 
 couraging piety and order, both in public and 
 private ; this " Communion of Saints'' would, 
 under God^ exhibit so real and vital an excel- 
 lence in Christianity that the blessed result could 
 not but be a general conviction of its excellence. 
 
I" 
 
 THIS INTERPRETATION. 283 
 
 It is the devil's own maxim, " Divide and con- 
 quer : " his grand object is to foster disunion^ 
 and to separate that he may destroy. When will 
 our eyes be open to the wide-wasting* malignity 
 of this mischief? When will Churchmen aim at 
 the largest comprehension, by correcting a dis- 
 cipline which they confess to be imperfect, by 
 forbearing to insist on the observance of cere* 
 monies which they allow to be indifferent, and by 
 reforming abuses which they admit to be scanda- 
 lous ? And when w^ill Dissenters abate excessive 
 pretensions, give Churchmen credit for honest 
 intentions, and while they admit the doctrinal ex- 
 cellencies of our Church in essentials, forbear to 
 magnify with uncharitabletriumph her imperfec- 
 tion in circumstantials ? I have no hope that these 
 evils will find any qualification in the means 
 which have been hitherto adopted to correct them ^ 
 It is not in legislative liberality, or in a renewed 
 conference at Hampton Court, or the Savoy, or 
 in volumes of controversial discussion, that I 
 conceive the remedy will originate ; these will 
 either be superseded as unnecessary, or will be 
 the consequence of that better spirit they are 
 undertaken to promote. Once let the Christian 
 community at large but feel the practical bless- 
 edness of that ^^ Communion of Saints " which 
 our Church proposes in her Baptismal Service, 
 and in all her consequent formularies, and, the 
 end being obtained, the means which have been 
 hitherto adopted must necessarily cease. 
 
284 ADVANTAOES OF 
 
 And are we making no approach to this blessed 
 concord ? The signs of the times convince me 
 that we are. Are not serious men aiming at 
 the same object? Is not the establishment of 
 the Redeemer's kingdom the common aim of 
 every pious Churchman and Dissenter ? By 
 whatever name we designate ourselves as 
 Christians, is not every Christian who really 
 honours Christ, alive, each in his respective 
 degree, to the awful condition of perishing man 
 whether near or distant, and exercising himself 
 in his own communion to extend the common 
 blessings of salvation to all ? Nor have we only 
 one common aim, there is blessed be God one 
 common means, which is I trust the earnest of 
 a growing union in circumstantials also. The 
 Bible Society I cannot but hail as the expression 
 of the mass of the wise and good throughout the 
 land, to merge their prejudices and differences, 
 teO far as they may, in one grand effort to pro- 
 mote the common cause. There are other Socie- 
 ties doubtless most excellent in design,, and 
 most efficient in practice; but these consist 
 either exclusively of Churchmen or Dissenters, 
 or Indifferently of both, meeting on some com- 
 mon ground of charity, each of which has its 
 respective importance in promoting union. But 
 it is the Bible Society which is the grand ex- 
 pression of popular sentiment : inasmuch as 
 there are more Churchmen probably conducing 
 to its support than can be found in any Society 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 285 
 
 of Churchmen ; and more Dissenters enlisted 
 in its cause than are enrolled in any Society 
 of Dissenters. Here then is a grand practical 
 advance made towards unity, without once men- 
 tioning- the term : this blessed end following" as 
 an effect, from the holy principles by which the 
 Society is combined. It is in fact a louder 
 voice than that of Parliament, or Convocation, 
 or Conference at Hampton Court or Savoy, or 
 of ardent disputants whether for ceremonies or 
 against them : it is vox populi which is indeed 
 vox Dei in its most intelligible sense. It is 
 practical unity; the actual attainment of con- 
 cord without the expressed design ; that concord 
 being the necessary consequence of so holy an 
 object, not its declared intention.' And as it 
 is evident that the simplicity of the object pro- 
 posed is the real ground of this concord, may 
 we not hence learn the wisdom of simplifying 
 evejy object, to which we expect the general 
 concurrence of mankind. Let us hope that the 
 reign of simplicity is advancing, for as it does 
 advance, may we expect the return of peace. 
 But viewing this union in the most favourable 
 light, it is after all but the dawn of unity, the 
 
 * The unhappy difference which has lately agitated the 
 Society may seem to some to have spoiled me of my argument. 
 I do not think so : for thousands and tens of thousands are 
 still under God actively engaged in its support, combined 
 by the simplicity of its principle, — that the Bible is the word 
 of God, and that it is the duty of Christians to circulate it. 
 
286 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 first fruits rather than the crop. It is in the 
 enlarged '^ Communion of the Saints" in which 
 unity can alone be found : one in Christ their 
 Headj they are firmly united in him ; and let 
 the energies of our Church have but full play 
 in producing this communion ; let the vigour 
 of our faith be but proportioned to the extent 
 of the promise to the children of believers, and 
 under God we might expect a communion, the 
 blessedness of which, would deprive separation 
 of all its pretexts, — a communion which would 
 exhibit discipline reformed, scandal abated, 
 Christianity illustrated in all its practical suita- 
 bleness, ignorances pitied, infirmities tolerated, 
 dissent conciliated, the reign of love, and con- 
 cord, and peace. Here would be such a com- 
 munity as would utterly annihilate dissent, for 
 dissent would then be separation from the 
 choicest blessings, a voluntary banishment from 
 the happiest condition of society to which man 
 could hope to be admitted on earth. 
 
 It is important to remark for our encourage- 
 ment, that dissent had not ripened into a 
 system of independent congregations, till a cen- 
 tury had elapsed from the Reformation of our 
 Church ; and that as the original sense of Bap- 
 tism declined, and Christian communion declined 
 with it, so independence, and consequently dis- 
 union received their establishment. The conduct 
 of the early Puritans, when Baptismal privileges 
 and adherence to " the Communion of the 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 287 
 
 Saints" as contained in our Churchy were better 
 understood, as well as that of succeeding Non- 
 conformists, seems to demonstrate that they 
 contemplated no separation from the Church, 
 but on the contrary were desirous of retaining 
 communion with her to the last, had their own 
 views been but tolerated. It required nearly a 
 century of struggle and excliision, of declining 
 communion and growing separation, to prepare 
 men's minds for the establishment of indepen- 
 dence. As the spirit of the Reformation decayed, 
 the spirit of dissent quickened and grew ; and 
 as Baptismal communion was on the wane, 
 indifference was strengthened, and alienation 
 confirmed. And where is the remedy ? neither 
 in law, nor conference, nor controversy ; but in 
 exhibiting in practical efficacy the original de- 
 sign of our Reformers to preserve a constant 
 "Communion of Saints," through the means 
 of the Baptismal covenant to the infants of be- 
 lievers. Let faith be true to the promise ; let 
 the loveliness and blessedness of the letter of our 
 Baptismal Service receive a vital being in the 
 loveliness and blessedness of a Baptismal educa- 
 tion, and as men become sensible of the blessing, 
 so will they be desirous to obtain it, and jealous 
 of any separation that may either interrupt or 
 destroy it. If we would regain separatists to 
 the Establishment, it can alone be effected, 
 under God, by giving them practical evidence 
 ^of the superior blessings into which they will 
 
 I 
 
288 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 be admitted, and the superior advantages which 
 must attend a united Church. Carry the above 
 interpretation into effect, and you present an 
 irresistible argument to dissent : for you attain 
 a higher object than that which any one deno- 
 mination of dissent proposes, or indeed than all 
 the denominations combined together propose ; 
 for they would each receive applicants into their 
 respective communions, but I am not aware 
 that any one of them proposes as its object, to 
 evangelise the land. 
 
 Or is the attainment of union in the Church 
 really hopeless ? Is there indeed a moral impos" 
 sibility that all '^ the "Communion of Saints'' 
 shall join in one external communion which is 
 acceptable to all ? I cannot believe it. Far as 
 we are at present from so desirable a consum- 
 mation, I believe its apparent impossibility arises 
 from our education, and prejudices, and selfish 
 narrowness, and even from habitual indisposition 
 rather than from any necessary impediment. 
 The Israelites could not enter into Canaan, not 
 because the passage of Jordan was difficult, or 
 the power of the Canaanites was invincible, but 
 because of unbelief. It was a spiritual defect 
 that rendered the promise vain : they would not 
 believe it, and therefore made no attempt to 
 accomplish it. Alas ! has not our unwillingness 
 to unite paralised all effort to attempt it. But do 
 we want the richest promises for our encourage- 
 ment ? Have we not the great evangelical song 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 289 
 
 of promise : '^ Glory to God iii the highest, 
 and on earth peace ?''^ Shall not "the work 
 of righteousness be peace, and the effect of 
 righteousness, quietness, and assurance for 
 ever ? "^ and is not the promise again and again 
 repeated, that antipathies shall cease, that " the 
 wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard 
 shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the 
 young lion, and the fatling together ; and a little 
 child shall lead them ?''^ Are the antipathies of 
 Churchman and Dissenter more rabid and more 
 irreconcileable than those of wolves, and 
 leopards, and lions ? Is their lust to devour each 
 other more fierce than that of the wolf to devour 
 the lamb, the leopard the kid, and the young lion 
 the fatling ? Till it can be proved to be such, our 
 recovery to union does not exceed the measure 
 of the promise : and once let the " little child," 
 HUMILITY, " lead" all parties to think more 
 moderately of themselves, and more favourably 
 of their neighbours, and I see no reason why this 
 very day mutual love might not produce mutual 
 concession, and all be harmony and peace. 
 
 We reprobate national sin, and we do well ; but 
 our mother-sin appears to me to be— disunion 
 AMONG THE PEOPLE OF GoD. The '^ uuknowii 
 and unknowable" horrors of yet encouraged 
 slavery, the waste of corporeal and moral strength 
 among the people by their unrestrained indul- 
 
 ^ Luke ii. 14. ^ Isa. xxxii. 17. ^ Ibid, xi. 6. 
 
 i o 
 
290 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 gence in spirituous liquors^ the general spirit 
 of gaming, and all the mass of corruption and 
 subterfuge, both in Church and State, both in 
 public and in private life, may well beget in us 
 fear, and shame, and remorse ; but alas ! are 
 not all these the consequences of disunion in the 
 Church ? If those to whom the application of the 
 remedy is committed, instead of uniting to apply 
 it, dissipate their powers by contending as to 
 the means of application, doubtless the great, 
 the crying sin rests with them. Let the Church 
 of Christ show to the world that it is superior to 
 the prejudices which divide it; let us assume 
 the attitude which becomes us as penitents ; let 
 there be a " holy order of moiu-ners in Zion ; " 
 let us humble ourselves in the dust before Him 
 whose honour our divisions have injured, and to 
 the advance of whose cause they have opposed 
 the most effectual obstruction. Let us mourn 
 and lament them ; let confession precede prayer, 
 and prayer be poured forth from every contrite 
 soul, that God would heal the bitter waters 
 of our disunion by the salt of his grace, and 
 grant us to go forth as one united company, 
 " conquering and to conquer." Let the whole 
 " land mourn,"" first, the Establishment, and 
 '^ every family "' of separation " apart,'" and 
 then every soul, both Churchman and Dissenter, 
 on one appointed fast of national humiliation. 
 Let Ezra's prayer be that of every believer, " O 
 my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 291 
 
 face to tliee, my God. — O Lord God of Israel, 
 thou art righteous : for we remain yet escaped, 
 as it is this day : behold we are before thee in 
 our trespasses : for we cannot stand before thee 
 because of this.'* ^ 
 
 But is a different feeling really prevalent ? 
 Are we rather " puffed up/' each confident of 
 the superior excellence of his own persuasion, 
 and therefore indisposed to make those con- 
 cessions which might effect reconciliation and 
 concurrence ? Our " glorying is not good." 2 Or 
 has custom in evil begot indifference to its real 
 character ? and has the inveteracy of habit 
 confirmed us in disunion, and rendered all effort 
 at reconciliation hopeless ? May the Spirit of 
 God dissipate this delusion from the eyes of his 
 Church ; mav this solemn conviction of mv soul 
 be impressed upon every heart that feels for the 
 honour of Christ, that the great crying sin of the 
 land is the sin of the Church — disunion allowed 
 and gloried in, cherished separation, separation 
 unconfessed, unmourned, unrepented of by the 
 Church at large, separation unconciliated on 
 one hand, and proud of its distinctions on the 
 other. May the spirit of boasting be exchanged 
 for that of mourning, and if " the Communion 
 of the Saints" has ever been resrarded as the 
 strength of the Church and the glory of her 
 Head ; mav all that tends to weaken that com- 
 
 ^ Ezra ix. 6, 15. ' 1 Cor. v. 6. 
 
 O 2 
 
292 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 munio», and to tarnish that glory, be regarded 
 as thebane of the Church; and let every heart and 
 hand combine in ardent prayer and persevering 
 effort, to concede, to conciliate, and to unite.i 
 
 Episcopalian Saunderson, Non-conformist Bax- 
 ter, and Independent Owen were three cotem- 
 poraneous stars in the ecclesiastical firmament, 
 which arose, each in his respective communion, 
 amidst the darkness and confusion of their time. 
 Each was largely accredited by the party he 
 represented, and, from the circumstances of the 
 times, each possessed an influence probably, 
 which no single man at this day, however 
 accredited, can hope to attain. They have left 
 behind them writings of no common value for 
 the perpetual edification of the Church. But 
 valuable as their writings are, they had bequeath- 
 ed to the Church a far richer legacy, had they com- 
 
 > The apostle had never called upon the Church of Corinth 
 for a state of undissenting union had any moral impossibility 
 existed to such condition. " Now I beseech you, brethren, 
 by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the 
 same thing, and that there be no divisions among you : but 
 that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in 
 the same judgment.'' 1 Cor. i. 10. May this and the two 
 following chapters be the constant subject of meditation to 
 every pious Churchman and Dissenter, and may their holy 
 aspirations ascend to heaven in the following expressions ; 
 " We beseech thee to inspire continually the universal Church 
 with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord : and grant that all 
 they that do confess thy holy name, may agree in the truth 
 of thy holy word, and live in unity, and godly love." 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 293 
 
 bined, under God, in projecting some intelligible 
 mean in which all parties might have concurred, 
 and which, though unable to establish amidst 
 the dissentions of their own times, their wisdom 
 and piety might have commended to the accep- 
 tance of a less prejudiced posterity. Blessed, 
 thrice blessed, shall that man be in my esteem, 
 whom God shall honour in uniting his Church. 
 I had rather be the happy instrument of ad- 
 vancing such a cause, though I laid but the 
 smallest stone in the walls of the temple of 
 peace, than enjoy all the fame of all the states- 
 men, and warriors, and philosophers, and poets, 
 and orators, who, by conferring temporal bene- 
 fits on their species, have ever attracted the 
 admiration of mankind 5 — for the union of the 
 Church is the sum of human blessedness ; and 
 the highest object at which human wisdom and 
 human charity can aim, is to bring every man 
 to the vital confession, " I am not of Paul, nor 
 of Apollos, nor of Cephas, but of Christ." It 
 is then that the conquest of the world to its 
 Saviour cannot be far distant ; for then the power 
 of the saints will no longer be dissipated in 
 party contentions, but the whole blessed company 
 marshalled under one banner, that of their 
 common Lord, bold in the aggression of benevo- 
 lence, and safe in the protection of the promise, 
 may go " up on the breadth of the earth," ^ an 
 
 * Rev. XX. 9. 
 O 3 
 
294 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 irresistible combination of charity and power ; 
 " fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible 
 as an army with banners/*' 
 
 "O come hither" then, "ye that fear God,"- 
 every soul to whom the Saviour's honour is 
 dear, the welfare of the Church, or the salvation 
 of your own soul ; and while you pray for the 
 peace of the Church, advance your own— " pray^ 
 for the peace of Jerusalem ; they shall prosper 
 that lovethee."^ 
 
 Another advantage directly resulting from 
 this interpretation of our Baptismal Service, 
 
 would be THE IMPROVEMENT OF GENERAL 
 
 EDUCATION. 1 have dropped some hints on 
 this subject before, but its matchless impor- 
 tance demands a specific mention in this enume- 
 ration of Baptismal advantages. 
 
 And what a provision is here made for a spi- 
 ritual education, while the Child is considered 
 as " the child of God 1 " Let all his instruction 
 have a reference to train him up in this charac- 
 ter, and I think it is plain that our present mode 
 of education must be almost reversed, if the 
 
 » Song of Sol. vi. 10. ^ Psalm Ixvi. 16. » Ibid, cxxii. 6. 
 
 * I see no reason why, one soul, who really honours Christ, 
 should absent himself from this blessed company ; the Ana- 
 baptist may unite himself in common with every real believer. 
 It is related of Mr. Tombs, one of the most distinguished 
 supporters of this persuasion in the seventeenth century, that 
 he communicated with the Church at Salisbury to the end 
 of his days. 
 
 1 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 295 
 
 formation of a child as " the child of God " is to 
 be proposed as the object of our attainment. 
 
 What is the object of Christian education ? 
 It is to prepare the soul and body of man for 
 earth and for heaven. It is to infuse into the 
 soul as a principle, and into the body as a habit, 
 that " godliness " which " with contentment 
 is " the truest '^ gain/' ^ the surest happiness, 
 the most choice condition of human being, 
 " having promise of the life that now is," as 
 well as " of that which is to come."' ^ The 
 " souFs health " then is its great and ultimate 
 object. Now there is one book which reveals 
 the will of God on this subject. It is by the 
 general consent of Christians clearly and con- 
 fessedly a revelation from God, teaching us to 
 secure the everlasting interest of our souls. 
 Should not this Book, this Bible, be the grand 
 subject of human regard ? Should it not be in 
 every heart and every mouth throughout the 
 land, both of man and child, in every chamber 
 and parlour, in every kitchen and cottage, in 
 every palace and mansion, at every table, in 
 every company, public and private, as the 
 general charter of happiness temporal and spi- 
 ritual, the rightful title to salvation of every 
 being that calls himself man, and that has a 
 soul to be saved ? Should it not be translated 
 into every language for the general instruction 
 
 » 1 Tim. vi. 6. = 1 Tim. iv. 8. 
 
296 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 of mankind? And while every nation hears in 
 its own tongue "the wonderful works of God/'* 
 should not the learning of every Christian land 
 consist of the acquirement of those languages, 
 in which the Holy Spirit pleased originally to 
 express the terms of this charter ? Should 
 not those languages be taught in seminaries 
 and schools and colleges, in which the middle 
 and superior ranks are educated, as that which 
 claims the first attention of childhood, after the 
 acquirement of its own native tongue ? Happily, 
 the language of one portion of this Book was 
 the vehicle of polite literature, and the common 
 expression of the intercourse of civilized life, 
 about the time when it was written : and we 
 owe it to the wise disposal of the providence of 
 God, that those productions of the human mind, 
 which the taste of mankind has agreed to con- 
 sider as most eminent exhibitions of cultivated 
 fancy, of interesting history, of human pru- | 
 dence, or of just and liberal sentiment, have ^ 
 adopted this language of full and copious ex- I 
 pression. There can be no doubt, that, as 
 God in his providence, called out the family of 
 Abraham, and selected the nation of the Jews 
 from the people of the earth as the depositaries 
 of his truth, the channel of his promises, and 
 as the people in whose speech he would express 
 his " livelv oracles '* under the Law, so that he 
 
 * Acts ii. 11. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 297 
 
 equally raised up the states of Greece to literary 
 and political eminence, distinguished their 
 speech with rich and comprehensive expression, 
 gave it celebrity and acceptance with the 
 nations, and adapted it as the vehicle of his 
 general proclamation of mercy under the Gos- 
 pel. It is admitted that the study of the Greek 
 language is general in the education of those 
 who are considered as well-educated among 
 us ; but, may we judge from the general indiffe- 
 rence with is shown to the Hebrew portion of 
 Revelation, must it not be equally admitted that 
 our indifference to the Greek portion of it would 
 be the same;^ did it afford no other charms than 
 that it is the language of Revelation ? Its poets, 
 its orators, its philosophers, and its statesmen 
 form the real charm ; for can we hope that of 
 the thousands who are trained to Greek litera- 
 ture the mass have ever studied the Greek 
 volume of Revelation at all ? ^ Assuredly the 
 attention of the student is not stimulated by 
 the reflection, that he is about to acquire the 
 language, which it pleased God to distinguish 
 as the conveyance of the Gospel of salvation to 
 his soul. The cultivation of the Greek language 
 among us, as to its bearing on the sacred volume, 
 seems to be rather incidental and secondarv, 
 
 * It is a shrewd touch of the pencil in Law's masterly 
 portrait of Classicus ; — "The two Testaments would not have 
 had so much as a place amongst his books, but that they are 
 both to be had in Greek." " Serious Call." — Chap. xiv. 
 
 O 5 
 
298 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 than direct and primary. Now I apprehend 
 that this must wholly be reversed; and that 
 both Hebrew and Greek must have the decided 
 preference in a Christian education after our 
 native tongue, because they are the languages 
 of Revelation, and let Latin as the language of 
 translation, as well as that of a great part of the 
 Primitive Church, succeed. If Hebrew can be 
 approached by an Englishman without the aid 
 of any intermediate language, why should not 
 the Greek admit of the same direct access ? 
 and why is the Greek to be regarded as a dis- 
 tant province, like Galilee beyond Samaria, 
 accessible only through the intervention of the 
 Latin ? It seems almost necessary to the com- 
 prehensive acquirement of language that we 
 should be familiarised to it from our early years ; 
 and the method of imparting it by speech ^ 
 rather than by grammars and dictionaries, (or 
 at least using them as subsidiaries) a method 
 
 * The rule must be posterior to the practice, and the tiling 
 analysed must precede the analysis. Homer first wrote an 
 epic poem, before Aristotle analysed the epopseia ; but Homer, 
 and not Aristotle, formed Virgil and Milton. Analysis is 
 necessary for critical accuracy ; but practice is necessary for 
 ready acquirement. I have heard that the young Jesuits now 
 educating at Rome are taught the Latin language by speech ; 
 why should not our children enjoy the same privilege of learn- 
 ing with facility and delight ? Surely it would be an apt of 
 patriotism, worthy of the first classical scholars in the kingdom, 
 to devote themselves to this mode of communicating the know- 
 ledge of the languages. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 299 
 
 long since recommended by Locke, if added 
 to the powerful principle, that we were acquiring 
 language to promote the salvation of our souls, 
 would give both facility and pleasure to the 
 acquisition. Let the Bible then be in educa- 
 tion as it is represented on the monument of 
 Cowper : let it stand upright in the midst, and 
 all human effort, like his book supporting the 
 Bible, uphold and maintain it. Let it draw all 
 its principles from it, and refer all its useful- 
 ness to it. The Bible languages will then he 
 learned for the purpose of illustrating the Bible ; 
 and real learning will then consist not in the 
 mere knowledge of Greek poets and historians, 
 but in the application of this knowledge to the 
 attainment of that of a far higher order, even 
 that of immortal truth; from which their ideas 
 are for the most part so grossly abhorrent, to 
 which indeed they commonly serve as a foil, 
 but of which God has chosen their language as 
 the expressive vehicle. The Bible will then be 
 the chief school book : the sum of literary 
 attainment will be its languages ; and the sum 
 of classical wisdom will be the spiritually intel- 
 lectual comprehension of its truths. There 
 will not then be a chapter occasionally read as 
 a task, and the book coldly laid aside, and all 
 recollection of its contents immediately super- 
 seded by the study of classical mythology ; but 
 all study of arts and sciences as well as that 
 of the classics will have a reference to it; it 
 
300 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 will be the commanding centre in which all the 
 rays of knowledge converge, and from which 
 they will all be receiving light, and usefulness, 
 and blessing. 
 
 The mischievous tendency of mythological 
 learning in corrupting the mind from the sim- 
 plicity of truth, seems to be an evil very rarely 
 admitted among us. We resemble those who 
 reside in an idolatrous land, where the symbols 
 of idolatry become so familiar, that what was at 
 first disgust, soon fades into indifference, till it 
 sinks into passive infidelity. Mythology has 
 been so much mixed up with our learning, 
 habits, education, allusions, and conversation, 
 that we do not only express ourselves in its 
 language, but it has usurped a dominion over 
 the whole region of thought. We think in 
 mythology; we even debase Scripture subjects 
 by mythological illustration. Nor is this idol- 
 atrous ascendency apparent in minds of common 
 order alone ; it invades the originality and in- 
 dependence of the most commanding intellect 
 among us. May I venture to instance this in 
 the almost superstitious respect paid to " the 
 wisdom of the ancients," by our great master 
 of human science himself. If the recondite 
 sense, which he ascribes to the mythological 
 fables of Greece, was really apprehended by 
 their original authors and their disciples, assur- 
 edly neither the people at large, nor even their 
 poets and historians, seem to have received them 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. V\^ SOt 
 
 in this sense. And he who judges* from the 
 complexion of their writings which are extant, 
 will be rather induced to conclude, that thc; 
 system is more indebted to the ingenious specu- 
 lations of the modern interpreter, than to the 
 wisdom and design of the original inventor. 
 Surely the name of Bacon has given a celebrity 
 to mythology, to which its practice neither by 
 priests, nor poets, nor philosophers, nor even 
 the best and wisest professors of heathen idolatry 
 can justly entitle it.^ If I admire Milton for the 
 sublimity of his genius, I admire him more for 
 that bold independence, which enabled him to 
 think for himself, and to rise above the bad 
 taste, and mental thraldom of his day. And yet 
 what but even his slavery to the prejudices of a 
 mythological education, has led him too often 
 to give a low and debasing tendency to those 
 
 * Though Lucian and Juvenal laughed outright at the ab- 
 surdities of Paganism, Homer and Virgil seem to pay its 
 deities the highest respect in their writings : they are the 
 objects of solemn prayer and adoration, and are evidently 
 introduced to accredit the character of their heroes, and lo 
 procure them veneration. Nor does it appear, that Homer 
 intended any disrespect to this mythological machinery, when 
 he could transfer it with so much ease from men to frogs and 
 mice ; as when Minerva is represented as declining to assist 
 either party, on account of the offence they have respectively 
 given her ; the frogs, having so disturbed her night's rest after 
 a hard day's toil, that she rose in the morning with a headach ; 
 and the mice having gnawed, holes in her favourite gown, the 
 cost of repairing which exceeded her means. 
 
302 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 exhibitions of Christianity which are among the 
 most admirable efforts of human talent ? I will 
 mention one out of many by w^ay of illustration. 
 After describing the fall of Satan under the 
 sword of the Spirit_, the word of God, as it pro- 
 ceeded from the lips of the victorious Saviour ; 
 the subject suddenly sinks into the ridiculous by 
 the following comparison : — 
 
 *' As when Earth's Son Antseus, (to compare 
 Small things with greatest) in Irassa strove 
 With Jove's Alcides, &c." * 
 
 The bathos, and bad taste, and absurdity 
 
 Nor can the practical idolatry of Socrates be answered, by 
 interpreting his desire with his dying breath, that a cock might 
 be sacrificed to Esculapius, as though it were an ironical con- 
 demnation of his country's superstition. The conclusion of the 
 Phaedon is as follows. " He (Socrates) said, and they were 
 his last words, *' Crito, we owe a cock to Esculapius ; discharge 
 the debt therefore, and by no means neglect it." " Your re- 
 quest shall be performed," said Crito, " but consider whether 
 you have no other to make." To this inquiry he made no 
 reply, &c. — " Such, Echecrates, was the death of our friend, a 
 man, the best in our esteem, with whom we were then ac- 
 quainted, and eminently the most wise and just." 
 
 There is nothing here that looks like a smile ; all is serious 
 and sober, all, that to a heathen mind would befit the solemnity 
 of the occasion : and if such was the idolatrous confidence of 
 the best and wisest among them, what must have been that 
 of the mass ? 
 
 1 " Paradise Regain'd, b. iv. 1. 563." — When Milton speaks 
 from the lips of Incarnate Truth he rises above fashion and 
 prejudice, and . gives a just estimate of the productions of 
 heathen philosophers and orators : 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 303 
 
 of the allusion seem to have been so evident to 
 the Poet himself, that he was fearful of writing 
 it, without an express apology ; yet so inveterate 
 was his love of mythology, that his better taste, 
 if not his piety, must yield to the barbarous 
 prejudice. Our idea of the restless importunity 
 of the author of evil can gain no impression 
 from the most desperate obstinacy of any " Son 
 of Earth ;" and assuredly the firm, and mild, and 
 undismayed perseverance in rectitude, of the 
 Author of Redemption can gain no intenseness 
 of elevation from any comparison with Hercules, 
 however esteemed as the model of heathen ex- 
 cellency and virtue. What a farrago of incon- 
 sistency must the sixth book of the '^ Paradise 
 
 OF PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 " Alas ! what can they teach, and not mislead, 
 Ignorant of themselves, of God much more, 
 And how the world began, and how man fell 
 Degraded by himself, on grace depending?" 
 
 Book iv. 1. 309. 
 
 OF ORATORS. 
 
 " Their orators thou then extoll'st, as those 
 The top of eloquence, statists indeed. 
 And lovers of their country, as may seem ; 
 But herein to our prophets far beneath. 
 As men divinely taught, and better teaching 
 The solid rules of civil government 
 In their majestic unaffected stile, 
 Thau all th' oratory of Greece and Rome." 
 
 Book iv. 1. 353. 
 
304 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 Lost^' appear, to a simple mind well-versed 
 in Scripture, but unversed in mythology and 
 romance ! Founded on a misapplication of 
 Scripture, human warfare is introduced among 
 the inhabitants of heaven 5 and the spiritual is 
 levelled with the material world* Amidst the 
 hurling of mountains, and firing of cannon, and 
 jokes and quibbles, where is the heaven or the 
 hell that this simple man reads of in Scripture ? 
 He has read of war in heaven, but this he spiri- 
 tually interprets as war in the kingdom of Christ 
 upon earth ; how can he think of war in that 
 heaven, where Jehovah dwells in all his perfec- 
 tions, and where the violation of one of these 
 perfections consigns Satan, by one word, and all 
 his rebellious host, to " the blackness of dark- 
 ness for ever ? "^ Surely nothing but our blind 
 admiration of mythology, and its sister romance, 
 could induce us, as Christians, to consider this 
 jumble of incongruities, this confusion of " all 
 monstrous, all prodigious things," wild and im- 
 practicable as the Poet's own chaos, as consistent 
 with just taste, and its inseparable companion, 
 sound sense, and Christian simplicity. ^ The 
 classical literature of Christian England, has 
 legitimated these Pagan and Gothic absurdities -, 
 
 » Jude 13. 
 2 From this failure of Milton, it is evident, that the highest 
 order of human talent cannot depart from the plain sense of 
 Scripture, without degrading the character of the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 305 
 
 and they have assumed a moral and intellectual 
 empire overus^ the degrading and demoralizing 
 influence of which, is apparent from the most 
 refined admirer of the taste of ancient Greece in 
 its poets, and sculptors, and philosophers, to the 
 less refined beholder, to whose eyes heathen 
 deities and heathen customs are palpably ex- 
 hibited at our public theatres and spectacles. 
 Perhaps the most effectual instrument by which 
 Satan is heathenizing Christendom at this day, 
 is by securing our idolatrous admiration of 
 heathen sentiments, and heathen taste. We are 
 absolute slaves to the exquisite taste of Greece 
 and Rome 5 and are unconsciously immolating 
 piety at the shrine of refinement. We are in 
 fact practical Papists under the influence of 
 Pagan associations ; and we seem to want only 
 the machinery of Popery around us, and the 
 transit from Pagan to Popish superstition would 
 be complete. 
 
 And now. My Dear Friend, can it be a cause 
 of wonder to any reflecting mind, that pure 
 Christianity is so little apparent in the habits 
 and sentiments of a professedly Christian popu- 
 lation, when we are habitually educated in this 
 idolatrous veneration of Pagan writers and 
 Pagan sentiments ? It is equally apparent that 
 if England is indeed to be a partaker of genuine 
 Christianity, this Baal of mythological lore must 
 be removed from the throne of its usurpation ; 
 and that the learning of Greece and Rome must 
 
306 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 no longer be regarded as the primary objects 
 of Christian education, but assume that subor- 
 dinate and secondary place which is its due as 
 the handmaid of revelation, and the assistant 
 of truth. Nor do I see any mode of return to 
 Christian education but that offered in the above 
 interpretation of our Baptismal Service ; which 
 beginning in infancy, having the " soul's health" 
 continually in view, and proceeding in faithful 
 confidence of success, on the warrant of divine 
 promise, builds up a Christian man. And till 
 education proceed on this principle, is there any 
 hope, rational or divine, that Christian graces 
 shall adorn a Christian education, or that the 
 effects of education should be otherwise than as 
 at present, — that " thistles should grow instead 
 of wheat, and cockle instead of barley ?" - 
 
 Nor let us shut our eyes to the signs of our 
 times on the subject of education. Assuredly 
 our present mode of conducting it, is regarded 
 by many as quite unequal to the intellectual, 
 and by others to the religious demands, of the 
 day in which we live. There seem to be two 
 descriptions of Utilists among us ; by which I 
 mean, those, who propose not the mere acquisi- 
 tion of learning, but the fruitful issue of it in 
 practical usefulness as the object of education. 
 These consist of the foregoing descriptions, mere 
 intellectual and practical political economists, 
 
 * Job xxxi. 40. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 307 
 
 and religious men who consider Christianity as 
 the sum of real utility. Many powerful efforts 
 have been made by the latter^ to evangelise the 
 country, by improved publications proceeding 
 on religious principle, addressed to all ages and 
 classes ; to which they have laboured to give 
 the largest practical effect by Sunday and other 
 schools, and by adopting the improved modes 
 of education which have distinguished our 
 times. In many of these efforts, the former class, 
 who have but little regard for the principles 
 of any particular school, as Christianity is 
 cheaply considered by them, willingly concur. 
 Their common aim is usefulness. This combined 
 exertion has been felt throughout the commu- 
 nity ; but more especially among the poor, and 
 those powerful classes of moral agency, so 
 largely dispersed over this country of equal 
 rights and privileges which rank immediately 
 above them. Hence " a mighty mass of intel- 
 lect'' has been stimulated into active operation ; 
 and, as it appears to me, the improvement has 
 been most felt, where the effort has been most 
 largely directed, among the poor and the classes 
 immediately above them. But here it cannot 
 stop; and it must have been long evident to 
 every reflecting mind that it could not stop 
 here. The introduction of a more useful educa- 
 tion among the superior ranks, has doubtless 
 been long in contemplation ; and since the long- 
 instituted and accredited schools of general 
 
308 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 learning, have not proceeded in improving their 
 systems, vrith the rapidity which the moral 
 and intellectual demands of the day seemed to 
 require ; a University in the very heart of our 
 population, is now proposed as the most effectual 
 mode of introducing an improved general edu- 
 cation. No man who has watched the progress 
 of mind for the last thirty years, and the unequal 
 exertions of the usual schools of education to 
 keep pace with this progress, will be surprised 
 at this effort of improving knowledge to expand 
 and to establish itself throughout the commu- 
 nity. The object of this Institution, so far as I 
 can comprehend it, appears to be not only to 
 impart knowledge as knowledge, of whatever 
 kind it may be, but to render such knowledge 
 useful to the common purposes of life. It is not 
 to teach theory only, but theory for the purpose 
 of practice ; it is to make arts useful, and science 
 practical. It proposes, therefore, not merely 
 to store the head with knowledge, but to 
 exercise the faculties to the reproduction of that 
 knowledge to the benefit of life. It is not more 
 desirous of improving the means of conveying 
 instruction to the mind, than it is desirous 
 of cultivating those powers by which it should 
 re-appear as practical wisdom on the lip and in 
 the hand. With this view, it is said, the com- 
 mon comforts and advantages both of public 
 and private life are to be increased, and that 
 most efficient agent of influence, the power 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 309 
 
 of speech, is to be especially cultivated and im- 
 proved. And indeed what is it that makes the 
 difference between men in the conduct of human 
 affairs ? not so much the existence of more or 
 less information in the head, as the ready facility 
 with which the competent information that a 
 man has, is brought to bear on the business in 
 hand. A ready utterance, is indispensable for a 
 man of influence : and he who possesses it, 
 though but moderately stored with knowledge, 
 will be found more equal to the common busi- 
 ness of life, and more influential in his station 
 usually, than the man of far greater stores 
 of knowledge and far higher powers of intellect, 
 whose habits have been more those of study than 
 of utterance. Extemporaneous expression is 
 power : ^ it is power which is immediately felt 
 and acknowledged ; and as speech is that ready 
 faculty by which the stores of knowledge are 
 expressed, and made available to the purposes 
 
 1 It is recorded by the biographer of Themistocles among 
 the many qualifications which facilitated his rise at Athens — 
 " celeriterque quse opus erant, reperiebat, facile eadera ora- 
 tione explicabat." An acute apprehension of what the occa- 
 sion demands, and a facility of uttering the same in appropriate 
 language, are among the leading qualifications of a useful 
 character. And what spoiled the usefulness of this unprinci- 
 pled Athenian ? The absence of that principle of holiness — 
 Christ crucified — which alone can sanctify talent, and make it 
 a blessing to its possessor, his family, his country, and the 
 world. 
 
310 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 of every day's life ; so the marked cultivation 
 of this faculty will form, it is said, one grand 
 object of this new effort of the Utilists, And is 
 not this wisdom? It is not the bale laid up in 
 the warehouse, or deposited in the vessel, that is 
 the wealth of the country ; but it is the industry 
 which reproduces it, " with its ten thousand 
 wheels,'' its looms, its engines, its countless 
 hands busied in every diversified manufacture, 
 that constitutes our commercial wealth. So 
 it is not knowledge stored in the brain in un- 
 thinking repose, but knowledge reflecting, busy, 
 meditative, knowledge habituated to instant 
 reproduction, talent " occupied,'' mind traded 
 with, and employed in hourly engagement, 
 issuing in ready utterance, that constitutes the 
 useful man. And when to this great object 
 we add the advantages which must accrue to 
 this new system from the adoption of the 
 improvements in education which modern 
 ingenuity has devised, a very considerable effect 
 must be expected to flow from such a system 
 actively operating in a rich and populous 
 metropolis. 
 
 Yet much as we feel disposed to encourage every 
 attempt to cultivate intellect, we cannot forget 
 ^that it will be a curse or a blessing as moral 
 improvement accompanies it. The keener the 
 edge of the sword, the more severe is the wound 
 it inflicts ; its keenness is profitable or not ac- 
 cording to the character of the hand that wields 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 311 
 
 it. What Christian then must not pause, in 
 aiding this attempt, when he learns that Chris- 
 tianity is not to be the paramount or even 
 an acknowledged part of this system? I know 
 that it may be said, " Christianity may be learned 
 at home, according to the creed of each parti- 
 cular sect; and the endless divisions among 
 Christians, give us little hope, that education 
 would be left to its unfettered play, were any 
 particular mode of Christianprofession adopted." 
 While, as a Christian, I feel, with grief, that our 
 divisions have afforded too much ground for this 
 remark, as a Christian I cannot but feel it an 
 unjust visitation on our infirmities, that the 
 inspired system of yet disproved Revelation 
 should either be excluded from the plan, or that 
 Christ should only be permitted to designate a 
 class, in common with Plato, and Aristotle, and 
 Zeno. Our own defective mode of education, 
 but too amply proves at present, that if Chris- 
 tianity be not paramount, mythology or infidelity 
 must be ; and w^e have gained but little from 
 the experience of the last forty years, if we 
 have not learned, that the pruriency of human 
 talent unsanctified by truth, and the pride of 
 mental expansion unprincipled by revelation, 
 will ever produce a misery the more intense 
 as it is the more refined -, and under the plea 
 of superior wisdom, and an unprescriptive libe- 
 rality, will more effectually rebarbarise man- 
 kind, than all the grossness of ignorance or 
 
S12 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the infantine weakness of superstition. While 
 then we fully concur in the desire to render 
 education more general and more useful, let us 
 listen to the apprehension which dreads our 
 rendering it more unchristian. And if intel- 
 lectual Utilufs are more active in the cultivation 
 of mere talent, let Christian Utilists be tenfold 
 more active in sanctifying talent with the prin- 
 ciples of truth. Whatever may become of this 
 project (and may God in mercy defeat it, if it 
 tend not to the honour of his Son) we are 
 fairly committed in the race, and I have no doubt 
 as to the issue, for " the Lord of hosts is with 
 us, the God of Jacob is our refuge '' ^ and our 
 support.^ But I own that I see no means equal 
 to the achievement of the conquest, but those 
 which our Church presents us in the practical 
 application of the above interpretation of our 
 Baptismal Service. Seminaries, and schools, and 
 the ordinary modes of influencing the public 
 mind, must for years be unequal as means. It 
 is the nursery which must reform the school, 
 
 * Psalm xlvi. 7. 
 2 After all, the real character of the machine will be as it 
 works. It may please God to infuse a large portion of good 
 principle into the direction, which may appear in the choice of 
 Professors at once holy and able, and who may be the means 
 of communicating a more positive tone of Christianity than 
 has yet been introduced among our youth. Where shall a 
 Parent send his child, if he would have him educated according 
 to the Scriptures? 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 313 
 
 and it is Baptismal regeneration^ proceeding on 
 the free promise of grace, that must reform the 
 nursery : and since no such reform can take 
 place without the influence of the Spirit on the 
 word, may it he our fervent prayer that the 
 Holy Spirit would inspire the Pulpit with the 
 truth and efficacy of the promise 5 and that all 
 our people may hear, with unabated urgency, 
 that it is only by believing the promise that they 
 can hope for success, — that ^' if they will not 
 believe, surely they shall not be established." 
 
 Am I too pressing on this subject of educa- 
 tion ? Or have 1 urged the consideration of it 
 with unbecoming frequency or fervency ? T know 
 not that I can overpress the subject. For " tis 
 education forms the common mind," all over the 
 earth, from the exquisite refinement of the 
 Professor's chair, to the blood-nurtured and 
 scalp-fed ferocity of the North- American plains. 
 As our children are, such will our adults be : 
 and what rational man can hope for adult Chris- 
 tians from our present nurseries and schools 
 of mythology and romance ? A new object must 
 be proposed, a new principle must be applied, 
 and new means must be brought into action, 
 before the day of Christian education can arise : 
 and such are the clouds of prejudice which ob- 
 scure the way of improvement, that as nothing 
 but a divine power can induce the minds of men 
 to attempt the change, so nothing but the 
 warrant of a divine promise can encourage the 
 
 p 
 
314 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 most sanguine to hope for it. This promise we 
 have, together with all the means of effecting 
 it, in our Baptismal privileges as above inter- 
 preted 3 faith alone is wanting on our part to 
 set the whole gracious machine in motion, and 
 all its blessings shall be ours — " Lord, help 
 oiir unbelief/'^ 
 
 Another advantage afforded by the above 
 interpretation is, that — it completely vindi- 
 cates THE doctrine OF ELECTION FROM ALL 
 THE CHARGES AND MISREPRESENTATIONS WHICH 
 HAVE LONG ENCUMBERED THIS MOST LOVELY 
 AND PRACTICAL DOCTRINE OF OUR CHURCH .* a 
 
 doctrine which she herself states as the source 
 of every spiritual blessing, and as " full of sweet, 
 pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly 
 persons." 
 
 Admit only that ^^ in every person born into 
 this world,"" original sin — the " infection of his 
 nature,"" ^^ deserveth God's wrath and damna- 
 tion," and that it is the good pleasure of God 
 ^^ to deliver from curse and damnation "' any 
 portion of those thus infected, and to bring 
 them by Christ to everlasting salvation," — and 
 the conclusion is inevitable ; there is an ^' elec- 
 tion of grace."" ^ 
 
 And is there any doctrine of the Bible fraught 
 with comforts so intelligible, and so suitable as 
 this is to every sinner groaning under " this 
 
 1 Mark ix. 24. 2 Rom. xi. 5. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 315 
 
 infection of his " nature/' acknowledging that 
 it " deserves God's wrath and damnation/' and 
 that without mercy he is utterly undone ? To be 
 saved by mercy — mere niercy^ mercy requiring 
 nothing from him but misery, — a condition 
 affording scope and correlative fitness, on which 
 to display its own blessedness, is that which just 
 suits his utterly graceless and godless state : his 
 own emptiness affords him capacity to receive 
 the fulness of God. There is no good thing in 
 him ; his nature revolts from God ; his heart 
 rebels against his Jaw ; his will opposes the 
 divine will ; and there is no spiritual health in 
 him : he has nothing in him congenial with 
 God ; nothing of similarity that encourages 
 approach. He sees no virtue in himself that is 
 to induce the countenance of God ; he is by 
 nature the child of wrath even as others ; he is 
 " dead in trespasses and sins ; " ^ and if any in- 
 ducement of divine regard is required in himself, 
 where is it to be found in one who " is of his 
 own nature inclined to evil," and whose " flesh " 
 instead of possessing any kindred dispositions, 
 " lusteth always contrary to the Spirit ? " It is 
 to nothing then but the good pleasure of God, 
 to which he can look for salvation ; even of that 
 <jrod, who, " rich in mercy,'' loved him when he 
 was " dead in sins 5 " ^ who saw no inducement 
 to save him but what he found in the good plea- 
 
 » Eph. ii. 1. 2 Ibid, ii. 4,5. 
 
 P 2 
 
316 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 sure of his own will, that will being determined 
 to magnify mercy in the freedom of its choice, 
 irrespective of any thing in the creature, but 
 the misery which could alone qualify him as the 
 recipient of mercy. And that he is called out 
 from a " world lying in wickedness, ^ is owing 
 to nothing but his being " called with a holy 
 calling/' even the effectual operation of the 
 Spirit influencing his soul to " receive the 
 reconciliation/' ^ ^nd " not according to his 
 works, but according to " God's ^^ own purpose 
 and grace, which was given " him " in Christ 
 Jesus before the world began." 3 Thus he is 
 emptied of self. Here is the largest provision 
 for humility ; for God has chosen him on ac- 
 count of his own nothingness and vileness, to 
 display in him the riches of his grace ; and holy 
 joy, and admiring gratitude, and constraining 
 love, press every faculty of soul and body into 
 the most unreserved and devoted service of Him, 
 by whom he is so richly redeemed, and so 
 gratuitously preserved. 
 
 And now. My Dear Friend, what doctrine is 
 so truly lovely, so truly cheering to a heart- 
 broken sinner as this ; to one who comes in 
 faith of the general promise, " Him that cometh 
 to me, I will in no wise cast out ; " ^ and who 
 feels that " the sacrifices of God are a broken 
 spirit," and that " a broken and a contrite 
 
 ' 1 John V. 19. - Rom. v. it. 3 2 Tim. i. 9. * John vi. 37. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 317 
 
 heart'' he "will not despise ?"i It is the 
 self-emptied heart that can alone be the vessel 
 of grace ; mercy uncaused but by the divine 
 goodness, unoriginated but in the divine love, 
 is just adapted to the case of him in whom 
 " dvvelleth no good thing; " ^ and that he is the 
 subject of the free choice of his God, animates 
 his love, supports his hope, secures his perse- 
 verance, quickens his zeal, invigorates his 
 obedience, and causes him to " walk v/orthy 
 of the Lord unto all pleasing/' 3 
 
 And is not this the very mode in which our 
 Church improves this blessed doctrine to the 
 edification and comfort of her people ? It is as 
 the elect of God, that election being manifested 
 in the promise made to the offspring of faithful 
 Parents that the Child is introduced into the 
 Church at Baptism ; he is an elect of God before 
 such introduction, and comes to this Sacrament, 
 as Abraham to Circumcision, as the sign and 
 seal of that faith which he had being yet un- 
 baptised ; he is then declared to be an elect 
 of God, the Church praying that he ^^ may ever 
 REMAIN in the number of" his " faithful and 
 elect children : " he is invested with all the 
 privileges of God's elect; he is regenerated by 
 the Holy Spirit, he is received as God's own 
 child by adoption, and he is incorporated into 
 the communion of his holy Church ; as such he 
 
 » Psalm li.17. 2 i^om. vii. 13. 3Col.i. 10. 
 
 / 
 
 P 3 
 
318 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 grows up ^^ a member of Christ, the child of God, 
 and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ; '' 
 and the Holy Ghost " sanctifieth " or is sancti- 
 fying him in common with " all the elect people 
 of God." And, as I have already shown, from 
 his introduction into the Church at Baptism, 
 to his earthly departure at his burial, he is 
 uniformly and consistently throughout all her 
 formularies, without exception, considered as 
 invested with the privileges of an elect of God. 
 The Church never once foregoes this view of 
 his character : election is the life and soul of all 
 her formularies ; the most useful and necessary 
 doctrine upon which all her Christian communion 
 is built ; it is the parent of her holy calling, her 
 justification, her adoption, her sanctification, 
 her religious walk, and her final glorification. 
 Deprive the formularies of the Church of Eng- 
 land of the rich essence of electing love, and 
 they at once become a dead letter, a body with- 
 out sense or feeling, a carcase without spirit 
 and without soul. 
 
 And does not our Church in this respect 
 follow the footsteps of her venerable Mother, 
 THE WORD OF GoD ? What is the doctrine, 
 which, as the soul that animates it, or the very 
 atmosphere that it breathes, runs through and 
 distinguishes the whole word of God from begin- 
 ning to end, but this doctrine of election ? It is 
 the grand practical principle on which the whole 
 Book founds its usefulness and adaptability to the 
 
TPIIS INTERPRETATION. 319 
 
 spiritual wants of our lost race. I know, and I 
 do most sincerely deplore it, for the truth's 
 sake, and for our own sake, for whose salvation 
 this blessed truth is given, that it is the fashion 
 of this present day to deny this statement ; and 
 to represent that it is only found occasionally; 
 and that it bears no proportion in the sacred 
 page to other more necessary doctrines. But 
 what says King Edward the Sixth's Catechism 
 of that Holy Church, which was " fore-chosen, 
 predestinated, and appointed out to ever- 
 lasting life ? "' The Scholar says, " I will 
 rehearse that in few words shortly, which 
 the Holy Scriptures sel out at large and 
 plentifully/." ^ What is the Holy Church but 
 '' God's elect," '^ w^hich the Holy Scriptures set 
 out at large and plentifully ? " And may we 
 not further collect the opinion of our Reformers 
 on this question, when the fullest, the largest, 
 and most elaborate of our doctrinal Articles is 
 on this subject ; and when the term '^ elect " is 
 admitted into many of our formularies, and 
 its spirit is implied in all ? Has there not been 
 from the beginning a Holy Church distinguished 
 from, and called out of a sinful world? Did 
 not " the faith of God's elect," ^ distinguish 
 righteous Abel from murderous Cain ? Were 
 there not in the old world " sons of God " and 
 '^ daughters of men ? " ^ Did not God ^^ save 
 
 * See the whole passage, p. 131. ^ Tit. i. 1. ^ Qgn. vi 2. 
 
320 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righte-^ 
 ousness, bringing in the flood upon the world 
 of the ungodly ? '' ^ And what is the call of 
 Abraham, and all God's peculiar mercies to his 
 family, in whom all the nations of the world 
 were to be blessed, bnt one continued evidence 
 of God's electing love to his people ? Was 
 not the Holy Church confined by God to a 
 single family nearly, from generation to gene- 
 ration, for nineteen hundred years, during 
 the whole of which season the nations of the 
 world were ordered in his providence with 
 especial reference to his Church ? ^^ When the 
 Most High divided to the nations their inheri- 
 tance ; when he separated the sons of Adam '* 
 into several nations, did he not " set the bounds 
 of the people according to the number of the 
 children of Israel ? " Was not the " Lord's por- 
 tion his people, and Jacob the lot of his inheri- 
 tance," ^ so that he was ever among the nations 
 as " a garden inclosed, — a spring shut up, a 
 fountain sealed ? " ^ and was not the oath of 
 distinction that God " sware unto Abraham" 
 the constant topic of privilege pleaded by the 
 Church in all her difficulties and trials ? and to 
 show that the election was not merely national 
 and regarded temporal promises only, was there 
 not even among these an " Israel of God," 4 and 
 an " Israel after the flesh ? " ^ 
 
 1 Pet. ii. 5. ' Deut. xxxii. 8, 9. ^ s^ng ^f go], iv. 12, 
 4 Gal.vi.16. » 1 Cor. X. 18. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 321 
 
 The Jewish History is one continued tissue 
 of electing love and distinguishing mercy. 
 
 Jewish Sacred Biography, is a succession 
 of the saints of God, marked out for mercy, and 
 assured of his unfailing love. 
 
 Jewish Prophecy, is nothing more, than the 
 gradual developement of electing grace to the 
 Church of God. Without election prophecy is 
 a nullity. 
 
 Jewish Hagiography abounds in a sense 
 of electing privileges ; they are the very soul 
 of the holy aspirations of " the Sweet Psalmist 
 of Israel." ^ If he calls " out of the depths " at 
 the beginning of his psalm, at the conclusion 
 of it he arrives at a holy assurance, " He shall 
 redeem Israel from all his iniquities." " He tells 
 us in his first psalm of the security of the 
 " Blessed " of God ; " his leaf also shall not 
 wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." 
 This sense of privilege pervades the whole book, 
 till it swells into one mighty chorus of praise, in 
 the seven psalms which conclude his rapturous 
 devotions, and in which he celebrates the final 
 triumph of the Church, " Such honour have all 
 his saints."^ In the preceptive parts of the 
 Hagiography, from the nature of the subject, 
 the doctrine is not so apparent ; but the Song of 
 Solomon is almost an unceasing illustration of it. 
 
 What is it that comforts the Prophets under 
 
 * 2 Sara, xxiii. 1. ^ Psalm cxxx. ^ Ibid, cxlix. 9. 
 
 P 5 
 
322 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the desolating wickedness of their respective 
 times, but that God had a chosen people in 
 the midst of abounding infidelity I and while 
 the forgetfulness of this doctrine of election 
 was Elijah's misery in the wilderness in his 
 day, when he said " I, even I only am left ;" ^ 
 Isaiah was comforted by it in his day, de- 
 claring that " except the Lord of hosts had 
 left unto us a very small remnant, we should 
 have been as Sodom and we should have been 
 like unto Gomorrah/'^ And what were the 
 " visions of glory " which animated their souls, 
 but, that in God's good time, " a little one " 
 should " become a thousand, and a small one a 
 strong nation,""^ till all people, kindred, nations, 
 and tongues became the elect people of God ? 
 
 This same blessed doctrine of distinguishing 
 mercy is the very life's blood of the New 
 Tbstamenf also. The genealogy of our Lord 
 contains instances of particular and personal 
 election ; and though it is not so conspicuous in 
 the three first Gospels, in the last it meets us 
 w\ih peculiar prominence, from the beginning 
 to the end ; so that if the colloquial part of St. 
 John's Gospel could be inserted in any intelli- 
 gible harmony throughout the three former 
 Gospels, election would appear to form no small 
 portion in our Lord's addresses. 
 
 The gathering of the Church in the " Acts of 
 
 1 1 Kings xix. 10. ? sisa. i. 9. • Ibid, Ix. 22. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 323 
 
 THE Apostles " abounds both in the spirit and 
 expression of distinguishing grace ; and is but 
 one continual exhibition of " the Lord adding to 
 the Church — such as should be saved/' i 
 
 Throughout the Epistles the same doctrine 
 largely prevails; but more especially its sweet and 
 comforting spirit developes itself, in all its rich- 
 ness and peculiar blessedness, in the examples 
 of those tried and God-devoted men, vj^ho were 
 inspired by the Holy Ghost to write them ; and in 
 their consolation most abundantly to console the 
 Church through all ages. And in that one Epistle* 
 which gives a systematic delineation of the doc- 
 trines, privileges, and precepts of our faith, 
 electing grace has surely its full proportion 
 of prominence : in the chapter of privileges ^ it 
 enjoys its full share in perfecting the enume- 
 ration of blessings, and of the whole Epistle it 
 occupies a complete fifth part even in the letter, 
 besides being the soul and essence which 
 quickens the whole into spiritual meaning, from 
 the first verse, in which the Apostle describes 
 himself as '• separated unto the Gospel of God," 
 to the benediction which closes the epistle. 
 
 And what is the Revelation of St. John, 
 but a disclosure of distinguishing mercy to 
 the Church from the time of the Revelation, 
 to that hour, when the encompassed *' camp 
 of the saints and the beloved city " are finally 
 
 ' Actsii. 47. * St. Paul to the Romans. ^ Rom, viii. 
 
324 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 and everlastingly delivered, " and the devil that 
 deceived them " is " cast into the lake of fire 
 and brimstone, where the beast and the false 
 prophet are, and shall be tormented day and 
 night for ever and ever ? " ^ 
 
 What is the Holy Church from the first to the 
 last saint which shall be gathered in, but the 
 congregation of God's elect — " a chosen gene- 
 ration, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a 
 peculiar people,'' 2 whom he has selected to set 
 forth the glory of his grace upon earth, and 
 who, when gathered from the four winds at 
 ^' that day," shall constitute the glory of the 
 Redeemer's triumph in heaven ? 
 
 I am well aware. My Dear Friend, that as we 
 are able to apprehend the preciousness of the doc- 
 trines of grace, so shall we discover this blessed 
 doctrine throughout the Scriptures. To one 
 person there would be no hint of the existence 
 of this doctrine, in God's selecting the widow 
 woman of Sarepta to " sustain " his prophet ; 
 while to another, it might be evident, and he 
 might preach the doctrine of election so plainly 
 from it, as to endanger his life from the into- 
 lerance of his exasperated auditors. ^ It must 
 ever be thus in this divinely inspired volume : 
 the glorious trviths of which are not revealed to 
 reason but to faith ; and the discovery of which 
 is not made to learning, or talents, or acquire- 
 
 1 Rev. XX. 9, 10. 2 1 Peter ii. 9. ^ Luke iv. 29. 
 
THIS INTEllPRETATION. 325 
 
 nients, but to a humble spirit and a contrite heart, 
 which are " in the sight of God of great price*" ^ 
 I am not ignorant of the objections which may 
 be opposed to this statement, and of that main 
 battery, so much relied on of late, that if I turn 
 my^face to the north, my back must necessarily 
 be to the south, — that if I hold election I must 
 hold reprobation also : and I am prepared to be 
 told, even by yourself, that the admission of the 
 former doctrine necessarily implies the admission 
 of the latter. But whatever the reasonings of man 
 may urge on this head, (and he has but a confined 
 view of the question, who does not admit that 
 the difficulties on every side of it are such as 
 utterly to confound the reason of the most acute) 
 or whatever private opinion 1 may hold, 1 am 
 happily preserved by the wisdom of our Church, 
 from the necessity of making any declaration 
 on the subject. The Church requires of me, in 
 no place that I am aware of, any such declara- 
 tion. She mentions indeed more than once in 
 her Homilies " the elect and reprobate," but 
 as a minister of her ordinances, she no where 
 demands my opinion on the doctrine. She does 
 indeed require of me an explicit avowal of my 
 belief in the doctrine of election ; for she cannot 
 move a step without it : it is on this that all her 
 blessings are founded from our entrance into 
 her communion to our departure from it ; she 
 
 ^ 1 Peter iii. 4. 
 
326 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 holds it therefore explicitly in the most compre- 
 hensive and the most exquisitely finished of her 
 doctrinal Articles, and implicitly throughout all 
 her formularies as we have repeatedly seen. 
 She asks of me then a plain declaration of my 
 belief in this doctrine, as a necessary and indis- 
 pensable requisite to my admission into her 
 ministry : but while in her fairness and in her 
 justice she demands this ; in her charity, she 
 leaves me at large as to any avowal on the 
 doctrine of reprobation. Here then I take re- 
 fuge against all such objections under the broad 
 shield of the discretion of our Church. She sees 
 no necessity of asking me for my subscription 
 to the doctrine of reprobation, but she does ask 
 me for an honest approbatif)n of the doctrine 
 of election, and she will not admit me into her 
 ministry on any other terms. I oppose then her 
 wisdom, and her charity, and her sound example, 
 to all that modern Socinianism, and modern 
 ratiocination may urge against my consistency 
 on this head. The wisest perhaps and the most 
 liberal Church in the world, sees no inconsistency 
 in requiring my belief in the doctrine of elec- 
 tion, leaving me to the full enjoyment of my 
 own discretion on the subject of reprobation. 
 And this appears to me to be the wisest answer 
 that a Clergyman of our United Church can give, 
 when charged with the apparent inconsistency 
 of holding one of these doctrines without the 
 other. On this ground he is impregnable. As 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 327 
 
 a Churchman then addressing* a Churchman^ it 
 is enough for me to plead the requisitions of the 
 Church to which we belong ; and as she sees no 
 inconsistency, in requiring an explicit approba- 
 tion of the doctrine of election from those who 
 subscribe her Articles, but leaves a similar 
 avowal on the doctrine of reprobation to their 
 discretion, I feel it sufficient to say, " I desire to 
 be a consistent Churchman, and if you charge me 
 with inconsistency, I leave my defence to the tried 
 wisdom, and piety, and charity of our church." 
 
 And surely. My Dear Friend, I want not a 
 fair inducement to this confidence, when I 
 see this blessed doctrine exhibited throughout 
 her formularies, both in letter and spirit, in all 
 the beauty and loveliness in which it appears in 
 the Scriptures of salvation. What is there dis- 
 coverable in this doctrine of election, as applied 
 to a fallen and helpless sinner, but what is 
 animating and encouraging ? Let us attempt to 
 do something like justice to this long-neglected 
 and abused " Daughter of Eternity.'* But who 
 can touch upon this " good pleasure" of Jeho- 
 vah's " will," this ^^ praise of the glory of his 
 grace,"' ^ without crying out, " O the depth 
 of the riches bothof the wnsdom and knowledge 
 of God ! " ^ Who can express it without its 
 receiving " a taint from mortal lips, at best 
 impure ? " He best honours it, who most enjoys 
 
 * Ephes. i, 5, 6. ' Rom. xi. 33. 
 
S28 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 it. It was not given to reason about, but to 
 enjoy : and may I not confidently ask, what is 
 there in this gracious doctrine that does not 
 abound in blessings to apostate man ? man " yet 
 the sinner ^' — " without strength'' — " ungodly " ^ 
 — the subject of the free choice of his God, that 
 choice exhibited in almost irresistible blessed- 
 ness in the " Son of his love " ^ — what is there 
 here to daunt, to terrify, or to repel ? Is there 
 not on the contrary all to invite, to encourage, 
 and to exhilarate ? Where is the Gospel lovely 
 if it is not so here ? Where is Christianity truly 
 blessed if it is not so here ? and where is God 
 truly admirable, adorable, and amiable, but as he 
 is here intelligible, suitable, accessible, desirable, 
 and enjoyable ? I grant, that, preached as elec- 
 tion too commonly is, didactically, and as a dry 
 doctrine without feeling and without experience, 
 it is too frequently repulsive ; and I lament, that 
 a doctrine so truly honourable to God, and 
 suitable to man, should have been so grossly 
 distorted on the rack of controversy ; but look 
 at it as illustrated by our Church, the ground 
 of her communion, the stay of her communion, 
 the consummation of her communion ; and what 
 is there in it but the richest consolation and en- 
 couragement ? Use it as our Church does, for the 
 purpose for which it is revealed, and it is the 
 sweet solace of the believing soul, and the buoyant 
 
 » Rom. V. 6. ^ Coloss. i. 13. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 329 
 
 suppoilt of the contrite spirit ; taking its rise in 
 an eternal fountain, flowing in a rich stream of 
 abundant mercies through the commotions, the 
 " sea " 1 of time, and arriving at its full conflu- 
 ence of blessedness in the ocean of eternal glory. 
 Perhaps you will say, it would be better to 
 omit the mention of election altogether, as it is 
 a subject of which most are impatient, and it 
 may prejudice the candid perusal of your book. 
 My Dear Friend, if I was aware of one sentiment 
 or one expression, throughout these pages, un- 
 necessarily offensive, I can assure you, that my 
 own hand should be the first to erase it ; for I 
 am convinced that if I do not display the spirit 
 of the Gospel, as well as its letter, I can hope 
 for no blessing from him, to whose sole glory it 
 is my desire to devote this weak effort to declare 
 his grace. But if I omit election, if I do not 
 bring it forward with a conspicuous prominence, 
 as the very basis on which all practical grace is 
 founded, I do indeed, in my own apprehension, 
 deprive the tree of its root, the building of its 
 corner-stone, and the body of the very soul that 
 quickens it. I cannot, I dare not omit it, till 
 the Church of Christ has another Bible, and the 
 Church of England another Liturgy. In my 
 view, they both consistently and harmoniously 
 derive all their blessings from this doctrine : 
 and had we but faith to train up our children 
 
 * Rev. xxi. 1. 
 
330 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 according to our Baptismal Service, in the free 
 promise of a Covenant-God, the doctrine of 
 election would be practically illustrated in all 
 its beauty, usefulness, and glory, to the truest 
 welfare of man, and the highest honour of God. 
 
 I cannot but conclude this subject with the 
 rapturous expression of Hooker : " Blessed for 
 ever and ever be that mother's child, whose 
 faith hath made him the child of God."' ^ 
 
 Another and most manifest advantage of 
 this interpretation of our Baptismal Service, is, 
 that — IT HONOURS God in that which is most 
 
 DEAR TO him, " THE PRAISE OF THE GLORY OF 
 HIS GRACE.'" 2 
 
 " No man hath quickened his own soul ; " ^ 
 salvation therefore is from the Lord in its rise, 
 in its progress, and in its end. Preventing 
 grace comes from God, by which grace origi- 
 nates in the soul ; co-operating grace is equally 
 from him, by which daily habits of holiness are 
 formed ; and crowning grace is from him, by 
 which grace is matured in glory. Man is no 
 mere machine in this matter ; but all the facul- 
 ties of his soul, being born again by the Spirit, 
 are inclined to good, as they were by his natural 
 birth inclined to evil 5 and they all now make 
 " increase with the increase of God." ^ And as 
 
 * The whole passage applies here with most appropriate 
 force. See the conclusion of his " Learned discourse on the 
 certainty and perpetuity of faith in the Elect." 
 
 3 Eph. i. 6. » Psalm xxii. 30. * Col. ii. 19. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 331 
 
 me believer is now " renewed in knowledge 
 after the image of him that created him," ^ so 
 God has ordained the means of grace, by the 
 efficacy of which that image should be main- 
 tained and improved. Now as grace is free in 
 its bestowment, it is equally free in the appoint- 
 ment of means, by which it pleases God to 
 bestow it. No man is entitled to say, why has 
 God connected grace with the cutting of the 
 flesh, as in Circumcision, or with* the washing 
 the body with water, as in Baptism. A Sacrament 
 is " an outward and visible sign of an inward 
 and spiritual grace given unto us,'* and '* or- 
 dained by Christ himself," as the '^ means '' of 
 imparting his grace, " and a pledge to assure 
 us " that we possess it : and it is ours, not with 
 Nicodemus to say, "how can these things be?"^ 
 but to close in with the offer of grace, to accept 
 it as our own on the ground of the promise, to 
 believe the word of him who in mercy has 
 appointed it, and to honour his grace by faith 
 in his word. As our faith improves the means, 
 so shall faith derive the blessing. 
 
 Now God has given repeated promises of 
 blessing generally to believers and to their 
 children : and our Lord Jesus Christ has con- 
 centrated the force of all previous promises in 
 that promissive invitation, and actual conferring 
 of its blessings, when he said " Suffer the little 
 
 I - 1 Col. iii. 10. ,2 John iii. 9. 
 
332 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 children to come unto me, and forbid them not, 
 for of such is the kingdom of God/'—" and 
 he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon 
 them and blessed them ; " and in the united 
 strength of this promise and performance of 
 the Saviour, our Church encourages the Sponsors, 
 ^' ye have heard also that our Lord Jesus Christ 
 hath promised in his Gospel to grant all these 
 things that ye have prayed for, which promise 
 he for his part will most surely keep and per- 
 form." We are required then to act " to the 
 praise of the glory of the "grace"' of God, 
 and to honour his grace by accepting it. 
 
 First, we are to honour his promise by believing 
 it* I deem it quite unnecessary, after what has 
 been so repeatedly urged as to the number and 
 reality of the promises to the children of believers, 
 to adduce any further particulars on this head. 
 I take it for granted, that God has given us 
 these " exceeding great and precious promises : '* 
 and he calls upon us to give him credit for his 
 kindness, to be just to his mercy, to confide in 
 his grace, and to improve his love by believing 
 them ; by real faith to apply a real blessing, 
 and to appropriate these rich covenant-mercies, 
 as belonging to ourselves and to our Children 
 to a thousand generations. 
 
 Secondly, he calls upon us to honour his 
 grace by observing that Sacrament which he 
 has appointed as the seal and sign of it. If we 
 question, we doubt 3 and if we doubt, we dis- 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 333 
 
 honour God. Faith only is the instrument of 
 conveying the blessing. It is faith which gives 
 all its energy to the Sacrament, for it is faith 
 which gives all the honour to God, by accepting 
 all the blessing from him. To doubt is to 
 destroy : it is to reduce the Sacrament to a 
 ceremony, and to deprive it of its virtue. Faith 
 gives vital application to every Sacrament ; 
 '^ Doubt ye not therefore but earnestly believe," 
 says the Church : she is throughout the Service 
 animating the faith of the whole " Communion 
 of Saints '' present, whether more immediately 
 or remotely interested in the baptised. It is 
 the uniform spirit of her service " honour God, 
 honour his grace, depend on his word, trust his 
 promise, a promise how sweetly carried into 
 effect by our Incarnate God in the days of his 
 flesh : you have the strongest grounds of faith ; 
 give him all your confidence, trust your Child 
 wholly to his grace ; believe, believe ; accept 
 the sign ; take the seal ; bear away the pledge ; 
 and doubtless yours shall be the blessing.'' 
 
 And what is this but the very soul and spirit 
 of the Gospel ? All its blessings are of grace, 
 rich expressions of sovereign kindness and 
 covenant love ; and they become our own, 
 exactly as we accept them and apply them by 
 faith to our own individual circumstances and 
 case. An unappropriated blessing is no bless- 
 ing ; a boon unaccepted is no boon ; but as we 
 honour grace by accepting it, so does it really 
 
334 ADVANTAGES OF ; 
 
 become a blessing : for it is the unfailing word 
 of Scripture, " If thou canst believe '' i — " ac- 
 cording to your faith be it unto you.'^ " 
 
 And it is thus, I apprehend, that every believ- 
 ing Parent should receive his child from God : 
 not as " born of blood, nor of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God : "' ^ 
 not merely as a child of nature, but a child 
 of promise ; not as a child of providence only, 
 but as a child of grace. It is this " godly con- 
 sideration " of the gift that so enhances its value, 
 and makes ^^ the fruit of the womb a reward/' ^ 
 It is not, in the believer's apprehension, a child 
 of immortal destinies only, but it is enfeoffed 
 with an immortal inheritance ', it is a child of 
 glory. And when the Christian Parent receives 
 his Child into his natural arms, and enfolds him 
 in the warmest embraces of his affection as a 
 man ; he receives him also into the still closer 
 embrace, of his spiritual arms ; reposes him on 
 the bosom of his faith ; and enfolds him in all 
 the graces, the love, the joy, the peace, the hope, 
 which warm his heart as a saint of God. And 
 while he blesses God for this new gift in 
 nature, he especially blesses God for this child 
 of promise, — it is a tribute of gratitude due 
 from a gracious heart to " the praise of the 
 glory of his grace/' 
 
 1 Mark ix. 23. » Matt. ix. 29. 
 
 ' John i. 13. * Psalm cxxvii. 3. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. , 335 
 
 And what is it but ^^ the glory of his grace " 
 that God proposes in reforming this sinful world, 
 and renewing it in holiness ? If the pardon 
 of sin shall bring glory to grace, the conquest 
 of sin, and the renewal of the world in holiness, 
 shall bring glory to grace also. Most assuredly 
 God never intended the Law as the means of 
 converting the world 3 this honour was always 
 reserved for his Gospel. The triumph over oiu* 
 rebellion was never designed for the precept, 
 but for the promise. It was never intended that 
 man should hear the precept, and obey it from 
 his own moral power and strength ; for this 
 would be to assign the renewal of the world 
 to man's power, and would give the glory to 
 man ; but it was intended to give life to the Law 
 in the human soul by the power of the Spirit ; 
 that " the praise '* might be ascribed " to the 
 glory of grace." " For the promise that he 
 should be the heir of the world, was not to 
 Abraham or to his seed through the law, but 
 through the righteousness of faith." ^ The Law 
 never did make any thing perfect, nor was it 
 ever designed to make it so ; but the restoration 
 of the perfection of the Law is due to the power 
 of the Gospel : it is grace that restores the Law 
 to its honours by imparting to the human soul 
 the love of the Law, the sense of its holiness, 
 Und the desire to attain it : for it is the express 
 
 1 Rom. iv. 13. 
 
336 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 provision of the Gospel Covenant, '^ 1 will put 
 my laws into their mind, and write them in 
 their hearts." ^ The obedience of the renewed 
 man is to be "the obedience of faith," 2 and 
 not the obedience of his own natural power to a 
 legal rule. For this purpose Christ came into 
 the world ; and for this purpose salvation is by 
 promise j that faith, acting upon the promise, 
 might renew the world in holiness, and grace 
 have all the glory of the spiritual restoration 
 of mankind. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark how harmo- 
 niously the above interpretation of our Baptismal 
 Service suits this design. It is faith acting on 
 the promise. The obedience of the Child is the 
 obedience of faith; and as he grows in grace, 
 faith admires the gradual developement of the 
 promise, and ascribes the imparted holiness 
 of the Law, which it traces with pleasure in 
 the nascent virtues of the Child, simply to that 
 operation of the Spirit which secures the praise 
 of the glory of free grace. 
 
 The next advantage, on which we may 
 I'emark, suggests itself immediately from the 
 foregoing : That — as we honour the grace 
 OF God, by expecting Baptismal blessings 
 
 FROM FAITH IN THE PROMISE, SO WE RECTIFY 
 THE GRAND PREVAILING MISTAKE WHICH LEGIS- 
 LATORS, AND Moralists, and Statesmen, and 
 
 ' Heb. viii. 10. * Rom. xvi. 26. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 337 
 
 Christian Divines also, and generally the 
 
 WISE AND prudent MEN OF THIS WORLD, HAVE 
 LONG COMMITTED AND ARE COMMITTING AT THIS 
 HOUR, TO IMPROVE OUR SPECIES AND TO AMELI- 
 ORATE MANKIND. 
 
 We must have recourse to the foregoing 
 ADVANTAGE for the Statement of our position. 
 That it is the design of God to renew the human 
 character, not by the Law but by the Gospel, 
 not by the precept but by the promise, not by a 
 legal rule but by the influence of his Spirit : or 
 in other words, that his design is to honour his 
 Law by means of his Gospel. Immanuel, and 
 not mere man, " shall magnify the law and make 
 it honourable.*'! 
 
 And if this position be true, as assuredly it is 
 the very pith of the Gospel, then what a mistake 
 have the wise and prudent men of the world 
 been committing, tor thousands of years, in 
 endeavouring to make men honest, and to 
 change the human character by the enforcements 
 of mere law ! 
 
 And yet is not this the case ? Take a survey 
 of human society even in this Christian land, 
 and what is the principle of moral government 
 from the nursery to the Legislature ? 
 
 The grand prevailing principle is — the rule 
 of the Law calling upon the natural powers of 
 man for obedience to its jirecept, 
 
 * Isa. xlii. 21. 
 Q 
 
338 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 To begin with the nursery — what is the first 
 lesson that children are taught ? Is it their 
 own impotence or their own power ? surely the 
 latter. The Child is addressed simply in the 
 precept ; he must do this, and he must do that ; 
 but he finds that though often told not to give 
 way to this bad temper, or to neglect that duty, 
 that the bad temper is continually returning, 
 and the duty repeatedly neglected. The precept 
 is repeated as the offence is repeated, and the 
 Child, thrown on his own resources alone, feels 
 that sin is constantly gaining the dominion over 
 him. He makes little or no advance in improve- 
 ment, and the fretted Parent adds correction to 
 the precept, referring the Child still to nothing 
 beyond the strength of his own natural re- 
 sources ; till, too frequently, habitual fretfulness 
 is engendered ; reserve supersedes affection ; 
 and distance, and alienation follow, which it is 
 perhaps the unavailing effort of the Parent's life 
 to correct, and, alas ! too frequently, his bitter 
 portion to lament, to his last hour upon earth. 
 
 On the same principle of the precept, the 
 whole life of the Child is conducted merely by a 
 repetition of rules : he must do this, he must not 
 do that : and when the one is neglected, or the 
 other violated, he must undergo the penalty 
 of disobedience, or a promise is exacted from 
 him, made in his own strength, that he will not 
 be guilty of the same again. In all this, what is 
 there but an appeal to his own power made 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 339 
 
 by a law, the perfection of which is continually 
 convicting him of weakness, while it frets and 
 goads his fallen nature by requiring that, with 
 unceasing importunity, which every day of his 
 life, that fallen nature by its continued failures 
 confesses that it cannot give. 
 
 With respect to God, all his duty is to be the 
 effect of the precept. The Child is taught to 
 pray : he must say his prayers morning and 
 evening : he is inattentive, and he is told that 
 he must pay more attention, for he is in the 
 presence of God. He is tired, and begins to 
 yawn ; he is told that he would not yawn at 
 play, and perhaps severely chid for this weari- 
 ness of nature. Here is nothing but the rigour 
 of the precept ; no Gospel to encourage him, no 
 persuasion from the promise that he is a child 
 of God, that the eye of a kind and affectionate 
 Father is upon him, pitying his weakness, and 
 inviting him to confess it : encouraging him to 
 ask for the Spirit to correct his infirmities, for 
 that his ^' heavenly Father " will assuredly 
 " give the Holy Spirtt to them that ask him.'' ^ 
 
 So again as to his lesson ; the precept demands 
 it as a duty, and consequently all is weariness 
 and toil. He is not taught to ask a blessing 
 upon his endeavours, that his mind may be , 
 instructed, and his faculties cultivated for the 
 glory of God, and that God would give him the 
 
 > Luke xi. 13. 
 Q 2 
 
340 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 necessary industry and attention. And when 
 distraction and idleness too plainly evidence 
 themselves in a neglected lesson^ does not the 
 rigour of the law appear in punishment simply, 
 without any attempt at conviction of sin, or any 
 inducement to repentance by a reference to God 
 as the Father of mercies, against whom the 
 offence has been committed ? The severity 
 of the precept exacts the duty, and the penalty 
 follows the violation of it. 
 
 And what encouragement can the Child, thus 
 legally educated, derive from Christian motives ? 
 Where is the blessedness of his Baptismal 
 privileges as " a member of Christ, the child 
 of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
 heaven ? " What can he know of the aid of the 
 Spirit in helping his " infirmities," ^ when a 
 harsh precept is continually exacting that from 
 his weak nature, which it cannot give, and those 
 spiritual motives and supports to which as a 
 child of God he is entitled, are never once 
 brought to bear with practical efficacy in the 
 relief of those very infirmities for which they are 
 specially provided, and which constitute the very 
 essence of the Gospel as a remedy for human 
 helplessness and imperfection ? 
 
 And can we wonder. My Dear Friend, that 
 the hope of families should be disappointed, 
 when children are educated almost exclusively 
 
 * Rom. viii. 26. 
 
• THIS INTERPRETATION. 341 
 
 « 
 
 by the harshness of the Law^ ratlier than by the 
 encouragement of the Gospel ? While we neg- 
 lect God's means and adopt our own, what are 
 we doing, but counteracting God ? What 
 wonder then that the failure is so common ? 
 
 When sent to school alas ! the same or rather 
 an aggravated rigour of the precept still pur- 
 sues the hapless Child of Baptismal privileges 
 neglected and forgotten. Either the rod of the 
 Law is constantly terrifying him to the discharge 
 of duty, or false motives of conduct are applied, 
 which supersede all the blessed, and heavenly, 
 and effectual motives of the GospeL The fear 
 of shame, the terror of degradation, the love 
 of reputation, the dread of a rival, the thirst 
 of reward, or the love of distinction, entirely 
 blot out the desire of instruction, that he may 
 become a capable agent of usefulness in pro- 
 moting the welfare of man^ and an honoured 
 instrument in advancing the Redeemer's king- 
 dom and the glory of God. The Law surrounds 
 him on all sides, with the strictness of its letter, 
 the severity of its exactions, and the unrelenting 
 harshness of its penalties and inflictions : and 
 his wearied and jaded nature, resenting the 
 oppression, is confirmed in self-esteem and self- 
 pretension, and arrogance, and vanity, and 
 presumption ; till all those sins become his 
 habit, which he had vowed at his Baptism to 
 renounce. Hence, unless it please God to extri- 
 cate him in special mercy from the destructive 
 
 a 3 
 
342 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 current of a sinful world, and to pluck him as a 
 " brand out of the fire/' ^ he passes through life 
 the assertor of a proud morality, a self-righteous 
 exacter of the precept, a decided enemy to the 
 lively grace of the Gospel; and lost in the same 
 ignorance and error which have cursed the day 
 of his forefathers, and threaten through his 
 mis-principled education, ^ to be the curse of 
 that of his posterity also. 
 
 . * Zech. iii. 11. 
 
 * See a very interesting discussion, of the best mode of con- 
 ducting education, between some of the principal Statesmen 
 of their day, at Secretary Cecil's table at Windsor, as given by 
 Ascham in the opening of his " Schoolmaster." His own 
 opinion was, as the result of long experience ; " Love is fitter 
 than feare, gentlenesse better than beating, to bring up a 
 childe rightlie in learning." Among many most pertinent 
 remarks he adds, " This will I say, that even the wisest 
 of your great beaters, do as oft punish nature, as they do cor- 
 recte faultes. Yea, many times, the better nature is sore 
 punished ; for, if one, by quickness of witte, take his lesson 
 readilie, an other, by hardnesse of witte, taketh it not so 
 spedelie, the first is alwaies commended, the other is eommonlie 
 punished ; when a wise scholemaster, should rather discretlie 
 consider the right disposition of both their natures, and not so 
 much weigh what either of them is able to do now, as what 
 either of them is likelie to do liereafter. For this I know, not 
 onlie by reading of bookes in my studie, but also by experi- 
 ence of life abroade in the world, that those which be eom- 
 monlie the wisest, the best learned, and best men also, when 
 they be olde were never eommonlie the quickest of witte 
 when they were yonge.'' 
 
 These sentiments are so powerfully instanced in the example 
 of Lady Jane Grey, and are so well expressed by her in her 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 343 
 
 And as men are educated in the rigour of the 
 precept, so the whole cast of their conduct, in 
 all the relations of life, exhibits the consistent 
 impress of the same rigour. The Child in 
 return for the legal treatment of his Parent 
 exacts the same unsparing demand of duty 
 from him ; instead of exercising the patience, 
 the forbearance, the self-denial and kindness, 
 the condescension to his infirmities, the meek- 
 ness of wisdom, mild resignation, and un- 
 wearied prayer which are the very expression 
 of a sense of Gospel privileges, and distinguish 
 
 conversation with Ascham, that they are well worthy of record. 
 " One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me, is, that 
 he sent me so sharpe and severe parentes, and so jintle a 
 scholemaster. For when I am in presence eyther of father or 
 mother; whether I spake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, 
 drinke,be merie, or sad, be sowyng, playing, dancing, or doing 
 anie thing else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, mea- 
 sure, and number, even so perfitelie as God made the world, 
 or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cmellie threatened, yea 
 presentlie, sometimes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and 
 other waies, which I will not name for the honour I bear them, 
 so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, 
 till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me 
 so jintlie, so pleasantlie, with such fair allurementes to learn- 
 inge, that I thinke all the time nothing whiles I am with him. 
 And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because 
 whatsoever I do else, but learninge, is full of grief, trouble, 
 feare, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my booke hath 
 been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more 
 pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, 
 in very deede, be but trifles and troubles unto me." 
 
344 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the intercourse of ^^ the Communion of Saints/^ 
 The same legal harshness of undue expectation 
 and excessive demand, marks the other domestic 
 relations of Husband and Wife and Master and 
 Servant ; it is not the suavity of a Gospel com- 
 munion, but the severity of a required duty, 
 which characterises the exercise of these rela- 
 tions. So, indeed, throughout the whole social 
 intercourse between neighbour and neighbour, 
 there is a constant resort to the strictness of a 
 legal letter, an unmitigated demand of right, 
 an unconceding assertion of an extreme claim, 
 a quick perception of offence, and as quick an 
 appeal to the precept of ruled law : all which 
 but too evidently proves the harsh principle 
 from which the whole complexion of our man- 
 ners is taken, even in this professedly Christian 
 land ; and that in laying aside the Gospel privi- 
 leges proposed by our Church in Baptism, 
 instead of exhibiting the graces of a " Commu- 
 nion of Saints" formed by the Spirit, we exhibit 
 little more than a community of natural men, 
 formed on a rigorous precept, that rigour being 
 proportionably qualified as Gospel ordinances 
 are observed, and the spirit of the Gospel pre- 
 vails among us. 
 
 Let us now look into public life in Christian 
 England ; all bears the too evident impress of the 
 grand mistake, the endeavour to alter the cha- 
 racter of men by the enforcement of the precept. 
 What a harsh enforcement of law is observable 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 345 
 
 in our prisons ! a man has offended the law of his 
 country, and he must undergo the penalty by 
 being transferred from his family or occupation, 
 to the restraint of a prison ; perhaps his body is 
 fettered, or subjected to the infliction of hard 
 labour, or deprived of its usual sustenance, and 
 his s(5ciety is among the dissolute and dishonest. 
 And can it really be hoped, that all this variety 
 of legal penalty can be attended with the happy 
 effect of making the dishonest man honest, or the 
 drunkard sober ? or is this effect to be wrought 
 by the^ moral or religious instruction he may 
 receive? If so this instruction would not be 
 occasional, but daily and frequent, and a large 
 portion of the prisoner's time would be devoted 
 to this purpose ; but this is not the case ; and it 
 is but too evident that if any improvement 
 of character is expected, it is expected from the 
 operation of legal inflictions. And what is the 
 result? just what might be expected, discomfi- 
 ture and failure. The person once imprisoned, 
 so far from being reformed by the infliction 
 of law, has too frequently lost his character, 
 instead of having recovered it ; and either be- 
 comes an habitual prisoner for life; or he 
 departs from prison with no better principle 
 than he entered it, and his life remains unim- 
 proved. This I believe to be the uniform voice 
 of experience in Newgate, and its kindred 
 establishments of the metropolis. Neither the 
 precept of law, nor the penalties of law, are 
 
 a 5 
 
346 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 found to reform the human character. 1 have 
 been Chaplain to a prison for more than one 
 quarter of a century, and can truly say, that the 
 result of my experience on this head is, that any 
 favourable change of character which I have 
 witnessed in the subjects of my charge, during 
 that season, has arisen, not from the enforcement 
 of Law, but from the mild and winning suavity 
 of the Gospel, Chains and prisons may restrain, 
 but they never can reform. And the result of my 
 experience exactly harmonises with that view 
 of the Gospel which these pages imperfectly 
 pourtray; that our jurisprudence never can 
 succeed in improving our population, till our 
 prisons of rigorous law, become as to their 
 ultimate object penitentiaries of the conciliating 
 Gospel. 
 
 Look next at the Legislature, from which the 
 laws emanate in this Christian land* " And the 
 Lord God commmided the man, saying, of every 
 tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but 
 of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
 thou shalt not eat of it > for in the day that thou 
 eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'' * This is 
 the form of human law, the common frame 
 of our Acts of Parliament. It is the command 
 of authority : terms are specified, exceptions, 
 if any, are stated, obedience is required, and the 
 penalty is subjoined. And so long as man 
 
 ^Gen. ii. 16, 17. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 347 
 
 remains the fallen and sinful being he is^ so long 
 must human laws propose their rule and subjoin 
 their penalty. But the question is whether in 
 a Christian community, the spirit of whose rule 
 is " I will have mercy and not sacrifice ; *' the 
 above mode of preceptive and inflictive legisla- 
 tion, is that which is adapted to make or to 
 preserve a people moral or religious ? The 
 obedience of the Gospel is not an obedience 
 arising from the demand of any precept of God 
 or man on the natural powers of the human 
 heart, for such it cannot give ; but it is " the 
 obedience of faith,'* an obedience wrought in the 
 heart by the Spirit of that God who worketh in 
 every believer, " both to will and to do of his 
 good pleasure:"^ and the obedience paid by 
 this man to human laws, springs from a spiritual 
 motive, his faith calling upon him to be " subject 
 to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake/' ^ 
 Might we not expect then from a Christian 
 Legislature a code of laws founded on Gospel 
 motives, the suavity of which should temper 
 the severity of the precept, and while it aimed 
 to suppress evil in every shape, never imposed 
 the penalty but as the resort of imperious 
 necessity? Would not the leading character 
 of legislative enactment be, to induce and to 
 encourage to good, to establish means of grace 
 throughout the land, to provide churches and 
 
 'Phil. ii. 13. 3 1 Peter ii. 13. 
 
 I 
 
348 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 ministers according to the number and wants 
 of the people, to institute schools, to arrange the 
 most spiritual and the most useful mode of edu- 
 cation 5 and, generally, to call all those great 
 and efficacious motives into action, from which 
 emanates that highest order of human character, 
 which is equally a blessing in public and private 
 life — the just man formed on the principles 
 of the Gospel ? What then is the real state 
 of the case ? Though the Gospel is the law^ 
 of the land, and the Bible and the Liturgy and 
 the whole Ecclesiastical Establishment are part 
 and parcel of our legislative provisions 5 yet can 
 the spirit of the Gospel be said to be the spirit 
 of our laws ? Is it their great and obvious 
 character, to restrain that they may improve^ 
 and to punish that they may bring to repen- 
 tance ; to suspend the functions and privileges 
 of the citizen for a season by the imprisonment 
 of his person, that he may be restored to the due 
 exercise of those functions, and the enjoyment 
 of those privileges, and thus become a blessing 
 to himself, his family, and his country, and an 
 honour to his God ? Human life is cheap among 
 us, there being, it is said, more than one hundred 
 and fifty offences attended with the penalty of 
 death. Human comfort is clieap among us, from 
 the multiplicity of statutes which enjoin fine, 
 imprisonment, personal punishment, the hulks, 
 and transportation to a distant land ; and 
 which admit no opportunity of repentance. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 349 
 
 make no allowance for it^ offer no encouragement 
 to it, and yet expect to ameliorate the character 
 solely by the infliction of the penalty, so that the 
 offence shall not be repeated.^ We stimulate 
 the pruriency of human passions and appetites, 
 by encouraging gaming, by the licensed sale 
 of spirituous liquors ; and we offer a snare to 
 human cupidity by the multiplicity and fre- 
 quency of oaths. But it is invidious as it is 
 unnecessary for me to " basket up the family 
 of plagues that waste our vitals," my object 
 being to show that the leading character of our 
 legislative acts is to preserve and improve 
 
 » Most willingly do I admit that the severity of the law is 
 frequently tempered by the merciful prerogative of the Crown, 
 and by the lenity of official discretion ; but this does not affect 
 the character of the law ; that still remains the same. Nor 
 does it appear to me to be possible to relieve our laws from 
 the imputation of a merciless severity, so long as the present 
 mode of capital punishment is uncommuted for the privation 
 of personal liberty, and so many are annually hurried out 
 of life into an irreversible eternity, who are the least qualified 
 to meet the severity of judgment, and whose confinement in 
 an asylum that was at once punitive and penitentiary, (the 
 former in order to the latter) according to the character of its 
 inmates, might have restored them to society as a blessing, or 
 deprived them for life of the ability to repeat their crime. — A 
 large proportion of those who suffer seem to be from 18 to 30 
 years of age ; 40 or 50 years of prolonged life shut out from 
 opportunities of crime, is a protracted day of grace, in which 
 many a soul might, with God's blessing upon the means, be 
 recovered from the error of his way, and be restored to the 
 blessings both of this world and the next. 
 
3^0 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 society not by the operation of Gospel prin- 
 ciples, but by the precept and penalty of Law; 
 a fundamental mistake, inasmuch as we are 
 expecting that from the precept which the 
 precept can never obtain from our fallen nature, 
 and which the renovating and empowering grace 
 of the Gospel can alone produce. Law may and 
 must restrain the hand from the commission 
 of the outward act ; it is the Gospel alone that 
 can supply the motive to improve the act, and 
 to direct it to good. 
 
 Look next to the Cabinet of the Statesman. 
 And are not the principles of government 
 equally mistaken as the principles of legislation ? 
 In a Christian country professing the Bible, the 
 Book of motives, as the storehouse of its prin- 
 ciples of government, should we not conclude 
 that this would be the principle of its rule ; that 
 
 MAN IS AS HIS MOriVES ARK, OF that MOTIVES 
 
 MAKE THE MAN ? To the outward eye indeed, 
 " manners makyth man ; " but to the eye of 
 wisdom tracing up effects to causes, " motives 
 make the man;" inasmuch as corrupt fruit 
 uniformly proceeds from a corrupt tree : and 
 " make the tree good," 1 and you make the fruit 
 good also. 
 
 Might we not hope, then, that such a Govern- 
 ment would direct its policy simply by the 
 pole-star of principle ; and so far from violating 
 
 ' Matt.xii. 23. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 361 
 
 it by any territorial acquisition which was 
 not approved by justice — by any commercial 
 advantage unsanctioned by the same— by any 
 appeal to the cupidity of the people, or to the 
 pruriency of their appetites to raise money for 
 -purposes of state, that on the contrary it would 
 deem the inviolability of principle so sacred, that 
 no civil necessity could justify the infringement 
 of it ? And might we not further hope that this 
 principle would be the very spirit of its rule ? 
 That in all political necessities it would not 
 resort to a mere expedient, as a temporary 
 corrective of evil ; but that it would wisely and 
 patiently consider the cause of the evil, and seek 
 effectually to amend it in its principle. Let us 
 take the case of Ireland for an example. Many 
 of the people have long expressed themselves 
 dissatisfied with their Government; and this 
 expression has arisen, from century to century, 
 to its most distressing degree in civil commotion. 
 Concessions have been made from time to time, 
 and armies have been sent and renewed ; and 
 the evil is now of so menacing a character, as 
 to induce the solemn consideration, whether 
 concession shall not be carried to its utmost, 
 and all that is demanded be yielded ; while to 
 many it appears, that this concession may prove 
 the admission of principles into the State, which 
 may reduce us again to ignorance and slavery. 
 In such a juncture might not a Christian 
 Cabinet be expected to reason thus ? " Centuries 
 
352 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 have elapsed, and one generation has been borne 
 away after another, but the men are the same : 
 if we make concession it does but provoke 
 demand ; if on refusing demand civil commotion 
 ensue, which is quieted by force, the same force 
 must again and again be called into action, when 
 the terror of its former exercise has subsided. 
 It is evident, therefore, that as the men are the 
 same, their principles are the same, and we 
 must correct their principles to correct the men. 
 Force will not avail, let us try what kindness 
 may do : the Law has not effected our purpose, 
 with its precept and its penalty, let us try 
 what the Gospel may effect." And if the first 
 question, with such a Cabinet, in the case 
 of insurrection or rebellion, was that of ea^pe- 
 diency, " what is to be done at this moment to 
 relieve the pressure of incumbent difficulty ? " 
 the second would be a question oi principle : 
 '^ does not our security rest on principle alone ?" 
 To expect security from ignorance and error is 
 perfectly childish 3 it is to expect them to belie 
 their nature, and to force the stream back to 
 the fountain. The only security that we can 
 find, under God, is in the truth of our own 
 principles. It is not the precept " to obey," 
 again and again enjoined, and its observance 
 enforced with the penalty of the bayonet, that can 
 avail us, but Christian ministers, and Christian 
 teachers, to impart those principles of truth, 
 from which an intelligent obedience can alone 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 353 
 
 arise. It is the Gospel of peace that can alone 
 impart the principles of peace. Let the only 
 blood shed in Ireland be that of faithful and 
 laborious Protestant ministers^ whose kindness 
 and patience provoke the intolerance of ignor- 
 ance and error ; and that blood would be the 
 seed of a moral renovation^ and therefore of a 
 civil tranquillity among her people, which no 
 concession, however unqualified, no precept or 
 penalty of legal rule, however extreme, can ever 
 produce. In a word, it is the Gospel alone 
 which supplies the principles of truth, and as 
 men receive that truth, so must moral and civil 
 obedience prevail. 
 
 But so long as the precept and penalty of 
 mere law are resorted to, to obtain a willing 
 obedience to that law, it is evident that discom- 
 fiture must be the result ; both God and experi- 
 ence are against it : for it is attempting that 
 change of character by the Law, which God has 
 ordained shall only be effected by the Gospel. 
 
 A portion of the same great practical mistake, 
 is that idolatrous admiration of talent, which 
 ascribes to human wisdom and human prudence 
 that effect, which the principles of Gospel truth 
 under the influence of the Spirit can alone pro- 
 duce. It is no human prudence that can convert 
 Hindoos or Mohammedans to Christianity, or 
 make the advocates of Roman Infallibility the 
 willing subjects of a Protestant Government, 
 All the prudence and all the talent on earth, 
 
354 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 combined in one council cannot effect this : 
 whereas if a Sunday School child, fresh from 
 the simple instruction of Christian truth, and 
 taught that the knowledge of a Saviour was the 
 one grand remedy appointed by God for the 
 correction of human error, were permitted with 
 the reigns of government in his hands, to apply 
 this simple principle, till passing through the 
 obstructions of prejudice and ignorance, tlie 
 opposition of office, and the delays of so novel 
 a practice, it issued in the appointment of holy 
 ministers and teachers in the churches and 
 schools, and holy functionaries in office ; he 
 would do more to extricate us from our present 
 difficulty, than all the human wisdom, and human 
 prudence that have been applied to the relief of 
 unhappy Ireland, from the times of Walsingham 
 and Burleigh to the present hour. The world 
 stands not so much in need of talent as of honesty ; 
 it needs not policy but principle, or rather the 
 conviction that principle is the best policy. It 
 is not mere official ability and worldly wisdom, 
 to which God has awarded the honour of produc- 
 ing the most accomplished state of society ; it 
 is to the power of his principle of trutli^ — 
 Christ Crucified — and to the might of his Spirit 
 operating on that principle, to which the reno- 
 vation of the world is due. And all the talent 
 of man, with all its policy and all its power, all 
 its legal rule and legal penalty, backed by its 
 loudest tone of precept and warning, " Do^ do. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 355 
 
 l\o, or be punished," shall sink into utter no- 
 thingness, before the one plain word " Believe/* 
 the appointed renovator of human society, 
 which shall eventually transform every commu- 
 nity of mere men into a communion of faithful 
 followers of Christ Jesus. 
 
 And this is the only mode by which all political 
 commotions can be effectually appeased, which 
 arise from the discordant sentiments of mankind: 
 error must be superseded by truth. 
 
 Confidence in human wisdom and human 
 power has been the devil's grand delusion, by 
 which he has fostered the pride of man, and 
 deceived the nations from the beginning. For 
 six thousand years nearly, he has flattered tl^ 
 pride and independence of man, persuading him 
 that the counsels of human Cabinets, and the 
 laws to enforce those counsels, can rule the 
 moral world. How they have been able to do 
 it, let accumulated penalties, and increasing 
 legislative severity, and harsher legal inflictions, 
 and war and carnage and misery declare. If 
 another state of things is at hand, it is evident, 
 both from Scripture and experience, that human 
 Legislatures and Cabinets must alter the prin- 
 ciple of their rule; that Law must yield to 
 principle, the precept to the promise, human 
 power to the power of the Spirit ; and that the 
 j^rst qualification for office, must not be talent 
 
 but HOLINESS. 
 
 The sum of human wisdom is right principle ; 
 
356 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 and the sum of human prudence is the due appli- 
 cation of that principle to the production of its 
 proposed end. 
 
 But we must yet ascend another step in this 
 interesting subject^ and rise from the Cabinet 
 to the Pulpit : and here it is but too evident that 
 if the accredited moral instructors of mankind, 
 throughout Christendom, have taught for doc- 
 trines these commandments of men, instead 
 of the grace, and spiritual power of the Gospel, 
 and have been seeking to make men moral by 
 preaching the requisitions of the Law rather 
 than the influence of the Gospel, the taught can 
 only present the character of the morality im- 
 pressed on them by their teachers. As the 
 Pulpit is, such will be the Cabinet, the Legisla- 
 ture, the Prison, the Parlour, and the Nursery. 
 The complexion of its doctrines will give the 
 complexion to every rank, condition, and rela- 
 tion of social life. And has not the prevailing 
 divinity of the Pulpit throughout Christendom 
 for eighteen hundred years nearly, been the 
 prevailing divinity of the natural heart of man, 
 under the sanction of a Christian name ? Has 
 it not with the name of Christ on the lips of the 
 preacher, been an attempt to bring men to 
 the obedience of Law by enforcing the precept 
 of Law ? Has it not been the call of the preacher 
 on the natural heart, to render obedience to 
 the precept, when the Christian motives and 
 principles which could alone enable to that obe- 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 857 
 
 dience^ have been so wholly thrown into shade', 
 as to be virtually suppressed ? And has the 
 drunkard been urged to sobriety, and the 
 dishonest to " steal no more " from human 
 motives merely, as the apprehension of conse- 
 quences, the fear of shame, the loss of reputa- 
 tion and the like ! Then what is this but the 
 divinity of mere nature, the divinity of Plato 
 and Epictetus and Seneca ; not the divinity of 
 Christ crucified, that "wisdom of God," 
 which " destroys the wisdom of the wise," and 
 "that power of God,'* which "brings to nothing 
 the understanding of the prudent ? " l And has 
 not this attempt been made rather in human 
 strength than in the power of the Spirit ? Has 
 not a confidence been reposed in " wisdom of 
 words," in " excellency of speech and of know- 
 ledge," in human eloquence, in the suasion- of 
 reason, in powerful statement, in fine displays 
 of imagination, in affectionate earnestness, in a 
 word, in some modification of human ability, 
 rather than in the aid of the Spirit, and " the 
 foolishness " of that " preaching " of the cross 
 of Christ, with all its loveliness and all its en- 
 couragements, which "saves them that believe?" 
 A very brief view of the Church from the 
 ascension of its Head into glory to the present 
 
 J 1 Cor. i. 19. 
 2 U€i9oi(; translated " enticing," the margin reads " per- 
 suasible." 1 Cor. ii. 4, 
 
35^ ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 hour, will give a fearful representation of the 
 preaching of grace contracted and suppressed, 
 and the preaching of Law dominant and general. 
 In the first century, called the Apostolic age, 
 what resistance did our Lord meet with in his 
 own ministry from the legal principles of Phari- 
 sees and formalist? ! And it seems to have 
 required all the power of Apostolic authority, 
 and wisdom, and grace in Paul especially, as 
 well as in the other inspired messengers of the 
 pure Gospel, to maintain the integrity of grace 
 against the legal Judaizing spirit of their day. 
 It was the invasion of this natural temper of the 
 human heart, that gave birth to the first Council 
 held at Jerusalem, and to the full and powerful 
 condemnation of this mischief, in more than 
 one epistle addressed to some of the most 
 flourishing of the Churches. When these ori- 
 ginal lights were removed from this lower scene 
 of their active exertions, how quickly did this 
 legal spirit operate to obscure the lustre of 
 grace ! The next age was distinguished by the 
 Gnostic depravation of the person of Christ, 
 and with this, as all grace was obscured, so 
 legal motives and legal means of salvation soon 
 assumed the dominion. The reign of Novatian 
 harshness succeeded in the third century ; the 
 intolerance of legal severity having superseded 
 the conciliating benignity of grace; and the 
 three following centuries take their name, from 
 the several modes of yet further depraving the 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 359 
 
 person of the Saviour^ by the successive preva- 
 lence of the Arian, Nestorian, and Eutychian 
 heresies, till the preaching of the Law gained 
 a complete supremacy throughout the Church 
 in the opening of the seventh century, when 
 th6M»an of sin received his full establishment 
 ioa-the Episco|>al chitir of Raii»e. During the 
 nine following centuries, superstition upheld 
 the reign of legal precept, by her self-imposed 
 penances and mortifications, her monasticism 
 and vows, and the legal ability of one soul, 
 not only to save itself, but to contribute by 
 its supererogatory abundance of merit to the 
 salvation of its neighbour also. Till the sixteenth 
 century arose, we hear of no "Saeculum Evan- 
 gelicum," no reign of grace, and then arose the 
 '^ Saeculum Reformatum ; " ^ that age of Refor- 
 mation when Christ crucified being again '' lifted 
 up " 2 drew the eyes of an awakened world to 
 him ; and that one simple principle of pure 
 grace "being justified by faith we have peace 
 with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," ^ 
 being again disclosed under the operation of the 
 Spirit, legal perfection in sinful man in all its 
 ten thousand forms fled before it, and free grac« 
 for a season made no ineffectual struggle for the 
 spiritual dominion of this Western World. 
 
 • I use the enumeration of Christian centuries as given by 
 Cave in his " Historia Literaria." 
 
 2 John xii. 32. 3 Rom. v. 1 . 
 
360 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 And yet the extent to which these principles of 
 Reformation actually prevailed in the Pulpit of 
 our own Churchy confessedly the most flourishing 
 Church of the Reformation, seems to have been 
 overrated, if we may receive the following- evi- 
 dence of Bishop Jewell in the 14th Homily, 
 written after the accession of Elizabeth to the 
 throne -, " But sincere Preachers were, and 
 ever shall be, but a few in respect to the multi- 
 tude to be taught. For our Saviour Christ saith, 
 *^The harvest is plentiful, but the workmen be 
 but few : '' which hath been hitherto continually 
 true, and will be to the world's end : and in our 
 time, and here in our country so true, that every 
 shire should scarcely have one good Preacher, 
 if they were divided." And speaking of " Peril 
 of Idolatry," he says, " but a true Preacher to 
 stay this mischief, is in very many places 
 scarcely heard once in a whole year, and some- 
 where not once in seven years, as is evident to 
 be proved." That "good Preachers" after- 
 wards increased is evident, though it is as 
 evident that they soon began to decline. Eliza- 
 beth seems to have lived just long enough for 
 her fame and her peace. Towards the conclusion 
 of her reign, doctrines, before introduced, began 
 to invade the simplicity of those of the Refor- 
 mation, and which by gathering strength in the 
 days of her successors, issued in a conflict, 
 which by abusing grace on one hand, and de- 
 praving it on the other, terminated in that return 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 361 
 
 of the legal precept to our pulpits, which with 
 the Restoration of Charles the Second to the 
 throne has distinguished the divinity of our 
 Church from his time to that of the Reformation 
 of this present day. 
 
 And in this our day, partially reformed, and 
 daily reforming as our English Pulpit is, yet 
 can this day be justly said to be distinguished 
 for attempting the amelioration of mankind by 
 a full, simple, and persevering exhibition of the 
 Gospel of free grace ? I have but few oppor- 
 tunities of hearing, but if I may judge from the 
 general character of the printed sermons I have 
 seen, and from the accredited periodical produc- 
 tions conducted by members of our Church, the 
 doctrines of grace are in most instances made to 
 yield to the precept of Law, are so wholly kept 
 out of sight, so partially exhibited, or so fenced 
 and guarded by an excessive caution, that being 
 prohibited the fair exercise of their powers, self- 
 righteousness and self-ability smile at the feeble 
 impression made on their all dominant sway. 
 
 Look then at the state of divinity in the world, 
 as it has been, and yet is. For fourteen cen- 
 turies, from the first to the sixteenth, the 
 character of the Christian Pulpit seems to have 
 been that of moral reformation by preaching 
 the precept of Law : during one century, to 
 give it, as it seems to me the largest allowance, 
 the simple Gospel of grace prevailed over 
 one-fourth of the Christian world, if so large a 
 
362 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 proportion of it ever ranged itself under the Pro- 
 testant standard: from that time to the beginning 
 of this our present improved state, renovation 
 by the Law was the prevailing doctrine of our 
 pulpits ; and, may we accept the above-stated 
 particulars as just evidences of the prevailing 
 sentiments of this our day, the moral renovation 
 of man by preaching the precept, is the charac- 
 teristic feature of even our Reformed Pulpit. 
 
 How then, My Dear Friend, could it ever be 
 justly expected, that human society should have 
 assumed a more improved condition that it 
 presents to us at this hour ? Ov^r four-fifths 
 of the world heathen and Mohammedan darkness 
 has never yet felt the cheering light of the Gospel 
 of grace ; and over the remaining fifth, known 
 by a Christian profession, at least three parts 
 seem to be sunk in the legal delusion of Greek 
 and Roman superstition ; and even throughout 
 the Protestant Churches, in the most favourable 
 judgment of charity, can the pure principles 
 of grace, the appointed renovators of fallen man 
 to the image of his God, be said to be the pro- 
 minent, much less the exclusive me^ns adopted 
 for human improvement. See then the reason 
 that in this nineteenth century of the Christian 
 era and in the fifty-ninth century of a world, 
 shall we say now hastening to its perfection with 
 quicker pace than heretofore, man has made 
 such feeble advances in regaining the moral 
 image of his God. We have been attempting 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. S63 
 
 to effect that by the precept of Law, which 
 God has appointed to be done by the grace 
 of his Gospel. Such appears to me to be the 
 fact ; and the conclusion of the Prophet seems 
 to describe our condition with a graphic accu- 
 racy. If we had stood in the counsel of God, 
 God would have honoured his own counsel, and 
 the blessed effect had been produced ; but as 
 we have deserted his counsel for our own, defeat 
 and discomfiture have been the necessary result. 
 " But if they had stood in my counsel, and had 
 caused my people to hear my words, then they 
 should have turned them from their evil way, 
 and from the evil of their doings." ^ Had the 
 grace of God been preached, the grace of God 
 had surely produced its peculiarlyblessed effects. 
 God never gave the precept of his Law for 
 the purpose of making man holy or of keeping 
 him so. The first expression of his will to 
 Adam when the whole Law was comprehended 
 in one precept, neither made him holy, nor was 
 it given for that purpose. It ^vas given as the 
 condition of his continuance in Paradise, not as 
 the means of imparting the obedience by which 
 that continuance should be secured. And when 
 it pleased God, in the giving of the Sinai cove- 
 nant, to expand the expression of his will into 
 ten precepts, so far was it done from the inten- 
 tion of enabling man to hope for heaven from 
 his obedience to those ten precepts, that it was 
 
 * Jer. xxiii. 22. 
 R 2 
 
364 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 given for the directly contrary purpose, to 
 reduce him to utter hopelessness of justifying 
 himself by the Law. For " the Law entered " — 
 not that sin might be diminished — but " that 
 the offence might abound," ' it multiplied 
 transgression by multiplying the precept ; for 
 every additional Law given to man, shorn of his 
 spiritual ability by sin, did but render his hope 
 from the Law more desperate as it increased 
 his guilt. Hence it is through the Law that 
 " sin abounds," " the strength of sin is the 
 law : " 2 it is the Law that gives sin the domi- 
 nion over us. As the Apostle plainly intimates 
 when he ascribes our freedom from sin to grace : 
 *^ For sin shall not have the dominion over you, 
 for ye are not under the law but under grace." ^ 
 The Law never yet freed a soul from the yoke 
 of sin; this is the exclusive privilege of grac«. 
 And, if possible, he is yet more explicit on the 
 inability of the Law to sanctify : " the Law was 
 not made for a righteous man," it was not made 
 either to make a man righteous or to keep him 
 so ; yet the Law has its use and that a most 
 important one ; it is made to curb the un- 
 righteous ; the restraint of unrighteousness 
 and not the imparting of righteousness is its 
 purpose : it " is made for the lawless and 
 disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, 
 for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers 
 
 » Rom. V. 20. * 1 Cor. xv. 56. ^ Rom.vi. 14, 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 365 
 
 and murderers of mothers, for manslayers/' i 
 &c. Human society could not exist without the 
 restraints of Law ; and it is to restrain from 
 evil that laws are enacted, not to enable to 
 good. TI?e object of Law both human and 
 divine is the same ; to enjoin the rule of duty, 
 and to impose the penalty of disobedience ; but 
 no law gives ability to the subject of it to perform 
 its provisions. 2 
 
 This ability to perform thp precept of the 
 Law, is the peculiar gift as it is the peculiar 
 glory of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. He came 
 to fulfil all righteousness ; and while not one 
 jot or tittle departed from the Law till all was 
 fulfilled, our violations of the Law being atoned 
 for by his blood, its perfect requisitions being 
 accomplished by his obedience, and its righte- 
 ousness again imparted to man by his Spirit, 
 he is eminently " the end of the law for righte- 
 ousness to every one that belie veth." ^ What 
 
 * 1 Tim. i. ix. 
 
 2 " Men fearing God are thereby a great deal more effec- 
 tually, than by positive laws, restrained from doing evil ; 
 inasmuch as those laws have no farther power than over our 
 outward actions only, whereas unto mens' inward cogitations, 
 unto the privy intents and motions of their hearts, religion 
 serveth for a bridle." — Hooker, Ec. Pol. v. 2. 
 
 Chains may confine the hand, and prisons may immure the 
 body ; but " inward cogitations," " privy intents, and motions 
 of the heart," which constitute the real man, — the man within' 
 can be swayed by principle alone. The Gospel is the store- 
 house of principle. ^ Rom. x. 4. 
 
 R 3 
 
366 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the Law was unable to effect on account of our 
 imperfection, God in mercy did effect through 
 the all-sufficiency of his Incarnate Son : " For 
 what the law could not do, in that it was weak 
 through the flesh, God sending his own Son in 
 the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned 
 sin in the flesh ; that the righteousness of the 
 law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after 
 the flesh but after the Spirit/' ^ Our obedience 
 to the Law therefore is not the result of an 
 imposed precept, authoritatively enforced on 
 our incapable nature ; but it is the result of the 
 operation of God*s Spirit on our sinful hearts. 
 It is the promise of the New Covenant, and not 
 the precept of mere Law ; " I will put my laws 
 into their mind, and write them in their hearts/' - 
 They shall no more be written as inoperative 
 powerless precepts upon tables of stone ; they 
 shall not be written as they are in our churches 
 on tablets of wood, or as they are in our Bibles 
 on pages of paper, and thus be presented to 
 the outward eye ; but these laws shall be put 
 into our minds by the Spirit, that we shall have 
 a spiritual understanding of them ; and written 
 in our hearts by the same Spirit so that we shall 
 approve, admire, aud love them : in a word we 
 shall have an ^' understanding heart,'' which is 
 the brief scriptural compendium of spiritual 
 communication and of Christian attainment. 
 
 » Rom. viii. 3, 4. 2 jXeb, viii. 10. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 367 
 
 The Sinai Covenant never annexed any power 
 of obedience to the Law which it enjoined : this 
 is the exclusive privilege and peculiar glory 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 It is to the grace of the Gospel and not to the 
 precept of the Law that the Apostles ascribe 
 their sanctification, " For we ourselves also 
 were sometimes foolish^ disobedient^ deceived, 
 serving divers lusts and pleasures^ living in 
 malice and envy, hateful and hating one ano- 
 ther ; " ^ what caused the change in them then 
 from sin to holiness ? not the precept of the 
 Law, '^ but after that the kindness and love 
 of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not 
 by works of righteousness which we have done, 
 but according to his mercy he saved us, by the 
 washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost," &c. See also Rom. v. 6 — 11, 
 and Ephes. ii. 1 — 6. 
 
 So holiness is not ascribed to the conviction 
 or power of the precept, but to the operation 
 of the Spirit on the renewed heart. ^^ We are 
 his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
 good works." ^ — ie gy^ ^s many as received him 
 to them gave he power to become the sons of 
 God, even to them that believe on his name, 
 which were born, not of blood, nor of the will 
 of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
 God." ^ Our obedience also is the result of faith 
 
 ' Titus iii. 3—5. 2 Eph. ii. 10. ^ John i. 12, 13. 
 
368 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 and the Holy Spirit^ not of reason subjecting 
 the man to the requisitions of a legal precept : 
 it is " the obedience of faith '' — seeing ye have 
 purified your souls in obeying the truth through 
 the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren."' 
 — " Elect according to the foreknowledge of God 
 the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit 
 unto obedience.'' ^ 
 
 Neither under the Gospel are men called 
 upon to obey the Law, or to be holy but upon 
 Gospel motives. After a full display of the 
 blessed mercies of the Gospel in the eleven 
 first chapters of his epistle to the Romans, the 
 Apostle uses them all as Gospel motives of 
 obedience ; " I beseech you therefore by the 
 mercies of God/' not by the precept of the 
 Law, " that ye present yoiu' bodies a living 
 sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is 
 your reasonable service.'' And this willing 
 sacrifice of the whole man to God is never under 
 the Gospel expected from the requisition of the 
 Law, but from the love and mercy of the Gospel. 
 " For the love of Christ constraineth us ; because 
 we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were 
 all dead ; and that he died for all, that they 
 which live should not henceforth live unto 
 themselves, but unto him that died for them, 
 and rose again.'' ^ Believers are ^^ bought with 
 a price," and love, and gratitude, and joy, are the 
 
 > 1 Peter i. 22. * Ibid, i. 2. ^2 Cor. v. 14, 15. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 369 
 
 powerful motives which constrain them to 
 glorify God in their " body and their spirit 
 which are his/' ' See also Colossians iii. 12, 
 and the following verses. 
 
 Nor is it ever intimated that the insisting on 
 obedience to the legal precept, by the bare 
 statement of that precept, can ever cause the 
 spiritual Paradise to flourish again upon the 
 earth : this great moral change is uniformly 
 ascribed in Scripture to the promise of the New 
 Covenant— the gift of the Spirit ; for it is 
 only when " the Spirit " shall '^ be poured 
 upon us from on high " that " the wilderness " 
 shall "be a fruitful field." ^ 
 
 And does not our Church confirm this view 
 of our legal inability and the Gospel suffi- 
 ciency in her Communion Service ? The ru- 
 brick which precedes the declaration of the 
 Law is full to our purpose. " Then shall 
 the Priest, turning to the people, rehearse 
 distinctly all the Ten Commandments; and 
 the People, still kneeling, shall after every 
 commandment ask God mercy for their trans- 
 gression thereof in the time past, and grace to 
 keep the same for the time to come, as followeth." 
 Here it is intimated that grace alone can enable 
 us to keep the Law for the time to come ; and 
 grace is the produce of the gospel only : for the 
 Law knows no grace 3 nothing but an unyield- 
 
 * 1 Cor. vi, 20. * Isa. xxxii. 15. 
 
 R 5 
 
370 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 ing demand of obedience. Accordingly we 
 renounce all capacity of natural obedience to 
 the Law; we deplore our incapacity, and ac- 
 knowledge that we are subjects of mercy alone, 
 when after each commandment we implore, 
 '^ Lord have mercy upon us," for we cannot 
 keep this law; and we fly for refuge to the 
 Gospel, when we pray, " and incline our hearts 
 to keep this law," " thou alone canst incline 
 our hearts by thy Spirit, give us O Lord a 
 willing obedience, and dispose our affections to 
 love and keep this Law : " and we conclude 
 our petitions by pleading the very words of the 
 New Covenant, as the only source of spiritual 
 obedience ; " and write all these thy laws in 
 our hearts we beseech thee." " Remember thy 
 promise O Lord in thy New Covenant of mercy, 
 and give us that thing which by nature we 
 cannot have, a hearty desire to do thy will, and 
 to obey thy commandments." 
 
 Shall then the old objection be again thrown 
 in our teeth — you make void the law through 
 faith ? If so we must with the Apostle reject 
 the accusation with abhorrence, and say, " God 
 forbid ; " nay, so far are we from making it 
 void, that we render it its largest effect, we give 
 it its firmest establishment, we ascribe to it its 
 highest honours. 
 
 The Law is a copy of the divine image, a 
 transcript of the perfections of God. It is holi- 
 ness in the precept; the divine nature in the 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 371 
 
 rule. It is spirituality in detail : it is expanded 
 justice, holiness, goodness, wisdom, and truth : 
 it is the moral arrangement projected by the 
 love of God for the temporal and eternal happi- 
 ness of man : it is man*s perfection, because the 
 AlUwise God has placed in it the perfection 
 of his own will. The Law must' therefore be 
 the order of human happiness, because it is the 
 rule of human goodness, according to the will 
 of God : it is the path of rectitude, and must 
 consequently be the path of man's choicest 
 blessedness. The smallest obliquity from it, 
 must be misery, as it is sin ; the constant walk 
 in it, must be happiness, as it is obedience. The 
 slightest deviation from it, suggested by ap- 
 parent advantage, is the short-sightedness of sin 
 opposing itself to the ruled will of God ; all 
 adherence to its spiritual rule, though tried to the 
 utmost under the discouragements of fear, or the 
 imposing solicitations of a greater expediency, 
 is the consistency of holiness trusting God with 
 the unfailing rectitude of his own precept, and 
 the infallible perfection of his own will. Let 
 man but attain to the perfection of the rule, and 
 he attains the highest moral perfection of which 
 his nature is capable ; for the rule is the 
 expression of the divine will towards him ; and 
 in the performance of the will of the Creator is 
 necessarily placed the greatest well-being of the 
 creature. It is therefore the sum of our sanc- 
 tification as it is the sum of God's will towards 
 
372 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 US, and consequently must be the sum of our 
 happiness. To this moral Law then, which 4s 
 prescribed by God as the perfection of our 
 nature, belongs in its place and degree the fine 
 encomium pronounced on Law in the abstract. 
 " Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, 
 than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice 
 the harmony of the world : all things in heaven 
 and earth do her homage ; the very least as 
 feeling her care, and the greatest as not ex- 
 empted from her power : both angels, and men, 
 and creatures of what condition soever, though 
 each in different sort and manner, yet all with 
 uniform consent, admiring her as the mother 
 of their peace and joy." ^ Apply this to that Law 
 of which man is the subject, and so exquisite is 
 its blessedness, so extensive is its rule. 
 
 And shall we make void this Law ? God indeed 
 forbid ; no, we would exert every power to 
 establish it in every heart, and to induce man 
 to secure his own greatest happiness in unsin- 
 ning obedience to its sway. But the Law cannot 
 make man obedient to its own rule, any more 
 than a casket of jewels can give strength to the 
 hand of an infant to bear itself away. The 
 Gospel then must do for the Law what the Law 
 cannot do for itself. " If there had been a law 
 given which could have given life ; verily right- 
 eousness should have been by the law ; " but 
 
 * Hooker, Ec. Pol. end of Book I. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 373 
 
 no such law could be given to fallen man, with- 
 out lowering the divine perfections to the level 
 of man's imperfections. Instead therefore of 
 abating one iota from the glory of his own 
 attributes, by lowering the standard of his Law 
 to accommodate the incapacity of man ; the 
 Eternal Wisdom sent the Second Person in the 
 Tri-une Jehovah, to assume our incapable 
 nature ; that by imparting to that nature the 
 virtue of his own Godhead, he might make man 
 the very " righteousness of God in him ; '' ^ 
 might by his blood atone for those violations 
 of the Law of which man •had been guilty, 
 by his obedience perfect all righteousness in 
 the human subject, and by his Spirit impart the 
 very image of the divine nature, of which the 
 Law is a copy, to the human soul. See then 
 the honour of the Law vindicated by God-man, 
 the perfection of the Law accomplished by God- 
 man, and the end of the Law, as the perfection 
 of our nature, established by God-man, in 
 restoring the spirituality of the Law as the 
 sanctification of man to his recovered soul. Here 
 then, I re-state it, is the grand mistake upon 
 which all human rule has proceeded up to this 
 hour ; that men are attempting to do that by 
 the precept of Law, which the Law never was 
 given to effect, and which it never can effect in 
 its incapable subject, man ; but which the rich 
 
 » 2 Cor, V. 21. 
 
274 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 Gospel of grace, with its promise, and its power, 
 and its encouragements, and its atoning blood, 
 and its quickening Spirit, and its Paternal love 
 is provided, expressly provided to do for it. The 
 rudeness of the blast docs not draw the traveller 
 to the wind, but driv'es him from it ; and the 
 ruder the blast the greater the distance. The 
 Law with its perfect precept, and its rigorous 
 penalty, can only drive man to a distance from 
 God ; and the more acutely the perfection of that 
 precept is apprehended, and the more unre- 
 servedly the justice of that penalty is admitted, 
 the more awfully that distance is felt, till hope 
 is utterly lost in despair. It is the sun of grace, 
 with all its warmth, and light, and benignity, 
 and love, which encourages the traveller to look 
 up at a countenance beaming with the sweetest 
 kindness, and to approach a presence where 
 mercy is seated at the right hand of glory ; 
 where obedience is the richest privilege, and 
 holiness is consummate happiness.^ 
 
 * The distinct uses of the Law and the Gospel are clearly 
 stated by Bradford. " God's law requireth nothing of us, but 
 that which was in our nature before the fall, which we see is 
 impossible for us to pay accordingly ; and yet God, not unjust 
 in that he asketh of us nothing thereby, but the self-same thing 
 which he gave us in our creation. The law then, and the 
 precepts of God were given after the fall of man, not that man 
 should thereby get life and the thing which was lost by sin, 
 (for the blessed Seed was promised for the recovering hereof 
 and to him that pertained,) but that man by it might know sin, 
 and what he had lost, thereby to desire more deeply the pro- 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 375 
 
 Will it be saidj My Dear Friend, that I have 
 assigned a disproportionate degree of attention 
 to this subject. If so, I can only say that as the 
 very pith and soul of our question, — salvation 
 by the promise and not by the precept— it seemed 
 to me to deserve the space assigned in this letter. 
 A volume is required to do it justice ', for it 
 appears to me, that the renovation of the world 
 after the image of its God, depends on the right 
 understanding of this statement, and the con- 
 sequent enforcement of it in practice. It is no 
 less a question than this, — whether the principle 
 of moral amelioration on which men have 
 hitherto acted, is not utterly false — whether 
 they have not been counteracting the great 
 
 mised Seed, by whom as we be received, so our evils be not 
 imputed, and that we being renewed by his holy Spirit and 
 new seed, should as new-born babes desire, and by will begin 
 to do the law of God, which after our deliverance forth of this 
 corrupt body, and man of sin, by death, we shall without all 
 let fully accomplish, and at the length receive the body to be 
 spiritual (as Paul saith) and holy, ready to obey and serve the 
 Spirit, as a helper, rather than a hinderer. Oh ! happy day, 
 when wilt thou appear ! " 
 
 — " I would have the end wherefore God gave his law to be 
 considered, namely, not for man to get thereby eternal life, 
 which appertained to the promised seed ; but to shew man 
 what sin is, and what by sin he lost, that he might by his 
 inability be driven to desire of very necessity the promised 
 Messias, and so by him to receive the Spirit ; where through 
 being regenerate, he might learn to love the law, to take it as 
 a directory and rule to live by, and to hedge in his old man 
 from controlling.'^ — Fathers, &c. vi. pp. 389, 390. 
 
376 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 principle of holiness revealed by God for this 
 purpose, and whether the present state, not 
 of the heathen world merely, but of the Church 
 — not of the two great populous branches of that 
 Church now sunk in Greek and Latin corruption, 
 but of the Reformed Church, and of that portion 
 of it confessedly the best reformed, does not too 
 plainly and too lamentably exhibit the inefRcacy 
 of the principle hitherto employed to effect the 
 improvement of mankind ? Six thousand years 
 are nearly past, and how fearfully distant from 
 God is both the uncivilized and civilized world, 
 the Unchristian and the Christian, the Unre- 
 formed and Reformed ! And what is the reason ? 
 Is it that God has revealed no adequate remedy 
 for the evil ? Certainly not. Nearly eighteen 
 hundred years havfe enjoyed a perfect Gospel, a 
 Gospel charged with the fullest supplies of re- 
 newing grace. Is it then that man has not 
 only neglected to apply the remedy, but that 
 he has counteracted the appointment of God ? 
 Certainly both history, and the ordinary practice 
 of Christendom at this hour declare this to be 
 tlie case ; for where is the community, where is 
 the Church, I would even ask, where are the 
 families in which the precept of Law has not 
 been enforced as the dominant principle of moral 
 amelioration, and not the promise of grace 
 quickened into renovating virtue by the Spirit 
 of tlie living God ? 
 And have not the artifices of the arch-enemy 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION)^J^ 
 
 of human improvement borne am|vle^ Jtje^ti- 
 mony to the truth of the above remarksr^i' « 
 not against the doctrine of free grace that lie 
 has directed his most determined opposition 
 whether it be by force or fraud ? He has arrayed 
 both the moral^ and intellectual, and the very 
 spiritual world also against them as demo- 
 ralising, as absurd, and as even subversive 
 of spirituality itself. The moral man proud of 
 his own virtues, asserts that as grace abounds 
 sin must abound : the intellectual man sees 
 nothing but folly in that " foolishness of preach- 
 ing/' which sinks the intellectual superiority 
 of the wise, and the designing policy of the 
 prudent into dust, and exalts the docility and 
 simplicity of the child : and the spiritual man t^ 
 untrue to his own principles, and unjust to the 
 grace which has led him so far on his way to 
 heaven, listens to the suggestions of unsubdued 
 pride^ and mixes up his own strength with the 
 freeness and fulness of grace ; and perhaps 
 raises the loudest outcry against the full decla- 
 ration of the Gospel. Hence it is that God's 
 loving mercy and truth have been withheld 
 from the great Congregation; and the cry 
 of antinomianism has been most perseveringly 
 repeated, where those very doctrines which 
 are alone given to effectuate the Law in the 
 improvement of mankind, have been most _< 
 successfully preached. I conceive this to be 
 the master-piece of Satan in opposing the 
 
f 
 
 378 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 doctrines of grace : he assumes the port of an 
 Angel of lights he mingles among the ranks 
 of the army of truth itself, and has address 
 enough to turn their own weapons against the 
 very cause they would support. When shall 
 the blessed hour arrive, when every minister 
 shall be entitled to take up the words of the 
 Psalmist and to say, '^ I have preached righte- 
 ousness in the great congregation : lo, I have 
 not refrained my lips O Lord, thou knowest. 
 I have not hid thy righteousness within my 
 heart, I have declared thy faithfulness and thy 
 salvation : I have not concealed thy loving 
 kindness and thy truth from the great congre- 
 gation." 1 This is that foolishness of preaching," 
 Believe and live, against which the devil 
 has ever yet successfully opposed human 
 wisdom, human prudence, and human power ; 
 and under the pretence of honouring the very 
 Law he hates, he has rendered God's appointed 
 mode of establishing the Law in the human 
 heart, contemptible and effete. It has hitherto 
 been driven into holes and corners, the rich 
 possession of a few, safe in their meanness, 
 and secure in the contempt of their cotem- 
 poraries; or when it has appeared in pulpits 
 of more public note in all its genuine beauty 
 and loveliness, the men who have preached 
 it, have been " men wondered at," considered 
 
 » Psalm xl. 9,10. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 879 
 
 as exceptions and peculiars, not as examples 
 to be followed, but rather as beacons to be 
 avoided. 
 
 We have now entered the first half of the 
 nineteenth century of Christianity ; and if the 
 question be asked why has not the Gospel been 
 more successful in turning man to God? the 
 only just answer that can be given, appears to 
 me to be, because the plain simple Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ, the renovation of man by grace, 
 has not been preached. If man had been true 
 to God, God had certainly been true to man. 
 The word of God is '^ go ye into all the world, 
 and preach the gospel to every creature," ^ 
 and if the present ungospelled state of the 
 world may be accounted for in part by the 
 Gospel not having been received ; must not by 
 far the largest part of the account be charged 
 to the real fact, that the Gospel has not been 
 preached ? 
 
 This is not the place to show what that Gospel 
 is; it will be admitted to a more seasonable 
 consideration at the conclusion of the next 
 letter. 
 
 And now. My Dear Friend, if it be a desirable 
 object, to apply in all its vital energy, that 
 principle of renovation, which the Father of 
 Mercies has revealed for the spiritual improve- 
 ment of mankind, — the promise in order to the 
 
 » Markxvi. 15. 
 
380 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 precept — how simply does the interpretation 
 of Baptism and its kindred Services, stated 
 throughout these letters, effect the same ! The 
 believing Parent, on the birth of his Child, 
 accepts it as a child of God, as it is interested 
 in the promises made to the children of believers. 
 The Child is the gift of God ; it is received from 
 him, and it is devoted to him ; it is educated 
 under a persuasion that " he is faithful that " 
 hath " promised," ^ and in confidence that he 
 is interested in the salvation of Christ, the 
 Child is instructed to walk worthy of his holy 
 calling, to believe that Christ has justified him 
 by his blood, and is sanctifying him by his 
 Spirit; and from these blessed considerations 
 to draw constant encouragement to walk before 
 him in holiness and righteousness all the days 
 of his life. Thus as the parties believe the 
 Gospel, even so do they attain the practical 
 holiness of the Law. 
 
 Another advantage is, that — a new argu- 
 ment WOULD THUS be AFFORDED TO MINISTERS 
 AND PARENTS, AND SPONSORS, AND TO EVERY 
 MEMBER OF THE CHURCH, TO INSIST ON THE 
 BECOMING CONVERSATION OF EVERY CHURCH- 
 MAN FROM THE BLESSEDNESS OF HIS BAPTISMAL 
 PRIVILEGES, AND THE SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITY 
 OF HIS BAPTISMAL VOWS. 
 
 It is but too evident that much confusion 
 
 * Hebrews x. 23. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 381 
 
 exists on this subject, under what character 
 a minister of our Church is to address his 
 people. 
 
 To address them as really converted without 
 distinction, while they are evidencing their 
 privileges by no corresponding practice, bring- 
 ing forth no fruits meet for repentance, or 
 expressive of real faith, would doubtless be " a 
 dangerous downfall ', '' would encourage a false 
 eecurity, confound nature with grace, and 
 ascribe to the mere opus operatum what is only 
 due to the opus operantis — to the mere external 
 application of the Sacrament, what is due to the 
 gracious effect actually wrought in the soul.^ 
 
 * If the following able statement of Hooker's be admitted 
 as authority, the question, as to the mere reception of Baptism 
 being actual regeneration, is for ever set at rest. — " Baptism 
 is an action in part Moral, in part Ecclesiastical, and in part 
 Mystical ; moral, as being a duty which men perform towards 
 God : ecclesiastical, in that it belongeth unto God's Church 
 as a public duty ; finally mystical, if we respect what God 
 doth thereby intend to work. 
 
 " The greatest moral perfection of baptism consisteth in men's 
 devout obedience to the law of God, which law requireth both 
 the outward act or thing done, and also that religious affection 
 which God doth so much regard, that without it whatsoever 
 we do is hateful in his sight ; who therefore is said to respect 
 adverbs more than verbs, because the end of his law, in ap- 
 pointing what we shall do, is our own perfection ; which 
 perfection consisteth chiefly in the virtuous disposition of the 
 mind, and approveth itself to him, not by doing, but by doing 
 well. Wherein appeareth also the difference between human 
 and divine laws, the one of which two are content with opus 
 
3a2 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 Such a ministry must necessarily be dead and 
 barren — mere profession without spirit : and 
 wiiile " the blind '' thus continue to ^' lead the 
 blind/' they are walking in the security of Popish 
 self-complacency, and must " both fall '^ to- 
 gether " into the ditch." ^ 
 
 On the other hand, to address a baptised 
 people at heathens, must be equally a mistake 
 in the contrary extreme. It is admitted that 
 there are baptised sensualists, baptised extor- 
 tioners, and " baptised infidels ; " but even 
 these are to be addressed not without hope. 
 They have been baptised ; they have assumed 
 the Christian name ; they still bear it : they 
 would be offended if we deprived them of it ; 
 
 operatum, the other requires opus operantis ; the one do but 
 claim the deed, the other especially the mind. So that accord- 
 ing to laws which principally respect the heart of men, works 
 of religion being not religiously performed, cannot morally be 
 perfect. 
 
 " Baptism as an ecclesiastical work, is for the manner of per- 
 formance ordered by divers ecclesiastical laws, providing that 
 as the sacrament itself is a gift of no mean worth, so the 
 ministry thereof might in all circumstances appear to be a 
 function of no small regard. 
 
 ^^ All that belongeth to the mystical perfection of baptism 
 outwardly is the element, the word, and the serious application 
 of both unto him which receiveth both ; whereunto if we add 
 that secret reference which this action hath to life and remis- 
 sion of sins, by virtue of Christ's own compact solemnly made 
 with his Church, to accomplish fully the sacrament of baptism 
 there is not any thing more required." Ec. Pol. v. 62. 
 
 » Matt. XV. 14. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 383 
 
 and we have a right^ till they absolutely 
 renounce it, to call upon them for consistency, 
 to show forth the excellency of Baptismal privi- 
 leges, and the due performance of Baptismal 
 vows. Both consistency and charity demand 
 it of us ; for faith will never surrender hope, 
 so long as the day of grace remains ; and even 
 then, it is not for us to pronounce unfavourably 
 of the departed, as it is not for us to restrain 
 grace, but to give it the largest credit and 
 confidence. Our Church exhorts every sick 
 member without exception, " remember the 
 profession which you made unto God in your 
 Baptism," and she proceeds to examine him 
 on the very particulars of his Baptismal vows. 
 She knows no other examination : and if we 
 were as ministers in the habit of addressing our 
 people as a baptised people, responsible both 
 for Baptismal privileges and vows, inviting 
 them to a constant retrospect, and calling upon 
 them for a holy consistency, — ^not only would 
 the Pulpit harmonise with the Desk, but the 
 people would be practically trained to the 
 importance of their Baptism, and ministers 
 would no longer be reduced to the difficulties, 
 that I have known some good men to labour 
 under in their ministry, of either addressing 
 their people as heathens, or of dividing their 
 audience into such nice distinctions, as 
 seemed to deprive the Gospel of its peculiar 
 loveliness and freedom, and utterly to destroy 
 
384 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the idea of the Church being a " Communion 
 of Saints/' 
 
 But let the sentiment once prevail that the 
 visible Church is a " Communion of' profess- 
 ing ^' Saints ; " and the minister's address is 
 one continued call upon them for consistency 
 of conversation. It should be often explicitly 
 mentioned^ and always implied^ that the vows 
 of God are upon them, and that the privileges 
 of Baptism invite them to be holy that they 
 maybe happy. Christ their Saviour demands 
 it of them, their Parents demand it, their 
 Sponsors demand it, the Church demands it, 
 their own temporal and eternal happiness de- 
 mands it. They have taken upon themselves a 
 public profession, let them acquit themselves 
 of it : they profess to be Christians, " what 
 manner of persons " then should they " be, 
 in all holy conversation and godliness ! " ^ 
 they w^ere baptised in the name of Christ, 
 let them be pure as he was pure and " walk 
 
 worthy of the vocation wherewith they are 
 called." 2 
 
 The Parent in the nursery, or in the domestic 
 circle, has the advantage of the same argument. 
 " Remember the profession which you made 
 unto God in your Baptism." If duties are per- 
 formed with difficulty, as they always are from 
 the depravity of our nature, the Parent may 
 
 I 2 Peter iii. 11. » Eph. iv. 1. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 385 
 
 thus address the child, "Go to God and ask 
 bim for his Spirit to enable you : if the world or 
 your own heart are too powerful for you, apply 
 to God in your own weakness, and ask him for 
 his strength ; and if you do not think that these 
 great privileges belong to you, that as ^^ a 
 member of Christ" you perceive no benefit 
 of that union, ask him for faith, and he will 
 give it you ; and you shall find the blessedness 
 of prayer, for he will show you that he has 
 adopted you as his child, by the freedom with 
 which you shall say, " Abba, Father ; " and this 
 holy communion begun with him here, shall be 
 both an earnest and an evidence to you, that 
 you are '^ an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," 
 and shall hereafter enjoy a richer communion 
 with him in glory," 
 
 The Sponsor has the advantage of the same 
 argument in his occasional visits to his charge. 
 Influenced by a steady purpose to acquit himself 
 of his obligations, he may continually exercise 
 his kindness, by questions, which take for 
 granted the acknowledgement of Baptismal re- 
 sponsibility by the Child ; and in conversing 
 with him respecting his tempers and duties, an 
 easy resort may be had, and a powerful ally 
 would be found in an appeal to the privileges 
 and vows of his Baptism. 
 
 And were the Church sensible of its blessed 
 privileges as a " Communion of Saints," every 
 member of that Church, to which the Child 
 
 s 
 
386 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 belonged, would take an interest in his spiritual 
 growth ; and in kindness and affection, would 
 call upon him, to show forth in his life, a real 
 profession of Baptismal privileges and vows. 
 Let the Church declare its expectations from 
 him, and acquaint him with the interest it takes 
 in his spiritual welfare, the prayers it offers that 
 grace may abound in him, and the hopes it 
 conceives of his establishment in every good 
 and holy way. What a communion would each 
 parish present, did the Church in each parish 
 but avail itself of the opportunities which our 
 Baptismal Service commits to her ! 
 
 Nor let the Child himself be forgotten, the 
 beloved subject of this variety of interests. The 
 large concern that was thus taken for his spiri- 
 tual growth, would induce him, under God, to 
 feel interested for himself. He would be desirous 
 of acquitting himself of his obligations ; he 
 would acknowledge that the vows of God were 
 upon him : expectations continually expressed, 
 would beget continual effort on his part to 
 accomplish them. He would feel, that he was 
 not only a sharer in the blessings of the family, 
 but a sharer also in the blessings of the Church, 
 the great family of our common Saviour, whom 
 as he saw others delight to serve, he would 
 delight to serve also. Here would be a reality 
 in Baptism : he would see it acknowledged by 
 his dearest friends, and he would acknowledge 
 it also. It would be presented to his experience 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 387 
 
 as a tissue of privileges, connected with love, 
 and kind concern, and blessing from all with 
 whom he had to do. A ^^ Communion of Saints '' 
 surrounds him ; and the loveliness of the society 
 would induce him to become a saint also. '^ I 
 will go also/' ^ 
 
 You see then, how vast an advantage this 
 argument would give to all the parties con- 
 cerned in the spiritual welfare of the Child, — the 
 Minister, the Parent, the Sponsor, the Church. 
 " Remember the profession which you made 
 unto God in your Baptism." Nor can we 
 suppose that these advantages would be lost 
 on the Child, or that a child of such prayers 
 and such interests could perish. 
 
 I conclude this enumeration of advantages 
 with a few remarks on the simplicity, genera- 
 lity, CERTAINTY, and REALITY of this proposcd 
 mode of spiritual renovation. 
 
 It is SIMPLE. This is an age when we seem 
 to be returning to our allegiance to the sove- 
 j reignty of common sense. Prejudices, invete- 
 racies, fashions, habits, and prescriptions, are 
 now subjected to discussion and to correction. 
 And as our regard for common sense prevails, so 
 will the simplicity of a measure be one of its 
 surest recommendations to our acceptance. How 
 exquisitely simple is the principle of the Bible 
 Society ! it is upon this, under God, that its 
 existence rests. '^ The Bible is the word of God, 
 
 * Zech. viii. 21. 
 S 2 
 
388 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 and it is the duty of every man to circulate it." — 
 It is the simplicity of the new system of educa- 
 tion also which has introduced it to such 
 general practice. It is the simplicity of the 
 above interpretation which constitutes its beauty; 
 there is no complication of human effort, or 
 intricacy of human system ; here all is simple : 
 God has given a promise of blessing to you and 
 yours^ all that you have to do, is to accept and 
 apply it. 
 
 It is GENERAL. It is a mode of amelioration 
 adapted to every class, relation, and character. 
 It suits all conditions from the throne to the 
 cottage. The rich, the poor, the learned, the 
 unlearned, the weak, the strong, equally need 
 it. Whether a man is a king or a subject ; 
 whether in trade or profession ; whether son or 
 parent, young or old, whatever his situation or 
 circumstances, all need to be Christians. As a 
 man yoii are God's creature, as a redeemed man 
 vou are his reconciled and renewed creature. 
 
 • 
 
 All that relates to human circumstance and 
 condition is contingent and incidental ; you 
 may live in a mansion or a poor-house, you may 
 know much or little, you may rule a kingdom 
 or a family, you may be young Samuel or aged 
 Eli ', but you stand before God accepted or 
 rejected, as he beholds you in Christ Jesus. 
 Soon these earthly distinctions and relations 
 shall be no more ; earth with all its toil, its 
 pleasure, and its pursuits, will have past away ; 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 389 
 
 and the question to be asked for eternity will 
 be^ not only were you a man, but were you a 
 Christian man,— a man made whole by faith in 
 Christ, — who lived on his promise, found your 
 happiness in the performance of his precept 
 of holiness, are justified by his blood, sanctified 
 by his Spirit, and now seek to be glorified in his 
 glory ? Baptismal regeneration accepts you as 
 a fallen creature, without regard to outward 
 condition, presented in faith of the promise, 
 and imparts to you that thing, which as a mere 
 man, by nature, you cannot have, — the graces, 
 the powers, and the privileges of the Gospel. 
 
 It is CERTAIN. So surely as God is true, his 
 promise is true, and the performance of it 
 infallible and certain. That his promise to '^^ 
 the children of believers as practically applied 
 by our Church in her Baptismal Service is not 
 attended with more frequent accomplishment, ; 
 is sufficiently accounted for, I trust, above. 
 The failure is not on his part but on our own : 
 it is not that God's promise fails, but that man's 
 faith fails. " God is not slack concerning his \ 
 promise as some men count slackness, but is," \ 
 on the contrary, " long-suffering to us-ward." i 
 It is the negligence, and indifference, and un- 
 belief of man which deprive the promise of its 
 effect. In fact we counteract God ; we expose 
 our children to the follies and vanities of a 
 
 1 2 Peter iii. 9. 
 S 3 
 
390 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 world, which, on their part, we have solemnly 
 renounced; we have courted the enemies of 
 God, instead of having abjured them ; we have 
 roused the corrupt desires of the heart by 
 worldly lures and excitements; perhaps we 
 have taught our children to smile at the aid of 
 the Spirit as enthusiasm, even of that Spirit, 
 of whom we are teaching them to say at the 
 very time, — " who sanctifieth," is sanctifying 
 " me, and all the elect people of God.'^ Let 
 . the promise only be fairly tried out in practice, 
 and who shall impeach the fidelity of the God 
 of all grace who has made it ? It is the very 
 nature of faith to wait : and " here is the pati- 
 ence and faith of the saints ; " ^ for the believing 
 Parent or Sponsor, who on the ground of the 
 promise presents his child to the " Communion 
 of the Saints " for the Baptismal sign and seal 
 and pledge of the blessing, never to quit his 
 hold on the promise in favour of his child so 
 long as the child enjoys his day of grace : that 
 day extends throughout the whole life of the 
 Child from his cradle to his grave. As faith 
 devotes the Child to God at the first moment 
 of his birth, so faith commits his soul to God at 
 the last gasp of his life; nor will faith ever 
 quit its hold of the promise, till the promise has 
 arrived at its full accomplishment, and faith is 
 perfected in sight above. Or if this should be 
 
 » Rev. xiii. 10. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 391 
 
 deemed an excessive trial of assurance, as in 
 these days of lapsed Reformation I am fearful 
 that it may be, I would then say, let the case be 
 fairly tried out ; let our Congregations be con- 
 stituted on this principle ; let our children be 
 thus introduced into " the Communion of the 
 Saints : " let faith and prayer and Sponsorial 
 vigilance and encouragement, and renunciation 
 of the world, and Christian privilege, and free 
 grace, and the peculiar loveliness of Gospel 
 virtues and Gospel happiness be harmoniously 
 and proportionably displayed and exercised 
 towards the Child and pressed upon his notice ; 
 and if failure should apparently attend such a 
 state of blessedness, which God might occasion- 
 ally permit, to try our faith to the utmost, or to 
 secure the sovereignty of his own will, — yet is 
 there a living man who bears the Christian name, 
 and who knows any thing of the love and mercy 
 of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who would not pronounce such a state of things 
 truly blessed; and deem himself entitled, by the 
 general promise to the Children of believers, to 
 elevate his faith to an assurance that his Child, 
 thus privileged with Baptismal blessings, should 
 be a partaker of sanctification in time, and 
 of glorification in eternity ? 
 
 But indeed is not this objection to our state- 
 ment, drawn from the failure of the Baptismal 
 promise rather hypothetical than substantial ? 
 For though it be admitted, that the children 
 
&^t ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 of believing Parents do too often defeat their 
 hopes ; yet in the present low estimate of Bap- 
 tismal efficiency, it must be almost impossible 
 for the objector to prove his case : for where 
 are even the religious Parents, who have brought 
 up their children with a continual reference to 
 their Baptismal vows and privileges, a frequent 
 pleading of God's promise to the children of 
 believers, and a steady and unvarying faith in 
 the certainty of its performance ? It is much 
 to be feared, that the paucity of the instances 
 which could be found, would render the decision 
 of the question from actual experience almost 
 impracticable. Let not our faith then be stag- 
 gered by this or any other objection ; let us 
 accept the promise as that of a faithful God, 
 I and in the use of means calculate on its certain 
 accomplishment. 
 
 It is REAL. If I may judge of the general 
 acceptance of these sentiments, by those who 
 may favour them with a perusal, from the accept- 
 ance they have first met with, from those to 
 whom I have occasionally mentioned themj 1 
 must be prepared to expect, that, from the 
 novelty of the statement, at this day, now re- 
 moved nearly three centuries from the period 
 of the Reformation, the reality of these Baptismal 
 blessings will be questioned. It will I know be 
 said, " Doth he not speak parables ? '' ^ It is all 
 
 1 Ezek. XX. 49. 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 393 
 
 a fable^ a tale to amuse children. Had I but the 
 teachableness of children to deal with^ I should 
 have no apprehension of quickly proving the 
 reality of my case to their satisfaction : *' Tn 
 malice be ye children, but in understanding be 
 men."^ Were we but men of God in spiritual 
 understanding, combining with the same the 
 simplicity of the child, we should resemble 
 '^ those reverend Fathers and great Divines in 
 the days of King Edward the Sixth,'' 2 who 
 themselves acknowledged its blessedness, by 
 proposing it to our acceptance ; and who have 
 left it on record, sealed with their own blood, 
 for our perpetual encouragement and improve- 
 ment. Had we but the faith of the Reformers, ^ 
 we should enjoy the blessedness of their Refor- 
 mation. It is this faith which can alone introduce 
 that religion of grace, which is founded upon 
 the promise ; and for want of which our Liturgy 
 has become too much a dead and unintelligible 
 letter. It is faith only that can give the letter 
 spirit ; and realise to us the blessed experience, 
 that generally every promise belongs to us which 
 we have faith enough to apply to ourselves. 
 Faith gives the grand reality to Christianity ; 
 it '^ is the substance of things hoped for, the 
 evidence of things not seen." ^ The Reformers 
 were men of faith -, it was their great object to 
 reform the Church from dead works, and con- 
 
 » 1 Cor. xiv. 20. « Thirtieth Canon. ^ Heb. xi. 1. 
 
 S 5 
 
394 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 fidence in things that are seen, to the great 
 realities of faith, and the substance of things 
 not seen. They rebuilt their Reformed Church, 
 therefore, on the promise of a faithful God ; and 
 as the faith of men acted on that promise, so 
 were they to receive the blessing. ^^ Believe " 
 then and " be established," you shall find the 
 blessings of the promise to be real : but 
 " if ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be 
 established ; " unbelief shall deprive you of the 
 substance of the promise ; and shall render it 
 nugatory and vain. 
 
 Here then is a summary of advantages arising 
 from our proposed interpretation of the Bap- 
 tismal Service of no equivocal character ; and 
 which, if carried into effect in all our parishes, 
 could not fail, by the blessing of God, of effecting 
 our National Reformation. In this Christianity, 
 there would be a substantial reality : it would 
 be a union of holy men, combined to make all 
 holy around them, and to change a community 
 of mere men with a Christian profession, into a 
 " Communion of Saints " with Christian graces, 
 duties, and privileges : proving in lively expe- 
 rience " what is that good, and acceptable, and 
 perfect will of God."' ^ It would be making 
 us just to our privileges, by bringing us back 
 to our principles. The Church of England is 
 capable of producing all this blessedness : let us 
 
 * Rom. xii. 2< 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 395 
 
 show that we know her real value by calling 
 her virtues forth into active agency, and giving 
 them one universal spread throughout the land, 
 which she takes under the shadow of her wing. 
 But once recommend this interpretation to 
 general adoption in our parishes ; and like the 
 witnesses in the Apocalypse, we may trust that 
 " the Spirit of life from God " shall " enter into 
 them,'* and they shall stand "upon their feet/'^ 
 By this interpretation we render all our for- 
 mularies intelligible — we display the beauty 
 and symmetry and admirable proportion of the 
 Church to which we belong — we exhibit in 
 lively reality the blessedness of " the Commu- 
 nion of Saints ** — we improve the administration 
 of the whole Service of our Church — and the 
 blessings of " the Communion of Saints '* being 
 once felt and improved, we should naturally be 
 desirous of cultivating them by a more frequent 
 observance of the means of grace— we should 
 then give to each Sacrament that honour which 
 is its respective due — from the blessings of this 
 communion the Reformation of our Ecclesiastical 
 Polity must necessarily arise, as well as the 
 restoration and preservation of unity in the 
 Church — education would receive general im- 
 provement both in its principles and practice^— 
 the doctrine of election would be rescued from 
 the misrepresentations of caricature, and would 
 
 * Rev. xi. 11. 
 
396 , ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 appear practical as it is lovely, " full of sweet, 
 pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly 
 persons " — "the praise of the glory of his grace " 
 would be secured to God, whose honour demands 
 that man should be saved by grace alone — and 
 that grace would be doing its own peculiar 
 work in correcting the false principle of human 
 improvement by the Law, which both Church- 
 man and Layman have been so long and so 
 ineffectually urging — it would afford to Minis- 
 ters, and Parents, and Sponsors, and to every 
 member of the Church, a new argument, to 
 insist on the becoming conversation of every 
 Churchman, from the blessedness of his Bap- 
 tismal privileges, and the solemn responsibility 
 of his Baptismal vows — and the excellence of this 
 interpretation would receive its full confirmation, 
 in the simplicity, generality, certainty, and reality 
 of this promised mode of spiritual renovation. — 
 What a burst of blessedness is here ! till I had 
 entered the portal of our Church by this avenue 
 — salvation by the promise and not by the 
 precept — I formed no idea of the beauty, the 
 symmetry, the sublimity, the loveliness, and the 
 perfection of the communion to which I belonged. 
 My eyes were long opening to the real blessed- 
 ness of our condition; and like a man before 
 whose enraptured view, a splendid prospect 
 bursts at once upon his eye, I could scarcely 
 believe the reality of the scenery I was admiring. 
 But I have reason to bless God, for having, 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 397 
 
 as I trust he has, conducted me to this land 
 of substantial grace, this city of living blessings ; 
 and that I belong to a National Church, which, 
 retrograde as she is in practice from the purity 
 of her Reformation, contains within herself every 
 principle of sound renovation ; and which only 
 claims to have that principle admitted to active 
 operation, that under the Divine Spirit, she 
 may diffuse her graces over every parish in the 
 land, and combine every member of her house^ 
 hold in one large and lovely family of Christian 
 amity, and joy, and peace. 
 
 But is it possible, it may be said, that effects 
 so truly excellent can spring from a cause so 
 apparently small ? 
 
 Let it be remembered, that there is nothing 
 small with God ; that every " day *' has its 
 " small things ;" 1 that both analogy and ex- 
 perience confirm the justice of our principle ; 
 and that as all things in nature and providence 
 originate in the seed, so that grace has its seed- 
 time also. And this is in my view, no small 
 confirmation of our principle ; it harmonises 
 with the ordinary character of the divine opera- 
 tions. 
 
 All things have their nurseries, where their 
 principles begin to vegetate before they flourish 
 and ripen into effect. Grace has its nursery as 
 well as the seed its hot-bed. And, I own, I form 
 
 ' Zech. iv. 10. 
 
/ 
 
 398 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 no contracted notion both of the rectitude and 
 efficiency of the above principle of spiritual 
 renewal, because it is both philosophically and 
 spiritually true. Our system is a system of prin- 
 ciples : it begins in the nursery at the first gasp 
 of the Infant's life 5 it begins before in the faith 
 of the believing Parent ; and the first embrace 
 which the Child receives, is not that of natural 
 affection alone, but of lively gratitude and ardent 
 thanksgiving to God for this mortal — immortal 
 gift. Wise men look to nurseries for effects ; 
 unwise men look for effects without nurseries. 
 It is here that the wisdom of our Church is 
 eminently displayed ; she begins in the nursery. 
 The Child is there a child of God ; and in this 
 blessed persuasion she encourages the faithful 
 Parent and Sponsor to educate him with per- 
 severing and undoubting faith. Her principle 
 receives complete confirmation from all the 
 operations of God. In nature one atom of matter 
 originates a splendid imiverse : in providence 
 one grain of wheat renews the yearly crop : in 
 the dispensation of grace, a swaddled infant^ 
 upheld by human arms, and fed by human miik 
 in a stable, exhibits the nursery oi glory ; and in 
 the power of grace actually imparted in sancti- 
 fying influence to the soul, ^^ the path of the 
 just is as the shining light which shineth more 
 and more to the perfect day.'^^ The analogy 
 
 » Prov. iv. 18/ 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 399 
 
 of God in all his four kingdoms, nature, provi- 
 dence, grace, and glory, commends our principle, 
 and the word of God expressly and repeatedly 
 confirms the same. It remains only for us to 
 trust him with the performance of his own pro- 
 mise ; and our trust will best be evinced, in 
 training our children, not as children of nature, 
 but as children of grace, or that we would be 
 consistent in practically treating them, as we 
 teach them to call themselves, ^^ members of 
 Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the 
 kingdom of heaven/* 
 
 And here, My Dear Friend, let me ask, do not 
 the times, and the signs of the times, demand 
 from us an active co-operation with the Spirit 
 of God in carrying this principle of spiritual 
 renewal into effect ? Are there any means now 
 in action apparently adequate to this purpose ? 
 Can any reasonable man expect this renewal 
 from our present mode of education ? I own, 
 that to me, such an expectation appears to be 
 perfectly childish. Nor does it appear to me 
 that after the defeated hopes of six thousand 
 years in attempting to ameliorate mankind by 
 the rigour of Law enforcing our corrupt nature 
 to an impossible obedience, any thing but failure 
 can attend our present expectations of success. 
 We are not better than our fathers ; and the 
 Law which has failed to produce this effect in 
 their days, will not produce a different effect in 
 ours. Let us then try this simple mode of reno- 
 
400 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 vation^ proposed by our Church in her best days. 
 The experience of the last thirty years gives us 
 ample encouragement. Which of us that looks 
 back even for twenty years, and recollects the 
 monthly meetings of a few friends in a private 
 house, could then have believed that the Church 
 Missionary Society would have attained such a 
 pitch of expansive usefulness, as it has pleased 
 God to confer upon it ? and in the infancy of its 
 operations who could have anticipated the spread 
 of the Bible Society's influence over the people, 
 and nations, and languages it embraces ? Man 
 loves complexity 3 and often impedes his own 
 designs by the intricacy of the process he devises 
 to effect them. God loves simplicity ; and the 
 more simple the principle, the more is his 
 honour advanced. And what principle is so 
 well calculated to advance the glory of the latter 
 day, the dawn of which perhaps our own eyes 
 are even now beholding, as this which secures 
 all the honour of that glory to God, while it 
 provides at once the most simple, and the most 
 ready mode of renovating human society, and 
 with a Christian profession imparting a Christian 
 spirit also. We complain of the degraded con- 
 dition of Christian society ; we pray that it may 
 be improved : behold the means at hand : all 
 is ready in the Baptismal provisions of our 
 Church : all that we have to do is to be just 
 to our own advantages, and true to the remedy 
 prepared for us. Let us but trust the promise, 
 
THIS INTERPRETATION. 401 
 
 use the means^ water them with our prayers, 
 and realise them by our faith ; and here will be a 
 just ground of expectation that our Israel shall 
 be an Israel of God from Dan to Beersheba ; 
 that every parish shall exhibit a Christian com- 
 munion, that dissent shall be merged in the 
 universal blessedness of such a dispensation ; 
 and that our land shall become what the civil 
 magistrate designs by our Ecclesiastical Esta- 
 blishment, a land of vital Christians : and with- 
 out doubt, at that hour, the whole earth shall 
 call her blessed. 
 
 If an apology be demanded of me for the 
 length to which this letter has extended, I must 
 rest it upon the two following grounds. The 
 first, that in tracing out the advantages resulting 
 from the above interpretation of our Baptismal 
 Service as applied in practice, a field of blessed- 
 ness gradually opened to me, of the extent 
 of which, at first, I was by no means aware ; 
 the second, that I would speak as to wise men 5 
 and show them the advantages of the principle 
 recommended, before we proceed to state the 
 means of carrying it into effect. Practical men 
 must be convinced of the advantage of a practice 
 before they adopt it; and, I trust, that the 
 ADVANTAGES enumerated are so evident, that 
 we are now prepared to enter upon the con- 
 sideration of the means, which yet remain to us 
 to advance and to secure them. 
 
402 MODES OF 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 MODES HUMBLY SUGGESTED OP CARRYING THE 
 SAME INTO EFFECT. 
 
 The first point to be aimed at here is, — let 
 
 EVERY MAN BE FULLY PERSUADED IN HIS OWN 
 MIND THAT THE ABOVE INTERPRETATION OP 
 
 OUR Baptismal Service is just ; and that 
 
 IP carried into EFFECT THROUGHOUT THE 
 LAND, BY EVERY CHURCH IN EVERY PARISH,^ 
 IT WOULD WITH God's BLESSING PRODUCE A 
 
 National Reformation op manners, and 
 
 CHANGE a community OP MERELY PROFESSING 
 CHRISTIANS, INTO A COMMUNION OP SAINTS 
 EXHIBITING THE VITAL ENERGIES OP CHRISTIAN 
 FAITH AND LOVE. 
 
 Let every man endeavour to look at the 
 question apart from prejudice and aiFection ; 
 and with truly Berean ingenuousness rise above 
 the discouragements of novelty and desuetude, 
 and nohly pause to inquire whether these things 
 are so. Desuetude might well discourage us ; 
 for with the loss of the above interpretation 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 403 
 
 of Baptism, all spirituality had well nigh dis- 
 appeared from our Church 5 and our present 
 more favourable condition presents but too 
 formidable obstacles to our recovery to sound 
 principles of Baptismal Regeneration. But let 
 not the fear of novelty discourage us ', for there 
 is in fact nothing novel in the view we have 
 given : on the contrary it is the doctrine of our 
 sainted forefathers of the Reformation for which 
 we plead : and it is nothing but desuetude that 
 clothes it with the air of novelty. Let every 
 member of our Church, especially every minister 
 of it, consider the plain terms of the Baptismal 
 Service, as well as its general spirit and bear- 
 ing; let him compare these with the Liturgy 
 and each particular formulary 5 let him mark 
 the harmony, and beauty, and consistency, and 
 integrity, which this interpretation gives to 
 the whole Book of Common Prayer : let him 
 review the private sentiments of our Reformers, 
 exactly harmonising with this view of their 
 public authorised expression of them 3 let him 
 superadd to this, the concurrent testimony 
 of the Reformed Churches -, let him reflect that 
 it is unbelief alone which opposes this inter- 
 pretation, while faith in the promise beholds 
 it practicable as it is desirable 3 let him dwell 
 on the manifold advantages, which directly 
 and necessarily flow from it — and let him then 
 say, whether any other interpretation of our 
 Services can be conceived, so justly consen- 
 
404 MODES OF 
 
 taiieous both with their letter and spirit, so 
 effectual for the purpose of spiritual renovation 
 for which they were designed, at once so truly 
 honourable to God, and so truly beneficial to 
 man ? 
 
 The next point after conviction — is, to set 
 
 ABOUT PRACTICALLY TO CARRY OUR CONVICTION 
 INTO EFFECT. 
 
 And here example is of the last importance. 
 Let every member, but especially minister of our 
 Church, introduce his child into the Church for 
 Baptism '^on Sundays andother Holy-days, when 
 the most number of people come together ; " 
 let the Child, on no other account than that 
 of mere necessity, be baptised in private ; but 
 let the notice of the " great Congregation " be 
 earnestly excited, that the Child may have an 
 interest in the prayers and sympathies of " the 
 Communion of Saints," into which it is thus 
 publicly and conspicuously introduced ; let the 
 minister especially, selecting those of his Con- 
 gregation who are the most approved for piety, 
 assign the spiritual charge of his Child to them 
 as its Sponsors, that the people having this 
 public testimony of his own estimation of the 
 importance of the Sacrament, may follow his 
 example, and thus effect that word of their 
 minister, which his own practice recommends 
 and confirms. " Doubt ye not therefore but 
 earnestly believe,*' is an address that comes with 
 bad grace from the mouth of a minister, \y\\o 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 405 
 
 is not himself supposed to believe the reality 
 of those privileges he is recommending to the 
 faith of another. 
 
 Again — Let this interpretation be ex- 
 plained AT LARGE PROM THE PULPIT. 
 
 An entirely new light will thus be thrown on 
 all the Service of the Church ; and the minister 
 need not be afraid of not exciting an interest by 
 his exposition ; for his hearers will doubtless 
 confirm the usefulness of it by expressing their 
 satisfaction at the view he has exhibited of 
 blessings and privileges hitherto unknown to 
 them, and for his disclosing to them the beauties 
 and consistencies of a worship, of the perfec- 
 tion of which they were before but little aware. 
 The blessings of a Christian communion, is 
 what few seem to understand, and still fewer 
 to expect from their union with our Church. 
 But let the minister encourage this expectation, 
 and it gives a new spirit to the whole of his 
 administration of the Service ; it tends to dissi- 
 pate Aveariness, to support the attention, and 
 to give an energy and feeling unfelt before. 
 And this is an improvement which the people 
 will soon acknowledge : they will answer the 
 call with alacrity, when the minister invites 
 with earnestness, " Let us pray ; *' a general 
 interest in the service will be taken by the Con- 
 gregation, because a general interest is demanded 
 by the voice and manner of the minister. The 
 minister is a saint leading " the Communion 
 
406 MODES OF 
 
 of the Saints ; " and as they have fellowship 
 one with another, so through that communion 
 of the Spirit, which unites them in fellowship 
 " with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ," ^ 
 they feel the Church to be, what it is ever 
 intended to be to the faithful, " none other but 
 the house of God, and — the gate of heaven." ^ 
 Another means is — a distinct and frequent 
 inquiry from the pulpit of parents and 
 Sponsors, whether they are indeed train- 
 ing UP the children, for WHOM THEV ARE 
 RESPONSIBLE TO THE CHURCH, ACCORDING TO 
 HER REQUISITIONS IN THE DUE DISCHARGE OF 
 THEIR VOWS, AND THE DUE ENJOYMENT OP 
 THEIR PRIVILEGES. 
 
 Let them not only be urged to duty by a 
 sense of responsibility, but encouraged to it by 
 the blessedness which attends the discharge 
 of it both to the Sponsor and the Child. Let 
 the minister declare his expectations, that their 
 industry in teaching will, under God, be the 
 means of preparing their charge to understand 
 and enjoy his ministry, and his hope that when 
 the Child is transferred to his public care as 
 minister to be catechised in the Congregation, 
 he will rejoice his heart and that of the Church, 
 by the competency of his knowledge, and his 
 experimental acquaintance with spiritual things. 
 Let them frequently be reminded that the hopes 
 
 ^ 1 John i. 3. « Gen.xxviii. 17. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 407 
 
 of the Church are the young of the flock, that 
 they are entrusted to Sponsors expressly to 
 bring up and to educate for her, and that both 
 minister and people, as well as the Child, are 
 most deeply interested in the success of their 
 Sponsorial labours. 
 
 And let not the Child be forgotten in addresses 
 from the pulpit : let him be especially addressed 
 on the subject of his Baptism ; be told into 
 what a blessed communion he was then admit- 
 ted ', and how well adapted it is to make him 
 happy : how the minister is interested for him, 
 how the Church feels for him, and prays for 
 him, and how much she expects of him : that 
 the honour of Christ demands his growth in 
 grace, and his improvement in all spiritual 
 good ; that this generation is passing away, 
 and that the Church looks to him for a succes- 
 sion of ministers and saints, which shall maintain 
 the cause of Christ upon earth, when that 
 generation is gone. Topics of this character 
 often addressed to the children of the Church, 
 would, while the Sponsors '^ call upon them to 
 hear sermons,'^ be the strongest inducement to 
 their compliance, from the encouragement and 
 benefit they derive from them. 
 
 Let this means be well supported by that 
 which the Church appoints for the express pur- 
 pose of communicating elementary knowledge, 
 
 A FREQUENT AND PERSEVERING INCULCATION 
 
 AND EXPOSITION OF OUR ADMIRABLE CATECHISM. 
 
408 MODES OF 
 
 Of all elementary Catechisms which I have 
 ever seen, for the purpose of expository instruc- 
 tion, this appears to me to be the best. It is at 
 once short and comprehensive, embracing in 
 their rudiments all the leading topics of faith 
 and practice. But as one of its excellencies is 
 its brevity, since it is in this respect exactly 
 suited to the memory of childhood, so another 
 excellence is^ that it forms the groundwork 
 of inexhaustible exposition ; and this exposition 
 is indispensable to the Child's complete com- 
 prehension of the letter. And I must own that 
 a facility of vivd voce instruction in the opening 
 of our Catechism to the common mind, by apt 
 illustration and experimental application, ap- 
 pears to me to be the highest possible didactic 
 attainment of a minister of Christ. I had rather 
 possess this one talent than all the glitter of hu- 
 man eloquence, and all the splendour of brilliant 
 accomplishment that have yet enraptured man- 
 kind. It is the most excellent because the 
 most useful : it is seen in its choicest exercise 
 in the parables and conversations of our All- 
 eloquent Redeemer. It is not the offspring 
 of great talents, but of a simple soul : and that 
 soul which is most imbued with the simplicity 
 of Christ, will be the most successful imitator 
 of his irresistibly interesting manner of com- 
 municating knowledge. The grand secret of 
 Catechetical exposition appears to me to be, as in 
 all true eloquence, to endeavour to impart your 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 409 
 
 own impression of the subject to the heart of the 
 learner. All didactic harshness of manner 
 should be avoided ; and that love which it is the 
 object of the Catechist to inculcate on the 
 Catechumen, should be the acknowledged 
 vehicle in which he conveys his instruction. It 
 is not an understanding head merely that he aims 
 to attain by his address, but an "understanding 
 heart.'' Let the heart but once understand the 
 truth in its blessedness, and the affections will 
 soon press the other powers of the soul to con- 
 currence. Let catechising then be experimental; 
 let it be kindly addressed to the heart of every 
 learner ; let it exchange its stiffness, and cold- 
 ness, and generality, for condescension, and 
 interest and individual application ; let it be 
 constantly repeated : and if I might hope that 
 this present day of fastidiousness, and conse- 
 quently of indifference, would admit of such a 
 wish, may the day arrive, when the Church is 
 daily assembled, and the little ones of the flock 
 periodically either present themselves, or are 
 presented by their Sponsors for Catechetical 
 instruction ; when the minister receives them 
 with smiles of holy joy, as a parent does his 
 children ; and when the whole collected Church 
 testifies the interest it takes in this scene, by 
 many a glistening eye, and many a hearty 
 prayer; and anticipates, with joy, the realising 
 of its hopes, that thus " our sons may be as 
 plants grown up in their youth,'' and " that our 
 
 T 
 
4K> MODES OF 
 
 daughters may be as corner-stones, polished 
 after the similitude of a palace."' ^ 
 
 Another means similar to the above is, — the 
 
 PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THIS INTERPRETATION 
 IN OUR SUNDAY AND OTHER SCHOOLS. 
 
 If possible, the superintendence of these 
 nurseries of principle should be submitted to 
 active, and intelligent, and faithful ministers 
 of our Church. In communicating the faculty 
 of reading, we are communicating a powerful 
 talent, good or bad, as to its use or abuse : it may 
 preserve us from the barbarism of nature, but 
 it may rebarbarise us also with principled infi- 
 delity and corrupt over-refinement. It is only 
 a Christian education that can form a Christian 
 man. Let the minister then and teacher of our 
 schools, be thoroughly imbued with the spirit 
 of this interpretation, and there will be a Gospel 
 sweetness of manner recommending this Gospel 
 interpretation of Baptism, throughout all their 
 conduct with the children. The children are 
 children of God, recognised as such by the 
 Church, and it is the minister's and teacher's 
 object^ to prepare them as inheritors of the 
 kingdom of heaven. Their Baptism will be con- 
 stantly referred to 5 they will be called upon to 
 realise the vows and promises of their Sponsors; 
 and all the arguments derived from their Baptis- 
 mal engagement, which have been so frequently 
 
 ' Psalm cxliv. 12. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 411 
 
 insisted on throughout these letters, will be 
 continually applied. This is the true mode, 
 according to my judgment, to make the whole 
 population sound Churchmen. Show them the 
 excellence of the system, by that which is of all 
 arguments the most persuasive, their own 
 experience of its blessings. Men may be at- 
 tached to the Church from birth, and country, 
 and education, and fashion, and temporal interest 
 or policy ; but the firmest supporter of it, is the 
 man who recognises it as a communion of living 
 spirituality, the mother of his holy joys and con- 
 solations, the security for every temporal bless- 
 ing, " the pillar and ground of" that " truth " i 
 which gives him hope of a glorious immortality. 
 This is the man who with highest relish of its 
 blessings, and therefore, most cordial prayers 
 for its success, will take up the Psalmist's words, 
 " Because of the house of the Lord our God, I 
 will seek thy good."- This man is a true Church- 
 man : convinced by his own experience of the 
 value of Baptismal privileges, it will be his 
 unremitting endeavour as a Parent, a Sponsor, 
 or as one of the Church, to give the largest honour 
 to that from which he has derived so much. 
 And as all the formularies of our Church are 
 understood and enjoyed, in the degree that men 
 really experience " the Communion of the 
 Saints," and as this communion is only intel- 
 
 ^ 1 Tim. iii. 15. ^ Psalm cxxii. 9. 
 
 T 2 
 
412 MODES OF 
 
 ligible, I apprehend, to its real extent as we 
 behold these formularies coupled with the Bap- 
 tismal Service, — the Churchman, thus formed, 
 will be the most speaking practical comment 
 of the excellency of Baptismal privileges, and 
 will be the most effectual supporter of that 
 Ecclesiastical communion to which he belongs. 
 Again — Let this interpretation be the 
 
 SUBJECT OF THE MINISTER'S PRIVATE CONVER- 
 SATION WITH HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 Let him request those of his flock of the 
 most decided piety, to begin this renewed system 
 of introducing their Children for Baptism, when 
 the Congregation may be expected to be the 
 largest ; let the ceremony be of a decidedly 
 public character; let the administration of it 
 be conspicuous before the whole Church ; let 
 the minister by his voice and manner challenge 
 the attention of the Church, and doubtless his 
 challenge will be answered. And let another 
 and another be persuaded to follow this example, 
 till the habit of Public Baptism is restored and 
 established. Let the minister also endeavour 
 to induce the most decided Christians of his 
 flock, voluntarily to stand forward as Sponsors 
 to any Parent, who may be desirous of engaging 
 their attention to his Child ; let him inculcate 
 upon them the real charity of the act, the bless- 
 edness of this labour of love, the benefit they 
 are conferring on the Church, the life and 
 vigour they are giving, not to the piety of one 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 413 
 
 JB parish alone, but to an Establishment, which, 
 P if thus animated by a living soul, would diffuse, 
 what she proposes to do, and what she is in 
 W her institution so admirably calculated to do, 
 spiritual life and blessing throughout the land. 
 Were the men and women of lively piety in every 
 Congregation, both among rich and poor, to 
 come forward thus, and to strengthen the hands 
 of their minister, the administration of Baptism 
 would be a blessed Sacrament indeed ; exciting 
 the sympathies of the Church, exercising its 
 charity, animating its faith, and convincing it 
 of the reality of ^^ the Communion of the Saints,'' 
 by its own vital experience of the blessings, 
 which such a communion was actually producing. 
 It might then indeed be said to every parish from 
 Cornwall to the Tweed, " arise, shine, for thy 
 light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen 
 upon thee."^ 
 
 Another means in aid of the former, is — 
 
 THE KIND AND TEMPERATE USE OF THE DIS- 
 CRETION WITH RESPECT TO SPONSORS, INTRUSTED 
 TO THE MINISTER IN THE TWENTY-NINTH CANON. 
 
 '^ Neither shall any person be admitted 
 Godfather or Godmother to any child at 
 Christening or Confirmation, before the said 
 person so undertaking hath received the holy 
 Communion." I say the kind and temperate 
 use of this discretion, for were it otherwise 
 
 » Isaiah Ix. 1. 
 T 3 
 
414 MODES OF 
 
 than kind and temperate, it would but disgust, 
 whom it was intended to benefit and encourage. 
 That all the parties may be known to the 
 minister, notice of the proposed Baptism shall 
 be given by the Parents '^ over night, or in 
 the morning before the beginning of morning 
 prayer." And if the latter season of notice 
 be deemed too short by the minister, he " by 
 his discretion shall appoint"^ the Baptism, 
 *^ either immediately after the last Lesson at 
 Morning Prayer, or else immediately after the 
 last Lesson at Evening Prayer."' Thus sufficient 
 time is allowed to a minister, officiating in a 
 parish of reasonable compass, to ascertain the 
 character of the Sponsors, to instruct them 
 in the nature of the duty they are about to 
 undertake if ignorant, or if they are either so 
 ignorant or so deficient in character, as to give 
 just cause of scandal, let them be mildly advised 
 to give place for the present, till such ignorance 
 or scandal be corrected. Or, should the case 
 be one where open and notorious scandal must 
 ensue, let the minister kindly but firmly resort 
 to his last resource, and express his sorrow 
 that he is compelled to appeal to the authority 
 of the canon, and to exclude him or them 
 from the office of Sponsor, on the ground the 
 Church allows ; that as they have not received 
 the one Sacrament they are not deemed fit 
 to become Sponsors in the other. I state this 
 as the last resource of needful discipline : not 
 
I 
 
 EFFECTING THE SAME. 415 
 
 to be resorted to but in a case of extremity: 
 but like all discipline, conducted at once with 
 firmness and kindness, were it once resorted to, 
 and the circumstance generally known, and 
 perhaps mentioned from the pulpit with evident 
 regret, it might, with God's blessing, be the 
 means of checking the presumption of ignorance 
 and incompetency, and of inducing Parents 
 to a more cautious selection of Sponsors to be 
 presented to the Church. The evil of un- 
 qualified Sponsors is deep and inveterate ; 
 and, like all old diseases, it admits but of 
 gradual cure ; it is the long-suffering kindness 
 of the Gospel combined with its firmness, 
 that, with the blessing of the Spirit, can alone 
 effect it. 
 
 Another most striking means of giving this 
 interpretation effect is — the minister's own 
 
 EXAMPLE IN HIS FAMILY. 
 
 Let this interpretation of Baptismal blessings 
 pervade all the education of his children, and 
 all his dealings with them ; and let his relations, 
 and friends, and parishioners feel, that the man 
 believes his own doctrines, by his steady and 
 consistent perseverance in giving them effect 
 by his own practice. The blessedness of thus 
 acting from faith in the promise, and assuming 
 that his children are thus really included in 
 the covenant of salvation, no man knows, 
 but the man who is actually exercising this 
 faith, and enjoying the blessing. So far is this 
 
416 MODES OF 
 
 confidence from occasioning a false security, 
 that there will be a constant vigilance, lest any 
 of his children '^ fail of the grace of God." ^ 
 This father will do what he can to educate his 
 own children; and when compelled to part 
 with them to another, the spiritual character 
 of the instructor will be the grand leading 
 consideration. In such a Parent, while the 
 infirmities of his nature are more or less putting 
 his principles to a daily test, both with respect 
 to himself and his child ; though anger, and 
 impatience, and lassitude, and neglect, and 
 forge tfulness, the frequent expressions of a 
 corrupt nature in himself, will ever be impeding 
 his own design ; and the frowardness, and 
 obstinacy, and petulance, and corruption of 
 childhood, will often stagger his faith, as to the 
 real existence of grace in his child ; yet there 
 will be a constant recurrence to his principles, an 
 habitual resort to the promise, and a persevering 
 pleading of it in prayer, Which, under the influ- 
 ence of the Spirit will keep him firm to his pur- 
 pose, and will not suffer his faith to fail. From 
 what oppressive anxieties both as to the souls 
 and bodies of our children should we be daily 
 preserved, could w^e but thus, in simple faith on 
 the promises, commit them unreservedly to God t 
 " Lord, from thee they came ; Lord, to thee they 
 are devoted ; we commit all their concerns and 
 
 * Hebrews xii. to. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 417 
 
 interests to thee both in time and eternity : thou 
 wouldest have us to " be careful for nothing/'' 
 Lord give us grace to cast all our care upoi? 
 thee, and faith to believe that thou dost indeeci 
 care for us.'' Happy, thrice happy are the 
 Parents that are in such a case ; blessed, thrice 
 blessed is the family which has thus practically 
 the Lord for its God. Let this be the character 
 of the minister's family, and Baptismal privileges 
 will then appear in their true reality and loveli- 
 ness, from the holy savour they diffuse on all 
 who partake of the blessings of the house. 
 
 And could I anticipate the return of simplicity 
 among us, I w^ould venture to suggest another 
 means, Avhich might be expected to give consi- 
 derable interest to *^ the Communion of Saints'' 
 in carrying this interpretation into effect. — Let 
 
 THE ATTENTION OF THE CHURCH BE ESPECIALLY 
 CHALLENGED. 
 
 Suppose the Baptism were to take place in 
 the afternoon, let the names of the Parents and 
 Sponsors of the Infant or Infants proposed to 
 be introduced into the Church, be given publicly 
 from the desk, in the morning, and the interest 
 of the Church be excited, and its prayers 
 requested in favour of the parties. Good neigh- 
 bourhood would here rest, not upon the inter- 
 change of a few kind offices merely, but upon 
 the sure ground of Christian sympatliy and 
 
 J Phil. iv. 6. 
 T 5 
 
418 MODES OF 
 
 love. I am well aware that this expansion 
 of Christian love can distinguish Christian times 
 alone; but I am concerned to show that the 
 blessings of baptism if realised in Christian 
 practice, according to the order of our Church, 
 would be adapted to the purest state of the 
 Church upon earth. For what is that reign 
 of love which we anticipate under the full 
 display of the Gospel, but the unfailing and 
 universal interest which man shall take in 
 his fellow, expanding itself from the child 
 of his dearest affections, to his family, his parish, 
 his county, his country, till it embraces the 
 utmost circumference of man ? 
 
 Another means of carrying this interpreta- 
 tion into effect would be — the improved mode 
 OF treating children which would neces- 
 sarily result from it. 
 
 Shall I be tolerated in the remark, that, at 
 present, the approach of a child is considered 
 as a signal for a joke. It is considered as the 
 approach of a being so evidently inferior to our- 
 selves, that our understanding may be relaxed 
 in its tone, and our fancy and our wit may 
 throw off all restraint to surprise or amuse him. 
 In the apprehension of many, a child has as 
 little claim to the exercise of reason, as to that 
 of truth. But let the Child be invested in our 
 esteem with his real character as " a member 
 of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor 
 of the kingdom of heaven," and our estimate 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. '419 
 
 of him will be raised. He will not then be con- 
 sidered merely as a play-thing, a creature to 
 minister to our relaxation and amusement, the 
 favourite object of our caresses and our sport ; 
 but amusement and caresses will be improved 
 as means of elevating his mind to better things, 
 and of leading his attention to what is useful 
 and spiritual. Let him be treated with all the 
 affection, tenderness, consideration, and for- 
 bearance that are due to the infirmities of the 
 child, but with the prospective design, the 
 attention, and discipline to form the future 
 man, and that the man of God. This may be 
 done, I conceive, without any forced precocity, 
 or any premature elevation of the child into the 
 man. Introduce but this improved mode of 
 treating children, according to an improved 
 estimate of their character, as indeed children 
 of God, devoted to his service, and therefore to 
 be educated to his praise, and you lay a broad 
 foundation for the complete renovation of human 
 society. Let this estimate once prevail, and in 
 this result of our interpretation of Baptism, you 
 have the most efficient means of giving perma- 
 nency to its blessings. 
 
 Another mode of introducing this interpre- 
 tation to notice is, — the provision of new 
 
 MEANS OF explaining IT TO CHILDREN. 
 
 Let elementary works be written for this 
 purpose, simple and interesting, and adapted 
 to their tender years. 
 
420 MODES OF 
 
 First, let a new exposition of the Church 
 Catechism be drawn up, with a plain and natural 
 interpretation of its letter ; and I apprehend 
 that the very sense we are here endeavouring to 
 recommend, would be the direct effect of such 
 interpretation. The ordinary expositions of the 
 Catechism, which I have seen, have not appeared 
 to me to be satisfactory, on this very account ; 
 that they give not a Gospel but a legal view 
 of its letter. They do not ground the exertions 
 of the Child on the covenant promise of a faithful 
 God, sealed to him in his Baptism, and investing 
 him with his three eminent privileges ; much 
 less do they teach him, that, in virtue of such 
 covenant, the Holy Spirit is sanctifying him as 
 an elect of God ; and that he should " heartily 
 thank his Heavenly Father, that he hath called 
 him to this state of salvation, and pray unto 
 God to give him his grace that he may continue 
 in the same " state of grace, all the days of his 
 life, by the exercise of an unshaken faith. This 
 seems to me to be the plain sense of the letter 5 
 and it is this defect which makes many of the 
 expositions of the Confirmation Service which I 
 have seen, imperfect also ; that Service being 
 intended to confirm and " strengthen '' those, 
 whom God has " vouchsafed to regenerate — 
 by water and the Holy Ghost," and to whom he 
 has " given forgiveness of all their sins.'' 
 
 To this exposition of the Catechism, may be 
 added, a detailed exemplification of these prin- 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 42t 
 
 ciples of grace by short tracts illustrating their 
 effects in the various scenes of every-day life; 
 If "history is philosophy teaching by example/* 
 the daily circumstances of the Christian life as 
 selected from the Scriptures, the biography of the 
 Church of Christ, the fugitive memorials of the 
 present Christian world, and, if judiciously 
 executed, original tales, might give a practical 
 view both to the cottage and the drawing-room, 
 of the suitableness and excellency of salvation 
 by the promise, as faith may apply it in all the 
 ordinary occurrences of life. 
 
 To the above might be added, a manual 
 of prayer extracted from the Baptismal Service 
 and the Catechism, for the express use of our 
 baptised Infants, to be taught them "so soon as 
 they shall be able to learn," and to be put into 
 their hands so soon as they can read. Such a 
 book is much wanted ; and if compiled with 
 simplicity would be a most desirable aid to the 
 nursery, both to the Child, its Mother, and 
 Nurse. The most effectual mode of abolishing 
 wrong practices is to introduce the right ; and 
 if such a manual were generally adopted, many 
 a silly, not to say many a false and unscriptural 
 prayer might be superseded by sound and ap- 
 propriate petitions.^ And after the Child has 
 been well grounded in the incipient formularies 
 
 » If it should please God to give me ability and opportunity, 
 I purpose to follow up the principles of these letters by a 
 
I 
 
 422 MODES OF 
 
 V of our Church, let the "Articles of Religion " be 
 
 1 studiously committed to memory ; and let each 
 
 * of them, together with the various parts of the 
 
 Liturgy be frequently and familiarly explained 
 
 and confirmed by proofs from the Scriptures. 
 
 In a word let the Infant know and feel his 
 privileges of Baptism, as he is able to compre- 
 
 (hend and feel them : let a baptised atmosphere 
 surround him ; and let not only the daily 
 attentions he is receiving from his Parents 
 convince him that he is the child of their natural 
 affection, but let the kindly spirit of holy 
 nurture, and Baptismal blessedness convince 
 him, that he is also a child of God, and adopted 
 into the family of Christ. 
 
 Another means is — a frequent call upon 
 THE Church to interest itself in the spiri- 
 tual WELFARE.t)F THE YOUNG OF THE FLOCK. 
 
 Let it be frequently remarked from the pulpit, 
 and in private, that the responsibilities and 
 privileges of Baptism are confined neither to 
 the Parents, the Sponsors, nor the Child, but 
 / that they are the common concern and property 
 of every member of the Church. Here is a most 
 
 practical detail of their usefulness in a manual of prayer, 
 selected from the Baptismal and its kindred Services, for the 
 express use of the baptised children of our Church : so that the 
 expressions of the Services already committed to memory, 
 may become the vehicles of prayer. This may be at once a 
 help to the pious superintendence of the Parent and Sponsor, 
 and to the devotions of the Child. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 423 
 
 affecting ground of appeal to the prayers, and 
 sympathies, and exertions of the whole " Com- 
 munion of Saints.^' Without a nursery the family 
 must cease : hence the Church is drawing her 
 constant supply ; hence the Church is to derive 
 her permanency, her increase, her unceasing , 
 spread over the land and over the world. In 
 her children is to be exhibited the Father's love, 
 the Saviour's salvation, and the Spirit's grace. 
 When we are gone, they are to fill our place ; 
 they are the heirs of our blessings, hereafter to 
 grow up as "trees of righteousness, the planting 
 of the Lord/' ^ Let these and similar suggestions 
 be often advanced, and from the first introduc- 
 tion of the Child at Baptism, to his maturity in 
 grace, the Church will follow him with her 
 prayers and her blessings, and find an increase 
 of her own strength, in every accession of 
 spiritual strength which her charitable interest 
 has been the means of bestowing on the Child. J/^ 
 Further — Let the font be restored to 
 
 ITS PLACE. 11^ 
 
 Without this means. Baptism will lose the 
 conspicuous character it holds as the initiatory 
 Sacrament of the Church. Let the font resume 
 the place assigned to it in the days of the 
 Reformation. It has a station of emblematic 
 propriety at a convenient distance from the 
 great West entrance of the Church ^ let it be 
 
 > Isa. Ixi 3. 
 
424 MODES OF 
 
 restored to its honourable station : and let that 
 station be so directly opposite to the main 
 entrance of the building, that none from that 
 entrance can find access to the second Sacra- 
 ment, but through the intervention of the first ; 
 and let no man in our Church think, he can 
 approach " the Communion of the Saints," in 
 their highest exercise of that communion, 
 the Eucharistical memorial of the Saviour's 
 dying love, till he has been introduced to that 
 communion by the initiatory Sacrament, in 
 which he has been cleansed from the guilt of sin 
 by faith in the blood of Christ, and from the 
 power of sin by faith in the Spirit of Christ. 
 Thus situated, the font would act as a standing 
 monitor to the Church. Its voice would be, 
 " remember your promises, remember your 
 vows, remember your privileges, remember 
 the blessed communion to which you belong : 
 exercise your graces, discharge your duties, 
 enjoy your privileges, as living members of a 
 living head," And the minister might point from 
 the pulpit to the font, and tell his people that 
 even the very stones of the font may cry out 
 against them, if they are walking inconsistently 
 with their profession : if they are deserting that 
 path of the commandments in which they have 
 promised to walk ; if they are lax professors 
 of that faith which should give vital energy to 
 their profession ; and if they are absorbed in the 
 vanities of a world, which they have renounced -, 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 425 
 
 are indulging tempers and lusts which they have 
 abjured; and are the willing victims of Sataii^ 
 against whom they have promised to array all 
 their vigilance and all their power. 
 
 In our modern chapels^ a Churchman looks 
 in vain for any memorial of "two" Sacraments 
 " as generally necessary to salvation:" and in 
 too many of our churches, built or repaired since 
 the Restoration, the font has given place to 
 the stove in the aisle, and is degraded to some 
 obscure station under a gallery, or to some 
 blind corner inconvenient for any other purpose. 
 One Sacrament alone seems to the eye to be | 
 necessary, and to have engrossed all our atten- 
 tion. But if we remove it from the eye, we 
 remove it also from observation and memory. 
 No memorial is sister to oblivion. If we would j 
 give the Sacrament due honour, and attract to 
 it proportionate esteem, let the font resume its 
 station of conspicuous dignity, and challenge 
 what it deserves, the attention of all. There 
 let the Child be openly admitted to his initiatory 
 communion with the Church ; and '^ in the 
 Baptism of Infants," let " every man present 
 be put in remembrance of his own profession 
 made to God in his Baptism." 
 
 But it is evident. My Dear Friend, that in 
 order to set these wheels in motion, as means 
 of producing and maintaining the blessings 
 consequent on our interpretation of Baptism, 
 those doctrines of grace must be restored to 
 
426 MODES OF 
 
 1 US, in which this interpretation originated, and 
 ! by the practical blessedness of which it was 
 \ in its present mode bestowed on our Chufch. 
 This gracious system of Baptismal regeneration 
 was transmitted to us by our Reformers, as a rich 
 blessing to give permanency and consistency to 
 ^^ the Communion of the Saints " from genera- 
 tion to generation. It seems then to be an 
 indispensable means of effecting their purpose, 
 that those sentiments of grace, and those views 
 of the Gospel, which they held and taught, 
 should be presented distinctly and openly to the 
 Church ; that the works of the Reformers, still 
 extant, should be republished in their niost 
 accessible forms ; and that the attention of 
 the whole British Public from the highest to 
 the lowest, from the most learned to the most 
 ignorant, should be solicited to these almost 
 sacred records, as the soundest interpreters 
 of all the formularies of our Church. 
 
 As a further mode then — let the works of 
 THE Reformers be prest on the attention 
 
 OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 With respect to the works of the Reformers, 
 we have, in these days of reform, neither done 
 justice to them nor to ourselves. Almost as 
 many volumes have been expended, in discussing 
 what their sentiments were, as would have 
 conveyed the works of the original Reformers 
 tp the Public, and have afforded us the best 
 opportunity of judging for ourselves. But 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 427 
 
 unless these works are reprinted, it is evident 
 that every day is depriving us of this opportu- 
 nity more and more. Fox's Book of Martyrs 
 has nearly disappeared from our churches : 
 Bishop Jewell's Defence of his Apology in 
 answer to Harding, a massive folio, constituting 
 a hody of divinity, (the only copy of which 
 exhibited for public perusal that I ever saw, 
 was some years since in a church at Wells,) is 
 dispersed into private libraries or has submitted 
 to the same fate. Many of their writings have 
 been destroyed by those who were ignorant 
 of their value, and have in many instances been 
 considered and treated as mere waste paper. 
 It is true, some attempts have been made of late 
 to renew our recollection of the principles of our 
 forefathers, one especially, " the Fathers of the 
 English Church,"" in eight octavo volumes : but 
 this work, select and interesting as it is, it 
 is said, found its way so slowly to public accept- 
 ance, that for some years not more than four 
 hundred copies were sold ; and the remaining six 
 hundred were disposed of by the efforts of those, 
 who either as friends of the Editor, or of his 
 labours, were unwilling that such an attempt 
 should meet with no better reward than failure. 
 But whatever attempt of this kind has been 
 made, successful or otherwise, it is but too 
 evident, that the Public have no adequate means 
 of judging of the sentiments of the Reformers, 
 on account of the scarcity of their works. 
 
428 MODES OF 
 
 To remedy this defect then^ I would propose 
 that a Society should be instituted, called, 
 " The Reformers Restored, or, the Society for 
 reprinting the works of the Reformers." An 
 associated effort, by the blessing of God, may 
 effect that, to which individual exertion is 
 unequal. Its capital and its numbers will at 
 once afford notoriety to the attempt, sufficient 
 means of effecting it, and security for its honest 
 performance. 
 
 As a general hint as to the mode in which 
 such a Society might accomplish its purpose, I 
 would propose that it should edit works of three 
 classes. First generally, both in volumes and 
 tracts, the works of the Reformers throughout 
 the sixteenth century, limiting their first publi- 
 cation to those of the " Marian days,'' and their 
 immediate predecessors 3 then siich works as 
 are written in the spirit and sentiment of the 
 Reformers till the sun of free grace sunk in our 
 Ecclesiastical horizon with Carleton, Davenant,^ 
 and Hall. This latter selection to be left to the 
 
 •■ As an instance of the waning state of the doctrines of grace 
 in the time of Davenant, I would refer to the reception of his 
 well-known sermon preached before King Charles the First ; 
 on account of which he was called before the Privy Council, 
 and as Fuller says with his truly characteristic quaintness, 
 ** presented himself on his knees, and so had still continued 
 for any favour he found from any of his own function there 
 present." See the particulars of the sermon and the Bishop's 
 treatment on account of it in Fuller's Church History, xi. 138. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 429 
 
 discretion of the managers. The second class 
 
 should consist, of either the Corpus Confes- 
 
 sionum, with a translation, or a harmony of the 
 
 Confessions, either after the example of that 
 
 printed at Cambridge 1586 ; or of a more brief 
 
 and condensed kind, showing, at one view, the 
 
 concurring sentiments of all the Chur€hes of the 
 
 Reformation on every article of faith — a species 
 
 of evidence much wanted at this day, as it is 
 
 with us after the Scriptures the most conclusive. 
 
 The third class might be simply historical, 
 
 consisting either of whole works, or of extracts 
 
 more immediately relating to the times of the 
 
 Reformation : these might consist of extracts 
 
 either of original authors of our own, such as 
 
 Fox and Holinshed, &c. or of foreign historians 
 
 such as Sleidan, or of historians whose works 
 
 are compiled from these, such as Burnet's 
 
 Historv of the Reformation, and the lives of the 
 
 principal Reformers by Strype, &c. Thus the 
 
 whole of the Reformation in its spirit, principles, 
 
 and agents, might be presented to the Public, 
 
 and from these ample documents, every man 
 
 might judge for himself, what was the religion 
 
 of our forefathers, and what that religion was 
 
 which they intended to transmit to us.^ 
 
 ' One powerful mode of recommending the principles of the 
 Reformation to general notice, would be the introduction j 
 of the Fifth Book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity as a class / 
 book into our Universities. It contains in fact a body of sterling 
 
430 MODES OF 
 
 As to the mauagement of the Society, it is 
 evident, that to give it fair operation, it must be 
 under the direction of those who approve of the 
 sentiments of the Reformers, and who will 
 perseveringly present them to the public as 
 their guides after the Scriptures of God. The 
 manaafement of it should be exclusivelv vested 
 in a few, by whom a joint capital should be 
 contributed ; while the benefits of the Society 
 should be universal ; extending to every annual 
 subscriber of a guinea or more such advantages 
 from diminished price, and facility of attainment, 
 as would not only encourage the admirers of the 
 piety of the Reformers, but the curious, the 
 learned, the antiquary, and the man of taste to 
 afford their support. The grand object should 
 be the Restoration of the Reformers to the 
 notice of the British Public : mens' motives 
 are their own : and while the Institution is 
 especially Intended for the good of the Church, 
 its success must depend on the blessing of God 
 in overruling the various motives which actuate 
 human conduct to the support of his own cause. 
 
 Let the works of the Reformers then, be 
 offered to the Public, in every variety of form 
 in which they may attract the eye from the 
 palace to the cottage. Let a well-printed legible 
 
 divinity, peculiarly adapted to members of our Established 
 Church, and might well supersede some works of inferior 
 merit which at present occupy the attention of our youth. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME, 431 
 
 volume be the ordinary channel of communi- 
 cation I which^ by being constantly renewed in a 
 good type and a low price, may offer itself 
 to the shelf of the collector, or may form the 
 manual t)f the divine ; and let the most popular, 
 and most interesting portions of these works, be 
 printed as cheap tracts, to be dispersed over the 
 country. A large portion of Fox's Book of 
 Martyrs — that wiiich forms the history of the 
 Church during the sixteenth century, and the 
 years immediately preceding, might be printed 
 as one folio volume, to be had either in the 
 volume, or in numbers to be circulated by the 
 hawkers : and it might again court public atten- 
 tion by being placed with the Book of Homilies 
 in our Churches. Here would be a library for 
 the divine, and supply the most approved com- 
 ment both on the Scriptures and on the Liturgy 
 of our church. We should thep be spared that 
 worse than useless vanity of reading a number 
 of unsatisfactory books ; ^ a sound religious taste 
 
 * It is indeed a worse than useless vanity, to consume life in 
 reading an almost endless variety of books. How often is it 
 the business of the latter part of life, to correct the false senti- 
 ments we have been acquiring during the former part of it ! 
 I know not that a man of sound wisdom and piety, (and he 
 must eminently possess both as needful qualifications for such 
 a work) could confer a richer blessing on the world than 
 either io condense the most approved books within ? small 
 compass, or to arrange the most approved authors on the 
 various subjects of human knowledge in a compendious 
 and intelligible syllabus. 
 
u 
 
 432 MODES OF 
 
 would be induced, the best days of the Church 
 would be renewed, and Popery, and Infidelity, 
 and Semi-Pelagianism, and Semi-Gospelism 
 would yield to " the truth" as it " is in Jesus/' ^ 
 The darkness of error being once dispersed by 
 this recurrence to first principles, the light 
 of divine illumination might under God be thus 
 maintained in our Church ; and by superseding 
 controversy (for our sainted Fathers of the Re- 
 formation are happily both above the condition 
 and provocation of controversy) their respected 
 remains might tend to unite us their children 
 in the bonds of Christian harmony and love. 
 
 Excuse these few hints, dropped incident- 
 ally on a subject which well deserves more 
 ample consideration. If I have a wish fraught 
 with blessings to our Church, the accomplish- 
 ment of which would gratify me more than 
 another, it is, I own, to see the works of the 
 Reformers in every hand ; but especially in the 
 hands of us, who succeed them in the ministry 
 of that Church, which they reformed by their 
 wisdom and piety, and established by their con- 
 stancy, their sufferings, and their blood. We 
 should thus be saved from the errors and delu- 
 sions of more modern times, and from the 
 floating non-descript divinity, which the fashion 
 of each generation subsequent to the times 
 of the Reformers has dictated to its respective 
 
 » Eph.iv. 21. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 433 
 
 day. And 1 do trust, that the time is not very 
 distant, when the institution of such a Society 
 may be announced to the Public, mid the 
 Reformers receive that practical testimony 
 of favour and acceptance, which all parties in 
 the Church acknowledge to be their due. 
 
 Another means of giving effect to the above 
 interpretation in this our day, is — the estab- 
 lishment OF A Periodical Work which 
 
 SHOULD BE devoted TO THE RECOMMENDATION 
 OF THE SENTIMENTS OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 The tone of the Gospel as they preached, and 
 defined, and felt, and lived it, should be that 
 which the Editors of this work should pre- 
 eminently recommend, and to which, as the 
 true standard, they should seek to elevate the 
 Christian literature of our times. I am not 
 aware that any work of this character at present 
 exists among us. Lives of the Reformers, and 
 references to their times and sentiments and 
 sufferings, are often given and alluded to; but 
 I know not any Periodical Work that professes 
 to give the truths of Christianity according to 
 the standard of the Reformation. Indeed I 
 must plainly say, that this defect in the Periodi- 
 cal Works with which I am acquainted, forms 
 no small evil of the day. They are received as 
 accredited exhibitions of the true Gospel, and 
 are appealed to frequently as standards of sound 
 divinity ; but if the divinity of the Reformation 
 be sound divinity ; and if the statement of the 
 
 u 
 
ll 
 
 434 MODES OF 
 
 Gospel as laid dov/n in the Seventeenth Article 
 be sound divinity, I must confess that I meet 
 with the tone and spirit of this divinity, as their 
 prominent and distinguishing character in — 
 shall I say any of these works that I have yet 
 seen ? adequately perhaps in none. I admit to 
 the fullest extent the usefulness of many of them 
 in attracting attention to the subject of religion, 
 in imparting a variety of religious knowledge 
 and information, and in recommending to 
 public attention the politico -religious subjects 
 of the day ; and generally, in forming a rallying 
 point for the religious world, they have been 
 eminently useful, and God has doubtless blessed 
 their efforts to the spread of religious truth. 
 But in vain have T looked for the sweet, and 
 racy, and lovely Gospel of our forefathers ; those 
 gales from Eden, which refresh and invigorate 
 the soul of a helpless sinner groaning under the 
 manifold infirmities and corruptions of his 
 fallen nature, and needing daily supplies from 
 that Gospel of spiritual life, which is a daily 
 " revelation from faith to faith.'' ^ Indeed one 
 letter of Bradford's will often contain more of 
 the spiritual elixir of the genuine Gospel, than 
 many pages, perhaps scores of pages of most of 
 these works, some of which indeed are decidedly 
 opposed to his tone of religion : and others 
 of which, by their silence at least, seem to 
 consider it as excessive, if not enthusiastic. 
 
 ' Rom. i. 17. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 435 
 
 Such a work, to be useful, should itself strik- 
 ingly illustrate the blessedness of the principles 
 it undertakes to recommend. There should be 
 if possible, no controversy,^ much less flippancy ; 
 no party spirit or littleness of a junta, but every 
 book that comes up to the standard of the Gospel, 
 as exhibited by our Church in the Seventeenth 
 Article, and its corresponding formularies 
 throughout the Liturgy, should be fairly admitted 
 to its due claim to the notice of the Public. Let 
 the great principle of the Gospel, as taught 
 throughout by our Church — salvation hy mercy 
 in its origin, means, and end, be the test of those 
 authors it recommends. Let other books pass 
 by unnoticed ; for it is surely a most unhappy 
 effect of the too indiscriminate notice of authors, 
 to advertise the very works which the critic 
 condemns, and to which even critical condem- 
 nation gives a pernicious celebrity. Let such 
 works never be mentioned, unless under cir- 
 cumstances of such glaring notoriety as will 
 amply justify such mention. Let all books 
 of equivocal character be passed by : and even 
 books written purposely to controvert the prin- 
 ciples of the work, receive no other answer, 
 than the plain and full elucidation of the verity 
 
 » The characteristic excellence of the work, — the bringing 
 forward in their own words the sentiments of the Reformers, — 
 would go far to preclude controversy : it would be constantly 
 supplying genuine documents by which every man might be 
 able to judge for himself. 
 
 U 2 
 
436 ^ MODES OF 
 
 and excellence of those principles which the 
 pages of the work perseveringly exhibit. Let 
 it be its studious design to avoid every thing 
 like collision, and' to display the spirit of its 
 doctrines by its practice. Let it breatVie the 
 love, the peace, the joy, the blessing of God's 
 richest gift to man ; let its spirit be love, and 
 its practice love ; and in the wide waste of human 
 errors and prejudices, let the truth and the spirit 
 of Christianity, as illustrated by our Church, 
 afford in this work one distinguished spot, 
 where truth and moderation meet together, and 
 where kindness and love have convinced the 
 heart of its error, before the pride of the under- 
 standing has arisen to its defence. Let a well- 
 selected history of the lives, and sentiments, 
 and sayings of the Reformers, both native and 
 foreign, be continually brought forward, together 
 with the most striking extracts from their works; 
 and let those authors of all times, subsequent or 
 anterior, who have held similar sentiments, 
 afford a continual illustration and recommenda- 
 tion of them. Let such authors of the present 
 day as entertain these principles, receive ample 
 encouragement to proceed in giving them in 
 every way to the public : and let it be a work 
 which the Holy Spirit may own in its design, 
 execution, and temper ; to which the weary soul 
 may resort for refreshment, and the wounded 
 heart for consolation; and in which the believer 
 may meet a kindred spirit, to dissolve his doubts. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 437 
 
 to dissipate his fears, to assuage his sorrows, to 
 excite his graces, to confirm his faith, and to 
 elevate his hope. 
 
 But you will say, where are the conductors 
 of such a work to be found ? I have no doubt, 
 that there are, in our Church, those who are 
 capable both in piety, acquirement, and talent, 
 of conducting such a publication : that there 
 are many who desire it, I well know ; and that 
 it would find the most ample encouragement 
 and support I entertain no doubt. May God, 
 of his mercy, grant, that this hint, as well as the 
 former, may not be lost ; may it be the means 
 of awakening the attention of those who are 
 competent to the work, and may the principles 
 enforced in these letters form a point of union, 
 and a bond of security, from which such a pub- 
 lication may emanate, and by which it may be 
 maintained in asserting the sovereignty of grace, 
 and the simplicity of the Gospel. 
 
 But there yet remains one means, and that 
 the most powerful of all, even that which is 
 " the power of God " ^ unto salvation, — the 
 
 PREACHING OF THE GoSPEL, CVCU of that Gospcl 
 
 which formed the paramount subject of his 
 ministry, who in the discharge of it " determined 
 to know nothing — but Jesus Christ, and him 
 crucified : " ^ and which, if I have ever yet been 
 privileged to comprehend its letter, or to feel its 
 
 1 1 Cor. i. 18. 2 Ibid. ii. 2. 
 
 U 3 
 
438 MODES OF 
 
 spirit^ is the genuine Gospel of our Established 
 Church. 
 
 It is quite clear that no style of preaching can 
 give effect to the above interpretation of our 
 Baptismal Service, and its kindred formularies, 
 which does not represent the Gospel in the same 
 lovely point of vievi^, and exhibit it as a rich 
 provision of privileges, given for the express 
 purpose of restoring a helpless sinner to the 
 favour, and of investing him again with the 
 holy image of his God, that hereafter he may be 
 a partaker of his glory. 
 
 Can the preaching of mere morality effect 
 this ? Will the telling the sinner to sin no more, 
 on account of the evil consequences that will 
 attend the commission of his sins, both here and 
 hereafter, bring that helpless sinner to the cross 
 of Christ for the pardon of his sins, or to the 
 throne of Christ for the conquest of them ? 
 
 Can the preaching of the medley-Gospel 
 effect this ? Will the conviction that man can do 
 his part from his own native goodness and 
 power, and that Christ can and will make up 
 the deficiency for him, humble the sinner in the 
 dust, at the foot of the cross or throne of Christ, 
 and honour the Saviour for having privileged 
 him with a salvation, which he will allow at 
 most to be only partial, — a half- measure, — and 
 which as Bishop Hall expresses it, "parts stakes 
 with Christ ? '' 
 
 Will the preaching of the Law, with all its holi- 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 439 
 
 ness and all its terrors^ even under the teaching 
 of the Spirit, effect this ? It may generate " a 
 spirit of bondage to fear/' but it never can 
 animate us with a sense of privilege, and cause 
 us to receive " the spirit of adoption whereby 
 we cry, Abba, Father,'' ^ and prayer becomes a 
 blessing and a pleasure. To preach the Law is 
 not to preach the Gospel ; nor can it ever give 
 us a sense of " the kindness and love of God our 
 Saviour." ^ It is mistaking the vestibule of the 
 palace for the presence chamber of the prince : 
 the one may lead to the other, but they must 
 by no means be mistaken for the same. 
 
 Neither will that Gospel which consists in 
 preaching the three fundamental doctrines of 
 Christianity ansvv'er our purpose, or come up to 
 the spiritual standard of our church : I mean — 
 the ruin of man by the fall — the recovery of man 
 by the Saviour— and the regeneration of man by 
 the Spirit. These are indeed great and leading 
 portions of the Gospel ; but they are but por- 
 tions : they are not the whole counsel of God's 
 mercy to man. They are indeed some of the 
 most brilliant gems of the crown ; but if they 
 are presented to us isolated and alone, they are 
 displaced from the setting, and lose their pe- 
 culiar beauty, by losing their harmony and 
 proportion. Thus detached from their sister 
 privileges, they mourn their loss, from their own 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 15. ^ Tit. iii. 3. 
 
 i 
 
440 MODES OF 
 
 incapacity to build up the saint^ and to admit 
 him into the liberty of adoption. Such a ministry 
 converts under the blessing of the Spirit, and 
 usually improves conversion into a growing 
 sanctification ; but the growth is slow, because 
 the beams of that free grace which enliven and 
 invigorate are wanting ; and the subject of this 
 ministry does not usually arise above the misty 
 regions of doubt and fear, to those of privilege 
 and assurance. These upper regions of celestial 
 day, the happy temperature of our blessed 
 Church, are too frequently esteemed by such, a 
 Terra Incognita, which it is presumption to 
 explore: and "make thy chosen people joyful '* 
 to the benefits of which such Christians have an 
 undoubted claim, is, in their mouths, not a 
 prayer for themselves, but for others, in whom 
 it is almost presumption, in their esteem, to 
 accept the blessings which this prayer has drawn 
 down upon them. It is thus, I conceive, that 
 in the Evangelical world the growth of sancti- 
 fication is dwarfed ; and even the pious members 
 of our Church, who have a clear right to all its 
 privileges, and all its blessings, come short of 
 their birthright, and of the peculiar benefits of a 
 communion which would mature them " to that 
 ripeness and perfectnesg of age in Christ," as 
 to cause them to walk in the daily assurance, 
 that they have a personal interest in the graces 
 and glories of his salvation. Not esteeming 
 themselves to be saints, they think they have no 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 441 
 
 right to the communion : and though they are 
 constantly holding communion with the Church, 
 in the exercise of the same means of grace; yet 
 a large portion of the sympathies and privileges 
 of that communion is lost both to themselves 
 and the Church, from their doubt, whether such 
 sympathies and privileges do indeed belong to 
 them. And it is by the fears and apprehensions 
 of these excellent but timid believers that the 
 Church is bereaved of the chief comfort of her 
 children. 
 
 Neither do I conceive that the most accurate 
 statement, and most finished definition of the 
 Gospel laid down in our Seventeenth Article, 
 preached didactically,^ is that preaching of the 
 Gospel which can carry the above interpretation 
 into practice. Those great and glorious truths 
 which constitute the Gospel mode of salvation 
 may be detailed with perfect accuracy, and most 
 
 * To preach election merely didactically, is not, I appre- 
 hend, according to the Scripture manner; and must necessarily 
 be offensive both to the head and the heart of unconverted 
 man. The faith of the one, and the humility of the other, are 
 indispensable recipients of this doctrine of mere mercy. The 
 pride of intellect must submit, that the understanding should 
 receive that which intellect cannot comprehend ; and the arro- 
 gance of self-sufficiency must yield the heart to accept that 
 which flows from sovereign mercy alone. Perhaps the most 
 splendid passage in Scripture [Rom. viii. 28 — 39] is that in 
 which the doctrine of election is exhibited most fully, expli- 
 citly, and particularly. And what passage of Scripture is so 
 
 U 5 
 
442 MODES OF 
 
 correct proportion as a dry system of truth. 
 There may be nothing to complain of in the 
 statement; but the complaint will be of the 
 absence of that unction, and feeling, and expe- 
 rience which, imder the power of the Spirit, give 
 that statement effect. A system of truth dryly 
 and didactically exhibited, may be as inoperative 
 in practice as a system of error : both may equally 
 amuse or instruct the understanding, but neither 
 of them may sink into the heart. The appre- 
 hensive faculty of a real believer is described as 
 "an understanding heart;" it is "with the 
 heart that man believeth unto righteousness;''^ 
 and it is the full heart of the preacher of the 
 Gospel, teeming with all its rich and purifying 
 righteousness, and illustrating the love, the joy, 
 the peace, and the hope of the Gospel in his 
 own spirit and ministry, that can best exhibit 
 its heavenly tendency, and under the power of 
 the Spirit flash self-condemnation on the con- 
 science of the convicted sinner, while it pours 
 the balm of peace and assurance into the trou- 
 bled soul. 
 
 abundant in love, and joy, and hope, and privilege, and 
 victory, and triumph ? It is a challenge to every noble feeling 
 of the soul to rejoice in the excellency, the security, and the 
 blessedness of the love of God in Christ Jesus ; and that 
 feeling can only be expressed in the rapturous language of the 
 Bride " Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine 
 arm." Song of Sol. viii. 6. 
 
 * Rom. X. 10. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 443 
 
 To preach the Gospel then according to the 
 Scriptures, the Liturgy of our Church, and the 
 example of our Reformers, is, I apprehend, to 
 pour out its blessings, — its graces, duties, and 
 privileges— with a holy unction, from a heart 
 deeply imbued with a sense of those blessings. 
 It is doctrine illustrated by feeling, precept by 
 practice, the letter by the spirit, the manifold 
 word in all its experimental reality of suitable- 
 ness and loveliness. It is faith in the promise 
 acted out in unreserved confidence in its fidelity 
 and truth. It is the love of the Father com- 
 mended in the gift of the Son — the grace of the 
 Son commended in the constant application and 
 daily use of him in his person and offices — the 
 communion of the Spirit, the divine applicant 
 of the grace of the Son to the human soul, com- 
 mended in the fellowship with which he actually 
 enfeoffs the believer both with the Father and the 
 Son, and with the whole Church militant and 
 triumphant. It is not a grace, or a duty, or a 
 privilege drawn out into scholastic divisions 
 and subdivisions to amuse the understanding, 
 but all of tliem harmoniously interwoven with 
 each other, the two former deriving confirma- 
 tion and practicability from the felt enjoyment 
 of the latter. It is salvation, presented as a rich 
 and abundant gift in all its gracious and intelli- 
 gible detail, from its rise in the bosom of God 
 as the counsel of his will towards the redeemed 
 soul, to its crowning consummation in glory ; 
 
444 MODES OF 
 
 and all this distinguished hlessedness conveyed 
 in experiaiental vitality from the heart of the 
 preacher to the heart of the hearer. 
 
 I Such^ I conceive, is the Gospel of the king- 
 
 dom as delineated in the Scriptures. It is no 
 detraction either from the Old Testament, or 
 I from the ministry of our Lord, as exhibited in 
 
 !,^ the four Gospels, to say, that the preaching 
 of the Gospel was most perfect when the Gospel 
 itself was most perfect. Now the dispensation 
 of the Gospel was not perfect, till the Saviour 
 
 ^ had ascended on high, " spoiled principalities 
 and powers,"! assumed his station on the 
 right hand of his Father's glory, had received 
 the gifts of the Spirit for men, and had actually 
 exercised his prerogative as the King of his 
 Church, by accomplishing the great promise 
 of the Gospel, the gift of the Holy Ghost, to the 
 primitive converts of the new dispensation of 
 grace. John the Baptist, though " much more 
 than a Prophet "^ as the forerunner of the 
 Saviour, yet, great as he was, as he was only 
 the forerunner of the kingdom, was inferior to 
 the least in the kingdom of heaven when actually 
 established. The most perfect exhibition of 
 grace then, whether in its letter, spirit, or 
 preaching, is afforded to the Church in the Acts 
 and writings of the Apostles. And who, that is 
 well conversant with these, has not felt the 
 
 » Col. ii. 15. 2 Luke vii. 8. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME.W^ 
 
 sweet infusion of grace pervading all calls to 
 duty, and that duty is made practicable ^^i^^Tk 
 
 faith in his promise " who maketh us to will and-^ " 
 
 to do of his good pleasure/' ^ If doctrines are to 
 be insisted on, they are recommended experi- 
 mentally ; whether it be the total corruption 
 of our nature, our complete salvation by grace, 
 our justification by faith in the blood of Christ, 
 our sanctification, our privileges, our election in 
 Christ, as is evident from the most logical state- 
 ment of them to be found in Scripture, from 
 the first to the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Romans. If duties are to be enforced, we 
 have not a whole chapter drawn out into scho- 
 lastic niceties of detail ; but we have them in 
 the mass, as the rich combined expression of the 
 Christian character, mixed up with Gospel 
 motives and encouragements, the bright truths 
 of mercy and grace, sparkling like diamonds 
 here and there, and the loved name of Jesus 
 sanctifying the call to duty throughout, making 
 effort hopeful, and our sanctification our highest 
 pleasure. This is strikingly evidenced in the 
 conclusion of the Epistle above referred to, from 
 the twelfth chapter to the end. If a grace is to 
 be pourtrayed, a few masterly touches of cha- 
 racteristic excellence are given, such as that 
 of charity, 2 ever grounding us on faith, and 
 reminding us that it is charity as it is the result 
 
 » Phil. ii. 13. 3 1 Cor. xiii. 
 
446 MODES OF 
 
 of the faith and hope of the Gospel. Christlis 
 the soul of duty^ oi grace, oi privilege, Christ 
 is the light and warmth which cheer and animate 
 to exertion. It is the promise and not the pre- 
 cept, it is encouragement and not exaction, it is 
 grace, and not nature which consecrate a course 
 of moral beauty and blessing, and convince the 
 believer that whether grace is to be exercised, 
 or duty discharged, he is eminently " God's 
 workmanship"—" the new man, which after God 
 is created in righteousness and true holiness." ^ 
 Such also is the Gospel of our Church, as 
 preached in " The Article " - and Liturgy. The 
 Seventeenth Article is an exquisite and most 
 accomplished description of the whole Gospel. 
 It originates in the love of the Father regarding 
 fallen man in the perfection of the Son, and 
 applying this love in experimental efficacy to 
 the soul of man by the agency of the Holy Ghost. 
 " The Article *' grounds all its blessings to the 
 sinner on God's free election of him to everlast- 
 ing glory in Christ ; and on this foundation 
 applied to the individual as " endued with so 
 excellent a benefit of God," all the blessings of 
 the Gospel are raised. The whole Gospel ac- 
 cording to " The Article," is but an illustration 
 of God's electing love. The calling of the sinner, 
 
 ' Eph. iv. 24. 
 3 See His Majesty's Declaration prefixed to the Articles, 
 clause the sixth. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 44Z 
 
 his conversion in obedience to the call, his justi- 
 fication, his adoption, his sanctification, his 
 religious walk and final glory, that is, all these 
 particulars which constitute the Gospel (for this 
 is the Gospel) are consecutive benefits neces- 
 sarily flowing out of that original benefit; — 
 the sinner's being marked out as the object 
 of God's distinguishing mercy in Christ Jesus. 
 If you detach them from their consecutive 
 station you spoil their harmony, their beauty, 
 and their efficacy ; if you join sanctification 
 immediately with justification, and pass over 
 the highly privileged link of adoption, as is too 
 commonly done in stating the Gospel, you lose 
 the great animating motive to sanctification, 
 this rich expression of the free favour and sove- 
 reign mercy of God. It is thus with the whole 
 cluster of doctrines here stated as constituting 
 the Gospel ; you cannot remove one without 
 marring the harmony of the whole. Displace 
 but one, and you break the continuity of the 
 stream which originates in the fountain of God's 
 eternal election, and flows on with increasing 
 abundance of blessings to its confluence in the 
 ocean of everlasting glory. Electing love is 
 here the origin of salvation, electing grace in 
 all its rich variety is the meanSy electing glory 
 is the end. And nothing short of this, according 
 to this statement of our Church, is the full and 
 real gospel of Christ Jesus. It is eminently the 
 exhibition and application of Electing Love. 
 
448 MODES OF 
 
 And here I am concerned to show the admirable 
 consistency of our Church with the word of God 
 on which she is built. There is not one of these 
 links of blessing which is not a necessary part 
 of electing wisdom in the process of our salva- 
 tion ; so that if this doctrine be omitted in our 
 ministry, salvation by free grace seems to lose 
 its very spirit and soul. Our calling is the 
 process of election, — '^ Who hath saved us, 
 and called us with an holy calling, not according 
 to our works, but according to his own purpose 
 and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus 
 before the world began.^' ^ Our obedience to 
 THE CALL is the process of election, — '^ Elect 
 according to the foreknowledge of God the 
 Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, 
 unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood 
 of Jesus Christ." ^ Our free justification 
 is the process of election ; — " moreover whom he 
 did predestinate them he also called : and whom 
 he called, them he also justified.'* ^ Our adop- 
 tion is the process of election — " having pre- 
 destinated us unto the adoption of children by 
 Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good 
 pleasure of his will.'' * Our sanctification 
 or being made like the image of his only-begot- 
 ten Son Jesus Christ, is the process of election, 
 for — " whom he did foreknow he also did pre- 
 destinate to be conformed to the image of his 
 
 » 2 Tim. i. 9. » 1 Peter i. 2. 
 
 3 Rom. viii. 30. * Ephes. i. 5. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 449 
 
 Son/'i Our religious walk in good works 
 is the process of election, — '^ for we are his 
 workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good 
 works, which God hath before ordained/' or 
 prepared, " that we should walk in them.'* ^ 
 Our FINAL GLORY is the desirable end in whicli 
 this process of election terminates : it is the 
 concluding link of the chain — "whom he 
 justified, them he also glorified." ^ 
 
 The above, I conceive, to be a most lucid 
 statement of " the Gospel of the grace of God,"4 
 according to the order of " the Article " con- 
 firmed by the word of Scripture. It is the 
 process of God's mercy from its origin to its 
 consummation. It is the full and compendious 
 developement of " all the counsel of God " ^ in 
 the Gospel. To preach systematically or habitu- 
 ally detached portions of this harmonious whole, 
 is by omission to mar the Gospel ; and to preach 
 any particular, but as pre-supposing the grand 
 pervading and originating doctrine of electing 
 mercy, is to misrepresent, by not illustrating 
 that grace of which it is only a part : it is not 
 " the whole truth." Certain portions may be 
 preached, and conversion may be the effect : 
 but that richer style of sanctification, which is 
 itself the blessed result of all this succession 
 of privilege, is inseparably connected with it. 
 
 » Rom.viii. 29. ^ Epi^, ij, jq. ' Rom. viii. 30. 
 
 •« Acts XX. 24. * Ibid. 27. 
 
450 MODES OF 
 
 as it is the necessary result of it. It is to 
 restore the image of God, as presented to us in 
 Christ, to the human soul, that all this train 
 of mercy is provided ; and this is a preparation 
 for glory. And as the soul grows in its appre- 
 hensions of redeeming mercy, so does it expand 
 in love to God and man, so does sin lose its 
 dominion, and so is grace enthroned triumphant. 
 The principle of this Gospel then is, — not 
 " we love him first, and then he loves us ; '* but 
 " we love him because he first loved us : " ^ not 
 the love of man purchasing the love of God, 
 but the love of God to us inducing our love 
 to him. And this I apprehend is the Gospel as 
 wrought out in all its vital detail in the Liturgy 
 and formularies of our Church. God's chosen 
 people are the persons for whom it is intended. 
 They are elected according to the promise as 
 the children of believing Parents ; they are 
 united in Baptism to " the Communion of the 
 Saints " when the Church prays that they may 
 " ever remain in the number of God's "faith- 
 ful and elect children ; " they are taught that 
 the Holy Ghost " sanctifieth '^ or is sanctifying 
 them " and all the elect people of God ; '' they 
 are, as I have shown in the course of these 
 pages, continually recognised, throughout the 
 Liturgy and its formularies, as lively members 
 of a spiritual communion ; and in the last alFect- 
 
 * 1 John iv. 1^. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 451 
 
 ing expression of our regard that we' can afford 
 them in this worlds ^' we give hearty thanks ** 
 to the Father of mercies, " for that it hath 
 pleased him to deliver this our Brother out 
 of the miseries of this sinful world ;'' and we 
 add, ^^ beseeching thee, that it may please thee 
 of thy gracious goodness shortly to accomplish 
 the number of thine elect and to hasten thy 
 kingdom.'' All the privileges of the Gospel, as 
 stated in " The Article," are vitally and expe- 
 rimentally interwoven throughout the Liturgy ; 
 so that the man who really does accompany the 
 words of the Liturgy as they fall from the lips 
 of the minister with corresponding feelings in 
 his soul, enjoys the " true and lively word " 
 of the Gospel in all its spiritual blessedness; 
 and being a living member of Christ's mystical 
 body " is neither barren nor unfruitful in the 
 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ,"^ 
 
 Would you have all the pulpits of the Estab- 
 lishment then to sound forth the doctrine of 
 election ? I would answer this question by 
 referring to the practice of the Reformers. 
 When the Church was reduced to a low con- 
 dition, they adapted their means of revival to the 
 capability of the patient. They abated not one 
 iota of its blessedness, in stating all the rich 
 privileges of the Gospel, in that formulary which 
 was to define those blessings, in as full and 
 
 * 2 Peter i. 8. 
 
452 MODES OF 
 
 accurate a manner, as human language was 
 capable of conveying them to the understanding. 
 This they have done in the Seventeenth Article, 
 which was to be a standing model of the privi- 
 leges of the Gospel, presented as a continual 
 memorial to the Church. The same privileges 
 which they defined in " The Article,'' they so 
 interwove throughout the whole service of the 
 Church, that they formed the very essence of 
 her worship. Open the Liturgy where you will, 
 turn to whatever formulary you please, and it 
 is a service for an elect soul ; it is the confession, 
 prayer, intercession, praise, and rejoicing of a 
 child of God, and of a real disciple of Jesus 
 Christ. It is a service which an unspiritual 
 mouth may utter, but it is one which a spiritual 
 soul can alone enjoy. Nor have the Reformers, 
 in this respect, withheld one iota of what they 
 deemed the truth as it is in Jesus ; they have 
 displayed the integrity of the Gospel, the whole 
 counsel of God, in experimental life and energy, 
 in the letter of the Liturgy : and they have left 
 it like the letter of Scripture to be applied 
 individually, as each particular worshipper is 
 endued with grace to receive it. They have 
 acted otherwise as to the preaching of the 
 Gospel in the Homilies.^ There they have ac- 
 commodated their statement to what the then 
 
 ' If the institution of " The Prayer Book, and Homily 
 Society," had been productive of no other advantage than that 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 453 
 
 condition of the Church seemed to require. 
 The Reformed Church was only in her infancy ; 
 both ministers and people^ as the Homilies 
 and cotemporary accounts abundantly testify, 
 were reduced to a low state both of knowledge 
 and practice. They had recently come out of 
 darkness into light ; and though some enjoyed 
 that light with a vitality perhaps now unknown ; 
 yet the great mass of the people required an 
 initiatory instruction, by which they might be 
 gradually led to the apprehension of the whole 
 truth. Hence the thirty-fifth Article declares 
 the Homilies to " contain a godly and whole- 
 some doctrine, and necessary for these times.'' 
 The times demanded no higher statement ; and 
 it was prudent to give them what they could 
 bear. The very same Homilies, and sermons 
 of the same standard of doctrine, are equally 
 necessary at these times. Let this statement 
 of doctrines then be made, but only as prepara- 
 tory to a fuller display of the Gospel. Let it be 
 considered as an initiatory administration of the 
 word, to be carried forward to perfection. * 
 
 of introducing the Homilies to the notice both of rich and 
 poor, this alone would have given it ample claim to the support 
 and gratitude of our United Church. 
 
 ^ I apprehend not only from the expression " necessary for 
 these times " in the Thirty-fifth Article, but also by the internal 
 evidence afforded by the Homilies themselves, that a fuller 
 display of the doctrines of grace was meditated when the Church 
 should be prepared for it. The doctrine of election is by no 
 means excluded from them, as a poison to be avoided, as it is 
 
454 MODES OF 
 
 If we aim at nothing beyond the standard of the 
 Homilies, I apprehend our people will never 
 receive the Gospel in all the vital extent of pri- 
 vilege, in which it is defined in the Seventeenth 
 Article, and represented in all its varied detail 
 in the Liturgy. If as ministers of the Establish- 
 ment we are " never "' to " cease '' our " labour,^' 
 mir '^ care and diligence, until " we ^^ have 
 done all that lieth in" us, '^according to" our 
 " bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall 
 be committed to " our " charge unto that agree- 
 ment in the faith and knowledge of God. and to 
 
 from the fashionable divinity of our day ; but ** the sweet 
 savouriness '^ of it, is admitted occasionally into these elementary 
 addresses as a taste of the richer statement of Gospel blessings 
 for which they were preparing the Church, as may be seen by 
 consulting the following Homilies : — on Prayer, part three — 
 on the Nativity — on the Passion — on Whitsunday ; and more 
 at large, speaking of "the undoubted children of God ap- 
 pointed to everlasting life," the Homily of Alms-deeds, part 
 two, continues — " And so, as by their wickedness and ungodly 
 living, they shewed themselves according to the judgment 
 of men, which follow the outward appearance, to be reprobates 
 and castaways ; so now by their obedience unto God's holy 
 will, and by their mercifulness and tender pity, wherein they 
 shew themselves to be like unto God, who is the fountain and 
 spring of all mercy, they declare openly and manifestly unto 
 the sight of men, that they are the sons of God, and elect 
 of him unto salvation. For as the crood fruit is not the cause 
 that the tree is good, but the tree must first be good before it 
 can bring forth good fruit ; so the good deeds of man are not 
 the cause that maketh man good, but he is first made good by 
 the Spirit and grace of God, that effectually worketh in him 
 and afterwards bringeth forth good fruit." 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 455 
 
 that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, 
 that there be no place left among " us, " either 
 for error in religion, or for viciousness in life ; '' ^ 
 it is quite clear that this high standard of spiri- 
 tual growth can never be attained, but under 
 the warm beams of a ministry, that insists on 
 holiness as the highest happiness, and uniformly 
 animates its subjects to increasing spirituality, 
 by a constant display of free grace, and sovereign 
 mercy, and electing love ; a ministry that draws 
 all its motives from the love of God in Christ, 
 and urges the soul to an imitation of his example, 
 from the sweet peace it derives from the satis- 
 faction of his blood, and the power of holiness 
 that is maintained by the influence of his Spirit. 
 That "ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ,'* 
 which leaves " no place for error in religion, or 
 viciousness in life,*' can only arise from the 
 enjoyment of all the privileges to which we are 
 entitled in Christ, even " that he hath chosen 
 us in him before the foundation of the world, 
 that we should be holy and without blame before 
 him in love/' ^ I would answer the question, 
 therefore, by saying, It will be a happy day for 
 the Church of England when all her ministei's 
 aim to give her Baptismal Service and its sister 
 formularies their full effect, by bringing their 
 people to " a ripeness and perfectness of age in 
 Christ ; '' when, like the Reformers, they give 
 
 * Ordering of Priests: ' Ephesians i. 4. 
 
456 MODES OF 
 
 them those fundamental doctrines which are 
 necessary for the times, with the view of leading 
 them on to the perfection of that most accom- 
 plished Christian communion to which our 
 Church in consistency with Scripture aims to 
 elevate her children. ^^That their hearts might 
 be comforted, being knit together in love, and 
 unto all riches in the full assurance of under- 
 standing to the acknowledgment of the mystery 
 of God, and of the Father, and of Christ/' ^ 
 
 Such I apprehend to be the matter and order 
 of the real Gospel of Christ as represented in 
 the Scripture, and by our Church in her Seven- 
 teenth Article and in her Liturgy ; and I subjoin 
 an instance of the mode in which it was both 
 stated and preached by one of the brightest 
 luminaries of that epoch. " Here cometh neces- 
 sarily in a new way unto salvation, so that they 
 which were in the other perverse, may in this 
 be found straight and righteous. That the way 
 of nature, this the way of grace. The end of that 
 way salvation merited, pre-supposing the right- 
 eousness of men's works — their righteousness, 
 a natural ability to do them — that ability the 
 goodness of God, which created them in such 
 perfections. But the end of this way salvation 
 bestowed upon men as a gift, pre-supposing 
 not their righteousness, but the forgiveness 
 of their unrighteousness, justification — their 
 
 » Col. ii. 2. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 457 
 
 justification not their natural ability to do good 
 but their hearty sorrow for their not doing", and 
 unfeigned belief in him, for whose sake not- 
 doers are accepted, which is their vocation — 
 their vocation, the election of God, taking 
 them out from the number of lost children — 
 their election a Mediator in whom to be elect, 
 this mediation inexplicable mercy — his mercy, 
 their misery for whom he vouchsafed to make 
 himself a mediator. The want of exact dis- 
 tinguishing between these two ways, and 
 observing what they have common, what pecu- 
 liar, hath been the cause of the greatest part 
 of that confusion whereof Christianity at this 
 day laboureth." This masterly statement ex- 
 tracted from his " Learned sermon on the nature 
 of pride," Hooker insists on throughout his 
 sermons in a less formal and didactic manner. 
 But this was the Gospel of the Reformation ; 
 and it is, I apprehend, the preaching of his 
 Gospel, in its real extent and spirit, that can 
 alone make our Baptismal Service intelligible 
 or acceptable. Let salvation be of grace from 
 j beginning to end, and it will be seen, that the 
 faith which begins in the promise, is maintained 
 by the promise, and is crowned by the promise, 
 shall never fail of holiness here or of full sal- 
 vation hereafter. Such is the real condition, 
 and practical blessedness of a soul introduced 
 and educated according to the Baptismal pri- 
 vileges of our Church: it is the Gospel in 
 
 X 
 
45^ MODES OF 
 
 vigorous exercise, mercy preparing a soul for 
 glory. 
 
 It is surely one of the master-strokes of policy 
 in our great enemy the devil, to draw off our 
 attention from the plain and simple Gospel 
 of grace as presented to us in the Seventeenth 
 Article and Liturgy of our Church, and to 
 place before us some other standard. He 
 distracts that he may confound; and divides 
 that he may destroy. For more than two cen- 
 turies, the devil has employed the Church of 
 England in fighting for a shadow, for the very 
 purpose of distracting her attention from the 
 simple truth. The names of two men, as heads 
 of opposing parties, have occupied those lips 
 and pens, which should have been engaged in 
 setting forth, not the Gospel of Calvin or 
 Arminius, but the plain letter of the Gospel 
 of our Church, as expressed in her Seventeenth 
 Article. What have you and I, My Dear Friend, 
 as Clergymen of the Church of England, to do 
 with Calvin or Arminius ? We have not sub- 
 scribed the tenets of either of these men, as the 
 standard of the Gospel, but those of the Seven- 
 teenth Article of our Church. Let both of 
 them have the respect which may be their 
 due 5 and as an individual, I may prefer the 
 divinity of the Pastor of Geneva, to that of the 
 Professor of Leyden, or the contrary. But I 
 cannot defend the sentiments of either the one 
 or the other, as though such sentiments were I 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 459 
 
 identified with the Gospel of the Church of 
 England. I account this to be one of the 
 deviFs chief artifices to draw us off from the 
 real Gospel as held by our Church. Our Gospel 
 is neither that of Calvin ^ nor Arminius: it 
 stands without names as the Gospel of the 
 Reformation — majestic in its own Scriptural 
 simplicity. May God of his infinite mercy have 
 pity on our distracted state, and cure us of this 
 folly ; may he open our eyes to this artifice 
 of Satan ; may every pulpit sound with the 
 plain letter of " The Article ; '' may " all 2 
 further curious search be laid aside, and these 
 disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be 
 generally set forth to us in the Holy Scriptures, 
 and the general meaning of the Articles of the 
 Church of England, according to them.^^ All 
 I desire is, that '^ no man hereafter shall either 
 print or preach, to draw the article aside any 
 
 * There are few persons in history to whom their cotem- 
 poraries have done more ample justice than Calvin ; and there 
 are few from whose labours posterity might have received 
 greater advantages, while it has perverted his name to father 
 the grossest enormities in sentiment and practice ; and visited 
 on him the consequences of these perversions for which he is 
 by no means responsible. I believe there are few at the pre- 
 sent day, who will read Calvin for themselves, that will not be 
 astonished at the difference, between the real person and the 
 portrait which prejudice has drawn of him. I have heard it 
 remarked, after such a perusal, that Calvin himself was a poor 
 Calvinist. 
 
 ^ See His Majesty's Declaration prefixed to the Articles. 
 
 X 2 
 
460 MODES OF 
 
 way^ but shall submit to it in the plain and 
 full meaning thereof." Let every minister of 
 the Church but preach the plain letter of the 
 ARTICLE, (that is the Seventeenth) and give it 
 its " literal and grammatical sense ; " and I have 
 no fear for the spread of the real Gospel. He 
 may call himself by vi^hatever name he pleases, 
 and men may call him by the same : only let 
 him *^give the sense'' of the letter as Ezra and 
 his brother expositors did, and I have no fear for 
 the result. But alas ! the letter is banished 
 from among us, men's names are substituted 
 for it, and if we withhold the letter how can we 
 " give the sense ? " ^ 
 
 And as the above is the tone of Gospel preach- 
 ing, which, I conceive can alone originate and 
 maintain that " Communion of Saints/' which 
 our Church contemplates in the above interpre- 
 tation of her Baptismal Service, I may perhaps 
 be permitted to state also, the corresponding 
 manner in which I conceive that Gospel should 
 be preached. 
 
 First as to its letter. — I do not see how we can 
 preach the tone of the Gospel but in the letter 
 of the Gospel. The fashion of sinking the ex- 
 pression of Scripture, and of clothing Scripture 
 sense, if it can be so clothed, in a preferable 
 phraseology, is surely, at once, to dishonour 
 God, and to wrong man of his due. It is said, 
 
 » Neh. viii. 8. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 461 
 
 this expression is too strong"^ this is unnecessarily 
 offensive, and this is intolerable. But are we 
 wiser than God, who, in revealing his truth, 
 has selected each respective term as the most 
 appropriate vehicle of conveying " the mind 
 of the Spirit ?"^ or are we more kindly con- 
 descending to human infirmity than God, who, 
 had he chosen it, could have selected terms less 
 offensive to human pride than he has done ? If 
 reformation is to be substituted for regeneration^ 
 and if adoption and election are to be utterly 
 banished from the language of the pulpit, it is 
 but too evident that with the name we shall 
 soon lose the thing; for names are the signs 
 of things, and if you merge the one, experience 
 too evidently proves that you merge the other 
 also. I cannot but think that it is this fashion, 
 even in the Evangelical world, which has been 
 one powerful means both of generating and 
 encouraging a morbid fastidiousness as to pulpit 
 expression, by which not only has the pure 
 doctrine of grace been deteriorated, but the soul 
 of the sinner perishing in his sins, and of the 
 saint drooping under his infirmities, has been 
 equally wronged of those sweet motives which 
 might have " compelled'' the one ^^ to come in '' 
 and to repent, and have freed the other from the 
 darkness of doubt, and sent him on his way 
 rejoicing. 
 
 • Rom. viii. 27. 
 X 3 
 
462 MODES OF 
 
 Nor here is it foreign from our purpose to 
 remark on the fashionable theological phraseo- 
 logy of our day. Instead of the vernacular 
 language of our times we have substituted that 
 of our forefathers of the Reformation, and 
 retained their hath instead of has, with a too 
 rigid adherence to the terminations ed and eth 
 of our verbs, as though we were addressing men 
 in the language of the days of Elizabeth. W^ 
 have retained a language which is novv^ obsolete 
 in common parlance, and which is offensive to 
 every cultivated ear ; so that if we were to 
 address any one in this dialect on any of the 
 ordinary topics of life, they could scarcely refrain 
 from showing their surprise by a smile. Lord 
 Bacon reckons among 'Hhe diseases of learning/^ 
 ^^ a fondness for the obsolete;" and surely it is 
 as offensive to sound knowledge as it is to just 
 taste and pure simplicity. Our Reformers 
 wrote in " the vulgar tongue : '' they adopted 
 the common language of their day : they did 
 not apply to Chaucer for expressions which 
 were then obsolete ; nor did they imitate their 
 cotemporary Spenser, in affecting an antiquated 
 phraseology : they used the words that were 
 best " understanded of the people,'' ^ and which 
 expressed the every-day ideas and commerce 
 of life. And how studiously they excluded what 
 was unlike ^^ the vulgar tongue,' ' may be seen 
 
 1 Article XXXV. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 463 
 
 by any one, who will take the pains to compare 
 the first and second edition of the First Book 
 of the Homilies together. But with their simple 
 sense of Scripture we have lost their simplicity 
 of style ; for what was simplicity in their day is 
 affectation in ours ; and religious truth offered to 
 the people in a language spoken three hundred 
 years since, is like a modern Englishman drest 
 out in the " prodigal hose " of the Court 
 of Elizabeth. The subject of Christianity is 
 sufficiently offensive to the general mind, to 
 call upon us to forbear all unnecessary ground 
 of offence. Blessed be God, Christianity knows 
 no Sanscrit, it has not one language in which to 
 express ideas of heaven, and another to express 
 those of earth : it would that all its blessed 
 truths should be subjects of common language, 
 as it would have them to be subjects of common 
 intelligence and common feeling. It would not 
 have one manner of speech for the pulpit, and 
 another for the Change; but that the language 
 of the pulpit should convey the ideas of the 
 pulpit in the language of the parlour and the 
 kitchen, the court and the cottage, the parlia- 
 ment, the bar, the counting-house, the ware- 
 house, the field, the camp, the ship, that 
 wherever man — immortal man is to be found, 
 all his pursuits may be sanctified, and he 
 may think, and speak, and work upon earth, 
 with one prevailing view to his immortal 
 interests, that he is a child of God, in whose 
 
464 MODES OF 
 
 name all engagements are to be undertaken, 
 to whose glory he is to direct them, and in 
 whose blessing he is to expect success. If I 
 comprehend what Christianity means, it is to 
 sanctify man in all his pursuits here, to prepare 
 him for a happy immortality hereafter. But if we 
 throw religion into a mist, we exclude it from 
 common view, and so far remove it from the 
 capability of mixing up with the concerns of 
 ordinary life ; and this is to deprive it of its 
 peculiar blessedness, which is even on earth to 
 enable man " to walk with God." If like the sword 
 of Goliath laid up in the sanctuary, Christianity 
 is only to be displayed to our admiration on 
 feast-days and holidays, let it he wrapt up in a 
 language of its own ; but if, like the same sword 
 taken from its resting-place, and found in the 
 hand of David, Christianity is to be a ready wea- 
 pon in the hand of the man of God, applicable to 
 every purpose of offence or defence inhis spiritual 
 course, let its vehicle be the common language 
 of mankind, that it may be applicable to common 
 feelings and common wants. If religion consists 
 in "setting the Lord always before us,''^ surely 
 the expression of it cannot be too vernacular. 
 
 But you will perhaps say, would you have the 
 Liturgy submitted to this modernizing process ? 
 I reply that in the public use of the Liturgy, as 
 a minister of our Church, I do not conceive 
 
 1 Psalm xvi. 8^ 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 465 
 
 myself authorized to change one word for 
 another. I have no authority to exchange which 
 for who, or hath for has ; and if this liberty were 
 once permitted to the discretion of a minister, it 
 is not difficult to see, that it might lead to the 
 total depravation of both Liturgy and Scripture. 
 All I claim at present is, to pronounce according 
 to the fashion of the day in which we live, and, 
 that if in reading a modern volume, I should 
 pronounce, " we have err'd and stray'd from thy 
 ways like lost sheep," I should use the same 
 pronunciation in reading the Bible or the 
 Liturgy. And if you should ask again, would 
 you have our Liturgy and Bible modernized 
 throughout in their phraseology ; I reply that 
 common sense requires that they should speak 
 in common language, if they would address the 
 common feelings of mankind. But we are 
 necessarily led, I think, to this conclusion on the 
 subject, that desirable as it might be, to present 
 Christianity both to the eye and ear of the people 
 in its most familiar and intelligible dress, yet that 
 as the Reformers do not live in these times,^ it is 
 
 ' I use these words with no invidious reference to the pre- 
 sent times ; for where during the whole space of time from the 
 first introduction of Christianity into this Island to the present 
 hour, do we find such a six years as those which formed the 
 reign of Edward the Sixth. It was surely a peculiarly favour- 
 able opportunity of Reformation appointed by the providence 
 of the Great Head of the Church, for the especial establishment 
 of pure Christianity in this land. The condition and disposi- 
 tion of the chief civil Magistrate were peculiar, the spiritual 
 
 X 5 
 
466 MODES OF 
 
 far more prudent to retain our present blessings 
 untouched, than by attempting the improvement 
 of them, to risk their diminution or their 
 loss. But this remark does not apply to 
 modernizing our pronunciation. 
 
 To the above I would yet add one or two 
 remarks as to the manner of preaching the 
 Gospel. I do not see how it is possible either 
 for the minister to give, or the people to receive, 
 a sound and full representation of the Gospel 
 from the present mode of preaching. Topical 
 preaching, or preaching from texts and detached 
 small portions, containing one or more propo- 
 sitions taken out of their context, and presented 
 nakedly and solitarily to the mind, never can 
 convey either the spirit or the meaning of the 
 continuous and unmutilated letter.. Apply this 
 mode of exposition to Butler or Locke, and 
 would the schools be satisfied that these topical 
 
 agents were peculiar for hardihood, piety, station, and both 
 intellectual and spiritual acquirement ; the season was peculiar 
 also. Can we fix on any other term of six years, when such a 
 body of Articles would have been drawn up, and sound 
 Reformation would have been so prudently advanced ? May 
 our day be a day of similar improvement. 
 
 The difference between the Divines of 1555 and those 
 of 1655 is striking. The one wrote in their closets, and are 
 full of thought — dry, accurate, disquisitive, and scholastic ; 
 the other wrote with the stake before their eyes, full of holy 
 feeling, — racy, popular, experimental, and spiritual. Though 
 some exceptions might be mentioned, the above seems to me 
 to be the characteristic difference. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 467 
 
 hints had conveyed to them the full sense of 
 their authors. How is it possible then^ that 
 from one or two detached propositions from 
 the Bible, given to the people one day in seven, f 
 the knowledge of the Gospel, as it is variously 
 illustrated in the very copious page of the Holy 
 Volume, should in any intelligible degree be 
 presented to our Congregations ? With the 
 best intentions of the minister, and the most 
 able and most sedulous conduct of his ministry, 
 the Bible thus offered to the people in disjointed 
 and unconnected portions, must leave them very 
 inadequate judges of its contents : not to say that 
 the spirit of the sacred, as well as of every 
 other text, must very considerably evaporate 
 by this interruption of the letter. It may be 
 that partial views of Scripture first originated 
 this topical manner of treating the sacred text ; 
 assuredly partial views of the Gospel must be 
 maintained and established by it. What man 
 first approaches the Bible, as an ordained expo- 
 sitor of its truths to a Congregation, that has 
 not acquired from books, or education, or societv, 
 some preconceived notions of his own ? And 
 however honest his mind may be, he himself 
 may be unaware, with how certain tendency 
 that mind will be led to select those texts which 
 suit its own pre-conceived ideas. And when to 
 this failing of nature we add the wasting influ- 
 ence of party-spirit, and consider how long the 
 Christian world has been split into parties, and 
 
468 MODES OF 
 
 that the mischief has attained such a height, 
 that we hear of Arminian texts and Calvinistic 
 texts, — it is scarcely possible to hope, that the 
 whole truth of Scripture, the precept and the 
 promise, the privilege and the practice, will 
 be preached with that integrity, which the 
 truth demands, and which can give effect 
 to the above interpretation of Baptismal bless- 
 ings. It is by the continuous exposition of an 
 Epistle, or an integral portion of Scripture 
 that the whole " mind of the Spirit " can 
 be presented to the people. On a particular 
 occasion let an appropriate text be selected ; but 
 let the ordinary course of the ministry consist 
 of the well-known portion continually offered to 
 the Church, till the whole counsel of God in 
 that portion is delivered to the people in all its 
 uninterrupted spirit and meaning. The minister 
 must then attach some sense to the words as 
 they were submitted to consideration in their 
 place and course ; it might be an imperfect 
 sense, it might be a partial sense given in 
 a hurried and unequal manner; but it must be 
 some sense ; and the people would at last hear 
 the doctrines and precepts of the whole word, at 
 least in the letter and connexion, as it has pleased 
 God to reveal it to man. This would be the 
 most unfavourable view of the subject. But 
 if indeed " a godly-learned " ministry were to 
 adopt this course, whose laborious perseverance 
 would call together the " Communion of the 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 469 
 
 Saints" daily to prayer in the Church, as our 
 Liturgy provides and expects ; and if a short 
 exposition of Scripture were to crown the 
 Service, given, not with preconceived pomp 
 of diction, hut the sweet simplicity of familiar 
 intercourse, even as a father teaches his own 
 children, the speaker illustrating the blessed 
 truths as they arose, from his own or his people's 
 experience of their vital efficacy in affording 
 consolation and peace ; what a " lively word " 
 would the Scripture then he ! how intelligible 
 its truths ! how applicable to every nian^ii? 
 circumstances and character ! how available, 
 by the blessing of the Spirit, to infuse the spirit 
 of Christianity into all the commerce of life ! The 
 Bible being thus given in all the continuous 
 integrity of its letter, the Holy Spirit, in answer 
 to prayer, would doubtless honour his own 
 word ; and such a " Communion of Saints " 
 would be created and maintained, as would/ 
 present the Church to the admiration and love 
 of the world ; and would again incur the old 
 reproach — " See how these Christians love one 
 another," from obdurate worldliness, or would 
 realise the encouraging promise of general unity 
 and concurrence; " Let us go speedily to pray 
 before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts : 
 I will go also." ^ 
 
 But you will say, in addition to great zeal in 
 
 ' Zech. viii. 21. 
 
470 MODES OF 
 
 the minister, this mode of preaching implies a 
 facility of extemporaneous address in him also. 
 It certainly does ; and I must profess my utter 
 inability to conceive the attainment of this 
 blessed state of constant communion without it. 
 Ever since the reading of Homilies has been 
 discontinued, and written sermons have been 
 habitually introduced, the preaching of the word 
 has been restrained in our Church. Homilies 
 were never intended but as temporary aids for 
 an incompetent ministry,^ to be laid aside when 
 ^^ these times " which may require such pre- 
 composed forms may be superseded by others 
 of greater ministerial efficiency : and written 
 sermons composed ad unguem to suit a fastidious 
 taste, which evei'y minister of the Gospel should, 
 as the bane and plague of his ministry, endea- 
 vour rather to correct than to gratify, take up 
 far too much of a minister's time, and exhaust 
 far too much of his spirit, to enable him to 
 engage, with any hope of permanency, in such 
 a ministrv as that recommended above. And is 
 such a ministry to be despaired of because this 
 leading qualification is unattainable ? So long 
 as it is the fashion to cry down and discoun- 
 tenance the best exercise of one of God's best 
 gifts to man ; and so long as the exercise of this 
 talent is branded with the charge of presumption 
 
 » See Archbishop Grindars letter to Queen Elizabeth either 
 in Fuller or Strype. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 47t 
 
 and enthusiasm, and as almost worse than 
 heresy itself, and is considered as synonimous 
 with dissent, and is the subject of authoritative 
 displeasure, — the prevailing fashion of a day 
 may deem it to be unattainable. But allow me 
 at least to attempt to show, that both the dic- 
 tates of sound sense, and the best experience, 
 together with the facilities afforded by our 
 admirable Baptismal education, conducted as our 
 Church directs, upon the principles of the above 
 interpretation, combine to prove, that extempo- 
 raneous expression in the pulpit is not an 
 excellence of so difficult a character, that its 
 general attainment is wholly to be despaired of. 
 Upon what principle of common sense then 
 can it be shown that the exercise of one of God's 
 best gifts to man, the power of speech, which ena- 
 bles him to express his ideas with extemporaneous 
 facility, should be excluded from the highest 
 possible office in which that gift can glorify its 
 Giver, — the preaching of the Gospel of mercy to 
 apostate man. Is the tongue of man spell- 
 bound at this day, iipon those heavenly subjects, 
 on which David in his day challenged " the best 
 member that "^ he had, " awake up my glory ;''" 
 and in which when he said, '^ my heart is glad," 
 he said also, " my glory [my tongue] rejoiceth }''^ 
 Senators can express themselves fluently in the 
 legislature, statesmen in the cabinet, lawyers on 
 
 • Psalm cviii. 1. = Ibid. Ivii. 8. ^ Ibid. xvi. 9. 
 
472 MODES OF 
 
 the bench or at the bar, physicians in a sick 
 room, and all men of all trades and occupations, 
 can deliver their ideas with sufficient fluency on 
 the ordinary topics of human intercourse. Let 
 the labourer in the field have a common idea to 
 express, and he is not usually at a loss for terms 
 in which to convey it ; the same may be said 
 probably of the most uncivilized savage in 
 existence. Till it can be proved then that God, 
 either in nature, or providence, has imposed on 
 the tongue some obstacle to ready religious 
 expression, or has forbidden the use of its 
 extemporaneous exercise by some positive pre- 
 cept in his word, I must take it for granted that 
 the tongue, especially if disciplined to the same, 
 is at least as free and as able to exercise its 
 powers extemporaneously on the subject of 
 religion, as on any other subject which occupies 
 the attention of man. 
 
 Ea^perience seems also to commend extempo- 
 raneous expression in the pulpit. Can you 
 conceive Ignatius, or Polycarp, or Clement 
 of Rome addressing the primitive communions 
 of the saints in precom posed forms of speech ? 
 These Apostolic men doubtless endeavoured to 
 retain Apostolic simplicity in the Church by the 
 most simple and natural address of extempora- 
 neous familiarity. Their age of gold was soon 
 succeeded by an iron age of preconceived com- 
 position, till the heathen taste of the day, as it 
 has at present, gradually superseded that of 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 473 
 
 genuine simplicity, and the false eloquence 
 of undue refinement, that eloquence which the 
 great Apostle avoided as the bane of Gospel 
 simplicity, found its way into the pulpit, and 
 the prevalence of a declining taste kept pace 
 with that of a declining empire, till plain sense 
 was lost in the confusion of gaudy metaphor, 
 and, with her purity of speech, Christianity lost 
 her purity of meaning also. This decline, pro- 
 duced by undue concession to the false taste 
 of the world, speedily terminated, as it ever 
 must do, either in a total perversion of the ori- 
 ginal purpose of the pulpit, or in the complete 
 disuse of its powers. Lying legends occupied 
 its sacred functions, or it was reduced to total 
 silence : and the preached Gospel being sus- 
 pended, a long night of ignorance and error 
 overspread the Church. Thus sin reigned 
 triumphant, intrenched in imposing circum- 
 stantials, till at the Reformation, with purity 
 of principle, purity of preaching arose also. 
 The Augustine Monk, with a heart full of holy 
 zeal, could only give vent to this zeal by its most 
 natural mode, extemporaneous expression. This 
 was the necessary habit of the early Reformers ; 
 like the ardent Prophet, the " word " of God 
 " was in '' their " heart as a burning fire shut 
 up in " their ^^ bones 3 '' and " they were " 
 weary with forbearing, and " could not stay.'* 1 
 
 * Jer. XX. 9. 
 
474 " MODES OF 
 
 The written works of our original Reformers 
 are but comparatively few ; and those, in a great 
 measure, composed during their confinement in 
 prison, when their active ministry was suspended. 
 Bradford preached daily in his prison to his 
 fellow-prisoners ; Latimer preached over the 
 country;! and how could Hooper have super- 
 intended his two dioceses of Gloucester and 
 Worcester, or have thought that no Bishop could 
 complain at preaching one sermon a day, had 
 he not adopted the habit of extemporaneous 
 preaching ? ^ Such was doubtless the custom 
 
 * The account given of his preaching in his life prefixed to 
 the edition of his sermons, in 2 vols. 8vo. 1758, is as follow^s : 
 " He spoke with great freedom : and it not then being the 
 custom for the clergy to write down their sermons, and read 
 them as they do now, to the people, what he spoke on a sub- 
 ject was full of sincerity, and flowed immediately and directly 
 from the heart. All which the reader will find to be truth, 
 from the perusal of his sermons, particularly those preached 
 before King Edward VI." 
 
 "1553. On the sixth of July King Edward died. At 
 which time master Latimer was in the country preaching here 
 and there as opportunity and occasion led him, going about, 
 in imitation of the Apostles, strengthening the people every 
 where in the protestant faith and principles." pp. 50, 52. 
 
 ' Hooper is recommended by Edward the Sixth to Cranmer's 
 gracious consideration for consecration to the See of Gloucester 
 among other qualifications for his " ready utterance ; " and 
 Fox tells us that he "being Bishop of two dioceses, so ruled 
 and guided either of them, and both together, as though he 
 had in charge but one family. No father in his household, no 
 gardener in his garden, nor husbandman in his vineyard, was 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 475 
 
 of the leading ministers of that day ; ^ and as 
 the spirit of the Reformation declined, how evi~ 
 
 more or better occupied, than he in his diocese amongst his 
 flock, going about his towns and villages in teaching and 
 preacliing to the people there." Fathers, v. 16. 
 
 * I find the following notices on this subject. 
 
 Clarke in his life of Collet, Dean of St. Paul's, states, 
 that Fitz-James, his Bishop, complained of him to 
 Archbishop Warham, among other things, " for speaking 
 against such as preached bosom sermons, declaring nothing to 
 the people but what they bring in their papers with them : this 
 the Bishop of London used to do, and therefore took it as 
 spoken against himself, which much irritated him against Dr. 
 Collet." " 
 
 Holingshed says of Home, Bishop of Winchester, " This 
 man was learned and eloquent, of a round and readie utterance j 
 sound in religion and zealous in the truth." p. 1300o 
 
 He says also of Jewell that he was "in his life a most 
 eloquent and diligent preacher." p. 1226. 
 
 Of Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, he says, " He preached 
 continuallie upon every holie daie, and did reade most com- 
 monlie twice in the weeke, in some one church or other within 
 this citie." p. 1309. 
 
 Of Coverd ale's first Protestant successor, Alleie, he says, 
 *' Upon everie holie daie (for the most part) he preached, and 
 upon the weeke dales he would and did reade a lecture of 
 divinitie." p. 1310. 
 
 A difference is made in the two extracts above between 
 preaching and reading, the latter was probably a more familiar 
 and expository kind of address, and of a more extemporaneous 
 character. 
 
 This extemporaneous readiness of speaking was cast in the 
 teeth of the Reformers also by their enemies as a reproach. 
 Gardiner says to Sanders on his examination, *' Give us forth- 
 with a direct answer." 
 
476 MODES OF 
 
 dently do we mark that decline in the dry head-^ 
 work of formal compositions, accurate enough 
 in their statements, but destitute of spiritual life, 
 and wearying the attention by ceaseless divisions 
 and subdivisions. Nor did extemporaneous 
 preaching cease in our Church, as Archbishop 
 Usher's ^ eighteen sermons preached at Oxford, 
 during the Irish troubles, when he was driven 
 from his country, seem to testify ; till this 
 instance of bad taste came in, with many others. 
 
 li 
 
 Sanders. My Lord, and my Lords all, may it please your 
 Honours to give me leave to answer with deliberation. 
 
 Chancellor. Leave off your painting and pride of speech ; 
 for such is the fashion of you all, to please yourselves in your 
 glorious words. Answer yea, or nay." Fox iii. 113. 
 
 Indeed the examinations of the Martyrs, detailed by Fox, 
 show them to have been men well prepared both with matter 
 and expression. 
 
 With declining doctrine, ministerial zeal also declined, and 
 with declining zeal extemporaneous expression in the pulpit 
 seems to have declined also ; till in Bishop Hairs time, this 
 custom being branded probably with the charge of Puritanism, 
 it seems to have yielded either to pulpit addresses repeated 
 from memory, or to written compositions ; and surely neither 
 the sermons of Bishop Hall, which are extant, nor those of his 
 co-temporaries, abounding indeed in matter, but stiff and 
 formal in their phraseology and arrangement, impress us with 
 the idea that the Church was benefited by this altered style 
 of address. 
 
 * I am not aware that the Editors who *' wrote all these 
 words at his mouth " as he was preaching, and afterwards 
 published them, expressly state this ; but the familiar mode 
 of expression, and many terms peculiarly his own, which have 
 all the air of extemporaneous address seem to denote it. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 477 
 
 in the days of confusion and relaxation which 
 succeeded : nor did it cease even then without 
 a solemn expostulation with the Cambridge 
 Clergy of that day, for omitting that habit which 
 was at least the semblance of a better, the habit 
 of reciting their sermons from memory.^ And 
 what was the consequence ? another night of 
 semi-papistical ignorance and error prevailed 
 over the land for nearly another century, till 
 two eminent lights arose out of our Established 
 
 • Mandate of King Charles the Second. 
 
 Vice Chancellor and GentlemeUf 
 
 Whereas his Majesty is informed that the practice 
 of reading sermons is generally taken up by the Preachers 
 before the University and therefore sometimes continued even 
 before himself : his Majesty hath commanded me to signify to 
 you his pleasure that the said practice which took its beginning 
 from the disorders of the late times be wholly laid aside : and 
 that the said Preachers deliver their sermons, both in Latin 
 and English, by memory without book : as being a way of 
 preaching which his Majesty judgeth most agreeable to the 
 use of all foreign Churches, to the customs of the University 
 heretofore, and to the nature and intention of that holy exercise. 
 And that his Majesty's commands in these premises may 
 be duly regarded and observed ; his further pleasure is that 
 the names of all such Ecclesiastical persons as shall continue 
 the present supine and sloathful way of preaching be from 
 time to time signified to me by the Vice Chancellor for the 
 time, on pain of his Majesty's displeasure. 
 
 Monmouth. 
 
 Extracted from the Statute Book of the University of Cam- 
 bridge, page 301. Car. II. Rex. 
 
 Buchanan's Sermons, page Q6, 
 
478 MODES OF 
 
 Church, whose course, though eccentric and 
 disorderly, was accompanied by a burning zeal, 
 to which extemporaneous expression could alone 
 give utterance. And does not this day of im- 
 provement, to which their exertions have under 
 God given birth, prove, that extemporaneous 
 expression is generally attainable ? By whom 
 are the thousands and tens of thousands that 
 are the sinews of various charitable efforts 
 annually raised, and the interest of those efforts 
 maintained, but by both Clergy and Laity, who 
 at each anniversary advocate the cause of charity 
 with extemporaneous zeal ? Never has the 
 Church of England, I believe, stood in higher 
 credit with the people, never has Christianity, 
 as professed by all denominations, been presented 
 to them with greater acceptance, than in these 
 annual calls of the public mind to the great 
 subject of charity. And I believe I may add 
 without fear of contradiction, that never have 
 the Clergy of the Church of England been 
 received with greater respect by those who 
 dissent from them in discipline, than on those 
 occasions when extemporaneous addresses have 
 evidenced their ability, their piety, and their 
 zeal. I think then, that I am not assuming 
 too much, when I conchide, that experience both 
 past and present, is favourable to the extempo- 
 raneous expression of religious truth. 
 
 And what admirable facilities to a Parent and 
 a Child who will act consistently with the 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 479 
 
 requisitions of our Baptismal Service, does the 
 education recommended by that Service afford 
 for the attainment of ready expression! "The 
 Infant " is to be " taught so soon as he is able 
 to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and 
 profession " he made by his Sponsors in his 
 Baptism. To improve this knowledge he is to 
 be called on " to hear sermons.^' Let him be 
 familiarly questioned as to what he has heard ; 
 and this not as a task but a subject of conversa- 
 tion : let him not for many years be asked to 
 write down what he retains, lest the toil and the 
 difficulty turn hearing into disgust ; but let it 
 be a privilege for the Child to be addressed by 
 the Parent on the subject. His answers will 
 be the embryos of future extemporaneous ex- 
 pression. The first link is attention, the second 
 thought, the third expression. If you have not 
 attained the first, the attainment of the two 
 others is hopeless. Familiarity and kindness 
 must engage attention ; and the Gospel motive 
 of love be called into ready and continual exer- 
 cise; and let brevity be especially attended to. 
 It is provided also, that he may learn the Creed, 
 the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments 
 " in the vulgar tongue." Let these admirable 
 formularies, be not only imprinted on the 
 memory, but repeated in a familiar and intelli- 
 giblemanner, as though the Child were familiarly 
 conversing in the vulgar tongue, or in the plain 
 common manner of speaking ; this is the only 
 
(\ 
 
 480 MODES OF 
 
 mode that I have ever found effectual to break 
 monotonous tone, and to correct the almost 
 constant whine of early childhood. These three 
 presenting respectively all that is to be believed, 
 all that is to be done, and all that is to he^ prayed 
 for, are in fact a compendium of the Bible, and 
 of all sound divinity ; and appear to me to be 
 better taught at meals or at any other time in 
 the way of conversation than in a way of set 
 lessons, and periodical recitation ; both as the 
 attention is more easily gained, and as the Child 
 is unconsciously obtaining correctness of expres- 
 sion with increase and correctness of knowledge. 
 And as the address to the Sponsors enjoins, let 
 the whole education proceed upon this one 
 grand object, ^^ the soul's health, ^' and with 
 knowledge imparted, there will also be an 
 expanding of all the faculties, and a gradual 
 improvement of all their powers, of which the 
 power of correct and ready expression, if attended 
 to, will be a partaker, in common with the rest. 
 If the Child be treated merely as a play- thing, 
 a creature merely to be joked with, his powers 
 will be stunted, and as the aim to which they 
 are directed is low, their progress towards useful 
 expansion will be proportionahly slow. Treat 
 him as a being of immortal destinies, whose 
 " soul's health " is the great end of his educa- 
 tion, and with the grandeur of the aim, every 
 faculty will be found to bear a corresponding 
 direction and improvement. To effect this, as 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 481 
 
 early as his opening powers may permit, let 
 Watt's Hymns be gradually taught him viva 
 voce, and let plain and simple pronunciation be 
 early obtained. Let the infantine whine be 
 corrected, by teaching him to pronounce, not 
 according to the verse but according to the 
 sense. As years increase, let him be called on 
 to detail in his own words the parable of the 
 Samaritan, or some fable or historic fact with 
 which he is acquainted : this will be a pleasing 
 exercise of the powers both of his mind and 
 lips. Let him be kindly stopped at sentences 
 imperfectly expressed (and a child will some- 
 times make three efforts to begin before he 
 succeeds) and told to make another effort, for 
 that he has not expressed himself correctly 
 because he has not thought correctly. And 
 if the Parent be weary of this pleasing exercise 
 of his influence, let him either propose a sub- 
 ject himself, or permit his children to propose 
 one, and leave them to their own conversation, 
 occasionally interfering with kindness to correct 
 what may be amiss. To this may be added, as 
 one of the most powerful means of ready ex- 
 pression, extemporaneous prayer ; in which the 
 Child may very soon begin to convey his 
 confessfons, and petitions, and praises to the 
 throne of his heavenly Father. This mode has 
 a vast advantage, as it realises religion to the 
 Child, calls upon him to consider his wants, 
 the privilege of prayer which he enjoys as " a 
 
 Y 
 
482 MODES OF 
 
 member of Christ, and the child of God, " 
 exhibits God as a merciful Father ever ready 
 to attend to his infant lispings, and who regards 
 with kindness both his imperfect words and 
 imperfect desires. The pious and sagacious 
 Parent who will daily himself superintend this 
 most engaging exercise of his children's opening 
 faculties, may hope to derive a rich reward from 
 the gradual increase of their gracious appre- 
 hensions, „as well as the improvement of their 
 natural powers ; and if the knowledge of Scrip- 
 ture, (the Scripiure letter, not as taught in 
 secondary representations of it,) accompany 
 this exercise of prayer, the Parent will be 
 often struck, at the Child's happy facility of 
 applying the Scripture expression to his wants, 
 and the extemporaneous readiness with which 
 he will offer his petitions. ^ 
 
 * I gladly avail myself of the following remarks of Locke, 
 which seem to me to abound in solid and practical wisdom. — 
 " Perhaps it might not be amiss, to make children, as soon as 
 they are capable of it, often to tell a story of any thing they 
 know ; and to correct at first the most remarkable fault they 
 are guilty of in their way of putting it together. When that 
 fault is cured, then to show them the next, and so on, till one 
 after another, all, at least the gross ones, are mended. When 
 they can tell tales pretty well, tlien it may be time to make 
 them write them." — 
 
 " When they understand how to write English with due 
 connexion, propriety, and order, and are pretty well masters 
 of a tolerable narrative style, they may be advanced to writing 
 of letters." — 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 483 
 
 The Child, thus introduced to his Gospel 
 privileges, will value them more and more daily ; 
 and I do not see, but, with ordinary diligence, 
 by fifteen or sixteen years of age, he may have 
 
 " Had the methods of education been directed to their right 
 ends, one would have thought this so necessary a part could 
 not have been neglected, whilst themes and verses in Latin, 
 of no use at all, were so constantly every where pressed, to the 
 racking of children's inventions beyond their strength, and 
 hindering their cheerful progress in learning the tongues, by 
 unnatural difficulties. But custom has so ordained it, and who 
 dares disobey ? and would it not be very unreasonable to 
 require of a learned country school-master (who has all the 
 tropes and figures in ^' Farnaby's Rhetorick, " at his fingers' 
 ends,) to teach his scholar to express himself handsomely in 
 English, when it appears to be so little his business or thought, 
 that the boy's mother (despised, 'tis like, as illiterate for not 
 having read a system of logic and rhetoric,) out-does him 
 init?"— 
 
 ^^ To speak or write better Latin than English, may make a 
 man be talked of, but he would find it more to his purpose to 
 express himself well in his own tongue, that he uses every 
 moment, than to have the vain commendation of others for a 
 very insignificant quality. This I find universally neglected, 
 and no care taken any where to improve young men in their 
 own language, that they may thoroughly understand and be 
 masters of it. — 
 
 " I am not here speaking against Greek and Latin ; I think 
 they ought to be studied, and the Latin at least understood 
 well by every gentleman. But whatever foreign languages a 
 young man meddles with, (and the more he knows the better,) 
 that which he should critically study, and labour to get a 
 facility, clearness, and elegancy to express himself in, should be 
 his own ; and to this purpose he should daily be exercised in 
 it." — *' Some thoughts concerning education." pp. 340 — 346. 
 
 Y 2 
 
484 MODES OF 
 
 got by heart the whole, or nearly the whole 
 of the New Testament, together with many of 
 the most striking chapters of the Old. A large 
 portion of the Scriptures is commonly acquired 
 by a diligent Sunday School boy, and why is 
 not every child brought up with a view " to his 
 soul's health/' to be admitted to the same privi- 
 lege ? ^ And if he is in that rank of life, that 
 he is intended to receive a liberal education, let 
 facility of expression be one main point attended 
 to in all his exercises. For this purpose let the 
 plan of double translation, recommended by 
 Ascham, and so happily illustrated by him in 
 
 J I look back with real regret on that expenditure of usefal 
 talent which distinguished some of my school-companions, 
 and by which, after long and severe application, they were 
 enabled to say by heart a book of Homer or Virgil at a lesson, 
 and that often morning and evening for the space of one week 
 in the year. To how much better purpose had such talent been 
 applied, as well as that of their school-fellows, had the New 
 Testament in the original, or select portions of the Old, been 
 the subject of their attainments ! How admirable a help had 
 this been to them in their ministry, to which many of them 
 have been called ! The experience of one of the chief of our 
 Reformers commends this study. " la thy orchards, (says 
 Ridley in his farewell to Pembroke Hall out of prison) I 
 learned without books, almost all Paul's Epistles, yea, and I 
 ween, all the Canonical Epistles, save only the Apocalypse. 
 Of which study, although in time a great part did depart from 
 me, yet the sweet smell thereof I trust I shall convey with me 
 into heaven : for the profit thereof I think I have felt in all 
 my life-time ever after." — Fathers, &c. iv. 45, 46. — Why 
 should not this be a main object at all classical schools? 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 485 
 
 his education of Queen Elizabeth, be introduced 
 generally into our schools as a daily work : 
 children will not then be learning words but 
 idiom ; and with correct idiom in the learned 
 languages, they will at the same time be acquir- 
 ing the correct idiom of their own. And after 
 they have construed their lessons word for word, 
 let them read over the whole continuously into 
 English. This is an interesting exercise ; and 
 will at once give both correctness and facility 
 of expression. And as to write well is commonly 
 the great preparatory to speaking well, let Eng- 
 lish composition be quite as much attended to 
 as that of Latin; and surely, English prose, 
 which the boy will be wanting every day of his 
 life, may well occupy a large portion of that 
 attention, which is now given to Latin poetry, 
 which he may never think of again after his 
 education is completed. Let him be taught to 
 speak and not to spout ; the one is natural, the 
 other unnatural : let all display be cautiously 
 avoided 3 let no declamation, ^ no public recita- 
 
 ' I consider declamation as the true and legitimate child 
 of heathenism. It is excessive and extravagant both in its 
 matter and expression. By the confession of a heathen himself, 
 it is suited to please the raw and easily captivated age of boy- 
 hood. And so long as it is inculcated on our youth as a just 
 and approved style of oratory, it is in vain to look for simplicity 
 either in parliament, the bar, or the pulpit. 
 
 The great object of a pulpit address is effect : — to convince 
 the understanding and to influence the heart. This effect is the 
 
 Y 3 
 
486 MODES OF 
 
 tion, be permitted ; by such exhibitions more is 
 lost by simplicity than is gained by confidence : 
 and let the whole progress of his attainments be 
 accompanied with the never-failing suggestions, 
 that usefulness is the great end of them all, that 
 they shall all perish in the using, that the truth 
 as it is in Jesus is alone immortal, and that lan- 
 guage and all the science that language conveys, 
 is chiefly desirable not for itself, but as it tends to 
 promote every blessing which makes man happy 
 here, and prepares him for heaven hereafter. 
 
 With this prevailing reference to the welfare 
 of the soul, as insisted on in Baptism, how ex- 
 cellently furnished would our youth go forth to 
 all the various conditions and relations of life ! 
 Their faculties thus trained would bless every 
 
 . child of sympathy, and sympathy is the child of nature. When 
 r conference supersedes declamation at our schools and colleges, 
 we may hope for a simple style in the pulpit. If a subject 
 were given before-hand, and a class seated round their Tutor, 
 delivering their sentiments on it simply and naturally; the 
 Tutor correcting both sentiment and expression, as occasion 
 might require ; I know no one lesson now given, that if well 
 conducted, would so prepare the man for usefulness as this. 
 It is in fact the crown of all other lessons; for every subject 
 might thus be recapitulated, and the mind confirmed in its 
 accurate apprehension of it, while the tongue was accustomed 
 to express it. It is well worth consideration, whether our 
 present mode of instruction is not addressed more to the 
 memory than the mind : the memory may retain the idea 
 generally; but the mind must view it in every shape, and turn 
 it over and over again, to make it its own. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 487 
 
 Station, whether it were the throne, the cabinet, 
 the legislature, the bar, the sick^ chamber, com- 
 merce, trade, and every occupation to Avhich 
 they might be called. Thus educated, if they 
 were '^put into the ministry,"^ they would be 
 already half-formed for the pulpit : and the 
 candidate for ordination, having passed through 
 the preparatory steps, might be trained, for one 
 or two years, under a laborious minister of de- 
 cided piety and prudence, with an especial view 
 to attain ministerial habits and qualifications. 
 One of these should be daily extemporaneous 
 exposition, first in private with the Tutor alone, 
 and then as the facility of expression increases, 
 with the family circle. To these exercises of his 
 extemporaneous address, might be added other 
 opportunities in the cottages of the poor or in 
 the chambers of the sick ; one of the most dif- 
 ficult, and at the same time most important 
 opportunities of extemporaneous usefulness to 
 which a minister can be called. It is one for 
 which there may be a prescript form of prayer 5 
 but which, from the ever-fluctuating state of 
 human character can only admit of a very 
 general prescript form of address : indeed, the 
 Service, while it points out the leading subjects 
 of address to the sick, leaves the expression of 
 those subjects in good part to the discretion 
 of the minister. Thus exercised, his attainments, 
 
 » Tim. i. 12. 
 
n-i 
 
 j 
 
 488 MODES OF 
 
 when admitted to Orders^ will receive daily con- 
 firmation and growth from the ordinary employ- 
 ment of his powers ; and while in the early time 
 of his ministry he will be acquiring correctness, 
 both of thought and expression, by the com- 
 position of one written sermon in the week, his 
 facilities of extemporaneous address will be 
 increasing, by filling up other occasions of 
 preaching with expositions of the Scriptures ; 
 those expositions having been preceded by the 
 necessary study and prayer. 
 
 But, with all this preparation, there are two 
 other points especially to be insisted on, to form 
 the accomplished extemporaneous preacher. 
 The first is — the subject. 
 
 Rem, rem, rem — the subject, the subject, 
 THE subject; and that, Christ crucified, as the 
 only power of God unto salvation, he must be 
 continually reminded of, as the unceasing topic 
 of his ministry. His person, his offices, his work 
 of complete salvation, himself the depository 
 of all spiritual power, ^ *^ the author,'' upholder, 
 " finisher of our faith,"- the uniting medium 
 between God and man, the source of all grace, 
 whether of electing, calling, justifying, adopting, 
 sanctifying or glorifying, must be the prominent 
 subject of his pulpit addresses. And if he 
 preaches continuously on some integral portion 
 of Scripture, it will force itself on his notice, 
 
 * John xvi. 14, 15. » Heb. xii. 2. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 489 
 
 that the whole Scripture is a revelation of Christ. 
 
 Graces, duties, and privileges, will all find their 
 
 proper place, and all receive their appropriate 
 
 mention, as Christ crucified is perseveringly 
 
 insisted on. Let the preacher's soul be filled 
 
 with this subject, and there will be a warmth 
 
 and animation within, that with God's blessing, 
 
 will find its way, by a simple expression to the 
 
 souls of those he addresses. And it has been the 
 
 result of my observation of different preachers, 
 
 that the men who held the most simple views 
 
 of Christ, as the source of all grace, have been 
 
 the men, who have spoken of him with the 
 
 readiest facility, and have recommended him 
 
 with the sweetest paternal simplicity to the 
 
 acceptance of their people. 
 
 And the reason is evident : for where Christ 
 is, there is love; love in the heart, love in the 
 manner, love in the voice, love in the whole 
 ministry of the word. And love has ever two 
 choice sisters by her side, humility, and sim- 
 plicity. Let love be in every minister's heart, 
 and he will not, in spirit, be elevated above his 
 people in a pulpit of privilege ; but humility will 
 bring him down to the same level with them as 
 fellow sinners before one common Father's 
 throne ; and simplicity, in the sweetest tones 
 of affectionate appeal, will solicit, and entreat, 
 and beseech them in Christ's stead to be recon- 
 ciled to God. 
 The other requisite to form the accomplished 
 
 Y 5 
 
490 MODES OF 
 
 extemporaneous preacher is — faith. Faith in 
 the peculiar promises made by Christ to his 
 ministers. Not only faith in the general pro- 
 mise — '^ Lo I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world," ^ but also in his particular 
 promise to give them "a mouth and wisdom."- 
 It is surely inconsistent in the man who derives 
 his ministerial appointment from the Apostles, 
 to forego his claim to their most blessed privi- 
 lege, the continual aid of the Spirit in the most 
 engaging exercise of his ministerial function, 
 the preaching of the word of life. Where there 
 is not faith there is either presumption or fear: 
 the former is not the usual impediment to sound 
 extemporaneous preaching, but the latter j and 
 where there is fear, there must be incompetency ; 
 for the man is not himself. Fear, confirmed by 
 want of habit, and preparatory education, and 
 the apprehended disapprobation of a prevailing 
 fastidious taste, seems to me to be the secret 
 cause of all our written sermons : we are afraid 
 of this defect, and the other inability : whereas 
 grace would afford industry and simplicity to 
 supply all our defects and inabilities, had we but 
 faith to trust to the promise. Let the minister 
 of Christ go forth in the strength of his 
 Master. Let this be his motto, " I will go in 
 the strength of the Lord God, I will make 
 mention of thy righteousness even of thine 
 
 1 Matt, xxviii. 20. . 2 Luke xxi. 15. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME, 49 J 
 
 only/'^ Let him use due means to prepare 
 himself for the occasion ; but not anxiously 
 much less ambitiously. Let him prefer the 
 praise of God to the praise of men. Let him 
 endeavour to lay by self wholly, and to put on 
 Christ ; let this be his prayer in all his previous 
 meditation and preparation ; and when he enters 
 the pulpit, let his chief prayer be, the full 
 surrender of self that he " may be filled with all 
 the fulness of God/' '^ And though like Moses 
 he may decline the task through fear of incom- 
 petency, or like Jeremiah he may excuse himself 
 by saying, " I cannot speak, for I am a child ; " 
 yet faith shall derive assurance from the 
 promise made to the retiring prophet, " Say 
 not, I am a child ; for thou shalt go to all that 
 I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command 
 thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their 
 faces : for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith 
 the Lord.''^ Let the minister be but "a child'' 
 in his own esteem, and he will be found ^' a 
 man of God — thoroughly furnished"^ for the 
 work committed to his charge. Faith will 
 banish fear : new thoughts and illustrations 
 will be suggested as he proceeds, or old combi- 
 nations and associations of ideas will be brought 
 forward for present use ; and while the general 
 plan, and much of the filling in of the sermon 
 
 1 Psalm Ixxi. 16. =^ Eph. iii 19. .. 
 
 3 Jer. i. 6—8. * 2 Tim. iii. 17.- 
 
492 MODES OF 
 
 have been previously prepared, yet he will 
 honour the promise of the Spirit by looking to 
 him for aid, and entertain no doubt that, as 
 his faith is, so shall his support be. And so 
 far shall this ministry be from a lax and jejune 
 exhibition of the word, that it shall be evidently 
 a rich and spiritual repast, by, not the vocal 
 only, but the vital acknowledgment of those who 
 partake of it. The minister has studied to 
 approve himself to God, and he shall be a work- 
 man not ashamed of his work ; neither shall his 
 work be ashamed of him.^ 
 
 But you cannot expect all ministers to attain 
 this extemporaneous perfection. No, "all men 
 cannot do all things." But where is the man 
 who with common talents, and common industry, 
 educated upon this Baptismal reference to "his 
 soul's health," w^armed with the love of Christ, 
 desiring the salvation of immortal souls, and 
 supported by faith in the promise, whose piety 
 and zeal may not express themselves in extem- 
 poraneous addresses to the Church of Christ ? 
 Men will differ in this as in every other gift 
 Avhether of body or mind ; but a respectable 
 
 ' It is very evident that extemporaneous expression, like 
 any other excellence, must be more or less the result of habit 
 and education ; and were our education for Orders, more 
 decidedly Clerical, as I believe it is in almost every other 
 Church, why should not extemporaneous readiness of expres- 
 sion be cultivated, as well as other necessary qualifications for 
 the most important, as it is the most sacred, of all functions ? 
 
EFFECTING TFIE SAME. 493 
 
 degree of extemporaneous facility may doubtless 
 be thus acquired by most men, which, when, 
 compared with our present mode of pulpit 
 address, might, with the blessing of the Spirit, 
 by producing livelier sympathies and deeper 
 interest in the souls of men, be productive also 
 of a more spiritual community, than the Church 
 has ever yet witnessed since the days of the 
 Apostles. 
 
 And what are the obstacles which oppose this 
 improvement of our pulpit ? They may all be 
 reduced to one ; but for the sake of perspicuity, 
 I will mention tw^o. 
 
 The first is, that we are not content with " a 
 respectable degree of extemporaneous facility" 
 in the pulpit. A vitiated taste has been gene- 
 rated by our idolatrous regard for classical 
 antiquity ; and our mythological education has 
 insensibly introduced a false refinement, which 
 will not tolerate the simplicity of plain Scripture 
 sense, expressed in plain terms. We are the vic- 
 tims of fastidiousness : and the Church of Christ 
 is pressed down under the weight of this excessive 
 refinement, " as a cart is pressed that is full of 
 sheaves." ^ A simple style will best express 
 plain things. Parenthesis and circumlocution 
 deprive expression of its edge, and the idea 
 attenuated by frequent trope and figure, arrives 
 at the mind of the hearer, like an arrow spent 
 
 * Amos. ii. 13. 
 
494 MODES OF 
 
 in its flighty and rather serves to amuse than to 
 impress. But if " eloquence is vehement sim- 
 plicity/' how ill is this definition illustrated, by 
 a style of preaching, in which neither matter 
 nor manner are simple ; and where is the vehe- 
 mence which should characterise the earnestness 
 of truth, in one tiresome round of polished 
 period, and in one lengthy sentence succeeding 
 another, impeded by frequent parentheses, and 
 involving one sense within another, till distinct- 
 ness of idea is lost in multiplicity of words. 
 And if this excessive refinement too commonly 
 vitiates the expression of the pulpit, is not either 
 the unimpassioned, or the falsely impassioned 
 spouting and mouthing manner of delivery, so 
 frequently learned at our schools, and so unhap- 
 pily prevalent in most public assemblies, and in 
 the pulpit also, most unfavourable to simplicity? 
 and yet are not these the fashion both of writing 
 and speaking in this our day ? How unlike is 
 this to the sweetly familiar mode of address both 
 of our Lord and his Apostles ! Let the fastidious 
 Christian world then abate its demands ; let it 
 descend from its supercilious height of false re- 
 finement. Had it more grace it would have 
 more nature ; it would prefer what is simple 
 and natural to what is scholastic and refined. 
 Let our preaching resemble the address of a 
 Father to his children, from his arm chair of 
 paternal authority and kindness ; let the lan- 
 guage be plain, and the manner approaching 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 4^5 
 
 that of conversation ; let the ordinary expression 
 resemble that of common life, rising into " vehe 
 ment simplicity/' with the dignity of its subject, 
 and the importance of its results -, and when the 
 flight is accomplished, let it descend to the level 
 of common parlance, till another rapture elevate 
 it to another flight. How strikingly is this illus- 
 trated in the epistles of St. Paul ! and can we 
 believe that if such was the manner of his ad- 
 dresses to the primitive Church, and that he 
 had occasionally been deficient in expression, 
 or had hesitated for a word, that his audience 
 would have reflected on his failure ? Even so 
 let it be at the present day ; let ministers speak 
 with simplicity, and let their people hear with 
 simplicity ; and extemporaneous addresses will 
 soon be heard from our pulpits. And surely 
 that forbearance may well be expected from a 
 Christian audience towards their minister, which 
 a heathen Poet was willing to extend to written 
 composition : he would willingly tolerate those 
 failures which were not merely the result of the 
 frailty of our nature, but even of hasty care- 
 lessness. Away then with the sensitive refine- 
 ment of Greece and Rome; and in the courts 
 of our Zion, let the simplicity of a heavenly taste, 
 banish the ambitious glitter of a deluded world. 
 " Excellency of speech, — and enticing words 
 of man's wisdom," ^ were abjured as means 
 
 « 1 Cor. ii. 1 . 
 
496 MODES OF 
 
 of grace^ by the most successful preacher of the 
 Gospel ever yet known ; his ministry stood not 
 in human power, or in the display of human 
 talents, '^ but in demonstration of the spirit and 
 of power" from on high : and if faith in a cru- 
 cified Saviour is to be the end of our ministry, 
 as it was of his, it is evident that " no flesh shall 
 glory in his presence," but that the pride of hu- 
 man reason, and the fastidiousness of a scholastic 
 taste must yield to '^ the simplicity of Christ." 
 
 The second obstacle that opposes this im- 
 provement of our pulpit is indeed that which 
 includes every other — the spirit of the world. 
 
 ^^ The world " will '^ love his own," ^ and 
 from a "world" which "lieth in wickedness"'^ 
 what can be expected, but a consistent effort, to 
 defend itself from the intrusion of that truth, 
 which, by convicting it of error, would interrupt 
 its security. Hence it is, that earnestness in 
 every earthly occupation and circumstance is 
 considered as commendable and desirable, but 
 that earnestness in religion is intolerable. A 
 merchant may be earnest in his counting-house, 
 and a tradesman at his counter ; a farmer in the 
 field, and a shipman on board ; a statesman can- 
 not be too diligent in the cabinet or the legisla- 
 ture; or a lawyer too earnest in urging the 
 claims of his client ; but a minister may be too 
 earnest in the pulpit 5 for it is his business to 
 
 > John XV. 19. « 1 John v. 19. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 497 
 
 call off the attention of men from that world 
 which has their hearts, and to fix it on that 
 world where their hearts are not. This is, I 
 fear, the grand secret of the world's opposition 
 to extemporaneous addresses in the pulpit ; they 
 come too home; they speak too plainly; they 
 have too much of the reality of common life 
 about them, to suit a worldly mind. The Sad- 
 ducee will not hear them, for they would con- 
 vince him of his infidelity; the formalist will 
 not hear them, for they show him too plainly 
 that he cannot claim heaven by the merit of his 
 works. To the worldly man they are intoler- 
 able, for they rouse him from his delusion, that 
 he can have as much of the world as he will 
 during life, and as much of heaven as he will at 
 his death. The scholar will not bear them, for 
 they are as offensive to his moral as to his clas- 
 sical taste. The evangelical Christian complains 
 of them, for his pride of heart has been so fos- 
 tered by the prevalence of fashionable refinement, 
 that he is not aware, how little either his prin- 
 ciples or his practice raise him above the level 
 of the world that surrounds him. Thus it is the 
 domination of a worldly spirit, both within and fX 
 without the Church, which agrees to proscribe ^ 
 the exercise of one of God's best gifts, in the 
 execution of the most honourable office ever yet 
 bestowed by God upon man. The world has 
 set up a standard of eloquence of its own ; no 
 matter how offensive to nature, to sound sense. 
 
498 MODES OF 
 
 and to genuine taste. It has one style for the 
 common purposes of life, another for the pulpit ; 
 both are equally remote from simplicity. Intro- 
 duce the civil eloquence of the world into the 
 pulpit, and it will not bear even its own there ; 
 for it deems it out of place, as indeed it is. 
 Introduce its own style of ministerial eloquence 
 into the pulpit, and didactic orthodoxy, and 
 preceptive morality, and pompous circumlocu- 
 tion, and unimpressive polish of language, and 
 uninteresting monotony, must leave the Chris- 
 tian world in its present state of indifference 
 and supineness ; for the effect cannot exceed the 
 measure of its cause. 
 
 It is the day of simplicity that we desire ; and 
 a simple pulpit will under God produce a 
 simple people. May this be the character 
 of every pulpit throughout the land : a simple 
 tone of Gospel statement like that of the 
 Seventeenth Article, a simple manner, simple 
 language, and simple expression. And surely, 
 if as ministers we gave ourselves wholly to 
 these things; if " the word of Christ" dwelt 
 in us " richly in all wisdom ; '* ^ and if the 
 great subject, Christ crucified, animated our 
 hearts under prayer, and praise, and meditation, 
 and every fostering means, — the frequent com- 
 munion held with our people in the church, 
 would be but the periodical discharge of the 
 
 » Col. iii. 16. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 499 
 
 overflowing of a gracious heart, abounding 
 with the love of God and man, — one unceasing 
 effbrt, to enjoy, and to impart the unity of the 
 Spirit in the bond of peace.^ 
 
 Such are the modes, My Dear Friend, which 
 I would humbly suggest for carrying the above 
 interpretation of our Baptismal Service into 
 effect. Let every man be fully persuaded in his 
 
 » I have no doubt that many objections will be urged against 
 that full enjoyment of Christian communion, which our meet- 
 ing in the parochial church at least once in the day, would be 
 the means of affording. But let it be remembered that this 
 was the manner of the primitive Church, they continued " daily 
 with one accord in the temple;" (Acts ii. 46.) and also that 
 of the Reformation. These were singular times, it may be 
 said : they were indeed times of singular piety ; and one reason 
 doubtless was, because singular means were resorted to, to 
 maintain it. And if a whole parish, (or rather such of them 
 as were able to attend the daily service) consisting of not more 
 than a manageable number, were thus to meet daily in the 
 church, with what comparative ease might it be managed ! 
 The sick, the diseased, the distressed in body and mind, would 
 be reported by their neighbours present to the Church, and 
 effectual and instant relief might be administered. Thus 
 also imposition would be detected, vicious habits fcorrected, 
 and industry and piety encouraged. The Poor's-rate would 
 be soon found unnecessary, in a parish so ordered ; and cha- 
 rity and justice would go hand in hand together in alleviating 
 human woe, and administering to human necessity. Thus 
 Christianity would be suffered to assert her proper character : 
 for it would be practically found that as " the Communion 
 of Saints " was maintained, so every temporal blessing 
 , abounded throughout each social circle. ; 
 
500 MODES OF 
 
 own mind of its justice and its excellency — Let 
 him as a minister show this conviction by his 
 own example — Let him explain it at large, and 
 habitually, from the pulpit— Let frequent appeals 
 be made to Parents and Sponsors and Children 
 on the subject — Let it be insisted on in our 
 schools — Let it be the subject of the minister's 
 private conversation with his people — Let igno- 
 rant Sponsors be met, by the temperate use 
 of the discretion allowed the minister in the 
 twenty-ninth canon — Let the minister educate 
 his own children upon this principle— Let the 
 attention of the Church be especially challenged 
 — Let the improved mode of treating children 
 imder this interpretation, operate as a means 
 of it^ confirmation.— Let new means of ex- 
 plaining this interpretation be provided for 
 children — Let the Church be frequently called 
 upon to take an interest in her young — Let the 
 font be restored to its place — Let the works 
 of the Reformers be again offered to the atten- 
 tion of the public, and that attention be solicited 
 by the institution of a Society for the purpose — 
 Let a Periodical Work be established, for the 
 express purpose of recommending that tone 
 of Christianity which was entertained by the 
 Reformers— And lastly let the Gospel of the 
 Reformation in all its blessed unction, and sim- 
 plicity, both of language and manner, sound 
 from all our pulpits. Let these means, so far 
 as they are practicable, be carried into active 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 501 
 
 effect in every parish throughout the land ; and 
 may we not hope for the blessing of the Spirit 
 upon them, to produce the happiest condition 
 of man now extant upon earth? The world 
 would then see, what it never yet saw, a com- 
 munity of natural men become a " Communion 
 of Saints,"' — the promise of God in his gospel 
 effecting its declared purpose, — the Sacraments 
 producing their proper blessings, as the faith 
 of the recipient applied them, — and the title of 
 these letters would be fully verified ; for Infant- 
 baptism would then be, as the prescribed, so 
 the efficient means, of National Reformation. 
 
 And is there a man of piety throughout the 
 land, who would not rejoice in such a condition 
 of human existence ? Let him call himself by 
 what name he pleased. Churchman high or low, 
 Dissenter of every profession, could he hope for 
 a more desirable state of things upon earth ? 
 Would not this be the mode to remove all scandal, 
 to silence every objection, and to conciliate all 
 dissent? Then let every man of piety join 
 hand, and heart, and prayer, and holy agency 
 in so blessed a cause, and his '^ labour shall 
 not be in vain in the Lord/' 
 
 For do not the signs of these times encourage 
 us to make some grand effort to meet their 
 demands ? We live in no ordinary day ; and 
 ordinary means can only defeat our expecta- 
 tions. " Great deeds require great means of 
 enterprize : '' and were our Established Church 
 
502 MODES OF 
 
 to call all her noble energies into exercise, to 
 act up to her principles, and to renovate her 
 means ; I see not in what respect she would be 
 unequal to the demands of the day. And 
 surely there is ample encouragement to rouse 
 us to exertion: nay, the times have roused us 
 to exertion in spite of ourselves ; and 1 feel 
 persuaded that by the blessing of God that 
 exertion has acquired such a momentum, that 
 every attempt to impede shall but accelerate its 
 velocity. And is there not a cause ? We are 
 evidently fallen upon the latter days of the 
 world — 
 
 " Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh 
 Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course 
 Over a sinful world." 
 
 The groans of nature are drawing to an end; 
 mind is surely rousing from its long torpor of 
 prejudice and error, and though in many of its 
 developements wild and unprincipled, and in 
 others satanic and infidel, yet Bible truth has 
 evidently attracted its attention, and is gradually 
 consecrating it to God. The nations of the 
 world are listening to the appeals of truth with 
 more favourable ear than hitherto; and increasing 
 means are providing, to meet the energies of an 
 awakened world and to improve them. 
 
 The moral advance of society within the 
 last thirty years, even within our own experi- 
 ence, gives encouraging earnest that the next 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 503 
 
 thirty years shall " show" us greater and 
 mightier '^things which ^'^ we know not; and 
 cannot yet anticipate. By general expectation 
 the twelve hundred and sixty years are even now 
 finished, or shall shortly expire ; and the dead 
 bodies of the two witnesses are rising in the 
 street, and shall soon cast off their sack-cloth. 
 The prayers of the Church during the six 
 thousand years of her pilgrimage are receiv- 
 ing their accomplishment. The world is " re- 
 membering " itself, and is preparing to return 
 to its God, that it may be his people ; and the 
 God of mercy is remembering his covenant, 
 and acquitting himself of his promise that he 
 will be their God. In a word, the signs of the 
 times concur in uttering one sound of prepara- 
 tion ; and testify that the season is at hand, 
 when a voice shall be heard to which all nations 
 shall attend — Come, for " all things are 
 
 READY." 2 
 
 Let our means be proportioned then to the 
 grandeur of our just expectations; at present 
 they are confessedly unequal. How often have 
 we lamented together the paucity of those who 
 present themselves as missionaries : the waning 
 state of some missions for want of zeal to 
 supply them, and our utter hopelessness that 
 any great missionary work will be accom- 
 plished, till Christians act in consistency with 
 
 * Jer. xxxiii. 3. ^ Matt. xxii. 4. 
 
504 MODES OF 
 
 their professions ; till Parents will propose the 
 ministerial and especially the missionary charac- 
 ter as the highest point of human excellence 
 to their children, and teach them, that unre- 
 served devotion of themselves in this work to 
 God^ is as infinitely superior to all that rank, 
 and wealth, and station can offer to their aim, as 
 heaven is to earth : that he is the most truly 
 happy man whose life exhibits the nearest con- 
 formity to the will of God, and that the man 
 who has been the means of saving one soul, has 
 achieved a work, compared with which, all the 
 temporal success of princes, and legislators, and 
 statesmen, is as nothing. 
 
 Here then are means both adequate and ready ^ 
 means which carried into effect according 
 to the design of our Church, and that of the 
 great Worthies of the Reformation, would first 
 under God evangelise our own population, and 
 then that of the world. Every facility is afforded 
 us for action : we have no preparatory process 
 to arrange; all is ready to our hands. The 
 machinery is complete ; we have but to work 
 it. We need no appeals to either spiritual or 
 temporal authority : all this is not only acquired, 
 but according to the constitution of our Church 
 it is imperative on us to carry its Baptismal 
 provisions into effect. What more can be want- 
 ing ? We have the promise of God for the 
 basis of our system, the Sacrament of God for 
 the means, the most simple administration of it 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 505 
 
 provided by our Church for our facility, and 
 assured success for our encouragement : all is 
 ready on God's part ; all that is wanting is 
 on ours. Faith, operative faith, faith which is 
 spiritual power, is alone wanting : what the 
 steam is to the engine, the water to the mill, 
 the wind to the sail, such is faith to the Sacra- 
 ment ; it is the power which sets it in motion. 
 Baptismal Regeneration is the lever which shall 
 renew human society, if faith but apply its 
 hand steadily and unceasingly to the work. 
 God has done his part, the Reformers have 
 done their part ; let us do ours. Let us go forth 
 in the strength of our Master; and however 
 appalling present difficulties may appear, 
 doubtless if on our return he should ask us, as 
 he did his ministers of old ; " when I sent you, 
 lacked ye any thing ? " it shall be our privilege 
 to answer with them — " nothing/' ^ 
 
 Is it the difficulty of the work that discourages 
 us ? Is this view of Baptismal Regeneration so 
 novel in our day, and is the exertion to intro- 
 duce it practically among our people so vast, as 
 utterly to overwhelm us with despair ? Assuredly 
 experience does by no means warrant me in 
 describing the labours of a ministry in the 
 Church of England as light, or easy to be dis- 
 charged. We speak of the labours of mission- 
 
 * Luke xxii. 35. 
 Z 
 
506 MODES OF 
 
 aries, — absence from their home and friends, 
 the dangers of the seas and climate, the error, 
 cruelty, lust, ferocity, obstinacy, and manifold 
 abominations of benighted idolaters which they 
 have to encounter : far be it from me to under- 
 f>^ rate the real magnitude of these labours ; they 
 are indeed great and terrific. But after all, 1 
 doubt much, whether a spiritual minister in the 
 Church of Christian England, who is pursuing 
 his ministerial course with a steady aim to 
 advance the glory of Christ, and the eternal 
 welfare of never-dying souls, according to the 
 doctrine of " the Article," the spirit of the 
 Baptismal Service, and the requisitions of our 
 Church in her Ordination Services, has not full 
 as arduous a duty to perform, as a missionary 
 in any country, except one utterly uncivilized 
 and barbarous. Take any ordinary parish in 
 city, town, or county of this land; consider the 
 common rate of character a minister has to 
 
 I[ address ; the ignorance, the error, the prejudice, 
 ? the worldly-mindedness, the selfishness, the 
 fashionable Churchmanship, the proud morality, 
 I the prescriptive Christianity, the self-satisfied 
 formality, the loose principles of adherence to 
 the Established Church, the opposition of mani- 
 fold dissent, in a word, the intractable material 
 he has to deal with, in all its circumstances and 
 conditions — and I doubt whether any modifi- 
 cation of society, presents man in a more 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 507 
 
 unfavourable light to receive spiritual impres- 
 sions, except that of a simply nomade state, 
 than the self-complacent security of nominal 
 Christianity presents in England at this hour. 
 A faithful minister, it is true, will not have 
 to dread the scalping knife of the Indian, or 
 the kreese of the Malay ; but he will but 
 very imperfectly have counted his cost, if he 
 does not calculate upon the necessity of setting 
 '^ his face like a flint," ^ to meet the reproaches, 
 the sneers, the insults, the opposition of those 
 whose benefit he seeks, the half-heartedness 
 of professors, the falling off of his original 
 supporters, the cries of methodism, the charges 
 of excess from his Brethren, the discountenance 
 of authority, and the general reprobation of the 
 world from without j and apprehensions, and 
 doubts, and fears, and sorrows, and hesitations 
 from within ; add to these the expostulations 
 of unspiritual relatives who cannot appreciate 
 his principles, and perhaps even a suspension 
 of intercourse with those, who are in nature 
 dearest to his heart, and whom from earliest 
 childhood he has been accustomed to reverence 
 and love. Such trials every decided man of God, 
 who would undertake the ministerial care of a 
 parish even in this land, according to the requi- 
 sitions of our Church, must be prepared to 
 
 ' Isaiah 1. 7. 
 Z 2 
 
508 MODES OF 
 
 expect. The reproach of the cross has no more 
 ceased in England than it has in j^ny spot of 
 earth inhabited by man : human nature, however 
 modified by civilization, is the same in every 
 place; and both the infidel world, the moral 
 world, and the Evangelical world, around us, 
 declare but too plainly, that if a minister would 
 preach the cross of Christ, he must be prepared 
 to bear it. 
 
 It is quite evident, My Dear Friend, that we 
 must be first missionaries at home, before we 
 can justly expect men to be raised up as mis- 
 sionaries to be sent abroad. A higher tone 
 of preaching and practice, of ministerial faith- 
 fulness, and congregational communion must be 
 found among us at home, before any great suc- 
 cess can be looked for from our efforts abroad. 
 And who indeed is sufficient for these things ? 
 Who can thus unreservedly devote himself to 
 God ? Who can, in the spirit of meekness which 
 distinguished his Master, count the cost of the 
 sufferings which must be borne, before the 
 object is attained ? Who can endure unkindness 
 that he may illustrate forgiveness, and avail 
 himself of opposition, and contempt, and malig- 
 nity, to show forth " all patience and long- 
 suffering with joy fulness ? '' ^ Who can not only 
 surrender allhopeofworldly preferment, but con- 
 
 ' Col. i. 11. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 509 
 
 tentedly expose himself to distance, to coldness, 
 to reproach, and to exclusion, and enter upon a 
 course never yet faithfully run but with priva- 
 tion, and labour, and sorrow ? Who, while he 
 is possessed of a heavenly wisdom which the 
 world cannot know, and engaged in a work on 
 which Angels look with wonder, can be patiently 
 esteemed as a fool, a madman, an enthusiast, a 
 hypocrite, and treated as the offscouring of all 
 things by the very world he is endeavouring to 
 benefit ? And who, with a steady aim to save 
 the souls ot men, can pass unmoved through 
 evil report and good report ; and while he is 
 unwarped by the latter, can calmly calculate 
 upon breathing the former as his atmosphere ; 
 and rising above irritated feelings, and goading 
 resentments, can consistently illustrate the great 
 distinctive character of the Gospel of Jesus — 
 can " love '' his " enemies, bless them that 
 curse^' him, "do good to them that hate" him, 
 and when driven by their persevering enmity 
 from every other mode of blessing them, can 
 " pray for them which despitefuUy use him, and 
 persecute" him ?^ 
 
 Yes, there is a man who can perform all this ; 
 and that is — the man of faith. Not only did our 
 Great Exemplar perform it, but Paul, and Peter, 
 and John, and those eminent men who trod in 
 his steps : the declaration of one was the prac- 
 
 J Matt. V. 44. 
 Z 3 
 
510 MODES OF 
 
 tice of them all, " and I will very gladly spend 
 and be spent for you, though the more abun- 
 dantly I love you, the less 1 be loved/' ^ It 
 was faith that made them what they were, it is 
 like precious faith that must make us the 
 same. 
 
 Let us then go forth strong in faith. Let our 
 parishes be undertaken with a missionary devo- 
 tion of spirit : let our prayer be constant and 
 fervent for a holy courage, for unfailing love, 
 patience, forbearance, humility and zeal ; and 
 let a consistent practice of pastoral devotedness 
 exhibit these graces in action -, and where is 
 the spot in this or any land, however barbarous 
 or however refined, upon which, by the blessing 
 of God, such a ministry shall not make an 
 impression ? Zealous love and persevering 
 patience in the work of the ministry, beget an 
 irresistible weight of character, which eventually 
 bears down all before it. Dispirited by opposi- 
 tion, the ministry of holy ministers is rather 
 distinguished by passive retirement, than by the 
 aggressive courtesies of a zeal which accepts no 
 denial, and a love which admits no pause, and 
 knows no end but the attainment of its purpose. 
 In heathen lands, missionaries deem it their duty 
 to address all indiscriminately ; none high or 
 low, ignorant or learned are excluded from their 
 fearless application. Such is surely the design 
 
 » 2 Cor. xii. 15. 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 511 
 
 of our Church in committing the population of a 
 given district to the charge of a particular 
 minister. The system is beautiful^ as it is com- 
 plete; and when it is animated by a truly 
 missionary spirit in us the ministers of the 
 Churchy what a Church will the Church of 
 England be ? Nor do I despair that such a 
 season may arrive. The return of this morning 
 of light must be gradual ; the change must be 
 slow ; but only let the principles of these letters 
 be applied, and the means carried into practice, 
 and the issue is by no means questionable. An- 
 other day of Reformation may be granted to us ; 
 and the Religion of Jesus, abundant in pastoral 
 effort, and rich in the parochial and national 
 " Communion of the Saints/' may put forth 
 graces bright as those which adorned the fairest 
 hours of the Reformation, and 
 
 " Arise as in that elder time, 
 Warm, energic, chaste, sublime." 
 
 May God of his infinite mercy. My Dear 
 Friend, hasten that day : may we live to see the 
 reign of the promise ; or be blest in improving 
 the means to advance it. Let our exertions be 
 raised to no common degree of effort, for we are 
 warranted in entertaining large and exalted 
 expectations. It is the reign of the promise 
 that- we expect : let Baptismal Regeneration, 
 
Sn MODES OF 
 
 which is bottomed on the promise, be accepted 
 in faith, and the work of renovation is spiritually 
 and scripturally begun. And as faith honours 
 the promise, so shall all the blessings of the 
 promise be to us, and our children. Our Church 
 shall thus be renewed in holiness ; all its springs 
 and wheels of holy energy shall be set in motion; 
 union and concurrent effort shall then take place 
 of dissent and distraction ; every order of the 
 State, and every condition of society shall ac- 
 knowledge its renovating influence ; prayer and 
 spiritual discipline shall abound ; the Spirit from 
 on high shall smile in confirmation of the bless- 
 ings he has produced ; the Saviour's honour 
 shall be promoted in the reign of grace, as 
 derived from the promise; and the Father's love 
 shall rejoice in the success of the gospel of his 
 Son. Such a state of blessedness, the Church 
 of England possesses at this hour the means 
 of producing ; let us be but true to the means, 
 and God will be true to his promise. And 
 is it too much to say, that the general aspect 
 af the times unites with the promise, in warrant- 
 ing the conclusion, that with the increased ap- 
 plication of means we shall witness increased 
 success; till maturing grace shall produce 
 mutual concession, and existing differences 
 being merged in one combined endeavour to 
 improve the means of our Church, the ad- 
 vantages of union under her banners shall be 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 513 
 
 so evident as to induce the general wish — ^esto 
 
 PERPETUA. 
 
 When the millenial day arrives it must be a 
 day of order : now order implies law, law im- 
 plies administration, and administration on earth 
 implies human agency to effect it. And my soul 
 delights in the heavenly anticipation of that 
 day, when sin being subdued in every heart by 
 the Spirit poured out from on high, union shall 
 be so dear to all, that men shall be seeking, not 
 the things in which they may differ from their 
 fellows, but those in which they may agree. 
 Let this temper but reign, and I have no fears 
 for our Established Church ; for as those within 
 will then most cordially make the largest con- 
 cessions to accommodate those that are without ; 
 so those without will be prepared to accede to 
 the wish of the majority, and cordially yield 
 their differences in favour of those that are 
 within. Let grace but change the temper 
 of our hearts for that of love, and I believe that 
 one year would crown every Christian meeting- 
 house with a steeple. 
 
 May God in mercy hasten this day of union. 
 Protestants of whatever name ! you have your 
 old Popish adversary on one side, whom your 
 shouts have roused from his lair : are you pre- 
 pared for his attack ? You have an Infidejl 
 adversary on the other side, with malignities 
 restless and unabashed, and purposes of exter- 
 
514 MODES OF 
 
 jf mination, avowed, determined, and desperate. — 
 You have a University in process in the midst 
 of your population which excludes Christianity 
 on principle, and this principle your Disunion. 
 A Mighty Conflict is nearer perhaps than we 
 are aware of. Let each ask his conscience— 
 " Am I rising above the littleness of Party ? 
 and am I sacrificing unimportant differences to 
 establish that union which the interests of our 
 Common Christianity demand ? " 
 
 And now, My Dear Friend, I cannot con- 
 clude, without thanking the Father of mercies 
 for affording me, as I trust he has done, this 
 view of the possible blessedness of our Church ; 
 and yourself as the occasion of recording the 
 sentiments of these letters, and of proposing them 
 to general consideration. I have to thank you 
 under God, for many a sweet hour of holy 
 anticipation, as my frequent prayers have con- 
 secrated these pages to God, to the honour 
 of Christ, and to the benefit of our country. 
 That country we both love ; and would fain see it 
 put forth all the spiritual energies, \vith which 
 God has distinguished it, as a blessing to itself, 
 and that large portion of the world submitted to 
 its controul. And were England true to her- 
 self, where is the land, which, though free from 
 the controul of her arms, could be free from the 
 influence of her virtues ? I know well the 
 laborious duties you have to discharge in sup- 
 
EFFECTING THE SAME. 515 
 
 port of missions 3 and the ardour with which 
 you would stir up a missionary spirit at home ; 
 but to gratify your wishes^ Semi-heathen must 
 become Christian England, and estimate her 
 own spiritual advantages better, before she 
 can be active in extending them to others. 
 And what reflecting Christian can justly expect 
 either this improved principle or practice so 
 long" as our generally depraved education con- 
 tinues ? May God open our eyes to the large 
 spiritual means he has provided for us, in his 
 Baptismal Covenant, to correct this evil ; may 
 faith apply this Sacrament in power ; and in this 
 power may every Parent in the land present his 
 child to the '' Communion of the Saints " for 
 Baptismal blessings ; and in the perseverance 
 of the same faith consistently educate him as 
 '^ a member of Christ, a child of God, and an 
 inheritor" of his kingdom. 
 
 I know not that I can adopt a more ap- 
 propriate conclusion than the last words of 
 Holingshed's History. 
 
 " And we beseech God to increase the multi- 
 tude of loyal subjects, to make them strong in 
 faith towards him, and in love one with another, 
 that the Gospel (which is the doctrine of pacifi- 
 cation and obedience) may be glorified in the 
 commonwealth of England, a corner of the 
 WORLD, O Lord, which thou hast singled 
 OUT for the magnifying of thy majesty. 
 
516 MODES OF EFFECTING THE SAME. 
 
 and whereof we pray thee to give us a daily 
 remembrance : so shall we make conscience 
 of sin, and addict ourselves to the exercises 
 of righteousness. Amen/' 
 
 Believe me, My Dear Friend, in the faith, and 
 hope, and love of the Gospel, 
 
 Your's most truly 
 
 And affectionately, 
 
 HENRY BUDD. 
 
 Bridge Street, Blackfriars, 
 May 18th, 1827. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Abra ham, the promise made to him 39 
 
 Advantages of proposed interpretation, 
 
 First, the formularies made intelligible 235 
 
 Second, the beauty of the Church displayed 240 
 
 Third, also of the Communion of Saints 242 
 
 Fourth, improvement of the administration of the 
 
 Service 245 
 
 Fifth, the more frequent observance of the means 
 
 of grace ... 250 
 
 Sixth, each Sacrament would be duly honoured... 261 
 Seventh, our Ecclesiastical polity would be reformed 268 
 
 Eighth, unity would be preserved 277 
 
 Ninth, education would be improved 294 
 
 Tenth, the doctrine of election would be vindicated . . 314 
 Eleventh, God would have the praise of the glory 
 
 of his grace , 330 
 
 Twelfth, the Gospel would rule mankind instead 
 
 of the Law 336 
 
 Thirteenth, all connected with Baptism would enjoy 
 
 a new argument, &c. 380 
 
 Augustine, his opinion of Baptism , , . ,41 — 49 
 
 of Sponsors 70 
 
 2 A 
 
 ■*j»»'^ 
 
518 . INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Baptism, ineffectual without holiness 1 — 11 
 
 . is abused by ignorance 7 
 
 ' suffers in the house of its friends 11 
 
 . Gospel reasons for it 52 
 
 • should be public 143 
 
 administered according to the intention of the 
 
 Church „ 1 48 
 
 the reason of its failure 170 
 
 Beauty of proposed interpretation,.., 161 
 
 Beza, his sentiments on Baptism 165 
 
 Bradford, his thoughts on Baptism 215 
 
 Catechism, applied to infant 117 
 
 King Edward the sixth's 130 
 
 Children really gracious 134 
 
 Chillingworth, his thoughts on Baptism 171 
 
 Church, her part in Baptism 140 
 
 beauty, symmetry and proportion of. 240 
 
 Service of improved 245 
 
 Circumcision preparatory to Baptism 33 
 
 Communion of Saints 1 
 
 «___ ■ what it is ib. 
 
 reality of 242 
 
 Confession of Helvetia 226 
 
 Bohemia 228 
 
 . France 229 
 
 Belgia 230 
 
 ■ Augsburg 231 
 
 . — ' Saxony 231 
 
 . Wirtemberg 232 
 
 Sueveland 232 
 
 Confirmation applied to child 118 
 
 Cranmer, his address to children baptised 205 
 
 Education, not conducted according to Baptism 13 — 19 
 
 mode pointed out by Baptismal Service. ... 92 
 
 . effects of such an education. .99 
 
 .____^ improvement of 294 
 
 Election • ^^^ 
 
INDEX. 519 
 
 Pa OK 
 
 Election, the doctrine of our Church . . . .' 31 7 — 327 
 
 ■ of the Bible 318 
 
 Enthusiasm common as to Baptism 177 
 
 Experience, may exist without power to analyze 1 35 
 
 Extemporaneous preaching recommended 470 
 
 Formularies, consistency of 149 
 
 interpreted by the Baptismal Service 150 — 237 
 
 Frith, his thoughts on Baptism 201 
 
 Gospel, modes of preaching it 438 
 
 what it is , . 444 
 
 ' -' according to our Church 446 
 
 consistency of it with Scripture 448 
 
 illustrated in 17thArticle 446 
 
 how stated by Reformers 451 
 
 -^ Hooker's statement of the same 456 
 
 the letter of it 460 
 
 topical preaching of it 466 
 
 Grace, means of improved 250 
 
 the glory of advanced 335 
 
 nursery of 397 
 
 Hooper, his thoughts on Baptism 213 
 
 Infant Baptism, grounds of 26 
 
 Infant, how considered in Baptism 116 
 
 to be educated on the promise 119 
 
 addressed by the Sponsor 121 
 
 his progress traced according to our Church. ... 149 
 
 Jewel, denies any virtue to the mere sign 10 
 
 his tlioughts on Baptism 219 
 
 Law, his thoughts on education 173 
 
 Law, prevailing principle of conduct , 337 
 
 in the nursery 338 
 
 — the school 341 
 
 the world 343 
 
 the prison , • 344 
 
 the legislature 346 
 
 the cabinet 350 
 
 — the pulpit 356 
 
 2 A 2 
 
520 INDEX. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Law, how to perform it 365 
 
 what it is , 370 
 
 Martyr Peter, his sentiments on Baptism 224 
 
 Means of carrying interpretation into effect .. . 499 
 Let every man be persuaded ^ 402 
 
 — every minister show it by example 404 
 
 — it be explained from the pulpit . . . . , 405 
 
 — Parents and Sponsors be exhorted 406 
 
 — the Catechism be explained , . , , 407 
 
 — this interpretation be applied in schools 410 
 
 ■:— the minister insist on it in private 412 
 
 — minister insist on the twenty-ninth canon 413 
 
 — minister's own example recommend it 415 
 
 — the attention of the Church be challenged 417 
 
 improved mode of treating children 418 
 
 new means of explaining this interpretation 419 
 
 call on the Church for its interest 422 
 
 the font to be restored to its place , 423 
 
 works of the Reformers to be restored 424 
 
 new periodical work , 433 
 
 preaching of the Gospel , 437 
 
 Milton reflected on. .•.,,,,... 303 
 
 Ministers, how to address people 381 
 
 . - portrait of a faithful minister 507 
 
 Mythology, mischievous tendency of 300 
 
 NowELL, his Catechism . , , , 221 
 
 sentiments on Baptism ib. 
 
 Nursery, all things have them 397 
 
 Objections answered 163 
 
 > — as to the fact 163 
 
 as to the promise 179 
 
 Origen, his opinion on Baptism 41 — 48 
 
 Parents, their consideration on Baptism 24 
 
 Pearson, Bishop, his thoughts on Communion of Saints 2 
 difference of Saint and hypocrite. ... 3 
 
 -. .... . without holiness Baptism a disad- 
 vantage 5 
 
INDEX. 521 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Philpot, his thoughts on Baptism 209 
 
 Polity, Ecclesiastical, reformation of 268 
 
 Promises, to believers and their children .....,., 27 — 181 
 
 Reformers, vindicated 146 
 
 '■ sentiments on Baptism 198 
 
 Ridley, Lancelot, his thoughts on Baptism 204 
 
 Sacraments, honour due to them respectively 261 
 
 of the altar undue attention to it 264 
 
 Sponsor, his warrant 1 
 
 institution, prudent, charitable 72 
 
 neglect of his duty 76 
 
 unreasonableness of such neglect 78 
 
 encouraged by the Church . , , 83 
 
 address to Sponsor in Baptismal Service 83 
 
 faith the ground of his exertions ..* 113 
 
 address to his charge, 121 
 
 TiNDAL, his thoughts on Baptism 199 
 
 Trinity, doctrine of 136 
 
 Unbelief opposed to promise 180 — 194 
 
 Uniformity , , 280 
 
 Unities, three , 135 
 
 Unity, preservation of 277 
 
 Usher, Archbishop, his sentiments on Baptism 167 
 
 Utilists 307 
 
L. B. SEELEY AND SONS, 
 WESTON GREEN, THAMES DITTON. /^ci. 
 

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