Indulge yourself, my fon, in all the delights of the fair feafon. Leave the pomp of cities, and live in the humble fields. These were the first abode of man. The pleasures you will tafte may, poffibly, be lefs brilliant, but they will be more pure than those which towns afford. Here the philofopher, while he contemplates Nature, muft admire the magnificence of God in his works.

The meadows and the forefts leave no heaviness in the heart of man. No fcenes more favourable to the lover! none where he may better enjoy his sweet reveries! All the fenfes are flattered at the fame time; the fight with verdure, the fmell with fragrance; and, on the fufceptible ear, how sweetly fall the notes of the nightingale! Let mufic affert her empire over your foul! Give yourself up to her enchanting influence. Let her fnatch you from yourself. Mufic, no less than poetry, paints the objects of the mind. She expreffes the different paffions. She has the fecret art of infpiring tenderness and rage. Surely the heart has fome correspondence, fome intelligence with the ear.'

This is really poetry, genuine poetry, heightened and en-
riched by philofophy. Poffibly an European poet might express
the fame fentiments in fomething like the following language:
See the fair feason of each soft defire!
See waking Nature on her urn refpire!
No more with winter's icy hand at ftrife,
See motion dart through all created life!
Through all the human, all the fylvan reign
In briker currents glides the genial vein.
The lifeless mead, the woodland's naked scene
Burst into flowers, and brighten into green.
No more the streams the freezing North obey;
Their captive waters freely wind away.
With joy, with love, the winged worlds are bleft,
And ftrain to melody each little breast.

O, yield thy hours, to this fair feafon yield!
Leave the ftunn'd city for the ftrifeless field:
Their early race 'twas there thy fathers ran,
The only dwelling Nature meant for man.
If picas'd with virtues, genuine though obfcure,
Charms that are guiltlefs, pleafures that are pure,
In Nature's pointed eloquence to trace
Her mighty Maker's wifdom, and his grace ;-
If fcenes like thefe may purer pleasures yield,
Leave the stunn'd city for the ftrifeless field.

No pale chagrin fhall plains or groves impart,
For Nature bears no hatred in her heart:
With her the lover feeks the lonely vale,

Breathes his fond vows, and trufts his tender tale.

Ff4

While

While every charm that every fenfe can know,
The mingled bounties of her hand bestow.
Health, freedom, fragrance in the pregnant fky,
The green's mild freshness opening on the eye;
And, oh! the founds that melt, that melt away,
When Philomela pours her liquid lay!

To MUSIC's voice, to MUSIC's foft controul,
Yield the rapt ear, and render all the foul:
Love, grief, and rage, her various notes infpire;
The poet fpeaks not plainer than the lyre.
Seiz'd are his honours, and excell'd his art,

While the rapt ear holds commerce with the heart.

We must now recommend the remainder of this ingenious pamphlet to the attention of our learned Readers.

ART. II. The Duty, Circumftances, and Benefits of Baptifm, determined by Evidence. I. The Teftimonies in the New Teftament ranged under proper Heads. II. Thofe from the first Chriftian Writers in Dr. Wall's Method improved. III. The Evidence of the whole fummed up. With an Appendix, fhewing the Meaning of feveral Greek Words in the New Teftament. By Thomas Barker. 8vo. 3s. 6 d. fewed. White. 1771.

E agree

Ꮃ .

with this Author (and happy were it if chriftians had generally been of the fame mind) in fuppofing, that there may be fome matters of opinion, wherein a man may fafely fuipend his judgment, if he finds them not clearly revealed, or too deep for his understanding or leifure; and may find no difficulty in acting as a good chriftian, though he be not fully fatisfied about the meaning of fome fuch proprofitions.' But we perceive that he will not join with us in a farther fuppofition, that this may be the cafe as to the fubjects, and the mode, of baptifm, upon which it does by no means appear, after all that has been faid, and fometimes with fo great confidence, that the fcriptures have exprefsly determined; it is probable that while baptifm is itfelf commanded, these particular points and circumftances are left indifferent, and the perfon who determines on either fide, determines fafely.

This Writer has a different view of the matter; Baptifm, fays he, is a point of practice; it is a thing which either ought to be practifed, or it ought not: either infants fhould be baptized, or it fhould be delayed till they grow up: the method, alfo, either ought to be by dipping or not. Many fuch cafes might be put, wherein a man who is not fatisfied which is right, will be in a great ftrait, if a cafe happens wherein he must act either one way or other. It was chiefly (he proceeds) on this account that I examined the matter; and in the fearch I aimed to

keep

keep clear of all prejudice, which like an ignis fatuus is so apt to mislead men; afked of God affiftance in my enquiry, and endeavoured to conform my opinion to the evidence, not to reconcile the evidence to my opinion.'

He writes in a manner becoming a worthy man, who candidly enquires for truth, and diligently applies to obtain it: he likewife discovers a very confiderable fhare of that kind of learning which is requifite for difcuffing fubjects of this nature to advantage; as he appears to have recourse to the fountain head for his authorities, and does not merely retail them at fecond-hand from the writings of others. In his extracts from the ancient fathers, befide remarks on the meaning and fitnefs of what they say, he farther gives fome obfervations on the inferences which Dr. Wall and Dr. Gale have drawn from them, to whom therefore he frequently refers; telling us, that he has rather chofen to remark on them than on more modern writers, because they principally proceed in the fame order with himself, and lay together all that the ancients fay, methodically, before the reader. The ftrong impreffion, fays he, the first principles received in childhood make on the mind of man, greatly hinders the difcovery of the truth in this and many other cafes; and but few overcome that prejudice, which, like a coloured glafs, tinges all abjects feen through it. By this falfe light was Dr. Wall, a very good man in himself, mifled: for though I greatly approve of and imitate his method, of quoting the feveral writers in order of time, yet whoever reads his remarks on the quotations, will plainly fee their aim is not so much to search out the author's real opinion, as to reconcile it to the practice of infant baptifm, which he firmly believed to be right. By the fame rudder, only fet the contrary way, his opposer, Dr. Gale, was turned afide, who, though he well detects many false colourings in Dr. Wall, is not clearer from the like himself; his aim being not as a moderator, to fhew where he had hit or miffed the truth, but as a pleader, to fay what he could for the cause he espoused. And I must own, though I am nearer his opinion as to the fact, yet I like Wall's methodical way of writing better than Gale's irregular one, from which his plan of feparate letters can hardly be kept clear. But while I complain of the power of prejudice over others, fome will perhaps fay to me, are you any clearer from it yourself? It may be I am not a proper judge in my own cafe but having taken all the proper precautions, of diligent search, careful examination, and application to God for direction, which either prudence or religion dictate; and having no intereft to fuppofe the church of England, whofe fervice I conftantly attend, is in an error, unless where it really appears to me

be fo; I hope to be found for the most part clear, and to

ftand

ftand excused before God and man, if I have any where fallen into an involuntary miflake.'

We apprehend others will think with us, that the productions of a man of sense and learning, who discovers fuch a spirit, merit attention and regard, though he oppofes fome prevailing opinion or practice, or even though he should in any inftance appear to be mistaken. For a general view of his method, we fhall lay before our readers a farther brief account of it, which he has given in the preface. The plan of the whole book is as follows: Baptifm is confidered as a thing in its own nature indifferent, but a duty on men, because commanded by our Saviour, and therefore to be done in fuch a manner, and fuch only, as he has commanded. To find out which, all the texts relating to baptifm are here quoted; not first laying down the doctrine, and then picking out texts to fupport it, but all that relate to each circumftance of baptifm are brought together, and endeavoured to be placed in the cleareft order; and on viewing the whole, the meaning is fet down at the end of the number; and before any other old writer is examined, the fubftance of the doctrine of the New Teftament is fummed up at the end of the first part. The other chriftian writers are quoted in the fecond part, in order of time, and mentioning also the country where each lived; and all each author fays is ranged under feveral heads in the fame manner as in the first part; the author's meaning fet at the end of each number, and generally his whole opinion fummed up before I proceed to the next writer. In the third part, the doctrine of the whole is fummed up in order, and the opinions where different compared together, to find what was the original practice, and where and how alterations arofe, which feem to be thefe. That original fin is not a fcripture doctrine, but came in gradually afterward, and gathered ftrength by time. That all chriftians must be baptized in due time, but that thofe only were baptized at firft, who were old enough to underftand and believe the doctrine, till by baptizing children younger and younger, baptifm of infants came in, firft in the western church and afterward in the eaftern; the doctrine of original fin, and practice of infant baptifm keeping equal pace. The feveral ceremonies used in baptifm are alfo reckoned up; forgivenefs and divine affiftance are the benefits of baptifm; and an open profeffion and perfevering in virtue the duties of it.'

To this general account we fhall add a few extracts, which may give fome farther idea in what manner this Writer executes the plan he had formed.

Of the neceffity of baptifm.

Pet. iii. 21. Baptifm doth also now save us.

Acts xxii. 16. Be baptized and wash away thy fins.

Eph. v. 26. That he might fanctify it, cleansing it by the washing of water in the word.

r Cor. vi. 11. But ye are washed, but ye are fanctified.

Heb. x. 22. Having our hearts fprinkled from an evil confcience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Tit. iii. 5. He faved us by the washing of regeneration.

John iii. 3, 5, 6. Unless a perfon (75) be born from above, he cannot fee the kingdom of God.-Unless a perfon be born of water and the fpirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the fpirit is fpirit.

The method which Chrift has appointed for admitting men into his church, and cleansing their former fins, is baptism. And notwithstanding all Gale's quotations and arguments, that TIVES fometimes means a few perfons out of a larger number, yet I think it is plain that is in John iii. means a certain perfon, any one who will become a christian, and that no one unlefs he be born of water and the fpirit is entered into Chrift's church, nor entitled to the peculiar rewards promised to it: for as our Saviour argues, from a natural birth can spring only a natural life, to a fpiritual one a renewal by the fpirit is required. This may fuffice in anfwer to Mr. Emlyn's previous question, whether baptifm is at all neceffary to the children of chriftians, or only to converts? which I look on as a good argumentum ad bominem, concluding against those who argue from the supposed Jewish profelyte baptifin, but nothing further. A child then born of chriftian parents, educated in chriftianity, attending the service and practifing the precepts of it, as far as an unbaptized perion may, cannot be called a compleat chriftian till he is baptized; and what reward fuch a one dying before baptifm will receive, depends on the undeclared good pleasure of God. But because the kingdom of heaven is promifed only to chriftians, to conclude with Auguftin and his followers, that all muft perish, who without their own fault fail of being baptized, is without ground: all the promises in the Gospel are made to the doers of God's work, to him who pleafeth God, to him who keepeth the commandments, to him who refifts the devil, and to him who overcometh, &c. Again, all the threatenings are against the committers of wickedness, against murderers, drunkards, hypocrites, enticers to fin, &c. ; but I know of no declaration in the whole New Teftament what fhall be done with those who never knew good from evil, were never exposed to temptation, were never put to any trial of their obedience, nor ever had any opportunity to do or refufe their duty. This therefore, which can be known only by revelation, let us not prefume to determine our