man and a philosopher, and has point- fication, at the last day; and also to ed out the true causes of the decline prove, that these are the only acand fall-the errors and the crimes, of ceptations in which, conformably to nations. Still more, may he be known the doctrines of the Bible and the in the character of one who has Church of England, the phrase can strengthened the foundations of our be employed: we see no reason to own liberties and happiness; and, alter our own sentiment, that there is above all, of one who has occupied a justification spoken of in scripture, himself in endeavouring to preserve and maintained by our reformers, in a from farther depression, or even, if it still more appropriate sense, viz. as may be, to raise, our religious and signifying the acceptance of our permoral standard; and in counteracting, sous and the pardon of our sins through by the weight of his authority and the faith in Christ Jesus. power of his talents, those licentious systems which have found too ready a reception from men of high political name: thus ennobling his family with honours more durable than any which, monarchs can bestow, and conferring a lasting benefit on his own country, and on the world at large. Daubeny brings forward as proofs As to the expressions which Mr. that the church considers baptism and justification as synonymous, we would observe, that the church is usually made to speak in the name and in the character of that part of it which truly believes and partakes of her saving privileges; and when assertions are made as to the efficacy of the sacraments, the blessings of church CLXXVIII. DAUBENY's Vindicia Ec- communion, the state of the departed, clesia Anglicana. (Continued from p. 486.) On the subject of justification, as Mr. Daubeny observes, " much more has been written than appears necessary to its perfect illustration." It is a subject on which disputants often appear, for a few sentences, to be nearly agreed, while, at the same time, it is manifestly their object in other passages to support systems highly incongruous with each other; a circumstance which not unfrequently renders it a difficult task to ascertain the reat sentiments of an author on this question. Mr. Daubeny has written much in his former publications, as well as in the sixth and seventh chapters of the present work, on the doctrine of justification, faith, and works; but, as we perceive nothing new in his statements, we must refer our readers to the observations which have appeared in some of our former numbers upon these subjects. It would, however, be inconsistent with our principles if we did not plainly déclare, that we consider Mr. Daubeny's interpretation of the doctrine of justification as at va riance, in several respects, with that which appears in the works of the fathers and reformers. After all that has been said, and is here repeated, on the subject of a first justification, synonymous with baptism; and a second, or final justi and other important articles of Christian hope and belief, whether it be in articles, apologies, or catechisms, it is the form of public prayer, homilies, presumed that all who unite in the use, of her forms of worship, and are not by open and known delinquency worthy of excommunication, are really such as we hope and pray they should be*. There is, clearly a very wide *In our liturgy this remark is applicable to every part of divine worship wherein the priest or the congregation, either directly or by implication, make any general assertion expressive of the pious sentiments and affections of the whole body present. An instance, likewise, may be found in the concluding article of the second part of Bishop Jewel's Apology, where of the resurrection and everlasting life, in the church confidently speaks of her views such terms as excludes all but her true members from uttering the expressions contained in it. In Nowell's Catechism, under the article "Ecclesia," in the exposition of the creed, the auditor, after giving a definition of the true, holy, and invisible church, and its heavenly views, (previous to his account of the visible church,) says, "Cujus divini spiritus instinctu, mihi etiam certissime persuadeo, meipsum quoque beata hac civitate, Dei per Christum beneficio, gratuito donatum Pia sane & planè necessaria persuasio," esse." To which the Magister replies: Yet this catechism was designed for the use of the members of our church necessarily without distinction, distinction between the expression of a general hope and a determination as to each individual case. Without the former no public forms can be drawn up, but we cannot hazard the latter without wholly mistaking the nature of the christian covenant. Mr. Daubeny expresses an opinion (p. 236) that by baptism, considered as synonymous with the first justification, is to be understood the actual salvation of the baptized party." That in the case of children dying in infancy, and, perhaps, in many other cases, baptism and justification are at least contemporaneous, we will readily admit. But surely Mr. Daubeny does not mean to assert that they are in no case separable. In the case of insincere though professing adults coming to baptisin, we know that they are not united; and the language of the baptismal service affords no warrant for peremptorily concluding that they must be so in the case of all those infants who afterwards live to years of responsibility. The Church of England, in her of fice of infant baptism, certainly presumes on the regeneration of every baptized child. But she does the same, in the office for those of riper years, respecting every adult who is baptized. In the latter case, however, it is clearly a charitable presumption; and the exact parallelism of the two forms furnishes good ground for supposing that it is the same in the forIf justification is to be treated as always accompanying the rite of baptism, we shall be brought to the dilemma of admitting that an insin cere adult, who, though he professes, yet does not possess, the requisites of faith and repentance, must, neverthe less, be justified without either; contrary to the express doctrine of scripture and of the church *. mer. * Theodoret's opinion, as often quoted by the old writers (for we have not the original at hand) is, "Gratia sacramentum aliquando præcedit, aliquando sequitur, aliquando nec sequitur." St. Augustine (on the 77th psa.m) thus resolves," Omnes cundem potum spiritualem biberunt, sed non in omnibus bene placitum est Deo: & com essent omnia communia sacramenta, non communis erat omnibus gratia, quæ sacramentorum virtus est. Sicut & nune, jam revelatâ fide quæ tunc velabatur, omnibus in nomine Patris & Filii & Spiritus Sancti baptizatis commune est la Mr. Daubeny frequently refers with approbation to the sentiments of St. Austin on the subject of baptism. vacram regenerationis, sed ipsa gratia, cujus sunt sacramenta, quâ membra corporis Christi cum suo capite regenerata sunt, non communis est omnibus," In his 5th book against the Donatists, c. 24, he says, Christ is put on sometimes, usque ad sacramenti perceptionein, as far as the receiving of the sacrament, sometimes also unto sanctification of life; the first is common to good and bad, the other is proper to the good and godly." St. Chrysostom, in his fifth homily on St. Matthew, observes, "Many are baptized with water who are not baptized with the Holy Ghost; they seem to be the sons of God in respect of their baptism, but indeed they are not the with the Holy Ghost." St. Jerome has a sons of God, because they are not baptized similar passage in his Commentary on the third chapter of the Galatians. Hooker says, "All receive not the grace of God which receive the sacrament of his grace." (book v. c. 57.) No author is more express as to the efficacy of the sacraments,' and the necessity of our using them than he is; but, by comparing different parts of did not extend their virtue in that volihis works together, it will appear, that he mited and indiscriminate matiner which Mr. Daubeny appears to do in this chapter. the name of real believers, he says, Speaking, as he generally does, in Варtism both declareth and maketh us Christians.-In which respect we justly hold it to be the door of our actual entrance into God's house, the first apparent beginning of life; a seal, perhaps, to the grace of election before received; but to our sanctification here, a step that hath not any before it." And, in the margin, quotes, in italics,le which is not a Christian beconfirmation of the foregoing phrase in fore he come to receive baptism, cannot be made a Christian by baptism; which is only the seal of the grace of God before received." Hooker here evidently speaks in a more Calvinistic strain than many will approve of; but be that as it may, the word perhaps in the text, and the passage quoted in his margin, evidently shew that he did not consider grace as necessarily annexed to the reception of baptism. We are as fully sensible as Mr. Daubeny can be of the holy efficacy of the baptismal sacrament, and of its important connection with the scheme of redemption; much more so, indeed, than our present limits will allow us to explain; but we object to some of Mr. Daubeny's expressious, because we are convinced that he carries the authorities from which he quotes into more general conclusions than their known prin ciples will warrant. This to some may appear rather inconsistent with his avowed rejection of that father's sentiments, on other points which bear an intimate relation to the nature and efficacy of that sacrament. If, as Mr. Daubeny admits, our reformers have adopted St. Austin's views of baptism, is it likely that they should have designedly excluded those doctrines of justification and grace which he likewise maintained, and which, nevertheless, Mr. Daubeny denies to be consistent with the tenets of the church of England? In the course of the remarks which follow through several pages, we wish that Mr. Daubeny had more clearly explained, how he reconciles his idea of regeneration being necessarily attached to the baptismal service, with his own admission, elsewhere, that many of his congregation, though formerly baptized, may still be in an unregenerate state. Several similar expressions in his catechetical lectures unequivocally convey the notion of spiritual regeneration being separable from the rite of baptism. But how can these expressions be reconciled with Mr. Daubeny's opinion (p. 247) of the impropriety of supposing a person once baptized to be afterwards born again? It is almost unnecessary for us to remark, that it is usual with our old divines to speak of bad christians as being unregenerate men: frequent instances of this occur in the writings of Dr. Jackson, Dr. Hammond, Bishop. Hall, Bishop Sanderson, and many other divines. At p. 254 Mr. Daubeny commences an attack upon the CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, for which we feel cordially disposed to forgive him, if it were on no better ground than that he has totally mistaken our meaning in the passage to which he alludes. We can hardly refrain from smiling at so unexpected a misconstruction of a sentence, which certainly was never intended to express the unscriptural, and absurd, position which Mr. Daubeny has occupied so many pages in refuting. In our review of Pearson's first letter to Overton (vol. for 1802, p. 410) we observ. ed, that Mr. P. seemed to consider baptism and justification as the same, or nearly the same thing; and we added, baptism is only the outward sign of an admission into the church, administered by fallible men, and may or may not be accompanied by justí fication, which is the act of God alone." From this passage Mr. Daubeny concludes, that we not only maintain the gift and grace of justification to be not necessarily, and in all cases, attached to the performance of the baptismal oflice; an opinion which we certainly do hold: but that the fallibility of the priest who officiates may, and does, affect the validity of his ministrations, and the efficacy of the sacrament which he administers; a tenet which we certainly do not hold, nay, which we unequivocally disavow. All we intended to express was, that the priest, being fallible, could not certainly know whether the faith and repentance professed by the candidate for baptism were sincere; and that therefore he might frequently administer the rite of baptism to persons possessing neither, on whom, therefore, God would not bestow the blessing of justification; that being the privilege exclusively, at least as far as adults are concerned, of the penitent and believing. This sense of the words seems to be so obvious, that, even after we have made due allow ance for Mr. Daubeny's prejudices, we can scarcely conceive how he should have contrived to miss it. Our limits will not permit us to follow Mr. Daubeny through the whole of his elaborate defence of his own views of the doctrine of justification against Mr. Overton's attack: but some remarks on the subject cannot be altogether passed over. Mr. Daubeny does not seem to admit of that distinguished acceptation of the term justification, of which we read so much in the writings of the early divines, as applicable to the believer in his present state; and which they describe as the result of actual faith in Christ, through the divine blessing on the efficacy of the word of God; a state in which he not only may become holy, but really is so. Into this state we must be brought by grace, through the exercise of faith in Christ; works being neither the causes nor conditions of our obtaining it, although they are the indispensable fruits and evidences of our being justified, that is, pardoned and accepted by God. This is the justification of which Hooker treats in his invaluable discourse on that subject. The same subject occupies a large portion of the confession of Augsburg, and the explanatory comments of Melancthon, and, indeed, of most of the Protestants in their controversies with the Papists; and it is very clearly insisted on in our articles and homilies. (See our review of "Pott's Considerations," p. 292.) It appears to be a leading error among some latter divines, that they confound two things totally distinct in themselves, though inseparable from each other, justification and sanctification. The former is an act of God's grace, whereby he accounts the sinner righteous, freely and solely for the sake of Christ, in whom he believeth, and to whom he is by believing spiritually united: the latter is the work of God's spirit in the soul of man when he has been pardoned and justified. When Mr. Daubeny (p.272) speaks of works" as considerations on account of which God will be pleased to accept a fallen, condemned, though, at the same time, repentant and obedient sinner, for the sake of what an all-gracious Saviour has done and suffered for him;" he seems to invert the order of God's proceeding in the justification of a sinner. We must first, according to good old Latimer, be made good before we can do good. The articles themselves teach us, and they teach the doctrine of scripture, that good works follow after justification or the being accounted righteous, in other words, accepted before God: and that, previous to such acceptance, our works are not pleasant to God. How then can they, according to Mr. Daubeny's statement, be considerations on account of which God will be pleased to accept us? The erroneousness of such an hypothesis is ably shewn in the volume of sermons by Mr. Cooper, lately reviewed by us, p. 290. The total siler.ce of the early Protestant writers, on the modern distinction of two justifications, is in itself a probable argument against their having viewed the subject in that light; and when it is considered that the question was canvassed to the very bottom, and no possible mode of stating it omitted which could throw light upon their system, or enable their adversaries to comprehend it; this circumstance seems decisive. The perfect harmony which subsisted among all the reformed churches on this point, contrasted with the opposite sentiments of such modern Protestants as embrace this new scheme of a twofold justification, is another proof that that scheme had not then obtained. These moderns avowedly oppose both the Lutheran and Calvinistic view of justification; our reformers on that head perfectly agreed with both. We feel surprised that Mr. D. should not be more sensible how very general the doctrine of human merit is become, and how much virtual Popery exists under the name of candid Protestantism. Mr. Daubeny himself, we allow, is much more correct than several of his brethren in stating the doctrine of faith and works; and though by no means free from error, as will particularly appear in our review of the next chapter, yet he has the support of some very learned divines, who, about the middle of the seventeenth century, began to depart from that system of doctrine, on the subject of justification,which their predecessors had maintained: owing, probably, to disgust at the abuses which libertines, fanatics, and other weak or wicked men, had unhappily grafted upon it. But truth will not cease to be truth because fools or bad men have perverted it to the worst of purposes. The original Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, producing the fruits of holiness in the heart and life of the believer, has al ways been, and will ever continue to be, the only firm ground on which the gospel can be consistently maintained; or successfully propagated. It is no good argument against any point of christian doctrine that it is liable to abuse. The christian's path, both in matters of faith and of practice, is a narrow one, and we may soon stray from it either to the right-hand or the left. Very difficult, indeed, is the task of preserving the purity of sacred truth from the corrupt abuses of one party, and the consequent, though unfounded, objections of another; from the encroachments of man's wisdom on the one hand, and the perversions of human ignorance on the other; in a word, from the equally dangerous extremes of mere rationality and wild enthusiasm. The length of the preceding article obliges us this month to contract,within narrower limits than we intended, the review of Mr. Daubeny's impor tant work. (To be coatiqued.) REVIEW OF REVIEWS, &c. &c. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. Your readers are much indebted to you for your endeavours to counter act the strange and wild notions of christian conversion, which are some times entertained. I agree very much with you in your late strictures (p. 519) on the letter of "A sincere Friend to the Church of England," which appeared in your number for June. But surely the publication in the Evangelical Magazine, which drew forth the remarks of the letter-writer, called loudly for notice. Few errors in religion could be more fatal than a belief that violent and extraordinary agitations, whether of body or mind in christian assemblies, are supernatural, and therefore tokens of conversion. This mode of judging, though not perhaps explicitly avowed by the editor of that magazine, or by the person whose account of the late events in New Connecticut he inserts in his publication, may fairly be inferred to have been adopted by both of them*: and certainly that account has a strong tendency to spread similar sentiments among the readers of the magazine. I shall proceed to give you my reasons for thinking, that this way of viewing the faintings and convulsions which sometimes take place in religious assemblies, is founded on an ig norance of human nature. It is a common art, with those who wish to make a very strong impression on the feelings, to present to the mind something indefinite, unknown, and affording great scope for the imagination. The Castle of Otranto is a striking instance of what may be done in this way. Novels and plays often depend for success more on * See Evangelical Magazine, No. 119, p. 369; No. 124, p. 53; No. 151, p. 357; and No. 137, p. 40. The accounts in question, which they say we have the happiness to communicate," are spoken of as "the most correct, judicious, and highly satisfactory ever seen," as "judi ious;" and a third time, as "highly ininteresting and very judicious." The events are spoken of as a display of "the power of God," as marks of a "happy revival of religion." ghosts and apparitions, and voices from sepulchres, than on any sterling merit they possess. This was, as have heard, remarkably the case with the German plays, which the conti mental philosophers, and a few wor thy allies of those philosophers among ourselves, employed as a powerful battery against the loyalty and religion of Britain. It is no wonder that such means should be employed, when we all know into how violent an agitation a supposed ghost will throw even a country village; where the powers of the imagination, usually so torpid as to appear scarcely to exist, become on a sudden wild and ungovernable. In a few days several of the rustics never fail to see or hear the ghost, and the number of these is continually increasing. The fears expressed in their countenance and tones of voice are caught by their neighbours, and most of the inhabitants are brought by sympathy into such a state of mind, that, with the aid of a few evening walks, it is extremely likely that they also in a short time will see the ghost. Now, Sir, what is the state of a congregation where strange agitations have appeared? Expectation is on the tiptoe. Their imaginations are in a restless, perturbed, state, watching for some communication from the invisible world. Some fall down or cry out. Others wonder when it will be their turn to do the same, and generally wish the time to arrive. Every successive instance of agitation in the congregation strikes a chord in their heart, which works them up to a frame of mind nearer and nearer to the electric shock, the effects of which they see and hear around them. Can we wonder that this shock should at length reach them; that they should experience real sobs, and agitations, and faintings, which so completely cloud their faculties as to make them an easy prey to every delusion; and that they should recover, perhaps, (thougir we are not told that this has been the case in America,) with strange stories of dreams and visions, which they firmly believe, and pour forth among their neighbours with the zeal |