• Cam Lathia oppidum apud Scotos non incelebre, et Edinburgus primaria apud eos civitas incendio Conflagrarent, Richardus Leus, Eq. Auratus me Flammis ereptum, ad Anglos perduxit. Hujus ago tanti beneficii memor, non nisi Regum liberos lavare Solitus, nunc meam operam etiam infimis Anglorum libenter condixi. Leus Victor Sic volnit. Vale, Anno Dom. MDXLIII. & An. Regni Henrici.

Octavi xxxvi.

"But I fear, (adds Stavely) this Font hath been washed away itself, with the late deluge of sacrilegious avarice. However the zeal and bounty of many piously disposed persons have furnished several Churches with curious and costly Fonts, which for their multitude and variety we remit to every one's ocular observation; recommending nevertheless, to the curious, for an ancient one that in the Church of Ufford, in the county of Suffolk, a principal seat of the Uffords, heretofore Earls of Suffolk; the same being very curiously depicted with imagery, and with the arms of the Uffords, a certain evidence that it was a product of the beneficence of that family: And for a late one, that in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, a very rare piece, being the munificence of Dr. Warner, late Bishop of Rochester."-p. 219-20.

Having thus quoted the whole of Stavely's account, in consequence of its having been referred to by your correspondent, I shall notice what is said by Bingham, in his valuable Origines Ecclesiasticæ, which, from its labour and accuracy, seems intitled to a preference, as to which almost all our works of this kind either do, or should refer. In Book 8. ch. 7.* of the Baptistery, and other outer buildings of the Church, called the Exedræ of the Church, he says, it now remains that we consider a little such buildings as were distinct from the main body, and yet within the bounds of the Church, in the largest sense, which buildings are all confused under one general name of the Exedræ of the Church. Eusebius speaking of the Church at Tyre, mentions outer buildings called Exedræ, chiefly meaning the place of purgations and sprinkling of water, and the Holy Ghost; i. e. doubtless the Baptistery of the Church. He describes Constantines Church at Antioch in the same manner, surrounded with Exedræ. Exedræ, as Valesius and other critics have rightly observed, being a general name for any buildings that stand round about the Church, and hence it is easy *Fol. Edit. Vol. I. p. 308. Sect. 1. Vol. VII. Churchm. Mag. Oct. 1804.

N n

to

to conclude that the Baptistery, which Eusebius reckons the chief of the Exedra, was anciently a building without the walls of the Church, which observation, because I find it questioned by some, who place the Font after the modern way, in the Narthex of the ancient Churches, it will not be improper here to confirm by a few plain instances out of other authors Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, setting forth the great munificence of his friend SEVERUS, says, he built two Churches, and a Baptistery between them both. And so Cyril of Jerusalem describes the Baptistery as a building by itself, which had first its

avov oixor, i. e. its porch, or ante-room, where the Catechumens made their renunciation of Satan, and Confession of faith; and then its lowregov oxo, its inner room, where the ceremony of baptism was performed. Sidonius Apollinaris also speaks of it as a distinct building. After citing other examples from the authorities of St. Austin, St. Ambrose, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, &c. he adds, so that the first ages all agreed in this, that whether they had Baptisteries or not, the place of baptism was always without the Church, and after this manner, Baptisteries continued to the 6th age, citing Durantus from Gregory of Tours. Durant de Ritib. Eccles. lib. 1. c. 19. n. 4 Greg: Turon. Histor. lib. 6. c. 11. Though some now began to be taken into the Church porch, as that wherein he says; "Remigius baptized king Clodoveus, and thence they were removed into the Church itself. These Baptisteries (he observes Sect 2.) were anciently very capacious, because as Dr. Cave truly observes (Prim. Christ, par. 1. c. 10. p. 312.) the stated times of baptism returning but seldom, there were usually great multitudes to be baptized at the same time." At Sect. 4. of the difference between a Baptistery and a Font, he says, "It will be easy to ob serve from what has been said, what difference there was anciently between a Baptistery and a Font, though the names be sometimes confounded together. For the Baptistery properly speaking was the whole house of building in which the Font stood, and where all the ceremonies of Baptism were performed; but the Font was only the foun tain or pool of water, wherein persons were immersed or baptized. This in the Greek writers is commonly called * Kouza, and by the Latinst Piscina, and is sometimes

*Vid. Cyril 4. Catech. 3. Mystag. 2. n. 4. Catech. n. 1. Chrysost Hom Tom. 5. p. 970.

Optal. lib. 3. p. 62.

expressly

expressly distinguished from the Baptistery, as a part from the whole. For Socrates* expressly stiles it the pool of the Baptistery, which name Dr. Beveridge † thinks was given to the Font, by way of allusion to the pool of Bethseda.-Optatus thinks that Piscina mystically alludes to our Saviour's technical name Sus, an acrostic composed of the initials of Christ's titles§; but Bingham thinks they rather refer to the common names of fountains, baths and pools in Gr. and Lat. writers. He also mentions the modern names of Du Fresnel, Gregory the Great, &c. Sect. 5. treats of how Fonts and Baptisteries were anciently adorned, and Sect. 5 of Baptisteries, being anciently more peculiar to the mother Church, but in B. 11. c. 6. Sect. 11. he treats of Baptism not being confined to any place in the Apostolic age, and Sect. xii. that in succeeding ages it was confined to the Baptisteries of the Church, except in case of sickness, Sect. xiii."

Having therefore extracted at length what is related by Stavely and Bingham, for those who may wish to refer to their own words on this subject, at this or any other time, I shall only subjoin that the latter, in an engraved plan, which he gives of an ancient church, with its Exadra, in Vol. I. Fol. Edit. p. 88. places the Baptisterium, as distinct from, and on one side of the church: and as containing the porch; and the Font in the center,—See B. 8. C. 3.

Should you think proper to insert this, I mean to refer to other authorities in my next; and with an apology for the length of this, subscribe myself,

Your obedient Servant,

JUVENIS.

I

ON THE PURITANS AND METHODISTS.
MR. EDITOR,

AM one of those who view, with no inconsiderable apprehensions of alarm, the rapid progress which methodism has of late years been making in this country.

* Socrat. lib. 7. c. 17.

+ Bevereg. Pan de ct. Not. in Concil. Nicen.c. 11.

Optat. lib. 3. p. 62. Hic est Piscis qui in Baptismate per in vocatio nem fontalibus undis inseritur, ut quæ aqua fuerat, a pisce etiam piscina

vocitetur.

§ Explained by Biingham in B. 1. C. 1. Sect. 2. Du Fresne Com, in Paul, Silentiar. p. 593, Nng

The

The wild, nay immoral doctrine which is taught by the preachers of this sect, is of itself a clear and sufficientproof, that neither the teachers nor their flocks can be well affected towards the Church of England, the principles of which are essentially at variance with those which they profess and inculcate. But if we consider the unwearied and insidious means they take to draw away the members of our Church, not merely from their Jawful and appointed pastors, but from communion with the Church itself; we are necessarily obliged to rank them among the adversaries of the Church of England, and from their persevering and indefatigable zeal, and the rapid increase of their numbers, adversaries of the most dangerous kind which she has had to encounter, since the days of the Puritans of old. I do not wish to judge uncharitably of the Methodists any more than I do of any other description of men, whether religious, civil, or political, but I cannot help thinking that there is a remarkable similitude between them and the Fanatics of two centuries ago; who, in the name of religion, proceeded by degrees to the commission of every species of violence and outrage, for the accomplishment of their extravagant and visionary projects.

It is true, the Methodists have not gone the same lengths as the Puritans of former times; and I am willing to believe they have no settled intention of that kind; but I am warranted by the history of both ancient and modern times, and by the principles of our common nature, in asserting that there is nothing that leads to more mischie vous effects than religious zeal, when unguided by sober judgment, and operating on a large body of men. When it has once taken an improper direction, there is no saying to what excess, either of moral evil, or extravagance, in the blindness of its frenzy, it may not proceed, and it must be allowed, of most human operations, but particularly of fanaticism, that the same causes, if suffered to proceed in their natural course, are productive of the same consequences.

66

The Puritans sat out with pretensions to sanctity far above their christian brethren; like the Pharisees of old, they made a shew of long prayers; they held not fast to the form of sound words; they spake not the words of soberness and truth; they had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge:" and they thus brought themselves to believe

that

that they were moved by divine influences; that they were stirred up by divine calls. Under these fallacious impressions they fancied that the regular ministers of the Church were blind and useless guides, and ignorant of their calling.

To listen to such teachers was, in their opinion, time uselessly employed; and it was at length held to be a sin to sit under their pulpits, and to continue any longer in communion with the Church of which they were the ministers. Separation from it consequently followed. Ignorant and low men without education or paris, set themselves up as teachers, under pretended commissions from God, to preach the gospel, as it is in Christ Jesus; they had their Conventicles, but they did not confine themselves to these; they travelled from place to place, to make converts; and held forth in the highways and public places, as divinely sent to sound the trumpet of salva tion to miserable and blind sinners; and to explain as with the tongues of second Apostles, the holy mysteries of religion. They inveighed against the corruptions of the Church, and set forms of prayer and book-preaching; they railed openly against the established clergy, as ignorant of gospel truths, and in a state of spiritual darkness; worldly minded and degenerate; as puffed up with human learning, but ungifted with the knowledge of hea venly things. They represented them as aliens from God, and as strangers to his grace; and their labours as barren and unprofitable to the purposes of spiritual edifica, tion. Any circumstance of individual or partial demerit in the regular Ministry, they eagerly caught hold of and magnified to their auditors.

"When ignorance," says the learned Dr. South, who lived in the time of the Protectorate, when Puritanisın was at its highest pitch, "succeeds in the place of learning, weakness in the room of judgment, we may be sure heresy and confusion will quickly come in the room of Religion." He had then witnessed the verification of his remark. The doctrine of the Puritans was well suited to easy consciences, It pointed a road to Heaven by no means difficult. Faith with them was every thing, and virtue next to nothing. It taught not that man to be perfect must "be thoroughly furnished unto all good works," it did not urge the sacrifice of sin, and "the following after righteousness;" their doctrine almost exclusively related to faith in the Redeemer as the means of salvation,