be lost in the mazes of private judgment, if he did not commit himself to the control of one personal authority, and gather his attention and affection round one centre, choose one esteemed judgment to be his appeal, rest himself in the direction of one man, and trust that he be not taken away from him, and it be said that he like the King Jehoash, 'did right,' but all the days of Jehoidah the Priest." "Roman Catholics have their leader, their personal appeal, but provided for them without their care; like the fabled Phoenix, his life and presence never pass away; the embodied law of Romanism, so far more absolute, so far more independent, and of so vastly more universal authority than any member of the Church of England could either claim or consent to be, is an ever-renewing nucleus of fresh power and opinion. To follow a leader or leaders, then, can neither be uncatholic nor inexpedient, since it is both the custom of Christendom and the instinct of the soul."* We are happy to know that under all this sophistry and falsehood, there is a great truth concealed, which if brought to the light would be fatal to it. We have an Infallible Head-the Divine Saviour! and renounce the vicegerency of Popes, Patriarchs, and Churches. We have inspired Apostles, and leave the apostolic fathers and their unapostolic successors to adjust their respective claims, to contradict each other and the word of God. We are unmoved by the rhetoric and the rhapsody, which would invest fiction with reality, and give to an airy nothing a local habitation and a name. We confess "to the fire that came down from heaven on the Pentecostal morning;" but all the rest is vapour. Who can point us to "that temple whose lamps were lighted first by the great apostles from the fire which came down from heaven in the Pentecostal morning, and have been tended since by day and night even to this far time, by martyrs and confessors, anointed bishops and consecrated priests, mighty men of God, and "Rest in the Church," p. 60.

holy virgins, and will never be extinguished, never burn out, never be lost, until in the illumination of the New Jerusalem there shall remain of them 'no need?'"'

In this volume, which may be regarded as "the speak out" of the party, we learn that there is a combined struggle of the Romish and Anglican Churches against the Protestantism of England which is associated with the German and French and American philosophies— the grand fundamental vice of each of which is claiming for the individual man the prerogative of inquiring and thinking for himself on all subjects human and Divine. We surely cannot mistake the meaning of notes like these. Referring to this struggle between Anglicanism and Protestantism, we have the following astounding flight: "Pontiffs who dared to excommunicate kings and queensbishops who hesitated not to demand, and whose asserted power was confident to gain, the deposition of heretical or refractory ministers+-priests who suffered loss of goods, and liberty, and life, rather than burn incense to inaugurated Heresy, are looking on in sorrow, in anxiety; it remains to be discovered whether these are to be hushed in serene gratulation, or quenched in eternal scorn. Hildebrand who once cleansed the Episcopate of Europe by the simple ordeal of the sacred Doxology,-A'Becket, weighing lightly at the purchase of his lifeblood the shrine of the pilgrimage of a million penitents, - Laud, the martyrprimate of Canterbury of yet more trying times; these are looking on. Time has brought the occasion to disclose the value of their several genius or agony; the hour that shall show whether their great investiture has been made in a secure commerce, and shall yield to the Church the rent to defray its liabilities."

"Put out the light," and the works of darkness may be carried on without interruption. A worldly hierarchy may be built up in the place of Christ's "Rest in the Church," p. 22. Smithfield, to wit!

He

of Lichfield, while in words protesting against all union with the Church of Rome, and lightly censuring some of her practices, is in principle one with her, on the great doctrine of justification, fasts, penance, apostolical succession, and most unequivocally on the sacraments. has the assurance, in his "Bernard Leslie," to declare, "that our Lord himself prominently insisted upon the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ;" and he asserts, that if this doctrine be not "the cardinal point of the Christian scheme, in point of order at least, it holds the first rank." "It is, in fact, the starting-point of the Christian's course. It is the beginning of the life of God in his soul. It is the implanting in the heart the seed of Divine grace, thenceforth to be cherished and confirmed. It is the grafting of the redeemed soul into the stock of Christ, in which, if he remain firm, he is assured of salvation."* The same thing, in every variety of phrase, is affirmed, ad nauseam, in the "Tales of a Village;" by the Rev. Francis E. Paget, Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. On one occasion he refers a profane and semi-infidel to his "baptismal vows," and complains that his life and habits were very different from what they ought to be, and very inconsistent with all to which he pledged himself when he was made a "member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." How perplexing is all this to common sense! A child of God and a child of Satan!-Is not this a moral hybrid, without parallel in the history of anomalies? But we have a reiteration of the same heterogeneous combination-"a member of Christ and a blasphemer of his name!" It is obviously a clergyman's duty not to allow, either the doctrines he is commissioned to teach, or his sacred office, to lose respect in the eyes of men; and yet, how can either be brought into the company of the bold and open scorner, without their being exposed to the licentiousness of his rude irreverend tongue? But "Bernard Leslie," p. 140.

The writer of "Amy Herbert "—a work to which the imprimatur of the Rev. W. Sewell, Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford, is appended, represents two misses, just entering on their teens, discussing the merits of this baptismal absurdity. She is not alone in confounding inward grace and an outward inheritance. But it seems either may be forfeitedthat the regenerated may be the slave of every sin that destroys the soul, and the inheritor of the kingdom of heaven a child of wrath.

"I don't think I was right," said Amy: "I am sure indeed I was not; for I spoke to mamma about it afterwards, and she told me it was vanity."

we

"As for that," said Dora, "every one is vain."-" But then," said Amy, promised at our baptism that we would not be so; and mamma says that persons who are vain soon become envious, and that envy leads to very great crimes, and that if we indulge in vanity we can never tell how wicked we shall become by-andby."

"I cannot understand why you are always talking of baptism, Amy," said Dora; "it seems as if it had something to do with everything, according to your notions."

"According to mamma's notions, you mean; she reminds me of it so often that I cannot possibly forget it."

"But there is no one in the world who has kept the promise," said Dora; "and then they say we have such a wicked nature; what is the use of thinking about being good, when we have no power to be so?"

"I do not think I understand it quite," replied Amy; "and I am sure, Dora, I cannot teach you; but I could tell you what mamma tells me."

*Paget's "Tales of a Village," third series, pp. 56, 66. Who ever makes it?

"And what is that?" asked Dora.

"Mamma says," answered Amy, "that when we are born we all have very wicked natures; but that, when we are baptized, God gives us a new nature which is good; and that, when we grow up, we can do right if we really wish to do it, because we have the Holy Spirit always to help us; and once, when I made an excuse for something I had done wrong, by saying that it was natural, and I could not help it, she told me that it might have been an excuse if I had not been baptized, but that now it was no excuse at all."

Then, what are we to do?" said Dora: "no person really keeps their promise. How wicked we must all be!"

"Mamma says we are," replied Amy; "and that we ought to be so very care. ful about our emallest actions, and our words and thoughts, because it is so dangerous to do wrong now."

"But," said Dora, "I cannot see why people should be baptized, if it only makes them worse off than they were."

"Oh! but indeed, Dora," exclaimed Amy, looking rather shocked, "it makes us better off than we were before,-a great deal better off; for you know the service about baptism says that we are made God's children, really his children; and that, when we die, we shall go to heaven, if we try and do right now, and beg him to forgive us when we do wrong, for our Saviour's sake."

"I do not understand it," said Dora; "and I never heard any one talk about it till I came to Emmerton."

"I did not understand it half as well," replied Amy, "till mamma told me a story about uncle Harrington's birth-day, and said that, when we were baptized, we were made heirs of heaven, just as he was heir to this place and all the property and even now it puzzles me very much, and very often I cannot believe that it is all true; but I try to do so, because mamma says it is, and shows me where it is written in the Bible."

"But how can we tell that we have a

good nature given us at our baptism?" said Dora: "I never feel it; I don't think I do anything that is right all day long you may have a good nature, Amy, and I think you have; but I know I have not."

"Mamma says," answered Amy, "that being sorry for our faults, and wishing to do better is a sign of it: and you know, Dora, you often tell me how much you wish to do right; and sometimes, when I have had a great many wrong feelings,

vain feelings, I mean, and angry and envious ones, the only thing that makes me at all happy again, is because I feel sorry for it."

Dora sighed deeply. "I wish," she said, "that the bad nature would go all at once, I am so tired of wishing to do good, and always doing wrong; and then I begin to think there is no use in trying. It would be easier if I could believe that it was true about baptism, because then it would appear as if there was something to help me; but I have always heard people talk about having such a very wicked nature,-till at last it seemed foolish to hope to be good, as if it were impossible: not but what I do try sometimes, Amy," she continued, with a sudden impulse to be unreserved, which she had occasionally felt when talking to her cousin since their little disagreement,

"I do try sometimes, though I dare say you will not believe it, because I am so cross."*

Dora is not the only one that is disposed to doubt, nay to deny altogether, the statement so constantly repeated by Tractarians on the subject of baptism, and which Amy, with so much artless simplicity, pressed upon her attention. This is not the place in which to argue the question at length, or indeed at all. But it must be obvious to those who study the Scriptures,-that regeneration, as taught by Christ and his apostles, stands in no relation to baptism, as the cause or instrument of producing it. If administered to an adult, it must be on the profession of his faith, Amy Herbert," vol, ii., p. 4.

* 66

which is the fruit of regeneration, and therefore precedes baptism. If administered to an infant, faith is the prospective, and not the immediate result. Nowhere in the Bible is it declared that baptism originates any inward or spiritual benefit in those to whom it is administered. Baptism is not the renewing of the Holy Ghost-regeneration is. Baptism is the sign of what already is, or must be, in order to the real possession of religion. In the adult it is taken for granted-in the infant it is anticipated resulting not from baptism, but from the truth of God exhibited to the mind, and impressed upon the heart, by the Holy Spirit. Baptismal regeneration has no foundation in experience. If, indeed, the answer of the sponsor were bona fide the answer of the infant, we should then have the evidence of miracle in favour of the doings of the priest. As it is, there is no promise made regarding the baptized child. The question is-Wilt thou renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil? It is addressed to the unconscious babe, the reply is made by an adult, who is very ignorant, or very impious, saying, "I will,”—and the infant is from that moment regenerated. "God, the Holy Ghost, the Divine nature itself, is communicated to it." We read but of One thus distinguished-who, in consequence, grew in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man. baptism was not the medium of that communication of which it is said: "God gave not the Spirit by measure unto him." We ask for one, only one, authenticated case, that any person ever received the Holy Ghost at his baptism, and whose conversion to God, holy life, and preparedness for heaven can be traced to this event. The evidence of a million daily and hourly occurring facts is directly opposed to the monstrous assumption. If a man has an immense field, and we observe him sowing it with we know not what seed, and upon inquiry we learn that it is wheat, we naturally expect that wheat will be the produce. The Church of England is this field-her

But

Clergy are the sowers,-a certain germinating principle in Baptism, as they assure us, is the seed; that is, we are told the Holy Spirit is thus sown through the length and breadth of the land. We know what are the natural fruits of the Spirit. If in the one field, instead of a plentiful crop of wheat we should see only cockle, we should impeach the understanding of the husbandman; and if in the other the very opposite of what was predicted grows up in luxuriant abundance-ignorance, irreligion, vice, and misery-we should be shocked with the impiety and wickedness which could venture to put forth such pretensions, to be contrasted by such results. Palpable as all this is, the Tractarians still attempt to delude the nation into the vain belief— that they, and they alone, in connection with their Popish coadjutors, are the regenerators of the apostolic descent. Mr. Gresley, in his "Bernard Leslie," expresses his serious apprehensions that Dissenters have never received Christian baptism;-"For who," he asks, "can perform that holy ceremony?"-and he adds: "The apostles, before their departure from the world, commissioned others to perform this and other ministerial functions. Again; the bishops whom they ordained commissioned others in their turn. There never was any doubt, that persons so ordained by the bishops, have authority and power to baptize; but whether any others have the same power, there is very great doubt." It seems unbaptized persons are not in a state of salvation, nor in the way of salvation. Uncovenanted mercy, by possibility, may extend to the unbaptized children of schismatics and heretics but as a general usage of the Divine government, they are among the doomed and the lost! The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is even more indispensable than baptism. But all its efficacy depends upon the consecration of the elements by priests ordained by a bishop: "In every age of the church, these have been well known as the persons who are authorized to consecrate