Volume 3. Number 5. December 5, 1825, pp. 198-205.

• Notes on a Tour by Alexander Campbell, pp. 198-199.
• Conscience.--No. I. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 199-200.
• Review of "Remarks on the Rise, Use, and Unlawfulness of Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Church of God.--By John M. Duncan, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Tammany Street, Baltimore."--Part First by Alexander Campbell, pp. 200-202.
• Universalism by Alexander Campbell, pp. 202-203.
• The Textuaries by Alexander Campbell, p. 203.
• To the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers by Alexander Campbell, p. 204.
• [Introductory Note and Answer to Query on Matthew] by Alexander Campbell, pp. 204-205.
• [Introductory Note to "To the Family Bible"] by Alexander Campbell, p. 205.
• To the Family Bible (Poem), p. 205.

      WE have been in the practice of making pretty extensive tours for the last three years, with a special reference to gaining correct information on the actual condition of the religious communities in this extensive and prosperous country. We have both read and travelled in quest of information, and have found additional proofs that there is a great difference between reading geography and travelling over the surface of a country; between hearing of, and seeing the religious world; between viewing men and things with our own eyes, and looking at them through the media of books and newspapers; between contemplating society in the closet, and mingling with it in actual operation. We have been long convinced that to live to purpose in any society, it is necessary to be well acquainted with the state of that society; it is necessary, in a certain sense, "to catch the living manners as they rise." Man is a creature incessantly developing himself--perpetually exhibiting new and strange appearances. And while it is true that, "as in water face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man," it is equally certain that the varied year and the ever-shifting scenery of the heavens and the earth are but emblems of the changes continually exhibiting in human society.

      Society is continually in a progressive state. It is either advancing in intelligence and virtue, or marching downwards in ignorance and vice. Regardless of the spirit and character of this age and of this great community, many are for holding the people down to the standards of the 16th and 17th centuries. Hence we find the creeds and forms that suited the age and circumstances of our ancestors, cotemporary with Charles I. bound with new rivets on the necks of our countrymen. This is not more absurd than to oblige men to wear the apparel which suited them when boys, and to compel men when they have no taste for the pranks and amusements of children, to go through all the forms.

      We are happy to find that, in spite of the reigning doctors of traditions, the people are gradually awaking to a sense of their religious rights and privileges. We find a large majority of most religious communities are quite unsettled in their views of religious principles and practices. They have lost the greater part of that confidence of being the most reformed christians, and the wisest in the world, which was the characteristic of every sect some quarter of a century ago. Many who thought their church almost infallible, now readily admit that she not only may, but that she actually does, frequently err. And there is a spirit of inquiry marching forth, before which, most assuredly, the rotten systems of tradition and error must and will fall.

      We learn, however, from experience, as well as from books, that the human mind is prone to extremes in all circumstances. We see when men have been long enslaved in church or state, they become anarchists in both. Tyranny and anarchy, if not themselves opposites, are, in this respect, the extremes of certain principles and practices. When a tyrant is dethroned, and his vassals liberated, he finds his quietus in a guillotine, and they convert his palaces into towers and strong holds for each other in rotation. So in the church. They who call the Pope Antichrist, and renounce any successor of St. Peter, set themselves up as Popes, and thus a whole congregation of protesters become a college of cardinals, and they will have no Pope because each one wishes to be Pope himself. Democrats in politics, and Independents in religion, are not unfrequently the greatest tyrants in the world. I am a democrat because I love kingly power, and don't like to part with it to other hands. And you are an Independent because you like papal supremacy, and wish to have your share in full. I only mean to say (for I am called a democrat and an Independent) that such is the issue of both, if not closely watched and constantly guarded.

      There is anarchy in the church as surely as there is anarchy in the state, and mutinies and insurrections are not confined to sailors and soldiers. My friend Thomas Biblicus, in every sect of which he was a member, and he had been a member of at least four, always opposed every appearance of tyranny in the priests and rulers of the congregations of which he was a member, and was ever and anon talking against his ecclesiastic ruler and priest, and declaiming loud and long on the liberties of the children of God. Finally he became an Independent, and was called to become the president of the meeting, and soon became a full grown despot that could bear no contradiction, and aimed at absolute power in the church.

      James Libertas, too, an old acquaintance, eternally declaimed against creeds as impositions on men's consciences, and yet he was always employed in imposing his own opinions upon his brethren, and frittered the society of which he was a member to nothing, by multiplying non-conformists at every meeting. Indeed, many are praising the life they will never lead, and condemning others for their own sins. My cousin, William Puritan, was always lamenting that he never heard "a sermon preached" against evil speaking, and was always telling what evil things his brethren were saying of one another, and yet he always concluded his remarks by observing, that while so many indulged in evil speaking, he must call them all hypocrites and railers.

      In my late tour of a thousand miles I was reminded of what I had before discovered, that religious sects and forms cover the earth as the different sorts of timber the soil. In one place it is all oak; in another, all pine; in no place all hickory; in some places every sort of timber. Here it is all Presbyterian, and Methodist [198] underwood; there it is all Methodist, and Presbyterian underwood. Here it is all Baptist, and there it is all sorts. Here some bend before they break, and there some break before they bend. I often asked myself, Is this all nature and that all grace? Or is it nature that covers this soil with Baptists, and grace that covers that with Presbyterians? Here Calvinism reigns predominant, and there Arminianism. On one side of the hill they pray to be kept from Arminian errors; on the other side, from Calvinistic errors. To tell a man in one county that he is an Arminian, is to traduce him; to tell him in another that he is a Calvinist, is no honor to him. Again I asked myself, Is this nature or grace? Upon the whole, I discover that many are Calvinists in the things pertaining to the next world, but Arminians to the things pertaining to this. They believe that all things in the next world will be as decreed; but in this they believe that men are rich or poor, honorable or base, according to their works.

      Among the strangest occurrences which I witnessed, I note the fact that I visited three associations this fall, having no written creed other than the scriptures of the apostles, and disclaiming any jurisdiction over the churches; they met, had a social interview, and parted without a quarrel. This, indeed, was to me a strange occurrence; for it is almost impossible to assemble half a dozen of teachers of any sect, and to keep good friends for one day.

      But one of the most prominent signs of the times, and one of the most significant, I cannot close these desultory remarks without noticing. It is this: The people every where have an insatiable appetite for sound doctrine. They eat whole sermons after sermons, and run after this and that preacher for sound doctrine, and are as hungry as before. Is he sound--is he sound in the faith? This is the all important question, on the solution of which depends the character of the preacher for orthodoxy or heterodoxy--and his reputation is all in all to him. The preachers too generally labor all their lives to die with the reputation of having been great and orthodox preachers; and the people follow them up to hear sound doctrine, to sit as jurors upon their views and abilities, and to bring in a verdict, which, if true, makes them good Christians, and the preacher either great or little, sound or unsound in the faith. "But, worse than all, and most to be deplored," sound doctrine is made, like charity, to cover a multitude of sins. One man gets drunk: he is arraigned before the bar of the church: he confesses his fault, and apologizes for it by a dogma of sound doctrine, viz. he is not his own keeper. He is pardoned. This is a sample of the use and importance of sound doctrine. Errors of opinion become in many places the cause of ecclesiastical degradation and of exclusion from the church, while immoralities are overlooked and ascribed to the "remaining corruptions" of human nature. Errors in opinion are treated as felons, while immoralities are indulged as a wayward child, the darling of his mother. This is not so much a sectarian peculiarity, as it is the characteristic of the times. It would be of infinite importance to the religious community and to the rising generation, if, from the teacher's chair, in the church, and in every christian family, less was said about this sound doctrine, and the time occupied therein devoted to recommending, enforcing, and practising that "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord."

EDITOR.      

      THERE is a proposition in proof of which a thousand arguments and facts can be adduced. It is the following: Throughout christendom every man's religious experience corresponds with his religious education. If any ambiguity rests upon this proposition, it arises not from the terms in which it is laid down, but from the religious systems we have received. This will be removed by a minute attention to what has passed and is now passing in our own minds, and under out own observation amongst men.

      One fact will throw much light on this subject. It is this: All those feelings, sensibilities, experience, called religious, begin with the conscience. Conscience is, by the popular philosophers in morals and religion, called the moral sense. Admitting the name as a correct one, it follows that, without conscience, or this moral sense, a man can have no more religious apprehension, feeling, or sensibility, than a blind man can have of colors, or a deaf man of sounds.

      But to adapt the above proposition to every apprehension, let it be noted that all systems lay down a consciousness or a conviction of sin or guilt, as previous to repentance and conversion--as the commencement of all true experience. Now in this, conscience is concerned, as all must admit; and this is all that is necessary to prove that all religious feeling, experience, sensibility, or whatever men may please to call it, begins with the conscience. Now if it can be proved that the consciences of men vary according to their education, our proposition is easily proved--that every man's religious experience corresponds with his religious education.

      A B feels guilty, or his conscience accuses him of sin, if he eat pork on Friday, or beef during lent. Whereas C D can eat fish, flesh, or fowl, whenever he is hungry and can be so fortunate as to get it, without the least sensibility of guilt, or conviction of sin. It must be admitted in this case and in ten thousand parallel ones, that there is a deep sense of guilt in the breast of A B, and none in the heart of C D, and that a difference of religious education is the cause or reason of this variety of conscience and diversity of religious experience.

      E F is convicted of guilt because his children have not been baptized--because he has not dedicated them to the Lord in baptism; and G H not and dare not have his baptized for the same reason that E F feels guilty in not doing it--because he thinks it a sin.

      J K will not be baptized himself in water--his conscience will not permit him; because water baptism is done away as a work of the flesh. L M would feel guilty to commune with N O, the Baptist, and N O would feel guilty to commune with L M, the Presbyterian. In fine, we might go on to show that there are as many consciences as sects, but it is superfluous; enough is said to show that every man's conscience is formed and varies from another according to his education.

      Many I know very improperly call convictions of sin, sensibility of guilt, and all the commotions of mind, perturbation and confusion through which they pass, and of which they are conscious--I say, they call it all christian experience. But in so doing, they make Turks, Jews, and Pagans Christians; for all have these religious sensibilities and experiences of which we speak. Infidels themselves have consciences; they fear and tremble though they do not believe, as demons. The conflicts, agonies, remorse, doubts, fears, horrors, reformations, penances, often [199] christened and confirmed as Christian experience, have no Christianity about them. Men that are not Christians experience such things. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, temperance, are the fruits of God's Spirit in the hearts of Christians.

      A man may put out his own eyes, and stop his own ears, and he may sear his own conscience; but all men have some religious sensibility about them at one period or other--they have a conscience which accuses or excuses, according to their education; and doubts, fears, agonies--hopes and joys too, originate, proceed, and terminate according to their moral sense.

      There are some monstrous or unnatural consciences which we can reduce to no system. If we were to attempt it, however, we should fail altogether, unless we could bring them to quadrate with a monstrous or unnatural education. Of this kind is the conscience of X Y W. X could not admit a Methodist preacher into his meeting-house and pulpit, but he could conscientiously admit a theatrical exhibition of folly, vanity, and vice into it, and sit, look on, and laugh at it. Y could not conscientiously, on the Sabbath, go to hear a moral and conscientious teacher of what is called free grace, because of his views of the atonement; and yet he could sit in his house all the Sabbath day and revile his religious neighbors; and on Monday lie and cheat if his interest required it. W debarred all from his communion table who would frequent plays and theatrical exhibitions, and yet he wrote several farces himself, and taught his students to act them in propria forma. He debarred all those who were guilty of occasionally hearing any other preacher than himself and his brother field marshals, and yet he could allow his people to hear and read plays and romances without ecclesiastic censure. In short, I see so much of this sort of conscience, as to induce some doubts whether those people have not seared their consciences altogether, and to have arrived at that state which is called by an apostle "past feeling." If they have any qualms of conscience, they are like the pulsations of a dying man or the last throes of a slaughtered ox.

      But I find myself digressing from my subject, and shall have to postpone the further illustration of the proposition with which I set out till my next.

EDITOR.      

      I SINCERELY lament the one sided zeal and squint eyed piety of our religious polemics on the subject of Mr. Duncan's book. Dr. Miller, of Princeton notoriety, published a short pamphlet in support of creeds, traditions, and clerical domination, which had for its passport into the hands of the laity, the combined influence of the whole theological school at Princeton, the heads of all the Presbyterian departments, and the priestly presses of the religious editors of that denomination. It was extolled by the ambitious clergy, recommended by the itinerants, extracted and eulogized by the Presbyterian editors, sold by book sellers, presidents of colleges, and ruling elders, lent by all the superstitious, and bestowed by the zealots of all the Presbyterian ranks. But Mr. Duncan's book, abounding with good sense; dressed in an elegant style; replete with sound logic; clear, forcible, and all persuasive in argument, exhibiting a happy alliance of reason, history, and revelation in establishing his views; and breathing a spirit, humble, affectionate, and pious--finds its way without any of Dr. Miller's auxiliaries. Not an editor, not a priest, high or low, to recommend it, and in the western country scarcely a bookseller to attempt to sell it. This is, however, just what I would have expected. The same spirit that prompted my neighbor, the president of Canonsburgh, to cram one of Dr. Miller's pamphlets into the pocket of every student that had room for it on any condition, prompts him, and all the lovers of the reigning ecclesiastics, to be as silent as the grave on Mr. Duncan's unanswerable performance. I say unanswerable; for I hesitate not to affirm that amongst all the advocates of creeds on this continent, not one can fairly meet and even plausibly answer the arguments in this book--It is consoling to observe, that notwithstanding the well concerted opposition of the lordly keepers of the keys of intelligence and consciences of the laity, this book is, by its own merit, and the majesty of its strength, commanding the attention, and enlightening the minds of many. I have only to subtract one single item from an unrestricted recommendation of this book, to all in the pulpit and out of it, as a book every way adapted to conciliate the attention, and to illuminate the mind of every reader; and that item is one in which few, if any, of the populars, will agree with me--It is this;--a number of scriptures are quoted in it, and applied in the popular sense. This, however, gives it more force with the populars, and will be regretted only by those who are laboring to affix the same ideas to the words and sentences in the New Testament, which the penmen attached to them. Perhaps Mr. Duncan, in thus quoting them, intended an "argumentum ad hominem."

      Although the subject of this book is to me now a trite one, and one which has become stale, the writer of it now standing in the same predicament, and with the same views, in which I found myself about a dozen years ago, I read it with both profit and delight. It caused me to do what Paul did when he met with his brethren at Appii Forum and the Three Taverns; "He thanked God and took courage."

      I am happy to find that Mr. Duncan is not the only Presbyterian who has the same views on the subject of his book. He is not the only one who teaches his hearers and his readers that creeds, confessions of faith, and ecclesiastical courts are all human institutions, and unlawful. That the Bible is perfectly adapted to all the ends and intentions of its author. He is not alone. There are several other members of the general assembly, who accord with his sentiments, and will unite with him in his efforts to liberate the people from the influence and thraldom of human creeds and church courts. Before giving a few extracts from this book I have only to express my desires and my hopes that Mr. Duncan, and all of the same views, may carry out their sentiments and arguments to their legitimate issue; and exhibit as ably in their lives, as he has in his views, that consistency which has in times past, and will in all time to come, be the greatest ornament of character, and the most convincing evidence that the disciples of Christ are all taught by God.

      We simply give a few of the sentiments of the writer without entering into his proof, to give our readers an idea of the work.

      In page 4 he expresses a just view of this age.--"All the world is in commotion; or, if not [200] roused, is waiting in awful suspense what tomorrow may bring forth. The human mind is in search of something which it has not yet learned to define: It is the simplicity of the gospel of Christ."

      To the same purpose he says, page 23.--"That a change, and a very great change too, is coming, Dr. G. himself believes; and so does every christian who has read his bible. God forbid that we should be disappointed; for, really, ecclesiastical matters are, at present, most terribly distracted."

      The author characterizes the times very correctly and beautifully, by telling what he has been made to feel. Page 36.--"We feel, that we cannot disown the supreme authority of our fathers, and determine to think for ourselves, without provoking the displeasure of professing christians. We feel, that we cannot furnish illustrations of evangelical truth, framed according to our own best conceptions; and modified to meet the peculiarities of the day in which we live, as far as we apprehend those peculiarities; without incurring the heaviest censure, under a gratuitous assumption that we are not "walking in the footsteps of the flock." We feel, that we cannot whisper a doubt as to the theological views of divines of "the olden time," or review the crude notions of our youth by the severer thoughts of maturer years, without finding our change to be our reproach, in the estimation of thousands whose good opinion we value. We feel, that to abandon that mode of scriptural exposition, which makes every text to utter some Calvinistic or Arminian dogma; and to exchange it for that which brings up every conscience to the bar of divine revelation, to answer for itself; or which pours the full radiance of the bible over the individual and social habits of men; is to subject ourselves to be reviled for a breach of ordination vows. These things we have been made to feel: and we cannot resist the testimony of our senses. The doctrines of our forefathers have been constituted, in practical life, the rules of our faith. We must have their ideas, their terms, their intellectual associations; every thing must be consecrated by antiquity, or we are not orthodox. Once more we ask, Who would not labor to redeem society from such mental servitude? Who can suppose that he has too much to sacrifice, to bring men back to God, and to induce them to think for themselves, as if they had a mind and conscience of their own.

      In page 12 he acquaints us with his design of writing.--"I write for truth, not for victory; and to demonstrate to the public, that some good reasons exist for my scruples on the subject of creeds and confessions. No man, who has a good cause to manage, has any need to grow vulgar, and descend to personalities; or if he does, he is a feeble advocate, and his cause would succeed much better without him. At the same time, it would be carrying the rules of politeness too far, to require a writer to enfeeble his argument, or not to give it all the force which the circumstances of his subject demanded. On these terms the principles of Dr. M's lecture shall be fairly controverted in the following pages; for I verily believe that he is erroneous, and very erroneous too, in what he has advanced, and that the sentence of heresy is not due to those to whom he awards it."

      In page 25 he admits the views ascribed to him in the following words:--"I do not deny the views which are ascribed to me: that is to say, I am an undisguised advocate of the following truths:--"That God alone is Lord of conscience, and that his bible is the only rule of faith and practice: Or, if the reader pleases, that church courts and human creeds or confessions are not entitled, in any shape whatever, to control the human conscience."

      In page 91 he places himself under the banners of the motto which designates this paper. "We are to call no man or body of men, Master on earth. One is our Master, even Christ. His word is the sole standard by which, as christians, or as churches, we must stand or fall. Happy will it be for us, if we can appeal to the Great Searcher of hearts, that we have not followed the traditions and inventions of men, but the sure word of prophecy, which is given to us to be a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path, to guide us in the way of peace."

      In page 101 we have the true philosophy of the difference between primitive and modern christianity.--"We believe, that thus the primitive church did actually live in purity and peace, and that her purity was never corrupted, nor her peace destroyed, until the idea of ecclesiastical power had maddened and degraded her sons and daughters; and led them to substitute human for divine law. We believe, that the whole world is, at this present moment, aiming at a return to the principles and habits of original simplicity, in political, as well as ecclesiastical matters; and that all the political and ecclesiastical powers on earth, cannot prevent the changes which have commenced their reforming and revolutionizing process."--This is not more bold than true.

      From page 109 to page 112 he adduces five facts that explode Doctor Miller's theory of ancient human creeds. Of these I can adduce but one as a specimen, page 108.--"The second fact is, that synods and councils, whose province it is to form these authoritative rules, did not appear in the christian church until the middle of the second century; were a pure human contrivance, when they did appear; and did nothing but mischief, by interfering with the immensely important, and greatly chequered, interests of christendom, which they were not qualified to manage."

      In opening the pages of Mosheim, which he does to great effect against Dr. Miller's views, he pays the following pretty compliment, en passant, to such creeds as the Westminster, page 119.--"It is altogether a mistake to suppose, that these ecclesiastical documents, are unsuspected, and untreacherous guardians of truth. They never protected truth nor promoted unity; they never gave health to the church's soul, nor grace and beauty to the church's form; they never hushed contention, nor reconciled conflicting opinions, since they were first introduced. They do none of these things now; but, as of old, they do at this day tarnish the beauty, distract the peace, and cripple the efforts of the church of God. They did then, and they do now, set brothers at variance, and teach them to divide their inheritance on unfair principles, and in the midst of strife and discord. And these things they will always do, while they are permitted to regulate ecclesiastical matters, and divide the church into voluntary associations."

      In page 174 we have the following apostrophe to the advocates of creeds--with which we shall close our random extracts at present, promising a few more hereafter on the superlative character of the bible.

      "O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What more could have been done to [201] my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" says the Lord. Come, you ministers of Christ, accept the challenge and reason with your master. Tell him of the insufficiency of his bible, and of your happier legislation to forming creeds! Make it appear in his presence, that there is a necessity for other tests of christian character, than the one he has furnished. Tell him that it is impossible for him to get along in peace and love, unless the form in which he revealed truth be altered, and a concise summary of moral doctrines be framed, as a companion for the bible. Take your stand on the threshold of his holy temple, and proclaim aloud, that men who will not listen to Moses and the prophets, to Christ and his apostles, will be persuaded by your creeds; and that unless this demand is gratified, the church must crumble to pieces. The whole angel host would frown at such presumption."

EDITOR.      

      THERE is a great deal said in this age upon the universal restoration of all demons and wicked men to the eternal happiness of saints and angels. It is true that the demons are yet in purgatory, and that those that die in their sins are to go through a purgatorial punishment proportioned to the number and magnitude of their sins at the allowance of ------------ years for each transgression according to some systems; and according to others on the ratio of ------------ hundreds of years. Satan and his colleagues have been out of the presence of God now for six thousand years, and how far they have got through this purgatorial punishment is not yet settled. We have had, for the last year, so many questions proposed to us from correspondents on this system, that a little volume would be requisite to give them suitable answers. We are not at leisure, nor have we so much energy of mind, or body, as would be sufficient to give, them even a respectful answer. We can only, in a summary way, acknowledge the receipt of them. Some, indeed, speak with as much certainty upon this subject as if they had just finished and gone through this purgatorial chastisement, and visited our world fraught with intelligence from Hades. They have discovered that all the caveats and threats in the New Testament are like the bugbears, and stories of ghosts and witches, which nurses tell to their peevish children when they would scare them to sleep. They tell lies; but it is with a good intention. They know there are no ghosts nor witches to disturb the children; but it would not be safe to tell them so. It is necessary to lie. Just so, when the apostles and the Saviour spoke of aionion or everlasting punishment, and of aionion or everlasting destruction, they knew there was no such thing; but they found that men could not be governed or managed without those bugbears, and were under the necessity of doing as the nurses aforesaid. They were under the necessity of telling lies from a good intention. They used such words and phrases to representing the duration of the punishment of the wicked, as they used in representing the continuance of the happiness of the righteous; yet they knew that the one was to terminate some fifty thousand years hence, while the other would never end. I have sometimes thought that it was exceedingly ungrateful in those knowing ones to disclose the secret. For if God was so kind to them as to afford them a special revelation for their own comfort, while he evidently holds out tremendous prospects to the wicked in terrorem, it is unkind on their part, to blab out the secret, and thus divest the governor of the world, of the most puissant means of keeping it safe for the righteous to live in it. They seem to act the part of an intruder into the family of a matron who was succeeding pretty well in managing her restive children, by the terrors of ghosts and wizards, but the intruder tells them their mother is deceiving them; and thus the little pests scream out afresh, and bid defiance to all the ghosts and demons in the nation.--I say there is such a similarity in the cases, that we cannot avoid associating them in our mind, and we think it not unreasonable to inscribe them on paper.

      I know the mighty war of words that can be paraded on any subject. Since Peter De Alva wrote forty volumes on the nativity of the Messiah, I am afraid to enter the list with those worthy champions, if it were only on one of Horn Tooke's ifs. The Universalists have a pretty theme too--the benevolence of God, and the ultimate felicity of every creature, and thousands will hear them gladly. ¹ When a few weeks ago I visited the Baltimore penitentiary, and saw more than three hundred and fifty convicts suffering for their evil deeds, it struck me what a fine popular topic it would have been there to have announced to the suffering miscreants, that while the lawyers, judges, and their keepers, made them believe that the governor and the laws of the state required their continuance there for life, it was all craft and policy; that neither the moral character of the governor, nor the just exposition of the laws, would authorize any such long and cruel treatment. No, no. His character and his promulgations require that if you only feel sorry for what you have done and promise to do better, you will be set at liberty in a few days or hours. I say, something like this would have been a popular topic in such a place, and I am sure if I could have harangued them thus, under specious circumstances, I would have had many to hear me gladly, and to wish that it were true.

      I do not, however, think that the Universalists are sinners above all others, in that they have run to one extreme, because some sectaries have run into the opposite. When I hear one man talk about his elect and reprobate infants, and little ones in hell not a span long; and hear another describing the flight of the demons from Stygian darkness, and representing the Devil and his messengers ascending to that heaven whence they were once excluded; I view them both alike--each mounted on his winged horse, and attempting to soar beyond the regions of [202] revelation. Because A disapproves the theory of B on any subject, I am not convinced that A's theory is correct. It is a bad way to correct one extreme by running into another. One may as well be wrecked on Scylla as on Charybdis. But, to change my voice, I would earnestly request those preachers of universal deliverance from hell, to stop and think how far the drift and scope of their efforts correspond with the obvious drift and scope of the preachings found in the New Testament. As Mr. Kneeland will have it, aionion life, and aionion death, or aionion destruction, are the mighty and majestic sanctions of the gospel of Jesus the Messiah. Now without saying a word upon his translation, if such it may be called, (and I have it now on the table before me, and Griesbach lying under it) it must be admitted that the bible always holds out something terrible to the wicked, to them who disbelieve and disobey Jesus the King, at his coming to judge the world. This, I say, must be, and, I believe, is, admitted, by all Universalists. Now, if it be admitted, as it must be, and as it most generally is, that the wicked shall be cast off from the presence of God and his holy messengers, into inconceivable and inexpressible anguish and misery, in the judgment; it is all idle to talk and contend about the termination of it. There is neither days, weeks, nor months, in that state. There is no standard conceivable, nor revealed, by which the length or continuance can be measured. If they are damned or condemned at all, it is in vain, on rational principles, to attempt to date it in a world where there is no calendar; and we are very sure that all the Universalists on earth cannot produce one sentence in all the revelation of God that says any thing about the termination of the punishment of the wicked. The bible often tells us of its commencement; but not once of its end. It is wise for us not to live upon conjectures, nor to build systems upon dreams and visions, which may cover us and our children in the ruins, and one day cause us to exclaim--It would have been better for us that we had never been born.--I am content to be assured that whosoever hears the gospel and believes and obeys it, shall be saved, and that whosoever hears it and disbelieves it, shall be damned.--I know no gospel in proclaiming to sinners on earth that after they are damned in judgment, they may, by a long series of awful punishment, be brought to repentance, and be delivered from hell. This I am sure is no gospel in this world, and what it might be if announced in Hades or Gehenna, or by whom it could be preached there, I will not, I dare not, conjecture.--But of one thing we are assured, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; and an awful experiment to attempt to relax or weaken the glorious and tremendous sanctions of the gospel of his grace.

EDITOR.      

      THE scrap doctors or text expositors have not only very generally obscured the words they proposed to illustrate, but they have made their office accessible to every novice, and introduced a band of "public preachers" that are a disgrace to the age in which we live. Any body with, or without common sense, can become a scrap doctor. A man that can neither read nor spell can "preach a sermon on a text, or preach from a text." I am authorized to state, as a well attested fact, that, not long since, in the District of Columbia, hard by the capital of the United States, where all the heads of department live, and all foreigners resort, a certain textuary did take for his text the words of a wicked man, found in Matthew 25: the false accusation of the wicked servant who told his lord--"You are an austere man." This was the text. The preacher could not spell well, and he made it "You are an oyster man." But the misfortune was, "he raised his whole doctrine" on the word oyster. In his exordium, for he too was an orator, he told his audience that his object was to show how fitly the Saviour was compared to an oyster-man, or oyster-catcher. Accordingly his method was--1st. To show the coincidence or resemblance between his Saviour and an oyster-man. 2d. To point out how suitably oysters represented sinners. 3d. To demonstrate how beautifully the tongs which the oyster-man uses to take up oysters, represented "ministers of the gospel." 4th. To prove that the oyster-man's boat was a fit emblem of the gospel and of a "gospel church," into which the oysters or sinners are put when caught or converted. His fifth head I have forgotten; but perhaps it was to show how the cooking and eating of oysters represented the management and discipline of those sinners caught by those ministers of the gospel. He concluded with a few practical hints according to custom.

      What a happy mistake was this and how fortunate for the audience! And yet he was called and sent by God to preach his gospel!!!!

      I once heard, with my own ears, a pious textuary deliver an introductory sermon to an assembly of divines from the words of the devil, or from what was equivalent--the words of a damsel speaking from the impulse of a spirit of divination. The soothsayer said of the apostles--"These are the servants of the most high God which show to us the way of salvation." He did not "stick so well to his text" as the aforesaid textuary; for while the divining damsel applied her words to the apostles, the divine preacher appropriated them to himself and such folks as the oyster expositor.

      A pious divine, who may, for aught I know, be yet dubbed D. D. whose spirit within him was vehemently moved at the knots of ribbon on the ladies' bonnets, ransacked from Genesis to Jude for a text to afford a pretext for giving scope to the fervor of his soul against those obnoxious knots, found the following words--"Let him that is on the house top not come down." Not being a perfect speller, though a good preacher; and wishing to have a text just to the point, he selected these four words--"Top not come down." Pro causa euphonia he prefixed a k to the negative particle and converted it into a noun theological. His method was natural and easy--1st. He proposed, to explain the top knots. 2d. To give a divine command for their demolition. 3d. To expatiate on the reasonableness of the injunction, come down. 4th. To denounce the eternal perdition of the disobedient. He, too, was a preacher who appropriated the words of Isaiah: "How beautiful are the feet of them that publish the gospel of peace, that bring glad tidings of good things." He was sent by God--if we could believe him.

      Now, courteous reader, will you allow me to say what I am sure is a fact; that I have heard hundreds of sermons, and read volumes of them, on texts, and from the learned too, which, though not so evidently ridiculous to every body, were really as absurd as the above.

EDITOR. [203]      

      RESPECTED AND RESPECTABLE FRIENDS: YOU have, as a society, long contended against water baptism, on the supposition that it once was, but is now done away. The Spirit that moves you, has moved me to address you, not, indeed, to provoke you to a controversy with me, nor to speak to you as some sectaries speak to you. I am not about to use the same arguments against your views, which you have often heard, and as often considered. But for some time past, that Spirit which has suggested so many good things to you, has suggested one consideration to me, which I am constrained, by it, to make known to you, believing it to be enough to settle all doubts on the subject of baptism. This consideration will appear the more weighty to you, inasmuch, as it is founded upon your own acknowledgments. I have never seen it presented to you by any of those who would slander you into a compliance with their clerical schemes. I intreat you to pay it due attention. It is this: You believe that there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. But the fooleries of your opponents drove you to say that this one baptism, is the baptism of the Spirit. Now if I can show that this one baptism cannot mean the baptism of the Spirit, you will, no doubt, admit that while there is but one baptism, you ought to submit to it. In the first place, then, I offer you this proposition: That no gift, operation, or influence, of the Spirit, was ever, by any inspired writer, called the baptism of the Holy Spirit, save what happened on Pentecost, and in the first calling of the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius. If this be true, then this one baptism, of which Paul speaks, is an immersion in water.

      Now, that this position may evidently appear to be true, it will be necessary to notice two points: First, That no man who was the subject of any gift, impression, influence, or operation of the Spirit of God, other than the Pentecostian, is said to have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. And, in the second place, that the promise of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and its accomplishment, are, by the New Testament writers, exclusively applied to the times and places above specified. In illustration of the first point, it is only necessary to observe, that it is confessed that many of the Old Testament saints were the subjects of influences, gifts, and operations of the Spirit. By it the prophets spake, and by it the oracles were composed. Yet not one of these are said to have been baptized by the Holy Spirit. Again, during the ministry of John and labors of the Lord on earth, many persons, and especially the apostles, were the subjects of gifts impressions, operations, and influences of the Spirit, yet those persons were not said to be, and, in fact, were not baptized, in the Spirit. For this plain reason, with all their gifts, they were the subjects of the promise, "He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire." To them was the spiritual baptism promised by the Saviour. The demonstration of the second point will confirm and establish the first.

      Acts i. 5. The Saviour, after he rose from the dead, and just before his ascension into heaven, promised his disciples that they would soon be baptized in the Holy Spirit. His words are--"You shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days hence" Now, my dear friends, observe this baptism was then future, consequently all the spiritual influences they had hitherto experienced did not constitute this baptism, for why then should it be a matter of promise? Please observe again, the time for its accomplishment is fixed and defined--"Not many days hence"--Pentecost was not many days hence. Not many days after the Lord's ascension they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, and in fire, Acts 2. Peter there and then demonstrated that this outpouring of the Spirit which put all the apostles and others fully under its influence, called on this account a baptism or immersion, was the accomplishment of former promises. This baptism was never repeated till God called the Gentiles. And in order to show his impartiality he made no difference between them and the Jews. Peter shows that there was no other outpouring of the Spirit from Pentecost till the calling of the Gentiles. "God, says he, gave the Gentiles the same gift that he did to us Jews at the beginning" of the reign of his Son, or of the Christian age. There had been no outpouring from Pentecost till that time. Pentecost was the only day, and Jerusalem the only place, analogous to this. From all which it is apparent that no other gifts, operations, or influences of the Spirit from the beginning of the world till Pentecost are called the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and that no similar outpouring had intervened from the first calling of the Jews till the first calling of the Gentiles, and that the various graces, called the fruits of the Spirit, neither are nor can be called the baptism of the Spirit.

      Once more observe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit, was to be a visible baptism. This the promise implied. We all know that the two occasions called the baptism of the Spirit were visible and brilliant--but, my friends, is your baptism of the Spirit visible or invisible? They were enveloped in fire and covered with tongues--And it is worthy of note that all the subjects of this baptism could instantaneously speak foreign languages which they never learned--Can the subjects of your spiritual baptism do this also?

      Now the one baptism of which Paul speaks in the present time, when writing to the Ephesians, was not that past on Pentecost, nor can it, by any arguments deduced from scripture, be applied to any influences in our day, whether "ordinary or extraordinary." While then you admit that there is one baptism, and as you see it is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit, for which there is now no use nor promise; and which we have never seen as exhibited on those occasions; this one baptism is that in water; and you will, no doubt, remember that when Cornelius and his friends had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the great apostle Peter commanded them to be immersed in the name of the Lord. And I know you would rather say that it is more probable that George Fox might have erred than the apostle Peter.

	Accept these hints from your friend,
	THE EDITOR.

      MANY letters, like the following, are on file, and remain to be answered. This is one of the oldest date, and priority, in this respect, ought to be regarded.

V----------s, August 29, 1825.     

      DEAR BROTHER,--For the last year past, I have been both a subscriber and a reader of your Christian Baptist. I think I have, upon many subjects, been much interested and benefited; and am of opinion that the principles which you advocate, will prove more and more interesting to the Christian who inquires after the truth. You have, in some one of your numbers, suggested a plan for reading and understanding more easily, the word of God. I have thought [204] it a good one, and immediately determined to pursue it. I have progressed as far as the Acts of the Apostles. And find some scriptures in the meaning of which I cannot satisfy myself; and from your disposition to make known the truth, I take the liberty of asking from you your views upon some verses which I shall put to you for explanation, believing that you will communicate your views of them to the public through your useful paper: Matt. v. 22. 39. ch. vi. 25. ch. xix. 12. The only way to serve God acceptably, according to my views of his character, is to do his will, and in order to do that will, we should understand what he requires of us in his written word.--Respectfully, &c.

Dear Brother,

      A PARTIAL answer to your request is all I can give you at this time. A correct translation of Matthew v. 22, renders it more intelligible:--"Whosoever is vainly incensed against his brother shall be obnoxious to the judges; whosoever shall call him fool shall be obnoxious to the sanhedrim; but whosoever shall call him miscreant (or apostate wretch) shall be obnoxious to a Gehenna of fire," (or to burning alive in the vale of Hinnom.) The Saviour informs his disciples that while the Jews then only brought those guilty of actual murder before the judges; under his reign, the least degree of anger would subject a person to a punishment analogous to that which was usually inflicted by the inferior courts; that the expression of anger in the way of contempt of a brother should render the persons obnoxious to the punishment analogous to that inflicted by the sanhedrim, which was stoning to death; and that the highest expression of anger with the tongue should expose the transgressor to a punishment analogous to being burned alive in the vale of Hinnom. He, in this instance, as his method was, communicates the doctrine of his reign through the medium of existing customs, institutions, and avocations of men. He, through these allusions, teaches his disciples that every aberration from brotherly love would be taken cognizance of by him.--Anger in the heart, anger expressed in the way of contempt, and anger expressed with marked hatred. All laws, human and divine, award punishment proportioned to the crime or offence. His design in the context renders his meaning apparent, and teaches all the disciples that while he mercifully forgives the offences of those who confess their faults and forsake them, he severely scrutinizes their thoughts and words, with even more severity than men are wont to exhibit to the overt acts of iniquity.

      Matthew vi. 25, becomes perfectly plain when fairly translated. Thus--"You cannot serve God and Riches. Therefore I charge you, be not anxious about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor about your body what you shall wear."

      The context gives the following as the spirit and design of Matthew xix. 12. The question was--Whether it were not better in some conditions to live unmarried. The Saviour answered, "They alone are capable of living thus on whom the power is conferred. For there are some persons who never had any desire to enter into the nuptial bonds. Others have been prevented by violence, and others from their zeal to publish the reign of heaven, have divested themselves of any such desire. Let him act this part who can act it." This is the spirit of the reply and the reasons for his answer. My limits will not permit me to be more particular at this time.

      Wishing you God speed in your inquiries, I am your brother in the search of truth.

EDITOR.      

      THE following Ode we understand was written by an emigrant to this country, who, in the midst of misfortunes in a foreign land, was brought to remember the blessings he enjoyed when under the pious tutelage of his christian parents. To what extent the tuition and example of the parents was a blessing to the son, we have not yet learned; but one thing is certain, that it is seldom in vain.--ED.

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