Volume 6. Number 10. May 5, 1829, pp. 542-552.

• Essays on Man in His Primitive state, and under the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian Dispensations.--No. VIII.: Patriarchal Age.--No. IV. by Alexander Campbell, pp. 542-543.
• Communication by A Lover of the Whole of Divine Truth, pp. 543-544.
• Profession and Principle, or Faith in Words and Faith in Works by Alexander Campbell, pp. 544-547.
  • [Extract from "Essay on the Evidence of Christianity"] by Thomas Chalmers, pp. 545-547.
• Election.--No. II. by Philip (Walter Scott), pp. 547-548.
• The Pedobaptist by Alexander Campbell, pp. 548-549.
• Paidobaptist Logic by [Alexander Campbell], p. 549.
• [Bibliographic Note to "New Translations"] by [Alexander Campbell], p. 549.
• New Translations (from A Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World) by John Evans, p. 549.
• A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.--No. XXXI.: Discipline of the Church.--No. VIII.: Queries for the Christian. Baptist--Continued by Alexander Campbell, pp. 549-551.
  • Query XXV. (On Exclusion of Church Members), pp. 549-550.
  • Query XXVI. (On Majority Rule), pp. 550-551.
• For the Christian Baptist by Religious Herald, p. 551.
• Desultory Remarks by Alexander Campbell, pp. 551-552.

      OUR last number adverted to the priesthood of the Patriarchal Age. An objection has been made to one sentence in the 6th No. It is to this sentence: "Not a person on earth believed that the Messiah would die a sin-offering, or rise from the dead, from Eve to Mary Magdalene." If we do not make good this assertion before we finish the Essays on the Jewish and Christian Dispensations, we shall eat it up. "Have patience with me, and I will pay you all." We proceed.

      Before the Flood an idea got abroad into the world that some animals were clean and some unclean. This distribution of "birds and beasts" was as superhuman as the ordination of sacrifice. Noah made his selection according to it, and in the offering of sacrifices among the Patriarchs, from Noah to Moses, respect was paid to this distinction.

      It is an idea which has generally obtained among the more learned antiquarians and which has some confirmation from ancient scripture, that the sacrifices of the godly were all consumed by fire from heaven--such of them, at least, as were of the burnt offering character. How such an idea obtained it would be hard to tell, unless from established fact. We do know most certainly that, in after times, some offerings were consumed by fire from heaven. And in the time of Abraham it appears that fire from heaven consumed some sacrifices. Abraham presented on one altar, at one time, "one heifer, a female goat, and a ram of three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon." The former were all severed, and the birds laid on entire. After the sun set, "a smoking furnace and a burning lamp," or fire, from heaven fell upon these carcases and consumed them. To such offerings as these promises or covenants were usually appended. Thus after Noah had offered a similar sacrifice, God promised a continuation of the seasons without the intervention of a flood--and here to Abraham the promises concerning Canaan were confirmed.

      Jacob, in confirmation of his vow, Gen. xxxv. 14, poured oil upon the stone which he had set up. And on another occasion "he set up a pillar in the place where God talked with him, even a pillar of stone; and he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon." Such were the positive acts of patriarchal worship of the sacrificial kind--sin-offerings, thank-offerings, vow or dedication-offerings.

      Some sorts of ablutions or washings were also practised among the patriarchs before the Mosaic economy. Jacob, in order to prepare his family to offer sacrifice with him upon the altar, erected at Bethel, commands them to "change their garments" and "be clean," which, as the most learned critics have proved, is equivalent to "wash yourselves." All sorts of ancient writers, sacred and profane, viewed the deluge as a purification, or washing, or immersion of the earth. Philo the Jew, and Plato the Greek philosopher, give credit to this idea. It, was so referred to by the Apostle Peter. And it is not improbable but the ablutions of the pagan world originated from this view of the deluge--sanctioned by the practice of the patriarchs.

      It would appear also that the proseuchæ of which we read in the New Testament, or places of prayer built on hills or by brooks of water, in retired situations, may be traced back as far as the time of Abraham. (Gen. xxi. 35.) "And Abraham planted a grove (or tree) to Beersheba, and there (or under it) he called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God." From this custom unquestionably arose the corruptions of the pagan world in consecrating groves and high places to their gods. Such were the religious institutions, and such the venerable customs of the holy men of the Patriarchal Age.

      In forming a correct view of the religious character of the ancient nations, it is necessary here to inquire how far the inhabitants of Persia, Assyria, Arabia, Canaan and Egypt, were affected or influenced by the religious institutions of this period: for these were the first nations whose institutions gave a character to all the nations of the world.

      Abraham was the son of Shem by Arphaxad. The Persians were the descendants of Shem by Elam. The common parentage of Abraham and the Persians laid a foundation for some similarity in their religion. Abraham's ancestors dwelt in Chaldea, and at the time that God signalized Abraham, the Chaldeans began to apostatize from the service of the true God. Hence the expulsion of Abraham from among them. But Dr. Hyde and the most learned antiquarians presented documental proof that the Persians retained the true history of the Creation and the Antediluvian Age; and so attached were the Persians to the religion of Abraham, that the sacred book which contained their religion is called Sohi Ibrahim, i. e. the Book of Abraham. For a considerable time after Abraham's day they worshipped the God of Shem, for they did not know all the special communications to Abraham.

      The Arabians, down to the time of Jethro, retained the knowledge of the true God. How long after we are not informed; but their religious institutions, as far as we have account, differed little from those practised by Abraham, with the exception of circumcision.

      The Canaanites themselves, in Abraham's time, had not apostatized wholly from the religion of Shem. The king of Salem was priest of the most high God; and during Abraham's sojourning among them, they treated him with all respect as a prophet of the true God.

      Even amongst the Philistines at Gerar, Abraham found a good and virtuous king, favored with the admonitions of the Almighty. This he little expected, for he was so prejudiced against those people, that, on entering their metropolis, he said, "Surely the fear of God is not in this [542] place." But he was happily disappointed. For Abimelech, in his appeal to Heaven, says, "Lord, will you slay a virtuous nation?" And the Lord did not deny his plea, but heard and answered his request. There appears in the whole narrative no difference in the religious views or practice between Abraham and Abimelech the king of the nation.

      The Egyptians, too, in the time of Abraham, were worshippers of the true God. In Upper Egypt they refused, as Plutarch informs us, to pay any taxes for the support of the idolatrous worship; asserting that they owned no mortal, dead or alive, to be a God. The incorruptible and eternal God they called Cneph, who they affirmed had no beginning, and never should have an end. In the first advances to mythology in Egypt, they represented God by the figure of a serpent, with the head of a hawk in the middle of a circle. We find no misunderstandings nor difference between Pharaoh and Abraham, when the latter went down into Egypt. Indeed, with the exception of the Chaldeans, who were the oldest nation, and the first to introduce idol or image worship, we find a very general agreement in all the ancient nations respecting religious views and practice. And the only defection from the religion of Noah and Shem which we meet with in all antiquity, was that of the Chaldeans.

      All the religious rites and usages of the Pagan nations down to the time of Homer, and still later, were very similar to the patriarchal institutions. They offered expiatory sacrifices, deprecations, vows, and ablutions; had altars, priests, and sacred groves; and made the same distinctions between clean and unclean victims. Homer talks of "hecatombs of bulls and goats," "lambs and goats without blemish." And not only the Greek, but the Roman poets, speak of the ablutions, purifications, and sacrifices of ancient times, in such a way as to leave no doubt but that they all came from the same origin.

EDITOR.      

      BROTHER CAMPBELL,--AS society at large, both civil and religious, are engaged in examining the defects in their different constitutions, and the journals teeming with reformers and their essays on reformation, I took up the Christian Baptist with a determination of examining the foundation of the editor and his numerous correspondents--and can say that I have been fully compensated for the time I was engaged in this delightful work. The essays by the editor are truly interesting, both scriptural and rational. Those on the Clergy, the Ancient Order of Things, and the Ancient Gospel, I opine are unanswerable. The Essay on the Primitive and Modern Christianity, signed by Philip, is superexcellent. He concluded by saying, "This induction may be pursued to greater length in some future paper." I searched through all the volumes expecting to meet with the author's promise, and found it not. I still flatter myself that ere long he will give us another essay upon this all-important subject. In the fourth volume I read an excellent letter signed Paulinus, containing some very appropriate remarks upon the present order of things and a manifest desire for the restoration of the ancient order of things--such as the following: "I am greatly pleased with what appears to be your drift and aim, viz. to clear the religion of Jesus of all the adventitious lumber with which it has been encumbered, and bring back the christian church to its primitive simplicity and beauty." The essay "on the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord's day" is said to be superlatively excellent. He also speaks of the New Testament being an instrument, the most effectual, for sweeping off all the rubbish which has been gathered from the old ruins of former establishments to build withal on Christian grounds: "that the word of God is the instrument of our regeneration and sanctification, I have no doubt." "It is my wish (says the writer) not only to express my hearty approbation of your avowed hostility to certain abuses and follies prevalent in the religious world, but to lend any little aid in my power towards a correction of these evils. Among the objects here alluded to, let me just mention the adoption of creeds and confessions of faith--those fruitful sources of dissention, and stubborn barriers against the admission of divine light from the word of God, and the high pretensions of many among the clergy." The most interesting of all with the writer is, "Such a reformation in the church as shall restore, what you term the ancient order of things." In your opposition to error, he says, "I do not wish to see you abate one jot or tittle of the firmness with which you take your stand, or the keenness with which you make the attack. I would not wish you to cut off the points of your arrows whenever they are directed at error or folly." These independent and truly interesting sayings of Paulinus I am delighted with.

      In his second epistle I find other excellent things. "Wherever the New Dispensation comes, it lays hold of every human creature, with the grasp of divine authority, while it presented the exhibition of divine mercy.'" "I think it is justly due to you to say, that you are an avowed friend to the spirit's operations to the production of genuine religion." "I am no advocate for the formation of mere theories, nor for compiling abstract truths." "I have no disposition I assure you, to carry the fruits I may be enabled to gather from the tree of life (the Bible) to any distillery." "O for the time when divine truth, the whole divine truth, shall be relished as coming from God!" An answer to this aspiration, how important to the well being of the human family? and for the accomplishment of the vows of the writer? I think I discover in this epistle the writer's former opinions somewhat shaken.--Whether it was owing to your sweeping the houses of those distillers of alcohol, and the dust got into his eyes; that he was tippling there, or that he had been pressing the oil out of the bean, I am unable to determine. Upon reading the fifth volume my opinion is confirmed, there has been a lecture, caution, admonition, reproof, or rebuke given him from somewhere. Mark this: "He (that is Paulinus)wrote something last year in which he certainly went too far. He is now convinced (I am persuaded) and guarded against our friend Campbell's chimeras." After this appeared this excellent writer seems to have wanted confidence in all he undertook to write for the Christian Baptist. Notice the close of his "Essays on the Holy Spirit." Although he did not wish you to abate one jot or tittle of the firmness of your stand, nor the keenness of your attack, in your fifth letter to Bishop Semple, you must have had beards on your arrows, or he could not in justice to his own wishes have complained of the sharpness of your attack upon the ignorance, vice, and immorality of the professors of religion. Every one that has read the Essays of Paulinus no doubt expected to find him not only speaking those excellent things, but doing them! Whether this be the case or not, I cannot say positively. If he is [543] the author of a series of essays published in the Religious Herald upon Reformation, signed Melancthon, his fourth essay authorizes me to say he is not. Notice the following recommendation.--"I would respectfully suggest to the Baptist General Convention, at their ensuing meeting, the propriety of adopting a resolution that it is expedient we should be supplied with a set of suitable catechisms; that they nominate some person or persons for the purpose of compiling them; as also a committee of inspection, to whom may be confided the privilege of recommending the compilation to the use of our churches and our friends throughout the Union. The General Convention forms, in some sort, a centre of general union amongst us; and a recommendation from that body might have a powerful and happy influence, and could not be considered any usurpation of authority." This, it is true, is a little thing; but is intended to form the religious minds of our "little immortals." When we remember what a large tree grows from a little acorn, and when it is full grown in a good soil, that such is its attracting power that nothing flourishes within its reach, we then are admonished to attend to the seeds we sow, or in other words to attend to little things. Is this the way to clear the church of the "adventitious lumber with which it has been encumbered, and bring it back to its primitive simplicity and beauty?" Is this "clearing the religion of Jesus of those abuses and follies prevalent in the religious world?" Is this the way to "sweep off all the rubbish which has been gathered from the old ruins of former establishments to build withal on christian grounds?" Is this the instrument of God in regenerating and sanctifying these "little immortals?" Is this the aid he promised you to correct the evils, to wit, creeds and confessions of faith, "those fruitful sources of dissention and stubborn barriers against the admission of divine light from the word of God?" Is this his "hearty approbation of your hostility to certain abuses and follies prevalent in the religious world?" Is this the way to "reform the church and restore the ancient order of things?" Is this his "opposition to theories, or compiling abstract truths?" Is not this carrying our jugs to the distillery to get alcohol that our "little immortals" may tipple with us? When this little idol is completed, will this be the time when "divine truth, the whole of divine truth, shall be relished as coming from God?"

      I am put to my wit's end to determine whether the writer of the above recommendation intends a reformation from, or restoration of, the "old ruins of former establishments!" What need can there be of the influence of the Holy Spirit, when it is admitted that these ecclesiastical bodies, recommendation will have "a powerful and happy influence in giving efficacy to these catechisms." Again, is this the way to correct the evils among the kingdom of the clergy, by soliciting resolutions of adoption to give energy to human productions, committees of inspections, and acknowledging their powerful and happy influence upon their recommendations? Again, what need is there for these catechisms, and recommendations of such powerful and happy influence, when it is admitted wherever the New Dispensation comes it lays hold of every human creature with the grasp of divine authority, while it presents the exhibition of divine mercy? Is not this an acknowledgment that the New Testament is not sufficient to instruct these "little immortals" in their duty to God? For my part, I think it is a deep reflection upon the wisdom and philanthropy of Jesus Christ, in not giving to these "little immortals" what this writer has considered necessary for their religious education, and, I suppose, for their salvation. "O for the time when divine truth, the whole of divine truth, shall be relished as coming from God!"

      I do not wish to be understood as finding fault with the essays of Paulinus, though I think his essays on the Holy Spirit are rather too much in the Calvinistic style. But with the recommendation of Melancthon, if he is the same writer, there is, to my judgment, a manifest inconsistency. As so much is said about the Holy Spirit's operations in this metaphysical day, I would, in a few words, give my views of what the New Testament teaches:--We must first hear, then believe and reform; then obey, that is, be immersed; then receive the regenerating Spirit, with all its heavenly blessings promised to the believing sons and daughters of Adam. This appears to be so plainly inculcated in the New Testament, that I am astonished that I so long remained ignorant of the gospel, when at the same time professed to be a teacher of it. And for this discovery I am indebted to you, brother editor. Let me conclude in the language of Paulinus, "that you may steer a straight forward course, alike unawed by custom, unprovoked by opposition, unreduced by novelty, is the prayer of yours in the gospel."

A LOVER OF THE WHOLE OF DIVINE TRUTH.      

      I HAVE often regretted to find the testimony of some eminent witness on one side of some important question--and his practice on the opposite side. This, indeed, is a very common occurrence; so common that we are more surprized to find a coincidence between the verbal profession and the actual conduct, than we are to find a discrepancy. Which of the two have the most influence, and which of the two ought to have the most influence, are two distinct questions. Mosheim, for example, in his compend of ecclesiastical history of the first centuries, gives a clear and forcible testimony against the present order of things, by showing its entire departure from the ancient order. He shows that the bishops, deacons, teaching, exhortation, prayers, praises, and, indeed, all the worship of the primitive church, were, in every grand point, dissimilar to the present. He unequivocally declares the "reformed churches" to be apostates in fact from the ancient order; and yet we find him among the Rabbins! What a pity!

      A thousand Paidobaptists too, have declared against sprinkling--and still sprinkled infants! And myriads have remonstrated against popery, prelacy, and clerical intrigue; and yet were as full of the Pope as Queen Elizabeth! Whence is it, O Mammon, that you can make your votaries sing with so much sincerity--

Intellect like conscience, is generally on the right side, and pravity, politics, and the flesh pot on the other. When intellect, conscience, and the stomach are on opposite sides, the latter is sure to be most obstreperous and intriguing. Hence the triumphs of the belly.

      As I consider the decisions of the intellect to be the most impartial, it demands from me the greatest respect; though, indeed, I cannot but lament to find so many illustrious instances of the triumphs of the animal over the intellectual [544] man. I can find the greatest men now living in the religious world, substantially, and some of them most unequivocally, in their public attestations, on the side of the ancient order of things. It would astonish many were we to cull out the explicit and forcible attestations to the cause we advocate, from the distinguished men of the last and the present century; to see what agreement in views, both with respect to the ancient order of things, and the issue of the present contests. We do not say that every man who asserts some grand fundamental truth, sees its hearings; nor will we affirm that they are all, from appetite, avarice, or ambition, blinded against its connexion and authority. But one thing I will say, that I can find assertions and explicit declarations in the writings of such men as Dr. Adam Clarke, Thomas Scott, Messrs. Hall and Irving, and Dr. Chalmers, as, carry them out to their literal and legitimate issue, would subvert all the glittering schemes of the day, and leave in lieu of them all, nought but the ancient order of things!

      The following extract from Chalmer's Essay on the Evidence of Christianity, is deserving of the attention and strict perusal of all the readers of this work:--

      "What is the reason why there is so much more unanimity among critics and grammarians about the sense of any ancient author, than about the sense of the New Testament. Because the one is made purely a question of criticism: the other has been complicated with the uncertain fancies of a daring and presumptuous theology. Could we only dismiss these fancies, sit down like a school boy to his task, and look upon the study of divinity as a mere work of translation, then we would expect the same unanimity among christians that we meet with among scholars and literati about the system of Epicurus or philosophy of Aristotle. But here lies the distinction betwixt the cases. When we make out, by a critical examination of the Greek of Aristotle, that such was his meaning, and such his philosophy, the result carries no authority with it, and our mind retains the congenial liberty of its own speculations. But if we make out by a critical examination of the Greek of St. Paul, that such is the theology of the New Testament, we are bound to submit to this theology; and our minds must surrender every opinion, however dear to them. It is quite in vain to talk of the mysteriousness of the subject, as being the cause of the want of unanimity among christians. It may be mysterious, in reference to our former conceptions. It may be mysterious in the utter impossibility of reconciling it with our own assumed fancies, and self-farmed principles. It may be mysterious in the difficulty which we feel in comprehending the manner of the doctrine, when we ought to be satisfied with the authoritative revelation which has been made to us of its existence and its truth. But if we could only abandon all our former conceptions, if we felt that our business was to submit to the oracle of God, and that we are not called upon to effect a reconciliation betwixt a revealed doctrine of the bible, and an assumed or excogitated principle of our own; then, we are satisfied, that we would find the language of the Testament to have as much clear, and precise, and, distinctive simplicity, as the language of any sage or philosopher that has come down to our time."

      "Could we only get it reduced to a mere question of language, we should look at no distant period for the establishment of a pure and unanimous Christianity in the world. But no. While the mind and the reasoning of any philosopher are collected from his words, and these words tried as to their import and significancy upon the appropriate principles of criticism, the mind and the reasoning of the Spirit of God are not collected upon the same pure and competent principles of investigation. In order to know the mind of the Spirit, the communications of the Spirit, and the expression of these communications in written language, should be consulted. These are the only data upon which the inquiry should be instituted. But no. Instead of learning the designs and character of the Almighty from his own mouth, we sit in judgment upon them, and make our conjecture of what they should be, take the precedency of his revelations of what they are. We do him the same injustice that we do to an acquaintance, whose proceedings and whose intentions we venture to pronounce upon, while we refuse him a hearing, or turn away from the letter in which he explains himself. No wonder, then, at the want of unanimity among christians, so long as the question of "What thinkest thou" is made the principle of their creed, and, for the sake of criticism, they have committed themselves to the endless caprices of the human intellect. Let the principle of "what thinkest thou" be exploded, and that of "what readest thou" be substituted in its place. Let us take our lesson as the Almighty places it before us, and, instead of being the judge of his conduct, be satisfied with the safer and humbler office of being the interpreter of his language."--

      "We must bring a free and unoccupied mind to the exercise. It must not be the pride or the obstinacy of self-formed opinions, or the haughty independence of him who thinks be has reached the manhood of his understanding. We must bring with us the docility of a child, if we want to gain the kingdom of heaven. It must not be a partial, but an entire and unexcepted obedience. There must be no garbling of that which is entire, no darkening of that which is luminous, no softening down of that which is authoritative or severe. The bible will allow of no compromise. It professes to be the directory of our faith, and claims a total ascendancy over the souls and the understandings of men. It will enter no composition with us or our natural principles. It challenges the whole mind as its due, and it appeals to the truth of heaven for the high authority of its sanction. "Whosoever adds to, or takes from the words of this book, is accursed," is the absolute language in which it delivers itself. This brings us to its terms. There is no way of escaping after this. We must bring every thought into the captivity of its obedience, and as closely as ever lawyer stuck to his documents or his extracts, must we abide by the rule and the doctrine which this authentic memorial of God sets before us." "Now we hazard the assertion, that, with a number of professing christians, there is not this unexcepted submission of the understanding to the authority of the Bible; and that the authority of the Bible is often modified, and in some cases superseded, by the authority of other principles. One of these principles is, the mason of the thing. We do not know if this principle would be at all felt or appealed to by the earliest christians. They turned from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God. There was nothing in their antecedent theology which they could have any respect for: nothing which they could confront, or bring into competition with the doctrines of the New Testament. In these days, the [545] truth as it is in Jesus came to the minds of its disciples, recommended by its novelty, by its grandeur, by the power and recency of its evidences; and, above all, by its vast and evident superiority over the fooleries of a degrading Paganism. It does not occur to us, that men in these circumstances would ever think of sitting in judgment over the mysteries of that sublime faith which had charmed them into an abandonment of their earlier religion. It rather strikes us that they would receive them passively; that, like scholars who had all to learn, they would take their lesson as they found it; that the information of their teachers would be enough for them; and that the restless tendency of the human mind to speculation, would for a time find ample enjoyment in the rich and splendid discoveries which broke like a flood of light upon the world. But we are in different circumstances. To us, these discoveries, rich and splendid as they are, have lost the freshness of novelty. The sun of righteousness, like the sun in the firmament, has become familiarized to us by possession. In a few ages, the human mind deserted its guidance, and rambled as much as ever in quest of new speculations. It is true that they took a juster and a loftier flight since the days of Heathenism. But it was only because they walked in the light of revelation. They borrowed of the New Testament without acknowledgement, and took its beauties and its truths to deck their own wretched fancies and self-constituted systems. In the process of time the delusion multiplied and extended. Schools were formed, and the way of the Divinity was as confidently theorized upon, as the processes of chymistry, or the economy of the heavens. Universities were endowed, and natural theology took its place in the circle of the sciences. Folios were written, and the respected luminaries of a former age poured their a priori and their a posteriori demonstrations on the world. Taste, and sentiment, and imagination, grew apace; and every raw untutored principle which poetry could clothe in prettiness, or over which the hand of genius could throw the graces of sensibility and elegance, was erected into a principle of the divine government, and made to preside over the councils of the Deity. In the mean time, the Bible, which ought to supersede all, was itself superseded. It was quite in vain to say that it was the only authentic record of an actual embassy which God had sent into the world. It was quite in vain to plead its testimonies, its miracles, and the unquestionable fulfilment of its prophecies. These mighty claims must be over, and be suspended, till we have settled--what? the reasonableness of its doctrines. We must bring the theology of God's ambassador to the bar of our self-formed theology. The Bible, instead of being admitted as the directory of our faith upon its external evidences, must be tried upon the merits of the work itself; and if our verdict be favorable, it must be brought in, not as a help to our ignorance, but as a corollary to our demonstrations. But is this ever done? Yes! by Dr. Samuel Clarke, and a whole host of followers and admirers. Their first step in the process of theological study, is to furnish their minds with the principles of natural theology. Christianity, before its external proofs are looked at or listened to, must be brought under the tribunal of those principles. All the difficulties which attach to the reason of the thing, or the fitness of the doctrines, must be formally discussed, and satisfactorily got over. A voice was heard from heaven, saying of Jesus Christ, "This is my beloved Son: hear ye him." The men of Galilee saw him ascend from the dead to the heaven which he now occupies. The men of Galilee gave their testimony; and it is a testimony which stood the fiery trial of persecution in a former age, and of sophistry in this. And yet, instead of hearing Jesus Christ as disciples, they sit in authority over him as judges. Instead of forming their divinity after the Bible, they try the Bible by their antecedent divinity; and this book, with all its mighty train of evidences, must drivel in their antechambers, till they have pronounced sentence of admission, when they have got its doctrines to agree with their own airy and unsubstantial speculations."

      "We do not condemn the exercise of reason in matters of theology. It is the part of reason to form its conclusions, when it has data and evidences before it. But it is equally the part of reason to abstain from its conclusions, when these evidences are wanting. Reason can judge of the external evidences for christianity, because it can discern the merits of human testimony; and it can perceive the truth or the falsehood of such obvious credentials in the performance of a miracle, or the fulfilment of a prophecy. But reason is not entitled to sit in judgment over these internal evidences, which many a presumptuous theologian has attempted to derive from the reason of the thing, or from the agreement of the doctrine with the fancied character and attributes of the Deity. One of the most useful exercises of reason, is to ascertain its limits, and to keep within them, to abandon the field of conjecture, and to restrain itself within that safe and certain barrier which forms the boundary of human experience. However humiliating you may conceive it, it is this that lies at the bottom of Lord Bacon's philosophy, and it is to this that modern science is indebted for all her solidity and all her triumphs. Why does philosophy flourish in our days? Because her votaries have learned to abandon their own creative speculations, and to submit to evidences, let her conclusions be as painful and as unpalatable as they will. Now all that we want is to carry the same lesson and the same principle to theology. Our business is not to guess, but to learn. After we have established christianity to be an authentic message from God upon these historical grounds--when the reason and experience of man entitle him to form his conclusions--nothing remains for us, but an unconditional surrender of the mind to the subject of the message. We have a right to sit in judgment over the credentials of Heaven's Ambassador, but we have no right to sit in judgment over the information he gives us. We have no right either to refine or to modify that information, till we have accommodated it to our previous conceptions. It is very true, that if the truths which he delivered lay within the field of human observation, he brings himself under the tribunal of our antecedent knowledge. Were he to tell us, that the bodies of the planetary system moved in orbits which are purely circular, we would oppose to him the observations and measurements of astronomy. Were he to tell us, that in winter the sun never shone, and that in summer no cloud ever darkened the brilliancy of his career, we would oppose to him the certain remembrances, both of ourselves and of our whole neighborhood. Were he to tell us, that we were perfect men, because we were free from passion, and loved our neighbors as ourselves, we would oppose to him the history of our own lives, and the deeply-seated consciousness of our [546] own infirmities On all these subjects we can confront him; but when he brings truth from a quarter which no human eye ever explored, when he tells us the mind of the Deity, and brings before us the counsels of that invisible Being, whose arm is abroad upon all nations, and whose views reach to eternity, he is beyond the ken of eye or of telescope, and we must submit to him. We have no more right to sit in judgment over his information, than we have to sit to judgment over the information of any other visiter who lights upon our planet, from some distant and unknown part of the universe, and tells us what worlds roll in these remote tracts which are beyond the limits of our astronomy, and how the Divinity peoples them with his wonders. Any previous conceptions of ours are of no more value than the fooleries of an infant; and should we offer to resist or to modify upon the strength of our conceptions, we would be as unsound and as unphilosophical as ever schoolman was with his categories, or Cartesian with his whirlpools of ether."

      "Let us go back to the first christians of the Gentile world. They turned from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God. They made a simple and entire transition from a state as bad, if not worse, than that of entire ignorance, to the christianity of the New Testament.--Their previous conceptions, instead of helping them, behoved to be utterly abandoned; nor was there that intermediate step which so many of us think to be necessary, and which we dignify with the name of the rational theology of nature. In these days, this rational theology was unheard of; nor have we the slightest reason to believe that they were ever initiated into its doctrines, before they were looked upon as fit to be taught the peculiarities of the gospel. They were translated at once from the absurdities of paganism to that christianity which has come down to us, in the records of evangelical history, and the epistles which their teachers addressed to them. They saw the miracles; they acquiesced in them, as satisfying credentials of an inspired teacher; they took the whole of their religion from his mouth; their faith came by hearing, and hearing by the words of a divine messenger. This was their process, and it ought to be ours. We do not see the miracles, but we see their reality through the medium of that clear and unsuspicious testimony which has been handed down to us. We should admit them as the credentials of an embassy from God. We should take the whole of our religion from the records of this embassy; and, renouncing the idolatry of our own self-formed conceptions, we should repair to that word, which was spoken to them that heard it, and transmitted to us by the instrumentality of written language. The question with them was, What hear you? The question with us is, What read you? They had their idols, and they turned away from them. We have our fancies, and we contend, that, in the face of an authoritative revelation from heaven, it is as glaring idolatry in us to adhere to these, as it would be were they spread upon canvass, or chiseled into material form by the hands of a statuary."

      The election taught by the college men contemplates all the righteous, from Abel to the resurrection of the dead, as standing in the relation of elect persons to God; than which nothing can be more opposed to fact and scripture: for though Abel, Enoch, and Noah, were worshippers of the true God, they were not elect men; nay, though Melchisedeck himself, king of Salem, was at once priest of the Most High God, and the most illustrious type of Messiah; though he received tythes of Abraham, blessed him, and, as Paul informs us, was greater than he; yet neither Melchisedeck nor any of the numerous worshippers for whom he officiated in the quality of God's priest, did ever stand in the relation of elect worshippers in the scripture sense of the word elect. Abraham was the first elect man; and it remains for those who assert the contrary of this, to prove their proposition--a thing they never can do by scripture.

      The elect institution reared upon the patriarch Abraham, and which has been made the deposite of covenants, laws, services, glory and promises, is quite distinct from the general righteousness of the world, whether that righteousness may have been derived from revelations made to men before the commencement of the elect institutions, or afterwards from traditions, or from an apprehension of God's existence derived from the face of nature, the currency of events, and the nature of human society among Gentiles, ancient and modern. I say the election is a sui generis institution, in which the worshiper does not, with the uncertainty of a Mahometan idolater, a Chinese or Japanese, ask the remission of sins; but in which this blessing is stable and certain, secured to him by the promise and oath of God, two immutable things, by which it was impossible for God to lie, that the man might have strong consolation, who has fled into this institution for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before him in the gospel; which is the second apartment of the elect building, as Judaism was the first,--"In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed"--a promise made to no other institution.

      In our last essay we ascertained two of the six things suggested to us by the term election, viz. that the living God was the elector, and that Abraham was the first elect person; and now if we ask when it began and when it shall end, I answer, first, that election will close at the end of the world--all the gracious purposes of the institution will be accomplished at that time--false religion and bad government--the domination of political and trading influences--and everything which opposes itself to the religion and authority of this institution--shall have been put down; and angels and men shall behold this truth, that the God of Abraham is the true God, and Jesus the Messiah his Son; and that Mahomet and Confucius, Zoroaster, and Brahama, were self-created apostles.

      As for the commencement of the election, if Abraham was the first elect person, as we see he was, it follows this must have been when God called that patriarch from his native country to be the head of the elect people: "Now the Lord had said to Abraham, Get you out of your country, and from your father's house to a land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation; and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless you, and curse them that curse you; and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed?, Gen. xii. Here, then, is the commencement of that institution which is finally to triumph over imposition and falsehood.

      It only remains for us to speak of the great and illustrious purposes for which God has set up this institution in the earth, and finally of the principle on which a man of any nation may be admitted to the privileges of it, viz. the remission of sins, &c. &c. First, then, in regard to the ends of the election, I say, it is the blessing [547] of mankind" In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed." This is God's declared purpose in regard to mankind by the institution called "the election;" consequently its purpose is not (like the election of Edwards, Calvin, and others,) to exclude, curse, and destroy; but to gather, to bless, and to save! "In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed"--"I will make you a blessing." Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then, were not chosen by God for the mean partial purpose of being dragged into heaven, will or no will, on the principle of final perseverance; but for the general and benevolent purpose of saving mankind by an institution of which they were made the root or foundation. While the pulpit of fatalism represents the God of heaven both partial and cruel, the scriptural election furnishes us with the fairest specimen of his peerless impartiality and philanthropy: the lineaments of the divine character is in nothing more effulgent than in the blessing of the nations on the principles of an election, because it represents the Most High as anticipating the alienations and apostacies of his self-willed and unhappy creatures, running into all the idolatries and consequent immoralities of Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, &c. &c. and then providing for their redemption from these things by this elect institution, in which he had deposited a correct theology and the principles of a pure morality to be preached to the world in the fulness of time, i. e. after the wisdom of this world, viz: philosophy, government, and idolatry had been sufficiently proved incompetent to the purification and elevation of the human family.

      I am sure our Heavenly Father in all this has shown the wisdom and prudence of one who hides a piece of leaven in three measures of meal until the whole be leavened. He has treated the rebellious and refractory nation of the Jews as a woman would a bowl of meal set down by the fireside, with the leaven in it, and turned, and warmed, and tended, until the leavening process has commenced, in order that the whole mass may be more speedily and certainly transformed; yet, after all, it would scarcely work in us, so dead are we to heavenly things. Nevertheless the principles of this establishment, the church, must prevail--idolatry must be put down--the knowledge of God must cover the earth--the saints must obtain the government of the world--righteousness run down like a river, and peace like a flowing stream.

      Having ascertained, in a summary way, the elector, the person elected, the ends of the election, the time when it began and when it shall end, I shall speak of the principle on which it proceeds, and also on the sovereignty of God, and where it obtains in our religion, in some subsequent numbers. I only observe here, that Calvinistic election exhibits the divine sovereignty in a point in which it by no means obtains in Christianity. It is not exhibited in a capricious choice of this, that, and the other person, and passing by others, as Calvinism would and does have it; but in the justification of sinners of all nations on the principle of faith, as will appear by and by, an act of God's sovereignty, which was very displeasing to the Jews.

      I shall close this paper with an observation or two for the reflection of the reader, until the appearance of the next number. First, then, it ought to be observed that scriptural election is managed entirely on the plan of political election, the ends thereof being the general welfare of the nations--"In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed?"

      Second. Whether a man can believe, i. e.imbibe the electing principle, is never answered in the Holy Scriptures--for this substantial reason, that, in it, it is never asked. This is an unlearned question of modern Divinity, (i. e. Devility if such a word or thing there be,) and could be agitated only by fools and philosophers; all the world knowing that we must believe what is proved. Whether we will always act according to our rational and scriptural belief, is another question which the reader may answer by making an appeal to his own conscience. If we would, how many would immediately be baptized into Jesus Christ!

PHILIP.      

      THE "Pedobaptist," No. 1, has appeared; and, like every thing of the sort, will do good as well as evil. In its direct influence it is calculated to enslave the ignorant and unwary; in its indirect influence it will create suspicions in such as dare to presume to think, and in its efforts to lull the conscience of hereditary Paidobaptists, it will awaken doubts where there were none before. Whether as an earnest of its future harvest, I presume not to say; but so it came to pass, that one presbyterian, who I think had agreed to print the "Paidobaptist," was immersed just after the appearance of its first number. For on his going down into the water to be immersed, it was discovered that the first number of the "Pedobaptist" was in his hat. A dangerous place, indeed, to carry Paidobaptists. From this drop we might expect a shower. Indeed I would not be astonished if this work should make many Paidobaptists.

      It gives up the point in the very first number: that is, it pretends to adduce no direct positive precept nor example for the sprinkling of an infant. It gives up the point in another way, which I am astonished has so long escaped the notice of the baptists. It does not even pretend to infer the rite from any one portion of scripture in either Testament. The "Pedobaptist" acts a sort of double sophist. He neither adduces command, precedent, example, nor inference for infant sprinkling from any one inspired writer. Infant sprinkling is but one rite, and as such, if proved by inference, it ought to be inferred from some one passage of scripture. But this has never been attempted, as far as I know by any Paidobaptist writer. Why, then, do they talk so much about inferring, and the validity of inference, you will ask, if they do not at least pretend to infer it? Because they despair of imposing it upon mankind in any other way than by inference; and few understand logic or the art of reasoning so well as to perceive that the whole must be in the premises. In this way I doubt not many honest Paidobaptists impose upon themselves. The sophism is this: Infant sprinkling is one rite, and ought to be all inferred from one passage of scripture. This they are conscious cannot be done, and therefore cut the rite into two; and then infer the infant from Moses, and the sprinkling from Paul; or they pretend to find an infant in Jesus' arms, and then find sprinkling in Isaiah; and by bringing the infant in Jesus arms, and the "sprinkling many nations" in Isaiah, they put these two together, and having glued them fast, there stands infant sprinkling upon two legs! one resting upon the Old Testament and the other upon the New.

      Now, gentlemen, as you profess logic as well as divinity, I will try you here. It is conceded by you that you have neither command nor precedent for infant sprinkling: do, then, give me one passage of scripture in Old Testament or [548] New, and I will say you deserve more respect from us than all your predecessors. I only ask for one inference. Don't say you have a hundred. One will do. And I will stake all my pretensions to logic on this assertion, that you cannot produce one logical inference from the whole bible, Old and New Testament, in support of infant sprinkling.

EDITOR.      

      THE following extract from page 16, No. 1, of the Pedobaptist, is a beautiful sample of Paidobaptist Logic. Whether Paul would have placed this under the head of "science falsely so called," or of "old wives' fables," I leave to every reader:--

      "1st. Infants of believers were found in the church before the coming of our Saviour.

      "2. Infants of believers are found in the Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and other Pedobaptist churches, since the coming of our Saviour.

      "3. Infants were found in the Saviour's arms when he was on earth.

      "4. Infants are in heaven.

      "1. They are not found in the land of Despair.

      "2. They are not found in the Baptist Church."

      I will ask, Where Infants were not found?

      1. They were not found in the garden of Eden.

      2. They were not found in Noah's ark, "a type of" something.

      3. They were not found in the Patriarchal Church, from Noah to Abraham.

      4. They were not found subjects of any rite for 2000 years.

      1. They were found in the Jewish commonwealth.

      2. They were found in the Ishmaelitish tribes.

      3. They are found in the Mahometan church.

      4. They are found in the Presbyterian church.

      5. They were found in Sodom and Gomorrah.

      Besides these places, they are found in a hundred other places, too tedious to mention. And what does this prove! It proves that because the infants of believers and unbelievers were found in the Jewish congregation, so they ought to be found in the christian church. Because they were found in Sodom and Gomorrah, therefore they ought to be found in Christian synagogues. Admirable logic!! We seriously request the Paidobaptist editor to insert Dr. Straith's critique found in this number, and to inform their readers that he is an impartial witness of their own party.

      EVANS, in his Sketch of the Christian Sects, page 145, makes the following remarks on translations of the Scriptures:--

      "Our English translation of the bible was made in the time and by the appointment of James the First. According to Fuller, the list of the translators amounted to forty-seven. This number was arranged under six divisions, and several parcels of the bible assigned them. Every one of the company was to translate the whole parcel; then they were to compare these together, and when any company had finished their part they were to communicate it to the other companies, so that nothing should pass without general consent. The names of the persons and places where they met together, with the portions of scripture assigned each company, are to be found in Johnson's Historical Account of the several Translations of the Bible. These good and learned men entered on their work in the spring, 1607, and three years elapsed before the translation was finished.

      "From the mutability of language, the variation of customs, and the progress of knowledge, several passages in the bible require to be newly translated, or to be materially corrected. Hence, in the present age, when biblical literature has been assiduously cultivated, different parts of the sacred volume have been translated by able hands. The substituting a new translation of the bible in the room of the one now in common use, has been much debated. Dr. Knox, in his ingenious essays, together with others, argues against it; whilst Dr. Newcome, the late Lord Primate of Ireland, the late Dr. Geddes, of the Catholic persuasion, and the late Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, contended strenuously for it. The correction of several passages, however, would deprive Deists of many of their objections, prevent christians from being misled into some absurd opinions, and be the means of making the scriptures more intelligible, and consequently more beneficial to the world.

      "Dr. Alexander Geddes, at his decease, had got as far as the Psalms in the translation of the Old Testament. Dr. Newcome and Mr. Wakefield published entire translations of the New Testament. The Rev. Edmund Butcher, also, of Sidmouth, has laid before the public a Family Bible, in which many of the errors of the common translation are corrected, and notes added by way of illustration, whilst the text, broken down into daily lessons, is happily adapted to the purposes of family devotion."

      Query 25.--SHOULD a member be excluded from a christian church, who only, once in a while, attends the meeting of the brethren; when, in other respects, his conduct is orderly!

      Answer.--We are not aware of the importance of the question, unless we form a correct view of the nature of the christian institution.--Amongst some sects, and in some churches, they have agreed to meet once a fortnight, or once a month, and only require their members thus periodically to assemble. They censure those who depart from the covenant of the church, or those who do not assemble twelve or twenty-four times a year. But the Head and Founder of the christian religion disclaims both the covenant and practice of such assemblies. The covenant and the practice are in direct contravention of his authority and design. If, then, the whole church meets once a month, faithfully and fully according to the covenant, they are in a sort of mutiny against the Captain, or in a state of rebellion against the King. For they have neither his promises, blessing, nor presence, when they wittingly and cordially agree to neglect the weekly assembling of themselves together. They might as scripturally expect his countenance, blessing, and presence, should they agree to one annual or semi-annual meeting during their lives. The platform, as well as the practice, is antiscriptural. And I do not see why a church who agrees to meet once a month, should censure any member who will only visit them once a year. The same license for transgressing, which they claim for themselves, will equally tolerate him. But, I think, this matter is clearly proved in the [549] preceding volumes of this work, if any thing is proved in it, viz. That the whole system of monthly meetings for business and to hear a text explained, is as foreign from the christian institutes as transubstantiation, consubstantiation, Christmas or Easter carnivals. Viewing, as I do, the custom of assembling monthly for business and preaching, to be a branch from the same root from which spring Lent, Easter, Christmas, Whitsunday, and Good Friday, I could not blame the delinquent more than the observer of this tradition of the fathers. But where an assembly, constituted upon the traditions of the apostles, agrees to meet every Lord's day, the person who willingly, for weeks, forsakes the assembling of the saints, is on the high road to apostacy. This Paul avows by his connecting with exhortation to perseverance, and dehortations against apostacy, his remonstrance against forsaking the assembling of themselves together. No person who detaches himself from a Christian assembly for his ease or any worldly concern, can deserve he confidence of his brethren, any more than a wife who deserts the bed and board of her husband, or a child who, in his minority, deserts the table and fireside of his father and mother, can deserve the confidence and affection of those relatives they have forsaken. Nor can a church consistently regard and treat as brethren those who do not frequent their stated solemnities. Such absentees are to be dealt with as other offenders; and if reformation be not the result, they are as worthy of exclusion as other transgressors. Demas was as much of an apostate as Hymeneus and Philetus.

      Few Christians seem to appreciate the wisdom and benevolence of the Great Founder of the christian institution exhibited most impressively in his instance, in laying the disciples under the blissful necessity and obligation of keeping up a spirited social intercourse. The grand design of the Christian institution is to draw us to a common centre, in approaching which we approximate towards each other in every step. Thus, with the great fountain of life and happiness in view, in soaring to it we are necessarily elevated together above earthly influences, and drawn together by ties and considerations which draw all hearts and hands to the throne of the Eternal. Now the Christian institution is the most social thing under the heavens. But to substitute hearing the same sermon, subscribing the same covenant, and going to the same meeting place in lieu of the social institutions of the kingdom of heaven, is to substitute a spiders thread for a cable to retain a ship to her anchorage during a tempest. Nothing is more unlike the Christian kingdom than the dry, cold formalities which appear in the inside of a Baptist or Presbyterian meeting house. The order within the walls is as near to the order of a country school, abating the ardor of youth, as it is to the order of that house over which the Son of God presides; "whose house are we, if we hold fast our begun confidence unshaken to the end."

      Men depart as far from nature as they do from christianity in conforming to the regulations of the Geneva school. The doctrine is as cold as moonshine, and the initiated in their arrangements and order are like so many icicles hanging to the eaves of a house in a winter's morning, clear, cold, formal, in rank and file; but they will break rather than bend towards each other. A tree frog is generally the color of the timber, rail, or fence on which it is found. So are the Baptists. They are, in these regions, generally the offspring, or converts from the Presbyterian ranks, and they wear the same visage in their order, except with this small difference, that the Baptists build their meeting houses near ponds or rivers, while the Presbyterians build theirs on the tops of the hills.

      But were christians to get into the spirit of the institution of the Great Philanthropist, they would have as much relish for the weekly meeting in honor of the resurrection of their chief, and in anticipation of their own, as the stranger has for the sweet word home. But so long as like the Jews they meet in memory of the reason assigned in the fourth commandment, or by an act of congress, they will have nothing to fire their zeal, kindle their love, animate their strains, or enlarge their hopes. And as demure and silent as Quakers, except when the parson, who has a plenary inspiration, is present, they will sit or stand, as the case may be, until they hear the sermon, and all the appurtenances thereto belonging. Now if such persons were to be translated into an old fashioned Christian assembly, they would be as much astonished with the natural simplicity, affection, and piety of the worshippers, as a blind man would be on the recovery of his sight.

      To return to the point--Were a member of a family to be missing from table ten times a week, or twice a day, would we not at last inquire for his health or cause of his absence, and visit him accordingly? Most certainly we would. Why not then exhibit the same concern for a member of Christ's family? Absence from the table always exhibits a want of appetite, or some more pressing call. On either hypothesis, when a member is missing, it deserves inquiry--and when the true cause is ascertained, it demands a suitable treatment. But that stiffness and formality which are now the mode, and the want of due regard to the nature, design, and authority of every part of the Christian institution, lead us into a practice alike repugnant to reason and revelation.

      Query 26.--Should the majority govern in all cases, or should unanimity be considered indispensable in all matters which come before the church?

      Answer.--Carrying matters by a numerical force, or by a majority of votes, is very natural under popular governments. And as the Baptists have very generally been republicans in politics, they are republicans in ecclesiastics. And, indeed, in all matters of a temporal nature, there seems to be no other way of deciding. Yet it does not well consort with the genius of Christianity to carry a point by a majority. Where the law and testimony are either silent or not very explicit upon any question, reason says that we ought not to be either positive or dictatorial. There are but some hints and allusions to be found in the New Testament on this subject. Perhaps the reason is, that the churches set to order by the apostles had not much occasion for the resolution of such queries. There was not so much left to their decision, as, in our superior sagacity, we have found necessary. As the government was on the shoulders of the Great King, the church had not so much to do with it as we moderns imagine. Some things, it is trite, are left to the brethren; such as the reception of members, the selection of persons to offices, and the arrangements which are purely secular. The former to their nature require unanimity--the latter may dispense with a majority. In receiving a member, he must be received by all, for all are to love and treat him as a brother. In selecting a person to an office, [550] such as the bishop's, deacon's, or that of a messenger, there is not the same necessity; yet a neat approach to unanimity is absolutely necessary, and if attainable, is much to be preferred. But in matters purely secular, such as belong to the place of meeting, and all the prerequisites, circumstances, and adjuncts, there is not the same necessity for a full unanimity. To require a unanimity in all questions which we moderns bring into our churches, is to require an impossibility. But in secular affairs, in the primitive church, what we call a committee, or arbitrators, were chosen, and some of the questions which we submit to the brotherhood were submitted to the rulers or bishops. Take out of the church's business what the ancients referred to a committee, and what belonged to the bishops, there is not so much left to quarrel about. The overseers or rulers were only in such matters executors of the law of the sovereign authority. When a man was proved to be a drunkard, or a reviler, or a fornicator, it was not to be submitted to the vote of the brotherhood whether he ought to be expelled. When a man came forward, and was born of water, or immersed into the faith in the presence of a church, it was not to be decided by a vote whether he should be received into the society. When a child is born into a family, it is not to be voted whether it shall be received into it. It is true that when a man is born into the kingdom of heaven, it may be necessary for him to apply, and to be received into some particular congregation, in which he is to be enrolled, and in fellowship with which he is to walk; and then he must be unanimously received. But it is worthy of remark that a large share of brotherly love, and the not laying an undue stress upon a perfect unanimity will be more productive of it than we are aware of; and the more it is sought after in a contrary spirit, the more difficult it will be to obtain.

EDITOR.      

      MR. EDITOR,--In your Essay No. VII. on the "Discipline of the Church," in the March number of the Christian Baptist, I discover that you have taken an improper view of the question which lately called forth a little discussion by "Herodion" and myself. He does, indeed, maintain the affirmative of the question, "Does the expulsion of a member from an individual church of the Baptist faith and order, exclude him from fellowship with the whole denomination?" and is, moreover, favorable to appeals, in some cases, to associations for the adjustment of differences: but, it was not from any thing said by me, that you received the impression that I approve of appeals to co-ordinate and sister churches. You probably received it from "Herodion" himself, who supposed that to be my alternative, if I rejected his opinion.

      What I contend for is this, and if I am wrong, I am open to conviction, and shall be pleased to be corrected by those who are more experienced and better taught. If one congregation of professing, immersed believers, should take it into their head to exclude a brother, for any opinion or practice of his, derived from the scriptures, supported thereby, or not contradictory thereto,--such expulsion ought not to bring upon him the discountenance of other congregations or individuals. Let us suppose him expelled, merely because he believes that the proper exposition of scripture is by paragraphs, and not by texts,--that bread should be broken by disciples, not once a month or quarter, but on the first day of each week, or that no covenant or by-laws are necessary in church government, but the New Testament alone. Shall he be frowned on as heretical and disorderly, by the whole community; or may he not with propriety be received into another congregation more liberal, or whose views of the gospel are more coincident with his own? This latter is the opinion maintained by me. The supposition that expulsions for such causes, are not to be apprehended, and could not produce the withdrawment of favor by other congregations, is contradicted by experience and acts, if report is true.

      Notwithstanding these remarks in the following sentences,--"Herodion feels the want of horns, and would have the creature furnished with at least one which he might occasionally use. My brother of the Herald would wish to feed the stag well, but would still be sawing off the horns: perhaps I may wrong him in so saying, for indeed he is very modest about it; but, for my part, I do not love even an image of the beast." I say, notwithstanding these remarks, I am persuaded that, in relation to this subject, your opinions and my own are exactly the same. If not, I should be pleased to know what are yours.

RELIGIOUS HERALD.

Richmond, March 14, 1829.

BETHANY, APRIL 6, 1829.      

      TO-MORROW, Deo volente, I depart from home for Cincinnati, in the expectation of meeting there the Champion of Infidelity in two continents. I want something to complete the May number of this work, and finding my mind dissipated on a variety of concerns and topics, I cannot bring it to bear upon any one with any degree of energy. I this moment snatched my pen, determined to write something; and now that I have it in my fingers, I can find nothing to write. I have sometimes advised young public speakers when they began to excuse themselves for having nothing to say, to tell their audience how unprepared they were, and then to go into a detail of the reasons why they were destitute of any thing worthy of utterance or hearing. It occurs to me that the philosophy which authorises such a course in public speakers, on certain occasions, will equally apply to a writer for the public. And, perhaps, in going into such a detail a person may find something worthy of being heard or read. Now, to make an experiment, I have said that the reason why I cannot bring my mind to bear upon any topic, is, that the different excitements which a thousand little things unworthy of being told present, have exhausted all those energies of thought which lead into regular trains of reflection, and without which, no point can be carried which requires systematic ratiocination. But, like the needle touched with the magnet, which, though made to vibrate from point to point, settles to the pole; so my mind tends to the great question which engrosses life and death, time and eternity. And although I have not for months written any thing upon the sceptical system, it has not for a single hour during the day been absent From my thoughts. I have put myself upon the sceptical premises, and made myself, as far as I could, doubt with them. I have explored the different systems, ancient and modern, and have made their difficulties appear in my own eyes as large as life. Now I may tell my friends and the public, that, however I may manage this discussion, of one thing I am conscious, that I am much more radically and irrecoverably [551] convinced of two things than I ever was before. The first is, that not one single good reason can be offered against the christian faith: and the other is, that sectarians and sectarianism are the greatest enemies to christianity in the world. Robert Owen, Esq. and all his disciples would be but like a swarm of grasshoppers amongst a herd of cattle in a large meadow, were this monster beheaded. They might chirp and chirp, till the oxen tread them down or lick them up, but they never could devour an ox. Indeed a swarm of grasshoppers may make more noise than a herd of cattle, but where is their strength? So with these philosophers--they are ever and anon carping; but they never did, and never do, manfully attack one of its evidences.

      But what I have now before me is this: the sectaries and the sceptics argue as though they had been trained in the same school. Their premises may differ and their conclusions, but their logic is the same. I am resolved, in the approaching contest, to do as the mariner in a storm--cast overboard not only the cargo, but even the tackling of the ship, rather than endanger the mooring of her in a safe haven. I cannot get ashore with so many bales of traditions, with the metaphysical subtilties of creeds, and the various human appendages of the popular establishments. These would be as fatal to the cause of the Bible, as a dead body would have been to Charon's boat. Indeed, I have more to fear from the objections which the sectaries have bestowed to the Deists, than I have from any other source of opposition. But I am under no necessity to try to pilot through the storm, the opinions, fancies, or by-laws of any sect. It is the religion of the Bible, and that alone, I am concerned to prove to be divine. It would be a vain and useless attempt to demonstrate that a religious establishment, set on foot by King James or King Henry, by John Knox, Charles Fox, or John Anybody, was the institution of Jesus Christ, or of divine authority.

      I see some of the clerical order foresaw this as well as myself; and, like the editor of the "Pandect" they would rather christianity should be undefended, than their systems be endangered. I would apprize all such of my intentions, and my reasons for my intentions, if I were solicited with becoming temper.

      But I do not think this a matter of ordinary importance; and therefore I start in the most confident expectation of that all-sustaining goodness and gracious assistance which have hitherto been bestowed upon me, and which have always been the strength and felicity of all them who have faithfully, sincerely, and benevolently asserted the Bible cause.

      I rejoice to know and feel that I have the good wishes, the prayers, and the hopes of myriads of christians in all denominations. With such aids and such allies, I know that the truth must triumph over all the schemes of kings, priests, and sceptics.

      But only see whither I am straying, and how far I have pursued the favorite point. Here sleep summons me to appear in her court, and to answer for my neglect of her authority. I will, therefore, go and compromise with my creditor, and get a furlough at some other time.

EDITOR.      

[TCB 542-552]