"Never before, in any way, were so large a number of
persons, so competent to the task, brought together for its
consideration. In your volumes, men of the deepest piety, of
fine talents, and with minds every way prepared for the
consideration of the subject, have laboured to produce the
scriptural elucidation of the baptismal grace. I am persuaded
that I should not exaggerate, if I were to say that if all the
divines in Christendom had been assembled at the commencement
of the present century, and had held as many sessions as the
council of Trent, for the purpose of settling this question,
the controversy would not have been so happily conducted as it
has been in your pages, nor pursued to a more satisfactory
result. But what is the result? Notwithstanding that nothing
is so manifest as the effects of the operation of divine grace,
for wheresoever it does operate the effects are 'known and read
of all men,' yet in answer to the inquiry, 'What are the nature
and consequences of the grace communicated by the Holy Spirit
in baptism?' the Christian Observer, with all its voices
united, declares, 'We cannot tell.' This issue of the matter is
virtually avowed by yourself incidentally in a short sentence
in the number for October, 1833, where you say, 'The Church of
England certainly assumes far more than the _nudum signum_,
though it does not go to the length of the _opus operatum_.'
Within these boundaries, then, it is admitted that the proper
place of rest is not yet discovered."
And yet once more:
"I now, Sir, with great humility, beg to submit that the church
has made its utmost efforts in this inquiry--that every thing
respecting it has been concentrated in your volumes; that the
best Christian talents have been bestowed upon it in vain, up
to the conclusion of the first third part of the nineteenth
century, and to the commencement of the fourth century of the
Reformation, and that, therefore, it is a fair conclusion that
further inquiry is quite hopeless, the imagined baptismal grace
for unconscious infants being manifestly an undiscoverable,
non-existent thing. I wish here to add, that a reference to
obvious facts leads inevitably to the same conclusion. In the
all-wise providence of the great Head of the church, the matter
has been brought to the test of experiment, which has been
going on upon a sufficiently large scale for more than two
centuries in this country. Two Christian parties have
conscientiously refrained from having their children baptized;
so that, if the baptizing of infants were accompanied with any
measure of the Holy Spirit's influence, the effects would have
been rendered quite evident by the contrast. But what do facts
declare! What spiritual advantages do baptized children
discover themselves to be possessed of which unbaptized
children do not possess, in cases where all other things are
equal! Surely all fair Christian observers of the dispensations
of the King of grace in his church, must be constrained to
allow that the advantages are undiscernible, and therefore can
have no existence."
There is still another passage in this sensible and truly Christian
letter, which we must be allowed to present to our readers.
"It may be assumed that I have come to a wrong conclusion;
but, I presume, it will be admitted to be desirable that the
question I have considered should be more satisfactorily
settled than it is at present, and if, as I trust it will
appear, that I have examined it under no influence but the
love of truth, it may be allowed that the work may be useful in
assisting others to come to a _right_ conclusion. Every man who
treats a subject honestly, does something to put it in a right
point of view. I confess, I cannot now hope that, if I am
wrong, I shall live to be convinced of it; but truly I feel no
interest in error, and I take no pleasure in differing from
ministers and brethren in Christ; so that, if I were convinced
of being wrong, I could renounce my present opinions with more
ease than I can now divest myself of a garment."
Whether the able writer to whom these respectful and impressive appeals
are made, will so far resist their influence as to make no reply, and
attempt no vindication from the charge of a destructive error, so
distinctly brought against the church of which he is a member, remains
to be seen; yet, after reading the powerful pages to which the preceding
extracts are prefixed, if it be expected that the Scriptures
_exclusively_ are to be admitted as evidence in repelling the
accusation, we must confess ourselves utterly at a loss to conceive how
it is possible that any satisfactory _answer_ should be given. But if
our author cannot be answered, let him at least be heard. He says:--
"In the present day, no intelligent evangelical writer would
think of advancing such things as Hooker and some other eminent
and good men have said on the subject of baptism. Men of
reflection and genuine Christian character now perceive
themselves here to be but in cloudy regions, where mighty
minds have strangely bewildered themselves, and refrain from
venturing distinct speculations and positive assertions. They
do not come forward with anything like the confidence of their
predecessors. They speak strongly against the _opus operatum_
of Papists, and papistical Protestants; and though they would
not be thought to deny that grace is, in some way, connected
with baptism in the case of infants, yet they frequently make
it evident that they would rather escape from close discussion.
There is a remarkable instance of this in the Bampton Lectures
of the late Dr. Heber, Bishop of Calcutta. He says: 'Both grace
and comfort, if they are not necessarily inherent in the
washing of regeneration, and the eucharistic bread and wine,
may at least be attained by a proper use of those means.'
Surely this obscure and doubtful passage, on a subject simple
and apprehensible enough in Holy Scripture, is something
different to what ought to be expected from a profoundly
learned ruler of the church. What Christian ever thought of
denying that grace and comfort might be attained by a proper
use of these ordinances? On the other hand, are we to be driven
to the mortification of supposing that, in the present day,
others beside Papists can be induced to suppose that grace and
comfort can be _necessarily inherent_ in any thing material?
Upon the whole, I think it is evident to an observer, that
there is some hesitation and want of confidence among thinking
members of the church with regard to this view of baptism: yet
the idea of a mysterious connexion between the _materiel_ (if I
may use the word) of the ordinances and divine grace, has by no
means lost its hold of the mind; which is in a great measure
owing to the magic influence of imaginary sacred words. Such
terms as 'elements,' 'holy mysteries,' have a strange effect in
causing men to feel as though it would be sacrilegious and
presumptuous to open their eyes, and view those divine
institutions in the light of Scripture.
"But the imagination, that the application of the ordinance of
baptism to unconscious infants is a divinely appointed medium
of grace to them, is so incompatible with real facts, that a
philanthropic Christian, who looks around, and has his heart
affected by the real state of society, even in this country, if
he could at that moment be brought closely to reconsider this
opinion, which, at other moments, when facts are forgotten,
raise delightful feelings in his mind, could not but have his
eyes open to the fallacy:--the illusion would vanish at once.
If baptism were a divinely appointed medium of spiritual good
to the minds of infants, then its beneficial tendency must
appear in the development of children in Christian countries.
If this manifestly appeared to be the case, all controversy
would be at an end. But do the instructors of youth discover
it? Has the warmest advocate for the practice of baptizing
children ever ventured such an assertion? And if infants grow
up, believe, and are baptized, is it conceivable that their
heavenly lot will be at all worse than that of those who were
baptized in their infancy; or that, if they die unbaptized,
without any fault of their own, they will in any wise suffer
for the omission? Now if all these questions be answered in
the negative, as undoubtedly they must, what becomes of the
imaginary paradise of blessings and privileges to which baptism
is to introduce the millions of our infants? Why should the
holy Lord God, our Saviour, be represented as mocking his
church by promises of mysterious, pompous nothings?" pp. 65-69.
Thus it is that this author remonstrates with the members of his own
communion. But does he neglect to extend the application of the argument
to other Paedobaptists? The reader shall be put in possession of the
means of judging.
"But if the Church of England rests this practice on such
insufficient grounds, how do the Paedobaptist Congregationalists
support the practice? They appear to me to have scarcely any
ground at all which they can acknowledge, consistently with
their fundamental principles as Congregationalists. They are
supported in the practice wholly by clinging to custom, and by
borrowing the arguments of the advocates of national churches
just for an occasion. It is quite inconsistent with their
principles to acknowledge such a visible church as infants are
professedly introduced to by baptism. They recognise no such
church, except on the occasion of baptizing their children.
They admit of no officers, and allow no government, for such a
church. They consider all apparently unconnected persons as
belonging only to the world, and admit their own children to
become members of their churches exactly in the same way as
they would a stranger coming from a country not professing
Christianity; except that, in their case, they are saved the
ceremony of baptizing, which is the divinely appointed way of
admission into a visible church. National ecclesiastical
establishments, which yet unavoidably resulted from the
practice of infant baptism, they hold to be altogether
anti-scriptural, and founded upon an anti-christian union
of church and state. They have, therefore, no reasonable
pretence for arguing for the practice from the appointment of
circumcision, which can with consistency be used only by those
who think that Christianity was designed to have a secular,
external character. Some of them, indeed, seem ashamed of this
obvious inconsistency, and have recourse to an imaginary
distinction between the covenant of redemption and the covenant
of grace; and instead of professing that by baptism they make
their children members of the visible church, they assert that
by doing so they place them visibly within the one covenant,
though not within the other. But a serious refutation of such a
notion can hardly be necessary; it may be classed with other
unintelligible and unauthorized imaginations.
"The members of the church, retaining their veneration for the
notions respecting the sacraments established as catholic in
the primitive ages, have some specious ground of hope that
the administration of the ordinance to their infants will be
accompanied with a communication of grace, in consequence of
the imagined occult connexion between the 'elements' and the
grace of the ordinance, they have, with something like a
pretence of reason, expected that their children might thereby
be made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the
kingdom of heaven. They are persuaded that it is consistent
with truth to speak of baptism for infants as 'the washing of
regeneration,' the laver of regeneration--the well-spring of
divine life, &c., &c., and that in this matter they rightly
exercise Christian submission in following 'the sacramental
host of God's elect.' But the Independents have no pretence of
the kind for this application of a holy ordinance to infants.
They expect their children to derive no benefit from it, other
than what they would derive through their prayers, and from
the blessing of God in bringing them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. They renounce all deference to catholic
authority in matters of religion and conscience, and profess to
believe that all the light which the case requires is to be
found in the Scriptures, and that it is dangerous to follow any
other. They have also no more right to use the argument drawn
from the baptism of households, than they have that drawn from
circumcision: they are both founded on the same principle--an
assumption that the doors of the Christian visible church
have been opened by our Lord himself to the unconscious and
unconverted, in diametrical opposition to the principles on
which they found their opposition to the established church.
Surely it cannot be, that wise master-builders should much
longer employ themselves in daubing this papal wall with
untempered mortar." p. 39-92.
We are decidedly of opinion that whoever may take upon himself to reply
seriously to these statements, will find the undertaking to be neither
quite easy nor very agreeable. It may not be improper to state that this
is a new and somewhat enlarged edition of a work, published several
years ago, by the same author.
Dr. Judson's sermon, which is also a reprint, is perspicuous, elaborate,
and irrefragable.
1. _The Management of Bees, with a Description of the Ladies' Safety
Hive: with Forty Illustrative Engravings._ By SAMUEL BAGSTER, JUN.,
pp. 244. Bagster.
2. _Spiritual Honey from Natural Hives; or Meditations and Observations
on the Natural History and Habits of Bees: first introduced to public
notice in 1657._ By SAMUEL PURCHASE, M.A. pp. 176.--Bagster.
The worthy editor of these volumes has, we think, exercised a sound
discretion in publishing them separately. To the initiated in apiarian
research, "The Management of Bees" cannot fail to be highly interesting.
For our own part, we must confess that, if certain minute descriptions
which may possibly offend a refined moral sensibility, could have been
omitted, we should have considered the work more valuable on that
account. Perhaps our hint may prove available for a future edition.
With this exception, we would most cordially recommend this production
to the perusal of our readers generally; and to those who are engaged
in the study of that part of natural history to which it refers,
especially. The engravings are exceedingly creditable to the talent
of the artist.
As to the "Meditations" contained in the other volume, they are
altogether above our praise. They are eminently instructive and pious,
admirably calculated to secure the attention even of the thoughtless,
and to promote, in a very high degree, the pleasure and the profit of
the considerate. In confirmation, we present our readers with the
following specimen:
"If the bee lights upon a flower where there is no honey
(being wasted or gathered before), she quickly gets off, and
flies away to another that will furnish her. Let us not lose
ourselves and forget our errand: our father, Adam, lost our
happiness, and we are sent to seek it; seek it where it is, and
go handsomely to work; say, I am not for riches, they are made
for me; I am not for creatures, they are made for me, and I am
their master; therefore these cannot make me happy: I am made
for eternity, for everlasting life and happiness; therefore,
let me study that; mind that end beyond inferior ends. Why do
men seek wealth, but to be happy? Why pleasures, why honours,
but because they would be happy? If these things cannot bless
and enhappy me, why should I burn daylight? why should I not
off them, as the bee gets off the plants that yield her no
honey, and once, at last, see where my happiness lies, in
pursuing happiness, and where my happiness lies, in God's ways;
the first step whereof is poverty of spirit?" p. 22.
We hope these valuable reflections will be often reprinted.
_Poems on Sacred Subjects._ By MARIA GRACE SAFFERY. Hamilton and Co.;
Darton and Harvey.
These poems are from the pen of the widow of the late Rev. John Saffery,
of Salisbury, whose name is still fragrant there, and in many other
places; whose zealous labours of love in our Bengal Mission, and in the
propagation of the gospel in Ireland, will long be remembered.
Rich in Scripture knowledge and in Christian experience, with a lively
imagination and a great command of language, the writer has poured out
her melodious strains from the fulness of her heart.
Most of the subjects are taken from the Old Testament or the New, and
the versification embraces a great variety of metres, with the ease and
sweetness almost peculiar to female writers. The whole book of Jonah is
finely illustrated in a series of poems which cannot fail to please.
This little volume is introduced by a modest preface, and a "Sonnet
inscribed to the memory of the Rev. J. Saffery," which is worth
transcribing:--
"Thou hadst a soul for melody to greet,
When thou wert here, among the weary-hearted;
And thoughts of thee are like sweet sounds departed,
That visit time with echoes,--and repeat
Strains that were breath'd beside my pilgrim feet;
As if I heard the voice of my past years,
And thou wert singing in this vale of tears.
But 'tis not in the desert we shall meet--
And who would wish thee where the world is weeping?
Thou hast a blessed minstrelsy on high.
The lyre of praise, o'er which thy song is sweeping,
Hath not a pause like mine--a pause to sigh.
Harps strung for holiest themes to both are given;
But mine is tun'd on earth--and thine, in heaven."
Many others are exquisitely sweet. We have been particularly pleased
with one on Jonathan's friendship, which concludes thus:--
"O chieftain! in thy life was seen
That friendship in immortal mould,
To which ambition's hope is mean,
And woman's kindest thought is cold.
"Gilboa! let thy mountain-heath
Like Jesse's gentle harp complain;
There Israel's beauty bow'd in death,
There Jonathan, the friend, was slain!"
The work is very neatly got up, and we are glad to observe that the
subscribers' names are numerous, and highly respectable.