APHORISM XX.

Jeremy Taylor.

Whatever is against right reason, that no faith can oblige us to believe. For though reason is not the positive and affirmative measure of our faith, and our faith ought to be larger than our [speculative] reason, and take something into her heart, that reason can never take into her eye; yet in all our creed there can be nothing against reason. If reason justly contradicts an article, it is not "of the household of Faith." In this there is no difficulty, but that in practice we take care that we do not call that reason, which is not so (see p. 122). For although reason is a right judge,[138] yet it ought not to pass sentence in an inquiry of faith, until all the information be brought in; all that is within, and all that is without, all that is above, and all that is below; all that concerns it in experience, and all that concerns it in act: whatsoever is of pertinent observation and whatsoever is revealed. For else reason may argue very well and yet conclude falsely. It may conclude well in logic, and yet infer a false proposition in theology (p. 115). But when our judge is fully and truly informed in all that whence she is to make her judgment, we may safely follow her whithersoever she invites us.

APHORISM XXI.

Jeremy Taylor.

He that speaks against his own reason, speaks against his own conscience: and therefore it is certain, no man serves God with a good conscience, who serves him against his reason.

APHORISM XXII.

Jeremy Taylor.

By the eye of reason through the telescope of faith, that is, Revelation, we may see what without this telescope we could never have known to exist. But as one that shuts the eye hard, and with violence curls the eye-lid, forces a fantastic fire from the crystalline humour, and espies a light that never shines, and sees thousands of little fires that never burn; so is he that blinds the eye of reason, and pretends to see by an eye of faith. He makes little images of notions, and some atoms dance before him; but he is not guided by the light, nor instructed by the proposition, but sees like a man in his sleep. In no case can true Reason and a right Faith oppose each other.

Note Prefatory to Aphorism XXIII.

Less on my own account, than in the hope of fore-arming my youthful friends, I add one other transcript from Bishop Taylor, as from a writer to whose name no taint or suspicion of Calvinistic or schismatical tenets can attach, and for the purpose of softening the offence which, I cannot but foresee, will be taken at the positions asserted in paragraph the first of Aphorism VII., and the documental proofs of the same in the next pages; and this by a formidable party composed of men ostensibly of the most dissimilar creeds, regular Church-divines, voted orthodox by a great majority of suffrages, and the so-called Free-thinking Christians, and Unitarian divines. It is the former class alone that I wish to conciliate: so far at least as it may be done by removing the aggravation of novelty from the offensive article. And surely the simple re-assertion of one of "the two great things," which Bishop Taylor could assert as a fact,—which, he took for granted, that no Christian would think of controverting,—should at least be controverted without bitterness by his successors in the Church. That which was perfectly safe and orthodox in 1657, in the judgment of a devoted Royalist and Episcopalian, ought to be at most but a venial heterodoxy in 1825. For the rest, I am prepared to hear in answer—what has already been so often, and with such theatrical effect dropped, as an extinguisher, on my arguments—the famous concluding period of one of the chapters in Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, declared by Dr. Parr to be the finest prose passage in English literature.[139] Be it so. I bow to so great an authority. But if the learned Doctor would impose it on me as the truest as well as the finest, or expect me to admire the logic equally with the rhetoric—αφισταμαι—I start off! As I have been un-English enough to find in Pope's tomb-epigram on Sir Isaac Newton nothing better than a gross and wrongful falsehood, conveyed in an enormous and irreverent hyperbole; so with regard to this passage in question, free as it is from all faults of taste, I have yet the hardihood to confess, that in the sense in which the words discover and prove, are here used and intended, I am not convinced of the truth of the principle, (that he alone discovers who proves), and I question the correctness of the particular case, brought as instance and confirmation. I doubt the validity of the assertion as a general rule; and I deny it, as applied to matters of faith, to the verities of religion, in the belief of which there must always be somewhat of moral election, "an act of the Will in it as well as of the Understanding, as much love in it as discursive power. True Christian Faith must have in it something of in-evidence, something that must be made up by duty and by obedience."[140] But most readily do I admit, and most fervently do I contend, that the miracles worked by Christ, both as miracles and as fulfilments of prophecy, both as signs and as wonders, made plain discovery, and gave unquestionable proof, of his divine character and authority; that they were to the whole Jewish nation true and appropriate evidences, that He was indeed come who had promised and declared to their forefathers, Behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and save you.[141] I receive them as proofs, therefore, of the truth of every word, which he taught who was himself The Word: and as sure evidences of the final victory over death and of the life to come, in that they were manifestations of Him, who said: I am the resurrection and the Life!

The obvious inference from the passage in question, if not its express import, is: Miracula experimenta crucis esse, quibus solis probandum erat, homines non, pecudum instar, omnino perituros esse. Now this doctrine I hold to be altogether alien from the spirit, and without authority in the letter, of Scripture. I can recall nothing in the history of human belief, that should induce me, I find nothing in my own moral being that enables me, to understand it. I can, however, perfectly well understand, the readiness of those divines in hoc Paleii dictum ore pleno jurare, qui nihil aliud in toto Evangelio invenire posse profitentur. The most unqualified admiration of this superlative passage I find perfectly in character for those, who while Socinianism and Ultra-Socinianism are spreading like the roots of an elm, on and just below the surface, through the whole land, and here and there at least have even dipped under the garden-fence of the Church, and blunted the edge of the labourer's spade in the gayest parterres of our Baal-hamon, who,—while heresies, to which the framers and compilers of our Liturgy, Homilies, and Articles would have refused the very name of Christianity, meet their eyes on the list of religious denominations for every city and large town throughout the kingdom—can yet congratulate themselves with Dr. Paley, in his book on the Evidences, that the rent has not reached the foundation[142] —that is, that the corruption of man's will; that the responsibility of man in any sense in which it is not equally predicable of dogs and horses; that the divinity of our Lord, and even his pre-existence; that sin, and redemption through the merits of Christ; and grace; and the especial aids of the Spirit; and the efficacy of prayer; and the subsistency of the Holy Ghost; may all be extruded without breach or rent in the essentials of Christian Faith;—that a man may deny and renounce them all, and remain a fundamental Christian, notwithstanding. But there are many who cannot keep up with Latitudinarians of such a stride; and I trust that the majority of serious believers are in this predicament. Now for all these it would seem more in character to be of Bishop Taylor's opinion, that the belief in question is presupposed in a convert to the Truth in Christ—but at all events not to circulate in the great whispering gallery of the religious public suspicions and hard thoughts of those who, like myself, are of this opinion; who do not dare decry the religious instincts of humanity as a baseless dream; who hold, that to excavate the ground under the faith of all mankind, is a very questionable method of building up our faith, as Christians; who fear, that instead of adding to, they should detract from, the honour of the Incarnate Word by disparaging the light of the Word, that was in the beginning, and which lighteth every man; and who, under these convictions, can tranquilly leave it to be disputed, in some new Dialogues in the shades, between the fathers of the Unitarian Church on the one side, and Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, and Lessing on the other, whether the famous passage in Paley does or does not contain the three dialectic flaws, petitio principii, argumentum in circulo, and argumentum contra rem a premisso rem ipsam includente.

Yes! fervently do I contend, that to satisfy the understanding, that there is a future state, was not the specific Object of the Christian Dispensation; and that neither the belief of a future state, nor the rationality of this belief, is the exclusive attribute of the Christian religion. An essential, a fundamental, article of all religion it is, and therefore of the Christian; but otherwise than as in connexion with the salvation of mankind from the terrors of that state among the essential articles peculiar to the Gospel Creed (those, for instance, by which it is contra-distinguished from the creed of a religious Jew) I do not place it. And before sentence is passed against me, as heterodox, on this ground, let not my judges forget, who it was that assured us, that if a man did not believe in a state of retribution after death, previously and on other grounds, neither would he believe, though a man should be raised from the dead.

Again, I am questioned as to my proofs of a future state by men who are so far, and only so far, professed believers, that they admit a God, and the existence of a Law from God: I give them: and the questioners turn from me with a scoff or incredulous smile. Now should others of a less scanty Creed infer the weakness of the reasons assigned by me from their failure in convincing these men; may I not remind them, Who it was, to whom a similar question was proposed by men of the same class? But at all events it will be enough for my own support to remember it; and to know that He held such questioners, who could not find a sufficing proof of this great all-concerning verity in the words, The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob unworthy of any other answer—men not to be satisfied by any proof—by any such proofs, at least, as are compatible with the ends and purposes of all religious conviction; by any proofs, that would not destroy the faith they were intended to confirm, and reverse the whole character and quality of its effects and influences. But if, notwithstanding all here offered in defence of my opinion, I must still be adjudged heterodox and in error,—what can I say, but that malo cum Platone errare, and take refuge behind the ample shield of Bishop Jeremy Taylor.

APHORISM XXIII.

Jeremy Taylor.

In order to his own glory, and for the manifestation of his goodness, and that the accidents of this world might not overmuch trouble those good men who suffered evil things, God was pleased to do two great things. The one was: that he sent his Son into the world to take upon him our nature, that every man might submit to a necessity, from which God's own Son was not exempt, when it behoved even Christ to suffer, and so to enter into glory. The other great thing was: that God did not only by Revelation and the Sermons of the Prophets to his Church, but even to all Mankind competently teach, and effectively persuade, that the soul of man does not die; that though things were ill here, yet to the good who usually feel most of the evils of this life, they should end in honour and advantages. And therefore Cicero had reason on his side to conclude, that there is a time and place after this life, wherein the wicked shall be punished, and the virtuous rewarded; when he considered that Orpheus and Socrates, and many others, just men and benefactors of mankind, were either slain or oppressed to death by evil men. And all these received not the promise. But when virtue made men poor; and free speaking of brave truths made the wise to lose their liberty; when an excellent life hastened an opprobrious death, and the obeying Reason and our Conscience lost us our lives, or at least all the means and conditions of enjoying them: it was but time to look about for another state of things, where justice should rule, and virtue find her own portion. And therefore men cast out every line, and turned every stone, and tried every argument: and sometimes proved it well, and when they did not, yet they believed strongly; and they were sure of the thing, when they were not sure of the argument.[143]

Comment.

A fact may be truly stated, and yet the Cause or Reason assigned for it mistaken; or inadequate; or pars pro toto—one only or few of many that might or should have been adduced. The preceding Aphorism is an instance in point. The phenomenon here brought forward by the Bishop, as the ground and occasion of men's belief of a future state—viz. the frequent, not to say ordinary, disproportion between moral worth and worldly prosperity—must, indeed, at all times and in all countries of the civilized world have led the observant and reflecting few, the men of meditative habits and strong feelings of natural equity, to a nicer consideration of the current belief, whether instinctive or traditional. By forcing the Soul in upon herself, this enigma of saint and sage, from Job, David and Solomon to Claudian and Boetius,—this perplexing disparity of success and desert, has, I doubt not, with such men been the occasion of a steadier and more distinct consciousness of a something in man different in kind, and which not merely distinguishes but contra-distinguishes, him from brute animals—at the same time that it has brought into closer view an enigma of yet harder solution—the fact, I mean, of a contradiction in the human being, of which no traces are observable elsewhere, in animated or inanimate nature. A struggle of jarring impulses; a mysterious diversity between the injunctions of the mind and the elections of the will; and (last not least) the utter incommensurateness and the unsatisfying qualities of the things around us, that yet are the only objects which our senses discover, or our appetites require us to pursue:—hence for the finer and more contemplative spirits the ever-strengthening suspicion, that the two phenomena must in some way or other stand in close connexion with each other, and that the Riddle of Fortune and Circumstance is but a form or effluence of the Riddle of Man:—and hence again, the persuasion, that the solution of both problems is to be sought for—hence the presentiment, that this solution will be found—in the contra-distinctive constituent of humanity, in the something of human nature which is exclusively human;—and—as the objects discoverable by the senses, as all the bodies and substances that we can touch, measure, and weigh, are either mere totals, the unity of which results from the parts, and is of course only apparent; or substances, the unity of action of which is owing to the nature or arrangement of the partible bodies which they actuate or set in motion, (steam for instance, in a steam-engine); as on the one hand the conditions and known or conceivable properties of all the objects which perish and utterly cease to be, together with all the properties which we ourselves have in common with these perishable things, differ in kind from the acts and properties peculiar to our humanity, so that the former cannot even be conceived, cannot without a contradiction in terms be predicated, of the proper and immediate subject of the latter—(for who would not smile at an ounce of Truth, or a square foot of Honour?)—and as, on the other hand, whatever things in visible nature have the character of Permanence, and endure amid continual flux unchanged like a rainbow in a fast-flying shower, (for example, Beauty, Order, Harmony, Finality, Law,) are all akin to the peculia of humanity, are all congenera of Mind and Will, without which indeed they would not only exist in vain, as pictures for moles, but actually not exist at all;—hence, finally, the conclusion, that the soul of man, as the subject of Mind and Will, must likewise possess a principle of permanence, and be destined to endure. And were these grounds lighter than they are, yet as a small weight will make a scale descend, where there is nothing in the opposite scale, or painted weights, which have only an illusive relief or prominence; so in the scale of immortality slight reasons are in effect weighty, and sufficient to determine the judgment, there being no counter-weight, no reasons against them, and no facts in proof of the contrary, that would not prove equally well the cessation of the eye on the removal or diffraction of the eye-glass, and the dissolution or incapacity of the musician on the fracture of his instrument or its strings.

But though I agree with Taylor so far, as not to doubt that the misallotment of worldly goods and fortunes was one principal occasion, exciting well-disposed and spiritually-awakened natures by reflections and reasonings, such as I have here supposed, to mature the presentiment of immortality into full consciousness, into a principle of action and a well-spring of strength and consolation; I cannot concede to this circumstance any thing like the importance and extent of efficacy which he in this passage attributes to it. I am persuaded, that as the belief of all mankind, of all[144] tribes, and nations, and languages, in all ages, and in all states of social union, it must be referred to far deeper grounds, common to man as man; and that its fibres are to be traced to the tap-root of humanity. I have long entertained, and do not hesitate to avow, the conviction, that the argument, from Universality of belief, urged by Barrow and others in proof of the first article of the Creed, is neither in point of fact—for two very different objects may be intended, and two, or more, diverse and even contradictory conceptions may be expressed, by the same name—nor in legitimacy of conclusion as strong and unexceptionable, as the argument from the same ground for the continuance of our personal being after death. The bull-calf butts with smooth and unarmed brow. Throughout animated nature, of each characteristic organ and faculty there exists a pre-assurance, an instinctive and practical anticipation; and no pre-assurance common to a whole species does in any instance prove delusive.[145] All other prophecies of nature have their exact fulfilment—in every other ingrafted word of promise, nature is found true to her word; and is it in her noblest creature, that she tells her first lie?—(The reader will, of course, understand, that I am here speaking in the assumed character of a mere naturalist, to whom no light of revelation had been vouchsafed; one, who

Whether, however, the introductory part of the Bishop's argument is to be received with more or less qualification, the fact itself, as stated in the concluding sentence of the Aphorism, remains unaffected, and is beyond exception true.

If other argument and yet higher authority were required, I might refer to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which whether written by Paul or, as Luther conjectured, by Apollos, is out of all doubt the work of an Apostolic man filled with the Holy Spirit, and composed while the Temple and the glories of the Temple worship were yet in existence. Several of the Jewish and still Judaizing converts had begun to vacillate in their faith, and to stumble at the stumbling-stone of the contrast between the pomp and splendour of the old Law and the simplicity and humility of the Christian Church. To break this sensual charm, to unfascinate these bedazzled brethren, the writer to the Hebrews institutes a comparison between the two religions, and demonstrates the superior spiritual grandeur, the greater intrinsic worth and dignity of the religion of Christ. On the other hand, at Rome where the Jews formed a numerous, powerful, and privileged class (many of them, too, by their proselyting zeal and frequent disputations with the priests and philosophers trained and exercised polemics) the recently-founded Christian Church was, it appears, in greater danger from the reasonings of the Jewish doctors and even of its own Judaizing members, respecting the use of the new revelation. Thus the object of the Epistle to the Hebrews was to prove the superiority of the Christian Religion; the object of the Epistle to the Romans to prove its necessity. Now there was one argument extremely well calculated to stagger a faith newly transplanted and still loose at its roots, and which, if allowed, seemed to preclude the possibility of the Christian religion, as an especial and immediate revelation from God—on the high grounds, at least, on which the Apostle of the Gentiles placed it, and with the exclusive rights and superseding character, which he claimed for it. "You admit" (said they) "the divine origin and authority of the Law given to Moses, proclaimed with thunders and lightnings and the voice of the Most High heard by all the people from Mount Sinai, and introduced, enforced, and perpetuated by a series of the most stupendous miracles. Our religion then was given by God: and can God give a perishable imperfect religion? If not perishable, how can it have a successor? If perfect, how can it need to be superseded?—The entire argument is indeed comprised in the latter attribute of our Law. We know, from an authority which you yourselves acknowledge for divine, that our religion is perfect. He is the Rock, and his Work is perfect. (Deuter. xxxii. 4.) If then the religion revealed by God himself to our forefathers is perfect, what need have we of another?"—This objection, both from its importance and from its extreme plausibility, for the persons at least, to whom it was addressed, required an answer in both Epistles. And accordingly, the answer is included in the one (that to the Hebrews) and it is the especial purpose and main subject of the other. And how does the Apostle answer it? Suppose—and the case is not impossible[146] —a man of sense, who had studied the evidences of Priestley and Paley with Warburton's Divine Legation, but who should be a perfect stranger to the Writings of St. Paul: and that I put this question to him:—"What do you think, will St. Paul's answer be?" "Nothing," he would reply, "can be more obvious. It is in vain, the Apostle will urge, that you bring your notions of probability and inferences from the arbitrary interpretation of a word in an absolute rather than a relative sense, to invalidate a known fact. It is a fact, that your Religion is (in your sense of the word) not perfect: for it is deficient in one of the two essential constituents of all true religion, the belief of a future state on solid and sufficient grounds. Had the doctrine indeed been revealed, the stupendous miracles, which you most truly affirm to have accompanied and attested the first promulgation of your religion, would have supplied the requisite proof. But the doctrine was not revealed; and your belief of a future state rests on no solid grounds. You believe it (as far as you believe it, and as many of you as profess this belief) without revelation, and without the only proper and sufficient evidence of its truth. Your religion, therefore, though of divine Origin is, (if taken in disjunction from the new revelation, which I am commissioned to proclaim) but a religio dimidiata; and the main purpose, the proper character, and the paramount object of Christ's mission and miracles, is to supply the missing half by a clear discovery of a future state;—and (since "he alone discovers who proves") by proving the truth of the doctrine, now for the first time declared with the requisite authority, by the requisite, appropriate, and alone satisfactory evidences."

But is this the Apostle's answer to the Jewish oppugners, and the Judaizing false brethren, of the Church of Christ?—It is not the answer, it does not resemble the answer returned by the Apostle. It is neither parallel nor corradial with the line of argument in either of the two Epistles, or with any one line; but it is a chord that traverses them all, and only touches where it cuts across. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the directly contrary position is repeatedly asserted: and in the Epistle to the Romans it is every where supposed. The death to which the Law sentenced all sinners (and which even the Gentiles without the revealed Law had announced to them by their consciences, the judgment of God having been made known even to them) must be the same death, from which they were saved by the faith of the Son of God; or the Apostle's reasoning would be senseless, his antithesis a mere equivoque, a play on a word, quod idem sonat, aliud vult. Christ redeemed mankind from the curse of the Law: and we all know, that it was not from temporal death, or the penalties and afflictions of the present life, that believers have been redeemed. The Law, of which the inspired sage of Tarsus is speaking, from which no man can plead excuse; the Law miraculously delivered in thunders from Mount Sinai, which was inscribed on tables of stone for the Jews, and written in the hearts of all men (Rom. ii. 15.)—the Law holy and spiritual! what was the great point, of which this Law, in its own name, offered no solution? the mystery, which it left behind the veil, or in the cloudy tabernacle of types and figurative sacrifices? Whether there was a judgment to come, and souls to suffer the dread sentence? Or was it not far rather—what are the means of escape; where may grace be found, and redemption? St. Paul says, the latter. The Law brings condemnation: but the conscience-sentenced transgressor's question, "What shall I do to be saved? Who will intercede for me?" she dismisses as beyond the jurisdiction of her court, and takes no cognizance thereof, save in prophetic murmurs or mute outshadowings of mystic ordinances and sacrificial types.—Not, therefore, that there is a Life to come, and a future state; but what each individual Soul may hope for itself therein; and on what grounds; and that this state has been rendered an object of aspiration and fervent desire, and a source of thanksgiving and exceeding great joy; and by whom, and through whom, and for whom, and by what means and under what conditions—these are the peculiar and distinguishing fundamentals of the Christian Faith! These are the revealed Lights and obtained Privileges of the Christian Dispensation! Not alone the knowledge of the boon, but the precious inestimable Boon itself, is the Grace and Truth that came by Jesus Christ! I believe Moses, I believe Paul; but I believe in Christ.

APHORISM.
ON BAPTISM.

Leighton.

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching.—It will suffice for our present purpose, if by these[147] words we direct the attention to the origin, or at least first Scriptural record, of Baptism, and to the combinement of Preaching therewith; their aspect each to the other, and their concurrence to one excellent end: the Word unfolding the Sacrament, and the Sacrament sealing the Word; the Word as a Light, informing and clearing the sense of the Seal; and this again, as a Seal, confirming and ratifying the truth of the Word; as you see some significant seals, or engraven signets, have a word about them expressing their sense.

But truly the word is a light and the sacraments have in them of the same light illuminating them. This sacrament of Baptism, the ancients do particularly express by light. Yet are they both nothing but darkness to us, till the same light shine in our hearts; for till then we are nothing but darkness ourselves, and therefore the most luminous things are so to us. Noonday is as midnight to a blind man. And we see these ordinances, the word and the sacrament, without profit or comfort for the most part, because we have not of that Divine Light within us. And we have it not, because we ask it not.

Comment.

Or an Aid to Reflection in the forming of a sound Judgment respecting the purport and purpose of the Baptismal Rite, and a just appreciation of its value and importance.

A born and bred Baptist, and paternally descended from the old orthodox Non-conformists, and both in his own and in his father's right a very dear friend of mine, had married a member of the National Church. In consequence of an anxious wish expressed by his lady for the baptism of their first child, he solicited me to put him in possession of my Views respecting this controversy; though principally as to the degree of importance which I attached to it. For as to the point itself, his natural prepossession in favour of the persuasion in which he was born, had been confirmed by a conscientious examination of the arguments on both sides. As the Comment on the preceding Aphorism, or rather as an expansion of its subject matter, I will give the substance of the conversation: and amply shall I have been remunerated, should it be read with the interest and satisfaction with which it was heard. More particularly, should any of my readers find themselves under the same or similar circumstances.

Our discussion is rendered shorter and more easy by our perfect agreement in certain preliminary points. We both disclaim alike every attempt to explain any thing into Scripture, and every attempt to explain any thing out of Scripture. Or if we regard either with a livelier aversion, it is the latter, as being the more fashionable and prevalent. I mean the practice of both high and low Grotian Divines to explain away positive assertions of Scripture on the pretext, that the literal sense is not agreeable to reason, that is, their particular reason. And inasmuch as (in the only right sense of the word), there is no such thing as a particular reason, they must, and in fact they do, mean, that the literal sense is not accordant to their understanding, that is, to the notions which their understandings have been taught and accustomed to form in their school of philosophy. Thus a Platonist who should become a Christian, would at once, even in texts susceptible of a different interpretation, recognize, because he would expect to find, several doctrines which the disciple of the Epicurean or mechanic school will not receive on the most positive declarations of the Divine Word. And as we agree in the opinion, that the Minimi-fidian party[148] err grievously in the latter point, so I must concede to you, that too many Pædo-baptists (assertors of Infant Baptism) have erred, though less grossly, in the former. I have, I confess, no eye for these smoke-like wreaths of inference, this ever widening spiral ergo from the narrow aperture of perhaps a single text; or rather an interpretation forced into it by construing an idiomatic phrase in an artless narrative with the same absoluteness, as if it had formed part of a mathematical problem. I start back from these inverted Pyramids, where the apex is the base. If I should inform any one that I had called at a friend's house, but had found nobody at home, the family having all gone to the play; and if he on the strength of this information, should take occasion to asperse my friend's wife for unmotherly conduct in taking an infant, six months old, to a crowded theatre; would you allow him to press on the words "nobody" and "all" the family, in justification of the slander? Would you not tell him, that the words were to be interpreted by the nature of the subject, the purpose of the speaker, and their ordinary acceptation; and that he must, or might have known, that infants of that age would not be admitted into the theatre? Exactly so, with regard to the words, he and all his household. Had Baptism of infants at that early period of the Gospel been a known practice, or had this been previously demonstrated,—then indeed the argument, that in all probability there were one or more infants or young children in so large a family, would be no otherwise objectionable than as being superfluous, and a sort of anticlimax in logic. But if the words are cited as the proof, it would be a clear petitio principii, though there had been nothing else against it. But when we turn back to the Scriptures preceding the narrative, and find repentance and belief demanded as the terms and indispensable conditions of Baptism—then the case above imagined applies in its full force. Equally vain is the pretended analogy from Circumcision, which was no Sacrament at all; but the means and mark of national distinction. In the first instance it was, doubtless, a privilege or mark of superior rank conferred on the descendants of Abraham. In the Patriarchal times this rite was confined (the first governments being Theocracies) to the priesthood, who were set apart to that office from their birth. At a later period this token of the premier class was extended to Kings. And thus, when it was re-ordained by Moses for the whole Jewish nation, it was at the same time said—Ye are all Priests and Kings; ye are a consecrated People. In addition to this, or rather in aid of this, Circumcision was intended to distinguish the Jews by some indelible sign: and it was no less necessary, that Jewish children should be recognizable as Jews, than Jewish adults—not to mention the greater safety of the rite in infancy. Nor was it ever pretended that any Grace was conferred with it, or that the rite was significant of any inward or spiritual operation. In short, an unprejudiced and competent reader need only peruse the first thirty-three paragraphs of the eighteenth section of Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying; and then compare with these the remainder of the Section added by him after the Restoration: those, namely, in which he attempts to overthrow his own arguments. I had almost said, affects: for such is the feebleness, and so palpable the sophistry of his answers, that I find it difficult to imagine, that Taylor himself could have been satisfied with them. The only plausible arguments apply with equal force to Baptist and Pædo-baptist; and would prove, if they proved any thing, that both were wrong, and the Quakers only in the right.

Now, in the first place, it is obvious, that nothing conclusive can be drawn from the silence of the New Testament respecting a practice, which, if we suppose it already in use, must yet, from the character of the first converts, have been of comparatively rare occurrence; and which from the predominant, and more concerning, objects and functions of the Apostolic writers (1 Corinth. i. 17.) was not likely to have been mentioned otherwise than incidentally, and very probably therefore might not have occurred to them to mention at all. But, secondly, admitting that the practice was introduced at a later period than that in which the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles were composed: I should yet be fully satisfied, that the Church exercised herein a sound[149] discretion. On either supposition, therefore, it is never without regret that I see a divine of our Church attempting to erect forts on a position so evidently commanded by the strong-hold of his antagonists. I dread the use which the Socinians may make of their example, and the Papists of their failure. Let me not, however, deceive you. (The reader understands, that I suppose myself conversing with a Baptist.) I am of opinion, that the divines on your side are chargeable with a far more grievous mistake, that of giving a carnal and Judaizing interpretation to the various Gospel texts in which the terms, baptism and baptize, occur, contrary to the express and earnest admonitions of the Apostle Paul. And this I say, without in the least retracting my former concession, that the texts appealed to, as commanding or authorizing Infant Baptism, are all without exception made to bear a sense neither contained nor deducible: and likewise that (historically considered) there exists no sufficient positive evidence, that the Baptism of infants was instituted by the Apostles in the practice of the Apostolic age.[150]

Lastly, we both coincide in the full conviction, that it is neither the outward ceremony of Baptism, under any form or circumstances, nor any other ceremony, but such a faith in Christ as tends to produce a conformity to his holy doctrines and example in heart and life, and which faith is itself a declared mean and condition of our partaking of his spiritual body, and of being clothed upon with his righteousness,—that properly makes us Christians, and can alone be enjoined as an Article of Faith necessary to Salvation, so that the denial thereof may be denounced as a damnable heresy. In the strictest sense of essential, this alone is the essential in Christianity, that the same spirit should be growing in us which was in the fulness of all perfection in Christ Jesus. Whatever else is named essential is such because, and only as far as, it is instrumental to this, or evidently implied herein. If the Baptists hold the visible rite to be indispensable to salvation, with what terror must they not regard every disease that befalls their children between youth and infancy! But if they are saved by the faith of the parent, then the outward rite is not essential to salvation, otherwise than as the omission should arise from a spirit of disobedience: and in this case it is the cause, not the effect, the wilful and unbaptized heart, not the unbaptizing hand, that perils it. And surely it looks very like an inconsistency to admit the vicarious faith of the parents and the therein implied promise, that the child shall be Christianly bred up, and as much as in them lies prepared for the communion of saints—to admit this, as safe and sufficient in their own instance, and yet to denounce the same belief and practice as hazardous and unavailing in the Church—the same, I say, essentially, and only differing from their own by the presence of two or three Christian friends as additional securities, and by the promise being expressed!

But you, my filial friend! have studied Christ under a better teacher—the Spirit of Adoption, even the spirit that was in Paul, and which still speaks to us out of his writings. You remember and admire the saying of an old divine, that a ceremony duly instituted was a Chain of Gold round the Neck of Faith; but if in the wish to make it co-essential and consubstantial, you draw it closer and closer, it may strangle the Faith it was meant to deck and designate. You are not so unretentive a scholar as to have forgotten the pateris et auro of your Virgil: or if you were, you are not so inconsistent a reasoner, as to translate the Hebraism, spirit and fire in one place by spiritual fire, and yet to refuse to translate water and spirit by spiritual water in another place: or if, as I myself think, the different position marks a different sense, yet that the former must be ejusdem generis with the latter—the Water of Repentance, reformation in conduct; and the Spirit that which purifies the inmost principle of action, as fire purges the metal substantially and not cleansing the surface only!

But in this instance, it will be said, the ceremony, the outward and visible sign, is a Scripture ordinance. I will not reply, that the Romish priest says the same of the anointing of the sick with oil and the imposition of hands. No, my answer is: that this is a very sufficient reason for the continued observance of a ceremonial rite so derived and sanctioned, even though its own beauty, simplicity, and natural significancy had pleaded less strongly in its behalf. But it is no reason why the Church should forget, that the perpetuation of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing, and that a ceremony to be perpetuated is to be perpetuated as a ceremony. It is no reason why, knowing and experiencing even in the majority of her own members the proneness of the human mind to[151] superstition, the Church might not rightfully and piously adopt the measures best calculated to check this tendency, and to correct the abuse, to which it had led in any particular rite. But of superstitious notions respecting the baptismal ceremony, and of abuse resulting, the instances were flagrant and notorious. Such, for instance, was the frequent deferring of the baptismal rite to a late period of life, and even to the death-bed, in the belief that the mystic water would cleanse the baptized person from all sin and (if he died immediately after the performance of the ceremony) send him pure and spotless into the other world.

Nor is this all. The preventive remedy applied by the Church is legitimated as well as additionally recommended by the following consideration. Where a ceremony answered and was intended to answer several purposes, which purposes at its first institution were blended in respect of the time, but which afterwards, by change of circumstances (as when, for instance, a large and ever-increasing proportion of the members of the Church, or those who at least bore the Christian name, were of Christian parents), were necessarily dis-united—then either the Church has no power or authority delegated to her (which is shifting the ground of controversy)—or she must be authorized to choose and determine, to which of the several purposes the ceremony should be attached.—Now one of the purposes of Baptism was—the making it publicly manifest, first, what individuals were to be regarded by the world (Phil. ii. 15.) as belonging to the visible communion of Christians: inasmuch as by their demeanour and apparent condition, the general estimation of the city set on a hill and not to be hid (Matth. v. 14.) could not but be affected—the city that even in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation was bound not only to give no cause, but by all innocent means to prevent every occasion, of rebuke. Secondly, to mark out, for the Church itself, those that were entitled to that especial dearness, that watchful and disciplinary love and loving-kindness, which over and above the affections and duties of philanthropy and universal charity, Christ himself had enjoined, and with an emphasis and in a form significant of its great and especial importance,—A New Commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another. By a charity wide as sunshine, and comprehending the whole human race, the body of Christians was to be placed in contrast with the proverbial misanthropy and bigotry of the Jewish Church and people: while yet they were to be distinguished and known to all men, by the peculiar love and affection displayed by them towards the members of their own community; thus exhibiting the intensity of sectarian attachment, yet by the no less notorious and exemplary practice of the duties of universal benevolence, secured from the charge so commonly brought against it, of being narrow and exclusive. "How kind these Christians are to the poor and afflicted, without distinction of religion or country; but how they love each other!"

Now combine with this the consideration before urged—the duty, I mean, and necessity of checking the superstitious abuse of the baptismal rite: and I then ask, with confidence, in what way could the Church have exercised a sound discretion more wisely, piously, or effectively, than by fixing, from among the several ends and purposes of Baptism, the outward ceremony to the purposes here mentioned? How could the great body of Christians be more plainly instructed as to the true nature of all outward ordinances? What can be conceived better calculated to prevent the ceremony from being regarded as other and more than a ceremony, if not the administration of the same on an object, (yea, a dear and precious object) of spiritual duties, though the conscious subject of spiritual operations and graces only by anticipation and in hope;—a subject unconscious as a flower of the dew falling on it, or the early rain, and thus emblematic of the myriads who (as in our Indian empire, and henceforward, I trust, in Africa) are temporally and even morally benefited by the outward existence of Christianity, though as yet ignorant of its saving truth! And yet, on the other hand, what more reverential than the application of this, the common initiatory rite of the East sanctioned and appropriated by Christ—its application, I say, to the very subjects, whom he himself commanded to be brought to him—the children in arms, respecting whom Jesus was much displeased with his disciples, who had rebuked those that brought them! What more expressive of the true character of that originant yet generic stain, from which the Son of God, by his mysterious incarnation and agony and death and resurrection, and by the Baptism of the Spirit, came to cleanse the children of Adam, than the exhibition of the outward element to infants free from and incapable of crime, in whom the evil principle was present only as potential being, and whose outward semblance represented the kingdom of Heaven? And can it—to a man, who would hold himself deserving of anathema maranatha (1 Cor. xvi. 22.) if he did not love the Lord Jesus—can it be nothing to such a man, that the introduction and commendation of a new inmate, a new spiritual ward, to the assembled brethren in Christ (—and this, as I have shown above, was one purpose of the baptismal ceremony) does in the baptism of an infant recall our Lord's own presentation in the Temple on the eighth day after his birth? Add to all these considerations the known fact of the frequent exposure and the general light regard of infants, at the time when Infant Baptism is by the Baptists supposed to have been first ruled by the Catholic Church, not overlooking the humane and charitable motives, that influenced Cyprian's decision in its favour. And then make present to your imagination, and meditatively contemplate the still continuing tendency, the profitable, the beautiful effects, of this ordinance now and for so many centuries back, on the great mass of the population throughout Christendom—the softening, elevating exercise of faith and the conquest over the senses, while in the form of a helpless crying babe the presence, and the unutterable worth and value, of an immortal being made capable of everlasting bliss are solemnly proclaimed and carried home to the mind and heart of the hearers and beholders! Nor will you forget the probable influence on the future education of the child, the opportunity of instructing and impressing the friends, relatives, and parents in their best and most docile mood. These are, indeed, the mollia tempora fandi.

It is true, that by an unforeseen accident, and through the propensity of all zealots to caricature partial truth into total falsehood—it is too true, that a tree the very contrary in quality of that shown to Moses (Exod. xv. 25.) was afterwards cast into the sweet waters from this fountain, and made them like the waters of Marah, too bitter to be drunk. I allude to the Pelagian controversy, the perversion of the article of Original Sin by Augustine, and the frightful conclusions which this durus pater infantum drew from the article thus perverted. It is not, however, to the predecessors of this African, whoever they were that authorized Pædo-baptism, and at whatever period it first became general—it is not to the Church at the time being, that these consequences are justly imputable. She had done her best to preclude every superstition, by allowing in urgent cases any and every adult, man and woman, to administer the ceremonial part, the outward rite, of baptism: but reserving to the highest functionary of the Church (even to the exclusion of the co-presbyters) the more proper and spiritual purpose, namely, the declaration of repentance and belief, the free Choice of Christ, as his Lord, and the open profession of the Christian title by an individual in his own name and by his own deliberate act. This office of religion, the essentially moral and spiritual nature of which could not be mistaken, this most solemn office the Bishop alone was to perform.

Thus—as soon as the purposes of the ceremonial rite were by change of circumstances divided, that is, took place at different periods of the believer's life—to the outward purposes, where the effect was to be produced on the consciousness of others, the Church continued to affix the outward rite; while to the substantial and spiritual purpose, where the effect was to be produced on the individual's own mind, she gave its beseeming dignity by an ordinance not figurative, but standing in the direct cause and relation of means to the end.

In fine, there are two great purposes to be answered, each having its own subordinate purposes, and desirable consequences. The Church answers both, the Baptists one only. If, nevertheless, you would still prefer the union of the Baptismal rite with the Confirmation, and that the Presentation of Infants to the assembled Church had formed a separate institution, avowedly prospective—I answer: first, that such for a long time and to a late period was my own judgment. But even then it seemed to me a point, as to which an indifference would be less inconsistent in a lover of truth, than a zeal to separation in a professed lover of peace. And secondly, I would revert to the history of the Reformation, and the calamitous accident of the Peasants' War: when the poor ignorant multitude, driven frantic by the intolerable oppressions of their feudal lords, rehearsed all the outrages that were acted in our own times by the Parisian populace headed by Danton, Marat, and Robespierre; and on the same outrageous principles, and in assertion of the same Rights of Brutes to the subversion of all the Duties of Men. In our times, most fortunately for the interest of religion and morality, or of their prudential substitutes at least, the name of Jacobin was every where associated with that of Atheist and Infidel. Or rather, Jacobinism and Infidelity were the two heads of the Revolutionary Geryon—connatural misgrowths of the same monster-trunk. In the German Convulsion, on the contrary, by a mere but most unfortunate accident, the same code of Caliban jurisprudence, the same sensual and murderous excesses, were connected with the name of Anabaptist. The abolition of magistracy, community of goods, the right of plunder, polygamy, and whatever else was fanatical were comprised in the word, Anabaptism. It is not to be imagined, that the Fathers of the Reformation could, without a miraculous influence, have taken up the question of Infant Baptism with the requisite calmness and freedom of spirit. It is not to be wished, that they should have entered on the discussion. Nay, I will go farther. Unless the abolition of Infant Baptism can be shown to be involved in some fundamental article of faith, unless the practice could be proved fatal or imminently perilous to salvation, the Reformers would not have been justified in exposing the yet tender and struggling cause of Protestantism to such certain and violent prejudices as this innovation would have excited. Nothing less than the whole substance and efficacy of the Gospel faith was the prize, which they had wrestled for and won; but won from enemies still in the field, and on the watch to retake, at all costs, the sacred treasure, and consign it once again to darkness and oblivion. If there be a time for all things, this was not the time for an innovation, that would and must have been followed by the triumph of the enemies of Scriptural Christianity, and the alienation of the governments, that had espoused and protected it.

Remember, I say this on the supposition of the question's not being what you do not pretend it to be, an essential of the Faith, by which we are saved. But should it likewise be conceded, that it is a disputable point—and that in point of fact it is and has been disputed by divines, whom no pious Christian of any denomination will deny to have been faithful and eminent servants of Christ; should it, I say, be likewise conceded that the question of Infant Baptism is a point, on which two Christians, who perhaps differ on this point only, may differ without giving just ground for impeaching the piety or competence of either—in this case I am obliged to infer, that the person who at any time can regard this difference as singly warranting a separation from a religious Community, must think of schism under another point of view, than that in which I have been taught to contemplate it by St. Paul in his Epistles to the Corinthians.

Let me add a few words on a diversity of doctrine closely connected with this: the opinions of Doctors Mant and D'Oyly as opposed to those of the (so called) Evangelical clergy. "The Church of England" (says Wall)[152] "does not require assent and consent" to either opinion "in order to lay communion." But I will suppose the person a minister: but minister of a Church which has expressly disclaimed all pretence to infallibility; a Church which in the construction of its Liturgy and Articles is known to have worded certain passages for the purpose of rendering them subscribable by both A and Z—that is, the opposite parties as to the points in controversy. I suppose this person's convictions those of Z, and that out of five passages there are three, the more natural and obvious sense of which is in his favour; and two of which, though not absolutely precluding a different sense, yet the more probable interpretation is in favour of A, that is, of those who do not consider the Baptism of an Infant as prospective, but hold it to be an opus operans et in præsenti. Then I say, that if such a person regards these two sentences or single passages as obliging or warranting him to abandon the flock entrusted to his charge, and either to join such, as are the avowed Enemies of the Church on the double ground of its particular Constitution and of its being an Establishment, or to set up a separate Church for himself—I cannot avoid the conclusion, that either his conscience is morbidly sensitive in one speck to the exhaustion of the sensibility in a far larger portion; or that he must have discovered some mode, beyond the reach of my conjectural powers, of interpreting the Scriptures enumerated in the following excerpt from the popular tract before cited, in which the writer expresses an opinion, to which I assent with my whole heart: namely,

"That all Christians in the world that hold the same fundamentals ought to make one Church, though differing in lesser opinions; and that the sin, the mischief, and danger to the souls of men, that divide into those many sects and parties among us, does (for the most of them) consist not so much in the opinions themselves, as in their dividing and separating for them. And in support of this tenet, I will refer you to some plain places of Scripture, which if you please now to peruse, I will be silent the while. See what our Saviour himself says, John x. 16. John xvii. 11. And what the primitive Christians practised, Acts ii. 46, and iv. 32. And what St. Paul says, 1 Cor. i. 10 11 12, and 2 3 4; also the whole 12th chapter: Eph. ii. 18, &c. to the end. Where the Jewish and Gentile Christians are showed to be one body, one household, one temple fitly framed together: and yet these were of different opinions in several matters.—Likewise chap. iii. 6, iv. 1-13. Phil. ii. 1 2, where he uses the most solemn adjurations to this purpose. But I would more especially recommend to you the reading of Gal. v. 20 21. Phil. iii. 15, 16, the 14th chapter to the Romans, and part of the 15th, to verse 7, and also Rom. xv. 17.

"Are not these passages plain, full, and earnest? Do you find any of the controverted points to be determined by Scripture in words nigh so plain or pathetic?"