before the church-their children are to be baptized." And yet the synod which made this decision, declared expressly, that they saw "no cause to recede" from the Platform of Church Discipline established in 1648, and only designed to give "a more particular explica tion of principles" included therein, which "needed yet a more explicit stating and reducing unto practice." And only eighteen years after, in 1680, in another synod, they adopt ed a confession of faith, which asserted, among other things, that the baptized are "not of course regenerate," and is the original, in almost every respect, of the Saybrook Confession. How much this looks like a relapse towards Episcopacy, the public will judge.

A third proof of this relapse is found in the fact, that in 1664, it was declared," that the children of the church be accepted as real members of the church; and that, when they are grown up, being examined by the officer, if it appear that they be duly qualified to participate in the Lord's Supper, such persons be admitted to full communion." The very doctrine intimated in the Platform of 1648, which speaks of those who "received their membership in infancy," coming "to their trial and examination before they are received to the Lord's Supper"-the very doctrine of our churches at this moment!

Last of all it is given as proof of our Episcopal tendencies, at that time, that the Saybrook Platform, adopted in 1708, accounted it sufficient to hold "the doctrinal articles of the church of England;" when it is a well known fact that our churches never dissented from those articles, but always, on every occasion, expressed their hearty satisfaction with them as we do now! With the exception of the Plymouth ministers, all who came over, came as non-conformists of the church of England, not as separatists from it;

"We,

and their language ever waswho are by nature Englishmen, do desire to hold forth the same doctrine of religion which we know to be held by the churches of England."

But now, alas! after we had come so nearly back to the church of England, when baptism was thriving, and "morals declining," and Christians "growing inattentive to their spiritual concerns," and it really seemed as if we were just about to fall into the lap of Episcopacy, the New Light theology came into the field, and the fair promise was blasted. Since that time, things have been growing worse and Sects have multiplied, and baptism declined, and "practical religion," so says the Bishop, has been nothing but a "change of heart wrought by the operation of the Holy Ghost!" (pp. 20 and 29.)

worse.

Now this "New Light theology," according to the Bishop, was "introduced by Wesley, Whitefield and Edwards." But Wesley and Whitefield were both presbyters of the church of England, one from the Arminian side of that church, and the other from the Calvinistic; both illustrations of that rank combustion which must ever be expected, when a fire is once kindled in the body of spiritual death, and when legions of enmity, startled and crazed by the glare of so strange a light, combine to exasperate the warmth of the occasion. Wesley, however, never came to New England, and Whitefield, when he came, was so carefully admonished by Edwards, in regard to his censorious and fanatical tendencies-the church of England man by the wise and sober teacher of New England-that a degree of coldness ensued between them. Nor is there any doubt that, if he had taken the advice which Edwards and a great many of our wisest men gave him, the wretched scenes of fanaticism enacted under Davenport and others who took his lead, would never have been heard of. The

truly dreadful storm that swept through our churches, in that day, actually began in the bosom of the Anglican church itself. A presbyter ordained by the Bishop of Gloucester, and warmly commended by him, was the moving cause of all this fury and disorder!

But what is the New Light theology?"It appears," says the Bishop, "to be a compound of excited feeling with some of the subtleties of Calvinism." (p. 20.) A compound of feeling and Calvinism !— and this for a theology!-and this, yet again, for a description of Jonathan Edwards! Is it necessary for us to inform the Bishop of Connecticut, that New England theologians have another way of making theology, or, if it please, New theology, than by stirring up mixtures and compounds? The witch-broth style of Episcopacy-patches and scraps -a lock of St. Ignatius, and a finger of St. Cyprian, and a tooth of Laud, and dead men's bones from every region, simmered and stirred by the anointed wisdom and magic authority of a successor of the apostles-this is not our way of making theology. Least of all is it the way of Jonathan Edwards, a man renowned all over the world, and among all rigid thinkers, and in chairs of philosophy, for his analytic keenness, his cool and demonstrative logic, and the intense vigor with which he grasped the most difficult and abstruse subjects within the range of human thought. And yet the Bishop of Connecticut verily believes that the theology of Jonathan Edwards is made up of a compound of excited feeling and some of the subtleties of Calvinism! We profess no implicit assent to the speculations of Edwards; but that any intelligent person should thus conceive the man, exceeds our understanding.

But wherein is this theology new? According to the Bishop's own conception, it is nothing but Calvinism, with a little excited feeling stirred

in, to give it action. And as Calvinism is older than the thirty-nine articles, and as the feeling stirred in is not doctrine or theology at all, it follows that our New Light theology is a little older than the theology of the church of England. And so it verily is; for the doctrine of a great spiritual change, wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God, developed by Edwards in his own way, and by other New England theologians before and after him in theirs, is still in radical agreement with that of Calvin. But the Bishop shall give his own view of this theology.

"According to the popular apprehension of this scheme, (p. 20,) the essence of religion consists in a sudden change, wrought by the Holy Ghost, without the instrumentality of means;-perceptible to the mind, but independent of the co-operation of those who are the subjects of it. Connecting this experimental change with the Calvinistic doctrine of perseverance in grace, the work of salvation is completed. There seems no further need of the

aids of divine grace, nor of any of the instrumentalities which God has appointed for the salvation of men;-no need of a church; no need of a ministry; no need of sacraments. The work is finished!"

To the eloquence of this ecclesiastical sneer we are duly sensible. But the utter dereliction of truth, in every sentence of the passage quoted, is but a fit accompaniment. If it were said that our hearers do misconstrue our doctrine through their perversity, and do many of them practically hold, that nothing more is necessary for them, after they have once become satisfied of their conversion, we agree it may be

So.

And do none, in the Episcopal church, stay content with their baptism in the same way-resting in it and deeming it enough thus to be "regenerated" and made "heirs of the kingdom of heaven ?” Man is a creature all perversity, and he will try for a resting place in sloth and self-indulgence under any and every doctrine. But if the Bishop means to say, that our hearers have a right to any such impres

sions under our preaching, or that they are not guarded against them most earnestly and by reiterated expostulations, it is unqualifiedly false. Nor again do we teach, that the change of heart, which is wrought by the Holy Ghost, is "without the instrumentality of means.' "Such language can be found most abundantly used, but always in reference to the change most analytically and immediately considered as a work of the divine agency—always in connection with means more remotely insisted on-hearing the word, prayer, reflection, and striving to enter in. Neither do we say that this change is "perceptible to the mind." That is a Methodist doctrine, regarded by us as a superstition. We only say, that if so great a change is wrought in the dispositions of the soul, the subject is likely to discover it by appropriate evidences; though he may be so confused, or so distrustful of himself, as to go through life in doubt of his good estate. No recent school among us declares that man is "the efficient agent in the work," (see note, p. 20.) On the contrary, the school alluded to expressly and uniformly denies it. We do not say that there is now "no further need of the aids of divine grace-no need of a church, no need of a ministry, no need of sacraments, the work is finished." On the contrary, it is expressly taught, and solemnly insisted on, by every teacher in New England, that regeneration is only the beginning of the work of sanctification, the mere seminal power of a new life; and that if they do not go on to make their calling sure, by lives of obedience towards God and charity towards their fellow men, their confidence is the hope of a hypocrite. We have a church, and, what is of some consequence in our estimation, we have discipline in it. We have a ministry, which is not a priesthood, which also we think of some consequence-no people ever loved

their ministry more, or followed their ministrations with more avidity. We have sacraments—and that too, clear of all priestly magic and incantation; and in these sacraments we seek our edification. And if we do not think it essential to an affectionate and persuasive remembrance of our Savior's death, that we should eat him, perhaps the intelligent Christians of some future age may not the less respect our piety or our understanding.

In regard to the disuse, or the little improvement that is made of infant baptism, charged upon us by the Bishop, under cover of a somewhat exaggerated picture from the late Dr. Dwight, (p. 19,) we have yet to say, that there is more truth in the charge than there should be. Though if we were called to choose between our own deficient improvement of the rite, and the rank papal delusion, by which the Bishop and his church make it nearly the whole matter of practical religion, we could not long hesitate. We have no wish to parry the Bishop's strictures on this head. Here, for once, (and it is the only instance in his charge,) he has hit his mark, and we are willing that our churches should see it. At the same time, what conception of practical religion has the man who can say, upon the simple discovery that we make too little of infant baptism-"This is a pitiable account of the state of practical religion among one of the largest bodies of Christians in New England!" (p. 19.) How could he say more significantly that, with him, baptism and practical religion are one and the same thing! And it is our jealousy of this most unevangelical and monstrous error, which has induced the neglect of which the Bishop complains-not any new views in theology.

In our own little diocese, we have always aimed to make this rite significant, and secure its legitimate effects; and many others, we know,

are endeavoring to do the same. We hold that baptized children are members of the church, confided to its watch, and entitled, when they evince the necessary qualifications, to the Lord's Supper. We collect them in a body, with the whole church, for familiar counsel, instruc tion and prayer, as often as we go to the table of Christ ourselves. We consider them in this rite as presumptively included in the faith of their parents; and the rite is permitted, we believe, on the ground of a presumption suffered that they are to grow up as spiritually regenerate persons, and have therefore a right to baptism as regenerate persons, even before they have the discretion to ask it. There is no reason why a principle of divine life may not be imparted in infancy, as well as after sin has hardened the sensibilities and bronzed the soul in guilt. If it be not true, if they can be brought to newness of life only after they begin to press the confines of manhood, then are they, in the interval, the most unprivileged of all beings. Whether this presumption, which God beautifully offers in the rite of baptism, shall be realized, will depend on parental and church faithfulness, (coincidently with a divine influence,) where it ought; not on some official magic in the rite itself. And therefore, as the gospel clearly teaches, we baptize only the household of believers, and do not suffer the rite to be made as insignificant as it can be, by interposing the absurd fiction of sponsors, to thrust them out of their place and make their faith of none effect. Whether they become really regenerate persons, is to be decided afterwards, by the same tests which discriminate the faithful of later years; not by the discovery of some particular exercise, mental or bodily, through which they have passed, but by the evidence they give of love to God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, their repentance of

sin, and their desire to fulfill God's holy will in acts of communion, prayer, self-denial, and charity. They are to be distinguished in kind, not in degree only. In this view, we make no breach upon the great doctrine of regeneration as a spiritual change, necessary to all men as a quickening of the dead. But we do give a real significance to household baptism, as a beautiful rite of the church, and one in the due improvement of which-never without-the church may expect to receive the promise made to her, and to her children, and become the organ of power which God designed her to be.

And now, as we have spoken somewhat severely of the Bishop's charge, which we regard as a tissue of errors, at once feeble and perni. cious, it may be well enough to show his adherents how little we are moved, in our criticism, by mere words. Our opinion of the third of John does not correspond with that of Calvin. We believe that by water, in connection with the Spirit, he does intend baptism. Baptism was in use before Christ's day, as a rite of political regeneration, in which the Gentile proselyte and his household were accounted to be cleansed of their pollutions and born over, so as to become the descendants of Abraham. We mean the same by our ceremony of naturalization, accounting the subject therein to become a natural born American. Having a kingdom to establish both visible and spiritual, Christ takes up the current rite and applies it over, as a seal of initiation, we may suppose, into his twofold kingdom;-saying, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not see the kingdom of heaven. Art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things? He is thus brought, we may suppose, into the visible church, and if the seal has its true import fulfilled, is also

great and marvelous change; if they will hold it up as the summit of Christian truth, and the beginning of Christian experience; if they will speak of it as often as fifty times, where they name the other once; if they will expend the stress of their ministry in the inculcation of this great doctrine of spiritual regeneration, as a distinct matter, and give to the husk what value a husk is worth ;-we will utter no word of complaint.

inducted, as one spiritually regenerated, into that higher kingdom of which the other is only the husk or sign. If, therefore, our Episcopal brethren will call baptism regeneration, in the sense that it introduces into the church, we shall not quarrel about the word, provided they will also speak of a higher and spiritual regeneration distinct from this and shadowed by it. Whether Christ intended to use the term in this double sense, is a question not easily decided. But this at least is plain, that he did intend to discourse of spiritual regeneration as the MAIN THING-a thing of as much higher consequence, as the quickening of a divine life is of more consequence than a formal introduction to the visible church. This was his subject at the time, about which all his arguments and illustrations spent their force. As flesh is born of the fish, he was urging, so there is a spirit which is born of the Spirit. And, instead of descending from so high a subject to say that the water of baptism falls where it is sprink led, he says-The wind-that live. ly symbol of God's unseen agency -the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. This regeneration, on which the Savior's mind was specially if not exclusively fixed. And now, if our Episcopal friends will not deny this

is THE

Here we leave the subject, expressing our profound regret, that so many of the nominal Christians of Connecticut are doomed to see the truth of Christ exhibited in a manner so pointless, unintelligent and frigid, as this charge of their Bishop indicates. Woe unto such among them, as can be saved only so as by fire; for there is no fire here. Were we doomed to preach this kind of doctrine, we should feel that we were dulling the wits, and blinding the consciences, and, if they have any, starving the graces of those whom Christ sent us to feed. There is no quickening vigor hereno divine energy. Such doctrine pierces to no dividing asunderpushes the lost man to no determinate result. No light shines through it, save what is refracted through the water of baptism. It is a paralytic gospel, waiting by the pool, to which, if Christ could stretch his compassion so far, he would say, Rise, take up thy bed and walk.

We have little time to spare, and yet we must take time to stick a pin

*Revivalism and the Church; a Letter to a Reviewer, in reply to several articles in the New Englander. By a Presbyter of Connecticut. "Try the spirits whether they are of God." Hartford, Henry

8. Parsons, 1843. 12mo, pp. 46.

through this entomological specimen

genus Papilio-and to give it a place in our cabinet. Should we take no notice of it, we fear there would be some disappointed feelings at the "Rectory of ," where thing emerged from its chrysalis, as we are duly informed, the gaudy