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rious reader turn to Calvin and read for himself. Certainly it would be very strange if Calvin holding such views of the nature of the sacraments, were to be found so self contradictory as to teach at the same time, and in the same connection, that identical doctrine of baptismal regeneration which he pronounces "evidently diabolical."

Turn then to the chapter in which he speaks of baptism in particular, as distinguished from the other sacrament. The chapter commences with these words:

to us by the Lord as a symbol and testimonial of our purification." Is baptism a symbol of our purification? Then surely we are not to forget the difference between the symbol and its signification. Is baptism a testimonial [document] of our purification? Then surely we are not to confound the document with the matter to which it testifies; the testimonial, the token, the document, does not make the thing true to which it testifies; it only commends the truth as truth, to our apprehension. Is baptism" proposed to us by the Lord, as a symbol and testimonial," that it may "promote our faith towards him?" Then surely it is designed to operate upon us not magically or miraculously, nor by effecting some change of state, but simply as other symbols and testimonials operate, by the appeal which they make to the mind and heart. Does baptism "resemble a sealed diploma by which God assures us that all our sins are cancelled?" and is it accordingly "proposed to us by the Lord" for the promotion of our faith? Then baptism is not itself that forgiveness of which it testifies; nor the cause of that forgiveness. Again, what is that truth of which baptism is the symbol, the document, the sealed diploma? Is it anything else than that which the written gospel teaches, and which the preached gospel proclaims-the doctrine of for

"Baptism is a sign of initiation, by which we are admitted into the society of the church, in order that being incorporated into Christ we may be numbered among the children of God. Now it has been given to us by God for these ends which I have shown to be common to all sacraments; first, to promote our faith towards him, secondly, to testify our confession before men. We shall treat of both these ends of its institution in order. To begin with the first. From baptism our our faith derives three advantages which require to be distinctly considered. The first is, that it is proposed to us by the Lord as a symbol and token [documentum -lesson or proof] of our purification; or (to express my meaning more fully,) it resembles a sealed diploma by which he assures us that all our sins are cancelled, effaced and obliterated, so that they will never appear in his sight, or come into his remembrance, or be imputed to us. For he commands all who believe to be baptized for the remission of their sins. Therefore, those who have imagined that baptism is nothing more than a mark or sign by which we profess our religion before men, as soldiers wear the insignia of their sovereign as a mark of their profes-giveness, cleansing and renovation

sion, have not considered that which was the principal thing in baptisin, which is, that we ought to receive it with this promise, he that believeth and is bap tized shall be saved.'" Chap. xv, sec. 1.

Some passages of this section are not unfrequently quoted to show that Calvin believed in baptismal regeneration, and this in the face of his leading position, that the end of baptism, so far as any effect on us is concerned, is "to promote our faith towards God." With reference to this end, the promotion of our faith, he tells us "it is proposed

through the mediation of Christ, and by the work of the Holy Spirit? Does baptism considered as a symbol or a document teach anything farther or more specific, than what is taught in the Scriptures or by the preaching of the gospel? If John Stiles can not find in the testimony of the gospel, and in what the Spirit of God has wrought by the word in his heart and in his life, the evidence that God has forgiven him, and purified his heart, will he find such evidence in the record of his baptism? Does the fact that John Stiles has

been baptized, prove that John Stiles
has received forgiveness and expe
rienced the cleansing which the gos
pel offers to the penitent and be-
lieving soul?
We know there are
those who will tell him so, but the
question is, does Calvin tell him so?
Those who tell John Stiles to take
the record of his baptism as testi-
mony of his personal union with
Christ, tell him so not because bap
tism is an affecting symbol of for-
giveness and spiritual regeneration,
but because it is in their view some.
thing else, even the channel or ve.
hicle by which forgiveness and the
grace that regenerates are actually
conveyed and communicated; and
that is the very teaching which Cal-
vin pronounces " plainly diabolical."
In the next section to that which
we have just placed under the eye
of the reader, Calvin quotes from
Paul, (Eph. v, 26, and Titus iii, 5,)
and from Peter, (1 Pet. iii, 21,) and

[or death to sin] in Christ, and our new life in him." After quoting the passage from Paul, (Rom. vi, 3, 4,) So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death,' &c. he says that Paul, in these words, "does not merely exhort us to an imitation of Christ, as if he had said that we are admonished by baptism that after the example of his death we should die to sin, and that after the example of his resurrection we should rise to righteousness, but he goes much farther, and teaches that by baptism Christ has made us partakers of his death, that we may be ingrafted into it." Does Calvin mean then to deduce from this passage that very doctrine of the opus operatum of this sacrament, the intrinsic efficacy of the baptismal ceremony, which he has so often and so earnestly denied? By no means. That of which he is speaking, is an advantage which our faith derives from baptism. And be "It was not the intention of Paul to sig. sides, his language here must be nify that our ablution and salvation are interpreted as he has told us to inter. effected by the water, or that the water pret it in all such cases. Accord contains in itself the virtue to purify, re-ingly, in the very next sentence he generate and renew; nor did Peter mean that it is the cause of salvation, but only that the knowledge and certainty of such gifts is received by this sacrament, which is sufficiently evident from the words they have used. For Paul connects together the word of life' and 'the baptism of water;' as if he had said that the news of our ablution and sanctification is brought to us by the Gospel, and by baptism this message is confirmed. And Peter, after having said that baptism doth save us,' immediately adds that it is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God, which proceeds from faith. But on the contrary, baptism promises us no other purification than by the sprinkling of the

says:

of Christ, which is emblematically represented by water, on account of its resemblance to washing and cleansing. Who then will say that we are cleansed by that water which clearly certifies the blood of Christ to be our true and only

ablution?"

In the seventh section he proceeds to speak of the second advantage which faith derives from this sacrament. "It shows our mortification

says, "They who receive baptism with the faith with which they ought to receive it, truly experience the efficacy of Christ's death in the mor tification of the flesh, and also the energy of his resurrection in the vivification of the spirit." His meaning is, that the gospel promises to the believer not only pardon but a gracious renovation; and that bap tism is a symbol or token, and therefore a proof, of that promise, not only as it respects the pardon, but also as it respects the quickening and renewing grace. Accordingly, he says, "Thus we are promised first the gratuitous remission of sins and imputation of righteousness; and se condly, the grace of the Holy Spirit to reform us to newness of life." These two promises are set before us in the word of the gospel; and, for the confirmation of our faith, they are set before us also in the

symbolic teaching of the sacrament of baptism.

sent them to us in such figures: not that such blessings are tied up or enclosed in the sacrament, or that it has the power to impart them to us; but only because it is a sign by which the Lord testifies his will that he is determined to give us all these things: nor does it only feed our eyes with a mere show, but it conducts us to a present reality; and what it represents in a figure, it at the same time efficaciously fulfills." 66 Sec. 14.

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In the sixth section, the author, still illustrating the operation of baptism in promoting our faith towards God,' proceeds to the last of the three particulars in which this sacrament is designed to strengthen our faith. It affords us," he says, certain testimony not only that we are ingrafted into the life and death of Christ, but that we are so united to Christ as to be partakers of all his benefits." Baptism in this particular, as in both the preceding, is a testimony to confirm our faith in something which the gospel promises. We can not stop here to renew the argument by which this is demonstrated.

After having argued the identity of John's baptism with that instituted by Christ, he deduces from these views "the falsehood of the notion which some have long ago maintain ed, and which others persist in maintaining, that by baptism we are delivered and exempted from original sin, and from the corruption which has descended from Adam to all his posterity." His doctrine, in opposition to this, is, that "by baptism believers are certified that this condemnation [inherited by nature] is removed from them, since, as we said, the Lord promises us by this sign,"* &c.

We find this inquiry occupying more room than we intended. One more quotation, and we have done.

"This analogy or similitude is a most certain rule of sacraments; that in corporeal things we contemplate spiritual things just as if they were placed before our eyes, as it has pleased God to repre

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How does baptism, in Calvin's view, efficaciously fulfill what it represents in a figure?' By promoting our faith. By conducting us beyond the mere show to the present reality.' By leading us to 'contemplate those spiritual things' which God represents to us by the symbol. The entire efficacy of baptism, in Calvin's theory, is its efficacy, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in promoting faith,-its legitimate efficacy as a divinely appointed symbol appealing to the mind and heart.

This may suffice as an illustration of the acuteness and wisdom of those who have taken it upon themselves, of late, to assert that Calvin and the reformers of his age, the Westminster Assembly and the Synod at Saybrook, all held the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. It was in our minds to carry this investigation further, to show what Calvin teaches respecting the Lord's supper, and to analyze what is said on these subjects in "the standards of the dissenters," videlicet the Westminster Catechisms and Confession, the Savoy Confession, and the Confession of the Reformed Dutch Church. But the doctrine, not to say the language of these documents, is the same with Calvin's. Should we find occasion, we may pursue our readings at some future opportunity. For the present we say, Here endeth the first lesson.

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THE BISHOP'S ATTORNEY ON THE CHURCH OF

ENGLAND.*

BISHOP BROWNELL'S Attorney, as we anticipated, has again appeared in court. We have now a pamphlet entitled, "The state of Religion in England and Germany compared." Among the many unaccountable hallucinations of this laborious but unfortunate writer, is the idea that there is some controversy between him and the New Englander, touching the state of theology and piety in Germany. Under the influence of this hallucination, he makes large quotations from various writers, English and American, to show what evils in the form of infidel opinions and corresponding laxity of practice, have been, and are still, prevalent in that country. None of our readers need be told how entirely the labor which he expends in that effort is thrown away. As for German philosophy, so far as it differs from plain New England common sense, we have almost as little respect for it as we have for the philosophy of Professor Newman, who holds that "the mystery of baptism-that mystery by which a new creature is formed by means of water and fire," is the key to Geology; that a true philosopher with "a spiritualized eye," a spiritualized eye," "would expect to discern in every animal and material nature the fig ure of a cross;" and that such a philosopher with a spiritualized eye as aforesaid, "would not be surprised to find that all mathematical figures are reducible to this element; or as modern anatomists have suggested, that the whole animal

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world is framed upon this type, a central column with lateral processes." And as for German theology, so called-the theology of Ration. alism which despises the Scriptures, and knows nothing of the moral government of God or of redemption and forgiveness through Christ, we hold it to be from beginning to end almost as great an outrage on common sense, as the theology of those Anglican doctors who hold that in the Eucharist as administered by their authorized hands, the recip ient eats, not figuratively or sym bolically, but literally, the identical human flesh that bled upon the cross at Calvary. In matters of philology and of historical inves tigation, the German scholars, as all men know, are in advance of the world. But in philosophy they can never create a system for a free, shrewd, practical race of men like the people of these States; far less can they do it in theology. In these two departments not less than in politics, the Anglo-American people, and above all others the uni versal Yankee nation, are likely to do their own thinking.

In respect to the causes which have produced this prevalence of Neology in Germany, there is a difference between us and the learned counsel for the bishop of Connecticut a difference but not a controversy. He holds, and his client holds, that whatever there is to be lamented in respect to the state of religion in that country, has resulted from the want of what they call Apostolical Succession, and from the want of the Anglican Liturgy, and of Queen Elizabeth's act of uni formity. Our mode of accounting for the phenomenon, as our readers will remember, is altogether different. We ascribe the wide decay of

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the reformation in Germany, first and chiefly, to the fact that there is not and never has been in that country, a visible church organized as Christ's church and not as Cæsar's,—the fact that there has been there no church independent of the state, and acknowledging Christ alone as its head; no church constituted by the voluntary union and mutual recognition of those whose hearts have received the knowledge of Christ. The popular element of Christianity-the right of the people to choose their own pastors-the right of the church to judge of the fitness of its own members-that in Christianity which Puritanism laid hold of and contended for with a force that shook all England and changed the destiny of the English race, has never had scope in Germany. Such is the difference between our theory on this point and the theory of the bishop and his lawyer. We are willing to submit the question without argument. No thinking man who knows anything of the way in which ecclesiastical affairs are managed in Germany, can be at a loss how to explain the fact that the theology of German professors and doctors has become, to so great an extent, mere infidelity.

lishmen call the church,' is a system of enormous abuses-a moral and social nuisance that ought to be abated by law at all hazards. We hold that whatever there is of true Christianity in England, whether within or without the pale of that establishment, exists there not by virtue of the establishment, but in spite of its legitimate tendencies. We hold that the destruction of that establishment, the application of its immense revenues to some object of public utility, and the putting of Christianity in England upon its own resources and powers, is a consummation most earnestly to be endeavored. This writer, on the other hand, and we have no reason to think that here he differs from his bishop or from his party, speaks most tenderly and reverently of the church of England, meaning thereby, as we understand him, not the truly Christian people and ministers in England, nor those of that description who happen to be connected with the establishment, but the establishment itself, with all the abuses and corruptions which go to make up its being. He admits, indeed, "that the connection of church and state is an evil, and that it would probably be better for religion if it were dissolved in England." By this he means, if we understand him, little more than that the power which Parliament has to legislate on ecclesiastical affairs is an evil, and that it would probably be better for religion if the establishment, just as it is,tithes, prebends, pluralities, patronage and all,-were free from the control of the civil government. For our own part we think that such an arrangement, instead of being "better for religion" than the present state of things, would "probably" be even worse. Having made this admission, the author takes care that it is not carried too far. He does by no means admit "that it is our duty to make war upon" the connection of of church and state, “or to join in

Nor have we any dispute with this writer as to the fact that the infidel ity which has prevailed in the schools of Germany is on the wane, while indications of the revival and spread of evangelical doctrine and piety are multiplying. This the writer distinctly and repeatedly admits, and he attempts to account for it. He may explain the fact as he pleases; or if he should find his explanations unsatisfactory to his patrons, he may deny the fact at his convenience. We have no argument with him, or with his bishop, on this point.

But in regard to the royal and parliamentary church of England, it has been our fortune to differ from him. We hold that the politico-ecclesiastical institution which Eng

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