Convinced by the general declarations of holy writ, no less than by the express terms in which the earlier sacrament is spoken of, he [the sound Churchman] cannot look upon the mind of the baptized infant as the blank tablet' of the philosopher, nor as the barren,' if not 'weed-choked' soil of the schismatic, but rather as a field bedewed and cleansed by the living water of the Holy Spirit...... Hence arises that so great responsibility imposed upon us,.... of making their spiritual state, when young, a paramount consideration, lest one link of the golden chain which connects their regeneration with their resurrection should be broken.............. Taking the scripture view, we find the commencement of a spiritual life already begun, and only needing, as far as human means can avail, our utmost care and watchfulness that the good work may be continued, so that the rest of the child's life may be according to this its beginning.'

The hand-bill recently put forth by the society may be given entire; and well would it be if a copy could be put into the hand of every Dissenter. It would surely make him more than ever thankful that he is not, as others are, the prey of priestcraft; and at once remove the impression yet lingering in the minds of many Nonconformists, that the Church of England, though disgraced by the worst discipline, has the purest doc

trine.

" REGISTRATION AND BAPTISM.

'From the Minister of the Parish to Christian Parents.

'As it is now made by law the duty of the Registrar to register the birth of every child in his district, I think it my duty to caution you against a strange notion which sometimes prevails, that this registration of the birth does away with the necessity of baptism; and to remind you that your duty to bring your child to be christened-that is, made a member of the church of Christ by the holy sacrament of baptism, remains altogether unchanged.

'Remember, that all human beings are born in sin; and that a child, until it is baptized, remains in a heathen state; is not a member of the church of Christ; has no part in the blessings purchased for us by Him; is not a partaker in the privileges and hopes of the gospel; nor an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

'I earnestly, therefore, and affectionately exhort you, that you will not be guilty of such neglect towards your infant as to deprive it of the inestimable blessings which are derived from admission into the church of Christ by the sacrament of baptism; but that you will not delay to present it at the holy Font for that purpose.'

The other publication we have selected from those added to the catalogue of the society during the last year, is written in a catechetical form, and is designed as an introduction to the Church catechism; and certainly it is a suitable introduction.

'Q. Why is the name given at baptism called a Christian name? 'A. Because they who are baptized are then admitted into a new family, even the church of Christ, and entitled to the name of Christians.

'Q. What ought our Christian name to make us remember?

A. That we are not our own, but Christ's, &c.

Q. What was Christ's command respecting baptism?

A. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations,' &c.

Q. What does the word 'teach' mean in this text?

*

'A. It means, make disciples. And when they became disciples they were called Christians; and so a child is made a disciple by baptism, and receives a name on its admittance into the family of Christians.

*

Q. What is the state into which you were called through baptism? 'A. A state of salvation.

'Q. What do you mean by that?

A. I mean that they who are baptized according to Christ's holy institution, are brought from a world that lieth in wickedness into the ark of his church. They are released from their sins, adopted into God's family, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and have the promise of everlasting life.'

Such are the doctrines put forth in the year 1840, by a society which numbers among its subscribers two lord archbishops, twenty-four lord bishops, eight bishops, and seven thousand clergymen.

Time was, when the pious ministers of the Establishment were, almost to a man, zealously opposed to the tremendous errors which, as we have shown, the Church of England does, beyond all controversy, hold and teach; but Scott, and Newton, and Hervey, and Berridge, and their coadjutors, are almost without successors. The evangelical clergy of the present day are a race of men sui generis; and they constitute the newest of all sects. It is well known that the Oxford errors have spread rapidly amongst this class of the national clergy; not a few of whom rejoice that their Church has retained those mysteries 'which are necessary to salvation, and divinely commissioned 'stewards to convey them.'* The sermon of Sir G. Robinson affords evidence in point. Addressing the assembled clergy, he reminds them of the 'ministry handed down to them from the days of the apostles, and of the sacraments which their hands ' are appointed to dispense;' retails the stale saying, that 'the 'earliest schismatic with whose history we are acquainted is

*Tracts for the Times, No. 86, p. 6

'the devil;' and devotes the last part of his sermon to a defence of Dr. Pusey and his allies; whom he represents as men ‘engaged in the important work of bringing back a divided and 'deluded people to unity and peace. This sermon was delivered on a public occasion, before the bishop of the diocese and the clergy of two deaneries; and notwithstanding the commendation, measured it is true, but yet very decided, which it bestows on the Oxford Tractists, was published by the request of the clergy. Where were those among the clergy of the two deaneries, who have known the grace of God in truth, that they failed, in the presence of their diocesan, to lift up their voice against the publication, under their sanction, of a discourse in which some of the most pestilential and anti-Protestant errors of the day are spoken of in strong terms of praise? Sir G. Robinson is correct in his fact when he speaks of high Church principles as 'rapidly 'extending their influence throughout the most enlightened 'members of the Church.' There is a growing disposition among such of her ministers to exalt the value of baptism and the Lord's supper, when administered by men episcopally ordained a tendency to displace the simple, sublime, and essential verities of God's word, by the vain, grovelling, and hurtful traditions of men.

The deluding and deadly doctrine of baptismal regeneration, taught in the Prayer-book with all the plainness with which words can convey it, affirmed by the dignitaries of the Church and the great body of the clergy, and scarcely disowned by the pious few, is implied and asserted in the Book of Homilies. Thus, in the first part of the sermon on salvation it is said, that 'infants being baptized, and dying in their infancy, are by the 'sacrifice of Christ washed from their sins; and that they who in act or deed do sin after baptism, when they turn again to 'God unfeignedly, are likewise washed by this sacrifice from their sins in the latter part of which sentence it is evidently implied, that they who had been baptized were at the same time born again. In the second part of the same sermon, it is said, that we must trust only in God's mercy, and the sacrifice ' of Christ, to obtain thereby God's grace and remission, as well as of our original sin in baptism, as of all actual sin committed by us after our baptism, if we truly repent and turn 'unfeignedly to him again.'t Now, the ninth article defines original sin as consisting in the corruption of our nature; the homily teaches, that original sin is removed by baptism. In the third part of the same homily it is written, that our office 'is not to pass the time of this present life unfruitfully, after

'that we are baptized or justified. Much less is it our office, 'after that we be once made Christ's members, to live contrary 'to the same:* in which words it is plainly assumed, that the parties addressed were made Christians by baptism. And what is the testimony of the homily on swearing? 'By holy pro'mises, with calling the name of God to witness, we be made 'lively members of Christ, when we profess his religion, receiv'ing the sacrament of baptism.'+ In the 'sermon for keeping 'clean of churches,' the font is referred to as the fountain of ' our regeneration;' and in that on fasting, baptism is called 'a ' profitable sacrament, the sacrament of our regeneration or new birth.' In the homily concerning the Holy Ghost, in which the doctrine of regeneration ought to have been affirmed most explicitly, there is not a single sentence inconsistent with the cardinal error we have exposed. All good and godly emotions' in the hearts of men are, indeed, distinctly attributed to the Holy Spirit; and the folly of any one imagining himself to have the Holy Ghost, unless he bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, is clearly shown; but all this is easily reconcileable with the belief that men are regenerated in baptism only, and may lose partially, or even wholly, by their subsequent misconduct, the blessings bestowed on them at the fountain of their regeneration.||

There is yet another mode of bringing to the test the tenets of the Church of England respecting baptism. If she teaches that her members are indeed by that rite made the children of God, she cannot afterwards, with any consistency, call upon them to exercise the primary and radical repentance by which sinners become Christians; but only that repentance which becometh saints; and the necessity for which arises out of the 'infection of nature that doth remain, yea in them that are ' regenerated.'¶ The unregenerate are properly summoned to turn to God; the regenerate, to return to God; from whom

P. 32.

+ p. 78.

p. 297.

§ p. 313. According to our Church, we are by baptism brought into a state of salvation, or justification (for the words are thus far equivalent): a state into which we were brought of God's free mercy alone, without works; but in which, having been placed, we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, through the indwelling Spirit of God working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure: a state admitting of degrees, according to the degree of sanctification (although the first act by which we were brought into it did not): a state admitting of relapses and recoveries; injured by lesser, destroyed for the time, by grievous sin; and after such sin, recovered with difficulty, in proportion to the greatness of the sin, and the degree of its wilfulness, and of the grace withstood.'

-Pusey's Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 82. ¶ Article ninth.

they have wandered by their sins. What, then, is the language of the homily on repentance?

It is most evident and plain that these things (the words of the prophets calling on the Jews to return to God) ought to be understood of them that were with the Lord afore, and by their sins and wickedness were gone away from him. For we do not turn again unto him with whom we were never before, but we come unto him. Now unto all them that will return unfeignedly unto the Lord their God, the favor and mercy of God unto forgiveness of sins is liberally offered.

There is nothing that the Holy Ghost doth so much labor in all the Scriptures to beat into men's heads as repentance, amendment of life, and speedy returning unto the Lord God of hosts. And no marvel why; for we do daily and hourly, by our wickedness and stubborn disobedience, horribly fall away from God, so that no doctrine is so necessary in the church of God as is the doctrine of repentance and amendment of life...... Repentance is the conversion or turning again of the whole man unto God, from whom we go away by sin.'-pp. 583, 574, 577.

With these unsound representations, the sentiments promulgated by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge exactly accord. The latter part of Dr. Mant's tract is on conversion. In it, he cites a passage delivered at Bangor, in 1808, by Bishop Randolph, in a charge to the clergy. We will give the passage, merely premising that it is in perfect accordance with the whole tract, and entreating the reader to observe that it was written by one bishop, adopted by another, and is sanctioned by the whole hierarchy.

That among men baptized as Christians, taught from their infancy to believe the doctrines and practise the duties of Christianity, a special conversion also at some period of their life is necessary to stamp them true Christians, is an unheard-of thing in the gospel, and is plainly a novel institution of man.'—p. 50.

This, from clergymen, is quite consistent. Admit baptismal regeneration, and the scriptural doctrines of repentance and conversion must vanish. The names, indeed, occurring very frequently in the Bible, cannot but be retained; but their meaning is lost. It were foolish and insulting to call upon those who have been made Christians, to become Christians. The priest who has affirmed of his hearers that they are grafted into Christ's church, and made the children of God by adoption and grace, cannot afterward divide them into the classes of converted and unconverted. God's command to men everywhere is, 'Repent; a command equivalent to that uttered by the prophet, make you a new heart.' This summons of heaven