of hospitality, of being invited to sit down with religionists of different descriptions; and he avows his manly resolution of going without his dinner rather than expose himself to such an indignity. It is certainly a most lamentable thing to reflect, that a regular clergyman may possibly lose caste by mixing at the hospitable board with some of those who will be invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. When Burke was informed that Mr. Godwin held gratitude to be a crime, he replied, "I will take care not to be accessory to his committing that crime." We hope the lovers of hospitality will take the hint, and never insult the author of "Zeal without Innovation" by exposing him to the touch of the ceremonially unclean.' (Vol. ii, pp. 263, 264.)

Though we cannot be otherwise than pleased with the able manner in which Mr. Hall put this gasconading writer to silence, we think, nevertheless, that he speaks too lightly of creeds and confessions. These certainly have their use. And though an apostate ministry may neglect them, contradict them, and even preach and write against them, yet they still serve as a conspicuous lighthouse, not only to point out the way, but also to make the surrounding darkness appear the more visible. They may be quoted at all times by the reformer whom a gracious Providence may raise up, in support of his doctrine and in justification of his measures; and these quotations from standards of acknowledged authority will have more effect in producing conviction in the minds of such as nominally adhere to the fallen Church, than even Scripture itself; for who can resist the evidence arising from creeds and confessions which he himself professionally believes and acknowledges?— Hence the vast utility of having the Church guarded by the ramparts of sound standards, which all within its pale acknowledge to be of paramount authority.

Could you convict a Roman Catholic from the articles and writers of his own Church that the doctrine of indulgences, of the worship of saints and angels, of relics and transubstantiation, is erroneous, absurd, and blasphemous, you would at once, even in his own estimation, put the seal of reprobation upon this doctrine, and thus silence him for ever. By this means the doctrine of the Trinity, of human depravity, of the atonement of Christ, of future rewards and punishments, is secured in that Church against all innovators; while the former mummeries, though expressly condemned in sacred Scripture, are held with a tenacity equal to a lion's grasp, merely because the Church has for so many ages sanctioned them.

And all who are acquainted with the controversy, well know the powerful manner with which Wesley and Fletcher wielded this controversial sword in defence of those evangelical principles which they were the happy instruments of reviving. When the fallen priests and higher dignitaries of the established Church of England fell upon those eminent servants of God with so much fury, stigmatizing them as heretics and fanatics, they appealed, not

only to the sacred Scriptures, which were the weapons on which they most confidently relied for defence, but also, and which was more effectual with these adversaries, to the Homilies, Articles, and Prayers of their own Church. Without an open dereliction of these public authorities they could not be resisted. By placing the pulpit and the reading desk-the sermons and the prayersthe writings and their acknowledged standards-in such striking contrast, as to show that the one was subversive of the other, many a bigoted Churchman was convicted of his heresy, and many semi-infidels and Socinian innovators were reclaimed from the error of their ways. To abjure the articles of their own Church was perjury; and what, perhaps, was more appalling to many of them, it was poverty and disgrace. When, therefore, they were confronted with those strong testimonies, collected from books held in veneration by kings and bishops, noblemen and priests, gentlemen and peasants, the advocates of error were silenced; and though they were slow to acknowledge the truth as publicly as they had assailed it, they felt themselves obliged, in some measure at least, to yield a reluctant assent to its dictates.

And when others, not of the establishment, saw that its venerable standards were in such accordance with the dictates of sacred Scripture, they also bowed to the force of truth, and gave up their hearts to God and His Christ. Thus the enemies of truth had no

refuge left. If they were of the establishment, their own standards condemned them. If they belonged to the dissenting party, the Scriptures condemned them. But if they were connected with neither, truth still pursued them in all their subterfuges, and forced them to surrender themselves captives to its authoritative commands. And when all such saw that the articles and prayers of the Church harmonized so exactly with the declarations of the holy Scriptures, they laid aside their prejudices against the former, and gladly embraced the whole truth as it is in Jesus, and became the followers of those men of God who still declared themselves to be members and ministers of the establishment.

How much therefore has that establishment gained by the labors of Wesley and his coadjutors! Had the writer, whom Mr. Hall so ably refutes in the above-mentioned review, seen and duly appreciated the service which some of those whom he denominated enemies to the Church and the state were doing to build up the one and to strengthen the other, he certainly would have spared himself his severe strictures. It is therefore to the acknowledged standards of doctrine in the Church of England, which were framed and established by the reformers, that England is mostly indebted to this day for those pure evangelical principles by which so many of her pulpits are distinguished.

Nor did these men of God act, in this respect, without precedent. We all know with what success our Lord and His apostles .combatted the Jews with similar weapons. When the latter con

demned the Lord Jesus as an impostor, as an innovator upon their doctrines, rights, and usages, He appealed to their own Scriptures for a justification of His claims, and for a vindication of His measures. When He said to them, Thus it is written in your law, His appeals were irresistible. The apostles did the same. And with whatever prejudice or malice the Jews might have opposed either Jesus or His apostles, they must, to save their own consistency, bow to the authority of their own Scriptures. This was condemning them out of their own mouth.

And should any of the Protestant Churches depart from the truths on which they are professedly founded, either in theory or practice, so long as their standards remain unimpaired, these will furnish the most formidable weapons of defence in the hands of any able reformer who should attempt to bring them back to their primitive doctrine and practice. On this account we cannot but rejoice that the restrictive regulations of our own Church have secured the articles of our faith from all innovations, even by the General Conference, though recommended by all the annual conferences. And so long as these articles remain untouched, explained and defended as they are in our standard writings, in our hymns and forms of prayer, it will be next to impossible, whatever efforts individuals may make, for the Church itself to become either heretical in doctrine or lax in its precepts. If even the majority of its ministers and members should apostatize from the faith, either in theory or practice, or in both, those who might attempt to reclaim them could appeal with irresistible force to those standards in justification and support of their measures. These therefore are among the impregnable bulwarks of the Church.

We cannot therefore join with those who decry creeds and confessions as detrimental to the peace and purity of the Church, nor even as useless appendages of merely human invention. So far as they are founded upon Scripture authority, they are binding upon all; and the longer they remain the more venerable they become in the estimation of all pious people; and it is far better, in our humble opinion, to bear with whatever defects they may possess, than it would be to repudiate them as being unlawfully wedded to the Church.

NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. Remarks on the Nature and Constitution of the Visible Church of God, in answer to the Rev. Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey, as contained in a work entitled Essays on Christian Baptism." By the Rev. PETER P. SANDFORD.

It is not intended, in these remarks, fully to investigate the nature and constitution of the Church of God; but simply to reply to the remarks of Mr. Frey, with a design to show that God has had a

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visible Church in the world from the Patriarchal ages to the present time, and that Mr. Frey has mistaken its nature and constitution.

By a visible Church is meant a society of people who are in visible covenant relation to God. In this sense I understand the phrase, and that this is a Scriptural view of the subject I hope to be able to make evident to every unprejudiced and intelligent reader. This, however, is entirely at variance with Mr. Frey's views of this important subject. He says, 'Our first inquiry is into the meaning of the word Church. The Greek noun ecclesia is derived from the verb eccaleo, which signifies "to call out, to call forth, to summon." Hence the simple and plain meaning of the noun is, "an assembly of people called together," without any reference to the qualifications of the persons assembled, the design for which they are collected, or the means by which the meeting has been effected. Hence the word is applied to a riotous mob, collected without authority, Acts xix, 32, 41; to an assembly convened by the authority of a civil magistrate, Acts xix, 39; for a congregation, i. e., a number of persons meeting together for the purpose of worshipping God, similar to our congregations, consisting partly of such as have made a public profession of religion, and others who have not, Heb. ii, 12. This passage is quoted from Psa. xxii, 22, where it is "in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee;" and in ver. 25, it is the great congregation, i. e., in the great assembly of the Jews in the temple at Jerusalem, where there was a mixture of good and bad, Acts xiii, 1; 1 Cor. iv, 17; xiv, 4, 19, 28, 35. But in the New Testament it is used in a religious sense; for the invisible Church, i. e., the elect of God, "the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven," Heb. xii, 24; Acts xx, 28; Eph. i, 22; v, 24, 25, 27; Col. i, 18, 24, &c. This is the Church which Christ has purchased with His own blood; this is the bride which He loved, and gave Himself for her. It is called the invisible Church, because its members are invisible to us; seeing it includes all that have already gone to glory, or are now scattered over the earth, or shall be born. This Church commenced with the first believer, and has continued hitherto, and will do so till the last of the elect shall be brought to glory. It is used for the visible Church, i. e., an assembly of persons who had united with each other as a society, after giving satisfactory evidence of possessing those qualifications required by the Great Head of the Church, Acts ii, 47; xiv, 23, 27; and because the admission and reception of each individual member into the society was in an open and public manner, it is called the visible Church. The reader will now perceive that the term ecclesia in the original, and the word Church by which it is often translated in the New Testament, leaves it undetermined whether we mean a congregation, or the Church invisible, or the visible Church. Our present business is neither with the first nor the second, but with the last, I shall, therefore, proceed to de

From the

scribe the nature and constitution of the visible Church. description already given of the visible Church, it is evident that certain qualifications were required in each individual before he could be admitted a member. These I conceive may be comprised in the following particulars, including others :-1. Regeneration, or to be born of God. 2. A general knowledge and firm belief of the leading doctrines of revealed religion. 3. A determination, in dependence on the grace of God, to live a life of obedience to all the commandments of Christ. 4. Submission to the ordinance of baptism.' (pp. 63-65.) In page 68, Mr. Frey says, 'Such being the nature and constitution of the visible Church, let us now search the Scriptures for its origin.' And in page 71, Having now shown at length, that the visible Church had no real existence under the Old Testament, either in the Patriarchal, Abrahamic, or Mosaic dispensation,' &c. From the preceding quotations we learn that the nature and constitution of the Christian Church, in the opinion of the Rev. Mr. Frey, is such as to exclude every other society professing the Christian name from its pale, except Anti-pedobaptists, and that God never had a visible Church on earth until the Christian dispensation was fully opened on the day of Pentecost. I know not that any other Anti-pedobaptist has explicitly taught these dogmas; but still there is reason to suppose that there are at least certain crude and undefined notions of a similar nature, generally existing in the minds of persons of this denomination. I am led to this conclusion from expressions like the following being found in some of their standard writings, viz. If you mean by the Church of Christ, the redeemed of the Lord among mankind, and this is the only Church the Scriptures describe.' (Pengilly's Scripture Guide to Baptism, p. 36.) Again, p. 37, 'The Church or congregation of God under the old economy, which the whole nation of the Jews is sometimes called;' and a little farther on he adds, "Now circumcision was designed as one chief object of it, to be an abiding testimony, that the persons were the legal subjects of this highly favored kingdom, and consequently had a right to the external privileges of it.' So also the Rev. Mr. Cone, in his letter on the terms of communion, as printed on the cover of the forementioned work, observes that The Baptists differ from all others in their views of a Gospel Church, and the Scriptural qualifications for admission to its privileges;' and he attempts to justify their practice of excluding all Pedobaptists from their communion on the principle that theirs is the Lord's table, and that Christ has not invited any unless they have received adult immersion to come to it. [In respect to the nature, the subjects, and the mode of Christian baptism, the reader is referred to the author's discourse, second edition, recently published by J. Emory and B. Waugh, for the M. E. Church.]

To return to the Rev, Mr. Frey. Respecting some of the par