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in name only." Still, there arise the questionsWhich use of language is the most scriptural, and -Whether the misapplication of language may not countenance some material errour.

There is not seldom taken another prejudiced view of the present doctrine; from its being supposed to countenance the delusion, that if baptized infants are afterwards educated and continue in a decorum of conduct, accommodated to the purposes of the present world, it is sufficient for all the ends required by religion; without piety, and with. out the possession of those graces of the mind, which are declared to be the work of the Holy Spi rit, and are the only sources of what is truly valua ble in the life and conversation. On the ground of this sentiment, it is very surprizing, that an opinion so big with mischief, should confessedly have prevailed through the ages of the primitive martyrs. It adds to the incongruity when we find, that the martyrs and other leading characters of the English Reformation, lived and died in the same opinion. A due investigation of it, in its various relations, may satisfy any inquirer, that it is consistent with the best instructions which can be given for "the worshipping of God in spirit and in truth;" and for "the bringing of every thought of the heart in subjection to Christ." But it must be confessed, not to harmonize with many means which have been devised, for the resting of the certainty of a state of grace on the recollection of a season of much animal sensibility; which may have altogether subsided, or else have had alternate seasons of remission and of return; without the conquest of passion, or any holy influence over the affections; but be still looked back to, as "a sealing to the day of redemption."

Together with this opinion, there is another, as was noticed in the lecture, to which the doctrine of baptismal regeneration must be confessed in opposition. It is the supposing of persons baptized in

infancy, that they are not within the terms of the Christian covenant, until a subsequent conversion. To this also, every branch of our ecclesiastical system is in opposition. If in consequence it be said as is indeed sometimes the case-that we therefore deny the corruption of the human heart, or the need of divine grace for its renovation; or that it can be renewed by any other mean; we reject the imputation, and deny it to be a fair inference from our system.

The author ought not to be backward to express his deliberate opinion, that the introduction of the doctrine above referred to-the indefeasibility of grace has been the cause of the rejection of baptismal regeneration from so many systems of theology. In support of this opinion, he takes occasion to state the following facts.

First: The testimony of the primitive Church is unequivocally in favour of it. The endeavours to establish exceptions have been so feeble; and the accounting for it by the hypothesis of there having been rarely instances of apostacy in the primitive times, is so contrary to historick records; that the position has been laid down in terms of universality.

Secondly: Although in the Roman Catholick Church, before the reformation, a proportion of her divines held doctrines, which are here confessed to be hostile in consequence to the present doctrine, yet this was never questioned. Such was the deep impression made by the primitive faith, that it con tinued to operate in favour of the present subject; and continues to operate in the Latin and in all the Greek Churches, to the present day.

Thirdly: At the reformation, the Church of England, and all the Lutheran Churches received this doctrine; and continue to profess it, in the most unqualified language.

Fourthly: The same language was adopted by other Protestant Churches, in their formularies, and in the writings of their most celebrated divines;

until there became current among them the opinion of the indefectibility of grace.

Fifthly: After this had found a place in publick formularies; regeneration, as a subject detached from baptism, obtained the same distinction. They are here supposed to be novelties, which had never entered into any publick confession, until some time in the seventeenth century.

Sixth: The opponents of the doctrine maintained, confess that it applies to some subjects of infant baptism*. To this concession, so little harmonizing with the principle of their theory, they are apparently induced by instances occurring of persons of dis. tinguished piety; who have testified, that they were not conscious of its having been begun at any par ticular time or in any particular manner; or of there having been any period, in which-whatever may have been the infirmities of their nature-they were not sensible of delight in the laws of God, and a sincere desire to serve him. It is difficult to conceive, why the concession to the cases of some baptized in infancy, may not be extended to all; provided the said opinion of indefectability be out of view: unless indeed regeneration be contemplated as a species of mechanical operation, on a being without ideas, and incapable of the exercise of the intellectual faculty. It is to be feared, that this is the notion of some persons, from the loose manner in which they speak or write on the subject. But every such sentiment is brought in, merely to aid a system of opinions, which would not otherwise hang together; and can produce no authority from the Scriptures, in its support.

Dr. Doddridge in particular, is express to this point, in Iris eighth Sermon on Regeneration.

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Remarks on Catholick Communion.-Rule of Vincent.-A Passage in Irenæus.--Unity of the Church.--Alleged Infallibility.

THE object of this dissertation, is to show and to

defend more particularly that in the lecture, the sense in which the Episcopal Church understands this Article of the Creed.

Long before the introduction of the term "Catholick" into the creed of the Eastern Church, and the later introduction of it into that of the West, it was used to distinguish between any particular Church-as that of Rome, or of Alexandria, or of Antioch; and the whole body of professing Christians throughout the world: agreeably to a property of the kingdom of the Messiah, that it was to be established in all nations, and not to be appropriated to a single people, like the economy of the Jews. It is precisely the sense, in which the Epistle of St. James, and the Epistles of St. Peter are called "Catholick;" to distinguish them, in that particular, from those of St. Paul: each of which was addressed to a Church in a single district.

When heresies arose, the tenets of each sect were novel to the Church settled over the face of Christendom; and it became natural to perceive a line of distinction between these, and the totality of the professing body, in different places. In this sense, the term is used, so early as by St. Ignatius in his Epistle to the Church of Smyrna; and by the same Church, in their narrative of the martyrdom of their

See Lecture II.,

bishop Polycarp, preserved in the History of Eusebius.

When the Church of England, at the Reformation, retained the term; she evidently understood it in one or both of the senses here stated. If her language be limited to the former sense; it means no more, than that there are divers Churches throughout the world; constituting one general Church, united in all the essential Articles of the Christian faith: and this she may affirm, consistently with her opinion, that some of the Churches have made indefensible additions to those essentials. If her language be taken as extending to the latter sense laid down, it will amount to this, that she impliedly disclaims communion with all those Churches, which obtrude doctrines striking at the fundamental principles of Christianity. When Ignatius wrote, there was a sect of whom he speaks with censure in many places of his Epistles, because of their denying that Jesus Christ was come in the flesh. He certainly considered these, as out of the pale of the Christian Church: and wherever any dogma, like that here in view, does away the essence, while it shelters itself under the name of Christianity, the use of the Article in this Church rejects the maintainers of it from the being considered as of the body of professing Christians.

It is in a very different sense from this, that the expression is used by the Roman Church; who calls herself-agreeably to the creed of Pope Pius the fifth" The mother and mistress of all other Churches." On what ground can she be called their mother? St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, was written about twenty-five years after the commencement of apostolick preaching. There are no documents to show, that before the writing of the epistle, any apostle had preached at Rome: and there can be no doubt, that Churches existed in sundry cities of Asia, before any Church could have been formed in the capitol of the empire; al

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