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DEGRADES BAPTISM.

each particular child, and not as that which brings him out of his selfish and individual condition, into the holy and perfect body, they do very much, as I think, to destroy the idea of the church, and to introduce a Genevan, individualizing notion in place of it. Secondly, no men are more anxious than they to assert the truth, that the Holy Ghost actually dwells with each baptised person; and yet, by supposing the essence of Baptism to consist in a change of nature, they make something which happens at a particular instant or crisis to the child, and not the constant presence of a Friend, and Guide, and Teacher, to uphold the spirit in its battles with the flesh, to train it in the knowledge of itself and of God, to comfort it in its sorrows, to guide it into all truth and love,—the gift and blessing of Baptism.

Again, it is still more mortifying to find that men to whom, besides great learning and diligence, God has given a higher grace, the willingness, I mean, to make sacrifices that their poorer brethren, in this corrupt metropolis especially, may hear the Gospel, and enjoy Christian ordinances, should, by their theories, defeat the effects of their own bounty, and well nigh close the lips of the preachers whom they are so anxious to provide with churches. Yet this is actually the case; for they, looking at Baptism as an act done in an instant, and accomplishing its purpose in an instant, and not rather as the witness of an eternal truth, the sacrament of constant union, the assurance of a continual living presence, are driven to

NOTIONS OF REPENTANCE.

97

this conclusion,-that the moment after it has been performed is a period of ideal purity and excellence, from which the future life even of a saint is a deflection, and which those who have wandered far into sin cannot hope to recover;-these must be content, by much prayer and fasting, to seek for God's mercy, which may perhaps, though there is no certain promise to uphold the flattering expectation, once again redeem them out

of sin and hell.

Where is the minister of Christ in London, Birmingham, or Manchester, whom such a doctrine, heartily and inwardly entertained, would not drive to madness? He is sent to preach the Gospel. What Gospel? Of all the thousands whom he addresses, he cannot venture to believe that there are ten who, in Dr. Pusey's sense, retain their baptismal purity. All he can do, therefore, is to tell wretched creatures, who spend eighteen hours out of the twenty-four in close factories and bitter toil, corrupting and being corrupted, that if they spend the remaining six in prayer, he need not add fasting,-they may possibly be saved. How can we insult God and torment man with such mockery? But who urge us to take that course? The very men to whom we,-mere journeymen,-appointed to live in the noise and hurry of the world, not in the quiet of colleges, looked for deliverance from the Calvinistic theology, by which we were pressed out of measure, so that we despaired even of life. When we were feeling the intense, the intolerable misery of being

98

OVERTURNS THE COVENANT.

6

obliged to treat these poor people as outcasts from God's mercy, of whom one or two might find their way to the waters of healing, if an angel first went down and troubled them; when we were tormented with the horrible contradiction of having to say, in one breath, Believe; in the next, You cannot believe; now, You ought to look upon God as a gracious and loving Lord;' then, 'We have no proofs that you are some of the elect children whom he loves;' first, 'Christ's death is the only means of salvation to you, believe in it or perish;' by and bye, But we cannot have the least certainty that he died for any of you ;'—when, I say, we were almost in despair, because we must either speak those inconsistencies, or at least keep them in our hearts, and infect all our preaching with them; these kind doctors told us, or seemed to our ignorant and longing minds to tell us, of a Catholic theology which taught that our people were still under the covenant of God's holy Baptism; that the love of God was brooding over them; that the grace of Christ was given to them; that the energy of the Spirit was with them, to put them in possession of true righteousness. Now all this comfort is taken from us; and if we believe our instructors, we have a worse message to deliver than before. But, although we be ἄνθρωποι ἀγραμματοι καὶ ἰδιῶται, only picking up snatches of knowledge here and there, and thankful that a race of men has been provided, of larger capacities and greater leisure, who may impart to us what little we are fitted to receive;

DISAPPOINTMENT WITH ALL PARTIES. 99

yet we also have the forms of the church, and the Word of God, and a holy commission, and the Holy Spirit, and so long as these are continued to us, we will not, in this solemn matter, give place to these doctors in subjection, no not for an hour. We will assert that the covenant of Baptism encompasses the publicans and harlots to whom we preach, let them have as little of baptismal purity as they may, we will preach repentance to them on this ground, and on no other-that they have a Father, and that they may arise and go to him; that they have a Saviour, and that he will deliver them from all their enemies; that they have a Spirit given to them, and that he is willing and able to cleanse them from their sins, and to endow them with the blessings which they need, righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. By God's help we will do this, though the Calvinistic party, and the Catholic, party, CATHOLIC party ! here lies the contradiction, which is the seed of all others,-unite to condemn us; and we invite all who desire a moral and God-fearing population in the land, to look on and say whether our course or theirs is most honoured to produce that unspeakable blessing.*

In this case, as in the former, I am endea. vouring, you see, to defend able, and accomplished, and excellent men against themselves, or rather against the accursed spirit of party, which has set them at war with themselves. I do not require a

*See note at the end of the letter.

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HOPE OF RECONCILIATION.

ghost to tell me, that of all tasks this is the most thankless. If you will but take a good, kind man's side, in opposition to his neighbours, he will forgive you very considerable differences on points of his actual belief; and will account you his dear friend and fellow-labourer. If you suggest a compromise between two warriors, though you will not get either of them to love you, yet the bystanders, who care nothing at all about the question, will call you very fair, and liberal, and will " swear a prayer," after their fashion, that if all the world were such as you; every thing would proceed so quietly. But if you at once resign all pretensions to the character of a good partizan, and yet obtain none of that credit for softening and diluting opinions till they can do nobody any harm, which persons of another cast covet, who will listen?"Vel duo vel nemo," I hear you reply. But I am not so despairing; I know that there are many in the church who are secretly crying out against divisions, not because truth is a thing indifferent to them, but because it is more precious to them than silver and gold, because no mention shall be made of rubies in comparison with it; and if such should discover that they can speak out, and yet not identify themselves with those who wish for conciliation, because they have as little faith in one doctrine as in another; that, in fact, we must unite and condense the principles which we each recognise, in order that we may have something firm and real to oppose to those who think there is nothing firm or real;-above