104 DR. PYE SMITH'S OPINION OF IT.

characters, by these prejudiced statements, than to those whom they attack. Their doctrine, as I told you, is, that the promise of God to believing parents, that their child shall be justified, sanctified and saved, is so positive, that all doubt on the matter is sinful, and that their business is to look upon their child as already in the condition in which they are sure it will be hereafter. After what I have said as to my belief in our right to call a baptised person a child of God, because he is one, I need not tell you that I am not satisfied with a notion which confers on him that high honour, because he is intended to become one. From the following passage in an Appendix to a Sermon by Dr. Pye Smith, I imagine that the Dissenters generally are not disposed to view this doctrine in a much more favourable light than that which is maintained by the High Churchmen.

"What but the most extraordinary and next to incredible perversion of the argument from analogy, can have induced a minister of Christ so holy, singleminded, and faithful as Mr. Budd, to rest on a ground of assumption not having the smallest degree of evidence, his conformity to the Church of England, and his satisfaction with those parts of her Liturgy which are the most excruciating to thoughtful persons, whether in or out of her communion ?-His principle is that The National Church- -is, not a community of natural men, but a communion of saints ;

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sumed to be no others than men resting on the promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus, and entertaining com

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HOW IT BECOMES A FICTION.

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mon hopes in virtue of the promise.- -The child in our Church is accepted in virtue of the promise; receives the seal and sign of baptism; and in virtue of the same promise is assumed to be a sound member of the Church."-Christian Observer, Feb. 1834, p, 91. Compared with this, what are all the fictions of law, which have till lately created trouble and expense in our courts? They were only smiled at as relics of feudalism, absurdities but not deceptions: but who can look without shuddering upon this AWFUL and MONSTROUS FICTION, held forth to the millions of our population, of all characters, not excluding blasphemers, infidels, and the most licentious profligates, if they die without having been excommunicated ?”—Appendix to a Sermon on the Necessity of Religion to the Well-being of a Nation, by Dr. Pye Smith.

Whether the parts of our service alluded to in this extract, are "excruciating to thoughtful persons," or whether they are excruciating simply to those who do not think, or who think perversely, I may inquire hereafter. Thus far I fully agree with Dr. Pye Smith, that if we have nothing better than a hope, however certain that hope may be, to rest this language upon, it does involve a fiction, possibly he is not wrong in calling it, or any theological fiction, awful and monstrous.

But, strongly as I feel this conviction, I believe that Mr. Budd's view is only false, because he has separated it from the other two which prevail among his brethren, and that when introduced as a supplement to these views, instead of a substitute for them, it becomes really most valuable

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YET IT CONTAINS A TRUTH.

Our Baptism is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The idea of an adopting Father is, I conceive, satisfactorily brought out by the High Churchman. He is unsatisfactory, as I think I have shown, when he speaks of our constitution in Christ, or of the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Evangelical view, rightly interpreted, explains one of the High Church omissions, but only imperfectly and implicitly recognizes the other. The idea of the Holy Spirit, personally and actually inhabiting, educating, informing the mind of the child, of parents, schoolmasters, legislators, being his servants and fellowworkers in training the whole family, and each member of the family, to realize the privileges of their constitution, and to become acquainted with the name and will of Him who has established it,

is a grave and glorious truth, which it is an high honour to Mr. Budd that he has been permitted to perceive, and which we should be very thankful to him for having, even in an inadequate manner, illustrated.

I must plainly tell him, that I conceive there is an idea of sound ecclesiastical education embodied in the forms of our church and the institutions of our country, for which his "Hints on Nursery Education" seem to me a very poor substitute. Since that idea has been lost sight of, corrupt and worldly motives have been introduced into the system, which have impaired its efficacy, and given it an air of inconsistency, which you can never detect in the modern schemes that are

MISSIONARY PREACHING.

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wholly based on such motives. But it still lives, though hidden; and a true patriot will be far more anxious to bring it to light, and shew how parts of the scheme, which now seem incongruous, are reconciled and explained by it, than to introduce anything of his own in its place. Another great principle Mr. Budd seems to have hinted at, which I trust may one day be thoroughly explored and worked out ;-it is, that our modern idea of missionary enterprizes is not in accordance with the plan of Providence, and the language of Scripture; that it is by preaching God's kingdom to the heathen, declaring that he has redeemed man and entered into covenant with him, and by receiving them into that covenant, not by preaching notions and doctrines which are only intelligible when they have been admitted into it-that we best fulfil the commission,-"Go ye into all nations, and preach the Gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,"— and may best hope to be the instruments of saving the world.

I have now set before you my idea of baptism, portions of which are acknowledged by each of the parties in our church,—the acknowledgement of which in its completion, would, I believe, lead to the reconciliation of all their differences. And this brings me to a further remark, closely connected with the subject of our present discussion, and no less connected with the most interesting controversies on other subjects, now pending.

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PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY.

You have heard of a progressive Christianity,—a Christianity for the nineteenth century, superior to, and destined to supersede the Christianity of all previous centuries. The whole style of these letters will, I presume, acquit me of entertaining any such notion as this; but there is hardly any notion so absurd or dangerous that has not its foundation in an important truth. Whenever the notion is widely propagated, there is a signal for us to search after that, of which it is the corruption. I see it is gaining ground among some of your Friends, as well as elsewhere; and I wish to shew you what light the question into which I have been entering may throw upon it. The High-Churchmen appeal, in support of their view, to the fathers of the Christian church; these, they say, are the standards of all theology; to these we must mainly trust for the interpretation and elucidation of Scripture ;-accordingly, to these Dr. Pusey appeals as his witnesses on Baptism. Now, though I do not say that there are not passages, which may lead a person who identifies the phrases, "change of nature," and "new birth," into the notion, that they support the doctrine which their supposed disciple has advocated; yet I believe, when we have once understood the difference between those words, and when we have learned how strongly the fathers advocated that doctrine of the connexion of the Word with man, which, if once received, makes the supposition unnecessary, that we shall find not more passages in the fathers,