WHY THE SYSTEM IS ATTACKED.

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of that church, an adult member, one who is presumed to have claimed the blessings of the church for himself, comes forward, and in the child's name tenders the confession of that faith which is the bond of our church-fellowship; the declaration of that obedience, without which this fellowship is practically destroyed. And now this child, admitted into the church of Christ, receives that Spirit which is given to the church and to us, so far as we are members of it.* Take away the idea of Baptism, bring it within that low notion which the dissenters, or which the parties in our church, as parties, (i. e. as sects, i. e. as dissenters) have of it, and I confess that all the objections which have ever been taken to godfathers and godmothers are tenable; I can show that they have generally been raised by persons who actually did not know the very words of the forms they were attacking, and brought heavy charges against phrases of which they themselves were the authors, but that is a trifle; they are right in saying that if Baptism mean what they suppose it to mean, there is no need of sponsors.

* For nothing is clearer, I conceive, from the language of Scripture, and the very idea of Christianity, than that we enjoy the presence of the Spirit, his teachings and illuminations, not as individuals, but as living portions of a living body. All enthusiastical, and all materialist notions, alternately succeeding each other, may be traced to the opposite doctrine; its theological root will be found, I believe, in that most practical heresy which destroyed the life of the Greek Church, and made it an easy prey to the Mussulman, the doctrine, I mean, that the procession of the Spirit was from the Father only, not from the Father and the Son.

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CONFIRMATION.

In the idea of sponsors is involved that of Confirmation. In baptism you treat the child as a spiritual creature, because you know that it is one. It has none of the signs or energies of a spiritual creature, as it has very few of the signs and energies of an animal creature. Nevertheless, you are certain of the fact, and you put it into that position in God's covenant, which is alone consistent with such a fact. You believe that it is now under the government of God's Spirit ; every faculty and energy awakened in it, you believe is awakened by His power and operation; every thing that is not sin and death, you believe to be His gift. But there comes a time, when the child becomes conscious of these spiritual powers, when it not only feels and thinks, but begins to know that it feels and thinks. This is a wonderful crisis in education,-woe to your child if you do not mark it, woe to him if you too eagerly anticipate it. In the one case he is too likely to be always a child; in the other, all childish simplicity departs, he acquires a most precocious and dangerous knowledge of good and evil; he looks back hereafter to the child, not as the father of the man, but as his deadly enemy. Now the church seizes this time of consciousness,-this awful moment, when the mystery of our own personality first begins to scare and confound us,-when there is a dim perception of responsibilities, and a struggling of the sinful nature, to throw off the silken bonds of affection, because they seem to be turned into the iron chains of law,-when the

ITS MEANING AND USE.

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hope of some connexion with an invisible Being, who can solve the doubts and quiet the tumults within us, is awakened by the recollection of the words of the catechism, of the morning and evening prayer, of the stories in God's Holy Word, all now beginning to lose something of their childish interest, and not yet having acquired a higher meaning, then, I say, does the church meet us with her service of confirmation, tell us that these responsibilities are really ours, that these struggles of the sinful nature must be overcome, and that the duties may be discharged, the victory may be won; because the hope is no dream,--because the Spirit who took the charge of us in childhood, who has been himself educating us to behold the light which now seems to rush in upon us with such blinding power, will be with us,-not as heretofore the watchful nurse over thoughts yet unborn, hovering over the waters before the firm earth had yet been parted from them, before the period of form and distinction had arrived,-but henceforth the awful friend, and companion, and fellow-worker, the witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God. Such, I conceive, is the principle of this service, utterly inconsistent with the idea of some operation performed and finished in the act of baptism, with the notion of a mere outward admission into an outward society, of a mere promised blessing to a faithful parent; but perfectly consistent with the idea of a covenant, adopting the child into Christ's body, constituting it holy, endowing it from hour to hour with as

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CLERGYMEN ACCUSED

much spiritual life as it is capable of, and bringing it into the conscious enjoyment of that spiritual life afterwards.

After these remarks, I think it advisable to extract a passage from a book which has lately fallen into my hands, entitled "Secession from the Church of England Defended," by J. C. Philpot; a tract which, it appears, has reached the twelfth edition.

The

“Having finished his prayer, he takes the senseless babe in his arms, and sprinkles a few drops of water on its face, using at the same moment the solemn form"I baptize thee, &c." But this is not the worst. most painful part is still to come. The minister must now kneel down, and solemnly thank God for having 'regenerated this infant with his Holy Spirit." At this very moment he feels an inward conviction that no such divine change has taken place. He is confident that as the child was before it was sprinkled, so it is now. But can he not then evade this solemn mockery, this awful trifling, this deliberate lie? No. He cannot, he dare not. The Church of England has tied him down with a double chain, first, by compelling him "to give his unfeigned assent and consent" to every syllable of the Common Prayer Book, and secondly, by exacting from him a promise, that he will "use this form and no other." He is obliged therefore to repeat the thanksgiving for the regeneration of the child as it stands in the Prayer Book, and he gulps it down as well as he can. If the poor conscience-stricken minister could find but one text of Scripture on which to rest the sole of his weary foot during this service, how happy would he be! If there were but one instance, but one precept, but one

OF DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD.

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intimation that it was Christ's institution that infants should be sprinkled, or but one promise that He would regenerate them thereby, how would his harassed conscience rejoice! But no. The Scriptures condemn it, God frowns upon it, and conscience falls in with the testimony of God, and writhes beneath the feelings of His displeasure.

Who can describe the weight and burden of the baptismal service to a tender conscience, or what a child of God feels when he is thus compelled to mock Him to His face whom he desires to fear?

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I shall take the liberty, then, of calling the ceremony which I have just described, lie the first. "The child, having thus in its long clothes made a beginning in hypocrisy and falsehood, must be trained up, as soon as reason dawns, in the same course. It is sent to a daily, or Sunday school in connection with the Establishment, and is there taught the Catechism And now comes lie the second. "Who gave you this name?” Ans. "My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." What an awful profanation is this of those holy and blessed titles which the everliving God confers on his elect alone, that every ignorant child should be thus taught to call them his own! God's own dear family, whom He has taught to fear His great name, dare not say that they are his children, members of Christ, and heirs of heaven for perhaps many, many years after they have been called by grace, and not until, after many groanings and bitter cries, Christ is revealed in them by the mighty power of God. But these ignorant little children learn from their Sunday-school teachers to claim these blessed titles as mechanically as they learn