THE

BAPTIST RECORD

AND

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

JANUARY, 1848.

I. TO OUR READERS.

THAT the present generation has fallen upon times of movement, whether of progress or retrogression, none will dispute. Singular activity is shown, in this country at least, in the pursuit of every object, whether of a physical or intellectual kind. Popular sympathies are in process of awakening on subjects most multifarious and diverse, and the press vies with, nay, exceeds, all other powers in exciting, feeding, and moulding the mind of the masses. The entire cyclopædia of knowledge is laid wide open, thought is encouraged, and, as might be expected, the longest and best established truths are not left unquestioned.

This is true, not only of the civilization, social relationships, science, and general philosophy of life; the domains of religious truth, and of the spiritual life, dependent upon the revealed will of God, are also invaded. Sacred principles are freely touched by more or less reverent hands. Antiquity, prescription, holy thought, tender emotion, none of them is permitted to urge its plea for exemption. Everything, willing or unwilling, is cast into the crucible. It becomes not religious men, the followers of The Truth, animated by Him who is The Life, to shrink from the conflict and the toil thus thrust upon them. Least of all those, who now, as in other days, have resolved to abide under the shadow of the Laws of the One Lord and Lawgiver, Christ Jesus.

The inner life of men is working itself out in new forms and combinations. Many institutions have become effete with time, and are no longer expressive of the ideas working and seething in the minds of men. That alone will stand which possesses an elasticity corresponding to the varied wants of our spiritual nature, and which can be adjusted to its growth. Such, we conceive, are the institutions of the New Covenant of God with man. And those communities alone which are most nearly allied thereto will possess the greatest stability, and be the least affected by the varieties of human thought.

It is our conviction that the ecclesiastical principles of the baptized communities possess that elasticity. True liberty, the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free, liberty combined with due subordination, lies at the very base of their constitution. Recognising the statutes of Jesus as paramount, worthy of the highest reverence and of the most entire obedience, the uncertain, fallible, and possibly pernicious rule of man is set aside. A common faith and hope unite each heart to other in bonds of affection, and through love work out the regeneration and redemption of men.. Though each member is individually weak and erring, attachment to the perfect law of the Lord produces unity, strengthens character, and brings perfection within the range of hope and desire. In communities founded on the precept and model given by Christ can alone be wrought out the great problem of all human government-how to connect liberty with obedience, freedom with law, truth with love. It is done by subordinating all human will to the divine.

If, then, we understand the constitutive principle of Baptist churches, it is this alone-obedience to the Divine Will in every condition of life, ecclesiastical or civil, individual or relative; or the converse of this proposition, refusal to obey every law or principle which clashes with, or is not sustained, by God's command. By this standard we propose to test the various systems around us. The question, Is it of God? will afford a sufficient criterion to lead us to a true decision.

But the will of God has been made known to us chiefly by the advent of His Only Begotten Son, and by messengers divinely commissioned to announce that will to men. The records of their sayings, and deeds of beneficence and love, have been handed down as the sacred deposit of our faith. What saith the Scripture? becomes therefore equivalent to the inquiry, What saith God? And consequently its decisions are preclusive of further doubt. Hence, everything that relates to those sacred records becomes of moment and interest to the Christian, and it

is our purpose not unfrequently to present that which may elucidate their meaning, confirm their authenticity, and develope the truths contained therein. History, geography, criticism, and exegesis, from home and foreign sources, will be made to bear their parts in exposition of the archives of Christianity.

Nor shall we hesitate to press upon our readers exhortations and admonitions to piety; to a spiritual life; to a devout consecration of themselves to Him who hath bought them with his blood.

We stand not alone in attachment to these principles of faith and obedience. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, unite us with brethren in every part of the earth, who, with us, pay allegiance to the One Sovereign and Lawgiver of the church. Their acts of faith, their labours of love, their zeal for the Lord, ought not to be unknown to us.

Multitudes, too, of whom the world was not worthy, have preceded us in the same path to heaven; have borne with fortitude the onslaught of fiery and bloody foes,-their story of sorrow and suffering, their imperishable attachment to their King, their loyalty to Truth, will afford us encouragement, strengthen our faith, enlarge our sympathies. They are in glory; but their works do follow them. For us they laboured and sowed, and we have entered into their labours. We propose to keep them in remembrance, that we may be animated in a like pilgrimage to glory and immortality.

We are further concerned to impress upon the literature of the day the principles that guide us, and have borne such fruit in ages that are past. The Bible is, in the highest sense, the literature of Baptist churches. They need none other rule, none other compass. But the multitudes around read everything else rather than the Bible, and much that is adverse to its authority, its truth, its salvation. It would be wrong in us to abjure the influence of so mighty a power as the press. Every other community has its special classes of works to which its members are directed. They are taught its principles in infinite variety of form. They are met in every direction by handposts to the cities of refuge provided for them. Baptists alone have seemed indifferent to the use of a weapon so powerful, of a guide so valuable. Even the noble men that have spoken from our midst, and whose voices echo in pages of profound and crystal thought, our Bunyans, our Rylands, our Halls and our Fosters, have not received at our hands that love and reverence they deserve. Their mental qualities, metaphysical acumen, and eloquent strains, find wider sympathy and more grateful admiration without than within the denomination they adorned. Too often we

content ourselves with the productions of men, who, if not hostile to the truths we hold, are careless of their advancement. We state not now the causes, or supposed causes of this; but we urge the attempt to fix on modern literature the impression of those sacred truths we affirm to be from God, and to present them vigorously and powerfully before the minds of men; and above all to render them familiar to the members of our many congregations. We hope to see the day when the works of those men of God will be in all hands, in a form and at a price that shall render them accessible to the poorest of the people. It is our purpose, as far as may be, to encourage the formation of such a literature.

Not a few of our brethren have been honoured of God to lay the foundations of a literature in many lands, to sow the germs of the intellectual and moral life of nations lying in the darkness of heathenism and pagan superstition. We would record their labours, and gather from India, from China, from Burmah, from Africa, from Jamaica, these seed-corns of mind and spiritual being.

:

Nor shall we be indifferent to the great questions of philosophy and religion agitating the minds of Christian men in our own and other lands. A spurious and vain philosophy threatens the very foundations of society, and assails the fundamental truths of Christianity. It has even forced its way into the precincts of the Church of Christ. To watch, to check its advance, will be our duty and our aim to expose its hollowness and its impiety, our toil. Yet we desire not to repress that free and large inquiry after truth which is perfectly compatible with reverence for God, and a pure, sincere attachment to the religion of Jesus. We open our pages to every discussion, always provided that it be conducted without personal offence, with Christian feeling, courtesy, and love. We desire an open field, fair conflict, truthful purposes, and we have no fear for the result. It will not, however, be expected that the Editor should bear the responsibility of opinions with which he does not agree, and his correspondents will doubtless be prepared to receive, whenever it may be required, a frank expression of his dissent. Still he will be ready to give room for the free investigation of denominational and other differences, whatever may be his sentiments concerning them.

But especially do we desire to unite all Baptists in one common bond of brotherhood, to recognise that fellowship in the Spirit we possess, even where in some points we differ; to suffer no minor jealousies to defeat the impressiveness upon the church and the world of those mighty truths we in common maintain.

For it may be, that by courteous inquiry into these minor matters, we shall find unity of sentiment, and reduce into perfect harmony every jarring string.

Last of all, we hope and pray to be kept from all malice and evil speaking-speaking the truth in love; displaying in everything the gentleness of Christ, rejoicing in the truth wherever found, and loving all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. A confession of faith we have not given to our readers. Creeds they abhor. But in a few brief words we have endeavoured to indicate our course, the temper and spirit that will animate us, and the field of labour in which we propose to toil. We enter it with a profound conviction of our weakness, yet hoping in God, and trusting to the kind sympathies and support of our brethren in the Lord. May this course advance His glory, and conduce to the salvation of men!

II. TWO LETTERS TO REVDS. DR. RYLAND AND A. FULLER, WITH BIBLICAL CRITICISMS, BY THE REV. ROBERT HALL.

COMMUNICATED BY J. E. RYLAND, ESQ.

["His friends, Dr. Ryland and Mr. Fuller, persuaded of the benefits that would flow from drawing his attention to a specific object, requested him to investigate the critical peculiarities of some difficult texts in the New Testament, respecting which Dr. Marshman had asked the opinion of his friends in England. This judicious application directed his thoughts to some of his old and favourite inquiries, and produced the most salutary effects. From this he passed to other literary occupations, thence to closer biblical study, and in due time, when his strength and self-possession were adequately restored to permit the exertion without injury, he returned to the delightful work of 'proclaiming the good tidings of peace." It is to be deeply regretted that the labour of two years, thus expended in the critical examination of the New Testament by Mr. Hall, the results of which he purposed to have published, was destroyed by him on the appearance of Macknight's new translation of the Epistles.-See 'Gregory's Life of Hall,' p. 81, also p. 75, 1st edit.]

Rev. Robert Hall to Rev. Dr. Ryland.

1805.

"My dear Friend,-I have sent you a few remarks. I am obliged to you for your kind note, as well as for the loan of the Greek Testament, which I shall beg leave to keep till I leave Dr. Cox's, which will be I suppose in about a month. I have abun