"The preachers do not abide by the word alone, but expound the Scripture, although the Scripture is not to be interpreted ac cording to every one's exposition.'

"The sermons of the preachers are too insignificant; for they teach that Christ has made satisfaction for sin, and that man is justified by faith and not by works; although, in this wicked world, nothing should be more insisted on than good works."

"So also the preachers have taught that it is impossible that a man should keep the law; although the whole Scripture commands the keeping of the law."

"The preachers do not teach aright concerning love, agreeably to which all things should be held in common; for they pretend that a Christain may possess property and be rich, whereas love would rather have all things common among the breth

ren."

"The preachers mingle together the Old Testament and the New; although the Old Testament is abrogated and of no validity with christians, and those of the Old Testament, moreover, have no kindred with those of the New."

"What the preachers say of souls, that they pass directly to heaven after the death of the body, is not certain; for they sleep until the day of judgment."

"The preachers grant too much to government, of which christians have no need, inasmuch as they are wholly passive. A christian cannot be a secular magistrate."

"Government neither shall nor may take cognizance of religion and matters of faith."

"Chistians do not resist violence: therefore they have no need of courts. Neither does a christian use a court.

"Christians put no man to death. They do not punish with the prison and the sword, but with the ban only."

Nobody must be compelled to believe by any force or constraint neither must any one be put to death on account of his belief."

"Christians make no resistance: therefore they wage no war, and in this do not obey government."

"The speech of Christians is yea, yea; nay, nay. They swear not at all: wherefore also they swear no oath: swearing an oath would be sin and wrong."

"The ministry of the preachers is further defective in the administration of the sacraments; because they baptize infants: for infant-baptism is from the pope and out of the devil."

"Re-baptism, on the contrary, is the true christian baptisin, being given unto repentance to those who make a profession, and are instructed, and have understanding."

'Fish

"The preachers make no distinction, and do not drive sinners from the Lord's supper, and use no ban."

"For all these, and for other similar reasons, the Anabaptists must, as they say, separate themselves from us, and cannot remain with us, unless they would become partakers of our pollution and punishment. Wherefore their own salvation, and their safety from divine wrath, and, consequently, the highest necessity, constrain them to form their own separate Church, and to endure, on that account, whatever God may give them to suffer." There is in this form of doctrine a singular mixture of truth and error. Their fine sentiments on religious liberty would possess more value, if the Anabaptists, instead of being the sufferers, had been in a condition to prescribe terms to the rest of the christian world, and if they had not themselves talked of cutting off the heads of priests. Every sect has asserted the same just principles in its distress, and has forgotten them in its prosperity. It may be questioned whether the Anabaptists would have adopted their odious opinions on the subject of civil government, if they had been left to indulge their religious opinions and to form their separate organization unmolested. Some of them, at least, professed a willingness to obey the civil authorities, if they did not interfere with their religious convictions. But when the government stood in their way where they thought their duty called them, there was an easy step to the thought, that the government was wicked, an enemy of God, and ought to be abolished. Hostility to secular rulers was, however, a primary principle with Munzer.

NOEL ON BAPTISM.

Essay on Christian Baptism. By Baptist W. Noel, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers; 1850. Pp. 308, 12 mo. It is generally admitted, we believe, that this work is of no special weight for the controversy in whose service it appears. It presents nothing new, and it repeats but little of the old in any better form than it carried before. The work of a truth is emphatically lean and superficial. Still the highly respectable source from which it proceeds, and the widely public character

Füslin vol. 5, p. 131, &c.

of the occasion to which it owes its production, entitle it to something more than common consideration; and altogether it may be taken as a very fit and fair opportunity for bringing to trial, in a general way, the theological and religious merits of the popular system to whose defence and recommendation it is so zeal ously devoted.

We call the system popular, with due thought and consideration. Its friends, we know, are fond of harping occasionally on the opposite idea; as though it needed more than common fortitude and resolution to fall in with the Baptistic theory, in contradiction to the old catholic faith. Mr. Noel evidently looks upon himself as something of a martyr, in the way of sacrifice and self-renunciation, for following his convictions into the bosom of his new communion, as much so as for following them in the first place out of the bosom of the Establishment; and he is prone continually to resolve the backwardness of others to acknowledge what he holds to be the plain sense of the Scriptures, into the moral cowardice that shrinks from the thought of losing caste, or suffering damage in some outward view, for the sake of an unfashionable and unpopular cause. But it is only in one view, that the system of the Baptists is found to be thus unpopular. It goes against antiquity and the authority of the universal Church; and in these circumstances it is hard not to feel, that it involves some loss of privilege, and some serious spiritual hazard, which men should not be willing lightly to ineur. This however is only the same sort of prejudice which is found to hold, in christian lands, against other forms of religious profession which are regarded as still more broadly opposed to the ancient faith; Unitarianism for instance or Universalism; which at the same time are but seldom allowed to carry with them any presumption of truth and righteousness on such account. It requires generally still more nerve in this view, to become a convert to Unitarianism, than it does to espouse the cause of the Baptists. In neither case have we any right to infer from the difficulty any such contrariety to the natural mind of the world, as may be taken for the criterion of divine truth. On the contrary, it requires no very profound examination to see that the system held in both cases falls in strikingly with what may be termed the natural mind of the world, and in such view is exactly suited to gain popularity and credit. The Baptistic theory excludes mystery, and turns religion into a thing of measurable intelligence and common sense. It falls in thus with the tendency of Protestantism to assert the rights of the individual subject in religion, over against the claims of objective authority; a

tendency which ought to be asserted within right limits; while it is particularly liable also, for this very reason, to be carried to an extreme, destructive entirely of what belongs to the opposite interest. It is not to be denied, that such extreme subjectivity or individualism has come to form the reigning character of Protestant Christianity at the present time; and especially may this be said to be the case in our own country, the land of universal toleration and freedom, where the very idea of the Church is in danger of being swallowed up and lost in the distraction of sects as the only true and proper form of the christian life. With this reigning spirit, the Baptistic view of religion stands unquestionably in very close correspondence and affinity. However it may have been persecuted in the beginning, under the mild theocracy of New England, it has long since ceased to be the faith of suffering exiles and martyrs. It has grown into a large world of christian profession, covering the length and breadth of the entire land. This is held together by no bond of unity indeed in other respects; for it belongs to its very nature to be as much as possible unchurchly and inorganic, a mere multitude of men and women following the Bible severally to suit themselves. But taking them simply as Baptists, sticklers for immersion and excommunicators of infants from Christ, they form collectively the most numerous religious body in the United States. They have the art of making proselytes, beyond almost all other people. The sect spirit, as it prevails in all parts of the land, has a wonderful propensity towards the Baptistic system; for it is constitutionally unsacramental and rationalistic, and is always inclined to resolve religion into the thinking and working of man, to the exclusion of its mystical power as it lies on the side of God. Hence new sects are apt to take Anabaptist ground; especially where they have their origin, not immediately in some doctrinal interest, but in zeal rather for religious experience. It is but too plain thus that the Baptists have a strong popular feeling on their side, which needs only to be set free still farther from the force of mere outward authority, standing in tradition and custom, to bring the world generally to espouse their cause. This favorable state of the public mind in regard to the theory of the Baptists is not to be measured simply by their actual discipleship, or the preparation there may be in different quarters to receive in form their particular system; it shows itself also to a large extent in the indifference and want of faith, with which the contrary system is too generally maintained. It is of small account to oppose a system, if the principle of it, that from which it draws its life and strength, be the meanwhile silently allowed

and approved. Opposition, in such case, may be kept up as a sort of outside fashion; but it will carry with it no real earnestness or power. It is in truth no better than treason at last to the cause it pretends to uphold. Of such character necessarily are all argument and practice against the Baptists, which do not rest truly on the old idea of the Church and its sacraments, but start from the premises of the Baptists themselves with regard to the nature of religion, virtually surrendering in this way the whole interest in debate. Very much of our existing fidelity to the old church practice, it is to be feared, labors under this grievous defect. It is a matter of outward form and ceremony, more than of true inward faith and conviction. It makes common cause with the general scheme of the Baptists in regard to religion and the Church, and is obedient only to its own tradition in refusing to carry out this scheme to the same consequences. In these circumstances, no great account is made of the variation in which the system stands from the proper church practice. So far as it may be considered wrong, it is still viewed with the utmost indulgence and forbearance; the difference is taken to regard a mere circumstance in religion, without reaching at all to its main substance; and the only cause for regret and complaint in regard to it is, that the Baptists themselves should be disposed to lay so much stress upon it, as they generally do, in the way of uncharitable exclusiveness towards others. Mr. Noel's transition to their ranks is taken indeed for a mark of some weakness and eccentricity; but it is still not allowed to qualify materially, in this view, the vast merit which all non-episcopal bodies are expected, as a matter of course, to see in his previous abandonment of the English Establishment. It is but too plain from the way in which the subject is frequently noticed, that for a large part of this interest among us, the acknowledgment of a churchly and sacramental religion is something altogether worse than the virtual renunciation of the sacraments as it holds among the Baptists. Noel the Baptist, to this system of thinking, is much more respectable and every way intelligible, than Noel the Episcopalian. The difference which has place in the first direction, is regarded as small and comparatively immaterial. The great mat ter is, that such a man has been able to leap the far more broad and serious chasm that yawns on the other side. Baptists and Paedobaptists, of the unchurchly stamp, have here common and like cause for gratulation. It is felt to be at last substantiaily one and the same gospel to which the illustrious convert has been won in either connection, and both unite accordingly in wishing him God-speed on his chosen way. For those who