might well be content to leave the question as it reposes on the general principle so amply justified by the most solemn precedents which the world can furnish, and in this particular case so clearly enunciated by our highest legal functionaries, so wisely sanctioned by the silence of our highest ecclesiastical authorities, so irrefragably justified by the facts of history, so directly applicable to every party in the Church of England. We feel that, whilst taking the question on this its highest ground, we are not only occupying a position impregnable in the present controversy, but that we are defending interests far wider and far more sacred than those which that controversy involves, and are resting under the shade of an authority which the Bishop of Exeter himself will not dare to excommunicate. Long after the Gorham Case has been forgotten, the Church and nation will, we confidently trust, reap the fruits of that calmness and moderation which serve to protect from persecution the very party which is now indignant at being restrained from persecuting others. 'Old religious factions,' according to the felicitous image of Burke, are volcanoes burnt out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriæ of old eruptions grow the peaceful 'olive, the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn.'

But a few words must, before we conclude, be devoted to the subject of the controversy itself, which has given rise for the present to so much unhappy division,- for the future let us trust to so happy a prospect of ultimate union. Into the details of the question it is not our intention to venture. Of this, with perhaps even greater truth than of the kindred controversy on the Eucharist, we may well say, with Jeremy Taylor, Men have ' turned the key in this lock so often, till it cannot be either ' opened or shut, and they have unravelled the clue so long, till. they have entangled it.' In the present instance such a task is rendered doubly hopeless by the shifting and purposeless character of the whole dispute. No sooner do we grapple with an argument or a statement in this Protean contest, than it suddenly turns into something else. Up to the moment of the judgment, Regene'ration' was the word on which the whole question hinged. The moment that the judgment was pronounced, 'Regeneration' was discarded, and a totally different phrase and idea, the "Remission of Sins,' was substituted for it. When we ask what is meant by Remission of Sins?' that expression itself changes into the Remission of Original Sin;' and if we ask further, whether that phrase is used in the sense of the early Church for the everlasting loss of unbaptized infants, we are repulsed with horror, and some new and equally ambiguous test is given us in its place. Again and again the statements

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crumble in our grasp. Again and again we find that they are either so unmeaning that all parties alike conform to them, or so revolting that all alike repudiate them. Or if from words we turn to persons, the chase is still after a phantom. The conflict is like the midnight battle at Syracuse, where each party mistakes the watchword of the other, where Ionian pæans and Dorian pæans are heard alike on either side, where no one is able to draw the line between friends and enemies in the shadowy strife. The extremes, no doubt, differ from each other, but the intermediate stages which unite the extremes are absolutely indistinguishable. Can Mr. Gorham fall without involving Mr. Goode in his ruin? And yet, if Mr. Goode is to be lost, how shall we save the venerable Primate, who has so conspicuously marked him out for honour, and who has so frankly and generously thrown his shield over the oppressed party in the Church? And, then, is it possible to believe that the chasm between the Primate and the Bishop of London is really so vast as to prevent that eminent prelate from holding communion with his most reverend friend? And who shall venture to divide the innumerable shades of opinion which follow? If Archdeacon Manning maintains that Baptism without repentance avails nothing,' how is he to be reconciled with Archdeacon Wilberforce, or how is he to be separated from Archdeacon Hare? Are those, who maintain the change in baptism to be an unconditional change of relation, divisible by more than a hair's breadth distance from those who believe it to be a conditional change of nature? Are those who believe in the conditional regeneration of adults so essentially different from those who believe in the conditional regeneration of infants that the same Church cannot contain them both? How shall we distinguish the view of the Bishop of Exeter, who asserts the former, from the view of Mr. Gorham, who asserts the latter? How can we compile a doctrine of baptism which is to exclude the Vicar, and retain the Bishop? What becomes of all the horror at the slightest variation from the literal sense of our formularies, if the Bishop is allowed to apply the very same interpretation to the service for adults which Mr. Gorham is precluded from applying to the very same words in the service for infants? In short, when those who have signed resolutions and remonstrances in behalf of precise dogmatic statements can themselves draw up a statement precise, dogmatic, and intelligible, which shall neither contradict itself nor themselves, nor each other when the Bishop of Exeter,

who denies what Mr. Badeley* holds to be essential, can agree with his own counsel on the very point at issue in the whole dispute;when, lastly, the Bishop of Exeter, who excommunicates the Primate in 1850, can be reconciled with the Bishop of Exeter who embraces the Methodists and Independents in 1833, - then, and not till then, will be the time to enter into the details of a controversy, of which the most remarkable feature is the marked absence of precision or unity in those who are endeavouring to enforce precise uniformity on the whole Church of England.

There are, however, two general considerations which may fairly be pressed even on the attention of the disputants themselves: I. It is important to observe that, so far from the question of the efficacy of Infant Baptism being an exception to the general comprehensiveness of the Church, it has, up to this time, been held to be one of its most signal exemplifications. The doctrine may be perfectly true: all that we are now maintaining is, that it has never been authoritatively regarded as essential. To those who are not well acquainted with ecclesiastical history, and who listen only to the numerous declarations and protests which speak as if unconditional regeneration in and by baptism' was the one article of a falling or a standing Church, it might appear as if in no age or country had there ever been any doubt on the subject-as if the doctrine in question had always stood in the very front of every creed and confession that ever was composed. The very reverse is the fact. We will pass over the first century. No one will venture to claim from that sacred age the semblance of a ground for the colossal importance of this new test. But what is true of the creeds of the first century is true also of the creeds of later ages. In the Apostles' Creed, the great confession of faith through the whole Western Churchf-the most venerable monument of primitive antiquity - the symbol at this moment of membership

Speech of Mr. Badeley, pp. 56. 132. Letter of the Bishop of Exeter, p. 22.

It may here be noticed by the way, that in the exposition of this creed by Bishop Pearson, although he connects the remission of 'sins' with the baptism of adults, so far as to use the two expressions in juxtaposition, there is no mention whatever of the baptism of infants a material omission, inasmuch as on the question of adults the Bishop of Exeter has expressed his entire concurrence with Mr. Gorham; and, therefore, on the only point at issue, Bishop Pearson has expressed no opinion at all, and has declared that no opinion need be expressed. (Pearson on the Creed, Art. X.)

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with the Church of England-there is not one word on the Sacrament of Baptism, infant or adult. In the Athanasian Creed, carefully and awfully as it guards the doctrine of the Catholic faith, and precisely as it states wherein that Catholic faith consists, descending even into the minute question of the double 'Procession,'' which, unless a man do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly-there is not one word on what is now maintained, in direct contradiction to that celebrated confession, to be an essential article of the Catholic 'faith.' In the Nicene Creed, or rather in that later edition of it which appeared at the Council of Constantinople, there is a clause which acknowledges one baptism for the remission of 'sins.' But that clause is worded, not in the terminology of ecclesiastical controversy, but is taken direct from the large and general language of Scripture itself. Whatever sense is to be attached to it in the only two passages in the New Testament, where the phrase occurs-one relating to the baptism of John the Baptist, the other to the baptism by Peter on the day of Pentecost,may be, or rather must be, attached to it in the Creed. The context of those passages, the words employed, the belief of the earlier Greek Fathers, the state of theological controversy at the time,-all not only do not enjoin, but almost forbid, the extension of the phrase (as originally intended) from the baptism of adults to that of infants, from the remission of actual sins to the remission of that original sin of infants which could only by the most violent distortion of language be forced into connexion with the words of the Creed; and even if it were so forced, the question of the mode of remission, whether conditional or unconditional, is still left as open as ever.

And what the Creeds omit to declare as necessary to be believed, neither did the Councils enjoin. One only exception has been drawn up from the abyss of antiquity, which might at first sight seem to give the support of one General Council to something like the dogma now put forward. In that awful and menacing language, of which the Bishop of Exeter is so perfect a master, the Primate was presented with a canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage, a council received generally, and one whose laws were adopted by the General Council of Chalcedon. The first canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage, which is thus seen to have had the authority of the whole Catholic Church, in giving rules for the examination of one elected to be a bishop, directs, amongst other things, as follows: "Quærendum etiam ab eo si credat, &c., si in baptismo omnia 6.66 peccata, id est, tam originale contractum, quam illa quæ vo"luntariè admissa sunt, dimittantur." Thus it appears that no

one in the Primitive Church could possibly be ordained a bishop without its being first ascertained that he believed original sin to be remitted in baptism.' We will not now inquire how far this alleged requisition from the ancient bishops agrees with the requisition by modern bishops from their clergy. It is sufficient to state, first, that there is much reason to believe that the canons of the Fourth Council of Carthage are, from beginning to end, a complete forgery; secondly, that, even were they genuine, there is no proof that they were adopted by the General Council of Chalcedon; thirdly, that, had they been so adopted, and thus have had the authority of the whole Catholic 'Church,' they contain, amongst other things,' these two regulations: That no bishop shall read a Gentile book;' that no bishop, on pain of deprivation of the right of ordination, shall ever ordain a clergyman who has been twice married or who has 'married a widow.'

6

Such is the result of the only instance alleged from the Primitive Church in behalf of an authoritative statement of the 'doctrine of Holy Baptism.' Through the tomes of the Mediaval Church we confess that we have not thought it necessary to search. To one work, however, of the Middle Ages we will refer, because it is in everybody's hands, and because it refutes, more decisively even than the authority of Creeds and Councils, the alleged necessity for practically pressing forward this doctrine. If there be any one manual of devotion used with universal edification through the whole Catholic Church, it is The Imitation of Christ,' by Thomas à Kempis. From one end to the other of that admirable book, of which the very object is to build up the soul of the believer, there is not the remotest allusion to the doctrine which is now said to be the indispensable basis- the ever-recurring topic-in all Christian education.

From the Church of the Middle Ages we turn to the Church of England. We have already, to a certain extent, anticipated all that could be said. If our Reformed Church has not thought it right to decide authoritatively on the great questions of Calvinism and Arminianism, it must, à fortiori, have declined to decide on the subordinate question of grace in the baptism of children. From the mass of evidence to prove that on this point diversities of opinion were always regarded as admissible, we will select two facts. The first shall be given in the forcible language of Mr. Maskell :- Perhaps without two exceptions

* Letter of the Bishop of Exeter to the Archbishop of Canterbury,

p. 15.