doctrines of the Society, having been made the instruments of converting a single individual to genuine Christianity. If, through their means, any persons have had their attention arrested to the consideration of eternal things, it has been reserved for others to bring them to the knowledge of the truth.

CHAPTER V.

-ARE THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS JUSTIFIED IN NOT OBSERVING THE ORDINANCES OF BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER ?

ALTHOUGH I wish, as much as possible, to confine myself to the exhibition of the leading principles of the Society of Friends, and not to descend much into particulars; yet it appears to me to be so serious a matter to fritter away the injunctions of the Lord Jesus Christ, given under circumstances so deeply affecting, and calculated to make the most powerful impression on the mind, that I cannot allow myself to pass over the views of the Society respecting Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

The more we take a simple unsophisticated view of the Holy Scriptures, the more we shall be surprised that any persons could persuade us that the observance of these ordinances is not enjoined upon Christians; and when we look at the

sort of reasoning by which the non-observance of them is attempted to be supported, shame as well as deep sorrow fill the mind that such deplorable absurdity should ever have been allowed to move us to assent to it. I must, however, acknowledge myself to be deliberately of the opinion, that the rejection of these ordinances by the Society is graciously overruled by Divine Providence, to set a mark upon the Society, by which its real character is shown forth; and that many persons have been, by this means, as well as by the peculiarities of language and dress, kept from falling into the snare of its very plausible pretensions; because there is something so truly congenial to the natural heart to be assured that every thing necessary for salvation is to be found within itself; and if persons once receive the notion, the difficulty of getting rid of it is so great, even after being in no small measure convinced of its fallacy, that one can only admire the goodness of God in putting on it some external sign by which persons may be induced to pause before they give themselves up to it.

SECTION I.

Concerning Baptism.

Robert Barclay's Proposition concerning baptism, (page 429,) is as follows:-"As there is one Lord and one faith, so there is one baptism, which is not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience before God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And this baptism is a pure and spiritual thing, to wit, the baptism of the Spirit and fire, by which we are buried with him, that, being washed and purged from our sins, we may walk in newness of life, of which the baptism of John was a figure, which was commanded for a time, and not to continue for ever.* As to the baptism of infants, it is a mere human tradition, for which neither precept nor practice is to be found in all the Scriptures."

Now it would be folly to deny that our Lord gave his apostles a commission to baptize; and

+

As the subject of Baptism, in general, is all that I propose to touch upon, the latter part of the proposition is merely inserted,

it is also perfectly clear that the apostles understood this to mean baptism with water, because, as far as we have any information, they uniformly adopted it. If, therefore, the foundation of the apostles were really built upon by Friends, they could not reject this part of what is recorded in the New Testament as the command of the Lord, and is proved by the Acts of the Apostles to have been practised by them for more than a quarter of a century after our Lord's ascension.

In the margin of page 429 are the following references, which direct to passages of Scripture, which, of course, are thought to afford support to the view contained in the Proposition; viz., Ephes. iv. 5; 1 Peter iii. 21; Rom. vi. 4; Galatians iii. 27; Colossians ii. 12; John iii. 30; 1 Cor. i. 17. These are all from apostolic writings; but surely it ought to strike every person, that nothing could do more towards completely invalidating the testimony of the apostles, than to show that their words and their practice disagreed-that, while they were teaching one thing, they were doing another. Well might persons think themselves excused from paying much regard to them as witnesses, whose evidence was to serve as a foundation for