may be of incalculable benefit to many an "immortal madman," fluttering over the eternal flame. BAPTISM BY DISSENTERS: IS IT LAWFUL OR NOT? By "PRO ARIS.” Wertheim, Paternoster Row. THIS little tract, whose author gives us a heathen phrase instead of his name, was brought under our notice some time since; but we postponed any notice of it until after the decision in the case of the Rev. Thomas Sweet Escott, who refused to bury (with the service appointed by the Established Church) a child which had only been baptised by a Wesleyan minister, the baptism being with water and in the name of the Trinity. Sir Herbert Jenner, Dean of the Arches Court, gave judgment in the suit referred to, on the eighth of May last. After observing that the question was whether such a child was to be deemed (in the meaning of the rubric of 1661) "unbaptised," or in other words whether it was a necessary part of the sacrament that its administrator should have received episcopal ordination, the learned Judge remarked that the reformed Church of England clearly permitted lay baptism up to 1603, (and that the practice had prevailed as early as the third century,) such baptisms being deemed irregular and improper to be performed, but yet valid if performed. In 1575, indeed, at a Convocation, it was determined that the rite of baptism should be administered by no other than a "lawful minister or deacon;" but this article or canon was not printed with the others then agreed to, and there is good reason, (as explained at large by the Judge) to think that it was at once suppressed and never acted upon. In 1603, the rubric was altered to the extent of expressly directing (at the commencement of the Baptismal Service) that "the lawfal minister" shall call upon God, &c. in the manner there prescribed; but still the practice of lay baptism seems to have continued. By the13th and 14th of Charles II. the rubric was made part of the Statute law of England. Thus stands the matter. And having stated these circumstances, Sir H. Jenner observed, that though since the Act of 1661 the effect of the rubric prefixed to the Ordination Service is, that a person must be episcopallyordained in orderto ob'ainperferment in theChurch,itdid not follow that none but such was a "lawful minister" within the words prefixed to the Baptismal Service; that would be unchurching not only Presbyterians, but foreign Protestants. No doubt the vast number of baptisms during the Commonwealth by men not so ordained, were never disputed by the Church of England; and it seemed clear, from Burnet and Fleetwood, that such baptisms were still held (though irregular) valid and not to be repeated. Bishop Waterland, in disputing this proposition, admitted that "the stream of authority and of antiquity was against him ;" and the great Hooker had ably shown that the Church of England always recognised lay baptism as valid. The learned Judge therefore pronounced that Mr. Escott was wrong. The little pamphlet at the head of this article states the question fairly enough, and insists that "the Divine authority of the administrator is inseparably united with the truth and reality of the form of administration;" relying upon the"Go YE, and teach all nations." He argues that the ancient practice relied on was only a corruption, and not the true observance of the rite. He writes like a man in earnest, and is no doubt sincere. From his conclusion we differ. In this dispensation "of the Spirit" we look upon all those as the Church's ministers, whom the Holy Spirit calls and sends; the discipline of the Episcopal Church we regard as her method of designating and recognising those within her communion whom God has called and sent; but with the history of the past before us, we can never allow, that none but the episcopally ordained are ministers of Christ. We should hesitate long to believe, that the God of truth had made use of wicked intruders to bring to Himself the millions, who in this land by means of Dissenters' preaching have been "called out of darkness into marvellous light," and "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." THE EVANGELICAL REGISTER. NOVEMBER, 1841. EVANGELICAL ESSAYS; BY THE REV. W. LEASK, OF CHAPMANSLADE ESSAY IV.-ON THE GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. CHRISTIANITY has been before the world nearly eighteen centuries and a half. It has urged its claims on human attention-exhibited its divine credentials-courted the most searching inquiry as to its principles-laid itself open to the malignant scrutiny of its wildest enemies-and employed as its advocates the greatest minds. It is still misunderstood, reviled, hated! Fulfilled prophecy, incontestible 'miracles, its own lovely nature, the wisest men, holy angels, its Divine Founder, and the eternal God, have spoken in its behalf. It is still misunderstood, reviled, hated! It is hated, because misunderstood; it is misunderstood, because hated; it is reviled, because hated and misunderstood. One of the most common ideas of the unsanctified mind, when the claims of the Gospel are pressed on its attention, is, that Christianity is a melancholy system of burdensome duties-a succession of tiresome observances, cold and ungenerous in character, to which the weak and the timid are driven, for the mere purpose of avoiding a greater, and it may be, only imaginary, evil hereafter. It is thought, that to embrace Christianity, therefore, is synonimous with an abandonment of every cheerful and soul-stirring impulse; and that the sad groan, the painful sigh, the sombre look, and moody aspect, are the invariable effects of obedience, or professed obedience to the precepts of the Gospel; and hence it is inferred that its principles are inimical to the social and the generous. The folly of the ascetic and the scowl of the misanthrope are thus supposed to be a carrying out of those principles. Fanaticism on the one hand, and Stoicism on the other, have been attributed to Christianity, as their common parent; and some of its enemies have carried their malignity to the extent of insinuating that it produces divisions, wrath, strife, and hatred; and war, with all its attendant calamities, has been pointed to, as the offspring of the religion of the Bible. It has been spoken of as an incubus, whose malignant weight pressed down the rising emotions of philanthropy, or limited its love-flame to the narrow circle of a sect; and as an anti-social cankerworm, infusing its poison through the veins of the tree of life. Nay, even those noble sacrifices, both of person and property, for the diffusion of its principles, which the advocates of Christianity have made, have been wantonly sneered at, and traced to the love of sect-aggrandisement. To gain the flatteries of the fraternity, or to raise himself in the estimation of the brotherhood, has been selected as the motive of the munificent donor. "He loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue," is the ironical praise bestowed on the wealthy Christian, who willingly gives of his substance, for the purpose of building a temple to the true God; and the poor believer, who conscientiously adheres to those views of Divine truth which he VOL. XIII. 3 L conceives to be scriptural, is mercilessly branded as one of those bigotted pests who infest society. He who labours to keep himself unspotted from the world, is enrolled in the archives of infidelity as a sanctimonious hypocrite, because he will not run with its votaries to the same excess of riot. And when the enemies of Jesus have wearied themselves with direct charges, or dark insinuations, and have exhausted themselves in the chase after motives, they vent the envenomed spirit which rankles within by the withering leer and scarcastic glance. They look poison. And the rolling of their eyeballs proclaims in silence, that inability, not reluctance, is the reason why their tongues have ceased to be "sharp arrows of the mighty." Our experience has furnished many opportunities of hearing these cavils, and of seeing the enmity of the carnal mind pictured on the countenance of the unbeliever. We have listened to his wisdom, and have heard his abortive attempts at wit. We have seen the trembling of the infidel's limbs, which indicated plainly the storm of warring emotions in his breast, while his tongue was attempting to turn the verities of the Bible, the solemnities of the judgment-day, or the wonders of eternity, into ridicule. We have pitied and prayed for such in their presence. Hatred of God is the ruling passion in such miserable minds. They know neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm, and are consequently objects of deep sympathy. The Author of Christianity wept over the infatuated inhabitants of Jerusalem: His followers ought to manifest similar emotions of sorrow lover those, whose guilt is similar-a rejection of the claims of Jesus. They are ignorant of the genius of Christianity; but as they have heard enough of it "by the hearing of the ear" to know that it loudly condemns their practices, they are prejudiced against it as something which wishes to interfere between them and their guilty pleasures; and this prejudice, fostered by sinful conduct, gradually assumes the nature of hatred. The process of mind in such persons is something like this-Ignorance produces prejudice; prejudice, hatred; and hatred, infidelity. There is, therefore, if this view be correct, little difficulty in tracing open infidelity to its prolific sourceIgnorance of the true character and designs of the Gospel of the grace of God. Hence, they are incapable of reasoning on the subject: for the "first principles of its oracles" have not been seen by their mental vision. The lights and shadows of the Christian life are not found in the hemisphere of their existence; they have neither walked in the one, nor groped in the other; and to tell them that its sorrows are joyful, and its joys unspeakable, would be to propound a riddle in an "unknown tongue;" and to say that the semblance of Christianity is not its power, would be to confuse them with words, to them incomprehensible. Their incapacity to understand your meaning, strengthened by their hatred to the subject of conversation, would bring them to the conclusion, that an enthusiast addressed them. At the same time, it were equally foolish and dishonest to deny, that many of the charges laid by infidelity against Christianity, may, with too much truth, be laid against feelings engendered, assertions made, dogmas propounded, and actions committed, by systems which falsely pretended to trace their origin to the religion of Christ. Like all good things besides, the Gospel has been counterfeited; and the currency which interested parties have given to those counterfeits, by palming them on men as the genuine gold offered by the Saviour to men, has produced fearful mischief. We deprecate those spurious images of Christ as emphatically as any infidel in existence, though our motive in doing so is certainly of a very different kind from his. He hates religion, judging of it by the false guises it has assumed. He has seen a system called Christianity, in the form of pride, injustice, and tyranny. He has heard of an affectionate father torn from his weeping family, and immured in a dungeon for resisting its oppressive exactions; or of a poor man's scanty furniture exposed in the market place under the auctioneer's hammer, to furnish a quota to nourish its pride; or of a terror-struck widow standing motionless over the reeking corse of her beloved son, who had fallen a sacrifice to its sanguinary rapacity. He has felt, it may be, the officer of law wrenching from his grasp part of his toil-earned subsistence, in name of a system which its admirers have named the Church of Christ. He has heard of the horrors of the Inquisition, and the blasphemous fooleries of the Vatican. He curses the abominable impostor in his heart, and mutters his hatred in sullen language. We wonder not. But here is his mistake: he knows not that he has heard of, felt, and Been, the actions of an impostor; or if such a thought ever flash across his breast, he is too deeply exasperated to separate Christianity from its unholy and repulsive associations. He is not in a frame of mind to analyze. His natural hatred to the purity of the Gospel is thus strengthened, and be wills a speedy riddance of every thing that bears the name of Christianity. Thus, we repeat, the currency given to systems erroneously alleged to square with the doctrines of the meek and lowly Jesus, has produced incalculable mischief. Alas! the prejudices of men are naturally strong enough against the doctrine of the cross; and the professed friends of that doctrine act an exceedingly unwise, not to say guilty part, when their conduct tends to make the enemies of the cross to blaspheme, or to drive into the ranks of scepticism many, whose ignorance ought to have excited their sympathy, and prompted them to exhibit the spirit of that Saviour, to whom they profess their allegiance, in its gentleness, meekness, kindness, and love. The Saviour is thus wounded in the house of His friends; and the balm which He took in His hands from heaven to earth, to heal the diseases of man, has been kept from the diseased, by many who ought to have dispensed it, to an extent which eternity alone can reveal. But to drop these painful thoughts, let us look a little more narrowly at the general objections made by the unbeliever to the Gospel. We have admitted, that systems assuming the name of Christianity, may, with the greatest justice, be charged with the evils alluded to. We admit, that the ascetic, the misanthrope, the fanatic and the stoic have worn the name. We admit, that antichrist in an endless variety of forms, has usurped the throne of Christ. What then? It is equally absurd and dishonest, to blame the religion of Jesus for these things, as it would be to blame the national Mint for the existence of spurious coin, or the brightness of the sun for the gloom of a November day, or the sweetness of the orchard for clouds of blight. Can we not distinglish between reality and deception? between use and abuse? between our friend and the impostor who has waylaid and robbed him and appears before us in the stolen garments? We lose all claim to rationality if we cannot. What is the use of reason? Why are we gifted with the power of perception, discrimination, judgment? Who, for instance, would be wild enough to renounce all stagecoach conveyances, because an intoxicated driver had been known to overturn his coach? Who doubts the utility of the steam engine, because a careless engineer has caused an accident? or who condemns the art of navigation, because an ignorant pilot has stranded a vessel? The excellencies of any system ought always to be distinguished from the abuses, to which all systems are liable in the hands of erring man. In like manner, if we wish to ascertain the principles on which any theory is founded, how foolish would it be to inquire of one, who either misunderstood the meaning of its author or was secretly opposed to the theory itself! The works of a Newton are certainly the best expositors of the Newtonian system of astronomy, and the pages of the New Testament form the best commentaries extant on the genius of Christianity. Those individuals, therefore, who reject Christianity, are ignorant of its nature and principles; and no species of evil which they may have seen, heard of, or experienced, springing from any system bearing its name, can justify their enmity against the thing itself, until they can identify the system in question with Christianity as revealed in the New Testament; or until they can prove, that the evils complained of, are the legitimate fruits of the religion of Jesus Christ. But as all the hatred of that religion which is natural to sinful beings, prompted by all the unbelief operating on their hearts, and aided by [all the intellectual power of man, (were such a thing possible,) cannot demonstrate that Christianity, properly so called, is subversive of one righteous maxim, or injurious in any sense to the best interests of man, their objections go for nothing, and their intemperate zeal against the truth will only burn up itself. So far from being able to make out a case against Christianity, their attempts to do so are auxiliary to the evidences in its favour; not merely because it predicts the appearance in the latter days of such cavillers, with a clearness and minuteness of description which demonstrate the divinity of the oracle, but also because every upright and reflecting person, on hearing those accusations, will withhold his assent to their supposed truth until he has examined for himself the words of eternal life; and the result of that examination will be, as it has been in innumerable instances, a grateful dedication of soul, body, and spirit, to the service of the God of Truth. Thus, the cavils of infidelity have often induced men to obey the injunction of Jesus, to "search the Scriptures;" an injunction which, if obeyed correctly, will yield abundant proof of the Messiahship of Christ and of the certainty of salvation to all who obey Him, and also satisfactory illustrations of the true genius of the religion He has propounded to man. To discover its principles, and to understand its nature, and to be able to answer the cavils of scepticism, we ought to search, dig, explore, as the miner in pursuit of the precious metals. Nor will this be found a toilsome and profitless labour, inasmuch as the earnest searcher will discover the "Pearl of great price," and will also be able to give a reason for the hope that is in him. The following plan, on the principles hinted at, will at once answer those objections, and illustrate, in the words of inspiration, the nature of Christianity; and it will be seen, that the beautiful and lovely spirit of the religion of Jesus, His apostles and prophets, repudiates the very evils of which the objector complains. The objections are in italics; the Scripture answers we give without any remark, leaving them to make their own impression. "Come unto Me, all ye "Let the that labour Christianity is a melancholy system." I rejoice in thy salvation." heart of them rejoice, that seek the Lord." "Let the righteous be glad, let them rejoice before God; yea, let them exceedingly rejoice." "I rejoice at Thy Word, as one that findeth great spoil.". "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem." "The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice." "If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice."" Believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable." "Rejoice evermore.' .""Happy art thou, O Israel; who is like unto thee?" "Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord." "Thou hast girded me with gladness." "Gladness is sown for the upright in heart." It is a succession of burdensome duties. and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for My yoke is easy and My burden is light." "The wisdom that is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good fruits." "What man is he that feareth the Lord? His soul shall dwell at ease. "Return unto thy rest, O my soul. for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee." "For we which have believed, do enter into rest." walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts." "He hath sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captive. "I will It is cold and ungenerous in its character." The love of Christ costraineth us." "It hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia, to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem." "Be kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly love, in honour preferring one another, given to hospitality. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers." "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you." "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." "We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” “And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another." "I Men become Christians, from the fear of future evil; thus sacrificing present happiness.-" "The righteous shall inherit the earth." "Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety." "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things." "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. "There is no want to them that fear Him." "All things work together for good to them that fear God." “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or what shall |