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lected, she becomes, of necessity, depraved, and society feels the debasement in an infinite variety of ways: when her honour is secured, she calls around her the glories which have illuminated her past existence and thus she gives a fresh charm to virtue, and throws a newer lustre upon happiness.

Above all, let not him who is conscious of a just and noble purpose fear what some have strangely said, that the day of poetry has gone by, and that he will want readers. For this indeed can never be, while there is any thing in the condition of nature or of life, to impress us more deeply than the ordinary current of existence. It can never be, while a hue of melancholy shadows any spirit, or a spring of joy gushes in any heart. It would contradict the very constitution of human nature itself. The sailor thrills upon the bounding sea; the student revels in the luxury of solitary thought; the husbandman gladdens in the freshness of spring. And all these are poetical; and the daybreak scattering the silence of darkness; the descending splendours of evening; the gray twilight; the array of night; hill and valley, stream and forest, flower and ocean; whatever is noble in the history of mind; whatever is lovely and affecting in the story of life. To say that the day of poetry is gone by, were indeed to say, what none of us would willingly believe: for it would be to say, that the world has grown old and imbecile, that its veins are chilled, and its end is nigh;-that the enchantments of youth are vanished; -that the glory of manhood is a shadow ;-that his better hopes are but folly, and the purposes of existence only degrading. It were to say that the freshness has passed from the leaf, and the sunbeam from the canopy of heaven: that life indeed is worthless, and creation a blank !

And so, indeed, from day to day, and from year to year, pass on and perish the vanities of the world; so pass its idle fashions and its heartless follies; and sorrowing not for them, we might say without regret,

"Pass on, relentless world!”

But so passeth not whatever is truly valuable and excellent. So can never pass those loftier aspirations, which are conceived in the purity of a good heart, and are devoted to the exalted purpose of advancing and ennobling the human

character. So can never pass the glory of intellectual achievements, which, like Milton's, have caught their inspiration from a divine fountain, and whose hopes of endurance are built upon a foundation which is higher than the stars! No generous impulse, no lofty action, no ardent and virtuous aspiration of one who sincerely devotes himself to the advancement and elevation of his kind, shall ever perish :his fervent enthusiasm, his noble enterprises, his magnificent thoughts, his pure life, his charity to man, and his high trust in God, will be recorded for eternity, where the fashions of the world have neither part nor lot.

ART. III. ARE PEDOBAPTIST CHURCHES IN

MEMBERS
TISM?

RECEIVING

WARRANTED TO DISPENSE WITH INFANT BAP

By REV. DANIEL Dana, D. D.

A QUESTION has been recently agitated in many of the New England churches, which has occasioned considerable difference in opinion; and, in some cases, a correspondent difference in practice. These varieties in views and measures are probably increasing; and if we judge from the aspects and spirit of the age, are likely still further to increase. To the question in view, we propose to give a brief discussion. Reduced to a definite form, it may stand as follows:

Is it consistent with the Bible, to admit to Pedobaptist churches, persons who give credible evidence of piety, but who do not believe that God requires them to offer their children in baptism?

We enter on this discussion by remarking that, in the present case, as in other cases of difficulty or doubt, a correct decision is to be sought in a recurrence to great and acknowledged principles.

Most practical questions, whether they regard the duties of individual Christians or of churches, are easily settled.

Often they are decided by express scriptural injunction. Where this is not the fact, they may frequently be referred to some simple scriptural principle, whose decision is scarcely less plain and unequivocal. But there is a third case, where the principles which bear upon the point in question, are more complicated and various: and where truth can be discovered only by a careful estimate and comparison of different, and apparently conflicting considerations. If to this class belongs the question now under consideration--and this we think is the fact-it is not strange that it is found to be embarrassed with some difficulties; nor that different minds, equally sincere, and equally ardent in the pursuit of truth, have arrived at different conclusions respecting it.

In connection with these remarks, we now proceed to suggest some of those general principles which are involved in the present question, and which, as we conceive, must furnish the materials for its correct solution. This we will attempt to do with the utmost simplicity and brevity. Such is the largeness of the subject, as utterly to preclude the extended discussion of particular points. And were it otherwise, such probably is its familiarity to the minds of most readers of this work, as to render hints only either necessary or useful.

Infant baptism, we cannot but maintain, is an ordinance of God. Notwithstanding the doubts of its validity, entertained by a portion of the Christian church; notwithstanding the array of argument by many ingenious and powerful opposers, the basis on which it rests remains, in our view, firm and unshaken. From the undeniable and generally admitted fact, that under the ancient dispensation, children, as well as parents, were included in the covenant of God with his people, we argue that the same is their privilege and standing still. From this secondary fact we argue-and we think we may do it with confidence-that if, under the ancient dispensation, the initiatory seal of the covenant belonged, by divine appointment, to children, it belongs to them now. If, indeed, there had been, in either case, a repeal of the original institution, this would present an insurmountable difficulty. But of such repeal we find in Scripture no evidence, and no shadow of evidence. On the contrary, every thing, which bears on the point in the New Testament, whether it be argument or history, goes to con

firm the authority and permanence of the original appointment; and nothing to invalidate, or to qualify it. With all this, the verdict of the most authentic, and the most ancient ecclesiastical history, entirely corresponds.

Infant baptism is an ordinance of much meaning and importance. It is, as we have seen, the appointed seal of church membership. It forms the children of believers, with their parents, into one consecrated family. While it exhibits the native depravity of man, it exhibits too the heavenly antidote ;-cleansing by the blood of Christ, and sanctification by his Spirit. It constitutes a most powerful and affecting appeal to the strongest sensibilities, both of parents and children, in behalf of God and religion. At the same time, infant baptism, being an instituted rite, cannot occupy precisely the same place in religion, as those great and universal duties which result from the nature and unalterable relations of things. No one will maintain that it is a duty of equal importance with love to God and man, repentance for sin, or faith in the Lord Jesus.

Nor will it be denied, that the evidence in favour of infant baptism, being variously dispersed throughout the sacred oracles, and being partly indirect and inferential, may have frequently escaped those who were sincerely engaged in the pursuit of truth and duty. If, as is probably the fact, a material portion of this evidence has scarcely come into contact with the minds of many, even of the friends of infant baptism, it may surely, by reason of some early, but unperceived bias, or from some different cause, have been overlooked by others.

It must likewise be admitted, that the objections against the validity of infant baptism lie, more than in most similar cases, on the surface; and are capable of being exhibited in bold relief. While the evidence in its favour is, in some instances, less obvious and imposing; and requires, in order to its full perception, a depth and extent of research, a skill in comparison, and an accuracy of discrimination, to which few minds are habituated.

Hence it may be explained, that many a sincere lover of truth and duty, many an ardent friend to God and man, has been found, whose mind has not been reached by the evidence in favour of infant baptism. It would be uncharitable and unjust to deny, that to this description belong many among the living and the dead, many on this and the other

side of the Atlantic, who are to be numbered among the brightest ornaments of Christianity and of their age.

We now proceed to an additional principle, not less obvious in its truth or its importance, than any which has been suggested. It is incumbent on individual believers, and on Christian churches, to love one another with pure hearts fervently; to walk together in union; to sacrifice on the altar of peace every thing but essential truth and essential duty; in short, to receive one another as Christ, their common Saviour, has received them all.

It may now appear, perhaps, that we have brought the question in discussion to an issue satisfactory to ourselves, at least. Nothing, it may seem, remains, but to advance directly to the inference, that pedobaptist churches are both permitted and bound to admit as members, those who give evidence of real piety, though they they may not embrace infant baptism as an ordinance of God. For what church, it may be asked, has a right to refuse those whom Christ receives now, and whom heaven will receive at last?

Still, we are constrained ingenuously to confess, that the subject is not, in our view, entirely relieved of embarassment. Hitherto, we have presented little more than one side of it. But we are not less bound to present the other. Considerations remain, which, we humbly conceive, require a very serious attention.

Every Christian church which would prosper, or even permanently exist, must have some standard of belief and practice, common to all its members. In other words, it must have its Confession of faith. This Confession may be very concise; and perhaps ought to be so. But where is the Pedobaptist church whose articles, however few and short, do not embrace the church standing of the infants of believers, and of course, their baptism? This rite may not be essential to salvation. But may it not be essential to the order and well-being of a church on earth? We believe it to be an ordinance of Christ. Some of its reasons we know. But all its reasons we may not know; nor all the ramifications which connect it with the church's well-being. In dispensing with it, then, in the admission of members, do we not dispense with an ordinance of Christ-an ordinance, too, whose reasons, whose bearings, whose tendencies, whose importance, we do but imperfectly understand, and of course cannot adequately appreciate?

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