baptism is of no account. It will only aggravate our condemnation.

6. The doctrine of baptismal regeneration, so far at least as it has infested the Protestant Church, is easily traceable to a misunderstanding of certain passages of Scripture. Luther understood John iii. 5, and other passages, to teach the absolute necessity of baptism to salvation. But if thus necessary, he inferred that there must be some reason for it. If no man, not even an infant, can enter the kingdom of God without baptism, baptism must be the means of accomplishing what the Scriptures declare to be necessary for the admission of a sinful creature into heaven. The Scriptures teach that the remission of sins and the renewal of the Holy Ghost are necessary for admission to heaven; therefore, this remission and regeneration must be conferred in baptism. But all this rests on a false foundation. It is very doubtful whether the passage in John has any reference to baptism. But conceding that point, and conceding, moreover, that baptism is there said to be necessary to salvation, it is evidently only the necessity of precept, and not the necessity of a means that is intended. Čonfession with the mouth is said to be necessary to salvation. That is, if men, when the opportunity offers and the occasion calls for it, do not confess Christ before men, he will not confess them before the angels. But this does not teach that confession is a necessary means of salvation; that no man, and even no infant, who does not publicly confess faith in Christ can be saved. Baptism is the appointed mode of confession, and is necessary in the same, and in no other sense. Ten times more is said in the Old Testament of the necessity of circumcision, than is said in the New, of the necessity of baptism; and yet Paul not only says that the circumcision of a disobedient Jew would avail him nothing, but that if the uncircumcised kept the law, their uncircumcision would be counted for circumcision. Many things are commanded of God, baptism among the number, which if neglected in a disobedient, unbelieving spirit, those who thus neglect them forfeit his favour, although the things in themselves have no connection with salvation, as a means to an end.

7. No doctrine can be more radically opposed to the spirit and teaching of the New Testament than this doctrine of baptismal regeneration. The grand idea of the gospel (so far as the essential nature of religion is concerned) is, that God looks on the heart; that rites and ceremonies are no more essential to religion than clothing to the being of a man; that he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and that true circumcision is not of the flesh, but of the heart; that the righteousness which God requires must be something different from that of the

Scribes and Pharisees; that a man's state before Him does not depend on anything external, but on what is internal and spiritual; that neither grace nor salvation is to be attained by works, least of all by ceremonies. It is the burden of the gospel, that whosoever believes shall be saved, whether Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, baptised or unbaptised. There is nothing on earth which Paul would have more execrated than the doctrine, (unless perhaps the man who taught it,) that a true believer and worshipper of Christ would perish for the want of external baptism. This would be to contradict a hundred assertions of the word of God, and utterly pervert, transmute, and degrade the religion of the Bible. Luther felt this as deeply as any man, and therefore, no man was more vehement in his denunciations of the Romish doctrine, that the sacraments confer grace on unbelievers. He held that unless infants believe, baptism avails them nothing. The modern doctrine of baptismal grace was as abhorrent to Luther as to Calvin; because abhorrent to the spirit of the gospel. All experience shews the evil tendency of the doctrine in question. Who are the advocates of baptismal regeneration? Of course there are exceptions, many and great; but speaking in general terms, they are not the spiritual and evangelical class among Christians. The most zealous advocates of the doctrine are the irreligious, the worldly, the fashionable, and even the vicious. It is most vehemently defended by those who make religion a form; who carry out the theory, and ascribe sanctifying power to a bishop's hands, to relics, to holy water, to consecrated oil, to amulets and talismans; who fast on Friday, and rob or murder on Saturday; who believe in priestly absolution, and think they can sin with impunity so long as they keep within the pale of the church, and have access to her cleansing manipulations. It is part of a great system; an element in the great apostasy from apostolic teaching to christianised Judaism. This doctrine of baptism is only a revival of the doctrine of the Pharisees concerning circumcision. It pains us to write thus, when we recollect that dear, glorious Luther retained this with other elements of Romanism. But Luther was a wonder. He had the stomach of an ostrich, and could digest iron. There was nothing which his faith could not master. He believed that the words, "this is my body," teach the local presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist; therefore he believed that Christ's body fills all space. He believed that the Bible teaches that infants cannot be saved without baptism; therefore he believed that baptism regenerates them. But he believed that the Bible teaches that baptism is useless without faith; therefore he believed that infants exercise faith. He would just as readily have

believed that they read and write, had he thought the Bible called him to do so. His great fault was being too confident that he understood the Bible. We are not to be unfaithful to the truth, or to shut our eyes to the dreadful effects of false doctrine, because many, at whose feet we are not worthy to sit, through misinterpreting Scripture, believed it.

8. This, after all, is a question of fact. Are children regenerated in baptism? If a man should say that pouring water on tombstones would bring the dead to life, the shortest method of deciding the matter would be to try the experiment. If the operation were repeated thousands and even millions of times without success, it would be irrational to believe the theory. It would not do to say, that although there were no signs of restored life, still the life was there. Life cannot fail to manifest itself; or even if the signs of life were doubtful, the signs of death are certain. If all the indubitable evidences of death remain, notwithstanding these monumental ablutions, it would be absurd to believe that the dead were alive. No less decisive is the evidence of fact against the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. The baptised are not regenerated. They are not vitally united to Christ. They not only give no evidence of this vital union, but they give decisive evidence, in the vast majority of cases, to the contrary. God never contradicts the testimony of his word, by the testimony of his providence or grace. If he had promised that washing with water in his name should regenerate the soul, we should find the fact in accordance with the promise. The fact, however, is notoriously otherwise; and to assert the existence of the fact without evidence, and against evidence, is to delude ourselves and others, and the delusion is apt to prove fatal. It has been a fatal delusion to many. What is regeneration worth, according to this theory? How is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost degraded and made a thing of naught, if we affirm such indwelling of the mass of the baptised? The whole nature of religion is of necessity perverted; it is turned into Judaic formalism, by thus attributing to external rites effects which are due only to the power of the Spirit, whose presence in the soul is always manifested by the fruits of holiness.

When Paul had proved to the Jews that circumcision could not save them; that it was neither designed as the means of effecting the circumcision of the heart, nor so interested them in the promises made to their fathers as to render their salvation certain, they ungratefully and unreasonably asked, What then is the profit of circumcision? We may as well neglect it as not, if it does not secure us an interest in the Messiah's kingdom. These are precisely the question and complaint ad

dressed to those who deny that baptism is the means of regeneration, and who teach that it does not secure, as a matter of course, a portion in the salvation of the gospel. The answer in both cases is the same. There were great advantages connected with circumcision. The circumcised were separated from the world as the people of God; they were the depositaries of the true religion, and of the true worship; to them pertained the covenants and the promises. All the religion to be found in the world (rare cases excepted) was to be found in their ranks; God had commanded them by circumcision to consecrate their children to him, and had threatened to cut them off from his people if they failed to do SO. Was all this nothing? What circumcision did for the Jews, baptism does for us. Are we so ungrateful and rebellious as to say baptism is nothing, unless it is the means of regeneration; unless it vitally unites our children to Christ? Is it nothing to belong to the church, to be of the number of those who in God's own way are separated from the world, and consecrated to his service? Is it nothing to be within that covenant in which God promises to be our God? Is it nothing to belong to that class in which almost without exception the blessings of redemption flow? Do we wish to exclude our children from all interest in the special promises made to the baptised, that is, to those who bear the seal of the covenant? We may rest assured that any parent who neglects or refuses to dedicate his child to God in baptism, who abstains from entering into covenant with God in its name and behalf, in his appointed way, endangers its salvation as effectually as a Hebrew parent would endanger the salvation of his children by refusing to permit them to be circumcised.

The status, therefore, of baptised children is not a vague or uncertain one, according to the doctrine of the Reformed Churches. They are members of the church; they are professing Christians; they belong presumptively to the number of the elect. These propositions are true of them in the same sense in which they are true of adult professing Christians. Both classes have professed the same faith; both have covenanted with God to be his people, to trust his grace, and to obey his will. Both are included in the general class of persons whom God requires his church to regard and treat as within her pale, and under her watch and care. When these baptised children come to a suitable age, and have the requisite knowledge, they should be required to assume for themselves their baptismal vows, and should, as other church members, be disciplined for any neglect or violation of their covenanted. obligations. Such is the doctrine of our standards.

"CHILDREN born within the pale of the visible church, and dedicated

to God in baptism, are under the inspection and government of the church; and are to be taught to read, and to repeat the catechism, the apostles' creed, and the Lord's prayer. They are to be taught to pray, to abhor sin, to fear God, and to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. And when they come to years of discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady, and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord's body, they ought to be informed that it is their duty, and their privilege, to come to the Lord's Supper."-Directory, chap. ix.

ART. III.-The Scope and Plan of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

In order to the proper understanding of any treatise, it is necessary to gain clear and correct ideas of its scope and plan. There is no book of the Old Testament to which this remark applies with greater force than Ecclesiastes, and none in which the neglect of it has been and must be attended with more serious injury to its exposition. Its proverbial dress creates a special need of taking comprehensive views of the writer's main design, and not being diverted from this by cleaving too anxiously to the tenor of each individual expression. The ill success of too many attempted expositions has shewn, that if the clue thus furnished to all its intricacies and windings be not discovered or be lost sight of, the book becomes a labyrinth, within whose mazes the improvident adventurer is hopelessly entangled; and each verse becomes to him a new passage leading to fresh perplexity, however honestly and assiduously he may labour upon its interpretation. The general truths inculcated by proverbs of course admit either of being taken in their widest extent, or of receiving an indefinite number of particular applications. Which of these expresses the precise intent of the writer, in each individual case, can never be learned from the inspection of single sentences by themselves, but only from a discovery of the place which it holds in the discussion of his theme. And an erroneous view of this theme or of the method of its discussion, will necessarily involve attaching meanings to passages very different from those which they were intended to bear.

Another difficulty connected with that just spoken of, and of a like nature, arises from the absence of particles in every case to indicate the connection or the relation of dependence which the various sentences or paragraphs sustain to each other. This is partly due to the venerable simplicity of the Hebrew language, in which such particles do not abound, and with which it agrees better to suggest relations by the juxtaposition of related ideas, than formally and precisely to state