Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

"Such a modification of the doctrine, that it is a mean and a pledge, is evidently required both by experience and common sense. So far as matter of fact is concerned, we do not find that baptism is a mean and a pledge of grace to all who receive it: nor is it agreeable either to right reason or to the general analogy of nature, that it should be so. Baptism acts not as a charm: it imposes upon no one an invincible necessity of holiness. It is a mean of God's grace, only so far as we avail ourselves of the privileges to which it intitles us: it is a pledge of our receiving it, only so far as we take those intermediate steps upon which God has suspended its communication. A brave army is a powerful mean of victory: but, if it be ill supplied and worse conducted, no victory will be obtained. The delivering of a turf may be the pledge of a large estate: but if the estate be never claimed, or if all right

to it be forfeited by treason, the receiver of the turf will derive no benefit from the most regularly and authentically witnessed reception of it. Just so is it with baptism: as a precept, it is positive; as a mean and a pledge of receiving Divine grace, it is conditional. The whole analogy of nature cannot be violated to drive men to heaven, nor yet in some cabalistical manner to convey them thither. Baptism, though in

a modified sense of the words both a mean and a pledge, can no more in itself secure an admission into the presence of God, than the fabulous efficacy attributed by monkish superstition to the cloak and scapulary of St. Francis. We must do our parts in the Christian covenant, just as we must plow and sow the ground with an eye to a future plentiful harvest: and, if we thus act, we shall then find, that baptism is both a mean and a pledge of grace." pp. 385-387.

As baptism is a federal admission into the church of Christ, it follows that a baptism into what is not the church of Christ, is no baptism at all. If a person be baptized into a society which rejects the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, he may indeed be washed with water; but the rite is just as invalid as if he were baptized into the religion of Mahomet.

The sermon concludes with a few remarks upon infant baptism, and upon the form requisite for the efficacious administration of the rite. We shall finish our account by an extract concerning the former of these questions.

"The manifest identity of circumci. sion and baptism, even to say nothing of the universal practice of the church in all ages, seems abundantly to deter mine the question of infant baptism. the avowed symbol of regeneration, and as baptism under the Gospel is likewise circumcision and baptism are evidently the avowed symbol of regeneration; two outward sacramental signs of exactly the same import. But, if they be signs of the same spiritual grace, they

"As circumcision under the law is

must to all effective purposes be mutu

ally the same with each other: for a sign being altogether arbitrary, if it had pleased God to shadow out regenera tion by a hundred different signs, all stitute but a single sacrament. those hundred signs would still con

"Such then being the case, as God judged children under the law to be fully capable of entering into covenat with him by circumcision on the eighth day, man can have no right to pronounce children under the Gospel incapable of entering into covenant with him by baptism. Every argument the necessary want of active faith on against infant baptism, derived from the part of children, will be equally cogent against infant circumcision: for faith was so much the grand principle of the Law as well as of the Gospel, that the pious patriarch of the Israelites is specially decorated with the title of 'the father of the faithful.' But God

has decided the question in the matter of circumcision. Therefore, circumcision being effectively the same as baptism, he has equally decided it in the matter of baptism. Hence, in every age and tion of a modern innovating sect, padoin every country, with the sole excepbaptism has invariably been adopted: and hence the Church of England well determines, that the baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ."" pp, 397 –

399.

* Art. XXVII.

We come now to the last sermon To shew the fallacy and danger of constructing systems, and enforcing them as articles of faith, Mr. Faber supposes a violent Calvinist and a violent Arminian, each to be building up his own hypothesis by a course of reasoning, founded upon some favourite scriptural text. The Calvinist, commencing with the undoubted sovereignty of God and the miserable and helpless condition of man, advances step by step, with great apparent correctness of demonstration, to election and reprobation, to final perseverance and par. ticular redemption.

of this very interesting volume, upon a subject of discussion than which none is more difficult. The title of it is, the Predestinarian Controversy; and its general object is to shew us the necessity of bringing to the test of Scripture not only the conclusions, at which we arrive by a course of abstract reasoning, but the very premises and steps of that reasoning. To give a satisfactory analysis of this masterly sermon, would be a work of considerable length. We shall aim, therefore, at nothing more than to offer a very brief outline of the argument.

Whatever mystery there may be in any of the doctrines of the Scriptures, it may be safely affirmed, that in all points necessary to be understood and to be believed by Christian men, the propositions themselves are clear and intelligible. The

Bible does indeed treat of the deep things of God; but they are set forth in terms, the import of which cannot be misunderstood by the meanest capacity, although the things themselves are above the comprehension of the highest. Hence we are furnished with an admirable method of determining the truth or falsehood of our preconceived opinions: if they be contradictory to Scripture, whatever may have been the skill with which they were deduced, and the compactness with which they were put together, they must instantly be abandoned.

Now it seems to be too much the fault of persons violently engaged on both sides of the Calvinistic Controversy, that they are unwilling to take the Bible as they find it: they assume scriptural premises, and draw conclusions of their own, which are not scriptural; and thus they are reduced to the necessity of perverting or explaining away some of the most positive declarations of the word of God.

The high Arminian sets out in the same manner, with some declaration or exhortation of Scripture; and, by a process no less fair in appearance, discovers that the final happiness or misery of men depends solely upon their own voluntary choice, and the line of conduct adopted in consequence of such choice.

That there is a fallacy somewhere in deducing results so directly opposed to each other cannot be doubted; and we may perhaps be inclined from the circumstance to conclude, that abstract reasoning is not, in these matters, the best mode of arriving at truth, This suspicion will be heightened, if we push each train of reasoning to its utmost limits; for, as Mr. Faber proves, we may even go on the one side to the awful length of concluding that God is effectively the author of sin, and that virtue and vice are mere names, or to be considered only as irresistible tendencies to particular objects; and on the other side of inferring that the assistance of the Holy Spirit is superfluous, and that man is his own saviour.

These are doctrines which the two parties in question will not admit; yet the reasoning seems as legitimate and correct as that which often induces them to sup3F2

port their acknowledged systems, enveloped in impenetrable clouds and and equally flows from their own admitted premises.

The truth is, that no dependance can be placed upon this sort of reasoning, unless it be perfectly consistent with the Scripture. Hence Mr. Faber lays down the following rule:-" Admit no conclusion in any system to be valid, unless the conclusion itself, as well as the thesis from which it is deduced, be explicitly set forth in holy Scripture."

To shew the use of this canon he applies it to the two preceding chains of abstract reasoning; and proves, by an actual appeal to the Scriptures, that several propositions advanced by each party with much apparent plausibility, are directly opposed to the Word of God. He thus concludes his argument:

"We must prove all things by Scripture, and hold fast that which is good: regardless of the even opposite conclusions, which might seem by a train of abstract reasoning to be legitimately deduced from our several articles of belief. By adopting such a plan, we may forfeit the honour and glory of a proud systematic concinnity; and, what has not unfrequently been the case with our venerable mother the Church of England, in the mortal tug of theologic war, we may very possibly be deemed Calvinistic by Arminians, and Arminian by Calvinists: but, rejecting each theory as a whole, and determining to call no man master save Christ alone, we shall have the comfort of knowing, that we believe nothing but what the Bible unequivocally teaches us to be lieve. It may not perhaps be the most philosophical, but it is probably the wisest, opinion which we can adopt, that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes of the two rival systems of

Calvin and Arminius; though I believe it to exceed the wit of man to point out the exact place where it does lie. We distinctly perceive the two extremities of the vast chain, which stretches across the whole expanse of the theological heavens; but its central links are

thick darkness. After all, whatever metaphysical difficulties there may be

in the matter, these difficulties are no way peculiar to Christianity: they are, if I may so speak, inherent in the very nature of things themselves. As mere Deists, we should be equally perplexed, if we were determined to excogitate a compact moral system, with the jarring points of fate and free-will, divine prescience and human contingency. This was felt long before the promulgation of the Gospel: and, if men continue to dispute and to draw out fine trains of metaphysical reasoning even to the very end of the world, it requires not the gift of prophecy to foretell, that they will be just as wise at the close as they were at the commencement." pp. 478, 479.

From the view which we have now attempted to give of these sermons, and as far as was convenient in the words of the author himself, it is obvious that they form a sort of regular series: the several subjects, according to the statement in the preface, are connected with each other; and the drift of the argument will be most clearly seen by reading them in the order of their collocation. To what extent the plan may be carried, Mr. Faber has not informed us: this volume is complete in itself; but as it is entitled the first, and as we are told that other sets of discourses have been prepared by him, with the design of publication, we may expect soon to be favoured with at least an additional volume. We can truly say, that if Mr. Faber's future efforts be equal to the present, the more frequently we meet with him as a writer of sermons, the greater will be our gratification; and we shall be glad to reserve for him a conspicuous place in our library, not for the sake of ornament alone, but to be read and considered for the correction of error, and the con firmation of Christian principle,

LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE,

&c. &c.

GREAT BRITAIN. IN the press-A translation from the Chinese of the Sacred Edict, &c., by the Rev. W. Milne;-Journal of a Voyage to New-Zealand, in company with the Rev. Samuel Marsden;-Observations on the Canonical Scriptures, four vols. 8vo., by Mary Cornwallis;-an Account of the Rev. R. Morrison's Chinese Dictionary and his own, by Dr. Montucci;

Summary of the State of Spain at the Restoration of Ferdinand VII., by Captain C. Clarke;-Philanthropy and other Poems, by the Rev. J. Cobbin, A. M.;-Theological Enquiry into the Sacrament of Baptism, and the Nature of Baptismal Regeneration, in five Discourses before the University of Cambridge, by the Rev. C. Benson,

M.A.

Preparing for publication:-Lectures on Scripture Doctrines, by the Rev. W. B. Collyer, D.D.;-The Bibliographical Decameron, by the Rev. T. F. Dibden;-The first volume of the Elgin Marbles, with an Historical and Topographical Account of Athens:-A Series of Practical Lectures, on the leading Doctrines of the Gospel: price, to Subscribers, 5s.; by the Rev. H. C. O'Donnoghue, A. M.

There are at present in the University of Cambridge 1359 members of the Senate; and 3275 members on the boards, being the largest number on record. The number in 1804 was but 2122; and in 1748 but 1500.

The general Committee of the Waterloo Subscription have come to the resolution to allow an annuity of 61. to every man who lost a limb in the battle; 10. per annum to every widow; and for children, according to age, 4l. per annum, till seven years old, and up to 151. at fourteen.

Sir H. Davy's invaluable Safety Lamp has been introduced upon the Continent, where it has been attended with the same happy results as at home; and some partial attempts have been even made with it for lighting mines, by means of their own gas.

Monuments of ancient splendour con

tinue to be discovered in searching the ruins of Pompeii. An extensive public building has been found ornamented with paintings, some of which are very valuable. The pavement is Mosaic, formed in part of small white and coloured stones, and in part of large slabs of marble of various colours. Several inscriptious have been traced, which ascertain the use of this monument: one of them indicates that the right of luminum obstruendorum, (a right recognized by the Roman law, and preventing in certain cases, neighbouring proprietors from having lights or prospects near the contiguous estates), had been purchased at the price of several thousand sesterces. luable statues have also been dis

covered.

Some va

The King of Bavaria has issued an ordinance to prevent the abuses of lotteries. He states, that the circumstances of the kingdom, and the practice in other nations, do not allow of his entirely abolishing this species of gaming; but he strictly prohibits all persons from employing any arts for inducing the public to purchase shares. The number of office-keepers is to be modes rate, and the conductors respectable men: puffing advertisements, and other publications of a tendency to excite the passions of the people, are disallowed; no Jews are to be admitted in future as collectors; the hawking or offering for sale of tickets is to be rigorously punished; and children are to be en tirely prohibited from adventuring.

Among the improvements in the administration of justice in the island of Ceylon, the trial by jury, which was introduced into the island in 1811, is stated to have produced the happiest effects on the character of the natives. The right of sitting upon juries has not been confined to Europeans only, but is extended, without distinction, to all the natives of the country.

The heights of the principal Himalaya mountains, hitherto inaccessible to Europeans, and long supposed in India to be the most elevated in the world, have been lately measured by observations ;

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][ocr errors]

26,462

(Above the sea)

23,052

Above the sea

26,862

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

The Himalaya chain is visible from Patna, on the southern bank of the Ganges, as a continued well-defined line of white cliffs, extending through more than two points of the compass, at a distance of about sixty leagues, while, at an equal distance, Chimborazo, the highest of the Andes, is seen as a single point, the rest of the Cordillera being invisible. The peak of Chamalasi, near the frontiers of Thibet, is visible from various stations in Bengal, the most remote of which is not less than 232 English miles.

LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THEOLOGY,

A Series of Pastoral Letters on Nonconformity, from a Dissenting Minister to a Youth in his Congregation. 12mo. 3s. 6d.

Fifty-two Lectures on the Catechism of the Church of England: to which are added, three introductory Discourses on the Subject, addressed to the Inhabitants of the Parish of Hinxworth, Herts.; by the Rev. Sir Adam Gordon, Bart. M. A. 3 vols. 8vo. 1. 11s. 6d.

The Clergyman's Companion in Visitin the Sick; by W. Paley, D.D. Arch deacon of Carlisle. 12mo. 5s. 6d.

Baker's Sermons extracted from the Lectures of Bishop Porteus. 8vo. 9s.

A Farewel Sermon, preached to the Congregation of St. James's Church, Bath, on Sunday the 23d of March, 1817; by the Rev. R. Warner. 28.

Parochial Instruction; or, Sermons delivered from the Pulpit, at different times, in the course of thirty years; by James Bean, M.A. 8vo. 10s. 6d.

Practical Discourses; by the Rev. Joshua Gilpin.

A Selection of Sermons and Charges; by the late Rev. Edward Williams, D.D. 8vo. 10s. 6d.

Memoirs and Remains of the late Rev. Charles Buck; containing copious Extracts from his Diary, and interesting Letters to his Friends: interspersed with various Observations, illustrative of his Character and Works; by J. Styles, D.D. 5s.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Traveller's Guide to France and the Netherlands; containing the various modes and expenses of travelling in those countries. 18mo. 4s.

A Catalogue of new and second-hand Books, in all Languages and Classes, for the year 1817; by C. Brown. 2s.

A Catalogue of Books in the Arts and Sciences, Antiquities, Biography, History, Law, and Parliamentary Papers, Theology, Topography, Travels, Voyages, &c.; by A. Maxwell. 58.

The British Plutarch; by Francis Wrangham, Esq. 6 vols. 8vo. 31. 3s.

The Annual Register for 1816. 16s. A Geographical Sketch of the principal Mountains throughout the World; exhibiting at one view their comparative elevations, and grouped according to their respective chains; founded upon the most exact geographical and barometrical admeasurements. 8$.

The History of the British Revolution of 1688-9, recording all the Events connected with that Transaction in England, Scotland, and Ireland, down to the Capitulation of Limerick, in 1691; by George Moore, Esq. 14s.

Thoughts on the Laws relating to Salt, as they affect the Fisheries, Agricul ture, and Manufactures of the Kingdom; by Samnel Parkes, F.L.S. M.R.I. Mem. ber of the Geological Society. 8vo. 7s. 6d.

A Tribute of Sympathy, addressed to Mourners; by W. Newnham, Esq. 12mo. 5s.

Remarks on the first Chapter of the Bishop of Llandaff's Hora Pelasgicæ.

Observations on the West-Indian Islands, Medical, Political, and Miscellaneous; by John Williamson, M.D. 8vo. 1l. 5s.

Observations on the Laws and Ordi nances, which exist in Foreign States, relative to the Religious Concerns of their Roman Catholic Subjects; by the Rev. J. Lingard.

Letter to William Smith, Esq. Mem. ber for Norwich; by Robert Southey.

2s.

Modern Greece, a Poem. 8vo. 5s. 6d.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »