happifying principle. "He that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him." 66 The Christian, or the new man, is then a philanthropist to the utmost extent of the meaning of that word. Truth and love have made him free from all the tyrannies of passion, from guilt, and fear, and shame; have filled him with courage active and passive. Therefore, his enterprize, his capital enterprize, to which all others minister, is to take part with the Saviour in the salvation of the world. "If by any means I may save some," are not the words of Paul only, but of every new man. Are they merchants, mechanics. husbandmen; are they magistrates, lawyers, judges, or unofficial citizens; are they masters, servants, fathers, sons, brothers, neighbours; whatever, or wherever they may be, they live for God and his city, for the King and his Empire. They associate not with the children of wrath-the miser, the selfish, the prodigal, the gay, the proud, the slauderer, the tattler, the rake, the libertine, the drunkard, the thief, the murderer. Every new man has left these precincts; has broken his league with Satan and his slaves, and has joined himself to the family of God. These he complacently loves, those he pities, and does good to all. The character of the new man is an elevated character. Feeling himself a son and heir of God, he cultivates the temper, spirit, and behaviour, which correspond with so exalted a relation. He despises every thing mean, grovelling, earthly, sensual, devilish. As the only begotten and well beloved Son of God is to be the model of his future personal glory, so the character which Jesus sustained amongst men, is the model of his imitation. The law of God is hid in his heart. The living oracles dwell in his mind; and he grows in favour with God as he grows in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ his Lord. As a newborn babe he desires the unadulterated milk of the word of God, that he may grow by it; for as the thirsty hart pants after the brooks of water, so pants his soul after God. Thus he lives to God, and walks with him. This is the character of the regenerate, of him that is born of God, of the new man in Christ Jesus. This is that change of heart, of life, and of character, which is the tendency and the fruit of the process of regeneration as taught aud exemplified by the Apostles, and those commended by God. in their writings. A. C. CRITICISM UPON DR. THOMAS. Glasgow, September 23, 1850. MR. EDITOR.-Dear Sir,-In common with many others in this city, I was privileged to hear the lectures of Dr. Thomas, of America. These lectures excited a deep interest. The address and elocution of the lecturer were of a very high character, and his learning and scholastic acquirements were those of a master, exhibiting an extensive knowledge of history, and a critical acquaintance with the original languages. In your esteemed 286 THE GOSPEL BANNER, periodical he has been frequently brought under our notice, and I trust you will indulge me in a few remarks in reference to one or two of his doctrines, not somuch alluded to it. his lectures as in his recent publications. I refer more especially to his doctrinal statements as to the final condition of all dying in infancy, of the total extinction of their being, and also of the extinction of all who are not believers of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Although I have not been educated in the principles of the Baptists, I nevertheless entertain towards our Christian brethren of that denomination sentiments of sincere respect. But I have to thank Dr. Thomas for his frank and open development of a doctrine which I have not before found admitted in my intercourse with my Baptist friends. On this topic they have generally evaded any very explicit explanation, seem. ingly spreading a veil over this part of their system. But with Dr. Thomas there is no reserve, without a sigh or a tear, he coolly sends all the unbaptized to oblivion. Awful and sad reflection! In the 24th page of his new tract, he says of infants," They sojourn here a little while, and then slip out of life as unconsciously as they came in. They brought nothing with them, and they take nothing away; so that they become as though they had never been. This is certainly very cool indeed, though not very solacing to the heart of a bereaved parent. Will you be kind enough to explain whether such a tenet is entertained in the Baptist Church, as an understood article of belief? and whether adherents of that hody are content with the Dr. to hand over to perpetual annihilation those members of their families who die in early years? For my part I should have great reluctance in embracing such a heartless system of doctrine, were such a view allowed to form a part of it. I should almost feel disposed to renounce Christianity itself,, were I to arrive at a belief that such a gloomy doctrine is embodied in it. I feel it to be a dishonour done to the religion of Jesus Christ, for any individual, or any body of professed Christians to promulgate such an article of belief. On such a principle I cannot understand why our blessed Lord took little children in his arms and blessed them, nor what is the nature of a blessing that might terminate in the annihilation of their being. I think I might appeal to the heart of every Christian, whether such a revolting statement carries in it any internal evidence for its support. Dr. Thomas and his friends may aver, that the contrary view cannot be proved from the Bible. With all deference, however, I think it might be fully made out, if not by direct textual evidence at least inferentially. For this I have not leisure, but would leave the space in your columus to be occupied by others more qualified; merely stating that if such a mournful theory is supported by the Scriptures, it would go far to awaken a surmise, that what is called the Bible cannot be received as a revelation of the true character of God. It would operate seriously against the credibility of the sacred writings; and the likelihood would be, that many right-hearted men would feel disposed to collect all the Bibles within their reach and make a bonfire of them. The love and allegiance of multitudes to the religion of Jesus would be shaken to their foundation. The Doctor has evidently a very stoical constitution of mind. In the extinction of such myriads of innocents by his system of belief, he quite Out-Herods Herod. This doctrine cannot be the essence of Christianity; and the sooner the Baptist Church take means to repudiate such a statement it will be more to their credit as a Christian body. Another doctrine announced by the Doctor is, the temporary extinction of all men at But I must leave this matter in your hands for the present, and trust that the Doctor's WE are sorry that in consequence of the late hour at which the above communication ar rived, we are not enabled to extend our remarks upon it. The annihilation of infants is not an article of belief in our churches. Those who hold the idea, have it as a private opinion. We believe, as individuals, no such tenet, and could not permit any one to teach it in the church over which we preside-but with ail forbearance would permit him to hold it as individual property. Our sentiments on Materialism were EDITOR fully developed in the friendly controversy between ourselves and a correspondent, some time since. We have not seen the publication of the Dr.'s to which our friend refers. WHAT IS MAN? "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him? What is the son of man, that thou shouldst visit him?” WE ask not what he was when clothed in light as with a garment, he stood beaming forth the moral glory of his Father and his God, amid the ever-glowing beauties and all the joyful harmonies of Eden, before the serpent's discordant tongue whispered a jarring note into the ever-listening ear of woman, We ask not what he was while he stood the rightful sovereign of a world, whose every creature owned him and gladly ministered to him as lord of all; when every breath bore to his ear the admiring allegiance of all below him; and the approving, ennobling, and enrapturing accents of his complacent and almighty Father. But we ask,-WHAT IS MAN? When we look upon the wild untutored savage who roams the wilderness in quest of blood as a beast of prey-upon the wretched slave, sunk in ignorance and chains, degraded by his more knavish fellow to a beast of burthen-upon the miscreant, insatiate of crime, self-doomed and self-degraded, without shame and without remorse, rioting on the rankest sins, and sporting himself on worse than brutal lusts-well may we exclaim, What Is man! Shall we say with Young, "His very crimes attest his dignity," and estimate his primeval excellence and glory from his ability to descend, by a ladder of such countless rounds, so many steps below the beasts that perish? In what creation, or in what part of immensity itself, is found a being of such capacities as man? In what species of being are such antipodes of character, such contrasts of light and shade, of vigour and imbecility, of good and evil, of grandeur and degradation? Abel, of countenance, placid, serene, unclouded, leaning upon the promise of the Immutable, over his bleeding lamb, in admiration of the immaculate purity of the sin-forgiving Jehovah: Cain, of aspect sullen, suspicious, dejected; incensed in heart, and machinating vengeance against a brother because more excellent than himselfstand first in contrast at the head of the two chapters which, with reference to moral character, classify all the decendants of the once happy pair. But who next in the same two chapters, as specimens of the vast extremes, are worthy to be named? If from remote points we might place side by side men of renown, we would compare Abraham, the first Chaldean pilgrim of renown, chief of the fathers of mankind, standing upon Mount Moriah's top, through faith obedient even to the sacrifice of an only son, receiving from the dead the child of promise, joyfully looking through the long vista of two thousand years, to the day in which Isaac's son, on the same spot, should achieve a victory of such transcendant glory as to enlighten eternity with its train; and whom?-Robespierre, prince of Atheists, in the glory of Atheism, in "the reign of terror," enraged to madness at the very name of Abraham's God, standing by the guillotine, sacrificing human victims to his own insatiable ambition, feasting on the blood of the thousand rivals of his infamous renown. And who next? Mary, the amiable, sitting at the feet of Jesus, drinking grace from his lips, and Jezebel sacrificing by scores the prophets who uttered the words of the Lord; the widow, casting her whole living into the treasury of the Lord, and Judas betraying and selling the Saviour of the world for thirty pieces of silver; Paul peregrinating all nations, hazarding all dangers, encountering all privations, enduring all toils to save men's souls; and Napoleon, spreading desolation over many lands, wading through rivers of human blood, offering up millions of human souls on the altar of his own ambition. But it is in vain. We cannot bring the antipodes together, nor in all points contrast any two of the race. Could we arrange all the ranks of intellect, all the classes of moral and immoral character, all the contrasts in the whole race, the number would be only equalled by the whole aggregate of individuals that have ever lived. His Maker But no mortal can survey the capacities of man. alone knows what he is capable of; and the price which he has set upon him, even in his crimes, in sending his Son to redeem him by his own blood, teaches us how to regard ourselves and one another more than all the speculations of philosophers from the first apostacy to the resurrection of the dead. "And what in yonder world above Is ransom'd man ordain'd to be? Before the throne, and first in song, While countless angels round him throng, REGENERATION.-No. III. A. C. GOD is a spirit. Eternity and immortality are among his attributes; and glory and majesty surround the throne of the peerless Author of the Universe. Man consists of body, soul, and spirit. By the two former he is related to matter, and to the animal creation. As it respects the latter he resembles God. Formed of the dust of the ground, possessed of appetites and passions, material and animal relations first occupy his attention. His senses, the only inlets to knowledge with which he is furnished, limited entirely to the discovery of that which is in its nature material, are altogether incompetent to detect that which is spiritual. Thus constituted, he can acquire a knowledge of those substances with which he is not acquainted, only through the medium of the ideas originated by those things which he already knows; while his spirit, the peculiar and ennobling attribute of man, the pure and perennial source of true enjoyment, can investigate the harmonies and behold the glories of a spiritual or intellectual world only through the images afforded by that which is material. No one ever saw God. In his own nature invisible to man, he hath condescended to reveal himself in the only manner in which our nature enables us to recognize him. He uttered his voice and the Universe sprang into existence. By the things that are made hath he clearly manifested to all who would reflect upon them, since the creation of the world, his invisible things, even his eternal power and divinity. Having in various ways and on different occasions exhibited himself to the human family; in the latter times the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father hath made him known. The Word which was in the beginning, God, and with God, by which the worlds were made, assuming the body which had been prepared, became incarnate and sojourned among men. God was his Father. As he resembled his mother Mary in partaking of flesh and bloodof material substance; so was he the effulgence of his Father's glory and the exact image of his substance. As the Father had life in himself, so had he given to the Son to have life in himself. Partaking of Deity, the chains of Death were incapable of retaining him. He was in the Father, and the Father in him. Commissioned by God he has related God's own words, for the Spirit was not given by measure to him. Full of grace and truth, he exhibited to men those testimonials of the truth of his pretensions which their capacity enabled them to receive. The same divine power displayed in creation issued from his finger, accompanied his voice. Divine wisdom flowed from his lips-love and pity shone in his tears. Unlike the first Adam who was of the earth, earthy, and who could communicate nothing but animal life to his posterity; the second Adam the Lord from heaven was made a quickening Spirit. As the children of the earthy man bear the image of their parent in disposition as well as body; so are those who are begotten of God to have the same mind which was in Christ Jesus, and each of them shall be finally clothed with a house from heaven, fashioned like unto his glorious body. Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ, has been begot |