what is popular, but what is true, and in accordance with Christ's revealed will. If others agree with them, so much the better. The more company they have in the right way, the pleasanter it is. If they are comparatively alone, still they have no option. Truth has often been unpopular. Christ Himself had the multitude against Him. If numbers do not prove our opponents right, neither does the want of numbers prove us wrong.

VII.- EVANGELICAL AGREEMENT.

"The only harmony that is worth seeking and worth having, is harmony founded on conviction, and the result of free enquiry".-DR. WARDLAM.

Although the Baptists do not acknowledge the authority of human standards, and do not bind themselves to adhere to an elaborate creed, it must not be supposed that they have no agreement among themselves and with Christians of other denominations. They are bound tegether, not merely to maintain what they deem a Scriptural observance of an ordinance, nor merely to preserve a certain order of church government. They regard the ordinance of believers' baptism as symbolising, exhibiting, and impressing upon the mind certain facts and doctrines of the Christian religion, and believe that one form of church government is best fitted for the free and full development of the Christian life; and for these reasons, among others, they are Baptists and Congregationalists; but they rejoice to be in hearty agreement with themselves and with other Christian bodies in holding what are commonly called evangelical doctrines.

Amongst the things most surely believed among them are the inspiration of the Scriptures; a trinity of persons in the Godhead; the fall of man and the consequent depravity of human nature; the incarnation and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ; justification by faith; regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit; the importance of good works as evidences of faith and regeneration; the certainty and equity of final judgment; the everlasting destruction of the impenitent and disobedient, and the everlasting glory of the righteous.

These doctrines may be held with more or less clearness, and may be more or less modified, and differently stated by different

persons among us, but we believe that, generally and substantially, Baptists can subscribe to all these important doctrines as heartily as the ministers and members of any other denomination.

If some of them are more Calvinistic, or more Arminian than others, this is no more than might be expected where there is so much freedom. Nor do we regard it as a great calamity. Better this than the rigid uniformity which comes from legal compulsion, which is generally more apparent than real. Indeed, as John Foster has said, "No formulary of faith ever did or ever can secure uniformity of opinion; no existing creed is found capable of precluding numberless questions and controversies among those who are willing, on the whole, to subscribe to it. No creed consisting of a moderately long series of articles could probably be so framed as not to require at least a thousand new articles to fix the definitive sense of the primary ones, and guard it with very nice discrimination, if it is really required that all the subscribers shall receive precisely the same idea from every term and clause of every article." We therefore think that honesty and common-sense require that there should be room left for variety of views and statement, as the result of many minds having been engaged in the careful and conscientious study of the Scriptures. And this gives all the more value to the agreement at which these independent students do arrive. It furnishes a strong presumption in favour of the correctness of the views in which they are agreed, and a sufficient answer to those who maintain the necessity of elaborate standards to secure even substantial unity of faith.

The Articles, Canons, and Rubrics of the Church of England do not secure so much agreement among her clergy, who have avowed their "unfeigned assent and consent" to the Thirtynine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, as prevails. among Baptists, and the ministers and members of other Free Churches. There are no such differences among Baptists, General and Particular, open communion and close, as those which mark the distinction between High Church, and Low Church, and Broad Church, and between the Rationalistic, the Papistical, and the Evangelical parties, each of which has its own literary organ, and each of which often denounces the others in no very polite or measured terms. To agreement of Baptists with themselves and other Evangelical Christian denominations is the result of a humble and prayerful study of God's Word, and this binds them together in love to their common Lord and Saviour, and to each other.

We rejoice to hold these views in common with Evangelical Churchmen, Presbyterians, Independents, and Methodists. They constitute a broad and solid platform on which we can meet them in hearty union. Our agreement with them respecting these great doctrines of the Christian faith, and our love to the same Saviour whom they also love and honour, make it easy for us to esteem them as brethren, to co-operate with them as fellow-labourers, and honour them as fellow soldiers under the Captain of our salvation. We can most fervently pray for and rejoice in their success in the work of smiting sin and saving souls, and wherein we or they may err, we can pray, and inquire, and study, and lovingly contend, so that we may be brought to "see eye to eye."

It would be a grand mistake if we were to think as much of the differences which distinguish us, as of the great and important truths in which we are agreed, and expend more time and strength in bitter and angry controversies with one another than in united efforts to arouse the indifferent, reclaim the wandering, and rescue the perishing.

The more we recognise and honour the many excellences that are to be found in those from whom on most points we differ, and the more we co-operate with them in the spread of the truths in which we and they are agreed, and in the diffusion of the piety which we are all anxious to promote, the more likely shall we be to gain a respectful consideration for our views of those truths concerning which we think them in error, for as Robert Hall has well said, "That union among Christians which it is so desirable to recover, must, we are persuaded, be the result of something more heavenly and divine than legal restraints or angry controversies. Unless an angel were to descend for that purpose, the spirit of division is a disease which will never be healed by troubling the waters. We must expect the cure from the increasing prevalence of religion, and from a copious communication of the Spirit to produce that result." "He shall lead you into all the truth."

VIII.-NO SPONSORSHIP IN CHRISTIAN SERVICE.

"Where is the consistency of condemning the compulsory observance of all religious rites, and of practising compulsion in the observance of the very first of these rites."-Rev. A. M. STalker.

Baptists believe that the first requisite of acceptable Christian

service is a willing mind. They do not believe in any human suretyship. They regard the religion of the New Testament as a personal matter. Each one of us is bound to repent, believe, and obey for himself, and for himself only. This obligation to do so begins at the time when it begins to be possible, when a person has reached the age at which he is, or ought to be, capable of understanding so much about his sin that he may well mourn over it, loathe it, and desire to be delivered from it; so much about Christ that he may well trust and love Him; so much of what is required of Him, as to see that obedience is required. The strength of obligation increases with the increase of mental power, and opportunity, and motive. Till he can do so intelligently and heartily, he is not required to do it at all. "It is required of a man according to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not." But when he is able to repent, believe, and obey, no one can relieve him of that responsibility.

The piety of his parents cannot, though they may have had the faith of Abraham, the patience of Job, the meekness of Moses, the zeal of Peter, and the heroism of Paul. The brighter the example which has been set constantly before him, and the holier the influences which have been exerted upon him, the greater is his responsibility, and the sooner he is made to feel this, and the more earnestly he is entreated to yield his heart and life to Christ the better.

This is generally admitted, when plainly stated, but it is one thing to admit a principle, it is another thing to allow it full play. Is it quite consistent with this to bring unconscious babes to be baptised, and to profess repentance and faith in their names, as godfathers and godmothers do in the Church of Rome and Church of England; and then, when these children are capable of understanding, to tell them that, without any choice or consent of theirs, they 66 were made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven ?" Does not this weaken the sense of personal responsibility, and lay a foundation for belief in the efficacy of sacraments?

Is it consistent with this doctrine of personal responsibility for sponsors to say: "I do, in the name of this child, renounce the devil and all his works, believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Ghost," etc., and then to tell the child that they promised and vowed these things in his name, and that he is therefore bound to perform them? We complain that all this

mystifies Christianity, and so far weakens its claim upon the intelligent inquirers, and that when it teaches a child that repentance, and faith, and obedience are required, it is not for any just, and intelligible and scriptural reason, but to fulfil a promise made in his name which he never authorised, and Scripture never required. It is dfficult to say whether it is more injurious to the child as it grows up and begins to make inquiry, or to the sponsor who is led to promise and vow for the child what he has no more power to insure than that he shall be a bright genius, or a mighty conqueror, or a profound and original thinker. And how shocking it is, when we remember that these declarations and promises are made often by persons who have given no evidence of intelligence, or piety, or conscientiousness, and without any guarantees that they are suitable persons, either to make an open profession of Christianity themselves, or to bring up children in that profession; yes, and by persons whose lives are known to be immoral, and who are never likely to take the slightest interest in the education of those in whose name they have taken upon themselves such fearful responsibilities! Nor does the officiating clergyman often inquire or know anything of their character. One Sunday, a few months ago, a young man is said to have strolled into a certain parish church in Lancaster in time to relieve the anxiety of a number of parents. There was a lack of godfathers, and he was pressed to stand as sponsor to five children whose innocent faces he had never seen before, and was never likely to see again. A few years ago an inmate of Westminister Workhouse is said to have taken upon himself the responsibility of sponsorship for upwards of 1,000 children, and had in each case been rewarded by a pot of porter. (Ingham on "Subjects of Baptism," p. 563.) And yet after cach ceremony the children were said to be "regenerate" and "engrafted into the body of Christ's Church," and thanks were given to our "most merciful Father" for having regenerated them, this solemn mockery being accepted for the time in the place of the candidates' personal repentance and faith.

Nor can we approve of the sponsorship of believing parents for their children. We cannot see how this can be reconciled with the principle on which we are now insisting. When a parent's faith is urged as the ground on which his child is entitled to be baptized, what is this but making the parent's faith vicarious, unless it be maintained that the child believes with the parent? But how can he believe "on Him whom he hath not heard," and cannot hear?