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as seeing Him who is invisible." Many "took joyfully the spoiling of their goods," in imitation of the primitive Christians. They were not likely to be ignorant of, nor indifferent to, the foundations on which their faith and hope rested, and the reasons by which their conduct was justified. Though circumstances have changed, we wish to see our young members grow up with the same clear views, the same deep convictions, and the same firm and consistent adherence to principle. In doing this they need not be narrow, and bigoted, and uncharitable towards those who differ from them. Truth and charity are not strangers and much less enemies, to each other. As twin sisters they should live in close and intimate companionship. We may intelligently differ from others, and yet admire their great and manifold excellences. We may speak the truth, and yet speak it in love. We may hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, and yet not be unduly censorious, nor fail to make proper allowance for the different circumstances, training and mental constitution of those who do not agree with us.

The charity which is indifferent to truth is spurious. It is the charity of the spider, which eyes with complacency the victim in the net, or the charity of the blind, which sees no distinction between light and darkness, beauty and deformity. It has no allowance to make because it sees no differences that are of any consequence. It can be calm amid the battle of contending parties, caring little on which side the conquest is, because unconscious of what hangs on the issue. The dead never dispute. True charity has an open eye as well as a large heart. Our aims in these short papers then are not to waken or discountenance charity, but to enlighten it, and prevent its degenerating into that cold indifference which too often claims the name and honour of charity. Let nothing beguile us from our love of truth and consistency. Let us always have a reason for all we profess, and all we do; and let our motto be-"The truth against the world," for "truth is mighty, and must prevail."

Nor let us forget the unity of truth. It may consist of many parts, as the body consits of many members. And some parts may be smaller, and some larger; some less, and some more important. But as all the members are essential to the perfect body, so are all the parts necessary to make up the completeness of the truth. Dismembered as she has been by blind prejudice and passionate contention, it must be our desire to see truth reconstructed, till not one member shall be wanting, not.

one feature distorted, not one colour overdrawn nor underdrawn, but all blended in symmetry and beauty.

II. THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT.

"The right of private judgment in matters of religion, we hold to be indisputable. To invade or to surrender that right is equally an outrage on the moral constitution of man,—to evade it is to usurp,to surrender it, is to be treacherous."-REV. A. M. STALKER.

Baptists recognise the right of private judgment. They believe and teach that every man is responsible to God for the use of his reason, and is, therefore, bound to make the best use he can of it in search for truth. What is each man's natural understanding for, if not to be exercised? Has God, who endowed man with this power, not designed that it should be used for the best and noblest purposes? If He had intended that only those who belong to a sacerdotal order should enjoy the right of free enquiry, they would surely have been the only men'endowed with the power requsite for it. But this is not the case. Each man has an understanding, which is dwarfed and enfeebled by neglect, and strengthened, developed, and matured by careful exercise. And God makes His appeals to the reason and conscience of each man. We are not to be " as the horse and mule, which have no understanding." We are to" prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." We are to "seek for wisdom as for hid treasure," and when we have it we are not to let it go. As neither priest nor pope can take our place at the Judgment and relieve us of our responsibility, we must not allow either or both to do our thinking for us. We must each use our best endeavours to ascertain what God's will is. They who seek to suppress free enquiry, are the enemies of God, and man, and truth. They keep those in ignorance whom God would lead on to knowledge and wisdom; they enslave those whom God desires to be free; they prohibit the use of one of God's best gifts; they dwarf the human mind; they render the many and glorious lights of nature and revelation useless by plucking out the eye which alone can see and enjoy the full advantages of both.

They, however, who encourage and aid free enquiry render service of inestimable value, and in blessing others, dignify the themselves. In teaching men to think aright, and act aright

as a result of their thinking, they help them to make the best of themselves, and raise them to the dignity of kings in the realms of mind. So thought Dr. Maclaren, of Manchester, when he said: "I would rather teach one man to think for himself than a thousand to swear by my thoughts. I have raised him to a throne, and am a king-maker; I should otherwise only confirm him in servility, and become a slave-driver." The right of private judgment should ever be maintained by us as Christians and as Baptists. Deny us this, and you deprive us of all that is dearest to our hearts. It is a root privilege from which all the blessings of our Christianity grow. It was to individual judgment that the apostles and primitive Christians made their appeals when they turned the heathen "from dumb idols, to serve the living and true God, and wait for His Son from Heaven." Not otherwise would they have prevailed over the ignorance and superstition in which many of their hearers had been trained. Not otherwise could they have spread the Christian religion when laws and customs, traditions and prejudices which had lasted for centuries were opposed to it. And not otherwise could Nonconformists and Baptists have multiplied as they have since the time when they were prescribed, persecuted, deprived of civil rights, cast into prisons, and in not a few instances, put to a cruel death because, like the apostles of old, they preferred to obey God rather than man. Having the right of private judgment, we do not hold ourselves bound to adhere to the religion in which we were brought up, merely because it was the religion of our parents. We may and should respect their convictions, and the efforts which they made to bring up their children in the truth as far as they understood it, and never depart from the principles and practices which were dear to them without careful inquiry and good reasons, but we must remember that they were not infallible, and that the wiser and better they were the more anxious they were that their children should understand this, and learn in process of time to think and act for themselves. As wise Christian parents they could not be indifferent to the training of their children. They could not allow others to pre-occupy the virgin soil committed to them, and sow it with what they deemed noxious error. They would be all the more anxious to see their children walking in their footsteps, as they were assured that the way in which they were walking was wise and good. But surely they could not wish their children to follow them blindly. They would wish them to be intelligent in all

their actions, and to be able to assign good reasons for every article of their faith and for every religious observance. They would be less afraid of the free inquiry of their children in proportion as they believed that the religious principles and practices in which they had been brought up might be safely submitted to reasonable tests. Though many of us Baptists, then, were brought up in the Anglican or other Pædobaptists Churches, we hold that we did right in leaving the communities in which our venerable and honoured parents lived and died, not because we did not properly respect them, but because we were bound to inquire and act for ourselves as in the sight of God, to whom every man must give an account of himself. And we would say to those who have been brought up in Baptist families and Baptist Sunday-schools, and under a Baptist ministry, be not content to say that you are in the community in which you were trained and educated. Judge for yourselves honestly and candidly, with such human and Divine help as you can obtain by study and prayer; only beware of human sophistry, and of all that may pervert you from the truth as it is revealed in the Word of God, and then the more searching your inquiry the better.

But, as we value the right of private judgment for ourselves, we must be willing for others to enjoy it also: Like everything else, indeed, it may be abused. Some may seek for truth where it is not to be found; some may allow their prejudices, consciously or unconsciously, to warp or pervert their judgment.

Some may draw false conclusions from proper premises, or, having admitted one small error, may let a fatal consistency with that lead on to the others still more grave and serious. Some may follow the ignis fatuus of error when professing to follow the safe guidance of truth. All this we may deplore, and must do what we can to prevent and remedy it; but whatever we do to guide free inquiry, we must not suppress it. We must allow every man his right, and leave him amendable to God for its use or abuse. We must not be intolerant; we must respect the conscientious convictions of those who differ from

us.

We must remember that where there are many men there are many minds. We must remember that all men have not equal clearness of conception, the same powers of understanding, the same tastes and dispositions, and the same opportunities of favourable inquiry; and this should make us not prize the truth the less, nor adhere to our conscientious convictions less firmly, but be more charitable and forbearing. To his own

master each man must stand or fall. God knows just what allowance to make for everyone. Persecution for religious convictions is utterly inconsistent with the right of private judgment. It is a ursurpation of God's throne by those who are unfit to occupy it, and are in danger of punishing the true and the good as well as the false and the evil. It cannot destroy error; it may discourage earnest seekers after truth. They who claim the right of private judgment themselves should allow it to others, trusting in God and the inherent power of truth for the final vanquishment of error.

Truth gained by personal study and free inquiry has great advantages over that which is enforced by human authority. It gains a heartier assent and consent, and comes into more immediate contact with the individual soul. It secures allegiance, not by stern compulsion, but by reasonable persuasion, which carries the whole man. It rules without blinding the understanding, or weakening the will, or deadening the conscience, or lessening the sense of personal responsibility, and is therefore more likely to secure the affections. While it governs a man, it does not enslave and degrade him. It allows no priest, no synod, no council, no parliament to come in between truth and the human soul, usurping its inalienable and incommunicable authority, and preventing that close and intimate contact which is an essential condition of its rightful influence.

III. THE BIBLE A REVELATION FROM GOD.

"I deem it unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in need of a Revelation, because I have met no serious person who thinks that, even under the Christian religion, we have too much light, or any degree of assurance that is superfluous.”—DR. PALEY.

Baptists believe in the Scriptures as the Word of God. They have no other authority for their principles and practices. They do not profess to have evolved their religion from their own reason. They do not receive it on the authority of the Church. They do not justify it by custom, or tradition, or mere expediency. If they cannot show that they have the Divine authority of the revealed will of God, they are willing to admit that they cannot justify their existence.

This is not the place to prove that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament do contain the Word of God. It does

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