English Bible, if free from prejudice, must see that what John the Baptist abstained from, and the Son of Man came drinking, so that they slanderously alled Him a wine-bibber, — i. e., a drunkard (Matt. xi. 19) what the desecrators of the Lord's Supper at Corinth abused till they were "drunken;" what Paul recommended Timothy to take a little of, and forbade bishops to use in excess (1 Tim. iii. 3),— was not unfermented grape-juice, as harmless as water, but something that might be lawfully and beneficially used, but at the same time was liable to be abused. It was this drink, thus capable of being both used and abused, that Christ chose to be the symbol of His blood. We know what "the cup" in the celebration of the Passover contained as certainly as we can know anything pertaining to the history of the past. We know that "the fruit of the vine" was a proverbial name for wine in common use. It is mere trifling and evasion to insist that because it is not called wine, we have no proof that it was wine which the Saviour blessed and gave to His disciples.

But we are not left to the plain meaning of the Scripture on this question. The whole subject has been thoroughly and exhaustively discussed by men whose temperance in all things admits of no suspicion, and whose scholarship is as great as their reverence for the Word of God. Dr. John Maclean, in the "Princeton Review" of April and October, 1841, and Dr. Lyman Atwater, in the same Review for October, 1871, and January, 1872; Dr. Dunlop Moore, in his articles published in the "Presbyterian Review" for January, 1881 and 1882; the Rev. Dr. Edward H. Jewett, in two articles published in the "Church Review" for April and July of 1885, have demonstrated that the two wine theory is utterly without warrant in Scripture or in classic literature. The idea of abolishing the use of wine in the Lord's Supper, in order to remove temptation out of the way of the weak (even if we admit the exaggerated statements of the danger it involves, which we utterly deny), is contrary to

God's uniform method in the discipline of His people. He does not remove temptation out of our way; but surrounding us on every hand with that which may be abused, He strengthens us to use it lawfully, that in our own character and experience we may inherit the blessedness of the man who endureth temptation. The ascetic maxim, "Touch not, taste not, handle not," which is so often quoted as a motto of Bible temperance, is condemned and rejected by the Apostle as a doctrine and commandment of men (Col. ii. 21). "God pours out His bounty for all, and vouchsafes His grace to each for guidance; and to endeavor to evade the work which He has appointed for each man by refusing the bounty in order to save the trouble of seeking the grace, is an attempt which must ever end in the degradation of individual motives and in social demoralization, whatever present apparent effects may follow its first promulgation. One visible sign of this degradation, in its intellectual form, is the miserable attempt made by some of the advocates of this movement to show that the wine here [in the miracle at Cana] and in other places of Scripture is unfermented wine, not possessing the power of intoxication." The substitution of something else for wine in the Lord's Supper, under the plea of removing temptation from the weak, destroys the typical significance of the cup of blessing as the emblem of joy, as an illustration of the manner in which Christ's blood was pressed out by His sacrificial agony, and as a fulfilment of the evangelical prophecy, "In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined" (Isa. xxv. 6). Whether this prophecy refers specifically to the Lord's Supper or not, it certainly applies to and includes this holy sacrament; and no ingenuity of interpretation can so torture "wine on the lees. well refined," which God makes the symbol of all Gospel blessings, as to make it mean unfermented grape-juice.

1 Alford's comment on Second Chapter of John.

D.

Forms of Admission to Sealing Ordinances.

UPON the whole subject of the conditions and rights of church-membership Dr. Charles Hodge has conferred a great and lasting benefit on all denominations of Christians, and especially on Presbyterians. He has demonstrated that nothing should be made a term of communion which is not declared in Scripture to be a term of salvation; that all who make a credible profession of faith in Christ — i. e., a profession which may be believed are entitled to be regarded as members of the visible Church; that the Church does not consist exclusively of communicants, but includes all who, having been baptized, have not forfeited their membership by scandalous living nor by any act of Church discipline; that baptized infants are professing Christians and members of the visible Church in the same sense that their parents are; and that we are bound to admit to the Lord's table all members of the visible Church who express an intelligent desire to partake of it. The application of these simple principles would sweep away at once many of the bars by which that table is "fenced," and most of the covenants by which individual ministers and churches have supplemented God's covenant of grace and salvation. The enforcement of the adoption of the Confession of Faith as a condition of membership in the Presbyterian Church and of admission to the Holy Communion has no warrant in our Standards nor in the Word of God; and the same may be said of most of the extemporized and mutilated confessions which individual ministers and churches have substituted for it. Many ministers have felt this so profoundly that they have abolished the custom of a public confession on the part of baptized persons coming to the Lord's table. This, we think, is going to the other extreme. Such a confession is manifestly appropriate in the case of adults coming

into the Church by baptism. It seems to be equally so in the case of those who have been baptized in infancy and come in years of discretion to ratify their baptism and claim their birthright privileges. In the latter case a public confession is simply an act of confirmation, according to the early practice of all the Reformed churches. The Presbyterian Church greatly needs, and we trust will one day have, uniform and authoritative formularies for the administration of baptism and for the admission of professed believers to the Lord's Supper; so that all things may be done decently and in order, and the Church, in these solemn transactions, may teach a form of sound words rather than the rambling effusions of individual ministers.

That the general instructions given in our Directory for Worship do not supply this need is evident from the fact that there is a constant issuing of new books of forms, some of which have received the quasi indorsement of the Church through its Board of Publication. Opposition to such forms is practically dead.

E.

Whose Children are to be baptized?

A SUFFICIENT guarantee for the Christian education of a child is the Divinely appointed and indispensable condition of its baptism. The Presbyterian Church, in common with most of the churches of the Reformation, has always insisted that parents, or those who actually stand in loco parentisthat is, those who really intend to bring up the child the only persons who ought to be accepted as its sureties in this solemn transaction.

are

It seems shocking to us that one who has only a passing interest in the little one, who has no responsibility for its education, and does not expect to have a controlling influence in the moulding of its character, -one who in many cases does not expect to see the child again after the cere

mony, - should assume these solemn obligations and make these solemn promises in its behalf. No such practice prevailed in the early Christian Church. Bingham in his "Christian Antiquities" shows that up to the time of Augustine parents were, in all ordinary cases, sponsors for their own children.

"The extraordinary cases in which they were presented by others were commonly such cases where parents could not or would not do that kind office for them; as where slaves were presented for baptism by their masters, or children whose parents were dead were brought by the charity of any one who would show that mercy on them, or children exposed to death by their parents, which were sometimes taken up by the holy virgins of the Church, and by them presented for baptism. These are the only cases mentioned by Saint Augustine in which children seem to have had other sponsors and not their parents, which makes it probable that in all ordinary cases parents were sureties for their own children." 1

It being admitted that the indispensable condition of baptism is a sufficient guarantee for the Christian education of the child, it remains to consider what are the qualifications on the part of parents, natural or adopted, which entitle them to give such a guarantee. Whose children have a right to baptism? There is an ambiguity in this question which it is very important to clear up. It is exactly parallel with the question, Who have a right to be recognized as members of the visible Church? This question may refer either to the abstract right in the sight of God, or to the concrete and prescriptive right in the sight of men. God's sight none have a right to visible church-membership and to a participation in the sacraments but those who are regenerate and made members of the invisible Church. Ministers are to preach this doctrine. But from the nature of the case they cannot enforce it upon individuals, 1 Bingham's Christian Antiquities, i. 552.

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