1 ^ d Q- «^^ ^ •^ m i? Q- ^ t» *^« o -a ^.^^ 15 — ^ r^ Q. Xi« « a "o o 5 £: o CL ?0 1 Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2011 witii funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/voicefromfontOOwilk VOICE FROM THE FONT. London : Printed by A. Spottiswoode, New- Street-Square. 0'^^3'-~^ lly^ ^ ' fii f ^ VOICE THE FONT. ^e.oxo^ \(\\K\>o5 ' Sanctus in hunc coelo descendit spiritus amnem, Ccelestique sacras fonte marital aquas." PatUin. Ep. ad Serenum. LONDON; LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-KOW, 1838. .!^^'-- 1 TWIN-SISTER SOCIETIES, IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, AND THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS, THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED BY THE ALTHOR, WITH THE PRAYER, THAT IT MAY I'I.EASE GOV TO GIVE TO THEIR LABOURS WIDE EXTENSION AND SUCCESS, ^ .t .- PREFACE. In these days of latitudinarian principle and feeling, when the Protestant religion of this kingdom, however understood by churchmen, or modified to the different views of the various sectaries, is said to be the religion of Christ ; it is essential that the Established Church should show that her doctrine and discipline are catholic^ — catholic in the full and proper ac- ceptation of that term ; and Protestant only in that sense in which she differs from the corruptions of the Church of Rome in particular, and from the cor- ruptions of all other Churches and sects in general. Viii PREFACE. As the characteristics of the Cathohc Church are, in matters of discipHne, dis- tinguishable by the apostoUc form of government ; and in matters of doctrine, chiefly by the apostoHc sense and im- port of tlie Two Sacraments^ it is the ob- ject of the following pages to explain, in a very brief and familiar manner, how a breach of the discipline, and a misappre- hension and culpable neglect of the Sa- craments, but e?,'^Qc\di\\y o^ the Sacramejit o^ Baptism, are the grievous offences now committed against the Church of Eng- land, of which, as a branch of the true Holy Catholic Church of Christ, she has so much reason to comolain. '*3.. VOICE FROM THE FONT. The Vicar of a large parish in an over-popu- lated country town, in one of the manufacturing districts of the kingdom, unable to raise supplies amono; the inhabitants for the erection of an additional Sanctuary, had long been contem- plating the formation of a larger auditory in his Church, than, from its present arrangement, it was calculated to contain. The great majority of his flock were, unhappily, indifferent to reli- gion, while the minority were split and divided into innumerable sects, yet among whom a nu- merous band, not rich in this world, were striv- ing for the possession of the treasures of heaven through his ministration. It was true the worthy man had, for a series of years, con- tinually seen from the Lebanon of his pulpit a goodly congregation before him, while almost every pew and sitting, in his imagination, was identified with the persons and families of their occupants ; — it was true, also, that he had, for B 2 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. a series of years, made his sonorous voice ring through the various mazes and doubhngs of his tabernacle, formed by awkward and cumbrous galleries, spacious staircases, and the intersection of pillars of the noble fabric ; but it was equally certain that as the strength of his lungs was not in proportion to the number of his hearers, it was essential that he should study the ease and accommodation of both, by removing the ob- structions to his voice, and making a larger provision of room. All this he again and again considered, and having in the construction of his sermons laid down the great and fundamen- tal principles of Faith in the first place, and in the next, as clearly shown how they were re- ducible to practice ; so on this occasion, having determined upon making accommodation for the reception of a greater mass of his people, with fewer interruptions to the progress of sound as it issued from the heights of his pulpit and reading-desk, he set in earnest upon think- ing how he might best accomplish these import- ant objects. For this purpose, upon a fine calm summer's evening, while the sun threw his de- clining rays upon the eastern clerestories of his Church, armed with paper and pencil, a measur- A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 3 ing line, and a goodly piece of Indian rubber, while recalling the faint vestiges of the image of Euclid, who, though once vividly present to his mind, had now scarcely left more than a mere shadow behind, the good Vicar locked himself within his sanctuary; took a long and accurate survey of its whole interior; measured again and again its ample area; meditated the removal of one gallery after another; computed their re- spective capacities; marked out how the same sitting and kneeling provision for corporal devotion might be obtained elsewhere ; how advantageously the pulpit and desk might be detached and placed in other situations; how a wider range for pews and seats might • be effected, and how gloriously the organ might be made to appear at the western extremity, while the responses made to the service in the east would be more effective, " in notes by distance made more sweet : " — in short, having drawn and rubbed out, marked and overmarked dia- gram upon diagram, until his paper proved use- less from confusion and perplexity, he at length gave up the theory of delineation, and came to practice, drawing his outlines in the area itself by forms, hassocks, and stools, and whatever B 2 4 A VOICE FROM THE FONT^ else was at hand to serve liis purpose ; and, in this way, at length happily arrived at a satisfac- tory conclusion. In imagination he had now attained his object; he saw how all the internal beauties of his Church might best be displayed at one view ; he accurately calculated that, upon the whole, one third more accommodation might be gained ; that a much larger and better allot- ment might be made to the poor ; that a perfect uniformity of appearance might be preserved ; and, what was more, that all might be accom- plished at such an expenditure as he felt con- vinced might speedily be raised among the well-aflFected to the cause of the Church, to the poor, and to the beauty of the ecclesiastical architectm-e of the country. Pleased with his contrivance, with the result of his calculations, and with the idea of thus uniting utility with ornament, of giving extension to his auditory, and at the same time of throwing open to the sight, at one view, all the manifold beauties of his noble Church, he seated himself upon a bench near the western end, and, by the force of his captivated imagination, saw, in a vision, all his projects realised. Absorbed in profound contem- plation, while the sun hastening down had been A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 5 succeeded by the twilight of evening, casting a transparent mist over the scene before him, the thoughtful Vicar had long sat musing, when his senses were recalled, and his attention arrested, by a still small voice proceeding from the Font, placed at no great distance from him, and which thus addressed him ; — *' My good Friend ! — This is the happiest and fittest opportunity ever offered to a Spirit for securing the attention of one whose views, senti- ments, and pursuits, are all in full accordance with what he seeks to utter. Often during our innumerable meetings have I desired to com- municate to you my own history and feelings, but the glare of day, the noise of the busy world, and the throng which ever besets you within these walls, have uniformly thrown impediments in my way ; and as ' hope deferred maketh the heart sick,' having failed in every attempt for the last twenty years to gain your ear in a still and solemn hour, I at length abandoned my intention, and determined to let my complaint expire with those of others that die in silence, never mitigated by the solace of narration ; when, haply, I was aroused from that state of B 3 fa A VOICE FROM THE FONT. oblivion into which time and neglect had thrown me, by your having, within the last hour, frequently seized hold and shaken me to ascer- tain my firmness; and, I thought, I caught from you an intention of my being removed to some other, and better, situation, by placing me near to the door in the immediate proximity of my beloved Sister, whose station is fixed at yon eastern extremity, and occupying my place here, by accommodations for your congrega- tion. I am, however, confident that your veneration for me is not lessened, for you have ever proved yourself my attached friend and advocate. I do not forget that when you first took the charge of this sacred Temple, you found me in my outward and tangible form, placed in front and very near to those great western doors, where I had been grievously buffeted, bruised, and fractured for a long series of years. Every idle person that entered found me in his way, and indignantly vented some evil expression of dislike towards me. The bearers of the dead con- tinually jostled against me ; the vulgar grossly desecrated me ; and when you first beheld me I was impressed with your compassion, seeing how much you appreciated my figure and form, and lamented their disfiofurement by the coats A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 7 and coverings of centuries. You then took me kindly in hand, and bestowed many patient and wholesome lustrations ; but all without pro- ducing the restoration you desired. My features were worn, my complexion was gone. At length you determined to place me on the spot which I now occupy close to this beautiful southern porch — you reared this handsome and ample pedestal, placed me in the centre of it, and then employed a skilful hand to refresh my linea- ments, making them what they originally were in form, substance, and appearance. In this operation you discovered the garb around my . body to contain twenty-four compartments, upon each of Vi'hich, save one, you inscribed a letter, and formed a phylactery of that curious distich of the good and ancient Father Gregory of Nazianzen, which presents not merely the strange conceit of reading either backwards or foi'wards the same, but of inculcating a truth, unhappily too little regarded in these days, significant of my office and ministry, namely, that of bearing water, which, when duly consecrated by prayer, * washes away sin, not the face only^ 'NI^ON ANOMHMA MH MONAN O^IN.' B 4 O A VOICE FROM THE FONT. " You must know that I have existed from the time of the building of the first Christian Church, and though not a divine, I am a sacred Spirit, whose ofBce it is to bear that which conveys a heavenly influence to those duly initiated into the Christian covenant, by which they are divested of the imperfections of the old and sanctified by the purifications of the new Adam, and are spi- ritually born again. I was first placed near to the Church, then in the porch, and now within the building, at the lower end and near to the great door, to intimate that the nature of my office is that of an entrance into the mystical church ; and my attribute lies in tliis species of ubi- quity, — that I am equally present in every one, but in all confined to the same particular spot; and, as in most parochial Churches, though not in this, I am placed within the auditory of the congregation, I am cognisant of all that passes there, and store up in my recollection not only the exhortations delivered by the ministry in public, but most of what is said in private. You see, by the material form I bear, that I here assume the dress and fashion of the fifteenth century, whereas, when I resided within the former Temple, on the foundations of which this A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 9 noble fabric is reared, I was of Saxon form, capacious and massive, when it was usual for me to clasp the tender infant wholly in my em- brace. Alas ! my Friend, times are strangely altered, and if other matters are not more amended than the feelings towards primitive worship, they are altered greatly for the worse. I, as you may conceive, know much of the world as it is reflected in the conduct of those who resort here and elsewhere where I am found. In this place I hear the observations of your people, and I mark their demeanour, and when that modern innovation of a glass door, which stands before me, placing me without the veil or ' screen,' as you call it, is either accidentally open, or happily broken, I catch much of what is passing within between yourself and your congregation. My greatest and purest delight, within the sanctuary, is to hear the Liturgy of the Church clearly, audibly, devoutly read, and I know when it is effective by the silence it produces among all within. I can assure you that so conversant am I with all its parts that were the least innovation made, whether of ad- dition or omission, I should instantly detect it ; B 5 10 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. but it is a comfort to those among whom you minister, and to myself, to know, that here I have witnessed neither. Would that I could truly say the same of other places ! Depend upon it, if that evil day should come of which I hear ill-disposed and idle people talk, when, to suit their lukewarm feelings, the time-honoured service of our Church is either altered or abridged, other changes as ungodly will ac- company it, and one innovation will follow another, until unsanctified feelings and unbe- coming novelties will derange and finally dis- organise the union and harmony of Christian society which that service is the best calculated to preserve and promote. In your absence I have occasionally caught portions of discourses even from your pulpit very different from what the divines, in olden time, and you in imitation of them, inculcate ; and the difference is the more striking on these occasions, because no one ap- pears to me more desirous of honouring those sages of antiquity than yourself; and though your language, style, and manner may be, and is, properly, more modernised, more stirring, and animated, yet you certainly endeavour in- variably to preach vip to the same standard of A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 11 orthodoxy to which I, in former ages, have been accustomed ; and you are candid enough to declare that you keep the old divines ever in your sight, regarding them as the true preachers and the great examplars of Christian ministra- tion. During your last vacation when, as I learnt from the passers by, that you were gone to recruit your strength in the country, and when those bustling vergers of yours were not quite so active as when you are on duty, and therefore leave their posts, and that miserable glass door open and unattended, I caught fi*om some of the temporary preachers here introduced, that with them and with others elsewhere, as well as in this place, the mass of the populace were misled into a supposition that, provided the birth of their children were inserted in the Civil Ref/ister, they were perfectly indiflPerent as to what became of me, or of my office. This in a great measure, explained to me the studied neglect in which I am now more generally held, notwithstanding all your exertions, and those of the greater proportion of your brethren, to counteract the monstrous evil. Soon after I was first placed Avithin these sacred walls, al- though the numbers resident without them were B 6 12 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. as nothing compared with those of the present day, no Sabbath ever passed without many and many applications for my service. No mother dared, from apprehension and sensibiUty of con- science, to withhold her infant from my arms ; no relative or friend ever refused or shrunk from the kindness of attending the innocent to my side, but willingly, and with sincerity, un- dertook the duty of sponsor with an earnestness that bespoke their sense of the necessity and importance of bringing childi'en unto Christ, and of using every means of keeping them attached to his person and cause. But of late years the ' ceremony^ as the irreligious call it, is seldom used, and, indeed, when it is, how rarely does it happen that the stupid mortals who attend the office know what it is that is re- quired of them, or think of any thing beyond the carnal revelry of which they are to partake for permitting themselves to be called for the occasion of the day, sponsors of the babe. To what a depth of degradation have men who pro- fess Christianity fallen by their ignorance of the duty they owe to God and their fellow-man, while they imagine they pay it to the one and the other by such feigned services as render A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 13 them tenfold less the children of Heaven than they would have been had they remained in the mere state of nature. I have listened again and again most attentively to your spontaneous addresses to the people from the step on which I here stand, after the performance of the rite of baptism, when you have called upon them to resort hither with their children, and bring them into covenant with God ; how you have de- clared, that without this ordinance and sacra- ment they are not Christians in any way ; that their original sin, as the offspring of Adam, re- mains attached to them ; and how the grace of (jrod has been withheld from them, because such grace is chiefly conveyed through the means and channels of the sacraments. I have observed upon these occasions, the idle, the irreligious, and the ignorant staring in all the awkwardness of their wilful simplicity, feeling themselves justly accused of supineness and neglect, but without the least sense or desire of understand- ing and retrieving their error. It was a good resolution that you made within the last few yeai's of calling upon the parents of your school children, either to have them baptized in the face of the Church, or to remove them from the 14 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. advantages of an education grounded upon the sacred rite. The numbers presented to me in- creased wonderfully, and the parents, for the most part, were awed into proper consideration and feelings of the ordinance ; yet how few were these compared with the multitudes from the schools who from time to time came into this area for public examination previous to the an- nual sei'mons preached for the benefit of their institutions ; and how few of others from the mass of those who called themselves ' Church people' Well, therefore, did you judge and direct that every unbaptized child, and all who had not been publicly received into the Church should be brought by the several teachers of the classes to which they belonged, and that those teachers should be besought to stand as sponsors for them who either had no parents, or only such as were indifferent to their own and their children's spiritual welfare; and properly did you suggest this, for the teachers alone take care to see that these most interesting objects of their Saviour's love are taught, ' what a so- lemn vow, promise, and profession they have made for them ; ' alone bring them to the Church ' to hear sermons ; ' alone ' chiefly A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 15 provide that they may learn the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and all other things which, as Christians, they ought to know and believe to their souls' health ; ' and who alone take care to instil into their minds, in order that they may adliere to their natui'e and habits, the principles of a godly and a Christian life ; leaving upon their wretched, thoughtless parents the awful consequences of neglecting, and the still more dreadful conse- quences of having refused doing this, in oppo- sition to the plain dictates of nature, and the express command of God. " I deeply grieve that, owing to the great deadliness of feeling in the populace to any true sense of religion, you, like your predecessors, have been constrained to give a mere Christian name — I cannot call it more — to some hun- dreds of infants yearly, in yonder Vestry, to which they are conveyed by the nurses or ser- vants of those who will neither approach me, nor offer up their public thanks to the Almighty for their ' safe deliverance from the great pain and peril of child-birth.' I am aware that you enjoin, and that you sometimes persuade, them to apply to me to confirm and seal the act of 16 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. such imperfect baptism; but the instances of your success with them are rare, and even when you do succeed, how many that come here come without reflection and due reverence; come, because they are pressed or bribed to do so ; come actually for the parish clerk or sexton to put into their mouths what they are to say, and prompt them when they are to answer. Oh, what profanation and deadliness is this ! It was only yesterday that these very same per- sonages, the clerk and sexton, while occupied in placing the hassocks, which you have just been taking with so much assiduity from my feet, observed, that the year had that day ex- pired since the legislature, for civil purposes, had provided the mode of registering births in- dependent of baptism ; and that whereas 1300 were publicly or privately baptized, upon an average of many years past, only 600 were ad- mitted to the rite in this, and they gave it as their opinion, that the numbers would, in pro- bability, lessen in each coming year. It is this, Sir, that has alarmed and roused my sensibility ; and glad am I to have this golden opportunity for calling upon you, as you love God and his true religion, and as you would be instrumental A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 17 in the salvation of the souls of the thousands committed to your spiritual charge, that, un- mindful of all former disappointment in the ex- pected success of your exertions, you would awaken every energy and power within you, and warn men of the dreadful state of danger to which they are exposed by their culpable indif- ference to the means of grace, which God has vouchsafed to dispense to them through the medium of those two Sacraments. For, they may rest assured, that these two Sacraments are the golden master-keys that unlock the double door of the Christian treasury, where all the mighty and invaluable privileges and blessings of the Gospel are kept in store. I therefore call upon you, my dear Friend, to cry aloud and spare not, and proclaim to this obstinately-minded and negligent people, that if they refuse these ordinances, they reject the God who established them. If they think that religion may proceed in its sacred and holy career, without the observance of them, they are putting their foolisluiess in the scale against the wisdom of the Most High ; if they think that God will pardon such effrontery and contempt, such indifference and despite as is manifested, n 18 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. by turning their backs upon his statutes and ordinances, as matters which they may either observe or not, as they, in their sinfulness, judge convenient, they are greatly deceived: and if they continue to regard that as useless which God has pronounced necessary, and dare to rely upon ways and means other than those which He has alone sanctioned and provided, and by which only He will be approached, they stand at once convicted of a disposition to do ' despite unto His grace,' — they trample under foot ' the Son of God,' and thence heap upon themselves ' wrath against the day of wrath.' Oh, my dear Sir, let me enjoin it solemnly upon you to discharge this great duty of your office, of again and again warning your people of their dreadful indifference and neglect, and of the dangers they thus incur; and as I am convinced this charge of indifference to, and culpable neglect of, the rite of baptism, in particular, is, in no little degree, owing to the degraded and grovelling view taken of it by so many of your brethren in the ministry, I urge it upon you to address them also, and to point out how great and fatal is their mistake, which though it may, and certainly does, proceed, A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 19 not merely from a perfect unconsciousness of wrong, but from a firm conviction of truth, is error notwithstanding, — error arising from over confidence in their private judgment, to the prejudice of long established authority. Indeed, it grieves me much to observe the in- roads made upon primitive doctrine and ancient discipline, and that falling off of the clergy from both — that defection from apostolicity which more particularly marks the present age. Alas ! tliat deep sense and feeling of religion which characterised the early times of Christianity, and which were revived in this country at the period of what is called by you, ' The Reformation,^ when the doctrine and discipline of the ancient Catholic church were restored, and Christians in this kingdom returned to the primitive worship established by the Apostles and their immediate successors, — that sense and feeling of religion, unhappily, now only faintly exists, while a different spirit and a different system of doctrines are disseminated by a sect- arian Clergy continually making inroads by their substitution of novel opinions for ancient doctrines, and by their repeated infractions of primitive discipline. I say, novel opinions, 20 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. because, though bearing the same name with those of the Apostolic Church, many of them widely differ in meaning as well as in spirit. And with respect to discipline, they appear to have very laxed notions of it, and to entertain no more regard for it than barely to keep them within the limits of the outward Church, of which they profess themselves ministers; while it is evident that a dissenting spirit of innovation is gradually gaining upon them, which, if not timely checked, will go far to create a pernicious schism, and ultimately to destroy the peace of our Israel. You seem, my good Friend, to startle at this ; but it is, indeed, the lamentable truth : and before I state to you the great in- jury which I, individually, have received, and to which I am subject from this new religion (for I can call it by no other name), let me assure you of the certainty, that among this class of your brother ministers there is also a growing attempt to lessen the importance of your Liturgy — that Liturgy which breathes, speaks, and infuses the spirit and graces of Christianity, and which is correctly characterised as approaching in purity of style, in fervour of supplication, in soundness of Christian truth A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 21 and doctrine, nearer to the sacred Scriptures than any other production of the mind of unin- spired man. Yet this Liturgy, so pure, and of such unrivalled excellence, which, by the dis- cipline of your Church, is ordered to be read continually to the congregation of assembled worshippers, is by many, but mostly by those to whom I more particularly allude, considered of so much less importance than their own out- pourings and illustrations of Christian doctrine, that it is not unfrequently made to give way to them. I could name several persons and places faiTiiliar to you, where the Litany in the Morning Service, is again and again omitted, to afford more time, and to collect greater phy- sical power and energy for the delivery of a sermon upon mistaken views of the Justification by Faith only, or upon the Millennium, — upon the outward distinctions by which the elect may be known from the non-elect; or, which more frequently happens, upon a disparagement of my worth and efficacy, and a denial of that grace of the Holy Spirit which is conveyed through my instrumentality. I shall presently more particularly allude to this intolerable grievance; but I must previously conjure you, 22 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. as one so sincerely attached to me as you have ever approved yourself, to make every effort in your power to check the dangerous progress and practices of those who I again most readily admit to be, in all sincerity, conscientious in the belief of the truth of what they preach, and in the propriety of what they practise, but who are, nevertheless, persons of mistaken views and sentiments, — persons guided not by the true spirit of religion, but by their own personal feelings of it, and who make those feelings the spring of their crudities and conceits. I know, also, that in their intercourse with the world, they are altogether exclusive, conceiving that good can be effected by none unless done by themselves, and in the manner they pre- scribe; and thus pride is engendered amongst them, and, instead of acting in open and gene- rous communion with others of their brethren, who are as sincere and well-intentioned as themselves, — instead of bearing and forbearing as they should, while living in a mixed state of society, among men of mixed feelings, com- plexions, and tempers, they withdraw them- selves into the narrow limits of their own restricted circles, and engender feelings and A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 23 passions neither religious nor charitable. By the discipline of your Church, you are enjoined to pray with the congregations, and to pijeach to them at fixed times and seasons, in these Temples of your parishes. Prayer, as you have often observed, precedes preaching, inasmuch as supplication, and holding converse with the Creator, is a higher privilege and greater be- nefit than conversing with the creature. Still, as man cannot effectively pray, unless he be taught faithfully to ask, according to the will of God, for the relief of his necessities, nor to praise God, unless instructed from the same source how best to set forth his glory, there is a strong necessity for the ftdl discharge of the preacher's duty ; but that duty, like all others, is to be discharged with due consideration and judgment. ' My House shall be called,' said God and Christ, ' the House of Prayer.' I say, there- fore, that prayer is the principal part of all due and acceptable worship, and that the legitimate object of preaching is to bring men to perform this ' true and laudable service,' and to discharge it rightly, whether for purposes relating to the soul or to the body, — whether for the exercise of religion, or for the common duties or common 24 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. comforts of life. I am therefore grieved when I find so much greater stress laid upon what is to please the ear, rather than what is to enter and possess the heart ; and the more so, as all that strikes vipon the ear is not fitted to impress the heart with sound and wholesome doctrine, nor always with the most correct notions of Christian charity. When a minister languidly reads the Liturgy of the Church to his people, without either fervour or spirit, or with abridgments or changes, in order that he may reserve his bodily strength for the delivery of a discourse, and that, not unfrequently, an unconnected, ram- bling, uncogitated, extemporaneous effusion of considerable length and greater tediousness, I am inclined to think that he reverses the Apos- tle's rule and practice, and that he may say — ' We preach ourselves, and not Christ Jesus, the Lord.' And when I hear, as so frequently in other places I do, such an one describing the features and lineaments, the marks and signs by which he and those of his own party are designated — dwelling upon the symptoms of conversion — the feelings of personal assurance of final salvation, — the perceptible, but inde- scribable, nature of faith — the less than no- A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 25 thingness of good works, — the indirect, if not direct denial of human and divine co-operation, — and, above all, the slight thrown upon the two Sacraments of the Catholic Church, divesting Baptism of its regenerating energy, and making- it a mere initiatory, and the holy Eucharist a mere commemorative service — I do indeed feel sorrow while I look back upon those better days of knowledge and practice, when, in the early dawn of Christianity, and in its resuscitated days of the Reformation, these pervei'sions of sacred truth were unknown and uncreated. And when, moreover, I learn, despite the disci- pline which distinguishes the ancient Church and its episcopacy, that these your brethren in the ministry now-a-days, not merely question, but actually overrule the authority and in- fluence of the Bishops in those your Christian Societies, which are the external buttresses sup- porting the spiritual fabric of the Church, where, alas! religious zeal and even truth is now to be determined, not by the unanimous voice of antiquity and the judgment of the Hierarchy, but by the votes and divisions of party- coloured members ; when I hear them from their pulpits upholding, through the machinery 26 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. of public assemblies, schemes unsanctioned, unapproved of by their Bishops, and laying their congregations at the one time, and their audiences at another, under contributions for the support of them ; when I discover the same men thus to be actors upon platforms, leaving the only authorised and legitimate places of religious exhortation for the unsanctified boards of the theatres of eloquence, where he who raises the heartiest laugh of approbation, and gains the loudest cheers of applause, is con- ceived to be the most efficient in zeal for the sacred cause of truth ; and where, perchance, only in the previous hour, the very same stage has been occupied by infuriated patriots, heated and impelled by the bitterest and most ran- corous passions, in upbraiding all who differ from them in their views and objects, I am still more discomfited to think, that any mortals, much less that any ministers of Christ, should be so blind as to imagine, that in all this they are ' rendering God service,' instead of know- ing and feeling that they are irreparably wound- ing and injuring the very cause which they over zealously desire to promote. And when, again, I hear of what are called ' Bazaars, ' for A VOICE FROM THE FOMT. 27 the encouragement of missions — for the conver- sion of the Jews — for the reformation of the Irisli papists — for the building of Churches, — and how anxiously such a venal and woi'ldly system is employed to engage and arouse the feelings of the public in the performance of what the in- fluence of religion itself, if real and vital, should alone effect, I am still more concerned that such unworthy and spurious motives should be put in operation, and that they should prevail over this influence. * And when, even beyond all this, I learn that these ill-judging men, im- patient of due control, and unwilling to be fettered within the proper limits of those fields of ministei'ial action, which the government of the Church has allotted to them, are stretching out their ministry over the flocks of others, put- ting their sickle into other men's harvests, and proclaiming their own efficiency as greater and superior to that of those whose province they invade, and, in some cases, proceeding still fur- ther, — - itinerating through the country, and if not directly inveighing against the inefficiency of their brethren in their several locations, yet * See particularly the British Critic for July, 1838, under the head of " Exeter Hall." c 2 28 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. indirectly conveying that impression by mani- festing the want of power to supply the deside- ratum of their advocacy : — Wliat is all this but a virtual renunciation of your own apostolical government and discipline, for the flimsy, un- stable, and latitudinarian practice of sectarians ? ' Is it not an evil,' asks one of your present orthodox bishops * — ' Is it not an evil, that in- stead of remaining content in their own lawful sphere of duty, and setting forth quietness, peace, and love among all men, and specially among those committed to their charge, ministers of the Gospel should be forsaking their own province and wandering abroad, sowing the seeds of neces- sary disquiet and dissension among Christian people in other parishes into which, without au- thority, they intrude?' And what can be said but in I'eproof of societies thus upheld by anti- disciplinarian, sectarian ministers, who presume to attach the name of ' Church,' to associations formed among them in violation of all esta- blished rule and practice ? Such as, ' The Church Missionary Society,' and ' The Church Pastoral Aid Society,' both of them decidedly not ot the Church, for neither of them are under * Bishop (Mant) of Down and Connor. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 29 episcopal government, and, therefore, not sanc- tioned by it; the former merely emancipated from the sectarians, and adopted by a party mostly to the prejudice of that legitimate and true instrument of the Church universal, ' The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; ' — the other, equally unknown to, or unacknowledged by the hierarchy, and directly opposed to it, by authorising a system of lay-teaching which it cannot approve, and in- stituting new regulations affecting the character of the Church itself, independent of all regular and constituted authority. * " In all Church Societies, that is, in the Societies under episcopal control, the practical system of the establishment is in no way injured ; the Church at large in its government, and the parishes in particular, in their management, re- main untouched ; whereas in the creation of these unauthorised associations, an imperium in imperio is created, and a collision indviced de- ^ 30 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. structive of both. Episcopal government and republican unions cannot exist in the same Esta- blishment, for see how time has altered the views of the Clergy in respect of ' The British and Foreign Bible Society ! ' Thirty years ago, how many were there denouncing all who re- fused to uphold an association, into which Pro- testants of every denomination were rushing, to support the common and glorious cause of dis- seminating the Scriptures through the World at large — disseminating the Bible, without either note or comment. The check which some of your Bishops put to this impetuosity was ascribed to narrowness of views, and illiberality of con- duct and of feeling, as well as to a want of ffenuine Christian zeal. In vain were the zealots urged to distribute the Scriptures as widely as it was possible ; but at the same time to accompany the gift with your excellent ' Book of Common Prayer' — to bestow them in connection, the one as a companion to the other, for the Bible from the antiquity of its history, its concise and am- biguous expression of doctrine, is not a self- interpreting volume, and the uninstructed and unversed in it may answer with the Ethiopian Eunuch, as he was travelling from Jerusalem in A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 31 the chariot to the court of Candace, and engaged in reading it, when asked by Philip if he under- stood what he read ? ' How can I, except some man should guide me?' And what has been the effect of all this want of consideration of future inevitable consequences? Exactly what was predicted by the wise and wary ! The sectarians, having obtained the weight and in- fluence of the Church in the establishment of this great Society, the moment they attained the power, the momentum, and the materials for working their machine, and could dispense with the ladder and scaffolding by which they had reared and completed their gorgeous building, threw them aside. They, as you know, at length refused to add to the sacred volume the apo- cryphal writings, and betrayed other Socinian and sectarian views ; now choosing their time for pouring out their tracts as the companions of their previous gifts, and thus virtually attaching their comments in a separate form to the copies of the Scripture which they had previously dis- seminated; and they are now, and have ever since been doing what Churchmen were enjoined, but refused to do at the very onset; so that the plea of distributing the word of God without c 4 32 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. note or comment proves a mere delusion — a delusion by which Churchmen were and are still induced to advance the cause of dissent against their own Church ! Yet this plea was urged then, as it still is now, by that particular class of Churchmen, who derive their spiritual nutri- ment chiefly from the preaching of neto com- mentaries, instead of living only, as they profess, by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So again, with respect to the ' Re- formation Societj',' Churchmen, regardless of Church discipline, and acting not only without the sanction, but directly against episcopal au- thority, engage with Dissenters in the work of converting their fellow-countrymen from the Romish faith, and they engage in it heartily, but without reflection, because it appears a necessary and good work; and with such objects they determine that it is a matter of indifference to them with whom they co-operate. It may be granted that the end of such co-operation is in- deed desirable, but the objection is to the means employed, when Churchmen and Dissenters act in religious matters on a footing of equality, for, having both the same privilege, it is not to be supposed that both will not avail themselves of A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 33 it. Indeed I learn, that the Dissenters, under these circumstances, are the most active members of these Societies, and are especially solicitous for a union with that particular party in the Church, with which they often co-operate on other occasions — a party vainly flattering them- selves that their zeal and learning will bring over to their flocks such as may be converted. But how does the combination work ? If the clergyman of the established Chvn'ch converts a Heathen, or a Romanist, he undoubtedly expects the conversion will be to his own communion ; but no such conclusion can be drawn when the conversion is made, as it may be, and frequently is, by the instrumentality of the dissenting minister who has not only the same privilege, but who in zeal, if not in learning, is at least equal to him. The discipline and government of the Church are objects of dislike to the Dis- senter, almost as much as those of the Church of Rome : indeed, you may remember that the Puritan preachers, in the time of your Charles the First, represented the two Churches as so allied to each other, that when they meant to inveigh against the Church of England, they called it the Church of Rome. Your clerical c 5 iiB' 34 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. brethren, therefore, in making common cause with the Dissenters in endeavouring through the Reformation Society to gain proselytes from the Church of Rome, make as many anti-episcopalian as episcopalian Protestants. Now the religious party to which the conversion is made, deserves no less consideration than the party ^rom which that conversion proceeds; and surely it cannot, for it ought not to be, a matter of indifference whether the proselytes you make adopt or reject your liturgy and articles. " And if it is to be supposed that they who for- sake the Church of Rome are more likely to go over and adopt our form of worship in prefer- ence to that where there are neither Bishops nor liturgy, nor any other set rules of prayer, such supposition is directly contrary to experience. Where the instruments made use of in conversion are hostile to the regulations adopted by our Church, your brethren forget the effects pro- duced by Calvin and Knox; they forget, also, the struggles which your Establishment has endured to preserve that happy medium which it main- tains between Popery on the one hand and Cal- vinism on the other. My good Fi'iend, when you endeavour to avoid one danger, you must be A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 35 careful not to run headlong into another. Your brethren should remember, imminent as the dangers of Popery are, and they were never greater nor more threatening than at the pre- sent hour, yet they are not either the only, nor the greatest, to which your Church is exposed, while Protestant Dissenters are infinitely more numerous and more powerful, and at the same time no less desirous of accomplishing their wishes than they were in the time of Charles the First ; indeed, the encouragement they have of late years received from their Parliamentary influence has made them bolder and more daring than at any former period of history; and you know they have openly declared war against your Establishment, and bound them- selves to exert all their energies, even in con- junction with the Romanists themselves, to accomplish its downfall. To strengthen their hands by aid of the Reformation Society, in the expectation that by making common cause with them (as if all Protestants were alike and had a common object), you will gam strength to oppose an enemy from whom you nave less to fear than from those you thus make your allies, — this is to follow the example of the ancient c 6 36 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. Britons, when they invited the Saxons to assist them in repelhng the Picts ; for, as the Saxons conquered and prevailed ultimately over both, let your brethren take heed lest they, by pur- suing the same means, do not effect the same end. To all this it may be, and it is not unfre- quently objected, — ' Admitting that Church- men and Dissenters, by means of these societies, do co-operate in this manner, and that the latter may eventually be chiefly benefited by the union, is it not better that heathen nations on the one hand, and Irish Romanists on the other, should thus be made Protestant Chris- tians, rather than that they should remain in their present state of darkness and error ? ' — But this is on the offensive assumption that the Church opposes a great and invaluable object, because it cannot take the benefit of it to herself — an assumption altogether false; for the Church strenuously and successfully exerts her utmost powers in the attainment of the same objects, and in the promotion of the same great cause ; but exerts them in a manner, as she conceives, to secure the greatest good in conjunction with the greatest blessing, — by bringing all. Heathens, Papists, and Dissenters, into her own pure com- A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 37 munion ! — the objection, therefore, is of no force. But the attainment of a desirable end by objectionable means is not confined to these So- cieties alone, as far as the Church is concerned, but applies to all others not placed under epis- copal control ; for ' The Established Church Society,' ' The Home Mission Society,' ' The General Visiting Society,' ' The City Mission Society,' and others of the same kind, are, all of them, merely schools for teaching and disse- minating various doctrines and practices, tend- ing to perpetuate diversity of opinion, rather than to consolidate uniformity and to rivet the bonds of peace. It is abundantly evident that these are all maintained and upheld by indis- creet, although very sincere persons, among whom, however, there is now happily a mani- festation of a better spirit ; for some of the most reflecting and judicious amongst them seeing, at length, the injurious tendency of these asso- ciations and schools, are beginning to withdraw from them, and to leave them to such as, not contented with outstepping the wholesome and restricted limits of Church discipline, are seeking the indulgence of greater latitude of action ; for they have now discovered by actual expe- 38 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. rience that the practice has outrun the theory, and that, instead of aiding and assisting the parish priest by these Societies, they are operating both against episcopal government and the full and efficient discharge of clerical functions. Well has a writer of the present day remarked upon them, in the words which caught my attention on the last sabbath from a pulpit in the Church of an able and active minister of your body : — ' The philosophy of associations, their bearing upon public bodies and systems of policy, their legiti- mate province and offices, the limitations within which they are useful, and beyond which they become injurious, constitute a virgin soil in the fields of social science, where the ground has as yet hardly ever been turned up by the plough of diligent investigation. But if the history of Europe be calculated to afford us any one lesson, it may teach us that all Societies, where they in- terfere with regular government and the settled economy of affairs, are detrimental to the best interests of a nation, and usually subversive of its stability and repose. They are mis- chievous in a Church, they are mischievous in a State; and when Church and State are linked together, they are pernicious to both departments n A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 39 of the constitution alike. They are at once a cause and effect, a token and an aggravation, a symptom and a source of disorganisation in a community.' * " Let me implore you, therefore, my good Friend, to urge upon the public the truth that their Church wants no new machinery, much less such machinery as this. Give it room — give it due attention — extend its works as far and as wide as possible — give it the facility of movement, and it will accomplish all that is re- quired. Let it be under the control of one government, but every worker of it in his sta- tion, whether high or low, well and discreetly chosen, recommended by industry, zeal, good conduct, and common sense; its productions will then be most valuable, as well as most bene- ficial to the whole community ; and so good, and so abundant, and in such request, that they will be carried into all other countries on the surface of ovir globe. " ' Of this noble and solemn Temple of our Esta- blished Church,' observed the preacher quoting the same able writer just alluded to, — ' of this * The British Critic on the " Genius and Character of the Church of England." No. xxxviii. p. 431. 40 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. noble and solemn Temple of our Established Church, some would demolish the exterior walls, so that all men, of every shade of opinion and character might leap in over the ruins ; others, or perhaps even the same men — for extremes can meet in the same mind — would divide the avi- gust and open space loithin its bulwarks, into a multitude of little chambers and separate com- partments, having scarcely a communication with each other. We would preserve the walls, but throw down the partitions ! ' " I have entered into these several parti- culars previous to an enlargement of the details of my own special and heavy grievance, to show you how ill-judged and how injurious is the conduct of the exclusive portion of your clerical brethren, from their adopting prin- ciples and a practice at variance with the Church and the Establishment of which they profess themselves, not merely members, but the most zealous and enlightened of her ad- vocates and ministers ; from whence you may infer that, if in temporal matters connected with the great cause of working out Christianity, their principles and practice are mistaken, though sincere, their judgment and conduct in those of A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 41 a higher nature, however well intentioned, are at least as liable to error ; and that they are teachers of a new religion, rather than propaga- tors of the religious system and conduct of the Apostles. I have ah'eady hinted at their mis- representations, for such they really are, of many important points of Christian doctrine ; but of them all, that which concerns me the nearest and the most vitally, is their denial of that efficacy of baptism which the Sacrament unde- niably ordained by our Lord himself was in- tended to convey ; namely, that spirit of rege- neration which is transmitted through me as the means and instrument to the baptized — that influence of a second birth which I claim and affirm to be the consequence of bathing in that sacred fountain which I hold in charge. On this subject men have no right to speculate ; they have no ground for putting their private judgment in competition with the decisive sen- tence of apostolical antiquity, much less are they at liberty to set their feeble reasoning in the balance against the affirmations of Scripture — against the word of God — and against the ordinance of Christ himself. Reason indeed cannot be admitted into the controversy on a ^ 42 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. matter of faith where that faith is wholly depend- ent upon the assertions of Sacred Writ. Beware of Rationalism, for it is the assassin who sheds and tramples under foot the blood of the Holy Covenant, robbing the Christian of his atoning sacrifice; Revelation of its mysteries; and Christ of His divinity. I have said, and I will ever maintain, that Christ instituted two Sacra- ments in his Church, both of which are gene- rally necessary to the attainment of salvation through Him who is the only Saviour of man. The first of these is received through my means, and surely that which Christ himself has spe- cially instituted and most solemnly confirmed, it must be the duty of man as specially and solemnly to observe. If then Baptism be a Sacrament, it is not a mere outward sign or symbol, but a channel through which the grace of God is spiritually conveyed to the soul of those qualified for its reception — if infants, by their helplessness and personal innocency — if adults, by their repentance of sin, and their unfeigned profession of gospel faith. Under these circumstances there is then ' a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness ; for being by nature born in sin and the children of A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 43 wrath, they now,' by this laver of regeneration, ' become the children of grace.' Thus it was in the Jewish Church, that proselytes, purified and admitted into it by baptism, were born again, — that is, were now dead to their former relations, and became entitled to rights from which, by nature, they were excluded — dead to their na- tural incapacities, and born anew to the civil privileges of the Jewish people. This was the belief and practice of the earliest times. " Clemens Romanus (who flourished in the first century) in one of the homilies bearing his name, asks : — ' What does it contribute to piety to be baptized with water? The answer is, You perform what God requires. Being horn again of water to God, you change your former carnal birth, and tlius may obtain sal- vation : for there is something of original mercy conveyed upon the water which saves from future punishment those who are baptized in the name of the Trinity.' * Again he says : — ' To him who is regenerated by water and horn . again to God., the fragility of his former birth is cut off, and thus at length you will be able to arrive at salvation ; but when thou shalt be * Clementina Homilia, p. 11. 44 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. regenerated hy icater^ show by your good works a resemblance to that Father, who has made you his Son.' * " Justin Martyr, who lived forty years after the death of St. John, expressly tells us that ' Baptism was in the stead of circumcision.* He certainly did not imagine that regeneration could be ordinarily separated from baptism. In his ' Apology,' he says : — ' We will tell you in what way Christians dedicate themselves to God : when they have been renewed through Christ, when any are convinced of the truth of our doctrines, and will promise to live according to them, they are taught first to pray for the pardon of their former sins, and then being taken to some place where there is water, they are regenerated by the same mode of regeneration as those who preceded them.' f " Irenaeus, forty years later, mentions infants as ' by Christ born again unto God.' And Tertullian, towards the close of the second century, who wrote on the subject of baptism, * Clement. Recognit, lib. vi. f Just. Mart. Apolog. i. 80., as quoted by Mr.Harcourt, in his elaborate work on the " Doctrine of the Deluge," vol.ii. p. 578. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 45 dissuades his readers from complying with the practice, unless in apprehension of death, until the age of reason, — advice dictated by him from the circumstance of his being a Montanist, and, as such, disallowing the power of the Church to forgive great sins afte7' baptism, — a reason which, had it been valid, should have led him to determine that the rite would have been best performed at the near approach of death. And lest any should think that he did not consider that approximation to God, which is effected by the removal of guilt, as equivalent to regeneration, he proclaims the blessedness of those who were baptized, because the grace of God waited upon them when they rose from that most sacred laver of their new birthday.* " Upon this subject there are many who might profit by the castigation which Tertullian inflicts on those among his heathen opponents, who ridiculed his doctrine. ' There is nothing,' says he, ' which proves the hardness of men's minds so much as the simplicity of the divine operations in regard to the act, compared with the magnificence of the promised effect: as here, because with so much simplicity, without * Tertull. de Baptisrao, p. 232. 46 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. pomp, without any new apparatus, and without expense, a man entering the water and sprinkled, with the addition of a few words, rises from it not much or not at all cleaner; therefore the consecution of Eternity is thought incredible. Miserable incredulity ! which denies to God his peculiar attribute of simplicity and power. If the waters at creation produced the first living things, let it not be thought wonderful, that in baptism water should give life ; the na- ture of xvater being sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God moving on it, received the poicer of sancti- fying.' * " ' We may not be satisfied with the cogency of the concluding argument; but if it proves nothing else, it at least proves that in Tertul- lian's mind a life-giving grace was inseparably connected with his idea of baptism; and the indignant expostulation in the preceding pas- sage is a just rebuke to those who think slight- ingly of that ordinance ; because they consider it too weak an instrument to effect so mighty a change as regeneration ; or because they prefer some Abana or Parphar of their own to the * TertuU. de Baptismo, p. 225. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 47 waters which our Lord himself appointed for the cleansing of the soul from sin.' * " Origen, in several places, speaks of infant baptism as a well known and undoubted prac- tice ; and he adds, ' that, according to tradition, the Apostles had enjoined it.' And in com- menting upon the regeneration mentioned in the nineteenth chap, of St. Matt. ver. 28., he refers it to the resurrection, which wall be another birth into a new state of existence, where there will be new heavens and a new earth. ' Now,' he says, ' the introduction to that regeneration is what St. Paul calls the laver of regeneration ; and the introduction to that new state of ex- istence is that renewing of the Holy Ghost which is consequent upon the laver of regener- ation. By our natural birth every one is pol- luted; but by the regeneration of the laver every one is clean, having been born again of Water and of the Spirit, yet only clean as seen through a glass, and darkly ; but in that regeneration, when the Son of Man will sit upon his throne in glory, he will be quite clean, face to face, having arrived at that regeneration through the laver of * Harcourt on the Doctrine of the Deluge, vol. ii. p. 387. 48 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. regeneration.' * Again he says, — ' By the Sacra- ment of Baptism the fouhiess of our birth is taken away ; wherefore also Infants are baptized, for unless a man be born of Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' f " 'The prayer and touch of Jesus,' he adds, ' imparted to Infants (who could not hear what intelligent persons hear) enough of assistance, and as much advantage as they are capable of receiving.'! As to the mode in which that grace is administered to Infants, he observes on our Lord's words, — ' I say unto you, that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven : ' that to those angels the guardianship of baptized infants is consigned when they thus became infants in Christ by the washing of regeneration. In favour of this latter opinion he urges, that ' no holy angel is present with those who are in a state of sin, for the season of unbelief is subject to the angels of Satan : but after regeneration. He who bought us with His own blood delivers us to the charge of a good angel. This hy- * Origen, in Coram. Matt, tomus xv, vol. iii. p. 686. f Origen, Homil. 8, in Levit. ii. 230. X Ibid.. Coram, in Matt. xix. 13. 1 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 49 potliesis of a guardian angel may be considered too bold, founded as it is upon a single passage of doubtful interpretation ; but it represents well enough the sort of watchful aid which always waits upon baptized persons, if they are willing to avail themselves of it.' * Gregory Nazian- zen is considered to have advised, that In- fants (unless in danger of dying) should not be baptized until they were three years of age.f * Harcourt's Doctrine of the Deluge, vol. ii. p. 594. f The grace, which by virtue of the covenant con- signed in baptism does, like a centre, transmit effluxes to all the periods and portions of our life, our whole life, all the periods of our succeeding hopes are kept alive by this. This consideration is of great use, besides many other things, to reprove the folly of those who, in the primitive church, deferred their baptism till their death- bed. Because baptism is a laver of sanctification, and drowns all sins, and buries them in the grave of our Lord, they thought they might sin securely upon the stock of an after-baptism ; for, unless they were strangely pre- vented by a sudden accident, a death-bed baptism, they thought, would secure their condition : but early some of them durst not take it, much less in the beginning of their years, that they might, at least, gain impunities for their • follies and heats of their youth. Baptism hath influence into the pardon of all our sins committed in all the days of our folly and infirmity; and so long as we have not been baptized, so long we are out of state of pardon, and therefore an early baptism is not to be avoided upon this mistaken fancy and plot against heaven : it is the greater D 50 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. St. Augustin, one of the most discreet of all the Fathers, who lived 200 years after Tertullian, said, ' he never heard of any Christian, catholic or sectary, who taught any other doctrine than that Infants were to be baptized ; ' and he again and again asserted the same thing. ' By bap- tism, persons are buried with Christ, in order that they who believe in him may be incorpo- rated with Him.' Again: ' Infants being washed by the Sacrament, and through the love of those who present them for baptism, being incorporated into the body of Christ (which is the Church), they are reconciled to God, and in Him quickened, saved, freed, redeemed, en- lightened — from what ? from death, sinfulness, guilt, servitude, darkness of sin ; but since, at that age, they have not in their own life com- mitted sin, it remains that it must be from ori- ginal corruption.' * Again : ' Since Infants do not begin to be Christ's sheep but by baptism, they who do not receive baptism will perish, for they will not have that eternal life which He security towards the pardon of our sins, if we have taken it in the beginning of our days. Bishop Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 306. * De Peccator; Meretis et Remissionis, lib. i. $ 40. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 51 giveth to His sheep.' * ' God pours the most secret influences of the grace of His Spirit into Infants.' f " The eloquent St. Chrysostom remarked, ' Why, you will ask, did not John Baptist men- tion the signs and wonders which were to follow upon the baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with fire? Because this (Christian) baptism was greater than all, and for this did all those things take place ; for, having named the sum, he com- prehended all the rest — the loosing from death, destruction of sin, abolition of the curse, free- dom from the old man, entrance into paradise, ascent into heaven, life with the angels, partici- pation of future blessings, and those good things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man ; for all these things were given through the grace or gift of baptism.' Beautiful, as to the efficacy of bap- tism, is the language and are the thoughts of St. Gregory : — ' Let us be buried with Christ by baptism, that we may rise with Him : let us descend with Him (into the water) that we may be exalted with Him : let us come up with Him * De Peccator ; Meretis et Remissionis, lib. i. § 28. t Ibid., § 9. D 2 52 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. that we may be glorified with Him. If the persecutor of the light, and the tempter attack thee after baptism — and he will attack thee (since misled by that which appeared^ he attacked the hidden light, the Word and my God) — thou hast whereby to prevail. Fear not the conflict : oppose to him the water ; oppose the Spirit, wherein all the fiery darts of the Evil One will be quenched. It is spirit, but one which re- moveth mountains : it is water, but a quencher of fire. If he place want before thee (for he dared to do so to Him), and thou desirest that the stones should become bread, oppose to him that bread of life which is sent down from Heaven, giving life to the world. If he assail thee with scripture words, ' for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee : ' Sophist of wickedness, why hast thou paused here ? for well I wot (although thou say it not) that I ' shall tread on thee, the asp, and the basilisk, and trample on serpents and scorpions,' FENCED ROUND BY THE Trinity. If he attack thee with covetousness, ' showing thee all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,' as belonging to him, and demanding worship of thee, despise him as having nothing : tell him, A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 53 emboldened by your seal (of baptism), — I also am the image of God, of the Glory on high : not as yet have I been cast down, like thee, for pride: I am clothed with Christ — I am changed by baptism into Christ : ' worship me.' Well I know he will depart, defeated and ashamed, as from Christ, the First Light, as also from those who have been enlightened by Christ. Let us be baptized, then, that we may prevail.' * And to exhibit the similar views of St. Basil of the same doctrine while arguing, not in a sermon, but in a controversial dis- cussion, on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, one remarkable expression breaks from him which is peculiarly worthy of note. ' Since baptism is to me the beginning ^f^ifii ^^^ tlie first of day $ was that day of regeneration, it is manifest that those words uttered as the grace of adoption (in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost) are of all the most exalted. Shall I then betray that tradition which brought me to the light — which gave me the knowledge of God, whereby I, an enemy through sin, was made a child of God ? rather do I pray for my- self, that I may depart for the Lord with this * As quoted by Piisey on Holy Baptism, p. 184. D 3 54 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. confession ; and I exhort them to keep the faith inviolate to the day of Christ, and to hold the Spirit undivided from the Father and the Son, preserving the doctrine of their baptism in the confession of their faith, and in the ful- filment of glory.' * " ' Infant baptism had occasioned some dis- putes ; not that its lawfulness or propriety was ever called in question; and this is a very strong argument in its favour: for had it been an inno- vation introduced at any period subsequent to the apostolic age, it must have excited animad- version from some party in the Church, and been noticed by some ecclesiastical writer. The question submitted to the consideration of the African Fathers at their third Council of Carthage fully recognised the practice as a point that had never been disputed. But Fidus had maintained that baptism, being the spiritual suc- cessor of circumcision, Infants should not be baptized before the eighth day ; and he seems to have complained that some had resorted to that ordinance within the second or third day after birth. The Council, consisting of sixty- six Bishops, unanimously determined that the * St. Basil, as quoted by Pusey, on H. Bap. p. 187. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 55 mercy and grace of God are not to be denied to any one; and Cyprian, who communicates this determination, argues, ' that the grace which is given to those who are baptized cannot be greater or less in proportion to the age of the recipients, because the Holy Spirit is not granted according to measure (the measure of our un- worthiness), but according to the affection and indulgence of a Father equally to all.' And again : — 'If remission of sins is granted to the most heinous offenders when they become be- lievers, and baptism and grace are prohibited to no one, how much more should it not be prohi- bited to an infant who, being just born, has committed no sin, except that, being born after the flesh, it has contracted the contagion of death from its first birth.' Baptism, therefore, was the second birth, and the doctrine that grace is imparted in that ordinance to all who do not themselves hinder its reception, is expli- citly stated. In a subsequent epistle to Stephen, the Bishop of Rome, he lays down this rule : ' Then only can they be fully sanctified, and become the children of God, who, when they are born, are born of the double Sacrament, D 4 56 A VOICE FEOM THE FONT. since it is written that ' Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit^ he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." ' * " ' Surely, it is not too much to affirm that the four first centuries (which unequivocally pro- nounce the validity of Infant baptism, and the grace of regeneration accompanying it) are better interpreters of the sense in which the Apostles used a controverted term than Zuinglius and Calvin who lived more than 1000 years after them. Their testimony is unanimous, and has been traced from the apostolic age down- wards, through all that period, in a continuous stream ; and Christian philosophy would rather infer that a system must be wrong which cannot be reconciled with the testimony of the whole primitive Church, than that the immediate suc- cessors of the Apostles must have entirely mis- understood their meaning, because the interpre- tation, in which they all concur, cannot be reconciled with a modern system, a system struck out in the heat of violent antithesis, in an age when the judgment of many was so far carried away by an unbridled zeal, as to conclude that * Cyprian, Epist. as quoted by Harcourt, p. 595. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. O/ the further they were from Rome, the nearer they must of necessity be to truth. The error, however, has obtained its present wide-spread- ing currency, not only on the autliority of some great names, but by the unavoidable ambiguity of lano;uasfe, and a want of accurate discrimi- nation.' * "But it is said, that some of the ancient Fathers were mistaken in many of their expositions of things relating to Christian faith, and that with their writings are mixed many legendary stories, and therefore that it is unsafe to push the argument of antiquity too far. That some of these sages entertained mistaken views on some points is not to be denied ; but that the ma- joi'ity of them did so on the subject of Christian baptism and its regenerating spirit cannot be shown, for of all subjects of their advocacy, none is maintained with such uniformity by the greater part of them ; and on this or any other point of a general, though not unanimous, con- currence, where their opinions are given in subordination to inspired truth, their testimony is to be received as evidence of the highest * Harcourt on the Doctrine of the DeUige, vol. ii. p. 635. D 5 58 A VOICE FROM THE FONT./ kind.* Let any one turn to Bishop Jewell, and read his Defence of the Two Sacraments against the Romanists, who, in their vain fancies, upheld the Altar above the Font, and he will there see how that champion of the Church defends my office, upon the concurrent testi- mony of the numerous old Catholic Fathers, who, as he says, ' have written God's invisible workings in the Sacrament of Baptism.' And still further, let him turn to that additional catalogue given in the writings of those true sons of these venerable worthies, who, in this their day, are opening the ancient and hidden case- ments of the Church to let in the light of heaven upon their brethren groping with their own lan- terns within it.f All these testimonies concur together in holding the Sacrament of Baptism as the channel through which the grace of the Holy Spirit is infused into the fit partaker of it, in a manner to remove at once the stain and impurities of the original corruption engendered * " I believe," observes Hey, " we may conclude all the numerous authorities (of antiquity) to be in favour of Infant Baptism." — Lectures, vol. iv. p. 283. f The deep-searching authors of the Oxford Tracts for the Times. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 59 at the birth of the natural man, and to qualify him for the reception of other influences bywhich he is regenerated and made capable of higher attainments. And it is thus that he is translated from his natural state in Adam to a spiritual state in Christ, carrying with it the remission of sins, and a conditional claim, through the Re- deemer's merits, to everlasting happiness. This grace of the Spirit, and this work of regener- ation, is the joint production of water and of the Spirit, not once of water and once of the Spirit, but once of the Spirit in and hy water : for man is no where said to be regenerated by faith, nor regenerated by love, nor regenerated by prayer^ nor by any other grace of God work- ing in him, — but to be ' born of water and of the Spirit.' ' The whole Church of God, from India to Britain,' well observes the primi- tive Pusey, ' as expressing itself by the Fathers, or its liturgies for fifteen centuries, took, in one sense, the words of our Redeemer — ' Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can- not enter into the kingdom of heaven;' until a man (Zuinglius) arose to whom circumstances, and talents and zeal against error, gave exten- sive influence, and with a new theory of the D 6 60 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. Sacraments, introduced a new exposition of our Redeemer's words, when a new path was formed, and this having been tracked by men of great name (Calvin and his followers), and trodden by others of deep piety, they who are ignorant of antiquity and the value of universal agree- ment are perplexed which to choose.' This doctrine of the grace and regenerating influence of baptism, which is the true doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church, ought to be unanimously received by Churchmen ; more especially as the same is not only consonant with Scripture, but has been maintained by the Reformers of your Church as the practice of the Apostles and of the » primitive Church, in its earliest and purest ages ; and, upon this ground, the sentence of inter- pretation, which is thus received, ought to be fixed. That your Reformers clearly and strictly upheld the same, the formularies of your Church — your catechism — your liturgy — all expli- citly declare. Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooker, Taylor, Beveridge, Mede, Wilson, and a host of other eminent divines, all speak the same language. Tlie pre-eminent part which Cranmer took in the compilation of your liturgy marks his unequivocal sense and feeling A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 61 as to the Sacrament of Baptism. The venerable Latimer well observed in one of his sermons, that ' in all ages the devil hath stirred up some light heads to esteem the sacraments but lightly, as mere empty and bare signs ; ' and he asks, ' Wliat is so common as water ? Every foul ditch is full of it, yet we wash out remission of our sins by baptism, for as Christ was found in rags, so we must find Him by baptism. There we begin. We are washed with water, and then the words are added, for we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, whereby the baptism receiveth its strength. Now this Sacrament is a thing of great weight, for it ascertaineth and assureth us, that like as the water washeth the body and cleanseth it, so the blood of Christ, our Saviour, cleanseth and washeth it from all filth and uncleanness of sins.' * " The martyr Ridley declared, that ' to be born again of the Holy Ghost and of water is to be christened, as St. Paul showeth to Titus (ch. iii.), where baptism is called the fountain of regeneration and of renewing of the Holy Ghost.' t * Sermons, vol. ii. p. 779. f Comment, on Eph. 62 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. " The great Hooker, whom every preacher, who has alluded to him in my hearing, concvirs in representing as possessed of great depth of learning, wondrous piety, and extensive know- ledge of Scripture, and who, in himself, was considered as a host ; when speaking of the new birth of infants, has thus been quoted : — ' When the signs and sacraments of his grace are not either through contempt unreceived, or received with contempt, we are not to doubt but that they really give what they promise, and are what they signify. For we take not Baptism, nor the Eucharist, for bare resemblances, or memorials of things absent, neither for naked signs and testimonies, assuring us of grace re- ceived before, but (as they are indeed and in verity) for means effectual, whereby God, when we take the Sacraments, delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eternal life, which grace the Sacraments represent or signify.' * " T'he great Bishop Taylor observed, that ' God pours forth, together with the sacra- mental waters, a salutary and holy fountain of grace, to wash the soul from all its stains and impure adherences.' f * Eccl. Pol. b.v. c. 57. t Life of Christ, p. 199. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 63 " Bishop Beveridge in his Sermons spoke thus to the same point : — ' That we may be bom of the Spirit, we must be born also of water, which our Saviour puts in the first place. Not as if there was any such virtue in water, whereby it could regenerate us, but because this is the rite or ordinance appointed by Christ, wherein he regenerates us by his Holy Spirit; our rege- neration is wholly the act of the Spirit of Christ. But there must be something done on our parts in order to it, and something that is instituted and ordained by Christ himself, which, in the Old Testament, was circum- cision — in the New Testament, baptism, or washing with water — the easiest that could be invented, and the most proper to signify his cleansing and regenerating us by his Holy Spirit. And seeing this is instituted by Christ himself, as we cannot be born of water without the Spirit, so neither can we in an ordinary way be born of the Spirit without water, used or applied in obedience and conformity to his institution. Christ hath joined them together, and it is not in our power to part them ; he that would be born of the Spirit must be born 64 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. of water also.' * And again, even still more unequivocally did he assert the same thing : — ' St. Peter considering on the day of Pentecost that the gift of the Holy Ghost, which fell upon them in a visible manner, was only to enable them to speak with tongues, not to regenerate them, inferred from thence that they ought the rather to be baptized, — ' Can any man,' said he, ' forbid water, that these should not be baptized, loho have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?' And he therefore commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, which he never would have done if it had not been necessary for them to be born of water and of the Spirit.' " Have I not heard the learned Joseph Mede in his discourses say, particularly when speak- ing of St. Paul's text to Titus, as making bap- tism and regeneration type and countertype — * The same was represented by that vision of our Saviour's baptism, of the Holy Ghost de- scending upon him, as he came out of the water, in the similitude of a dove; for I sup- pose that in that baptism of his, the mystery of * Sermons, vol. i. p. SO-i. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. . 65 all our baptisms was visibly acted ; and that God says to every one truly baptized, as he said to Him, in a proportionable sense, ' Thou art my only Son, in whom I am well pleased ? " * " Again, 1 have heard Wilson, the apostolical bishop of Sodor and Man, when speaking of the advantages of baptism in the case of Simon Magus, say, that ' he had received the washing of regeneration, and so was entitled to pardon upon his repentance, on which account he was exhorted by the apostle to repent of his wicked- ness and to pray God, if perhaps the thought of his heart might be forgiven.' And ' hence it is,' said Bishop Mant, at Oxford, ' that we are instructed to pray, agreeably to apostolical language, that ' being regenerated and adopted for the children of God, we may daily be re- newed by his Holy Spirit.' ' But ' where,' he asked, ' are we instructed to pray after baptism for regeneration? Where is it intimated that the incestuous Corinthian was born again, sub- sequently to his fall ? Where was Simon Magus admonished of the necessity of undergoing another new birth ? Or where is St. Paul de- * Discourse XVII., as quoted by Bishop Mant, in his Bampton Lectures, p, 365. 66 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. scribed as regenerated until {after his conversion) Ananias baptized him and washed away his sins? That he was converted, and that his heart was renewed, is evident from the language which he uttered when he had fallen to the earth, and from the obedience which he paid to the voice from heaven. That he was not regenerated until a later period is evident, for when Ananias called on him to be baptized, he was still under the pollution of his sins.' * " Here indeed is a cloud of unexceptionable witnesses, whose testimony agree together in proof of the same great doctrine with which I am concerned ; and that men, in the face of all this, and infinitely more which might be pro- duced, should either be so blind or so obstinate as to insist upon a contrary sense and inter- pretation of Scripture, against the opinions of the learned for the period of seventeen centuries, must indeed be astonishing to the world, but not surprising to those who have seen and known the perversity of the heart of man, which inclines him to rely upon his own strength, and to confide in his own private judgment as if they * Bishop Mant's Bampton Lectures, p. 374. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 67 were unfailing and infallible. It will not be difficult for you, upon mature reflection, to conceive how any perverse men should succeed by sophistry to supersede the old belief of Scripture matters by a new system of religion, if you will keep in mind that, upon such sub- jects, the minds of unstable men are ever restless, thirsting for novelties where none can be found, but in their own vain imaginations. The Cal- vinistic founder of Methodism, I have heard, held all disputation upon my office as absurd and frivolous, and represented all such as a mere struggle for what was non-essential ; while his contemporary, Wesley, overturning all my claims upon the attention of mankind, declared conversion to be the new birth, with which I was in no way concerned ; and this new birth he described as accompanied by all the horrors and agonies of death, by the pains of hell, and the tortures of the devil, all of which the fanatic imagines he feels and experiences, and having undergone them, that he is then, and then only, to be pronounced regenerate ! " The Holy Catholic Chui'ch, of which yours is a true branch, ever maintained that every individual, whether infant or adult, who rightly 68 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. receives baptism, is a partaker of those graces of which each such recipient is capable ; that is, of the new birth, incorporation into Christ, for- giveness of sins, and adoption to be the chil- dren of God by the Holy Ghost. It is by my means only that such are brought into covenant with Christ, and consequently made partakers of the various privileges and blessings of the Gospel. This, I repeat it, is the doctrine of the apostolic Church which your Reformers restored in all its efficiency, and set forth unequivocally in their pre-eminent ' Book of Common Prayer.' They there, in the plainest and most intelligible language, declare that all who desire for them- selves or their children to become members of the universal Church, must be brought unto me ; that until they do approach, and with me perform the sacramental act, they are not rege- nerated, but from the moment that they are admitted to my embrace, they are to be pro- nounced by you and your brethren to be so : — ' All men are conceived and born in sin, and none can enter into the kingdom of God, unless they be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Spirit ; ' — you are therefore besought to call upon God that the infant ' may be baptized A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 69 with water and the Holy Ghost.' Your con- gregations join with you in praying, ' that he, coming to God's holy baptism, may receive re- mission of his sins by spiritual regeneration, and that God will give his Holy Spirit to him, that he may be born again, and made an heir of everlasting salvation ; ' and you intreat God to 'sanctify the water to the mystical washing away of sin.' And as soon as the child has been baptized and received into the congrega- tion, you solemnly pronounce him ' regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ,' when the congreffation return thanks to God for having been ' pleased to regenerate him with his Holy Spirit, to receive him for His own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into His holy Church.' In the catechism it is admirably and truly affirmed, that mankind ' are made mem- bers of Christ, the children of God, and inhe- ritors of the kingdom of heaven in baptism ; ' — that a Saci'ament is ' an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto you ; ' and that this sign or sacrament is ' ordained by Christ Himself as a means,' as an instrvmiental cause, or instrument of convey- ance, ' whereby the same inward grace is re- 70 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. ceived,' and a pledge to assirre tlie partaker of its collation ; and that this inward and spiritual grace of baptism is 'a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness ; ' the forgiveness of sins implying the promise of power to resist and overcome it, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, as the principle of the new life of right- eousness. In proof of this, the persons coming to me are reminded that ' being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, they are hereby made children of grace,' children of God, and partakers of His grace by baptism. For if you are born in sin and the children of wrath, you cannot become children of grace by baptism, unless you receive the forgiveness of sin and a new principle of righteousness in a right and proper use of me. So again in the office of Confirmation, as set forth in the same Book of Prayer, the regeneration of the parties before the Bishop, and the forgiveness of their sins in bap- tism, are unequivocally and directly asserted in the prayer which is offered for them: — ' Almighty God, who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given them forgiveness of all their sins, strengthen them, we beseech thee, with the A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 71 Holy Ghost the Comforter.' * In short, as you, my good Friend, well know, the same doctrine pervades the whole of your Prayer Book, into which it was thus introduced by the able and pious compilers of it, from the most ancient liturgies of the most orthodox expositions of the Catholic faith. In the primitive Church my office was held in the highest estimation, and in all successive ages, where corruptions have not grown up and choked the Word of God, that deference and respect which I claim has uniformly been paid to me. I have shown you how, at the Reformation, my rank was ac- knowledged, and my influence restored to its original extent. It is only of late years that both the one and the other have been ques- tioned, first, as I understand, by Dissenters, who aim at the maintenance of a community which, however incongruous and dissimilar, and divided its members, retains the same head; and next, by professing Churchmen, who are striving to work their Establislmient under the same principle, and forget what St. Paul says : — ' As the body is one, and hath many mem- * See Bishop Bethel on Baptismal Regeneration, 72 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. bers, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body : so also is Christ.' ' I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you : and that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment;' for he emphatically asks — ' Is Christ divided?' That members of the Church, and more so, that its ministers, should have undervalued and degraded me, is that intolerable evil and griev- ance of which I complain, and for the removal of which I appeal to your assistance upon this occasion. From all that I can gather without the Church, 1 learn that this has arisen from my implacable enemies the Dissenters, with whom some of those of your brethren have taken part in degrading the nature of my office. They, it appears, although your brethren have not seen through their designs, repudiate all infant baptism, and the baptism of adults (/ene- rally, because they are compelled to admit that Scripture by this rite clearly intends to intro- duce members into the Christian Church ; but, as they refuse to admit into their body any other than jirofessing Saints alone, that is, members A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 73 who can give the required evidence of their being 'regenerate persons, sanctified, and of peculiar and exalted religious character*,' it fol- lows as a thing impossible that they should recognise the ordinance of Baptism, which ad- mits into the Church such as are incapable of answering their arbitrary and fallacious test of being real Saints. For this purpose I learn, that they inquire by every possible means, in- cluding personal examination of the candidate's ' experience,' whether he be possessed of these distinguished qualifications. Hence, it has been well observed by one of your most orthodox brethren, — ' No person can enter a dissenting community without hypocrisy, unless he believes and professes himself to be a saint I He must believe himself to be a regenerate, really pious, sanctified man, superior to the blindness of the flesh, free from the influence of earthly passions ; in short, a genuine saint ! Surely modesty and humility were not to be altogether stran- gers to Christianity, yet they are utterly ba- nished by the dissenting principle of admission into the Church : for he who proposes himself a * See Owen's Gospel Church. E 74 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. member of their community, — knowing that none but real saints are to be admitted — know- ing that the most rigid examination is to be instituted as to his regeneration, sanctity, real piety, and the hke, — such a man, I say, must have a most perfect and singular assurance and self-satisfaction ; he must ' think of himself more highly than he ought to think.' His feeling and his language must literally be, ' God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, vmjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.' The Church is more humble, and instructs each of her children to say from the bottom of his heart, ' God be merciful to me a sinner ! ' " The adoption of the principle that none but real Saints are to be admitted into the Church, leads the Dissenters, of course, to condemn the Church of England as acting on a different prin- ciple, in admitting persons of all sorts and ages to become her members by baptism. This appears so intolerable to Dissenters, that they separate from a Church so ' antichristian,' and, by the same act, separate themselves from every Christian community in the world, and condemn the universal Church of Christ in all A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 75 past ages. They endeavour, therefore, to form a pure society of saints, — a city set upon a hill, — a light shining amidst the darkness of universal Christianity. This is, on all accounts, a perilous undertaking, and one of its peculiar dangers is well pointed out by a dissenting writer * : — ' By the fact of our select associ- ation,' he says, ' we intimate both our con- viction that a change of character is necessary, and our hope that we have experienced it : — but if, while we profess to be so materially di- verse from others, that, for the purposes of religious association we are constrained to se- parate from them, we are yet so much like them, that little or no difference is perceptible : we do mischief rather than good ; we falsify the lesson which our profession is adapted to incul- cate, and turn our profession itself into incon- sistency and ridicule.' This is a true picture of the failure of the dissenting schemes of the Church. That high theory of sanctity which led them to separate from the Church of Christ, has been unhappily nothing but a theory — it has been proved an impossibility by experience. * See Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge, vol. ii. p. 189. E 2 76 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. Dissenting communities are just like the rest of the world, troubled with immoralities ; by no means elevated above the usual level in point of sanctity, and remarkable for nothing but divi- sions, party-spirit, and the indefatigable assertion and pursuit of their own rights and interests. ' Hence,' as the same dissenting writer ob- serves, ' the force of our profession itself is materially diminished and almost annihilated.' Yet, strange to say, though experience has ve- rified the Scriptural doctrine on this subject, which the Church has always maintained, the opposite doctrine of a perfect sanctity which excludes all sinners, remains to this day one of the main principles of dissent, and is as much insisted upon as if nothing had ever happened to refute it. So difficult is it for men, who are once involved in a false system, to escape from its entanglements. * " It is evident, then, that the Dissenters were the first to lessen the value of my office and to deprive me of my influence, and that they have been lately assisted in this degradation by those of your brethren who lightly esteem me ; and as they have caused the members of the Church * Palmer's Treatise on the Church, vol. i. p. 411. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 77 to withhold their Infants from approaching me, they ought, by such conduct, to incur your dis- pleasure and rebuke, as well as the indignation of all others who truly desire to ' bring little children unto Christ, and to forbid them not.' Let me then conjure you, my good Friend, manfully to stand up in my defence among all my despisers, and particularly among those of your brotherhood who are inclined to think lightly of me ; and proclaim to your people at large, from yonder pulpit, in earnest, reiterated, and persuasive language, that they are hastening themselves, and their little ones, into imminent danger, by turning away from me. O, urge it again and again upon them, that the Two Sacra- ments of their Church are signs and seals — that they are the means and channels, by and through which the waters of salvation are generally conducted — and that if they think to live by any other bread than such as God has graciously given them from Heaven, or to quench their thirst for ever, by any other than the living- water from His well ; — if they think to go, here- after, unto Him by any path or way, through any other gate or porch, than He Himself has opened for their entrance and reception, their E 3 78 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. notions are not only erroneous, but sinful and most imminently dangerous. None can approach the Father but such as the Son shall draw unto Him, and the means which that divine Son has been pleased, principally, to make use of for that merciful purpose, are pre-eminently those which He has enjoined by these two Sacraments. Without the one, no one can become the adopted child of their heavenly Father; without the other, that Father will not so copiously commu- nicate the saving influences of His Holy Spirit. Let me, therefore, implore you to impress it strongly and continually upon all, whether rich or poor, if they would earnestly endeavour to secure their own salvation and that of their tender offspring, to come with them unto Christ, and, through me, to enter into covenant with Him. By considerate persons the rite of baptism is commonly not neglected; but as con- siderate persons, if not earnestly religious, are too commonly very worldly, they are found to observe this more from custom, or from a show of decency, than from the conviction that they incur hazard and danger by the neglect of it. In the primitive Church, the baptism both of infants and adults was the common and uniform A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 79 practice of all Christians; considered not only as an initiatory rite and a seal of the covenant, but as a means by which they were assured that the partakers of it were brought into a state of grace, and were made capable of its further in- fluences, and nothing could prevail upon them to forego the blessing : and were Christians of the present day as deeply impressed with the inestimable value of the privilege, and were they as hungry and thirsty after righteousness as those of old, their anxiety not to lose so mighty and great a benefit, a benefit on which hangs every thing hereafter dear and precious, would not be less. Christ has explicitly declared that ad- mission into His heavenly kingdom can only be gained vipon certain conditions, and by cer- tain prescribed means ; and if He has thus mer- cifully appointed a common method and a com- mon way to His acceptance, and none other but that method and that way be declared by Him — and if the revelation of His Will teaches man that he is not only capable of availing himself of such, but that he is called upon and com- manded to use such, and such alone : — if, in the face of all this, he will persist in neglecting these means, under an expectation that salva- E 4 80 A VOICE FROM THE FONU tion may be obtained without them, his dis- obedient and foolish heart must be disappointed, and he will eventually find that he has been leaning on a broken reed; and that, from all that he or others can know, and from all that is written, he is excluded from every privilege and blessing of the Gospel; for no one can claim, no one can calculate upon, this salvation by dispensation from the ordinary rule which has been laid down by Christ, equally, for the observance of all. " Under the old covenant, God enjoined the Sacrament of circumcision as the means of grace and salvation : — ' My covenant shall be in your flesh — the man child who is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people, for he hath broken my covenant.' But when this law was abrogated, and this covenant superseded, by the Christian dispensation, a new Sacrament was established. ' Except ye be born again, with water and the Holy Ghost, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven;' and it follows that the person not baptized is undoubtedly cut off from the people of Christ, for he hath broken the Christian covenant. Justin Martyr, who lived so near to the apostolic times, confirmed A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 81 the truth of this substitution of baptism in the New, for circumcision in the Old coven- ant, declaring that one was in the stead of the other ; and, indeed, the cases are strictly pa- rallel. Parents, under the law of Moses, did not dare to withhold their children from the rite. Circumcised themselves, they would have periled theii* lives and their hopes had they omitted to bring their offspring into covenant with God ; and what parent can think of all this, and have the hardihood to keep his child out of covenant, and refuse to be incorporated in and loith his Saviour — can keep his child out of a state of grace — out of a state of salvation ? I repeat it, and I would have you, my good Friend, also repeat it again and again, that every child of man is born in the corruption of human nature ; and tliat that nature cannot be purified, nor that corruption cleansed away, but by the laver of regeneration, — the waters of baptism. And as all are, by one spirit, thus brought into one body by this Sacrament, so all admitted by me into this society of Christians are grafted into the Church, the Catholic Church. Their pre- vious sins being now remitted, they are adopted as sons of God by the Holy Ghost, and their faith E 5 8'2 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. confirmed; and being in communion with Christj they may enjoy a continued increase of grace; being in communion with him in his hohness, they are sanctified; and being in communion with him in the merits of his perfect righteous- ness and obedience, they are in a state of salva- tion ! These are the mighty privileges which are to be obtained by a reverent approach to me for the purpose of being introduced into the Christian covenant ; and as a covenant implies mutual engagements, God on his part conde- scends to promise an entrance into his heavenly kingdom on the condition that man, on his part, should bind himself to faith in Christ, and obedience to His law, and to the acceptance and fulfilment of those means which He has been graciously pleased to set forth in His Gos- pel for the attainment of final acceptance by and through Him. Warn, therefore, the heed- less parent against any breach of this covenant by want of faith, or by any dereliction of the duties prescribed — against lightly regarding the exhortations of God's pastors, sent to drive all wanderers back who have strayed from the fold of Christ ; for if they hear you not, and do not listen, nor follow your injunctions, supported A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 83 by the testimony of God's Holy Word, tell them that Christ himself has said, that ' he that de- spiseth you, despiseth me, and he that despiseth me, despiseth Him that sent me,' to save them. In the common concerns and affairs of life, 'parents are anxious that their offspring shall be secured from dangers, and put in a way to obtain advantages as soon as possible.' And the same motives which impel parents to admit their children into the family of a master in the way of apprenticeship, or into any literary society for the purpose of education, should impel them to make their children members of Christ, in order that they may become inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. By the law of na- ture, a parent makes any engagement for his son during minority, which that son would make for himself, if fully informed of the bene- fits resulting from it ; and if any bond or secu- rity is to be given, it must be given by the parent. Would then a child, if for a moment enlightened, and informed of all the benefits resulting from Christianity, and of the hazards of neglecting it, be baptized or not ? * The * See Hey's Lectures?, vo!. iv. p. 375. E 6 84 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. answer to this question shows the necessity and the blessing of having sponsors as securities that the child baptized ' may be virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life.' * Tell then the parents around you that, if they would not hazard, either here or here- after, the happiness of those whom they are bound by affection, by the ties of nature, as well as by the laws of God, tenderly and ardently to love, that they will no longer abstain from bringing them here, and in my presence not only consecrating them to the service of Christ, but ' faithfully promise on their parts ' to bring them up in the fear and admonition of * " Matthew Henry's illustration of this subject is excel- lent as far as it goes, though it falls somewhat short of the mark. He describes Baptism to be like putting an Infant's name into a beneficial lease ; and if, when he comes to years of discretion, he is willing to perform the conditions of the covenant — well and good : if not, he forfeits his lease ; but at all events it was a singular kindness to have had his name inserted. This description, however, is incomplete ; for since the union with Christ thereby ef- fected, resembles that which unites the members of the body to the head, and the branch to the vine on which it is grafted, it is impossible that some degree of willingness and strength to perform the conditions should not be de- rived from Him who is the head of the Church, and the root of all spiritual life." — Harcoitrt on the Doct. of the Deluge, vol. ii. p. 636. A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 85 the Lord. If, as they now think they are not imperatively bound to do this from a sense of duty, let them be induced to the per- formance of it by considering how simple and easy is the act in itself; how natural and agree- able to the feeluigs of affection, and what com- posure of mind and comfort of heart must result from an attempt to interest Heaven in the welfare and future progress of such as have been given as ' a gift and heritage coming from the Lord : ' and let them further consider that, if it should turn out as strictly true — and most true it is — that God assuredly requires this at their hands, which, if neglected, must bring with it a fearful judgment, let them tremble, if they have with- held the means of salvation from their offspring or from themselves — tremble at the thought of the awful retribution awaiting them, unless they apply every method in their power to turn unto God, and put aside that fierce anger which overhangs them, and which must fall upon them for such neglect and disobedience. — ' The ser- vant that knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.' "And now, my good Friend, to all men, but 86 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. more especially to those in a state removed from poverty more than to the poor themselves, speak aloud and fear not ; and proclaim to them their inexcusable and dangerous neglect, not only of me, but also of my twin Sister, who, though not despised as I am, is yet forsaken and disregarded as she stands under yonder eastern window, where divine love has placed her, to hold out the means by which the greatest and most inestimable gifts of life here and here- after may be obtained. Yes, there she stands in silence, recommended and pointed at by the blessed Apostles. The Holy Scriptures too, as they are read upon almost every sabbath day, making continual allusions to her worth and virtue, enjoin all who do not merely profess and call themselves Christians, but are so in heart and mind, to evince their piety by resorting to lier company. Your Liturgy tells you that be- fore her ' the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper,' that is, ' in the supper there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent,* as your orthodox Bishops have declared in my hearing, ' but the communion of the body and blood of A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 8/ Christ in a marvellous incorporation, which, by the operation of the Holy Ghost is, through faith, wrought into the souls of the faithful partakers of it * : ' for, as the eminent bishop, Jeremy Taylor, says, ' The blessed Eucharist can very properly be called the body and blood of Christ, since it hath not only the figure of His death externally, but internally it hath, hidden and secret, the proper and divine effect, the life-giving power of His body ; so that, though it be a figure, yet it is not merely so ; not only the sign and me- morial of Him that is absent, but it bears along with it the very body of the Lord, — that is, the divine nature of it. Thus our blessed Saviour said of John the Baptist, that ' Elias is already come,' because he came in the spirit and power of Elias. As John is Elias, so is the holy sacra- ment the body and blood of Christ, because it hath the power and spirit of the body of Christ. 'f The judicious Hooker has told you, ' The holy mysteries of this Sacrament, received in due manner, instrumentally both make you par- takers of the grace of that body and blood, * Bishop Cousin. f Works of Jer. Taylor, vol. xv. p. 529. 88 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. and impart to you, in a true and mystical manner, the very person of Christ himself, whole, perfect, and entire, as a mystical head unto every soul that receiveth Him, and every such receiver becomes incorporated and united with Christ as a mystical member of His body.'* " St. Paul declares that, to every faithful re- ceiver, these elements of Bread and Wine are ' the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ ; ' so that as the Holy Spirit of God is poured into the soul of man with the water of Baptism, although neither contained in the water, nor the water changed into it, so the Body and Blood of Christ are received by the soul of man with the Bread and Wine in the Holy Eucharist, although that Body and Blood are neither contained in the Bread and Wine, nor the Bread and Wine changed into them ; so that whatever force, virtue, or efficacy there is in the sacred Body and Blood of Christ, it is freely, fully, and entirely obtained by the faith- ful and worthy recipient of this Sacrament. " The Catholic Church, in applying the scrip- * Eccl. Polity, V. 67. « A VOICE FROM THE FOMT. 89 tural terms of the ' Body and Blood of Christ ' to the elements of bread and wine, does not sup- pose any change of them into jiesh and hlood, causing, as the Romish Church holds, a literal, corporal, and oral manducation, eating, or swal- lowing of the very substance of Christ's Body and Blood ; but a spiritual mastication of food not natural, and, therefore, spiritual food: so that, to xhe faithful recipient, it is an instrumental cause of an invisible and a mystical participation in the Body and Blood of Christ, producing not a transuhstantiation in the elements, as the Ro- manists believe, but rather a transuhstantiation in the soids of the worthy participants, working in them a change of soul and body from sin to righteousness, — a change from death and cor- ruption to life and immortality. " The Romanists and the Lutherans, as you know, vainly imagine that the Bread and Wine are, by the prayer of consecration, changed into the actual flesh and blood of Christ immediately, and before they are received by the partakers of the Sacrament. The Catholic Church may be said thus far to countenance a real presence of Christ's body and blood ; not while the elements 90 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. remain in their natural substances, and the natural body and blood of Christ are in Heaven ; but only in the soul of the receiver of those na- tural elements after they have been worthily and faithfully received; the transmutation taking place spiritually., or in the soul, after the natural substances of bread and wine have been re- ceived into the body of the faithful partici- pant. " Your Church, therefore, strictly follows Scripture and primitive practice in the ad- ministration, and in what she affirms with re- spect to the receiving, of this Sacrament; and the blessings and benefits are immeasurably great to all who, ' with true penitent hearts and lively faith, thus receive and spiritually eat the flesh, and spiritually drink the blood of Christ ; ' mystically becoming, in this manner, incor- porated with Him ; they dwelling with Christ, and Christ with them. " It is therefore astonishing — it is most appal- ling — to observe how blind mankind are to their own spiritual interests, and how heedlessly they walk on in their darkness towards that precipice down which they, in their negligence, rush on- A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 91 ward to destruction. Although by Baptism they have been brought into covenant with God, and into a state of grace and favour, and thus incor- porated with Christ, yet, as they fall day by day by the commission of sin from this grace given, these blessings and privileges become gradually lessened, and at length forfeited, unless, by re- pentance and the faithful participation of the holy Eucharist, they are restored, revived, and renovated^ for such is the gracious will and mercy of God, that he puts into the power of the lapsed sinner the means of continually ' strengtheninff and refreshing his soul : ' of rising again by the renewal of his grace, sup- plied through the instrumentality of the Eucha- rist; so that, if he transgresses seventy times seventy periods, and seventy times seventy such periods seriously repent, and, resorting to the Altar, return unto God, God for Christ's sake will accept and pardon, and restore him to favour ; and all this upon the easy terms of diligently and faithfully employing the simple ineans which have graciously been given ; for by means of the bread broken, and the cup blessed, of which all may eat and drink, the faithful recipients enjoy the 92 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. communion of the body and blood of Christ, by which the lapsed or quenched influence of the grace of baptism is restored and rekindled — the ministerial power of the priest to declare the absolution of the repentant sinner is made ef- fective through it — additional strength is im- parted, and the breach of the covenant repaired.* While the faithful partakers of the holy Eucharist are thus in love and charity with all men, and firm and stedfast in faith, and live to God, and are engaged in using these means of the bread broken and the cup blessed, not only do they commemorate the sufferings of the Redeemer as He enjoined them, and recall to remembrance that He has purchased their ransom by his own blood; but they are at such seasons more espe- cially present with Him. f They are then more closely in communion, more strongly, though mys- teriously, incorporated witli Him. They then be- * " By Baptism, we are admitted to the spiritual life, and by the Holy Communion we nourish and preserve it." — Jer. Taylor. \ Latimer, at the disputation at Oxford, 1534, declared that he maintained the real, but not the corporal presence of Christ in the eucharist. Archbishop Seeker says, " The church always acknowledged the real presence." A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 93 come those true branches grafted on the root of the true vine, receiving nutriment, support, strength, beauty, and are then only capable of bearing that goodly fruit, and making that pure vi^ine which may furnish the great heavenly banquet in Christ's kingdom ; and thus, not only are their souls made to live to eternal life, but their bodies fitted for a joyful resurrection to immortality. " How is it then, I again ask, that men can forego these wondrous privileges, and this great hope of salvation, by their indifference and ne- glect of these ordinances — neglecting to walk in this path trodden down for them by God himself — neglecting union with Christ — ne- glecting a duty which brings with it so much heavenly grace, and gradually extinguishes every earthly, mortal sin? It is the effect of a blind and rash infatuation which must prove fatal : — ' If he that despised Moses' law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses : of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?' 94 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. " And what, my Friend, is it that I hear of the present visible effects of this supineness and indifference to these means of salvation ? — ' For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.' Can it be doubted that temporal punishment follows upon this negligence? that the slothful and indif- ferent, thus provoking God, are plagued with divers diseases and sundry kinds of death ? that distress and anguish prevail most where this neglect is the greatest? that affliction and sor- row predominate amidst dense populations where sin and iniquity chiefly abound, hidden, as vice is, amidst crowds, and screened by the bustling intercourse of noisy and perplexing business? Indeed, a judicial punishment is known to follow all who live in the gross and habitual neglect of religion, and a visible failure in health, wealth, or comfort of mind, accom- panies those more especially who have tasted its delights but have renounced them — who have gone back from their service in Christ and keeping his ordinances — as well as all others whose bodies have been unsanctified by the waters of baptism, and whose defiled and pol- A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 95 luted souls have held no communion with their Saviour. " Cry aloud and spare not, my Friend, — call these sinners back from the complicated evil of their ways, that they may turn in time unto Christ before it be too late — that they may enter by the portals which are yet set open to them for entrance into the happy way that leadeth to another ever enduring state of ex- istence — a state, however, to which they must be for ever strangers if they will not come and, in faith, be saved by those prescribed means which are graciously offered to them. " As you desire to approve yourself a zealous and vigilant watchman, continue, I implore you, but continue with still greater energy and force, to arouse your own slumbering flock. Repeat again and again every weighty and affecting argument to lay hold on their atten- tion. Appeal to their reason, to their grati- tude, to their hopes and fears, to all their self-love, to every good and generous principle that lies dormant in them, and thus excite their minds and awaken their energies. Tell them solemnly and with deep sympathy that they are 96 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. perishing, perishing amidst the freeness, fulness, and the all-sufficient blessings that God has graciously offered to them. Constrain them by the meekness and gentleness of Christ — by His tears, His bitter cross and passion — by the re- peated invitations of His ministers — by the warnings of their conscience — by the eternal joys of heaven, and the eternal pains of hell — by every sacred, solemn, endearing, and awaken- ing consideration, to come in faith and be saved by the sacramental and all-powerful means prof- fered by His Holy Gospel. Exhort, in treat, charge, and adjure them to come into the holy covenant, and continue to partake of the inesti- mable blessings and the mighty deliverance which it freely extends to them — to come unto the Great Shepherd, entering by the doors of the sheepfold which he has made for his flock, assuring them of the impossibility and impiety of attempting an entrance by any other way ; assuring them, that by the cross in baptism, ( ' the Lord's signet,' as the ancient Fathers call it,) they must be marked as His sheep, and by the grace and influence of the continued communications of the Holy Ghost, through the A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 97 Euclmi'ist, they may be led into the green pas- tures where they may feed securely here, and finally be admitted to range at large in those heavenly regions which surround the mansion of the great and good Pastor. If after all these gracious invitations, and in despite of all these motives and inducements to allure them to their temporal and eternal good, they will not listen nor regard, but will, in their obstinacy and obduracy of heart and feeling, rely on the chance of finding uncovenanted, impervious paths and ways, such as are not marked out by Christ, nor known by His Gospel — if they will not be washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus nor by the Holy Spirit of God — then let them know, for a truth, that they who thus despise God, God will also de- spise : — they that lightly esteem Him, will also be lightly esteemed; and, finally, my Friend, pronounce upon such, in the awful name of Him who would have been their Saviour, — 'I say unto you, none of those that were bidden — who have been invited, but have refused the invitation of coming unto me by my own ap- pointed means of grace, shall be received — none who have refused to accept the privileges F 98 A VOICE FROM THE FONT. and blessings of my Gospel in the way that they have been offered, shall now enjoy them. Away with you, I know you not ! ' Let them depart and commence upon a miserable eter- nity, in the want of that happiness which though not blindly, they negligently and wilfully, and most sinfully, deem not worth their acceptance ; although upon the easy, happy, and beneficial terms on which it is offered. I know ye not, but as the workers of iniquity! " Having thus spoken, the Voice from the Font ceased ! — All around was stillness and mist. Yet as the moon shone brightly, the lofty pillars and arches on one side were, here and there, silvered with light; whilst those on the other were in dark, deep shade. The Vicar recalled his entranced senses, and groped his way to the chancel door. On the altar, as he passed it, he saw the light of the moon resting in all her pale, calm majesty. The door now grated upon its hinges, and he wound his way through the church-yard and street to his home ; and, when all in his abode was quiet and at rest, A VOICE FROM THE FONT. 99 he repaired to his library — his "Golgotha," as he called it, — where the light of the re- turning day found him, after having committed to writing the exhortation which had, in this extraordinary and interesting manner, been addressed to him ; and which he presented for the acceptance of an eminent bookseller, his friend, either to publish or not, as he felt dis- posed; who, thinking it precisely adapted to the present times, and that the obligation laid upon the man of God, by the warning Spirit, would be best discharged by publishing it, resolved at once to lay it, with all its imper- fections, thus before the Public. THE END. London : Printed by A. Spottiswoode. New- Street- Square. 1 39, Pa I liiiNosTER Row, London. Ocfiilxr, 1838. NIC.W WORKS AND NEW EDITIONS. 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