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 L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N 1 ve:r5 ity 
 or ILLl NOIS
 
 A LETTER 
 
 THE REV. WILLIAM GOODE, M.A., F.S.A.
 
 A LETTER 
 
 REV. WILLIAM GOODE, M.A., F.S.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF ALL HALLOWS, THE GREAT AND THE LESS, 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF HIS " CAPACITATING 
 CONDITIONS," &c. 
 
 TOGETHER M ITH 
 
 A COMMENT ON THE FMOUS PASSAGE FROM HOOKER, 
 
 QUOTED BY 
 
 THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE. 
 
 THE REV. JOHN RICHARDSON, M.A. 
 
 HEAD MASTER OF APPLEBY GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 
 
 — "In religion 
 
 AVhat damned error, but some sober brow 
 WUl bless it, and approve it with a text 
 Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?" 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN OLLIVIER, 59, PALL MALL. 
 
 1850.
 
 Bt HBt
 
 A LETTER, 
 
 E.EV. Sir, 
 
 Although this Letter does not profess to 
 be an answer to the whole of your's to the Bishop 
 of Exeter, yet I have resolved to address it to you. 
 
 As a Letter, it must be addressed to some one ; 
 and, since I happen not to have a personal enemy 
 in the world who denies the doctrine of baptismal 
 regeneration — by which I mean regeneration in 
 and by baptism, in the honest meaning of plain 
 EngHsh words, I must e'en, for the nonce, turn 
 you into a theological enemy. To you, then, the 
 Rector of All Hallows, the Great and the Less, 
 I address myself. 
 
 My object, in the present letter, is, principally, 
 to examine the capacitating conditions which your 
 school requires of infants to be baptized, " in order 
 that there may be," as you term it, " a present 
 and absolute beneficial effect from baptism." 
 
 The consideration of these capacitating condi- 
 tions will, no doubt, raise other dependent questions,
 
 6 
 
 which, as far as the limits I have prescribed to 
 myself allow, shall be answered at the same time. 
 
 I am not unaware, Sir, that the controversy 
 at issue between us has made most capricious mi- 
 grations to the continent ; that, in the course of 
 its prying tour, it has paid more than pop visits 
 to Nuremberg, to Cologne, and even to Geneva. 
 Thither, however, I will not follow, unless I 
 am dragged against my will. We are a staid 
 people on this side of the water, and were at our 
 Reformation, as we have been since, suspicious 
 of importations, that savour of novelty. Deeply 
 indebted as we are, and, as we acknowledge our- 
 selves to be, to Luther, Melanchthon, and other 
 continental worthies, still, as a church, we are 
 not Lutherans, much less are we Calvinists. 
 
 Nor have we ever been considered so abroad. 
 On the contrary, the Reformers of the continent 
 have, generally, entertained but a supercilious 
 opinion of us. I have no personal acquaintance 
 with any foreign member of the Evangelical 
 Alliance, and will, therefore, addres^ you — as, 
 indeed, it will be more to the point to address 
 you, from the sixteenth century, or, to dispense 
 with chronology, ex inferis. 
 
 Beza, then, complains that he has been irrele- 
 vantly and impertinently disquieted in what he 
 used to consider his last resting place ; and Calvin 
 vows that he would rather have Servetus' back- 
 bone, or what he left him of it, for a grave-pillow. 
 
 , uiuc :
 
 than be tormented again, as he has been of late, 
 by EngHsh controversialists. He disclaims all con- 
 nexion, so I am hereby commissioned to inform 
 the world, with Sir Culling Eardley, with the 
 Evangehcal Alhance, and Tvith the Kector of 
 All Hallows. 
 
 The Rector of All Hallows, he tells me, has 
 put his hand, indeed, to the plough, and set his 
 face in the direction of Geneva, but not steadily; 
 he will keep looking back Lambeth-wards. He 
 has not reached even the half-way house on the 
 road to truth, as it is in " The Institutes." 
 
 Sir Culling Eardley he dubs " tolerant Utopian," 
 and he ^\dll have it that the Nine Articles of the 
 Evangelical Alliance will be reduced to three 
 before the year is out, and disappear altogether 
 from the records of the Society, as Mr. Goode 
 will, he adds, from the arena of this controversy, 
 before the Grand Industrial Exhibition comes off 
 in 1851. 
 
 He is suspicious, too, as to your " Sixth 1000," 
 and should suppose, if he did not know yoiu- 
 " respectable bookseller," that a cipher had been 
 added. 
 
 But we were to examine your capacitating con- 
 dHions^ and it is frill time, it may be thought, to 
 set about it. Still, Sir, with your leave, and in 
 spite of my prospectus, I must first submit to you 
 a few general considerations, or 1 may find it 
 difiicult to get them in elsewhere.
 
 In law, as lawyers, at least, tell us, there is no 
 wrong without a remedy ; and so should I be 
 sorry to find that, in the Christian scheme, there 
 is a disease, and in any, even a single case, no 
 medicine for that disease. 
 
 If in Adam all die, so in Christ should all be 
 made alive. Now, " we are by nature born in 
 sin, and the children of wrath." Does it not, then, 
 seem cruel, and almost a reflexion upon the New 
 Covenant, that we should have, in any case, to 
 wait for years — with the risk, mind, of dying in 
 the mean time — until we are made, if we live to 
 be made, men of grace ? Even in putting the case, 
 you see, I am obliged to transmute the Church 
 Catechism. -r^ 
 
 " The progeny of your own sort — God's dear 
 children," are, it is true, provided for ; but what 
 is become of such as are out of your pale % ^ jJo'jB 
 
 Besides, " the large reign of hypocrisy," neVer 
 to end until the world ends, will make grievous 
 thinnings even in your ranks. What, then, I 
 ask, is to become of the accumulated numbers, 
 who are thus, according to your doctrine, shut 
 out, as infants, from God's grace and favour ? 
 You have a universal disease, and an invidious 
 remedy, for about a tenth only of .the patients, if 
 you take us heathens into the account ; or, leaving 
 Christiano-Pagans out of the calculation, still but 
 for a bare half even of your own babes. 
 
 You are not content that yom infants should
 
 9 
 
 be children of God ; but you will have them pet 
 children ; and yet you cannot make them all so. 
 
 One might suppose, from your fashion of reason- 
 ing, that you were in the condition of the five wary 
 virgins in the parable ; that, in all the teeming 
 store-houses of God's bounty, you could find no oil 
 except for yourselves. '^' ; " v ' -^ 
 
 Who is it, let me ask, that is he^e circumscribing 
 the favours pf the mighty and gracious One of 
 Israeli' Y*^** ^'^ 3VJRd bfr.rorfi? sw indi ,jrrBfr«^r^ 
 
 Who but William Goodel 
 
 And surely there is balm enough in Gilead for 
 us and for you. Such, at any rate, is the uniform 
 and uninterrupted ruling of the Church Catholic : 
 and, as nothing that is novel is true in divinity, 
 we willingly make you a present of all modern 
 counter authorities; albeit Calvin's ' Institutes' and 
 Scott's ' Commentary ' are included in the gift. 
 
 Let us, however, submit your new manufacture to 
 a few minutes scrutiny, and see how your tenets 
 will bear the homely touchstone of common sense. 
 
 We make an infant, you say, guilty and innocent 
 at the same time — guilty, so as to need regeneration, 
 &c. in baptism, and innocent so as to be capable of 
 God's grace. 
 
 And, pray, why should we not do so ? 
 
 Did you ever read a small logical compendium 
 by Aldrich? The unpretending volume is pretty 
 generally known, and highly prized, wherever it is 
 known. Our old Oxford friend dresses himself.
 
 10 
 
 it must be owned, in Latin the stiffest and the 
 quaintest; but he is, nevertheless, a most trust- 
 worthy authority in aU matters of this kind. 
 
 Now, my respected Mentor assures me that there 
 is no opposition even, much less contradiction, 
 between the following propositions : — 
 
 " Peter is black as to his hair," 
 
 " Peter is not black as to his hands," 
 
 So neither — to tell you what cannot, I fear, be 
 kept a secret — is there any contradiction, except in 
 your own beclouded cranium, between our two 
 propositions, " infants are guilty," and " infants are 
 not guilty;" — upon which contradiction you, never- 
 theless, spend a mortal page of most grievous 
 twaddle. 
 
 Infants are guilty, sir, and infants are not guilty ; 
 but not secundum idem. 
 
 They are guilty of original sin, and so requu*e 
 regeneration, «&c., while, at the same time, they are 
 innocent of actual sin, and, therefore, capable of 
 Divine grace. You say something about the 
 Bishop of Exeter, and an examination at a National 
 School : had not you better, before you fling your 
 next stone, look back to the A. B C of your own 
 logic ? 
 
 Besides, if we do make children guilty and 
 innocent at the same time, have we not the best 
 authority for doing so ? Put the following passages, 
 taken from the formulary for the Public Baptism of 
 Infants, side by side; and shew me by honest
 
 11 
 
 argument, which a plain man can understand, that, 
 though we contradict ourselves, there is, still, no 
 self-contradiction in the Baptismal Ritual. 
 Here are the passages : 
 
 " Forasmuch as aU men " How -he exhoi-teth all 
 
 are conceived and born in men to follow their inno- 
 
 sin." cency." 
 
 (guilty, sm'ely. ) (as assuredly innocent.) 
 
 Can you unravel this tangle "? You have to shew 
 that we are self-contradictory, while the Ritual is not. 
 
 But rationalism is crazed beyond all hope, and 
 will never be rational. 
 
 Still, you doggedly press the objection that an 
 infant is born " a child of ^^Tath," and, therefore, 
 incapable i)i baptism (out of baptism the incapa- 
 bilities magically vanishes) of God's regenerating 
 grace. 
 
 Churhsh Priest ! 
 
 Like Aaron, you stand between the living and 
 the dead ; but, unlike Aaron, you stand not there 
 to stay the plague. You stand between the life- 
 giving Spirit of God, and the infant dead, whom he 
 would \dviiy ; and to do what ? to place a bar, of 
 man's invention, and your adoption, between the 
 physician and the diseased. 
 
 Comforter, avaunt thee ! 
 
 These children — such is the language of youi" 
 school — have not been capacitated for Thy gifts, 
 either by a prevenient act of Divine grace, or by 
 the prayer of faith, or by birth from a christian
 
 12 
 
 parent, or "' otherwise/' And all this 
 
 you say, though you are bound, as one of God's 
 mmisters, to utter, without one qualifying phrase, the 
 following solemn and plain words over every bap- 
 tized infant, that you admit into our church : 
 
 " They brought young children unto Christ, that 
 He should touch them ; and His disciples rebuked 
 those that brought them : but, when Jesus saw it. 
 He was much displeased, and said unto them, 
 ' Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid 
 them not; for such is the kingdom of heaven.' And 
 He took them up in his arms, put his hands upon 
 them, and blessed them." 
 
 After reading this gospel, you make the folio w- 
 mg exhortation upon the words oi it, 
 
 "Beloved, ye hear in this gospel the words of our 
 Saviour Christ — that he commanded the children 
 to be brought unto him — how he blamed those, 
 who would have kept them from him — ^how he 
 exhorted all men to follow their innocency. 
 
 " Doubt ye not, therefore, but earnestly believe 
 that he hath likewise favourably received this 
 present infant*'" — (no postponenent here — no matter, 
 either, who, or whose the infant may be.) 
 
 And yet again ; — " seeing that this child is hy 
 Baptism regenerate, and grafted into the body of 
 Christ's Church." 
 
 But enough. 
 
 * See order for " The Ministration of Private Baptism of 
 Infants."
 
 13 
 
 And yet, if a parent were to follow you into the 
 vestry, and ask you privately, whether you meant 
 at heart, all that you had said by word of mouth at 
 the font, your answer would be r- 
 
 " Why y — ye — yea — yes ! In a sense ^ I meant 
 all. Some children, you understand, have that 
 made over to them in baptism, which they had be- 
 fore ; others will reap their baptismal benefits at— 
 
 at at — £-r:: — a future time — let that suffice* ; 
 
 and some few — ^l3ut I don't know whether your 
 child is one of those few — may be regenerated in 
 baptism; but not, mind, hy baptism: that is fl^t 
 heresy. 
 
 These are deep points. Sir, and i/ou cannot be 
 supposed to understand them. 
 
 Now mark me — Infants — pray mark this. Sir — 
 infants must be capacitated for baptismal benefits — 
 some, by a prevenient act of Divine grace — others, 
 by being children of a believing parent — Calvin 
 insists on this. Sir, — ~ and others — I hope I am 
 perfectly intelligible to you — and others — " other- 
 wise " ' ^ 
 
 " Indeed !" at last interposes the bewildered 
 querist ; " but there is nothing of all this that you 
 have just read out of the Book of Common Prayer." 
 
 * And is Rebecca Grace robbed to be denied every thing 
 in baptism but her Christian name, in order that she may be 
 brought to the new birth at seventeen, under a sermon by The 
 Rev. Geo. Whitefield, Vicar of Convulsions cum Hysterics in 
 the Willows ? 
 
 Is this Christian training '■ Is it training at all 'I
 
 14 
 
 " True^ Sir, — not to be denied qnite true, 
 
 that ■ but it is all implied, Sir, and understood 
 
 understood, you observe, and implied, as one 
 
 may say. 
 
 " Book of Common Prayer the book certainly is 
 
 book of Common Prayer, did I say % 
 
 y — ye — yes — the book of Common Prayer ; 
 
 but still, Sir, — and, notwithstanding. Sir, 
 
 and, nevertheless, Sir, and all these con- 
 siderations apart, Sir, there is much 
 
 there is very much, I will be bold to 
 
 add that — that — that — never 
 
 does — and was never meant to meet the common 
 eye in the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 " We must seek. Sir, — we must dive. Sir, 
 
 and we shall then find. Sir, no ; no ; one 
 
 can hardly call it a pearl either, exactly 
 
 but we shall find — do you 
 
 comprehend me % " 
 
 Yes. 
 
 " It is in the Scriptures, Trim," quoth my uncle 
 Toby, " and I will shew it thee to-morrow^ 
 
 " Art of speech ! Art of speech ! !" 
 
 False speech is probably capable of being the 
 falsest, and most accursed of all things. 
 
 False speech ! so false, that it has not even the 
 veracity to know that it is false, as the common- 
 place liar still does. " I have," proceeds Carlyle, 
 " heard speakers, who gave rise to thoughts in me 
 they were little dreaming of suggesting" [videlicet^ 
 that it Was not the man who was speaking ; but
 
 15 
 
 that Satan, employing the man's throat as a con- 
 duit, and his tongue as a tool, was speaking out of 
 the man.] 
 
 " And is man, then, no longer ' an incarnate 
 word,' as Novalis calls him '? Is there no sacredness 
 any longer in the miraculous tongue of man 1 
 
 " He fills me with horror — this two-legged 
 Rhetorical Phantom. I could long for a Mahomet, 
 whose persuasive eloquence, with wild-flashing 
 heart and scimitar, is ' Wretched mortal, give up 
 that, or by the Eternal, — thy maker and mine, — I 
 will kill thee. Thou blasphemous, scandalous 
 misbirth of nature, is not even that the kindest 
 
 thing that I can do for thee if thou repent 
 
 not and alter in the name of Allah? " 
 
 But let it be supposed that I am inclined to 
 become a convert to your school. 
 
 In that case, what am I to believe ] under whose 
 guidance am I to place myself] If I leave the ark, 
 where am I to find a resting place for the sole 
 of my foot 1 
 
 " Bellua es multorum capitum ; nam quid sequar aut quem ?" 
 
 What are your doctrines ? and who is your 
 Hermes Trismegistus '? 6 Wjc Kara sKKXiimag nainTag. Ac- 
 cording to your own avowal, your doctrine leads 
 to more than one view, in the case of infants, as 
 to the effects of baptism upon them. 
 
 " By some it is held that all infants of a Christian 
 parent have original sin remitted to them in bap-
 
 16 
 
 tism. Others^ however, not prepared to maintain 
 that all infants are in such a position by their birth 
 from a Christian parent, believe (excogitate \) that 
 there must be some previous grant of grace from 
 God," &c., &c. 
 
 This latter is Mr. Gorham's view; the former 
 we will suppose to be your own. Then there is the 
 prayer of faith, and a mysterious " or otherwise^'' 
 of which one can make nothing. 
 
 Must I resign what is now my belief, and toss up 
 between four views — suppositions — opinions ? 
 
 Besides, do views — suppositions — opinions 
 point stedfastly, and for the length of a man's life, 
 towards the same point of the compass ? Can you 
 fix the weather-cock X 
 
 "lidem eadem possunt horam dura re probantes? " 
 
 We cannot join you. Having turned your back 
 upon the sun, " you grope at noon-day, as the blind 
 gropeth in darkness, and you cannot prosper in 
 your ways." 
 
 We will now, according to prospectus and promise, 
 examine the capacitating conditions, which you re- 
 quire of infants to be baptized, " in order that there 
 may be a present, and absolute beneficial effect 
 from baptism ?" 
 
 And, first of all, for what should come first — 
 for Mr. Gorham's previous grant of grace. 
 
 As far as regards the case of infants, this jjre- 
 venient grace, of which we have had so much
 
 17 
 
 lately, is a sheer figment of man's devising : — a 
 tenet, if we can call it even by that name, unrecog- 
 nized in Holy Scripture, unrecognized by the 
 Church Catholic, in any age. 
 
 The specific is not to be found in the Christian 
 pharmacopcca. 
 
 This act of pervenient grace, Mr. Gorham tells 
 us, conveys regeneration to the child before bap- 
 tism, and, as Mr. Goode further explains, the 
 pre-grant is made ever officially and formally, and 
 in this sense, given to the child in baptism. 
 
 " Given ?" " Given ?" said you so X Art of speech ! 
 Art of speech ! ! But let that pass. 
 
 What, after all, is gained by thus complicating 
 a simple doctrine of Our Church ? What, I mean, 
 does Mr. Gorham gain % What stumbling block 
 is removed even from before his feet 1 
 
 How is " a child of -vvi-ath" capable of this act 
 of prevenient grace % " Why," answered a friend, 
 to whom I put the same question, " God's grace 
 can do all things." Granted Avithout a demur. 
 Then can God's grace regenerate " a child of 
 Avrath" in baptism, as easily as before baptism. By 
 what sophistical legerdemain can it be shewn, 
 even if an eel or an Academic have the conducting 
 of the argument, that an infant, born in sin, is 
 capable of Mr. Gorham's prevenient grace, the 
 fruits of which grace he identifies with regene- 
 ration; and yet that the same infant is incapable 
 of the same grace in baptism ? I am not Bishop 
 of Exeter ; I am not Rector of All Hallows, the
 
 18 
 
 Great and the Less : I am a humbler personage ; 
 but, humble as I am, I will not argue this point 
 further. 
 
 But Mr. Gorham's denials that regeneration, &c., 
 are ever given in and by baptism are, it appears, 
 directed only against the opns operatum doctrine 
 of the Bishop of Exeter. Let us look into this 
 opus operatum charge, which has been so often 
 refuted, and yet is so pertinaciously reiterated. 
 Three agencies go to the regeneration of a child ; 
 but three agencies, we submit, very unequal in 
 dignity. The three agencies are, that of the Holy 
 Ghost, that of the officiating priest, and the agency 
 of the water. The priest is the ministerial agent ; 
 water is the vehicle ; the Holy Spirit is the 
 primary and efficient agent. Li other words, the 
 infant is regenerated, justified, and adopted into 
 Christ's household, by the ministerial act of the 
 clergyman, (^ministerial, and, therefore, as the very 
 tenn imports, subordinate), and throiio:h the instru- 
 mentality of water ; but the Holy Spirit alone 
 giveth all the three blessings. No sane member 
 of our Church denies that the part performed by 
 the priest in baptizing a child is strictly " sub- 
 servient" to the di\ine grant of grace made to 
 the babe in the sacrament. 
 
 And is it really, Sir, in your judgment impossible 
 that the priest's act can be subservient to a divine 
 blessing, because that blessing is bestowed in 
 baptism ]
 
 19 
 
 I present to you, being duly authorized to do so, 
 the freedom of The City of London, in a box of 
 gold. Am I the less the Lord Mayor's minister 
 because your freedom is in the box ? 
 
 If I were to bring the empty box only, while 
 The Lord Mayor conferred the said honour directly 
 upon you, I should, in that case, be a minister of 
 lower degree, if you Hke ; but I should not be a 
 wit the more a minister. 
 
 But baptismal grace is conferred uniformly, and 
 simultaneously with the outward rite. 
 
 Well and what then ? 
 
 Does either of these elements alter the case? 
 Do they, both together, alter the case ? 
 
 Pray give me your attention here ; for here lies 
 the gist of the question ; for here lies the difference 
 between our baptism and yours. Have these ele- 
 ments, then, I ask, the properties of the philoso- 
 pher's stone, or of a conjurer's wand, that they 
 should transmute God's minister — (necessarily 
 transmute him, I mean ; for your reasonmg will be 
 idle, unless you can establish this) that they should 
 transmute God's minister into a daring and arro- 
 gant usurper, independent of his Divine Principal ? 
 Baptismal blessings are — as you know we main- 
 tain — conferred by the Comforter on all infants, 
 and always at the time of the ministerial act. 
 
 Is the officiating priest — this is the question you 
 have to answer — on either account, or on both, 
 a whit the less the Spirit's minister "?
 
 20 
 
 Ministers, we know too well, are apt to forget 
 that they are ministers, and to strike the rock with- 
 out giving God the glory : still, I have yet to learn 
 that that sin is exclusively ours : but, be this as it 
 may, I Avould remind you that no doctrinal system 
 is ever charged by an honest and clear-headed man 
 with what is but an abuse of that system. You 
 must shew not that Moses was wrong in striking the 
 rock in an arrogant spirit ; but that he w ould have 
 been wrong, anyhow, let him have struck it as he 
 might. 
 
 Can you avoid the vulgar temptation of a wilful, 
 or half-mlful ignoratio elenchi, and prove this clearly, 
 and without missing the mark 1 
 
 It is the easiest feat in the world to dash past 
 the quintain, on the left hand side, and then to tell 
 a gaping mob, who know nothing of the rules of 
 the game, that you are the conqueror of the day. 
 
 And now what becomes of the follomng burst of 
 lunacy 1 according to our doctrine of baptism, 
 " God's acts are," you say, " dependant upon those 
 of the minister, (why, your very language is self- 
 contradictory — the ministerial act must be the de- 
 pendent act, or it is no more a ministerial act,) 
 which is in fact," you add, " a daring assumption of 
 the Divine prerogative to forgive sins, cloked only 
 by the thin veil of the admission that a certain rite 
 is necessary for the exercise of that prerogative." 
 (Your letter, p. 27.) 
 
 Psha! we admit, I ween, something more than 
 this.
 
 21 
 
 We admit, in the first place, that Holy Baptism 
 is something more than " a certain rite." 
 
 We further admit, without reserve, and in all 
 modest humbleness, that the Holy Ghost is the 
 primary and efficient cause of all baptismal blessings. 
 AndjWe admit, too, that the priest and the water 
 are, the one but the minister, and the other but 
 the instrument, which God deigns to employ. 
 
 A commissioner — no matter how high the com- 
 mission be, which he bears — is still only a com- 
 missioner. Even if he bear a Divine commission, 
 
 why, in that case, he is "a vice-God upon 
 
 earth "?" • — No ; no ; sophist, — a Divine com- 
 missioner — that is all. 
 
 And thus I trust that the frightful goblin of 
 " that apostacy, whose characteristic is to sit in the 
 Temple of God shewing himself to be God" — a 
 ghost, which seems to have disturbed your rest, and 
 unsettled your reason — is, at last, laid. 
 But " a certain rite "?" 
 
 Do I hear, and not perceive, or how is this? " a 
 certain ritel" 1 had thought that Holy Baptism 
 was one of the Sacraments of Clnist. Still it is, 
 after all, true that baptism is a certain rite ; but it 
 is equally true, and true in the very same meaning 
 of the phrase that you — the Rector of All Hallows, 
 the Great and the Less — are — your rectory and 
 " Sixth Thousand" notwithstanding — an animal ; 
 and yet you would not like me to call you so. 
 
 FioM, however, may so designate baptism. You 
 have unsacramentized the sacrament: you have
 
 22 
 
 evacuated it of its life, soul, and essence ; and have, 
 therefore, our full permission to apply to it, thus 
 desecrated, any degrading name you please. 
 
 So, an attorney styles a client a beggar, as 
 assuredly the client is a beggar. The attorney has 
 robbed him of every farthing that he possessed. 
 By way, however, of throwing dust in the world's 
 eyes; and fearing, too, it is said, lest his name 
 should be struck oiF the rolls, he is allowing his 
 poor victim fifteen-shillings a week — to keep up 
 the sham and semblance of what he was before 
 he fell into the rogue's hands. In his wary 
 moments the sly fox drops "beggar," and insists 
 that his client is a rich man still — as well off, in 
 fact, as he ever was — if he could but see it. The 
 " Scriba recoctus" type — and antitype. 
 
 The next of your capacitating conditions is — 
 that the infant be the child of a Christian parent. 
 
 This doctrine is a Calvinistic doctrine, and 
 grounded, by its advocates, on God's promise to 
 Abraham, that He would be a God to him, and to 
 his seed after him. 
 
 The Israelites — babes of a day old included — 
 were, it is argued, called, on the strength of this 
 promise, a holy nation. True it is that they were 
 so called, and equally true is it that the children of 
 a Christian parent are called holy by St. Paul; and, 
 I doubt not, for a similar reason. But does this 
 inherited holiness qualify and capacitate such a
 
 23 
 
 child for the benelits of baptism — or rather — to 
 express myself according to the terms of your 
 theory, does such a babe's birth so ftdly and in- 
 fallibly ensure God's immediate grace, that nothing 
 is to be done at the font, except formally and 
 officially to make over what the child had before, 
 in "vdrtue of its birth ■? 
 
 This is the question. 
 
 Let us hear Bishop Beth ell on the subject, and we 
 will then give ear to you. " Even if we allow," says 
 this masculine writer, "the justness of the argument 
 ti'om Abraham's case to our o^vn, God's promise to 
 his seed implied and included circimicision. That 
 the children of christian parents have a title to 
 baptism, and its benefits by birthright, as Abraham's 
 descendants had to circumcision, and that it is the 
 duty of parents to see that they are baptized, is 
 readily allowed." 
 
 " But our church," he adds, " speaks more con- 
 sonantly to scripture" — by which Bethell means 
 "more consonantly to scripture" language, naturally 
 interpreted — " when she determines that we are 
 made children of God, and children of Grace, 
 or made His children hy adoption and grace, in 
 baptism." 
 
 So writes Bethell. 
 
 What, now, is your exact and definite belief, on 
 this head'? we shall see. 
 
 " By some it is held that all infants of a Christian 
 parent are so within the bond of the covenant, tliat
 
 24 
 
 the guilt of original sin will not be imputed to 
 them ■^Tprf '^^1 "^ 
 
 " Others, however, not prepared to maintain that 
 all infants are in such a position by their birth 
 from a christian parent, believe f?) that, as in the 
 case of an adult, there must be a previous grant of 
 grace by God." (Your book, p. 25.) 
 
 Not all ] How many, then ? and which of them t 
 
 " Quo nodo teneam mutantem Protea vultus V 
 ^1flL/T/ if 83-30 1 
 
 One thing, at all events, is clear — to borrow a 
 metaphor, first aptly used by Lord Stanley — the 
 pea is not under this thimble. 
 
 By the way — if you were a missionary in New 
 Zealand, and a chief there were to call upon you 
 to baptize his child, though he refused to be bap- 
 tized himself, — would you decline to baptize that 
 child ] 
 
 You forget that we have a colonial, as well as a 
 home church. And even at home there are per- 
 plexities. You, for instance, must not, on the next 
 vacancy, offer yourself as chaplain to the Found- 
 line/ Hospital. >* 
 
 To which of your views — suppositions — opin- 
 ions, shall we now turn? Shall it be to "the prayer 
 of faith 1" The Bishop of Exeter has disposed of 
 this part of the question between us so triumph- 
 antly, that I am afraid least, by saying one word 
 more, I may be tarnishing his gold. Still, at all 
 risks, I must make a few observations. It is not
 
 25 
 
 denied, by any man of sober sense, that it was a 
 most laudable act, on the part of the parents, to 
 bring their children to Christ, that he might touch 
 them. And, if the Saviour had bestowed the 
 highest praise on the parents for so doing, we w ould 
 not, I assure you, have hidden the commendation 
 under a bushel. There would have been no need 
 for any thing of the kind. The question would still 
 have been — as it is now — did Jesus bless these 
 children because the parents brought them to him ? 
 
 The fact, however, is, that he passed no commen- 
 dation at all upon the parents ; — and this, probably 
 not because they did not deserve it, but because 
 it would have been beside the purpose which he 
 had in view — which was to bless the children, as 
 he undeniably did bless them, for the sake of them- 
 selves — or — as we gather from the Baptismal 
 Ritual — on account of their innocency : — 
 
 Which innocency, by the way, you, whenever you 
 christen a babe, exhort all men, in His name, and 
 on the strength of the text we are discussing, to 
 follow. If you, or Mr. Gorham, had been present 
 at this scene, you might possibly have muttered 
 something about capacitating conditions, and so have 
 come in for a share of that rebuke, which the offi- 
 cious disciples, who would have kept the innocents 
 from their Saviour, did bring upon their heads. 
 
 But we are all in the dark, I fear, as to the real 
 bearings of this dispute.
 
 26 
 
 The truth must be that you have discovered a 
 manuscript of the New Testament, which super- 
 sedes all other authorities, and the foUowmg must 
 be the new reading of this vexed passage : " suffer 
 the children of those zealous parents to come unto me, 
 and forhid them not ; for of the children of such 
 parents is the kingdom of heaven" Such a manu- 
 script must be now lying at your rectory ; and if so, 
 I trust that you will let the public have a sight of 
 it on the days on which the British Museum is 
 not open — All Hallows day not excepted. 
 
 But to be serious ; for the subject is becoming 
 both deep and serious — so serious, that " to con- 
 template it too intensely were enough to drive a 
 sane man mad." The Judicial Committee deter- 
 mined — soundly no doubt, they thought — that, 
 if God's grace be invariably bestowed upon a babe 
 in baptism, prayer for that grace, on the part of 
 parents or sponsors, is an anomaly. An anomaly 
 be it. To ws, indeed, it is an anomaly. But in 
 what region of the metaphysical world can you tra- 
 vel a furlong, without treading upon an anomaly % 
 
 The Judicial Committee forgot that, on a topic 
 so profound, " the lowest depth which the light of 
 human reason can visit, even with a doubtful 
 glimmering, is at an unknown distance from the 
 ground." Yet the Judicial Committee thought 
 they had found the bottom of the well. They 
 plunged down to the conclusion that, because we 
 pray for grace, all grace is, therefore, precarious.
 
 27 
 
 The calm-penetrating eye of the author of "The 
 Analogy" would have descried that there is " a 
 great gulf fixed" between such data and such a 
 conclusion. 
 
 The Judicial Committee forgot — and yet to have 
 remembered this would have been to remember a 
 case in point — that our blessed Lord himself, 
 although he had foretold that the temple of his 
 body was to be destroyed, nevertheless, prayed to 
 The Father three times, and in the same words, 
 that the cup might pass from Him. Under the ex- 
 pectation — are you prepared to say — that this 
 Prayer could be granted % We may pray — and it 
 is often our duty to pray — for what cannot be 
 granted ; as we may pray for what miist^ and for 
 what, whether we pray or not, will be granted. 
 All this may seem violently past comprehension ; 
 and, in modest truth, we have here an unfathomable 
 mystery. And not here only. The mystery, which 
 palls this problem in darkness thick and three-fold, 
 stops not yet. 
 
 It overclouds the length and breadth of the 
 whole question of prayer. The mist may be deep- 
 er and dunner in one part than in another; but, 
 over all parts there is a deep mist. Can you ex- 
 plain to me. Sir, • — so that your explication shall 
 be clear of metaphysical anomaly — how it is that 
 
 we, any of us, pray at all to a Being, 
 
 mth whom " there is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning ?"
 
 28 
 
 "Higher than heaven — what canst thou see? 
 Deeper than hell — what canst thou know V — or 
 — and mth all discriminating reverence be it 
 spoken — the Judicial Committee either ? 
 
 Proceed we now to your last — and, thanks to 
 the Beelzebub of controversial divmity, that he 
 permitted it to be the last — of your qualifying 
 prerequisites. 
 
 ^ It is " OR OTHERWISE." 
 
 What are we to make of this shadow of a shade % 
 I have looked at it with the naked eye : I have 
 submitted it to the microscope : I have tried it with 
 the telescope : and all to no purpose. I am afraid 
 that, if I were to hang it upon the horns of the 
 moon, and examine it through the monster glass of 
 Lord Rosse, it w^ould still prove without colour — 
 without configuration — without dimensions. 
 
 As the school-boy his long-chased butterfly, I 
 more than once flattered myself that I had this " or 
 otherwise" of yours under my hat ; but, oh ; idle 
 hope! — I lifted the hat, and there was nothing. 
 It is most plaguy; but, somehow or another, as 
 Eurydice from her Orpheus, so flies your tanta^ 
 lizing " or otherwise'' from my longing arms. 
 
 . . to 
 "She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair' ■•'3ft ^0?t 
 Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air." 
 
 We have thus gone through the full list of your 
 capacitating conditions; and the sober upshot of
 
 29 
 
 the enquiry is, that, for the object for which you 
 insist upon them, they are unnecessary — and for the 
 purpose, to which you would apply them, virtue- 
 less. 
 
 They are unnecessary — inasmuch as a babe, 
 though guilty of original sin, so as to require God's 
 grace, is yet innocent of actual sin and unbelief, so 
 as to be capable, notwithstanding, of the Divine 
 favour. 
 
 And, again, for the purpose to which you would 
 apply them, they are, also, virtueless. 
 
 I. Take your prevenient grace. It has been 
 shewn that if " a child of T\Tath" be incapable of 
 regeneration in baptism, " a child of wrath" is in- 
 capable of the same grace before baptism. 
 
 II. Birth from a Christian parent includes the 
 necessity of baptism, as Abraham's children (the 
 case from which you argue) were required to be 
 circumcised. 
 
 III. The prayer of faith is, according to God's 
 command requisite ; and, according to God's 
 promise, will be conducive to a thousand other 
 Christian ends ; but, as we conclude from the 
 Scripture fact that Christ blessed innocents on 
 their own account, a fact put in the very fore-ground 
 of our Baptismal Rituals, the prayer of faith is 
 not necessary for the regeneration of a babe. His 
 title hes, albeit not " ex congruo ;" for then " grace 
 would be no more grace ;" but it lies, never- 
 theless, in his innocency ; " for of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven."
 
 30 
 
 Still, it may be urged, for we never know where 
 we have an idiopiomist, that, though these quali- 
 fying conditions are incomplete, considered singly 
 and separately, yet, put them together, and they 
 are all-sufficient. But stay — ^you do not all believe 
 them all. One view is the view held by Mr. Gor- 
 ham ; another view is the view held by the 
 Rector of All Hallows. Let us, however, suppose 
 what we know, on your own avowal, is not the 
 fact — that you are unanimous. Still, Sir, if all 
 your simples are vii'tueless, what must the com- 
 pound turn out] Let us mix Gorham's cordial, 
 parents' sirup, and Goode's " or otherwise," and, 
 
 when all is done, what do we get but 
 
 a Daffy's Elixir 1 
 
 Aroynt ye ! and all, who manufacture their own 
 theological specifics ! 
 
 But to another topic. 
 
 You aver that there is nothing in the now famous 
 passage of Hooker, quoted both by The Bishop of 
 Exeter and yourself contrary to Mr. Gorham's 
 views, — not one word. We will direct the reader's 
 attention to the passage itself. Here, then, it is, 
 in extenso, just as I find it in your book. 
 
 " ' Predestination bringeth not unto life without 
 the grace of external vocation, wherein our baptism 
 is implied.' And then baptism is spoken of as ' a 
 seal, perhaps, of the grace of election before re- 
 ceived,' Hooker adopting and admitting the truth of 
 these words of Cartwright. [Of these words only,
 
 ^1 
 
 and of these with a ' perhaps ;' for the subject is 
 obtruse.] 
 
 " What Hooker corrects in Cartwright is [we shall 
 see what Hooker corrects in Cartwright] the er- 
 roneous statement that we are not ' made christians 
 by baptism;' because [loquitur Goode, not Hooker] 
 although there may have been such prevenient 
 electing grace, yet the order of God's dispensations 
 is not thus set aside, and the rite of Baptism is that 
 by which we are formally admitted into God's 
 Church, and, therefore, that which ' both declareth 
 and maketh us christians — the door \jiunc loquitur 
 Hooker] of our actual entrance into Christ's house, 
 the first apparent beginning of life,' and ' to our 
 sanctiiication here a step, that hath not any before 
 it.' Clearly so. Is there any thing here contrary 
 to Mr. Gorham's views % Not one word." 
 
 We shall see. 
 
 In commenting upon this noted passage, I must 
 begin at some distance from my intended goal ; or 
 I may fail to make myself understood. 
 
 There are three divine blessings, which, viewed 
 together, may be called a Triad — to vnX — elec- 
 tion, external vocation, and salvation. With salva- 
 tion we have, at present no concern; and may, 
 therefore, dismiss it from our consideration, as ii-- 
 relevant. 
 
 What, then, is election, and what is external 
 vocation ? and, if related to each other, how are 
 they related X
 
 32 
 
 As a programme to that programme realized : as 
 a bill of fare to a dinner ; so is election to external 
 vocation. Election is mere purpose and plan : vo- 
 cation is an actuality. Let this word be noted. 
 We would call attention to a further distinction 
 between election and vocation — a distinction 
 arising from our very definitions. Election, as 
 being mere purpose and plan, (God's purpose and 
 plan, of course) is secret and hidden from us; 
 whereas vocation, being an actuality, is cognizable 
 by us here — is apparent, as Hooker says — by 
 which he means manifest — is, in short, something 
 let down to earth, fit home and abode of the actual. 
 Further, as election itself is mere plan and purpose, 
 so also are the graces of election : they, too, are in 
 programme. Nay, more — strange as the theory 
 may seem, until scrutinized — the recipients of these 
 graces are beings in programme — beings existing 
 in plan and purpose only. 
 
 And — what may seem stranger than all — an 
 actual being cannot possibly be the recipient of 
 an ideal grace, [ideal is here used in its philo- 
 sophical sense) nor can an ideal being be the re- 
 cipient of an actual grace. 
 
 We could not get an ideal alderman (if there 
 were such a thing) to relish the luxuries of a Lord 
 Mayor's feast ; nor can we feast an actual alderman 
 on a bill of fare. And yet would Mr. Gorham, 
 by your account, but not, as shall be shewn, by 
 his own, feed an actual babe on the ideal grace 
 of election.
 
 33 
 
 But of this anon. 
 
 Now, when did I receive the grace of election ? 
 Pardon the abstruse answer; for the subject is 
 regpndite. Why, when I was an ideal being, 
 existing only in programme, I received the grace 
 of election, which, like myself, was an ideal, and 
 existed only in programme. 
 
 And when was this far-off grace sealed and 
 realized to me ? When in my present state of 
 being — in baptism — I received my actual, first 
 apparent beginning of life; a step which, the ideal 
 grace of election notwithstanding, to my sanctifi- 
 cation here, had not any before it. 
 
 But, by way of elucidating my meaning, I had 
 better construct a diagram, and letter it. 
 
 Ideal being, Ideal Grace, 
 
 in heaven, in heaven. 
 
 A-— — T E 
 
 Secret --. ..--'' Secret 
 
 hidden. --.. ,. -'' hidden. 
 
 .- -'' ■-.. Actual Grace, 
 
 ..-■' "" -., and therein 
 
 Actual being, ..- -'' "" --, Regeneration, 
 
 I ..-- --^ o 
 
 on earth. let down to earth 
 
 in its vehicle 
 Baptism. 
 
 In the above diagram, A and E suit each other ; 
 and so do I and O ; but it would be a manifest 
 absurdity to join the letters diagonally. For 
 instance, I, the actual, cannot (except in his pro- 
 gramme state A) be a recipient of E the ideal. 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 And, now, how stands Mr. Gorham in this affray? 
 and how stand you 1 or do you, either of you, 
 stand at all? The grace of election, in the strict 
 meaning of the phrase, and in Hooker's meaning 
 of it, is not to be found at all in Mr. Gorham's 
 Baptismal theory. 
 
 With him, baptism is the seal, not of elective 
 grace, but, as he iterates and reiterates, of re- 
 generation before received, which is an actual 
 grace. 
 
 In short, Mr. Gorham's seal, and grace are both 
 in the same corner O. 
 
 Whereas Hooker's seal (seal of elective grace 
 I mean) is in O, his grace in E. 
 
 And, what is more, E was received by A before 
 he became I, which takes the whole question of 
 election, elective grace, and electees extra hanc- 
 ce terarum orbem ; which Hooker, in effect, declares 
 it to be. 
 
 Whereas, with Mr. Gorham, O is received by 
 I as I, but previously to baptism (and here lies 
 his error.) 
 
 In fact, the actual babe receives actual prevenient 
 grace, a terrestrial affair altogether. And yet is 
 there nothing in this passage of Hooker contrary 
 to Mr. Gorham's views ? Not a word ? 
 
 Permit me to remodel the question. 
 
 Is there anything in it which justifies, which 
 favours, which even touches Mr. Gorham's views, 
 so that it should be quoted, as a relevant authority.
 
 35 
 
 by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
 by the Judicial Committee ? One word with Cart- 
 wright, and yourself, and I have done. 
 
 In the first place, formal and actual are not 
 synonyms. Your formal admittance into God's 
 Church, and Hooker's actual entrance into Christ's 
 House, difi'er from one another the breadth of the 
 sky. Hooker's entrance is a step to our sanctification 
 here, which has not any before it. Your admittance 
 has your prevenient grace before it. 
 
 In the next place, apparent, which you write in 
 capitals, is not, as you mistily fancy, opposed to 
 real^ but to hidden : actual is opposed to ideal : and 
 here (sc. in our present state of being) to before 
 (sc. before we were born, and when we existed 
 only in programme). You may object to my 
 phrase, " existed in programme ; " but the Psalmist 
 must bear the blame. " All my members were 
 written in His book, when as yet there was none of 
 them ; " and it was in this state that I received the 
 grace of election, the appropriate grace for such a 
 state. 
 
 " Perhaps" — Hooker hesitatingly admits — and 
 this is all of Cartwright's that he does admit — bap- 
 tism may be a seal of this extra-mundane grace of 
 election; but, notwithstandincf, — and we now come 
 to Hooker's corrections of Cartwright — this ideal 
 grace has nothing to do with our actual entrance 
 into Christ's house — this hidden grace has nothing 
 to do with our apparent beginning of life — this /«r-
 
 36 
 
 q/?' grace has nothing to do with our sanctification 
 here. '•'■Perhaps'' — well and judiciously interposed — 
 for, all but invariably, when Hooker employs the 
 phrase " seal of grace," as connected with baptism, 
 he means that the outward rite is the seal of its 
 own affixed grace — regeneration. 
 
 Not but that baptism may be called seal of 
 elective grace also ; but with more than one 
 diiFerence : it is the seal of regenerating grace 
 immediately ; but mediately only and distantly is 
 it A seal — that is all — of elective grace. 
 
 Thus, elective grace merely precedes, while it 
 does not supersede, nor, indeed, form any part of 
 regeneration. To make it enter into regeneration 
 at all would be, in fact, to mix the ideal with the 
 actual ; the hidden Avj.th the apparent ; the heavenly 
 with the eai-thly. ■"" "^ 4";^«'"980o Vint.toesd 
 
 Now, sir, is Hooker's grace of election, before 
 received, identical with the pre-grant of grace, of 
 which Mr. Gorham speaks, as capacitating a babe 
 for baptism? 
 
 Usher, as quoted by yourself shall answer you. 
 ^, " Election, being nothing else but the purpose of 
 God, resting in His own mind, makes no kind of 
 alteration in the party elected. (Your book, p. 40.) 
 
 Where, then, are the capacitating virtues of 
 electing grace ■? Echo answers — where ] 
 
 Thus do you lose both Usher and Hooker. 
 
 But to throw you into a dilemma — if by "pre- 
 venient act of grace" Mr. Gorham means prevenient
 
 37 
 
 act of regenerating grace, the passage from Hooker 
 is nihil ad rem. Hooker does not admit that this 
 grace is anterior to baptism. 
 
 If, on the other hand, by '■' prevenient act of 
 grace" Mr. Gorham means prevenient act of elective 
 grace, this grace " makes no kind of alteration in 
 the party elected," and, therefore, cannot capacitate 
 " a child of wrath" for baptism. 
 
 Utrum horiim ? We give you yom* choice. 
 
 Are you, now, quite sure that you have given 
 yourself time to understand Hooker, Usher, Mr. 
 Gorham, or yourself 1 
 
 I have now only to acknowledge the source, 
 which suggested to me my explication of this much- 
 canvassed passage of Hooker. "Two links" (of the 
 Triad, of which I spoke above) "are," Leigh ton 
 beautifully observes, " up in heaven, in God's own 
 hand; but the middle one, effectual calling" — 
 which Hooker styles external vocation — "is let 
 down to earth into the hearts of his children ; and 
 they, laying hold on it, have sure hold of the other 
 two." 
 
 After the bram-cracking oenigma of elective grace, 
 which your party has dragged, Dis hominibusque 
 invitis, into this controversy, the reader must require 
 something of a lighter kind, in the way of relief. 
 We will descend, then, from the regions of empty 
 space, and see whether there be any thing to be 
 done on earth.
 
 38 
 
 Your illustrations of your baptismal theory, or 
 rather, theories, form a most tempting subject, and, 
 with your leave, we will take that subject into 
 consideration. I do not exactly charge you with 
 employing illustrations as arguments — it would, 
 perhaps, be unjust to do so ; but of this do I accuse 
 you — that you insinuate your illustrations into your 
 context so exactly at the right moment, and with 
 such adroit dexterity, that they will be taken by 
 your readers generally in the same light, in which, 
 
 to own the truth, I regard them myself as 
 
 your best proofs. 
 
 I allude, in particular, to what we may call your 
 "brotherhood or society" simile. 
 
 But I must allude to it without now criticizing 
 it ; for time presses. 
 
 As you are aware, sir, illustrations, though they 
 may be fairly brought in, in elucidation of what 
 has been already proved, are, otherwise, of no logical 
 value, — except when employed in battering a crazy 
 position. 
 
 In such a case, they sometimes rise to the dignity 
 of arguments from analogy, and, of course, cease 
 to be me7'e illustrations. 
 
 Let us try one or two. 
 
 In the first place, I wiU aim at your theory of 
 prevenient grace. I hereby, then, introduce you to 
 a plain countryman, whom we will call by the name 
 of Frankspeech. Let Frankspeech be an infant 
 in the coming illustrations ; but, although a» infant, 
 privileged, for the nonce, to speak.
 
 39 
 
 Mr. Goode sends for Frankspeech, and thus 
 accosts him. 
 
 G. " You received a suit of clothes, and a 
 blanket, did you not, about a month ago V 
 
 F. " I did, and many thanks to the donor." 
 
 G. " Well — well — but look you here, my man, 
 do you see this instrument and deed 1" 
 
 F. " What ! and am I to have a bit of garden 
 ground, as well as the clothes and blanket X — that 
 is more than kind." 
 
 G. " No, no, man ; listen to me, and listen with 
 both ears. By this document, signed, sealed, and, 
 as you see, duly drawn on parchment, I make over, 
 and give unto you the clothes, and the blanket, 
 which — which which you have." 
 
 F. " No offence, I hope, sir ; but what do you 
 mean 1 Give and make over did you say '? Why I 
 have the suit of clothes on, and the blanket is at 
 home, t see no use in that sheep-skin." 
 
 Nor do the Quakers in what it typifies. 
 
 If you can fly, it is needless to keep a carriage : 
 and if you could transfer yourself by mere volition 
 from London to Pekin, it would be lost labour to fly. 
 
 If but these things cannot be. 
 
 Man is an implement-using animal, and it is 
 through implements that he wins his chief bles- 
 sings. 
 
 But he needs no implement for winning what 
 he has. 
 The agony, to which you put yourself in striving
 
 40 
 
 and straining to make out baptism to be a great 
 thing, after you have reduced it to a nothing, is 
 to me, as all contortion is, most painful, fi a^dioh 
 ;,,:rThe Quaker, you see, is all calmness and 
 placidity ; because his theory, though false, is a 
 self-consistant theory. I wonder whether Quakers 
 mil ever give up chapels: they are a little weak 
 here. ^ 
 
 ^3 Again — the dramatis personce being the same; 
 but the drama varied. My small gun is now 
 directed against your case of grace post-poned. 
 G. " Frankspeech ; by these presents I give 
 
 and make over unto you" but let the gift 
 
 be the same as before." -^ "o-^^ »,A 
 
 F. " Thank you ; shall I take the clothes and 
 the blanket home with me 1" 
 
 G, " Bless me ; can you see no further than 
 your nose ? I don't ask you to look at the deed, 
 
 sir ; you will get the clothes and the 
 
 blanket another day — when you are fit for them — 
 let that content you." 
 
 F. " Ah ! but look here a minute ! this docu- 
 ment itself says — it is here that it says so — towards 
 the end that they who have the parchment, have 
 the clothes with it. How do you get over that? 
 Let us have them at once, and don't wrong the 
 giver." 3niB'id 
 
 G. "It cannot be denied, Frankspeech, that 
 the deed seems ; — but, mark me, Frankspeech, only 
 seems, to '
 
 41 
 
 F. '* No ; no ; it says so doivn thump, 1 tell 
 you; and, besides, when shall I be fitter for the 
 clothes than I am now ? I am come of poor parents, 
 to be sure, but, for myself, I never yet did one 
 single "lij <^(i" -^^ ; ^jibiOviii^^ 
 
 G. " Stop ; stop." ^ ' ~ -^o-llas 
 F. " No ; no ; to be plain-spoken with you, 
 
 I'll go." 
 
 Indeed, Frankspeech thought that the good man 
 had lost his wits, and, therefore, departed ; leaving 
 the parchment till he should get the clothes. As 
 the Baptists, carrying your theory fairly out, leave 
 you yours. 
 
 As soon, sir, as you become logicians, you will, 
 unless you face round again to the sun, become 
 anti-psedobaptists. 'i^od jsjiofc' 
 
 " Non regredi est progi*edi." 
 
 Where you are is no abiding city. With Mr. 
 Gorham's prevenient grace — with Calvin's birth 
 from a Christian parent — with the Primate's prayer 
 of faith — and — but I have done with your " or 
 otherwise" — after thus darkening, complicating, 
 torturing a simple doctrine of the Church Uni- 
 versal — after wriggling on the slack rope till you 
 are dizzy-brained yourselves, and all are dizzy- 
 brained who look at you, still — still you can- 
 not regenerate all your infants either before baptism 
 or in baptism. You have, when all is done, an untold 
 number of cases on hand, where all grace is post-
 
 42 
 
 poned, for aught we know, till the Greek calends. 
 If you will not come back, you must go on ; there 
 is no help for it. Every part of your jarring 
 system is upon a never-ceasing, irreconcileable fret 
 with some other part. Baptism is a great thing ; 
 baptism is a " certain rite ;" baptism, with the 
 Noels left in your ranks, is a nothing. 
 
 But baptism is a great thing say you ^ '* You give 
 and make over "?" We have heard that ; and so has 
 Frankspeech; and, as you will remember, we left 
 you your parchment on your hands, as an idle and 
 a lying document. Carlyle, too, has heard that ; 
 and you will not have forgotten his verdict. Art 
 of speech ! Art of speech ! ! Surely you must feel 
 in your reflecting moments, as BaptistNoel felt 
 when he took to thinking, that after the kernel is 
 stolen, nothing great can be left but a great shell. 
 
 Life once gone, the body becomes a carcase. 
 
 No wonder that the dogs devour it. You are — 
 I had almost so patented you — butchers to the 
 Baptists, but we will call you, more mildly, the 
 vultures' providers. 
 
 You kill the sacrament, and the Baptists eat it. 
 
 At still midnight, when the daemon of contro- 
 versy is asleep, and you are left to your calmer self, 
 you cannot, Su% but be conscious that " there is" 
 more than " something rotten in the State of 
 Denmark;" or Noel could not have justified to the 
 world his secession from i/ou. He struggled with 
 a desperate hope, to stop at some resting-shelf on
 
 48 
 
 the face of a precipice; but, after convulsively 
 clutching at a heather-twig on the one hand, or a 
 loose stone on the other, he took the last plunge, 
 and landed on the ground — ground of a sort, at all 
 events — albeit the ground is a Baptist Chapel. 
 
 You, yourself, Sir, despite your complacency on 
 the whole, are, at times, ill at ease. You shde into 
 little evasive foot-notes what ought to appear boldly 
 in your main context, and be there argued out ; or 
 it should not appear at all. Bu'th from a Christian 
 parent, is, you say, the chief argument for the prac- 
 tice of infant baptism. 
 
 With the early fathers the chief argument for 
 infant baptism is, that an infant is born " a child of 
 wrath," and should, therefore, be made at once a 
 child of grace. But as you have not argued the 
 point, neither will I ; but mil hasten to what shall 
 be, for the present at least, my conclusion. 
 
 There are many other topics in your book which 
 call loudly for observation ; but, for want of leisure, 
 still more for want of health, and partly too, for 
 want of books of reference, I cannot now consider 
 them. When these incapacitating obstacles shall 
 have been removed, I may possibly, though unused 
 to these wars, take pen in hand again ; unless you 
 give up yotir incapacitating obstacle to the regene- 
 ration of a babe. What say you 1 This would be 
 the happiest termination of the controversy. 
 
 And this you must give up, if you would save all 
 baptized infants, dying in infancy, by the terms of a 
 Creed.
 
 44 
 
 But this brings us to the Baptismal Rubric. 
 
 When our Church gave up the position [doctrine 
 it never was) that infants, dying unbaptized, perish,, 
 she gave up a position as revolting to a modest 
 mind as it is baseless to a logical understanding. 
 What is to become of infants who die unbaptized, 
 is a question which is undetermined, either expli- 
 citly, or by implication, in the Holy Scriptures. 
 Not explicitly, as is allowed on all hands. Neither 
 is it determined by implication. 
 
 If all children who die baptized are saved, it does 
 not follow that an infant which dies unbaptized is 
 not saved. This, in logical language, would be 
 denying — as the Reformers of 1536 did — the ante- 
 cedent of a constructive hypothetical, and then 
 drawing a conclusion when you have nothing to 
 dravi^. 
 
 A homely illustration will make this transparent. 
 
 If all who obtain a fellowship at such a college, 
 are worth £300 a year, all who do not — — — but 
 we have nothing, you see, to say about them. 
 
 On grounds, then, at once scriptural and logical, 
 we swept away the obnoxious dogma of 1536 from 
 our Prayer Book. But we did not substitute for it 
 that all unbaptized babes, dying as babes, are saved. 
 
 Upon the fate of infants who die unbaptized, our 
 Church is silent: and when God says nothing, 
 either express or impKcit, man should be dumb. 
 
 And yet you ivill speak. 
 
 " If lue believe, or are not prepared to deny, that
 
 45 
 
 intants will be saved, dying unbaptized, it is' ttear 
 that we cannot ascribe the salvation of baptized 
 infants to baptism." " If we believe" must be 
 struck out of your sentence. The Church makes 
 no declaration of belief on this head. She does not 
 profess to provide for the case of unbaptized infants 
 dying in infancy. 
 
 But, for the sake of argument, let it remain, and 
 you are still left with a non sequitur. Is the arm 
 of God shortened that He can save only i?i one 
 way? 
 
 Some of our wisest and deepest divines, who yet 
 never denied that a baptized child is saved by 
 baptism conceive a " Donum universale" extend- 
 ing to the very back-woods of heathendom, and 
 thus reaching the case even of the red man's babe. 
 
 A somewhat larger hope, this, than Peter Mar- 
 tyr's — a hope going indeed beyond the rubric; but 
 yet leaving the rubric (which you will not do) 
 entire and untouched. That God has covenant 
 mercies we all know; but has he none for those 
 who are out of his covenant ? 
 
 May not a baptized child be saved by the one, 
 and an unbaptized child by the other "? But I will 
 not pry further behind the veil, and it is only by 
 your imbecile reasoning that I have been dragged 
 thus far. 
 
 Let us now examine the rubric itself, and, for 
 that purpose, place it, in full before us.
 
 46 
 
 " It is certain by God's word that children, which 
 ai-e baptized, dying* before they commit actual sin, are 
 undoubtedly saved." 
 
 " But not," say the Judical Committee, " because 
 they are baptized." They might as well have 
 added, neither because they die before they commit 
 actual sin ; for if ' because' is not to be found in 
 one clause of the rubric, neither is it to be found 
 in the other. 
 
 And yet the latter clause confessedly envelopes 
 a reason, which it would be an insult to the reader 
 to develope. It is uneven dealing, to say the least 
 of it, to treat similars, in the same sentence, thus 
 differently. 
 
 One of the glasses must have fallen from JuS" 
 titid's spectacles. 
 
 Take the following sentence, constructed, as 
 nearly as I can construct it, on the model of the 
 Rubric. 
 
 It is certain, by the book he has published, that 
 Mr. Goode, who is a gladiator, remembering old 
 feuds, strikes, with truculent sword, at the Bishop of 
 Exeter. 
 
 What ! not because he is a gladiator, and yet 
 because he remembers old feuds. 
 
 I move for a fresh hearing of the case of Gorham 
 V. the Bishop of Exeter ; and I do so on the ground 
 that E-HADAMANTHUs' cycs, if two at all, are not a 
 pair. I trust that you will excuse the coinage
 
 47 
 
 which I have put out in your name, and not 
 attempt to answer it by a retaliatory one like the 
 following : 
 
 On Tuesday last, Horace Blunt, Esq., whose country 
 seat is in Kent, arrived, supported on crutches, in 
 Palace Square. 
 
 Here no one wants to know why Horace Blunt, Esq. 
 has arrived in Palace Square. What newsmongers 
 want to know, is, a hare fact, whether he has 
 reached London or not. And where the object is 
 to give mere information, reasons are out of place. 
 
 But may this not be the object of the rubric'? 
 
 What ! at the end of a baptismal service^ with 
 " Public Baptism of Infants" at the head of every 
 page, and in a baptismal rubric, need we be told 
 that the children there spoken of, as to be saved, 
 are baptised children ? 
 
 The question answers itself. 
 
 But who after all blames the Judicial Committee? 
 
 " Non omnia omnes." 
 
 Let us imagine the Upper House of Convocation, 
 with the Lord Chief Justice for their assessor, 
 sitting in error on " the O'Connell appeal" from 
 the Irish Court of Queen's Bench. 
 
 Maugre the very best advice from the Lawyer, 
 quaint mistakes, one fears, might have been com- 
 mitted by the divines. 
 
 The wish. Sir, that baptized infants, dying in 
 infancy, may be saved otherwise than by baptism
 
 48 
 
 is, with you. father to the thought that they are not 
 saved by baptism. You would save them ; and 
 yet, by your baptism, you cannot save them all. 
 
 You have prevenient grace ; but you know not 
 on what children this grace falls : you have birth 
 from a christian parent ; but this does not capaci- 
 tate all their progeny for baptismal privileges : you 
 have the prayer of faith ; but you know not 
 where you have it. 
 
 Still, there is an untold number of cases left, 
 where all grace is postponed. 
 
 And why may not one of these cases be that of a 
 child, who dies in infancy \ 
 
 Mr. Gorham, it is true, cuts the perplexing knot, 
 and, with a hardihood of assertion, which would be 
 amusing if it were not painful, tells us that, while 
 he is sure of nothing else, he is quite sure of this^ 
 that all baptized infants dying in infancy must 
 have been regenerated, though not by baptism, 
 before they died. 
 
 A patent petitio principii — a daring dash at a 
 conclusion, which must be had at any sacrifice — a 
 desperate shift, to which no one, execept a man who 
 was at his wit's end, and who felt himself pinched 
 beyond all endurance, would, or could, have resorted. 
 
 You are bound, Sir, by the very terms of your 
 theory, to admit that some one baptized babe, who 
 dies a babe, may yet be one of your cases in which 
 all baptismal grace is postponed. 
 
 And if one, why not ten thousand ?
 
 49 
 
 That child you cannot save by any remedy to be 
 found in your Medical Directory. 
 
 And yet by the rubric in question you are obliged 
 to save the babe. Here is the rub : here is the 
 thorn in your pillow : here is the mosquito within 
 your net: here, in short, is the scorpion in your 
 bosom, which stings you into the self-contradictory 
 and mad conclusion, that a bcq^tized child, which 
 dies a child, is yet not saved bj/ baptism. 
 
 But you should not, like the fabulous fox without 
 a tail, try to rob me of my creed, on this head, 
 because i/oii have none. 
 
 Leave us the rubric in its unmangled integrity, 
 and follow i/ou Noel. 
 
 Thus will you be doing logical justice to both 
 parties. 
 
 FINIS.
 
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