ever, which is invariably attached to the exercise of this prerogative, which shows the impropriety of making it the ground of accusation in the present controversy. It always implies a known and conscious departure from the law. He who claims a dispensing power asserts his right to deviate from the letter of legal enactments; but whoever merely misinterprets their meaning, and on that account applies them to a case which they were not designed to comprehend, or neglects to carry them into execution within their proper sphere (as his conduct is consistent with the utmost reverence for the law), is at a great remove from exerting a dispensing power. He betrays his ignorance, but usurps nothing. When the pope granted a dispensation, enabling certain persons to marry within the prohibited degrees, he sanctioned an acknowledged violation of the ecclesiastical canons; just as Charles the First and James the Second, in their respective proclamations of indulgence to tender consciences, proceeded in direct opposition to existing statutes. But we are conscious of no such procedure; if we err, we err from ignorance. We contend that the law is in our favour, and challenge our opponents to prove the contrary; we ask what prohibition we violate by the practice of admitting good men to communion, though they are not supposed to be baptized? This writer acknowledges there is none, but attempts to supply the defect by general reasoning, which appears to us inconclusive. Such is precisely the state of the dispute; not whether we have a right to depart from the law, but whether there be any law to which our practice is opposed. We acknowledge the immersion of believers in the name of Christ is a duty of perpetual obligation; we are convinced of the same respecting the commemoration of our Saviour's passion. Both these duties we accordingly urge on the followers of Christ, by such arguments as the Scriptures supply; but when we are not so happy as to produce conviction, we admit them, without scruple, to the fellowship of the church; not because we conceive ourselves to possess a dispensing power, a pretension most foreign from our thoughts, but because we sincerely believe them entitled to it, by the tenor of the Christian covenant, and that we should be guilty of highly offending Christ by their refusal. The law which we are supposed to violate in this instance we affirm is a mere human invention, a mere fiction of the brain, entirely unsupported by the word of God, which distinctly lays down two positive institutes, baptism and the Lord's Supper, but suggests nothing from which we can conclude that they rest upon each other, rather than that the obligation of both is founded on the express injunction of the legislator. It is our opponents, we assert, who, in the total silence of Scripture, have presumed to promulgate a law, to which they claim the submission due only to the voice of God. Hence the charge of usurping a dispensing power is most preposterous, since it is incapable of being sustained for a moment, until it is demonstrated that the law is in their favour; and when this is accomplished, we pledge ourselves to relinquish our practice immediately; but till it is, to assume it as a medium of proof is a palpable petitio principii,-it is begging the question in debate.

We repeat again, what was observed in the former treatise, that this charge owes its plausibility entirely to the equivocal use of terms. As we do not insist upon baptism as a term of communion, we may be said, quoad hoc, or so far, to dispense with it; just as our opponents may be said to dispense with that particular opinion, the doctrine of election, for example, which, while they firmly adhere to it themselves, they refrain from attempting to force on the consciences of others; on which occasion, a rigid Calvinist might, with the same propriety, exclaim that they are guilty of dispensing with the truth of God.

So remote is our practice from implying the claim of superiority to law, that it is, in our view, the necessary result of obedience to that comprehensive precept, "Receive ye one another, even as Christ has received you to the glory of the Father." If the practice of toleration is admitted at all, it must have for its object some supposed deviation from truth, or failure of duty; and as there is no transgression where there is no law, and every such deviation must be opposed to a rule of action, if the forbearance exercised towards it is assuming a dispensing power, the accusation equally lies against all parties, except such as insist upon an absolute uniformity. In every instance, he who declines insisting on an absolute rectitude of opinion or practice as the term of union is liable to the same charge as is adduced against the indulgence for which we are pleading. If the precise view which each individual entertains of the rule of faith and practice is to be enforced on every member as the condition of fellowship, the duty of "forbearing with each other" is annihilated: but if something short of this is insisted on, what is wanting to come up to the perfection of the rule is, in the sense of our opponents, dispensed with. Behold, then, the dispensing power rises in all its terrors; nor will it be possible to form a conception of an act of toleration where it is not included. Such is the inevitable consequence, if the charge is attached simply to our not insisting upon what we esteem a revealed duty; but if it is sustained on the ground of the necessary dependence of one Christian rite upon another, it is plainly preposterous, since this is the very position we deny; it forms the very gist of the dispute, the proof which will at once consign it to oblivion. The objection, in this form, is nothing more than an enunciation, in other terms, of our actual practice.

In every controversy, the medium by which a disputed point is attempted to be disproved should contain something distinct from the position itself, or no progress is made. There may be a show of reasoning, but nothing more. It is also necessary that the medium of proof, or confutation, should contain some proposition, about which both parties are agreed. But what is the case here? Our opponents object that we exercise a dispensing power. How does this appear? Because, while we acknowledge baptism to be a duty, we do not invariably demand it as a preliminary to church-fellowship. Now let me ask, is this statement any thing more than a mere definition, or description, of the practice which is the subject of debate; so that if an inquiry were made, what we mean by open communion, in what other terms could the answer be couched? The intelligent reader will

instantly perceive, that the medium of proof involves neither more nor less than the proposition to be refuted. Perhaps they will reply, No; you are guilty of dispensing with the law, not merely because baptism is a duty, but because the Head of the church has made it an indispensable prerequisite to Christian fellowship. Here the medium is indeed sufficiently distinct from the proposition which it is intended to confute, but it is so far from being agreed upon between the parties, that it forms the very subject of debate. In other words, they take for granted the very position on which the controversy turns, and then convert their arbitrary assumption into an argument. Thus, in whatever light it is viewed, the odious imputation with which they attempt to load us falls to the ground; and merely shows with what facility they can dispense with the rules of logic.

Near akin to this is the charge of "sanctioning" a corruption of a Christian ordinance. But how the mere act of communion with a Christian brother, whose practice we judge to be erroneous in a certain particular, can be justly considered as conferring a sanction on his error, is not a little mysterious. If this is a fair construction, it must proceed upon the general principle that communion sanctions all the imperfections, speculative and practical, of the members whom it includes; and thus our opponents must be understood to approve all the perverse tempers and erroneous views of the individuals whom they receive into fellowship. Will they abide by this consequence? But how is it possible to escape it, if to tolerate and to sanction, to forbear and to approve, are the same thing? Will they assert that St. Paul was prepared to exclude the members of the church at Corinth, against whose irregularities he so warmly protested; or affirm, that by declining such a step, he sanctioned the schisms and tumults, the backbitings, whisperings, and swellings, which he reproved with so much severity? The idea is too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment, but not more than the present allegation.

Were an impartial spectator to witness the celebration of the sacrament by persons of different denominations, what would he infer? That they considered each other as beings "without fault before God," with nothing in their sentiments liable to correction, or in their characters susceptible of improvement? No; the only conclusion which he could consistently draw would be, that they looked upon each other as pardoned sinners, washed in the same fountain, sanctified, though imperfectly, by the same Spirit, and fellow-travellers to the same celestial city.

We must either seek a church such as is not to be found upon earth, or be content to associate with men compassed with infirmities; prepared to exercise towards others the forbearance and indulgence which we need, and to exhibit on every occasion the humility becoming those who are conscious that in "many things we all offend."

Besides, as our author acknowledges that baptism is not to be "compared in importance with the least of Christ's moral precepts," against which men of unquestionable piety are perpetually offending, to a greater or less extent; where is the consistency of being more

solicitous to avoid the appearance of sanctioning ceremonial than moral disobedience?

The following sentiment, marked in italics, and delivered with the solemnity of an oracle, is characterized by the same spirit of extravagance. "The supposition itself," our author says, "that toleration and forbearance will justify us in allowing an omission of any law of Christ in his church, operates as a repeal of that law, and would generally be deemed unreasonable."* As all duty bears respect to a law, it is impossible to conceive of its omission without supposing an equal omission of the law.

He illustrates his assertion by referring to the legal qualification, in landed property, required in a candidate for a seat in parliament; where it is evident, that to render the cases parallel it must be assumed that baptism is, by the appointment of the Head of the church, the necessary qualification for the rights of fellowship, which is the very point in debate; so that we have here another instance of that habit of begging the question with which he is so familiar. On what occasion has he found us concede what is taken for granted in this illustration; or who would be so absurd, after such a concession, as to pursue the argument any further?

The proposition itself is as untenable as its illustration is irrelevant. If every rule of action is repealed, the moment its omission, whether partial or total, whether occasional or habitual, whether intentional or unintentional, is the object of forbearance, a repeal is the necessary concomitant of every conceivable instance of toleration. For say, on supposition, the will of Christ were perfectly complied with in doctrine and in practice, what possible room would there be for mutual forbearance? What, to speak of forbearance when all is right! Is perfection then the object of toleration? But just in proportion as imperfection exists, some law, some rule of conduct, must be neglected; "for where there is no law, there is no transgression." Will it be affirmed, that when St. Paul censured with so much severity the swellings, the tumults, the whisperings, and the backbitings which prevailed in the church of Corinth, who were ready to devour each other; when he found it necessary to remind them that the unjust should not inherit the kingdom of God, did he after all perceive in them no omission of a law of Christ? This surely none will affirm; and as he still continued to exercise forbearance, without the slightest intimation of an intention to exclude them, he was guilty, on Mr. Kinghorn's principles, of repealing the commands of God. As the evils tolerated were of a moral nature, and he tells us that he is far from “equalizing baptism with the least of Christ's moral precepts;" if, in spite of his own concession, he now assigns it a superiority, what is this but a palpable contradiction? But to say that a mistake respecting the nature of a Christian ordinance is not to be borne with in religious society, while evils of a moral kind are and must be tolerated, is to mark its pre-eminence in a manner the most unequivocal.

The mistakes into which he has fallen in this short passage are so * Baptism a Term of Communion, p. 53.

gross and so many, that they deserve a distinct enumeration. First, By affirming that to endure, under any circumstances, the omission of a rule of action is to repeal it, he has reduced the very conception of toleration to an impossibility. Secondly, As there can be no moral imperfection but what involves at least an occasional omission of a moral precept, the least of which he affirms is of greater moment than baptism; he must either contend for the propriety of setting aside forbearance altogether, or must be understood to select for its object the greater, in preference to the least, of two evils. Thirdly, In assuming it for granted that there is a law in existence which universally prohibits the unbaptized from communion, he assumes the whole question in debate; and if no such rule is admitted, how is it possible we should be guilty of repealing it. Fourthly, In stigmatizing the practice of not invariably insisting on a compliance with primitive baptism, in order to fellowship, as a virtual repeal of the precept which enjoins it, while we inculcate it as a divine command, and testify our disapprobation of its neglect, is a strange abuse of terms, founded on the following principle; that whatever is not absolutely and invariably required as a term of communion, is virtually repealed; whence it necessarily follows, that the whole of that duty in which the church of Corinth was defective, that whole portion of the mind of Christ which they failed to exemplify, was considered by St. Paul as no longer binding, since, however it might excite his concern, and draw forth his rebuke, the want of it, it is evident, did not prevent his forbearance. Will he abide by this inference? If he declines it, let him show, if he is able, why it is less applicable to the conduct of St. Paul than to ours?

That we do not repeal the ordinance by which our denomination is distinguished, considered as a duty, is a fact, of which we give ocular demonstration as often as it is celebrated. True, say our opponents, but you repeal it as a necessary preliminary to the Lord's Supper. To which the answer is obvious: First prove that it is so, and then, should we continue obstinate, load us as much as you please with the opprobrium of abrogating a divine command. But cease to run round this miserable circle, of first assuming the existence of a law confining communion within certain limits, then accusing us of repealing it, and lastly of finding us guilty of transgressing the prescribed bounds, on the ground of that repeal. He who repeals a rule of action reduces the system of duty to exactly the same state as though it had never existed. Whenever we are convicted of doing this, whenever we teach the nullity of baptism, or inculcate a habit of indifference respecting either the mode or the subject of that ordinance, we will bow to the justice of the charge; but till then, we feel justified in treating it with the neglect due to an attempt to convince without logic, and to criminate without guilt.

The prov odos, the radical fallacy of the whole proceeding, consists in confounding an interpretation of the law, however just, with the law itself; in affirming of the first whatever is true of the last; and of subverting, under that pretext, the right of private judgment. The interpretation of a rule is, to him who adopts it, equally binding