We are not the advocates of any narrow school, or exclusive, dogmatic sect in theology. Least of all would we magnify a few of the doctrines to the neglect of others. We ardently desire that the whole Gospel be preached, Christ ever in the centre, and all doctrines as they relate to him and his cross. Nor would we allow for a moment that preaching should be doctrinal as opposed to practical. The doctrine which is not preached practically is not preached truly; there is no such doctrinal preaching in the Bible. The proper end of all doctrine is practice; its preaching is the plowing of the spiritual furrow, and planting the seeds which shall spring up and bear abundant harvest. We have shown that principles are producing causes. What can be more practical and moving than convincing men that they are lost sinners, in the way to hell? It is like convincing a convivial party that they are in a burning building. Your exhortations to them to escape are unnecessary. Only open to them the door of escape by preaching the Atonement and all the doctrines of the cross.

Does any one inquire, would you blame a congregation for not relishing dry, abstract doctrines? I answer, it is a very suspicious circumstance that doctrines should be the only, or the peculiarly dry, abstract things; there must be great wrong in the preacher or hearers, or both. Let the heart of the minister and the hearer be in sympathy with the doctrine, and nothing is so kindling and affecting. It is these doctrinal facts that concern the soul, and they, if anything, will have interest for him. They will rouse the man, if it be only to opposition.

But is there not often at the bottom of this hiding the truth, and shrinking from the doctrines, a secret distrust of the Divine economy, as though some parts would not bear the open light; as if the Bible teachings could not be fully defended, but must be kept out of sight, or apologized for, lest it should cause God to suffer in the good opinions of men? Is it not an attempt to modify and improve upon the man-offending system which God has set forth? Surely it is a policy whose mistake is only exceeded by its guilt.

Says Bacon, "It will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin

of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it; for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet."

Is it dealing fairly by God's glorious Gospel, which is “the power of God unto salvation," if in preaching it we make it to differ so little from man's false gospels; if our sermons, a large proportion of them, might be just as well preached by Universalists and Unitarians? What is gained by drawing the people away from false churches if it is accomplished by preaching very much as the false preachers do?

Ah! it will be found, in the end, to be a profitless labor, which God will not own, though the pews, for a time, be filled, and a kind of popularity achieved. "The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to "Seekest thou great things for

the wheat? saith the Lord." thyself? seek them not."

That frank confession of Dr. Chalmers should instruct and warn every preacher who fails of a full and plain presentation of the doctrines of the Gospel.

"For a greater part of the time I could expatiate upon the meanness of dishonesty, or the villany of falsehood, or the despicable arts of calumny; in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and disturbers of human society. . . . But the most interesting part is, that during the whole period in which I made no attempt against the natural enmity of the mind to God; while I was inattentive to the way in which this enmity was dissolved, even by the free offer on the one hand, and the believing acceptance on the other, of the gospel of salvation; while Christ, through whose blood the sinner, who by nature stands afar off, is brought near to the heavenly Lawgiver whom he has offended, was scarcely ever spoken of, or was spoken of in such a way as stripped him of all the importance of his character and his offices; even at this time, I certainly did press the reformations of honor and truth and integrity among the people, but I never once heard of any such reformations being effected among them. . . . I am not

sensible that all the vehemence with which I urged the virtues and the proprieties of social life, had the weight of a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners."

But not only should ministers give a central and high position to religious principles. They should be the earnest and constant study of the members of the churches. They are in their nature vitalizing and stimulating to the Christian. They are calculated to detect errors and hypocrisies, and to make the believing steadfast, unmovable. They enable him to give "a reason for the hope that is in him." True religion consists in right views, producing right feelings and conduct. Laymen are called to attend councils for the examination of candidates for ordination. Upon them devolves the choice of pastors over the churches. It is important that they should be able to tell "what aileth" the man who hesitates and stumbles at the fundamental principles of the Gospel, and who seems to have spent most of his time in preparation for the ministry, in learning shrewdly to set aside or neutralize most of the creed of the Fathers.

Here, then, is a wide and important field for the study and reading of laymen. Why should not they be readers, yea writers, in theological reviews, adapted not so much to curious speculations, to rare classical research, and foreign scholarship, as to the pressing wants and demands of the Church in its struggles with error and sin, and its toils to hasten the Redeemer's kingdom. It is no narrow, sectarian study which we invite and urge the ministry and membership of the churches to enter. It is broader than denomination, it is wide and liberal as is the basis of truth and righteousness. It will be ennobling and successful, though against much opposition. For are we not warranted in believing that the next grand step towards the millennium must be accompanied by a truer, deeper, and more general indoctrination of the membership of Christ's body into the principles of the Gospel as taught in the Word of God.

ARTICLE II.

CYPRIAN'S LETTER TO FIDUS;

OR, THE SIXTY-SIX BISHOPS ON INFANT BAPTISM.

It was A. D. 253 that a large meeting of African bishops was held at Carthage. It was one of those informal meetings in the Ancient Church, held occasionally at convenient centres, by the bishops of the surrounding region. They met for mutual improvement, and for the consideration of any topic that might come up concerning the welfare of the Church. Such meetings were not ecclesiastical, like those of synods or of councils, but only ministerial. They were not called by any authority of the Church, nor yet to do any specific or previously arranged work. As bishops of the district, they came together of their own accord, much after the manner and for the purposes of a clerical association of our own day.

At this meeting, held in Carthage, sixty-six bishops were present. What other topics were raised for consultation we are not informed; but Fidus, a country bishop, presented by letter two questions. One was, whether an infant might receive baptism before it was eight days old.

The question is accompanied with an argument on the negative by Fidus. He urges that earlier than the eighth day the new-born would seem to be so unfinished and unclean that men would revolt from giving it the usual kiss of welcome into the Church. He makes much also of the fact that circumcision was prescribed for the eighth day, and insists that the rule of initiation in that form should hold in this. And other things he urges against the baptism of an infant before its eighth day.

The question and argument of Fidus seem to have been very fully discussed by the bishops, and their result was unanimous. The duty of condensing their opinion, and making reply to their inquirer, was devolved on Cyprian. This letter of Cyprian to Fidus is preserved. In the editions of his works by Parmelius and by the Benedictines, it is the Fifty-Ninth Epistle; in the Oxford edition of Bishop Fell, it is the Sixty-Fourth. We make a few quotations from this letter.

..... As to the case of infants; whereas you judge that they must not be baptized within two or three days after they are born, and that the rule of circumcision is to be observed, so that none should be baptized and sanctified before the eighth day after he is born; we were all in our assembly of the contrary opinion (longe aliud in concilio nostro omnibus visum est). For as for what you thought fitting to be done, there was not one that was of your mind, but all of us, on the contrary, judged that the grace and mercy of God is to be denied to no person that is born. ...... And whereas you say, that an infant in the first days after its birth is unclean, so that any of us abhor to kiss it, we think not this neither to be any reason to hinder the giving to it the heavenly grace. For it is written, to the clean all things are clean.' ...... We judge that no person is to be hindered from obtaining the grace by the law that is now appointed, and that the spiritual circumcision ought not to be restrained by the circumcision that was according to the flesh. ... ... If the greatest offenders, and they that have grievously sinned against God before, have, when they afterward came to believe, forgiveness of their sins, and no person is kept off from baptism and the grace, how much less reason is there to refuse an infant, who being newly born, has no sin, save that being descended from Adam according to the flesh, he has from his very birth contracted the contagion of the death anciently threatened. ...... This, therefore, dear brother, was our opinion in the assembly, that it is not for us to hinder any person from baptism and the grace of God, who is merciful and kind, and affectionate to all. Which rule, as it holds for all, so we think it more especially to be observed in reference to infants and persons. newly born, to whom our help and the divine mercy is rather to be granted, because by their weeping and wailing at their first entrance into the world, they do intimate nothing so much as that they implore compassion." We have used here, for convenience, the fair translation of Dr. Wall, (Hist. Inf. Bap. 1: 129–32.)

This Epistle of the martyr-bishop of Carthage is worthy of a few special notes. As a witness concerning the ordinance of infant baptism, it has a leading and commanding place on the stand among the ancients. We make six points in the outline and bearings of this testimony.

It is

1. The Epistle itself is a genuine Epistle of Cyprian. a convenient and no rare thing to break the force of evidence from the Fathers by allusions to the mutilations and interpolations by which some of their works have been dishonored.