every superficial polemic. Now, dear Friend, you know that you are pledged by the creed of Pope Pius, Article 2, never to interpret Scripture "otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers." You perceive that a vast number of Popes and Fathers are on my side of this question. If you maintain from this passage, that Peter is the rock on which the Church of Christ is built, you trample on the creed of your church; for, on that interpretation the Fathers are NOT unanimous. But if you agree with me, that Christ, or faith in Christ, is the foundation on which the church is built, then, of course, you give up the point; and demonstrate, that the Church of Rome is, even on her own principles, incapable of defence; her boasted infallibility, resting on passages of Scripture, whose inspiration and exposition must be settled by private judgment, without her aidpassages which cannot be explained in her favour, without violating her own imperatively enforced principle of interpretation!

That this plain refutation of the principal tenets of your church, may prove the means of your emancipation from its power, is the earnest prayer of

Your Faithful Friend.

REGENERATION.

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LETTER XIX.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

THE preceding summary of the arguments against the Church of Rome, will give you some idea of the reasons that induced me to leave that communion. I now return to my religious experience. I am free to confess that, for nearly twelve months after my recantation, I was but a nominal Protestant; by which I mean, that though fully convinced of the sound and Scriptural character of the Reformed faith, I was not converted to God. This language, I am aware, is scarcely intelligible to a Roman Catholic. You think that Christians are regenerated, or born again in baptism. You fancy that this rite removes both the guilt and pollution of original sin, and that, after that event, the individual is in a situation to work out his own salvation, and earn for himself eternal redemption.

We do not believe that the baptismal ceremony regenerates the soul. In apostolic times, it was administered only when faith in Christ had been professed, and when, by consequence, the soul had been justified and born again; for this change

always accompanies saving faith. What, then, is the use of baptism as administered to infants?

It is intended to represent their being “born in sin, and the children of wrath," and to teach the necessity of their souls being washed in the blood of Jesus, "the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness ;" and it is, also, a rite of initiation, by which Christian parents dedicate their children to Christ, as disciples in the school of the Gospel. If their being sprinkled with water implied that they were born of the Spirit, would there not be some indications of this change in the dispositions and conduct of children? But, alas universal experience testifies that, notwithstanding the supposed grace of baptism and confirmation, they remain so powerfully influenced by the principles of depravity, by ignorance of God and aversion to his will, that the most vigilant parental oversight is too frequently incapable of preventing the outbreaking of evil. Pride, vanity, falsehood, obstinacy, impurity, selfishness, in a thousand forms, mark the character of the baptised youth of our land, with scarcely any exceptions. By a most mischievous euphemism, these things are indulgently denominated the harmless frailties of our nature; but this apologetic phraseology betrays a grievous.

AN UNREGENERATE CONVERT.

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insensibility to the evil of sin, as an offence against the majesty of God.

Those who read their Bibles dare not gloze over their pollutions and transgressions by language so fatally delusive. They know that "he that believeth not (though he were baptised), shall be damned," Mark xvi. 16. Hence, the ministers of the Gospel preach to nominal Christians as they would preach to heathens that they must be born again. Now, it is quite possible for a man to discard the Romish system, and receive the whole theory of Protestantism, honestly and firmly persuaded of its truth, without believing "with the heart unto righteousness," or undergoing the essential change to which I have adverted. A faith perfectly orthodox may be maintained with sincerity and zeal, and fail, notwithstanding, to exert any quickening and purifying power on the soul. So it was, for a considerable time, with your friend. My head was filled with controversial divinity, but my heart was still a stranger to the love of Christ. earnestly contended for the faith once delivered to the saints, while enmity against the Author of that faith was the predominating principle in my mind. I was brought in a great measure from "darkness to light," but not from "the power of Satan to God." The truth had not

I

been made the power of God to my salvation. All that the efforts of my own mind, aided by the light of truth, could accomplish, I had already experienced. I had knowledge, indeed, but it was the knowledge that puffeth up. I had zeal, but it breathed the bitterness of party spirit. I had liberty, but there was a conscious danger of its degenerating into licentiousness. Though a mere novice in the things of God, I thought myself capable of teaching others. Swift to speak, impatient of contradiction, prone to dogmatism, and glorying in controversy, I manifested a spirit very different from that which the grace of God produces. Experimental religion I regarded as fanaticism. If any person hinted that I was still in the dark, my pride was aroused to repel the arrogant assumption of superior holiness. Instead of confessing and deploring my ignorance and guilt, I was exceedingly sensitive to the slightest imputation of either. When informed, on one occasion, that a Methodist gentleman, a class-leader, wished to speak to me, in order to teach me the way of salvation more perfectly, I was provoked that a man of "one book," standing behind his counter, should presume to instruct me. A pious female of the same communion hinted the necessity of a greater change than I had yet experienced; and,