the charge of making the word of God of none they take a view of it on another side incorneffect by their traditions, have invented a curious patible with the nature of grace or favor altodoctrine of "common operations," contradistin-gether, by representing the whole matter as deguished from the special; and, like the pious pendant upon some will subduing cperation as Mr. Baxter, have attempted to reconcile the jar- physical as the creation of light-without which ring systems by making it possible for all gospel it is all a dead letter. EDITOR. hearers to be saved and certain for some-possible for all who did not resist the common operations; and certain for all upon whom the irresistible or special operations were employed. This is a lame expedient. Their doctrine of common operations is as unscriptural, as their special operation in subversive of all praise or blame, of all virtue and vice, of all excellency in faith, or criminality in unbelief. The Bible doctrine requires not the aid of either system.

to which I directed the expectation of my read-| ers in my last.

empire, over which the Lord Jesus reigns. The new constitution is based upon the fact that where remission of sins is there is no need for sacrifices; consequently I argue, that the reason why there are no sacrifices-no altars, priests, nor victims, under the reign of Jesus, is because remission of sins through immersion is enjoyed. And let it be noticed with great attention here, that God's dwelling in and among the people of the new reign, or his spirit ruling in their hearts, is based upon the fact that "the worshippers being once cleansed have no more conscience of sins." This admirably coalesces with the views exhibited in the previous essay, and indeed with all the essays upon the "Work of the Holy Spirit in the Salvation of Men," in the volumes of this work.

Where there is a guilty conscience there is an impure heart. So teaches Paul: "To the unbelieving there is nothing pure; for even their mind and conscience is defiled." In such a heart the Holy Spirit cannot dwell. When God symbolically dwelt in the camp of Israel, every speck of filth must be removed even from the earth's surface. Before the Holy Spirit can be received, the heart must be purified; before the heart can be purified, guilt must be removed from the conscience; and before guilt can be removed from the conscience, there must be a sense, a feeling, or an assurance that sin is pardoned and transgression covered. For obtaining this there must be some appointed way-and that means or way is immersion into the name of the Father, Son, If men do not believe, and will not be immersand Holy Spirit. So that, according to this or-ed into the faith through what the Spirit of God der, it is incompatible, and therefore impossible, has already done, there is not one promise in all that the Holy Spirit can be received, or can the Book of God on which they can rely, or to dwell in any heart not purified from a guilty which they can look as affording ground of exconscience. Hence it came to pass, that Peter pectation for the Spirit of God to dwell in their said, "Be immersed for the remission of your sins, minds, or to aid them while in unbelief. and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." him that says "Yea," tell us the promise. No man can have a holy spirit otherwise than as he possesses a spirit of love, of meekness, of humility; but this he cannot have unless he feel himself pardoned and accepted. Therefore the MR. WM. T. BRANTLEY, Pastor of one of the promise of such a gift wisely makes the recep- richest and most flourishing Baptist churches in tion of it posterior to the forgiveness of sins. the United States-a church rich in annuities, Hence in the moral fitness of things in the ev- neither dependant upon the head of the church angelical economy, baptism or immersion is nor any of its living members, for at least sixmade the first act of a christian's life, or rather teen hundred dollars a year;-I say, Mr. Wm. T. the regenerating act itself; in which the person Brantley, formerly of South Carolina, called to is properly born again-"born of water and the pastoral office of said church, rich in good spirit" without which into the kingdom of Je-"deeds" and legacies, and editor of the "Columsus he cannot enter. No prayers, songs of praise, no acts of devotion in the new economy, are enjoined on the unbaptized.

Catholics and protestants think so too, if they only knew it. They know that baptism, as they understand it, is prior to every other religious institute. They make it, in fact, regeneration. They suppose that by it the inconscious babe is born into the kingdom of heaven in some sense. They err not in making it, in the order of things, previous to every other act, but in separating it from faith in the subject. It is not more natural or necessary in the kingdom of nature, that blossoms should precede the ripe apple, than that, in the empire of salvation, baptism should precede the remission of sins and a holy spirit. For the Spirit of God is the spirit of holiness, and where there is a guilty conscience it cannot dwell.

If baptism be connected with the remission of sins, infants require it not; for they have no sins to be remitted. At least the Calvinists and Arminians teach this doctrine; for they say that "original sin" is all that is chargeable upon infants. This original sin is but one, and is always found in their dialect in the singular number. Now as christian baptism was always for the remission of sins in the plural number, in the primitive age, and never once said to be for the remission of sin, nor of original sin-infants, on the Calvinistic and Arminian hypothesis, need not be baptized: and in this I am both a Calvinist and an Arminian.

But I cannot, it seems, keep to the point. The question is, Why is the Holy Spirit promised as consequent upon immersion? I answer, 1st. Because forgiveness is through immersion; and because, in the 2nd place, the spirit of holiness cannot reside in any heart where sin is not absolved. This is an invariable law in the moral

The Columbian Star.

Let

EDITOR.

bian Star," has humbled himself so far as to notice this little periodical-which, with great good humor, he calls the "insolent," "pugnacious," and "insidious," "falsely called Christian Baptist." After having exactly in the letter and spirit of the Apostle Paul, honored me with a long retinue of epithets, full of christian charity-and declarative of a most benevolent and christian temper, he gives me over to Satan and the Arminian Expositors for good behavior.

I could have thanked him more if he had honored me less. But at the impulse of his strong affection for my person and labors, he oversteps the modesty of christian nature; and not only represents me as "self-willed," "merciless," "self-conceited," and "arrogant," but as insidiously aiming at the subversion of "the ancient order of things." So much for Star-light when the Sun shines. But for my joy he has promised ine but one such friendly notice. Why but one, Mr. Brantley? If a proof of your condescension, it is too little to gain the reputation of being humble; which, perhaps, is not fashionable in the present order of things:-if a proof of your bravery, but once is too little to gain for you the reputation of a christian hero. But if "once only," lest your reputation for honesty and candor in a good cause should suffer, it would have been well for you to have thought twice before you promised "once only," lest this "once only" should prove too often for your good name.

The history of Mr. Brantley's course to the "falsely called Christian Baptist" is as follows: Some time in November last, if I remember right, he first introduces me to his readers through the medium of a false statement prefixed to the minutes of the Franklin Association. I call it a false representation, for so it was demonstrated, and the authors of it have not since vindicated themselves nor it, though called upon for an ex

planation in the third number of this present volume. I wrote a private letter to Mr. Brantley, complaining of this act of injustice; but he made no public amends for the falsehood published, and suffers his readers to remain under the false impression to this day.

el,” and yourself, for a wanton attack, when in fact you, and each of them, selected me, and tried, condemned, and denounced me, before I ever pointed a pen or opened my lips to publish a single word concerning any of you? Yourself and the brethren Semple and Noel, months beNot willing to become "pugnacious" all at fore I noticed you, were making very free with once, although he began to conjugate "pugno, my reputation. This is so notorious that it puts pugnas, pugnavi," I suffered him to pass without my charity to the torture to discover how you a word. By and by, in December, he gives me could innocently present me to your readers as one or two thrusts, "unguibus et pedibus," in his the first to attack any of you. You made "the preface to Bishop Semple's two letters, but gra- selection;" not I. But Mr. Brantley, you unciously promises to give me a column or two inderstand the logic of the Ins full as well as his paper when I should demand it. The publi- you understand the seventh chapter of the Rocation of these two letters following his kind in- mans. And I do not hereby question your ortroduction of me, were well designed and calcu-thodoxy in either. I want to see more honesty. lated to bias every reader of the "Star" against We have enough of orthodoxy. Show me a me. Still, though "self-conceited, self-willed, little honesty in answering this pertinent reand arrogant" as I be, I did not notice these in- quest. fractions of christian law, fully expecting and hoping, for the sake of christian character, that he would make a large amends, and so soon as my replies to Bishop Semple would appear he would permit his readers to hear with both ears and to examine both sides. But to my no little surprise, he next gives a dissertation upon "the Spirit of the Reformers," and castigates me over the shoulders of the Reformer. Still I could not give him up, nor lift my pen in self-defence, while I had his pledge-his public pledge, that he would do me justice. I concluded to write him, requesting him to redeem his pledge; and as he had published Bishop Semple's letters, I asked him to publish mine. This last letter he deigned not once only to answer, but in the "Star" of the 5th April he addresses me as "pugnacious, self-willed, self-conceited, insidious, arrogant," &c. &c.

The policy of this kind philippic is to represent me as fighting with the Baptists and Baptist Confession, and all the good, pious, and orthodox Baptist dignitaries, such as Dr. Noel and Mr. Brantley, and so forth-as exceedingly mad against the Baptists, the Confession, and the Doctors of Divinity, and those decent Rabbies who make out of the popular establishments two, three, and sometimes four thousand dollars

a year.

No wonder they support the schemes that so well support them.

I could easily show that a Pharisee, a Sadducee, or an Epicurean Philosopher, or any Rabbi, with a good fat living, could have represented Paul the Apostle as "self-conceited, arrogant, self-willed, pugnacious," exceedingly mad against the little creed and the good and pious Jews who loved Moses and their own order of things. I say, I could show that, upon Mr. Brantley's plan, all this and much more could have been done with infinite ease; and the great majority would have been gulled with such a representation of things as easily eighteen centuries ago as at this day. But this is unnecessary for me. As Paul did appeal to his whole course in self-vindication, and as he ascribed to the dyspepsia, rather than to the head or the heart, the opposition of his opponents; so, for the sake of all parties, I do adopt and pursue the same course.

2d. Why do you not fulfil your promise made to me and the public in December last, of giving me an opportunity of vindicating myself from the vituperations you have given currency toand why do you now append conditions to your promise which did not accompany it? I have fulfilled the only condition you attached to it, and will you plead with the Mother Church that an oath or promise made to a heretic is not binding?

3d. Why do you say there was a time when, as a writer, I professed to have "no fixed tenets?"

4th. Why do you affirm that, in opposing your little dead letter, called the Confession, (which, by the way, has not been the chief thing in my mind while opposing creeds,) I am casting off all cords? Is the little creed all the cords in the world?

5th. Why do you say that I "scatter my sentiments over a wide space (in the C. B.) to prevent their being compared and examined?" Do give the proof.

You make me a new promise instead of fulfilling an old one. You say if I"make out a synopsis of my sentiments you will publish it." If, in your logic and morals, the making of a new promise is equivalent to fulfilling a former one, I despair of inducing you to do me justice; and while you make yourself "the judge, jury, and witness," when I am worthy to appear in the "Columbian Star," I shall be content to suffer such acts of injustice as you have done or may do me, so long as it may please my good master to permit it to be so. I had once some hope that amongst the public and leading Rabbies of the day, I had found one who would not think himself degraded in serving the Saviour of the world. I will not yet say, "Ab uno discite omnes." EDITOR.

A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.
No. XXIV.

Church Discipline, No I.-Third Letter to R. B. Semple.
Brother Semple,

DEAR SIR-You say that "church government is obviously left by the bible for the exercise of much discretion." How this can be I cannot conjecture. Whatever is left for the exercise of much discretion is obviously a discretionary thing. If, therefore, church government be a matter obviously of human discretion, I see not how any form of church government, though principally of human contrivance, such as the Papistical or Episcopalian, can be condemned.1st. Why do you represent me in your first Each of these forms takes something from the sentence as "selecting the brethren Semple, No- | bible and much from human discretion. We

But if Mr. Brantley should ever condescend a second time to look down from his high and lofty seat in the great city of Philadelphia, upon the "arrogant and insidious Christian Baptist," I will ask him a query or two which he must feel himself bound to answer:

may think that what their discretion adopts is very far from being discreet; but in condemning their taste, we cannot censure them as transgressors of law; for obviously where no law is there is no transgression. If there be no divine law enjoining any form of church government; if there be no divinely authorized platform exhibited in the bible, then why have the Baptists contended for the independent form, except they suppose that they have more discretion than their neighbors!

ning temper, behavior, and discourse found in the apostolic writings, in all their addresses to the congregations after the day of Pentecost, constitute the government of the church, properly so called. When all the apostolic injunctions, such as those concerning the government of the thoughts, the tongue, and the hands of christians are regarded, then the church is under the government of the Lord. Laws moral and religious, i. e. laws governing men's moral and religious actions, are the only laws which Jesus deigns to enact. He legislates not upon matters of mere policy, or upon bricks, stones, and logs of timber. He says nothing about moderators, clerks, and parliamentary decorum: but upon moral and religious behavior he is incomparably sublime. He enacts nothing upon the confederation of temporal and worldly policy. Hence they strain out a gnat and swallow an elephant who complain there is no law authorizing the building of meeting houses, and yet find a warrant for a "state convention" or a religious convent, college or seminary of learning. The matter of church government which was discussed at Westminster was never mentioned by the Lord nor his apostles. When I hear Independents, Presbyterians and Episcopalians contending about their different forms of church government, I think of the three travellers contending about the color of the cameleon. One declared it was blue; another affirmed it was green; a third swore it was black; and yet when the creature was produced all saw".was white."

But what you may call "church government" may, perhaps, be entirely a matter of human discretion, such as fixing the time of day on which the church shall meet; also, the hour of adjournment; the place of meeting, whether in a stone, brick or wooden building; the shape and size of their house, and the seats and conve-churches, of delegate meetings, or any matter of niences thereof. On these items the bible, indeed, says but little. Or, perhaps, brother Semple, under the terms "church government," you may place synods, councils, associations; the duties of moderators and clerks; rules of decorum and parliamentary proceedings in deliberative bodies; all of which some think as necessary to the well being of the church as "the scaffolding is to the house." If you embrace all these items, and other kindred ones, in your idea of church government, I perfectly agree with you in one part of your assertion, that the bible says little or nothing on such matters; but I do not say that they are all left to human discretion, and therefore I cannot flatter myself into the opinion that the synods and advisory councils of Presbyterians and Independents are innocent matters of human discretion!

You have, no doubt, brother Semple, often observed, and remarked to others, that a majority of the disputes in religion have originated from not defining the terms or using the same words as representatives of the same ideas. I have of ten said that the chief advantage which mathematical demonstration has above moral or philological proof, is owing to a greater precision in the terms used in the former, than in the latter species of reasoning. Many an angry and verbose controversy has been dissipated by the definition of a single term; and the angry disputants, after they had exhausted themselves, finally agreed that they misunderstood one another. When you say that "church government is obviously left by the bible for the exercise of much discretion," I am led to suspect that you attach a meaning to these terms quite different from that which I and many others attach to them. The reason I think so, is because I am puzzled to find a definition of them, that will accord with your assertion.

As some of the wisest philosophers of the present century have discarded what has been improperly called "moral philosophy" from the circle of sciences, because it has no foundation in nature; so methinks the subject of "church government" and the whole controversy about it, in the popular sense of these terms, might safely be sent back to the cloisters of the church of Rome, whence it came. Let the moral and religious gov ernment of the institutes and exhortations addressed to disciples in their individual and social capacities be regarded, and there is no need for one of your by-laws or borough regulations.

The decorum of a public assembly is well defined, both in the sacred oracles and in the good sense of all persons of reflection. And if disciples meet not "for doing business," but for edification, prayer and praise, or discipline, they will never need any other platform or rules of decorum, than the writings of Paul, Peter, James and John. But if you, brother Semple, will have the daughter attired like her mother; or if you wish any sect to become respectable in the eyes of those acquainted with the fashions in London and Rome, you must have sectarian colleges under the patronage of churches, and churches under the patronage of associations, and associations under the patronage of state conventions, and state conventions under the patronage of a constitution, creed, and book of discipline, called "church government." And the nigher these two latter approximate to the see of Canterbury, or that of Rome, the more useful and honorable will they appear in the estimation of such christians as are deemed orthodox in the District of Columbia.

By "church government" I understand the government of the church; which the bible teaches is upon the shoulders of Immanuel. He placed the twelve apostles upon twelve thrones, and commanded the nations to obey them. I find, therefore, that the Lord Jesus is the governor, and the twelve apostles under him, sitting upon twelve thrones, constitute the government of the church of Jesus Christ. I know that synods and advisory councils have a right to govern voluntary associations, which owe their origin to the will of men; but in the church of Jesus the twelve apostles reign. Jesus, the king, the glorious and I feel very conscious that the less you and mighty Lord, gave them their authority. The other good christians say about "church governchurch is a congregation of disciples meeting in ment," in the popular sense, the better for its one place, an assembly of regenerated persons safety with the people, who have contended for who have agreed to walk together under the something, they know not what, under this guidance of Jesus Christ. Hence they are to be go- name. And just as certain am I, that if the verned by his laws. All the exhortations concer-laws governing moral and religious demeanor in