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dent investigation, is, we say, remarkable. The coincidence in time, in argument, and in the main conclusion, is striking. We are aware that Dr. Nadal and Mr. Grout do not speak for the denomination they respectively represent. We do not believe the majority, nor even a large minority, of the Methodists would accept Dr. Nadal's conclusion. In fact, the editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review, in a foot-note at the close of his Article, says: "We insert the above Article in cordial respect for the eminent character of the lamented writer, and not from any coincidence with his views." As for our Congregational brethren, neither do we think a large proportion of them are prepared to accept the position stated and defended by Mr. Grout. Yet we cannot but regard the nearly simultaneous appearance of these two Articles, one in January, and the other in April of the same year, as a most significant fact. They appear as the views of individuals, it is true, and their authors alone are responsible for the presentation and advocacy of those views before the religious public; still, we regard their authors as representative of a class, more or less numerous, among our Paedobaptist brethren, who are thinking deeply on the question relative to the status of baptized children, and who are not satisfied with the present indefiniteness. The sig nificance, therefore, we attribute to the Articles we have referred to is, that they indicate most decidedly a state of uncertainty, and hence of unrest and dissatisfaction, in the minds of many Paedobaptists on the relation of baptized children to the church. That there exists this feeling of indefiniteness on the subject, Mr. Grout concedes at the outset, and evidently he designs his Article to be a contribution toward the solution of this pressing and perplexing problem. He finds the opinions of many of the "clergy and laity vague and diversified" respecting it. He says:

1 Mr. Douglass, an English Paedobaptist Non-conformist, in his racy, and eminently suggestive volume, entitled, "The Pastor and his People," in the chapter on "Uses of Infant Baptism," corroborates what Mr. Grout asserts. Mr. Douglass, it should be noticed, speaks for England, and Mr. Grout for America. They state the same fact: " Not one in a hundred can tell you any

"Some will admit that they belong to the church, yet seem to doubt or deny that the church belongs at all to them; that is, the church has a claim upon the children and an interest in them, but the children have as yet no interest or place in the church. Some hold that they are in the church, yet not of it; as though to be in it in any sense worthy of the name is not to be of it. Not a few seem to regard them as neither in it nor out of it, but as occupying some sort of middle ground; as though this were either scriptural or tenable." He continues: "On this point [the relation of baptized children to the church] our Congregational churches, many of them,- at least many members in most of them,have departed from the teachings of the divine word, from the faith and practice of the primitive church, from the faith and practice of the Puritan fathers, and from the faith, at least, of other branches of the catholic church of the present age; the Baptists alone excepted."

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To what extent this vagueness of conception of which Mr. Grout complains exists among Congregationalists, and others as well, we have no means of determining; but evidently among Congregationalists it must be considerable; for he says: "Inquiring of one and another as to their thoughts on this subject, what they believe to be the proper ecclesiastical standing of baptized children, — whether they belong to the church, are in it and of it, or out of it, or where they are, the writer has been somewhat surprised at the variety of views that prevail, even among those who are supposed to be of the same general faith in respect to the duty and import of infant baptism." Evidently, he regards it as somewhat wide-spread, and that his opinion might not be conjectural, he made inquiry, in order that he might form an intelligent judgment. We most naturally infer that Mr. Grout did not make inquiry of the masses, but rather thing about the matter. They comply with the custom; may consider it decorous, respectable and religious, but that is all" (p. 164). Again, in the same chapter, he says: "Generally speaking, the members of our churches cannot see that infant baptism is of any use whatever. They comply with it from custom, but not one in a thousand can tell you the cui bono of the matter."

of pastors of churches, of the more prominent and intelligent laymen, and of professors in colleges and theological seminaries, with whom, as a "returned missionary," he would be most frequently brought in contact. If, then, as we suppose, in such circles be found a variety of views prevailing, signs of hesitancy and want of definiteness, - it is highly probable those of the masses are not more definite. As for ourselves, we have long been satisfied that what Mr. Grout affirms of Congregationalists is more or less true of our evangelical Paedobaptist brethren generally. We have encountered the same thing when conversing with ministers and laymen among them on this subject. The question of the relationship of baptized children to the church, and the suggestion of difficulties that must arise in any attempt to reconcile the retention of infant baptism with the doctrine of a regenerated church-membership, has always been perplexing. This, as is well known, is persistently pressed by Baptists, and we believe our Paedobaptist brethren must feel its force more and more. It has been repeatedly said, infant baptism is declining. Mr. Grout makes a reference to this opinion, in the early portion of his Article, and attributes it to the "doubts, errors, and haziness of sentiment" prevailing as to the relation which infants sustain to the church. How far infant baptism may have declined, we do not know; but statistics, and the passage occasionally of a resolution by an ecclesiastical body, censuring its neglect, and urging its observance, indicate its decline. As a Baptist, however, I have never regarded this decline as arising so much from the spread of the conviction among our Pacdobaptist brethren that infant baptism is unscriptural (though there is something of this, and it is increasing), as from a want of clearness of definition of its significancy, and the relation the baptized child sustains to the church. The neglect, so far as it exists, arises, we believe, more from difficulties felt within, than from the pressure of Baptists from without. The reasons urged in defence of the retention of infant baptism are not

1 See foot-note in Madison Avenue Lectures, p. 181.

uniform; one author denying what another affirms; and the two Articles we now have before us afford sufficient proof of the existence of conflicting views respecting the relation of baptized children to the visible church. Such being the fact, it is not strange that Mr. Grout found, as the the result of his inquiries, a "variety of views" that surprised him, or that Baptists should discover in statistics. evidence of the decline of infant baptism. If such "haziness of sentiment" as Mr. Grout asserts exist, the neglect of infant baptism must follow as a necessity.

Believing, therefore, that among evangelical Paedobaptists the baptism of infants is being neglected in consequence of "haziness of vision" as to its reasons and significancy, we have thought the time nearing when they must re-examine the whole question, and make either more or less of itstate its utility, and define the relation of the baptized child to the church, or else reject the baptism of children altogether, and accept the Baptists' position as to the proper subject of the ordinance as the exponent of the theory and fact of the New Testament. Mr. Grout has reached the same conclusion, and is glad that the crisis is approaching. He says: "Nor, again, do we think it among the least hopeful signs of the times pertaining to this point that so many are coming to be dissatisfied with the present state of the question. If we mistake not, the opinion is beginning to prevail that we as Congregationalists must take up this subject anew; that both the clergy and the laity must think it through from end to end, and come to some conclusion less crude, more positive, definite, and consistent; that we must go either backward or forward, if we would ever hope to set our feet on solid ground." This conclusion is as correct as it is emphatic. Infant baptism means something or nothing. If something, let it be decided by its advocates what; if nothing, they should abandon it. The baptized child sustains such a relation to the church as the unbaptized child does not, and is in virtue of its baptism entitled to such privileges as an unbaptized child is not. If so, let that relation be decided, let

those privileges be defined. If the baptized child enters not into a relation to the church, and is not entitled to certain privileges denied the unbaptized child, does not its baptism degenerate into a religious farce? Mr. Grout is right in his conclusion, when he says: "We must go either backward or forward, if we would ever hope to set our feet on solid ground." The definition of this relation, and of its consequent privileges, is the object at which both Mr. Grout and Dr. Nadal aim.

As already stated, both lay down the same proposition. They both affirm that baptized children are members of the church. Dr. Nadal says: "We claim that infant churchmembership is a principle common to all three of the Bible dispensations of religion"- the patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian. Mr. Grout says: "Baptized children are truly members of the church." This, however, was not always his opinion; for he continues: "Indeed, few are likely to be further from it than he was when first led, not long since, to take up the subject and give it more than ordinary attention. But every step in the investigation served only to lead him to the conviction here avowed, that the children of whom we speak are really and truly in the church and members of it." The current phrase, “children of the church," is not strong enough to express his conception of the relation. He objects to it as both defective and dangerous. This he sees in the fact that it gives but a partial representation of their relation. It does not give prominence to the idea of "membership in the church." He says: "We may call them infant members, minor members, or members in minority, if we will; only say not that a membership of this kind is imaginary, absurd, or worthless; but rather bona fide, most real, and of blessed import." What he means by the church-membership of baptized children he thus fully states: "The membership we claim for those of whom we speak is more than hereditary, nominal, or honorary. The baptized child is brought into the church, and sealed and made a member of it, in a higher sense, for other

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