at Bristol, and to send him under the care of Dr. Ryland, There are good reasons to conclude, that the assiduous attentions paid by Mr. Phillips to the interests of the Sunday school, contributed greatly to qualify him for missionary labours. His parting address to the children and the teachers on his leaving London for Bristol, will show the state of his mind at that season, whilst it exhibits his character as a Sunday-school teacher to high advantage.

to receive him, to the Academy ing was deeply affecting. 0 that we may meet around the throne of God, and be for ever happy in his presence, to go no more out! How peculiarly interesting is christian friendship! How combined are its pleasures and its pains! In this world, sweet as it is, it is subject to interruptions. Here we meet, and enjoy the sweetest of earthly delights, but how painful are the separations from those with whom we have often taken sweet counsel, and gone to the house of God in company! But though we are absent in body, and though thousands of miles may separate us from communion with each other, we shall approach the same throne of grace, and remember each other there. We shall often think on the goodness of our covenant God which has been manifested towards us, and erect an Ebenezer of gratitude to his name. O the blessedness of religion, true religion, the religion of the cross! It meets our every necessity: by its influence what glorious effects are produced and experienced. O that its truths and influence were known and felt as extensively as the effects of sin! Hasten the time, O Lord, and make Jerusalem a praise in the whole earth!” Dec. 6, 1822.

"February 12, 1815. Delivered my farewell address to the children of the Sunday school, from Luke xv. 2. This man receiveth sinners! It was truly a solemn season: very many of the children were melted into tears. I spoke of the probability of its being the last time I should address them upon the subjects which related to their everlasting peace, and said, that perhaps we might meet no more on earth, but we should meet at the judgmentseat of Christ, there to give account of the manner in which I had preached and they had heard. I requested their serious attention, and endeavoured to direct it to Jesus Christ. I enjoyed much liberty in speaking, and the children appeared afterwards as if they had been deeply affected. I addressed the teachers also on the subject of their discouragements and encouragements, and exhorted them to

(To be concluded in our next.)

I.

abound in their work. Having Scriptural Views of Christ essential

shaken hands with each child, my desires were fervent that my labours in the school, might not have been in vain. The teachers then sung a hymn, and my dear friend Sutton prayed. Our part

Missionary at Moorshedabad

to Christianity.

THE knowledge of Christ is evidently an attainment of the highest importance, because scriptural views of his person and offices essentially affect our religious principles in general, and

are necessary to a proper recep- system, we shall discover no retion of the christian faith. If ference, except to the simple indeed this faith were merely fact of his divine mission, or to designed to enforce a rational the principal events of his hisworship and a pure morality, tory. It may therefore be inby teaching us the unity of ferred, that if the character of God, the doctrine of a moral pro- Moses were sunk in oblivion, or vidence, and the retributions of if another name were substituted a future state, it might doubtless in its room, while the leading be received in a perfect form, by facts of the Pentateuch remained, persons who had little or no idea Judaism would experience scarce of the sacred personage from ly the shadow of a change, nor whom it derives its name. But the writings of the prophets reevery person who has any acquire a single variation. quaintance with the New Testament will perceive, that christi anity, in this, as well as in other respects, differs essentially from every system of theology and morals proposed to the world, either by the sages of antiquity, or by the philosophers of modern times. The Mosaic law, indeed, by virtue of its divine origin, approaches the nearest in resen blance to the christian faith. Yet the slightest comparison of the two systems, as interwoven with the character of their authors, will convince us, that while the law confers dignity upon Moses, Christianity receives its dignity and essence from Christ.

But in turning to the gospel of Christ as delineated in the New Testament, a different scene arrests our notice, and we perceive his character and work interwoven with the system in all its parts, not as the author only, but as the subject and essence of the whole. The grand events of his ministry are not only topics of frequent reference in the discourses and writings of his apostles, considered merely as evidences of his divine mission, and the consequent authority of his doctrine; but the relation of those facts to the christian scheme, and the offices he sustains in the economy of redemption, form the substance of their compositions in describing the peculiarities of our faith. In the epistolary

minded of the dignity of his person, the design of his obedience unto death, the submission due from his people, or the magnitude of those blessings which he dispenses to the world. Whether

It is doubtless assumed by the disciples of Judaism, that Moses became their lawgiver by a di-writings, we are continually revine commission, and that a series of supernatural interpositions in Egypt and the wilder ness, confirmed the authority of his institutions, and enforced the observance of his laws. But if we attentively consider his eco-they describe the attributes of nomy as establislied in the Pentateuch, and exemplified in the historical, prophetic, devotional, and moral books of the Old Testament, instead of finding his name and character intermingled with every discussion, as though it were the life and soul of the

God, or trace the disclosure of his purposes, or mark the progress of his government in the dispensations of grace, or predict the history of the church in its different vicissitudes, or anticipate the events of a future world, or describe the influence of religion

on the heart and character of its it probable that a change of votaries; it may be truly affirmed, views concerning Christ, would that instead of referring to ourLord in many respects reverse or moas a subject of remote, second-dify the whole system of our ary, or subordinate importance, theology. Christ is all and in all." He not only constructed christianity as a moral machine to effect the renovation of society, but is himself the main spring of its different movements, the full force of which is essential to its moral utility and spiritual operations. He is not only the founder of the christian church, but the foundation and chief corner stone of the edifice, in whom alone the whole building fitly compacted together, can become a holy temple for the Lord. He is not only a part of the spiritual system, but the centre of the whole; the sun of righteousness, around which all the parts and all the messengers of divine revelation circulate like the planets of the solar system, which revolve around the sun, as the centre of their movements, and the source of their warmth and glory.

From these premises it is reasonable to infer, that ignorance of the true character of Christ, or the adoption of some false hypothesis respecting him, will essentially modify our ideas of the whole system, and render our reception of christianity in its native form impossible. We shall put opposite constructions perhaps on the same fact, draw conclusions from a principle that will never warrant them, or imagine a series of doctrines that have no being. And as the notions we receive on the subject of astronomy would be entirely reversed, by renouncing the Copernican system for that which supposes the earth to be the centre around which the sun and the stars revolve daily; so is

In

If indeed we appeal to actual experience, no doubt will remain that the principal hypotheses maintained on this subject, instead of being regarded as solitary points of difference, are rather accompanied with trains of thinking, and modes of belief, which change the complexion of their systems, and leave scarcely a doctrine of whose import the same ideas are entertained. the eye of two individuals, the one of whom regards our Lord as simply a good man, endowed with great wisdom for the instruction of the ignorant, whilst the other conceives him to be the Son of God, incarnate, whom the Father sent to be the Saviour of the world, christianity not only assumes a different aspect, but is, in many respects, a different thing. The former, per haps, considers it as a code of pure morality, enforced by the example of its author, by amiable displays of the divine goodness, and by the retributions of a future life, which the death and resurrection of Jesus were designed to ratify. But the latter, in connection with these sentiments, views it with admiration as a grand scheme of mediatorial interposition in behalf of man, by which the grace of God can be dispensed; while the purity of his law, and the justice of his moral government, are secured in the redemption and final happiness of his people. Instead of regarding the advent, death, and resurrection of Christ, or the preparatory dispensations of the Old Testament, as insulated facts which are important only because

the former must be essentially defective, and radically wrong.

And yet, upon closely examin

they were extraordinary, he ra>ther views them as the progressive developement of a plan, formed in the divine purpose being the subject, it will be found that ́ fore the foundation of the world, these differences, however remote, and including a series of dispen- are not suppositions formed for sations in regard to man, from the sake of argument, but facts the beginning of time till the con- naturally arising from the insummation of the mediatorial eco- fluence of different hypotheses nomy. Thus he not only con- in the ordinary operations of ceives it to be "a faithful say- theological enquiry and belief. ing, and worthy of all accepta- No person who has either made tion, that Jesus' Christ came into the experiment himself, or been the world to save sinners;" but conversant with persons long in connection with this belief as grounded in the different systems, its natural associates, he likewise will be disposed to deny the facts perceives and maintains the rec- assumed in this argument, whattitude and benevolence of the ever he may think of its applicadivine sovereignty; the fall of tion or force. A solitary excepman from his original perfection; tion or two, perhaps, may recur the universal degeneracy and ruin to his recollection, of persons who of our species; the insufficiency espoused opposite opinions conof human wisdom and virtue to cerning Christ, while their views effect their recovery; the neces- on other points, usually deemed "sity of divine influence to enlighten evangelical, remained for a conand renovate the soul; the doc- siderable time at least, nearly trine of justification by faith only; unanimous. But it will be readily the intercession and lordship of acknowledged as a general and Christ for the benefit of his peo- obvious fact, that the opinions ple; together with his personal which men adopt in all the demanifestation and agency, as the partments of theology, are intijudge of all men in the solemn mately affected by their views of and universal decisions of the last the person and work of Christ, day. By the former, many of and the offices assigned him in the these doctrines are looked upon divine economy. If the knowas fictions or absurdities; while ledge of Christ therefore be essenthe latter calls them the peculiar tial to our receiving the gospel in doctrines, the distinguishing fea- its native purity, undiminished tures of evangelical religion. So and uncorrupted by human spewide is the difference between culations, to say nothing of its them, that both cannot be cor- experimental and practical inrect; but one or the other must fluence, it cannot be estimated be seriously mistaken. If the too highly, nor sought after with views of the former include a pro- attention more serious, or soliciper reception and discernment of tude more persevering, than its the christian faith, the latter importance justifies, or its nemust be guilty of connecting with cessity requires. sit the vain traditions, or vainer subtleties of men. But if the latter derive their doctrines from the New Testament, the creed of

Harlow, Nov. 1822.

T. F.

Letter from the Rev. James Bass.* | very few comparatively, were really converted during our Sa

To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.viour's residence on earth, I cannot cease to feel it my duty to maintain them.

DEAR SIR,

The review of "An Address Reviewer should have adduced But I am surprised that the on Baptism," &c. which appear- the case of the Eunuch as so deed in your Magazine for Septem-cisively against me, without nober, contains some mis-statements of my system, which you will allow me, I doubt not, an opportunity of rectifying.

"All

ticing what I have said on the subject. I have endeavoured to prove, and to my own mind I have satisfactorily proved, that Philip did not sit in judgment on his character, and that his confession of faith amounted to nothing more than an acknowledgment that Jesus was the Son of

1. The Reviewer says, inquiry into the sentiments and conduct of those who request to be baptized, or any confession of faith, appears to Mr. Bass to be an undue assumption of authori- God; and I would ask whether ty; yet such inquisition he reit is a fair inference, because gards as essentially requisite to a he proposed queries which his participation of the Lord's-sup-baptizer answered, and because per and the privileges of church he finally declared his belief in fellowship: but while the case of the divinity of Christ, that mithe Eunuch is confessedly in the way of the former part of this distinction, no case whatever is cited in support of the latter."

The first part of this assertion, I freely acknowledge, contains my undisguised sentiments; and while the plain language of scripture is, "I baptize you unto repentance;"-"Be baptized for

the remission of sins:"-while I

read that Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, came to be bap tized of John, and that Jesus by his disciples baptized even greater multitudes, and yet not a single instance appears of any who applied for baptism being refused, nor even of their admission to it being delayed:—and while also, notwithstanding such numbers received this ordinance, it is a generally acknowledged fact that

* To avoid the charge of unfairness, we insert this letter, and, without entering into a lengthened controversy, we shall remark on those parts only in which the writer" complains." Ed.

nisters are from thence authorized to judge of the spiritual state of those who desire the ordinance of baptism, and to admit them to, or to reject them from it, at their own discretion?

The mis-statement, however, of which I particularly complain in the passage I have quoted, is this; that though I maintain the conduct and sentiments of candinecessity of an inquiry into the dates for church fellowship, "no case whatever is cited in support of it:" this must surely be an oversight of the reviewer's; for in a note, page 62, I refer to the case of Saul expressly for this Purpose:-"Saul assayed to join himself to the disciples, (the church,) but was rejected; when

Ananias related on his behalfnot his baptism,-although he had baptized him, but his call grace and the consistency of subsequent conduct." [A]

bv

his