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We may therefore conclude that the church considers the adult candidates as regenerate when she is satisfied by these answers; as regenerate she admits them to baptism, grants to them as believers the seal of the righteousness of faith; aud prays that the water wherein they are to be baptized may be sanctified to the mystical washing away of sin, and that the persons to be baptized in it may receive the fulness of God's grace, and ever remain in the number of his faithful and elect children. And when all this is done with solemnity and faith, -the minister, the congregation, and the candidates, being all fervent in believing prayer, we may reasonably believe that the Holy Spirit will be given, and will often seal the pardon of the newly-baptized person with a sacred and blessed assurance.

Now all this accords exactly with the language of the article on baptism, which teaches us that baptism is a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly, are grafted into the church the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed. Faith is confirmed, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.

10. The conclusion of the Article is remarkable. • The baptism of young children is in any wise to be entertained in the church, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ.'

There seems to be an intimation in these words, that the definition of baptism given in the article applies to the baptism of infants, as well as to that of adults; and that in their case, the rite is administered on the same principles. And this inference is borne out by the church, both in the catechism, and in the office for infant baptism.

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In the catechism, the answer to the question, What is required of persons to be baptized?' is,

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Repentance whereby they forsake sin, and faith, whereby they steadfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that sacrament; the very things requisite in the case of adults. And when the difficulty of finding these qualifications in infants is objected,and the further question put, why infants are baptized, when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform these duties;' the answer is not, that the regeneration enquired after is conferred in baptism, that they are baptized as unregenerate and unbelieving, and that in baptism they become regenerate, and have the germ of repentance, faith, and every Christian grace communicated to them, -but that they promise them both by their sureties. The promise, bringing them under an obligation, is taken for the thing, and they are baptized not as unregenerate, but as regenerate. The service therefore for the public baptism of infants, proceeds in the same order as the service for the public baptism of adults. There is the same prayer for regeneration before the questions; when the questions have been satisfactorily answered, the same aspiration after the mortification of the old man, and the putting on of the new man; and when the rite has been administered, the same thanksgiving for that regenerate state in which the infant is now supposed to stand.

The infant, then, as well as the adult, is baptized as regenerate. Nor is this a mere ecclesiastical fiction. The church assumes, as she has a right to assume, that every thing is done in a Christian congregation after a Christian man. ner. She assumes that the minister, the sponsors, the parents, and the congregation, when a new member has to be admitted into the church, are alive to the sacred

ness and to the importance of the occasion, that they cordially unite in the affectionate language which she suggests to them, offering up their charitable prayers in faith. To believe that often in answer to such prayers, and sometimes unasked, unsought, the grace may be given, and the child be really regenerate and made a fit subject for baptism, has nothing in it unreasonable or absurd. This may be we can never say that it is not, and therefore receive the child into the congregation of Christ's flock, in the charitable presumption that it is. What is there enthusiastic or extravagant in so doing? When it is asserted, that in any case, when a duly ordained minister reads the prescribed service, and performs the act of sprinkling with water, the child so sprinkled is actually regenerated, made a new creature by the Holy Ghost, though never afterwards the least evidence of spiritual life appears, we can hardly defend such an assertion from the charge of at least bordering very closely on enthusiasm.

ON THE COLLECT FOR CHRISTMAS DAY.

There is some ambiguity in the language of this collect. The words, that we being regenerate and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit,' may be understood either as asserting the present state of regeneration in the petitioners, or as praying for regeneration. It may be either,

that since we are regenerate we

may be renewed,' or that becoming regenerate, we may be renewed.'

In the latter sense it was formerly understood; and in the pub

lications of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, it was entitled a Prayer for regeneration. Of late years the former interpretation has prevailed, in influential quarters, and the title changed to a prayer for renovation.*

The best method of settling the question is, to look at the same form in other collects, and see whether the participle so used, expresses a state already attained, or urges a request for something further. Now if we look over the collects, the form occurs sixteen times; and out of these sixteen there are only two, which are even doubtful; in all the rest, the participle expresses the thing prayed for. Take as a sample, the very first which occurs after the prayer for the first Sunday after Christmas day; viz, the collect on the Circumcision. Grant that our hearts and all our members being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The two which are doubtful are the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, and that for St. Andrew's day.

It is evident therefore that, in the intention of the compilers of the liturgy, the Collect for Christmas Day was to be a prayer for regeneration. And we may observe further, that whatever difference there may be between regeneration and renovation, it is renovation which is prayed for in the baptismal service, after the questions are answered, and before baptism is administered.

*The question is which of the two did the framers of the liturgy intend? J. F. C.

Review of Books.

A LETTER to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Melbourne, on Church
Extension. By BAPTIST W. NOEL, M. A. 8vo. Pp. 40. Nisbet.
THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH; or the Early
Fathers no safe guides. By BAPTIST W. NOEL, M. A. 8vo. Pp. 34.
Nisbet.

WE closed our last Volume by suggesting to our Christian friends and brethren not to rest satisfied with the grant of THIRTY THOUSAND Pounds for National Education, but to call upon our rulers to bring forth THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND for the purposes of Church Extension. Nor do we know how more suitably to resume our official labours at the commencement of another year than by reiterating this suggestion, and pressing it strongly upon their consideration.

We are deeply sensible of the importance of religious education. To early parental instruction in the word of God we owe, under the divine blessing, almost every advantage with which we have been favoured above many in this life; and those solid, and abiding hopes and consolations which oft-times cheer and animate us in the near prospect of death; we should therefore be basely ungrateful did we not, with our utmost energies, enforce upon all the scriptural instruction of the young. But at

the same time we must ever maintain that, important as early religious instruction is, its importance bears no comparison to that of the divinely appointed ordinances of public worship and faithful preaching. The young are indeed committed to the ministers of Christ's flock as the lambs whom they are to feed, but no care of the lambs will exonerate that shepherd who allows the sheep to wander and perish in the wilderness; nor can there in fact be any adequate care of the lambs, if the sheep are neglected. Every sheep master knows JANUARY, 1840.

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that if he would have a healthy and flourishing flock, the breeding stock must be well taken care of, and the lambs kept in a continually growing state until they arrive at maturity; neglect, starvation, and disappointment often and unavoidably take place, but in every such instance positive and often irremediable injury is sustained.

Now this is to a very considerable extent the case amongst ourselves at this moment. Thousands and tens of thonsands of our lambs, of our tender infants, are taught in Infant National and Sunday Schools, they are brought up to a certain point of proficiency, and then just at the moment when they are more especially qualified to receive advantage from divine ordinances, a very considerable proportion are left to wander abroad, no man caring for their souls; there is no room in our churches for their accommodation, no minister of religion for their instruction; they must either turn dissenters or sabbath-breakers; nay in many instances they have scarcely a choice, for dissenters as well as churchmen are often straitened for room; they gradually lose the impressions once received, oft-times fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts, and produce and train up an offspring well prepared for crime and misery.

This may appear to some strong language, but it is not stronger than the exigencies of the case require. The existing places of worship cannot receive our overflowing population. This is decidedly proved by Mr. Noel in his valuable Letter to Lord Melbourne;

and who, adopting the language of the Commissioners appointed to consider the state of the established church, observes that—

The result of this rapid growth of the population in large towns and other populous districts, has been 'that a vast proportion of the people are left destitute of the opportunities of public worship and Christian instruction, even when every allowance is made for the exertions of those religious bodies, which are not in connexion with the Established Church.' That

In London and its suburbs thirty-four parishes, with a population of 1,137,000, and church-room for 101,680, contain 933,640 unprovided. But from this number of persons represented as without church-room, some deduction may be made, since about 25,000 may find sittings in proprietary chapels connected with the Establishment. The whole number, therefore, for which the Establishment has made no provision whatever, is 883,000, instead of 933,000. As these 883,000 are unprovided with church-room, so are they, for the most part, destitute of Christian ministers. For the whole number of clergymen in these parishes is 139, and since no one of these can take effectual charge of more than 2,000 persons, there are only 278,000 persons provided with ministers, and the other 859,000 persons who are destitute of church-room, are also without Christian ministers to instruct them.

In several dioceses, the want of churches is not much less. In the diocese of Chester, thirty-eight districts, with 816,000 inhabitants, and church-room for 97,000, contain, therefore, 622,000 unprovided. In the diocese of York, twenty districts, with a population of 402,000, and church-room for only 48,000, contain 306,000 unprovided. In the diocese of Lichfield, sixteen districts, with 235,000, and church-room for 29,000, contain 177,000 unprovided. Thus out of a population of only 1,453,000, eleven hundred and five thousand are left by the Establishment without the possibility of public worship, and without Christian teach

ers.

But then it may be said the defects of the church are, to a considerable extent, supplied by the exertions of dissent; that the voluntary system affords a powerful aid to the establishment. Here again Mr. Noel well observes

Were there any sound religious instruction, though unconnected with the Establishment, provided for this population, I

should not feel bound to address your Lordship on the subject. My great desire is, that they should hear the Gospel, and if the Gospel were preached by ministers of other denominations, I should rejoice in their zeal, and wish them all success. To reclaim these millions from dissent to conformity, might not be an object to secure which I should thus solicit your Lordship's attention. But there is reason to fear that multitudes, from the want of public instruction, are living without religious habits altogether. The whole number of orthodox dissenters is not more than 3,000,000, scattered among the 15,500,000 of England and Wales, i. e. they are less than one fifth of the whole. Assuming this to be the proportion of these dissenters, in those portions of the population of which I have been speaking, then in these thirty-four parishes of London, with 1,137,000 souls, the number of dissenters is 227,400, and the number unprovided, therefore, with ministers and places of worship, is still 655,600. On the same supposition, the number of dissenters among 1,453,000 above mentioned is 290,600, and the whole number unprovided is 814,400.

And after an extended calculation on this subject, he adds,

We have thus come to the painful conclusion, that in 108 districts containing 2,590,000 persons, there are from 1,380,000 to 1,470,000 persons without public prayer, or preaching, or sacraments; of many of whom it is to be feared they are also without the Scriptures, without family prayer, and without any open recognition of God whatsoever.

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Now such being the lamentable want of accommodation in the existing places of worship, every real friend of scriptural education bound to labour also in the cause of church extension. The increase of education without an enlargement of the means of public worship may not inaptly be compared to the rearing and feeding of one hundred lambs, who when just arrived at maturity are crowded into a pasture which can only feed some thirty or forty. The folly is only less striking because not so immediately visible.

But it may be said, the remedy is in progress-new churches are every where springing up. The public mind is alive to the evil. We may therefore well press forwards our plans of education, and

there will speedily be room enough and to spare, for all for whom even a common education can be provided.

But those who thus reason, only shew how imperfectly they are acquainted with the magnitude of the evil with which we have to contend. Dr. Chalmers, near twenty years ago, observed that the utmost exertions of private benevolence, could only demonstrate, but never overtake the existing want of church accommodation. Mr. Webster at the same time maintained in a sermon before the University of Cambridge, that the population increased so much more rapidly than the additional church accommodation, that the proportion of absentees from our church must continually increase; and now after all that has since been effected, Mr. Noel brings the matter to a point by a striking appeal to indisputable facts.

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But this want of all Christian instruction must, if disregarded, rapidly increase for, of the annual increase of 200,000, the greater part will, in all probability, be yearly added to the town population.

One hundred thousand at least will be annually added to those who, in Protestant England, and under the wing of the Establishment, have neither pastors, nor sacraments, nor public worship, nor any of the habits of religion; but are left unheeded in their ignorance and ungodliness.

Public attention has been repeatedly called to these facts. The charges of several Bishops, the reports of several Societies, acts of Parliament, and, above all, the second report of the Church Commissioners, have spread this melancholy information widely through the country, and originated various remedial efforts.

But these efforts have proved inadequate to the cure of this great social mischief. To meet the wants of the metropolis, the Bishop of London proposed to create a fund for the erection of fifty new churches. The late King was pleased to contribute £1000. Her Majesty has also contributed £1000, and the Bishop has given £2000. Led by these examples and by the urgency of the case, archbishops and bishops, nobles and commoners, ministers of State, rich colleges, and richer city companies, have all contributed to this object. Appeals have been printed,

and sermons preached for it. Benevolent persons, from every part of the Empire, have sent their aid. It was felt to be a noble project. The metropolis ought to set an example to the empire, and might by its achievements kindle an universal zeal for the promotion of religion. Yet with all these advantages, and while 600,000 persons in thirty-four of its parishes were known to be living in unregarded irreligion, the metropolis of Great Britain, the emporium of the world, the seat of government, whose ships are on every sea, whose 'merchants are princes,' and where the richest nobility in the world are congregated, had only raised at the time of the Second Annual Report of the Committee of the Church Fund £127,000. At the moderate cost of £5,000 to a church, £250,000 would be required to raise those fifty churches, and, two years after the appeal, the sum raised was scarcely more than one half.

But we must not mistake a palliative for a remedy. Year by year, while these churches are rising, the population of the city is advancing with prodigious velocity. In 1821, it was 1,225,694, and in 1831, it was 1,471,941; so that the increase in ten years has been 246,247, and as there is no reason to believe that the rate of increase has diminished, the metropolis will have increased, at the end of ten years after the creation of the metropolis church fund, about 246,000. Meanwhile, fifty churches capable of holding, on an average, 1,200 persons each, will have provided 60,000 sittings, a supply sufficient for a population of 120,000. And should the dissenters do as much, the whole number provided for in those ten years will be 240,000, or 6,000 less than the new population added to the metropo. lis within the same period. At the beginning of the ten years, 631,000 persons were unprovided, and all that the religious zeal of the community, excited by the enormous destitution, by fervent appeals, and by noble instances of liberality, has been able to effect, is, at the end of ten years, to leave 637,000 persons unprovided. All the efforts of all the religious persons of all denominations, through ten years, will leave the metropolis at the end, worse provided with churches than it was at the beginning. No other large district can be assumed to have greater advantages than London, for none has greater wealth, nor can any draw so much help from other parts of the country. If the result, therefore, of all the religious zeal in the community, is to leave in London, at the end of ten years, a larger number unprovided than there are at the commencement of these years, can we hope that the state of things in the dioceses of York, Lichfield, and Chester, will be much better?

If not,

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