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before? Such an appeal to every possible principle of gratitude, honor, generosity, love, hope and fear, was never combined in the universe before; nor is such a combination possible, save to an infinite, incarnate, atoning God. And what do facts say ? Need the oft repeated story of the Moravian brethren, and the poor Greenlanders be told again? Need the experience of ages past, and of every faithful and successful minister of the present day be rehearsed in proof? Nay, we all know the fact; it lies on the very surface of the system, as well as in its lowest depths; yea, I had almost said, it is its all in all.

What, therefore, the internal interpretation affirms as it regards the natural influence of the system of forgiveness by faith in Christ, is an obvious and well known truth; and it is true concerning this system alone. The argument, then, is not only perfectly logical, but one of the highest importance and power.

But what shall we say of the external interpretation? How does, or how can an external rite prove that the system of forgiveness of sins through Christ produces death to sin? The reply of the Fathers would have been logical if true. They held that Christ gave to the water a purging power; it was holy water; there was a mysterious energy to destroy sin and to communicate the Holy Spirit. Hence they urged sinners to come to the baptismal pool, very much as sinners are urged to come to the inquirer's seat, or even to Christ. Alas for the religion of Christ! for centuries long and dark this was almost the only view of the church; and let those, who attach such weight to patristic interpretation, weigh well, before they give it much authority, that malignant and damnable system-of which it was an essential part-BAPTISMAL REGENERATION! What tongue

can utter the delusion, the spiritual despotism and the misery, which have been poured from that full cup of wrath on a guilty world! This view, therefore, is not only to be rejected as false, but to be abhorred as unutterably pernicious.

We come then to all that remains to the moral influence of the solemnity of the baptismal promise and rite, as exhibited by Prof. Chase and others; or, to the argument from its import as stated by Mr. Carson. According to the first view, those who have been duly immersed are supposed to be thus addressed: "Reflect how solemn your professions and promises in the hour of baptism, and how significant the rite by which your duty was shadowed forth, and your relations to Christ presented to the mind. Did you not solemnly promise, when immersed, to die

unto sin and to live unto God? And as you sunk into a watery grave, and came forth once more to the vital air, did you not solemnly show forth your duty to die to sin, and rise to a new and holy life, and also the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, by which your salvation was procured?"

It is painful indeed even to seem to speak severely of what is so sincerely and conscientiously said. But, in fidelity to God and to man, I am constrained to ask: What does all this amount to, unless it be to throw the main and peculiar reforming power of the gospel, upon the influence to be exerted by the solemnities of one external rite? And is it come to this? Is this all the answer that even an apostle can give to an objection against the gospel, so deep, so fundamental ? Are solemn promises and the moral power of one rite, the vital and essential elements of the reforming power of the gospel? God forbid that I should deny or diminish their usefulness in their place. But this is not their place. We all know-universal experience has taught us-that promises, however solemn, and rites however significant, have no such reforming power. And universal observation has shown that those, who are baptized by the particular mode of immersion, are not by it made better Christians than others. On this point let Prof. Chase himself speak. "To you," he says, "I have intrusted the vindicating of my wisdom and goodness in the institution of baptism, by exemplifying in your lives its holy tendency. Vain are all other vindications without this." Sermon on the Design of Baptism, p. 28. But he says, p. 26, "Christians living in error on this subject, and attached, as men naturally are, to what has been handed down from their fathers, have marked us; and the men of the world have marked us. They have observed our lives. And have we never heard the keen reproach: What do ye more than others? Ah! my brethren, if it were only a slander, we could bear it. But when he himself-our Lord and Master-into whose death we have been baptized, casts on us the grieved and piercing look, which he cast on Peter when he had denied him, and asks: What do ye more than others? we can only go out and weep bitterly." Will my honored brother allow me to suggest, that, if he will place infinitely less dependence on the power of that external rite, in which he differs from other Christians, and infinitely more dependence on those great truths of the system, which he has in common with other Christians, and on which its reforming power is entirely based,

he will have reached the true and only secret of irresistibly moving moral appeals? Till then, unless all the laws of the human mind shall be changed, he will labor in vain to secure, by the aid of any external rite, the end which he so sincerely and ardently desires.

But Mr. Carson and others will say: That is not our view. We hold that Paul uses the symbolical import of baptism, to prove that believers are in fact dead to sin. To this I reply: It does not help the case; for an external rite, in such a course of argument, cannot prove any such thing. How can the operation of any system on the mind be proved, except by looking directly at the mind itself, and considering the effect of the system on it? To test the argument, let us suppose an objector, and see what Mr. Carson on his ground can reply.

Obj. I distrust this system of freely forgiving the greatest sins through faith in Christ. It tends to encourage men to live in sin.

Mr. C. Not at all. Those who live under it are of course dead to sin.

Obj. Pray how do you prove that?

Mr. C. Are you indeed so ignorant as not to know? Why it is clearly proved by the import of the baptismal rite.

Obj. Pray explain the nature of the proof?

Mr. C. It exhibits those baptized in a figure, as dead with Christ, and thus proves that they are so. See p. 231.

Obj. But how can an external exhibition of this sort prove that Christians are dead to sin?

Mr. C. Thus. This is not an accidental similitude, but a divinely appointed emblem; and, therefore, what it indicates God affirms, and, therefore, it must be true. See pp. 231, 232. Obj. So then it amounts to this; it is so, because God de

clares it to be so by this rite?

Mr. C. Yes, this is its force.

Obj. Well then, if it were a case of mere authority and not of argument, it would be in point. But as a means of removing my difficulties by argument, it is not in point. For I am looking at a system of forgiveness of sins; and I affirm that it appears to me as if it would encourage, and not check sin. And you undertook to reason with me, and yet you explain nothing, and only silence me by mere authority. Can you not reason with me, and show from the system itself, and from the laws of the mind, that it does not so tend? Lay aside, I beseech you, SECOND SERIES, VOL. VI. NO. I.

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your external symbols, and look at the things themselves. Just show me the necessary operation of the system on the mind of a forgiven sinner.

What can Mr. Carson do but comply with his request? And this brings him at once to the true and internal mode of interpretation-to lay aside all external rites, and to bend all his energies to prove, by an appeal to the mind under the operation of the system, that it has a reforming, and not a demoralizing power. And this, as I have already shown, is precisely what Paul does, without the least allusion to an external rite.

The obvious fact is, that all allusion to an external rite is here out of place. It destroys the train of reasoning, perplexes and confuses the mind, and causes a deep and painful feeling of the entire absence of logical proof. Hence we need not wonder, that logical minds have felt this. Mr. Barnes says openly that there is no reasoning here, but mere popular appeal; and truly, according to the external mode of interpretation, there is none. But is this the place for popular appeal? If ever an objection deserved a thorough and logical reply, this is the one. Moreover, up to this point we have had reasoning, cogent and condensed. Why suppose a break in the chain here? Above all other places, this ought to be strictly logical, and unanswerably strong; and so indeed it is. There is no break; there is no flaw; there is no relying on popular appeal; there is no magnifying of the power of promises, professions and external rites. But there is a close logical and unanswerable argument, from the necessary operation of the gospel on the human mind. But this will become still more evident, when we proceed to consider the requisitions of the usus loquendi, as to spiritual crucifixion, death, burial, etc.

§. 33. Argument from the usus loquendi as to spiritual death, burial, etc.

We have great reason for gratitude, that the mode of speech, used in these disputed passages, is not limited to them, but exists in numerous other places, where it can be the subject of no fair dispute. The usus loquendi in question is not accidental, without rules, and obscure, but based on principles clear, certain and consistent. It is found chiefly in the writings of Paul, but it clearly occurs in those of Peter. Its principles are these:

1. The spiritual crucifixion, towards which the forgiveness of sins tends, as already shown, is a work involving great and intense pain, and to induce a man to summon all his resolu

tion and energy to do it thoroughly, powerful motives are needed.

2. Such is the nature of man, that the most powerful motives, by which he can be influenced, must be derived from the following sources-(1,) affecting examples of fortitude in suffering(2,) infinite blessings received through a suffering friend-(3,) the deep interest of that friend in our suffering for him. The loss of fortitude to endure suffering for the general good, and a love of indolence and ease are the universal characteristics of our depraved nature, and are the hardest of all to be overcome. But if the idea can be fully thrown into the mind and kept daily before it, that our highest benefactor himself suffered with infinite fortitude, and not only so, but that he thus suffered for us, and not only so, that he infinitely and ardently desires to form the same traits in us, and rejoices to see us, from love to him, crucify the spirit of indolence, indulgence and ease, and learn to rejoice in a life of fortitude and suffering for the good of others, like his own, then motives are concentrated, and accumulated, the power of which no man can resist.

3. It is the design of this mode of speech to combine all these varied motives in one condensed appeal. The mode adopted is this. Christ and the believer are represented as mutually interested in each other, and both as suffering for and with the other. The part in each, that suffers, is called by the same name—the flesh. But in the one case, it is external and material-the body of Christ. In the other, it is internal and spiritual-the body of sin, the old man. As each is spoken of as having a body, so each body is represented as composed of members; in the one case, external and material as before, in the other case, internal and spiritual, i. e. various and deep-rooted habits of sin to eradicate, by a process as painful as to cut off a right hand or foot, or to pluck out a right eye. Thus we have the body of sin, and its members, the old man and his members, which are the same as the flesh, with its affections and lusts.

All these then are spoken of as to be crucified, eradicated and destroyed; but as the work is excessively painful, and flesh and blood shrink from its thorough execution, the example of Christ, as enduring intense pain in his flesh, i. e. his body and members, in the agonies of crucifixion for us, is presented as an example for us to imitate, in our moral crucifixion for him. And we are adjured, in view of such an example, such love for us, and such deep present interest in us, to arm ourselves with the

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