it involved no concession of principle; but if it does, we will not give place by subjection, no not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel may continue with us. All who come to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they may bring us into bondage, we shall fearlessly resist, relying on the Spirit of God for his guidance and aid. Such are the opposing systems and their consequences.

§ 43. State of the controversy. Mr. Carson's reply.

It is an entire anomaly in the history of controversy, that consequences so vast should depend upon the meaning of a single word, yet such is the fact. All of these consequences hinge upon the meaning of the single word Banzio. And as to this word, the whole question turns upon the simple inquiry: was there a transition in ßantico from its primary sense to immerse, to the secondary sense to purify, irrespective of mode, and is that the sense in the command?

Now the possibility of such a transition cannot be denied. For, as I have shown, nothing is more common than such changes. And of the fact that the change did take place, I have alleged what seems to me unanswerable proof.

If, therefore, my premises cannot be overthrown, the conclusions above stated of necessity follow. I had supposed that a position so serious in its bearings, would be at once and severely scrutinized in this country, but it has not been. A short time since, however, I heard, on coming from the west to the east, that Mr. Carson, of Edinburgh, had published a reply, and hoped soon to see it republished in this country. At last, I read in the Christian Watchman a notice taken from an English Baptist magazine, stating in substance that Mr. Carson, the celebrated Greek scholar, had totally annihilated my arguments. That they were both dead and buried, and that no one dared to appear in their defence. The editor of the Watchman also remarked that this might be necessary in England, and that Mr. Carson, with his vast stores of learning, was just the man to do it, but that in this country it was needless. My pieces are very harmless here, and would not probably have been noticed but for the respectability of the periodical in which they were published. As, therefore, our American Baptists are, in the judgment of this editor of one of their leading papers, so superior in intellectual acumen to those of Great Britain, I concluded that Mr. Carson's reply would not be republished in this

country at all, and after vain efforts to obtain a copy of it, I at last was obliged to send for it across the Atlantic. I did not see it till I had finished the whole preceding discussion, and hence I lost the advantage of certain lessons in rhetoric and logic, which, as I discover, Mr. Carson prepared expressly for my benefit.

I am glad, however, to receive it even at this late hour. Mr. Carson writes evidently under great excitement, but puts forth all his energy to defend his positions. And in reviewing his reply we shall be called to try the solidity of the foundation on which my whole argument rests. Mr. Carson, if any one, can destroy them, and if he fails his cause is lost.

As Mr. Carson's reply has not been republished here, I must needs give some account of it to my readers. It is a pamphlet of 74 pages, devoted entirely to the examination of my first two numbers. These, it seems, were republished in England under a mistaken impression that the discussion was completed, and Mr. Carson answered them as if they were a full exhibition of all the evidence I had to produce. Hence he answered an incomplete work; and yet his reply considers all the principles involved in a thorough discussion of the subject. It may be viewed in two lights as a specimen of Rhetoric, or of Logic.In both lights I shall consider it.

Much of it has nothing to do with logic at all. All this I shall put under the head of rhetoric. And as this is the most striking part of the performance, and that in which its greatest power lies, I think it well to bestow on it particular attention.

§ 44. Mr. Carson's rhetoric. Its influence.

In this part of the work Mr. Carson makes a very strong appeal for sympathy to his readers, in the unparalleled trials in which my work has involved him.

His own view of the case is this.

His gentle spirit shrinks from the use of severe language towards others, even in exposing their errors, but an imperious sense of duty urges him on to discharge the painful task. "I have no wish," he says, "to be severe," p. 13. "It is painful for me to use the knife so freely: but I must, for the sake of the Christian public, find out the disease under which my patient labors. It is better that one delinquent should suffer, than that a multitude should be drawn into error by his example," p. 11. "It grieves me to be obliged to write in this manner,

but I cannot avoid it," p. 52. The passages, to utter which, caused such grief to his gentle spirit, are these:

"Ignorant persons, in reading Mr. Beecher's work, will think that he is a deep philosopher, and that he is a profound philologist. But the smallest degree of perspicacity will enable any one to see that his philosophy is very shallow sophistry. No man ought with impunity to be allowed to trifle so egregiously with the disciples of Christ, and with the awful commandments of the eternal Jehovah," p. 13. "Is it not astonishing that gentlemen in eminent situations will risk the character of their understanding by pouring forth such crudities ?" p. 11. "The author's philosophy is false, absurdly and extravagantly false. He gives us eight lines of philosophy. I will give a premium to any one who will produce me a greater quantity of absurdity in the same compass, under the appearance of wisdom. The only merit this nonsense can claim is, that it is original nonsense," p. 52. To be compelled to utter such language as this, concerning a Christian brother, must indeed be painful to a tender spirit, like Mr. Carson, especially as it is so liable to be misunderstood and ascribed to an entirely different frame of mind-for it is not obviously and upon the surface the language of grief. And if it is so painful to be compelled to utter a little of such language, what must be the suffering involved in the necessity of using it almost from the beginning to the end of a pamphlet of 74 pages; especially as he is called to the painful duty of charging upon a Christian brother, or upon his opinions, not only folly, stupidity, and nonsense, but also dishonesty, obstinacy, fanaticism, heresy, infidelity, and blasphemy? Indeed, there are cases in which, according to his own account, his trials exceed in severity those of the patriarch Job, and even exhaust his patience, great as it is. "It requires," says he, "more than the patience of Job, to be able to mention such an argument without expressing strong feelings," p. 10. "Am I

to war eternally against nonsense?" p. 14. "I am weary with replying to childish trifling," p. 45. "It is sickening to be obliged to notice such arguments," p. 46.

His trials, indeed, must be severe, especially when we consider how far he is removed from all such intellectual and moral defects. I had spoken of a certain mode of reasoning, and said, "It assumes a violent improbability of the meaning in question, and resorts to all manner of shifts to prove the possibility of immersion, as though that were all that the case re

"What

quired." This is quite too much for Mr. Carson, shall I say of this?" he exclaims. "Is it calumny, or is it want of perspicacity? Assume! I assume nothing, Mr. Presi dent Beecher, but self-evident truth. My reasoning does not rest at all on assumptions. . . . All manner of shifts! I repel the charge with indignation. I never used a shift in all the controversy I ever wrote." Again: "I have no theory to support. I never use theories in ascertaining the truths and the ordinances of Christ. I interpret by the laws of language." "I never press an argument a hair's breadth further than it can go." "Fear of the result never in a single instance prevented me from admitting a sound argument. I do not fear the result; for truth is my object wherever it may lie," p. 7. On all these points, Mr. Carson is no doubt a competent and an impartial judge; and if so, it must indeed be an intolerable trial to be called on to deal with one who is " the dupe of his own sophistry, and that a sophistry childishly weak," p. 49, and whose mode of reasoning he cannot dignify with any other designation than that of perverse cavilling, p. 41. In reasoning with whom, he is called on to put obstinacy to the blush, and to overwhelm it with confusion, p. 37. Who proves himself ignorant of one of the fundamental laws of controversy, p. 31. Who gives the lie to the inspired narrator, p. 29. Whose artifice is just that of the Socinians, and a dishonest and uncandid way of escaping, p. 28. Whose rhetoric is Gothic rhetoric, p. 27. Who has not a soul for philological discussions, p. 19. Who is emboldened by his excessive deficiency in perspicuity, p. 18. Who uses resources of which no sound philologist would think of availing himself, p. 17. Whose argument proceeds on an amazing want of discrimination, p. 15. Whose cavilling is unworthy of a candid mind and a sound understanding, p. 14; than whose arguments nothing can be more extravagantly idle, p. 14. Whose arguments and objections are mere trifling, p. 12. In whose ideas there is great confusion, p. 12. Whose reasoning is to him a perfect astonishment, so that he has greater difficulty in conceiving how it can have force on any mind, than he has in refuting it, p. 11; and, in fine, whose argument manifests such a want of discrimination and such a confusion of things which differ, that the mind on which it has force must be essentially deficient in those powers that qualify for the discussion of critical questions, p. 10.

Mr. Carson, indeed, being excessively good-natured, p. 33,

has undertaken to give me lessons in rhetoric and logic, pp. 12 and 55, and is encouraged to think that he has forced one of his distinctions into my head, p. 55. But shortly after he seems discouraged again, and exclaims: " Will! (i. e. shall) I never be able to force this into the mind of my antagonist? If he would allow himself to perceive this distinction he would be delivered from much false reasoning. I will then try to make the thing plain to every child," p. 55. Surely this is exemplary patience and condescension.

Mr. Carson also seems to be distressed with a strange apprehension that, after all, my reasonings will affect the public mind extensively. They are indeed folly to him, but all do not possess his "perspicacity." "Careless readers will imagine that there is wonderful acuteness in Mr. Beecher's observations," p. 36. “Half learned people will think that this account of the phenomenon is an unparalleled effort of philosophy, and thousands will rely on it who cannot pretend to fathom it," p. 52. It must be painful to Mr. Carson to have so low a view of the capacities of other minds in comparison with his own, for he says, that "the smallest degree of perspicacity, will enable any one to see that his (my) philosophy is very shallow sophistry," p. 13.

However, out of compassion for the ignorant and those that are out of the way, he engages manfully in the work of exposing my sophistry, and, according to his own account, with very gratifying results. His grief at the necessity of dissecting me has passed away, and in rapture he exclaims: "I have now examined Mr. Beecher's arguments, and there is not a shadow of evidence that the word baptism signifies purification. I have met every thing that has a shadow even of plausibility, and completely dissected my antagonist. Am I not now entitled to send purify to the museum as a lusus naturæ, to be placed by the side of its brother pop?"

It would be cruel indeed to deny to Mr. Carson this small consolation as a reward for all his sufferings and labors. But I greatly fear that new conflicts await him before he can wear undisturbed the victor's crown. Such is Mr. Carson's rhetoric.

Let us now briefly consider its influence. On a certain class of minds it will produce revulsion and disgust. Can that be a true cause, they will exclaim, that needs to be defended by such weapons? Are these the teachings of the Spirit of God? Is this the meekness and gentleness of Christ? I will do the ho