on similar principles, any large denomination especially, might be criminated and injured for the acts of one of its adjuncts or members, any where and at any time.

(5.) This way is a specimen of innumerable others like it, or of the same class, by means of which, working insidiously and by stealthy or unquestioned influences, Christian brethren, and blood relations in Christ, may be alienated from each other, mutually wronged, repulsed, condemned even, in a way that utterly eludes investigation, and practically defies correction or redress.

(6.) Learning somewhat the state of things in certain circles of honoured eminence in this country, I have thought it duty as well as propriety, to venture this epistolary and straightforward reply, in the hope of rectifying false impressions, and vindicating the right, in favour of my own honoured and beloved brethren of the Constitutional Assembly in America.

Whence the inference is, that,

(7.) The document, which appears in the July number of your Review, assumed there to interpret the temper and veracity' of the church and the ministry to which I am happy to appertain, has no relevancy at all to that community, nor they properly any responsi bility for it; while neither the temper,' nor the veracity,' nor the cha racter of either branch of the Presbyterian church, can properly be ascertained or estimated from its contents, whether its statements be true or false, wise or foolish, fair or unfair, applicable or preposterous, accepted or abhorred, more than you can tell the character of the future evangelical alliance from the moons of Jupiter, or the ages of desired and perpetuated peace between our two countries, from the crowing of a cock-sparrow on the turrets of the Tuilleries.

But now that my hand is in this argument, I must go farther, and speak solemnly as a witness of facts, since I am too straitened for time and space to do more, in reference to the strife that has shamefully disparted our once prosperous and incomparable church. I allege three things:

1. The contest that immediately perpetrated the acts of exscinding was not directly doctrinal at all; it was a contest of power for power. Men of all theological phases remained on both sides after the division, and some of the worst errorists-especially Emmonsites, a sub-species of Hopkinsians, improved from bad to worse, which I cordially unite with Princeton, pro talibus, in reprobating and abhorring-remained and flourished with them. I could easily call or give names, if this were proper. How could it be otherwise? They exscinded twenty-eight presbyteries in four conterminous synods-from 135 presbyteries in all, in a geographical line, sweeping all northern Ohio, and all western New York, with no discrimination or exception-with no accusation, citation, notice, or constitutional authority at all, but in violation and defiance of all the provisions and orders of that noble instrument, the constitutionwith no precedent of the kind in our total history,-besides dissolving the third presbytery of Philadelphia, and leaving its individual members at large, in no ecclesiastical connection whatever! If their object was

to cure heresy, their means were marvellously ill adapted;-and they know, as well as I, that it was quite a failure too.

2. There was a cause behind the scenes a causa sine qua non without which the tragedy on the stage had never been enacted, and quite a pity is it that all the world does not know it—IT WAS THE POLITIES AND THE FEARS OF PRO-SLAVERY? I touch a topic now on which I should like to enlarge. If I could, I would speak on it for two hours, before all the clergy of Scotland in one assembly, and then submit to be catechised by them, in any orderly and equal way, for two hours longer! I know they little comprehend the facts of the case as they are. But here I must perforce be too brief. Men who were known in their theological sympathies to symbolize with us, went with them. Their leaders, "the juvenile patriarchs," as they were too justly called, and older ones with them, thought that the New School more favoured the anti-slavery cause, and consequently that they and their "domestic institutions" were safer with the other party; and hence this they joined-all for orthodoxy! I am sorry to write this, and sorry to think it; but, conscius non facinoris, I write it calmly and with full conviction, as what I am called to do. I know my responsibility here, and in my own loved country, and at the judgment-seat of Christ; and have no apology to make, just now, to mortal man.

3. The doctrinal views of my brethren have been extensively misunderstood and calumniated. True, there were some errorists with us, as well as with them; but men of sense can judge, when I state the following facts, in reference to the pervading Calvinism of our common faith, especially in our ministry.

I never knew but one Presbyterian clergyman who did not believe the doctrine of election; and he was educated with them, not us, and was so straight and so strict at first, that they and we were both afraid of him; and they at last disciplined and deposed him, much at my instance and with my assistance, and very properly, as we all supposed. It is a huge libel, it is a monstrous falsehood, to assert, as some have done, that our ministry was Arminian, Pelagian, or Antinomian. It neither was nor is any such thing. We indeed were slandered with the idea that we favoured the Perfectionists; but these knew better themselves, and dreaded our ministry more than any other on the earth. The Synod of New York and New Jersey, containing nine Presbyteries and about 160 ministers and churches, to which I belong, only two or three years since, deposed, on an appeal, two of our ministry, finally, for this execrable virus, and ejected them-in a fair, and constitutional, and solemn manner, not by exscinding-from our communion; and now I know of no other one in our whole connection; and their "Perfection" cause is evidently sick at present of the consumption.

We do indeed believe, that the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross was intended, as such, to lay the foundation for the offer of salvation to every creature, and in all the world; but we hold this, as Calvin himself did, in full consistency with the doctrine of election. If there be any divine of eminence in America, among our honoured dead, with whom, more than others, we probably symbolize, I could easily name him -DWIGHT! clarum et venerabile nomen. We hold precisely his view of

the Atonement; though the verba magistri we are not much given to homologate, as you say here in Scotland. But as touching the election, we believe that Christ peculiarly died for his people, whom the Father has given him; and that, without such glorious purpose, he would have died without wisdom, worse than in vain, and in the event not a soul would have been saved. Hence he never would have died at all-at a venture, and with all the odds against him; and without election, we all believe that not a single soul would accept salvation, after all; yet that it neither shuts the door, nor prevents any from entering.

For myself, since November 1812, I never saw the moment when I doubted the doctrine; never once knowingly theologized against it or to its disparagement; and in other relations, though a boaster and a fool, are, in Paul's esteem and my own, the same, I may say that I have preached on it, and preached it, to large and intelligent audiences in the city of New York, and many other places more, and more consecutively, and more aggressively, than any one of the Princeton fathers ever did, however much better they have preached it possibly at times. I add, it is my firm belief that the same is in the main true of all my brethren in the ministry, though the greater part of Presbyterian ministers, who believe that Christ died in every sense pro electis tantum, are with them and not with us; and there let them stay, though we never disciplined or tried to exclude them for these views, not having so learned Christ, or even Calvin!

The latter says, and I here quote, by necessity, from memory alone, one passage instead of more; see his Commentary on Romans v. 18. Passus est Christus pro peccatis totius mundi; et benignitate Dei omnibus liberrime offertur: Omnes tamen non apprehendunt. See also on John ii. 2. Et alibi numerosa. This we believe, and we ask our brethren and fathers here to do us simple justice. We have no orthodoxy, nor any thing else, of which to boast. For one, it always seems to me far more infamous and abominable for a minister of God to be faulty here, or other than orthodox, than it is laudable to be blameless and correct. cannot well bear, however, to be mistaken or calumniated, and so prejudiced in the estimation of those whom we esteem, and love, and honour in the Lord. From what I have seen and heard among you since my arrival in Great Britain, my inferences made this document necessary, regretting quite sufficiently that any such occasion should exist.

We

Once more, and I have done. We are Presbyterians, and our preferences are intelligent, sincere, and strong, though not exclusive. We are total and thorough Protestants; and while we abhor the moral pestilence of Popery, we scarcely less religiously dislike and execrate its variolus form of Puseyism, while we deeply and almost immedicably grieve at the dreadful schism of our church, made by the exscinding acts, as more recruiting and comforting Pusey & Co. among us in America, and edifying their truthless cause to our common detriment, than any other thing of the general sort ever did! But God reigns, and he will rule and overrule all things for his own glory and the good of his elect; and therein we all rejoice even in tribulation. I remain your affectionate brother in the Lord Jesus Christ,

SAMUEL HANSON COX.

P.S.-On reflection, I add a word in reference to the question of the present feelings of our parties towards each other. In general, it may be said that there is a subsidence of exasperation on both sides, and in many places increasingly an amicable state of things restored. Strife has ceased, and collision is deprecated for religion's sake. In many instances, exchanges of pastoral service and co-operations in beneficence are apparent. The people are tired of these alienations and animosities. Our constitutional brethren generally make it a point to avoid controversy, except for defence. Then, indeed, we take your thistle for our crest, and say, Nemo me impune lacesset. We know no reason why we and higher interests with ours, should be calumniated in silence. Gal. ii. 4-6, 11; 1 Peter ii. 16, 20. Last May, our two Assemblies met at Philadelphia, and held their sessions at the same time, and in two churches not far from each other. By a unanimous and most cordial vote, we invited them to a joint participation with us of the Lord's Supper, either in their house or in ours, as they might prefer. The laity rejoiced at it, the newspapers lauded it, and all of us expected the consummation with raised hopes. But alas! it failed. They hesitated, though many of their worthy speakers advocated it strenuously on their floor. One of them condescended to say some gratuitous things against it, ending with the classical elegance, so fraternal and appropriate-Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

Another, the Rev. Dr - (as I hope he is ashamed of it by this time, I will not expose his name,) said, "Moderator, we are in a dilemma indeed! If we accept it, it will be against the feelings and the judgment of many of us, and if we reject it, the public will say we are bigoted, exclusive, vindictive, and even unchristian. They have brought us into this predicament by their invitation. It was their act, not ours, that did it; and I believe they did it designedly, just to bring us into such a dilemma." This he said before the world, unrebuked by the singular forbearance of the moderator. He said it not perhaps totidem verbis exactly; and yet in substance he said it; and it was published and circulated far and wide, as I report it here. They took up the question, and debated it, and laid it on the table, through several days; and at last, with some elaborate circumlocution too easily interpreted, they gave it the negamus prorsus of their vote! One said, "It is only an entering wedge to some overture for re-union." Another answered, "A queer wedge this, not for splitting, but for uniting; not driven, but only offered." But many of them are awkwardly sorry for it, and in a worse dilemma now! and when we communed, quite a worthy number of them came and were cordially welcomed by us on the solemn and delightful occasion, at the table of our common Lord.

As to re-union, my own judgment is, that it is now on the whole neither desirable nor probable. We are better, as things are, in two organizations; only we desire to have amicable relations and fraternal correspondence, for Christ's sake! This I know is the deliberate opinion at present of many of the most influential not in our church only, but in theirs also; and to this result, I should think, things are tending. Our private members and even our ministers occasionally pass from one presbytery or church to the other, very much as formerly, and ordinarily with 20

VOL. XIX. NO. IV.

more pleasure to receive than to dismiss. We have never denounced them, as we have done their acts. Even their errors, of an antinomianizing tendency, as we have regarded them, were never breaking points with us; no, never. Perhaps we must wait till the grave shall silence some of their living warriors before a better generation shall make fraternal intercourse what it ought to be between us. In the mean time, however, our common enemy reaps the advantage, our common interests feel the wound, and our common dangers increase! The pseudo-apostles of the church' had rather see us-especially us-quarrel than be friendly; and hundreds have gone into the retreats of mother church,' the AngloAmerican Episcopacy, with hypothetical baptization,'* and baptismal

This strange affair, as now developing and rampant in America, is something more, and much worse than a regular curiosity in the holy antics of "the church," fit to be reposited and described in Sir John Soane's museum of things rare and incomparable. Its puerility, its supposititious nonentity, its awkward popery, its abominable exclusiveness and will-worship, its fundamental unbelief and "hypothetical" impudence, are quite Oxonian, peculiar, and far from home, we hope, in the free and Protestant republic of America.

When the Church of Rome found out, by its infallibility, that the opus operatum of baptism was a sine qua non, an absolute indispensable to salvation, and conversely, by implication-that salvation was about as absolutely connected with the opus operatum, it was natural, perhaps humane, to enact also that a new-born infant, dying, should not perish for the want of it because no priest was at hand to perform it; but the nurse, or femme sage, or any alert menial in waiting, might perform it, and thus save the parting soul. Hence the invention of lay baptism has become canonical in the church for nearly fourteen centuries. And when the Church of England left Rome and became Protestants-which, however, they never themselves properly and thoroughly did at all, but were rather backed into the Reformation on principles of Erastianism mainly, their bluff bailiff King Hal driving them at the point of the sword, and procuring compliance often where God alone could produce cordialitythis dogma was retained, is since practised, and so their Anglo-American daughter, in filial conformity, prolongs the observance to this day.

But here is a difficulty. While they proselyte with peculiar pleasure from other denominations, and especially from the Presbyterian Church, some of their looser and less intelligent members, and saturate them with the inoculated virus of churchism and their own apostolicity of the succession, they wish to do two things at once that are not very congenial or coincident-namely, first, to keep inviolate the dogma that lay baptism is valid, so that they are neither required nor allowed to renounce their baptism already received; and yet, second, to ascertain to them all the benefits of a more excellent way of receiving it from their own hands at the same time! And how is this done? What a problem for a mystagogue or a prelatical theologaster in the middle of the nineteenth century!

They erect, by a holy induction of particulars, and holier hypothesis of opus iterum operatum; and hence an hypothesis, a conjectural supposition of things or consequences conceivably possible, and stated with a marvellous flourish of trumpets, as well as done with adequate pomposity and pretension, begets, sustains, and canonizes the monstrosity of

HYPOTHETICAL BAPTIZATION ! ! !

The proemial and eventual argumentation is in this wise, in faithful paraphrase, such as I narrate it, namely, "You need not renounce your holy baptism, my son, received in a way which the church approves not, and yet declares to be valid; but, as you accepted that holy rite of our regeneration in circumstances of great schism and deplored disorder, and this prolonged through ages of separation from "the church," and from the covenant mercies of God, and from a regular and true apostolical ministry; and since much law does not break law, and even repetition is not