But before we make any extracts from the Serious Expostulation, we beg the attention of our readers to the following paragraphs taken from Mr. Craig's pamphlet, and which contain one of the most groundless calumnies we have ever seen.

"And who are the men in our own Church who have most eagerly laid hold of this doctrine when it was advanced a few years back amongst us? Notoriously, it was the light-minded and frivolous men, men who wanted the exemption from diligent pastoral labour, and who found, in the declaration of the invariable grace of the sacraments, an excuse to their own consciences for neglecting all due attention to preaching, catechising, visiting, or exhortation. It was well known that the most active and laborious parish priests rejected the doctrine [baptismal regeneration he means]. They laboured to win souls. They feared lest any should come short of the promise. They cherished a pastoral activity, &c. ;-while the thoughtless man, who had entered, from imperfect motives, on a sacred work for which he was not fitted, eagerly rushed into the controversy of the day, or picked up and retailed its strongest terms; and, continuing his sports and his pleasures, or his literary pursuits, devoted his attention to any thing but the pastoral care; satisfied only, if he kept with all due accuracy the baptismal registry, and regularly recorded the admission of the souls of his parishioners into a state of spiritual health and hope. And nothing was more common than to hear a flippant maintenance of his opinion, which, a few years back, was rife in England, by men who, as ministers, manifestly had not a thought beyond the mere performance of the outward ceremony. Alas! Sir, I have too often seen that where the opinion of baptismal regeneration, and, in fact, of the neces sary efficacy of both sacraments has been held, it absorbs the mind, and calls it off from feeling the need of that lively devotion to the preaching of God's word, which is calculated to arouse such slumberers ; and that, consequently, there is, in such congregations, a coldness-a death-like inactivity-a want of interest in scriptural truth-a disregard of the duties of active Christian benevolence, and a distaste to spiritual things, and to missionary operations: and that this negative state with regard to religion, is often combined with a contrary activity about mundane pleasures and pursuits, so that temporal things appear to be the substance, and eternal things the shadow; and so that the society of the pastor himself is not valued because he brings glad tidings of salvation, and spreads a tone of seriousness over all around him; but is only so far met with cheerfulness, as he shall forget the sacred character he ought to wear, and descend to the trifling conversation of the passing hour. I do not hesitate to appeal to facts in this matter. Let the whole of England be the field of inquiry. Go to our country parishes and country towns, where the Clergy have prominently maintained the doctrine which you have laboured to establish, and you will invariably find practical religion at a low ebb-the churches thinly attended, and the Dissenters thriving-dissipation of all kinds encouraged-the Sabbath violated, and the poor neglected-the ministrations of the house of God coldly and negligently conducted: and, instead of a solemn charge coming forth from the pulpit against the guilt of back

sliding from the baptismal vow, and declining from a spiritual state, followed by an affectionate call to return and do their first works; the hour of instruction is not seldom occupied in a meagre defence of the outworks of the Church, an examination of the evidences of religion, or a dull monotonous harangue upon some common-place duty."

On this accusation, Mr. Walker makes the following remarks in his Serious Expostulation:

"When you were disposed, Sir, p. 20, to throw upon me (from some groundless suspicion or prejudice) the odium of calumny, you should have been somewhat more on your guard when you came, p. 34 and 35, to throw out your own reflections on those Clergy of the Church of England who differ from you. As I never, in all my experience, met with a single clergyman in England, Ireland, or Scotland, who held the doctrine to which you have been pleased to attach my name, I can say nothing of those light-minded and frivolous men of whom you complain. It has never been my lot to be in such parishes, nor to mix in such society. But I have known many, in England and in Scotland, holding precisely the same religious principles as I hold, and particularly the same sentiments of Baptism and of the Eucharist,—some of them gone to rest from their labours-some few yet in the course of their earthly career, who are at once learned, and humble, and pious, and laborious in the studies of their profession, and in the daily exercise of their pastoral duties. But their modesty prevents them from all bustling and pretension, and vulgar popularity. Like the ancient Christians, their voice is seldom heard in the busy haunts of bustling men; but their life forms a continual sermon. There is one of these now in my mind's eye, the humblest and holiest of men (with learning far beyond the current of our age), who, in his obscure retirement, has, I am persuaded (as the humble instrument in God's hand), trained up more souls to God and to goodness than your sermons will ever form, if you should preach till the end of the century. Of your prayers and private energies, as I know nothing, I will frame no estimate. I rejoice, indeed, in that you seem so satisfied with the success of your own labours. I have never interfered, nor sought to interfere with them directly nor indirectly. You have published even repeatedly, and no remark was made by me in public or in private. I trust, Sir, you will see cause, in future, to restrict your labours carefully within the bounds of your own flock and circle; and to allow me and the rest of our small community, who are beyond that circle, to go on in our own way, accountable as we are to Him from whom we hold our commission, but not to you.

"I will confess at the same time, without hesitation, that my own pastoral recollections and feelings are not quite so satisfactory to me as yours appear to be to you. I acknowledge with regret (and this regret is the deeper in that I cannot now hope to do even as much as I did in time past), that even in the vigour of life I did not do all I ought, nor even all I might have done. I was ever most perfectly sincere, and by God's blessing I did something; especially by an almost uninterrupted system of catechising, the best and most useful sort of preaching, carried to a much greater extent than is common. I have had repeated

and interesting proofs of its effects and its usefulness; and some of these conveyed to me from distant lands, and from the bed of death."Pp. 28, 29.

We will now extract from Mr. Walker's Remonstrance, sufficient to enable our readers to understand the nature of the controversy, and more than sufficient, we are convinced, to satisfy them how groundless the charge is which has been preferred against him by Mr. Craig. The Professor is indeed a little bitter in his expostulations; but if it be possible in any merely human interest " to be angry and sin not," it is most assuredly when an honest heart repels a charge which it feels to be at once without foundation and without excuse.

66 Why you have been so eager and so active on this occasion, many have asked and wondered, and I cannot answer. In the fervency of your zeal, Sir, whatever may be the cause, and whatever may be your motive, you have certainly contrived to place yourself and me in a very peculiar position. My Sermon had no reference whatever to you. It would have been precisely the same, in every respect, if I had never heard your name, and never known your existence. Strange as perhaps it may seem to you, and as it seems now to myself, it is yet true, that the notion of even your being dissatisfied with it, never struck me till I was in the pulpit. The doctrine which I meant to elucidate and enforce, was the doctrine of the universal Church, without exception, for fifteen hundred years, has been the doctrine of the Church of England, with the exception of a very small section, from that period to the present; and also of our own poor Church, without controversy, so far as I know, for the last two centuries at least. To the condition of our own humble Church, and to the best means of maintaining her existence and her usefulness, my regard was chiefly restricted. You will remember, Sir, that you are a comparative stranger amongst us, and that so far as your doctrine differs from that which I preached, or meant to preach, it is altogether a novelty in our communion-certainly I think not ten years old. Nevertheless, Sir, if you shall prove your accusations of dangerous error, unsoundness, delusion, immorality, and fatalism of the worst kind, by my own words faithfully cited and compared with the context, I will consent to place myself at your feet and at your mercy, a humble, a penitent, and a self-convicted culprit. But if you have written your Remonstrance, as I have been tempted to suppose, without even reading my Sermon and Notes,-or if, in order to make out a strong case ad captandum vulgus, you have perverted my meaning, and, in order to do so, have suppressed those prominent passages by which I repeatedly qualify that meaning, and by which I preclude, in every attentive reader, all possibility of such mistake or misconception as could give any the slightest colour to your accusations of danger, delusion, unsoundness, immorality, and fatalism,-then, and in that case, Sir, you have placed yourself in a position which, I think, no man of real religious feeling will envy.

"In p. 5 of your Remonstrance, you exhibit, as far as you understand it, the doctrine inculcated in my discourse. In doing this, you do not, as every fair controversialist ought, cite my words, and refer to the

page; but you string together phrases apparently taken at random, and this you call, p. 6, collecting, in my own words, my opinion on the subject. Now, Sir, I distinctly declare, that your summary of my doctrine now referred to, is altogether false and erroneous. Your object is to maintain, that I confine to the bare use of the two Sacraments the origin and the progress of the Christian life, to the exclusion (as you assert positively) of preaching, p. 5. On the same grounds, in p. 7, you comment on my text, and contend that my view of it is partial, and therefore erroneous. Now, in my Sermon, p. 13 and 14, I find the following passage, which surely, Sir, you have never read, or you would never have dared thus to trifle with the public and with me. The power imparted in my text, includes all which belongs to the permanent and ordinary exercise of the Christian ministry— implies all the essential doctrines and duties of the Gospel, which the apostles and their successors were thus commanded to teach; and embraces all the ordinary means of grace and salvation, in the exercise and administration of which the Redeemer expressly promises to be with them always, even to the end of the world.' Now, Sir, when you have read so as to understand this passage, what comes of your assertion that I exclude preaching, p. 5, and your reproof, p. 7 and 8, for my unfair and partial view of my text? In your summary of my doctrine, p. 5 and 6, you expressly make me confine Baptism and all its blessings to the mere outward rite; and, in order to increase the obnoxiousness of my case, you make me require an Episcopal minister as indispensable in the administration, whereas the word Episcopal does not occur in all my Sermon, which has nothing whatever to do with what is called the Episcopal controversy.

"After the summary, p. 6, you come to show that the doctrine which you have thus collected, as you say, in my own words, is not that of the Bible; and I assure you, Sir, that the doctrine which you are so busy in demolishing, is no more mine than it is that of the Bible. It is a mere creature of your own brain, with which, therefore, I have much less to do than you have.”—P. 7—9.

"Now, Sir, you and I must, if you please, come a little closer; and I must be permitted to lay before you some important truths, of which, if you are not ignorant, you are utterly careless. It is not for a moment to be supposed, and least of all by a brother clergyman, that I could have carried, or intended to carry, such a doctrine as you have set yourself to combat-the foolish phantom which you have called into form that you might annihilate it-before the bishop and my learned brethren. In all fair and candid interpretation, if there was any thing resembling the doctrine to which you have attached my name, it was to be deemed an oversight. Before such an audience, it was not possible that such a doctrine as you have framed and given to the world as mine, could escape what it justly merits (be the preacher or the writer who he may), the severest censure. In common candour, therefore, (if candour form any part of your constitution, which your conduct, on this occasion, gives good reason to doubt,) you were bound to conclude that you misunderstood my meaning. This refers to my Sermon heard, which, unaccustomed as you evidently are to such kind of discussions, I readily grant that you might very innocently misap

VOL. VIII. NO. VI.

X X

prehend. What I have now to complain of is, that you have carried these misapprehensions along with you to the perusal of my Sermon; and, instead of reading what I have written, you have jumbled together some previous, contemporaneous, or subsequent understandings of your own, which you present to the world as mine.

6

"Now, Sir, I hold it to be imperative and indispensable, in all fair and honourable controversy, to banish all understandings and ifs-to cite the passage or passages verbatim which form the subject of the controversy, and to refer distinctly to the page or pages of the work cited. This you have not done in a single instance; and one phrase which you give as mine (viz. applying the faith), I have not been able even to find. In your page 8, you say, that by this phrase you understand me to mean baptizing, that is, in your view of the ordinance, by the performance of the rite originating in the candidate the operations of faith.' I do not think, in all my reading and experience, that I ever met with so extraordinary and unaccountable a perversion as this. I have no where said, never even imagined, that the rite of baptism originates in the candidate the operations of faith. Your understanding, Sir, in this matter, is to me an incomprehensible piece of nonsense; and how you could attribute it to me, with my publication before you, is, to use the language of Dr. Hey, totally above my comprehension."-Pp. 15, 16.

After this, Professor Walker proceeds to show, in a very convincing manner, that, with the Sermon and Notes before him, it was next to impossible for Mr. Craig to fall into an involuntary mistake, respecting the doctrine which he has so grossly misrepresented. The Professor is accused of teaching an absolute reliance upon the mere opus operatum of the sacraments, and more especially upon that of Baptism; a charge which he repels with not less success than indignation, by adducing a series of quotations from the very discourse which furnished the occasion of so much ignorant and misapplied criticism. Having accomplished this object, he addresses to his adversary the following eloquent appeal:

Now, Sir, after all this, with the most anxious guards against your perversions thus pervading my whole Sermon, forming in effect its moral essence and religious application,-with these repeated over and over again from the commencement to the close-What shall I say? Is your position an enviable one ? What impelled you, Sir, to contrive a doctrine with which every page of my Sermon proves that I have no concern, and to attach my name to it? This is a most momentous question, Sir, to you, both as it respects God and man. You would affix to my name something 'not far removed from calumny,' p. 20. I reject and disdain the imputation, with the full conviction of an honest heart. But here, Sir, is calumny on your part of the worst kind; and unhappily it will be read and credited by hundreds who will never see this exposure; which is the more complete and the more overwhelming, in that you acknowledge, in the case of Dr. Mant, that the change of the words rightly administered to rightly received, made an essential