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extreme reluctance, has consented to regard pouring as VALID, though very irregular baptism."1

The testimony embraced in this extended note may be fittingly closed with a passage from the Mercersburgh Review for May 1850. It is from the pen of that accomplished scholar, the Rev. John W. Nevin, D. D., of the German Reformed Church:

"Several of the earlier Protestant church services call for dipping. In the first English Reformed Liturgy, a. 1547, a trine immersion of the child is prescribed, cases of infirmity only excepted; and it was not till the beginning of the seventeenth century that sprinkling gained the upper hand for reasons of convenience and health. Gradually the usage of the Protestant Church settled down upon the same practice which had already begun to prevail in the Church of Rome, with the exception only of the Anabaptists." 2

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Admitting always the tolerated exceptional affusion in the cases of weak or sick children, no historical proposition is better sustained than that dipping was the baptism of the English people from the very introduction of Christianity down to the period of the Reformation. The occasions, the progress, and the consummation of the reduction from dipping to affusion, which then took place, are not less indubitable. In the earlier years of the seventeenth century, when all but they had veered away from the hereditary mode of the English nation, little companies. of persecuted Christians, then taking organized form as churches, alone stood fast. With their retention of the hereditary mode they cast away all traditional accompa

1 This letter may be found at greater length in the New York Recorder of June 5, 1850.

2 P. 238.

niments and perversions, and planting themselves on the strong foundation of Apostolic Christianity, they practised believers' baptism. Strong in their conviction that with them baptism was restored to its original form and significance, they denied the name to that which, in their belief, was not the thing, and called themselves by distinction, "baptized Christians"-"BAPTISTS."

C.

CREED-STATEMENTS IN THE BAPTIST DENOMINATION.

An interesting and a very profitable inquiry might be instituted in regard to the question of Confessions, or Articles of Faith, in the Baptist denomination. The unshared supremacy of the Word of God, held universally and with so much tenacity by us from the beginning, has undoubtedly, by a mistaken logic, led some individual churches, and the churches of some particular localities, to dispense with creed-statements altogether. Facts like these, however, have sometimes led to general inferences in regard to Articles of Faith in the Baptist denomination which are unauthorized by our history. I think we were the earliest of the dissenting bodies of England in the issuing of Confessions; and from the first, our Confessions. have been not only significant of our doctrinal unity, but a condition of acceptance in our fellowship. The separation from us, in this country, of the Old School Baptists on the one hand, and of the Free Will Baptists on the other, and the falling away of the Campbellites, or Reformers, are conspicuous signs of established and authoritative doctrines in our communion; and signs as real may be found, likewise, in the doctrinal examinations at every ordination, at every church-recognition, and even at the reception in our churches of candidates for baptism. We

shall see that this doctrinal unity has been a declared unity, and that the declarations have had a reflex authoritative influence.

Passing by the Confession of 1611, which belongs to the Arminian branch of the Baptist family, the Confession of the Seven Churches, issued in 1643, presents itself as the first authorized creed-statement of the Particular Baptists of England. Older than the Westminster Confession, and therefore independent of it, it is interesting, as showing how thoroughly the earliest Baptist fathers preserved the orthodox historical theology of all ages, and how readily they brought it into relations with the restored primitive. polity of their churches. The Seven Churches of London, however, are not to be supposed as comprising the whole. of the Particular Baptist denomination of that time. There were certainly several churches besides these, and their increase at a period immediately succeeding was very rapid. Among these churches the Confession of 1643 seems to have been generally recognized, until it was superseded by the more elaborate Confession which generally, though This Confession, erroneously, bears the date of 1689.

entitled "A Confession of their Faith, set forth by the Elders and Brethren of many Congregations of Christians, baptized upon Profession of their Faith, in London and the Country," was in fact issued in the year 1677. The "General Assembly" of 1689, composed of ministers and messengers of more than one hundred churches, gave it by their sanction such an increase of weight and authority, that it has been, not unnaturally perhaps, regarded as their work, and called by their name. It is altogether more elaborate, and more logical in form and structure, than its predecessor of 1643. It became at once the acknowledged formulary of the denomination.

Before remarking upon its character, we may advert for a moment to the dates of other Confessions to which this is nearly related. The Westminster Assembly had closed its labors in 1647, giving to the world the Presbyterian Confession. The doctrinal views of John Robinson, who was "terrible to the Arminians,” had crossed the Atlantic with his disciples, the Congregational founders of New England, and in 1648 delegates of the New England churches, assembled at Cambridge, framed a Confession, which, in its doctrinal articles, followed the Westminster. In the year 1658 the elders and messengers of the Congregational churches in England issued the Savoy Confession. Goodwin and Owen, their great leaders, were members of this assembly, and of the committee appointed to draw up the formulary. Agreeing with the Presbyterians on the great questions of theology, the assembly instructed their committee to keep close to Westminster on doctrinal points, engrafting the Congregational polity upon the historical Calvinism which they shared with their brethren of that Confession. In 1680, a Confession to a greater extent original, though modelled after that of Westminster and Savoy, was set forth by a Massachusetts Synod, assembled at Boston; and twenty-eight years later, this platform of doctrines was adopted by the Synod met at Saybrook, to draw up a Confession for the Congregational churches of Connecticut.

The real date, therefore, of the Baptist Confession — 1677 -places it next in order after the Savoy. With that Confession it is most nearly allied. By reference to the preliminary address to the reader, it will be seen that this Confession is the declared successor of that of 1643, "divers" of those who framed the first taking part in the setting forth of the second. Issued in a time of persecu

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