adduced, have thought it possible that men liberally educated, possessing splendid talents, who are acute reasoners upon all other subjects, could advance such absurdities; absurdities emanating from colleges and academies, and absurdities too attended with the most baneful consequences, which not only prevent men from listening to the plain instructions contained in the will, with that simplicity which the will itself requires, but which throws an air of mystery around these instructions that blinds the eyes of their disciples, so that they cannot see the true light." It is sufficiently notorious that the truths of the Gospel are not taught in our leading public schools; on the contrary, they may be considered as the fountain head of that error "which prevails to so great an extent among the plaintiffs." Be this as it may, we are conscientiously of opinion that if it be true, as alleged, that baptism is in disrepute, so that superstitious ears tingle, as it were, when they hear it inculcated; it is a decisive proof of the prevalence of the anti-evangelical spirit of the apostacy; for "the will" specifies, according to its plain, grammatical signification, that " every creature," to the end of time, that is saved BY FAITH, shall be baptised subsequently to believing; and, by implication, that a rite administered to those who are saved by grace, WITHOUT FAITH, cannot supersede the necessity of baptism to any to whom faith becomes subsequently essential to salvation. Whence it follows that adults in the sense of the Commission are all that go to Heaven by faith; and that Rhantism supersedes Baptism. We have no hesitation in expressing our concurrence with Mr. Ellison on various points in which we think he sees farther than many of his Baptist brethren; and regret that the vast range of discussion embraced by his publication renders it impossible for us to examine critically the evidence on which he grounds his able vindication of the defendants. We fearlessly recommend his publication to the perusal of the conscientious! THE MANY AGAINST THE FEW. The few have had a conflict with the many in every attempt towards Reformation since error got the better of truth. This for a long time must uniformly be the case. Therefore, none ought to be discouraged because of the numbers or influence of those leagued in support of any error. The history of the world is replete with information and encouragement on this subject. Truth, fairly presented, and enforced by the good examples of its advocates, has ever triumphed, and will continue to triumph till the victory is complete. "To the law, then, and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isa. viii. 20. LETTER FROM A. CAMPBELL TO ELDER WILLIAM JONES. No. IV. Bethany, State of Virginia, July, 1835. MUCH ESTEEMED AND BELOVED BROTHER JONES! Yours of the 20th April lies before me. I thank my heavenly Father and you for its contents. Before I particularly notice them, I proceed to the unfinished items in your last. From the explanations tendered in my Letter, No. III., I may be permitted to state some of the distinguishing features of the reformation we plead for without the imputation of vain-glorious boasting. 1. Faith, as universally confessed, is essential to the salvation of the soul-testimony essential to faith-fact essential to testimony. Therefore, all true religion is founded upon fact. The facts found in the divine testimony are, therefore, to be distinguished from all the speculations, abstractions, reasonings, and opinions of men, as the foundation of true religion-of right affections--and of church union, communion, and co-operation. This cardinal point in our system of reformation relieves primitive Christianity from the ponderous impositions of human speculations and traditions found in the homilies, creeds, and commentaries of fifteen centuries-from all the debates and strifes about words and doctrines and introduces a change in the whole course of religious instruction, as new and striking as was the Baconian philosophy when first applied to the dogmas of the schools, founded on the oracles of Plato and Aristotle. Revelation itself is founded upon fact, and therefore there is not in all its rich and varied contents one abstract proposition. The most cardinal of all the questions in moral science, viz.-" Is there a God, or is their not?" is not so much as once proposed in all the sacred writings. The proposition is nowhere offered; nor anything which philosophers would call a proof or demonstration of it. Facts are stated; and these are left to speak for God. Thus God and man are both known by what they do and what they say: for, with us, facts are things done, whether done by the simple volition, the word, or the hand of an operator. By his works and by his word God is known. The Christian facts, found in the testimony concerning what Jesus did and said, are the basis of the Christian religion. These facts, stated, proved, and illustrated, is the whole business of preaching and teaching, 1 Cor. ii. 5, xv. 1, 2, 3, &c. Each of these facts has a moral influence, or is itself a moral seal, which, in the hands of God's Spirit, delineates the moral image of God upon the human heart and character. I need not detain you by expatiating on the great change such a view of the Gospel will necessarily introduce in addressing mankind; nor how by displaying its facts it simplifies the Christian religion to the apprehension of all; and, most of all, redeems the church from the eternal confusion of jarring doctrines and dogmas about the most recondite abstractions, which can neither illuminate the understanding nor warm the heart; but, on the contrary, create all Ꮓ the strifes and debates which alienate and divide the professors of the faith. 66 66 2. Consequently, in order to baptism, nothing is to be asked for but a cordial avowal of faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah the Son of God. This, man believes in his heart to righteousness," and confesses with his lips to salvation." This is the only confession of the faith which the Constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven authorrizes as prerequisite to the one immersion: for Jesus pronounced Simon Peter blessed when he first made it; and assured him that on this foundation, as on a rock, he would build his church; and, built on this rock, the gates of Hades cannot prevail against it. Mat. xvi. 13—19. 3. The only bond of union, or covenant in a church of Christ, which can secure peace and love, and which will embrace all the citizens of Christ's kingdom, is deduced from these premises. It is Peter's confession of the faith, as above-expressed-immersion into Christ on said confession, according to Peter's Pentecostian sermon and obedience to all the things enjoined by the King himself, in the apostles' doctrine, irrespective of all private opinions, interpretations, and articles of belief, however sincerely held or honestly expressed. From the discovery that revelation and religion are founded upon facts, these and many other useful corollaries are evidently deduced. This, moreover, opens the way for the union of all Christians on the true Catholic grounds on which the primitive church was founded. And should ever Chrits's watchmen see eye to eye, and all Christians form one communion on earth, it is to be expected only on this view of the matter. Opinions, and neither faith, nor reason, nor religion, produce almost all the divisions of Christendom, and are the great obstacles in the way of effort to convert the world. 4. A distinguishing attribute of the reformation which is now pleaded in America, is not only the renunciation of all the scholastic words and phrases the Babylonish dialect of the dark and corrupt ages, found in the vocabularies of theological schools, comprehending all the technicalities of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, &c.; but in adopting this cardinal maxim, "CALL BIBLE THINGS BY BIBLE NAMES." Our experience and observation warrant the conclusion, that if the word is not in the Book, the idea which it exactly represents in theological currency is not found in the Book. This, indeed, makes bold inroads upon the consecrated style of the age; but, really, it is like the pruning-knife in the hand of a skilful vine-dresser it lops off an immense exuberance of fruitless boughs, which, in addition to their own sterility, so shade and obscure the fruitful branches, as greatly to depreciate and diminish the vintage. Of what use, may I ask, have been the many consecrated words and phrases ? Have they not generated folios of the most verbose controversy, without converting a single sinner to God, or comforting the heart of any saint on earth or in Heaven? : Concerning these, and all such doctrines, and all the speculations and phraseology to which they have given rise, we have the privilege neither to affirm nor deny-neither to believe nor doubt; because God has not proposed them to us in his word, and there is no command to believe them. If they are deduced from the Scriptures, we have them in the facts and declarations of God's Spirit; if they are not deduced from the Bible, we are free from all the difficulties and strifes which they have engendered and created. Purity of speech must precede purity of faith, and purity of faith must precede permanent union among Christians. Union in truth is. the only union for which Christians can pray and labour. We, therefore, make purity of speech an essential item in the current reformation. When we cease debating about scholastic and barbarous terms and phrases, and learn to speak of Bible things in Bible words, we shall soon learn to think the same things, as far as union of sentiment is. desirable. For my part, I do not think that identity of opinion is desirable among Christians, any more than identity of colour, pronunciation, or expression of countenance. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one hope-as there is one body, one Spirit, and one God and Father of all but many opinions. These many opinions are as essential to social relations in this life, as one faith to one religion. Let me now inform you, that, at this point of my present communication, I have received the March and April numbers of your Millennial Harbinger,' and have been so much delighted and refreshed by them, that I scarcely know how to express my gratitude to the Father of mercies for the kind providence which has thus brought us together and sent us out through the British Empire in one and the same vehicle. The Lord be praised for this gracious interposition in behalf of the common salvation, and the restoration of the original Gospel and order of things in the bosom of the most intelligent empire in the world! May an abundant harvest of the rich fruits of God's Spirit reward your zeal and diligence in the Lord! From the great variety of the extracts you have given to England and Scotland in the two first numbers, I see it is altogether unnecessary for me to proceed farther in the specifications of the distinguishing characteristics of the reformation now pleaded in America. The intelligence and good sense of your readers, from the documents you have laid and are laying before them, need not be anticipated by our deductions from them. They will soon discover all the prominent and emphatic views inculcated by us; and I greatly prefer that they should approach the subject in the same manner the Americans have doneby a gradual development. Although the items of the Gospel of God our Saviour are all acknowledged by all sects such as the Gospel facts, faith, repentance, reformation, baptism, remission of sins, the Holy Spirit, sanctification, the resurrection, eternal life-yet we all know that these matters may be variously arranged, and presented in different attitudes more or less striking to the mind; and all that we can say for ourselves, on these topics, is, that we prefer the New Testament order and arrangement to everything in the world. We boast of no new discovery of truths entirely unknown or acknowledged before. All-precious truth is as old as the first century of the Christian Era. If we understand the words or things more or less clearly than our brethren in other countries, it will soon appear to themselves without our telling them of it. Permit me only to add, at this time on this theme, that if the Christian world is to be morally elevated, healed, and restored to the primitive standard, it must be effected either by the discovery of some new truths, long lost, or by placing old truths in a new attitude to the mind, or by some new dispensation from Heaven. We incline to the conclu sion most favourable to the setting of the old Gospel in its proper light, which, in this age would be a new light to the great mass of professors -and so new is it to many of the Rabbins and devout partizans of human creeds, that they suppose it to be a new Gospel. Correct views of the Gospel facts; of the import and confirmation of the testimony of God; of faith; a change of heart, or repentance; of a change of life, or reformation; of Christian Baptism; of justification, or remission of sins; of the influence of the Holy Spirit in convincing the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and of animating and sanctifying the children of God; of the Christian hope, &c., are, and have long been, the burden of our labours. We think we have made some proficiency in these things from our long and most devout attention to God's Book; and that we have been enabled to place the Christian facts the testimony of God, faith, reformation, regeneration, remission of sins, holiness, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the future hope of Christians, in a more clear, comprehensible, and intelligent light, than we have found them in any party, or in the standard of any party in Christendom. But while we honestly and conscientiously thus avow our convictions, we thus offer them to the examination of our brethren and the public, demanding of them no implicit reception or acknowledgment of them, but requesting them to search and see whether these things are so. Our views of the Holy Spirit's work, in the salvation of man, have attracted more attention, occasioned more slander, misrepresentation, and debate, than any other item, not excepting baptism for the remission of sins, as preached by Peter on the day of Pentecost. This, too, I perceive, occupies an important place in your letter before me. If, as you say, the Scotch Baptists have no dispute on this subject, they cannot have so much light upon it. We have had much debate on every item of the popular doctrine. No one Protestant tenet has been received or taught by us without discussion. We take nothing upon trust. We hold no view so sacred as not to be examined; and we find that in all the churches of the Reformation in the ratio of their discussions and examinations are they intelligent on all Christian topics. Knowledge, indeed, is not goodness; but Christian knowledge is essential to Christian goodness. It is, however, but the means: and it does not always appear that there is a necessary connexion between even the most correct knowledge and goodness. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." However, knowledge next to goodness, and especially when perfected in goodness, is one of Heaven's best gifts to man. 66 We have been compelled to examine this subject more than any other, because the doctrine of American Revivals, so rife since the year 1734, has made Methodists of all the Protestants in America, except a |