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to the proselyte. They say, We will sprinkle you with water, or we will pour water upon you, or we will immerse you in water, or we will lay a moist finger on your forehead; and we will do it in the name or by the authority of the Lord.' As a Pennsylvania lawyer said to a client who wanted his advice for nothing, My tongue, Sir,' said the barrister, is in your pocket.' So these accommodation ministers say to the candidate, My concience is at your will, or in your election!' Can it be possible that the English Baptists have degenerated thus far! that they say -We have no conscience in this thing. You may become one of us upon our terms or upon your own! Nicodemus was rebuked by the Messiah because he did not understand him in what he said, 'Unless a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' Are Christian ministers, then, to ask, 'How can these things be.' In the Churches that have been built on 'the rock in this country, no one is admitted but those who believe and obey the Gospel preached by Peter in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. We regard Peter as having the keys of the kingdom of Heaven on that day. He opened the door of faith' to the Jews and to the Gentiles! and, in doing this, we regard him as immersed in, or under the influence of, the Holy Spirit; and that whatever he said on the day of Pentecost he spake as the Spirit gave him utterance! and, therefore, as there is "but one Lord, one faith, and one immersion-but one body, one Spirit, and one hope;" as there is " but one God and Father of all," we require every man to pay a courteous and decent respect to Peter-to believe what he preached, and to do what he bade him. With us, in this new world, a Christian means one that believes what Jesus Christ says, and does what he bids him.

"I trust, my dear brother, that I shall be able to get through with all your questions in my next. Meanwhile I must again beg your indulgence, and please accept the assurance of my unfeigned affection in the Lord.

"A. CAMPBEll.

"Bethany, Brook Co. Va., Jan. 1, 1835.”

The following article is extracted from the New York Observer of October 4, 1834. It is valuable as showing that there exists, even in the countries beyond Canada, a body of sober-minded men of the Presbyterian faith, consequently unenlightened upon the important subject of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who, nevertheless, bear a decided testimony against the leaven of Arminianism, and the ridiculous mummery of modern revivalism-two evils which have sorely infected the United States.

PASTORAL LETTER OF THE PRESBYTERY OF NEW BRUNSWICK.

Princeton, August 5, 1834. The Presbytery of New Brunswick to the Churches under their care, wish grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Eternal Spirit.

DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN-Our lot is cast in a period of intense interest, and in circumstances of no ordinary solemnity. The Christian community is more extensively engaged in enterprises of benevolence than ever before; and, perhaps, never, since the age of the Reformation, was it in such a state of deep and extended excitement. The influence of this excitement may ultimately prove highly salutary, or deplorably morbid and disastrous, according to the direction which it may receive. We believe that the present aspect of the Redeemer's kingdom in general, and especially of that portion of our American Zion with which we are more immediately connected, is such as ought to engage the deep solicitude and the unceasing prayers of all who love that system of truth and order which Christ has established in his kingdom, and which our beloved Church professes to have embodied in her public formularies. Believing, also, that the time has come when some expression of opinion in relation to a variety of subjects is demanded, we avail ourselves of the opportunity afforded by our present meeting to address you on some of those subjects, and to put you on your guard against a few of the most prominent dangers to which our Church appears at present to be exposed. It is the duty of every Christian, and especially of Christian ministers, and, above all, of the judicatories of the Church, to bear testimony against prevailing or threatening errors; and if every part of the whole body be duly vigilant and faithful, the whole may be guarded against those gradual and insidious encroachments of corruption, to

which all religious communities of large extent are constantly liable.

1. And in the first place, beloved brethren, we would put you on your guard against the encroachments of doctrinal error. We are constrained to doubt whether an adequate impression of the vital importance of maintaining the pure doctrines of the Gospel exists in every part of our Zion; yet nothing is more certain than that soundness in the faith lies at the foundation of all purity and prosperity in the Church of God. Allow us, therefore, with all plainness and affection, to open our hearts to you on this subject, and to warn you of dangers, which, though they may not be seen and felt by all, we nevertheless believe are real, and worthy of the most serious consideration. We are persuaded that doctrinal errors of the most unhappy import not only exist in our Church, but that they have been, in some instances, uttered in pulpits within the bounds of our own Presbytery; and, of course, in circumstances to demand both notice and remonstrance from us, as guardians of the Churches committed to our care.

The following is a specimen of the errors to which we allude, and against which we would lift up the voice of warning, viz. : That there is no other election of grace taught in Scripture than that which is founded on a foresight of faith and obedience in its objects.

That we have no more to do with the sin of Adam than with the sin of any other parent.

That there is no such thing as original sin; that infants come into the world as perfectly free from corruption of nature as Adam was when he was created; and that by depravity of nature nothing more is meant than the fact that all his posterity, though born entirely free from moral defilement, will always begin to sin the moment they begin to exercise moral agency.

That the doctrine of imputation, when applied either to Adam's sin, or to Christ's righteousness, is unreasonable, absurd, and wholly unsupported in the word of God.

That every impenitent sinner is, by nature, and independently of the aid of the Holy Spirit, in full possession of all the powers necessary to a compliance with the commands of God; and that if he laboured under any kind of inability, natural or moral, which he could not himself remove, he would be excusable for not complying with the divine will.

That the sinner's regeneration is his own act; that it consists in a voluntary and deliberate change of his purpose; that this he must and does produce of himself; nay, that it is just as easy for any one to convert himself as it is to perform any moral or physical act.

That perfection is attainable in the present life, and within the reach of all who choose and desire to seek it.

That God cannot exert such an influence on the minds of men as shall make it certain that they will choose and act in conformity to his will, without destroying their moral agency and that it is not in his power to prevent any portion of the sin which exists, though he greatly desires to prevent it.

That Christ's obedience and sufferings were not properly vicarious; and that, of course, he did not satisfy the claims of the law on behalf of his people.

These statements, it will be immediately perceived by every intelligent member of our body, are nothing less than a revival of the Arminian and Pelagian errors, against which our fathers. bore a faithful testimony, and to oppose and exclude which our Confession of Faith was originally formed. How many of the ministers connected with our beloved Church are chargeable with holding and preaching these errors, we presume not to decide. We hope and believe, however, that the proportion is small. But if there be an individual who holds any one of the errors in question, he ought not to be a minister of the Presbyterian Church. Holding any one of them, he never consistently entered the Church; and holding them now, he cannot consistently remain in it a single day. The opinions in question are entirely subversive of the " system of doctrine" contained in our Confession of Faith, and taught in the Holy Scriptures. They amount to "another Gospel," which however plausible or attractive to the worldly mind, is adapted, we verily believe, to exert a most baneful influence in regard to genuine revivals of religion, and all the interests of vital piety. We have a growing conviction of the importance of exercising the utmost watchfulness against these, as well as all other errors, and feel that a solemn responsibility lies on the judicatories of the Church in reference to this matter.

2. In the next place, Christian brethren, we would affectionately warn you against some of those means for promoting religious impression, which have been adopted in various parts of our Church, and which are not entirely unknown within our own bounds. We refer to those means which are familiarly known under the title of "new measures," and which consist chiefly in calling out serious, anxious, or inquiring individuals to rise before the public assembly, to take certain seats, to make certain pledges, and to make certain decisions or engagements. To these may be added the practice usually connected with them, viz., admitting to the communion of the Church, in a few hours, those who have thus manifested their purpose to engage in the service of God, without any opportunity being offered either to

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themselves or to the officers of the Church to put their excited feelings to any scriptural test. Our objections to these "measures are deep and strong. We are persuaded that their tendency is to produce a spurious rather than a genuine religion; to operate much more on the animal feelings, and the natural sympathies of our constitution, than to impress truth on the understanding, the conscience, and the heart; and by means of that truth to sanctify the heart and the life. We believe, of course, that the use of these means is adapted to deceive souls with false views of Christian experience, and to introduce into the Church multitudes of superficial and unsound professors, whose goodness is "like the morning cloud and the early dew, which soon pass away."

We have no question that these means have been employed by truly pious men, and resorted to from a sincere desire to promote the best interests of religion; and we have as little doubt that they have appeared, in some instances, to make a very salutary impression. But we are no less confident that experience, in a great majority of cases, has decided against their usefulness on the whole. We believe that their general effects, while they last, are injurious to the interests of genuine piety; and we know that many worthy ministers of our denomination who were once friendly to them, have ceased to regard them with approbation, and become fully convinced that their general tendency is to create a transient excitement, and to kindle false fires, rather than to do ultimate and permanent good."

RETROSPECT OF AMERICAN REVIVALS.

Few subjects have, of late years, engaged more of the attention of the religious part of the community, than that of an extraordinary Revival of Religion, said to have taken place in the United States and Canada. An opinion has somehow got afloat among us, that the first dawning of the Millennium, will make its appearance in America,—an opinion not of yesterday, certainly, for we can trace it as far back as the times of Jonathan Edwards-that is to say, about a hundred years. It probably took its rise from the circumstance of the American Republic not being of the number of the ten kings, or kingdoms, which gave their power and strength to the beast, according to Dan. vii. 24, and Rev. xvii. 12, 13. That country has enjoyed one great privilege above those of the kingdoms of modern Europe, into which, at its fall, the Western Roman Empire was divided; it has never been brought under the

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