we did not follow our first impulse. Smyth was a man worthy of our entire respect. His learning, ability, and purity of character made him to be honored by all his contemporaries. He was accused of being fickle and unsteady in his beliefs. But it must be remembered that he lived in a time when no true searcher after truth, however conservative he might be, felt that he had reached a finality. The Separatists, especially, convinced that the Church of England was corrupt, had withdrawn from her, and with Bible in hand, like sailors with only a compass in an unexplored sea, were seeking for some sure resting place. All of them believed things at last which they did not believe at first. "I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of his holy Word," said John Robinson in his farewell address to the Pilgrim Fathers. In the same spirit, and in words scarcely less noble, John Smyth says in answer to the charge of inconstancy, "I profess I have changed, and shall be ready still to change for the better." His "Confession of Faith," consisting of one hundred articles, lies open before us. What a chasm there is between his doctrines and the doctrines of the Church he had left! How clear and steady are his conceptions of the great fundamental truths of Christianity, and how broad and catholic is his spirit. It is the eighty-fourth Article of his creed that says: "The magistrate is not, by virtue of his office to meddle with religion or matters of conscience, to force and compel men to this or that form of religion, but to leave Christian religion free to every man's conscience, and to handle only civil transgressions, injuries, and wrongs of man against man, in murder, adultery, theft, etc., for Christ only is king and lawgiver of the Church and conscience." The man who wrote these words died in Amsterdam in 1612, after a life of hardship, self-denial, and devotion to God's truth. In some things he made mistakes, but he died as he had lived, with his face towards the light.

In his second paper Dr. Dexter inquires whether "dipping were a new mode of baptism in England in or about

1641.' His manner of stating the question is ambiguous. We are at a loss to know whether the word new is to be taken in an absolute or in a restricted sense. If it is to be taken absolutely, the question would be easily and shortly answered in the negative. Indeed, we think that so scholarly a man as we take Dr. Dexter to be never would have thought of asking it. It would be an imputation on his scholarship to suppose that his knowledge of Church history is confined to the post-Reformation period; or that his special investigations have not gone further back than the beginning of the seventeenth century. We are not disposed to make any such imputation, but shall take it for granted that he is acquainted with the whole subject, and that he did not, could not, and would not suppose that immersion was an absolutely new mode of baptism in England in 1641. We take it that he uses the word new in a restricted sense. He no doubt means that dipping was new in England in 1641, in the same sense in which a Congregationalist or a Presbyterian would admit that Congregationalism or Presbyterianism was then new; that is, that although they had existed in apostolic times, and had the sanction of apostolic authority, they had given place to a hierarchical system, and were now revived and restored. The question. that Dr. Dexter asks is not whether immersion had ever been practiced in England, but whether, having become virtually disused in the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was then newly introduced by the Baptists. This is the proper way of stating the question, and puts Baptists in the same position towards immersion that Presbyterians are in towards Presbyterianism, and Congregationalists towards Congregationalism.

All Protestants confess that the Church had departed from the truth. The papacy was a thousand years old; prelacy was older still. But papacy and prelacy were not, therefore, true. Congregationalism had had no real place in the Church since the third century; but it was not, therefore, false. Mere age, or continuity of existence through a

long stretch of time, is not the test of the truth of a Chris. tian doctrine, or the sanction of an ecclesiastical custom. Why should we not allow this fact to have its legitimate. effect on our thinking and feeling? If Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists should free themselves from a lingering attachment to tradition and ecclesiastical authority and plant themselves firmly on the sole authority of the Word of God, they would act more consistently, and be more likely at last to get to the truth. Baptists have greatly embarrassed themselves, as have also Presbyterians and Congregationalists, by seeking to trace out a regular ecclesiastical succession. How eagerly all these parties have scrambled over Waldenses, Albigenses, Paulicians, and others! Let us all together, as did the early English Baptists, cast aside the notion of Church succession and Church infallibility. For ourselves, we do not intend to be weighted. by any such popish baggage. We do not care how John Smyth, Menno Simon, or any one else baptized; our only care is to know what is baptism as Christ instituted it and intended it to be observed. We are not concerned, therefore, whether Dr. Dexter's conclusions are true or not. His inquiry has no bearing on the general, vital question between immersionists and non-immersionists, but only on the incidental and very subordinate one of the mode of baptism used by the English Baptists before 1641.

The English Church has for centuries had a liturgical form of worship. The liturgies she has used are well known and easily accessible. It is no difficult task, therefore, to ascertain, for any given time, what was the normal, authorized mode of baptism in England. We have now before us the "Annotated Book of Common Prayer, being a historical, ritual, and theological commentary on the devotional system of the Church of England, edited by John Henry Blunt, M. A., F. S. A.," etc. We turn to the "Offices for Holy Baptism." From 1085 to 1549 what is known as the "Salisbury Use" was the accepted form in the Church. Our purpose does not require that we should

go further back than this. What does this "Salisbury Use" tell us about the mode of baptism? It tells us that the priest was required to take the child by the sides in his hands and baptize it by trine immersion. He was to say, "I baptize thee in the name of the Father;" and then he was to immerse the child once, its face turned towards the north and its head towards the east. He was to add, “and of the Son," and again immerse the child once, its face being towards the South. He was to conclude the formula, "and the Holy Spirit. Amen;" and a third time immerse the child, this time its face turned towards the water.* Nothing could be more explicit than this. There is no room for quibble or evasion or ambiguity in it. We may unhesitatingly believe that what is here described was the mode of baptism in England in the eleventh century. It would not at all alter the case if, for special reasons, affusion should be occasionally tolerated. When the people of that day thought or spoke of baptism the picture in their minds was of trine immersion, as the ritual enjoined it.

The baptismal office in the "Salisbury Use" held its place in the English Church four hundred and fifty years. That almost down to the close of that time it represented the practice of the people as well as the law of the Church is witnessed by a passage from the writings of William Tyndale, quoted by Dr. Dexter. Tyndale says: "Behold how narrowly the people look on the ceremony. If aught be left out, or if the child be not altogether dipped in the water, or if because the child is sick the priest dare not plunge him into the water, but pour water on his head, how tremble they! how quake they! "How say ye, Sir John (say they), is this child christened enough? Hath it full christendom?" But is Tyndale here simply exposing the superstition of the people, and not representing his own Et ego baptizo te in nomine Patris (et mergat eum semel versa facie ad aquilonem, et capite versus Orientem). Et Filii (et iterum mergat semel versa facie ad meridiem). Et Spiritus Sancti. facie versus aquam).

† Works, Vol. I, page 277.

Amen (et mergat tertio recta

views of the mode of baptism? He answers this question when he says, "There is no other means to be saved from this damnation than through repentance towards the law and faith in Christ's blood, which are the very inward baptism of our souls, and the washing and the dipping of our bodies in the water is the outward sign. The plunging of the body under the water signifieth, "* etc. This William Tyndale died at the stake October 6, 1536, crying with his latest breath, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes."

Having before us the "Salisbury Use," the works of Tyndale, all the works published by the Parker Society, and "being of a sound mind," we can not believe that Dr. Dexter could, would, should, or did intend to intimate that dipping was an absolutely new mode of baptism in England in or about the year 1641.

In 1549 the "Salisbury Use" gives place to the Prayer Book of Edward VI, and now, for the first time, the English Church authoritatively recognizes affusion, or pouring, as an alternative mode of baptism. If the child to be baptized may well endure it, the priest is discreetly and warily to dip it in water; but if it is weak, it may suffice to pour water upon it. Immersion still holds the place of honor, and the Church authorities still speak of it as if it were the only mode of baptism. Bishop Horn, for example, writing to Henry Bullinger (between 1563 and 1565) says that the priest examines the godfathers and godmothers "concerning their faith, and afterwards dips the infant in water." He says nothing of pouring, but it is evident that pouring was fast pressing forward to the first place in the practice of the English Church. When the new Prayer Book was issued Tyndale had been only thirteen years dead; but the king's eyes had been opened, he had broken with Rome, and England had become subject, as she had not been for years, to religious influences from the ContiDistinguished scholars from abroad, chosen mostly *Works, Vol. I, page 26. We quote the Parker Society's edition. Zurich Letters, Vol. I, page 356.

nent.