the word "new" seemed actually to mean new; but others used it as Dr. Primrose used the word "colt," with large latitude. The authors already quoted spoke of a new baptism in 1643, and twenty-six years afterward Richard Baxter was still speaking of "a new sort of baptism." We can hardly think that any of Dr. Dexter's authorities speak of dipping as something that never had been practiced before. But in whatever sense they use the term they use it as a term of reproach, with the evident feeling that to prove the novelty is the same as to prove the invalidity of the Baptist position. It must be admitted, however, that so far as the extracts given show, the charge of newness is not met by a positive denial, but only by the claim that a new doctrine might be a true doctrine, as is witnessed by the case of Paul's new doctrine of Jesus and the resurrection.

It has been our aim to state the case exactly as Dr. Dexter has presented it. In showing wherein it fails of perfect conclusiveness our only object has been to give it a full and well-rounded statement. But that our readers may understand the full force of the point he makes we must put them in possession of all the known facts as to the practice of the English Baptists. We may begin with the year 1644. In that year seven Churches in and about London publish a "Confession of Faith." In the fortieth Article of that "Confession" they say of baptism: "The way and manner of dispensing this ordinance is dipping or plunging the body under water." There can be no reasonable doubt that the great body of English Baptists were at this time immersionists. By Baptists we mean those who were now joined together in separate Church organizations. This explanation is given because of the fact that there were many anti-Pedobaptists at that time in other Churches. Cotton Mather mentions some such in his day, "who turned their backs when infants were brought forth to be baptized in the congregation."* In 1641 Eward Barber published a treatise in which he "clearly showed that the Crosby, "History of Baptists," Vol. I, page 113.

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Lord Christ ordained dipping."* In 1640 Richard Blunt withdrew from Henry Jessy's Church, and went over to Holland to seek immersion at the hands of an immersed person. In the same year it is said that John Canne preached at Westerleigh; and it is said of him that he "was baptized man, by them called an Anabaptist, which was to some a sufficient cause of prejudice; because the truth of believers' baptism had been for a long time buried, yea, for a long time by popish inventions, and their sprinkling brought in the room thereof." We need not here go into the history of John Canne any further than to say that we do not know when or where he was baptized. The record is not contemporaneous, but is by a man who was personally cognizant of the facts he records, and may therefore be considered competent testimony. But when we have reached 1640 our records refuse to go further with us. We may feel certain that immersion was practiced by the Baptists before this time, but we have no positive proof of it. It has generally been believed that Spilbury's Church, founded September 12, 1633, practiced immersion from the first. It was strictly anti-Pedobaptist; not, certainly strictly Anabaptist, and if we were asked whether it practiced immersion, with the light we now have we should answer, We do not know. In pressing back into the past, when we reach the year 1640 we are compelled to pause, and as from some cape or promontory we look out on a sea covered with mists and clouds, amid which we see nothing clearly.

The belief that the English Baptists were not at first immersionists is not new. It was held by Thomas Crosby, the first Baptist historian, a hundred and fifty years ago. If Baptists have almost uniformly believed otherwise it is simply because they have not made themselves acquainted with their early history. As Crosby represents it, in attempting to enforce the practice of immersion the Baptists were seeking to restore a rite "which had for some time * Featly's "Dipper's Dept.," page 36. ↑ Broadmead Records, page 19.

been disused." The bitterness of the controversy which their attempt awakened shows how needful that attempt was. Suppose we grant that in 1641 immersion had already been so generally and so long disused that men saw it with wonder, and regarded it as a very novelty. It then follows that baptism, both in significance and form, was about to cease on the earth. The baptism of infants had changed and perverted its meaning, and sprinkling and pouring-the one borrowed from Judaism, the other adopted as a sort of halfway measure-had taken the place of the body, the visible form, from which the true spirit had long been expelled. The more completely this had taken place, the more distinct, emphatic, and peculiarly their own was the work of the Baptists. They come before the world with no partners or rivals or abettors or sympathizers, as the restorers and preserv ers of Christian baptism. If Dr. Dexter has made his point, this is the position in which he has placed us, and we are not in the least ashamed of it.

We have briefly indicated the causes which led to the abandonment of immersion in England. We had contemplated a full and detailed statement of the causes which had previously led to the same thing in the rest of Europe; but that must be reserved for another time. We now close as we began, by acknowledging our indebtedness to Dr. Dexter for the work he has done for us. We are more pleased with it because we regard it as symptomatic of a rising disgust with the loose way in which historical statements have been made. If he, or some one equally qualified, would pursue the same method with other sections of history we might hope for the happiest results. If, for example, any one should patiently go over the many treatises written in the time of Charlemagne on baptism, some of them by his order, we might know beyond a doubt what was the conception of baptism at that time. And then, too, if Dr. Dexter's method should be pursued it would not be long before the more discreet and learned of our Pedobaptist friends. would relegate huge tomes of anti-immersionist literature to

some receptacle for antiquated rubbish, and order some of their most forward champions to take their place in the rear with sutlers and camp-followers. If Baptists should feel that we have admitted too much, in admitting that the early English Baptists may not have uniformly practiced immersion, it will be because they do not realize low per fectly secure the position of immersionists is. The time must come when Christian scholars will unanimously and unhesitatingly acknowledge that sprinkling and pouring in baptism are ecclesiastical innovations. And if Dr. Dexter, when he inquires whether "dipping were a new mode of baptism in England in 1641," meant to inquire whether it was new in the sense that it never had been practiced before, we should take back all the kind things we have said about his candor and diligence, and be compelled to class him, not as we now do, with those true men to whom the world should patiently listen, but with the tribe of ordinary controversialists.

ARTICLE II.

THE SUBJECTION OF CHRIST.

BY PHILIP S. MOXOM.

"THIS is fanaticism, to get too near any thing; as the boy with a marble held close to his eye shuts out the sun." This definition of fanaticism serves also as an explanation of the rise of innumerable errors in conceiving the truths of divine revelation. A too close proximity to a doctrine, and an exclusive concentration of the thought upon it, results in the exaggeration of that doctrine at the expense of others equally important. As Antinomianism arises from an exclusive contemplation of the doctrine of divine sovereignty to the neglect of its true correlate, the doctrine of human free agency; and, on the other hand, Arminianism results from an exactly similar process, only with the relative position of these doctrines reversed; so, false views of the person and nature of Christ have arisen from an exclusive contemplation of his human aspects on the one hand, or of his divine aspects on the other. Unitarianism is a revolt against those views of Christ which so entirely subordinated his humanity to his divinity, as practically to lose sight of the former altogether. In the reaction of evangelical Christians from the evil, yet logical, results of Unitarian Christology they have frequently been led back to the other extreme, and have so exalted the deity of Christ as to lift him, for the most part, out of the range of human sympathy and experience.

No truth is more evidently set forth in the Scriptures than the proper deity of Christ. Apart from all express statements of this truth in the New Testament, it is overwhelmingly attested by the very spirit and substance of the