We do not believe that the Apostle Peter intended to contradict, or did contradict, the drift of the Scriptures, and especially the teachings of Christ concerning the condition of the spirits of men after death. We believe that neither in this passage nor in any other passage of Scripture rationally interpreted according to its language, and according to the drift of the Bible, does the.Apostle Peter or the Holy Spirit teach that the Gospel will be preached to the spirits of men who die with the sin upon them of rejecting the means of grace which they had in life. We humbly conceive that this passage was introduced by Peter, and the men of Noah's time were specified to show-though this is not sharply donethat men who suffer for righteousness' sake have the com pany and fellowship of the saints who have gone before them, and especially before the flood, when the sinners were many and the saints were few, and the spirit of Christ in Noah warned the world to flee from the wrath to come.

NOTE. No attempt has been made in this paper to review by name particular eschatologies, which advocate a probation after death, for two reasons: First, because the limits of a magazine article do not afford space for such discussion in connection with the thorough examination of such a passage as the one before us; and, second, because it is of the first importance to fix in mind the doctrine of Scripture in regard to the case in hand. If we may know the mind of the Spirit on this point, any deviation from his teachings is an error. How nearly we have succeeded in setting forth that mind, our readers must judge.

ARTICLE IV.

THE SIX-PRINCIPLE BAPTISTS.

A HISTORICAL SKETCH.

BY REV. J. T. SMITH, D. d.

AMONG existing Protestant sects in America is one known as the Six-Principle Baptist. It is a sect quite insignificant in numbers, and yet more in social, moral, and religious influence upon the mass of the population of this country. It is a Christian denomination organized in the closest possible communion. It has for its distinguishing test the theoretical acknowledgment of the six principles which comprise their creed, and especially the conscientious practice of the one article wherein they differ from other Baptists.

These six principles are authoritatively expressed for them, and, as they hold, for all, in the sixth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, first and second verses: "The foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying-on of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment." Of this "foundation" they make, as all may see, six "principles," which are the six articles of their denominational creed, as follows: Article first, "Repentance from dead works," which they understand as all evangelical Christians do. Article second, "Faith towards God," they understand as the Gospel requirement of faith, including the acceptance of the doctrinal truths of Christianity involved and implied therein. Article third, "The doctrine of baptisms" they understand to be the doctrine and practice of Christian baptism, including mode and subjects as held by Baptists generally. Article fourth, "Laying-on of hands," they understand to require that every baptized per

son must have the hands of the administrator or some other elder, who must also have previously been under hands, laid upon his head, with solemn prayer, before he can be qualified to come to the communion. Articles fifth

and sixth, "Resurrection of the dead" and "eternal judg ment," they understand as evangelical Christians generally understand these and kindred expressions wherever they occur in the Scriptures.

From this résumé it is evident that the Six-Principle Baptists are, at least in their formal creed, as solidly evangelical as the most evangelical of Christians. It is also evident that they are, in their doctrine of baptism, as strictly Baptistic as the strictest of Baptists, being Baptists in excess rather than in defect.

HISTORICAL RELATION OF THE SIX-PRINCIPLE NOTION TO THE BAPTIST DENOMINATION.

If we go back to the recognized beginnings of the Baptist denomination in England and America, we shall find more or less of this six principle notion developed among them, in its specialty of laying-on of hands. They themselves claim that 'it has come down par passu with the primitive baptism from the apostles. They call themselves in this country, "General Baptists of the Ancient Order of the Six-Principles of the Doctrine of Christ," and identify themselves with the General Baptist Denomination in England, which they claim as the oldest organization of Baptists in that country. The General Baptists in England are, and always have been, as are also the Six-Principle Baptists in America, Arminian in doctrine. They claim, also, that the early Continental Baptists, from the time of the Refor mation, particularly the Dutch, German, and Polish Baptists (Anabaptists), were Arminian in doctrine.

Knight, the historian of the Six-Principle Baptists, being apparently solicitous of keeping prominent the identity of the General Baptists of England and the Six-Principle Baptists of America, also makes prominent the prevalence among the

former of the rite of laying-on of hands. Yet he admits, what also Benedict affirms, that this rite was not universal among them. Of the Particular or Calvinistic BaptistsKnight commonly uses the latter term-he has little to say. And it is certain that the Particular Baptist Confession of 1689 is silent in regard to it. It is also certain that the Baptist denomination in the Jerseys and Pennsylvania originated from the Particular Baptists in England and Wales, the first church of the denomination in that section being organized by Elias Keach, son of Benjamin Keach, who was one of the signers of the Particular Baptist Confession. And it is also certain that the early Baptists of New Jersey and Pennsylvania were, many of them, adherents of that rite. The fathers of the Philadelphia Association were so decided upon this point that they, on republishing that Confession, appended an article requiring the laying of hands upon all the baptized. Doubtless Cutting is correct in the assertion that this article is regarded by very few of the churches in that association, at this day, as binding upon them. It is, however, to be particularly noted, that while in every local beginning of the Baptist denomination in America, the rite of laying on of hands intrudes itself as a disturbing and even a divisive element, it nowhere finds a universal acceptWhat Benedict says of the First Providence Church, on the authority of Governor Jenks, that it early accepted it, "but held it in a lax manner," was undoubtedly true of many early Churches in the middle and Southern colonies; that is, those who chose received it, and those who did not were still held in communion. When Dr. Manning came to Rhode Island he brought with him those Philadelphia Association Particular Baptist ideas, and while he himself had been under hands," disputes on that point, which were then rife in the First Providence Church, were, through his influence, settled on that principle.

ance.

The first church in Newport, organized under the lead of Dr. John Clarke, but little later than the organization of the First Providence Church, never, from the first, ad

mitted the laying-on of hands as a necessary element of Gospel Church order. Nevertheless, something of this disturbing element must have been early among them, as within about a dozen years a disaffected party withdrew and founded the second church in that city, a Six-Principle Baptist Church, practicing to this day, as it has through its entire history, this rite, and naming it "the rite of confirmation."

Soon after, the first Baptist Church in Swansea was formed by Particular Baptist emigrants from Wales, and without the rite of laying-on of hands-a church still in existence. But before many years a second Church was formed in the same town, embracing those who insisted on the rite as a term of communion. The first Baptist Church in Boston was formed without reference to laying on of hands, and though its tendency to Arminianism led to the early formation of the second Baptist Church this rite was no more considered in that than in the first.

Valentine Wightman, descended from Edward Wightman, the last martyr at the stake in England, and the progenitor of a noble line of Baptist ministers of the same and other names down to the present (may the blood not soon run out!), starting from Rhode Island, founded the first Baptist church in the colony of Connecticut in the town of Groton, and afterwards the first in the city and colony of New York. Both these Churches were, for some years, Six-Principle Churches; but for more than a century there has been no Church of the connection in either location. But with the exception of the First Newport and the First Swansea Churches, the Six-Principle order was sown all over Rhode Island and the adjacent parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and its adherents claim it as the first organized Christianity in Rhode Island. As early as 1729 the Six-Principle Baptist Churches of Rhode Island and the adjacent parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut held a general or yearly meeting in Newport, which was the largest representative Baptist meeting at that time ever held on the American Continent, VOL. V, No. 20-32