calls liberty, law and good-fellowship; in other words, a repeal of the teft laws, fhould be irrecoverably left to them in this land, every land fhould be their country, where those bleffings fhould be prefented. This paper is fubfcribed by forty-three diffenting teachers, and feems to be confidered by the biographer as fomething that deferves to be refcued from oblivion,-as fomething indeed extremely fine.. We next find Mr. Walker engaged in a correfpondence with Mr. Grey (now Earl Grey) on the fubject of parliamen tary reform. That gentleman being to move the house on the fubject on the 6th of May 1793, was very defirous, it feems, to have his motion enforced by petitions from the metropolis and other diftricts-efpecially the town of Nottingham. Whether the noble Earl will thank the nameless biographer for thus revealing the fecret hiftory of fuch petitions, we think more than doubtful; but the petition from Nottingham, which was drawn up by Mr. Walker, was rejected by the House, on account of the following paffage, which our biographer thinks perfectly harmless, and even respectful! 66 From various caufes, the conftitution of these kingdoms has paffed into the groffeft abuses, fo as to infult the common fenfe of the nation with a name when the reality is gone!"-That the petition, containing this modeft and refpectful claufe, was rejected, is here attributed to the influence of Mr. Pitt, who is confidently declared to have been MAD, for plunging the nation into an unjust war, from hoftility to those enlarged principles of civil liberty, which had been displayed by the body of moderate and peace-loving ftatefmen, the French Convention! To avert, if poffible, the effects of this madness, Mr. Walker perfuaded about three thoufand of his townfmen to fubfcribe a petition, which he had drawn up in aid of Mr. Grey's motion in 1793; but whether this was done, as in the cafe of parliamentary reform, at the defire of Mr. Grey, we are not told. That fuch a factious demagogue as Mr. Walker fhould be highly exafperated at the Pitt and Grenville acts, as they were called, is not wonderful; for they deprived him of the opportunity of difplaying his oratory and political knowledge in thofe dangerous affemblies for parliamentary reform, in which he had fo long been accustomed to take a lead. We have accordingly a very angry letter from him to a friend, containing a grofs mifreprefentation of the tendency of thofe bills, and fome predictions, which have been completely falfi. fied; but we cannot be surprised at any thing of the kind from A a BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXXVI. OCT. 1810, a man, a man, of whom his biographer fays (Mem. p. 201.) that "throughout the whole of the American war, and during the commencement of the war with France in 1793, notwithflanding as an Englishman he felt the fhame of national defeat and humiliation, yet, in contefts fo unjult, he deprecated the fuccefs of his country's arms !!" After twenty-four years refidence in Nottingham, Mr. Walker, whom even experience could not teach wisdom, removed to Manchefter, where he undertook the office of theological tutor in the diffenting academy or college in that town. The emoluments of that office were fmall, and the labours of it exceffive; and to thefe labours were afterwards added thofe of the mathematical and claffical tutors, which foon exhaufted the ftrength of an old man, and compelled him to refign all his offices in the college. He continued, after that period, to refide for nearly two years, in the neighbourhood of Manchefter; and was for fome time Prefident of the Literary and Philofophical Society of that town-a fociety which has published several volumes of valuable memoirs. He then removed to the village of Wavertree near Liverpool; and in the fpring of 1807, died in London, whither he had gone to treat with book fellers about the publication of fome fermons. His biographer has publifhed two elaborate characters of him-the one by Mr. Wakefield, and the other taken from a fermon preached by one of his friends, and publifhed on occafion of his death. Both thefe characters are partial panegyrics, which contain much praife, to which Mr. Walker appears not to us juftly entitled; but that he was a man of talents is unquestionable; and we are willing to allow that his meaning was good, even when his conduct was reprehenfible. Of his talents and his principles the reader will be able to form fome eftimate for himself from this abftract of his life; but they will again appear in review before us, when confidering the merit of his feveral Effays. In the mean time we fhall ftate the biographer's objections to the cere mony of ordaining clergymen, and examine the form of his reafoning against a rite which has always appeared to us of apoftolical inftitution, and indeed effential to the very. exiftence of a Church entitled to the appellation of Chriftian. "As he was now regularly established in the stated office of a minifter, it was thought neceffary, that he should undergo the ceremony of ordination. This was accordingly performed at a meeting of minifters convened (at Durham) for the purpofe 1 in October 1757, a practice now very much difufed among the rational diffenters, and which will probably in a little time be altogether laid afide. Having fatisfactorily anfwered the quef tion propofed, he received ordination as a minifter in the following terms :-Thefe, are to certify, that the Rev. George. Walker, haring preached a fermon, and exhibited a Latin thefis from a fubject affigned him, and publicly delivered a confeffion of his faith, was this day folemnly ordained, as witness our bands, c. It is probable, that none of the minifters affembled contem. plated this ceremony in any other light, than as a folemn approbation (we perceive in it nothing folemn*) of the individual, as fitted by his character, his talents, and his faith, for the exercife of his profeffion, to which he had devoted himself. The notion of their acting in any apostolic character, and communicating to him by fome fecret and fupernatural interference, certain peculiar powers must have been difcarded by all, as a remnant of popish folly and fuperftition; nevertheless there were many among the diffenting laity, who yet retained fo much of the puritanical fpirit, that they would have deemed the facrament but imperfectly adminiftered, by any but a regularly ordained minifter, and have regarded the act of baptifin by any other, as nugatory and inefficacious." (Mem. p. 42.) Though our readers can bear witness that we have never fymbolized either with papifts or with puritans in the peculiar degrees which diftinguifh their refpective creeds, we truft that we shall never be afhamed to maintain the truth, merely because it has been maintained by papifts and puritans. Both thefe fects believe or profefs to believe all the articles of the Apoftles' Creed; but one of these articles is, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," in which, if the Church be not a fociety, founded by Chrift, and placed under governors, deriving their authority from him, it feems to us inconceivable how any man can believe, as an article of Chriftian faith. We are however fully aware that the Apoftles' Creed is of no authority in the diffenting feat of the rational Chriftians; but rational Christians, or at least the greatest part of them, profefs to believe in the Divine authority of facred fcripture, although both papifts and puritans profefs the fame thing. Thefe three fects indeed interpret many feripture doctrines very differently from each other; but fince they all admit the authority of fcripture, the It resembles indeed the certificate of character given to a footman, when quitting his place, more than the ordination of a clergyman, or the letters of orders which are given to clergymen by the bishop who ordained them. only queftion at iffue is by whom thofe contefted doctrines are moft faithfully interpreted; and this question must bé decided by criticifm, reafoning, and the concurring teftimony of antiquity where it is to be had." The churches of England and Rome, the Greek church, and, according to this biographer, the puritans regard the adminiftration of the facraments as nugatory and inefficacious, but by a regularly ordained minifter*; while the diffenting fect of rational Chriftians, it feems, deem them of fufficient -efficacy by whomfoever adminiftered. If there be meaning. however, in this author's words, all thefe parties confider them as having fome efficacy, whatever it may be ; for if they were nugatory aud inefficacious, by whomfoever adminiftered, there would have been no room for writing contemptuously of the puritans for deeming them nugatory and inefficacious, when adminiftered by a man not regularly ordained to the office of adminiftering them. But the efficacy of baptifm (we enquire not at prefent what that efficacy is) will furely be granted to be wholly derived from the pofitive inftitution of Chrift; at leaft it feems not probable that any rational Chriftian confiders the wafhing of a perfon with water in the name of the FATHER, and of the SON, and of the HOLY GHOST, as any duty of natural religion. To whom then did * We shall be here told that the church of Rome admits the efficacy of baptifm, by whomfoever adminiftered; but this is not exactly the cafe. The church of Rome does not admit the efficacy of lay-baptifm as fuch; but has, by the decrees of popes and councils, only authorized whofoever shall be prefent to adminifter baptifm in cafes of what the confiders extreme neceffity. Whether any church-even the church univerfal, be competent to grant fuch a general commiffion to baptize as this, is a question which we have no occafion to difcufs, fince it is granted, on the fuppofition that water baptifm is not generally, but fo abfolutely neceffary to falvation, that every perfon who dies unbaptized fhall either be annihilated, or condemned to hell-fire for ever. All proteftants, we believe, admit, as the primitive church certainly admitted, that although our blessed Lord hath enjoined all Christians, under the feveret penalties, to obferve his pofitive ordinances when they have an opportunity of obferving them, he hath not made them fo neceffary as that he cannot fave without them, fince he hath declared that, in every cafe, he prefers mercy to facrifice. But though we think the practice of the church of Rome, with refpect to baptifm, very irregular, we perceive no obvious diftinction between her lay-baptisms and the baptifms of those who minister in the church, in contempt of all authority derived from the supreme head of the church. Chrift give authority to adminifter the facrament of baptism ? did he give it indifcriminately to all his followers; or to fuch individuals as fhould from time to time be elected by the multitude of believers, to officiate as minifters in their feveral congregations; or only to fuch as fhould, by fome form or other, be fent by authority derived from him, as he was fent by the Father? That he did not give authority to all his followers indifcriminately to adminifter the facrament of baptifm, is incontrovertible; for we are affured by St. Paul that he was feen after his refurrection by five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part were alive when the Apoftle wrote his first epifle to the Corinthians; and yet it was only to the eleven difciples or Apoftles, that" Jefus came and fpake, faying, all power is given to me in Heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghoft; teaching them to obferve all things what foever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." They were the eleven only (or rather the ten, Tho mas being abfent) who were affembled with fhut doors for fear of the Jews, when "Jefus came + and flood in the midst, and said unto them-Peace be unto you; AS MY FATHER HATH SENT ME, EVEN SO SEND I You. And when he had faid this, be breathed on them, and faith unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghoft. Whofefoever fins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosefoever fins ye retain, they are retained." From thefe texts it is evident, as any thing can be, that authority to adminifter Chriftian baptifm, and to remit and retain fins (whatever be the meaning of that phrase, of which by and by) was not given to all Chriftians in common; and it is no lefs evident, that it was not given to fuch individual Chriftians as might be chofen by others to "minifter among them about holy things." Our Saviour exprefsly declares, that he fent the eleven as he had been fent by his Father; but the miffion of Chrift had no dependence on the election of the people, nor, of courfe, the miffion of the Apoftles on the election of their fellow-chriftians, or of thofe among whom they were to preach the Gofpel. "Ye have not chofen me," fays he ‡, but I have chofen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit fhould remain, #St, Matt, xxviii. 18, &c. + St. John xx. 21, &c. + St. John xv. 16. |