yourself particularly against the allurements of evil companions; you will be sure to meet with many of them in your progress through life. This world is much more wicked than at present you can be aware of: the best way to avoid its influence is frequent prayer to God. You must not depend upon your own exertions in this or in any other thing. You must beseech the Almighty to afford you the aid of his Holy Spirit, through Christ, in all the dangers and difficulties you may have to encounter." He never uttered any prayer or supplication to God, but in the name and through the mediation of Jesus Christ. His pious ejaculations were numerous and frequent. Amongst them were: "Thou art the rock of my defence. Do thou, O God, support me in the hour of death and in the day of judgment" Not my will, but thine, be done"-"Oh my offended Saviour, let now my affections enter heaven, whither thou art gune, and in thy good time permit my soul to follow them"-"What are my sufferings, in comparison of thine for sinful man?"—I feel great pain; but I trust, through Christ, that my afflictions will work for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." His moaning was sometimes loud and dismal; and to a friend who stood by him he said: "You must not imagine, Mr. S., that the noise I make is voluntary. It is not so. I cannot avoid it. It is the effect of spasm. I am half suffocated. I can hardly fetch my breath. I cannot indeed help making this noise. I do not know how it is; but I hope God will not consider it as murmur or complaint. His blessed will be done." When the above friend was going to leave his chamber, he asked him if he had any commands to Mr. H. He answered, “Give my duty to my master, and tell him I have but a short time to stay here; and that, through Christ, I trust our souls will be united in a blessed eternity. Tell him my heart overflows with gratitude for the kindness I have received from him, but that my tongue cannot express it. Mr. S., you must endeavour to express my gratitude for me. You can do it better than I We are not to expect much that is new in these relations; for indeed death is too awful an event, even in its most favourable approaches, to leave much room for the imagination to play, or the finer shades of character to unfold themselves in the dying. The benefit we are to expect from the recurrence of scenes such as these to the mind, is of another and perhaps superior kind: it is this, that they strongly serve to fix upon it views, which almost every thing else in the world is calculated to conceal. Whilst the guilt of mankind seems to be that they live without God in the world, their curse seems to be that they live as without death in the world; that is, without any view towards it, or preparation for it. A curse this is, which the believer feels to be even greater than the one by which the stroke of death was first inflicted. Whatever therefore tends to recall that which should never be a stranger to our thoughts; whatever realizes to our view a scene through which we have all to pass, more particularly if it chalk out the very track we should wish to pursue, and teach us by an example "how a Christian may die "-I think, cannot well be considered as an intruder upon our thoughts; and, though frequently repeated, ought in reality to be considered only as another and another way-mark in succession, to guide us on in the same path to the same glory.-One peculiarity, indeed, your readers will not fail to observe in this narration, which indicates the rank of life to which the person spoken of belonged. That he was a servant, appears clearly from an accidental mention of his master: whilst, at the same time, nothing is more striking than the general and undeviating dignity of character displayed in the last moments of this faithful Christian. And this is a remark I rejoice to make in honour of our common Christianity. To a heathen poet, death could appear in no other light than as betraying the littleness of man: "Mors sola fatetur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula:* and in his view of it, this king of terrors reduced even a Hannibal to the rank of a miere corpse and a shroud. It remained for Christianity to reverse the picture, and make death a stage of elevation; a scene, as it were, in which the believer is exhibited as of a size and figure proportioned to his hopes; and though selected, perhaps, from the very humblest rank, is made to sit "amongst princes, even the princes of his people." I see here an illustration of that true equality which our religion teaches us to place between man and man-an equality not consisting in a confusion of ranks, or a cool contempt of every thing locally above ourselves, but that which has respect to one common "Master who is in heaven, and with whom there is no respect of persons;" which raises what is low and ennobles what is base; which consists in an union of interest, a sameness of hope, and mutual sympathy of feeling; which even in life teaches the poor to look without envy upon the aecidental advantages of the rich, and the rich to "condescend" without stooping, "to men of low estate;" but which, more than all, in death reduces both precisely to the same level, and determines their eternal lot by one common standard of admeasurement ; viz. their progress in the attainments of holiness. I had intended to have drawn your readers' attention to the catholic spirit so interestingly displayed by this genuine and unaffected son of the church in his last moments-moments, even those, refreshed by the solemn accents of a primitive "form of devotion:" but I feel this would be at once reflecting upon their own discernment, and trespassing too long upon your time; and I therefore conclude with a prayer, that we may be found at length "followers of them, who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises." I remain, &c. A. B. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. A LAYMAN; L.; Civis ; J. L.; C. W.; A CURATE; T. R. BROMFIELD; COHEN ; J-D.; S. M. C.; AMICUS VERITATIS; EZEKIEL FITWELL; N. 2.; have been received, and are under consideration. Mr. YATES's interesting communication respecting the " Indian roll of the Pentateuch" came too late to be inserted in this number: it will appear in our next. The papers of PHILO and S. P. will appear. TO FREDERICK we should be disposed to recommend Scott's Bible; and if he had the means of enlarging the list of his commentators, he might add to it Doddridge, Henry, and Pole.-With respect to the import of the term "regenerated," in the baptismal service for infants, we refer him to our review of Mr. Spry's pamphlet in our number for December last. For an answer to his question respecting the funeral service, he may consult the former volumes of our work'; viz. Vol. i. pp. 159, 297, 500, and 771; and Vol. ii. pp. 78, 279, 459, and 787. We cannot help thinking LAICUS somewhat hypercritical. He might with equal propriety * object to the translation of Isaiah, and the notes upon it by Lowth, or to the prelections of the same learned prelate, The two papers which have reached us on the subject of Infant Baptism contain so much of gratuitous reasoning and conjecture, and so little of fact and evidence, that we shrink from their insertion, as leading us into a mere war of words. Besides, with Dr. Wall on one side, and Dr. Gill on the other, there seems to be but little call for us to dive into the depths of this controversy. The only question which has really been mooted in our pages is confined to a narrow compass. It has been asserted, it seems, in some periodical publication (what publication it is, we know not; for all parties seem afraid to name it), that the ONLY men in the carly ages of Christianity, whose character or talents had brought their names to our knowledge, HAD ENTERED THEIR PROTEST against infant baptism; and that Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Cyril, Justin, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Arnobius, Jerom, Ephraim Syrus, and Epiphanius, were advocates of adult baptism, AS OPPOSED to infant baptism. These assertions have been formally de nied, and proof has been required. The proof we are ready to admit, and nothing more is necessary, for the defenders of the publication, than to produce it. In that case the comment may be spared. All that it will be necessary to state at present is, that the correspondent for whom this note is intended has, in opposition to J. G., affirmed that the error of Tertullian was a belief of the guiltlessness of infants, and not a belief that full remission of sins was the sure effect of Baptism;" that the expression attributed to Origen by Rufinus, respecting the tradition of the church, is an interpolation, even by the admission of Dr. Wall; that the genuineness of Cyprian's Epistle to Fidus is disputed by the learned; and that, even if genuine, it does not prove that infant baptism did not begin to be practised in the third century. CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. No. 99.] MARCH, 1810. [No. 3. Vol. IX. RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. devil, and is utterly a stranger to BAXTER'S REVIEW OF HIS EARLY RELI GIOUS OPINIONS. (Continued from p. 71.) AM more and more pleased with a solitary life; and though in a way of self-denial I could submit to the most public life, for the service of God, when he requires it, and would not be unprofitable that I might be private; yet I must confess, it is much more pleasing to myself to be retired from the world, and to have very little to do with men, and to converse with God, and conscience, and good books; of which I have spoken my heart elsewhere. Though I was never much tempted to the sin of covetousness, yet my fear of dying was wont to tell me, that I was not sufficiently loosened from the world. But I find that it is comparatively very easy to me to be loose from the world, but hard to live by faith above. To despise earth is easy to me; but not so easy to be acquainted and conversant in heaven. I have nothing in this world which I could not easily let go; but to get satisfying apprehensions of the other world is the great and grievous difficulty. I am much more apprehensive than long ago of the odiousness and danger of the sin of pride; scarce any sin appears more odious to me. Having daily more acquaintance with the lamentable frailty of man, and with the mischiefs of that sin, especially in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical, I think so far as any man is proud he approaches to a CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 99. God and to himself. It is a wonder that it should be a possible sin to men that still carry about them, in soul and body, such humbling ustter of remedy as we all do. I more than ever lament the unhappiness of the nobility, gentry, and great ones of the world, who live in such temptation to senst lity, frivolity, and wasting of the time about a multitude of little things; and whose lives are too often the transcript of the sas of Sodom; namely, prrie, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness; and, it may be added, want of roupassion to the poor. And I more value the life of the poor aboming man, but especially of him that heru neither poverty nor riches. much more sensible than formerly of the breadth, and length, and depth of the radical, universal, hateful sin of selfishness, and therefore have written so much against it; and of the excellency and necessity of self-denial, and of a public mind, and of loving our neighbour as ourselves. I am more solicitous than I have been about my duty to God, and less solicitous about his dealings with me; as being assured that he will do all things well; and as acknowledging the goodness of all the declarations of his holiness, even in the punishment of man; and as knowing there is no rest but in the will and goodness of God. Though my works were never such as could be any temptation to me to dream of obliging God by proper merit, in commutative justice, yet one of the most ready, constant, undoubted, evidences of my R uprightness, and interest in his covenant, is the consciousness of my living devoted to him; and I the more easily believe the pardon of my failings through my Redeemer, while I know that I serve no other master, and that I know no other end; but that I am employed in his work, and make it the business of my life, and live to him in the world, notwithstanding my infirmities; and this bent and business of my life, with my longing desires after perfection in the knowledge, and belief, and love of God, and in a holy and heavenly mind and life, are the two standing, constant, discernible evidences which most put me out of doubt of my sincerity; and I find that constant action and duty is it that keeps the first always in sight, and constant wants and weaknesses, and coming short of my desires, do make those desires still the more troublesome, and so the more easily still perceived. And though my habitual judgment, resolution, and scope of life be still the same, yet I find a great mutability as to actual apprehensions, and degrees of grace; and consequently find that so mutable a thing as the mind of man would never keep it self if God were not its keeper. When I have been seriously musing upon the truth of Christianity, with its concurrent evidences me thodically placed in their just advantages before my eyes, I am so clear in my belief of the Christian verities that Satan hath little room for a temptation. But sometimes when he hath on a sudden set some temptation before me, when the foresaid evidences have been out of the way, or less upon my thoughts, he hath by such surprises amazed me, and weakened my faith in the present act. So also as to the love of God, and trust in him: sometimes when the motives are clearly apprehended, the duty is more easy and delightful; and at other times, I am merely passive and dull, if not guilty of actual despondency and dis trust. I am much more cautious in my belief of history than formerly. Not that I run into their extreme that will believe nothing because they cannot believe all things. But I am abundantly satisfied by experience, that no credit is due to two sorts of men-ungodly men, and partial men. Though an honest heathen of no religion may be believed, where enmity against religion does not bias him, yet a merely professed Christian, besides his enmity to the power and practice of his own religion, is seldom without some farther bias of interest or faction: especially when these concur, and a man is both ungodly and ambitious, espousing an interest contrary to a hea venly life, and also factious, uniting himself to a sect or party suited to his own designs, there is no believing his word or oath. If you read any man partially bitter against such as differ from him or cross his interest, take heed how you believe more than the historical evidence, distinct from his word, compels you to believe. Observe also, that when great men write history, or flatterers by their appointment, whom no man dare contradict, believe it but as you are constrained. Yet in these cases I can believe history, 1. If the writer shew you that he is acquainted with what he says. 2. If he shew you the evidences of honesty and conscience, and the fear of God, (which may be much perceived in the spirit of a writing.) 3. And if he appear to be impartial, and not possessed with personal ill will.—It is easy to trace the footsteps of veracity in Thuanus, for example, and others, though papists; and as easy to detect partiality and faction in Baronius, and a multitude of similar writers. Hence I confess I give but halting credit to most histories that are written, not only against the Albigenses and Waldenses, but against most of the ancient heretics, who have left us none of their own writings, in which they might speak for themselves. And as I am prone to think few of them were so bad as their adversaries made them, so I am apt to think that such as, though regarded as heretics, were yet commended by their opponents, were very good men, however mistaken in some one point. Sure I am, that as the lies of the papists concerning Luther and other protestants are visibly malicious by plenary evidence on the other side, and yet the vast majority of the accusers' party believe them all in spite of truth and charity; so my own eyes have read such words and actions vehemently asserted, which even the assertors' friends have known to be utterly false and therefore having now written this history, I confess, that, notwithstanding my protestations that I have not in any thing gone wilfully against the truth; I expect no more credit from the reader, than the self-evidencing light of the matter, with concurrent testimony of other witnesses, shall constrain him to; I mean particularly, if he be unacquainted with the author himself and the fair evidences of his veracity. And, I have purposely omitted almost the descriptions of any persons that ever opposed me, or even that I and my friends suffered by; because I know that the appearance of interest might justly excuse the reader's incredulity. I must except indeed among my enemies the adherents of Cromwell, and the sectaries, because no one suspects my interest to be engaged against them; bat (with the rest of my brethren) I have opposed them in obedience to conscience, when by pleasing them I could have had almost whatever they could have given me; and when at the same ume I expected, that, in case the royal government were restored, I should be silenced, and lose my house and maintenance; as has really since happened. According ly, I assume that my descriptions of those under the commonwealth, who would have honoured me, and of their actions against their successors in power, who have impoverished me, are beyond the suspicion of par tiality; and even here I am content that the reader judge of these men simply as the evidence of fact constrains him. Thus much of the alterations of my soul since my younger years I thought best to give my reader; and I warn him to amend that in his own life which he finds to have been amiss in mine; confessing also, that much has been amiss which I have not here particularly mentioned; and that I have not lived according to the abundant mercies of the Lord. But what I have recorded, hath been especially to perform my vows, and declare his praise to all generations, who has filled up my days with his invaluable blessings, and bound me to bless his name for ever; and also to prevent the defective performance of this task by some overvaluing brethren, who, I know, intended it, and were unfitter to do it than myself; and for such reasons as many others have done before me, the principal of which are; 1. As travellers and seamen use to do after great adventures and deliverances, I hereby satisfy my conscience, in praising the blessed Author of all my undeserved mercies. 2. Foreseeing what certain descriptions of persons are like to say of me when they have none to contradict them, and how possible it is that those that never knew me may believe them, I take it to be my duty to be so faithful to that stock of reputation which God hath entrusted me with, as to defend it at the rate of opening the truth. 3. That young Christians may be warned by the mistakes and failings of my unriper times, to learn in patience, and live in watchfulness, and not to be fierce, and proudly confident in their first conceptions; and to reverence ripe experienced age; and to beware of taking such for their chief guides as have nothing but immature and inexperienced judgments, with fervent affections, and free and confident expressions; but to learn of them that have (with holiness,) study, time, and trial, looked about |