much simplified by the recent lights which have been shed upon reve lation by these spiritual astronomers. There is nothing real and unfigurative but this present life. The good are now in heaven, and the wicked are now in hell. Satan and the Saviour are two beautiful eastern metaphors; one the emblem of light and moral good, the other the emblem of darkness and moral evil. Every thing is temporal; and there is but one tense, and that is the present. The day of judg ment is past, and we are all now in our eternal homes. Let us, then, eat, drink and be merry.

If we have not answered these questions correctly, it must be owing to our having been too intimate with several systems of universal salvation; and it may be that we have become still more liberal and benevolent than the rigid Universalists of the western school, though we are yet behind some of the brethren of the east.

EDITOR.

DIALOGUE ON RE-IMMERSION.
[CONCLUDED.]

Rufus.-IS there not a very essential difference between believing that Jesus is the Messiah, and believing what he says?

Alexander.-As respects logic or the propositions there is a marked difference. But can you conceive of one believing Jesus to be the Son of God, and doubting whether he speaks the truth?

R. I acknowledge that to believe him to be the Messiah necessarily implies that he speaks the truth; but this does not reach my difficulty. I suppose it to be possible-yes, probable, and more than probablemost certain, that some believe him to be the Messiah, and yet do not believe what he says.

A. Understand what he says, I presume you mean.

R. Can a person believe that which he does not understand?

A. On proper authority he may. Do you not believe in the resurrection of the dead and in a future life?

R. Yes; but I understand the terms, though I cannot understand how the dead are raised, nor in what sort of bodies the justified and the condemned will appear, nor how an eternal life is to be sustained. The fact is revealed, but the mode of its accomplishment is not, farther than that God is able and faithful to accomplish it.

A. Would it not, then, be better to say, that a person may believe that which he cannot understand, than affirm a universal proposition; such as, 'No person can believe that which he does not understand?" A child may believe every thing which a truth-speaking father asserts, merely upon the authority of his character for veracity, and understand not a single fact which it believes.

R. Grant it. But I contend it must understand the terms; and the things believed can have no moral influence only in so far as they are understood.

A. To this I object not. But why do you press this matter? I may, if I understood your object, save you the trouble of some defi

nitions.

R. In retrospecting your arguments, I feel inclined to doubt one of your propositions, viz. Every one who believes that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God, has the faith that saves the soul, and every such person who is immersed into this faith is born a citizen and becomes a member of the christian kingdom. To this effect you have spoken. Now although I do not feel authorized to deny this proposition, yet I hesitate in giving it my unqualified approbation; because many seem to believe this proposition who do not believe what Jesus Christ has spoken concerning immersion and many other matters.

A. I now apprehend your design. You would not, then, baptize any candidate simply upon his profession of faith, unless he professed in detail his faith in all the sayings of Jesus and his Apostles; or what I would say is the same thing-satisfy you that he understands these sayings in the proper sense.

R. I would, indeed, wish to be assured as much as possible that he believes all that is spoken concerning the remission of sins and adoption into the family of God prior to his immersion.

A. And who would not? But if these matters are first stated to him, or if the ancient gospel is first announced to him, it is fairly to be inferred, that in coming forward and professing the faith, he is understandingly immersed into that faith.

R. But this brings us to the old question-What of those who had not this previous knowledge? Can they receive or enjoy the remission of sins? They did not believe the sayings of Jesus, though they might have believed him to be the Saviour. And do you not teach that no person can enjoy that which he understands not? If, then, they understood not immersion for the remission of sins, they could not receive, or what is equivalent, they could not enjoy, the remission of sins from immersion.

True: many are immersed because they think their sins are forgiven them before they are immersed; nay, amongst the Regular Baptists it is required that they profess a hope of remission before they are supposed to be worthy of immersion.

R. A hope of remission!! What a man possesses why does he yet hope for?! If they have remission why do they yet hope for it!

A. Unquestionably the term is wholly misapplied; for hope looks not back: it can never turn its eyes backward: it can look only forward. But they mean one thing and ay another.

R. Let them tell their own meaning in their own words. How do you know they mean what they do not say?

A. Because when they explain themselves they say they had remission through faith; and if they thought they were not forgiven, they would not solicit immersion. But I confess many of them speak as if they had a hope that they would hereafter be forgiven, and no assurance nor pledge that they are forgiven.

R. To hear one say he hopes he is pardoned, is as incongruous as to say he fears he shall be happy. Hope is the expectation of good, or the expectation and desire combined. We may desire what we cannot expect, and we may expect what we cannot desire; but when desire and expectation are united in any one object, then do we hope for it.

A. Rufus, now you reason like a man. But as many think they are pardoned before they are immersed, and are immersed in obedience to Christ for all promised blessings, recollect you cannot for this mistake of theirs propose to them a re-immersion on any scriptural ground, as our previous reasonings show, unless you assume that confession of this error, as well as other errors, and prayer for forgiveness, cannot be acceptable to God, nor availing to man; and that they are necessarily aliens from the kingdom of God. To discuss these matters over again is certainly useless, unless some new light can be thrown upon the subject not yet elicited.

R. I think that some new light may be elicited if you concede that a person may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and yet not believe what he says.

A. To satisfy you that there is nothing in this, I will concede to you all that you can claim from the most free and liberal sense of the word believe. Nay, I will summon several witnesses to prove that even the disciples, the Apostles too, were spoken of, and spoken to, as not believing all that was written, all that Jesus said, even after they acknowledged him to be the Messiah the Son of God; but they were not, on this account, regarded as aliens. Luke xxiv. 25. " simpletons, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Messiah to have suffered," &c. John xii. 15. "I am glad that for your sakes [Apostles] I was not there, to the intent you may believe." "Martha, believest thou this?" "Yes, Lord, I believe that thou art the Messiah," [that implies every thing.] v. 40. "Said I not to you if you would believe you. would see the glory of God," &c. &c. Now does it not appear that in your own style, christians may be spoken to as not believing all that Jesus said, and yet not worthy to be unchristianized and treated as aliens.

R. This was before the day of Pentecost; but show me any thing like this after that memorable day.

A. Read 1 Cor. viii. 5-8. "To us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we by him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we through him. Howbeit, there is not in every one (disciple) this knowledge, (faith you would say:) for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled." These persons had heard the ancient gospel from Paul-were immersed into it. Did they believe all the sayings of Christ; or would you, on that account, say, that they had not faith in Jesus, and ought to be again immersed?

R. I think I will pursue this matter no farther. There appears to be difficulties on all sides,

A. There is not so much difficulty, Rufus, if we will submit to the holy scriptures, and not legislate for others. I will tell you, my good sir, as far as I can go in this matter. If any person immersed upon a profession of his faith, should afterwards be convinced that neither his faith nor immersion was good for any thing, and should again confess the faith and be immersed into Christ, we have no right to make it a matter of discipline or of inquiry. Let him be fully persuaded in his own mind. It is a matter which wholly concerns himself. But if any person desires fellowship with us who can produce testimonials declarative that he did for himself confess the Lord, and was immersed on said profession, and whose behaviour is unexceptionble as a professor, no man, now-a-days, has any right to refuse him a seat in the family of God; and still less to insist upon his being immersed according to the views or for the good pleasure of others, This is my private opinion or judgment in this matter; but he that preaches to others whose views may be changed since their first immersion, that they must be again immersed in order to remission or to christian fellowship, acts without any scriptural authority and with out any good reason to sustain him, as far as we can judge,

R. I think for the present distress this is, perhaps, the most pru dent and discreet course; for as the public mind is now excited to the consideration of this institution, there will necessarily be a waning of the influence of tradition and a waxing of the Apostle's doctrine, and soon all that are immersed will be immersed into the ancient faith.

A. May the good Lord speed the coming of that day and bless the efforts of all who labor in the word and teaching!

No man can enjoy in any sense what he does not understand in some sense, and the fulness of joy will ever be associated with the fulness of light. More pains ought to be taken to enlighten those who are candidates for immersion, than is sometimes taken: for much of our after enjoyment depends upon an intelligent profession of the faith.

R. Let me ask you, in the close of our present interview, were you not immersed by a Regular Baptist and in the Regular Baptist way? A. I was immersed by a Regular Baptist, but not in a Regular Baptist way. I stipulated with Matthias Luse that I should be immersed on the profession of the one fact, or proposition, that Jesus was the Messiah the Son of God, when I solicited his attendance with me on that occasion. He replied that it was not usual for the Baptists to immerse simply on that profession; but that he believed it to be scriptural. Fearing, however, to be called to account for it by some of his brethren, he solicited the attendance of Henry Spears, a very worthy brother, for whose undissembled piety I always cherish the highest regard, to accompany him and to bear the half of the censure which might fall upon him for this great aberration from the good old Baptist way. Brother Spears accompanied him, and on this profession alone I was immersed; nor have I ever immersed any person but upon the same profession which I made myself.

It was this confession that cost Jesus his life, when he denied not, but confessed before Pontius Pilate that he was the Messiah the Son of God. Is it not on this account alone, if we had no apostolic precedent, most suitable and worthy to be the confession of all who are about to be buried with him. I scarcely ever ask man or woman before I lead them into the water, "Do you believe that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God?" but it recalls to my remembrance the scene in Pilate's Judgment Hall, when the Messiah knowing what would follow, made this good confession. For it he died-by it we live.

R. I have been looking into history on this subject, and I discover that you have a very general concurrence of all antiquity and in all ages since the Christian Era in favor of but once baptism. There is a more general agreement amongst all parties, the reputed sound and unsound in the faith, upon this subject than on any other. And what has no little astonished me, is, the very general admission that even the baptisms of the most degenerate churches is valid. Even the Presbyte rians at this very time are contending that the baptisms of the Roman church are valid. I was amused with the following avowal of a distinguished Presbyterian, Dr. McLeod, I think, of New York, in favor of the validity of the baptism of the church of Rome. It is rather too strong for me: it proves that the daughters have some natural affection for the mother, though she has played the harlot with all the kings of the earth. Hear the Doctor in the "Christian Expositor." Presbyterian Baptism valid because derived from the Apostate Church.

"We have no design to conceal or to palliate popish abominations. The Romish church is unsound in doctrine, idolatrous in worship, tyrannical in government, unholy, and bloody in her administrations. In judging of her ecclesiastical acts, it will be safe to follow, however, the footsteps of the flock. Of the reformation of Romans in Spain, and in Italy itself, we will not now write. Of the French Hugonots, the German and the Belgic, and the British churches, it is unnecessary to speak. Every well informed ecclesiastic has heard of the popish baptism and the valid ministry of Zuingle, and Luther, and Calvin, and Cranmer, and Knox.

"The fathers of the purest part of the old Presbyterian church deserve to be mentioned by their children, as both furnishing a noble example, and affording an index to the manner in which we should answer the question now under discussion.

The first Scottish Protestants were clergymen of the Roman establishment, while many priests, friars, abbots, and even bishops and cardinals, became members and ministers of the churches, on the continent of Europe. Patrick Hamilton was an abbot; Thomas Forrest a vicar; Beveridge and Kylee were friars: Simpson was a priest; Henry Forrest, Gourley, Russel, &c. who led the way for the settlement of Presbyterianism, were all ministers of the church of Scotland, whose popish baptism and orders were never yet called in question by their Presbyterian descendants. They left behind them many