It is possible, however, that Philalethes and John may entertain very different sentiments respecting the constitution and character of a real disciple, and of the distinction which Philalethes makes between a real and an avowed disciple. In the judgment of Philalethes, Christ came into this world himself, and sent inspired instructers, not only to furnish an ignorant and erring multitude of human beings with correct conceptions concerning God and his creatures, but to teach them also how they were to feel and act towards both; or, in other words, to enlighten their understandings respecting God and divine things, and through that information to beget in their minds those pious and virtuous emotions and dispositions, and in their external conduct that conformity to divine law, which constitute, characterize, and discriminate God's children; or if you will, Christ's genuine disciples, from an unenlightened, unbelieving, or falsely professing world. When a person, therefore, in the judgment of Philalethes, enters Christ's school, and there commences his scholarship, (and who on earth does more than commence it? shall we, regardless of our own experience and divine declaration to the contrary, doat and dream of intellectual and moral perfection?) that person commences not only the acquisition of correct conceptions, but also of correct dispositions and practice-in short, commences the knowledge, feelings, and conduct of a christian. Certain it is, that Christ recognizes none as disciples but such as study and practise every thing which he offers to teach them. His disciples must think, feel, and act as rational and moral beings, as well as talk.

But further, is John prepared to assert that these acquisitions cannot be made anteriorly to immersion, or a public avowal of them-in short, that it is the act of immersion which confers or creates them? Or that, though made, they do not constitute their possessor a christian or real disciple of Christ? Philalethes has asserted that knowledge, faith, love, and obedience are the elements or constituent parts, or rather principles of a christian; or, in other words, all that is necessary to constitute a christian; and, of course, that whenever all these are present in a human soul, that soul is a christian; but when any one of these is absent, there is no christian. Will John deny this, and assert that more elements are necessary? That beside having read, understood, and believed God's message, and by means of this use of it, having had one's soul inflamed with love to God and man, and one's practice rendered as conformable to divine law as the present imperfection of man will permit, more is necessary to constitute a christian? If he do, surely it behoves him to specify the deficiency-to declare explicitly what is still wanting.

As to the political question proposed by John, Philalethes can assent to every letter and syllable of it, without infringing in the least on the incredulity which he has avowed immediately before it. John seems to think that a human body is made a member of political society by the very same means by which a human soul is made a member of Christ's family. Philalethes thinks very differently. He well knows that membership in a political community can be gained

only by the body being dropt within its territorial limits, the reputed production of its members, or by its being subsequently subjected in a formal manner to the act of naturalization in a foreign state--a process, by the by, in which no respect is paid to intellectual or moral qualities, provided the latter have not degenerated into open rebellion. Very differently, however, is membership in Christ's household attained. By intellectual and moral endowments alone is admission into this enviable community to be procured. To the body and its qualities or localities no regard is paid. It does not, therefore, follow, that because an Englishman, who may in judgment, feeling, and inclination, be in the highest degree an American citizen, cannot actually become such till his body be wafted to the American shore, and his person naturalized as the law directs, that a human soul, which has acquired the intellectual and moral qualities already specified-to wit, knowledge, faith, love, and obedience, is not constituted by their acquisition a member of Christ's happy family, even before the body in which that soul resides has become the subject of immersion, or the owner made any formal avowal of his christian attainments. Before John, therefore, can reasonably expect that Philalethes will abandon his present conceptions, he must prove that it is something done by immersion, and not before, that produces in a human mind those intellectual and moral qualities which constitute that mind a member of Christ's kingdom.

As to the first difficulty under which John says he labors, Philalethes thinks that it has been created not by any thing asserted by him in his essay on Matheteuo, or elsewhere; but by some indistinct conceptions of John's own. What notions John attaches to the words "confess," or "put on Christ," Philalethes knows not; but as understood by him, they contain no inconsistency with the residue of his creed. Presuming that by the expressions "confess," or "put on Christ," John means immersion, Philalethes will state his views of this action. First, then, he considers it to be the subject of an express and peremptory command. Secondly, that it is the duty, and not more the duty than the interest of all human beings, to put them selves, without delay, in a condition for its performance. And thirdly, that as soon as they know or believe themselves to be in such a condition, to have it performed immediately. But notwithstanding these articles of his faith, Philalethes cannot believe that during the progress of a mind honestly and diligently laboring to acquire a fitness for immersion-or, in other words, to acquire that knowledge, faith, love, and obedience, which constitute, wherever they exist, a soul a christian, that the progress or acquisitions of such a mind will be of no avail to it, unless it continues to inhabit its body till that body becomes the subject of an actual immersion. True it is, that if a person neglects to acquire a fitness, or after knowing or believing himself to be fit for immersion, continues to trifle with Christ's command, Philalethes dares not meddle with his case, or pronounce the divine judgment respecting it.

How John came to impute to Philalethes the absurdity of reforma

tion without obedience, when he expressly mentions obedience as one of the elements or constituent principles of a christian, is not of easy comprehension. In the judgment of Philalethes, reformation, in its religious acceptation, embraces the rectification of a sinner's conceptions, feelings, dispositions, and actions, and is equivalent in signification to conformity to God's mind and will.

John tells us that the elements of which a christian may be made do not always necessarily constitute a christian. This is certainly a strange, if not an incomprehensible assertion. Philalethes would be much indebted to John if he would condescend to specify the elements which verify this extraordinary character of them. Can a christian consist of elements at one time, of which he does not consist at all times? If he can, he is certainly not always the same sort of being. Can an element be necessary to his constitution to-day, which is not necessary to-morrow; or is he to be made up of unnecessary or superfluous parts? This enigma requires ingenuity to solve it.

By the word elements, when used as a general term, Philalethes understands constituent parts; and when he speaks of the elements of any particular thing, he means such parts as are absolutely necessary to its constitution, and when united do constitute it. What ideas John attaches to the word, Philalethes knows not.

As to the difficulty which John first invents, and then argues from, Philalethes considers it as capable of existing in imagination only, and not even there subjected to proper discipline. That a mind disposed to believe and do all that John's supposition admits, should refuse to do the other acts there enumerated, is not only improbable; but, according to the well known laws of the human mind, impossible. To believe and love God, and not obey him, would be an occurrence as yet unknown in our world. It is true, there are many who love God, and yet refuse to be immersed; but they refuse because they have been seduced into the belief that immersion is not the action which Christ has enjoined—that is, they disobey through a mistaken notion of their duty.

John asks, 'Is not the man who obeys God in some things, but refuses to obey him in other things, fairly entitled to the character of a REAL disciple as far as he goes?' Philalethes answers, No. How can he who is destitute of the most essential quality of a scholar, a uniform and universal submission to magisterial authority, be entitled to the appellation of a real disciple? Such a person would be deemed not a scholar, but a nuisance destined to expulsion in any seminary.

John seems to dislike the term disciple? But why? The unerring Spirit delights in its use: and certainly to become a learner in Christ's school, is the highest honor, greatest happiness, and utmost attainment that man can reach on this side of the grave.

John appears to be very fond of the clerical cant about plans, a sort of reverie which Philalethes has long abjured. First, because he cannot discover in the divine message the faintest vestige of plan or system. And secondly, because he dreads the liability of his weak, ignorant, and erring mind, to ascribe to his Maker plans and systems

which he never formed. In the judgment of Philalethes, nothing could be more useless, more preposterous, and absurd, than a systematic communication of God's mind and will to such creatures, ignorant, untutored, and utterly incapable of comprehending the nice relations and complex connexion of the component parts of plans and systems, and of course incapable of deriving any benefit from them, as the great mass of human creatures are, for whose instruction and happiness God has sent his message into our perishing world. In sacred writ Philalethes can readily discover many important matters of fact, whose occurrence is certified by divine veracity; many of God's attributes, determinations, intentions, and purposes, explicitly and clearly declared; many offers of the most important things generously and graciously made; the occurrence of many events not yet accomplished, predicted; many beneficent commands clearly and explicitly proclaimed; many salutary restrictions kindly imposed; many powerful motives, earnest exhortations, and tender admonitions, &c. proposed and pressed: but no where can he detect systematic arrangement: it is possible, however, that acuter heads than his may have effected the discovery.

Of John's clerical employment, or of the topics on which he may have delighted for years to dwell, Philalethes knows nothing; but he cannot help considering all such labors as worse than the merest toils of supererogation. The Divine Spirit has certainly attempted to send us information that is plain and intelligible to every creature that stands in need of it. Has his attempt failed? And does human vanity really fancy that it can amend the Spirit's diction, and render his language more intelligible than his infinite wisdom could effect? The necessity, for example, of faith, repentance, reformation to salvation, is so clearly, so positivety, so frequently stated and pressed in sacred writ, that for man to attempt to render it clearer or more certain, appears to Philalethes to be as foolish an employment as to pour a drop into the ocean to swell its waves, or light a straw to augment the splendors of a meridian sun.

With John's ability or inability to criticize the original language of the New Testament, Philalethes is not acquainted; but he cannot forbear to pity and feel for the man, who, without any better authority than the authority of a blundering translation, ventures to assure his fellow-creatures that he is publishing to them God's message, and nothing but God's message. Whence he can derive sufficient certainty that this is the case, Philalethes cannot conceive, and would be glad to see John's account of it.

John seems to be very fond of what he calls "illustrations." On this subject Philalethes would observe, that when similes, comparisons, analogies, or other means of illustration are resorted to merely to assist comprehension, they are in their place and office, and may be useful; but when they are employed as proof, as argument, or for the purpose of conviction, they are not only out of place and useless, but they are dangerous-nay, often pernicious. They become the very focus of sophistry, deception, and error: nor need Philalethes

travel farther for confirmation of this truth than to the illustrations of John in the paper now before him. Between the sentiments advanced by Philalethes in his essay on Matheteuo, and the cases or assimulations invented by John, there exists not a vestige of resemblace. Here simile not only fails to run on all four, but refuses to limp on one foot.

But to conclude: Had evidence inferior to the occurrence of the fact itself been offered, it would have failed to convince Philalethes that it was possible to pervert and misrepresent his sentiments. or impute to him so many palpable absurdities as your correspondent's paper has done. Has Philalethes ever asserted that mere opinions constituted their holders christians? Surely not. But though Philalethes thinks that christians are not created by mere notions, yet he verily believes that correct conceptions of God and divine things will never fail to produce in the mind in which they are retained, or as Christ says, "in which they abide," the feelings, dispositions, and practice, which, together with correct sentiments, do constitute their owners christians. But further, has Philalethes ever asserted that the gospel was not sent as a rule of faith and life to intelligent and accountable beings? or that discipleship in Christ's school consisted in the insulated or uninsulated liking or approving of plans? Such foolish conceits never entered his brain. Or has he ever denied that God permits his rational creature man to examine the fitness and tendency of his message to do him good? Surely not. But finally, has Philalethes ever diverted a scriptural term, when using it on a religious subject, from its scriptural sense? In whatever sense, therefore, the Divine Spirit uses the term "disciple" in sacred writ, Philalethes uses it in his essays; and he believes that the Spirit uses it sometimes to denote a real disciple, and sometimes only an avowed disciple the former being created by his knowledge, faith, love, and obedience-the latter by his submission to immersion.

Note.-Perhaps some notice ought to be taken of John's last paragraph; though it has been virtually answered already. Are people made christians by the same means by which they are made Masons? All that is necessary to constitute one a Mason, is to perform certain foolish ceremonies, and be enrolled in a lodge. Does John make his christians in the same way? What John may include among the formalities or externals of the christian institution, Philalethes knows not, and therefore cannot form an accurate estimate of the danger to which christianity would be exposed by their abolition; but he thinks that John will certainly prove a false prophet if he predict that the great realities of christianity would be destroyed by the abolition of any thing that is merely external or consists in mere form. PHILALETIES.

CONFESSION FOR REMISSION OF SINS......PRAYER, No. IV IF Moses taught the Jews any one lesson with more clearness and emphasis than another, it was this, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission." Paul affirms this to be true of the Jewish