supposes; and here, when we ask for bread, they give us a stone. They quote Christ's commission to his apostles, where there is not a word upon the subject, and which is so remote from establishing the essential connexion of the two ceremonies, that the mention of one of them only is included. They urge the conduct of the apostles, though it is not only sufficiently accounted for on our principles, but is such as those very principles would, in their circumstances, have absolutely compelled us to adopt; and surely that must be a very cogent proof that the apostles were of their sentiments, which is derived from a matter of fact, which would undeniably have been just what it is, on the contrary supposition. They baptized, because they were commanded to do so; they administered the Lord's supper, because our Saviour enjoined it on his disciples; and both these duties were prescribed to the societies they formed, because the nature and obligation of each were equally and perfectly understood. What is there in this, we ask, which our hypothesis forbids us to imitate, or which, had we been in their place, our views would not have obliged us to adopt?

The late excellent Mr. Fuller, whose memory commands profound veneration, attempts in his posthumous tract on this subject, to establish the connexion betwixt the two rites, by the joint allusion made to them in the epistles of St. Paul.

From their being connected together in his mind, on those occasions, he infers an inherent and essential connexion. With this view, he adduces the tenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, which asserts that the ancient Israelites had a figurative baptism "in the cloud, and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ." "If the apostle," he remarks," had not connected baptism and the Lord's supper together in his mind, how came he so pointedly to allude to them both in this passage?" He brings forward, also, another text to the same purpose, where St. Paul affirms we are all “ baptized into one body, and are all made to drink into the same spirit." It is freely admitted that these, and perhaps other texts which might be adduced, afford examples of an allusion to the two ordinances at the same time, whence we may be certain that they were present together in the mind of the writer. But whoever considers the laws of association, must be aware how trivial a circumstance is sufficient to unite together in the mind, ideas of objects among which no essential relation subsists. The mere coincidence of time and place is abundantly sufficient for that purpose. In addressing a class of persons distinguished by the possession of peculiar privileges, what more natural than to combine them in a joint allusion,

without intending to assert their relation or dependence; just as in addressing a British audience on a political occasion, the speaker may easily be supposed to remind them, at the same time, of their popular representation, of the liberty of the press, and the trial by jury, without meaning to affirm that they are incapable of being possessed apart. In fact, the warmest advocates of our practice. would feel no sort of difficulty in adopting the same style, in an epistle to a church which consisted only of baptists; consequently, nothing more can be inferred, than that the societies which St. Paul addressed were universally of that description: a fact: we have already fully conceded. The only light in which it bears upon the subject is that which makes it perfectly coincide with the argument from primitive precedent, the futility of which has been sufficiently demonstrated.

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The unities which the apostle enumerates as belonging to christians, in his epistle to the Ephesians, are also set in, opposition to us. "There is," saith he, "one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." That this text is irrelevant to the present argument, will appear from the following considerations: Since no mention is made of the Lord's supper, it cannot be intended to confirm, or illustrate, the relation which baptism bears to

that ordinance, which is the only point in dispute. Next, it is very uncertain whether the apostle refers to water baptism, or to the baptism of the Spirit; but, admitting that he intends the former, he asserts no more than we firmly believe, that there are not two or more valid baptisms under the christian dispensation, but one only; a deviation from which, either with respect to the subject, or the mode, reduces it to a nullity. Lastly, since his avowed object in insisting upon these unities, was to persuade his reader to maintain inviolate that unity of the Spirit to which they were all subservient, it is extremely unreasonable to adduce this passage in defence of a practice which involves its subversion. "The same fountain," St. James tells us, "cannot send forth sweet water and bitter :" but here we see an attempt to deduce discord from harmony; and to find an apology for dividing the mystical body of Christ, in the most pathetic persuasive to unity. The celebrated Whitby, a pædobaptist and an episcopalian, appears to have felt the full force of this admirable passage, when he deduces from it the three following propositions: 1st. "That sincere christians only, are truly members of that church catholic, of which Christ is the Head. 2dly. That nothing can join any professor of christianity to this one body, but the participation of the spirit of Christ. 3dly. That no error in judgement, or mistake in practice, which doth not

tend to deprive a christian of the spirit of Christ, can separate him from the church of Christ."* Thus it is, that this learned commentator conceives himself to have discovered a demonstration of the principles we are abetting, in the very words our opponents urge for their overthrow.

Such is the substance of Mr. Fuller's argumentation on the subject; and on a basis so slight, did he attempt to rear the edifice of strict communion. In how different a light will he be viewed by posterity, as the victorious impugner of socinian and deistical impiety! and who, on looking back on his achievements in that field, and comparing them with his feeble efforts in the present, but must exclaim with regret, quantum mutatus ab illo ! Whether he felt some distrust of the ground he was treading, which for several reasons I strongly suspect; or whether it is to be ascribed to the infelicity of the subject, it is not easy to say; but his posthumous pamphlet on communion, will unquestionably be considered as the feeblest of all his productions. The worthy editor probably calculated on great effects to arise from the dying suffrage of a man so highly esteemed; but before he ventured on a step so injurious to his fame, he should have remembered, that we live in an age not remarkably disposed to implicit faith, even in the greatest names.

*Whitby in loco.