his system, by protesting against the supposition of his resting its operation on moral considerations. But if no guilt is implied in these charges, why are they adduced? and if there be, how is that to be distinguished from moral delinquency? He tells us they are not unworthy, but only disqualified; whence it follows that, in his opinion, he may be worthy of communion, who "does not revere the authority of Christ;" nor would it be possible to dispute his title, were he but qualified.

In adopting this system, he professes to obey the directions, and to imitate the conduct, of the Supreme Legislator, whom he affirms not to have received the unbaptized into the gospel dispensation. If this profession is sincere, he surely will not deny that it is his intention to proceed on the same grounds, and act from the same motive, with the great Head of the Church.

But when, by refusing to admit them into the christian dispensation, he virtually declares them disqualified, which is the doctrine of this writer, is it under the character of innocent persons, or of delinquents? Will he affirm that the benefits of that economy are withheld from any who have, by no act, deserved that privation? Is the sentence by which their disqualification is incurred, capricious and arbitrary, or is it merited? To say it is not, would be impious; and to affirm that it is, is to contradict himself by founding it, after

all, on moral considerations, or, which is perfectly equivalent, on "moral delinquency."

The distinction, then, which he has attempted to establish betwixt being unworthy, and being disqualified, is perfectly nugatory; and the persons to whom it is applied, though they may not be unworthy in other respects, must be acknowledged to be such, on account of that particular instance of disobedience for which they are disqualified. Their disobedience places them on a footing with other classes of delinquents, by shutting them out from the communion of saints. They incur the same forfeiture, and for the same general reason, want of practical compliance with the will of Christ. They are defective, to use this author's own language, in the righteousness of the kingdom; and, though they possess faith, they fail in exhibiting obedience.

The objections formerly urged against this system, consequently return in their full force. Since the exclusion of pædobaptists must, after every possible evasion, be founded on their supposed demerits, if these are necessarily and intrinsically equal to the moral imperfections which are tolerated in baptist societies, it is just. If, among the millions who have practised infant baptism, the most eminent saint whom past ages have produced, is to be considered as more criminal on that account than the crowd of imperfect christians whom we admit without scruple into

our churches, the charge of injustice must be relinquished. Unless this can be sustained, it remains undiminished and unimpaired.

The method by which Mr. Kinghorn attempts to parry this reasoning is a recurrence to his old sophism, which consists of confounding together things totally distinct, namely, a refusal to partake in objectionable rites, with the exclusion of such as embrace them from our communion. Here he takes occasion to affirm that the same objection may be made to our secession from the Romish, as from the established church.*

Did we repel men of unquestionable piety on account of their avowed attachment to the peculiarities of a sect or party, there would be a propriety in identifying our practice with that of

"The imposition of rites," says Mr. Kinghorn, "which Christ has not commanded, and the combination of those sentiments, with the structure of the church, which we think injurious to its nature, and contrary to the will of the Lord, have rendered it necessary for us to establish a separate communion. Here the fact is, that we feel ourselves called upon to say, that we can have no fellowship with them, in communion at the Lord's table. On this ground it would be a very easy thing to represent the conduct of protestants, and of protestant dissenters, in the same dark colouring, as Mr. Hall has applied to the strict baptists. Let a man of talent exclaim against them for departing from the true church; and represent their conduct in establishing a communion of their own, as declaring in the strongest form, that they deem others unworthy of their society, and that in so doing, they pronounce the sentence of expulsion, &c. and he will do no more than Mr. Hall has done, in the whole of this part of his reasoning."-Baptism a Term of Communion, p. 63.

our opponents; for in that case we should both act on the same principle. But in refusing to join in a communion, accompanied by appendages which we conscientiously disapprove, we proceed on a totally different ground. We recede just as far as a moral necessity dictates, and no farther. Nor is it true, as this writer asserts, that this mode of proceeding implies as severe a censure on the societies from which we dissent, as the practice which we are opposing inflicts on pædobaptists. He who conceives that the posture of kneeling is an unauthorised innovation on the primitive mode of celebrating the eucharist, must necessarily dissent from the church which prescribes it: but will it be affirmed that his doing so implies a conviction that the adherents to that rite are universally disqualified for fellowship, that they are not entitled to be acknowledged christians, or that they are so deficient in the righteousness in which the kingdom of God consists, as to invalidate their profession, and exclude them from the christian dispensation? But these are the charges urged against the pædobaptists. Let the smallest error imaginable be so incorporated with the terms of communion, that an explicit assent to it is implied in that act; and he who discerns it to be an error, must, if he is conscientious, dissent, and establish a separate communion but are there any prepared to assert, that this is precisely the same thing as to repel the person who embraces it, from the Lord's table?

I am weary and ashamed of being under the necessity of occupying the reader's attention with the exposure of such obvious fallacies. Suffice it to remark, once for all, that our dissent from the establishment is founded on the necessity of departing from a communion, to which certain corruptions, in our apprehension, inseparably adhere; while we welcome the pious part of that community to that celebration of the eucharist which we deem unexceptionable. We recede from their communion from necessity, but we feel no scruple in admitting them to ours; while our strict brethren reject them, as well as every other description of pædobaptists, altogether. On him who has not discernment to perceive, or candour to acknowledge, the difference betwixt these methods of proceeding, all further reasoning would be wasted.

One more evasion must be noticed before we

conclude this part of the subject. "The pædobaptists are represented as chargeable with nothing more than a misconception of the nature of a positive institute. But this, it is observed, is not the question before us: the present controversy relates to the institute itself. It is not whether the members of a church have fully and properly conceived the nature of the institute to which

they have submitted. If this were the case, we might be represented as expelling the ignorant and the weak, instead of instructing and encouraging