His opponent, Stephen, contended for the propriety of receiving them without a repetition of that rite, because he already conceived it had been truly and solidly performed: this Cyprian denied, and the only question in debate respected the validity of a ceremony which both equally esteemed to be the necessary means of regeneration. Upon the principles common to both, the African father reasoned with most consistency: for how could heretics and schismatics, who were acknowledged to be spiritually dead, communicate life by the performance of a ceremony? and how totally incongruous to suppose every part of their religious service devoid of vitality and force, except their baptism, by which, as Cyprian continually urges, they were supposed to confer that renovating spirit which, in every other instance, they were denied to possess.

In

But, whatever judgement may be formed of the merits of this controversy, nothing can be more impertinent to the question at issue betwixt my opponent and myself, which is simply, whether the refusal to admit persons of unquestioned piety into the church, was the doctrine of the ancient fathers. proof of this, he alleges the example of Cyprian, who contended for the necessity of rebaptizing such as had been already reclaimed from heresy and schism. Now, if Cyprian's ideas on the subject of baptism had been the same, or in any degree similar to those which are at present entertained, the objec

tion would have been forcible; but when we learn from his own mouth, that his demand was founded on their not having been "quickened," on their wanting "the water of life," on their not having approached the fountain of renovation and pardon, in a word, on their still remaining unregenerate; what can be conceived more futile, than to adduce his authority for refusing a class of persons to whom, it is acknowledged, none of these objections apply? Let us first insist on the admission of those whom we believe to be destitute of regeneration and pardon, and we must dispose of the authority of Cyprian as we can; but, till that is the case, however we differ from him in its application, we act on one and the same principle.

Mr. Kinghorn is very anxious to prevent his readers from being led to suppose, from certain passages I had quoted, that Cyprian was a friend to mixed communion. If he means by this that he was not disposed to admit into the church such as were, on all hands, acknowledged to be unbaptized, his opinion is, undoubtedly, correct ; nothing was more remote from my intention than

But if it is his intention

to insinuate the contrary. to affirm that Cyprian was averse to the mixture of baptists and pædobaptists at the Lord's table, he must be supposed to assert that there were none in his communion who adhered to what we conceive the primitive institute; and, considering the extensive influence which he derived from his

station as metropolitan of Africa, and the celebrity of his character, this is equivalent to an admission that it had totally disappeared from that province as early as the middle of the third century; a dangerous concession, as well as a most improbable supposition. It is to suppose that a corruption (as we must necessarily deem it) of a christian ordinance, the explicit mention of which first occurs but fifty years before, had already spread with such rapidity through Africa, as to efface every trace and relic of the primitive practice. It is unnecessary to observe the important advantage which such a concession would yield in the controversy with pædobaptists. The truth is, that unless we are disposed to admit that the baptism of infants had already totally supplanted the original ordinance throughout the catholic church, Cyprian must be allowed to have patronised mixed communion in precisely the same sense in which it is countenanced at present by our pædobaptist brethren.

This may suffice to rescue me from the charge of misrepresenting the sentiments of Cyprian; an accusation which excited so much surprise, that I determined to reperuse the epistles of that celebrated writer; but after carefully reading every line, I must solemnly declare that I feel at a loss to discover a shadow of ground for this imputation. It is not, however, the sentiments of Cyprian only that I am charged with misrepresenting; the

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donatists, it is affirmed, proceeded on the same views, when they insisted on the necessity of rebaptizing the members of the catholic church. "They acted," he says, "exactly on the same principle which Mr. Hall reprobates." That principle, it is unnecessary to repeat, is the propriety, not of baptizing such as have been induced, through misconception, to neglect the valid performance of that rite, which is our uniform practice, but the exclusion of those, against whom nothing is alleged, besides the invalidity of their baptism. But nothing can be more remote from the ground on which the donatists proceeded. They conceived the whole christian world contaminated by their communion with the African traditors ;* that they had fallen into a state of deep and deadly corruption, and, so far were they from founding the separation on the insufficiency of their baptism, that they inferred its invalidity solely from the mortal contagion they were deemed to have contracted, and from the abominations they were supposed to tolerate. They considered the church of Christ, as far as the catholic societies were concerned, as extinct; and, on that account, were

"Dicit enim Parmenianus, hinc probari consceleratum fuisse orbem terrarum criminibus traditionis, et aliorum sacrilegiorum: quia cum multa alia fuerint tempore persecutionis admissa, nulla propterea facta est in ipsis provinciis separatio populorum."Contra Epistolam Parmeniani, Augustini, lib. i.

vehemently urged by St. Austin to reconcile their hypothesis with the promise made to Abraham, "that in his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed." But will any pædobaptist be found so absurd as to press the advocates of strict communion with a similar argument? And will it, after this, be contended, that the conduct of the donatists, in refusing to admit the baptism of men whom they viewed as plunged in a state of hopeless degeneracy, bears any resemblance to the conduct of those who repel such as they affect to regard as the most excellent of the earth?

This writer is highly offended with my presuming to express a conviction that the advocates of strict communion have violated more maxims of antiquity than any other sect upon record. The extent to which they have carried their deviation in one particular is already sufficiently obvious. Mr. Kinghorn was challenged to produce an instance of an ancient father, who contended for the right of repelling a genuine christian from the eucharist. He adduced the example of Cyprian, and of the donatists; and by this time we presume the intelligent reader is at no loss to perceive how completely these instances have failed.

A writer of his undisputed learning would, doubtless, select the strongest case; we may, therefore, until he fortifies his positions better, venture, without hesitation, to enumerate, among other deviations, the pretended right of excluding such