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convert by the hand, and baptised him in their presence. Another Roman Catholic convert came to me (whom I had long known as a Christian) as I came up out of the water, and said, "Oh! will you baptize me also?" I returned and baptized him also, and never before or since have I seen a more orderly congregation. I thanked God and took courage. Four years afterwards I had the joy of hearing from Brother Bates, that one of the most violent of that assembly was just about to be baptized by him.

Remarkable Conversions.

At one time I gave an Irish Testament to a young Roman Catholic, a widow's son; the word came home to him with power. The mother and friends put forth every effort to prevent his making a public profession of his conversion, and bore me no goodwill. I had the joy afterwards of receiving that widow's blessing, with a cordial welcome to her cottage, with the assurance that the Good Book had not only been blessed to her son, but herself. Thirty-six years ago I gave a Testament to a young man descended from the Irish kings. He was also brought to Jesus. Last year, the first time for thirty-five years, I saw him. You were present at that meeting and recognition in County Roscommon, and I know you then felt our Mission was a glorious one, and I think you must have felt prouder than the proudest Irish king that ever trod on Tara's Hill, or ever vanquished a Scandinavian army; that, as the Secretary of this Mission, you saw the joyous start of surprise, the blue eyes speaking, the honest open face of that man, on that day lifting up his hands to heaven, and exclaiming, " Glory be to God that my eyes saw you once more," &c., &c.

I was preaching in Abbey-street, Dublin, last November. Just as I came down the pulpit steps a man grasped my hand, and exclaimed, "Oh! how glad I am to see you, and once more hear you preach Christ; since I saw you twelve years ago, I have been through England and other parts, but never have I been forsaken by my God." This man was one of a family of five Roman Catholics, whom I had baptized sixteen years ago.

Rev. C. J. MIDDLEDITCH.

Yours most respectfully and affectionately,
THOMAS BERRY.

MONTHLY REPORT OF A SCRIPTURE READER.

MR. MICHAEL WALSH, of Athlone, gives the following narrative of conversations with parties whom he has lately visited:-By the good will of our Lord I have been permitted to labour through the course of the last month in the town and the country around it. In the country there are some families very ignorant of the truth of the Gospel; for instance, in the parish of Kiltomb, there are but few Protestant families, and some of them very seldom go under the sound of the Gospel. On the 19th day of the last month I visited that district. In one house calling themselves Protestants, there were two grown up girls. In the course of conversation I asked if they had a Bible, and to my great surprise one of them told me they had not. One of the girls told me she could read. After pointing them to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, I gave her two tracts, which she promised to read.

Faith and Works.

A Roman Catholic woman had a smart discussion with me last week on different subjects. She said that Protestants maintained that bare belief was sufficient to save any one, &c. I showed her that without true belief no one could be saved, and that it was belief that produced works; and that in order to prove it to be genuine it was commanded that every believer should maintain good works, &c., &c. Again, she said, by way of despising the Bible, that she knew a soldier who be

lieved when he would die that his soul would dwell in some animal. I showed her that that was not the fault of the Bible; that the Bible taught no such doctrine. It teaches that all believers will be perfect in holiness, and perfect in happiness. To this she agreed. A young man who sat listening to us said that no one could die without sin. The expression gave me a favourable opportunity of showing that Christ put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and that His blood cleanseth from all sin, &c.

Another sensible Roman Catholic man entered into conversation quietly with me on the merit of good works. Of course he believed they would merit heaven for him. I showed him very plainly that it was the Son of God that secured that for us, and that all our works should be done from pure love to Him, because He hath redeemed us with His precious blood. He seemed to understand what I said quite well. More of them will suffer the word of exhortation, and be silent. In the course of the month I visited my out stations Baylin, Knockanay, parish of Kiltomb, and Burn Brook, a distance of three miles west of the town, in the Connaught district.

Death of an Aged Woman, formerly a Romanist.

Mr. Walsh writes recently :-There has been a death in our little family. My mother had a paralytic stroke on the 15th of February, and could not speak one plain word. She departed this life on the 25th day of the same month. Praise be to the Lord who doeth all things after the counsel of His own will. She lived in the Roman Catholic system more than fifty-seven years. But she has been living under the sound of the Word of Truth for twenty-two years and ten months, and by that Word of Truth she was led to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as her all-sufficient Saviour, and so was plucked as a brand from the burning.

Contributions received on behalf of the Baptist Irish Society, from April 16th, to

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Coutributions to the Baptist Irish Society which have been received on or before the 15th of the month, are acknowledged in the ensuing Chronicle. If, at any time, a donor finds that a sum which he forwarded early enough to be mentioned is not specified, or is not inserted correctly, the Secretary will be obliged by a note to that effect, as this, if sent immediately, may rectify errors and prevent losses which would otherwise be irremediable. Copies of the IRISH CHRONICLE are sent monthly where desired. always desirable, and every assistance will be given them in their work.

Additional Collectors are

SUBSCRIPTIONS AND DONATIONS will be thankfully received by the Treasurer, THOMAS PEWTRESS, Esq., or the Secretary, the Rev. CHARLES JAMES MIDDLEDITCH, at the Mission House, 33, Moorgate Street, E.C., or the London Collector, Mr. CHARLES GORDELIER, 14, Great Winchester Street, E.C.; and by the Baptist Ministers in any of the principal Towns. Post-office Orders should be made payable at the General Post Office, to the Secretary.

BAPTIST

THE

MAGAZINE.

AUGUST, 1864.

THE NEW THEOLOGY.

IF caught in a mountain mist, the traveller is unable to distinguish the objects which rise in mysterious shapes before him at every step. The most familiar things assume the strangest forms. Some terrify, some amuse him. At length the breeze sweeps the misleading vapours from his path, and he sees the landscape in its true proportions, with its manifold existences sharply and sharply and clearly defined. Shrouded in vagueness, Mr. Maurice and his followers have for a long time muttered their mysterious formulas. It has been difficult to say what they meant or did not mean. In their logical thaumaturgy, a dogma might be both pernicious and useful. Their oracles were ambiguous when the truth was asked of them, and were clear only when the doctrines of their theological opponents were to be denounced. One thing, however, was always evident their sympathy with every form of modern heresy never failed to express itself. They cannot, indeed, quite agree with the latitudinarianism of a Wilson, with the false criticisms of a Colenso, or with the bold blasphemies of a Renan. These open assaults on the Christian faith distress them; and, moreover, they

VOL. LXV.

believe the thirty-nine articles of the Church, and cannot spare a single phrase in which the piety of our forefathers has expressed itself. But they feel bound to recognize the conscientiousness of these living opponents of the Gospel, to admire their courage, to approve the freedom of their inquiries, and to claim for them a rightful place in the national establishment.

From some cause or other-perhaps that the recent judgment of the Privy Council has opened the way for the utterance of heresy with impunity-the writers of this school in the National Church, have of late more openly and clearly expressed their meaning. The mist is lifted, and we begin to discern more clearly both the drift of their teaching and the doctrines they would have us receive. They are by no means reluctant to concede to its assailants the fallibility of the Bible. writers, if inspired at all, were subject to errors and prejudices which affect their statements of truth. The

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miracles, although true in fact, are of no value as proofs of doctrine, or as evidences of the Christian faith. Doctrinal statements have no claim on our belief; they may be useful as guides to thought, but have nothing to do with a man's salvation. But, in the estimation of the new school, these are comparatively minor matters. Its adherents may now speak out on more fundamental themes. What if there be no judgment to come, and no atoning sacrifice? Once, the Prayer Book contained an article condemning those who held "that all men, be they never so ungodly, shall at length be saved." It was omitted by the revisers in 1562, and the Privy Council now allows the heresy to pass as a permitted opinion in the Church. So it may be revived and taught. The freedom thus secured can also be employed to subvert the foundation of the Gospel itself, by denying or repudiating the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of men. We do not regret that the "dark sayings" which have so long characterised the school in question, are at length laid aside. An open foe is at all times better than a concealed one. We are able to estimate at their full value the mysterious dogmas which at last have found clear utterance.

The latest exponent of these views is the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, rector of Christ Church, St. Marylebone, and it is to his opinions, especially on the latter subject, that we propose more particularly to allude.

The sermons Mr. Davies has recently published, have for their subject the manifestation of the Son of God; by whom we are both to know and see God, in His special relation to all men as their Father. Christ was sent from the Father. He was God's method of revealing Himself. Before His incarnation, prophets announced His coming, and

prepared the way for His approach. The apocryphal book of Enoch, according to Mr. Davies, helped to quicken the expectations of the Jewish people; and it is significant of the style of criticism favoured by the new school, that this spurious work is quoted as scarcely inferior in authority to the Book of Daniel. When the Saviour appeared, He devoted the early part of His ministry to an exposition of the nature of His kingdom. It seemed to be His desire to direct the thoughts of His hearers to the kingdom, rather than to draw them upon Himself. As He drew near the end of His ministry, He entered more fully on the subject of His glory as the Son of God, as the Son of the Father, whose name He came to make better known, and by that knowledge to draw all men into the same filial relation to the Father in which He himself lived. After His ascension to glory, His disciples for the first time thoroughly understood the marvellous history in which they had borne part. And here we must quote, somewhat at length, Mr. Davies' account of what the disciples, through the power of the Holy Spirit, did understand our Lord's work on earth to be :

"The Son who was one with the Father, had come down to earth, had been with them as one of themselves, entirely renouncing all honour and glory in himself, entirely doing the Father's will; and after making

himself known to them as a friend and master, He had laid down His life that He might take it again, and had returned to the Father. As they meditated on Him, thinking now of His unity with the Father, now of His association with themselves, a sense that they were in Him united to the Father, and embraced in the Father's love, grew strong in them. And this, whilst it was a very solemn, was also a very joyful feeling. It filled them with thankful love to God and to Christ; with a consciousness of the worth of their own nature and of that of their fellow-men; with a longing desire that men in general, for whom this knowledge was provided and intended, should

become with them actual inheritors of it. The Son of God and Son of Man, one with the Father in heaven, one with men upon the earth, proved himself to them the true Mediator, the living bond between heaven and earth, the actual way to the Father."

In this passage we have the theory of the new school, as to the way in which the disciples conceived themselves to be reconciled to God, in which way they were to teach all men to be reconciled to Him. While meditating on Christ's manifestation of His union with the Father, it dawned upon their minds that they too were united to the Father in Christ; for Christ had borne their nature, and in His twofold relation as the Son of man and the Son of God, had become the bond of union between God and man.

It is obvious to remark, that the disciples, if we may believe their own words, understood the method of their reconciliation with God in a somewhat different manner. For the loved disciple John, writing years after the ascension of his Master to glory, having a perfect knowledge of the sayings of our Lord as to His union with the Father, and speaking as it were in the name of all his fellow-disciples, says: "We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world;" that for this purpose He became, "and is, the propitiation for our sins;" and that in God sending His Son, and in Christ coming, for the purpose of making "propitiation for our sins," was "manifested the love of God towards us." In a similar sense, Peter, certainly not the least eminent of the band which followed Christ, tells us that we are redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ," that "He bare our sins in His own body on the tree," having "once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust," with this especial object, "that He might bring us to God."

One would have thought that in treating of the manifestation of God to man, in the person and work of His Son, Mr. Davies could not have overlooked the highest and most glorious exhibition of the Father's love, displayed in the great act of "redemption through Jesus' blood." How emphatically does the disciple, whose words are made the chief foundation of this new theory of reconciliation, call our attention to this. "God so loved the world,"-" Herein is love." And in this view he is sustained by the profoundly instructed Paul: "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." Yet in these sermons there is no trace of this great theme. It is wholly omitted. For aught that appears, Christ did not die for sin, did not restore us by His atoning death to the favour of God, did not in dying for the unjust give the greatest of all proofs of the love of the Father, and of the Father's yearning desire for the salvation of men.

Why is this? It is because this new school of theology has conceived a most inadequate idea of sin and its deserts, of human depravity and the thorough alienation of man's heart from God. It talks of God as a righteous Father, and yet claims from Him the non-execution of His righteous decisions against sinners. It in reality declares that the Divine

sentence that the soul that sinneth shall die, that the wrath of God shall overtake all ungodliness, and that the unbeliever shall be damned-is not just. It teaches that sin can be forgiven without expiation, and that the fact of God being our Father secures us from the infliction of the penalties which He has appointed for disobedience. Hence there is no need for a sacrifice for sin, no

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