shoulders of our Reformers. It certainly appears very surprizing to us, that Mr. Todd should not have been more struck with the many remarkable variations in the formularies, whose identity, in point of doctrine, he labours to establish. Even on the most cursory perusal, these variations cannot but excite a strong suspicion of a diversity of sentiment; but, on a close examination, they will be found completely to overturn our author's hypothesis, and to establish, instead of an identity, a most direct contrariety of doctrinal views respecting almost all the fundamental verities of the Christian faith. "If the Necessary Erudition contains sound and serviceable doctrine," as Gardner shrewdly observes to Cranmer, "how was his highness seduced into it?" We add, why alter it at all, particularly its more doctrinal parts? And if Mr. Todd, in over looking these alterations, identities the two statements of doctrine, under the sanction of Deans Martin and Tucker, and Dr. Nichols*; we would ask, Has there been no examination, since their time, of these very subjects? Do not even our own humble pages, to which we referred in the former part of this Review (p. 36, &c.) leave Mr. Todd with less excuse for overlooking differences which, we presume to think, he might have found pointed out by ourselves in former volumes, with the greatest clearness?

But we proceed to those docu • We are the more surprized at the commendations extracted from Dr. Nichols's Defence of the English Church, because we were much pleased with his primitive and learned view of our church doctrines, in his most able Exposition of the sixteen first Articles. But we remember well our disappoint ment in turning over the page for his exposition of the seventeenth, and find. ing his labours terminated with the sixteenth! a termination which, unless accounted for by some circumstance we know not of, speaks volumes as to his interpretation of the Seventeenth Article, and its bearing on the Predestinarian question.

ments connected with the second period, the period of more perfect reformation under King Edward VI. from which Mr. Todd makes extracts. These are,-1. “Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum," finished in 1552, but never authorized, owing to the premature death of the young king. 2. "Forty-two Articles of Religion," commonly called "King Edward's," published in 1552, and collated by Mr. Todd with our own Thirty-nine Articles, in 1562. 3. Edward's "Brevis Catechismus," or 66 Short Catechism;" to which the Fortytwo Articles were subjoined. 4. Bishop Jewell's far-famed “ Apo. logy for the Church of England;" which, indeed, outsteps the limits of this period, as well as of the following reign under Queen Mary, having been printed in 1562, under Queen Elizabeth, and published expressly by her authority. 5. The "Augsburg Confession," which falls short of the earlier period, having been printed in 1530. 6. The "Saxonic Confession," which was considered by Melancthon as a repetition of the Augsburg, both having been, as to their matter, derived from Luther, though composed by the eloquent and exquisite pen of Melancthon himself. (See Mosheim, by Maclean, 1803, Vol. IV. p. 92.) 7. Our own Homilies.-Now, the quotations we shall make from all these documents (except the last, as being sufficiently beaten ground,) will easily range themselves under the several heads of doctrine already employed in the quotations, which we before gave from the "Institution" and "Necessary Erudition," and which will be found in our former Number (p.38, et seq.) in the following order. First, Baptism is alluded to, as treated of both in the "Institution" and the "Necessary Erudition." We then gave extracts, 1. On Faith; 2.On Free-will. 3. On Justification; 4. On Good Works. On each of these several points, we think it will appear that there was an intention throughout

1. To begin with Baptism. The "Institution" had stated, with respect to this grand initial rite of the Christian Covenant, that "by the sacrament of baptism men obtain remission of their sins, the grace and favour of God, &c.; so that children dying in infancy shall be saved thereby, and eise not." (p. 3.) Item, p. 6. " By virtue of that holy sacrament, men or children obtain grace and remission, if they believe The promise of God adjoined to that sacrament; that is to say, that in and by this said sacrament, God the Father giveth, for Christ's sake, remission, and the grace of the -Holy Spirit, whereby they be newly regenerated, &c."

Now what says, 1. The "Refor matio Legum" on this point? After asserting the absurdity of those who hold that the efficacy of baptism consists in the water itself (ipsis baptismi fonticulis); and after maintaining that "our regeneration, adoption, &c. proceed from the Divine mercy flowing to us through Christ and his promise" [not, as the Institution had said, "adjoined to that sacrament," butj" appearing to us in holy Scripture;" it proceeds, "Their scrupulous superstition must be considered as impious, who so tie together [colligant] the grace of God and his Holy Spirit with the elements of the sacraments, as openly to affirm that no child born of Christian parents can attain salvation, who shall be carried away by death, before he can have been brought to baptism, which we hold to be far otherwise *."

"Illorum etiam impia videri debet scrupulosa superstitio," &c. p. 115. We shall not give the Latin original where we think there can be no misunderstanding in the sense. Mr. Todd has properly and fairly noted the above important variation in his own Introduction; but it does not appear to us that

Can words seem intended more expressly to contradict the former strong and unqualified positions of the "Institution?"

In the Forty-two Articles, that on original or birth-sin," contains the expression, "This infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are baptized." Mr. Todd here notes our own Thirty-nine Articles to have changed the last word into "regenerate." May it not be legitimate to infer from this change, made subsequently even to King Edward's Articles, that later reformers saw the necessity of still more strongly marking the difference between actual and baptismal regeneration*, particularly in this case, where the very point of doctrine turned on the reality of the regenerating change? This again will shew a progression in the views of our Reformers on this important article.

Again, in Edward VI.'s "short Catechism," after a description of our justification and salvation by faith, as the mother of all good works [a passage we shall have to refer to hereafter more particularly], the formulary proceeds thus:"Which thing baptism represents and puts before our eyes; namely, that we are, by the Spirit of Christ, regenerate and cleansed from sin; and that we are members and parts of the church, eurolled in the communion of saints; for water signifies the Spirit. Baptism is also a figure

he has profited by the hint which that remarkable discrepancy might have afforded him, as to the intended denial in these new formularies, of many other as important errors in the old.

It is remarkable, however, that in

another article on "No man without sin but Christ alone," the expression "baptized and born again in Christ," does occur in these Forty-two Articles, as if to convey a clear intimation, that they did not consider the two expressions as quite identical. And this may possibly afford a solution to a difficulty which has occasioned much controversy; namely, how to account for this apparent tautology both in that and our own Article.

of our burial in Christ, and that we shall rise with him in a new life."" Here, then, we have baptism, the representation, the ocular exhibition, the sign, the figure of our new birth. But where is it described, as in the "Institution," the cause, the condition, the means having "virtue" to effect it, the sine-quo-non, the quo-cum semper? It may be our simplicity, but we unfeignedly believe the above paragraph to convey a strong and significant intimation of the writer's opinion, that baptism is but a picture, a sign of the grace of regeneration vouchsafed to "the elect people of God," but not indiscriminately to all who appear at the sacred font. So Bradford had expressed himself,in a passage extracted in the former part of our critique; "baptism requiring no less faith on the part of the believer than this, that his regeneration is signified to him in it." But where no faith takes place at the time, or subsequently, "viva et vera;" what should we imagine that either the Catechism of Edward or the opinion of Bradford, would intimate as to the reality of the mere baptismal regeneration? What but even, as Hooker says," Reatus impii est pium nomen-godly names do not justify godless men." (Discourse of Justification.)

In Jewell's "Apology," the baptismal dogma is still more indefinite simply that "baptism is the **Quam rem nobis repræsentat, et ob oculos ponit, baptismus. Nos esse per Spiritum Christi renatos, et mundatos à peccato; quodque simus membra et partes ecclesiæ, ascripti in communionem sanctorum; aqua enim significat Spiritum. Baptismus etiam est figura sepulturæ nostræ in Christo, quodque cam illo unà resuscitabimur in novâ vità." pp. 136, 137. We are far from a wish to catechise words and grammatical terms for spiritual meanings; but we cannot but suggest the apparent separation in tense, and consequently in time, of the blessings figured by baptism, and the act of baptism itself. It figures to us, that we are born again, and shall be faised again.

sacrament of remission, and the washing we have in Christ's blood, from which not even children are to be repelled "."

In the Confession of Augsburg, the expressions are almost equally indefinite: one indeed is more so.

"Baptism is necessary to salvation, as a ceremony instituted by Christ. By baptism the grace of God is OFFERED: children are to be baptized, and so become children of God, &c." (Art. IX.)

Finally, in the Saxonic Confession it does not appear that Mr. Todd has found, or at least extracted, any thing on the subject of baptism: but as if his documents were destined to point out, one by one, still more of the true reformed doctrines on this head, we find the very text itself in John iii. on which so much reliance has been placed in proof of the uniform connexion between water and the Spirit, quoted in this document, in reference to mere adult conversion, disconnected from any baptism, whether infant or adult. We give the passage at the bottom of the page t; and shall only remark upon it, that it comes from an extract made by

Baptismum quidem sacramentum esse," &c. De Baptismo, p. 149.

+"Ostendimus autem supra, fide significari fiduciam acquiescentem in Filio Dei Propitiatore, propter quem recipimur et placemus, non propter nostras virtutes, aut legis impletionem. Cum autem in hâc ipsâ consolatione, fiducia, quâ acquiescimus in Filio Dei, verè sit motus, accensus a Spiritu Sancto, quo vivificatur cor, et liberatur ex æternâ morte, dicitur hæc conversio, regeneralio, Joan iii. Nisi quis renatus fuerit, in aqua et Spiritu.' [THIS CONVERSION, when the heart is truly warmed and quickened by the Holy Spirit, is called REGENERATION, in that passage of John iii. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit.] Et fit homo jam vere domicilium Dei, qui est in eo efficax, ut Joan xiv. dicitur: Si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit, et Pater meus diliget eum et veniemus ad eum, et mansionem apud eum faciemus. Æternus Pater, et Filius, Spirito suo sancto, vivificant, et renovant corda," pp. 182, 183.