THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE BISHOPS IN SYDNEY.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 520, 9 April 1851, Page 2

THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE BISHOPS IN SYDNEY.

Letter I. To the Editor ofl/ie New Zealander. Sir,— Baptismal Regeneration I have always regarded as the small end of tlie wedge by which simple dependence on Christ and his Spirit is to be split, and by which we are to he introduced n»to the Popish system of dependence on works and ceremonies. H-nce the mighty energies put forth in the late steadies in England, and hence the defection ofi© many who held tha< doctrine to Rome. Still many excellent Protestant* have held, and do hold those views. Non« ol us are immaculate in ail our djctrinal notions; and our tuthers therefore have always. felt reluctant to urge extreme views on either sjile of such a dark question. Most deeply do I regret that the Bishops in Sydney shoutd have t>o far forgotten their position, and their objects, as to have so unnecessarily mixed thenoselve* up with this controversy. If they had lhout>ht it necesiary to urge some of the grand truths of our faith upon their clersjy, we should have regretted that they had adopted such a question able mode of procedure, in thus praeiica'ly forinin on thr\r own authority, a council for the determination of Church questions ; but we should have received In silence their exhortations. When however they leave the sublime verities of Christianity, and pick up » small and suspicious looking fragment, ex«lt it to an undue pre-eminence, and itamp it with their authority, is eveiy friend of Evangelical truth, bound to give place by subjection, no> not for an hour. If their Lordships therefore are obliged to hear harsh criticisms, let them remember (hat they have made those criticisms necessary. Do your readers know what this doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration mean» ? They will find it t-labo-rately dressed up and polished in these Minutei. There is however d more cleac and undisguised view of it which they are lawfully authorized to take. Let them imagine a, thorough genuine heathen, who, by some chance, has got baptised. He finds two or three o there of the same sort They take his child to a drunkm, depraved, adulterous Clergyman ; he repeats certain prayer*, and while muttering a particular form of wordi, throws water upon the child ; that child i* now regeneiate.— not merely officially and formally, | —not merely externally and ostensibly, — not merely in the hope and faith of others,—-not merely in his pre* vileges, relations, and prospects: the wicked nature that he inherited from hit parents has gone : a new nature has been implanted. la every sense of the ■ word he is bjth externally, and internally, a thorough. Christian. This is somewhat allied to conjuring. The Papists may force their absurdities down the capacious throat* ol their disciples ; but ten thousand doctors, with all their eloquence and elegance, will never persuade into sucli a faith the most humble Protestant who makes the Bible hit only rule of doctrine. But this is not all. — Another child is born ; is brought, and is baptised by the same parlies. It dies immediately afterwards. By the stroag virtue of that Baptism it goes to heaven. The o her little Minis la the mean time i* growing up with his parents, and, a» reason begins to develops its glimmering spark, clouds

of sin darken and pollute it. He grows up\Uke his father a thorough alien from God, .md dies an -alien. Wretched man ! He is doomed to an " aggravated punishment" because, though he had never learned the name of Christ, or heard of the offers of mercy, he had yet been baptised by that adulteions parson. This it something like making man a piece of mere passive material, and placing a large portion of h'\> eternal condition in the hand-; of others. That ecclesiastical potter has formed of the same lump one vessel fur mid immortality ; he has enhanced to an untold degree the miseries of the other. But it will be asked, do those five Bishops maintain this doctrine in its full anil unqualified meaning ? It is very remarkable that though tnoy profess to give the ''just interpretation" on the subject, they only give the contested passages themselve» as exhibiting their meaning;. It is true indeed that we may inftr their views from certain remarks scattered throughout the Mintitp. For example, they tell us th.«t " all infants do receive this grace of regeneration ;"— that " they do not recognize in the infant any unfitness which disqualifies it from receiving this grace of regeneration ;" — that tmworthiness in ministers, sponsors, parents, hinders not;— that •' a wilful netslect of the means of grace," (not a very comp'e'e definition of sin by the way) only aggravates the guilt of those who fall nwAy after Baptism. Whether such pnt-sages as "dying unto sin" " rin'mg again unto righteousness," ic., &c. aie to bs taken in any of the senses that 1 have already mentioned; whether, in tt word, tlipy are to be taken in (1 ) a sacra, menial, or (2) an intrinsical and essential sense, or (3) in the Inn^uige of faiiL and hope, — which after all wa» the pith of the whole question— they nowhere inform m. They quietly take it for granted that such paseaeei are to be taken in their particular view, and then refer us to them for their sense of Baptismal Regeneration. To choose a disputed postage, as a definition of their doctrine, is an instance of the petitio prmcipii, perfectly astoniahing in minds so logical and < lear as theirs undoubtedly are. If an advocate of the doctrine of «' Final perseverance" were thus to stote his views to them in the language o\ scripture,—" By Final Perseverance, I mean that, 'He which hath begun the good work it) us, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ,* " would they not at once protest ugainv auch an ad'Caplandum mode of proceeding. The answer that they would give him is the very answer that must now be piven to themselves. They seem to have wished towards the end to show the pi actical good that would follow from their views on this subject. They say that they wish "to carry on the work of Christian education in the film belief that infants do receive in baptism the grace of regeneration." Here again they leave us at alosas to their meaning. I, for one, must dccl re myself unable to imagine m what respect 3 my plan* for the education of my children would be affected^ by the belief that those children had been regeneia'ed in their infancy. I remain, Sir, YouiB,&c, A Clergyman.