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ral Canaan. With all the Baptists, he now maintains, that the Christian church is founded on some other than the Abrahamic covenant, and is a new, a totally different visible church from that which was with Moses in the wilderness.

Neither of the authors under review appears to have any very clear notions of that covenant with Abraham, which is the charter of the visible church; and hence, their reasonings about it amount to but little. Mr. Judson confounds this ecclesiastical covenant with the one made fourteen years before, in which God gave the land of Israel to the father of the faithful and his natural descendants: and Mr. Pond does not discriminate between them. He considers the covenant of circumcision as a national covenant, and says, that, since the introduction of the gospel dispensation, "with regard to the Gentiles, the token of the covenant of circumcision has been forbidden;" whence he infers, "that the covenant is abolished." Yet Mr. Judson tells us, that God gave Abraham circumcision as a seal, or token, of the righteousness of faith, which righteousness of, or by faith, he had, before "God gave him the covenant of circumcision;" and that this same rightcousness of faith is imputed to every believer, for his justification. Was circumcision a seal of that covenant, in which God promises to impute the righteousness of Christ to every believer for his justification? If it was, circumcision was a scal of the covenant of redemption, which we call the covenant of grace, between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, because in it God binds himself to bestow saving grace on certain persons, on condition of Christ's performing the work of redemption. If circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith, it must be a seal at the same time of that covenant of God by which righteousness is imputed to every believer, so that faith is reckoned to him for, or answers him all the purposes of, perfect righteousness. It is an external token, or symbol, that God, by covenant, accounts all believers to be perfectly righteous, through the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to them. This covenant sealed by circumcision, this covenant of redemption, this only covenant of grace, by which the believer is saved, we hope in God, is not abrogated,

even if no external rite has come in place of circumcision, which ought no longer to be practised by Jews or Gentiles, except as a mere matter of indifference in itself, or of innocent expedience, under some peculiar circumstances. Of this same covenant, which secures to every believer a perfect righteousness through faith, we think baptism now a seal; and a seal is nothing but an external token of a covenant, appended to that covenant. It also denotes, that the persons who wear the seal belong to the visible church, under the Christian dispensation of the covenant of grace, or of redemption, which covenant secures saving grace. Circumcision was a seal, in like manner, of the covenant of redemption; and was a badge of membership in the visible, church, during the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the comparatively legal dispensation of the same everlasting covenant of life, peace, grace, and complete redemption for all the elect.

All admit, that there is but one covenant of redemption, according to which Jehovah dispenses his saving grace; and most persons, we think, will admit, that there have at different times been two seals of this one covenant, circumcision and baptism. But a controversy respects the persons who are to wear the last, and concerning the mode of affixing it to the proper subjects. None but believers, say the Baptists, should wear the seal of baptism, and it should be affixed to them by a perfect immersion. The Pædobaptists say, all male persons born of Jews, or under their care and control in their families, and all male proselytes to Judaism, with males of their households, received the seal of circumcision and to this the Baptists assent. The Pædobaptists again assert, that all persons, whether male or female, born of members of the church, or belonging to their families and under their control, with all proselytes and their households, ought to be baptized: but the Baptists say, no person, whether born of a person in the church or out of it, ought to be baptized, unless he shall make a credible profession, that he actually believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, to the saving of his soul. Any solemn application of water to a proper subject, by a minister of Christ, acting under his commission, in the name of

the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, say the Pædobaptists, is Christian baptism.

No application of water, except a complete immersion into it, of a proper subject, and by a minister of Christ, acting under his commission, say the Baptists, is Christian baptism.

To illuminate our minds upon either of these subjects of dispute, neither Mr. Judson nor Mr. Pond has written any thing that is new. They have given many opinions from dictionaries, and fathers, and moderns; but after all, Protestants will allow nothing to be of binding authority upon this controversy but the Bible. We shall, therefore, trouble ourselves to quote none of their wise men; for we have the Bible as well as they, and every man must resort to this for his own personal satisfaction. What do we learn from the Bible about the church in the world, circumcision, baptism, the proper subjects of these rites, and the mode of administering them? These are the questions we should endeavour to answer; and every thing else may go for mere opinion of others, tradition, fable, or human history.

The only thing in, or about Mr. Judson's sermon which required Mr. Pond's answer, was the circumstance that Mr. Judson's change of sentiment would induce many people, of little sense, to judge, that since so wise and benevolent a missionary as he, found the doctrine of Pædobaptism incapable of being supported, it must be unscriptural. Mr. Pond's answer is well calculated to counteract this effect; for he more than insinuates, that Mr. Judson's reasons for changing his creed were not very benevolent.

Messrs. Newell and Judson, with their wives, sailed for India in the same ship, and arrived in Calcutta June 17, 1812. During his passage, when he began to doubt, he communicated none of his doubts to his companions. With them he entered into no discussions; no, not during a long voyage, which might have been enlivened, one would think, by friendly, Christian controversy. Verily, he despised the understanding of his brother Newell, or he wished to doubt; or he did not doubt. On the 8th of August, 1812, his companions, Messrs. Hall, Nott, and Rice, with the wife of Mr. Nott, arrived in Calcutta ; but

before this arrival, "Messrs. Newell and Judson had been ordered away;" (shame on the unchristian government of the truly Christian people of Great Britain!) "and Mr. Newell with his wife had actually sailed for the Isle of France. He left Mr. Judson, say the prudential committee" of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, "without any knowledge of his change." From June 17th, to August 8th, it seems, then, that Mr. J. kept his doubts to himself; and concealed them from his brother-missionary. "Four days after Mr. Newell's departure, the other brethren arrived at Calcutta. They were there in company with Mr. Judson, nearly three weeks, when, on the 27th of August, he left them to go to Serampore, for the purpose of being immersed. His brethren, even at this last moment, were totally unapprized of the object of his visit' to Serampore, and received their first intelligence on the subject, two days afterwards, from DR. MARSHMAN!!!!-We cannot forbear adding a word or two more. A letter was written, about twenty days after Mr. Judson's immersion, and signed by MR. RICE, wherein mention is made of what had happened, as a' trying event.' Yet within less than four weeks of the date of this letter, MR. RICE had followed him!" Those who have any knowledge of the Rev. Luther Rice, and of his subsequent labours and thriving in the missionary cause, will not wonder at this.

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Were this all, we should have reason to congratulate our Baptist brethren on the acquisition of Messrs. Judson and Rice, two of the young lights from the seminary at Andover. But alas! Mr. J. having heard that his metamorphosis was imputed to certain equivocal motives, to say the least of them, writes to the REV. DR. BALDWIN, Pastor of the second Baptist Church in the town of Boston, a letter dated Rangoon, Dec. 23, 1815, which was inserted in the Baptist Missionary Magazine, vol. iv. p. 346, in which the unfortunate proselyte to Anabaptism says, "The American Board of Commissioners NEVER GAVE ME A REPRIMAND. In proof of this, I can appeal to any of the members. Furthermore, I NEVER HAD THE MOST DISTANT IDEA THAT THE BOARD THOUGHT ME DESERVING OF A REPRIMAND. When I left my native.

land, it afforded me much comfort, that I came out under the patronage of such men.'

Now, unfortunately for Mr. J. if he is a bad man ; and fortunately for his repentance, if he is a good man, that once in his life deliberately and awfully lied, Mr. Pond undertook to ascertain the truth on this subject. He wrote to the corresponding secretary of the board, the Rev. Samuel Worcester, D. D. of Salem, Mass. and the dential committee of that Board, through their secretary, reply, officially, that

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"In the beginning of the year 1811, Mr. Judson was sent by the prudential committee to England, for purposes distinctly specified in his instructions. In that mission, what he was instructed not to do, he did; and what he was instructed to do, he neglected. On his return, in July of the same year, he kept himself aloof from the prudential committee, made no regular report of his doings, and assumed the management of matters in his own way. At the meeting of the Board at Worcester, in the following September, his answers to questions, his conversation, and deportment, were in the same spirit and manner which had marked his previous proceedings. Great dissatisfaction was expressed by every member present; and it became a very serious question, whether Mr. Judson should not be dismissed. After deliberation, however, it was resolved, that he should be in a formal and solemn manner admonished. THE

ADMONITION WAS ACCORDINGLY ADMINISTERED IN PRESENCE.

OF THE BOARD. Mr. Judson was much affected-appeared to yield to the admonition-made concessions and gave assurances and was continued under the patronage of the Board. Yet after all this, and even after a passage had been engaged for him, with others, to India, in the February following, his deportment was such, that it again became a serious and most trying question with the prudential committee, whether he should be permitted to go. And it was not without great heaviness of heart, many fears, and particular but tender cautions, not to him only, but to the other missionaries respecting him, that he was finally sent out. The sequel is publicly known."

After this disclosure, our respectable Baptist friends, surely, will not boast of the conversion of Mr. Judson; nor glory even in his best missionary labours, until he shall confess and forsake the sin of lying.

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