sometimes quotes Latin against me, I trust that he will for once permit me to quote Latin against him and his suspicious gifts, by reminding him of the well known line of Virgil:

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

I do not propose to enter into any precise refutation, step by step, of Mr. Scott's answer, in conformity with the elaborate example which he has set me. His object appears to be to exhibit his prowess in an intellectual conflict with me; to convince the public of his equality at least in the strife of words, and the tactics of logical digladiation. Abstracting particular allusions and expressions, and giving them a false bias, distorting and dislocating the context, misconceiving many things and mistating more, and always on the reserve with respect to himself, he attempts in minute detail to prove, that I argue inconclusively. I am not vain enough to think, whatsoever he may be, that the public will feel interested in the event of such a warfare. I shall therefore confine myself to a more limited view than he has taken, of the principal differences between us.

CHAP. II.

Inaccuracies of Mr. Scott admitted by himself. His concessions.

66

THERE are errors too absurd for defence, and too gross for palliation. My opponent had defined baptism to be "a means by which the "blessing (of regeneration) may be conveyed in "answer to the devout prayers of the several parties concerned in the administration and "reception of the sacrament." To the absurdity of this definition I objected. But observe the notice which he takes of my objection. His first reflection upon it is thus worded; " I "refer particularly to his (Dr. L's) remarks "on the passage, in which he supposes he has "detected me implying, that a person altogether

unregenerate may offer up devout prayers to "God. **The slightest correction of the language redeems this passage from his powert." So far for the first avowal, in which he regards the detection as a mere supposition on my part. But let us proceed and hear him again adverting to the same passage. "I here," he says,

66

cor

'Page 18.

"rect a trifling inaccuracy, which I have already acknowledged that Dr. L. had detected "in the sentence." So that the very thing, which before was represented as nothing more than, perhaps, an idle supposition, is now distinctly admitted, under the form of a previous acknowledgment, never made, to be a palpable detection. And in what does the correction of this trifling inaccuracy, as it is termed, consist? Why, in removing no less than one half of the means of regeneration from baptism, which his own contracted definition of it permitted to exist. For at first he asserted, that the blessing might be conveyed in answer to the devout prayers of the several parties concerned, both in the administration and reception of the sacrament; but now, by omitting the words "several parties," as well as " and reception," he confines the effect produced to the devout prayers alone of those who are engaged in the administration of it, that is, to one only of the two parties originally mentioned.

Neither is this unlucky error in the explanation of specific terms the sole inaccuracy into which he has fallen. In his first work, when explaining the term regeneration, the very term

upon which, as far at least as relates to the pe

riod of its operation, the controversy principally turns, he tripped even at the outset. For after having attempted to expose Dr. Mant's confused ideas, as he considers them, upon the subject, and after having boasted that his own views of it, as well as those of his respected brethren, were "more definite and more consistent," he stated it to be "the commencement of that "sanctification of the Spirit, which must re"store us to the image of God." But now again accused of asserting here what he appears to deny elsewhere, he finds another trifling alteration requisite. Accordingly, he informs us, that in the second edition of his book, before the words, "the commencement of that sanctification "of the Spirit," he has inserted the following: though the word regeneration may be some"times used with rather more latitude, we gene

66

66

rally understand by it" the commencement, &c. But is this to redeem the gauntlet of superior accuracy, which he had previously thrown down in proud defiance? And is the playing fast and loose with an expression of perpetual recurrence, and, by his own account, of the utmost importance in the controversy, the application of it sometimes in one sense, and sometimes in another, likely to promote either concord or con

X

Inquiry, p. 16.

y Answer, p.

22.

viction? Besides, let me add, that if he be himself willing, is he sure that those, whose faith he pledged to his first definition, are equally willing, so lightly to relinquish it, and publicly to confess, that at the time when they raised so great a cry upon the subject of regeneration, they knew not the very meaning of the word itself in its application to the principal point in controversy ?

Another little slip he is conscious of having made in advancing the singular doctrine of a supposed transfer of souls, in considering" the "soul of the child as transferred to his sponsor, "and as speaking in him and by him"."

Struck

with the extravagance of the conception, I remonstrated against it; and not, it appears, without effect, as he has omitted the whole passage containing it in the second edition of his book. At the same time, however, that he notices this unavoidable sacrifice to common sense, he represents the passage itself as a as a mere illus"tration" of his argument. That he meant it to be nothing more, is apparent, he conceives, from the form of the words adopted by him, which were, "It is as if the soul of the child "were considered as transferred to his sponsor. But how does this operate to his exculpation? Did he imagine, that I thought him, I will not