tianity in Africa there were not five hundred bishoprics on that continent. This body was, therefore, no small and unimportant gathering. It was no local clique of the clergy, drawn together on some principle of doctrinal affinity. Wide geographical boundaries marked the limits from which they came. It was a promiscuous gathering; nor did they know, till assembled, to what questions they were to make answer. A draft by lot on the Church at large would not probably have brought together fairer representatives of the Christian faith and practice concerning infant baptism than were found in the Carthaginian Association.

5. Their perfect agreement in answer to the question of Fidus. There is a grateful unanimity among them for one who loves the sacrament in question. "As for what you

thought fitting to be done, there was not one that was of your mind." In hoc enim, quod tu putabas esse faciendum, nemo consensit. This unity of opinion and result assures us that they reasoned from a unity of faith and of practice in the Church. Such agreement in faith and practice through the Church, and out of which their agreement in advice to Fidus sprung, may have resulted from either of two causes. There may have been a universal prevalence of the teaching of Christ and his apostles, that infant baptism is a divine institution in the Church. Or there may have been a universal prevalence of such a rite, and universal belief in it as divine, while it was only a forgery and an imposition among the original and authoritative rites of the Church.

In determining which of these two causes did, probably, lead them to this unity of advice to Fidus, we come to the last point we would make on this letter concerning infant baptism.

6. The time when this assembly was convened. Some of its members could, very like, make their memories cover nearly half the period between the time of their session and the time of living apostles. They knew the generation that knew the apostles. In so narrow space of. time could infant baptism have sprung up of human device, and established itself so widely and so absolutely? If this rite be an innovation and corruption among the institutions of the apostles, it must have come in by slow introduction. Three quarters of a century

would hardly suffice for so radical and fundamental a change in the constitution of the Church of God. Yet allow that to be sufficient time, for the sake of an inquiry. Between the time of this meeting at Carthage and the death of the apostle John, the interval was about one hundred and fifty years. Could the innovation and imposition have taken place in the last half of this interval? But that would have been within the lifetime and knowledge of these bishops. And knowing it, could they have gone through the discussion of the question of Fidus, and come to that unanimous result, with no intimation or breathed suspicion that the ordinance was of human invention, and so should be left to the widest range of private judgment for its performance? The entire teaching and spirit of the letter show that they supposed they were dealing with a divine ordinance, which could not be true if men had invented and introduced it within their memory and knowledge.

Could the innovation have taken place during the first half of this interval? But it is claimed by those who regard this ordinance as of man, that it is a great violation and departure from the primitive and apostolical constitution of the Church. It is a change, say they, of vast magnitude. Could it have been wrought in seventy-five years, no protesting and pure minority remaining, nor any record of the change, to prevent the unity of opinion and result in that body of sixty-six bishops? Could the change have been made in that age when a part of those among whom it was to be wrought were men whom the apostles had personally instructed?

On the theory that Infant Baptism is a human device and a forgery, thrust in among apostolic institutions, this Letter of Cyprian to Fidus is a great perplexity. The narrow and definite question that it answers, the number of bishops for whom it speaks, their perfect unanimity in opinion, and their nearness to the apostolic age, are confusing thoughts pressed on us by the Letter. If this ordinance be an invention and imposition, begun so early, carried so thoroughly and widely, and all knowledge and history of its corrupt human beginning lost so profoundly, and all within one hundred and fifty years of the apostolic age, then is it a marvel in Church history.

On the theory of invention and imposition this wonder is

increased when we read in Origen, who was born much before and within a century of the apostolic age, "infants are by the usage of the Church baptized," (Homl. in Lev. 8, c. 4,) and, "the Church had from the apostles a tradition to give baptism. to infants," (Comm. in Ep. ad Rom. 5: 9). And Tertullian, an earlier witness, adds to the wonder when he adds his testimony to this Church usage in his day. For, speaking of the responsibility of sponsors, and advising the delay of infant baptism that their responsibility may not be so great, he says: "What need is there that the godfathers should be brought into danger? For they may fail of their promises by death, or they may be mistaken by the child's proving of wicked disposition. What need their guiltless age make such haste?" (De Baptismo, c. 18.)

But as we have to do only with the Letter of Cyprian, all earlier testimony to the primitive use of this sacrament is omitted.

ARTICLE III.

WHO WAS THEODORE PARKER?

1. Theodore Parker's Experience as a Minister, with some Account of his Early Life and Education for the Ministry;contained in a Letter from him to the Members of the TwentyEighth Congregational Society of Boston. Boston: Rufus Leighton, Jr. 1860. pp. 182.

2. Sundry Discourses, Addresses, Proceedings, &c. &c., occasioned by the Death of Rev. Theodore Parker, viz: Discourses by Rev. Messrs. J. F. Clarke, Bartol, Alger, Newhall, Frothingham, Hepworth; - Addresses by Messrs. C. M. Ellis, Wendell Phillips, R. W. Emerson, at the Music Hall, Boston, Sunday, June 17, 1860; and Proceedings at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, Melodeon, May 31, 1860.

THAT a man by the name of Theodore Parker, the reputed author of one of these publications, and concerning whom the

rest are written, once lived among us and is now dead, we are led to believe, partly in consequence of the principles of faith by which we receive the Bible as the Word of God, however much in some of its parts it may fail to coincide with our instincts, which were Mr. Parker's ultimate test of truth.

If we were not, in the strongest sense of the word, believers, we could assign reasons for doubting, with Mr. Parker's principles adopted from Strauss, whether Mr. Parker be not a myth. We could prove that he never could have gained existenceneither as a miracle nor as a natural product. A miracle, according to Mr. Parker, is impossible in the nature of things. This is a corner-stone in his system. His doctrine is this: "God never violates the else constant mode of operation of the universe;" so that "a theological miracle is as impossible as a round triangle." ("Experience," p. 36.) We need not say that this is mere dogmatizing and begging the question; the bare assertion of the opposite is equally valid. But a miracle being impossible, Mr. Parker, if he existed, was not of miraculous origin; and now, did he exist by ordinary generation? On this point we need that very proof the alleged absence of which, in connection with the Bible, is the ground of Mr. Parker's unbelief.

The evidence for the miraculous conception of Christ, for example, Mr. Parker tells us is "good for nothing, because we have not the Affidavit of the Mother, the only competent human witness; nor even the Declaration of the Son." (p. 36.) "The Affidavit of the Mother"! For want of this, the miraculous conception of Christ must be counted "good for nothing." Such is the logic of infidelity. Its tender mercies in the treatment of testimony are cruel. Suppose that the Mother of Jesus had personally appeared before Scribe BenEzra, a Notary-Public in Judea, and had made "affidavit" of the miraculous conception. The idea of Mary's doing this is absurd; but if it were done, how could it help Mr. Parker? Would he believe a reputed or attested copy of the "affidavit "? Would he not demand a sight of the original? How could he be gratified? Positively, there would be no way now of verifying that affidavit; we must rely on the testimony of witnesses living at the time of the event, and we must treat their writings

as we treat those of Julius Cæsar and Livy. Such witnesses we have in the New Testament, to say nothing of prophecy.

Has any one of us ever seen the "affidavit of the mother of Mr. Parker touching his birth? Has such "affidavit " been made? Relatives and neighbors may have enjoyed the help which this document would have afforded to their faith, but that does not help us, nor the coming generations, to whom the birth of Mr. Parker will be of such immeasurable importance, if his principles are to prevail among men. But the testimony of relatives and neighbors on this point would be, at the very best, as loose as that of Prophets and Evangelists; we should, therefore, be obliged to consult our "instincts " the probability that such a man as he describes himself to be did really exist. Moreover, Mr. Parker himself nowhere tells us, except in a cursory way, that he was born! Where have we the solemn "Declaration of the Son" of Mrs. Parker that he was born? He begins the narrative of his life with these words: "In my boyhood," &c. Now this is vague. Great consequences may ensue. Suppose that, hereafter, some of his followers should insist that such as he could not have descended from earthly parents by ordinary generation;

as to

the means of contradicting this are as weak and insufficient as he alleges the testimony of the Evangelists to be respecting the miraculous conception and birth of Him whom he denominates "the fairhaired youth of Galilee.”

Is it possible that Mr. Parker, by omitting to tell us whether he was born like other members of the human family, intended to leave room, in future years, for a claim that he was of preternatural origin? By all testimony concerning him, and judging from his autobiography, larger self-conceit never dwelt in one of human kind. As he lay on his death-bed, we are told by his personal friends that he looked on his bust and said: "That head should have accomplished more!" "The great, obvious Social Forces in America," he says, (pp. 92, 93,) "may be thus summed up: 1. There is the organized Trading Power; 2. The organized Political Power; 3. The organized Ecclesiastical Power; 4. The organized Literary Power." After briefly characterizing them severally, in contemptuous terms, he continues, "I must" [he uses the word must in a preterite sense,