unacknowledged changes, difficult obsolete words are often left, while casier ones are commuted; the melodious eth is altered to their favourite sibilant s in one half of a sentence, while it is retained in magpie fashion in the other; and one line is cockneyfied, while the next is left in its simple rusticity. This is chiefly matter of taste, (except as unnecessary alteration involves a principle) and we therefore treat it playfully; but alterations and suppressions introduced to serve a party purpose, deserve a sterner rebuke. We seriously charge the Tract Committee with having adopted the wicked policy of the Church of Rome, of secretly mutilating the works of old authors to prevent their opinions being known to the world. Why should it be a crime in monks, or popes, or Jesuits, to falsify a passage in Jerome or Augustine; and no crime in the confidential agents of the Tract Society to pursue the same course in regard to Jewell or Ridley? Why is the text of Cranmer to be fraudulently corrupted any more than that of Cyprian; or the Anglican Fathers any more than the Apostolic? Why are Matthew Henry and other old writers to be secretly mutilated where they bear testimony to the solemn duty of establishing national churches, and the garbled text to be passed off as genuine; any more than Chrysostom, Lactantius, or the two Cyrils, where they say something that displeases the Church of Rome? It is vexatious to see such a heart-stirring piece of antique eloquence as Ridley's two " Farewells" verbally transmogrified, and for no purpose,-for hath and doth are as short and as intelligible as has and does-but to have his solemn averments tam. pered with, in order to keep the world in darkness as to his opinions, and this while professing to give them fairly, is worse than vexatious -it is an act of duplicity.

We have said enough about the word "Anabaptists;" and yet so anxious are we to clear ourselves from the charge of being false accusers, or even uncandid considerators, that we will shew further,

the following passage, which occurs on the very next leaf to the passage on the Lord's Supper above quoted, the words natural and material are contrasted; but at the beginning of the passage the Tract Committee have twice altered material to natural; but by and bye, when the two words come together, the alteration cannot be sustained, and the rest of the passage is therefore printed correctly, but then it makes nonsense on account of the antecedent alterations. We will copy from the Parker edition, giving the Tract Society's alterations between crotchets. The editions from which the Society prints are not specified, so that we cannot collate their readings; but no difference of editions can account for the mass of discrepancies which occur in every part.

66

"Now, on the other side, if, after the truth shall be truly tried out, it be [is] found that the substance of bread is the MATERIAL [natural] substance of the sacrament, although for the change of the use, office, and dignity of the bread indeed sacramentally is [is sacramentally]

changed into the body of Christ, as the water in baptism is sacramentally changed into the fountain of regeneration, and yet the MATERIAL [natural] substance thereof [thereof omitted] remaineth [remains] all one [the same] as [it] was before; if, I say, the true solution of that former question, whereupon all these controversies do hang [depend] be [is] that the NATURAL substance of bread is the MATERIAL substance in the sacrament of The [ Christ's blessed] Body; then must it [needs] follow of [from] the former proposition, [which is] confessed of all that be [are] named [said] to be learned, so far as I do [do omitted] know, in England, which is [which is transposed] that there is but one MATERIAL substance in the sacrament of the Body, and one only likewise in the sacrament of the blood [so] that there is no such thing indeed and in truth as [that which] they call transubstantiation; for the substance of bread remaineth [remains] still in the sacrament of the Body."

though superfluously, that our statement is borne out, and that it is in order to screen the sect of Baptists that this worse than Lichfield House compact is so strictly adhered to by the unacknowledged garbling of the writings of our venerable Reformers. The Committee have two chief devices, as we have already shewn; first, where they can altogether leave out the word "Anabaptists" without much fear of detection (for few persons collate editions) they do so; secondly, where they must have some noun-substantive to make the sense, and they can slily foist in another word for Anabaptists, as men " above quoted, they do this; but where the sentence is altogether intractable, they add a note to say that the author referred only to the fanatics of Germany-which is not always true; and where all these three artifices fail, the censure of the writer being levelled directly against the Anabaptists, not by name, or in allusion to the German fanatics, but by a distinct specification of their withholding baptism from infants, and re-baptizing adults, there the Tract Committee have a sweeping remedy-they spunge out the passage, and say nothing about the matter.

Take the three following examples, which occur within a few pages of each other, in the Conferences between Ridley and Latimer in the volume now in our hands;-and they are but a slight specimen of the principle upon which the Committee have carried on their proceedings; for Jewell and Ridley are not worse used than other men. To the question whether baptism is invalid because administered in a foreign tongue, Ridley replies, (Parker Ed. p. 140) :

"Although I would wish baptism to be given in the vulgar tongue, for the people's sake which are present, that they may the better understand their own profession, and also be the more able to teach their children the same; yet, notwithstanding, there is not like necessity of the vulgar tongue in baptism as in the Lord's Supper. Baptism is given to children who by reason of their age are not able to understand what is spoken unto them (in) what tongue soever it be. The Lord's Supper is, and ought to be, given to them that are waxen. Moreover, in baptism, which is accustomed to be given to children in the Latin tongue, all the substantial points, (as a man would say) which Christ commanded to be done, are observed. And therefore I judge that baptism to be a perfect and true baptism, and that it is not only not needful, but also not lawful, for any man so christened to be christened again."

In the passage to which this is Ridley's answer, the objection runs thus: "If it be not the baptism of Christ, tell me how were ye baptized. Or whether ye will (as the Anabaptists do) that all which were baptized in Latin should be baptized again in the English tongue ?" Here the Tract Committee found the remedy easy; they had only silently to leave out the words, "as the Anabaptists do," for who was likely to collate their publications for the sake of a short parenthesis?

A few pages before, Latimer having mentioned St. Augustine's "vehement saying," that he would not believe the Gospel, were it not for the authority of the Church; adding that he meant only, as Melancthon "well qualified" it, that "the Church is not a judge, but [is still] a witness," goes on to say that St. Augustine was "provoked and drove into that excessive vehemence" by those who in his time "lightly esteemed the testimony of the Church, and the outward ministry of preaching, and rejected the outward word itself, sticking only to their inward revelations ;" but that though "the bare sound" of Augustine's words might seem to imply "to such

as do not attain unto his meaning that he preferred the Church far before the Gospel, and that the Church hath a free authority over the same," yet "that godly man never thought so ;" and Latimer asserts for himself that he "would not stick to affirm that the more part of the great house, that is to say of the universal church, may easily err." Nevertheless, he adds, Augustine's words "were a saying worthy to be brought forth against the Anabaptists, which think the open ministry to be a thing not necessary, if they anything esteemed such testimonies." The Tract Society, in its resolute determination to falsify history in order to shield the Anabaptists, secretly alters the passage as follows: "It were a saying worthy to be brought forth against those who think the open ministry, &c." Do the Committee mean to imply that Latimer uttered a falsehood in charging the Anabaptists with this opinion? If they do, why do they not let his words stand, and add a note to contradict them? Or if they admit the charge, why should they be so tender of the reputation of the Anabaptists? If Latimer had spoken of many other sects, they would not have falsified the text of the venerable writer.

Again, we turn back four leaves, and find Ridley saying, "The sect of the Anabaptists, and the heresy of the Novatians, ought of right to be condemned; forasmuch as without any just or necessary cause they wickedly separated themselves from the communion of the congregation." The sentence and context did not allow of either omitting the sect of the Anabaptists," or of changing the phrase into "those" or "men;" therefore the Society, being obliged to retain the text, adds the following note: "Ridley here refers to the German fanatics who had recently engaged in open rebellion at Munster and elsewhere." Now though this is part of the truth it is not the whole truth; for Ridley did not refer exclusively, or chiefly, to "rebellion" against the State, for he is speaking of separation from "the communion of the congregation." But an explanatory note, whether perfectly correct or not, is better than that secret suppression or alteration of documents of which we complain. But to shew the object and the spirit of the whole proceeding, we will adduce one passage more, in which Anabaptists are not mentioned by name, and in which there is not the slightest pretext for saying that Ridley was referring to the rebellion at Munster or elsewhere. He is speaking distinctly and exclusively of what he considered religious heresies; and if the manner in which the Tract Committee have treated this passage does not cause them to blush, to repent, and to amend their doings, or their subscribers to demand an explanation of their conduct, the Society will have forfeited all claim to fair-dealing. Ridley says, in one of his letters to Bradford :

"Whereas you write of the outrageous rule that Satan, our ghostly enemy, beareth abroad in the world, whereby he stirreth and raiseth so pestilent and heinous heresies, as some to deny the blessed Trinity, some the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, SOME THE BAPTISM Of INFANTS, some original sin, and to be infested with the errors of the Pelagians, and to RE-BAPTIZE THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED WITH CHRIST'S BAPTISM ALREADY; alas, Sir, this doth declare this time and these days to be wicked indeed !"

Here is a passage-one among many-decisive and stringent as to the sentiments of the Reformers, Anglican and Continental, re

specting" the baptism of infants," and "re-baptizing those that have been baptized with Christ's baptism already," meaning those who were baptized with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, whether in infancy or after years, and whether with little water or much. To deny infant baptism, or to re-baptize those who had already been baptized with water in the name of the Trinity, at whatever age, Ridley numbers among the "pestilent and heinous heresies" which Satan stirreth, and as marks of " days wicked indeed." Now the present question is not whether Ridley was right or wrong; nor whether it is the sect of Anabaptists, or the collective church of Christ in all ages, that is right or wrong; nor whether Ridley ought to be reproved for attaching to the tenets he mentions such severe epithets; but simply whether a religious Society, professing to reprint his remarks in a fair manner, could with honesty either silently alter or covertly suppress his censure. Beyond the circle of the officers of the Tract Society there will not be a second opinion on this subject. They were not obliged to reprint any of the works of Ridley; but if they professed to do so, they had no right to garble them without acknowledgment. Yet they have done so, and most flagrantly; as, for example, in omitting the whole of the words which we have printed in Italics and Capitals in the last quoted passage. They will not allow the world to know that Ridley, and his venerable coadjutors of the Reformation, protested against anti-Trinitarianism and Pelagianism, because in the same sentence he also protested against the peculiar doctrines held by those who, in disparagement to all other bodies of Christians, call themselves "Baptists," accounting all baptism but that which agrees with their peculiar views no-baptism, and therefore necessarily unchurching all Christendom; for without valid baptism there can be no true church. Some Baptist who has sufficient disinterestedness and integrity not to wish to promote his own opinions by unhallowed proceedings, should be the first to disclaim the unacknowledged mutilation of documents under the guise of genuine reprints. Robert Hall would have burned with indignation at such conduct.

The compact between the Anabaptists and the Religious Tract Society, has been most mischievous, in the influence which it has given to a restless and proselyting sect, which always takes good care in its intercourse with other bodies that the reciprocity shall be all on one side. How many thousands of persons have read the treatises and letters of Ridley, printed by the Tract Society, without being at all aware how strongly he and the other Reformers considered it their duty to write upon the points under consideration. And can it be right that hundreds of millions of publications should be issued without one word in reference to the duty of dedicating the children of believers to God in baptism; one word of warning, or consolation, to the many millions of those who in all Christian lands have been thus dedicated; one word either of the peril or the privilege of their condition; one word of advice or instruction to parents on the subject; or one word to fortify the millions of ignorant and unstable readers who peruse these books and tracts, against the plausible arguments by which the Anabaptists seek to induce them to repudiate their baptism? The Bible Society has been the first to feel the untoward influence which the Baptists have gained by the compact between them and the other conductors of the Tract CHRIST. OBSERV, No. 54, 2 U

Society; the Pædo-baptist Dissenters feel it also; and well may the Anabaptists exult, that though they cannot blot out the baptism of "households" from the Bible, they have outwitted their brethren to do so from hundreds of millions of books and tracts; thus clenching the great majority of the members of this cosmopolitan Society to regard the mode and the subjects of baptism as of very little importance. The Bible Society has stood firm to its trust; and will not succumb to them by printing sectarian Bibles, as the Tract Society has sectarian tracts;-for the exclusion complained of is miserably sectarian; and, in the case of reprints of deceased authors, is also as unjust as it is party-spirited.

GOD UNKNOWN BY MEN IN GENERAL.

For the Christian Observer,

THAT Christianity is not the element in which the mind of society moves, nor its spirit the atmosphere which it breathes; that Gospel motives are not its animating principle, nor Gospel laws its rule of practice; and yet that each of the individuals composing this great mass claims to be a Christian, are palpable and stubborn facts. Few will undertake to deny this, and it furnishes one of those many anomalies which a world far 'gone from original righteousness, and alienated from the truth of God, must daily and necessarily exhibit.

The cause appears to be this. The very foundations upon which the religion of society is based are hollow and unsound, and that which should be its chief corner stone but an unsubstantial shadow. In fact, the elementary principles of Christianity are not known, but assumed. Because the public creed embraces the profession of Trinity in Unity, each individual is supposed born to a belief of that which society collectively acknowledges. From the very circumstance of his birth in these favoured lands, he is supposed to possess an intuitive knowledge of those fundamental and vital truths which it is the benevolent object of societies and individuals to instil, by the more tedious process of doctrine, preaching, and prayer, into the heathen sons of Asia and Africa.

The ruinous effects of this ungrounded presumption upon the religion of society are but too apparent. Whatever each man's deficiencies in religion may be, he never for a moment supposes, that among them can be that which Scripture, with uniform voice, declares to be the alone parent of every vice, and itself the damning sin-want of faith. Conscience may convince him of sin in the detail, but cannot convince him of sin in the root and principle— unbelief. He can see, in the saint and sinner, but two parties serving, with different degrees indeed of faithfulness, the same Master; but he cannot see two parties enlisted in interests totally opposite, and ranging themselves beneath the banners of potentates between whom communion is as impossible as between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, heaven and hell. He cannot see, that the man who, in the field of religion, has not passed a certain point, and that point not in intellectual knowledge, nor yet in moral virtue, but in a spiritual apprehension of God, whatever may be his other attainments, however useful to society, ornamental to his species,