BRIGHT EYES AND THE NEW YEAR.

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burst into flowers of beauty, or ripen into fruits of grace. Let us, by practical sympathy, cheer the sick, the widow and the fatherless, and carry our richest treasures of consolation to the homes of sorrow and bereavement. And if we, or our friends, feel inclined to dwell on our troubles, misfortunes, and sufferings, let us listen to the words of the poet

Allow me also to remind my brethren in the ministry, and the officebearers and members of our churches, that our peace and prosperity during the coming year, will depend largely on the manner in which we begin and continue our religious duties. Let us welcome our old, tried, and useful friend, the General Baptist Magazine, and also the Freeman and Baptist, into our homes, and let us support our denominational institutions with an enlarged generosity, and earnestly implore God's blessing on our combined labours, and then " God, even our own God, will abundantly bless us." That He may favour us with His sweetest smiles and richest benefactions, and multiply to our pastors and churches, grace, mercy, and peace, is the fervent prayer of your willing and anxious servant in Christ Jesus.

Bright Eyes, and the New Year.

BRIGHT eyes are watching free of fear
To welcome in the unknown year,
Unconscious yet of sorrow's tear,
Because so young;
So sure of joy that it must bring
They laugh to greet its early spring,
While joins them with its tuneful ring
The merry tongue.

We need not press the truth too soon
That joy is changeful as the moon,
And fleeter than a summer's noon:
O joys we miss!

Ye were a gleam of some true light,
And He who only doeth right
Attracts us by your kindly sight
To surer bliss.

Expecting, baffled, wearied, sore,
We find our hearts were made for more
Than earth, or star, or sun can pour
With all their beams:

Our hopes fall fluttering to the ground
As year on year completes its round;
But, lo, some better thing is found
Beyond our dreams!

E. HALL JACKSON.

*The Christian Year.

BY THE REV. T. GOADBY, B.A.

IN these days of vague sentiment and agnosticism an exposition of General Baptist principles can hardly be considered unseasonable. It suggests that somebody is old-fashioned enough to think that principles in religious organization and work are of some account; and that somebody has the audacity to suppose that a denomination, or body of churches, already more than a century old, may not be altogether an impertinence or a mistake, but may exist to give emphasis, in some way or other, to important and definite convictions. And yet one is not sure that the discovery that there are such things as General Baptist principles will not be to some General Baptists themselves a similar surprise to that of the amusing Frenchman when it suddenly dawned upon him, in mature years, that he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it. But however seasonable or surprising a subject may be, an exposition pre-supposes a text; and where do we find our text? In what book is it written, and in what chapter of that book? Bear with us, gentle reader, we have to find our text. The principles of the General Baptist denomination are, like the principles of the British constitution, not written upon parchment, not formulated in any authoritative treatise or code. One can point to no document which contains them, to no venerable records in which they are embalmed. The denomination embodies them in its life and work and history, lives and moves and has its being in the midst of them as its element and atmosphere; but they themselves are as a subtle impalpable spirit—the groundwork of all intellectual activity, or as the viewless air-the breath and inspiration of all sensuous life. Our text will, perhaps, best be discovered if we ask three questions with respect to the Denomination of whose principles we are in search, viz., What is its name? What is its creed? What has been its history? For the principles of a denomination may well be supposed to be suggested by its designation, to underlie its articles of faith, and to be embodied in the story of its life.

The full name we bear, with all our style and titles, is, "Protestant Dissenters of the New Connexion of General Baptists," and it is very significant. It is rather a long name, as is not unusual with personages of noble or royal birth; and it speaks somewhat of pedigree, ancestry, and kindred, including names of illustrious and distinguished kinsfolk of a bygone or contemporary period, as also is not unusual with persons of exalted and superior rank. All this, however, involves principles, and it is of these that we are in quest. Our full style and title asserts our position among the churches of our land. We are "Protestants;" against the pernicious errors of the Church of Rome, and the supremacy of its infallible Pope, we join with others in protesting; only we think that in some respects our protest is more emphatic and sweeping than that of others. We are "Dissenters," not admitting the principle of a State-church, and not accepting that peculiar form of it which, by the law of the land, is established in this country; and there is as much of the "dissidence of Dissent" in our position as in that of any other body of Nonconformist churches in England, if not perhaps a little more, for the first English book that fully set forth the principles of Free

GENERAL BAPTIST PRINCIPLES.

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Churchism was written by a General Baptist. On these points no exposition is needed, for it is at once allowed that religion is not a matter to be enforced upon or prescribed to human consciences by a proud hierarchy, or by a representative or aristocratic political assembly. The church may rule and guide the world by its principles, but the world has no inherent fitness or right to legislate for the church, or to determine its doctrine and ritual. But we are "Baptists;" and bearing that name without venturing to translate it into "Immersionists," or "Dippers," we hold with all of like name, and some of other name, that the original form of the scriptural ordinance called "baptism," was, as the Greek word signifies, and primitive usage shows, "immerson," and not sprinkling or pouring. It is not too much to say that on this question the scholarship of Europe is on our side, and that the only point open to debate is whether the church has the power to modify its rites to suit altered times and circumstances, and to transfer to the children of Christian parents, or to children under Christian nurture, an ordinance originally observed only after intelligent avowal of Christian belief. But we are 66 General Baptists," and this does not mean that we baptize everybody indiscriminately; or that we admit into communion members of other than Baptist churches, though this is largely the case; it means that we accept the doctrine of "General" as against that of "particular" provision for the redemption of mankind. The word "General" points to the doctrine of the universality of the atonement made by our Lord Jesus Christ; and inasmuch as the gift of the Spirit of grace is the purchase of the Saviour's death, the principle of universality is regarded as not to be withheld from the whole of the provision essential to redemption. To make the atonement universal, and the operation of the Spirit of grace necessarily and of set purpose "particular," is not regarded as logical, or theological or scriptural. Finally, we are General Baptists of the "New Connexion;" there has been a new starting-point in our history, a new organization of our churches. on a basis less open to the admission of what we consider unscriptural doctrine. The Old Connexion, or Assembly, a few churches of which still exist, took a new departure in 1731, and made it possible for Arianism, or Unitarianism, to exist in its midst without let or hindrance. It bound itself only to the doctrine of general redemption and the ordinance of baptism by immersion; at least this was virtually what its decision amounted to, for the six principles of Heb. vi. 1, 2, which it affirmed, were practically summed up to mean, by way of ritual, simply baptism by immersion and reception of members by laying on of hands, and the latter custom, after a time, fell into disuse. The admission of Arianism and Unitarianism into the Old Assembly was the cause and occasion of much dissatisfaction and difficulty. When Dan Taylor joined it he threw in the weight of his influence on the side of those who maintained the proper divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and subsequently uniting the churches that still adhered to the old position of orthodoxy with the Barton churches, then flourishing in the vigour of youth, and having, though without knowing it, the old orthodox General Baptist faith, he formed, in 1770, the New Connexion of General Baptists. The term "New Connexion" means especially that we separate ourselves from those who do not maintain the Divinity of Christ, and that we hold firmly, as a body of churches, to this vital and eternal

truth. Already, then, by the mere exposition of our name, and by reference to a portion of our history, we are coming in sight of great principles. "What's in a name," do you ask? The reply is, history and theology and polity in church and state; the recognition of kinship with the larger churches of our land, and the declaration of a distinct individuality representative of deep-seated conviction and faith.

The "Articles of Religion" agreed upon in 1770 may now be examined. They are six in number, and need not be quoted here in detail. They are given in the "Year-Book" under headings which sufficiently disclose their contents. The first is "on the Fall of Man," and affirms simply human depravity and its origin. The second is "on the Nature and Perpetual Obligation of the Moral Law" revealed in the Ten Commandments, and more fully explained in other parts of Scripture. The ethical side of religion is here brought into prominence. The third is "on the Person and Work of Christ," and affirms, while disclaiming any attempt to explain the proper Divinity of Christ, and asserts that He suffered to make atonement for "all the sins of all men," and that salvation thus completely wrought out is received as a free gift by those who believe in Him. The fourth is " on Salvation by Faith," and rather a practical inference from the third Article than an additional Article, for it declares that we "ought, in the course of our ministry, to propose or offer this salvation to all who attend our ministry, for without exception this salvation is for all to whom the gospel revelation comes." The fifth is "on Regeneration by the Holy Spirit ;" and this, it is said, is ours by faith in Christ through the instrumentality of the Word believed and embraced, and shows itself in holiness of heart and life. The sixth, and last, is "Baptism by Immersion" as the requisite for church-membership. Of the whole Six Articles, it is said by way of preamble, that they were" avowed" by the "New Connexion of General Baptists formed in 1770, with the design of reviving experimental religion, or primitive Christianity in faith and practice."

We are now fully in view of the principles of the General Baptists. They appear as the significance and import of the denominational name, and as the spirit and underlying basis of the denominational articles of faith. They may be formulated and classified under two divisions; (1.) general; (2.) specific.

First, and generally, stands the principle that the doctrines which are to form the basis of church organization should be practical, not speculative. This principle comes over from the old General Baptists, and was avowed in 1731; but the only mistake then made was in its application. It was applied to exclude the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ. But the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ is a practical doctrine. It affects our whole attitude towards Christ, our whole estimate of His teaching and authority and work, our whole worship and ritual and life as Christians. If Christ is not the Son of God, the brightness of the Father's glory, and express image of His person, He becomes to us only a superior Plato, or Confucius, or Buddha, or at best a greater Moses or Paul; we have in Him no authoritative Lord and Saviour, no divine Redeemer and Life-giver, no great transcendent sacrifice for sin, no Master of our spirits and eternal Friend and Helper of our way. The great want of the world, the deepest cry of the human soul is not met, is

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not answered. The great Father in heaven does not come into closest and tenderest relationship to us, and that supreme love and devotion of our hearts which Christ seeks and wins by His great redemptive work is misdirected and unsuitable, and loses all power as the mighty spring and impulse of our life. This is, therefore, most eminently a practical doctrine; and though speculation cannot explain the union of the Divine and Human natures in Christ, nor the whole wondrous mystery of His work, yet the demands of our deepest needs and experiences require that we shall accept Him as our All in All." It is not so with other articles of faith once or still to some extent held, which the sagacity of our fathers did not include in the denominational articles of religion. They are speculative, and only speculative, and cannot properly form the basis of church organisation. They belong to schools of thought, to theological party or section, not to the fellowship of brethren in the Lord. For example, the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to posterity, omitted in the Six Articles, is not a practical doctrine unless posterity is called upon to repent of that sin; but as no one who professes to hold the doctrine ever preaches that people now-a-days must repent of Adam's sin, the doctrine remains speculative-up in the air, so to speak, having nothing to do with practical life. So also the doctrine of irresistible grace, not included in the Six Articles, is not a practical doctrine, unless we can know of this grace in what cases it will and in what cases it will not be exerted. So also the doctrine of the final perseverance of saints, also omitted, is not a practical doctrine, unless one can know infallibly who are the saints, who are the soundly converted and truly regenerate, i.e., unless we infallibly know to whom it applies or does not apply. The wisdom of this great principle, its soundness and value, may thus be readily seen and illustrated.

A second general principle implied in the name and articles is that the doctrines which are to form the basis of church organization should have, as far as possible, a permanent and abiding, not a temporary and transient form, and should be expressed in language commonly understood. The creeds of the great churches of Christendom are, historically considered, of great value. They show us what men were thinking about in past ages, how they looked at Scripture, what they drew from it, and what special doctrinal and other needs existed in their day. But they are all coloured by the time, shaped by the special and peculiar thought of the day in which they were formulated; and when, in the course of ages, the attitude and conceptions of the human mind change, these old special ways of looking at things are no longer common, another age brings other conceptions and ideas, and religious thought takes another shape in accordance therewith. It has always been so, and probably it will always be so; and consequently articles of belief as the basis of church organization should, as far as possible, be practical, and expressed in common and abiding forms of speech. The costume of one age looks strange in another; and as men clothe their bodies in the fashion of the time, so they clothe their ideas, and the creed of the men of the Westminster Assembly of Divines is to-day, in some respects to some of us, as strange as their costume would be to all of us. The sagacity of the founders of the New Connexion of General Baptists is seen in that they wrote their beliefs in common and abiding forms of speech, and not in technical and philosophical language, and that the