The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-05 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY -EVENING,

country contain each of them numerous sections.
There are, we know not how many sects of Metho-
dists, all claiming their descent from the renowned
JOHN WESLEY, and each proud of the asserted
purity of its ecclesiastical blood. And we learned,
but a short time ago, that amongst the large and
influential body of the Baptists, the sect which our
seceding clergymen, the Hon. and Rev. BAFTIST
NOEL for instance, are so prone to join, there is a
very remarkable difference of opinion on a point of
ecclesiastical order.

We happened to be in the Rolls Court about a
month ago, when Sir HUGH CAIRNS was pleading
in a cause arising out of this difference ; and his
remarkably lucid and eloquent statement and illus-
tration of the case created no little interest in our
minds, as it evidently did in those of a number of
individuals present, whom we judged to be persons
belonging to the denomination. It would seem
that the Baptists also have among them their
Puseyites and their Broad Churchmen ; the
men of ritual tendency and the men of expan-
sive Christian charity-, Our readers should,
however, be aware, that the peculiarity from
which the denomination takes its name, is
their opinion and practice in regard to the ordi-
nance of Christian baptism. They do not, like all
the rest of Christendom, baptise the child at a con-
venient time, and, as a matter of course, generally in
very early infancy, much less do they admit spon-
sorial pledges. They maintain that infant baptism
is a nullity ; that it wants the essential feature of
scriptural baptism, which they place in the indivi-
dual's intelligent profession of his own faith prior
to baptism. Hence they baptise only those who
are of age to make, and who do make, a credible
profession of their personal belief, and whose visible
conduct does not belie that profession, By their
adversaries in early times they were designated
Ana•baptists, from their baptising those who had
been previously baptised in infancy;—a term, how-
ever, always, and fairly, repudiated by them, since
the baptism in infancy being, in their view, a nul-
lity, they could not be charged with repeating the
performance of the ordinance; We should add
that, besides baptising believers only, they baptise
them by immersion only—a practice which many
also of our High Churchmen desire to resuscitate.
The difference of opinion amongst Baptists them-
selves, which we heard so ably illustrated, relates
not to baptism but to communion in the Lord's
Supper. Some of the body restrict their fellow-
ship in this sacrament to those who have been bap-
tised according to their own practice ; others are
willing to receive to their communion all who
agree with them in the fundamentals of Christian
faith and practice. The Baptists, like most other
Protestant Dissenters, accept, generally, the doc-
trinal articles of the Church of England, and the
more liberal of them would consider accordance
in these weightier matters as sufficient ground for
fellowship with those who, preferring their wor-
ship in other respects, do not accept their views on
the ordinance of baptism. The more rigid Bap-
tists—the Puseyites of the body—refuse communion
to all who have not been baptised on their own
profession of faith, although they would at the
same time by no means deny that they were
Christians, but freely own that they might be even
exemplary Christians. They insist on their view
of the rite as essential, not to salvation, but to
communion ; just as a High Church clergyman
would not deny that an unbaptised person might
be saved, but would set the whole parish in com-
motion rather than bury him as a Christian.
In the suit, of which we heard part of the plead-
ings, and gave, briefly, the judgment of Sir JOHN
ROMILLY on Monday week, the Baptist Puseyites
showed themselves wonderfully hard indeed to
please. In the old city of Norwich there is a large
and handsome chapel, occupying the place of an
older one more of the conventicle class, which by
its deeds places the building in trust simply for the
use of "particular Baptists." It was explained,
and agreed to on all hands, that the term " par-
ticular" was an ecclesiastical and technical
word, not relating, as but for the explanation
we should hay.i supposed, to particularity
in regard to the point in dispate—Communiod—
but to the point on which diversity of opinion has
always existed, the" application of the Christian
Redemption. It is opposed to general Baptist—
the two words really meaning, respectively, Cal-
vinistic and Ai minian. On the face of the deed,
therefore, there was no restriction on the subject
of Communion. The Hyper-Baptists, however,
appeared chiefly to contend that if other acknow-
ledged Christians, not Baptists, were admitted to
fellowship, the building could no longer be said to be
for the use of Baptists. It was acknowledged that
the " Broad-Church" Baptists, as we might desig-
nate them, had consulted most liberally the scruples
of their rigid brethren. As the latter could not
conscientiously receive the Sacrament of the LORD
with those whom they regarded as unbaptized, the
more liberal had provided a separate communion
for them, to which only those were admitted who
had been baptised in the mode held by the strict
brethren to be orthodox. This, however, was not
enough. The strict brethren seem to have thought
the building would be desecrated, if their more
liberal brethren admitted to Christian fellowship
within it any who had not passed the Baptist
Rubicon. Interested as we all get in an able dis-
cussion on any point, we confess we hoped, while
listening to Sir HUGH CAIRNS pleading so ably for
the liberal side of the case, that the Liberals might
have it. His legal argument appeared to us also
to be complete.
We were pleased, therefore, to see that Sir
JOHN ROMILLY accepted decidedly Sir HUGH
Cants s' representation of the law. His Honour, in
a long and able judgment, was decidedly of opinion
that the absence of limitation in the deed left the
majority of the members free to exercise their
judgment as they pleased on this matter if! held
that it was amply proved by the evidence, that
from the earliest accounts of Baptists, down to the
present time, two things were clear. One that
they jealously maintained the supreme and indepen-
dent authority of each Baptist Church over its own
affairs—even when Baptists met together by dele-
gates as a class of churches, they were always care-
ful to note that such a meeting had no authority
whatever beyond that of brotherly advice. The
second point was that from the earliest days there
had been among the Baptists this difference of opi-
nion on the subject of communion with persons not
baptized after their own manner—a liberal party
and a strict party in the saint church frequently.
None had pretended, however, that the liberal view
deprived those who held and acted on it of their
title to be considered Baptists. Hence it was, as
Sir HUGH CAIRNS ext.ressed ic, intra tires, of any
Baptist Church to adopt the liberal or the strict
practice, at the discretion of a majority of the mem-
bers, at any time ; and no long continuance of one
practice or the other could debar the church of a
right to change its practice either way.
Our sympathies can but be with the liberal side
in everything ; indeed liberals in religion are gene-
rally the same in politics and in social life. As a body,
the Baptists, in politics, are almost sternly liberal ;
we believe that a Baptist Tory is a rara avis in-
deed. We were struck with another circum-
stance; all the genius and education among

Baptists seemed to be on the ecclesiastically
liberal side. We judged from the affidavits
referred to, that all the tutors of the Baptist
ministerial colleges, and all their ablest ministers
at the present day, were Free Communionists. Sir
JOHN ROMILLY seemed much impressed with the
fact, as we also should have been, that the immortal
author of the Pilgrim's Progress was a Baptist, and
argued earnestly in his day for the liberal practice ;
and that his arguments were distinguished from
those of his opponents, as much by their gentleness
of tone as by their vigour and genius. ROBERT
HALL also, the unrivalled pulpit orator of mo-
dern times, the college compan ion and friend through

life of Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH, defended with
all the force of Ms eloquence the liberal
views on communion of JOHN BUNYAN.
Men of considerable learning, generally self-
acquired learning, were, indeed, to be found
on the other side ; but we know in our own Church
that liberal views are commonly associated with
genius and scholarship combined, while narrower
views are not unfrequent amongst the 'merely
learned. As we understood it, the legal decision of
Sir JOHN ROMILLY will enable the greater part of
the Baptist congregations of the country to carry
out liberal views if they entertain them, and we
certainly cannot but feel gratified that law should
be on the side of liberty. It seems to us, also, that
the Free Communion Baptists furnish an unusual
exemplification of Christian charity in secta-
rianism ; since they professedly admit to their
fellowship all Christians who differ from them on
their distinctive tenet. If the Christian churches
generally adopted such a practice, how much might
it do towards appeasing the most bitter and un-
lovely of strifes—those, which -slisgrace religion.

TILE PRETENDERS TO THE SPANISH

CROWN.

The following impertant doeument has been
forwarded to us for publication :

(Translation.)
" To THE CORTES.

" The abdication of my brother Charles Louis of his
rights to the Crown of Spain, contained in his manifesto,
dated in Tortosa, on the 23d of April this year, compels me
to claim the rights of my family, and those which I have
personally, to the throne of my ancestors.
" Decided to maintain them, as well as the principle of
legality upon which they are based, I will not permit en
appeal to arms to obtain the triumph, nor that the noble
blood of Spaniards shall again be shed in the cause.
" I place my faith in Divine Providence, in the rectitude
and patriotism of the Spaniards, and in the force of circum-
stances.

" I desire not to ascend the throne by encountering vic-
tims on the steps of it ; I desire to ascend it supported by
the general conviction that by legality order will be esta-
blished, and with it the country will prosper and progress,
in conformity with the enlightenment of the age.

" I issue this manifesto to the Cortes in order that the
nation may thereby be informed of it.
" London, June 2, 1860."

" Copia de la Manifestacion que hace ele Principe Don
Juan de Borbon a la nacion Espanola, y que dirige per
conducto de los Presidentes de los Cuerpos Colegisla-
dores.