The rule of Faith ought to be certain, clear and plain, prescribed by God alone; received and public. But are consequences so?... Where has our author given us any certain rule to know what consequences do nccessarily and natively follow from Scripture? What one thinks to be so, another thinks not so, and is there any man or set of men deputied by a higher power and placed above the rest, to draw consequences infallibly, that all others must submit to them, on the peril of rejecting the Word of God? If there be, we would know who they are, and also a full proof of their being invested with such a trust.

Mr. Finley employed these pleas :

The Scriptures don't say that John did not baptize infants on the same day with their parents. . . . . The Scriptures don't say he did not urge the parents to bring their children to baptism.

Reply: The Scriptures don't say that John did not circumcise all that came to him to be baptized. The Scriptures don't say he did not sign them all with the sign of the cross. But shall we believe he did, because the Scriptures don't say the contrary? In no wise."

The harsh charges against the Anabaptists he dealt with by a personal reminiscence:

How little dependence is to be made on incensed adversaries in relating matters of fact, Mr. Finley is himself a standing and sufficient instance, who charges me with persuading the Pedobaptists in my sermons at Cape May, to be dipped on pain of damnation, which is entirely false. Yet this charge of his may be transmitted to future ages, and received by them as an undoubted truth, especially coming attested by the great name of a good man, and a gospel minister too.

Among other pleas against immersion, Mr. Finley claimed that the water in which the Eunuch was baptized, "was only a spring of water, and the diminutive expression, a certain water, seems to intimate so much.".... "By this way of interpretation," Mr. Morgan replied, "we must say a certain city was some very small city. A certain Pharisee was some little body that scarcely deserved to be called a man."

It is reported that Mr. Finley prepared an answer to Mr. Morgan's second volume, and that a copy of the MS. was sent to Mr. Morgan. Of this the Middletown pastor prepared a review, but Mr. Finley's third work was never printed.

When we remember that Mr. Morgan's volumes were perhaps the first issued in the new world in vindication of believer's baptism, he must be regarded highly both for intellectual power and research. Many men now, with average education, might be able, from the vast

arsenal of argument, to produce a respectable vindication of our principles; but when we think of the times in which Mr. Morgan lived, and the limited array of authors he could find to consult in a new country, his volumes deserve the highest commendation. It would be difficult to find to-day one who could wield a sharper spear to transfix sophistry, or present a broader shield for the defense of truths he loved. After reviewing this controversy there seems to be something akin to what we sometimes call poetical justice in the burial of Abel Morgan in the Presbyterian graveyard. It was his powerful presentation of the truth which undoubtedly most contributed to the extinction of the Presbyterian cause, and so his gravestone stands like the monument of a triumphant warrior on the field of battle.

It may be those who survived of the Presbyterian fold could reverence the man, and gladly give him room, and let him have the justice to be honored in his grave. Anyway, no Christian man who recollects the fierce disputation in which Morgan and Finley engaged, can help rejoicing that when we take the vows of perpetual silence which the grave demands, the harsh invectives of conflict are silenced forever. In a world where there is no more death and no more controversy, Finley, as well as Morgan, rejoices that his robes were immersed in the blood of the Lamb. The men who contended so earnestly in New Jersey walk together in the New Jerusalem.

As a patriot, Abel Morgan deserves honor. The Baptists have some grand names identified with the era of independence, and his is prominent among them. He was no trimmer, and the old pulpit in Middletown was not silent, nor did it give an uncertain sound.

There were those whom he greatly esteemed whose loyalty to Great Britain made them hold back from the cause of independence. His kinsman, the Rev. David Jones, who had relieved him of the care of Upper Freehold, had found his patriotic avowals so unwelcome, that he was compelled to relinquish his charge. In Middletown tories were numerous, and the British soldiers were frequently in his neighborhood. Yet from the time when early in the strife he professed his adherence to the cause of independence, he never wavered in nor concealed his sentiments. His sermons furnish several specimens of his patriotic spirit.

Thus, on Dec. 18th, 1777, on "a day of humiliation appointed by the Continental Congress on the account of the war, and also to give thanks to God for victory over the enemy," he preached from Hosea x. 12: "It is time to seek the Lord." Among the reasons presented why it was time to seek the Lord was the "Dispersion among churches

occasioned by the enemy's coming in among them, and discord and contention among neighbors, relations and friends, and of war in our land, our bleeding, weeping land.”

June 22d, 1778, he writes: "At the court-house in Freehold, at the request of some prisoners, I preached to eight under sentence of death-a moving sight." These were probably tories, and it was only six days before the battle of Monmouth.

On the next Sunday that battle was fought, and he writes thus: "June 28th, 1778, the very day that the English army came into the neighborhood in the evening." This was his text: "Trust in him. at all times, ye people, pour out your heart before him, God is a refuge for us.” It is probable the sound of the cannonading could be heard while the sermon was preached. The next Lord's day, July 5th, he writes: "There was no meeting on this Lord's day, because of the enemy passing through our town the week past, putting all in confusion by their ravaging and plundering wherever they went."

The next Sunday he preached at the Upper House, known to us as Holmdel. His text was certainly not complimentary to the English visitors. "Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord ?" The next Sunday he records his sermon as "preached in mine own barn, because the enemy had taken out all the seats in the meeting-house." The whole style of his preaching through the war seems to have been permeated by patriotic endeavor to encourage the faith of his hearers.

His letter on "Fasting and Prayer," as published in the Philadelphia Minutes in 1779, shows how unsparingly he denounced the enemies of his country. "Our continent is filled with tears and blood, ravages and desolations abound, perpetrated by English troops; and, if possible, by the more wicked combinations of base traitors among ourselves." Had he lived in our times, he would doubtless have had his share of the censure and malediction so liberally bestowed on men who preach politics.

As a faithful and earnest preacher of the Gospel, we have cause to commemorate Abel Morgan. The ministry of the Word he regarded as his chief, supreme and most honorable employment. He had abilities of no common order, ripened and matured by no common care, and devoted to the pulpit by no common consecration. His preparations were most carefully made. As a wise master-builder he made sure of his foundation-formed his plans with skill, and the whole building was fitly framed together. Like the old divines he made great account of the scaffolding, and left it standing, so that every one could see it, but that scaffolding was an evidence of the

time and toil given to the work. Every stone in his building was cemented by Scripture truths. He "preached the Word,"

In doctrine uncorrupt, in language plain.

While, sometimes, a misanthropic pseudo-spirituality makes unfavorable comparisons of the preaching of our times with that of our fathers, claiming that our modern pulpit does not give the same promiinence to the doctrines of grace which the fathers did; yet a careful perusal of hundreds of Abel Morgan's sermons will show their conclusions erroneous. No man had such popularity in the churches of the Philadelphia Association, and yet his sermons were pre-eminently what we are accustomed to hear called "practical preaching." He handled the Word to refresh the spirit and sustain the inner life, but also to stimulate his hearers to good works. Abel Morgan's sermons might be used as incontrovertible evidence of the essential oneness of the teaching of the Baptist pulpit from one generation to another. Neither in the doctrine of the atonement in any of its phases, or the divine purposes of grace, can there be found any sermons of his which our modern ministers would not be glad, if their own, to preach, and the vast majority in our churches to hear.

Mr. Morgan undoubtedly dispensed with notes in the pulpit. His sermons are generally found in the form of very full briefs, written on foolscap paper, making books of about two quires. Every division of these discourses, and they are very numerous, is fortified by pertinent Scripture quotations.

In the prosecution of the work of the ministry, Mr. Morgan was laborious and self-denying. His ministry in Middletown furnishes few incidents. A pastor's life for many years in one place, must necessarily, in a great measure, be a repetition of like services and successes. We suppose the forty-seven years pastorate of Abel Morgan had much of this sameness, but it was like the monotony of sunshine-a perpetual beneficence.

During his whole pastorate the additions by baptism were numerous. There are but one or two years in which the statistics of the Association are given, that he did not report baptisms. So far as we can judge, by such records as are possessed by us, he baptized at least three hundred persons into the fellowship of the Middletown church-a large number, indeed, when we consider the sparse population more than a hundred years ago. His regular preaching appointments were in Middletown, where there were two meetinghouses, several miles apart. Once a month, at least, he preached at Crosswicks, now known as Upper Freehold, and always discoursed

there on the Saturday as well as the Lord's day, and generally preached at Freehold when on his way. Besides this, for many years he had a regular appointment in Shrewsbury, preaching there at Long Branch. A venerable Quaker told me of hearing him frequently in his boyhood, as he preached under a large tree. He had also another station at Cheesequakes. In fact, till he relinquished to his whilom student and relative, David Jones, the charge at Upper Freehold, he seems to have regarded the whole of the large county of Monmouth as his parish. In his times, the roads must have been execrable, and he doubtless had an apostolic experience "in journeyings often, in perils, in weariness." Year after year, in an open wagon, drawn by one horse, in summer's heat and winter's cold, sitting on one of the old-fashioned, stiff, high-backed chairs, he traveled from place to place, to feed the church of God.

Nor did he confine himself to his own extensive charge. The records of his travels when visiting Philadelphia and Delaware, evidence that he obeyed the precept, "As ye go, preach." Here is

a month's record:

1756.-Sept. 25th, at Middletown; 26th, at Middletown, twice; Oct. 1st, at Freehold; 2d, at Crosswicks; 3d, at Crosswicks, three times; 4th, at Bordenstown; 5th, at Philadelphia; 7th, at Philadelphia; 10th, at Welsh Tract; 11th, at Welsh Tract; 17th, at Middletown; 24th at Middletown.

Thus, in thirty days, besides travel, which involved so much time, he preached fifteen times. The records of some months would show him in labors more abundant. A MS., bearing date May, 1779, when he had been forty years at Middletown, shows that he had then preached 4,385 times, being an average of over one hundred sermons every year. In the best sense he constantly did the work of an evangelist.

The whole life of Abel Morgan was marked by sacrifice. When he reached old age, he had no comfortable competency. In fact, so little had he sought his own enrichment, that the church had held his bond for forty years, for £150; probably money advanced to assist him in the purchase of his homestead. In the last year of his life, the church book has this record:

Agreed, there should be a man hired at the expense of the said church members for one, two or three months, as the occasion may require, for the benefit and service of the Rev. Mr. Abel Morgan, in his infirm and low state of body, and the expense of wages for the hire of said man, so employed, shall be levied on each member, according to their estates.

The decease of Mr. Morgan occurred Nov. 24, 1785. He was,