A DISCLAIMER.
[To TIER ED/TOIL OF TEE "SPECTATOR."] ,SIR,—The clergy, like othermen, may he misunderstood, but .on what authority does W. G. S. M. credit them with the belief that infants dying unbaptized are damned F Though .one of them, and knowing many, I know none who would teach such a doctrine. A study of the history of the Prayer- Book would enable W. G. S. M. to learn that the implication which he draws from the final rubric did indeed appear in the -words "or else not" in the institution of a Christian man (1537), hut they were deliberately omitted when the preceding words were incorporated in the Prayer-Book in 1549. In this tase I think we may say omission meant prohibition. To those who question whether Holy Baptism be a rite, or a mere rite of the Church, may 1 suggest a study of those Holy
f:iriptures wherein, in common with W. G. S. M., I.look for
'God's Word P—I am, Sir, &c., BRUCE E. WEEKLEY.
[We have received a large number .of :letters from clergy- mien and others repudiating in the strongest terms the notion that the damnation of unbaptized infants is ,a tenet of the Church of England. We need hardly say that no sugges- tion of the kind :ever came from us. Again, we do not :suppose that any sane member of the Church of England believes that Quakers are damned because they are not baptized. From such logical horrors our Church has always insisted on keeping herself free. The odious distinctions between the covenanted and the uncovenanted mercies of .God are alien to her spirit.—En. Spectator.]
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