living faith, a faith of the heart also, a faith that works by love and
purifies the heart and overcomes the world, a faith that involves an
entire surrender to the soul of God, which is required to the full
efficacy of the sacraments.

The Plea affirms that the primitive church regarded the sacraments as
"_mysteries_;" p. 37. But the author presents no evidence of this fact
from God's word, or the _apostolic_ church; and the church of subsequent
ages is no conclusive doctrinal authority for us as Protestants.

The Plea states: "He (God) is able to accomplish by the Holy Baptism,
performed in the mysterious name of the ever adored Trinity, a work of
regeneration in the heart of the little child." "The expression used in
the Augsburg Confession, Art. II., is, regenerated by baptism and the
Holy Ghost, (John iii. 5.) This doctrine, however, is not to be
understood as if the new creation was fully completed by new generation.
It is complete so far as a _live seed_ is complete in itself. This does,
by no means, exclude subsequent development brought about by favorable
internal and external influences;" p. 36. "And Christ, the Godman, is
able to make us poor earthly creatures partakers of his celestial
nature_, (2 Pet. i. 4,) in the most solemn rite of his church, (the
eucharist,) which is therefore communion between Christ and man, in the
fullest manner possible on earth;" p. 37. Here the respected author, by
adopting the theory that _a living seed_ is implanted _by baptism_,
(whether into the soul or body he does not specify,) and then that the
Godman Christ Jesus makes these baptized individuals _partakers of his
CELESTIAL NATURE by the sacramental supper_, seems to favor something
like that theory of concorporation, or a physical union between Christ
and the believer, which is known in _various_ phases as Puseyism in
England, and Nevinism in the German Reformed Church of this country,