I ask the Baptist minister, what induces him to occupy his time in preaching up a particular creed? Why not labor in the fields, or at some mechanical trade? He answers, he can be more usefully employed in preaching. I ask, of what use is his preaching? His answer must be, for the salvation of souls. But I may further remark, the established church is supposed to exist for the very purpose of saving souls; has colleges for to properly qualify persons to preach; has a church in nearly every village where salvation is supposed to be taught; has ministers who are paid, pensioned, salaried, for the express purpose of doing this necessary work of salvation. Why not leave the work of salvation to them altogether? Why interfere in their appointed and acknowledged {67} calling? His answer must be, his only answer can be, that the established church is not the true church; that its ministers have no true authority, and that they do not preach the true method of salvation; that his own Baptist church is the true church of Christ; that Baptist ministers are the true authorized preachers of salvation, and that they preach the true and only method of salvation. He cannot shrink from this. He is driven in a corner. There is no way of escape. He must either own his neighbor churchman a false teacher, and himself a true one, or confess himself a base, hypocritical impostor, having no authority whatever: a wretched wanderer to the depraved vitiated mental tastes and itching ears of a dishonest or deluded portion of the community. Thus he cannot deny the doctrine of exclusive salvation; he is pushed upon it, and it breaks him to pieces.