to men and women in a neutral kind of character. In one of the Irish churches, a short time ago, they fell into the former mistake; and were for calling children of five or six years old to join in partaking of the Supper. But it has been eventually blessed for bringing the minds of all there to a more scriptural settlement on the subject. Not to insist at present on the principle that the Supper is exclusively a church ordinance, not to be separated from the other acts and exercises of the collective body, when they come together on the first day of the week; nor to insist on the plain fact, that mere young children cannot really take any part in all those acts and exercises; and that it is only making them young hypocrites if we lead them to pretend to do so; does it not evidently accord with all the principles of divine wisdom in the Word, that during the period of early childhood, the child should be under the exclusive and absolute control and management of its parents? When it joins the full fellowship of the church, that species of absolute control, which it has been so important previously to maintain, ceases. And though there is a parental authority and filial subjection which continue, yet it is obvious that the exercise of the former becomes very different from what it was before. The young disciple must now be supposed to think, and act, and judge for himself in the concerns of the kingdom of God, and must be treated accordingly. It might be very important (for instance) to whip a young child soundly for naughty conduct or temper; and any thing which would exclude that kind of treatment during the proper period, would be utterly inconsistent with all the principles of due parental discipline. But I certainly think any such mode of discipline is excluded as soon as the child passes into church-membership. If any thing improper be observed by others in the child previously, it is the parent and not the child that is to be dealt with on the subject. The evil of the opposite error, I need not enlarge on. On the whole, if we are kept adhering to the general principles of the Word, I think we shall be at no great loss about the proper period: and I should scarcely expect it to appear much below the age of twelve or fourteen years: and certainly I should not expect it to be much after the latter age, if the child has indeed been brought up in the instruction and admonition of the Lord. I believe I should have scarcely entered on the subject, if I thought it would have occupied so much of my paper.

The account you have given of the two actually added to you, and the three likely to be so, is most interesting, and makes me impatient to hear from you soon again. And so a Presbyterian elder seemed likely to become a fool for Christ's sake? O, how glorious does he appear reigning in the midst of his enemies, and making his arrows sharp in their hearts! We have very little increase as yet here; and are, indeed, a most sorry set to put ourselves forward as the church of Christ in this grand city. But one and another now and then, from the lowest classes, are brought in; and some a little more respectable are unsettled from their former profession, but not yet settled in the true. They are considering: and when it comes to a sinner's considering whether he shall believe and obey the word of the LORD, though divines think him in a very

hopeful way, and he thinks himself engaged in a very good process, we know that it is only divine mercy and power that can turn the scale to the truth. I have been asked before by some very specious professors in Ireland, how they should proceed to get at a scriptural decision on this and that point: and they have stared at me when I have told them that I knew of no rule for the purpose. I have been for the last two months engaged in an afternoon preaching (so called), chiefly on the Psalms. And surely John Barclay has been honoured to do good service there. From a dozen to a score of outliers attend, but few of the same persons twice.

I have often thought that, if I had means, I should like to publish a revised edition of all the scriptural pieces I wish to survive me, in order to put down some of the earlier productions of my pen. As to the Address to the Methodists of Ireland, I have mentioned in my Reply to Mr. Haldane that I am willing that any one should reprint that and the Letters to Mr. Knox, (they must go together) provided he print along with them castigatory notes, which I shall be ready to furnish. With these, I should be glad of the republication; for there is much important matter, particularly in the Letters to Mr. Knox: but without the antidote of the notes, I protest against the reprint. Could I, for instance, now countenance the pages of wicked nonsense in which I expostulate with the Wesleyan Methodists for their bigotry in not co-operating with the Calvinistic Evangelicals in spreading the gospel? There are strange inconsistencies in that piece, a conflict between light and darkness: I get clearer towards the close of the controversy with Mr. Knox; but I could not agree to the separation of the address from the Letters. Next comes the Address to Believers, &c. to which I must for the present demur; at least to its republication without the Appendix, or without the addition of two or three pages which I think much wanted in that piece. It says too little distinctly about the gospel of Christ; and on the conversation becoming the gospel there is a serious omission, on the topic of obedience to the peculiar commands of the King of Zion. These omissions at present commend it to many who would dislike it if they were supplied.

The bookseller, who you say is apprehensive of injuring the circulation of this piece by attaching to it a name in such bad odour with the religious world as mine, is at liberty to substitute for it, "An Apostate from the Church of Antichrist."

What will Mr. Haldane say to Mr. O's circulating the wicked doctrine, in the Address to the Methodists, of the total and invariable corruption of the human heart?

Tell me how you have got on at Cupar. My prayers are offered up for you all, that the Lord may fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness in you and the work of faith with power. Let us be remembered by you in the same way.

LXXVII.

TO THE CHURCH IN LONDON.

March 17, 1821.

BEING doubtful whether I shall be able to meet with the brethren next Sunday, I am led to put on paper the substance of what I wish to offer on the subject which has been introduced, and which some appear disposed to press, or push forward, to a precipitate decision. In the first place, let it be well observed, that the relation subsisting between man and wife, is in itself altogether of a civil, temporal, and earthly nature; and not at all intrinsically a religious connexion. The opposite view has obtained great currency from priestcraft, and from the religious rites which are generally made to accompany the solemnization of marriage. And I readily admit the marriage connexion is the most lasting and closest of all earthly connexions. But I repeat it, that it is essentially as much of a purely civil and earthly character, as the connexion subsisting between a master and his apprentice, or between two partners in trade.

And the truth of this statement is put beyond all contradiction, by the Scriptures of the New Testament. For they expressly acknowledge the marriage relation as subsisting in full force and permanent obligation between a believer and an unbeliever. (See 1 Cor. viii. 1 Pet. iii. 1.) Now, between such parties, there could subsist no religious connexion or religious fellowship. And it is quite idle to urge against this, that such were instances of marriage formed before either of the parties was a Christian. Be it so. Yet it is indisputable, that when one of them became a Christian-if the marriage connexion be to a Christian of a religious nature-the marriage relation must have been immediately dissolved between them. But we know, on divine authority, that it was not; and the inference from this is incontrovertible. I push this very plain point so much, because I am sure, when it is duly considered in the light of the word, it goes very far indeed towards a determination of the question now agitated. At least I am warranted to say, that, after this principle has been once established, when we recollect that the Christian dispensation leaves us at liberty to form and maintain all other civil connexions with those who believe not, we ought to require the most decisive scripture authority, before we admit the idea of an absolute law, prohibiting a Christian from forming the merely civil connexion of marriage with any, except one united with him in the faith. And here, in the second place, let me notice the vanity of all those references to the Old Testament Scriptures, and the law given to the Jews, with which divines abound on the subject, but which ought not to be heard from any of us. Have we yet to learn that essential difference (among others) between the law given by Moses, and the Christian dispensation,-namely, that the former was for a people outwardly separated, by temporal enactments, from the

rest of the world, and restricted from intercourse with others, even in the things of this life. But that this external and civil separation of them, as a nation, from the other nations of the earth, was but an earthly shadow of the higher separation unto God, of those who belong to that kingdom of heaven, introduced by the Gospel. It was in perfect consistency with this, that the Jews were commanded even to put away unbelieving wives whom they had taken, but that to the Christian such a step is prohibited. But, in the third place, (in order to prevent, as much as possible, all mistake of my meaning) I would remark, that what I spoke just now, of our being left at liberty by the Gospel to form and maintain connexion with the children of the world in things relating to this life, I spoke of "a liberty which we have in Christ Jesus;"-a Christian liberty, which leaves us not without law to Christ in these very matters; and the exercise of which is to be regulated by all those general principles of the word, which call us, whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, "to do all in His name, and to His glory." And, I would add, that while all our engagements, connexions, and intercourse with the world will be restricted and regulated by those principles, just according to the indwelling of the glorious truth in our minds; so it is peculiarly important that we should be thus regulated in forming the closest and most permanent of all earthly connexions. Else, we shall be found abusing our liberty for an occasion to the flesh." (Gal. v. 13.) This is a sore evil, which the Lord will visit with correction in his children, and which often proves the occasion of manifesting evils deeper and more radical. But I see an equally awful evil, manifested by those who would vainly attempt to guard against this abuse of Christian liberty, by making (as it were) a complete code of laws square at all points, and (as they think) providing for all cases. All such attempts to enforce the particulars of Christian conduct, which nothing but the influence of the blessed Gospel can produce, originate in the presumption and ungodliness of our flesh. Now, the considerations are obvious to the mind of faith, which mark the general high expediency and desirableness of a Christian's forming the marriage connexion only with one like-minded with him in the things of the kingdom of God; the desirableness of having in his partner through life a comfort, and an help in matters of the highest concernment, instead of a discomfort and an hindrance, and especially the importance of having one who, instead of counteracting his paternal labour in bringing up his children in the instruction and admonition of the Lord, will aid and co-operate with him in the work. I think it more consistent with sobriety of mind to express myself thus, than rashly to say, what I have heard some advance, that a Christian who marries an unbeliever, incapacitates himself for the discharge of that solemn parental duty. This would be in effect to say that the Apostles gave a general command to Christian parents, which some of them, at that day, were incapable of observing. These considerations I would urge upon the attention of any believer thinking of marriage. If he be thinking of it in the mind of Christ, and from the influence of scriptural principles, I am sure he will not be insensible to their weight: but I am not equally sure that he yet may not eventually

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marry one that is an unbeliever; for I am not sure that he will be able to obtain any sister in Christ; much less am I sure that he will be able to obtain any sister at all suited to him in age, education, &c. ; circumstances which it is idle to say, are indifferent and unconnected with the comfort of the marriage state. And, truly, those who would make an absolute law that he shall marry a believer, if he marry at all, may find it needful to have another law, making it compulsory on the sister whom he asks, to accept him. But if they say, (as I have heard some say)-let him remain unmarried, if there be either no unmarried female in Christian fellowship with him, or no one who will marry him, they greatly err in this, and manifest their forgetfulness of the plainest sayings of the word of God. For that it is not good to marry, is a saying which all cannot receive, save they to whom it is given; (Matth. xix. 11.) and again, "to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." (1 Cor. vii. 2.) Mark well the 7th, 9th, and 37th verses. But this, indeed, is not the only instance in which the wickedness of setting up laws of human tradition goes hand in hand with setting aside the laws of God.

In the fourth and last place I would say a few words (for many are not needed) on the passage in 1 Cor. vii. 39, which is adduced as an express prohibition against a Christian's marrying any but a Christian. And here I confess, that if the Apostle give such a prohibition to a Christian widow, it does appear to me that, by all fairness of inference, it must be considered as extending to every disciple. But those who apply the passage in this way, are obliged to insert words that are not either in the original or the translation. Fastening upon the phrase, of "being in Christ Jesus," (which frequently occurs, and confessedly imports being a Christian) they would read the latter part of the verse, as if it ran-" she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, if only he be in the Lord. Now, I forbear every observation upon the original, which indeed is literally rendered in our version. But it is undeniable that the words, which they would supply*-' if he be'-are an arbitrary insertion of their own; unwarrantable, if the passage admit an easy interpretation without them; and utterly to be rejected, if the introduction of them affix a meaning to the passage, which contradicts any of the rest of Scripture, as I have shown this interpretation does.

To illustrate this-let us suppose that any one should take it into

J. M'C, on hearing this read, observed that he did not consider there is any ellipsis, but that the phrase of marrying in the Lord, must mean, according to the analogy of Scripture language, marrying a Christian, and proceeded, as usual, to refer to the phrases of receiving and saluting such and such persons in the Lord. It was replied, that while the persons described to be thus saluted or received, were confessedly Christians, yet it is certain, that saluting or receiving in the Lord, cannot mean in itself, saluting or receiving a Christian; for that, if so, an infidel saluting or receiving me, might be said to salute or receive me in the Lord; which he himself admitted could not be said-and that, besides, even a Christian might salute or receive a fellow Christian, and yet not do it in the Lord, but on principles of natural civility, earthly attachment, or self-interest. So 'that it is plain the words, in the Lord, in these phrases, (just as much as in Eph. vi. 1.) really import the Christian mind, principles, and grounds, on which the disciples were commanded to salute or receive their brethren. But to this obvious and indubitable remark, he was as deaf as to every other.