manhood, the languor and decrepi- And are we not ready to exclaim, raised from the dead and gloriously changed, and both reunited in the enjoyment of happiness eternal,"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power." Yes, blessed indeed; infinitely blessed. But then in proportion to the inestimable value of the blessing is the loss, if we come short of it. Let us then seriously ask our own hearts, Are we aspiring after this blessedness? Are we diligently inquiring how it may be attained? Are we shunning all that is inconsistent with it? Are we seeking it in the only way which God has appointed for arriving at it; not living in carelessness and indifference; not in a state of formalism and self-righteousness; but depending wholly upon the merits of the Saviour and endeavouring by the grace of God to walk in his steps. For if we would "bear the image of the heavenly," of the heavenly," as on earth we have borne the image of the earthly; if we would see God, and be like him, and enjoy his presence for ever, we must begin to be like him here : our souls must be renewed after his image in righteousness and true holiness. These bodies, which, if we are true members of Christ, will undergo so glorious a change hereafter, must not be made the instruments of sin upon earth. If we die thoughtless and worldly, impenitent and unbelieving, no miracle will be wrought after our decease, to qualify us for the enjoyment of heaven. The holiness without which no man shall see the Lord must be engrafted in us in the present state. We must be prepared for an eternal world, by repentance, and faith, and sanctification of heart and life. Then, unworthy though we are, yet, through the infinite merits of our Saviour, those mansions of blessedness shall be our eternal portion. There safely arrived, we shall find it to have been our highest wisdom to have made our calling and election sure while upon earth; to have prepared for death and judgment and eternity while the brief space of life was allotted us for that purpose; to have entered as it were upon a course of spiritual education for the unseen world, and to have learned already those anthems of gratitude and adoration which are the delight of the spirits of the just made perfect in heaven. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. I WAS pleased to see, in a late Number of your work, the observations of your correspondent "Clericus," on "quoting Scripture by rote" having frequently witnessed the laxity and inattention with which passages are adduced, both in the pulpit and from the press; a practice fraught with innumerable evils. In illustration of these remarks, and to confirm those of your correspondent, I wish to draw to draw your attention to one passage, the misapplication of which has been already noticed in your work, but which still continues to be misquoted and misapplied. I allude to 1 Cor. ii. 9, which I have generally heard quoted as follows: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered unto the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." In the first place, this text is misquoted, since it stands in our translation thus: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." How the word "conceive was originally added to the text, I am at a loss to conjecture, though it may have a tendency to help the misapplication of the passage which comes next under consideration. I have heard it currently quoted in reference to the unseen and inconceivable glory and happiness prepared in heaven for the people of God; but a slight attention to the context and general bearing of the chapter will shew that such a reference could never have been contemplated by the Apostle. The very sentence which immediately follows this passage, and which should not be separated from it, is enough to prove this. "For God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit," says the writer, evidently referring to the wisdom of God in a mystery," verse 7; or in other words the wonders of the Gospel dispensation, and the work of the Redeemer with its accompanying blessings; all which are hidden from the eye and understanding of "the wise men of this world," and indeed of every man by nature; since we can form no conception by the mere powers of unassisted reason of the blessings which God reveals to the believer by his Spirit.-A reference to the passage in the prophet Isaiah which the Apostle is quoting, will not help to account for the misapplication of this text. Those who want further confirmation of the above interpretation of the passage may consult almost any of the commentators; but the real meaning is so obvious, that no one who ever examined it could have misapplied it in the usual way. DIACONUS. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. As it is by the running too and fro of many that knowledge (especially on prophetical subjects) to be increased, I beg to inquire, through the medium of your columns, whether it has occurred to any expositor of prophecy that the number of the beast (Rev. xiii. 18.) may symbolise somewhat more than the name of the beast. It may now be considered as a tolerably well settled point in prophetic exposition, that the papal power is designated by this number; and I think I also see in the symbol the rise of the beast. I should be obliged if some of your correspondents, possessed of more leisure, as well as more enlarged knowledge on historical and chronological points than myself, would ascertain whether any circumstance in the papal history, sufficiently important to be regarded as the rise of the beast, took place in about the year 666. Considering the dates given by the more eminent expositors, there is nothing very improbable in the suggestion of that year; and, though ardent Millennerians, who are daily ex pecting the time of the end, will regard it as a chilling theory, the dates consequent upon this sug. gestion will make the Millennium remarkably synchronise with the sabbatical Millenary. The rise of the beast being 666, the several prophetic eras will expire in 1926, 1956, and 2001. Ω, has discovered, and which he has pointed out, in the following Articles of our church :-Article 8. Of the Three Creeds; 1. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity; 6. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scripture; 9. Of Original or Birth-sin; 11. Of the Justification of Man; 22. Of Purgatory; 25. Of the Sacraments; 37. Of the civil Magistrates. The reader who examines the above passage in the "Historical Defence," will find that the language of the Thirty-nine Articles is, in some instances, copied word for word from the Waldensian document. The most important part of the parallel is that by which it appears, that members of the Church of England, indeed the Christian world in general, have had the advantage of a list of those pure and canonical books of Scripture, which are the foundation of all true churches and of all true doctrines, handed down by the Waldenses, as by faithful witnesses, from the earlier ages, in direct opposition to the corrupted list of sacred books adopted in the Church of Rome. Mr. Sims justly closes the parallel with observing, that the comparison thus instituted between that ancient and venerable confession of the Waldensian Church and the Thirtynine Articles, serves not only to prove that the doctrines which the Church of England reveres were maintained by the Waldenses, and (being embalmed, so to speak, in this ancient document,) were preserved from corruption during the dark ages; but shews it probable that this celebrated series of articles of the Established Church were partly formed by our Reformers on the model of the Waldensian Confession of Faith. If so, how much is the Church of England indebted, how much indeed is every Protestant Church indebted, to that pure and primitive church, of which a remnant still exists in its original seat, three valleys of Piedmont, near the Cottian Alps! Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. It was lately remarked, in your valuable publication, that the earliest Confession of Faith of the Waldenses has been comparative ly neglected by those who have written on subjects relative to that people. It will be found, however, that Mr. Sims, in an appendix to Peyran's "Historical Defence of the Waldenses" (pp. 141-147), has not only referred to that important document, but has noticed, what appears to have escaped other writers, such an extraordinary similarity between that Confession of Faith and the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, as to warrant the conclusion that the foundation of those articles of the principal Protestant Church in Christendom, may be traced in the Waldensian document. Mr. Sims has given parallel extracts from both the ancient Confession of the Vaudois and the Thirty-nine Articles, in order that the reader may the more exactly observe the surprising resemblance which he CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 305. 2 N N. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. IN common with your correspondent CANONICUS (C. O. for 1826, p. 600), I feel much anxiety for the abrogation of the Apocryphal Lessons, even on week days; but, till that most desirable end shall be attained, I beg to suggest to our clergy, that they certainly never need nor ought to read them on the Lord's day. I am led to make this remark by the circumstance of having been lately obliged to listen at church, on that sacred day, to two or three assertions in Apocryphal Lessons, directly at variance both with Holy Scripture and the Articles of our own Church. The feast of the Annunciation having this year happened on Sunday, the third chapter of Ecclesiasticus was read as the first lesson in the afternoon service. The following is the divinity of the third, fifth, and thirtieth verses of that chapter: "Whoso honoureth his father, maketh an atonement for his sins:" ......"when he maketh his prayer "Water will he shall be heard." quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an atonement for sins*.” The rubric gives no direction as to the course to be pursued when a saint's day and Sunday, or a saint's day and one of our Lord's festivals, fall on the same day; and this omission leaves every clergyman at liberty to adopt his own course. Wheatley suggests that this is one of those cases of doubt, which, according to the rubrical power vested in them for the purpose, the bishops ought to resolve. However, in the absence of Episcopal direction on the subject, I beg to suggest to the clergy, the propriety of availing themselves of their confessed liberty in this behalf, and of abstaining from setting before their hearers, such heterodoxy as I have above quoted. A LAYMAN. MISCELLANEOUS. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. THE very remarkable way in which it has pleased God to bless the efforts now in progress, for dispel ling the darkness of Romanism, has necessarily called forth the controversial effusions of those who still adhere to that system. Among the various means of discrediting the Reformed faith, is that of vilifying the characters of those eminent men who were the honoured instruments in that great work. As these have not been isolated, but continued efforts, permit me to call your attention to a remarkable attempt of this kind, in the publication of a dignified prelate of the Gallican Church; entitled "an amicable Discussion on the Anglican Church and the Reformation generally*." This book has been widely "Discussion amicale sur l'Eglise Anglois, et en general sur la Reformation, par Monsieur l'Evêque d'Aise." circulated in France, and especially pressed on the notice of our countrymen residing there, as an unanswerable refutation, by a second Bossuet, of the errors of the pretended Reformation. The value placed upon this performance may be conceived, when we find its author translated to the important bishopric of Strasburgh, and entrusted with the education of the young Duke of Bordeaux. preferment has not cooled his zeal, as appears from the following notice affixed by him to the door of his cathedral church at Strasburgh : "Forty days' indulgence will be granted to all those, who, after His At the time of the Apocryphal controversy at Bristol, a few years since, in consequence of the late bishop's directions to the clergy never to change the lessons, deceased, coming to this passage, paused, one of the incumbents of that city lately and then boldly read it," Alms do not make atonement for sins." having fully confessed, &c., shall This document was signed by the visit this cathedral on the birth of principal inhabitants of that city, the holy father Ignatius Loyola; and drawn up with the accustomed and shall there pray for the union form of legal proceedings. From of Christian princes, the extirpa- this it appears, that the heretic was tion of heresies, and the exaltation convicted of an abominable crime, of the holy and true religion." I ordinarily subjecting those who have since read in one of the jour- were found guilty of it to the stake, nals, that he has been displaced but mitigated in his case, by the from his preceptorship, as going charitable interposition of his bishop, too fast towards the accomplish- to the fleur-de-lis, or brand with ment of the objects sought in com- a hot iron. To this it may be mon by himself and his employers. added, that Bolsec states the fact, His work has received a very able in which he is not contradicted by reply in this country from the pen of Berthelier, which he certainly would Mr. Faber, who has exposed its so- have been, if Berthelier who was phistry, and shewn at the same time living then, could conscientiously the difficulties attending the doc- have vindicated the character of his trinal system which it advocates. fellow-citizen. Thus the silence of There is, however, one passage in an entire city so deeply interested, the "Amicable Discussion," which, and also of its secretary, is another as it did not fall in with Mr. Faber's infallible proof of the licentiousness plan to discuss, appears deserving imputed to Calvin *." of a separate notice, on account of the stigma which it casts on the memory of an eminent man, and the strong impression it is likely to leave on the mind of the general reader, from the parade of evidence with which it seems to be accompanied. I shall first give a literal translation of the part of the bishop's work to which I allude, and then offer a few observations upon it. "The followers of Calvin have Difficulties of Romanism, by the Rev. He follows this up with an extract from the Jesuit Campian :-" It was at that time so little contested, that when a Catholic author, speaking of the infamous life of Calvin, stated, as a thing well known in England, that the leader of the Calvinists had been a branded fugitive, his antagonist Whitaker, while he confessed the fact, defended it by the following unworthy parallel: Calvin was stigmatized, but so likewise was St. Paul t.” “I find also" (the bishop continues) "that the judicious and learned Englishman, Stapleton, who, from his long residence in the neighbourhood of Noyon, had every opportunity of ascertaining its truth, speaks of this affair like a person well assured of the fact." After a few more quotations, with which, as they are mere transcripts, it is unnecessary to cumber your pages, he gives his own comments on the evidence against the Reformer "As to the silence of Beza, it may well be replied, that, since the disciple was notorious for Le Card. Richelieu Traité pour Convert. liv. ii. p. 319, 320. + Campian dans la Troisieme Raison. An. 1581. |