THE

CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1842.

JUDAH'S LION.

CHAPTER X.

THE more Alick Cohen pondered upon the conversation that had passed on the deck, the more out of humour he felt, and the more disposed to find fault with his new acquaintance. The home question, so plainly, so unexpectedly put, seemed to ring in his ears, with all the emphasis of earnest interrogation that had marked its delivery. He had no answer; and in such cases the enemy of souls ever suggests evasions, or raises objections that will prevail to harden the conscience, and to seal up the mind in deeper darkness than before, if a stronger than he be not working in the heart of the sinner. But Alick's case was not of this character: two devoted servants of the Lord, equally anxious for the soul of an erring brother, speaking the truth to him in love, with boldness and simplicity, then together pouring out prayer for a blessing on the seed so cast, will shake the pil

fore mentioned, and to rally round the barriers which some are attempting to batter down, and others to undermine. The number of such enemies rapidly increases; both of those who desire to raze the fabric and of those who would fain take possession of it, to plant their own rebellious standard on its towers, and to turn its batteries against its rightful King. Thus the church every day becomes more militant, and therefore more secure; for the peril to be apprehended in a state of open warfare is nothing compared with that of a slumbering state of imagined security.

The principle which we hold on this subject is that of the unity of the faith; or in other words, the oneness of that confession which distinguishes the church of Christ from all counterfeits; excluding alike the doctrine that would undeify the Lord Jesus, as promulgated by Arius, Socinus, &c., and the doctrine that admits created things to share his glory, as do the Eastern communities, and far more the Roman apostacy. We believe Episcopacy to be the scriptural form of Church government, and that in possessing it England enjoys an advantage; but at the same time we cheerfully and cordially recognize every foreign Protestant church as an equally living branch of the true Vine, though perhaps not trained so correctly after the model provided by the Husbandman. Protestation against idolatry on the one hand, as against rationalism on the other, we hold to