hortations, bore witness to, and predicted relative to the Messiah's approach, person, manifestation, office, and gospel-kingdom (Luke iii. 18); and here we add that all things which John spake of Christ were true (John x. 41, v. 32).

The virgin Mary, also, under the immediate influence of the spirit of prophecy, breaks out into a song of praise, and bears her testimony to Christ, and rejoices in him as her God and Saviour (Luke i. 46-55), firmly believing that there would be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord (Luke i. 45). Simeon, also, by the spirit of prophecy, confessed him to be the Messiah, and testified of him as the salvation, light, and glory of all his people, among both Jews and Gentiles (Luke ii. 2631; Isa. xlix. 6). He also predicted that he was "set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel;" that he would be a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to some, but to others a sanctuary (comp. Luke ii. 34)*.

him by extolling him in his person (Johni. 15), | which John, in his preaching, ministry, and exdoctrine (John iii. 32, 34), and authority (John iii. 35), bearing witness to the superior dignity of his nature, office, commission, and exaltation as Mediator, and as one whose kingdom must be progressively glorious, and shine forth in honour and dignity, while his own preparatory ministry would soon end; for, "he," saith his noble testifier, "must increase, but I must decrease" (John iii. 30); also, by speaking of him, not only as the Messiah, the sent of God, and "the Lamb of God" (John iii. 34, i. 36), but as the King of Israel (comp. Matt. ii. 1, 2, with Dan. vii. 13, 14), "the true Light" (John i. 7-9)*, the Maker of the world" (John i. 10), "the Bridegroom" of his church (John iii. 29; comp. Mark ii. 19, 20), the well-beloved of the Father (Matt. iii. 17), the universal Governor, both of the world and the church (John iii. 35); the Saviour of sinners (John iii. 36), and the Son of God, who came from heaven, and was "above all" men, angels, and creatures (John i. 34, iii. 31, 35); who bore a distinct testimony to his eternal preexistence, by expressly declaring "that he was before him" John i. 15, 30, iii. 31; comp. John viii. 58; Phil. ii. 6)†, and who bare witness not only to the Messiah himself, but to his testimony also, by signifying, that, as an infinitely wise teacher and prophet, he spake the words of God, and that his testimony was not that of a mere creature, but arose from a personal knowledge of "what he had seen and heard" from God the Father, and which no other could so see and hear (John iii. 32, 34; and comp. i. 18, vi. 46, viii. 26, xv. 15). There were also many other things

racy, will be lost for ever. There must be a new nature implanted, a new creation formed in our souls, by the almighty energy of the eternal Spirit, or it had been better for us that

we had never been born at all. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot possibly see the

Ye must be born again" (John iii. 3, 7; comp. Matt. xviii. 3).

kingdom of God. Marvel not, therefore that I said unto thee, The Baptist himself was " a burning and shining light;" yet his light was derived from him who is the true Light; and the Spirit, who inspired the apostles themselves, shone on them with saying: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come," according to my promise (John xvi. 7)," he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak merely of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, and receive in charge, that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come, even all that may be needful for you to know, or make known to the church for its benefit to the end of time, and to eternity. He shall glorify me, and will manifest my mediatorial glory; for he shall receive of mine, and take of those doctrines which relate to me, and to my covenant-love and mercy, and shall reveal and show the same to you in the most clear and attractive light. And, indeed, all things that the Father hath are mine: whatsoever he makes known by the Spirit is mine (Col. ii. 9): the administration of all that he does is, in a peculiar manner, committed to me. Therefore said I, that he, the same Spirit, shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you; for it can only be done by means of his influence and operations" (John xvi. 13-15).

a light borrowed from him. So Christ himself hath told us,

+ Some of our English divines have also thought that the glorious spirit, or soul, which animated the body of our Saviour upon earth, and ascended up with it into glory, after his resurrection, was formed and created before all worlds, and was united to the Deity before any other creature had a being; that this was the "shechinah," or glory, wherein the Son of God appeared to the patriarchs as the Angel of the covenant, and which at length animated that body the Father had prepared for him of the virgin. But, whether this be so or not, it is most certain that the great and glorious Son of God, who was sent forth into the world in the fulness of time, existed in an ineffable manner with the Father before the foundation of the world.

The man Christ Jesus, that "perfect Man of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting," had more biblical learning, or complete understanding of letters (John vii. 15), that is, of the scriptures, and was better able to teach the people out of them than could be known or taught at the Jewish schools, or in the Jewish church, or by any mere creature (Isa. 1. 4). When a child, he was filled with wisdom; and the natural powers of his

Anna, a prophetess, did also at the same time bear witness to him, by giving thanks, and publicly acknowledging him to be the Lord Messiah, and by speaking of him to all those in Jerusalem that were waiting in faith, like her, for the promised redemption of Israel by him (Luke ii. 3638).

Agabus, who was among the divinely inspired prophets of the New Testament, did also testify of him, by foretelling a great famine, and occasioning the disciples to relieve and supply the pressing necessities of the believers in Christ, who dwelt in such great numbers in Judea (Acts xi. 28-30). And, again, at the city of Cæsarea, when he took up the girdle of Paul, an eminent minister of Christ (Acts xx. 23, 24), the prophet there testified of the Lord Jesus, by predicting, under divine inspiration, that the Jews at Jerusalem would bind the blessed apostle, and deliver him a prisoner into the hand of the Gentiles; and this would be because of his preaching the gospel of Christ, and labouring in the cause of Christ (Acts xxi. 10, 11, 18-33).

human mind daily improved with his advancing years, not by human instruction and education, but by the operation of the Holy Ghost (Luke ii. 40). Nor do we suppose he ever read any other book beside that of the Old Testament. At his early age of twelve years, the Jewish rabbies, whose profession it was to teach and lecture on the law of God, were astonished at his understanding and answers (Luke ii. 46). His own countrymen, and others, were likewise amazed at his wisdom and knowledge (Matt. xiii. 54). Nor can the teachings of the ancient scribes" be any more compared with those strains of divine eloquence with which our Lord's discourses abounded than a glow-worm can be compared to the sun." We are here reminded of the extravagant notion which some had of the supposed learning of the scribes, "that their words were declared to be more amiable and weighty than those of the prophets, and equal to those of the law."

The prophet Isaiah likewise predicted that the Messiah would prove "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence," and that the Jew and Gentile would be confederate against him (Isa. viii. 14). "As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence" to both the houses of Israel (Rom. ix. 31, 32). "Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law; for they stumbled at that stumbling-stone and rock of offence." Nor is the prediction repeated merely by Simeon, and shown to have been fulfilled by Paul; but Peter also, in ch. ii. of his first epistle, informs us that Christ was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the unbelieving Jews, who were offended at the doctrine of the gospel, which sets him forth as the only foundation that God had laid, and beside which no other can be laid to answer its end (see í Cor. iii. 11).

government was made still more democratic than before. The cantons had hitherto been under the ecclesiastical ordinances of Berne, which were bad. After this revolution it was proposed to change them; but, instead of improving, the worst of them were retained, and the best rejected, as for instance,

they acted in a more despotic and intolerant manner than most popes, who at least generally make some show of respect for previous laws. Thus the church of the Pays de Vaud, while under such abject bondage to a state that had no respect for religion, was utterly deprived of its scriptural and constitutional privileges, and of every thing that made it valuable as a church. Its peculiar character as "a city set on a hill," to spread the principles of the gospel, was taken from it. It was reduced to the most contemptible condition of being a mere tool in the hands of men who held evangelical religion in abhorrence; the most of them being nothing better than infidels, who were

1. The confession of faith was suppressed, called the "Helvetic creed," drawn up by Henry Bullenger, of Zurich, in 1536, which was admirable, and had been universally adopted at that time by the protestant cantons. This creed being publicly and officially renounced, all kind of heresies might creep into the church, and there was no standard by which to correct them. The pre-only anxious to establish their own power, and to paration and examination of young men for orders would necessarily become extremely imperfect and indefinite; nor was there any security it should be orthodox. Men might preach what errors they chose, the church having no power to correct them. To make up for this, the state undertook to judge of doctrines: the advice of the synods was entirely disregarded; and a jury, consisting of civil magistrates, was called to pronounce upon every charge of heresy that might be brought against ministers. Thus one most important duty that belongs to a church, and benefit accruing from it, viz., that of maintaining soundness of creed in the public mind, was destroyed.

2. Meetings of the clergy for ecclesiastical purposes were forbidden, without a special permission from the state.

3. Pastors were nominated to livings solely by precedency of consecration, without any concurrence either of the clergy or people.

4. Laymen (except the state governors) were excluded from any connection with ecclesiastical

affairs.

5. Ministers were forbidden to take part in any religious meetings, except those held in churches in legal hours of worship.

keep the people in a state of religious formality and spiritual death. The object of the leaders of the government in their regulations was to make the church disseminate whatever doctrines and principles they chose: outward decency and formality in the services are all they care for, and any spirit in the church that rises above these they deprecate; so that a church with any scriptural privileges, with any spiritual life, could not possibly exist in conjunction with them.

The ministers of the canton of Vaud felt this, and that therefore but one course was open to them. On the 12th of November, 1845, eight days after the suspension of their forty brethren by the state council, one hundred and eighty of them assembled in the town-house here; and, after singing Ps. cxxxviii., offering up fervent prayers to the great Head of the church, and nineteen hours of deliberation and discussion, one hundred and sixty-seven of them signed the resignation of their livings. They soon after this received expressions of sympathy from all the evangelical churches in various countries; and, we are happy to say, our beloved church was among the foremost, if not the very first, in this work of love and charity. These several addresses congratulated the demissionaire ministers" that grace had been given them to make a stand and a demonstration against the tyranny of a wicked government, and that they had not allowed the church in this canton to dwindle into a mere puppet in the hands of bad men.

When the present democratic government came into power in February, 1845, president Drewey, who is its supreme dictator, having confirmed these, and passed other bad laws, to crown the impiety of its proceedings, required all the ministers to read from their pulpits a political procla- Sunday evening, August 9.-All the world was mation; thus commanding them to desecrate the aroused this morning at four o'clock by the firing house of God, and to lend the sanction of their of cannon, discharges of musketry, and beating of name and profession to every impious act of the drums. This holiday is held as a fête to comgovernment. Forty of the ministers refusing to memorate the 10th August fast year, the day on read these, laymen were sent into their pulpits to which the new constitution was publicly read, do so. Moreover, these forty were condemned and received by the people; when, therefore the by the government, and by it suspended for differ-present government may be said properly to have ent periods of time from their public functions. This sentence was passed upon them in the face of all law; for the highest legal authorities declared that the ministers were perfectly entitled to refuse, since a law existed forbidding political papers to be read from a pulpit. Thus both the order and the sentence for disobedience to it were contrary to law. The government did these things in the face of the most Christian representations and remonstrances on the part of the ministers, backed by petitions numerously signed by the most respectable inhabitants of the canton, amounting in one instance to twelve thousand signatures.

By these various acts it is obvious the government assumed all the powers of the pope; nay,

established and proclaimed their dominion. After a very interesting religious service in a private room, which was crowded, we walked up the precipitous streets to the cathedral. The whole town was in commotion with cannon, trumpets, and bells. After waiting for some time in front of the cathedral, on the terrace that commands a magnificent view of the lake, the approach of the cortège of government officers, public schools, and military was announced by the sound of drums. Presently an immense band of soldiers marched into the cathedral, with colours flying, and a din of drums and trumpets that awoke into astonishment the sacred echoes of the place. After the long train of civil officers and school-children had entered,

we got in by a side-door we accidentally found open. There was such a Babel of military noises and commands in this "house of prayer," that we could hear nothing of a paper a man was reading from the pulpit: we understand it was a sermon. When this was finished, and the noises had somewhat subsided, Mr. Drewey mounted the pulpit, and delivered a political address: he was followed by other speakers. All this gave us a stronger impression of the impiety of the government than any thing we had heard, and of the degradation and bondage of any church that submitted to be its tool.

It is said, however, that, from the ignorance and apathy of the people, the secession ministers have carried but few with them. They are thus left to bear the burden alone and unsupported. Hence, many are in a destitute condition. In Lausanne the free church numbers about one hundred and thirty men and about a thousand females, and throughout the canton the people show but little sympathy. This proves what a spiritually dead and formal state the people are in.

The cathedral here is a noble structure: it

delity that are at present making such fearful
strides throughout Germany and Switzerland.

There are a variety of beautiful walks about the house where I am now residing; one in particular, commanding a fine view of the town and lake. At the end of it, embosomed among trees, is a little oratoire, where the seceders have been in the habit of holding their meetings for worship. These meetings must be held with secrecy, for fear of interruption from police-officers; for one of the most persecuting acts of the government, immediately after the secession, was to place the seceders under an interdict of religious freedom. The sacred use and beautiful situation of this sequestered spot made it doubly interesting. May the Father of all answer the prayers offered in it. H. GREY, M.A.

ISHMAELITES, AND EGYPTIAN COMMERCE*. "And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a company of Ishmeelites came myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt."-GEN. xxxvii. 25.

from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and

LOWER down (v. 27), the same persons are called

was begun A.D. 1000, and finished after nearly "Midianites." The Ishmaelites and Midianites three centuries. The steeple at the east end makes an odd contrast with the old tower at the were both descended from Abraham, but of difwest. The exterior is not so imposing as the in-ferent female parentage (Gen. xxv. 2, 4, 12-18). terior, which possesses a splendid range of pillars, with a large chancel of an oval shape.

This evening we had another long conversation with a highly esteemed friend of the secessionchurch. He observed that he and his brethren had never once regretted the step they had taken; that subsequent acts of the government had made the necessity of their separation from it still more obvious. By these acts they have been led by a gracious Providence to feel more and more that the position they had at first taken and now held was a firm one, viz., "the absolute impossibility of a faithful discharge of their ministry in an enslaved and degraded church."

Here they appear to be identified, owing probably

to their intimate association with one another. See

also Judg. vii. 12, viii. 22, where the words seem to be used promiscuously. Rosenmüller distinguishes them as genera and species, illustrating Frenchmen and Lyonese. As the Ishmaelites were this by the comparison, taken from Aben Ezra, of the most numerous and powerful of Abraham's descendants (with the exception of the Israelites), all the others seem to have been merged in them, and known by their name (see Turner's Gen., p. the oldest history in the world, we find the Ish333). "Here," says Dr. Vincent, "upon opening maelites from Gilead conducting a caravan loaded There is nothing perhaps more fitted to benefit with the spices of India, the balsam and myrrh of Hadramaut, and in the regular course of their traffic a country than such united public demonstrations proceeding to Egypt for a market. The date of of principle, when made in a spirit of humility, this transaction is more than seventeen centuries faith, and prayer. I trust and pray that this sebefore the Christian era; and, notwithstanding its cession may, under Providence, be the commencement of a new era in the religious history of antiquity, it has all the genuine features of a carathis canton, and that henceforth the principles of van crossing the desert at the present hour" (Comreligious toleration will be working themselves merce and Navigation of the Ancients, ii. 262). We cannot at this moment enter into the question, into public knowledge and favour. The tyranny, which Dr. Vincent assumes, that the Arabians had that has expelled from the state church of this intelligence, cannot fail to work its own destruc-vides itself into two parts, the commerce of tween India and Egypt. As the subject dicanton the men most distinguished for piety and already become the medium of communication betion. Although outwardly they may appear a poor persecuted body, their moral influence is far greater than if they had yielded an unrighteous submission to impious edicts. This moral influence is on the increase, and will necessarily, if sustained by faith and prayer, achieve in time its deserved and proper triumph, in the enlightenment and spiritual improvement of the people. The seceders may be justly regarded as the bulwark of religious liberty in the canton. They have, however, rendered a far more important service even than this-in having erected a standard, around which the true worshippers may safely rally, against mere formalism as worship, and against the inroads of the rationalism and infi

the Arabians and that of the Egyptians, we confine ourselves to a few remarks upon the latter. In the present text we see a caravan of foreigners proceeding to Egypt, their camels laden with articles of luxury; whence it is an obvious inference that Egypt had then become, what it is always recorded to have been, the centre of a most extensive land commerce-the great emporium to which the merchants brought gold, ivory, and slaves from Ethiopia, incense from Arabia, spices from India, and wine from Phoenicia and Greece; for which Egypt gave in exchange its corn, its manufactures of fine linen, its robes, and its car

From "The Pictorial Bible," London: Knight.

|

and interested himself in maritime discovery, with a view to the extension of the commercial relations of Egypt. He sent on a voyage of discovery those Phoenician mariners who are supposed to have effected the circumnavigation of Africa, sailing from the Red Sea, and, after doubling the Cape of Good Hope, returning by the Mediterranean. The maritime power of Egypt increased thenceforward, the clearest proof of which may be found in the fact that in the reign of Necho's grandson, Apries, the Egyptian fleet ventured to give battle to, and actually defeated, so experienced a naval power as that of the Phoenicians. The subjection of the country to the Persians does not appear to have materially interfered with the growing maritime commerce of Egypt. But Herodotus, who was there in this period, remarks on the characteristic singularity which the Egyptians had carried into their marine and trade. Their ships were built and armed after a fashion quite different from that observed by other nations; and their rigging and cordage were arranged in a manner that appeared very singular and fantastic to the Greeks.

The

pets. In after-times, the merchants of the west, of Greece and Rome, resorted to Egypt for its own products, and for the goods brought thither by the oriental merchants. But none of this was done by Egyptians themselves. We never, either in ancient or modern times, read of Egyptian caravans. This doubtless arose, in a great degree, from the aversion which, in common with all people who observe a certain diet and mode of life prescribed by religion, they entertained to any intercourse with strangers, and which reminds us continually of the restrictive policy of the Japanese in some respects, and of the religious prejudices of Hindoos and Mahommedans in others. Thus it was a maxim among the Egyptians not to leave their own country; and we have ample evidence that they rarely did so, except in attendance upon the wars and expeditions of their sovereigns, even when their restrictive policy and peculiar customs became relaxed under the Greek and Roman rulers of the country. "They waited," says Goguet, after Strabo, "till other nations brought them the things they stood in need of; and they did this with the more tranquillity, as the great fertility of After all, the Egyptians were not themselves a their country in those times left them few things people addicted to maritime commerce. to desire. It is not at all surprising that a people Greek rulers of Egypt, indeed, changed the entire of such principles did not apply themselves to system of Egyptian trade; and the new capital, Alexnavigation until very late." Besides, the Egyp-andria, became the first mart of the world, while tians had a religious aversion to the sea, and considered all those as impious and degraded who embarked upon it. The sea was, in their view, an emblem of the evil being (Typhon), the implacable enemy of Osiris; and the aversion of the priests in particular was so strong, that they carefully kept mariners at a distance, even when others of the nation began to pay some attention to sea affairs. But, besides their religious hatred to the sea and political aversion to strangers, other causes concurred in preventing the cultivation of maritime commerce by the Egyptians. The country produces no wood suitable for the construction of ships. Therefore, when the later Egyptian and the Greek sovereigns began to attend to navigation, they could not fit out a fleet till they had obtained a command over the forests of Phoenicia, which gave occasion to bloody wars between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ for the possession of those countries. The unhealthiness of the Egyptian coast, and the paucity of good harbours, may also be numbered among the circumstances which operated, with others, in preventing attention to maritime affairs.

The indifference of the Egyptians to foreign commerce is demonstrated by the fact that they abandoned the navigation of the Red Sea to whatever people cared to exercise it. They allowed the Phoenicians, the Edomites, the Jews, the Syrians, successively to have fleets there, and maritime

stations on its shores. It was not until towards the termination of the national independence that the sovereigns of Egypt began to turn their attention to navigation and commerce. The ports of Lower Egypt were ultimately opened to the Phoenicians and Greeks by Psammeticus, about 658 years B.C. His son, Necho, for the purpose of facilitating commerce, attempted to unite the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, by means of a canal from the Nile, but desisted after having lost 100,000 workmen. He then caused ships to be built both on the Mediterranean and Red Sea,

the ancient inland capitals, which had arisen under the former system, sunk into insignificance. But it was the Greeks of Egypt, not the Egyptians, who did this. "They became," says Dr. Vincent, "the carriers of the Mediterranean, as well as the agents, factors, and importers of oriental produce; and so wise was the new policy, and so deep had it taken root, that the Romans, upon the subjection of Egypt, found it more expedient to leave Alexandria in possession of its privileges, than to alter the course of trade or occupy it themselves" (see Vincent's Commerce and Navigation_of_the Ancients; Heren's Historical Researches; Goguet, Origine des Lois; Regnier, De l'Economie Publique et Rurale des Egyptians; &c.).

THE VOICE OF GOD IN HIS JUDGMENTS:
A Sermon,

BY THE REV. HENRY RAIKES, M.A.,
Chancellor of Chester.