church instead of to the dancing

room.

We lament to witness a very silly, unbrotherly, and schismatical attempt in various places to "pit" what the promoters of the scheme call "the five church societies," against other church societies, especially the Church Missionary and Pastoral-aid Societies. The five church societies, forsooth! Why, if by Church Society be meant a Society authorised or established by the Anglican church in its corporate capacity, we have no such society; nor can we have, till the houses of Convocation are revived, and establish such institutions. Our religious charitable Societies are merely voluntary institutions; it is merely a happy accident that all the bishops are members of the Christian Knowledge Society; and Mr. Palmer has carried the principle of the objectors to the Church Missionary and Pastoral-aid Societies to its legitimate extent, by very consistently seceding from it. But if by Church Societies be meant such Societies as

are founded upon Church of England principles, directed to objects which the church approves, and promoted by means which are conformable to church discipline, not only the exclusive five, but the above named two, and various others, both general and diocesan, are Church Societies. The Church Missionary Society has been too long established, is too well known, and is too much beloved, to render any defence of it necessary; and the many bishops, and several thousands of clergymen, who patronize it, might justly consider an apology a humiliation. The Pastoral-aid Society is much younger; but its important object and truly excellent plans and labours have gained for it a share of episcopal, clerical, and respectable lay, patronage, unprecedented, we believe, in the annals of any of our religious societies so soon after their establishment. If any of our readers have troubled themselves about Dr. Molesworth's attack, or wish to see a very able defence, we would recommend them to read the Rev. C. Whitefoord's "Letter."

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A. R. S.; R. P. M.; C.; Laicus; A Traveller; P. W.; T. B.; A Layman; are under consideration.

Mr. Napper's defence of the Hibernian Society's Romanist teachers shall be inserted.

As we animadverted upon the style and spirit of the work called Anti-popopriestian, we cheerfully, in justice to the author, announce, that in the second edition he has altered its title to Anti-popery, confining his strictures to the church at Rome, and omitting whatever he considered might be offensive to any Protestant body, and also modifying the peculiarities of his style. He assures us, that all the recommendations in the newspapers were genuine editorial opinions. We never doubted that many of them were so, for no religious newspaper or magazine would allow of extra official critiques in its pages; but when we found that the only one we had an opportunity of referring to, which was that in the Times newspaper, was not in the usual place or type of Editorial matter, but in an obscure corner, at the bottom of the last column of the fifth page, in the smallest print ; and when moreover we considered that Mr. Rogers's dissenterism and opposition to Established churches, were in diametrical opposition to the opinions advocated in the Times and several other newspapers, in which the work was panegyrised without any allusion to this fact, we could not regard the articles as editorial; nor can we to this hour believe that the Editors of the Times, the Herald, the Morning Advertiser, the Age, and Bell's Weekly Messenger, (those were the newspapers we mentioned) had troubled themselves to read the book; but as they vouch for the remarks, the author is entitled to the credit of them.

HRISTIANITY is not a system of well digested and orthodox doctrines, which enlighten the understanding, but neither affect the heart, nor are used as a lamp unto the feet and a light unto the paths. Christianity is not the momentary ebullition of excited affection, nor the groundless and presumptuous hope of an unenlightened understanding and heated imagination. Christianity is not the cold, and regular, and mechanical observance of formal and ceremonial institutions, nor even of moral duties. The essence of Christianity consists neither in orthodox opinions, heartless services, visionary hopes, nor enthusiastic reveries: but Christianity is a system of sound principles, engrafted upon a renewed nature, energised by a lively faith and pure affections, and thus rendered steadily and permanently operative :-principles which have Divine Revelation for their authority: heaven and hell for their sanctions: essential truth for their basis: God in Christ for their object: and consequently eternity for their duration.

When the mind becomes interested about Christianity, such as I have now described it, sensible of the paramount importance of the object, it often turns the eye of contemplation inward with jealous watchfulness. There it searches diligently for those harmonized principles and affections which alone can furnish satisfactory evidence of the reality of its faith, the soundness of its hope, the purity of its love, and the security of its treasure. The traveller who bears upon his person a pearl of great price will sometimes involuntarily feel for this valuable deposit, not so much from any doubt of its security, as to enjoy its safety, and to make assurance doubly

sure.

With such views, and in such a spirit, I have sometimes proposed to my own mind a question which I would now propose to the reader. And in doing so I would intreat him to consider, that Christianity does not address itself to congregated bodies or domestic circles, but to individual souls. No doubt, from the differently constituted minds of different individuals, this question will meet a different reply each should therefore stand out, in conscience and spirit, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 39.

S

from the friends and scene by which he may be surrounded, and judge and answer for himself. In our worldly concerns the views and feelings of others are a material element in all our calculations; but in our religious concerns each should desire to stand now, as he must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, a naked and isolated soul amid a congregated universe. He should reject, as they successively present themselves, those hollow and self-justifying pleas with which the great deceiver would slightly heal the sores of a wounded conscience, and say to a troubled spirit, Peace, peace, where there is no peace. He should cast away the shield of prejudice or unbelief, and lay bare his bosom to the sword of the Spirit, which is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The Psalmist tells us that "the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." In the original of this passage there is nothing which corresponds with the affirmative verb and particle "There is;" and therefore the literal translation is, as our Bible version from the Hebrew reads it, "The fool"-that is, the man, however wise and prudent in the things of this world, who is ignorant of God, the object of true wisdom and knowledge-" the fool hath said in his heart, No God." This translation is not only more just and literal, but also more comprehensive, than that in our version from the Septuagint ; for it not only denies the existence of God, but also expresses strongly the loathing and aversion with which the fool-in other words, the earthly carnal mind, for so Scripture uniformly applies this term— revolts from the belief in a God.

In opposition to this folly of the carnal heart, it is needful to remind professing Christians that there is a God: proclaimed, not on the authority of merely human and fallible testimony, but on the authority of a Divinely inspired revelation. There is a God who created, and whose providence incessantly watches over, every individual of the human family; whose eye is upon every action of his life, and reads every secret of his heart: who in an assumed nature bled and suffered for us: who died to redeem, who rose again to justify, who ever liveth to make intercession for us. That mysterious visitant to earth has indeed again departed into a far country, and now sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty on high. But He shall come again in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and shall stand in the latter day upon the earth; and with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God summon universal man to judgment. In obedience to this solemn and high citation, each, personally and individually, shall hold up his hand at the bar of heaven's tribunal, surrounded by a cloud of witnesses thronging together from those infinitely remote worlds which stud heaven's concave, and whose armies people immensity. Before this august assembly, and in this decisive day, each shall, individually and separately, answer for the deeds done in the body, and with a scrutiny so strict that of every idle word men must give an account, and that even the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. The same Scripture tells us, that this "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;" and is now ready to pardon and wash out all your sins in the fountain opened for sin and all uncleanness; that He is ready, by His Spirit, to regenerate and sanctify the affections of man's corrupt and sensual nature with the all-subduing energy of Gospel doctrine He would

melt the stubborn heart; and then, in the perfect mould of Gospel precept, transform and renew it in righteousness after the lost image of Him who created it. God himself too, it tells, condescends to dwell by His Spirit in the believer's soul; and His entrance there, is the dawning of eternal life, the influx of a present heaven. On this high and infallible authority we also learn, that to know this living and true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, and to have that Spirit of Christ without which we are none of His, is to receive from him" life eternal." The Christian therefore possesses an immortal soul, and is a citizen of the eternal world. For him are prepared beyond the skies mansions of everlasting rest. "We," if Christians, "know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Such are the glorious truths which the voice of revelation proclaims.

Suppose then that, instead of these quickening and heart-cheering truths, we could declare, and support the declaration with irresistible argument, with "confirmation strong as proof of holy writ," that revelation was a forgery: that immortality was a dream: that the resurrection from the grave was a vain hope; that the power and coming of the Lord Jesus was a cunningly devised fable; that prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, who testified these recorded facts and revealed truths amid the agonies of expiring nature, and thus sealed their testimony with their blood, were vile imposters or visionary enthusiasts; that eternal life was a mere delusion; that God was but an empty name; what, I ask, is the impression which those declarations, proved to, and believed by, you, would produce upon your mind? what the course of action to which they would tend? Are there not some whose inmost souls would cheer those new doctrines as joyful sounds, and who would feel that they removed an oppressive load from off their hearts and consciences? Are there not some to whom the voice which proved that God and eternity, heaven and hell, were but vain words, would sound as the voice of him who cried in the wilderness, "Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough way shall be made smooth;" that all flesh may fearlessly run in the paths of forbidden pleasure to the secure haven of annihilation? Are there not some who would desecrate the now sacred walls of the temples of Christ throughout the land, without a single sigh to the memories which they excited, without a single regret for blasted hopes of glory, honour, and immortality, withered in the bud, and passed away for ever? Are there not some who would scatter pollution and misery along their meteor course of unbridled passion, of unrestricted indulgence, of selfishness, sensuality, and sin, and who would call all this happiness?—I fear there are.

But are there not others who, calmly and with steady hand, weighing, in the equal balances of a cold and calculating indifference, faint hopes of heaven against trembling fears of hell; uncertain promises of a future, against actual enjoyments of the present; this solid earth, with all its palpable pleasures, against a spiritual heaven with its visionary joys; sight against faith; time against eternity, would at length settle in the prudent determination to walk by sight and not by faith; not indeed to mingle themselves