:

THAT HAT depraved principle and depraved practice exert a powerful and reciprocal influence,-that unbelief is not more a disease of the head than of the heart, is not more the fruit of a disordered understanding than of vitiated affections, are indisputable facts. The philosophy of the human mind demonstrates them experience, whether personal or general, abundantly confirms them and God, who is intimately acquainted with the most secret springs of action, and the profoundest movements both of the moral and intellectual man, gives to them the sanction of His testimony in his revealed word. The Psalmist proclaims the atheism of a carnal heart, when he tells that "the fool hath said in heart, No God!" The Apostle declares that this atheism of the heart generates an atheism of the head, and of the life, a speculative and practical infidelity, issuing in the deepest abysses of sin. He teaches that sin and darkness form alternate links of the iron chain which binds to earth the unregenerate soul. Men first do "not like to retain God in their knowledge,”are then "given over to a reprobate" or undiscerning " mind,"then " do those things which are not convenient,' -a meiosis, designed, as the following verses prove, to express every thing which is sinful and abominable.

The principle which accounts for this reciprocal influence is evident. The objects to which memory often recurs, amid which the understanding daily expatiates, or the imagination loves to stray, however unreal they may be in existence, however unsound in principle, and delusive in promise, open, by their frequent recurrence, traces in the soul, along which the affections steadily move, and thus soon manifest themselves in action, and become a part of the visible man. While, on the other hand, the understanding will make but a faint shew of resistance against principles which bear down upon it with the weight and force of actual habits, and upon the full and sweeping current of the heart and affections.

Throughout Scripture unbelief is uniformly pronounced to be the damning sin. And perhaps there is no declaration of Scripture which so effectually drags to light the lurking enmity of the carnal CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 41. 2 L

heart against God, and which appears to it more arbitrary in its enactment, more severe and unreasonable in its penalty; while, on the contrary, there is no rule of Scripture which appears to the spiritually enlightened mind more intimately profound in its reach, and universal in its application, or as striking with severe aim and more deadly wound at the very heart and life of the whole body of sin. If indeed unbelief were merely an error of judgment; if it were merely the refusing to believe that from which the intellect alone revolted, it would be difficult to see in what its malignity consisted. The intellect may mistake, but cannot sin. It is only so far as it is operated upon by the moral powers that intellect becomes the subject of morality, and that its contemplations are capable of a moral character, whether of good or evil. And therefore, even though experience did not fully confirm the fact, the awful sentence which impartial Justice has denounced against unbelief would be sufficient to prove, that it is but symptomatic of a mortal disease more deeply seated in the soul: a disease which has corrupted the moral senses and moral powers, and thus poisoned the very fountain of spiritual life: and that there must have been a previous rejection of God by the moral man, before the intellectual man could have been abandoned to speculative infidelity, and the physical man to profligacy or carelessness, which are but practical infidelity, by a just and gracious God.

But here, as in every instance, experience abundantly confirms this revelation of infallible truth. In practical infidelity, the fact lies upon the very surface, and is notorious to all. The man who lives in vicious practices, and thus while he professes to know God in works denies Him, evidently does this because the tastes, and tempers, and dispositions of the moral man are depraved: because his will and affections are corrupted: because he does "not like to retain God in his knowledge." And in every eminent example of speculative infidelity which history has held up to public inspection, even the eye of man, who "looketh but upon the outward appearance," can generally trace the intellectual disease to some recorded vicious habit, some unmortified passion, some unsubdued temper, or to the more subtile leaven of pride of intellectual attainment, or pride even of moral worth. But even though we could not trace this connexion, we are sure that He who "looketh upon the heart," and whose eye, undazzled by the false glare of some isolated virtue, can penetrate into its deepest recesses, and analyse at the source the springs which feed those apparently pure streams,-that He discovers now, and when the. secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, will exhibit to an assembled universe, in the broad daylight of eternal truth, an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.

But, however interesting the subject, it is not my intention to pursue an abstract inquiry into the connexion which subsists between speculative mfidelity and the radical corruption of the heart. But there is a practical infidelity; an infidelity of the heart and life as well as of the head; a living as if admitted truths were fables; as if God and eternity were but high sounding epithets, heaven but a bright vision, hell a discovered cheat, the consideration of which it may not be amiss to urge upon many who would shudder, and justly shudder, at denying with their lips the God who created or the Lord who bought them. It may be well to observe, that practical infidelity, by which I mean either profligacy or carelessness of life,

is but the exhibition of speculative infidelity: that these are not, as men generally think, two sins essentially different in nature and malignity, but that they are the twin offspring of a common parent: that they are but different symptoms of the same mortal disease deeply seated in the moral constitution, only exhibiting itself, at different times, in different but always vital parts: now attacking the head, and now the heart; but in either case equally debilitating the whole man. It may be well too to remark that these sins are not only the same in nature, but inseparable in existence: that the infidel, however specious and imposing his partial morality, if the social bonds which chain down his soul, corrupt as it is by nature, were dissolved, and his speculative principles had free space and liberty to develope themselves in action, would be found at heart and in practice a profligate : and, which is equally to our present purpose, that the profligate or the careless, were the same restraints removed, would be found in speculative principle an infidel. All this is clearly implied in that declaration of St. Paul to the Romans to which I have already referred, "Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate (or undiscerning) mind, to do those things which are not convenient."

The word in the original of this passage, which we render "they did not like," is the word used to denote the process by which metals were assayed in the furnace. The same apostle uses it again in this epistle, and we render it "experience," where, in speaking of the chain of causes and effects by which sanctified afflictions link the soul to God, he tells us that "tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope." It implies, then, not only an earnest wish to acquire and retain the knowledge of God, but also a diligent exercise of the judgment and understanding in bringing this knowledge to the unerring standard and test of truth. Perhaps the nearest that we can approach in translation to the spirit and force of the original is by rendering the whole sentence thus, "Even as they were not solicitous to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to an undiscerning mind." What then are we to understand by being solicitous to retain God in our knowledge? What by being given over to an undiscerning mind?

1. "No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' Not by uttering an empty sound, and proclaiming a mere name, with which the ears of mankind have been familiar ever since the morning of its creation, and which it is to be feared too frequently means nothing; but by actually exhibiting the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person: by concentrating and harmonizing those scattered and apparently incompatible graces, which philosophy could paint in dim colours, and separate existence, but even in her happiest pictures could seldom group, and in her experience could never realize. Christ embodied virtue, and fixed those essential attributes of Deity which are spread abroad throughout creation. He brought down God to a level with the conception of man, and exhibited essential holiness, which is God, in the only form in which it could be visible to man,-clothed in his own nature. Thus he made humanity the vehicle of Deity, and rendered God manifest in and by the flesh.

But has this bright yet mild exhibition of moral beauty re-ascended

with the risen and glorified Saviour? or where is it to be now seen of man? It is to be seen, reflected from the Divine word, in the pure mirror of a good conscience, and stamped upon the sanctified soul. God is, to man, but a collection of attributes tied together by a name. And therefore to him who knows not these attributes there remains but an empty sound, signifying nothing. But we can know invisible things only by realizing an experience of them in our own souls. To know God therefore is to have Christ formed within us to possess, in however infant a state, those several members of essential holiness which in their maturity Christ embodied in a perfect man. It is to have the same "mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;" and thus to be made partakers of the Divine nature. When therefore the intellectual faculty looks abroad throughout the works of Creation and Providence, or searches in the word of revelation, amid the records of eternity, to discover what, and where, and who, is God; and when it there learns, that the Being of whom it is in search is a Being of infinite majesty, of untainted purity, of perfect love, then intellect has done its office. Then must the moral faculty, by which alone God can be apprehended, spiritually take up the word, and inquire, Do I know this Being? do I know Him by an experimental acquaintance with these His essential attributes? Have I, for example, that humility which peculiarly characterized the meek and lowly Jesus: which peculiarly He invites me to learn of Him: which feature of the mind of Christ His apostle emphatically calls upon me to transcribe into my own bosom, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: " and which alone can enable me to see the majesty of God? For as the summer sun, when from one end of heaven to another he runs his giant race, and in meridian glory stands for a moment on its topmost pinnacle, to look down upon the bright scene which his presence beautifies and enlivens,- -as then he can be contemplated with unshrinking eye, not in his direct effulgence, but only as reflected in softened splendour from the pure and placid bosom of some prostrate lake; so the majesty of heaven's Sovereign can be viewed, not in unveiled glory, but only as reflected from a serene, a pure, and an humble soul. Again inquire, Does my own soul so overflow with charity, with pure and warm affections to God and man, that I can see God in His love? Am I so separate in spirit from the tastes and tempers and habits of the world; such a pilgrim and stranger upon earth; so meek a citizen of heaven, and an inhabitant of eternity, that I can see God in his holiness? Am I possessed of that hope in Christ which he who hath "purifieth himself even as Christ is pure," the hope "that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is?" In a word, Am I cultivating that beatitude of the Gospel to which the Saviour Himself has promised the beatific vision of God, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God?"

To possess these graces of the Divine life is to possess the senses and faculties of the spiritual man, by which alone we can see and know God. And therefore "to be solicitous to retain God in our knowledge," is to cherish and cultivate these graces by fervent prayer; by diligent study of the Divine word: by calm contemplation of the Divine mind and to seek to develope and strengthen them by constant and habitual exercise.

J. M. H.

ANCIENT LITURGICAL FORMS, FROM THE APOSTOLICAL

CONSTITUTIONS.

(Concluded from page 205.)

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

We have thus placed before us the earliest extant Eucharistic Liturgy of the Christian Church; such as we have every reason to believe the confessors in the days of Valerian and Diocletian may have assisted in, for the consolation of their griefs, and confirmation of their faith. If there be, indeed, some falling off from truly apostolical simplicity; if in some few cases the pomp and circumstance of formal ceremonial already appear too much in the ascendant; if in some few passages the ornaments of an affected rhetoric intrude more than can be seen in the severe purity of the language of devotion ; yet the general effect and character of the whole appear to me (unless I am misled by the partiality which so naturally attaches itself to objects on which we have bestowed any attention) eminently conducive to genuine and spiritual piety. I have pointed out, as they occurred, the strong negative proofs which may be deduced against later corruptions, from their omission in this document, in places, where, had they then existed, they must have stood prominently forth; the language of the consecration of the elements has been seen to be directly spiritual; and although I have faithfully marked every expression (and there are many) which indicates a sacrificial efficacy in the offerings of the Eucharist, it were perhaps far from difficult to vindicate, in one sense, such expressions, even on purely Protestant grounds. We hold the real efficacy of one only true sacrifice once offered; the earlier offerings under the law we regard as the antecedent types of that one sacrifice, and having no power of any sort, save through their connection with it; and is not the Eucharistic offering of the Christian a far more lively subsequent type of the same consummated sacrifice? Need we, then, be so much alarmed when we find the early Fathers of the Church hesitating not to apply the same terms to the succeeding, as to the preceding, types; nor fearing to speak of the bloodless sacrifice of the Christian service.

As to other points, we find indeed a commemoration of the saints, but it is only to pray for grace to join in their struggle and partake their prize. There is not the slightest idea of seeking for grace through their mediation, or relying for the success of our prayers on their merits. We find, also, commemoration of the dead, for which, in that age, we must have been well prepared; but not the most distant allusion to purgatorial fires, and of course none to the efficacy of the Mass in quenching their penal flames.* It is somewhat curious to find these

There is a fuller prayer for the dead in another section of this work, to which the same character equally applies; the Deacon announces, and the Bishop offers, this prayer as follows: "O God of Abraham, God of Isaac,,God of Jacob, who art the God of them as living, not as dead; for all souls live to

Thee, and the spirits of the just are in Thy hand, whom no torment can approach, for all the sanctified are under Thy hands; do Thou now look on this Thy servant whom Thou hast chosen and taken into another lot; pardon unto him every voluntary and involuntary transgression; send to him propitious