Leaving their Society to your powerful advocacy, and trusting in the bountiful kindness of their God, "who deviseth liberal things,"-in the name of the Committee, We remain, Dear Madam, Your faithful servant, JAMES REYNOLDS, Treasurer. 87, Great Russel Street. May 13th. 1841. AGAIN, we beseech our readers to pause on this appeal. The fact, of a rival school being merely set up by the Romanists to draw the poor lambs from our fold, with the purpose of discontinuing even such wretched teaching as they receive there as soon as our Institution falls, should powerfully plead for increased support. Popery is attacking us on all sides, slaying her thousands and tens of thousands; and surely our dear brethren will not be denied the means of rescuing from her grasp, such victims as the Lord brings even to their door to seek a refuge from that remorseless destroyer!-EDITOR. GOOD MEN AND BAD SYSTEMS. MADAM, I perfectly agree with you in opinion as to "the danger and folly of measuring the orthodoxy of a creed by the relative merits of its professors." I regard the Romish Church asa favourite stronghold of Satan. With the assent of the heart I acknowledge the doctrine of Justification by faith alone; with you and with Lambert I would cordially say, in life and in death, none but Christ!' Yet I confess candidly, Madam, that I cannot acquiesce in the justice of your remarks on Blaise Pascal. You appear to have taken up his works casually and recently. I have been for many years familiarly acquainted with them, and from their whole tone and tenor I judge that Pascal was not merely a profound philosopher, an elegant writer, a learned and an amiable man, but that he was also a real Christian, living by faith on the Son of God, and conformed to his image in holiness. As regards the reply of a believer to a sceptic (quoted p. 355 of your number for April) I believe its sense to be briefly and simply that of John vii. 17. "If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." That you put a very different construction on the passage, appears by the question with which its citation is followed: "Did the man who deliberately wrote and published this for the enlightenment of unbelievers, really live by the faith of the Son of God? Did the Holy Ghost teach him this way into the kingdom of God?" A preceding remark declares that you consider Pascal's other thoughts as consistent with this view of his sentiments. Suffer, I pray you, a few observations on this subject, from one who sincerely respects your sterling protestant principles, but dreads alike to be or to see a friend unjust. The "Pensées de Pascal" were mere materials which in sickness and sorrow he prepared, for a great work on the Evidences of Christianity; their publication was posthumous. His mind, acute and powerful as it was, never cast aside the trammels of superstition which were to him a national and family inheritance: but like many another Bible Christian, the light of life shone upon his soul even through the thick darkness of a Romish creed. He did not "trust in man, nor make flesh his arm;" the curse of God never fell and never will fall on hearts so devout and holy as that of Pascal, so filled with the obedience of faith and devoted love to God. To expatiate upon his veneration for relics and his bodily austerities, is but to select chaff from wheat; the worst part of his example in preference to the best. Would that many in our own day and in our own Church experienced the depth of his devotion, the fervour of his piety! It may perhaps be appropriate here to quote a few of his own words. ❝ il "Pour faire d'un homme un saint," he says, faut que ce soit la grace, et qui en doute ne sait que c'est qu'un saint et qu'un homme." Pensées. Seconde Partie. Art. xvii. 91. "En lui," says Pascal of Christ, "est toute notre bonheur, notre vertu, notre vie, notre lumière, notre espérance, et hors de lui il n'ya que vice, misère, ténèbres, désespoir, et nous ne voyens qu'obscurité et confusion dans la nature de Dieu et dans notre propre nature." S. P. Art. xv. 2. Quotations proving his clear experimental knowledge of man's depravity and Christ's Redemption, of the sanctification of God the Holy Ghost, of the life of faith and the love of God might be multiplied; but as a sufficient proof of his eminent piety, I would refer to the Pensées S. P. Art. xix. entitled, "Prière pour demander de Dieu le bon usage des Maladies." Let who will deem it "a perilous act of presumption to represent him as being conformed to the image of Christ, as every one of God's elect must be," I will deliberately and confidently avow my belief, that Blaise Pascal was and is a Saint of God. I know by experience that his works have a general tendency to enlarge and strengthen the understanding, and to affect the heart with most devout and fervent desires after whatsoever things are excellent, and would therefore recommend their study to all persons of a reflective cast of mind. I trust and hope that the same uprightness of intention which prompted the paper entitled "Good Men and Bad Systems" will induce you to favour me by inserting in your Magazine, this honest testimony in Pascal's favour. Perhaps a candid and careful review of the matter may induce you to sanction as well as to admit the sentiments of, Madam, Your constant reader and true Friend, Z. A. We are always well content to insert communications like the preceding, the christian spirit of which must commend the writer to every candid bosom. To 'sanction' its sentiments, however, in the sense that our correspondent means, is out of our power; because we neither took up the writings in question recently,' or ' casually;' but have very long mourned over what appears a dangerous delusion on the part of some estimable christians, and desired an opportunity to lead to a quiet and amicable discussion of the question. Our object in taking up Pascal's "Thoughts" was what we stated: fixing on one most essential point, we read through a volume recommended by a recent re-publication, with a laudatory essay prefixed from the powerful pen of Isaac Taylor. A volume of 450 pages, thus recommended, and bearing date 1838, was surely fair game to select; and with a full consciousness of laying ourselves open to the charge of extraordinary presumption, we besought the Lord's help, and went forward. Our correspondent, among other testimonies to Pascal's excellence, describes him as 'living by faith on the Son of God:' if it be so, the difficulty is set at rest but we must first ascertain that we are mutually agreed on the reply to the momentous ques |