conceded to the other sects; some of whose ministers would be obliged to attest the performance of the ceremony with their marks instead of their names. There is no reason why the solemnization should not take place in every licensed house of worship; though these structures SO often change the purposes for which they are employed; and are one time dedicated to the worship of the Deity, at another to the consummation of those vices which he abhors. We trust that the Established Church will always be pre-eminent for the dignity and the solemnity of its ceremonies but we should farther think, that the more respectable Dissenters will shudder at the introduction of a custom, through which they will certainly be disgraced by the practices of their ruder brethren. We think it, however, our duty to add, that the Marriage Act of George II. is a very confused production. No. II. business. Allow me, before I com clude, to embrace the opportunity of making one remark. You say that "in every Christian country marriage has been esteemed a religious ceremony and a civil contract united.” Now, for the argument's sake, allowing this to be ever so accurately true, I would wish to ask, whether the most logical and legitimate, as well as the best practical inference from the premises, would not be, that while for the security of social order and of property, descendible or otherwise, the most effectual means should be adopted to render the civil contract firm, indissoluble and easy of judicial proof, the strength and permanence of the moral tie would not be best ensured by leaving the religious ceremony to be performed in the mode most congenial to the religious sentiments of the persons themselves; by which their most valuable feelings would inevitably be more deeply interested in the transaction than they can be by the use of a form to which Letter from Mr. W. Smith on the the parties may unfortunately have above Remarks. annexed the ideas of inexpedience or I am, Sir, No. III. upon upon To the Editor of the Times. Remarks of the Times wise, the most effectual means should be adopted to render the civil contract, firm, indissoluble and easy of judicial proof, the strength and permanence of the moral tie would not be best ensured by leaving the religious ceremony to be performed in the mode most congenial to the religious sentiments of the persons themselves?" To this question we cheerfully reply; first, that logically, Mr. Smith's supposition would make marriage not a religious ceremony and a civil contract united, but a religious ceremony and a civil contract separated, and therefore, not necessarily co-existent; and that the practical inference would be, that the contracting parties would take as much of either as they liked. For example, the Socinians, we believe, exist in all conceivable gradations, from Christianity, or something near it, down to no Christians at all. There can be no reason why the latter should practise a religious ceremony enjoined by Christ, and recalled by him to primitive purity, by the restriction of single male to single female: with these, therefore, the marriage rite would lose all its solemnity, and become an affair of wax and parchment. On the contrary, the religionists of an opposite description, the enthusiasts, would make it wholly a pious rite or celebration, and limit its commencement and duration to the feeling or experience of passion; the internal motions of what they call godly love, directing them and giving them a right to the enjoyment of its object. With such the civil contract, affecting to bind those whom God had bound, would be superfluous, nay, even impious; and we are not speaking here by conjecture: this has been the language and the practice also of enthusiasts on the subject. Indeed we think it obvious, that if marriage were to be considered as a civil contract only, there can be no reason why it should not observe the character of all civil contracts, and be dissoluble at the will of the parties: but as a divine ordinance, it obtains a controul over the mind itself, and can only be directed, as to form and circumstance, by human laws. At present the church service enjoys by prescription the right of so lemnizing this ceremony with most effect; and we should think, that the respectable Dissenters of all classes would desire, as they have hitherto acquiesced in the practice, that it should not now be set aside. It is only their respectability that can suffer by the change; the marriages of the Established Church will not be affected. GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE OF GENERAL READING. No. CCCXVI. Magnanimity of a King of Sweden at a Public Execution. The late King of Sweden had condemned a soldier to die; and stood at a little distance from the place of execution. The fellow, when he heard this, was in hopes of a pardon; but being assured he was mistaken, cried, his tongue was yet free, he would use it at his pleasure, which he did with great license, accusing the King most insolently, and as loud as he could speak, of barbarity and injustice, and appealing to God for revenge of his wronged innocence. The King, not hearing him distinctly, inquired of those about him, what the soldier had been saying; and was told, by a general officer, who was unwilling to heighten his resentment against the miserable, that he had only repeated very often and loud, that God loves the merciful, and teaches the mighty to moderate their anger. The King was touched by the lesson, and sent his pardon to the criminal. But a courtier, of an opposite interest, took advantage of the occasion, and repeated to the King exactly the licentiousness of the fellow's railing; adding gravely when he had done, that men of quality and trust ought never, in his opinion, to misrepresent facts to their sovereign. The King for some time stood suspended in his thoughts; but turning at length toward the courtier, with a face of reproof; it is the first time, said he, that ever I have been betrayed for my advantage! But the LIE of your enemy pleased me better than your TRUTH does. Plain-Dealer, No. I. May 12, 1734. 1 VOL. XII. BIBLICAL CRITICISM. * Dr. Alexander on Philip. ü. 5—11. SIR, Wakefield, June 12, 1817. OOKING over some of my papers the other day, I cast my eye on the following criticism on Philip. ii. 5-11; and recollecting some years ago to have shewn it to my friend Mr. Jones, who, at that time, expressed his cordial approbation of it, it occurred to me, that it might not be unacceptable to your readers in general. In no version that I have yet seen does the sense of the original appear to me to have been adequately expressed; nor does any exposition of the passage that I have hitherto met with, convey, in my apprehension, the full force and peculiar propriety of the apostle's language. If, therefore, you deem it not unworthy of a place in your miscellany, it is entirely at your service. DISNEY ALEXANDER, M. D. In the passage before us the apostle is exhorting the converts at Philippi to cultivate the amiable virtues of humility, condescension and benevolence, intimating to them, at the same time, that they would be called to suffer in the cause of religion. And in order to give the greater effect to his exhortation, he places before them the animating example of the Founder of their faith, and reminds them of the glorious reward with which his obedience has been crowned. "Let this mind be in you which was likewise in Christ Jesus, who, though in the form of God, thought not of the robbery of being equal with God, but divested himself of it, and assumed the form of a servant; who being in the likeness of men, and proved to be in frame as a man, abased himself so ✦ Author of Illustrations of the Four Gospels, a work replete with ingenious criticism and philosophical research; and which the scholar should read for its elegance, the Christian for the confirmation of his faith, and the sceptic for the cogent and luminous display of those beauties and evidences of our religion, which, however they may escape the notice of the careless and superficial, are neverthe less powerfully adapted to impress conviction on the mind of every serious and dispassionate inquirer. as to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. On which account God hath highly exalted him, and conferred on him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, among those that are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." On the passage thus rendered, I proceed to submit the following observations to the judgment of the reader. Though in the form of God. The allusion is, as I conceive, to the transfiguration on the mount, where he assumed a divine or luminous or supernaturally splendid appearance, his face shining as the sun and his raiment becoming white as snow: popen Ges without the article, literally in a form of God, a phraseology precisely answering to that in Mark ii. 22, Acts vii. 20, Gen. xxx. 8, and various other passages. Thought not of the robbery of being equal with God. This is an exactly literal version of ex dgrayμòr qyÝ call to vas a ew. So far was he from claiming it as his due, that he never harboured such an idea, never once thought of the robbery of being equal with God; i. e. of arrogating to knew to be the prerogative of God himself that worship which he well borrowed from the Jewish Scriptures. alone. The language is evidently "Shall a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me." Mal. iii. 8. "Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even thy whole nation," ver. 9. See also Jer. vii. 11. But what gives a singular force and energy to this expression, is the circumstance that the Jews did actually acense our Lord, during the exercise of his ministry among them, of this sacrilegious act. Compare carefully John v. 18, and x. 33. To repel, therefore, so unjust and invidious a charge, a charge which, it is probable, still continued to be urged against the meek and lowly Jesus by many, both among the open enemies and false friends of the Christian faith, appears to have been the chief, if not the sole object of the writer in using this pointed and energetic language. And this remark shews the futility of the ingenious Mr. Robinson's sarcastic animadversions on the Unitarian interpretation of the passage in his Plea for the Divinity of Jesus Christ, a book, nevertheless, which contains the best and most eloquent defence of that doctrine which has, perhaps, ever yet appeared, and reflects equal credit on the talents and on the integrity of its author. The common English translation of this text, suggests a sense decidedly at variance with the uniform tenour of Scripture. But the propriety of retaining the literal sense of the term agrayuor is, I think, obvious from what has already been remarked; and I may add, it is still farther confirmed by our Lord's own language; for in John x. 8, speaking of those false shepherds who obtruded themselves into the fold of God, and claimed divine honours, he explicitly denominates such persons thieves and robbers. Compare Acts viii. 9, 10, and 2 Thess. ii. 4. recollection of the apostles, than the. luminous and transporting scene which had presented itself on the mount; aud it is no wonder that we find Paul making honourable mention of it, and deducing, from so memorable an act of humility and affection, an argument to enforce on his brethren the indispensable obligations they were, under to be mutually affectionate and condescending one to another. The impostors, while they maintained the Divinity of Christ, asserted that he was a man only in appearance, denying at the same time the reality of his death. They denied his death, with a view to set aside the scriptural doctrine of the resurrection; and it is probable they rejected his real humanity, that they might have a more plausible pretext for disputing the reality of his death; and thus we see why the great doctrines of the hu manity and death of Jesus were necessarily connected and associated together in the mind of our apostle; and likewise, why the apostles in general, both in their discourses and in their But divested himself of it, i. e. of epistles, so frequently recur to these that divine or supernaturally splendid topics, and appear to lay so much form which he assumed on the mount, stress upon them. It is to these that and which, had he been so disposed, the writer next adverts. Who being he might have retained. So far, how- in the likeness of men, and proved to ever, was he from seeking his own be in frame as a man, abused himself aggrandisement and exaltation, that, so as to become obedient unto death, as soon as it had answered the end even the death of the cross, i. e. as Jesus proposed, he laid it aside and assumed in form resembled men, so he was a character and situation exactly the found or proved, on the fullest investireverse, taking upon him the form of a gation, to be really a man. The term servant. How striking a contrast is Eugebes found or proved, seems to be here! and how necessary it is that it used in a judicial sense, and implies should be preserved in the translation! full and satisfactory evidence of the Wakefield, though he may have given fact (compare John xx. 27, Acts i. the general sense of the passage, has 3, Luke xxiv. 39, and 1 John i. 1, not expressed it with that point and &c.); and as a farther confirmation of energy which the original manifestly his "possessing a real human nature, displays the form of a servant. We and at the same time a mind infinitely have seen, that in the former verse exalted above all selfish or ambitious the apostle had been alluding to one views, he submitted to a death at specific and remarkable occurrence, once the most public, painful and and we shall find that he here refers to ignominious that can be conceived." another; thus preserving the strength and beauty of the contrast. And when did Jesus assume the form, in other words, sustain the character of a servant? Surely, when after girding himself with a towel, he washed the feet of his disciples. Such a singular instance of condescension in one whom they regarded as their Teacher and Lord, was not less likely to live in the Wherefore, or on which account God also hath highly exalted him, agreeably to the tenour of his own declaration, he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. That the exaltation of Jesus to a state of unrivalled dominion and supreme felicity, was the reward of his previous self-abasement and voluntary sufferings, is the uniform doctrine both of the Old and of the New Tes tament. "Therefore," says the prophet, "will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death," &c. Isa. liii. 12. "Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows:" Heb. i. 9, and see Heb. ii. 9. And given him a name that is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven and in the earth and under the earth. The first thing observable here is the double sense of the word name, which occurs three times in this paragraph. This conceive to be a distinction of some importance, though it has escaped, to the best of my knowledge, the notice of commentators. In the two first places, it is, I believe, generally admitted to denote that power or authority, that pre-eminence of rank or dignity, with which Jesus was invested, as the Son of God, the Lord of the new creation, the Saviour and Judge of the universe. Very opposite to this is the signification which it bears in the third or last place of its occurrence. It there refers to the simple humanity of the Messiah, to the personal name of Jesus, with which his enemies had associated every sentiment of obloquy, derision and contempt, and which many, even among the professed converts to Christianity, were reluctant and ashamed publicly to acknowledge. The obscure son of a carpenter, the humble and persecuted prophet of Nazareth, a condemned malefactor, a crucified Redeemer, were sounds equally abhorrent from the feelings and hostile to the prejudices both of Jew and Gentile; and it is a fact, well known to readers of ecclesiastical history, and amply corroborated by the testimony of the sacred writers, that, in those early days, numbers of the professed advocates of the gospel, in order to facilitate its acceptance among the higher ranks of society, endeavoured to sink the personal name of Jesus under the splendour of his assumed divinity, and to roll away the reproach of the cross, by representing him as a supernatural being, incapable of suffering and superior to death. And this circumstance not only satisfactorily explains, but will be found to throw a new and beautiful light upon several other passages in the New Testament, which, without the knowledge of the above fact, must be allowed to be extremely obscure, if not quite unintelligible. See 1 Cor. xvi. 22, Acts ii. 22, 32, 33, 86, 1 John iv. 2, 3, Rom. i. 16, Mark viii. 38, Gal. vi. 14, 1 Peter ii. 7. The apostle, therefore, by this clause intimates, that whatever odium may be affixed to the name of Jesus by his open enemies or pretended friends, it was a name, beyond all others, precious in the sight of God; and that, that very Jesus whom men rejected and anathematized was appointed sole Mediator between God and man, the honoured instrument of effecting the subjugation of all created intelligences whatsoever, to the dominion of the one living and true God. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The apostles, no less than the Saviour himself, uniformly made the glory of God their ultimate end and object. The glory of God required that his Son should be honoured and acknowledged. He had sent him into the world: he had entrusted him with a most awful and important commission. This commission the Son had executed to the perfect satisfaction of the Father. The Father had already expressed his approbation of the conduct of his Son, by the high state of exaltation and glory to which he had raised him; he had given him a kingdom, he had seated him upon a throne, and he now called upon all men to acknowledge his authority and to obey his commands. And so far is this from derogating from the honour due to God alone, that by it the Father is glorified; as a monarch esteems himself honoured when his ambassador is treated with respect. Compare Isa. xlv. 23, John v. 23. I conclude by remarking, that this passage seems to me strongly to inculcate that most consolatory and animating doctrine, the final restitution of all men to virtue and to happiness. What! shall the designs of Providence, in the redemption of mankind, be frustrated? Shall the puny arm of a feeble mortal counteract the intentions of Omnipotence? If Jesus |