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the first Mennonite Baptist churches takes place in the direction of North Holland. And now here I must take leave of you till my next, after adding a few words on the Baptist church at Amsterdam. There were, formerly, two churches in that city, distinguished by the names of the Sun and the Lamb. Their difference of religious opinion was, at first, and for a considerable length of time, important, but approximating by degrees near to each other in this respect; the two churches united in one under their respective pastors. They together consist of about one thousand eight hundred members, and are supplied with four pastors; one of whom, Professor Koopman, directs the theological studies of the young candidates for the ministry. The number of deacons is about twentyfour. There is a fund for defraying the expenses attending preparing students for their ministry, which fund is in the hands, and under the direction of the Church of Amsterdam. The students, as in Edinburgh, lodge in the town, and not under one roof, as is the case in our seminaries. Accept of my best regards, and present the same to the brethren of the Committee; and I remain, in the hope of soon writing you again from the Zaan,

Yours always truly,

W. H. ANGAS.

ELI AND ELOI,

To the general reader there may appear to be something extraordinary in the respective accounts of Matthew and Mark, when they direct our attention to the words uttered by our Lord on the cross at the ninth bour. For Matthew states, that the first two words were Eli, Eli; whereas, Mark's language leads to the inference, that the exclamation began with Eloi, Eloi. Those persons, however, who read the Hebrew Bible, are, in some measure, prepared to solve the difficulty, having met with the very same variation in the Old Testament. Thus the two English words "My God" in Psalm xviii. 2, are expressed by the Hebrew word Eli, whilst in 2 Sam. xxii. 3, we have,

Strictly speaking, El comprises two words, EL meaning GOD, and I signify.

with respect to the sense, an obvious counterpart in which Elohi is used instead of Eli; and, when Hebrew is ex pressed by Greek letters, Elohi becomes Eloi. By analogy, therefore, we may conclude that the word Eloi in Mark xv. 34, is a synonym of Eli in Matt. xxvii. 46.

That Eli was the real expression used at the cross, may be inferred from the supposition of the Jews, that our Lord invoked Elijah. For, though the Hebrew word Elijah was Elias in Greek, yet in Syro-Chaldaic, or the language spoken by our Lord, the name of that prophet appears to have been Elia, and was probably pronounced like alia in our word regalia, whilst Eli was probably equivalent in sound to ali in the same word.

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It may also be seen that Eli, Eli, are the Hebrew expressions used at the beginning of the twenty-second Psalm, where, as the ancestor of Christ, David exclaims, My God, my God, why bast thou forsaken me." As the word EL, therefore, was one of the ancient names of God, the word ELI, or MY GOD, was not only the language of the Jewish scriptures, but it was also

ing OF ME: and GOD OF ME in the Hebrew idiom is equivalent to MY GOD in the English idiom.

In this compound word, ELO' means GOD; and, consequently, ELO'I is equivalent to Eli, and signifies MY GOD. In the passage, however, in the second book of Samuel, the Hebrew points seem to have induced our faithful translators to render the Hebrew, "The God of my Rock," rather than "My God, my Rock," consistent with the Hebrew when divested of the points. But the Septuagint or ancient Greek version never seems to have been affected by those guides to the Masoretical pronunciation: and hence, the very same Greek words for My God" in Mark's translation of Eloi, are also used for "My God" in 2 Sam. xxii. 3, and in Ps. xviii. 2. In short, the sense in both places appears on investigation to be " My God, my Rock, in him will I take refuge:" and the Hebrew in each case is precisely the same, with the exception of Elo'i in the former passage, and of Eli in the latter; and from the coincidence of the Greek where the Hebrew thus differs, it is obvious that Eli and Elo'i

were accounted convertible terms.

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the language of those who lived in the ages of antiquity. It was natural then, that the ancient word Eli should be devoutly uttered by the suffering Sa viour who was no stranger either to antiquity, or to the Hebrew scriptures. -But as ELO'I was the Syro-Chaldaic word for "MY GOD," and as the latter part of our Lord's exclamation was in that language, it was as proper to use the appropriate and intelligible substitute Elo'i in any Syro-Chaldaic narrative, as it was for the Hebrew writers to substitute Jehovah for antiquated names of God, used by those who had never known the Deity by that sacred

name.

Though, however, the first accounts of Christ might be adapted to the land of Judea, yet such was to be the progress of the gospel, that the Greek language was eventually adopted in order that inspired narratives might be furnished to distant nations, and to generations then unborn: and, under these circumstances, Matthew's gospel takes the original mixture of Hebrew and Syro-Chaldaic, as uttered at the cross, for the basis of his Greek translation of our Lord's exclamation; whereas, in the gospel by Mark, recourse is had to the Syro-Chaldaic dialect for the sense, and to the Greek for conveying that sense to others.

It may be concluded, therefore, that the ancient Hebrew word Eli was the expression used by our Lord, and that the vernacular term Elo'i exactly conveyed its meaning to a native of Judea: and thus it should seem that such was the antiquity of our Lord's phraseology, that the Jews themselves did not understand him, but actually thought he meant to say, “Elijah, Elijah, why hast thou forsaken me." There was, however, something very affecting in the expiring Saviour's exclamation. It was a mode of expression in which the language used by him from his earlier years in this world, was solemnly mingled with the language of ages that had long rolled away. It is not, indeed, surprising, that any man in the agonies of death should utter words familiar to him from bis youth. For in such an extremity the strongest man appears as the weakest, and the most skilful orator uses the unadorned language of natural feeling. But to have heard a dying man in the Christian age speak

ing partly in his native tongue, and partly in the language of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we must have gone to Calvary, and have heard it from the lips of Him who once said to the Jews, "Before Abraham was, I am," (John viii. 58;) and who was not only man but Immanuel, “God with us." Bromley, Middlesex. J. F.

ON CIRCUMCISION.

WERE female infants members of the Jewish church? If so, how were they made members of that religious community? Not by circumcision. If they were members of the Jewish church, it must follow, that circumcision was not an essential pre-requisite to church-membership, and since females were once constituted members of the church without any ceremony, it seems that the gospel has abrogated their privilege; for, it is said, they cannot now be members of the church without having the initiatory rite of Christianity applied to them. If, however, the gospel church be the continuation of the Jewish church, these females are members without submitting to any ceremony. Will it be said, that females were incapable of circumcision? It is readily granted, but the question still returns. How were they made members of the church? Can we suppose that God instituted an ordinance as introductory to the covenant of grace, which, from its very nature, necessarily excluded all the female sex from the possibility of entering into that covenant?

If the men among the Jews believed that circumcision was the only introduction into the covenant of grace, they must have concluded that women were not in the covenant. Ifcircumcision was the only introduction into the covenant, is it not very unaccountable that we never read of one female doubting her interest in the covenant. The title of the man was explicitly announced, but an awful silence is maintained as to the title of the woman. The sexual aspect of circumcision, was calculated to fill the female mind with gloomy apprehensions, that, as the woman was the first in the transgression, all her female descendants were excluded from the benefits of the cove. nant of grace. In exact proportion to

the certainty of the man's salvation, the uncertainty of the woman's salvation would appear. She might be supposed to say, "I see how God loves the man," but as his salvation seems to turn on the difference of the sexes, does not this circumstance prove, that females have nothing to do with the covenant of grace? as circumcision is the outward sign of the salvation of the man, it seems to be the visible token of the woman's perdition! But, if circumcision was not then considered as the introduction into the covenant of grace, these apprehensions could not have been cherished. It appears very plain, that females, as well as males, were members of the Jewish church. It was theirs by birth-right: and, if we must speak of the privilege of one sex above the other, doubtless the female enjoyed the greater privilege of being exempt from the painful rite of circumcision; for circumcision was a yoke of bondage, and we have reason to rejoice, that it is not imposed on the gentiles. Was the man who now pleads so loudly for circumcision as a privilege, commanded to confer this privilege on his son, his very heart would bleed within him; and probably, like Moses, he would defer the bloody rite, till his very life was endangered by his neglect to perform it. Exod. iv. 24.

Let us endeavour to give its full force to this pathetic allusion. Picture to yourself a case which must have repeatedly occurred in the course of the forty years Moses spent with his people in the wilderness. An Israelite, we will suppose, soon after he became a father, is bereaved of the delight of his eyes, while an only pledge of conjugal affection remains, alternately to increase and assuage his grief. How weighty, but how interesting would he feel that charge, which yet he would not for all the world decline or transfer; a neighbour's wife might he hire to suckle it; but he himself would also feed it, with the freshest manna, and as much as possible, take the care of it himself. However long and tedious his march by day, parental affection would make the burden of a motherless babe not only light but pleasant: and, at night, he would lay it to rest in his own bosom. When God visited the sins of Israel with fiery serpents, which bit them, so that much of the people died, how would this nursing father feel his anxiety increased! His only son would scarce ever be off his knee in his tent, never out of his bosom on their journies: and, if in spite of all his precautions, a serpent had bitten bis darling child, its deadly poison was spreading rapidly through its veins, he began to be convulsed, and nothing

Familiar Illustrations of the Sacred but the remedy prescribed by the mer

Writings. No. III. PSALM XXXIX. 1. " I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue."

It is related of one of the ancients, that a man, without learning, came to him to be taught a psalm. He turned to the thirty-ninth; but when he had heard the first verse of it, he would hear no more, saying, this was enough if he could practise it; and when the instructor blamed him that he had not seen him for six months; he replied, that he had not done the verse; and forty years after he confessed he had been all that time studying it, but had not learned to fulfil it. "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." Numbers xi. 12. "That thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swearest unto their fathers."

VOL. XVII,

ciful JEHOVAH could save him from the agonies of death; how would the father run, and hold him up in his arms, view the brazen serpent! With what gently forcing open his closing eyes to gratitude would his bosom glow, when he perceived his infant instantly revive! How would he, after this recovery, pursue his course with renewed vigour; and, though he knew himself doomed to fall in the wilderness, he would fondly anticipate his offspring's future possession of the promised land; and that hope would counterbalance all his present affliction and toil. O, my brethren in the ministry! this is the pattern we are taught by the text to place before us. With such feelings as these, may we direct the eyes of our dear people to a crucified Saviour: with such feelings as these may we bear them in our bosoms to the confines of DR. RYLAND. glory.

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Obituary and Recent Deaths.

REV. JAMES DORE,

OF WALWORTH,

ON Lord's-day morning, March 20th, died James Dore, M. A. aged sixty-one, late pastor of the church meeting in Maze-pond, Southwark. It is forty-two years since Mr. Dore, then at the Academy at Bristol, received an invitation from that church, to succeed the late Mr. Wallin; which, after twelve months of supply and deliberation, he accepted. He was born of pious parents belonging to the Establishment, and when a little boy, became decidedly religious and devout, by some occasional preaching of Sir Harry Trelawney: but afterwards an aunt, giving him "Reasons in Favour of Episcopacy," set him to search the scriptures, which caused his being baptized at fifteen, by his brother, William Dore, of Ciren

cester.

His ministry, in which he too ardently spent himself, was remarkably blessed to a numerous circle, of rather retired tastes and character. Though his praise has long sounded among the churches; yet, as by principle he made his own church his home, moving not from it, he was comparatively less known than he deserved.

For the last fourteen years he has been wholly confined, and indefatigably nursed by the dearest and best of wives, in his sick chamber: still, however, dispensing instruction, and laying himself out in his Master's service, and exemplifying the tenderest interests of the friend and the Christian pastor; dying, (to use his own words,) "in good hope through grace," with "Maze Pond" written upon his heart.

ANNA HIRD, ISLINGTON, LIVERPOOL.

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OBITUARIES are not exempt from objections on the part of some serious persons. When the lofty joys and celestial triumphs of a dying saint are pictured in glowing colours, the doubting Christian, far from being encouraged, is sometimes tempted to suspect more strongly the safety of his state. The lively hopes and exulting expressions of some, as recorded by survivors, are so remote from all that the feeble and harassed believer has yet enjoyed, as to induce him even to question altogether the reality of his own conversion, and to anticipate, at his own dissolution, a very different termination. This effect may be heightened by the silence generally maintained in reference to all the blemishes of the deceased. Their immorality or irreligion before converson, the defects of their Christian pro

fession, their weaknesses in domestic or public life, all may be unnoticed. The charity of the recording friend covers a multitude of sins; affection for

the departed will not permit him to relate the faults which he cannot altogether forget. And, indeed, memory, earned partiality, very speedily remits all that once gave pain, and retains only all that is lovely in its nature, and celestial in its origin.

when under the influence of a well

Nor will the authority of scripture, in its biography of the most eminent saints, justify that impartial exhibition of good and evil, in the character which some demand in the modern Obituary. He who tries the heart, who is the Head and Lord of the church; He who is to judge the living and the dead; He, in his book, may record the infirmities and the crimes of his own struction of other children. Holy men, children, for the warning and the inin that book, wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. But brethren are not warranted by such a procedure on Christ's part, to publish to the world

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Rev.
James Dore M.A.
London

Engraved by Freeman for the Baptist Magazine.

Published by BJHoldsworth SPauls Church Yard. April. 1825.

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