metery, situated a suitable distance from a city or town, where the remains of departed relatives and friends may lie undisturbed; and where persons of all circumstances, and all denominations, may be accommodated with decent burial, is highly desirable; especially where the neighbourhood is populous, and is rapidly increasing; and it would be well if all those who take care to provide burying-places for their bodies after death, were as careful about a resting-place for their souls.

This Cemetery may be considered as the depôt of Death; where the last enemy will deposit the trophies of his victories; and where his vic tims, in a series of years, will probably exceed the number of the slain on the plains of Waterloo. This earth will become incorporated with human dust; this soil will be fattened with bodies once pampered with every luxury; here the worm will take up its abode in the socket of the eye, and will riot on human marrow. This will be the Carnival of Death. This will be the last lodging of many whom we have highly esteemed and loved; the long home to which they will be brought, and the mourners will go about the

streets.

But this shall not always be the repository of the dead. No; Marvel not at this, the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation.

Our departed friend died in the faith and hope of the gospel. She was an honourable member of the particular Baptist Church meeting in Byrom-street Chapel, Liverpool, for two-and-twenty years. She regularly filled up her place in the church as long as health and strength

would admit, and remained inviolable in her attachment to the truth, and to the prosperity of the Christian society to which she belonged, to her latest breath: she was not given to change. Her conduct and deportment were uniformly consistent and exemplary; her closet and her Bible were witnesses of her secret devotion. She was kind and benevolent, but unostentatious; and many of her acts of charity will not be known till that day when Christ will say, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. She felt a lively interest in the prosperity of religious and charitable institutions, and was usefully employed in the neighbourhood, in those societies in which it is the province of ladies to preside. Her life was a quiet, even course of piety and prudence, truly ornamental to her Christian profession. She withdrew from the observation of mortals, and endeavoured to approve herself in the sight of God.

Her illness was long and painful, but she bore it with Christian fortitude, meekness, and patience. She said but little, but her life had spoken by her decision of character, and the uprightness of her conduct. She renounced all dependence on human merit; her trust and dependence was alone on the atonement and righteousness of Jesus Christ. She committed her soul and her eternal concerns into the hands of Christ, persuaded that he is able to keep that which she had committed to him against that day. She once expressed a fear lest her confidence was too strong; but her dependence was placed on Christ, and her hope did not make her ashamed. She had no dread of death; in the near view of eternity she said, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me;

is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the day of provocation. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

The 15th chapter of the 1st Corinthians was then read, and solemn prayer offered up to God.

The corpse being deposited in the tomb, the service was concluded in the following manner.

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed, we therefore commit her body to the ground, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me. I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. For the Lord himself shall

descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord; wherefore comfort one another with these words.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.

N.B. Mrs. Martha Hope, sister to Mr. William Hope, departed this life in the seventy-second year of her age. Her death was improved by her pastor on Lord's-day, February 13, at the chapel in Byromstreet, from Revelations xxii. 20: "He which testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.

At the request of the Committee of the Cemetery, the Rev. Dr. Raffles delivered an appropriate address at the opening of the ground.

thinks the subject requires investigation, and he proceeds to examine what the Editor of Calmet has adduced.

The Editor of Calmet says, John the Baptist used the Syriac language; Jesus also spake in Syriac; the term used in the Gospel is only a translation; he, therefore, contends, that we should inquire what the Syriac word signifies. That word, he informs us, was y, (expressed in Hebrew letters,) and the result of his criticisms is, that it does not signify to dip. So confident is he, that he asserts the "illustration" which he has given "admits of no appeal; we are now at the fountain head: we are bound to acknowledge that our Lord, as well as John the Baptist, employed this Syriac term in the Syriac sense of it; in that of its daily application, in which the apostles, who spoke this language, would understand it." The author of the criticism in the "Critica Biblica" examines what the Editor of Calmet has alledged, and comes to an opposite conclusion. "But, besides this," he adds, "the word which is always used to denote baptism in the ancient Syriac version of the New Testament, is not yay but my," which, as he shews, by an appeal to SCHAAF, CASTELL, and MICHAELIS, signifies to im

merse.

The concluding words of this gentleman deserve attention: "Having thus investigated the true sense of the Syriac words used for baptism, I think the weight of evidence evidently preponderates in favour of immersion. Both words primarily and usually denote to dip, or immerge; and cannot, by any exertion, be brought to denote sprinkling, or pouring. It is true that yay is used for variegating with colours, by painting or streaking; but this is evidently a secondary sense of the

word, derived from the usual mode of dyeing by dipping; not by sprinkling or pouring, in which sense the word is not used. And, if even this were not the case, the word Ty, which is always used for the Greek Barrisw, is clearly to dip, or immerge, or wash by immersion. As we are now at the fountain head,' and are bound to acknowledge that our Lord, as well as John the Baptist, employed,' not this Syriac word,' that is, yay, but either of these Syriac terms in the Syriac sense of them; what sense can we suppose the Syrians to attach to them? Certainly Certainly not that of sprinkling or pouring; but of immersion or washing; and this il lustration admits of no appeal.”

In this criticism we have an additional evidence that our cause never loses by fair investigation. The testimony of this writer, who tells us he is not of our body, clearly shews what is the result of an examination which he has given at length. I have not the slightest idea who he is, but I am bound to thank him for his candid investigation.

As far as I have had opportunity, I have looked into works not mentioned by the learned enquirer; and I find that SCHINDLER, BUXTORF in his Lex. Talnud. & Chald. and BUXTORF, jun. in his Lex. Chald. et Syriac, agree with him, so far as the sense of the Chaldee and Syriac term yax is concerned; and that GOLIUS, WILLMET, and CHARDSON concur, in ascribing the same signification to the parallel word in the Arabic, which varies from the Syriac and Chaldee only by a single point, and clearly must be derived from the same common origin. I say nothing concerning Ty, because that term was examined in a paper in your Magazine for 1824, p. 236, &c.

Besides the authorities which

these learned lexicographers afford us, J. D. MICHAELIS has an observation on the very point in hand, which deserves attention, and which the author of the examination just noticed, has not mentioned. Speaking of the Greek words baptize and baptism, MICHAELIS says, "If a man wishes to know what terms Jesus would use in the language which he spake, for these words, they would be, Ty and yay, from which last the disciples of John are called Sabians, that is, (taufer,) plungers." Dogmatik. Von der Taufe, §. 182, p. 623.

It seems as if some people wished to remove our cause to another court; but it is evident we need not fear the issue, if only candid and learned judges sit on the bench. If the above observations are deemed suitable for the Magazine, they are at your service.

For therein is the righteousness of God

revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

THE meaning of this passage appears to me to be very imperfectly developed in the authorized version. The phrase "from faith to faith," certainly conveys no distinct and definite idea to the mind; and it has thrown an air of obscurity over the whole passage. The verse might, I think, be more clearly and correctly rendered thus: For in it the righteousness of God by faith is revealed to faith; as it is written, The just by faith shall live. Paul professes not to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; that is, it is the mighty and efficacious means of se

curing the salvation of every sincere believer, whether Jew or Greek; and this he assigns as the reason;for in it the righteousness of God by faith, or God's righteous plan of justification by faith in the sacrifice of Christ,is revealed and promulgated in order to produce faith, or to lead men to the exercise of this principle; as it is written in the prophesy of Habakkuk. The just by faith, or he who is thus justified, shall live, in the enjoyment of spiritual life while here on earth, and in the possession of life eternal beyond the grave.

By connecting εκ πιστεως with dialoσvvn Oεov, a meaning is elicited, which not only accords with the general scope and design of this epistle; but exactly corresponds with several particular passages; especially with the 22d verse of the third chapter; in which the same idea is expressed with greater amplification: the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, (is) unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. Now the righteousness of God is a righteousness by faith; and this the gospel; it reveals a method of constitutes the grand peculiarity of justification suited exactly to the fallen nature of man; not by the works of the law, but by a simple reliance on the sacrifice of Christ, who has fulfilled the law, and endured its penalty. This leading sentiment of the gospel, is confirmed by the quotation from the prophecy of Habakkuk, and in this quotation EK TISεWS, ought certainly to be connected with dukatos, rather than with Snoera, for this is not only the most natural arrangement of the words, but is absolutely necessary to complete the sense; since the design of the quotation was not to shew how the just shall live, but how he becomes just, which is, by faith.

H.