his book. We go futher, and affirm that by this method anything may be proved: Arminianism, Socinianism, Unitarianism, Swedenborgianism, and every other ism. The writer might have collected Scriptures under such headings as these: Jerusalem will be built after a divine model-Priesthood will be instituted-Levitical sacrifices will be restored-Tithes will be re-imposed-Fleshly circumcision will be a necessary qualification for millennial worship-All nations will go up to Jerusalem to worship-The earth will be restored to its Edenic stateThe Jews will be masters of the world, the Gentiles going over to them in chains, &c. Nay, Mr. S. might have reversed his positions, and by the same have proved them as much as he has those he has laid down, which is not at all. The history of millennarianism, like the history of state churches, has made more infidels than Christians. There is a moral certainty that the predictions of Mr. Baxter will fail, as Dr. Cumming's have done, and as thousands before his had failed also. Infidels will be hardened in their opposition to the truth of Christianity, and sober-minded Christians will hang down their heads. All this must be expected; yet one thing cheers "The foundation of God standeth sure.' us: Gems of Old Divinity. CONCORD AMONG MINISTERS. READILY and rashly to dissent from other faithful and approved ministers of Christ is not like our apostle's carriage. Indeed, we must not admire men too much, though of greatest learning and piety; not so affect unity, as to forsake verity; or so follow men as to forget God. The best men in the world are but rules regulated, not reg ulating. We must only so far set our watch according to theirs, as they set theirs according to the sun. Satan endures no mediocrity. All ministers he represents as dwarfs or giants, none of a middle stature : either they must be worshipped or stoned. Avoid we both extremes; neither proudly dissenting from, nor imprudently assenting to them, either in practice or opinion. Their gifts must neither be adored nor obscured; their falls and slips neither aggravated nor imitated. We must avoid both sequaciousness to follow them in any thing, and singularity to dislike them in every thing. The middle way of a holy Scripture consent, joining in what we may, and meekly forbearing in what we may not, is a gracious temper. Ministers must not so study to have multitudes of followers, as to scorn to have any companions, to vilify others for the advancement of themselves, -to build up their own reputation upon the ruin of another's. Consent as much as may be is no more than should be. If ministers labour after a holy peace with all men, much more with one another, there is not more beauty than strength in their union. How pleasant it is to read Peter mentioning his agreement with his beloved brother Paul, that Paul who had withstood him to the face. There is no repugnancy ww in Scripture,-why should there be betwixt them that handle it? If the penmen of isters must not be at war in preaching. the Scripture are at peace in writing, minThey must not seek more their praise for wit, than the profit of souls. When children fall out in interpreting their father's will, the orphan's patrimony becomes the lawyer's booty. Heretics are the gainers by the divisions of them who should explain the word of Christ. The dissensions of ministers are the issue of pride. If there must be strife, let it be in this, who shall be foremost in giving honour; if emulation, in this, who shall win most souls to Christ, not admirers to themselves. It is good to others. The apostles in the infancy of use our own parts, and not to condemn their calling were not without pride.— and example.-Jenkyn. Christ laboured to allay it both by precept THE BEST DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS should contend for the faith, and this they must do in sundry ways. First, by prayer. This hath got as many victories as disputation; secondly, by a holy example,-confuting wickedness and heresy by the language of their lives. Professor, hearest thou this: "the language of their lives?" Thy life has a language deep and powerful, and by it thou art either building up or pulling down the church of God; for nothing does religion so much harm as an unholy life in one who professes holiness, and a holy life has a power on the other side equally good. Consider these things, look into thy soul, and may God bless thee. Amen. Notes of the Month. RITUALISM.-The Commissioners have made their report to Her Majesty, in which they announce, among other things, that they have come to the conclusion that vestments are by none regarded as essential, while they give grave offence to many; and that they are of opinion that it is expedient to restrain in the public services all variations in respect of vesture from that which has long been the established usage of the United Church of England and Ireland, and they think that this may be best secured by providing aggrieved parishioners with an easy and effectual process for complaint and redress. The Commissioners then state that they are not yet prepared to recommend to Her Majesty the best mode of giving effect to the conclusions at which they have arrived; but with a view to secure the objects proposed, and promote the peace of the church, they have thought it their duty not to delay the communication of the conclusions to which they have arrived. This must certainly be considered a vital blow to Ritualism, though its supporters will die hard. The Rev. John Purches, of Brighton, is determined to fight to the last, as the proceedings of the church over which he presides fully demonstrate. The rev. gentleman, speaking very spitefully against the Commission, presented himself to the congregation attired in the most gorgeous fashion, and avowed himself more than a match for them. Others have been equally zealous in vituperating the Commission; but Ritualism has, we think, had its day. It has had an impartial, or we may rather say partial, trial in its own favour, and has been unequivocally condemned. persecution is doing its work in other parts of England; for a correspondent writes that a Mr. Millard, a farmer, a member of the Baptist church at Wedmere, Somersetshire, has received notice from his landlord to leave his farm, because he refused to pay an unjust Church rate," while other cases of distress, far too numerous to mention, we might record occasioned by this most oppressive and iniquitous of all taxes. and RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.-For several years a man named Parsons has lived at Leigh Green, near Tenterden, under Seaman Beales, Esq., and we have every reason to believe that he has been a good tenant. It appears that recently a son of Parsons, a youth about twenty years of age, has thought fit to join the Bible Christians at Boar's Isle, and to become a teacher in their Sunday-school. A few Sundays ago, as the Rev. R. C. T. Beale, incumbent of Boar's Isle, was returning from the ad. ministration of the Lord's Supper, he met this youth, and by some means or other ascertained that he was going to this Dissenting Sunday-school. The result was that during the ensuing week Parsons was waited upon by his landlord, threatened with expulsion from his house, if the son did not at once give up his connection with the Bible Christian chapel and school. After a long conversation, in which the poor man pleaded the hardship of the case, Mr. Beale relented, and agreed to be satisfied if the young man were sent away from home. And with this hard condition the poor parents were obliged to comply, or submit to be turned out of the house themselves. The son has accordingly been driven away from the home of his CHURCH RATES.-The parish of Berkhamp-childhood, and compelled to seek lodgings stead, in Herts., has recently been the scene at Tenterden. So much for the religious of a violent and bitter contention-the liberties of agricultural labourers in Engpeople being much divided in opinion; and, with a view to a settlement of the question, Mr. Longman, the eminent publisher, and another gentleman residing in the neighbourhood, resolved on a scheme which would satisfy the people of the town, and at the same time be calculated to have some influence in directing future legislation on the subject. After a number of suggestions were made, the following resolution was adopted :-" That the churchwardens should be provided with twenty subscriptions of £5 each by Nov. 1st, 1867, towards meeting the expenditure;" after which the proceedings amicably terminated. But land.-Sussex paper. THE PAN-ANGLICAN SYNOD, or Gathering of Colonial Bishops, is holding a series of meetings, the first of which, under the sanction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, took place at St. Lawrence, Jewry, on Saturday, Sept. 14. It was expected that the Bishop of London would inaugurate the services, but he did not appear, and they opened by a very decided ritualistic display. A procession of seventy boys, priests, and acolytes, each dressed in Romish fashion, led the way, while the rest of the service was in keeping with the commencement. Other services of a like nature have characterized | gaol, a short distance from the city. The the proceedings, but an agreeable change for the better took place when the Rev. James Hunter, formerly Archdeacon of Rupert's Land, gave a very interesting description of his mission there, and stated that he had himself preached the gospel from the Red River to the arctic circle, and concluded by an earnest appeal for pecuniary support. We hope these meetings may be the means of spreading the gospel still more largely among the heathen. ECCLESIASTICAL TYRANNY.-Has a gipsy a soul? If so, a rev. gentleman who officiates at Bushey, Herts, and whose profession is the cure of souls, must be pronounced a careless or incompetent practitioner; for, if we are correctly informed, some gipsies in the vicinity entered the church with a view of worshiping there; and though their demeanour was perfectly decorous, the rev. gentleman refused to allow the service to proceed unless the gipsies left the building, which they proceeded to do; and their spiritual wants would have remained uncared for, had it not been for some friends connected with a dissenting place of worship, who bade the outcasts welcome to their community, and by presenting them with Bibles and religious books, together with kind words, so won the hearts of the swarthy wanderers, as to bring tears to their eyes. How the rev. gentlemen can reconcile his conduct with the command of the Master he professes to serve, or the rules of the Church of which he is a member, we cannot conceive. Possibly he is not a careful biblical scholar, and has never read the passage—“The rich and the poor meet together: the Lord is the Maker of them all." THE POWER OF PRAYER.-Mr. Müller's Orphanage at Bristol is a wonderful monument of faith in God. There are now 1,150 orphans in the three houses, while two additional houses are in course of erection. Mr. Müller in his report says, "Without anyone having been personally applied to by me, the sum of £259,089 has been given me for the orphans, as the result of prayer to God, since the commencement of the work;" besides, clothing, furniture, &c., to the amount of £11,467. THE FENIANS.--We had hoped the clemency shown to these notorious criminals would have been effectual in preventing any more outrages; but we regret that such is not the case, as a daring attempt was made to rescue from custody two men at Manchester, known as Col. Kelly and Capt. Deasy, as they were about to be removed to the van had no sooner reached an open road, Ano FOOLHARDINESS PUNISHED.-The Whitehaven Bench of Magistrates have just ad. ministered a lesson to pitmen guilty of recklessly imperilling their own and their fellow-workmen's lives. They have sent two pitmen to gaol for fourteen days, with hard labour, for being in possession of a tobacco pipe in a part of the William pit mine where safety lamps are used. ther was committed to gaol for a month, with hard labour, for taking off the top of his safety-lamp. It has hitherto been the practice of the bench in such cases to inflict a fine, but at the hearing it transpired that the pitmen clubbed together to pay such fines. Taking into consideration the fact that the lives of 500 workmen were by such carelessness wantonly imperilled, the magistrates determined upon sending the defendants to gaol without the option of paying a fine, and we think their decision will meet with general approval. THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION.-The cruelty and contumacy of King Theodore in violating the law of nations, and retaining our countrymen in custody, is at length to receive a well-merited punishment, the Government having sent out an expedition for that purpose. As the dangers of such an enterprise are most formidable, both from the nature of the ground to be traversed, and the deadly nature of the climate, no expense is being spared to make the expedition every way qualified to meet the dangers. It will cost England a heavy price to release the prisoners, even if suc cessful; but our national honour is at stake, and we hope will be vindicated without loss of life, and that our army will be protected by the Lord of hosts. BRISCOE, Printer, Banner-street, Bu..-row, Finsbury. THE VOICE OF TRUTH; OR, Baptist Record. SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE." IN ESSENTIALS, UNITY; IN NON-ESSENTIALS, LIBERTY; IN ALL THINGS, CHARITY. NOVEMBER, 1867. Expositions and Essays. THE LOVE OF GOD VERSUS THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. GOD is love." Wonderful statement! yet how indifferent are the generality of the human family to it! Gods of gold, of honour, ease, and pleasure, have abundance of worshippers; but the one only true God of love has comparatively few. Yes, it is a solemn fact that, even in this country, where we have an open Bible, a free press, and perfect liberty of conscience, the great bulk of the people are ungodly. We call ours a Christian country;" but it is anything but that. It becomes those, therefore, who have obtained like precious faith with the apostles to use all means in their power to make known the truth. And what is necessary for us in order that we may become more as the light of the world and the salt of the earth? We need to realize for ourselves the love of God; to have it "shed abroad in our hearts;" to be constrained by it; to have our souls on fire with it. And how shall we be thus brought under the influence of divine love, but by studying the subject, as it is revealed in the Scriptures of truth? We are painfully impressed with the idea that, while no doctrine of Scripture is more talked about than the love of God, few are less understood. It is "a great deep;" a shoreless, bottomless sea: not only one of "the deep things of God," but the DEEPEST THING. called “his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins." And because this subject is so vast, people take a mere surface view of it, but will not stop to investigate. Stop, did we say? Yes, that is it. Everybody is in a hurry. There is a constant scramble for life. The net-work of railways and electric wires, all over the country, has brought the whole commercial population to one common mart; and the competition of trade, and eager pursuit of wealth are such, that men have no time to study the Bible. It is But, what is worse, the church has caught the spirit of the age, rather than the spirit of the apostles. Almost everywhere the idea of the preacher is that he must go with the times, rather than alter the times. This we need not go into our dissenting places of worship to discover. It may be seen outside. We now have our "steeples" and "painted windows," and our buildings are called VOL. VI.-NO. LXXI., NEW SERIES. 66 CHURCHES." X Yea, so perfect is the imitation of the Establishment in style of architecture that the national clergy themselves have been deceived, and found themselves in a chapel which they had mistaken for a "church." Now if the Church of England be leaning so decidedly toward Rome, as the public prints every day prove her to be; and if the Congregationalists be leaning so very much toward the Church, as their buildings and doctrines, and steeples and bells show; and if the Baptists be leaning so much toward the Congregationalists, as may be seen in their open communion, and so called "union churches," and new "steeple-houses,"-good reader, where shall we all land? Not at Rome papal. We have no fear of that; for the tendency of the "times" is that every man should be his own pope. But if this leaning of which we have spoken does not bring us to papal Rome, it will bring us into a dead formalism, which is the very essence of Popery. The class of persons of whom we have been speaking, however, will not read what we we have written; or if they do, they will most likely throw down the magazine with contempt, and ridicule our notions as narrow, old-fashioned, and out of date." "Why write," say you, "if you do not expect to be read by the blameworthy parties?" We write, good friend, for thy sake, to warn thee against this delusion that the church must go with the times. We write, too, to clear our conscience, and in vindication of the honour of Him whom we call Lord and Master, and by whom we have been placed upon the walls of Zion to watch and lift up our voice like a trumpet, to caution the few "poor, and afflicted," and despised people left within those walls. We ask, with all honesty and sincerity, Has not the true church, and every true member thereof, always been opposed by what are called the times? If not, we have entirely misread our Bible, and quite misunderstand the terms "church" and "world." And we write, too, with the hope that we may be helped so to unfold the love of God to sinners as to endear him to the hearts of our readers; for just in proportion as the love of God is really shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, we shall become indifferent to the frowns or smiles of men; and in the degree in which we realize that precious love, we shall be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, and useful to each other. The power of the church for good is not in the wealth, number, or learning of her members; but in their spirituality or godliness, that is, in her God-likeness. "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (1 John iv. 16). Here is a blessed union, a deep sympathy with God, which will, where ever realized, kill the idea of going with the times. Our blessed Lord Jesus gives us, also, in the 17th of the Gospel of John, another sweet statement of this oneness: "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." And how did he love Christ? Why with the love of a Father, the love of delight and complacency; with a special and immutable love. So he loved us who believe. When did God love Jesus? Why look at John xvii. 24, and you will see he loved him "before the foundation of the world." And did he so love his people? All glory to his name! he did. The mercy or love of the Lord" is from everlasting to everlasting, upon them that fear him" (Psa. ciii. 17). This love of God, we repeat, is "a great deep"-the depth of all deeps! Yet if you would as a believer be happy, stable, and useful, you must study, and get a scriptural knowledge of the subject. "God is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." The very infidel lives on His bounty whose word he despises, and whose name he blasphemes. The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof-the gold and the silver, and the cattle on a thousand hills; and he distributes them with a liberal hand, and causes his sun to shine upon the just and unjust. But we must be careful not to confound the general goodness of God with his special love. Special love in God to the church, is the fountain from whence salvation, with all its present and eternal blessings, springs. This love centres in Christ. Paul calls it "the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. viii. 39); and he was "persuaded that neither death, nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from " it. |