Mosaic institution.

And the words "
And the words "Religion" and

"Religious" in the text we have adduced from the Epistle of James, are the representatives of the Pagan word used in the Apostle's address to Agrippa; they are terms of adoption and accommodation, and they ought in translation to have been christianized by the terms "Devout" and "Devotion"-that is, real devotedness of heart to God, resulting from reconciliation with him; to express which the Pagan word, Religion, is entirely inappropriate.

The term was never used by the Apostle Paul in his matchless theological Epistle to the Romans, in his Epistles to the Corinthians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews. And it is further to be observed, that the term was never permitted to escape from the pens of the Apostles Peter and John.

This then is the state of the case with reference to the use of the word Religion. The Gospels, like the Old Testament, contain it not; it never once fell from the mouth of the Lord himself; the Evangelists had no occasion to use it; and yet, now-a-days, to the church of our land, and to all our rich spiritualized confederates of Mammon, there is no word in such common use, none so appropriate to their purpose. Our modern Christianity—that is, our modern Christianity, whether viewed as an appurtenance of the state, or as it exists among the sects and parties of the age-has resolved itself into a Religion, into a matter of forms and ordi

nances, or into a matter of spiritual views, speculative opinions, and sanctified habits.

"The Christian's vocabulary" (says the author of 'A Christian's Letters to a Physician') "in the grand and leading features of redemption, has long since been modelled by inspiration; to depart from which, the Apostle Peter esteemed no light matter. And Nehemiah deemed the corruption of the pure language of the Israel of God, by mixing it with that of pagan Ashdod, to be a decisive evidence of the apostacy of the Jews. Shall we, therefore, continue in an Ashdod departure from the lively oracles, by adopting the vague and heathen term Religion, to denote the divine plan of salvation identified with CHRISTIANITY? Can we perceive nothing attractive in a word surpassing all others in importance-nothing appropriate in the endearing name of Christian-that a preference should be given to an indiscriminate, semi-pagan, and semi-papal definition of the only foundation of our hope-of all that our souls hold dear ?”

"But whence the analogy between Christianity and the Religions of the earth, that it should succumb to such an epithet? The word "Religion" being merely appropriate to the murderous and horrid rites, and the vain oblations of paganism, and all the penances of popery, it obviously pollutes the gospel of Christ and its recipients. The word so clearly applies to the very lowest order of will-worship, carnal ordinances, rites, and ceremonies, and these so infinitely below the rites

and ceremonies of the true Israel of God, that it is never ONCE admitted into the extensive pages of the Old Testament."

"Our translators, having just emerged from popery, so nearly allied to paganism, the word 'Religion' was by them cherished with filial affection. Hence it is used in writing the heads of several chapters in the Old Testament, though incapable of bending the divine Hebrew text in any one instance into such papal and pagan phraseology. In fact, the Hebrew, being a divine language, renders it so directly opposed to paganism, that I do not conceive the Ashdod words 'Religion' and 'Religious,' could, by any fair effort, be translated into Hebrew."

It is of the greatest consequence that a right apprehension of the subject now in hand, that this view of Christianity be retained, contemplating it as a DISPENSATION rather than as a Religion; not that we apprehend that the Christian Dispensation has not a religion of its own, nor that it is competent to any human being to form any accurate ideas of the origin or designs of this Dispensation, other than those which he derives from Divine Revelation; but that, in the following treatise, our purpose is to speak of the Christian Dispensation as a Dispensation, or system of elements, first principles, and laws (we reiterate our previous phraseology) all sui generis, all divine, and, we add, all operative and compulsory on the true Christian. Our precise meaning, in these words "operative" and "compulsory," is this, that

no person, that no society, that no nation, can ever realize the promises, or reap the benefits, of the Christian Dispensation for time, by any other means than by the practical adoption of its tenets; that is to say, by conformity and obedience. The following words of our divine Lord and Master seem to convey the distinct idea which we wish to establish: "If any man will Do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." And, again, the same idea is fully amplified in the memorable declarations;-" He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. If a man love me he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY is the only Christianity that will be productive of any real good to mankind as creatures of time.

Our controversy will be most rife with those who consider Christianity as a Religion, rather than a system intended for the "improvement and perfection of human society;" who assert that "human society is never considered in Scripture, or by any Christian church, in any other light than as subsidiary to a future state;" who maintain that "the religion of the gospel is the connexion between this and a future state, and that it is to be considered in this view alone." So that it becomes, in such men's esteem, a fanciful, romantic, visionary, Utopian chimera with which our minds are

inflated, when we speak of the Christian Dispensation as remedial and regenerative for

senting redemption for eternity.

time, as well as pre

Again we affirm, that

this Dispensation verily has its religion; but to call the Dispensation itself a religion, is to invest the part with the attributes of the whole.

Are we chargeable, as the result of the preceding representations, with underrating religious ordinances, the rites, ceremonies, and sacraments of the church? Let it be clearly understood, that we value them as means, not as ends; and that while we venerate them as religious exercises, we regard them as no succedaneum for the Dispensation itself. Our doctrine in this particular is, that " to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."