safest depository of authority in the church; and in the absence of such a person, one chosen by the people and invested with the oversight and superintending of the brotherhood, is the next most natural president to watch over them.

As to the nature of this watching and superintending, and such parts of the essay before us as refer to that subject, we must lay over till the next moon.

A. C.

THE CONTRAST, OR THE MODERN PETER SPIRIT AND THE ANCIENT.

Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites,

SUFFER one to address you who loves the truth, and would not dissemble for the universe. It may be very grating to your feelings to hear the whole truth; but that is no business of mine. You have been guilty of a most shameful outrage, and your hypocrisy must now be told to your face. You bilinguous sons of dissimulation, how can you escape the vengeance of God and the utter execration of all good men. First let me address myself particularly to you Priests: You have been very much troubled, for the last three or four years, to sustain your influence and secure your salaries among the people. What deception you have practised, and what artifice you have shown in blinding the eyes of the half convicted multitude! The people would have gone right but for you, you barefaced hypocrites! You recollect on one occasion the people were almost persuaded to follow Messiah, and you sent officers to arrest hini. You Judges, you saw your craft was in danger. But what did your wickednesses say to the officers when they appeared without him and said, "Never man spake like this man"? Did you not inquire if any of the rulers or Pharisees had believed on him? Yes, verily, and here you showed your corruption. If the rulers had admitted his claims, would you not have assented, for the loaves and fishes, as you have always done? And yet you pretend to be very wise, and say, "These people knowing not the law, are accursed." Now, you ignoramuses, you never had any consciences, nor any knowledge of the law; for you wear badges of learning on your clothes which you carry to deceive the people. You want them to esteem you as very learned, when your flat heads and deceptious faces show that you have trained your muscles to hypocrisy. Mercy is out of the question-salvation is out of your reach. Woe unto you, ye blind guides! Your miseries will overtake you suddenly. You have lolled at your ease long enough, hoodwinking the sons of Abraham; but your lordships must come down.

Your sins render you ripe for destruction. You have deceived the people and condemned yourselves; therefore look into the Prophets for the judgments about to burst with vengeance upon your devoted heads. The Messiah has said, "Your house is left unto you desolate." Here is a declaration which overwhelms you. No preaching can benefit you; for these words decide your fate forever. Let no one in his zeal hold out to you the least gleam of hope, for you are too corrupt to be reformed.

me.

And now let me address myself to the whole multitude before When I think of your condition I am almost melted into tears; but you are the authors of your own miseries. You have suffered yourselves to be imposed upon by the abominable Priests whom I have just addressed. Only see the height from whence you have fallen: "Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me." You have become wholly corrupted: for having eyes, you see not; having ears, you hear not; having minds, you comprehend not unto this day. Woe unto you! for you have done the bidding of your Priests in crying against the Messiah, "Away with him! crucify him! crucify him!" Poor deluded mortals! being blinded, you will share the fate of your blind leaders: "for if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Into the ditch of perdition, then, you must go; there to suffer for your evil deeds. The kingdom which Messiah is to set up is to be a kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. You have constituted yourselves parts and parcels of the literal idolatrous Babylonish empire; therefore you are not, nor can you be, constituted members of the kingdom of Messiah.

I shall now conclude for the present, after I have said that I have spoken to you the truth; and I would warn you not to be deceived by fair speeches from those who want to make "bread and cheese" by preaching smooth things. And if you inquire for my authority, I can only say, I am a regular diplomatized teacher of the school of DIOTREPHES.

[The above is a good lesson for some who think that they are preaching Peter's or Christ's gospel, when they are only vending their own spleen.-A. C.]

MR. WALLIS:

LETTERS TO ENGLAND-No. VII.

BETHANY, February 10, 1838.

My dear Brother-THE most skilful interpreters of the language of Scripture know and acknowledge that there are very few parallel passages. The number of such passages in the sacred scriptures, is

perhaps, not greater than the number of synonymous terms in the English language. And these are by our most profound philologists so few that it is confidently affirmed that, excepting in the fact of simple translations, there are not two words exactly and in all respects synonymous. There are, indeed, many words of nearly equivalent import in many respects synonymous; but not perfectly so: and so there are many texts nearly parallel, which nevertheless are not of the same signification.

It is mathematically true that two lines perfectly parallel, though extended to an infinite length, would never form an angle, or recede at either end from one another. It might, perhaps, be rendered equally obvious that two texts perfectly parallel in sense, if examined word by word, in all their scope and contextual meaning, would not recede from each other in the slightest shade of an idea. But if I were now asked to produce two such texts, I could not very readily lay my finger upon them. I readily own that I could find many upon most of the cardinal points, very nearly alike in sense and from which we may learn or sustain the same important truth; but still, if pressed to a full and exact comparison, they would not precisely correspond.

I offer these remarks not merely with an allusion to our marginal reference Bibles, but more especially to the too general custom of proving tenets by alleging passages in support of them not parallel to those under examination, neither in their isolated or contextual signifi cation. It requires a very respectable share of biblical knowledge to know how to use a margin Bible. The best of them are very often at fault, and as sectarian and systematic as were the views of their authors. For truly a sectarian suit of marginal references may as thoroughly imbue the reader with partizan tenets and feelings, as the most schismatical commentators in all the land. The chief use of such Bibles to novices, is their directing to some principal word or idea, or subject in a verse, analogous to that in the passage under consideration. But how far these passages suggest the same views, or treat upon the same subject, must be examined, not taken for granted, by the student desirous of sound, exact, and accurate scriptural knowledge.

To understand any saying or sentence in the Bible in exactly the same sense of its author, we must approach it in the identical channel of all his associations and views. Disregard of this has, by a species of sectarian conscription, enrolled under the same tenet scores of texts that have no doctrinal or practical congruity whatever. In looking over our best and most evangelical creeds, we find them crowded with proofs from numerous passages that have not the slightest squinting to the point in hand.

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To check or correct this great error in searching the scriptures, and to prevent the misquotation of passages in proof of our views, we shall examine an article or two of our Baptist Creed, which, if I mistake not, is the doctrine of a very great majority of Protestants. I choose a passage or two of this sort as affording the best exemplification of this fruitful source of modern error and heresy:-"The grace of faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts."*

This article in our Baptist Confession is copied, word for word, from the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the same proofs are alleged in both. These are, 2 Cor. iv. 13. Eph. ii. 8. We shall calmly and impartially consider them both. Paul says, "We [Apostles] having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written. I believed, and therefore have I spoken. We also believe, and therefore speak." As this passage has been urged by the Presbyterian and Baptist churches for almost 200 years in proof that "faith is the work of the spirit of consideration. Christ in the hearts of the elect," it deserves a very grave Be it then remembered, that all the rules of correct interpretation command us first to inquire whether the same question was before Paul when he wrote these words and the Westminster theologians when they penned this article: for if not, its application is wholly arbitrary and undecisive.

Let us, then, examine the context in which these words stand and the scope of the passage. Paul speaks of his exposure to death for preaching the resurrection of Christ: "We who live are always exposed to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus [in thus preserving us from our enemies] might be manifest in our mortal flesh. So, then, death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit of faith-[or the same strong faith which David had when exposed to death by Saul]-as it is written, (Psalm cxvi. 10.) I believe, and therefore I have spoken [of the goodness of God;] so we also believe [in the promise of living again with him,] and [at the hazard of our present lives] speak [of his resurrection.] Such is evidently the scope of this context. The same spirit of faith with David, or with David's antitype, is neither more nor less than the same strong faith in God's promise.

Multitudes of our best modern commentators, Presbyterian and Episcopalian, so understand the passage; so that it has not the slightest allusion to the question before "the Divines." They wished to prove that "the spirit wrought faith in the hearts of the elect," because Paul

* Chap. xiv. Sect. i.-Confession of Faith put forth by the Elders and Brethren of many congregations of Christians, (baptized upon profession of their faith) in London and the country, and adopted by the Baptist Association met at Philadelphia, Sept. 25, 1742.

said he and his companions had the same spirit of faith, or bold faith, with David. "The spirit of fear," "the spirit of love," are, with the phrase "spirit of faith," indicative of strong fear, strong love, strong faith; the spirit of a sound mind, and the spirit of error, &c. are of the same genus-Hebrewisms of the same type. Now Paul and the Divines had two very different things in their eyes. The Divines had the spirit of Christ, and Paul had strong faith like that of David. The former had the philosophy of the cause of faith in their view, while Paul had in his eye the practical effects of strong confidence in the Lord, encou raging him to risk his life for Christ's sake. How, then, can the language pertinent to one of these points prove the other, especially differing from each other as cause and effect? But the whole dispute is resolvable into a single question: Are "spirit of faith" and "the spirit of Christ" the same idea? Are these two names for the same thing? If they even are, the things predicated of them by Paul and the Divines are not the same, and therefore the point is not proved for which the passage is quoted. But if they are not, as I most confidently affirm, then the irrelevance is so glaring that we cannot for a moment admit their application to the case on hand.

The other passage (Eph. ii. 8.) is still more glaring. It reads, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God." I have quoted it from the common version, in which the "it is" appears in italics as a supplement. That (touto) also is neuter in the original, and faith (pistis) is feminine; and therefore they cannot refer to each other. Salvation, or "you are saved," is the antecedent to which "that" refers. It unquestionably means, as all the intelligent critics now admit, "you are saved by grace through faith, and this [salvation] is not of yourselves—it is the gift of God." The doctrine of the verse is, "salvation is not of ourselves; it is the gracious gift of God through faith." But does this prove that faith is wrought in the hearts of the elect by the spirit of Christ, for which special object it is quoted by the Divines? Who that respects the laws of language and of interpretation would so affirm!

In this exemplication of the misapplication of sacred scripture, I neither affirm nor deny the truth of the doctrine of the Divines.Whether true or false, the scriptures are perverted. Indeed, 1 most sincerely believe that salvation is of grace-a free gift-"through faith that it might be by pure favor;" and also that faith is the effect of the operation of the Holy Spirit, in some sense; for without its energizing and quickening power, Jesus would not have been raised from the dead, the gospel would not have been inspired and proved by the hand of Omnipotence, nor would it have been preserved in this hostile world