ment. As you live, so will you die. But O, reflect: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God." And who can describe, who can conceive, the horrid state of him whose home is hell, whose avenger is God, whose accuser is his own awakened, though not amended conscience, whose tormentor is Satan, and whose companions are devils and the spirits of the damned? The service of sin is indeed a galling yoke in this life, and its wages eternal death in the world to come; whereas the service of God is perfect freedom here, and its reward everlasting life hereafter. Heaven will be your home, God your friend, angels and the spirits of the just made perfect your associates.

Do you feel that you have nothing to offer for your acceptance? If so, you are in a fitter state to approach your Maker. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." "The blood of Jesus," not our merits, "cleanseth from all sin." Come to Jesus, then, sinners labouring under guilt, and heavily laden with sin, and he will give you rest. He never said: "Seek ye me in vain." But delay not this important concern: time hastens on with an imperceptible, yet swift motion; and, when once the gates of death are opened, the door of mercy will be for ever closed against you. Say not to your Saviour, who now stands knocking at the door of your heart, "Go thy way for this time: when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee;" for, "Behold, now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation." "Work while it is day; for the night cometh, in which no man can work." Arise, then, call upon your God, and Christ shall give you light.

will ye die, O house of Israel?" why so obstinately bent on your own destruction, that, despite all my warnings and entreaties, ye will rush headlong into ruin till ye find it too late to recede? Do you never feel a desire to return to God to serve him truly? Do you never experience an inward desire to be a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus? If so, my brethren, what is this but the Spirit of God drawing you with the cords of his love? Beware lest you resist the Spirit of God, remembering who hath said: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." Depend upon it, such desires are God's own work, and intended to be the means of plucking you as brands from the burning. On the memorable night when Christ washed his disciples' feet, Peter at first refused, saying: "Lord, dost thou wash my feet?" And, notwithstanding Jesus assured him that, though he was not then acquainted with his motives, yet he should afterwards know, he persisted, saying: "Thou shalt never wash my feet." But, when our Saviour answered: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me," he perceived the folly of setting himself in opposition to God, and felt it his duty to submit himself to his Master's will, whether in conformity with or opposition to his own, without inquiring into his Lord's motives, or harbouring a doubt as to the goodness of the result; and he immediately exclaimed: "Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and my head." So, when the wicked man hears this command of the Almighty: "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners," he saith: "Why should I cleanse my hands?" And, though entreated to do so, and warned of the fatal consequences attendant upon a refusal, he persists, saying: "I will never cleanse my hands." But, if happily he becomes convinced of his state as a sinner, and his need But, if happily ye be humble and of a thorough reformation of character, he consistent followers of Jesus--and surely immediately becomes humble, and exclaims: I may hope and believe that some of "Lord, cleanse thou not my hands only, but you have had your eyes opened, and have my head and my heart, that no vile deed be been "turned from darkness to light, and from perpetrated by my hands, no evil communi- the power of sin and Satan to serve the living cation proceed out of my mouth, nor any God"-" rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for forbidden wish be formed in my heart." May great is your reward in heaven." To you I such conduct be yours. Come to Jesus: would say, Watch guard against the sins look to Jesus: follow Jesus. Be assured which do so easily beset us, and run with pahe will receive you with joy into his service: tience the race that is set before you. "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no fervent in prayer: cast thy care upon the wise cast out." To deter you from vice, and Lord: he will sustain thee: he shall never encourage you in the practice of virtue, con- suffer the righteous to be moved. And, if in trast the situation of those who worship God so doing we meet with persecution (which, in spirit and in truth, with those who refuse, blessed be God, in our favoured land amounts saying: "We will not have this fellow to to no more than derision), for our support reign over us." If you persist in your evil let us remember the words of our Saviour: courses, your life will be spent in uncertainty" Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and gloomy anticipations of future punish- and persecute you, and shall say all manner

Be

as the result of the former; wherefore the instru-
ment that destroys is also the instrument that
both kills and makes alive. Thus, in the case be-
saves, particularly as it proceeds from him who
fore us, the ungodly are destroyed, Noah is saved;
and both are described as having been done by
water. When the Egyptians pursued the Israel-
ites, who were encamped by the Red Sea, Moses
thus spake to them: "Fear ye not, stand still, and
see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show
you to-day; for the Egyptians whom ye have
ever" (Ex. xiv. 13). The sea saved the Israelites
seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for
by destroying the Egyptians. The deliverance of
Hezekiah from the Assyrian army is another in-
stance. His was "a day of trouble and of rebuke
and blasphemy;" but the Lord heard his prayer,
and saved the city by an angel, who smote the
Now all these find their explanation
army.
in the death of Jesus Christ: "He took our

of evil against you falsely for my name's, tion being connected*, in which the latter appears sake." A conscience void of offence towards God and man, though it bring with it persecution, is preferable to all the false pleasures of sin, though they confer worldly ease. And, if in this world we meet not with the prosperity and happiness we fondly anticipated, let us not be cast down, nor suffer ourselves to fret against the Lord; but let us remember that, though many be the afflictions of the righteous, yet the Lord delivereth them out of them all. In mercy he often chasteneth us to wean us from the world. At such and at all times, let us think much and often on another and a better world, where God will give us "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Then shall we be admitted into the presence of the God of the nature upon him, that through death he might universe; and "in his presence there is ful-destroy him that had the power of death, that ness of joy at his right hand there are plea- is, the devil;" therefore, we are saved by the sures for evermore.' death of Jesus Christ. In like manner God, through water, destroyed the ungodly; therefore Noah was saved by water.

NOAH.

(1 PETER iii. 20-21.)

FROM this passage of scripture we learn that a truth involved in the saving of Noah and his house, when God spared not the old world, bringing in the flood upon the ungodly (2 Pet. ii. 5), is a type to which Christian baptism is the antitype. A preliminary inquiry is, From what was Noah and his house saved? The answer must not be confined to the judgment inflicted upon the ungodly, but must include their corrupting power and their oppression. The whole of mankind, excepting Noah, formed one body, that was carnal, sold under sin. "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth; and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." From the influence of this general corruption as the cause of and from the destruction itself, Noah and his house were saved; and, as the judgment inflicted upon the ungodly served to point out the tendency, and was the certain result, of sin, it might be sufficient to say, that Noah and his house were saved from the wicked. This deeper view appears to have been on the mind of St. Peter when he wrote this epistle. The persons he addressed were under manifold temptations, especially from the ungodly living of the gentiles (1 Pet. iv. 3, 4). To them the case of Noah, as an instance of God's delivering the godly out of temptations, would be full of encouragement to patience and continuance in well-doing, particularly if they might view the case as illustrating the fulfilment of the promise pledged to them in baptism.

The antitype to this salvation is Christian baptism; "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh," as the mere or hypocritical professor may do (Acts viii. 13-24), "but the answer of a good conscience towards God," which they only can make whose "consciences are purged from dead works to serve the living God, through faith in his Son (Heb. ix. 14). The apostle is referring to the persons whom baptism saves; then, to show that he spoke of baptism as including both the outward form and inward grace signified by it, he adds, "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," that is, by the gift of the Holy Ghost, the promise received of the Father through his death and resurrection (see Acts ii. 1-39). antitype, then, is that "aceording to his mercy he saved us, by washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." Thus the saving of Noah and his house in the ark by water from the wicked, and from temporal death-the certain consequences of their conduct-is a type, of which the saving of believers in Jesus Christ by baptism (or the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost) from sin and Satan, and from spiritual and everlasting death, the wages of sin is the antitype.

The

The subject is further instructive on the following points. We learn from it,

1. That the fundamental scriptural ideas of baptism are death and life. In the type, temporal death and life are set before us: in the ordinance itself spiritual death and life are realized; for baptism is "a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness;" so that, if "through the Spirit we do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live" (see also Romans vi.). The idea of this spiritual life being dependant on another, was more fully revealed in the baptism of the Israelites into Moses (1 Cor. x. 2; Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon).

2. That the persons in whom baptism is thus

• See "Fairbairn on the Typology of Scripture," p. 335, &c., This work is most interesting and instructive.

TRADITION*.

J. E. W.

realized must be believers in Jesus Christ. Noah | from them will ever ascend the pure offering of and his house were in the ark, a state necessary to prayer and praise, under the certain conviction their salvation: "Noah only remained alive, that their happiness is perpetual (see Gen. viii. and they that were with him in the ark” | 20-22). (Gen. vii. 4). To be within the ark was safety; for the ark went upon the face of the waters, and was not overwhelmed by them; and, being pitched within and without, it was an effectual covert from the storm, and a hidingplace from the tempest." To be without the ark was inevitable destruction (Gen. vii. 23; see also Heb. xi. 7). Now the ark, as a place of refuge and safety, was a type of Jesus Christ (Isa. xxv. 1-4; xxxii. 1, 2; Heb. vi. 18), in whom his people are safe from the waves of this troublesome life, and from the wrath to come. It is necessary, therefore, to our baptism, or the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, that we be in Jesus Christ (Mark xvi. 16). And if we be so, and have been baptized with the Holy Ghost, then, at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be baptized with, or saved by fire-the symbol of the Godhead, and therefore of perfect purity (Matt. iii. 11; 1 Cor. iii. 12-15); while "in flaming fire he will take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not his gospel" (2 Thess. i. 8-10).

3. That the practice of infant-baptism receives sanction from this subject. The hc use of Noah were saved, because "he found grace in the eyes of the Lord." "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation" (Gen. vii. 1). His house shared in his blessings, because he was their father, head, and representative. This principle, on a lesser scale, is the same as has been explained under the article on Adam. It is also one of general experience and observation in all ages of the world; and it is not possible to separate temporal from spiritual consequences unde this relationship. We know that those parents, who seek daily to be renewed by the Holy Ghost, do by their abounding in the works of the Spirit influence the minds and conduct of their children; and thus, through their baptism, as it were, the children derive spiritual blessings. This consideration ought to stir up parents to pray earnestly to be daily renewed by the Holy Spirit. If, then, children derive spiritual influences indirectly, most surely it is a duty to bring them to God, that he may immediately, from himself, give them his Holy Spirit. The apostles baptized the house, when the head of it believed (Acts xvi. 15-33); and this fact, recorded in language which seems to have been taken from the type of baptism, sanctions the practice. For the argument is, if the principle of representation was in the type with benefit to those represented, why may it not be in the antitype? Our duty is to learn what belongs to our selves, and not to judge from results, which are with God.

when we consider that term synonymous with the THE first sense in which we accept tradition is written word. A tradition is a thing conveyed down. This is the case with the bible. It has been composed under the dictation of the Spirit, its several treatises collected and arranged, and that collection committed to the guardianship of the church. In that substantial and written form it has reached ourselves. Travelling along the line of many centuries, it has been transmitted from one generation to another. In this sense, of course, we acknowledge the authority of tradition; for we contend for the sufficiency of the scripture.

A second sense in which we regard tradition is when we consider that word as applied to instructions which were at one time oral, but which have been since committed to writing. There were times when all the oracles of God were not scripture, although there never was a time when they were not inspiration. The lessons delivered by our Lord, his parables, his conversations-all these were at one time preserved in the memories of his auditory. And, so that they were faithfully preserved and accurately communicated to others, the authority of such communications could not be increased by the simple act of reducing words to writing: they were truth, inspired truth, but orally transmitted. And in this sense is the word employed, not only in the scriptures themselves, but throughout all the writings of antiquity. "Hold the traditions," says the apostle," which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle" (2 Thess. ii. 15). "Many arguments," saysGregory of Nyssat, may easily be found in the prophets and the law, and many both in the evangelical and apostolical traditions." Of the process, at least of one of the processes, by which Christian truth, originally conveyed by oral communication, became transferred to a written form, we have a clear illustration in Paul's epistle to the Corinthians: "I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye have ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached Cor. xv. 1, 2): here is the gospel committed to unto you, unless ye have believed in vain" (1 the security of a written document. "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received" (1 Cor. xv. 3): here is a reference to the same gospel communicated orally. In this sense we accept tradition.

A third form of tradition, to which we do not object, is that which it assumes in the creeds and confessions of the early churches. For a defini

• From "England, Rome, and Oxford;" by the rev. A Seeleys. 1846. This is a work of ability. It is controversial; and our readers know that we abstain from making our pages

the vehicle of party controversy. But we have pleasure in presenting the extract given above. - ED.

4, and lastly. The subject is instructive, and full of encouragement under temptations, as illus-Boyd, M.A, incumbent of Christ Church, Cheltenham. London: trating and giving an assurance of the final destruction of all our enemies (1 Cor. xv. 24-28). The last enemy is death; and, when it shall have been destroyed, then will the church or household of God possess 66 new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;" and

The author should have cited the place from Gregory of Nyssa. Such lose references to writers are useless. And besides, Mr. Boyd has utterly mistaken Gregory's words. By "the evangelical and apostolical traditions" are meant the gospels and the epistles.-ED.

tion of their opinions, and a test of the ortho- | tles' time there have been these orders of ministers doxy of their members, most if not all of those apostolic communities were furnished with a compendium of recognized doctrines; and these compendiums, formed in all probability in the earliest times of Christianity, may be considered as exhibitions of apostolic teachings. Existing in the form, not of oral statements, but of written symbols, they were handed down through successive generations, and held to be faithful witnesses of the truth. In decisions against heretical opinions such documents as these were of considerable value; for such opinions found themselves in opposition to the proved and concurrent testimonies of many churches-churches independent of each other, and yet exhibiting a harmony of belief. "That tradition, which was of so much use in the primitive church, was not unwritten traditions or customs, commended or ratified by the supposed infallibility of any visible church, but did especially consist in the confessions or registers of particular churches. And the unanimous consent of so many several churches as exhibited their confessions to the Nicene council, out of such forms as had been framed and taught before this controversy arose about the divinity of Christ, and that voluntarily and freely (these churches being not dependent one upon another, nor overswayed by any authority over them, nor misled by faction to frame their confessions of faith by imitation, or according to some pattern set them), was a pregnant argument that this faith, wherein they all agreed, had been delivered to them by the apostles and their followers, and was the true meaning of the holy writings in this great article" (Jackson on the church, chap. 22). It is, however, to be remembered that it was not the simple harmony of these confessions among themselves which caused the doctrines which they contained to be accounted true, but the accordance of these harmonious compendiums with the statements of scripture. All the declarations of the Nicene age lead us to conclude that no appeal was held to be satisfactory which could not command in its favour the sanction of written revela

tion.

The last form in which we admit the value of tradition is when it appears as an historical witness to usages, rights, or discipline. These stand distinguished from points of faith and doctrine, and can rely upon the testimony of recollection with much more certainty than they can. We confuse opinions, but we remember facts. On such evidence as this we should be contented to admit the propriety of infant baptism, the change of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, the apostolicity of episcopacy, the antiquity of three ministerial orders, even although they could not appeal in favour of themselves to the statements or allusions of scripture. We find certain usages and institutions in existence; and we retain them because tradition tells us they have been from the beginning, and because there is nothing repugnant to them in the great decider of doubtful points-the written word. This is the course adopted on several points by our church: "The baptism of young children is in anywise to be retained in the church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ" (Art. xxvii.): "It is evident unto all men, diligently reading the holy scripture and ancient authors, that from the apos

in Christ's church-bishops, priests, and deacons” (Preface to the ordination service). From this it is clear that the church of England does not reject the testimony of tradition, when tradition confines itself to its proper use and its legitimate province. We hold that the hints of scripture may assume a more defined and intelligible form, when contemplated by the light which tradition has thrown upon them. We hold that our confidence in opinions gleaned from the scriptures should be augmented, when we find that those opinions were accepted by all the churches of antiquity, and avowed in their confessions. But we likewise hold that in itself scripture is a sufficient rule of faith, and ought not to be reduced to a level with any communication outside of herself, if such a communication cannot be as satisfactorily proved to be, equally with her, the word of God. The principle advanced in a quotation given before, is one to whose propriety we can fully assent, that "God's unwritten word, if it can be authenticated, must necessarily demand the same reverence from us as the word written" (Keble on Prim. Trad.). But this proviso includes the whole question in dispute; for we have to learn, first, that any such additional revelation necessary to salvation was ever given; and, secondly, that, being given, it has come down to us. Let the advocates for tradition prove that things spoken by Christ or his apostles were necessary for our full information in order to our salvation, and we are prepared to admit the scripture imperfect, and the necessity of a supplement being made to it. Let the advocates for tradition as "an authoritative teacher" make it clear to us that the inspired word, unaltered, undiminished, unsullied by human additions, has come down into our hands, and we are prepared to accept it with equal veneration as our bibles, and "that because it is the word of God." But, until this be demonstrated, we stand upon a principle which the scripture itself appears to me to maintain, and which all antiquity, largely consulted and candidly questioned, appears also to maintain-that in the books of the canonical inspired writings we have a sure and sufficient rule of faith, and that "whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation" (Art. vi.).

The Cabinet.

DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS FOR THE PROFIT OF THE CHURCH OF GOD.-But, as among our flocks there are different stations and ranks, duties, offices, and gifts, so also amongst ourselves, as pastors, there are diversities of gifts and administrations; but, to every one, these are given to profit withal, that is for the profit or advantage of the church of God (1 Cor. xii. 7). The Holy Spirit giveth all of the se,

"dividing to every man severally as he will," and now, as of old, according to the exigencies of the church. There are not only different offices, but differing turns of mind, habit and education; differently constituted powers and dispositions. "As every man