stances and capacities. He was successful in promoting among them peace and good neighbourhood; "but," adds the writer of his funeral sermon, "what always lay nearest his heart was the interest and honour of religion, and the eternal happiness of those with whom he was connected. That these great ends might be accomplished, as far as possible, he faithfully laboured, he earnestly prayed; and he had the satisfaction of seeing himself instrumental in advancing them in many unquestionable instances. This consideration afforded him the greatest pleasure of his life, next to the uninterrupted expectation of a blessed immortality.” Of his personal piety, it is said, that "it was without any mixture of gloom or melancholy; he appeared to live under a strong sense of religion from his early youth; he never seemed forgetful of his obligations to, and his immediate dependence upon, Almighty God; but, acknowledged him in all his ways, owning his power and providence, adoring his wisdom, in the daily occurrences of life, and referring all things to his righteous and gracious disposal. His patience in adversity, and his resignation to the will of Heaven, under the heavy afflictions he met with in the decline of his life, (and till then he had hardly any experimental knowledge what affliction was,) were as conspicuous and exemplary as any other Christian graces that he possessed." We add one concluding passage, which we quote with the more pleasure as it may perhaps be thought to modify some of our own remarks upon Dr. Johnson's theological system: "He had the highest esteem for the peculiar doctrines of revelation; and he considered, even with rapturous admiration and gratitude, the wonderful plan that was contrived for our redemption, and the still more wonderful execution of it, by the incarnation and sufferings of the eternal Son of God. He never was disposed to question God's willingness and desire to make him everlastingly happy, since he was graciously pleased not to withhold his Son, but to freely give him up, for the ransom and salvation even of the worst of sinners. Accordingly his faith in the Divine promises was strong, and vigorous, and active; as he was conscious to himself of having sincerely endeavoured, to the best of his power, to perform the conditions on which they are suspended." CRITICAL REMARKS ON 1 PETER II. 8. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THERE is a "hard saying" in 1 Peter ii. 8, which has puzzled the commentators, and seems hitherto to have baffled them, for I never could perceive that Griesbach's change of punctuation (however likely on other accounts) tends at all to diminish the theological difficulty. It appears to me that έτεθησαν depends on λιθος προσκόμματος και πετρα σκανδαλον. The same word which is translated “appointed " in vers. 8 is used in vers. 6 in the sense of laying a stone. It seems to me that the word has the same meaning in one place as in the other. The stone of stumbling and rock of offence are laid in the way of unbelievers in order that they may fall. There is a slight difficulty in translating the passage, arising from the circumstance that the stone of stumbling and rock of offence are not two distinct things, but epithets of the same thing. In our language, in which the constant necessity of using the personal pronoun, obliges us to personify almost every thing, we have no means of putting the verb in a plural form so as to express merely its grammatical dependence on a string of words, without suggesting also the notion of plurality in the things denoted by those words. The difficulty does not exist in the Greek, and may easily be sur mounted in a translation. I would translate the passage thus: "Unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and rock of offence, to them namely who stumble through their disobedience to the word, for which end also the stone was laid." In the last clause we might say, "the stone and the rock were laid," only that the genius of the English language requires rather that the verb should be connected with the subject of the preceding proposition, in "the stone which the builders rejected," than with the epithets that form the predicate in "the stone of stumbling and rock of offence." M. J. M. OVERSTRAINED TEXTS. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. You have on various occasions recommended sobriety in the interpretation of Scripture, and many excellent articles on Biblical criticism have appeared in your pages from time to time. There was a series of papers in your volumes some years ago, quaintly entitled "The Cry of Injured texts;" and I lament to say that cry continues, and I fear becomes louder and louder every day, especially in relation to fanciful interpretations of prophecy. There is a kindred evil in the too common practice of overstraining texts, finding something in them more spiritual and evangelical, if I may so speak, than the ordinary interpretation; by which the simplicity of Scripture is destroyed, and any passage may be made to mean whatever the annotator pleases. I will illustrate my meaning by the following passage, from a volume of sermons now lying before me, and which I select the rather first, because the Reverend author is deceased; and secondly, because the illustration, while it is apt to my purpose, will not leave any odd or ludicrous association, as is sometimes the case in exemplifying improper applications of Scripture. The writer says, "Samaria was the capital of the kingdom of Israel. The woman's question was not how God should be worshipped, but the place where he should be worshipped. It is plain, by the answer that Christ returned to her, verses 21, 22, that she and all her countrymen had fallen into the apostasy, with some of the Jews, of worshipping the FATHER only, excluding the Son and the BLESSED SPIRIT. This doctrine, which is precisely the same as modern Arianism, was introduced by Jeroboam, the first king of the Ten Tribes. This I will endeavour to prove to you, first observing, that our Lord, of course, in this chapter, must initiate this woman into the doctrine of the Trinity; otherwise he would have given a very imperfect account of himself and of his ministry. The denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, then, was the sin of the Samaritans. "Now Christ, in the first instance, shews this woman, that it was not lawful to worship the FATHER alone in any place, and gives her people a bitter reproof, not for their manner of worshipping, but for the object. Now as to the words (ver. 24) I must beg leave to make a little alteration in the translation. The word is, is not in the Greek; and therefore it should not be read, God is a Spirit, but the Spirit the God: then the directions how to worship him--that it was not lawful to approach God without him and Christ-the Spirit—the God; and they that worship him must worship him, not in their own spirit, and their own truth, but in THE Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, and in THE Truth, that is, Christ, for He alone is the way and the truth. According to the common reading, interpreters place what is acceptable to God in the sincerity of man; but, by this, we see that we CHRIST. OBSERV. App. 5 P cannot approach the Father but in the Spirit and the Truth; or, in other words, by the influence of the Holy Spirit-by the merit, intercession, and atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this is the subject before us.” Many an injudicious reader would, I fear, think this exposition remarkably rich and edifying, and wonder that he had never seen all this in the passage before. The next step would be to look for such recondite meanings himself, and to turn the Book of God into a book of riddles ; losing edification while searching for quibbles. The third step would be to account all preaching poor and tame that did not abound in such varieties; and to despise every minister of Christ whose imagination did not outrun his judgment. The following is the venerable Mr. Scott's annotation on the passage. He discovers none of these far-fetched meanings; and his interpretation is judicious, scriptural, and edifying, and therefore I fear not popular. It is a lamentable fact, that many truly religious persons are so scantily instructed, and so bewildered by an ill-governed imagination, that they would think they had gained much that was valuable under a sermon thus fancifully constructed; while they would account Mr. Scott's observations jejune and common-place. It is very important that the ministers of Christ should not palter to this morbid appetite. Mr. Scott says: "As God is a spirit immaterial, holy, omnipresent, and intimately acquainted with the inmost soul of man; so those who acceptably worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.'" "The spirit, or soul of man, as influenced by the Holy Spirit, must worship God, and have communion with him: knowledge of his perfections, reverential fear, humiliation as creatures and sinners, hope in his mercy and truth, regard to his word, love of his excellency, earnest desire after his favour and image, &c. These spiritual affections, expressed in fervent prayers, supplications, praises, and thanksgivings, form that worship of an upright heart, in which God delights and is glorified." While on this subject, I will just add, very briefly, what I conceive to be a misinterpretation of a passage of Scripture, in a sermon by the Hon. and Rev. Gerard Noel, on the death of the righteous. Balaam says, "Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel?" These two clauses have always appeared to me as intended to be parallel, and to explain or enforce each other; that is, the dust of Israel alludes to their number,—who can count their numbers? But Mr. Noel asks, “Why does the seer, as he gazes upon the advancing multitude, speak of their dust, suddenly point his vision,-not surely to the dust of their multitude, but to the dust of their sepulchre, and wish to partake of their mortal doom.” I do not bring this forward as a flagrant instance of overstraining; but it is a species of refining upon a simple passage, which writers of glowing imagination are very apt to be betrayed into. It was excellent advice of an elder minister to a younger, whenever he had a thought or a criticism that appeared to him new or striking,-to reject it without pity. THEOGNIS. OXFORD PRIZE POEM, "DE CONVENTICULIS DISSIPATIS." To the Editor of the Christian Observer. In your review of Dr. Southey's edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, you have defended Bunyan against some of the charges of his worthy biographer; and in so doing have lamented the impolicy and injustice of the laws which consigned him to a prison and threatened him with "the whip," "the pillory," transportation, and perhaps "being stretched by the neck," for his peaceful worship of God according to the dictates of his conscience. You justly add, that so far from the Church of England gaining any thing by such proceedings, it lost much in the national estimation, and was all but ruined by the recoil of public opinion. Dr. Southey would represent the suppression of the conventicles as an act of honest and religious, even though mistaken, legislation; a case of dire necessity, not of contemptuous triumph. It would be no unsatisfactory way of adjusting the question, to refer to the cavalier writings of that age, in order to see whether they indicate any thing like a religious feeling in the conduct pursued towards such men as Bunyan. I send you, as an illustration, a Latin poem, from the "Musarum Anglicanarum Analecta," entitled " Conventicula Dissipata ;" under the signature of Jac. Newton, Armig. é Coll. Trin. Oxon. SocioCommens. It was rehearsed before the grave and learned University of Oxford, and was thought worthy of being rescued from oblivion and enshrined among the " poemata quædam melioris notæ," with the imprimatur of Mr. Vice-Chancellor and his learned colleagues. That either of our Universities should have deigned to listen to such trash, and worse, or have allowed it to be spoken or printed, is almost incredible to any man acquainted only with the decorous and dignified academical habits of the present age, when nothing satirical, party-spirited, or otherwise offensive would be tolerated in a University prize-exercise. The last relic of such unseemly academical proceedings lingers among the school boys of Westminster, whose prologues and epilogues are often a disgrace to their Reverend instructors. Let our Laureate listen to the strains in which the gravest authorities of literature and religion chuckled over the arrest and imprisonment of the conventiclers, and the dispersion of their meetings for Bible reading, psalm singing, and prayer and religious exhortation. Is there any thing like solemn reprehension in this University document? Is it sorrow rather than anger; or, more properly, than sneer? Is not the cruel and disgraceful persecution of such men as Bunyan exhibited as an excellent jest, without the slightest symptom of compunction? If the conventiclers dispersed peaceably, they were despised as cowards; if they continued to preach and pray, they were hunted down as rebels. Is it then to be wondered at that a man of Bunyan's decisive cast of character declined receding from his promise to attend the prayer-meeting, when he well knew the spirit in which his conduct would have been likely enough viewed by his persecutors, as appears in such documents as this academical poem. Dr. Southey represents Bunyan as obstinate, contumacious, and fool-hardy for going to the meeting his laurelled predecessor would have ridiculed him for retreating: "Quo fugis, Heroum fortissime? &c." Truly the poor culprits : had a delectable alternative. But for the poem: I copy it, worthless as it is, as a curious and not profitless illustration of the spirit of days long gone by. Charles the Second manfully slaying the hydra of Calvinism is a very goodly picture: and Calvinism may be proud that if it was to die it had such an executioner, rather than a Hooker, or a Hall, or a Beveridge, or an Usher, or a Leighton. The satirical description of the poor Bunyanites (I use Bunyan's name generically) was a most dignified effusion to be listened to in full senate by "our most famous University;" though in point of real dignity Bunyan and his poor praying company of lowly villagers was a far more morally dignified spectacle than all the doctors, both the proctors, the heads of colleges and halls, with their respective societies, convened under the auspices of the most illustrious Chancellor or Mr. Vice-Chancellor, to listen to a young gentleman commoner uttering from the academical rostrum his flippant fooleries against some of the best and most sainted servants of God, non-conformists though they were—and in this I vindicate them not-who ever adorned this or any other land. I plead not for schism, for disorder, or for fanaticism; but there was nothing so degrading in the lowest conventicle as in the spectacle just described; and Bunyan's old women were sages and heroines compared with any Reverend divine who could listen with complacency to such strains as the following, and make the encœnia of honoured Oxford a vehicle for vulgar controversial buffoonery. I was going to translate the verses into good English doggerel, for the benefit of those who have forgotten their Latin-but le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle. There is moreover a downright profaneness in some of the lines which must have severely pained every member of the University in whom the sense of decency was stronger than his antipathy to Bunyanites and prayer-meetings. Did no Reverend academic feel the impropriety of speaking of the influences of the Holy Spirit in terms appropriated to the Pagan sybil? A page of Hudibras had been a more decorous Univerity exercitation. CONVENTICULA DISSIPATA. Ecquis nunc Caroli ramo felicis Oliva Quæ scelera, & quantæ steterant sine vindice fraudes, Huc omnes, quotquot mirus sub pectore fervor |