penitent sinner; may it be that of all our hearts, till the LORD shall have turned our prayer into praise!

Here, Brethren, I would conclude this head, did not I think it will be agreeable to you to have the contents of it supported by some plain scriptures, showing that there is no safety, no salvation, but in CHRIST, and that he, and he alone, has the words of everlasting life. MOSES and PETER, speaking of him, say, "Your GoD shall raise unto you a Prophet from among your brethren, and whosoever will not hear that prophet, (receive his doctrine,) shall be cut off from among the people," that is to say, cut off from God's people, and consigned to outer darkness, Acts iii. 22. PETER tells the Jews that JESUS CHRIST is "the stone which is set at nought by the builders, but is nevertheless the head of the corner," that which supports the whole building of each believer's salvation. "Neither is there salvation in any other," adds he, "for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved," chap. iv. 12. In the next chapter, ver. 31, the same Apostle declares, that "GOD has exalted JESUS CHRIST with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, and to give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel." And elsewhere (Acts x. 43,) he says, "To him give all the Prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." The 3d chapter of St. PAUL'S Epistle to the Romans may be looked upon as a short comment upon the text: part of it runs thus; "Every mouth must be stopped," says the Apostle, "and all the world become guilty before God; therefore, by the deeds of the law," by what a man can do in obedience to the law, "shall no flesh be justified. But now the righteousness of GOD," or GOD's way of saving sinners, "is manifested" in the gospel, "by faith of JESUS CHRIST, unto all and upon all that believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of GoD so that all must be justified freely by grace, through the redemption that is in JESUS CHRIST, whom GOD has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood for the remission of the sins that are past." By these Scriptures, not to quote any more, you see, my Brethren, that if we remain in ourselves, in our sins or self-righteousness, or that if we go to any other person or means but to the eternal Son of GOD, through all such means we have not the least chance to escape endless ruin; and that if we go to him with all our sins and guilt, with all our misery and helplessness, he has the words of eternal life; he can and will speak peace, pardon, and heaven into our souls, and then from his kingdom of grace translate us into his kingdom of glory.

Having thus showed what offended many of the disciples of our LORD, so that they walked no more with him; and having VOL. XLIV. JUNE, 1821.

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proved that PETER spoke the fundamental truth of the Gospel when he said, "LORD, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life;" I shall conclude by an application of what has been delivered.

Some of you are ready to find fault with us for telling and proving to you, that every natural man, every unconverted person, is in a damnable state, yea, is condemned already: you think this is a monstrous doctrine, not fit to be mentioned in a pulpit. What! is that which is so plainly laid down in the bible monstrous, and not fit to be mentioned in the pulpit! Well, then, the bible is not fit to be read in the desk. Oh, my Brethren, how is it that you are yet without understanding in this point? How is it you cannot see that your hard thoughts or hard speeches fall not upon us, but upon that sacred book, and upon the holy, just, glorious, and eternal GOD, who sent it to you from heaven? And how will you stand at the bar of GoD when this very book shall be opened for your trial, and your secret murmurings or ungodly speeches against it stare you in the face, with all your other sins? To whom will you go then for the words of eternal life; to God Almighty? Hear what ST. PETER says: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." "The proud he looketh afar off," says DAVID; yea, he frowned Satan into hell for his pride; and what greater pride can there be in people that are born in sin, and children of wrath by nature, as you and I are, than to oppose the plain word of GOD, and to absolve ourselves when the LORD condemns us, instead of pleading guilty, and going to CHRIST now for life and salvation? Will you go to him in the hour of death? Do you think he will give you heaven then for having trampled his doctrine under foot? Will he take you in, who fight against his word, when he shuts out the foolish virgins who assented to all that it contains? Or shall we go in that awful day to our good works for salvation? Our good works! I should be glad to know which they are? Our oaths and curses, our threats and passions, our whoredom and drunkenness, our filthy talking and jesting, our vain and covetous practices, our lying and slandering, our breaking the Sabbath, and making sport of those who want to fear the LORD, our keeping away from the house of God's worship when others resort to it, and our openly refusing to walk with a crucified SAVIOUR when the sacred mystery of his dying love is celebrated at the altar, are these our good works? Will these save us? Having been guilty of such things, shall we ever dream of salvation by our works? When thieves are saved from the gallows by the robbery they have committed, we may fancy to be saved from hell by the works we have done. When the Pharisee shall go justified to his house, we may hope to be pardoned on account of our good deeds. And when the Pope shall have turned CHRIST

out of heaven, and the Epistles of ST. PAUL out of the Bible, we may dissent from PETER in the text, and instead of saying with him, "LORD, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life;" we may say with all Deists, LORD, we need not go to thee, for we have the words of eternal life at our command; our endeavours, works, and righteousness will save us; the Pope has shown us this door, and though thou tellest us thou art the door, yet we are determined to get in at our own door. This I do not speak, my Brethren, to set you against good works, but to show you the need of coming to CHRIST first, that the tree may be made good before you can do works good in the sight of God. Make the tree good, says our LORD, and then the fruit shall be good; till then, bring forth fruits meet for repentance; and when you stand in the LORD by faith, when you are grafted in CHRIST, when God has given you the victory through our LORD JESUS CHRIST, take ST. PAUL's advice, 1 Cor. xv. 58, "Be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the LORD; for as much as you know that" though your labour would be in vain in yourselves, yet it "is not in vain in the LORD."

But I would hope that many of you, instead of finding these sayings false and hard, find them true and just; and that were our LORD to say unto you, as he did to the twelve," Will ye also go away?" you would answer, as well as PETER, "LORD, to whom should we go?" GoD is a consuming fire out of thee; angels and saints, bishops and priests, books and ordinances, good works and endeavours cannot save, for thou alone, O CHRIST, hast the words of everlasting life. But can you say this from your heart as well as with your lips? Are you entirely reconciled? Are you really well pleased with God's way of saving sinners through faith alone in the blood and righteousness of JESUS CHRIST? Do you renounce the Devil and all his works; yea, and all dependence upon your own works? Can you, with ST. PAUL, desire to be found in CHRIST, not having your own righteousness, but that which is through faith in his blood? Are you determined to glory only in the LORD; to rejoice in nothing so much as in the cross of JESUS your LORD, which is to crucify the world unto you, and you unto the world? Though all men should go back to the world, and walk no more with CHRIST in the way of the regeneration, are you resolved (the LORD being your helper) to follow CHRIST and his word, and to stand to your bible even unto death? If this is the case, rejoice, you dearly beloved of the LORD; the good work is begun in your souls; you are already called out of the world. Marvel not, then, says St. John, if the world hate you; it hated, it forsook, it crucified your LORD and MASTER before you, and so it will do by the servant in a measure. Oh, bear your cross with patience; your SAVIOUR who bore it first comes to meet you with a crown

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of righteousness, and a crown of glory. O faint not in the mean time; faint not in this day of reproach, scandal, temptation, and darkness. You see many who call themselves disciples, and churchmen, exclaiming against the plain doctrine of CHRIST and of our church, and refusing to walk with our reformers in the narrow path pointed out in the word of God, and in our Articles and Homilies. But O, follow not a multitude in the broad way; choose rather, with MOSES, to endure affliction and reproach with the people of GOD, than to enjoy the pleasures and smiles of the world for a season. Take the good part of MARY, take the good part of PETER, and though all the world should not only forsake CHRIST, but also rise up in arms against you for cleaving to his word, stand to the text. In you there is nothing but sin, death, and damnation, says our Church. In me, that is in my flesh, (says PAUL himself,) dwelleth no good thing. Up then with the Apostle; not only renounce with him all other saviours, but go, this moment go, to Him whom God has exalted to be a PRINCE and a SAVIOUR for you. Say not only "to whom shall we go?" but go directly, with all your sins, with all your misery, to your dying SAVIOUR. Tell him, LORD, thou hast the words of everlasting life: speak them in my soul. Give him no rest till he say to you, as he did to DAVID, I am thy salvation; till he give you the blessing which he gave to the thief upon the cross, to ZACCHEUS upon the tree, to NATHANAEL under the fig-tree, to the harlot that wept behind him, to the woman who touched the hem of his garment, to the returning prodigal, to the penitent publican in the temple. Fear not; only believe; one grain of the faith of the centurion will remove all your sins upon CHRIST, who took them away upon the cross. Hear what DAVID says, "As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our sins from us." Look up then, believe, and live. Does not the LORD even now speak the word, that, going justified to your houses through the blood of the everlasting Covenant, you may praise and serve him without fear all the days of your lives?

THE WORD OF GOD ILLUSTRATED.

REMARKS ON ACTS XVII. 30.

"THE TIMES OF THIS IGNORANCE GOD WINKED AT."

To the Editor of the Methodist Magazine.

It is very hard to convince some persons, that the souls of Idolaters can be, on account of their idolatry, however sanguinary or impure, in any danger of damnation. When reasoned

with upon the subject, they have much to allege about the general mercifulness and equity of the divine administration, and in the end, perhaps, by way of settling all dispute, will say, that as "GOD winked at the times of ignorance" down to the days of the Apostle PAUL, he will not forget to be equally merciful, in all parallel cases, to the latest generations.

The purport of the following observations is to show that the word wepidav, which in our authorized English version is rendered "winked at," ought to have been otherwise translated; and that St. PAUL not only does not attribute to JEHOVAH any thing like connivance at the superstitions and cruelties of the preceding generations of idolaters, but actually signifies the abhorrence and contempt, with which, as a holy and "a jealous GOD," he could not fail to view them.

It has been common to slur over the difficulty which appears to clog this passage, by saying, that "the word, being derived from vzep and sidew, means simply to look over or to overlook," and to offer this etymology as a defence of the commonly received interpretation. But, in the same way it might be said that because aide means to see, therefore vegadew must mean to oversee, or supervise, or superintend; more especially, as dew, being a transitive verb, cannot properly be rendered by the verb to look, because the latter is a neuter verb. Allowing, however, that UTEPEIDEW may mean to look over, (though it were more correctly rendered to look above or beyond,) it still remains a question whether it means to look over "in mercy," or in contempt and anger; and, for an answer to this question we must refer, of course, to other passages in the Scriptures and elsewhere, in which the same word is to be found. As the word does not occur in any other passage of the New Testament, we must direct our research to the Septuagint version of the Old, in which we find it very frequently employed, corresponding to one or other of the

מאם זעם התעלם התעבר and הסכין :following Hebrew words

by, ay. Of these words the third, fourth, and sixth, directly countenance the signification for which I would contend, being commonly rendered by the Latin words contemsit, indignatus est, and excanduit, respectively; and being also the words for which UTEPEιdew is most commonly employed. The same may be said of ay, which in the only passage cited by Trommius (Job vi. 14,) is rendered in our English version by the word forsaketh. Of the remaining words, that which seems most favourable to the authorised translation is bynn, se occultavit, (he hid himself;) and in Levit. xx. 4, it is particularly favourable to it; but in the four other passagest in which the LXX have rendered it by UzEPEIDEW, it evidently implies contemptuous neglect or anger. It

* Vide Trommii Concord.

+ Deut. xx. 1, 3, 4; and Ps. liv. 1.