Printed by GEORGE HARRISON, of 11, Cross Street, Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, and published by ELLIOT STOCK, 62, Paternoster Row, in the Parish of St. Faith, under St. Paul's, in the City of London.-FRIDAY, JANUARY 1st, 1864.

TRUTH, is the life of the universe, and the only foundation of solid happiness whether in the present world or in that which is to come. Abandon truth, and we become the prey, even the slaves, of all that is base, corrupt, and destructive; and we wander on in our blindness until we plunge into the vortex of ruin, the bottomless abyss of falsehood and death. To find out truth,-to "seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures,"-should be the chief business of life, the one primary end and object of reading, study, and fervent prayer. Compared with this, the possession of wealth, the pride of the noble, and the honours of royalty, are but an idle dream,—the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Divine truth above all other, should be the object of this devoted zeal. Ignorance here is always injurious, and frequently fatal. When known and followed, Divine truth is the lamp of life and the infallible guide to a blissful immortality; but when unknown "darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people." And this truth is in CHRIST,-" the way, THE TRUTH, and the life." To reveal him therefore, and to illustrate his government, to explain his kingly character, and to exhibit the nature of the kingdom of his grace,constitute the office and design of holy Scripture. It can have no other object, end, or purpose; but throughout its whole scope it must ever conform to the acknowledged statute that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

VOL. XXI.-NO. CCXLII.

Hence, in the presence and despite the struggles of rival sects and multiplied heresies, we must refer all tenets, doctrines, and creeds, to "the spirit of prophecy." The Arian dishonours Christ, the Sabellian denies the Trinity, the Pelagian feeds the flame of human pride, and the Semi-Pelagian proposes a compromise. But all alike must bow to "the law and the testimony." No favour must be shown, no partiality, and no reserve. They must stand or fall together according to the judgment of "the truth as it is in Jesus." This has been, and will continue to be the guiding law of these papers on the Sects and Heresies of the Christian Church.

Cassian, an Oriental, but who belonged to a monastery at Marseilles, was the founder of the Semi-Pelagians. He broached his sentiments with considerable success in the south of France, about the year A.D. 428, and subsequently; and his aim was to furnish the church with a compromise between the low doctrines of Pelagius, and the high sentiments of Augustine. In other words, he proposed a middle way, a compound-between salvation by man with Pelagius, and salvation by the free grace of God with Augustine, and he laboured with much diligence to show that the great work of our redemption was done partly by man, and partly by God. He differed from Pelagius by admitting the total depravity of man, and he equally differed from Augustine by denying the doctrine of salvation by free grace alone. Agreeing with neither entirely, but differing from both in part, he evidently aimed to unite the free-will of man with the free grace of God, in a work that should depend as much on the one as on the other, and which, between the two might prove a total failure at last.

In this dubious compromise he propounded the following as his leading doctrines:-1st. That God did not dispense his grace to one, more than another in consequence of an absolute decree, but was willing to save all men, if they complied with the terms of his gospel.-2nd. That Christ died for all men.-3rd. That the grace purchased by Christ, and necessary to salvation, was offered to all men.—4th. That man, before he received grace, was capable of faith and holy desires.-5th. That man born free, was consequently capable of resisting the influences of grace, or of complying with its suggestions.

On this statement of doctrine two remarks require to be made. First-That having avowed his belief in the total depravity of human nature, Cassian contradicted himself in the fourth of the above points when asserting that man, before he received grace, was capable of gracious acts, unless, indeed, he indulged in the absurd notion that total depravity can produce "holy desires." Because the state of man "before he received grace," must be, according to his own showing, one utterly depraved; how then could such a soil spontaneously produce the plants of grace? "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." Or, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles?" According to this Semi-Pelagian they do, or man "before he received grace" could never be found" capable of faith and holy desires." Second-That in the exact proportion that the above statement of doctrine awards power to man, it deprives Divine grace of all

efficiency; or in other terms, that by so much as it does honour to man, it casts dishonour upon the grace of God. For in this SemiPelagian scheme, divine grace, being deprived of all settled purpose and design, is represented as a power or an agency, that may be frustrated, foiled, and defeated. It is not allowed to have a definite object, or a positive and certain result, such as we might and must expect God to have in every undertaking to which He applies his power; of this He is robbed by the Semi-Pelagian spoiler, and his most mighty and most precious enterprise in redemption, for which He gave the life of His Eternal Son, is reduced to a miserable contingency which may result in giving the Devil himself the means of gloating over the spoils of a defeated salvation. And shall this ever be? Shall the word of the Almighty God thus return to him void, and in baffled accents proclaim to an astonished and an alarmed universe, that it has failed to prosper in the thing whereto he sent it? Reader! Turn away from SemiPelagianism, however plausible, and its modern successor Arminianism, however popular and sleek. Turn from them, and listen to another and a surer voice that speaks, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”

Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by a Synod, held at Orange, in A,D. 520, and afterwards by another, held under Boniface, at Rome. It wandered about in Europe for a considerable period, but met with few supporters; and at last it withdrew from the public gaze into obscure recesses, where the more scriptural doctrines of the free grace of God were but little known. In some such retreats there may even yet be found the vain and idle belief, that man, apart from divine grace, "is capable of faith and holy desires," but its practical extinction affords decisive proof of the futility of the Semi-Pelagian compromise between free-will and free grace. All such attempts at compounding opposite principles are evidences of weakness, and a want of faith in the majestic doctrines of Divine truth. Man must be meddling. Not content to take the word of God as it is, and honestly to yield to him the prerogative of claiming a remnant, according to the election of grace;" poor human reason, darkened by sin, and more deeply obscured by the pride of intellect to which sin has given birth, will superadd a scheme of its own, whose fundamental principle is, that men elect themselves. Setting aside the election of the Infinitely wise and ever merciful God, busy in finding flaws in the system of Eternal love, and assuming to know better than the great Maker of heaven and earth,— human reason, though contracted to a proverb, proposes a plan that makes our everlasting salvation far more dependent on the creature than on the Uncreated ruler of the universe! Alas for the empty pride of the human heart! Alas for our depraved folly, that would dictate to the great Supreme! Vain man would be wise, though man be born like

a wild ass's colt."

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W. S.