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will appear proper.-Who objects to rails at the altar?→→→

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Permit me to say, that I much approve of your zeal for Saxon antiquity; you will, no doubt, direct many an intelligent clergyman to a source of rational gratification, and useful research. I heartily wish we were better con versant with the franchises in Church and State, of our remote ancestors;-of their language, though it mixes in our colloquial phrases, how ignorant are most of us-of their liberties we have much to learn, though the documents slumber on the shelves of Sion,-and of that spirit, pious, manly, chearful, triumphant, to which we owe the venerable edifices of our Saxon ancestors, how shall we contrive to galvanize a portion of it into this money-getting, artificial, self-taught, and self-approving generation?

I am, Sir,
Yours, &c.

MISCELLANIES.

A MEDITATION ON THE BEE.

BY GEORGE HORNE, D. D. LATE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH.

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O forth, O my soul, like the industrious Bee, to thy work and to thy labour, until the evening of thy day upon the earth. Take the wings of the morning, and fly quickly into that garden of God, the church of the redeemed; visit continually the assemblies of the faithful, those flowers whose unfading beauty graces the. inheritance of the beloved, and whose sweetness diffuses around them a savour of life unto life. There feed among the lilies of paradise, which shine invested with the righteousness of saints, and towering above the earth,. keep sheir garments unspotted from the dust of corruption. Fly amongst them day by day, and familiarize them all to thy acquaintance. Pass not by them hastily, nor be content to gaze only upon their beauties: but settle and fix thy meditations on them, until thou hast

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extracted the spirit and the life that is in their writings and their examples, the nourishment of wisdom, and the sweetness of consolation. These flowers, it is true, spring from the same earth, the same influences of heaven nourish and support them; but various are their colours, and their virtues are diverse. To one is given knowlege, to another meekness, to another humility, to another charity, by the same spirit. Each has its use, and its beauty, and he who would make honey must suck virtue from all. But above all, forget not evermore to dwell on the contemplation of him who grew from the virgin stem of Jesse; for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and know lege, and of his fulness have all others received. He is the true rose of Sharon, red in the day of his passion, opening his beauties as the morning, in the midst of a crown of thorns, made perfect through suffering. He is the lily planted in the humble vale, and from thence ascending up towards heaven, having his garments white as the light, which admits no stain to sully its virgin purity, and passeth through all things undefiled. Fly daily to him, and delight thyself in meditation on his life and death. From him and the other sweet flowers of his planting when thou hast drawn matter for instruction in righteousness, return home and deposit these treasures in the cells of thy understanding and affections, thy head and thy heart, that thou mayest become a land flowing with honey, a land wherein dwell the righteousness of Jesus, and the comforts of the holy one. And when thou hast thus laid up within thee the words of eternal life, be a faithful dispenser to others of the manifold grace of God, and let thy tongue be a channel to convey it from thy heart into those of thy brethren, distilling it in such proportions as every one is able to receive it: so that the heavenly bridegroom may seal thee to salvation with this gracious testimony-Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honey-comb, honey and milk are under thy tongue; sweet and healing as the one, innocent and nourishing as the other are all thy communications.

And to encourage thee to be thus liberal to others of what he has freely given thec, thy dear Lord has told thee that what thou givest to the least of thy brethren be takes as given to him. And as, when risen from the dead, he accepted, at the hands of his disciples, a piece of an honey-comb, so in the person of his members, risen from the death of sin through the power of his resurrection, he

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expects from his disciples, and more especially from his ministers, a portion of that word which is declared by the holy Psalmist to be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. And in this respect he is graciously pleased to say, that he does himself feed upon it: for so it is written -I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse, I have eaten my houey-comb with my honey. These lessons of heavenly wisdom, O my soul, mayest thou learn from that petty insect, of which the son of Sirach saith--The bee is little among such as fly, but her fruit is the chief of sweet things.

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ON GRACE AND JUSTIFICATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

HE two debates which have chiefly, and almost fatally divided Protestants, are concerning grace and justification; and both these debates would, I apprehend, in a little time be put an end to, by only doing justice to the original, and carefully distinguishing the general and appropriated senses of the two words, as and δικαιοσύνη.

Had our translators, as they have sometimes been forced to do, particularly Acts xxv. 3. always or invariably given us the sense of age where it is used in its general meaning by the word favour; and confined the term, GRACE, to its almost entirely appropriated sense of Spiritual or Divine influence, we should not, surely, if this had been the case, have had many teachers insisting so earnestly upon the doctrines, that by grace, in the sense of influence and inspiration we are justified, and that by influence and inspiration we are saved; but, on the contrary, we should have sound preachers, not mistaking, and consequently, we trust, speaking with St. Paul, that justification and salvation are both matters of favour; and not purchases of the works and merits of men, but truly, and in fact, divine donations, or the gratuitous vouchsafements of God:- "For ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his favour,

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through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood; to declare his method of justification, for the redemption of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; todeclare, I say, at this time, his method of justification, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth, or trusteth, in Jesus; Rom. iii, 23, &c.—" By favour ye are SAVED, through faith; and that salvation, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast, "Eph. ii. 8, 9; and if by FAVOUR, then it is no more of works, or of debt; otherwise, favour is no more favour. Rom. xi. 6."

With respect to the word JUSTIFICATION; our translators have used it but three times in the whole Bible, and every time, some think, to great disadvantage. The reason appears to me to be this :-They all along take the word dixanovun (which in its appropriated sense only signifies justification) in its general sense of righteousness, and then leave the two words diawos and inawa, to be rendered justification: Whereas, dinatis means vindication, or confirmation, and xapa sometimes signifies absolution.To give examples in the three places,-Rom. iv. 25, should, I apprehend, run thus: "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our VINDICATION,, or rather confirmation? Rom. v. 18. "Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all unto CONFIRMATION of life: Sixaiwo Ewns v. 16. For the judgment was by one to con demnation; but the free gift is of many offences unto ABSOLUTION: # dinaraμa Comp. Doddrige's Fam. Expos v. i, p. 352. N. C..

As for my own part, on reading the hooks of enthu saists, I do not so much blame them, as wish for a new and just translation; and surely, it is high time for the lovers of truth and peace to set about it! The present translation of the bible, no doubt, is a very good one, and justly so esteemed at this day, though made in the reign of king James I.; but it is not to be wondered at, if some words and phrases then in use, and weil understood, should by this time become obsolete, and almost unintelligible to common readers; for as the English tongue, like other living languages, is continually changing, it were to be wished, that the translation of the sacred Scriptures could be revised by public authority, and re

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duced to present forms of writing and speaking, at least once in a century: the Greek and Latin being dead languages, are almost subject to the same variation *. An instance just occurs to me in the 17th article:-"they who feel in themselves;" but in the Latin, which is of equal authority, it is qui sentiunt in se, they who perceive in themselves. The word feel is row appropriated to one of the five senses: no wonder such wild work is made in divinity by the use of it now.

Peterborough,
August 9, 1804.

JOHN WEDDRED.

ON THE SACRAMENTS, AND BEING BAPTIZED
IN THE CLOUD, &c.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S
MAGAZINE.

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GENTLEMEN,

I takes

THINK, Mr. Turner, in your last number, (p.43) mismy argument. It was I who ventured to send him a few observations on his catechetical work. He had said, in his tract respecting the five ordinances, which the Romanists style sacraments, that "we may safely deny their Having any one of the sacramental requisites belonging to them." To this I answered, on the authority of Wake," that not one of those ordinances have all the conditions required to make a sacrament; and the most part have hardly any." Surely, the venerable Mr. Turner, I speak with every sentiment of unfeigned respect, but using brotherly freedom, goes too far in saying the Romish sacraments have not one sacramental requisite. In confirmation, there is the outward and visible sign of laying on of hands; in penance, there is outward

On this subject we dissent completely from our correspondent; and so far from thinking that the language of the authorized version is obsolete or obscure, it appears to be the plainest and most level to common capacities that could be adopted. When we compare this translation with the attempts of many moderns, to render the Scriptures more intelligible, we are thankful for the peculiar blessing we enjoy of a Bible and Liturgy, we so well adapted for the purposes of Faith and Devotion.

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