of genuine obedience, and is therefore acceptable to God. His good works are no longer meant to occupy the place which belongs only to the merits of his Saviour; for then they would partake of pride and self-sufficiency: but they are the offspring of higher motives; they are acts of true Christian obedience; they are produced by the influence of God's Holy Spirit on the heart, and proceed from faith, and gratitude, and love. Let then the true Christian-who laments that his obedience to God is so imperfect, who knows the delight of being dutiful, but finds that perverseness and depravity still remain to debase his motives and pollute his actions-take comfort from the consideration of the atonement of Christ, and the influences of the Holy Spirit. His sanctification, though apparently slow, is still advancing. If he daily increase in deploring his deficiencies, it is a proof that his heart is becoming more tender, and his conscience more susceptible. And finally, let him take to himself the promises of assistance and support which are treasured in the volume of life; and let him anticipate those worlds of bliss, where he shall for ever obey his gracious Creator, without so much as a temptation to sin. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THOUGH I decidedly differ from a minister of our venerable Establishment respecting "the Duty of Controversy," (the title affixed to a discourse published a few years since), I cannot refrain from calling the attention of your readers to a passage in the writings of the celebrated Chillingworth, which forms a singular contrast with some opinions maintained by Dr. Hook (in his sermon preached at St. Paul's, June 18, 1818), on the inability of the unlearned to understand the holy Scriptures, when unaccompanied with note or comment. I will first quote one of the strongest passages in the Archdeacon's discourse, on the point in question, and then collate with it a no less decided sentiment of the great champion of Protestantism. Dr. Hook (in reference to the members of the Bible Society) observes, that they "have united themselves in a near and strange fellowship, in order to give additional force and effect to the popular but untenable position against which we have been contending; namely, that the Scriptures are sufficiently plain and perspicuous to admit of their being distributed among the lower and more ignorant classes of society, without either guide or comment to assist in the interpretation of them." pp. 22, 23. Chillingworth, in the "Religion of Protestants a safe Way, &c." (2d edit. chap. ii. pp. 88, 89), says, Again, when you say that unlearned and ignorant men cannot understand Scripture, I would desire you to come out of the clouds and tell us what you mean; whether, that they cannot understand all Scripture, or that they cannot understand any Scripture, or that they cannot understand so much as is sufficient for their direction to heaven. If the first, I believe the learned are in the same case. If the second, every man's experience will confute you; for who is there that is not capable of a sufficient understanding of the story, the precepts, the promises, and the threats of the Gospel? If the third, that they may understand something, but not enough for their salvation; I ask you first, why then does St. Paul say to Timothy, The Scriptures are able to make men wise unto salvation?' "Neither did they (the sacred writers) write only for the learned, but for all men. This being one especial means of the preaching of the Gospel, which was commanded to be preached, not only to learned men, but to all men. And, therefore, unless we will imagine the Holy Ghost and them to have been wilfully wanting to their own desire and purpose, we must conceive that they intended to speak plainly, even to the capacity of the simplest; at least touching all things necessary to be published by them, and believed by us." Having thus endeavoured to shew that the distribution of the holy Scriptures, without note or comment, is virtually advocated by one pre-eminently qualified to pass judgment on the point, I shall beg leave to submit, in conclusion, two or three important queries to those who may be disposed to subscribe to the above opinion of Dr. Hook. 1st, Is there in existence a commentary on the whole Bible, adapted in its style to the capacity of the unlearned reader? 2dly, If such a commentary can be produced, how are the poor to become in all cases possessed of it? 3dly, If (which is very far from impossible) some part of such a commentary should prove unintelligible to the poor, how are they then to understand the sacred text? A PROTESTANT CLERGYMAN. P. S. In all that I have submitted to your readers on the point in question, I would be understood to argue not against the usefulness, but against the indispensable necessity, of a commentary to the unlearned reader of the Bible. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I TAKE the liberty of sending for your insertion an interesting passage from the writings of Dr. South, on the much disputed points of good works, repentance, and justification. The learned author will never, I think, be suspected of what is vaguely called Methodism; and yet his statements would fully satisfy the minds of many who, in the present day, are called to bear that inexplicable name. The learned divine is preaching upon 1 John iii. 3. Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." Drawing near to the conclusion of his discourse, he says, I proceed now to the other thing from which we are to purify ourselves; and that is, the guilt of sin. In speaking of which I shall shew, "1. Negatively, what cannot purify us from the guilt of sin. "2. Positively, what alone can. "1. For the first of these. No duty or work, within the power and performance of man as such, is able to expiate and take away the guilt of sin. In this matter we must put our hands upon our mouths, and be silent for ever. He that thinks, and attempts by his own goodness to satisfy God's justice, does by this, the more incense it; and by endeavouring to remove his guilt, does indeed increase it. His works of satisfaction for sin, are the greatest sins, and stand most in need of the satisfaction of Christ. We know how miserably the deluded Papists err in this point, how they wander in the maze of their own inventions about works of penance, deeds of charity, pilgrimages, and many other such vain ways, found out by them to purge and purify guilty consciences. A man perhaps has committed some gross sin, the guilt of which lies hard and heavy upon his conscience; and how shall be remove it? Why, peradventure by a blind devotion: he says over So many prayers, goes so many miles barefoot, gives so much to holy uses, and now he is rectus in curia, free and absolved in the court of Heaven, But certainly the folly of those that practise these things is to be pitied; and the blasphemy of those that teach them, to be detested. For do they know and consider what sin is, and whom it strikes at? Is it not the breach of the law? Is it not against the infinite justice and sovereignty of the great God? And can the poor, imperfect, finite services of a sinful creature ever make up such a breach? Can our pitiful broken mite, discharge the debt of ten thousand talents? Those that can imagine the removal of the guilt of the least sin feasible, by the choicest and most religious of their own works, never as yet knew God truly, nor themselves, nor their sins: they never understood the fiery strictness of the Law, nor the spirituality of the Gospel. "Now, though this error is most gross and notorious amongst the Papists, yet there is something of the same spirit that leavens and infects the duties of most professors; who in all their works of repentance, sorrow, and humiliation for sin, are too, too apt secretly to think in their hearts that they make God some amends for their sins. And the reason of this is, because it is natural to all men to be selfjustitiaries, and to place a justifying power in themselves, and to conceive a more than ordinary value and excellency in their own works, but especially such works as are religious. "But this conception is of all others the most dangerous to the soul, and dishonourable to God, as being absolutely and diametrically opposite to the tenor of the Gospel, and that which evacuates the death and satisfaction of Christ; for it causes us, while we acknowledge a Christ, tacitly to deny the Saviour. And herein is the art and policy of the devil seen, who will keep back the sinner as long as he can, from the duties of repentance and humiliation; and when he can do this no longer, he will endeavour to make him trust and confide in them. And so he circumvents us by this dilemma. He will either make us neglect our repentance, or adore it: throw away our salvation by omission of duties, or place it in our duties: but let this persuasion still remain fixed upon our spirits, that repentance was enjoined the sinner as a duty, not as a recompence; and that the most that we can do for God, cannot countervail the least that we have done against him. "2. In the next place, therefore, positively; that course which alone is able to purify us from the guilt of sin, is by applying the virtue of the blood of Christ to the soul, by renewed acts of faith. We hold indeed, that justification as it is the act of God, is perfect and entire at once, and justifies the soul from all sins, both past and future : yet justification and pardoning mercy are not actually dealt forth to us after particular sins, till we repair to the death and blood of Christ, by particular actings of faith upon it; which actings also of themselves cleanse not away the guilt of sin, but the virtue of Christ's blood conveyed by them to the soul: for it is that alone that is able to wash away this deep stain, and to change the hue of the spiritual Ethiopian: nothing can cleanse the soul but that Blood that redeemed the soul. "The invalidity of whatsoever we can do in order to this thing, is sufficiently demonstrated in many places of Scripture, Job ix. 30, 31. If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean, yet thou shalt plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me. He that has nothing to rinse his polluted soul with, but his own penitential tears, endeavours only to purify himself in muddy water, which does not purge but increase the stain. In Christ alone is that fountain that is opened for sin and for uncleanness; and in this only we must wash and bathe our defiled souls, if ever we would have them pure. (1 John i. 7.) The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin. It is from his crucified side that there must issue, both blood to expiate and water to cleanse our impieties. Faith also is said to purify the heart.. (Acts xv. 9.) But how? Why cer • The reader may refer to Dr. Chalmers's excellent sermon on this text for many valuable remarks on the subject. tainly, as it is instrumental to bring into the soul that purifying virtue that is in Christ. Faith purifies, not as the water itself, but as the conduit that conveys the water. Again, (Rev. i. 5.) Christ is said to have washed us from our sins in his own blood. There is no cleansing without this. So that we may use the words of the Jews, and convert an imprecation into a blessing, and pray that his blood may be upon us, and upon our souls; for it is certain that it will be one way upon us, either to purge or to condemn us. Every soul is polluted with the loathsome, defiling leprosy of sin. And now for the purging off of this leprosy, if the Spirit of God bids us go and wash in the blood of Christ, that spiritual Jordan, and assures us that upon such washing, our innocence shall revive and grow anew, and our original lost purity return again upon us, shall we now, in a huff of spiritual pride and selflove, run to our own endeavours, our own humiliations, and say as Naaman, Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?' May I not wash in them and be clean? Are not my tears, my groans, and my penitential sorrows, of more efficacy to cleanse me, than the blood and death of Christ May I not use these and be clean, and purified from sin? I answer, No; and after we have tried them, we shall experimentally find their utter insufficiency. We may sooner drown, than cleanse ourselves with our own tears." R. P. B. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. In addition to the remarks made by F. Y. in your last Number, on the Church Service for the thirtieth of January, I am tempted to offer the following. Had the compilers of this occasional service intended that the form of prayer should be used on the Sunday, and the fast kept the day following, they could not but have expressed themselves more clearly and grammatically thus: "If this day shall happen to be Sunday, this form of prayer shall be used, but the fast kept the next day following." But surely it could not have been their intention to separate the two joint acts of humiliation, prayer and fasting. Agreeably to the practice of the Catholic Church, which never admitted fasting on Sundays, they have taken particular care in this instance that the fast should not be kept on the Christian Sabbath, and have therefore enjoined that it should be kept on the next day following; and that they intended also that the form of prayer should accompany the outward act of fasting, might be inferred from the title of the service-" A Form of Prayer with Fasting"-as also from many expressions used in the service, and which profess that we are at that time "turning unto the Lord, in weeping, fasting and praying;" which is not the fact, neither can be, on the Sunday, because the church has enjoined that all Sundays shall be observed as festivals, whence all vigils and fast days falling on the Sunday, are kept the Saturday preceding. Such is the distinction made between a fast and a day of thanksgiving falling on the Sunday; for if, for instance, a day of thanksgiving shall happen to be a Sunday, then the Rubric orders that the usual office shall be used. From the following words of the Rubric in question, I think it may be inferred, that the form of prayer is to be used on the Monday. "And upon the Lord's day next before the day to be kept, at morning prayer, immediately after the Nicene Creed, notice sball be given for the due observation of the said day." Now, the Monday is certainly to be kept a fast; but if the form of prayer is to be used on the Sunday, I can neither conceive how the notice is to be given for a fast only, and that too in the course of the service for the day, To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THE REV. Mr. Simeon, in a passage in his highly valuable "Horæ Homiletica," cited in your Number for May, p. 343, remarks, that "pious men, both of the Calvinistic and Arminian persuasion, approximate very nearly when they are upon their knees before God in prayer; the devout Arminian then acknowledging his total dependence upon God as strongly as the most confirmed Calvinist; and the Calvinist acknowledging his responsibility to God, and his obligation to exertion, in terms as decisive as the most determined Arminian."—I have frequently heard the same remark made in conversation; but doubt how far such statements are correct. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that on few occasions are the effects of the two systems more visible than in the prayers of their respective abettors. It is very true, that "the devout Arminian acknowledges his total dependence upon God;" but there is nothing in his doctrinal system which he considers at variance with such a profession. The Calvinist likewise" acknowledges his responsibility and his obligation to exertion;" but this also he conceives to be in perfect accordance with his doctrinal hypothesis. The reason, perhaps, of the common expression of surprise by the opposite parties at not finding the prayers of each other contradictory to their own views of truth, is, that each is apt to consider his neighbour as holding sentiments which he by no means admits, and rejecting others which he cordially embraces. When, therefore, he learns his opponent's real senti are ments, unclothed in the garb of controversy, as of course they appear in humble prayer, he finds that the opinions which he imputed to him are not his sentiments, and that his system is not necessarily accompanied by the injurious appendages which the imagination of the opponent had interwoven with it. Calvinists are apt to suppose that their Arminian friends heretical on the subject of original sin; that they are not clear upon the fundamental point of justification by faith; that they attribute merit to their imperfect works; and that they make holiness not only the qualification, but a part also of the claim to heaven. Arminiaus are apt to fancy, that their Calvinistic brethren think so exclusively of their election to life, that they fail to examine themselves as to the grounds of their confi'dence; that they indulge a secret persuasion, that provided they have faith, it matters little whether it operates in good works; and that they not only exclude holiness as a meritorious condition, but deny its necessity altogether, and thus practically echo the licentious maxim, "Let us sin that grace may abound." Now, it requires but a slight knowledge of the real sentiments of the contending parties, supposing them to be true Christians, to perceive that these imputed dogmas are not a part of their admitted creed. But, for want of coming into intimate contact, prejudice and party-spirit so often blind the eyes of each, that they are slow to believe that these hideous inferences are engendered only in their own imaginations. Even should the parties meet for disputation, it is not likely that a correct impression will be left on the minds of either; for both will probably be so intently employed in attacking and defending certain positions, and in discovering all the supposed evil tendencies of the opposite scheme, that it is more than probable that |