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only two of its smallest words, and we mean that our remarks shall be, even to her, as clear as noon-day, which, by the way, is nearly the pronunciation of the words themselves (vy di), and when we mention that these words are uniformly translated "but now," we have made her as learned on the subject as any of the new-fledged doctors whose names have been recently swarming in the columns of the newspapers, and almost as profound as Professor Dunbar him

self.

And yet let neither the fair reader nor her swart and venerable guardian suppose that the article is to be a frivolous one. "Slight is the subject," as Virgil says when about to treat of the bees, "but the luscious honeycomb is rich and weighty too;" and we are not without the hope that in handling aright these little particles we may throw light on some passages of that Sacred Word which, to those who have their senses rightly exercised, is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

The connection, or rather the contrast, suggested by these words, is frequently and most obviously one of time, as, "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord." This use of the term requires no illustration. The only danger is that, from its extreme obviousness, it is apt to be adopted where it is not properly applicable.

In many other cases, however, perhaps in the greater number, the same particles are employed to indicate a fact, in opposition to something supposed and denied. One thing is mentioned which might have been, or perhaps ought to have been, and another thing entirely different is asserted actually to exist. Some instances of this contrast of the actual with the hypothetical are extremely plain, and the reader should familiarize herself with them, in order more clearly to discern the same idiom in passages where it is less obvious. We quote a few.

"If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father."-JOHN xv. 24.

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"If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth."-JOHN ix. 41.

"If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham: but now ye seek to kill me," &c.-JOHN viii. 39.

Other instances equally clear will be found in 1 Cor. xii. 18-20, and in Heb. xi. 16. In these cases, it will be observed, that the preceding part of the sentence begins with an if. It announces a supposition, and a consequence flowing from it; and the latter part, beginning with the words "But now," contradicts either the supposition or the inference.

There are instances, however, in which, from the former clause being at a considerable distance, or being less explicitly expressed, the meaning has been unnoticed or misunderstood. Thus, in Heb. viii. 4, 6, the apostle argues, If Christ were on earth, he should not be a priest; but now (that is, not being on earth, or earthly) he hath obtained a more excellent ministry. In this case the supposition is made to be contradicted, of Christ's being, or claiming to be, a minister of the earthly sanctuary, with the consequence that he could not be a priest, since, by the covenant of Sinai, none but the tribe of Levi could hold the office there. And, in contrast with this, he is exhibited as the mediator of a better covenant, and the possessor of a more exalted, even a heavenly priesthood. The same idea is brought out in a similar way in the 9th chapter, verse 26. Christ, it is said,

" is not entered into the holy place made with hands -nor yet to offer himself often; for then (that is, if he had done so), he must often have suffered from the foundation of the world; but now (as the fact stands), once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” From not observing the antithesis, Schleusner was inclined to believe the particle redundant. The force of it, however, is readily perceived by noticing the hypothesis implied in the preceding clause.

The force of the particle (u), for then, in this verse, as implying tacitly the hypothesis contradicted, is also exhibited in two other passages to which we shall only allude. The one is 1 Cor. v. 10: "I have not written to you in my letter to avoid the company of sinners of the world generally; for then (that is, if you were to act on this principle, or if I had desired you to do so) you would have to go out of the world; but, as it is, I have written to you not to associate with the notoriously wicked who is called a brother." The other passage is 1 Cor vii. 14, which may be rendered, in the latter part, "If this were not the case, your children were unclean; but, as it is, they are holy."

From an inadvertency similar to that mentioned above, curious mistakes have been committed in regard to that part of our Lord's "good confession," in which he said, " But now is my kingdom not from hence"-or not of this world. Understanding the word now as a particle of time, some have understood it as characterizing the new dispensation in distinction from the old with its worldly ordinances; others as referring to the present state of the Church, as distinguished from its millennial condition. One says It is not now of this world, though it once was; another, It is not now, but it will be hereafter. Even to a more upright and impartial judge than Pilate, it might have seemed to be an unsatisfactory defence, had Jesus declared that his kingdom was not of the world at the time then present, though it had been the day before, or was to be, no one could say how soon afterwards. Comparing this passage, however, with the others that have been quoted, the meaning is very clear. We have first the supposition and its consequence, If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight," &c.; then the contrasted fact, But now (seeing there are no subjects to fight for me) my kingdom is not from hence. In this there was no covert allusion to worldly power once possessed, or hereafter to be exercised, but a simple, and therefore most convincing, reference to his own humble and solitary condition, so different from what might be expected in any one who should attempt to shake the throne of Cæsar.

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We believe that our Saviour's affecting lamentation over rebellious Jerusalem (Luke xix. 42) is very commonly understood as contrasting the opportunities and privileges which her people had formerly enjoyed with the blindness and consequent miseries to which they were now consigned. "If thou hadst known the things which belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes." We do not think that this is the contrast really intended. The expression" in this thy day," would seem rather to refer to a present opportunity. It is acknowledged on all hands that the expression is elliptical, and it is generally filled up in some such way as this :-"Happy had it been for thee if thou hadst known the things which belong to thy peace." In whatever way the ellipsis may be supplied, we have, as before, the supposition with its

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consequences opposed to the actual fact. And we would submit that the whole might be truly, though somewhat paraphrastically, expressed as follows: "What fearful calamities might be averted if thou knewest, even thou, rebellious and blood-stained as thou art, if at least in this thy day of visitation thou knewest the things which belong to thy peace! But as it is, they are hid from thy eyes, and the calamities are hastening to overtake thee; for the days shall come upon thee, &c. We here see the Redeemer regarding the unhappy people, not with unavailing regrets, but with that lively compassion which, when the doom of the guilty city could not be averted, yet rescued from the general woe thousands even of the wretches over whom he wept-the Elect for whose sake the days of suffering were shortened.

The same idiom occurs once more in 1. Cor. xv. 20. But in this case there may be some doubt as to the hypothetical clause with which the statement is contrasted. We are inclined to hold that it is not that in the verse immediately preceding, but that the reference is to the 16th. The question which the apostle is discussing is the resurrection of the dead, and the strange opinion of those who denied it. The monstrous nature of their doctrinc, considered as a tenet of professing Christians, is shown from the consequences which it involved-that Christ's resurrection was unreal, that their sins were unexpiated, that deceased Christians had perished, and living believers were the victims of a most miserable delusion. All this is the unavoidable conclusion, if the dead be not raised. But now the glorious truth opposed to these dismal fictions is, that Christ is risen from the dead -he is the first-fruits of his sleeping followers, at once the means and the vital cause of their resurrection.

Closely connected with the supposition of something which is not the fact, is the statement of what ought to be, but is not done. Thus, in James iv. 15: "Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that," is equivalent to the expression: "It were more becoming if you were to say," &c. In opposition to which the apostle brings this charge against the disciples whom he is addressing : “But | now ye rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil" The fact was that they boasted of what they would accomplish, and what they would gain in days and years to come, and rejoiced in their boasted success. The more rational and more Christian disposition, which might have been, and ought to have been, manifested, in contrast to this, is the spirit of those who looked humbly to the Lord, as the length of their days and the disposer of their lot, and formed all their plans in submission to his providence.

Such criticisms may appear to some (as Samuel Clarke said of his own remarks on Homer) to be slight and unimportant. But they are not without their value, if they make us familiar with modes of expression, and so with modes of thinking, characteristic of the sacred writers. They may enable our minds to fill up more completely "the mould of doctrine into which we have been cast," and so to acquire a greater likeness to that which it is the Christian's desire to resemble.

We do not enter into any learned argument to justify a slight alteration in the authorized version. But we recommend the student to consult Raphelius and Kuinoel in loc, and to mark the different phrases in Matt xii. 7; John xiv. 7; Matt. xxiv. 43; John iv. 10. He should also study the language in 1 Cor. ii. 8. At the same time the alteration has no connection with our argument.

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D'AUBIGNE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT.

Ir is well known with what eager desire the Establishment endeavoured to get the historian of the Reformation in Germany on her side, when he visited this country in 1845; how she courted him, took him to see the Commissioner in a carriage with Dr. Hill, and to the Commissioner's dinner, and by one of those petty tricks with which little minds are familiar, got him not only into the Assembly itself, but had the unconscious Genevese stuck up beside the Commissioner, and then announced the fact with a kind of triumph in her newspapers. Behold how the best laid schemes of such men recoil upon themselves! The Doctor, thus forced to see the nakedness of the land, and the "beggarly account of empty boxes," publishes the facts of the case in the most graphic manner, ,and presents them as a striking contrast to the state of the Free Church and her Assembly-publishes them, too, in such a way that they are sure to find access to thousands who might not otherwise have heard of them so minutely. This must have been deeply galling to the Erastians, and no wonder that the grapes which could not be reached have turned instantly sour. Policy might have led them to conceal their feelings, but their rage at D'Aubigné is now unbounded. For a time, indeed, they endeavoured to conceal the gall and wormwood of their souls; but it has at length found vent in a torrent of the most malignant abuse in the columns of M'Phail. The article in question, like several recent articles in the same repository, is chiefly marked by a virulent hatred of vital Christianity very thinly veiled. But this is quite in keeping with the known character of the parties. We know that the Moderates of ancient times companied with the infidel Hume, and stirred up poor Burns to write his reckless tirades against the godly men of that day-that where there is no real religion, there is always a heart-hatred of it, no matter whether it break out in the oaths of an Irish priest, or in the reckless abuse of a Scotch Moderate. But we had expected more policy at least, if not more principle, in the present case. Bad as many of the members of the Establishment are, they are scarcely prepared to throw decency aside.

But to the article. It commences with a towering eulogium on a Mr. Emerson, from America, who calls himself, we believe, an Unitarian, but who is understood to be a sort of philosophical Atheist.* This is sufficiently bold, and reminds us that Moderatism. and Unitarianism were always very friendly, and that it is one thing to have a tolerably good creed on paper, and for the sake of stipend, and another thing to have it in the conscience and heart. Hear their Ecclesiastical Journal upon Emerson :

"Last month, we brought before our readers one of the foremost men of the age, who was on the eve of visiting Scotland; and we have since seen Emerson most cordially received by an Edinburgh audience. A year or two ago, another wellknown foreigner came to our country, and was treated hospi

The following short passages, extracted from his works, will give our readers a more definite idea of his religious character:"The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me. am part or particle of God."

"Every man is a divinity in disguise-a god playing the fool." "The world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God."

"Existence of God is not a relation or a part, but the whole. Being is the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and swallowing up all relations, parts, and times within itself " "Alone he (Jesus) estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what was in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world."

tably (as both dogs and angels should be) being blessed with four meals a-day, and innumerable dishes of luscious flattery. We need not mention the name of Merle D'Aubigné, nor say, what little interest his appearance could have to the literary and intellectual portion of the community, compared with Emerson's visit. With calm and unquickened pulse, we could meet the Genevese Doctor; and if the weather were to rain, we could stay at home, without feeling that we were making any large sacrifice in declining to see him (for really in Edinburgh, quacks and charlatans may be seen in abundance), but in the prospect of beholding the American Essayist, we should venture through any commotion of the elements. Emerson is a man of genius; D'Aubigné a mere sketcher, in words, of gaudy pictures. The fame of the first is permanent, and will increase; the reputation of the last is ephemeral, and bestowed on him by the rabble."

What follows, however, is even more shocking. They ridicule the idea of a spiritual conflict in language which we dare scarcely print, and which is surely more worthy of the first infidel Revolutionists of France than of the professed ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They quote the following passage from Dr. D'Aubigné :—

"I then entered upon a fearful spiritual struggle, defending with my whole strength my still feeble faith, yet sometimes falling under the blows of the enemy. There was not a moment in which I was not ready to lay down my life for the faith I professed; and never did I ascend the pulpit without being able to proclaim, with fulness of faith, salvation by Jesus. But scarcely had I left it, when the enemy assailed me anew, and inspired my mind with agonizing doubts. I passed whole nights without sleep, crying to God from the bottom of my heart, or endeavouring by arguments and syllogisms without end, to repel the attacks of the adversary. Such were my combats during these weary watchings, that I almost wonder how I did not sink under them."

objected, that it would scarcely do to have such a contributor to a religious journal. "O," said one of the divines, "it will do well enough, the journal is not to be a religious, but only an ecclesiastical one." We do not know how far the report is true, or the result; but when we find them crying up the worst conduct of the site-refusers dancing like New Zealand savages upon the grave of Mr. Innes of Canobie-scoffing at conversion, and eulogizing pantheists, we have no difficulty in tracing their lineage to those whose picture was of old so faithfully drawn by Witherspoon.

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STATE OF THE FREE CHURCHES IN
EDINBURGH.

An important subject has just been started, which we have no doubt will command some decided share of the attention of the Church, until the object aimed at is secured-viz., the state of church accommodation in our large cities, and especially in Edinburgh. The matter was first broached in an article in the Witness, the substance of which we think it right to lay before our readers:

"It is well known that vast numbers in all our cities left the Establishment at the Disruption, and still adhere to the Free Church. The Free Church is strong, especially in Edinburgh. But its adherents are, in many instances, very poorly provided as yet with churches. By a very kind and benevolent arrangement it was resolved that all the country districts, as being less able to provide themselves with places of worship, should be first supplied. And, accordingly, many

Our readers will scarcely credit us when we print of the congregations in towns took to worshipping in halls and the following commentary on the above:

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"We begin to fear that the whole nights without sleep' had been passed on a bed which was infested with insects, and that the enemy' to whom Milton gave the form of a 'toad' at the ear of Eve, had assumed the likeness of a much smaller creature-at the back of the restless D'Aubigné; arguments and syllogisms' were not likely to drive away this enemy."

We shall only make one additional extract, which will illustrate the extraordinary spirit of the present Establishment, and her blind rage at the historian of the Reformation :

"We have been amused in noticing the wily manner in which Merle strives to ingratiate himself into the good opinion of men. He refers, in terms of cordial admiration, to their fathers. He did this with Dr. Hill of Glasgow. We believe that had he met the wicked Jews of old, he would have tenderly eulogized their father the devil.""

It is very common for Moderates to profess the utmost meekness and gentleness. They also are wont to profess great respect for the established courtesies of society, and even for religion itself when they have a purpose to serve. But it is well for D'Aubigné

and others to see the real state of the case-the depths of such smooth waters stirred up, and casting forth their mire and dirt." In reality, they have not, and never had, as a body, any regard for religion and religious men; and when they have an end to accomplish, they have always been most unscrupulous as

to means.

We have heard that lately, when certain metropolitan divines, worthy successors of the Carlyles and Robertsons of other days, talked of setting up a journal to advocate the claims of the Establishment, or rather to blacken and vilify all its opponents; and when a certain smart scribe of very free-and-easy principles was proposed as one of the writers, it was

hired places, and others built very cheap and uncomfortable churches, in order that the unbroken energies of the Building Fund, amounting to £125,000, might be devoted to the noble object of rebuilding the broken walls of our Zion throughout the length and breadth of the country districts of Scotland. The application of this money has undoubtedly been excellent, but the danger to which we are now exposed in some of the cities is, that what was not done at first, it may be found very difficult to do at all. Some of our more wealthy congregations may succeed at any time in overcoming the difficulties by which such an enterprise is attended; but now that the first impulse is past, it will be found very difficult, and, without the aid of the Church at large, impossible, for our poorer congregations, to muster up the necessary means to erect suitable churches, at least free from debt. Many of them are at present most miserably accommodated. This is pressing with most disheartening effect both on the ministers and congregations; and unless a strong and united effort is made to remedy the evil, the most disastrous results may speedily be anticipated. Of course, all this will be aggravated if the quoad sacra churches are taken, and their congregations also left to build for themselves.

"Let us look at the details of this. In a city congregation, except in the poorest districts, if a man has once a good church, especially if accompanied by a manse and school, all position if, by the blessing of God, he cannot both clear the free from debt, he is, as a general rule, scarcely fit for his expenses of his own immediate congregation, and considerably aid all the funds of the Church. The case, however, is considerably altered if a man is expected to build his own church as well as fill it-if he is expected to collect a congregation, without having a place to put them in, or one which repels by its appearance, and is not proof against wind and weatherto train up the young without a school-to pay a large houserent, and other expenses, with very contracted means-to support largely all the schemes of the Church, whilst his own people are disheartened by not having a decent place of worship for their own shelter.

"In Glasgow, for example, there is scarcely one Free church which we are sure of retaining (we do not know if there is any but St. James') east of the line of the High Street and Saltmarket, representing a population of at least 100,000 souls. There are a few excellent churches in

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>ther districts of the town, but very few amidst the Doorer and denser masses of the population; and some of those actually built are considerably in debt. There vill be great difficulty in getting suitable sites in Glasgow, xcept at a large expense; and the cost of erecting becoming hurches in such a city will be very considerable so much so hat, unless the matter is taken up vigorously by the Church it large, there does not seem any great hope of success. The ase of Glasgow is aggravated, not only by the possibility of osing the quoad sacra churches, but by the annual addition of at least 10,000 to its population. In Edinburgh the state f matters is probably worse. There is scarcely a church in Leeping with the city free from debt, but St. George's. The ongregation there have, in many respects, taught important jessons to the Church, and in this respect amongst others. They left the original brick church in which they met, and built one suited to the meridian of Edinburgh, before the first fervour of the Disruption had cooled; and no congregation has since done more to help the Church at large. But several of our congregations have no churches at all; and some of the churches, from Stockbridge on the one side, to Buccleuch and Newington on the other side of the city, are very unlike what Edinburgh churches should be. What is the undoubted result of this state of matters? The result of having no churches, or very uncomfortable ones, is evidently to retard the progress of the congregations. There is a certain just feeling of propriety that is offended by this state of things: there are certain habits formed by persons accustomed to live in comfortable houses, with which it is both vain and unnecessary permanently to contend. What may be very tolerable in the country may be quite unsuitable for a city, and especially such a city as Edinburgh; what might do for a little in circumstances of peculiar excitement, may be very unsuitable now; what might do for retaining old adherents may repel the advances of new ones. We are not entitled, besides, to place unnecessary obstacles of this kind in the way of the progress of the cause of God, if we can, by the divine blessing on energy and perseverance, remove them. The worst results will by-and-by flow from this plan of having no churches, or very uncomfortable ones-churches in which, for example, the people are occasionally treated to a shower-bath on Sabbath, or with a dose of cold and influenza. No quality of preaching will permanently make head against such disadvantages.

This is the bearing of the question on congregations. Let us look at the result in regard to ministers. Ministers placed in such circumstances must at present be greatly discouraged. Apart from the smallness of their incomes-some of them having little more than the mere dividend, and being at the same time exposed to a large expenditure-these men must feel their efforts cramped by the great disadvantage in the way of churches to which we have referred. Their circumstances are, therefore, in many respects, far more undesirable than those of the average of our country ministers, with their comfortable churches and manses; and unless several of them had some private resources of their own, we have reason to believe they could not maintain their present positions at all. They may struggle on for a time amidst difficulties which they cannot overcome; but the danger is that they will have no successors, or none fitted to occupy their places.

"There is an immense advantage to the Church, as a whole, in having a considerable number of picked men in Glasgow, and especially in Edinburgh. Apart from the importance of having men of wisdom to represent our Church in the face of the world-of having in the focus of our population our most vigorous men to meet and resist the growing evils by which society is beset-apart from the fact that Established and other Churches will always aim at having their leading men there-apart from the necessity of having our committees managed in the metropolis, and that it is essential to have a certain number of men there to act as conveners, and to sit in those committees it is plain that, if confidence in the men at the centre does not to a great extent exist in the Church, there is the utmost danger of anarchy. But if the men become inferior, this confidence will soon cease. This was the vast advantage of the old system of the eighteen ministers of Edinburgh, with such stipends as to enable them to live in the metropolis. It gathered to the centre the abler men, and operated as a gentle and yet strong balance-wheel on our republican system. Men of note and energy could be brought to Edinburgh from all parts of Scotland; whereas, after a little, under our present Free Church system, only a few lead

ing congregations are likely to get such men; and such men, instead of being safe because numerous, will be all the more dangerous because they are few. The mass of city ministers will probably, in the long run, if the present evils are unredressed, be the poorest in the Church-we mean mentally the poorest-for we should not wonder if, by-and-by, some very inferior men should go to cities, and be chosen by the people simply because they could there support themselves by their private means. This would be a sad result; and it is most important that the blunder should be avoided while there is yet time.

How is this to be done? It is clear that the Church should encourage, in the meantime, to the uttermost, every effort made by our city congregations, especially in the poorer districts, in the way of securing suitable churches, schools, and manses, free from debt. It is pitiful and short-sighted to regard such efforts as of local interest. They have a most material bearing on the best interests of the entire Church, and on all coming generations, and deserve every encouragement and support on the part of all our friends. But, besides, why should not the Building Fund, as soon as its present obligations are discharged, and our metropolitan presbyteries, take up the matter? Why should not a special annual collection, for example, be made within those presbyteries for this object? By this means, perhaps, £1,000 or £2,000 a-year might be secured in each. This sum, well applied in the way of fostering local efforts to build churches and pay off debt, might enable those presbyteries to dispose of perhaps two or more cases a-year, and in a very short time we should see an array of decent and becoming edifices rise up which the people could call their own, in which large congregations could be formed and consolidated, to which first-rate ministers might be appointed from age to age, and from which the whole country, especially the poorer districts, would receive, in the way of contributions, perpetual advantage. We do not say that this alone would secure all the results at which we aim; other alterations may be necessary; but the great first point, without which it is folly to hope for any permanently good result, would be secured, if we saw all our existing city congregations, and such others as it is deemed proper to establish, secured in good churches, manses, and schools, free from debt. We trust this vital matter will speedily engage the attention of the whole Church; and, meantime, we are convinced that every effort in this direction-for example, the late effort of St. Stephen's and St. Cuthbert's in this city, and the present efforts of Newington congregation are deserving of every encouragement and support."

The practical importance of this can scarcely be over-estimated. It is like putting a strong key-stone into the arch of our Free Church apparatus. Edinburgh is not only the capital of the kingdom, but the great centre of life and influence in the Free Church; and to allow it to become weak and dismantled, is the sure way to damage and break down our whole enterprise. It appears from the printed returns of the funds of the Church, that about £40,000 a-year, or not much less than one-seventh of the whole funds of the Free Church, are at present collected in the Presbytery of Edinburgh; and yet every one conversant with the state of matters in the city, must be aware that the Free Church has never got justice there in the way of accommodation, and that her progress may be said at present to be arrested by physical causes, which could, by the blessing of God on a vigorous effort, be effectually removed, so as to make her start anew with fresh energy and vigour. Take, for example, the back-bone of the city, including the whole range of High Street and Canongate. The Establishment has still about eight or nine ministers and seven churches amidst this population. The Free Church has now scarcely more than one decent church, and that not free from debt.. And in the whole southern districts, embracing the great bulk of the artisans and middle classes of the city, we have scarcely a proper church which we are sure of retaining. And yet the Free Church is peculiarly

the Church of the middle and working classes. Such classes, however, will never get over, unaided, the difficulty of erecting suitable city churches, free from debt. After such churches are fairly built, a shower of pence or shillings from them will not only serve to carry on the local operations of their own district, but greatly swell the missionary and other funds of the Church. But to ask them to raise at an effort £2,000 or £3,000, to build churches and schools in the first instance, is just about as feasible as to ask them to lift Arthur's Seat. If the more wealthy and larger-minded men of the Church do not set their shoulder to the wheel, to help them to overcome the initial difficulty, this important work will not be done. It is vain to look to other Churches as any rule in this matter. The Establishment has its churches built and upheld at the public expense. The Secession Church can stagger on, under loads of debt in the cities, because the cities do not charge themselves with upholding the country districts. But our cities are the fountain-heads of money and influence for our whole Church, and therefore it is the height of madness not to have them in a thoroughly right state.

The object aimed at, besides, can be most effectually secured if the matter is gone about with wisdom and energy. Let the present effort for the missions be fairly over; let a sum, if possible, be secured to start with; let only a limited number of cases be taken in hand every year; let the annual collection in Edinburgh, referred to in the above article, be made as large as possible; let aid be given only as a stimulus to local efforts; and let every church be made thoroughly free from debt, and we shall soon see twenty or more creditable and commodious churches, with manses and schools, placed at due intervals over the city-our whole system will, by | the divine blessing, become instinct with renewed energy, and strangers will no longer look in vain, saying, "Where is the Free Church in Edinburgh?" or gaze, with contempt and mockery, on our present mean and unsightly edifices. "Shall we dwell in houses of cedar, and the ark of God abide in curtains?"

Reviews.

CONGREGATIONal IndependencY, IN CONTRADISTINC. TION TO EPISCOPACY AND PRESBYTERIANISM: The

and if we may except the formation of the "Congregational Union," which, if not a concession to Presbyterial strength, is something like a confession of Independent weakness, it may be said that not a single post has been surrendered, or the least progress made, on either side of the question. The old arguments have been met with the old answers; nor is there anything, even in the mode of conducting the controversy, "whereof it may be said, See, this is new."

The productions before us furnish no exception to this dull uniformity. As for Dr. Wardlaw, we beg to say it with all respect for his controversial talents, he has not succeeded in discovering a single new reason for Independency; he has not even fallen on a fresh illustration, or an original quibble. Let us not be misunderstood; we do not accuse the good Doctor of having borrowed from his predecessors. We hold him innocent, indeed, of having dipped deep into reading on either side of the question. It is obvious, not only from the meagre character of his references, but from the tone of mysterious importance and genuine self-satisfaction with which he gives forth his sentiments, that he was in a state of happy ignorance of the fact that, to employ a household phrase, they have been "used up" a long time ago. It must be amusing to those who have studied the controversy, to remark this attempt to frighten us with the ghosts of departed arguments, reminding us, as they do, of unfortunate Independent controvertists, who have been disposed of according to law, dissected, and buried within the precincts of the prison, about this time two centuries ago. One that had read even the most common of the treatises to which we refer, would have been ashamed to broach the same ideas, and sport the same fallacies in the same form again, lest he should expose himself to the laugh which the child encounters when he proposes, with a look of grave and puzzling import, a conundrum which all the company have heard proposed, and resolved over and over again. The only excuse we can find for this piece of solemn absurdity is, that the volume is confessedly a youthful production, brought forth in the rawness of juvenility, and now, after being lost sight of many years, brought out to be fondly dandled on the knee of old age.

Dr Davidson's treatise has more of the aspect of originality. He has read more extensively on the subject, and finds it necessary, therefore, to dress up the old seedy, thread-bare and loop-holed argument, something like a gentleman of the modern school.

Church Polity of the New Testament. By RALEH We expected, indeed, from his Preface, to find that WARDLAW, D.D., Glasgow. Maclehose. 1848. THE ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT UNFOLDED, AND ITS POINTS OF COINCIDENCE OR DISAGREEMENT WITH PREVAILING SYSTEMS INDICATED. By SAMUEL DAVIDSON, LL.D. London. 1848. Ir is passing strange that, after all that has been said and written on the subject of Church government, we should be, at the present stage of the controversy, precisely where we were in the seventeenth century. This is singularly the case with the dispute between Presbyterians and Independents, which, we venture to say, has not advanced a single step since the days of John Goodwin and Philip Nye. Since that time many a Presbyterian, no doubt, has gone over to the ranks of Independency, and many an Independent has taken refuge in the bosom of Presbytery; but the dispute between the two systems has been maintained with the most unedifying monotony; nothing has occurred to give the slightest variety to the contest;

he had cut out a spick-and-span new system of his own; he speaks in such high tones of independence and defiance of censure from all parties. "If he knows himself aright, he can honestly affirm, that he has sincerely endeavoured to ascertain the truth, and to advance it, irrespectively of its agreement, or discordance either with the denomination to which he belongs, or with any other. By the production now submitted to the public, he has no selfish interest to promote-no self-exalting purpose to serve. On the contrary, he expects to be blamed for it by almost every section of the universal Church, because, in some minute particulars, he happens to dissent from prevalent notions." But on perusing the volume, we were rather disappointed in the expectation which this excited. It is in very "minute particulars" indeed that Dr. Davidson differs from his predecessors or fellow-workers in the Congregational field. And in so far as he has been driven to deviate from the

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