554 DUTIES OF CHRISTIANS IN THE PRESENT TIMES. established church, he occupies a posi- | selves with fresh endowments, the great body of dissenters would not probably have been aroused; but our legislators have been attempting, on a more extended scale, to blend religion and the world, and thus to weaken its strength and to rob it of its glory. tion which renders it impossible for him practically to unite, at least to any considerable extent, with his brethren of other denominations; and in attempting it does he not act inconsistently with the exclusive system with which he officially stands connected? On this ground, then, if there were no other, it would be the duty of Christians,-not only those who are connected with dissenting communities, but also those who are connected with the episcopal form of church government,—to seek the severance of church and state. And this remark leads us to another important duty, arising from the peculiar aspect of the present times in relation to ecclesiastial affairs. There are many weighty considerations which render the duty binding upon all genuine Christians at the present important juncture to contend by the use of all Christian and constitutional means to liberate religion from its present injurious connexion with the state. This is a duty which is now prominently and urgently forced upon our attention. The crisis has arrived; the subject must be entertained by dissenting Christians at least. They cannot, if they would, put it away from them. Many persons connected with our churches may wish to avoid the tug of war. They may sigh for peace and be satisfied with toleration; but this inglorious ease would be suicidal to the interests they profess to hold most sacred. As religious men, dissenters must fully and decidedly carry out their principles, and in their electoral policy be guided by their religious convictions, without reference to any political party; for the emancipation of Christ's religion from state patronage and control is an object beside which every merely political question dwindles into insignificance. The infatuation of our statesmen have brought the matter to a crisis. If they had not been busying them The advocate of the establishment principle says that "Christian statesmen are bound to legislate for the glory of God and the maintenance of his truth amongst us." If we were to admit that our legislators are all Christian men, and we were to give them credit for being concerned to promote the glory of God, we should say that it is their duty to do all they can for the promotion of God's glory in their individual capacities; and that in their own respective spheres of action they may find abundant scope for the exercise of their Christian zeal and effort; but we do not conceive it to be their duty to legislate for the church of Christ. And before we can admit their right to enact measures for the maintenance of God's truth, we must consider them to be invested with infallibility in order that we may have a sufficient guarantee that they will maintain truth and not error; but we know perfectly well that they are not infallible, and, moreover, that they are quite willing to endow error as well as truth; and we are certain that the truth does not require the support of Acts of Parliament. We can trust it to make its own way in the world, without human might or power to sustain it. It made the most rapid progress in the apostolic age, not only without the assistance of earthly governors, but in the face of their bitterest opposition; and though the truth of Christ has become venerable with years, yet it has not become enfeebled. Its power is neither exhausted, nor even weakened; it needs not now an arm of flesh to support it. We are persuaded that it possesses sufficient vitality to in opposition to the most violent assaults of its bitterest foes, and that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” maintain itself, and that it will triumph | present times require Christians to do all that possibly can be accomplished for the education of the people. It is true that government have undertaken this important work; but in doing so we think they are stepping beyond the precincts of their own legitimate province, and that they will do the work not at all satisfactorily. We conceive that the work is not taken out of the hands of Christians-that they are not relieved from their responsibility. It will still be their bounden duty to exert themselves to accomplish this object by voluntary contributions. If those who have denounced the measure of national education accept money from government, they will forfeit all title to consistency of character. We admit that the temptation to which dissenters are now exposed is one which will severely test principle. A writer in the Eclectic Review for May, referring to this subject, remarks, In many instances it will press most heavily, and test principle to the utmost. This will be felt in the agricultural districts especially, and our brethren inhabiting such parts of the kingdom must have our sympathy and aid. The wondrous elasticity and manifold powers of the voluntary principle must instantly be evolved. The rich must help the poor, and the whole strength of dissent be concentrated on Our efforts must be concentrated for the destruction of the establishment principle, if we would secure ourselves against popery. We have heard great boasting about the church of England's being the bulwark of protestantism-a mighty barrier against the incursions of popery; and yet popery nestles in the very bosom of the establishment itself, and there the monster is nourished, and there its strength and dimensions are continually increasing; and there are at the present time in the church of England the same elements of mischief as there were in the church of Rome in persecuting times; for many of its clergy and laymen have imbibed a persecuting spirit. We believe and hope that the smouldering embers of persecution will never again be kindled into a flame, but | the only course we can adopt to secure ourselves from the fangs of persecution is to pursue that line of electoral policy which aims at the complete dissociation of religion from state patronage and control, so that no sect can ever again gain sufficient ascendency and power in the state so as to visit with pains, penalties, and death those persons who dare to obey God rather than man. We remark, in the last place, that the the point of attack." CAUSES IN CONNEXION WITH THE MINISTRY WHICH TEND TO HINDER THE SUCCESS OF THE GOSPEL. PART II. In our endeavour to trace out these | another, and that again gives rise to a obstructive and blighting causes, we do not know that we can follow anything like a strictly logical and natural order; although here, perhaps, as well as in many other cases, one evil originates third. But still this chain of cause and effect appears to be too subtile and latent to be distinctly apprehended, and drawn out, link by link. Nor is it, indeed, of much consequence for us to do so. Let us, then, seriously and dispassionately consider if the following be not some of the main evils in question. I. The introduction to the ministry of the gospel of young men who are really, and in many respects, disqualified for that important work. We do not here allude to that greatest of all disqualifications, the want of personal religion; but to those which are rather physical and mental. Some, it must be obvious to every one, are brought into this work who are physically disqualified for it. They have not the power of a free utterance; but are constantly forced by this natural defect to hesitate and boggle, and to recall their words and phrases. The consequence is, that their own thoughts become confused and their feelings marred, and the chief impression made on the ears and feelings of their auditors is that of uneasiness and pain. They do not, they cannot, wax warm; their souls cannot kindle with energy and zeal as they advance with their theme; nor are they capable of gaining the fixed attention, of exciting the affections, or of leading captive, by their argumentation or declamation, the souls of their hearers. The writer was long and well acquainted with a minister who laboured under this natural and painful defect. Few men stood higher in moral worth, in intellectual endowments, and in literary attainments, than he did; but he had no power of free utterance in the pulpit. He would hesitate, stammer, and change his words half-a-dozen times in a sentence; and an occasional hearer would be in the utmost pain and alarm lest he should not be able to proceed. We need hardly say, that notwithstanding all his other varied and high attainments, this one defect as a public speaker almost entirely defeated the suc cess of his pulpit efforts, and greatly disturbed the peace of his own mind. He has been known to say, "I never entered the pulpit with any pleasurable feelings in my life; but always with the reverse." And can we have any hesitation in believing that he would have been a more happy and useful man in some other more suitable sphere of life, and that the one he occupied might have been filled to greater advantage, and more happily, by some one better fitted for it in this respect than he? Others, again, are mentally disqualified for this work. Their understandings, for instance, are very limited and feeble; they possess no real power of mind; they are not capable of closely and vigorously collecting, marshalling, and concentrating their thoughts on any given subject of study; and therefore their intellectual resources are of the most meagre and superficial character. And must not the results of this mental imbecility and poverty be bad and painful in all respects? Such ministers can never continue to enlighten and satisfy their people. Sooner or later they are sure to dissatisfy and disgust them with a perpetual and killing sameness of matter and illustration. After a little time their hearers will never expect to hear anything new. Or if, on hearing one of these ministers announce for his text some beautiful, full, and glorious portion of divine inspiration, their hopes should be excited, that "now we shall and must have something fresh and new! Now surely he must depart from the old beaten path of thought and expression!” alas! in a few moments, it is all certain and bitter disappointment. "Semper idem" would be the appropriate motto for the pulpit of such a one. And will not this perpetual identity of ideas and manner of illustration fatally defeat the labours of such preachers,-first, by exciting discontent, and then by diminishing the number of their hearers? And should a minister of this class endeavour to supply his mental deficiency and escape these evils by adopting other men's matter and discourses, the probability, or rather certainty, is, that he will be detected in his appropriations, and sink himself still lower in the opinion and esteem of his people. And thus his whole ministerial life is one constant source of annoyance to others and of misery to himself. We might here refer to the want of that practical knowledge which can only be acquired by experience, by observation, and by the careful study of the constitution and discipline of the church of Christ as laid down in the New Testament. The possession and right use of this varied kind of knowledge is of the utmost importance in securing success to the labours of a settled pastor of a Christian church. Hence, without it, all his efforts in the pulpit, however talented and evangelical, are in constant danger of being defeated. In one hour by the wrong management and conduct of the discipline and internal affairs of the church-he may undo all he has done for months and years in the pulpit, and fearfully prejudice his subsequent ministrations. This has too often been the case. Where this kind of knowledge is lacking, ignorance, pride, and worldly policy will be almost sure to assume its place and province. And when once this is the case, then this individual must be coaxed and won by flattery and guile; that person must be put down by severity and violence, or by some artful piece of manœuvring; this object must be compassed by worldly policy; and that must be seized upon by precipita tion and force! Impartiality, forbearance, meekness, simple-hearted integrity, in a word, the spirit and precepts of Jesus Christ are forgotten and cast to the winds. And what is, or what can be, the result of all this but "the biting and devouring of one another-confusion and every evil work?" No mental or oratorical talents, no learned attainments, no personal piety and zeal, can, in a minister of the gospel, supply the place of a correct and practical acquaintance with human nature and the laws of God's house. But is it not a glaring and lamentable fact that many young men are sent to our academies, leave those seats of literature and philosophy, and enter upon the Christian pastorate almost entirely destitute of this essential qualification? And do we not too often see its sad and painful results in the gentlemanly and lordly assumings, the unchristian and galling partialities, the offences given and taken by such ministers; in the divisions, and almost ruin of some of our churches; in the reproach of dissent, and the odium cast on evangelical truth? Well will it be for the peace and prosperity of Christian churches, and for the success of the gospel, when those churches shall select for their pastors, not mere children in age and knowledge, not those of merely evangelical views and fluent tongues, not mere "novices," but men of sound practical knowledge and discretion, who well know human nature and the laws of the Saviour's kingdom, and how to rule and" to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." A WARWICKSHIRE PASTOR. MILTON'S ADVICE TO OLIVER CROMWELL. THE doctrine of the complete separa- | tor's secretary, the great poet of the tion of church and state found other not seventeenth century, was its resolute less illustrious defenders. The protec- champion. Milton thought that the VOL, X.-FOURTH SERIES. 4 B tective. state ought not to interfere in the in- | ters, even when that action is proterests of religion. In his treatise on Christian Doctrine, first published by the Rev. C. R. Sumner, now bishop of Winchester, he says:-"It is highly derogatory to the power of the church, as well as an utter want of faith, to suppose that her government cannot be properly administered without the intervention of the civil magistrate." The bard of Paradise Lost explained his views more particularly in his Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, and in his considerations on The Likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church. In his opinion, this thesis is incontrovertibly established by four arguments. The first is, that every individual has an exclusive right in determining the choice of his own convictions; the second reposes on the wholly spiritual nature of the gospel; the third is derived from the consequences which Christian liberty brings with it; and the fourth, from the uselessness or the danger of the influence of the civil power in ecclesiastical mat Milton was not satisfied with writing treatises; he demanded of the powerful protector the complete independence of the church. "If you leave the church to the church, and thus judiciously disburthen yourself and the civil magistracy in general of a concern forming half their incumbrance, and wholly incongruous with their appropriate functions; not permitting the two heterogeneous authorities of church and state to continue their intrigues (with an apparent, though deceitful, reciprocity of support, but to the actual enfeebling and eventual subversion of both); not allowing any constraint upon conscience, — which, however, will necessarily continue as long as gold, the poison of the church, and the very quinsy of truth, shall continue to be extorted from the laity to pay the wages of the clergy, you will cast down the money-changers, and hucksters, not of doves, but of the Dove itself; I mean the Holy Spirit of God.”—J. H. Merle D'Aubigné. BIBLICAL GEOGRAPHY. IL-THE JORDAN. without mingling its waters with those of the lake. NONE of the streams in Palestine | Gennesareth, and passes through it deserve the name of river except the Jordan. The others do not continue to flow during the whole year; they are merely winter torrents, whose beds are generally dry in summer; they are, therefore, in scripture called brooks. The Jordan is formed by the junction of two small streams; the one issues from a spacious cavern at the base of the • Heish mountains, in the vicinity of the village of Paneas; the other has its source at a place called Tel-el-Kadi, about three miles to the west of the cavern at Paneas. Passing southwards, it forms the Bahr-el-Houle, or waters of Merom; leaving this lake it flows on for about thirteen miles into the Lake of On leaving the Lake of Gennesareth it flows for 60 miles through a beautiful plain, and, after a course of 100 miles, empties itself into the Dead Sea. If we take into consideration the windings of the Jordan, its length may be calculated at 150 miles. It pursues a course from north to south through the whole extent of Palestine, dividing it into two unequal parts. Accounts differ as to its breadth and depth; but its average width may be estimated at 90 feet, and its depth 9 feet. The water is wholesome, and nearly tasteless; the river in the upper part of its course is clear, but as it approaches |