of the writer, is yet more prominent. And it was in illustration of this that the quotation was made. There is no necessity to dwell at length, even were there space, on the unaffected humility, the cautious self-distrust, which the language exhibits; nor on the deadness to the world, and the ardent longing for the joys of the heavenly state, which it demonstrates. If the phraseology is strong, and partakes of the colouring which the Syrian temperament and habits of its author would be expected to impart to it, it is nevertheless natural, and bears the impress of reality. It is neither fanciful nor artificial; and its strongest expressions may be vindicated by the words of inspiration, of which it breathes the spirit, without being a literal copy, or a servile imitation. That, by the heavenly bread and the blood of Christ, Ignatius should be understood to mean the elements of the Eucharist, will, by Protestants, be ranked among the strange delusions by which men of extensive learning and profound thought are sometimes misled; while the humble disciple of Christ, having imbibed that teachable spirit which signalized the era of which we have been writing, discovers truths to which the "wise and learned" are often strangers.-Evangelical Christendom.

PRISONS OF BOKHARA.

THE palace of Amír (árk) is built on a mound, whether natural or artificial I cannot say, having five or six sajènes in height, and about one verst and a half in circuit. It has a square form, and contains about twenty thousand square sajènes, or twenty-two tanaps. On this area are built the houses of the Amír, the Vizir, the Shikh-Avál, the Topchi-Bashi, the Mirzaï Defterdar, as well as the dwellings of the numerous retinue of the Amír and the above-named grandees; three mosques; likewise, the Ab-Khaneh, with some dark apartments to preserve water for the Amír during the summer heats, but which are more especially appropriated to state prisoners, when they happen to give offence to their master: such were, for instance, the Kúsh-beghi and Ayazbey. From hence, to the right of the entrance, a corridor leads into another prison, more dreadful than the first, called the Kana-Khaneh, a name which it has received from the swarms of ticks which infest the place, and are reared there on purpose to plague the wretched prisoners. I have been told that in the absence of the latter some pounds of raw meat are thrown into the pit to keep the ticks alive. This institution of refined cruelty has probably given rise to the fable of the pit of scorpions, of which I have repeatedly heard accounts given at Orenburg. The Zindan, or dungeon, is to the east of the Ark, with two compartments: the Zindan-i-bala (the upper dungeon), and the Zindan-i-poin (the lower dungeon). The former consists of several courts, with cells for the prisoners; the latter, of a deep pit, at least three fathoms in depth, into which culprits are let down by ropes; food is lowered down to them in the same manner. The sepulchral dampness of the place in winter, as well as in summer, is said to be insupportable, according to the testimony of eyewitnesses. Twice a month the prisoners, chained in irons, are brought out of prison to the reghistan, where the Amír gives his judgment on those who are to be executed, and those who are to be set at liberty. Those of whom no mention is made, have their heads shaved, and are re-conducted to their former cells. This is only done with prisoners kept in the first compartment. They generally go barefooted; and to form even a faint idea of the sufferings of those unhappy wretches, one must have seen them standing barefooted on the snow, the thermometer of Reaumur marking fifteen degrees

below the freezing-point, waiting for hours together the appearance of the Commander of the Faithful.-" Bokhara" by Khanihoff, translated from the Russian by Baron C. A. de Bode.

ON THE PRIMARY INSTITUTION AND DESIGN OF THE SABBATH.

(To the Editor of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine.)

THE subject of the Sabbath has been so thoroughly discussed by various learned men and able writers, that little room would appear to be left for farther observation. But some points connected with that subject, and favourable to the view which is usually entertained of its high antiquity and the permanency of its obligation, have not been brought out with all the force and clearness which their importance demands; and others properly belonging to it have been in a great degree, if not entirely, overlooked. This deficiency it is the object of the present paper, and of some others which with your encouragement will follow it, partly to supply.

The first account we have of the institution of the Sabbath, is given in the following words :- "The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended" (or had ended) “his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." (Gen. ii. 1—3.)

The occasion of its institution is thus marked with the utmost possible distinctness, as having been the finishing of the creation of the world. The day which Moses calls "the seventh day," as being immediately sequent upon the six days in which that work was going onward, was the first Sabbath. It was, in point of fact, "the Sabbath of the Lord" in an emphatic and peculiar sense; the septenary days which have been subsequently regarded as weekly-recurring Sabbaths, having been simply commemorative of that original and veritable Sabbath.

The reason, so distinctly assigned, in the first instance, for the peculiar sanctification of "the seventh day," is in like manner particularly stated in the republication of the law of the Sabbath as a portion of the Decalogue, "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work, &c. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." (Exod. xx. 8-11.) Other reasons in support of this commandment were occasionally specified, in the recitals of it, or references to it, which were subsequently made. In one case, for instance, there is a reason for its observance, drawn from the merciful consideration which is due to the relief of servants, and of animals employed in labour. "Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed." (Exod. xxiii. 12.) In another case, the law of the Sabbath is mentioned in connexion with the deliverance of the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt, and in terms which have induced some writers to suppose that the date of its institution was closely subsequent upon, and the institution itself commemorative of, that remarkable event: "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God

brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." (Deut. v. 15.) But there may be, and in fact there is, a very wide and material distinction between the great original reason for which the Sabbath was first instituted as a day of holy rest, and any minor and supplementary reasons, upon which its continued or renewed observance might afterwards be further sanctioned and enforced. And the two reasons just mentioned, as well as certain others, which are sometimes quoted by those who argue against the ante-Mosaic institution of the Sabbath, are plainly reasons of this latter and subordinate class;-each of them being, to the Jews particularly, a reason why the Sabbath, already divinely blessed and sanctified as a day of rest, should be religiously kept as such; but neither of them being the reason for which the Sabbath was originally instituted; any more than the "promise" of blessing implied in the words "that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee "—is absolutely or primarily the ground and reason of the antecedent commandment," Honour thy father and thy mother." (Exod. xx. 12.)

In the reason, so explicitly and prominently stated, for the original sanctification of the Sabbath, we have, it is submitted, an unequivocal intimation of the primary and main use to which that sanctification was designed to be subservient. The doctrine of an Almighty, All-wise, and All-beneficent Creator, was God's primary revelation to "the man whom he had formed." And taking it for granted (as it is at once our right and our duty to do, until there shall appear some positive and unquestionable demonstration to the contrary) that the law of the Sabbath, like that of the Passover and the Eucharist, is co-eval with the event which it was intended to commemorate, it may reasonably be concluded that the main purpose of its institution, especially in the first instance, was to perpetuate the remembrance and profession of that doctrine, as lying at the foundation of all religion, both theoretical and practical, and as being appropriate and important to man in his high paradisiacal condition, as well as in the lower circumstances to which he has been humbled by his fall. For "creation," as Dr. Ellis well observes, "is the prerogative of God, what none can imitate, a work proper and peculiar to him that is higher than the highest; and he has revealed it to us, as a most prevailing motive to apprehend his greatness, dread his power, admire his wisdom, rely on his providence, and thence learn to whom alone our adorations, our prayers, and our praises ought to be directed." * It is, in short, as to relative order and sequence, a doctrine which takes precedence of all others, and so stands first in the order of divine revelation.

Conformable with this view of its importance is the use which is continually made of it in holy Scripture. Thus it is proposed as an incitement to holy reverence and fear:-"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." (Psalm xxxiii. 6, 8, 9.) As an encouragement to confidence and trust in God: 66 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God; which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is." (Psalm cxlvi. 5, 6.) As a ground of solemn adoration and worship: "The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. O

* Knowledge of Divine Things.

come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand." (Psalm xcv. 5-7.) As an incentive to gratitude and praise :-" The Lord, he is God; it is he that hath made us. Be thankful unto him, and bless his name. (Psalm c. 3, 4.) And as a bulwark against idolatry in all its forms :- Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works. All the gods of the nations are idols; but the Lord made the heavens." (Psalm lxxxvi. 8 ; xcvi. 5.)

دو

In tracing to their source the various systems of superstition which have existed in the world, we find them all originating in the oblivion, or the corruption, of this primary and fundamental truth. Our modern sceptics have indeed attempted to disguise this important and instructive fact. "The natural history of religion," as conjecturally sketched by Hume and others, would lead us to conclude that its original form was that of polytheism, and that thence by some process of induction and correction (the clue of which would seem, by the way, to have been irrecoverably lost!) it was shaped into a system having for its basis the doctrine of One Eternal and Almighty God :—the mere wisdom of man thus accomplishing, as it is pretended, the miracle of "bringing a clean thing out of an unclean." But the authority before which "all flesh" is commanded to "keep silence," entirely reverses that description, teaching us expressly that the eternity and unity of God were the primeval doctrine, and that polytheism, in whatsoever form, cannot be otherwise regarded than as a devious and criminal apostasy. Whilst, on the one hand, all history combines with Scripture to attest that "the world by wisdom knew not God;" an inspired Apostle, on the other hand, most plainly teaches the fact of a divine revelation on the subject of the world's creation, as the original source of all our knowledge in reference thereto, when he observes, it is through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Heb. xi. 3.) For faith, being "the evidence" (or persuasion) "of things not seen," is an assent and confidence accorded not to visible proof, but to the credit and sufficiency of a divinely authenticated testimony. And so when we are elsewhere told that "the invisible things of him " (that is, of God) "are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead," we must be careful to understand the sensible evidence here referred to, as being sequent upon, and subordinate to, the higher and anterior "evidence" of faith. "The things of God," of which the Apostle speaks, could hardly with any show of truth or consistency be said to be invisible, if in the same passage there were anything to justify any such conclusion as that these very things had actually been, or were even capable of being, discovered or "understood" in the first instance merely by "the things that are made." The divine testimony first makes them evident to faith, as the subjects of a direct and positive revelation; and then the external and perceptible evidence comes in, to re-echo and confirm that testimony,* and so to leave "without excuse "all those by whom the

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"Through the whole Scriptures the works of God are never so proposed as that the world might, or did, thereby find out God, but only that to those who are already acquainted with that great truth, they are a sensible evidence, the most noble demonstration that can be offered, of his invisible perfections, even his eternal power and godhead." (DR. ELLIS.) In other words, the Scriptures never urge the works of God to prove à priori the existence and attributes of God, but only to prove, confirmatively, the "eternal power and godhead " previously revealed. This revelation

original and primeval truth, thus revealed and attested, has been corrupted or forgotten. The date of the divine revelation on the point in question appears also to be expressly stated, when the Apostle says that it is from (or since)* (Rom. i. 20) the creation of the world," that the "eternal power and Godhead" of the great Creator have been " understood." The origin and progress of error on these subjects are then written as with a sunbeam. "When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator." "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge;” (Rom. i. 21—23, 25, 28 ;) and so, in process of time, they so far buried or lost the truth, as to be utterly unable, by any independent after-searching of their own, to find it out again.

The tendency of man's perverted heart and blinded intellect to this infatuated and bewildering apostasy from the truth having been foreseen by Him to whom the future is as open as the past, it was his care “in the beginning" to establish a commemorative ordinance, which might not only be for man, during the period of his paradisiacal innocence, a symbolical acknowledgment of the doctrine of a divine Creator of all things, but might also serve afterwards, to the extent of its observance, to guard that elemental and pregnant truth from obscuration and infringement, and so to bar the multitudinous host of errors and absurdities, which the oblivion or corruption of it must necessarily generate. In this respect, pre-eminently," the Sabbath," although on its original sanctification it was designated as "the rest of God," yet "was made for man." (Mark ii. 27.) Its institution was a wise and compassionate provision for his spiritual, even more than for his physical, infirmities. And significant as its observance is of a truth which is directly and fatally antagonistic to atheism and idolatry in all their forms, had it only been observed from "the beginning" by him for whom it was made," according to the spirit and intention of its original appointment, there might have been found no "fool" to "say in his heart, There is no God ;" and especially the monstrous and disgusting usurpation of "the gods which have not made the heavens and the earth" would have been entirely precluded; and, instead of "lords many and gods many," there would have been, in all ages, and throughout all nations, of mankind, one Lord, and his name one.'

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The divine assurance that "the Sabbath was made for man," appears to be of itself, presumptively at least, decisive of the general conclusion, that it was not, as some have contended, enjoined on any separate portion of the

is first made; and then, and not till then, "the heavens declare" (intelligibly and demonstratively) "the glory of God." The true intellectual hearing of the "speech" which "day uttereth unto day," and of the "knowledge" which "night showeth unto night," as well as that higher and spiritual hearing which is antecedent to true faith, "cometh by the word of God."

* Απο κτίσεως κόσμου. "The arо may either mean by or since. In the former sense it is found in the New Testament united with ywvwoke (Matt. vii. 16, 20 ;) but that sense is far more frequently expressed by eк, as, Ek тwv ovvxwv λeovтa, “ You may know the lion by his claws ;" and being here moreover contained in the woinuaoi, "the things which are made," it is more correct to give ano the second meaning of since, as, απ' αρχής κτίσεως, "from the beginning of the world." (Mark x. 6; Ecclus. xvi. 26.)-(Tholuck on Rom. i. 20.)