men, but he knows that flesh and blood have no entrance into his incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading inheritance. He is subject to trials and misfortunes, scorn, obloquy, contempt, and every evil thing; aye! to such an extent that flesh and blood religion would sink under the burden. But none of these things move him. His Christianity recognises these things not as enemies his religion is a divine alchemy, which turns them into gold. He knows that his Bible, the word of his God, acknowledges no evil present, and with the word of his God he wants no more. He reads, and he rejoices in the thought, that in the new Jerusalem, the perfection of beauty, there is neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain, for the former things (of old Jerusalem) are passed away; and he that sat upon the throne, the new and living way, hath said, "Behold I make all things new."

This is the record; and surely if a Christian can gain but a glimmering of this blessedness, his soul will turn away with very loathing-with unutterable aversion-from countenancing, or joining in, or listening to petitions, such as are to be found in the litany of the Church of England, or indeed of any church whatever. Paul saith, death is a believer's blessing, and "to die is gain." The Church of England flatly contradicts him, in that she teaches her worshippers to pray that they may be delivered from sudden death:' and again, "suffer us not at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from thee." Christ saith, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die;" and again, Christ saith, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Church of England calls these comfortable words, and so they are; but what comfort the members of that Church can find in them it passes our comprehension to conceive, when they are taught in the same morning to pray, "from thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation, good Lord deliver us:" US, whom thy minister has just absolved from all our sins! If prayer is needed, if the obligation to pray is now laid upon us, we must be excused if we solemnly declare that we cannot force ourselves for all the worldly wealth of all the churches on earth, to the repetition of prayers such as these. "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James iv. 17.) We must also be excused for saying, that all or any accusation of us, for believing in the present non-obligation of prayer, comes with a very bad grace indeed, from those at least who assent and consent to such an exhibition of inconsistency as the above. On the principle of choosing the lesser of two evils, we should at once pronounce, that it were better, far better, to have no prayer at all, than to have the prayers of the Establishment, supposing for a moment that prayer was now either a Christian duty or a Christian privilege; but we believe and are thoroughly satisfied that it is neither one nor the other. We wish that Christians did but know their privileges, or were willing to listen to them, when they are set before them. They would then, indeed, find a fulness of expression here, "Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." They would then find in the word of God such sweetness and beauty, as that they might cry, 'If our portion here is all, it is enough; he hath given us all things richly to enjoy.'

"

I know not that anything further may be added on this subject. Nothing appears more perfectly clear, than that in this rest and victory state of a Christian, prayer is utterly excluded. The new and better covenant was established in the passing away of the old covenant; and we know that it is "ordered in all things, and sure.' The reasons, therefore, which rendered prayer obligatory and needful, before the establishment of the covenant, do not now continue. Prayer throughout the ministries recorded in the Bible was most essential. In the New Testament, there is nothing more particularly insisted upon; and conscious of the love I have of God and his truth, I feel that if I had lived in Paul's day, I should have earnestly followed his exhortation, "Pray without ceasing." Now, however, the case is very different. An ultra-Calvinist, one who is always going further back than the beginning, might say, that at all times God's unalterable decree was enough without prayer. "I believe the promise," he might say, "and it is certain to come to pass, independent of all pleading and petition." For our own part, we have no sympathy with a view of this kind, and for this plain reason, because Scripture gives no warrant for such a conclusion. God settled the question by commanding otherwise: "Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." (Ezekiel xxxvi. 37.)

As to all answers to prayer, which may be objected to our view, the reality of such answers can never be proved. They can amount to no more than remarkable coincidences. It may be said of them, as we say of many occurrences in our worldly concerns, How strange;' but this is all. They can never amount to Scripture proof, because the age of immediate revelations is passed away. "Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Light." (James i. 17.) Prayer was among those gifts; and it was included when an Apostle exhorted, "Covet earnestly the best gifts." But as there is a name better than that of sons and daughters,' so there is a state wherein gifts are useless, for, saith Paul, in the same place, " and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way." For these reasons, we give our voice against prayer; and in so doing we consent to self-annihilation for if the prop of prayer be taken from the creature, conditionality is really gone, and he hath not a God left. For this cause, our doctrine of the past second advent will meet with the fiercest opposition. The priesthood especially will denounce it, for what is a priest without prayer? He is a workman without tools. We believe, and therefore speak; we will oppose Truth to all the world. We have no objection to apostolical succession, as expressed in this glorious apology, "Herein do I exercise myself, to have a conscience void of offence towards God and men." (Acts xxiv. 16.) Towards God first, and men afterwards. Just and true is the order; for a conscience void of offence towards God, is sure to be a conscience blameless towards man. It is a melancholy reflection, that even among the discerning few, there should be so many followers of Nicodemus. O, why is it that a Christian can live in a continual contradiction of the principles he professes. Are we "to do evil that good may come ?" No, it is not this; the wonder is dissipated here. "The fear of man bringeth a snare." We repeat, "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

One word more. We have been accused of being Arminians; of saying that every man may understand the Bible who chooses; of breaking down all a Christian's hope, and sending him to sea without compass or chart, &c. &c.

These must be accounted false charges, made in a spirit of profound ignorance, so long as we contend (almost alone) for the blessings of the new covenant, whose everlasting promise is, "All thy children shall be taught of me, and great shall be the peace of thy children.” (Isaiah liv. 13.) We believe that the common sense of a child may understand so much of our views as to be able to overthrow the systems of the day; but none save the worshippers in spirit and in truth can really enjoy them. We affirm, that the only medium of their teaching is the word which liveth and abideth for ever, and is to them 'spirit and life.' While acknowledging this teaching with joy and thankfulness, as the happy subjects thereof, we reject the various theories which human imagination has drawn up, of what it pleases to call divine teaching; we reject the distinction of quickening, enlightening, regenerating, converting, comforting, and so forth; of a new creation of the will, understanding, and conscience. These things are the theology of the schools. We are contented to know that we are passed from death to life, the process of the proceeding it is idle to aim at delineating. No reasoning can reason us out of what we know, for the most certain of all sure things-the witness of God. We are in the enjoyment of a rich estate, and, therefore, only smile at the simplicity of the man who tells us we are poor and naked. A stranger cannot intermeddle. We earnestly desire that all whom we admire and esteem as members of one great family, should share in our joys. While condemning in the strongest terms all religious systems, we neither cut off nor condemn the members of such systems (we leave that to the word of God); not confining salvation to any sect or party, or to any specific amount of knowledge. It was written of Israel of old, under the first earthly and temporal covenant, and notwithstanding repeated rebellion, "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them." (Numb. xxiii. 21.) So with the blessed family of worshippers in spirit and in truth. The Lord God looks upon them in the covenant, and not in their individual capacity; he regardeth them not for what they are in themselves, nor for what they appear to others: but as they are sharers and partakers in the all-glorious and finished salvation of his dear Son. "If we believe not, He abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself." (2 Tim. ii. 13.) nay, "let God be true and every man a liar." (Rom. iii. 4.) It is a sweet thought, our eternal life is not in our own hands; and it is a thought equally precious, that it is not in the hands of our fellow

creatures.

NOTES.

Note A.

The Church of England is builded upon the doctrine of Apostolic succession. This must be accounted a sandy foundation, if we examine the writings of Dr. Lee, and contrast them with the writings of Dr. Pusey, who holds a Professorship in Oxford, similar to that of Dr. Lee in Cambridge. These two learned men have the same ordination, are ranged under the same succession, and are so far from being guided into all truth, that their views of Divine revelation are as opposed as possible!

Would that Professor Lee's works formed part of a prescribed course of reading for ordination candidates. I will take the liberty of transcribing one or two passages respecting the fall of Jerusalem, in order to show the correspondency between his views of the fulfilment of prophecy and my own.

END.

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"At verse 32, Matt. xxiv., we read,Now learn a parable of the fig tree: when its branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near,' &c. Then, in the next verse, This generation shall not pass till all these things (návra Taura TENHTAI, that is, the inceptive signs,) BE, not as in the authorized version, 'be fulfilled;' this gives an erroneous view of the subject."-Dissertations, p. 283. It would appear that Professor Lee applies yental to the events preceding THE He remarks, in his Theophania, p. 103, on Luke xxi. 22, "These be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled (in them);" that is, as I understand it, that the accomplishment and end of all things may arrive and come. A very large number of instances occur elsewhere to the same effect; we shall presently notice some of them. From all which it must, I think, be evident, both that a beginning and an end of all the troubles here mentioned is distinctly pointed out and affirmed; and more generally the days in which all the other things foretold by the prophets should also be accomplished, and come to their destined end." The Greek for the words "that all things which are written may be fulfilled, is, τοῦ πληρωθῆναι πάντα τὰ γεγραμμένα, literally, of all things written being fulfilled,' or ' of the fulfilment of all things written.' It is amusing to hear exceptions taken to this most decisive language, because it is worded 'may be;' it is argued that may be' expresses a peradventure; it might, or it might not!

Professor Lee seems to me to apply λngwenval to the end, and yental to the preceding events. Nothing, therefore, is gained on yental, as Mr. Bush, in his Anastasis,' would lead us to suppose. In the text, p. 285, we read as follows:"We hold it to be utterly impossible, upon fair canons of interpretation, to divorce these predictions of Daniel and Christ (Dan. v. 13, and Matt. xvi. 27, 28,) from a joint reference to one and the same coming, and that too a coming which was to be realized, in its incipient stages, at the destruction of Jerusalem." To this Mr. Bush appends a note, containing an extract from Cunningham on the Apocalypse,' p. 313: "Now the most proper and original signification of the verb yivoμal is not to be completely fulfilled, but it rather signifies commencement running into subsequent continuance of action;" continuance, however, concluded by nλnpów, which Mr. B. appears not to have seen.

I may be allowed to offer an observation or two upon a construction of Professor Lee's, from which I dissent. I allude to that put upon the word 'scatter' in the following quotation: "When he shall have accomplished to scatter (disperse abroad) the power of the Holy People, all these things shall be finished.' That is, as I understand it, when the saints shall have taken the kingdom; shall have been put in possession of the kingdom under the whole heaven; in other words, when the new or fifth kingdom shall have been established by God himself; when kings and queens shall, in the words of Isaiah, have become the nursing fathers

and nursing mothers of the church, then shall all these things have come to their destined and full completion and END."- Theophania,' p. 110 Is there not here a contradiction to the interpretation of Luke xxi. 22, as above given? Dr. Lee understands the holy people' to be predicated of the Christian Church; but let us ask, What is the plain, first-sight exposition which any one would give of the words scatter the power?' Most assuredly these words would be understood as implying an overthrow, a ruin, a calamity, a catastrophe, and so forth. The word 'scatter' implies this in most, if not all, the passages where it occurs, as in James' Epistle, addressed to the twelve tribes scattered abroad.' See Acts viii. 1, 4, and 11, 19, where scattering is connected with persecution. What connexion can there be between the saints' being put in possession of the kingdom, and this signification of the term 'scatter'? But again-Where is the authority for styling any but the Jews the Holy People,' in this place of Daniel? The context evidently applies this to the Jews, as in chap. x. 14, "Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days, for yet the vision is for many days;" that is, the vision referred to Daniel's people, the Jews, 'the holy people,' not even to the ten tribes, as they were no longer a people. It may be argued, that in the opening up of the gospel dispensation, the Jews ceased to be the holy people,' the gospel having superseded the law, while they, as a nation, rejected the gospel. This position is destitute of scripture proof. It might as well be said that the temple ceased to be the 'holy place,' and yet we read, "when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place." This was the holy place' in Paul's ministry, as well as in Christ's, as we learn from Heb. ix. 24. "For Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands." The distinction is here, The temple was no longer the holy place in the eye of a Christian,' but it was so in that of the world. So with the Jews; they were the holy people, until God openly stripped them of that name: just as the ten tribes were a holy people until cut off, though they had long been connected with the worship of Baal, before they were actually cut off, to be no more a people. Nothing, one would think, can be clearer than that the scattering mentioned by Daniel, is the utter destruction of the Jewish temple, city, covenant, and priesthood, by him to whom all power was given in heaven and earth, which power the Jew denied altogether.

As to the kings and queens of the prophet, which Dr. Lee brings forward in support of his view, it must be admitted that this language is highly figurative, (see Rev. xviii. 9, &c.) We prove, and Dr. Lee admits, that "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ;" consequently the prediction of the prophet must have been fulfilled. Earthly, literal kings and queens, have, with few exceptions, been bitter persecutors, instead of nursing fathers and mothers. But more is said on this subject in the text.

Note B.

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The "Society of Friends" are, in many respects, "a wise and understanding people." They reject the Sacraments,' as they are called, of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; they do not imbibe the grovelling notions of a resurrection of dust; so neither do they call Sunday the Lord's-day; but simply and scripturally, the first day of the week. I suppose this Lord's-day' fancy, rests altogether on this passage in the Revelation, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.' Against the traditional view of this passage it is sufficient to observe, that if this were a literal twenty-four hours, then of a certainty John must have had the pen of a ready writer,' if in that space of time he indited twenty-two chapters! The words in the Greek for the Lord's day,' are ev τ xugianñ ñuga, on the day belonging to the Lord;' evidently enough pointing to the resurrection day of the Apostolic dispensation, as I shall often in the course of our subject have occasion to show. One proof may be permitted here, from Psalm cxviii. 24, "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." Now that this day was the resurrection day, is clearly demonstrated from infallible testimony. Peter, in Acts iv., when preaching of Jesus whom God raised from the dead, quotes in the 11th verse the 22nd verse of the 118th Psalm,-"This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which has become the head of the corner." The Church of England, in her traditions, calleth the first day of the week Dies Dominica, and from this taketh occasion to discourse of the Dominical, or Lord's day letter!