ing man; shall I then fear to own myself a sinner, guilty and worthy of death, lest I should discover a particle of righteousness, and so trust the less to Christ? It is a righteous thing to love God, shall I not ask this disposition from God, lest I should make a righteousness of my love to him? A man cannot do unto others as he would that they should do unto him, without a particle of righteousness; but may I not ask God to incline and enable me so to do? Saviour, if he could hope to share in the benefit of his mediation. If this can be their meaning, f must say, "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; Unto their assembly, mine honour be not thou united." R. P.S. On reading these remarks to a friend, he suggested the idea that the intention of the person, who offered up this prayer, might be only to refer to the act of justification as already past; if so, surely the sentiment was expressed obscurely and ambiguously, and liable to be misunderstood by others, as well as by me. Why should a particle of righ teousness be mentioned, as though the obedience of Christ could be divided into atoms? I could name a preacher who borrowed some money sixty years ago, and replied, when he was asked to return it, "The Lord will pay you." Verily no one should lend these men any thing, unless they can trust to their native honesty, independent of all divine influence, since they say that they will "not ask for a particle of righteousness from God." Whence then is any one to derive any confidence, that they will abstain from unrigh-the righteousness by which a sinteousness? Had it been said, "We do not ask thee to accept us for the sake of Christ's righteousness, for we are accepted already in the Beloved," I should have understood that the reference was solely to ner is justified; and did not necessarily import that no righteousness need to be imparted. Yet to this I should object, especially as a prayer offered in public, and consequently not suited to all who were present. And if it were supposed to re fer to individuals, either as be lievers, or as the elect, I should think it unseriptural. I cannot conceive how it is possible that any man should' rely on the righteousness of Christ, without seeing an excellency in that law which he magnified by his obedience and vicarious sufferings; nor can I conceive how he should see the worth of Christ's righteousness, without desiring a particle of conformity to it. Surely they cannot mean, that all the excellency of his righteousness consists, in his delivering them from the rigor of a bad law, to And certainly believers themwhich they were and still are selves are not taught in the Word enemies, and never desire to be of God, to tell him that they subject to it, in any form what-need neither pardon nor accept ever. If this be the case, which God forbid, they may well deny the work of the Spirit, for the devil himself, without any change of disposition, would love such a Nothing can ascertain to us the election of any one, who is at present an unbeliever. ance, because they have them already: they are there represented as continuing to look unto Jesus for both, and not as satisfied with having done so once for all. Our Lord taught us to pray for forgiveness as regularly as for our daily bread. ON THE SABBATH. which is emphatically termed the Lord's Day, Rev. i. 10, to which we have the undoubted testimony and example of Christ's disciples and apostles consecrating this day to his worship, and Christ sanctioning their meeting by his presence in John, xx. 19; and the next first day of the week, they met again, verse 26, and Jesus with them; and it is very remarkable, Acts, xx. 7, when Paul visited the disciples at Troas, he tarried with them seven days; but we read of no solemn meeting till the first day of the week, which was the last of the seven, the most inconvenient for Paul to have spent, continuing his speech until midnight, when the next morning he had to take his long journey from them, which is a proof what deference they paid to this day. ON reading Philosabbaton on the Christian Sabbath, in your Magazine, I felt constrained" to shew you mine opinion," which I take the liberty of presenting by your means to Philosabbaton, if you should think it of any weight. I remember reading a treatise, published some years past, by the Rev. Herbert Jones, on this subject, wherein he stated, that the Christian Sabbath, which we celebrate on the first day of the week, is the real seventh from the creation, and the very day which God sanctified to Adam in Paradise; and which was altered at the departure of According to this hypothesis, the Israelites from Egypt to the on the very day which God sixth day of the week (which he rested from all his work of creashewed from a chronological tion, on which he blessed and table drawn from Scripture, in sanctified it, is also the day which his publication)—and the Sab- our Redeemer made, when he bath was observed on that day burst open the barriers of the as a commemoration of their de- tomb, and cut the massy bars of liverance from Egypt, but which death in sunder, and opened the still ruled the week, and was kingdom of heaven to all becalled the seventh day: this cir- lievers, overcoming sin, death, cumstance is mentioned in the hell, and the grave, and rested on recapitulation of the decalogue, in the third day from all his work; the fourth command, Deut. v. 15, for the resurrection of Christ is, and which day is still observed in a sense, the completion of this by the Jews even to the present great work, and the whole gostime, but our Redeemer rising pel appears to rest upon it, 1 Cor. from the dead on the morrow xv. 15.-O how ought we to reafter this sabbath, to which refer-joice when the dawning light ence is given, Lev. xxiii. 11, 15, bring the return of this sacred 16, refering particularly to the morning.— Day of Pentecost, the first day of the week, or morrow after the Jewish Sabbath, but the real seventh day from the creation, which Christ sanctified by his resurrection from the dead, and "This is the glorious day That our Redeemer made, &c." "To thy great name, almighty Lord, t and set it in a clear light, this S. M. ON PEACE SOCIETIES. HAVING been always a warm friend to Peace, I have read, with considerable interest, the publications that have fallen in my way on the subject of war; among the rest, the pamphlets of the Peace Society, and the papers in your Magazine; one of the latter I have just finished perusing, and I cannot help observing, that your correspondent, C. M. W. L. does not appear to me to have done justice to one part of the subject. It is remarkable that all the gentile nations are included in the sanctification of this day, namely, the "Stranger within thy gates," which includes the gentile world, and is binding on all nations throughout all generations, see Isaiah, lvi. 3, 4, 6, and 7; Ezek. xliv. 24, which latter scripture refers to the spi-To the Editors of the Baptist Magazine. ritual reign of Christ, in the latter day, when Jew and gentile shall become one body in Christ. If the above statement can be fully proved, it will not only afford an additional pleasure and satisfaction to the mind respecting the sabbath, (which the writer has for some years enjoyed from conviction of judgment,) but remove no small stumbling-block out of the way of the Jews; and the writer enjoys a strong, though humble opinion, that it will be set in a clear point of view before, or when their conversion takes place (as a body), as all God's works are in the strictest majesty of order and regularity; and this, as a part of the will of God, would, in the mind of a Jew, have a peculiar energetic force in beholding Christ, as the very sum and substance, and end of the sabbath. As it is of importance to understand the will of God in this, as well as every other truth of his Word, surely the time would not be misemployed, if some able hand should, to use Solomon's term, dig, or labour after it. Fairly objecting to those arguments in favour of the lawfulness of war, which are derived from the character of some pious men, who have engaged in it, C. M. W. L. has gone no further; but I apprehend it is possible to shew, where we can have access to the secret feelings of the heart, that however eminent in piety a man may have been as a soldier, he would have been still more eminent had he been engaged in any other calling. Of the life of Colonel Gardiner, I have now but an indistinct recollection, not having the book, nor having read it within the P.S. Respecting the geogra- last five-and-twenty or thirty phical difficulty which Philosab-years; his biographer has not, I baton states, there is an easy an- think, given us any extracts swer, i. e. that God has appoint- from his private papers, but the ed the sun to rule the day in biographer of Colonel Blackader, every degree of longitude through- has given us many extracts from out the world. his diary. In page 103, Col. B. referring to what he describes to have been as bloody a battle as ever was fought," speaking of N.B. If this feeble attempt should induce any able master of the subject to enter into it, VOL. X. 2 к 1 other works I always read, though commonly some time after publication, the Christian Observer. Agreeing to differ with the conductors of that excellent work on the subject of ecclesiastical establishments, I generally 'read it, I trust, with edification as well as with pleasure; but I confess I was more amused than edified by the letter of X. Y. Z. on Peace Societies, in the Number for January last. The alarm of the writer lest the people should grow too peaceable, appears to me ludicrous. But there are also serious objections to his paper. The writer has not (doubtless from haste and inadvertence) cor But lest we, who have never known the tumultuous feelings inspired by a field of battle, where every thing concurs to kindle the passions, and to annihilate every feeling that is incompatible with a desire for vic-rectly represented the objects of tory, censure with too much severity, we should recollect, that the apathy which Colonel B. manifested, was the natural result of "that fearful alternation of mind between triumph and despair," and of that "intensity of effort to which all the energies of nature seemed to be wrought up." Indeed, on one occasion, the Colonel himself seems to have been aware of it, he says, "I find that the sight of a dying person makes a deeper impression on me now in cold blood, the first tract published by the Society. Had I read only that account of it, I should have expected to find it proposed an union among the people, to counteract the government, and overawe it by numbers.—So far from this, the author says, expressly, that he expects to see war destroyed by the dissemination of peaceable principles among people of all ranks, in every country. than ten thousand did in Flan- paragraph in page Verlooked 1 X. Y. Z. certainly, in his trepidation of spirits, overlooked a 20 and 21, ders at battles." where, after describing the inWhile we exercise great can-creasing prevalence of this knowdour in estimating the character ledge, the writer of the tract adds, of a good man, who fell, without "If suitable exertions should be consideration, into the evil, but made in this country (America) unquestioned habits of his the influence will not be boundtime, we should transfer an ab-ed by the Atlantic; it will cross horrence to the system that could the ocean, and find its way into so greatly injure and degrade a the Bible Societies, and other reman of exalted piety and amia-ligious societies in Great Britain, ble disposition. Although I am not a member of the Established Church, I do not confine my reading to the productions of Dissenters, Among and on the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Nor will it be many years before it will find access to the houses of legislation, and the palaces of kings." After eulogizing our government as being entitled to be considered, in a peculiar manner, as appointed of God for the punish-universally disapprove of war, the House of Commons must speak the sentiments of the people;' and, therefore, when the people House of Commons could not agree to it; and without their agreeing to it, as they hold the public purse, and unite in the vote for raising men for the army and navy, it could not take place. However, I expect that pacific principles will ultimately ascend to thrones, and that rulers and subjects will unite in the extermination of war. 1 "It has been, I think justly, remarked, that in many respects this case greatly resembles the abolition of the Slave Trade: the few who began, we need not to be reminded, were treated with con ment of evil doers, and the praise of them that do well, X. Y. Z. adds, "all that is required of us is, a dutiful subjection to the civil government under which we live, as unto God, in all things lawful." Here the writer admits all that the advocates for Peace Societies can ask. If we are bound to obey only in things lawful, we must have a right of determining what is lawful, and what is not. Now, as this writer admits, as every man of good sense and piety must, that unjust wars are sometimes waged by governments, before we can decide whether we are rendering obedience to go-tempt; they were called enthuvernment in what is lawful, or in what is unlawful; in supporting a particular war, we must institute an enquiry, and come to a decision on the point; and therefore I cannot conceive that X. Y. Z. can be right, when he asserts, "that, as private Christians, it is no part of our duty to usurp the place of our superiors, by presuming to determine whether any particular war is avoidable or not." The principles stated by this author would suit the meridian of Constantinople; but in a free country, like ours, they will not be endured by those who understand, and justly appreciate, our excellent civil constitution; nor, in fact, are such principles ever acted on. Our government is in part representative, and if the people find that a member does not speak their sentiments, they can avoid choosing him again. This was done, in some instances, during the discussion of the abolition of the Slave Trade. Supposing the people to be represented, the siasts and sectaries; they were reviled as disaffected; they were tauntingly advised to leave the matter to those who understood it better than themselves. It never boasted more than one royal pa tron, it experienced the most determined hostility from princes, and nearly all the nobles of the land, and but few of the senators interested themselves in favour of it for several years; many of them opposed it, both by argument and ridicule; and some of them invented cant phrases, as terms of reproach. The knowledge, and the right feeling on this subject, travelled upward. Will it not do so in the case before us? and by the same means? the diffusion of information, of just principles, and of a right spirit. It may be necessary to justify a remark I have ventured to make, that the principle, that we have nothing to do with the decision of whether a war be just or unjust, The Duke of Gloucester. |