the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Yes, "the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Who can doubt, after this, as to the design of the literal tree of life? It was for the healing of the nations. It was for the preserving, prolonging, and perpetuating of that natural life, which God had imparted to his innocent offspring. As the presence of the symbolical tree of life in the heavenly paradise, is equivalent to an assurance that, in that blessed world, there shall be no disease, no pain, no death; so the presence of the literal tree of life in the earthly paradise conveyed a similar assurance to its primeval inhabitants. If they held fast their integrity, and continued (as they had occasion) to have recourse to the tree of life, they were never to die.

There is another passage, parallel to that in the Apocalypse, in which the same idea as to the purpose of the literal tree of life is shadowed forth. It is in Ezekiel's vision of the holy waters issuing out from the sanctuary, on the banks of which grow trees, whose leaves never fade; "and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine." These trees are not expressly called trees of life, but they are evidently the same, in design and import, as those described in the Apocalypse. The imagery, in both cases, is borrowed from the terrestrial paradise, through which flowed a river, and in the midst of which grew the literal tree of life. And as these mystical trees, in both cases, are represented as possessing a healing efficacy, who can doubt that the same was true of the literal tree of life? It was intended to remove all disease, decay, and suffering, from the inno cent beings who partook of it, and secure them in the possession of an

endless life. Consequently, when they lost their innocency, and were doomed to revert back to their parent dust, they were sternly debarred from the tree of life, lest they should put forth their hand to it, and eat, and the curse pronounced against them should never be executed.

The literal tree of life has long since ceased from the earth. Its leaf has faded, and its root has withered.

It could not long flourish in this infected, doomed, accursed world. And while it remained here, there was no access to it to apostate man. Cherubim and a flaming sword guarded every avenue, and forbade all approach to the literal tree of life. The curse pronounced upon the race, immediately subsequent to their fall, must be inflicted. Of this, there is no remission, either to the good or the bad. Dust we are, and back to the dust must we all return.

But let us rejoice and be glad, that there is another tree of life, the approaches to which are guarded by no flaming sword-whose leaf does not wither, whose fruit does not fail, which lives, and flourishes, and blooms forever. It grows not in the earthly Eden, but in the paradise of God above. And the way to it is open to all the obedient children of God. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Yes, such as return to God, through the merits of his Son, and do his commandments, may have a right to this tree of life -a right to its healing leaves and its health-giving fruit, and may enter in, through the opened gates, into the heavenly city!

And now what a gracious assurance is this, to be published to a sinning, sorrowing, death-waiting world! And should not the assurance be as grateful to us as it is gracious? Should it not be hailed

and welcomed every where with rejoicing and praise? True, we are doomed to go down to the dust; but if we are Christians even death has no sting for us. And we are expecting to go, shortly, where there is no death, no pain, where all tears are wiped from all faces, where sorrow and sighing are known no more forever. Let us then rejoice in present tribulations, and triumph over the temptations and ills of life, while we press onward and mount upward in pursuit of the glory which is to follow. The paradise to be gained is infinitely superior to that we have lost. The tree of life which remains, and is open to us, is infinitety preferable to that which was guarded and is dead. Let all our readers, then, see to it, that they secure a right to this precious tree; that they may have the unutterable

privilege of sitting under its shade, and applying its leaves, and eating its blessed fruits forever. They may fail to secure it.

This tree, like that which once grew in the terrestrial paradise, may be forfeited. It will be forfeited by all who continue in their sins. It is only "those that do his commandments" that "have a right to the tree of life." And this heavenly tree, like that which stood in the garden of Eden, when once forfeited is forfeited forever. The approaches to it will be guarded, not only by cherubim and a flaming sword, but by the inexorable gates, both of the upper and the nether world-both of heaven and of hell. They will be guarded by all the horrors of the impassable gulf; so that there can be no access to it for lost souls forever.

WE give below the title of a book, on which we propose to bestow some little attention. The author of it is evidently a man who loves accuracy. At least he seems determined that there shall be no mistake about his identity. Among all the A. B. Chapins that inhabit this terraqueous globe, that individual one who wrote this book on the primitive church, is so pointed out by an enumeration of individual marks, that the reader who shall

*A View of the Organization and Order of the Primitive Church: containing a Scriptural plan of the Apostolic Church; with a Historical Outline of the Church to the end of the second century to which is added, the Apostolic Succession, connecting it with the Church of the present day. By Rev. A. B. Chapin, M. A., Mem. Conn. Acad. Arts and Sciences; Mem. Conn. Hist. Soc.; Hon. Mem. R. I. Hist. Soc.; Hon. Mem. Hist. Soc. Penn.; Mem. Yale Nat. Hist. Soc. New Haven, Hitchcock & Stafford, 1842.

confound this one with any other of that name, must stand convicted of an inexcusable blunder. There is something interesting in this particularity. It leads the reader to suppose, that the man who on the title-page of the book is so exact in defining his own identity, must be a man of the greatest accuracy in all things; and that whatever he may say about the primitive church, the Fathers, and the apostolical succession, may be received without hesi tation as infallibly correct. Besides, it has a picturesque and poetical effect. Had the name stood simply A. B. Chapin, according to the prevailing fashion of writers in this conveyed to thousands of readers, republican country, it would have instead of a definite image or vis ual conception, only something like Crambe's idea of a lord mayor in the abstract. But surround the name with these additions, and immedi

ately, in its connection with the other matters on the title-page, the reader catches a glimpse, as it were, of a white surplice, and of a venerable man with a pocket full of diplomas. It is somewhat as when we hear the heralds greeting Lord Marmion with all his titles,

"lord of Fontenaye, Of Lutterward and Scrivelbaye, Of Tamworth tower and town;" we feel at once that Lord Marmion is not a mere name, an algebraical symbol, but a man of substance and command.

Passing over, for the present, the miscellaneous information touching the book and its author, which we find in the "epistle to the reader," we turn to the first chapter, entitled "state of the question." The question is, "What was the organization and order of the apostolic church?" This question is in our author's view of great importance, because all religious denominations, as he says, "claim to be exclusively patterned after the apostolic model," because "a large proportion believe the apostolic practice to be binding on all succeeding generations;"—and because "the few who deny its obligation, show by their constant endeavors to prove their conformity to that model, that they consider its sanction very desirable."

It is not doubtful what view our author takes of the nature and bearings of this question. He is one of the many who "believe the apostolic practice to be binding on all succeeding generations." He does not indeed say so expressly in this connection, but the whole drift of the book makes it clear what view he takes of the importance of church organization and order. Thus in closing his prefatory "epistle to the reader," he says, "It is hoped that the sincere inquirer after truth will find essential aid in this volume; and that he who is anxiously seeking to know what is that church

which hath been declared to be 'the body of Christ,' will be helped forward in his investigation." In plain words, all those persons, whatever their faith and practice in other respects, who do not belong to some ecclesiastical organization "exclusively patterned after the apostolic model," do not belong to "the body of Christ." If this is the right view, the question touching the "organization and order" practiced by the Apostles, is, beyond all doubt, a question of unspeakable moment. No truth is of more importance than the true answer to the question, What is the body of Christ? And if the body of Christ is an ecclesiastical organization, exclusively patterned after the apostolical model, no truth can be more important than the true answer to the question which our author proposes as the theme of his discussion.

A

"This examination," our author proceeds to say, "is one of pure history, and is to be considered like every other question of that nature." But let us not forget so soon the importance of this question. question of pure history! Let our author say if it is not, in the view in which he discusses it, a momentous question of doctrine and of duty? In one sense, every question of what Christ and his Apostles taught, is a question of pure history. The question whether Paul and Peter preached that all who will may be saved through the death of Christ, and by the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit, is, in that sense, as truly and purely historical, as the question whether the Apostles wore long beards, after the manner of the Orientals, or shaved themselves after the manner of the Romans. The former, however, is a question concerning the nature and being of Christianity, and we have a right to expect that the inspired records of the Christian revelation, will give us an explicit answer. The latter is a question respecting" apostolic prac

tice" merely; and it would not be at all strange if it could not be answered without a great deal of ingenuity and some tradition.

Another of our author's remarks, by way of describing the "state of the question," and preparing the ground for the direct discussion, is that "in this examination there are two distinct kinds of evidence, wholly independent of each other, and both equally relevant;-the Scriptures, and the writings of the primitive Christians, usually referred to by the appellation of THE FATHERS." Equally relevant! Equally relevant to what? To the question, What constitutes the body of Christ, is the testimony of Hermas, or who ever else wrote the pitiful book which bears that name, equally relevant with the testimony of Paul, of Peter, or of Luke? We have thought that "the Bible, the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants." We hold that in an investigation, the result of which is to bind the conscience of a Christian, our only resort must be to the record of inspiration. The testimony of Tertullian is pertinent enough to an inquiry concerning the ecclesiastical forms, usages and theories of the African churches about the year 200; but to bring in Tertullian as a witness to the practice of the Apostles considered as "binding on all succeeding generations," is a grand impertinence. That apostolic practice which is not laid down in the Scriptures, even though it were proved to be apostolic practice, is, to a Protestant, certainly, no part of the Christian religion.

But relevant as Mr. Chapin esteems the testimony of the Fathers to the inquiry before him, and will ing as he may be for his own part to yield his faith and conscience to what they say, he has so much "respect to the feelings of those who deny its relevancy," that he proposes to confine the discussion "to such points as may be made out by

Scripture, citing the Fathers merely in confirmation." "And for the same reason,' he says, "we shall confine ourselves to the time when it is acknowledged by all that the church remained uncorrupted; that is, to the two first centuries." Here we are compelled again to put in our protest. That the church-by which we understand Christianity as believed, understood, and prac ticed by the Christian communityremained uncorrupt till the year 200, we do by no means acknow ledge. On the contrary, we hold that as soon as Christianity ceased to be uttered and expounded by inspired lips, it could not but begin to be corrupted. The Apostles were taught by the Savior personally; yet it was not without a miraculous inspiration that they were qualified to teach the gospel to others. What sort of a Christianity should we have had, if we had received from the Apostles nothing better than those impressions and apprehensions which they had received from Christ's teach ing, before the advent of that Holy Spirit which was to lead them into all truth? Those very societies, the members of which received their knowledge of Christianity from the lips of the Apostles, did not retain that Christianity without corruption, even while the Apostles were yet living. The churches of proconsular Asia were growing cor rupt as early as when the Apocalypse was written. What sort of a Christianity should we have had, if the Christianity of Sardis, or of Thyatira, or of Ephesus, had come down to us, body, soul and spirit, as it was, say in the year 68? The church at Corinth had become cor. rupt, sadly corrupt, in doctrine, dis cipline and practice, before the date of Paul's first epistle to that church. A sorry Christianity the world would have, if we had not something less corrupt than the Christianity prac ticed in the Corinthian church, with in a few months after its founder,

Paul, had for the first time ventured to leave it. Let any intelligent man consider the symptoms of degene racy of which there are so many intimations in the New Testament itself, and the elements of corruption which could not but exist in the primitive Christian community elements the operation of which the Apostles foresaw and predicted; let him consider who the primitive Christians were-converts from Judaism or from heathenism, with the remains of their old prejudices cleaving to them still; let him consider their circumstances, living among pagans, under a pagan government, surrounded by the influences of a state of society of which paganism was the soul, obnoxious to the laws, and frequently assailed by the most active persecution; let him consider their disadvantages, with no Christian literature, with no libraries of theological learning, with no press to multiply books and readers, with no suitable schools for their children, and no colleges for the training of their ministry, compelled even to hold their religious assemblies under the protection of night, and in the deepest privacy; and then let him say whether any thing but a constant miracle could have kept the church uncorrupt for a longer time after the days of the Apostles, than the whole period from the days of the first settlers of New England till the establishment of the federal constitution.

"In every subject which men discuss, or examine," says our author, "there must be certain things which are assumed, or agreed upon, by all parties. These, like the axioms in mathematics, are the starting points of the argument." All this is true; and it is also true that almost every successful sophism, may be resolv. ed into the trick which dextrously assumes, at one step or another in the course of the argument, some definition, some axiom, or some general proposition, which directly Vol. I.

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or indirectly includes the point in dispute. It is with great propriety, therefore, that Mr. Chapin undertakes to state distinctly, at the outset, what are the points assumed, from which his argument proceeds. We transfer to our columns his account of the starting point of his whole inquiry.

"One of the points thus assumed, or agreed upon in this matter, and which the common sense of every person must approve, is, that the apostolic history, as contained in the Acts of the Apostles, was written to acquaint us with the fact, that the gospel was preached, and churches were formed; but not to detail the peculiarities of their organization;-that the

apostolic epistles were written to confirm the churches in the faith; but not to give them a platform of church organiza tion and order. Hence, we are obliged to infer, as we know the fact to be, that the New Testament gires, in no one place, a detailed account of the organization and order of the apostolic church. This point being assumed, it is necessary to assume another, before we can proceed at all in the argument; and that is, that the apostolic churches, when fully established, had a uniform system of organization; and that the Apostles, in their writings, allude to, and speak of that form, with sufficient distinctness, to enable us to determine what it was.' pp. 19, 20.

This paragraph, to our eye, con sists of two parts; first a concession on the part of the author, which virtually subverts every particular form of church organization, claiming to be jure divino; and secondly, an assumption which we, on our part, utterly refuse to concede.

The concession is, that no part of the New Testament was written for the sake of making known the constitution and organization of the Christian community, in the days of the Apostles. And in the face of such a concession as this, will any man ask us to believe that the writers of the New Testament were all Episcopalians of the jure divino school? If that glorious saint and martyr, Archbishop Laud-if Bishop Seabury, or Bishop Hobart-if Queen Elizabeth, or King Charles first or second-if Dr. Pusey, or