ture or of reason; but the peculiar | navians, the Sanscrit poems, the maxand worthy object of a communica-ims of Confucius, excite in us no surtion, supernatural and divine--and such a volume we have in that much neglected, but incomparable, sublime, and awful volume-the BIBLE.

THE BIBLE.

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prise: we find in all these works the ordinary chain of human ideas-they have all some resemblance to each other, both in tone and in ideas. The Bible alone is like none of them it is a monument detached from all the others. Explain it to a Tartar, to a Caffre, to an American savage-put it into the hands of a dervise they will all be equally astonished by it-a fact which borders on the miraculous. Twenty authors, living at periods very distant from each other, composed the sacred books; and though they are written in twenty different styles equally inimitable, are not to be met with in any other performance. The New Testament, so different in its spirit to the Old, nevertheless partakes with the latter of this astonishing originality."

Now these are not the testimonies of priests-they are the testimonies of laymen-of men who have travelled in every part of the globe, and who have become acquainted with the literature of all nations; and what they, as scholars, pronounce concern ing this book, we, as Christians, are able to confirm.

SIR William Jones says, " The scriptures contain, independently of a divine origin, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence than could be collected within the same compass from all other books that were ever composed in any age, or in any idiom. The two parts of which the Scriptures consist are connected by a chain of composition which bears no resemblance, in form or style, to any that can be produced from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Russian, or even Arabian. The antiquity of these works no man can doubt; and the unrestrained application of them to events long subsequent to their publication, is a solid ground of belief that they were genuine productions, and consequently inspired." Now this is not the decision of some uneducated Christian minister, but it is the deliberate judgment of the greatest oriental scholar, perhaps our country has produced-a man whose statue adorns our own cathedral, and whose name will live as long as British literature continues. This man declares that the Bible contains more true sublimity than could be found in all the other books that were ever composed in any age or country. Now the testimony of another individual to prove this shall be from the writings of Chateaubriand-the most distinguished member of the French literati Every organization implies an of the present day. He says, " The | established authority and subordinaproductions most foreign to our man- tion to it.

DISCIPLINE-No. II.

IN our last number, we examined those passages of scripture which, some imagine, deny the power of judgment, and promised to continue the subject, in an attempt to show, that an impartial and prompt discipline is among the most solemn duties of the church-with an investigation of the questions, "In what does it consist? and what is the proper method of administering it?

Machines have their ba

ners, the sacred books of the infidel | lance wheels, compensation-pendunations, the Zendavesta of the Parsees, lums, and regulators: the human the Vidan of the Brahmins, the Koran system, complicated as it is, in its of the Turks, the Edda of the Scandi- material and spiritual elements, is in

subordination to the will ; and every | with that of obedience; and, therefore, any exhortation or command to submit to authority is equally to exercise it.

Go

association of men, in striking conformity, must be subjected to some controlling authority, or it cannot live and operate as one body. This au- Our Saviour, in his last interview thority may be limited or general, ac- with his Apostles, when he stood upon cording to the object of the organiza- the mountain of Galilee, ready to astion. It may be prescribed and stipu- cend to the right hand of the Majesty lated, as in written and adopted con- in the heavens, makes this instructive stitutions ; or, absolute and arbitrary, | declaration, “ All power is given unto as in the will of monarchs or the de- me both in heaven and earth. crees of democracies: yet, in what-ye, therefore, and teach all nations, ever form, it must exist and be ac- baptizing them into the name of the companied with power to enforce it, Father, and of the Son, and of the or confusion will come. Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe In the beautiful organization we all things whatsoever I have comcall "the church," we are not to ex-manded you; and, lo, I am with you pect to find an exception to this gene- alway, even unto the end of the ral principle. God is the author both world."-Mat. xxvii. 18-20. Moses of the general principle and the church, had been the great lawgiver till Christ. and He has planned the one in subor- Upon the mount of transfiguration, dination to the other. The authority from the bright cloud which overproceeds from Him, and is prescribed shadowed them, in the presence of by His revealed will. This is the Moses and Elias, Peter, James, and high-the supreme sanction of all le- John had heard the voice of God gitimate ecclesiastical judicature. God proclaiming, "This is my beloved will sustain it by his own right hand. Son, in whom I am well pleasedAnd as He not only knows what is hear ye him." And now the Saviour, best, but does nothing in vain, it in virtue of this acknowledged authowould seem necessary only to ascer-rity to speak, empowers his Apostles, tain whether he has committed this in his last injunction, to teach the high prerogative to his church on things which he had commanded earth, in order to arrive at a just con- them. If we had no record of what clusion upon the proposition before these “things”were, other than that us. That all authority in heaven and furnished us in the subsequent teachupon earth is His, none will deny-ings of the Apostles, this would be For," says the Apostle, “ there is | sufficient; for the promise that he would be with them that he would send the Advocate to teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance that he had said to them, being evidently fulfilled, both from the facts which transpired on the day of Pentecost, and the demonstrations of miraculous power accompanying their subsequent preaching, there can be no doubt that what they did teach was by the divine authority and under the divine sanction. The teachings of the Apostles, therefore, even though not found in any previous record of the things commanded by the Saviour, must be admitted to be

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no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God;" and as the Christian is "subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake," not only for the fear of human punishment, but also on account of his duty to God, so is the " higher power, or ، minister of his will," | bound, not only because of his responsibility to the society, whose good order he is called upon to maintain, but because also he is ordained of God to his duties, and may not on that account neglect them with impunity. The importance of a lawful exercise of authority is commensurate

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in accordance with those commands, discipline is shown to arise from the else he has lent the "demonstration evil influence necessarily exerted by of the Spirit" to human inventions- an unworthy member, so long as he which is not admissible. is countenanced in his sins, upon the whole body with whom he is associated. They not only become partakers of his sins, by failing to rebuke them in him, but, from allowing transgressions in others, soon find excuse for sinning themselves. The experience of every man's own heart concurs with universal observation in proving that, in exact proportion as we accustom ourselves to countenance any practice in another, do we increase the liability, when tempted, of engaging in it ourselves. We are so constituted. Hence a church which has a lax discipline, must have also loose notions of Christian purity, and is, consequently, always liable to fall under temptation, into improprieties disgraceful to themselves, detrimental to the cause of Christ, and injurious to others. Thus " a little leaven," which is neglected and not purged out, as the Apostle commands, contaminates the whole mass, and renders it not only useless, but hurtful.

But it happens, in reference to the subject under consideration, that we have not only the authority of the Apostles, but the express will of the Saviour, as preserved in the record of Matthew. The church is here solemnly commanded to treat as a heathen man and a publican," him who proves refractory, and refuses to hear their authority; with the assurance "that whatsoever they shall bind on earth (in accordance with his law) shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever they shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” (Mat. xvi. 17-19, xviii. 18.) Thus is the duty of the church to maintain the principles of Christ's kingdom expressly urged by his own command; and every congregation which neglects this solemn obligation, is wanting in faithfulness to their absent Lord, whose delegates, in vindicating his truth and enforcing his law, he has, to their infinite honor, made them. False to their trust, and unworthy of their honor, they can neither expect to win the approbation of the Saviour, nor exhibit to the world the true riches and glory of his kingdom.

The church should be the light of the world, and we know that it is in vain to have a good theory of religion if we have not a corresponding practice. One or two disorderly brethren In exact accordance with this lesson will do more to retard the progress is the admonition of Paul to the church of the gospel, than half a dozen ordiat Corinth (1 Cor. v.) They had al-nary advocates can to advance it: for lowed in their fellowship, one guilty of a crime, “not so much as named among the Gentiles," and thus manifested such a want of jealousy for the purity of the church, as, in the opinion of the Apostle, was shameful. He commands them, therefore, to put away from among themselves, this wicked person, and proceeds to show that, in permitting him to remain in the church, they were endangering" the purity of the whole body. "Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump." Here the necessity of

so long as they are not visited with the discipline of the church, the necessary inference is, no matter what may be the preaching to the contrary, that their conduct is endorsed by the whole fraternity; and it is, consequently, charged to their account. It is for this reason that Paul would have us make a difference in our treatment between the disorderly, who is called a brother," and such in the world. He says, (1 Cor. v. 9) “I wrote unto you in one epistle not to associate with the vicious; but I did not mean in general the fornicators of this world, the avaricious, the rapacious, or the

idolaters-seeing then, indeed, you must go out of the world. But now I write to you, if any one, called a brother, be a fornicator, or a covetous person, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner-not to associate, not even to eat with such a person.' We are, then, to treat disorderly brethren with a marked reprobation, greater than that we show to similar characters in the world because, being associated with us in a particular relation-as "a peculiar people"-in countenancing them, even with the ordinary civilities of life, we become partakers of their sins, and lower the standard of consociation which the Saviour and his Apostles have raised, and commanded his church to maintain.

see the influence of his kingdom
weakened and wasted by the dis-
loyalty of its rebellious subjects, and
the opposition of Satan riding in tri-
umph over his heritage; and yet,
faithless to their trust, and too cow-
ardly to raise a voice for him who
did not shrink even to die for them,
they sit supinely by; looking, indeed,
upon the confusion with some degree
of emotion, but apparently unmindful
that it is their duty to watch as those
that shall give account. May the
Lord awaken them to a sense of their
responsibility, and enkindle in the
churches a holier zeal for the honor
of his house.
W. K. P.

REPLY TO "STRICTURES." SEEING Some strictures in your magazine of this month on a Baptist pamphlet, entitled "Strictures on the

I shall not stop to notice the writer's flourish about "wrathful vials," &c. but proceed at once to consider, as briefly as possible, the real question at issue.

Among the sins of the seven churches of Asia, as delivered by John in Revelation, we find that the Saviour charges the church in Perga-leading doctrines contained in a work mos and that in Thyatira, with the of Mr. A. Campbell, of America," &c. neglect of a watchful discipline, in by one who signs himself J. D. I beg suffering among them those whose to trouble you with a few observadoctrine and practice he hated. "Itions thereon. have a few things against thee," (to the church in Pergamos), "because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacri- Among the "five errors J. D. ficed unto idols, and to commit for-professes to point out, one, it would nication. So hast thou also them seem, he considers to be of a fundathat hold the doctrine of the Nicolai- mental character-at least I should tanes, which thing I hate. Repent, infer so from the following denunciaor else I will come unto thee quickly, tion :-" "Such is the Baptistism of and will fight against them with the these members, at once absurd, injusword of my mouth." Rev. ii. 14-16. rious, and blasphemous." This he In the same spirit he reproves the tells us is the following: "Both faith church in Thyatira for suffering the and repentance are the gifts of God; woman Jezebel, and we ought to that there are commands to repent regard it as a solemn admonition unto and believe we fully admit, but that us, for whose instruction it was like- they imply any power in man to obey wise delivered. Many, we fear, are we deny." I should have thought the churches now, against whom the that at least some notice ought to have Lord has the like displeasure. They been taken of the scriptural proofs suffer the temple of his Holy Spirit urged in favor of the above. to be defiled-witness the reproaches only passage referred to, however, is of the infidelity of professed members Rom. v. 17; and this passage is disis every day casting upon his cause; missed with the observation, that

The