all is one. This self-existent unity produces necessarily a second; the first and second, by their union, produce a third; in fine, these three produce all.' Lopi, in commenting upon these passages says, 'That this unity is triple, and this triplicity one.' Laotsee, in his fourteenth chapter, called Tsanhuen, or the elogium of hidden wisdom, says, 'He that produced all, and is himself unproduced, is what we call Hi. He that gives light and knowledge to all things, and is himself invisible, is what we call Yi. He that is present everywhere, and animates all things, though we do not feel him, is called Ouei.... Contemplate by the pure spirit alone, and thou wilt comprehend that these three united are but one.' Li-yong, in commenting upon this passage of Laotsee, says, 'Hi, Yi, Quei have no name, colour, nor figure*. By a borrowed name they are called unity: this unity, however, is not a bare unity, but a unity that is triple, and a triplicity that is one.' The book Sleeki says, "The ancient emperors sacrificed every three years solemnly to him that is one and three.' Chouevin, in commenting upon the hieroglyphic that expresses unity, says that "In the beginning the supreme wisdom subsisted in a triple unity; that this unity created the heavens and the earth, separated them from each other, and will at last convert and perfect all things.'t "The Persian Mythras was commonly called threefold or triple, Tpindaσios. Thus Dionysius, the pseudo-Areopagite, says, "The Persian magi to this very day celebrate a festival solemnity in honour of the triplasian or threefold Mythras.' Plutarch adds, 'that Oromazdes thrice augmented or triplicated himself.' From whence it appears that Mythras or Oromazis were one and the same numen, or different names to express the two first hypostases of the divine The third was called Psyche by the Greeks. But Herodotus calls this third hypostasis Mythra, and maintains it is the same with Urania. In a Chaldaic oracle, quoted by Proclus, we read these words, After the mind of the Father I, Psyche, dwell.' Now, the mind of the Father, as Psellus informs us, is 'the second God, and the immediate artificer of the world.' essence. Thus what the Chinese called Hi, Yi, and Quei, the Persians named Oromazdes, Mythras, and Mythrat." The Etruscans also had three supreme deities, namely, Tinia (Jupiter), Cupra (Juno), and Menroa (Minerva). The shadow of similar traditions is preserved amongst the brahmins in India. They have three principal gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; and in their representations of the middle god, they represent Vishnu suffering and triumphant. As suffering, a serpent is represented biting his heel; as triumphant, he is represented standing on the serpent's head. By whatever channel this arrived in India, it is clearly a materialization of the curse denounced upon the spiritual enemy of mankind at the fall: "I will put enmity between thee and the wo *God's revelation of his names to his chosen people is noted in Gen. xvii. 1; Exod. iii. 14; vi. 3. +Ramsay's "Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion," part ii. p. 120. Ramsay. Part ii, p. 121. man, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head; and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. iii. 15). Again, the idol Juggernaut is represented with two companions, Boloram and Shubudra*. In the progress of times, these Noevian traditions, thus far corrupted, became obscured more and more. The attributes of the Deity were materialized into objects of worship; and, as man descended lower and lower, we find the abstract virtues and passions converted into idols, and even men, whose residence upon earth was a curse to their species, turned into demigods. There remains now to show that the doctrine of a triune Deity, Trinity in unity, is not cortrary to reason. The treatment of such a subject, and speaking of the Almighty in human terms and discussing his being in mortal phrases, has a savour of irreverence, since it cannot be discussed without the admixture of finite infirmity. Yet, as God has condescended to speak of himself to us according to our weakness and capacity, it is not to be supposed that it will be viewed as presumption to speak of him in such terms as our limited nature will admit of. The unity of God is not disputed by those who believe in the existence of a Deity. God is absolutely infinite. If there were more than one absolute Infinite, the two united would be greater than one. Therefore, there can be but one absolute Infinite. The infinite, eternal, essential activity of the absolute Infinite would be productive of an absolute infinite effect, otherwise there would have been an eternity without action. This has so pressed upon the minds of some, that they have declared that creation-nature-is eternal; and, like the Spinozists, arrive at the conclusion that nature is a co-eternal consubstantial emanation of the First Cause. Of such absolute infinite activity, without succession, exercised within the result, would be an infinite co-eternal consubstantial effect. The effect was the generation of the Word, the Son of God (John i. 1). An infinite effect from without would involve the existence of two infinites. It must, therefore, have taken place from within. Finite is successive; therefore finite existence cannot have been eternal. This eterna generation of the Word would not be denied by the deists, unitarians, Socinians, and the like, if they would only analyze their own natures, in which they would see the necessity for an object of thought, a craving after a counterpart which, in the days of man's innocency, led the Almighty to say that it was not good for man to be alone. They would also see within themselves the necessity for an object of love; and, as loving without being loved is but an imperfect state, it follows that there must be two persons exercising mutual love towards each other, to produce, even in a comparative degree, a state of happiness. We may reason by analogy from finite to infinite. An infinite being must have an infinite object to love, and, being infinite perfection himself, he requires an object equally perfect to render hap* Buchanan's "Discourses and Christian Researches,' p. 133. piness complete. Less than complete perfection | widowed mother-in-law. Against this she re cannot be an object of complete bliss. We may monstrated, and endeavoured to persuade them thus see that it is not contrary to reason and to remain among their own people and form analogy that there is a third Person in the God- new marriages, as it was natural they should. head, the infinite Spirit of love. And, as we Orpah, the widow of Chilion, the younger brohave already seen, that there can be but one ab- ther, took an affectionate farewell of her, acsolute Infinite, the Holy Spirit of love, with the cording to her suggestion; but Ruth, the widow eternal Word, are, with the Father, one God. of Mahlon, the elder (iv. 10), was affected by Reason could never have revealed these mys- that love which Solomon tells us is "strong as teries; but, by the proper exercise of his faculties, death" (Song of S. viii. 6), and would not be perman can see that they are not contrary to reason. suaded to leave her. Her touching appeal to the Spinoza did not deny the eternal generation of affections is so very beautiful that you may like an eternal, immanent, consubstantial effect in to hear the whole of her words: the divine mind; but he called this "nature produced," thus placing creation in the temple of God, showing it as though it were God (2 Thess. ii. 4). His view is, indeed, quite contrary to reason; since the finite can never satisfy the infinite. As the scripture says, God even charges his angels with folly (Job iv. 18). How much less satisfactory, then, must be a lower state of being. From what has been said above, it will be seen the doctrine of the Trinity was inculcated by our Saviour, and that traces of its existence in very early times are found in the traditions of the east. WOMEN OF SCRIPTURE*. BY THE VEN. H. MACKENZIE, M.A., "Intreat me not to leave thee, Or to return from following after thee; Where thou diest I will die, If ought but death part me and thee." Before we go on with the story, you may like to know the meaning of some of the names. Names in scripture mostly mean something special in relation to the history of the persons they indicate; and this is very markedly the case in the characters named in the book of Ruth. Elimelech was a religious name, signi fying "God is King." Naomi means "pleasant," "gracious," or "beautiful," given, no doubt, on account of the personal charms of Elimelech's wife. Mahlon means "sick," and Archdeacon of Nottingham, and Sub-dean of Lincoln. Chilion "pining;" and these names seem to No. VIII. RUTH AND NAOMI. HOLY scripture contains, as we have already seen, many interesting narratives of women; but few, if any, that more nearly touch our personal and domestic life than that which relates the histories of Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi. Naomi was the wife of Elimelech, of Bethlehem, and had gone with her husband and two sons to find means of sustenance in the land of Moab during a famine that afflicted the country of Judah in the time of the judges, about a hundred years before the reign of David, the king. Affliction followed her into the land of her adoption; for she became a widow and childless while she was in exile. Her husband and both her sons died in Moab, and she was left with two daughters-in-law, named Ruth and Orpah. In this time of her great sorrow and desolation she heard the good news of her own district, that God had visited his people in giving them bread; and so she determined to satisfy that natural yearning of the heart that loves to recur to the scenes of youth, and to go back to her own city of Bethlehem, and end her days there. The ties of affection for the dead seem to have bound the three women closely together. The widows of the young men, Mahlon and Chilion, both desired to return to Bethlehem with their * Written to be read by a female teacher at mothers' meetings, have been given to the two sons born in a time of prevailing illness and famine, before the family left Bethlehem for the land of Moab. They are called (i. 2) Ephrathites, because Ephrath was the ancient name of Beth-lehem (Gen. xxxv. 19, xlviii. 7)-no longer now "the house of bread" to their stricken family-where they were born, and which afterwards became the birth-place of Ruth's descendants, David, the king, and JESUS, the King of kings. The name of Ruth signifies "beauty," and that of Boaz "strength.' Ruth and her mother-in-law travelled toge ther to the town of Bethlehem, and arrived at the time when all the people were engaged in the barley harvest; and the familiar face of the elder, and the strange and foreign garments of the younger woman, in addition to her singular beauty, attracted general attention. All the city was moved about them; but the change in the appearance of Naomi was so much for the tioned whether she could be the person she reworse that some of her old acquaintance ques presented herself to be. Her answer betokens the sadness of her spirit under the melancholy circumstances in which she was placed. "Call them, "but call me Mara (bitter); for the Alme no longer Naomi (pleasant)," she said to went out full; and the Lord hath brought me mighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I home again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me ?" While the harvest was going on, Ruth joined herself to the gleaners on the land of Boaz, a wealthy proprietor of the neighbourhood. She did this under Naomi's sanction (ii. 2), and apparently under the especial guidance of God (ii. 3); for Boaz was a near kinsman of her late husband, and one therefore on whom she had a claim for protection according to the law of Moses (Lev. xxv. 25-8; Deut. xxv. 5). on his refusal, and became the husband of Ruth, Modern travellers have described the harvest at Bethlehem in language which shows us exactly what Ruth's habit of daily life was at this time. "I was delighted" (writes Dr. Thompson in "The Land and the Book," p. 647)" with We must now briefly explain the great and a sight in the fields of Bethlehem. The reapers marked peculiarity of this interesting domestic were cutting barley; and after every company history. We have already had occasion to refer were women and children gleaning, just as Ruth to Lev. xxv. and Deut. xxv. If we read those did. And in the evening you might see some chapters we shall find what the law says repoor maiden sitting by the road-side, and beat-garding the inheritance of the dead who were ing out with a stick or stone the wheat she had childless. God had promised to Abraham that gathered, as Ruth did." The same writer (p. in his seed all the nations of the earth should 648) and Robinson (ii. 394) teach us also that the be blessed; by which it was meant that the meals in the harvest-fields at Bethlehem, at the Christ should come of his direct descent. Of present time, are just what they were in Ruth's course, in order to be able to trace this descent, days. There is the dipping of the morsel in and thus to prove the fulfilment of the provinegar (ii. 14), and the parched corn, which phecy when it should come to pass, it was neis made by a quantity of the best ears, not too cessary to watch very carefully the succession ripe, which are plucked with the stalk attached, of each generation. Mahlon, the son of Elimeand tied in small parcels: a blazing fire is lech, was in the direct line of Abraham, through kindled with dry grass, and the corn-heads are his great-grandson, Judah, to whom the inheriheld in it until the chaff is mostly burnt off, tance was promised; and Mahlon having died and the grain thus sufficientiy roasted to be without children, Ruth, his widow, was entitled to claim marriage with his brother or next kinsman. The child of such marriage would of right succeed to all the land of the deceased husband. If the next kinsman refused to fulfil the obligation, he had to go through that form of "having his shoe loosed," which, when done by the widow, conveyed a certain degree of ignominy to the man who endured it. In the case of Ruth, she was not present; and there seems to have been sufficient and recognized reason for her husband's kinsman refusing to do the office of a husband. He said: "I cannot redeem it, lest I mar my own inheritance" (iv. 6). The probability is that he was already married, and meant to say, "If I take a second wife, I break up the peace of my family." So he drew off his own shoe, and allowed Boaz, who stood next to him in his lineage, to become the husband of her who was called "the beauty." eaten. The picture of the harvest-field as Ruth found it is thus realized to us by the testimony of eastern travellers now; and there is another feature about it that we could wish were equally realized amongst ourselves. Whenever Boaz, the landlord, went among the reapers, he always addressed them with the words, "The Lord be with you;" and they answered him, "The Lord bless thee" (ii. 4). Thus we see that religion was not with Boaz and his servants a thing put on, like a Sunday coat, on the sabbath, and forgotten during the rest of the week, but was a part of their daily life and conversation. O that God were thus in all our thoughts now! If it had not been for the book of Ruth we should have had no illustration in scripture of that scriptural law which is recorded in Deut. xxv. 5-10; and this may therefore rightly be called the peculiarity of the history we have been considering. Upon the near relationship of Boaz, Naomi built up some bright hopes for the future life of Ruth. The young woman had wrought, with labour, discretion, and fidelity, in the fields of Boaz throughout the barley and the wheat harvest; and now, when the time of the winnowing had come, Naomi sent her daughter-in-law to the threshing-floor to meet Boaz (in the piety and gravity of whose character she had as much confidence as in the virtue of Ruth), and to claim, as she believed she had a legal right to do, his The lessons are, surely, sufficiently clear, and protection and betrothal as the nearest kinsman will need no lengthened explanation. The of her late husband. She appears, however, to pious submission and faithful sorrow of Naomi have been mistaken in this idea, and that there were rewarded by eventual restoration, not really was a nearer relation of her husband still merely to peace and to competence, but to a living, though she was not aware of it. The high degree of temporal prosperity and of spiconduct of Boaz on this occasion was that of a ritual joy. The gentle devotion and selfmost upright and honourable man. He neither denying affection and duty of Ruth were retook advantage of his kinswoman or his kins- warded by an exaltation to a rank among the man, but he took pains that justice should be mothers in Israel of the very highest distincdone to both. The end of the history was that tion. Alien by birth, she became a proselyte the nearest kinsman of the dead Mahlon refused to the revealed faith of Jehovah, and in it she to redeem the inheritance according to the law found a rich reward for all her previous sufof Moses (Lev. xxv. 25, Deut. xxv. 5, 6, 7, 9), but ferings and trials. Her name is recorded in that Boaz, the next in succession to him, did so the genealogy of our Lord as one of those "blessed among women" who were the ancestresses of Jesus; and if any of us are tempted to envy the high distinction to which she was thus raised, we may calm our spirits with happy reflection upon the words of the Saviour: "Who is my brother? and who are my brethren ?" "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matt. xii. 48, 50). Poetry. HYMN. SUNG AT A JUVENILE MEETING ON BEHALF OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 1868. MATT. xiii. 31, 32. LORD, can the mite I give to thee Which blinded souls for Saviour's own? O yes; the gift is small; but thou, And humblest all that swell with pride. Thou mak'st the ocean's mighty main So, bless'd by thy almighty power, FOR THE YEAR 1869. G. E. S. "What is your life ?"-JAMES iv. 14. "WHAT is your life? Each passing year may tell. The bashful babe, with radiance in its eyes Then, see the youth of promise, and of parts, Bnt, if luxuriant autumn yield its fruit, Dan. ii. 34; Gen. xlix, 24, And, when stern winter comes, with keener blast, "Yet such is human life; so, gliding on, Pembroke Lodge, Brighton, 1868. * S. Rogers. Miscellaneous. PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN.-The religious freedom, which is one of the effects of the revolution in Spain, is bringing to light a fact little suspected in England, the existence of a considerable number of native protestants in that country. That such a body exists has been known here for many years, and has been in great part due to the labours of the late rev. Juan Calderon, a Spaniard by birth, but a clergyman of the church of England. For inany years of his life, and until the day of his death, fourteen years ago, this gentleman was the editor and only writer of a protestant paper printed and published in London, in the Spanish language. This paper, the name of which was twice changed for the greater safety of its readers, used to be sent by various routes to Spain, generally reaching its destination, but sometimes, unfortunately, seized and burned at the custom-house. Secret meetings of converts took place, at which the bible and edifying religious books and papers were read. Its publication necessarily ceased at the death of its sole author; but the gentlemen who helped to defray the expenses incidental to it, redoubled their efforts, and other periodicals continued the work; and thus there are protestants in Spain at this day. SUPERVISION AND REPRESSION OF CRIME.-At a meeting of the standing committee of the Repression of Crime Section of the Social Science Association, lately held at their rooms in the Adelphi, sir Walter Crofton, C.B., in the chair, the following resolutions were passed with regard to the supervision of criminals and the repression of crime: “1st, That it is a pressing necessity to give more completeness to our present practice of police supervision by the establishment of a central authority controlling, and a register recording, the movements of convicts on licence. 2nd, With a view to the further repression of crime and the better protection of life and property, it is expedient that legislative power be obtained to establish a police supervision of habitual offenders; and that to this effect it is recommended that a law be enacted empowering magistrates to require any person who has twice been convicted of felony, and who either can be proved to be associating with thieves, or is unable to show that he is earning an honest living, to give bail as security against his committing any new offence; and that, failing to give such bail, such person should be committed to prison." London: Published for the Proprietors, by S. D. EWINS and SON, 9, Ave Maria Lane, St. Paul's; ROGERSON and TUXFORD, 265, Strand; and to be procured, by order of all Booksellers in Town and Country. PRINTED BY ROGERSON AND TUXFORD, 265, STRAND, LONDON. FEBRUARY 27, 1869. SCRIPTURAL MARKS OF CONVERSION*. MR. CHAIRMAN, ladies, and gentlemen, the subject on which I am about to address you is a most important one. It is especially so in days like these, when, in the excitement of necessary religious controversy, we are all of us, ministers and people, too apt to lose sight of the first principles of our common salvation." My subject, as you are aware, is one that does not bear so fully on the present critical state of things in our church, as did the addresses to which we listened with so much pleasure yesterday evening, and as will do the addresses which Mr. Bardsley and Mr. Baxter will deliver to us this morning. My subject is one rather of a personal and experimental character. It is "Scriptural Marks of Conversion." To all of us, whether we be ministers or people, it is surely a question of momentous importance, "Am I converted or am I not"? and that question can only be answered in one way-from scripture, from "God's word written." It cannot but be feared that, through the unsound teaching which prevails in some of our churches as to sacramental grace, there are very fearful mistakes being made on this subject of conversion, and that many of our people, deluded by false notions, are going into the eternal world, as the prophet says, with "a lie in their right hand." There is at the same time grievous error to be guarded against in the teaching of some of our nonconformist brethren. An instance of this came before me not long since in my own pastoral work. A parishioner who had habitually neglected church and chapel and all means of grace was taken ill. I visited him frequently. He was at first much alarmed, but presently was full of peace, and not From "An Address, delivered at the Second Annual Meeting of the Yorkshire Church Association, held at Leeds, October 8th and 9th, 1868;" by the rev. Canon Clayton, M.A., rector of Stanhope, late senior fellow and tutor of Caius college, Cambridge. No. 1950. at all afraid of death. On calling after his decease on some of his relations, to comfort them in their loss, one of them at once said, "I am sure he is saved. I am sure he was converted. I am sure he is gone to heaven." I replied, "Most sincerely I hope he has. But it is a case we must leave. I always distrust death-bed repentances. I have seen many just as full of peace and confidence as he was, when apparently at the point of death; but they recovered; and they soon went back into their former state, and became just as careless as they were before." "O! I dare say," was the immediate answer; O! I dare say he would have gone back again if he had lived." In cases of such sad ignorance how truly may we say again with the prophet, "A deceived heart hath turned him aside." "He feedeth on ashes." 66 Let us then turn from man's teaching to the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth. "What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord." Now what is the meaning of the word " conversion"? The word conversion, as you doubtless know, means "turning round." A traveller is taking a journey towards some particular town. All at once, from some cause or other, he changes his mind, and turns his back on the town which just before he had faced. As far as regards that journey he is a converted, an entirely changed man. Šimilar is the change wrought in the soul of any one by conversion. He is converted or turned round from Satan to Christ, from sin to holiness, from hell to heaven. What real conversion is will appear from the various marks of it, furnished by the word of God. One mark is, I. A SENSE OF OUR OWN SINFULNESS.-It was the promise of the Saviour that, when he was gone back from earth to heaven, he would send to us the Holy Ghost; and that when he, the Comforter, was come, he should convince us of sin. This sense of sin is, therefore, a sure mark of the converting power of the Holy Ghost. We see it in the first risings of grace in VOL. LXVI. K |