sented by these Eastern sages to the infant Saviour was strictly what they would render to a god. They came to worship him as King of the Jews, and certainly to do him at least equal honour with what was accustomed to be presented to the Persian sovereigns, which we know to have been divine. But I should say rather, that they wished to do him even greater honour. That they were favoured with divine revelations is evident from the twelfth verse. Indeed, without a knowledge, more or less clear, of Him that was to come,' they could not have undertaken the journey. Moreover, they were conducted by a special providence to the place where the young child lay.' We may, therefore, believe that they regarded him as a personage of higher dignity than their own monarchs. 'When they were come together into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and WORSHIPPED him; and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.' Here, as in cases before noticed, the prostration and the homage are mentioned separately. That the personage they called King of the Jews,' was looked upon by them as not a mere earthly sovereign, may be inferred from the proposal of Herod to go and worship him also,' which, deep as he was, he would scarcely have done, if the Christ had been considered of no higher dignity than himself. And that he took the personage spoken of by the Magi, to be the Messiah, is plain from the inquiry he instituted among the chief priests and scribes as to where the Christ should be born. Wetstien concludes his note upon the word gooxuve in the second verse by saying, 'Since, therefore, Matthew, who could not but be aware in what account the adoration of a mortal man was held by the Greeks, nevertheless placed it on record as a matter honorable and glorious to him that Christ was so adored by the Magi; and not obscurely signified to his Greek readers, that to Christ, who, as he had just related, was born not of human but of divine descent, the honor of adoration was justly due, as elsewhere he has clearly declared, 28. 9. Compare Luke xxiv. 52. Heb. i. 16.

-pp. 54, 55.

But perhaps we cannot more faithfully exhibit our author's critical acumen, than by selecting another passage from the same letter, before we proceed to take a summary glance at his succeeding ones, and to give our deliberate judgment on the whole. It occurs at p. 40, and is as follows:

'You lay some stress upon the particle EVEN AS, in our Lord's statement. You say, that they intend similarity of manner, but not equality of degree;' (this explanation is, indeed, given in Leigh's Critica Sacra, under the word nog, but it most unfortunately happens for Dr. A., that its application here to his own text, is quite irrelevant, as our author immediately shows); and you refer to Matt. v. 48, perfect EVEN AS your father, who is in heaven, is perfect, as a parallel instance of their use. It probably escaped you, that though the words are the same in our English version, they are not so in the Greek, the one in John (v. 23) being xaws, whereas that in Matthew is wong;

both terms conveying the general idea of resemblance, but we may be sure not precisely identical in meaning and reference. Every Biblical student must regret that Titman's work on the Synonyms of the Greek Testament was not completed before his death; the small portion of it since published, shows what a treasure we should have possessed, had he been spared to finish it. In the list he had prepared to examine, these two words are mentioned, with three others, as generally agreeing, while each has a shade of thought, or a mode of use, peculiar to itself. Had we the light which his erudition and faculty of nice discrimination might have thrown upon the subject, I have little doubt that each would have stood forth clearly distinct from the rest, in its own appropriate character. Some will perhaps doubt this in consequence of the term used by John occurring in the expression recorded by Luke, chap. vi. 36: Be ye therefore merciful, As xats your Father also is merciful,' which apparently answers to that in Matthew, where reg is employed. My impression, however, is that of the two words, naws expresses an exact and entire accordance, whereas wog intends general similarity, not necessarily what is absolute and complete. Kadus is the word in the expression as it is written,' and others like it, signifying perfect agreement between the testimony and the fact. Nog is never used in those cases, but occurs in As the hypocrites and as the heathen,' in Matt. vi. 2, 5, 7, 16. And I think this distinction between the words satisfactorily explains why the one is employed in Matthew, and the other in Luke. The command of our Lord, given by Matthew, is Be ye PERFECT, TÉλ8101, as your Father who is in heaven is PERFECT, TÉλ1801,' whereas it is only one particular form of perfection, namely, benevolence, that is inculcated. as appears from the context; and, as you observe, it is not possible for us to attain perfection in all respects like his. But the command recorded by Luke is, 'Be ye therefore MERCIFUL, bxrioμoves, as your Father also is MERCIFUL, 1251ouw,' enjoining resemblance of disposition, or, as expressed in the words before, being kind to the unthankful and to the evil,' in which respect we may be, and shall be, in proportion as we are Christians, entirely like him, according to our sphere and ability. If these remarks are just, the statement that all men should honor the son EVEN AS, xadas, they honor the Father, certainly claims for the Lord Jesus the very same kind of homage in all respects that is due to the Father.'

Having thus fairly disposed of every argument attempted to be drawn from the use of terms, and clearly established, as we presume, to the satisfaction of every candid inquirer, that such usage both in the Septuagint version of the Old, and the original of the New Testaments, supported by the collateral evidence of other Greek writers, is decidedly in favor of the orthodox interpretation, that the Saviour is justly entitled to divine worship; our esteemed author devotes his third letter to THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST; his fourth to HIS DEITY; the fifth to an EXAMINATION OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF HEBREWS; his sixth to the

WORSHIP, both as to PRAYER AND PRAISE GIVEN TO CHRIST; and his last to some GENERAL CONCLUDING REMARKS-ON which we regret that we cannot at present enter. But we confidently hope our readers, and especially our ministerial brethren, will speedily consult the work itself, for further information on a subject of the deepest interest to all. To such we must candidly. acknowledge, that, acquainted as we were, with the piety, diligence, and talent of the author, we never rose from the perusal of any controversial work with more unmingled pleasure, and very seldom with higher gratification. As far as our knowledge extends, there are very few works so calculated to be useful to our rising ministry, and to the thinking and inquiring part of our youthful charges. One great excellency pervades the wholethere is not a tincture of bitterness in any page. On many occasions, astonishment has risen in our minds, how the author could restrain himself so completely. But, at whatever expense it has been done, it is a grace, a charm in connexion with polemic theology, which entitles Dr. Urwick to rank, in this, as well as in some other respects, with Drs. Smith and Wardlaw--who set all an example well worthy of unceasing imitation. Thus, will the proverbial odium theologicum most effectually cease; and the rights, both personal and relative, of Him who is the King of Zion and the Lord of Glory, be most speedily advanced, till HE shall take to himself his great power and reign, for ever and ever -LORD OF ALL! to whom every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess.

Art. IV. 1. The Congregational Magazine. May, 1839. Article: Rev. Dr. Halley on the Permanent Institution of the Pastoral Office. 2. The Prevalence of Assumed Apostolicism, a Call to Evangelizing Labors a Sermon, Preached in the Rev. J. Mark's Chapel, Chelmsford, April 30, 1839, at the Forty-first General Meeting of the Essex Congregational Union. By the Rev. JOSEPH MORISON.

WE

E place these two pieces at the head of this article, not because we intend to write about them, but because they both glance at a subject on which we wish not only to offer a few thoughts of our own, but to elicit, if possible, the thoughts of others. Both the pieces are published in consequence of the request of the assembled ministers who heard them delivered: Dr. Halley's was preached at the ordination of the Rev. T. Aveling, as co-pastor to the Rev. J. Campbell, of Kingsland, near London; Mr. Morison's, as stated in the title, at the meeting of the

ministers of an adjoining county; if, therefore, neither of the respected authors should themselves favor us with their thoughts, as so many of their brethren are publicly committed to what they have written, some of them, perhaps, may feel induced to do so.

This opening may sound alarming; we are not, however, about to attack any one, preparing for battle, or meditating the getting up of a profitless controversy. The subject we intend to notice is one of great importance; it has many difficulties in speculation; and, practically, whatever view be taken of it, seems to involve something like danger. It is intimately connected with some of the prominent controversies of the day; and, we frankly confess, rather perplexes us, when we want to harmonize the sentiments and the conduct-the professions and the practice,of some of the combatants. As we thus acknowledge that we do not see our own way very clearly, it would ill become us to pretend to discuss the subject, and it would be monstrous to indulge in assertion or dogmatism. We propose, therefore, to put our own broken and confused thoughts into the form of doubts, or questions, or in any other way that may seem best to consist with a state of mind groping after light, and with the purpose of eliciting light from others.

Mr. Morison's object, in his sermon, is, in his own words, to show the suitableness of the evangelizing labors. . . of the Essex Congregational Union, to the present state of our coun'try; and especially their suitableness, on account of certain 'opinions which are extensively propagated.' Among these, denominated afterwards false opinions,' the first place is allotted to: The DENIAL that the Bible is the only rule of faith and 'worship.'

6

From the author's remarks on this subject we select a few sen

tences.

We know that it had been said, 'the Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith.' We know that it had been said, Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the word of God, and be ordained and approved of common authority, ought to be openly rebuked.' We could subscribe neither the one nor the other of these declarations ;—the first, because we altogether disbelieved it, and the second, not to mention other reasons, because if the practices in view were not repugnant to the word of God, why go to tradition to sanction them? Why not rest satisfied with the verdict of the Scriptures? Why set up a human authority on the same seat of judgment as the Divine ?'

'A learned, able, and pious layman, who is in high repute in the

VOL. VI.

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Episcopal Church, referring to the principle of appealing to the Scriptures alone, says, ' It is because the Church of England so substantially rejects this principle, that I am in the habit of maintaining that she is not a Protestant, but a reformed portion of the Catholic church!'

The Holy Scriptures recognize a very dissimilar arbiter of differences, and a very dissimilar rule of interpretation from that of which you have just heard. They say, 'To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.' 'Search the Scriptures,' was the command of Jesus Christ.'

Think, brethren, of your poor and ignorant countrymen....think of one, lulled into false security by the fatal dream, that it is enough for him to believe as others believe; or think of another, who is resting his faith, not on the word of God, but on the word of man, and will you not give fresh vigor to an institution, all whose preachers say, and say, without inconsistency and without reserve, 'the Bible, the Bible only is the religion of Protestants?'....to you, as the representatives of the men who in times still darker, maintained the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and the right of private judgment, your great Master looks for a zealous maintenance of these essential characters of his religion.'

'We do not expect by a careful study of the Bible to find new doctrines; but we do expect to find new aspects of the old doctrines: we do expect to clear those doctrines from the rust and the rubbish, which the ignorance of former ages has heaped upon them. We do expect to see them in all the brightness and beauty of their original, the brightness and beauty in which they appeared when they came first from the hand of the Redeemer.'

To sink a man below the dignity of an accountable agent, is the inevitable effect of the pretended apostolic scheme. It puts down the spirit of inquiry; it teaches to defer to authority; it insists that the religion of the church must be the religion of the priesthood, and that the religion of the priesthood must be the religion of every body besides.'

By these, and many similar statements, Mr. Morison, and, through him, the Essex ministers, maintain what have always been considered as great Protestant, and by emphasis, therefore, great Dissenting, or nonconformist, principles; such as the exclusive authority of Scripture; the right of private judgment; the rejection of traditions, and of traditional interpretation or belief; the consequent independence of the church of one age, in respect to its faith, worship, rites, &c., of that of another;-the duty, in fact, of perfecting the Reformation, by appealing from fathers, and councils, and creeds, to the law and to the testimo'ny,' and 'searching the Scriptures,' with freedom and inde