your state because you are alarmed lest you should fail of heavenly felicity, or are anxiously desirous of attaining to that blessed place, I should consider such apprehension and anxiety as a token for good; as a hopeful, if not a decided symptom that a work of grace was begun in your soul. Remember however that positions like this which has caused you so much perplexity, are only the sentiments of men, and are utterly unworthy of notice except as sanctioned by the word of God. Keep close to that sacred book; read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest its merciful declarations and gracious promises; and you will soon find how admirably suited they are to creatures like ourselves, who are indeed weak, guilty, fallible.

you

I am not quite clear whether are, as you seem to suppose, called upon on all occasions to undertake the defence of others who are said to be of your party; there are cases in which we may fairly shrink from identifying ourselves with even well-disposed, and in the main excellent, persons, without being at all liable to the charge of being ashamed of Christ or of his words: and I cannot but think that the circumstances in which you are placed, require you to act with considerable caution. In almost every age, the professors of Christianity have been really divided into two distinct parties. The one consisting of those truly devoted to God, the other of those who possessed a name to live while they were dead. Various names have been from time to time assumed or imposed to distinguish these two classes. Hence we have had high church and low church; orthodox and evangelical; Calvinist and Arminian; and controversies have been incessantly carrying on as to the propriety of these several titles, and the distinguishing merit of the sentiments of the different denominations. Yet it is important

to remember that very considerable variation of sentiment prevails among those who are distinguished by the same general name; and in proportion as any particular denomination has become numerous, or reputable, it has been joined by recruits from the mixed multitude, who have, after all, been far from favourable specimens of the party to which they nominally belonged. Now such is unquestionably the case with some of those who are called evangelical. Under that general title will be found the greatest divines, and the most useful and exemplary ministers of modern days. Yet there have been individuals generally numbered with that party, who have fallen into very serious errors in doctrine, and considerable incorrectness in practice; and though quite willing myself to be numbered with the evangelicals, there are some generally considered as such, whom I am not prepared to defend, and with whom I should not wish to be in any way identified. Now it is quite possible that some of the individuals objected to by your friends, may have been of this class, and considering the relation in which you stand to the parties by whom the objections were made, I think it would have been quite sufficient for you to have said, I hope that such representations are not correct, at the same time I have no acquaintance, with — and no means of ascertaining what are his sentiments or conduct. Far be it from me to inculcate the desertion of a friend, or the shrinking from the defence of any who are indeed the servants of Christ; but as you intimate that the person objected to, is only known to you by name, that you have never heard him preach, or received any account of him from those on whom you can depend; your undertaking his defence, may be attributed rather to party spirit, than to higher principles.

In the circumstances in which you are placed it is of the utmost importance to cultivate command of temper, and to strive as much as possible to watch over your spirit and whole demeanour, lest by any means you should increase the offence of the cross. You have embraced views essentially different from those of your whole family. You must not therefore be surprised should the inquiry of Jacob be repeated, What is this?-Shall I, and thy mother, and thy brethren, indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? Gen. xxxvii. 10. and if such questions are asked, you will find it very difficult to reply without increasing the offence; or if you continue silent, that silence may be regarded as contemptuous.

You

will therefore need continual supplies of wisdom and grace, and for these you must seek daily by fervent prayer. When any thing irritating has occurred, take the earliest opportunity of retiring and pouring out your soul to God in prayer, and especially intercede for the conversion and salvation of that individual by whom the offence has been given; remember, that "when a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him"-how much more may you expect the conversion of the very near friends and relatives with whom you live. Strive that your whole conduct may be right, rather than endeavour to prove by argument that you are right. Be cautious of obtruding objections to the positions which are advanced in sermons or conversations not expressly addressed to yourself. If called upon to point out what is wrong in any particular statement, endeavour to do it as mildly, gently, and conclusively as you can, taking care to intimate that such is the opinion you have been led to form; and that you have formed it on such and such grounds, but do not unnecessarily maintain that your views

SEPTEMBER 1832.

are correct. But let no harsh expression you may meet with provoke a tart reply. Your parents are to be honoured, and in all things lawful, obeyed. You are to strive to meet their wishes; to be polite and attentive to their friends and company to join in any innocent recreation or amusement which may suit their taste, though you might desire to be otherwise employed. Your brothers and sisters have the same claim to your affec tion as they had before you embraced your present views, and will be much more convinced of the excellence of your principles by observing that you are more kind, forbearing, affectionate, and selfdenying now, than formerly; and though- may again, as you have intimated he has already, call you weak, foolish, self-opinionated,, &c. nay, though at first he may affect to be offended, or even really offended at your not answering again, depend upon it your determined cultivation of the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. will eventually, though perhaps gra dually and secretly, produce a deep impression on his mind.

I think you were wrong in declining to read Bishop Tomline's Refutation of Calvinism. Your refusal will be considered as an act of disobedience; and perhaps, as a confession of weakness. It may

be said that you are only allowed to read books written by your own party, &c. On the contrary, a prompt compliance with the request would have silenced all such observations; it would also have afforded you a very desirable opportunity of requesting explanations and information from

on points on which the Bishop is manifestly misinformed or inconsistent. The poor Bishop evinces strange ignorance on the points in dispute between Calvinists and Arminians; he occasionally reprehends extracts from the Homilies as Calvinistic, and he accuses the

Evangelical clergy as a body of holding sentiments which I do not believe are held by one clergyman in the Church of England, even if they were held by a single individual at the time his lordship wrote. Had you read the book, you would have had a fair opportunity of asking for information from

in

a way which might very possibly have led him to doubt the correctness of his oracle; and might have, perhaps, induced him to read, or at least to allow you to read the able, though somewhat cumbersome answer of Mr. Scott. I should scarcely advise you now to renew the subject, but in case any other book be recommended to your perusal, it may be advisable to act differently.

The restrictions indeed under which you are placed, are somewhat hard; but I am not sure that you would be right in refusing obedience, still less in evading them. Be very diligent in cultivating private and personal religion. Study your Bible closely and carefully. Try to improve your mind, and cultivate conversational talent. Ask advice of your parents and the senior members of your family, as to the books you should read, and pay close attention to history, especially the history of the church and of your own country. There is much to learn in the narrow circle to which you are confined. Endeavour to learn that well, and before you have acquired all within your reach, the circle may, perhaps, enlarge; nay, possibly your restrictions may be entirely removed, and you may be made the honoured instrument of good to those whom you love as your own soul.

"Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient." In your situation it is of the utmost importance

to cultivate a patient continuance in well doing. If any effect is to be produced upon those who are much your seniors, who are strongly entrenched in prejudices and opinions, it must, humanly speaking, be by the habitual manifestation of holy tempers, and heavenly conduct. When you are seen, without murmuring or repining, to give up your own inclination in all lawful things. When you lay down a book in which you take great interest, to read to a friend a newspaper, or some trifling publication-when the law of love in your heart is evinced by the words of kindness on your lips-when you shew a real desire to render all around you happy, though they will not go with you in religion, you may still indulge the pleasing anticipation that at length some of your dear friends and relatives may begin to inquire after God.

I think I have now adverted to all the topics mentioned in your last. Should circumstances admit of an interview, there are some points on which I should be happy to enlarge; meanwhile, remember ever that there is a fountain opened, a healing stream in which you may wash and be clean, a well-spring of grace and consolation provided for the weary and heavy laden by our compassionate Redeemer; a source of wisdom, grace, and strength, to which you may freely come, and to which coming you shall in no wise be rejected. O seek for that wisdom which is from above; that strength which may be perfected in weakness, that grace which may enable you to overcome every temptation: and may the God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole body, soul, and spirit may be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I remain,
yours most faithfully,
AMBROSE.

Mr. EDITOR.-In Dr. Wharton's death-bed scenes, there occur frequently such unqualified assertions relative to the incorrectness of our translated scriptures, that I cannot help transcribing them, in hopes you will allow the subject some measure of your attention. These assertions to which I allude, are all under the article 'Sectarianism,' and are made during the course of real or supposed conversatious with a member of his own flock. Of course it would occupy too much time and space to enter into the tedious detail of these conversations. I shall, therefore, merely copy such sentences of them as will be necessary to establish the fact I have advanced. Respecting the text, "He who doubteth is damned, if he eat;" he says, But the truth is, there is nothing in the passage about doubting at all, for the translation is not correct:' and of that other," Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind," after having premised that we shall make wild work with Scripture without note or comment, he adds, hence arises a probability that the passage might have been better translated.' Again, further on, as if to strew the whole surface of Scripture with doubts, he makes the following remark, 'You, I believe, are not acquainted with the original languages in which they were written, and probably, only know them through the medium of our English translation. Then there is no help for you, but to take them upon the authority of others. You must of necessity depend on others both for the general fidelity of the whole translation, and for the interpretation of each particular passage. You cannot stir a single step without notes and comments.' But what seems to me of far more importance than all this is, that after searching in a

concordance, in dictionaries and parallel passages, and then referring to the original Greek, to ascertain its TRUE sense, he observes in allusion to that interesting text,

Per

Except ye be converted," &c, 'I drew the conclusion, that the meaning of it was, Except ye turn yourselves,' and consequently that a state of activity, and not of passiveness was denoted by it. This was decisive enough; but such`a victory did not satisfy me, so I said, 'Mr. K-, you have been MISLED with regard to the text, by the form of the translation. haps I shall surprize you still more, when I tell you, that whenever any thing is affirmed about conversion in other places, the word is always an active, and not a passive one.' Upon this I opened my concordance again, and examined in the original and in the English every passage to which it referred. Universally, I think the translation was passive, but the original active, &c.'

Sir, though I confess this book of Dr. Wharton's does not recommend itself to me, still the doubts it has been the means of raising, are startling; and such is the feeling of insecurity with which I read the translated text, that I shall be thankful if any Christian, through the medium of your valuable publication, will take the trouble either to remove it, or if not, to assure me how far there may be cause for its existence. Is the guide to eternity, indeed, so enveloped in uncertainty, so beclouded by unnecessary mistakes, that it is the Greek and Hebrew scholar alone who is able to understand it aright? Surely in these days of intellect, of increasing general knowledge, the word of God, that most needful and precious of all, should not be thus sent forth to the starving multitudes, to those

who can only read it as it stands before them, and who do so with the trust of the unlearned, believing all is right. Oh! if the aid of the linguist is all that is required to make it so, surely no lingering errors need abide to corrupt its important meanings, and interrupt that confidence of faith, with which the wayfarer through our intricate wilderness would fain consult his sacred guide. The mere suspicion of error in this quarter is painful, but the reality, if such there be, how dangerous !--nay, how fatal! I am, Reverend Sir, Yours respectfully,

L.

Our correspondent may rest assured, that in all the passages here referred to, our English translation very correctly conveys the idea of the original. The word condemned in the first passage would be to us, if not to those who lived in king James's days, more appropriate than the

word damned, as also condemnation would be more suitable than damnation in 1 Cor. xi. 29. where the apostle is evidently speaking of temporal judgments, as sickness or death, and not of everlasting misery; but there is, perhaps, no version in existence which may be more fully depended on than our own, though some few expressions are incorrect, and others obsolete. The observations quoted from Dr. Wharton, only shew the ignorance of the person who thought proper to assume that name; and it is much to be regretted, that so many of our ecclesiastical superiors should have sanctioned a work which not unfrequently conveys ideas of the authority of the church, and the efficacy of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which admit of far more easy explanation on Popish, than on Protestant ground.-ED.

DEAR SIR-A letter appeared in your Number for last December, p. 479, on the subject of indiscriminate almsgiving. Many persons as well as your correspondent, have had doubts upon their minds with respect to the propriety of relieving common beggars. Perhaps after all it is better to err on the benevolent side. The best feelings of the soul are of a kind and affectionate description. It is certainly highly unbecoming fallible and erring creatures to sit in judgment upon the motives and springs of action in others. There may be cases in which individuals prefer begging to working; but there are a thousand others which are the result of real affliction and the most painful destitution. And is it proper we should be too scrupulous in relieving the latter lest we should

encourage the former? It would be well if proper provision was made to prevent mendicity. But I fear in the present imperfect state of human laws and their execution, this will not soon be done away. The fact is, that in large towns sufficient attention is not paid to operatives on the failure of trade. Where this takes place such individuals, if they apply for relief to the parochial authorities, do not receive the assistance necessary to keep them from starving till things mend; and then they march off to seek employment, but generally they find trade alike bad in every place, so that they part with one garment after another till they are reduced to the most abject misery. Many such cases have come to my knowledge. Many such wretched mendicants have visited my door.