due exaltation of one requirement in particular, insomuch that faith is held forth as if it were the Saviour. Permit me to suggest that faith is neither the great hill of Zion, nor the top of it; that faith is not to be proclaimed as the object of belief; that we are neither to preach faith nor baptism but Christ; yet we are so to preach Him as that when believed upon, the question will be asked, "What doth hinder me to be baptised ?" In brief, the Gospel is to be preached not to secure faith merely, but the "obedience of faith." Compare Acts viii. 35, 36, with Rom. i. 5, and xvi. 26. R. D. does not make "mountains of mere hills" when he affirms that to receive into fellowship the unbaptised, is to "ignore truth" and "set up another order of things." Will you take in hand to prove from the Scriptures that the apostles admitted any unbaptised into church fellowship? If you cannot, then you must allow that for us to admit them is to set up another order of things from that which they delivered. See Acts ii. 37-47; 1 Cor. xi. 1, 2, 23; 2 Thess. iii. 6.

Rom xiv. and xv. are chapters that have long had our attention. They do not enjoin the reception of the unbaptised. The epistle was written to those who had been buried with Christ by immersion. Chap. vi. 1-4. The passages you quote do not enjoin forbearance i with those who disregard any of Christ's appointments. They do not speak of any of his ordinances as matters of doubtful thought or disputation. These are not within the region of the doubtful. The apostle is speaking of opinions-mere opinions-when he urges forbearance. But the Saviour's doctrine, his precepts, are not opinions. John vi. 17. The apostle teaches the baptised to receive one another as Christ has received them. He neither teaches us to receive the unbaptised, nor that Christ has received them. I wrest that Scripture if I say it does either.

The carnal mind may say, "turn that weak thing out of the way." we do no such thing. If I have evidence from your confession that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, do I turn you away when in the words of welcome I say, "Now, why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord ?" It were absurd to say I do. If, however, you turn off refusing that obedience, which the Lord requires, you are not turned, but you go out of the way. Luke vii. 29, 30. In that case, though you do not use "the tongue of pride," your action is that "both of pride and judgment." You make yourself a judge alike of the law and the Lawgiver. Call that GRACE if you please.

You are not a "Come-togetherist" but a “Separatist” in the worst sense. He who refuses submission to the ordinances as delivered by the apostles is a schismatic in the sense of Rom. xvi. 17, 18.

As to the object of the " Brethren" so-called, it was a good one -the union of all believers. But like many other good attempts it has failed through improper, i.e. (in this case,) unscriptural means. They did evil that good might come. They attempted to come" into the unity of the faith," without holding to the "One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism." Hence their failure. Please note the Advocate does not represent any "section." Our aim is to avoid faction by holding fast the faithful word.

True, all who are "in Christ" are "one in him," but is it scriptural to speak of those as being in Christ who refuse to be "baptised into Christ ?" Gal. iii. 26, 27. If the thief on the cross was un

baptised he neither ate nor drank at the Lord's table. Neither ordinance was open to him. Your allusion is irrelevant.

You seem to admit there are weeds in the Lord's vineyard, and so doing, I should expect you to allow it to be advisable to "pitchfork" them out. Why be over ceremonious with weeds? Matt. iii. 10-12.

As to "finding fault with the whole church of God," no man can correct us of that. Our idea of the church of God is, that it is faultless. We hold it in its New Testament integrity, to be the supremest exhibition of God's manifold wisdom. Eph. iii. 10. Hence our feeling of righteous indignation at the sacrilegious liberties men have taken with it. 66 'Beware who thou art who takest upon thyself to mangle the church of the living God." 1 Cor. iii. 10-20. As you say, we ought not to be like the east wind, blighting whatever we touch, but the reverse. Still, Sir, the truth of God is a fire that must and will burn up the chaff, and I apprehend that as in Paul's day, so now, we become enemies because we tell the truth. May I not appeal to you whether the truth you have found in The Advocate has not ruffled you somewhat. Nevertheless, whether men will hear or not, let us speak the truth in love.

I am not aware the magazines contain too much about death. We find the word more than a hundred times in the New Testament. I do not know it is absurd to say, We live to die, any more than it would be absurd to say, We are born to live. Indeed, "He that liveth and believeth on the Messiah, shall never die," in the sense in which the Saviour there uses the word, but this does not dispense the solemn fact that it is appointed unto all men once to die, and in the latter respect it is that the children's magazine spoke, and why you would not give it to your children, I do not know.

Earnestly commending to your study those subjects which have not yet received your attention, Bible in hand, I am, dear Sir, yours truly and respectfully, THOMAS HUGHES Milner.

Gordon Forlong, Esq., Pitlurg House.

Cloud of Witnesses.

A man's learning and ability alone do not constitute him a safe authority in the affairs of religion. The more an able man's belief agrees with that of the multitude, of course the more he will be had in reputation by that multitude, the more he will possess of "authority" among those whose opinions he represents. But as Israel may err, so may Gamaliel, and the authority of either will interfere with the faith of the apostles and their followers. Mere learning offers but small security for a wholesome religious influence; few sedentary studious men are courageous. For one who will honestly speak his mind, there are twenty who will suppress their convictions "for fear of the Jews." Yet it is impossible to express in language the responsiblity and the guilt of every man who connives at popular delusion from a love of ease, or from the desire of gain, station, and power. CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

Poetry.

SAVED FOR AN END.

"The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

ART thou content? hast thou no higher aim

Than just to gain admittance at the door;
In faintest characters to trace thý name

Amongst the list of those who die no more?
Art thou content that God has set thee free
From sin's reward, that misery beyond-
Content to sail upon life's deep, dark sea,

Unmove'd by bright calm joys, or dire despond?
Dost thou not feel that thou art saved to live?

Dost thou not know that thou art saved to save?
Forgiven that thou mightest too forgive,

Redeemed alike for both sides of the grave ?
Bound to that raft, cross-shaped, so firm, so great,
It was not meant that thou shouldst use thine oar
Alone to guide, to move thy selfish freight

To realms thy fancy paints on yonder shore.
Saved from the wreck, reach out a saving hand;
Thousands are sinking 'neath the waves of sin;
Stay not thine efforts till God bids thee land,
Thy task accomplish, He will steer thee in.
Dost thou not know, that in thy diadem,

The souls which owe their heaven-sent light to thee
Shall form, each one, a bright immortal gem,
Gracing thy brow through all eternity?

Yet more, these gems shall bring increase of rays
To circle round the everlasting throne

Of Him who, though He sits "Ancient of Days,"
Stoops to redeem thy soul, thy service own.

"They that turn many to righeousness shall shine as ths stars for ever and ever."-Dan. xii. 3.

Matt. v. 14-16; Tit. ii. 14; iii. 8; Eph. ii. 10; 1 Pet, ii. 9; James v. 20.

Intelligence.

BAPTISMS.-Thetford, Norfolk. Brother Frost writes "Two believers confessed the name of Jesus and were buried with him in baptism, and since that time we have met on Lord's-days in the morning to attend to the things practised and enjoined by the apostles. Others are inquiring. Both the above were among the Primitive Methodists, one of them a lay preacher." Drumclair. Brother Abercrombie writes "God is still working by us. Five were baptised last Lord's-day, June 10th, and out of troubles the Lord has delivered

us."

Samuel Owen, Printer, Wrexham.

THE FIRST RESURRECTION.-ART. II.

TAUGHT as we are by the Saviour and his apostles, that in him we have life, and have been raised together with him, we find this life for ever progressive, and this resurrection an onward procession terminating only in the altitudes of heavenly beatification. But the life thus begun, and the uprising commenced in conversion, are in their nature moral or spiritual. As already pointed out, the terms for our word resurrection stand applicable in Scripture to the soul as well as to the corporeal person, and it is by reference to passages where this is the unquestionable application that we have arrived at the conclusion that the disciple of the Messiah is even now in the present life spoken of as a resurrected personraised up together with Jesus, and made to sit with him in the heavenlies. Nor is it merely from one or two obscure and exceptional passages, that we have found such language held with respect to the present standing of the believer, but rather from such a family of statements as possess a generic character throughout the whole New Testament writings. So far from finding this use of the terms exceptional, we discover it rather to be characteristic of the apostolic style, insomuch that again and again, in different letters, we read in concurrent phraseology the most unequivocal statements of the fact. And this is in keeping, too, with that other usage of Scripture whereby the unconverted are described as dead in trespasses and in sins, from which state of moral or spiritual death it is the immediate purpose of the Gospel to raise them up, so that by a beautiful figure, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is personified as addressing the man who lies in the torpor of this death in the language of life-giving authority thus—“ Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

Here it is interesting to notice that in this passage we have the two principal verbs anisteemi and egiro, usually employed to denote the raising of the dead; so that it cannot be said, that while one term is used commonly to express any uprising from a seat or from the grave, the other is restricted to the latter, as our word resurrection generally is. On the contrary, while both terms, verbs and substantives alike, are used to signify the raising of the body from the grave, yet both are also as commonly found describing other uprisings No. 8, Vol. IV.-August, 1860.

as when aristeemi intimates that at the call of the Master the disciple-elect arose and followed him; or as when Jesus stood up to read, or as when the prodigal said, I will arise and go to my father, or as when Saul was commanded to arise and be baptised. And likewise when egiro is used by the angel in telling Joseph to arise and take the young child into Egypt, or when Jesus arose and rebuked the winds; or when he predicted that many false prophets would arise. While, then, both terms signify any uprising, whether from a couch or from the grave, in life, or to life, as the case may be, we find both employed in Epb. v. 14, as elsewhere, to express entrance upon that state of exalted relationship to God which Gospel conversion effects. The difference is not that one is used generically, and the other specifically-that the one refers to any uprising, the other only from the grave, but that while both are used to denote any rising up, egiro in particular expresses the idea of rising as from slumber, whether from nightly sleep, or the sleep of death, or the death of sin. Thus, while anisteemi is never rendered awake, we find egiro frequently so translated, as when the disciples awoke Jesus, saying, Lord save us! or as when the apostle says, It is high time to awake out of sleep, and as when he makes the light of the truth warn the slumberer in sin with more trumpet tones than does the light of morn arouse the sleeper from his couch of night, when he says "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." The exist ence of the two words in this one expressive sentence, not only points out the specific difference between them as words, but amply confirms our position in respect to their joint application to the present exalted status of the disciples of the Lord Messiah. Their use in Scripture being such as we have indicated it remains for each passage where either term occurs to speak for itself, whether it means the resurrection of the body from the grave. or the uprising of the soul into communion with God.

This much every candid reader will allow, that the raising up of the sinner into relationship with God, through the Gospel of his grace, is as truly a resurrection as that of the dead from the sepulchre. This much is beyond dispute, that Scripture speaks of both as resurrections. And while this cannot be denied, it must also be admitted that in order of time this resurrection into relationship and fellowship with the deity, precedes the raising of the body from the dust.