and are the devil's masterpiece to deprive Jesus Christ, under the show of Christian profession, of the very glory wherewith the Father has endowed Him. The liar who, at the beginning of the history of the human race, suggested "Ye shall be like unto God," repeats this advice, so consonant with and flattering to man's pride, in every possible shape. He has set up Rome against Jerusalem, the Church of Rome against the kingdom of God, and the Pope against the holy Trinity. For he calls the Pope Holy Father, Vicar of Christ, and now, by ascribing to him infallibility, arrogates unto him, the poor sinful man, the prerogative of the Holy Ghost. If ever in any man the devil's advice, "Ye shall be like unto God," was followed out, it is done in the claims of the Romish Church for her head, the Pope. In order to guard against the possibility of a misunderstanding, I add that I do not judge the present Pope in his personal relation to God, man has nothing to do with that, it is simply the system which is personified in him, and reaches in him its headstone, I am attempting to describe and to protest against. On the one hand, we have no right to assert that the present Pope is fully alive to the blasphemous consequences of the system he represents; but, on the other hand, we may not excuse or hide the dreadful, God-dishonouring, and souldestroying errors of the system, because the Pope happens to be an amiable and, as people say, kindly-disposed old gentleman. Whatever the Pope may be in the sight of God, the Papacy is the most antichristian system ever yet witnessed on earth.

It is the more dangerous because it has all the appearances of Christianity about it, and I hesitate not to add that whilst it professes every Christian doctrine, it perverts every one of them, either by adding to or detracting from it. It adapts itself to the different wants of mankind, and suits itself to the most opposite tempers and circumstances, caricaturing the word of the apostle Paul to become all to all men. It is not like Rationalism, merely negative, which leaves a man to starve; but, on the contrary, it supplies rich and varied food, but adulterated, poisoned. I shall never forget the words of a Roman Catholic physician, a very clever man, whom I asked for a reason of the hope that was in him: "You

Protestants do not know," he said, "how pleasant it is to have a Church to fall back upon. You lean on her quite safely. She prescribes your duties, you try to fulfil them, and she is answerable for your salvation." It is quite manifest that this feeling of safety is indeed very pleasant, but all depends, of course, on the question whether you build on a rock or on sand. However, Rome pretends to secure safety, just as she makes herself the guarantee of unity and authority, and now of infallibility, in the person of the Pope.

We no doubt need infallible authority and guidance, and somewhere the seat of infallibility must be placed. You may take as the last tribunal reason, or conscience, or the voice of the majority of the people, or of the Church, or of the Pope; but it must be somewhere. And the more you are alive to your own weakness and the insufficiency of all that science, reason, and conscience can produce, the more you will look out for some other source of authority.

That source is to us the HOLY SPIRIT, who reveals unto us the Father in the Son. Him we accept as our only Guide, and to His authority we submit entirely and willingly. We do not first decide and then invoke the light of the Spirit, but we ask the Spirit to lead us to a right decision. We do not submit the word of the Spirit to the decisions of the Church, be these declared by an infallible Council or Pope; but we test the decisions of every one, Church, Pope, convocation, synod, general assembly, or whatever it be, by the declaration of the Spirit. The Spirit has revealed Himself in and by the Word, and as He has given the Word, and preserved it and protected it against open and secret enemies, so also He must open it up to our understandings, and the Word revealed and explained by the Spirit is a safe guide, and rests on Divine authority. We do not receive the authority and the explanation of the Word from the Church, but, on the contrary, receive the Church from the Word, and test her authority and teaching by the Word. All the authority Rome claims for the Church, be it for the Councils or for the Pope, we ascribe to the Holy Spirit, and we attach as much value and authority to a system of doctrines and a confession of faith as they are agreeable to the Word of God, the Spirit's blessed work and workman at the

same time. For the Word of God is the Spirit's work and also the Spirit's weapon or workman, His sword and trowel, whereby He converts sinners, slays the enmity and builds up the people of God.

Against the visible Church of Rome, made up and created after the manner of man, we place the invisible Church of the Spirit, who once in the midst of a people God had chosen to Himself, found only seven thousand that had not bowed their knees before Baal; but found also seven thousand when Elijah thought that he was left quite alone. We do not walk by sight, but by faith, and inasmuch as faith is "the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen," we neither say that outside of any visible Church there is no salvation, nor would we ever dare to designate any body of men, though they be the holiest that ever lived, and any individual -though he be the greatest saint-as the

Head of the Church. We are not branches or members of a man, but are engrafted in Jesus Christ; with Him we are united; His life is our life, and as He is the Author of our life, He is also the authority of our lives. No Church, and no Council, and no Pope can impart life to our souls, and inasmuch as the Spirit has created this our new life within us, we desire to live for Him since we live by Him.

Boldly we ask the champions of Rome to maintain the authority of their Church apart from the Word of God, which alone tells us of that rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. And if the very existence of a Christian Church can only be proved from the Word of God, is it, then, not right and becoming to test the nature, teaching, and position of the Church by the teaching of that same infallible revelation of the Spirit? C. SCHWARTZ.

THE London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, has held its Sixtysecond Aniversary Meeting on May 6th. In moving the first resolution, which declared that the Meeting affirms its full conviction of the paramount claims and growing importance of Christian missions to Israel, the Rev. Edward Garbett rendered the following excellent testimony :—

"The Jewish cause takes up into itself every other cause, and then adds to the principles which they embody and maintain further claims peculiar to itself. Thus the common principles of all missionary labour are our principles. The obligation laid upon the Church to preach the Gospel to every creature, the priceless value of a human soul, the necessity of Christianity, even to temporal and social welfare, the power of a fervent love of Christ constraining us to work for Christ, the obligation of every individual to take his place in the great work, and the prospect of the grand recompense of those who have borne with their Master the heat and burden of the battle, are all truths without which the very foundation of this Society would fall to

the ground. They are the principles of every Evangelical Society, and they are our principles. And if from these common grounds we pass to the specific claims of separate societies, still each one in turn is included in our work. Shall we say with the Church Missionary Society, that wherever the foot of man treads there it is the duty of the Christian ministry to follow? And while with one hand the Church maintains her pastorate over settled congregations, with the other she must scatter the seed of life broadcast over the world. Well, so say we, for in every land under heaven, and wellnigh to the very furthest verge of human life, is to be found the universal nation. In the heart of China, and in the Abyssinian highlands, amid the teeming millions of India, in the centre of Asia, on the banks of the Nile, and beneath the blazing sun of Nubia, treading every soil, speaking every tongue, breathing every air, presenting every complexion, from the glossy black of the negro to the fair face of the European, we find the Jew. Shall we say with the Church Pastoral Aid Society, that the souls perishing at our own doors, and

appealing by local proximity to our sympathy, must not be neglected? So say we, for here in the heart of this great metropolis, and in other centres of population in our own land, the preachers to the sons of Israel carry on their blessed labours as well as beneath the tropic heat and amid the northern snows. Shall we say with the Colonial and Continental Society, that England owes a special duty to her colonies, the children as it were nursed at her knees and sheltered beneath her wings? So say we. For at these new centres of life and power, trading amid the Australian gold-fields, or amid the farms of New Zealand, busy amid the fisheries of Newfoundland, or pressing their way amid the pioneers of civilisation among the backwoods of Canada and the hunting-grounds of Hudson's Bay, the active sons of Israel still ply their toil. Shall we say with many of our small societies, that a special class of men need a special agency? So say we. The Jew with his natural force of character, his hereditary prejudices, his great traditions of the past, his peculiar institutions of the present, and those irrepressible hopes of the future which every now and then force themselves into prominence, needs a special agency to meet his special wants. Thus the principles of every Scriptural society are our principles, and in establishing their cause we establish our own. They are like the rich valleys and the tall hill-sides through which we pass to the loftier heights above. For I trust I shall not be thought to dishonour any cause in saying that missions to the Jews are the crown and climax of all other missions, the highest hill-top, as it were, where we gain our widest survey of the designs of God towards the world, and our grandest view of the still unveiled and undeveloped future. And when we reach this last point of all we find motives to influence us which are peculiar to this cause of the Jew and belong to it alone. All mankind are our brothers, but what brotherhood like that which knits our hearts to the Jew, the member of that honoured race of whom the Son of God took flesh, the very brothers and sisters of Christ, flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, the lineal descendants of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. All nations have filled their place in God's plan of history; but what nation like that which sprang of the loins of Abraham, to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory

June 1, 1870.

and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and who, alike imperial in the height of their ancient glory and the depth of their unparalleled sufferings, link the past, present, and future history all in one. The salvation of every soul is a step towards the consumma. tion and a progress towards the time when God, having accomplished the number of His elect, shall bring in His kingdom, but never surely so much as when the saved soul is a leaf on the native olive-tree; a member of the race whose casting away was the reconciling of the world, and the receiving of them back again shall be as life from the dead. May we not say, then, that there is no cause so deeply fixed into the very heart and centre of the Divine plans, so inextricably mingled up with all His purposes of mercy towards our world as the cause of the Jew. His claim is a paramount claim, like the peak rising out of the mountain brow, and crowning its glory; or like the topmost branch of the goodly tree, whose roots are in the promises of God, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. But the resolution with which I am entrusted, goes on to assert the growing importance of missions to Israel, as well as their paramount claims. There are two sides to this assertion

-one turned towards the Jew himself, and one turned towards the Gentile Church. I will not speak of the side turned towards the Jew, as I am to be followed by those who have a personal knowledge of the Jew, and can speak from actual experience of the hopes and fears attached to his present condition. But I will venture to say a few words on the other side of this truth-the growing importance of missions to the Jews to the Gentile Church herself. It appears to me that there is scarcely a prominent tendency to be perceived in the religious aspect of the times which does not receive its appropriate answer in the dealings of God with Israel; scarcely an element of danger to which this balm of Gilead may not suggest an appropriate remedy. Thus to the theories of modern unbelief I oppose the fact of the Jew. It is not a little singular that in this age of scientific research, unbelief should find its weapons, not in facts not one of which has ever yet been proved to contradict the authority and truth of the Bible, but in theories. From the German professor who developed a new map of the world out of his own inner consciousness,

June 1, 1870.

down to the learned Englishman who has proclaimed the discovery that animals without reason and without sight made their own eyes by trying to see, it is the same. Now to theories we oppose facts, and in these we entrench ourselves. From the explorations in Palestine, for instance, facts are being daily accumulated illustrative of the truth of Scripture. But a more signal fact than the Jewish land is the Jew himself. He is the great living fact, more wonderful every succeeding age, forced before the notice of the world-a fact unique, single, unparalleled and till the Jew can be explained, his very being and history and peculiarities, the labours of learned Rationalism are all in vain to displace even one fragment of the everlasting rock on which the Church of Christ is built. Or if I turn from religious controversy to political controversy, at least to that border land in which politics touch religion, and with which, therefore, Christian men are compelled to deal, whether they will or no, still I find my great argument in the Jew. For here we find the tendency to ignore the religious life of a nation as if communities outgrew the government and power of God by their very size. Nations, we are told, as nations, have nothing to do with religion. At this present moment we are in the throes of a great controversy on the result of which it depends whether the youth of this great land are to be brought up as a generation of Christians or as a generation of Secularists. Nations, as nations, have nothing to do with religion! I point to the Jew, to him who cannot get rid of his nationality, and whom God will not permit to be as the nations round about him. I point to the Jew. If there be one lesson blazoned on his whole history more prominently than another, it is that there are national responsibilities, national sins, national rewards, and national punishments. It is the lesson which the pen of inspiration itself has drawn. "Righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people." Or if I turn to the opponents of all religious societies, the men who sneer instead of arguing, and who find a joke easier than a proof, I find there is a tendency to measure all things by statistics, and to cast up, with no little profaneness, a kind of commercial balance-sheet between ourselves and the Master whom we serve-so many pounds spent and so many

souls saved; as if the designs of God could be measured, and those subtle spiritual influences, which really mould the world for good or evil, weighed in a balance. The great and favourite object of attack to these deep thinkers is this Society for the conversion of the Jews. I am not ashamed to oppose the Society to this commercial secularism, this infidel arithmetic. Our work is a work of faith, distinctly and specifically above all other works: faith in the word of God, faith in the promises of God, faith in the commands of God. Faith in the word of God-"all Israel shall be saved; "-faith in the promises of God-"blessed be he that blesseth thee;" faith in the command that repentance and remission of sin should be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Or, lastly, if I turn to the Church herself, I find men anxious and disquieted-men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking for those things which are coming on the earth. Indisputably, without giving way to alarm, the signs of the times, and the cloud gathering on the horizon, are no little alarming. What shall sustain our hearts but our confidence in the promises of God, and the sure time of triumph when Jesus of Nazareth shall be acknowledged by all as King of kings, and Lord of lords? But where do I find the Divine guarantee for the fulfilment of these promises? Again I point to the Jew. The accomplishment of what is past is the pledge for the accomplishment of what is future. We remember the story of the two Rabbis walking among the ruins of Jerusalem, the one in tears at its desolation, the other with a lofty smile, because in every ruined stone his faith recognised the truth of the prophecies which depict the future restoration and greatness of his people. We argue in the same way, why does the Jew exist, but because God has not yet done with him. What yet remains we find in the pages of the Bible. We see Israel, not forsaken, but restored-not widowed, but adorned as a bride for her husband-not desolate, but beautiful in imperial honour-not outcast, but a praise and glory in the midst of the earth. Surely as the time passes on, and the conflict deepens in intensity and peril, there is the more need to look up and look on. Let the look be not that of fear, but of high and holy hope. And as we press towards the end, let us identify our hopes with God's plans; let us stretch

our hand to Israel, and as we lead her on side by side with ourselves recall the common triumph of Jew and Gentile round the throne of Him who is both a light to lighten the

Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel. O pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love her.

ONE of the speakers was the Rev. W. Cadman. From his speech, as reported in the Record, we make the following extract :

I was at Cambridge at the time dear good Mr. Simeon departed this life, and was one of those who heard the message sent from him as he was dying, a message that had reference to this very subject which we are considering to-day, the importance of missionary work. among the Israelites, and the particular way in which that aged servant and honoured saint of God put the subject before his young friends was this the importance of sympathising with God in his views with reference to Israel; and he mentioned that although Israel was given up into the hands of enemies scattered over all lands, yet God had not forgotten them. He thought of them, so he said that we should sympathise with God, and although they be a nation scattered and peeled, and no one regarding them, yet we as sympathisers with God should pity them in their low estate and love them; for, and he went on to quote the text, "I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of their enemies." And, "mark you!" he said, "although given into the hands of their enemies, they are still the dearly beloved of his soul. Can we sympathise with God? Not only regard the miserable condition and the unbelief of this people, but regard it with pity, with compassion, with Christian love that would fain rescue them from it, and be God's instruments, saying, 'Here am I, Lord; send me, if I may be useful to those whose hearts have been so long hardened, and before whose the veil has been so long drawn.' eyes I know that God only can open the door for effectual work among the house of Israel; but He who opens the door for missionary agents among them can open the door also to their hearts. They have been a people wonderful in God's dealings with them, wonderful they

are still, and wonderful they will be in their future history. The history of the Jews is one series of interferences on the part of God to keep them in the position in which the word of prophecy speaks of them :-" The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." Now, then, have we sympathy with God; for, mark, when He opens a fresh door and shows people His providential dealings, and there are fresh opportunities for contact with this wonderful people, it shows that they are before Him still, that they have a place in His providential dealings, that the fresh actings of His providence are, so to speak, the fresh utterances of His will and the fresh manifestations of His purposes towards them. If, then, we have sympathy with God, may we not infer that the fresh manifestations of God's interference for Israel should be responded to by us with fresh exertions on our part to do them good, and to testify to Him who is our hope, our joy, and our desire, in order that they may join with us in praising Him "who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." For this is the way in which we must seek to do them good: go and tell them about that Saviour who died for them. And there seems to me, my Lord, to be special reasons why we should do this. In the first place, we get a firmer hold of the Bible as God's inspired book when we try to do what this Society is trying to do among the scattered race of Israel; for the Jews are God's "living epistles;" and so long as the Jews are walking up and down amongst us, I have no fear of all that science and philosophy can suggest against the truth of that good old Bible which is God's revelation, and against which the waves of infidelity and superstition may dash themselves only to be broken and retire, whilst the ark of truth itself remains, and will remain, until it has served all those purposes