that, to entitle a man to be called morally righteous, he must not merely attain to a state of sinless perfection, but he must ever have been in such a state. No one, surely, can be morally righteous, unless he is innocent; and no one can be innocent, who has ever sinned. But though we cannot be morally righteous, legally we may be that is, we may be acquitted, or absolved of our offences, and treated as if we were morally righteous. This is the justification of which scripture and the article speak. It is opposed, not to guilt or depravity, but to condemnation. "Who," says St. Paul," shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" Justification, then, is the same with pardon or absolution; and it is only to be obtained by faith in Christ: that is, by trust and reliance on the satisfaction for sin which He made, by His death upon the cross. On the head of His only begotten son, God "laid the iniquity of us all;" just as (typically of this great transaction) the sins of the Israelites were laid on the head of the scape goat. He "made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Christ "bore our sins, in His own body, on the tree." He took them upon Himself, and underwent the punishment they deserved. This great doctrine, on which all our hopes are founded, was plainly alluded to by all the sacrificial rites of the law, and is expressly stated in almost every page of the gospel. I will here quote only a single text, which is quite sufficient for my present purpose:-" That He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." If to justify means only to "implant a root of righteousness in the heart," what injustice could there be in doing this for one who does not believe in Jesus? Nay, what injustice could there have been in doing this, even if the Son of God had never been incarnate? The injustice which, as the text implies, would have attached to the justification of sinners, if Christ had not died for them, would have consisted, not in changing their moral condition, but in pardoning their sins, without providing any sufficient means of vindicating the law, of which sin is the transgressim. And now let me say a few words on Mr. Knox's argument, that justification must be moral, because we are justified by faith, and faith is "a root of (moral) righteousness." To put this argument into a syllogistic form, We are justified by faith; We are made morally righteous by faith; Therefore, to be justified, is to be made morally righteous! As well might it be argued, Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is; Godliness hath the promise of the life that is to come; Therefore, the promise of the life that now is, is the promise of the life that is to come! "Faith," says Burnet, (on the 11th article) " in the New Testament, stands generally for the complex of Christianity, in opposition to the law, which stands as generally for the complex of the whole Mosaical dispensation. So that the faith of Christ is equivalent to this, the gospel of Christ; because Christianity is a foederal religion, founded, on God's part, on the promises that He has made to us, and on the rules He has set us; and on our part, on our believing that revelation, our trusting to those promises, and our setting ourselves to follow those rules. The believing this revelation, and that great article of it, of Christ's being the Son of God, and the true Messias that came to reveal his Father's will, and to offer Himself up to be the sacrifice of this new covenant, is often represented as the great and only condition of the covenant on our part; but still this faith must receive the whole gospel, the precepts as well as the promises of it, and receive Christ as a prophet to teach, and a king to rule, as well as a priest to save us." Faith, then, justifies us, or obtains our pardon, by receiving Christ as a priest, and making application to ourselves of the expiatory sacrifice He offered for sin. And faith, too, inasmuch as it receives Christ, as a prophet to teach, and a king to rule, is the root of such a degree of moral righteousness, as, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, fallen man can arrive at. But, yet, justification, and the attainment of this moral righteousness, are totally distinct and different. Mr. Knox elsewhere expresses a conviction that "doctrinal faith,” or "reliance on the death of Christ, as ensuring everlasting salvation to the possessors of such reliance," must prove prejudicial to growth in grace. He says, (vol. ii. p. 334,) " Few" (who are attached to doctrinal faith) "have escaped an idea of rivalship between the work wrought for them and the work wrought in them, or have been able wholly to conquer the fear of depreciating the former by suffering themselves to rejoice in the latter. Hence, high spiritual attainments have been an object of jealousy rather than ambition." How this should be, I confess myself utterly unable to conceive. What is the salvation which we believe reliance on the death of Christ will ensure? It consists in a two-fold deliverance-deliverance from the punishment of our sins, and from their power. We trust that, by reliance on the death of Christ, we shall be delivered from the punishment of our sins, in consideration of the atonement which He offered on the cross, and from their power, by the influence of the Holy Spirit; which, by restoring us to the favour of God, Christ likewise obtained for us. To Christ, then, we feel ourselves indebted, as much for our sanctification as for our pardon. Why, then, should there be any rivalry between the work which Christ wrought for us, on the cross, and the work which He performs in us, by the operation of his Holy Spirit? Why should the most highly sanctified feel ungrate ful for their pardon, or those to whom most has been forgiven be careless to "grow in grace?" I have only to add that, if I have misapprehended Mr. Knox, I lament my dulness, and shall be very thankful for correction. But, in the meantime, as I think it probable that many others may have taken the same view of his opinions as I have done, I venture to request the publication of the above remarks. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, FIDELIS.* This letter deserves the consideration of those who adopt Mr. Knox's views. The Editor has only just seen a volume of Mr. Knox's Remains, and cannot speak too highly of the only part he has been able to read, the two admirable Letters to Mr. Parker, on Mysticism.-ED. RE-ORDINATION. SIR,-In your April number, p. 426, your correspondent II. K. states, that "with regard to any" ministers "who had received presbyterian orders in the confusion of the Great Rebellion," "the method employed by Archbishop Bramhall" was, not to canse them to "undergo a new ordination, but to admit them into the ministry of the church by a conditional ordination, as we do in the baptism of those of whom it is uncertain whether they are baptized or no." No authority is cited for this statement, which, however, is evidently derived from Dr. Nichols's Introduction to his "Defence of the Church of England," p. 112, where the statement occurs almost word for word as given by II. K., with a reference to "Bishop Bramhall's Life before his works." Now, it is remarkable that the authority to which reference is thus given does not justify the statement in support of which it is referred to. On the contrary, the narrative gives us to understand, that the archbishop ordained the persons in question, " as the law of this church requireth," therefore not conditionally; but that subsequently he introduced into his "letters of orders" a remark that he did not annihilate the former orders of the individual, if he had any, nor determine on their validity or invalidity." Dr. Nichols seems to identify the form of ordination with the subsequent letters of orders. To make this matter clear, and to vindicate the primate from the suspicion of deviating from the prescript forms of the church, perhaps you will allow space for the narrative on which Dr. Nichols's statement rests; the rather, because the circumstances are curious in themselves, and there are probably many, even of your clerical readers, to whom the volume is not easily accessible. It may be noticed, in passing, that the author of " the Life" of the Primate was John Vesey, at that time, 1677, Bishop of Limerick, and afterwards Archbishop of Tuam. "I shall give but one instance (but it is a memorable one) of his Grace's prudence in turning the edge of the most popular objection of that time against conformity. When the benefices were called at the visitation, several appeared and exhibited only such titles as they had received from the late powers. He told them they were no legal titles, but in regard he heard well of them, he was willing to make such to them by institution and induction, which they humbly acknowledged, and entreated his Lordship so to do. But desiring to see their letters of orders, some had no other but their certificates of ordination by some presbyterian classes, which, he told them, did not qualify them for any preferment in the church. Whereupon, the question immediately arose, Are we not ministers of the Gospel? To which his Grace answered, that that was not the question; at least he desired, for peace sake, of which he hoped they were ministers too, that that might not be the question for that time. 'I dispute not,' said he, the value of your ordination, nor those acts you have exercised by virtue of it; what you are, or might do here when there was no law, or in other churches abroad. But we are now to consider ourselves as a national church, limited by law, which, among other things, takes chief care to prescribe about ordination ; and I do not know how you could recover the means of the church if any should refuse to pay you your tithes, if you are not ordained as the law of this church requireth; and I am desirous that she may have your lahours, and you such portions of her revenue as shall be allotted you in a legal and assured way.' By this means, he gained such as were learned and sober, and for the rest it was not much matter. Just as I was about to close up this particular, I received full assurance of all I offered in it, which, for the reader's sake, I thought fit to add, being the very words which his Grace caused to be inserted into the letters of one Mr. Edward Par kinson, whom he ordained at that time, and from whom I had them by my reverend brother and neighbour the Lord Bishop of Killalow:-Non annihilantes priores ordines (si quos habuit) nec validitatem aut invaliditatem eorum determinantes, multo minus omnes ordines sacros ecclesiarum forensecarum condemnantes, quos proprio judici relinquimus; sed solummodo supplentes, quicquid prius defuit per canones ecclesiæ Anglicana requisitum, et providentes paci ecclesiæ, ut schismatis tollatur occasio, et conscientiis fidelium satisfiat, nec ullo modo dubitent de ejus ordinatione, aut actus suos presbyteriales tanquam invalidos aversentur : in cujus rei testimonium.'" If your correspondent II. K., or any other of your readers, can supply better evidence for Dr. Nichols's statement, I request the favour of its being communicated. If not, the foregoing recital of Dr. Nichols's alleged authority will serve, I trust, to give a more correct view of Archbishop Bramhall's real proceeding, and acquit him of having in any way altered the prescript form of ordaining ministers, whereas, he appears to have conducted the ordination strictly "as the law of the church requireth." I am, Sir, your very faithful servant, A. April 14th, 1835. ON THE LOCALITIES OF HOREB, MOUNT SINAI, & MIDIAN, IN CONNEXION WITH THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN MITZRAIM AND EGYPT. SIR,In my lately published work, "Origines Biblica; or, Researches in Primeval History," the hypothesis is advanced, that the Mitzraim of Scripture formed no portion of the Egypt (properly so called) of profane history, but was a distinct and separate kingdom, lying to the eastward of the Isthmus of Suez; which, in the course of time, and in accordance with the prophecies by which its destruction had been predicted, became "utterly waste and desolate," and ultimately lost its separate existence, being merged in its powerful and more fortunate neighbour. In the notice given of that work in the number of the British Magazine for July, 1834, (vol. vi. p. 69,) it is observed, that, as regards this hypothesis," matter is offered which entitles it to claim attention :" I trust, therefore, that I shall not be trespassing improperly upon the pages of that Magazine if I submit for the consideration of its readers the following suggestions, in accordance with that hypothesis, concerning the positions of Horeb, Mount Sinai, and the country of Midian, and a few, also, of the stations of the Israelites' "journeys in the wilderness," subsequently to their miraculous passage of the Red Sea. In doing so, I shall not attempt to enter into any explanation or defence of the opinions advanced by me, that Mitzraim was distinct from Egypt; that the Yam Suph, or Red Sea, which was crossed by the Israelites, was the Gulf of Akaba, and not the Gulf of Suez; and, that "the journeys in the wilderness" took place to the eastward of the former gulf, within what is now designated the Great Arabian Desert;-for the arguments in support of all which positions I must refer to my Origines Biblica;-but I shall proceed at once to the consideration of the particular localities of Horeb, Mount Sinai, and Midian. The two former places, so memorable in the history of God's chosen people, are usually considered to be situate within the peninsula formed at the head of the Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea of modern geographers, by the two gulfs of Suez and Akaba, to which (as I conceive erroneously,) has been appropriated the distinctive appellation of" the Peninsula of Mount Sinai." According to my hypothesis, however, in which the Gulf of Akaba is regarded to be the Yam Suph, or Red Sea of Scripture, Horeb and Mount Sinai must necessarily have been situate to the eastward of that sea; and they are, consequently, to be sought for not within the limits of that peninsula, but in the direction of the Arabian Desert. Further, according to the received opinion, Midian, the country of Jethro, into which Moses fled out of Mitzraim, is likewise placed within the Peninsula (so called) of Mount Sinai, and is considered to be totally distinct from that country which derived its name from Midian, the son of Abraham by Keturah, who was sent, together with his brethren," eastward, unto the east country."* If my views, however, be correct, the Midian of Jethro will be a portion only of the parent country of Midian; and there will no longer remain any necessity for that most improbable supposition, that the same historian, Moses, should have recorded the existence, at the same time, of two countries of precisely the same name,† without adverting to the fact of their being different countries, or making the slightest distinction between them. Upon my hypothesis, then, the country of Jethro will have been situate (and probably at a considerable distance,) to the eastward, or rather to the north-eastward of the head of the Gulf of Akaba. It results, therefore, from this position of that country, that when Moses led the flock of his father-in-law "to the back side"-or rather the west, of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, in Horeb," he would have gone in the direction (westward) towards Mitzraim. Hence, when the inspired legislator of the Israelites subsequently left Midian, and "returned to the land of Mitzraim,"§ whilst, at the same time, Aaron received the Divine command to "go into the wilderness to meet Moses," it is perfectly natural and intelligible that the brothers should have met "in the mount of God,”at that very same spot, in the direct road between the two countries, to which Moses had previously wandered. We have thus the means of removing a difficulty which has startled some commentators, namely, the improbability (not to say the impossibility) that Aaron should have been able to meet with his brother without supernatural aid; to account for which, they have considered it requisite to suppose that he was guided by an angel. In the subjoined sketch of the coasts of the upper portion of the Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea of modern geographers, are shewn the two head-gulfs of that sea; namely, the Gulf of Suez, and the Gulf of Akaba; the former, agreeably to the opinion usually entertained, and * Gen. xxv. 6. Exod. iii. 1. VOL. VII.-June, 1835. + Exod. ii. 15, and Numb. xxxi. 1-12. |