conditions of repentance and confession. But faith, repentance, and baptism and repentance and confession all derive their efficiency from their relation to the all authority in heaven and on earth, with which the Messiah is clothed, and their relation to his precious blood, which cleanses from all

sin.

The Lord's day and the Lord's supper, are positive Divine institutions, and are standing tests of the loyalty of the citizens of his kingdom, to be regularly observed by them till he shall come again. God has, under every economy, tested man's loyalty, by positive law. 1st, There was the positive prohibition against partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, at the head of the Adamic economy. 2nd, The positive institution of sacrifice, at the head of the Patriarchal economy. 3rd, At the head of the Jewish dispensation, stood the positive institution of circumcision; and, 4th, In the front of the Christian economy, stands the positive institution of baptism.

Under the Jewish economy, the positive institution of the Sabbath was a standing test of the loyalty of Israel. So, under the Christian_dispensation, the Lord's day, and the Lord's supper, are perpetual tests of the loyalty of his people. Every good liege subject of the King, as often as this holy day returns, will, if in his power, observe it to the Lord. But this can only be done by attending to the various observances instituted by the apostles, or by observing the day according to apostolic example. Apostolic example is justly considered as equivalent to apostolic precept. The grand items in the public observance of this resurrection day, according to apostolic example, are a steadfast attention to the doctrine or teaching of the apostles, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Every disciple is bound by his allegiance to King Messiah, to attend every Lord's day to all these items of service, if he has the ability and opportunity. And he who neglects thus to observe the Lord's day, or to attend to as many of these items of public service as he has ability to do, as often as he may, is guilty of disloyalty to the King of saints. So all God's positive, as well as all his moral laws, are essential to a perfect system of di

vine government, embracing all man's relations to the universe, to time, and to eternity. Now if man owes his highest earthly obligations to affectionate parents, surely he owes paramount obligations to God, his greatest benefactor. Piety is the main pillar that supports the temple of morality. Prostrate this pillar, and the temple is levelled with the dust its columns are broken and scattered in ruins. Bind man's affections fast to the throne of the Eternal, and they will sweep out and touch with accuracy every human relation; cut them loose from this mooring, and they are adrift on a boundless ocean, to touch anywhere or nowhere, for good or for evil, as chance may direct.

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Let no one, therefore, imagine, that any of God's positive institutions may be disregarded with impunity. It was the violation of a positive law, that introduced death into the world, and all the untold miseries and woes to which humanity is heir. Nadab and Abihu were destroyed for the violation of a positive law (Lev. x.) It was for tampering with a positive command, by substituting smiting with a rod for speaking, that Moses was prohibited from entering into the land of promise (Num. xx.) It was for violating a positive law, that Uzzah died (2 Sam. vi,) It was for disregarding a positive command, that the prophet sent down to Bethel perished (1 Kings xiii.) For the violation of the positive institution of the Sabbath, the man in the wilderness was stoned to death (Num. xv.) The profanation of the positive institution of the Sabbath, stood at the head of the dark catalogue of sins which God charged upon the Israelites of old, and for which they were driven away captive into Babylon (Neh. xiii. 17-18; Eze. xx. 13-24; Jer. xvii. 27) For profaning the positive institution of the Lord's supper, by converting it into a common feast, many of the Corinthian brethren were visited by disease and death (1 Cor. xi.) Let the Christian take warning by these dreadful examples, that he disregard not the positive institutions of the Lord's day and of the Lord's supper, lest he forfeit his celestial inheritance, as Adam forfeited his terrestrial; lest he fail to enter the celestial Canaan, as Moses failed to enter the terrestrial; lest he be visited with death eternal, as many of the

Corinthian brethren were with death temporal. Obedience to all God's positive, as well as all his moral laws, can alone secure to any one eternal life.

But disobedience to positive divine institutions has not only been fraught with untold woes to the human family, but obedience to them has been fraught with immeasurable good to man. We have seen that under the Patriarchal and Jewish economies, a person, in complying with the positive institution of sacrifice, by presenting his sin offering according to divine appointment, had the assurance, from the unerring word of God, of the forgiveness of his sins. Compliance with the positive rite of circumcision entitled the Israelite to the privileges and immunities of the Jewish Commonwealth. It was in complying with a positive institution, that the Israelites, who were bitten by the fiery serpents, in the wilderness, were healed of the dreadful bite of that venomous serpent (Num. xxi.) It was in obeying a positive divine commandment that Naaman was healed of the leprosy (2 Kings v.) And as if the observance of the positive institution of the Sabbath, had comprehended in itself the whole duty of the Jewish people, or would secure obedience to all the other statutes and ordinances of Jehovah, He says to them: "It shall come to pass if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city, kings and princes sitting upon

the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city shall remain for ever." Let the Christian, then, be warned and encouraged, faithfully to observe the positive institutions of the Lord's day, and the Lord's Supper, as well as all the moral laws, that he may inherit eternal life.

But is the reader an impenitent believer! I would point him to Calvary, to the dreadful agonies, to the divine compassion of the Man of sorrows, as he hangs upon the cross. Sinner, if that scene of love cannot subdue your heart, you must be lost for ever. But it may be that you believe, and are penitent for your sins, but cannot see the importance of baptism. And in the light of all the cases which have been adduced touching positive divine institutions, and the many others which your own reading may supply, are you prepared to reject baptism as non-essential to decide as a juror that it is of no importance? Are you prepared, also, to reject the express testimony of the Messiah, and of his apostles and ministers ? "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark xv. 15-16.)

Repent, every one of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts ii. 38.) "And now, why tarriest thou? arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord" (Acts xxii. 16.)

Progress and development are peculiarly true of that great plan. It has a history, showing a gradual accumulation of facts and development of principles, directed by such consummate wisdom, as makes its philosophy the wonder and admiration of all who rightly examine it. The objections fail,

for supposed changes in his dealings with man, seeing that these supposed changes are but so many stages of development occurring in consequence of the effect produced on man by preceding courses. Change, however, in the sense in which it occurs so commonly among men, is unknown in the ways of God. When we can find in the New Testament the key which unlocks the Old, with all its varied circumstances,

scurity or doubt even now; but religious error and corruption hang like a dark cloud between its solution and the public mind. Men are distracted with the numerous unheavenly and unearthly lights which flit in the regions of religion, and not yet accustomed to the investigation of revelation in its purity, that they turn from all with disgust. Not that they are bettered thereby. The question of the wisdom of ignorance is too peculiar to satisfy too abstruse to be grasped. But still they turn away, losing even the hope of finding, out of the Word of God, a cause for their existence, or a clue to their destiny. It appears to all, out of it there is no knowledge. The Koran and the Hindoo sacred books are sometimes classed with the Bible, but falsely, for they still seem to think, if the Bible is not true, it is of no use looking at them. This, at least, places it as the last hope for man on these momentous questions. If it be not true, no truth exists concerning that which alone man needs to fill the measure of his peace.

The clashing of those avowedly human speculations, seeing they are bestowed on a subject altogether above human power of discovering, must tend to injure man. Thence solutions must be always wrong. Revelation alone can declare the truth on them. But it happens that their tendency is much modified by having at least one fair object of attack, viz. the corruptions which exist in the religious world. Thus they are made to conserve, to some extent, good and the cause of truth. This sustains their moral life. Who can dispute that the corruptions of Christianity have given rise to doubts and scepticism, which, acting against them, have mingled with themselves some, aye, much of the true spirit of Christianity itself. But we would also contend, that if Christianity were exhibited in its original purity, these unhappy and unlovely manifestations would disappear as the mist before the rising sun.

It is difficult to escape from the influfluence of Christianity in almost any part of the world. It is becoming more so every day. How much more difficult to escape from that first knowledge of God which was given to man! However degraded a people might become, that first great truth seems to have taken firm hold, and will manifest itself somehow. This is so general, that it has

been said of man," he will worship." It is but the last spark of imparted truth seeking an utterance. Moral and intellectual degradation keeps pace with the forgetting of God. Extinction hovers over those nations that lose his knowledge. Man is doomed to perish when the name and idea of God disappear from amongst them. Revelation is the guarantee of his life: on its fulness depends the development of his being. Without it the springs of his life would dry up his habitation become desolate this far-famed world

become one vast solitude of tombs, instead of a beauteous garden, echoing on every side the voice of God's love.

This may seem abstract and doubtful to some, but the known avenues to the heart and head of man the means whereby the beauties and nobility of his character become unfolded, all speak in favor of these conclusions. Man was created in the image of God. In God the mental perceptions and attributes exist in glorious and undimmed splendor. Man is but an image of that - a likeness; not all men, necessarily, yet it is the privilege of all. It is only when he comes into the presence of God, that this likeness or reflection appears. The image of God is not a material creation, like that of the body-neither can it be a mere immortality. We can discover no image of God in the mere possession of eternal existence; but when we come to mental perception and moral sensibility, which were the things requisite for him to possess, if he was to have dominion over the things of this earth, we find indeed a resemblance to that beneficent Spirit whom we know not by his infinity or eternity, but by his bounty and his love. Immortality is associated with this likeness-it may be essential to the development. We can affirm, with the Bible in our hand, it is essential to the usefulness of the image of God in man. But still that likeness consists in mental perception and moral sensibility, manifesting themselves in truth and love, justice and holiness. These are the members of that God-like creation, man. They are the essential attributes also of Deity. They do not appear spontaneously in man: he requires culture to manifest them. The capacity is truly there for a time, but when the golden moment arrives he cannot be attached to this world, but passes into the

presence of his Maker. In all our wri- | tings, we look at man in his relation to God through this world. A purely abstract view is morally useless, if not impossible; and when we associate this life and God with man, we can only speak of him in his relations. Thus a cultivated idea exists in the mind, and the image of God is associated with

what we can see, and hear, and feel of the mental dignity of man.

We would wish to pass from this topic, to dwell for a while on the gift of the Son of God, and his relation to us as revealed in the Scripture, but must reserve it for a future occasion.

M. K.

JERUSALEM, April 2, 1853.

BELOVED BRETHREN AND FRIENDS,The good providence of God has thus far preserved me, and through all the fatigue and perils of "the great and terrible wilderness," brought me prosperously to this city, once so highly distinguished above all other places on the face of the earth. I gratefully recognize his goodness to me in answer to your prayers, and rejoice as the time approaches when I hope again to be in the midst of you. All I see makes me love my own country, my own dear flock, and my home among you, more than ever. Truly the United States are a people blessed above all others. The Lord preserve us from abusing our privileges, and becoming ungrateful and rebellious, as did the Jews. The history and present condition of that unhappy race, are a fearful illustration of the wrath of God poured out on those that despise his mercy.

Although I forwarded, on my arrival here last Saturday, two communications to you, one from Sinai and the other from Hebron, yet I cannot resist the desire, amid the employments of each day, which have been sometimes very wearying to the flesh, to add another from this city, "where our Lord was crucified." "I have walked round about Zion, and gone round about her, so that I can tell the towers thereof. I have marked well her bulwarks and considered her palaces," that I may be able to relate the proofs of the faithfulness and wrath of God. "How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!" "The Lord hath done that which he had devised he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of

old he hath thrown down and hath not pitied !"

Jerusalem that now is, is but a small town. Its population does not exceed twenty-two thousand-7000 of whom are estimated to be Jews. The different nations of Europe, and some of Asia and Africa, are represented both in the Jewish and other population. Among the former the Spanish are most numerous. Of the latter, the Arab and Turk predominate. Of the nominal Christians, the names and varieties are very great. Abyssinians, Copts, Syrians, Armenians, Greeks, Latins, Italians, French, English, and a few Americans. All, except the latter, have their places of public worship; the Latin church of the Holy Sepulchre and its appurtenances, accommodating the entire Papal and other idolatrous population. The Americans are Baptists, and assemble in the house of Dr. Barclay, a physician and Baptist preacher from Virginia, whose influence, and that of his interesting family, are in every respect valuable in the place and highly creditable to our country. I have been pressed to preach to them to-morrow, which will be the first time I shall have had the pleasure to meet and hold public worship with fellow - Christians of my own country, since the Sabbath I spent at Civita Vecchia. church hold a missionary establishment here that is well endowed. Bishop Gobat, and two or three clergymen of the English church, maintain public worship after the form of the church of England, for the benefit of the English population; for the benefit of Prussians, in the German language; and for the benefit of the Jews, the prayers translated into Hebrew are read daily shortly after service. I witnessed the celebration, and participated there in the Lord's supper last Sabbath.

The English