"2. That the final impenitency and damnation of reprobates are necessary and unavoidable, by God's absolute decree."

That which it is of great importance to remark, and to which we beg the particular attention of our readers, is, that, all the Calvinistic writers mistake the thing to which men are predestinated; some of these writers affirming that it is predestination unto life; others, that it is predestination to faith, &c.; but all missing the real truth, which is, that men are predestinated to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. It is true that this may be included in the other terms, but it is equally true that it need not. The life looked for is a thing after death; while the image of Jesus is a thing to be obtained on this side of the grave; and here lies the difference. In like manner, faith, or a man's belief in a particular fact-such as the efficacy of Christ's blood to atone for sin-does not necessarily induce a conformity in the life of the man so believing with the life of Jesus; and thence it is that the high Calvinists, and especially those who have muddled their brains with the types and figures and false scholastic logic of the Non-conformist divines, generally express great wrath when pressed to be holy as Jesus was holy. Thus the importance of stating the doctrine of predestination as unto holinessthat is, unto conformity to the image of Jesus Christ—is brought out; for, so long as it was expressed in the erroneous form of predestination to life, or to faith, &c., so long was it received only to the blinding of the eyes and conscience of the unhappy person who had been deluded by it.

Looking at the practical effects of Calvinism on a large scale, there can be no doubt that its tendency has been to justify men to themselves in living in the violation of plain Scriptural precepts, such as no other system, with any pretence of reference to the word of God, could have tolerated. We do not mean to charge upon the Scotch Calvinists as just, all the sentences of which they are accused in such works as "Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence displayed;" but, looking only at the recent publications by them, which have been noticed in this Journal (and the number might be easily trebled), we defy any other system to be brought forward which shall be found to have produced as much defamation, ill-temper, railing, and scurrility, as this. Moreover, the most false and rancorous of the English religious journals— such as the Record, Evangelical Magazine, &c.—are conducted by, or under the management of, persons of the same creed. We could recite, if we pleased, many accounts of the conduct of the Scotch clergy, even of those professing to be the most pious, at their Monday dinners after the communion, which would astonish the ears of the Southerns. We have a public journal before us, in which the name of an Evangelical doctor is recorded at a dinner after a festival, at which one of the banners bore the

inscription, "The true rights of man are in the position of society where there are no kings, priests, nor lawyers." The reverend gentleman declared, that "for fifty years he had not enjoyed a moment of more pleasing feeling to his own heart than he did at that time;" and in the course of his speech descanted on " the doctrines of grace according to the standards of the church," as the most popular, and therefore the most profitable. But in all these particulars it is sufficient for us to direct the attention of our readers to the facts, as illustrated on a great scale, of the tendency of the system, and they will easily find abundant proofs ready to their hand. It must not, however, be forgotten, that a very considerable portion of the Evangelical, and almost all the High-church, party, do abjure Calvinistic tenets. Such amongst them who, in their rejection of these, do not reject also the doctrines of grace, as Tomline and others did, are, we believe, the most truly pious and right-hearted men in the land. They are in general timid, and not well versed in theology; but they know the seat of religion to be the heart, and not the head, and probably afford the largest portion of that salt by which alone the Church is kept from total corruption.

The only great point at issue now in the world is, holiness. This has indeed been ever the case, as Cowper justly says, in the passage quoted at the commencement of these remarks: but it assumes a doubly important character at the present time, in consequence of its being the last of a series of truths which complete the great scheme of godliness, and shall now fit the true church of Christ for the mighty work she has to do in flesh before she receives her crown of reward. The bride is now to be prepared to meet her Husband. Salvation, holiness, conformity to Christ, are synonimous terms. Satan knows this well, and against the attainment of holiness does he direct all his arts. We have contended and won the day for the great question of the truth and faithfulness of God's promises to the Jews, who shall all be restored to their own land, and for ever united in one under David their King; for the establishment of the kingdom of Christ at the time of his personal advent, at its commencement; for the then destruction, and not conversion, of all the nations of Christendom; for the falsehood of the predictions of the Missionary, Bible, and other Societies, that their labours will help forward the Millennium; for the true flesh of Christ, that the Son of God did verily take the fallen flesh of the Virgin Mary into personal subsistence with himself, and present himself in it to the Father ever a holy, spotless, sinless person: and our adversaries, being beaten on this truth, resorted to the scandalous subterfuge of falsifying our opinions, and then propagating them as ours to the world. On all these great points we have been triumphant there remains yet this other, the most important

of all the rest were inferior, because they bore more indirectly on the immediate business of the church, which was to prepare herself to meet her Lord in the air, by being one with him in counsel, mind, affections, and will. The clean linen which she must wear, and in which she must be found, is the righteous deeds of the saints-δικαιωματα.

There is one circumstance respecting Calvinists that is worthy of particular observation, which is, that they are the only sect that professedly builds hopes of salvation not upon persons but upon things. It is true, indeed, that a Papist says, " I believe all that mother church believes;" but he does not and if he do, it is not upon that assertion, nor upon that belief, that he expects ultimately to get to heaven; but through the expiatory fires of purgatory making him pure, or through the power of his guardian saint. Cromwell on his death-bed built his hope of salvation on the doctrine of final perseverance and we have met with many persons, most celebrated for their piety, whose hopes, when probed, were traced up to doctrines, and not to God; to words, and to texts of the Bible; not to the revealed and experienced character of God. The most ordinary delusion that besets those who, having long heard Evangelical truth, are yet uninfluenced by it, is, that because they believe that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, therefore they are safe, let them live as they will, and as they manifestly do, without the life of God in them. It is a most precious truth that the blood of Jesus does cleanse from sin; yet not as an end, but as a means of making men love the Father, who gave him so to die, that they may rejoice ever to come into the presence of so kind and merciful a Being, and receive from Him his own life, and the indwelling of His own Spirit, to make them holy, and thereby happy. If the belief in the cleansing blood of Jesus does not lead to this end, it is used merely as a salvo to the conscience for ungodliness-that is, estrangement from the mind, purpose, and affections of God ;-and for this purpose we know that it is used by the very far greater proportion of those who compose the immense multitude called "the religious world."

Holiness is the present subject of contention. The adversaries of Jesus are fighting for continuance in their sinful practices. We are not holy, but we are seeking after it, and they are not. By holiness we mean a perfect conformity in mind and affections to Jesus Christ: dwelling in his counsel, and thereby knowing what He is about to do with the nation and with the church, and the cause of his controversy with both; feeling his grief for the sins of men; bearing them continually on our hearts before the Lord; and pleading with Him for them; exerting ourselves all the day long to speak of him, to act like him, to love all men, to

benefit all men; to labour incessantly by prayer, and by all other exertions, to draw out his members, our brethren, from the Babel of false systems, creeds, confessions, and Babylonish versions of the Gospel, that they may be builded up by the Spirit into a holy temple for the habitation of the Lord. Satan will not let Christ have a holy church, if he can by any possibility prevent it he has got all men's love of sin on his side; all their theology, all their preaching of holiness and love, all their sanctimonious substitutes, all their phylacteries, on his side: nay, he will even let them have a false holiness, so like the true, that nothing but the Holy Spirit himself could detect its falsehood. Against all these confederates God will prevail : He has sent his Spirit into the midst of us to be the standard, now that the enemy has come in like a flood. The Spirit shall sweep away all refuges of lies; the Spirit shall make the separation of the chaff from the wheat; the Spirit shall build up the ruined church, which the toil of man could never effect; the Spirit shall bind men in unity of faith, which articles and confessions could never accomplish; the Spirit shall fill their hearts with true love, and expose the false love of unsanctified benevolence, which cared not to stand in the counsel of Jesus to be directed: that Spirit, which the apostate harlot despises, shall be the leader of the church the Spirit shall teach knowledge which all the wisdom of Egypt could never impart the Spirit shall preserve from apostasy, into which Greek, Popish, and Protestant sects have all alike fallen; and into which every form, sect, and party of man's devising must ever fall, unless it will take the indwelling God alone for its defence, its instructor, its corrector, its support, and its guide.

The danger to the better part of Calvinists-that is, those who reject the offensive parts, and adhere only to what is true, but perverted-arises from the very correctness of their system. Their system is so correct, and therefore so beautiful, that they trust to it, and not to God: their faith is in it, and not in Him; their stay is on it, and not on Him. Their system is of necessity confined within certain bounds; they must therefore reject every thing that will not square with it. If God will condescend to act within the limits of their system, they will admit him; but if He act without the bounds of their system, they reject him. The five points say nothing about the great series of truths we have above enumerated, and therefore the Calvinists throughout the land disbelieve them all. God must come in second, and subservient, to the system. The system is the great idol which the theological tyrant has set up in the plain of Babylon, and commanded every sect, and tribe, and nation, and tongue to fall down and worship it: this command they all readily obey; for, as the idol is composed of various materials, some precious and

some base, they who could not be attracted by the iron and the clay, are allured by the gold, and fall down before the whole for the sake of the part they love; while others, who sympathize with the meaner materials, tolerate the splendid parts rather than offend the god as a whole. The proud High-Church stickler for Episcopacy, and the mean, levelling schismatic; the supralapsarian Calvinist, and almost deistical Arminian; each tolerates the other, provided only they worship system, and are true to their respective parties and factions: but when any Daniel ventures to reject every part of the image, and worship the God of heaven alone, then is the den of lions prepared by all; then does the sword of the ungodly, even sharp and bitter words, leap from its scabbard; then is the servant of God threatened to be sawn asunder; and one universal shout is raised from amongst them all, "Away with such a fellow from the earth! it is not fit that he should live."

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF
THE APOCALYPSE.

BY THE REV. EDWARD IRVING, M. A.
(Continued from p. 44.)

BEFORE proceeding further in this interpretation, I shall endeavour to present in a few words the new light which hath been cast upon the purpose of God and the future hopes of the church, by the word of the Comforter speaking from the bosom of my church, as also in other parts, to the end that all the church of Christ, and all the nations of the earth may with us give thanks to the God of our salvation, for the day spring from on high which hath visited us. There are many records from which to ascertain the point of advancement to which we had come before the Lord broke the silence of centuries, and made his voice once more to be heard on the earth. The various essays and interpretations which are to be found in the first four volumes of this Journal, the Dialogues on Prophecy, and the many tracts and treatises during the same period which issued from the press upon the subject of the Second Advent, are ample evidence to shew what we had been able to reach, through the study of the written word, the help of tradition, and the light of the Spirit of truth, which still lingered among the faithful, without any manifestation of the Holy Ghost, or supernatural ministration of the Lord Jesus Christ. We had come to know by the good hand of our God upon us, that the Son of Man was about to appear again on the earth in his own glory, and in the glory of his Father, and of the holy angels, never more to de