Parliament, convened by the King on the last day of August, Acts were passed rescinding those which had established Epis copacy, regulating the presentation of ministers, confirming the violent and illegal decrees of the pretended Assembly of Glasgow, and establishing the whole farrago of Presbyterianism. Thus the national apostacy was ostensibly complete, though a large remnant was dispersed throughout the realm, who would not bow the knee to the Baal of the Covenanters. 1. John Spottiswoode...... Glasgow........Oct. 21, 1610.....Translated to S. Andrews, 1615. Cos FESSOR. Died, Nov. 28, 1639. To Galloway, 1619. Died, 1634. .....Died, March, 1614. .... .. 13th Jan., 1611...Died, May 2, 1615. To Glasgow, 1615. Died, Nov. 1, 1632. Aberdeen........ April, 1611.. .Caithness... The Isles.. ..) 1612.. ..1613 ..To Orkney, 1615. Submitted and apostatized, 1638. ..Died, Oct. 1613. ..Submitted and apostatized, 1638. ..Died. 1612. ..To Raphoe, 1611. Died, 1632. Died, July, 1616. To Aberdeen, 1616. Died, Dec. 14, 1617. .Died, 1628. .Died, 22d Dec. 1636. ..Dec. 1, 1613.....To Glasgow, 1633. CONFESSOR. Died, 1641. 17. William Cowpar........Galloway........1614............. Of distinguished piety and eloquence. 18. Adam Bellenden........Dunblane........1615 19. John Abernethy.. Caithness.... .1616 20. Patrick Forbes..........Aberdeen Died, Feb., 1619. 1642. CONFESSOR. Died, Submitted to the Assembly, 1638. ..1618...............................Eminent for learning and piety. Died, March 28, 1635. 21. David Lindsay.. ..Brechin.........Nov. 23, 1619....To Edinburgh, 1634. CONFESSOR. Died 25. William Forbes.........Edinburgh......28th Jan., 1634..Of the profoundest learning. Died, 26. Neill Campbell.......... The Isles........(?) 1634.......... 27. Walter Whiteford.......Brechin ........ 28. Thomas Sydserf. ONE of the great mistakes of our time lies in the assumption, explicit or virtual, that the main purpose of Revelation is to inculcate and enforce a right system of morals. We say, main purpose; for that such inculcation and enforcement form a part of its true end and design, is of course undeniable. And that this assumption is often made, seems clear enough. For, were it not so, men would scarce be so often heard speaking and arguing as though the principal aim of religion were to give additional sanctions to those moral laws which are or might be known sufficiently from the light of nature. Such being the case, it can hardly be, or be deemed, out of place to endeavour to set forth the duty and excellence of religious worship and homage as distinct from the moral virtues ; and to show that the main purpose of Revelation is, not to teach and enforce the latter, but to make known the proper Object and manner and motives of the former. In the first place, then, religion can lend no sanctions to the moral duties, but that it be both in itself and in our regard above them. For the very idea of sanctions necessarily implies the subordination of that which receives or requires them, to that which gives them. So that to cherish religion, as is now too much the custom, merely or mainly for its moral influences, is like desiring the end for the sake of the means; which is an evident contradiction. For in the nature of things the end is to be sought for its own sake, the means for the sake of the end; and it is the end that persuades the use of the means, not the means that counsel the pursuit of the end. And to accept Christianity on such grounds, is in the act of doing so to strip her of the very powers for which we profess to receive her; since she must needs be preferred to the moral virtues, else she can have no force to promote them. In the second place, wherever the Scriptures give a statement or abstract of our duties, those to our Maker are generally put first, and those to our neighbour second. The order is,-"Thou shalt love the Lord thy GOD with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and great commandment: and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And as the second includes the duties of justice and mercy, of right precepts and pure examples, of a mild temper and a peaceful carriage; in short, all the virtues which enter into the composition of moral recitude, and all the charities which go to sweeten and beautify our civil, social, and domestic intercourses, making us at once happy in ourselves, and a source of happiness to all that touch or come near us so does the first include all the offices of prayer and praise and thanksgiving to GOD; the devout and daily acknowledgment of His mercies to us, and of our offences to Him; the giving Him the first fruits of all that we possess, the best words of our mouth and the best meditations of our heart; in a word, the employing all our faculties of soul and body in the glad confession and celebration of His glorious perfections. And Christianity makes religion superior to the moral virtues, not only as preceding them in rank and order, but as being the very ground and principle of them. For we are to be bound together by being first bound to a common Centre: loyality and allegiance to our Maker is the great rectifying law which is to draw and compose all the affections into evenness and serenity: there is no little stream or rill of genuine love to our neighbour, but what has the Love of GOD for its proper fountain and source; and though the stream may flow on awhile after being cut off from its source, yet it must soon dry up; and to its refreshing waters will probably succeed some eye-taking counterfeit, like those optical illusions of the desert, which still prompt the thirsty traveller's hopes only to mock them. In the third place, acts of religious worship, besides that they are the most beautiful and becoming employment of a rational creature, are themselves an earnest of and preparation for those heavenly felicities with which religion invites us: the loving them and delighting in them here will be our best title of admittance to that state Of pure, imperishable blessedness Which reason promises, and Holy Writ Nor is it conceivable how we are to enjoy, or even to be cap T feed on; and heaven will not be heaven to us, when we have cultivated no tastes on earth but such as heaven has no means of gratifying. Unused to behold "the fair beauty of the LORD" in His earthly courts, the glory of His celestial presence must needs strike us blind: not having on the wedding garment, nor knowing how to wear one if we had it, we shall needs be debarred from the marriage feast; nor will there be any fit and proper home for us, but in the abyss of "outer darkness," doomed to the gnawings of perpetual hunger, because no longer able to come at earthly food, and having no relish for any other. For the Scriptures everywhere suppose, and nature gladly confirms their sentence herein, that we are here to serve an apprenticeship in those celestial and angelic arts, which we are hereafter to practice we are now to learn at least the rudiments of that holy language wherein we are then to discourse: we must here accustom our ears and our tongues to that divine style in which the poetry of heaven and the pages of immortality are written. So then, acts and exercises of prayer and praise to God are, as it were, the natural breathings and beatings of that supernatural and divine life, of which we may not hope for the consummations hereafter, unless we make the beginnings here: they are the germination of that seed which we have no reason or right to expect will blossom and bear fruit in heaven, unless it sprout and bud on earth; for, surely, nature herself might teach us, that the very suns and rains and dews, which invite its treasures forth, if they refuse to come will cause them to rot and die. The practical inference and conclusion from all which is, that much more time should be devoted to the worship of GOD, than many who "profess and call themselves Christians" are accustomed to give. And it may well be thought, that under the systems which men have gotten up for themselves outside the Church, there are not enough religious hours and exercises to generate in the heart a love of them; which is doubtless one reason why men bring almost no vital feelings of delight to such offices of prayer and praise as they have. And thus, as would seem, through their shortness and infrequency of times, and through their unaptness and inadequacy of forms, of divine worship, many have well-nigh lost the sentiment of it and aptitude for it; so that they are giving or likely to give up all religious services because they have so few of them. For how can men centre their thoughts and feelings there where there is so little to occupy and entertain them? How can they be expected to persist for any great length of time in things which give them no pleasure; with which the vitalities of their being have no time nor motive to assimilate and intertwine; and which, when engaged in, make no impressions, leave no remembrances of such a nature as to invite a return to them? Undoubtedly, they will either go where there is something to interest and engage their feelings, or else cease to go anywhere, and turn their religious hours into opportunities of work or play or sleep. Finally, perhaps this will serve to explain in some measure why and how it is that we may so often see the most of formality where there are the fewest forms. For it is not natural that men's hearts and minds should stand long and close to a work wherein their bodily organs are allowed to take no part. Generally speaking, no part of the man will in the long run work well, unless all the parts work together. And from the dulness and uninterestingness of religious worship as such, when men have no active share in it, nor any common forms wherein they can join, it naturally comes to pass sooner or later, that they resolve Christianity entirely into a special provision of moral teachings and moral sanctions, and end by either ignoring the distinction or inverting the relation between the moral and religious duties. THE DISTEMPERATURE OF THE TIMES. "THE times are out of joint." So everybody says to everybody, and everybody in his turn assents. But nearly everybody in so saying and assenting thinks only of the great financial crash that has come upon us. Which way of thinking might itself be taken for a significant symptom of the disorder of the times, only that nearly everybody, upon further question, is |