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Observer, May 1, '71.

rupture of the heart, observes, 'The hand is suddenly carried to the front of the chest, a piercing shriek uttered,' etc. etc. The rapidity of the resulting death is regulated by the size and shape of the ruptured opening. But usually death very speedily ensues in consequence of the blood escaping from the interior of the heart into the cavity of the large surrounding heart-sac or pericardium; which sac has, in cases of rupture of the heart been found on dissection to contain sometimes two, three, four, or more pounds of blood accumulated within it, and separated into red clot and limpid serum, or blood and water,'—as is seen in blood when collected out of the body in a cup or basin in the operation of common blood-letting.

V. No medical jurist would, in a court of law, venture to assert, from the mere symptoms preceding death, that a person had certainly died of rupture of the heart. To obtain positive proof that rupture of the heart was the cause of death, a post-mortem examination of the chest would be neceessary. In ancient times, such dissections were not practised. But the details left regarding Christ's death are most strikingly peculiar in this respect, that they offer us the result of a very rude dissection, as it were, by the gash made in His side after death by the thrust of the Roman soldier's spear. The effect of that wounding or piercing of the side was an escape of "blood and water,' visible to the Apostle John standing some distance off; and I do not believe that anything could possibly account for this appearance, as described by that Apostle, except a collection of blood effused into the distended sac of the pericardium in consequence of rupture of the heart, and afterwards separated, as is usual with extravasated blood into those two parts, viz. (1) crassamentum or red clot, and (2.) watery serum. The subsequent puncture from below of the distended pericardial sac would most certainly, under such circumstances, lead to the immediate ejection and escape of its sanguineous contents in the form of red clots of blood and a stream of watery serum, exactly corres pending to that description given in the sacred narrative, "and forthwith came there out blood and water," an appearance which no other natural event or mode of death can explain or account for.

VI. Mental emotions and passions are well known by all to affect the actions of the heart in the way of palpitation, fainting, etc. That these emotions and passions, when in overwhelming excess, occasionally though rarely, produce laceration or rupture of the walls of the heart, is stated by most medical authorities, who have written on the affections of this organ; and our poets even allude to this effect as an established fact, The grief that does not speak

Whisper the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break,'

But if ever a human heart was riven and ruptured by the mere amount of mental agony that was endured it would surely- -we might even argue à priori-be that our of Redeemer, when during these dark and dreadful hours on the cross, He, being made a curse for us,' bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows,' and suffered for sin, the malediction of God and man, "full of anguish," and now exceeding sorrowful even unto death." There are theological as well as medical arguments in favour of the opinion that Christ in reality died from a ruptured or broken heart. You know them infinitely better than I do. But let me merely observe that

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VII. If the various wondrous prophecies and minute predictions in Psalms xxii. and lxix., regarding the circumstances connected with Christ's death be justly held as literally true, such as, 'They pierced my hands and my feet,' 'They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture," etc., why should we regard as merely metaphorical, and not as literally true also, the declarations in the same Psalms, Reproach hath broken my heart,'My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels'? And

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VIII. Death by mere crucifixion was not a form of death in which there was much, if indeed any shedding of blood. Punctured wounds do not generally bleed; and the nails, besides being driven through parts that were not provided with large blood vessels, necessarily remain plugging up the openings made by their passage. The whole language and types of Scripture, however, involve the idea that the atonement for our sins was obtained by the blood of Christ shed for us during His death on the cross. 'Without shedding of blood there is no remission." This shedding, however, was assuredly done in the fullest possible sense, under the view that the immediate cause of His dissolution was rupture of the heart, and the consequent fatal escape of His heart and life-blood from the central cistern of the circulation.

It has always appeared-to my medical mind at least-that this view of the mode by which death was produced in the human body of Christ, intensifies all our thoughts and ideas regarding the immensity of the astounding sacrifice which He made for our sinful race upon the cross. Nothing can possibly be more striking and startling then the appall ing and terrible passiveness with which God as man submitted, for our sakes, His incar nate body to all the horrors and tortures of the crucifixion. But our wonderment at the stupendous sacrifice only increases when we reflect that, whilst thus enduring for our sins

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Observer, May 1, '71.

the most cruel and agonizing form of corporeal death, He was ultimately 'slain,' not by the effects of the anguish of His corporeal frame, but by the effects of the mightier anguish of His mind; the fleshy walls of His heart-like the veil, as it were, in the temple of His human body-becoming rent and riven, as for us He poured out His soul unto death;'-'the travail of His soul' in that awful hour thus standing out as unspeakably bitterer and more dreadful than even the travail of His body."

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THE ARGUMENT, A PRIORI, FOR THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE ABSOLUTE ONE, AND THE FIRST CAUSE OF ALL THINGS: BY W. H. GILLESPIE, F. R. S.-London: Houlston & Sons.

THE North British Mail announces this volume thus-" This is the fifth, but the first complete, edition of a work which has received very high commendations from the most eminent philosophers of our age.

If the former editions of this profound and elaborate work merited such high encomiums, the present greatly enlarged and improved edition will be found to deserve still higher commendation. The original work consisted only of the argument respecting the Being and the Natural Modes and the Intellectual Attributes of Supreme Deity, which, as the author justly states, may be regarded as the immutable foundation and solid basement storey of the whole edifice.' The other sections of the work, comprising the demonstrations for the Moral attributes of God, were published at considerable intervals, in separate short treatises, and are now included in the same volume. Although the subject of the treatise is of the most abstruse character, and the argument is condensed into the fewest possible words, the style is as remarkable for its clearness as for its conciseness. It is admirably fitted to furnish an antidote against the cavils of the Atheists of the present day, who, as the author remarks, are pure or rather extremely gross-Materialists, as they deny the exist ence of any extension whatever separate from matter; but it is no less applicable to the speculations of all other Atheistical schools, both in ancient and modern times."

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The ground gone over by the author is very considerable, yet by reason of conciseness the whole forms but a very small volume. Disregarding subdivisions we give an idea of the argument thus-Infinitude of extension is nesessarily existing-Infinity of Extension is necessarily indivisible— There is necessarily a Being of Infinity of Extension-The Being of Infinity of Extension is necessarily of unity and simplicity-There is necessarily but one Being of Infinity of Expansion. Then the same ground is gone over in Part II. with reference to Infinity of Duration, concluding with "There is necessarily but one Being of Infinity of Duration." Part III. relates to Expansion, and concludes with "There is necessarily but one Being of Infinity of Expansion and Infinity of Duration." In the second division the intellectual attributes of that one Being come into view, the argument is, that He is NECESSARILY Intelligent; All-knowing; All-powerful; Entirely free. The Moral Attributes appear thus-"The simple, sole Being of Infinity of Expansion and Duration, who is All-knowing, All-powerful, Entirely free, is necessarily completely happy and perfectly good. God is necessarily true, faithful, just, and also all-loving. He is necessarily the best and wisest of Beings, of ineffable moral purity and the holiest One." On Future Rewards and Punishments we cite the following:

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"§ 5. It has been demonstrated, that there is a God of Truth, and of Faithfulness,

Observer, May 1, 71

and of Inflexible Justice, and we have seen what demonstrations of such a character do, of necessity, involve. To the Justice God, as the acme of the series, there must be now adjoined the facts made clear regarding man: to wit, that, to him, happiness comes in proportion to his advances in virtuousness-in proportion, too, to the absence of traversing influences, those, more especially, running quite counter to the line of virtue; while, in a reverse way, unhappiness, or misery, is the unfailing concomitant, and dread follower, of immorality and active viciousness: that this is, because there exists an indefeasible connection between these things themselves, between, that is, the virtue and the happiness, on the one hand, and the vice and the misery on the other So that God, by simply communicating with man, increases,-by the necessity of the case, increases,—the happiness of the good, and the unhappiness of the bad. All this has been made very clear; and a considerable portion has been matter of the strictest demonstration, direct, or consequential.

§ 6. It results, then, that, although the good have their reward, they are by no means fully rewarded, in this world. Nor are the wicked adequately punished here. Often, indeed, they seem to be hardly punished at all,-certainly, far from punished according to the measure of their deserts, which, at times, are very great, the iniquities (which are also sins) being appallingly flagrant and rampant. What is deducible? What is the conclusion to which our consciences are infallibly led? Must it not follow, that Inflexible Justice requires a future state in which all those inequalities shall be rectified? the rectification doing away with all the confusion in which moral existencies are enveloped and enclosed in this present scene? In fine, is it not necessary that the Moral Governor of men (for a Just God at the head of affairs in the universe, is, to all intents and purposes, a Moral Governor) should accomplish that which the Heaven-bestowed Consciences of His creatures cry out is necessary to be accomplished, in order that the behests of irrepressible Justice may be obeyed ?

§ 7. In this world, and before our eyes, a scheme of Moral Government is evidently established, and, the operations being visibly and palpably in progress, the plan may be said to be, as a whole, in course of fulfilment, having attained a certain amount of actual development. There is a Moral Government, the principles and beginnings of which are evident on all sides will there be no completion of the system? Beyond all dispute, there are discernible, in the present constitution and course of nature, the first principles, and the commencement, of a scheme of goverment carried on by moral means working to an end consonant thereunto: Is it now a possible supposition, that the undeviatingly Just One should stay the initial operations, by a fiat of, No farther? that the supreme, deny. ing Himself, should go contrary to His own plan, or that He would allow His purpose to fall, through desuetude, into complete and final inefficacy and abortion?

§ 8. Would not such inefficacy and abortion amount to a direct breach in the integrity and continuity of things? Would not it amount to an actual positive violation of the Veracity, and Faithfulness, and Justice of the Universal Ruler? There are laws of Nature established by Him, and they encompass us before and behind, and on all sides: but none is more weighty and abiding than the moral laws written by His finger on and in the hearts of His intelligent creatures, whereby they are obliged to infer, that-in consonance with the present experience, and with the past, since the earliest records of man upon the earth, in consonance also with the unmistakable aspirations, and not-to-be-suppressed yearnings, of our natures projecting themselves, as 'twere into the anticipatingly realized future;—to infer (we repeat) that there shall be a time of complete reckoning for the just, and for the urjust. For the just among men, in order that they may receive the due reward of all their difficult and painful strugglings, through so many toilsome days, after perfect conformity to the Will and Character of God, their Maker; and for the unjust, that they, arraigned before the universe, may receive the recompense of their unrighteous deeds-too often cruel deeds, committed at the expense of the suffering of their more righteous neighbours.

§ 9. As a legitimate conclusion from our premises (sure as these are) it is, therefore, & matter of moral certainty that there shall be a future state for man: and a future life is the foundation of all human hopes and fears of any considerable weight. No wise person ever thinks of laying down grand plans with reference to a casual residence in a road-side inn, to be left behind whenever the journey towards home shall be resumed. A wise man reserves his fine architectonic devices, and measures of general amenity, for that permanent abode where all that he most loves is to be found abiding.

Those who would read more must obtain the volume, and every reader, of the thoughtful and intelligent class for which the work is intended, will find himself, we doubt not, repaid for his expenditure of time and cost, with good interest upon the outlay.

Observer, May 1, '71.

WHY BAPTIZE THE LITTLE ONES? BY DAVID KING-Birmingham, 1871.

ANOTHER edition of this little work is now ready, the price being reduced to 4d. The leading arguments on the other side are stated in the words of leading Pædobaptists and not only stated but refuted. In this way are heard and handled Dr. Clarke, John Wesley, Burkett, Dr. Dwight, Witherow, Dr. Urwick, Guthrie, Bradley, Thorn, Dr. Rice, Dr. Cooke, Dr. Bushnell and others. The arguments examined include-The silence of Scripture; and Jewish proselyte baptism-The households-Infants in the kingdom of heaven-Infant circumcision-The church in the days of Abraham-The commission; Infants in the nations-Baptism in the cloud and in the sea-Women at the Lord's table-The early Fathers, etc. There are added a choice selecton of Pædobaptists' admissions, which alone are sufficient to prove the case. These are followed by the Evils of baby-baptism. Such as-Enslaves the child-Distresses parents -Makes void a Divine command-Destroys the unity of the Spirit-Is a main pillar of the church of Rome-Confounds the church with the world -Endangers the souls of thousands. The concluding words are all we shall cite

"Over this ground of their own selecting we have gone and, though our words are few, we confidently submit that in every instance the argument is fairly met and refuted. Though not called to do so we have also shewn that baby-baptism is excluded by the Lord's commission and opposed to the first principles of Christianity. In addition we have given the testimony of many Pedobaptists to the fact that Infant baptism did not originate with Christ and His Apostles. These men retain it because they think it good to do so since the Church has added it to the things instituted by the Apostles. The weight of this combined testimony is irresistible. In conclusion we have glanced at some of the evils resulting to the church and the world, and though the few words we have used only admit of a mere mention without the slightest colouring, yet is the picture frightful in the extreme. What then remains? Only that we exhort you to yield yourself to the ordinance of Christ-that is, if you feel yourself a sinner and in need of the remission of sins. (Acts ii. 38.)—if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and rely on him as your only Saviour (Acts viii. 37.)—if you are willing to forsake all unholiness and to devote your life to the service of the Redeemer. If this is your case then

'Why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.' Acts xxii."

Will the reader do his best to put this pamphlet into circulation-that is if he cannot find a better. If any one can point out a small work, upon the same subject, more calculated to be useful, we shall thank him to make it known, when we will gladly advertize it without charge, and keep it on sale.

Biblical Criticism, Queries, &q.

FELLOWSHIP AND THE FELLOWSHIP.-No. II.

In our former paper eleven texts were cited in which kovovia is translated fellowship, also eight in which it should have been so rendered. Then follows an intimation that the eleven instances give all the occurrences of the word fellowship found in the common version of the New Testament. This was intended to apply only to fellowship as a rendering of kovova, there being three instances in which fellowship represents other Greek terms, by which, however, this investigation is in no way affected. Those are, 1 Cor, x. 20; 2 Cor. vi. 14; Eph. v. 11.

Observer, May 1, '71

We have already shown that there exists in the Church, by Divine appointment, a fellowship in material things, involving contribution and distribution, so that those needing shall be supplied from the abundance of those who do not lack. We have now to enquire as to the law of the fellowship in relation to range, proportion, time, manner, etc. We want to learn how far the entire business is left open for each church to arrange, providing only that the treasury is supplied, and to what extent clearly recorded precept and example direct the procedure. Whatever is thus fixed we must anxiously, earnestly, and steadfastly, maintain; but whatever is left undetermined we must be careful to leave open.

First, then, as to RANGE: by which we mean the legitimate distribution of funds appertaining to this fellowship. Every church has complete control over its own finances. There is no central governing body known in the New Testament. No conference, synod, nor council, with power to tax churches, collect funds, and dispose of them when collected. This being the case, the fellowship does not imply one common fund for all churches and for all Christians, but a treasury, contribution, and distribu tion in, and for, each church; in the management of which no other church or person has any control whatever. But if a church be unable to meet the requirements of needing members has it no claim upon churches better circumstanced? None, if by claim we understand right to demand, and liberty to interfere with the disposal of the funds of other churches. It has the right to appeal for aid, and it is the duty of love to respond whenever the case is deserving and the means sufficient. But of these the church applied to is the sole judge.

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Then comes the question as to what this fellowship covers. One thing is clearly settled-distribution is to be made to needing brethren according to the measure of their necessity. But does it end there? Is it simply for the relief of the poor? If so the church needs other funds: a stated collection or collections for a variety of expenses in carrying on the work and worship of the Lord. If it be said that the fellowship includes nothing beyond aid to needing brethren, then the question comes-Who are needing brethren? Here is a sister sick and unable to labour, without relations who can aid her-there is a brother who cannot get employment, and, therefore, fails to supply the needs of his family-yonder is a good brother, who is able to work, willing to work, and quite able to get work, but his brethren call him to leave his shop, office, trade, or profession, and to devote his time to preaching the gospel; he, therefore, looks to them for the needful to supply the requirements of his family. Now, are all these to be classed together, so far at least, as to be regarded as needing and, therefore, to be provided for by the fellowship? If so, then the fellowship covers all cases in which the church supplies, in part or in whole, support to members who need support from its funds. If not, there must then be some separate fund for those who preach the gospel, and who, by the law of the Lord, are entitled to live by the gospel. Now the Philippians communicated pecuniary aid to Paul more than once, when he had gone forth to preach the gospel in Macedonia. In Phil. i. 5 he thanks God on account of their "fellowship in the gospel." But on this text there is considerable difference of opinion, and also some variety in the renderings of various translators. A. Campbell gives-"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always, in all my prayers for you all, giving thanks with joy for your contribution (kowovia) for the gospel from the first day till now; having this very confidence, that he who has begun a good work among you will continue to perfect it till the day of

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