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disciples out of the world, where they were nee light, leaven, salt, but to keep them from the evil showing it is possible to serve the world without par of its sins.

And when we follow asceticism from its native pl the East to its adopted home in the West, we see forcibly how institutions are changed or modified genius of a people or country. Among the people West, asceticism became an influence for union, than isolation; though still it was a refuge from the which was felt to be too close, too powerful, for the fection of virtue. Instead of a calm, meditative, life, we now find in the monasteries the activity of ing and discussion, and from thence went forth new bold speculations, inviting the mind into the most cate and yet practical domains of thought. Powe built up here that seemed to stand between church state; and when the man was needed for reform, tha energies of these centres of power might be made to the church, Benedict came; and around his gathers absorbing historical interest, as we trace hi fluence through his times and see it operating i church of the middle ages.

What is Church History but a continuation of the of that battle to whose first onsets the New Testa introduces us? How we all long to go on with the tory of Paul, so abruptly dropped by the "beloved sician," his companion and friend! But we can fo the history of that truth for which Paul went to Rome, for which he probably there died a martyr. Is it not g to be able to see him reproduced, as John the Ba reproduced Elijah? And what, in all the annals of manity, can be more worthy of our attention than to the greatness of the work which Paul commencedhe broke down all sacerdotal barriers between God the soul-made the grand truth apparent, that whe soul is born to God in Christ, he becomes a king priest-all that is royal and priestly is given to him, treading up the ladder which Christ has placed fo Christian Jacob, he may ask no man's leave, no bisho consecration, no steadying of church, or council, or asse bly.

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Here lies the special argument of appeal to us of the liberal church. An appeal to history is a fortunate thing for our faith. As we travel along in our pilgrimage through the past to the Holy Land of "the truth as it is in Jesus," the lights on the cathedral altars, the beacons from feudal towers, the glare of the torches of this procession of monks and that, the flames of the martyr's pile, the burning of Rome, the awful conflagration of the Temple of Jerusalem, do but light us along to "the simplicity that is in Christ," and which we devoutly receive as that which God "hath made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption."

Church History shows the origin of the Trinity in the philosophy introduced after the age of the Apostles; and we can trace the increase of that dogma as we can trace the progress of any misfortune which comes from pride of learning and thirst for dominion. So with the doctrine of native, total depravity, and its concomitant, vicarious atonement. So also we can trace the introduction of the barbaric notion of endless punishment; and it is not uninstructive to see how these dogmas have been affected, and softened, and defined away, by a growing intelligence and humanity.

How strikingly favorable to the supports of our tolerant faith, is the evidence of history against the utility of creeds, by which it is seen that they are without Scripture warrant, having been unknown to the primitive church; that they were the invention of a barbarous age, with the idea of bringing the infinite into a few intellectual propositions; that they have been the instruments of ambition, a snare for souls, an obstacle to freedom of thought; and, designed at first rather as a declaration of war within the church, than as an expression of the faith of the church itself. They have inevitably put a power between the Bible and the soul; they have usurped the place of the spirit of truth that has been promised to guide into all truth. The creed-maker is an idol-maker ; and without the thing he has made for the poor cripple to lean upon, the cry is like that of old, "They have taken away my gods, and what have I more?" History abounds with evidences that the making of creeds to preserve the unity of the church, has been only like the

Philistines sporting with Samson-the power they tried to confine has destroyed them. They have atte to check the irrepressible, to limit the infinite, to m cage for the lark-like soul to sing in, when God m for the free, boundless air, to hail with its mus morning, in joy for the day.

How evident is the proof that it becomes the 1 church, in this age of revived interest in history, acquainted with the leading events, men, and opinio the past of the church. We shall see by this how structible is the religious sentiment, what forms of p it puts on, and what are its best and noblest mani tions. How it is chained and smothered by the in tions and traditions of men-how its simplicity is hi in monkish disguises and in imperial shows-how made an instrument of ambition, and the red flam war takes the place of the dove as its symbol, wil shown us, to exalt our conception of the completene our freedom from the narrowness transmitted from a barous age. And with what thankfulness should we that in the first three centuries of the church there wa most liberality of opinion, because the most freedor inquiry and allowable latitude of speculation. And significant is the fact that it is to Origen, who was eloquent expounder of universal redemption, that owe the spirit of liberty in the church for his own and subsequent centuries. "The fame of this Father great in the East," says Dr. Lamson, "and the influe of his name and writings secured the existence of freed of thought and speculation in the church, long afte would otherwise have become extinct. With the dec of his school in the East, and the triumph of the Anas sians and Augustinians in the West, all liberty of opin died out, and the world was reduced to a state of spirit bondage, from which it is yet but partially emancipate

Let us be willing and eager to see the arguments history for being interested in helping on the comple ness of this emancipation. Every plant, which our hea enly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up; h while the roots of those plants still continue in the chur drinking life from the soul of man, we must be, more less, affected by the poisonous fruit. A few seeds strov

on the soil of land far from us, may be productive of a growth of weeds which shall travel year by year nearer to us; and only by interest in that which is remote, can we prevent the evil from infecting our home. For any soul to labor in the uprooting of error is to be a fellow-worker with God. To this labor we are called. Happy those who are faithful to it, for thus it may be given them from many a soul to pluck the weeds of error, and to "plant the rose of Sharon' there."

H. B-N.

ART. XIX.

The First of Genesis.

THE book of Genesis seems naturally resolvable into three grand divisions. The first commences with the book, "In the beginning," and ends with the third verse of the second chapter, at the close of the seventh day. The second division begins with the fourth verse of the second chapter, "These are the generations," and embraces the remainder of that chapter and the whole of the third, ending with the expulsion from Eden. The third of these divisions, admitting of several subdivisions, begins with the fourth chapter, and extends thence onward quite through the book.

And

Unlike the modern divisions of the Bible, known as chapters and verses, and which seem for the most part, to have been inserted in an arbitrary manner, often as if by chance, the three divisions just described are obviously natural ones, there being at those points a manifest transition from one branch of the subject to an other. that these divisions were recognized by the writer himself, is apparent from the fact that exactly at these points he makes a manifestly intended change in the divine appellation. Thus, in the first division, the name of the Creator is always "God;" in the second it is mostly "the Lord

God," but sometimes as in the first; in the thir usually "the Lord," but occasionally as in the f second.

I conceive that in general the first division of G has not been fully understood by either the friends enemies of divine revelation. I take the ground th account presented by Moses respecting the creatio fashioning, the furnishing, and the peopling of the ought to be urged in proof, rather than in disproo he was divinely inspired. The Mosaic account has stigmatized as unnatural, unreasonable, unphilosop absurd, inconsistent, and, of course, incredible; deem that it can be conclusively shown that, le account have come from what source it may, it is fectly natural, reasonable, philosophical, consistent itself, in accordance with facts, and, of course, every worthy of belief.

Moses professes to give a description of circumsta and events anterior to the creation of man; and C tians, as well as Jews, believe he received his informa either directly or indirectly from the Creator himself. such, it is an interesting question, by what method of struction such information was imparted. And tho from the nature of the case it may well be suspected we can not now know with certainty what the true ans to this question actually is, I beg leave to suggest this a highly probably theory: that in the first division Genesis, with perhaps two or three exceptions, the verse for example, what he narrates was shown to in a vision, or in a series of visions; and that he descri things and events as they would have appeared to observer on or near the surface of the earth at the seve periods of which he speaks.

My design in this article is principally to sketch some the outlines of an exposition of the first division of Ge sis, as above described. That part therefore of the bo if the reader is not already quite familiar with it, he mig perhaps profitably now peruse, as but a small part of text will be herein given. It may also not be amiss me to acknowledge here, that I am by no means "skill in Hebrew."

(Chap. i. 1.) In the beginning. This expression

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