light of the universe-the fulcrum, the life, and the glory of creation Our idea of God is richly calculated to give living energy to reason, grateful splendour to the imagination, and joyous consolation to the heart. Deprived of this primal and life-sustaining truth, the temple of Nature would become a shapeless, smoking ruin, and man the miserable victim of madness and despair. Now although we hold the Godhead with solemu energy of conviction, how deep are the mysteries connected with his existence. What mind can grasp the conception of a self-existent, underived being. A cause without an antecedent cause. A being who had no infancy or youth, and who will have no age. We can, we must believe this firmly, but we have nothing to measure it by. Mere human reason, limited by the visible, can only take cognizance of a chain of causation, but would never, unaided, reach a first link. The mind would be travelling backward for ever, but divine testimony interposes a boundary wall to the consuming activity of the human mind. Faith in the testimony enables us to contemplate a period when creation with its orders of being was not. When the Almighty in solitary magnificence was the only existence. Concerning this Being who is from eternity to eternity, we can believe and adore, but we cannot reason and explain, for we have in our storehouse no instruments for measurement or analogies for illustration. Again: The creation of the world furnishes another instance. The earthly workman does not create anything in the radical import of the phrase. He has in existence the raw material which he merely fashions into another form. With the Divine workman the case was entirely diverse. As matter was not eternal, God had to call from non-existence the material upon which he would operate. He created the substance, fashioned it into forms of sublimity and beauty, and subjected it to the order and uniformity of law. But human reason could never have discovered this, and cannot

grasp it clearly even when revealed. It is "by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Here, then, in our fundamental conceptions of God and the universe, though we believe in the eternal existence of the one, and in the creation of the other, yet we cannot comprehend or explain underived existence, or creation without material. The mode in the one case, and the process in the other, are entirely hidden from us. We believe and wonder, but dare not presumptuously overleap the sacred enclosure, behind which the Ancient of Days wisely conceals the mysteries of his being, and the secrets of his counsel. Who can ex

Who

plain the manner in which our God is everywhere present ? can harmonise his distinct personality with his omnipresence? Who can explain the process by which a pure etherial spirit, without bodily organs, operates upon matter? Who can reconcile the divine predestination of events, with the entire freedom of the human actions which lead to them? Who can measure for us the nature of the centripetal and centrifugal forces, the opposing powers which maintain the planets in their orbits ? Who can fathom the precise connexion between body and soul, with all their reciprocal influences? Who can explain the method in which vital and chemical action maintain

by antagonism the balance of life? Nay, can we lay bare the germination of a single blade of grass, or the growth of a pebble from the seashore? In things heavenly and earthly, divine and human, high and low, we are encompassed with mystery on every side. We can

lay hold upon facts, and sometimes on the laws which bind them together-but reasons of existence, and modes of being, are impenetrably veiled.

I have made these remarks because disciples in a superficial school insist upon having all divine things naked and comprehensible.

If they would only begin by a solution of some of the mysteries which press upon us in the common field of life, we might then have a measure of confidence, as we behold them scaling heaven for the same purpose. The pre-existence of our divine leader, in equality of rank and glory with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit, is a great mystery. We love it all the better on that account. It affords room for the purified spirit to rise upward as if borne on the wings of the eagle, with songs of reverence and gratitude on the road. It provides an element where the soul can freely inhale celestial life, and be revived by salutary gales of joy and hope, breathing from a continent never discovered or measured by human sagacity. After all,-the moral wonder, the mystery of love, is the most amazing. That one so pure and lofty should stoop to humiliation and infamy, to tears, and sorrows, and death, in order to rescue, redeem, and awaken, the vile, the guilty, the perishing-this is the most marvellous-but the heart apprehends it, and so it finds its way to the understanding. "And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."

Having cleared away some preliminary questions which appeared on the threshold, I now feel at liberty to proceed in a survey of all the aspects in which Prophets and Apostles have presented the subject. It will doubtless be invigorating to us all to travel in such company over such ground. At present,

Sincerely yours,

G. GREENWell,

SECOND ADVENTISTS.

By referring to the August number, 1846, p. 366, of this periodical, our readers will find we made a few remarks in reference to the Second Advent friends: many of whom, we have no doubt, are brethren in the Lord, seeing they have purified their souls by obeying the truth, and walking worthy of their high vocation. They are professedly willing to lay aside all their former traditions, and to learn the religion of Jesus from the Bible alone. To these, as far as known to us, we could give the right hand of fellowship as fellow heirs of the grace of life. But on the other hand there are among them those who not only do not recognise the Lord's "one baptism," but repudiate the idea of its being appointed by him as a pledge, to the believing penitent, for the remission of his sins. This, in their estimation, is an error of the

most delusive and awful kind. Hence clergymen, and members of the Established church in general, as well as all in every community, professedly Christian, who hold the immediate return of the Lord to destroy the world, and set up the everlasting-the immortal kingdom -as they term it, are brethren beloved of the Lord. All these sects and parties are invited to unite together at the Lord's table. This is their bond of union. As for the Christians who cannot see evidence for this position, they are the "scoffers who were to come in these last days, saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they where from the creation of the world." But more particularly to our object.

When we sat down to write it was to apprise our readers, that one of the editors, as we suppose, or it may be, a correspondent, of the European Advent Herald, for the last month, thinks we have charged them as a body, wrongfully, and that we ought to make an apology to our readers for so doing. He says, p. 53, of the Herald,—

"1. Mr. Campbell makes the 70 weeks the key to unlock the meaning, the beginning and the end, of the 2,300 days.

2. He regards the 70 weeks as 490 years, and the 2,300 days as so many years.

"3. He makes the 490 years and the 2,300 to commence together and the 490 to be the first part of the 2,300.

"4. He makes the 490 years to end about A.D. 37.

"5. From hence, he fixes upon 453 B.C., for the going forth of the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem, and the beginning of the 2,300 years.

"6. He affirms that the ultimate cleansing of the sanctuary is, from the birth of Jesus, ABOUT EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN YEARS;' 453 B.C., and 1847 A.D. making

2,300.

"7. He makes the cleansing of the sanctuary to be the 'purgation of the Christian church from the anti-christian abominations.'

"8. He does not state by what means that purgation shall be realized.

"In the first six of the preceding remarks, we agree with Mr. Campbell, and, as was natural, we alleged his views on the chronology as an authority, in defence of our exposition thereof. At the same time, it was stated, that we differed with Mr. C. on the nature and means of cleansing the sanctuary, or, that Mr. C.'s views on that event were so indefinite, that we could not use his authority further than in the use of the chronology.

"But now, Mr. Wallis has published and sent forth in the Messenger, to the gaze of any one, a statement, tending to impeach us with intentional deception and trickery. He ought to have known better. The former part of his remarks are more disreputable to himself than to us. The latter charges us falsely. His words are as follow:

"It is said by some of these zealous Adventists, that A. Campbell, in his debate with Robert Owen, in 1829, contended for the same thing, namely, that

the sanctuary would be cleansed by the coming of the Lord in 1847. Let none of our readers be drawn aside by such specious and inferential conclusions of these Adventists. A. Campbell, in his debate with Robert Owen, teaches no such doctrine as they impute to him. It is true, he refers to the cleansing of the sanctuary about the year 1847, but his meaning of that event is very different from the one they attach to it.'

Will Mr. Wallis give his reason for such a charge, or, in the absence of proper reasons, make an apology, as is justly due, and correct the statement? Should an indiscreet brother have made such a mistake, we would remind Mr. W. that such a mistake should have been attributed alone to that person, and corrected by him; and not indiscriminately applied to 'Messrs. Himes, from Boston,' &c., and all the brethren who are proclaiming the advent."

As our remarks appeared in August last they must refer to what took place prior to that period. Our reason for inserting them arose simply from the fact of it being reported to us by some of the Second Adventists, as well as by some of our brethren, that the public speakers in that community, both in Nottingham and other places, were now introducing Mr. Campbell's name as an authority for the return of the Lord in the year 1847. The writer of the above extracts, whoever he may be, appears to have done so. Our reporters were then correct; and Mr. Campbell, in our friend's estimation, is a correct authority, in six particulars, for the chronology of our Lord's return some time about the period stated.

Mr. Miller's chronology for March, 1843, and for September 10, 1845, having failed to answer any longer, it appears, Mr. Campbell is introduced as an infallible chronologist of all time from the year 453, B.C. to 1847, A.D.

We must say, these friends seem to be very impatient for the final consummation of all things. Patience ought to have its perfect work. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, but is longsuffering; not willing that any should perish. Thousands have cause to rejoice that he did not return either in 1843, or in 1845, and our convictions are, that thousands and myriads more will yet be brought to rejoice in his great salvation, before Jehovah returns to judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained-whereof he hath given assurance by raising him from the dead. But let his will in all things be done, and not ours. Our intention was not to speak evil or to misrepresent, and it appears we have not done so. Mr. Campbell's name, or his chronology, has been introduced for an especial purpose, namely, to prove that the Lord will return to judge the world some time about the year 1847. If they did not intend to prove this, for what purpose was either the name or chronology referred too? If there has been a misunderstanding, the fault is not ours-it remains either with themselves or our informant. And here we must leave both it and them for the present. J. W.

FRAGMENTS OF THOUGHT.

a

CARLYLE." If a bad man had honesty enough to lay bare all his thoughts; if the profligate threw aside his shame; if the moment we ceased to act up to the principles we profess, and lost the spirit from which the forms we use first emanated, and which they were intended to preserve, that moment we threw those forms away, and every pulse and fibre of the human heart were stripped of its disguise-would this be the truth for which Carlyle sighs? Alas! he knows little of human nature, who could dream of living in a world such as would then surround us! God himself has hidden the soul beneath covering of flesh, that we may not behold it naked in the deformity of its imperfect nature, and be shocked by it or tempted to imitate it, or be hardened in our own evil by universality of evil around us. And be assured, all is not hypocrisy in which actions do not correspond with words. How many miserable men are there who believebelieve most deeply, who would and do pray to be made the means of conveying truth and goodness to others- who, in sincerity and honesty of heart, would try at least so far to do the will of God-and who can command their lips and outward members, though as yet they cannot command their hearts--and who are to be pitied, chastised, even condemned; but not condemned as wholly liars, like those whose hypocrisy is selfish. If no men could speak of truth or honour, virtue or holiness, externally, but those who are holy within, where should we find human beings to stand on every hill, in every church, day and night, through the world, throwing up the beacon light of truth, and passing it on from generation to generation ?

"Let us distinguish between the messenger and the message, and guard and keep the message, even where the messenger is unworthy to transmit it."-London Quarterly Review.

The following sentiments are gleaned from the letters of the late Hon. John Randolph, to his nephew :

THE GENTLEMAN.-The character of the real gentleman is the most respectable among men. It consists not in plate, and equipage, and rich living, any more than in the disease which that mode of life engenders; but in truth, courtesy, bravery, generosity, and learning; which last, although not essential to it, yet does very much to adorn and illustrate the character of the true gentleman.

TRUTH.-Lay down this as a principle, that truth is to the other virtues what vital air is to the human system. They cannot exist at all without it; and as the body may live under many diseases, if supplied with pure air for its consumption, so may the character survive many defects where there is a rigid attachment to truth. All equivocation is falsehood, which consists not in using false words only, but in conveying false impressions, no matter how.

LABOUR.-Remember that labour is necessary to excellence. This is an eternal truth, although vanity cannot be brought to believe, or indolence to heed it.

VANITY AND INDIFFERENCE.-Self-conceit and indifference are