since the fall a mediating party has gone between God and man. Whether it was the angel of the covenant, or one or more of the angelic hosts, those ministers of his who do his pleasure, or patriarchs, prophet, priest, or prince, in every case a mediator there has been. Thus therefore the testimony of John-'The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him.' Like to Moses thus is he. They are the two greatest mediators in the universe. But the ministry of the Messiah is better than that of Moses, to the precise extent that he is the mediator of a better institution; one established upon better promises-one that shall never be abolished-one whose laws are deposited in the mind and written in the heart-one whose every covenantee has Jehovah for a God and Father, who all do know him thns from the least to the greatest-one in which God is merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities are remembered no more. While all in the covenant are thus blessed, it is written respecting man at large-' God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.'

5. His Sacred Oracles. Concerning the Messiah's deliverances an apostle has argued-If the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Say, unthinking, undecided, unbelieving, unsubmissive reader, how you shall escape in your neglect? Remember the words of this Jesus are oracular; they are the oracles of God. As such, they are sacred as the speaker; they are the words of life and death. Like their author they are unalterable; the decree has gone forth, 'He that believeth and is immersed shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned.' God has spoken from the excellent glory, saying, 'Hear ye him.' By Moses he said, 'Whosoever will not hearken, I will require it of him;' and by Peter he declared, That every soul who will not hear, obey, shall be destroyed from among the people.' ED.

WHAT IS 'EFFECTUAL CALLING?'

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ALTHOUGH the phrase Effectual Calling' is familiar to almost every one who has any acquaintance with the theological phraseology of the times; yet, as it is an expression that is not to be found in the Word of God, but few comprehend its meaning, and to many it forms a matter of considerable anxiety and difficulty. Without at present farther objecting to the phrase, we shall state the only sense in which it can express any Scriptural idea. In reference to the all-important theme of salvation, the words calling, call, and called, express in the sacred Scriptures but three ideas; first, that of inviting, praying, or beseeching; secondly, that of naming; and, thirdly, that of vocation or profession. Thus we read, first, of God calling, praying, inviting, or beseeching men by the Gospel-2 Cor. v. 20, 2 Thess. ii. 14; secondly, of those who accepted the call or invitation thus made, being called or named by a new and peculiar set of epithets, as, for example, the Children of God,' Rom. ix. 26; and, thirdly, of these persons being exhorted to make their calling or vocation sure, by diligently growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Pet. i. 3-9. Now, if the phrase 'Effectual Calling' be applied to the first of these three cases-to God's call to men by the gospelit must just mean that the call has been responded to on the part of the sinner, that he has believed the gospel and complied with its terms; for what is an effectual call but a call responded to? Every one, therefore, who believes the gospel, and complies with its requirements, is effectually called. But if it be said that the phrase refers to the second sense-that of designating the believer with the name 'Child of God,' &c.-then, if it has any meaning at all, it must simply imply that the name is properly bestowed, that the person to whom it is given has a Scriptural right to the name. It cannot mean that the sinner becomes a child of God merely by his being called such, arbitrarily, or without first becoming possessed of the proper Scriptural qualifications; for God will never misname a man; he will never call a man what he is not; he will never name a sinner his child while a child of Satan, nor till he becomes a child of God' 'by faith in Christ Jesus'-John i. 12, Gal. iii. 26. If, again, it is said that the expression refers to the vocation or profession of the believer, then it can only mean that his profession is real, not feigned; that it is honest, not pretended; that it is actual and heartfelt, not merely formal; and, consequently, that it manifests those fruits which are the native results of faith in the gospel of the grace of God. It cannot mean that the believer is brought into a certain state, from which he can never fall; for the very passage of sacred Scripture which treats most fully of the Christian state on earth is a passage of exhortation and warning, in which the believer is informed, in accordance with the whole tenor of the word of God and the experience of all, that his guarantee for never falling is his doing according to the prescription of the Apostle.

THE LAW OF RELIGIOUS JOY.

ED.

THE happiness which religion confers in the present life comprehends the blessings which it scatters by the way on its march to

immortality. That future condition of being which it ascertains, and for which its promises and truths are meant to prepare us, is the ultimate end of human society, the final scope and object of present existence, in comparison of which all the revolutions of nations and all the vicissitudes of time are light and transitory. Godliness has, it is true, the promise of the life that now is, but chiefly of that which is to come; other acquisitions may be requisite to make men great, but be assured the religion of Jesus is alone sufficient to make them good and happy. Powerful sources of consolation in sorrow, unshaken fortitude amid the changes and perturbations of the world, humility remote from meanness, and dignity unstained by pride, contentment in every station, passions pure and calm with habitual service, the full enjoyment of life undisturbed by the dread of dissolution, or the fear of an hereafter, are its invaluable gifts. To these enjoyments, however, you will necessarily continue strangers unless you resign yourselves wholly to its power; for the consolations of religion are reserved to reward, to sweeten, and to stimulate obedience. Many, without. renouncing the profession of Christ, without formally rejecting its distinguishing doctrines, live in such an habitual violation of its laws, and contradiction to its spirit, that, conscious they have more to fear than to hope from its truth, they are never able to contemplate it without terror. It haunts their imagination instead of tranquillizing their hearts, and hangs with depressing weight on all their enjoyments and pursuits. Their religion, instead of comforting them under their troubles, is itself their greatest trouble, from which they seek refuge in the dissipation and vanity of the world, until the throbs and tumults of conscience force them back upon religion. Thus suspended between opposite powers, the sport of contradictory influences, they are disqualified for the happiness of both worlds, and neither enjoy the pleasures of sin nor the peace of piety. They forget that it is the very essence of the religious principle to preside and control, and that it is impossible to serve God and mammon. R. HALL.

Literature.

BIBLICAL EXPOSITION-BENGEL'S GNOMON.

THE Bible is the back-bone of thorough religious reformation. The greatest reformers of the church have ever been the greatest promoters of scripture knowledge. He who scans the records of the Reformation of the sixteenth century is struck with the fact, that the denouncing of corruptions, and the dethroning of tyrants, went on simultaneously with the translation, printing, and circulation of the BIBLE. The pure word of God is the banner of human freedom. It is an encouraging analogy that the plea raised in this nineteenth century for a second Reformation, is accompanied and sustained by determined efforts to revise imperfect versions of the sacred oracles, and bring all versions-the English especially-into as perfect an accordance with the divine originals, as the advanced state of biblical learning renders practicable.

We are actimg, therefore, in the most perfect unison with the higher aspirations and aims of our age, and seeking the truest

conservation of divine truth, when we at this point take up the plea for the restoration of original Christianity, and most importunately urge that we do not content ourselves with merely having the pure word of God; but that we put forth strong, united, unprejudiced efforts to understand that word. Each individual devoted to the great work of Restoration is a debtor to his co-operants and to all, to use every means in his power for the purpose of promoting a thorough love of Bible studies-of clearing up and settling the true principles of scripture interpretation-and of bringing the faith of all believers into such complete subordination to the unbiased meaning of the divine writings, that they shall thus come to be of 'one mind and one judgment,' and 'glorify God with one mind and one mouth.'

Nothing has more tended to foster divisions and perpetuate sects, than the shameful licence taken by partizans to put the inviolable scripture of God upon what has aptly been termed the interpreter's rack.' Happily, the day has come when 'helps' of the highest order to the mastery of Bible-teaching, are being rapidly multiplied. Messrs T. & T. Clark, of Edinburgh, alone, are flooding the land with expository works of the most valuable description. In translating and publishing Stier's Words of the Lord Jesus,' so far as they have gone with this soul-inspiring work, they have conferred an incalcul able benefit on Bible students. Who, that has accompanied the devout and quick-sighted Stier in his explorations of the sacred text but has again and again been smitten with an altogether new admiration at the wondrous beauties, and divine corruscations that everywhere adorn and illuminate the words taught by the Holy Spirit? And now we have Bengel's Gnomon put into our hands-a work that completely turned the renowned Wesley from his intention. in writing his Notes on the New Testament, of barely setting down what occurred to his own mind,' without reference to the opinions of others; a work of which Archdeacon Hare wrote, it 'condenses more matter into a line, than can be extracted from pages of other writers; a work which combines in an astonishing degree critical acumen and devout reflection; and which one moment brings out the force of a Greek particle as the lustre of a hitherto concealed gem, and the next, comprises the essence of a train of reasoning or the purport of an apostolic idiom in one simple, bold stroke of rhetoric, reminding one of the word-pictures of a Demosthenes.

But our present object is not the daring one of reviewing Bengel We have simply in view that, after all, he is far too critical and con cise for the masses, much more so than Stier, for instance; and tha many an humble disciple of Jesus would find himself unable to pur chase the work for himself, who nevertheless could appreciate many of Bengel's sagacious criticisms. We therefore will venture the humbler task of culling an occasional passage for the readers of the Advocate, selecting at present from the Author's Preface,' where ar found, embedded amid much of a more learned kind, some remark ably wise and beautiful thoughts on the Holy Scriptures. Take th following:

เ

SCRIPTURE AND THE CHURCH. Scripture is the foundation of the Church; the Church is the guardian of Scripture. When the Churc is in strong health, the light of Scripture shines bright; when th Church is sick, Scripture is corroded by neglect; and thus it happens that the countenance of Scripture and that of the Church are won

to exhibit simultaneously the appearance either of health, or else of sickness; so that it comes to pass, that the treatment of Scripture corresponds, from time to time, with the condition of the Church. That treatment has had various ages, from the earliest times, down to the present day. The first may be called Native, or natural; the second, Moral; the third, Dry; the fourth, Revived; the fifth, PolemDogmatic, Topical; the sixth, Critical, Polyglott, Antiquarian, Homiletic. That mode, therefore, of examining, expounding, elucidating, and illustrating Scripture, which is offered by Scripture itself, has not yet prevailed to any great extent in the Church. Our ankly-abundant discrepancies of opinion, our dulness of sight in interpreting prophecy, prove this beyond all question. We are called upon, then, to advance further, till we arrive at such a proficiency in the study and treatment of Scripture, as is worthy of men and of ing, and corresponds with sufficient closeness to the perfection of Scripture itself. Men must, however, be prepared for this, by passag previously through the ordeal of difficulties [note], whatever to the contrary those literati' may think, who, relying on their own powers one, suppose that nothing is effected towards the understanding of Scripwre by trials and by prayer, but all by mere meditation. IT IS TROUBLES THAT GIVE UNDERSTANDING, pp. 7, 8.

STYLE OF SCRIPTURE. The wisdom of God employs a style unsoubtedly worthy of God, even when, by means of his instruments, be accommodates himself to the grossness of our perceptions. It is sot, however, our part arrogantly to define, but humbly to believe what is worthy of God, 1 Cor. ii. 1; and xix. 21. The holy men of God, both in the Old and New Testaments, exhibit not only an exact owledge of the truth, but also a systematic arrangement of their suba precise expression of their meaning, and a genuine strength of feel7. Beyond these three requisites nothing need be desired. The salt of these three qualifications was, that the writers of the New estament, however unlearned, wrote always in a style becoming their subject, and, raised far above the technical rules of Greek hetoricians, produced an eloquence truly natural, and devoid of all stady after mere effect, pp. 41, 42. It is the especial office of every sterpretation to exhibit adequately the force and significance of the words which the text contains, so as to express everything which he author intended, and to introduce nothing which he did not intend express. The two chief excellences of a good style are depth and ase (facilitas). They are seldom combined in the case of human athors; and as each man writes himself, so do others seem to him write also. He who himself weighs every word, is in danger when studying the work of another) of fancying here and there that e discovers a meaning which the author did not design; he who rites with less precision himself, interprets the words of others too Taguely. In the divine Scriptures, however, the greatest depth is ombined with the greatest ease (facilitas); we should take care, erefore, in interpreting them, not to force their meaning to our wn standard, nor because the sacred writers are devoid of anxious olicitude, to treat their words as if employed without due consideraa. The divine language far, very far, surpasses all human elepancies of courtly style.

God, not as man, but as God, utters words worthy of himself. Jeep and lofty are his thoughts; his words which flow from them