out all Edom put he garrisons; all they of Edom became David's servants," 2 Sam. viii. 13, 14. These events occurred seven hundred and eighteen years after the births of Jacob and Esau, and six hundred and forty-seven years after the death of the younger of the two. At this time David was king of Israel, and while pursuing his conquests over the enemies of his people, he subdued the Edomites, put garrisons throughout all their strongholds, and reduced them to a state of servitude. Thus, Esau, in the nation of the Edomites, served Jacob, in the nation of the Israelites, in accordance with the prophetic purpose, made known to Rebecca, Gen. xxv. 23. and is so understood and referred to by Paul, Rom. ix. 11, 12. Thus the purpose of God has in the most exact and minute manner been accomplished, as it was said to Rebecca. The elder (nation) shall serve the younger (nation.) And this still further happened, not only as it was said, but as it was written. "Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated." Observe the distinction which Paul makes between what was said and what was written. God did not say to Rebecca, "Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated." For they were not yet born; besides it would have been unkind, and wholly unlike the Father of Mercies, to have either felt thus or spoken thus, on such an occasion. God always acts and speaks like himself; and he always has a reason for what he does and for what he says. He said to Rebecca, "The elder shall serve the younger." This was prophetic, and we have seen its fulfilment. But where do we find 66 in the Old Scriptures, the words quoted by Paul? They were written, not spoken. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the Lord; yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord, yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountain and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.” Mal i, 1—3. Thus the purpose of God, in relation to the fleshly descendants of Jacob, or Israel has been accomplished, as it was said; and the loving of Jacob and hating of Esau has taken effect, as it was written. The purpose took place, as it was said, and that which was said has taken place as it was written. And so have we seen, that one thousand four hundred and sixty-three years after the births of Jacob and Esau, this loving and hating became a matter of record. God loved Jacob or Israel, conferred upon them national privileges, redeemed them out of the house of bondage, divided the Red Sea for them, fed, and led them through the wilderness, subdued their enemies before them, gave them the land promised to their fathers, and constituted them his covenant people: but he hated, slighted, Esau, in all these respects, and for the wickedness and oppressions of the Edomites, he laid their mountains and heritage waste for the dragons, or hyenas, of the wilderness. The loving and hating did not refer to Jacob and Esau in person, but to their descendants, Israel and Edom. The reasons for God's hatred of the Edomites may be seen in their cruelty towards Israel-their implacable hatred and continued hostilities. 66 'And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travel that hath befallen us; How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians vexed us and our fathers; and when we cried unto the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt; and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border; Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields, nor through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells; we will go by the king's highway, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders: and Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword: and the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the highway; and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it; I will only (without doing anything else) go through on my feet; And he said, thou shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a strong hand." Numbers xx. 14-20. 66 Thus saith the Lord God, because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them; Therefore, thus the Lord God, I will also stretch forth mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword; And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel; and they shall do in Edom according to mine anger, and according to my fury; they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord God." Ezek. xxv. 12-14. Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Edom, and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof: because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually; and he kept his wrath for ever." Amos i. 11. "Shall I not in that day, saith the Lord, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau ? And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter; For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever." Ob. i. 8, 10. It will thus, from all these testimonies appear, that the purpose of God, his loving and hating, his determination before the children were born, or before they had done good or evil, had no reference whatever to the personal, present or eternal salvation of Jacob and Esau. The loving of Jacob neither made his condition better, or his hating of Esau, worse, so far as their persons were concerned. And that the loving of Israel as a nation, which is the true meaning of what was written, did not effect or insure their present or eternal salvation: nor the hating of Esau or the Edomites, did not preclude them from these privileges. The elect Israel has become reprobate, they have been cast away in consequence of their rejection of the Messiah. of unbelief. The olive branches have been broken off in consequence The condition of the Edomites is no worse than that of the Israelites, so far as their eternal salvation is concerned: they will stand as good an opportunity of salvation as that of their younger brother. And inasmuch as where much is given much is required, as Tyre and Sidon will fare better than Chorazin and Bethsaida, and Sodom better than Capernaum, Edom will have more lenity extended towards them than Israel, to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, whose are the Fathers, and from whom the Messiah descended, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. In conclusion then, we would add, in the language of Peter, "That God is no respector of persons, but in every nation, he that fears Him and works righteousness, is accepted with Him." J. CHALLEN. EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.-No. I. No one, I presume, rejoices more in the discussion of the great subject of “Christian Union," than does the writer of this essay. He, therefore, congratulates the age on the organization of the Evangelical Alliance. Not that he promises himself or the age so much from the action of the institution, from its projected operations and efforts, as from the mere origination of such an enterprize and the public mooting of the question. The scheme is full as rational and as well matured as could possibly, with any just regard to the attainments of the age, have been anticipated, and the meeting was conducted with as much piety and decorum as any ecclesiastical meeting for the last fifteen hundred years. But it was only an incipient meeting—a mere attempt to form such a system of ecclesiastic intercommunication as might introduce a more rational and scriptural scheme of Christian co-operation and communion. The Bible Society and the Evangelical Alliance are great initiatory institutions. The last is, indeed, an offspring of the former. Together, however, they will work very great changes in all religious institutions in the present Christendom. The human mind never has taken two steps at once; and, indeed, always in advancing takes but one short step at a time. The British and Foreign Bible Society was a great and grand idea. The Evangelical Alliance is a greater and a still more sublime idea; but there is yet wanting the superlative degree-THE PROPER BASIS OF CHRIST'S OWN CHURCH. The central idea of the Christian religion is the centralizing idea of Christian union and co-operation. Christ's church is not builded upon seven pillars, and Christian union, communion and cooperation cannot be founded upon any number of mental abstractions. All central ideas, like mundane centres, are both attractive and radiating. The centres of all the systems in the physical universe are suns. suns. The centres of all moral and spiritual systems are also They attract and they radiate all their dependencies. The universe is but one great idea: God is the centre of it. The church is but one great idea: Christ is the centre of it. But as the material universe is a system of systems, the spiritual universe is also a system of systems. The human and the angelic orders are the only two systems at all known to us. They both radiate light, but they are both radiated upon from a centre that is itself the Light of Lights and the Light of Life. This is 66 "Nature's eternal and immortal Sun, Whose all-prolific beams have called us forth From teeming darkness High to bear our heads, and drink the spirit The centre of the spiritual universe and the foundation of the Christian church are one and the same. "Other foundation." said Paul, can no man lay than that which is laid "-viz. Jesus Christ himself. He is the chief corner stone of the Christian temple. But Jesus Christ must be contemplated in his person, in his office, and in his character. For it was upon a declaration of faith in his divine person and in his divine mission that Jesus said he would build his church. Peter first made that confession, and it was to him first that Jesus Christ said, he would build his church upon it. The Evangelical Alliance, in the conception of these great truths, is in no respect advanced beyond the doctrinal scheme of union set forth by Thomas Campbell in 1809, while yet a Pedobaptist, and in connexion with Pedobaptists. The views set forth in his "Declaration and Address" are quite as philosophical, as evangelical, and full as practicable as those set forth in the basis assumed by the Evangelical Alliance. Neither his basis nor theirs is, indeed, to be despised. They are indications of a spirit at work in the conscience and in the affections of Christian men which will never rest till all impediments to one general union and communion in Christ's family shall have been removed out of the way-till all the obstructions of metaphysical theology shall have been interred in the sepulchre of Arius and Alexander, of Pelagius and Athanasius, of Calvin and Arminius. We must not, indeed, and we do not, despise the day of small things. We thank God for the Evangelical Alliance, and we take courage from it. We have therefore published the best abstract we have seen of its proceedings. We have given it to our readers, and we shall now give them a few remarks upon it. We shall, then, offer a few remarks upon the nature of the Alliance, and the basis for membership which it proposes. And first, as to the nature of the Alliance. It is not that of a new ecclesiastic community, or a new church. It is not an amalgamation of a plurality of parties or denominations in one party as respects their tenets, their interests, or their efforts. It is simply an organization of members of different Protestant communities for Q a certain definite object. They agree to plead the cause of visible and real union of Christians, and to devise ways and means of accomplishing that great desideratum. The members of the Alliance, whether contemplated as churches, sects, or individuals, are still to retain all their former peculiarities of doctrine, discipline, and government. They are still to retain their former position and relations to party organizations; but in all matters of common interest they are to co-operate. In every thing purely Protestant they are to act in concert; but in matters not purely Protestant or Christian they may severally maintain their own peculiar views and tenets. Hence a Presbyterian member of the Alliance still continues to all intents and purposes a Presbyterian. He pledges himself to the Evangelical Alliance to plead the union and co-operation of all Protestants deemed evangelical according to a certain basis, so far as not to endanger the advancement of the special and peculiar interests of the Presbyterian church in any way whatever. So of all other denominational members of the Alliance. The Protestant communities, in this affair, seem to contemplate themselves as so many parties composing one great Protestant nation. Each family as its own peculiar interests, as well as a common national interest. When these interests may, however, at any time happen to militate against each other, they are to maintain their own peculiar family interests at the expense of the national interests. They agree to build up the national interests only so far as they may promote their family interests, and no farther. So I understand the nature and extent of the Alliance. It is, therefore, properly an alliance of certain Protestant parties or persons, and not a union. There are two great interests to be secured-the Protestant interests, and their respective party interests. Now in schemes of worldly prudence and political organization or confederation, such alliance may not only be quite expedient, but often highly beneficial to all concerned in it. But this will not prove that a similar prudential arrangement is accordant to the genius of the gospel and the Christian religion. In Christianity there are paramount ideas and objects which cannot give place to any organization which has in it any of the leaven of mere human authority and human expediency. What Christian communion, it will be asked, is there between Congregationalism and Diocesan Episcopacy? Those, indeed, who belong to these different institutions may have a common faith in the person and mission of the Messiah, in the meaning of his death and resurrection; they may also have a common faith in the person and mission of the Holy Spirit, and in the nature and necessity of his influence in conversion and sanctification; also, in all other matters purely evangelical, but differ entirely in the Christian organization of the family of God. Now the question is, Can they cordially co-operate in all that is common, and conscientiously abstain from any effort to enlighten one another in the points in which they differ through fear of offence? Or must they agree to keep silence on all points of difference, and not only keep silence, but agree to throw |