no obstacle, in thought, word, or deed, to the advancement and prosperity of that system of organization which they respectively, in relation to each other, judge to be human and not divine. Of course, I presume not to answer such questions as these. Every one must answer for himself.

But with regard to other matters still nearer to every man's personal and family duties, no doubt other questions will be asked, more difficult of solution than that which we have now propounded. For example, that between the Baptist and the Pedobaptist. How can they, for the sake of the strength, and honour, and glory of pure protestantism, agree to be silent and unobtrusive on the great matters of personal belief, repentance, and baptism, in order to admission into the church of Christ! These are matters, of course, of which we have no right to speak for any of them. They must speak for themselves. But in contemplating for ourselves, and in representing to our contemporaries the nature of the Evangelical Alliance, these difficulties naturally obtrude themselves upon our attention, and, may indeed, embarrass many others. It would be well, then, that the subject could be fully developed to the entire satisfaction, if not to all, to very many who would desire to co-operate in such a splendid looking enterprize. At present, our duty is, to develop merely the nature of the Alliance, and the objects which it proposes. In some of its acts and proceedings, it would appear as though it desired no farther intimacy than that of mere alliance, in support of protestantism against the infractions and advances of Romanism.Perhaps, however, in the construction of the basis of the Alliance, we may be farther introduced into the nature of it. We shall, the refore, in our next, take a general view of its basis.

A. C.

APOLOGIES FROM PREACHERS.

SMALL matters often are a better index to the character than those of more importance. A preacher or a congregation may frequently be better judged of by what many would consider facts too trivial to be noticed, than by the grave and more studied public actions, which every body is expected to observe. Indeed, a sagacious judge of human nature will often form his opinion, and, for the most part, correctly, of a man, upon those first little developments which show out on introduction. How important is this truth to preachers; and if Paul strove to become all things to all men, for the noble and benevolent purpose of recommending the gospel to his fellow-creatures, how worthy their imitation, is a like spirit. Perfection is not a natural gift. Humanum est errare. We are compelled to go on towards this moral height, and with much labor, and self-denial, and examination, to toil our way upward. We must drop in the arduous ascent, many a loved and cherished clog, as weights that have been found to hinder; and, induing ourselves with more spiritual vestments, run by the rules divinely prescribed.

Vanity is a failing often of great minds, and is by no means rare

in preachers. It shows itself in a thousand forms, but in none more frequently than in the affectation of modesty. You shall seldom see a smart, pert young divine, that feels himself qualified to startle his hearers with the brilliancy of his fancy, or pierce through his opponents with the javelins of his logic, but he will begin with an apology and confess his inadequacy to the task. Indeed, his diffidence almost compels him to take his seat and put a seal of silence upon his lips; but the interest he feels in his hearers and the importance of the themes with which he is charged, encourage him to proceed. It is not necessary frequently to wait even till the apology is delivered, to discover that it is utterly wanting in sincerity, and that vanity is seeking, like the wolf in the fable, to clothe herself in the garb of modesty, and impose thus upon the unsuspecting and credulous. The profession of an utter want of preparation is generally the exordium to the most carefully and elaborately prepared discourse; and a sudden call or unexpected topic, the apology for long meditated, well arranged, and often preached sermons.

Now we have three objections to this very common habit; and as we have often thought upon it with interest and regret, we are candid enough to confess ourselves prepared to set them forth with a length of argument and variety of illustration far too great for our present limits. Still we can enumerate and state them. In the first place, then-Such apologies generally weaken the force of what is said. In every discourse much depends upon the confidence the audience may have in the correctness and accuracy of the speaker's statement; and as a confession of incompetency and the want of preparation, if believed by the hearers, must tend to destroy this confidence, so much of the general effect is of course lost. Our judgments, expressed after mature deliberation and a careful comparison and arrangement of arguments and facts, are of much more weight with a people than the off-hand suggestions of the moment; and it is far better to pay both our subject and the audience the compliment of a careful previous investigation than to trust to impromtu suggestions.

In the second place, they are unworthy of the office and occasion. A preacher is not called to originate a gospel, or strike out from his own brain a plan of salvation; but his business is to declare what God has revealed, and to act in the subordinate capacity of a minister under instructions. He is presumed to speak at all times in the fear and hearing of God, and with an eye single to his glory; and apologies, because of the presence of particular persons, or from a desire to anticipate public opinion concerning ourselves, always indicate not only a want of the solemn motives which should be supreme, but even worse, the presence of so much vanity and vain-glory, as to excite either the smile of ridicule or the frown of disgust. How often have we hung our heads for very shame, to hear a minister of the gospel, whose fear should be only of God, thus betraying it alone before men; and whose single aim, only the honour of his Master and the good of his hearers, thus catering to his own frisky ambition and spreading

his sails but to catch some passing and idle breath of a thoughtless adulation. "Verily, he has his reward."

In the third place, they are generally insincere; and in such cases, highly immoral. We are as apt to adopt the rhetorical fashions of the day as any others, and thus it seems even preachers will sometimes stretch the truth to fit the skeleton model of an exordium which custom may have carved out as the ton. Still it is wrong. The minister should draw both his fashions and his morals from the precepts and examples of the scriptures, and feel his mission and his theme equally above the support of the little arts of the rhetorician. Falsehood is always the worse policy in the end, and the pleader of insincere apologies is sure to convince his hearers, before he has set down, that his modesty has been as well, or even better studied, than his subject; and the nutshell selfishness that can thus push out its little horns and feel for food whereon to fatten its vanity, when professedly acting as the missionary of the self-sacrificing and lowly Redeemer, is so contemptible and small, as to destroy all the moral weight that character gives to argument. But we have only room to state our objections. We cannot enforce them further than to urge, in all sincerity, upon our preachers, the utility of abandoning the fashion and adopting a more commendable, worthy, and sincere style in their public discourses. The matter seems trivial, yet it has more influence upon the minds, especially of the better informed and more judicious portion of the community, than might at first sight be imagined-for it is a law of mind to yield only to that which it approves and admires; and when the beauty of the gospel is associated with the vanity of the preacher, even its comeliness may seem so ugly and its loveliness so unlovely as to repel rather than to attract the heart of the impenitent. TIMOTHY WEST.

Queries and Replies.

QUERY.-What is necessary to constitute a true baptism into Christ? This query has been suggested to my mind on beholding the strife and confusion which now exists in the world respecting the subject, action, and design of Christian baptism. Most parties seem to agree that baptism by the application of water, in some form or other, is appointed by God, and therefore ought with promptitude to be obeyed. An answer will oblige, INQUIRER.

ANSWER. A partial one.]-So long as any inquirer after truth keeps his mind fixed on the opinions of uninspired men, be they ever so great and good, so long will he be perplexed to discriminate between truth and error, on this or any other religious subject. Let it be a first and a fixed principle, that all divine ideas given for our religious belief and practice, are to be found in the Bible and nowhere else. Infallibility is not an inherent principle in man; nor are there any inspired men now in the world. The Bible stands to us in the place of Prophets and Apostles. All that was given to the world

through them, and confirmed by the marvellous evidence which they presented, first, for the conversion of sinners, and second, for the practice of saints,-is obligatory on us. Therefore whatever was

deemed by the Apostles as pre-requisite for Christian baptism, in any of those who confessed that Jesus was the Christ, is equally necessary in the present day. You will bear in mind that we are not now to speak of the action or the design of baptism, nor indeed of the subject, only so far as is needful for illustration. One single testimony of the Spirit of God, will be sufficient to point out the subject. "But when they BELIEVED the things spoken concerning the kingdom of God, and the name (authority, or divinity,) of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women." It was with the heart they believed unto justification, and with the mouth confession was made unto salvation. All were voluntary in their confession and obedience, and responsible only to the Lord to whom they professed to be converted. It was not only possible, but quite probable, that many, even in the apostolic age, would be self-deceived on this important matter. Nay, it is quite certain that all who heard the preaching of the Apostles and evangelists, and who were baptized into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, had not all the pre-requisites for being engrafted into Christ. We will take an example. The heart of Simon Magus, though an immersed believer, was not right in the sight of God. He was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. The fact is, he brought both too much and too little to the bath of regeneration. He brought too much of his own-that which he evidently desired to retain after he was baptized, but which in its own nature was earthly, sensual, and devilish-altogether incompatible with the laws, institutions, and spirit of the kingdom of Jesus. If any man," said Jesus, "will come under my guidance, let him renounce himself," &c. But we said he brought too little to the bath of regeneration :-too little of that which is heavenly and divine in its origin. So that like many others he mistook his own character and motives. All the pre-requisites for a true baptism were not in him, consequently he soon developed his real condition before God. But be it remembered, the Apostles were not responsible for this. They declared the whole plan of salvation, and could say in the presence of their Lord and King, "We are pure from the blood of all men." How important then is the question you have propounded. To be deceived by others is bad; but to be self-deceived, while in the possession of the true gospel, is awful. Hence the importance of turning our attention exclusively to the Bible, from which pure scource we are warranted in saying, no sincere, conscientious, obedient person, either can or will be deceived. But more in our next-ED.

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QUERY.-Was baptism preached to the Gentiles for the remission of sins?

ANSWER. Baptism was preached to the Jews for the remission of sins, and Peter says, "God put no difference between Jews and Gentiles." From which I would infer that this act was for remission even to the Gentiles.

QUERY.-What is the difference between remission of sins and conversion?

ANSWER.-Peter said to the Jews, Acts iii. 19, "Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." From which I should draw the conclusion, that conversion was a condition of remission.

QUERY.-Ought the members of a congregation of disciples of Christ, who are poor and in affliction, to receive parochial relief: and ought those members who are not so poor, to sell what little they have to relieve the necessities of their brethren?

ANSWER. The poor as well as the rich pay, directly or indirectly, for the maintenance of the poor; and, therefore, should any of them, whether disciples or not, through affliction or otherwise, be reduced to the last stages of poverty, we have never thought it to be degrading for them to receive from others that which they have been compelled by law to pay. An additional assistance from brethren may always be added to the small pittance rendered by parochial authority. As to the brethren all making themselves equal in the world, the idea is both absurd and wicked.-ED.

QUERY. "It is said 'that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead.' Did not Elijah the Tishbite, raise the son of the Shunamite? And did not Jesus himself raise Lazarus and the widow's son at Nain, before his own resurrection? How can it be said, then, that Christ should be the first that should rise from the dead?"

ANSWER. The difficulties of reconciling these scriptures are by no means augmented, by the fact, that 'the son of the Shunamite,' 'Lazarus,' and 'the widow's son at Nain,' were, to all intents and purposes, dead. To indulge any other presumption would be to impugn the sincerity aud veracity of the Holy Spirit. Nor would it be less than trifling with the Sacred Oracles to say, that this declaration of Paul, being made after the miracles spoken of in the query refer to a point of time subsequent to the last of them, from which point of time, Christ was the first that arose from the dead. For the text most clearly teaches, that Christ was to open up a new way through the grave, and to be the first one, in all time, past and future, to tread therein. The difficulty in the case, in my judgment, arises from an imperfect apprehension of the scriptural doctrine of the resurrection. It must not be supposed by this, that we are to understand, a mere resuscitation of our present life-a renewal of the deadened functions of the body. In the cases put, this resuscitation was all that was effected: which is not the resurrection. In a sense, it is truly a resurrection. But not the resurrection spoken of by Paul, in the text alluded to in the question, also in 1 Cor. 15: 35, and to the end of the chapter. In which two cases, the same resurrection was spoken of. How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" We learn, that we shall not arise with the same body, any more than a stalk of wheat is the same body, as the grain from which it sprang. That there is a natural body, and

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