in a new form, with the demigods and images of ancient heathenism. In it we find revived a great part of the abolished system of ancient Judaism. She has her priests, and her high priests, and her sacrifices, and her incense, and her holy places, and her jubilees, and her sanctuaries corresponding to the cities of refuge, and many other parts of those beggarly elements, which were abolished on that day when the veil of the temple was rent in twain. In the worship of the saints, we have the vital principle of Arianism-which is this, that worship may be rendered to one who is called a creature. In making the Church the judge of Scripture, we have the essential principle of Socinianism. The Socinian will not believe what Scripture says, until it is attested by his own reason; so nothing is believed by Romanists until it is stamped by the reason of the Church. The self-righteousness of Arminianism is the very life-blood of the system, as received by the people. By auricular confession, and priestly absolution, Antinomianism is carried to the extreme. In the opposition of that system to the Bible, as it came from God, we have the spirit of infidelity. Considered as a whole, it is one of the most tremendous monuments of rebellion and defiance against God that has ever existed in the earth, and probably in the universe. The whole tendency of it is, to turn men away from God, and to lead them to regard the priesthood as occupying his place, and clothed with his attributes.-White of Haddington.

DIFFERENT PREACHERS.

THOSE that are all in exhortation, no whit in doctrine, are like to them that snuff the candle, but pour not in oil. Again, those that are all in doctrine, nothing in exhortation, drown the wick in oil, but light it not; making it fit for use, if it had fire put to it, but as it is, rather capable of good, than profitable for the present. Doctrine without exhortation makes men all brain, no heart; exhortation without doctrine makes the heart full, leaves the brain empty. . Both together make a man. One makes a wise man, the other good; one serves that we may know our duty, the other that we may perform it. I will labour in both, but I know not in whether more. Men cannot practise unless they know; and they know in vain if they practise not.-Bishop Hall.

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELICS.

THE Romanists at Hamburg have in their Cathedral quite a select variety of precious relics. The Rev. Dr. Kurtz, the editor of the Lutheran Observer, writes from that city, giving the following specimens:-

"Some of the relics brought by Henry the Lion, from Palestine, which cost him vast sums, are preserved in an ante-chamber leading into the royal vault; one of these which the monks had palmed upon his credulity as a griffin's claw, is now ascertained to be the curved horn of a particular species of antelope. Here are also shown the ivory horn and pipe of St. Blaize, and a singular pillar of wood, bearing the emblems of the Passion of Christ, viz., the spear, nails, and crown of thorns, St. Veronica's handkerchief, St. Peter's sword, the high priest's

servant's ear, the cock which crew, &c. The bone of a whale, or mammoth in this vault, long passed for one of Goliath's ribs! "

THE TRACT IN THE SOLE OF A SHOE. the space between the inner and the outer sole of a A MAN having received a tract, used it in filling up shoe. Sometime afterwards another man of the same business, sat down on a Sabbath morning to put a new sole to that shoe; but when he had cut away the old leather he saw the tract, and his attention was instantly arrested by its title, “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy." It was an arrow from the quiver of the Almighty. The work was immediately laid aside, and the man hastened to the house of God; his soul was troubled, nor could he find rest until he found it at the cross of Christ."-Tract Society Meeting at New York.

AN AGED POOR MAN.

ONE of the members of Christ's flock was reduced to great poverty in his helpless old age, and yet he never murmured. A kind-hearted neighbour who met him on the road, said to him, "You must be badly of. I cannot tell how you maintain yourself and your wife; and yet you are always cheerful." "O, not so,” replied the old Christian; "we are not badly of. We have a rich Father, and he does not suffer us to "Your father not dead yet! he must be want." very old indeed." "My Father never dies, and he always takes care of me." That aged Christian was a daily pensioner on the providence of his merciful and covenant-keeping God.

Miscellaneous.

PLEASURE. The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by what is called pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.

RELIGION. Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it-anything but live for it. CONTRAST.-The death of Judas is as strong a confirmation of Christianity as the life of Paul.

ILLUSTRATIONS.-God's children are like stars, that shine brightest in the darkest night; like gold, that is brighter for the furnace; like incense, that becomes fragrant by burning; like the camomile plant, that grows fastest when trampled on.

TEMPTATIONS.-Satan's fiercest temptations are usually directed against the most gracious hearts; he is too crafty a pirate to attack an empty vessel.

THE DEVIL'S PROPERTY.-The sinner is the devil's mill, always grinding; and Satan is careful ever to keep the hopper full.

A HYPOCRITE.-A hypocrite neither is what he seems, nor seems what he is. He is hated by the world for seeming a Christian, and by God for not being one. On earth he is the picture of a saint, but in eternity the paint shall all be washed off, and he shall appear at the judgment in his own colours and deformity.

GOD'S WAY.-God never makes us what we should be, without first making us know what we are.

PROFANENESS.-Most sinners seem to serve the devil for pay; but profane swearers are a sort of volunteers, who get nothing for their pains.

come to a wrestling with the believer; he would utterly fall before the enemy before the issue was so much as joined. The following prayer in temptation is very suitably and well conceived :

"Thou hast me made; and shall thy works decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste.
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before me cast
Such terror; and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when towards thee,
By thy leave, I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain;
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou, like adamant, draw mine own heart."

The merciful care of the Lord over his people should next be observed, as it appears in the provision he has made for them against the time of trial and temptation. He has provided suitable defences for them against their adversaries. The adversaries, the strife, the armour, are described by the apostle: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod |with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance, and supplication for all saints."

The breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation-two of the pieces of this heavenly armour. The head and heart, the two eminently vital parts; both in the highest sense seats of life. A serious injury inflicted on either, and the life is gone. The limbs may be hewn and mangled in battle with many a sword blow, and yet the life be preserved. Not so with the head and the heart, the citadels of life. Righteousness and salvation are the armour provided for these; both of invulnerable proof, as they are the defences of the life's vitality, and as against these the main attack of the enemy may be expected. It is a common thing with Satan (and thousands have experienced it-perhaps every true believer has, at one period or another

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of his Christian course) to thrust at the heart with a temptation like the following: Taking advantage of the smarting of the believer's conscience under a sense of sin, innumerable shortcomings, and infinite unworthiness, he throws an insinuation like this into the heart: How can such a one as thou art hope for mercy? What should the Lord have to do in delivering such a sinner as thou art? Consider how often thou hast provoked him. How long hast thou wearied him with thy iniquities? how grievously hast thou abused his chiefest mercies? how often hast thou put him to an open shame, yea, crucified him afresh? Now, thou hast fallen under fear and terror; how reasonably may the Lord now laugh at thy calamity, and mock thee now that thy fear has come upon thee? He requireth holiness in all his. Thou hast none; your righteousness is as filthy rags; this thou must acknowledge. Surely there can be no hope for thee.

And who

Many believers have been so tempted, and that for a long and sad season. knows but such a temptation it may be thine to fall under?

Under such a temptation how securely may the humble believer plead the righteousness of Christ! Let him fully admit all that Satan charges against him in reference to his own exceeding sinfulness and worthless estate; it is all true. A great deal more is true; but what can the tempter bring against the righteousness of Christ? No charge against it can alight; no flaw can be found in it; no weapon of the enemy can prevail against it. It can stand all trials of all the darts of hell. When the righteousness of Christ is presented to his attack, the enemy will soon leave the field.

But our space is exhausted, and the reader must be left to pursue his own meditations.

F.

DAVID HUME. NO. III. PASSING from the points of character which have been noticed, we proceed to observe, that Hume indicates a low moral sense upon various most important duties and virtues. It is not necessary to inquire how far this may have sprung from his vanity, or be distinct from it. The facts are too serious to be passed over. We notice them separately.

1. Our Infidel philosopher had a low sense of the

claims of truth in general. As a rational creature,

as a man of education who had received many mercies from God-above all, as a philosopher, and moral and religious reformer, he was bound to have

a sacred affection for Truth in all departments of inquiry and pursuit-seriously and impartially to search for her to embrace and retain her at every sacrifice of prejudice-to propagate her, in the face of all danger and opposition, to the ends of the world. Was this the spirit or the practice of Hume? Will any of his warmest admirers pretend that such was his character? Will not most who know anything of the man contend, and with great show of reason, that his practice embodied the very opposite of what is here described as duty?

It seems frequently to be matter of doubt whether Hume differed from the mass of mankind as really and extensively as he appeared-whether his scepticism was not of the sportive kind, suggested by the love of argument and of controversy. On the death of his mother he was tenderly affected; and on being condoled with as one who could not entertain the hopes enjoyed by others, of meeting with dear friends in another world, he put the condolence away from him, by remarking that, though he liked to indulge in argument, he differed less from his friends than they imagined. We are disposed to give all due weight to this explanation; but we are afraid it will not avail to any serious extent. Granting that Hume often assumed a character in his reasoning with his friends, the very fact of his doing so—at least of his leaving it uncertain, on the most momentous questions, whether he were arguing from conviction or for mere reasoning's sake-would indicate no very deep sense of the claims of truth, while his deliberate and repeated publications, spread over a life-time, and elaborately corrected and defended, exclude the idea of the sportive, save at a more serious imputation upon his character. There can be no reasonable question that, in the mass, Hume's writings express his real sentiments; and how inconsistent his mode of treating Truth, compared with her claims! He was careless about ascertaining the truth. Though a laborious student of books, there is no evidence of his ever seriously reading, far less regularly searching, the Book of books. We find in his correspondence and works ample evidence of his acquaintance with the ancient classics, and also with modern literature, Foreign as well as British, but no evidence of his acquaintance with the Scriptures; and that, though no small part of his writings affected morals and religion. There are, indeed, a few Scripture texts and allusions, but where not introduced in an improper spirit, they seem to have been the mere recollections of childhood. We have no evidence that the man whose principles were sapping revelation, had ever seriously considered its claims so far as solemnly and prayerfully to read through the New Testament.

This was a bad preparation for fidelity in ordinary history. Accordingly, we do not wonder to learn that, while most careful about his style and mode of expression, even in his private letters, while he laboriously corrected any errors as to these, he was culpably careless about the facts of his History. He would not endure the toil of thoroughly exploring the dry Parliamentary and other documents, which are essential to complete and accurate knowledge. In short, he was more concerned about the manner

than the matter, the varnish than the substance. Hence his general inaccuracy, and, in fact, his gross injustice to the Reformers, and such characters as Sir Walter Raleigh, and Prynne, the persecuted Puritan. It is strongly maintained by those who do not speak without authority, that Hume not only would not avail himself of the materials of true history placed within his reach, but that he perverted the materials lying open before him; so that, if fully quoted, they would have been found to have contradicted his statements. If secular history were treated in this way, the reader may judge what chance sacred history had of justice at his hands-history so deeply wounding to his prejudices. Professor Dugald Stewart, indeed, in his Preliminary Dissertation to the Encyclopædia Britannica, takes credit to Hume for a love of truth, from a desire to submit his Treatise on Human Nature to the inspection of Bishop Butler previous to its publication; but the course which he pursued in the matter brings out a fresh view of his disregard for the claims of truth. What says he himself in a private letter to Lord Kames? Speaking ' of his work, he says: "I am at present cutting off its nobler parts-that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible; before which I could not pretend to put it into the Doctor's hands. This is a piece of cowardice for which I blame myself, though I believe none of my friends will blame me." Was this honourable or manly-like the love of truth, or like anxiety, let consequences be what they may, to find it? Was this the way in which the sacred writers, and those who are imbued with their spirit, treated truth? Hume condemned himself for the cowardly suppres sion, and yet he continued to act upon the principle. For ten years he kept back his doctrine on the subject of miracles, and his utilitarian theory of morals, though he deemed them of high importance. No doubt, there is a prudence to be observed in the communication even of truth. Scripture acts upon the principle of teaching men as they are able to bear; but this is not the position of Hume. Not out of regard to the good of others, but in cowardly fear about himself, he held back what he believed to be immediately important, and what, but from fear of his own interests, he would have made known. Is this the champion of truth? Is he not rather its betrayer? One thing is clear, that upon Hume's principle, truth never would have had any martyrs, at least, he would not have been one of the number. Acting in the manner which he did, it is impossible that he could have had any deep impression of the value and obligation of truth.

And the same superficial impression is apparent in his abstaining from zealous means of propagation. If a man love the truth, he will feel the obligation of making it known to others. God gives the knowledge of truth on the express condition that it be propagated. If a man do not zealously propagate what he professes to believe to be true, we have great reason to doubt whether he really believes in its | high claims. Certainly, under the restriction which has been noticed, Hume was a busy writer and propagator of his views through the press, but it is re