darkness, and being translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. i. 13, 14); and elsewhere, an opening of the eyes, and a turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God (Acts xxvi. 18). This divine work upon the soul is also called " a new creature,' or 'a new creation' (2 Cor. v. 17); ‘a new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness' (Eph. iv. 24); and a being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him' (Col. iii. 10). But all this is totally distinct from working so thorough and radical a change in the very constitution of the soul as to make that naturally immortal which was before naturally mortal. It is the communication of spiritual life; a giving of faith and repentance, of hope and love; a renewing of the image of God in which Adam was created, but which was marred and defaced by the fall; a gracious knowledge of the mind, a conformity to the image, and an obedience to the will, of Christ; an implantation of grace here, to expand into glory hereafter. But all this is very different from altering the very constitution of the soul, and changing it from a mortal to an immortal fabric. There is not an expression in the Scriptures, whether they describe the fall and its consequences, or the recovery and its effects, which hints at any such change as would transmute a mortal into an immortal soul. When they describe, for instance, the effects of the fall, and what we are by nature, they tell us that we are 'dead in trespasses and sin;' that we have the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in us;' that we are without God, and have no hope in the world;' are alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works;' that Satan blinds our eyes and takes us captives, &c.; all which expressions, though they describe fully and forcibly a state of ruin and misery, of death and alienation of will and affections from God, yet clearly intimate that there was room for a recovery, for they are generally coupled with the work of Christ in redeeming and reconciling, and the work of the Holy Ghost in regenerating and renewing the elect of God (see Eph. ii. 1, 12-18; iv. 18—21; Col. i. 21, 22; 2 Tim. ii. 26). Similarly, when they describe the work of Christ in the flesh, they represent it as a redemption from captivity, a putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself, a making atonement for transgression, a reconciliation of aliens and strangers, a justification of the ungodly by His obedience, &c.; all which expressions imply, not making of that which is mortal to be immortal, but a removing of those barriers which sin had made between God and the soul. So, when they speak of the work of the Holy Ghost, they describe it as a quickening from a death in sins-that is, evidently, a moral death-a renewing of the soul in knowledge after the image of Him who created it; a sanctifying of it, and a dwelling in it, by His presence; a helping of its infirmities, and a witnessing in it as a Spirit of adoption, &c.; all which expressions show that the work of the Holy Ghost is not to change and transmute a soul naturally and originally mortal into one that becomes immortal by His operations and influences, but to restore and repair the image of God in it, which had become marred and defaced by sin original and actual. ... "View the atoning blood, finished work, and meritorious sacrifice of the Son of God, as healing the breach, reconciling aliens and enemies, fulfilling the law, glorifying it, and making it honourable, and thus opening a way and providing the means whereby God can be just and yet the Justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. How harmonious is all this with the Scriptures, and the experience of the saints! Here there is no jarring sound. Here we see, in the most striking colours, both the justice and the mercy, the goodness and the severity, of God. We see the souls of all men alike immortal, but some saved and others lost; some pardoned and regenerated, others left to fill up the measure of their iniquities, and dying as they lived, in enmity and alienation; some liberated and sanctified by the knowledge of the truth, and others allowed to drink down and harden themselves in error." (To be continued.) "THE GROANING OF THE PRISONER." Margate. (PSALM cii. 20.) BLESSED Saviour! Friend of man! Who canst all creation scan; I am bowed to earth with grief; G. H. M. READ. “THE TWO BABYLONS.”* IT has often been remarked how much the services of the Roman Catholic Church resemble the idolatrous worship of the Pagans. The following extracts will show how the Papists have introduced into their system practices that were found among Pagans, evidently for the purpose of easily winning over the latter to their Church. The writer of the book named in the foot-note has searched out and exposed the abominable connection of Pagan legends and rites with a professedly Christian religion. The following extracts will show the points of resemblance to be so strong that the writer may well ask-] "What would even the old Pagan priests say, who left the stage of time while the martyrs were still battering against their gods, and, rather than symbolize with them, 'loved not their lives unto the death,' if they were to see the present aspect of the so-called Church of European Christendom? What would Belshazzar himself say, if it were possible for him to enter St. Peter's, at Rome, and see the Pope in his pontificals, in all his pomp and glory? Surely he would conclude that he had only entered one of his own well-known temples, and that all things continued as they were at Babylon, on that memorable night, when he saw, with astonished eyes, the handwriting on the wall, 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.' We shall give some of the leading points of resemblance between the idolatry of the one Babylon and the Christianity of the other, as they are exhibited to us in this volume. as her infant son. Whence the worship of the Madonna and Child? The reply is, from Babylon. Semiramis, the founder of that city, was there worshipped as a goddess; and Nimrod, whom she had aided in his conquests, by a mythological fiction, was worshipped According to Jeremiah, she was styled "The Queen of Heaven." The Venus, and her son Cupid, of the Greeks, and the great goddess of Diana at Ephesus, were parts idolatry. With these figures, emblematic traditions of the woman's seed that was to bruise the serpent's head were mingled. "In the uppermost storey of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus," says the book under consideration, "Diodorus Siculus tells us, there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon, and one of these was of a woman grasping a serpent's head. of the same whose real Greeks the same thing was symbolized; for Diana, character was originally the same as that of the great Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in her hands a Serpent deprived of its head. As time wore away, and the facts of The Two Babylons." By the late Alexander Haslop. Partridge and Co., 9, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. era. Semiramis' history became obscured, her son's birth was boldly declared to be miraculous, and therefore she was called 'Alma Mater,' the virgin mother. That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous was widely known long before the Christian For centuries-some say for thousands of years before that event, the Buddhist priests had a tradition that a virgin was to bring forth a child to bless the world. That this tradition came from no Popish or Christian_source is evident from the surprise felt and expressed by the Jesuit missionaries, when they first entered Thibet and China, and not only found a mother and a child worshipped as at home, but that mother worshipped under a character exactly corresponding with that of their own Madonna, Virgo Deipera,' the virgin mother of God, and that, too, in regions where they could not find the least trace of either the name or history of our Lord Jesus Christ having ever been known." The circle round the head of the Popish virgin, as descriptive of luminous rays, is also taken from the heathen goddess. How easy was the transfer from the heathen Madonna and her son to the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, in the endeavour to effect a compromise between Paganism and Christianity! The reply is, "It is admitted parties that the Whence the festivals of the Roman Church? from Babylon. Whence the Christmas festival? by the most learned and candid writers of all day of our Lord's birth cannot be determined, and that within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas Day? Why, thus long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ." "In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, about the time of the winter solstice.' The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among themselves-Yule Day-proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. Yule' is the Chaldee name for an infant' or 'little child'; and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, 'Yule Day,' or 'Child's Day,' and the night that preceded it 'Mothernight,' long before they came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character." "The candles in some parts of England lighted on Christmas Eve, and used so long as the festive season lasts, were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honour to him; for it was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax candles on his altars. The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt." "The yule log is the seed stock of Nimrod deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas tree is Nimrod redivivus-the slain god come to life again." Even the mistletoe-bough was derived from Babylon. "The mistletoe was regarded as a divine branch-a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprung out of the earth. Thus, by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree, heaven and earth, that sin had severed, were joined together, and thus the mistletoe-bough became the token of divine reconciliation to man, the kiss being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation.' Even the Christmas goose proves the union between the Old and the New Babylon. 66 Yea, the Christmas goose' and 'yule cakes' were essential articles in the worship of the Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practised both in Egypt and at Rome." Whence Lady-day? It is celebrated by the Roman Church in commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord, but without any evidence of its accordance with it in regard to time. The real reason of this festival is thus stated—" Before our Lord was either conceived or born, that very day now set down in the Popish calendar for the Annunciation of the Virgin' was observed in Pagan Rome in honour of Cybele, the mother of the Babylonian Messiah." "Then look at Easter. What means the term 'Easter' itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The forty days' abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ' in the spring of the year,' is still observed by the Yezidis, or Pagan devil-worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians." It is also observed in Egypt and Sabea. The Easter buns even, and their very name, may be traced to Chaldea. Jeremiah, alluding to these, says, "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven." Whence the observance of Midsummer Day? "When the Papacy |