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of Christian unity is "a prevalent popish zeal for uniformity, as if that were unity. . . . The popery that may be found diffused like leaven in various Protestant communities-even among us-is more to be dreaded, and does more mischief, in respect to the development of Christian unity, than all the popery there is at Rome. . . . Recite the Apostles' creed, the creed of Athanasius, and the creed of the Council of Trent-repeat certain time-hallowed forms of worship in the identical words and tones of a dead language in which they have been transmitted from dead ages-above all, be reverently subject to the one constituted hierarchy with its one human head-and this is what Rome means by unity. How many are the Protestant communities in which some similar ideas of unity are working, with no other efficacy than to divide and weaken the household of faith." (p. 29.)

But while we neither expect nor desire to see the complete outward uniformity of evangelical believers, we do rejoice in their actual unity, and pray for its more complete manifestation. By confounding unity with uniformity, we often overlook the legitimate and natural manifestations of unity. The unity of the followers of Christ, does not consist in conformity to an external law; it is essentially "a living and spiritual unity, a unity of principles and affections, a unity of relations towards Christ and God." It is thus that all true believers constitute but "one holy universal church, of which Christ is the head." The manifestations of this Christian unity, according to our author, "must be, in the nature of the case, spontaneous and vital, not coerced and formal. . . . . . Uniformity is not unity; nor is it of course evidence of unity. Uniformity imposed by the coercion of the state, or by the power of sectarian arrangements and corporations, or by the domVOL. IV.

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ination of a spiritual despotism, and submitted to in sluggishness or cowardice, or in the spirit of formalism, is as far from being a manifestation or resemblance of Christian unity, as artificial leaves and buds fastened upon wire with threads and paste, are from being a manifestation or resemblance of that unseen vital power which, in the living plant, working by processes of its own, puts forth the green and grow. ing stem, spreads out from within the delicately folded leaf, and opens the bud into the flower to show its beauty in the light and to shed its incense on the air." (pp. 18, 19.)

From this view of the nature of Christian unity, Dr. Bacon infers that "the advancement of this unity among Christians, both as respects its spiritual essence, and as regards its spontaneous manifestations, is mainly dependent on the progressive emancipation of Christians from error and selfishness and the dominion of the world, and on their growth in grace and in the knowledge of Christ." In reply to the question whether there is in fact such a unity among evangelical believers, he says, "there is such a unity, and the church feels it, and the world sees it, and the powers of darkness fear it. . . . Do you ask, where is their union? I answer, Their union is in the testimony which God has given concerning his Son, in the affections and hopes which it inspires, and in the experi ence of its offered grace. They are united in looking to Christ alone as their Mediator with God, and in trusting for pardon to the simple efficacy of his blood. They are united in that Christ is formed in them-in that the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ lives in them as the law of liberty-in that by one spirit of adoption they have access through Christ to the Father. They are united in bearing witness to the truth, that except a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of

God; and in testifying to each other and the world that Christianity is not a name, nor a form, but a living experience of the grace and power of a reigning Savior."

The existence of such a union among evangelical believers, is then illustrated from the facts of history, especially those of the periods of the Reformation and of the great revival of a century ago, and also from the events of the last thirty years. Two hindrances to the advancement of this union are specified, in addition to that already named, viz. "the extent to which the church in many countries is subject to the civil power;" and "low and confused ideas of the nature of Christianity."

The discourse concludes with a specification of some of the duties of American Christians in relation to the manifestation and progress of a true and spiritual unity among all Christ's followers. These are(1.) "To enter fully and heartily, earnestly and practically, into the grandeur and freedom of the Gospel as designed for the world;" (2.) To cultivate, as extensively as may be, an acquaintance and active correspondence with evangelical Christians throughout the world;" and (3.) "To aid in the the revival of true and pure religion every where."

Then follows an earnest and eloquent commendation of the Foreign Evangelical Society, as at once an illustration of Christian unity and a medium through which to advance it.

We have dwelt thus much upon this subject because of its intrinsic and growing importance. The providence of God, as we have said, is leading his people everywhere to greater unity of feeling and of action, by arousing them to a sense of their common duties and dangers. This union is to be cultivated, not through ecclesiastical organizations, not through compacts formally en

tered into by conventions of some scores or hundreds of individuals claiming to represent the whole Christian world, but by a more free and fraternal intercourse among ministers and private Christians of the various evangelical denominations. Let Christians every where recognize each other as brethren; let them pray for and rejoice in each other's prosperity; let them acquaint themselves with each oth-. er's religious sentiments and experience, and modes of doing good; let them come together as occasion offers, at the prayer-meeting and at the table of the Lord; let ministers of various denominations acknowledge one another by the right hand of fellowship; let them preach in each other's pulpits, or occasionally unite in conducting the services of the sanctuary; let them meet together for prayer and conference; let them read the literary and theological organs of those who differ from them, not to gather materials for controversy, but to see how much of truth and intelligence they embody; let them mingle freely with each other in social life, and study the things that make for peace; let all enter heartily into the grand undertaking of the world's evangelization; let them dwell upon what is dearest to their common Lord, and in itself so vast and noble as to elevate and liberalize the mind that engages in it; let them thus feel and labor and pray, and though they may retain their existing forms and names, they will exhibit to a wondering world that UNITY for which Christ prayed as the lasting and indisputable proof of his divine commission.

The moral aspects of the times indicate, that there is to be a mighty conflict between spirituality and formalism, between freedom and despotism, between the unity of mutu al confidence and love, and the unity of outward organization. Where there is the most of spirituality,

there is also the most of Christian liberty and of Christian unity. Where on the other hand unity is made to consist in mere uniformity, there is formalism and often spiritual despotism. Yet men are continually deceived by this false name and show of unity. The Romish church has carried the unity of organization to perfection. Her system is a masterpiece of consolidation for a single purpose. As such it must be met, not by a counter-organization, not by opposing form to form, symbol to symbol, rite to rite; not by counter claims for precedence and hierarchical dignity; but by the power of God's spirit in the hearts and lives of his true children; by the cultivation of a higher tone of spirituality; by the spread of the great principles of religious liberty; by the diffusion of the knowledge of the simple Gospel. A revival of the true spirit of

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piety which should lead to such results, would be as the brightness of the Savior's coming to consume "that wicked one."

The proposed endowment of the Romish College at Maynooth by the British Parliament, has aroused the Protestant spirit of the empire, and has drawn evangelical Christians of every name into a union for their own defense. The noble object aimed at by the Christian Alliance, of diffusing religious liberty throughout the world, and distributing the word of God in Rome itself, will do more than any thing yet attempted, to unite all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. The diversities of Protestants are but the diversities of light, as refracted by a prism. The Christian Alliance will serve as a lens to gather these various rays into a focus, whose brilliancy shall dispel even the unbroken darkness of Rome itself.

STUART'S APOCALYPSE.*

We have here two volumes of five hundred pages each, upon a book which has ever been a source of perplexity to interpreters. Except where one has been the follower and imitator of another, the greatest disagreement has prevailed as to its meaning. Many have gathered from it the most absurd and fanciful ideas. The confusion of Babel alone can represent to us the absurd interpretations, the vain conceits, we had almost said the blasphemies, which have at times been ascribed to this book. Yet notwithstanding its true character and method, and the sense and applications of its various parts

A Commentary on the Apocalypse. By Moses Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass. Two vols. Andover, Allen, Morrill & Wardwell; New York, M. H. Newman. 1845.

have never been well understood, few books in the Bible have been more useful in promoting the spiritual improvement of the churches. And this will continue to be the gratifying fact, however fruitless may be the labors of future commentators to unravel its mysteries.

No book is better calculated to give us exalted views of God's majesty and glory, or of the happiness and security of his people. No one can fail to learn important lessons from it, to whatever events he may refer particular prophecies. Whether Nero or Napoleon, Mohammed or Luther, the Pope or the Grand Sultan, the French Revolution or the early persecutions of the church are referred to, makes no difference as to these important practical instructions. Still, we must not overlook the value of a correct interpretation

as a preventive of fanaticism which arises from misapprehending the true sense, and as the means of fully developing the mind of the Spirit in this part of divine revelation.

This labored attempt of Professor Stuart, to exhibit the plan and particular exegesis of the work, is therefore to be thankfully received by the Christian public. It is the fruit of a life of study, much of which has been devoted to the department of prophecy. It manifests throughout extensive and patient research; hence, if the results to which it brings us are far from the truth, it can not fail as a stepping-stone to subsequent investigations, to contribute largely to the right understanding of the book.

Following the modern German commentators, Mr. Stuart thinks the Apocalypse was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, and that the body of the work, including chapters iv to xxii, 5, embraces three catastrophes, (1) the destruction of Jerusalem, (2) the destruction of the Roman power, and (3) the destruction of Gog and Magog. This conception of the work, in opposition to the very strong historical argument to prove that the banishment of John to Patmos occurred as late as the year 95, and in opposition to the opinion of the Protestant world, we shall not presume either to adopt or reject. The reader will see how radically it must affect all the particular interpretations of the book.

While we find much to approve and admire in this, as in the former commentaries of Prof. S., we must express our dissent from some of his conclusions; a service to the cause of truth, less pleasant, but more important than a particular designation of what we regard as the sound parts of his work.

Our author rejects the idea, quite universal until of late, that the number seven derives its symbolical significancy from the original division of time into weeks, and considers it as "the sum or result of uniting the

equally significant and sacred numbers, three and four." We consider him at fault in both of these posi tions. The sacred character and symbolical uses of seven come most indisputably from the division of time, and not from the union of three and four; nor are these latter numbers "equally significant and sacred" with the number seven.

The following considerations illustrate the origin and nature of the symbolical use of the number seven. The division of time into weeks, and the institution of the Sabbath, arose out of the fact that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. Hence the number seven acquired a sort of sacredness. It became the measure of other periods in the institutions of the Jews, as the sabbatical or seventh month; the sabbatical or seventh year; the year of jubilee, which occurred after seven hebdomads of years. The passover and the feast of tabernacles lasted each seven days; marriage festivals, and mournings for the dead lasted the same period. The feast of pentecost was celebrated after seven weeks; circumcision was performed after seven days, and various purifications were for one or two weeks. Many of these usages arose long before the time of Moses. God waits seven days before the deluge commences. Noah often waits seven days. The rite of circumcision was performed after seven days. Various sacrifices were sprinkled seven times. Seven victims were taken for sacrifice by Abraham. Even the Hebrew word to swear was derived from the numeral seven; and in oaths a sevenfold affirmation was common. What then is more manifest than that the sacred character and uses of this word, in the Pentateuch, and of course in other parts of the Bible, are to be ascribed to the creation of the world in six days, and the sanctification of the seventh day? Indeed, nothing in the Professor's work has surprised us more than the renunciation of this easy mode of ex

planation, until of late undisputed, for one far-fetched and altogether fanciful-an explanation which even endangers the authenticity and authority of the Pentateuch.

But on what ground does Prof. S. base the notion that the number three is equally with seven a symbolical number, and that seven derives its peculiar use from the union of this sacred number with four? The fact that three was employed by pagan nations of antiquity in their representations of God, and that a few indistinct hints in the Old Testament of a divine Trinity are to be found, is insufficient to establish the point, and set aside the obvious origin of the sacred character of the number seven. But Mr. S. seriously tells us:

"It is a fact astonishing at first view, but not more astonishing than true, that nearly all the leading nations of antiquity, with whose theosophy we are acquainted, have represented his (God's) development as threefold or tripartite. In other words, the doctrine of a Trinity in some form or other, seems to lie at the basis of all the ancient and celebrated systems of religion. God developed or disclosed, is represented as God in a threefold rela tion to his creatures." "In accordance with this, we find three most extensively employed in the heathen world as significant of whatever is divine, creative or productive." ** "Enough, I trust, has now been said to show, why three is deemed to be a sacred number; in other words, why it is employed in designating symbolically the Godhead itself, or whatever stands in immediate connection with it, in the way of worship, ceremonies, rites, holy seasons, &c. That this number should thus be deemed highly significant, and therefore to be often transferred to other things when intensity or completeness was to be designated, ceases to be strange or unaccountable, with such facts as these before us." See Exc. II, pp. 413, 417, 419.

That this is a fanciful explanation of what Mr. S. calls the trichotomy of the Scriptures, is the more manifest from the obvious origin of this feature of the sacred writings a feature common to all books and languages. Much of what he attributes to three as a sacred number, arises naturally out of the laws which govern the structure of sen

tences and the parts of a discourse. The grouping of the members of a sentence by threes has the advantage over that by any other number, and hence prevails over every other in all languages. The bi-membral grouping, according to the laws of intonation, naturally puts the two clauses in opposition or contrast. The trimembral grouping, by beginning and ending with the same inflection, restores the harmony of the whole. The tri-membral grouping has therefore in all nations been the favorite one. This principle fully explains the "trichotomy" of the Scriptures. We would not deny, that a few passages may have taken their shape from some conception of the Trinity, as "holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty;" yet even these cases seem to us more naturally referred to the law of language just mentioned. The three parts into which the Apocalypse is supposed to be divided, and the reduction of these several parts into three subdivisions, follow the general law by which most compositions have an introduction, a main body of discourse, and a peroration. Much use is also made of the number three from the natural fitness of triple affirmation, or triple action, to express things strongly. We are thus relieved from the necessity of seeking for the use of this number by the sacred writers, among the speculations of pagan mythology.

We think our author has also erred in several particular interpretations as an example of which we may refer to chapter xx, 4, where he represents the resurrection of the martyrs at the commencement of the one thousand years of rest, to be real. The attempt to prove that the resurrection spoken of is of this nature, and takes place in the case of the martyrs and most eminent saints before that of the less eminent and the wicked, seems to us eminently unsuccessful.

We feel constrained also to put in our objections to most of his efforts to establish congruity in the poetic rep

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