are incompetent to form an opinion; it is scrutinizing the secrets of the Infinite and weighing them in the finite balance of our apprehension ! We say, therefore, that we should not know Jesus as the Son of God, did we not know him as the Saviour of men.

By the attentive reader the New Testament will be found throughout to support the principles and preserve the distinction we have here indicated. All that it says of Jesus as the Messiah, the Saviour, the Redeemer, the Mediator, the Intercessor, our Advocate with the Father, the head of the church, the conqueror of death, the pledge of immortality, the judge of men, is simple clear and intelligible. Here faith cannot err. And why is this? Because our dearest interests are at stake, and because these things concern our relations with Christ. All that the New Testament says of Jesus as the only Son of God, is mysterious and incomprehensible. And why? Because these things concern the relations of Christ with God, and no more is revealed respecting them than is needful to illustrate these phases of love and mercy in which Christ has shown himself among men to save and to bless. Again, the mystery which envelopes the Son of God, and which shrouded him before his promised appearance, and its accomplishment in the work of redemption, becomes again impenetrable when this redemption is completed and the Son returns to the bosom of the Father. "The word was with God, and the word was God," this was anterior to the work of redemption. And who will dare to describe or define the nature of that intimate and ineffable union between God and his Son to which the evangelist thus obscurely alludes?" And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him-that God may be all in all." This is after redemption, in the consummation of all things. And who can explain the nature and extent of this final subjection of the Son to the Father? But between these two extreme points, how much is clearly revealed! What glorious light between the darkness on either hand! What clear instruction bounded on either side by so much mystery! There lie the promises of the Gospel, the manger, the cross, the sepulchre, the church, the resurrection, and the final judgment.

The question of the divinity of the Saviour is easily disposed of after these preliminary remarks-remarks which humility appeared to us to dictate. We have said that it is in revelation alone we must seek for proofs of Christ's divinity, and we may now add, that even there we can only expect such information on this point

as may be essential to the attainment of salvation. Keeping these things in view we are prepared to enter upon the profitable study of the gospel history. We call to mind that at the period of Christ's advent, the Jews attributed all acts of divine power to the instrumentality of angels, and relying upon the old prophesies, looked for the Messiah as a member of their own nation and a temporal king. We also call to mind that the Gentiles were instructed by their sages and philosophers to recognize the existence of a multitude of genii, imaginary beings whom their teachers represented as having authority over nature. The sacred writers received from Heaven the inspiration necessary to teach them that the Saviour must be a more exalted being than the Jews expected, or the Gentiles could imagine, while under the influence of views like these. Hence the epistle to the Hebrews is devoted to the task of showing how greatly the Saviour is superior to angels or archangels, to all former divine messengers, to all the holy personages, to the patriarchs, kings, pontiffs, and prophets of the Old Testament history. Hence the gospel of Saint John, and a multitude of passages in the epistles of Saint Paul, especially in Corinthians, Ephesians and Collossians, manifestly distinguish the glory and power of the Saviour, from the dreams and reveries of oriental mythology. So clear is this purpose in the writers to whom we have referred, that we find them employing with evident intention, the strongest expressions of the philosophy of their day, and diverting them from their pagan application to apply them in a divine sense to Christ. And we find Saint John going farther than this, and devoting his gospel, in an especial manner, to the record of our Lord's own positive declarations respecting the glory of his divine nature, such are the following: "No man hath ascended up to Heaven, but he who came down from Heaven, the Son of man who is in Heaven." "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before." "I know whence I came and whither I go." "I speak that which I have seen with my Father."

"Before Abraham was, I am." "I came forth from the Father and am come into the world: again I leave the world and go to the Father." "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." "For thou lovedst me before the foundations of the world." Now in all these texts as in numerous others in the Epistles, we never find the divinity of the Saviour presented to us as an abstract, isolated or speculative doctrine, it is always associated with

the idea of Redemption. Nor can we reconcile these texts with the opinion that the Saviour was a mere man, or a mere angel. We therefore believe in his divinity as St. John and St. Paul believed in it. He is the repsesentative of God to man, as he is the representative of man to God: "the first-born of every creature."

Such is modern orthodoxy, always ready to say with St. John, "The word was God," and not forgetting to add with him, "the word was with God." In other words she avoids the error of ancient orthodoxy which introduced the greatest confusion into the notion of the Supreme Being, which confounded Jehovah and Jesus, which at one time magnified and at another diminished the divinity of the Saviour. According to our faith there is a union between God and Jesus, and not a confusion. Jehovah is always the one living and true God, and Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God. Leaving to God his work, and to Christ his, we avoid the deplorable error of Catholicism which addresses Mary as "the mother of God," as if God could be born, and which speaks of God dying for us, as if God could die! This system destroys the distinction which the gospel always notes between God and Christ, speaking of the one as the Being of Beings, immutable in the depths of his infinity, and of the other as his only Son who left the bosom of the Father, to appear in our world the image of God. To illustrate our meaning we shall require to quote but two of an infinite number of texts. "Of that day of final judgment knoweth no man neither the angels that are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." How clear the distinction here drawn by Jesus between his knowledge and that possessed by the Father! And how clear the same distinction, as to power, is noted by St. Paul, when he says, "The Son shall himself be subject to the Father, that God may be all in all."

But some one will say, you gain nothing in simplicity and clearness by thus receiving the divinity of the Saviour. Your opinion is as obscure as that of the Trinitarian, obliged by his system to believe that God was crucified for our salvation! It would be easy to show that we gain much by our view, that ancient orthodoxy has its contradictions, ours its mysteries, a difference of every importance. But we desire to give a better reply than this. We do not seek to gain any thing, we simply open the gospel with respect, read it with prayer, meditate upon it with submission, and declare what we have found therein. We seek not to diminish the difficulties of our faith, nor to smooth over the obstacles that the

gospel may present. God forbid, that we should attempt to explain the teachings of the Bible so as to suit a purpose of our own, or seek to lessen the sublimity of its doctrines, or rationalize its Christianity to make it more acceptable to our worldly logic! Far from desiring to recommend our faith to easy acceptance by the human intellect, the first and the last words of our creed, are the words of caution and humility uttered by himself. "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father." Alas for the vanity of human reason! In eighteen centuries mankind have been engaged in persecuting and denouncing each other for not comprehending aright a truth which is known to God alone!

OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF PRESBYTERIANISM, IN IRELAND.

Previously to the augmentation of the Royal Bounty in the year 1803, the General Synod of Ulster, by order of Government, divided the total amount of the Grant by the number of Ministers constituting that Body; and, consequently, the smaller the number of Congregations connected with the Church, the larger was the amount of Bounty accruing to each Minister. This appears to have been a very salutary regulation, and one that effectually checked the needless increase of worshipping Societies: for, so early as the year 1770, the Synod enacted a Law which required every new Congregation "to give security for £50 a year, to whatever Minister or Probationer they should call." Such a sum, at that period, was more than equal to 100l. at the present time; and so careful were the Synod to avoid the unnecessary increase of congregations, that as a farther precaution, they would not permit any new Meeting-house, in rural districts, to be built within less than two miles of another—and that, only after the matter had lain over, one year, for inquiry and consideration.

Those regulations, though probably dictated by selfish motives, were admirably calculated to secure the harmony and discipline of the Church; and to prevent the absurd and capricious divisions of congregations which have, of late years, caused so much bitterness

amongst the people, so much pandering to the passions and preju dices of the multitude on the part of ministers, and so much worse than useless waste of the funds of the State. From the period, (1803,) in which every new congregation received a special grant from Parliament, and particularly since the secession of the Remonstrant Synod, Congregations have sprung up like mushroomsand many of them with almost as little substance and stability. Had such erections taken place merely in localities where small numbers of honest Christians could not conscientiously continue to worship in connexion with old congregations, the matter would not have been seriously objectionable: but, unhappily, the majority of them, I fear, have sprung up amongst persons of the very same creed, from the paltry jealousies of ministers, the contentious spirit of the people, or an unworthy desire to augment the social and political influence of the church by extravagant boasts of missionary zeal and increasing numbers. Hence, the unceasing annoyance experienced by the people of England, Ireland, and Scotland, from solemn Irish beggars, soliciting funds to erect places of worship, which only leave vacant pews in neighbouring temples: and hence also, the annually increasing demand upon the national treasury, for new Bounties to support useless ministers. Useless is, indeed, in many cases, too mild a term: for I sincerely believe, that they are frequently injurious. The people have "itching ears"-the ministers are afraid "to rebuke and exhort with all authority," lest their flock should desert them, in order to enter the fold of some gentler shepherd-miserable prejudices are fostered instead of being corrected -and the pastors of the same church, who ought to live in mutual love, often live in mutual jealousy and alienation.

Desiring to check these growing evils, the Irish Government made a regulation, eight years ago, requiring every Congregation to pay a bona fide Stipend to its Pastor, of at least 351. per annum, in order to test the stability of the congregation, the zeal of the people, and the necessity for a minister. In the framing of that reasonable regulation, the Non-Subscribing Presbyterians of Ireland heartily concurred; but the General Synod loudly remonstrat ed against it clearly foreseeing that, if honestly enforced, it would speedily cause many of their mushroom congregations entirely to disappear. Already, as public records abundantly prove, its salutary pressure has begun to be felt: and, if the Irish Government strictly and impartially test the accuracy of the annual "Returns