the heads and rulers of the then established Judaism, would not forsake their honorable situations to follow so humble and mean a master as they esteemed our Lord. He therefore invited fishermen, who were plain, simple, and even illiterate men. These were to be priests of his New Church, and in the mean time to labor with their hands for a subsistence. Paul likewise was a tentmaker and worked at his business. Nevertheless, all this, I believe, was agreeable to divine order, being the most probable and effectual means of raising a New Church distinct from the Old; and therefore it all tended to prepare the way for the full establishment of order, when the Church should arrive at a state of maturity, and consequently when the priesthood should be entirely set apart from all functions of a civil nature.

It is highly probable, the Lord will make use of similar means to bring about the establishment of his New Jerusalem Church. And when I see that it has actually commenced in such a way, I make no doubt but the protection of the Lord will be over it, who alone is able to bring strength out of weakness, and order out of confusion.

A RUSSIAN HYMN.

The following solemn and impressive hymn is copied from "Carr's Northern Summer." This hymn, it is said, is generally recited over a corpse in Russia, previous to its interment:

"Oh! what is life! a blossom! a vapor or dew of the morning! Approach and contemplate the grave. Where now is the graceful form! where the organs of sight! and where the beauty of complexion!

"What lamentation and wailing, and mourning, and struggling, when the soul is separated from the body! Human life seems altogether vanity; a transient shadow; the sleep of error; the unavailing labor of imagined existence; let us therefore fly from every corruption of the world, that we may inherit the kingdom of

heaven."

In thy choice of a Wife, take the obedient daughter of a good

mother.

CORRESPONDENCES.

[In continuation from page 388.]

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you. Matt. vi. 33.

When JESUS CHRIST said "Search the Scriptures ;" and especially when he added the sacred and powerful motive to such search, "For they are they which testify of ME," he must surely mean to inform the unbelieving Jews, that there was something more contained in the sacred records, than what they had before been accustomed to believe; and that this something was a divine testimony concerning himself, the INCARNATE GOD, which was to be found, not in a few detached sentences interspersed only here and there with a sparing hand, so as to render the search at once difficult and of doubtful success, but was diffused throughout the whole mass of the divine volume, constituting the substance, the vitality, the sanctity, and the unfathomable wisdom of all its most minute parts and particulars. For had this not been the case, why should the Jews be required to search for such a testimony? They, no doubt, had frequently, like the disciples above mentioned, read or heard the scriptures both of Moses, of the Prophets, and VOL. I. No. 10.

9

of the Psalms, and yet, it is plain, they had never discovered, either in their reading or hearing, that these holy writings testified at all to the divine person of the BLESSED JESUS. But how shall we account for so strange a circumstance, that a people, who entertained the highest possible respect for the writings of a lawgiver whom they believed to be inspired of GoD, and who were also in the daily habit of reading or hearing those writings, should, nevertheless, overlook the one grand testimony contained in them, which was, of all others, the most, the only important? It is impossible to assign any reason for so criminal an oversight, but the grossness of their ideas, in looking no deeper than the sense of the letter of their favorite books, and in not apprehending, as they ought to have done, that the inspired wORD OF THE MOST HIGH must needs involve some higher sense and meaning relating to himself, his kingdom, his church, and his providence. It is impossible, therefore, to assign a reason why JESUS CHRIST should call this people to search the Scriptures, and to search also for a testimony concerning himself, unless we suppose that this testimony was contained in and concealed under every part of the letter and history of the Inspired Volume, and though “hid from the wise and prudent," was ready to be revealed unto the humble and the simple, who were desirous to find it for their spiritual edification and blessing.

And if this reasoning be seen to be conclusive, what sublime and edifying ideas doth it present to our view respecting the contents of the Holy Volume! And with what new eyes are we taught to read, and with what new ears to hear, the consecrated pages of its wonderful history! For if the testimony concerning the GREAT REDEEMER be infused into every part of the Holy Records, so as to constitute its very life and soul, by forming its internal spiritual sense and n.eaning; if a divine life and idea thus animates, not only the general body of the Sacred Book, but also every sentence, expression, character, and incident; then what a sanctity of heavenly importance, what a sublimity of heavenly instruction, is immediately annexed to what must otherwise appear destitute of both! Then the devout reader of the Blessed Volume, like the patriarch Jacob awaking out of sleep, is constrained to exclaim, " Surely the LORD is in this place, and I knew it not; this is none other than the house of GOD, and this is the gate of heaven.* For then, whilst Jesus Christ is seen and con

* Gen. xxviii. 16, 17.

fessed in the living records, every thing becomes interesting, every thing sacred and edifying, because every thing is seen to be full of the divine spirit and life of that INCARNATE GOD; and whilst it bespeaks his presence, it conducts to him, and infuses more or less of his divine power, benediction, wisdom, and salvation, into the pénitent and believing mind. In this case, we are no longer offended at apparent trifles, or even at apparent contradictions, in the sacred history, because we are enabled to discern, that what is apparently trivial, or apparently contradictory in the letter, is otherwise in the spirit, where all is full of dignity and of harmony, because all alike testifies to the INCARNATE GOD, his kingdom and church. In this case too, from the dawning and discovery of the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS in the divine volume, its face, and that of its contents, assume a new complexion and character, in like manner as from the rising of the material sun on this world of nature, all its objects, which were before involved in darkness, are seen and viewed as to their real features and beautiful proportions. The persons therefore recorded in the Sacred Pages are no longer regarded as mere persons of men; nor the places as the mere habitations of men; nor the events as what respect only human contingencies here below; nor the animals and plants as the mere creatures and growth of this lower earth; but whilst the believing eye is elevated to JESUS CHRIST, it catches, and beholds in them all, both generally and individually, some blessed trait of his divine countenance, some signature more or less conspicuous and brilliant of his eternal kingdom, power and glory. Thus all the patriarchs, the prophets, the judges, and the kings of Israel, being seen as representative figures of the GREAT REDEEMER,* in their several histories we read his history; in the several events of their lives we read the events of his life, and of that of his church or people. And thus too, there is not a country, a city, a river, recorded in the sacred history, but what was intended to open to the enlightened eye of the devout mind some blessed and animating prospect of that spiritual, that eternal world of living realities, in which all the natural things of this lower world originate, and of which they are at once the representative figures and truest manifestations.

That there is nothing either vague, or visionary, or enthusiastic, in these ideas, but that, on the contrary, they are grounded in cer

* The ancient patriarchs, prophets, priests, and kings, were typical characters, in their several offices, and the more remarkable passages of their lives. Preface to the Psalms, by Bishop Horne.

tainty, in reality, and in soberness, because they originate in the testimony of the WORD OF GOD itself, may yet be further manifest from the declaration of JESUS CHRIST to the murmuring disciples, who cavilled and were offended at some such ideas expressed by himself in his memorable discourse, as it is recorded in the 6th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. It appears from that discourse, that he had been laboring to convince his hearers, that the manna, with which their fathers were fed in the wilderness, had relation to himself, "Who was the true bread that cometh down from Heaven," (verse 33). And in enlarging on this very interesting subject, he further instructs them, that this "bread was his flesh, which he would give for the life of the world,” (verse 51). Such divine language, however, appears to have been ill suited to the gross apprehensions of those to whom it was addressed, and therefore, as we afterwards read, they strove amongst themselves, saying, "how can this man give us his flesh to eat?" In answer to this cavil, the blessed JESUS proceeds, according to his first idea, to give a fuller declaration of his meaning, and therefore pronounces these awful words, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you," (verse 53). And when this appeared even to his own disciples to be "a hard saying," (verse 60) he endeavors to silence their murmurings by this extraordinary observation, "It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU, THEY ARE SPIRIT, AND THEY ARE LIFE," (verse 63). We are taught then manifestly, by this last declaration of JESUS CHRIST, that there is a SPIRIT and a LIFE in all that he spake and said, and that whensoever, therefore, he adopted natural expressions (as it was absolutely necessary he should do, since otherwise his speech could not have been apprehended by natural minds) he always annexed to them spiritual ideas, and spiritual life, and intended them to convey such ideas and such life to his hearers. Thus in the instance under consideration, where he applies the natural terms flesh, body, and blood, it is his manifest design, by and through those material images, to direct the thoughts and affections of his disciples to those living and eternal principles, which where in and from himself, and which constituted himself, viz. his divine love, and divine wisdom, and to teach them the saving lesson, that it was absolutely necessary they should receive those vital principles from him, and incorporate them into their own lives, in order to their attaining eternal life; in other words,