TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN OWEN.

Dr. John Owe, i resident of Cambridge, England, in the times of Oliver Cromwell, said to be the most learned and talented writer amongst all the Protestants in his day; in his treatise upon Remission of Sins, and the 130th Psalm, thus speaks of baptism:

"I say, it is certain, that in the prescription of this ordinance unto his church, the great intention of the Lord Christ was to ascertain to us the forgiveness of sins; and sinners are invited to a participation of this ordinance for that end, that they may receive the forgiveness of their sins. Acts ii. 38."

Owen on the 130th Psalm, p. 182. ed. of 1828. Speaking of the salvation of Noah by water, and the rainbow as a token of the covenant, he says, "Baptism is God's security of the pardon of our sins, which we may safely trust in."-p. 183.

CAMPBELLITES UNITING WITH THE ARIANS.

IN a letter received in Fredericksburg, Va. from John Brice, Esq. of Georgetown, Ky. it is said that the "Campbellites" in Georgetown have united with the Arians. Whether the "Campbellites" or the Arians are the worse ingredient in this new combination, it would be hard to say. At all events, if they have united, it is upon this principle, that neither Campbell nor Arius shall be the bond of union nor the masters of their faith. But suppose it should be said that the Arians had joined the "Campbellites" in Georgetown, would this tertium quid, this composition, be any thing more palatable to our friend Brice. No; but if the Arians had joined the Calvinistic Baptists, then the heretical ingredient would have been neutralized by the purifying influence of super-oxygenated Calvinism. If a Papist should unite with a Protestant, or a Protestant with a Papist, the compound would be the same, provided the parties met on the compromise of half their principles; but if the Catholic compromised nothing, and the Protestant all, the compound would be pure Popery; or if the Protestant compromised nothing, and the Catholic all, the compound would be pure Protestantism. It is, then, an effort to prejudice the public, to say, that the "Campbellites" have joined the Arians: for I can vouch for the fact, that in the case alluded to, those stigmatized "Campbellites" have surrendered nothing, not a single truth that they either believed or taught; and they who have united with us from all parties have met us upon the ancient gospel and the ancient order of things.

Is it not obvious that all lines drawn from the circumference of any circle towards its centre, will meet in the same point? As all sects forsake their systems, and return to the apostolic gospel and institutions, they will meet in one and the same centre of faith, hope, and love. We devoutly wish to see Papists and Protestants, every sect coming to this centre, and then I trust they will find all those slanderously called "Campbellites," rejoicing to receive them.

EDITOR.

IMMENSITY OF CREATION.

He who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe;
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns;
What varied beings people every star,
May tell why God has made us as we are.

POPE.

SOME astronomers have computed that there are not less than seventy-five millions of suns in this universe. The fixed stars are all suns, having, like our sun, numerous planets revolving round them. The Solar System, or that to which we belong, has about thirty planets, primary and secondary, belonging to it. The circular field of space which it occupies, is in diameter three thousand six hundred millions of miles, and that which it controls much greater. That sun which is nearest neighbor to ours is called Sirius, distant from our sun about twenty-two billions of miles. Now if all the fixed stars are as distant from each other as Sirius is from our sun; or if our solar system be the average magnitude of all the systems of the seventy-five millions of suns, what imagination can grasp the immensity of creation! Every sun of the seventy-five millions, controls a field of space about ten billions of miles in diameter. Who can survey a plantation containing seventy-five millions of circular fields, each ten billions of miles in diameter! Such, however, is one of the plantations of him "who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance:" he who "sitting upon the orbit of the earth, stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." Nations to him are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; and yet, overwhelming thought! he says, "Though I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also will I dwell who is of an humble and contrite spirit, and trembles at my word!"

EDITOR.

From the Spirit of the Pilgrims.

"DO THYSELF NO HARM."

"DO thyself no harm" by believing false doctrines.-The mental constitution of man is from the same hand that framed his physical structure. God has assigned laws to each, and in neither case can these be transgressed with impunity.

What revelation has declared, experience bas illustrated; that truth is the aliment divinely appointed to nourish the soul. The Saviour prayed for his disciples, "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." Here the truth, divinely revealed, is recognized as the instrument of sanctification. But the truth, to take effect, must at least be believed. It must be received into the understandVOL. II.

ing. It is not enough that it lies on the table, if it be not stored in the mind. No man is so insane as to hope, because food is prepared and is on his table, that therefore he shati live, eat it or not. Neither should any one be so irrational as to expect spiritual health and growth, mental expansion, heart enlargement, the soul's salvation, without embracing that truth which God hath revealed for this specific purpose. But if it be thus necessary to believe the truth, it is plain to demonstration that we must not embrace errors, which are fundamentally subversive of this truth.

You have flattered yourself that the nature of your opinions was of little importance-that sincerity in them was enough. But rest assured that sincerity in the belief of error is widely different from believing the truth. Did you never hear of a person's taking poison, sincerely believing it to be a wholesome medicine? And did his sincerity arrest the laws of nature? Did the poison forget its virulence and become harmless and nutritious, because of his sincerity! On the contrary, was not his sincerity the very thing which ruined him? Had he indulged any suspicions, he might have examined with care before he took the poison; or he might have prevented its effects after he had taken it, by timely preventatives. But his apprehensions were not awakened. He felt no alarm. He sincerely believed it a wholesome medicine, and his sincerity destroyed him.

Sincerely believing ice to be fire, will not convert it into fire. Sincerely believing stones to be bread, will not render them nutritious. Nor will sincerely believing error to be truth, alter at all its destructive nature. Suppose a man should take a quantity of flour, and an equal quantity of arsenic, and, comparing them together, should conclude that one was just as well calculated to preserve life as the other. He might say, "I can see no great difference between the two; I can feel no difference; I can smell no difference. I can perceive no reason why one should preserve life, and the other destroy it. I am under no obligations to believe what I cannot understand-nor do I believe it. I am sincerely of the opinion that this arsenic is just as good to preserve life as that flour." And having reasoned thus learnedly, he proves his sincerity by swallowing the poison. Yet, notwithstanding his sincerity, he is a dead man. Yea, in consequence of his sincerity, he is a dead man. It is just because he really and sincerely believed what he professed, that he took the poison and destroyed his life. Sincerity does not reverse or suspend the laws of nature, either in the physical or moral world. It rather gives efficiency and certainty to those laws.

Suppose (and the case is not wholly without a parallel) that a foreigner, recently landed on our shores from some of the arbitrary governments of Europe, should sincerely believe that, having now reached a land of liberty, he might freely appropriate to his own use whatever he desired; and proceeding on this his sincere belief, suppose he should rob the first man, or steal the first horse that came in his way. Would the sincerity of his belief snatch him from the arrest of justice? Would the Judge and the Jury confirm his sincere

belief? or would they confine his person? His sincerity in this case has lodged him in a prison. It was the sincere belief of a dangerous and foolish error that turned him aside from the path of honesty and duty, and led him to commit a crime by which his liberty is forfeited.

Some of the pirates, executed not long since for murder on the high seas, are said to have declared on the gallows, that they believed there was no God, no heaven, no hell, no retribution, no hereafter. That they were sincere, it should seem there can be no doubt; for they published the declaration with their dying breath. Were they justifiable or excusable in their belief? Do you say, No? But who are you that undertake to decide what another ought, or ought not to believe? They sincerely believed there was no God, and their sincerity was tested at the end of the halter; and why were they not justifiable? You will reply, doubtless, as I should, that there is light enough, even from the works of God, to teach any person that he is. Before these men could have become Atheists, they must have closed their eyes to the light of day, and their consciences to the light of heaven. They loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Their sincere belief of error arose entirely from their love of sin. They wanted no God, and they would believe in none. They heartily desired that he should not be, and they sincerely be lieved that he was not. Their sincerity, therefore, is found, on examination, to be not their excuse, but their fault; not their misfortune, but their crime. Instead of palliating their guilt, it is itself the most portentous mark in the long catalogue of their sins.

error.

And what is true in this case, is true in all analogous cases. Sincerity in the belief of essential error is never any excuse for such So far from justifying those who embrace it, it aggravates their condemnation. Take the Deist, who, professing to believe in God, rejects his word. Will his sincere rejection of Christ and the gospel save him? How strange it would be, if a sincere rejection of Christ, and a sincere acceptance of him, should lead to the same results-should entitle to the same blissful rewards!

No, reader, we must sincerely reject error, and sincerely believe and embrace the truth. And we must be careful not to mistake human error for heavenly truth-man's wishes for God's revelation. W. S.

THE NEW YEAR.

A WORD TO NEUTRALS AND PARTIAL REFORMERS. TIME, that parenthesis in Eternity, is, as Lord Bacon said, "the greatest innovator." What innovations has it made during the last four hundred years? I say, the last four hundred years; because with their history we are best acquainted, having so many records on all subjects agitated during that period. It is not yet four hundred years since the Bible was first printed. Germany, which has ever since excelled in theological studies, had the first printed Bible in 1450,

England, in 1468, had Rufinus on the Creed published for her first book. A Monk put the Bible; but an Archbishop put Rufinus first to press. England has been creedish ever since.

Bacon, born in 1560, published his "Novum Organum" in 1620., Locke, born in 1632, gave his philosophy of the mind, his "Essay on the Human Understanding," in 1689, the year after the happy revolution in England by the Prince of Orange. And Newton, the greatest of philosophers, born in 1642, gave forth his Principia in 1687. What have these mighty minds achieved for science, physical, mental, moral-for the world! All sciences, arts, and occupations have felt the impulse of their genius, and decorated themselves with improvements unknown before.

What has time wrought in favor of religion since Germany gave Martin Luther to the world! And, what is surpassing strange, all improvements, all public benefits, scientific, political, mechanical, moral, religious, have been forced upon society. Faustus is said to have been prosecuted for witchcraft, because he made the Bible cheap, by multiplying copies with a rapidity, and with such accurate resemblance, as baffled the whole race of the scribes, and set their Occupation adrift. Bacon had to will and bequeath his fame to other nations than that which gave him birth. Locke's Essays were proscribed by the heads of the English Universities and forbid to be read. And even Newton was regarded as an innovator, unsettling the schools and rendering doubtful the attainments of former times. The Devil, I believe, was very courteous to him who first invented gunpowder and all improvements in the art of killing men. But in religion all innovators have been obnoxious to the curse of those they wished to bless. The universal father, Leo X. would have given to Luther a scorpion rather than a fish, and would have drowned him in the Rhine, or in Mount Etna, rather than have absolved him from his sins against the priesthood. But why speak of Luther? The whole Egyptian priesthood, with Jannes and Jambres at their head, resisted Moses, that innovator, who offered liberty and salvation to an enslaved nation. Annas and Caiphas, with all the heads of departments, crucified the author of our religion, and all his followers have in all ages been loved less as they loved him more.

But time, because it matures thought and reflection and gives experience, corrects and reforms all excesses. Nations degenerate until their vices, like ignited matter in the bowels of the earth, cause a desolating earthquake or volcanic eruption, which overwhelms them, as were Herculaneum and Pompeii under the eruptions of Vesuvius in the reign of the Emperor Titus.

Caloric, which is the conservative principle in the universe, will, no doubt, as both religion and philosophy teach, become its destruction. So time, while it tends to regenerate nations and individuals, often tends to the degeneracy and destruction of both. But time is neither good nor evil in itself. It is the use or the abuse of it which creates the blessing or the curse.