seldom), but because they do in a measure afford a handle to the opposers of the fundamental doctrines of grace. I need not say that we are as jealous of the necessity of good works, and of personal holiness, as the brethren to whose president we have been listening, but still we are of opinion that there are some exhortations to sinners, in the Divine record, which might be altered for the better, and some expressions relating to the extent of Christ's sacrifice, which require to be qualified. A propitiation for the sins of the WHOLE WORLd,' is, for instance, rather stronger language than we should have used; and the same may be said of other similar expressions, which I need not particularise, as they will readily occur. Now, if the single word elect could but be inserted in such places, we should be perfectly at ease. ing presumed to offer these few suggestions, I will not further trespass on your patience."

Hav

A man, of somewhat a stern aspect, now advanced, and requested to be permitted to add a few words to what had been said by the brother who had just retired. "I bless God," said he, "I have been made to reach a higher form in the school of Christ, than the last speaker ; for, though I would concur in the greater part of what he has suggest ed, yet his whole view is very muddy. I go much further. The body which I represent are not numerous. We confess ourselves to be few, but we hail this as a favourable sign. It is, however, our unanimous request, that all the passages of the Bible which contain any thing in the shape of offers from God to man, and all the practical exhortations, as they are called, especially the latter parts of Paul's Epistles, and the whole Epistle of James, may be expunged from the sacred pages; for they are very liable to be misunderstood, and they prevent the glorious doctrines of grace from having such free course as they would otherwise obtain. The Ser

mon on the Mount is also too legal for free Gospel privilege. I will only add our earnest desire, that the few passages of Holy Writ which seem to countenance the doctrine of reprobation should be made very much plainer and stronger; or if a new verse, plainly declaring that great truth, were inserted, our satisfaction would be increased. I was not surprised to hear the last speaker say that the belief in personal election might not be essential to salvation; it was like his minglemangle system; but I affirm it is, and wish a text inserted to prove it." The Antinomian here stopped, and disappeared.

The next person who claimed the attention of the angel was a tall, portly, and respectable Baptist minister. With suitable reverence he bowed and proceeded in the following manner :— "It is not my purpose, angelic spirit, to detain you long. What I would have urged on other points has been already anticipated by my Calvinistic brother. But there is one subject on which I, and the considerable number whom I represent, differ from all the rest of the Christian church. We entirely disapprove of infant baptism, and think that no one has a right to the sign and seal till he has received the thing signified. Now the additional request which we have to prefer is, that a positive prohibition to baptise infants should be introduced into the New-Testament Scriptures. This, I would humbly submit, is the more necessary, because those who are in error on this point urge, and with a measure of plausibility, that the task of pointing out such a prohibition lies on us; the sign and seal of the covenant of grace having been administered by God's express command to infants in the visible church, from the time of Abraham till the coming of our Lord. Now, say they, if there be no command in the New Testament to discontinue this act of grace in the visible church, the natural in

ference is, that it was designed to be continued. And then, moreover, the reasonableness of our request will further appear by recalling to your mind that the truth which we hold respecting infant baptism was not brought to light till sixteen centuries after the day of Pentecost; so that our opponents have the practice of the primitive church, from the apostolic age until then, wholly on their side. We submit, therefore, that it would greatly help to set the question at rest, and promote the peace of the church, if a few lines were added to the New Testament, declaring infant baptism to be contrary to the will of God. I have nothing more to say."

An aged Quaker, with a hat of many shapes, and a countenance remarkably benign, now walked slowly towards the hill. He neither moved his body nor his hat, but at once began: " Heavenly friend, I am a man of few words, and there fore thou needest not fear I shall detain thee long. The body to which I belong respect without overvaluing the Scriptures. I have come forward chiefly to express my regret that any Christians should think it necessary, either to alter or add to the sacred records, and to declare my conviction, that if all my Christian friends would cultivate more than they do the light within, they would see less reason to wish to disturb the Divine oracles. At the same time, however, I will add, that even we should be as well pleased if those passages which relate to the outward ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper were withdrawn. I thank thee for thy attention, and retire into stillness."

A way being now made, there emerged from the crowd a man of dignified appearance, who announced himself to be an orthodox doctor of the Church of England. With a respectful obeisance he commenced his address:-" It has been with the deepest concern that

I have listened to the varying sentiments of those mistaken persons who have preceded me in the important work to which you have invited us. I have seen in that variety a new proof (if proof were wanting) of the infinite evil of a schismatical separation from that apostolical church of which I have the honour to be a minister. While, however, I deplore these disastrous effects of the abuse of private judgment and unauthorized ministrations, I confess I am not wholly uninterested in the important question which has been brought before us to-day. I certainly feel disposed to unite in some of the requests which have been preferred while I view others with the most unqualified abhorrence. I can by no means accord with my Roman-Catholic brother in pronouncing the Bible unfit for the general perusal of the people; and yet I do in a measure sympathize with him in his fears of the consequences of that indiscriminate circulation of the Holy Book which is now taking place. It appears to me, that if a passage were inserted simply requiring that the inspired volume should always be accompanied with a copy_of_our excellent Common-Prayer Book as a corrective, that all apprehended evil would be prevented, and general good would be effected. And now permit me to add, that although it is no pleasure to me ever to be found according with any who do not worship in our Establishment, yet I cannot but feel disposed to concur in the alterations, addition, and omissions proposed by the disciple of Mr. Wesley. The sentiments of all the rest of the speakers I denounce as utterly heretical. I have only further to express my earnest desire for the addition of a few lines to the New Testament, explicitly forbidding any to preach who have not been Episcopally ordained, and declaring that all who dissent from our church can have nothing to trust to but the uncovenanted mercies of God."

Having thus spoken, with a dignified bow he retired to his place.

A venerable clergyman, whose grey hairs and holy aspect attracted universal regard, now came forward, and with a respectful salute, thus addressed his celestial auditor ::- "I also am a regularly appointed and most sincerely attached minister of the Established Church of England; and her doctrines, as contained in her Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, and as set forth in the writings of her primitive Reformers are, I trust, dearer to me than life itself. The chief reason that I thus highly value them is, because I perceive them to be so precisely in accordance with the written oracles of God. This fact has to day been, in my estimation, abundantly confirmed, because I perceive that our formularies are open to the very same objections which have been brought by the various speakers against the Scriptures themselves. The Roman Catholic may object to them because they assert the supreme authority of God's holy word, and protest against all the abominations of Papal superstition. The Socinian, because they declare the eternal truths against which his blind and unhumbled reason revolts; the Arminian, because they uphold the doctrines of the Divine sovereignty, and of personal election, and the final perseverance of the saints; the Calvinist, because they maintain man's free agency and entire responsibility, and the blessed truth of universal redemption; the Antinomian, because they insist on the indispensable necessity of good works, and of personal holiness, as the fruit of faith; the Baptist, because they acknowledge infant baptism to be most agreeable to God's will; the Friends, because they recognize the ordinances, in the letter as well as in the spirit; the self-called Orthodox churchman, because they fully sanction the free circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment, and because they do not, on the points referred to, concur

with Mr. Wesley. In the name, then, of that part of our church who agree with me, and whom I represent, I humbly, but solemnly protest against every proposal which has been made, and earnestly implore that no alteration whatever may be made in those Scriptures which were given by inspiration of God, and which are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

Having thus said, he ceased, and, humbly bowing, retired. The celestial being now inquired if there were any other persons who wished to offer their sentiments; and, judging from the silence which followed that there were none, he looked round upon the multitude with mingled emotions of kindness and pity, not unmixed with wonder and displeasure, and was about to address them, when my little boy rushed into the room and awoke me.

BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH'S DEFINITION OF TYPES.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

THE subject of types having been often noticed in your pages, I send you the following extract from the Bishop of Peterborough's Lectures. It will probably be new to many of your readers, and I think contains a scriptural view of the subject. I fear that some excellent commentators on Scripture are faulty in an unauthorised application of alleged types. Bishop Marsh remarks as follows:

"To constitute one thing the type of another, as the term is generally understood in reference to Scripture, something more is wanted than mere resemblance. The former must not only resemble the latter, but must have been designed to resemble the latter. It must have

been so designed in its original institution. It must have been designed as something preparatory to the latter. The type, as well as the antitype, must have been preordained; and they must have been preordained as constituent parts of the same general scheme of Divine Providence. It is this previous design, and this pre-ordained connexion, which constitute the relation of type and antitype. Where these qualities fail, where the previous design and the pre-ordained connexion are wanting, the relation between any two things, however similar in themselves, is not the relation of type to antitype. The existence, therefore, of that previous design and pre-ordained connexion must be clearly established before we can have authority for pronouncing one thing the type of another. But we cannot establish the existence of that previous design and pre-ordained connexion, by arguing only from the resemblance of the things compared. For the qualities and circumstances attendant on one thing may have a close resemblance with the qualities and circumstances attendant on another thing, and yet the things themselves may be devoid of all connexion. How, then, it may be asked, shall we obtain the proof required? By what means shall we determine, in any given instance, that what is alleged as a type was really designed for a type? The only possible source of information on this subject, is Scripture itself. The only possible means of knowing that two distant, though similar, historic facts were so connected in the general scheme of Divine Providence that the one was designed to prefigure the other, is the authority of that work in which the scheme of Divine Providence is unfolded. Destitute of that authority, we may confound a resemblance, subsequently observed, with a resemblance pre-ordained: we may mistake a comparison, founded on a mere accidental parity of

circumstances, for a comparison founded on a necessary and inherent connexion. There is no other rule, therefore, by which we can distinguish a real from a pretended type, than that of Scripture itself. There are no other possible means by which we can know that a pre, vious design, and a pre-ordained connexion existed. Whatever persons or things, therefore, recorded in the Old Testament, were expressly declared by Christ, or by his Apostles, to have been designed as prefigurations of persons or things relating to the New Testament, such persons or things, so recorded in the former, are types of the persons or things with which they are compared in the latter. But if we assert, that a person or thing was designed to prefigure another per son or thing, where no such prefiguration has been declared by Divine authority, we make an assertion for which we neither have nor can have the slightest foundation. And even when comparisons are instituted in the New Testament, between antecedent and subsequent persons or things, we must be careful to distinguish the example where a comparison is instituted merely for the sake of illustration, from the examples where such a connexion is declared as exists in the relation of a type to its antitype."

I am aware that many excellent divines take a different view of this subject from the above; and I shall be happy to listen to the counter arguments of any of your correspondents on the question, a question of considerable importance in the exposition of the Sacred Volume.

THEOGNIS.

INFERENCES FROM SCRIPTURE.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

IN turning from your Review of the Rev. D. Wilson's Evidences, to the work itself, I observe that he follows up his remark, which you quote,upon