stands entreating, and the Holy Ghost is striving. Come now, lest the cross be withdrawn, and Jesus cease to call you to salvation. Come now, lest to-morrow you be found where the Holy Ghost gives no warnings, and God's mercy is clean gone for ever.

DELIVERANCE TO SATAN.

"To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."-1 Cor. v. 5. "To deliver such an one unto Satan." There have from the earliest times been two prevalent interpretations of this expression. According to one view, it simply means excommunication; according to the other, it includes a miraculous subjection of the person to the power of Satan. Those who regard it as merely excommunication, say that "to deliver to Satan," answers to "might be taken away from you," in verse ii., and, therefore, means the same thing. The Corinthians had neglected to excommunicate this offender, and Paul says he had determined to do it. Besides, it is argued that excommunication is properly expressed by the phrase, "to deliver to Satan;" because, as the world is the kingdom of Satan, to cast a man out of the church was to cast him from the kingdom of Christ into the kingdom of Satan. Compare Col. i. 13. In favour of the idea of something more than excommunication, it may be argued―

1. That it is clearly revealed in Scripture, that bodily evils are often inflicted on men by the agency of Satan.

2. That the apostles were invested with the power of miraculously inflicting such evils.-Acts v. 1—11; xiii. 9-11; 2 Cor. x. 8; xiii. 10.

3. That in 1 Tim. i. 20, the same formula occurs probably in the same sense. Paul there says he had delivered Hymenæus and Alexander unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme.

4. There is no evidence that the Jews of that age ever expressed excommunication by this phrase, and, therefore, it would not in all probability be understood by the readers of Paul in that sense.

5. Excommunication would not have the effect of destroying the flesh, in the sense in which that expression is used in the following clause. Most commentators, therefore, agree in understanding the apostle to threaten the infliction of some bodily evil, when he speaks of delivering this offender to Satan.

"For the destruction of the flesh." This is by many understood to mean, for the destruction of his corrupt nature; so that the end contemplated is merely a moral one. But as flesh here stands opposed to spirit, it most naturally means the body. "The man was delivered to Satan that his body might be afflicted, in order that his soul might be saved."

"In the day of the Lord Jesus." That is, the day when the Lord Jesus shall come the second time without sin unto salyation. It appears from 2 Cor. vii. 9-12, that this solemn exercise of the judicial power of the apostle had its appropriate effect. It led the offender himself, and the whole church, to sincere and deep repentance.

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PAUL'S PRE-EMINENCE, AND THE SECRET OF IT. "I LABOURED more abundantly than they all." This was his preeminence. This he regarded as among the greatest signs of an apostle."-And well he might; for even his Master and Exemplar said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." "I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh, when no man can work." Must Christ work, who created all things (John i.), and "upholdeth all things by the word of his power" (Heb. i.), and who by that simple word expelled diseases and demons, and raised the dead; and must not we? Work, therefore, "abundant labour," stands high among the 'signs of an apostle," and not only so, but among the signs of a Christian, for our highest distinction and purest glory, as well as our clearest evidence of Christian character, lies in our resemblance to Christ. We follow a working Redeemer, and we must be working disciples. The more abun-dantly any man "labours," if he work the works of the Father, the more nearly and manifestly does he resemble Christ, to whose "image' it is the glorious dignity of the child of God to be "conformed." Rom. viii.

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What, then, was the secret of Paul's pre-eminence? "Howbeit, not I, but the grace of God which was with me." This reveals the whole secret of that wondrous activity which, "from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum, fully preached the Gospel of Christ." If

Paul was eminent, it was
"grace"
that made him so. And that grace
is just as free to you, and to me.
"He giveth more grace." Let us
then come boldly to the throne of
grace, that we may find grace to
help us," and then pour out that
grace in "abundant labours" for
God and the souls of men. Is not
this the sweetest life on earth, and
the surest path to heaven?

NEGLECTING THE GREAT
SALVATION.

MOST of the calamities of life are caused by simple neglect. By neglect of education children grow up in ignorance; by neglect a farm grows up to weeds and briars; by neglect a house goes to decay; by neglect of sowing a man will have no harvest; by neglect of reaping the harvest will rot in the field. No worldly interest can prosper where there is neglect; and why may it not be so in religion? There is nothing in earthly affairs that is valuable that will not be ruined if it is not attended to; and why may it not be so with the concerns of the soul? Let no one infer, therefore, that because he is not a drunkard, or an adulterer, or a murderer, that therefore he will be saved. Such an inference would be as irrational as it would be for a man to infer that because he is not a murderer his farm will produce a harvest, or that because he is not an adulterer therefore his merchandise will take care of itself. Salvation would be worth nothing if it cost no effort; and there will be no salvation where no effort is put forth.

POPERY consists of too many falsehoods to permit of their being always well fitted together. A system of truth is consistent in its most minute details, but fiction must be invented with consummate art, or it will be found often at variance with itself; and striving to satisfy close scrutiny upon one point, it will surely be betrayed into some glaring contradiction on another.

Some time ago, in the west of Ireland, a Romish priest had to ride across an estuary of the sea, and in doing so had his clothes saturated with salt water. Arriving afterwards at an inn, it occurred to him that the water might possibly have injured the consecrated "wafer " which he carried in his pocket; so he carefully opened his "pyx," and discovered to his dismay that the sacred wafer had been reduced into a shapeless mass of moistened dough.

He was a man of tender conscience, and was greatly agitated by the thought that a mortal sin had been committed, and the “body and blood of God" destroyed. With trembling hands he turned to the books of his church to learn the weight of his offence, and the penance to be imposed for the commission of it. Behold, the crafty fathers had long ago made provision for such a case! They had decided for him that "the wafer ceases to be the body and blood whenever it is so injured that corruption has set in."

The priest's worst fears were for a moment calmed. Mother-church had anticipated his awkward position. But his perplexity was redoubled when he looked again upon the doubtful piece of incarnate divinity still in his hand. "How shall I know," said he, "whether corruption has set in or not? How shall I know whether this wafer is, indeed, the flesh of my Creator, or a lump of wheaten flour ?" And as he paused, looking into the fire before him in the coffee-room, he asked, "Can it be possible that God's presence in this bread depends on such uncertainties, and that my soul hangs in peril on such a doubt? Pshaw!" he said, and pitching the box and wafer into the fire, "from henceforth I disbelieve it all." That priest is now the active Protestant clergyman at Ballycouree, and our informant had this story from his own lips. It may be added, that simultaneously with his coming to this resolution, he received an offer of promotion from the Popish bishop.

The foregoing is one of those instances in which the web is so finely spun as to become entangled, and the plot so intricate as to defeat itself. Great ingenuity must be employed by the Romanists, who are continually adding to their creed, to prevent palpable contradictions from being foisted upon the people who are bold enough to say that they put faith in all the church

has said, in all times and in all places. For the creeds imposed by Rome in different ages are not more difficult to be believed together, than are the tenets formally received by her in various localities, impossible to be reconciled. We hope to call attention to some of these local contradictions and epochal variances. But one of them occurring to us at present may be mentioned.

Dr. Cullen lately published in Ireland, as the undoubted doctrine of the Romish church, that the

Virgin Mary's body had been translated at her death to eternal glory in heaven. Now, we remember a short time ago having visited her tomb near Jerusalem, a sepulchre held in especial veneration by the Popish monks of Palestine, because of their firm belief that "the body of the Queen of Heaven is still there uncorrupted." We wonder if "the fathers" have made provision for such a contradiction as this on the part of "the sons."

"AWAY among the Alleghanies, there is a spring so small, that a single ox in a summer day could drain it dry. It steals its unobtrusive way among the hills, till it spreads out in the beautiful Ohio. Thence it stretches away a thousand miles, having on its banks cities, villages, and cultivated farms, and bearing on its bosom more than half a thousand steam-boats."

This I have culled somewhere; I know not where, nor when. Yet, with the bubbling fountain in my eye, and the roaring waterfall in my ear, I say, "Beautiful representation of a Christian's peace-peace as a river!" Like a river in the commencement, trickling from some fissure in the heart, singing its own song as it dropped from leaf to leaf, from ledge to ledge; now gathering itself up in a little pool, saying to its joyous waters, "Here we rest ;" anon, rushing on again, to fulfil its purpose, and gain its parent sea.

Like a river in its progress-ever widening and deepening, from the "ankles" to the "knees," from the knees to the " loins," from the loins to แ waters to swim in, a river that cannot be passed over," receiving new tributaries on the right and left, sweeping away, as it rolls on its healthful stream, the dead and dying remains of past affections and former lusts, and bearing on its bosom a thousand newly-launched hopes.

Like a river in its influence-holy, healthy, generating; causing a wide expanse of "living green to spread out on either side;" making even the desert of the soul "rejoice and blossom as the rose."

Like a river in its changes-when the warm Sun of Righteousness pours his effulgent rays on a heart that has experienced the rigours of a spiritual winter, and melts the cold snows, and breaks the icebound streams, or when the showers

of grace fall on the heart's hill-top, then a blessed fulness pervades all its course; through many a "crevasse" it pours its sanctifying streams.

Like a river in its terminationrolling into and mingling with the shoreless, blessed sea of perfect peace, where undulating waves never roll in strife, or break in death. Long ere the great sea is reached, the river of peace meets the great "trial wave" as it rolls itself inland, as if to hasten the hour of union, and give the redeemed soul a blessed sense, a foretaste of eternal felicity and future joy. "There the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby."

BIBLICAL HISTORY. THE "Princeton Review," in noticing "Neil's Lecture on Biblical History," recently published, brings out the following results from several historical tables, showing how longevity of the antediluvians supplied the want of historical record. A sceptical objection arises from the idea that the story must have passed through many narrations, and that few opportunities of comparing and correcting one account by another were enjoyed. Look at the table as illustrating these points. And, first, the number of times the story must be repeated for different persons. Noah and his three sons could receive the account of the creation at the second rehearsal, and through several distinct channels:

2. Adam, during six hundred and five years, could discourse it to Canaan, and Canaan could discourse it one hundred and seventy-nine years to Noah. 3. Adam could rehearse it for five hundred and thirty-five years to Mahaleel, who had two hundred and twenty-four years to entrust it toNoah. 4. Adam had four hundred and seventy years to instruct Jared in these sublime facts, and Jared was co-temporary three hundred and sixty-six years with Noah.

Through these four distinct channels Noah could receive a distinct account from Adam.

5. Adam lived till Methuselah was two hundred and forty-three years old, time enough to obtain an accurate knowledge of all the facts pertaining to the dawn of created existence; and Methusaleh lived six hundred years with Noah, and one hundred with his three sons.

And once more:

6. Adam lived to see Lamech, the father of Noah, till he was fifty years old; and Lamech lived with Noah five hundred and ninety-five years, with Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Through these six channels the account could be brought to the time of the flood.

1. Adam could relate unto Enos for six hundred and ninety-five years, and Enos to Noah eighty-four years.

All the generations from Adam to the flood were eleven. Of all these Adam was cotemporary with nine; Seth nine; Enos ten; Methuselah eleven; Lamech eleven; Shem and brothers, four.

Thus there were never less than nine cotemporary generations from Adam to the flood; which would give, in one lineal descent, eighty-one channels through which the account might be transmitted.