things that are commanded of God;" and as was the case with the Apostles and Elders, so also should it (Acts xv. 25, 26,) "seem good unto us, being assembled of one accord, to send forth chosen men, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." The information afforded on such occasions is truly interesting to every Christian and well-regulated mind; for then is there indeed a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. And when does there flow forth a purer tide of benevolence, than when we are thus promoting the Redeemer's cause? and when do we feel more, than upon such occasions as these, that "one is our Master even Christ, and that all we are brethren ?" A. B. ANSWERING A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I NEVER met with a satisfactory exposition of the remarkable passage, (Proverbs xxvi. 14, 15,) about answering a fool according to his folly; and yet I think the meaning is very clear and simple. The inspired writer states what will be the results of two different ways of replying to " a fool." If you give him an answer adapted to his own habits and comprehension, you set him down, and make him look small, even in his own eyes; but you have stooped to his level in so doing. If, on the contrary, you answer with grave argumentation, he does not take in your meaning, and he prides himself upon having conquered you by his smartness. Solomon having thus set before us the advantages and disadvantages of each method, doubtless meant us to consider which was best. Many of the sarcastic replies related in "religious anecdotes," are answers to fools according to their folly. When Robert Hall told a vain young minister, who said that he did not wish to hide his pulpit talents in a napkin, that “ a pocket handkerchief" would be large enough for the purpose, he might humble the young man's conceit; but he lowered himself by such a retort, (not to mention the improper allusion to Scripture,) whereas a serious answer might have done real good, which a sneer seldom does. I do not think, then, that Solomon meant us, in replying to a fool, to make ourselves "like unto him." The first head of his admonition exhorts us not to do so; the second head is, I conceive, rather a statement that if our only object is to put down the fool, we may do so by going upon his own ground, than a recommendation to us to do So. I have presumed, in the foregoing remarks, that none but the fool himself is conscious of your reply; and that he is abased by his own conviction of its appropriateness; but I conceive that Solomon rather refers to the indirect effect upon him through others. I have supposed, for argument sake, that the silly young man whom Robert Hall answered according to his folly, might be lowered in his own conceit by the reply; but in point of fact folly is not often thus easily cured. The ridiculed youth might be abashed; but he no doubt thought Robert Hall a very superficial and ignorant observer, not to judge better of his merit. It is therefore in reference to the bystanders that I ima gine Solomon penned both heads of his advice. If you answer a fool according to his folly, you raise a laugh against him, and his vanity is mortified; but you have made yourself like him; so that if your wish was to convince others, and to act consistently with your own character, rather than merely to mortify the "fool," you would have done better to give a grave answer. L. L. ON VOLUNTARY PUBLIC PENANCES. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. ONE hears now and then of a public act, or rather endurance, of penance, by the sentence of the ecclesiastical courts; and doubtless many secret acts of mortifying discipline are performed by individuals, either in remorse, superstition, or sincere repentance; but there seems to be no fixed principle or proceeding with regard to the duty or necessity of voluntary public penance. Restitution, in cases of theft or fraud, is essential to true contrition; and where scandal or offence has been public, doubtless some visible sign of humiliation is proper ; but it may be well doubted whether, when the criminality has not been public, the humiliation ought to be so. There is also considerable danger of falling into the error of the Church of Rome, in attaching expiatory virtue to ceremonial acts; in anti-scriptural derogation from the alone merits of the sacrifice offered upon Calvary— an error from which some Protestant writers have not been exempt. Dr. Johnson, whose religious reading and intercourse had been confined chiefly to divines of this class, stood bare-headed in the rain in the market-place, exposed to the jeers of the populace, in consequence of an act of disobedience to his father many years before, which troubled his conscience; and he adds: "In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." As his father was dead, and the populace knew nothing of the reason of his conduct, and could not therefore be benefited by it, his penance was at best superfluous; and, according to his description of his motives, it was superstitious and anti-evangelical. There being no public scandal to obviate, he had only to do with Him who seeth in secret; and who pardons every true penitent who pleads the blood of the all-sufficient atonement; but does not accept the "voluntary humility" of expiatory penances. But Dr. Johnson was a layman: I will therefore take a second illustration from the writings of a divine and a bishop; and one in The venerable high esteem for his devout writings and holy life. Bishop Wilson of Sodor and Man says, in his Meditations, as quoted and recommended in the Tracts for the Times, "Those who enter into marriage only to conceal their shame, ought to give public satisfaction, as well as expiate their sin, by open penance.' I question in this case the duty; and I am quite sure of the unscripturalness of the motive. I question the duty; for there was no scandal; the marriage was not because the crime was known, but to prevent its being known; there was nothing that required "public satisfaction," as the shame was concealed: and if the parties had promised each other marriage, they were in the eye of God indissolubly bound together, so that neither could marry elsewhere without sin; and in many countries, including Scotland, such a mutual contract, being proved, has been held to be a legal marriage; and though this does not obviate their guilt, yet when they seek the public religious and civil sanction, and come before the congregation, that the minister of Christ, hearing their mutual pledge, may thereupon "pronounce them man and wife"-(it is their pledge makes them so; the priest only "pronounces")—it can serve no purpose of public benefit that they should apply to do " open penance." Their offence was known only to God and each other; before God they must repent of it; and to each other their marriage was the best reparation they could make; and it would defeat the end of reparation, if there could not be marriage without public penance. Had there been public offence, the case would have been altogether different: but I am not considering what humiliation the ecclesiastical or civil power ought to enjoin upon the discovery of immorality; but only whether contrite persons should court open voluntary penance when they repent truly of a sin which, being unknown to the world, has caused no scandal; and when they are not desirous of making all the reparation which the circumstances may admit of. But it was to the motive assigned by Bishop Wilson, and not to the act, that I meant to advert. Even supposing that it was Dr. Johnson's duty to do public voluntary penance for an unknown transgression; and that a man, instead of wishing, as the bishop says, "to conceal the shame" of his fellow-offender by marriage, ought to take the previous step of publicly disclosing their criminality, in order that they may stand in church before the congregation, in white sheets, with tapers in their hands; yet even then they ought not be buoyed up with the vain expectation that thereby they "expiate their sins." There is but one expiation provided for sinful man; Rome invented many fond rites which turn away the eyes of suppliants from the only sacrifice; and, though the Protestant Confessions exploded this delusion, too many nominal Protestants still cling to it. The Church of Rome makes the Lord's Supper a perpetual sacrifice; and some who call themselves Anglicans only drop the word expiatory, and write commemorative; maintaining that it is not a remembrance of Christ's sacrifice, but an actual commemorative sacrifice; and this, notwithstanding the express declaration in their own catechism, that the Lord's Supper was ordained for a "perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby ;" and not for a renewal, either expiatory or otherwise, of that sacrifice. J. J. COLLATION OF VERSIONS OF JOHN viii. 6, &c. &c. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. PERMIT me to trouble you with a few memoranda respecting the passages cited by BIBLICUS, in his remarks on the "Modern Impressions of the English Bible" in the January Number of the Christian Observer. I lament with him the unnecessary interpolation of the words printed in italics in the two texts, John xiii. 6 and Matt. x. 23, and in some few others; and there are perhaps ten or twenty passages which I could wish to see altered in our Bibles. Yet, nevertheless, possessing, and having read with attention, ALL the translations or versions that have appeared in English and in the principal continental languages, I add my humble testimony to the excellence, faithfulness, and beauty of our authorised version; and to its immeasurable superiority over all the “ Improved translations" of these innovating and levelling days. The following collations of the passages mentioned by BIBLICUS are from copies in my own collection. I give them merely to aid the inquiry as to when the obnoxious words came to be inserted :— : JOHN viii. 6. Authorised Version, 1st edit. 1611... And with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. Wycliffe, MS. on vellum, Soc. xv... And wrote wyth his fynger in the erthe. other later editions..... Coverdale's Bible, 1535-1536-1550...And wrote with his finger on the ground. N. T. 3rd edit. of 1538... Did write on the ground with his finger. Ditto, 1549 and 1550...And wrote with his finger on the ground. Matthewes, 1537, &c. &c........... .And with his finger wrote on the ground. Taverner, 1539 and 1551 .(The same.) (The same.) Cranmer, 1540 and 10 later .... Genevan N. T. 1557, B. 1560, &c....(The same.) Abp. Parker, 1568-1572, & 7 others. (The same) as though he heard them not. (The same.) 1569, 4to. Rhemish, 1582, &c. And with his finger wrote in the earth. The first edition of Luther's German N. T. 1522; the first Catholic French 1530, and the first Protestant French 1535; the first Danish 1550; and the Spanish of Euzinus and Perez, all omit the latter words. MATTHEW XX. 23. (The words which I have marked in italics are typographically distinguished from the text.) Authorised Version, 1611...... Not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom, &c. but to them for whom, &c. but to which it is maad redy of my fadir. ac tham the hijt fram minum fader gegearwod ijs. Coverdale B. 1535-1536-1550. Is not mine to give, but unto them, &c. to give you, but to such as it is prepared for. ..Is not mine to give, but unto them, &c. French Protestant, 1535 Calvin A. V. 1611 Tyndale, 1st, &c. Coverdale B. 1535-1536.. B. 1550 N. T. 3d edit. Matthewes, 1537 Taverner, 1539 TITUS ii. 13. but it shall chaunce unto them it is prepared for of my father. but it shall be given to them,&c. but it shall be given to them. but to them for whom. but it shall be given to them. but to whom it is prepared of my Father. but to them for whom. but to those it shall happen for whom. .Of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ. ...The mighty God, and of our .The great God, and of our .The great God, and of our 1538. The great God, and our .......The mighty God, and of our Cranmer, 1540-1541, &c. ...... The great God, and of our With regard to the last text, permit me to call the attention of Biblicus again to the rendering given by the excellent translators of the Genevan Testament, 1557. He says, "In an English translation of the N. T. published at Geneva, 1557, the passage is correctly though freely translated 'The glory of the mighty God, which is our Saviour.' The words are, "which is of our Saviour"-intending to convey, I have no doubt, the same meaning; viz. that our Saviour is the Mighty God. I could greatly have extended these extracts, by giving the renderings of above thirty "Improvers" or "Correctors" between the years 1700 and 1838, but thought it better to confine myself to those which have mostly in their turns been received or authorised versions. L. W. INQUIRY RESPECTING THE MORALITIES OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. ALL professions, trades, and occupations in life have their peculiar dangers and temptations; and there are few, or none, in which by standers do not think some things to be wrong, which the parties concerned, either from habit or some other cause, account laudable or indifferent, or else make the best of, though not without scruples of conscience. The highly honourable practice of the law, in all its branches, is proverbially obnoxious to popular censure, often without reason; but there is one particular which it would be interesting and useful to many of your readers who have friends or relatives in the legal profession, or are about to enter it, or to bring up sons for it, to see discussed in your pages; I allude to the great latitude allowed in advocacy. Take a case. While I am writing my eye glances on the report of the trial of a miscreant who deals in slander and libelling in a newspaper, disgraceful to the press of a Christian country, called "The Satirist." This man published a libel attributing gross depravity of life to a lady of unspotted character, the wife of a member of parliament, describing the parties by such marked and minute specification that no person who read the libel could doubt its application. He fees a legal gentleman of high professional and private character, to defend him. That honourable and learned individual will not, now the trial is over, say that, from the first moment the brief was tendered to him, he had the smallest doubt that his client was guilty of the crime, and well deserved punishment. Not a syllable could be truly or plausibly uttered in his defence; yet this gentleman takes a fee to advocate his cause. If he really try to get him off, he violates what in unprofessional life would be the plainest dictates of conscience and duty; what would be abetting crime and sharing the criminality; and should he so confound the witnesses, or so perplex the jury, by making the worse |