praises, flatters, with officious zeal, the rich and great. Base world! ignoble principle ! In the birth of Obed the temporal felicity of this amiable family receives its completion. Naomi becomes his nurse, and cherishes with fond affection this offspring of her prayers. In witnessing the felicity of Boaz and Ruth, she finds an ample recompense for all her sorrows: now, doubly blessed, she spends in piety and peace her declining years, and doubtless was gathered to her fathers in a good old age. Of Boaz and Ruth we know nothing further. But we may well conceive that each succeeding year brought with it increasing happiness-till, peacefully descending into the vale of years, they at last became partakers of everlasting joy. ESSAY ON THE APOSTLES' CREED. THE Apostles' Creed, then, is that summary of divine truth which the members of the established church are expected to receive, and embrace, as being a form of sound words; and which a sense of the importance of its several articles, will, it is hoped, induce us to "hold fast." The creed begins by a declaration, on the part of the person reciting it, of his or her belief in the being, character, attributes, and omnipotence of God; and this same declaration of belief is understood as belonging to every individual clause in it. Hence it may be necessary for us to enquire 1, Into the nature of this belief; 2. Confession of this faith; 3. Necessity or obligation under which we lie both to believe and to profess this faith. *2 Tim. i. 13. First. The nature of this belief.-Faith may be defined " an assent to that which is credible, on the competent testimony of others." Here we must remark that two things are herein specially included, the credibility of the matter proposed for belief, and the competency of the testimony on which belief is founded. The truth of two contradictory propositions cannot be maintained; nor can we assent to the truth of impossibilities. No testimony or authority could induce us to believe that snow is both white and black, or that the part of any thing is as great, or greater, than the whole. The difficulty or the improbability of a thing is no argument against its existence, when supported, by competent authority and proof. Hence many of the doctrines of the Gospel, though they exceed human comprehension, and elude the finite grasp of human intellect, yet, inasmuch as they involve neither impossibility nor contradiction, we are bound humbly to receive and obey. In reference to the competency of the testimony, we may observe, that whatever is the object of sense, cannot be the object of faith, inasmuch as whatever is the object of sense must be self evident. But faith excludes any reference to sense, or probability, or necessary consequence; it is, simply, assent yielded by virtue of the testimony by which any fact or doctrine is supported. But, inasmuch as testimony is of various degrees, we limit its efficacy in producing faith to that kind only which may be denominated " competent." Now the competency of testimony depends, on the ability and integrity of him who bears it. An ignorant man may mistake, or a dishonest man may pervert, a thing; where, however, ability and integrity are united in him who testifies, so far what he testifies is credible. From hence it follows, that as human knowledge is finite, and consequently imperfect, and as the deceitfulness of the human heart renders human integrity, 1 even in the most favourable circumstances, suspicious there is, and can be, no absolute unrestricted dependence upon mere human testimony. But in the manifest and lamentable absence of this absolute certainty, we are, frequently, obliged to have recourse to moral probabilities, either as sanctioning or, annulling human testimony, and upon these much of human reasoning is founded; and this testimony is generally, sufficient in reference to those points to which it applies. In a matter, however, so vast and important as religion, and the concerns between God and man, it is requisite that the strength of the evidence upon which religion is founded should be proportionably strong, unsuspicious, and infallible. Such is the testimony we require : "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. Yea, God must be true, though every man be found a liar." The infallibillity of divine testimony arises from the divine attributes of wisdom and goodness. Hannah has taught us, that "the Lord is a God of knowledge," and the Psalmist declares that" his understanding is infinite;" "all things," says the Apostle, are naked and opened into the eyes of him with whom we have to do." As God, being allwise, cannot be himself deceived, so being infinite in holiness and goodness, he cannot deceive his creatures. Moses declares the Supreme Being to be" a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he."s Now it is contrary to internal, essential, and infinite rectitude, goodness, and holiness, to declare or deliver that for truth which he knows to be untrue. Balaam could tell Balak thus much-"God * 1. Sam. ii. 3. † Ps. clvii. 5. ‡ Heb. iv. 13. § Deut. xxxii. 4. VOL. I. is not a man that he should lie ;*" and a better prophet confirmed the same truth to Saul-" The strength of Israel will not lie.”+ The testimony of God has been vouchsafed to his creatures in two ways, first, by immediate revelation, as he did to Adam, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Samuel, and to many others during the Old Testament dispensation. But, secondly, the more usual mode of revelation has been by the "mouth of God's holy prophets, which have been since the world began." The mouth, the instrument the articulation was their's, but the words were God's: "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." So the word of God, which they delivered, must not be received as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God." The Holy Scriptures, therefore, as being indicted by God's blessed Spirit, and being a Revelation of his will to man, are the testimony of God, unto which "we do well to take heed." "These," saith John" were written, that Jezus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name." And it is of these Scriptures that St. Paul testifies, as being " able to make men wise unto salvation, through faith which was in Christ Jesus." The testimony of God being the ground of our faith, and this testimony being contained in the sacred writings, it will be our wisdom and our duty to have reference to these at all times, that thus we may be fully persuaded of the certainty of those things which we believe. [To be concluded in our next.] * Numb. xxiii. 19, † 1 Sam. xv. 29. A LETTER TO A FRIEND UNDER AFFLICTION. I'MAY, with great propriety, reflect and echo back the beginning of your letter-" It is now too long to refer to the date when I received your last kind favour"- as I ought, and did intend, sooner to have returned you thanks for it. The truth is, through excessive care of it I had laid it up too carefully to be found, even by repeated searches, till by accident I yesterday laid my hand upon it; and now I have it before me, what shall I say, unless, with Solomon, "As face answers to face in a glass, so the heart of man to man?" I discern too much of my own prevailing frame in it, and feel within the sympathy of tender friendship. Complaints!-this is a world of complaint and no station or situation in this life exempts us from occasions of them. The Canaanite is still in the land. How profound the wisdom that has ordered it so! And while we carry about the body of this death, it will be more or less continually the case. Temptations without, and a corrupt nature within, are correlates which will give the conscientious Christian pain, so long as he is a sojourner in this vale of tears. But how then does real grace discover itself? By the soul's oppositions to, and struggles against, rather than by sensible victory over, indwelling corruption. You find much within that discourages your hope of interest in Christ, or vital union with him, which is the same thing; and so do many beside you: and if any measure of sanctification was (in God's truth) made the warrant of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for acceptance and pardon, we might be discouraged; but, blessed be God! the warrant of faith is from a quite different source, even the doctrine of eternal absolute free grace, particularized in the promises of pardon, ac |