the whole human race, was of universal obligation: it has subsequently been confirmed, or, rather, re-affirmed; and it has never been repealed. It is therefore obligatory upon Jew and Gentile, upon every human being. Nor can the Christian, if so minded, set up the plea, that the blood shed before our Lord's death was thus viewed as typical of his blood shed for our redemption, but that most stupendous sacrifice being completed, the type is fulfilled, and man redeemed, and that therefore the motive for the reservation has ceased. Let him refer to what passed, after our Lord's death, in the Council of the Apostles and Elders, held at Jerusalem, and presided over by St. James, when the requisition on the Gentile converts to conform to Jewish observances was considered. They wrote to those converts to require of them only "these necessary things, that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which, if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well;" as was told them in the letter addressed to them by that Council; and this decree, as if to confirm it, is twice given in the same Chapter (Acts xv.) The prohibition to eat blood was therefore expressly declared anew, as binding on all Christians, by the inspired Apostles, all of whom, moreover, St. Matthias and St. Paul excepted, had received the bread and wine from the hauds of our Lord at his last supper. It is plain, therefore, that they, in the expressions which he then used as to his flesh and blood, saw no abrogation of the prohibition to eat blood, either direct, or implied, in, or consequent to, those words. Indeed they say, that in what they had decreed, they had declared that which seemed "good to the Holy Ghost, and to themselves." (Acts xv.)

St. Paul, when reproving and instructing the Corinthians respecting the Lord's supper, although he was not present at it when it was first held by Jesus Christ, quotes his words as to the bread, "Take, eat, this is my body;" and as to the wine, "This cup is the New Testament in my blood." (2 Cor. xi. 24, 25.) But it is perfectly clear, that he understood these expressions figu. ratively only, as it was St. Paul who, with Barnabas, obtained of the Council at Jerusalem that decree, in

which the Christian converts were forbidden to eat blood.

It was thus, on a solemn appeal, and on heavenly authority, that blood, as food, was interdicted to the early Christians; and this decree stands unaltered and unrevoked, and no exception is made in it as to the blood of our Lord, and as to that running in his veins : he had, it should be remembered, taken upon himself the whole human nature, sin alone excepted.

But a far fuller development of the motive for issuing that prohibition, and a most urgent enforcement of it on the Israelites, are to be found in the Mosaic law, and particularly in Leviticus (xvii); and in a chapter in Deuteronomy, where it is twice repeated (xii. 20 and 25), and where to the repetition of it is added a blessing on obedience to it (22, 25). But the passages in Leviticus are the most remarkable and instructive, because, besides repeating the motive for the prohibition declared in Genesis, and giving the reason for it there assigned anew, the seventeenth chapter of that Book announces that wonderful dispensation of God, under which blood was made, by his most gracious will, atonement of the soul, and, becoming thus precious, was reserved by him for the benefit of man to himself, the Almighty. It was given to man, that he might offer it up to God as the price of the redemption of his soul. "Thus spake the Lord; And whatsoever man there be of the House of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourns amongst you, that eateth any manner of blood, I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people, for the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." The prohibition is then repeated; and so earnestly does the Almighty strive to make us understand his meaning, and give obedience to this law of mercy, that the fact of the life being in the blood is stated five times in four verses (xvii. 10 to 14.) It is true that the Mosaic law is superseded; but the original universal law forbidding to eat blood remains in full force; and these passages in the Pentateuch

demonstrate how earnestly the Almighty proclaimed a required compliance with this ordinance; and we learn that the same motives for it existed when it was promulgated to the Israelites, as when it was issued to Noah and his sons. But when it was proclaimed to the Hebrews, and its motives fully developed, there was a display of the graciousness of God, which ought to have insured the most earnest and anxious obedience to it. The injunction to abstain from blood is thrice repeated in the same chapter (xvii.) God does not withhold the blood from us, but he regulates the use of it by us according to his purposes of eternal mercy. He refuses it to our carnal appetites, that we may present it to him in solemn offering, as that which he will accept as the ransom for our souls, forfeited for our iniquities; so that we may be redeemed to everlasting life through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And thus, moreover, although future rewards and punishments make no part of the enactments of the law of Sinai, they will see here, plainly indicated, a loss of the soul, unless a price shall be paid for its restoration.

In all these passages, the prohibition to eat blood is absolute and unconditional; and in this whole matter, as on every side, the Church of Rome places itself n direct opposition to God. God commands, that blood shall not be eaten; that Church commands, that it shall. God forbids it to be eaten, because it is an atonement for the soul; and, for that very motive, that Church enjoins that it shall. God denounces deadly punishment against the offender; Rome requires the performance of this forbidden deed, as ministering to the satisfaction of heavenly justice, to the redemption of the soul; and it tells us, that it repeats on its altars the Sacrifice once made, and it was once for all, 1800 years ago. If the wine in the sacramental mass were verily and truly the blood which flowed in the veins of the Son of Man, then we arrive at thee horrible blasphemy of assuming, that God on earth, commanding the drinking that blood, requires our disobedience to an express command of God in heaven, and yet uses, by an unceasing miracle, the power of God, to effect and perpetuate that disobedience. But not content with this

fearful horror, Rome necessarily represents the Saviour as the leader in this revolt, and as drinking his own blood, for such they tell us that substance really became, which he, as if to guard against the possibility of a mistake, speaks of as "this juice of the grape."

HERESIES OF THE NICENE AGE.

Sancti Epiphaniianimatus, tom. 2. p. 18. Coloniæ. 1682.

αι

“Παναι ουν αι προ της ενσαρκε το Χρισε παρεσίας, από Αδαμ αρξάμεναι, και μέχρις αυτής, εικοσιν εισιν. Μετι δε την ενσαρκον ᎢᏴ Χρισε παρεσίαν έως βασιλειας Ουαλεντινιανο, και Ουάλεντος, και Γρατιανό, πασαι αιρεσεις αι ψευδως επιφημίσασαι το του Χριςε ονομα εαυταις εξήκοντα εισιν, ουτως αριθμόμεναι. Σιμωνιανοι, Μενανδριανοι, Σατορνλοι, Βασιλιδιανοι, Νικολάιται, Γνωστικοί, κ, τ, ι. —Sti. Epiphanii Epistola,

ALL the heresies, therefore, before the appearance of Christ in the flesh, beginning from Adam, and until that appearance, are twenty. But after the appearance of Christ in the flesh until the reign of Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, A. D. 364, all the heresies which falsely assumed the name of Christ, they are sixty, which may be thus enumerated: The Simonians, the Menandrians, the Saturnilians, the Basilidians, the Nicolaites, the Gnostics, &c.

IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD?

(Continued from p. 185.)

If we look at the present arrangement of matter, we are constrained to confess the presence of DESIGN, and this would shew that a Designer exists.

For instance; if the stars had been placed more distant from each other than they actually are, or if

they were possessed of greater density, or if they moved with greater velocity, there would be a jar and an interruption in that glorious harmony, which ancient poets have noticed as the music of the spheres and of the solemn heavens. Is there no design or arrangement manifest in this?

If we look at the mechanism of man's body, we shall find it a perfect optimism; that is to say, nothing can be added to it, to render it more adapted to the sphere in which it is to live, and nothing can be withdrawn from it, without leaving it less fitted for the uses for which it is required. If we look at the five senses of man, we can see evident tokens of design. In the order of the way in which he is led to his daily sustenance, we see design. First of all, man looks at an object; and by looking at a thing, no contagion can pass from the object to the man; after he has looked at it and the eye has pronounced it good, he then touches it, and the fingers are so formed that contagion is not easily communicated through them; after he has looked at it and touched it, he then smells it; and after this last sense has pronounced a favourable verdict, he then tastes it. Thus you see, that the sense that is most remote from risk is called into play in the first instance; and the sense that is most easily affected is brought into ex ercise, when the prior and less easily injured senses have been all satisfied. Now I ask, if here are not evident marks of design; and if of design, of a living God, who so designed it?

If it should be said, that all this, and all the exquisite anatomy both of men and of animals, is a fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that it is by mere chance that