interest. The honouring, or keeping holy, the sabbath-day, must be regarded as a test decisive of them who are for God and for his law, or who are against them. It is a national declaration whether God's supremacy is owned here or not. The question now debated is not merely the trivial one whether our people are to have a few hours more or a few hours less of relaxation* upon the Lord's day. The question is one of loyalty or disloyalty to God, allegiance or rebellion against him; and, as this question is decided one way or the other, either this nation will continue as she has been heretofore, an example" and a "light" to the other nations of the earth-and, as such, will have the abundant blessing of God resting upon her; or, on the other hand, she will be deprived of the trust which she has abused; and, having dishonoured God, she will be herself dishonoured. Poetry. COME, LORD JESUS. BY ELIZA RUMSEY. (For the Church of England Magazine.) "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely, I come quickly. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus."-REV. xxii. 20 COME, in thy glory; come, Thou bright and morning Star, The glorious sight to see Thee, with thy peerless panoply. I would not convert the sabbath-day into a day of morose asceticism and gloomy seclusion (and who does so ?) The exception which is made in favour of works of necessity and piety and mercy permits the exercise, the short walk, or quiet stroll in the interval between the public services of the sanctuary, which are at once favourable to calm and holy meditation, and bodily health and refreshment (it was allowed to the Jews under their dispensation). This is quite consistent with "keeping holy the sabbath-day." But the excursions of pleasure, the visiting of the place of public amusement, the forsaking of the assemblies of God's people, the day passed in frivolity and worldly conversation, and in worse, far worsethis is the sin, the heinous sin of sabbath desecration; and there is not a man of common sense upon earth, or of the least conscience, that does not, in his heart, know it and believe it to be so, whatever he may pretend or argue to the contrary. I will go further: there is not a man who does not know in his heart that he is acting the part of a hypocrite while he is (as so many anti-sabbatarians of the present time are) persuading others to believe what he does not believe himself, and using reasonings (which he knows to be false. The only consistent man in regard to the sabbath is the open, avowed, audacious, and abandoned atheist and reprobate. It is worthy of record that the last visit paid by bishop Porteus (a short time previous to his death) to George IV. was on the subject of sabbath-observance. "I am come,' said the venerable prelate, "urged by a regard to you, to your father, and this great nation, who are anxiously beholding every public action of your life. I am on the verge of time. New prospects open to me. The favour of human beings, or their displeasure, is as nothing now to me. I am come to warn your royal highness of the awful consequences of your breaking down the very little which remains of di3tinction to the day which the Author of all power has hallowed and set apart for himself," &c. The bishop pointed out how much benefit or injury would result from the example to immortal souls, by either obeying or neglecting the revealed will of heaven on the subject. It is to the credit of George IV. to state that he was deeply affected, moved to tears by the expostulation of the aged dying prelate. † Rev. xxii. 16. Meet, meet us in the clouds, Let us be caught up there; O let the great archangel's voice And trump of God appear! Then shall the dead in Christ arise, And join their Saviour in the skies.* O come, thou mighty God, And take us for thine own; No tears shall ever dim the eyes That glisten near thy throne: There sorrow, crying, pain, shall cease, And all things round shall whisper peace. Come, in thy glory, come, Thou Prophet, Priest, and King, How gladly shall ten thousand tongues Thy joyful advent sing!‡ Come, give thy waiting people rest For ever, and for ever blest. LAYS OF A PILGRIM. BY MRS. H. W. RICHter. (For the Church of England Magazine.) DANIEL'S DREAM. THE captive seer, in tranced slumber lay, Empires, thro' time's long vista yet to rise, By type and figure was the veil withdrawn, The awful vision still before him stays; Ah! how that news absorbs each minor thought! Well might the prophet shrink, and inly bow, London: Published for the Proprietors, by JOHN HUGHES, 11, Stationers' Hall Court, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country PRINTED BY ROGERSON AND TUXFORD, 246, STRAND, LONDON. INFIDELITY. No. II.-PART 1. BY THE REV. W. BARNES, M.A., Rector of Brixton-Deverill. HAVING briefly evinced, from the works of creation and Providence, as also from holy scripture," that God is, and is a rewarder of all who diligently seek him, and will by no means clear the guilty," I proceed to prove that the bible contains a revelation of the will of God about all those things which it most concerns us to know. On examining that sacred volume I find it narrates matters of history, miracles, and prophecy; and these I find so intimately mixed and plended together that (as the infidel lord Bolingbroke himself acknowledged), "they must bot stand or fall together." His lordship thus writes in a letter occasioned by one of archbishop Tilotson's sermons): "The miraculous part of the Mosaic history is not like the prodigies of Livy nd other profane authors, unconnected with the acts rewarded: it is so intermixed and blended vith the narrative, that they must stand or fall ogether." This is a just and candid concession; nd it is destructive of infidelity; for all the main r leading historic facts of the bible are corroboated and confirmed by ancient traditions, and by ecords and writings which exist in several parts f the world to this day. It is quite natural to suppose that the sons and escendants of Noah, in their dispersion after the ood and their attempts at building the tower of abel, would transmit to their posterity what ey had received from their forefathers respecting e origin of the world and God's dealings with ankind from the beginning. And, as it is quite atural to conclude that these accounts, handed wn from father to son by word of mouth, would process of time be added to, or taken from (as e find amongst ourselves in almost all traionary accounts), so we may reasonably expect No. 1159. to find in such accounts no more than the main features, and the broad outline of that truth which it has pleased God by revelation to show unto us more perfectly and more fully. But "to whom much is given, from him will much be required." Now, the main features and broad outline of the historic facts of the bible are found to have existed from the earliest ages; and they exist in various parts of the world at this day. That the world was formed from rude and shapeless matter by the Spirit of God; that the seventh day was a holy day; that man was created perfect, and had dominion given him over all the inferior animals; that there had been a golden age, when man, in a state of innocence, had open intercourse with heaven; that, when his nature became corrupt, the earth itself underwent a change; that sacrifice was necessary to appease the offended gods; that there was an evil spirit continually endeavouring to injure man and thwart the designs of the good Spirit, but that he should at last be finally subdued, and universal happiness restored, through the intercession of a great Mediator; that the life of man, during the first ages of the world, was of great length; that there were ten generations previous to the general deluge; that only eight persons were saved out of the flood, in an ark, by the interposition of the Deity-these, and many other similar historic facts, are well known to have been received, believed, and acknowledged in the ancient world both by Egyptian, Greek, and Roman authors. And whoever will calmly read and consider Bryant's Mythology, Maurice's History and Antiquities of India, together with the Asiatic Researches published at Calcutta, will find the above facts fully confirmed. "I will venture to affirm," says Dr. Watson, "that a learned appeal to all the aucient books in the world, sacred or profane, Christian, Jewish, or pagan, instead of lessening, would establish the credit and authority of the bible as the word of God." The tenth chapter of Genesis gives such an account of the peopling of the earth after the deluge as no other book in the world ever did give; the truth of which all other books in the world, which contain any thing on the subject, confirm. The last verse of that chapter says: "These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth, after the flood." "It would require," says the doctor, "great learning to trace out precisely either the actual situation of all the countries in which these founders of empires settled, or to ascertain the extent of their dominions. This, however, has been done by various authors, to the satisfaction of all competent judges; 80 much so, at least, to my satisfaction, that, had I no other proof of the authenticity of the book of Genesis, I should consider this as sufficient. But, without the aid of learning, any man who can read the bible, or has heard of such people as the Assyrians, the Elamites, the Lydians, the Medes, the Ionians, the Thracians, will readily acknowledge that they had Assur, and Elam, and Lud, and Medai, and Javan, and Tiras, grandsons of Noah, for their respective founders; and, knowing only this, he will not (if wise and honest) reject the bible as a system of fables." "History of the Chinese," says, that "they divided their months into weeks of seven days." He also says of the Brahmins that "their week consisted of seven days." And he gives it as his opinion that these people were more ancient than the Egyptians (See his works, translated by Smollett and others, vol. i., pp. 20-24). Hesiod says that "the seventh day is holy." Homer and Callimachus give it the same title. Linus says that "the seventh day is observed amongst saints or holy people." Lucian says that "the seventh day is given to school-boys as a holy day." Suetonius (in Hist. Tib., 32), says, Diogenes, the grammarian, used to dispute at Rhodes on the sabbath day." Tibullus says that "the seventh day, which is kept holy by the Jews, is also a festival of the Roman women." And Eusebius asserts that "there is no city, Greek or barbarian, in which the custom resting on the seventh day is not preserved." Is he, then, the friend or the enemy of mankind, who desecrates this holy day, or in any way teaches others to do so? They greatly err, who imagine that the Christian sabbath is not binding on Christians. See this proved by the rev. George Holden, M.A., in his work entitled, "An Inquiry into the Religious Obligation of keeping holy one day in seven." There is also an essay on the same subject in the "Church of England Magazine” for March 9, 1850, by the author of this paper*. Now, as the several nations here referred to cannot have hit on observing a seventh day by chance, it must therefore have been handed dow by tradition from the beginning, as recorded in Genesis. Who can help admiring and adoring But I will notify a few of the leading historic the wisdom and goodness of God in the appoint facts recorded in the books of the Old Testament, ment of a seventh day, and commanding it to be which are plainly referred to by heathen tes kept holy? Without this sacred day the bodies timonies. Thus we read in the opening of Genesis, of the multitude would have no rest, and religion "In the beginning" (of this mundane system) would soon be banished out of the world: the "God created the heaven and the earth; and mind of man would become still more and mor the earth was without form, and void; and dark-earthly, and soon forget its origin and its end. ness was on the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." And thus we read in the "Theogonia" of the Grecian poet Hesiod (who lived 900 years before the Christian era) that "the rise of all things was a chaos rude, whence sprang the spacious earth," &c. The Roman poet Ovid, in the first book of his "Metamorphoses," refers to the same thing, and in almost the same words. He refers also to the time of man's innocency (called Again the tower of Belus, mentioned by He the golden age); also to the fall and wickedness rodotus (lib. i., cap. 178-181), was originally the of man; and also to the deluge, and the preservation tower of Babel, mentioned Genesis xi., and re of Noah and his wife, under the names of Deu-paired by Belus II., king of Babylon, who is calion and Pyrrha. See also Juvenal, satire i. Longinus, a heathen philosopher, and tutor to the notorious Porphyry, writes, in his treatise on the Sublime: "The Jewish lawgiver" (Moses), "who was no ordinary man, having conceived a just idea of the Divine Power, expressed it in a dignified manner; for at the beginning of his laws he thus speaks, God said, Let there be light; and there was light. Let there be earth; and there was earth.”’ We read in Genesis ix. that the "rainbow was made the token or sign that God would not again destroy the earth with the waters of a flood"; and the great Grecian poet Homer (who lived about the time of Hesiod, writes of the "rainbow as placed in the cloud for a sign to mankind" (Iliad, book xi., p. 36, &c.). We read in Genesis ii. that "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." Traces of this original appointment may be found in the tradition which has prevailed among all nations of the sacredness of the number seven, and the fixing of the first period of time to the revolution of seven days. Voltaire, in his frequently confounded with Belus I., or Nimred. See Horne's " Introduction," vol. i., p. 186. The history and destruction of Sodom and G morrah is expressly mentioned by Strabo (lib. xvi., p. 1087 and 1088, Oxford edition), by Tacitus (Hist., lib. v., cap. 6), and by Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib. v., cap. 16, lib. xxxv., cap. 15); and Herodotus, Diodorus, and Strabo testify the ancient custom of circumcision, which is fully referred to, has given to the public several works, which for * The rev. George Holden, besides the very able work learning and usefulness can hardly be surpassed. He has given us Notes on the Old and New Testaments," & volume on "ths Divinity of our blessed Lord," a volume on "the literal Interpretation of the Fall," one "on Tradition," and a "New Translation of the Books of Proverbs and Eccle siastes." He is also an exemplary parish priest, in every sense of the word; and yet up to this time (he is 70 years of age) nothing has been done for him except the presenting him with the perpetual curacy of Mayhall, near Liverpool, worth about £170 per annum; while the tithes of the parish And, though my friend murmurs not, yet surely such th are commuted for no less a sum than £3,500 per ann ought not to be. May our governors in church and safe look well to these and such like anomalies, and correct them ere it be too late! confirmed by those nations descended from Abraham, and not only Hebrews, but also Idumeans, Ishmaelites, and others, at this day. Strabo also speaks of Moses and the ancient Jews with commendation. He says that "many, in honour of the divine Majesty, went out of Egypt with Moses, rejecting the worship of the Egyptians and other nations; inasmuch as Moses instructed them that God was not to be worshipped by any image, and that he would reveal himself only to the pure and virtuous." He also observes that Moses "had great success in the establishment of his government, and the reception of his laws among the neighbouring nations; and that his successors, for some ages, preserved the same methods, being just, and truly religious" (lib.xiv.). Diodorus Siculus names Moses among the chief lawgivers of ancient times (lib. i.). Numenius, aPythagorean philosopher, accuses Plato with stealing from the writings of Moses his sentiments concerning God and the original of the world, saying, "What is Plato but Moses in Greek ?" Moses is also noted by Eupolemus as the first wise man, and the inventor of letters, which the Phoenicians received from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phonicians. And Artapanus speaks of the oppression of the Israelites, of the flight of Moses into Arabia, and of his subsequent marriage. He alludes to the burning bush, to his divine commission to deliver his countrymen, to the transformation of his rod into a serpent, to the various plagues of Egypt, to the spoiling of the Egyptians, to the passage through the Red sea, to the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, and the support of the Israelites by manna in the wilderness." These are all mentioned by Artapanus; who further says that "Moses was the person whom the Greeks called Museus, the preceptor of the celebrated Orpheus." See Euseb. Præp. Evang., lib. ix., cap. 26, 27. Justinus, a Latin author of credit, who epitomized the history of Trogus Pompeius (who lived before the Christian era) distinctly mentions "Abraham, and Israel who was famous for his ten sons.' He says that 66 Joseph was the youngest"; that "he was a man of great parts"; that "his brethren were jealous of him, and sold him to some foreign merchants, who carried him into Egypt"; that " he was noticed by the king there"; that "he was well skilled in prodigies and the knowledge of dreams"; that "he foresaw and provided for the famine." The same author mentions Moses as "the commander of the Israelites in Egypt." He says that "Moses conducted them, laden with spoil, out of Egypt; which the Egyptians en. deavouring to recover, they were obliged by storms and tempests to return home again." The same author speaks of "the Israelites passing through the deserts of Arabia." He speaks of "Sinai, and the seventh day, and expressly calls it the sabbath" (See Justin's History, lib. xxxvi., cap. 2). The memory and conquests of Joshua are famous among the heathens. There are ancient monuments extant which prove that the Carthaginians were a colony of the Tyrians who escaped from Joshua, as also that the inhabitants of Leptis, in Africa, came originally from the Zidonians, who forsook their country because of the miseries which afflicted it. Both Suidas and Procopius assert that there existed columns in their days, in | Africa, bearing the following inscription: "We are Canaanites, who have been driven from our native land by the robber Joshua" (See Suid. Lex. Vox Xavaav. and Procop. ap de Bello Vandal, lib. ii., cap. 10). The overthrow of the giants, and the famous Typhon, owe their original to the overthrow of Og, the king of Bashan, and of the Anakims, who were called giants (Polybius, Frag. 114; Sallust, de Bello Jugurthino). The tempest of hail spoken of in Joshua xi. was transformed by the heathen poets into a tempest of stones, with which, they say, Jupiter overwhelmed the enemies of Hercules in Arim, the very country in which Joshua fought with the Anakims. There is also a tradition recorded by Herodotus (the Grecian historian, who lived about 450 years before the Christian era), which seems plainly to refer to the miracle of the sun standing still in the time of Joshua, and a similar one in the time of Abaz, when the sun went back ten degrees. He says (lib. ii., cap. 142) that "the Egyptian priests told him that the sun had four times deviated from his ordinary course, having twice risen where he uniformly goes down, and twice gone down where he uniformly rises. This, however, had produced no alteration in the climate of Egypt: the fruits of the earth, and the phenomena of the Nile, had always been the same, nor had any extraordinary or fatal diseases occurred." The last part of this observation," says Dr. Watson, "confirms the conjecture that this account of the Egyptian priests had reference to the two miracles respecting the sun mentioned in holy scripture; for they were not of that kind which could introduce any change in climates or seasons. I think it idle, if not impious," adds the doctor, "to undertake to explain how the miracle was performed; but one who is not able to explain the mode of doing a thing argues ill if he thence infers that the thing was not done. The machine of the universe is in the hand of God; and he can stop the motion of any part, or of the whole, with less trouble, and with less danger of injuring it, than any of us can stop a watch." Dr. A. Clarke has a sensible and able note on Josh. x. 12, 13, well worth the reader's attention. The history of Samson and Delilah is to be found in the story of Nisu and his daughter, who cut off those fatal hairs upon which the victory depended (Ovid, Metam., lib. viii., fab. 1.) The story of Hercules, as recorded by Herodotus (lib. ii., cap.45), is also founded on the history of Samson, though disguised in its circumstances by the Egyptian priests. And the heathen feast among the Ro.. mans, in the month of April (the time of the Jewish harvest), when they let loose foxes with torches fastened to their tails, may be founded on what is recorded in Judges xv. respecting Samson, which was brought into Italy by the Phoenicians (Ovid, Fast., lib. iv.; see Serrarius and Bochart in support of this opinion). It has been well observed that all public institutions have had their origin in facts; and, if through the lapse of time or loss of records the original facts be lost, we may legitimately look for them in cases where there is so near a resemblance as in this and many other instances. The story of Phaeton (as in Ovid, Met., lib. ii.) is founded on the translation of Elijah in a chariot of fire, as recorded in 2 Kings ii. 394 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAGAZIN. ever did give; the truth of which all other d tes f N n. tion dw grea Den "History of the Cha their months into t also says of the b consisted of severa his opinion that the than the Egyptian Taj Hesiod says that “ Linus says that "the by Smollett and amongst saints or tu Homer and Cailin that the seventh day holy day." Suetonius Rhodes on the sabbathe a Jews, is also a festin tes "Diogenes, the grahb And Eusebius assert mes Greek or barbarian, ir, "the seventh day, tr resting on the seventh o cannot have hit on obe but chance, it must therefore p by tradition from the bor Now, as the several e or the wisdom and goodness & S ment of a seventh day, f kept hóly? Without this, Genesis. Who can help he of the multitude would b would soon be banished in t mind of man would become to But I will notify a few of the leading historic facts recorded in the books of the Old Testament, which are plainly referred to by heathen tes timonies. Thus we read in the opening of Genesis, "In the beginning" (of this mundane system) "God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form, and void; and dark-earthly, and soon forget it es ness was on the face of the deep; and the Spirit Is he, then, the friend or sto of God moved on the face of the waters. And who desecrates this holyest God said, Let there be light; and there was light." teaches others to do so! Dort And thus we read in the "Theogonia" of the imagine that the Christian Grecian poet Hesiod (who lived 900 years on Christians. See this provet fu before the Christian era) that "the rise of all Holden, M.A., in his work et things was a chaos rude, whence sprang the spa- into the Religious Obligation cious earth," &c. The Roman poet Ovid, in the day in seven." There is als ang. first book of his "Metamorphoses," refers to the subject in the "Church of Egor same thing, and in almost the same words. He March 9, 1850, by the authors refers also to the time of man's innocency (called the golden age); also to the fall and wickedness rodotus (lib. i., cap. 178-151 of man; and also to the deluge, and the preservation tower of Babel, mentioned Geo of Noah and his wife, under the names of Deu-paired by Belus II., king of Again: the tower of Belas, d calion and Pyrrha. See also Juvenal, satire i. frequently confounded with Belo Longinus, a heathen philosopher, and tutor to the See Horne's "Introduction," notorious Porphyry, writes, in his treatise on the The history and destruction of s Sublime: "The Jewish lawgiver" (Moses), "who morrah is expressly mentioned ell was no ordinary man, having conceived a just xvi., p. 1087 and 1088, Ore rea idea of the Divine Power, expressed it in a dig- Tacitus (Hist., lib. v., cap. 6. nified manner he thus speaks, God said, Let there be light; and Herodotus, Diodorus, and Se er; for at the beginning of his laws (Hist. Nat., lib. v., cap. 16, the and there was light. Let there be earth; and ancient custom of circumcision, poi there was earth.' that the "rainbow was made the token or We read in Genesis ix. that God would not again destroy the earth with the waters of a flood"; and the great Grecian sign poet Homer (who lived about the time of Hesiod, writes of the "rainbow as placed in the cloud for a sign to mankind" (Iliad, book xi., p. 36, &c.). We read in Genesis ii. that "God blessed the learning and usefulness can hardly be age) nothing has been done for him Jan dea and the the bat fan me |