the controversy with His opponents, He directs their attention to a passage, the connexion of which with the subject of the resurrection was so remote and lay so deep, that His mind alone could trace it.

To this rejection, or at least under-valuation, of the other portions of God's word, our Lord perhaps alluded, when He thus addresses them, "Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God;" because ye know not the multitude of testimonies which the Prophets and other inspired writers bear so irresistibly to this doctrine. But to come to that portion which you do admit as genuine, "and as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?" As the passage is given in St. Luke, it is still more in accordance with this view:-"Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush." Is not this as much as to say, "Obscurely as this passage, compared with the fuller declarations of the other Scriptures, inculcates the doctrine of a resurrection, yet even here it may be traced ?"

When John was baptizing in Jordan, we find the Sadducees amongst those who resorted to him. And spurious as their motives for doing so might have been, still there appear to have been mingled with them some hopes of escaping everlasting punishment. In such a light, doubtless, the Baptist himself considered it. "When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" I know that some commentators have made this "wrath to to signify the temporal destruction of Jerusalem. But, in the first place, in the one and only part of Scripture where this term elsewhere occurs, its plain and unequivocal meaning can be no other than eternal vengeance. "To wait," says the Apostle, "for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." (1 Thess. i. 10.) In like manner, the same Apostle calls the last decisive day "the day of wrath." (Rom. ii. 5.) Again, in chap. v. 9: "Much more, then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." But it is altogether a misconception, as well as lowering of the high commission of John the Baptist, to represent him as thus sent to save men by timely repentance, from the destruction of Jerusalem. Was this an adequate fulfilment of "the prophecies which went before" respecting him? "He shall be great in the sight of the Lord. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (Luke i. 15-17.) Had he nothing further in view than preservation

from, or participation in, the destruction of Jerusalem, when, in the very same conversation in which he speaks of "the wrath to come," he thus speaks of Him to whom he came to witness, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in His hand; and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire?" No; it cannot for a moment be maintained that the Baptist employed these terrors in any other sense than that of the future final judgment. How, then, shall we account for the Sadducees, however vague their notions might have been, or hollow their professions, desiring to escape this wrath to come, if they utterly disbelieved that there would be any reckoning after death?

It may throw some light on the point in hand to see how the case stands respecting another matter in which the Sadducees are reported to have been unbelievers. In the Acts, chap. xxiii. 8, it is thus stated: "The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit." Now we know that these sectaries adhered with scrupulous exactness to the very letter of the five books of Moses, in which the frequent mention of angels occurs. It can then scarcely be supposed that their incredulity in this instance implied a denial, in the abstract, that such intelligences exist. It might have respected the angels as employed in such ministrations, and revealed in such manifestations, as the Pharisees and others of the Jews attributed to them, according to their notions, without warrant of the Scriptures. They might have, for instance, discredited the doctrine of guardian angels charged with the care of communities or single persons. They might have considered as mere superstition such notions as induced the disciples to exclaim, when Peter was knocking at the gate, "It is his angel." (Acts xii. 14.) However this may be, it is manifest that the Sadducees did not altogether deny the being of angels, from the conversation already alluded to between our Lord and them. There He answered their captious question, simply by showing that their difficulty arose from associating with the idea of another world those relations which belong to and will terminate with this present life. "For in the resurrection," He says, "they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." Now it appears that to this His opponents had no reply to make. "It put," we are told, "the Sadducees to silence." But would they have had nothing say if they believed that there were no angels in heaven?

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The same qualification as we have suggested in the case of angels may have applied perhaps to spirits also. The Sadducees, who confessedly believed in God as a spiritual being, could not have denied the existence of spirit altogether. But we know that the Jews had superstitious notions respecting spirits. Such as

made the disciples cry out, when our Lord appeared walking on the sea, "It is a spirit." That the Sadducees denied the agency of spiritual beings, not only in contradiction to popular errors, but in opposition to the truth, I do not for a moment mean to call in question. And that they did the same respecting angels, I most unhesitatingly admit. I argue only, that if their denial of angels, which is positively asserted, must be understood with limitation, the same may have been the case respecting spirits and a future life.

It is a remarkable circumstance as connected with the present subject, that Hyrcanus, the high priest mentioned by Josephus, and who is on all hands admitted to have been a good man, should, upon a mere personal pique with the Pharisees, have left that sect, and united himself with the Sadducees. How can we suppose that any but the most abandoned of the human race would, merely in spite to the Pharisees for a slight offence, have renounced his every hope beyond the grave, and have been contented to take his portion with the beasts that perish.

I would now, in conclusion, repeat, that in this short sketch I do not speak as having digested my thoughts into anything like even an opinion upon this interesting subject. I only throw out hints for others. Nor will I conceal from myself the suspicion that I may have been inclined, by a disposition to disbelieve, à priori, that an influential party in the professing Church of God should have reduced man's immortal nature to a level with the beasts, to attribute more importance to the above suggestions than they deserve.

H. W.

LETTERS ON THE SACRAMENTS.

LETTER III.THE PRINCIPLE OF ASSUMPTION.

My dear Friend,--Supposing that our Church goes on the principle of Assumption (Remark 20), we must see what the principle is, and whether it be justifiable. In its nature it is simply this-all Christians are addressed and spoken of in language that does not belong to all, or does not strictly describe all of them. The Church speaks of all her members as if they were true members of Christ. In her prayers, and in the Baptismal and the Burial Services, she assumes that all are true Christians, as they ought to be. She assumes that those who receive the Lord's Supper receive it worthily, and therefore to their benefit.

Is such a principle justifiable? I would reply, It is unavoidable, and of universal use. Those who reject it in theory must use it in practice. If we were to write down any of the extemporaneous prayers which are used among many Christians, we should find abundant proof that use was made of the principle in question; for many expressions, many positive assertions, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 149.

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would be advanced, which are true only in the mouths of really religious people. There is nothing wrong here; but a principle that is, and must be, acted upon, ought to be recognized, and not vilified or repudiated. We can deal with mixed bodies of men on no other principle.

I reply, further, that the principle is Scriptural. "Christians are in the general, in the Epistles, said to be adopted, justified, sanctified, &c., as well as regenerated. The Apostles had reason, in the judgment of charity, to think thus of the greater part of them; and, therefore, they speak to them all as in such a happy state. All the Corinthians are spoken of as 'waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ;' all the Ephesians, all the Colossians, as having 'faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and love to all the saints;' all the Philippians, as having a good work begun in them,' which St. Paul was persuaded God would perfect; all the Thessalonians, as remarkable for their work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope;' though it evidently appears there were persons in several of those churches who behaved much amiss, and to whom, had he been particularly addressing each of them alone, he could not by any means have used such language."

Such is the Scriptural use of the principle, which I have stated in the words of a pious and able critic. We must rest, therefore, in the conclusion, that the Apostle Paul, in writing his Epistles, wrote to the Churches as to true Christians; but he did not mean to say that every one to whom the Epistles were addressed was a true Christian. We see, then, that the principle is Scriptural, universal, and unavoidable; nothing, therefore, need be added in vindication of it.

If we now reflect on our subject, we must admit, either that our Church designedly proceeded on the principle of assumption, or that she did not; and in the latter case she must be understood as speaking unreservedly and universally; that is, in a direct and explicit manner.

Nothing can be more evident than this, that our Reformers entertained the most sacred and lofty notions of the two Sacraments. This spirit, if I may so speak, shines and breathes forth in every part of the services appointed for their ministration. It is true, that petitions are not assertions; but petitions, not less even than assertions, shew us what the views of the Reformers were.

Our Church, in asserting her principles, is as clear and discriminating as she can be. She describes "the visible Church of Christ as a congregation of faithful men;" but she also maintains, that "in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good;" and she strongly asserts, that "in such only as worthily receive the Sacraments they have a wholesome effect or operation." Nothing can be more clear than this; and nothing can be better calculated to prevent all delusion and abuse, whatever may be the principle upon which she has proceeded in the construction of her services.

In drawing up the Services of the two Sacraments, the Reformers might consider what, according to their best views, the Sacraments were in themselves; they might speak of the receivers of them as being such persons as they ought to be, and they might presume that none would receive them but such as received them rightly or worthily. There does not seem to be anything wrong in such a proceeding. They could not form a low view of the Sacraments: they would charitably hope that all Christians would receive them in a pious manner: and, therefore, they would express themselves accordingly. But it is clear that, in this case, an assertion (however positive it be in words) which is grounded upon an assumption, is not to be understood absolutely, but conditionally.

I do not say that such was the design of the Reformers, or that such was their mode of proceeding. I only say, that if such was the case, the principle is unobjectionable, and the Services are easy to be explained. They may be liable to abuse, and so are the Scriptures themselves: but they can be abused only by those who are so ignorant, or so perverse, as not to distinguish between charitable assumption and positive assertion; between what is conditional and what is absolute; between what ought to be and what really is. On this view of our subject I need not enlarge. Yours, &c.

J. J.

HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF THE HUMAN VOICE.

Ir is, unfortunately, no uncommon thing to meet with clergymen who suffer in the chest and throat, from the effects of their public duties. As this in many cases arises from ignorance of the mode of formation of the voice and mismanagement of the vocal apparatus, a few remarks upon the subject may not be out of place here.

In speaking, two things are to be considered, viz., (1), the material, which is the air; (2) the instrument, which is the voice. The material, the air, is intimately connected with the instrument, the voice. It will be found much easier to speak in cold air, than in hot air; and hence, far easier to speak in frosty than in hot summer weather; indeed, if divine service were commenced during a frost, which was suddenly succeeded by a thaw or a drizzling rain, there would be a perceptible difference to the reader. Thus in Sir J. Franklin's arctic expedition, it was found that, during a frost, conversation could be carried on by persons separated by the distance of a mile or two-which conversation was, however, on one occasion abruptly interrupted by a sudden thaw. Hence a cold, empty church affords no criterion whereby to judge of its capacity for conveying sound when heated and filled with people.

With respect to the instrument, the voice, it is important to remember that it is formed by means of the air acting upon certain muscles within the larynx, called the "chord