In illustration of these remarks, and to confirm those of your correspondent, I wish to draw your attention to one passage, the misapplication of which has been already noticed in your work, but which still continues to be misquoted and misapplied. I allude to 1 Cor. ii. 9, which I have generally heard quoted as follows: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered unto the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." In the first place, this text is misquoted, since it stands in our translation thus: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." How the word "conceive was originally added to the text, I am at a loss to conjecture, though it may have a tendency to help the misapplication of the passage which comes next under consideration. I have heard it currently quoted in reference to the unseen and inconceivable glory and happiness prepared in heaven for the people of God; but a slight attention to

the context and general bearing of the chapter will shew that such a reference could never have been contemplated by the Apostle. The very sentence which immediately follows this passage, and which should not be separated from it, is enough to prove this. "For God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit," says the writer, evidently referring to "the wisdom of God in a mystery," verse 7; or in other words the wonders of the Gospel dispensation, and the work of the Redeemer with its accompanying blessings; all which are hidden from the eye and understanding of "the wise men of this world," and indeed of every man by nature; since we can form no conception by the mere powers of unassisted reason of the blessings which God reveals to the believer by his Spirit.-A reference to the passage in the prophet Isaiah which the Apostle is quoting, will not help to account for the misapplication of this text. Those who want further confirmation of the above interpretation of the passage may consult almost any of the commentators; but the real meaning is so obvious, that no one who ever examined it could have misapplied it in the usual way.

DIACONUS.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

As it is by the running too and fro of many that knowledge (especially on prophetical subjects) is to be increased, I beg to inquire, through the medium of your columns, whether it has occurred to any expositor of prophecy that the number of the beast (Rev. xiii. 18.) may symbolise somewhat more than the name of the beast. It may now be considered as a tolerably well settled point in prophetic exposition, that the papal power is designated by this number; and I think I also see in the symbol the rise of the beast. I should be obliged if some of your

correspondents, possessed of more leisure, as well as more enlarged knowledge on historical and chronological points than myself, would ascertain whether any circumstance in the papal history, sufficiently important to be regarded as the rise of the beast, took place in about the year 666. Considering the dates given by the more eminent expositors, there is nothing very improbable in the suggestion of that year; and, though, ardent Millennerians, who are daily expecting the time of the end, will regard it as a chilling theory, the dates consequent upon this suggestion will make the Millennium remarkably synchronise with the sabbatical Millenary. The rise of the beast being 666, the several prophetic cras will expire in 1926, 1956, and 2001.

$2.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

It was lately remarked, in your valuable publication, that the earliest Confession of Faith of the Waldenses has been comparatively neglected by those who have written on subjects relative to that people. It will be found, however, that Mr. Sims, in an appendix to Peyran's "Historical Defence of the Waldenses" (pp. 141--147), has not only referred to that inportant document, but has noticed, what appears to have escaped other writers, such an extraordinary similarity between that Confession of Faith and the Thirty-uine Articles of the Church of England, as to warrant the conclusion that the foundation, of those articles of the principal Protestant Church in Christendom, may be traced in the Waldensian document. Mr. Sims has given parallel extracts from both the ancient Confession of the Vaudois and the Thirty-nine Articles, in order that the reader may the more exactly observe the surprising resemblance which he

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 305.

has dovered, and which he has pointed out, in the following Articles of our church : --- Article 8. Of the Three Creeds; 1. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity; 6. Of. the Sufficiency of the Holy Scripture ; 9. Of Original or Birth-sin; 11. of the Justification of Man; 22. Of Purgatory; 25. Of the Sacraments; 37. Of the civil Magistrates. The reader who examines the above passage in the Historical Defence," will find that the language of the Thirty-nine Articles is, in some instances, copied word for word from the Waldensian document. The most important part of the parallel is that by which it appears, that members of the Church of England, indeed the Christian world in general, have had the advantage of a list of those pure and canonical books of Scripture, which are the foundation of all true churches and of all true doctrines, handed down by the Waldenses, as by faithful witnesses, from the carlier ages, in direct opposition to the corrupted list of sacred books adopted in the Church of Rome. Mr. Sims justly closes the parallel with observing, that the comparison thus instituted between that ancient and venerable confession of the Waldensian Church and the Thirtynine Articles, serves not only to prove that the doctrines which the Church of England reveres were maintained by the Waldenses, aud (being embalmed, so to speak, in this ancient document,) were pre-· served from corruption during the dark ages; but shews it probable that this celebrated series of articles of the Established Church were partly formed by our Reformers on the model of the Waldensian Confession of Faith. If so, bow much is the Church of England indebted, how much indeed is every Protestant Church indebted, to that pure and primitive church, of which a renmant, still exists in its original seat, three valleys of Piedmont, near the Cottian Alps!

2 N

N.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. In common with your correspondent CANONICUS (C. O. for 1826, p. 600), I feel much anxiety for the abrogation of the Apocryphal Lessons, even on week days; but, till that most desirable end shall be attained, I beg to suggest to our clergy, that they certainly never need nor ought to read them on the Lord's day. I am led to make this remark by the circumstance of having been lately obliged to listen at church, on that sacred day, to two or three assertions in Apocryphal Lessons, directly at variance both with Holy Scrip

ture and the Articles of our own Church. The feast of the Annunciation having this year happened on Sunday, the third chapter of Ecclesiasticus was read as the first lesson in the afternoon service. The following is the divinity of the third, fifth, and thirtieth verses of that chapter: "Whoso honoureth his father,

maketh an atonement for his sins:" ......" when he maketh his prayer he shall be heard." "Water will quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an atonement for sins*." The rubric gives no direction as to the course to be pursued when a saint's day and Sunday, or a saint's day and one of our Lord's festivals, fall on the same day; and this omission leaves every clergyman at liberty to adopt his own course. Wheatley suggests that this is one of those cases of doubt, which, according to the rubrical power vested in them for the purpose, the bishops ought to resolve. However, in the absence of Episcopal direction on the subject, I beg to suggest to the clergy, the propriety of availing themselves of their confessed liberty in this behalf, and of abstaining from setting before their hearers, such heterodoxy as I have above quoted.

A LAYMAN.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. THE very remarkable way in which it has pleased God to bless the efforts now in progress, for dispel ling the darkness of Romanism, has necessarily called forth the controversial effusions of those who still adhere to that system. Among the various means of discrediting the Reformed faith, is that of vilifying the characters of those eminent men who were the honoured in struments in that great work. As these have not been isolated, but continued efforts, permit me to call your attention to a remarkable attempt of this kind, in the publication of a dignified prelate of the Gallican Church; entitled "an amicable Discussion on the Anglican Church and the Reformation generally*." This book has been widely *"Discussion amicale sur l'Eglise Anglois, et en general sur la Reformation, par Monsieur l'Evêque d'Aise."

circulated in France, and especially pressed on the notice of our countrymen residing there, as an unanswerable refutation, by a second Bossuet, of the errors of the preThe value tended Reformation. placed upon this performance may be conceived, when we find its author translated to the important bishopric of Strasburgh, and entrusted with the education of the young Duke of Bordeaux. preferment has not cooled his zeal, as appears from the following notice affixed by him to the door of his cathedral church at Strasburgh : "Forty days' indulgence will be granted to all those, who, after

His

* At the time of the Apocryphal controversy at Bristol, a few years since, in consequence of the late bishop's directions to the clergy never to change the lessons, one of the incumbents of that city lately deceased, coming to this passage, paused, and then boldly read it," Alms do not make atonement for sins."

the same crimes as his master, he is not worthy of any one's regard. All this may be dissembled, as it has been by himself and others; but it is no invention resting on individual hear-say, but founded on the ocular testimony of contemporaries, which no one can hear without pity and horror. Truth however requires that I should inform, the reader, that I find no trace of the famous branding in the writings of Monsieur Desmay, although he made diligent search for it on the spot. I wish his silence may be deemed sufficient to subvert the affirmations, so opposite and so public, of others, who wrote more than forty and fifty years before him. Perhaps M. Desmay might have examined the registers of the chapter, and not of the city. Besides, eighty years had elapsed since the judgment given against Calvin; and it is generally asserted, that his friends had taken good care to erase the proceedings from the records of the city

This is indeed a serious and heavy charge; and, although we do not derive those tenets which as Protestants we hold, in opposition to the errors of Popery, from human authority, nor in that point of view conceive it of vital importance, whether the imputations cast on the early Reformers are founded in truth or built on error, we still deem it but justice to the memory of those pious and truly eminent men, to rescue their names from the stigma of reproach; and, where the means are within our reach, to shew the arts by which an antiscriptural religion and an intolerant church are upheld amidst the increasing light of the nineteenth century.

In order to acquire a more thorough knowledge of the originating cause of this imputation on the character of Calvin, it will be requisite to search a little into the bistory of the chief promoters of it, Berthelier and Bolsec; and perhaps we shall find, that the confident assertions of

* Discuss. Amicale, tom. i. pp. 88-92.

the Gallican prelate rest upon a foundation so unstable, that, had he been aware of it, it is to be hoped that he would have been ashamed of propagating such defamation. Berthelier, the original inventor of this ill-constructed fiction, had the minor station of registrar in one of the inferior courts at Geneva. His profligate course of life had frequently drawn on him, first the friendlyadmonitions, and, these proving ineffectual, eventually the public animadversions, of Calvin; who, in concurrence with the other ministers, excluded him from participating in the Lord's supper, as unworthy to appear in the congregation of the faithful. Mortified, but not humbled by this disgrace, he caballed with others of a similar character, who had equal reasons to dislike the strict discipline of the Reformed Church. These men, however, proceeded farther than perhaps they at first intended; and, eventually forming a treasonable conspiracy against the state, they were obliged to flee their country. Berthelier, although he had escaped beyond the reach of justice, was tried and condemned to decapitation, should he ever be found in the Genevese territories*.

This then is the man whom the Senate of an independent and proud Republic employ in a public mission to France-for so runs the story-in the year 1551, a period marked for the fierceness of its persecution against the disciples, as they were termed, of Calvin; and therefore chosen in their wisdom as an opportune time to expect, on the part of this Catholic country, an open recognition of a Protestant embassy! But this is not the only difficulty to be contended with. The embassage of Berthelier, must have been prior to the year 1552, as he was at Bayle, Dict. Historique et Crit. art Berthelier.

This was in the reign of Henry II who, two years previously, witnessed the burning of some of his Protestant subjects at Paris.-L'Esprit de la Ligue, tome i. p. 15.