pass or pilot! But I hope he will take charge of ber: then she will be safe, and, in defiance of winds and weather, arrive at last at the desired haven. I have often com. mitted her to his care, and I hope he will give her grace to commit herself to him. Excuse this little unforeseen digression, and assist me with your prayers for her, and I will try to repay you in kind, in behalf of your beloved Joseph, for whom in a course of years you will perhaps have some anxieties to feel. "As the Lord has called me to the honour and the important service of preaching his good Gospel, and is pleased to make me in some measure useful, I ought to be thankful that my life is prolonged; and I am afraid inferior attachments have some influence in making me too well reconciled to the thought of continuing bere. Yet upon the whole, and in my better judgment, I think I grow more out of conceit with the world, and more deeply convinced that it is not, cannot be my rest. The scenes of business tell me what is man; The scenes of pleasure, what is all beside! In one view, it is a place for lunatics; in another, an hospital. Madness or misery surround me wherever I cast my eyes. I pity the poor, the oppressed, the suffering part: but the gay, the busy part I pity much more. I pity statesmen, generals, and kings, with all their pomp and power, and the pretended importance of their councils and designs in my view, they are no better employed or amused than lunatics. I pity philosophers and people of taste and genius, if they have not a taste for the Gospel. Alas, what will a collection of coins, or fossils, or butterflies do for them when they are about to leave all behind! Or what will the knowledge of stars and eclipses avail the man who at death will be plunged into outer darkness! I pity the fluttering, sing-song pleasure-loving tribe: -their joy, such as it is, is transitory, like "the crackling of thorns under a pot;" they must soon lie down in sorrow. Think not that I am a misanthrope: I love my fellow creatures; and it is because I love them I pity them. I grieve to see them serious in trifles, and trifling or stupid with respect to the things of the utmost importance. "But I do not pity those who know and love our Saviour. Though they may be poor, sick, afflicted, despised, or oppressed, I hardly know how to pity them, when I compare their present sufferings with the glory that is preparing for them— or the term of their sufferings with the eternity in which they will be bappy. Should I sympathize with them when I see them weep, I must at the same time congratulate them that the Lord himself will shortly wipe all tears from their eyes. Then shall they shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom. "Oh, madam, if our Saviour be so great and so good-if he so loved us-if he really sweat blood in Gethsemane, and hung in agonies upon the cross, and all for us then what a pity, what a shame is it, that He should be so often out of our thoughts, so seldom the subject of our conversation; that we should be sometimes ashamed or half ashamed to own an attachment to him, and sometimes at a loss whether to obey the world or him. But, indeed, such is the evil, the ingratitude, the vileness of the human heart, that after we have seen his glory, and felt bis power, and heard his voice, and tasted his goodness, we are in danger of forgetting him. But may the Lord forbid! Rather may we forget our names, our food-rather let our right hand forget its cunning, and our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth, than that we should forget Him." (To be continued.) To the Editor of the Christian Observer. Heb. xiii. 7. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation: 8. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever. 9. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines, &c. THUS the passage is usually pointed in our common Bibles, with only a colon at the end of the seventh verse; which confirms the notion entertained by many persons, that the Apostle's meaning is, that Jesus Christ was "the end of these persons' conversation," or the scope at which they aimed, the object for which they lived. ("To me to live is Christ.") But the original will admit of no such interpretation, however agreeable it may be to the general analogy of Scripture and the faith. 1. The word is exbariv, outgoing, issue, close: "The close of their conversation on earth." Whitby. It is rendered " way of escape," in the only other passage of the New Testament where it occurs; 1 Cor. x. 13. 2. The words " Jesus Christ," are not in the right case to be in apposition with exCarv: in the nominative instead of the accusative. 3. The order of the words destroys such a supposition. It is this: "Considering the end of whose conversation, follow their faith. Jesus Christ," &c. t Perhaps it might be added, that vér. 8. connects much better with ver. 9. than with ver. 7. "Jesus Christ (is) the same yesterday, today, and for ever: be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines." "Accordingly, our Greek Testaments place a full point at the end of the seventh verse; nor do I remember to have seen any English edition, a hundred years old, stop ped otherwise. There is a full CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 192. point after that word in Bell's 12mo. Bible, Lond. 1686; in Field's 4to., Camb. 1666; and in the original folio of the present version, printed by Barker, in 1611. The colon after the word "conversation" is an innovation. J. S . H. P. S. May not the verb is be properly supplied as above after "Jesus Christ," so as to make the sentence complete? The sense will then be regular and coherent. The Apostle will appear to be advising the Hebrews to follow and emulate the faith of their ministers; the sum and substance of whose preaching was Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The subsequent exhortation to consistency and steadiness of doctrine thus comes in with great force and propriety. author of the Book of Genesis had intended to say to this day,' he להירם would have written הירס 66 it is true, does mean "this day," or to-day," and not "to this day;" a fact which has not escaped the translators, who have inserted the to in Italics, thus merely using it as an expletive required in the English language. of that place Jehovah-jireh,” i. e. (Jehovah shall provide,) 66 as it shall be said; This day in the mount of Jehovah it shall be seen." The Hebrew language, it should be remembered, has a character of its own. It does not, like other languages, invariably submit to be controlled by regular grammatical guidance; but the skilful reader is at no loss to determine, whether the past or future is intended to be expressed. The Hebrew Bible abounds with instances in which the writer darts from past to future, and adverts with rapidity to events widely remote from each other as to time, though of typical affinity, leaving it to the reader to account for the transition. In the present instance, there is great propropriety and sublimity in the abrupt Without separately replying to each of the reasons of your correspondent for believing the whole translation to belong to the past, I shall just quote another of his sentences, that I may remark upon it. After the passage in Hebrew, his own translation is given thus: "And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh; because, said he, this day in the mountain the Lord hath vided." Then this sentence follows: "In this version, you will observe, that I have given to the future verb the signification of a preterite, which I conceive to be fully justified in the first instance of its occurrence, by the vau which stands at the beginning of the sentence, and, in the second instance, by the word going before it, which has the same power as the vau to convert the future tense into a preterite." Now though vau and have sometimes this effect, yet they have not always. Vau, indeed, is conversive here, but only to the verb to which it is prefixed. The first in the verse is not, however, literally translated by," it shall be seen." The truth is, that it is in the future of Kal. The second is in the future of Niphal; Hametz being under Resh, and the long vowel Pzaire, instead of Hbirik, being under, to compensate for the characteristic Dagesh which cannot be placed in the Resh. What I have now said of the last, applies exactly to the יאמר conjugation of Thus the translation is: "And Abraham called the name recurrence to the grand event which was to take place upon that very spot, which had been the scene of its typical representation. I have felt it a duty thus to offer my feeble endeavour to rectify what appears to me a very inadequate interpretation of a sentence, which contains a most interesting allusion to the stupendous Atonement which was to be offered up for the sin of the world. B. W. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. are sequence, except in the case of the centurion. The conversion of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost is ascribed to other causes.A satisfactory solution of this apparent difficulty, by any of your correspondents, will much oblige S. Y. For the Christian Observer. ON THE MYSTERIES OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. No truth can be more evident and rational than this, that if God made the world, he also governs it. Even among men, a skilful artificer would not contrive and put together a curious and intricate piece of machinery fit for some noble and useful purpose, and then leave it neglected to itself, either to stop or go on; and much less would he suffer it to produce nothing but injury and destruction by its irregular movements. It is true, that man is so ignorant and shortsighted, that the thin veil which interposes between us and the unseen world, prevents our discerning, as we otherwise should do, the Divine agency. But this is no proof that it does not exist: on the contrary, every thing which we see and hear, may and must convince us, if we will only open our minds to the admission of the truth, that "verily there is a God who judgeth in the earth, and disposeth the hearts of the children of men;" but whose dispensations, though infinitely wise and good, are often far too high and intricate for human discernment. But why need we seek for proof of this fact? What is the whole world, what are all things in us and around us, but one mighty maze, the mysteries of which are infinitely beyond the reach of human contemplation? Till the Divine record of our faith was bestowed on a benighted world, all was doubt, and darkness, and gloom. Man might or might not be immortal; there might or there might not be a God and a futurity: we knew nothing, thought nothing, felt nothing beyond the present scene. But Revelation burst with its celestial splendour on this dark and intricate path. The heavenly Parent saw and pitied the ignorance and weakness of his erring child, and disclosed, at once for our comfort and salvation, that blessed scheme of redemption for lost and guilty man which furnishes an answer to all our most important difficulties; especially that supremely interesting one," What shall I do to be saved?" Yet though much is disclosed, and all that is necessary for our eternal peace, how much still remains enveloped in obscurity! If we take the three great departments of God's government, Creation, Providence, and Grace, in each shall we discover that " searchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.' un To begin with the works of Creation-What can be more concealed from our knowledge than the scenes which constantly surround us? What is our own earth? and what are those starry worlds that adorn the brow of night; and that sun, that lights us by his splendour and cheers us by his warmth, and invigorates our globe by his kindly influences? The more we make advances in knowledge, the more we discover our utter ignorance. The husbandman perceives day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, succeed each other: his corn springs up, and a beneficent Power pours into his garner "all manner of increase :" but every part of the process is a mystery that escapes his utmost researches. Ten thousand efforts could not form one blade of grass; or one drop of rain, to water and restore its faded verdure. And if these, the most plain and common works of creation, are hid in mystery, so that we cannot tell even how a seed vegetates in the ground, what shall we say of the animate creation? Especially, what shall we say of that master-piece of Divine skill and power, the human frame, so fearfully and wonderfully made, that even heathens bave been obliged to acknowledge it a proof of the existence of an all-wise and gracious Creator? The Almighty, both from the whirlwind, and by the mouth of Elihu speaking to Job, pursues this argument with much force and sublimity. " Behold, God is great, and we know him not." "Can any man understand the spreading of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacle?" "God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend."" Hearken unto this, O Job! stand still and consider the wondrous works of God. Dost thou know when he caused the light of his cloud to shine? Dost thou know the perfect works of him which is perfect in knowledge? how thy garments are warm, when he quieteth the earth by the south wind? Teach us what we shall say unto him, for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness." If, then, the works of Creation be so complete a proof of our ignorance of God's dispensations, how much more so the works of Grace! Who shall unfold the won derful mysteries of Redemption? Who shall comprehend, in all its awful consequences, the Fall of our first parents? Who shall tell why they were even permitted to fall? Who shall inform us how sin entered a holy and happy creation? Who shall reconcile the infinite knowledge and prescience of God, with the free powers and moral responsibility of man? Who shall tell how the Divine nature was united to the human in our blessed Lord how our guilt was expiated by his cross and passion? how He was made sin for us who knew no sin? bow his righteousness becomes ours by faith? how the Holy Spirit operates on the human heart? how he enlightens our understandings, sanctifies our will, regenerates and converts our souls, and makes us meet for that inheritance which a Redeemer purchased for us freely with his own most precious blood? The feeblest glance at these and numerous other difficulties connected with the works of grace, is surely sufficient to bow us low in the dust of humility. Well might the Apostle exclaim, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?" And yet man, a being of yesterday, and who must die tomorrow, too often boasts of bis feeble powers, adores his shortlived reason, and refuses to submit himself humbly as a penitent sinner, conscious of his guilt and ignorance, to the guidance of that blessed word which alone, under the instrumentality of its Divine Author, can lighten his darkness, and lead him safely through the intricate windings of this valley of the shadow of death, to the shores of eternal light, and knowledge, and repose! Surely our daily prayer should be; O thou infinite Source of wisdom and of grace! though we cannot comprehend either the height, or length, or breadth of thy love in Christ Jesus, yet upon it would we calmly and confidently repose by faith, till the time when thou shalt see fit to remove this veil of flesh, and introduce us, through the blood of Redeemer, to that heavenly world, where we shall know even as also we are known! Again That the operations of Providence as well as of Nature and Grace are mysterious, and often far beyond our comprehension, needs, perhaps, less proof than either of the former. For what is human life, with all its comforts and sorrows, its changes and accidents, but an illustration of the solemn truth, "What I do |