Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

In 2 Thes. ii. 7, the Apostle speaks of "the mystery of iniquity." It is not possible to discover in this mystery any ground for a claim to Christian priesthood; and the charity that "thinketh no evil" compels us to suppose that Ritualism will not base its assumption of the priestly office upon such a mystery as "the mystery of iniquity."

În 1 Tim. iii. 9, we read-" Holding the mystery of faith in a pure conscience." The mystery is the Gospel, which its ministers are to hold fast and exemplify. How-by offering sacrifice as a priest? Nay; but by faithful preaching, and a holy, blameless life, springing from purity of heart.

In 1 Tim. iii. 16, we have another use of the word mystery"Great is the mystery of godliness," &c. In these words, the term is employed in its fullest and most complete sense, as a profound secret an incomprehensible truth. The doctrine of the incarnation of God lies beyond the range of the intellect quite in the sphere of faith. We know that God became man, but how the Divine and human were united we do not know. "The Word (who was God) was made flesh, and dwelt among us." How made flesh? how conceived of the Holy Ghost? How humanly born, with a human nature, and not humanly begotten? How was God, the Maker of all, united with the Man, dependent and responsible-subject to temptations, but without sin-the absolute Lord of life, and passing through the pangs of death? The united humanity and Deity of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity involved, the condescension and amazing love of God, the vicarious suffering and effectual atonement of Jesus, are all beyond the grasp of mere reason-mysteries which the intellect cannot unravel and explain. Only the heart, in the strength and beauty of faith, can know these things. Here is a mystery into which angels desire to look, and their marvellous vision cannot see its depth.

The Apostle, then, and every man who by Divine direction preaches Christ, had, as a steward of the mysterious God, committed unto him

I. The will of God concerning man's salvation.

II. The necessity of personal holiness, "holding the faith in a pure conscience."

III. The intimate and spiritual union existing between Christ and the Church.

IV. The resurrection of the dead.

V. The final triumph of Jesus, when all shall be gathered together in him.

VI. The profound and sublime doctrines of the incarnation and atonement, with all their correlative truths, lying at the root of Christianity.

But where does this stewardship involve sacerdotalism? sense is clerical priesthood connected with these mysteries?

In what

The steward is entrusted with these great doctrines; he has to maintain and publish them. It is his to preach glad tidings to the captive, to lift up the cross

"All stained with hallowed blood."

He has no authority to make atonement by perpetual expiatory offer

ings; but he has authority-and woe to him if, in the sacerdotal pride of his heart, he set light by it-to point men, dead in trespasses and in sins, to Him who, having once died and risen again, "dieth no more," but "ever liveth to make intercession."

We cannot leave this part of the subject without mentioning a most significant and weighty fact-viz., that in the charges delivered by St. Paul to Timothy and to Titus, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, there is no allusion, direct or indirect, to priestly office and priestly work. These charges contain minute directions touching personal and official conduct. They clearly, and in detail, declare all that belongs to the office and character of a bishop. They are full of exhortations to reading, meditation, and study. They point out how, and for whom, prayer is to be made. They give instructions concerning the Church's widows, and concerning female attire. They give counsel as to the manner of rebuking elders; but they make no mention of priestly authority.

Do not all these considerations go to prove that the Apostles never regarded the commission they had received of the Lord Jesus as authorizing them to exercise priestly functions? How else can we interpret this reticence-this entire silence upon a subject so important in its bearing upon the whole Christian Church? And whence comes it that in the charges to the young disciples-charges which detail their duties and their deportment-the Holy Spirit (be it said with all reverence) omitted to furnish instruction upon the most grave and solemn duties of their office, if that office was priestly!

Thus it is evident that Ritualism has no foundation upon which to build in the Divine revelation; it has no foothold in apostolic teaching, this lust of lordliness, this pride of priestly power. The cradle of this curse is the unhumbled heart, the spirit in which there is neither meekness nor mercy, but panting ambition and restless arrogance. Ah! woe! woe! for liberty, for divine law, for virtue, for honour, for truth, for religion, when the foot of the priest walks through the land, and the anathema peals from his altar. The Word will be hushed upon the teacher's lips, couched in the silence of his crushed heart; the Book will be wrested from the scholar's hand; closed will be the doors of the house of prayer, and the voice of rejoicing will not be heard in the sanctuaries of God. "Darkness will cover the land, and gross darkness the people."

But will this ever be? Shall England see again upon the canvas of her history a picture so gloomy and sad? No! never again! Her children have too much light and knowledge and Christian life. The sons of the martyrs are still in her midst, and the inspiration of the olden fires glows yet in their hearts. We will have no priest but "our great High Priest," believing that his blood alone "cleanseth from all sin."

Gloucester.

J. C. WILLIAMS.

SECRET SIN.-You have seen a ship out on the bay, swinging with the tide, and seeming as if it would follow it, and yet it cannot, for down beneath the water it is anchored. So many a soul sways towards heaven, but cannot ascend thither, because it is anchored to some secret sin.—H, W. Beecher.

383

Miscellaneous Articles, Anecdotes, &c.

THE CELESTIAL SCENERY OF THE MONTHS.

VI.-JUNE.

THE season of summer, with its greatest maximum of daylight, has once more returned, and universal Nature, aroused by the advent of spring, rejoices in renewed life and activity. While the habitable globe abounds with objects of interest for the thoughtful observer, the celestial student has an infinite variety offered to his gaze in the scenery of the heavens at this period of the year. The winter constellations have disappeared below the western horizon at the time of sunset, and during the brief interval which will elapse before they return in the east, we have a rich store of stellar objects slowly passing before our view. And yet the daily revolution of the sun, the alternate change of light and darkness, the nightly motion of the stars, their appearance and disappearance, and the regular succession of the seasons, are objects which the great majority of mankind in this age of competition and light literature pass unnoticed, because they have witnessed them from their earliest youth. A large number of persons, intent on the great business of life, while they enjoy the light of day, rest during the shades of night, hail the return of spring and verdure, admire the richness of summer, and pluck the fruits of autumn, yet scarcely bestow one thought on the nature of the heavenly bodies, so resplendent with beauty. Nevertheless this pleasing study may be pursued without difficulty, and in the course of a few months every constellation may be known, and the mind enriched with a considerable store of astronomical knowledge. Let us now examine the face of the heavens, as presented to our view in the month of June.

We noticed, in February, the position of Ursa Major, at a low eastern

elevation; now, this group of stars is over our head, and with it appear others which were below the horizon in winter. Some telescopic objects which might have been seen at a late hour in winter, now make their appearance towards the west at sunset. Looking due south, the most conspicuous star is Arcturus, to which the three stars in Ursa Major seem to point. Mention is made of Arcturus in the book of Job, but there is good reason to believe the object there alluded to is either a bright star in Ursa Major, or the entire constellation. To the east of Arcturus is a beautiful collection of stars, of semi-circular shape, called the Northern Crown: the dimensions of this group are small when compared with the adjoining constellation Hercules, now a conspicuous object in the south-east at a high elevation. 'On celestial globes this constellation represents the classic hero, clad in the skin of the Nemean lion, with uplifted club in one hand, while with the other he grasps the three-headed dog Cerberus. In Hercules there is a globular cluster of stars, which may be discerned by the naked eye when the moon is absent; but its telescopic appearance exceeds all description. In an ordinary telescope the field of view is spangled with many glittering points, but there still remains the great central globular mass, impenetrable to all but first-class telescopes. The late Dr. Nichol says, "Perhaps no one ever yet saw this object for the first time through a good telescope, without uttering a shout of wonder." Our illustration (Fig. 1) is a very fair representation of this interesting object, as seen by the writer in the 20-feet achromatic in the Euston Road, London, a few years since. Speaking generally of these stellar clusters, Sir John Hersch says, "It would be a vain task to attempt to count the stars in one of these globular clusters. They are not to be

reckoned by hundreds; and on a rough calculation, it would appear that many clusters of this description must contain at least twenty or thirty thousand stars, compacted and wedged together in a round space not more than a tenth part of that covered by the moon." Commenting on this quotation, Dr. Dick remarks, "In this almost invisible point, which not one out of 50,000, or even one out of a million of earth's inhabitants has yet perceived, what a scene of grandeur and beneficence may be displayed: and what a confluence of suns, and systems, and worlds, and intelligences of various orders may exist, displaying the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the great Father of all! But suns of such size

Fig. 1..

and splendour cannot be supposed to be thrown together at random through the regions of immensity, without any ultimate design worthy of the Creator, or without relation to the enjoyments of intelligent existence; and therefore we may reasonably conclude that ten thousand times ten thousands, and myriads of exalted intelligences exist in that far distant region, compared with the number of which all the inhabitants of our globe are but as the drop of a bucket, or as the small dust of the balance."" The words of the Rev. T.W. Webb are exceedingly appropriate : -"The aspect of this collection of innumerable suns is enough to make the mind shrink with a sense of the

insignificance of our little world. Yet the Christian will not forget that, as it has been nobly said, He took of the dust of this earth, and with it He rules the universe."

There are more than 3,000 nebulæ, of which that in Hercules may be taken as a specimen, scattered over the entire firmament; but they are found in greatest number in the southern hemisphere. The Milky Way, in which the individual stars may be counted by millions, is thought to be but one of the nebula. The researches of modern astronomers go far to prove that the solar system is located towards the central portion of the Milky Way; and this simple fact of itself is enough to inspire the highest feelings of wonder and admiration at the immensity of the universe.

Besides the nebula we have noticed, Hercules abounds with many other interesting telescopic objects, among which are several beautiful double stars, of various colours. One fact must not here be overlooked. One of the stars in this constellation is believed by Argelander, of Bonn, to be the star towards which the sun. with its attendant planets, is directing its course, at a most inconceivable velocity.

To the left of Hercules is the constellation Lyra, whose principal star, Vega, of the first degree of brilliancy. and of a pale sapphire-blue in the telescope, always catches the eye. It comes next in lustre to the vivid winter star, Sirius. This star is over our heads in August and September soon after dusk. Sir W. Herschel computed the diameter of Vega to be at least 33,000,000 miles, yet when he employed the enormous magnifying power of 6,000 in his 40-feet reflector, the star was a mere lucid point. Allowing this estimate to be correct, how vastly superior is Vega to the sun in magnitude, and what must be its distance!

In Lyra, and near to Vega, is the beautiful "ring nebula," the smaller of the two objects shown in Fig. 2. The view of this glittering assem blage of celestial gems in a large telescope is a scene of exquisite grandeur, which no drawing can fairly

[graphic]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]

focal length, and 6 feet diameterpresented an entire change in the appearance of the nebulous objects to the views previously given by Herschel. Fig. 3 is an illustration

Fig. 3.

of this variety of appearance: it shows the spiral nebula, in the constellation Canes Venatici, near the tail of Ursa Major, as figured by Herschel, which no one will recognize

to an exploration of the moon. He possessed a very powerful reflecting telescope, 20 feet long and 19 inches diameter; and when this instrument was directed to the Milky Way in the neighbourhood of Cygnus, the splendour of the sight drew from him the exclamation, "What omnipotence!" This constellation, with Lyra, and several others, is given in Fig. 4, which is a view of this portion of the heavens as seen by the naked eye. If a telescope of the smallest size be moved rapidly over this region, the eye will be delighted by the appearance of an almost infinite number of minute sparkling points, which resemble shining dust. Here is the renowned star 61 Cygni, famous for the observations of Bessel, which resulted, in 1837, in our knowledge of its actual distance. This

[graphic]

Y

« AnteriorContinuar »