Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Highness say, that they respect the Scriptures, and maintain their supremacy, as the judges respect and maintain the supremacy of the law? Do the two bear any comparison? If anti-Noahic geology were a science, as it never will be, is the obstinate maintaining of it the proper work of clergymen ? Is not the redemption of the soul precious? What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? and what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Is not the science they ought to cultivate, and strenuously support, the science of a purchased and freely offered salvation through Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Do the hundreds of Jesuit priests in England, where never one of them should have been allowed to enter, spend their time in writing upon, and supporting geology? When the pestilence walks over the earth, do they neglect to attend to the poorest of their flocks, and administer the soul-deceiving viaticum. They teach Protestant bishops and presbyters a lesson of diligence and devotedness, though what they unceasingly propagate has received the curse of Heaven. The late Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, said, Popery never had changed, and never would change. Let it not be told, that in the short space of three hundred years, we are as enamoured, as we were abhorrent of Popery; and let it not be true, that Protestant clergymen, in the honoured and exalted Church of England, are unchallenged, pioneering the way to body-killing, soul-destroying, and Heaven-defying Popery. The man of sin, and son of perdition, opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped And I, John, saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And in Rome Papal was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth; and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy. Let us not warm and cherish that serpent, which, when it has acquired vigour, will sting us to death. How do Dr. Smith's clerical lovers of science (because with them we have chiefly to do, let him whine over the lay infidels) remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy? Do they celebrate it from morning to evening? Do they prepare for it on Saturday as the Jews, unreproved, did in our Saviour's time? (Luke xxiii. 54.) Do they observe it as instituted and promulgated by God, and as enjoined and observed by prophets, priests, and kings, and governors, Jesus and His apostles? (Gen. ii. 1-3; Exod. xx. 8-11, xvi. 23, xxxi. 17, xxxiv. 21, xxxv. 3; Numb. xxviii. 10; Deut. v. 15; 2 Kings xi. 5; 1 Chron. xxiii. 31; Neh. xiii. 15-23; Isa. lvi. 2, lviii. 13 ; Mark ii. 27 ; Luke iv. 16; vi. 1-5; John xx. 19; Acts

:

ii. 1; xvii. 2; xviii. 4.) Jesus Christ did not say a syllable about curtailing, mitigating, mutilating, or abrogating the observance of the Sabbath; but the very reverse: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, the moral law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. He came to establish the moral law as an everlasting rule of righteousness,-to explain, enforce, and obey it (Matth. v. 23-28) to the letter and the spirit; and for whom but for the chief of sinners; nor did He cease till He declared, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. He did, He could do nothing to relax it by His practice; none could convince, could charge Him with sin. His betrayer said, I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood. The Sabbath was not relaxed when it was changed by Christ's countenance, and by apostolic observance. Christ had full power, and gave authority to change the time to His resurrection day. He did not, He could not, we say with trembling, relax the observance. The time was positive and changeable, the duty moral and irreversible, (Psal. xix. 7-11.) Man, in his supernatural state, in innocency, required the Sabbath to hold more intense communion with his Maker and Preserver than on the other six lawful working days, dressing and keeping Eden's ever-blooming and teeming garden. Had we but seen Adam and Eve in Paradise, when no fear or care had entered, on the Saturday evening, prepare for the sacred Sabbath; had we seen them contemplating, adoring, and praising the whole day, without tiring, (visited, no doubt, often by Him who was to become incarnate, and be crucified, and rise again,) we would blush when worldly thoughts intrude, and say, Did my Saviour tire of His work of doing or suffering for me? Do the Bishops keep the whole Sabbath strictly and devoutly? Do they enjoin their clergy to preach against Sabbath profanation at least four times every year, and rigidly to keep the Sabbath? Do we hear them lifting up their voices in the House of Peers, and, year after year, introducing bills to get greater Sabbath sanctification? Do they do all in their power to stop completely Sabbath working, Sabbath trading, Sabbath travelling, and Sabbath amusement and recreation, throughout the whole of England? The Bishop of London, to his honour, opposed the opening of the Post-Office on 14th October, 1849. Is not the Sabbath the worst spent day of the seven? and are we not, in this respect, also copying the beast that goeth into perdition? (Rev. xvii. 11.) Can any reasonable man believe that Christ would, or could relax Sabbath obligation, to serve God as much as possible, as He is perfectly, daily, served in heaven? Could He

Public

change all the law and the prophets, (Matt. xxii. 40,) and continue unchangeable? (Psal. cii. 27; Mal. iii. 6; Heb. vii. 24.) Christian liberty is become an abused expression, (Rom. viii. 21; 2 Cor. iii. 17; Gal. v. 1,) using the sacred word liberty for an occasion to the flesh, for a cloak of maliciousness. See if Christ or His apostles ever used the grateful sound liberty, but to bring perishing sinners from the bondage of Satan, sin, and self, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Christ was foretold to proclaim liberty to the captives of sin and suffering, (Isa. Ixi.) Ah! what would many give at this instant to have this liberty! While I write, (Aug. 10, 1849, about two o'clock, p.m.,) two soldiers from the Castle of Edinburgh are going through Newington with a prisoner. Will they release him till they have fulfilled their orders? Not a word are they speaking. Shall they be faithful to their Royal Sovereign on earth; and shall they walk to Greenlaw, or some depot;—and shall Christians not religiously keep the Sabbath for a crown of glory? Let us not think we will get it, if we do not work for it. opinion will not sway him who gives laws to universal being. Far be it from us to disparage real science, or far-feared and honoured England. Would your Royal Highness feel satisfied if an unworthy servant of the King of kings should fail to stand up for the friends, the honours, the rights, and the privileges of his Royal Master? Did the captives of Babylon forget Jerusalem, within whose gates they never dreamed an enemy could enter? (Psal. cxxxvii.; Lam. iv. 12.) Your Royal Highness has gratified, and even delighted all classes of Her Majesty's subjects, ever since you became the consort of Her august Majesty. You have done honour to your family, your country, and humanity. You have made many think more of Germany, since she has produced a prince, who pays such undivided attention, and undissembled affection, to his queenly spouse. Your Royal Highness's designed Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in 1851, is manly and princely, could we but exhibit before them, genuine, fervent piety, and uncorrupted morality, from the palace to the cottage. Had her most gracious Majesty's, and your Royal Highness's advisers and exemplars, been equal to those who surrounded the throne of David, and Solomon, and Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah; and great Nebuchadnezzar, when Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah encircled his throne, or even such as have sometimes surrounded the throne of Britain,—her amiable maternal Majesty, and her paternal Consort, would have heard the words of wisdom, learned the

lessons of experience, breathed the atmosphere of piety and morality, and reflected them in official, domestic, and personal acts of justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude, over the largest empire on which the sun ever shone. Nobly you have acquitted yourselves in inexperienced youth; but the higher werise, the higher we may rise, before we reach, by Divine grace and guidance, the attainable height of regenerated and sanctified humanity. Her Majesty is the most interesting mother in Britain, or in the world, and will never forget, morn or even, that her Saviour was made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of the sons and daughters of God Almighty, (1 John iii. 1.) Your Royal Highness can never forget that you have, in a certain sense, placed a new dynasty on the British throne. Act as you have done, and endeavour scripturally to train your son and family, and generations yet unborn shall bless the names of Victoria and Albert. Now, may Her Sacred Majesty, and your Royal Highness, enjoy all the blessings of the new, sure, and well-ordered covenant! May your royal children be all taught of God, through the instrumentality of conformed and nonconformed, really heaven-born instructors! May the nation be speedily and effectually reformed from all manner of iniquity and ungodliness! so that the words of Moses, the man of God, (Deut. xxxiii. 29,) may be lawfully applied to us,-Happy art thou, O Britain! Who is like unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency; and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places! May we enjoy all the blessings of God's peculiar people! May the name of Britain be, The Lord is there!-is the fervent desire of, may it please your Royal Highness,

Your most obedient and most devoted Servant,

THOMAS LOCKERBY, Minister of Cadder, Presbytery of Glasgow, County of Lanark, North Britain.

PREFACE.

HAD Sir Walter Scott or Dr. Thomas Chalmers been tenants at will, (as all mankind are while on earth,) and had they strongly recommended this book as a faithful Record, it might have shed upon it a passing lustre, so that the majority would have looked into it and praised it, and laid it on the shelf; and even the impartial reviewers, Macphail and others, might have looked upon it with a kindlier eye, and passed it with a gentle notice, and extracted a few of its best specimens, perhaps even from the Oration that Mr. Paton disparaged, shewing that there is an immense deal in a name. The Quaker well knew that his word would destroy the innocent dog. But no preface, however lengthened, and strengthened, and ornamented, (no worldly tact or historical skill, as Mr. Stewart, preacher, Clerk Street Chapel, on Sabbath, 11th November, 1849, incautiously attributed to Peter's sermon, Acts iii. 17,-the Sabbath immediately preceding Her Gracious Majesty's order in Council for a national thanksgiving for the Almighty's merciful abatement of cholera,-which thanksgiving the Voluntaries did not observe, whether loyally and Scripturally, good men may judge,) will cancel the errors, or neutralize the impieties and immoralities of any book on any subject. A book that is lies from end to end, as all books on anti-Noahic geology are, can never be made true. A book that contradicts, opposes, or perverts, or parodies, or burlesques Scripture, like Mr. Miller's Footprints of the Creator, (in an appendix or in Brown's Life,) can never be made to coincide with it. A book that is admitted to be directly opposed to Scripture, (p. 505,) in its plain, ordinary common sense meaning, (p. 690,) according to the plain sense and import of the words, (p. 734,) like Dr. J. P. Smith's relation between the Holy Scriptures and some parts of geological science, can never be harmonized with that blessed book. The opinions and convictions of the author, his reasonings, and conclusions, and inferences, and deductions, and inductions, and even demonstrations, must be light as the chaff on the summer thrashing-floor, (Dan. ii. 35,) which the wind driveth away, (Psal. i. 4.) We allow no philology, or criticism, or philosophy, or geology, to touch the Book of God. Let Scripture be compared with Scripture till it harmonizes, and let it be believed and obeyed as coming from the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »