in blossom at the very beginning of the year; when scarcely any other part of the vegetable kingdom attracts the senses by beauty or by fragrance. Here, then, we have no unfit emblem of a privation suffered by extreme age. Vers. 6, 7. Thus far the wise and eloquent moralist paints the decay of the mental faculties and of the animal spirits, of the limbs and of the senses, in the last stage of this mortal being, In the remainder of the description he places before our eyes some bodily infirmities and diseases, to which age is particularly liable, and which generally precede and hasten on the stroke of death. For an explanation of these, I refer the curious reader to the work, of which I have availed myself.

Of this picture of declining life it may be remarked, that, while every part is verified by the experience of multitudes of mankind, and while several of the states and appearances, which it represents, are not a little painful and revolting, still, the whole is as elegant as it is correct. It contains nothing which can raise disgust in the mind of the most fastidious ob server: so pertinent, so unexception able and select, is the group of images, of which we perceive it to be composed! From portraits of old age, which occur in the works of some Heathen writers, I turn away with unspeakable disgust. These authors have taxed their imagination, for the purpose of rendering their sketches more hideous and deformed. Not so the Hebrew preacher; attentive, to truth and nature, he is, at the same time, mindful of the claims of taste and delicacy.

1 Thess. iv. 14. who sleep in Jesus," &c.

"them also

Some of the commentators have supposed that Paul alludes to the case of Christian martyrs in the Church at Thessalonica. Yet the words dia me Inge will not justify this opinion: and Benson correctly says, "There is no

intimation, that any of the Christians in that city had suffered death for Christ's sake." I am disposed to connect this clause with what follows: "God will by Jesus [by means of his agency] bring [to the same state of immortal life and happiness] those who sleep; and this together with him [vara, i. e. at his second manifestation]. Thus, in vers. 13, 14, 15, we shall have simply the expression, "those who sleep" (T8 KonOerras). In ver. 16, the form is different, "the dead in Christ," or departed Christians [å veкços εy Xp1çã, not, dia Xp8].

It may justly be doubted, whether any great number of our Lord's disciples suffered death, for his sake, in the age of the apostles. The silence of the New Testament, on the subject, would lead me to the opposite conclusion. Indeed, the writer to the Hebrews reminds a considerable body of Christian believers, that they had “not yet resisted unto blood." [xii. 4.] Though Herod [Acts xii. 2] had · "killed James, the brother of John, with the sword," and though it be not improbable that tyranny had deprived some other individuals of their lives, on the same account, yet evidence is wanting of its victims being then numerous. I know not that Acts xxii. 4, xxvi. 10, furnish a solid objection to this statement. Those passages do not necessarily express more than Paul's intention, and the fulfilment of it, in the instance of Stephen, and, it anay be, of a few more persons. The respective situation of the Jewish people and of the Romans, at that period, did not allow of persecution raging with the utmost fury and effect.

N.

Report of the Committee of the Depu ties of the Protestant Dissenters to the General Body, Jan. 2, 1824.

OUR COMMITTEE, in digesting

Report of their Proceedings during the last year, have been desirous so to frame it as fully to answer the wishes of those by whom it was required; and, conceiving that it may have been desired as much for the information of Dissenters in general as of the body of Deputies, to whom the minutes have been regularly.communicated at the annual meetings;

they have thought it expedient to pre fix a short statement, already in print, relative to the original rise and for mation of the body, which is as follows:

"The Annual Appointment of Deputies by the several Congregations of Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, in and within ten miles of London, to protect the Civil Rights of the Protestant Dissenters, originated in the following manner :

"On the 9th of November, 1732, a General Meeting of Protestant Dissenters was held, at the Meetinghouse, in Silver-street, London, to consider of an application to the Legislature for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. At this Meeting, a Committee of twenty-one persons was appointed, to consider, and report to a subsequent Meeting. At another General Meeting, it was resolved, That every Congregation of the Three Denominations of Protestant Dissenters, Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, in and within ten miles of London, should be recommended to appoint two Deputies; and, subsequently, on the 14th of January, 1735-6, That there should be an annual choice of Depufies, to take care of the civil affairs of the Dissenters; and, That the Chairman do write to the Ministers of the several Congregations, to return the names of their Deputies to him.'

"On the 26th of the same month, the Deputies met and elected their Committee by ballot; and these se veral elections, of the Deputies by the Congregations, and of the Committee by the Deputies, have been continued annually from that time to the present."

Of their occupation and objects, a complete idea may be formed from the following paragraph in one of their circular letters, dated November 17, 1738, in which they say, in language perfectly suitable to the situation and sentiments of the body, under all its successive renovations, down to the present day," You well know that the Corporation and Test Acts were the important business which gave rise to our thus meeting; but, though this be the chief, it is not the only thing that we would have in view. -We would willingly attend to every

thing that may remedy or prevent any inconveniency to the cause of civil and religious liberty:" having, however, always practically confined their interference in eivil matters to such points as were immediately connected with the rights or interests of Dissenters.

Those who have been long conversant with the affairs of the Deputation, cannot but recollect how large a portion of its time and funds was formerly occupied in the defence of our brethren (particularly in the country) against various illegal proceedings, in most instances perhaps, singly, of no great importance, but when fre quently repeated, forming a considerable mass of vexation and injustice. Such were, demands of fees for petty services due from members of the Establishment, but of which Dissenters neither required the performance nor were liable to the payment;Refusals of magistrates to execute their ministerial duties under the provisions of various statutes for regis tering places of worship;-Admission of persons to qualify as Dissenters, &c.;-Denial of the rites of burial to persons not having been baptized in the Church; and, far beyond all these, indecent and even violent interruptions of divine worship, generally committed by the idle and profligate of the very lowest order of the popu lace, but sometimes, unfortunately, countenanced by individuals in higher and better-educated classes of society. Your Committee have great pleasure in reporting that these disgraceful practices have lately been of infre quent occurrence one only of each kind having been offered to their notice in the course of the last year, and these only to be repressed.

Another unpleasant and not uncommon employment of your Committee,

the composing differences arising among the members of congregations, (often respecting trusts and en dowments,) has also happily diminish ed, and some of these disputes have been satisfactorily terminated during the recent session-among which it may not be improper to bestow more than ordinary notice on one of unusual magnitude, viz. the Dudley Cause, of which the following is a brief abstract :

In 1806, a suit in Chancery was

instituted, by the Committee, to recover premises, containing about ten acres of land, which had been conveyed, by deed, in 1782, by James Hughes, to trustees, for the support of the minister of the Baptist Church at Dudley, and which two of the trustees afterwards purchased of the others, at a price which has since appeared to have been very inadequate; for, after the cause had been heard before the Master of the Rolls, and a decree made in favour of the object of the Committee, in 1815, a vein of coal was discovered on the property, which, in 1820, the trustees sold to Lord Dudley for £5,200; £3,200, part of the consideration-money, has been paid by his Lordship to the trustees, and £2000, the residue thereof, remains on mortgage until three persons, who are minors, become of age.

Out of the said sum of £3,200, £500 has been paid to claimants; the sum of £1,500 has been expended in the costs of recovering the estates; and the sum of £1,200 now remains, in the hands of the trustees, for investment for the benefit of the Charity.

In 1822 a conveyance was made to Lord Dudley.

But, within the last two years, another subject, of greater importance both in principle and in general application, has called for attention.

Our Unitarian brethren, to whom many expressions in the Marriage Office of the Established Ritual are peculiarly distressing, but from which they could not escape, had applied to Parliament for relief. Nor did those objections on the part of the Church, which have hitherto delayed the concession of their request, appear to arise so much from the apprehension of any impropriety in the request itself, as from difficulties in so constructing those provisions which were to be substituted in its stead, as might satisfy the consciences of Dissenters without infringing on the integrity of the Church Liturgy, or affording increased facility to the accomplishment of clandestine marriages,-on neither of which points could Dissenters be desirous of trespassing. This object was long under the consideration of the House of Lords last spring; and, though not then settled, we hope is

not unlikely to be arranged in the ensuing session of Parliament. In the mean time we cannot refrain from submitting to the serious consideration of every Dissenter, whether, entertaining objections, more or less weighty, to many points both of the doctrine and discipline of the Established Church, he is not bound in duty, or at least in consistency, to protest against being obliged to yield an external and insincere appearance of conformity to a religious service which he disapproves. To us it seems, in no inconsiderable degree, to involve the great principle on which our dissent is founded, and by which it is justified,-the right of private judgment in matters of religion. The marriage ceremony being in both its form and substance, whether we regard the place where, the person by whom, or the words in which it is celebrated, assimilated as nearly as possible to an act of religious worship, if it be not absolutely such; and we would also respectfully ask of our rulers, whether, if being so constituted, doubtless for the express purpose of strengthening the mutual obligation of a bond so important to the welfare of society, every argument by which the expediency of this religious addition to the civil ordinance is enforced at all, does not demand that the form in which it is administered should be that most binding on the consciences of those on whom it is enjoined; one with which they can cheerfully and cordially comply, without the disquieting sense of mental evasion; an enormous evil, which introduces insincerity into the very sanc tuary of truth, and evidently tends to annihilate every valuable quality of that sanction by which this most sacred of ties is intended to be confirmed?

We have only one other topic to mention: the important subject which we recognize as the very occasion of our existence. A deep feeling of the injustice committed towards Dissenters by the Test and Corporation Acts, and a full persuasion of their impolicy as concerns the State, induced our ancestors, nearly a century ago, earnestly to solicit the Legisla ture for their repeal. Several successive attempts were then made in vain, which were repeated between

thirty and forty years since, with no greater success. What may be the present state of public opinion on this, to us, very interesting subject, remains to be ascertained. In consequence, however, of our instructions to take measures for reviving the consideration of it in the minds of our brethren, an Address was drawn up, which, with a copy of the Petition of the Dissenters to the Legislature, in the year 1820, has been already in partial circulation; its more general diffusion having been deferred from a desire not to disturb, or interfere with, the deliberations on the intended Marriage Act, in which the House of Lords were then engaged. Since the failure of this latter measure, the other has been sedulously attended to; means have been adopted to procure correct lists of all the congre gations in the different counties; to whom the Address has been generally transmitted through the most convenient and accustomed channels of communication. And your Committee, who, themselves persuaded of the propriety of the measure, have with pleasure obeyed your instructions, cannot but anticipate a general concurrence of opinion among their brethren, who, though widely differing on many points of speculation, are yet firmly united in the common bonds of interest, of feeling, and, above all, of principle.

After so long a period of silence and forbearance, some preparation of this nature seems highly expedient before they venture on renewing their application; the fittest time for which they do not pretend, at this moment, to determine. Before dismissing this subject entirely, they think it incumbent on them to declare, for themselves and their brethren at large, that in looking forward to making this atterupt ere long with union, and undoubtedly with earnestness and zeal, they are not actuated by any feelings of hostility to the Established Church, whose security as well as honour they conscientiously believe would be best consulted by a gracious compliance with their request: but, be this as it may, they feel themselves under a moral compulsion bound, in justice to themselves and their posterity, to watch for and to embrace the first favourable opportunity for endeavour

ing to procure the abrogation of laws by which they have been, for a long series of years, unjustly stigmatized as disloyal, under the reigns of successive sovereigns, to whom they have shewn every mark of the firmest attachment; and incapacitated as if guilty of infamous crimes, without either the allegation of guilt, or the least presumption of any necessity for the infliction of so heavy an injury.

It is needless to enter here into any discussion of the reasons by which the original enactment of these statutes was justified. Suffice it to ob serve, that what might be expedient in times when civil commotions were scarcely composed, and men's minds were still agitated with the apprehensions that Popery might regain its ascendancy under the auspices of a Catholic king, can scarcely be needed in circumstances so totally different as those under which we have the happiness to live.

To Stationers and Printers, on an
amended Translation of the Bible.
Bloxham,
GENTLEMEN, Jan. 24, 1824.
T is well known to the learned that

the Hebrew term 17 (Jehovah) is found about four thousand times in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament, though it is only translated Jehovah in our English Bibles in about ten or a dozen places: instead of being translated Jehovah, it is rendered Lord. It is acknowledged that where it should have been Jehovah, the letters that compose the word Lord are, though small, in the shape of capital letters, to give notice that the original word is Jehovah. But how few persons know this? And how can they know when it occurs who do not read, but only hear others read? The term Jehovah signifies being, or existence; and leads us to consider our heavenly Father as the self-existent and eternal Being, and, of course, the great Author or first Cause of all other beings in the universe. But the word Lord only signifies power, dominion, or authority, and, as such, is given to many persons of the human race. There is our House of Lords, and Lords of the land: therefore, the sense of the Hebrew term Jehovah is by no means