Christ Jesus, would be more pleasing to our divine master, than to attempt to dive into the mysteries of his nature which are not revealed, and endeavouring to explain things altogether above our comprehension. As for myself, I shall leave these things to those that are fond of them, and direct my attention to Brattleborough, July 16th, 1816. the virtues and graces of the christian temper, in which all the sincere followers of Christ agree, cheerfully waiting for the happy time, when that which is perfect is come, and that which is imperfect shall be done away. When we come to be with Christ, we shall see him as he is, and know even as we are known, WILLIAM WELLS. 1 OF PRAYING FOR ONE ANOTHER; AND OF THE SIN UNTO DEATH, AND NOT UNTO DEATH. 1 John v. 16, 17. If any man see his brother sin a sin not unto death, he shall ask and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say, that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unte death. CHRISTIANS are here taught to pray for one another; especially when they see their fellow-Christians seduced into errour; a case which often occurs, and is observed by those who watch over each other. In ordinary cases, the Apostle declares, that such prayers will avail-but one is excepted there is a sin unto death for those who have been guilty of that sin, there is no encouragement to ask mercy of God. This, we suppose to be the scripture on which the division of sins intò venial and mortal, which once occasioned disputes and made divisions in the 2 Peter iii. 16. Church, is principally founded. It is doubtless one of those scriptures which the unlearned and unstable wrest, and sometimes, perhaps, to their own destruction.* It therefore merits their attention, who are ordered to take up stumbling blocks out of the way of God's people.t We shall treat very briefly :I. On the duty of praying for one another. II. On the distinction between sins-sins unto death, and sins not unto death. 1. Of praying for one another. Some deny this to be a dutysay God will do by every one that which is right suited to his † Isaiah lvii. 14. state. That praying for others has no tendency to make any change in them-must therefore be unavailing. Strange that any who read the scriptures, and see people there ordered to pray one for another,* should argue in this manner; especially when so many examples of God's hearing the prayers which people have offered up for others, and granting mercies in answer to them, without those for whom they were offered participating in them, are recorded in the word of God! Surely they cannot have been overlooked by any who read the scriptures. A few out of many follow :— Lot's escape, when God destroyed Sodom, is attributed rather to Abraham's prevalence with heaven, than to his own. And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, THAT GOD REMEMBERED ABRAHAM, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. Abraham knew the character of the Sodomites, and how Lot was exposed by living among them, and seems, after he and Lot had separated, to have born him on his heart before God; and God heard him, and saved Lot, when be destroyed the place and people where he dwelt. And how often did Moses save Israel by bis prayers? When they sinned in making the golden calf, while he was on the mount, we find God telling him what they had done; threatening to destroy them; releasing Moses from ob * Jam. v. 16. † Gen. xix. 29. ligation to pray for them; and, I had almost said, offering him a bribe, to prevent it! as though he could do nothing to them without Moses' consent! nothing, if he had prayed for them!-I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people: Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out‡ their name from under heaven; AND I WILL MAKE OF THEE A NATION GREATER AND MIGHTIER THAN THEY. But Moses loved his people; prayed for them; and God heard him, and spared them. So he testifies-I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also; as he had often times before. the Lord was very wroth with Aaron, to have destroyed him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. And Another instance occurs in the history of Job. When his friends had mistaken the nature of the divine providential government, and made wrong representations of it, and thereby sinned against God, and against his servant Job, they were ordered, by the voice of God, speaking out of the whirlwind, to apply to Job as their intercessor. The Lord said to Eliphaz, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends-Go therefore to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering, and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept. They obeyed, and were pardoned. Deut. ix. 13. Deut. ix. 19. IT may be thought, that in this age of societies, when their multitude almost defies enumeration, no new Institution can be needed in our country; and it is feared, that not a few individuals may be terrified by the constantly increasing demands of these instruments of charity, from giving due attention to the association to which the present article is devolved. But the American Bible Society ought not to be confounded with those projects of doubtful utility and of sectarian tendency, for which the aid of the liberal is frequently solicited. Its establishment is an era in our history. Its object is the most sublime to which the bounty of Christians can be directed, and its necessity, or, at least, its great importance, will hardly be disputed by those who are acquainted with the opera tion of similar institutions in Europe. National Bible Societies are not experiments of uncertain issue. They have been tried with the most animating success. They are planted in the most flourishing capitals of Europe, and their influence is felt even to the ends of the earth. When the believer casts his eye over the old world, the sight, which most gladdens his heart, is that of Christians of all names and all nations, forgetting their differences, and uniting in the Godlike work of diffusing the divine word through every inhabited region. He looks on this as on the rainbow in the clouds, and his thoughts are carried forward by it to an age of new peace and splendour for the Church. When so many nations are competitors in this new race of glory, this unexampled labour for the illumination of mankind, shall we be deficient in zeal, and form a melancholy contrast with the Christian world? It may be thought that our local Bible Societies are sufficiently adapted to the distribution of the scriptures, and that no other instrument is needed. But whilst it is cheerfully admitted that they have done great good, and whilst it is hoped, that their agency will be uninterrupted, it is an undeniable fact, that our efforts in this cause have not been proportioned to our national resources, and it is believed that these resources can best be called forth by a national institution. In the first place, such an institution is needed to collect and distribute that knowledge, which is required to a judicious distribution of the scriptures. Its managers, placed on a commanding position, and pledged to extensive activity, will have every opportunity and every inducement, to discover and make known the wants of this country and of the world. This Institution will be a centre into which information will be poured from every region. It will maintain an enlarged correspondence both at home and abroad, and watch the movements of every other Society. Who does not discover the immense advantages which this concentration of light will afford for spreading the scriptures? Local societies must always be limited in knowledge. Extensive districts may be left without supply, whilst others may derive from interfering so cieties an excess of aid. À central institution, like the sun, will diffuse more wide and equitable bounty. Another advantage of a national Society is, that the extent of its funds will enable it to circulate, at a reduced expense, much better impressions of the Bible than are now comthe poor. mon among the labouring and The rich are not sensible, how much a legible Bible is needed by their indigent brethren. The comfort of this Holy Book is now in a measure lost to many aged persons, and to many who are imperfectly skilled in reading, in consequence of the smallness and obscurity of the type in which the common Bible is printed. The plan already adopted by the National Society of spreading through the country stereotype plates, which will furnish fair copies of the Bible, is the best which could have been devised. Let the means for accomplishing it be liberally bestowed. Another very important advantage of a National Bible Society, is this; it will awaken new zeal, give new energy to Christian charity, call forth new resources for this best of objects. This institution, simply by collecting and diffusing knowledge in regard to the want of Bibles, will give a new spring to the exertions of the charitable. Christians among us have little conception of the limited circulation of the scriptures, even in their own country. They judge of other regions from their own immediate neighbourhood, and can hard ly conceive of a family living for years without the sacred volume. The annual reports of a National Bible Society, unfolding the wants of this and other countries, will, it is believed, communicate an impulse to Christians, as yet unknown in our land. Christians will blush, at remembering the property which they have wasted on superfluous indulgencies, whilst multitudes of suffering and destitute fellow-beings have wanted that book, which can alone speak peace to conscience and minister consolation to grief. It is a mortifying truth, that Bible Societies have awakened less zeal in this country than in England, and one reason is, that we have known comparatively little of the state of the world. Local Bible Societies, with scanty funds, have had little inducement to extend their inquiries, to multiply correspondences, to discover wants which they have been unable to supply. A national institution will in another way quicken our zeal. Possessing larger funds, and wider knowledge, than any limited society, it will fill a wider sphere with its operations; its reports will detail more extensive communications of the word of God; and the influence of this must be, to give energy, joy, and fervour to Christians. It is the nature of the human mind, to dilate itself in proportion to the objects of its contemplation. It is the nature of benevolence, to be kindled by the view of diffusive and generous activity, and to find in the increase of its fer vour an extension of its powers. Why is it that the British and Foreign Bible Society is the object of an interest so unexampled, so intense both at home and abroad? The answer is to be found in the extent of its operations, as developed in its annual reports. As the Christian follows the streams which this hallowed and life-giving fountain is sending forth, his conceptions are enlarged of what man can accomplish., Objects which once seemed to surpass the power of human nature, now appear practicable, and their very vastness becomes a motive for aiming at their accomplishment. It is a fact, that the animation which has been discovered by Bible Societies in our own country, has been very much inspired, nourished, and sustained by the view of the sublime operations of the parent Institution in England. A National Society among ourselves, filling a wide space, and approaching in its agency the grandeur of similar establishments in Europe, will still more surely diffuse warmth and zeal through the community. It will be an object of attention to Christians of every district of our country. It will be the topick of conversation. It will concentrate their prayers. Who does not see that new fervour will be communicated to the friends of religion? And this is not all. A National Society, by its extent and respectability, will become an object of attention to a large class of men, who, without being wholly indifferent to religion, yet |