ton. And first of all, and as the real source of all, we think that most of the discussions relative to alterations in the Constitution of the United States, and to the expediency of the mission to Panama, were superfluous; and especially that the manner in which these discussions have been conducted, and above all, the bitter per sonalities and acrimonious language that have been permitted and indulged in, have been not only wrong, but highly dishonourable to Congress and to the nation. Each department of our government ought to keep within its own sphere; and maintain fully its own independence. But each department ought likewise to treat the other departments with decorum and respect: and we may be assured that when this ceases to be the case, the stability of our government will be shaken, and our liberties will come into real and serious jeopardy. It is the most popular part of our government which is the most likely to assail improperly the other parts. Far be it from us to intimate, that in our house of representatives there should not be entire freedom of debate, and perfect freedom to exercise the right of impeachment too, whenever it may be judged that the exercise of that right is called for. But in debate, as in other things, there may be freedom without licentiousness; and the House of Representatives will lose its real respectability, and its proper weight in the government, if the debates there become licentious--if a degree of dignity be not preserved in the discussions which are there carried on. Now, in the present session of Congress, there have been in that house, and by one or two members of the other house, broad and direct invectives uttered against the executive--nay, such coarse and unseemly language, as we believe was never witnessed in our Congress before; such as we think a man who respects his own character ought not to use at any time, and therefore to the last degree improper for the legislators of a great nation. And why were not those speakers sternly arrested, and called and kept to order? This we know, for we have witnessed it, has sometimes been done. The outbreakings of an intemperate speaker cannot always be prevented; but when they are permitted to continue, and to be repeated without check or control, the whole body in which they take place is implicated, and thus implicated does our national legislature, as a body, now stand before the world. Some of the consequences of their intemperate proceedings-and they are the natural consequences have been witnessed in one duel which has taken place, and in the causes that have probably been furnished for others yet to come. Let it not be understood when we say that duels are the natural consequences of personalities in Congress, that we mean either to justify or extenuate duelling. Nothing can justify it; and we firmly believe that he who has given no cause for personal reproach, will always best consult his reputation by disregarding it altogether: And sure we are, that if just cause of reproach has been given, it will never be wiped away by fighting a duel-this will only increase both guilt and ignominy. But the mournful fact is, that personal invectives and the imputation of base and dishonourable practices, will produce duels among men of high station; who, in such cases, seem to make it a point of honour neither to "fear God nor regard man." But we cannot enlarge. The late duel at Washington is likely, by its baneful example, to be prolific. To this, probably, as to their proper spring and fountain, many streams of human blood, shed in murderous single combat, many tears of widows, and orphans, and parents, and friends, may hereafter be traced. And what is the duty of the people of this country, in the view of these things? We think it is obvious. They are not to be "partakers in other men's sins" And partakers they will be, since these men are their representatives, if they ever again make them their representatives; at least, till the evidence of repentance and reformation is unquestionable. The rulers in despotic governments may be guilty of offences against both God and man, while the people at large are innocent. Not so in popular governments-In these, the people make and unmake their rulers; and when they give their suffrages for the guilty they are themselves guilty. Oh that our countrymen were as much awake to this subject as they ought to be! There are surely those to be found who will represent a virtuous people virtuously-a moral and orderly people in a moral and orderly manner. We re joice to say, and should feel criminal if we concluded these remarks without saying, that there are a considerable number of men now in Congress would that they had been a majority-who have had no share in any of the late disgraceful proceedings. In the midst of all the acrimony with which they must have been deeply pained, they have spoken and acted with true dignity and genuine patriotism. Their talents, too, have been shown to be of the first order for parliamentary debate. Had all the speakers in the present Congress, spoken and acted like Webster and Wurtz, our country had been honoured, and there had been no cause for complaint. The Creek Indians have consented to a treaty by which, for a large sum of money, they have resigned nearly all their lands within the limits of the state of Georgia. What better they could do we know not; but we certainly regret, as no doubt they also do, the necessity by which they were compelled to submit to this arrangement. THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. JUNE, 1826.. Keligious Communications. LECTURES ON THE SHORTER CATECHISM OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES-ADDRESSED TO YOUTH. LECTURE XX. We now proceed to consider the 21st and 22d answers of our catechism. "The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continues to be, God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person forever-Christ the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, born of her, and yet without sin.". In discussing these answers it will, I think, afford as proper a method as any other, and the easiest to be remembered, if we take certain separate portions of the answers severally, and connect, where necessary, those of the first with those of the second. In pursuance of this method, let us I. Consider that the only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ. You ought to know that the words Jesus Christ, although now used as a common appellation, were not given arbitrarily. They are, and were intended to be, descriptive of the character of our blessed ReVOL. IV. Ch. Adv. deemer. Jesus, or Joshua, (for they are the same name in the original of the scriptures,) denotes a Saviour, in the most peculiar and extensive sense of the term. Thus it was said "thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." The term Christ in Greek, is exactly of the same import with Messiah in Hebrew. Each word, in its proper language, signifies anointed, or the anointed one. When therefore Peter said-"Thou art the Christ of God," it was the same as if he had said, thou art the anointed of God. Among the ancient Jews, kings, prophets and priests, were set apart to their office by anointing them with oil. Now Christ as mediator, united all these characters in himself, and is represented as set apart to them by the designation of God-So that the words Jesus Christ mean the Saviour, anointed, or set apart to that office, by God. Jesus Christ is "the only Redeemer of God's elect." The Jews are yet looking for a Messiah to come. They will not allow that Jesus Christ was the true Messiah. But this is only a proof of their judicial blindness and hardness of heart; and is indeed the strongest proof that could possibly be given: For the character, actions and sufferings of our Saviour, are so exactly delineated and described by their own inspired prophets, that they are driven to the most unworthy shifts and evasions, to avoid admitting and allowing it. The prophecy 2 H in the 53d chapter of Isaiah, is more like a history than a prediction: So much so indeed, that some of the early enemies of Christianity, insisted that it must have been forged, after the events to which it manifestly refers had taken place. But its reception all along by the Jews themselves, shows that the infidel objection is false; and thus one class of unbelievers is seen to answer and confound another. The prophecy of Daniel points so exactly to the time in which Jesus Christ did appear, that there could be no mistaking it as the epoch of the Messiah's advent: And it is a fact, as well ascertained as any in ancient history, that the whole Jewish nation, and even some among the neighbouring nations, were in full and earnest expectation of the Messiah, at that very time-At that very time accordingly, the true and only Messiah, Jesus Christ, the anointed Saviour, did actually appear; and the expectation of another by the unhappy Jews, must forever be vain. But it is comfortable to think that their delusion will come to an end; and that when the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in, they, too, shall yet acknowledge and obtain salvation, by that Jesus whom their fathers crucified, and whom they have so long and so wickedly rejected and blasphemed. "There is salvation in no other, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved." In the answers we consider, Jesus Christ is called "Our Lord." He is so called to denote his true and unquestionable Deity. It cannot be denied that our Lord is, in the Old Testament, called Jehovah, one of the peculiar names of the Deity, for which the Jews had the highest veneration. In a prophecy of Isaiah, which all Christians do and must apply to Christ, because it is expressly quoted and applied to him by John his forerunner, it is said, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."-In the original it is, "Prepare ye the way of Jehovah." This naturally introduces another 66 portion of the answers before us, namely, That the Lord Jesus Christ was the eternal Son of God." When I discoursed to you on the doctrine of the Trinity, I gave what I consider as demonstrative scripture evidence, of the proper Deity of each person in the Godhead: And I have just now mentioned incidentally, what is, by itself, a clear scripture proof of the proper Deity of Christ, the second person in the adorable Trinity. We shall not, therefore, resume this subject, with a view to consider it extensively.-I shall only make a few remarks on the eter nal Sonship of Christ. All the most ancient creeds, or symbols of the Christian church, notice this point. The Apostles' creed, the Nicene creed, the Athanasian creed, the creed of the Synod of Calcedon, all either allude to it, or distinctly affirm and inculcate it. They distinguish carefully the Sonship of Christ, from all ideas of creation.They represent him as the Son of God by a peculiar and mysterious re lation; and affirm that he is of the same essence and eternity with the Father. This seems to be the scrip ture doctrine, although some modern divines, not in the least disposed to deny the divinity of Christ, have maintained that the appellation Son of God, is given to him only with respect to his mediatorial office. But as we are baptized in the name of the Son, as well as of the Father, and Holy Ghost, it seems to follow that his Sonship is equally natural and necessary with the paternity of the Father, and the personality of the Holy Ghost. In a word, the Sonship and personality of Christ are the same, eternal in existence, and constituting the second hypostasis in the undivided essence of the glorious Trinity. This adorable Being, the Son of God, the catechism affirms "became man;" that is, the second person in the Trinity assumed human nature into a perfect union with his own. This is technically called the hyposta ticunion. And after all the profane and foolish cavils which have been raised in regard to this subject, what is there in it which, however mysterious, is not easy of belief? To explain the mode or manner of it, we are indeed to make no attempt; and as little can they who cavil at it, and say they will believe nothing which they cannot comprehend,-as little can they explain how their own souls are connected with their bodies, and are operated upon by them. And, surely, if we cannot explain a union which exists in our own nature, it is not wonderful that we cannot explain one which exists in the nature of our infinite Saviour. What a monstrous arrogance is it to affirm that the Son of God could not draw our nature into such a union with his own as to be one with it-one person, and yet both natures distinctly preserved? There is certainly nothing here that is self-contradictory, nothing that is not plainly competent to infinite wisdom and power. Yes, and this union must be regarded as a glorious and unquestionable fact, on which our salvation rests. The necessity which existed for the union of the divine with the human nature, in the economy of our redemption, shall be considered, after we have attended briefly to the manner in which the human nature of our Lord was, so to speak, prepared for his assumption. The catechism says "The Son of God became man, by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, born of her, and yet without sin." It was absolutely necessary that the human nature of Christ should be conceived and born without sin; not only because it was to subsist in union with the person of the Son of God, but also because it was to be made a sacrifice for the sins of his redeemed ones; and must therefore be without blemish-having no sin or stain of its own, either natural or contracted, for which an atonement needed to be made. Such, therefore, was the human nature of Christ, the second Adam, as sinless and perfect as the first before the fall-Not descended from the first Adam by natural generation, but miraculously and immaculately conceived in the womb of one of his descendants. The grave and guarded words of Holy Scripture on this awful subject are-"The angel said unto her (Mary) the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." As it is only in this answer of the catechism that the virgin mother of our Lord is mentioned, let me remark, that we are neither to worship her, nor degrade her. She was, doubtless, by nature a sinner, like the rest of the human family; and was redeemed and saved by him to whose human nature she gave birth. On one occasion our blessed Lord even repressed her too great forwardness, in hinting to him that there was a call for the exercise of his miraculous powers. But that she was eminently a Saint; that her faith, and resignation, and absolute devotion to God, on the message of the angel, were most extraordinary and exemplary; that her relation to our common Saviour should render her name dear and venerable to us all; and that we should fulfil our part of her own prediction, that "henceforth all generations shall call me blessed,"-all this is not only to be admitted, but remembered and regarded. Alas! how do extremes produce each other, and how, by their doing so, are truth and duty every way injured? The religious worship which has been paid to the Virgin Mary is palpable idolatry. She was but a human being, and worship is due only to God. There is not one word in the holy scriptures to warrant, to encourage, or to colour the offering of religious worship to her; and if she herself can be conscious of it, she must perfectly disapprove it. Yet, in counteracting this error, the veneration and affection due to her true character, has, I think, been sometimes refused, or To illustrate the entire harmony between the grace of God in our salvation, and the righteousness of Christ as its procuring cause, the subject may be viewed in a different light from that in which it has already been presented. Speaking of the great Redeemer, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey him." Heb. v. 8, 9. Salvation, then, is the work of Christ; and consequently the whole of it from beginning to the end must be attributed to his grace. All its blessings are deposited in his hands; and HE distributes them as he pleases. Hence it is recorded, "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace:" John i. 16; and he himself says, "As thou, Father, has given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." John xvii. 2. He is the inexhaustible fountain from which all blessings flow to believing sinners. "Our life is hid with Christ in God." Col. iii. 3. He is the vine that bears all the branches, and imparts to them life and fruitfulness. John xv. 5, 6. He is the Head, from which all vital influence is derived to every member of his mystical body. Col. ii. 19. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:" Gal. ii. 20. "I give unto" my sheep "eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." John x. 28. It is plain, then, that Christ both procured salvation for us, and distributes all its blessings according to his sovereign pleasure. But shall we imagine his grace to be less free and glorious, because he became obedient unto death, in order that he might become the author of eternal salvation unto all who obey him? Do we owe him less, because he fulfilled the law in our place, and satisfied all the demands of justice against us, by enduring the penalty due to sin? Would his grace have been more free, more conspicuous, more illustrious, if he had humbled himself less, and suffered less, in accomplishing our salvation? Let an inspired writer answer these questions: "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be rich." 2 Cor. viii. 9. "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. ii. 20. It is in the depth of that humiliation to which the great Redeemer submitted, and in the greatness of those sufferings which he endured for our sins, that the riches of his grace, and the fervency of his love are to be seen to the best advantage; and it is from the purchase he made of salvation for us, while hanging on the accursed tree, that the strongest motive to obedience is drawn. "For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." 1 Cor. vi. 20. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all |