into existence at the time of Adam and Noah, and which involves the principle of successive creations, will serve to throw some light on the six days or successive acts of creation; but this subject I shall reserve for another communication.

Keysoe Vicarage, Beds.

W. B. WINNING.

CHARACTER OF PONTIUS PILATE.

*

SIR,-I am glad that your correspondent "Prytanis" agrees in my exposition of John, xix. 11, (the only one which, as I believe, the Greek language permits it to bear,) but I would fain submit to his reconsideration the new, and to me astonishing, sense which he attaches to its words in another respect. Pilate, being judge, reminded his prisoner of the power he possessed as such, without the slightest intention of disputing the origin of all power, but merely in order to recal to a due sense of his authority the personage whom, from his "giving him no answer," he actually thought to be wanting in that due sense. Our Lord replied, "Thou couldest have no power at all over ME, were it not given thee from above, which aggravates the sin of him who delivered me unto thee." Assuredly, the Lord did not here simply intend to say, that all Pilate's magisterial power was derived, like his life and health, from the dispensing providence of God. He meant to say, that neither kings nor magistrates, angels, principalities, or powers in heaven or earth could exercise authority over the only begotten Son of God, except it were especially given them by the Father. Otherwise, every man accused before any tribunal, in any age, might use the same words with equal propriety. But Christ was of a nature amenable to no power, although obedient and condescending to it, that all righteousness might be fulfilled. This the Roman knew not, nor could comprehend the hard sayings that met his ear; but to the betrayer of the Lord, the Lord had revealed himself, and had made him one of the chosen depositaries and dispensers of the truth which all nations were to hear. Therefore, and therefore only, was the sin of treachery and murder aggravated into sacrilege in him, who was not of those who "knew not what they did." In short, in John xix. 11, the emphasis is manifestly on "me." Allow me a few more words on points that may further illustrate the topic which I began to moot. Thou sayest or hast said are affirmatives in the New Testament idiom, and signify it is even so. But the same cannot be said of the words "Thou sayest that I am a king;" and it appears yet stronger in the Greek words συ λέγεις ότι βασιλευς siju 'ET. (John xviii. 37.) This is clear assertion of fact, and of a fact not appearing there or any where. Quid agimus, what shall we do in this difficulty? The very question gives the answer. As in agimus, so in λeyes, the present stands for the speedy future, to be for to be about to ; as in μικρον και οὐ θεωρειτε με and ούκετι πιω ἐκ τῆς ἀμπελου έως, δε We must interpret it, "thou thyself shalt say that I am a

* But wish to be informed, being little of a scholar.

king," words of the same living truth which said to Peter "thou shalt deny me thrice." It was part of Pilate's high destiny to be our Saviour's witness, before whom he made his good confession, éμaprupnoe kaλny óμodoviav. (1 Tim.) That good confession, because the only one he made before Pilate, was, that he was King of the Jews; and of that confession, which he was placed by God to attest, Pilate was the faithful and trumpet-tongued witness, proclaiming it to Roman, Greek, and Jew. And, as it was asked of old, is Saul too among the prophets? we may exclaim, is Pilate also among the noble army of witnesses? Whoever confesses Christ before men, him will Christ confess before God and the saints; therein is the force and value of the word martyr; and therein may be one cause why the earliest of the faithful never confessed their Redeemer without confessing Pilate. That does not only appear in the wonderful clausule of the Apostles' creed, but in the miracles of the primitive church. The gifts which the first disciples of the Lord received from him in his life, and at the Pentecost, continued to exist in the church of Gaul when St. Irenæus presided over it. And that good prelate informs us, that when they healed the sick or wrought other works of power, they did so in the name of Christ crucified. But not of Christ crucified, and there an end; but " in the name of Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate!" That name was from the earliest ages inseparable from the faith of a Christian. H.

DISSENTERS.

REV. SIR, Charity is an excellent virtue; and, if it consist in a determination, under all circumstances, to think no evil of one's neighbour, the merit of exercising it cannot surely be denied to the great body of churchmen. For example, the professions of respect and good will to the establishment, which have been made within the last few weeks by several dissenting communities, have called forth very high and general encomiums; and people have discovered that the dissenting body, instead of being hostile to the great institutions of their country, comprise their most faithful and attached supporters. I should be unwilling to be thought less charitable than my neighbours. But surely the proceedings of the dissenters warrant a suspicion of the sincerity of their professions. It is true, many of them have of late avowed their great respect for the established church. But, had they been sincere, they would surely have made this avowal of their sentiments at the time of the church's weakness, not of its, we trust, approaching triumph. In our hour of peril, where were the dissenters? Where, then, was their disapproval of the machinations of our enemies? Mr. James, for instance, has generally stood in the foremost ranks of the church's adversaries; and, at a meeting at which the Earl of Durham presided, he had the audacity, (I hope, sir, you and Mr. J. will pardon the expression,) at a time when radicals, dissenters, atheists, and infidels, were leagued together in an unhallowed combination for the overthrow of the church, to compare it

to a cook skinning live eels, and exhorting them to be patient under the operation. The half-flayed eels, it is needless to say, were the dissenters those sufferers for conscience' sake. But now that the people have roused themselves, and shewn that they will not stand by, and witness the downfal of the church of their fathers, he takes the opportunity of an address, certainly not more virulent than sundry of his own, by the Rev. T. East, to disclaim any participation in the proceedings of that Christian minister and his party. This conduct has been highly applauded by several leading journals. "This," say they, "is as it should be." But what is the occasion of this change in the ideas of Mr. James? The church-yard is not yet open to the eloquence of the dissenting minister; that functionary is not yet exempt from church-rates; Oxford has not yet removed the obnoxious sign-board-"Off, off, ye profane!" How are we to account for this cessation of hostilities on the part of Mr. J. and his dissenting brethren? I should be sorry to attribute to them any evil designs. At the same time, there can be no harm in a little circumspection on our part. If the tiger has made a spring, and overshot the mark, shall I go and compose myself to slumber in its vicinity? or shall I keep in hand my weapons of defence, and walk warily? I prefer the latter expedient. The dissenters have surely afforded to churchmen some little cause for distrust, and, for my own part, however fair or honest may be their present professions, "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."

I am, Rev. Sir,

SIR,-I perceive that the "Letters of L. S. E" are making no small stir both within and without the pale of the church of Christ in this realm. I lament sincerely that the writer has used expressions which have subjected him to the unmeasured animadversions of his opponents, or rather the opponents of the church. The acerbity, or the uncourtesy so much complained of, the author of the letters ascribes, perhaps not unjustly, to the habits and feelings which he had contracted by former associations-i. e., during his connexion with the dissenters. I cannot, however, conceive that the force of his arguments, and the truth of the alleged facts are materially, if at all, affected by his style; and it is with the arguments and facts contained in the "Letters" that the reader is concerned. Of this the adversaries appear to be fully aware; and this probably accounts for their not attempting to invalidate the arguments and statements of facts; but they attack the style, the author, and those who may have advocated or recommended the book. The writer of the "Letters" openly professes his readiness to defend and prove the correctness of the statements which he has VOL. VII. April, 1835. 3 H

made. Why do not his opponents, then, grapple fairly with these statements ? . They know they dare not. "L. S. E." would do well, in any future edition, to support his statements by quotations from James's "Church Member's Guide," and Binney's "Life of Morell." These two publications will supply him with abundant confirmations of his positions.

Of the style or the spirit of the "Letters" dissenters, I presume, have, after all, no right to complain. I have not been able to discover, in the whole productions of "L. S. E.," anything equal to either the bitterness of spirit, or the coarseness of language, which are so conspicuous in the writings of the dissenters when the church is the object of their attack. "The Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge," the accredited organ of dissent, has, for instance, exhibited a spirit and adopted language not paralleled in the fiercest sectarian controversies of heathen philosophers.* The "Christian Advocate," "The Patriot," et omne id genus, have not been a whit behind the chief of "The Library."

Not only to have written and published the " Letters" constituted an unpardonable offence, but the recommending of them has provoked the dissenting anathema. But have the dissenters forgotten their zeal and activity in circulating the publications of R. M. Beverley? The writer of this letter has not forgotten the fact that the

"Whenever the parties cannot agree upon the composition, they resort to the original institution of payment in kind. Then what a scene is exhibited! The field of harvest displays the banners of war; for the boughs stuck in the tithe-sheaves are anything but the olive branch of peace. The sullen farmer sends to the parson notice of an intention to pull turnips, that he may come and take his tenth. In the quiet village it is an article of intelligence that a neighbour's bees have swarmed, and, as he had been previously the master of nine hives, the news flies to the parsonage that this swarm should fly thither. The good wife resolves to make her gooseberry wine; but she must send notice to the vicar that he may take his tenth basket of fruit. The mysterious hoard of the cunning hen is discovered, and a large deposit of eggs is laid open; send, then, to the minister that he may come and take his share. When the cows are milked, the tenth dish is set apart for him, who says, That is mine.' Amidst all these vexatious proceedings, who shall describe the black looks indicative of passions blacker still? Who can bear to think of, much less to hear, the curses now muttered in a suppressed tone, and now poured forth with all the force of stentorian lungs?

"The minister, vexed and harassed, looks out for some one to take this trouble and his tithes off his hands. But in the general dissatisfaction of a village warfare, no one wishes or dares to set the whole parish against him by assisting the parson to carry on his war of tithes in kind. What a Noah's ark, then, the parsonage exhibits! Where study and devotion should indulge in calm retreat, amidst Hebrew Bibles and Greek Testaments, shelves of divines and commentators, and rows of polyglots and lexicons, the tithe-calf is heard lowing after its mother, the pig's discordant sounds disturb the meditations of its new owner, the fowls, ducks, and geese join their voices to add to the confusion; while the eye shares in the torments of the ear, by the ludicrous profusion everywhere exhibited of baskets of fruit and eggs, dishes of milk, and hives of bees, tithe-sheaves, piles of turnips, and heaps of potatoes, presenting themselves in wild disorder on every hand." (Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge,--Tithes, P. 284.) The least that can be said of the author of the extract is, that he well knew that he was describing as facts, what he, at the same time, knew to be contrary to fact,

dissenters, in his own neighbourhood, carried those vile pamphlets from house to house, not of dissenters, but of church people. Have the dissenters forgotten also, that this same Beverley was exhibited as a champion of "the cause" at the public meeting of the society, in which meeting the clamour was in the true spirit, and nearly the words, of the Edomites of old-❝ Down, down, down with the old hag"? (the church of England.)

That the dissenters should forget, or affect to forget, their exploits, is not very marvellous. But we have another class of writers, who, while they profess to be friends of the persecuted church, appear to be gladly embracing any opportunity of uniting with dissenters in condemning any person who may, in these days of rebuke and blasphemy, have the honesty and the courage to expose the artifices, the hostility, and the rage of the church's enemies. This class has not the candour to avow openly its attachment to dissent, or its latent hostility to that church which affords to some members of the class temporal support and comfort. The persons composing the said class affect not to believe the charges against dissent, though those charges are made and confirmed by such persons as have long been in the dissenting penetralia-e. g., " L. S. E," the author of the "Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister,"* &c.

The identifying of the "principles of dissent" in religion, and "liberal" principles in politics, appears to this class, not only impossible, but the attempt to do so highly offensive. But a little cool reflection and observation on the working of the principles of dissent, may, perhaps, convince them that such an identification is not altogether destitute of possibility or correctness. There is certainly in the following quotation an incontrovertible truth, as the result of close observation, afforded to the author by a long and close connexion with the dissenters. The extract is made from a letter to a high personage, written last spring by a venerable individual:-"The whole subject, my Lord, is most deeply interesting. I cannot divest myself of apprehension that his Majesty's ministers are not sufficiently aware of the nature of dissent as it is now opposed to the established church of England. This apprehension is strengthened by what is reported to have passed in Parliament about the Universities. If I were not afraid of being impertinent, I should very respectfully ask my Lords Grey and Brougham, whether they have duly considered how far the question between the church of England and dissent, now before them, is political, and how far religious?-a question which involves the distinction between the system of man's fearful and wonderful Maker, and the principle (whatever it be, and whencesoever proceeding) which introduced disorder into God's world. As far as it is simply political, it may regard the countenance to be given by the legislature to each of two classes of subjects. To a British legislature

The highly respectable publishers advertised in the "British Magazine," in January last, that this volume is the production of a dissenting minister, as it purports to be, whose name they have in their possession.