constitutions, and render the difficulty of our ever arising to a religious life so much the greater. In the body there are certain parts, that are more tender and sensitive than others; when these are wounded, the danger is always the more imminent. In our moral constitutions, reverence is such a vital part. When that is entirely defaced, the last rays of spiritual light have become extinct. According to scripture, the culmination of all sin, is found in the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which it is said cannot be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come. Now nothing is more evident, than that this consists essentially in gross irreverence The language as well as the connection implies this. The commission of this sin, requires the banishment of all regard for God and his authority from the heart, and strips him forever from becoming the subject of renewing grace. If the destiny of such a one be regarded as a hard one, no imputation can be made against the Creator, for his condition is one into which he has brought himself, by breaking through every restraint, and by inflicting upon himself the wound, which no grace can heal.'

Mercersburg, Pa.

T. A.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN NAME.

A practical exposition of Acts. ii: 26," and the disciples were called christians first at Antioch."

THE name of a thing is according to its original intention the expression of its essence, the making known of the thing itself. By means of sin, that great lie, it is true a contradiction has been introduced into the world, between the Inward and Outward, between Spirit and Flesh, also between Essence and Name. But this disharmony finds no place in the significance of things, as they proceeded from God; much rather, the names of Holy writ, the Book of revealed Wisdom, are in the highest degree significant. This holds also with reference to the name of the Confessors of our Saviour, with which idea we have here to do. At first, things were known by various appellations, all of which had reference to a particular phase of their character, and the problems which they were to solve. They called themselves "Disciples." of Jesus Christ-their divine Teacher, whom they were to follow and to obey-or "Holy" because separatad from the World and from sin, consecrated to the service of the Triune God, and called to unceasing efforts towards moral perfection-or "Brethren," because they constituted One Family of the Redeemed, One Soul, One Heart, One Body and were to become more and more One by means of Love, as they were One by Faith in the Lord.

The name "Christian" arose according to the text, first at Antioch, the capital of Syria, and the mother congregation of heathen missions, about the year 40 according to our time. It is not said, however, from whence it came Certainly not from the Jews, because they called the hated followers of the crucified Jesus, whom they would not accept as Christ, that is, the promised and by themselves expected messiah, "Nazarcans" "Galileans." It is most probable that it came from the Gentiles, who saw in Christ not a title of office, but a proper name, with which they desired to denominate the believers, in the same way as we speak of Caesareans, Lutherans, Zwinglians, Swedenborgians, Kantians, &c. Notwithstanding this, the appellation was not accidental, but was by the guidance of divine Providence, without whose will not a hair can fall from our heads and at the same time no thought proceeds from the heart and not a word from the mouth of man. The heathens at Antioch, became in this case, without knowing or desiring it, prophets, similar to Balaam, and Caiaphas, with his remarkable

VOL. III.NO. VI.

38*

words:" It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." They gave expression to a deep truth of which they themselves had no presentiment or knowledge. For the name christian is peculiarly expressive, and in the highest degree suitable, significant of that which every confessor of Christ should be in distinction from Heathen, Jew or Turk. For such reasons it soon became general among the faithful, and to this day is the appellation by which those baptized into Christ, and who receive salvation from him, are called.

It is therefore of great importance, for each one, to discover the significance of the christian name, which we all bear, no matter of what persuasion, and to learn the glorious privileges and sacred duties which it comprehends.

In general the name christian denotes a confessor, adherent and follower of Jesus Christ, such an one, in whom the life of our Lord is continued, and who is so to speak a second Christ, and always is to become more and more so, of course in a relative sense, and with constant dependence upon Him, the Prince of our Salvation, the Author and Finisher of our faith. We can reach the significance of the christian name in the best way if we proceed from the significance of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. From this then as a consequence we shall have our character and our mission, or what we, as his confessors or his followers are, and what is before us, to be accomplished and effected.

§1. If we inquire first into the proper nature of the Person of Jesus Christ, we find it to consist in the inmost, pure and indissoluble union of the divine and human natures, in virtue of which he is the mediator and reconciler between God and man, the Author of our Redemption and our communion with the Godhead. In the Gospels he declares himself, with peculiar preference the "Son of Man," to show his condescension to us, his real communion and inward participation in every thing really human, yea, in our sufferings, in our weakness and wants. He possessed Body, Soul and Spirit as we do; was a babe at his mother's breast, an obedient child, youth and man, advanced in age, and grew in wisdom and favor with God and man. He hungered and thirsted, ate and drank, was awake and sleptwas tried and tempted, as we are, but without, for a moment, giving way to temptation-suffered, died and was buried, in short, in every thing he was made like unto us, sin excepted, which guilt, as an innocent surety, as a voluntary representative he removed on the accursed tree. In spite of this condescen

sion and form of a servant, we see in him, manifested the highest bloom and fruit of humanity-we see in him our race redeemed, ennobled, glorified, perfected. He is called " Son of Man" also in this sense, because he is the ideal, the complete man, the second divine Adam, the representative of the new creation-the whole regenerated humanity. On the other hand, he is as often called the "Son of God," particularly by the Apostles, and that in the most complete sense, as the only begotten of the Father, who was with the Father from the beginning, whose glory, full of grace and truth is reflected through the veil of his human nature. He is the Word, being from Eternity with God, yea according to his nature, was God himself; in whom dwells the fullness of the Godbead bodily; in fine he is God himself, revealed in the flesh for our temporal as well as eternal salvation. Here "where the divine and the human are united in one, where perfect fullness appears," is the great central mystery, the fundamental truth of christianity-here the depth, into which angels desire to look-here the inexhaustible source of reconciliation-of life-of salvation to the creature needing, as well as desiring Redemption.

What has now been affected in a perfect and complete sense in Jesus Christ, shall, as far as possible in a finite creature, be repeated in every christian. We are all in a relative sense children of God, unless we bear the holy name of our Saviour in vain, and we are to become more and more so. The Saviour took our human nature, to make us, as Peter says, "partakers of the divine nature." We are all sons of men, and shall always remain so. Christianity aims not at the destruction of our natural dispositions, but to redeem them from the power of sin, to sanctify and to place them upon that grade of perfection, so that the complete christian is at the same time a perfect man and vice versa. In order that this may have place, the impartation of a new life is necessary-and upon the basis of our natural birth, a regeneration proceeding from above, must be effected,the old, wild trunk, which at best can produce but evil fruit, must be grafted by the divine husbandman with a pure graft, which gradually grows with the former, until it brings forth pure shoots, blossoms and fruit. That is, in order to have part in Christ and his means of salvation, we must become Sons of God, or, rather, as the Scriptures, to preserve the high dignity, the eternal and perfect Sonship of Christ, generally call the faithful," children of God," yet without thereby ceasing to be children of men. He that has merely natural Sonship and is born from the will of the flesh, deserves not the title of christian;

only those who receive Christ, who really and truly believe in his name, and are born of God by the creative power of the Holy Ghost. This second birth is nothing more than the implanting of the divine, eternal life in us, as natural generation is the transferring of the natural life of the parents-the continuation of the same life in a new being. The begotten always partakes of the nature of him begetting-what is born of the flesh, is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit, is Spirit. We are to be made then through the agency of the Holy Ghost, in a particular sense, "partakers of the divine nature," by which our sinful nature is cleansed, transformed and glorified, in a leaven-like manner, the divine life of Christ is to flow over into us, that we may live, move and be in him, and by faith be one heart, one soul with him, and thus become living members of his body.

This is no exaggeration, but the scriptural representation of an important, precious truth, which offers to us poor, unworthy beings, the highest honor and the most exalted dignity, of which we are capable. We are, of course not to become one with Christ in the sense that we are to cease to be finite beings and self-conscious personalities, and to be swallowed up in him as the drops in the ocean; still, on the other hand, we are not to reverence him only as the divine Founder of our Holy Religion, agreeing with his doctrines and views, as the Jews with Moses, the Mahomedans with Mahomet. Much more does the New Testament represent, in innumerable passages, the relation of the Redeemed to the Redeemer as an actual and real life union. Our Saviour represents himself as the vine, his disciples the branches, who derive power and support from Him, and sundered from him, must cease to exist and wither and become irrecoverably lost. He is the eternal life, he that believeth in Him, hath everlasting life, he that believeth not the Son, hath not life. In the great judgment day, the Saviour will regard himself in such close, intimate union with his own, that be will regard their sufferings and wants while in the world, as his own, and will say, "Whatsoever ye did to the least of these my Brethren, ye did unto me." We are challenged to eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, that is, to take up in us his life, if we are true disciples, and desire finally to have part in the Resurrection. We are called members of His Body, in whom also his life-blood circulates-and are penetrated by his life, and ruled by his Will-" Christ is my life," says the Apostle, "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of