crier proclaimed before him, "This is Euplius, the Christian, an enemy to the gods and to the emperor." He was beheaded on the 12th of August, in the year 304. The practice of bibliomancy, or divination by the Bible, cannot be too strongly condemned. It prevailed in an early age of the church, and even in our own country it was exceedingly common hardly half a century ago. The practice was called Sortes Sanctorum, or Sortes Sacræ, Lots of the Saints, or Sacred Lots, and consisted in suddenly opening or dipping into the Bible, and regarding the passage that first met the eye as predicting the future lot of the inquirer. The Sortes Sanctorum succeeded the Sortes Homerica and Sortes Virgilianæ of the Pagans, among whom it was common to take the work of some favorite poet, and to take the first verse that presented itself to notice as a prognostication of future events. The Persian tyrant Nadir Shah twice decided upon besieging cities, by opening upon verses of the celebrated poet Hafiz. liomancy was practised not only in the common occurrences of life, but also upon the most important occasions, as the election of bishops, the installation of abbots, and the reception of canons: not unfrequently, however, passages the most irrelevant, and apparently unhappy, were stumbled upon. When Athanasius was nominated to the patriarchate of Constantinople, by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Cavacalla, the archbishop of Nicomedia, consecrated him. Having opened the Bible, Bib the first words that struck his eyes were, "For the devil and his angels." The bishop of Nice, who saw that some unfortunate passage had been met with, adroitly turned over the leaf, when the following verse was read aloud:-" The birds of the air may come and lodge in the branches thereof." No token for good being apparent in these words, an unpleasant impression was produced upon the people, to diminish which, they were reminded that a former archbishop of Constantinople had met with a circumstance more inauspicious, by lighting upon the verse, -"There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," and yet his episcopate had neither been less happy nor less tranquil than his predecessor's. In the same dilemma Theophanes was placed, when consecrating the metropolitan of Chersonesus-the first consecration in which he was concerned, after his translation from the see of Cyzicus to the patriarchate of Constantinople. He met with these words-" If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch," which the public regarded as prognosticating evil to the patriarch and to the metropolitan. This custom of divination by the Bible still obtains, in Catholic and Protestant countries, among the ignorant peasantry; but in our own land it is to be hoped that it is nearly extinct.* The early Wesleyan ministers, who went much among the rural population, found bibliomancy prevalent in various districts. Their publications evidence this. Bradburn, in a funeral sermon, preached at Manchester in 1801, had occasion thus to address his audience:-"Great To derive from the Divine word that profit which it is intended to impart; for it to become to us a guide-book to the heavenly world, we should study its whole design and scope, read it habitually and thoroughly, with simplicity of mind, with self-application and self-examination; for “what was written aforetime was written for our instruction;" it is the statute-book of the whole world; not a lamp adapted merely to enlighten a few, but a grand pillar of fire, intended to direct the world, to cheer the camp of all the armies of Israel, on their way to the promised land. But, above all, fervent prayer is necessary for the influence of the "Spirit of truth to guide us into all truth." Naturally we have no right apprehension of spiritual objects, no proper sense of their importance and value, no relish for either the sacred duties or the hallowed truths which the Bible proposes to our notice: hence the necessity of prayer, that God may give us what we have not ourselves, the attentive and deeply interested spirit, the enlightened mind, and the understanding heart. It was the request of the Psalmist, " Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law; "- "Teach me thy statutes, make care should be taken that we are not deceived by turning the Bible into a sort of fortune book, opening it, or dipping, as it were by chance, to see what God will tell us! I have known pious men driven nearly to black despair for many weeks, by this dangerous practice! Nor is the drawing or playing with what are called scriptural cards much better. That some great men have done so and have been directed right, when they knew not what to do, is nothing to the present purpose." A similar caution, if I mistake not, occurs in Dr. Adam Clarke's Letter to a Preacher, though I have not the book at hand to refer to. me to understand the way of thy precepts; so shall I talk of thy wondrous works." It is the office of the Holy Spirit to do this; to remove our natural insensibility to Divine truth; to rend the veil of darkness, error, and delusion, from our minds; to open the eyes of the understanding, and to conduct us to an acquaintance with those principles of doctrine and duty, which are necessary to secure our present peace and future happiness. We may be perfectly familiar with the facts of Christianity, with the doctrines of the Bible, in a state of nature; we may admit them into our creed, but we do not feel their supreme importance; we do not enter into their peculiar significance; they do not exercise upon us their proper degree of moral influence and saving control, until a spiritual discernment is given unto us by Him who "searcheth all things, even the deep things of God." We are then made acquainted with the "truth as it is in Jesus," by the reception of its saving power; we may have had before theoretical orthodoxy, but we have then practical wisdom; we may have had before intellectual light, but we have then personal experience; the knowledge of Divine truth may have had before a tabernacle in our heads, but it has then a temple in our hearts. How lovely are thy tabernacles, Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord! As the bird that findeth her house, As the swallow, a nest for her young, So I thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, My King and my God! Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; They are still praising Thee; Blessed is the man who trusteth in Thee, Should they pass through the valley of sorrow, Blessings be on Him who goeth before them! O Lord of Hosts, hear my prayer! O God, our shield, look down, Behold the face of thine anointed! A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of God, Than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For Jehovah, our God, is a sun and shield; Jehovah giveth grace and glory. No good thing will be withheld from those that walk uprightly. O Lord of Hosts, Blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee!-Psalm lxxxiv. |