THE DUTY OF ADDRESSING PRAYER EXCLUSIVELY TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

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WE have received a somewhat incoherent, and, we are sorry to add, a very abusive letter, signed A Methodist," the object of which we cannot understand, unless it be to throw off some offended feelings at the article in our last relating to Dr. Adam Clarke. We cannot insert this letter, first, because it would give useless offence to our readers; and, secondly, because it is probable that better-disposed Methodists might be tempted unjustly to consider it as a contrivance to bring odium on their body.

A Methodist" declares that "Methodists OCCASIONALLY pray to Jesus Christ," and that " there is no Christian who does not pray MORE OR LESS to Jesus Christ." Now, according to our moral code, there is no such thing recognised as "occasional" duty to God; nor can we admit that a Christian is at liberty, in respect to any duty-such, for instance, as the duty of prayer-to perform that duty "more or less," according to his changeful fancy. If it be right, and therefore a duty, to pray to Jesus Christ at all, it is a duty to pray to Him at all times, and therefore exclusively, and we are no more at liberty to pray to Him "more or less,” than we are at liberty to keep the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," "more or less." Does not "A Methodist" know that God does not accept occasional" services? that The Most High demands the whole heart, and the whole life, and will accept no less, because less than this—that is, "occasional" homage,-" more or less" of obedience, could not profit the immortal soul of man? If Jesus be absolutely God, it is right to address prayer to Him at all times; and "more or less" prayer "occasionally" presented to Him, is an offence rather than a virtue! But if Jesus be not absolutely God, to address prayer to Him on any pretence whatever, that is, to pray to more than one object of worship, is idolatry, and nothing less. No quibbling, such as sectarians tolerate amongst themselves exclusively on theological points in which they are agreed, but not on points on which they differ, can avail to turn aside the force of these plain propositions. If "A Methodist" prays to two objects of worship, as from his own letter he appears to do, how can he escape the charge of idolatry? If it was not Adam Clarke's duty to address prayer to Jesus Christ exclusively, to address it to Him at all was idolatry. But the remarkable answer he obtained to prayer thus offered, ought to have taught him thenceforward to consider it his duty so to address prayer exclusively. He ought to have concluded that so to address prayer is not idolatry, but truly N. S. No. 65.-VOL. VI.

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Christian worship. Adam Clarke neglected the instruction so graciously afforded him; and Adam Clarke therefore eventually became, according to the testimony of the most able of his Methodist antagonists, virtually A TRITHEIST. It matters not to any one that "A Methodist" thinks the Doctor's tritheistical notions preferable to the doctrines of Swedenborg. A hundred "I thinks" cannot make one good argument.

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"A Methodist " justifies prayer to the Father for the sake of the Son, because Jesus Christ said, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father IN MY NAME, HE will give it you." Now, to our view, the premises will not warrant the conclusion. If "in my name' is every where to be translated into “for my sake,” what a number of passages in the Holy Word would be converted into sheer nonsense! This will be seen by glancing down a Concordance. There is only one passage in the authorized translation which can be fairly quoted to justify the practice of prayer to the Father for the sake of the Son, and that is in Eph. iv. 32, which no one now denies ought to have been translated, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you." (o Deos ev xpisw) Let us beg "A Methodist" to endea vour to understand what is meant by asking in the name of Jesus Christ, by referring him to one passage, in Phil. ii. 7:-"He (Jesus Christ) was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, wherefore, also, God hath highly exalted Him, and GIVEN HIM A NAME WHICH IS ABOVE EVERY NAME. That at the NAME of Jesus every knee should bow, of [all] in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father;" that is, confess that the assumed Humanity is Divine,-or It could not properly be called, "Lord,"to the glory of the Divine Essence which assumed It, and dwells bodily therein, in all its infinite fulness, for "it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell." From these words of the apostle, “A Methodist" should have learned, that the name of Jesus means his true character, and that the true character of Jesus is such as to entitle Him to the worship of all beings, (and consequently to their exclusive worship) because Jesus is the Father manifested, so that to worship Him, is to worship the Person of the Father, for He is the Person of the e Father This necessarily follows from the Lord's words in John xiv., He that seeth me seeth the Father," whence it also necessarily follows, at to pray to Jesus Christ is to pray to the Father; just as to see a man's body is to see his soul as there manifested; and to address a man's person is necessarily to address his soul, which is the all in all thereof.

"A Methodist" quotes the 66 passage, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, HE will give it you." Let him also be pleased to place by the side of it the following passage in John xiv. 13:-" Whatsoever ye

shall ask in my name I WILL DO IT, that the Father may be glorified in the Son: if ye shall ask any thing in my name, I WILL DO IT." (Observe, it is not said here the Father will do it, but I, the Son, the Humanity born of God, will do it.) Now if-as we are bound to believe from these two passages put together-in every answer to prayer the Father and Son are concerned, so as to constitute (according to the Lord's words "I and my Father are One") One Agent, One Granter of prayer, it follows, that unless we worship the Father and Son so as to see them to be the One Object of worship, the One Granter of prayer, we are, and must be, in error.

It is plain that by God giving a name to Jesus Christ is meant, as deducible from the particulars stated concerning that name, that God has constituted his Human Person, named Jesus Christ, the SOLE OBJECT OF WORSHIP; and that, having made Himself visible as Jesus Christ, He is no longer invisible, and therefore is not to be worshipped otherwise than as He is, that is, as Jesus Christ, or as God made visible.

A Methodist" says, that in worshipping the Father for the sake of the Son, He comes to the Father by the Son. To this we reply, not according to the Tripersonal hypothesis, so long as words bear their present English meaning. Take an illustration:-If John be asked to grant a favour for the sake of his son Thomas, it is clear that John is approached immediately, and not by or through a mediator; the only way to approach John through a mediator, supposing his son Thomas to be one, would be to approach Thomas immediately, in order that he might mediate with his father. Jesus Christ explains in John xiv. that to come to the Father by Him, is to come to his Person as the Person of the Father, in whom exclusively The Father dwells in all his infinite fulness. "No man

cometh unto the Father but BY ME. .. Ye have seen the Father. He that hath seen ME hath seen the Father," (verses 6, 7, 9.) To an unsophisticated mind, no language can more clearly declare, that the Father is only to be approached through his own Glorified Person, precisely as a man's soul or mind is approached by and through his person or body. We would recommend a candid perusal of John xiv., if it be possible for "A Methodist" to read anything without being swayed by those strong prepossessions which distinguish their community, when they offer that strange argument so confidently, "I know that such and such is the case, for I feel so and so." There is no reasoning with people who make their feelings an unerring test of truth. of the Letter which has occasioned our remarks.

This does the writer
They may, however,

be useful to others, although they are not very likely to penetrate ears so closely stopped by sensible appearances, for the feelings alluded to are nothing else."

But if "A Methodist" have any disengaged love of Truth,-any love of Truth in the abstract, we recommend to his attention the two Tracts entitled "Jesus the Fountain of Life and Light;" and, "Forgiveness of Sins not to be Confounded with Salvation;" being Nos. 16 and 55 of the Manchester Series. His letter shews that, as yet, he is perfectly unacquainted with the doctrines he so virulently condemns.

We close with saying, that we feel sincere pity for the unchristian state of mind of any individual who is capable of addressing his fellowcountrymen (not to say fellow-Christians) in the style which "A Methodist" has adopted in addressing us and the "Swedenborgians" generally. The appellation "a Christian" OUGHT to mean a person who has, and thence acts from, and according to, the mind of Christ." But, at the present day, people set up for real Christians, who are not even decent citizens, or creditable moralists; so that amongst the odd varieties of the human race, it is the lot of the discerning New Churchman frequently to find people who call themselves "Christians" par eminence, who are uncivil Christians, impertinent Christians, angry Christians, falsifying and slandering, yea, malicious Christians! Were ever such contradictions in terms presented before! Verily the Christian Church too much resembles, at the present day, the temple of Jerusalem, when our Lord expelled thence those who had "made it a den of thieves!"

REVIEW.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. pp. 394, demy 8vo: Churchill, Princess-street, Soho.

OUR duty to our readers seems to suggest the necessity of introducing this very remarkable work to their notice. It has attracted very general attention, and has rapidly passed through three editions. It has even had the honour of being mentioned with admiring wonder in the House of Commons! We have certainly been much interested with the perusal of it, notwithstanding that we deem its very peculiar doctrines far from established. It would not be possible in our limited space to follow the author as he successively conducts us over the " vestiges" which he has arranged for our examination. We can only notice a few of his more astounding suggestions, observing that he sustains them, however strange they may appear, with the calmness of honest and intelligent conviction.

He considers that before what is properly called creation n commenced, all space was filled with a nebulous matter which he calls "fire mist; that the Divine action upon it, according to certain fixed laws, produced

out of it solar systems innumerable; in some unknown way drawing forth from the nebulous matter, first, the solar orb, by a central motion, thus making it a nucleus to the production, from the remaining portion of the nebulous matter awarded to its system, of its dependent planets. This is all very ingeniously set forth, but the reader is left to guess whether the nebulous matter was eternally existent, as well as the creative power which formed it into suns and worlds; or whether it was the substance first made by the hand of Omnipotence.

The author then passes through the successive productions in and upon the formed planet, presenting an interesting view of the geological strata and the successive organic formations-or as the author delights to call them, "successive developments"-which they reveal, and finally examines the natural condition of man, as resulting from the operation of the laws of nature which act upon him, and also within him,-the laws of development as connected with the laws of gravitation which regulate inorganic existences.

The author has suppressed his name, adverting to the circumstance in his "Note conclusory," with the calm, philosophical dignity of one. who in solitude watches the mutations by which men and things are whirled about, forming benevolent schemes how he may draw and put forth his conclusions for the benefit of his race; for it must be admitted that the whole book is pervaded by a kind, benevolent spirit.

His distinguishing peculiarities of idea are, first, that God created all things in such wise that there was nothing in his proceeding like immediate personal exertion, or like the handy-work of a man;—it was what he calls " a law-creation," -a creation by law, or a creation through the medium of laws; and, secondly, that the work was successively carried on by the development of one thing, or species, from that prior to it; so that the lowest vegetable production produced one above it by an improved power of development, (in support of which he cites evidence to prove that under certain circumstances oats will develope or become rye) until we have the present vegetable world; and that the lowest animated existence produced the one above it by an advanced power of generation, until, through the successive improvement of the power of development in each species, through an incalculable series, the ape (start not!) generated a man, in his lowest and meanest condition; and that, by successive developments, in like manner, our race has arrived at its present condition, from which an improvement may be calculated upon, by the operation of the same law of development ad infinitum !

We judge that some readers may be ready to exclaim, What is the use of troubling us with such ridiculous fancies?" Let every one, however, first examine what the author, the farthest removed in his own