bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or any one of the number of the clergy, not on account of the practice of piety, but through contemptible and disgusting singularity, shall abstain from wine, let him either reform, or be deposed and cast out of the church. So also with a laic.' The LIII Canon of the same council runs thus: If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, on festival days, shall not use flesh-and wine, acting with disgusting singularity, and not with a view to the performance of religious duty, let him be deposed as one having a seared conscience and causing many to offend." Chrysostom in his first Homily to the people of Antioch thus speaks: "Let there be no intoxication, for wine is the production of God; intoxication is the work of the devil. The cause of intoxication is not wine, but luxury. Accuse not the creature of God, but the folly of thy fellow servant; for by neglecting to punish and correct the transgressor, thou reproachest thy Benefactor. Since, therefore, we have heard that certain persons say such things, let us stop their mouth; for not the use of wine, but the immoderate use of it, produces intoxication." Again."Wine is not evil, but the immoderate use of it." So also Theodoret. "It is not evil to drink wine, but to drink it immoderately is pernicious." To the same purpose Photius. And again Chrysostom. "I am not opposed to drinking wine, but I am opposed to getting drunk. Wine is not an evil, but the intemperate use of it is disgraceful; for wine is the gift of God, but intemperance is the invention of the devil.” There have then been temperate excitements before the present, and it is manifestly incorrect to call the ultra temperance doctrines of the present day, and the practices founded upon them, 66 new measures." They are no such thing. Neither are their advocates “innovators," as they are sometimes called. They are only the humble followers of Tatian and Severian, of Thales, the heathen philosopher of Ephesus, and the cold water men and water worshippers of the second and third centuries. It is true, indeed, the moderns have not made the same proficiency as these ancient worthies, but they are making rapid progress in the same track, and to what extent they will go it is impossible to tell. A vast number of "enquirers," laying it down as an axiom that the use of wine is sinful, or at least a very improper and dangerous thing, already doubt the propriety of using it in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper; and there can be no doubt if the axiom be just, the conclusion is inevitable. Not a few, like those of old, plead for mixing water with the wine, so as to dilute the sin. Others thinking to avoid this absurdity, propose the use of must, which they think is the correct rendering of the Hebrew Tirosh, (a thought which did not occur to the Hydroparastatæans of old; or rather they foolishly thought that must was the invention of the devil, as much as wine itself; an opinion in which I believe they were not alone.) And some two or three individuals are spoken of as already nearly equal to their sires. Some may suppose from this paper that the writer is no friend to the temperance cause. It is not so. The temperance cause had his best wishes so long as it confined itself to its legitimate object, and pursued this by lawful means; but when its indiscreet friends, in order to build up this confessedly good cause, go to throw the institutions of our holy religion, and to assail the characters and impeach the motives of such as demur at their unhallowed proceedings, it is time for every serious and temperate man to say "ENOUGH." ART. IX. On Patience. Patience, is a holy behaviour in affliction; a rectitude of mind under a cross; a heart moving by the word of God, when whipt by the hand of God. Patience, is a soul enjoying itself in every condition. Patience, is an even sea in all winds, a serene soul in all weathers; a thread even spun, with every wheel of Providence; it is a soul above extremes, neither in excess, nor in defect; neither over-sensible, nor under-sensible of any affliction; neither without tears, nor without hope; neither murmuring nor presuming; neither despising chastisement, nor fainting when corrected. Affected with all; cast down with nothing; quiet when tossed, very quiet while extremely tossed; expecting his salvation from God, when none can be had from man. Patience it is a soul at rest; a soul daily at rest in God. Wives gone, substance gone, houses plundered, Ziklag burnt, all mourning, many murmuring, ready to stone and kill David, and yet he makes up all in God, and is at rest; this is patience. Patience-it is as Jacob sleeping heartily upon a stone; a heart at rest in hardships: it is a poor widow, cheerfully giving and obeying a prophet, though but little meal in the barrel, and but a little oil in the cruse; it is one cheerfully going to eat her last provision and die; it is one quietly going to take a view of Canaan, and die at the door, making death, life; Christ, Canaan. It is one going to sacrifice an only son, with a-God will provide. Patience can speak no worse divinity in the greatest strait; it is one breathing out. a soul at rest, in the face of the cruelest misery-Not my will, but thy will be done. If this cup may not pass, let my blood pass; if this cause cannot live, without I die, let me die; let money go, let life go, that Christ may stay, the will of Christ may be done. Let the will of the Lord be done, that is a patient man's-Amen.-All runs into this. That patience is a holy behaviour in affliction. Let patience have its holy work. SCOTLAND.-The General Assembly held its first meeting on Thursday last. Dr. W. Thomson was chosen Speaker, or Moderator, of this ancient body. The more rigid members are attempting to exclude from the lay eldership all such persons who do not practice religious worship twice a day in their families. This question it is expected will give rise to much discussion. The Assembly has refused to accede to the request of the Church of Geneva to send a deputation thither to join in celebrating the third century of the Reformation. It was announced by Dr. M'Farlane that the Genevese Church had lapsed into errors and heresies, and that, consequently, the Church of Scotland could not accept her invitation. "The Philadelphian, of the 16th July, contains an article written in imitation of Scripture phraseology, imputing no very honorable motives to Drs. Green, Alexander, and Miller, touching, among other things, the newly appointed Professors in the Theological Seminary at Princeton. We have repeatedly seen the same style of writing adopted for purposes of slander, or for political effect. But we have yet to learn that it ever succeeded. The good sense and religious feeling of the community repel such attempts, as impious witticism and profane mockery. But it is quite tolerable in such cases, compared with the outrage which it inflicts when it appears in a religious paper, and assails religious men and religious institutions."-Charleston Observer. SELECT SENTENCES.-The following are copied from a little work by an old Puritan, Ralph Venning, entitled "Milk and Honey, or a miscellaneous collection of many Christian sentences," first published 1653.-Ch. Int. He that is little in his own eyes, will not be troubled to be little in the eyes of others. What we are afraid to do before men, we should be afraid to think before God. The best way to please all, or displease any with the least danger, is to please Him, who is all in all. A man should not praise his works, but his works should praise him. Free grace calls for full duty. It is a mercy to have that taken from us which takes us from God. A saint doth not so much good works to live, as live to do good works. He that contemns a small fault, commits a great one. Nothing keeps men more in folly than their wisdom doth nothing makes them more unrighteous than their righteousness. The soul is not so much where it lives as where it loves. He is the best Christian, not who talks most of God, but who walks most with God. Changes of condition are but exchanges of mercy for a gracious soul. He lives long who lives well; for time mis-spent is not lived but lost. Our holiness causeth not God's love, but God's love causeth our holiness. It doth not befit religious men to be religious by fits. The returns of prayer call for the returns of praise. He that is always angry with sin, shall never sin in his anger. When thine hand hath done a good act, ask thine heart if it be well done. THE RELIGIOUS MONITOR, AND EVANGELICAL REPOSITORY. OCTOBER, 1835. ART. I. To the Rev. Professor Stuart, of Andover. [In our last number we gave some account of the controversy now carried on respecting the use of wine in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, with an extract from Dr. SPRAGUE'S Sermon on the subject. We now present our readers with the reply of Dr. SPRAGUE to a letter addressed to him by Professor STUART, respecting the SerIt is believed our readers will regard this letter as generally able and highly in mon. teresting.] MY DEAR SIR, Albany, Aug, 21, 1835. In preaching, and especially in publishing, the sermon on the exclusion of wine from the Lord's supper, which has given occasion to your letter addressed to me, in the last number of the Temperance Intelligencer, I was well aware that I was taking a step which could not escape obser vation, and which must of course, be subject to a severe scrutiny. But I had determined to leave the sermon in the hands of the public, and let it take its chance whether for good or evil, without vindicating it from any exceptions, or noticing any strictures which it might call forth; and to this determination I should have adhered, so far as the sermon was concerned, if you had not thought proper to honor me with a public let ter. Your right to address me in this way, I fully recognize; and especially, in view of my having made a distinct allusion in my sermon, to your Essay in the Temperance Intelligencer of June, as furnishing one of the reasons for bringing the subject before my congregation. I am induced to reply to your letter, partly from the respect which I bear for your character, and partly from other considerations; though I feel constrained to say, that I cannot commit myself to a protracted correspondence, or even hold myself pledged to reply to any future communications. I make this explicit statement the rather, as I infer from an intimation in your letter, that you have a goodly number of puzzling interrogatories still in store for me, when those which you have already put, shall have been disposed of. I say then frankly that my professional duties are too numerous and urgent, to allow my attention to be diverted by a lengthened discussion of this subject; that I am happy to see that it is in a way to be thoroughly examined by other men who are more come VOL. XII. 17 petent to do it justice, and have more leisure to discuss it, than myself; and that, in view of these circumstances, both you and the public must expect that this will be the first and the last of my communications. I will take up the several queries suggested in your letter, and give to each the best answer that I can. My limits will require that I should be brief under each head, and should omit many things which seem to me to have an important bearing on the discussion; nevertheless I shall state those considerations which I deem most important; and if those which I do state have no weight, I freely acknowledge that those which I do not state, must pass for nothing. After quoting from my sermon the following sentences-"There is no occasion for Hebrew learning, or Arabic learning, or any other learning than plain English to settle this question. The Master himself hath settled it"-you say, "But what, I beseech you, are we to understand by this? Did the Master then speak English at the institution of the Lord's Supper? Did he make use of our word wine in the same sense in which we now employ it? I had always supposed that in a dispute about the proper meaning of a word in the Scriptures, the only ultimate resort is to the original Hebrew or Greck of them. Do you mean to defend the doctrine that such an appeal in a controverted case is unnecessary and out of place? And is it a Protestant principle that such an appeal shall not be made?" No, my dear Sir, I did not mean to defend any such doctrine, and I am sure you have too much candor and good sense ever to have thought of seriously attributing to me any such intention. I meant to assume the fact, not that the translators of the Scriptures were infallible, but that the translation which they have given us, is, in this instance, correct; and on this ground I said, and certainly should say again, under similar circumstances, that no other learning than plain English was necessary to settle this question. You yourself acknowledge that wine (orvos) was used at the original institution of the Supper: then in order to show that our Saviour "did make use of our word wine in the same sense in which we employ it," I have only to show that the wine which was used on that occasion, was the juice of the grape in a fermented state. The proof of this would involve the answer to one of your main inquiries, which must be reserved for its appropriate place. At present I assume the fact that it was so; and on it I build the conclusion that our Saviour used the word wine in the same sense in which we use it, and of course that our translation is liable to no exceptions. If I fail of the proof in its proper place, my conclusion must, of necessity, be abandoned. You may possibly think me somewhat of an anti-orientalist in expressing so much regard for the translation. But I assure you that it is not from any want of respect to Greek or Hebrew learning that I do this: I honor those who have devoted themselves to deep and laborious research into the original languages of scripture, and no one do I honor more than the man who has taken the lead in this department of study in our own country. But still I cannot think that the translation ought to be set aside, or even called in question, but for good reasons; especially as the great mass of people are obliged to rely upon it, and whatever serves to unsettle their faith in the translation, is adapted to diminish their general confidence in the scriptures themselves. I know not in how many instances, since the discussion about yayin and tirosh, has been going forward, I have heard intelligent men remark that, if these things were so, there was no Bible for them; as they could read neither Greek nor Hebrew. You will observe that I do not mention this as a reason for not appealing from the translation where the translation is really wrong or defective; but only as an argument for not appealing from it unnecessa rily; especially where, as in your own case, there would seem to be a virtual acknowledgment that it is correct. In your next paragraph you say, "But supposing now that you concede to us that such an appeal should be made," [i. e. an appeal to the original languages of scripture] "(which I may presume your candour will concede); then I ask how the fruit of the vine is to be understood? If the mere phraseology, or the mere English translation is to decide this, why then wine is out of the question. The fruit of the vine in its plainest, most obvious and literal sense, means neither more nor less than grapes. Grapes then and bread are to be the elements of the Lord's Supper; for in vain do we seek for the explicit declaration that wine was drank there by the Saviour and his apostles." 6 But it is said explicitly that they drank the fruit of the vine; and did you ever hear of an individual drinking grapes? The truth is that this passage not only admits the construction that the fruit of the vine was the juice of the grape, but it admits of no other; and hence I cannot see why you should have suggested it to me in the form of a difficulty; or how it bears more unfavorably upon my doctrine than yours. You go on to add, "But you will say, This is to be figuratively construed.' You put your construction upon it, and make it mean wine, i. e. the Greek οινος.” I do indeed put my construction upon it; but it so happens that in doing so, I put yours upon it also; for in the very next sentence you proceed to say, "I will not complain now of the liberty which you here take with the words, fruit of the vine. I also believe that wine, i. e. ovos, was drank at the sacrament in its origin; because I cannot see why the cup should be named, and drinking be spoken of, unless such was the case." Here then we are brought to a very happy issue of this part of the controversy;-that is, precisely to the same point. I only complain that you should have gravely put me to the proof of that which you yourself had no doubt; in other words, that you should have imposed upon me the necessity of showing that men do not drink grapes, when, in the very next paragraph, you intended generously to concede what you had called upon me to prove. After admonishing me that "the matter is not yet at an end," and mentioning the various Hebrew words which the Jews employed to designate different kinds of wine, you proceed as follows:-"Now here we have at least five different names in Hebrew, two of them for must or new wine, and three for different sorts or qualities of fermented wine, and all these are rendered by the Septuagint translators, by one and the same Greek word divos; which also is the new Testament word to designate all sorts of wine. Instead then of its being ascertained by the English new Testament, what wine means, we are not definitely informed by the original Greek itself, which of all the five kinds of wine, or rather of "the fruit of the vine," was exhibited at the table of our Lord. If the word OVOS itself had been used, i. e. wine instead of fruit of the vine, it would have still left us in the same condition, viz. uncertain whether the first, second, third, fourth or fifth kind of wine, was used by our Saviour and his disciples. Will you show us, my dear sir, how this question is to be determined? We may then have a stand point, from which we can take a new survey of the subject. Until then we may well suppose that "the fruit of the vine" may be either of the five kinds of wine above noted, inasmuch as the Saviour has not been particular in his designation. You will allow us to insist on some specific proof here, before we can take it for granted that your position is certain. We wish to know how "the Master has settled it," and what is the proof that he has decided that such wine as we now employ was used by him at the sacramental table." My first remark under this head is that, notwithstanding you have gi |