ART. XVIII. THE USE OF the Law.

The moral law contained in the ten commandments, and comprehending all that is specifically required or forbidden in other moral precepts of the Bible, is of perpetual obligation on all men; and although believers are not under it as a covenant of works to be thereby justified or condemned, yet they are bound by it as a rule of life, and can have no evidence of their justi fication beyond the degree of their obedience to it. As to them, so also to all others, the law is designed to discover the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and thus to convince all men of the wickedness of their hearts and their just exposure to its penalty, and to show them their need of sanctification by the grace of the Spirit, and of forgive ness through the blood of Christ.

ART. XIX. THE WORSHIP OF GOD, AND THE SABBATH.

God is to be worshiped in spirit and in truth, in private families, in secret, and in the public assemblies of his people.

As it is the plain dictate of reason and conscience that a portion of time set apart to the worship of God is of indispensable necessity to a life of holiness and piety-so God by his own institution hath appoint ed one day in seven to be kept holy unto him, which from the resurrection of Christ to the end of time is the first day of the week.

The due observance of the Sabbath consists in a holy resting all the day from all our worldly employments and recreations, and in the worship of God and other duties adapted to promote holiness of heart and life, including the reading and hearing of the word of God, prayer, meditation, and other devotional exercises-and as the case may be, in works of necessity and mercy.

ART. XX. THE CHURCH.

The church of God consists of all true saints in heaven and on

earth, who being sanctified in Christ Jesus, are gathered into one in him, and are his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. This is commonly called the invisible church.

Although the church of God is truly and properly a community of holy persons, yet the whole body of men throughout the world professing the faith of the Gospel and obedience to God, and not destroying the credibility of such profession by unholiness of life, or fundamental error in doctrine, are by us properly considered and called the church of God. This is commonly

termed the visible church.

This visible church is not of necessity the true church of God, since that may appear to be such in human estimation which is not such in reality; nevertheless Christ always has had, and ever shall have a church in this world of such as believe in him and make profession of his name, and which is his kingdom upon earth, where he has deposited his truth and instituted his ordinances.

ART. XXI.-THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.

formed to the image of the Lord Christians are spiritually conJesus Christ, and have fellowship in rection and glory. Hence result his graces, sufferings, death, resurtheir common character, interests and duties: hence they are bound to sympathize and to co-operate with each other in every thing conducive to their mutual well being, so far as the providence of God affords opportunity for such sympathy and co-operation. In families, in munities in which saints are more ticular churches, and in other comor less intimately associated, peculiar opportunities are afforded them, and peculiar obligations are imposed upon them, mutually to abound in affections and conduct, which have for their object the prosperity of every individual and of the whole; striving together to grow up into

his grace.

ART. XXII.-THE SACRAMENTS.

The sacraments of the New Testament are Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which, as signs and seals of the covenant of grace, represent the validity of its precious promises, and are ordinarily to be administered only by ministers of the Gospel.

The grace which is exhibited in these sacraments is not conferred by any power in them, nor does their efficacy depend on the piety or intention of the administrator, but upon the work of the Spirit fulfilling the gracious promises of the covenant to proper and worthy recipients.

Baptism is to be administered in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and to all unbaptized adults who profess their faith in Christ, and to the infant children of any member of the church. As a fit emblem of moral purification, the outward element to be used in this ordinance is water, the quantity of which or the mode of its application not being essential to the validity of the sacra

ment.

The Lord's Supper is a sacrament which believers are to celebrate, by the use of bread and wine as a memorial, according to Christ's command, showing forth the sacrifice of himself for sin; as an emblem of their spiritual life and of the blessings of his mediation; as a seal of their engagements to his service, and as a pledge of their communion with him, and with one another here on earth, and hereafter in his Father's kingdom.

At death the probation of all men ceases, and their characters having been formed, their account is closed for the final judgment. Their bodies henceforth rest in the the heavens be no more. until grave Their souls depart from this world-the righteous going into a state of holiness and peace, the wicked into a state of unrestrained sin and hopeless suffering.

At the last day, the bodies of all be raised from the grave and be men shall by the power of Christ severally united to their soulsthose of the wicked unto dishonor, but those of the just unto honor, being conformed to the glorious body of Christ.

ART. XXIV. THE LAST JUDGMENT.

God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ; when all men shall appear before his judgment seat, that they may receive according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil-that God may manifest the glory of his mercy in the salvation of his people, and of his justice in the condemnation of the wicked. Then shall the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal.

As Christ, by the certain persuasion of a future judgment, would deter all men from sin and furnish support and consolation to the righteous, so by the uncertainty of the hour in which our Lord will come, he would excite us to activity and watchfulness, that we may always be prepared to say-" Come, Lord Jesus; even so, come quickly." Amen.

We welcome every book which adds to our stock of substantial information respecting the countries "over sea," for the same reason which of late years has so considerably multiplied this class of publications. Mr. Clay in one of his speech es, alluding to certain foreign peculiarities and affinities of his adopted state, said that he had sometimes imagined Kentucky to have been originally a part of the old world, which at some remote period had been detached and floated to the shores of the West. We have lived to see this imagination almost realized in relation to the whole of the old continent. Steam has brought it, if not into actual contact, at least so near us that its proximity admits of nearly the same practical illus. tration which Cato employed to in dicate to the senate of Rome the dangerous neighborhood of her African rival, when after showing them a specimen of fruit fresh as when it was plucked from the tree, he told them it came from Carthage. The rapid trips of our steam packets could bring us an invoice of Italian figs or French grapes almost as fresh. And we are sure that a specimen of those oatmeal cakes on which the Scotch farmers informed our author that their laborers thrived so well, would be pronounced by ours, after crossing the Atlantic in the Acadia, not much less eatable than when warm from the oven. Now these facilities of intercommunica tion, while they have multiplied the number of travelers and of books of travel in Europe, have increased the need of them. It is true of nations as of individuals, that assimilation is the result of familiarity;

Notes from Over Sea. By the Rev. John Mitchell. Published by Gates & Stedman. New York, 1845.

and if patriotism inspires the hope that our growing intimacy with European natives may serve for the gradual transfusion of the American element among them, it should not less excite the apprehension that this growing intimacy may lead to an assimilation on the contrary part; may tend to infect our young and susceptible country with the spirit of those political and ecclesiastical institutions of Europe which are in direct antagonism to ours, and with those principles of social, industrial and educational economy, which though cherished with a strange tenacity in many of the countries beyond the Atlantic, the experience of ages has proved to be radically defective. The only antidote against such an infection, is to contemplate those principles and institutions in their legitimate operations at home, and we shall hail as a public bene. factor every writer who brings us from over sea the results of judicious observation, to enable us to do so, at least till we have arrived at the point of repletion on these subjects, a point which we are satisfied the American public is very far as yet from attaining.

In this respect the volumes before us are peculiarly valuable. They are evidently the work of an intelligent and inquisitive, of a liberal and patriotic mind, too patriotic to be beguiled by the splendid absurdities and magnificent fooleries of aristocratic Europe, too liberal to be insensible to what is really valuable in the institutions of other countries because they differ from those of his own. There is no carping at little national peculiarities, no quarreling with a nation because they use a knife when they ought to use a spoon, (vide Hamilton,) no grumbling at mechanics because they venture to treat him as an equal, (vide Dick

ens,) no authoritative judgment and confident abuse of a whole people, from a mere hasty glance at the surface of their society, (vide the above, and a legion besides.) Our author does indeed enter largely into the peculiar institutions of Europe, her church establishments, her pauper systems, the condition of her laboring classes, but his statements and reasonings are mostly based on the broad foundation of general facts, from which his readers are at liberty to judge of the correctness of his conclusions or to draw their own.

We ought however to add in passing, that his volumes are not made up of mere disquisitions. They abound in descriptions of scenes and objects, natural and artificial, in the various countries through which he traveled, as to which we have only to object, that they are sometimes too hurried and not sufficiently particular. Happily avoiding that minute style of description for which a certain class of letter-writing tourists have such a tiresome fondness, he occasionally falls into the opposite extreme, and gives us mere hasty "dashes" at interesting works of art and nature, as if he were only indicating their striking points to a companion on the spot-instead of writing for the benefit of those who have never seen them. However, there are many exceptions to this remark. Take the following account of the Pont du Garde at Nismes.

"Conceive of two steep hills with a valley of about two hundred yards wide, and a small river (the Garde) flowing through it. Across the bottom of this valley, which is a flat bed of rock, construct a stone bridge sixty six feet high from the surface of the river, five hundred and twenty nine feet long, and having six round arches. The arch through which the river passes is seventy three feet span; the others a little narrower. Now construct another bridge on the top of this, of the same hight and fashion. Its piles and arches are placed precisely over those of the lower, and correspond with them. It is longer of course to

reach the retiring slopes. Its arches are feet. On the top of this erect a third eleven, its length eight hundred and fifty bridge, the length of which shall be eight hundred and seventy feet, and the number of arches thirty five. Over this runs walls coated on the inside with a thick the aqueduct. This is composed of two layer of cement as hard as rock, and forming a trough of a depth sufficient for a man to walk nearly upright in it. On the top of all is a covering of flagging stones, each one foot thick, three feet wide, eleven feet long, jutting over a foot on each side, and forming a suitable finish to the stupendous work of which it is the crown. The entire height is about one hundred and sixty English feet. The stones are all massive, handsomely wrought, and fitted together without mortar.

"Now place yourself in the valley at a suitable distance and look up. Those many arches one above another, look like a huge net-work of stone. The upper range of them particularly, so numerous and so high, are strikingly picturesque. Look behind you and observe what sublimity there is in the gigantic shadows which it casts upon the ground. There impression. The country in its vicinity are solitudes around it to highten the is romantic and without habitations. It

is invested too with the solitude which

What Botany Bay is to British convicts, such the United States are fast becoming to British paupers. Hence the vast multiplication of pauperism in the British isles, its causes and the operation of the systems there employed to correct or suppress it, can not but be interesting to Americans. In Vol. I, chap. 15, our author discusses the comparative merits of the Scotch and English for the support of the indisystems gent poor.

"England makes legal provision for the poor, and collects them into almshouses. Scotland leaves hers to voluntary charity. She lays no poor tax, and has no alms-house system. Parishes may assess and tax themselves if they choose,