123 Prophets and Kings of O. Test., 356 World's Conversion, Parker, Theodore, Parsonage Libraries, 363 White Slavery in Barbary States, 241 241 NOTE. By a typographical inaccuracy, pages 250-9 appear to be wanting, THE FREEWILL BAPTIST QUARTERLY. No. I. JANUARY, 1853. ARTICLE I-INTRODUCTORY. It is with no ordinary feelings of pleasure, chastened however by much misgiving, that we present our subscribers and the public with the first number of THE FREEWILL BAPTIST QUARTERLY. Our pleasure is not a self-complaisance in what we present, but it springs from a sense of gratitude to God, that we are able to present anything in this form, with the hope which that performance, however humble, gives us for the future. The sources of misgiving are manifold, but so manifest as not to require a word from us to point them out. Nor need we pause here, upon the threshold, to recount all the obstacles that have rendered our arrival so late. Having already expressed our thankfulness that we are here at all, we only add, that whatever the obstacles passed, and whatever those in future for us, we have no experiment to make. By the blessing of God, our Quarterly is established, and it only remains to make all we can of it, by our best discretion and persevering industry, sustained, as we have every reason to expect to be, by the prayers and patronage of our brethren. "Of making many books there is no end." So wide is the world of letters and human knowledge, and so diversified is it with islands and continents, lakes and oceans, plains and mountains, that it would require a life-time equal to that of Methuselah, for one man to become familiar with the whole of it. In our short life-time, the great Newton himself can at most trav erse only the shore of some small bay: while he gathers a few of the most exposed pebbles, the night of death overtakes him. Yet, such is the nature of things, that to know one portion well—to know its position and properly to appreciate its resources and magnitude-it is requisite to have at least some general knowledge of most, not to say all, other portions; otherwise, we shall be liable to take a small island for a continent, Mantua for Rome, and China for the Celestial Empire. Unless we know many beings, we may take some "dull fool for a god." Unless we have at least some general knowledge of many subjects, we cannot thoroughly understand one. There is no room, neither time, for despair in this world. The world goes, and we must go with it; but in what capacity, is left much to ourselves to decide. If we cannot traverse the whole world, we can go over some portion of it, and take notes of our observations as we go. When we meet a fellow explorer, we can compare notes, and in the light of our views, thus enlarged, correct some of our blunders and erase our gravest errors. What we can not do by individual effort, we can attempt by associated labor. If we can accomplish but little in one short life, we may, in effect, live many such lives by availing ourselves of the help of many co-laborers. If the king of Egypt cannot build a pyramid short of a thousand lives, of forty years each, he must employ forty thousand men if he would build it in one year: if we, as travelers on foot, or by horse and canoe, can see a little of the world in a year, we can in the same time see no contemptible portion of the whole, if we can avail ourselves of the rail-car and steam-ship. What the improved modes of locomotion are to the tourist, periodicals are to the great mass of readers. They diffuse knowledge by associated labor. The more books are multiplied, the more difficult to dispense with periodicals. They afford, each in its own sphere, that general acquaintance with the whole field of knowledge, so requisite to the proper appreciation of any particular subject. The fact that one man can do so much with the best facilities, affords, however, no room for idleness in any who cannot command them. Each man must make his own tour, with the best facilities within his control. If he has not vanity enough to suppose his observations will add to the acquisitions a of others, he must spur himself on by reflecting that they are necessary to him as a means of availing himself of the reports which others may make of their discoveries. If he is thus faithful to himself, the time may come when, without any diminution of his modesty, he may think it best for him to make some report of his own observations. Ours is a Christian periodical. Take from us the Bible, or take from the Bible its authority as a revelation of God to man, to guide him to his true sphere in this life, and his great, true destiny in the life to come, and we have no mission. But, while our great aim of laboring in the kingdom of heaven includes, as we humbly trust, all our proximate aims, it is here due to our patrons, as well as ourselves, to specify some of our subordinate purposes, and perhaps to indicate the means by which we hope to labor for them. It is manifest that these depend, however genuine our motives, very much upon our leading views of Christianity itself-of what we regard as man's necessities and God's method of meeting them. Christianity, objectively considered, is God's remedial plan, or system of means, for saving man, fallen and depraved by transgression of the divine law. Christ is not only the great herald of this mercy, but he is also the great Sacrifice requisite to secure the forgiveness of sins: he is not merely the highest of all teachers, instructing man what he ought to be in his relations to man and God, but he, as manifested among us, is himself the perfect man we ought to be: he does not simply awaken in us the ideal of the perfect life and secure the forgiveness of our sins, but he, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, affords us the means of becoming in some future time, the absolute possessors of that perfect life, to "awake in his likeness." Christ, the 26yos, the Word that "was with God and was God," the medium of God, manifesting him in the creation and government of the universe, himself became flesh, dwelling among us as the highest and perfect manifestation of the Father, even "the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person." He, the divine born of the human, manifesting in our flesh what we ought to be, as the human born of the 2 divine, gives unto as many of us as receive him, even to as many as believe on his name, power to become by a new birth "the sons of God." "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature;" he is renewed by a power not his own, "after the image of him that created him." The re-formed soul is brought into such intimate relations to Christ, is so subjected to his will, that he, through the renewed man, continues to manifest himself to the world, so to say, in human flesh. Each renewed man, and no other, is a member of Christ's church; the church is the body of which Christ is the head (Col. 1: 1); and as we manifest ourselves in this world by means of our bodies, so does Christ manifest himself in this world by means of his body, the church. As Christ, who dwelleth in the bosom of the Father, is ever declaring the Father, so man in Christ by the new birth is ever declaring Christ. The "new creature" is not simply a soul, not even a renewed soul, without any body, but it is a renewed soul manifesting itself by necessity while in this life, in a body of Christ-like works. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Salvation is "not of works, lest any man should boast;" but "if a man have not works, can faith save him?" "Faith without works is dead." "Was not Abraham justified by works ?" "How faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect." From history and from observation it is manifest there is a perpetual tendency to tear asunder this body and this soul. One insists that genuine religion is faith, prayer, devotedness. Another insists as strenuously that it consists in feeding the hungry, proclaiming temperance, pleading the cause of the oppressed. These parties enter into strife, contending valiantly, like knights, each affirming that the part seen by himself is the whole. The seamless garment is rent; the renewed soul is torn asunder from its body of Christ-like works, and the world, so far as either of these partial views practically obtain as the whole truth, is given over to the dominion of death. |