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rowed from the Mysteries, that to the impure it is not permitted to comprehend the pure. It is the heart,' says Pascal," which apprehends God, and not the reason;' by which he obviously understands the intellectual faculty, disjoined from association with the disposition; this only can be called faith-God perceptible by the heart and not by the reason.' He distinguishes three stand-points, the sensual, the intellectual, or the province of the reason left to itself, and the divine. All the éclat of mere sensual grandeur has no lustre for those engaged in intellectual inquiries. These possess a greatness which the rich and powerful of the world cannot understand. But, above both, is that glorious wisdom which is alone to be found with God, which neither the sensual nor the merely intellectual can understand. The three provinces are quite distinct in their nature. There are those who can only admire sensual grandeur, as if there were no intellectual, and others, again, who can only admire intellectual grandeur, as if there were not an infinitely higher sublimity in divine wisdom. All bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth, and its various kingdoms, are not worthy to be compared with the very least of the world of mind. For the mind knows them all, and itself. But all bodies, and minds combined, and all their productions, are not worth the least motion of divine love, which belongs to an infinitely higher order. From these stand-points Pascal deduces the emptiness of a one sided logical enthusiasm which puts the intellect in the place of the whole man. 'We make,' he says," an idol of the truth; for truth without love is not God, but only His image; and therefore an idol, which we must not love nor adore; and still less,' he adds, must we love or adore its opposite, falsehood.'

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The principles of Pascal, as now unfolded, it is evident, by no means lead to a blind, authoritative faith, nor discover any hostility to science. They merely assign to the intellectual faculty in man its proper place. They point, when viewed in their essential meaning, and not merely in their accidental representation by Pascal, to a harmonious development of the whole man, which must proceed from the disposition apprehending the divine-from love. Man must be one in life and in science. Only thus can he ever gain the true stand-point to recognise God in His revelation both in nature and history. All points to the Highest; only man must possess the eyes to perceive these indications: as Pascal says in one of his letters: 'The corporeal is only an image of the spiritual. God has exhibited the invisible in the visible. All things speak of God to those who know Him, and reveal Him to those who love Him.'

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF COLOSSIANS,

CHAP. ii. 12.

By the Rev. PETER MEARNS, Coldstream.

Συνταφέντες αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ βαπτίσματι· ἐν ᾧ καὶ συνηγέρθητε διὰ τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐνεργείας τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν.—Col. ii. 12.

THE epistle to the Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul, in consequence of information received by him from Epaphras, a distinguished Christian preacher, regarding certain false teachers who had crept into the church at Colossæ. We have no certain information respecting the precise opinions which were industriously propagated by these teachers, the Apostle's allusions being to us somewhat indefinite, though sufficiently distinct to the parties addressed. There seems to have been a systematic effort made to combine with Christianity the doctrines of the philosophical asceticism of the East; a by which combination it was asserted a deeper insight was obtained into the spiritual world than Christianity alone could give, the doctrines of the gospel being too benevolent and simple for these inactive and visionary speculatists. The worship of angels, the consecration of holy days, and the observance of carnal ordinances, were other errors reprobated by the Apostle. Paul endeavoured to check the tendency to asceticism, and to correct opinions which were not less plausible than pernicious, by reminding the Colossians of the excellence and glory of Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, by whom all things were created, and in whom all fulness dwells. In opposition to the supposed necessity of something supplementary to the Christian system the Apostle remarks, Ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.'

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Such is the connection in which the verse stands which we have

Neander's Hist., Torrey's transl., vol. i. p. 375. Edin. 1847.

quoted

quoted at the head of this article, and the points presented by this verse for examination are these:

1. The analogy between the burial of Jesus Christ and the spiritual burial of Christians;

2. The analogy between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the spiritual resurrection of Christians; and,

3. The connection of the ordinance of baptism with the spiritual burial and resurrection of Christians.

Συνταφέντες

The Apostle here asserts that believers are buried with Christ in or by baptism-συνταφέντες αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ βαπτίσματι-Χριστός being understood from verse 8th, as is indicated by auros, its representative here. LUVTXQEVTES (second aorist participle passive of OuviπT) literally signifies having been buried with, and here refers, we apprehend, to the just and instructive analogy between the burial of Christ and the spiritual burial of Christians, and not to the mode of Christian baptism, as we shall presently endeavour to show. The expression v T Banтisμati, by baptism, is here employed to signify the means; that is, the Apostle asserts that by the ordinance of baptism the Colossian believers had given expression to the fact that they were united to Christ by faith, and consequently they might be said to be buried and risen with him. Such a use of the dative is of frequent occurrence. We .have it in Matt. iii. 11, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire'ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί.

The expression év, rendered wherein in the authorized version, may signify either in which or in whom, according as we refer it to Banτioμa or Xpiorós as its antecedent. Heinrichs, Macknight, and others, with the translators of the English Bible, make BaπTo the antecedent, but Erasmus, Vatablus, Grotius, Bengel, Rosenmüller, Stuart, and others, more correctly make it Xplorés. We reject, then, the version of the English translators, and render with whom.

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Zuvnyέponte is literally ye have been raised with, but the prefix ovy has little, if any, force here, and taking iv & nai with the verb, we render the whole clause, in connection with whom also ye have been raised. This is in accordance with the rule, that a preposition of similar import with the one before the verb, is put before the noun.'b We have an instance of this in the phrase avaλéas Els Tov oυgavòv (Matt. xiv. 19, and Mark vi. 41), where the prefix ava is unnecessary, as the verb is followed by sis.

The resurrection of believers of which the Apostle here speaks is a spiritual resurrection. Hence he says that it is dia Ts TiOTEws, through the instrumentality of faith.

b Stuart's Syntax of the N. T. Dialect, § 61, 9, Note 1 (b).

This faith the Apostle characterizes as τῆς ἐνεργείας τοῦ Θεοῦ, οι the powerful working of God-that is, this faith receives its efficacy from the operation of God. Bengel's note here is good,- Fides est (opus) operationis divinæ : et operatio divina est in fidelibus.' Ενεργεια is a stronger word than ἐργασία, and denotes energy, active and efficient working. It is rendered 'effectual working' in Eph. iii. 7, and iv. 16.

It is further stated in the verse before us, that he by whose agency faith is produced in the minds of believers is the same God who raised Christ from the dead—τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ τῶν VEXpV. This clause simply asserts that the physical resurrection of Christ was the effect of divine power.

Such is a brief analysis of the words of this text as they stand in the original, and we shall now sum up the meaning in a short paraphrase. It is as if the Apostle had said, 'I address you as being in reality what you have professed in submitting to the ordinance of baptism. Being united to Christ by faith, you are regarded as having been dead, buried, and risen with him; the same divine power by which Christ was raised from the grave has been exerted in effecting your union to Christ; and it has originated the principle by which your views, feelings, and actions are regulated.'

It is easy to see how the Apostle's statement, as thus understood, bears on his object in writing the epistle to the Colossians. As a person who is dead and buried has broken off all connection with the external world, so those who are dead and buried with Christ, it is here asserted, have thereby broken off all connection with ceremonial observances, to which observances, as we have already remarked, the Colossians had shown an attachment. Circumcision was no longer to be observed among them, the law of Christ was to be henceforth their only rule, and Christ was to be the sole master to whose service their lives were consecrated.

Such seems to us the true view of the passage under discussion, and this view is not without the support of able and learned commentators. It will be observed that we exclude all reference in this passage to the mode of baptism. It will also be seen that we make out an excellent sense without any such reference, and a sense, too, in harmony with the general bearing of the writer's argument and illustration. The position we have assumed, however, is opposed to views very confidently entertained and expressed by anti-pædobaptist writers, and concurred in by many commentators, whose views regarding the mode of baptism were unfavourable to the interpretation they give of this passage. It were wrong for us then quietly to assume this position without stating our reasons for it. In doing so we shall avoid the baptist controversy,

versy, and shall not even provoke discussion by stating what we conceive to be the meaning of the word Banτiw. Our sole object is to state and vindicate what appears to us the proper interpretation of a text, which, when properly understood, cannot serve the combatants on either side of this controversy.

1st. We remark that the view we adopt has other passages of Scripture to support and illustrate it, but no such passages can be produced in favour of the interpretation to which we object. Of his union with the Redeemer the Apostle Paul thus speaks: I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me' (Gal. ii. 20). Again, the same Apostle says, 'God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus' (Eph. ii. 4-6). These passages are but a specimen, and there are many others of similar import which might be cited if necessary. Indeed, this is with the Apostle a favourite mode of representing the union of Christ with believers. They are crucified, dead, buried, risen, and, in affection, ascended to heaven with Christ. Why, then, suppose a reference to the mode of baptism in this text, when the usus loquendi suggests to us so excellent an interpretation without any reference to the supposed mode in which this ordinance should be administered? Now, keeping out of view Romans vi. 3, which is exactly parallel with that under discussion, and to be interpreted precisely in the same way, no passage can be produced from the New Testament in which baptism is represented as a burial and resurrection.

But it may be asked, why does the Apostle in this text refer to baptism at all? We reply, that he addresses the Colossians as believers, and therefore in a state of union with Christ; and he refers to baptism for the purpose of intimating that they had themselves expressed that fact by receiving this ordinance; but the mode of administering the divinely appointed rite is not adverted to, and the language of this passage is equally applicable to the ordinance, whether we suppose it to have been administered by immersion or sprinkling.

2nd. Again, there is no just analogy between burial and baptism. The grave is the scene of destruction, loathsomeness, and putrefaction; but the water of baptism is emblematical of the life-giving and purifying influences of the Holy Spirit. It has been supposed that baptism is called a burial in order to intimate that the only proper mode of administering this Christian rite is

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